Eyes Like a Cheshire Devil

Summary: "How can I leave this asylum?" Mello asked of the ginger-haired tabby. Said that Cheshire Devil to the blond, "Freedom is so precious to some that they pay for it with their lives. If it is death you insist on, then I shall cradle you with it: la petite mort."

A/N: I wrote this story completely to the music listed below. It is a Death Note meets Alice: Madness Returns meets Sucker Punch XOverish deal. I have never watched the movie Sucker Punch and never played the video game Madness Returns, but I watched the cut-scenes on Youtube. There are a handful quotes I took from the video game Alice: Madness returns. Too many for me to start listing out, and I tweaked many of them, but just know that they're there in dialogue and I'm not claiming it all to have come from my brain. This is for MelMat's birthday. I hope you like it, hon *blows kisses*

Music Suggestions: Brain Damage by Pink Floyd, Blue Monday by Orgasm, Save Yourself by Stabbing Westward, Closer by Nine Inch Nails, Madness from Alice: Madness Returns OST, Pantscada from Panty Stocking and Garterbelt OST, Turn me On by David Guetta ft. Nicki Minaj

Sword and crown are worthless here,

I invite everyone to dance

Labourers, lawyers, church and gown all make their little prance.

This life is full of random death

And heaps of grief and shame,

So few are soothed by 'accident'

You want someone to blame.

Fire, plague or strange disease,

Drowned, murdered or, if you please,

A long fall down the basement stairs

None are expected, no one cares.

I often must work very hard

Sweat running down my skin,

After the dance I then must rest

And the eating can begin.

-The Walrus' poem, from Madness Returns

"Quickly nurse, this way."

The brunette motioned for his nurse to accompany him to the 2nd floor of the Psychiatric Ward. Their journey led them past Mail Jeevas' room: the one door in the corridor that was bolted at all times. The blond charge on their stretcher seemed to take in nothing as they passed more doors and other patients. He'd been heavily sedated, and although awake, the doctor was certain he couldn't be lucid enough to take in his surroundings. Doctor Light Yagami didn't know that his newest patient could see and understand what was happening around him. The medications hadn't dulled his senses to the point of being dead to the world; they'd merely masked the world with a thin veil of hallucination. Reality teetered on fantasy. It was something unique to the blond's body that the medications only took partial effect and put him in a constant state of limbo between reality and altered reality. The two realities merged to create a single truth. A false truth. The illusion of madness.

Some curious residents of Kira Asylum peeked out through the barred windows of their doors as Dr. Yagami and Nurse Misa wheeled the blond through to the last vacant room on the floor. It was bare aside from the bedside drawers and one large dressing mirror with no glass. Next to the bed lay of crutches, ready if need called their use. Aside from the crutches, everything in the room was bolted to the floor. The walls had been painted a claustrophobic white to contrast the rotting dirty wooden floor. Mihael Keehl was moved from his stretcher and placed onto the bed, knowing exactly what was happening to him and seeing it all through the lense of the drugs. The nurse, a slight blonde creature, strapped him to the threadbare mattress and tucked him into the dingy white bedding cloth. Mihael was robed in a straightjacket but the arms were not buckled as he posed no threat, being eerily motionless throughout the journey.

"How did this one come to us, Dr. Yagami?"

"It seems someone didn't put a candle out before going to bed and the cat knocked it over. Set the whole house ablaze. Apparently he could hear the sister screaming as the flames ate away at the house and everyone inside. Drove him mad, being helpless and the only survivor, not to mention that he thinks the fire was his fault."

"The fire from the Keehl house? I read about that in the paper, So this was their son, then. I couldn't tell much with all the bandages covering his body and face. How did he escape if the rest of the family died?"

"They said he jumped through a second story window. How he lived through the jump is another mystery. Then he tried to claw his way back inside for the others and a burning beam of wood landed right on him. Hence the bandages. We're lucky his face didn't half melt off! It's hard to sell damaged goods. There will be some slight scarring but that might just add to the image. The clients will be pleased. Who wouldn't pay handsomely to fuck a such a raving beauty?"

