It Matters
folder
Death Note › Yaoi-Male/Male › Mello/Matt
Rating:
Adult ++
Chapters:
24
Views:
10,216
Reviews:
17
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
0
Category:
Death Note › Yaoi-Male/Male › Mello/Matt
Rating:
Adult ++
Chapters:
24
Views:
10,216
Reviews:
17
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
0
Disclaimer:
I do not own Death Note, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.
Games
With a creak of leather, Mello crouched by the side of the bed. He reached out to stroke the hair from out of Matt's face, but that didn't wake him. After seeing his fill, he shook him gently, softly speaking his name. Matt didn't stir. A glance at his watch told him that he didn't have time for this. After a fortnight of insomnia, following the concussion, Matt had swung the other way. He now slept so deeply that Mello suspected that an earthquake could topple the city and his lover would still be snoring away. He kissed him and left a note, 'Probably won't be back this week. M. x.'
Three hours later, Matt found it. He had his first cup of tea and cigarette of the day, then spent the early part of the afternoon on his new XBox. Around four, a text arrived to confirm that Mello would be gone until Friday at least. Matt texted back 'k' and finished his level. It was time.
From his keyring, he took the portable memory stick that he had worked so hard not to let Mello search. It slotted into the desktop and a few minutes later, just the time it took for another cup of tea to brew, Matt sat slowly scrolling through the code on the screen. More leisurely now, his searching, he was able to admire the intelligence that had gone into constructing it. Mello had been right, there were prompts that, perhaps, might have led younger, inexperienced, more impressionable versions of Mello and Near to fetch Matt to see. Prompts which would have made them feel clever for doing so. He was able able to stop being so clumsy, intercepting the commands for SMS to be sent before they actually were.
When L's screen popped up, it was no less disconcerting than it had been the first time round. "What are you doing, Matt?" L asked, seemingly now from beyond the grave. Again the pantomine about him being number one. Matt quietly mused about what would happen if he was to call Near up and explain that it's ok, he can step down now. Matt Jeevas, heir to L, was coming to take over. Matt smirked. There was the moment again, the big dilemma. Continue and you are number one, retreat and the fight continues between Near and Mello. The endless bloody fight. Watching for a second time, it was so obvious what this was, but just to check, Matt searched the background code for anything sending or receiving data in that way. There was nothing. So far so good.
He entered the hidden layer, mostly files on them all, past, present and prospective Wammy House kids. Examinations of all kinds, medical records, histories, psychiatric appraisals, the minutes of meetings, notes and reports from observations. Matt opened the one that he had briefly glanced at before. L had written this, apparently in response to some question about the apprenticeship issue. It assessed every child in The Wammy House at the time, then predictably singled out Mello and Near. Everything about those two had been analysed in such depth, sometimes cruel, cold perceptions were laid bare. Reading it, Matt had to keep reminding himself that the subjects were human beings. Moreover, that they were children. Then came that devastating caveat, '... should Matt finally apply himself it is expected that his results will over-ride all considerations. There is an 87% likelihood that he will score significantly higher than both Near and Mello.'
Matt sat back. He had been hoping that he had imagined reading that, but it was stark black and white on the screen. There was more, which he hadn't read the first time around. It was a later segment in the same series of discussions. This time L mentioned him again, almost as an afterthought in discussions of the other two. He considered it likely that Matt was purposefully jeopardising his own ratings and suggested that it be leaked to him that Mello had scored higher than he actually had. This would cause Matt to raise his own game, in order to keep himself precisely 6.6598769 points behind his friend. Matt felt his mouth become dry. He sipped his tea and had another cigarette.
Had they actually done it? Matt raced through reams of historical academic test results, but saw nowhere where Near had been signicantly below Mello. That might have highlighted the experiment, but it didn't exist. Conscious that there had been extra layers before, Matt gave up on the frontpage files and hunted in the background again. Code rose slowly, scrolled on his screen, as he searched for backdoors. Finally, he found it, hacked in and sat back with his heart sinking. The whole thing was in binary.
Matt nipped out for cigarettes and a takeaway pizza, eating the latter while he played a few games of Halo. His desktop kept drawing his attention back though. Not trusting on-line instant translator calculators, after an experimental few lines comparing their versions with his own, he resigned himself to the fact that he was going to be decoding raw binary for the next few hours. He sat with a pad and lost himself in the language. It was growing dark outside before he diverted a feed and whispered, 'click', to the monitor. He was in.
