Let them eat Cake.
Mello swallows a bite of cheesecake, and wipes his mouth on the back of his hand, before glancing up at L.
"So." He finds it difficult to muster the courage to speak. If only he could just, you know, set this problem on fire and make it go away. Everything would be much easier. "I'm the one that found the thing. It fell on me, just kind of, you know, dropped. And I thought it was Near so I went and yelled at him, and he looked at it and said it was probably important. Then, later, Matt caught us reading it, but I'd have told him anyways because Matt,"
"Bullshit, you tried to hide it." This would be Matt, sounding irritated, but a little too tired to be angry.
"I'd have told him anyways eventually because Matt is my best friend."
At Mello's correction, Matt quiets, suitably mollified. It makes it easier for him to remind himself it's not genuine irritation, it's the fact that combined with the airplane, the jetlag, the surveillance of the batcave, the early morning library research and now the Great and Glorious Plan (as Mello christened it while they were hatching it, at two am) he has had very, very little sleep over the past... how long has it been since the death note fell? Just over a week?
"And Matt knew about—oh." Mello trails off. He totally wasn't supposed to reveal that, was he?
L looks at him. He feels like he's looking straight into his soul, and wonders kind of nervously if there's any point in lying or saying nothing because he doesn't want Matt to get into trouble, but L also knows absolutely everything ever.
Matt rescues him.
"Go on."
"Matt has been, um. HackingRoger'scomputer so when he saw... he knew shinigmai were important in the Kira case so we should probably take it seriously. So then Sighurd showed up when we tried to write 'Kira' in it. I don't think I would have if I'd really thought it worked."
Not really. Not even for Kira. Especially not now, looking at Yagami Light. Mello needs L to understand this, and L can tell it's important to him, so for the time being, he nods. Seeing forgiveness in L's eyes is practically a religious experience for Mello, and he stops the story and picks up his fork and cheesecake to have something to do with his hands, completely overwhelmed, while Near picks up the thread of the story.
"It fast became evident that not only was this a serious matter, but that Roger was unwilling to accept evidence of something outside of his own personal understanding of the universe, no matter how compelling. We decided it was imperative to deliver the information, and subsequently left Wammy's. After making our way to Japan, we took up residence in a youth hostel, and using hotel and delivery company records, as well as a limited profile of the Kira-suspect, were able to approximately track your movements."
He's staring straight ahead, fingers pulling absently at his hair. Light can't help but notice the similarities between the boy and the detective. Especially now with the huge dark circles under Near's eyes, remnants of their week from hell.
"In short, we found this building, and decided the likelihood was high that it was somehow related to events. For the past five and a half days we have been conducting rudimentary surveillance of the front entrance in an attempt to infiltrate and deliver the notebook."
"So we got these guys to chase us so the police would help. And you know the rest," adds Mello, cheerfully, "so that's okay."
L is looking at Matt. Who Mello suddenly realizes is being conspicuously silent.
"Why are you lying, Matt?" asks L, simply.
Matt swallows, and looks suddenly unbearably miserable, and Mello's eyes open wide. He... actually kind of wants to yell at L. And Matt, for whatever he's not telling them.
"I do not send my notes to Roger. Just an approximate update of me whereabouts and wellbeing."
Oh. Oh. But Near doesn't look surprised at all and Matt is starting to talk, so Mello makes up his mind to listen. For once. Since Matt would kill him if he tried to set him on fire.
"Well. Well, it's kind of."
This isn't easy.
"The thing is we all worry about you when you're gone. And you only write to Roger, and a lot of the time he doesn't tell us a thing. And sometimes we don't even know what cases you're on and the thing with Kira was just so dangerous, and everyone was worried, it wasn't just me."
L nods, calmly. Interrupting him might disrupt the answer.
"So, so I decided it wouldn't hurt, you know, to kind of. Check. To make sure things were going okay. And I don't think anyone else would be able to, to, get in, honest. I even put up extra... around the hole I used. Except it wasn't really a hole it was sort of like, like I don't know, water seeping through something so I didn't know everything and I didn't look at much, just some basic case notes to..."
Mello's jaw has dropped open. So has Light's. But of the two of them, Mello's the one who yells first.
