Watari Pt 1: L\'s Heirs

Mello awoke around noon and it soon became apparent that Matt had not come to bed at all. Slipping his dressing gown on, Mello grimaced at himself in the mirror and set out in search of coffee. First though, he went in search of his lover. The study door was already open, so Mello just popped his head around it. The huge television was showing a paused game. Matt lay fast asleep on his settee, the controller beside him. He was naked but for his boxer shorts. A bandage was tightly wrapped around his middle with one arm across it. He was bruised elsewhere, but Mello had seen worse. He tip-toed across to switch the television off, not daring to touch the game in case it hadn\'t been saved before it was paused. Mello closed the window, noting the goosebumps on his lover\'s skin, then fetched a quilt to tuck around him. Matt didn\'t stir.



Mello allowed himself a moment just to look. Despite the fact that they slept together normally, Mello often fell asleep before Matt did and, when he woke, the redhead tended to be right underneath the quilt. Only the Matt-shaped bump in the bed and a few wisps of red hair sticking out the top gave testimony to his being there at all. Watching him during the daytime was possible, but required some kind of reaction. Mello found himself noticing little things, fluffy, sweet things that it ordinarily wouldn\'t occur to him to notice, like the length of Matt\'s eyelashes. They curled like a girl\'s, more black than red, though the tips caught in the sunlight and they were the colour of his hair. The way his eyebrows rose slightly at his temples, like he was an elf or something. One also ended in a nasty cut, which really needed another wash before being covered with gauze until it scabbed. The blood lined it in little droplets, smearing towards the end. His hair was newly washed and smelt wonderful. Mello\'s mind caught up with his own thoughts and he stepped away from the back of the settee.



The wall of monitors displayed safety throughout their home and its envions. The second set displayed the mysterious workings of Matt\'s mind. One had a supermarket delivery service set to toilet paper; another showed a live chat in progress, though Mariomatt was set to \'away\', with the conversation practically incomprehensible; a third and fourth were more disturbing - Kira conspiracy theory sites, which Mello skim-read and wanted to remove on general principles; the fifth had his e-mails, which Mello prided himself on not even glancing at; and the sixth, incomprehensibly, was a site about the anatomy of aardvarks. There were other windows there too, torrents mostly, but one appeared to be the infamous \'Mayday Line\', which had spawned their Croatian fiasco. Mello maximised the window and glanced at the headings. They were basically RSS feeds, with a linked subject title and text underneath. There was no clue as to who wrote these, but the uniformity of correct grammar and spelling suggested that it wasn\'t the general public. What shocked Mello was the sheer volume of them. An army of Nears couldn\'t clear a day\'s worth. It seemed like no police officer or government official in the world could work out what to have for tea without attempting to consult L, let alone solve cases.



He was downstairs, in the kitchen, waiting for the coffee machine to produce hot caffeine, when a thought occurred about one of the cases he had skim-read. Mello waited until he had a mug of sweet, black coffee, and a thermos flask with more of the same, then returned to Matt\'s study. The quilt was already half covering Matt\'s face, though he didn\'t otherwise appear to have moved. Mello sat down and searched out the case again. He inspected all of the supplementary photographs, then read the statements and reports properly. It was child\'s play! Idiots. He found a response button and clicked it. It appeared that he was sending a message to Watari, so he nearly didn\'t bother. The To: field was already preset to read \'MM\', which he supposed meant \'Mariomatt\'. Smirking, Mello changed it to simply \'M\' and wrote, \'Tell the fuckwits to check the wardrobe. The depth of it doesn\'t match the depth of the drawers. Possible false compartment at the back? Also, tell them to check their calendars, because it does match if they go back to the Julian calendar instead of the Gregorian. Surely that\'s rudimentary? \'



Mello had Russian revision to do, but he was enjoying himself. By the time a change in breathing and a little sigh behind him signalled the awakening of Matt, Mello had worked his way through twenty of them. None were precisely rocket science, so he spent a lot of time rolling his eyes and commenting on their lack of prowess to Roger. He had yet to receive a reply, but entertained himself with the thought of Roger\'s face when he checked his e-mail. "Morning, Matty. Want a cup of tea?"



"Ngh."



