Sacrilege

A/N: To be honest, it's more talky than sexy, so…depending on what you were wishing to read, an apology may be in order, and it is not forthcoming. I liked writing this a lot, actually, though stylistically a little less than par…too many runny metaphors and such. Ah, just read it. I don't own Death Note.

Matt kills the engine and sits for a moment, the only light in the car coming from his phone and the faintly glowing end of his cigarette. Mello can wait. Should wait, deserves to wait, considering he left Matt in bed before dawn and hasn't bothered to call until now. Matt's phone reads 10:15pm in apologetic white numbers, as if it's sorry that it always has to be the purveyor of hypertension-inducing news regarding Mello.

"Matt…come get me. You know that destructed building that every news station's gotta be blaring right this moment? Yeah…hurry."

"Matt…come get me. The cemetery. You know, the only one within conceivable walking distance of our place. Except I'm not really up for walking right now."

Some things never change. Mello's changed, from the soft, warm body of his childhood to some kind of frigid, black, leathery animal with more firepower (figurative, not literal) than the Spanish Armada. Maybe an armadillo, except more vicious. Matt likes to think he himself has changed, no longer just that striped baggage eternally dangling from Mello's arm, but he can't fool himself. The earth always stops spinning for Mello, because he is the sun, and if Mello suddenly winks out of existence, so does Matt, because he is the earth, and the earth needs the sun.

That metaphor is inadequate, though, because the sun doesn't need the earth, but Mello needs Matt. He would never admit it himself, but he does.

Matt gets out of the car, locks the door behind him, and sets off for the gates. The cemetery is huge, and he doesn't know how he's supposed to find Mello, but somehow his footsteps have always led him to that blonde equivalent of an atomic bomb in a human-sized capsule.

Mello and his bomb-sniffing dog, Matt. How's that for a shit metaphor, Matt thinks dully. At least he's never bothered with drugs or anything stupid like that. Some dogs' careers have been ruined by cocaine, you know.

Finding Mello doesn't turn out to be difficult; Matt couldn't erase the image from his mind even if he inhaled lines and lines of dog-destroying coke.

Mello stands on a headstone; no, stands is too earthly a word for what he does. Matt could believe that Mello hovers a few inches off the cold marble, arms outstretched like Christ on the cross, torso bared (Matt is going to kill him; this'll be the second time he catches a cold this month alone), eyes closed, head tilted back to let the moonlight wash over his face and bathe it in a cold, dead glow.

His clothes are draped over the headstone next to him, and he doesn't stir as Matt approaches silently to read the engraving. With a start, he notices that the words are the only ones written in English that he has seen so far.

Ryuuzaki

November 5th, 2004

Justice Lives On

Mello's jacket curtains the words on either side, as black as the stone is white, pure white for the pure justice L pretended to uphold. L was grey, and Kira was grey, but of a different shade.

Matt asks, because he knows Mello won't break the silence, stubborn as he is, "Do you think Kira picked the epitaph for L?"

It's a dangerous question; Matt knows that Mello doesn't know or refuses to believe that L was anything but pure white. Matt knows that Mello hates Kira possibly more than L did, and Matt hates Kira too, but he also loves Mello, so he doesn't have as much room left for hating.

Mello doesn't open his eyes as he says, with more level-headedness than Matt thought possible, "Maybe. Kira managed to get the closest to L, so they probably thought he had the most right. Justice lives on, though…as if."

He scoffs, and Matt wishes he hadn't taken the time to look up the meaning of each of the characters in Kira's Japanese name. Night god, moon. Behold, Mello, god of the night, drenched in moonbeams, so fucking beautiful. God.

"You know who else is here?" Mello says. "Yagami."

Matt frowns in bemusement before he realizes Mello is referring to Yagami Senior.

"It's funny," Mello continues. "His grave is just a few rows behind L's. It's like he's following L's lead even in death, to catch Kira, when the whole time Kira's been right under his nose."

Matt looks in the general direction Mello gestures with a wide arm circle and sees the characters for 'night god' and three more unknown words that must spell 'Soichiro' at the top of another marble slab.

"I wonder, sometimes, how many more will join them after this is all over," Mello says damply. "And which side of the grave we'll see them from."

"Mello…"

"Oh, I'll be a realist and say it." Mello sways slightly on his headstone; Matt hasn't yet read the name on it. "We're standing in our graves right now, Matt. We're not going to make it out of here."

Matt notes the overturned bottle of something on the grass behind the headstone. He sighs and wishes Mello would shut up. He'll say something he'll regret and depending on how much is left in the bottle, he'll either remember it by morning and brood about it all day, or he'll forget. And even then, Matt won't know if he's really forgotten or if he's just hoping Matt won't bring it up.

