End Transmission

AN: As I originally write this I'm on my day off from work and am editing the last chapter of Choices (that long ago I know lol) and I've found that I'm in love with this fic almost as much as I was with Choices, though this has a different feel. **shrugs **


Suggested Listening: Shatter Me With Hope by HIM

Chapter Six: Descent

Mello seemed much calmer the next morning, still down, but more himself as he chomped happily on his chocolate. It brought a smile to Matt's lips as he watched from under the cover of his goggles.

Though he was still bothered by something.

It was Friday, the last day of classes for the week, so Matt was a little anxious, that meant Near would probably be spending more time with them that night and the next few days. He hoped that everything ran smoothly.

He just wasn't sure just how much Mello could stand of the little albino...

Though he was certain that he would find out in the coming days, one way or another. It didn't bother him too much, he was sure Near wouldn't intentionally try to cause trouble... hopefully.

"Mello?" Matt questioned the blond, who stood in preparation of leaving for breakfast. Mello looked at him quizzically, head cocked to the side.

"Books." Matt reminded him. Just because Mello no longer wanted to become L, or kill himself studying at any rate, didn't mean he didn't have to keep up appearances. And Matt hated that he had to be the one to remind him as Mello's smile fell.

"Oh yeah..." Mello replied softly and bent at the hip to pick a few of them off the floor. He would never fool anyone with that look. Matt dropped his game to the bed and brought his hands up to Mello's face and stretched Mello's frown into a smile.

"Pretences." was all he said before he dropped his hands down to his side, though he did grin at Mello's look of surprise and the soft blush that tinged his friends skin with a light pink. It was kind of cute.

He followed Mello out of the room a few minutes later, after Mello had composed himself, and they sat together at the table. He spied Near as the albino glanced at them from the other table. He knew that Near wanted to sit with them, but for the moment it was impossible.

Mello ate his food while a textbook lie open in front of him, his eyes going over it as though he were actually fervently studying it. But Matt knew better. Mello's eyes had a slightly glazed look to them so he knew the blond was occupied within his own thoughts.

At least this time though, Matt knew that the blond wouldn't ignore him should he try to catch his attention. To others, he supposed, it may just seem as though they had had a small fight and resolved it.

Matt just hoped that if any of the staff were watching they wouldn't think anything other than that; wouldn't look further into it. He nudged the blond in the leg as he had hardly eaten and Mello smiled weakly and bite into a breakfast roll halfheartedly.

Matt sighed but didn't press the issue. If it went on for more than one more meal he would, but for now it just wasn't worth it.

Breakfast ended and time melted into the first class of the day. And from what he saw, Matt knew it would be a long day. The entire class was enamored with the teacher and the prospect of getting to review old cases that L had solved, in deduction class, save for three people.

Though Matt wasn't sure if he should include himself in that three or not since he had never been all that interested...

With Near it wasn't so easy to tell, as his facial expressions never changed, nor his body language, but if one looked at the way he played with his toys it was obvious. Or at least to Matt. If Near was looking to seek attention from someone, the playing and patters that his toys danced to were more intricate and flashy.

If he was thinking, the play would be slower and more methodical, strategic.

And if he was just playing or bored, everything would simply be chaotic. Disoriented. The same went if he were stressed. And from the lack of pattern during the teachers lecture, he was bored. Though considering the past few days it was possible that it was a mix of a few things.

With Mello however, Matt could easily see that the blond was struggling with his attempt at acting as though everything were normal. That he was still interested in everything about L. Mello still held a wide lipped smile and his eyes were still locked on the teacher but there was a strain to the smile.

And if one actually paid attention to the blond they would notice his gaze was actually on the wall behind the teacher. He was probably attempting to count the small and almost invisible cracks in it.

He sighed softly.

Perhaps he should have kept everything to himself. Sure they deserved to know, but they would have been happier not knowing, right?

Had it been the right thing to do, telling them?

How was he to know...

Damn L, or Mr. Wammy or whoever put him in that difficult position. Damn them all.

Matt almost allowed his expression to fall into something distinctly unhappy before he remembered he was supposed to be the apathetic one. The one who generally didn't care about anything.

Not even Mello or Near should know just how worried he was over it. Mello may not have unraveled quite that bad, and Near may not have been showing it quite yet, but neither of them would be able to deal with the knowledge that he may be just as jarred by all of it as them.

Whether or not the other two understood it, they were leaning on him for support, because he was the only constant. And no matter what he felt, he had to maintain that image for them. Once again, Matt wondered how he had gotten into that mess.

