A/N: Hello, everyone! XD I'm back from France (obviously...) and I can tell you my holiday was CRAP. I won't bore you with the details though...apart from one. We passed through a little hamlet called Trou d'Enfer. It means Hellhole. I KILLED myself! So funny...

Anyway! This is the end of my half term, unfortunately, though I don't have many exams to get through. Uh...six. And they're not so hard, so yay. Anyhoo, I'm in a good mood, and I can't exactly remember what happens in this chapter...so long ago... Ah well, I hope you enjoy anyway!

Also, ONESHOT HAS BEEN UPLOADED! ...A while ago. :/ I published it quite soon after updating Celestial, surprising myself, so I couldn't really tell you all until today. Ah well~ SkyiMello liked it, which makes me happy.

On that note, people to thank for reviews and stuff:

TheTakahashiTwins

SkyiMello

Pinjaoncrack

mxmsupporter

hlodi

VampirePrinsses

Rainbow Fruit Loop

Lotta Devon

and mr. eff! Yaysies~

Disclaimer: If Death Note was mine, it'd be a romantic comedy. It's not. Therefore...

Chapter 18: Preparation

Matt was still more than half asleep when Mello started talking.

"Matty?"

Matt tried to remember how vocal cords worked. "Hnng?" he replied eloquently, eyes still tightly shut.

"What do you suppose happened when Light and L were out?"

"Aay-uh-nuuh..." Matt mumbled, wondering if the garbled sounds coming out of his mouth were recognisable as 'I don't know'. He didn't think so.

Mello chuckled, probably at his half-asleep talking, before ruffling his hair.

Great, Matt thought distantly, now, instead of just looking like a semi-conscious retard, I look like a semi-conscious, retarded pompom.

"I don't know either," admitted Mello, "But when they came back...L looked happier than I've ever seen him." Matt could hear Mello's amazement. The idea of L being able to feel happiness was pretty astounding, he admitted it.

"Weereey?" he yawned.

"Hm," Mello affirmed. "Light too. I dunno, the kid just seemed less...manic than before. I think whatever happened out there's fixed his mental state for good."

Matt was pleased at the news, but really couldn't be bothered to say anything to indicate his feelings on the matter. He settled for nuzzling into Mello's chest instead.

Mello was stroking his back, and Matt had a horrible suspicion his own body was betraying him and purring.

Never mind, he thought, I'll just take Mello's chocolate hostage if he teases me about it later.

Such was his last thought as he drifted back into the depths of sleep. He dreamt he felt Mello kiss his forehead in the darkness.

"Now you be careful," Matt warned, though to be completely honest, it sounded more like a threat.

Light rolled his eyes. "Yes, for the fifth and final time, I will be. You don't have to worry."

Matt ignored him. "I'm serious; you don't have the tracker in you, so if you get nabbed, we're all fucked."

"You only have the one," Light reminded him. "It's not like there's an alternative way! I'll be around there for all of ten minutes, you'll see me again within the hour."

"We better." Again, it sounded like a threat.

Light was about to give up and walk off when Mello stopped him.

"Hey, Light," he called through a mouthful of chocolate.

Light turned to face him. "Yes, Mello-san?"

"Don't accidentally stab yourself with the knife we gave you, alright?" the blond teased.

Light looked at him, apparently unamused, but Matt thought he saw the shadow of a smile on his face. "I'll try my best," he assured him.

His hand was on the doorknob when he was stopped again.

"Light-kun."

"What now?!" Light spun around to fix an exasperated look on L. "It's only the pre-infiltration scout-out; what are you lot going to be like before the real thing?"

L disregarded his words. "Take care," he said quietly.

Light smiled, nodded, and left the room. Commander Rester followed.

There was a brief silence before Matt swivelled in his chair to eye L with suspicion. "What happened between you two yesterday? You're both remarkably cheerful today."

