"The truth is hard to sort out amongst the secrets and the lies.

Familiar faces watch you, but with a perfect stranger's eyes."

-L (Death Note Musical -E-)

Detective L stared blankly at his screen, re watching the footage he had of the NPA's Chief Yagami's teenage son. He had seen the videos so frequently by now that he had memorized Light's mannerisms and anatomy, whether he'd intended the latter or not. Currently he was watching the young man sit in his room and study, working diligently on his school papers, just like the perfect young man he was. Everything about him from his smile, to his friendly demeanor, to his clothes was just... perfect. Too perfect. L knew about monsters. He'd hunted monsters his entire career. Not the fairy tale trolls and goblins, but real, living monsters wearing human skins. Light was such a monster. A lying monster. Everything about him suggested that his perfection was an act, a ruse, brought about by a young bright mind too bored with the predictable world around him. He played everyone around him so easily, never seeming to remove his mask.

But L had also spotted this monsters weakness, just after the first hint he'd gotten that Light really was Kira. This monster's deadly sin was pride. He couldn't help it, it seemed. He had to be the best, the brightest, with no flaws in sight. When he had uttered that seemingly innocent but damning phrase, "I'll bet Kira sees right through their plan." L knew he'd found him. And he also knew Light wanted him to know. The young Yagami didn't want to be caught, but apparently he also didn't want anyone else getting his hard earned credit either. Light not only wanted to play with Detective L, he was going for the win. Game on.

As he watched the teen slip his left hand into the bag next to him to grab his snack, he leaned in close to the screen in front of him, eyes scanning desperately for something he might have missed. Some small clue...

Suddenly his focus snapped to Light's left hand, as it dug for almost four to five seconds looking for a proper chip. He re wound the footage 8 seconds and watched it again, and again, over and over until he was satisfied that this was his second clue. Why was it taking him so long to pick out just a single chip to eat? L paused the video, calling to Watari to bring him a bag of chips. Not his normal snack, but Watari followed through loyally. He sat himself up like the teenager, even breaking his normal sitting position to match, opened the bag, and grabbed a pen and note book. As his right hand began writing a note to Watari about what he thought he had discovered, his left dug for a chip, quickly found it, and he took a bite, wincing at the assault of salty potato on his taste buds, and discarding the rest of the chip. One second. That had taken only one second. He repeated it several times, sometimes one second, sometimes two, but never any longer than that, no matter how many chips he bit into and then spat out. What was taking him so long?

A grin played across the detective's face as ideas ran through his head, settling on what he considered to be the only possibility. He slipped a small piece of paper and a short pencil inside the bag. Then while his right hand continued the note to Watari, his left wrote down the name of one of Kira's victims in Kanji. Five seconds. That was it. It had to be. Kira was writing down names of criminals to kill later, when he wasn't under survelliance. But where was he getting them from?

He re watched the footage several more times, watching closely every muscle movement Light made. He wrote part of an equation, paused, turned to look into the bag, reached in to dig (and write down a name, L was sure) while turning back to his equation. Five seconds, then he retrieved and ate a chip. Another string of possibilities forced their way through the detective's cerebellum before he landed on the answer. There was a small screen in the bag, most likely tuned into a news channel. To confirm his answer, he began digging through records of the local newstations, seeing which channels had been broadcasting the names of criminals at the time. Four channels, and channel two turned out to be the one he was looking for. He re wound the footage and watched it again from start to finish, pausing each time Light reached for a chip to see one of Kira's victims was being aired at that time. That was it. He had solved the case. Light Yagami was Kira.

But solving the case and providing proof were two different problems. He had already solved the first, and now his mind giddily raced with a plot to solve the second. He finished writing down the information and handed his note off to Watari, not only explaining his discovery but also arrangements that needed to be made for the investigation to continue. Watari nodded wordlessly, watching only a moment as the detective went straight back to work before reading the note and walking out of the room to begin the arrangements.

