AN: FINALY! This is the one-shot promised to RhetoricalJeevas many many moons ago. I'm so sorry it took so long. It's not that good either… *shot*. I'M SORRY!

Disclaimer: I owns me no Death Note.

Warnings: Mild swearing, Yaoi, Violence

Call It A Tie

Matt POV

SLAM!
My head crashed hard into a locker, the collision producing an ear-drum shattering noise.
"You think you're so great, punk?" one of my three attackers, a tall, skinny, tan guy with short brown hair asked menacingly. "You walk around here like you own the place? All because you're with him? He doesn't love you! He'll never love someone like you!"

I started to cry. I cried because I knew they were right.

One of the other guys, a shorter, slightly plumper one with dark auburn hair, piped up. "If he loved you, he'd protect you! Where is now, dummy?"

Good question. Dammit, they were right.

I always had doubts about us. Before Mello and I started dating, I was surprised he even wanted to be friends with a nobody like me. In my eyes, he was perfection. He was the embodiment of everything I didn't deserve. Flawless looks and a fiery attitude, everything I could never be. People wanted to follow him. He was exciting and deserving of all his praise and he demanded respect because he could. In my eyes, he was godlike. He was the highest power imaginable.

And I was Matt. Scrawny, awkward Matt, with my puppy-like disposition and strange sense of style. With my green eyes that I hid behind goggles because they gave away my every thought and emotion, my ever cursed, over-expressive eyes. I had nothing going for me. At best, I was hardly good enough to like the mud off the bottom of Mello's boots. I definitely wasn't good enough to date him.

So there was no reason he should love me. That was the thought that rang through my head and in my ears as the three who spoke the truth threw me to the ground.

The third one, tall and pale with long dark hair and freckles, punched me with all his strength, right in the jaw, before the three turned to face a voice booming from down the hall.

"Hey! What the hell do you thugs think you're doing with my boyfriend?" Mello's voice, commanding as always, brought more tears to my eyes. The guys dropped me on the ground and ran before incurring Mello's wrath.

"Matty? You ok? You're...crying? Matty?"

"Mel...Mello?"

"Yeah Matty?"

"Were they right?"

"Was who right about what?"

"The guys beating me up. They said... They said the someone like you could never love someone like me. Were they right?"

Mello just looked at me for a second. He said nothing. He just stared me down, right into my eyes, my stupid green eyes, exposed now that my goggles had slid off. "Matt? What do you mean?"

I look away from him, afraid to share my biggest fears. "I just..." How can I tell him that he's the most important thing to me, but that I've always been worried he doesn't feel the same? How do I explain how terrified at I am that one day he'll just up and leave me, that someday I'll have to wake up from this dream I've been living?

"You just what, Matt? What's wrong?" He looked down me with those piercing blue eyes of his, begging for the truth, and I could not withhold it from him any longer.

"You're the best part of my day, the best thing in my life. You're amazing in every single way. When you smile the room lights up, and when you laugh every scrambles to say something funny so that they can keep you laughing. You're brilliant and witty, and sharp in a way that takes everyone by surprise. You've got a bristly exterior, but you care so deeply, so passionately about the things that are dear to you. You're what keeps me together on my worst days, and what keeps me smiling on my best. You're everything I don't deserve, and I'm... Just Matt."

He looked at me again, straight in the eyes, his face expressionless. Then he slid his hand around to the back of my neck and pulled me in to a deep, passionate kiss.

After a moment, he pulled away, running a hand through my hair. "You shut up. Matt, you're twice as smart as I'll ever be, we both know that. You have the heart of an angel, and you love with all of it. You're the only person here who truly does care about me, who isn't scared if me and doesn't just want something from me. You didn't judge, you don't judge me every time I fail. You are my reason for smiling or laughing, the reason I get up every morning and go on living. I don't feel the need to cry like the others do, because I have you. You're the one constant in my life, that thing I can count on. I need you, because wouldn't be who I am without you. I love you Matt."

"Mello. I love you too. I love you more."

He smiled and pulled me in for a kiss again. When we broke apart, he grinned at me and said, "No. You don't. This is one contest in which I will never, ever come in second. How 'bout we call it a tie?"