Watari Pt 1: L\'s Heirs

AN: This chapter would chronologically fit between chapters 22-23



Oublier. Oubliette. The word 'oblivion' comes from the French 'oublier'. It means 'forgotten'. Oublier. Oubliette. The traditional oubliette was underground, a beehive pit, whose victims were lowered into by means a rope. Then forgotten, as the name implied. The really traditional oubliettes (as opposed to the one with spikes in it at Leap Castle, where it took three wheelbarrow loads to clear out the human bones) had steep sides and access to the waters below. The victims could choose to starve to death or else throw themselves down to drown. No way out. Oublier. Oubliette.



These things passed through Matt's mind as he sat there, waiting. There was nothing left to do. He'd secured himself against falling and made his markings on the wall. He could hear nothing but the crashing of the ocean below. That felt like a real entity. A monstrous creature gnashing at the sides of the rock gulley, reaching for him, ready to receive him. It was hypnotic and slightly worrying, how the urge to just jump battered upon the consciousness with each tidal wave.



Oublier. Oubliette. Matt peered into the darkness, his eyes only imperceptively acclimatised to the murk. For once the orange tint didn't help the world. It created another layer of duskiness, but without them, he wouldn't be able to see across the divide at all. So many times he had rationalised the odds and had told himself, with deep instinctual knowing, that no-one was going to come. Each time, he had touched the collar around his neck and fiercely told the gloom, 'no, Mello will come'. He closed his eyes and thought back to Japan. The blond telling him over and over again, 'I will always come back for you'. At times, Matt really held onto that collar and really tried to believe. He stared across, towards the only route in and out, and tried to think of anything that he could do to provide more clues. There was nothing else. There was no indication that Manetti or Neuron would even come back now. They had got the bait from him that would lure Mello to his death. No-one was coming. Ever.



He touched his collar again. The chained threads of the choker rendered it bumpy, but it didn't matter. It was enough to know that it was there. He could poke his little finger through and feel the smoothness, if he really needed to. Mello had told him often enough that there was possession here. Even as a child, Mello had come out with adamant statements like, 'you are my best friend', with an emphasis on the 'you'. Matt had nodded then, never telling the fiery blond how much that actually warmed him. It was someone to psychologically cling to in a world where they had no-one. It was probably why Mello said such things. He was an orphan too and it wasn't like there was much love to be had at Wammy's House. Not since Mr Wammy himself spent so much time away with L. They were trained monkeys, child prodigies, wound up and made to perform. Look how clever the cherubs are.



Matt bowed his head, tears pricking at his eyes. He knew that he shouldn't cry. The water in his body was so precious. It was the difference between life and death in this place. But the backs of his eyes burned and his lips were pressed tightly together. Doomed from the start. Nobody's child. An unknown mother, who'd left him before he could even remember her; and a father who couldn't bear to look at him, talk to him, feed him, change his nappy or his clothes. The most fundamental love in the world had been denied to him. Not only that, but it had happened so early on that it had broken him for life. Unable to feel love, unable to take love, unable to be loved.



"Mello!" Matt screamed and it echoed insignificantly around the caves. He repeated the name in his head, as a mantra, as a chant against the erosion of his own morale. Mello, Mello, Mello, Mello, Mello. Mello had enough love for the pair of them together. Mello felt so much that he could barely contain his emotions in one slender form. Mello had passion and drive and possessive and the single-minded, bloody-minded, genius mind that it would take to find him. His beautiful polymath. The awesome inferno of Mello on a mission. Mello loved him. Mello would come for him. Mello owned him. Mello had promised always to come back for him. "I love you, Mello."



Eyes hot with dangerous tears, Matt clutched his collar and tried to bring up the walls of defence that had stopped him crying throughout his childhood. He recalled a time when he'd reasoned that tears made no difference. No-one had come then and maybe no-one would come now. But someone had come then. Mr Wammy had come. He had called Matt a clever boy and had known, instinctively maybe, how to calm him down. He had let him hide. Later on, he had given him his first electronic game. That little world where everything was controlled. Where the digital character could always find his own food and weapons and, most importantly of all, could fight back. All it needed was a bit of intelligence to guide it. The wonder of strategy and the delight in those worlds had never gone away.



