DN -- Nevermore
Title: Nevermore
Collection: Fifteen
Fandom: Death Note
Pairing: Matt/Mello
Rating: PG
Word Count: 957
Prompt: “Nevermore”
Warnings: ...spoilers?
Summary: Hindsight is 20/20, and foresight is about zero, but that's kind of how it ought to be.
Author's Note: eltea is my hero. ♥
15. “NEVERMORE”
Never-that’s a hell of a long time.
It’s funny-well, you know, “funny”-that there was such an air to Wammy’s-an aftertaste of Never-Never Land, a flavor of never-grow-up, of never-change. And so when things did change-when things changed in an instant, and the rug went out from under… it threw you for a loop. Threw you for three, and the next thing you knew, you were swooping through a fighter jet’s evasive procedure, and you didn’t have your harness on right.
Never again-a prohibition, but this time, it’s enforced.
Matt loved L. Maybe not in the same way Mello did, not so hard his heart was just waiting, cracked from the strain, and ready to fall to pieces, but Mello hits everything at a run, and that includes the worship of secular idols. (Mello doesn’t think that joke’s very funny. Near does. Near has a great sense of humor, really; it’s weird.)
Matt misses the Back Then, the Back in the Day, the Once Upon a Time, misses the three of them sprawling on L’s bed as the world’s greatest detective sat curled in his desk chair, ignoring the emails and instant messages, and told stores about the incredible places he’d been. Moscow, Prague, Provence; Amsterdam, New Guinea, New York; Rio de Janeiro and Mozambique; the people, the buildings, the way the cities felt and smelled and breathed; who he’d bested, how he’d won, the tactics, the feints, the ripostes-and the adventures unfolded before their eyes, narrated by the hero, an Odysseus who carried an invulnerable shield emblazoned with a gleaming gothic L.
That’s what Matt wanted to be-the man behind the shield, the mind behind. People scare him, sometimes; they’re cold and unpredictable, and he’s been put down and shut up and pushed away too many times to trust them now.
L proves that you don’t have to trust them-you just have to use them. And if you’re good enough, you can do that without even letting them see your face.
L shows Matt what he can be, if he wants to. If he works at it.
But then L’s gone.
It’s like another foreign case at first-and it has been, up until then, up until they hear. L hasn’t visited in a long time, and the webcam chats had gotten shorter and more terse until they simply stopped, but they’ve seen that before. But now-now, at last, he has… faded out completely. He has faded away. He’s gone, and he’s not coming back. He’s never coming back.
Mello takes it like a knife to the gut-serrated steel. It’s a good thing Matt gets him, gets him too well, finds Mello’s complexity just so simple, because there’s blond hair in the boy’s face, and he’s crying too hard to explain.
That’s it. I’m going. I’m going to find him, and I’m going to kill him, with my own two hands, or I’m going to die trying.
And then he’s gone.
Mello fades, too, a little, as the days grind by, but the holes he leaves are bigger, and Matt tries but can’t quite patch them back together.
Mello has always worn black-black cotton, head to toe, and he didn’t bitch about it even in the summer, which is part of why Matt figures he’s a masochist.
But when Matt finds him now-as he grimaces despite himself at all the smeared, splattered blood; as he sifts carefully through the rubble trapping the long, slender legs as if he’s extricating some ancient culture gone extinct; as he flinches at the very thought of the kind of pain it would take to make Mello hiss through gritted teeth-some small, smothered part of him just wants to laugh.
Mello’s not mourning his parents anymore-it’s L now. And L… L Mello will mourn in silver and black, in the fire’s gleam on his shining sides, in the animal heat and the unabashed egotism. L Mello will mourn with everything he is and wants to be.
But the funny thing-the funny thing is that Mello’s always had it wrong.
There’s blood and ash and dust all over Matt’s defenseless shirt, but you can still make out the stripes-even stripes, exchanging, so that you can’t tell whether black or white was laid down first. This way, you can mourn, but you can integrate the future, too. The hope.
Besides. L loved Oreos.
Of course, Mello’s never been much for balance. Near’s the same way, but on the other side, which his why Matt spent so much of his youth feeling like the fulcrum of a see-saw.
He doesn’t tell Mello that he would have gone to Near, too-would have dropped everything and run just as fast, would have cradled the little white body just as gently to his chest. He loves them both, in ways that fit them, and he doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with that.
But Mello’s the one who called-Mello, in oil-slick black. Mello, who has a too-short childhood of practice turning fear and loneliness to hate.
Five days after he’s on his feet, though, Mello brings home a slightly battered leather coat-Matt doesn’t ask where he got it or found it or retrieved it from-with soft black feathers all around the hood.
After Mello has passed out on the bed that night, lying on his back, hands folded on his chest over the crucifix, Matt gives into the impulse that has dogged him all day, approaches the chair where the coat is draped, and strokes the feathers, once, then twice.
He’s kind of suspected all along that ravens, too, have down feathers underneath.
