DN -- Shades of White III: Faces
Title: Shades of White
Chapter: 3. Faces
Fandom: Death Note
Character: Near
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 379
Warnings: none
Summary: The mind is a sanctum; the heart is a wasteland -- Near, in six moments. Three: L had it right all along.
Author's Note: Word. (Well, word times 379.)
III - FACES
L had it right all along. Everything’s easier when they can’t see your face.
Stephen Loud-that is, Gevanni-is a good, a decent, and a useful man, but Near sees what he’s seeing, and he watches a good, decent, useful, susceptible man begin to doubt. As for Halle-she’s on the cusp of thirty, and Near would bet his right hand that she resists a desperate urge to mother him, but she guards her expression as though it hides government secrets. Rester has accepted it, gracefully, with a tremor of quasi-paternal concern. Gevanni is the only one eager and impetuous enough to let his emotions flicker across his face, and it is there that Near can watch the skepticism stealing in.
He’s a child.
He looks it, acts it, confirms it and corroborates it every time he picks up a robot or a figurine. He thrives on physical things, on repetitive motion, and sends his brain whirring onto an equally logical, linear, mechanical track, all blinking lights and assembly lines until the product emerges, flawless.
Gevanni sees him playing with toys.
His observations, analyses, and inevitable results don’t destroy the doubt; they merely complicate it. Gevanni-and the others, behind their masks-don’t know what to think of him now. He’s a monster, a mutant, a hybrid. He’s got that mind and these little fingers, these sock-sheathed feet, this eerie white hair and these wide gray eyes. This upturned nose and this twitching need for motion, for plastic, for mental floss he can manipulate with these tiny hands.
Mello has his chocolate and his rosary, snapping the former, clutching the latter when no one’s there to look. Matt has his endless array of video games, any configuration of buttons that a man could desire waiting at his itching fingertips.
L didn’t want people to see the ice cream, the cookies, the candies, and the cake. L didn’t want them to know the price of the mind beyond. L didn’t want them to realize just how near genius and lunacy sit, their shoulders touching, their whispered voices mingling in the dark, in the front row of the hollow theater of the world that Near inhabits.
L was right to hide.
Mello seeks Mary, Our Mother. Near wants Notre Dame.
[Chapter II: Justice] [Chapter IV: Unexpected]
Chapter: 3. Faces
Fandom: Death Note
Character: Near
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 379
Warnings: none
Summary: The mind is a sanctum; the heart is a wasteland -- Near, in six moments. Three: L had it right all along.
Author's Note: Word. (Well, word times 379.)
III - FACES
L had it right all along. Everything’s easier when they can’t see your face.
Stephen Loud-that is, Gevanni-is a good, a decent, and a useful man, but Near sees what he’s seeing, and he watches a good, decent, useful, susceptible man begin to doubt. As for Halle-she’s on the cusp of thirty, and Near would bet his right hand that she resists a desperate urge to mother him, but she guards her expression as though it hides government secrets. Rester has accepted it, gracefully, with a tremor of quasi-paternal concern. Gevanni is the only one eager and impetuous enough to let his emotions flicker across his face, and it is there that Near can watch the skepticism stealing in.
He’s a child.
He looks it, acts it, confirms it and corroborates it every time he picks up a robot or a figurine. He thrives on physical things, on repetitive motion, and sends his brain whirring onto an equally logical, linear, mechanical track, all blinking lights and assembly lines until the product emerges, flawless.
Gevanni sees him playing with toys.
His observations, analyses, and inevitable results don’t destroy the doubt; they merely complicate it. Gevanni-and the others, behind their masks-don’t know what to think of him now. He’s a monster, a mutant, a hybrid. He’s got that mind and these little fingers, these sock-sheathed feet, this eerie white hair and these wide gray eyes. This upturned nose and this twitching need for motion, for plastic, for mental floss he can manipulate with these tiny hands.
Mello has his chocolate and his rosary, snapping the former, clutching the latter when no one’s there to look. Matt has his endless array of video games, any configuration of buttons that a man could desire waiting at his itching fingertips.
L didn’t want people to see the ice cream, the cookies, the candies, and the cake. L didn’t want them to know the price of the mind beyond. L didn’t want them to realize just how near genius and lunacy sit, their shoulders touching, their whispered voices mingling in the dark, in the front row of the hollow theater of the world that Near inhabits.
L was right to hide.
Mello seeks Mary, Our Mother. Near wants Notre Dame.
[Chapter II: Justice] [Chapter IV: Unexpected]