Watari Pt 1: L\'s Heirs

Mello stared straight ahead, not seeing the oil-splattered tiles and the patterns on them. His mind reeled with the possibilities and the might-have-beens. His fears bubbled and sank in the mush of his sensibilities. Then he heard footsteps in the hallway outside and snapped back to attention, stirring the pot from his station by the stove.



"How are you feeling?" Mello asked, as Matt arrived, smelling of soap and cigarettes, into the kitchen. Mello had been up to check on him quarter of an hour ago and found him sleeping in the bath. After hearing a panicked rant about slipping under and drowning, Matt had agreed to finish up and get out of the tub. "I\'m making us something to eat."



"I see." Matt replied inspecting the laptop beside the cooker. The recipe seemed innoculous enough, quite appetising in fact, but his attention drifted automatically to the URL - www.gainweightsafely.ni - then back to Mello. The blond handed him a glass of grape juice. "What\'s this?"



"It\'s like wine, but less alcohol." Mello smiled. "You can\'t drink alcohol until you\'ve completed all three sessions on the drip. Talking of which, you have an hour before that."



Matt nodded and sat down at the table. The grape juice was a little tasteless, but it was wet and he was thirsty. He watched Mello cooking, very precise in what he added. If the recipe called for an ounce of flour, it got exactly an ounce of flour. If it suggested basil and they only had sage, then someone was going to the shop for basil. Matt was more of an experimental cook. He took whatever was in the pantry and if it was identifiable, he mixed it with other identifiable things until he had something edible. He had invented spaghetti with pot noodle topping, and cheese and stuffing toasted sandwiches, in the spirit of culinary adventure. "It smells nice."



"Thank you."



"I thought you said that you were small-boned with a high metabolism, that burns off chocolate calories with the energy that it takes to eat it, and so you never have to worry about getting fat?" Matt watched under his wet fringe to gage Mello\'s reaction.



The blond just smiled. "That\'s true." He set the timer and covered the pot. Picking up a small First Aid kit, he washed his hands and sat down next to Matt. "Why do you let your hair drip all over your face when it\'s just been washed?"



"It just flops like that."



"Why don\'t you use a hair-dryer like normal people?"



Matt smirked. His arm was being pulled towards Mello, so that anti-septic could be applied to his wounds. "You don\'t count as \'normal people\', Mello." He let his gaze slide down to his lover\'s waistline. "So why are you trying to put on weight?"



Mello smiled coyly, "I\'m not." He peered up from under his own unruly blond fringe. "You\'ll want to eat my food when I\'ve taken the time to cook it, won\'t you, Matty?" Mello finished with the arm and edged his chair forward to soothe the welts across his lover\'s chest. "When I\'ve slaved over a hot stove, while you\'ve been relaxing in the bath, you\'ll want to eat what I\'ve cooked for you."



"I\'m not anorexic." Matt said softly. "I\'ve been starving in a cave for a couple of days, that\'s all. You spotted the breakfast I had this morning? Bacon and eggs."



"But you\'re starting to look like Lamond!" Mello protested. "You feel all fragile and breakable. It\'s hard to judge your weight when I\'m throwing you across the floor."



Matt laughed aloud. "Right. So this is all about you being able to be vicious, not concern for my health and well-being."



Mello frowned. "You know it is. If I wasn\'t concerned with your well-being, I wouldn\'t be smacking you around." He stopped and blinked. "That sounds so fucked up! Anyway, if I cook for you, will you go on a diet please? I\'ve worked out your BMI and I know what weight you should be. We just need to get you weighed and find out what you are. I\'ve \'phoned through our grocery order and added a set of scales in that. I\'m guessing you\'re about a stone to a stone and half underweight, which means you\'re going to start breaking bones more easily." Mello smiled, sweetly. "I can\'t afford to have you with broken bones. There\'s too much to do around here."



"Oh God." Matt moaned. "This is your latest fad, isn\'t it? Can\'t you go back to poetry please?"



"I don\'t have fads, Matt."



"You bloody well do!" He put his head back, as Mello walked behind him, but it was pushed back again. "You eat like a pigeon and you\'re probably size 0. I have to be smaller than you or else you wouldn\'t be able to do half the things you do to me."



