A/N: Hello all! I apologize profusely for the long break. Chapter 3 of Thicker Than Blood has finally been started and is being seriously worked on right now. Numerous set backs (relationship issues, packing, moving into my dorm, etc) has kept me from writing, but this came to me in a sudden return of creativity.
Now, I rarely write something long like this in this style. Really, I'm experimenting a bit at the moment, trying to keep myself active while I get back to work on my other fics. So, I'm really looking for some helpful comments and reviews here. This was supposed to be a lot longer when I first came up with the initial idea, but honestly, my writing just took it's own path and I decided to let my mind go free.
I really can't think of much more to say, so please read and review! Constructive criticism gets extra brownie points.
I hope you enjoy this while waiting for the next chapter of Thicker Than Blood!

Disclaimer - I do not own Death Note or any of it's characters.

One-Shot - "Never mind."

It all started with a few angry insults, the words "worthless" and "vain" and "fucked up" flying about as if they were wet dishcloths being hurled at each other instead of the slow piercing daggers they would become when they lay in bed at night.

Then it escalated, rapidly yet slowly, so fast it seemed almost an eternity before it was over. Mello grabbed the redhead and hauled him to his feet, eyes ablaze because everything had gone to hell and he felt hideous and Matt was of no help whatsoever. And Matt was chillingly calm about it all, because he never minded much of anything and Mello was Mello. He hated to say he loved him, the same way he hated life and hated the cards that fate had dealt him. Hated it all, but clung so adoringly to it that he made even himself sick.

In a few moments, the world turned on it's end and Mello's fist had made vicious contact with the side of Matt's head, a blow of explosive force, enough to make him stumble and cough and groan. Never before had they hit one another. They wrestled as children and made vague threats, but this was the first punch thrown between them. The calm went out the window, which was open because it was a fucking hot day and Mello was sweating in his leather cocoon and it only made him look all the more dangerous and Matt was almost crying from the pain in his head and all over.

And the worst part of it all was that Mello would never forget the look in the gamer's eyes and Matt wouldn't remember any of it, because the painkillers they give you at the hospital is potent shit, the stuff that makes you think you've just dreamed your entire life up until the moment you come to in one of those God awful beds next to some kid with pneumonia or some guy who's so fat he can't even breathe on his own anymore.

Mello blamed Matt when the redhead collapsed to the floor and stopped moving, blamed him during the frantic drive to the hospital, blamed him as the nursed asked him for ID and Mello said he didn't have any and slipped her and the doctor a few fifty dollar bills to just stop asking questions.

It was Matt's fault, because he never did anything but sit and play games, never could do anything right. His fault because he was cocky and a smartass and too stupid to know when to shut up. It was his fault because, in all the time the two had known one another, he had never been confident enough to strike back when struck, because he lacked confidence in everything about himself, because he was a bottom feeder who lived off of Mello's leftover charisma and daring and talent.

Then, when they told him that their redheaded John Doe may have some sort of intracranial hemorrhage, he slipped wordlessly from the room and out of the hospital before breaking into tears in front of a café and people stared at him and crossed the street to avoid having to walk by him.

It was his fault that he left without saying a word, so close to his 15th birthday. His fault that Matt had followed because Matt was like that and was the only person who ever cared so genuinely for him, not just because Mello was someone you either hated or adored, not just because Mello was number two and he liked to bully anyone who stood against him. His fault that the world that had once been so small, small enough to simply hold them and their needs and wants for each other, had burst forth to encompass the horrible, the disgusting, the side of life that never lets two poor, pathetic kids from an orphanage in Winchester win.

It was his fault that Matt might die without having even opened his birthday present sitting on a shelf in the closet back in their apartment.

Mello had killed men before, he'd killed more than he could have counted on his fingers and toes. Their faces came creeping back to him, unwanted and tormenting, as the café owner shooed him away, as if he were some homeless bum having some sort of drug induced fit in front of his business. So, instead, he curled up in an alley, watching the puddle of water and oil on the ground beside him ripple when the cars drove by.

He couldn't even remember the names of the people he'd murdered. Well, not all of the names. Some of them he recalled. He remembered a Tracy Grendale and her husband. She didn't have to die, really. It was her husband he'd been after, for sending him a messenger who had been strapped from head to toe with guns and orders to kill the man who was obviously in charge.

Mello had never been so thankful that Rod was the one who screamed "Mafia boss" louder than him. He was also thankful that the assassin was a lousy shot and Rod had walked away with nothing more than a bullet through the shoulder, nothing too serious.

