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Annals of Fear II	By : DeathNoteFangirl Category: Death Note > Yaoi-Male/Male > Mello/Matt Views: 5803 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Death Note and I do not make any money from these writings

Chapter List
- 8
- 9
- 10
The manor house was as dark as ever.   If anything, if was worse with the rain clouds washing out the sky with a canopy of dullness and white.   Yet for all of that, it felt lighter.    There was none of the heaviness of atmosphere that had played so much havoc with their nerves and spirits only two months before.   There seemed nothing supernaturally present, while the sounds that had so plagued them were silent.   It felt like an old house; innocent in its squat quaintness.   Mello carried the box of equipment, but Matt was with him.   Matt had called it a compromise, but Mello knew defeat when it happened to him.

The expedition had begun with Mello rushing out to unhook the trailer and bring Matt's Camaro as close to the chalet block stairs as possible.    He had noticed that Deontic's BMW was missing again and had suspected, with a sinking feeling, that the Malaysian woman was at the house.   She wasn't. He didn't know where she was, but he presumed that Hal was with her, as neither lady challenged him again before he left.    Nor did any of the Celts.    Mello had strongly considered just driving off without his husband, but just half a minute of contemplating those consequences had him waiting.   Matt had eased himself down the stairs and into the passenger seat of the car.   He'd lasted just over a mile, before gradually turning in his seat. By the time they'd risen up the track to the manor house, Matt had been kneeling in the footwell of the passenger side of his car, his head bowed against the backrest.   It had upset Mello more than he would ever show.

Now inside the house, Matt moved with an invalid's fragility, pointing out places to fit the devices.   But it was Mello who climbed or crouched to affix them.    Everything was very much as they had left it after their previous sojourn.   They knew from Hal's report that a Catholic priest had been brought in to bless the concealed chapel, at Mello's behest.   The ritual had passed without incident and the entrance had been nailed back up.   Otherwise, no-one had entered the house at all.   In the living room, the furniture was still in an L-shape with mattresses lining the floors.   The computers were missing, but the table waited where they had sat.   The ashes of their fire remained unraked in the hearth.    Mello had found a pair of his sunglasses in the kitchen, which he thought he had lost.   Yet, as they passed through, nothing stirred.      As they moved along the first floor landing, returning from the second floor and the roof, Mello commented, "It's gone, hasn't it?"

"Yeah."   But Matt still reached cautiously for the door-handle of that stripped and bare room, that had been the centre of so much trouble.    Mello nodded and Matt half-shoved, half-kicked the door open.    Daylight trickled in through the windows.   It felt like a different room.    They waited and still nothing happened.    Matt sauntered inside, so Mello followed.   "One up there."   Matt pointed towards the opposite corner to the door. "And one up here."   He indicated the wall above the door.     As Mello moved forward with his stepladder, Matt swung his bag off his back.   Inside were the tools necessary for raising the floorboards again.    It wasn't just the burning agony of his arse and legs that gave him pause.

"Mail, leave it.   I'll do it."   Mello commented from the top of the stepladder.    "I never saw it.    I want to."    Mello reached up to start fitting the camera.    Matt ignored him, kneeling to begin work.    The instant his wedge touched the crack, Mello's 'phone rang, startling them both.   "Fuck shit."   Mello breathed, lowering his arms to retrieve his 'phone.    Predictably, it was Hal.   He answered it.   "Hal."

"Mello."   The seagulls sounded in the background.   "Are you at the hospital?"

"No.   Why?"

Hal paused,   "Tell me that you're not at the house."

Mello kept his gaze fastened on Matt, who had stood and was looking back.   "Why?"

"Because Fenian and Kiana are on their way there."    Hal replied, then hurriedly added, "We assumed that you were at the hospital."

Mello sighed heavily, "Oh Father!   Why hast thou forsaken me?!"   At Matt's querying look, Mello puffed, his shoulders sagging, "Fenian and Kiana. Coming here."   He watched Matt turn away and crouch poised with his hammer again.    "I knew it!"   Mello gasped out, the stepladder wobbling under him.    "The second I said that I did not want to be here with him, I knew it!   It was inevitable from that moment on!    Because the dogs of Hell beset my every movement with the shavings of Satan's ass!"     He stopped dead as Matt snorted.   It was the closest to mirth that he'd heard from the redhead in a while; and a broad grin was turned into his direction.   "What?!"

"Mello."   Hal was speaking into his ear. "Would you like me to come up there?    As an impartial party?"

"How are you impartial?"   Mello demanded.   "You're on my side!"

