Dropped

Flight.



“I don’t hate you, you know,” Mello says as he and Near walk back from the bathroom. He shoves Near a little harder than is companionable. Near just chalks it up to Mello being a total sociopath. But he doesn’t hate him.



“Hallelujah, lord Jesus Christ,” deadpans Near. Mello doesn’t realize he’s joking for a good few seconds, and then the sound of Mello’s laughter wakes



Matt up all the way back where he’s still sleeping on the bench. It’s a good sound.



They board without issue, except Near having a minor panic attack and having to be elbowed in the back, because Matt and his perpetually sticky fingers had the foresight to pick up their passports from Roger’s files. Breaking into locks isn’t really like breaking into computer files, but he loves doing both.



It’s come in handy more than once.



On the plane, Near plays with his happy-meal superman, and a little toy bear that says is wearing a beefeater’s outfit that he picked up in the souvenir shop in the airport, and the one toy he brought with him, which is a little action figure of the creature from the black lagoon. Apparently, the three of them are riding an airplane somewhere.



Matt would complain about him accumulating too much stuff, but when the stewardess makes them stow their bags (they’ve all just got one backpack apiece, so they went carry-on) and Near has to put his action figures away, his eyes go really wide and he looks unsteady. Like having something in his hands is part of what it takes to keep him balanced, and what keeps Near happy keeps Matt happy right now, frankly.



On the plane they talked in hushed voices, like they’re good young children.



A grandmotherly looking woman smiles at them.



“Superman,” says Mello, putting emphasis on the name, “in the latest episode. Matt. He’d probably be operating out of his usual lair, right?”



“The Fortress of Solitude,” whispers Near, and makes the superman character whoosh around. “Can we talk about batman instead?”



Mello notices that the superman is being mighty protective of the small teddy bear, and that Near has drawn little goggles on it with a marker he had in his backpack. He decides it’s probably best not to mix metaphors.



“Batman’s cool. Hey, I heard they might be shooting a movie of batman. I bet he’s staying in all the five star hotels, huh? Probably moving around every few days so no one finds him.”



Matt, who hadn’t really been paying attention, catches on.



“And not the one nearest the site where he’s filming. We can safely give it a two mile radius, and then another couple out from that. But there’s no way a fan would ever be able to get to him in his hotel room anyways. I mean dude, he’s batman, he’d totally have the place all batcaved. Bugged and everything. Alfred would see anybody coming and would totally have them arrested.”



Mello rolls his eyes.



“Alfred doesn’t exist, Matt.” But Watari does, so that comment is just for the benefit of anyone eavesdropping. Sighurd, slightly belatedly, catches on.



“You’re talking about your detective again.” Neither of them answer, of course. Near starts humming the superman theme song, and Sighurd gives up. “I’m going to go fly behind the plane.”



Matt flinches when she walks through the wall, out into thin air. There’s something so very wrong about that.



“So if a fan wanted to talk to him, they’d have to go on location, as it were. Provided they knew where the filming was going on.”



Mello nods his agreement.



“More than that. Where the filming was going on, that particular day. I suppose you could probably camp out and wait for him to come somewhere, but unless there was a way to get ahold of his schedule somehow...”



“That wouldn’t be possible,” Matt said, shortly, reaching for his backpack.



Specifically, his gameboy. It turns on, and the man across the aisle gives him a nasty look at the noise. Matt shrugs sheepishly, and mutes it, before glancing back at Mello.



“You should get some sleep, Mello.”



Near is moving the arms of the lagoon-creature up and down, and looking at neither of them. When he speaks, of course they both listen.



“If Matt can get us to another computer, with a little privacy, I think I know a way to make the chances of an encounter improve by a significant margin.”



“Hush, Near,” says Matt gently, but with approval. Yes, he can get them to a private computer.



He doesn’t even know how they’re going to eat, when they get to Japan, but somehow, he will make this happen.







It’s easy to forget how incredibly smart Mello is. He hides it beautifully, under a crass exterior and fluent profanity. He bullies people into getting what he wants rather than convincing them they wanted to do it to begin with, like Near would, or by smiling at them like Matt.



Mello is incredibly smart.



So as Matt is leading them down the street, following the map the information desk gave them for instructions towards the nearest youth-hostel, he thinks out loud, and quickly, in rapid bursts. Near is quiet; the lack of sleep and the foreign, terrible, busy surroundings starting to finally get to him.