Misa looked over the blond as he lay on the bed, his eyes moving but showing no sign of the high intelligence that lay deep in his mind. Mihael was indeed beautiful, more so than any woman she's ever seen, but his eyes seemed to rip at her in a way that triggered her instincts to run. It didn't matter that he posed no danger in his sedation. She thought he was terrifying, like a demon hidden in an angel's skin.

The nurse suppressed a shudder and tried to humanize her charge a little by asking for his name."What are we going to call this one?"

"Mello."

Light Yagami smoothed one of his hands across Mihael's hair before ushering Misa out.

He whispered, "You are a premier piece of ass, my little one. It was well worth killing your family to have you as part of my collection. Sleep well, I'm putting you to work soon."

But sleep would not come for the blond teenager. In a way, sleep would never come for that tortured mind after genius cogs began to turn, one side of his brain forming plans as another simulated their execution. One layer of Mihael took in the room and remembered the faces of patients, the colors of the walls, the objects in rooms. Another level of Mihael floated in subspace. Flashes of reality and fantasy all merged in the reunion of the conflicting realities. But the illusion of madness was simply an illusion, manufactured from the drugs surging through his veins. For others, it was enough to incur true madness, but Mihael was sane and alert, even without the appearance of having his mental facilities. His damaged perception brought him a clarity known to no other in all of the asylum.

A smile crept across his face. He knew. Light should have strangled his newest charge, and the bastard might have if he'd understood that in the span of minutes, the blond had figured out the secret to the place. Mello had heard the confession, and the suspicion had turned into truth. Doctor Yagami was a sham. The asylum was crawling with manufactured madmen, and fuck if Mello was gonna stay as a prisoner of its walls.

The walls knew all the secrets of the asylum and they urged the boy to fight for his freedom.

Nurse Misa walked among the charges, prodding and poking them with a large syringe and whacking some for good measure. " Remember kiddies! Good workers stay alive! Bad workers are dead. Bah! Don't be a bad worker or you shall join the land of the unliving. Eeeheeeheee."

The ward contained an area for recreation, where the assembled residents communed to work at small menial tasks: painting, cleaning, cooking, making an assortment of objects. The asylum would sell things to make money. It was Doctor Yagami's way of providing therapy for his slaves, if anyone from the 'outside' was to come and visit. Each and every one of them had to be doubly productive, during the day and during the night. The night time was when the real money came in. Not that they knew much of what happened in the night time, as convenient little pills helped erase such fantastical nightmares as the patients often had. Silly 'dreams' of rich men coming in and touching them in ways that left their bodies throbbing and bloodied. They knew not to complain to the nurse anymore. She'd scoff and tell them them they must have hurt themselves while sleeping and the only way to stop it would be to strap them to their beds. Or they could pray for better delusions. But such things were always forgotten in the bliss of morning medication, for those who hadn't been there long enough to build a tolerance to the shit. Mihael was the exception. He knew the truth.

Nurse Misa stopped before the asylum's newest charge and scowled, "Mello! Your unit has yet to meet quota. Do not stop working or I'll put you in the isolation room with the catty brat."

Mello cringed. The isolation room was the room down the hallway from his. There were chains on that door and anyone passing by would hear tortured screams from within. The Cheshire Devil lived there. His striped fur was always stained red with blood. That cat was mad, terribly mad, a danger to himself and anyone who entered the room with him.

Nurse Misa moved on to another group, but not before petting Mello's work partner between the ears and commending him for a job well-done. Mello glared at the exchange.

"You need to work harder," the rabbit spoke, "It is your fault for working so slowly."

Mello, as he'd learned to answer to, absolutely hated the rabbit. It was white-haired lazy-ass fucker who never did its share of the work. It always spoke nonsense and tried to shove its own work onto the blond. Like with the chores they were supposed to be doing. If the damned rabbit had done his half properly, the nurse wouldn't have scolded them, and Mello desperately didn't want to get locked in the room with the blood-stained cat.

