DN -- Shades of White IV: Unexpected
Title: Shades of White
Chapter: 4. Unexpected
Fandom: Death Note
Character: Near
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 696
Warnings: none
Summary: The mind is a sanctum; the heart is a wasteland -- Near, in six moments. Four: Mello has always taken great joy in obliterating things.
Author's Note: lol Mello lol.
IV - UNEXPECTED
Well, this is unexpected.
Near obviously didn’t think it would be the same boy he’d known then, but neither did he anticipate that Mello would take his miniature Mafioso costuming quite so seriously.
That is to say, he wasn’t prepared to see what he remembers as a bony fifteen-year-old boy emerge, phoenix-like, from the smoking wreckage, dressed in the latest off the racks at Dominatrix Express.
Then again, Mello has always taken great joy in obliterating things, many things, indiscriminately-towers of blocks, intricate train tracks, puzzles just short of completion. Custom and convention have never escaped his attention. He does it-as he has always done it-for the power, for that unique sense of control that comes from looking at the splintered pieces on the floor, and Near doesn’t doubt that this weird power game of his factored into the way he jammed a thumb down on the detonator and didn’t look back.
Impressive how fast this leather-clad creature has found Halle. Near calculated only a fifteen percent chance that they would be previously acquainted, though God knows how Halle is, as does Near. Perhaps he should have adjusted to twenty.
He squints at the lowest screen, closest to where he crouches within the almost protective loop of the train track, and tries to gauge the damage from the blast, but Mello’s hood is raised, and the constant floating of the feathers wreaks hell with the cameras’ sights. Of course it does; Mello wouldn’t risk being recorded. He would have thought about this; idly Near estimates an eighty percent likelihood that his having cautioned his team about all this today was purely coincidental. Mello had already moved by then.
The world is a serendipitous place.
Halle’s face is easier to read. Near often feels sorry for Halle; she’s a beautiful woman, and an assertive one, which repels men faster than the prospect of housework and a chick flick reward. Her loneliness drives her to desperation, and in her desperation she verges on pitiful.
She is not, however, without her pride, and being led, subjugated, into her employer’s stronghold, with proof of her weakness putting a gun barrel to her smooth, pale hair, she seethes, aware for once of what this life has made her. Of what she has let herself become.
Near glances over the other screens as the door breathes open, and Gevanni and Rester raise their guns with a reassuringly energetic efficiency. Mello tosses his hood back, shameless, and Near decides that there is an ninety-four percent chance that Matt has strolled onto the scene. There is an eighty-nine percent chance he has told Mello that the scar is beautiful. There is a ninety-six percent chance he believes it.
Matt is incisively intelligent, but in a different way than the two once-boys in this room, silent but for the panting. Matt is about people, about life, about the interwoven web of things, not about a single track of thought to be traced intently and at all costs. Mello has always been Matt’s axis. Near watched Matt gather himself together when the core of his existence disappeared, discovering quickly that Matt was stronger than he’d ever thought possible, but the broken star of his universe is not going to change. Matt needs something to orbit. He needs someone to love.
Near, on the other hand, needs people to use.
He almost laughs aloud when Mello screams that he won’t be a tool. As if the poor child has a choice.
They’re his knights, Matt and Mello are. Or perhaps Mello is his queen, sharp and cold and entirely unexpected. Matt is more of a rook, and Rester, too-straight-shooters, quite literally, whose consistency is reliable. Halle and Gevanni run the diagonals as his bishops.
He almost grins thinking of what Mello would say. You’re my queen, Mello. Amusing.
“I’ll see you at the finish line,” Mello remarks, breaking the chocolate with his teeth.
Near smiles, index finger twisting itself into his hair. They’re on the same side. Or, rather, Mello is on his side, whether he wills it or no.
The only question, of course, is how many pieces will be left standing.
[Chapter III: Faces] [Chapter V: Stupid]
Chapter: 4. Unexpected
Fandom: Death Note
Character: Near
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 696
Warnings: none
Summary: The mind is a sanctum; the heart is a wasteland -- Near, in six moments. Four: Mello has always taken great joy in obliterating things.
Author's Note: lol Mello lol.
IV - UNEXPECTED
Well, this is unexpected.
Near obviously didn’t think it would be the same boy he’d known then, but neither did he anticipate that Mello would take his miniature Mafioso costuming quite so seriously.
That is to say, he wasn’t prepared to see what he remembers as a bony fifteen-year-old boy emerge, phoenix-like, from the smoking wreckage, dressed in the latest off the racks at Dominatrix Express.
Then again, Mello has always taken great joy in obliterating things, many things, indiscriminately-towers of blocks, intricate train tracks, puzzles just short of completion. Custom and convention have never escaped his attention. He does it-as he has always done it-for the power, for that unique sense of control that comes from looking at the splintered pieces on the floor, and Near doesn’t doubt that this weird power game of his factored into the way he jammed a thumb down on the detonator and didn’t look back.
Impressive how fast this leather-clad creature has found Halle. Near calculated only a fifteen percent chance that they would be previously acquainted, though God knows how Halle is, as does Near. Perhaps he should have adjusted to twenty.
He squints at the lowest screen, closest to where he crouches within the almost protective loop of the train track, and tries to gauge the damage from the blast, but Mello’s hood is raised, and the constant floating of the feathers wreaks hell with the cameras’ sights. Of course it does; Mello wouldn’t risk being recorded. He would have thought about this; idly Near estimates an eighty percent likelihood that his having cautioned his team about all this today was purely coincidental. Mello had already moved by then.
The world is a serendipitous place.
Halle’s face is easier to read. Near often feels sorry for Halle; she’s a beautiful woman, and an assertive one, which repels men faster than the prospect of housework and a chick flick reward. Her loneliness drives her to desperation, and in her desperation she verges on pitiful.
She is not, however, without her pride, and being led, subjugated, into her employer’s stronghold, with proof of her weakness putting a gun barrel to her smooth, pale hair, she seethes, aware for once of what this life has made her. Of what she has let herself become.
Near glances over the other screens as the door breathes open, and Gevanni and Rester raise their guns with a reassuringly energetic efficiency. Mello tosses his hood back, shameless, and Near decides that there is an ninety-four percent chance that Matt has strolled onto the scene. There is an eighty-nine percent chance he has told Mello that the scar is beautiful. There is a ninety-six percent chance he believes it.
Matt is incisively intelligent, but in a different way than the two once-boys in this room, silent but for the panting. Matt is about people, about life, about the interwoven web of things, not about a single track of thought to be traced intently and at all costs. Mello has always been Matt’s axis. Near watched Matt gather himself together when the core of his existence disappeared, discovering quickly that Matt was stronger than he’d ever thought possible, but the broken star of his universe is not going to change. Matt needs something to orbit. He needs someone to love.
Near, on the other hand, needs people to use.
He almost laughs aloud when Mello screams that he won’t be a tool. As if the poor child has a choice.
They’re his knights, Matt and Mello are. Or perhaps Mello is his queen, sharp and cold and entirely unexpected. Matt is more of a rook, and Rester, too-straight-shooters, quite literally, whose consistency is reliable. Halle and Gevanni run the diagonals as his bishops.
He almost grins thinking of what Mello would say. You’re my queen, Mello. Amusing.
“I’ll see you at the finish line,” Mello remarks, breaking the chocolate with his teeth.
Near smiles, index finger twisting itself into his hair. They’re on the same side. Or, rather, Mello is on his side, whether he wills it or no.
The only question, of course, is how many pieces will be left standing.
[Chapter III: Faces] [Chapter V: Stupid]