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

A/N: Okay, so Matt's a bit of a perv but that's fine because nobody knows a lot about him anyway so I had a lot of room to work with. And you /know/ Near's a little kinky. Admit it. I could totally see him reading the Kama Sutra just for the learning experience. Just imagine what kind of "toys" he has laying around...

Thank you so much to Evermist, chelzi, and Gaburieru for reviewing!
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CHAPTER 23
GHOSTS OF THE PAST


Upon further research the four discovered that Mello's childhood home was abandoned, though still standing. There would be no reason for Mello to go anywhere else. Matt had managed to acquire two pairs of seats together, and as much as Watari felt like he should not let the teenagers sit together, he chose to spend the trip next to L. Despite his surge in confidence, he's seen the boy chew on his thumb until it bled. He knew the detective better than to think that this was another concious attempt at self harm, because this was not in L's nature. This was something he often did when thinking too hard, or was in some kind of distress.

L was so lost in thought that he barely heard Watari's reassurances, barely even noticed when he was ushered off the plane to head for connecting flights. They could have flown L's private jet of course, but neither Watari nor L had the emotional clarity at the time to be able to operate the aircraft themselves. Matt insisted that he'd played enough flight simulation games to do it himself, but the two older men responed with a resounding "No!".

They rented a vehicle upon their arrival, which Watari drove at an alarming speed, having memorized the directions during their flight. In the backseat, Matt had rolled down the window, lighting a cigarette despite protests from the other three passengers.

"Mail's habit is quite unpleasant," Near complained, turning his head and holding a hand over his face.

"I thought you liked the way I taste baby." Matt teased, winking. Though he made an extra effort to face the open when when he exhaled.

"Boys! Be serious!" Watari rounded a corner, then when L reminded him that they were traveling in the wrong direction, he turned the car around, ignoring the honking of horns behind him.

"Let them be. I only wish I had Mello here to distract from the emotional stress."

The remainder of the trip was spent in silence. There were no words of comfort that could be offered. The only thing in the world that would offer comfort was the one thing that the detective could not have.

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The building had obviously not been cared for in the nearly ten years that it had been deserted. The windows were broken, the door swung wide open, barely clinging to it's hinges. L thought he could see the ghost of a blond child playing in the yard, hair cut the same way it was now at thirteen. The blame for this hallucination could be placed on the fact that once in bed, during the handful of discussions they'd attempted to have in regards to Mello's past, the blond had expressed like he felt he'd died the day the police took him from his father. He may have continued to breathe, but that little boy, Mihael, was dead.

Watari did not trust the detective to venture inside alone, citing his breakdown the previous night, and that Mello had been hard enough to restrain in the hospital bed, when he /hadn't/ been suicidal. L refused. Someone needed to stay with the children, who were sure as hell not going in there. They could take care of themselves, that was given but he knew the Mello would not want any of them to see him in this place.

"I'm L. I forbid you to set a single foot outside of this vehicle, any of you." When nothing else worked, L simply pulled rank. He was after all the highest ranking official in the law, respected and feared worldwide. He almost turned, changing his mind, as he stepped over the threshold, wishing he had Watari's hand to hold, Matt's humor to keep him company, at least Near's skepticism to tell him that the house couldn't possibly be haunted. The door had creaked open, given up, and fell clattering to the ground. His lover had fallen apart completely, it was only fitting that his childhood home was well on the way.

There was still furniture in the living room, though little else. The detective noticed the signs of looting, as well as that of squatters. He almost tripped over a sleeping bag just inside the living room. He wandered through the downstairs rooms, hoping he'd find Mello there, not upstairs where most of the horrors had occured. He'd been given the barest of details once, how the man had snuck upstairs, invaded the security that was supposed to be the boy's bedroom, under the guise of reading bedtime stories, tucking him in.

Finally, taking a few calming breaths, he made his way to that place, thankful that the door wasn't locked. On the bed, under a mountain of covers, he made out the form of the blond, curled up, apparently sleeping. The blankets shook.

