Walls Came Tumbling Down

It felt strange when the door closed, leaving them alone again in perfect privacy. Mello sat on the edge of the bed, in Mr Wammy's old room, where Matt and Salvo had left him. He'd walked from the infirmary, off the drip now, with frequent rests along the way. It was a triumph of sorts, but it rendered him aching and exhausted now. He reached for his chocolate bar and snapped off a restorative piece.

Matt stood in the middle of the carpet, chewing cuticles already red raw with biting. He glanced at the door and then, almost as an after-thought, sauntered across to lock it from within.

"Is this alright?" Mello asked sharply, to cover up the fact that he thought it might not be. "I know it's not ideal. Tomorrow. If I'm feeling up to the journey, we'll go home tomorrow."

Matt nodded and began systematically checking the room for cameras and audio bugs. Mello let him get on with it. It was a welcome respite, in which to recover from the trek there. He had the cover of not being able to talk about anything of great import until they were clear. Mello watched his husband move about the room, wondering why he seemed like a stranger. Too much had passed unsaid. They were usually so in tune with each other's thought patterns and feelings, that it was close enough to telepathy. It didn't feel like that right now.

"All good." Matt declared, after twenty minutes of unhurried and thorough searching.

"Surprising."

"Yep."

Mello gave him a long, appraising once over, despite having not taken his eyes off him since they got here. "Where do you want to start?"

Matt met his eyes, which was encouraging. "Your health. Making you comfortable."

"We're a few weeks off that yet." Mello smiled, but there was a steeliness to his gaze. "Why have I suddenly become the last to know anything, Mail?" The redhead watched him emotionlessly from behind his goggles. "Time for some straight talking. You're making me look like a cunt." Mello didn't shift his vision from Matt's face. To his credit, his husband didn't look away either, though there was a certain frostiness in his aspect. It was wariness rather than censure. "I forgave you for hiding the fact of the rankings." That was obviously unexpected. Matt blinked and opened his mouth, but Mello pushed on. "I don't give a shit where you should have placed. You hid that from me. It's your dirty, little secrets that have done my head in today."

"There's no master-plan."

Mello growled, "You're telling me! It's been like fucking 4chan in there today! You trolling everyone who crosses your path. Playing games because you haven't got your way."

Matt reeled backwards and half-sat, half-stood against the dressing table drawers. Silence sliced the atmosphere, thick as treacle. "Fuck you." Matt said, eventually.

"No. Fuck you." Mello replied, calmly. "Are you really going to let Century have access to your records?"

"What records? No bastard knows where I came from." Matt lit a cigarette, trying to keep the trembling from his hands.

Mello narrowed his eyes. "It's on my list. In the contract. I'm going to call you on your shit, whenever it transpires; because I'm not going through months of trying to work out what's wrong."

Matt stared at him. "Like you don't already."

Mello snorted. "I so don't. You wouldn't believe the amount of times that I bit my tongue for fear of setting you scuttling back into your shell." He reached out a hand. "Come back to me. Let me in." He saw Matt contemplate it, taking a long drag on his cigarette, before pushing away from the dressing table and sitting beside him on the bed. "I'm coming home with you, I swear."

"What would happen if we split up?"

"Hell would freeze over." Mello told him. "And Heaven would fall into the ocean."

"Would you take the house?"

Mello frowned. "How far down this contingency plan have you actually gone? Because it's unnecessary. We're having a discussion. We're not splitting up."

"Would you like to marry me? Legally."

Mello felt like the carpet was coming up to meet him. He was tingling all over with the shock of pins and needles. "Yes." Mello stared, wide-eyed at his husband. He hadn't actually left the bed, though there was still the sensation that part of him was slightly out of kilter. Matt sat in exactly the same position, wearing precisely the same expression, as he had when he'd asked if Mello was taking their home. A little breathlessly, Mello commented, "And you wonder why I accuse you of bouncing all over the place." His arm snaked around Matt's back. "Bit of a leap across the great divide there."

