dn | doesn't
title: doesn't
fandom: death note
characters: mello / matt
rating: t [ language ]
word count: 4,719
notes: spoilers for up to ch. 99. speculative. originally in two parts for no particular reason.
summary: he doesn't.
Matt doesn't remember anything about his mother, except that she was the one he inherited his red hair from, and that she had a nice smile. Then again, he was only two, turning three in half a week, when he last saw her, and back then, he was still named Mail. (It was pronounced "mile," but written "mail," a fact that bothered him for the next decade.) He remembers even less about his father, because he remembers exactly nothing about him, like those memories have been wiped clean out of his head, a magnet to a computer disk.
He also doesn't know what a "bastard child" is, exactly, but he knows that, whatever it is, he is one, because he heard the orphanage women saying that word in association with his name a couple times. It had to be something bad, since those two syllables were always said in a hushed whisper, and the women laughed nervously and cooed at him when they noticed he was listening, blinking much less than normal people did as he stared up at them. It took him a couple years at that place to get used to the pitying, overly sweet smiles they gave him. The smile that high-up people will give to losers. He knows that much.
Still, he's smart, smarter than most people guess him to be, so when he also hears the words "divorced," "she was lonely," "one night" and "mistake," at the age of eight, he gets the general idea. That last word sticks to mind especially. He sits at the computer that night, well past bed-time, his eyes beginning to ache from constantly staring at the glow of the monitor. The mouse cursor is hovering over the file name "Elizabeth Jeevas." The orphanage keeps a list of the people who have left their children on their doorstep just in case the kids ever want to trace back who were the people who threw them away. It took some time, but hacking the database isn't hard, and he's good with computers. He pauses, his finger resting on the mouse button. His mother lies behind that blue hyperlink.
He never clicks that link.
He decides that, if she doesn't care about him, he doesn't care about her, either. It's a childish way of thinking (an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth), and he knows that, but he doesn't care, because, after all, he reasons, he's just a kid. He won't care about her.
Still, when the orphanage caretaker takes him to the doctor one week later, where the optometrist announces that he has photophobia, he blames the condition on the faceless redhead that is his mother's memory even before he knows what he's been diagnosed with. It takes a while for the nurse to explain to him that his eyes have a problem taking in light, which will make it hard for him to be in places that are too bright. It takes a bit longer than it would with most patients, because he insists on knowing exactly what is wrong with him. He only nods in understanding when he can no longer grasp the technical language concerning the malfunction in the muscles that control the size of his pupil.
He doesn't act it, but he's already known about his ‘deformation' for a while now, because he knows it hurts to be bright places and it's much more comfortable to be in dark rooms, even if the orphanage ladies scold him for it. He keeps quiet as the nurse and his caretaker discuss ‘his problem' in hushed tones.
If he says that he already knew about his condition, then it's as if he won't be justified in being angry with his mother for handing down such cruddy genes.
*
"Mail."
He's still halfway dozing when the teacher calls his name, and he blinks, though it's obviously hidden by the lenses of his sunglasses, because the teacher calls his name again, sounding more irritated this time.
"Mail Jeevas!"
Of course, his name elicits a couple giggles from the other students, and he frowns a little bit as he answers, voice a little hoarse and completely monotone; he's only ten, but he has the ‘attitude' of a fifteen year old, and the teachers hate it.
"Yes...sir?"
"You shouldn't be sleeping in class!"
"I wasn't...sir."
"It looked like you were!"
"I really wasn't...sir."
The pause between the "sir" and the rest of his sentence is calculated: just short enough that he won't get in trouble for being "disrespectful," but long enough to irritate. Perfect. Mr. Blanchette slams his book down on the podium, his face growing red.
"Answer the question on the board, then!"
He really has been sleeping for the past few minutes, nodding off, but the rest of the class has been working on the same problem for the past twenty minutes, which he solved inside his head in the first five minutes before falling asleep. Stalking up to the board (with calculated lethargy; he walks slowly, slouching, taking enough time to rile up the teacher), he takes the chalk, scrutinizing the board for a moment before writing in short, hard strokes. His handwriting is surprisingly tidy, if a bit tilted to the side, and he takes his time, scrawling down the mathematic equations.
When he's done, he drops the chalk on the podium and risks throwing the teacher a satisfied smirk before slouching back to his seat near the back of the classroom, stifling a yawn.
He still gets a detention for "disrespect." Hmm, he'd better pick up the speed a little for returning to his desk.
