Motive and Mayhem

SPOILERS: All manga, all anime, L's true name, Another Note, Law and Right, Truth and Justice.

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Motive and Mayhem

Chapter 14: Commitment

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Matt was nervous.

Mello wouldn't have thought it was a big deal, except that they were in the safest place they could possibly be. L's fortress in Japan.

Okay, so fortress was a bit strong of a word. It was a small skyscraper fitted with the best security money could buy. L, Light, Wedy, Aiber, Yagami Sayu and all the taskforce members that had worked the Kira cases were there. Friends, among whom they were safe.

And yet, Matt was on edge, surly and sweaty and unapproachable. It was, Mello decided, extremely curious. Even so, he pushed it out of his mind as they gathered on the roof for the wedding.

It was a short, sweet ceremony with no one presiding over it. Simply an exchange of rings and promises. A soft kiss that had the newlywed couple blushing like children.

It was cute. In a really creepy sort of way. After all, grown men shouldn't blush. At least, Mello thought, they shouldn't blush in public.

The party was a lively one when you considered the hosts and Matt drank enough to loosen up a few hours later. They were all scattered across the main floor that the investigations had taken place on, catching up. Mello showed off his scars, explained how he'd gotten them, grinned cheekily and enjoyed countless bars of chocolate.

Soon enough, the presents were presented. Instead of going by the Japanese rules, L had insisted that any gifts carry 'a primarily sentimental value'. It was much more entertaining than Mello had thought it would be when L and Light had opened them.

He and Matt had gotten candy body paint for L to use on Light, suggesting he might be better off satisfying his sweet tooth that way. Mello had added a present that was a little more significant -- the sweater he'd stolen from L so many years ago, and Matt included a sheet of paper with so many names on it, there wasn't any room for another one. When L had asked what it was, Matt told him simply that it was a list of people L had saved through the cases he'd solved. There were more, but the point was that there were so many.

Oddly enough, Light seemed to appreciate the presents just as much as L had, even though they were almost all geared more towards L. Matsuda gave them signed copies of Misa Amane's last film appearance, Mogi gave them a tea set 'because Light will drink the tea and L will eat the rest'.

Aizawa's gift was a copy of every check stub from every payday he'd received during his leave of absence from the taskforce. He explained that he didn't give those months to L when he should have, so this was the best he could do to make things right.

Wedy and Aiber each gave them career-specific items, ones that would come in handy, should either of them ever have to 'enter the field' again. Aiber's was a simple contraption that went into a pocket and, when activated, would spray a pheremone into the air that would relax those around you. Wedy's was a sophisticated codebreaker.

Sayu's gift was the one, though, that had Light on the verge of tears. It was his father's badge.

When all was said and done, the day had been a happy one. Matt and Mello went up to the room they'd been given to sleep off the celebration and no sooner had they gotten into the room than Matt was hacking into the surveillance system. When L and Light had finished their first round of sex, Mello was left perplexed.

"They're so tame... you'd think with a pair of IQs like that they'd be trying something a little less normal," Mello muttered, a bar of chocolate hanging from his lips.

Less than ten seconds after L had suggested letting Watari wipe Mello's hard drive the reformatting had begun.

"Why the hell do they think I was the one spying?" Mello scowled, finishing off the chocolate bar with a pout.

"Because you're the more notorious out of our pair," Matt replied teasingly. He stripped down and crawled into bed. "Enjoy tonight and tomorrow. We're going to an apartment tomorrow night and the next morning we'll begin."

Mello sighed deeply, throwing away the chocolate wrapper and stretching. He undressed, joined Matt in bed. "Yeah, yeah. Good night," he leaned in for a kiss, then moved to the opposite side of the bed and dropped off to sleep like a rock.

Tomorrow was his last day of freedom. He was damn well going to wring all the enjoyment from it that he possibly could.

Which meant lazing around on the roof the next morning, with a chocolate bar in one hand, a mug of coffee sitting next to the other as he gazed up at the sky. He wasn't very surprised when L came over, crouched by his head and looked down at him from directly above.

Mello raised an eyebrow. "What?" He noticed that L was wearing the sweater and he felt a tinge of blush rising on his cheeks.

L pressed a thumb to his lips, held it there for a long moment before he spoke. "Matt is uneasy."

"Yeah."

