NA: God, Near is my muse lately. I love writing him this way, differently, like he somehow still cares. I hope it is pleasant to read :) I don't own Death Note, only this piece and if you want please tell me what you think! I rather like this one but that's just me.
Blood-filled Masquerade
It has become his life, it has become him. — Near, MattMello
—|—
Being a successor isn't always everything.
Closer to reality, it only adds to his pain. The pain of being something unreal, something plain and not impressing, a brain and nothing more. How can it be enough when it has taken the slightest indication of normality away from him?
Near ignores the fact—the only facts in the world that hurt him—and it returns with broken edges, cutting through him, making him bleed.
It is rather pleasant, to feel. It is bubbling under his skin, this, and he can almost taste the metallic scent under his tongue.
It licks his core, slightly, he crawls, bends out his fingers, feels.
He wants it to remain, this feeling. It is more like Mello and Near respects Mello. Mello is a ticking bomb, feeding on adrenaline and anger and can smell weakness in the air, it is his living fuel to keep his unlimited energy going.
Mello wants to take, he wants to create, he wants to destroy. His mind is like a construction site, advanced and planned but he doesn't know that one day he will bring himself to his own funeral.
Alas, how can Near explain that to him? He doesn't listen, he doesn't understand. To him Near is weakness, abnormal, uncanny. Mello doesn't know that Near is the strongest of all, because he cannot feel regret. He can kill with his own hands, he can betray and he can move on like nothing happened. Near is robotic and he is cold and that is the only reason he will survive this.
He will win. Because he is like this. He has become like this and there is no way back. Near is more like L and L should have succeeded, he should have been victorious but something went wrong and Near is there now to fill the gap. It is the only thing he has left and he will use his ace-card to bring end of Kira's reign.
He will. He knows. Mello can't. He just can't.
Mello cares. He may not know it yet but he does. Humans in general care, it is an instinct, hidden behind red blood and beating hearts, it is natural, it just happens and Near is the exception to this, not Mello.
Near pushes his train down the ramp and it rolls, down, snares over the rail, over the structure that brings him calmness in his ice-chunk of a heart. He only has this. His intelligence. He has to use it for something and he will. Maybe, perhaps, maybe later are not correct answers, there is only one way forward.
Forward to the goal, to catch Kira, to bring him behind bars.
Mello just cannot do it. He is not the right person. Lust-filled revenge aside, Mello has a life outside the Kira-case and Near does not. Mello has Matt, no matter how thin the tread the two are balancing on is, they have each other. Their deaths poison each other, drastically, clawing their soul to thin shreds.
If Near dies no one will miss him. Really miss him. It sounds pathetic, like he feels sorry for himself and maybe he does, but it is the truth. Who will miss him? He is a tool, not a human.
He is perfectly fine with that.
It is his life after all, it is him. What can he else wish to have? Friends don't mean anything, he will betray them and they will betray him. He does not know how to make friends, to bond, to help them. Once he tried with Mello and it didn't work. Near gave up and became this. Brilliant with his head but alone inside. Unwanted. No one likes him and that is okay because he doesn't care. There is nothing to care about.
He has this.
It is not everything but it is something. He has to use what he has.
—|—
"Mel, what will you say if Near wins?" Matt asks, almost dully, without coloring his voice with feelings and sucks on his cigarette, poisons the air with smoke.
They both know that Near is not to be taken for granted. The kid will not back off, he doesn't know how. Maybe this is for vain. Maybe there is nothing to win.
Matt can never say that to Mello.
"It won't happen," Mello growls slightly, leaning back against the white pillows and places one slim leg over the other. "Don't you worry about that."
Matt blows in smoke in his lungs in sheer aggravation. "Well, you don't make me worry less with that statement, you know."
"What the hell do you mean?" Mello asks and moves his head, blond bangs dancing in front of his sharp face.
"Oh, nothing. Just that I think you should blow of the case before you get hurt."
Matt is not enthusiastic about much—besides from his video games—and the case doesn't mean much to him. Of course Kira is a fucking bastard for killing L and playing God where there already is one but Matt cares more about Mello than Kira and he knows that Mello will make a drastic mistake that destroys everything.
Mello is like this, he doesn't think. Especially when Near is in the picture, which he is now.