L blanked him. "As we cannot do very much until Light-kun returns, I suggest we –"

"Oi!" Matt interrupted, put out. "Don't use selective hearing on me! Anyway, what the hell? You're only, what, twenty-five? You can't fool me into thinking you're going deaf already."

L ignored him again, making Mello snicker. "You may as well give up," the blond advised Matt, "He can be stubborn as a mule when he wants to be."

"More stubborn than you?" Matt teased, though he knew poking fun at Mello could only end with someone getting held at gunpoint.

"I doubt it," Near surprised them all by saying.

Matt chuckled. "Yeah, dumb question. Never mind. So, L, what did happen between you and Light?"

L looked at him, obviously deciding that ignoring Matt was getting him nowhere. "Nothing of note," he said offhandedly.

Matt glared at him and was about to ask again, when Mello cut him off. "Ah, shut it, Matt. It's more fun to guess, anyway."

Both his and Matt's faces morphed into identical ear-to-ear grins.

Yup, Matt agreed with glee, definitely more fun to guess.

"I will follow you surreptitiously, so you will have assistance if the need arises," Commander Rester was telling Light, who was dutifully daydreaming. He and L had gone over the plan in so much detail the night before that he could probably recite it in his sleep.

As Rester droned on, Light smiled at the thought of the psychologist. Now he had been convinced that L wasn't suspicious to the point of obsession when it came to the youth, it was a lot easier to accept his own...unorthodox feelings towards his guardian. Before, when his mind was hardly in a state to rationally think over such things anyway, he had tried to ignore his emotions, locking them away in some deep, dark dungeon in his mind. He had persuaded himself to believe that things were better that way, and that he was less vulnerable to pain, but he had been wrong.

Light was currently happier than he had been in three years.

His father would blow a gasket if he found out, of course, and Light was going to have to tell him eventually, but he thought that could wait a few years. He did not need his father, head of the Japanese Police Force, to arrest L on charges of homosexual paedophilia. That would complicate matters.

He might tell his family when he was twenty-two. That would be a sufficient time after his twentieth birthday to develop a serious relationship, Light estimated. His parents weren't stupid, and if he suddenly burst out with his relationship with L on the day of his twentieth birthday, they would know the relationship would have existed for a while. His mother probably wouldn't mind, as long as Light was happy, and his sister Sayu would be over the moon, but again, his father...

Light shrugged. The man didn't own him.

But then again, he didn't want to give his father a heart attack when he sprang the news upon him...

"Sir?" Rester's voice brought him back to the present.

Light started slightly. "Hm?"

"I was just saying you should probably start scouting now, sir," the man told him.

"Oh, okay." Light opened the car door and stepped onto the pavement. The Palm safehouse that Mello had identified was a few streets away; about a five minute walk.

Light set off. The area he was in wasn't wealthy, that much was obvious: half the buildings were derelict, and Light couldn't even see a window frame that wasn't either empty or boarded up.

The place may once have been an affluent industrial estate, full of car garages and factories, but now it was the perfect setting for a cheesy horror movie. Light half-expected to see a werewolf jump out of a dark corner.

Glancing at a rusting street sign, Light recognised the name of one of the streets in the area he and L had examined on the map the day before. The safehouse was a left and a second right away.

Rounding the corner quickly, Light subtly checked over his shoulder for Rester. He didn't see anything, which either meant Rester was exceptionally good at his job, or he was in this alone.

Light gulped. He didn't like to think of his possible fates if that was indeed the case. But Rester was absolutely trustworthy; the fact that Near-san had deigned to let the man work for him attested to that.

I have nothing to worry about, Light convinced himself. The thought had no effect on his steadily quickening heartbeat.

Well, at least he still had one. For now.

Rounding the corner that led him onto the street he was looking for, Light saw what looked like a crumbling warehouse a few hundred metres away. It was in an awful state of repair, but Light suspected hidden insulation and support beams made the building a lot more habitable on the inside.