"Why?"

Mello jerked a shoulder in what would have to pass for a shrug. "Don't know," he snapped off a bite of chocolate, offered the bar to L.

L broke a small piece off, put it in his mouth as he considered the information. "This is one of the safest places in the world."

"We've kept everything above the line since the accident. If he's done anything under the table, I don't know about it," Mello explained mildly, biting off another piece of his bar.

"Hmm," L pressed his thumb to his lips again, let his gaze wander the cityscape. "Then perhaps he is about to do something foolish."

"Nah. I know what his plans are for the next month and they're not too foolish," Mello frowned a little, piece of chocolate sticking out of his mouth. "We're dropping under the radar."

One of L's dark eyebrows swept upwards. "Why?"

"We're making our own kind of commitment to each other," Mello replied. "Not getting married, but... making a couple promises and taking some time for ourselves."

"That sounds very much like a honeymoon. Light is insisting that we take one," L replied in a flat tone that was reserved for extreme annoyance.

Mello laughed softly. "You'd enjoy it."

"That's what he says," L replied with a sigh. "I will be going along with it, at any rate. I hope your commitment with Matt is a pleasant one."

Rolling his eyes, Mello sat up and took a long drink of his coffee. "Anyway, we're leaving in a couple hours, flying to South Korea for our little vacation thing."

"I see. Make sure to say goodbye before you leave," L said as he slowly rose.

"We will. Oh, and L?" Mello glanced over his shoulder at the older detective, smiled. "Thanks."

There was a moment of silence, a few blinks. "For..?"

"You'll figure it out," Mello grinned, then flopped onto his back again as he listened to L's retreating footsteps. Light would probably have to explain it to him, and that amused him even more than L’s expression had.

L was easy to outsmart if you knew his weaknesses.

There was a thought, an epiphany, just outside Mello's grasp as that thought slid through his mind. He remained still, reaching for it, for that leap of logic that he was on the verge of. He could feel it, sense the truth, just a hair's breadth away from his grip.

It was lost when Matt came up to the roof, bent over Mello and had cigarette ash floating down onto his face.

The curse Mello let out was explosive, sitting up fast enough to knock their heads together and sneezing on the ash that had fallen right into his nose. Mello rubbed his head, grimacing as he turned to look at Matt. "What the hell was that for?"

"You looked like you were thinking too hard," Matt replied easily, rubbing his chin where Mello's head had connected.

"Damn it, I almost had something, too," Mello snarled, giving a sigh as he got up, grabbing his coffee and his chocolate wrapper. "Is it already time to go?"

"Yeah. You've been up here for hours," Matt replied. "I packed your stuff up."

"Thanks," he sighed, rubbing his scarred arm a little as they went to the stairs and started down. "We gonna say goodbye together or have you already said bye?"

"I did for both of us," Matt shrugged, going to the room L had given them to stay in, grabbing his bag.

Mello picked up his own bag, considered what Matt had said. "I still want to say my own. I'll only be a minute," and for once he was glad Matt had his goggles on. He didn't have to see the irritated glare that was aimed at him as he left.

Once his goodbyes were said, he met Matt on the sidewalk, took the trains to the airport, got on a small plane.

"You did that on purpose," Matt said at length.

There was no smoking on airplanes and Mello knew it irritated his partner. "Things start tomorrow. I did it because L asked me to."

"You expect me to believe that?"

"I expect you to believe the truth. Don't take your stupid nicotine cravings out on me," Mello snapped, getting up to use the toilet.

The flight was a long one, though it lasted less than two hours, and the drive to the small apartment was grumpily silent. Mello spent the rest of the day trying to swallow his nerves. The dog cage was set up again one corner of the bedroom.

At midnight, Mello stripped naked and, at Matt's direction, crawled into the cage. A new, much more intense round of training had begun. Restlessly, he settled down inside the cage to rest. The last time he'd been in there, the door had been locked shut with a small padlock, his hands cuffed behind his back. This time, the only thing keeping Mello inside were Matt's orders and that, he supposed, was why he was in there in the first place. A test of his resolve.

He refused to fail.

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A/N: Whee! We're approaching the end! Just a few more chapters until the screech-halt of the story. =3 And then a fresh one will begin, but I won't announce the title until the very end of this one. (If, that is, I've come up with it by then. XD)