Poisoned Rationality

The Camero sidled into the garage next to the black Harley. It was always a tight fit, but neither had so much as scratched the paintwork of the other\'s vehicle yet. Mello was already outside, packing up and down at the open shutter like an hyperactive sentry man. Matt buttoned up his flies before sauntering out to join him. "No police." The blond reported, icy eyes flashing across the carpark.



Matt frowned. "You honestly thought that car is registered, taxed and insured to this address and my name?" He rolled his eyes. "Freak. I hacked Swansea."



Mello marched away and they rode the lift to their fifth floor flat in silence. Once inside though, his mood changed again. He shoved Matt up the wall and kicked shut the front door. His hand, against the fake fur collar, encircled Matt\'s neck and pressed against his Adam\'s apple. The other hand came up and the redhead tensed for a slap, but it merely touched the goggles with delicate fingers and lifted them to the top of his head. It was impossible to gage the intent from Mello\'s searching gaze. The angel and demon both had stakes in it; his smile flickered from smirk to fading and back again. Nails grazed the soft underskin of Matt\'s chin and the other hand rose again. It held the oxytocin nasal spray, which was squirted inches from Matt\'s face, until a broad smile indicated that it had been inhaled. Only then did the sidewards punch come, knocking the redhead to the carpet with a loud thud. A moment later, Mello was sitting on Matt\'s stomach, pinning his hands to the floor.



"Matty," Mello growled, "have you ever stopped to think what it takes to thwart a genius mind?"



The green eyes below him blinked, pain and amusement registering in equal measure. His words were emitted as an excited squeal. "Well, yes." Matt giggled. Mello glowered, apparently not getting the joke. "It occupies most of my thoughts."



"You keep him the fuck off-balance." Mello glared down. "While one hand soothes, the other bruises. You smile, while saying poisonous lines. You change your mood the second he\'s acclimatised." The blond leaned down to kiss his prone lover. "Because the second you give a genius mind a clear way forward, he\'ll run rings around you."



Matt smirked. "Really? I find not reacting works much better." He blew a kiss, unable to deliver it properly. "Well, when your genius is playing mindgames that is. Rest of the time, you just do whatever is needful for each given situation."



"I watched you in the car. You had no idea what to do. I watched your thought processes taking place. I saw you reason it out." Mello cocked his head to one side, the maniac gaze boring in. "Do you want to know the secret, Matty? For next time?"



"Yeah, go on."



"Do whatever the fuck you want to, because it will always be right." Mello released Matt\'s hands and sat up. The redhead\'s knees were up, so Mello used his thighs to support his back. "Half the time, I\'m making it up as I go along and I\'m watching you for clues. You\'re powerless because you want to be powerless and I help you to spin out that illusion. You might think that I\'m about to kill you, but say the word and I\'ll stop. Every time. You cannot piss me off so much that I\'d hate you. Ever. We are more equal than you would ever dare admit." Mello stared, as if sheer force of will would imprint understanding onto Matt\'s psyche.



"\'kay."



"That\'s all you have to say?" Mello frowned. "I\'m laying bare everything and you just say \'ok\'!"



Matt looked sidewards, blowing out his cheeks. It was a great show of deep thought, which he only stopped when Mello slapped him. "Ok!" Matt touched his reddened cheek. "I get that it\'s true for this moment." He watched Mello blink in surprise. "But if you\'re going to have the nerve to suggest that it\'s always true, then we\'ll going to have to add in that you\'re a contrary bastard, who sometimes makes mistakes in the heat of the moment."



"What?" Mello bellowed.



"And," Matt interupted pointedly, "that outburst wasn\'t because I said you are contrary. You\'d be proud of that. Yes, you do make mistakes, or you\'re a sadistic fucker."



"Well, I am." Mello grinned suddenly, a hand descending to tenderly stroke back red hair.



"So what about right now?" Matt challenged. "Are you being a sadistic fucker or making a mistake?"



Mello smirked, "Which would you prefer?" This his smile froze and suspicion flared. "Why? You think I\'m making a mistake?"



"I think you\'re making two." Matt stroked the back of the hand in his hair. "But far be it for me to have an opinion. You\'re the one with such perfect control."



