Author's note: A friend of mine gave me the fanfiction prompt "Near on his flight to Japan" one day while I was rambling to her about the scene when he asks Rester to accompany him on the plane. I LOVED the idea, so I decided not only to do that, but also to use this fic as a chance to explore a relationship I love--the caretaker/charge or even father/son dynamic of Rester and Near.
Hope you enjoy--and happy (early) birthday to Near!
Flight
a Death Note fanfiction by MangoPirate
It was six o'clock in the morning when Rester found himself standing just outside the doorway to the New York City building that had been used as SPK headquarters for some time. He did not mind being awake so early, or even reporting for work at such a time; there was a crisis at hand, after all, and he was willing to serve the human race in his own way. But this was a little too much.
He glanced at his watch, then at the door, shrugged his shoulders, and went inside. The entry hallway was dark, but the pale figure sitting on the floor was highly visible as he fingered a strand of hair and stared not at Rester, but at the suitcase and duffel bag that sat next to him, packed tightly with what was very likely toys. Rester sighed.
"Are you ready to go, Near?" he asked.
Dark eyes glanced at him before turning away again. "Yes."
"Alright," Rester puffed, striding over quickly and picking up the two bags. He paused, looked back at Near, and frowned. "...You can't wear pajamas to the airport."
"Why not?"
"It's much better to blend into the crowd in an airport, especially a busy one. The more you stand out, the more trouble we'll have to go through with security. Go on, change into something else."
Half an hour later, Rester found himself loading the two suitcases and one haphazardly t-shirt and khaki pants-clad detective into his car and heading for the airport. He tried to turn on the radio to calm his nerves (for now they were late, and the baggage check alone would surely take an hour), but Near asked for silence; he attempted to start a conversation, but Near simply stared out the window at the city and muttered half-hearted replies. When finally they parked at the airport--Rester was certain his car would be lost forever by the time he made it back to New York--he was glad to see the end of the most awkward drive of his life.
Near stayed seated in the car while Rester unloaded the luggage, and made no sign of leaving afterward. Rester pulled the door open.
"Come on, or we'll miss the flight."
"...I do not want to."
"Don't want to what?"
"Fly."
Rester sighed. So that was it... He had a difficult time grasping the concept of the boy being afraid of anything, but the pale hands shook slightly as they fidgeted with the red t-shirt, betraying their owner's emotion, and Rester could hardly ignore that. "You're not going to be alone," he said, trying to come up with something better even as he spoke.
"No, but..."
"There's no other way to get to Japan, you know. It's fly, or don't go."
Near nodded once and heaved a small sigh before stepping out of the car. "Yes... you are right, Rester," he conceded, clenching his hands into fists to prevent their shaking. For a brief moment, Rester considered patting the boy's shoulder to comfort him, but decided against it, and instead picked up the luggage and began the long trudge toward the monorail which would take them to the correct terminal.
Inside, the airport was chilly and filled with the kind of raucous bustle that only a horde of thronging, irritated people with their nerves on the edge could create. Near followed Rester obediently, a little white feather clinging to the sleeve of the man's coat to prevent being whisked away into the crowd by one gust of air produced by a passer-by. They slowly made their way through the baggage check, the security points, the maze of spacious halls leading to their gate; they stopped at a gift shop, where Rester bought a small plastic version of their airplane and handed it to Near without a word. Near drifted away only once, to press his hands and nose against the wall of glass and stare outside to watch the distant figures carelessly heft luggage onto a conveyor belt. When the first-class seating was called, he pretended not to hear, and Rester had to take the boy's hand directly in order to get him onto the plane.
The machine was large, with three columns of seats--two rows of two, and a middle row of five--which stretched to its very back, broken only by two bathrooms and the curtains which separated first-class from economy. Rester was glad to see that his and Near's seats were in a row of two, so that they would not have to deal with many strangers; Near refused the window seat, so Rester slid in first, followed by the white-haired boy whose hands were trembling so much that he dropped his toy airplane twice before the flight attendants began speaking about safety precautions.
Before the plane could begin to taxi the runway, Rester excused himself and cornered a flight attendant. He explained to her in hushed tones that his young charge was terrified, that he rarely even went outdoors, much less on lengthy flights, and that he might be a bit challenging to deal with for the first part of the flight. She nodded and smiled reassuringly, and Rester returned to his seat just in time for the plane to begin moving and Near to curl as tightly as he could into a small mass of wrinkled t-shirt and pale skin. Rester sighed and placed a hand on the boy's back, which caused him to give a startled little jump.
"We're just going to coast around like this for a while," the man murmured as softly as he could while still being heard over the clunk of the wheels. Shortly afterward, the plane lifted from the ground and the wheels retracted with a loud thud that caused Near to shiver. Rester assured him that this was all perfectly normal, even as he told himself that Near's very blatant display of fear was completely and utterly abnormal.
However... he supposed it was normal enough, really, when he stopped to think about it. Near was still young, although it was easy enough to forget that; Rester patted the quivering boy's back as the airplane gained altitude. He felt his ears pop and saw Near rub at his own uncomfortably.
It seemed an overly long time before the seatbelt lights flashed off with a ding. The noise startled Near, and he looked at Rester questioningly. "You can unbuckle your seatbelt and move around," Rester explained. "They'll probably bring some food in a little while."
