Watari Pt 1: L\'s Heirs

One of the things that Mello had first loved about this house was its light. The sun spilled in now through the stained glass, bright on the staircase, as he and Matt emerged at last from the chapel. He paused, just staring at it, holding Matt\'s hands and feeling so full of happiness and hope that it seemed to erase all of the past to overwhelm him in the present. He leaned into the redhead and just hugged him close. It turned into a kiss, which Mello was grinning too much to prolong. As he drew away, Matt looked so amused, watching him with sparkling eyes. Mello blinked back tears and caressed his lover\'s cheek and neck.



"I don\'t think I\'ve ever seen you like this, Mell." Matt smirked.



Mello pushed back the unwelcome thought that he was making a fool of himself. The sheer beauty of this moment shouldn\'t be tarnished by such things. "Do you want to do something really reckless, Matty?" The redhead raised his eyebrows in interest, but waited for him to go on before committing himself. "Let\'s take a picture of us."



Matt blinked. "What?"



Mello gushed on. "I know! But..." He tried desperately to think of a reason that, in a more coherent moment, either one of them would accept. There was none. Cameras had been frowned upon at Wammy\'s House and images could have been deadly under Kira\'s reign of terror. Long, ingrained habit had rendered such things taboo in their lives. Only one picture had ever existed apiece, locked away in Roger\'s safe until the height of Kira\'s destructive influence. Matt had personally destroyed his own. Near had retrieved Mello\'s and had handed it back in New York. It no longer existed. Two more had existed of Matt, depicting him in so much peril that Mello\'s blood still froze to recall them, but they too had been destroyed. Near had promised it and, for all their enemity, Mello believed him; besides, he had had Hal double-check that it had been done. "I just want one."



Matt\'s lips closed over his, withdrawing with a searching emerald gaze. "Ok." In their world, it felt like it was tantamount to signing a suicide pact and Mello nearly backed down again. "I could take one on the \'phone or set up a webcam and take a still from that."



They climbed the stairs slowly, fingers entwined and palms pressed together. At the top of the stairs, Mello burst into tears again, folding himself into Matt\'s arms. The redhead cuddled him and Mello just let it happen. It didn\'t last for long, but it did release a little of the overwhelming emotion. "I\'m sorry, Matty. I\'m just..." He exhaled and kissed Matt\'s bare shoulder. "I\'m really happy. I really am. I know it doesn\'t look like it. But I\'m really happy." His new husband laughed in his ear. "Oh God! You still love me after everything I\'ve put you through! You give me all of this and..." Mello leaned back to see Matt\'s face, paused by the soothing noises that the redhead was making. "I can\'t tell you how much I love you. You never give up on me. You\'ve brought me back from so much."



"Well, it\'s not like you ever give up on me either." Matt winked.



"Sorry, you\'ve had to put up with me being really sappy today." Mello sniffed.



"It\'s cute."



The blond laughed, then added, as justification. "You make me feel innocent. Pure."



Now Matt spluttered out a laugh, but saw the look in Mello\'s eyes. It practically begged him not to. "Sorry, angel." He planted kisses all over Mello\'s face in recompense. "Ok, I know what you\'re saying. I just took it another way. I\'m being dirty-minded, you\'re being spiritual. We\'ll find some middle ground in a minute."



Mello grinned. "You\'re feeling horny?"



"I was two seconds ago. Now I\'m aiming towards Godly. It may take some time."



Mello slapped his backside. "Idiot." He stared at the redhead and his eyes filled up again. "I just love you so much, Matty."



"Aww." Matt swooped in for another kiss. "Pretty, little Mihael. My husband." He paused, considering the word. "Pretty, pretty husband of mine. Pretty..." His expression changed suddenly. "Shit, just thought of a question I should have asked when I had the chance."



Mello\'s crimson face rose from Matt\'s shoulder again. He flashed a little smile. "Ask me now."



"No. I don\'t know the answer, so it might be a bit of a mood killer. Besides, you\'re fun like this. I\'ll ask you when you turn back into one of the less cute and fluffy Mellos." He grinned, as the blond\'s eyes narrowed and Mello attempted to look sassy. "Don\'t. It\'s sweet seeing you coming over all unnecessary."