"As Watari, in my professional capacity, I'm not on anyone's side."

"You're on holiday!"   Mello shrieked.   "You're just Hal now! And you're on my side!   How long ago did he leave?"

Hal coughed, "About twenty minutes ago. But we thought you were at the hospital."

Mello closed his eyes and opened them again.   "He's probably already here.    He'll be downstairs, limbering up for round 224 million." He leapt down off the ladder and paced.   "Oh fuck it!"   Then took a deep breath.   "Thank you for letting me know, Hal.   Good day."   And hung up.   Matt was still smirking.   "What?"

"The shavings of Satan's ass?"

"Forget that, I need to know where he is."   Mello marched out of the door, then returned to grasp Matt's arm, taking him with him.   They crossed the corridor, into one of the front facing bedrooms, and peered out of the window.    Fenian's Land Rover was standing, looking more abandoned than parked, just to the right hand side of the bench.   There was no sign of its occupants.   Mello raised his hand for silence, though Matt wasn't making a sound.   They listened intently, but there was no tell-tale tread nor voices to suggest that anyone else was in the house with them.    Mello hissed, "If you were back at the hub, where you should be, I'd be 'phoning you by now to find out where the fuck he was. The cameras are up!"

"Or you could have stayed there."

"No, Mail, I couldn't."   Mello's eyes narrowed and he led them back across the room to the top of the stairs.    They listened, but heard nothing.   "Fenian!"   Mello barked suddenly, but there was no answering call.    "I don't think he's in the house."

"Nor me."

"Right, so we get these last lot up and get the fuck out of here."

"Ok."

They returned to the empty room, where Mello hurriedly installed the cameras, while Matt took up the floorboards.    Mello whipped out a couple of cameras and a block of sensors.   "Where in here?"   He asked, swinging his legs into the hole.

"It hardly matters. It's tiny."   Matt replied.

"Right."   Mello propelled himself off the edge, bypassing the ladder entirely to land on his feet at the bottom.    He had seen photographs, but never the reality.    This was the room which he had had swept and cleared, physically and spiritually, despite fears that it might be an important crime scene.     He looked around, while he worked.    This was the room in which Matt had been trapped.   This was the place where there may have been Satanic rituals.    He fitted a camera to the wall, crossed himself, then fitted another by the stairs.   The sensor block was separated and placed on the floor.   He had finished and no demon had risen from the depths to assail him.    He ran, touched a hand and foot to the ladder, rebounded off onto the opposite wall and the next leap saw him clear of the hole, standing beside Matt on the floorboards.   "Done."

Matt smiled, "Very fast."

"Thank you."   He kicked the floorboards back into place, but one fell into the hole.   "Fuck it, let's go."

"I hope that didn't smash anything."   Matt peered down, but he could see the camera undamaged on the wall.   "All good."

"Great. Let's go."   Mello stuffed the tools back into Matt's bag and zipped it up.   He glanced at the stepladders, but they belonged to the house and they were fine where they were.   "We should get you fed. You haven't eaten all day."

Matt nodded.   They were back down the stairs, through the tattered remains of a wardrobe, before he replied verbally.   "I'll order a curry.   I want to check that everything is working correctly."

Mello was looking backwards and forwards, peering into the dining room. He hissed out, "Fenian?"   But there was no answering sneer.   "Ok, let's go."

"Do you want to put a camera in the coal cellar?"

"No." Mello stated firmly.   "I want to go."

"I'll fit it, if you like."    Matt lit a cigarette.   He knew that the cellar had been the scene of Mello's darkest hour.

"No. There's nothing down there.   Just coal."    Mello strode through into the kitchen, doubling back to keep pace, when he remembered that Matt couldn't, or wouldn't, move so quickly.    He leaned across the sink to check out of the kitchen window.   "Still no sign of them, come on."

They had made it just outside the back door, when a flash of auburn alerted them to Fenian's presence at the stable door.   Mello clutched Matt protectively, but Fenian didn't even look at them.    He was too busy taking goose-steps, in a diagonal line, straight out of the stable and across the cobblestones.    He arrived at the extreme edge of the last of the outhouses on the opposite side and immediately drew a chalk-line on the wall.    Standing stock still, he took out a compass and consulted it.   He added co-ordinates to the wall, then yelled out the same.    All of this without acknowledging the presence of Mello and Matt, though he must have seen them.   Only now, with his eyes fastened back onto the compass, did he blithely speak, "You may pass."

