Disclaimer: Don't own, don't claim to own, just borrowing. The title and lyrics belong to the brilliant Okkervil River song Lost Coastlines.

Author's Note: I've been on a bit of a lengthy hiatus from ff net, working on several other rather long fics at once and then this little thing popped into my head after watching the finale of Death Note and was written in a couple of hours. Its based totally on the anime not the manga, so if its AU, that will be why. I figured there's just not enough Matsuda or Aizawa love out there. It isn't intended as slash or pre-slash but if you want to read it that way, be my guest.

Reviews (including concrit) are like written hugs, so please feel free to share.

Enjoy.

Lost Coastlines

we pace beneath flags black and battered

rattling our swords in service of some faded, foreign, lord

Kira is dead and yet the world has never felt so dark.

As they stand side by side in front of Light's torn and bloodied body, Aizawa turns to his colleague, Matsuda, and for the first time since he has known the man, thinks that he is brave.

There are no tears on his face now; no regret in his expression, only a bleak and steely determination. His mouth set in a grim line, he steps forward even as Mogi and Ide come skidding, panting into their midst. He steps forward and lifts the man that he emptied his gun into just minutes before in panic and fury.

Aizawa is one hundred percent certain that Matsuda has no plan now, with Light balanced awkwardly in his arms – he had simply seen a young man lying dead, in tatters from his own hand no less. Crumpled on the staircase like a fallen house of cards, he had looked so painfully alone that despite everything Light had done, Matsuda just needed to hold him. Like he was still the child he had been to them once.

That was true justice. That was bravery.

Aizawa could never have blamed him for shooting Light. Yes, it was the typical impulsive, knee-jerk and usually disastrous kind of reaction he'd come to expect from Matsuda but it had probably saved lives. As for the rest of the shots he had fired, well...Aizawa could see from the young man he was cradling that Matsuda would pay well enough for that.

So he offers the only thing he can, says in words as gentle as the rose-plum sun setting outside,

"We should take him back to the warehouse...We can...make sure he's buried properly."

Matsuda's eyes flicker towards Aizawa but they never actually meet his gaze. He nods, a brief dip of his head and proceeds to carry Light all the way back without a single word. Suffocating silence, all the way back to where good old-fashioned bullets had brought the 'God' Kira crashing down.

When he lays the body down in front of the "winner" - Ha! The winner, as if this has all been a game - if his soul is shattered, if his insides are a thousand shards of prickly glass, Matsuda stoically does not show it and it is bravery the likes of which Aizawa has never seen.

The only thing that he can think as he eyes the scarlet gore that is thick on Matsuda's hands, is that they are all losers here.

Its three solid days until he cracks.

Three days of bedlam as the world waits and wonders on Kira's silent inaction.

Its three days later that Misa's body washes up, bloated skin tinged blue, blonde hair tangled about her neck and eyes ever-wide in girlish awe – three days until Near calls, of all people, asking if their team want to go and identify the poor girl.

Mogi says he can't and Ide says he won't but Matsuda agrees, if only to save his friend from having to go alone.

The car journey is tense at best, with more of the same stifling silence that Aizawa is growing accustomed to.

When they arrive at the riverside, however, feet sloshing and sinking in the watery mud, Matsuda takes one look at her dire corpse and murmurs, heartfelt,

"Oh, Misa-san..." He shakes his head at Aizawa in a way that says simply, I can't, and turns on his heel, stumbling up the bank.

Aizawa doesn't really have to do much, he knows the routine. He nods, yes, it's Misa. Threw herself from the bridge when she got the call that her Light had been extinguished, no doubt, and its about five and a half more litres of clinging scarlet blood that Matsuda is going to be seeing on his hands.

The police put her in a body bag like she's no different from any other suicide victim and cart her away and Aizawa stands with his shoulders slumped, hands in pockets, staring at the aphotic expanse of water. He thinks the worst thing he could possibly think,

If only...

Then he takes a steadying breath and decides to go and find Matsuda before the murdering powers of the Death Note become irrelevant in comparison to the trauma it has left in its wake.

It doesn't take long to find him, head resting mournfully in his arms as he leans against the bridge, shaggy hair drooping around his face. He looks the picture of misery.

Aizawa shifts from foot to foot uncomfortably and then drops a firm hand on Matsuda's shoulder. The younger man does not react and Aizawa has no words to say, vocal chords wholly uncooperative.

Eventually a light drizzle starts and shadows start to grow as night encroaches. Aizawa is about to suggest that they get a coffee or a beer or something stronger when Matsuda starts to shake and his heart swoops sickeningly towards his abdomen.

Then, three solid days after the truth which should have crushed them all beyond recognition had emerged, Matsuda cracks.

"I-It was all f-for nothing...The world is going to-to shit, Aizawa and...and...Poor Misa-san!"

He heaves one vast sob, slim body wracked with shudders, shaking his head again and again. He presses his balled fists hard into his eye-sockets, whispering,

"I'm sorry..."

Aizawa knows that the words to comfort Matsuda simply don't exist. Instead he wraps an arm round his shoulders and responds that there is nothing to be sorry for, Kira has been destroyed and that is what matters most; its not their fault that Misa was gone from the moment she fell in love with Light and that Light was gone from the moment he set his hands on that infernal notebook.

Matsuda laughs humourlessly and it is gut-wrenching because Aizawa knows why he is laughing.

The words are meaningless. If they were both always going to die, if they could never have been saved, then what Matsuda has just said is exactly right. It was all for nothing and without Kira's unyielding presence, cities all over the world are descending into mayhem.

And yet...

As much as it hurts to see the younger man breaking, watch his laughter dissolve into fresh tears as he buries his face into his hands...As much as it hurts to hug him, sincere but inept, and plead with him to leave this awful bridge, go somewhere warm and dry...

It only serves to strengthen Aizawa's belief that Matsuda is not an idiot at all but the bravest man he has ever met.

Aizawa wishes he could cry but he can't. None of them involved in the case can open that door because what is on the other side would kill them. They would end up like Misa.

But Matsuda isn't afraid of that; Matsuda is so brave that he just feelswithout stopping to think about whether or not it might destroy him.

Which is both inspiring and terrifying at once.

So Aizawa clasps his shoulders tightly, leading his friend away from the bridge's edge, hoping that the rain will stop and that sometime Matsuda will be able to stop weeping and be better rather than broken.

If only...

The world is damned.

No one wins.