It's pretty late when he gets back, since he's had to spend the past hour and a half helping the school secretary address and label envelopes. It's monotonous, boring work, and he's itching to get to his games, but the sight of an unfamiliar car just outside the orphanage gates makes him wary. It's a fairly expensive car, he can tell by the hood ornament, and he can't possibly imagine why that rich a person would come visiting to such a crummy place. (Surely, they had orphanages with higher quality kids where the rich folks would pick and choose?)
"Mail, is that you?"
He's just finished taking off his shoes at the front door, and is in the process of sneaking up to his room (he always gets scolded when coming home after detention) when the voice calls him, and he has to stifle a sigh before calling back.
"Yes...ma'am. Coming."
When he enters the kitchen, where the voice was calling him from, he pauses, because there's a weird person sitting there.
"Mail, I'd like you to say hello to Mr. Roger."
The man turns to give him a critical stare, which he returns boldly.
"Hello...sir."
"Mail." The name sounds oddly digital in the man's voice, flat and uglier than ever. "Would you like to go to a different school?"
*
He doesn't like Wammy's very much, but it's better than the orphanage, becuase the computers are better and there's at least one person there he likes. Okay, not likes, tolerates. Okay, not tolerates, sorta hates. Actually, he has no idea why the hell he hangs out with Mello, because the blond is absolutely, totally insane, down to the very last bit.
"Hey, Matt." A crumpled up chocolate wrapper bounces off his head, knocked askew his goggles and making his die in the middle of a boss-fight. The blond comes following closely after the wrapper, chewing on yet another bar of chocolate, dropping small bits of it on the floor and obviously not caring. "You're actually wearing those?"
Straightening his goggles, Matt flips off the Gameboy before looking over at Mello. "Well, I don't see how else I can use it." The goggles had been a belated Christmas gift from the other. Oddly considerate. And oddly perceptive, too. Mello had been the only one to notice his extreme photophobia, other than the teachers, the only one to notice that he shrank from bright light like a vampire from the sunlight, lurking in the shadows as much as possible ever since the women prohibited him from wearing his sunglasses indoor. The goggles, they left alone though, and he wore them constantly. Protection, in a way.
"Well, you look sorta dumb."
"You're the one that bought them."
"I didn't know they'd look that dumb on you."
"Like you'd look any better in them."
Mello plops down on the floor next to him, leaning in to peer at the tiny screen of the gaming console, smelling of grass and little boy and chocolate. "You always play these. Are they that fun?"
A small, wan smile crosses the redhead's face. "I dunno. Is chocolate good?"
"If you're aiming for sarcasm, that wasn't very good."
"I wasn't." The screen of his game flickered, then blanked out. "...damn, low on batteries."
Before Mello can reply with one of his typically sharp retorts, there's a knock on the door, and Roger's standing there, looking a bit more solemn than usual, his hands folded. "Mello." Even his voice is a bit more hoarse than usual. "I need to speak to you. Come to my office." When the blond began to open his mouth, probably to give some sort of excuse, it was cut off before it started. "Now."
"Alright, alright." A piece of chocolate drips to the floor as Mello rises, sparing Matt a small wave as he heads out into the hallway, around the corner, and out of sight.
He doesn't come back.
*
It's his fifteenth birthday, and he doesn't give a fuck, but other people do, and it irritates him, for reasons he's not sure of. Linda's chirpy "Happy Birthday, Matt!" and the other kids' sheep-like chorus of similar happy wishes makes him wish that no one knew about his birthday, because it only serves to remind him that he's spent that many years aimlessly, without a clear idea of what to do. Near has long since taken over the position of L, and Mello (that bastard) had already vanished from sight. Which leaves him at the top of the Wammy's hierarchy, a position that he doesn't want any more, because it's pointless.
That night, when it hits midnight (he couldn't help it; the idea of leaving the very moment it was the day after your birthday was a romantic notion), he leaves the orphanage, and no one notices, because the kids are all asleep, and the adults are all busy planning how to better train the next generation kids. All he has is his laptop, a few clothes, and a small collection of other oddities stuffed into a ragged backpack, which he's slung over his shoulder. It crumples a bit when he tosses it onto the seat next to him on the bus, looking forlorn.
It's cold, and his goggles have fogged up.
