rating: T (for now i suppose)

A/N: ok so i was thoroughly unimpressed with the previous one i had up, because there were a lot of mistakes and whatnot. this one is the same story, but i touched it up and if you have read the older version, you might notice i've added things as well. this story is completely AU where Light Yagami stumbles upon something other than the Death Note, but just as strange and "supernatural". i apologize if there's any wrong information on here concerning forensics and stuff, because i only know from what i watch on T.V...which isn't a lot :P

also, the main focus isn't Yagami, he comes in a little later. this is about Mello and Matt working together to solve a mystery revolving around the things that happened in the past. that said, the whole drama actually began a few years in the past, with Yagami and L destroying each other like in the actual story, and so Mello and Matt are the clean up crew of a sort. this is as condensed of an explanation as i can get.

and thank you to those who commented on my crappy older version! i'm working on the second part and i'll try to get it out soon! :)

enjoy~

A Beautiful Haunting

The defining features were the eyes.

Not the smooth, white skin or the silky dark hair, because what quality made porcelain doll doesn't have those things? The scale of beauty is very limited, but that's one of the reasons why this particular doll was so different from the rest. It had a strange expression on the small face, but undecipherable at the same time. The painted lips were tugged into a small frown, the hair had been messily chopped off in chunks by an angry child and the stuffed body seemed to be curled into itself. The head and hands were made of the unglazed porcelain that it was labeled by, but the rest was composed of cotton and stuffing hidden by an intricate Victorian-style dress. But the wide eyes that stared back at you were unnerving. The doll wasn't ugly by any means, but it wasn't beautiful either. It's hard to describe, but it was more…peculiar.

"Fucking creepy ass toy is what it is." Matt grouched, holding it an arm's length away by its small hand, "Why'd you bring this thing here, anyway Mel?"

His housemate glanced up from the couch, where he was polishing his new gun. "Don't hold it like that, it'll break." The taller young man grabbed its monochrome dress and lifted it away from him, who was seated on the arm of the sofa, "And I told you that it's from the crime scene."

"Yeah, but what's it doing here, in our place?"

"A hunch." He said simply, "It was the only thing that wasn't burned up at the scene, like it was thrown away. The arsonist made it very clear that he didn't want to be followed, so why leave this there?"

"Could be to throw us off," Matt said, "or it might not be from our guy at all."

Mello unceremoniously dropped it on the coffee table, though he would never admit that it ran shivers up his spine when he looked at it for too long. "Whatever the reason is, I want to hold onto it. Anything found at the scene is evidence in one way or another."

"In other words, this is getting dumped on me while you go out and have yourself a little fun." he observed, as his partner tucked his gun away.

"Naturally."

"Goddamn it. At least bring back some drinks, will you?"

Mello smirked as he got up, and when he reached the door he decided to ask his favor right then, so the younger man couldn't refuse to empty space when he'd slip out after. "Oh yeah, one more thing," Matt's eyes narrowed suspiciously, because he knew this annoying trick all too well, "I'll need you to search it for me, anything conspicuous or something that wouldn't normally be on a doll."

The door shut to Matt making a face at him.

Mello stood amongst the rubble where a house once stood. It used to be an impressive mansion that still has a beautiful view of the mountains to the north, and the ocean to the west. Although a safe distance from the ocean, the house had all the advantages of the landscapes in a way that captured everything. The large windows, now a melted mass in the dirt, welcomed the scenery and the residents didn't have to turn on any lights in the morning and afternoon as the sun lit up the entire house. A very quiet place, and the perfect opportunity for serious robbers to pillage a family's sanctuary. Which is exactly what happened on May 22, 2004.

It was a robbery gone bad, and whoever set it up wanted to get it finished by a certain time, but things didn't turn out that way. Mello found evidence of this after going through all the robber's email and phone records. Not only were they pressed for time, but something else got in the way that had all the following events spiral downward. But the police couldn't figure it out, and it wasn't a big deal until strange things began happening to the new owners of the mansion, after what was left of the previous family moved out.

