Oh, boy, the angst. Seriously, guys. It's through the roof. It's over 9000 and beyond.

I also want to thank again the people that have sent me PMs encouraging me to update this. Thank you very much for the support!

I don't own Death Note.

Matt has always had a very detailed blueprint of who he is laid out in his head.

He is a boy, yes, one with a hell of a skill for breaking shit open and going along with Mello's plans. He is mediocre at a lot of things, but when he is good at something, it consumes him completely, makes up his inner coding, his entire persona. He has a fantasy-complex and prefers pixels to people, and if he had to give up cigarettes for all the money in the world, he would sooner kill himself.

Which is why as he slowly peels his goggles away to look at the girl sitting in the corner of the warehouse room, not quite looking at anything yet everything all at once, he is confused with himself.

He is no Mello. He does not demand the attention of the room and there is nothing dangerous in his eyes. He does not plan cruel games with her mind (he knows the details of each and every one without the blonde ever having told him) and has no intention of scaring her, simply because he just -

Nah, man. Cut that out. She's a captive, for Christ's sake.

She is a girl.

And, god, how long has it been since Matt has been close to one of those?

Maria at Wammy's. The pretty black-haired one that Mello couldn't stand. Yeah…when you were fuckin' twelve, man. What a life.

Confusion. The feeling does not sit well with him. Because, above all, Mello may be a prick and Bea may be a cute girl with too much feeling in her eyes, but Matt is a bona fide smartass, always has been, always will be. So when he starts noticing Bea turning to look at him, he simply lights up his smoke and pins his stare on the fly on the wall.

A door slams open between the hours of seven and eight in the morning. When Bea snaps her eyes up, alarmed more than she probably should be, it is Mello that is standing in the doorway, staring at the floor instead of at her (she hates it when he does this, more than anything else).

"Hey."

She hates that, too. How he can floor her with a single word, a greeting that is far too casual for him. She opts for not responding and simply waits for him to continue.

Mello reaches his hand up to his mouth, seeming to momentarily forget that he is not holding a chocolate bar, before dropping it hastily by his side and leaning against the doorframe. "Come on," he says tonelessly. "We're going for a drive."

"Isn't that a bad idea?" Bea says, not caring whether or not it will anger him. She is beyond the point of caring, so far ahead of minding his patience anymore. You don't scare me.

Mello merely lifts his eyes a fraction, jaw tightening.

"I mean," Bea goes on quietly, "this can't be a hideout for no reason."

They both fall silent. Bea does not know if this means that she has made a point or Mello is just ignoring her; when she realizes either one would grate at her nerves, she hears his voice again.

"You're not the one who should be worrying about that."

And it is that minute softness in his voice, however shortlived it may be, that gets Bea to stand up.

Driving with Mello is like what driving had been with Bea's father; tense and silent. Looking out the window had always been the most appropriate thing to do with her father, but Mello…

That is what sets them apart, the two milestones of her life broken down into long drives. Now, as she sits in the passenger's seat with her legs crossed over the other like a preschooler, she stares at Mello out the corner of her eye with an unashamed dullness that has never been hers to claim. No, it belongs to the inner Beatrice Magill that is bearing its teeth, the eyelids peeling back, the heart and brain racing, beginning to show its true face after she had been so blissfully unaware of its very existence.

Still, even with her stormy mood, she cannot help but wonder where he is taking her.

"You act like you'd rather be in the warehouse," he says when she asks him. Eyes on the road, hands gripping the wheel until his knuckles turn white.

"I was just wondering." Bea looks back ahead of her.

The sharpness is back. "Well, stop wondering and just…"

When his voice trails off, Bea is drawn to look at him again. His lips are pursed, eyes narrowing, the angle of his jaw protruding when he grits his teeth. She is growing sick of the effect his profile has on her and turns away abruptly.

"And just let me do this, alright?"

Bea's hands turn cold. That voice.

Why does he sound…so…?

He is too much to think about in one sitting. The early morning sun is washing him over in that numbing gold, she can see it through the reflection of the window without even having to look back at him. She takes his advice and stops thinking before she says something she might regret.