Doing his best to look as suspicious as possible, Light skulked towards the back of the safehouse, keeping to the shadows. He couldn't see any lights on in the building, which made sense, seeing as any electricity supply that may have once been supplied to the place was almost certainly long gone now. Then again, it made Light worry that Mello-san had been wrong, and that this wasn't a safehouse for Palm. The blond ex-mafioso wouldn't have lied outright, of course, but it was possible for Palm to have abandoned this building since his excommunication. The police were fairly competent in this area, after all, though nothing compared to Near-san's intellect.

Light's worries were eased and simultaneously replaced with new, more urgent ones as a tall, threatening figure stepped out of a doorway he'd just passed.

Light slowly turned to face the man, desperately trying to remember Mello-san's instructions on how to open a flick-knife quickly enough to serve any use. He knew Rester was behind him somewhere, keeping an eye on the situation, but if this man got it into his head to shoot Light, there wasn't really much anyone would be able to do.

Turning around fully, Light was surprised to see that the intimidating man behind him was in fact female.

"What you doin' here, kid?" she demanded in a voice that, though deep, was undoubtedly feminine.

Light decided to adopt the persona of a clueless foreigner. God knew it had gotten him out of a thousand complicated situations before.

"Excuse me," he gasped in an overly-exaggerated accent, "I not know good English, I am very sorry, I do not understand."

The woman raised an eyebrow. "What. Are. You. Doing. Here," she repeated, very slowly, as if he were a moron. "Fucking tourists," she muttered under her breath.

Light's carefully-constructed mask lit up in relieved comprehension. "Ah, I am lost! I do not know way back to hotel, so I am lost. Do you know way back to hotel?" he asked hopefully.

He was met with a disbelieving stare. "Ain't no hotels 'round here," she told him, looking more suspicious by the second.

Light cursed inwardly. Yes, of course. This place was so far from the tourist-ridden ritzy end of town it was practically a different world. He tried to redeem himself. "Sorry, I not know what you say. But we went on a...a bus? I not know. We go on a big red car to see sights, and I look for too long at sights, so car leave me behind."

The woman's hand shifted minutely to her waistband, where no doubt a gun holster was concealed. "Yeah, I'm sure," she said sarcastically, "Loads of sights to see 'round here. It's like fucking Madame Tussauds 'round here. Now why are you really here, kid?"

Light decided illiterate conversation was futile and made a break for it.

"Oi!" he heard the woman shout, just before a gunshot cracked in the night air.

Light felt the bullet whizz just past his head, and veered to the extreme left, weaving back and forth, making sure his movements were untrackable.

Another gunshot.

And then he could see Rester, with a gun of his own in hand, firing back. Light skidded down the first off-street he saw, desperate to get out of the cross-fire.

A few streets away, he collapsed, gasping, against a wall. The gunfire had stopped, which could only mean either one of them was dead, or one of them had retreated. Both outcomes would result in more people out for his blood.

Light decided to make himself scarce.

He dived down a series of alleys and arrived at the car he and Rester had parked earlier in less than three minutes. Rester was already there, though it appeared he had only been so for a few moments, as he was just getting into the car. He saw Light coming and opened the passenger door for him.

As Light jumped in, Rester gave his brief report:

"We exchanged fire for approximately one minute, after which the enemy retreated into the safehouse, no doubt to alert her companions of our presence. I took it upon myself to vacate the area."

Light nodded, still trembling from the adrenaline. "Right. Let's get out of here."

Rester slammed his foot down, and they were off.

Matt was very busy being bored to death when they heard Light and Rester's footsteps coming down the corridor.

L got up in a hurry, looking as anxious as one could look without betraying any emotion. Mello looked slightly startled as well, and when Matt asked him why, he replied, "The only reason Light should be back so soon is if something went wrong."

Matt's stomach suddenly popped out of existence.

Then Light entered the room, looking completely fine, if a bit shaken, and was immediately accosted by L.