The mansion was still very much intact, still beautiful and still stood strong. So the only issue was the noises that resounded through the halls at night, the missing items that the children swore they didn't touch, the shadows that loomed over them when they wake in the morning, and the calls. The unknown phone calls were the catalyst that drove the family mad, and eventually, to the second tragedy to occur under that roof. The infamous case of Post-Natal Psychosis, where the mother killed her two children, claiming that doing so was the only way to protect them. She was admitted to a psychiatric facility shortly after and the single grieving father moved out immediately following the incident.

The young man ran his hand along a scorched post, one of the last remains of the wretched house. A case of arson resulted in the complete destruction of the house, as it was torched suddenly a year after the last resident moved out, and the fire department could only do so much to the oil fire that consumed it. The wreckage then became a regular hangout site for a small group of teenagers a little over a month of the house's execution, intent on finding anything supernatural, which was their obsession. And a little over a month later the three of them disappeared.

As M, Mello and Matt chose this peculiar case on the behalf of the nearby town, where the children lived, since everyone else who went to investigate this strange incident came out with nothing. It was like they all had vanished.

Mello sneered at the detectives' reports from the site, almost all of them filled with polite complaints that there was nothing to point to where the kids ran off to, or who took them. An easy search of the recent history of this area shed a very different light on what the two of them were looking at. It wasn't hard to figure out, especially with the movies that Matt's been watching lately. But to prove it was another matter, and with their reputation of being the best detective in the world it couldn't be terribly difficult.

A debate over who M actually was among the government was an amusing thing to behold for the two of them, since Matt could easily hack into the security cameras in the meeting area and watch peacefully on the couch with Mello munching on a chocolate bar. Which they did continuously when they needed to take a break and have a few chuckles. The pair of them are known as M, the greatest minds the world has seen and the best detectives on the job internationally. And the key to their success is that no one knows that M is two separate geniuses.

Mello knew that the children left on their own, probably to find some fun in their frustratingly ordinary lives. When he listened to the recorded interviews the previous detectives had with the parents, Mello and Matt singled out certain indications in their voices that the kids weren't happy with their uneventful existence. It wasn't too hard, considering everyone seemed to have the predisposed notion that they were kidnapped, even though there was no evidence of it. They dozed in school, which led to a poor report card, they neglected homework and instead chose to watch movies, and secluded themselves in their rooms. Only when they scheduled a play date did they start going outside more often, to this place. It wasn't to say that all children who exhibited this kind of behavior was subject to running away, but whatever triggered the train of thought to do so was probably fueled by the other two agreeing to it. Whichever the case, they're missing, and now it's up to them to find them.

He found the area where the children had congregated on their late night rendezvous and settled himself on one of the sturdy pieces of rubble they used as seats. It was here he found the doll he brought back home, thrown in the middle of the fire pit, dust-free and unburned. He wasn't sure if there was anything planted on it and highly doubted it, but if there was a hair or something they can use a some kind of clue, then all the better. That kid has to stop acting like a wimp anyway.

Mello dug out a chocolate bar from his vest pocket and began chewing on it thoughtfully, I know they've been hiding out here for a little while after being reported as missing, so they probably left when the searchers started to get closer and closer to them. His cell phone in his pocket set out a soft beep and vibrated in his pants pocket. He pressed it against his ear, "Yeah?"

"Mel," Matt's voice said urgently, "did you lose your cell phone at any time today?"

"No."

Matt sighed, "Alright, then come back when you can."

"What's going on, Matt?"

"Come back when you can, Mel." He hung up.

"…Little snot." Mello muttered, and he shoved his phone into his pocket again. What Matt really was saying was "hurry the fuck up and come home". He patted the dust from his tight jeans and looked around once more. After searching this area, the only things he could conclude was the kids had slept here for about a week or so from the amount of ashes in the fire pit and the pile of discarded dust beside it, and that they had a leader they followed around like ducklings. With the amount of malicious activity these brats have stirred up around the place, they had to have a figure to guide them, whether it was a child such as themselves or someone else, he couldn't tell. Yet.