They park behind, of all places she would expect, a church.

It is like a scene out of an old movie that Bea's mother used to watch all the time: the two partners in crime (although Bea is hardly Mello's partner in this charade) complete their final mission before hiding out in a church, dilapidated and on the verge of crashing down into rubble. And what would happen after that was when Mrs. Magill would tell Bea to go to her room and explain when she was older and tainted.

Mello pauses for a moment before he turns to meet her eye. "Don't ask questions about why we're here," he instructs hoarsely. "I don't need it right now."

"I wasn't going to," Bea replies.

Mello opens his door and steps out of the car, the black of his boots crude and heavy against the green of the grass. "Then keep it that way," he says before closing the door.

Bea copies his action and stretches her arms high above her head, the toes of her shoes gleaming with morning dew. "I wasn't planning on doing any different, either," she mumbles.

Thankfully, Mello saves her the time of another rebuttal when he begins walking towards the church. The fallen god complex strikes him for the second time when he turns golden beneath the sunlight, when the tattered black hem of his shirt sways behind him like tiny wings, and when each step he takes with those boots crushes the dew beneath them without mercy. Bea's heavy mood does not even let this go unnoticed; he still remains to be visually stunning, however disheveled, rugged and angry he truly is, and it takes her just a half second longer to look away than she is used to. Which, in reality, is more than enough of a warning for her.

"Follow me," he calls to her without turning around. "I can't leave you out here by yourself. You might do something stupid like think you'll get away."

"Why do you always assume that that's all I'll ever do?" Bea retorts.

Mello glances over his shoulder at her.

Fallen god.

"That I'll do something stupid," she continues. "That I'll just get myself into a whole mess of trouble if I'm left alone for five seconds. Why?"

"Because most normal girls in your situation would try to do anything they could to get out of it," Mello snaps.

"If I were a normal girl like you said, I would have at least tried to-"

Mello is approaching her, blazing, with long strides that carry him to stand before her within three seconds. Fallen god, fallen god. "Tried to what?" he hisses. "If you were a normal girl, what would you have tried to do?"

Bea is too blinded by him to reply; he is golden and glowing, and the blue of his eyes is too bright to even think about forming a proper response.

He takes another step closer to her, the tips of his boots meeting with the toes of her flimsy shoes. "Let me answer that for you. If you were a normal girl, you would have tried to make me go soft, charm me, fool me, mold me with your hands so that I would see that what I'm doing is so wrong and let you run home to your riches. You'd play that cute little game that all girls your age try to pull with guys like me, when they don't know the half of who I am. Of what I've seen."

Bea could back up any second now if she wanted to. He is getting far too close, and yet she does not back down. In fact, she cannot even bring herself to look away, cannot even muster up the will to do so. Something crooked within her relishes this moment, where they are simply glaring at each other, fuming but without any real legitimate reason.

"If you have some master plan to make me fall for you and let you go free, you can give up on it now. I'll save you the effort, don't you worry. Because you're just a-"

"I would have run from you by now."

Mello's eyes widen, narrow again and turn cold. "What?"

"When did I ever say anything about making you fall for me, Mello?" Bea whispers, livid. "If you had let me finish, I could have said that I would have run from you by now, not make you love-"

Love.

She stops herself there.

He could never love anyone.

The glint in Mello's eyes tells her that he knows he has won this time. He has rendered her speechless. She has fallen. Fallen god.

And he walks off to the crumbled church as if she had said nothing.

The second that Bea steps into the church, her mind takes a snapshot of the sight before her, one that she will remember until she is crumbled and crippled. She will drag it out from the corner of her memory for years and years to come against her will, but at this moment when it is only she and Mello inside this church, it is all that there is in the world to think about.

In fact, Mello is the only thing to think about right now.

He stands before the stained glass windows, beneath that high, high ceiling, with his profile to her and his head tilted back. Even though she is a good twenty meters away from him, she can see that his eyes are closed, his brow furrowed quietly, and the softest hint of a frown dots the corners of his lips. The stone walls lined with so many windows of varying colours are the cause of the inescapable light that completely drowns him, washes him in gold, green, blue, red, every colour that manages to reach him.

