Watari Pt 2: Wammy's House

Mello stepped out of the bathroom, his teeth brushed and body cleansed, ready for whatever Matt had envisaged for tonight. The redhead was already in bed, cocooned inside his quilt, as if he was going to sleep. He wasn\'t. The faint glow of greenish light shining through the covers, and the clicking of fingers against buttons, was testimony to that. Mello frowned and stood looking down at the bundle of his husband. "Should I take the hint that you don\'t want sex and leave you alone?"



"I\'m not in the mood." The muffled reply came from beneath.



"Right." Mello moved to his dressing table and opened the bottom drawer. There were several tubs of cocoa butter in there, one of which should replace the empty tub in the bathroom. It was the only substance that he had found which relieved the itching of his burn scars. He sat and unscrewed the top, pulling off the plastic underlid to cast into the bin. He took a generous lump of the cream and pulled back his hair to rub it into the left side of his face. It soothed immediately. It wasn\'t really a big deal. Time was doing its job and the itching was nothing like it used to be. It emerged as localised spots of low-level annoyance, rather than rolling on the floor in shrieking agony. Thank the Lord for small mercies. He rubbed it into his chest, then inspected the progress of the skingrafts on his shoulder. Matt was right, they were definitely taking and calming down. It didn\'t look nearly so ugly.



As if telepathically hearing his own name, Matt spoke up from his chrysalis. "What are you doing?"



"Putting cocoa butter on my scars."



There was a shuffling and Mello watched through the mirror as a mop of red hair appeared above the top of the quilt. Matt squinted for a moment, before easing an arm out to grab his goggles. Confirming that Mello was telling the truth, Matt bit his lip. "Do you need me to do your back?"



"That would be nice, thank you." Mello carried the tub across and sat on the edge of Matt\'s side of the bed. He sighed in relief as one of the spots was calmed with the beautiful balm. "Not in the mood because you\'re not in the mood? Or because I\'m asking you to dictate what we do? Or because you know I won\'t hurt the bits already hurt and you\'re running out of areas which fit that criteria?"



Matt concentrated pointedly on Mello\'s back, rubbing in cocoa butter with a renewed precision. "I\'m not in the mood."



"Ok baby." Mello\'s back arched. "Oh! That is really nice. Just there, under my shoulder-blade. You\'re right, fuck sex, just rub cocoa butter into that spot right there, where your finger is. Yes, there." He caught a sudden flicker of a smile on Matt\'s face. "What?"



"It\'s not even burned there."



"I don\'t care. Just keep pressing." He felt the knots loosening, the little ball-bearing bubbles of tension popping under Matt\'s encircling fingers. "Oh damn. It\'s moved. Just a little bit to the side."



Matt laughed. "Is this a cunning ruse for me to learn how to do massage?" He dipped back into the tub. "Here?"



"Yes." Mello stretched, cracking joints and the muscles in his neck. "On both counts."



"You\'re sure here?" Matt frowned. Mello nodded. "Now that\'s really interesting, because this is area is one that I avoid touching normally. You told me that it\'s one of the sections you can\'t feel, so I skip it after your rant about how that freaks you out." Mello felt a stab of panic, though there was no reason underlying it. He turned sharply to look at Matt. "My guess is that the grafts on your shoulder have increased circulation, which has sped up the process of your nerves being repaired down here. Though I\'m not a doctor, as I\'ve said before." He winked. "I always thought it was weird this bit being lost, because it\'s only second degree here and so I\'d have thought it would have been as hyper-sensitive as your face."



"Ok." Mello reached for the tub. "Let\'s stop talking about it now."



Matt held it away from him. "I\'ll stop talking about it, but come and lie down. I want to make you purr like you were just now again."



"I thought you weren\'t in the mood."



"I\'m in the mood for making you purr with cocoa butter." Matt nodded towards Mello\'s side of the bed. "Lie down, angel."



