Watari Pt 2: Wammy's House

Mello stared at the desktop screen. Shock jolted him and his mouth opened in a silent scream. Roger had witnessed something like this before. It had been when the blond boy had received the news that Lawliet was dead and his world had been tipped on its axis then too. But Mello was older now. He didn\'t reach out to shake Roger, but instead Mello looked at his gun like it was an alien thing. The weapon dropped to the carpet with a soft thud. Mello shook his head, denial rife in his stunned gaze. He rubbed a forearm. He began to tremble.



"Mello..." Roger croaked, not knowing what his own words of comfort would be.



It didn\'t matter, because at the sound of his voice, Mello stopped and glared. Now the rage came, but it held within it a note of hysteria. He moved a paper weight onto the communication button and screamed into the microphone. "None of this is real. You fucker, this is some kind of fucking joke! Arsehole, why the hell would you do this to me! God damn it, Matt, you had better be fucking in the living room, playing some kind of prank on me," he paused, his eyes flashing wildly, "but it\'s not gonna matter, because I\'m gonna kill you anyway!"



Matt\'s response was utterly emotionless. "No, it\'s real. You could have done this Mello, but you\'re too honourable. All it took was some hacking."



"No." Mello snapped, but his head still moved slowly from side to side. The next emerged more like a gasp, "No." He slumped down into Roger\'s chair, his face hidden in his hands. "No. Not happening." Then he began to laugh. There was a note to his laughter that did not promise sanity. "No. No. No."



Near interjected, his voice cool across the airwaves. "How do you know about this Mario Clause, Matt?"



"I hit the firewall when I was hacking into Wammy\'s and Roger told me what it was."



"All this time," Mello quietly spoke, disbelief tinging every word, "it was you. All this time, it was you. All along, you."



There was a catch to Matt\'s breathing. "Mell, I\'m so sorry. I don\'t want it. You fucking know that I don\'t want it."



"All my fucking life, Matty!" Mello gulped, lifting his head to stare at the computer again. "This isn\'t happening." His voice rose. "This is not happening!" A shaking hand rose to his mouth again. "My entire life." He frowned, trying to grasp the concept mentally. "Matt, it was you! It was you!" His eyes opened wide. "So why the fuck was I fighting?"



Matt yelled through the speaker, "Mell! Plan B is having a fucking lobotomy! What can I do? I don\'t want it! I can\'t help it! I never meant this!"



Mello\'s lips pursed, but his narrowed eyes sought out Roger. The old man was sitting slumped on his armchair, distraught at the unfolding events. Mello leapt out of his chair and raced across the room, dragging the man to his feet and yelling into his face. "You fucker! You led me on like this! All those years! You did this to me!"



"Mello." Roger clutched the younger man\'s arms. "It was Lawliet. He suspected..."



"No!" Mello screamed, shaking him. "L wouldn\'t have done that! It had to be you! You and that fucker, Wammy. L and Matt, they couldn\'t..." His face crumpled again. "They wouldn\'t do this to me."



Through the speakers, Near concurred. He calmly stated, "L wouldn\'t do it like that. L wanted hard facts. L would prove it."



"I\'ll..." Mello began, but didn\'t finish the sentiment before releasing Roger and shoving him roughly back into his armchair. "Matt had better not die because of this." Mello pointed a finger into the warden\'s terrified face. "He had better not, because I will kill you."



Roger\'s hands rose in shielding. "Mello, I just read the file. I only know what the file told me. L wanted to test Matt, so he placed a game into the mainframe."



"This is not a fucking game!" Mello raged. "I\'ll do it with my bare hands, Ruvie."



Matt called out from the speaker, "Near, shouldn\'t you be coming to London. You need to work out how to own me here."



Mello turned, his movements jagged but alert, a predator with the scent of blood in his nose. "Near, I\'ll find you too and so help me God..."



