Author's Note: Hey everyone! So this took me a ridiculously long time to post, I know. But I did get it done as fast as I could! And to make up for it, I think it's my longest chapter to date. I don't really like how it started, but I do like the last half of the chapter. Hopefully I will get more time to write in the near future, but it doesn't look that way thanks to term paper deadlines creeping up and other stupid shit. But without further delay: chapter 7. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I do not own anything. I wish I did, because then I might not be a poor college student.
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Mello opened his eyes the next morning and let out a sigh. He didn't get much sleep the night before, and him and Matt were leaving in a few hours to go to the last known scene of the book in Germany.
He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms and looked over at Matt, who was still sleeping. Instead of finding his incoherent mumbling cute, Mello was just pissed off at him today. For real this time. So instead of waking him up nicely, he hit him in the side of the head with a pillow.
Rather than waking up, Matt just rolled over a little and mumbled "Tell Roger 'm not goin' to class."
"Matt, you fuck, get up!" This time it was a pillow to the front of the face.
"Why are you yelling already?"
"BECAUSE I HATE YOU RIGHT NOW!"
Matt opened his eyes fully and looked over at Mello. "Does that mean you love me the rest of the time?"
"I find you tolerable when you're not fucking up business plans."
"I didn't fuck anything up. Calm down. It will be fine."
"We're gonna have some sort of hit out on us by the time this is done with if you keep making deals with EVERYONE."
"Whatever. You like shooting at people."
"MATT!"
"Okay, fine. I won't accept any more money from anyone else."
"Thank you. Now wake the fuck up, we have a plane to catch," Mello said as he swung his legs over the side of the bed and got up.
Light and L had driven Matt and Mello to the airport. After they had checked in their bags and were saying bye, Mello did something extremely stupid. Maybe it was because he was over tired. Maybe it was because he was in an incredibly bad mood. Maybe it was because Matt was such a fucking idiot that it caused him to be in a really bad mood.
Whatever the reason was, as they were all standing there chatting, Mello continuously glaring at L. And then he noticed how his too-gray eyes with too-huge pupils looked a lot like Near's. And that's when he stopped thinking and started talking.
"Why did you pick Near?"
L looked over at Mello and to his credit, did not look the least bit taken aback by the question. Matt, also to his credit, asked Light some probably really dumb question, but it prevented the two of them from just staring at L and Mello.
"I thought that would have been obvious," L responded to Mello's question.
"Well apparently not. Because apparently I'm fucking stupid or not good enough or whatever."
"It had nothing to do with that, Mello."
"Then why did you pick him?"
"Because I like you."
"Because you . . . what? Should I be getting creeped out now? Should Kira be getting jealous?"
L smiled a little. "Because you're a good person, Mello, and I genuinely enjoy your presence. Therefore, I like you."
Mello was about to respond back as he was thoroughly confused, but the first boarding call for him and Matt's flight rang over the intercom and they hadn't even been through security yet.
"Well, thanks you two for having us. We have a flight to catch. We'll be in touch!" Matt called out as he dragged a still very confused Mello alongside him.
Second time on a plane with Matt in two weeks and this time it was Mello who was freaking out before the plane even took off.
"Will you stop fidgeting? Jeez," Matt sighed, clicking on his DS.
"Why did he say that to me? It made absolutely no sense. I bet it was absolute bullshit," Mello fumed from his seat.
"It wasn't bullshit Mello, and it made perfect sense."
"Oh really?"
"Yes. L didn't even want to be L. It makes people insufferable and boring. And since Near is already both of those things, although I don't think he's as bad as you do, it really wasn't such a big burden for him. It was the logical choice."
"But I wanted it so badly."
"But then you wouldn't be the same person. Mel, I've told you this a thousand times. You're much better off just being Mello. I like you a hell of a lot more this way. Even if you do get mad at me for stupid things. Like getting us more money."
"It was fucking stupid and you know it."
