Chapter Eleven: Stand Inside Your Love

A/N: The last chapter is here, but the road goes ever on and on...(Hobbit fans? ANYONE?!) So anyways, keep me on your alerts, and there may be more scrumptious Matt/Mello to come over the holidays.

I don't own Death Note. Chapter title is from the Smashing Pumpkins song of the same name. Expand your musical horizons, children :P

Matrimony

Mello: 10:30 a.m., January 28th, 2010

I wake before he does, not surprising considering how many hours of sleep he'll need to recover from what he's suffered. He lies just as he did when we fell asleep: half on his right side, facing me, chest to chest and limbs entangled, bodies and hearts bared.

This would normally be the time when I start sentimentalizing about how beautiful he is, waking and sleeping, and how wonderful it is to have him. More pressing concerns await me, however, as my stomach growls, and I think of what clamorous protestations Matt's stomach might be making if he were awake. Slowly, reluctantly, I begin the laborious process of separating myself from Matt and locating sustenance. I put on yesterday's pants (it was yesterday; we've slept for almost a whole day) and notice a note by the door.

A note, my mind supplies insidiously.

Near's handwriting hasn't changed over the years; the same impeccable typescript meets my eyes as I read.

Mello: (I register the conspicuous absence of 'dear')

We will be leaving for Yellow Box at 11:30 a.m. If you wish to rendezvous there, please plan on arriving between 2 and 2:30 p.m. That way, Kira and X-Kira will have already been apprehended.

After you and Matt have read this note, please destroy it. I trust you know its evils well enough by now to avoid falling prey to its lure.

If you open the door at this moment, you will find everything you need.

Please convey my wishes for a quick recovery to Matt.

I look down at the paper in my hands. I never thought I'd touch this again.

It's just a piece of paper, I tell myself. It's only what people do with it that makes it terrible.

I pocket the note, open the door, and almost step on a heavily laden breakfast tray. I'm willing to bet this whole room service thing was Halle's contribution. At least there's chocolate, I note approvingly. A pair of crutches for Matt leans against the opposite wall.

"Hm," I say aloud. I'm sure the cameras in the hallway are still running surveillance. "You've still got a ways to go before you can start running your own vacation resort, Halle. How am I supposed to carry all this stuff off the floor into the room without the door open for me?"

No answer, but I guess that would really be too much.

"I'm joking. Even I don't have such bad taste as to bite the hand that feeds."

Smiling minutely, I grab the crutches and tray and almost gracefully make it back into the room.

Matt looks slightly awake; a few tufts of hair peek out from the covers, but an arm shifts underneath, and I know he'll require feeding. I set the tray down on my side of the bed and apply my lips to one visible ear.

"Wake up, love, and I'll treat you to the all-American married couple's dream: breakfast in bed."

He's more awake than I thought, because suddenly he sits up straight and nearly knocks my jaw off in his eagerness to partake.

"Good morning to you, too," he says cheerily to my bemused expression. I just shake my head and proceed to stuff him with waffles and syrup.

Several gluttonous minutes later, I recall the note in my pocket and hand it to him. "Some breakfast literature for you."

He scans the note without asking who it's from; Near's liquid nitrogen tone is as idiosyncratic as his handwriting.

"So this is the note," he says, staring at the paper.

"Yes, part of the one Gevanni filched from Mikami." There's no need to explain when we both know, but we take pleasure in just speaking and knowing that the other hears.

"Do you want to go?" he asks.

It's like a birthday party, or a movie date, things out of a normal person's life, but instead we're going to Kira's downfall.

"Of course," I say immediately, but then… "I'm just worried that it won't be safe."

His eyes say: "All these times we've almost died and you worry about safety?"

"I just don't want there to be some altercation and…you know, you couldn't make it out in time," I say somberly.

"Have a little faith, Mello," he teases, drinking milk straight from the creamer. I think of L and tea and coffee and cringe.

"Yeah…" I say absently, pulling at a loose thread. "You're right; it'll be fine."

"By the way, I'm dying to know how you survived. Did Takada not have any killing paper after all?"

I think about the gun, before I knew its double use, and tell him. He doesn't question my sanity or search for alternative explanations; by now, we've come to accept the impossible as otherwise. Instead, he reaches over and delicately thumbs my cheek, wordlessly reaffirming his affections. "I'm glad," is all he says.

'That you're alive' goes without saying, but even that is too little to convey. 'That you're alive, that this all turned out the way it did, that this is all over.'

I shrug and stick out my tongue to lick his hand; he withdraws it quickly. "Anyways, we need to get rid of this," I say. "I don't suppose you've still got your lighter on you…"

I realize too late he's got nothing on; he shrugs and dunks the note in the half full coffee pot.

