My Own Way

Mello didn\'t return that night. In fact, Mello didn\'t return for another fortnight, until after Matt had casually stored information about how to hack a commerical flight ticket back to Heathrow onto his friend\'s ftp server. It was deleted within an hour and a knock came at the door within another five hours. Matt\'s head rose from his Gameboy Advanced, blinking in surprise. He called from the settee. "Who is it?"



"Who do you think?" Mello growled from the other side. Matt\'s head started pounding. "Are you going to let me in or not?"



The redhead ran over to the door and released the deadlock. Mello was still in the leather, though he didn\'t have the feathery coat on today. "Yay! You came as Trinity again."



"I\'ve watched the films now. This does not make you Neo." Mello wandered past him. "I can stay for two hours."



"Right." Matt couldn\'t keep the disappointment from his tone. He closed the door and locked it again. "What\'s going on, Mell? What am I doing here? Am I like your pet hacker or something?"



Mello shrugged, chocolate rising to his mouth. "I can\'t always get away easily." He turned with a stare which seemed to seer right into Matt\'s mind. "I\'m so close to catching Kira now, Matty. I can almost smell it. I\'m going to beat Near."



"Huh? Really?" He tried not to sound so surprised. "What\'s happened?"



"I know where he is, almost who he is; I know how he\'s going it." Mello seemed to deflate a little. "Can we sit? And talk?"



Matt nodded leading the way to the settees. "Would you like a cuppa?"



Mello smiled and sat down, primly. "That\'s a blast from the past. I haven\'t been offered a \'cuppa\' for years." He shook his head. "No, I\'ll just have a soda please, if you have one."



"Sorry, I\'ve never heard of that. Is it...?"



The blond affected an accent, very received English pronunciation. "May I have some fizzy pop, please?"



Matt smiled. "I have coke or lemonade." Mello indicated the latter, so Matt ran to fetch it from the fridge. As he poured it, he kept directing glances back at the blond. This was the first time, since they had met up again, that his friend had not been posturing. He didn\'t exactly look nervous, but he did appear more like the Mello Matt had known from way back. He was not waving around weaponry for a start. The rosary was still there though and the leather vest-top had an imprint of the Virgin Mary on it. All his complaints with the man drained away. "How did your meeting go?"



Mello flashed him a warning look. "Don\'t ask me about my business." But he smiled to lessen the sting. "Matt, I have treated you abominably. I apologise."



"Right." Matt carried the lemonade across, then returned to the kitchen to finish making his own cup of tea. "Is this the bit where you tell me why I\'m here?"



"Can you be patient with me, Matty?" Mello looked at him with his blue eyes rimmed with eye-liner, accentuating their beauty. His cherubic face faintly pleading. "I know that you had a life back in Blighty, but I\'m only just getting the opportunity to see more of you."



Matt leaned on the counter and smiled at him. "So I\'m here because you got lonely and wanted to see me again. I know it\'s not about hacking, I could have done that back home and what I did for you here, you could have done. I\'m good, but you had already done the complicated part. I just had to join the dots." He shrugged. "I\'m guessing that the call didn\'t come, because you didn\'t know what to say to me after all this time. I\'m also guessing that I was snatched because you didn\'t want to risk me telling you to go to Hell."



Mello blinked and jolted slightly at the last. Then he smiled. "I forget sometimes what it\'s like to have a conversation with a genius. I miss your mind, Matt."



"That all?"



"Tell me where you\'ve been." The blond bit his lip, but the stare above it was just a touch too manic. "What have you been up to in the past four years? How did you do in your exams?"



Matt fished the teabag out of his mug and dropped it into the bin. "I didn\'t take my final exams." He gave his tea a final stir and flicked the teaspoon into the sink. "I hack anything for a fee." He smirked. "I\'m \'guilty for every computer crime we have a law for\' and \'he is considered by the authorities to be the most dangerous man alive\'. I\'d love to have someone ask us what we do, so I could answer with that." He caught Mello\'s blank stare. "Sorry, I thought you said you\'d watched \'The Matrix\'."



"I did." He smiled as Matt joined him on the settee, though they sat at opposite ends.



"What did you think of it?"



"I thought that I look nothing like Trinity." Mello winked. "I also thought that it was patently an updated version of the story of Jesus Christ, brought into the modern age. You have a Saviour with many correlations to Christ and the name of the city wasn\'t lost on me."



"Really? I just thought it was about the world\'s greatest hacker, fighting viruses and Trojans; which just shows how differently two people can interpret the same film." Matt picked at the threads of his jeans. This finally felt like he was with Mello, not just in the same room as a very good clone.



Mello laughed. "I knew you\'d identify with Neo."



"I\'d like to do something with Neo, identify..." Matt smiled. "Or whatever." He had deftly moved the conversation back into a place where that kiss could be discussed. He watched Mello sit a little straighter. He contrived to seem prudish whilst wearing skin-tight black leather and somehow managed to pull it off.