Mello considered it for a moment, then scrambled over the quilted ridge of Matt and lay face down on the bed. Matt reached beneath the covers and extracted his PSP, dropping it onto the bedside cabinet, before wriggling out himself. He was, Mello noticed with some glee, completely naked. Matt stretched, then shuffled forward on his knees, the bed bouncing under him. He held the tub aloft, straddling his husband to sit down on Mello\'s backside. The blond smiled, peering back to watch this whole performance. "Quite comfortable, guapo?"



"Yes, thank you." Matt surveyed the slender body beneath him, peering in like it was a machine that he was about to dissemble. "I can do better than this." He slid off onto the floor, abandoning the tub on the bed beside Mello. "Be right back."



Mello frowned. "Where are you going now?" Matt didn\'t reply, he just took a cigarette from his bedside cabinet, light it and sauntered out of the room. Mello reached down to collect the cocoa butter before it fell over and stained the quilt. There were already a couple of thick blobs in danger of sliding down the side. He wiped them off with his finger and lightly dabbed it onto bridge of his nose, carefully tracing the scarring down towards his right eye. He heard Matt returning and looked up to find that he had fetched a laptop. "For a second there I thought I was going to get a sensual massage, but no, I married a geek."



"You did and you are." Matt flicked ash into his ashtray, then picked that up too. He resumed his position on top of Mello. The laptop and ashtray were arranged on the bed beside him and he reached out to reclaim the tub. "What?"



Mello bit his lip, stifling a laugh. "Only you could do what I think you\'ve just done."



"What?"



"I\'m willing to bet that, if I could see that screen, it would have a website on massages. I married someone who thinks that the height of seductive romance is to sit on me, with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, following instructions from the internet in where to rub me." Mello spluttered out his laughter. "The worst of it is, he\'s right. It is just so Matt, that it works. I\'m won over. Just don\'t ever change, Matty, I love you just the way you are."



Matt sat there. His gaze blinked from Mello to the laptop and back again, then he lifted the cigarette from his mouth and grinned. "Maybe that\'s what\'s going on. Maybe not."



"It so is."



"Ok, it is. Do you want this massage or not?" He flicked ash and noted Mello\'s amused nodding. "Then shut up, bitch, and let me do my thing."



"You might be a geek, but you\'re a fucking sexy one."



"Thank you." Matt turned away to read the webpage. He read as he smoked, occasionally glancing down at Mello\'s back. On a couple of occasions, he reached out a finger to trace the line of a muscle or bone. Mello\'s back quivered with suppressed mirth as he watched him do it. "What?"



"Nothing." Mello beamed. "Just patiently waiting for my massage."



Matt bobbed his tongue out and finished his cigarette. He carefully dabbed cocoa butter on various points of Mello\'s back, then rubbed more between his hand. "Do you have lower back pain at all?"



"Nope."



"kay." Matt placed one hand over the scarred shoulder and slowly began tracing circles on its unblemished twin. He used fingers and his thumb to press down on the muscles underneath. "I shouldn\'t be up here doing it. According to this, I should be standing next to you."



Mello chuckled. "But I like you up there. You can press harder, you know? I won\'t break."



"Just finding things. I don\'t want to paralyse you for life."



Mello smiled and buried his face in the pillow, relaxing into the unknotting of tension points. He sighed aloud as an area, that had ached since childhood, was eased. He hadn\'t realised just how much stress that his muscles had been retaining. Then Matt shifted to repeat the same on the other and agony ripped through Mello\'s body. "Fucking Jesus!" Mello shrieked, reaching around to grab Matt\'s wrist. He had meant to just push it away, but a secondary pain ripped through and Mello squeezed, holding tight. "Ow! Fucking Hell." He breathed and it was over.



"Are you alright?" Matt breathed, obviously shaken.



"Yes." Mello growled, releasing the pillow he\'d clutched with his other hand. He turned slowly around, yanking Matt towards him. The redhead fell, half onto the bed and half against his husband. He rolled quickly, not wanting to touch the damaged shoulder. "It\'s ok, it\'s gone now. It was just really fucking painful."



