Watari Pt 2: Wammy's House

Matt fell backwards onto his bed. "God, that was hard work. I\'m fucking knackered." He pulled out his PSP and started to play, though the temptation to watch Mello pacing was strong. "How do you think it went?"



"Don\'t get too comfortable, we\'re not staying." Mello stopped and stared at the closed door. His chocolate hung immobile between his teeth. The room was empty around him, stripped bare from the last time they had been here. They had vowed then never to step foot back in their old room, yet here they were. "I\'m just interested in seeing what they do."



Matt frowned. It had been a long meeting, passing well into the evening, and requiring more refreshments as it became clear that no conclusions were going to be reached. By eight o\'clock, it was apparent that nothing concrete would be resolved that day and no-one had been thrilled with the idea of reconvening the following day. Matt half suspected that the only reason that they were all coming back was to ensure that he was Watari for the least possible period of time. "At least they keep fresh linen on our beds."



"They have to. It\'s part of the agreement." Mello replied, quickly, his mind obviously still buzzing with some inner calculations. "If nothing happens in an hour, we\'ll go."



"What precisely are you waiting for?"



"The response to their conundrum." Mello\'s square of chocolate moved to the other side of his mouth, but didn\'t disappear inside. His gaze became distant. "They have to respond."



Matt paused his game. "This is why you\'re second and I\'m third. What the fuck are you talking about?"



Mello turned and surveyed him with an exasperated look. "We are their alumni. By your reckoning, we are two of their most valuable assets, so they have to keep us sweet. But you have been shouting off about killing Roger. You are a liability. Moreover, last time I was here I was threatening Roger, so I\'m also a liability." He sat down on his bed and finally began sucking on the chocolate. "If it was me, I\'d want us out of here, but how can they do that? Also you\'ve pretty much demolished all of the staff of this institution this afternoon. Revenge is a powerful motivator; but then, if they act on it, they are playing right into your hands. I\'m just interested in who it will be and what they will do."



"You sound so fucking paranoid. It\'s like having fourteen-year-old Mihael back terrified of getting A- instead of A+." Matt smirked. "You\'re even sitting in the same way." Mello stared at him across the distance. "Though you learned that precise look after you left." Matt nodded upwards, towards the curtain rail and Mello followed his gaze with a quick glance. There was still a camera there from when they were both on suicide watch. The light beneath it was green. "No audio though. Look."



"No." Mello leaned back, against his own headboard and let his vision linger slowly on every visible point in the room. Matt kept clicking, but there was no game loaded. Under the cover of goggles and hair, he was also scanning for tell-tale spots, where a miniscule microphone could have been installed. After a few minutes, Mello rose and, under the guise of restlessness, he ran his hands over each piece of furniture. "I don\'t think there\'s audio in this room." His search became more thorough, until he just sighed and leaned up against the desk. "You know what, I don\'t actually care if there is audio."



"Reckon Roger\'s watching?"



"Probably." Mello shrugged, one shoulder rising quickly and falling again. "I would be."



Matt grinned, his thumbs still moving redundantly against the controls. "You know what? When I was thirteen, fourteen, I used to lie on this bed playing my game, watching you studying hard, and fantasising about you standing up and coming over here. In my head, you\'d pin me to the bed and kiss me."



"That sounds more like a fantasy you had last week." Mello smiled. "Back then, you\'d have punched me one for even contemplating it."



"Nope." Matt peered up. "It was then. You\'d have rather died than do it and there was no fucking way I was going to let you know what I was thinking. But it\'s true."



Mello pulled out the chair and sat at his old desk. It looked unfamiliar without the piles of papers and books surrounding a desktop computer. "So I\'d have been right here."



"Whinging about Near probably."



Mello stretched. "Blah, blah, Beckett, blah blah, \'Fin de Partie\', blah, blah, hope I beat Near." He peered back over his shoulder. "Then I just come over there?" Matt just laughed at him, so Mello rose and lightly stepped across the room. He stared down at Matt for a few seconds, before smiling and placing his weight on one knee onto the bed. "Then presumably I pull this leg down like this." He yanked until Matt wriggled down to lie on his back. "Because I can\'t pin you down very well if you\'re sitting up, can I now?" He surveyed his amused husband, lying prone, with the PSP shaking with suppressed mirth in the air above his face. "Then I grab your hands, hold them down and kiss you." Matt nodded. "And you really think that you, at that age, would have not frozen into a solid block of ice and proceeded to not speak to me for a week? Ok, fine. I have my cue. We\'ll take it from the top."



