My Own Way

Author\'s Note: I lost control of Mello a bit halfway through here. Many thanks to Mistbender, Nine Lives and DragonPriestess27 for their advice. I had started to get him back based on it, but then lost him again. Many, many thanks to Miyamashi, who arrived on-line just at that moment and agreed to RP a section of this. Though the chapter ultimately went off in a different direction to the RP, there is some dialogue and actions that should be credited to her here. Thank you very much.



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Mello had heard the soft beep boop of games music earlier. He knew that Matt had freed himself from his handcuffs. He checked his reflection again, teasing blond locks down over the painful, itching mass on the left side of his face. There was probably a hairstyle that he could have cut which would permenantly cover it, but the one he\'d had he\'d kept since childhood. Their guardian, Roger, had once asked him if he kept it for a reason. When Mello had shrugged, Roger had proffered the opinion that the child did not fully believe that his parents were dead. On some subconscious level, he thought they might one day come back and if so, they had better be able to recognise him, that\'s why he kept the hairstyle his mother had given him. Mello sneered at that then, but his mind rebelled against the notion of another cut now. He would just grow his hair longer. It would suffice.



He picked up his dressings and eyed them with disdain. As ugly as he looked, the thought of putting them back on, itching worse than the injuries they were protecting, made his heart sink. During the past month, Matt had occasionally let him just cover up with cling-film, just to have a break from it. Mello decided to go and ask the redhead if he would help him do that now. He walked down the passageway and into the front room, smirking as he spotted the redhead sitting on the floor. "You sorted yourself out then?" The only visible part of Matt\'s face was his nose and mouth. The latter curled into a smile. "I\'ve come for a slice of chocolate cake."



Matt paused his game and stood up. He stood three feet away from Mello with his hands in his pockets. "So we\'re going out with each other?"



Matt\'s whole stance irritated Mello. It was as if Mello\'s body was reacting independently of his mind and it was most inconvenient. His eyes drank in the sight of the redhead. His heart quickened. His sex was already shooting urgent messages to his brain to find ways to have this man up the wall again. His mind, given its own free will, would have quivered like a girl\'s in the first flush of love. But he refused to let Matt cloud his judgment like this. Something casually thrown out to ensure the redhead\'s compliancy should not affect Mello at all. "Just get me a knife please." The damned gamer didn\'t stop smiling, but fetched the knife and a couple of plates. "I told you, you can read into it what you like."



"Ok." Matt smirked, his eyes taking in the undressed wounds. "I\'ll sort those out for you." He dashed away to get the First Aid kit.



"Do you want a slice?"



"Of what?" Matt called back saucily.



"Cake."



"Yeah, it\'d be nice. Thank you."



Mello shrugged. "Thank you for buying it for me. I\'m assuming you didn\'t bake it."



There was a snort of laughter in the kitchen. "No. I bought it. Where are the dressings gone?"



"Matty." Mello moaned. "I don\'t want them on." He realised that he sounded like a small child whinging, so spoke more gruffly. "I\'ll just let some air get to it for a bit, then some cling-film on. It can\'t hurt."



Matt reappeared. The hair had parted enough to allow a glimpse of green eyes under the goggles. "No, it can\'t hurt. It can just get infected and scar even worse. Or your arm will fall off. Maybe death if you\'re lucky."



"Stop being gorgeous and..." Mello froze. He had meant to say \'stupid\'. He never uttered Freudian Slips. "Stop staring at me like that. I forgot your parochial English terminology. I\'ve been in the States, remember. \'Gorgeous\' is like \'cute\', it means \'stop pissing about\'." Matt was still staring at him. Mello blushed. "Honestly, it\'s an Americanism. I don\'t have to watch what I say in LA."



"I\'ll get the cling-film."



Mello pulled the coffee table closer to the armchair and sat down. He leaned over the cake, cutting into it. Matt took long enough for the blond to regain his composure, though his mind shrank away from the implications of the slip. "Besides, why would I think someone like you is gorgeous? You\'re hardly Miss World, are you? You haven\'t got the tits for a start. You don\'t look after your appearance. Your hair is a mess and it\'s red for God\'s sake. Plus you still wear those ridiculous goggles and you stink of cigarettes."



Matt sank down beside him and pushed the goggles onto the top of his head. It held the hair up with them and there was a sudden display of emerald green eyes. "Did you put any ointment on already?"