"Just . . . go to sleep. Or get drunk. Or get drunk and fall asleep. You look like shit – did you even sleep last night?"
Mello glared at him. "You're really racking up points on the me forgiving you scale, huh Matt?"
"I'm serious, Mel. You look tired. Sleep."
Mello was thoroughly planning on glaring at Matt and giving him shit the entire plane ride, but he must have fallen asleep at some point, and Matt must have been correct about him being ridiculously tired, because when he woke up they were landing in Potsdam.
When they were outside with their baggage, Mello was still having a hard time keeping his eyes open.
"You can take a nap when we get to the hotel," Matt commented to Mello, who was leaning slightly against him while he smoked a cigarette outside the airport.
"No. We have to find this person who had the book thingy last. And based on the file, he seems like a shady motherfucker," Mello half-mumbled into Matt's shoulder.
"Oh well, it should be easy for you then right? I mean, aren't these your former people?"
Mello leaned upright and glared at Matt. "Are you making a joke about me being Russian and East Germany being a former Soviet satellite?"
Matt looked offended. "Mel, I would never make fun of you."
"Oh, fuck you. Why don't we stop somewhere so you can find some tea and crumpets you dumb fuck?"
Matt grinned and put out his cigarette. "You know I like coffee so much more," and then he went off to find a taxi for the hotel.
"This fucking document is useless and only gives a business address," Mello complained, leaning over a table in the hotel they had ended up staying in.
Matt was too busy searching through the stocked mini fridge, deciding which beer looked like the best one to chug.
Mello looked over at him. "Can you focus for like, eight seconds?"
"No. What do you think . . . Weizen . . . bock . . . tastes like?"
Mello only responded with a glare.
"Okay, fine, what are you bitching about?"
"There's only a business address listed on this transaction document, and they're probably not even really there because it's some sketchy warehouse address."
"Well, no one's going to put their home address on a business deal," Matt concluded logically, deciding the beer would have to be okay and opening it.
"Well, maybe people should start so this shit will be easier," Mello mumbled, looking back at the Google Maps image on the laptop.
"We could always just drop by and see what's there."
"Oh yeah, because just 'dropping by' a secluded area of sketchy warehouses sounds like a great idea, Matt."
"Well, as much fun as having a little vacation in Germany and drinking a lot sounds, this is where the paper trail ends up and if we want to find the next place the book went to, or if it's still in this person's possession, then we have to go to Sketchville."
Mello sighed. "I suppose you're right."
Mello stopped their rented car a few feet short of the first warehouse in a long row of them.
"This place looks like it should be condemned," he muttered, putting the car in park.
"Probably is," Matt agreed cheerily, opening his door and stepping out of the car. "Which means the business is either no longer here, or an entirely illegal operation. Did they have a company name?"
"No. They had a PO Box and this address."
"Super illegal," Matt concluded. "I bet it's still here. What number did you say it was?"
"Thirteen. What an awesome address for the sketchiest place on Earth."
"You and your stupid superstitions."
"I'm not superstitious!"
"You refused to make your bed on any day when we had an exam in school. Because apparently in the process of pulling your covers straight, you would have forgotten everything."
"I still did better than you."
"I didn't give a shit," Matt countered as they began walking along the rows of warehouses.
Mello eyed the door of warehouse number thirteen as him and Matt approached it.
"Someone definitely still uses this," Mello said quietly.
"How the hell can you conclude that?"
"The whole rest of the building is rusted, but the cracks where the door opens and closes is completely free of any buildup. Therefore, it gets opened frequently. Stand behind me while I open the door," Mello said, pulling out his gun.
"Why? Protecting my life?"
"Yes, actually."
"Oh, Mel, you're so sweet."
Mello rolled his eyes. "Shut up."
Luckily, Mello thought, the door opened inward and gave way with a few kicks directed towards where the latch was. Unluckily, the door made a hell of a lot of noise as it opened.