By the time lunch appeared Matt was ready to bang his head against a wall just to stop the direction of his thoughts. Whenever he wasn't able to drown his darker thoughts out with games, hacking or sleep he always dug himself into a hole with the circles his brain went in.

In his hurry to make sure Mello had his textbooks, and everything else that had seemed glued to him in the last weeks, he had forgotten his game on the bed. So he had had nothing to entertain him for the last few hours other than his thoughts.

It had not been a pleasant experience in the least, but he would be the last to blame Mello for something like that. So for Matt, lunch hadn't arrived soon enough. He had practically run past Mello and back to their room in his haste to get his games.

He was incredibly bored without them and he knew that Mello wouldn't mind much as he couldn't function properly without his customary chocolate in hand either. To each their own. And they all had their addictions.

He checked the battery on the handheld before he rushed to meet Mello in the dining hall. And once there, he held out his game to the blond before he could even think to question him. "I left it in the room earlier."

Mello nodded in understanding and went back to his textbooks though Matt knew he wasn't actually interested in them, and had anyone looked they would have spotted the book that was nestled in the middle of it, a mystery novel perhaps?

Not that it really mattered, Matt was only mildly curious.

And despite the rather bland lunch Matt couldn't help but want it to last a little longer. He didn't want to return to classes so quickly though he knew there was no choice in the matter. He supposed it could have been worse.

L could have scheduled one of his computerized 'meetings' for them. He doubted that Mello could have worked himself into a state where he appeared happy about it at the moment. Thankfully, at least to Matt's knowledge, there was nothing scheduled or in the works.

Which left them in the boring classes. He knew that should they completely agree on succeeding L, as everything was still too new for them to truly have come to any one decision after only one night of talking, that they would have to catch up on what they were tuning out.

But as Wammys top three he doubted they needed to study to understand all of it. While still young, they were in a league far above the other L contenders. And they knew it. It was why none of them ever bothered much with the other children and vice versa.

For so long Matt had been the benchmark to beat and he had hated it. Then Mello had come along and knocked him aside and he hadn't minded one bit. The two of them were perfectly suited to be friends because Matt didn't care.

Then Near came and was smarter then the both of them. It had been a bitter pill for Mello to swallow and Matt doubted the blond ever would have ever gotten over it had it not been for the disastrous thing's he'd found.

Apart they weren't anything truly special, each with their own special traits and shortcomings, but together they could be something. Or at least Mello and Near together could be something, Matt was just a background player, at least that was what he saw himself as.

And truth be told it suited him better than anything else.

He watched as Mello was quiet in his walking back to class, and even more so in class despite the fake smiles and attention he was lavishing the teacher was glad no one else, besides perhaps Near, knew the blond as well as he did.

Matt paid only the barest amount of attention to the lesson, just in case he were asked a question, but mostly concentrated on watching Mello and Near while playing his handheld. He knew that each passing day would be just as boring and mind numbing from then on, more than it had been before, but also knew that there was no going back.

For any of them.

He wondered if the other two had figured that out yet, if it had sunk in yet. Matt wasn't so sure. Anger and denial were fickle things and until they were beaten into the background it was hard to say just what someone thought, even someone you knew almost better than yourself.

Mello twitched every time the teacher mentioned L and how great he was, being the best detective in the world, and decided that even if Mello was still allowing his anger to cloud things over, it was alright.

Because Mello at least focused with anger. Sometimes...

What Near thought was another matter entirely and Matt found he didn't really want to try to figure out that puzzle, at least not until he knew the boy better. And with how much he was sure he would be seeing of him in the coming days, months and possibly even years, he was sure he would get to know him at least a little.

His attention was perked as the teacher mentioned them each being assigned a partner, of sorts, for the new project. Though they would be having partners, they would also be competing against them.

It was a race to solve the case before the other, and once it was done, they had to collaborate and go over the data together and pick apart each others reasoning's. So not only would they be expected to compete against the class as a whole, not that it really mattered, they would be going against their partner.

Matt thought it was a grandly stupid idea. He wondered just how many would get worse marks on this than usual. And then the teacher began announcing the partners.

"Mello and Near." and then Matt thought that the project might have its merits.

Mello's chair slid back as he stood, a look of absolute shock and fury on his face, though Matt could tell that most of it was faked this time, as he slapped his hands on the desk and shouted in objection.

