Watari Pt 1: L\'s Heirs

Luigi nearly landed in the water, so retreated a couple of steps. The distance from grass to platform wasn\'t insurmountable, but there were all those flying fish and one of them appeared to be flying backwards. He was propelled forward but it was too late.

Matt looked up from his game, doubting that the damn thing had even been beta-ed, there were a lot of flaws. Unless that was just the version he\'d downloaded. He sighed and put it down, bored again.



The redhead was receiving his third and final infusions from the drips, propped up in his own bed, with the sun streaming in though the windows. The clock told him that it had already been in for half an hour too long, but there was no sign of Mello. On the bed beside him, the short stories of Fyodor Dostoevsky, in the original Russian, had been abandoned and so had he. Matt stretched and yawned, then pulled the needles out of himself. He declared himself no longer dehydrated nor suffering from hypothermia, and stood up from the bed. He spotted Mello immediately. He was outside collecting wild flowers and arranging them into a bouquet. Matt leaned out of the window and called down. "Is this a hint that you want me to buy you more flowers?"



Mello pretended not to hear him, but crossed back through the back door and out of view. From the bowels of the house, there came the call, "You can take the drips out now." Matt nodded and descended the stairs. There were two buckets of warm water and various cleaning materials in the hallway. Mello crossed beneath him, his flowers now in a vase and disappeared into the little chapel. Matt followed and peered inside. The tiny room had been scrubbed and polished. Its simplicity was now punctuated here and there with statues of saints and the Virgin which had lived on their dressing table during the last weeks at the flat. Mello knelt at the altar, arranging the flowers in situ. "You can come in if you want to."



Matt raised his hands. "It\'s alright. That\'s your realm." But he stayed leaning against the back wall of the corridor outside, watching his lover. There were many aspects of the rough diamond that was Mello, some of which Matt couldn\'t touch. His Catholicism was one of them. It had run, as an undercurrent, throughout their lives and remained as much a mystery to Matt now, as it had the first time he had watched the infant Mihael kneel down to pray before bed. Mello never did that anymore. In fact, it was rare to catch him praying at all, though Matt had no doubt that it happened secretly and silently. There were the distress prayers, of course, but they were different. They occurred in lieu of a scream, in Matt\'s humble opinion, generally in Croatian. Mello\'s Catholicism emerged in other ways these days. In medallions and statues, all of which had appeared out of the woodwork since they had arrived back from Japan. The rosary around his neck had been a constant during the past year, but other things had fallen away. Matt hadn\'t seen the trousers with the crosses on the knees for months.



"Ask me." Mello commented mildly, still on his knees, still with his back to the door.



"Ask you what?" Matt tried to read the mood, wondering if this was leading to some kind of marriage ritual.



"Anything." The blond replied cryptically.



Matt frowned. Mello always had an ulterior motive. The only thing he could deduce was that it was following through on the promise of their rings. His own ring was back now, prised from the finger of a corpse. Matt never allowed a hint to pass to Mello about how creepy that felt; he just wore the ring. He glanced down at it now, then, as he automatically did these days, his left hand rose to touch the collar around his neck. That was his true equivalent to the silver around Mello\'s finger. Matt looked into the chapel and wondered how a rite would play out. Mello would never consider himself married without a Catholic priest entoning the words; but no priest would marry them. A civil service was legal, but would mean nothing but a piece of paper to the blond and, besides, they would need to use their real names. Kira might be dead, but old habits died hard. Anonymity had been prized at Wammy\'s House long before Yagami Raito had come into possession of the Death Note. A cursory search on the internet had thrown up a Wiccan High Priestess who was willing to perform something called a handfasting, which was akin to marriage. Matt had briefly considered Mello\'s reaction to that one and had given up searching. Now he wished he\'d carried on.



"Nothing?" Mello peered back at him. He appeared calm and still, almost serene, none of which were adjectives that Matt would ordinarily associate with his fiery lover. "You\'re deep in thought, guapo."



"What are you waiting for me to ask?" Matt asked, cringing within at the notion that his deductions might be right.



Mello laughed. "It\'s not a trick question. It\'s me thinking about all those times that you\'ve just accepted things without question. I\'m offering you the chance to ask me anything."



"What like?"



"You\'re always so defensive at moments like this." Mello smiled, turning back to his flowers and moving them again, though the arrangement seemed perfect already, as far as Matt could see. He could tell this was going to be a long conversation, so the redhead slid down the wall and sat on the floor. Mello went on. "Shall I give you a question to start you off?"



"Yes." Matt frowned, waiting.



"Ask me how I felt when you quoted \'She Walks in Beauty\' to me, the day you started having your tattoo done."



Matt snorted. He realised that he should have got the clue from the flowers. This was Mello in a weird mood, heading towards more romance. "How did you feel?"