Bea has never seen anything, any human, any building, any light so beautiful, so sudden and weaved together with such a flawless doggedness that both fits and defies the boy that it involves. Like a child, she wants to touch it to ensure that it is really there, that it is not all a hologram crafted from her own delusions.

Her fingers twitch to touch him.

He cannot really be there. Not that breathtaking, not that golden, not what she wants nothing more than to feel.

Beneath all that flowing light and stained glass and silence, Mello turns his head to look at her.

Eyes connect. Bea opens her mouth to speak. I want to touch him. Blue eyes, bright and unreadable, hooking her sad amber gaze; all that light, all that intensity and quiet boundaries lay smoking and festering beneath both ends of the stare. Or perhaps just Bea's. He could never love anyone.

And why would I want him to? her mind bellows. He's a monster. His gang kidnapped you from your home and have destroyed your family! Why don't you see this? Why are you so stupid?

Because he stopped them.

Realization. It hits her, cold and cruel.

"What if I was one of those other guys out there, Beatrice? What do you think I'd be doing to you right now?"

Those words spoken in the bathroom days before. If I was one of those other guys. It all makes sense; the incident, pinning her hands up above her head and breathing against her neck, trying to coax her into hitting him, asking her if she hated him, it all makes sense.

"You don't want to hurt me," Bea says weakly from the church entrance. She has not taken another step. She does not think she would be able to if she tried.

Mello lets his gaze drift down to the floor, the shattered stone tiles beneath his boots. Hair falls over his eyes as he clenches his fists. "I want to hurt everyone," he says, quiet and low.

In spite of the chilling bite to his voice, there is a softness that Bea has learned to pick up. It is all the proof she needs. "I'm not everyone, am I?" she asks him.

"It makes no difference."

"Then why haven't you hurt me yet?" No time for hesitation. The question comes right out, liquid and effortless.

Mello is silent for a moment. Light is pouring in so strongly now that he is glowing like coloured glass itself. He looks over at her, his eyes narrowed tightly. "I hate how many fucking questions you ask, you know."

Bea barely winces at the remark. She is so used to this anymore; his biting retorts, his insults, his attempts. But what she is still trying to get used to, however, if that stinging scarlet anger that rips inside her ribs, roused by him and only him. "Well, maybe I would stop asking so many questions if you would actually answer some of them!"

She has his attention now. She has never blatantly yelled at him before; in fact, the look on Mello's face at the moment makes her think that he has never been blatantly yelled at by anyone before, with purpose and intent to get their point through his skull.

He takes a slow step forward, still drenched in the stained glass light. "You want to know why I haven't hurt you yet, Beatrice?"

Bea grits her teeth. The look in his eyes is not what she is wary of, but the possible answer and the battle to the death that may be its follow-up. "Yes."

"Because you can't crack something that's already broken."

"Broken…?" Bea whispers. That thick, bubbling anger is settling in her chest, growing cold and filmy and unnerving.

"If I could hurt you," he says slowly, "I would. I would destroy you. I would completely tear you apart."

"I'm not broken," Bea denies, quiet, more to herself than to the boy beneath all the light.

Her washed out words go unnoticed by Mello, who takes another step forward. "But I can't," he goes on. "No matter how much I would want to crack you, no matter how much I would love to watch you crash, I can't."

Bea feels her palms begin to sweat at the glint in his eyes and she clenches her fists by her sides. "No one's cracked me," she whispers raggedly. "You're just-"

"You've done it to yourself!" Mello suddenly shouts, causing Bea to jump back. "Look at you! You've been spoiled your entire life, living in complete denial about what your father really was, ignoring everything that I've told you, not even bothering to try to escape from me even though you've had chance after chance! You make no goddamn sense!"

It takes the wracking sob that chokes back in Bea's throat for her to realize that she is crying. She had never felt the tears, she had never noticed the tightening of her throat, but here she is, low and behold, crying like an infant in some run-down church with the boy that she just cannot bring herself to understand. She furiously sweeps away her hot tears with the back of her sleeve, seeing red. "I've done…n-nothing to get i-into any of this…and it's not that you…c- can't hurt me, it's…it's because you won't."