Fortunately Mello spoke fluent Matt. "I\'ll get you one." He didn\'t attempt to ask difficult questions like \'what time did you go to sleep?\' or \'how are you feeling?\', but did pause at the door to justify his presense. "Sorry about the invasion. I\'ve been solving cases sent to L." Mello sashayed around the corner and left that to sink into his lover\'s brain. He was vaguely expecting wide-eyed suspicion when he returned with the mug of tea, but Matt was just lying there with the quilt pulled up over his face. "Tea on the floor next to you. Don\'t knock it over." There was a quiet grunt of acknowledgement. "Mind if I stay and do some more, please?" Mello had only recently discovered privacy and it was he, more than Matt, who sought to protect their personal spaces.



A hand crept to the top of the quilt and wearily pulled it down. Bleary green eyes, pupils like pin-pricks, fixed on him. "Yeah. As long as you stop with the fucking Polly-Anna cheerfulness and pass my cigarettes."



Mello grinned and did as he was told, before slipping back into the computer chair. He even stayed silent, even when the ineptitude of the Nicaraguan police was surely contributory negligence in an outburst. Instead, he just typed to Watari that the pictures patently showed that floorboards had recently been removed. The colour gradients were all wrong, so someone had replaced wood of identical lengths, but not in their original order. He personally would have thought that the two pieces of a stain, divorced now from each other, should have given them a clue there. He moved on to the next one, enjoying the silence, the mental stimulation, the sunlight through the window, the smell of Matt\'s cigarettes and the peace.



Page two showed a link that had previously been followed. Behind it, the text simply described photographs that might show some kind of code, but warned that they were graphic. They were graphic, even Mello, who thought he had seen violence, winced slightly. He bit into his chocolate and looked beyond the medium of communication to what was actually depicted. It did look precise, but also didn\'t immediately spark an understanding. It was the first time that something had done that. It took him a few minutes to even realise that these weren\'t pictures, but numbers. It took him even longer to work out that he was looking at a quaternion. Advanced mathematics. Inwardly Mello\'s spirit sank in reflex response. This was naturally Near\'s territory, which meant that Mello had spent a disporportionate number of childhood hours mastering it enough to be a competitor.



He hunted for some paper and a pen, finding both in the pile of general debris on the desk. Carefully, he transcribed the formula, then asked, "Have we got a calculator?" When Matt didn\'t immediately reply, Mello turned to look at him. The redhead was propped up against the arm of the settee, still under the quilt, holding an empty mug and smoking what had to have been his third cigarette since waking. "Are you nearly awake yet?"



"More tea?" Matt asked hopefully. "Calculator?"



"It\'s a little machine that you tap numbers into and it works out your sums." Mello smiled.



"What do you want to work out?"



"Matt, if I wanted it done in mental arithmetic, I\'d do it myself. I just thought a calculator would be quicker."



"Try the accessories on the computer. I think there\'s one in there."



"Thanks." Mello didn\'t open it, he bent over the paper and started to work it out long-hand. A deepening in breathing told him that Matt had fallen asleep again behind him. That was fine. It meant that there would be no imminient beepings to put him off his formulas. He became utterly absorbed, the mathematics falling like music around him. It took over half an hour, but he ended up with a row of numbers. Experimentally, he tried comparing the numbers to their alphabetic counterpart, 1 = A, 2 = B, and a word emerged. Orycteropodidae. Which meant...? Mello looked it up in a search engine and read, \'The aardvark is the only remaining member of the Orycteropodidae family\'. "Matt." No reply. Mello stood and walked across to the settee. The mug was resting against the back of it, only one finger loosely hooked around its handle; the ashtray was balancing atop the quilt, rising and falling slightly as the redhead breathed. Mello removed them both and his lover stirred. "You\'ve been trying to solve those cases too."



"Huh?"



Mello\'s voice rose, "How long did it take you to solve the quarternion?"



Matt frowned. He struggled to sit up, winced and stayed where he was. Green eyes fluttered up to survey first Mello, then the rest of the room. "What the fuck are you raving about now?"



"Did you sent the answer in?" Mello marched back to the monitors and opened the case files again. There had been a message sent. He opened it and read, \'This is advanced maths. Suggest sending to Near, over my head. Matt.\' "Oh my fucking God!" Mello roared. "I\'ve finally caught you at it! You treacherous, devious shit."