"Leave it." Mello leaned away. "Have some cake first."



The goggles came back down and Matt left him to sit on the settee. "So you think I\'m gorgeous?"



"You really have got selective hearing." Mello scowled. He handed him a sizeable piece of cake. "Right! Rules! If you are going to consider yourself to be my partner, we need to get some things settled right from the off. Are you paying attention?"



Matt smirked. "I\'m hanging off every word."



"Stop taking the piss for two seconds and pay attention." Mello settled back with his own slice of chocolate cake. "This is really nice. It\'s very chocolatey." He watched Matt eating it with his fingers, his gloves pulled off for the purpose. Mello sighed and went to fetch a fork for himself. "Right. Most important rule is that you never, ever follow me to work. If anyone comes sniffing around you, you have no idea what I do. You never ask me what I do. You never speak about what I do. You absolutely do not mention it to anyone, even your best friends. You do not reveal yourself to my friends."



"\'kay." Matt seemed utterly unconcerned about any of this, which sparked alarm bells in Mello\'s mind.



"Don\'t hear the reverse of everything I say and plot ways to do the opposite!" Mello slammed down the plate. The chocolate cake bounced on it. "Listen to me! If you so much as think about going against me on this one, I will walk out of that door and you will never see me again. You know how well I can hide if I want to. If you don\'t have the sense to keep yourself safe, then I have no qualms ensuring it by cutting all ties. I don\'t need you. I did very well on my own without you. Remember that." Matt had started bowing his head halfway through the verbal onslaught. He sat now not moving a muscle, not looking up. "Ok." Mello lifted his own plate and resumed his eating. "Rule two. I do not want to keep coming home to find you off your face on something. I need you alert and I need your mind unfettered. I never know when I might need something from you."



"I get bored..."



"I know you do. You\'re a genius and you\'ve been surrounded by imbeciles, but I\'m here now, so you have some intelligent conversation again." Mello gathered up a good forkful of the chocolate sauce topping and licked at his spoon. "If I suspect that you\'re on drugs, then I might use your body for sex, but I won\'t talk to you. Those are my terms. I\'ll let you know if there are any more as and if they come up."



Matt was silent for a while, then whispered. "You\'re a real bastard, you know that?"



"Yes."



He didn\'t look up. "I have terms as well."



"You do?" There was more contempt in that than Mello had intended, but Matt didn\'t flinch.



"Yes. If I can\'t follow you, then you have to give me a time or day you\'re coming back. If you can\'t make it, fine, call me and tell me. But if you aren\'t back when you say, then I can come and look for you."



Mello considered it. The request was reasonable enough. "Ok."



"Those people you called imbeciles were my friends. I haven\'t judged your friends."



Mello glowered and shrunk a little in his seat. He wasn\'t so far gone lying to himself that he didn\'t recognise jealousy when it pricked. "You\'re right and I\'m sorry."



"As it happens, none of them are comfortable coming around anymore."



"Because of me?" Mello asked. Matt shrugged and didn\'t respond. "The thing that really gets me is how you ended up with friends in the first place. When we were kids you ignored everyone. We only ended up friends because it was a case of having to. Sharing a room and all." He frowned. "You ever thought about that? How odd it was? We were the only kids there who had to share a room. It\'s not even like there weren\'t empty rooms you could have gone in. I think there\'s something wrong with you and Roger made it so I had to keep an eye on you."



"With me?" Matt frowned, looking up. "It could have been something wrong with you!"



"Unlikely."



"Or maybe I\'m the only person who could sort you out when you were in a temper. That sounds to me like the most logical explanation. We shared a room because I was on damage limitation with you."



"Right." Mello replied, dubiously, but the more he considered it, the more likely it did seem. It rankled. "That\'s by the by. See your friends on the nights I\'m not here then. Or invite them around when I am here and I\'ll be sweetness and light itself."



Matt sighed. "It\'s ok. You can understand their point of view though. They had the prior claim on me..."



Mello erupted. He bellowed out, "They did not have the prior claim on you!" His fist clenched and he half-rose out of his seat. "I\'ve known you since you were three years old! How long have they known you?"



"About six months."



"Six months!" Mello spat. "That is nothing! They don\'t know you at all! They do not have a prior claim on you!"



Matt raised his eyebrows. "Are you going to say next that you\'re not going to be my friend if I talk to the other children?"



