Shadow: For my 'nee-chan – darling, have a happy birthday. I wanted to write you something focused solely on Mello but then Matt stuck his head in, and then AtA got all jumbled up within and it started following that chronology. This turned into an Ashes to Ashes side-story on Matt and Mello; if you want something else completely fresh from anything on-going just give me a prod when I get back from Mexico, 'kay?

Notes/Warnings: Contains shonen-ai/ yaoi, which means boy x boy. Matt x Mello, and one-sided Matt x L. Don't like, don't read.

In the Embers

"He's tiny."

"They usually are, at that age." Quillsh Wammy looked fondly down at the black-haired boy before him, the child clutching possessively at the baby in his arms. "You'd be surprised at how quickly they grow."

"I doubt it. It's only human perception that affects our concepts of a child's growth. Those who -" L broke off in the middle of his sentence, frowning at his guardian. "Walton," Quillsh's current alias while they were in Ireland, "why are you laughing?"

Wammy only smiled. "You're the only person I know, child, to attach such clinical observations to such a sentimental statement."

"Hm," L adjusted how he held the baby Mail Jeevas, carefully pulling flailing hands away from his hair. The babe seemed determined to have L bald within the hour. "By what name shall we call him at Wammy's? He is too young to choose one of his own."

Quillsh thought for a few moments. "…Matt. Let's call him Matt."

"Why?"

"I always liked the name."

"Very well." Another of the baby's limbs was carefully moved, L looking very seriously down into Mail's bright green eyes. "Hello Matt."

As far as Matt could ever recall, all he could remember was Wammy's House. He'd lived there ever since he was a baby, having been brought across from Ireland barely a fortnight after his birth 'in the arms of L himself', Rodger said. He'd arrived in England on the sixteenth of February in the year 1990, and had never stirred far from Wammy's since. They told him that much. No more, no less.

Matt didn't know his own real name. At the age of five he wasn't to know his real name for another two years – and he didn't even know that was when the secret information would be released to him.

Five, Matt had just left the…the 'crèche' area of Wammy's. It wasn't actually called the crèche, but that was one of many nicknames it went by. It didn't have a proper name or title; it was just where the younger children on the institute went, the wing where those under five were carefully monitored and coddled and tested and raised until they were deemed old enough to join the main body of Wammy's. There were four children in the crèche while Matt was in it, and when he left there were only three. He was sad to leave that wing behind him, but Rodger came to take him away and give him a room of his own in the main house and Matt soon forgot his woes. He'd had to share a room in the crèche, for ease of monitoring.

In the main house, Matt excelled. Young though he was it soon became painfully obvious he was one of the smartest children in the orphanage, if not the smartest. Older boys often looked at him rather resentfully, and older girls varied. Sometimes they scorned him, and pulled his red-brown hair (Irish boy, go away!), but other times they were kind, and offered him sweets they'd bought with their allowance, pulled down books from high shelves he would've otherwise been unable to reach and gave them to him.

And then came Near.

Matt was six when the boy arrived in a flurry of snow, winter that year stretching well into the beginning of March and creeping through the double front doors that marked the main entrance to Wammy's House. Winter hung around and from it stepped the boy made of snow, the little pale child with coal-dark eyes clutching almost desperately to the hand of D.

The two could have been brothers, if you discounted the colour of their hair.

'D' was a mystery. Judging by his appearance he had to be older than Matt by about ten years, which fit in nicely with the fact the teenager was from the first generation of children from Wammy's, the generation that had been raised with L. D didn't live at Wammy's – only eight from the first generation did -, but he did come back and stay at the institute every so often, usually bringing another child with him to be schooled. Sometimes he stayed days, other times months; every time he stayed he resided on the top floor of the orphanage where no-one but the first generation children and Rodger were allowed to go. Every time he vanished without ever saying goodbye.

Matt liked D. Admittedly the youth looked a bit odd, with his feathery black hair spiking up everywhere and his terrible posture, but who wasn't a little odd at Wammy's? Genius bred both creativity and individuality according to Rodger; Matt just tried so terribly hard not to yawn and therefore get another scolding. D was kind to Matt, friendly-almost, and it was D who had –

Near was five. Matt found this out the day after the boy arrived at Wammy's House, overhearing two girls whispering to one another on one of the many sets of stairs in the orphanage. Matt would have stayed to eavesdrop but one of the girls noticed him; Matt was obliged to hurry past and pretend he hadn't noticed anything at all.

