Walls Came Tumbling Down

"Shit."

The cacophony of bells had woken Mello, as it had most mornings that he had ever risen in this Institution, but it was Matt's startled expletive that caused the Slav to open his eyes. For all of his cocooning, on the mattress on the floor, it was obvious that Matt had not slept that night. He was far too coherent, this early, for that. Mello surveyed him, unnoticed, for long seconds, then dragged his gaze around the room. Mr Wammy's inner sanctum had been a slight disappointment. The old man's personal effects had long since been packed away and archived, leaving just the vintage furniture behind. Good, solid, late Victorian bedstead, wardrobe and dresser, with a chest of drawers and a hat-stand, alongside a small writing bureau and an easy chair. This was not his office. There was a cabinet, which looked like it should have housed a gramophone, a 1950s television or an early wired radio. The 2004 entertainment centre, concealed within, had been jarringly incongruous, even to Matt's technophile mind. The bookcase stood empty.

But none of that mattered. They were in one of the few forbidden rooms of Wammy's House and none of their peers were allowed to step foot in here. That alone thrilled Mello, but contemplation of the decisions that must have been made in here scored higher. Mr Wammy had to have built his vision for the house while lying here. He would have mused over the development of L himself. The quiet plans, which laid the foundation of the Watari system today, were fine-tuned in this room. If ambience alone could inspire destiny, then Mello now owned the house.

The cathedral bells ceased and Matt stopped fidgeting on the floor. Mello watched to see if his husband was going to sleep. A minute or two passed in quiet waiting, then Matt's hand sneaked from under his quilt and snagged his cigarettes. He was awake. "Hi."

Matt rose up onto his elbows and turned his head to peer up at his husband. He wasn't wearing his goggles. Even if Mello had not already deduced it, he would have known at a glance now that Matt had stayed awake. There were grey pits beneath his dark, green eyes and a certain sluggishness in the stare. "How are you feeling?"

Mello hadn't tried moving to find out. The drip still fed painkillers into his veins, as it had all night, though not morphine now. He had been adamant on that point. A fierce ache could be felt at various points on his torso and his shattered, upper arm itched. He felt listless, without the will to move, but he also seemed more settled than he had been. "For the moment, I'm good."

"Need anything?" Matt blinked, wearily, at him. "Coffee, chocolate, grapefruit?"

"Snog from a hot Spaniard?"

Matt lay still for a couple of seconds, then a smidgeon of tension eased from his shoulders and a soft smile played at his lips. "Gerard Piqué?"

Mello was surprised. Matt's interest in football began and ended with being in the same room, when Mello was watching a match on the television. He had just named a Manchester United defender, who had gone back to Spain in 2008. Mello bit his lip. "I doubt that Barcelona could spare him." He hoped that the gaze that he had fixed upon his husband was seductive and not just ill.

"That other bloke. Chicharito." The name popped into Matt's mind. "Javier Hernández."

"He's Mexican. Have you memorised every Spanish speaking United player?" Mello smiled.

Matt began to wriggle out of his quilted cocoon. "Will I do?"

"Kind of counting on it actually." Mello knew that he should be moving across to make space, but he had no energy. He watched Matt stand. The redhead was still wearing Mello's black t-shirt with grey boxer-shorts. It was a shame, because he usually slept naked. The leather pouch still strapped two of his fingers together; an unlit cigarette was held in the other hand. Matt bent over the bed, careful not to rock it, and kissed Mello tenderly. "Not like that." Mello breathed, forcing his hand up to clasp the back of Matt's head. The second kiss was harsher, more desperate. "Missed you, guapo."

Matt's eyes searched his own, like the truth could be salvaged from a stare. "Thought I'd lost you."

"Hey." Mello hissed, his hand stopping Matt from rising. "Never leaving you. Never."

Matt nodded, but his gaze was skittering away. "But I shot you and..."

"You did not."

Matt could feel himself being pulled further down, so he put out a hand to stop his body crushing Mello's. His cigarette was crumpled on the sheets. "Careful, I..."

Mello's eyes narrowed. "You are mine. Nothing and no-one can change that, you got it now?" He rasped out, "You want to know how you can be sure that I believe you were possessed?" Mello didn't give Matt the chance to attempt a response, he growled, "Because you're still alive. If I thought that you wanted me dead, you'd have a bullet in your head by now, Jeevas, and you know it." He kept his grip on the back of Matt's head, though it was taking all of his strength to do it. Their locked stares stayed for long seconds, before Mello forced him down for another kiss. Then he let him go. It was simply too difficult to hold on. Mello's hand slid down to the mattress and stayed there.

Matt stayed in position a little while longer, then released a breath and sat up on the edge of the bed. "Ok." He whispered. He quickly swooped to pick up his cigarettes from the floor, then returned. "Can I be honest with you?"

"After all of these years, I bloody hope so."

