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Annals of Fear II	By : DeathNoteFangirl Category: Death Note > Yaoi-Male/Male > Mello/Matt Views: 5803 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Death Note and I do not make any money from these writings

Chapter List
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Mello had tried to direct Matt into their chalet, but the redhead had pushed towards the stone steps.   Every one of Mello's instinctual alarm bells were ringing.   He pulled his anger down, deep inside him, and held it close at his core.   He could beat Matt; he could scream and rant and rave; but Matt did not appear in the mood to submit and that was what was so worrying.    "Mail, wait on."   Mello trundled up the stairs after him and caught up easily.   Matt was painfully taking one step after another.   It was slow going.   Mello put his arm around Matt and helped him climb.   In a low voice, Mello asked, "Please apprise me of the situation."

"I will."   Matt replied, mildly.

Mello looked at him carefully.   "I meant now. Before anything gets out of hand."     Matt just smirked and unlocked the computer hub door.   Mello took a deep breath, assessing his options, while he followed his husband into the room.   Matt shuffled across the floor to the corner of his desk.    He had a laptop waiting there.   A touch of a key erased the screensaver, displaying the Watari interface beneath.   He was already logged on.   Mello saw it and rushed across to hold his man from behind.   "Baby, just tell me what's going on.    This is about Fenian, yes?"

Matt rolled his head back onto Mello's shoulder, then turned in his arms and cupped Mello's face to kiss him.   "I'd love a cup of tea, Mell."

Mello smiled, "I'll make you one. But first, you need to tell me what the situation is."    He shuffled half a step closer, pressing his body against Matt's.   One hand, encased in its leather glove, caressed the collar around Matt's neck.    Mello gazed into Matt's eyes, oozing sex and persuasive charisma.   "Te amo, baby; but there's something going on and I suspect that it involves Fenian.   Won't you tell me?"

Matt's tongue bobbed from between his swollen lips and licked Mello's.   He took another kiss, but, as he did so, Matt's hand reached behind him and pressed a key.   There was a static rattle, then a humming tone.   Mello's eyes opened in surprise, but Matt just smiled and turned around again.   The letter 'I', in Old English Font, stood black against a white background.    Matt never used 'I'.   He used 'MM', in utter disdain for the moniker 'It Matters'.    He'd told Mello that 'MM' stood for 'Mello and Matt', but his husband suspected that it stood for 'Mariomatt'.   Either way, on the rare times that it was used, everyone understand that they were addressing Matt.   Mello just used 'M'.    The tone stopped.   The huge 'I' faded to be replaced by the letter 'F'.    Mello stared at it, wide-eyed.

An electronic voice cut through the speakers, "Yes?"

Matt spoke quite loudly for him, his words clipping out in perfect received pronunciation. "Just a warning not to touch anything."

"Why's that then?"

"Because I've booby-trapped something to explode."   Matt informed him, with a marked lack of passion.

Fenian and Mello exclaimed together, "What?!"    Though Fenian added, "... the fucking Hell is going on?   You psychopathic fuck!"

Matt took out a cigarette. "It could be in your chalet.   It could be your Land Rover.    But it will explode." He disconnected the call, then lit his cigarette.   The laptop screen showed nothing but the Watari interface again.   Behind him, Mello stood stunned.   "And that is the situation."

Mello rallied.   "Ok. Ok. What have you done and why?"   His mind was racing.   The door was unlocked.   Their guns were in the chalet below.   "Mail, talk fast."

There was a crash of a door slamming open in the square below and Kiana's voice crying out, "Liam! Fucking let's talk about this!"

Matt smoked his cigarette.   Mello glanced out of the window.   "They're coming, Mail.   Before I fucking kill you, tell me what's going on."   Mello saw Hal open her own door and start running across the green.   Fenian was evidently armed.    "Mail." At a crossroads of emotions, Mello sank into a deathly calm.    The Irishman was racing up the stairs; Mello considered and dismissed rushing to lock the door.    It would only be broken down anyway.   Instead, and against the judgement of the low level rage burning encaged in his stomach, Mello shoved Matt behind him and waited for the inevitable bursting open of the door.   It came.   Fenian's blue eyes were wide and blazing, the gun out-stretched before him.    Mello could only hope that Hal came up behind him before he fired, but the next in the doorway was Kiana.   They all surveyed each other, with their breaths rationed, as if each was afraid to waste them.    "I think..."

