i searched every pocket that hung in the closet till i found some matches in a brown leather jacket, one i swore i never wore...

Matt twisted a cigarette between his fingers and let out an audible shiver.

"You sick?" Mello asked lazily from the other side of the room. " 'Cause it's not cold in here."

"Dunno." Matt shrugged, digging through his pockets; his lighter was gone and he seemed to be out of matches. "You seen my lighter?"

Mello gave a low grunt. In the short time between his question and Matt's response, he'd managed to doze off. Matt couldn't help but smile at this. Mello looked (dare he think it?) peaceful and like maybe everything in his mind was okay for once. This probably wasn't the case, but Matt could close his eyes and pretend and then the stress-induced knots in his stomach would untwist until oh, yeah, this is reality and Mello is totally messed up kicked in.

But honestly, all Matt really cared about was the fact that he wanted to light the stupid cigarette that he was basically clinging on to.

"Mello... Wake up for a second."

"Whuh-- huh?"

"Have you seen my lighter?"

"No." Mello drifted back into his slumber after that single syllable.

Matt let out a quiet groan (so he wouldn't wake Mello up again, of course) and walked over to the closet. Maybe he'd left something in one of the coats.

The closet door made a considerably loud noise, probably because it wasn't used to be opened. Matt cursed when he heard Mello stir and slowly reached his hand into the pockets of the first coat. Completely empty. Figures. He felt around in the closet, wondering if they really just owned one coat between them, until his hands brushed worn leather.

The coat didn't seem familiar to Matt. He'd never seen Mello wearing it and he was pretty sure he'd never worn it himself.

However, one of the pockets contained the matches Matt had been looking for. He pulled the coat out of the closet and got a good look at it. Who did it belong to?

Mello woke up again with a start and let out a lazy yawn. "What're you doing?" His voice was already a bit groggy.

"Whose jacket is this?" Matt asked, shaking the dust off of it.

Mello yawned again. "You were wearing it, uhm..." he said, closing his eyes. "... you were wearing it the night you found me."

"Hmm. I don't remember." Matt shrugged and put the coat back into the closet. The conversation seemed innocent enough to Mello's sleepy mind, but it was more than that for Matt.

Because he knew that he would have remembered the coat, if it had been on Mello's body instead of his own.

Inspired by Matches by The Format. I miss that band oh, so very much. Review, please!