Matt never does.

"Maybe that's how it should be. I killed Yagami, traumatized his daughter for life, indirectly got Takimura and the president killed, most of the SPK, and everyone in the mob, not to mention everyone I had to fuck over to get into the mob in the first place. God, that's enough people to fill a war memorial; what's another name to add to the list? It'll be like signing a letter to God. 'Dear Heavenly Father, here are the names of some people I gave a leg up to heaven. 'Course, there's also some I sent to hell, and I'll be joining them shortly. Just thought I'd let you know so they know who to thank. Yours truly, Mihael Keehl, M-I-H-A-E-L-K-E-E-H-L.'"

Instinctively, Matt begins to shush Mello, but then again, no one else in the cemetery is alive at a quarter to eleven, and the only dead here who are relevant to the Kira case already know Mello's name.

"Mello, how drunk are you?"

"I'm not. You can see I still have control of my fine locomotive skills," Mello says exaggeratedly, still weaving slightly in place atop the headstone.

"You should at least put on your jacket," Matt tries, though he makes no move to hand it to Mello.

"Drinking doesn't inhibit my immune system, mother," Mello shoots back. "I could stand out here for hours and be just dandy."

"Mello…" There's the faintest conception of a wheedle in Matt's voice, carefully crafted through years of coaxing Mello into maintaining some slight semblance of health and sanity.

"Matt." Mello is suddenly right behind Matt, no longer the brilliant god triumphing over death on high.

Oh God. Give a guy some warning before you do that, yeah? Matt barely keeps himself from skittering away. Barely. Mello up close is a little unnerving.

"Maybe a little bit drunk, just a little," Mello whispers in his ear. "It usually affects me more cognitively than physically. Y'know, I get these crazy thoughts."

What thoughts these are, precisely, Matt doesn't have to ask. Mello forges onwards. "Sometimes I think I'd just like to give it all up. Forget about Kira. Let Near bumble his way through the case, lose, die, I don't care. We could live somewhere Kira won't find us. Who cares about the world, and justice, and innocent people dying? L didn't care. God doesn't care. What right does the world have to expect so much from me?"

Matt has asked himself just that many times, but has never dared voice it aloud for fear of Mello's righteous wrath, more tangible than God's, descending upon him.

"But of course, that's stupid, and the moment I wake up with a hangover, I'll realize that's all wrong. I couldn't leave this all behind even if you tied me down and fucked my brains out."

Again, Matt has to agree with Mello, mostly about the fucking part. Not the de-braining part, no.

Mello drapes himself along Matt's back, ignores all concept of personal space, not that that even applies here, since he basically considers Matt as an extension of himself. Significant others and all that shit; they're just two sides to the same coin. Though preferably there wouldn't be any heads on this coin. Liability to death by Death Note.

"The craziest thought I had while I was standing up there waiting for you," Mello says, "was that this graveyard is basically a monument to Kira's triumphs. It's kind of his temple, and L's headstone is his altar."

It might just be Matt's imagination, but he thinks he hears echoes of maniacal laughter, very faint, around L's grave, and he shudders.

"Maybe there are graves of criminals he's condemned here," Mello muses. "Or maybe they just get buried in the prison yards. I don't know. Anyways, the really crazy thought I had was that I'd like you to fuck me right here, right now."

"You're insane, Mello," Matt says automatically, because that's what any normal person would say to such a proposition. Of course, the part of him that's strangely excited at the thought of getting it on in a graveyard is anything but normal. "The night guard will find us, or some hobo looking for a place to sleep, or even L's ghost, Jesus Christ—" He has to discontinue his remonstrance as Mello bites at his neck and latches on.

"Don't play hard to get, Mattie," Mello snickers. "It isn't becoming."

"Not hard to get, just being—ah—logical."

Mello tapers off towards the edge of Matt's shirt. "There is no night guard, and there are no hobos out at this hour, in this weather. They're all sleeping in comfortable alleyways and under shop awnings. As for the spirit of L past, present, and future…I'm sure he wouldn't mind. Besides, what greater defiance can we show Kira than to enjoy a good long fuck in the place he considers most sacred to his reign? It's desecration through fornication."

Matt gives up, not that he was trying all that hard to begin with, and yields to Mello's arm; the change is palpable, and Mello takes it as a green light to begin hotly plundering his mouth.

"Please, have some shame, Mello…we're not doing it right on L's grave."

"On Watari's grave, then." Mello starts to drag Matt over to the tombstone he had previously been standing on.

"What?" Matt cranes his head around to see, and he just makes out the lines: 'Quillsh Wammy, 1933-2004. A creator' before Mello whips his head around to more thoroughly take his lips.

