When Mello came to consciousness, the first thing he did was call Matt's name. His voice cracked halfway through, partially from emotional strain but mostly from puberty, a fact he accepted mildly in comparison to the sound of laughter below. To hear Matt laugh again… to see him smile…

"Matt!" he exclaimed excitedly, leaning over the edge of the bunk bed until he could see Matt in his entirety. The youth lay on his stomach, one hand curled around a handheld, not a gun, thank God not a gun, and the other pressed up against his mouth to contain his giggle fit – but then, noticing Mello's presence, he flinched and stopped laughing immediately. A tense line, not a smile, came into sight as Matt's hand moved away to clench at the sheets like a security blanket.

"Sorry," Matt said skittishly, as if expecting to be punished simply for laughing, and perhaps back in these days — or any day before now — Mello would have.

Instead, he assured, "There's no need to apologize," as he twisted his head back and forth in an attempt to find a calendar posted on the wall.

"Careful—"

He lost his balance as if in response to Matt's warning, and as he began a headfirst fall onto the hardwood floor, he wondered if it was possible to break his neck and die again. Perhaps that was the gimmick of this place, for Matt to see him die rather than the other way around… but he never even touched the ground. Matt half-caught him in his arms, tumbled off the bed, and cushioned his fall, and they landed in a position very much like one they had been in before. Mello lay sprawled across Matt's chest, and Matt held him close, so close that he felt Matt's heartbeat reaching out to him, heard his beat-by-beat assertions of I'll protect you, I'll die for you and confessions of I love you, I need you and pleas of love me, stay with me, and this time he didn't run from those emotions. He was ready to meet them.

"Matt, are you okay?" he inquired, observing Matt's face from an unusually short distance. Mello had always kept Matt on a leash, never letting him escape but at the same time putting as much emotional and physical distance as possible between them, and only when they kissed were they this proximate; but then, their eyes were always closed. It was strange that after a lifetime of knowing Matt and then some, that after watching Matt's life rewind and replay for eons on end, this was the first time he realized the exact coloring of his eyes. There were clouds of hazy gray on the bright blue backdrop, like a storm lurking even on a beautiful day, like a veil of secrets, like smoke… they were perfect for him.

"I'm fine." Matt was a fairly good liar — all of them at Wammy's House were because that's how they were raised — but Mello could still see that he was in pain.

Almost speaking to himself, it was so soft, Mello said, "You can be honest with me. Don't you trust me?" but at this distance even the faintest intake of air could be heard, and with those words Matt seemed to comprehend just how close that was. Mello was allowed only a glimpse of the blush suffusing Matt's cheeks before he was pushed away and presented with Matt's back.

"What?" Mello probed, though temperately, trying to coax an answer out of Matt rather than force one. This method, he found, worked better than being harsh with Matt ever had. The response was immediate.

"Do I trust you? Mello… you don't see it, do you?" So he was blind, even now, even when he thought God had granted him sight with the visions of Matt's life. "Of course I trust you. You've already done everything for me. When I was alone and didn't care… no, when I wanted to be alone, you reached out to me anyway. I don't know why you did it, but… you saved me."

"That's what best friends are for, right?" was his grinning reply, though the guilt bled through his insides. Matt was going to suffer because of him, was going to die because of him… but not today. "Hey, Matt, what's the date?"

Matt swiveled around, a melange of mirth, nervousness, and bewilderment still spinning on his facial features when his body came to a stop. His tone, however, when he pronounced, "The first," was rather flat, as if his vocal chords hadn't been able to decide on which emotion to portray and thus showed none. It only took a moment of pause for worry to come to the forefront, in both his creased brows and the highs and lows when he spoke, "Are you feeling alright? You never forget about ranking day. You're obsessed with ranking day. And you're acting so… so…" Matt never finished his sentence, but the meaningful look in his eyes implied the final word almost to the point of audibility: nice.

"Ranking day, eh? You know, Matt, I've never felt better." A bit of a grimace had worked its way into Mello's smile, but he wasn't lying. "Will you come with me to the board? I… need the moral support," he communicated with difficulty. As much as he hated admitting his weakness, Matt deserved to know the truth, and he needed to be honest with himself as much as with Matt: he needed him by his side. This may have been the last chance Mello had to convey that fact, even if it would forever remain trapped in the past, even if this vision would disappear as easily as the last and ultimately make no difference at all as to how they had lived and died.

"First you admit we're best friends, then that you need my moral support… next thing I know, you'll be asking for my hand in marriage." The joke was clearly Matt's attempt to kill two birds with one stone, making a show of nonchalance while simultaneously making Mello as uncomfortable as he was, but it boomeranged, because Mello wasn't an awkward pubescent boy anymore; he was only trapped in the body of one.

"Maybe," Mello answered, smirking slightly as he stood up and offered out a hand to Matt. The expression on Matt's face was priceless — cute, even — but Mello only indulged himself for a moment before releasing Matt from his stunned, flushed paralysis, extending his arm a bit further and specifying, "Come on."