"If you have no doubt, why are we here and not at home?"

Mello frowned, "Isn't that more 'can I be honest with you' and not the other way around?" His heart was pounding. He watched Matt light the cigarette and didn't have an immediate answer for him. There was a swift, sidewards glance from those beautiful green eyes. Mello sighed. "Ok, I'm here because it was stage one in getting to you in London. Winchester is a lot closer to where you were being held. I'm fucked, Mail. Look at me. I couldn't just storm in there, because I can barely move. I wanted to."

"I got that covered."

Mello nodded. "I know." He stared at his husband and quietly asked, "Was Neuron coming to kill you or rescue you?"

"Dunno. We never got that far."

"He turned his back on you. In his deluded reality, you must have been an ally."

Matt shrugged. "Maybe."

Mello swallowed, not wanting to face this. But now it was out there, it might as well be aired, "Did he try to kiss you?" He saw Matt shake his head. "It kills me that he got that close to you again and I still wasn't between you."

"He's dead."

"Yes." Mello lifted his hand to touch Matt, but he was on the other side of him and it was too much to reach him. "Never easy, killing a man, no matter what the motivation." He saw the depth of the drag that Matt took on his cigarette. "It was self-defence."

Matt shook his head. "Like fuck was it. There were bars between us and no indication that he had a key. It was revenge."

"He could have shot you." Mello countered, staring at his husband. There was a frigidness in Matt's stance, that had been there since their reunion, that he needed to get past. He hoped that it was just Matt's defences. His husband had always been prone to coldness. "If anyone asks, it was self-defence. Protecting Lauren and Chrissie."

"And Beatrice."

Mello nodded, "The hostage? Yes. Self-defence and protection." The cigarette was smoked. "Lie beside me, baby." His eyes followed as the butt was dropped into an ashtray beside Matt's mattress and rubbed out into the ashes. "Mail?"

Matt lay in the narrow strip beside him. Mello tensed to shift along, but he didn't move an inch. "You're ok, Mello." Matt carefully hooked his arm across Mello's chest and laid his head on the pillow.

"You protected me last night." Mello whispered. "Lying there, mostly dressed, not sleeping, between me and the door. Is it locked?"

"Yes."

Mello nodded. "And Salvo's scared for Chrissie. You were trying to tell me that someone's watching. That skirmish outside the infirmary last night. Are we in civil war, Mail?"

"The walls are tumbling down as we speak."

"Ok." Mello couldn't stop a yawn emerging, though he had just slept for hours. He talked through it. "We'll just have to make treaties." The yawn faded. "And appeal to the Resolution and the neutrality of the territory. Who's watching?"

Matt kissed his ear. It belatedly occurred to Mello that Matt was lying on the wrong side of him. He was just seeing scars from there. But Matt softly replied, "I don't know if it's Near, or Hal working unilaterally. Gevanni could be here as employee or friend. Century could be playing, but Salvo would be foolish to. He's got his kid here and Chrissie too vulnerable."

"Century's not playing. He's in Chrissie and Salvo's camp."

"Linda's being antagonistic and Luigi, well..." Matt wrinkled up his nose. "Currently hates me."

Mello shook his head. "Luigi's always been more of a danger to himself than us. He could get desperate, but he's also easily headed off that path. Linda's just worried about Luigi. Why am I hearing nothing about Deontic recently?"

"She's still in Aberystwyth."

"What?!" Mello jolted and it caused ripples of agony down his left side. "Fuck! Shit!" He roared. "Fuck!"

Matt was off the bed in an instant, rolling to stand. His quick gaze took in his husband's prone body and then travelled up to the drip. He darted to pick up his goggles from the floor and put them on. He looked again. "What?"

Mello's eyes were closed. He spoke through gritted teeth. "Just tell me that Dee is not on her own in that place." The pain was receding. Matt was silent. Mello breathed. "In that place, where she's been attacked, nearly raped and where most of the rest of us were air-lifted out or fled. Is that where Deontic is alone?"

"She's not been my priority."

"Then why isn't she Linda's?" Mello snapped. "Or Hal's? What the fuck were people thinking of, leaving her there? Whose fucking idea was that?" He exhaled slowly, trying to let the tension go with it. "And, for that matter, why is it that you feel the need to guard me, with the door locked, but Lauren's apparently safe left in the infirmary. Is someone specifically after me?" He found a conclusion. "Is this about Fenian? You said that Century's playing. Is...?"

Matt interrupted. "No." He'd been biting his thumb-nail. He substituted a cigarette. "It's me who's public enemy number one at the moment."

Mello lay still, quietly assimilating it all. "Ok." He spoke, after an age. "I will have chocolate and coffee. And a pastry. You can help me to sit up and, while they are being delivered, Madeleine can come in and do what's needful with my meds." He cast a sharp look at Matt. "Have you self-medicated?"