As Watari finished editing an identity for L to enter Toho with, Hideki Ryuuga as requested, he wondered to himself what L's next plan was. It didn't do him much good however, seeing as even though he'd raised the young man himself (if you could call the job he had performed as such) he never really knew what was going on in L's mind. He had an odd feeling that the young man somehow got off on solving these cases.

Thoughts of L's young, slim, and limber body crept into the old mans mind, and he rather enjoyed them until his phone interrupted the images of the raven haired, pale man stripped naked and laying unconscious against his white sheets. Glaring accusingly at it he was slightly alarmed to see that it was Roger's number lighting the screen. That didn't bode well. Roger never called Watari to chat. Something was wrong, and Wammy had a feeling he knew the subject matter was a young blonde with an attitude problem.

"Watari." He answered in the voice of a friendly old Englishman, a talent considering the truth behind that voice. As he listened to Roger begin complaining about none other than Mello himself, he pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration. This kid was starting not to be worth all the trouble and resources they were putting into him, even if L did see him as a viable heir to the detective's theoretical throne. The kid wanted to be L so badly that he was willing to do anything to achieve it. He didn't just want the title, either. Watari had the feeling he wanted to BE L. Lately most of the trouble from Mello came from him digging into records and files he wasn't meant to see. At first it had just been files about the cases L had worked, then files about L himself. He was the only child who had actually met L face to face, and not because anyone had allowed him to. He had snuck into L's room at one point when L wasn't traveling to solve cases, and run straight into him. Annoyingly enough, instead of being angry, L was amused with his efforts, and rewarded him by telling him three personal stories. They had met a few more times after, to play chess or chat briefly before Watari would usher him back to the wing he belonged to.

Wammy severely wished L had never encouraged Mello's behavior because after that he'd only become more persistent in learning things he wasn't meant to know. The old inventor blamed himself somewhat for keeping L so isolated in the first place. Naturally the young man was lonely, and when presented with the opportunity to gain a companion, no matter how briefly, he jumped on it. The problem was the information that Mello had started uncovering recently.

One of the stories L had regaled the bright eyed boy with was the L.A.B.B. case. Naturally Mello remembered B, even if they had only shared housing for a year before the latter ran away. They'd never spent much time together, but Mello was the only child Beyond didn't outright terrify with his mannerisms and sense of humor. So when Mello heard the story, he'd wanted to learn more about B and why he'd left. L had told him that even though he wasn't completely sure of B's reasoning, he thought it had something to do with A's suicide. That part seemed to make L sad, or regretful, and so of course Mello focused on it like a problem that needed solving. And that became Wammy's problem. The young man might not have realized it, but he was starting to uncover information that Wammy didn't want L to know. L trusted him, but if he learned of the old man's extra activities that trust would be diminished. The thing was, Watari had been grooming A and B to possibly replace L if the unthinkable did happen. However, he never really intended either child to succeed. They were mere prototypes for him to test out. He needed to know how much strain he could put young children under before they snapped if he was ever going to successfully recreate L. And he had a feeling Mello had began figuring that part out. He didn't think he'd put it all together yet, or he would have tried reaching L with the information, but he was a smart little brat and seeing as they were unable to curb his enthusiasm, it wouldn't stay secret forever.

Watari came to attention when he noticed Roger was hesitating. Something was wrong this time. This wasn't a mere inconvenience. This time Mello had crossed some line, and more drastic action was going to be needed. "Roger, tell me what the boy has done."

On the other end of the line Roger's lips trembled slightly. He was loyal to Quillish Wammy. They had been childhood friends, school mates, and eventually business partners. Wammy was smart, an inventor and good investor, and Roger managed his estates with a hefty salary to keep him happy. But Roger knew the darker side of the man he called friend. He knew the secrets Wammy wanted to keep. He was the one who helped him keep them, in return for his comfortable living. Roger knew what he was doing was wrong, even outright evil on some level, but he liked being wealthy too much to call him on it. He was a coward, and he knew it, and he hated himself for it. He never touched any of the children in any manner, but what he let Wammy get away with doing to them, what he let him get away with doing to L himself... he was just as guilty.