Mello's head rose on the stalk of his neck.   He escorted Matt to the side of the Camaro, but Mello's interest was piqued and anyway, he didn't want to be seen to be obeying Fenian's orders.    "Is that the route that the path down the mountain would have taken, if the stable wasn't there?"   He glanced at the chalk markings. "Or, indeed, the outhouse?"   He was aware of Kiana appearing from alongside the stable block.   Mello nodded to her, with all the exaggerated politeness that he used to afford the comares of troublesome Dons.   "Ma'am."

Kiana frowned slightly, but didn't reply.   She stared past with dark eyes fixed upon Matt's face.   Fenian walked away, heading back towards his Land Rover.   Kiana changed course and met him at its back doors.   Mello frowned.   He did not like being ignored.   But Matt leaned towards him and muttered, "Fuck 'em."   And Mello forced a smile.    Matt opened the boot of his Camaro and they deposited their box and bag inside it.    Across the yard, Kiana was helping Fenian into a climbing harness.   Despite himself, Mello was staring, trying to divine what was going on.    He gestured to Matt, then jogged across to the outhouse, skirted it and peered over the barbed wire, into the wooded ravine below.   Matt had slowly followed.   "Mello."

Mello jabbed a finger downwards.   "He's going down there!"

"Fine, let him."

Mello smirked. "I bet I could Parkour down faster than he could with all those ropes and shit."

Matt peered over the edge.   What had seemed like short trees, growing on land just out of view, were actually treetops, with their silver trunks lost in the foliage beneath.   There was a distant suggestion of water flowing somewhere in the depths.   "I bet you could too, but we were going to order curry and check that my stuff is transmitting correctly."

"This won't take a minute."

"What do you hope to find down there?"

Mello shrugged.   "Whatever Fenian is going down to find."

Matt stared at him.   "Do you want my honest response?"

There were footsteps on the cobbles behind them, then a clang as something metallic dropped. Matt flinched very slightly and Mello held onto his arm.   Fenian and Kiana rounded the corner, with the former coiling reinforced, steel rope into a wide loop in his hand.   Kiana was carrying a belay device and a ball of string.    Fenian paused only a beat, before walking on towards them.   He asked, gruffly, "What do you want, Mello?"

"What are you doing?"

"What does it look like I'm doing?"

Kiana moved behind Fenian, until she was beside Matt.   "I have something that will bring down the swelling and bring out the bruises in my chalet.   Come and see me back there."

Matt just sucked on his cigarette, as if he hadn't heard.   Mello looked past him, "Thank you, Kiana. That would be gratefully received."    He found a smile, but Kiana looked at him like he was scum.   Mello bristled, "I don't know what you think you know, but I know that it probably isn't like that."

Kiana met his gaze head on.   "I know that Liam has a childhood scar the length of his thigh that was caused by you.   I know that Matt was alone with you and he is now beaten up.   Is there anything else to know?"

"Kiana," Fenian snapped, "he's not fucking worth it."    He moved to secure the steel rope around a thick birch tree, leaning over the barbed wire to do so.

Mello swallowed, biting back the wave of anger which threatened to engulf him.   He projected his most charming persona and kept his voice steady.   "I was, self-admittedly, a little shit at Wammy's House.    Kiana, you think you know about the place, but did you know that Matt and I were there twice as long as Fenian?     I was four when I was taken there.   Mail was three.   We grew up in the institution.   We were taught from an early age that the only outcome was to win.   There were and still are rules and etiquette involved, but there was also pressure on each of us to win by whatever means.   Fenian was a threat.   They were all a threat."

"You were wrong." Kiana interrupted.

"I was young." Mello pressed on.   "You do realise that I left there when I was fourteen?   You are talking about the actions and motives of a pre-pubescent boy!   Were you morally mature at fourteen? Because I wasn't. I was an evil, little shit.   I was also mortally afraid of losing, because, in my experience, losers got sent away without a by-your-leave and this had been my home since I was an infant.   Mail was in it."   He was aware of Matt's stare burning into him and remembered too late that that was a moot point, since he had left Matt at Wammy's House when he walked out.   "Moreover, I was taught that I had to become L, it was my destiny. It was all that was.   No second chances, no second place.   People have been driven to suicide or serial murder by that place.    I indulged in a little playground bullying, well way to go me!   But I understand why I did it."   He exhaled, then added as an afterthought, "Which doesn't make it right."

"No.   It doesn't."   Kiana replied, but her dark blue eyes held just the hint of compassion in them.   "Then what you are saying is that it wasn't Fenian's fault?   It was nothing personal."