It was one of the few moments when Mello\'s innate sense of inferiority actually showed on his face. He looked around thoughtfully, then took a bar of chocolate from his pocket and sucked on an edge. Eventually, his gaze fell back onto Matt and the blond looked worried. "Two mistakes?"



"Or you\'re a sadistic fucker."



Mello looked unsure. "It\'s probably that one." He glanced at the front door, then back at Matt.



"Right." Matt lay there, smiling up.



"Oh! For fuck\'s sake, tell me!" Mello snapped. "What in your opinion am I making mistakes over?"



"You\'re sitting on my gunshot wound." The redhead flinched as Mello leapt off him. "Only you\'ve spent the last week treating me like glass over it and..."



"Shit! I forgot!" Mello sat against the cupboard door, his hands over his mouth and nose. "Are you alright?"



Matt responded by staying exactly where he was, but extracting a crushed packet of cigarettes from his pocket. He inspected the contents. None of them had holes in their paper, so he lit one. "Actually three mistakes." There wasn\'t a hint that he was in pain, despite all the blows he had received today. "Four... maybe five, but they are related so it might just be one big one."



Mello watched the cigarette tracing patterns in the air, then being lowered between his lover\'s lips. He said, carefully, "I refuse to believe I\'m currently making five mistakes. I\'ll give you the first though."



"The second was earlier." Matt told the ceiling. "You\'ve been panicking for days that I might have internal wounds that we don\'t know nothing about. You nearly ripped the head off that Yazuka bloke who turned up with a car and no x-ray machine. Yet you totally forgot that there\'s one at Wammy\'s." The faintest smirk. "In the infirmary."



"Oh! Fucking Hell!" Mello looked close to despair. He fell silent, hiding under his hair. He whispered, defeated, "What are the other three mistakes?"



"I went, by the way. En route to the library." Matt shrugged. "Madeleine fussed worse than you, but she x-rayed me. I\'m fine. It really was a straight in and out job. Slight crack on my hip, but that\'s all. Daft thing is that the bullet went nowhere near my hip."



Mello spoke so quietly that Matt could barely hear him. "It doesn\'t matter. It\'s an impact crack." There was a sigh from underneath the blond hair. "I\'m glad you went. It\'s," he paused, "reassuring."



"You thought I was going to die too." Matt spoke blankly.



"Too?" Mello\'s head shot up. "You thought you were dying?"



Matt nodded. "Well, you\'ve been freaking out over it so much and you know an awful lot more about gunshot wounds than I do." His forehead creased. "I thought you thought I was and you didn\'t want to tell me." He rolled the cigarette between his fingers, tapping the end, then brushing off the ash that fell onto his jacket. "Isn\'t that what the Sussex Downs was all about? You trying to kill us off together. Then all this shit about needing to know my past. Like we were running out of time. I just thought if I slept enough, I\'d heal and I wouldn\'t die on you. You wouldn\'t cope." His voice croaked and faded away. Mello crawled back to his side and peered down. "Fuck, Mell, don\'t cry."



"You\'re not dying, Matt. I could tell after a couple of days by the way you moved and your colour." Mello stroked the chin he had so recently punched. "I\'m sorry." He wiped his eyes. "I wish I could make everything up to you."



Matt swallowed hard. "Have you finished confessing everything now?"



"You\'re right. I made two, three mistakes." It was suddenly difficult to imagine that Mello had ever been in the Mafia. His knees were under his chin and his eyes swam in devastation. "How can I make it up to you?"



Green eyes fixed onto him. Matt exhaled. "I should think, I don\'t know, three Hail Marys and an Ave?"



A smile replaced the sadness and Mello laughed. He uncurled and held out a hand. "Let\'s go and find somewhere more comfortable than the hallway floor. You still have to tell me about the other two mistakes I\'ve made."



Matt took his hand. "We\'re up to six now." He shook his head. "No, five. The last one was mine." He found his feet and held Mello\'s hand as they walked down the passage to the junction of their living room and bedroom. Mello led the way into the latter. "Any chance of a shag then?"



Mello grinned at him, humour softening his eyes. He shrugged. "If you like."