There is a silence so loud that it rings in Bea's ears as Mello mulls this over with a blank gaze. The fire that has been there night and day on that seraph-like face is now a drought, wiped free of any hint of anger or confusion that she could feed off of. She is hungry for a response in his eyes, and yet he gives her nothing.

Nothing but words.

"You're right."

Bea pauses in the middle of mopping tears from her cheeks. What?

"You're right," Mello repeats. "I could hurt you if I really wanted to. But I won't."

After a tense moment of locked eyes and choked gasps from Bea's lips, Mello steps down from the short platform and walks down the crushed-tile aisleway, eyes straight ahead of him instead of on her. "Besides," he says coldly as he passes her, "everyone still has their pieces to break."

Matt opens the warehouse door before Mello and Bea can walk in, his cigarette clenched tightly between his front teeth. He pulls it out to speak. "Where'd you go, man?" he asks, keeping his voice low. "You just take off for hours without waking me up, god damn..."

Mello simply brushes past him with a bowed head and a scowl, leaving Bea alone with a scoffing Matt. He takes an irritated drag of his cigarette and exhales the smoke sharply. "Hey, thanks," he mutters. "Great answer."

"Thought you said he always gets like this," Bea says quietly. She lacks the energy to bid him her usual smile as she looks up at him briefly before looking down at the floor.

"Well, yeah, course he does, but…" His voice trails off and Bea feels a light fingertip on her chin. Matt tilts her head up to look at her in the eye. "Hey," he addresses, voice gentle and light, "your eyes are bloodshot."

Bea averts her gaze from him. "I'm tired."

"No, you're upset," Matt protests. "And judging by the way that Mel just prissed off…"

"It has nothing to do with him." Bea takes a step away from him but is pulled back when Matt catches her by the hand. The action is soft, but the idea of gentle contact makes something behind Bea's eyelids sting.

"Then what's the harm in telling me, huh?" Matt gives a crooked little smile, ruffling the back of his hair with his free hand. "It's just me, anyway."

It's just me, anyway.

His face is too kind to be genuine. After so long of watching out for each and every little tick in Mello's face, this boy, Matt, is too simple, too blameless. As he pulls his goggles up to rest atop his head, she sees those honest jade eyes and the question comes barreling out before she can stop it.

"Why are you so nice to me?"

Matt holds his cigarette before his lips, the smoke suspended before his face. He holds her gaze for a moment before shrugging and giving a lazy smile. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"But…" Bea searches for empty words, head reeling. "Why? I mean…Mello's so-"

"Ahhh," Matt cuts in. He takes the awaited drag of his cigarette now, turning his head to expel the smoke. "So this is about Mello."

Bea stares down at the cement floor. "I didn't put myself here."

"Never said you did," Matt says offhandedly.

"And I didn't do this to myself."

Matt chuckles. "You'd be one sadistic little girl if you did that." He reaches out to her forearm and gives her a light pinch, one that jolts her attention back up to him. "Or should I say masochistic."

That smile that he gives her trickles down Bea's chest until it settles in her stomach, cooling all that was aflame from stained glass and beaten-down churches and Mello's eyes. She lets one corner of her mouth lilt up into a smile. "No," she denies softly. "I'm still a wimp over these." At this, she holds out her bandaged wrists.

And instead of simply glancing at them, Matt takes her hand into his and brings it up to his lips. The top of her hand meets that smirk as he lays a warm little peck of a kiss atop it, an act of mindless and confusing chivalry, before letting it go and taking a step back. He brushes a lock of hair out of his line of vision and gives a lift of a grin. "You put yourself down too easily," he says.

Bea opens her mouth, closes it, opens it again slowly. "I…was just saying…"

Matt waves her off with his hand, still smiling at her. "Well, stop doing that, alright?" He scratches the back of his head, tousling his hair about. "You may be a captive here, but you're not a slice of shit or anything like that. You got me?" Drag, hold, exhale, smoke.