He also had reason enough to believe that the person who torched the house was the same person leading this charade, mainly because this person seemed to favor oil as a means to setting fire to anything. His only real clue was the doll, because it looked like it was discarded after the teenagers left this area. Everything else was taken with them or burned, and any last traces of them were washed away by the frequent rains at this time of year. So Mello began digging through the packed down pile of ashes for any partially scorched items again. His last search, other than the doll, revealed melted candy wrappers, small shards of soot covered glass, a small pair of scissors with a useless handle, and a sewing needle. He had put them all in tiny paper bags to examine them later.

He carefully sifted through the ashes a little further from the pit, and wasn't long when he found a large object somewhere in the middle of it. Intrigued, he pulled it out and shook it a little, to get the excess soot off of it. "A cell phone…" a small attachment dangled off it loosely, as the elastic in the string melted onto the back of the phone.

Mello searched if there were any more, and came up empty. Instead he found a tiny piece of fabric and another mass that he couldn't identify, so he out them all in bags and decided to call it a day and figure out what he had.

"Bastard." The young man muttered as he lifted the dress to search for the seam in the doll's back, "He knows that porcelain dolls creep me out."

But even through his complaints, he continued on anyway. There was a small array of forensic equipment in this room, although not nearly as much as what one would find in a CSI lab. He had the basic DNA scanners and chemical testers, the small enough details they can find out themselves without turning to others for help. In this case the police, as useless as they proved themselves to be.

So Matt painstakingly swabbed the doll down in search of any chemicals that might be on it, and grudgingly went on with his work. As he held it in his hands, it slipped from his grasp and he gasped a little in surprise. He caught it easily, and decided to be gentler since he didn't want to shatter it all over the place. But as he held it up, Matt felt a tiny lump inside the stuffed body. Intrigued, he used both hands to feel around the doll by squeezing the soft torso, trying to find it again. He did; it was in the middle of the chest area, baring slightly to the left and it felt rectangular, small but bigger than the doll's tiny porcelain hand. He pinched it to gauge its density, and was a bit startled when he felt it give, but sprung back once he relieved the pressure.

It didn't seem to be encased in plastic, at the very least.

Matt's brows furrowed together as he tugged the dress off of the doll entirely. If there was something inside of it then he'd have to dig for it, so he rummaged through his drawers for a seam ripper, and went back to the task at hand. But he paused when he looked at the doll more closely. His eyes scanned the body there didn't seem to be a seam, only smooth cotton on the body. He stared at the bare doll, and was confused by the absence of lines for the stitching. At the joints, where the arms and legs connected to the rest of the body, the fabric seemed to simply curve into the needed direction and because of this the whole body looked to be made of a single piece of cotton.

He stared at the doll quizzically with the seam ripper in hand. If there wasn't a seam to neatly tear open, the whole process would have to be messier than he wanted.

"Whatever," he sighed to himself. He flipped it around again and placed the tip of the tiny razor between where the shoulder blades would be, and was about to push it in and drag it downward until he heard the front door open.

"Hm?" Mello was really early…. Matt put the doll down and stood up to peek out into the living room, where the door was. The room was empty. He walked forward, staring at the door. Putting his hands on his hips and looking around in confusion, as if trying to find the source of the sound.

Was I just hearing things? He turned back to go to the computer room where he left the doll, and not a second later heard a pattering of feet on the hardwood floor.

His brow furrowed and quietly pressed himself against the wall next to the door. I was just in there, was someone hiding? …so then there's no point in me hiding, is there? He let out a loud sigh and swung around to face the room, his elbows resting on the doorframe as his body slumped forward. "Who's here?" he droned.

Nothing. The room was just as he left it. The computers hummed with soft music playing on one of them, the doll was on the table he put it on, and everything was as is. His eyes scanned the bottom of the tables where his army of computers lay, but that's all there was in this room, tables and computers. There really wasn't any place to hide in here.

"I know you're in here." He said in that same bored tone. "I'm not gonna hurt you, just come out."

He was met with indifferent silence. "Alright, I see how it is." He let his arms drop from their places and slapped his thighs. Casually walking along his precious computers, he took an entire 360 degree circle around the room. He stood in the middle, arms crossed and frowning in confusion. "I could've sworn…."

