Poisoned Rationality

Mello took the telephone from Matt and barked into it. "Put me onto your manager, please." He hadn\'t even checked to find out who the redhead had been speaking with. "Because I don\'t do business with the person who answers the \'phone, especially when she\'s telling my partner \'no\'." He glared into the receiver as if that should have been self-evident. "Thank you very much."



The front room was now mostly cleared, though the things from it had been merely packed into bin-bags and stashed out of sight in the spare room. Matt still sat on the armchair. Though he would have preferred to have been helping, he understood that, for Mello, this was a kind of penance. Wiping down skirting boards and manhandling broken chattels was his current version of the \'Hail Mary\'. Nevertheless, Matt\'s mind was eased around the time that he interupted his lover\'s monologue about replacing computers by pointing out that there were three crates full of them down the passageway. Their equipment from New York, Los Angeles and Japan combined would be enough to equip the Microsoft offices, let alone a small flat. It was the first time that Mello had paused in his tearing about the place like a Tasmanian devil to lean over and kiss him. Matt was promptly given the task of searching the websites of chain stores for a replacement suite, television, fireplace and other assorted furniture.



"Hello." Mello growled into the \'phone. "Are you the manager?" A pause. "Good. Name please?" He wrote it down on the pad in front of him. "Thank you, Nigel. Now I would like to purchase several large items. I am willing to pay cash. I am also willing to collect them if needs be. I want them today. Are we going to do business?" Matt scribbled onto the pad, \'They have it in blue. We could always just have blue.\' Mello batted away the suggestion with an angry wave of his hand. He recited their specific requirements to the furniture store manager. "Well, if you have it on display in the showroom, then you have it. How much discount do we get for buying display items?" Mello smiled. Matt rolled his eyes. They could afford to pay over the odds, Mello was just being awkward. "Then you will just have to change your display." His eyes widened suddenly and he barked back. "Have you got a superior? Put me through to that person, please." A deeper frown. "Because I\'ve just worked out that I\'m speaking to the monkey and not the organ grinder. Put me through to the top person there. Thank you."



Matt turned the laptop around. "How about this one instead? It\'s leather."



"You hate leather settees. You whinge about your back sticking to them when you\'ve got your shirt off."



"No, I love leather."



"Matt, you\'re having the first sodding settee you chose!" Mello turned his back to his lover and listened to Strauss playing on the holding tone. Ten minutes later, he replaced the receiver with a smug grin. "They are being delivered between five and six." He stalked back down the passage, returning to his clearance of the hallway. "Fucking idiots." Then he called back. "Matt, if you want to, you can set up the computers and games. This is going to take me a while."



Matt paused halfway through dialling to order a television and stared at the open door. He had offered to do that an hour ago, but Mello had told him not to touch them. Anxiety washed through his tone. "Mello, which one do I do first? Order the stuff or do you want me to set that lot up?"



There was silence, then footsteps. Mello stood in the doorway, pushing his hair back out of his eyes. "I\'m sorry. I\'ve got so caught up in all of this that I keep forgetting what it\'s all about." He removed the laptop and telephone from Matt\'s grasp and sat down on his lover\'s lap. Gloved hands cupped the redhead\'s cheeks and Mello leaned in for a passionate kiss. He was rewarded by arms reaching out to wrap around his body. Emerging at last with a smile, Mello kissed Matt\'s nose. "I need you to fight me, Matty. Not with fists like you were thinking, but with your mind. I know that deep down you have got to be really fucking angry with me. Tap into it. Call my bluff. Challenge me. Call me every name under the sun, but please start thinking for yourself again." Mello bit his lip, as he saw the anxiety flicker through Matt\'s eyes again. "Incidentally, I have a right bloody bruise over my kidney, you bastard. I hope your ribs are killing you."



Matt shrugged. "A bit." His eyes skated past the blond to focus on the practically empty room beyond. "Give me time, Mihael. I\'m trying."



It was gone eight pm before all replacement furniture was in position, with the carpet taped down and hoovered into a sort of respectability. There was a new desktop, which Matt was sitting at configuring it, and an array of laptops. The televison had several games consoles stacked neatily under it and all of the assorted wires were tidily stored with little clasps holding them separately together. Even Mother Mary watched over them again, now in her incarnation as the statue found and bubble-wrapped in Japan. Mello stood beside the settee, swaying slightly and picking at a mark which Matt couldn\'t even see. Mello glanced up to spot a forum\'s webpage on the monitor. "Weren\'t you setting up our e-mails?" Immediately the forum disappeared and a little form was viewed. The redhead started entering the POP information. "I think the correct response there was \'fuck off, Mello, I was looking at my forum\'." Green eyes flickered sidewards, his head following at the minutest degree. "Oh! Stop please. Matt, what do you want to be doing at this very moment in time?"



Matt pressed enter and sat back. "Ordering pizza?"



"Then order pizza." Mello responded with a defeated air. "I\'ve sorted out most of the flat now. I\'ve been in the bedroom too and tidied up. Please Matt, do whatever you want to do."



The redhead nodded and stood up. His legs wobbled, so he leaned on the back of the settee to propel himself around. Mello stared at the cushion, expecting him to take the longer way around the other side of the new coffee table, but he didn\'t. Matt stood behind him and reached around to hug Mello from behind. Kisses covered the scarring along his neck and up his cheek. Mello leaned back into him, keenly aware that Matt didn\'t have the strength to support him. He twisted around until their lips could meet and stole a kiss there. Their eyes met and Matt flashed an apologetic, shy smile. "You\'ve made the place look really nice. Thank you for doing it."