Matt stared at the carpet. "If it's in our own names, I might have to forge the birth certificates or see how the National Registry Office is storing their data. Sneak us in." He blinked slowly. "Easy to do with stealing another couple's identity."

"But we're not going to do either of those, are we?" Mello replied, mildly, gently, as if talking to someone prone to flight. "Because that would be..." He had been about to say 'silly', but amended it at the last to, "dangerous." A suspicion dawned. "You want certificates with your own name on them. A birth certificate and marriage lines."

The nod was quite ostentatious for Matt. He parted his lips to say, "Yes," but no sound emerged. It was a very obvious mouthing of it instead.

Mello was fitting all of the pieces together in his head. "Ok. I apologise for accusing you of trolling. You're just freaking out in a different direction to what I envisaged." He grimaced. "Which was stupid of me. I should have anticipated it."

Matt closed his eyes. "Don't patronise me."

"Patronise!" Mello exclaimed. "You accused Salvo of that too. Patronise is just another word for control. Manipulation. Yes, you have been stripped of a lot of power just recently, but nothing that's permanently lost." He smiled reassurance. "You're trying very desperately to exist in the world again. Asking Century to find your family roots, which will naturally result in your records coming into play. Oh! I see! An exhibition! As much proof as you can muster, under the new Resolution, to demonstrate to all of your peers that you are real. Then asking me to marry you, so you can get some legitimacy, even if it's under an assumed name. How am I doing?"

"You're being a bastard."

Mello leaned in to administer a one-armed, one-sided hug. He would have liked to have pulled Matt towards himself, but Mello was frankly too tired and weak for that right now. "I gave you a birth certificate." He kissed Matt's shoulder. "I'd marry you any day of the week, every day if it was possible. As it stands, I already consider myself married to you. The only reason I'm not wearing the ring to prove it, is because my bloody arm is in plastic." His lips found the nape of Matt's neck and pecked kisses all up to his collar. "And while you're wearing this, you're mine anyway. No choice to go. You belong to me."

"You've been bullshitting me too."

"Oh?"

Matt looked sideways, out of the corner of his eyes, at him. "About being too injured to go home. Like you didn't..."

"Yes, I know that I flew over the Atlantic with half of my body mangled in the flames." Mello glared, irritably at the memory and the accusation. "But it's not a situation that I wish to repeat any time soon, nor ever again. I'm not lying about being in pain, Mail. Fuck you if you think that."

"Are you scared I'm going to attack you?"

Mello surveyed him coolly from just inches away. "I'm more scared that I'll attack you. I've been closer to cracking than you appear to have noticed."

"I noticed." Matt told him blankly. "And I'll risk it."

Mello closed his eyes and let his head loll against Matt's shoulder again. "You're not going to be alright until we go home. I know that."

"If I could find a way to do it though, make it legal in our own names, without the danger, would you marry me?"

"Which part of 'any day, every day' caused you all of the bother?" Mello tried to edge closer, but movement caused sharp pains through his side. He ignored them, choosing instead to focus on the over-whelming feeling of relief that was engulfing him. He was so scarred and ugly, but Matt was coming out with all of this romantic talk. It was probably inadvertent, but Mello would take it. "Huh?"

Matt continued, earnestly, "We could invite people, have them there to witness it. Like family."

Mello frowned and opened his eyes. They flickered upwards to survey Matt's expression. His husband was woodenly emotionless, despite his gushing tone. Mello watched him for a moment, "Will you be borrowing Deontic's dreams for long? Only she might need them back." He saw Matt look away. "And how is this fitting into your great plan to destroy all that Roger worked for and built?"

Matt twitched into the barest shrug. "He built the rivalry too."

Mello stared. Eventually he asked, "What's the end goal now, guapo? Because I can't shake the feeling that you're making this up as you go along." His arm gave way, causing him to slip a couple of inches off Matt's shoulder. The redhead moved to steady him, but Mello still roared out the pain of the jolt. "Fuck!"