Nodding jerkily, Matt took him by the hand and allowed Mello to help him to his feet, leaving a trace of his sweat in Mello's palm even after their hands had separated. At first, Matt tried to walk a few steps behind, perhaps to hide from him, perhaps to show him reverence, but Mello slowed his pace every time until they were walking side by side, Matt's smiling profile in the corner of his eye.

That smile was what gave him the strength to look up at the bulletin board, where like the Ten Commandments in solid stone, it was decreed that Near was number one. Even after all this time, it still hurt, it still made something inside him burn, but after staring at the list of names for a long time, the text began to blur: 1. Near, 2. Mello… 1. Near, 2. Mello, 3. Matt… 2. Mello, 3. Matt… Mello, Matt… Mello and Matt… and finally Mello said, "So that's how it is."

Curiously, Matt parroted, "So that's how it is?"

"That's how it is." His nod was as brisk and firm as his words. "Let's go see Near."

At this, Matt became alarmed. "As your moral support buddy, I must veto this idea," he said. "I assure you, murdering Near will come to no good. If you wanna punch something, how about me?"

Matt pointed at his cheek as a target, his fingers unintentionally forming a gun, though not for long. There was the resounding slap of flesh against flesh as Mello knocked that wretched shape out of Matt's hands, and the redhead flinched back. Mello froze, feeling rather ashamed of himself, but then he supposed old habits died hard and of course it wouldn't be so easy to change the person he had always been up until this day. Even so, Mello decided he could try.

"Ah. I'm sorry, Matt. That... wasn't what I meant. I'm not going to hurt you, not anymore," Mello vowed with a decisive note, but when Matt's eyes questioned him for more, he continued, "I'm not going to murder Near, either, so don't worry. Let's go."

He acquired Matt's silent acquiescence then, though there was some hesitance in his friend's first steps as they headed for the common room where Near pieced together puzzles, made models, and played with toys all day long. Even when the rankings were posted, Near couldn't be bothered to check the bulletin board; he was much too complacent in his position as number one, smug, and he never once hid his true nature from the world: it was beneath him, not even worthy of consideration. When he ignored Mello, that was the worst of all.

So of course Near didn't look up from the replica of Wammy's House he was constructing with popsicle sticks and toothpicks — and damn him, it was perfect — until Mello announced his presence verbally, though even then Near's facial expression betrayed nothing. Whether his rival was shocked, suspicious, or truly apathetic about having his name called so placidly when Mello usually came to him screaming, and furthermore about having Matt brought along to one of their private confrontations, Mello didn't know.

…Unlike in the case of Matt's secrets, Mello wasn't sure he wanted to know, and maybe that was exactly what this was all about.

"Near… Near, I…" Mello found himself at a loss for words, so he started with the simple facts: "I'm second. I lost." His own testimony of failure traveled up his throat and over the roof of his mouth with the afflicting consistency of sandpaper, yet the moment he was done, he felt exfoliated, cleansed.

Matt's voice came to him then, the soft surprise with which he spoke Mello's name cementing the thoughts in his brain.

"Near, I may be second, I may always be second, but… there's something, someone, more important to me than that. Matt."

The architectural model of Wammy's House collapsed, though Near hadn't smashed it in a rage; he stared unblinkingly ahead, one leg tucked to his chest and a small smile on his face.

Apprehensively, Mello redirected his gaze, expecting to find another frozen face staring back at him, but the Matt of the future smiled and exhaled the smoke from his cigarette with practiced noblesse, the antique lace he draped in the air vanishing the next moment like a ghost.

"Is that really you?" Mello wondered aloud, reaching out toward but not quite touching Matt, afraid even the faintest graze of fingertips would prove the body before him hollow or vaporous or breakable. He could still feel Near's blank eyes and equally blank smile pinned on him, reminding him of everything that could go wrong.

"Of course it's me. Who else would I be?" countered Matt through another drag on his cigarette, and Mello noticed that though he moved, like Near the smile on his face was a permanent fixture.

"I don't know," Mello growled, frustrated, then threw out, "God?"

"God, eh? I like the sound of that." Matt grinned mischievously and continued to do so even when he posed a question that should have been serious: "Do you trust me?"

Such contradictoriness should have inspired little confidence, but his heart supplied readily, "I trust you."

"Then close your eyes," he ordered and Mello obliged, pulling gauze over the light that was Matt's smile. In that dark place, the next thing he perceived was...

A/N: Wow, I am so embarrassed to be posting this, but I am going to do so anyway! I actually wrote this three whole years ago, but I thought it was crap and couldn't bring myself to put it up here until now... but better online than rotting on my hard drive, right? I actually have a bit more of this fanfic already written which I will (hopefully) force myself to post also. The next chapter will either be up after I get 10 reviews (because I'm mean like that) or next week (so probably next week, lol).