These latest firewalls were like nothing he had ever seen before. Something somewhere was prompting random questions on some really obscure topics, in a variety of different languages, to pop up. There was a deadline for answering them. If he failed, then the countdown box, which had simultaneously appeared, worried him. He determined that they set off alarms, but he couldn't tell for sure. The questions froze the scroll and he could never see the code relating to them on the screen at the top.
By 3am, Matt felt like he had walked unscathed through a minefield. He had a stretch and fetched a can of lager from the fridge, then came to explore whatever he had hacked into. The quest had been so intriguing, so utterly absorbing that it felt like the best game in the world. Adrenaline flooded his senses and he had never felt more awake. The problem was that he could't alter any of the code, which he felt he should by now.
Games were largely abandoned, but for the odd six hours or so each day, as the journey showing on the desktop kept luring him back. By Wednesday, he was satisfied that he was not only in Near's mainframe, but could manipulate it. Extremely tempted, he refrained, merely reminding himself regularly that Mello was not to find out about this. Beyond everything else, Mello would be a nightmare to live with.
By Friday morning, he was retreating, self-satisfied and smug. Mentally recapping, he remembered that the initial point had been to read his own file at The Wammy House. It seemed so insignificant now, but for completeness sake, he revisited it on his stealthy way through. His disciplinary record was an hilarious trip down memory lane. Fighting with Mello loomed large; he laughed aloud at some of the excuses they had tried to get away with for a host of other things, from sneaking out of the institution to 'borrowing' supplies for their own private researches.
Pondering on the precise figure mentioned by L in relation to his scores as they compared with Mello's, Matt thought he might have a quick look. He opened it and felt the world swim in front of his eyes. His overall was higher than Near and Mello. It had to be a trick. He had always been third. He hadn't sat a single examination since the last time he'd been in here. He'd been third then too.
"What the fuck?" Matt clicked to the history, searching for updates. There had been none. He leaned forward, scanning every digit and icon on there. The front door opened and closed. Heavy footsteps striding down the hallway towards the front room.
By 11.43am, Friday, Matt was sitting on the floor by the settee engrossed in SuperMario Tetris with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. He smiled at Mello, then quickly stopped a little square from falling, thus losing him points. Mello, without any respect at all for little squares or points, promptly flopped onto the settee and pulled his head back for a long, promise laden kiss. There came the tell-tale tune of 'game over', but Matt didn't mind at all. Behind them, only a switched off monitor shielded from view something which Mello should never, ever see.
Three hours later, Matt found it. He had his first cup of tea and cigarette of the day, then spent the early part of the afternoon on his new XBox. Around four, a text arrived to confirm that Mello would be gone until Friday at least. Matt texted back 'k' and finished his level. It was time.
From his keyring, he took the portable memory stick that he had worked so hard not to let Mello search. It slotted into the desktop and a few minutes later, just the time it took for another cup of tea to brew, Matt sat slowly scrolling through the code on the screen. More leisurely now, his searching, he was able to admire the intelligence that had gone into constructing it. Mello had been right, there were prompts that, perhaps, might have led younger, inexperienced, more impressionable versions of Mello and Near to fetch Matt to see. Prompts which would have made them feel clever for doing so. He was able able to stop being so clumsy, intercepting the commands for SMS to be sent before they actually were.
When L's screen popped up, it was no less disconcerting than it had been the first time round. "What are you doing, Matt?" L asked, seemingly now from beyond the grave. Again the pantomine about him being number one. Matt quietly mused about what would happen if he was to call Near up and explain that it's ok, he can step down now. Matt Jeevas, heir to L, was coming to take over. Matt smirked. There was the moment again, the big dilemma. Continue and you are number one, retreat and the fight continues between Near and Mello. The endless bloody fight. Watching for a second time, it was so obvious what this was, but just to check, Matt searched the background code for anything sending or receiving data in that way. There was nothing. So far so good.
