Watari Pt 1: L\'s Heirs

Mello grinned wildly as he stepped back from his motorbike. It was only paranoia that had seen him leaving their bed and venturing outside, but his mind was still full of the day\'s events. Finally satisfied that neither his bike or Matt\'s car had been fitted with a tracking device by another Wammy\'s House alumni, he gave himself time to just dance on the spot in glee. He\'d married Matt. He\'d actually, in the sight of the Mother, married Matt. He glanced back towards the house. So why was he out here messing around with vehicles, when he could be in there touching up his redhead? His husband. Mello bit his lip and allowed the shiver of happiness to pass through him again. A black Honda and a red Camero, side by side in the garage. It felt right.



He leapt to pull down the garage door, not because he couldn\'t reach the dangling piece of rope, but he was energised to the point of wanting to jump around. He lowered it with a banging clatter that would probably have had Matt cringing, if he hadn\'t been left playing a game in his study. Mello danced across the yard, doubling back as he spotted the football, then dribbling it almost to the swing and back. He glanced up, glimpsing a flash of red through the kitchen window, and stepped back to see. The original intention had been to roar up the window and scare Matt; then he noticed that the redhead was just standing on the worktop, holding onto the upper cupboard door. Mello cringed. Matt must have heard the banging of the garage door.



Mello burst into the house. "Sorry! Sorry! I thought you were upstairs and I\'ve gone hyperactive." He stopped. Matt was ashen. "You alright, baby?"



"Gone a bit light-headed." Matt muttered, his forehead against the edge of a cupboard shelf. "Be ok."



Mello darted across the room and reached up to wrap his arms around the redhead\'s waist. "You\'re trembling. What are you doing up there anyway? Come on, let me get you down."



For a second, Mello thought Matt actually was going to faint, but he didn\'t. He sank down into a crouch and would have merely been helped off, if Mello hadn\'t grabbed him and lifted him down. Matt sat on the floor with his head between his knees. "S\'ok, not so shaky now."



"So you just jumped up there and became light-headed?" Mello judged the distance. "Well don\'t. That\'s Hell of a way to fall. God, baby, you\'re still really ill, aren\'t you? Haven\'t the drips helped you with the dizziness?"



"Yeah, I\'m fine." Matt sat back. "I\'m just really fucking hungry all the God damned time. I could eat for England, Spain and Croatia put together. In fact, Europe. I could eat for Europe."



Mello crouched down and pulled the goggles onto the top of Matt\'s head. He used a finger to pull down each lower eye-lid in turn, inspecting the colour underneath. Both were only just on the pinkish side of white. "You\'re anaemic!" Mello accused. "You\'re going to eat properly if it kills me. No more take-aways." He frowned, looking up at the open cupboard. "What were you after up there?"



Matt followed his gaze. "The dark chocolate biscuits. Some bastard put them on the top shelf."



Mello\'s head rose from his shoulders like a sentry mere-cat and he stared back at the red-head. "You don\'t even like chocolate!"



"Yes, I do. I just have to be in the mood for it." Matt smiled back. "I was in the mood for a dark chocolate biscuit and they were mysteriously on the top shelf."



"Yeah, well." Mello shrugged. "You ran foul of my fitness regime." Matt frowned, so Mello stood, took a couple of paces back and leapt up onto the worktop. He grinned down. "See, I can\'t reach either, so if they are up here then I get a bit of exercise fetching them down again." He grabbed the packet and let them drop. Matt caught them before they landed in his lap. "It\'s called multi-tasking."



"Yes, Mello." Matt unpicked the wrapper, as Mello jumped down beside him again. "Look at you prowling. I only want one."



"I\'m not prowling. I\'m sitting here wondering how it is that you can get into so much trouble in such a short space of time. I was only gone ten minutes. When I left you," He took a biscuit and licked the chocolate coating, "you had the expression of a man who was going to be absorbed in his game for the rest of his life. A handful of minutes later, you\'re nearly passing out trying to steal my biscuits. What happened in the middle?"



