Poisoned Rationality

They both sat bolt upright in bed. The sound of the shutter crashing upwards waking them from sleep. Mello moved first, rising from under the covers to being on his feet in one swift movement. He grabbed the Beretta from the bedside cabinet and raced over to the wall, peering around. Matt was only a few beats behind. Grabbing gun and clothes, before sliding behind the settee. Mello signalled for him to stay down. A Japanese male voice drifted upwards. "Mello?"



Mello half smirked and called back in Japanese. "Yamada-san. How honoured we are to have you here." He dashed back to the side of the bed and peeled on the tight-fitting leather trousers and his boots. There was no time for anything else. With his gun still in his hand, Mello leaned over the railings. "I have some bad news about your lorry." Half a dozen men stared back up at him. "I also have some bad news about your car and motorcycle, but no doubt Sato-sama will be pleased when he hears of the use I put their destruction to."



"Mello-sama," Yamada called back and the changed honorific was not lost on either of the couple listening, "why are we shouting our conversation across a warehouse?" He was inspecting the pieces of mannequins, which had been used as target practice down below.



"Please come on up." Mello turned to find Matt making their bed. The redhead was dressed with a cigarette already lit in his mouth. Until caffeine entered his system, Matt would not be the sparkling genius that Mello had come to count upon, but at least he was halfway there. Mello picked up a bar of chocolate and took in the state of the living area. It wasn\'t bad. He\'d tidied it himself last night, working off nervous energy, though there was still a patch of butts and ash where the ashtray had up-ended. "Tidy that up." He barked at Matt, adrenaline rushing through again, as he strode to meet the Yakuza at the head of the staircase. Mello slightly inclined his head, even when Yamada bowed reasonably low. "Sato-san is well, I trust?"



"Sato-sama sends his regards and..." Yamada sat down in the same armchair that he had used before. Mello skirted it like a prowling lion and sat opposite. "Sato-sama is concerned about reports from his city yesterday."



Mello reached down to where Matt was on his hands and knees, picking up cigarette butts, and touched his shoulder. "Matt-kun, please will you make tea for us all?" He was radiating Mafia, but that didn\'t forestall a frown when he witnessed Matt\'s wince upon standing. Mello held out a hand to help him. "My colleague took a bullet wound yesterday." He addressed the Oyabun, but each of the kobun turned to survey Matt\'s sloping progress towards the kitchen with a new respect.



Yamada signalled, "Ozawa, help him." One of the kobun immediately followed into the kitchen area. "So, Mello-sama, what happened yesterday?"



The blond Mafioso smirked, blue eyes drilling into the Japanese man. Mello looked slightly crazy; it went without saying that he oozed danger. "Part of my plan, which reached its objective. Surely Sato-san doesn\'t expect me to keep him fully informed, as long as I bring the results? We are not family." The word \'family\' had never sounded so poisonously loaded. "We are business colleagues."



"Nevertheless, Sato-sama would like..."



Mello yelled back, "Sato will just have to wait." Each of the kobun stiffened, though none of them showed fear. Yamada, to his credit, sat stoically, facing forward. "If Sato does not trust me to see this through, then I can find ways that do not require his assistance."



"I hope I have not implied that Sato-sama considers Mello-sama to be in any way dishonourable in this business." Yamada inclined his head. "I wish only to ascertain that all is well. The vehicles..." He gestured that they were unimportant. "Is there a requirement for a doctor to visit? We have those who can be relied upon to be discreet."



Mello considered it. Ordinarily he would have dismissed the offer out of hand, on the basis that the fewer who saw them the better. However, he was still concerned about hidden damage inside Matt\'s body. Bullets were unpredictable and could bounce around between entrance and exit wound. The fact that Matt was still standing was the only reassurance Mello had that his lover wasn\'t slowly dying. "That is a generous offer, but one I will have to decline. Though extra medical supplies would be gratefully accepted. Oh!" Mello pointed languidly towards the railings. "There is a motorcycle down there which is hot. If it could be disposed of well away from here and replaced with a cleaner model, that would also be very much appreciated."



Yamada\'s expression was unreadable. "You surprise me, Mello-sama. You are a long way from home and yet expect to be treated as Oyabun. Why is that?" Mello didn\'t respond verbally, just looked at him. Yamada faintly smiled. "It will be done as you request. Sato-sama thinks very highly of you."



