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 2: Frame

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Mello kicked the tire on the car, cursing up a storm. "Alive! He's fucking alive!" He kicked again, hissed as pain shot up his leg. "What the fuck was L thinking?"

Matt leaned on the other side of the car, gazing over the hood at Mello. "People do crazy shit when they get emotionally involved," he suggested. "L's been taking care of more cases than he used to. Could be something."

"Yeah? Then let's go to the airport Kira was flown in through. See if we can find anyone else who knows what he looks like, maybe has a picture somewhere. Did that Lidner chick have anything important to say?" Mello grumbled.

"No more than you found out on your end," Matt sighed, dropped his cigarette, crushed it out with the toe of his shoe. "Let's get to the airport."

Mello sighed, but he slid into the driver's seat without any more complaining. He'd met with one of the officials that would have been in a prime position to switch the drug that went into Kira and sure enough, that was what had happened.

Kira was still alive and kicking, though if their information was correct, he was under strong security, watched by L. Still, Mello didn't like the idea of Kira having L so close at hand. Maybe Kira hadn't gotten his hands dirty with murder before, but in Mello's opinion it was only a matter of time.

They stuck around in America for nearly a month, looking for clues as to who Kira had really been.

Then the test scores came in.

"I'll fucking kill him!" Mello was screaming, throwing things and otherwise generally freaking out. Matt was actually ducking and weaving to avoid injury. "Son of a fucking bitch! I'll kill him my own damn self, with my bare fucking hands!"

A rather nice game system shattered against a wall, had Matt whimpering in sympathy. "Mother fucker!" Mello took the list Roger had sent them again, fumed at it, tore it to shreds and actually ate the piece that had his name on it. He took the rest outside, torched it all, then kicked over the bowl he'd burnt it in with another scream of fury.

Matt was absently hoping the hotel staff didn't call the police, but he was sure they'd be able to handle it if it came to that.

When Mello came back inside, a few more things met their ends when they were thrown against the white walls of the old motel before Mello calmed enough to plop onto a seat. He was silent then, for hours he stayed quiet, viciously devastating an entire box of chocolate bars.

The next day, they left for Japan. It was as if nothing had even happened. Mello was a bit more diligent in his searches, but he pretended as if his name had never appeared in a public venue. For over a month, they tore down clues to dead ends, until Mello got a pretty good lead. One he couldn't go any farther with.

So, Mello put the information on a simple sheet of paper and went to L's headquarters. He was there just long enough to leave the information, disappearing in the crowds immediately afterwards. He was frustrated to no end, but he felt there was a good chance they were onto something. If he could just figure out what.

It all benefitted one team, one man, but Mello didn't know enough to make any further connections, and he couldn't very well spy on a baseball player without looking suspicious.

Being a foreigner in Japan was suspicious enough. Every-fucking-one thought he was a tourist. Mello went back to the church he and Matt had claimed as a base, settled in and waited for word from L through Roger. Until then, they kept tracking, kept crunching numbers, but kept it quiet.

It was over two months before L contacted Roger again. When he did, the news wasn't too surprising, but the requests certainly were. So, they prepared. They got themselves a nice unmarked van, Matt got that semiautomatic gun he'd been drooling over and Mello picked up the package with the equipment to mimic heart attacks.

Then the fun part came. Mello and Matt 'came across' Light and Soichiro, and accosted the younger Yagami. It was the most fun Mello had gotten to have on a case in ages. He did so love the less-than-legal stuff.

Mello had no idea that Ryuk was there, but he played the part of the bad guy to the tee.

"All right, the shinigami's gone," Light said, a few hours after they had returned to the church. "I trust you have all the equipment L sent?"

"Complete with name tags," Mello replied as he leaned against an opposing wall. "When is this supposed to go down, exactly?

"As soon as Near locates us. L will send a signal, don't worry about that," Light replied. "What we do now, is go over the plan and wait."

"Gotta pile up the evidence against him, huh?" Matt asked with a lopsided smile. Everything was falling into place.

Two weeks later, the plan went off without a hitch. Near and Lidner were arrested, the Death Note was confiscated and destroyed. There was nothing more left for them to do.

At least, that was what Mello thought. They went back to L's headquarters, settled into the sitting area for the big explanation. It had, after all, been a complicated case.

It had been a good, hard case. One that had taken mister Number One out of the picture for Mello. Hell, if he hadn't known Near was Kira, he would have considered himself a damn good candidate for it all. Then again, if he'd been Kira, he would have killed Near outright in an accident and thrown the damn book away when he was done.

When the case was closed and everything was put away, Matt suggested taking on some investigation cases from a few mob bosses he knew of. "To stock up on useful favors," he'd said.

Well, Mello thought that was about as good as any and, frankly, he didn't like playing on the entirely straight and narrow. A few connections on the darker side of things could pay off, anyway, if Aiber and Wedy were anything to go by.

So, they went back to America and took their first case together as M.

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A/N: Short, I know, but I didn't want to begin the meat of the story in this chapter, so you'll just have to wait! Another chapter to come! =3

Adele: Aww, thank you so much! I'll admit, I'm having a tad bit of trouble switching to Mello/Matt, especially when recapping stuff that's already been done, but I think the third chapter will be much easier for me to write, since I don't have to rely on anything much that I've already written. Though they seemed separate when I mentioned them in Law and Right, I'm going to make the case that Mello got the scar from and the one where he and Matt were nearly found out by L into the same one. That's what I'll start in on in the next chapter.