"You hacked into L's computer? You're good enough to do that?"
Matt is looking at L. His cheeks are bright red. Most of all, he wishes he had his goggles. Or, you know, that he could disappear. He figures the goggles are probably a behavioral crutch or something like that.
"Well, we're all good, and you and Near are better at the whole, you know, almost all of it, and even if we're not all good at everything nearly as much as you, we're all good at something. I... I don't know. I just do computers. It's not enough for me to ever be... in the running, or anything. But I'm best at that."
L kills the ensuing silence, since there is no point in tormenting Matt. Mello and Near are too busy thinking about what he's said, and Light is just trying to patch together who these children are and how they seem to know L. Also, he is more tactful than to intrude into this conversation, since L is having to coax it along delicately as it is.
"I am not angry, Matt. You will just show me how to fix it so that it does not happen again. It makes me very happy to think that some of you care about me."
"Don't be stupid," Mello snorts, face hot and terror and exhaustion making him irritable, "we'd all die for you."
"Evidence supports Mello," suggests Near, looking at L's feet as though they're the most interesting thing in the world, "considering we made it here from Japan."
Matt nods, earnestly. "Because you could have died."
"You might need to arrest me for theft, unfortunately," Near admits sadly, "for credit card theft and fraud and exploitation of teddy bears."
"No," says Mello, "Near, he's not going to arrest you. You were so cool. And you weren't exploiting teddy bears, you were acknowledging your own natural teddy bear factor and, um, utilizing opportunities to the fullest and using your entire potential. And Matt..." he shoves him with his elbow, "Took care of us and got us here."
Matt looks up and meets L's eyes, briefly.
"You really could have died, you know."
L smiles. It's softer than Light has ever seen before, so he swallows all his questions about what the book is, and who these children are, and decides that they can wait.
"I know. But I won't, Matt."
Near's eyes close. Light finally speaks.
"They look like they could all use a good night's sleep."
Near's eyes flick open, and Matt looks wistful. Mello blinks like the idea is absolutely foreign, and L decides that Yagami Light is very, very right about this. For these three, the fight is over.
With proof of Light's guilt in his hands, his own is just beginning, but he can't rest that on their shoulders.
"I'll show you to spare rooms then."
"Please," says Mello. Matt doesn't think he's ever heard Mello ask for anything politely, ever. It makes him laugh for some reason, which makes Near smile at him. Matt notices the dark circles under his eyes, and is struck again by how much he looks like L.
So a few minutes later, Matt stands in the doorway of his new, temporary room, and looks around it. It's empty, tasteful, bland. Nothing like the hostel, with its bright walls. Sort of like Wammy's, but crossed with a hotel. The bed looks blissfully comfortable.
He closes the door, strips down to his boxers and without bothering to take off his socks, climbs in. After the past week, it feels like lying on a cloud.
After the past week, it feels pretty empty without someone curled up next to him. He starfishes his arms and legs out, trying to get used to the sensation.
Tired satisfaction fills him.
They did it.
His eyes close, and he practically instantly, he sleeps.
Near's room is next. Even seeing it is a comfort.
The bed is plain. The window has the right colour of blinds. There is a desk and a chair, and shelves. They don't have anything on them, but the quiet neutrality wraps around him like a hug, and he breathes properly for the first time all week.
This is normal. This is routine. This is his frame of reference.
In the morning, he will talk to L more about Yagami Light, and what is to be done with him. Because now that he is here, and can see and here and think, he knows that Yagami Light has become to L what the plastic superman he's taken to keeping in his pocket is to Near. Yagami Light is L's reference, now, and without him, he would suffer.
Near will talk to him about it.
In the morning.
Mello, last but not least, hates his room instantly. There are no good hiding places, and he has nothing to hide in the mediocre ones. The space is impersonal and empty, and it just sucks. He lies down in the dark, and he can't hear the sound of Matt breathing.
He actually can't fall asleep. He can't keep his eyes open, and he can't fall asleep.
There's only one solution.
Matt jolts upright as Mello's weight tips the bed, looks down at him, kicks him in the shin half heartedly, closes his eyes and falls back to sleep. Mello puts his face in the pillow, breathes in, and then out, and in, and is asleep on the exhale.
Tired, and triumphant.