All The Way Here

"Urrrghh!" Matt moaned suddenly. Mello looked up from the monitor. The redhead had his hands pressed up against the window, but was gazing upwards, towards the sky. A glance at the screens showed nothing untoward, just the same old New York life flowing around the Square as if nothing had happened there three days before. Matt turned and paced back into the room, lifting the controls of his Play Station and sorting though games. "'Upon that little tent of blue...'"



"What is it, Matt?" Mello asked.



"'... that prisoners call the sky.'" He sat back, puffing and holding his controls without even switching on a game. "'No need to waste the foolish tear, or heave the windy sigh; the man had killed the thing he loved, and so he had to die.'"



"'The Ballad of Reading Goal'?" Mello finally located the quotation in his memory. "'Some do it with a bitter look...'"



"No, you missed a line." Matt leaned forward. "'And all men kill the thing they love, by all let this be heard...' Now you go with your line."



"'Some do it with a bitter look, some with a flattering word,'" The blond watched him carefully, trying to determine what was going on. "'The coward does it with a kiss, and the brave man with a sword.' Why are we quoting Oscar Wilde?"



"Let's see." Matt rose again and pressed himself at the window. "I had a week stuck indoors doing some work, followed by a week stuck in Wammy's doing some work; then I flew to New York and, except for one day out doing your shopping, spent a week stuck indoors doing some work; then we moved here, granted I spotted the two hours between buildings right there, and got stuck indoors doing some work. I'm stir fucking crazy."



"You never go out ordinarily anyway."



"Yes, but at least I can." He slid down the windowsill to the floor. "God, I know why the caged bird sings."



Mello sighed. "Ok, but keep to the shadows and watch out for..." He paused, surveying his monitor screens. But for a missed opportunity yesterday, when Aizwaka (or his colleague) had appeared briefly on the steps of the hotel, then stepped into a car before Mello even reached the ground floor, nothing had happened for days. "You know what? Me too. Set this lot up to record and we'll go out."



"Really?" Hope sprang up from the floor. Matt clambered to his feet and skidded into a seat. Two clicks of the mouse later, he snatched up his sleeveless jacket and returned to his seat. Grinning wildly from behind goggles and hair, the tips of his mouth just about visible amongst the fake fur of his collar. "I'm ready."



"It's recording?"



"Yes."



"Where are we going to go?" Mello felt the infectious excitement touch within him too. "Nowhere where we're going to get searched." He pushed the automatic into his waistband and slipped his jacket on. "Nor where there are crowds of people."



"I don't know. Just walk?" Matt was practically jigging in his seat. Mello didn't think he'd seen him this animated since they were pre-pubescent. "Don't give me that look. I know this city is dangerous. King Kong, Ghostbusters, ice ages... I've seen all of the films. We could go and see where John Lennon got shot."



"Central Park." Mello was considering the covering of foliage there. Plus it might be easier to spot if they were tailed.



"Times Square. I liked it there. You should see it! Epileptics' nightmare, fucking lights everywhere and..."



"People."



"Granted there are people." Matt stood and pulled Mello's hood over his face. "You're ready." Pushing an extra packet of cigarettes into his pocket, he took the keys and waited halfway to the door. Dawdling, Mello followed. "We could go to Christopher Street. You might even be tempted to pretend you know me in public there."



"Christopher Street?"



"Nevermind. Just remembered you once telling me that you aren't gay, so it doesn't apply." Matt opened the door and stepped out. "I'm guessing that what we do is... yaoi or something." He deftly disconnected the sensors and stood back. "Though what the difference is, I never did work out." The blond cast him a sidewards dirty look as he picked his way passed him and waited for the sensors to be reinstated in their wake. "Other than the fact that you not being gay means I'm never going to have you hold my hand in public."



"Right, Matt." Mello looked thoughtful, as Matt fell into step beside him. They descended the concrete steps and paused within view of the hotel over the way. Mello signalled the route and they made their separate, furtive dashes there, meeting around the corner. "Did you want to get something to eat?"