Matt took his Nintendo DS from his pocket. He was rationing it, as with his cigarettes. No whole cigarette, just two or three drags, enough to stave away the cravings, then it was stubbed out to save for later. It wasn't going to be enough. He'd only had fifteen on him when he came in and he'd smoked two almost immediately. The game only had perhaps four hours of battery left in it. It had, fortunately, been charged only yesterday, but he'd played on it a lot since then. He'd play now. Just a couple of games, while he was really panicking. Just enough to calm himself down. Mello would come. He had to come. Two games then, while he waited for Mello.



They passed too quickly. But they had done their job. There was no longer that overwhelming burst of feeling that threatened to engulf him before death ever could. Mello would kill him if he allowed himself to go insane. Matt folded his lower lip back with the edge of his forefinger. He contemplated what else Mello would want him to do. The blond had been barking orders at him for the past seventeen years, but for a gap of three and a half anxious years in the middle. There had to be some of them that didn't contradict all of the rest. Obeying Mello was a comfort. He knew that. It was also permission to use his own genius, against the restrictions upon it placed by himself. Matt had never been one for too much introspection, because such self-analysis led to pathos. He didn't want a world where there was nothing but self-piteous tragedy. In fact, he didn't want the world. He wanted his own world, where resources could be controlled. He wanted Mello to come up with the strategies that moved Matt through his world, because that felt like love.



Matt sighed. Any other time, he would have shied away from considering this, but he had time to kill now. If it hurt, he'd risk a bit more battery power and two drags on a cigarette. So why was it that he needed to obey Mello so much? Because he was lazy. That's the glib answer that he might have given someone else. But no, it was deeper than that. It was because he trusted Mello's mind. No, that was just a medium. That wasn't the cause. That was what made the actuality safe to enact. The real reasons presented themselves as two-fold. The first was that it felt like love. He'd been right there with his initial conclusion. As long as Mello was dominating everything, then he was interested. He cared. He might be a complete control freak, but his attention was focused on Matt. Matt shifted uncomfortably. It had only just occurred to him that he was an attention-seeker. He hadn't suspected that before. In fact, he would have said that he was quite the opposite. He hid behind Mello, because the blond cast such a bright light that there were enough shadows at his perimeter to hide an army.



Why did he hide? Matt thought back to his infancy and the next conclusion was even harder to admit to. It was because no fucker ever gave a shit about him anyway. If he hid, then he could justify their lack of response as a victory for himself. If he hid, and no-one saw him, then that made him a winner. Yes? But if he stood out, blatantly there, and no-one looked, then he was nothing. No-one. Non-existant. He hid because it rendered the conclusions of reality easier to live with. Ok. Matt breathed. So he hid because he was no-one, yet beneath the hiding, he was an attention-seeker. Neither states made him a good person. He hissed into the chalky, moist air, "Fuck the fucking world."



He needed to backtrack. If he left it as: Mello was a possessive, loud-mouthed control freak and Matt was an attention-seeking emotional vampire, then it actually worked. They fed each other's needs. They worked as a couple. That was good. He obeyed Mello because Mello needed him to obey him and Matt didn't care what was happening, as long as he was getting attention. Matt blinked. That wasn't right. He rubbed his head against the encrouching headache. His thoughts were never this sluggish, even on unfamiliar territory, like considering his innermost feelings. He obeyed Mello, because he, Mail Jeevas, sexually got off on being ordered around. Right. Leave it there. Sexual kinks was a much better explanation than neurotic hang-ups.



Matt stared back across the deep chasm between him and freedom. No-one came. The darkness loomed like some great black hole into the tunnels beyond. The rock above and below felt too heavy, like it could all come crashing down upon him, or like he'd been buried alive. Only the air felt real. The wind against his cheeks cooling him, great gulps of it, the only resource he had in plentiful abundance that could keep him alive. The air that he breathed. He had been too close to hyperventalisation five times now. That didn't matter. He shouldn't even think about panic attacks, in case thinking caused the actuality. It could be an omen. Thought producing reality. He closed his eyes and concentrated on the beautiful, life-saving air. But it was cooling him and it was full of chalk. Matt's eyes snapped open again. Dehydration and hypothermia. He was going to die.