Matt appeared undaunted. His arm was outstretched, trying to hook the elastic of his goggles without actually moving an inch. "Yeah, whatever I did. Guilty as sin. Really sorry. Can I have another cup of tea please?"



"Get off your fucking arse and make your own!" Mello erupted. "I can\'t believe you did that! You could solve it. You could have asked me to solve it. Instead, you handed it to Near on a plate! Near! For fuck\'s sake! Of all the scheming fuckers in all the motherfucking, bastard world. He\'s in here! Trying to poach you! And you..." He rounded on the redhead, "is there no depths of depravity to which you wouldn\'t sink? Whoring your mind like you whore your body! For crying out loud, I don\'t know how you even live with yourself. What on earth possessed you to even think of sending a message like that? You do not ever, and I repeat ever, send something to Near that I could work out for myself and trust me, sweetheart, that pretty much covers anything but the catalogue codes for lego! Arsehole!"



"You want more coffee?" Matt had been manoeuvring himself gradually off the settee. He sat now on the edge of it, blowing out his cheeks.



"It\'s not like you\'re even stupid. I mean you have the common sense of a small flea, but there is a brain in there somewhere. You wantonly disqualify yourself from the race before it even starts!" Mello jabbed a finger at the screen. "What\'s this \'over my head\' shit? Had you actually worked out the answer by the time you sent that? I mean, what is that mentality? It\'s not like you aren\'t competitive, I\'ve seen you really going for it when it comes to games and hacking. Then you\'re not satisfied until the entire top 10 of highest scores are all you besting yourself. I despair of you sometimes. No, worse! This reflects on me!" Matt had his goggles on now. He padded to Mello\'s side and peered at the screen, illumination showing on his face. He rubbed his head, then attempted to plant a kiss on Mello\'s lips. "Matt, stop! This is serious."



Matt nodded and looked at the screen again with his expression schooled to mirror the gravity of the situation. "You realise that this is just the raw?" Mello was scrowling at him, so he continued. "People pick up the messages and they go through like an admin team, who create this. Then there are people who read through and sort them into, erm, an elite list. Those are the cases that mere mortals can\'t solve, so they are passed up. They are for the calibre of you and Near. Except you won\'t look at them."



"So you\'re working for Near! You\'re one of the people who does the fucking donkey-work, so he doesn\'t have to break into a sweat." Mello\'s fist clenched and his eyes narrowed.



Matt sighed. "God, you\'re so blond. I hacked into the system and found it. Roger couldn\'t very well turn back time and have me not find it, could he? So I\'ve got access." He shrugged. "It passes the time when I\'m waiting for games to load."



"Blond?"



"Has no-one ever told you a blond joke?" Matt smirked. "No, I don\'t suppose they have." He patted Mello\'s chest and shuffled past towards the door. "Coffee, yeah?"



Mello stalked him onto the landing. "Are you trying to insinuate that I\'m stupid?"



Matt had made it to the top of the stairs. "Why did the blond tattoo his postcode on his stomach?" He inched down the first step, wincing. "He wanted to ensure that his male got delivered to the right box." He glanced back from the fourth step to find Mello leaning over the landing bannister biting down a smile. "That\'s M.A.L.E by the way. Play on M.A.I.L. I know, spelling and puns, but complicated for your first blond joke."



"I got it, Matt, and trust me, I have many ideas on where to shove my Mail." Mello leaned over the bannister and ostentaciously let his gaze take in the long staircase and the hard tiles at the bottom. Eyes flickered back up to fix onto the half-naked redhead only a quarter of the way down. He relented with an audible sigh. "Hold on, Matt. If your ribs are still hurting you that much, I\'ll make the drinks." He clattered down to catch up with him. "I feel a bit responsible." Mello snaked an arm around his waist, the other on the bannister. Matt leaned in, allowing Mello to support his weight. "Want to go and get x-rayed?"



"No." Matt kissed Mello\'s cheek. "I just want tea."



"What would you do if I picked you up now and carried you back to the settee?"



"Punch you."



Mello laughed. "Ok, go and sit back down, I\'ll be back in a bit. Hungry?"



"No."



"Ok." He continued down the stairs, calling up from the bottom. "Please take the time to work out how you\'re going to explain that fucking message to Near, because I haven\'t finished with that conversation."