Matt jolted like a startled deer. "Really? No fighting? No telling me \'no way you\'re too injured\'? No going through the whole... wow! Seriously?" He stubbed out his cigarette in the bedside ashtray and felt his hand being lightly squeezed. "Just like that? \'If you like\', just like that?"



Mello sat on the bed, laughing aloud, shaking his head. He looked up again with moist eyes, but this time it was with hilarity. "Yes, just like that. Come on." He patted the bed beside him.



"What\'s the catch?" Matt held back, suspicious.



"Jeevas, just get on the fucking bed." Mello gently pulled him towards him and waited until he was sitting expectantly down. "You crack me up. People wonder why I\'m so emotional and it\'s because I live with you. It\'s a rollercoaster ride. I don\'t know how many emotions I\'ve felt in the past five minutes alone."



"Awww, man." Matt lay back. "You\'ve gone back to psycho-babble, analysis crap. Let\'s just fuck."



Mello pushed the oxytocin right up Matt\'s nose and sprayed it. The redhead spluttered and coughed, his hand going down to his side and holding it. Mello waited until he had recovered then began undressing him. "I never told you how much I respect what you did, during Kira, especially in Japan. You are brilliant. You are gorgeous. I am never, ever going to leave you. I will always come back for you." He kissed him all over his face. "I love you, Matty. Really love you." Matt stared with his jaw slack, eyes wide and blinking. Mello lifted him to take off his jacket and shirt, the gloves having already been taken away. "I\'m never leaving you. Trust me." Mello took off his own gloves and his fingers traced the lines of Matt\'s chest. "I love you."

The blond smiled, then stood up. He opened his laptop and flicked through his music library. A moment later, Coldplay\'s \'Green Eyes\' started playing into the room.



Matt found his tongue. "Wow!"



"Sssh, listen to the lyrics. In my head, it\'s about you." The song went on, about the green-eyed person being a rock in the world of the singer; someone who brought sunshine into a loaded life. "\'Honey, you are the sea, upon which I float\'." Mello sang along, as he snuggled up to Matt again, kisses covering his bruised jawbone. "\'The green eyes, you\'re the one that I wanted to find,\'" Mello wiped the tears from the redhead\'s cheeks, "\'and anyone who tried to deny you must be out of their mind.\'"



Matt leaned in and kissed his lover hard. "Mihael, I fucking love you." He pushed Mello down and twisted over him, hands slotting underneath the tight leather, then returning to unzip and pull it away. "You don\'t know what you are. You\'re amazing. You surpassed L years ago." On the laptop, the song changed to the next on the album, \'Warning Sign\'. Mello stared at him in shock. Matt had taken the initiative before, but never quite like this. He was all over the blond, kissing, caressing, hugging with no heed to the wounds on his body. "You\'re the most intelligent bloke I know and you\'re so beautiful and... kind. Mihael, you\'re kind and they all fucking miss that."



"No, I\'m not. I\'m a complete bastard." Mello grinned. "Who are you fantasizing about?" He watched and actually saw the moment, in a slight dulling of those green eyes, when the oxytocin wore off. Matt was stranded atop his lover, hands on his shoulders, staring down. Only now did he wince, almost imperceptively, a tensing of one side of his body. "Ok, I think I\'m starting to get you."



"Huh?" The redhead lowered himself into Mello\'s arms and lay still for a moment, his head now where one hand had been. A few seconds later, Matt looked up, gazing at his lover\'s face. Mello smiled back. "The third mistake you made is keep thinking we\'re in trouble. We\'re not. I mean our relationship. There was nothing wrong with it until you decided that we were in some kind of crisis and started looking for the evidence to back up your theory. We\'re just bumbling along as normal. It\'s all in your head." He bit his lip. "The fourth mistake is deciding that I\'m your enemy."



Mello frowned. "What did I say to make you think that?"