"I can\'t believe you\'re..." Matt creased with laughter. "What?"



Mello danced back across the room and sat down at the desk. "Erm, so there\'s fun in unhappiness, so how does that link Hamm with Hamlet? Death at the end.... erm." He bit his lip. "I think I understand it now. The endless repetition and the curse of having to constantly restage your life, along the same groove, in the same situations; the same old battles, in the same old places. I hope I can beat Near. Not many more points now." The titters had ceased behind him, but a constant clicking had not taken its place. "You think I can be number one, don\'t you, Matty?" He turned and Matt was just staring at him from the mattress, the game hovering, ignored, above his head. "Mail? You think I can beat him this time? I get Beckett so much better now." Mello stood and wandered across the room. "We\'re just moving slowly, inevitably, towards nothingness and it has to be nearly finished. We\'re doomed to go on repeating everything, over and over again, until it finishes."



"Mello, are you alright?" Matt blinked behind his goggles, unmoving on the bed. "It never occurred to me to ask, what the fuck was a Catholic doing reading Beckett?"



"Shut up, Mail." Mello knelt on the bed, one knee falling between his husband\'s thighs, forcing them apart. Gloved hands reached out and pressed down. The PSP fell against the pillow, as squeezed tendons rendered useless the redhead\'s grip upon it. His wrists caught, Matt stared back as Mello descended for a kiss, soft and tentative. Despite the years that had intervened, Matt felt himself start to freeze, as if he was in his mid-teens again. There was an uncomfortable distance, even though his heart pounded and something inside pinged the thrill, like an echo through time. Mello kissed him again, this time harsh and possessive and Matt yielded under it, relaxing, gasping. Though he had been kissed like this several times a day for months, it felt like the first time. He was falling fast. Mello leaned back, smiling down, just watching him. "Oh eidetic memory, I love you. I will never leave this institution ever again without taking you with me. You and I will never be separated for as long as we live. I just wish I\'d kissed you then, it might saved us both." Matt blinked, feeling still, almost childlike, though not a sensation he remembered from his own childhood. "Was that it? Did your fourteen-year-old mind come up with anything else? Only that was a lot tamer than I was imagining you to come up with."



Matt nodded. "It came up with loads more than that. But if we\'re expecting a knock at the door any second, it might be wiser not to indulge those."



Mello laughed, still holding him, still peering down. "Anything that we haven\'t indulged since?"



"I can\'t believe I got you."



"What?" Mello tilted his head to one side, smiling back.



"You\'re Mello. The looks, the brains, the personality, the style, the... you\'re Mello and I got you." Matt breathed, gazing up with incredulity etching itself increasingly upon his features. He tasted the words in his mouth as he spoke them. "I. Got. Mello." A huge grin split his face. "Wow!"



Mello turned his head away, biting his lip over a smile. "Your oxytocin levels are really up, aren\'t they, guapo?"



"I know I don\'t say it often enough, but I do love you."



"I know, baby. You show it, even when you feel too awkward saying it." Mello leaned down to kiss him again. "And I always loved you." There was a knock at the door. Their eyes met, shock and amusement shown in equal measure. It felt like they had been caught doing something wrong again. Mello scooted back, automatically, and left the bed. It creaked in protest at the loss of his weight. He crossed back to the chair and sat on it, legs wide and body poised, dangerously coiled, in aped relaxation. Mello looked as though his psyche was passing through the personas to return him to now and had only just reached the Consigliere. "Come on in, Ann. It\'s not locked."



Matt grabbed his PSP and smiled, glancing at Mello. He had reached the same conclusion, though they hadn\'t discussed it. He was sitting back against the headboard, as the housekeeper entered their room and stood stranded between them. She closed the door behind her, with a click, and it was obvious that that was just another delaying tactic. Her mind had not yet supplied her with the right words to say. "You knew that I\'d come."



They both nodded, but Mello spoke. "We\'ll be leaving after you\'ve said what needs to be said. We\'ll get a hotel room for the night."



Ann released a long breath. "I\'m not asking you to leave. This is your home for as long as you need it to be. You are both always welcome here."



