A/N: I have no idea. This is sort of dedicated to Gakusangi (who doesn't actually know me), writer of the piece Sol of Luna: Near and Far, which I find to be absolutely brilliant. Go take a look if you haven't, you won't be disappointed.
Disclaimer: I do not own Death Note, sadly, and this is purely for entertainment purposes. Hopefully.
Under the glow of a thousand monitors, Near remembers.
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He'd been to his room once.
A long time ago, when the dream of L seemed to be nothing but a flickering speck in a somewhat blurred horizon.
At least, that's what it had felt like for him. To Mello, it had always been more of an unrelenting lighthouse, beckoning him with it's killer siren's call. So, so bright, that it made him blind to the shipwrecks strewn around, like a forgotten (but no, not really) graveyard of loss and expectations fallen short.
But he'd been younger back then, and less spitefull to those who stood in the way between him and this letter, this omniscient all-encompassing symbol of Justice, that was worth more to him in the end than his very life.
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He'd been allowed in his room then.
It had not been like he had expected it to be, (nothing with Mello ever was).
There were no clothes on the floor. No books or papers strewn around, victims of passion and determination and sheer will to be the best (never enough). No unmade bed, no dusty shelves, no cluttered desk.
Neat surfaces, clean carpet, perfectly organized studying space.
It seemed implausible in a house where children were given unspoken free reign over everything from their actions and eating habits to their living quarters, which their adult charges never entered except to empty the laundry baskets.
Even his own room, inhabited by an unquestionable case of OCD, had had toys littered over the floor, if nothing else.
He was, nonetheless, unsurprised in his surprise.
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Under the pretense of studying, they played their own version of reconnaissance behind enemy lines, carefully observing each other. Like a player would his opponent. Like a crouching predator with his prey in sight. Either fit.
He saw it then. What was missing in Mello's suffocatingly stationary, perfectly (ab)normal room. Even if he was just sitting there on the floor in front of him, he could see it. Feel it, like an unnatural form of radiation his skin and every cell in his body were suddenly able to pick up.
It was one of the many (many, many,) things he'd envied and sometimes even resented about Mello.
No matter what he was doing, he gave the impression of being poised and about to do something (jump, run, raise his gun and kill). Even sitting still on the rug like he had been, he was nothing but pure movement, dynamism, action and reaction in human form. Always towards something, even if he didn't know what, even if it wasn't necessarily forwards he was moving. Always consuming, branding, scorching everything in his path.
He remembers when he'd entered the attached bathroom, (not because he needed to, but it provided a somewhat dignified escape to all that intensity Mello appeared to be full off).
He'd taken a moment to look around, and had found it was no different from the bedroom in it's order and cleanliness. He'd noticed the vast variety of products lining the shelves, amongst which a bottle of wheat-honey scented conditioner stood proudly.
He remembers thinking that while is was a pleasent smell, it didn't seem to suit him.
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This comes to mind because it occurs to him now, after everything (in an endlessly, horribly ironical way), that if fire had a distinct smell, that's what Mello would have probably smelled like.
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Sometime later, shuffling through papers he cares nothing about, it also occurs to him that in that case he would also posses a distinct smell, and is glad that Mello wasn't fire after all.
The constant smell of something burning on his nose would surely drive him mad.