Mello glanced at the ceiling, then back. "Will you stop saying I\'m sweet and cute and fluffy, just because I\'m baring my soul to you."



"Maybe your soul is sweet, cute and fluffy." Matt shrugged. "Come on, you wanted a picture."



"I\'ve changed my mind."



"Contrary fucker." Matt laughed, but led the way to his study anyway.



Mello took a deep breath, "What I really want is a photograph of you."



"Well, I want one of you then." They were well inside Matt\'s study now, stepping over wires. The redhead attempted to pull his hand free of Mello\'s, but it was held fast. He used just one hand to set the webcam up. "I know what\'s going on in your head, Mell. It\'s occurred to you that you\'ll end up being photographed with your scar."



"Will you photoshop it out?"



"No." The webcam was ready, but Mello hadn\'t responded. Matt turned to find him standing there beside him blinking nervously. "You can do what you want with your copy, but mine is going to stay undoctored with you in all your hot, sexy, gorgeous..." He reached in for a kiss and claimed it. Mello smiled at him. "I\'d love to know which bit of \'Mihael Ezra Keehl is fucking gorgeous\' you have so much trouble with."



"The left side."



Matt shrugged. "I walked into that one." He winked. "You\'re wrong, by the way. Sorry, but that\'s just the way it is." The redhead turned and clicked a button. Mello noticed too late that the button said, \'stop recording\'. "If you\'ll just give me a few seconds, you\'ll have your pictures, angel."



Mello blinked and drew closer. A sharp edge crept into his tone. "You recorded our faces!"



The redhead pressed himself up against him and kissed him hard. "Mihael, give me two more minutes before turning into Mello at his most paranoid." A look of wonder crossed his face. "God, you\'re so pretty. Wow! We got married!"



Mello gave him a stare which said, \'I know what you\'re up to\', but it softened. He just leaned on Matt\'s shoulder and whispered, "I can\'t believe you have different names for my different moods. You make me sound schizophrenic." He allowed Matt to extract his hand, but snaked his own arms around the redhead\'s stomach, watching over his shoulder as he worked. Matt freeze-framed the recording, taking screenshots. "Oh, no, Matty, you can really see..."



"You look hot as fuck. Really pretty."



"Stop humouring me. Can\'t we just...?"



"No, because I fancy the Hell out of you just the way you are. Honestly, Mell, it doesn\'t look half as bad to me as it must look to you."



"That one there is a bit better. My hair is..."



"Mello. Sssh." Matt turned and gave him a peck on the cheek. "Prettiest man I ever saw." Mello was silent, until his husband had the screenshots whittled down to five or six, hovering over the last one with his mouse debating on scrapping it. There was no direction from the blond, so he left it. In the next instant, he deleted the recording. "I\'ve got a military shredder. I\'ll make sure it disappears forever." He scrolled through the remaining images. Three were of Mello. In the first, he looked remarkably shy and young; in the second, he was smiling; and in the third, he was frowning across at Matt, though only a blurred edge of red hair implied that. The fourth picture was of both of them kissing; and the fifth saw them caught at the moment of drawing away, Matt\'s position hid Mello\'s scar and both of them wore expressions that spoke of love. The sixth was a cropped picture of Matt, looking back towards Mello off camera. He had a faint smile and a prominent bruise on his cheekbone. Otherwise, his hair and goggles had hidden his face. "These do?"



Mello blinked, coyly. "I\'ll let you keep one of the ones of me, if..." He flashed a little smile. "I love your eyes, Matty. Please may I have a picture of you looking at the camera?"



Matt blushed slightly, but did as he was bidden. Mello dashed to sit on the other computer chair, out of range of the camera. At the last moment, he even pushed his goggles onto the top of his hair, taking half of his fringe with them. His fingers picked at the locks, until a glance at Mello made him laugh. "I love how you\'re just sitting there doing your \'I\'m being good\' pose." He pulled off the goggles and dropped them into Mello\'s lap. "How do I look now? Up to standard?"



"You have no idea, guapo."