"Nevertheless it poses a bit of a security issue, doesn\'t it?" Mello smiled. "And it would be easier all round if we just left."



"There is no security issue, Mello. You gave me your oath earlier today." Ann reached into the pocket of her overalls and pulled out two toothbrushes, still in their packets. One she threw onto the bed beside Matt and the other she held out to Mello. "There should be toothpaste and clean flannels and towels already in there. If you really must smoke in here, and I wish you wouldn\'t, then please open the window and do not let the children see you doing it. I also wish to point out that there are young children asleep in adjacent rooms, so please behave appropriately when creating any noise. Breakfast is at eight." She looked from one to the other. "Do you need anything else? Shaving razors? Nightwear? Your clothes laundered, seeing as you haven\'t brought a change with you? Computers or reading materials?"



Mello seemed very young, as he pointed towards her lap. "What else have you got in your pockets?" He grinned cheekily. "I\'m curious."



"You always were, Mello." She reached in with both hands and extracted some items. "I have a bar of chocolate, a small Catholic Bible, a Nintendo DS with a couple of Mario games loaded and a packet of cigarettes. I hadn\'t spotted that Mail had brought a Playstation with him." She looked up from her haul, as a gloved hand snaked out and, with finger and thumb pincered around the end, wriggled the chocolate out from between the Bible and the DS. "There was a whole plate of them downstairs, Mello. Didn\'t you pick any up?"



Mello nodded, still grinning, and produced another five bars from his jacket pocket. "But they are my favourite brand and our supermarket was out of stock yesterday. They\'re not getting any more in until the day after tomorrow, so this is saving me a trip to the other supermarket on the other side of town, because the shop by us doesn\'t sell them."



"Which Mario games?" Matt sat up with his legs over the edge of the bed to see.



Ann smiled. She dropped the cigarettes and Bible back into her pocket and ejected the games. "This one is \'Mario and Luigi 2\' and the other side is \'Mario Kart DS\'." She held it just out of reach. "But now I have your attention, a few things I\'d like to say. You pair, nor any child in this house, is just a profit-making robot machine or whatever you called it. At least not as far as I\'m concerned. I don\'t care what you\'re digging up from the archives and balance sheets. Quite frankly, I find it hurtful that you believe otherwise. You might have been raised in exceptional circumstances, but I\'ve always done my best by you as I saw fit at the time." She dropped the DS into his hands. "Mello, it might interest you to know that the instant I learned you had left this place, I was out in my car looking for you. I scoured the streets for hours and went out every day for the next fortnight. Even Roger believed that you\'d be back after one night out in the rain, which is why he let you go in the first place. He, in his infinite wisdom, thought that better than several weeks of playing cat and mouse trying to lock you in the building."



"Ann, I know." Mello rose from his seat and hugged the woman. "I saw you once and hid. Then I got out of Winchester."



"I looked too." Matt whispered. "I packed a bag and came after you. Your phone kept going to answerphone. You didn\'t respond to my texts."



"I\'m sorry." He reached a hand out to squeeze Matt\'s shoulder. "I was wrong. I made a terrible, terrible mistake and I regret it now. But there\'s nothing I can do about it, except apologise and never leave you again." Matt reached up and covered the hand at his shoulder with his own. Mello sighed. "I didn\'t know you\'d actually come after me though. It was messed up." He considered it. "Really messed up. In a way, I\'m glad you came back because I would have just dragged you down with me."



Matt nodded sharply. "I realised something." He gestured back towards the pillow. His voice was dull and lifeless. "It might have actually worked out for the best, but we\'ll talk about it later."



"For the best?" Mello frowned.



"Later."



Ann cautiously reached out too, but her hand on Matt\'s other shoulder was met with a flinching shrug, so she removed it. "I\'m sorry I failed you, Mail." She rubbed Mello\'s back and turned to take a step back towards the door.