He dropped the scrub brush he'd been holding, stuck his tongue out at the rabbit and scoffed. "You are not moving. If you don't work, then I'll make sure you are the one thrown in isolation!"

"I am moving so fast that you cannot even detect that I have left and returned to the same spot. You are such an idiot that the deficit of your intelligence brings you to such sad conclusions. You need to learn the pecking order before you challenge someone of my ranking."

Mello stilled in his scrubbing of the floor, suddenly struck with the idea that something was terribly wrong. He looked between the nurse's receding figure and his hands and the nurse again, and the colors around him distorted. He blinked. He was talking to a rabbit and scrubbing a floor. That wasn't right. He needed to leave. Chores were trivial. He needed to follow the plan. Illusions and reality merged and split again, allowing him to find the truth in the distortion.

"Ranking?" Mello furrowed his brow, "Are you fucking high? We need to get out of this shit hole! Do you understand what is happening here?"

"Rankings," the rabbit continued, "are everything here. I am number one. I am the best. The clients love me the most. You shall not take that from me."

Mello grabbed the scrub brush from the floor and tossed it at the rabbit. It hit him square in the forehead and and Mello made made to punch him, holding his fist high above the boy's head. Boy. A boy's head. Not a rabbit's, but a boy's.

Mello blinked, his fist already bloody from punches that he couldn't recall throwing. Under him was a smaller teen, dead eyes peaking out through a snowy white fringe. The side of his cheek was swollen and puffy; blood dripped from the corner of his lips where the skin had split. That was the least of the damage inflicted. Long gashes ran all along his torso and right where the heart should be, a large fork poked up from mangled flesh. Mello blinked again. He wasn't in the common area. He hadn't been scrubbing a floor. He was in the kitchen, crouched over a dead boy.

There had never been a rabbit.

"Fuck! Mello, stop this already. We don't have time to play around, Misa will come check on us in half an hour. Now step off of him. We need to dispose of the body."

The blond felt his hand drop as he turned to the soft voice of the person who'd touched his shoulder. It was the one who lived in the door next to him. One of the dark-haired twins, the one who always made jams in the recreation room.

"I had to kill him," Mello heard himself saying, the words sounding millions of miles away as colors danced in front of his eyes, "It was him or us. He was going to rat us out."

It was as if his memories had suddenly opened doors and information was flooding to his brain. Near was a traitor! He'd been tasked to steal keys from the nurse, since she was always nice to him, but instead of aiding the escape plan, he'd turned on them. Mello had overheard him telling Linda about his plan to undermine the escape by telling Doctor Yagami about Mello's movements, about the missing objects and about items discretely stolen from clients. They'd gathered a knife and a lighter and now they had keys too. Keys that Mello pried from Near's cold dead fingers. Mello didn't need to justify himself for Beyond Birthday or L who stood at his sides and watched the grisly scene. They knew the risks involved with the plan. He expected they might have acted much the same way had they found the traitor themselves.

The blond found he had no pity for the lifeless body in front of him but the second twin seemed to grieve the situation. He apologized to Near for being a product of the asylum, knowing no other world than the abrasive existence within.

Beyond disagreed, "We shouldn't have let this little shit face in on it in the first place. You did what you had to. You are not a murderer, Mello. This place abuses our minds and our bodies and he was simply the puss to get squeezed out of the system."

"It's not that simple, Beyond," answered the other twin, "We are captors of our abusers, but we know the truth. We cannot just sit through the pain inflicted upon us. This one witnessed pain, experienced our same pain, and thought he would betray those who wished to act against it! There is no mercy for his crime, because we would be the fodder for more injustice. Death was a sad penalty for this one, but the damage of allowing him to live was far too great. We must seek our retribution. And take the keys that life has handed to us. Yet, we cannot put him in the same place as our enemy. Near was not our enemy. He was as confused as any of us have been."

Mello stepped off the body and took the knife from Beyond's hands, "Let's get rid of him before we get caught."

The three of them worked quickly, slicing the body and quartering it. L produced a set of meat hooks from which they anchored chunks and peeled the skin away, revealing bones, arteries, muscles...They were in blood up to their elbows, the redness smeared across every inch of the floor, the table, everything. Beyond Birthday grabbed a metal canister from below the sink and they threw the body chunks into it.