Mello cringed inwardly at the noise, knowing it would signal anyone inside of their arrival, along with the flood of light that came in with the opening of the door into the darkened warehouse. He peeked his head inside, and not noticing anyone directly near him, walked in a few steps.
The warehouse was filled with every kind of computer Mello had ever seen, wiring running up the walls and ceilings and down along the floor. The computers were connected to other computers, and printers, and modems, and things that he had no fucking clue what they were. The warehouse was just one big, vast room, and Mello quickly concluded there was no one inside.
"Leave the door open or it'll be dark as fuck in here," Mello instructed Matt, lowering his gun.
"But what if the person drives by and then they notice we're in here?"
"It'd suck just as worse if they came in when it was closed – if it's open we can hear someone approaching and make a quicker escape."
Matt shrugged, not really caring one way or another, and went over to one of the tables to look at the computers on it.
"This is definitely something of a hacking operation, and they have the craziest shit ever, and I am so totally jealous," Matt said, sitting down at the table, placing his laptop next to one of the computers.
"Can you stop being a dork for a few minutes and actually find out something useful?" Mello asked as he moved to the back of the warehouse toward a desk and a filing cabinet, which he noticed after his eyes had adjusted to the relative darkness of the building.
Sighing, he sat down at the desk chair and looked at the piles of papers stacked on top of the desk, with more flowing out the filing cabinet. He wished there was some way they could take all this crap back to the hotel with them, but knowing that was impossible, Mello instead started to flip through the stack of papers closest to him.
Mello's eyes widened when out of the corner of his eye he noticed a silhouette form in the sunlight from outside, and then the light fade a little as the door creaked halfway closed. Instinctively, Mello fell to the floor and got cover behind the tall filing cabinet, hoping Matt had enough time and common sense to do something similar. Knowing the improbability of that, seeing as how Matt was so much closer to the entrance and was probably too busy getting a boner over hacking technology, Mello snuck a glace around the filing cabinet.
Sure enough, his assumptions were correct. Matt was standing up now, thankfully facing the direction toward Mello, grinning nervously in that way he always did when things weren't going his way, and a man was facing him, back turned towards Mello. It was while Mello was running through all the ways to sneak up on this guy and hit him over the head with something, that Mello noticed a knife in the man's hand and all logic flew out the window.
As quickly as he could without making a shit ton of noise, Mello got up from behind the filing cabinet and moved towards Matt. Matt, to his credit, kept on talking about god knows what in a slightly louder voice to cover up any noise Mello made. Unfortunately, the man must have noticed the slight difference, and also how Matt's gaze was directed slightly over his shoulder, as he turned around when Mello was just a few feet away from him. The man spun around and placed the knife at Matt's neck just as Mello was raising his gun.
Mello internally panicked, but he had to give himself credit as his raised arm was not shaking at all. Matt, however, looked like he was five seconds away from a full-blown panic attack. Matt's sarcastic comment of "protecting my life?" from earlier kept running through Mello's head as he mentally ran through every curse word in every language he knew. This was not supposed to happen over something so fucking stupid as a dumb book wanted by rich bastards. That was not something Matt should die over.
"If you think a little scrawny kid and a girly boy are going to intimidate me, you're wrong," the man's thick, German voice snapped Mello out of his internal battle.
His eyes narrowed and he flicked the safety off his gun in a brief moment of illogical anger, but he stopped his finger from gripping the trigger when he noticed just how close that knife was to Matt's throat.
"Put the gun down."
"You first."
The man looked at Mello, seemingly amused. "So Red here was telling me about how you were just looking for some information on a book and how you didn't mean any harm."
"Sounds about right," Mello responded noncommittally.
"Someone paying you to find it or is it out of personal interest?"
Mello thought about the best way to answer that. "We're being paid."
"How much?"
Fuck. Mello knew Matt's laptop was still on the table and there would be easy access to the bank accounts the money was in, so there was no way he could lie. But then he remembered that they had put the money from Leach and the money from the Japanese company in two different bank accounts.
