My Own Way

Matt returned from the fish and chip shop to find that a transformation had taken place in the front room. The lights were down, but the Christmas tree glowed prettily and the fire threw out the only other light source. The room hadn\'t exactly been tidied so much as the general debris had been kicked to the sides. It looked warm and homely. Matt blinked at it and carried the packets of chips into the kitchen, where Mello was buttering bread.



"Chips." Matt fished them out of the carrier bag and opened the paper on the worktop. "It\'s gone very domesticated in here."



Mello shrugged and handed over a couple of slices of buttered bread. "I told you not to get me a whole bag. I hate greasy things. I can feel the grease in my stomach for the rest of the day and the chips just swim in it."



"Just don\'t eat what you don\'t want." He carried his packet back into the front room. There was a pause while Mello tipped his own chips onto a plate and took a fork. They ate in silence, just enjoying the atmosphere. "Mell, today has been nice. I think I finally got to see you again, instead of the Mafioso tart you have been trying to scare me to death with."



"Trying?" Mello asked, raising his eyebrows. He looked in disdain at the chip on his fork and let it drop back onto the plate. "I don\'t know why I let you talk me into chips. I never enjoy them."



Matt picked up his own chips straight from the packet with his fingers. "Your fault for being such a finicky eater." He glanced across. "Yes, trying. I know you, Mell. You might try to intimidate me, but knocking me up the wall a few times and pulling a gun is your limit. I\'ve been thinking and I don\'t believe you killed Procter. You made it look like you did, but I didn\'t go and check. He was probably tied up or something, so he couldn\'t see what direction we went in." He found a particularly crunchy chip and paused to enjoy it. "You project violence, but you\'re not naturally violent."



Mello replied tersely, "You have no idea what I am capable of."



"Yes I do. You\'re the boy who nearly cried when you read Sean O\'Casey. Remember, \'they say it\'s the gunmen who are dying for the people, but it\'s the people who die for the gunmen.\'" Matt frowned. "Was it \'The Shadow of a Gunman\'? Or was it \'Juno and the Paycock\'?"



"That was \'Shadow of a Gunman\'." Mello whispered.



"No, I mean the bit where you had tears in your eyes. I think it was \'Juno and the Paycock\'."



"Matt, shut up." Mello took his plate and returned it to the kitchen, throwing it onto the worktop. He returned to the front room and leaned over the back of Matt\'s chair. His face was mostly in shadow, the wounds like black holes upon it. "I am not fourteen years old anymore. I have learned that the world has no poetry. I understand now that the Easter Rising might look like a romantic ideal, full of brave men and women fighting for what they believed, but the reality was a lot harsher and more terrifying. The pain I feel, Matty, bringing you into my world would be nothing to the pain I\'d feel losing you from it." He stepped back and Matt recognised the paraphrasing from O\'Casey\'s play with a slight twinge of misgiving. "But this is my war and it will be the gunmen dying for the people; you will have a safe world to take your drugs and hack your systems in, because I will take out Kira." He turned and walked down the passageway, his bedroom door closing with a soft click.



Matt exhaled. There was actually something quite chilling about Mello these days. It stopped the heart, even though the mind behind it was known. Matt tried to work out how they had moved from discussing literature, which was only an extention of the intellectual debates that they had been having all afternoon, to the blond freezing like some great Ice Age descending into their home. He scanned his memory for information about both of the plays referenced in Mello\'s little speech, searching for clues about what had set him off again. The insurrection of O\'Casey\'s time had been pure violence, guns, bombs and executions; the insurrection of their times was more likely to take place in a chessboard out-manoeuvring of strategy and logic. The two barely touched.



He knew Mello enough not to go after him, but to eat his chips and tidy up the kitchen. Matt sat and played on his PSP for a while, with the Christmas lights softly illuminating the silver of its casing. It took an hour for the door to open down the passageway and for Mello to reappear in the room. Matt glanced up at him, but the blond still seemed distantly pensive. "Want a drink?" Matt asked, for something to say.



