Author's Note: I've wanted to start this project for a long time now, and here it finally is!

Those of you who have read my work before know that just because something starts out rated T does not mean it will stay that way. I'm honestly not sure at this point if I will be changing the rating to M, but I am currently planning on it.

Also, each chapter will have two songs listed at the top. Music, specifically electronic music (techno, house, trance, dubstep, etc), is pretty important in this particular fanfic, so I wanted to provide some references. The idea is that one of the songs comes from Mello's iPod and the other comes from Matt's. Although Matt's music is actually more important to the plot, this story will be written entirely from Mello's perspective as opposed to switching between Matt and Mello like I normally do, so I felt that Mello deserved equal say in what music I chose. x)

Anyway, that's all for now. Please enjoy :D

Disclaimer: I do not own Death Note or any of its characters. Also, I do not own Monster Energy drinks or anything else I might ever mention in the future.

Mello: Back Against the Wall by Cage the Elephant
Matt: Sandstorm by Darude

Chapter 1: The Rave

"What do you think?" Misa said, stepping around the corner and into view.

"…" Mello stared at the atrocity that she wanted him to wear that night. "Absolutely not."

"Why?" she whined, "It'll look good. I promise."

"No. You're pushing it, Misa. Be happy I'm even going."

"Just try it on. I'll shut up about it if you do," she said with a devious smile. Yeah right, Misa. Like you'll ever shut up.

"Fine," he sighed. He sat the box of stuff he had been looking though on top of his suitcase and followed her down the hall to the bathroom.

"Kiyomi, stop hogging the bathroom," Misa yelled, pounding on the door.

"One minute. Calm down," came a voiced from behind the door.

Dear God, what have I gotten myself into? Maybe living with these two wasn't the best idea. Not that he had a better option. There was no way he was going to live at home a second longer than he had to, and it was better than being homeless. He would just have to keep reminding himself of that.

The door opened and a rather pissed off looking Takada stepped out. She glared at him and, without a word, continued down the hall and into the living room.

"It's nice to meet you too," he yelled back sarcastically in the direction she had disappeared. He knew that she was less than happy about him living with them. Misa had brought it up before but didn't seem all too concerned with it. For that matter, she didn't even seem to notice that anything was wrong. Maybe Takada was always like that.

"Here," she said, thrusting the clothes into his hands and pushing him into the bathroom, "I want to see what it looks like when you have it on."

He shut the door and looked it over. He didn't know why he was doing this. He couldn't have been there for more than ten minutes and Misa had already informed him that he was going to a rave that night and that she had taken it upon herself to get him something to wear for it. He may not know where he would be sleeping that night or where he was supposed to put his stuff, but that didn't seem to concern Misa. She had simply said, 'We'll figure it out' when he had called the night before from the hotel. He had no doubt that they would figure it out, but it would have made him feel better if he had known these things before he had gotten there.

He sighed and resigned himself to the task that lay before him: getting the mass of leather clothing onto his body. It took a great deal of work, a lot of wiggling and hopping around the bathroom to get the leather pants up, but he eventually managed. After zipping the leather vest up, he reached for the door knob but hesitated. He knew Misa was going to freak out and make a big deal of it.

He braced himself and pushed the door open only to be instantly greeted by Misa's squealing. He cringed slightly and waited for the annoying sound to stop.

"It looks so good! You have to wear that tonight!"

"I look like a transvestite," he said flatly.

"No you don't," she scoffed, "You look hot. We won't be able to keep the boys off of you," she added with a wink.

"If anyone finds this attractive," he said motioning to what he was wearing, "I don't think I want them."

Misa rolled her eyes. "Whatever. You're wearing it. Besides, you don't have anything else appropriate to wear."

He looked at Misa a moment, trying to see if she was joking. It didn't appear that she was. "Appropriate? Really? You think this is appropriate?" She must have lost her mind.

"Yes," she said simply. "What about your rosary?"

"What about it?"

"Where is it?" she asked, but rather than waiting for an answer, she pushed past him and picked it up from where he had put it on the edge of the sink. She placed it around his neck and stepped back to look at him, a smile coming to her lips. "There. Now you're ready." It felt weird, it being out in the open. Normally he wore it hidden under his shirt.

"Great," he said sarcastically, "When are we leaving?"

"A couple hours."