"Oh! Stop being ridiculous." Mello glared. "Can you at least try to act like an adult? For fuck\'s sake!" He angrily cut another slice of chocolate cake. "This is serious. You take drugs with your friends and sooner or later you start spouting off at the mouth that your friend is in the Mafia. Loose talk costs lives. We get someone overhearing you and if you\'re taken seriously, then they ask who. You mention me and we both get killed. The Mafia isn\'t precisely the most politically correct, gay-friendly institution in the world, you know. God! You are incomparable at times. I don\'t know why I\'m even contemplating this." He sat down again, cradling more chocolate cake. "But they do not have a prior claim on you!"



"Right." Matt dropped his empty plate onto the floor and lit a cigarette. "So you are gay then?"



"Call me that again and I\'ll fucking beat the crap out of you in a way that you won\'t enjoy!"



Matt glanced at him. "Ok, princess, it\'s your birthday. What would you like...?"



"What did you call me?"



"Princess."



"Well, don\'t."



"What would you like to do?" Matt glanced at his watch. "There\'s still time for last orders in the pub, if you fancied a drink."



"I don\'t."



Matt slid off the settee and bent over Mello. "Come on, stop being so angry. It\'s your birthday." He kissed him. "Shall I make you some hot chocolate to go with your cake?"



"I don\'t care that it\'s my birthday." Mello\'s shoulders hunched up again, as he shrank into his seat. Blue eyes flashed and he glowered back. "Birthdays don\'t matter. Catching Kira matters. You not looking at me like I\'m a tantruming toddler matters! Stop fussing over me! Arsehole."



"Hot chocolate then?"



"I don\'t care about hot chocolate! I\'ve got more important things to think about, like catching Kira and beating Near." His hand rose, jagged in the air over his sore neck and shoulder. "I\'ve told you to stop fussing over me."



Matt sighed and stood back. "I just don\'t want you to be so wound up on your birthday." He flashed a conciliatory smile, surveying the seething blond on the seat below. "Let me just do your dressings then, because if you get infected and die, you won\'t be able to catch Kira." Mello pouted but didn\'t protest again. Matt walked away down the passageway and into Mello\'s room, correctly deducing that the dressings were in there. He returned holding both them and the cling-film. Mello clasped the crucifix on his rosary tight enough to dig into the flesh of his hand. The beads across his wounds were already chafing them. Matt exhaled and lit a cigarette. "I\'m going to put the proper dressings on."



"Fine." Mello hissed.



Matt wandered into the kitchen to wash his hands, calling back, "It is looking better you know. The skin buds are spreading nicely, even over the really bad bits." He returned, gazing down. Mello\'s scowl deepened. "And I really fancy the arse off you." Matt smirked. "You\'ve messed with your hair. See, I notice these things." He squeezed a little of the ointment onto his fingers and began dabbing it on Mello\'s neck. The blond bowed his head, glowering at the floor. "You\'re going to have to put your head up if I\'m going to do your face." Mello did as he was told, glaring furiously ahead. Matt busied himself applying ointment to the facial wounds. "You said I could read into what you said how I like. I\'m reading that you want to be free to have sex with me again and that we are now going out with each other, but you\'re not gay. Is that correct?"



"I\'m not fucking gay." Mello blazed back. His hand squeezed the crucifix with whitened knuckles; it cut into his palms.



"Right." Matt was even more careful with his administrations around the bridge of Mello\'s nose, so not to get ointment in his eyes. "Only Silver and I were going to have cyber sex and..."



Mello grabbed a handful of the striped shirt and twisted it menacingly, "Don\'t you even think it! Do not fucking toy with me, Matt!" He shook him and Matt\'s cigarette dropped from his mouth into Mello\'s lap. The redhead scrambled to find it before it burned, but Mello rose, dragging him up with him and kissing him in one fluid movement. The burning ember fell to the carpet and was crushed out underfoot. Matt responded to the kiss and Mello threw him back. Blood spotted the shirt from the stigmata wound on Mello\'s palm. "Oh fucking Hell! Oh! Fucking, fucking Hell!" The blond roared. "God damn fucking Hell!" He emitted a strangled scream.



"Ok, ok!" Matt raised his hands in surrender. "I\'ll stop bugging you."



Mello rounded on him, "I don\'t know what I want. I don\'t fucking know! Okay! There, I admitted it! You happy now?"