As the white curtain of steam begins to clear, he looks out the window and sees Wammy's house in the distance, growing more distant now, as the bus rolls down the road, the engine humming. The only other people on the vehicle are the driver and an old man in the back seat who's already fast asleep. He watches the orphanage until it recedes into a tiny dot on the horizon, then sits properly in his seat, staring straight ahead, blankly, at the advertisement plastered onto the back of the seat in front of him.
"Life is wonderful! Live it to its fullest potential with Nix Card! Best credit rates."
A laugh - dry, wan, humorless - slips from his lips as he leaves behind everything that he used to be and turns over a new page, blank, white, full of unknowns.
*
He's horrible at remembering faces and names, but that's okay, but he doesn't need to know people for very long anyway. Feigning recognition is easy - just a simple "Oh, hey" and casual chatter - and his business acquaintances think that he's trustworthy, loyal, ready to stick by them through thick and thin. They're all the same, no matter what job he takes: programming, hacking, accountant, even some drug dealing. They go "Hey, man, nice seeing you again. You ready for work today?" But none of them hold his attention for long, and the longest he's gone without quitting is two and a half weeks, and that was only because he needed to work that long in order to get his paycheck.
Money-wise, he doesn't have any worries, because he's long since perfected the art of draining money from the rich bastards out there - just a little bit at a time so that no one notices the money vanishing - and he has enough to live without worry for the rest of his life, as long as he's not pining for a trip to the Bahamas or anything. But the neighbors were getting suspicious when he ordered a full set of speakers including a hi-tech sub-woofer on a whim, but never had a job. The last thing he needed was the police snooping about his house, so he started wandering from job to job, fleeting, here and then gone, never long enough for anyone to pin down. He has seven different fake identities, twelve different identification cards, and more aliases than he cares to count.
No one knows him, or at least, no one that he's connected to, and he's happy that way.
He spent the first fifteen years of his life trying to become this one person - L, the nameless, the legend, the mysterious figure they had all adored - but hadn't tried too hard, so now he was content with being a nameless person, a nobody, just one more person in the crowd that slips between your fingers and dissipates like so much smoke.
His apartment is littered with ashtrays filled with cigarette stubs, but he doesn't worry about dying from cancer. If he's going to die, he's rather it be quick, painless, something that doesn't leave a trace.
Anonymity is his weapon, his shield, his vice, his addiction.
He doesn't exist.
*
He has no idea what the fuck he's doing, and keeps brooding over that question as he makes his way through the twisting alleys and back to the apartment from the pharmacist's. A bag of assorted medication swings from the tips of his fingers; he has no clue what they do - he's long forgotten, or doesn't want to remember, the plethora of chemical names and functions that he'd had crammed into his head way back when - but he knows that they'll work. The internet is his domain, and he's done enough to research to know that what he's bought will help against third-degree burns and infection and fever and whatever else the fuck Mello might have.
The door bounces off the wall when he slams it open and nearly closes back on him, but he slips into the apartment, locks it behind him - two deadbolts and a chain - and kicks off his boots, shaking snow off his hair and vest. His first few breaths fog up in front of him before the apartment warms him up. He's had the heater up on full blast - not for himself, he's pretty resistant to the temperature - but for Mello, who looks like he'll die unless he's incubated, or something.
Mello looks like a mummy, a horrid, macabre, but beautiful one. Made of bandages, sweat and curses, blond hair strewn wildly over the pillow and blanket twisted haphazardly about sinewy limbs. When Matt approaches, he twitches, eyes wild with feverish rage. "What took you so fucking long." It's posed as a statement, a threat, a demand rather than a question, and it makes Matt feel funny inside as he sets down the bag of medicine on the floor next to the bed.
"The pharmacist kept asking what I needed so much for."
"...shit." The swear word has been repeated numerous times already over the course of the past day and a half, and Mello hisses it again, covering his face with his arm, as if the very air were an eyesore he wanted to avoid. It probably is. The burns are still red and raw beneath the bandages, painful enough to even just look at.
"Here." Glancing back at his laptop to make sure he'd gotten the names of the various pills and powders right, Matt holds out a half-dozen pills and a glass of water. "Take these. Then sleep. Should make you feel better." After a brief pause. "Supposedly."
By the time he's done talking, Mello's already bolted down the medicine, draining the glass of water of every last drop with his tongue, before letting it clink to the floor and slumping back onto the bed. His back's also crisscrossed with scars that peek out from the bandages, and Matt scours them with his eyes as he sits down on the floor, leaning back against the wall, rummaging his pockets for a lighter. He probably shouldn't smoke next to a person in such critical condition, but he knows that Mello would rather set himself on fire than die of cigarette smoke.