"Yeah, but I can\'t say I\'ve had much practice at trying to look gorgeous. Help me out here, please."



Mello smiled, shaking his head. "Just take the picture, Matt. You totally misunderstood me. " He smirked at the wariness that covered the redhead\'s face. "Take the picture." Matt did so, using the webcam to take a still shot instead of recording. His final expression was slightly nervous and he nearly scrapped it, but Mello dashed around to the other side of him to save it. "Now, Matty. How about I tie you down and abuse your body until you...?" He clicked the mouse. "Yes, that\'s a good one. Matt. What\'s the best game between...?" He clicked to capture the smirk and sparkling eyes that had gazed back at the blond. "I want all three. Oh! And another one! Matt..."



"Hey!"



"Shut up and do what you\'re told." Mello bobbed his tongue out. "You\'re not keeping my pictures by the way, this was all a set up to..." He clicked. "Yes! I got the \'that\'s what you think\' look!"



"So there are now five pictures of you and six of me in existence." Matt complained. "How is that safe?"



Mello leaned over him, a hand on his chest, and kissed his lips. "I thought you liked danger, guapo." The lingering look caused Matt\'s pupils to widen in reaction. Mello clicked the mouse still in his hand. "Seven of you in existence." A finger traced the lines of Matt\'s chin, luxuriating in the gaze that held his eyes. "But fair\'s fair. If I can keep all seven, you get two more." Mello raised his hand. "I know what you want. Do what you need to so we get those images. I\'ll be right back." He slipped away, dropping the mouse back onto the desk.



Matt watched him go, puzzling over what his lover could possibly think he wanted, when he hadn\'t worked that out himself. Perhaps Mello looking at him as he had a few seconds ago, in pure sex. He sat, cropping the images until they were tidy enough to print off. "What size do you want?" He called back, but all he could hear was water running in the bathroom. Matt absently picked up a chisel that was beside his keyboard, looking at it in confusion. His gaze crossed to the small hole in the wall on the far side of the room, where he had been fitting a plug. That felt like a million years ago. Around the time that he heard the hair-dryer begin its mosquito hum in their bedroom, Matt gave up on waiting and just took up his DS instead. He became Phoenix Wright, defence attorney, flicking through the court proceedings without the need to visit the evidence box. Mello wasn\'t fooling him for one minute. Whatever he thought he was doing, it all boiled down to the fact that he was washing his hair and making himself beautiful in order to have his picture taken.



It took a good twenty minutes before Matt heard heavy boots striding along their landing. He looked up expectantly, ready to tease the blond about his vanity, but Matt\'s smile froze on his face. The man who had danced out of this room was not the same one who had returned. It was Mello, but another version. There was no hint in that cold stare that pretty, little Mihael had ever been conceived of, let alone born into this world. Matt had seen his lover become this dark entity before and had learned to face it, despite the thundering of his heart and the urge to flee. There wasn\'t even a weapon in evidence. Mello didn\'t need one. The look that he gave Matt felt like hatred. It was like a year had unravelled and deposited them back at the beginning. Without a fist leaving Mello\'s pockets, Matt flinched. The blond just went on staring.



"You washed your hair." Matt whispered eventually. "And bought some new clothes."



"Yes." Mello growled, but didn\'t volunteer any more information. He took a step forward and Matt pressed himself involuntarily into the back of his computer chair. "You like what you see?"



Matt\'s reason overtook his half-panicked mind. "Why do you think I\'m more turned on by you in full Mafia garb, staring at me like I\'m already dead, than I am by you being all shy and pretty?"



The blond took the final steps towards him, glaring down. "Because you are, Matt." His lowering gaze took in the huge pupils, the breathlessness and the tell-tale bulging of the redhead\'s shorts. "Take the God damned picture."



"You never smiled in those days. Not like you did earlier." Matt breathed. "You think I get off on the darkest days of your entire life?"



