All The Way Here

Mello put his foot down as he left the city, leaning to straighten the motorcycle. The end game felt so close now. He was almost certain that it would involve Yagami Raito being brought to their abandoned church and held in the cellar until he cracked. Without his direction, the whole house of cards should just come toppling down. They knew the mode of murder and they knew who the murderer was. It was just a matter of putting the two together. If he could just get Raito to write in the book and to be filmed doing it.



But whose name? This wasn\'t the Mafia anymore. There weren\'t a list of people due to receive a hit. Mello thought back to the letter that he had written weeks ago, on the night when he\'d beaten Matt so badly. The letter which detailed just who his lover should call in order to get him out of the country under the very nose of Kira. It listed the resources that Mello had left back at their flat, which could help Matt become anonymous again. Even back then there had been a kind of enivitability to the fact that one day he would be forcing Kira into a position where his name, Mihael Keehl, was being written on a piece of Death Note. This already felt like borrowed time. Mello had heard his name being spoken into a microphone back in Los Angeles and he was sure that Raito had been on the other end, listening, waiting.



In truth, Mello hadn\'t needed to come and see the church again. In fact, it would have made more sense for Matt to come, but for the fact that Mello had silently resolved never to let him out of the warehouse again. At least not alone. Something had been unravelling in Matt\'s mind, Mello had watched it happening for weeks and felt now like he\'d only patched it up. His lover seemed calmer, more Matt now that he was being treated like shit again. Mello pursed his lips, blinking at the road through his visor. He only spoke to him to bark another order, not telling him how it fitted in, not being asked. The distance between them was growing daily. The only time they connected was in increasingly more violent sex.



Mello bit his lip. He was lonely. Right now, he could have killed for a friend to discuss this with. Not the Kira case, no, he was better working that out on his own, but Matt. Perhaps he, himself, had grown too soft, but those few weeks where it was romantic and cheesy even, they had been surprisingly good. It had been a friendship, as close as they had been at Wammy\'s House, where the power games had been simpler, then more subtle. Before sex propelled it to a whole new, complex level.



He felt as though he\'d gained something and lost it again. Maybe after all this was over, he could try again to draw Matt out of that closed, laid-back gamer routine and back to the point where visions of Spain and insecurities of today could be thrashed out. Resolved. Maybe then he wouldn\'t need his hands tied and his body battered in order to believe everything was alright. Mello realised that he was hitting 100mph and so slowed down. But if all Matt needed was something constant in his life, why the Hell was the redhead hanging around with him?



Mello spotted the sliproad and leaned in to turn the bike in that direction. Flashes of that walk in New York, the post-Confession high of Christmas, other moments in a kaleidoscope of feeling assaulted his mind. Mello had finally consciously admitted what he had known anyway for years. He was in love. He had it bad. It was sometimes hard to concentrate on blueprints of buildings and timetables, when Matt was firing guns at mannequins or making comments at his game. That had nothing to do with the noise factor. Mello had caught himself just touching little spots, like the slight dip just above Matt\'s hip-bone, because they fascinated and delighted him in a way that was beyond friendship and lust.



While it was happening, and while it was reciprocated, Mello could just indulge himself with a moment\'s glance or the briefest touch, then get on with the case. Now he had Matt hacking sites and stealing codes all in a bid to close in on Raito\'s location, all with a devil-may-care attentiveness, prone to gaming distraction. If he met his gaze, Matt would break away, focusing on a laptop monitor; if he spoke, Matt would listen in silence, picking out the requirements and not venturing an opinion of his own; if he touched him, Matt would melt back and await whatever was going to happen to him next. Passivity way beyond what he had been before. Matt may have been submissive, but never passive. Never doing it with an expression of absolute serenity. Mello could practically hear the doors slamming closed and locking.



The church remained as it had been before. No obvious signs of extra fallen masonry, which was a bonus as the wind had been high recently. Mello measured the floorspace and examined the entrances. He was satisfied that a lorry would make it through there. The ceiling sagged at one end, but it didn\'t seem in imminient danger of collapse. With a spark of annoyance, he realised that he had forgotten the wrench again, so couldn\'t check the crypt. He would have to come back anyway.



Mello\'s mobile \'phone rang out and he extracted it from the pocket of his leathers. "What is it, Matt?"



"I\'ve SubSevened Mrs Aizawa\'s e-mails. She hasn\'t seen her husband for three weeks."



"Does that mean he hasn\'t been home or he\'s been taken by Near?"



"No, he\'s e-mailing her, but it\'s about domestic crap. He hasn\'t left their headquarters in three weeks." There was the sound of a cigarette being inhaled. "I\'ve tried pinging back to the source of his e-mails, but I\'m hitting a firewall."



"Ok, keep trying." Mello was tempted to add, \'I love you\', just to see what Matt would say. He lingered without speaking for long enough, but ultimately didn\'t dare. Matt couldn\'t handle this and so they were going to stay within the bounds of what he could handle. End of story. "Let me know if you get any joy." He hung up the connection thinking, \'because I\'m certainly not with you like this.\'



Before he could pocket the \'phone, it rang again. "Hello, Hal."



"I have to be quick. I\'ve spoken with Rester. Near is still very calm, playing with his toys. Blunt to the point, as always, bless his anti-social, little head." She paused, as Mello laughed. "I swear that is the first time I\'ve ever heard you laugh."



"I don\'t do it very often." Mello fought against the urge to say, \'Hal, I\'m having trouble with the love of my life, can we stop with Kira for a moment so you can help me work out what\'s happening in his head please?\' But that just sounded so... weak. His words came out gruffly to overcompensate. "What toys and what is he doing with them?"



"If you mean where is your puppet, it\'s next to his still. He\'s removed Amane\'s and put her back in the box." She paused. "Is he anorexic?"



"No, he just gets absorbed and forgets to eat. It takes him a while to process the feelings in his stomach and work out they mean he\'s hungry." Mello sighed thinking back to The Wammy House and resenting playing parent. "If it carries on, just put small bites around and he\'ll eat them without thinking about it. If he faints, pick him up, dust him down and try to have the talk then about bodily functions."



"Right." Hal seemed hesitant. "He doesn\'t seem the sort that you can have talks like that with."



"Well then, set all of his God damned computers onto websites which show the mathematical data of increased brain capacity with or without food. Let him work it out for himself."



"Ok, please calm down." Hal spoke in the voice she used negotiating with hijackers or other dangerous creatures. She had learned from experience that it worked with Mello too. "The reason I called was to say that Takada has been in contact with Raito again. I have no idea what was said, but she\'s still confident as ever."



"Thank you."



"I have to go now." Hal cut off the connection without her usual goodbye, which must have meant that she was interupted.



Mello briefly considered screaming, but dismissed it angrily, then reappraised it again. He screamed at the top of his lungs, hearing the sound echoing around the ruined walls. Then he stopped and listened. He skirted the property, watching out towards the mountains and across the road. For the remaining twenty minutes that he was there, no-one came running. So, it was safe to make a lot of noise then. That was worth knowing.



Mello lingered for as long as he could justify to himself that he wasn\'t just there avoiding Matt, then he climbed back onto his motorcycle and sped away.