Near was an antisocial little bugger. Matt found this out for himself, on the day Near arrived, when the boy had clung to D like his life depended on it – and then straightened, forcing his face into apathy as suddenly all the children of Wammy's rushed down to see the new arrival. Cold, calm, little Near, who kept himself to himself, and locked himself in a room far away from other people almost instantly.

Near was terribly, scarily smart. Matt found himself relegated to second place almost instantly the moment Near entered the classroom, the quiet child's intelligence seeping out and colouring everything he did, be it getting a perfect score in one of the Wammy House's' many tests, or constructing some elaborate tower in the common room that defied at least three laws of physics Matt could recall, not to mention the general rule of probability.

People quickly learned to leave Near alone.

Matt, seemingly like many other children at Wammy's, adored D. The teenager was endlessly quirky, and had a sweet tooth that was liable to kill him one day if it wasn't already well its way to doing so. It wasn't quite in Matt's nature to run and jump and paw at D as the other children did though; Matt preferred to stand at the back of the noisy crowds, would run off to play football while D was surrounded by people and come back later when it was quieter. D was quiet when it was quiet, and Matt liked the calm, liked to sit and watch the other typing on his computer, doing something or other that piqued his curiosity –

"What are you doing?" He was a few months past seven when he dared to ask the question of D, the elder boy sitting typing on his laptop on the floor of a sunshine-filled study on the second-floor. Matt had found him quite by accident, running to find a room to conceal himself in for a mass game of hide and seek, but was now deeply, deeply reluctant to turn and go.

"Would you like to come and see?" D looked at him for a few moments, and his eyes were as dark as Near's but filled with so much more life, more fire, and Matt found himself nodding, near flying towards the elder boy when D made space for him before the computer screen.

Seated comfortably between D's sprawled legs, with the elder boy's deeper voice in his ear explaining the computer programming he was doing, that one day in the sunshine-filled study –

Matt fell in love. Twice.

He was only to realise his first passion, his love of computers, and technology in general, at that time; it was to be a good few years before he recognised his second infatuation, and by then D was dead and buried and Matt was left bereft as all the other little children.

D took him to the top floor of Wammy's, to D's own room full of technology and equipment, and Matt followed shyly behind as D took him where he'd never been before. There was nothing really special about the top floor of the institute save that it was somewhat quieter than the floors below and Matt was quite prepared to voice this but –

The eyes. Dark, dark eyes, black eyes, hating eyes, eyes that burned angrily at him looked out at Matt from one of the many rooms on the top floor as he passed along in D's shadow. The boy whose face they belonged to was pale, and he looked just so – so very much like –

D stopped, and looked at the strange boy. "Have you finished staring yet?" Matt trailed to a halt, and tried to pretend he wasn't hiding behind D. (But he was, oh he was.)

The stranger looked scornfully at both of them, before nodding sharply to Matt. "He shouldn't be here."

"Who are you to say who belongs here or not?" Matt didn't dare look up, but he'd bet his protector had just narrowed his eyes.

The stranger – and he even had the same outfit as –

The stranger went into his room, and slammed the door behind him. The sound was startling in the quiet of the top floor.

Matt stared at the door, remembering the boy who just stood in its frame, glancing up at D. And they were really quite – "Was that…?"

D touched his shoulder gently, and then started walking again. "Don't think about it."

Matt thought about it all the same, and it was to give him nightmares for a week. None of the other children at Wammy's were that angry…

D taught Matt how to hack, how to program. When D went away Matt taught himself so much more, in love with this new brilliance, this new gift he'd discovered he possessed. When D came back again Matt showed him everything he'd learned, and D was impressed. D went away again; Matt learned more. The cycle continued.

Matt loved technology; he saved up to buy himself gaming console after gaming console, and soon his room was packed to overflowing with stacks and towers of games. He was a gamer extraordinaire, a gamemaster, a – a –

His name was Mail Jeevas. Roger took him aside one day quietly and told Matt his real name, the name he must never use. Matt tasted his heritage on the tip of his tongue, felt the past touch him and change him – and then abandoned himself once more, and went back to his games.

D came back again just before Christmas, and brought another child with him. Matt remembered it well – he was still seven, and it was the twenty-first of December when another child stepped into Wammy's from the cold. The opposite of Near, this child bringing sunshine and fire into the institute Matt called home.

Mello.

Matt liked the kid on sight, although he had to wait until the somewhat volatile child snapped rather rudely at a too-inquisitive girl who'd tried to touch the bag brought in after the two, D and Mello, to discover just what the kid's gender was.