"How will we get rid of this?"

"The furnace," Mello replied, tossing wood chunks into the stove, "We will have to burn it all away."

Just as they wiped the last bit of blood from the floor, the Nurse opened the kitchen door, its heavy frame creaking as it swung shut behind her. Misa looked at Mello and asked him how progress was. Mello opened his mouth to reply that she could shove progress up her slutty little ass, but was surprised to find himself standing over a steaming pot of stew. The shock left him speechless as he once again looked over the room, unsure of his surroundings. There was a pleasant smell of fresh bread coming from the oven area.

Beyond Birthday smiled, "Lunch is almost ready."

Misa stepped beside Mello and peered into the pot where chunks of meat swirled with carrots and potatoes, "What did you fellas make for us today? Smells delicious."

Again, the dark haired one answered, "Lunch is rabbit stew."

When Misa had left, Mello turned himself around the room once more. On the table was a bloodied knife, the same that had been in his hand moments before the blonde woman had stepped into the kitchen. There was no evidence of what they'd done to Near. Not even a bloodied scrap of clothing.

"Where did L go?" he suddenly queried, when the dingy kitchen walls produced no other escape route than the single door Misa had entered and exited from.

Beyond smiled at him, and patted him on the shoulder, "Who is L?"

Mello began to explain that L was Beyond's twin, the one two shared a room with him, the one who...the one...who...He stopped cold, again. Memories slipped and disappeared. He couldn't recall ever meeting anyone called L. He couldn't recall anything. He suddenly wasn't even sure what his own name was!

Mello frowned, "Lunch is rabbit stew?"

Beyond Birthday's face held knowing smile. In his hand was a rabbit's foot, which he dangled for the blond to see, "We just cut him up and threw him in, remember? I kept this as a souvenir."

Something was not right, but Mello couldn't tell which conflicting facts created which set of realities. In his pocket was a set of keys that he knew the white-haired boy had stolen for him. But as he looked around the room, he saw no traces of L. No traces of Near.

Mello resigned himself to one illusion. It had always been a rabbit.

There had never been a boy.

When the blond wasn't looking, the raven-haired man slipped an ear into a jar filled with pickled pork skins and chucked to himself for his genius hiding spot. He frowned at Mello's head as he went back to the stewing pot and stirred it again. How would Mello know about L? Lawliet had been dead a good ten years, long before Beyond had entered the asylum. If he closed his eyes he could just feel the warm blood of his brother as he'd bathed in it when they were kids. His mother had found him like that, splashing around in the tub and squishing Lawliet's entrails between his toes. What a glorious day that had been!

Beyond thought very fondly on that memory, and on how good his mother had tasted when he'd cooked her in a stew like this one. He couldn't wait for lunch. After all, he was rather fond of human meat.

It had been a month since he'd been brought to the asylum, and in that time he'd lost all sense of dignity as a human being. Night after night they came—the clients. Filthy dirty men to sully their skin and make them scream and claw and bite into the mattresses. Mello wanted out. The walls kept urging him to fight. He almost had every element he needed to escape, but he needed more help. The last phase required something special that only a specific client could provide. Only that client wasn't one of his. That particular client may have liked blonds, but only the females. He couldn't get the item without help.

He punched the wall in frustration, the sting of which had him reeling backwards in pain. A girl from the common room asked if he was alright. Mello believed she was the painter. He didn't really care. Then a thought occurred to him. Perhaps she could help.

When the tingling in his fingers died, he lifted himself from the floor and wiped his bloody fingers on her shirt, "Linda. Do you enjoy this life?"

She didn't answer with words but simply shook her head in response.

"Linda?"

The girl apprehensively answered. "Yes?"

"Do you want to leave this shit hole?"

"Of course," she replied automatically.

"Then I need you to steal something for me. I have a plan to get out of here."

"Do you have a death wish? Do you know what happened to the last one who tried to escape? Have you ever peeked into the isolation room? Do you have any idea what they did to poor Matt?"

