The Mello Code

Deontic lightly knocked on Mello and Matt\'s door. It was opened by Mello, his gaze suspicious, but softening when he saw who it was. He smiled, "Did we stay in our room too long?"



She lowered her eyes. "There is dessert on the table and some of it is chocolate."



"I\'d better come out then." Mello smirked.



"I wondered if I might speak with Matt."



Mello stepped back to reveal the redhead sitting on the edge of the bed, playing on his PSP. Their bags were still in the middle of the floor, unpacked. "Matty, Deontic wants to know if you want to go out and play."



"Sec." Matt replied, over the cigarette in his mouth. His fingers moved rapidly on the buttons and he leaned slightly closer to the game. Mello and Deontic waited, but a few seconds later, Matt appeared satisfied with events in the little screen. He paused it and took the cigarette from his mouth. Smoke filled the air in front of his face.



Deontic inclined her head in his direction. "Will you be coming out or may I come in?"



There was no response from Matt. Mello, however, sniggered. "He came out years ago." He leaned against the door, taking a bite out of his chocolate bar. Deontic gave no sign that she had heard him. She merely waited for an answer to her question. "Come on in, Pek Wan." Mello extended an arm into the room. Once she was through, he closed the door again. "Who\'s still out there?"



"Luigi and Century."



Mello nodded. "That was predictable. I\'m guessing that they aren\'t talking to each other. Century is reading a book and Luigi is probably working on a laptop."



"That is correct." Deontic\'s whole stance was very ill at ease. She stiffened further as Mello enfolded her in his arms. "Salvo\'s already hugged me!"



Mello laughed. "And now I am too. Pek Wan, it\'s ok. It\'s just me. Mihael." He squeezed her. "You knew where we came from before you negotiated those medals, didn\'t you?"



"No. Hal told me that those were the first three countries to respond."



"You knew, didn\'t you?"



"Yes."



Mello nodded and kissed her cheek. "Thank you for organising the medals, Pek Wan. They really mean a lot to us."



"You\'re welcome."



He released her, though stood beside her. "Now, what did you want to speak with Matty about?" Another knock sounded on the door. "Wow, we\'re popular all of a sudden." Mello raised a finger. "Hold that thought." He strode across to the door and opened it to find Salvo filling the doorway. Mello\'s gaze rose to meet Salvo\'s eyes. "Yes?"



With a quick glance, Salvo took in the scene in the bedroom. Deontic was still standing in front of Matt, her head bowed. He was smoking, but not saying a word. Salvo looked back at Mello. "Are you and Matt staying here?"



"Are you and Chrissie staying here?"



"We don\'t know yet."



Mello nodded. "How about the other factions?"



From inside the room, Deontic\'s fists clenched. "Please will you stop talking about factions!"



Mello scowled. "D, you should like factions. They are half the job. You want us to all get on, but the factions already do. You should see them as little islands of happiness in the middle of the desert. Your job is to build bridges between the factions, not between individuals." He peered out into the corridor, then quickly looked into the living area. "Put it this way. You don\'t have to make me and Matt like each other, because we\'re quite attached as it is. Salvo, Chrissie and Century all get on fine. Move me and Matt towards Salvo\'s faction and yes! You have half of the alumni in union. I strongly suspect that Fenian is an outrider on that faction as well. Then you bring in yourself, Linda and Luigi as a third faction. Suddenly there\'s only Near out in the cold." Mello raised his chocolate in the air. "Hurrah!"



Salvo chuckled, but Deontic sighed. She breathed out, "Mello, I am well aware of that."



"So rejoice! Because despite the fact that Century and Luigi are acting as sentries," Mello paused and uttered a little laugh, "Century\'s a sentry. I love the English language. Despite the fact that their reason to be out there right now is to report back to their factions..."



"Really?" Century\'s voice returned from the living area. "I thought I was revising for an exam."



Mello slid around the door. "In here? It\'s a lot quieter in your room." He stopped. "Oh! I see! While you\'re out here, you\'re demonstating to everyone that you\'re still doing your exams. No-one has an excuse to drag you back to Wammy\'s House, because you\'re doing your schoolwork like a good boy."



"It\'s not a Wammy\'s House exam." Century shrugged. He stuck a lollipop in his mouth and returned to reading, signalling that the conversation was over.



