A/N: Alright so I've been planning on doing this chapter for a long time now. I have a lot of expectations going for this chapter. Blah, I hate being a perfectionist sometimes… it makes me not write things because I don't want to do them wrong. Which sucks. Whatever, we'll see what happens with this chapter. I'm sure all of you will enjoy it.

Disclaimer: I do not own Death Note; and I never will. Simple and perfect!

Chapter 13: Break

A veil of fog seemed to be lifted away from my eyes and suddenly I could see all of the things around me. All of those things that were painfully familiar to me.

The perfectly made bed that was fit for an action furthest from immaculate.

The darkness around the room that made it all feel just as evil.

Even the closed door to the left of me that blocked out the rest of the world and assured that no one would ever know what went on here.

I could feel my heart race as I looked around and tried to find a way out of this place. In the back of my mind I knew that if I didn't… the actions that would ensue…

I would have made for the door in the hopes of escape but I was frozen in place and the only thing I could control was my eyes. My body began to heat up as I grew more and more nervous by the second; my heart raced and my lungs couldn't get enough oxygen out of the short, panicked breaths I was taking.

All of a sudden there came the sound of someone coming up behind me; I tried not to let myself believe that I already knew who it was.

The feeling of hands exploring over my abdomen and chest while cold lips touched my neck greeted me. I didn't even have the ability to shut my eyes to help my desperate attempts to block it all out.

"Near." Came my once idol's voice against my skin, "what do you think about this case?"

"What case?" I found myself asking.

He bit down on my neck, hard, and I involuntarily let out a whimper of pain. But I didn't have the ability to move away from him. "Don't play dumb, you know exactly what I'm talking about."

"I don't." I said.

He bit down again till I could swear he broke the skin and his exploring hands, which had moved under my shirt, stopped. "So you've forgotten?"

"Yes." My words admitted without getting any clarification from me before speaking.

After another moment of nothing I was violently pushed down onto the mattress where I somehow regained my ability to move for myself, but still my fear and nerves restricted my actions greatly.

I turned to look at my captor just as he suddenly flipped me to my back and ripped away the material covering my top half; again his hands began to explore and this time his nearly non-existent nails dug hard into my skin.

"No!" I said, trying to worm my way out from under his grasp, "L!"

He cut off any more words I could have said with a violent kiss that left me without any air. He held me in place so I couldn't break the assault his tongue made into my own mouth. His taste was disgusting and made me feel as such and want to vomit at the same time.

I was aware enough to notice when his hands moved down to my pants and began slipping them off me. I began to fight as the tears sprang to my eyes instantly.

"No, L!" I tried when finally he granted me space so he could begin moving downwards.

"Don't tell me what to do. I control you, Near." He stated with his coal eyes meeting my slightly lighter ones for a moment before he moved to the one place that always hurt me the most. My body became rigid in a silent protest.

"Near!" I suddenly heard called from somewhere that wasn't L. I didn't know where exactly it was coming from though.

"Please." I tried. But I suddenly felt the pain that always came and that was made worse from my resistance. I couldn't help the strangled cry that escaped my lips.

"Near!" Again came the sound without any source. I felt the strange need to move towards it, but I was locked down in place with the pain and disgust.

"You'll do as I say, Near." L said, "No one wants you, you know? Everyone hates you because you're better than them. You drive everyone away from you. I'm the only one who will ever care in any way for you."

I willed my eyes closed but they didn't comply and I was forced to see only him with his eyes full of lust and promise of more deviance to come.

"Damn it, Near!" The voice that for some reason filled me with a sense of hope was doing nothing to help at the moment. If it was only there to fill me with a false hope then it was doing a good job of only adding to the pain by showing me an escape I could never reach.

Finally, somehow, my eyes slipped closed but the pain from L's actions continued. I strangled out another pleading, "no."

Just then my eyes snapped open and I had just enough time to register my surroundings.

I was back in my own room, but Mello was positioned over top of me with an expression I didn't recognize on his face. Before I could observe it long enough to tell what it was I took notice of his drawn back hand.

Then suddenly he let it loose and slapped me hard across the face.