"I don't give a flying fuck what you think, Mello."   Fenian spat.   There was a click and suddenly Matt was reaching just past Mello's shoulder with a firearm of his own.   Mello's breath stuck in his throat at the sight of the Beretta, trained upon Kiana's head. He detested being so out of control in such a situation, particularly one devised by his own lunatic husband.   "Ki, move!"   Fenian yelled, one hand flailing to push her backwards.   Mello reached up slowly and took the gun from Matt.   It was freely given.   Kiana darted back out of the open door, hiding just to the side.

There was Hal's voice, loud and commanding, the special agent and the bodyguard out in force in her tone.   "Drop your firearm and back away with your hands in the air."

"He's fucking set up a fucking explosive in my fucking chalet!"   Fenian gushed. "And Mello's got a gun pointed at me."

Unseen, Hal yelled, "Mello, put down your firearm!"

There was a stand off.   Mello wanted to put it down, but that would involve exposing Matt to Fenian's semi-automatic.   He could hear Kiana, tears in her voice, urgently whispering, "Liam, please, just let's do this without guns.   He might be bluffing."

Mello could see a shadow that was probably Hal pacing close enough to disarm Fenian.   He wondered if she was armed too.   He assumed that she was. She had run from her chalet and was bound to have grabbed a gun in passing. Mello spoke, gruffly, "Fenian, listen to your lady.   Count of three and I'll put mine down too."   He watched Fenian move to put his back up against the wall.   This was awkward for the Irishman.   He was having to watch combatants on two fronts.   "We can sort this out.   Ready?"    Mello held his own gun loosely. "One.   Two."   He didn't think Fenian would bend.   "Three."   As one, Mello and Fenian crouched, glanced at each other and placed their guns on the floor before themselves.    Mello exhaled, but waited for Fenian to start rising again before he did the same.   "Ok.   This is good. Now we have room for negotiation.    You have your lady here.   I have my man. Neither of us want to see them hurt. We're all good."

Hal was in the doorway and she did have a gun in her hand, though it was pointed downwards.   She called across, "Kick the firearm towards me, Mello.   And any other weaponry that anyone is carrying."    Once he was sure that she was taking Fenian's gun, he toed the Beretta across the carpet.   She took it and quickly moved into the kitchenette.    "Now, who's going to start talking?"

"Liam!" Kiana hissed.

Fenian ignored her. "That fucking psycho called me to say he's booby-trapped something to explode.   Ki's Land Rover or the chalet."    Mello noted that.   He had assumed that the vehicle belonged to Fenian. It possibly made the situation even more combustible that it was his girlfriend's.

Hal nodded.   "Mello?"

Fenian scowled, "It was fucking Matt!"

"Ok."   Hal had emptied both of their firearms and stashed them in a cupboard.   She placed the ammunition in her own pocket.   She still had her own gun, but it remained pointed towards the ground.   "I want us all to calm down here."

"Liam, come out of there." Kiana was whispering from outside the door.   "We'll get a taxi. We'll get out of here."

"Wait." Mello commanded, his hands at elbow height, palms out in an expression of conciliation.   The Consigliere was rising in him now; his presence pressed out.   "No-one is going to get hurt this day.   We are going to talk it through like reasonable adults."   His mind's eye saw the computers and other equipment smashed, if Fenian thought of it.   "And we will do this on neutral territory." He pitched his voice further back.   "Is Deontic out there?"

Deontic's tiny voice squeaked back.   "Yes. I am."