But, Tracy...she had to scream when he'd shot her husband straight through the head, even as he begged for his life in those awful pastel green pajamas under the silk sheets of his lavish four poster bed. He remembered how her eyes had widened as she was splattered with blood and brains and fluids, deep, blue irises that Mello imagined would normally look soft and gentle and the kind that a loving wife would have, suddenly filled with terror and despair.

And she screamed, loud enough to wake the neighbors and she could see his face in the light coming in through the window and so he had to shoot her, because what else could he do?

He had to stop the noise.

Most of them screamed. A lot of them screamed. The noise was too much. It was deafening.

They all ended up dead.

Martin Waller, Carol Pierot, William and Susan Redman...

This was different.

This was just too fucking different. This was the crack in his wall. The one chink that could cause him to crumble to pieces.

Matt. Sweet, sour, salty, bitter Matt. Tasted like cigarettes, loved like a breath of fresh air. Acted cold and distant, but was more spontaneous and entertaining than Mello could ever be.

I like you, you know?

Mello could see the trail of smoke framed against the grimy alley wall. The lit cigarette drifted by as Matt's hand moved in a vague gesture, a smile that was almost not a smile (which only made it more of one, really) on his lips.

Some guy was shaking a can in his face and the blond just stared forlornly at the jingling tin for a moment. But, it couldn't have been forlornly, because Matt hadn't abandoned him.

At least not yet.

The guy with the can was muttering something about "helping a struggling man out" and went into this long story about how his daughter had a cold and his wife worked as a hotel maid and he had just lost his job because the illegal immigrants would work for a lower pay that he couldn't afford to compete with. And Mello put a twenty in the can and the man, dressed in this big, bulky, flea infested coat, gave him this lavish thanks and told him that God would bless him for his charity.

After he had left, Mello cried and laughed so hard, because the whole story was probably a lie and because he really did believe that the same God who had chucked that man out onto the street would bless him for the donation. A donation that meant nothing because Mello was loaded and he simply wanted to get away from that horrendous stench of filth and pity.

Matt was knocked out when he got back to the hospital. The woman pressed the cash he'd given her back into his palm before she left them alone together. He'd had a cut on his arm, so they had to take him into surgery to stitch it up. The clipboard at the foot of his bed said that his intracranial pressure was normal and he was simply suffering from a concussion. The nasty looking bruise on his face said he was suffering from something that none of the machines in the hospital could have detected.

It might as well have been Mello's name tattooed to the redhead's face.

There was nothing he could do but cry and hold Matt's hand. Anything more would have been insulting. Simply being there was like a cruel joke; when Matt woke up, Mello knew that the last person he wanted to see would be the guy who landed him in the hospital.

But someone had to be there, someone had to sign the paperwork and tell the nurse that Matt wasn't allergic to anything as far as he knew and he was a chain smoker and he had no other kin to contact.

That was depressing. Matt would die without anyone to miss him.

Mello would miss him, though.

Yeah, he would miss him. Because he liked Matt, too.

I think I love you sometimes.

Another nurse who had come in to check up on things gave him an odd look when he let out a strangled laugh. It was funny, really, that Matt wasn't even brave enough to just say it, to just say "I love you."

Mello knew he wouldn't do it unless he said it first. He was too scared, he'd been hurt too many times. Both of them had.

To love was to lose. To be loved was to be hurt. To be happy was to be occasionally miserable.

He had left Matt before. He knew he would, he knew it had to happen. Mello wasn't good enough to be number one and the only way to make it there was to toss life aside, toss Matt aside, toss happiness aside.

But the redhead had still welcomed him back with open arms, kept him alive without any motive other than the fact that they had been happy together when they were just boys.

It was so much more than he fucking deserved, so much more than he could ever ask.

Matt was a dog, loyal and true, never scared though he seemed it from time to time.

The fear, the intimidation wasn't what kept him at Mello's side. Those things came later, came with all of the blond's emotional baggage, all of his insecurities and his flaws and the brilliant mind he possessed.

There was so much that could have confused them both, leading them into loving an idea instead of each other. Years of guilt and scars and boyhood promises swirled around their ankles like a strong current, capable of sweeping them away from reality in an instant.

But, Mello knew his feet were firmly planted in that reality when he finally murmured "I don't think, I know I love you, Matt."

