Author's Note: I'm sorry this took me so long! I know it probably wasn't THAT long, maybe a week and a half?, but I meant to get it done a whole lot sooner than I did. I just had the week from hell though. And I have another one coming up involving three-hour long Japanese classes during the day and then work every night of the week. The classes are enjoyable, if not a little exhausting. Work is just exhausting. So I thought I'd get this done when I had a spare few hours in a row. Thanks again to everyone who reviewed, even though I'm pretty sure I PMed everyone a thank you that I could.
Which then brings me to the one review reply I could not PM to: Kat. I'm sorry if being like 'called out' in a story isn't something that you particularly enjoy, but I feel rude when I don't reply to people. Firstly, thank you VERY much for your reviews, I liked them a lot. And secondly, as a response to your review of chapter one, I giggled when I read that. You are absolutely, one hundred percent correct that is what I meant. I feel a little stupid, but in my defense, I have done a lot of censoring of myself in the normal way that I talk in regards to my writing. If I didn't, the majority of this story would make zero sense because it would all either be swears (which I actually can get away with in this one), Boston slang, or words used incorrectly that have somehow become correct usages to my friends and myself. So thank you for catching that, because I certainly would have never. Although the mental image it gave you made me giggle for a good while, so it all worked out. :P Thanks again!
Story time!
Disclaimer: Own nothinggg
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Mello tapped his pen on his desk impatiently. The man across from him was holding a bag of frozen (meaning freezer burned beyond belief) peas to the side of his face, and Mello would have felt bad for punching him twice if the guy wasn't such a dick. Currently, he was talking about how he had the money and resources to find out who they were and all the connections he used to get information on them.
They had left the building area where they had found the dog with said dog in tow, as well as the omniscient well-dressed man in the backseat, Mello's gun pointed at his head. The only words spoken in the car were "talk or do anything AT ALL and I'll shoot off your dick and feed it to that dog."
To which Matt had responded, "Yeah, she totally looks like a whore."
Matt had then decided that taking a detour to the dog's house was absolutely necessary, because he wanted the thousand dollars NOW, and while the woman looked a bit worried that there was a man with a gun to his head in the backseat, Matt solved the problem by making his English accent about a thousand times more noticeable, which usually solved problems concerning American women. They thought it was adorable or something. Mello didn't get it.
For the first year or so he had lived with Matt at Wammy's he was able to comprehend about one out of every hundred words Matt said. He was having a hard enough time with the English language, let alone crazy British accents. Sometimes he still didn't understand Matt and would just throw things at him to make him shut up.
So in the end it all worked out. The woman got her dog, the dog got to go home, Matt got to be obnoxious, Mello got to threaten someone's life, they collectively got paid, and now this guy was given the opportunity to brag about what a complete fucking asshole he was.
"So . . . I don't give a fuck about your secret police force that spied on us – you got our names how, exactly?" Mello asked.
"Well, it was through a long string of people, but eventually came down to a man named Roger. To his credit, though, he wouldn't tell me anything without a cash incentive," the man explained.
". . . how much?" Mello's voice was low.
"A hundred dollars."
"THAT FUCKING ASSHOLE SOLD US OUT FOR FIFTY BUCKS EACH? WHAT A FUCKING DICK. THE NEXT TIME I SEE HIM I'M CUTTING OFF HIS BALLS AND FEEDING THEM TO HIM!"
"Yeah, Wammy definitely would have held out for at least five hundred," Matt chimed in.
The man looked at Mello calmly. "What is it with you and your obsession with the genital region being put in people's mouths? If you have some oral fixation you need to satisfy, I'm sure your little redheaded friend would be happy to oblige you."
Mello suddenly felt VERY uncomfortable. He was going to open his mouth in shock, but then realized that would probably seem like an open invitation to the pervert. Matt even had the decency to look embarrassed, and kept his eyes trained on the computer that was sitting in his lap. Thankfully, the man didn't allow for much awkward silence, as he went on.
"This Roger man told me a great number of things – including that your parents got killed in a – "
"Shut the fuck up. Now," Mello's gun was once again pointed at the man's head, "And just who the fuck are YOU anyway?"
"I am not at liberty to disclose that information."
"Oh really?" Mello flicked off the safety on the gun. "So you can just spy on us and get all this creepy information on us and BLACKMAIL us with it and you won't even tell us your fucking name?!"
Matt clicked a few keys on the laptop, looked at it carefully, looked at the man across the desk, and then said, "It's Arnold Leach."
Both the man and Mello looked over at Matt, although Mello with considerably less shock on his face. Mello rolled his eyes and lowered his gun, putting it away.
"How did you do that?!" The man, Arnold, asked after a minute of stunned silence.
"Well, you gave yourself away, really. I mean, I'm sure I would have figured it out eventually, but it probably would have taken a good few days. I noticed that the money clip you were fidgeting with when you were oh-so inconspicuously trying to show us just how loaded you were had UCLA lettering on it, so I assumed that was your alma mater and took a chance and looked at alumni of that school and then matched up the names to those on flight logs of private planes going from southern California to New York and noticed that one stopped in Florida to visit a Marie Riley – one of the names you dropped earlier, I have no fucking clue who she is – and then I ran the plates of the white SUV that was parked directly next to our car in an otherwise empty parking lot when you first approached us and found it registered to a Leach – a family member, I suppose since you're on the insurance and then I brought your license up. Arnold Leach. 5'10. Birthday is May 8, 1973. And you're an organ donor. Your license expires soon though – you might want to get on that."