"You have a whole gameplan to thwart me. Why do you need that if you don\'t secretly think I\'m your rival?" He reached up to cup Mello\'s scarred cheek and to push the hair away from it. "The sixth mistake is you thinking that I\'m running rings around you. Truth is that I\'m not. Honestly. For a start, I couldn\'t, because you\'d out-think me every step of the way. I was a mere third at Wammy\'s remember. You were second, I was third. Second pwns third. \'kay?" He kissed Mello\'s neck, a soft breath on the worst of the burn damage. The laptop played \'The Whisper\'. "But the main thing is that I don\'t think like that. You do. You plan things and react to them. I just trust that whatever happens, I will be able to deal with it at the time, so I don\'t plan. Plus I hang around with you, so any planning that\'s needed is going to be in place by the time I have to do anything anyway. I don\'t want to run rings around you. I just want to keep a roof over our heads, food in our bellies, then concentrate on beating my games. In between all of that, then I want to ogle you and keep you happy. I\'m fairly uncomplicated like that."



"Those three aren\'t so much mistakes as matters of interpretation." Mello lifted the spray and held it to Matt\'s nose again. "Can we get back to the bit where you were molesting me? Because I\'m hard as Hell and these laces are killing me. Breathe."



Matt smirked, rolling onto his side and using both hands to disrobe Mello and himself, until they were both naked. His kisses traced down the Slav\'s body from his naval and along his erect dick, then back up again. Mello caught him and kissed him hard, before sliding from under him and across the bedroom. Matt frowned when he saw Mello search his jacket pocket and come out with the box that the spray had been in. Inside was the information sheet, which was quickly being skim-read again. "Mello, stop reading and come back." Matt stood and swayed a little.



"Shit! It\'s a pain-killer too!" Mello threw the paper back onto his jacket and returned to the redhead\'s side. "It\'s ok, we can carry on. I just needed to know that." He wrapped his arms around Matt\'s waist and let his fingers massage the base of his spine. They continued down to touch his backside, down between his cheeks to insert themselves into his anus. "It\'s worn off again. I know what I\'m looking for now. I wish I\'d known before, but if wishes were horses..." He supported the weight of Matt\'s body pressing into him, accepting the kisses that lined his left shoulder and neck. "Pain is good, Matty." He felt rather than heard Matt\'s little laugh. "No, I mean it tells you when to stop doing something. You need to feel pain." The laugh was audible this time. "You know what I mean!" His fingers pressed in to the third knuckle and rhymically moved in and out. "On top of the pain-killers you\'re already taking, it\'s not good."



"Mello, shut the fuck up and..."



Mello silenced him with kisses and an easing of their bodies onto the bed again. His free hand found the spray again and he had some himself before squirting it into Matt\'s nose. "I love you. I\'m always going to be there for you." He whispered, as he positioned Matt on top of himself. "Sit on me, I want to try it like this." He pulled apart Matt\'s cheeks with one hand and guided his own hardness into him. It wasn\'t as painful, nor as uncomfortable, as Mello had anticipated. He grinned, wondering why they had never tried that before. "I get to see you properly! God, you\'re hot."



The irony of \'A Rush of Blood to the Head\' choosing that moment to start playing was not lost on Mello. It was a song which he ordinarily associated with the whole battle with Kira, not sex, but it worked just the same. The oxytocin was helping. He was burning up and finding it all so funny; but Matt, above him, was like an Adonis, all flaming hair and incredible beauty. The intensity of the rising orgasm was kicking him outside his own body, yet firmly rooting him inside it, all at the same time. Mello\'s knees came up, supporting Matt, to free up his hands to touch the member rising in front of him. "God, Mello!"



"\'Honey, all the movements you\'re starting to make, see me crumble and fall on my face\'" Mello laughed as he sang, but he was looking in wonder at Matt\'s face. "\'And I know the mistakes that I made, see it all disappear without a trace.\'" Above him, Matt\'s expression of fierce concentration dissolved into a giggle. The room was spinning and Mello realized that he had forgotten to breathe, too busy falling in love a million times over. "\'You just sit down there and you wonder why,\'" Mello snorted, "\'So I\'m going to buy a gun and start a war, if you can tell me something worth fighting for.\'" He caught Matt\'s gaze and smiled, fondly, lovingly, full of desire. "Like you."



"I love you." Matt gasped, back arching.



