Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note, or Mello, or Matt. I do, however, own several cute cats, one of whom reminds me very much of Matt's cat.

A/N: Sorry, this one is both late AND short, but Dess agreed that it ended in the perfect place. I hope the end makes up for both shortness and lateness.

Chapter 20: Believe

"I knew you'd be the one to come. And your faithful dog – I'm not surprised. I see you have a knife; are you planning to fight me?"

"I'll kill you if I have to! Let him go!"

"You really don't understand, do you? You've been so blinded that you can't even see the betrayals surrounding you."

"The only one who's betrayed anyone is you!"

"You misunderstand – we're on the same side, you and me. The only difference between us is that I'm the rat that's escaped the maze, while you're still trapped inside."

"We have nothing in common! You're lying!"

"You just haven't seen the nest of lies you've been raised in. You can't see how L is a killer, and how Wammy's House is inexorably destroying you."

"That's completely – "

"And on top of all that, you can't even see the betrayal that's going on behind you right now."

"…What are you talking about? Matt wouldn't betray me!"

"Oh? Don't you ever wonder what's going on inside his mind?"

"I know he doesn't want to be better than me, and even if he did, he's not!"

"What about the other things he thinks? When you see him watching you when he doesn't think you're looking, when feel him staring at you in the dark when he should be sleeping, do you know what he's thinking then?"

"…"

"It never even crossed your mind that he wanted to drag you down to Hell with him, did it?"

I shot awake, eyes wide. If there was any person I preferred to avoid in my sleep, it was B. When I was at Wammy's, he always seemed to like me, which was quite alarming in and of itself. I would've much preferred that he treated me with curious indifference like he did everyone else, but for some reason he found me too interesting not to show an interest in.

For a long time I had thought that it was B's demonic grin that had terrified me down in the sewers. Then I realized that the scariest thing of all had been the look in Mello's eyes when he saw the truth in those words.

On the other end of the couch, Mello stirred. I looked down at the cat on my lap so that it wouldn't look like I'd been staring at him. (I had been, but I hardly wanted him to know that.) "Morning," I said, scratching the cat's ears and being rewarded with an even louder purr.

Mello grunted a good morning in return and uncurled so he was sitting more like a normal person and less like…well, less like L. At least he was speaking to me.

"So the cat's still in here," he noted after a long moment of silence.

I nodded. "Yup." There was another moment of silence. "It's got a big triangular white spot on its chest," I noted.

"I see that."

"…Maybe I should name it Zelda," I mused.

"Don't stick it with a name like that, that's just stupid."

I shrugged. "I don't even know if it's a girl." I lifted its tail and checked. "Never mind, its name isn't Zelda."

"That's a relief."

I thought for a moment. "I'll call it Ganon," I decided. It was an evil little shit of a cat; the name suited it perfectly.

Mello was silent for a minute, obviously trying to link that name to one of my games, but apparently not making the connection to the very game I'd just mentioned. "Fine."

Silence fell around us again. Damn, and we'd almost been back to normal, too. Well, what passed as normal for us, at least. I'm not sure anyone else would have considered our friendship precisely normal.

For a long time, neither of us said anything, and the only thing breaking the silence was Ganon's rusty purr as I petted him.

"…Do you believe in God?"

I'd been involved in petting Ganon and not thinking; the question caught me off guard. "What?"

"Do you believe in God?" Mello repeated.

I looked over at him. He wasn't even touching the rosary hanging around his neck, and there was an odd expression on his face; something that was part calculated, part determined, and part something else entirely. "…No, I don't."

It wasn't often that I was forced to say this, but I couldn't read Mello right then. The look on his face was something I had never seen before, and I wasn't sure whether it was good or bad or just neutral. "…Good."

If the initial question had caught me off guard, that floored me. I twisted a bit to stare at him, Ganon abandoning my lap in favor of the arm of the couch, which wasn't moving. "Good?" I echoed, trying to wrap my mind around why my not believing in God could possibly be a good thing in Mello's eyes, but the reason eluded me.

"If you don't believe in God," he said, sounding as though he'd thought about the words a long time, "then you're going to Hell no matter what I do."

"What do you – " I didn't get to finish my question, though, because Mello slid across the couch so he was right beside me.

And he kissed me.