"Ok." Matt peered back at him, fear flashing periodically though an evaluating gaze. "That would have been the hyper-sensitive nerve-endings."



Mello exhaled loudly. "Yes, it probably would be." He realised that his grip on Matt\'s wrist was still tight, he could feel the bones beneath crushing together. Mello\'s eyes narrowed. "Aren\'t you supposed to be telling me something?"



"I\'m sorry."



"Something else?"



Matt swallowed. "It didn\'t mention scar tissue. It said about checking for back pain, but I got carried away. I didn\'t think."



Mello knew that Matt wasn\'t stupid. In fact, the whole point of their orbits having crossed at Wammy\'s House rested on the fact that Matt wasn\'t stupid. The only logical explanation then was that he was being deliberately obtruse. Mello felt his own eyes darken. He spat out the words. "Mail, what are you supposed to tell me?" He lifted the wrist and pushed it into Matt\'s face. "You\'re doing it on purpose! We\'re in bed. You went into a mood because I\'m trying to give you some responsibility for what happens in here. You thought up a brilliant way for me to hurt you. Very, very clever."



Matt breathed, blinking behind his goggles. "I didn\'t mean it."



"I\'m supposed to believe that? Coming from someone of your intellect?" Mello demanded. Inches away from him, Matt bit his lip until it turned white, but didn\'t say a word. Mello could practically see the walls rising around his husband\'s psyche. "You really didn\'t mean it?"



"No." Matt wrapped his own arms around his chest, one arm gripping his shoulder, while the fingers of his other hand played at his lips.



Mello sighed. "Ok, I believe you. Don\'t start crying again." He rubbed at his own face and peered down to eye the equipment littering their bed. The laptop had flipped over, while the cocoa butter had fallen into the ashtray. Cigarette butts and ash were scattered around the area. "I\'m sorry I snapped." He sat up, picking the tub up first. There was no ash inside it and the contents had only reached as far as the lip of the tub. He reached over Matt to drop it onto the bedside cabinet. Matt was watching him carefully. "I\'m sorry, ok? Stop looking so fucking scared." Mello crawled forward to clear up the mess from the ashtray and to close the laptop. He brushed off the residue with his hand, then deposited them onto Matt\'s cabinet. Then he lay back and opened his arms. "Come here, baby."



Matt stayed precisely were he was. "Was it hurting you or not telling you that you were hurting me?"



"A bit of both, now come here." Mello stretched out a hand to pat Matt\'s arm, then gave up and just continued the movement, gathering the redhead up into an embrace. "I know what you need from me, Mail. It\'s just that I\'m not prepared to give it until you look and act less broken than you are. I know I\'ve done it in the past."



"That\'s what confuses me."



"Maybe I was wrong then."



"Maybe you\'re wrong now." Matt countered, but he relented and sneaked an arm out to wrap it around Mello\'s waist. "I just wish it was like it used to be."



"When I was a malicious bastard who didn\'t give a shit about you?" Mello watched the pain flicker through Matt\'s eyes. He reached up to pull the goggles off him and dropped them onto the bed behind him. "When I used to scream all kinds of crap at you, because I wasn\'t comfortable with what I was? That\'s what you wish we could go back to? Sometimes I think that you and I are pulling in two separate directions, but I\'m not prepared to let you go." He flashed a half-smile, eyes boring into Matt\'s. "\'And if you go, furious angels will bring you back to me.\' And I did, twice. I fetched you from that cave and I talked you out of Near\'s headquarters. I fetched you from the Little Chef carpark. You are mine, Matty, it doesn\'t take handcuffs and a beating for that to be true. It takes you to believe it."



"I do." Matt whispered back.



"No you don\'t. Not right now. You wouldn\'t be trying to lock me out of yourself all the God damned time if that was true." Mello kissed him. "You want to submit to me? Then don\'t just do it with your body. Give me your mind. Trust me with your emotions. Believe me when I tell you that you\'re not yourself right now and to trust me with your needs."