Arnold stared at Matt for a few more minutes while Mello muttered, "You're so fucking nerdy it's embarrassing."
". . . and here I just thought you weren't paying attention," Arnold muttered.
"Don't worry. You're not the first person to make the mistake. I do it to pretty much everyone. Helps when people try to blackmail me," Matt explained.
"Speaking of which," Mello interrupted, "what the fuck is it that you want?"
Arnold knew he was in no position to play any sort of game, so he just told them straightforward, "I want you guys to recover a family heirloom for me."
"Why us?" Mello asked.
"Well, now the reason is that right there," he explained, gesturing in the direction of Matt, "and you two were numbers two and three in line of succession for the detective L. Therefore, you can't be dumbasses."
"Good point. But why not just ask number one?"
"He wouldn't return my phone call."
"ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS?! THERE'S NO WAY IN HELL I'M TAKING NEAR'S LEFTOVER CASES. FUCK NO. GET THE FUCK OUT."
"I am willing to pay you one million dollars to do it. I have already deposited half of that in your bank account, with which you can use to cover any expenses you'll need for finding it," he continued, ignoring Mello's yelling, "Once you find it, you can keep whatever money is left over and I will give you the other half of it."
"You already deposited it? Who the fuck said we were going to do it?"
"I know your names. And a lot of other things."
"So?! We know yours! And we can find out more!"
"That's all public record."
". . . fuck," Mello conceded.
Arnold put his briefcase down on the desk in front of him. "Everything I know about its whereabouts is in this briefcase."
Mello sighed, admitted defeat to himself, and reached over his desk and grabbed the briefcase. "So what are we looking for?"
"A book."
"What KIND of book?"
"I can't tell you. In fact, I don't even know too much about it. There are clues to its contents in those documents, but the main thing you need to know is WHERE it is."
"So you want us to find A BOOK with no knowledge of what it looks like, what's in it, and probably no idea of where it is. Let me guess, you want it back by tomorrow?"
"No, take all the time you need. I would preferably like it back within the year, but I understand it's a complicated manner."
"What if we can't find it?"
"Then you can keep the rest of the five hundred thousand."
". . . what if I just tell you we can't find it and keep all your money?"
"Well, judging by your last outburst, SOMEONE has a really big inferiority complex."
Mello's eye twitched because he knew he was right.
"Fine. I'll look through this shit. Do you need my number to contact me about this?"
"No, I already have it."
"Of course you do, you giant fucking creeper. Get out."
The next day, neither Matt nor Mello had left the house. Or their kitchen table, for that matter. Papers of every sort were strewn across the desk, Arnold's briefcase left empty and discarded on the floor next to it.
Matt sighed as he looked across the table. "Mel, I think this is impossible. It spans back for like, EVER, and then disappears for years at a time and then comes back again at some crazy auction. And the only people who are buying it are either single people or big companies. All of which DO NOT exist, because there's absolutely NOTHING about them on the internet and I can find websites that don't even EXIST yet."
"Awesome. That's fucking great. We're looking for a book that we know nothing about which people and companies that don't exist have possession of. I think a notebook that killed people made more sense than this," Mello sighed and slouched down on the table, "Well, if it's all big businesses and people who have the ability to create these fake identities, and the auction price at all of these was pretty fucking high, then I'm gonna guess we're dealing with something that would help people in power, and only be available to rich people. However, I think there's documents FROM EVERY COUNTRY IN THE WORLD so I have no idea where we should go look for it."
"Let's go to Japan," Matt suggested.
Mello hid his face in his arms. "Matt, I'm not talking to L and I don't know why you're obsessed with getting me to do that."
"Because I think you should. And seriously, we have absolutely nothing going on this."
"We'd have to put all of our shit in storage because there's no way the landlord would hold this place for months for us after all the crap we pulled."
Matt laughed a little darkly, "Good thing nowhere has ever felt like home, or else I'd be a little sad about leaving."
Mello brought his head up and rested it on his hands. "I think Wammy's did."
"Are you serious? A place like that should be outlawed. 'Oh yay, let's take a bunch of really smart orphans because then their parents can't complain and turn them into a bunch of really socially awkward basket cases who have to deal with more pressure in one day than normal people do in their entire lives.'"
Mello looked at Matt thoughtfully. "You never wanted to be L, did you?"
"Absolutely not."
"Well, that's scary. Who knows – you could have been One if you actually tried."
"You shouldn't have tried so hard. I'm glad L didn't pick you."
Instead of getting mad, because Mello knew Matt didn't mean it in a mean way, he asked, "why?"
"Because then you're still you. You can still do what you want to do. You don't have to strive to be someone else. I don't have a problem with L, I think he's a great guy, but I'm not him and I wouldn't want to be him. I don't think he agreed with the whole thing either, I mean, he went along with it, but when you think about it, it's all really fucked up. People should just be who they are and not be ranked into numbers or feel inferior because they're not like someone else. I think it says something that the first time L found something that makes him happy, he stopped being that persona and was content to leave that and just be him and let someone else deal with that crap."
"Kira makes L happy?"
Matt shrugged, "He seems happier than anytime I've ever talked to him before."
"Well, fine. But I'm still not asking him for help. I can figure this out. Just give me a few days."
A week later Mello was on the laptop booking plane tickets to Japan while Matt was on the phone with L telling him they were coming for a visit.
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Woah. Didn't mean to get all srs bsns on you guys there real quick. It had to be done.
Please review!