"Oh! Trust me, I would." Mello smirked, evilly. "As well as broken bones, you\'ll end up losing your hair and growing hair in weird places. I can\'t have either of those things. You haven\'t actually got any choice in the matter, so I don\'t know why I\'m wasting my breath explaining it to you. You need to be at least eight and a half stone before I get off your case, so the quicker you put it on the better."



Matt rolled his eyes, wincing as the swab on his back was pressed a little too hard into an open cut. "Why are we even having a conversation about weight? You\'ll be asking me to do my nails and put a fucking ribbon in my hair next." Black-painted fingernails waved in front of his eyes for a couple of seconds, then Mello leaned around him to survey him with a wry look. "Your nails are different. You\'ve always been a girl." He received a short slap, but there was no power in it. "Really pretty girl, but..." He reached up to pull Mello down into a kiss. "I\'m a bit worried about the fact you \'phoned our grocery order through. You better not have editted the list. If our kitchen gets filled up with olives and not enough proper food, I\'m doing another order tomorrow."



Mello was just watching him with infinite amusement. "You have such a fixation on olives. You act like they are threatening you in some way."



"No. It stands to reason." Matt frowned, as if it was self-evident. "If we\'re grabbing something to eat, you always migrate towards the sort of place that has olives. If you look through the glass and there\'s olives, then you know damn well that the menu is not going to have anything edible on it. It\'s going to be cous-cous and twenty different names for something that boils down to different coloured leaves with a bit of oil dribbled on the top. I\'ll give you halloumi cheese, that was nice, but you\'re never doing lentil quiche to me again. Simper all you want, Mello, there are good reasons that I do the grocery order."



Mello fell back, sitting on a chair behind him, wiping his eyes with mirth. "And you wonder why I love you."



"So where\'s the list?" He turned around, trying not to smile.



Mello reached out to stroke his face. "Remember, guapo, I\'m taking the time to cook for you and it will be lovely. You will eat it all up and you will enjoy it." His gaze broked no dissent. "No olives, I promise. Though you\'ve never had a problem eating olives on a pizza." The timer buzzed loudly and the blond leapt up to wash his hands, before stirring the contents of his pot and filling another saucepan with water. "We\'re having pasta and garlic bread, by the way. Any problems with pasta?" He turned at the lack of response to find Matt staring into space. "Matty?"



Matt blinked and sentience washed back into his features. "Sorry, what?"



"Love you."



Matt smiled. "If you\'re turning into a domestic goddess, do we have to buy you a pinny?" He bobbed his tongue out. "Actually, one of those French Maid outfits! You\'d look like the pwnage, Mell."



"I\'m choosing to ignore you, Matt." Mello pouted, but he was smiling. "Are you ok in there?"



"In where?"



"Your head." Mello added salt and oil to the boiling water. He turned to look as Matt didn\'t immediately reply. "What are you thinking right now, guapo?"



"I\'m wondering what you\'d do if I added more salt to that water. I usually put loads more than that in there."



"I\'d kill you." The blond replied mildly.



"Right." Matt stood. "I\'d better get dressed then, if we\'re having a proper meal." He padded over to the stove, in just a pair of long shorts. His hair dripped water onto the worktop. "Thank you for looking after me, angel."



The veneer of airiness dropped from Mello\'s visage; an intensity took its place. "I always will." He gazed down at the pot, stirring slowly. "You might be making fun of me, but right now is exactly what I need. I want to be here with you taking the piss and..." He glanced around him at the kitchen. "I want to be cooking for you in our home. I\'ve been so scared, Matty. I didn\'t want to think it, but deep down I thought you might be dead. I\'ve been trying not to give up hope and now we\'re here. I\'ve fought for you and I\'ve reclaimed you. I\'ve seen you go from looking dead to walking around me whinging about olives. I want you to whinge about olives." Mello\'s eyes filled up and Matt hugged him from behind, kissing his neck. "I\'ve had a lot of time to think about us. We\'ve come such a long way, Mail. When we were kids, when we first met up again... oh God! Matt! It\'s barely been a year! I\'ve wasted most of my life trying to push you away from me and hardly any time at all giving in to this. I don\'t know how you survived that cave. If you\'d been a little less intelligent or if a group of people, who hate each other\'s guts, hadn\'t co-operated, you..."