That works too.

One Soul in Two Bodies

Matt: 1:30 p.m., January 28th, 2010

I sit on the edge of the bed, dressed and ready to go, but for one thing.

"I haven't stood up and walked since the moment they shot me down," I say. "That's over two days."

Mello looks over from where he's fussing with his stuck vest zipper (leather is back in style). "Are you sure you haven't forgotten how? You and Near could go to physical therapy together," he says jokingly. Then, seriously, "Will the crutches be ok? I mean, if they're not comfortable, I'm sure we could locate a wheelchair somewhere in this place for you."

God, no. No wheelchair. Crutches, even…

"Maybe just one," I think aloud, reaching for the metal contraptions beside me. I tuck one under my left arm and think about it.

It's perfectly logical for Mello to raise me up in every sense. I'm healing now.

I stand, and it's only with a slight quaver in my step that I clunk my way over to where he's standing and kiss him. Surprised but obviously pleased, he kisses back, and it irks me that I can only use one hand to hold him, but it's ok.

He produces a pair of sunglasses from somewhere, and I recall the bullet that glanced my goggles and almost put out my eye. He slides them over my eyes, and everything is dark and clear.

For all his black leather, his image will always be brighter than anything else.

Mello.

XXX

We stand before the entrance, and clearly Near is a great motivational speaker, because we can hear his voice faintly through the gap in the door, yet no one stirs nor seems to hear us outside. I don't know what we're waiting for, but the slight rise and fall of the voice within reaches a crescendo, and at last we hear what he's saying:

"Neither Mello nor I alone could hold the name of L, but together…we can equal L. Together, we can surpass L!"

That's our cue to enter.

"Someone say my name?" Mello asks as the door creaks open.

Of course Mello would take it on himself to spout the devil's lines on the stage of this world.

The door grinds to a halt, fully revealing the assembled. The SPK and Mogi stand to the left. Near crouches on the ground, maneuvering his finger puppets around a garish mask that I realize is supposed to be L. Rester surveys us impassively, Gevanni blinks once in greeting, and Halle almost beams. Almost. There is still much to be resolved.

The NPA is gathered on the right, Aizawa and two others whose names elude me, and the shinigami lingers behind them. They seem to be a diverse race; Mello's pictures of the shinigami whose note he had in the mafia looked nothing like this one. Somehow, it's not as shocking as the self-acclaimed death god in the room…

…Light Yagami. It's him, without a doubt, in the tailored beige suit that he wears as perfectly as he wears the name of L. But he's crumbling; it's obvious from the way his stance is ramrod straight and still more perfect than ever. He can't afford to relax now. He's not sure he can win now, not after the blunders he and his tool have made. Speaking of whom, Mikami is handcuffed and divested of the fake note, which lies beside Near and the real one. The once-proud lawyer stands with his head bowed, not so much restrained as held up by Rester, bereft of the will to continue. But he looks up as my eyes land on him, and ours connect. He gasps as he recognizes me, his face falls forward again, and he mutters brokenly, words in Japanese that I don't catch, but they carry the sound of despair and brokenness. I turn my eyes away.

"Mello and Matt, thank you for joining us," Near says, never looking up from his props. "It would have been disrespectful to continue talking about you behind your backs."

Mello snorts beside me, clearly doubting Near's manners. Yagami chooses this moment to interrupt.

"Mihael Keehl," he hisses. "It's a pleasure to finally be able to put a face to the name. Perhaps you can't say the same to me, if only because I didn't kill your father."

I shudder at the pure malintent in his voice. Mello shifts closer to me, almost as if he wants to put himself between me and Yagami, as if he's not the one who could be killed in the blink of an eye.

What is Yagami doing, though, bringing up past grievances now? Does he think his men will turn on Mello for killing the police chief when he himself is the one they've been trying to arrest for years?

He's really that desperate.

Mello doesn't falter as he shoots back, "I killed your father, yes, and your honorable chief." He speaks to all the Japanese task force. "So let he among you who does not love his own life be the first to shoot me."

They shift uneasily at his charged words, but no one moves to raise a hand against him. Yagami watches him still more closely from where he stands by the wall, backed into a corner.

"It was me or him in that room," Mello says. "I know that doesn't mean a thing to any of you, but do you think one death that wronged Kira will right the thousands of wrongs he committed? Have you ever directly killed anyone to save your own life, Kira?"

Yagami says nothing, so Mello asks him for the punch line. "You haven't denied anything I've said. Would you like to make your excuses now?"

