Watari Pt 1: L\'s Heirs

Mello stirred and was vaguely aware of Matt leaving the bed beside him. But it was still dark, so he told himself that it wasn’t time to get up and so fell back to sleep. Mello was dreaming, when a sharp pain rushed through his jaw bone and he was startled awake. Shock kept him against the mattress only for a few seconds, then he was sitting up, ready for anything. What he made out in the gloom was Matt’s silouette, sitting down at the table and lighting a cigarette. The flaring of light briefly showed his features, set in fury. Mello’s heart pounded. “Did you just punch me?”



“Yes.” The terse reply hissed through the darkness.



Mello switched on the light, confusion settling into ire. He could see the redhead now, slumped on the chair with a white towel around his waist. Matt rarely looked this angry. Mello could probably count on one hand the number of times he had personally witnessed it. Matt was always pale, but now his face seemed almost translucent. His mouth was a pale slit. His eyes flashed dangerously. Green and black daggers trained on the Slav. In truth, it was a little intimidating, which sparked Mello into snapping, “Why the fuck did you punch me?” He pointed towards the bed behind him. “I was asleep!”



Matt just sneered, turning his head to glare at the window. It wasn’t even pre-dawn. It was about three o’clock in the morning. “Because it makes me feel better.”



“What?” Mello stalked across the room and grabbed the back of Matt’s neck. A second later, a searing pain on his stomach caused the blond to yelp and leap backwards. Matt continued to hold his cigarette between fingers and thumb, in the position he had used it to burn his lover. “What the fuck has gotten into you?”



“I see.” Now the cigarette returned to Matt’s mouth. “So it’s ok for you to hurt me, but the second I retaliate, you’re all, ‘what the fuck…?’”



Mello bit down the urge to teach him what hurting really meant and retired to the windowsill. A few deep breaths later and he felt calmer, more able to assess this new situation and to fight it without violence. “You normally want me to hurt you.” Now he could take in the details that he’d missed before. The bags under Matt’s eyes, which meant that he hadn’t slept. The redhead was always tetchy without his sleep. The wrinkling of the skin on his fingers and toes, which suggested that he had been in the bath. The fact that he hadn’t got his goggles on, which implied that he couldn’t see very well. “I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s happened.”



“My dick’s gone black and it’s all swollen and it fucking hurts.” Matt accused. “And my ribs are still killing me and my back aches and I think I’ve done my knee in.”



Mello rubbed his chin, which was still smarting from the punch. Guilt and irritation pricked in equal measure. Matt clearly wanted someone to blame, despite the fact that he instigated ninety percent of any roughness between them and he could have stopped it at any time. He only ever had to say the word and, in the case of that night, move backwards a few inches. Mello accepted his own responsibility, but it rankled that he was being singled out. Nevertheless, arguing about it would probably achieve nothing more than winding Matt up further, which reduced the possibility of either of them getting any more sleep tonight. Mello sighed. “Ok, Matt, I\'ve hurt you. Do you mind if I take a look and check to see if you\'re alright?"



Matt just cast him a dirty look and reached for his laptop. He switched it on and lit another cigarette from the embers of his first. Mello walked across and stood beside him. Windows was loading and, as soon as he was in, Matt opened a brower and searched \'bruised penis\'. "Mello, will you just fuck off!"



Mello touched his hair and Matt snatched his head away. "Come on, Matty. Look I did this and, moreover, I care. " He crouched down, so he could meet those furious green eyes. Mello gave the smallest smile. "You\'re really cute when you\'re angry." Matt glanced sidewards at him, then back to the monitor. "Please may I look?" He touched Matt\'s forearm and was neither rejected or accepted. "You\'re really cold."



"I\'ve been sitting in a cold bath. What do you expect?" Matt snapped, scrolling through the links.



"Ok." Mello stood and paced over to the clothes rail. He returned with his red jacket and draped it over Matt\'s shoulders and upper arms. Matt stopped moving the mouse. He reached up to close the jacket over his chest, holding the lapels and bowing his head. Mello pushed the fake fur hood closer into his neck and Matt leaned back slightly, closing his eyes. His fingers gently ran down Matt\'s jawbone, but it was a step too far. The redhead turned his head away. "Mail, you look like you could do with a cuddle."



Matt glanced up at him, confusion flickering momentarily in his heavy eyes. He placed the cigarette back into his mouth and looked again to the laptop screen. "Well, I don\'t."