And now he really didn't want to tell his friend what had happened, because he knew it would mean Mello would get hurt, badly, if he even survived whatever Wammy would plan for him. But if he didn't tell him, if they didn't take care of the problem, L would destroy both of them. "Mello... has been digging around again..."

"Mello is always digging around. Cut to the chase quickly. I have work to do."

Roger sighed. It was quite possible he was signing the child's death certificate with this information, but he still answered. "He found L's shot records last week and noticed that he was receiving monthly 'vitamin shots'. He started asking several questions about them."

Sweat began to break out on Watari's forehead. This was a different danger. Now it was more than worrying about the young teen uncovering his plans for A and B. Now it was about the brat discovering his... activities with Detective L himself. "And what did you tell him?"

"That they were vitamin shots, of course, meant to boost critical thinking and reasoning, so of course..."

"...Mello wanted the shots himself, correct?" Wammy had to admit, that was somewhat tempting. L's contrasting features, hair and skin, made him look somewhat exotic, but Mello was beautiful with tone and curves in all the right places. He was younger too, and that could mean so many pleasant things. But Mello wasn't very trusting of anyone except L himself, most likely because that was how L thought as well, trusting no one but Wammy. The only problem in that being L's trust was somewhat misplaced, and it wouldn't take Mello very long to figure that out.

"Correct. I thought perhaps, if I gave him actual vitamin shots, he would be satisfied. But he wasn't. He had to know that they were the exact ones L was receiving and not some sort of placebo. Early this morning, around three a.m., I caught him in your safe. He found the shots, and he tried to sneak one out. I searched him diligently of course and confiscated it, but now..."

"...Now he knows they exist, and he won't stop until he gets his hands on them. Did you destroy the vials?"

"Yes, immediately. As far as I know, the only ones that we have at the moment are with you in Tokyo."

Wammy paused, wondering if this would be enough to keep Mello at bay. But there was too much piling up with this kid. After this case was solved, and they returned to England, there was no telling what information Mello would have to share with L. He'd tolerated this problem long enough.

"Arrange a field trip for the children in his age group into the city. Take them to the museum and somewhere for lunch. And while this is going on..."

Roger blinked back the tear threatening to form in his eye. This was happening. This was really happening. He was about to go from being a mere bystander to an actual accomplice in hurting one of these kids. Whatever shred of morality he had left in him screamed for him to hang up the phone and get Mello as far away from Wammy's House as quickly as he could. But he was a coward. He was too old to start being a hero now. He agreed to the plan. Have someone kidnap Mello from the trip. Make sure that whatever happens, that kid doesn't live to see L again. And then all this stress would finally go away. All of the other children were complacent, too happy with their arrangements to risk it the way the blonde boy had. Matt was going to be traumatized, but even though L though Matt was smart enough to be in line for his position, he also knew Matt had no real interest in it. So it really didn't matter in the long run what happened to Matt either.

Roger hung up the phone and tried to convince himself that at least some good would come from this. Surely Near would be at least a little happy at having won the title of L's heir for himself. The bitter thought didn't even bring a ghost of a smile to the old man's lips as he searched for the number for Rod Ross. He was one of the only contacts they had that would take out kids. As he placed the order, he trembled knowing what Rod was likely to do with a pretty boy like Mello before he killed him. After he replaced the phone in his breast pocked, he pulled out his favorite bottle of scotch and began to wash away the image of Mello pale and cold beneath that monster.