"What happened?" the psychologist demanded, eyes raking over Light as if to make certain there was no damage.

Light hesitated, looked at the three curious faces on the other side of the room, and explained. "I was just outside the safehouse when someone accosted me –"

"Did they hurt you?" Matt interrupted, earning a disparaging glance from Light, an annoyed glance from L and a disbelieving glance from Mello. Near didn't react at all.

"Yes, Matt, he's very hurt, can't you see the blood?" Mello answered sarcastically, making Matt blush slightly. He adjusted his goggles and fell silent.

Light continued as if nothing had happened, though he did smile slightly at Matt's humiliation. "Anyway, I was accosted, but managed to convince them I was a harmless tourist who had become lost –"

This time it was Mello who interrupted. "The fuck? You idiot. What would a tourist be doing there, of all the godforsaken places on earth?"

Light looked slightly bashful. "She seemed curious about that as well," he admitted.

"She?"

"Oh, come on, Mello," Matt interjected, determined to get Mello back. "Surely you worked in Palm long enough to abandon your sexist prejudices."

Mello glowered at him.

"Anyway," Light continued, "she eventually got suspicious enough that I felt it wise to run, and that's it."

L raised an eyebrow. "She didn't try to shoot you?"

"Well," Light amended, "she didn't hit me."

"Evidently." L was obviously displeased by the idea that Light had been close to getting shot, but chose to let it go.

"Hey, at least they'll recognise you when you go back," Matt offered, looking on the bright side for once.

"That's true." Light didn't look very enthusiastic. "When will I be going back, again?"

"Tomorrow," Near told him.

"So soon?!" Matt and Light exclaimed.

Near shrugged. "Best to strike while the iron is hot. And the sooner we gather evidence, the less children will be kidnapped."

Matt realised what Near said was correct, but that didn't stop him from thinking the boy was insane.

"What if they shoot Light on sight?" Mello asked nonchalantly.

Matt gaped at him.

The blond looked unapologetic. "What? What if he gets shot?"

"They will not shoot Light-kun," L said decisively, as if his belief alone could make it true. "They will be curious as to why he was scouting out the safehouse, and how he knew where it was. As long as he refuses to answer their questions, he will be kept alive until we can rescue him."

Mello raised an eyebrow. "But he'll be tortured."

"Yeah, that's not fun," Matt said, remembering his own experience at the hands of Palm, many suburbs away.

Light was steadily looking more and more panicky. Noticing, Matt quickly said, "But if we get there fast enough, there won't be enough time for them to do anything."

Mello shook his head. "They'll question him before they take him to the rest of the kids. There's no avoiding it: Light's gonna be roughed up."

No one looked happy about this, L least of all.

Finally, Light piped up, his voice determined. "If it will end the case, I will do what needs to be done."

No one argued with him because, though they didn't like this one much, they didn't exactly have another option.

"Then I suppose we shall retire early," L said, his voice subdued. "You need to keep your strength up."

They all pretended not to notice Light taking L's hand in his own a split second before the door slid shut.

After a brief moment of silence, Mello stood up. "Well, I guess we'd better hit the sack too. Even if it is eight pm."

He grabbed Matt by the elbow and dragged him out of the room, flinging a "see you, Sheep" over his shoulder.

Mello half-shoved Matt all the way to their bedroom (Matt's former room was now just a replacement Tech Lair) and shut the door, not exactly quietly, but pretty gently, considering it was Mello.

He kissed Matt gently too, for once not trying to consume Matt's soul through his mouth. For a few moments, Matt was blissfully unaware of everything except his suddenly useless legs and Mello's uncharacteristically tender hands and mouth.

When they drew apart, Mello brought his hands up to Matt's cheek, stroking the skin there for a second before giving him one last, quick peck.

"What's all this for?" Matt asked, though he was almost too blissed-out to care. Almost.

Mello was obviously contemplating lying to him, but gave up when Matt gave him a stern look. He sighed, and slid Matt's goggles down his face, revealing concerned green orbs behind them.