Mello nodded. He raised his arm in the air. "I hereby proclaim that I have no quarrel with the Salvo-Chrissie-Century-Fenian faction. There you go, half the house in peace." He turned on his heel, then called back. "And I don\'t have a problem with Luigi or Deontic either." He walked past Salvo, back into the bedroom. "Will you join me in that decree, guapo?"



"Yes." Matt replied, lazily.



Mello took a bite out of his chocolate. "So what now? We shake on it or sign something in blood?"



Deontic swayed and Matt immediately reached out to grab her. She appeared horrified. "I just went light-headed." She was eased onto the edge of the bed and only then seemed to notice, with much confusion, that it was Matt who was holding her. "Oh."



"Put your head between your knees." He murmered. "Mello, get her some water."



Mello turned on the spot and walked out to fill a glass. He spotted Fenian in his doorway and glanced from him to Salvo. "We could always fetch a football." Mello called behind him, as he made his way to the kitchen. Salvo laughed, remembering the game nearly a decade before, when another fight between the three of them had been resolved with a football match. Fenian just glared into Mello\'s wake. Mello returned, clutching the glass of water. "Ok, this is going on too long. Let\'s just all sit down and thrash it out. Then we can leave."



Fenian shook his head. "Why would I even want to do that? You are all people whom I used to know. I\'ve moved on. You\'ve all moved on."



"Because if this had been done five months ago, Lamond might have been saved." Salvo replied.



"This was done five months ago. We got together. We saved the fucking world. Saved our skins. Got Matt out of a hole. Rewrote the fucking constitution of Wammy\'s. What possible...?" He snorted in exasperation. "Who here is even at risk now? Haven\'t the runts of the litter already been killed off? For fuck\'s sake." Fenian lit a cigarette, then took a step backwards over the threshold of his doorway. He kept his foot against the door to stop it closing. "I tell you now, I\'m past it. I\'ve got my own life and I don\'t think about that place anymore." He frowned. "Well, any more than I have to. When I\'m getting fucking board decisions and fucking minutes and bastard, freaking..."



"Liam has a good point." Mello called back from his own room, where he had delivered the water to Deontic. "Is anyone else actually planning to top themselves over Wammy\'s crap?"



Fenian scowled. "Mello, I don\'t need you to tell me that I have a good point. Toerag."



Mello rolled his eyes. "Liam, you\'re starting to annoy me now."



Fenian grinned. "He shoots, he scores."



Mello reappeared at the door. He glared at Fenian. "You really think it\'s a good idea to rile me?"



Salvo intervened, with a hand in the air before each of them. "Fenian, Mello, this is beneath you both now. Let\'s discuss this like gentlemen."



"Mell." Matt called him back into the room. "Careful. There might be someone." He glanced at Deontic and Mello frowned. Unbidden, Salvo followed him in and they both stared at the Malaysian woman. There was a long sigh in the corridor, then Fenian joined them too. Deontic nodded towards the connecting wall, indicating the living area. Matt mouthed. "Luigi."



"Oh." Mello blinked. "My fault?" The word \'possibly\' popped silently between Matt\'s lips. "I\'d better sort it out then."



"Mello!" Deontic raised her hand. Mello came closer, flanked by Salvo and Fenian. The door clicked shut, soundproofing them in, as Fenian let it go. Deontic looked at the four men around her. "Ok, cards on the table. I\'m exhausted. I\'m more exhausted than I\'ve ever been in my life. There is no plan here. What this is was Linda, Luigi and I getting wrecked on red wine the night after Lamond died. We\'d all heard what she had to say about dehumanisation. It was a topic of conversation. Linda said she was angry that you, Mello, knew her first name. Luigi replied that he was half tempted to e-mail everyone every detail about himself. He said the waiting for people to work it out was too hard."



Mello frowned. "I don\'t think I\'ve tried to work out details about Luigi since I was fourteen! I\'m sorry, he\'s just not that important in my life anymore."



Fenian agreed. "We all moved on."



Deontic nodded. "He said that he\'s never felt like a human being in his life. He said that it might finally be a relief to have someone call him by his real name, as they came to kill him."



They all exchanged looks. Matt nodded slowly. "So he wants me to call him Carl before I shoot him?"



Fenian erupted, "You can fucking..."



"Stop." Mello placed a hand on Fenian\'s chest. It was thrown off. "He\'s not going to shoot Luigi. Baby, I know you\'re joking, but these three don\'t know your sense of humour. That\'s unhelpful, so don\'t."