"No, I want you to save your game." Mello growled. Tension rippled in his eyes and muscles. He looked like a powder keg about to ignite.



"Have you been in the other room doing your own head in?"



There was a catch to Mello\'s breathing, then he leaned on the back of the armchair. "Put your game down now and follow me." He turned and, to Matt\'s surprise, it was through the first door that Mello walked, into Matt\'s bedroom. He called back immediately, "Matt." His voice held a warning edge.



Nervous, despite himself, Matt abandoned the boss fight though he knew his character would die and switched off the PSP. He rose and walked through, waiting just inside the door to see what Mello had in mind. Half the floorspace was taken up with laptops and computers. It was in front of these that Mello moved, inspecting them. "You want me to hack something?"



"No, I want you to strip naked." Mello strode behind him, closing the door, though there was no-one else in the flat to walk in on them. "Take your clothes off, Matt."



Matt hadn\'t expected that. He stared at Mello, awkwardness filling the room. "Are you taking yours off too?"



Mello leaned up against the wardrobe, snapping off chocolate with his teeth from the bar in his hand. "Do what I tell you, Matty."



"What if I don\'t want you to see me naked?" A semi-automatic gun rose from the hand behind Mello\'s thigh and was pointed at Matt\'s head. "You won\'t shoot me. You keep pointing it, but I doubt it\'s even loaded." The gun was lowered and the cartridge opened. Mello showed Matt the ammunition and then reinserted it with an audible click. It was pointed again at the redhead\'s temple. "Fucking Hell, Mello, what the fuck?"



"I told you to stop looking for the Mello who left Wammy\'s House. I changed. A lot." Now the icy, barely suppressed fury slid into a smile. It held more menace than the glare it had replaced. "I decided to teach you precisely what I am now."



"Right." All logic told Matt that Mello wouldn\'t shoot, but nontheless there was something terrifying deep inside about having someone point a loaded gun in that manner. He searched Mello\'s lightening gaze for a trace of humanity and found none. No mercy, no compassion, just a steely hardness that had never quite been there when they were children. Matt considered his options and pulled off his gloves. Mello\'s smile widened just a touch. "Why are you doing this?"



"Strip for me, Matty." It was said mockingly, almost bored.



Self-consciously, Matt lifted the shirt over his head, holding his goggles so they wouldn\'t be pulled off too. They shielded his eyes and might give him an advantage, if Mello couldn\'t read him. His arm was still healing from the last cutting session a week before and Matt glanced down at them, anxiety brimming at the thought of Mello seeing it so stark. He glanced back and Mello was no longer smiling, just watching with the gun still trained at Matt\'s head. "If I said no?"



Mello sniggered. "We\'d see what would happen next." Matt nodded and slowly unbuckled his belt. His keychain jiggled with the slackening tension, pulling the leather down slightly between the hoops. He fumbled with his flies and looked back up. Mello pushed away from the wardrobe and stepped over the leads to reach him. "Relax, Matty. What could possibly go wrong?" The barrel of the gun slid down Matt\'s cheek, lingering over the fading scar from where this same gun had lashed him in Los Angeles. A gloved finger stroked down Matt\'s chest to the waistband of his exposed boxer shorts. "Take them off."



Matt swallowed, his mouth dry. Despite the fear and uncertainty, he could feel his groin reacting to this situation. Domination by Mello had turned up in way too many sexual fantasies for his body not to remember them now. He pulled his jeans over his arse and sat down on the bed to pull them away from his legs. Mello stood over him, smiling down with that same chilling stare above it. As Matt hestitated over his boxer shorts, the gun pressed down again. "Ok, ok!" Matt removed his underwear and sat, feeling unprotected, on the bed. His sex was hardening and Mello had noticed. A deep blush rose over the redhead\'s pale face and Mello just snickered. "I\'m naked."