The tears came again. Fast this time and he couldn't stop them falling down his cheeks. He didn't want to die like this. Forgotten and alone. Of all the terrors that the world could produce, not this one. Not the oubliette. Abandoned and neglected, left on his own with no-one giving a damn. Not this one. Let him go down in a blaze of glory, exploded or shot or smashed up in a car. Not this, dying slowly because he couldn't get warmth, water or food and his environment was against him. Not dying alone, because someone thought him not even worth a quick, dignified death. Not dying of neglect. Matt whimpered against his drawn up knees. The sound like a wounded animal, drawn from a depth of feeling that had been forged in infancy. He rocked himself, gently, carefully, so not to fall, then barely cared if he fell at all. His hand rose and he touched his collar. Mello would come. Mello would come.



Matt swallowed hard against the solid block in his sandpaper throat. He needed a cigarette. He fumbled in his pocket and extracted one. He was so tempted just to have a whole one. He deserved a whole one. But what if no-one came for days. What if he had to sit here without nicotine, with the cold turkey hallucinations adding to everything else. Matt lit his cigarette, sucking in the calming smoke, willing his mind to settle into a happy place again. He had to stop doing this to himself. He had to keep calm. Mello would want him to stay calm. Matt sniffed, wiping his nose on his sleeve. What had he been thinking about? Oh yes. Obeying Mello. There had been two reasons. What had been the second? The first had been that it gave him attention and felt like love; and that it worked with Mello's personality. What else? Matt's brain ached. It was getting so hard to think in here. Yes. Wammy's House.



A low level anger rumbled through Matt's being. He remembered seeing those other children, on the television, being picked up and playing with toys in bright colours. Then his father had picked him up, just the once, and there had been a gun against his chest. Matt felt the emotions rush through him, like he was three years old again and it was happening right now. The sheer terror of being lifted off the floor. The sensation of being next to someone's skin and to be able to feel their beating heart through his back. The gun against him. Matt breathed. He shouldn't go there. That story led to another oubliette and that would not be great in this situation. He leapt forward in his mind's eye. Wammy's House. He remembered how they kept trying to pick him up and it frightened him so much. Then he was just starting to get a little bit used to it, when they stopped.



Instead they gave him tests. Exams. Classes. Things to learn and repeat and expand upon. IQ tests; MI tests; categorisations into the seven subsections of genius. Fuck them. Fuck them all. All the other children buzzing around him, making so much noise, and laughing at his hair. Memory threw up a roar of sound. 'Leave him alone!' Mello. It was one of his earliest memories of Mello, back in the days before either of them were entirely fluent in English. Mello had been quiet then, shyly contemplative and eager to please. It had been a bit of a shock, when the defence had come from that direction. Mello had been amarillo, like Big Bird. It had made Matt stare even harder at him and instinctively trust him. It was a good colour. When the other children had laughed at Mello, he had just marched over and stood next to Matt. 'So what if his hair is red? I like red!' Matt had understood then. Red = rojo. His hair was rojo and, in English, it was red. The other children thought it was stupid, but this amarillo boy didn't. Matt couldn't remember if he had ever spoken to Mello before that day. He suspected that he possibly had, but then again, he rarely spoke to any of them, so maybe not. If that had been the case, then the question he'd asked, once Mello had grabbed his arm and propelled him out of the way of the other kids, could well have been the first words to have passed between them. It was just a clarification on the language. He had looked at Mello and touched his own head. 'Red?' Mello had nodded, pensively, 'Yes. That's red.' He'd then pointed to his own head. 'I'm blond.' For weeks afterwards, Matt had thought that amarillo translated into English as 'blond'. It wasn't. It was yellow.