He slowly walked back out, turning his head side to side, looking for anything out of place. He knew he heard something, but there wasn't any evidence to prove him right. Maybe I should lay off those movies ….

A loud shrieking of rings burst out of the speakers on his cell phone and he jumped at the noise, "-Fuck- shit!" he cursed in alarm. He dug it out of his jean pocket and looked at the caller id after silencing it. It read 'unknown caller', but he knew that only Mello's number was labeled that, everyone else who had an unlisted number that couldn't be tracked down was labeled 'asswipe' on his phone. He flipped it open, "What?"

"What?"

He pulled it away from his ear to stare at it. His words were being echoed back to him in his own voice. Strange…"Yodalay-doodle-oooh…" he called to the speaker.

"Yodalay-doodle-whooo…"

Matt flung it toward the side of his head, "MEL! I'm not in the fucking mood for this!"

Just as before, his words were echoed back to him, but a little differently and Matt immediately knew it wasn't Mello. "Mel, I'm not in the mood for this."

What was going on? Mello wouldn't do this (contrary to popular belief his partner wasn't that much of a dick), let alone re-edit his swearing for a PG-13 audience. He stood up straighter in the hallway, eyes staring at the striped wallpaper as his nerves tingled. This was seriously wrong. He swiftly walked back inside the computer room, "What the fuck? I know this isn't Melanie, so cut the bullshit."

Matt changed his partners name to cover up his identity. Whoever this was, he somehow managed to override the program in his phone to be labeled an unknown, which so far only Mello's phone could do only because Matt tweaked the mother chip around for him. The lone fact that this caller wasn't Mello set a red light flashing in his mind.

"What the freak?"

"Look you little snot-nosed fag, this isn't funny." He quickly set some of his equipment as he blabbered on, "You don't like it when I cuss out at you? Huh? Are you a bitch or a cunt, anyway?"

As his words were sugar-coated back to him Matt hooked his phone up with his tracking gear, he plugged his small satellite with a screen and calmly searched for the caller, a grim expression wrinkling his brow. "Oh yeah? Am I a girl dog or a woman, you say? I'm gonna take this motherfucking phone and slam the fucking thing into your goddamn ear if you don't stop this shit."

Where is it? He scanned the screen carefully when it finally showed that it had tracked the caller, but there wasn't anything that he could see. The only signal on the screen indicated…where Matt's phone was. But Mello's phone, supposedly the only phone that could make him edgy like this, was definitely nowhere near here. So the caller had to be doing this from a different phone…in this house.

He opened the drawer under the table and slipped his gun out. "Where are you?" he hissed.

Finally, when he expected his voice to ask him the same question the person on the other side abruptly clicked off. Matt sat in his chair, dial tone reverberating through his ears, as the signal on his screen also blinked out.

There was a constant ringing in his ears, the kind where you know something is awry, and your body hasn't quite reacted to the situation yet. Matt wasn't sure of what he should be doing after this, but he wasn't considered a part of M for nothing. He hooked his phone up to one of his machines and went to work on tracing the last call, possibly even overwriting his own program to find whoever made that call. As he worked he picked up another phone he used and speed dialed Mello's phone.

"Yeah?" said the familiar voice on the other end.

He was relieved to hear his voice, but at the same time troubled that the call really wasn't from him. "Did you lose you cell phone at any time today?"

"No."

After Matt got off the phone with him, he sat back in his chair, thinking hard. Who, and how could someone have done this? The two young men both had many enemies to deal with, but he couldn't pinpoint anyone capable of screwing around like this. Was it a warning then? It wouldn't be the first time they received a vague warning to back off when they got started on a case, but because of the manner of which this one was carried out, Matt was more uneasy.

The search for his last call came up empty. It was labeled as an unknown number.

He picked the doll up again. It didn't escape his notice that the noises began just as he was about to rip it open, but could it actually be a coincidence? A religious man would disagree, but as a curious person by nature, he was intrigued by the possibilities. This was a closed off room with no windows, and sound scramblers placed in all corners of it in the off chance of it being bugged, yet someone was able to reach him anyway. Matt looked closely at the dolls eyes, trying to see if there could be a camera hidden away in there somewhere.

