Work Text:
Halle Lidner was absent-mindedly steeping her tea (the scent was sweet and spicy, and the steam warmed her fingertips with damp heat, soothing her) as she worked, when the realization came to her that Mello was not talking. This was rare.
She glanced up from her desk to see him sitting next to Near, silently watching him play with cars. This was not only rare, but suspicious, and her eyes narrowed. Mello and Near were not friends. And Near was not the type to let even friends come so close to him. Or people who had only recently decided they were on his side and had pointed a gun at him only a couple of months before.
“Is everything okay over there, sir?” she asked Near from across the room. He seemed fine, if a little still, but not like he was being threatened. The second she had spoken, breaking the silence in the room, Mello’s head snapped up and he glared at her. (She rolled her eyes inwardly. Mello was intimidating when you first met him, but really, he was just a teenager. One particularly inclined to kidnapping and Berettas, but still, just a teenager.) Near looked up too, but he just stared blankly.
“Everything is fine, Lidner.” He paused. “Actually, would you bring me Optimus Prime? He’s in my bedroom, on the nightstand, I believe.”
She was silent for a moment. Mello was still looking at her rather bitchily, and the thought flashed through her head to refuse just to spite Mello a little.
“Yes, sir,” she said instead, and went. Near’s rarely used bedroom on the fifth floor of headquarters was white and simple, with a couple of bookshelves and clear boxes filled with older toys. The toy he’d requested though, wasn’t where he had said it was. She rooted through several boxes, not wanting to come back empty-handed, before she gave up. The toy clearly was not in here. She frowned, leaving the room. Frustration about having left her tea to become tepid overrode any suspicious thoughts she might have had (like, since when did her boss forget where his toys were? And send her on a wild goose chase to find them?). She simply sighed and went down the elevator again, empty handed, heels clacking as she went.
"Sir, I really don't think it's- oh!"
Halle Lidner got the shock of her life.
Mello and Near..
When she left, they had barely been looking at each other, but now they were intertwined, practically hand in pocket, unashamedly making out on the floor of the SPK's headquarters. Where anyone could see. Where someone was seeing- What the fuck, Halle thought, and then realized she had said it aloud, faintly.
Mello and Near seemed to break out of their spell, or whatever had them so entranced.
"Ah, Lidner.." Near said dazedly, like a person driving past cows and vaguely pointing them out.
Mello cared even less about her; he didn't seem to want to stop kissing Near for a second. The moment he'd pulled away, his hand gravitated to Near’s face and tilted it back to him in one turn- with just the one finger, in his gloved hands- and Near let him. His face was challenging but his body language (curled around Mello; hands roaming over him) said he was completely enamored.
Mello was giving him the most lascivious grin, practically pornographic, and tweaked Near’s bottom lip with his thumb. Near got distracted. He chuckled and started playing with the front of Mello’s pants, undoing the laces. Halle’s eyes widened.
“Sir!” she said to Near sternly, turning away like they'd blinded her. She promptly fled the room, before they could do something they shouldn't in front of her. But not before grabbing her cup of tea. (She wasn't really going to let it go cold. They were clearly going to be there for a while.)
Upstairs (several floors away from Near's bedroom, which was where she assumed they would end up; she really didn't want to hear anything) was very quiet. She gave them half an hour, finishing off her Earl grey and playing solitaire on her phone leisurely as she took a nice, extra-long break. She deserved it, anyway, for enduring trauma at work.
Emotional distress, rather. The distress of seeing Near like that.
A small part of her protested that Near was an adult, and adults did sexual things. But most of her said.. ugh.
It was just strange. And oddly wrong. Near looked and acted so innocent. And yet the same person she served oatmeal (served lukewarm, mixed with water) every morning had been all flushed and his pristine shirt messed up where Mello had been grabbing at it. ..Weird.