Nevermore.
And Always.
Collection: Fifteen
Fandom: Death Note
Pairing: Matt/Mello
Rating: PG
Word Count: 957
Prompt: “Nevermore”
Warnings: ...spoilers?
Summary: Hindsight is 20/20, and foresight is about zero, but that's kind of how it ought to be.
Author's Note: eltea is my hero. ♥
15. “NEVERMORE”
Never-that’s a hell of a long time.
It’s funny-well, you know, “funny”-that there was such an air to Wammy’s-an aftertaste of Never-Never Land, a flavor of never-grow-up, of never-change. And so when things did change-when things changed in an instant, and the rug went out from under… it threw you for a loop. Threw you for three, and the next thing you knew, you were swooping through a fighter jet’s evasive procedure, and you didn’t have your harness on right.
Never again-a prohibition, but this time, it’s enforced.
Matt loved L. Maybe not in the same way Mello did, not so hard his heart was just waiting, cracked from the strain, and ready to fall to pieces, but Mello hits everything at a run, and that includes the worship of secular idols. (Mello doesn’t think that joke’s very funny. Near does. Near has a great sense of humor, really; it’s weird.)
Matt misses the Back Then, the Back in the Day, the Once Upon a Time, misses the three of them sprawling on L’s bed as the world’s greatest detective sat curled in his desk chair, ignoring the emails and instant messages, and told stores about the incredible places he’d been. Moscow, Prague, Provence; Amsterdam, New Guinea, New York; Rio de Janeiro and Mozambique; the people, the buildings, the way the cities felt and smelled and breathed; who he’d bested, how he’d won, the tactics, the feints, the ripostes-and the adventures unfolded before their eyes, narrated by the hero, an Odysseus who carried an invulnerable shield emblazoned with a gleaming gothic L.
That’s what Matt wanted to be-the man behind the shield, the mind behind. People scare him, sometimes; they’re cold and unpredictable, and he’s been put down and shut up and pushed away too many times to trust them now.
L proves that you don’t have to trust them-you just have to use them. And if you’re good enough, you can do that without even letting them see your face.
L shows Matt what he can be, if he wants to. If he works at it.
But then L’s gone.
It’s like another foreign case at first-and it has been, up until then, up until they hear. L hasn’t visited in a long time, and the webcam chats had gotten shorter and more terse until they simply stopped, but they’ve seen that before. But now-now, at last, he has… faded out completely. He has faded away. He’s gone, and he’s not coming back. He’s never coming back.
Mello takes it like a knife to the gut-serrated steel. It’s a good thing Matt gets him, gets him too well, finds Mello’s complexity just so simple, because there’s blond hair in the boy’s face, and he’s crying too hard to explain.
That’s it. I’m going. I’m going to find him, and I’m going to kill him, with my own two hands, or I’m going to die trying.
And then he’s gone.
Mello fades, too, a little, as the days grind by, but the holes he leaves are bigger, and Matt tries but can’t quite patch them back together.
Mello has always worn black-black cotton, head to toe, and he didn’t bitch about it even in the summer, which is part of why Matt figures he’s a masochist.
But when Matt finds him now-as he grimaces despite himself at all the smeared, splattered blood; as he sifts carefully through the rubble trapping the long, slender legs as if he’s extricating some ancient culture gone extinct; as he flinches at the very thought of the kind of pain it would take to make Mello hiss through gritted teeth-some small, smothered part of him just wants to laugh.
Mello’s not mourning his parents anymore-it’s L now. And L… L Mello will mourn in silver and black, in the fire’s gleam on his shining sides, in the animal heat and the unabashed egotism. L Mello will mourn with everything he is and wants to be.
But the funny thing-the funny thing is that Mello’s always had it wrong.
There’s blood and ash and dust all over Matt’s defenseless shirt, but you can still make out the stripes-even stripes, exchanging, so that you can’t tell whether black or white was laid down first. This way, you can mourn, but you can integrate the future, too. The hope.
Besides. L loved Oreos.
Of course, Mello’s never been much for balance. Near’s the same way, but on the other side, which his why Matt spent so much of his youth feeling like the fulcrum of a see-saw.
He doesn’t tell Mello that he would have gone to Near, too-would have dropped everything and run just as fast, would have cradled the little white body just as gently to his chest. He loves them both, in ways that fit them, and he doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with that.
But Mello’s the one who called-Mello, in oil-slick black. Mello, who has a too-short childhood of practice turning fear and loneliness to hate.
Five days after he’s on his feet, though, Mello brings home a slightly battered leather coat-Matt doesn’t ask where he got it or found it or retrieved it from-with soft black feathers all around the hood.
After Mello has passed out on the bed that night, lying on his back, hands folded on his chest over the crucifix, Matt gives into the impulse that has dogged him all day, approaches the chair where the coat is draped, and strokes the feathers, once, then twice.
He’s kind of suspected all along that ravens, too, have down feathers underneath.
Nevermore.
And Always.