It Matters

Something about the way that Matt just carried on playing, even as they entered their front door, struck Mello as wrong. The preoccupation at The Wammy House, the silence as Mello drove them home, they were both explicable. They were Matt being Matt while absorbed in a particularly difficult series of boss fights. He'd already said that there were higher levels here to master. What was wrong was the fact that he had let the door nearly close on Mello's face.



"Oy! You fucker, I'm not your slave."



Matt carried on walking, into their bedroom, muttering an apology, then, "Can I just have a moment please?" Without awaiting permission, he closed the bedroom door behind him. There was a slight creak of mattress springs as he evidently flopped onto the bed.



Mello paused for a few seconds, staring at the door, then carried on walking into the front room. It was a mess. Half-eaten pizzas and cans littered the carpet; over-flowing ashtrays and bits of games and computers covered every surface. He hated housework, but this was a mess. Mello pondered just ordering Matt to do it, concussion or not, but he had some residual energy to work off. He fished out a bin-bag and just started throwing things into it.



A couple of minutes later, the door opened and Matt reappeared. His eyes were filled with tears, slightly misting the goggles, but Mello was no longer thinking of psychiatric damage. Concussion affected the emotions. It would be over in a couple of weeks and Matt would be back to being the laid-back, ignorant git that he always had been. Mello merely looked in askance at him.



Matt pulled his goggles off and wiped those beautiful green eyes with the back of his hand. His gaze took in the whole room and he seemed so woebegotten and lost, as he said,

"Please will you fuck me?"



Mello replaced a now empty ashtray on the coffeetable and turned to survey him properly.

"Love to." A little smile. "But this isn't how you do it. You normally pick a fight, so I react and somewhere after the beating, we end up fucking. Or else you wait for me to take the lead. You don't do it like this. This is the concussion talking and I'm not hitting you. I think we risked Dementia Pugilistica enough before..."



He got no further before Matt launched himself over the coffee table and punched Mello in the jaw. It was enough to send him staggering, but he regained his balance. Matt shouted into his face,

"Fuck me!"



Hands flexing into fists, Mello yelled back,

"No!" He strode away in the kitchen, calling back. "Don't count on me losing my temper. Don't fucking follow me." The tap went on, as Mello washed his stinging mouth.



Matt did follow. He sank to his knees in the middle of the kitchen floor, tears cascading down his cheeks. Strands of red hair stuck to it, presenting the illusion that these were physical injuries.

"Please, Mello, please, please, please."



"What the fuck has gotten into you?" Mello breathed to stay calm. He kept hearing Roger's voice in his head telling him that he lost focus whenever Matt was involved. He needed focus. This was not the Matt he knew and, yes, loved.



"Please... just please, please."



Mello took the couple of steps towards him and crouched to peer into his unveiled, distraught eyes. He shook his head, then brought him close. For the third time in a week and for the third time ever, Matt sobbed in his arms, trembling like his heart was breaking. He asked softly, "It means this much to you?" Stroking back his lover's hair, rubbing his back. "No. No, it's not about sex. This is bigger, isn't it?" Eyes narrowing. "Something you saw in the files? Something you saw, which you can't bury like you normally do, because the concussion is messing with your brain patterns." In the shuddering breaths taken by the man in his arms, Mello knew he was right. "Tell me what you saw."



"I can't... I can't." Matt gushed, his distress pushing him to the edge of convulsions. "Please just fuck me, please, Mello, please."



"I want you to calm down." Mello spoke in measured tones, watching, appraising, thinking. "Nothing is worth this, whatever those bastards wrote about you. There is nothing worth this." Beneath his stroking and rocking, Matt was starting to quieten. Crying softly into the leather of Mello's waist-coat. "Was it about your family?" A slight shaking of the head. "About you?" An escalation of the trembling. "Ok, calm down. It's not worth it. There is nothing they could write that would change things now. You and me, we've been through some shit and we're different people to who we were then. Their data is out of fucking date." Mello sneered. "It was warped data to start with." He eased Matt's cigarettes out of his pocket and lit one for him. Sneaking it down to the approximate position of Matt's mouth, he was relieved to see a hand extend shakily to take it. It was progress. "I'd go as far as to say that those files don't mean shit."



"Thank you." Matt pushed against the hold that Mello had on him, and repositioned himself to be held and able to smoke at the same time. He looked hot and sweaty, his face saturated with tears, but obviously calmer now. He settled on the floor, between Mello's legs, covering Mello's arm around his stomach with his own arm. "I still want you to fuck me though."



"Why?" Mello barked.



"Because you're hot."