"I thought they were good films." Mello skated away from the subject, but the uncertain ease between them had been broken. Matt could have kicked himself. "Your face is healing well." The redhead glanced across. His friend was tense, sitting there stiff as a board, but he had returned to the subject of that night even after moving them away from it.



"Why did you kiss me?"



"Truth?" Mello\'s smile took on that serpentine aspect again. "I had to make you stay here somehow. You were wanting to go home."



"You bastard." Matt breathed. He turned his head away and, after a moment, picked his cigarettes up off the floor and lit one. "Don\'t use me like that, Mello." He took another drag. "If you want something, just ask me. Don\'t fuck with me like that."



Mello was fingering his rosary again, passing beads through his hands, though, if he prayed, it was done silently. His gaze seemed a million miles away, when Matt finally glanced at him. His voice was equally distant. "So if I leaned over now and did it again, you would push me away?" Matt\'s head snapped back to look at him properly. "I think not. I think you would let me do whatever I wanted with you, no matter how cruel or how many times I left you, and you would enjoy it."



The redhead couldn\'t stop the shiver that passed through his body. It came from the core of him and encompassed so many different thoughts and emotions, that he could neither isolate nor comprehend them all. He was caught, speechless, unable to even work out how to feel about it, let alone react. He stood, picked up his Gameboy Advanced and reactivated the paused game. "Whatever."



"Wow! I made it through the closed wall of Matt. How many different levels do I have to go before I finally break through the chink in your armour?" Mello\'s eyes flashed in triumph. Then he spat out the words. "I still miss my Matt, because I haven\'t spoken to him yet. You tell me how much I\'ve changed, but you have treated me like just another person from Wammy\'s eversince we met. I finally see what they saw and it\'s really fucking cold. What do I have to do to break in, Matty?"



"Your Matt?" He smirked.



"Yes." Mello barked. "My Matt."



"You left me."



"Oh yes, I left you and I didn\'t call. You say that like I had a choice in the matter."



Matt\'s finger clicked rapidly against the game, as he shot down all incoming missiles. "You did have a choice. There is always a choice."



"Do you want me to profess undying love for you?"



Matt frowned, sneering back, "Don\'t be ridiculous."



"Ridiculous, am I?" Mello lunged forward and grabbed a handful of his striped shirt right at the neck. It was gripped so tightly that his fist pressed painfully against Matt\'s Adam\'s apple. He was yanked up, eyeball to eyeball with the blond, the game dying in his hands. "You will learn who is boss here, Matt." The blue eyes blazed hatred. The kiss, when it came, was unexpected, even more so when Mello\'s hand rose to hold the back of his head. His fingers gently caressing the red hair, even as his fist still threatened to garotte Matt before the kiss was over. The Mafioso drew back, smiling into his friend\'s bewildered, green eyes. "\'Don\'t you know you always followed me.\'" It was a statement, not a question. Matt had heard it before. It was a quotation. But the pain against his throat was bringing tears to his eyes.



"Mello." He gasped and was released, thrown back into the settee behind him.



Mello sniggered, biting off chocolate. "Fascinating."



"What?" Matt rubbed his face, but Mello just smirked. "I\'m going back. I want my money and I\'m going to get a flight back. I\'m going back today."



"Without a passport?" Mello leaned back, looking for all the world like a spider with an interesting fly caught in its web. "You look very red, Matty. Do I make you blush?"



"Just stop it." Matt rose and paced towards the computer, then stopped, forgetting what he was about to do. "I don\'t know what your fucking game is, but.. no!"



Mello appeared to be enjoying himself. "You look a little lost. You were about to sit down and switch your Gameboy on."



"I have someone at home. I can get my passport posted to me." Matt drew heavily on his cigarette and noticed the momentary uncertainty in Mello\'s eyes. "You thought I was single?"



"No. I think you are single." He tilted his head prettily to one side. "Are you going to pretend to me that it\'s the junkie girl?" There was a knowing, derisive laugh. "You have got no-one, Matt. No-one."



Matt could feel his ego being compressed in the gaze of this man. He felt defenceless, though he knew that he could hack any system put in front of him and had been more than a match for Mello in the past. Things never changed that much. It was mindgames, that was all. Mello was just so lost in this hardcase, insane persona that it was impossible for him to remember who he was anymore. That had to be it. Mello had been moody, sharp, even ferocious before, but he had never been cruel. Matt himself had been the callous one of the two; Mello had had too kind a heart to sustain it. "Maybe I haven\'t. But neither have you."



"Matty. Matty, why are we fighting?" Mello held out a hand. Matt didn\'t take it, but he sat down again. "I keep seeing flashes of you. I know you\'re in there."



"Why do you talk such shit?"



"Do you want another kiss?"



"I don\'t need your charity." Matt snapped.



"Will you stay a little longer?" Mello waited until Matt finally nodded. "Then you deserve another kiss."