Mello, as his rather aggressive tones revealed him to be, was a boy.

Matt liked him – the blond boy had a little of L – D in him. Like Near, you could see it in Mello's eyes. Ice-blue eyes around the raven's wing-pupils, lakes to drown your sanity in.

Mello quite quickly drove quite a few people insane. He was a loud, exuberant boy, and drew people to him like moths to a flame. When they came too close they got burned, and people fled, scurrying, when Mello dragged them into yet another scrape.

Matt didn't flee. Matt grinned at Mello when the other boy raised an eyebrow at him, and whole-heartedly joined in with whatever mischief the blond was planning. With Mello's egging Matt completely rewrote the programming for the Wammy's House orphanage, the institute thrown into utter bedlam as Roger ran around trying to set things right again once more. A sulky D had to be torn from his cakes to fix the whole mess, and Mello dangled, grinning, over the elder boy's shoulder as L – no, D – put the programming back to rights. And Matt felt a little stab of jealousy at that, but he wasn't ever quite sure whether he was jealous of the computer, D, or Mello.

It was complicated.

Together, Matt and Mello brought hell to Wammy's. Rodger lost count of how many times he had to drag both boys in for a scolding in his office each week, and yet the rebukes seemed to have little to no effect. The only one who seemed to have any control over either of the boys was D, and D wasn't there the majority of the time; D was always busy doing –

Mat was moved to third place in Wammy's House – he didn't mind. Mello took the place of second with little complaint from the one he'd just ousted, but Mello himself was loudly furious. It was no secret Mello wanted to be first, first, first, but Near had claimed that spot and was calmly refusing to budge. Mello, pretty, vivacious, infuriating Mello, had quite the inferiority complex. He couldn't stand to feel as if someone were looking down on him, and so stormed and raged against the immovable cliff face that was Near. Near, Near, Near. Mello hated him. Sibling rivalry at its most fierce.

Matt tried not to get in the way when Mello was on a rampage against Near, tried his hardest to get good grades at Wammy's that were just under Mello's. It was better to be Mello's friend than Mello's rival. It was quieter to be the patient shadow behind than the hated light in front.

They had their places to hide away in together. When all of Wammy's was against them, when they'd slipped blue dye into the swimming pool and children ran past searching for them whilst doing remarkable impersonations of the smurfs, Mello and Matt hid away. At the bottom of Mello's wardrobe they had a little nest, just big enough for two ten year-olds, stacked with cushions and blankets and chocolate and games. It was dark in there, and secretly special, and Matt loved it when he and Mello were forced to crawl into their hidey hole because then the only light would come from the gaming console clutched tightly in Matt's own hands, and Matt could watch the white glare bring out the strange fervent-coloured glow in Mello's remarkable eyes.

In the year both Matt and Mello were ten; there was a funeral at Wammy's. A teenager who lived on the top floor had died – suicide, suicide, he couldn't take it, you know. 'A' was the letter on the gravestone, and Matt dressed in black like all the other children and watched as the shining coffin was buried beneath the earth. He watched as a curiously solemn Mello held onto D's hand, and wished he could be over there too.

Barely a few months later Mello was Confirmed into the Catholic Church, and Matt attended the event because Mello asked him to, and he'd die rather than say no. The mass bored him but Mello looked strangely innocent with his head bowed in prayer – Matt found himself liking this new side of Mello, like all the other sides before. It was a pity it hid away so often; the only reminder it existed at all sometimes was the jet beads of the rosary Mello always wore about his neck -

Mello always wore black, Matt noticed. Was he mourning something? Mello refused to say.

In the year both Matt and Mello were twelve, a child escaped from Wammy's, a young man. He'd left in the May but Matt remembered strongest the April, standing in the hallway on the floor beneath the top one and staring up the stairs. He'd never dared to go up there without D, and would never dare. Through the railings on the next landing dark eyes watched him, darker hair hanging lazily around the watcher's face. He still looked remarkably like –

"Are you his brother?" Matt found his courage but still his voice had quaked when he'd called up to the young man watching him. There was no need to highlight who they were talking about; the watcher knew. Matt knew the watcher somehow knew.

"No." Short, cold reply. "I am him."

"I don't understand…"

"You're not meant to." The watcher's lip curled, and suddenly he'd vanished from the railing, gone from Matt's sight. A little more distantly, his mocking voice drifted back, a parody of D's earlier comfort those years ago: "Don't think about it, Mail." A door slammed. There was conversation no more.