My instincts took over at that moment and I moved without needing to think about it. Somehow I forced myself out from under him and moved as far away from the blonde as my bed would allow; which wasn't anywhere close to the space I wanted between us.

But to get further away would mean having to be closer so I could slip around him; I wasn't willing to give in to that yet. So instead I curled myself up into as tight of a ball as I could against my headboard and tried not to look at him.

"Don't touch me!" I said pleadingly, "please, don't." My eyes squeezed closed both from the pain of hearing my own words and out of pure desperation.

"Shit! Near, you wouldn't wake up, sorry." His rushed voice tried to convey to me.

"So you hit me?" I asked quietly and carefully as the effects of my nightmare began to rest on my memory; making me curl even more into myself.

"You were screaming! I was ready to do anything to shut you up again before anyone woke up." He explained.

I stayed silent.

After a long, silent minute he spoke again, "you want me to apologize again?" He asked quietly, obviously lowering his pride enough for this one moment. "I'm sorry, alright? Would you rather Roger or anyone else come banging down your door first wondering why you were screaming, and then wondering why I'm in here?"

"Why are you in here?" I asked. We had fought earlier this afternoon. Well… he had gotten mad at me, anyway. Earlier tonight, when I went to bed and he didn't show up I had figured he was still mad.

"Doing what I normally do." He said it so naturally, as though he'd been doing this for years and it really was just a normal thing.

"You were mad at me earlier." I stated.

"Whatever." The tone in his voice left me no room to pry more into the reasons behind the actions.

We were silent for another long few moments before he finally spoke again; this time his tone was quieter, and softer, "another nightmare?" He asked.

I nodded.

"Tell me about it."

"You already know what it's about." I said back defensively.

"I want to hear you tell me, Near."

His words left me without anything to retort. But did I really trust him enough to speak such words to him and let him know exactly what I had dreamed, which was basically the same as what had happened for a month and a half?

My eyes rose from their downward position up to him, where I commenced in reading into his expression. His blue eyes were deep with interest and an underlying sense of sadness. It was then that I remembered the look in his eyes when I awoke, and now I finally understood what it had been. Worry.

His hands, with their flawless skin, were soft now; unlike the previous action they had taken out on me. I wondered how exactly it was such soft looking hands could cause such actions of violence all the time.

I silently sighed in defeat knowing that I had to tell him. This was not about my own comfort with the situation and the events being discussed. Instead, it was about my ability to heal. And I've always seen in other cases that the first way to heal is to first admit to it.

Telling him would be admitting it… I needed to.

"I…" the thoughts of it were easy enough to rest on and to let play past my eyes, but speaking the words seemed like poison to my lips. "I was paralyzed in place in a hotel room quite similar to the ones L would normally reside in." I began to explain, letting the words come to me instead of forcing them out in a perfected manor.

"L was behind me, I could feel his hands exploring over my stomach and my chest while he began to question me on some case; he wanted to know what I thought on it. I didn't know what he was talking about so I told him that. He bit me hard on the neck as punishment.

"When he assumed I had forgotten, I was thrown rather violently to the mattress in front of me. He ripped open my shirt and this time his nails dug into my skin as his hands then roamed."

I paused, giving him the opportunity to stop me or to say something at all. But he remained silent.

"I begged him to stop but he stopped my attempts with a violent kiss that left me suffocating while his hands moved… further on." I hoped he understood the meaning of that; I was uncomfortable enough without having to go into that much detail.

"He told me not to try controlling him; I tried begging again as he continued on. There was so much pain from it. He didn't care though, he commenced in telling me that no one is ever going to want me and how I would only be his."

I decided to leave out the detail about the calling from the dream. If that had not been Mello then I did not want to have him thinking I was crazy.

"And then after a few more moments of this severe pain and his continued words I got the ability to close my eyes again. And when I reopened them I had woken up." I finished.

Mello continued to stay quiet; his eyes observed me from top to bottom and I resisted the urge to move away from his gaze. He watched me for a long minute that felt more like an hour.

Finally I heard a slow exhale of breath before he began to speak, "Near, do you trust me?"

I paused for a moment, considering over it one last time before I finally nodded once. If I didn't trust him in any way then I would not have admitted to him all of the painful details of my nightmare.