He tried to get past Misa to pick up the black skinny jeans and t-shirt he had been wearing, but she suddenly put her arms out, blocking his entrance. "You are not changing back," she said firmly.

"I know. There's no way in hell I'm going to go through the trouble to put these goddamn pants back on." He pushed her aside and grabbed his clothes, heading back out to the living room where the rest of his stuff currently was.

He tossed them on top of the box and laid down on the couch. He was exhausted. It had been a long three day drive from Ohio to California. And even though he had stopped both nights at a hotel, he hadn't gotten much sleep.

But even so, he was apparently going to a rave that night. If it had been anyone but Misa to suggest it, he would have probably taken the leather pants and shoved them down their throat. But it had been Misa to suggest it…or well, more demand it, so he was going.

"Is that what you're wearing tonight?" he heard Takada ask tauntingly. He turned to see her leaning in the doorway to the kitchen with a cup of tea in hand.

"I don't think I have a choice. What does she have you wearing?"

"Oh, I'm not going."

"What? Why don't you have to go?"

She shrugged. "I don't want to."

He sat up abruptly. "Misa!" he called angrily, storming through the apartment to her room. When he threw the door open, he found her laying out different outfits on the bed, evidently trying to decide what she should wear. "Why the fuck do I have to go, and Takada doesn't?" he asked, trying his best to stay calm.

"Because you're new to the city. I need to take you out to see the sights!"

"Bull shit."

"Okay, so Kiyomi said she would never go again after the first one I took her to. Please, Mello. I don't have anyone else to go with," she said, starting to plead.

"Fine. But this is the only time." He was tired, didn't like any sort of electronic music, and really didn't feel like spending his night dancing around with a bunch of drunken and/or high idiots, but he would go. After all, Misa was letting him live there so he did kind of owe her.

"Yay!" she exclaimed, jumping up and down a couple of times before she ran up to him, throwing her arms around him in a hug, "Thank you!" He couldn't believe she was a year older than him; she still acted so much like a kid sometimes.

"Yeah. Sure," he sighed. I'm so going to regret this.

"Now, which one of these do you like better?" she asked, pointing to the three outfits she had laid out on her bed.

He looked at them. He honestly wasn't a fan of any of them. "That depends. How much of a whore do you want to look like?"

"Ha ha, you're so funny. Really, which one?"

"…I guess that one," he said pointing to the middle option. It looked the least slutty of the three.

"Okay, thanks. Now get out, I need to get changed."

"So if I don't leave, we won't have to go?"

"Don't be ridiculous. You know as well as I do that I'll change in front of you if I have to. Like it even matters."

"Right." He was about to leave when he remembered something. "Hey, where am I going to sleep?"

"Not in my room," he heard Takada yell from her room across the hall.

"Uh… Do you mind the couch?" Misa asked.

"The couch is fine," he said, shutting the door behind him and heading towards his new 'bedroom.' He kicked the box and his suitcase under the coffee table and took off one of the cushions to see if it was a pullout couch. It unfortunately wasn't.

He returned the cushion to its place and sat down, picking up the TV remote. He briefly considered taking a nap, but he didn't think there would be any way he would ever be able to sleep in those clothes. And it would probably take Misa forever to get ready; he might as well see if anything good was on.

He stopped on a movie he knew he had seen before but couldn't remember the name of, not that it mattered. He spent most of his time dreading going to the rave rather than actually watching it. That and hating Misa just a little bit.

She was like a sister to him, a sister that he really didn't want sometimes. Ever since he was in first grade and she had rescued him from those bullies, she had acted as his older sister. He still didn't know exactly what had made her help him; he had never even talked to her before as she was in second grade at the time and he didn't know anyone outside of his grade.

He would never forget that day and really did appreciate it, but sometimes she could be so annoying. Not that he could do anything about it. He would take annoying Misa over no Misa at all any day.

So he could never actually hate her. It really wasn't possible, not after everything they had done for each other over the years. Which was probably why he let her get away with way more than he would ever let anyone else. She had been his best friend since that day in first grade, and he would do anything for her. Not that he wanted her to know that; she would definitely use it to her advantage.

• • •

"Wake up," Misa said, shaking him awake. "Get off you lazy ass. It's time to go. And here," she said, thrusting an energy drink into his hand, "drink this." He stood up, rubbing at his eyes, and followed Misa out the door, opening the can of Monster and taking a gulp. In his still half asleep state, he ran into a well dressed man with shoulder length dark hair not even five steps out of the apartment.