When L yanked the covers back, Mello screamed, jumping away. He cowered at the head of the bed, shielding his face with his bloody hands.

"Mello, it's me. I've come to take you home. It's just me. It's L."

"Please don't do it again. I'm sorry I'm been such a burden. Don't worry, Daddy, I'm going to see Mommy soon." Mello held out both arms, palm up. There were deep slashes traveling from his wrists all the way up to the bend in the elbow. L had almost stepped on the blade that had been cast to the floor.

"I won't hurt you. He's dead, Mello. He died in prison. You know that." The detective reached for his lover, who flailed. L heard the cartilage in his nose crack when the back of Mello's hand connected with his face.

"Just leave me alone! Look, you'll be rid of me soon, just leave me alone! I won't trouble you anymore."

There was still time to save Mello from his injuries, L knew. Slitting the wrists, even the correct way, took more time than one might imagine, only a little quicker than even poison.

Exsanguination was one of the slowest ways to die, it was remarkable how many suicides ended this way, must indeed take a strong will to wait it out. Though by the look of the blonde's face, color draining out, eyelids fluttering, the amount of blood on the dirty mattress, it had been some time already.

L was panicking. He had to convince Mello that he was safe, that his father was dead and someone who loved him was here to rescue him. He had to do the one thing that he promised he couldn't ever do. There was no time to waste, and reasoning that if Watari had deemed it necessary to act in the same way earlier that morning, L slapped the boy. Really, really hard.

"That is enough! I will not accept that you can look me in the eye and see that man! I am not your father. I would never force you to have sex with me, I would never punish you for the death of the woman that was no fault of your own. Aleksander Keehl is dead. Has been dead for nearly ten years. Now stop conversing with ghosts and come home Mello."

The boy blinked, still seeing the visage of an older version of himself superimposed over a face he knew he should recognize. The blond hair darkened to black, the blue eyes became grayer, irises thin around huge black pupils. The english words mixing with a jumble of croatian curses and threats. Daddy would be so mad if he tried to run away. Then the blond ghost disappeared completely, still commanding him to not move, and how dare he try to leave him this way.

"L..." The detective sighed with relief when his lover finally seemed to recognize him. "L...please help me. I don't really want to die. He won't let me leave. Mommy left him. I was all he had left. And I was such a bad boy. I had to be punished."

Ambulance sirens sounded just outside. Watari stood outside the room, still on the line even as the medics rushed through the door. L was pushed out the way. Mello screamed, no, he wanted the detective to carry him out. He wouldn't let them come near.

"You best let the boy have his way. He can be very stubborn." The old man gestured to L, who had been fighting his way to the bed as one of the medics tried in vain to hold him back. "This man is his caretaker. He is the only person he trusts. He has a vast medical knowledge, he will know how to carry the boy without causing further injuries." When the medics ignored even this, Watari continued, hoping the detective's reputation might help. "He is L."
L had listened to the speech, not realizing that Watari had added this to the other languages he spoke fluently.

The medic was skeptical but hesitantly gave the order to allow it. "Let him through."

L thanked the man, lifting the blond from the bed, careful to not touch any open wounds. Mello let himself be carried, one of the detective's arms going under his knees, the other cradling his head. As the made their way across the yard to the waiting ambulence, they both imagined the ghost of a five year old blond, waving goodbye, thanking L for making the bad man go away.

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Mello was forced to stay in the same hospital where he'd been born until he was in stable condition. L was not his legal guardian, however, he was, in fact /L/ so visitor rules were bent in his favor. He never once left the Mello's bedside, who slept through the first three days. The detective did not sleep, though he crawled in beside his lover to hold him while the painkillers delivered blissful, dreamless sleep.

Roger called on the second evening, asking when he should make arrangements for L's private jet to be brought. "Just what the hell are you doing in /Croatia/?" he'd asked. To which L had replied that if Roger was not capable of deducing such a fact then he had no right to know. Doctors begrudgingly signed the release forms on the fifth morning, asking if they'd like the recommendation of a preferred therapist.