"Then just trust me now, I'm not going to hurt you." He gave a half-hearted chuckle, "if I had really wanted to I would have done it earlier."

I was silent as I waited for him to continue.

"Come here." He ushered for me to come closer to him.

I only pushed further into the wood of the headboard, suddenly put on high alert at his request. He'd just slapped me, how did he expect me to trust him that much after an action like that?

"You said you trusted me, Near, I won't hurt you."

I still didn't say anything as I tried to decide whether I wanted to fight my precautious and logical mind.

Though finally and most hesitantly I loosened the tight grip I had over myself till I was no longer curled up and moved closer to him. My eyes darted from his hands up to his face to watch for any sudden change.

When I was close enough to him, he spoke again, "can I touch you?" I was startled by this, I've never seen Mello really ask to do anything. Normally he just does whatever he wants, whether he thinks it through or not.

The fact that he was asking, and not just acting on impulse showed to me that he already had everything planned out. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't curious about his ideas.

So hesitantly I gave a small nod and waited to see what he'd do.

Slowly and with hesitance hidden deep underneath his composed actions he leaned forward enough to encircle his arms around me and pulled my body closer to his.

I let him move me as he wanted, with my curiosity blanketing over the normal burning sensation I got from people's touch. He pulled me onto his lap and kept his arms around me; my own finally found their way around his middle as well and I let my head rest on his shoulder.

I was surprised at how natural these actions seemed to come to me.

This felt so much different from normal physical contact. There was no pain anywhere in me now, no burning, and no discomfort. There was simply Mello and myself.

"Mello…" my words trailed off and I was unable to find them.

"I'll make you believe me, Near, believe that I have everything under control and that nothing will happen. I'd kill L before I let him touch you again. I'm sorry that happened; if I could, I'd go back and make sure it didn't, or at least see the signs beforehand."

My hands clutched at the material of his black shirt and I unconsciously buried my face further into him, desiring so much more of the comfort that seemed to seep into me from him. I could feel tears threatening to fall.

"I'll be here for anything you want to tell me. It'll help you not have to keep that all locked away."

I didn't know why but more painful memories of those dreaded 'meetings' began to flood my once black vision and within a single moment the tears began to silently fall.

In the back of my mind I knew that this was the first moment, after nearly two months, that I had finally broken and given in to the pain I had so desperately tried to disguise, and tried to make nonexistent, with numbness.

There would be no fighting this; so I didn't even attempt it.

I allowed the tears I could no longer fight slip from my closed eyes and fall, more than likely staining the black material of Mello's shirt. My grip tightened over him; the last thing I wanted was for him to leave me now. Part of me felt that that would hurt me a lot more than any of those 'meetings' ever could.

"Near," I heard his confusion in just the utterance of my name, "are you crying?" There was disbelief there too.

"I'm so sorry." I admitted, though not quite sure what I was apologizing for. "I can't speak of everything that happened now, since it is too painful for words. But… I would very much like to break for just a single moment." I was nearly begging for permission to break under the weight of it all; I didn't know what to think of that other than how very weak I was.

"I get it, go ahead." He said quietly.

With his words I let the tears go into light sobs and let all the defenses I had built to counter the gaping wounds fall. I felt Mello's grip over me only tighten, as if telling me through his actions that he was there.

"Tell me," I tried to make my words understandable, "why this method? You hate me, Mello." The last words were painful to utter. I didn't want to think that at the end of everything he would simply go back to hating me.

"I don't know how true that is anymore. In this whole time I've seen you so differently than before." He explained, "I've never seen you so… so…"

He seemed at a loss for words, but I needed to know. Never seen me so what? So broken? So pitiful? So disgusting? "So what, Mello?"

"So human."

A/N: Ah! I love that last line! I've been planning that last part (from "tell me" down) for probably the last month! It was perfect! But on the other hand… Rawr! Mello seemed so OOC here! Well, I thought so anyway. Anyway, no more rambling this time. I'm actually quite pleased, overall, with this.

Tell me what you think! All comments are welcomed! Even you, anonymous people, I care about the thoughts going on in your mind!

Please review!
-Forbiddensoul562