Thirty minutes of ruminating on it and sipping on tea softened her disgust slightly. She wasn't one to get in the way of true love, in the end. Although she doubted exactly how close Near and Mello were to true love. More like true irritation. Yet, clearly there was something in their relationship that she didn't know about.
..And she didn't need to know, damn it. She began her way downstairs, a stern lecture for Near and Mello about boundaries already forming in her head.
(Christ, was Near going to make her get condoms? She gripped the tea cup so hard it broke.)
-
Stephen Gevanni passed his boss a folder and tried not to think about those hands doing horrible things. Agent Lidner had told him the other day that Near and Mello had been kissing on the floor. Making out, was how she had put it.. and described the scene in painful detail, making Gevanni wince.
Now, the next day, he couldn't stop looking at Near: at his hands, mostly. They were delicate and thin, talented from years of balancing toys atop each other, a task that wasn't as easy as he made it look. Once, Stephen had tried stacking a few cards when Near was gone from the room. He was decidedly not as good at it as Near was. Cards were slippery.
Near was gone now, working upstairs, in his bedroom, Gevanni supposed. Mello had trailed along behind Near as he always did now; Gevanni had noticed him crossing his arms, like Near had been dragging him up there.
He worked for a while, not thinking about it at all. ..Okay, so maybe he was thinking about it. But really, would they do.. things.. while the SPK members were there? Surely not, Gevanni convinced himself over the fifteen minutes they were upstairs.
And anyway, he had to ask Near about this stack of files that seemed to go nowhere. Should he make a new place for them..? Or maybe he was looking right at the place for them and just couldn't see it.
He made his way upstairs through the elevator, nervousness twisting in his stomach. He hoped to high heavens that they weren't.. busy.
As he approached Near's room, he could hear their muffled voices..talking? Hopefully. He knocked on the door.
"...Near?" He ventured.
..No response. He dared to knock again, louder this time.
….No response, again. He sighed. Probably they were busy talking about the Kira case. He should go downstairs and just wait.. and yet.. What if his boss got annoyed at him later for not organizing the files? He couldn't risk it. He had to.. slowly.. creak open the door..
Only to get..well. It wasn't quite a shock, but it was just as disturbing. His stomach seemed to fall to his shoes.
Their naked bodies were joined together, both of them in the bed as Near, on top of Mello, rode him up and down, like a cowboy on a particularly energetic horse. Near was facing the door, and looked up.
His hooded, dark eyes widened suddenly, stunned, as they met Gevanni's..
..who let out a yelp, as he, startled, dropped the files (which scattered all about the room), and fled.
(On the other hand, maybe the files could wait until later.)
When they came through the elevator about ten minutes later, the files in hand, Gevanni's face was aflame.
Near and Mello were laughing softly about whatever they had been talking about in the elevator, and when Mello whispered something in Near's ear, his boss gave a high pitched little giggle. Stephen had never, ever heard Near laugh like that.
And when they connected eyes, not for the first time that day, his face felt even more hot, remembering.
"I'm sorry," fell out of his mouth like a baby bird failing its first flying lesson.
Near gazed at him, his face returning to its usual blank stare.
"If you interrupt us again, Gevanni.." he said calmly, "..I'm firing you."
Gevanni gave a silent sigh of relief that he wasn't let go already, and nodded quickly.
Near went on tiptoe and murmured something in Mello's ear, and Mello chuckled, eyeing Gevanni like he was a beetle about to be squashed under Mello's leather boot.
They made their way over to Near's "workplace" (in other words, where all his toys were) after setting the files on his desk, and sat, still murmuring things to each other that Gevanni couldn't hear, and chuckling.
And that was that.
He should probably talk to Near about this, make sure it wouldn't happen again.. and yet.. no. He couldn't do it alone.
..Perhaps Lidner would help.
-
Anthony Rester wasn't one to partake in office gossip, which is why when he walked into the SPK headquarters to see Lidner and Gevanni talking and laughing softly about something, he ignored it and immediately went to work copying the notebook Near had given to them yesterday.