Matt\'s tone begged, "Near, don\'t give him a head start! Please! I need him to be able to live with this. Please Near." There was a pause filled with everyone\'s grasping thoughts. Matt broke the silence, shouting, "Nate, it\'s a fucking puzzle! Solve it!"



Mello yelled back, "Matt, fucking stay there and don\'t you dare blow that building up!"



"I am staying here. I\'ve barricaded the building."



"Don\'t you dare put your life in danger!" Mello placed both hands onto the arms of Roger\'s chair and bent over him, hissing out, "You had better fix this, you coward. You caused it. You fix it."



Matt was still talking. "Mello, please understand that I\'d just zero myself if I thought it would help, but you would never forgive me."



"Too fucking right, Matty!"



"Exploding a building that I\'m bloody well standing in is about the only thing that I could get past you."



Mello stared at the speaker with his mouth open, then he bellowed back, "Don\'t you fucking dare!" Mello yanked Roger out of his seat and backwalked him into the wall. "Fix it! Make it fucking stop!"



Roger yelped, fighting without the strength to succeed. "The questions weren\'t at the same levels as the finals. You didn\'t do your finals."



Mello slammed him up the wall again. "Keep talking, old man." Roger gasped, his hands flailing to his heart. His colour became ashen and his lips, tightened over a shriek of agony, started to darken. Mello leapt back and Roger fell, struggling for every breath. Mello\'s hands rose to his own hair, his eyes wide. "Shit! Don\'t fucking die on me! Not now!"



Near\'s voice cut through the speakers. "Mello will tell us what\'s going on."



"Damn you!" Mello became very still, watching, calculating, coming to absolutely no conclusions at all. "What have I done? Oh shit!"



The next voice was Ann\'s. "Do I just talk now into this?" There was a scraping sound. "Hello, Mihael, can you hear me? It\'s Ann, darling."



"Ann?" Mello stared in confusion at the speaker. "Don\'t use that name! Who\'s listening over there? Oh for fuck\'s sake! Ann, call somebody! Roger needs help and I just can\'t do it."



"Mello will tell us what he\'s done to Roger." Near interjected.



Matt had advice of his own. "Just let him fucking die, Mell."



Ann sighed. "Boys, will you all please just calm down. Especially you, Mello. Can I come over there?"



"He looks like he\'s having a heart-attack." Mello informed them gruffly. "Oh God! I think I\'ve killed him."



Ann coughed, obviously ill at ease with the technology. "I\'m coming over, Mello. Just remember your first aid training and please calm down. Have you given him his angina tablets? They are usually in his pocket."



Mello edged closer. He called out, "Matt, don\'t do anything stupid, ok?" His gaze swept the blueness of Roger\'s lips and the clamminess of this skin. "Shit, fucking Hell." Mello\'s fingers probed the pocket of the man\'s jacket, until the bottle of pills rattled deep inside. He extracted it, dropping a pill onto the carpet before he could push it into his guardian\'s mouth. The old man was already breathing slightly more easily, but he nodded his thanks to the blond man, with a rattling gasp for air. "Ann? You\'re on your way over?"



Near replied for her, "Ann is not coming into Wammy\'s House while there is a seige situation. Ann could be in danger."



"For fuck\'s sake, Near! You insipid piece of shit! I\'m not going to hurt Ann!" Mello turned away from Roger, rushing towards the computer again. Emotions kaleidoscoped though his psyche. "Ann, please come and deal with this. Matty, what are you doing over there? Baby?"



"I\'m sitting here playing my DS." Matt\'s voice rose, still mostly even, though they could all hear the underlying dullness to his tone. "Near, you had better be halfway here by now."



Mello shook his head, the tears falling now. "This is all my fault. I didn\'t mean for this to happen. None of this." He placed his hands together, but the words of prayer didn\'t come. "This is my fault, isn\'t it, Matty?"



"No. It\'s Roger\'s." He sniffed. "And Wammy\'s. We\'re just their fucking pawns, moving around a fucking chessboard."