"I see." His gun travelled down, along Matt\'s chest and down to his genitals. He moved quickly and his mouth was covering the redhead\'s. Matt couldn\'t tell where the gun was now. "You do this to me, Matty. Everyone else tried, but you.." He pushed him flat onto his back and forced the barrel between Matt\'s teeth. "Why do you do this to me?" Matt felt the panic rising, but suppressed it. Panic was a killer, they had been taught back home, it clouds the mind and reduces the likelihood of survival. He tried to keep the terror from his eyes, gazing up with a softer hue. More seductively, though no-one had taught him seduction at Wammy\'s. It had just never been on the curriculum. Improvising wildly, Matt opened his mouth wider, allowing full access for the gun, and he licked it. His tongue slithering over it in imitation of what he might do to Mello, if given half the chance. Above him, Mello blinked and, for an instant, the demons were gone from his gaze. For a full minute or so, Matt sucked on the gun and then it was removed.



Mello was on top of him, kissing the mouth he had just threatened with deep, probing kisses. Matt\'s arms came around him, holding him there. "It\'s ok, Mello."



"Heh." Mello hands were everywhere, stroking in harsh movements, pressing into the flesh, caressing. He sucked on Matt\'s neck, leaving lovebites, and his fingers found the redhead\'s obvious arousal. Mello leapt back. "Stop touching me."



"If was you touching me!" Matt protested, goosebumps covering his body. The blond jogged across the room, pulled open the door and ran down the passageway. "Mello!" Matt called. "Oh! For fuck\'s sake..." He sighed, staring at the ceiling, then started to get up, but Mello could be heard, racing back down the passageway. He appeared in the doorway with a wide smirk. Matt shifted back on the bed. "What?"



Mello pounced, leaving the floor several feet from the bed and landing half over the redhead. The mattress rocked beneath them, creaking in complaint, but Mello grabbed Matt and kissed him, crushing their mouths together until they tasted blood. Then Mello twisted around, catching the redhead in an armlock and depositing him higher up the bed. There was a rattling sound and cold steel was fastened around one of Matt\'s wrists. "So you can only get out of handcuffs if you have your keyring on you?" Mello chuckled. "Ooops." The cuffs secured Matt\'s arm to the headboard. "Not struggling much, are you?" As if prompted, Matt pulled on the links and performed the most cursory of wriggling. "Mother of God, I can read you like a fucking book." He yanked the other arm free from under Matt\'s body and fastened it in the same way. The redhead lay trapped and prone on his stomach against the bed. "And now you\'re at my mercy."



Matt kicked backwards, his foot connecting with Mello\'s lower back and knocking him forward with a yelp. "Really?" The redhead grinned. Mello frowned and thumped him between the shoulderblades.



"Don\'t fucking kick me, you bastard." The blond slipped off the bed and ran back out of the room. Matt waited, frowning, his heart pounding and his dick aching with wanting. Mello returned with more cuffs, catching both ankles and securing them to the bedstead. "Much better!" He declared with a snigger and a bite from his chocolate bar. "So I have my best friend conquered and spread-eagled on a bed..."



"Boyfriend."



"... and he\'s bewitched me so that I might actually want it."



"Stop talking and just do it." Matt peered from underneath his fringe. Mello was just standing there, eating chocolate. "Why have you stopped now?" He watched the way that the chocolate was being eaten. "Ok, you\'ve got this far and got cold feet. Right."



Mello gasped. "I have not got cold feet!"



"Mell, touch your forehead. Humour me." He watched Mello hesitate, but evidently he decided there was no danger in doing as he was told. "Good. Now touch your stomach." The arm dropped. "Now your left shoulder..."



"Why are you trying to get me to cross myself?"



"Because you crossed yourself two seconds before you kissed me in Los Angeles. If it takes a whole fucking Hail Mary, I want you to fuck me now!"



Mello turned away to disguise his laughter. He spoke to the door, voice brimming with humour. "Do not remind me that I\'m a Catholic now, Matty. Bad, bad move." He unzipped his leather vest and shook it away from his shoulders. A piece of dressing caught and he had to pause to pat it back into place. The gloves were peeled off and thrown outside. His belt was next and then the laces of his leather trousers. They fell to the floor until he was as naked as the redhead on the bed. He peered back over his shoulder and grinned. "Comfortable?"