Matt? Was that what they called the Cheshire Devil? Mello had only seen glimpses of his battered and tortured form. He didn't know the reasons that Dr. Yagami kept him locked up. Mello thought for a moment before pushing Linda forward with his thoughts.

"You don't have to steal anything then. Just make sure you get visited by the priest."

"What the hell am I gonna get off of that old codger?"

"Get him to give you his rosary. Tell him you've converted. I don't care if you have to let him fuck a new hole into your ass, just get damn rosary."

The blond grabbed her hand and held onto it, his eyes pleading in earnest, "We will get out of here. I promise you."

Linda couldn't refuse the intensity of his eyes. The fire that burned in them was enough to ignite a small spark of hope in her chest. And they were allowed to receive presents from the patrons, so she couldn't get into trouble by following Mello's orders. It was a safe plan, with a low gamble for error. She gave her agreement and left Mello to his plans. He had a new idea, but it was going to prove the most risky of all. The blond sought out the raven-haired man once again and explained what he needed. The two began to fight, viciously, arms flinging, feet kicking, everything they weren't supposed to do. Fights were expressly forbidden. Only clients could leave marks.

When the fight was broken up, Mello was pointed to as the instigator and thrown into the isolation room.

Just. As. Planned.

The isolation room was more like a dungeon, walls dark with little light to see by. The cat didn't seem surprised to see him once they were locked alone together. Mello swallowed his fear and looked the other over. The striped fur was matted with blood but the chains were gone. The tabby moved freely around and cocked its head at Mello, intrigued by the blond.

"So you have returned to me," the cat began. "Are you ready to find your way home, Mello? Only a very few find the way, and most of them don't recognize it when they do. Delusions, too, die hard with memory. Only the savage regard the endurance of pain as the measure of worth. Forgetting pain is convenient, remembering it agonizing. But recovering the truth is worth the suffering and your mind, though damaged, is safe in memory... for now."

Mello gaped. Something was wrong. Terribly wrong. He'd come to ask the cat the way out, but suddenly he felt cornered. Those golden eyes seemed to own him and all he wanted to do was run. Where was his strength? Where was his resolve? Mello grabbed at the door, instantly regretting that he'd been locked in their with the other.

Amusement played on the cat's lips, "Remember the last time you came to visit me? I told you to stop running away. You said you could handle whatever it was. Are you still doubting yourself, Mello? Have you fully remembered what happened the night you lost everything in a blaze? Do you know who killed your family?

"It was—"

"It was Yagami, Mello. You didn't kill anyone, Mello. You didn't start the fire, even by accident. Think about it. Remember. Remember everything that you've seen and stop running away from the clues!

Mello hugged himself close. "I remember. I didn't leave any lit candles that night. Mother and father and my sister had gone up to bed before me and I was the last one in the parlor with a candle. The hearth was already put out and I blew my candle out before going up the stairs. Then I went to my room and the cat followed. I woke up when I heard the screaming. It was coming from my sister's room. I got out of bed and ran across the hall but the smoke was already coming from below. She was screaming. Her voice was the one I've been hearing in my dreams all this time. I thought it was my own screaming but it was really hers! The door was locked and she was screaming 'Monster'. 'Monster!' And then there was the sound of keys and she cried out in great pain. I couldn't open the door; it was locked from the inside. I never even made it to Mother's room. The smoke was so thick and black and my eyes were watering but I couldn't tear myself away from my sister's door. Because I heard her accuse him with her last breath. Someone was in her room the night of the fire. Someone who had been watching us all for days. It was the doctor, Light Yagami. I remember the man because he always jingled like the many keys he kept around his neck. But I lived. And he has tried his best to break me by turning me into one of his subjects. I'm...I'm an experiment. Cheshire Demon, how do I leave the asylum? I think you know and I've come to find you so I could ask. Which way is out?"

The cat slunk close to Mello and gazed at him through unnatural golden eyes.

