The Mello Code

Matt looked up from his computer, as the night sky outside his window flashed and filled with the sound of a motorbike roaring into the yard. He saved his code, then sauntered on down to make a hot chocolate. A glance out of the kitchen window informed him of the reason for Mello\'s delay in entering the house. He was unpacking bags from his panniers, then crouching to peer at his front wheel. Matt blew out his cheeks and waited. He wouldn\'t need to ask Mello how his trip had gone. In the week that Mello had been in Germany, he\'d been in almost constant contact. Mobile \'phones and messengers had made Mello seem more invasively there than when he was actually at home.



Mello made his entrance, a faint scrowl transforming into a delighted grin as he spotted Matt. "Guten abend."



"What\'s up with your wheel?" Matt asked, as Mello dumped his bags and swooped down upon him. Matt raised his chin for a kiss and got a cuddle out of it too.



"Slow puncture." Mello\'s hands travelled over Matt\'s back to his backside and squeezed his buttocks. "Loads of crap on the supermarket carpark before I went. Completely flat by the time I picked it up just now."



"Told you that I should have picked you up."



Mello frowned, leaning back to ensure that Matt could see the look of disdain. "It would have still been flat. I went to the supermarket the day before I flew out."



"No it wouldn\'t." Matt countered. "Because I would have noticed and fixed the wheel by now." He gestured towards the worktop. "Hot chocolate there and chicken moskva keeping warm in the oven."



"Fucking great!" Mello beamed, immediately breaking away to investigate. "I\'m starving. I was stuck in with the BKA until I seriously had to tell them I had to go. I was not missing my plane because they were dithering over the evidence."



Matt smiled. "You seriously had to tell them? No humour at all."



"Are there any vegetables?"



"No, you hate my vegetables. You say they end up too soft."



"What\'s this in this dish?"



"Cauliflower cheese."



"Cauliflower is a vegetable."



Matt laughed. "All that education was not wasted on you, was it, Mello?" Mello didn\'t respond. He took down two plates and reached for the serving spoons. "I\'ve already eaten. That\'s all for you."



Mello raised his eyebrows, then stared at the chicken. "There\'s a lot here for me."



"You\'re a growing boy and you need your stamina. I haven\'t had a shag in a week." He was rewarded with a smile. "Case solved then?"



"Technically." Mello carried his food to the table and started eating. "I\'ve solved it. They are still three pages behind trying to get their puny minds around the evidence that I\'ve already spelt out for them. Honestly, the average ten year old Wammy\'s House kid could have got it by now."



Matt nodded. "So, assuming that they\'ve worked up to understanding your brilliance, the case is solved?"



"Yes."



"Nice one." Matt sat down and took his DS out. "Any more leads for cases from it?" Mello smirked. Matt grinned back. "Well done."



"Thank you." Mello pointed with his fork and started to speak with his mouth full. "Before you switch that on, go into my black bag. Right at the top, there\'s a present for you."



Matt looked up in surprise. "You\'re buying me presents from your trips? Awww." He wandered across. Despite the fact that all three bags were black, he deduced correctly that the carry-on bag was the one to search. At the top was a brown paper bag containing a book. "This?"



"Yes. It\'s about Pengo, a German hacker who..."



"I know who Pengo is." Matt smiled enigmatically. "It\'s in German."



"Oops." Mello watched Matt reading the back cover. "Would you like me to read it to you?"



"I have a German GCSE."



"Yes, I remember doing it for you."



Matt\'s jaw dropped. "You did one piece of coursework, that\'s all! I sat and passed the exam!"



"If you say so."



Matt blinked. "How else would I have got it? You telepathically implanting information into my head on the day?"



Mello\'s hand rose into the air, his fork aloft, "My theory is that you hacked the system and altered your result, because you didn\'t want to lose face with me. I predicted that you were going to fail and you barely scraped that A."



"Bollocks."



"Your German is very dodgy now and your accent is crap." Mello shook his head. "I wouldn\'t have passed you." He took another mouthful of his meal. "It\'s always been a wonder to me how someone with your intelligence, who could master every other language in front of him, could struggle so much with German. Especially since you\'re fluent in English and Dutch."



Matt shrugged, sitting down and opening his book. "You really want to know? Seeing as you haven\'t worked out it in ten years of trying."



Mello\'s head shot up. "I haven\'t been trying for ten years! Ten seconds more like."



"I\'ll give you another ten minutes to fathom it out then." Matt smiled. "Ask for clues when you\'re really stuck."



"You\'re even crap at Austrian."



"It\'s the same fucking language."



"No, it\'s not." Mello finished his meal and reached for his hot chocolate. "There are many words that are used in Austria that aren\'t used in Germany."



"Hurrah for the Austrians."



Mello watched Matt carefully, then grinned when he looked up. "That meal was delicious, thank you. Dessert?"



"A chocolate bar."



"No chocolate puddings with chocolate sauce?"



"You ate them all before you left."



Mello pouted. "And you didn\'t buy more?" Across the table, Matt bit his lip and concentrated on his book again. Mello waited for a while, but no response was forthcoming. He picked up his plate and dropped it into the dishwasher, before sorting out his laundry into piles in the utilities room. The only movement Matt had made, by the time Mello returned to the kitchen, was to light a cigarette. "You\'ve turned the page."



"I\'ve turned three pages."



"Ok, why are you so shit at German?"



Matt\'s smirk slowly grew across his face. "You\'ve finally given up?"