"Don\'t worry about what ifs."



"Why are you even still here?" The words burst out of Mello, impassioned and almost accusing. "I\'ve treated you like shit for years and you always come back. You never gave up on me, but you expect me to give up on you! I made you like that!"



"I expect you to always come for me." Matt murmered, muzzling his neck.



"When I gave in to you last year, I thought you\'d run away. I was evil to you. I used you so badly, but you liked it!" Tears were freely falling down Mello\'s cheeks now. "You\'re such a masochistic bastard! You saved my life and you\'ve made me feel human ever since. Fuck! Do you even know your worth to me? You kiss the scars on my face!"



"I\'ve been trying to kiss your face since we were kids. I\'m not wasting opportunities to do it now." Matt swopped sides and muzzled the mottled flesh, mollifying that deeper level of Mello, which wasn\'t mortified by the change. "You know you\'re gorgeous, angel. You dress to flaunt it."



"I thought you were dead, Matt!" Mello\'s tears became sobs, tears splashing to hiss in the boiling water. "Now you\'re back here, all skin and bone, looking like a reject from Fight Club. All I want to do is look after you and keep you alive. We\'ve gone so fast! From nothing to all of this in just over a year. I couldn\'t walk away from you now, if I wanted to. I\'m scared about the drugs you take. I\'m scared about that perverse streak that makes you drive too fast and do stupid things that endanger your life. I\'m scared about the weight you\'ve lost in the last year. Make fun of me all you want, but I need to keep you. I need to cook for you."



"I just thought you were being nice." Matt smirked. "Angel, if it\'s going to calm you down and keep you sane, cook for me. I\'d even eat an olive in those circumstances."



Mello nodded and wiped his eyes, allowing Matt to support his weight. "I\'m sorry I\'m so up and down with you. I know I\'m high maintenance."



"It keeps life interesting."



"Yes, but one minute I\'m beating you up on the fucking landing and the next I\'m getting upset because you\'re not eating properly." He sniffed, trying to see the pots through a film of tears. "That even sounds messed up to me and I know my reasoning behind it."



"You\'re Mello." Matt grinned. "You don\'t feel anything by half and I just roll with the tide. It works. Don\'t try to fix it, if it\'s not broken."



"But we\'ve gone so fast! Roger thinks you\'re out of your depth with me and he might have a point. We\'re messing with all these... things!" He moved, agitated, away from the cooker and out of Matt\'s arms. The redhead quietly took up the wooden spoon and continued stirring the sauce. "We mess with each other\'s heads and neither of us know shit about psychology. I\'m hurting you and I\'m doing that with what I know about violence, not what I know about S&M. I\'ve been on the internet! There are all kinds of recommended rules that we don\'t even know about! I mean, what if you are out of your depth? What if you just decide to leave me because I\'m an emotional wreck, who keeps hitting you?" Mello stared back in shock from the vicinity of the table. "I\'d die if you left me now."



"I\'d better not leave you then."



"You\'ve got that amused smirk on your face." Mello wiped his eyes and returned to the stove, reaching in to kiss Matt\'s lips. "I\'m ranting again, aren\'t I?"



"Yes. But carry on. It\'s times like this I get to find out what goes on in that pretty head of yours." He grinned. "Mostly the usual crap, but entertaining nontheless."



"Entertaining?" Mello frowned. "You think it\'s entertaining? I think we\'ve just rushed on, too much, too fast, no saved games to check the strategy, no reviewing and evaluating before we get to the next level. Am I speaking in your language yet, Matt?"



Matt turned to meet his gaze. "I think you\'re trying to say that we should slow down, though I\'m a bit at a loss to work out how we\'re going to do that. We\'re living and sleeping with each other. We can hardly go back to having dates and fumbles in the back of the car now."



"No." Mello took the spoon off him and wriggled underneath Matt, until the blond was back in place in front of the cooker. "What I\'m trying to say is go and set the table in the dining room. We\'ve never used it and if we\'re having a proper meal, I think we should."



"Right boss." Matt planted a kiss on his cheek and left the kitchen. Mello heard him laughing in the hallway and smiled in empathy. It was good to have him back.