Mello sat on the corner of the bed and watched him carefully. He knew Matt and this was more about being over-tired than hurting. Matt, for all his skinny frame, had a high pain threshold and the stamina to bear it. The priority was to persuade his lover to let him see his injuries, because only then could he work out how serious they were. If he could then somehow lull Matt to sleep, this would all be resolved and unspoken about ever again. But Mello had seen the way that Matt had paused, just for an instant, to receive comfort from the jacket. There were opportunities here. Over-tired could also mean less compliance, a greater unwillingness to just accept things as the way that they just were; in short, this was a rare moment when several usually locked and bolted doors in Matt\'s psyche were currently wide open. "I could promise never to hurt you again and I\'d keep to that, but you\'d hate it. You\'d sleep, get over this and spend the next few days or weeks, whatever it took, before we were back to normal. Do you want me to promise never to hurt you again anyway?"



"You\'re too much of a sadistic fucker to get any pleasure out of that."



"But sometimes I can go too far." Mello shrugged. "Like last night, I went too far. When I kicked your ribs in, I went too far. I\'ve gone too far a lot of times. I define \'too far\' when you\'re hurt and angry. It\'s not fun and games anymore."



"I can take it."



"I didn\'t say you couldn\'t." Mello watched him reading and paused until he clicked back to the search engine. "You\'re a tough, little thing. You can take a lot of pain that would have me in tears. But you shouldn\'t have to put up with my shit just to prove it."



"What\'s this got to do with proving anything?" Matt stubbed out his cigarette angrily and reached for a third. This one was held in his mouth without being lit. Mello had the sudden inspiration that cigarettes could be a pacifier, a dummy substitute for adults. "Stop turning this around to all be about me."



Mello leaned forward, "You were right about me. I do sometimes lash out, then turn it into sex just to make it alright. If it\'s S&M, it\'s justifiable. If it\'s me beating you up in our yard, because I\'m het up, it\'s not alright. I did that to you and I\'m sorry."



"Shut up."



Mello\'s eyes widened. "Ok." He slid off the bed onto his knees. "May I please look at the damage I did? I know you\'ll hide something serious, because you get too bored in hospital waiting rooms. Let me look?"



Matt exhaled loudly and glared at him, then lifted the laptop half a foot off his lap. "Go on then, if you must."



Mello gently pulled out the towel from his waist and unwrapped it to reveal Matt\'s genitalia. There was a lot of bruising, but the swelling must have gone down. He glanced up, but Matt was staring at the screen, ignoring him. "What are you thinking, Matty?"



"I\'m thinking that I fucking hate you. I asked you not to bruise my arm because of having my tattoo done. Instead you do this to me, so I can hardly walk and it hurts to sit down." He practically threw the laptop onto the table. "I can\'t even take painkillers, because it\'ll thin my blood and they won\'t do it. I know you don\'t want me to have the tattoo, but instead of just saying it, you have to play fucking games and I\'m sick of it. I asked you just one thing. Just one. But you have to go so fucking literal about it and don\'t even stop to think about the reason behind it. Well, you do. You factor it in, in your plans to stop me. I\'ve just had enough. You should just say if you don\'t want me to have one. Don\'t do this."



"Matty." Mello tucked the towel back around his lover\'s thighs. "I want you to have the tattoo. I\'m coming with you to watch you have it. I\'ve even brought my Russian revision with me, in case there\'s a lot of sitting around and you go into your DS." He found Matt\'s hands under the jacket and held them. He wasn\'t thrown away. "I think you\'ll look really sexy with a tattoo. I\'m looking forward to seeing you with one." He smiled reassurance. "Are you nervous about having it?" He watched Matt\'s gaze slide away. "Ok. And for the record, I was asking what you were thinking on a First Aid footing. You\'re the one who\'s been looking on the internet about this."



"If I can get erect, it\'s probably going to be ok." Matt whispered, then the fire raged back. "Don\'t you fucking touch it."



Mello nodded. "You can hardly walk and it hurts to sit down?" He withdrew his arms and placed one under Matt\'s knees, another snaked behind his back. They exchanged glances, but Matt\'s expression was more startled than prohibitive, so Mello rose and lifted Matt bodily. It occurred to both simultaneously that the last time Matt had been carried like this had been at the flat during the height of Mello\'s breakdown. Matt\'s arms came from underneath the jacket and clung around Mello\'s neck. It was a twofold gesture. It showed that he had no handcuffs and it said, \'I know\'. Mello had been planning on carrying him the two steps to the bed and laying him down; he could barely remember those horrific days and nights, but he\'d heard about them. He was surprised by how light his lover was. He stayed still, pressing Matt into himself, claiming the cuddle until his muscles protested the weight and Mello was forced to deposit him on the bed. "I love you, Matty."