"Near."



"Eh?" Mello\'s head snapped around to stare at him. "What? How? Near?!"



Matt swallowed the biscuit in his mouth and reached for another one. "There was a head\'s up on the Watari Network, which you missed because I answered it. He\'s questioned Neuron and sent the whole lot of us his findings." Matt pointed to the laptop abandoned on the far side of the kitchen table. "I was bringing it out to show you, but I didn\'t know how long you were going to be out there. If we were going to be involved in reading that in the garage, I needed a biscuit."



"Right." Mello took another for himself. "Biscuits are no good for you, Matty. You\'re anaemic and underweight. Didn\'t we establish that 7 stone 2 lbs is way too light for someone of your height and build? So I\'m going to tell you what you\'re going to do for the next week." Matt started laughing, peering back at Mello with a Puckish grin, before laughing again. Mello surveyed him suspiciously. "What now?"



"Say it like this and I\'ll pay attention."



"Like what?"



Matt pointed dramatically, "\'Achtung, baby! Today we play it my way!\'"



Mello\'s eyes narrowed. "I need to know why before I do anything."



Matt smirked. "Just a character from a game."



"Who?"



"Klavier Gavin."



Mello stared. "Klavier. That sounds like someone in a pink crinoline and a sparkly tiara."



"Nope." Matt\'s eyes twinkled back at him. "Klavier, like \'The Well-Tempered Clavier\', isn\'t \'Ave Maria\' based on that?"



Mello stood and strode towards the laptop. "Matt, I do recognise a well executed attempt to distract me when I hear one. I\'ve lived with you for a long time." He clicked to reawaken the screen and peered at the Wammy House forum conversation taking place, before refreshing the page to get the latest. Suddenly he turned and pointed, "Achtung, baby! Today we play it my way!\' And for the next week or two as well." He watched Matt grin. "I\'d better not be quoting someone like Peach again, guapo, else you are in big trouble." Matt bobbed his tongue out at him. "Baby, until you are completely well, I want you to rest, ok? Stay in bed or on the settee in your study. Play endless games. Let me cook you proper food and, for God\'s sake, stay off the amphetamines."



Matt stared up with a look of injured pride. "I have been!"



"Good." Mello sighed. "You need greens, you need vegetables, you need fruit. I know you hate anything that can\'t be unwrapped from cellophane and shoved in the microwave, but I\'m offering to cook for you. Ok?" He started downloading Near\'s zip file. "You\'re hungry now, what do you fancy to eat?"



"From your sort of food?"



"Yes."



"Halloumi cheese."



Mello\'s shoulders sagged. "We haven\'t got any. I\'ll read this and go and get you some."



Matt gestured dismissively. "Doesn\'t matter. I\'ll get myself something else in a minute." He pushed himself up off the floor and joined Mello at the kitchen table, sinking heavily into a chair.



"I\'ll get you halloumi cheese." Mello kissed him and extracted the files. "That\'s what your body is telling you that you want. That\'s what you\'ll have. Baby, I just married you, I can\'t deny you halloumi cheese."



Matt chuckled. "Ok. Halloumi cheese and a fry up. Sausages, bacon, eggs, beans, fried bread, hash browns..."



"We\'ll debate that point after I\'m back with the cheese." He opened the first file. It was a statement from Neuron, which didn\'t tell them much more than they already knew. Yet here and there were fine details that raised questions about the institution\'s security, illuminated grey areas and caused periodic rumblings of discontent from the blond. "Fucking arsehole! I should have bastard well clipped him while I had the chance!"



Matt turned to survey him with an expression halfway between a glare and exasperation. He spoke evenly enough though. "You said you weren\'t going to kill him."



"My head and heart says one thing. My conscience says another. Sue me." Mello snapped.



"Which one\'s winning?"



