Infatuation

When Matt had come back to his and Mello's room it was with the intention of relaxing. He'd wanted to play some Pokémon, maybe program his calculator to produce endless strings of profanity.

But instead, he found Mello sitting on his bed, looking like he'd been sick some time in the recent past. He had glared at Matt, who merely raised an eyebrow. When Matt opened his mouth to ask what was up, Mello had begun to cry.

So now Mello is lying face down on his bed, and Matt has no. Fucking. Clue what to do. His mind is screaming at him to FIX IT, but he's not sure how. What would be appropriate? He investigates.

"What happened?"

"He's DEAD," Mello wails. Matt's mind draws a blank.

"Er. Who?"

"L. L is dead." This does not compute. L doesn't DIE. How could this have POSSIBLY happened?

Mello snaps him out of his reverie by making an unidentifiable noise of anguish. Normally, Matt would assume he's acting like this for attention. Mello is fond of drama, and he loves drawing Matt's focus to himself. But this time, Matt thinks it's genuine. Probably because if Mello were acting, he'd be making an effort to look pretty while doing it. Right now, he's FAR from pretty. He's hiccuping because he's been crying so hard, and when he lifts his head, Matt winces a little because Mello's nose is brilliantly red and his upper lip is all blotchy, his eyes make him look like he's hung over and he REALLY doesn't look like himself, all covered with snot and spit and tears. And he's showing no signs of letting up.

It's making Matt deeply uncomfortable. He's never seen Mello cry this hard, not even when he'd first come to Wammy's, his identity and family stripped from him and immersed in a new language. He'd been desperately afraid and uncomfortable in his new surroundings, and Matt remembers feeling sorry for him (though not quite as sorry as Matt felt for himself).

Matt sort of wants to hug Mello, to tell him everything will be okay even though he KNOWS it won't be. He also sort of wants to run away. So he stands there, hovering near Mello, watching his best friend heave with misery and not able to do anything about it.

Finally, FINALLY, Mello quiets, too exhausted, too heartbroken to keep crying. He mumbles something into his pillow.

"Wot?" Mello slouches into an almost-sitting position that reminds Matt of the way L sits. Sat.

"I'm leaving." Mello wipes his nose on his sleeve. It makes him seem ridiculously childish, and Matt has to wonder how he expects to survive outside of Wammy's.

"No, you're not. Here." Matt digs through Mello's dresser, locates a chocolate bar, and tosses it into Mello's lap. Mello looks at it apathetically. It scares Matt a little.

"Yes, I am. Near is L's successor--I have to beat him, and I have to do it my own way." Matt's pretty sure his heart stopped for a few seconds.

"L...L picked-"

"NO. L didn't pick." Mello spits out the words bitterly, his nose wrinkling and his eyebrows furrowing. He tears open the chocolate bar wrapper with his teeth and begins to gnaw on it so vindictively that Matt wonders if he'll accidentally bite his tongue off. He's sure he's read about that happening somewhere. "He didn't pick because he's a lying BASTARD and I HATE him and-"

"Mello, shut up." Amazingly, he does, staring at Matt in stunned outrage.

"You-"

"No, seriously. Shut up." Matt sits on the ground and leans up against Mello's bed. "We both know you don't hate him. You wouldn't be so pissed off if you did."

"Why aren't YOU mad?"

"Psh. I hardly knew the guy. Spoke to him, what, once? As far as I'm concerned, he's like...frikkin' JESUS or something. I've heard of all the amazing stuff he's done and yeah, I'm impressed--no, he didn't deserve to die--but he sure as hell wasn't going to be inviting ME to any parties."

Matt looks over his shoulder to see how this is being received and wants to hit his own head repeatedly against the floor: Mello's crying AGAIN, albeit silently.

Joke. Make a joke.

"There, there. Want some sexual healing? Wink wink."

"...What? Matt, you're not supposed to SAY 'wink'." Mello's looking at him like he's offended, but seriously considering it. Aw, crap.

Not that Matt would MIND, not as SUCH, but he's not so sure he'd want his first time to be with someone who would be holding back tears of pure woe the whole time.

