A/N: Greetings! I am on holiday now, for two weeks, so I am very happy. :) Even with the homework and revision and stuff...

So, this chapter was completely uncalled for. It's just, these four chapters after the initial start of the case were SO BORING for me to write, and read, that I just put a load of random shiz in it to spice it up. :) Enjoy your shiz.

Another great response to last chapter! Thank you to:

mxmsupporter

SKYSPRITE

VampirePrinssess

CatatonicVanity

Rainbow Fruit Loop

site user

PenguinxHero

Red-Hot Habanero

TheRandomNekoPrussia

and Gaara-Demon-Loving-Only-Myself! I bestow much love upon thou! (Thou? Thee? I dunno. My Shakespearean's rusty.)

Disclaimer: Je ne possède pas Death Note ou l'un de ses caractères. Tout le mérite en revient à Tsugumi Ohba et Takeshi Obata. That was probably SO wrong! XD

Chapter 9: Pathogens

Almost three weeks since they had started the Jouka Case, Near, L and Light were impatiently waiting for Mello and Matt to finally arrive for work when Near's mobile phone rang.

The pale boy fished it out of his oversized pocket, flipped it open and stated, "Mello."

There was a short silence while Near listened to what Mello wanted to say. He then said, "I see, that is fine," and hung up.

Light looked at him expectantly, while L poked at his sundae.

"Mello and Matt will not be able to come to work today," Near told the pair, "It seems they have both come down with horrible colds."

"I fucking hate you," Mello growled through the tissue he was holding to his face. "The fuck did you have to give me your fucking cold?"

Matt looked at him apologetically, also finding it hard to breathe behind the tissue secured to his face. "Sorry," came the muffled reply.

Mello coughed a few times, before reinstating his glare at the redhead. "How the hell did you get it, anyway? We've been inside for the last however many days!"

Matt shrugged. "Asthma," he said simply, taking another puff of his inhaler just to make his point.

Mello didn't fall for it. "Sure. Asthma doesn't give you colds unless you're outside, dipshit; what have you been doing?"

Matt debated over not telling the blond, but decided he rather liked his head and would prefer to keep it, stuffed up or not. "I've been smoking on the balcony. It's not a full-time habit, but when I'm working hard I need it to help me relax."

Mello scowled. "You smoke?" At Matt's affirmative nod, he informed the redhead, "Smoking kills."

"Yeah, thanks, I knew that. My cigarette packet tells me every time I see it." Matt held up the small box, which, sure enough, had 'SMOKING KILLS' printed across it in bold black text. "Fucking annoying," Matt grumbled, "Like I don't know already."

Mello snorted. "If you're going to give yourself and others around you lung cancer, the least you could do is read two accusing words a few times a day."

"Shut up, Mello, I know it's not a good habit. At least I'm not doing crack, right?"

Mello thought about it. "I dunno. A high Matt could be quite fun to deal with." He grinned suggestively.

The redhead tutted and turned his head away to blow his nose. Resurfacing from the tissue he said, "Yeah, but it'd kill me twice as fast as smoking."

"I wouldn't be so sure, Matty-boy," Mello warned him, "Cancer's a bitch sometimes."

"So's diabetes."

"Quit with the chocolate digs!" Mello ordered, giving Matt his best poisonous glare.

"Why should I? You're going on about me smoking, when I don't even do it all the time, and you eat enough chocolate to put Willy Wonka out of business for good!"

"I do not!"

"You so do. I counted yesterday, while we were working on the case, and you ate seven bars of chocolate. Seven. Mello, that's gross." Matt told him frankly.

"You know, you're the first person who's ever dared to tell me anything like that to my face," Mello told him conversationally. "One would think that would imply you're either really brave or really stupid."

"I don't care which I am, both of them'll probably get me shot in the end."

"True."

"That wasn't what you were supposed to say, Mels."

Mello made to shrug, before he caught himself halfway and stared at the redhead. "What did you just call me?"

Matt froze. Shit. "Uh...Our Mello, who art in Heaven, incredible be thy name...?"

Mello laughed aloud, before he started choking on air and mucus. When he recovered, he said, "I'm not sure that'd be taken well by the more hardcore Christians, you know?"

"You say that like you're one of them," Matt pointed out cautiously.

Mello nodded, holding up the rosary that Matt had previously thought was only for decoration. "Catholic and proud, if not slightly less devout than most."

"Fuck," Matt announced. "I didn't offend you, did I?"

"Nah," Mello said, "I'm not over-sensitive."

"Good," Matt enthused, relieved. Then, a frown furrowed his brow. "Wait...doesn't shooting a load of people in the head send you to Hell?"

Mello shrugged. "I didn't really have much chance of escaping Hell in the first place. Anyway, if there's no chocolate in Heaven, I'm not going."

Matt chuckled. "I can only imagine how serious you are about that."

"Quit it! And what did you call me already?!"

Matt gulped, suddenly sobering up. "Nothing, it just came out. Forget it, it was dumb."

Mello shook his head. "It didn't sound dumb, coming from you," he mused, half to himself, "It sounded...familiar. Friendly, like. No one's given me a nickname since I was – God, I dunno...five? Four? And that was with my real name anyway, so..."

So Mello had known all along what he had called him, Matt concluded. Bastard.

"What is your real name?" he asked spontaneously, regretting it even before the words had finished exiting his mouth.