"They've taken my anti-depressants."

"Hence you're edgy as fuck. Got it." Mello ground his teeth. "Madeleine can deal with that too. Then I want to see, in this order, Hal, Salvo, Linda. I want a laptop. While all of this is happening, you can lie down, on the opposite side of me, and you can get some sleep." He stared at the ceiling. Matt gave a quick nod and turned to find his jeans. Mello listened to him putting them on. A check-list of all that needed to be discussed, discounted or arranged flooded through Mello's mind. Matt was buttoning up his flies, before it occurred to Mello that he could have been watching that. "Baby, here." He waited until Matt was beside his bed again. "I haven't checked you over. You were beaten and..."

"I had a full medical. I'm fine."

"You don't sound fine." Mello challenged, but he already knew that the missing Seroxat was an issue. He relented. "Don't keep anything from me because you think that I can't take it. If you're fighting the good fight, then I want to know what we're up against. I'm grateful that you have my back but..."

"Last time I had it, you were shot."

Mello looked up at him. "The guilt is killing you, isn't it, Mail?"

"I'll get your coffee and chocolate." Matt hurried to the door and turned the key in the lock. Mello opened his mouth to speak, but Matt had already slipped outside. The door was locked from outside.

Mello closed his eyes, grasping what felt like the last minutes of peace, before he would need his energy levels to be sky-high and his mind razor-sharp. He felt selfishly betrayed, wanting to just be there, without the hassle, healing. Only Mail, without his defences up, at his side. None of the politics and the danger, nor the intrigue that was the life-blood of this house. Mello accepted that he might as well desire the moon on a plate. It was nonetheless disheartening. More than that. Mello struggled with the sense that he was personally losing here; that his inability to simply and miraculously be better was costing him too much. Emasculating him. Deranking him. He lay and seriously contemplated just shooting them all, then sleeping for a week. But then he kept mentally removing individuals from his hit-list, so gave up on it altogether. The bastards weren't worth it.

A key turned in the door and Mello blinked into alertness again. He had to imagine that Matt had raced through the house to be back so soon. But it wasn't Matt in the doorway, shuffling into the cramped floorspace; it was Ann. She surveyed the room and sighed, "You've been in here one night and it looks like a bomb hit it." She closed the door behind her and arrived at his bedside. "I passed Matty going to the refectory. How are you feeling?"

"I'll live."

"You do look like a poor soul." She picked up the empty glass from the bedside cabinet. "Were you comfortable in there? It's an old bed, so I don't know how good the springs are. We can get you moved back into the infirmary, if you'd prefer." She straightened the quilt around him and Mello found himself smiling at her. "Is Matt going to help you go to the toilet and have a wash? I can help you, if he can't. How badly have you sweated? Do you need fresh linen?"

Mello shook his head carefully. "It's fine. And Mail can sort me out." His eyes found her key-ring. "You have a key."

Ann frowned, "Yes. I let you in last night, remember?"

"Yes, but I thought you left the key."

"No. Matt took the other one from the dresser. Mr Wammy never took it with him. What would be the point?"

Mello grinned at her. "Am I the first person to sleep in here, except Mr Wammy?"

She chuckled. "Bless you."

"Am I?"

"Yes, Mello, you are." She shook her head. "You kids always find the strangest things to out do each other in. Do you need anything bringing in? Shampoo, television?"

"Laptop."

Ann winced. "Oh. I'll have to speak to Hal about that."

Mello surveyed her carefully, "Has Hal specifically prohibited us having a laptop? In a house with a computer lab and any number of kids, who would, stupidly, be thrilled to let my husband borrow their personal laptops?"

Ann was visibly uncomfortable under this scrutiny. "I'm just the housekeeper, Mello. I'm not party to all the policy stuff."

"Are the orders coming from Near?"

"I don't know!" She picked her way through the obstacles littering the floor and made it back to the door. "Is Matty bringing you some breakfast?"

"Ann." Mello spoke to the ceiling. "You've been given some orders that you find distasteful, because you rebelled against them last night in allowing me and Mail to be together in this room. I'm in Wammy's House because initially it got me closer to my husband. I'm still in Wammy's House, because the thought of moving isn't an attractive one. But if anyone, particularly Near, is messing with me and Mail, then I'm going to tell him to take us home." He wrinkled up his nose. "Events will have taught us that this is no longer home." His gaze slid sidewards and he could see that Ann looked pained by the door. "And your impartiality is being stretched to the limit."

Ann stood with her hand on the door-knob. "I just want you safe and sound. That's all." She turned the handle. "All of you." She shook her head, seeming as if the weight of the world was on her shoulders. "I'll get you some fresh linen. I'd like it if you stayed here, where you can be looked after."

"Mail is quite willing and able to look after me."

She was close to tears, as she opened the door with a whispered, "Yes." Then stepped outside. "I'll get some linen." Then she was gone.