"Then we'll go up to the hall.   Deontic with Fenian and Kiana; Hal with me and Mail.   An escort to ensure no shit along the way." His gaze met Hal's and he couldn't see through the blank professionalism as to her thoughts.   Fenian's, though, were transparent. His were the worst sort - fear wrapped up in fury.    Mello pressed the urgency. "Let's go."   He started walking before there was any dissent and Fenian, as predicted, stepped to the side to keep the distance between them.   Mello kept on walking, his hand already reached back to exert an iron grip upon Matt's arm.   Deontic's footsteps clattered down the stone stairs, encouraging movement in the right direction.   Fenian paused at the door, but he could either stay and come face to face with Mello advancing; go down and be seen to be obeying Mello's instructions; or else rush off along the concrete balcony linking all of the upper chalets, then never get any answers as to what had been tampered with.    He took Kiana's hand and they hurried down the stairs.    Hal waited until Mello and Matt passed, then fell into step behind them.   It was Hal who closed the door and locked it.    She had plenty of time. It took Matt an age to get down the steps.

Out on the trackway, with the air filled with the hint of rain again, Mello had just one word for his husband.   "Why?"

"He was fucking with you."

Mello glared at him.   His voice was steel-hard and icy, "Don't ever do this to me again, Mail.   I really mean that."

Matt looked sidewards at him. "What are you going to do?   Beat me up?"

Mello tensed, "I haven't ruled out taking you up into the mountains and putting a bullet in your head." They continued on to the hall in silence.

Inside the hall, there was an upturned chair sprawled against a wall, as evidence of someone, probably Fenian, expelling a little aggression.   He, Kiana and Deontic were inside the kitchen, talking in low, angry tones.   They discerned Kiana snapping, "We just call the police like normal people!"

Fenian had seen them and he marched on out, "I want to know where and why."

He was glaring at Mello, but Mello released Matt's arm and gestured surrender.   "You know," Mello said, sitting down in an oasis of tightly reined calm, "this isn't my show.    Take it away, Matty."   Mello took out his chocolate bar and carefully peeled the foil back.

Matt stood just a few feet away, staring in Fenian's direction. "It's not really your problem either, Fenian.   It's Kiana's."

"Leave her the fuck out of this." Fenian yelled, loitering in front of the kitchen doorway.    Inside, Kiana and Deontic both stood anxiously listening.    Hal had taken the room at a wide arc and now stood roughly between the two parties, though a step or two out of their direct eye-line.    "You speak to me."

"Ok." Matt relit his cigarette, which had gone out in the wind outside.   "Two things.   I want her to tell Mello the truth about that shit with his grandmother and I want her to return his hair."

Mello glanced up sharply.   "What hair?"

Inside the kitchen, Deontic moaned, "Oh no.   Oh no, no.   I knew it!"

Fenian was staring at Matt with incredulity.   "You fucking did fucking this over a bastard fucking..."   He gave up, unable to speak.

Matt looked sideways at Mello.   "She took some of your hair to do witchcraft on."

Mello frowned.   His mind shot up a memory of Kiana yelling at Fenian in this very room, with her hand inexplicably on Mello's back.    He reached back to rake through his fallen hood.   It took four attempts for him to return with a strand of hair, that had been trapped in the faux fur.   He stared at it.    In the meantime, Fenian was shouting, "You tried to fucking kill us over a fucking hair?"

"Yeah."   Matt agreed, shifting his weight onto the other foot.   "But what was she going to do with the spell?"

Mello stared at his husband.   Matt didn't even believe in this.   That's what was, to Mello's mind, so fucked up about this whole situation.    Kiana stepped out of the kitchen and laid her hand on Fenian's shoulder.    "Cuir in iúl dom an caint a dhéanamh."

"Níl a fhios agat cad iad na daoine cosúil." Fenian replied, brusquely.

Kiana kissed his cheek.   "Iontaobhas dom." She smiled at him until he nodded, then she moved forward straight towards Matt. Hal flanked her, as close to Kiana as Mello was to Matt.   Kiana came to a stop just a few steps short of the redhead.   "So we're both trying to protect our men, in a bloody stupid war."    Fenian had drifted in her wake, but stayed back when Hal glanced at him.   Kiana eyed Matt carefully. "I wasn't trying to hurt Mello.   I was binding him."   She gestured behind her to where Fenian stalked. "You wanted to kill mine.   Do you see the difference there?"

