It is close to two o'clock in the morning when the banging starts. Matt curses under his breath. This fucking neighbourhood. Trashy is embellishing it, but he is skint, so it has to make do.

Growing up in Wammy's house, a stately mansion in lush and quiet Winchester, UK, he has been spoiled with uninterrupted sleep, clean and tidy surroundings, and soft spoken politeness on all sides. Downtown LA is a stark contrast, and sometimes he wonders what he is even doing here. Times like these for example.

The banging on his door does not stop. Someone really wants his attention. But he doesn't know anybody in town that would turn up unannounced at this hour. Probably some drunk, mistaking his apartment for someone else's. He could just ignore it and hope it goes away, but something buried deep in the back of his mind, some unconscious hope, makes him get up from the tatty sofa and pace over to the door, unlock it and jerk it open.

"This better be fucking import..."

The words leave him as he recognises the face peering out from under a hooded jacket.

"Mello? That you?"

He is surprised, he tells himself. He has never expected to see this particular blast from the past again. Never. Because Mello certainly isn't the reason he's in the shittiest part of fucking America. He's always wanted to slum it in LA; it has nothing whatsoever to do with the rumour he picked up that Mello had been spotted here. No, their lives are in no way linked and Matt is surprised—damned surprised—to see him.

"No, it's fucking Avon calling. Let me in."

Mello's voice is tight. He is looking at Matt in an odd way, out of the corner of his right eye, face turned halfway away.

"What are you, a vampire? Door's open."

Mello just mutters something under his breath and pushes past him into the tiny bed sit. Suddenly, the place looks rattier and more squalid than ever. Mello is standing on the cigarette-stained carpet with his back to Matt. Red neon blinks through the window. Somewhere far away a siren sounds.

"Wow. What a shithole," Mello says and flops down on the small single bed, facing the wall.

Matt is speechless. There might have been a time in his confused and hormone-ridden mid teens when he would have been quite intrigued by the idea of Mello in his bed, but he has certainly never envisioned the situation like this.

"So," he says. "Long time no see."

Mello doesn't respond, just curls up inside his big coat and the corner where the bed met the wall. This is just priceless. After five years, Matt is that bloke with the crash pad. It really is too much.

"Are you in trouble?" Matt asks. "I heard... I mean, what have you been up to over here? Mello? Mello, would you fucking answer me!"

Rage trembles through him. Middle of the night. Five years down the line. It's not on. It is not fucking on!

"Leave me alone." Mello mutters into the wall.

Right. That is it! Matt strides over to the bed, grabs a thin shoulder through the thick coat, and wrenches the curled up form towards him. Mello screams. It is a ragged sound filled with so much pain that Matt staggers backwards.

"Fuck!" Mello gasps. "Keep your fucking... hands... off me!"

His eyes are wild, his hands trembling, but he is sitting up now and Matt can see his face. Well, half of it. The other half is a barely recognisable mess of red, plasticky tissue. Like it has melted.

"Jesus, Mello! What happened?"

"Never you mind."

That tightness in his voice is clearly pain. He shoves a gloved hand into his coat pocket and pulls out a bottle of pills.

"Got a drink?"

"Um... yeah."

Stumped, Matt goes to the sink and fills a somewhat clean glass from the tap. When he sees the yellow tint of the water, he thinks better of it, pours it out in the sink and opens the fridge for a beer.

Mello snatches the can from his hand and cracks it open. Matt sees him shake out a few white pills into his gloved palm and knock them back, swigging the can to wash them down. So, is that it? He's on drugs?

"Are you going to tell me what you're doing here?" Matt says.

"Need to crash here for a while. Is that a problem?"

For a fraction of a second, Matt thinks that it's a question. Then he sees the glinting metal of a gun pointed in his direction. Now that's just disappointing.

"Mello. What the fuck is your problem? It's me. What am I going to do? Just because you fucked off without so much as a 'smell you later'—not even a fucking text message!—you think I'm going to chuck you out into the street?"

A bitter, incredulous chuckle escapes Matt's lips as he turns his back on the lunatic in his bed. Mello is probably hurting from whatever has scarred his face like that, but it's no reason to steep Matt in pain too. But what else is new? Pain and Mello goes hand in hand, and doesn't Matt know it?

"Yeah." The voice behind his back is low. "I guess I've been hanging too much with scum lately."

No apology, then, for aiming a fucking firearm at his best friend? Not so much as an acknowledgement that it was uncalled for. Matt turns to see the gun safely stashed back where it came from. And Mello is hiding his face in the shadows of his hood.

"Will you tell me what happened to your face?"

"Not now."