Matt stared back, blinking, his unlit cigarette crushed between his lips. "Sorry I\'m being an arsehole."



Mello pulled the covers down around the redhead, tucking them about his form. He took the cigarette and dropped it on the table, returning with a fresh one. "You\'ll just have to fix that with a Rizla or something tomorrow. " He offered a light. "Matt, I told you something important and you told me to shut up. Where are our limits, guapo? Because I can\'t keep hitting you when my temper\'s up; and you can\'t keep letting me hurt you to this extent and thinking you can\'t speak up to stop me. I know there\'s pride there. Hell! You don\'t have to tell me about pride! But you\'re not my punchbag. You\'re the most precious thing in my life."



"I thought that was God."



Mello bowed his head. "That\'s how you do it. You deflect verbally. I\'m supposed to get angry and this all turns violent again. You can handle violence far better than you can handle a conversation like this." He raised his head again, displaying perfect composure. "Every time I kiss you, I choose you over God. It\'s not something that rests easy on my conscience, so you\'re best not to push there. Not because I\'m going to hurt you over it, but because I might end up thinking too deeply about it. I survive our relationship on the sole basis that I don\'t let myself think about my immortal soul when I\'m letting you kiss me."



Matt looked worried. He exhaled smoke and his hand emerged from the quilt to touch Mello\'s cheek. "It\'s that close?"



"Yes." Mello nodded. "And I\'m not saying that to hurt you. It\'s that close." He covered the hand with his own. "But I can see your brilliant mind already whirring. That\'s not your justification for not pushing it. If we are going to spend the rest of our lives with me tying you down and leaving marks on your body, you need to help me set some boundaries. You need to help me work out what\'s beyond the pale. I will always do my best to stop there, but if I don\'t, you need to tell me to stop."



"Ok, stop talking and come back to bed."



"I love you and I know you love me." Mello grinned. "It\'s chemically recorded in Roger\'s notes. I\'m here to watch your back. Help me do it?"



"Aw, man, I don\'t know what you\'re trying to get me to say." Matt moaned. "I need an ashtray."



Mello walked across to retrieve it from the table. The laptop told him that it was twenty to four in the morning. He closed it down and returned to sitting on the bed. "I want you to search your soul and work out where your limits are, because I know you have them. Not now, because you\'re exhausted and I intend to see what I can do about helping you sleep. But promise me that you\'ll think about it and we will have that conversation?" Matt nodded, mutely. "I know that\'s a big thing I\'m asking you. I know it is. I love you even more for at least agreeing to think about it." He waited until Matt had finished his cigarette, then took the ashtray from him. "Still in pain?"



"Yes." Matt frowned. "It hasn\'t actually gone away in the last ten minutes."



"Ok." Mello smiled. "But you\'re forgetting that I have some skill in this. I know how to send little Mattys to sleep, even when he\'s hurting."



"Stop patronising me."



Mello raised his hands and climbed into bed beside him. "First of all, instead of going to opposite sides of the bed, like we normally do, I sit here like this." He leaned against the headboard and smiled down at the head on the pillow. "This only usually happens on settees and then only if you\'re really knackered. Come and sit on my lap."



"Huh?"



"Trust me." Mello held out his arms and outstared his lover. Eventually Matt moved, his whole expression dubious. "No, lying down." His arm supported Matt\'s back, curling him in as if he was carrying him again. He pressed Matt\'s head into his shoulder, then arranged the quilts and pillows around them. Languidly, Mello started playing with the mass of red hair. "All we need now is for you to stop looking at me as if I\'ve gone mad and to just accept that you\'re tired. I\'m just going to hold you, ok?"



"This can\'t be comfortable for you."



"It is actually." Mello smiled down. "Now hush." One hand gently stroked Matt\'s arm. "Close your eyes."



Matt did as he was told, then opened them a minute later. "I feel stupid."



"Is that how you really feel?"



"No, it\'s quite nice really but..." Matt yawned. "Sorry. Erm, yeah, you\'re holding me like I\'m a small child."



"Am I really?" Mello asked, as if this wasn\'t something he had noticed in New York several months ago. It occurred to him now, with hindsight and more knowledge, that maybe no-one ever had held Matt like this when he was a toddler. It added a layer of explanation to something Mello had found quite endearing. "I don\'t think so. It\'s just the most efficient way of cuddling you and playing with your hair at the same time. Hush now, sleep." He watched Matt\'s eyes close again and planned the things he could say the next time they opened. But they never did. The redhead\'s breathing deepened and his eyes stayed shut, then Mello, smiling, turned out the light.