My Own Way

Matt lay on the settee playing on his Gameboy Advanced. He had worked out how to divert the audio towards the apartment\'s hidden speakers from one of the laptops, rather than the expensive stereo, which saved a lot of time in burning discs. Kruder Dorfmeister played through it now. The redhead noticed and smiled. There had been one late night smoking in his flat, when a game of truth resulted in the question, \'what tune do you most like to have sex to?\' He had floundered a little when it came to his turn, but not wishing to admit to his own virginity, he\'d pretended to be whittling down a number of choices. He had decided eventually upon \'Original Bedroom Rockers\'. Aimee had found it out and played it within the next five minutes.



He paused his game and reached for the mobile \'phone. It had been a fortnight and the only way he could be certain that the woman was still in his flat was to randomly call her. He was speeding just enough to be able to put up with her incessant questions about where he was. He was halfway through tapping in the numbers when a key clunked in the lock. It couldn\'t open a deadlocked door, but Matt froze nontheless. This was the first time that this had happened and he half suspected that he was in someone else\'s home. He dropped off the settee and tip-toed to the door, listening.



Mello\'s voice, bored and irritated, called through. "I know you\'re in there. Let me in."



Matt raised his eyebrows. There had been no word since the blond had said goodbye to him in that alleyway, though Matt knew that he had been checking up on him. He had read the files that had been left on the server, though Mello hadn\'t once logged onto the messenger that had been set up for him. He hadn\'t called either. Matt unlocked the door, determined to stand his ground. This was getting to be ridiculous. "The elusive Mello." He glared, though the sight took his breath away. The blond looked so hot dressed like that.



Mello strode into the apartment, slamming shut the door behind him. "You got so far and you stopped. Is there trouble with the hack, Matt?"



"No." Matt grinned. "In fact, it\'s been all set and ready to go for a week." He was treated to another of those power-crazy, threatening stares that Mello seemed to have developed in his absense. It was actually very effective. It took all of Matt\'s will not to take a step backwards. "I just wandered what it would take to flush you back out again."



\'Original Bedroom Rockers\' switched into \'Prime Audio Soup\'. Mello flashed a look of absolute disdain and marched off towards the stereo. "We\'re not children anymore, Matty. Stop playing games." A gloved finger hovered over the \'off\' button, but he realised that it wasn\'t even switched on. Matt smirked and jabbed a finger at his laptop. The volume went down, but the electronic sounds weren\'t silenced completely. "Tell me what you mean by \'all set and ready\'."



Matt leaned against the desk, taking in the lines of Mello\'s trousers. He had an amazing arse. "I mean that as soon as we talk money or, more to the point, you pay me, you\'ll have your missile. Ten minutes work, if that."



"How did it get so ugly, Matty?" Mello asked softly from near the stereo. "We meet up again after all this time and all you can talk about is money."



"Because if this isn\'t about money, then it\'s about friendship and it patently isn\'t that." Matt tore his eyes away from the Mafioso and hunted for his cigarettes. "You were supposed to call me."



"It wasn\'t safe." Mello hissed back, but he couldn\'t meet Matt\'s eyes. "Maybe I couldn\'t live with you hanging on my coat-tails, always pulling me back. You think you\'d fit into my world now? You held me back. Now live with it."



"So I\'m just the kid you shared a room with."



"Yes, you are." The blond sashayed over, reached behind him and switched off the music. His arm remained, the inner part still touching the side of Matt\'s body, a couple more inches and he would be pressed against him. It was as intimidating as it was sexy as Hell. Icy blue eyes stared into his own. "But one who is very good at computers, hence I needed you."



"Fuck you." Matt tried to control his breathing. He took a drag on his cigarette and blew the smoke into Mello\'s eyes.



The reaction was instantaneous. Mello struck and wrestled him to the ground. Shock hit harder than the violence, especially as the blond then straddled him, kneeling up on either side of his body. Mello\'s eyes flashed with fury and a gun came from nowhere, pushing down into Matt\'s cheek. "Say sorry, Matty."



Matt about near wet himself. Eyes wide and panting, heart thundering. "What the...? Mello, it\'s me. Stop... fuck! I\'m sorry!" He couldn\'t recognise Mello in the gaze seering his face. There was nothing left of the boy he\'d known. Terror washed through Matt\'s bloodstream, freezing him. "I\'m sorry, ok?"



Mello\'s hand came down and a finger stroked down the side of Matt\'s face. "You undress me with your eyes. You always did and you\'re doing it again now. Would you like me, Matty?" He hadn\'t moved the gun. His eyes said that he could pull the trigger. "Do you look at me and wonder what I\'m like in bed?" Mello leaned down until his face was inches away. "Do I make you hot?"



The redhead\'s body was reacting, even through the fear. It was so difficult to think. One thing he remembered about Mello from Wammy\'s House, truth was always the best policy. "Yes."



The Mafioso recoiled, sneering down at him. The gun was removed, but then it came down again, pistol-whipping him across the face. Matt screamed, spitting out blood, his hands rising to his jawbone, as one side of his head exploded in a wave of agony. He sensed more than felt Mello leap away from him and pace the distance back to the computers. "Get up and find me my code. You are not going to fuck with me."



With watering eyes, Matt rose. There was blood on his hand. He was actually afraid. He was scared of being killed or beaten up. He held his face as he stumbled to the keyboard and pulled up the server. "You\'re not Mello."



"What?"



Matt cringed at the tone of his voice, but repeated himself. "You\'re not Mello."