Matt\'s forehead creased and his gaze slid away. "I\'ve got to concentrate on the reforms. I need to sort out Wammy\'s House."



"I know and I\'m helping you." Mello smiled. It was disconcerting that, at this moment in time, Mello had no idea what was going on in Matt\'s head. Mello had a whole list of things that would probably be for the best in the long run, that should be implemented right now. The problem was prioritising them. Sometimes it felt like Matt was as complicated as a high-level hack, where code had to be inserted in a specific order or else the alarms would be triggered; sometimes it seemed that the opposite was true, that Matt was a simple soul with basic needs. Mello couldn\'t shake off the feeling that he was missing something and that Matt was playing him like a game. Then again, it could be that it was Mello reading too much into things. Perhaps he did secretly blame him for the Mario Clause, because Mello knew that Near had been lying. Matt had beaten them all. "I want to start again with you. Game over, I failed the level. Reset to the last time I was winning."



"What?" Matt\'s eyes widened and he frowned as he peered back at the blond. "You were always winning, Mello. Which game?"



"The game of you." Mello smirked. He let his hand drift over Matt\'s metal collar, then stretched out his fingers to span half of his husband\'s neck. "I will own you, guapo. I will own you until there\'s no doubt in this relationship who is in charge." He watched the softening of Matt\'s eyes. "I will take all of the responsibility away from you again. Possess you. Take you over." Mello pressed down, very lightly, with his thumb on Matt\'s Adam\'s apple. He watched the redhead smile. "I\'ll get the world off your back and stand between you and it. But first," Mello thumb skated up the underside of Matt\'s chin to stroke across his lips, "you have to earn it."



Matt swallowed, but there was hope in his gaze again. Mello hadn\'t noticed it was missing until it returned. "What do you need me to do?"



Mello found both of Matt\'s wrists and held them. With a sudden movement, he rolled them over until he was on top of the redhead, slamming Matt\'s arms just above his head and holding them there. Mello\'s smile was serpentine as he stared down at him. "You will tell me the truth. Reckon you could manage that, guapo?"



"I\'ve got nothing left to hide from you." Matt smiled nervously. "What about?"



"Let\'s start with why you were in a mood with me when we first came to bed." Mello watched him, eyes unblinking, with a stare that was pure Mafioso. "All cocooned in your quilt. What was that about, baby?"



Matt\'s face fell. "Oh."



"Or things could carry on just as they are." Mello cooed. "Oh! So gentle with the fragile boy."



"No." Matt bit his lip. "I was feeling under pressure because I\'ve got to do all this for Wammy\'s, then you were asking me to research ideas for sex as well. So I didn\'t look any up and then I ran out of time. I was still thinking, then it just came to me that I didn\'t want to do anything except be owned." His gaze broke away from Mello\'s again. "So I said I didn\'t want to."



Mello raised his eyebrows. "Someone, who spent his childhood working on multiple projects and who is trained to do so, was feeling under pressure."



"Yep. That\'s where I learned that I don\'t like multi-tasking."



"Unless it\'s playing games, whilst hacking, whilst taking in information from over a dozen monitors, whilst smoking."



"That\'s different."



"It would be, Matt." Mello shook his hair away from his eyes and stared back down. "So if I won\'t touch you violently, you\'d rather not be touched at all."



Matt frowned. "I didn\'t say that."



"Ok, so if you have to think up the way it\'s going to happen, you\'d rather not have sex at all."



"That might be," Matt replied slowly, his lips popping together a couple of times before he continued, "a bit more true than the other statement."



"So, in short, you\'re a lazy git."



"No." Matt flashed a smile. "I just don\'t like to know what\'s going to happen next, because then it\'s a little bit boring." Mello\'s jaw dropped, so Matt hurried on. "You asked for the truth!"