"I wasn\'t that interested in the first place. Tell me, so we can finish this conversation and move on." Mello reached down to plunk the book from Matt\'s hands and to drop it onto the table. He leaned forward to wrap his arms around Matt from behind. "Far more interesting things to do."



Matt nodded, blowing out smoke. "I\'m shit at German because I shared a room with you."



Mello blinked. "I fail to see how that mattered. I\'m brilliant at German."



"Yes, you are." Matt flicked ash into his ashtray. "But we started learning it during the same time that Nintendo brought out Super Mario..."



"I remember!" Mello chuckled. "Your fucking beeping all the God damned time!"



"And I couldn\'t enjoy my game properly because of the rat-faced blond bastard in the corner going, \'shut that up! I\'m concentrating on my German!\'" Matt inhaled again. "Not to mention that I could hardly hear my game for you repeating German words over and over again. I thought to myself, \'fuck it, I\'m never learning this language.\'"



Mello roared with laughter. "You blamed a whole language rather then me?"



"No, I blamed you as well, but I was stuck with you."



Mello shook his head, still laughing, "That is so stupid."



"So, you see, you ruined my education, Mello. I hope you\'re feeling ashamed of yourself." Matt took a last drag on his cigarette and stubbed it out in the ashtray in front of him. He reached back, but Mello danced away from him. "Are you?"



"Terribly." Mello grinned.



"Did you just think I was going to hit you or something?"



Mello shook his head. "No."



"Why are you running away then?"



"I\'m not." Mello gnawed on the edge of a chocolate bar. "I thought you still had your cigarette in your hand and you were going to put it out on my face."



Matt frowned, staring incredulously as he rose out of his seat. "The mind of a Keehl is a wondrous and frightening place. Why would I put a cigarette out on your face? When have I ever done that before now?" He watched Mello shrug and inspect his chocolate. "I\'ve honestly never seen you move so quick."



"Really?" Mello leapt forward, rugby-tackling Matt backwards onto the table, which moved a couple of inches beneath them. Mello lay atop Matt, pinning him down, before moving the ashtray and DS out of the way. "That was pretty fast too, yes?" His hand slid down and up Matt\'s inner thigh, fondling him through the denim. "Missed me?"



"Yeah."



"Yeah?" Mello nuzzled up Matt\'s neck until he found his mouth, then he bit Matt\'s lip. It evolved, inevitably, into a lingering kiss. "Might have missed you too." He eased the goggles off and brushed Matt\'s fringe back out of his face. Matt scrowled and turned his head. "Lie still!" Mello commanded. "It occurred to me in Hamburg that, when I picture your face, it\'s with half of it covered up. Look at you. Gorgeous."



"Fuck off."



"People buy contact lenses just to have eyes the same colour as yours."



Matt rolled his eyes, but his concentration was straying back to the touch of Mello\'s hand, stroking and squeezing at his crotch. "We talking or shagging?"



"Shagging." Mello momentarily released him, but only enough so that he could pull Matt to his feet. There was a frenzy of buckles, buttons and laces being undone, before Matt\'s boxers joined his jeans around his ankles and Mello was pressing him back onto the table. Matt only just had time to put his hands out to save his face smashing into the tabletop. Mello grabbed Matt\'s arms and twisted them behind his back, holding them in place with one hand. The other hand smacked Matt hard across the exposed backside. "That\'s in case you have been naughty." He added another and another, Matt gasping under him. His arousal egged Mello on, who delivered several more slaps, before the pressing need of his own groin saw him stroking himself and stepping forward. The sex was hard and fast over the kitchen table. It was little more than an extension of their welcome home kiss and just a taster of more later. They both came, screaming each other\'s names, first Matt, then Mello, before laying, panting and sweating, on the hardwood. "Te amo, guapo."



"Volim te." Matt gasped, closing his eyes. "Wow." He opened them again to reach for a kiss. "Thank you."



Mello breathed a half-laugh. "It was hardly a chore." He planted another kiss, then rolled off the table, pulling up his leather trousers. He smirked, watching Matt sluggishly turning onto his back. "No shame. Look at you."



Matt grabbed his own genitalia in one hand and flashed the birdie with the other. Then he stretched to retrieve his cigarettes and lit one. "Just enjoy the view."



"Oh, I am."



Nevertheless, a few puffs into his cigarette, Matt reached forward and was given a hand sitting up. "Gracias."



"Fine figure of a man, aren\'t you, Mail?"



"Fuck off."



"I\'m being serious." Mello laughed. He watched Matt pull up his boxers and jeans. "Ok! Plans for tonight. I need you to go and look at my front wheel. I\'m going to go check on..." He stopped as Matt chuckled. "What?"



"Welcome home, Mello."



"Thank you." Mello strode across the floor to reach the remainder of his bags. "You need to contact Hans with a quotation. I\'ll prepare it, but it\'s better coming from you. Go and look at the wheel, then meet me back in my study in, say, twenty minutes?"



Matt nodded, smiling faintly to himself as he pulled his goggles back on. He held his cigarette in his mouth and fastened his belt back around his waist. "I\'ll, erm, put all my plans on hold then to rush to your bidding."



"Good." Mello called after him and took the stairs two at a time to reach his study. He called down from halfway up them. "You were only trying to beat your own hiscores in a game."



"Maybe." Matt mumbled, as he left via the backdoor and went to fix the wheel.