Its small white cheeks almost looked sunken, accentuating the thinness the structure exuded. Strange, how this doll was made. Dolls normally reflected the era it was born in, dressed in the best attire of the time and chiseled out in the shape of what was beauty. But this one was sickly, and Matt was enthralled with it. He didn't realize how long he sat there and stared at it, until his watch let out a soft beep, announcing the passing of an hour.

Snapped out of his reverie, he went back to examining it. They were a dull black, no shimmer of glass or polished acrylic reflecting light. Simply matte. It was difficult to see if anything was in there, but Matt could faintly find the outline of pupils within them because both were so close in color. He brought his face closer to the smaller one, completely focused on the crafted pupils. Was he imagining it, or were they dilating and contracting? A chill raked up his spine as he realized how the dolls enlarged eyes gazed at him in the same amount of interest as he was showing it.

"Wha- shit-!" he gasped, and threw the doll away from himself. His heart pounded in his ears as he grabbed at the sides of his chair, keeping his wide eyes trained on the facedown bundle of cloth and porcelain on the floorboards. Why do these kinds of things always happen to him? Refusing to deal with the doll alone anymore, he edged around it in a large circle toward the door, and shut it quietly, as if distinctly worried it might wake.

The time was 1:26 when Mello let himself into the apartment. All the lights were out, and he assumed that Matt had taken to bed early. He dropped a small bag of groceries on the kitchen table and flipped the light switch on, and began to strip off his leather jacket when he something caught his attention. "Matt?" he called out from the doorway, "What're you doing over there?"

He squinted at the hunched shadow on the couch in the living room, the light from the kitchen casting a dull color into the other rooms around it. Mello threw his jacket onto a chair, and glimpsed at the refrigerator before making his way to his partner. The door was covered in duct tape, like whatever was in there had legs to crawl out itself if not for the extra precautions. He held in any reaction he might have had and kept walking. Something's happened in his absence.

He flipped on the light in the living room and Mello stood over the younger man, concern brushed across his forehead. "Hey." he said, "Are you asleep?"

"Mello," he croaked out, and Matt lifted his head a little to be level with the other's waistline, "What," he seethed, "in fucking hell, took you so long?"

He sat down on the coffee table to be eye-to-eye with him. "Matt." He said quietly, "Why did you tape up the fridge?"

"They said they were hot. So I'm cooling them off."

"Who?"

"Take a look for yourself, if you're so curious." He sneered.

He did just that. Mello got up, and grabbed Matt's arm and heaved him up with him. A scowl curled his lips, but he assented to being dragged along to the kitchen. He fell into a chair at the small table, rested his elbows on it as Mello set to ripping off the strips of tape on the large metal box. His bitter mood toward his partner derived from all his frantic calls to Mello that were left unanswered after the third one, which insisted that he return to the apartment as soon as possible. The bastard turned off his phone. Matt couldn't say he was entirely appalled by his partner's indifference, since he knew if he didn't give him a thorough explanation for ordering him around then Mello would rarely comply. But seriously, for just this once….

The man threw all the useless straps of tape to the side, and took out his pocket knife to take care of the rest. He sliced a long line down the sides, and finally wrenched open the giant cooler. In the fridge, there was nothing unusual. The milk, bread, cheese and other foods innocently stood inside, and he slammed it closed. Mello proceeded to pry open the freezer sitting above it, and noticed immediately that Matt had decreased the temperature to the lowest setting. Inside, amongst the sausages and frozen dinners, was a pile of cell phones, along with the doll he had assigned to him. The phones were all turned off, and frost was creeping onto the screens as well as the porcelain face of the doll.

"What the fuck has gotten into you?" he turned toward his partner, "I leave for a day and you do this?"

"Oh of course." Matt shoots back, "The reason why I do anything is because you leave for a day." He pushed back his chair as he stood. Without a glance at the other, he grabs the doll from the freezer and leaves the kitchen in an adolescent-like tantrum.

Mello stared after him, speechless at his behavior.

A/N: same lame ending, i know... i hope you liked it! there's more to come :)

-zak