Mello nodded a couple of times, his lips tightening. "Yes and, trust me, I know precisely how you feel. Has it never occurred to you that I might also get a little bored of never being able to let go and just enjoy it?" There was a sharp intake of breath, but Mello gestured dismissively. He leaned down, sucking at Matt\'s neck, playing for time to think up the precise wording of his next question. He rose again, fixing Matt with another penetrating stare. Mello was satisfied to note the uncertainty gazing back at him. "How bored precisely would you have to be before you were packing your stuff and finding someone else to hurt you?"



A look of annoyance broke across Matt\'s features and he sneered, "I would rather die."



"Good."



"You think you\'re the only possessive one in this marriage, Mello. Fuck you. I spent four years hunting you down and that was at a greater risk to myself than you know to this day. You tried to destroy me and I\'ve still stayed. You think that fills my self-esteem with greatness? No. There are some incidents that make me ashamed to the pit of my stomach, but I can\'t give you up." Matt gritted his teeth, defiance set in his expression. "That ain\'t nobody\'s business if I do."



Mello released his wrists and sat back. "You\'ve said that before. I can\'t place where or when, but I will. You\'ve said it both times with a slight American accent. What is it?"



Matt smirked. "This is why you\'re worth all that money."



"Will you stop saying that as well please? You\'re worth just as much, if not more. What are you quoting?"



"I said it in front of Roger. He was once listening to Billie Holiday. I saw the CD case. I downloaded a torrent in the same spirit of research that I once looked through the Bible, because sometimes you need all of the ammunition you can get. I quoted Billie Holiday back at him in your presense mostly to do his head in." Matt reached out and inserted his own wrists back into Mello\'s hands. "It was amusing to me to see him look confused at how I could possibly that. I enjoy picking up clues and not using them until weeks later. In that case, it was years later. I just remembered the lyrics."



Mello rolled his eyes. "And they think I\'m the malevolent one." He raised one of Matt\'s hands to his lips and kissed the palm. "So why is it relevant now?"



Matt caught his gaze and held it. "Because the full lyric, as in the relevant lines, are \'I\'d rather my man would hit me than for him to jump up and quit me; ain\'t nobody\'s business if I do.\'" The redhead shrugged. "Makes you wonder what Roger gets out of the tune, doesn\'t it? Because he obviously had a thing for Wammy, so much so he got stuck with us lot."



Mello stared in horror. "I don\'t which of the three things, that you have just blithely come out with, disturbs me the most." He dropped one of Matt\'s wrists and snatched up chocolate from the bedside cabinet. "Oh my fucking God." He bit into the chocolate with an audible crack. "And you said it just for a laugh? Just to do Roger\'s head in?"



"Three?"



"One, you are implying that I\'d leave if you didn\'t put up with my violence; two, you\'re implying that that\'s a sane point of view; and three, you\'re saying it to fucking Roger!" Mello sucked viciously on the chocolate in his mouth. "In fact, four, you\'re saying it to me. You really don\'t see that?"



Matt stretched. "Well, it\'s the truth anyway, isn\'t it?"



"Not for the fucking reasons that you\'ve implied!" Mello sighed and slid his hand up to hold Matt\'s. "I hope."



"It\'s not like he could do anything about it if it was. But it isn\'t." He peered up with a pained expression. "Did I fail the test?"



"Eh?" Mello frowned. "And make that five. I don\'t want to even think about Roger and Wammy having sex."



"You said I had to earn the right to have you dominate me again." Matt let his unfettered hand fall back behind his head on the pillow, in the position that Mello had been holding it. "Did I fail the test?"



Mello\'s shoulders sagged. "No. I\'m half-tempted to say yes, because of your shit-stirring tendencies, but you\'d only start crying again." He took one last bite of chocolate and threw the remainder of the bar back onto the bedside cabinet. Munching quickly, Mello swallowed it as he leaned onto one knee and withdrew the leg that was straddling Matt. Mello pushed an arm under Matt\'s knees and raised them. He positioned himself so to part the redhead\'s legs and to drape them over Mello\'s own shoulders. "You need this. I know how much you need it. Your arse is bruised to fuck, but who am I to care?"



Matt stared, startled, "So I passed?"