"Frankly, yes." Mello smiled now. Matt wished he hadn\'t. The blond reached over him, taking up the mouse and glowering into the webcam\'s eye. His image filled the screen, terrifying; dead eyes promising pain, torture or worse. His hair mostly covered the scarring. "Besides, if you are going to sneak a picture of me into your wallet, I\'d rather any potential thief saw precisely what was out to get them." His gaze returned to pin Matt to his chair. "You weren\'t hard when I was crying at the top of the stairs because it was all so beautiful. I was clinging to you then. Now I haven\'t even touched you and you are practically drooling." With icy disdain, Mello stepped away. "Let me be the judge of what turns you on, Matt."



"Owned." Matt whispered. "But..."



"Come with me." The dangerous blond didn\'t look back, but marched out of the room. Matt stared at the floor for a couple of seconds, then saved the image and followed in his wake. Mello was half-lying on the bed, one knee up, still glaring at him. The drips had disappeared from the room. "It was all look but don\'t touch in those days, wasn\'t it? Until, of course..." He smirked, then the humour dropped and he hissed, "I want to scare the living daylights out of you."



"Really?" The redhead\'s mouth had gone dry. Things had spiralled out of control. His mind searched for ways to recall Mihael. He wanted to see that blush again. "Mi..." He began, but Mello moved. He languidly reached behind him beneath the pillow. Matt stepped back with such speed that he crashed into the wardrobe door. Coat hangers rattled inside.



Mello eyed him with serpentine amusement. "Do I make you nervous, Matty?"



The redhead straightened and walked a couple of paces towards him. "No, because I know..."



"Your mind and body are at odds with one another." Mello observed. He withdraw a semi-automatic and pointed it at Matt, then tutted. "What have I done to poor, little Mail? All weak and nervous. You see how quickly I can take you over and make you surrender to me?" His Medusa stare, down the line of the gun, caused goosebumps to raise on Matt\'s half-naked body. "All beaten up and at my beck and call. I own you, Matt, in every way you can be owned." He snickered and licked at his chocolate. Caught between the wardrobe and the bed, Matt\'s knees felt shaky. "I put a collar around your neck that you can\'t take off, even if you wanted to, but I had a collar around your mind before we were ten years old. Come here, Mail Jeevas. I have a job for you."



It felt as though there was an invisible shield around the blond. It was almost tangible, prickling against the skin, as Matt took the nine steps into Mello\'s proximity. Instincts rang that this man was not to be trusted. There were many Mellos, but he had gone mad before. He had been half-mad in the Mafia. Danger crackled in the air and those blue eyes never blinked. No amusement. No hint that Mihael had ever been. No shining insanity either, just a maniacal stare. It could not be acting, for all his talk in the study. The aura about him felt too real. "Mello..." Matt breathed, but found that he didn\'t know what else to say.



"Good boy." Mello sat back again, against the headboard, utterly relaxed, self-confident and unafraid. He had nothing to be afraid of. "I\'ve been capable of such things." He spoke softly, but without regret. It sounded more like a threat. "But of everything I\'ve done, the thing I\'m most proud of is subjugation of you. I took one of the finest minds in, perhaps, the world and I broke it to my will. It\'s been a long game, Matty, longer than you could possibly contemplate, but you were never going to beat me. \'Don\'t you know, you always followed me?\'"



Matt stared, trying to work it out. Mello was playing mind games, that was a certainty. He was repeating the old barbs that Linda had cast, that Mello had bullied Matt to be on side, so that he hadn\'t been fighting a war on two fronts to become L\'s successor; only this time, Mello was saying it as if it really were true. The triumphant half-smile and the glare prolonged the confirmation. It rendered it hard for Matt to think and to return again, in his mind\'s eye, to that hotel room in New York when Mello had denied it. Yet, he had just quoted \'Wuthering Heights\' and there was love wrapped up in that. Mello had said that the first time he ever knew he had loved the redhead more than as a friend had been while reading \'Wuthering Heights\'. Mello never did anything accidentally. That quotation now must have been precise. "You\'re messing with my mind."



"Of course I am." Mello sneered. "It\'s one of my great pleasures in life."