Matt smiled. Mello hadn't been joking. He still liked red. And black. Those two colours made up 90% of his wardrobe. He amused himself picturing the look on Mello's face, once he told him that the first thing that had ever attracted him to the Slav was his passing resemblence to Big Bird. Of course, Matt would have to hurriedly add that other layers of attributes and shared history had since been added into the mix. He wasn't actually thinking of Barrio Sésamo when he looked at Mello these days. He was mostly thinking 'how can I get you out of those leathers and on top of me?' Or even still in the leathers. It didn't matter too much, as long as Matt was being overpowered and owned, taken over by the amarillo boy grown into such a pretty man.



He'd been side-tracked again. The second reason was that Wammy's House had pushed them so hard. For Matt personally it had been like being inside a vacuum. The closest thing to love there was in that place was to be praised for academic achievement. Praise took the place of hugs and kisses and all those other things that Matt had never had. But in order to be praised, Matt had to beat Mello and he couldn't do that. That was perhaps incorrect. He had never tried. It was more a case of wouldn't do that, with an unknown option on 'couldn't'. So no-one praised him and something inside had just cracked.



Matt felt sometimes that his own spiritual idol was not Lawliet, as with the other children, but William James Sidis. That child prodigy had enrolled at Harvard, aged 11, with an estimated IQ of 250. His father had tried to get him in at 9, but the university had refused him, despite his ability to pass their entrance exams. By the time he was 17, he was studying for his doctorate and teaching at another university. He could learn a whole language in one day, instantly translating them, until he was fluent in every language known in the world. He had total recall on any book or publication that he read. Then he'd just stopped. Between the ages of 20-21, his parents kept threatening him with being sectioned, if he didn't carry on performing. After that, he just moved away and refused point blank to be a genius anymore. He did menial jobs and worked instead at being ordinary. It failed, of course, because he had no idea how to relate with a world where the average intelligence was 150 points below his own. But the fact remained that Sidis had never gone back and never actualised his potential. It was the birdie flicked at a world which had forced him to be a really clever boy.



Matt understood that one. He was the William Sidis of Wammy's House. He refused to be their golden genius and to even attempt to become L. He was much happier attempting to live an ordinary life, calculating nothing any more strenuous than the grocery bill. Mello could save the world. Matt would just potter around the house and ensure that the bills were paid on time. Every second that he did that, then it was revenge for the hours of pressure as a child and for them having taken away his chance to have been adopted, into a normal family, with normal parents, and games. But there was a catch, one which Matt felt sure that Sidis had encountered too. Not thinking was impossible. It was actually more a case of not showing your genius than not being one. In fact, attempting not to be a genius was quite boring, in the end. But there was a loophole. If Mello gave an order, that required genius to carry it out, then that wasn't helping Wammy's. It was helping Mello. It was stimulus that allowed for still sticking a middle finger up at the establishment. Matt liked Mello to give him orders.



He glanced up at the wall, at the markings he'd made there. He had used his genius and he hoped it would be enough. It had to be enough because the dryness of his mouth and the cold in his bones told him that he was running out of time. The realisation came that there was no need anymore to ration battery power or cigarettes, because the signs from his body were that he might not outlast them. He checked the packet. Only one and a half left. He smoked the half. He took out his game and lost himself in Mario, until the shivering came. He huddled up against the flaky wall and kept the game going until his hands became too numb inside his gloves to hold it. He dithered until the shivering eventually stopped. "Game over." He whispered, as he folded his game down and lit his final cigarette. There was no need to save it now. His body was failing him. Though he knew that to waste water was foolish, he still couldn't stop the tears that fell again, even through the nicotine in his system. Matt touched his collar. "Come and get me, Mello."



Matt lost consciousness slowly, sinking into the abyss of chalk and darkness, with his mind and body crying out for warmth and water. It was over. He was forgotten here after all. Oublier. Oubliette. The fingers on his collar fell to his chest. Oublier. Oubliette. He slid down and the belt grew taut against his chest. He slid further and the choker tightened against the solid metal of collar that Mello had put on him. Oublier. Oubliette. He was not hanged. He was not drowned. His last thought before oblivion took him was that he hoped he would not be forgotten. Oublier...