"Just think, maybe Kira chose his epitaph too," Mello murmurs when they break apart. He yanks Matt's shirt over his head and starts on his jeans. "He couldn't have known how right he was. If L destroyed evil, Wammy created good. Things like the orphanages, and his inventions, and L, and us. He did what L couldn't do."

The air is cold, and Matt's heart colder as he thinks of how young Mello is, and himself still younger, and how little they really know of…anything. Sure, they're in the world's 94th percentile for overall intelligence quotient, but there are too many things that pure brainpower can't understand. Things like L wasn't always justice, Kira wasn't always injustice, I don't know what the fuck we're supposed to count as, nothing's all black and white like you and Near pretend it is.

Things that can only be understood with the heart.

"Matt, I said for you to fuck me," Mello breaks in on his musings, "so unless you'd like to change things around…"

Ah, yes. Wake up, Matt. He steps out of his jeans and helps Mello do the same. Maybe this is one of those things you need a heart and several shots to really get. The need, the desire to live like you're dying, because they are.

Just to make sure, though…"You really want me to?"

"That's what I said, Mattie, don't make me repeat myself."

Matt wants to get this very clear. "You want me to take your body and offer it up as a sacrificial 'fuck you' to Kira on his hallowed altar?"

"Exactly."

"…be careful what you wish for."

He gives Mello no warning before manhandling him over to slam him face first into the front of L's headstone.

"You will get what you wanted and more," Matt promises breathily in Mello's ear. "You'll get your fill of exhibitionism in addition to that feeble excuse of defiling Kira's temple."

"You know me well," Mello moans. "Don't stop talking."

Figures. Mello would consider this talking dirty. No phone sex for this beautiful WMD of a man-boy-grown-up-too-fast. No, Mello would only get off on the thought of being taken in a public place under the gaze of how many ghosts in the bone(r)-freezing Japanese winter.

Matt debates: boxers stay or go? Believe it or not, chilled air on his ass doesn't sound terribly appealing. Mello's already completely suited up in birthday attire, and Matt coyly brushes against his bare skin. The sibilant whine Mello releases is enough to bring his interest level up a notch or two. He decides to speed things along.

Two fingers probe inside of Mello, who hisses at the frigid intrusion but manages to relax slightly under Matt's insistent kisses.

"Keep it up with your cock knocking on L's front door and I'm sure he could be persuaded to join us," Matt teases, watching Mello frot against the smooth marble.

"Fuck," Mello says by way of agreeing.

"Tell me what you want, Mello."

"Ugh…" Mello's answer is lost as a third finger stretches him wider.

"Complete sentences, Mello, what did they teach you at Wammy's?"

"Fuck me," Mello gasps, completely given over to pleasure now. He braces his forearms against the headstone, lifts his hips, but a firm hand to his lower back pushes him back into place, to the unyielding friction and the unwitting pleasure a dead man can deal out from beyond the grave.

"Fuck me hard, Matt," he pants. "Wake the whole cemetery up. Make me scream. Oh god, Matt…fuck…"

"As you have said it, so it shall be done," Matt says regally. He removes his fingers and positions himself, just a breath away from losing control.

Mello isn't ready for it, never could be, not when the orgasmic equivalent of Hiroshima and Nagasaki has just been rammed up his insides. His screams echo between tombstones, ricochet off crosses and vases and stone-mute angels. Matt knows his body well, knows just where to push and pull and nibble and bite to maximize volume; it's probably five percent knowledge of human nerves and pressure points and the rest, practice, intuition, and enthusiasm.

They move together, more each other than themselves. They're close, unbearably so; a few deliberately placed strokes will end it all, let them die the little death, join the ranks of the crooked tombstones like so many rotten teeth, then rise again, alive again…

Only to return not long after.

For now, though, they are alive, and Mello comes hard over L's name, Matt follows, bruising Mello's hip and neck and everything. They settle limply in the grass before the graves, Matt's body curling around Mello's. They lie breathing heavily in the aftermath.

"Matt?"

"Hmm?"

"Let's choose a different grave every time we do this."

Matt considers this as he traces fingers over cooling skin. Tradition comes with time, and time is what they don't have. But Matt has never been one to refuse Mello anything, even something he can't give. So he just says, "Shall we draw names from a hat or use a random number generator to determine the lucky deceased?"

Mello rolls his eyes. "You're so nerdy."

"Right then. Shall I tie you to the headstone and leave you until you're begging me to fuck you dry?"

This time Mello smiles anticipatorily and watches in satisfaction as Matt reaches for their clothes.

They both look back as they leave the cemetery, and for all their proposed future exploits…

…they will never return.

A/N: And review, thank you!