However, he couldn't ignore it any longer when Near asked him about it.
He beckoned him to come with him into the other room, and said to him in a low voice, "Agent Rester.. have you heard any..office gossip as of late?"
"No," he answered. "I don't indulge in anything of the sort."
Near nodded, seeming relieved. Rester wondered briefly what this was all about, yet he couldn't bring himself to care about anything other than the work; he simply nodded back, and went to the main room to continue copying the notebook.
Later that night, when Gevanni and Lidner had left for the day, he sighed, cracking his sore knuckles. The book was finished, and he and Gevanni had worked hard on it until it looked exactly like the original. Rester had stayed past the time he was meant to be here, but didn't care. It wasn't as if he had any family he needed to go home to.
..But he did need to go to the bathroom. Extremely badly.
He had been holding it for the past hour or so, wanting to finish his work before he took any sort of break. He sighed again, and made his way to the elevator, which was taking its sweet time coming down. He squeezed his legs together, feeling like a child just learning to hold their urine, as it came down. Floor five… four... three... two... Finally, he thought, and felt relieved.
..But only for a split second.
When it opened, he actually gasped, his entire body startling.
Mello and Near..
They were having sex in the elevator.
Mello's naked ass was on display, his leather pants down to his knees like they had been hastily pushed down, and Near.. his boss.. that sexless, innocent little boy.. was wrapped around Mello half naked and moaning loudly, pushed against the wall as Mello fucked into him standing up..
"Shit!" He cursed loudly, only getting a brief glimpse before he was off, his first impulse making him run upstairs to the bathroom.
Only to pee himself halfway to the third floor.
Oh, he was going to have a talk with Near about workplace professionalism.
As soon as possible, that was. …He had to change his pants first.
-
Agents Lidner, Gevanni, and Rester all walked into the office that morning with something on their minds, and it wasn't catching Kira, no. It was having a talk with Near about certain.. happenings.
They'd talked about it early that morning with determined faces, deciding that after the meeting at the warehouse, they would discuss the topic of boundaries in the workplace with Near. Perhaps he didn't understand because of his autism, or perhaps he was just that indifferent to his employees seeing him naked.
..Either way, none of them were indifferent to that.
They all seemed to breathe a sigh of relief once the meeting was over, after Kira had been shot. Near had done well with Mello by his side, who had given a smirk as Near praised his abilities.
The SPK members just cringed at the sight of both of them..remembering.
Near and Mello ended up going back to headquarters before everyone else, because, as Near claimed, Kira is already dead. He was shot. We might as well get on with our own lives.
The SPK members were instructed to stay behind, ostensibly to make sure Kira was actually dead, but probably because.. well, probably because Near wanted to have sex with Mello.
They discussed it once more, and all decided on waiting a solid hour to go back, once they had actually determined that Kira was dead, that was.
Hopefully that was enough time for them.
The SPK members determined that Kira was dead by tracking the trail of blood outside the Yellow Box Warehouse (it didn't take long), and then went out for coffee. Talking about the Kira case. Discussing how they would tell Near he couldn't just be naked all the time at work. Conversing nonchalantly about nothing in particular.
..Waiting.
In the meantime, they drew coffee straws to decide which one of them would be the one to open the door to the main room.
Lidner drew the short straw.
When they got back, she took a deep breath.. and opened the door.
The first thing they saw when she did so was a trail of clothing, black and white, leading up to the second thing they saw.
Near and Mello, nude.
They were curled up together on the floor (which couldn't have been comfortable- they must have been desperate), holding each other in arms.
They were soundly asleep.
Lidner gave Gevanni and Rester a look.
"Let's just leave them," Lidner murmured.
Rester sighed. Gevanni looked at him.. then at her.. and nodded.
"...alright," Rester said reluctantly.
They left the room, quietly.
The talk could wait.