Wordlessly and gently, Matt eased him flat onto the bed. Mello's feet still touched the ground, but his torso was prone and his teeth were clenched. Matt's gaze flashed over him. "Are you alright?"

"Just fucking hold me, like you held Ann. Just..." He didn't get any further, too frustrated, trapped, in pain and tired to speak. But then the memory of Matt asking him to marry him would wash over again and, for a split second each time, chased away the rest. That sickening stabbing sensation in his side didn't let him forget for long. Matt leaned above him, supporting Mello's rib-cage with a hand pressed over it. It afforded some relief. Mello hissed, "The ultimate fucking irony is that you've worked out it's a tactic. You made Ann's day, hugging her like that, but you did it to prove a point. Manipulate her into doing your bidding, like you're always going to fucking do with me and..." He was crying too much to continue and he didn't even know when the tears had started. Above him, Matt just seemed stonily blank, but Mello knew him better than that. "What good is it going home when one of us is bound to snap?"

"Pretty, pretty Mihael." Matt whispered and lowered his head. His lips clasped over Mello's and they moved anxiously, painfully, through a kiss that still soared Mello's sensibilities Heavenwards. A deep calm came from nowhere, hidden in some reserve of energy buried in his will. Mello felt his shoulders relax, lowering further than he thought possible. He banished all thought but for that moment, being there, being loved. Matt raised his head and peered Puckishly back at him. "Marry me."

Mello swallowed, "Ok."

"And stop being a fucking drama queen about going home."

"Ok."

"You're not going mad and I'm not possessed."

"Ok." Mello blinked, then felt that he should be saying something more. "Don't use our marriage to expose Watari and bring Social Services down on our heads. Or kill Roger."

"You're such a camp bastard at times."

Mello stared at him. It took a while for the insult to truly register. "What?"

Matt stood up. "You need me to be sane, if we're ever going home." He knelt down and started unfastening Mello's jeans.

Mello felt like he was having to mentally run just to keep up here. "You're giving me a blow job?!"

"If you want me to." Matt peered up at him. "But mostly I was getting you undressed, so you can lie more comfortably in bed and stop causing yourself more pain." He waited. "You want a blow job?"

Mello deflated. "Yes. No. It might hurt too much." He reached across himself to adjust the plastic casing of his cast, where it touched his shoulder. His skin felt rubbed raw there, where he felt anything at all. Matt had quietly continued undressing him. Nothing sexy about it now. Just functional. Mello wiped his eyes, then left his arm lying over them. "I'm sorry."

"Me too." Matt paused. "What about?"

"I used to be so vain, you know?"

Matt snorted, "Used to?"

Mello wanted to break, but he also wanted Matt to hear this. "I used to be gorgeous, didn't I? Now look at me. I'm twenty-one years old and I'm a mess. More bloody scars to add to the ugly, mangled..."

"Pretty, pretty Mihael."

"Don't." Mello moved his arm and attempted a glare, but this was genuinely upsetting him. "I'm sorry that you have to put up with this. How can you bear to fuck this?" He saw Matt biting his lip, concentrating on inching Mello's jeans away from his feet. "It can't be what you fantasised about, when we were young."

Matt shrugged. "It's what I fantasise about now."

Mello watched him stand, the jeans in his hand. He looked so perfect. Yes, it was love. Despite it all, it was love, head over heels and too big to contemplate, but it was also that Matt was a handsome man. Everything about him, from the cut of his chin to the cute, little arse, and everything else in between and beyond. "Guapo."

"What?"

"It's what you are." Mello told him. Matt gave a dismissive half-smile. It wasn't false modesty. He simply hadn't taken the compliment on board long enough to even dismiss it. "I must be such a disappointment to you, because I know I'm a disappointment to myself."

Matt grimaced. "Right. This is like a big thing?"

"I'm trying to tell you how I feel!" Mello protested. "I hate what I see in the mirror. I see every blemish! And God knows there are blemishes enough. Fucking scars and..."