"Ah, well, the spoken 'wink' was to show that I was kidding. To cheer you up." But Matt's blushing entirely too hard to be taken at his word.

"I..." Mello looks away from Matt, then jerks his head to beckon him. Whatwhatwhatwhathow? Matt's moving toward him and sitting down and did Mello just spread his legs a little to make room for him? Because that would be totally hot.

Mello's head is tilted down a little, so he can look up at Matt and his eyes are smoldering. Where did Mello learn to make his eyes smolder?

Ah. Probably L.

The thought is almost enough to make Matt say 'no', to make him leave, refuse to be a replacement. But then Mello leans forward a little uncertainly, his eyelids falling and his lips parting--Matt can feel Mello's breath on his own slightly-parted lips, can smell the dark chocolate he's been eating, and he has to wonder if being a replacement would be all that bad, really.

Hell, this is the closest he'll ever get to being L's successor, unless Mello and Near finally manage to kill each other.

Mello's lips are touching his. Mello's kissing him. He's not pushing his mouth against Matt's in teenage desperation. There's no frustration here, no raw want.

This is need.

It's tender, it's tentative. And by God, Mello is actually needy.

The thought makes Matt feel a little dizzy. Mello needs him. Or at least, Mello needs someone. Mello needs to distract himself.

But...

Is this really what would be best for Mello? For Mello's well-being?

Matt can't believe himself. Mello is being so gentle, so human and he's thinking about the fact that Mello might be kicking himself for this later?

But he does understand now why L did what he did. Hard not to, really, when Mello's being so compliant.

Yet somehow, Matt feels like a rapist.

So he scoots away.

Mello is not amused.

"Wh-what?" Matt can't look at him.

"Mello, do you...I mean, I...I'm not...I can't be L, and you're going to hate yourself for it, aren't you?"

"Um, no," he says, like it's the most obvious thing in the world, and scoots toward him, glaring all the while in a way that makes Matt want to cower. "And if you think YOU will, maybe you shouldn't have suggested it in the first place. That's an awfully mean thing to do, isn't it?" Mello tilts his head sideways. He's not looking at Matt's eyes--he's looking at his lips. Good God.

"I just think you're...vulnerable, is all." Mello smirks at this and chuckles before shifting so he's sitting on Matt's lap.

"I'm going to let that go right now," he winds his fingers into Matt's hair, "but if you ever call me 'vulnerable' again," leans in and kisses him lightly, "I will cut off your legs and beat you to death with both of them." He yanks on Matt's hair hard enough to make him yelp, but not as hard as he could if he were really mad.

More importantly, Matt has the go-ahead. He's taken Mello's feelings into consideration. Now if Mello hates himself for this, Matt won't be to blame, in any case. He tried to get him to think about it. Mello refused.

Fuck yes.

Mello kisses him again, and this time, Matt kisses back. Mello pulls him down so that they're both lying sideways--on equal footing, as it were--it seems very symbolic to Matt, but he'd rather not bother putting this into words. Mello knows what he's doing.

Mello DEFINITELY knows what he's doing.

It's been a while (three months at the very least); Mello's acting different--possibly because he's so fucking depressed, but probably also because he's had practice since then.

Things are starting to heat up. Mello's legs are tangled up with Matt's and there are hands EVERYWHERE. But a troubling thought keeps running through Matt's mind.

Is he pretending I'm L? Is he?

Matt didn't think it would bother him, but L is...L is motherfucking L. And Matt's just Matt.

He suddenly has an idea, a really warped idea, of what it's like to be Near. He'd probably kill himself.

It's surprisingly difficult to think like this with Mello pushing up against him, panting in his ear, probably pretending he's L, the bastard, but then one of Mello's little sounds that he's only barely allowing himself to make turns into a breathy "Matt", and it promptly doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter that L is dead, that Kira is winning, that Near is the successor, because Mello said his name.

Matt hopes to whatever god might exist that this power Mello has over him is love. It had better be, because it's scary as hell.

Right now, though, it doesn't really matter either way. Mello's here. Might not be here for LONG, but right now, they're together, and that thought makes Matt want to smile in spite of the overwhelming tragedy of the situation.

So he does.