And this proved to be his ultimate mistake. If he had just waited and checked the hallways before indulging in the poison he used to cleanse his guilt, he would have realized that there was no more time to take care of the teen that had caused so many issues. Mello leaned against the wall outside Roger's office, tears streaking his face as he stared unbelieving at the small crack he'd managed to put in Roger's door without him noticing. He knew he was going to get in some serious trouble for this morning. He'd known when Roger took the vial from him that something very wrong was going on. Roger had already agreed to give him the vitamins, so why take it from him? Why not just give him the shot right there? And why had he, when he thought no one would notice, returned and taken the rest of the vials, washing their contents down the sink? What were those shots really? Mello had figured that since Wammy was an inventor it was something better than just vitamin shots. But now things were taking a very sinister turn. Slowly Mello reached for the knob and ever so gently, taking so much care with it the seconds stretched into minutes, he closed the door to without making a sound. Then carefully, walking heel to toe to reduce any noise his sneakers might make against tiled hallway, he snuck back to his room.

By the time he'd gotten to his room and shut and locked the door his green eyes were rimmed red. He collapsed onto his bed and allowed himself to cry until he could calm down enough to think. He'd been worried that Roger and Wammy might suspend his extra studies in light of his new mischief. Never had he imagined they would arrange for him to be kidnapped and murdered. Of course, he had never imagined that he would uncover a secret this deadly. What were they giving Detective L in those shots? What secret could possibly be worth killing him over?

A strange calm came over him as his brilliant mind landed on the fact that whatever was in those shots, Detective L didn't know the truth about them either. That had to be it. Roger and Wammy were hiding something from the detective, something that was worth killing one of his heirs over. Mello was the only child who posed any threat to uncovering and revealing any secrets they kept to L, because he was still the only one to have ever met him face to face.

But was there more? Was there something else they were hiding? It was something to do with the files on A and B that he'd been digging into, which had earned him severe punishment of being confined to his room, by himself, for three weeks, without so much as the internet to connect to life outside of it. That had been so harsh, and at the time he hadn't known why. He'd dug into the files of other children before and never received such a strict sentence. Then again, he knew from the start that those files were going to be different. A and B had known L on a personal level. He was hoping to uncover more facts about L and his past, and perhaps discover the entire reason B left. It would have been like a present to L, and it might prove once and for all that he was the one worthy of the detective's title and not Near. Now he knew those files held a much darker truth. Something the old bastards wanted to hide. Something else L didn't know about.

Mello was no longer crying. Now his mind was racing, stringing together what he knew and trying to form the completed puzzle in his mind. He sat cross legged on his floor, his terror momentarily forgotten as he worked. He thought back to Beyond, to the few conversations they'd had, and the one piece of advice that B had given him.

"No matter what they tell you, no matter what they do for you or what they show you, do not trust them."

He'd been referring of course to the two old goats. One thing Mello thought he might know that L didn't is that B's quarrel wasn't with the detective himself. It was with Quillish Wammy. Beyond hated that man, enough that he'd described a rather violent fantasy of strangling him with his own intestines. He'd ran away and tried to create a case so perfect that even Detective L couldn't solve it. He'd even been willing to take his own life to insure it. But it wasn't about beating L. It was about beating Watari. He wanted to show Wammy that he was more than a failed successor. He wanted to prove to the old man that he was better than the original he'd been groomed to become. It seemed rather drastic even to Mello himself, but the fact that he was willing to go that far just to best an old man was more than anger and sorrow at a friend's suicide. He blamed Wammy for it. And that fact had ensured that Mello followed the advice B had left him with.

The young man had closed his eyes in thought, and when the green orbs opened again there was a cold determination behind them. Now he was sure that somehow Wammy had caused A's suicide. Something in the method's he'd used to teach and train them. He thought about his own situation with Near, and how Wammy and Roger would push them to compete with each other almost constantly. The more he thought about it, the more he realized that all the tests and evaluations they were given favored Near's knowledge and skills more than Mello's. It's almost as though the were all designed so that Near would come out on top, even if it was just by a small margin. He gritted his teeth with the realization that they had groomed him to have self conscious issues about always being 'second best.' The bastards!

