Title: Fear Itself
Character(s) or Pairing(s): Matsuda/Near
Rating: PG
Warnings: Adult language and crack. Especially at the end--not to be taken seriously.
Summary: "Hey Near, what are you afraid of?"

Author's Notes: Please forgive me for the trite title. X___x Essentially this story was inspired by one of the RPs that Sheamaru and I have done on YIM, where Near confessed he was scared of baths due to a childhood memory of Mello shoving a rubber duckie in his mouth and trying to drown him because he thought he had more bubbles on his side of the tub than him or something. I forget why they were even taking a bath together in the first place. But besides Mello being a lovable little homicidal scamp, I thought about it and it actually makes sense that Near wouldn't know how to swim. Aquatic sports really isn't on the succeed-a-super-genius agenda, that and Near seems to avoid going outdoors like the plague, and I know not all pools are outdoors, but still it's kind of hard to imagine Near at the YMCA hanging out with all the boys like the song says. This might just branch off into another fiction.

As for Near's second fear: the crack cherry of the crack drabble. I didn't want to end the story on a solemn or sweet note; then I thought of Bananas in Pajamas. But I could even attempt to rationalize the insert besides it being random comedy: I think that if Near ever saw the show he would be aggravated by how illogical it is and stew over what bananas have to do with teddy bears and furthermore feel they were a mockery to his own beautiful pajamas. And maybe, just maybe, he's afraid of people in full-body costumes…?

Or he could also just be bullshitting Matsuda to get him off a tender subject. Either or.

Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note.

"Hey Near, what are you afraid of?"

There were few things that successfully managed to interest Near enough to tear his eyes away from what he was doing, like now when he was raising a fortress of cards from the floor of Matsuda's living room. But he halted; the Jack of Diamonds still pinched between his fingers, his hand hovering above its intended place, in order to turn his head and stare at Matsuda as if the man had lost his mind. "Would you mind repeating that?"

"Are you afraid of anything?" Matsuda repeated in the same tone as before and shifted into a better position on the couch, his expression crinkling slightly. "For example, I'm claustrophobic. I used to be terrified of flying too; I even felt a little queasy just passing by an airport. But after a friend of the family passed away I forced myself to get on a plane to attend the funeral. And it must've reversed my phobia or something because I haven't been afraid to fly since. I still can't use the bathroom on a plane, though."

"Because you're more than a thousand feet up in the air?" Near guessed.

"Because if the plane crashes I don't want to be trapped inside a tiny booth with my pants around my ankles."

"Oh."

"Now it's your turn," Matsuda said and Near didn't bother to mention that there was no obligation to respond if he volunteered the information in the first place. "What are you afraid of?"

"Criminals such as Kira getting away with their evil plans," Near answered as he balanced the Jack on top of the tower and picked up another card from the dwindling deck sitting beside his knee, becoming too comfortable with the silence again before Matsuda shattered it.

"I don't believe you."

"And why is that?"

"Because it sounds like some bullshit response you're just pulling out to avoid answering the question honestly."

Near paused for a moment, holding back the urge to sigh irritably at himself for expecting Matsuda to be satisfied with his answer. By now he knew him better than that, him and his ridiculous logic. "That's quite perceptive of you, Matsuda."

"I have my moments."

"What makes you want to know my fears in the first place?"

"What makes you want to avoid the question?" Matsuda countered defiantly.

"This is not information that one simply reveals—especially in my position," Near added in grim afterthought, narrowing his eyes at his half-finished building. "When you expose your weaknesses, even make them detectable let alone offer them up trustingly, somebody can use them against you, and that is how you lose the game."

"I'm not just 'somebody' though—I'm your boyfriend!"

Near almost pulled a neck muscle when he looked at Matsuda again, having to play back his words inside his head and scrutinize them over and over again. It would've been just another outburst, but Near was caught off-guard: nobody had ever willingly put themselves into his possession and called themselves "his" before. His toys were his because they were bought either by him or for him. And the people he came to work with after the SPK and becoming the next L weren't technically his either—not like this at least. He had to wonder sometimes, although a part of him thought for sure they only agreed to follow him or even listen to what he had to say because he was who he was: L, the world's greatest detective. And since the SPK he hadn't been part of a team as much as he had people serve as extra appendages he used to solve his puzzles, and like a one-night stand they all walked away from it without plans to call later or talk about their feelings—even something like this. Only with Matsuda would he ever have a conversation like this without coldly dismissing the subject.

He liked to think the fact that Matsuda wouldn't stop nagging him if he didn't give him something was the reason he decided to respond, and not because of the warm flattered feeling wriggling in the pit of his stomach.

"Drowning," Near mumbled into his knees.

"What? I didn't hear that—"

"I never learned how to swim." Near pulled himself into a tighter ball, a habit imprinted on him from childhood when he still believed he could defy physics and make himself disappear. "…Also there was this time when Mello and some of the other kids thought it'd be fun to play CSI and made me be the victim who was murdered in a bath tub, and Mello kept pushing my head underwater because he thought I wasn't convincing enough as a waterlogged corpse."

"What about the adults? Weren't they around when this was happening?" Matsuda asked incredulously.

"There were. They broke the game up about three minutes later."

Matsuda opened his mouth and cocked an eyebrow, but Near wasn't paying attention to him anymore. Now that the mental file was open he remembered the feeling of thrashing helplessly in lukewarm water more dramatically than he could stand: his heart pounding inside of his ears, his hands scrambling up the slippery linoleum sides, trying to grasp onto something only to be shoved back down into the thick white blindness while a burning, stinging sensation of something other than air, something he couldn't breathe, shot up his nose. To make matter's worse white clothes reveal everything when wet, much to his pubescent horror when he was finally tugged out of the bathtub and stood in front of everybody drenched and trembling against his will. Even the measly little terry cloth towel that Roger wrapped around his shoulders didn't help at all: he needed a hole to crawl into.

Even now he could feel the cold water dribbling in threads down his spine that caused him to wince despite Matsuda's look of sympathy, or the depths of his concern in his brown eyes that Near had to digest yet again and withdrew to a more distant location on the floor, afraid that Matsuda would feel compelled to touch his shoulder or worse, hug him under the impression that he was currently vulnerable.

"But it's nothing," he dismissed for good measure, curling a lock of hair around his finger and tugging it. "I hardly remember it anymore."

"It's still a little messed up, though."

"Perhaps," Near paused for a moment. "There is one other thing…"

"If you don't feel like talking about it, you don't have to," Matsuda said but still leaned toward him with interest, expecting anything else but what Near said next:

"Bananas in Pajamas."

"What in pajamas?"

"Bananas," Near repeated. "Bananas in Pajamas."

"…You're afraid of bananas in pajamas?"

"I hate Bananas in Pajamas," Near said darkly, and that was all he said, as if that would explain everything. And Matsuda didn't ask any more questions after that.