"I might lose you tomorrow," he admitted quietly, his voice at half its normal strength.

Matt blinked. "What?"

"The infiltration. I could lose you."

Matt was nonplussed. "Nah, I'm staying here to track Light and tell you where he is, remember?"

Mello levelled a look at him. "Matty," he said in a warning tone, "your stupidity is ruining the mood..."

"But you're being daft! I'm not gonna get killed!" Matt assured him.

"I might."

Matt's voicebox stopped working, along with his heart, lungs and brain. He'd known about the risk, of course, but to have it said aloud like that...

"We don't know how many people there are in that safehouse; the only thing we do know is that it'll be a lot. Even with the police, the chance of no injuries is low at best, and non-existent at worst. I believe in the afterlife, and Hell's gonna be pretty shit anyway. I don't want to be apart from you on top of all that."

Matt stared at him, agony burning in his eyes. "Mello..." he whispered. "Why do you always have to be so pessimistic? You're scaring me."

"How?"

"I don't want you to die." Matt's throat constricted at the thought, and he vaguely wondered whether he was going to have an asthma attack.

Mello hugged him tightly, not helping Matt's breathing, but Matt relaxed slightly anyway. "I promise I'll try my hardest not to die. It's not even that likely, but it is possible, and I just wanted..."

Matt looked up at him. "What did you want?"

Mello stroked his neck, pushing Matt's neckline down slightly to trace his collarbone. "I wanted to tell you something," he said.

Matt couldn't breathe again. "Tell me what?"

Mello groaned, so softly Matt thought he'd imagined it. The blond buried his face in Matt's hair, inhaling deeply. "I think..."

Matt waited in silence, the anticipation killing him.

Suddenly, Mello pulled back. "I can't," he said simply.

Matt stared at him in disbelief while his heart was trampled on.

"I'll tell you when I get back," Mello reassured him, "I promise."

"But –" Matt could bring himself to say 'but what if you don't?'.

"I will come back to you, Matty, eventually. Even if I die. I swear to you, I'll come back and tell you."

Matt shook his head, certain that if he tried to speak, he'd cry instead. Why did Mello even have to bring up this topic in the first place?

"Matt..." Mello was leaning in again, his eyes at half-mast.

Matt leaned away, holding Mello back by his shoulders.

Mello looked hurt. "Matt?"

"I'm sorry," Matt choked out. "I just – I don't want you to die. Ever. I'd rather die for you."

Mello's gaze hardened immediately. "Don't you fucking dare."

"But I would! Mello, if you die, I'm dying too!" Matt declared hysterically.

"Don't you dare!" Mello screamed, panic obvious on his scarred face. "I'll hate you! Don't you dare!"

Matt shook his head again, the tears flowing freely down his face. "No. If you don't want me to die, don't you die either. That's it. Simple." And he broke down into sobs.

Mello gathered him up close, holding him and rocking him like he was a four-year-old girl. "Fine, then. I won't die. But Matty, seriously, never, ever do that. I'm serious, I'd hate you forever."

"Liar," Matt choked.

Mello didn't correct him. "Why the hell would you even do something like that, anyway? I thought I was supposed to be the melodramatic one."

Matt smiled waterily. "Hadn't you guessed? I love you."

He felt Mello stop breathing for a second, before the blond chuckled humourlessly. "Yeah, real Juliet, aren't you?"

Matt didn't answer, and they stayed there for the next very long period of time. In the end, they didn't go to bed until midnight, and Matt didn't get to sleep until two.

Mello didn't sleep at all.

A/N: Aah, the feels! Oh dear...emotionally stunted!Mello's peeing me off again. SAY YOU LOVE HIM BACK, GODAMMIT! Casually raging at my own fic...

So, yeah, half of the story climax next time! The REAL infiltration! Woo~ Hope you guys are looking forward to it as much as me!

See you then!