And if they were willing to do those sorts of things to children, what were they willing to do to L? Was he in danger? They wouldn't do anything to risk his life. He was far too valuable and they didn't have a viable back up yet. So what were they doing to him, and how long had they been doing it? The shot records Mello discovered were only a couple of years old, but that didn't mean that more before that point didn't exist. Even if he didn't know what they were doing, he was now aware that L didn't either, and the only reason to keep it from him would be because he wouldn't agree to it if he knew.

Anger welled inside him. How DARE they betray L? When he'd been taken in, he'd been reminded over and over that all of this existed only because of how hard Detective L worked. They made him out to be more regal and pure than he actually was, but he was Mello's hero still. Because of L's hard work, he'd been saved from his own parents. It was part of a case L had worked. His parents had been Mafia members that were part of a group L investigated and took down. When he was found among their belongings, still locked in his room and emaciated from the two days he'd spent in there while his parents were being arrested and charged, Wammy had tested him. He'd tested well enough to end up where he was. And from that moment on, he decided he didn't have to be anything like his parents. Instead he would be like his savior.

And now he knew that something was happening to his idol without said idol's permission. Somehow he was being violated, and his stomach turned at all the possibilities. He didn't trust the way Wammy kept him away from everyone, so isolated from society that when a teenager had broken into his room with him in it, he'd been excited and perhaps relieved rather than angry.

Mello's cold fear had been replaced with a burning fury. Now it was about more than just preserving his own life. His hero needed rescuing, and he didn't even know it. He had to find the answers to his questions. And he had to get these answers and proof of them to Detective L. He was too young to be playing a game this dangerous, but that didn't matter now. Everything was already in motion. His curiosity about L had turned into his death knell. But he wasn't dead yet. Mello was desperate to be more like L than his own parents, but that didn't mean he hadn't learned anything from them in the first nine years of his life. He needed a plan.

Later that day, when Roger announced in a surprisingly steady voice that the kids would get to take a field trip that Friday he knew his time line was set. He had three days to come up with a plan and execute it, not only keeping himself alive but finding the information he needed to save L as well. He should have been afraid, but he wasn't. His pulse raced with excitement. Was this the same thrill that ran through L when he was presented with a challenge? It had to be. He smiled brightly when Roger looked his way, chatting excitedly with Matt and Linda about getting to go to the museam. The bastard couldn't be allowed to see him upset for a second. He couldn't know that Mello knew the truth. After all, L was counting on him.

AUTHOR'S NOTES:

1.) It should be noted that this story does not simply take place in the manga/ anime time line. While that time line is the base of this story, elements from the T.V. drama will be woven in as well. I plan to use some aspects of Light's, L's, and Near's characters from the drama, not necessarily events, although there is a good chance Misa's arc might follow the drama line more than the manga line.

2.) The Entrance Exams to Toho are taking place a little more than a week before classes in Toho will start, not almost three months before as in the proper timeline. It's purely for plot bunnies and obviously not how a school would actually conduct such an event, but it is such a minor part of the story that I do not feel it will distract or take away from the story itself.

3.) The views of Quillish Wammy are derived from Mello's description of him and Wammy's House in Another Note, though I've taken it down a bit of a darker road of course. Sorry to all the Watari fans out there. There's just something about rich old men surrounded by isolated children that I don't trust I guess.

4.) This story is rated M for a reason. It is going to deal with mature themes such as violence and non-consentual relations. Now is the time to back out if you do not have the stomach for it. I don't intend on holding back too much.

5.) I do not yet know what relationship will develop between Light and L, though I intend it to be different from the anime. Later chapters might include consentual yaoi. It will depend on how the story ends up forming. If you are not a yaoi fan, I'm really not sure what you get out of reading Death Note fanfics, but you have been warned.