My Own Way

Mello glanced into the front room, as he passed by the kitchen door. Matt was playing on his new game, obliviously contented. The glass of sherry, which Mello had handed to him ten minutes ago, had already been drunk. The empty glass was on the floor next to him. Mello shook his head and wandered over to the kitchen window, where his laptop glowed from the worktop. He didn\'t sit this time, but stared outside. The streets were abnormally empty, only occasional cars passing slowly, their driver\'s overly cautious on a day when so many police patrolled the streets. He had only seen two people walking out there in the past hour.



He bit off half a square of chocolate and sighed, looking back towards the laptop. It\'s very presense here seemed to scream back failure. He wasn\'t even working on the Kira case, which might have salved a bit of his guilty conscience; but that in itself was being over-ridden by the sense that he should be having a break. He should be having a Christmas Day. He shouldn\'t be giving in to Mail fucking Jeevas\'s not so subtle hints that playing on his games would be preferable to sitting down watching the \'Vicar of Dibley Christmas Special\'. Mello glared out of the window at the darkened sky. It should be snowing out there. Bastards.



He sat down again, swinging his feet up onto the table and pulling the laptop onto his thighs. The open browser displayed a Wikipedia entry for Bill Bryson, the author of one of the books which he had opened this morning and had been vaguely amused by this afternoon, but that wasn\'t what he was searching. That was just the cover in the extreme unlikely event that Matt rose from his bit of carpet and came to see what Mello was doing in the kitchen with the lights off. Other than being ignored. Mello switched to his second tab and glared at the descriptions of other people\'s Christmasses. Margo from Falmouth\'s family were playing cards. She had to go because the grandchildren were about to arrive and she still hadn\'t put the dream topping on the trifle. YorkshireBob would be glad when it was the kids\' bedtime, because he was getting sick of the sound of their computer games. Mello empathised, though he didn\'t make an account to do so publicly. CuddlyCarol had only just logged on and she was exhausted. She was just popping on to wish everyone a merry Christmas, as they were doing karaoke. Her husband was just setting it up. Absolutely no-one was sitting in the dark, staring out at empty streets, while their boyfriend chased pixels around the television screen.



Mello got bored of Hampshire Hogs On-Line Forum Chat for the Community and petulantly closed the tab. He glanced at the doorway before opening his third window. At the slightest movement in the lounge, this site was clicked back to Bill Bryson. Matt would never let him live it down. Mello would have to kill him just to save face. It had already been closed five times, but each occasion had just been the redhead picking up his lighter or throwing it back onto the coffee table. Mello peered at the screen, ignoring the unsettling fact that there were a lot of images of entwined naked men, and concentrating instead on how they were doing what they were doing to each other. Improvisation was all well and good, but carrying a little knowledge into the bedroom was even better.



There was the clatter of a packet of cigarettes colliding with an empty sherry glass and Mello tensed, waiting for the clicking to resume. It didn\'t. By some miracle sent from the Heavens, Matt was standing. Mello watched the door, finger poised on his mouse. There was a suggestion of a striped sleeve and the website was gone. The redhead walked into the kitchen. "What you doing?"



"Reading about Bill Bryson."



"In the dark?"



"On the screen." Mello turned the laptop to show him. "But I\'m glad you\'re here."



"Just came to get another lager." Matt sniffed. Mello raised the laptop above his head and slotted it onto the worktop, then unfurled himself from his perch. His leather creaked in protest at the movement, as he fell to his feet and prowled with feline grace across the floor. Matt was leaning into the fridge, the soft light illuminating his face and shining off his goggles. Mello grabbed him by the waist, kicked shut the fridge door and flung the redhead around into the kitchen table. It scraped backwards loudly. "Mell! \'The fuck!" Mello dodged his flying elbow and caught his forearm, pressing down until Matt was on his back bend over the tabletop. Then he sniggered. "Whoo..." Matt blinked up at him, his arms pinned above his head and Mello pressing against his legs. The blond leaned down for a kiss. "I\'ve bruised the small of my back, arsehole."



Mello noticed that his lover wasn\'t struggling anymore, nor did he seem too perturbed about his back. In fact, Matt was staring back with an utterly wanton smirk. "I\'m supposed to feel guilty about that when you like it?" He purred, licking along the redhead\'s jawbone. "You are so easy to overpower, wimp." He rubbed his groin against Matt\'s, smiling at the little intake of breath it generated beneath him. "Then again, I forgot that only violence gains your attention these days."



"Does not."