Mello looked at her in incredulity,   "Of course it wasn't personal!   He was there and he was a genius. He was a rival!   We never even got as far as personifying each other.   It was dog eat fucking dog.   He can tell you that."   He turned to involve Fenian, who was testing the stability of his steel rope way beyond the point needed to ascertain its safety.   "Can't you? Tell her!"

"She knows all that I have to tell her."   Fenian replied, distantly.

Kiana reached out a hand towards Mello, too high to invite a handshake, too low for a slap. He stared at it, but she just held it in the air before him.   She spoke urgently, "I just want to hear you say, from your own lips, that it wasn't his fault.   That were was nothing about him, his looks, his personality, his..."

"He was a genius and he was there!"   Mello reaffirmed.   "I did it to all of them.   There's nothing special..." Mello paused and reworded it.   "There was nothing that singled him out from the mass of people I had to beat.   It was nothing personal, it was just trying to keep ahead.   He could have been the nicest person in the world and I'd have attempted to slap him down, because that's the kind of desperate, little thug I was."    His gaze shifted sidewards to Matt's bruised features.   He realised how that must look in the light of his words.   "Please separate Mail out from this.   He's always been a different case."

"Why?" Kiana asked, bluntly.

"Why is he a different case?"   Mello frowned.    "Because he's..."

"Why wasn't Mail bullied?"   She added, "Back then." Then hurried on before Mello could protest.   "He obviously did something right, because he was a rival too.   What did Mail do that Fenian didn't?   So that one was safe and one was viciously attacked."

"Viciously attacked?"   Mello wracked his memory, trying to pluck out the incidents, but nothing sprang to mind.   He dismissed it and analysed the meaning behind her question.   "You're asking if Fenian could have done what Mail did, in order to sidestep my fear strategy?"

"Yes." Kiana nodded, "And we will come back to your fear strategy in a moment."

Mello sighed, "Ok, Fenian could have done something.   He could have been orphaned five years earlier, before I'd learned to become a single-minded bastard.    Mail and I became friends before I worked out that it was better not to have them.   Mail and I watched each others backs for years; we still are!    But but the time Fenian arrived, no-one else could get close.   That's it. That's all it was."

Kiana looked past him. "Liam?"

Mello turned too.   Fenian had his back to them, still tugging on the rope.   He nodded, his shoulders tense.   "Yeah, fine."

Mello sighed, "It was nothing personal, Fenian.   I swear.   I apologise if that makes it worse, but that's the way it was."

Fenian threw the length of the steel rope into the foliage below.    He reached for the belay device from Kiana and she handed it over with a smile.   "Take care, anam álainn."   She leaned on the post, craning forward.    Fenian flashed a grim smile at her and they kissed, then he threw himself backwards into the ravine.   Kiana glanced at the men beside her.    Mello was gripping Matt's hand tightly. The redhead had just planted a kiss onto the Slav's cheek, or whispered something, she wasn't sure.   She peered over the edge again and looked down, prompting Mello to do the same; while Matt lit a cigarette.   The sounds of descent were only six to ten feet below, but Fenian was already lost from sight.   Kiana spoke softly, "You have no idea of the nature of the man.   It couldn't have been easy for any of them, but he took it hard."

"Ditto." Matt said, startling them both.

A questioning look furrowed Mello's brow.   Kiana asked, "What?"

Matt took a drag on his cigarette.   "You have no idea of the nature of the man.   It wasn't easy for any of us, but Mello took it hard."

Mello squeezed Matt's hand.   "Thank you, guapo."   He smiled at him fondly.   "Kiana, you are in danger of seeing one piece of a very complex picture."

"Be that as it may."   Kiana replied, "But it's the only piece I give a shit about."

There was a triumphant shout from below.   "Collapsed pathway."

Kiana yelled down, "Well done, Liam. Is it in the right place?"

There was a pause then he shouted back, "What?"

"Is it in the right place?"   She bellowed, enunciating each word.

"Yes. I think so."   Came the call.   "Checking."

Kiana stood back, looking from Mello to Matt and back, "It would be a nice gesture if you congratulate him, when he reports his findings later on."   They both stared blankly at her.   "Or are you both so bound up in childhood rivalries that you can't bear, even now, to see him shine?"

Mello inclined his head. "We will assess it on its merits when we learn the details."   He leaned against Matt and started moving. "Until then, I promised to feed him and we have some things to test out in our own investigation.   Good luck with yours."   She snorted with derision and turned to peer into the ravine.   Mello and Matt left her to it; checking out chalk marks and scribbled co-ordinates on the outhouse and either side of the stable wall, before retreating to Matt's car and driving away.
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Annals of Fear II