Matt touched his collar. He remembered dark hours that had felt infinitely long, struggling against the surety of his paranoia that no-one was coming. The cold metal of the collar reminding him that Mello would always come. He could not be abandoned in this world, while Mello lived and breathed. His mind reeled again into the scenes from the chapel downstairs and the shy boy on the landing, gazing at him with such open, unfettered, raw love and need. Either Mello was play-acting now in a masterly performance or something had clicked in his mind and sent him spiralling back along the months into a more terrible self. If it was love, then this was seduction; if it was real, then Matt knew he was going to stay and confront it. He nodded and green eyes met blue eyes in a defiant gaze. "Then you\'d better tell me what you\'d like me to do."



Mello shook his head, almost imperceptively, and his gun arm rose to rest against the wall. The automatic was pointing at the ceiling, as he peered with eyes in darkness beneath that long, blond fringe. "I want you," he paused, conveying murderous intent without a word, "to strip me naked and make love to me." He watched Matt\'s double-take, the surprise flooding his features. The blond continued in that same menacing tone. "How frightening for you, Matt, to be the one making all the moves. You, who spend most of our sex-life strapped down at my mercy. I want to finally see what those little looks you gave me, all through puberty, all through our reunion, were betraying. Come on. You\'ve stripped me with your eyes enough times." He growled out, "You will do it."



"You want me to..." Matt began, but Mello was glaring at him still. The redhead mentally resolved to tell his husband, the next time Mello was sane, just how intimidating he could be like this.



The blond yelled suddenly. "Do not make me repeat myself, you stupid piece of shit."



Matt nodded. He stepped forward and placed one knee on the bed beside Mello. He leaned forward, heart pounding, right into the Mafia shell of his lover and kissed Mello hard on the mouth. One shaking hand snaked up and pressed against the hand that held the gun. The lips that moved against Matt\'s held urgency and desperation; the gun was relinquished into his grasp. The redhead closed his eyes conveying back fear, lust and reassurance. Mello was acting. Mello had to be acting. Matt drew back, holding the gun, but the blue eyes staring back were still cold, scornful. Matt smiled. "My pretty, pretty Mihael."



For just a second, the gaze softened and Mello lip was captured between his teeth, then released. There was the tiniest pinking of his cheeks, but then it was gone. "So that\'s all you wanted to do? Kiss me and take my gun. You really are a gormless geek, aren\'t you?" He watched Matt checking the magazine of the firearm. It had not been loaded. "I never needed a gun to own you, Mail. You lie down and play dead at the slightest raising of my voice."



Matt placed the gun back onto the beside cabinet, well within reach of his lover, then knelt back on the bed. He smirked and turned his back on the Mafioso to untie the bows at those hefty army boots. "I remember when you were always bare-foot, even when you played football. Now you\'ve got those pretty toes all crushed into big men\'s boots." He expected a kick, but it didn\'t come. The redhead shrugged. "I always thought ballerina shoes would have suited you better." He glanced back, but there was no sign of a smile quickly hidden. Mello was glowering with as much deadly hatred as he had before. The breath caught in Matt\'s throat and he was aching from the need to have sex with his tormentor. He pulled the boots off and dropped them to the floor. Peeling off the thick, military socks, he kissed the feet that he uncovered. They smelt of soap and shower gel. He kissed the sensitive arch, just as Mello sometimes did with him. He knew how that felt.



Turning, Matt straddled Mello\'s shins and gazed back. The blond narrowed his eyes. "Whoopee, you got my boots off with a load of chatter. A fourteen year old virgin could do better."



"I practically am." Matt replied lightly and grinned, though inwardly his nerves bit. "Look at you in your pretty feathers. How can I see you blushing if you\'ve covered half your face?" He shuffled upwards, until he was sitting on Mello\'s lap. There was evidence beneath him that the blond wasn\'t quite as dispassionate as he made out. Matt started to relax.



A gloved finger extended and hooked itself around his collar. "Just because my body remembers what it\'s like to screw the pitiful life out of yours, don\'t get thinking it means anything. You\'ve been told to strip me. Strip me."



