Disclaimer: Characters are not mine at all, which is probably good for them. I sincerely apologize for my flagrant abuse of Mello's girlish looks.

Also, I'm usually in the business of writing more serious fics (I have a longer, more complex, and less crack-based AU story somewhere on my plate), so this is a little new for me. It's not supposed to be believable, just fun. AU, crack, and fun. So I hope you all have fun reading this fic; I certainly enjoyed writing it.

See you at the finish line!

D

A Grievous Miss-Understanding

1 - Playing Dress-Up

"You have got to be kidding me," Mello said. "We're actually gonna go through with this?"

He stood in the middle of his bedroom with his arms crossed, shaking his head and looking incredibly peeved. Mello's the kind of guy who has two degrees of peeved: dangerously peeved and absurdly peeved. He was going for dangerous right then, and might have succeeded, but, taking their current situation into account, Matt thought that he looked rather absurd. After all, it was hard to take Mello seriously when the leather-clad, gun-toting, shoot-first-ask-later rebel-with-a-cause was staring so distastefully at a regular old shopping bag.

Matt took a long drag on his cigarette. "I don't see why not. It was your idea in the first place. And your ideas always work." He smirked. "Or so you claim."

"I was kidding about this one. Kidding. You have to know when you're taking the joke too far."

"What, now?"

"Yes, now." Mello rolled his eyes. "God, how I even got this far in life with a best-friend-slash-partner-slash-whatever-you-are who acts like you I'll never understand."

"Yeah, yeah." Matt shrugged it off with a grin; he was used to this. "Better get dressed, Princess, or we're going to be late to the ball."

Mello snatched the bag from Matt with disdain. "There have got to be easier ways to bring down a dictator. And don't call me 'Princess' if you value what's left of your life," he said, shaking the bag at Matt in a manner that was supposed to be threatening. All it did, though, was make Matt laugh again, and Mello sighed and stormed off towards the bathroom.

"I'll stop calling you 'Princess,'" Matt called after him, "When you stop acting like a pampered teenage girl."

"Fuck you!"

The bathroom door slammed shut, and Matt had to smile. Mello got so worked up for the pettiest reasons, whether the cause was one of Matt's nicknames for him ('Mel' or 'Mels' or 'Princess,' among others) or that they were out of his precious chocolate again, or just that he felt like getting ticked off that day. Although, today's excuse wasn't so petty.

Quite the contrary.

Matt had to give Mello credit where credit was due—the man was hardly as much of a "princess" as his nicknames would lead someone to believe. He was, in Matt's opinion, pretty kick-ass, a sort of vigilante with a very specific mission: bring down Kira.

It was harder than it sounded. Light Yagami, alias Kira, effectively ruled the world these days. A politician who had worked his way up through somewhat shady means, Kira now had his hand everywhere: most governments, most media outlets, most everything that mattered. To Mello, and, by extension of being Mello's beliefs, to Matt, the two things Kira was best at were spreading propaganda and terrorizing innocent people.

How exactly did he do that? He made an example of the "criminals," killing them off, one by one. Sure, he started by killing off the criminals, but somewhere along the line the definition of "criminal" stretched to include "anyone in Light Yagami's way." And Mello, who wasn't fond of tyrants and bullies, wasn't going to stand for that. No sir.

Mello and Matt had tried to work inside of the "official" rebellion at first, the one where the mysterious figureheads were known simply letters, run by "L" and "N" at the top. And Mello, who had been "M," could have gone far there, but they worked too slowly for him. Mello was cut out for things more thrilling, more violent, and more dangerous than spreading the truths about Kira's regime. So he had left the rebellion, and dragged Matt, his childhood best friend, "M2," with him, to pursue a different course of action entirely.

Namely, taking care of Kira's cronies one by one. And so far, they'd been doing well with that. But now the time was right to go for the real target: Kira himself.

"Hey!" Matt called, rapping his knuckles on the bathroom door. "Hurry up in there!"

He heard a crash, and then a curse from Mello. "I'm trying, this damn thing won't—I hate this!"

If all went well tonight, Matt and Mello were going to rid the world of Kira and his influence forever. But that was a big if. Kira was heavily guarded, and wouldn't be easy to get rid of without endangering innocents. But even before getting to Kira, they'd have to get into his little celebration (in honor of his own birthday) without being caught. And whether they could do that depended on what Mello was doing in the bathroom.

From the sound of it, things in the bathroom weren't going well at all.

"You okay?"

"Yeah, hold on a—okay, got it." A pause. "Dammit, Matt, we aren't actually doing this, are we?"

"It was your idea."

"Yeah, but I mean…it isn't going to actually work." There was a bitter, almost resigned note in Mello's voice.

"Hmmm…We'll have to see. Come out of there."

He heard a hesitant click from the knob, and the door opened.

"Holy shit," said Matt.