Matt fled.

In May, D was there, harried and concerned. A young man had run away from Wammy's House, one of those from the first generation, and Roger was deeply concerned. Concern, concern, concern.

"Who was it?" Matt asked D curiously.

"It's not your concern." D left him, and went off to talk to Rodger.

"Who was it?" Mello asked Matt curiously later.

Matt shrugged a little helplessly. "D wouldn't say."

"Then it was B." Mello left him, and went to study for their upcoming test. Matt stared after him a little helplessly again, and wondered just how many things Mello, his best friend now, never told him.

D vanished from Wammy's House the following day, as usual without saying goodbye.

D came back again later on in the year – about October – and Matt saw him talking to Mello, the blond boy rapt at something D was telling him. Matt bit is lip and went to play on a video game to distract himself. Whatever L – D, D, D – told Mello…Mello wouldn't tell Matt. No, it was Mello's secret. Mello had too many secrets sometimes, it was a wonder his head didn't explode.

Children of the Wammy's House watched international television. Most of them could speak more than three languages with fluency, and so it was no surprise to walk into a room where the television was chattering in English, French, Russian, Japanese, Mandarin, Greek –

'Kira', when he rose to fame, didn't fail to capture the attention of the Wammy's House. The mass-murderer, the killer of criminals… Some of the children agreed with what Kira was doing. Matt personally didn't care, but when he saw Mello glued to a Japanese broadcast he couldn't help but go sit and watch it beside the blond child.

"L'll take the case." Something akin to hero worship was in Mello's thirteen year-old eyes, assurance – the boy felt he knew L well enough to pass judgement. The glare from the television screen outlined Mello's pointed face, outlined the black beads in the rosary the blond always wore around his slender neck.

"Probably." Matt didn't bother to offer an explanation for his view, the both knew well enough. D wasn't at Wammy's, therefore L was pretty busy.

L announced his involvement in the Kira case shortly afterwards. Mello was so satisfied he didn't even bother crowing. Matt quietly sat at his side while Mello studied later, and played on a new video game he'd bought the other day. He'd already finished it, but he wasn't going to tell Mello that.

L was dead.

Matt crept to the door of Roger's study and listened when Rodger told Mello and Near.

L was dead.

Matt listened, and heard how L had never been able to choose between his two most talented heirs. (And somehow, even though he knew he was smart, Matt had known he'd never been in the running. D had liked Matt, Matt knew, but Mello and Near were special.)

L was dead.

Matt waited, and heard Mello, true Mello, with eyes like frozen lakes and voice like ice breaking, go deep, deep, deep off the deepest end of all.

L was dead, dead, dead.

Matt missed him, missed him terribly, but he was too busy chasing after the whirling firestorm that was Mello. Mello, with mussed hair and tears in his eyes, who was determined to leave Wammy's, to make his own way at fourteen, and Matt wanted to go with him –

They held Matt back. Matt didn't scream when the held him as Mello left, but he later flung every one of his gaming consoles down the stairs, smashing mounds and mounds of expensive machinery and technology on the floor of the main foyer in Wammy's, where no-one could fail to miss it. Matt had three parts to his heart, three loves. The first, the puppy-crush on the boy who wasn't L but was except that they really weren't meant to know, was killed by Kira. The second, the friendship with flaming Mello, the…bond they had that was the promise of more, was killed by Wammy's, smothered for a few years in their overprotective grip. The third, Matt's love for technology – it wasn't killed, but it was weak and drowned in loss of LMelloLMelloLMelloMelloMelloMello, He couldn't hear the last love and so he flung its symbols down the stairs, and his whole heart was broken as he locked his door and took to his room. He wouldn't come out for anyone, but ate some of the bittersweet chocolate Mello had left behind.

Matt stayed at Wammy's, and carefully avoided the new L. Everyone knew it was Near, but nobody dared talk to the boy – when they could find him, anyway. Near had become even harder to find in the sprawl that was the institute. But then there were whispers from Japan -

Matt stayed at Wammy's, and bought a whole host of new equipment for his room when some of his ache faded, wires looping and crossing and trailing over his minefield of a floor. He barely ever turned the light on in his bedroom, content to see only by the glow of his numerous computer screens. The glare hurt his eyes so he adopted wearing a pair of tinted goggles that arrived for him in the mail one day – there was no explanation of where they came from, but Matt knew it was a gift from Mello. Secret, secretive Mello, who always knew too much and could tell what Matt was like from however many miles away.