Mello smirked. "Loved. Even though you misquoted it and made me wonder why you\'d missed out the line that you did. Mostly I felt loved and lovely."



"That\'s because you are." Matt\'s eyes narrowed. "What did I miss out?"



"Two lines - \'of cloudless climes and starry skies\' and \'thus mellow\'d to that tender light.\' It was the second one that had me wondering if you meant something by it."



"No. I\'d just misquoted it." Matt watched Mello carefully. The light and the blond hair against Slavic skin, angellic, yet poured into that tight, black leather. The poem appeared more apt here than out on that balcony before. "\'All that\'s best of dark and bright meet in his aspect and his eyes: thus mellow\'d to that tender light, which heaven to gaudy day denies.\'"



Mello smiled back at him. "You even remembered it\'s \'bright\' and not \'light\' this time. Ask me something else."



"What like?"



"Anything!" Mello bit his lip. "Matt, look at it this way, I brutalise and batter information out of you. Why am I having to force you to ask for information of me? Ask me anything, even if you think it\'s going to hurt me. I\'ll tell you. Ask me about Yugoslavia, about Kira, about how I feel about you, anything."



Matt\'s gaze took in the chapel again, searching for the clues for Mello\'s mentality. The blond had turned, sitting on the cold slabs in front of his altar. Little tea-lights were revealed burning in an alcove. There was only ten feet between them, but it felt like a divide larger than that which had separated them in the cave. They were facing each other on the opposite sides of a solid, invisible wall of Catholicism. "Got it!"



"What?"



"This is your version of a Confessional!" Matt watched Mello bow his head, shoulders twitching with silent laughter. "Oh! Come on, give me a break. What are you angling for?"



"I\'ve already told you." Mello giggled. "I thought you\'d be brimming with questions, ready to ask me if you ever got an opportunity like this."



"Are you going to kill Neuron?"



Mello stopped smiling. In fact, he flinched a little. "Ok, finally. Erm..." He inspected his fingernails. "No, I\'m not. I regret that I didn\'t do it in Wareham Forest when I had the chance; and I\'m aware that this runs contrary to what I told you before, when I said I would kill anyone who took you away from me. Neither you or I are in danger anymore and so his death would be revenge. I can\'t justify revenge to myself."



Matt nodded, unsure how he felt about it, or even if he believed him. He felt relief for the main part, which surprised him, because he had just assumed that that shot would be fired. Another level, however, felt suddenly very cold. Mello was still watching him, waiting for another question. "You feel more deeply than I do and you\'ve got all this." Matt indicated the statues and candles. "I\'ve killed two people in my life and there isn\'t a day goes by when I don\'t think about them. How do you cope?"



"I\'m not sure that I do." Mello smiled weakly. "I did it and I live with it. I\'m not self-deluded enough to think that I wouldn\'t do it again, if the situation was critical enough. Eleven people, by the way and, like you, I think about them. I\'ve never directly killed anyone who didn\'t have blood on their own hands. They were all criminals. If that is a justification, then I\'m no better than Kira and I deserve execution myself. I know I\'m going to Hell."



Matt lit a cigarette, knowing that that was something he could never counsel Mello about. It was another of those abysses into which no rope could act as a life-line. "Were you able to have a relationship with me because of the people you killed?" He took a deep drag, then realised that Mello was looking confused. It was an unusual sight for someone as sharp as his lover. "I smoke like a chimney, even though I know I could get lung cancer. You commit mortal sins, even though you believe that you will end up in Hell. It\'s amazing how much we secretly believe ourselves immortal in this life, despite all the evidence to the contrary. If you were damned anyway, then did that smooth the way to loving me?"



"I should have remembered that you\'re a genius before I initiated a game of truth." Mello smiled, but his knees were drawn up and his chin rested on them. Matt had never seen him look quite so defensive, at least not without something being smashed. "I hadn\'t quite looked at it like that, but it makes sense. Truth is that I went a little crazy in the Mafia. Power is such a drug and everywhere I looked for a long, long time, all I saw was corruption. It\'s hard not to sink into that yourself, but then you came back into my life. You were like a little piece of purity and I couldn\'t stand it. In retrospect, I tried to drag you down to my level, though I wasn\'t consciously thinking that at the time. Your naivete annoyed me. I didn\'t want you to look at me like I was still worth looking at. I wanted to teach you how bad I was."



"Whoo." Matt breathed. "That\'s honest."



"I said you could ask me anything and there\'s no point in that if it\'s not answered with honesty."



"Do you still think that about me?"



Mello shook his head. "You pulled me out. I pulled you down. There\'s guilt that I\'ve led you into situations that have condemned your soul too, but not contempt. I\'m hopelessly in love with you now, which is a mindfuck all of its own." He smirked. "But in a good way."