"Is it a comfort fuck? A Matt's-still-drop-dead-gorgeous fuck? A make-me-feel-like-I-belong fuck? Or is it a make-me-forget-I-exist fuck?" Mello hated the thought that he was missing something. He never missed anything. Roger shouldn't have put that notion into his head. "I refuse to believe it's a I'm-horny-take-me fuck."



"I'll take any of them please." Matt's hands were still shaking so much that he was having trouble navigating the cigarette to his mouth at times.



"What did you read, Matt?" Mello whispered. "Bearing in mind that the concussion is messing big-time with you. It might help to have a second opinion." The trembling increased ten-fold. "Ok! Ok! Stop. Should I just hack in myself and find out?"



"You can't." Matt's expression wavered between new Matt and old Matt, as if, at this late stage, his personality was trying to reassert itself.



"No disrespect but..."



"I deleted it."



"I'll grand-daddy it." Mello snapped, more confidently than he actually felt. "What's so terrible that you can't tell me? I mean, it's me! You can tell me anything!"



For a moment, it seemed like Matt was actually going to say, but instead he lost to the encompassing horror inside. Moving suddenly, he broke from Mello's grasp and stumbled to his feet, making to run. But Mello was swift. He was on his feet too, contriving to both topple Matt and shield the gamer's head with his arms at the same time.



They fell entangled just inside the front room. Matt stopped fighting, but his hands started pulling at Mello's belt, his mouth pressing heatedly against his lips. Mello was acutely aware that there was a loose cigarette somewhere, lit amongst all of this rubbish; and that Matt seemed to have no regard for the defence of his head, inside or out. He maintained the kiss, one hand cupping the back of his lover's head, then rolled them over so that Matt was beneath him. A glance to the side confirmed the presense of the burning butt still held between Matt's fingers. The other hand was rubbing at the bulge in the leather between Mello's legs.



The blond pulled his head away, smiling seductively,

"Ok, I'll fuck you, come on." He stood, pulling Matt up with him and pushing him into the bedroom. Piling pillows against the headboard, he pointed to the bed. "Lie down." Matt obediently climbed there and lay down on his back. Mello bent to kiss him, then took a hand, extending Matt's arm to secure him with handcuffs. Both sides and ankles too, then he smiled down at Matt's confusion. "Yes, I know you're fully clothed. I went for the oh-my-God-what-does-it-take-to-stop-Matt-killing-himself fuck, which doesn't actually involve penetration. I love you." He kissed him long and hard, then marched out into the front room to retrieve his bag and laptop.



He returned to see Matt watching him and smiled slightly. It didn't matter what the circumstances were, it was still a pleasant sight to see his lover bound and helpless, tied to a bed, awaiting his will to dictate everything. He let his eyes slowly take in the whole of that prone, sexy body, for as much Matt's sake as his own. Matt bit his lip, "Don't hack into The Whammy House. The mainframe isn't there, it's just a server. All you'll do is piss off Near. I deleted my file."



"You're telling me nothing I don't already know. Near called Roger because he traced the hack there. If I had that mainframe, I wouldn't have it in a house with hardly any security either, when I could have it in a fucking fortress." Mello plugged his laptop into the wall, charging it while he used it. "I'm not hacking anywhere." He stood with an apologetic smile and prowled around the bed, crawling onto Matt and kissing him again. "I have something to put you to sleep here. Soon as I've checked it against contradictions, you're swallowing them. You need to sleep." To emphasise the point, Mello rattled a bottle of pills.



"Please don't knock me out." Matt was blinking back tears again. Struggling to stay emotionally level, to pit his intellect against that of Mello. His whole demeanour bespoke a lost cause.



"I let you stay conscious and you let me do whatever I want to." Mello smiled, tongue snaking out to wet his lips. "You let me do it without freaking out."



"I promise."



"I'm not talking about whips and knives here. I know you'll let me do that. I'm talking about things that are going to make you panic."



"I promise."



Mello nodded then raised his hand within sight of Matt's eyes. As predicted, panic rose, but Matt bit down hard upon his lips and didn't make a sound. It was a portable memory stick, attached to Matt's keyring. "You said nothing about not having made a copy first. Let's see what's so terrible." Mello slipped off him and over to the laptop.