Matt was staring with wide eyes. This was the first time he had seen Mello completely naked since they were children. Mello wasn\'t a child anymore. Fine-boned and slenderly built, the blond did not have an ounce of excess fat. His muscles were toned and wiry across his arms, back and legs. His backside was compact and trim. Then he turned around and Matt bit his lip. Despite having had Mello inside him twice, Matt had not actually seen what had entered him. He saw it now, growing erect under his gaze. "God, you\'re gorgeous."



The blond smiled. "Enjoying the sight?" He sashayed across the floor and climbed onto the bed. A finger traced down Matt\'s spine, the back arching under it. "You like being tied down, eh?"



"Mello, shut up and fuck me please."



Mello straddled him and leaned down, inches from his face. "How about I buy you a gag for next time? Would you like that? I think I would." He smirked. "No, if you don\'t shut up, I\'m going to hit you."



"I dare you."



Mello sat back and his hand flew down, connecting with Matt\'s cheek and ear. "I warned you. Don\'t push me."



Matt blinked away the tears from his watering eyes, stifling a moan before gasping out. "I fucking dare you!" He flinched, as Mello moved. Black-painted fingernails dug down into Matt\'s shoulder and right down his back, lessening in intensity, but still drawing blood. Matt moaned, pulling against his bonds. But Mello had stopped again. "For fuck\'s sake, Mello, anyone would think this is the first time you\'ve had pre-meditated sex!" Through the soreness, realisation dawned. "It is." He raised his head to look back, but Mello slammed it back into the pillow. The blond was suddenly all over him again, licking at the blood, kissing every inch of exposed flesh. Fingers stroked and scratched, teeth nibbled and bit.



"You were the virgin." Mello whispered finally, but Matt barely heard him. The redhead was floating somewhere beyond, his body appearing merged with the blond\'s long before fingers and then Mello\'s member entered him. Pain flashed and was superceded by pleasure. "From a virgin to a slut in three easy moves. You\'re a perverted whore, Matty." Mello thrust into him, picking up speed and depth as his confidence and lust grew. Beneath him, Matt writhed to the limits of his chains, the handcuffs taut against the bedposts. Mello lost coherent speech and groaned aloud. "Fuck! Matt! Matt! Matt!" He came deep inside the redhead and reached around to finish his lover with his hand. Matt came with a shuddering sigh and Mello fell against him. "Whooo..."



When Matt could speak again, he smiled. "You\'ve got the hang of it. Nice one. Yeah."



"You ok?"



Matt nodded. "Amazing actually."



"Right." Mello swallowed, breathless. "I should untie you."



"Maybe."



"Yeah." Matt laughed and Mello covered him with kisses. "Matt, that was... shit, I can\'t believe I\'ve fucked my best friend again."



"Boyfriend."



"I\'ll untie you." Mello slipped away and found the keys. "Matty?"



"Yes?"



Mello leaned over and unlocked an ankle. "Can I sleep in your bed tonight please?" There was a flicker of green eyes under the red hair, then Matt nodded mutely. Mello smiled. "I\'m sorry I pointed a loaded gun at you."



"Don\'t be. I\'m getting used to it and it was quite hot in retrospect."



"The gun wasn\'t loaded on the other occasions." Mello frowned. "I\'m not that insane." He released the other ankle and reached for a wrist. "Stop looking at me like that. I\'m not insane."



Matt rubbed his arm, bending it against the stiffening of its former position. "Mell, that was really good. That was... thank you." Fully freed now, the pair of them exchanged glances. Matt touched the swelling on his face and inspected his shoulder.



"I\'m sorry I hurt you."



Matt laughed. "Yeah. Turned you on as much as it did me though, didn\'t it?"



Mello nodded, a little ashamed of himself. Then turned on his heels. "Fucking whore." And walked out of the bedroom.