Mello raised an eyebrow. "You really think I'd tell you that easy? Tell you what, if you tell me yours, I'll think about telling you mine."

Matt immediately went on the defensive. "No way, my name's ridiculous."

"That'd make sense, seeing as you picked a boring-ass name as an alias," Mello shot back without hesitation. "Either way, personal shames aside, if you're going to call me a sappy pet name, you need one too."

Matt's skin crawled. He could only guess at what was coming.

"Mattykins?"

How had he known?

"Fuck off, Mello."

"Ha! Not so familiar now, are you? Matt-o?"

"That's so lame!"

"Matt-o Macho! C'mon, that's brilliant!"

Retching noises ensued, followed by choking and an actuation of an inhaler.

Still laughing at his friend's misfortune, Mello continued relentlessly. "Door-Matt? Matte-Black? Matthias?"

Matt had given up protesting now, and only waited patiently for it to end.

"Mattolio? Mattchstick? Mattster? Boy Toy?"

Matt couldn't take that one lying down. "What?! What connection does that one have to my name?"

"None at all," Mello informed him, still grinning from his previous torture. "But it's true anyway."

"I'm not your boy toy!"

"Well, you're awfully cuddly for someone who isn't. What are you then?" Suddenly, Mello's face was uncomfortably close.

Matt swallowed, turning his head away slightly.

Mello repeated himself. "What are you, then?"

"Nothing," Matt all but whispered, "I'm not anything like that."

Mello's face was dead serious now. Not intimidating, but there was no trace of previous humour left on the deceptively angelic face. "Matty, you do realise I'm only teasing you, right? I don't mean any of the things I say in situations like these."

Matt gulped. He knew all too well how smart Mello was, and someone that clever wouldn't have missed the alternate meaning to his words.

Though he was sure it wasn't a good idea to be sharing cold germs right now, Matt didn't protest as Mello clambered up onto the armchair Matt was resting on, half in the redhead's lap. The blond brushed his lips gently over Matt's forehead, before nuzzling into his neck and listening to the redhead's pulse.

They were asleep by eleven am.

Light was bored.

He hadn't known the strange, friendly boy called Matt for very long yet, but already, Light realised, the redhead was an irreplaceable part of his schedule. Right about now, Matt would be forcing Light into a coffee break, making sure the youth had a rest from staring at the bright computer screens for hours on end.

Not today, though. Light didn't resent the redhead for being ill, but rather hoped he'd get better soon so his workday wouldn't be so dull. Light knew that was selfish, but wasn't chivalrous enough to care.

It wasn't even the fact that Matt wasn't there that was making him so dissatisfied, but the fact that Light was alone. Light hadn't realised just how much L's constant presence had affected him: before, the youth would be perfectly happy to go a full day without holding a proper conversation with anyone, but now, after the strange psychologist had forced months and months of irritating small talk (that Light knew was just trying to catch him out, force him to admit a closely-kept secret) and awkward proximity (those bloody handcuffs couldn't have been that necessary; L was out to make him as uncomfortable as possible, in order to make Light spill his guts quicker), Light was dependant on constant company.

Had that been L's plan all along?

It made Light angry, how L was always so calculating around him, how the psychologist never said anything to the youth that wasn't intended for investigation into his mind. Light knew very well that L didn't trust him as far as he could throw him (and though Light knew from experience that L had the meanest kick around, he also knew his upper body strength wasn't half as supreme), and the youth honestly wished he could say the same.

But no. L had made Light accustomed to him, comfortable with him, nearly. He honestly yearned to be able to despise his guardian, to distrust him, and yet Light knew that if L asked him to shoot himself through the skull and assured him he would be okay, he'd take the gun and do it. L was just...never wrong. So if L said he was crazy, he was crazy. If L said he couldn't be trusted, he couldn't. And Light knew these things weren't true, knew he wasn't insane or anywhere near it, and yet he was forced into doubting himself, second-guessing his own assurance, as if he believed L honestly knew more about him than Light himself did.

"Light-kun?"

Well, speak of the devil, and the devil shall appear.

"I hate you." He just couldn't stop the words from coming out of his mouth, even though he knew they weren't correct.

L didn't appear to be perturbed by this declaration of loathing. "I know," was his word-economical reply, making Light start. Did he actually hate L after all, then? "...but Near has discovered a lead."

Light got up, stretching and relishing the feeling of his spine straightening up into proper posture. If there was one thing he'd rather die than do, it was walk like L. "Let's see it, then."

Near was waiting for them at the main computer, twiddling a lock of his hair in an emotion as close to agitation as the boy could get.

"Light-kun may witness the evidence," Near stated, spinning his chair round and pressing a button on the keyboard.

Light squinted at the grainy security camera image, trying to make out the blurry images.

After the clip had run its course, Light looked at Near and L in confusion. "So?" he said.

L handed him a small notepad as an answer.

Light read through the contents hurriedly, his frown deepening as time went by.

As he finished reading, he looked up in alarm. "Play it again, please," he asked, his urgency not impairing his manners in the slightest.

Near obliged.

Light watched, eyes wide. He checked the notepad, then looked back at the screen. Then the notepad. Back to the screen.

"This is..." he breathed.

A/N: This is...ANOTHER CLIFFHANGER! I don't ever do these things, I think I went a bit crazy. ;) Please review, and see you next Saturday! Oh, and HAPPY EASTER! Eat much chocolate but not enough to feel sick, because that ruins everything. :)