Matt appeared unmoved.   His cigarette never left his lips; but to be held half an inch before them, for him to exhale smoke, before reinserting it.   "Tell him about his grandmother, give him his hair back, then I will tell you what I booby-trapped."

"Do you not realise that we could have you arrested?"   Kiana watched Matt's face, but it gave nothing away.   "Or committed for psychiatric help."   She waited for a reaction. There was none, but she noticed that Mello was looking for the same.   "What I've purportedly done to you would be laughed out of court.   But what you've done to us is serious.   Really serious.   And you're how old?   Seventeen? Eighteen?"

Behind her, Fenian laughed. "He's older than me!   He's probably about twenty-one now!"

"Still very young."   Kiana smiled.   "Way too young to be throwing your life away.    Is life so cheap to you, that you would throw it away like this?    Mine in a box and yours in a cage?"   Her gaze grazed over his bruising.   "Or is your life so harsh that you'd be glad it was over?"

Mello glowered over his chocolate, "Careful."

Matt lit another cigarette, though the embers of the first still glowed on the floor beside his boot. "Tell him about his grandmother, give him his hair back, then I'll tell you what I booby-trapped."

Kiana opened her palms. "I'll meet you halfway.   Mello, I pulled the names from you.   Your grandmother is not following you around; though it is Samhain tomorrow and they do watch over us.   It wasn't totally a lie."   She smiled at the Slav. "We're none of us totally alone."

Mello stared grimly at her. Matt glanced at him, "Is that enough for you, Mello?   On that point."

"Mail, I'm past fucking caring."   Mello replied, eliciting another sharp look from his husband.    "Just tell them what you did."

Matt stood frozen to the spot.   He spoke so quietly that only those close could hear him. "I may or may not have done the lighter and the exhaust pipe trick."

Kiana frowned, "What is that?"

Mello glared at his husband, while Fenian exclaimed, furiously, "You fucking mess with the lighters and throw them into the exhaust pipe!   Engine goes on, exhaust heats up, lighter fluid goes bang."   He was pacing in circles in a tiny circumference.   "We learned it at Wammy's."

Kiana turned incredulously.   "You learned how to blow up a car, at an orphanage?!"    There was a loaded silence all around her. "Why?   I can't even see how..."   She looked from Fenian to Deontic to Hal.    "Do what to the lighters?"

"You have to take off..."

"I don't want to know." Kiana reached out a hand towards Matt. He surveyed it in disgust.   "Did you or did you not do this 'trick'?"

Matt took a long drag on his cigarette.   "Has Mello received the hair back yet?"

Mello raised a gloved finger in the air.   "What is 'binding'?    In a witchcraft context."

"It's a geas." Kiana looked from him to Matt.   "A condition magically inserted into your destiny.    In short, I bound you against ever hurting Liam again.   You may think it, but will always talk yourself out of going through with it.    Even if that fails, then circumstances will conspire to thwart you."

"So it's a protection spell rather than a curse?"   Mello clarified and she nodded.   "Fine. That's good enough for me.   Mail, she can keep the hair.   I have no intention of hurting her precious Liam.    Tell her about her Land Rover."   Matt stood there, impassive, staring at Mello.   The blond stood. "Kiana, give me the keys to your vehicle."

Kiana frowned, "What?"

Mello held out his hand. "I'm going to take it for a spin."

Matt blinked.   Fenian hurried forward,   "That's the solution.    Give him the keys, Ki."

There was a tense minute, while all stared at the others.   Then Kiana strode back to the kitchen and emerged with her handbag.   She fished inside for a bunch of keys, with a number of charms and tokens attached to it.   She rejoined them, but didn't immediately hand them over.   "Could we even trust him if he did say one way or another?"

Fenian shook his head, "Fuck no.   But we'll know by whether Mello goes sky-high in a million pieces or not."

Matt grit his teeth, then dropped to his knees in front of Mello and bowed his head.   Mello released a breath and touched his collar. "Mail, did you rig the exhaust?"

