Disclaimer: I do not and will most likely never own Death Note. I can assure you that Beyond, Mihael, Mail, and Lawliet would never have died if I did own it. I don't own Gameboy, either, incidentally.

A/N: Just a memorial fic for two of my favorite characters-Matt and Mello-who died today. Or will, technically, in 2010. –sob-

This one's dedicated to Kanki Youji, whose fabulous "Moments Like These" fic (reeeead iiit) reminded me what today was.

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Ecaep Ni Tser

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The last thing Mail felt was the searing pain of bullets ripping through his body.

The hard pavement as his dead weight hit it.

The unhappiness of knowing he'd let his best friend down.

(And the irritation of realizing he'd left his Gameboy running back at the hideout, but he'd get over that one. Eventually.)

For a few seconds he was unaware of anything; it was like him, his soul, his very being didn't exist. It would be a horrifying feeling, if he had anything with which to feel at the moment.

It didn't last long, though. Some time passed (he didn't know how much), and he found himself in a dark and empty place. Looking down, he noticed cigarette ash and dried spots of blood on his vest.

Huh, he thought calmly. Guess I'm dead. And it looks like I'm…well, actually, I don't have a freakin' clue where I am.

It obviously wasn't heaven (unless whoever wrote the Bible had a very cruel sense of humor). And he doubted even hell would be quite so devoid of anything. Where were all the other souls doomed to eternal torture? Unless, of course, spending eternity in a place full of purely and entirely nothing was considered torture enough.

He hated being bored. And it looked like he was going to be bored for eternity.

…Definitely hell, then. And it looks like it's custom-made just for me.

He tried to sigh before realizing he had no breath to sigh with.

This place wasn't going to be easy to get used to.

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The last thing Mihael felt was an acute pain in his heart.

His head pitching forward and hitting the steering wheel.

The unbearable disappointment that came with the realization that he was dying and could no longer be able to catch Kira.

(And the fury that came when it occurred to him that Near-that bigheaded twit-was the only person left who could possibly catch aforementioned murderer now, but…well, he might get over that one. With time. A lot of time.)

A few seconds or minutes or however long he became nothingness meant not one thing to him. It was a respite from the bitter disappointment that ate away at him.

He soon found himself in a vast, endless space; a vacuum, a state of being in which there was nothing and no one. Perfectly empty. It wasn't dark, or if it was, it was a dark so absolute no human had ever seen anything like it. Darker, deeper, than the universe before stars and planets appeared. And devoid of anything that resembled life, air included (which made sense, if he thought about it). He noticed his skin was tinged blue.

So this is hell. Fantastic. An eternity with nothing but me and my memories of my screwed-up, worthless life. He swore loudly, not bothering to give himself a headache by wondering how speech was even possible here.

"Mel?"

…Oh, wonderful. Now I'm going insane. What a great way to spend the rest of time. He shook his head in frustration and buried his head in his hands.

He felt a hand on his shoulder and straightened up as if scalded. He turned to find a grinning redhead.

"What the he-what-why are you-?!"

"Articulate as always," was the snickered reply. "Nice to see you too."

Mello smacked him lightly. Matt sobered up pretty quickly as he processed the situation in which they had found themselves.

"..So you got yourself killed too, huh."

The blond scowled. "No dip, Sherlock. Thanks for reminding me."

Matt decided not to risk bodily harm by asking how the heck his friend could forget, and opted instead for a more comforting approach. "Hey..you did what you could. I bet the Sheep hasn't gotten as close to Kira yet as you have."

Mello smirked at the use of Near's nickname. "..You've got a point, I guess. And besides," he added with a sigh, "it doesn't look like there's one thing we can do about it."

"Sorry, Mels," the gamer said quietly.

There was no verbal reply. The two prodigies sat in silence for a long time afterward.

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No one knows how long ago that was. Time loses its meaning when every moment looks exactly the same.

Both of them decided there was nothing to lose by exploring the endless dark, and in doing so they happened to run across a certain pale man with messy black hair and feet devoid of socks.

After a while, a fourth person joined them in MU. A brown-haired young man with scared eyes and a discolored face. And the air of a fallen murderer.

(Nothing pleasant occurred during that meeting, I can assure you. Mello's vocabulary seemed composed entirely out of swear words for some time afterward.)

They did catch sight of others from time to time, like a black-haired man in handcuffs and glasses, a young woman with long dark hair and a leather jacket, and even a man who looked disturbingly like L, save for the slightly crazed gleam in his eyes.

For forever, and then some, they would wander around the afterlife known as nothingness. But at least they had each other; it prevented Matt from getting bored most of the time (he even got over his video game addiction…slowly), and Mello had someone who put up with his constant rants about white-haired boys and lowlife killers.

The prospect of spending eternity in Nothingness was daunting-at the least-to most people, Light Yagami being only one example.

But as they both came to realize, it really wasn't so bad if your best friend was with you.

(Now, being in eternal withdrawal, that's a different story altogether. If only MU had chocolate…)

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Fin

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A/N: Okay, so it was a little rushed. Maybe it sucked. Sorry.

Rest in peace, Mail and Mihael. –bows head-