"You haven\'t corrupted me." Matt smiled. "First person I killed was during a hacking job, which would have happened regardless of whether we\'d met back up. The second was that bloke in Croatia, when we fetched Luka. I pushed us into that one too."



"I put the gun in your hand, Matt. I taught you how to pull the trigger."



"And I pulled it." They had a stare-off. "Sorry, Mell, I know you feel responsible for the whole damn world, but I\'ll claim my own sins please."



Mello wriggled his shoulders. There was an audible creak from the knots in them. "Next question."



"Erm." Matt tried to think of something. "How close did you come to dumping me in LA?"



"Which time?"



"When we were spying on the Japanese officers and Misa Aname."



"It didn\'t even cross my mind." Mello replied. "I came closer to giving up my watch and coming to join you in your arcade. That night we played chess and you kept writing things and then not sending them? If you\'d carried on much longer, I might have come."



"How about the time before?"



"I nearly dumped you every day." Mello patted his pockets, then just sat there looking a little nervous. Matt smiled, gestured for him to hold that thought, then rose to visit the kitchen. He returned with a bar of chocolate from the fridge and threw it from the threshold. Mello caught it with a grin. "Thank you. I was a complete wanker to you when we were in LA the first time. I was still a complete wanker when we got back to England. I\'ve mostly been a complete wanker eversince, but..."



"No, you haven\'t."



"Yes I have."



"I\'m only playing truth with you if you don\'t invent reasons to beat yourself up." Matt stated firmly. He had resumed his position against the passage wall and was eating a bag of crisps. "Have you come close to dumping me any other time?"



"Yes. In Japan."



"What?" Matt gasped. "Shit! I missed that one. When?"



"During that whole fuck-up when I was turning you into my personal sex slave."



"You\'re going to have to narrow it down. Which bit?"



Mello flashed a wane smile within a worried expression. "When I beat you up and made you submit to me."



"That was the entire of last year. In Japan?" His memory scanned those hunted times and made the connection. "Oh. Then. When I finally got a hook into Yagami\'s server and you went from psycho-chick to I-hate-myself-and-want-to-die."



Mello frowned, sinking further behind his knees. "You have such a selective memory."



"You were really going to dump me?" Matt tried to keep the hurt from his tone, but it was there anyway.



"I said I was close. It was an error and, anyway, I didn\'t." The blond straightened, his concentration fully on the chocolate bar in his hand. "To be honest, I couldn\'t dump you now. I\'m too far gone, so I\'m with you for better and for worse, \'til death us do part. I meant it when I said that I\'m in love with you." His gaze flicked up to see how Matt was reacting.



Matt smiled in acknowledgement. These were the sort of words that Mello needed, not himself. Matt searched his own feelings, trying to isolate that missing part of himself that had his lover worrying about oxytocin levels. He knew that, as long as it was in his power, he would be with that impossible Slav for the rest of his life; he knew that he found Mello attractive and that, quite often, crossed the line into lust; he knew that he would die or kill, if it came to it, for his lover; he also recognised that there were times when it was just nice knowing that Mello was sitting in the same room reading or doing his own thing. Was that love? Matt supposed that it ticked all the boxes, but it felt like a simpler thing than that emotion which caused Mello to look at him like he did sometimes. Matt guessed that the moment was already past when he should have answered back, \'I love you too\'. Mello was already inspecting his chocolate like it was something he had never seen before; eating it with attentive enjoyment. "I have another question."



Mello seemed almost frightened, but he nodded. "What is it?"



"Do you enjoy sex with me?" Matt asked, but it wasn\'t quite what he meant. Across the distance, Mello blinked at him, then frowned slightly. Incredulity flashed for a moment, before a smirking laugh took over. "Hold on, let me rephrase it. Do you enjoy it like we do it?" He held up his hand to indicate that he wasn\'t finished. "During it, you look like you\'re right there with me and your body certainly is reacting in all the right ways. But," He let the \'but\' be the holding point, while he screwed up his empty packet of crisps and lit a cigarette, "you\'re always telling me that you hit me because I want you to, like it\'s nothing to do with you at all. Then you keep sneaking in stuff like you\'re not touching me until I\'ve healed, or we\'re doing it gentle, or like, romance and stuff, like what you\'d really like is something more vanilla." Matt took another drag. Mello was just watching him, an unreadable expression on his face. "Then you told me your fantasy and it was more about hurt and comfort than what we normally do. I don\'t know. Sometimes I feel like you\'re only doing it for me. Like it\'s secretly disgusting you."



