Want it. Take it. Love it. Keep it.

A/N: In which the great L has a bit of a nervous breakdown.

To Evermist: No worries, I loves the L far too much to hurt him TOO badly...Mello's reactions were taken from the real life experiences of a friend who suffered the same abuse to keep it as realistic as possible...I'll cross my fingers and hope your sister likes it as much as you do!

CHAPTER 16
INNER CHILD

Mello had woken part way through the examination, still groggy from loss of blood and the mild sedative they had given him. The room made an attempt to feel less like an infirmary, decorated with drawings done by some of the more artistically inclined students he lived with, boxes full of toys, and classical music playing softly. It still smelled and looked mostly like a hospital room, however, each bed surrounded by white curtains that hung from a ceiling on a sliding track, the scent of lemony cleaners assaulting the senses. He had always had an extreme dislike of the place, mostly for the fact that it tried to hide it's main purpose with those cheery decorations.

"Shh, just lie down, try to get some rest." Someone was standing behind him, petting his hair. Another was gripping his arm, a needle poised at the bend of his elbow. "Don't worry, just a little pinch and you'll be able to get right back to sleep. Please be still."

/Like hell/.

Mello thrashed, throwing his whole body into an attempt to escape the poison she intended to deliver. He'd slept fucking long enough. And /no one/, other than L was about to stick anything inside him, anywhere, without his expressed permission. Where was he anyway? Didn't he knew that Mello /needed/ him right now? How could he be letting this happen?

To his delight, both women were having an impossible time at keeping him still. He kicked, screamed, reached out to bite any appendage that dared come near him. He didn't need to calm down. He had been plenty calm, laying in bed, safe underneath his lover. L made the most beautiful expressions when he was lost in pleasure, said the sweetest things. What the hell had happened to that?

"You've been seriously injured. Your body needs sleep to heal itself." Oh right. That was what had happened. That old pervert had walked in on them, not even having the decency to knock before barging through the door like a one-manned SWAT team. He pictured Roger heading some drug raid, first through the door, brandishing his cane in place of an automatic weapon. The image would have been funny if the blond weren't so very pissed off.

"We're going to need some help in here." That was the one trying to hold his head down, so he couldn't bite the other one.

"If one of us lets go..." /Bitch/. He was right /there/. How dare she talk about him like he was some wild animal? He smiled in satisfaction when he kicked a leg out, knocking the needle from her hand and sending it flying several feet away.

Once the threat the gone, he could better concentrate on his escape. He screamed, not taking a breath until his throat betrayed him. He gasped, screamed again, repeating the process until the younger of the two women loosened her grip, hands going instinctively to her ears. It was a very childish way to react, but if it helped, then he didn't care. If being a brat was what it took then he would play the part. Brattiness had always worked for L, no reason why it couldn't for him too. Though he couldn't ever remember L doing this exactly, he didn't exactly put it past him.
Unfortunately for the distressed teen, his screeching gained the attention of more adults, who ran to aid in his restraint. Soon there were enough adults in the room to successfully hold him down, while padded leather straps were fastened around his wrists and ankles. What the hell kind of facility was Wammy running? Now he knew why it was frequently called an 'institution'. He had seen this very same method used in interrogations, though at least the criminals got to /sit in a chair/. This was cruel and unusual.

"This is how you treat a poor defenseless kid?" Mello was being ignored. Mello hated to be ignored. The blond screamed, not paying attention to the protests his throat made. It was raw, it felt like he was swallowing fire, but still he screamed. It was then that he noticed how the rest of his body felt numb. They'd given him some serious painkillers. This made him even angrier, if it was possible. Part of being alive was feeling pain. It was how he knew you were human. Aside from that, the teen could have handled it. It wasn't that bad. So much fuss over nothing.

Just when the teen thought he could scream no more, and found that his restraints were indeed not budging, a rather disheveled (were those tear tracks?) raven haired detective stormed through the door. He marched straight to the cot, his usual posture slightly less crooked. He'd already removed three out of four of the restraints by the time Roger and Watari came through the door, seemingly racing to be first to the bed. Watari made it first, his paces not hindered by a cane like the other man.

"Just what in the hell do you people think you are doing? What gives you the right?" He shielded the boy, staring down the group, poised for a physical fight if need be. Mello wondered how many L could knock down before he ws stopped. Most, if not all. He was indeed stronger than he looked
.
"What gives /you/ the right? How can you even show your face?" Some nodded in silent agreement to Roger's accusations, others stared on in bewilderment. It was comforting to know that the story had not been leaked to the entirety of the population. Though the handful that weren't confused was more than enough. "Get him out of here!"

No one moved, looking from one authority figure, to another, to another, trying to figure out who the hell they were supposed to listen to (especially considering that one of the three paid their salaries...). Still, no one looked to Mello. No one /cared/. Mello sighed. Fine, if they weren't going to treat him like an adult, or at least an equal party, then he just wasn't talking to any of them. Finally, someone did turn in his direction. Though it was the very last person he ever wanted to see again, let alone speak to. But of course, Roger wasn't going to talk to him, just about him.