For a moment, I think he won't reply, but suddenly he hits the ground, and the sounds issuing from him aren't…human. Feral laughter gurgles in his throat; it racks his hunched body with convulsions, and he rises to deliver the fated words: "That's right. I am Kira."

Near smirks; Mello, for once, is stoic. The task force looks thunderstruck; it's one thing for the evidence to be staring you in the face and quite another for the truth to be so openly admitted.

"Will you kill me here?" he launches onward. "Listen," and his hands command it. "I am Kira, and also…the god of the new world."

And here we go…

"I am justice. I am mankind's hope," he says. "You," and he speaks to Mello and Near, L's successors, "just want the personal satisfaction of killing Kira."

"The world is still rotten," he says. "The evil must be destroyed, from its roots up. Those who are evil die. Those who are good see that this is right. They realize that they have the right to be happy, and that destroying evil lets them do that."

He throws his head back, apparently overcome by the force of his own conviction. "Someone had to do it. I was the only one who could! It was the only way to make things right! I was chosen to change this world, to save it!

"Think about it. Do you want to return to that ugly world of evil? Because that's what will happen if you kill me now, just for the sake of your own ego. You will have killed God…you will have written the death of the world."

He gets down from his soapbox and awaits the riposte. Mello cedes this one to Near.

"No," Near says bluntly. "You are just a murderer."

Tell him, Near.

"Even if God existed, I would ask myself whether he was right or wrong. I would use my own rational capacities to figure out what I should believe, and what I believe is that you are evil, and that you certainly are not God."

"Accept it, Kira," Mello breaks in. "You are not God. God doesn't lose, and you have."

Yagami (and I wonder why I still call him that) spares them both a loathing glance and starts to pace deliberately. His steps are measured and metronomical, as if ticking in time to the cogs in his mind turning, planning…

Planning what? He has nothing left.

"Near." He speaks like he's thinking about something else, like conversation is just a distraction. "The note you took from Mikami, and the note Aizawa brought today…how do you know they're real?"

Near opens his eyes a fraction wider.

"Yours must be real, because you've seen Ryuk. But you should test the one Aizawa is carrying, shouldn't you? Write my name or Mikami's down."

"I am sure the note is real," Near states. "But even if they are not, I have no intention of killing you. Everything that has transpired here will be kept a secret, and you will be put away for good."

Yagami is silent. This conversation is irrelevant.

"Well, it can't hurt to try, can it?" he repeats, aiming his steps away, towards the darkest corner. "I'm sure Mello wouldn't hesitate to write my name."

At this, he looks back straight at Mello, and I know what's going to happen before it does—

"It's a hidden note!" Rester shouts, but even as the others tumble forward in disorder, my gun is in my right hand, and I pull the trigger.

It all happens automatically; the shot rings out, Yagami shrieks, the pen flies away, and his hand dangles limply, an open watch on his wrist, and if I could read the paper from here, it would say 'Mihael—'

No. How dare you.

The SPK and NPA have drawn their guns as well; Mello, for once, has not. I'm focused on Yagami flailing around clutching his hand, but from the corner of my eye, Mello's staring at me like…like what?

Yagami speaks; he howls. "You bastard! Who do you think you are?! Who do you think you just shot?!"

"Take it like a man, Kira," I snarl; my own hatred shocks me in a distant way. "Because you're not God; you're just a man. Or are you even? You're a fucking demon, but I will not let you kill Mello!"

My hands are shaking with fury, and I doubt my aim even as the bastard scrabbles for his paper and tries to kill Mello with his blood. Suddenly Mello is behind me, both of his hands steadying mine, and we open fire once, twice, three times; I would have continued shooting Kira into an unrecognizable bloody carcass, but Mello tugs the gun from my grip and wraps his arms around me.

"Matt, calm down," he whispers as the miniature uproar swells around us. "I'm all right; he didn't get my whole name down. I'm ok; you're ok. We made it, Matt."

I'm still breathing hard, tense and strung, but I relax a bit and squeeze Mello's hand to show I've heard him. He keeps holding me as we watch Yagami's theatrics and pathetic appeals to crutches that can no longer hold him up.

…his last resort? The death god.

"You can write their names, Ryuk!" Yagami screeches like a wild thing. "Write them down, Ryuk, write them now!"

The death god looks at the human 'god' and seems to be…reminiscing. With oddly smooth movements, it withdraws its notebook and pen, and the smile on Yagami's blood-streaked face grows still more deranged.

Everyone except Near, Mello, and I (well, and Mikami) opens fire on the death god, but it merely shimmers in the air for a moment as the bullets go straight through.