Mello stared at him for the longest time. The nerves twisted Matt\'s stomach. He closed his eyes. Mello spoke, evenly, tasting his words. "When have I ever done anything that I don\'t want to do?" Relief struck Matt like a dart and he relaxed. Mello was still looking at him. As soon as their gaze connected, the blond went on. "I strongly suspect that you transfer your self-harming onto me. You don\'t have to cut, if I\'m doing it for you. That part of it I understand, but I don\'t like." He shrugged. It was Mello\'s way of saying that he would live with it. "Am I incredibly turned on by having you helpless and at my mercy? Yes. Am I turned on by the look in your eyes when I\'m beating you? Yes. Am I turned on by the fact that I can abuse the power I have over you in those moments? Hell, yes. To be honest, I don\'t know how I keep off you as long as I do sometimes." He grinned, then bit his bottom lip to suppress it. "You talk about comfort and hurt like it\'s a separate thing. Yes, that really turns me on, but I always comfort you afterwards. It\'s about the only time I can." Now the smile became more apologetic. "People used to call you shy, when we were kids. You\'re not shy, Matty, you\'re ridiculously closed off. You throw this big wall around you and even I have trouble getting through it sometimes. I have about five minutes, ten if I\'m lucky, after sex when you\'re wide open and I can get to you. Comforting you then is awfully powerful."



"Conquest?"



"No." Mello frowned, the chocolate still between his teeth. "Maybe. But I don\'t think it is. The bit before is, definitely, and maybe I\'m lying to myself. I always want to be on top, so maybe I am fooling myself. It feels more like..." He paused, searching his soul. "No, I\'m certain it\'s not. I was your friend long before I was your dribbling fanboy." He smirked. "It\'s as your friend I want to comfort you then. You tell me you haven\'t got depths, but I know there\'s a tempest raging in there somewhere. You\'ve just got a forty foot wall of solid granite built over the top of it. You\'re the strong one, out of us two, which is why you act so weak. You know I need to feel empowered." Suddenly Mello\'s vunerability was showing. His gaze took in the Virgin before it reached Matt. He looked very young. "The real problem isn\'t that I can\'t be made to feel like I\'m second best; it\'s that you can\'t be made to feel like you\'re the first."



Matt\'s breath caught in his chest. There was a sharp pain and, for a moment, he thought he was having a heart-attack. He had no doubt that Mello was speaking the truth as he believed it at this moment in time. But there was more than one Mello contained in that slight form and this was the only version of him that could even countenance Matt being above him. The redhead knew that he had only got away on a technicality the last time they had circled in this dance. Only Matt and Roger knew about the Mario Clause; only they two knew that by some fluke Matt had ranked higher than Near and Mello. Matt would rather attempt to out-think Near than do the same with Mello. The blond frightened him sometimes with his lightening connections of facts into coherent conclusions. It felt preternatural, even psychic, though Matt had seen enough of Mello\'s workings out to know that it was pure genius. One day, Mello was going to find out and Matt was certain that that would be the day he was murdered and his beloved blond left alone to deal with it. "What do you mean?"



"Control." Mello clarified. Matt could have sobbed in relief. He bowed his head so that his hair would shield his face and eyes from betraying him. "The power in this relationship is with you."



"Right." Matt schooled his features into a smirk and raised his head. "Of course it is, Mello. Whatever you say."



"You just think about it, Matt. I\'m not going to insult your intelligence by spelling it out for you." He nodded towards the redhead. "All I\'ll say is this, you only have to say \'no\' and a lot of things would stop straight away. I have to wheedle, shout, order you around, think up strategies, try to charm you..."



Matt laughed. "I wondered where this was leading. Spit it out."



"No, it\'s the truth generally." Mello\'s arms were wrapped around his shins. He looked very small, surrounded by his flowers and sunbeams. "Everyone thinks I force you into things and I have you wrapped around my little finger. I just wish it was true."



"Mell, you say \'jump\' and I say \'how high?\' That\'s how it\'s always worked." Matt surveyed the Oscar winning performance going on by the altar. He had no doubt that there was a wounded child at Mello\'s core, but this wasn\'t it. Then the blond looked at him and Matt wondered if perhaps it was after all. "What are you trying to get out of me that I won\'t give?"



Mello shook his head and sat up a little straighter. "You are supposed to be asking me questions."



"That was a question." He watched him carefully, but Mello had withdrawn inside himself again. Matt changed tactics. "Do you really wish I was wrapped around your little finger?"



Mello grinned. "Ok, no I don\'t. It would be very boring for a start." He thought about it, munching on a square of chocolate. "Though a little bit more would be nice."



"Why are you all vunerable today?"



The blond glanced sharply at him, then around at his chapel, before fixing his eyes on the redhead again. "I\'m not. If anything, I\'ve started to relax again."



"Right." Matt shrugged. "I\'m all out of questions."



Mello watched him, a faint smile appearing on his face, and Matt knew that the blond had a question for him. He waited and it came.