The project would give Near a definite excuse to visit their room, the only problem being the fact that he would have to work with someone else. Matt watched as the blond stormed from the room after he'd snarled something at Near, who looked rather amused in his own way, and almost smiled.

Had any of Mello's act been real he might have feared a little for Near's safety, but for the moment at least, Mello had been faking. Though his emotions were volatile so it was possible come a day or so from now he would mean it.

Being around Near for any length of time tended to do that to Mello, even in the best of circumstances. Though to be fair, Matt knew that Mello had never before attempted to control himself around the albino.

He had never wanted to. Not at all in the short time he'd known him, which Mello stated felt like eons rather than the few short weeks. The blond tended to be overly dramatic at times.

Mello hadn't returned to class, not that Matt had expected him to, as even now it would have seemed too much like defeat, like slinking back after having licked his wounds, and even if it were faked it was not something the blond would ever do.

It was not something anyone expected him to do.

And Matt had never been more thankful for the end of class as he was after they'd been told to meet with their partners, as he'd been stuck with Linda; an energetic pigtail-haired girl who was better suited as an artist than a detective. Matt generally rather liked to ignore her as she tended to annoy everyone, including himself.

She was a natural gossip and talked about everything and anyone with anyone in earshot. She was also not afraid to ramble on about inane and pointless things that happened in her daily life. She was nice, but she was annoying. And a snoop.

Matt would have rather been paired with anyone else.

But from the way the teacher had gone about assigning partners it would have been impossible. First with second, third with forth and so on. Linda was ranked forth, though Matt had yet to figure out why.

"Hey Matt! Matt wai-" he slammed the bedroom door in her face and locked the door behind him. He looked up from his game to find Mello stretched across his bed and stretching in a cat-like manor with a squeak.

It was almost cute.

"You got stuck with Linda, you poor soul." Mello mumbled with a half-grin. Linda continued to knock on the door for another minute or so before yelling to him that she would be back after she had solved the case.

They had been given a week to do so, though it was expected that they solve it sooner or there wouldn't be anytime for the rest of the project. That and it had been hinted that L had solved it in just over a day.

Matt guessed that most would make critical mistakes in their haste to solve it fast. He didn't feel bad for those mindless sheep. "Have you looked the case yet?" Mello asked him and he shook his head.

He hadn't exactly been paying all that much attention to the words coming out of Linda's mouth so much as hoping that they would stop. She had a way of breaking your train of thought until it was nothing more than scattered ideas that you were unable to string back together until you were out of her presence.

Perhaps her field would best be interrogation and information gathering, she seemed innocent enough to disarm people who didn't know her and had a unique effect on people. Or something like that.

"Will the two of you be able to behave when I have to work with her?" he asked as he slumped to the floor in front of his playstation. Mello snorted and Matt heard the snap of chocolate.

"If Near can. Besides, I doubt we'll be working on that too much. More like pretending." Matt nodded to him, though he still heard the uncertainty in Mello's voice. It would definitely take more than a few days for the blond to get used to the idea that Near was not the enemy he had made him out to be.

But he was making progress and that was the best Matt could hope for.

"Just make sure to keep me informed on whatever you two decide, alright?" he told the blond. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the way Mello froze, as though he hadn't even considered discussing anything without Matt there. It made him smile.

Even though Mello hadn't said anything back, Matt knew that Mello's answer was yes. Worse came to worse, if for whatever reason he was not able to see Mello's for any length of time, or in private enough for things to be gone over, there was always Near.

Though Matt was not so sure that would be a good idea quite yet; going to Near instead of Mello, that is. But if it came to it, Matt would do it, and Mello would just have to get over it if he had a problem.

But whatever happened, Matt was sure that things would be alright. With the three of them working together, what could go wrong?

While Mello stared out the window, looking over the now overcast skies, Matt entertained himself with playing Zelda. It wasn't the best of games, he'd rather play Mario but that game had disappeared from his shelf a while ago and hadn't returned since, but it helped to pass the time until dinner.

Mello brought a textbook with him, with his novel stuffed in the middle amidst papers, and Matt brought his handheld. As Near passed them in the hallway on the way there, he inclined his head ever so slightly in greeting, and Matt was almost surprised as Mello nodded back before he adopted a look of utter disdain.

Matt just kept his expression neutral, bland, though inwardly he was smiling.

-End Descent-

AN: And things finally start to come together now... :) Poor Matt, having to work with Linda... and I wonder where his Mario game went... heh.

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