It's not really going to write our names, is it? If it were willing to, it would have done so long ago. Yagami seems to think otherwise; in a choked, bloodcurdling snarl, he bellows his triumph even as he crawls in agony, rejoicing that his faithful death god has suddenly sprouted a sense of altruism and is going to write everyone's names—

"You're wrong, Light," it says. "The one whose name will be written down…is you."

If Yagami hadn't lost his dignity already, he might have been repulsed by what he'd been reduced to: a dying animal clawing at its executioner's knees, pleading with stone ears and struggling until the last.

A heart beat once, and then no more. The silence lasts only a moment before it is split by another inhuman scream. Mikami's fountain pen has found its sheath in his heart.

(O happy dagger…)

After that, all is ordered chaos. The NPA confer among themselves; one member, who looks to be the youngest and least world-weary, remains on the floor staring at his knees, apparently too overwhelmed by these events. Aizawa steps forward and speaks quietly to Near; I'm not really listening. The bodies are covered; the NPA leave with theirs, and after a moment, Rester and Gevanni follow carrying the other. Unheeded by all, the death god melts away through the ceiling, its ghastly eyes remembering still the last name it wrote.

It's quiet. Near does not get up, but his hands cease to move. Mello still holds me barnacle-like from behind, making things extremely awkward as Halle approaches and suddenly envelopes us both in a hug. Weirdly, Mello doesn't seem to mind; he just burrows closer to me and to Halle. So I relax too, despite how bizarre it is, standing here embracing in a dank, abandoned warehouse that smells of blood and gunpowder.

"You idiots," she says shakily when she finally lets us go. "You have no idea how glad I am that you're here."

For once, I have no clever words to parry hers. I figure they're not really necessary here.

I look past her towards the diminutive figure on the ground. "Near."

He looks up, bemused, but I see something less than passive indifference in his expression at our affectionate display.

"Come here."

No one ever said he couldn't walk.

Without a word, he stands, slowly but surely, and takes deft, tiny steps in his socks until he stands about three feet from me, hesitant and unsure.

I don't want to give him a non-Kira induced heart attack, so instead of hugging him, I settle for ruffling his hair and setting a hand on his shoulder. "Near…you and Mello need to fucking make up so you can both go back to solving cases so people won't think L's gone completely senile."

Near blinks; Mello inhales sharply. Clearly, neither of them was expecting this. Halle smiles. Then, to my surprise, Mello reaches over and gently pats the soft white hair.

"Hey, Near…look," he says haltingly, one hand still resting on the fluff. "I'm fine with you being L, because I've found my other half as M."

Oh god. This is probably so sweet that even L would puke. Halle almost giggles. I feel like we're in on a joke that the two geniuses can't begin to comprehend.

"So I guess we can just divide up our cases and call each other if necessary. I mean, it's fine if you'd rather call Matt, and uh…I assume Halle will be staying with you until you get back to Wammy's, so we can keep in touch…?"

"I have no objection to you or your suggestions, Mello, but would you mind removing your hand from my head? It's obstructing my deductive capacities by—"

"Forty percent, I know," Mello says. "That was L's favorite number too."

They share a look that Halle and I don't catch this time, and then it's gone, and we're once more L versus M.

Near resumes. "Gevanni will be staying on as my agent; Lidner and Rester are free to pop in and out as their work permits. Your concern is appreciated, Mello, but I will not be alone."

That's kind of cute, I think. It's as close as we'll get to a happy ending in a story like ours.

"Well, uh, I guess we won't be sticking around, then," I say in a painful attempt at closing off the conversation. "We've got a flight to catch at five."

"Yeah, it's back to the City of Angels for us," Mello says, as eager as I am to leave. "We'll be in touch."

As we bid our farewells to the other two and make our way out, I think about everything the world may hurl at us from this day on. Honestly, though: after everything Mello and I have been through, there's nothing we can't stand.

Together.

A/N: And so we end with the nicely unround number of eleven. This is where I start thanking my parents, friends, mentors, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, God, dog, first grade English teacher, imaginary friends, the chair in which I sit to write my stories, etc., for helping me make it to the end of this story. But I seem to be forgetting someone...

Fuck, I gotta stop making a production out of this note. Thank you, thank you, thank you to my dear readers, for sticking with That Is the Question and giving this unassuming little author a chance. And to my charming reviewers, anonymous or otherwise, for the gift of words and occasional incoherence, which speaks almost but not quite as much as words.

Somehow thanks looks less sincere when it's all in good punctuation and capitalization sans emoticons and everything, but I mean it. Thank you.

The end.