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Mail Jeevas, otherwise known as Matt, realises that he's whipped on a rainy Thursday evening in the middle of winter. He's standing in the checkout queue of an all-night drug store, behind a woman with a screeching baby, and ahead of a man with a slightly bad smell, when the revelation hits him, and it's almost like a physical blow. No, it's like someone has waltzed up to him and handed him a letter, typed out in size eighteen Rockwell Extra Bold, informing him in no uncertain terms that he has been domesticated.
Matt suspects it's the pack of overnight pads, and the box of medium sized (and not small, what do you think I am, a twelve-year-old? don't fuck it up) tampons he's got balanced in his arms, which does it. Sure, there's a bottle of milk and a box of condoms, too, but the female sanitary products are kind of hard to ignore.
Whipped.
That's the only word for it.
The three blocks of chocolate don't exactly hurt the argument, either.
He's so busy mulling the matter over that the girl at the checkout has to call him twice, and he doesn't even notice the usually gratifying oh he's taken moue that she gets when she scans the barcode on the box of Carefree.
Life-sized revelations, and the fact that the heater on the Camaro has decided to go on the blink, don't exactly help his mood any and, by the time he's unlocking the front door (it doesn't matter who's home, the door is always locked; one of the perks that comes with their line of business), he's wondering melodramatically where his youth went.
Near, who is almost creepily perceptive for someone who plays the socially-stunted card so often, takes one look at Matt and then goes back to building his palace out of dominoes on the kitchen bench.
Matt sticks the milk in the fridge, notes the younger man isn't in their poky living room like he usually is, puts two and two together and snaps, “Whipped. You too. You just don't know it yet.”
“Did you remember to get vanilla flavoured like I asked?” is Near's only response to that, and Matt throws the appropriately flavoured box of condoms at his head instead of answering.
He's about to walk to the bathroom and put the rest of his shopping away when he realises what he's doing, and dumps it in the middle of the kitchen bench instead. Near gives him a Look, and sets to fixing the part of his palace that the rebounding condom box had destroyed.
Matt is aware that he must look pretty stupid, and so he stalks into the living room, to claim the television and have a manly game of something where he gets to shoot the fuck out of AIs, and Mello and her sookiness can be damned because—
He gets all the way to the sofa before he realises that she's fast asleep. His planned rant about why the fuck she has to watch Bruce Willis blow shit up every time she's on the rag dies on his lips; the DVD player is running the screen-saver, anyway.
Matt walks over, softer now, and pulls a corner of her blanket down to cover her feet, which are cold to touch. He strokes at her ankle as he pulls the rough wool down, then reaches over and brushes a strand of hair from her face and sits, gently, in the space that the curve of her body has left free on the sofa. She mumbles something that might be his name, or might not, as the movement of the sofa cushions disturbs her sleep, and he strokes her face with the back of his knuckles to shush her.
There's a familiar shuffling sound, and Matt looks up to see Near standing in the doorway, an amused glint in his clear grey eyes.
“You've been whipped since the day you set eyes on her, and she pushed you down the stairs,” Near observes. It's hard to tell, even after all this time, whether he's mocking or amused. Probably both, actually, with a serving of affection thrown in for good measure.
Matt watches Mello sleeping, her face so much softer, the scar a curious colour in the light of the blue on the television screen, and her hair tucked behind her ears like a little girl. She's wearing one of Near's shirts.
Matt turns his gaze back to Near. “Look who's talking,” he says.
Near merely smiles indulgently, and makes a slight motion with his shoulders that could be interpreted as a shrug. “Unlike you, Matt? I've never had any delusions otherwise.”