Matt took a deep breath and whispered across the room,

"I'm not freaking out. Can I just tell you now?" His jaw quivered. It was taking a Herculean effort not to break down. Mello nodded, returning to the foot of the bed with a bar of chocolate in his hand. "Before I say it, can I say something else please?" Mello, sensing that words weren't appropriate right now, that anything he said could shatter this fragile assemblance, just nodded again. "However you react, I love you. I'd forgive you." He ignored Mello's frown, plunging onwards. "When I hacked the computer, it was L's firewall, but I couldn't get all the way because I hit Near's firewall. I couldn't find the backdoor. I went up against Near for five minutes and he owned me. You kick ass to beat him as often as you do." He gulped. "Right now, look at me. Could I be any more owned by you? This is like going to God Wars in just bronze... and forgetting your Sara brews and PPs."



Mello snapped off chocolate and grinned,

"That bad, eh?"



Matt blinked rapidly, eyes unaccustomed to such unfettered vision, blazing honesty.

"You'd be owned." He sniffed. "Today, I went into my field. This is my stuff, ok? Computers. You come to me on stuff like this. Not because you can't do it! You know I'm good at it."



"You're great with computers."



"So today it was my field, the stuff I'm best at and you and Near owned me." Tears dripped from Matt's eyes, despite his best efforts to suppress them. "I'm not freaking out."



"All this is because you ended up third again?"



A flash of disdain was chased from Matt's expression by a mask of pure hope. He was wearing his heart on his sleeve so much right now. "Yes!" He breathed. "Yes. It's about that." For the first time since he'd first left that bedroom, Matt appeared calm.



Mello's eyes narrowed as he peered down at him, the chocolate cracking under his teeth.

"Liar." He turned and lifted the laptop from the chair. "How could you fucking lie to me?"



"Ok!" Matt shouted. Then quietened. "Ok." Panting. Downright over-breathing. Mello slammed the laptop down on the floor and approached opening the bottle of pills. "No! Not freaking..." He swallowed hard. "I'm... not... freaking... out." Frightened eyes pleaded for consciousness. "Please... not freaking."



"You were starting to hyperventilate. For fuck's sake Matt, you know by now that I'm going to find out! Why are you doing this to yourself?"



"L knew!" Matt screamed back. He blew rapidly, trying to regulate his breathing again. Mello swooped a paper bag off the bedside cabinet and upended it, raining chocolate kisses down onto the bed. He bunched the bag and clasped it over Matt's mouth. The resultant heated air recycled over and again soothed the lungs until Matt was breathing normally again. With arched eyebrows, Mello removed the bag, questions blazing in his eyes. "L knew I'd be the one to hack that far."



"So? L knew a lot of things." Mello sat on the bed, supporting himself with one arm on the far side of Matt. He glared down into the mess of Matt and crushed chocolate. "How did you know he knew?"



"Because he left a trigger to activate when I breached the fifth backdoor." Matt's shaking was growing into shudders again. "I was sitting there and suddenly there's a huge fucking letter L covering the screen and he spoke to me. He said, 'What are you doing, Matt?' And I nearly fell out of the freaking tree!"



Mello's features twitched into a snigger, then a roar of laughter. He collapsed over his lover's secured body and laughed until he cried. "That's brilliant!" He spluttered finally. "That's class. What do you expect? It was L." He beamed down at Matt's tight smile. "You really are concussed, aren't you? Any other time, you would have found that hilarious. You would have been proud that he deduced it would be you. Of course it would have been you. Who else has the skill and the motivation? Me... Near... yes, we could, probably, but why would we?"



"There was more." Matt rasped. "Can I have a cigarette please?"



Still smiling beneath a keenly interested gaze, Mello considered it. Then he disappeared back into the kitchen and returned with the packet. "Carry on talking."



Matt's eyes followed the progress of the cigarette from packet to half an inch from his lips. He glanced at Mello. "I thought for a moment it was real. L was live on the other end." At the additional information, the cigarette butt was lowered to his mouth and lit. He took a deep drag upon it, held in the smoke for an age and then exhaled. "L said he always knew it would be me to get this far. He said that this answered the question everyone had been asking." He waited and Mello lowered the cigarette again. "He said that the main thing now was if I wanted it. He said, if I go any further, it would alter everything. It would set a chain reaction that I couldn't stop once it was in process." He paused expectantly. Mello left the cigarette in his mouth this time. "It would reset the data. I'd be..." He chewed the foamy end between his teeth, hesitating so long that Mello took it off him. "I... oh."



"Keep talking and keep smoking. Shut up and go without. Your choice."



"Can I have my cigarette back please?" Confusion darted across his eyes. It was returned. "It would name me."



"What? To Roger? As the hacker?" Mello frowned. "No disrespect to L, but that was fucking stupid. What if it had been me? You'd have ended up scapegoat."