Deontic grit her teeth. "Matt, in honesty, it\'s this attitude I came in here to speak to you about in the first place. You really annoyed me the night that you and Mello came over. You were so dismissive, then sat in the car. Then smiled at me, like it was all such a joke, when we heard that Lamond was going into the infirmary." There was no response. "It really annoyed me, that\'s all. I wanted to get that off my chest."



Matt nodded. "Ok."



"Er, no." Mello replied. "Not ok. I didn\'t know about the smile, but Matt did tell me that Linda was giving him grief the entire time he was in there. Matt doesn\'t do well in those circumstances. We were pussy-footing around Lamond because of her hang-ups, so why shouldn\'t Matt have the same courtesy? His hang-ups include wanting to remove himself from situation where someone\'s shouting at him."



"He didn\'t come in in the first place until he was fetched."



Mello nodded again, more rapidly. "Yes, because he knew that the conversation with Lamond would be with me. Therefore he would be alone with whoever else was there. He was only actually present to keep me company on the journey. Why should he want to subject himself to an atmosphere that he doesn\'t like?" He shook his head. "You\'re presupposing solidarity. There is no solidarity between us."



Deontic looked close to tears. "He didn\'t have to smile though."



Matt coughed. "Erm, that was empathy." They all looked at him and so he lit a cigarette. "I was in the same position once. It was empathy." Mello flushed and bowed his head. "Sorry that it looked like something else."



Deontic nodded quickly. "Sorry I misinterpreted it." A heavy silence descended, tangible in the air.



Fenian took the cue to light a cigarette of his own. "So we\'re here because you think Luigi is going over the edge? You think that real names and resolving skirmishes is going to help him?"



Deontic looked pained. "I really didn\'t have a strategy. I thought that maybe Lamond was onto something. I could see that it\'s something that hurts Luigi, else he wouldn\'t have mentioned it. I thought that, if we were all in the same room again, having a meal instead of a crisis, that some things could be ironed out. I tried to humanise myself by giving you my real name, so that I could be the link. I could liaise between warring factions. I thought that maybe, if enough people trusted me, we really could put Wammy\'s House behind us."



"I already have." Mello muttered.



"Me too." Fenian agreed.



Salvo interupted. "You used my real name. I didn\'t have a choice there."



Deontic bit her lip. "I only used the real names of those pre-2002. We knew each other then as something other than pseudonyms."



Salvo shook his head. "I came in a month after they came into force. I\'ve always been Salvo. You were one of the first people I really spoke to at Wammy\'s. I told you before I really understood the importance of not telling you."



"Oh gosh." Deontic\'s hand covered her mouth. "I\'m sorry. I really thought I was only speaking things that were common knowledge anyway."



Fenian spoke through the exhaling of smoke. "How did we come to all give away shit about ourselves anyway?"



Salvo slipped a piece of chewing gum into his mouth. "Chrissie and I were just talking about that. We have a theory." They all looked at him expectantly. "Theory one is that Deontic is really playing this cleverly. Which can\'t be discounted. Theory two is that it was oneupmanship of the most reckless kind. Matt obviously knew everything anyway."



"Oh." Mello was dismissive. "What did we really say anyway? Come after me. Go search the former Yugoslavia for Mihael Keehl. Wammy destroyed all of the records and think about it - if there\'s nothing there for me to go back to, then what the Hell is an investigator going to find?" He paused. "Oh." His eyes narrowed, but he rallied. "And how many Tighes are there in Ireland, Fenian? You hardly made it private knowledge that you\'re Irish. You speak with a thick brogue and you called yourself Fenian, for God\'s sake. The shock here would be if it turned out you\'d never been to Ireland in your life!"



"Yet Near came right out and said that he\'s got a mother alive." Fenian frowned. "You\'re telling me that finding her wouldn\'t help you fuck Near up."



Mello nodded. "I find that curious myself. I just concluded that he\'s lying through his teeth. Either to laugh as someone goes to find her or else to see how we\'d react."



"Maybe." Fenian agreed. He took a long drag on his cigarette. "It makes sense that he was lying."



"Indeed. I wasn\'t though. But then again, everyone prior to 2002 knew my real name and Matt had already outed me as a Slav during the Wammy\'s House meeting." He chewed on a square of chocolate. "Roger was always so strict on not giving away country of origin, but the name thing only came in after Beyond Birthday. Which is ridiculous when you consider it. Then the rest was just a vague \'don\'t give away personal information\'. They never once tried to conceal our dates of birth though. Too busy putting house rules around age."