"I\'m not sure. It sounds a bit like you just dumped me." Matt replied honestly. "Or was that just about whether or not you\'re gay?"



"I don\'t know. I don\'t know." Mello closed his eyes, turning away, walking in tiny circles between the armchair and the settee. "I don\'t know."



Matt wiped his mouth with his hand. "Right. How\'s this? I\'m gay and I\'m projecting that onto you, because I have fancied you since we were kids. But you\'re in a state where you\'ve had no love and affection for four years, then you get burned up, so you\'re confused when your oldest friend turns up and starts flirting with you. It\'s all my fault, so I\'ll stop. That work?"



"Stop humouring me, Matt." Mello crossed himself. "I need guidance and I\'m not finding it."



"I\'m giving you a bloody escape route here, Mell, just listen to me, eh? It\'s your birthday and I just want..."



"Just stop it!" Mello took up the crucifix again, holding it in an already bleeding hand. "I don\'t know."



Matt stared at the blood, reaching an understanding of his own. "I didn\'t know that you did too. I should have seen the signs." He lit another cigarette. "I have something which may help. It\'s a list of questions. You have to answer them honestly and if there\'s even one that you can\'t, then you\'re allowed to do it. I mean, erm, well, I can see through the psychology, because they are worded in such a way that you\'d have to be pretty suicidal not to be able to answer them." He shrugged. "In which case, I guess it\'s the lesser of two evils, but..."



Mello\'s eyes opened and he fixed an icy glare onto the redhead. "What the fuck are you babbling on about?"



"The self harming." Matt inhaled deeply on his cigarette. "I can get the questions for you. The file\'s on my laptop. I have them memorised, but I\'ll let you have the..."



"What?" Mello dropped his crucifix like it was on fire. "I don\'t self-harm! I\'m having a fucking crisis here, but I don\'t..." Realisation dawned. "Oh no. No, Matty. No fucking way." He advanced onto the redhead, cupping his head in both hands, staring with a manic expression into his green eyes. "You?" His gaze swooped down over his legs, but he had seen those exposed before. Mello pushed Matt into the armchair and pulled at his shirt, yanking it up as the redhead struggled beneath him. Mello slapped him, dragging the cloth as far as Matt\'s chest. His stomach was flat, the ridges of his ribs stuck out in rolling bumps, but there were no scars or cuts. "What is it? Cigarette burns? Where is it?"



"Stop!" Matt wriggled, sliding down onto the carpet, but Mello still had a tight grip on his shirt and it rode up to tug against his armpits. He twisted and tried to pull away, but Mello stepped across to straddle his body and then sat on him. "Mello, leave me the fuck alone."

He dared not flail now, the healing burns were too close. "I misinterpreted what you were doing with the crucifix, that\'s all. Leave me alone."



Their eyes locked in contact and Mello caught an arm. With a sinking sense of inevitability, Matt let him push up the sleeve knowing what he would find. His forearm was striped with the parallel scars of healing cuts, none so deep that he could bleed to death, none less than a week old. Those from a month ago were almost faded. Matt turned his head away, not wanting to face the look in Mello\'s eyes anymore. Mello nodded. "It was me coming back."



"No." Matt whispered. He didn\'t add, \'it was you going away\', but Mello already knew with a instinctual deduction bordering on presentience. Matt knew that he knew. They had been second and third in genius at Wammy\'s House and this was the downside of their intelligence. "I\'m sorry."



"So there were questions that you couldn\'t answer." Mello breathed. "I really need to see these questions."



"Or maybe I just ignored the rules and cut anyway."



"Yes." Mello bowed his head. "You probably did." He pulled down the sleeve again. "Don\'t do it anymore, Matt. You\'re my boyfriend now and I want the only marks on your body to be caused by me. Right?" The redhead slowly nodded and Mello reached down to turn his chin towards him, then bent to capture his mouth in a slow, prolonged kiss. All the words unspoken, which hung awkwardly between them, were expressed in the movement of their lips against one another. Needs and apologies, fears and hopes, reassurances and the remembrance that they had once been much closer than this, and could be again. When they drew away, they were both much calmer. Mello flashed a tiny smile. "Will you finish my dresssings now, please, Matt?"



Matt nodded and flashed a smile back. He reached for the gauze and applied them from there. In a weird, warped way, it felt like a metaphor for them both, the permission for healing to begin.