As the nicotine soothes his nerves, Matt closes his eyes and leans his head back, breathing out a thin ribbon of smoke that swirls up to the ceiling before dissipating. In twenty-four hours - even less, actually - he's been ousted from his quiet, anonymity-driven life and somehow into the clutches of this blond hellion. The distress call he's gotten at three in the morning - he'd been awfully tempted to hang up then - had startled him into action. A voice barely familiar through the static and feverish hoarseness, hissing orders in a low voice.
Come to Las Vegas. Rent an apartment. Anywhere. Cheap. Quickly. Then come to the first alleyway right of 34th street. Then call.
Even as he shang-haid one of his old acquaintances - one of the guys he'd programmed and hacked for for a while - into lending him a cheap-ass apartment somewhere in the dirty ghetto area, he wasn't quite sure of why the hell he was helping this man who he hadn't seen in four - or was it five? - years. Maybe it was the urgency in the other's voice, or the sight of the horrid wounds, or the fiery determination, or--
Giving a small, humorless laugh, Matt glances over at the sleeping blond, a smile on his lips. "Long time no see."
*
He's playing some game he's already beaten five times, sitting on the dilapidated couch, hair still tousled from last night's sleep, a cigarette in his mouth and the ashtray on the floor next to him half-filled. The sound of rustling comes from the bed, but he doesn't look up, instead concentrating on the screen of the PSP to make sure he isn't making his little man jump into any endless pits. Partly because he wants to try and get a perfect score this time. And partly because he's worried that he'll end up changing his mind if he looks over at Mello.
The conversation from the night before took place while Mello was choking down a chocolate bar, and he was nursing a cigarette. To each, their own addictions.
"I want you to help me."
"So I've noticed."
"I'd expected so much. You know what this is about." Again, stating instead of questioning. Matt smirked.
"Kira. Mafia. Building explosion. I did my basic research."
"So what's your answer?"
Some ash dripped to the floor, and Matt got up, hitching on his vest and waving a hand in that careless way he'd perfected.
"You know what I'm going to say."
*
His goggles are still the same ones that Mello got him so many years ago. Sure, he's changed the straps three or four times as the elastic stretched and tore, and he had to change one of the lenses after it cracked in some street fight he got involved in, but, in essence, they're still the same ones that he'd received as a Christmas present way back then at Wammy's. The frame is scratched in various places from general wear and tear, but he still likes them. He'd briefly tried to wear sunglasses or something else, but the goggles fit best, and he felt strange if he had to go for too long without them.
Figures.
It was just a pervasive as Mello. You were dependant before you knew it.
He's picking at the lenses, wiping away some of the dust that's accumulated near the edges, when Mello walks in, all business and seriousness, red bomber jacket layered on black leather, a rough-and-deadly package just exuding lust and rage. Matt can't help but quirk an eyebrow.
"You'd think people on a secret mission would dress a little more discreetly."
"You're not much better."
"Meaning I am a little better."
"Oh yeah. Goggles and Hot Topic outfit. Discreet indeed."
"Less noticeable than a leather hooker."
"Shut up. We're going. Turn the goddamn game off."
The screen flashes white, then black as Matt flicks the power switch, stuffing the console into his pocket out of habit, even though he knows he won't be playing it against any time soon. The casual attitude they're keeping up makes him grin - morbidly, grimly - because it's so ridiculous. Like soldiers acting manly and keeping up with bravado when they know they're going off on missions that they might not come back from in one piece.
It takes him three tries to get the car started, since the it's cold out, and the engine isn't too good. Mello's motorcycle is gunning - rumbling, like a rabid cat - just at his side, and when the car finally kicks into actions, the two vehicles growl in unison. Lighting a cigarette, Matt takes a deep drag, leaning back into his seat, listening to the bustling of the city just a short way away.
"Nervous?"
"Oh no, of course not. I'm going to go kidnap the most famous celebrity in Japan at the moment. Of course I'm not nervous."
"Thought so." He doesn't look, but he can hear the wry smile in Mello's voice.
Tapping out a spot of ash from the tip of his cigarette, Matt looks over at the blond, a lazy grin on his face.
"See you in Nagano, then."
"Don't keep me waiting."
"That's what I should be saying."
Mello's rosary gleams in the dull light.