Matt stayed at Wammy's, and missed Mello every day. The blond had been his best friend for years, his confidante when Matt felt like confiding – not that was very often, but still. Matt wanted to go to Mello – he knew he could find him – but Wammy's House watched him, and wouldn't let him go. Matt was the only way Wammy's House could find Mello, for Mello had never cared for anyone else but L – must he still call him D when the man was dead and gone? L was N now, and didn't they all hate it. But there was that other L –

Mello, Mello, it could be Mello –

Matt knew Wammy's wanted him to use his flair with technology to find Mello. Mello would want to be found by Matt, only Matt could find him, but Mello wouldn't want to be found by Wammy's so Matt deliberately didn't look. Mello was Mello so Mello had a plan, and who was Matt to wreck that?

Matt carefully studied the actions of the other L. It became clear the person playing the role, whoever they were, wasn't Mello. At eighteen Matt started smoking – later, he couldn't exactly remember why.

In the weeks leading up to Matt's nineteenth birthday, Near started acting strangely. It seemed as if he purposefully sought Matt out at Wammy's – but then never said a word to the older youth. Near would sit and work as L in the same room as Matt, gathering information on Kira, compiling it and seemingly not caring in the slightest if Matt overheard him –

Near hadn't ever sought Matt out before. Near just didn't 'seek people out'. It was a very un-Near-like thing to do. Near and Matt hadn't properly spoken to one another since Mello had left –

Ah.

Matt smiled rather humourlessly when he finally understood what Near was doing. Near wanted Matt to overhear everything he'd learned about Kira, about the Kira case. Near, it appeared, could read Matt's mind with the same sort of skill as Mello.

In October of the same year, Matt finally succeeded in escaping from Wammy's. He had the feeling Near might've helped him in his venture somehow, but Matt didn't bother with a goodbye. Wammy's House children were quickly learning not to say goodbye.

Mello was older, Matt noted, when he saw his friend for the first time in five years. Mello was older, and his age could be seen in his matured face, matured frame, the glittering determination in his eyes and mouth. Mello, mafia Mello all dressed in black, his golden head full of secrets and lies all tumbled and jumbled up together.

Mello was still Mello of five years before, and held Matt tightly for a few minutes away from the prying eyes of the mob. "What took you so long?" His voice was a little husky and his eyes a little bright, but Matt studiously pretended he hadn't noticed.

The red-head's grin was crooked and wry. "Technological difficulties."

Mello disapproved of Matt's smoking, and took the cigarettes from between his friend's lips. "These'll kill you," he said often, stamping the cancer stick on the ground until all that was left was embers and ash.

"Not at all," Matt would reply, taking a new cigarette out of the packet he always had handy. "I'm pretty sure one of your stupid stunts will end up killing me first."

Matt told Mello what Near had let Matt know, and Mello was thankful. Mello, with the help of the mafia, abducted two people – the director of the Japanese NPA, and a young woman called Sayu Yagami after the director died of a 'mysterious' heart attack.

"What's so special about the girl?" Matt whispered after the command had been given, Sayu locked up and under heavy guard.

"She's the daughter of the head of the Kira investigation in Japan," Mello's reply was distant; "we're trading her for the killer notebook."

Sayu was a pretty girl. Matt watched as Mello talked to the scared woman, the woman barely out of childhood, as the blond reassured her and promised she'd be okay. Matt hadn't heard Mello use that soft tone before and his insides prickled a little angrily, and his anger flared when the other kissed the little Sayu on the forehead, and left. The woman was lovely, and the same age as them. Matt suddenly hated her for it.

Mello realised his friend was irritated as soon as blue eyes met green, and the blond frowned. "What's bugging you?" His pale hand, sensing something wrong, was playing with the black rosary about his neck.

Matt grabbed that hand, grabbed that rosary, yanking Mello forwards and slamming his friend's back into the wall. "I -" He clutched those beads and hand so hard it hurt. "I -" Matt didn't know. Confused, and still hurt and angry, Matt let go and stalked off.

Mello watched him go, confused as hell.

It was irony itself that the Japanese Task Force stormed Mello's hideout on Armistice Day. On the eleventh day of the eleventh month whilst most of the rest of the world promised peace Mello, the mafia and the Japanese police were fighting over a notebook.

Matt hadn't spoken to his friend face-t-face since that incident in October with Sayu. They'd spoken technologically, by a secure phone-line, by encrypted e-mail, but not face-to-face. Matt was staying elsewhere in America, away from Mello. He still felt if he saw Mello he'd punch the blond, and he still didn't quite know why.