"Sorry," he mumbled. The man looked at him once and continued down the hall to the apartment two doors down from theirs. In the elevator, he asked Misa who the man was.

"That's Mikami," she said, "He's kind of a creeper."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, it's just a theory, but I think he stalks Light."

He knew all about Light. He had spent many hours listening to Misa talk about Light the year before. How she liked him and how her roommate, Takada, was such a bitch because she wanted him too. Then when he had gotten together with some guy who went by L that had led to another week of Misa's ranting, but instead of her going on about how she hated L like she had done with Takada, it was about how cute she thought they were together. At first he had been surprised, but it had quickly made sense; Misa loved yaoi.

"Misa, I really don't want to hear any gossip right now," he said. He didn't want her to start babbling about something he really didn't care about and certainly not while he was still half asleep.

"Fine," she said as she stepped out of the elevator, sounding offended.

He sighed; if she was mad at him that would make the night much less tolerable. "Okay, go."

"Well, Mikami is always hanging around Light and L's apartment," she started, holding the door open for him and stepping out into the apartment parking complex.

"So L and Light are living together now?"

"Yeah, they live in the apartment above us. And just a warning, they can get kind of loud at night." For a reason Mello didn't really understand, she sounded happy about this. "I don't know for sure, but I've heard that they're pretty kinky. Like, they use chains and handcuffs and stuff."

"Misa, please, I don't want to hear about this. Besides, how would you know that Mikami hangs out around their apartment?" he asked accusingly. How would she know that Mikami was up there all the time unless she was too?

"Don't give me that look. I have a friend who lives down the hall from them."

"Uh-huh. Sure."

"I do. I'll introduce you to him sometime. I think you would really like him," she said suggestively.

"I'm not interested in being set up with anyone," he said, sliding into Misa's car. An annoying side effect of Misa reading yaoi: she wanted to set her gay best friend up with every other guy she knew, on occasion, even if said guy was straight.

"Who said anything about setting you up with anyone?" Her voice sounded innocent enough, but Mello knew better.

"Just drive." I should have known she wouldn't be able to go more than a couple hours without suggesting someone…

"Oh, by the way, how did you bring your stuff on your motorcycle? I figured you would just send whatever you wanted to bring with you."

"I strapped it to the back. It was uncomfortable riding for so long like that, but I didn't have to pay to send it. It was a miracle it didn't fall off."

"Well, if you ever want to borrow the car, you can. Technically, it's Kiyomi's too, and I'm sure she would say that you can't, but she'll get over it."

"How did you even become friends with her? I agree with what you originally said about her. She's kind of a bitch." During all those times she had called him, she had never explained how they went from enemies to friends. He'd never bothered to ask before because he didn't want the hour long explanation he expected.

"Yeah, she kind of is, but she's not that bad once you get to know her. But after Light and L got together, we really didn't have anything to hate each other for, and we just sort of became friends. Then when the semester was over and we couldn't live in the dorms anymore, we decided to get an apartment and split the rent since neither of us was going home for the summer."

He still didn't fully understand but didn't care to ask for more details. He was about to prop his head up on his hand but then noticed something that made him stop. "Misa, why are my nails painted black?" he questioned, his voice dangerously quiet.

"Do you like it? I did it while you were asleep."

"What do you think? Of course I don't like it!"

"Calm down. Maybe you should go back to anger management," she said jokingly.

"Not funny, Misa." He hated people bringing that up. He would never forget it, but he still hated being reminded of it.

"Don't worry. It comes off."

"I know it comes off, but maybe next time you should ask someone before you do something to someone in their sleep," he grumbled.

"You mean I can't pierce your ears in your sleep? Darn," she said sarcastically.

Mello rolled his eyes. When Misa had left for college the year before, he had thought maybe the next time he saw her she would be a little more mature. Now that he was with her again, he doubted she would ever mature. "If you did that, I'd kill you," he said, trying unsuccessfully to pick the nail polish off.

"We're here," she said a few minutes later, making him look up from his nails.

"This is it?" They were pulling up to what appeared to be an abandoned warehouse. In the daytime, it wouldn't have looked like anything special, but now that it was dark, cars were parked all around it on the crumbling parking lot and on the grass. He could feel the bass before he could actually hear the music.