"...alright, let's go."
"Hey, Mello."
Mello's just about to put his helmet on, but pauses, glancing over at Matt, his gaze partly curious, partly serious, partly unreadable.
Matt knows he's being a sap, but he doesn't care, because he's never bothered to lie, and isn't going to start now; he's lived his facade of anonymity and ghostliness for long enough, and, before the whole bang-bang-shebang mess starts, he wants to leave just one thing behind, just one.
"Thanks."
Before he can hear Mello's answer - he's partly afraid to hear it, because that would be almost like a soldier's farewell, admitting that he's going to go and die and never come back - he slams down on the accelerator, and the car jumps forward, lurching onto the road and weaving from lane to lane. The studio's quite a way off, and the end of his cigarette glows orange - bright then dim then bright again - the entire time he's driving.
The interior of the car has long since been permanently stained with the smell of cigarette smoke, but it no longer even fazes him; nothing would have, at the moment, as he presses down on the accelerator, watching as the needle of the speedometer creeps up the dashboard. The speed limit here is 80km/hr, so he pushes it all the way to 85, then realizes that getting caught by the police for breaking the limit really wouldn't be convenient and pulls it back to a 75. There.
The traffic light up ahead turns red ? tinted to a dull orange by his goggles ? and he screeches to a halt just short of the pedestrian crossing, taking the chance to lean back and breath in a lungful of nicotine. ‘…what the fuck am I doing here…' Going off to kidnap a celebrity, that's what, and no, not just any celebrity either, but the celebrity of the day, that Takada woman, "Takada-sama". Kira's spokeswomen. She isn't even that pretty.
The smokescreen gun rests heavily in his lap, bulky and forbidding; it almost makes him miss the gun he'd had back in the States, but it'll have to do. Japanese law is strict, and that was the best he'd been able to procure. 'Fat lot of good it's going to do if I ever get caught.' The light turns green, and he slams down on the accelerator, the car jerking forward and speeding down the road.
The tip of his cigarette glows brightly, and a grim smirk crosses his face as the promised location looms up ahead, black Sedans crowded around the limousine like ants around their queen. Adjusting the goggles around his head one last time, he picks up the gun, steering the car with one hand, aiming straight for the bustling crowd.
There are so many bodyguards, it makes his head spin, his breath hitch in his throat, and he can't help but think, 'I am going to get slaughtered out here, shot down like a dog.' But there's someone out there who counts on him, and he can't stand to break that one tiny bit of trust he's managed to procure - after nineteen years of apathy and pretending that he didn't exist - and he fingers the trigger guards, biting down on his cigarette. If he's going to die like a dog, he'll finish living like one, too, and fight for his goddamn hellion of a master, the hellfire, the maniac, the leather-clad enigma that he wouldn't dare call a friend, but isn't quite his master either, that one person that he wants to talk to one last time before he goes, but probably can't, because now they're so fucking far apart.
He thinks back to the orphanage, to those nameless faces that took the children and tried to force them into the mold that was L, tries to make them someone they were not. He thinks back to faceless parents, his mother a redheaded blank and his father an invisible ghost. He thinks back to the five years he's lived alone, drifting from place and place, person to person, and leaving nothing behind but a whiff of smoke. He thinks back to the one person whose ever made him stay in one stop, chained him down with straps of leather and chocolate and adrenaline, Mello, a presence that's always there, in the very golden lenses that his eyes depend so heavily on.
He pulls the trigger.
*
The first bullet misses him and hits his car with a hollow plwing!, as does the second, and he smirks, thinking that even he would have better aim that these lousy bodyguards; he only gets halfway through this train of thought when the third bullets homes in on its target and hits him in the stomach. Even though he's braced himself for the impact, he staggers back, his knees buckling and the air leaving his lungs in one large gasp. Oh god, it hurts. He's only dimly aware as two more bullets hit him (one on the right shoulder, the other in the stomach again; fuck, these guys can't even be symmetrical).
Falling back a step, he slumps against the side of his car for a moment before sliding down to the ground, his legs giving in to the pain. A couple more bullets have hit him by them, mostly around the chest and neck, but he's more concerned about the bullet that's gone brushing past the side of his head, because it's nipped his goggles, shattered the left lens and marred the smooth golden surface with a cobweb of cracks.
His last thought is "Fuck, this hurts like hell."
His second-to-last thought is of a name that starts with M, and it sure isn't his own.