"Matt, I cannot do that," Mello tells him and fishes for a chocolate bar from his pockets. God, don't those calories bit on him? "It is about that bastard Kira and no one else. I don't know about you but I don't find it funny to watch him kill people because he gets to choose their commitment."
Matt simply rolls his eyes and watches the ash crawl up to the orange filter. "Of course Kira needs to be stopped. But that is not the point, Mel. This is a game for you. You think more about beating Near than to stop Kira. You make mistakes and I just cannot accept that. This is not a fucking game, it's not about Near, it's about you for God's sake!"
"What are you so fucking aggravated about?"
"You perhaps."
Mello snaps a piece of the chocolate and lets it melt on his tongue. "No shit? But it doesn't make any sense. We are just friends."
"Yeah," Matt murmurs and ashes the cigarette. "Just friends. Way for you to understate things."
—|—
Emotionless. Filled with emotions.
Mello has always been both.
Near has not.
It is their difference and it will change the direction the train is going. The end. The end is already written.
It is not Near's fault that Mello doesn't want to see it. Maybe he is afraid, maybe he doubts. Near does not know. It is not his case.
He places the jigsaw in the right corner of the puzzle. It is red. Red like blood. Like the liquid bleeding out from wounded bodies. In this picture it will only be in the right corner, only there, but in real life the painting will be drenched in it.
Blood is the sign of nature, of animals, of us. People bleed, inside or outside.
Sometimes Near wonders if he can bleed like the rest.
He doesn't want to try. Maybe he doesn't. He knows he is different but he doesn't want proof.
Proof cannot be rewritten. He rather waits. Wishes for something that feels better but has nothing to do with reality.
It is easier to dream than to live after all.
—|—
"You will continue and it is okay," Matt says, quirking his lips into a small smile as he tilts himself over Mello, face to face, breath to breath. "Because it wouldn't have been you if you stopped for me, you know."
"Ugh, you sound like a lovesick fool," Mello mutters and tries to push Matt away but to no avail—Matt is determent about some things and Mello lets Matt fall over him again, with gloved hands in his golden hair. "I don't want to hear that."
"Of course not," Matt smiles and leans down and kiss him, carefully, it is still new, it is still foreign, but Matt has it now and he will not let it slip away. Not now. Never.
Their kisses are hot, burning inside, tension bending and it is so damn wonderful. This is the only thing he wants, the only thing he needs. Only now. Matt opens his lips and lets Mello in, drinking, tasting, craving.
Mello is everything and the Kira-case means nothing. Matt is glad if he can have Mello this way, some way, it is okay.
"You are distracting me," Mello pants between kisses and corrects his grip around Matt's waist. "I don't remember what I am supposed to do next."
Matt's smile gets wider and he gently nuzzles Mello's hair and presses him closer to himself. "It is good for you to forget sometimes. Not thinking too much. I can help you with that."
"Yeah, I can see that," Mello mutters and then catches Matt's mouth again before he can say anything else. "I guess that's something I like with you."
It is the closest to a confession Matt can ever wish to have and he claims it, treasures it.
For Near, the Kira-case is everything. It isn't for Matt, it isn't for them.
They have each other and Near has none. They have already won.
—|—
Mello was here.
Matt is not here anymore. Mello did not say it but Near knows, he can see it, almost taste it in the air.
Near knows that Mello too will meet his demise. He is filled with rage and it will be his downfall. Near cannot wish to stop it. It will happen. It is facts and you cannot change facts.
But still, Mello already knows it. He does. He knows the ending. For him it is okay.
Matt is waiting for him. Death is okay. Somehow it is.
Mello has tasted life, he knows that it can be and Near does not. It is their difference and it will guide them to different direction. Mello will fall over the edge and Near will remain.
Near will win.
It doesn't fill him with the triumph it usually does.
It isn't a race anymore. It is predicted. It will not surprise him.
And I know, he thinks and curls a milky finger in white locks, that I would do anything to be one of them.
He would.
Because they have each other. They don't need the Kira-case, they have already won.
In their game. In the game that counts.
If only Near had realized this sooner. He cannot be them, he cannot feel them.
He still wants.
He bows down on the cold ground and lets the wave of regret take him.
—|—
fin