"I\'ll be..." Mello didn\'t finish. He stumbled away to pour a glass of water for Roger, swiping at his own tears to stop them falling. His mind felt like mush. He had faced down Shinigamis and Kira, but couldn\'t find any of the cool calculation that that had required now that he needed it most.



Matt went on, bitterness piercing every word now. "I\'ve had enough. They set the bloody rules. We get ranked by their exams and their rules. I\'m just creating my own."



Mello handed the glass to Roger, noting with indescribable feelings that the old man had a little more colour to his features now. The blond\'s lips moved, but no words were uttered, until he was back by the computer, touching the screen with a gloved hand. "I always knew you were the best of us. My Matty. My beautiful Mail. I could never..."



"No!" Matt yelled back. "No! No! No!"



Mello wept. Tears loud through the speakers. "I could never be enough. I could never be..."



"Mello?" Matt whispered back. "Volim te. Always." There was a wistfulness to his voice. "I wish..." He swallowed and never finished the sentence. "You know?"



Near spoke sharply. "Armed officers are coming to recover the Mario Clause file. Mello will hand it to them."



Mello sniffed loudly. "You\'re going to have me arrested? Is that it?"



From the floor against the wall, Roger croaked out, "Mello, the file is in the cabinet behind you. Under M." He coughed, rubbing at his jaw. "Take some deep breaths. This too will pass." Mello rose swiftly and yanked open the drawer. His tears fell in heavy droplets onto the metal dividers inside, but he found the document. He swooped down and picked up his gun, then slowly walked across the room. He opened the door with a languid movement, his eyes distant and his expression dazed. "Mello, where are you going?"



The reaction over the speakers was instantaneous. Near and Matt both trying to speak together, though it was the redhead who was successful. His voice over-rode the signal from Near\'s mobile unit. "Near! For fuck\'s sake! Get in that fucking helicopter!"



Mello didn\'t hear any more. He walked out, across the dark and deserted reception area of Wammy\'s House and out onto the entrance stairs. The summer air hit him as heat, carrying with it the aroma of the trees around, but he paid them no attention. He moved out into the middle of the lawn, where once he had enjoyed exercise. Kicking a ball around with Salvo and Jonny seemed so long ago now. Another life. Another world. He stood looking up at the stars. Far fewer of them here, blocked out by the light pollution from the city and the floodlights of the Cathedral just over the wall, than there were at home. He stood, with the file in his hand, arms raised towards the darkness above.



The burly form of Rester appeared, surrounded by riot-clad officers, at the main gates behind him, but Mello didn\'t turn to face them. Even as the gates swung open and the commander yelled, "Raise your hands above your head and drop your weapon!"



Mello\'s voice floated on a sigh, wonderment in its whispering, "It\'s so beautiful, God. The sky..." His gun and the Mario Clause file fell from his hands onto the grass beneath his feet. He did not attempt resistance, as he toppled roughly to the ground. "The flowers and the magnificent oak. So beautiful."



"Mello, you are under arrest on suspicion of armed intrusion. You have the right to remain silent, but anything you say will be recorded and may harm your defence if used in a court of law against you." Rester barked at him, as a colleague fitted handcuffs and two of them dragged him to his feet. He spoke into his walkie-talkie. "Near, we have arrested Mello."



Near sounded shocked, "You have?"



There was a cross above the entrance of Wammy\'s House. Mello stared at it, his body limp between his captors. Rester confirmed his statement, adding, "Where should we take him, Sir?"



Near paused for nearly a minute before replying, "Bring him here."



The officers pulled at Mello\'s arms, but he stumbled between them without so much as dragging his feet in protest at his detainment. His head lolled back against his shoulders as he stared back at the cross and the stars above, until they passed out of view behind the tall trees. Then he set his sights on the road ahead and the mobile unit parked on it. Streetlamps shone off its silver sides and the antenna whirled silently on its roof. Mello smiled softly, imperceptively, and allowed himself to hauled aboard.