Authors note: Oh snap I've returned. I have another year of school so I'm trying to do updates. Just give me some time. Thank you for all who have reviewed and read this. This is my first actual horror story and I'm hoping it's coming out well. Anyway read, review and enjoy.

Chapter four

"Oh fuck me." Matt whispered to himself jerking his hand away from the knob to Mello's bedroom. He stood there intensely quiet willing for nothing else to happen but much to his dismay there was the pitter patter of footfalls. Each step was another testament of how wrong this was. It suggested that Mello left a door unlocked downstairs and that there was no way that he was here alone. The idea that it could even be Mello pushed itself out of his mind. It was far too soon for the blond to be home from work. "I'm not scared. I'm not scared." He chanted making his way back down the stairs shaking slightly from anxiety and fear.

He paused, something was still wrong. He turned to see the light back on in Mello's room and he growled, "Oh fuck you too." He hissed but not nearly enough for it to be heard in the room. Instead the footsteps downstairs paused momentarily before beginning up the stairs. He twitched making haste down the stairs without making much noise before he turned the corner and stared squarely into the face of a tall blond woman. "The fuck?"

She looked nearly as surprised as he felt. "Matt, you're okay." It was only now that he noticed the gun in her hand lower. "We were worried that maybe something happened to you." She glanced around before a frown creased her forehead. "What happened to your face? Matt, are you okay? You look terrible."

He gave a pained grin. "Moving gave me bad dreams is all. I started sleepwalking and fell down the stairs." He moved past her to find several others standing quietly on the stairs watching him with dark eyes as if waiting for something to happen. "What brings you all to my house?"

Hal winced, "Roger called Near and Near sent us. He believed that Mello had possibly…"

He sighed, "I get it. Mello took my cellphone with him but he didn't hurt me." He saw by her look that she didn't believe him. If they thought it was going to take this many people to get him out this house to Roger they were terribly mistaken. He wanted to leave faster than anything. "Well, I was just about to leave so if you wouldn't mind getting out and excusing me."

She blinked glancing up at the bedroom behind him at the head of the stairs. "If Mello home right now?"

Matt raised a red eyebrow but she couldn't see it. "If he was half your team would have been dead trying to restrain him. He'd be pissed." He didn't want to ask the question but he also didn't want to turn around to check for himself. "Is the light on in that room?"

She shook her head, "No. I just thought that maybe he was in here somewhere." She looked around with a small smile playing on her lips. "It's a beautiful home. Did Mello pick it out?"

Matt rubbed his arm, "Yeah. It's his dream home." He mumbled wanting to get out of the hallway and away from this room. "Um, you can check his bedroom if you like. He might be in there…I, um think I saw his light on a few minutes ago." He took a breath behind that. These weren't the right things to be saying. He should be asking how they found the house and why they were still here. This whole situation was messing with him in a very bad way.

She nodded sliding past him going up to the bedroom door. She turned the knob before frowning, "He locked it." She replied. "More importantly he's not home so we get to talk to you alone which is what Roger wanted."

Matt swallowed. That door didn't have a lock on it but she had said it was locked. Instead he trained his face into calm and headed down the stairs the rest of the way pushing past the goons that she had brought with her before pausing. "Near?" He almost didn't believe his eyes as the white haired boy stood, slightly bent in between two of the bodyguards looking tired and slightly bored. For him that was a lot of emotions.

"Near?" He glanced back at Hal who was doing a terrible job at avoiding his gaze. Instead she had taken to staring at Mello's bedroom door as if it were going to reveal the secrets of the universe to her. He didn't like the way this was going already and he was positive that it was just beginning.

~*xXx*~

"Mello?" The voice was timid enough that the blond didn't bother looking up from the laptop he was working at. Sure, it was his boss calling his name but anyone around would know that it was him that called the shots in this place. As far as he was concerned he didn't owe a look in anyone's direction but his own. The man sighed instead taking a seat across from the typing blond. It was clear that he was in some form of deep concentration. "Mello, you've been at the computer all day. Don't you think you should be doing your job and giving the soldiers orders?" He questioned readying himself for an outburst from the blond.

Instead blue eyes panned upwards rimmed with black eye liner. No one challenged that the boy was a raging puff and most likely had a boyfriend on the side that none of them would ever meet but no one said that to his face. Something like that could potentially dangerous. Instead Mello kept quiet about his home life and no one questioned what he did when he left the hideout because Mello didn't pry into someone else's life here.

The eyes blinked slowly as if judging how to react to the situation. "I did." Was his only response. He was calm, too calm. Mello was troubled by something. "Was that all?"

The boss raised an eyebrow, "What exactly are you doing over here?"

"Researching." He mumbled tilting the screen downward as if his boss were going to stand up and take a look. "It's time consuming but it needs to be done. I'm watching the soldiers also, don't worry about it."

The man nodded, "You seem distracted today."

The blond shrugged. "Perhaps."

The boss shook his head, "Your work comes before research." He stood heading back towards the door. "Don't forget that."

"I wouldn't dream of it." Mello mumbled pushed the screen back up and continuing to type. His eyes clouded in worry at whatever he was looking at. The boss just shook his head closing the door behind himself.

~*xXx*~

"No." Matt's voice was solid as he stood in the corner taking a deep sip of the tea that he had fetched from the kitchen. He did it more to calm himself down. He was doing a terrible job at it so far. His old master would be disappointed with how nervous and twitchy he had become over something that, to someone else, would see minor. It wasn't minor though. None of it was.

Hal frowned, "Someone is threating his life. The safest place for him is here with you and Mello."

Matt's hands abruptly stopped shaking. "Think about what you just said. The new L and Mello in the same house together. You really think he's going to be protected here?" Green eyes were hidden behind sunny tinted glasses. "Near can't stay here. I'm sorry that Roger would even think about suggesting something like that."

She sighed, "There has been a threat on his life and he can't go back to Wammy house. Mello won't let someone kill Near."

Matt nodded, "That's right. He'll just do it himself." For good measure Matt made a gun out of his hand and shot off two rounds at Near. The boy remained unperturbed, most likely because it was Matt doing it and not Mello. Back at Wammy house if Mello so much as made a gesture towards the white haired boy he'd flee into his bedroom, lock the door and remain there for days.

She leaned forward holding her hand up for silence from her men. "It works out well for the both of you. Near can watch you with Mello and you can watch over Near from Mello."

Matt snorted, "How is Near supposed to save me from Mello?" The quiet penetrated the room. "Exactly."

A clipping sound clicked off several times from upstairs as the group glanced up. It moved from near their offices towards the stairs before stopping short of the stairs where anyone could see what was causing it. Matt's hands returned to shaking.

"Is someone else here?" One of Hal's men questioned.

Matt shook his head. "It's our cat." He mumbled watching as Hal raised an eyebrow. "I'll take care of Near. He'll be safe here and I'll somehow keep Mello from taking his head off. Leave now." He returned to the kitchen to place his cup into the sink. He stayed there for several minutes before meeting the group at the door. Hal was whispering something into Near's ear and the boy nodded clutching some kind of handmade figure in his hand and something Hal had placed into his other hand.

"Take care of him, Matt." She smiled sadly as if she didn't want to leave the boy.

He just nodded slowly folding his arms over his chest. He shut the door as she exited alarming the security that should have been alarmed from the beginning.

There was a gentle hand on his shoulder as he glanced down at the boy who didn't look up. "I'm allergic to cats."

"We don't have a cat." Matt mumbled heading back towards the living room leaving Near in the walkway alone.