Mello swooped down again, kissing hard, biting down on Matt\'s lower lip, trailing blood as he nipped his chin. All the time, he was slowly moving his hips against Matt\'s, feeling the redhead starting to squirm beneath him. It started to feel very uncomfortable inside the tight fastenings of his laces, but that just added to the eroticism. Mello kissed up to Matt\'s ear and nibbled upon that too, then down the soft underside of his neck, along his jugular. It was possession pure and simple, but sexy as Hell. Mello released his wrists, but the hands remained where they were even in their freedom. Black fingernails scratched along the leather of Matt\'s racing gloves and into the cloth of his shirt. The redhead moaned and Mello remembered why, as the rising sleeves exposed the deep gorges in Matt\'s forearms from the cold turkey incident, scabbed over but some of them bleeding again under pressure from Mello\'s nails.



Mello changed tactics, reaching down instead for the hem at his waistline and raising it over Matt\'s stomach. Hands and mouth descended to caress and kiss, tugging on the tiny red hairs which ran from his naval down below the waistband of his jeans. Mello left lovebites all along Matt\'s side and another at the tender spot where his ribcage arched in the centre. The shirt was pushed higher, Matt rising an inch or two from the tabletop to facilitate it being pulled over his head and away from his arms; the gloves, already half removed with the force of the shirt against them, were stripped from him and thrown onto the floor.



Matt was watching him through hooded eyes and Mello finally concluded that no website could tell him as much as the redhead\'s reactions would. The breathlessness at just this was telling enough. He leaned in, both hands flat against Matt\'s shoulders, and descended to suck a nipple. It was already budded, hard between his teeth, but Mello lapped at it hungrily, one hand reaching up to cup the redhead\'s jawbone. The stiffness, obvious to both, at their groins was intensifying by the moment. "Matty!" Mello groaned, though he hadn\'t planned to say a word.



"Mello." Came the gasping response. Matt\'s hands came down to press against Mello\'s head, but the blond batted them away. He caught them and slammed them back against the table, not wanting to be touched, only to touch. Mello\'s gaze took in those nasty lacerations again and he frowned, wanting them healed and gone. They felt like accusation or rebellion and Mello didn\'t like either interpretation. He covered his unease by pressing down into another possessive kiss, grinding teeth and tongues.



Mello rose a little. He wanted to see those green eyes. He wanted to read the clues as to what he was doing here. He reached up and yanked the goggles off, throwing them onto the worktop where they clattered against his laptop. Mello smirked, staring down, locking contact with Matt\'s gaze. "You gave Aimee the right answer. \'If you go, furious angels will bring you back to me.\'" His grin hardened. He had intended just to let Matt know that he had heard his music, that left on Mello\'s server, but the redhead\'s eyes widened. Unaccountably, there was a film of tears in them, but they never fell. Mello had never seen Matt cry in his life and there had certainly been cause for it in their past. That his friend was close now shocked Mello to the core. "Wha...?" But Matt leaned up, kissing him fiercely, taking the initiative, forcing the blond to react swiftly to re-establish his own domination. He pushed Matt back and slapped him hard across the face. "Never touch me without my saying so again."



As the redhead winced, Mello stepped back, pulling at the belt and the flies of Matt\'s jeans. He opened them and bent over, his hands sliding beneath the waistband of Matt\'s boxer shorts. The revealed pelvis was kissed and sucked against, lovebites covering the area before Mello was satisfied, standing up to survey his friend with lust-filled eyes. Matt\'s eyes were closed, a handprint crimson against his alabaster cheek; the bruise on the other looking too dark in the half-light. Mello had to admit that the sight of it now caused no guilt, only a hardening against the leather of his own flies, discomfort now moving into the realms of personal pain. It was alright. He didn\'t mind a little pain. He wanted to devour the pale redhead on the table, tear him to pieces and eat him up; but a little part of Mello\'s mind called out urgently that there was responsibility here too. He had to hold back or else risk unacceptable injury. Matt\'s eyes opened and the look he gave Mello wiped that reserve from his mind. He had to have him.



Mello tugged at the jeans, while Matt held onto the far side of the table. It was pulled part way across the doorway and Mello collided with the open door itself, but the denim fell to the floor inside the front room and the boxers followed. Matt was naked, his arousal stark and his skin covered in goosebumps. Mello stripped himself to his waist and brushed back his hair with his fingers, before advancing again. Fingers pressed down, along Matt\'s sides to his hips, then further still, caressing past his arse to the back of his thighs. Mello smiled in anticipation. He growled, "I\'m going to have you right here. On the table."



"Is it big enough?"



"It\'ll be big enough for you." Mello smirked. "Sorry, were you enjoying playing your game? Did I interupt you?"



Matt swallowed, breathing hard. He turned his head to judge the distance to the floor, should he fall off, but Mello reached forward and placed a hand over the mark he had already left. He pressed against it, forcing Matt to look at him again. The redhead shivered, his whole body seeming to react in nervous need. "I\'m good here."



"I can see that. You really are a perverted fuck, aren\'t you, Matty? The more I hit and terrorise you, the more you want it. How come I didn\'t see this in you before?"