"Good." Mello snapped off chocolate and ate it viciously. He watched Ozawa re-appear with a tray of steaming mugs, followed by a very pale Matt with just a hot chocolate in his hand. The redhead placed it on the table in front of Mello, then took up station behind the armchair. "Matt, sit down." All eyes swivelled towards the redhead again, but he did as he was told. He perched on the edge of the settee, then took his tea from the tray as soon as he thought no-one was watching. "So tell me, Yamada-san, what is the situation out there?"



"The city recovers, but a lot of revenue was lost at our businesses." He paused for the weight of this announcement to settle upon Mello, but the blond seemed unconcerned. "There is a lot of speculation about who will be the new spokesperson for Kira. It is difficult, at this moment, to understand precisely what was achieved by your, albeit impressive, escapades yesterday."



"All in good time." Mello smiled. "I am confident that it will seem like a different world within a few days." He glanced at Matt. "We will have that doctor. But he, or she, needs to bring an x-ray machine with them."



Yamada nodded and raised a hand, "Hirano." A kobun stepped forward and hurried over to Matt\'s side. "I anticipated injuries, so brought the doctor with us. He is very good, though, unfortunately, without means of seeing inside."



Matt stared at Mello, a slight frown of protest never being verbally expressed. Mello irritably waved him away, "Go into the kitchen with him." Defeated, Matt took his tea and his cigarette and trailed the doctor back out of sight. Hirano made a small detour down a couple of steps and returned with the large black bag that he had stashed there, containing his own medical supplies. Left alone in the living area, Mello and the Yakuza continued with their dancing conversations and non-verbal displays of strength, without actually learning any more than either had already gleaned. More supplies were promised and that was it. Long before their mugs were emptied and the doctor reappeared, their conversation was largely over. Mello pierced Hirano with a razor stare. "Anything I should be concerned about?"



Hirano looked terrified. He was not a true Yakuza then, but a retainer. No member of the Triads would have allowed fear to cross their faces like that. "No, it penetrated, but amounts to little more than a flesh wound for all of that. The tissues are already healing as well as they could be at this stage. I have given him pain-killers."



"Thank you very much." Mello smiled back reassurance. "Thank you for looking at him."



Behind him, Matt emerged, leaning up against the wall. He stayed there while Yamada began the process of leaving, then all of their visitors filed down the stairs and were gone. "You know it\'s only seven o\'clock in the morning?"



"Sorry, I should have anticipated that that might happen." Mello reached out a hand and Matt slouched away from the wall to kneel in front of him. "I was thinking more of you sitting down, but that will do." He leaned across for a kiss. "So you\'re going to live then?"



"Yeah." Matt\'s eyes peered back blearily from behind the goggles. "He made me take my top off. I told him I\'d been in a car crash, which was the truth."



"I\'m sorry about that." He stroked Matt\'s chin and cheek, feeling the roughness that could become stubble if allowed to grow. "It\'s nearly over, Matty. If Near\'s making a move, then he\'s got evidence. If Kira is still going into that, then we\'ve made life a lot more difficult for him."



"Yay us." Matt raised his arms slightly and let them fall again. "But please will you stop speaking like I\'m only here because you\'ve dragged me into it. I\'m here because I want to be and I take full responsibility for my part in it."



"As do I."



Mello still hadn\'t shook off the rippling waves of Mafia emanating from him. There was something about him which made the instinct ring and the flight and fight reaction ping at the muscles. In his presense, there came that reminder that humans are beasts too; that teeth are sharp and nails are claws, but that they are the least of your worries when dealing with a feral human. What made it so much worse was the icy control running as tension throughout Mello\'s body, each of the muscles taut and ready to spring. Passion blazed in his eyes. Matt wasn\'t going to fight for survival, despite the alarm bells ringing, because he could see the Mihael Keehl underneath it. Therefore he only had to struggle against the second animalistic instinct to bare his throat and plead submission to the king. Matt watched and thought all of this, closed his eyes and, knowing full well what he was doing, spoke perhaps the most stupid words in his life. "So what happens now? Do we sit back and let Near finish the job?"



Black nails dug in at the ridge of Matt\'s jawbone, then dropped away. Mello hissed back, "I suppose that would be the sensible thing to do."



"It involves trusting Near." Matt\'s eyes had opened a crack. He could see Mello\'s fist clenched. He could almost feel it connecting, but it didn\'t leave his lover\'s knee. "Can you trust Near?"



"Generally or in this?" Mello stared at him like he could pounce. Like Matt could be torn to shreds. Then it seemed as though the spirit just left the blond and he sagged, head bent so that hair shielded his whole face. He told the floor, in the most defeated tone that Matt had ever heard from him, "I trust him to finish the job with Kira."