But Mello could feel the effects of the drug starting to wear off. A three minute rush of love and trust. He wondered if it was as profound for the redhead, who was, perhaps, maybe, who knew, starting from a deficiency in this stuff. Or was this now just normal for him, arriving to where Mello always felt, only to sink back somewhere else. Mello couldn\'t think. He was coming, hard and fast, shooting deep inside of Matt with the last effects of the drug kick-started back into sublime gliding into space.



As soon as Mello had control of his senses again, he scrambled for the oxytocin and held it up for Matt to see. The redhead bowed his head and received another head full of the chemicals. Even without the intoxicant, Matt still seemed as gorgeous and as lovely in Mello\'s view. The room was still faintly reverberating, as Mello held Matt, crying out. "Mail, you are loved so much. You are really, really, fucking loved. You\'re beautiful. You\'re mine and you\'re beautiful. I love you, Mail. I love you." Matt came all over him. "I love you and I\'m never leaving you." Mello caught the redhead as he practically collapsed onto him, kissing away the floods of tears. The blond was definitely coming back down to land, but Matt was still flying somewhere in that world of almost childlike trust and magnificent love. "I will always come back for you. I always did come back for you. Even after four years, I found you. I never left you for dead. I will always come back for you."



The sobs sounded all the way through \'Amsterdam\', but Mello understood. These weren\'t tears for now. They were the desperate sobs of a three-year-old boy left alone in the dark, writing his name with a stick in the rust, just so someone would know that he had been alive. The blond whispered constantly into his ear, "I will always come and get you, Mail. I will always come and get you, Mail. I will always come and get you, Mail."



The music stopped and, eventually, so did the shuddering tears. They ended in hiccups, then sniffles. The oxytocin must have worn off a while ago, but when Matt finally opened red-rimmed eyes to look back, those green eyes were filled with trust. Mello smiled at him and said, "I know you." A long kiss followed and it felt like something in the world had relaxed and left them melded as one. Even when Mello rose, to collect cigarettes and tissues, they kept their gaze locked, as if even that short distance apart was too much. "I love you, Mail Ricardo Sebastian Jeevas."



Matt seemed in danger of dissolving into tears again. He wiped his face with his hands and sat up, taking the tissues from Mello\'s hands and blowing his nose. The cigarette shook wildly in his hand en route to his lips. He smoked it like it was the breath of life itself. "It was the right thing." He rasped.



"What was?"



"You finding out." Matt bowed his head again, unable to stop the tears this time.



Mello nodded. He sat up against the headboard with a bar of chocolate and touched Matt\'s shoulder. With the briefest glance, the redhead crawled between his legs and settled there to be held. Mello used the nasal spray on him again, watching the tears receding to be replaced by calm. "We\'re going to be alright, me and you."



"I know." Matt nodded. "Though we\'d probably be better off if we just went straight for the MDMA, instead of messing around with sprays every thirty seconds."



"Junkie."



"Yeah."



Mello frowned. "MDMA has oxytocin in it?" He smirked, as the redhead nodded. "When you threw your stash of drugs at me, only the MDMA was nearly out. That\'s what you used to cane all the time, isn\'t it?"



"No, MDMA releases serotonin, which activates the oxytocin. But it builds up an intolerance, so each time you have it, the effects are slightly less. Is this heading for another drug lecture?"



"No." Mello was pensive. "Does self-harm release oxytocin?"



"No, bio-energy. All pain releases bio-energy." Matt turned to smile at him. "Stop thinking." Mello winked at him and received a wink straight back. "Sex activates oxytocin, well, if it\'s with someone you love, otherwise it\'s just the dopamine, and pain releases bio-energy; so tie me up, whip me soundly and fuck my brains out. \'kay?"



Mello roared with laughter. "I do love you." He cuddled the redhead close. "All hail the Wammy kids. Even the fucked up ones know the precise chemical reason they are doing it to themselves. I mean me too, by the way. I know exactly what\'s in chocolate." He surveyed the bottle in his hand. "And Roger gave us this on repeat prescription?"



Grinning like a Cheshire Cat, Matt nodded. "He\'s alright, is Roger. A bit short-sighted on certain things, but that\'s all for the best for us. Yay!" He watched Mello inhale the substance and hold it out for his lover to do the same. "I\'ve just had some, but alright." He sprayed it up his nostril, then leaned in for more kisses. "Love you right back, Mello."