"Walking around? Eating? That seems only vaguely possible..." The boy glanced around the airplane with a look of disgust etched onto his face. He caught sight of the window, which was already surrounded by nothing but puffy white clouds. His eyes widened noticeably.
"We're okay," Rester said awkwardly, not certain if the young genius was afraid or intrigued. "Everything's going fine. We're lucky to have one of these new non-stop overseas flights, but, we do have to make sure--"
"To walk around frequently," Near finished for him. "Yes... although I do not want to." He paused, then added, "We're... amidst the clouds."
Rester quirked an eyebrow. "We are..."
Near uncurled from his protective position, still tightly clenching his toy airplane in one hand, the other being used to fidget with the cheap pair of headphones the flight attendant had handed out for the in-flight movies. His wide eyes remained focused on the window, to which little ice crystals were beginning to cling fervently from the clouds. "It is fascinating," he said after a moment.
Rester wondered how a wall of solid whiteness could be interesting at all, but mentally shrugged it off; he halfheartedly decided, after a while, to watch the romantic comedy playing on the screen in the back of the seat in front of him. Every time he looked at Near during the two-and-a-half-hour film, the boy was still staring out the window.
"Coffee, tea, water?" asked a flight attendant, interrupting Rester's mild interest in the end of the movie.
"Coffee. Black," he answered.
The attendant smiled brightly at Near, who was staring at her feet as if trying to determine the physics of walking on a turbulent airplane in high heels. "I think we have some hot cocoa if you'd like that," she said.
After a long moment of consideration, Near nodded and replied, "Yes, please."
Rester frowned as the woman moved on, promising to bring the cocoa soon. "I thought you disliked chocolate," the man said tentatively, realizing he was dancing close to a touchy subject.
"It is a day for accepting unwanted experiences and... branching out," was the soft reply, and Rester did not argue.
The flight stretched on, across the United States, up toward Canada, even flying over a place called Cape Disappointment before trekking over the Pacific Ocean. Rester convinced Near to stand and walk the length of the plane every two hours, despite the rude stares most of the passengers gave to the strange-looking teenager who was too old for the man to be leading him around by the hand. On the fourth trip through, Rester shot one woman a nasty look in return, and she acted highly affronted, complaining loudly to her husband about unwelcome people.
Upon returning to their seats, Rester plugged in Near's headphones, told him to put them in, and turned the mini-television screen to play the flight's children's movie. Near scowled, but listened compliantly to the film, contentedly staring out the window yet again.
"Why don't you stand up and look outside?" Rester asked when the movie was over. "You should stretch your legs anyway," he added, hoping to avoid the troublesome woman by staying in first class.
Near nodded and slipped out of his seat, socked feet--he had pulled his shoes off hours before--hitting the carpeted floor soundlessly. He twirled his hair vaguely and stood between Rester and the seat in front of him, filling most of the extra first-class leg space with his slight frame alone. Rester watched the wide eyes dart around, more active than the rest of the thin body ever was, as if they were searching for something deeply hidden within the dense sky. Near stood there for a long while, while Rester read a magazine and sipped a final cup of coffee; he was still standing when the captain announced that they should all take their seats for the plane's descent. Rester very lightly touched the boy's shoulder and repeated the information to him. He sat down, buckled in, and curled into a tight, trembling ball yet again as the plane steadily dropped altitude and, finally, touched ground in Japan.
The flight had been long, tedious, and more than a little troublesome, but Rester was reflective as he ushered Near off the plane, up the long exit ramp, and out into the foreign airport filled with unreadable signs. He had experienced, over the past many hours, something he never would have imagined--a passing image of a more human Near, afraid to fly, fascinated by something new, scared but somehow almost excited, as well. He regarded the boy differently as he smiled down at him from their place in the customs line. He had always seen a brilliant, quirky, strange little detective, but the flight brought out something more... something like a parentless child thrust far too quickly into a dangerous world, a slightly unsound and somewhat stunted teenager whose situation meant he would never have a normal life. Rester wanted to hug Near and tell him he was proud of how well his charge had kept himself composed on the airplane. He opted, instead, to never speak of the flight again.
Near glanced at Rester quickly before looking away again, but offered a very small smile as he seemingly examined a sign which read "Foreign Visitors" beneath some complicated kanji and pointed to the line they stood in. "Thank you, Rester," he said in a small voice.
"You're welcome," the man nodded seriously, adding as an afterthought, "Anytime."
And he meant it.
Final comments: Okay. I know there are probably no non-stop flights to Japan from New York, but chalk that one up to creative liberty. Everything else I wrote about on the flight itself was based exclusively upon my own flight to Japan a couple of months ago (June 2008), although I didn't have the luxury of first class. So I guess Near and Rester flew United Airlines. :D The NY airport was based on JFK International which I flew to last summer, and which is the most horribly busy airport I've ever seen. Like Near, I was mortally terrified of flying and my friends had to keep telling me that I couldn't teleport to Japan and I had to get on the plane. Like Rester, I mindlessly watched romantic comedies and kids' movies all across the Pacific Ocean. And finally, Cape Disappointment is a real place. :D Thanks for reading! Reviews are highly appreciated!