"Wow! This is like a proper date!" Matt gasped, then frowned. "Have we ever had a proper date?"



Mello breathed a half-laugh, "What's got into you?"



"Parole!" Matt span ahead in circles, arms wide, then grinned as his lover caught him up. "'I wish I was a child again, wild and reckless and free, chasing after adventures, not maddening under them.'"



"What's with all the literature?" Mello smiled. "I can't remember the last time I saw you read a book."



"That's because I've read them all." Matt smirked, recalling interminable hours spent in the library at The Wammy House. "Felt like it anyway, back when we were kids." He pointed. "Look! Trees!"



Mello laughed aloud, peering at the redhead through hair and fake fur. It dawned on him that he needed a break too, though guilt at missing the possible opportunities back at the monitor still gnawed. He also remembered those long homework hours. Trying to concentrate on a textbook, while Matt was whispering that they should go on a kitchen raid. Everything seemed so intense then, when, in retrospect, it was so easy. At least he couldn't get anyone killed while striving to beat Near in a history project.



The streets around them were reasonably empty, though main roads could be glimpsed running parallel. Life was happening there in all its bustling, fast-paced glory. The lights were still on in shops, though it was growing dark in the street in which they walked. Fire escapes rose from the back of tall buildings and too many gateways could conceal potential muggers. Neither cared about things like that, each step seemed to lightened their respective moods.



"Where are we going?" Mello broke the easy silence. "What's up here?"



"I don't know. Not my city." Matt shrugged, kicking a stone with a practiced left foot into a space between two bins. "And he scores!"



"We shouldn't just wander off." Sounding like the voice of reason, though nothing could have made him turn back now, excepting extreme danger or a definite lead on Kira. He pointed. "Look, down there, some kind of park."



"Ok." Matt swerved and led them down the short street. It was a little more than a few bushes around a statue, but it was new and therefore fascinating. Across the road, a middle-aged couple in business suits walked arm in arm into view and then passed out of sight. Mello stiffened, until Matt sniffed the air. "I smell food."



"You're hungry?" The blond peeped out of his hood. "What do you fancy?"



"Let's go and see what there is." He set off in the direction in which the couple had disappeared. Mello trotted after him and fell into step. "I've got about forty dollars on me."



"I've got money." They emerged suddenly and without warning into a bright crossroads, lined with restaurants. Mostly Italian, with Greek and Ukrainian options randomly appearing between them. There were a lot people around, but, when both of them turned to gaze down the interconnecting streets, darkness was reclaimed further along each route. It was like finding a lamp-post in the snow at the back of your wardrobe, decided Matt later. Mello agreed. For now, they stood, feeling more conspicious for their standing. "What do you fancy?" Mello repeated.



"We've had Italian most of this week."



"We've had frozen pizza." Mello corrected. His eye was drawn by the Ukrainian, though he recognized nothing on the menu. Nevertheless, it was less crowded than the others seemed to be and had high-backed chairs to hide within. "Ukrainian?"



"I don't know what Eastern Europeans eat."



"Frozen pizza mostly." Mello commented dryly, but Matt didn't seem to get the joke. It occurred to Mello, with a faint sense of disquiet, that Matt possibly didn't know where he was from. As if The Wammy House had somehow spawned them all as young children, orphaned and vunerable to the training. He frowned. "Matt, where were you born?"



"Classified information." Matt grinned. "Given out only on a need to know basis."



"This isn't a test." Mello peered carefully at him. "I need to know." A group of people emerged from the restaurant, all looking contentedly well-fed. Matt and Mello stepped back to let them by. "Please Matt."



"Spain."



"You're Spanish?" Mello gasped, staring at him as if he'd sprouted two heads. "You don't look Spanish." Though now he came to look at him with new information, he realised that he did. "Oh!" Mello's hand flew to his mouth. The 'J' and 'v' would be different in Spanish. Jeevas would be rendered more like 'He-baz'. "I've really been mispronouncing your surname!"



"You shouldn't be pronouncing it at all." Matt bobbed his tongue out. "But yeah, I know."