"Three hundred thousand."
The man gestured at the computer on the table. "Put the gun down, transfer the money, and I'll let you leave."
Mello was a bit confused. Fuck if he knew how to transfer money from one account to another. Sure, he could do it on his little online banking from his savings to his checking, but he had the feeling this was a whole different deal. It was probably different banks, and fuck if he knew how to do it from one computer to another. And his number one priority was to get the knife as far away from Matt as possible.
"He does that sort of thing a whole lot better than me. Technology isn't really my thing."
"No? Just guns and pretending to be a badass are?"
Mello didn't dignify that one with an answer, nor did he lower his gun any.
"Put your gun down and I'll let him go do it, then."
Mello mentally cursed again. Was it really safe to put the gun down? Staring at the man's hand, he was thankful it wasn't shaking, because that meant he wasn't nervous and therefore hopefully wouldn't do anything irrational. Or he could just be a psychopath. On another logical thought, Mello noticed it was a pocket knife, and therefore not really unusual to carry around, therefore lessening the chances of psychopath. With an inward grimace, Mello lowered his arm and put the gun away, thankful when the man did the same with his knife.
Mello's eyes never left the man as he was busy alternately glaring back at Mello and looking over Matt's shoulder to see what he was doing on the computers. When Matt was done and it was apparently satisfactory to the man, Matt grabbed his computer, closed it, and pulled Mello out of there as fast as he could, and then moved as fast as possible to the car.
"I don't think I have ever been that scared in my life," Matt breathed a deep sigh of relief when they were both safely inside of the car.
"I half expected you to try to make a deal with him, too," Mello commented idly, turning the car on.
Matt glared. "Shut up. He was essentially a certifiable psychopath."
Mello shrugged and started driving back to the hotel. "We're fucked now on what to do. The trail ends with him and he didn't give us any information on anything, and it's not like we can just waltz back in and ask nicely."
"I may have been scared as fuck, Mel, but I'm not stupid."
"What the hell are you getting at?"
Matt flipped open and turned on the computer again. "When the computers were connected for bank transfers, I assumed that was the main computer for his whatever fucked up business, and I kind of copied all his files onto this computer."
"Without him noticing?!"
"Well, I did it in between his staring match with you. And when it's two pretty decent computers, it really doesn't take that much time. The hard drive wasn't really full or anything, he probably uses it for coding and shit most of the time, but there might be something on there that would give us a clue about the book. He probably wanted the transfer for the money, and there's a slight probability he got information off my computer too, but he was probably expecting us to be idiots and I have shit set up to protect against that sort of thing, but some of it might have gotten through."
When they were back in the safety of the hotel again, Mello quickly returned the rented car so it wouldn't be traced back to their hotel room in case the guy really was a psychopath and was just going to come kill them that night. When he got back up to the room, he found Matt staring intently at the computer, and grinning a little.
"Find anything good?"
Matt nodded hurriedly. "We're going to Vegas!"
"He sold it to someone in Vegas?"
"No. He lost it to a blackjack dealer named . . . Andrew Lancaster . . . when he got really really drunk one night and owed the table some money, apparently."
"That's embarrassing."
"Yep. And he saved the emails in his documents probably was going to go try and get it back, and there's history of a printed label for the shipment of it, and it was fairly recently – within the last six months – so it might still be there. And we now know it weighs . . . 57 ounces!"
"I may or may not be in love with you."
"I try to keep my work relationships strictly professional," Matt responded, to which Mello rolled his eyes and stole the laptop from him to make flight reservations.
"Thanks for saving my life, Mel."
"Thanks for not getting killed, dumbass."
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Yaaaay. One more chapter down and it only took me what? A month to post it since the last one? :(
Please reviewwwww. I keep getting a lot of repeat readers based on story stats, which I am happy about and makes me ASSUME that people like it. But if you do like it and you do keep on reading it, please let me know in a little review! Or if you think it sucks, you can let me know that too.
Thanks!