"You know you need it, but have you realised why? Or why you\'re so unwilling to change it?" Mello slid two fingers into Matt\'s entrance with barely a preamble. The redhead jolted slightly, a smile forming on his lips, as his eyes closed. "You\'re scared of responsibility, aren\'t you?" Matt just muttered a \'thank you\', but didn\'t answer the question. Mello sighed, but his eyes were raking over the battered, naked body of his husband and he allowed himself to enjoy the sight. The instant he was hard enough, he withdrew his fingers and entered him. "Sweet, fucking release!"



Matt held onto the headboard, "Oh God! Thank you!" He pushed down against Mello, as the blond thrust deeper, faster, not caring about lubrication. That would come.



"You," Mello growled, "are scared to think for yourself!"



"Yes!"



Mello rammed him harder, "Scared to act for yourself!"



Matt moaned, writhing against him. "I am."



"And that fucking Mario Clause shit," Mello forced Matt several inches further up the bed, before grabbing his hips to hold him in place, "I don\'t give a flying fuck about it!" Matt\'s eyes opened and he frowned at Mello trying to have this conversation now. "It\'s you with the issue."



"What?"



Mello\'s gaze darkened, his breath coming out in gasping grunts. "L is too much responsbility for you." He dug his nails into the contours of Matt\'s hipbones. "You\'re projecting your panic." Mello leaned forward, forcing Matt\'s thighs down to his torso; his face hovering inches over that of his husband. "Thinking I\'m upset, when it\'s you! Your fear. Your panic." The redhead\'s eyes kept opening and closing. They opened again now, green eyes glowering with the shock of the caught out. "I know, baby. But you will never be L."



Hope coursed through that emerald stare. Matt opened his mouth to respond, but it emerged as a moaning gasp, as Mello\'s fingernails scratched along his thighs. He recovered enough to pant, "I just want to be your whore." Matt groaned as Mello\'s palms pressed against bruises. "Like in the old days." He exhaled a long breath. "When you had a vacancy."



Mello punctuated each word with an impaling thrust. "You are my husband! Not just my whore!" He grabbed Matt\'s biceps and forced his arms back down, placing Matt\'s hands against his thighs. "Hold them, I\'m sick of them being in my way."



Matt held his legs back and spread, as Mello pumped inside him. The blond\'s hands reached out to stroke Matt\'s member, smiling at the sounds being torn involuntarily from the redhead\'s throat. There was no more conversation, until both had orgasmed and, after a long, desperate kiss, they spent in each other\'s arms. Only then did Matt speak, breathlessly, his hands gripping Mello\'s arms. "I wanna be your whore. I wanna be married to you, but I wanna be your whore. I want it like the old days." Tears filled his eyes. "I want it like when you thought I was stupid."



"I\'ve never thought you were stupid, Matty." Mello sighed. "Baby, I\'m tired too. It\'s too much."



Matt sobbed harder against his shoulder and Mello just held him. "I don\'t want to lose you!" The redhead sobbed. "Oh God! Mello! It hurts so much! I can\'t cope! I can\'t do it! I need you!"



"I\'m not going anywhere." Mello struggled around to hold him more closely still. "You need to tell me exactly what\'s wrong though."



"I don\'t want to be L! I don\'t care! I don\'t care! I don\'t care!" His head flew back and distraught green eyes flashed back. "Just make me stupid. Get a knife, cut it out of me!"



"Cut you?" Mello willed down the anger that flared, because he knew that it was born of concern. "I\'ve just given in and had sex with you, when your arse is so fucking bruised that..."



"Please, Mello, please?" Matt gripped onto him so tightly that Mello knew he would be bruising next. "Not cutting, not like that. In my brain. Make me stupid. Please?"