"Out is a relative term. The truest way out is to die. Then you will truly be out—of your mind, your skin, your soul…Freedom is so precious to some that they pay for it with their lives. But you are precious to me, so if you wish for death, then I will cradle you in it: la petite mort."

The cat suddenly attacked Mello's jugular, purring, "Let me give you the out of body experience. Allow your mind to float in subspace while your body does whatever it likes. Oh. I think you'd like this."

The Cheshire Demon sunk its teeth into Mello's neck and he cried out. He was startled to find that he did like it. Mello found himself clawing at the floor, his limbs twisting in odd ways that he couldn't control.

"Cheshire Demon, what are you doing to me?" he panted.

"Isn't it obvious?" the tabby purred, his ginger hair ruffling against Mello's goosebumps, "I am showing the way that you seek. I'm going to fuck you so hard that you'll think this is the way out."

Mello's eyes widened, "B-but you're a cat? You can't...we can't. That's not even possible."

"Such beautiful eyes, and yet the cannot see. It can't be helped. I'll lend you mine."

The Cheshire Devil squeezed his eyes and dug at them with his claws until they ripped from his face. He licked his lips, never once losing his deep grin as he handed his eyes to Mello, "Try them on. They'll help you see things clearly."

"Are you mad? How can I—"

But the Cheshire Demon was already shoving the eyeballs against Mello's. He felt them pushing against his own, pushing his eyes against their sockets with stinging precision.

And then…

Nothing.

Mello blinked.

The world was tinted orange through the lenses of the goggles he found pressing against his face.

There was no cat. He was in the special cell.

With the redhead boy. The one they called Matt.

"Oh my God!" Mello clawed at the floor, splintering his fingernails. He didn't have time to think or see or talk. When in the hell had they gotten into that position? He was on his back, his spine skidding across the floor as Matt fucked him so forcefully his brain was jarring from the movement.

The redhead's hands moved over his mouth as he thrust violently into the blond. The movements were wild, desperate, so much that Mello's body was entirely alive. It was nothing like putrid animals that paid to screw them every night. The boy who moved within him was attentive to Mello's pleasure, his hands roaming his length and pumping along in time with his movements. The roughness alternated with tender touches and kisses that left him breathless.

Mello couldn't even think.

"Fuck! I know now why you're the favorite," Matt breathed against his shoulder, expletives flowing freely as he pushed himself as deeply as the blond's body could accommodate.

Mello tried to speak but all he could do was cling to the other's sweating torso. The sensation was alien, but every time Matt slid into him, it was like fire dancing across his nerve endings and he couldn't speak. He was feeling too many things at once. Through the orange of the lenses the eyes of the other man were terrifyingly lucid; such a contrast from what Mello had seen in the other patients. He could tell they were green and glittering and gorgeous. But thoughts were fleeting. He couldn't think. He dug his nails and anchored himself onto the redhead until fluids covered them both in evidence of their frantic lust filled affair.

Mello couldn't move; it was as if his legs were turned to jelly and he could only hold onto Matt as he had done in the moments before. Those bright green eyes staring back at him with intelligence that shouldn't have been possible where they were. The pupils weren't dilated as they should be. The man was sober. Suddenly Mello wanted to see those eyes in all their brilliance. He imagined the color would be much sharper if he removed those silly goggles that had been forced on him. He made to yank them off but Matt caught his hand in the process and pulled him close in an embrace.

Against the cold hardness of the wooden floorboards, Mello's body melted against the heat of Matt's hug.

"Don't. Keep the goggles on and the stupid nurse won't be able to see your eyes. You'll be able to throw up the meds like I've been doing, and keep them from drugging you up. You'll need to think as clearly as possible tomorrow or the plan will go to shit, remember?"

That's when things clicked into place. Memories flooded his system instantly. Reality merged with reality and there was no hidden truth, everything was plain as day. He could see all the things that had taken place over weeks. How he'd conspired with Matt about escaping. How he'd tried to get Beyond in on it. How he'd collected things and how absolutely right Matt had been about Yagami. They were fighting to get out. They were fighting for a chance at freedom, or else they'd die in the shit hole once their usefulness as sex slaves had passed.