"No."

Mello nodded.   "Thank you."    He looked around at each of the others in turn.   "He didn't do it."   He was met with a lot of blank stares.   "But no-one believes him.   Give me the fucking keys."

Kiana frowned, "And see you potentially go up in flames?"

Mello's smile held no warmth. "It won't be the first time, sweetheart."   He jabbed a finger at his facial scar, then snatched the keys from her hand.   "Fenian, I do this for you and we're square.   Right?   No more squabbling about the past.   No more fucking ambushes in meetings."

There was a short silence, then, "Yes."

"Thank you."   Mello yanked Matt to his feet by his collar.   There was a wince of pain from his husband, but Mello ignored it.   He marched towards the door, half-dragging Matt behind him.    They all watched, then, as one, Fenian, Kiana, Deontic and Hal hurried after them.   They made it to the bottom of the slope, with Matt gasping at the exertion upon his nicotine ravaged lungs, and limping from the friction of his clothes on his bruises.   Mello didn't care.   With the party of four watching from the edge of the carpark, Mello opened the passenger side door of the Land Rover and hoisted Matt inside.    Then he charged around to the driver's side and climbed in himself.

Hal called after him, "Mello!"

But he just glanced at her and slid the key into the ignition.    Mello's heart was in his mouth.   He looked sideways at Matt, but his husband was just staring, listlessly, across the bonnet.   "Is this blaze of glory time, Mail? Because I'm trusting you."

Hal was at the window.   "Mello, I really think that this has gone..."

Mello gave an angry shrug and started the engine.    Hal backed away and he didn't blame her.   He mentally willed her to run to safety, just in case.   Almost to ensure a distance between them, Mello backed up.   It would take a short while for the hot fumes to heat up the exhaust pipe.   The Lord knew that Mello wasn't suicidal, but this was a thing that had to be done.    He silently let the prayer form in his mind and hoped that it wasn't needed. 'Vjerujem u Boga, Oca svemogućega. Stvoritelja neba i zemlje.'   They sped past the others and continued on up the trackway.   Within seconds, the communal hall had gone by on their left.   Mello had no idea what was up here.    He hoped that it wasn't residential.   'I u Isusa Krista, Sina njegova jedinoga, Gospodina našega koji je začet po Duhu Svetom, rodjen od Marije Djevice.'   The pebble beach fell away on their right hand side, as they rose higher towards the cliff top.   High hedgerow slammed its branches against the left side of the car, as the track became even narrower.    'Mučen pod Poncijem Pilatom, raspet, umro i pokopan.'

"Mello."   Matt spoke, softly, "Please say something."

The prayer slid from Mello's mind replaced by the adrenaline sharp remembrance that he was ignoring his husband.   Matt, whose infant neglect was probably somewhere in the distant root of his criminally stupid behaviour this afternoon.    "What do you want me to say, Mail?"

"You promised that you would never ignore me."   Matt whispered.   "Just yell your fucking head off or something.   Hit me, if you want to."

They arrived at speed at a metal gate leading into a field.   Mello slammed on the brakes and they stopped just short of it.   The Land Rover should have blown up by now.   It was safe.   Mello let go of the steering wheel, then brought his clenched fist down hard upon it.    He grit his teeth.   "Just give me a minute, Mail."   He looked out of the window beside him, but there was only a soil bank with a feeling of cliff-top behind it.   He exhaled, wanting to kick and scream with repressed emotion.   Instead he looked at Matt.   "Right." Beside him, Matt took off his goggles and looked at Mello with huge, emerald eyes.   Mello stared. "You're trying that shit now?"

Matt looked away and, after a moment, put the goggles back on.    Mello wanted to shout, but he was already calming down.   Now he just felt like crying.   Instead, he took a deep breath and reached out for Matt's hand.   He gripped it and held on.   "I know what you were trying to do, baby.   But please don't pull any of that shit again.   Let me fight my own battles."

"But you got your answer." Matt replied, quietly.   "And a promise of Fenian off your back."