He entered the hidden layer, mostly files on them all, past, present and prospective Wammy House kids. Examinations of all kinds, medical records, histories, psychiatric appraisals, the minutes of meetings, notes and reports from observations. Matt opened the one that he had briefly glanced at before. L had written this, apparently in response to some question about the apprenticeship issue. It assessed every child in The Wammy House at the time, then predictably singled out Mello and Near. Everything about those two had been analysed in such depth, sometimes cruel, cold perceptions were laid bare. Reading it, Matt had to keep reminding himself that the subjects were human beings. Moreover, that they were children. Then came that devastating caveat, '... should Matt finally apply himself it is expected that his results will over-ride all considerations. There is an 87% likelihood that he will score significantly higher than both Near and Mello.'
Matt sat back. He had been hoping that he had imagined reading that, but it was stark black and white on the screen. There was more, which he hadn't read the first time around. It was a later segment in the same series of discussions. This time L mentioned him again, almost as an afterthought in discussions of the other two. He considered it likely that Matt was purposefully jeopardising his own ratings and suggested that it be leaked to him that Mello had scored higher than he actually had. This would cause Matt to raise his own game, in order to keep himself precisely 6.6598769 points behind his friend. Matt felt his mouth become dry. He sipped his tea and had another cigarette.
Had they actually done it? Matt raced through reams of historical academic test results, but saw nowhere where Near had been signicantly below Mello. That might have highlighted the experiment, but it didn't exist. Conscious that there had been extra layers before, Matt gave up on the frontpage files and hunted in the background again. Code rose slowly, scrolled on his screen, as he searched for backdoors. Finally, he found it, hacked in and sat back with his heart sinking. The whole thing was in binary.
Matt nipped out for cigarettes and a takeaway pizza, eating the latter while he played a few games of Halo. His desktop kept drawing his attention back though. Not trusting on-line instant translator calculators, after an experimental few lines comparing their versions with his own, he resigned himself to the fact that he was going to be decoding raw binary for the next few hours. He sat with a pad and lost himself in the language. It was growing dark outside before he diverted a feed and whispered, 'click', to the monitor. He was in.
These latest firewalls were like nothing he had ever seen before. Something somewhere was prompting random questions on some really obscure topics, in a variety of different languages, to pop up. There was a deadline for answering them. If he failed, then the countdown box, which had simultaneously appeared, worried him. He determined that they set off alarms, but he couldn't tell for sure. The questions froze the scroll and he could never see the code relating to them on the screen at the top.
By 3am, Matt felt like he had walked unscathed through a minefield. He had a stretch and fetched a can of lager from the fridge, then came to explore whatever he had hacked into. The quest had been so intriguing, so utterly absorbing that it felt like the best game in the world. Adrenaline flooded his senses and he had never felt more awake. The problem was that he could't alter any of the code, which he felt he should by now.
Games were largely abandoned, but for the odd six hours or so each day, as the journey showing on the desktop kept luring him back. By Wednesday, he was satisfied that he was not only in Near's mainframe, but could manipulate it. Extremely tempted, he refrained, merely reminding himself regularly that Mello was not to find out about this. Beyond everything else, Mello would be a nightmare to live with.
By Friday morning, he was retreating, self-satisfied and smug. Mentally recapping, he remembered that the initial point had been to read his own file at The Wammy House. It seemed so insignificant now, but for completeness sake, he revisited it on his stealthy way through. His disciplinary record was an hilarious trip down memory lane. Fighting with Mello loomed large; he laughed aloud at some of the excuses they had tried to get away with for a host of other things, from sneaking out of the institution to 'borrowing' supplies for their own private researches.
Pondering on the precise figure mentioned by L in relation to his scores as they compared with Mello's, Matt thought he might have a quick look. He opened it and felt the world swim in front of his eyes. His overall was higher than Near and Mello. It had to be a trick. He had always been third. He hadn't sat a single examination since the last time he'd been in here. He'd been third then too.
"What the fuck?" Matt clicked to the history, searching for updates. There had been none. He leaned forward, scanning every digit and icon on there. The front door opened and closed. Heavy footsteps striding down the hallway towards the front room.
By 11.43am, Friday, Matt was sitting on the floor by the settee engrossed in SuperMario Tetris with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. He smiled at Mello, then quickly stopped a little square from falling, thus losing him points. Mello, without any respect at all for little squares or points, promptly flopped onto the settee and pulled his head back for a long, promise laden kiss. There came the tell-tale tune of 'game over', but Matt didn't mind at all. Behind them, only a switched off monitor shielded from view something which Mello should never, ever see.