He didn't say it because of Matt's selflessness, didn't say it because they had grown up together, or because they knew they may not be able to live a normal life with anyone else, or even because he felt guilty for hitting him.

He said it...simply because it was what he felt.

It fucking hurt, to suddenly feel so alone and vulnerable and at the emotional mercy of another person.

It hurt to know that someone else had the power to destroy his world, to change it in an instant.

It shouldn't have, since Matt was asleep and hadn't possibly heard him, but the words made it real. Saying it made it the truth.

He buried his face beside Matt's hip on the bed, wishing desperately he could scream and shout and break things just to ease the awful frustration and anxiety.

He wasn't sure how long it was before he felt Matt's hand on his head and his fingers threaded into his hair.

He needed help. He knew that.

He was a horrible person, because even knowing that, he would still drive himself insane with jealousy and the need to beat Near. Anyone who could have possibly helped him was long gone.

He would probably die in the crazy house if he lived long enough. They both knew it too, they knew each other too well, knew just how doomed they were.

So, when Matt said "I love you too" on the drive home, it actually meant something.

At 3 in the morning they would "sleep", eyes wide open, beside one another and bleeding onto the sheets together. But they ignored it because it hurt too much, because there was too much there, too much anger and rage and frustration to sift through to try to find the thin thread of love and compassion that was once the only things they had. Then money and the world and this difficult thing called life tore them apart and filled that giant gap with garbage and decaying corpses with a few chocolate wrappers mixed in and sprinkled with cigarette butts.

But the thread held. It fucking held onto them and they pulled and pulled and pulled through the dirt and the stench and the shit until they could grab onto each other's hands and manage a few words to one another.

Would it ever go away? No. The damage was permanent. They would die before they ever really lived, too short a time to even uncover a shred of who they really were.

But they knew one another. That was enough. Even when Mello couldn't understand why he would just fall to his knees and cry and scream and blame the whole fucking world for pushing him down, Matt was there, saying the right thing, which was usually to say nothing, tracing his fingers over leathery skin until the blond learned to love the sensation and he finally started listening.

"They're a part of you, and I still see you. Just you." Matt loved his scars, loved him.

And when Matt would stop talking and stop seeing and stop existing, Mello was there with him, pulling him back and buffering against the pain of it all, the constant agony of existing without meaning or aspiration.

Underachieving was as much of a drug as murder and mayhem.

There were no rehab centers on Earth built for them.

And when they finally understood why something had felt so frenzied throughout their entire lives, the thread began to fray. Terror suffocated them, panic paralyzed them, and they were too absorbed in trying to snatch up what little bits of their lives they could and shove them into a bag, they lost sight of what would really happen.

The bag would be thrown into a river and never seen again.

And none of it was fair. None of it was.

And Mello cried and cried and cried alone, because Matt wasn't there even though he was sitting right next to him, eyes empty and dark because he was trying to think of something to say while trying to grasp at consciousness.

With the seconds ticking by, something went rigid and firm and indestructible.

Second thoughts, who should be with whom. Because really, Near and Mello and Matt...it was a love triangle of sorts. How would Near feel? Would he even care? Of course he would care. But how would he care? Was it loneliness or heartbreak?

No one ever thought of Matt. No one ever thought of Mello.

These were lies, and yet truths.

Mello, shifted to number two, perhaps unfairly, left with nothing but a will that no one could stop and twenty dollars in his pocket.

Matt, always content with number three, leaving with no money and pawning off his old games just to get a plane ticket.

No one ever cared until they did something about it. No one would care until they were dead.

It was Matt who stepped up first, never apologizing, never regretting, never accepting any sort of thanks, proud to be under those sheets, against that skin, listening to his voice.

And he said it.

"I love you."

The moonlight found them moving together, gasping together, sweating together, crying together. It was the best and the worst way to spend a night.

The moon slipped back behind the clouds and they disappeared.

Neither wanted to sleep, because that would mean the last dream, the last unachievable object, the last desperate search for more, more, more. They didn't want more, they didn't want to crave or need or desire. They wanted each other, they wanted those last moments, that silence and murmurs and gentle rustling of sheets.

Just before it happened, before everything got loud and bright and hot, the simultaneous thought crossed their minds.

I wish I had more time. I wish I had said it more. I wish this wasn't me. I wish I were someone else, somewhere else.

And then, with a smirk on their face, bleeding onto the street and gasping for breath, the final words echoed through their empty heads.

Never mind.