"He did this! This...pervert..." Roger faultered. Mello was not the only one that noticed the slight slurring of his words. Not a soul would listen to him in this state. Not a chance.

"Perhaps it would be better if you left the room, L."

/Watari/, of /all/ people, siding with Roger instead of his own child.

Both the teen and L looked at him in shock. The detective had known his stance on the matter, but he'd still not expected him to go this far. Now that Watari had spoken everyone was listening, and as several men moved to forcibly remove the detective from the infirmary, Mello cried. If he hadn't been so angry, L would have noticed that he was crying too. Twice in the same day. That was certainly something new, but there wasn't time to to consider it. They'd both been betrayed. They were both being left all alone, when they most needed eachother.

Mello closed his eyes so he didn't have to see L's frantic expression as he was literally /dragged/ from his bedside by the male nurses, telling them he'd have their heads for this if they so much as /thought/ about putting Mello in those restraints again. The blonde could have smiled had he not been so miserable...

The life they'd created together was the only thing in his life that didn't make him feel completely /worthless/. He didn't have to compete with anyone else for L's love, so he never had to suffer second place. There /was/ no second place, only him. But now it was all burning and crumbling down on them, burying them in the smoldering debris. When he heard the door click shut, felt one of the women from before stroking his hair, telling him, 'There, there. We'll never let him hurt you again,' he ignored her and let sleep take hold of him, too exhausted to scream or cry any longer. He wasn't blacking out again.

He was just so /damn tired/.

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L fought them every step of the way. It took five grown men twenty-three minutes and forty-two seconds to drag him from the infirmary door, and up the three flights of stairs to his room. The detective used every ounce of strength in his body, and though he didn't exactly 'win', he took comfort in the fact that not one of them would walk away unscathed. It also helped his bruised ego to know that when he sorted this mess out, he was still the one that paid their salaries.

They were /so/. /Fired/.

The worst part had been Watari, though. At least he had the decency to look ashamed when he said, "I'm sorry, Lawliet. But this is for your own good," before he locked him in his room. He was a grown man, damn it! And here he was, locked up in his bedroom like a child who'd been grounded for staying out past curfew!

He was just /so angry/. He wanted to cry, and throw things, and scream that it wasn't fair...

...so he did.

For nearly an hour before he finally gave up and curled himself into a ball among the debris on the floor. His arms wrapped tight around his legs as if he would fall apart should he let go. And maybe he would, he didn't know anymore. Everything else had fallen apart. Why couldn't he?

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Another two hours passed and L still hadn't moved from his position. All he really wanted was go to sleep so he could wake up from this nightmare and have everything be ok again. Because it had to be a dream. This couldn't be real. This couldn't be happening to him. Not now! Not when everything had finally started to make sense! L buried his face in his knees, pulled at his hair with both hands. Why the hell couldn't he just fall asleep? This wasn't an issue anymore. His insomnia had improved nearly fifty-six percent since Mello -

Since he'd had Mello there to sleep beside him...

/Shit./

To think that this morning he'd been so happy, so completely content with everything in his life - something that had never happened for him in all his twenty-three years. Since he was a child, his existance revolved around trials and cases, blood and tears. Violence. Murderers. Rapists. Psychopaths...in short, his job. He'd made his career, his life. Hunting the most heinous criminals the world had ever seen and bringing them to justice. He was the three greatest detectives in the world. He was justice, and the thrill of the chase was...

...over when the case was closed.

Then he'd wait for another one to come along. And it would start over again. Hunt. Chase. Done. A vicious cycle to ease the boredom of an insatiable mind.

But all that had changed.

He wasn't just keeping himself busy anymore.

Now his life was built around a person, and the emotions that his presence drew out from wherever they'd been buried so long ago. This new life was all about love, respect, adoration. It was about touching and kissing. Having someone to hold and be held by in return, and it didn't interfere with his work.

If anything, he enjoyed being a detective now more than ever. These new things, these /happy/ things, made it so much easier because he knew that when the case was over, he wouldn't have to just sit and wait until another one came along. There was something right there beside him that could hold his interest, twenty-four hours a day if he wished. With Mello, his brain was never idle, he was learning something new everyday. There was always a brand new puzzle to solve, one that he might never finish!

There were other things too. His lover made him so much more aware. Of himself, and everything else around him. Being with Mello forced him to take a really good look at himself, and notice everything he'd been missing all these years. The voids inside himself, he'd never thought to fill mostly because he didn't understand any problem that couldn't be solved through evidence and equations.

Mello was his constant reminder that he was a human being, not a crime-solving machine built around a brilliant computer.

He'd never realized just how alone he'd felt until he found out what it was like to be with another human being who understood you. Someone who could keep up with you if you wanted to have a philsophical debate about utilitarianism in modern society. Mello could do that for him. So could Near or Watari, Matt, even Roger but none of them had that firey passion with which the blonde used to get his points accross.

He'd never realized how badly he needed human contact until he'd laced their fingers together, driven by pure instinct. With Mello's warm palm pressed against his own, he suddenly felt more complete than ever before. And then again, the first time they kissed, when he could feel the icy shell that he hadn't noticed growing around his heart for /years/, begin to melt.