"It\'s a dead heat." Mello flicked his hair back, his face a mask of tension. Matt didn\'t question him again. They read on through each of the files in turn. Manetti\'s records from Wammy\'s House and all that Near had dug up since, including that taken from his current residence. Evidence lifted from Hollow\'s home, along with that of her victims, context now illuminating several clues that had not been analysed in depth during the short span of investigation. Testimonies, not only from Neuron, but also from his sister and other children, who, without being involved themselves, had certainly witnessed individual jigsaw pieces contributing to the whole picture. A picture which Near was obviously being very thorough and fast in completing.



Manetti had been third generation, one of those almost doomed to failure by the strictest system ever instigated at Wammy\'s House. He had survived nearly to the end. For two years, he had consistently flown above the benchmark set by Watari, then just one exam, a few points short, had ended it for him. He had departed for another orphanage leaving only Mello and Matt behind him and they, so both boys believed, had only remained because of their age. Still both young enough to be moulded into potential contenders for the L title, while Manetti, at fifteen, knew what was slipping from his grasp. He had kept himself to himself at the mixed orphanage to which he had been sent. He\'d left it at eighteen to take up a job in the civil service, shooting through promotions with all the hallmarks of a genius. Mello and Matt read all of this with mixed emotions.



It was unclear how Manetti had met Hollow, though Near deduced that that had happened first. He further speculated that it was via an internet forum dedicated to L. There were many sites just like this one. Conspiracy theorists or just those who had seen the public spectacle side of the Kira investigation and wanted to show their appreciation. Many had gone quiet or died out completely during the height of Kira mania, but many defiantly and proudly survived. When he saw the URL, Matt\'s head bowed and he reached for a cigarette. Mello looked at him sharply, "What?"



"It\'s one of my sites." Matt winced. "It\'s been going since I was fifteen. It was part of my campaign to find you. I figured you might visit an L site and I\'d recognise you. I was running about twenty of the things at one time, all with visitor IP trackers built into the code. All different feels to them. Either you never visited any of them or you were a fucking ninja about it. Only yeah. This one is one of mine. I don\'t really visit much anymore."



Nothing that Mello could think of to say was going to make this alright. Guilt stabbed at the heart of him and dread at the what the future held in possible consequences of his past actions. He reached across to hug his husband and Matt hugged right back. "I\'m sorry, guapo. I\'m really sorry."



"It\'s all in past now. Let it go."



Mello nodded and kissed him before they read on, arms entwined about each other. The URL of the site had been bookmarked on Manetti\'s computer and had figured in the deep history of Hollow\'s motherboard memory. An archive of messages from the site revealed that communication had taken place. All those reading now weren\'t at all surprised. There were a couple of details in the public posts that could have only been known to Wammy\'s House alumni. Without the institution being named or even overtly referred to, it could be clearly read between the lines. "And you don\'t monitor this, Matt?"



"Nope."



"Perhaps you should."



"Yes."



Mello sighed. "Give me a list of all of your websites and I\'ll monitor them."



"I\'ll do it!" Matt growled.



"No you won\'t. You\'ll fucking forget. I\'ll do it and that\'s final." Mello stared at him. "I\'m not trying to be horrible. I\'d just rather do it. I\'m the control freak here, as you often point out." He leaned across to move some of the red hair from in front of Matt\'s eyes. "Ok?"



Matt softly snorted his surrender. "I\'ll give you the list."



"Thank you, baby. Love you." Mello kissed him. "Hey! We got married today."



"Yes, I know. I was there." Matt winked, then broke into a grin. He squeezed the arm around Mello\'s back and looked pointedly at the screen. "Fucking typical that I provided them with the medium through which to meet, but que sera sera."



A smile of sympathy flickered across Mello\'s lips, but he settled down too, returning his attention to the screen. The plan, as later revealed to Neuron, had been devised between Manetti and Hollow. Neither of them had ever had the chance to become L, their intellects failing in the only race that mattered. Manetti had been discarded, while Hollow had been ranked seventh. They must have viewed with despair the invasive threat of the fifth generation even now being trained as competitors. It was unknown as to whether it had been Manetti or Hollow who had first suggested murder as an option, perhaps misunderstanding the Beyond Birthday route. Perhaps understanding it better than B had himself. The order in which people were killed didn\'t matter, just that they were all gone. But for that they needed someone resident in the house. A fifth generation child or a member of staff.