And then he heard Mello's hideout had been blown up.

Matt raged then. He raged and he cursed and he called Mello every name under the sun, even as he was desperately calling the blond and willing the other to pick up, pick up, pick up, because he couldn't have lost Mello, not Mello, not Mello.

Mello didn't pick up; Mello rang his doorbell a week later instead.

When Matt flung open his door he came face to face with the soggy blond, hood up but still Mello was dripping everywhere because it was raining outside. Mello, dressed all in black, with his face all in shadow, but it was Mello.

Matt punched him.

They fought, the two of them. They fought and grappled and acted like children, two nineteen year-olds wrestling in the rain until they were both wet through, hair and clothes sopping and stuck to their skin. They went inside then, and huddled in towels away from Matt's precious computers, and they drank ridiculous amounts of coffee to warm up.

Mello's scar was hard to miss, and Matt tried to be gentle when he ran cool fingertips over the damaged skin on his friend's face. They were sitting close together. "The explosion?"

Mello nodded. "My own fault."

"Everything always is; you're a bloody trouble magnet." Matt had taken his goggles off because they stuck uncomfortably against clammy wet skin, and he rubbed his eyes.

"…I'm sorry," the apology came from nowhere, Mello looking sheepishly down at the ground, "I won't worry you like that again."

Matt oh-so graciously snorted – they both knew Mello's nature well enough to know those words were utter nonsense. Mello did things, stupid things, and Matt would always worry. It was how they'd been, and how they'd always be. "Why didn't you answer your phone?"

"I left it behind in the hideout."

"…Idiot." Matt would have to change his number now, buy a new phone for Mello and set up another secure connection. Hours of work. Absently, he watched as Mello traced the new scar on his face, raised his own hand again to join it. "…I thought you were dead…" This was another symbol of Mello. Mello had many, many symbols, and each one was precious to Matt, the one who read them daily.

"I thought I was dead." Mello's smile was humourless. "Remind me never to blow up the building I'm standing in ever again please?"

Matt moved his hand from the other's cheek, sliding it to the nape of Mello's neck so he could push the blond's head down to meet his own, mouths colliding.

It was a decidedly uncomfortable kiss. Both of them were still soggy, trying vainly to keep dry in their towels but Mello's hair kept dripping on Matt's cheek, Mello's neck was in an uncomfortable position. Both of them were cold, and tasted of coffee, and Matt knew his friend's scar probably still hurt like hell and that energetic kissing probably couldn't be doing it any good at all. They kept kissing though, awkward as it might have been. They kept kissing, all chocolate and ash, until breathless Matt finally drew back for air. "Deal."

"Deal," Mello echoed, staring down into green as grass eyes, and both wondered vaguely just what insanity it was that they'd just agreed to.

Mello stayed with Matt, and continued working on the Kira case with his…friend's assistance. (Friend, friends, friends with benefits?) Mello liked to disturb Matt at the oddest of times for a kiss and Matt didn't really mind, for Mello was wily and wise and had known since they were eight that even if you were Matt's best friend god help you if you stood on one of his computers. Mello never broke any of the technology he touched and Mello's kisses were better when they both weren't wet from the rain, and Matt still liked the glow in Mello's eyes when the glare of the screens touched that beloved ice-blue.

Matt's apartment was their nest at the bottom of Mello's wardrobe at Wammy's, their safety full of chocolate and games from the rest of the world when the rest of the world was against them. In this cocoon they kissed, and were safe, and were warm. In this nest Mello eventually coaxed Matt into bed, and though his angel might have been scarred Matt found Paradise anyway.

The Kira case marched on, and it felt as though a blade hung close to their necks. Things were drawing to a close; Matt could feel it, taste it in the air. Mello could too; he grew irritable when Matt smoked, snatched the cigarettes from Matt's hands and threw them out of the window. Matt, in petulance, snatched Mello's chocolate in return, and that joined the cigarette in a mess on the pavement outside their apartment. There was fierce arguing over that, broken when Matt simply started laughing at the whole situation – the irony hurt, and he'd rather laugh than cry. The world was changing around them for Kira, Kira, Kira, and the newscaster Takada had seized Mello's attention. Halle, Near's agent, kept leaking information to Mello, about Kiyomi Takada, about Light Yagami…

Their insides burned when they heard about Light Yagami, the suspected Kira. He was pretty, and smart, and suspected as being the other L, and Matt was irked by the way Mello kept staring at a photograph he'd drawn up of the young man – for Light was older than them. Mello's stare…made Matt uncomfortable, because Sayu had been lovely but Light was –

The rope holding up the invisible blade began to fray.