Fenian nodded. "Because of money aspect. The country could come looking. That\'s what the fucking secrecy boiled down to."



"Anyone could have counted on their fingers and worked out that I was in the war. That\'s obvious. I told no-one anything that they couldn\'t have deduced with a bit of research." He glanced at Fenian. "The secrecy helped us during Kira though. That\'s a plus. But I can guarantee that knowing our nationalities and real names would not lead you to mine and Matt\'s home."



Deontic held out her hands taking one of Mello\'s and one of Fenian\'s in each of her own. "Mihael. Liam. Do you see what you are doing here? You\'re having a conversation. You\'re drawing on shared experience to puzzle something out. Is there anything, other than nurtured Wammy\'s House policy, that sets you apart?"



Fenian glared. "Only a fucking six inch long scar on my thigh from where he pushed me down a fucking tree."



Mello looked at him. "I was such a brat."



"Yes, you fucking were."



Deontic nodded. "Mello, why did you push Fenian down a tree?"



"Because I was a violent, sadistic bastard and while everyone was worrying about me, they weren\'t concentrating on their exams. Therefore I could have the edge and beat them. I would be L." Mello licked his chocolate. Fenian\'s fist lashed out and knocked it hard between Mello\'s teeth. Mello reacted quickly, but so did Salvo, wrapping both arms around Mello, while Matt leapt between his husband and Fenian. "Wanker!" Mello screamed at last.



Salvo\'s voice was low and soothing. "Ok, everyone calm down." Then Matt threw a punch at Fenian. The Irishman reciprocated, knocking Matt back into Mello. He melted in Salvo\'s grip, then jerked suddenly, pulling himself free. A second later, a gun was being pointed at Fenian\'s head. Deontic stood up and screamed at the top of her lungs. Salvo raised his hands. "Mello. This has gone too far. Mello." And Deontic screamed again.



Though soundproofed, there was a limit to the sound muffled from the rooms. The door was soon opened and Linda raced in, flanked by Century. They stopped dead at the sight of Matt\'s bloodied nose and Fenian glaring down the barrel of Mello\'s gun; at Salvo trying to manoeuvre himself between them; and at Deontic still screaming. Chrissie appeared in the doorway, without her baby, her hands travelling to her mouth as she surveyed the scene. Mello\'s voice growled icily. "Mail, are you alright?"



"Yep." Matt spat into his hand. "Nothing broken."



Mello gaze never felt Fenian. "You do not touch him. Ever."



Fenian sneered back. "Mello, you\'ve already told us that the fucking gun is unloaded." He moved from behind his back, revealing a pistol that had been hidden in the waistband of his paratrousers. "This one, however, is not."



Linda rushed by to pull Deontic clear. Salvo started to use the distraction to move between Mello and Fenian, but Chrissie called out. "Salvo, don\'t you dare get involved. Come over here. This isn\'t your fight."



Deontic broke free of Linda\'s grasp and pushed past Salvo to stand between the two pointed guns. "Now do you see?" Her voice rose. "Now do you see?"



"Heh." Mello lowered his gun and touched his own lip, split and bleeding through the force of the chocolate being smashed against it. His voice remained cold. "Shoot me, Fenian. If that\'s what your inner child wants."



Fenian\'s tone was equally controlled. "That\'s not how the Mafia would do it, is it, Mello?" His gun moved to point at Matt\'s head. Mello\'s arm immediately rose again, his automatic sighted on Fenian\'s head. Matt reached down, pulling a knife from his boot. "Yeah, you were good with the throwing knives at Wammy\'s House, Matt. I recall that."



Deontic placed a hand on each gun and tried to force them down to the ground. She wasn\'t strong enough to budge either of them. "Please. Please."



"Matt." Mello spoke without looking around. "Get our bags. Leave the room."



For a moment, it seemed that Matt would protest, but he did as he was told. He dashed around to retrieve his games and cigarettes from the bed, then lifted both his own and Mello\'s bag. No-one tried to stop him. "Got them, Mell. I\'m clear." He raced to the door, past Chrissie and almost into Near.



Mello uttered a half-laugh. "I lied about the gun not being loaded." He had barely spoken, when the shot was fired.