"Why didn't you correct me?"



"Well, the first time you ever said it, you were holding me by the throat threatening to kill me. It didn't seem like a good time." Matt shrugged, as if it were of no consequence. "Then it felt a bit too late."



"You still should have told me." Mello bit his lip. It felt so wrong that he hitherto hadn't known such an important fact as how to say his lover's name. "I'm Croatian. Well, I would be now. I was Yugoslavian at the time."



"I thought you were Russian." Matt shrugged. "So, do you understand anything on this menu or shall we look elsewhere?"



"That's what I love about you. You can just dismiss these things like they don't matter." Mello smiled, reading the little display again.



"They don't, do they?" He blinked through his glasses. "I always tell everyone I'm English, because I've lived there since I was three. Raised in England by English people, speaking English and..."



"Ok, shut up now." Mello executed one of his lightning mood swings back to paranoia about personal information. "Let's have Italian."



"'kay." The redhead followed his lover into the restaurant next door, clarity arriving when he spotted the sign advertising a chocolate fountain. He chuckled, being swept along in Mello's wake, as the blond secured for them a table. The waiter conveyed them there and sat them down. Presenting them with menus and the wine listing. "There's something else I think I know about you. I'll have to ask one day."



"What?" Mello had realized that it would be impolite to leave his jacket on in a place like this.



"If I ask here, you'll get a cob on and start shouting at me."



"You've got to ask now. You've built it up too much." Mello stared at the menu, letting his hair fall over his face to hide his scar. He was already becoming more anxious about that than the real threat of someone seeing his face and passing that information to Kira. He looked up again sharply. "Whisper it?"



Matt considered it, then bent to press his nose in that blond mass approximately where his lover's ear was. "I thought that if you were very little and you had trouble with certain names. Like three syllable names. You sometimes can't pronounce them quite right, you know?" Matt sat back grinning. "I thought it was cool when I came up with that one, because you'd thwarted Roger. You'd got away with... well, you know."



Mello put his head in his hands. Matt couldn't tell if he was laughing or crying. Eventually he looked up again with a small grin. "How did you get from... there to... there?" The blond gestured in amusement, realising that none of his names were really safe to speak in a crowded room right now. "One day, when this is all over, I'm going to have to get you to pronounce them."



"Damn. I'm wrong." Matt looked crestfallen and surveyed the pizza menu as a distraction.



"No." Mello winked at him. "Believe it or not, you're right. But in my defence, I was only about one at the time."



"I am?" Matt's countenance bloomed, like sunshine from a cloud. "Wow. In that case, you really are the pwnage."



"Oh good." Mello leaned over suddenly and kissed him full on the lips. "I know you." He whispered, as he pulled away, then reached under the table and took Matt's hand. "And it's a public place." Matt blushed absolutely crimson. Unlike Mello, he hadn't taken off his jacket and so his head sank into it, until he was just a collar with red hair and a slight edge of orange goggles with a hint of eyes beneath. Smirking triumph, Mello squeezed his hand once and then let it go. The waiter arrived at their table and Mello ordered a light, olive based salad for himself, then, with a glance, carried on to order a pepperoni pizza for Matt. He forewent the whole bottle of wine, but chose two glasses of red. "I'm sorry, Matt, did I shock you?" Blue eyes glinted wickedly beneath the blond fringe. "Don't dare me if you don't want me to do it."



Matt snorted from the depths of his jacket. "Touche."



They ate their food and partook of the chocolate fountatin before finding themselves on the streets again. Warmed by the fine food and atmosphere, Mello agreed when Matt said that he wasn't ready to go back to the studio. They strolled away from the overlit crossroads back into the relative anonymity of a darker street. Mello took Matt's hand again. "This time it's not the dare. It's me seeing if I can make you blush like that again."



"What are you like?" Matt brazened it out, though he dutifully blushed. "You reckon this is what it's like for normal people?"