"Oh diddums. You expected me to be like I was. You thought it was safe to fuck with me." Mello smirked. "The world changed, Matty, you might not have noticed hiding from it in your bedroom."



Matt sat down and typed, blood dripping onto the keyboard. Mello leaned against the desk, too close, still wielding a gun. "I notice more than you think." When there was no response, he dared to continue. "I notice the crosses. I notice the fact that I could have done this in England and I would have done it if you\'d called me. There was no need to send heavies to grab me. I notice the SOSs, Mello." He glanced to the side, but Mello was just watching him with an expression of manic pity on his face. "What do you need from me?"



"You think you could just take on the Mafia and save me?" Mello smiled. "You think I want to be saved this close to capturing Kira?"



Matt gasped, "You\'re closing in on Kira?"



"Such a sweet, little innocent, aren\'t you?" The blond reached across and saved the code. "I can take it from here." He uploaded the file to the server. "How much do you cost?"



"More than you would be prepared to pay." Matt replied softly. The pain in his cheek and jawbone was settling down into a dull ache, leaving behind it a killer headache.



"You want sex?" Mello sneered. His laugh was cruel as he walked away from the computers.



"That\'s not what I said."



"No. It was what you were thinking."



Matt bowed his head. He couldn\'t beat Mello in this mood. He didn\'t even know this mood. It was too confusing, too dangerous. The sheer presense of Mello intoxicated him, but the man had grown. He was too overpowering, too much to contain. This wasn\'t a book thrown across a room or furiously pummelling the mattress because Near had beaten him again in some test. This was Mello turned psychopathic and armed. The old Mello could have been calmed down with chocolate. Matt turned suddenly. That was what was missing. He left his seat at just speed that the chair wheeled a couple of feet across the floor, and dashed into the kitchen. He had picked up a few things at the shop, in anticipation of actually seeing the blond more than he had. He returned now and threw a bar of chocolate from the counter towards the blond man in the centre of the living area. Mello caught it in one fluid movement, with one hand. "Now!" Matt breathed, through gritted teeth, "Can I talk to my Mello please?"



Mello raised his head, shaking back his hair, and smiled. His hand reached into his pocket and produced an identical bar of chocolate. "Snap."



"The price is answers to some questions."



Mello unwrapped the chocolate that Matt had thrown to him and teased the edges of it with his tongue. "Shoot."



"Are you in danger?"



"Always."



"Can I rescue you?"



"No."



"Why did you bring me here?"



"You\'re good, Matt." Mello grinned. "I was expecting questions like \'why did you leave me?\', \'why didn\'t you call me?\' or the one that really on your mind, \'can I kiss you?\'" He sucked on a square of chocolate. "Instead, you\'re asking intelligent questions because you know I\'ll get bored of this game soon."



"And you\'re avoiding the question."



Mello shrugged, gazing out momentarily at the bright, LA night sky out of the wide, balcony windows. "You wouldn\'t know that there\'s a war going on out there, would you? Two, in fact, but they are interlinked. It looks so serene." He held the chocolate thoughtfully between his teeth. "I\'m supposed to be negotiating with a very dangerous man; but the stakes weren\'t high enough for me. So I thought I\'d negotiate with an even more dangerous man and while I\'m here, the city is going to burn." Mello\'s gaze slid to fix upon the redhead. "In the embers, there will be a lot of business for my family to oversee and I will have more time to catch up with old friends."



"You are negotiating with dangerous men?" Matt considered those whom he had already met. He shuddered to think about the depths of violence that Mello was having to scale.



"Oh yes." Mello crossed the distance between them. "A really dangerous man." He leaned over the counter his gaze softening. "You asked me why I brought you here. Maybe it\'s because I know myself now to be so far beyond redemption that there is no absolution."



"What you talking about, man?" Matt wiped his cheek, smearing blood right up to his ear.



Mello stood straight and stalked around the counter. He stood, with that manic stare trained upon his oldest friend, then his gaze drifted towards the ceiling. He slowly crossed himself and Matt\'s eyes widened. Mello still had the gun. He was going to kill him. Matt stepped backwards, but the fridge-freezer was behind him. He turned desperately to find something, anything, a knife, but Mello was already in his space, arms rising. Matt lashed out, but it was futile, Mello was like lightning. They scuffled, but Mello quickly had him cornered, pressed up against the white surface with his arms above his head. While they were there, held in the blond\'s iron grip, then so was the gun. Matt knew that he could be kicked, head-butted, bitten or kneed, but he couldn\'t be shot. He opened his mouth to try and talk Mello out of this, but the blond lunged and covered his mouth with his own.



The kiss was like electricity raging through Matt\'s body. Shock, relief and the pure sensation of it. They had kissed before, but it had only been a fumbling peck. Mello\'s lips had remained tightly closed and he had pushed Matt away with an unspeakable look in his eyes. Now it was different. Now Mello was crushing himself into Matt, a bruising, open-mouthed, searching with tongues, overpowering kiss. It tasted like blood. It sent Matt\'s knees weak and his body floating. It took his breath away. He felt himself became achingly hard inside his jeans; left it in Mello too behind that leather, as the blond ground himself into him.



Mello didn\'t just break away, he moved back several paces. His chin, cheeks and mouth were covered in blood. His eyes above them flashed with adrenaline. "Matty, I need to go away again. Wait for me." He turned and strode across the room to the door. He didn\'t look back, but unlocked it and slammed it shut behind him. Dazed beyond measure, Matt sank down the unit to the floor and just sat there.