It had been Nathalie who, having visited Wammy\'s House a couple of days after Mello and Matt\'s own visitation, had recounted to the alumni forum the latest gossip. Mello had resurfaced. He had been threatening children with guns inside the orphanage. Their peers had reacted with outrage, but it could only be assumed that Hollow had noted a name. A page in a notebook, full of Mafia references, had Neuron\'s name encircled along with details which fit the known facts of his clash with Mello. Here was a child already threatening revenge against a major player in the fight to become L. Near had further name-checked a child named Daton, who was in e-mail contact with Hollow and Century, instigated by Roger due to their collective love of history. Daton confirmed that Hollow had asked about the incident between Neuron and Mello, as a PS at the end of a long response on the subject of 5000 year old excarnation platforms in the British Isles. Daton had mentioned the Mafia fixation.



Mello and Matt exchanged glances. It was Matt who spoke first. "Do not beat yourself up about this, Mihael."



"I probably could have handled that a little better." Mello frowned. "I was just trying to scare him away from going through what I went through."



"I know." Matt kissed him. "Hindsight is such a wonderful thing, don\'t you think? You couldn\'t have known then where this was going to lead."



"But I should have done!" Mello barked. "My job is to deduce what\'s going to happen next!"



"You\'d have to be bloody omnipotent and psychic to have foreseen this!" Matt scrolled until the paragraph was out of sight. "There, it\'s gone away. It\'s not your fault. If I\'m not supposed to be kicking myself about the forum slip, you can\'t even begin to beat yourself up over this."



Mello nodded. He could hear the logic, but it didn\'t stop the pangs of conscience. "Ok." He squirreled the episode away for analysis later, when Matt wasn\'t looking at him. They read about how Manetti had posed as a Mafioso don, targetting Neuron as the teenager had shopped in Winchester city centre. It seemed that Neuron had not thought it behind the realms of possibility that a former Wammy\'s House person could have joined the Mafia. Matt raised a finger and Mello didn\'t speak up. It didn\'t stop the point jabbing at his sensibilities though. It further transpired that Neuron, meeting now with Manetti and Hollow, quickly decided that he was the more intelligent of the three. He had gone along with their plan, but his motivation had diverged. He believed that he could ultimately secure the title for himself and Kato, though he couldn\'t answer, when Near had asked what he had meant to do with Manetti and Hollow. He then contradicted himself by stating that Manetti had frightened him into playing his part. He had honestly believed that the man was Mafia, a point which Mello did concede. His own interviews with Neuron had led him to the same conclusion. Near had finally made the boy confess that the killing of Hollow had been his idea. It had been easy to persuade Manetti. Hollow was the more intelligent. The Wammy\'s House rankings had proven it. Neuron had even devised the method.



"What are you thinking, Mell?" Matt asked.



Mello was glaring at the screen. "I\'m thinking that I need to speak with Neuron. Near\'s getting the facts, but it\'s all a bit messy, don\'t you think so?"



"Yep."



"It was Manetti and Hollow\'s idea, then it was Neuron\'s idea; but Neuron was being intimidated by Manetti. It\'s too," Mello scowled, searching for the words, "wishy-washy. I think that we have the bones of it here, but Neuron is also fighting for his future. There\'s at least life imprisonment as a stake, but if he plays it well enough, he might have a real future. The boy\'s a genius. He could be useful in the system, if he could just be brought back into the fold. He\'s seen them welcome me back with open arms, after all the crap I\'ve pulled. He must have that as a carrot in how he\'s playing the game now."



"Or he\'s just a sixteen year old lad who isn\'t consistent."