"Yes, I know." Mello's gaze flickered from side to side, not knowing where to look.   "But it's not worth the cost of having you locked up somewhere.   This is the Beyond Birthday route, Mail."   In his pocket, Mello's 'phone began to ring.   Mello sighed and took it out. He didn't bother reading the caller ID, before barking into it, "I'm fine, Hal.   We'll be back in a minute."   He hung up before she could reply.   "Mail, I love you to death.   I'm sorry I beat you up.   I enjoyed it at the time, but I'm sorry you're..." He realised that Matt must be in agony sitting there.   "Fuck." He exhaled loudly.   "Just don't do anything like this again."   Mello took back his hand.   He twisted in his seat and reversed them along the narrow trackway, back down the mountain.   He had seen a turning spot a few yards back.   "Don't plant car-bombs. Don't threaten other Wammy's.   Don't take hostages in the infirmary.   Don't hack Near's computer.   Don't threaten to kill yourself, nor anyone else.   Don't..." He found the turning and swung them around into it.   "Just generally don't. Unless I tell you to."

"Ok."

"And don't do any more talking.   Let me take it from here. Because this is going to take all the fucking diplomacy that I've got."   Mello blinked away the angry tears that had arisen from nowhere.   They headed down the trackway, reaching the bottom sooner than he would have hoped.   They were all waiting.   Mello parked up, one hand on the steering wheel and his chocolate in the other.   As he climbed out, Hal ran to him, rubbing his arm and gazing down into his eyes, like she could read their journey in them.    "It's ok." Mello brushed her off and strode towards Kiana.   "Your keys.   It's safe."    He held them out and she took them.   "He didn't try to kill you, just scare you, which I think is now a little more at the level of your opening stakes."

Kiana stared boldly back at him.   "Let me tend his bruises."

Of all the things that she could have said, Mello was not expecting that.   His eyes opened wide.   "He probably wouldn't let you."

"Then you tell him that he has to."

Mello stared. "I've already..."   He was aware of Matt standing beside him.   A wave of protectiveness gripped Mello and he grasped Matt's hand.    "Do what to him?"

"Healing."

Matt reached into his pocket and brought out the pot of greenish ointment that she had given him earlier.   He handed it to Mello, who inspected it suspiciously, before holding it out towards Kiana.   "He doesn't like people touching him."   Mello explained. Then added, "Except me."

"I won't touch him."   Kiana countered.   Fenian was sitting on the wall a few feet away, watching them and saying nothing.   "All he has to do is sit or lie there, while I place my hands over him."

Mello felt like he was falling into Wonderland.   He needed to bring this back on track. "Are you following through on your threat to have him arrested?"

Kiana's dark eyes flared, "Apparently I already have.   None of you officially exist, so there's only one person who you can be reported to and Hal already knows."

"Yes." Mello nodded. "She does."   He realised that this conversation was actually over.   There was no reason to prolong it.   He nodded at Kiana and started to walk past her, towing Matt behind him.

Kiana spoke quickly.   "The salt in the sea air is drying out your skin and making your scar itch more than normal."   She stepped back slightly, as Mello turned to look at her.   "You didn't foresee that, so you didn't bring enough moisturiser."    They locked eye contact, but Mello was an old master at the game of conjecture presented as fact.   He smiled at her.   She raised her hand towards his face. "One place where it's itching quite badly is just above your eye socket, here."    She was correct, but she could have seen him rubbing at it.    She placed her hand over the area and he felt a heat.   Even with the wind rushing chilly by them, there was heat. She kept her hand there and it just got hotter, searing the itch into a pinpoint patch; which was sucked out and was gone.   Kiana stepped back, flicking her hand away from her.

Mello touched his forehead.   The itch had completely gone.   In fact, there was a whole area no longer itching at all.   This was even more remarkable by the fact that there was always low level itching, so much a part of him that he hardly noticed any more. It was only when an area irritated him more than usual that he even reached for the cocoa butter.   But it was gone.   He stared at her for the longest time, then led his husband indoors.
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Annals of Fear II