"You never stripped me off on the dining room table at Wammy\'s."

The redhead smirked. "Mrs Carnagie

might have had something to say about it if you had."



Mello laughed, but quickly dismissed the thought. He did not want to even have a flash of memory about the old kitchen manager. He silenced Matt with another kiss, tasting the blood left from previous forays there. His hands slid down to cup the cheeks of Matt\'s arse, then he grabbed the back of both thighs, pulling them up over his own shoulders. A splicing agony ripped through Mello\'s left shoulder, disturbingly absent in a central patch, but mindnumbingly painful around the edges. He let the leg drop and closed his eyes against a shrieking scream. Mello leaned on his hand against the doorjamb, biting his lip against making another sound.



Matt scrambled to his side, dropping from the table, his arms around the blond\'s head and waist. Fury blasted through Mello, like a localised explosion, intense, then gone. He swung around, slamming Matt against the door and kissed every inch of his face, crushing him with an iron grip. Then he flung him back against the table, knocking it forward, back the way it had come. Face down now, Matt just had time to break his fall with his hands and lay, panting, his sex pressing into the edge of the table. Angrily, Mello tore at his own belt and yanked at the laces, wriggling out of his trousers just enough to release his own aching member. Pre-cum dripped across the redhead\'s back and thighs. Mello pulled off a glove and used the fluid to lubricate his lover, barely preparing him before the blond was in and thrusting hard.



That little moment of surrender arrived a lot sooner than usual, Matt\'s muscles relaxing deep inside him to facilitate the intrusion. His body reddened and he moaned loudly, clawing at the tabletop, pressing against Mello in a bid for more depth, more speed, more everything. Mello\'s anger abated at this new emotion, at the intoxicating wonder of knowing that it was him who was doing this to Matt; him who was causing those noises and the glistening of his skin. It fed into his own encompassing desire, pushing him further on. Beautiful, sexy, hungry... Mello felt his knees buckling and held tightly to Matt\'s squirming hips, riding home the sensation until it ended in the flooding of the senses and a tidal wave of release. "Mother of God, Matty! Fuck! Matty!"



Mello covered Matt\'s back in kisses, then turned him over onto his back, finding the mouth as his hand rushed to bring the redhead to the same climax. Matt shuddered under his touch, legs flailing to find purchase on the chair, but found Mello\'s waist instead. He wrapped his legs around him, gasping loudly around deep throat moans, then he too was erupting, messily, all over his mouth bruised stomach. It was one of the most erotic sights that Mello had ever seen. Pride burst through him and he stood grinning down at his friend and lover, as Matt lay spent against the formicra surface. It took a while before the green eyes opened again. "Wow. Mello. Just wow."



Mello smirked. "Now will you hang out with me? I want to play cards and watch the specials on the telly. We can make some sandwiches and eat those little cakes I bought."



Matt laughed, but he nodded. "Ok."



"Good." Mello backed off triumphantly and washed his hands. Matt just lay there, hanging off the table, smiling. "You have no idea what a slut you look right now."



"I think I probably have." Matt smirked, but rose anyway, collecting up his clothes and grinning at Mello before disappearing into the bathroom.



Mello beamed, drying his hands and taking out the loaf of bread. He bet none of the Hamphire Hogs community had done that during their Christmas celebrations and he wondered how they would react, if he made an account just to tell them. He took out the cheese, the only thing that they had to fill their sandwiches, and glanced at the laptop. Perhaps not, he doubted that it fit into most people\'s ideas of what the day should hold. Nevertheless, he crossed over to find the site again; he needed to know what constituted the tea time buffet, but none of them actually spelled it out. Mello switched it off, as Matt reappeared looking less dishevelled, it didn\'t matter, he was bright enough to improvise. "Switch your game off then and sort the front room out. We\'ve got playing cards?"



"Somewhere." Matt called back.



"Find them then. I\'m making us a Christmas tea." He paused inspecting the sell by date on a tin of apricots, before throwing it into the bin. It was a year out of date. "And check the television listings. Your remit is heartwarming, feel good anything." He picked up a jar of strawberry jam. That counted as food with two spoons in it. "Or action, big block-buster."



"Want me to find the little match-girl as well?"



"Stop being facetious. Find the playing cards." Mello emptied a pile of sweets into a bowl, then several packets of crisps into another. "We\'re playing Blackjack."



"I was hoping for strip poker."



"No, Blackjack." Mello peered back into the front room, pleased to find that Matt had pushed his console to the side of the television and was stacking his games tidily beside. "It has to be Blackjack." That was what Bill_and_Jean_Williams were playing in their home and no-one had thought that strange. "Oh and organise some Victorian child carol singers at the door. That\'s important."



Matt released a loud guffaw and looked up. Their eyes met and Mello winked. Matt shook his head. "I\'ll see what I can do." Mello nodded and left him to it.