Studying Misa Amane in detail had yielded little results, but Kiyomi Takada –

Near was in Japan. The thought infuriated Mello, but it made sense since Near was investigating Kira too, and Kira was undoubtedly Japanese.

Mello turned twenty. Matt snuck out and bought chocolate cake simply to be utterly unobjective and impractical for a change, lighting twenty candles and embarrassing Mello satisfactorily by singing 'happy birthday' dreadfully, aka completely off-key. They still worked on the investigation that day but they stopped work early, getting somewhat drunk and tangling up together in their bed sheets. Mello's hair was fine and drifted through fingers and across skin, and after heaven had been found Matt was content to pet it, trace lazy patterns on his lover's skin and wonder just how quickly this bewitching firestorm would kill him.

He got his answer the following day, when one of the many television screens in the apartment flashed up with information on Kiyomi Takada's new bodyguards. One of them was Halle.

Matt didn't like Mello's plan, not at all. Mello knew Near's plans and adjusted his own accordingly, because doing the same thing as another was simply bad taste unless you got away with being the one who did it first.

"…Why?" Matt asked the question of the one he trusted most in the world, and it mean so much. Why now? Why Takada? Why Halle? Why them? Why…?

"Takada is connected to Kira; she receives information directly from Kira." Mello didn't look at his friend, his lover, blond hair hiding his face. "And yet – Near suspects Yagami, has his Yagami's own team watching him for one Kira-like move. With the death sentence hanging over his head I doubt Yagami's going to be doing the killings himself; there's another Kira at work, a proxy chosen by Yagami – and that is who is in contact with Takada. We need to have Takada to discover the other Kira."

"Mello…" Matt hesitantly laid a hand on the other male's arm. He knew…he knew Mello hadn't told him everything. Mello never told anyone everything, his head full of secrets so precious he wouldn't breathe a word of them to his only friend, only companion. "Don't you trust me?"

"I do," Mello replied and tilted his head just slightly, and Matt could see the glimmer in those forget-me-not eyes. It wasn't ice there right then, just the blue, blue, blue of dream-spun summer skies. "I do. And that's why I don't want to hurt you."

"Idiot." Matt sighed, and buried his head in the crook of the other's shoulder, and saw the rope fray just that little bit more. He should probably hate Mello, he knew; he was going to die young; he was going to die alone, another nameless child of the Wammy's House, but he was proud to know he'd die for Mello. "If I could summon the willpower I'd kick you."

The twenty-sixth of January rolled around, and Matt broodingly awoke to watch the Japanese sunrise from his window, cigarette in hand. He wasn't surprised when Mello joined him about half an hour later, but when the blond reached for his cigarette Matt stopped him with a sharp, "Don't." Mello let him be.

This was the day when they'd put Mello's plan into action, when they'd kidnap Takada, when –

Matt didn't want to think about it; was that cowardly of him? He wondered what that boy A must have felt like, from Wammy's House, on his last day all those years ago. The poor suicidal boy Matt suddenly empathised with. Matt wondered what D had felt like on his last day, L, D, L, D – he'd never known the boy's real persona – was he the real L, the first L hiding behind D, or was he D being L as N was trying to be L now? Too many Ls, too many successors, too many final days drawing to inevitable closes. Too much of everything, and yet, as Matt took another drag of his cigarette, so never, never enough.

"Close the window." Mello had a hand on his companion's shoulder, and his voice was as soft as the voice he'd used on the captive Sayu. It was the voice you used to calm frightened animals, and it only caused Matt's hackles to rise. He should be calm; he was always calm, but today of all days his calm was slowly deserting him. Matt stubbed out his cigarette and flung it into the world below, shutting the window with a thud. "Are you angry at me?" Mello stood waiting for him.

"No," was the reply, only a few steps away from being snapped, "I'm angry at the world. It's full of bloody idiots."

Mello cracked a tired grin. "I'm probably big-headed enough without apologising on behalf of the world, you realise? But if that's what you want -"

"What I want?" Matt…stared at his friend. Pulled off the goggles he wore even at that hour of the morning, and downright stared. "Mello, you utter -"

"What?" The blond looked confused.

"Mello, for a genius, sometimes you're remarkably stupid." Matt dragged the other towards him before Mello could protest, bushing back the curled hair from the other's face. "Really, really stupid."