"Fuck that." Mello had replied, munching on a candy bar purchased from a vending machine, complaining that it was of shit quality, though he finished every bite.

"What he means to say is that he has one of his own, which he will be seeing regularly from now on." Mello waited until they were safely on the jet to tell his lover that if he even considered forcing the issue, there would be a dry spell of epic proportions in the bedroom.

"You enjoy it as well as I. I highly doubt that it will become an issue."

Sometime during the flight, after Mello convinced L to try to get some rest, saying he looked like hell, the blond could hear whispers and giggling from across the aisle. He assumed Matt had taken a seat next to Near out of necessity, but they seemed to be getting along rather well.

"Matt, don't touch that, you don't know where it's been." The blond peered around the sleeping detective from his own seat by the window.

"Oh! Mello. I didn't know you were awake. How do you feel?"

"Mail promised to tell Mello about us." Near took the hand back, nuzzling Matt's neck.

"/Mail/? /Us/? If this is your way of trying to cheer me up it isn't working. It's so not funny." Mello made his patented 'yucky face', reserved especially for Near (A/N: You know the one. Picture what he looked like when Roger suggested he work with Near after L's death...Episode 26 of the anime, though I may be wrong.).

"We do not make light of our feelings for eachother. We have become quite close recently, in your absence." Near had known of Matt's crush, feeling somewhat jealous even now that Mello and L were obviously inseparable. "Mail is mine."

Mello shook his head, ignoring the similarities he saw between his rival and his lover, once again.

"If this is your way of getting back at me, Matt, it's not fucking funny. This is beyond the pale, man. It's /Near/. Not cool."
Matt, feeling a surge of bravery, snuggled closer to the pajama-clad teen beside him. Though he still had feelings for his best friend, they were beginning to dwindle each time he saw the younger boy. There were many facets to Near's personality that no one saw to him, he was actually very affectionate and definately fun to be around, when he wasn't instigating fights with the blond.

"It's not about that! I think I might really love him."

"I love Mail too."

"You what? Are you kidding?" Mello gagged, shaking L awake. He couldn't stand to suffer this alone. "L! Matt's screwing the rabbit! Quick, do something! Don't worry Matt, we'll go get you a nice lobotomy and you can forget about this whole thing. It's ok."
"We'll at least invest in some nice chastity belts. I've already looked into it."

"Watari! This isn't funny!" The old man's mustache twitched, a sure sign that he was either as disturbed as Mello, or was trying to suppress laughter.

"I wouldn't dare joke about such a thing."

L, wide awake again, held tightly onto the blond, both to comfort him and to prevent him from lunging across the seat to pull his friend away from the 'brainwasher'.

"Mello, I'm sure they do not wish for us to use such a word to describe their lovemaking."

"No, it's ok. Near doesn't mind calling it 'fucking'. You should hear the things he says to me. He's got such a dirty little mouth." Near slapped the older boy, playfully shoving him away. "Aww, come on, you weren't blushing when you were saying 'fuck me harder' the other night."

"Matt, you're supposed to herd sheep, not fuck them." Mello was finding it hard not to be sick, watching in horror as his friend kissed his arch nemesis. He had to be brainwashing him. He couldn't possibly enjoy it. Pervert.

L pulled Mello closer, pressing his nose into the boy's neck, even as he went on ranting and raving about 'sleeping with the enemy'. This felt good. Almost normal. It felt as if he had his old Mello back.

There was a lot of work to be done, that much was obvious but at least now, the light at the proverbial tunnel was in sight. Mello would get better with time, and he'd be there, holding his hand every step of the way.

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A/N:
I just couldn't help but put a little comic relief there at the end after all that drama.

AND THAT'S ALL FOLKS! Next up is the epilogue.
Sequel detailing the Kira investigation is pending but I want to know how many of you would actually be interested in reading it.

Also, if you'd like a sequel, I have a poll going on at my fanfiction.net profile. Vote if you want more!

http://www.fanfiction.net/~iholdwiththosewhofavorfirehm