"Will you stop messing with me, please?" But he didn\'t protest as Mello pulled him closer, even though it made him feel dirty. "Mello, you don\'t have to..." But the blond was already covering his mouth with his own, pushing his tongue inside. Acting like he enjoyed it, though it was all about domination and power for Mello, that much was obvious. He didn\'t need a gun today, he was using his sexuality as the more potent weapon. Matt wanted to cry, though he would never give Mello the satisfaction of seeing that. Mello had never seen him cry and he never would, even now, when so many childhood dreams were being shattered. Matt struggled and almost broke away. "Mello, don\'t..."



"Ssh, Matty, you want it." Mello was a slight man, far more slender than Matt, though there were wiry muscles there too. In pure physicality, Matt should have been able to push and keep him away, but Mello\'s personality filled the room. His gaze pinned where his strength could not have sustained; his smile pulled the flesh from your bones and reduced to a carcass the remains of self. Matt found himself lying on his back on the settee, with Mello crawling over him, gazing and smiling, as he lowered himself down into another kiss. Matt tried to turn his head away, but Mello cupped his chin and held it in place. "Your heart is beating so fast."



"Please stop, Mi... Mello. Please."



Mello raised his head, glaring down at him. "Don\'t even nearly go there." His fingernails dug into Matt\'s shoulder. "Don\'t even nearly say my real name."



"Ok. Ok." Matt prised Mello\'s fingers from his shoulder. "I\'m going to go back to England. I can\'t stay here."



"I saw a demon, Matty." Mello blinked. "A real demon." There was something about the way he said it, coupled with the briefest flash of childlike panic across his features, quickly replaced with that maniacal stare. Goosebumps rose on Matt\'s skin. "After all I\'ve done, people I\'ve killed..." He caught Matt\'s sudden expression of shock and the disbelief in his gaze. "Oh! They were all bad men. All deserving of the torments of Hell. Not a man amongst them who hadn\'t killed and tortured and done terrible things. But..." Mello\'s whole bottom lip disappeared under his teeth, "it was after I kissed you that I saw the demon."



Matt didn\'t know what to do or think or say. Mello believed this, that much was apparent on his face, but it was insanity. He found the words. "I need to get you out of here. Come back to England with me. Take a break from it."



Mello frowned. "This close to winning? Oh Matt!" He smiled and pecked another kiss on the lips beneath him. "I\'m going to be L."



Matt swallowed against the drying of his mouth. "Mello, I\'m beginning to wonder if it\'s worth the cost."



"I don\'t care what it costs." The blond replied steadily. "I\'m going to win."



"But Mell, any second now, I expect you to come out with \'I love the smell of napalm in the morning\'." Matt attempted a smile. "I know you\'ve worked really hard. I know you\'re close, but..."



"I can\'t leave now." Mello laughed at him. "It\'s happening. Right now. All of my plans are coming together. Back at the hide-out, I\'m doing tests and learning so much. I\'m closer than you can even imagine to getting what I\'ve always dreamed of. Beating Near. Becoming the number one. Taking the L code. You know all about dreams coming true, don\'t you, Matty?" He traced a finger up the side of Matt\'s face. "You can put your arms around me if you like. I don\'t mind. Don\'t look so scared, put your arms around me."



Matt wriggled his arm free from where it had been trapped half down the back of the settee and enfolded both limbs around Mello\'s slender form. "Once you have it, you\'re leaving the Mafia?"



"Yes."



"So you sent for me while you still had the resources to find me." Matt whispered. "You\'ve sent me for to bring you home again." He considered it, while Mello just smiled at him. "Did you forget my number? Wammy\'s could have got in contact with me."



"Will you stay then? Until I have Kira\'s head on a plate?"



"How close are you?"



Mello shrugged slightly. "I guarantee that the war will be over by Christmas." He caught Matt\'s expression. "Ok, give me until my birthday. That\'s sooner."



"Just over a month."



"But I promise that I\'ll be able to see you more now." He grinned. "I\'ve arranged things. I will be able to slip away a lot more. I can take care of things back home for you, whatever you\'re worried about there. I can sort that out." He stroked back Matt\'s hair and kissed his lips again. "Does it feel good holding me?"



Matt wanted to tell him no. It felt uncomfortable. It caused butterflies in his stomach and a constant battle against a hard-on, which Mello would be able to feel with his thigh pressing against Matt\'s groin. It confused his mind and tensed every muscle in his body. He would rather Mello be beating him up again than covering him like this. It felt like a mockery of his deepest fantasies and freaked him the fuck out. But it also felt like there was only a very thin thread of sanity keeping his friend connected to the real world. Did it feel good to be holding Mello? No, it felt terrifying, but he was going to do it anyway. "Ok, it\'s November 3rd. I will stay until December 13th, actually make that 14th, if you can get away for your birthday. If you\'re staying beyond that. But Mello please don\'t do this to me. Don\'t mess with my feelings, ok?"



"Ok." Mello agreed the deal, then snuggled down until his head was resting on Matt\'s shoulder and lay there, being held. One hand stroked his friend\'s hair, while the other held a chocolate bar, which he nibbled on in perfect contentment. "Thank you for staying, Matty."