"You look great." Matt folded the jeans. "I added to them."

Mello shook his head. "No. You were possessed. I believe that 100%. I don't blame you. I don't think anything followed. I've been watching you and I don't even think it could happen again. You're more guarded now." He hesitated, hearing his own words and realising that he hadn't really analysed that. It was blind faith more than anything, and telling Matt things that would reassure him. His husband's scars were far less visible than his own. "I'm coming home with you. Please don't pretend to be together and fine, just to make it happen sooner. That's," he floundered for a better word than the one on the tip of his tongue. But that was the honest one. "Lies."

Matt bent down to ease Mello's jumper off him. He had to lift him slightly away from the bed again, being as gentle as he could. "You need me sane before we get to go home?"

"No." Mello grit his teeth against the inevitable sharp aching that moving caused. "That would take too long." He saw Matt's sneering look. "I don't mean it like that. I just mean that neither of us is in a good place right now. Maybe we should be in a better one, before we're left alone together. I mean that for your sake as much as my own. I'm just trying to make decisions that are best for us both."

Matt was quiet, as he took the jumper and folded it on top of the jeans. "Being here is best for us both?"

"And I would marry you, over and over again. I want to be with you for the rest of my life."

"Let's get you into bed."

Mello nodded, not at all sure that he had articulated all that he felt inside. It barely mattered for the next few minutes, as his concentration was all taken up with not screaming with pain. But he was eventually under the covers and the night-time hours of stillness ahead lay as a welcoming thought.

Matt fussed, adding his own quilt onto the other side of Mello, ready to cocoon inside it. They had chocolate brownies, cooked in Mrs Carnegie's oven. He placed them on the bedside cabinet, within Mello's grasp. Games and cigarettes joined a lighter and ashtray on the far side of the pillow. Mello watched him do it, exhausted by events and the conversation. "Would you do something for me, Mail?"

Green eyes gazed back from the edge of the bed. "What?"

"Stop." Mello let his right hand fall back beside his head, as comfortable now as he'd ever be. "Too many people are getting hurt." He waited, but Matt did not respond. "Luigi is probably brain damaged, if he survives. Fenian's fucked up big time. Salvo's out of his mind with worrying. Century's just lost it. Chrissie and Lauren don't need this right now; and I don't know what's keeping Linda and Deontic from freaking out. Each other, I presume. I still need to talk to Hal, because she's going to end up leaving. Frankly that would be a bleeding tragedy for this house. The last thing that those kids need, on top of the other crap they've had in their lives." He finally met Matt's eyes. "And we can't handle it. Brilliant plan. Bad timing."

Matt looked away, then reached over him to retrieve his cigarettes again. "You didn't mention Near."

"Near's no more fucked than he was before." Mello concluded. "Which was pretty fucked. He never gets to come home. Never gets time out." He heard Matt suck in a breath. "He's my rival, which doesn't mean that I shouldn't analyse his situation. Au contraire! It means that I really should! And that is it."

Matt lit his cigarette. "What exactly do I stop? I'm not doing anything. Fenian's done it all." He inhaled nicotine and smoke. "I set the trap. He triggered it."

Mello was getting too tired for this. "I don't know, baby." He sighed. "I just want us all on a better footing before we leave."

"Not tomorrow then." Matt didn't ask it as a question. It was a statement.

Mello closed his eyes. He didn't answer, because he didn't know what to say. He'd started this promising that tomorrow they would go home. Perhaps they should. He listened languidly to Matt smoking and didn't open his eyes again to watch it happen. The whole well of feeling was being smothered by pained exhaustion. He waited too long before deciding that he had to say something. "Can we decide tomorrow?" He ventured finally, before remembering the perfect excuse to stall. "After comparing our master/slave contracts. Getting them signed. Start on a new footing from the off." He was slipping into sleep.

Distantly, he heard Matt stubbing out his cigarette. An age passed, in which Mello nearly sunk completely into slumber, before Matt quietly replied, "Yes."