Mello lies down again, on his back this time, staring at the ceiling, and Matt gets a good look at the destroyed side of his face. Burns, that's what they are. Like he's been in a fire. There's a good chance that he started it.

He sits back on the sofa and pulls a cigarette from the packet. It barely touches his lips before something smacks into his chest. Hard.

"Don't you fucking dare light that! This place stinks already! It's like sleeping in a fucking ashtray!"

Matt looks down at his lap. "A shoe?" One of his runners that were standing by the bed. "You threw a shoe at me? You're such a drama queen."

He can't help but laugh. It's an unfamiliar sound to his own ears. It's been a while. Round about five years, perhaps?

Mello doesn't like being laughed at. Matt puts the cigarette back in the packet and says, "Fine. It's too late anyway. Or early, or whatever."

He makes sure that the front door is locked and the security chain is on. Then he pulls the goggles off his head and walks towards the bed.

"Don't even think about it."

Mello is glaring at him, somehow making it seem reasonable to barge in here and take over the only bed, only to refuse to share. Matt doesn't stop but throws out a foot and turns on his heel, veering his path towards the sofa instead. Bloody Mello. Nobody else in the whole wide and wild world would get away with this kind of behaviour.

Matt sleeps little that night, because he can hear Mello breathe. And his breathing sounds like pain.

-

The morning comes with bleached grey light through a dirty window pane and moth-eaten curtains. For a second, Matt wonders why he's on the second-hand sofa—too short, and lumpy with springs—and then he remembers. He stands and stretches, joints stiff and eyes full of sand. In his bed, his only refuge of comfort, is an unconscious, huddled shape in a formless coat. It gets chilly, this early in the November mornings; so cold that he can see his breath. Insulation was an avoidable expense when this shithole was built.

Matt walks over to the bed and looks down on the sleeping face of his—what? Friend? Acquaintance? Bloke he used to know?

Half his face is much the same. A bit thinner, and much less childish, but recognisable. Mello will be twenty in—not that Matt remembers his birthday or anything—but round about exactly to the day three weeks from now. He does look different; harder, more angular, than when Matt saw him last. And that massive scar he has... it's hardly even a scar, more like a wound, barely healed. It must hurt. It must hurt something awful.

"What the fuck are you staring at, Jeevas?"

An icy blue eye cracks open.

"Good morning, sunshine. What would sir like for his breakfast?" Heavy sarcasm?

"General anaesthesia."

That admission of pain must be a result of Mello not being fully awake yet. He struggles into a sitting position. His coat clings to him like a duvet.

"That bad, huh?"

"I'm fine. Just get me some coffee."

And not even a swear word to go with that! Matt feels something heavy and sore shift inside him as he goes to put the kettle on.

"There's not much grub in the house," Matt confesses.

He remembers the breakfasts at Wammy's house. Beans on toast. Eggs and bacon. It's been a while. Previous life kind of stuff.

"I don't give a shit."

Matt makes the coffee and heaps in spoonfuls of sugar. He remembers that much. The milk has gone bad. It seems like some kind of metaphor in a carton. He pours it into the sink.

"Here."

Not a thank you in sight. No surprise there. Mello still has the hood pulled up, and it looks kind of ridiculous. Matt sits down on a chair, facing the bed.

"So. How's tricks?"

Mello just glares at him. That's to be expected. Or is it? Matt has to remind himself that he doesn't actually know this person sitting on his bed. The Mello he knew, he believed to be a mate. Perhaps they were never that close, but—yeah, mates. But mates don't fuck off without leaving forwarding addresses.

"You... you could have said something. I mean... just to let me know? Had to get out in a hurry, huh?"

Something nasty comes over Mello's face. Scorn? Disgust? Matt's not sure.

"Aww, hurt your feelings, did I? Poor baby."

"Yeah, fuck you right back, Keehl."

Matt goes back to make himself some toast. This is intolerable.

"They... they chose Near." Mello says behind his back. "L didn't. L didn't get the chance before he was killed... What could I do, eh? They fucking chose Near."

What is this, Pokemon? 'Near, I choose you!' Matt was still at Wammy's when "they" "chose" Near. Roger told him there had been no decision, no outcome in the big L race. So, trying to patch up a bad situation and make the best of it, Roger had proposed Mello and Near work together. More fool him. The cheek of that simple suggestion sent Mello running as far as the road would take him, and Matt quite suddenly very alone. He'd stuck it out for about six months before leaving too. By that time, Near had been the new L—in function if not in name—and Matt had been superfluous. He has been freewheeling ever since. Hanging in the slum, hoping against hope that... what? This would happen? Fucking hardly.

"So... what? You tried to kill yourself?"