"Yep." From that one word, he could hear the excitement in her voice. "Oh, and Mello," she said, fishing around the small bunny-shaped backpack she had brought with her, "don't drink anything in there, you don't know what could be in it, and if the cops come, we need to get out of here as soon as possible so try to stay close to me in case we have to leave quickly."

"Okay…" More things that could make me regret going. Great.

"Here it is." She pulled out a small plastic baggy from the backpack and took out one of the white pills inside. She took his energy drink and swallowed the pill with some of it. "Want one?"

"What is it?"

"Ecstasy. It'll stop you from getting so tired."

"I'll pass," he said, finishing the energy drink. Even though Misa said she knew what it was, he doubted that she actually knew what was in it.

"You sure? We'll probably be staying till the end; the DJ playing tonight is really good."

"Really, it's fine."

She shrugged, returning the baggy to her backpack, and pulled out a couple packs of glow bracelets. After she had covered her wrists in the bracelets and convinced Mello to wear a glow stick around his neck, she deemed them ready.

He noticed two things when they first entered: the sheer number of people packed into the room and how loud the music was. He instantly felt out of place there, but followed Misa as she weaved her way through the crowd closer to the front of the room. He didn't know why they couldn't have stayed a little farther back. It wasn't that he didn't like loud music; it was that he didn't like loud techno music, and the closer they got to the front, the louder it was.

As they got closer to the front, the DJ came into view. He sat on a small stage with his equipment. Mello could see that his hair was a dark red even in the low lighting. He wore goggles over his eyes and a striped shirt whose white stripes glowed under the black light.

Mello doubted if he would have even given the man a second look if he had seen him somewhere else, but there was something about the way that he acted, like he was completely in his element, that made him captivating to watch.

"You have a thing for the DJ?" Misa yelled to him. He turned to see her dancing next to him. Though she was no more than a foot away from him, he had barely heard her over the music.

"I- No," he said defensively.

"Yes you do. You should talk to him."

"…He looks busy."

"I don't mean now. When he's done."

"How long will that be?"

"He usually stays the entire night, but he might switch with a different DJ at some point."

So he waited, trying to enjoy the music though he didn't really know how he was supposed to dance to it. And looking at what other people were doing didn't really help; it looked more or less like flailing to him.

• • •

What seemed like an eternity later, Misa turned to him and yelled, "This is the last song."

"How do you know?" he asked, at that point skeptical that they would ever leave.

"He always plays 'Sandstorm' last."

He didn't know how people could still have energy after dancing like that for so long before remembering the little white pill Misa had taken. He was ready for it to be over, but the majority of the crowd seemed pretty excited for this particular song. To Mello, it didn't sound all that much different than the other songs that had been playing.

He was glad when the song ended; his legs felt like they were made of rubber and would collapse at any second. And it didn't help that the leather outfit Misa had insisted he wear was terribly hot. He didn't know if it was customary, but when the song was over, people started clapping. The DJ did an awkward little bow and started packing up.

"Now's your chance," Misa said, giving him a push in the direction of the stage. He walked forward, putting on a confident front though it felt like his legs were about to buckle. He was certain it had to have been from the hours of dancing—or trying to dance, as he supposed was more accurate—and not from the fact that he was slightly nervous.

He thought it odd; he was normally very confident about such things. But then again, he never normally talked to people like the redheaded DJ, people who went to raves and such. Well, except Misa, but she didn't count; he had known her since way before she had ever even considered going to a rave.

Mello was only a couple feet away when a girl rushed past him and climbed up on the stage. She ran up to the DJ and threw her arms around him, saying something to him that Mello couldn't hear before kissing him. Mello felt his heart drop. Fuck. Of course he's straight…

He turned around and saw that Misa was talking with some guy. He didn't care if her conversation was cut short; he grabbed her arm and started pulling her towards the exit. "Come on Misa, we're leaving."

"Wait, why? Did you talk to him?"

"No, he's straight. He has a girlfriend." He wished Misa would just shut up and walk a little faster. All he wanted was to get out of there.

"He could be bi," she said, her voice sounding hopeful.

"Doesn't matter. He has a girlfriend."

"Are you sure?" she asked, sounding confused.

"What the fuck kinda question is that? Yes, I'm sure!"

"Well, that's weird," she said seemingly to herself, or at least, he thought she said.

"What?"

"Huh? Nothing. Let's just go." Finally Misa had come up with something that made sense to him.