"What? Going out for meals and a walk, eating chocolate, holding your lover's hand in the middle of the road, making each other blush. Things like that?" Mello asked, his voice gruff with said chocolate being sucked in his mouth.



Matt took a drag on his cigarette. "Yeah."



"I don't think it is, no." Mello considered it, answering as if it was a serious question. He supposed that deep down it was. "People might do it, but... why save up for the Godsword if you aren't prepared to risk it?" He giggled. "That was the wrong metaphor, wasn't it?"



"A bit."



"I think they do it, but don't know how special it is." Mello took nibbled on the end of his chocolate bar. "Things like being in mortal danger and preparing all of your life to be the martyr to the cause kind of focuses the mind a bit, doesn't it?"



"I thought we'd decided we weren't going to be martyrs." Matt smirked. "What's down there?"



"Let's go and find out." Mello lightened again, as did the streets. They travelled down a broad avenue, Matt seeking to pull his hand away, but Mello held it more tightly until he desisted. "I know you." He repeated, but didn't receive a blush in response. "Getting used to the idea?" Matt chortled and lit another cigarette. Their exploration led them to a wide open space, the skyscrapers now dizzying high above them. Their heads were pushed back, trying to see if the ensuing vertigo would actually made them fall over, until Mello's hood fell off and he hurriedly straightened up. "They must be building here. They look like foundations."



"Onwards?" Matt suggested. The blond agreed and they strolled across the site. "Mello, what do you want from life?"



"The head of Kira on a plate." He muttered, so not to be overheard by any except Matt. "And my place as L."



"I thought so." Matt winked. "Have you ever thought past that to what it would be like? I'm not dissing your dreams or anything, but it sounds like Hell of a lot of pressure to me and not a great deal of freedom. Responsibilities and stuff."



Someone had, apparently randomly, hung a rosary on a section of boarding around the construction at the centre of the site. Mello fixed his gaze on it, his tone alerting Matt to the fact that this was not open to discussion, "It's all I ever wanted."



"Fair enough." Matt grinned. "Then we'll just have to work out how to run the world when we're at Ground Zero."



"Yes." Mello said, softly. "You know something, Matt? I would kill anyone to make this happen. If it came to it. You know that already and yet you love me." He reached up to touch the rosary on the board.



"Even God would give you absolution for something like that," The redhead spoke confidently, "and He's got an alternative to offer you. I haven't. Besides, you're talking bollocks."



"I'm not, you know."



"You are. You said anyone. It's not like you pick small babies out of cots and threaten to shoot them if Kira doesn't come out with his hands in the air." Matt pulled Mello away from the rosary, sensing things were becoming too sombre again. "You'd take us out before you let the innocent ones get killed." They passed under an archway and found themselves in another garden. "Is that the river?"



"What?" Mello looked up. "It stands a chance. It's a huge mass of water."



They walked on, under lamp lights hung like huge, illuminous pearls, staring out at a whole new state on the far side of the vast, tidal river. Matt spotted a sign and read it. "Battery Park."



"How far away are we from the studio now?" Mello had slipped back into feeling guilt about leaving their watch, though, if given the chance, he would not have exchanged this evening for another sat at that monitor. "And do we know the way back?"



"Two people with photographic memories, watching every movement and staring at every landmark along the way. Yes, Mello, we will know the way back." Matt gave him a withering look, then stopped dead. "Oh... my... fucking... God...."



"What?" Mello saw what he had seen. "The Statue of Liberty."



"Wow!" Matt ran to the edge of the river, dragging the blond with him. "I didn't expect it to be all over there! I don't know where I expected it to be. Wow! We've seen someone famous."



"Freak." Mello playfully smacked his arm, then leaned into him to gaze at the landmark too, their bodies pressed together against the waist-high embankment wall. "Matt, thank you for bringing me out of myself tonight." He slipped an arm around the redhead's back.



"You're going to kiss me and tell me you know me now, aren't you?"



Mello snickered. "Sorry, Matt, but you and me are my favourite yaoi." Their lips met in a long, passionate collison, while the water gently lapped and the world left them alone.