"But -"Matt kissed him soundly, and shut him up. And then he dragged him to the bed, even though they'd only risen from the thing less than an hour beforehand.

Mello had…always been good at reading Matt's mind. It was a thing both of them understood and accepted, but both often forgot that although Mello was good at it, he wasn't perfect. Mello wasn't perfect at mind-reading, and there were large, emotional sections of Matt he often failed completely to grasp. Mello, kissed, touched and carefully stripped of the few clothes he'd actually bothered to put on before joining his lover at the window, began to understand that in the bed that day. That one day, after just under thirteen years of knowing his best friend.

Matt was complicated, just like everyone else.

Matt was patient, and wicked, and god knows how he'd put up with Mello for so long and –

Matt was in love with him.

It shamed Mello, when he realised the truth, because he'd taken so long to figure it out. It shamed and it pleased and it humbled him for just that little while, and it hurt a little because he daren't take such emotions out of the bed afterwards, out of the apartment, not on this day of all days when he had to be strong. When both of them would have to be indescribably strong, and yet Mello -
Oh, Mello had hidden every part of himself away from everyone, even Matt, and Matt had hidden every part of himself away from everyone but Mello. Quite an uneven relationship in terms of give and take, and yet Matt had been so patient –

Mello wanted to apologise then, if only once, but he knew Matt wouldn't let him. Not as they lay together, not as they explored each other on a final day for perhaps this last time, but what –

It came to Mello finally, as he gave himself up to his lover. It came to him as he found himself looking up into bright green eyes, and moving his lips against his friend's ear, breathlessly whispering one word even as his fingers were digging into smooth shoulders because Matt, Matt –

To Matt, it was the most perfect word in existence. He tried to smile but it slipped off his lips and Mello was kissing him, covering his mouth lest Matt cry the word out. Even here, even now, Mello was afraid of the sound of that word, as all Wammy's children would be of their own word respectively. Mello was afraid of the word and yet he'd given it to Matt, and Matt's euphoria and Mello –

Afterwards, they lay in a tangle together, breathing still uneven, hearts still thudding too fast. Matt…Matt was smiling properly now, pushing himself up to brush blond away from Mello's face, to trace the edges of the scar, to touch moist lips. "Thank you." Thank you, Mihael.

Mihael, Mihael, Mihael, the most beautiful word, the most perfect part that all the other pieces of Mello fit into. Mello's name.

Mello only smiled crookedly, sighing briefly when Matt kissed his forehead, his cheek. "I can still taste cigarettes because of you, you realise?"

"Shut up, Mello."

They got dressed. Matt wore his usual stripy shirt, his sleeveless jacket over the top, his goggles. Mello dressed in black, all black, with his jet rosary around his neck, and Matt at last figured out part of what Mello was mourning for. The thought didn't make him smile.

They stood dressed and Matt went to leave, one hand upon the doorknob, but Mello stopped him with a hand upon his arm. "I'll see you tonight?"

"Yeah." Matt accepted a brief kiss on the cheek, but that was all, that was all, the end. It was done. He turned and left and there were no goodbyes, because Wammy's House children had quickly learned not to say goodbye.

Matt died. He was shot down that day, that final day, with a cigarette still in his mouth. He was shot down with the taste of chocolate and ash in his mouth, with the memories of a name in his mind and a scar under his fingertips. Symbols of Mello, Mello, Mihael.

He died wrapped in the cocoon of his mind, his self still curled up at the bottom of his wardrobe amidst chocolate and games. It was dark in there, and secretly special, and Matt loved it when the world was against him because then it was him and Mello against the world, and the world deserved everything coming to it. Matt loved it when he crawled into his hidey hole with Mello, because the only light would come from the gaming console clutched tightly in Matt's own hands, and Matt could watch the white glare bring out the strangely-coloured glow in Mello's remarkable eyes. Matt loved Mello's eyes, not that he'd ever tell the other boy that. They were a little bit of D, of L. They were like ice-rimmed pools of blue, deep lakes to drown your sanity in.

Mello drove people insane rather quickly. Matt loved him for it.

"The man who was shot down has still not been identified."

Mello hung his head when the carefully neutral voice of the newscaster spoke, and he quietly mourned. He'd never thought – there was so much Mello needed forgiveness for, Matt was –

Mello kept driving the truck with Kiyomi Takada in the back of it, and every mile was one mile closer to his own fiery end.

He would be with Matt soon, and he could make his apologies then.