Disclaimer: I do not own or make money from the anime Death Note.

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Suggested Listening: Beautiful Thieves by AFI; Spit it Out by IAMX

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Part 7

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"Matt, really? You're watching this?" Mello questioned irritably.

Matt turned away from the screen and shrugged. "There wasn't anything else on."

Mello scoffed. He was watching the food channel; there had to be something else on. Mello sighed and stretched out on the loveseat, lying on his stomach and wishing that there was actually something good on during the day.

They had already eaten and filled up on coffee, and Mello was bored. He didn't want to start bringing his laptop over as the entire point was to spend time with Matt and get the redhead to stop being so closed off and moody around him. But Matt still spent most of his time on his own laptop.

"What are you doing on there all the time?" Mello asked, lifting his head to see Matt watching him.

"Hacking," was the short reply.

Mello snorted. He could see that. He really could. "I can't tell if you're joking or not. So I'm going to assume not."

Matt shrugged at him and oddly didn't shut the laptop as Mello rolled off the couch to take a look.

A few separate boxes were pulled up on screen. Both with a black background and white lines of code and gibberish writing. Or that's what is seemed to Mello. He was alright with technology, but he couldn't hack to save his life.

Matt seemed to be doing it effortlessly and efficiently.

When had Matt become a hacker? It wasn't something Mello could ever remember Matt being interested in back at Wammy's. And Matt seemed to be good at it too. It raised the question of how many years he had been doing it and why he had started. There were so many things Mello didn't know about Matt now, and that bothered him.

"Who do you work for?"

"If I told you, I would have to kill you," Matt deadpanned, and Mello supposed he deserved it for asking that. "It's not the mafia. Well, not this week."

Mello grinned a little at the freely given information. "So you work for the highest bidder? Careful, Matty. They might just catch on and try to take you out."

"Been there, done that, and didn't get the t-shirt." Matt's fingers flew across the keyboard, and he seemed to be nearing the end of whatever his assignment was, so Mello left him to it. Matt's tone hadn't changed much, so Mello assumed that whatever had happened concerning people coming after him hadn't had too much of an effect on him. That scratched one scenario off the list of how Matt had ended up in the chair.

Mello still wanted to know how it had happened, but short of asking Matt directly or fishing for information covertly, there didn't seem to be a way for Mello to know. He had tried to look up accident reports—as anything big would have been in the papers—but there were just so many. Mello didn't even know what had caused it, when it had happened, or where he had been at the time. It was worse than looking for a needle in a haystack.

He needed something to work with. Was it a car accident? Did he fall from somewhere? Was it attempted murder? There were so many possibilities and no way to comb through all of them without a direction.

The laptop beeped, and Mello came back to the present to see that Matt had finished his last line of code and had completed whatever he had wanted to do.

"How do you get paid? Do they wire you the money or send it to some P.O. Box?"

"Mello-" Matt's tone was full of warning, and Mello snapped.

"I know, I know. You have my name and can sell it to the highest bidder anytime you want. But guess what? I don't care. Go ahead and do it. I'm not leaving just because of something stupid like that."

Matt was silent, and his posture had gone rigid. "You're really trying, aren't you?"

"Yes! But it doesn't seem to be getting me anywhere, does it?" Mello growled and moved away from Matt, flopping down on the zebra print loveseat and doing his damnedest to calm down before an actual fight broke out.

What the hell had Matt thought? That this was just a game or that he had been asked to put effort into this? Fucking stupid arrogant son of a-

Mello blinked as a bar of chocolate was dangled in front of his face by slightly shaking gloved fingers. Hesitantly, Mello took the bar, but the hand didn't go away, hovering a few inches from his face. Mello realized Matt's arm had to be resting on the arm of the loveseat for it to be so close.

Mello silently opened the bar and took a bite, relishing the slightly bitter taste of the 80% dark chocolate. Matt didn't like chocolate, so why did he have it in the first place? The idea that Matt might have gotten a bar or two for him calmed him even more, and Mello let his anger start to slide away.

Matt hadn't been taking him seriously, and Mello couldn't in truth blame him. What real proof had he given him other than his name? Which Mello supposed Matt couldn't even know was his real one. He had really fucked up.

"Matt?"

"Hm?"

"I'm sorry for leaving."

Matt leaned over the side of the couch to look at him, and Mello refused to drop his gaze. It was impossible for Matt not to know what he had meant, and Mello felt a little exposed under Matt's unreadable gaze.

"I know."

It wasn't an 'I forgive you,' and Mello wasn't certain he deserved that just yet, but Matt was at the least acknowledging Mello's feelings on the subject. It was a start. A first of many with him, Mello hoped.

Matt's hand slid out of view, and Mello heard him moving across the apartment for something. He wasn't about to get up and see what. Mello was content with the chocolate in hand.

Mello eventually heard a small beep and some really familiar music that made him freeze. Was that...?

Matt was playing Tetris.

A slow grin stretched across Mello's lips, and he relaxed into the leather cushions. For the first time since finding Matt, Mello really thought there might be a chance in fixing things.

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-End Part 7-

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AN: Just got tis back from the beta, but to be honest I have been so freaking busy I probably wouldn't have had time to post until now anyway XD I am happy that you all seem to be enjoying this a lot. Stay Still is actually one of my favorites :)

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Special thanks to reviewers (I really do appreciate every review, but will post even if I get none :) : XnikesStripesX, Deadly Nightshade1395, issagokurosaki, Nazlyn101, Keono, BeyondMySanity, mxmsupporter

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