Mello's eyes softened with the memory of other nights spent this way, with Matt nuzzling his chest and stroking his hair so softly that tears threatened to fall. A small love in a world of pain and hatred and depression.

With his lips against the redhead's he whispered away, "You can't protect yourself from them if you don't keep the goggles. Tomorrow we make our move and I need you thinking clearly or we might not both make it."

"Mello we've been over this already…"

"No," the blond asserted, "We leave together or die trying. And I can do this without hiding my eyes. You need these goggles because I need you tomorrow. We'll do this, Matt. Together."

Mello pulled them off his own head and lay them gently beside them. Matt could put them on in the morning, throw up the damn hallucinogens and be ready to join Mello for the last hurrah. Mello just needed Linda's rosary and everything would be in place. It didn't matter if he was drugged, he could handle Yagami. He could handle anything with that redhead by his side.

And suddenly he wanted him all over again. The blond threw his lips against the other's, and they kissed deeply. When they pulled away, Matt had his cocky grin plastered all over his face.

That demonic cheshire grin.

No, Mello corrected himself, it wasn't the smile of a demon. It was the smile of the devil.

"Linda's getting me the rosary."

"Good, we'll try this thing tomorrow then."

"Yeah. Tomorrow, we face the Jabberwock. So let's make good use of our last night here together."

Mello let his hands roam the other's body and he bit Matt possessively. He loved the sound of the redhead's voice as he touched him and allowed himself to be touched once more.

Anyone walking by would have heard the screams from within the cell, but for once, none of them were tortured.

Every cry was from pure ecstasy.

"Sometimes, even the most rational and logical parts of us can't reconcile the vast chasm between who we are and who we've been taught we're supposed to be. Why have you come here, Mello? What sins do you wish to confess? Where is the disjunct between your mind and your body?"

Mello sat alone with Doctor Yagami in his office, for his 'checkup'. He had the item he needed, the only one he really needed. The others had the pieces they required. Mello hoped everything would work.

"I've come to pray for your absolution, Doctor Yagami.

Light frowned, "Pardon?"

Mello stood at his full height and spat at the doctor, "If my mind could be so fully distracted that I could never come back to reality...if my mind was destroyed enough that I'd never remember the night I lost my family, then maybe I'd be a little less miserable. As things are, those drugs seem to have lost their edge. I remember. I remember everything. I will no longer play in this nightmare you have created for me. You will rot in jail for your crimes like the driveling bastard you are."

Light laughed, "Hmph! So Misa's suspicions were right? You are lucid. Stupid boy, do you know how much money I make from you? Well go ahead, go to the police if you want. No one would believe the words of a deranged lunatic. I am a doctor. I have the protection of the patrons. They knew what goes on here and no one is going to stop it because you are the forgotten filth of this city. I am simply supplying what they need in the best way."

Mello smiled and slipped the rosary out from his neck. Linda had been good on getting it from the priest. The doctor wouldn't suspect a thing.

"Will you pray with me anyways? I feel so foolish trying to stand up to you like this." he batted his eyelashes innocently at the man.

The doctor smirked, "Well at least you're not completely stupid. I'll humor you for a moment. Come here."

Yagami took Mello's hand then shoved him down onto the floor, "As if I'd actually do something for you after you slander my name? On you little slut. Do what you're good at and I might not kill you."

Mello unbuttoned the doctor's trousers and placed his hand against the pathetic little worm until it grew, only slightly between his fingers. Well at least he knew Yagami hadn't been fucking the nurse. He doubted she'd be satisfied with that pitiful thing. He made to put his mouth on it and the doctor slid his fingers through Mello's hair pushing him down hard, but it wasn't like Mello could actually gag on it. It was too small.

And then Mello bit it clear off.

He sunk his teeth through the flesh and relished in the agonizing scream that pierced through the air.

He spit the offending appendage out, blood staining his teeth and he called for his accomplices as the doctor rolled and cried in agony.

