Title: Fine
Rating: Nothing you couldn't show your grandmother. ...if your grandmother knows who Near is.
Pairing: None, or hinted Near--Mello maybe if you squint.
Warnings: Mello-related spoilers, and my taking of artistic liberties and diagnosing Near with autism. Yep, sometimes I worry about me, too. (In my world, too, L has OCD and Light's a psychopath. Okay well... maybe that last one is...)
Summary: A short look into Near's first appearance at Wammy's House, and how he deals with death.
"Alright now, just calm down..."
Mello cringed as the annoying whine from the 'new kid' escalated to a higher frequency yet again. This had been going on for over an hour--Roger trying to get any information out of the boy, and inevitably having to be satisfied with just keeping him from whining instead.
"You're going to have to answer me sometime. I don't know much more than your name and why you're here... how old are you?"
Silence. Not even a whine. Mello tore his ten-year-old eyes away from the snowboarding game he was watching a friend play, in favor of sitting on his knees, backwards, on the sofa to watch the action going on behind him.
Roger was kneeling at eye level to the small, pale boy with the filthy white hair, who sat on the floor with an orange plastic bird in his hand. Mello could not see the boy's face, but his head was tilted up and away from Roger, following the motion of the toy bird, which he was sailing through the air. His shoulders were shaking softly--he was crying, Mello mused--but he paid no heed to the man trying to speak to him.
Roger reached out and gingerly plucked the toy from the boy's dirty hands, which dropped to their owner's sides, twitched once, and began arranging crayons into neat rows on the floor instead. Roger sighed.
"Nathaniel," he said, almost pleadingly, "Please tell me how old you are."
No eye contact. No words. Roger took the crayons, too. Mello watched, waiting for the boy to yell or scream, but all he did was whimper again and start picking at the hem of his shirt. Then, in a very small, quiet, defeated voice, he said simply, "Eight."
Mello gaped. Roger replied, "Eight? Alright, that's a start..."
Another hour began to crawl by in much the same way as the first, and for a while, Mello returned his attention to the virtual snowboarding. And he did try to pay attention. He tuned out the infrequent whimpers. He ignored the strange, quiet boy's presence. The constant questions coming from Roger, however, were so obnoxiously distracting to him that finally he leapt to his feet and yelled, "What's wrong with that kid, anyway?"
"Sit down, Mello," said Roger wearily. "I don't have the time or patience right now to--"
"No, seriously! It's been hours and all he does is sit there and play with stuff! What's his problem?"
"Mello--!"
"Autism."
Both Mello and Roger turned to stare at the boy, who was idly stacking pencils into pyramids on the carpet. "That's what my problem is," he said in the same soft voice as before, never looking up at either of them. "My parents are very patient."
"They'd have to be," Mello muttered bitterly.
Roger shot the blonde boy a glare, but said simply, "Do you know where your parents are now, Nathaniel?"
"My name is Nate," said the small voice. "The hospital? We had... a wreck."
Mello stepped closer, shifting anxiously from one foot to the other. He already did not much like the annoying younger boy, with his quiet manner and too-smart way of speaking. But somewhere, in the back of his mind, he remembered being a little wide-eyed six-year-old who swore his parents must still be in the hospital...
"I'm afraid not," Roger murmured. "I'm afraid your parents have passed away." The boy stopped stacking pencils, still staring at the floor.
And he stared. And stared. No motion, no sound, no response. Minutes passed, until Mello finally blurted, "Aren't you angry? Sad? Anything?"
The boy looked at him quickly, then glanced away again. Tears rolled down his face, but his voice was steady as he answered, "It's... fine..."
"Fine! Fine? How can you say that?"
"Mello, hush! That's enough."
"But Roger--"
"It's fine."
The finality with which the two words were uttered was enough to silence both man and boy. Shortly after, Roger called a nurse to tend to the newcomer and clean him up--no small feat, as he was uncooperative, wanting nothing more than to play with his toy bird. And Mello, despite the festering rivalry which began brewing that very day, never once mentioned what he had witnessed.
--
"Near..."
The woman's voice was burdened with sorrow, backed by highway noise and distant sirens. Near gazed at the television report in stony silence--The second body cannot be identified...
"Near, I'm sorry. I... never thought Mello would--"
"It's fine...," Near interjected softly, as he rubbed at his eyes with the back of his sleeve and tried to delete all the memories that threatened to bubble to the front of his mind.
"It's fine."
Thanks to those who reviewed my last Death Note fanfic... I'm still working on it. Writing DN fanfic is a challenge! ;;