Matt\'s eyes widened, thrown off-guard, but all reason said he was right. Somewhere underneath all the leather and cruelty, there had to be a reserved, shrinking boy, so devoured by his own inferiority complex that he lashed out as defence. His mind fed him this analysis. His body moved on its own wanton reaction, throwing himself into an unreciprocated embrace that was, nontheless, not broken by the Mafioso. Matt found Mello\'s lips and tasted again the message that they conveyed. Matt\'s fingers rose up, searching through the black feathers until he found a zip, then he pulled downwards. It moved just a couple of inches before jamming fast. The redhead withdrew to inspect the feather caught fast in the zipper and frowned beneath Mello\'s bemused smirk. "Fuck it." Matt squeezed in a finger and just snapped the feather in two. It still took a fair amount of yanking before the mechanism was free to ride downwards, exposing the leather vest beneath. "Hax0red!"



Mello sounded derisively bored. "It\'s so far taken you over five minutes to get me out of my boots and unzip my jacket. You\'re hardly Don Juan, are you, Matt?"



"Yes, it has." Matt blushed. "But these clothes weren\'t designed to be removed easily, no matter how fucking hot you look in them." He was rewarded by a quickly concealed flash of surprise across Mello\'s face. "Not the most accessible sex God in the world, were you, Mihael?"



"Or you are just clumsy." Mello snapped. "I\'m beginning to remember why I always tied you up. It was too painful watching you fumbling around like a pre-pubescent nerd."



"You never gave me the chance to try before you tied me up." Matt countered. He pushed the sleeves down over Mello\'s shoulders and found him to be as pliant and co-operative as a doll in the matter of his own stripping. He sat up straight and pulled the blond against him, sliding a hand beneath the jacket and pressing it upon Mello\'s back. The feathered garment was removed and dropped onto the floor beside the bed. Matt kissed the bare arms, from shoulder to hand, then removed each glove, kissing down to the fingers and sucking them. One arm still held the blond against his body and Matt felt, rather than saw, Mello\'s shoulders squeeze together coquettishly. It was a gesture that spoke more of Mihael than the Mafioso Mello he had become. Matt rose and buried his lips into the side of Mello\'s neck, licking at the scar tissue there. His hand stroked the lower back, between leather vest and leather trousers. "Lovely Mihael, beautiful and hot. Sexy, pretty Mihael, my angel." Matt felt a smile against his bicep and knew that he was winning.



An ungloved hand rose behind him and grabbed a handful of red hair. "Mail, why am I still not stripped?"



Matt froze. He was being pulled away to face another of those Gorgon glares only inches away. "Calling me Mihael a lot won\'t disarm me, Mail." Mello snickered, coldly. "Two can play at that game, you know." Amusement flickered through that icy stare. "Interesting. Carry on."



Fear replaced the momentary confusion in Matt\'s mind. He tried to replay every movement or thought he had had while Mello was speaking, just to see what secret thing the genius had just disciphered about him. He reached out, under the rosary, to grasp the zip of the vest and Mello let go of his hair. It was a game that Mello was playing. That much was obvious, though its nature was lost in the warped workings of the blond\'s sadistic mind. Matt exhaled. He was good at games. He placed his hand behind Mello\'s head and pressed down on his chest, bending him sidewards over the edge of the bed, swooping down into a Hollywood kiss. The blond\'s arms dangled down and Matt unzipped the leather vest, letting it fall naturally to the ground. His mouth found a nipple and sucked on it. Matt\'s free hand worked at the belt buckle, shivering slightly at the remembrance of the times when it had been used to stripe him, stinging down on his naked flesh.



But Matt\'s limbs and muscles were weak still, not quite recovered, for all the rehydration, from the strain that had been placed upon his body down in the cave. He started shaking under Mello\'s weight and quickly raised him, panic flashing and receding at this genuine ineptitude. Mello leaned back, supported by his arms, on the bed and surveyed him with a smirk. It wasn\'t a cruel smile, though his eyes danced with mirth. "Yeah, what can I say?" Matt shrugged it off. "You\'re still pretty, whether your name\'s Mello or Mihael. Pretty as a picture." Mello glanced down at his half-opened belt, then back up again, still smiling. "I\'m on it!"



"I didn\'t say a word."