"You don\'t think that asking me to stick a knife into your brain already sounds a little stupid?" Mello growled. "No, Matty, I\'m not lobotomising you. You can fuck off." He eased his fingers down until he found Matt\'s collar, then gripped it, kissing the redhead everywhere he could reach. "I love you, Mail. You are mine, now calm the fuck down. You\'re beginning to sound really crazy." Matt began to speak again, his eyes already pleading, but Mello rolled onto him, slapped him hard across the face, then kissed him passionately. He stop until he felt the redhead settling under him and the struggle start to recede. Then he drew away. "Mail, no-one\'s asking you to be L."



"I know. But I spent my entire life..." Matt didn\'t finish the sentence. He just lay there looking horrorstruck. Then he shook his head. "It doesn\'t matter." He laughed, ironically. "It turned out It Matters after all. You were always my Achilles\' heel." He sniffed. "But I finally worked out how to make it alright."



"Yeah?" Mello stroked back Matt\'s hair, trying not to be disturbed by the distance in his eyes. "What is it?"



"I need you. Your personality. Your body. Your passion. Your inventiveness. Your everything, except one thing." Matt looked as though he was falling inside himself. "Near\'s intellect."



Mello blinked a few times, staring back, unable to believe what his brain insisted that his ears had just heard. "I\'m not smart enough for you, is that what you\'re saying?"



"No." Matt shook his head, biting his lip hard enough to draw blood. "It\'s my fucking brain that\'s wrong. It Matters. It Matters. It Matters. It Matters."



He kept on repeating it until Mello couldn\'t stand it. "You said Near\'s intellect would help. Mine doesn\'t, apparently, so I\'m not smart enough." Mello could feel the emotion rising up inside him. He was caught between fury and freaking out; wanting to take the redhead and batter him until he lay on the floor; wanting to kiss him until he calmed down and stopped lashing out; wanting to hurt him and love him and kill him and hold him safe forever. Then a second wave of feeling came. What if Matt was telling the truth? What if even Matt saw Mello as second best? No. It was all wrong. It was just the redhead in crisis. "You\'re saying that Near is smarter than I am?" Mello reared up, yanking Matt up behind him, so that they were both sitting with their arms still clawing at each other\'s bodies. "Well, guess what?"



Matt gasped, tears falling fast, "What?"



"You are are fucking stupid! You can\'t see the wood for the fucking trees! You\'re a selfish bastard and it\'s all me, me, me, so fucking hard for me!" Mello made a grab for Matt, as the redhead began to pull away. "But do you know what I\'m prepared to do for you? I will hack Wammy\'s mainframe. I will get through those firewalls that you spent so long putting in and I will trigger the fucking Mario Clause. Because if you can do it, I sure as Hell can!"



Matt froze. He sat on the bed staring back with the tears falling freely from eyes containing more hope than Mello could bear to look at. Matt croaked hoarsely back, "I destroyed the Mario Clause."



"Fine! Then I\'ll take my final exams in the old-fashioned way." Mello glared. "I walked out of there when I was fourteen. You are not judging me against rankings that stopped recording my genius. You want me to prove to you that I\'m smarter than you? Then bring it on!" His eyes flashed with bitterness of that old war. "You want me to prove I\'m smarter than Near, then bring that on too!"



"You already did." Matt sniffed. "With Kira; and tracking Near down in Camden. In fact, getting me out of Near\'s headquarters."



"Yes, I did!" Mello growled. "But that\'s not enough is it? You want it academically down on paper in some backwater institution. Our actions in the real world don\'t matter anymore, because you want it in tests and exams and a fucking game that was never open to the rest of us. You want a race? You want to sit down in a room with me and Near and have us all do the same paper at the same time and see who comes out on top then?" He gripped Matt by the shoulders and shook him. "Because I\'m telling you right now that it would not be you! You hearing me, you impossible, red-headed bastard?"



"Yes!" Matt squealed, but the tension was draining from his body. "No, I don\'t want to sit an exam like that."



"No, because you\'d lose and you know you\'d lose." Mello glowered at him, his eyes shadowed beneath his hair. "You are a genius, Matty. You have a mind that can stand up next to mine and I need that. I really fucking need that. I need the strengths that you have that I don\'t, but you have weaknesses too, just like the rest of us."