"What?" Mello asked, grabbing a chocolate bar from the nearest shelf and ripping off the wrapper in frustration. "Is it really that bad?"

"…No." Matt was having trouble getting his mouth to work properly. Goddammit. "No, actually, it, uh, it looks good. Really good."

He could barely believe Mello had actually put it on, but, there he stood, wearing the dress Matt had bought earlier.

Yeah, that was right. A dress. Matt couldn't really believe it either.

Maybe Mello had agreed to wear it because it was black, and Mello rarely wore anything that wasn't black. That was one point in its favor. Probably the only point. It was strapless, largely backless—some kind of halter-top thing, Matt didn't know what they were called. It fastened around the back of Mello's neck and sort of flowed down from there, except there was some sort of shiny black belt at his waist that kept it all together. It was long, but it even had a slit down one of the sides.

Anything to get Kira, Matt supposed.

"Maybe you should wear it all the time," he offered.

Mello glared at him, looking as if he were about to fling the chocolate bar at Matt's head. "You just have a death wish, don't you?"

"No, I mean, I actually think this might work," Matt said, noting Mello's big blue eyes and his blonde hair, which fell almost to his shoulders. He was just young enough and just skinny enough to pull this off. "I mean, if I didn't know it was you, I might actually consider dating you."

Mello shook his head in exasperation. "Matt, we've been over this. You, being you, would probably consider dating me anyway."

Matt, being Matt, would not just consider dating Mello, he would probably do it if he had the chance, and he thought Mello was clued in on that by this point. Or, to put it another way, Mello knew Matt was bi-something (and, for some reason, didn't care too much when he'd found out; they'd been friends for awhile, after all) but, as far as Matt could figure, didn't know exactly what Matt thought about him. He could probably guess, though. Matt wasn't quite trying to hide it as much anymore.

He slipped one of his hands in his pocket, the other still holding the cigarette. "No comment."

Mello glanced back at the mirror. "Perv. I bet you bought this thing just so you could see what I looked like in it."

Yes. "No," Matt said. "I bought it because of what you casually said a little while back. And I quote, 'Oh look, Matt, Kira's having another one of his little parties.' 'Oh, is that so, Mello?' 'Oh, indeed. Maybe we should go together and shoot him and have a jolly good time.' 'But Mello, we're wanted men!' 'That's okay, I can pretend to be your date. Then I can shoot Kira when he hits on me!'"

"I don't think it went exactly like that," Mello said, frowning. "And I wasn't serious, for God's sake. I can't pull off this dress. I don't have the figure for it."

"You have got to be fucking with me."

"No, I'm serious," Mello pressed. "Most girls have chests, Matt, as you've probably learned from your video games. I don't have anything right there. This will never work."

"Not all girls have chests," Matt corrected. "Look at Kiera Knightly. Actually, it's probably better that you're flat, because otherwise you'd have to try dealing with a strapless bra or whatever girls wear, and that would be really inconvenient as this dress has no back." Ignoring Mello's sigh, Matt looked him up and down. "You're missing something, though. Oh yeah, jewelry. There are some earrings at the bottom of the bag."

"Are you serious?"

"They're clip-on," Matt clarified. "I asked the woman at the store what I could get for someone who doesn't have piercings."

"Clip-on? Matt, those things hurt!"

Matt raised an eyebrow. "How would you know, Mel?"

Grumbling, Mello retreated into the bathroom to find the earrings and put them on while Matt waited outside, tapping his foot. This plan was actually going to be fun. That was, if they didn't get exposed, captured, publicly humiliated, and executed.

Mello turned back to Matt, fake sapphires now hanging from each ear, glittering in the light. Those stones really did complement his eyes. A nice if ridiculous complement to his eyes. God, Mello with earrings, who would have thought? "Okay," he said, rolling his eyes. "Am I done yet?"

"Almost," Matt said. "You need…hmm…you need makeup."

"Matt!"

"Well, you do. All the other girls will be wearing some. It's in the bag."

"For fuck's sake, Matt!" Mello bit into his chocolate bar, and then, suddenly, raised his head to look up at Matt. "We're really doing this?"

"Hey," Matt said, tossing his cigarette into an ashtray. "You're the one who calls the shots around here, remember? Whatever you say goes." When Mello didn't say anything, Matt put an arm around his shoulder. "You look gorgeous, babe," he said. "Always have, always will. Just don't worry about it. You need to relax. Everything's gonna be fine."

"Ha." Mello pushed Matt away. "I need to find somewhere to conceal my gun, that's what I need to do." As he went back into the bathroom, he paused and looked at himself in the mirror. "Hey, Matt?"

"Yeah?"

"Does this dress make me look fat?"

Matt gaped for a moment, then blinked and said, "…You really are fucking with me this time, aren't you."

"Yes, I am." Mello smirked. "Get your tux on, Romeo. We don't want to be late for the party."