Matt is concentrating on the paper.



Both of them are actually listening closely.



“The only real question, is would he have confronted Kira face to face, if he had a definite suspect.”



Mello is picking at chipped nail polish on his index finger with his thumb.



Near, who’s holding onto his hand with a death grip anyways, tugs him slightly so he doesn’t walk into a stop sign, since he plainly isn’t paying attention to where he’s going.



“And if so, whether he’d go try to talk him in person or not. If he got his nails sunk in before the second Kira emerged, I would say yes, but since the second one apparently has the shinigami eyes,” he stutters, as Sighurd flies straight through the stop sign that Mello nearly missed, “if it was after that, maybe not. And even so.”



Matt nods absently, and makes them turn left. They almost get hit by a car crossing the next intersection. Near flinches, and Mello ignores it.



“L is smart,” Mello says, “and patient as all get out about a lot of things, but normal people probably aren’t one of them. He operates in isolation, so he won’t be used to it any more. My guess is that he spends as little time possible pursuing the Kira suspect out in an every day setting as possible. So the odds of finding him there are infinitesimally small.”



“4% is not infinitesimal,” Near points out, in a flat tone of voice, and Mello drags his hands away and shoves them into his pocket. Near looks chastised, and stops quibbling.



“So even though it’s going to be a hell of a lot harder to break in to see him, we’re going to have to go to his hotel. Which he will be switching nearly every day.”



“His location will not be impossible to predict,” murmurs Near. “There is a standard policy for the pattern of L’s movements around a city,”



“Five days, then four, three suites each time, two on one floor and one on the floor above, always above the eighth floor and ideally without any high rise buildings nearby.” The hacker shrugs. “Narrowing it down shouldn’t take too long. Records of room stays will be impossibly easy to get, leave that to me. We’re not much farther, I don’t think.”



“You don’t think?” gripes Mello. He has a point, they’ve been walking for a long time. Awake even longer.



“My Japanese is good, but not perfect.”



Near reaches for the map, and Matt isn’t even really that surprised that he speaks the language. It’s Near. He may only get as far as making lego towers in his pyjamas most days, but you know he’s translating Shakespeare into Japanese in his head, and would be able to tell you how many more consonants you needed per sonnet.



“We’re... one block away.”



Matt nods, like he knew that, but thank God, because he’d been about to take them left and Near turns right, and he can see the building. There are teenagers lounging on the steps outside, smoking cigarettes, staring at them blatantly as the approach. Not moving as they climb the stairs.



If it weren’t for Mello’s fierce expression, Matt doubts they’d have made it. As it is, it gets them through, and Mello is the one who drags them up to the counter. He speaks Japanese too, bless him, the Matt can tell his accent isn’t very good.



“We need a room, please,” he understands approximately, and he is suddenly exhausted beyond all rational belief.



These people obviously get stranger sights than the three of them. There are no questions, just the necessary moment of nonsense with paperwork and regulations that marks everything these days.



“There’s only two beds per room.”



Mello shakes his head.



“We-”



The receptionist understands something in his tone, because that’s the end of that discussion. Matt doesn’t think they even end up paying, before she’s herding them up towards their room. Obviously they must look totally trashed. That, or Near’s turning into progressively more of a teddy bear.



This might be the case, he has his arms wrapped around Matt’s arm and he doesn’t feel like he’s letting go of it any time soon.





She leaves them, and Matt tumbles numbly into the bed, taking his backpack and shoes off once he’s landed. Mello takes the other bed, and before Near can so much as think to look indecisive, Matt shuffles back against the wall and pats the space next to him.



Near’s tiny anyways.



“I’m the better bet. Mello kicks.”



“Mother fucker,” grouses Mello, drowsily.



Near hasn’t even finished taking his shoes off, and Matt is asleep.







Author\'s Note:

annakas- http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2943369/2/

I only have a few little Random (the character) pieces up. Most of the fic I wrote for Amber is scattered like the wind! I can\'t really rec it anywhere since it was based off a PHENOMINAL rp that I play in. I play Random and Dworkin. I\'m slowly collecting the drabbles I\'ve written them, and they\'ll either be up on that account at fanfiction.net or over here, depending on how dirty they get. Obviously, the dirty ones would be Random. No doubt some people are into Dworkin smut... somewhere, out there... this is the internet, after all. But I am not one of them. >.> Book of Amber ROCKS though. Glad to have found a fan.