"Tidy environment, tidy mind." Mello whispered, conscious of Matt\'s hand moving gently over his stomach, shooting sparks of wanting into his groin. "I..." His words were cut off with another long kiss and it took all of Mello\'s willpower not to turn and scare away this fledging show of reaching out by taking over. The hand passed over the laces of his leather trousers and along the bulge of him. Mello could feel himself melting, losing for an instant in time the feeling that everything was falling apart. He held the duster redundantly and let it drop. One hand gradually moved behind to lightly touch Matt\'s arse through the denim and he felt the trembling there. Whether it was nerves or Matt\'s fight to stay upright, he couldn\'t tell, but in the kiss, it hardly mattered.



Matt drew away, sitting heavily upon the coffee table and glancing up. There was humour, flirtatiousness and worry, in equal measure, in those eyes. "What pizza would you like, Mihael?"



Mello sank to his knees, his arms on Matt\'s thighs and a smile of pure delight on his face. "Can I have chicken, mushroom and sweetcorn, please?" But his expression said that his hunger didn\'t necessarily involve food. "Kiss me like that again?"



Matt blushed and looked away, but he leaned down and he kissed him. "Anything else?"



"Hell, yes."



"With the pizza?"



"Oh." Mello blinked. "That sticky chocolate sponge with the sauce and another one of those kisses please." Matt laughed. It transformed his face. "You are so hot. You can\'t blame a man for wanting more."



Matt pecked a kiss, but Mello held his head and pushed his tongue between the redhead\'s lips. He rose up to be closer to eye-level and each held onto the other, as the kiss engulfed them. A loud alarm froze them both. "Shit." Matt scrambled for the mobile \'phone in his pocket and his eyes widened at the time, before he answered it. "Hiya." Mello peered forward and read \'Cartref\' on the identity screen. He frowned, unable to place the word. "Yes, we\'re just ordering pizza. Fixed the flat up." Mello\'s gaze fastened upon him and he flushed. The blond backed away, picking up the wired telephone to give him a semblance of privacy. He speed-dialled the pizza place and arranged for their food to be delivered. He knew what Matt would have. He always had the same. His lover was still making non-committal comments into the \'phone when Mello was done. "Yeah." Matt caught him looking. "Mihael is just perfect."



Mello was startled, rushing to the desktop and typing \'cartref\'\' into a search engine. A list of links were displayed, some advertising guest-houses, one about Dylan Thomas the poet and the rest in another language. There was a Welsh theme to them. Five pages didn\'t answer his question, so Mello added \'+ English\' to his original search. He hit jackpot. The very first link was someone asking what \'cartref\' meant in English. It was \'home\'. Mello relaxed and called across the room, "Hi Roger."



"Yeah, do you want to speak to him?"



As Matt handed over the mobile \'phone, Mello mouthed, "Welsh?"



"Yeah, it\'s probably the only language in the world you don\'t speak." Matt shrugged and smirked. Then a thought crossed his mind and showed on his features. As Mello spoke, reassuring Roger that their part of the world was all wonderful, Matt searched for a Welsh-English on-line dictionary and began scanning it. Committing the language to memory. Mello laughed and threw a new cushion at him.



Fifty minutes later, Matt deposited emptied pizza packaging into the kitchen bin and opened the fridge-freezer. The light came on and the interior was already cool. He surreptitiously looked down at the new socket behind it. Selecting a lager, he took a gulp and carried it into the front room. Two feet away from the settee, his legs gave way and he lunged forward before he fell. Matt remained there, very still, listening, but the water was still falling in the bathroom where Mello was showering. He released the breath he\'d been holding and climbed properly onto the settee. His thigh muscles ached and his knees were weak. Madeleine had said that, even if he just moved as much as he could normally, without exercise, his muscles and joints would be fine in a week. Just don\'t overdo it, she had counselled. Matt had accidentally left the exercise sheet in her office and had forgotten to go and get it. Panting, he looked back down. Lager had spilled all over the clean carpet and splashed up the side of the new armchair and settee. There would be time. There had to be time.



Matt overrode the screaming of his body to stand again. The puddle of lager stretched across his path and he could see no way over it, but for jumping or trailing lager footprints further afield. He reached out for the back of the armchair and leap. His arm gave and Matt careered onto the far side, rocking the armchair after him and crashing into the door. Ten seconds later, Mello was standing over him, dripping water. "I\'m sorry!" Matt screamed, trying to pull himself onto his knees. "I\'m going to clean it up. Please don\'t..." Conflicting instructions reeled his mind and he looked up in terror for the right one. But Mello was leaning against the doorjamb, hand over his mouth, tears falling down his cheeks. "Mell, I\'m losing it, tell me what to do."



The blond crouched down and hugged him close. "You\'re not losing it." Mello rubbed Matt\'s back as he sobbed. "You are not losing it. Take some deep breaths." Mello kissed his head. "Right wait there, I\'m getting your cigarettes." The blond leapt over the puddle like it was nothing, returning seconds later with the paraphrenalia of smoking and an ashtray. With tears swimming in his own eyes, he asked, "Are you alright?"



Matt nodded mutely, but took the cigarette that Mello lit for him and pushed between his lips. "I\'m sorry."



"Matt, if you wanted an indoor swimming pool, you should have mentioned it when we were shopping earlier." Mello flashed the weakest of smiles. "Now, let me get dry and then I\'ll be back. Don\'t move." He watched the redhead flinch. "I meant... shit, is there any vocabulary left that I didn\'t turn on its head for you?"



"It\'s ok."



"No, it\'s not, but it\'s going to be." Mello stood. "If it kills me, it\'s going to be."