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Current mood:	creative
Current music:	Iron Maiden : Run to the Hills
Entry tags:	death note, fanfic:death note, fanfiction, matt, mello, mello/matt

Fanfic: Death Note, Even, PG-13, Mello/Matt
Title: Even
Rating: PG-13
Pairing(s): Mello/Matt
Warning(s): Bad language and slashy themes.
Spoiler(s): None really. As long as you know who Mello and Matt are (about Chapter 89 or something) you're good to go :D
Disclaimer/claimer: Don't own, don't sue. Though I do own an awesome Death Note jacket. Yay!
Summary: The night Mello turns up at Matt's doorstep, burnt and barely breathing.


“Holy Shit, half your fucking face is melted!”

Not in all his years of knowing Matt, did Mello ever see as many emotions running through Matt’s facial expressions as he did now. Shock, horror, relief, concern, happiness… It was odd to see a face that he was so familiar with wearing an unemotionally blank mask or a playful smirk splattered across his features flitting from one emotional extreme to the next. Strange… and entertaining. It was also odd to even be looking at said person’s face after all the time that had passed between them without a word of communication between the two of them. And now he was here. In so much pain searing through his nerves it was making him dizzy, but he was here. It seemed like he was stepping away from a whole other planet. Mello tried to take it all in, squinting through one eye and gasping as he leant in Matt’s doorway, but his strength was failing him. All he could take in through the pain and the wheezing was orange goggles and a cigarette lazily hanging out the corner of his mouth.

“Yeah, and I still look better than you. Jealous?” Somehow the wisecrack didn’t quite cut it as well as it should have whilst clinging onto Matt’s apartment doorway like his life depended on it, “Well, are you gonna let me in or not, rude bastard?”

Matt slung Mello’s arm around his shoulder, his moves careful and calculated to make sure he didn’t handle Mello too gently (it would have irritated the crap out of him to be treated like something fragile) or too roughly which would have hurt the severe burns he acquired less than five hours ago. Somewhere through the haze of the blistering scolds and the humiliation of defeat he found it amusing how easily Matt still was able to carefully tread the tightrope of his mood-swings. The red head didn’t speak until Mello was comfortably sprawled on his worn, faded couch.

“So… how have you been?” he asked, that irritating casual attitude returning.

“I show up… at your… goddamn… door step… almost fucking dying… after… god knows how long… and you… All you can say is…”

Mello’s voice gave out. Fuck, his throat hurt so much just trying to fucking breathe, but talking was like swallowing glass and fire with a bucket full of vinegar to wash it down.

Thankfully Matt was silent, dutifully shifting around his dingy apartment searching for the first-aid kit, his skinny jeans he’d been sleeping in barely 15 minutes ago slowly sliding down his ass and a smirk creeping around his cigarette when he caught Mello looking.

“What’d you do?” he asked once he’d found the white case scattered beneath a pile of discarded wires, “Blow yourself up or something?”

“Yeah,” Mello managed to say, whilst glaring at Matt, “Thought I’d like a Japanese Police barbeque.”

“And you thought you’d join in just to be civil? C’mon, cold water. Now,” Matt helped a grumbling Mello off the sofa, “Bathroom’s this way.”

“I would have thought you would have lasted longer than fifteen minutes trying to get me naked, Matt.”

The cigarette had finally burnt right to the butt and Matt paused in their journey to casually put it out against the wall, “I guess you found my secret kink then, huh? How’d you know life-threatening burns really do it for me?”

Mello winced as Matt’s supporting hand touched a sensitive burn on his waist, “Fucking watch you’re bloody hands, pervert,” he hissed.

“Sorry, can’t help myself,” Matt grinned with his typical ‘devil-may-care’ attitude, but Mello could see his eyes behind those bizarre orange goggles he was worried. No Shit, Mello thought. He hadn’t even had a chance to check out his injuries, but he knew they were bad. He couldn’t even feel the one on his face, meaning the heat must have fried his nerves to third degree hell.

Matt’s bathroom was small with just barely enough room for a toilet and a shower. He was silent as he sat Mello down in the shower space, the blonde now so completely exhausted he was just letting Matt haul him around now and the only sound to cut through the silence was the harsh, sharp breathes he took. The silence wasn’t awkward though. It was familiar, it was comfortable and it was like trying on a long forgotten silky coat that Mello was thrilled still fit. It was like he hadn’t ever left Whammy’s House, like there was no time in between. Mello didn’t need to explain himself to Matt. He didn’t need to make excuses or tell him what had happened. He didn’t need to break down everything he did and analyse it for him. He didn’t need to tiptoe around Matt and regard him as a threat that needed to be blitz because Matt was third and he didn’t care.

He didn’t care. It was something that fascinated and annoyed the hell out of Mello, though he’d never admit it. Whilst it drove him to the brink of his sanity that he was second to Near and that he’d do anything, bloody anything, even cold, cruel murder to be first, Matt just didn’t care. It was almost as if he had no emotion at all sometimes, just content to swing his life away on drugs, cigarettes and video games and fade into obscurity. Mello could ram a fully loaded .45 calibre down his throat now and he’d probably swallow death like he would drink water. His indifferent attitude seemed to bring out the most extreme in him. He just wanted those listless hazel eyes to open wide in surprise, whether it be from a random slap or shag didn’t matter.

That was probably why they worked so well together. Matt loved Mello’s explosive attitude. He needed the dangerously unpredictable to forcefully drag him out of his sleepy state. He craved the thrill and adrenaline that only Mello could provide him with. Anything Mello wanted to do, he complied with. No questions asked and no doubts because he knew that whatever it was, it was something wickedly fun. Something almost dying on a video game at level 99 couldn’t bring, somewhere that drag on his third joint couldn’t take him to and nothing would ever feel as good as Mello could make him feel. The lifestyle the blonde brought him was something alive, unpredictable, hectic and wild. Mello was something you couldn’t stick a pattern to. He wasn’t like polygon characters in a game with a limited artificial intelligence or a set of algebraic rules.

Even though Mello was second, he knew he was first in Matt’s eyes.

“What are you smiling at?” Matt enquired tonelessly, trying to unlace Mello’s leather jeans now that he had finally pealed away his leather top.

Mello was aware of how weird it felt on one side of his face as he smirked, “I just don’t think it’s fair I’m the only one being stripped.”

Matt didn’t even look up at him, the lacing on Mello’s leather trousers proving to be a task that was going to take longer than five minutes, especially with Mello fidgeting around suggestively as he was.

“Mello, I can hardly touch you, let alone do what you’re thinking of doing.”

“Don’t… have to do anything. Just wanna look. See what you look like all grown up, now.”

Matt looked up at him, and Mello was dimly aware of how much he missed that dull gaze and that carefree smile. He could hear the achingly relaxed laughter bubbling from Matt’s lips as he slipped out of his stripped shirt.

“There, even now, ok?”

“No. You’re taking my clothing off, what the hell makes you think you can take your own off?”

Even. That was something they’d strangely always had been, despite Mello being second and Matt being third, they were both equal to each other. They both knew where they stood with each other, they knew how to act with each other, what to say to make the other smile or frown, what made the other cry out in pain or pleasure or even the edge of both if Mello felt nasty.

“I didn’t blow anything up tonight, I think I win the luxury of taking off my own clothes, Mello.”

That last comment earned Matt a rough bite on his fingers and a snide comment from Mello that if the night went how it was meant to, he would be blowing something tonight.