"You don\'t need to, you impatient fucker." Matt caught Mello drinking in the sight of him, with long, lingering gazes, and so he returned the favour. His hands worked at the belt buckle and then at the laces. They were tied far tighter than usual. The knot holding them was doubled beneath the bow. "What the fuck? I thought I was the masochist in this relationship." But Mello just carried on smiling at him. Matt glanced at Mello\'s nails, then his own. Mello\'s were manicured, just long enough to allow him to scratch lines into Matt\'s chest; Matt\'s own nails were bitten to the quick and were going to be no use in this situation. He shrugged and went down with his teeth. The blond gasped in surprise, but otherwise remained still.



Conscious of the time this was taking, and the fumbling, the redhead\'s nerves began to take a grip. More haste, less speed, said an old adage, and Matt understood it only too clearly now. He tried to slow down but if Mello made one more biting comment about how this was going, he thought he might just give up and take the consequences. A hand touched his head, Mello\'s thumb stroking down onto Matt\'s forehead. He peered up into a smile. "I love you, Mail."



Matt\'s jaw dropped. "What?" Mello didn\'t repeat it, just looked pointedly at his flies until Matt bent again over them. More calmly now, he worked out the knots and released the laces with a flourish. With a final pulling, fingers on either side of the waistband, Matt was able to ease the leather past Mello\'s hips and onto his thighs. His erection rose already nearly full, but the only outward sign of the relief he must have felt was a closing of his blue eyes. Matt grinned. "Mihael, you\'re so pretty." He bowed low and took the member in his mouth, deep throating as soon as his muscles would allow it.



Mello bucked against him, his fingers clenching the quilt beneath and his shoulders tensing. A loud sigh escaped his mouth, followed by a moan. "Oh God! Baby, that\'s good! That\'s really good!" The redhead fell into the rhythm of it, controlling his breathing through his nose. After a while, it became almost trancelike, his throat giving way into final surrender, allowing Mello to go deeper still. Just when he divined that the blond was about to come, there were fingers in his hair again, pulling him up and off. "Not like that." Mello gasped, his face, neck and chest reddening. "Your remit was to strip me and make love to me. Do it."



Panting wildly, Matt signalled for the glass of water on the side. Mello passed it without comment and the redhead drained it in one. His brain finally registered the second part of what Mello had been saying all along. "When you say \'make love to you\', what do you mean?" He shuffled backwards, pulling the leather trousers completely free of the blond\'s legs and casting them away with the rest of his clothing on the floor. His fingers trailed along Mello\'s shins and thighs, stroking and tickling. "Huh?"



As soon as Matt reached Mello\'s dick, glistening with pre-cum and saliva, the blond caught hold of his wrist and lifted his hand away. "Come here, guapo." Matt walked along the side of the bed, then climbed on again to straddle the blond\'s stomach. Mello\'s grin was more like a leer, his dazed eyes rising over the cuts, bruises and prominent ribcage of his lover\'s bare torso and up to meet the smile above it. "Just follow your nature. Your body knows." Black painted fingernails made short work of undoing the button and zip at Matt\'s flies, pulling his shorts and boxers down to strip him naked too. "Oh yes, your body knows."



"Follow my nature?" The redhead whispered, extracting his legs from his clothes and throwing them onto the floor. Mello\'s fingers were pressing into his wrist, but the lust in the man\'s eyes made it seem like this was an unconscious action. Matt\'s hand stroked across Mello\'s chest and stomach, touching himself on the upward stroke. "God, you\'re so gorgeous, Mell. I can\'t believe I got you."



"Will you please get on with it?" Mello breathed.



"Right." Matt leaned forward, pressing his mouth over Mello\'s, while his hand reached backwards to encase the dick he\'d already been pulled off. Mello tried to catch his other hand, but Matt was quicker, nevertheless, the blond had stopped the handjob and so his arm fluttered back onto the bed. The redhead lifted himself and slowly, precisely, lowered himself onto his lover\'s aching member, guiding it surely into himself, lubricated with all that he had collected on his hand. Mello\'s eyes opened with surprise and Matt grinned. "I followed my nature, pretty Mihael. Now you follow yours." Half-drunk with the intoxication of lust, Mello laughed, but he let it happen. A moment later, he released Matt\'s wrist and held his hips, keeping him steady as he rode him past the line, into stars and wonder and the all consuming explosion of climax.