Mello shook his head, "Ann, stop." He crouched down, until he was peering up underneath the red fringe of his husband. Mello\'s hand pulled the goggles up onto Matt\'s head, taking half of his hair with it and rendering him without anything to hide behind. Mello smiled reassurance. "Baby, this is what I wanted to show you. This is what I was hoping would happen and what I wanted you to know. Ann, thank you for proving me right. I was praying that I\'d read this situation correctly and you affirmed my faith. I know that it might not look like it, given all the chaos he\'s caused recently, but Mail is really hurting badly inside right now. He knows that I love him, because I do love you, baby. But everything has finally caught up with him and he\'s feeling it. Mail, look at me." The emerald gaze that had slid away now returned and Mello blinked away tears. "You have a mother. She\'s right here and she knew to come and bring you Mario. She knew to ensure that we knew that this is still home. There\'s not a lot else she can do, because you won\'t let her comfort you and there are a lot of other kids making demands on her time." There was an almost imperceptible nod. "Ok." Mello stood. "Ann, we\'ll get out of your hair now. I just wanted him to get this message and you came through. Thank you for that and for never failing as a safety net. There isn\'t a day goes by when I don\'t see my Mama\'s face; but I\'m glad that, when Mail closes his eyes and has to picture someone to go with the concept of \'mother\', it\'s you."



Ann held a trembling hand at her mouth, while tears cascaded down her cheeks. "Oh Mello, that... that is so sweet of you, darling."



Mello smiled and made to reach out for her again, but, at that moment, noticed Matt wipe his cheeks on his shirt, burying his face in the crock of his elbow. "And there\'s Mail, not so infallible after all. Ann..."



The housekeeper sat down on the bed beside the redhead and pulled him into her arms. He let her, an arm reaching around her shoulder, as she rubbed his back. There were no sobs, just the occasional sniff, as Matt silently allowed himself to be consoled. "Don\'t let yourself get hurt anymore, Mail." She soothed. "Taking on the system like this. What\'s it all about? You only fight back like this when you think you\'ve been cornered. What\'s happened this time? Can you tell me? You got all that nonsense in Near\'s office resolved."



"He can\'t even tell me." Mello volunteered pensively. "I\'ve got a whole list of things that it could be, but I think it boils down to the fact that he\'s had just one too many things go wrong just recently. He\'s a lot calmer than he was the other day, but that\'s mostly because the upset has mutated into anger. He\'s just at the end of his tether, I think."



Matt shook his head and lifted it from Ann\'s neck. "It\'s our chance. This is the moment when we can change things. They don\'t have to become like us."



"The children?" Mello bit his lip. "But, guapo, we turned out alright in the end. And it\'s not about the children. This is just the latest thing. You\'re projecting your own hurt onto them as a general mass. You\'re not trying to save the children. You\'re trying to save one child. This is what I\'ve been trying to get through to you. You are trying to save Mail Jeevas and fuck knows he deserves it. You\'re just dressing it up as saving me, saving the others, saving the kids living here now. That\'s why you were getting so much opposition in the meeting, because it\'s so obvious to everyone that you wouldn\'t be doing this if it wasn\'t stemming from something much closer to home."



"You don\'t understand." Matt replied miserably, pulling back from Ann and reaching for his PSP.



"I do understand, Mail!" Mello sighed. "More than fucking anyone! I was right there with you. I\'m not turning this into a comparison of which of us has suffered more, because it\'s irrelevant and unhelpful. Neither of us have had it easy, but..." He choked back tears, hiding the growing gruffness of his voice beneath a short cough. "I\'m an orphan too! I\'d fucking give anything to see my Papa and Mama again and I can\'t give up on the hope of Heaven, because then I will see them. But I\'m going to Hell and..." His face crumpled, tears toppling over his lashes and down his cheeks. Ann reached out, caught a hand and brought Mello down on the other side of her. He clung to her, clutching for Matt too. She found herself sitting sandwiched between them, both crying, though Mello\'s were real sobs and Matt\'s still the quiet weeping. Her arms tightened around both slim shoulders, thanking God that they were both small men and that her embrace was wide enough to accommodate them. Mello wailed out. "What if it\'s Mu? What if it\'s nothingness and I never get to see them again? What if I lose Matt?"



"Hush now, Mihael. Keep the faith, my darling, and stop worrying about what ifs." Ann kissed the top of his head. "And Mail, I am proud to be your adopted mother, if you\'d accept me as such. This is your home and it always will be." She made soothing noises in the back of her throat. "Hush now, the pair of you. Hush now."



"Apostles\' Prayer, Mello." Matt whispered hoarsely, stroking his husband\'s arm.