"There were these little pictures. You, me, Nate, all spinning round and then it put you pair underneath and me on top and it flashed and..." The tears were back, but quietly. Unable to remove his cigarette on his own, Matt started to cough. Mello raised it until he'd exhaled, tapping the ash into an ashtray before returning it. "I looked at your faces and... did it..." Eyes closed briefly, then wide and pleading. "I did it anyway."



Realisation dawned. Mello sprang from the bed and paced in front of the window. "He named you as his heir. He named you the number one!" He punched the wall. "Fucking... oh fu..." Mello turned and ran out of the room.



Gagged by a burning cigarette, Matt could do nothing but hold it there, lest he burn to death. In the front room came the crashes and bangs of a rampage. Mello smashing everything he could lay his hands on. This was pushing every mental and emotional button for him and, maybe for the first time ever, Matt wished Near was close by. Matt was always the fire-blanket, the one to absorb the flames. He couldn't do it like this, not right now, with his body bound and his mind in tatters. Mello couldn't think through it all. Near could have kept calm. Someone had to work it out. Near never let his emotions get in the way, because Near had Aspergers Syndrome and couldn't empathise with the emotion.



It went quiet in the front room. All Matt could do was imagine the scene, wondering if Mello was breaking or leaving or preparing to kill him. Until he was absolutely sure that the cigarette was burned down to the very end and out, he had to hold it. The edges burned his lips, but he was ninety percent certain it was out. He lowered it carefully into his mouth and swamped the ash with saliva, tasting the acrid burnt foam. He'd meant to spit it out, but it ended up lodged in his throat instead. The sobs he'd promised to himself were replaced by the real threat of choking to death. Stars danced before his eyes, as he racked his body with coughing. It wouldn't shift. Matt fought against his cuffs, desperately trying to turn over.



He didn't even see Mello return. The first indication that he was there was with the freeing of a wrist and his violent propulsion forward. An almighty slap on his back sent the extinguished cigarette butt flying with force across the bed and out onto the carpet. Starved for air and gasping, Matt coughed until he threw up.



"Great." Mello huffed and left the room again. Left alone with one wrist and both ankles still restrained, Matt sobbed lying in his own mess. It took a couple of minutes before Mello returned, by which time Matt had concluded that he never would. Mello quietly unlocked the ankle cuffs and the remaining handcuff, then reached down with wipes, washing his lover's devastated face. Next he supported him against his own body, as he offered water. "Sip it. Don't gulp." Matt did as he was told. "Keep sipping."



"Thank you."



"At the risk of stating the obvious, L was a genius." Mello quietly spoke. "That firewall did nothing. It was just a firewall that would have psychologically defended against all three of us."



"Eh?" Matt blinked, taking another sip of water and beginning to believe that he might not die, one way or another, in this hour.



"You said it was the fifth firewall. I'm assuming that the other four weren't a piece of cake. I'm also assuming that there were other triggers along the way. Things that would have been noticed by me... or by Near. Not by you." Mello stared into the middle distance. "Not because you aren't brilliant, but because L was playing a psychological as well as a technological game here. He needed you to be in front of the screen. Things that would have prompted me or Near to include you."



Matt took a sharp intake of breath. Remembering a code he'd puzzled at the time, but rushed by as time pressurised him to be done quickly.

"Yes... maybe."



"So imagine that it wasn't you. Imagine it was me. I would have sat there and reached that same screen. You would have been beside me. If I carried on, I would have reached the same dilemma. You would have freaked out on me. You are physically able to restrain both Near and I." Mello took a chocolate kiss from the bed and slowly sucked it. "But more than that. Neither me or Near would have pressed on. We're too bloody-minded. Competitive. We wouldn't have risked losing the number one spot. Even if you hadn't stopped us, we would have stopped ourselves." A half-smile now, as Mello's quick brain raced on. "Why us three? Because he wrote it when the three of us were the only serious competitors. It was a backdoor accessed from within The Wammy House, so it had to be one of the kids there. He never got chance to update it and neither Roger nor Near, who could have updated it, thought to check what the final firewall was. If it was now, there would be other kids named, other kids' minds to be fucked with. He designed that to mess up with children, teenagers." A huge smile now. "What are you, Matt? Twelve?"



Relief dripped from his every pore, hands dangling down between his legs.

"Fuck you."



"That's better." Mello sniffed. "Let me put the sheets in the wash, then I'm going to wash you. Then I might just get round to fucking you." He patted Matt's back. "Then finally, when all that is done, me and you can talk about what you did to me." He stood and started swiping chocolate pieces from the bed. "You pressed it anyway, Matt."