Bea swallows hard and begins wondering whether or not Mello is within earshot. How far did he go? Did he hear them talking and is listening at this very moment, shielded behind an open door?

Why are you getting so…paranoid?

In the midst of her brief panic, she sees Matt tilt his head to the side a bit, his fringe falling over the bridge of his nose. He studies her for a moment before shrugging and flicking his ashes onto the floor. "Eh, maybe you just need sleep or something," he suggests beneath his breath. "Heh…couldn't blame you." He breathes in nicotine and sanctuary, staring down at the floor and tapping his free hand against his thigh, an improvisational thrumming against denim. Bea regards this sight with a foggy sort of sadness; she is not sure why he seems so out of it, so crooked, but she bites her lip and looks up at him with a knitted brow. He catches onto this and looks down at her, brows raised in surprise. "That's not a familiar face, princess."

"Nothing," Bea says quickly. No need to mess anything up any further; they are both tired, wrung out for different reasons, however unknown Matt's is to her.

Matt hold her gaze as he breathes in nicotine and sanctuary before his eyelids flutter almost-shut, a husky little chuckle drawling out from the corner of his perpetually smirking mouth. He tilts his head back slightly, still looking at her, and plucks the cigarette from his mouth to exhale. Smoke sweeps around his face, which is suddenly washed over in his own private elation. Bea feels her face flush, confused by the heat in his eyes. "Whatever you say, mon prisonnier jolie," he says before tipping her chin and turning away. Within the first few steps he takes, he says over his shoulder, "By the way, food's in your holding room. You're dropping pounds like I drop ashes."

"What…?"

"You're welcome."

Bea's eyes follow the smoke as he meanders down the hall.

Mello watches the girl from a small opening in the doorway. She sits on the floor, cross-legged and hunched over, staring down at the food that Matt has provided for her (without telling him beforehand; this annoys him) without taking a single bite of it.

You're weak.

He leans against the wall slightly in order to see her better, eyes narrowing in irritation. This girl irks him more than she probably should, seeing as she is not even aware that he is watching her, seeing as he has no reason in particular to be watching her at all right now. Truth be told, it was a soft, shuddering sigh that had caught his attention when he had been walking by her holding room. The sound had caused him to clench his fists, preparing for a something sharp to leave his lips before he would swing the door open, but for the past three minutes he has simply watched this girl stare at the floor while trying to craft up a reason as to why he cannot look away.

For Christ's sake, eat already, you stupid-

Her eyes are downcast and cloudy. That damned, dark amber is grating at his nerves like a dull razor against skin.

You stupid girl…

Mello curls his lips into a silent scowl as the girl looks up at the ceiling slowly, as if trying to find something to occupy her mind. If you're looking for something pretty, you're out of luck.

His dirtied hands itch for a chocolate bar. His feet twitch to walk away.

If you're looking for something pretty…

The girl avoids the food and curls up on the floor, exposing her white neck, her soft jawline. You're hideous. Hideously pretty curled up on that floor, so fragile and pliant like pale wire.

It's only then, as Mello makes the realization that he does not know why he is watching her, that he opens the door wider and walks into the room, stopping a foot away from the doorway. The girl looks up, quietly alarmed, and slowly sits up. Mello furrows his blonde brow and formulates a nonsensical argument on the spur of the moment. "Eat," he orders, nodding his head sharply in the direction of the food.

"Why did you take me to that church today?" she asks, her voice a flat, cold line.

Mello scoffs, annoyed by her changing of the subject. "I couldn't leave you here unattended, that's why."

"Matt would have watched me."

"Matt would have humoured you," Mello says sharply. "That's not keeping an eye on you, that's dicking around."

"Why does that make a difference?" Bea asks. "He would still be there to make sure I wouldn't try to escape."

The accentuation on those three words causes Mello to take a quick few steps closer to her sitting form, alight at her sarcasm. He shoots her a lethal glare, yet she does not visibly flinch. You stupid girl. "It does make a difference," he says through gritted teeth.