He hadn't realized how badly he needed a break, how long it had been since he'd had /real/ fun until Mello had crept up on him one day while he was absorbed in a case. There he was, minding his own business, completely unaware of what was about to happen when the blonde pounced on him, knocking him right off his chair. He began to tickle the detective mecilessly. It wasn't until Mello had forced him to laugh so hard for so long that his lungs screamed for oxygen, that he'd realized he'd almost forgotten how.

He'd never realized how so very /tired/ he was until he woke up one morning to find he'd slept an entire eight hours! For years he'd been running on maybe eight hours of sleep per /week/ but there he was, dragging himself out of an actual bed for once after a full night's rest spent curled around Mello's warm body. That day, he noticed things he hadn't before, things he'd missed because his lack of sleep would only allow him to concentrate on one subject at a time and work was just more important. The world looked so different, full of new colors, and sounds, and smells.

There were even things about Mello he hadn't noticed before. Like the way the corners of his lips naturally curved up just enough so it almost looked as if he were smiling even when he wasn't. Or the way his blue eyes would darken and lighten at the drop of his hat right along with his moods. For instance, when he was sad they would be a soft, pastel that looked like caribbean waters when they welled up with tears. When he was happy, they were the color of the sky on a clear, sunny summer afternoon. When he was turned on, they'd cloud over and darken to a color L could only describe as indigo. And L /loved/ each and every shade but his favorite was only present when Mello was /very/, /truly/ angry. Because when Mello got mad, his eyes would turn to /ice/. The irises would become so pale that you could hardly call them blue anymore. They reflected light like the hundreds of tiny facets on a diamond. Then there was the effect they had. Only those who had been the subject of Mello's rage knew what it was really like, but those who survived would say that when he fixed you with that particular gaze, you'd feel your blood crystalize in your veins and run cold.
Mello's eyes were a puzzle all their own, one L never would have thought to solve. From that day on, he promised himself that he'd try to get more sleep because there was no way he was letting one more thing go by him unnoticed.

L had never realized how beautiful a person could be. He'd always thought of humans as aggressive, arrogant creatures.

All had the insight to be aware of the power they held due to their evolutionary advantages, some were gifted enough to know how to bend it to their will, but only a very small handful were truly brilliant enough to make good use of it.

With everything he'd witnessed in his short life, he'd become discouraged, afraid that there was nothing good in the world anymore. So many times, he'd wondered what he was doing with his life. Why should he help /them/? He'd never be enough to erase the ugliness of the world. Justice was power, but nothing when compared to the evil he'd seen in the faces of the criminals he'd put away. It had gotten to the point where he'd had to close his eyes, and keep them closed to make it through the day, to convince himself that he did, in fact, have a legitimate purpose.

Once a year - every October thirty-first - he'd gather the courage to open them once more, to survey his surroundings, hoping against hope that /something/ had changed, and everytime, what he saw was worse than before. After thirteen years, he'd almost given up. He'd told himself, 'One more chance', and was fully prepared to close them for what he'd decided would be the /last/ time, should he be disappointed again.

But there was Mello, shining like the sun before a great storm. Unwavering against the darkness that would inevitably cover him someday. The boy embodied everything in the world that was still good and beautiful enough to try and salvage. He was the reason L would take the next case, if only to ensure that this new threat could not come and bury his sun under the filth of humanity. He promised himself that as long as he was still breathing, he'd be by Mello's side, if only to protect him.

They'd made him break his promise. Watari, and Roger, and the rest of the staff here at Whammy's. His /employees/ had forbid him from making any sort of contact with the only good thing in his life.
Everything would return to the way it was.

He'd have to go back to being that animated corpse with the frozen heart.

No. Unacceptable...

He forced himself to concentrate long enough to evaluate the situaton.

Ok. They wanted to play games with him? That was fine. Games were something he was especially good at.

Having never really 'grown up', he still had quite the vivid imagination, which was likely the reason he'd excelled in crime solving. He could sit down and daydream up things no one else could comprehend, opening up various scenarios that were often overlooked by others. Though most people saw him as bratty, or spoiled, or childish, their opinions were ignored. His methods were both effective and efficient, and he'd expressed the thought toWatari on serveral occasions, that if more police officers would sit down and have a chat with their inner child once in a while, they'd get a lot more done. Then again, if law enforcement officials were /intelligent/, he would be out of a job so, it was probably a good thing that more people weren't as creative as he was.

L wiped the tears from his face with his sleeve, took a deep breath and got to his feet. The first few steps toward his chair were shaky but he forced himself to steady. This was no time for weakness. He had to think, and he had to do it very quickly.

Thankfully, thinking was another thing he was especially good at because there was work to be done. The stakes of this game were too high, and the odds were not in his favor but walking away was not an option. Letting them take Mello would be the same as letting them win. Letting them win was the same as losing and there was no way in hell that was going to happen.

He perched himself in front of his laptop, and with a few keystrokes, he was connected to England's police database. L typed in a name, and smiled.

He and his inner child had a lot of work to do.