"I know I do." Matt was staring at him, a little afraid now, as calm brought with it clarity about what he\'d said.



"Just because they\'re telling you that you\'re number one in some stupid ranking system that they used to keep us all in track and working harder, doesn\'t make you God!" Mello glared. "You are just Mail. Just my Mail! That\'s all! And if you think that something like that can compare our intellects, you really are quite stupid. You are a hacker, Mail, a fucking brilliant one, but that\'s what you do. You give me a day with a person and I can get their entire life\'s story off of them, and them weeping at my feet. You couldn\'t do that! Near can complete a completely blank puzzle in a matter of minutes. I sure as fuck would have trouble with that, wouldn\'t you? Strengths and fucking weaknesses, incomparable!"



Matt nodded mutely, reaching for his cigarettes. Mello let him and he lit one with shaking hands. "You\'re right."



"I know I am." Mello leapt across the bed to snatch up his chocolate, one hand retaining its grip on Matt\'s arm, scared that he might flee. He pointed with the chocolate. "I love you, but don\'t you ever tell me again that Near is smarter than I am."



"I\'m sorry, Mello."



"Ok." Mello took a deep breath and returned to his position, where he could hold Matt with both hands if needs be. "I\'m going to tell you something now that might make you freak, but this is all coming out in the open. Right?"



Matt jolted, sheer panic lacing his skittish gaze. "About Near?"



"Yes, about Near and about the Mario Clause."



"He didn\'t invent it. L did."



"Yes." Mello nodded, holding his husband with both hands, the chocolate in his lap. "When did you work it out?"



"About five minutes ago."



"Right." Mello smirked, darkly. "I worked it out the moment he said it. No, I tell a lie. I worked it out a few seconds after I\'d calmed down from wanting to kill him, because his story made no fucking sense at all. He was lying knowing that it was a lie that we wanted to hear. I watched you leave that room and marvelled at the intensity at which you wanted to believe anything that made your world easy again. Near was probably watching wondering how the fuck that just worked, but it did. I asked him and he deflected the answer. He knew nothing about it until the file was put into his hand, while I was in the room with him." As Matt bowed his head, Mello shook him until he looked up again. "It means shit, Matt. I love you to bits, but that clause means shit. If you need it proven, then I\'ll beat you in any arena you care to name other than fucking games, because you\'ve got a headstart on them all." Mello smiled. "Unless you want to give me a few hours to practice."



Matt stared back, sniffing, "You\'re right. It means shit."



"Do you really believe that now?"



"Yes." Matt wiped his eyes. "I\'m sorry I\'ve put you through Hell, Mello. I really am."



Mello watched, but he could see the settling spirit behind his husband\'s eyes. It wasn\'t a defensive closing down, it was finally giving in and allowing the comfort to penetrate. It was Matt\'s genius awakening in its usual quiet brilliance, fitting the pieces together for himself. He could see Matt coming back to him, in every way, defiance shrinking to exhaustion; need no longer clutching to fall short of being sated. Mello leaned in and hugged him. "You still need rest, baby. I\'m going to get you through tomorrow\'s meeting, then we\'ll suggest that we continue with electronic conferences. You stay in bed and conduct your affairs from here. I\'ll do any further research that\'s needed. You\'re strong, Matty, but you\'ve been skirting so close to mental and physical collapse that it isn\'t funny."



Matt nodded, "I know."



"Then you\'ll let me take over, just for now?"



"Yes."



"Thank you, baby." Mello moved around to rest against the headboard, holding his chocolate in one hand as he motioned Matt to sit against him. The redhead did as he was told, cuddling up to be cradled, his head against Mello\'s shoulder. "I promise you that it\'s going to be alright. Just concentrate on getting better. I\'ve got your back."



Mello rocked him, taking the cigarette from him when it was smoked and stubbing it out into the ashtray. Then he rocked him some more, until the redhead fell asleep in his arms and only then did Mello allow himself to cry.