"Oh my, the most sensitive nerves in your body all lie in your dick, don't they? But I'm sure you don't have to be a doctor to know that." Beyond Birthday smirked as he rushed into the room, Linda and Matt behind him.

"Did you take care of the nurse?"

Linda twirled keys on her fingers, "Bitch is locked up tight in the isolation room. Everyone else is near the entrance like you asked, ready to bolt as soon as we unlock the front door."

"Good." Beyond made quick work with is knife, skinning bits of the doctor's flesh. Every cry met their ears in a delicious orchestra. It sounded like justice. Matt grabbed both of Light's legs so Mello could finish the job that he started, giving the doctor of taste of their pain and humiliation.

"And I shall take my vorpal blade," the blond spoke as he took the rosary and lowered it into the man's ass, "and you're soo not being a very good Jabberwock, Doctor. Be a little more fearsome, after all, I'm here to slay you."

Mello shoved the metal relic deep into Yagami's orifice and scraped around as roughly as he could. He snickered and he sneed with is 'vorpal sword' and cut and violated with every flick of his wrist.

"Remember not to kill him while you're up there, Beyond. We need him to stay alive through the next part."

"I don't think we should kill him at all," Linda asked. "We could bring our case before a judge. We could!"

"As if anyone would hear our story. This is our justice. We enact it now, or we crawl back into our cells to die."

Matt agreed, "Let's send this fucker to hell."

Beyond frowned but refrained from masterfully carving through all of Light's body. He merely made the cuts deep enough to be agonizing. They sat the doctor in his chair, blood flowing freely from all over his body. Linda took a bottle of wine from the cabinet behind his desk, they broke the bottle's neck before throwing the contents onto the doctor. Matt pulled out the lighter and Linda handed Mello the set of keys that would unlock the front door and lead them all to freedom. Matt ignited the flame and threw it in the doctor's lap. Then they bolted like hell out of the office and ran towards the asylum entrance, thrusting keys into the door and letting the throng of patients out.

It was a madhouse, for once.

You could smell the smoke from the outside, as the curtains from Doctor Yagami's office had also set ablaze and the screaming was earsplitting. Mello didn't dare stay close to the building. He pulled Matt down the opposite way. They didn't want to be there when the fire department arrived.

"Beyond!" Matt called to the raven-haired man. Mello looked around wildly. He expected the raven-haired one to be on their tails. He'd been right behind them in the asylum. He followed Matt's gaze up to the second floor of Kira's Asylum, where the curtains were on fire and where Light was surely roasting in his first taste of hell's fire. But their companion was on fire too, dancing through the curtains in some twisted cabaret performance.

"Crazy-ass motherfucker. Why the hell didn't he make it out? We can't help him now. We have to go!"

They ran. Mello hoped the last man made it out alive. They didn't turn back to find out.

Getting out of London had been harder than either Matt or Mello had anticipated. The authorities were looking for them. They'd had a hard enough time just sourcing clothes. Mail had hit the jack pot when he'd swiped a man's suitcase at the train station. Not only had there been suits, but there was a pair of tickets read for their use. They washed themselves up in the riverbed and boarded the platform to God-knows-where. It didn't matter.

They had their freedom. They had each other. That was everything.

Well...almost.

"Mail."

"Hmn?" Mello turned to his companion as they stepped onto the train.

Matt patted a seat near the window for the blonde to take and repeated himself with clarity, "My name. My real name is Mail. I don't want to be called by Matt anymore."

Mello smiled at the other and returned the sentiment, "It's nice to meet you, Mail. I'm Mihael."

They locked hands as the train left the station, taking them far from that city and those memories. Mihael let himself fall against the redhead. Within minutes he'd drifted into a peaceful sleep, void of screams and fire and terrible men who did terrible things. Mail wrapped his arms around the blond and hugged him. Some people gave their lives for freedom and never saw the beauty on the other side of the fight, never tasted the peace that lay on the other side of the war. With one quick glance to see that no one was looking, Mail pressed his lips to Mihael's shoulder, grateful that they had been saved.

Thank you for reading. Reviews would be appreciated.

I hope you've had a wonderful birthday, MelMat *muah*