"And what would that be, Mello?" Her voice is so quiet, her eyes are so clear, her need for repentance is so much less than it should be for someone at her age. Three years ago when Mello found himself at sixteen, he had already committed things that would earn him a rightful chair in the hottest corner of hell, and yet this girl, this shell of a girl, looks up at him with such an untapped purity that Mello's fists are clenching, his jaw is tightening, the need to break this girl in half nearly becomes unbearable.

"I'm the one in charge of things here, in case you've forgotten," he hisses. "It wasn't anyone else's idea to bring you here but mine, so I think I'm entitled to making sure that you don't fuck up this entire operation, you understand?"

"No," Bea says, standing up to look him square in the eye. "No, I don't understand. Because you still aren't answering my question."

"Then ask again." You stupid, stupid girl.

The heat is rising between them, the frequency buzzing. "Why did you bring me to the church with you today?" Bea repeats, her voice dipping to a quiet murmur.

Mello regards the girl before him for a good, long string of seconds; the pale little oval of her face, the heavy, sorrowful brown eyes, the pursed lips, the sheer untouched air that she gives off that is beginning to dig down deep into Mello's patience. He truly does loathe her at this very moment, and reflects that hatred in the venom in his eyes. "What are you trying to prove?" he whispers.

He can tell that the intimate, hushed tone that his voice has taken on is the cause for the slight flush in her cheeks, or the fact that he has leaned in until she is forced to take a step back, but all in all, he can see that delicious loathing in her eyes for him as well. So we do share something after all. What better thing for it to be than this.

"That neither of us like answering each other's questions," Bea whispers back.

"And why do you think that is?" Mello asks. Nothing better to share than hate. Than this bitter, bitter taste in our mouths.

She lifts her head the most minute inch, but Mello catches on to the defiance in the movement and is, for a mind-wrenching second, floored.

And the next second, he is taking another step forward. Bea stays put. "Oh, that's right," he says quietly. "You don't like answering my questions."

A brief tinge of confusion dots Bea's eyes, but she remains staid.

"But you know what I do like?" Closer, closer to the girl he steps; he can see the ring of dark brown that circles around the outer edge of her irises from where he is. He stops, he lets his blonde fringe flop over his eyes. "I like it when you're angry. I like it when you're impatient. When you're an absolute bitch."

The muscles of Bea's jaw go tense. Mello drinks in the sight; he is getting to her.

"And since you won't answer me if I ask, I'll just tell you why I like that so much."

He sees her swallow hard, but the girl's posture does not slacken even the slightest. Good. You're getting better. Mello stops right before they are able to touch. He is standing so close that he can feel her strained breath on his neck, and lets his eyes drop down to meet hers. "Because that means you have no choice but to trust me, Beatrice."

Bea's eyes go round. "I don't trust y-"

"Then why would you feel safe enough to get angry at me and not hide it?" he presses. "Why would you do that to someone that you wouldn't trust enough not to kill you on the spot?"

Bea is silent for a moment before she turns her head and stares off to the side of Mello's head. "That has nothing to do with anything."

"Because even though you hate me, even though you want me dead in the ground, you trust me. And you won't hit me because you can't touch me." Mello's eyes harden. "Just like I can't touch you. And that's all there is to it." Mello stares at the pale skin of the girl's profile, so close that he can see each individual eyelash that lines those amber eyes. "And if you want to prove me otherwise," he adds quietly, "hit me."

"You're sick," she whispers.

"And so are you."

He watches through narrowed eyes as Bea turns her head to look at him. She seems to mull this over before he sees her begin to raise her hand.

Yes.

Higher, higher, the tiny hand rises, the arm lifts, the shoulder moves back, all so slowly, as if in stop motion. Do it. Do it.

And just when the strike should have came crashing to Mello's face, he feels cool fingertips softly meet his cheekbone and drop down to his lips before Bea is darting out the room like a dirtied butterfly.

…and on a lighter note! Halloween is almost here, mes amies! I'm cosplaying as L with my semi-epic new wig that is still in the works…I'm expecting at least 25 children scares on my ventures out. :D

Reviews are greatly appreciated! The next chapter will be out much sooner than this one. It's all planned out, baby.