"No, Matt. He\'s playing the system. He already played me." Mello\'s eyes narrowed. "He told me that he didn\'t know where you were. At that point, we were losing the battle to find you, losing to the clock, I meant. Neuron must have believed that we wouldn\'t find you until it was too late. Your testimony is the only evidence that placed him at the centre of this plot. Until you told us your story, Neuron was just a silly boy, who had been played for a fool. We released him back into Roger\'s bloody care. He\'s playing the system. Fuck him." Mello scrolled through to the next document, but there was nothing else that they didn\'t already know. "Why did I leave all of this to Near? I should have been putting this case together."



"Because Near\'s very good at what he does and you needed to come home and get married."



Mollified, Mello reached out for Matt\'s hand and held it. "Love you, baby." Matt smiled and lit a cigarette. With their mood already jagged, Mello decided that now was as good a time as any to raise another point. "I wasn\'t trying to change your name." He watched Matt cringe. "If you want to be Mail Jeevas, without the hyphen Keehl, I understand completely. I won\'t be offended. I got carried away with the moment and I want Jeevas in my name. I wasn\'t trying to be insensitive."



"I want be Mail Jeevas-Keehl."



"Yes." Mello nodded. "About as much as you want to wear that ring around your finger."



"Huh?"



"Guapo, I know you love me. I know that now." Mello turned to lean against the table, facing him. "I\'m not paranoid anymore. I know that we express that differently. You need the collar around your neck and I need other things, but they aren\'t incompatible. Fundamentally all that we\'re saying is that we need each other and that there\'s love here. There\'s lust, possession and fucking intensity too, but yes, there\'s love. I love you, Mail Jeevas. I really do. I don\'t need you to take my name or wear my ring to feel secure that you love me right back."



Matt smiled, shaking his head. "Maybe you don\'t. Maybe you do. But the ring is staying on my finger and the Keehl is staying in my name. Fuck off if you think you can remove them now." He winked and Mello shivered inside. "I\'m catering for far more Mellos than you\'re being at the moment. Now, where\'s my halloumi cheese, bitch?"



Mello laughed and drew him close for a kiss. It was long and lingering, love and passion moving in each flicking of their tongues and in the dance of their lips. Eventually Mello drew away. "Ok, I admit that I\'m touched. But I\'m saying that you don\'t have you. You being happy and alright is far more important to me than anything symbolic. Have a think about it, ok?" He claimed another quick kiss before rushing into the hallway to put on his biking leathers and to pick up his helmet, gloves and keys. He returned smiling. "No more secrets now, eh, Matty?"



Matt stared at him, as if he was about to say something, and Mello frowned. The redhead smiled though. "No, nothing more. You have it now." As Mello\'s frown deepened, under the sudden chill inside, Matt laughed aloud. "I\'m just winding you up. Honestly, Mihael, no more secrets. I\'ve had my fill of them too."



There was a stare-off, but Mello was looking mostly at a veil of red hair covering orange goggles. If there was something real, then there would be time enough in their marriage to prise it out of him. Yet Matt\'s smirk spoke far more of teasing in progress, feeding straight into Mello\'s paranoia. The blond sighed, "Yeah, well that\'s good then." He leaned in for another kiss, then glanced at the laptop. Near was responding to some of the questions posed by their peers and his avatar was the old English font \'L\' on a white background. Mello reached out and flicked the screen with his finger right in the middle of it. "Ok, I\'m going to get halloumi cheese. I won\'t be long. Love you, baby."



"Love you too, Mell."



Mello stopped dead by the door and smiled. "There wasn\'t even a burst of oxytocin in your system then."



"Yeah there is." Matt grinned at the laptop. "You just kissed me."



Mello chuckled. "Smartarse." He smiled back, watching his husband clicking onto another response. "Don\'t read too much of that crap while I\'m gone. Get back to your game or something. I\'ll be twenty minutes tops, if not sooner. Try not to climb on any more worktops. Love you."



Matt responded by reaching into the pocket of his shorts and pulling out his DS. He smiled as he jabbed the stylus through the health and safety warnings, then smirked up as the game loaded. "Still here?"



"I\'m gone." Mello pushed away from the wall he\'d been leaning on, pulled on his helmet and, with a wave, stepped out into the night.