Mello took a few seconds to just lie there, eyes closed, breaths ragged. His hands remained resting on his lover\'s thighs; he was still inside Matt, but not so hard, until it was uncomfortable and the blond pushed against him until the redhead moved off him. Quickly, Mello sat up, one hand in Matt\'s hair and the other at his collar. The redhead\'s need was apparent in the intensity of his kiss, but Mello just held him there, communicating possession with his lips. Matt\'s arms wrapped around Mello\'s back, his erection hard against his lover\'s stomach, squirming in full body movements. The blond leaned back, but Matt followed, prolonging the kiss with Mello\'s head against the wall behind him. Mello pulled on the hair and pushed on the collar. "Thank you for making me feel so beautiful. You did everything right. Now, Matty, do all that I asked you." He toppled the redhead onto his back on the bed, releasing his hair but holding fast to his collar. The other hand pushed down on Matt\'s chest, pinning him to the mattress, as Mello rose. He paused to peer down at his prey, smiling smugly, enjoying the sight of him. "You\'re so hot, guapo. Sexy as fuck." The green gaze staring back was purely wanton over a tiny smile. Mello twisted until he was lying on his front, then his fingers yanked on the collar, raising the redhead with it. "You stripped the Mafia from me, now claim me for your own. Take possession, Mail. Please."



"I understand." Matt replied, his tongue thick, his voice husky.



"I know you do, baby." Mello practically dragged the redhead on top of him. "God! You are so light! Eat! Not now, but... ok, one thing at a time. Folliame, Mail!" His fingers worked behind him, lathering himself in Matt\'s pre-cum. "Fucking do it!"



"Ok! Stop trying to control me!" The redhead fought against the arm twisted back around his waist. Beneath him, Mello laughed out loud. Matt kissed him all down one side of his face, sucking on his ear, as he attempted to guide himself into entering. "I can\'t do it!"



"Yes you can. You did it before." Mello reached to push his lover\'s head down to where he could kiss his lips. "Please, Mail. I love you. Please."



"You have to relax, angel." It seemed to happen in an instant, one moment pressing painfully at the head and the next he was fully inside Mello. "Oh my God! I\'m not hurting you, am I?"



"Fuck me, Matty. Claim me!" The blond hissed into the pillow, his fingers clenching at the covers. "Make love to me."



Matt\'s hand slid down Mello\'s arm to fold around his fingers; kisses came hot and rampant all over his face. "You\'re so pretty, Mihael. So pretty." He thrust into him moaning loudly and Mello bit his lip. Matt\'s hand passed up and down the side of his lover\'s body, from arm to hips, in great, long strokes. Gasping for breath, but the words came, uncharacteristically Matt, and he couldn\'t have said where they came from. "I love you so much, Mihael, my angel, my pretty angel. You\'re safe. I\'ve got you. God in Heaven, I love you. You\'re safe, my darling."



Beneath him, tears fell from Mello\'s eyes, soaking the pillow with silent sobs, until Matt came with a great shudder and a sigh inside him. He pumped away for long moments after the sensation had passed, until the earth resolved itself and the redhead could see clearly again. Panting with exertion and release, Matt finally lay still upon him and held him in his arms. No words were spoken; they weren\'t needed in those sacred seconds, when Mello cried and Matt kissed him, until the sniffs ceased and he kissed him back. When, eventually, the redhead slid off him and lay beside, holding him close, it was his stripped raw, shy Mihael staring right back. "Thank you, Mail, you were so brilliant. You don\'t know what you just did for me."



"I know." Matt smiled, stroking the blond hair from his lover\'s eyes. He didn\'t like to consider how many layers of hurt and acting he had just passed through to bring Mello back to the start. "It\'s ok. I hadn\'t realised before that your obsession with keeping me safe was a projection. You\'re safe now, Mihael. I\'ve got you."



"No, I need you to be safe too. I..."



"Sssh." Matt touched his lips with a clammy finger. "Just let me hold you. Pretty, pretty Mihael."