He knows that isn't true, but it might prompt a response with grains of truth in it.

"No... What? No!"

"Thought you set yourself on fire or something."
Matt keeps his back turned. He doesn't need to see whatever private drama show is being played out on that ruined face.

"For your information, I had to blow up a house. With me in it. So now you know."
Matt flops down on the sofa with his toast and tries to pretend that it's a morning like any other. No old friend turned up out of nowhere. No stirring up of old shit. Nothing like that at all, just a chilly autumn morning in LA. Traffic outside. Empty fridge. Every day is like Sunday.

They don't speak for a while. Mello sips his coffee under that stupid hood and Matt eats his breakfast pretending he's not there. Then he reaches for his fags and finds the packet empty but for that one crumpled one he put back last night. As good an excuse as any to get out of here.

"I'm going down the shops. Want anything?"

Mello shakes his head. Matt only just slams the door on his way out.

He makes it to the corner before he realises he has left his wallet in the flat. Cursing under his breath, he walks back up the road and unlocks the door. Mello is gone. That is—Mello is gone, but his clothes are still there on the bed; the furry-hooded coat, the leather vest, the leather trousers and ridiculously clunky boots. Matt hears the sound of running water from the bathroom.

Mello must have been waiting for him to head out. Matt finds his money, but now all of a sudden, he doesn't want to go. There are other noises from the bathroom. Curses and sounds that could almost be... sobs. Pained noises. Matt acts before he thinks. He knocks lightly at the door.

"Mello? You alright in there"?

Another muffled curse. "Yeah, I'm fine!" Irritable voice.

Matt sits down on the bed, deflated. Perhaps he should go and give Mello some privacy. But that's not going to happen, is it?

"What the fuck?" comes the voice from behind the bathroom door. "Don't you have any bleeding towels in this place?"

"There's a towel in there, it's clean."

It's clean enough.

"I meant one that isn't the size of a fucking potholder."

There is nothing wrong with the towel, Matt knows. He scoops up Mello's abandoned clothes from the bed and walks over to the door. Cracks it open a fraction.

"Matt! Stay the fuck out! I swear to god I'll put a bullet through your head!"

There is more than a little panic in Mello's voice, but his gun is on the floor by the bed so the threat is empty. Matt shoves his hand with the clothing through the gap in the door. It's snatched out of his hand and the door slammed shut. Matt sits back down on the bed, waiting.

Mello comes out, eventually. He has the black vest and leather trousers on, and the towel draped over his right shoulder. No doubt it's supposed to look like he just threw it there causally to dry his hair with later, but now Matt knows better. He stands.

"You alright?"

No reply.

"It's... it's okay, you know."

Mello's eyes are cold. "What is?"

"You... I mean. Let me see..."

Mello shies back a little. Frowns.

"What you want to see for? You some kind of pervert? Deformities turn you on or something?"

"Mello, don't be such an arsehole."
Mello stands frozen in place, still turning his face sideways to show the good side. Matt's heart aches because Mello thinks it matters. He reaches slowly for the towel.

"Don't you dare fucking pity me..." Mello says. He's trembling.

"I don't. I mean, you blew a house up with you inside, what did you expect would happen?"

His tone is light enough. His fingers reach the terrycloth and he pulls it gently away. Mello's shoulder and a quarter of his right arm is a mess of burnt skin. He's staring hard at Matt, observing any reaction.

"Does it hurt much?"

"No, it's..." He fails to find a suitably sarcastic response. "It's a bit sore, yeah."

Mello looks at the dirty carpet. Matt wants to put his arms around him, but that would be disastrous for all kinds of reasons.

"Well," he says. "You won't do that again."

"Heh. No shit."

They stand like that for a while, in silence. Then Mello says, "Weren't you going to the shop?"

"I was. I forgot the money."

"Yeah, right. You just wanted to get an eyeful, didn't you?"

Matt scoffs. "How was I to know you planned to prance around my apartment naked?"

Mello actually smiles.

"Then you probably wouldn't have left in the first place, eh?"

"You're the great big shirtlifter, not me!"

"You don't wear shirts though."
"So, I'm safe, is that what you're saying?"

"You're not my type Matt. I like men."

Matt gives him the finger, and it's like they've never even left Wammy's. The same taunting and squabbling.

"And I like women, so yeah, I suppose you would be my type."

Mello snarls at him and Matt takes a quick step back, grabs his wallet and heads for the door.

"Get me chocolate!" Mello calls after him.

At the shop, Matt buys the cheapest toilet rolls, the cheapest washing-up liquid, cheap bread and cheap milk. And the most ridiculously expensive Belgian chocolate they have.