"Ann, she can give you what I can\'t. I love you, Mail, but I\'m not..." He was choking too much to speak, but Matt nodded anyway.



"I know now."



"Vjerujem u Boga, Oca svemoguæega. Stvoritelja neba i zemlje." Mello was torn between reaching for his rosary and keeping hold of Matt. The redhead solved it by removing his hand from Mello\'s bicep, which immediately caused a handful of his striped sleeve to be gripped in panic. Fingers bruised through the fabric. But Matt carried in, fishing out the rosary and holding its crucifix to Mello\'s lips. He kissed it and Matt held it for him, snuggling closer into Ann\'s embrace. "I u Isusa Krista, Sina njegova jedinoga, Gospodina našega koji je zaèet po Duhu Svetom, rodjen od Marije Djevice, muèen pod Poncijem Pilatom, raspet, umro i pokopan." Matt smiled reassurance, his own tears still falling, as he watched Mello calming under the words. "Sašao nad pakao, treæi dan uskrsnuo od mrtvih, uzašao na nebesa, sjedi o desnu Boga Oca svemoguæega; odonud æe doæi suditi žive i mrtve." Mello actually smiled back, but stiffened as the door opened and the prayer froze on his lips.



Both Ann and Mello tightened their grip on Matt, but Roger approached anyway and Matt merely glared. The old man gazed down upon the scene, sadness lining his face and defeat weighing heavily in the stoop of his shoulders. He spoke a little breathlessly. "I saw and thought that this may be of assistance." He dropped an oxytocin nasal spray into Ann\'s lap, into the well caused by Mello and Matt\'s outstretched arms, so that it wouldn\'t fall off. Roger opened his mouth again, as if to speak, but evidently thought better of it. He turned and retraced his steps to the doorway, before wheezing. "Ah-hem. Yes."



"Yes?" Matt hissed, his eyes narrowed into thin strips, more black than green.



Roger held the door jamb and did not turn around. "Mail, you call yourself Spanish because you are here. If Cisco Heras was your father, then you are more correctly Basque, and at least your sire would have disowned you for claiming Spanish nationality. Though you were certainly recovered from Spain, and conversed with us in the Spanish language. If you had remained there and not been orphaned, then your genius would now be in the hands of ETA. An alternative interpretation might be that you haven\'t been told certain things for your own peace of mind." He reached for the door handle. "Look after them both, Ann." He closed the door and his footsteps were heard moving away.



Mello stared horror-struck, his mind supplying the conjecture that he was looking at Milo Heras. The name that a three-year-old, learning to read and write via the television, had attempted to remember and scratch into that oil tanker wall. Roger had known half of it all along; Matt had known the other half. "Mail?"



"Finish the prayer."



"Mail, baby..."



"It doesn\'t matter." Matt gasped through gritted teeth, his eyes closed.



"It..." Mello began, but realised that he had been about to say \'it matters\' and the narrowly avoided faux pas struck at his reeling sensibilities. "Mail Jeevas-Keehl. You..."



"Finish the prayer, Mello!"



Ann patted Mello\'s shoulder. "Finish it, darling. He\'s alright while we\'ve got him. Do as he asks."



Mello nodded, glancing down at the rosary held tightly in Matt\'s hand. "Vjerujem u Duha Svetoga, svetu Crkvu kato­lièku, opæinstvo svetih, oproštenje grijeha, uskrsnuæe tijela, život vjeèni. Amen." He stared fearfully across at the redhead. Matt heard the \'amen\' and pressed the crucifix back against Mello\'s lips, where it was duly kissed before Matt let it drop again. Mello\'s knuckles were white against Matt\'s shirt, holding so hard that his whole forearm shook. Matt raised his hand and, as best he could, crossed Mello. It came out backwards, but the blond wasn\'t about to quibble. "Mail?"



Matt was trembling, as he gripped the spray. Ann bent her arm around to further squeeze his shoulder, crushing him as close as she could into her shoulder. "I\'m ok, I\'m ok." He protested to them both, but the tears were falling faster. He fitted the nozzle up his nostril and squirted the chemicals towards his brain.



"I love you, Mail." Mello whispered. "You\'re so beautiful, I love you."



"I love you too, Mell."



Ann sniffed, unable to stop her own tears at the unprecedented display of humanity from both of her little geniuses. "Then you\'re both going to be just fine."