AN: D'oy. This has been on my hard drive for a while now, getting picked and fiddled over…I'm still not entirely satisfeita but I'm sick of looking at it.
"Oh—sorry, sir," apologizes Gevanni when Near sits up abruptly, hair falling over his dazed eyes as he whips his head around to focus on them. "We didn't mean to wake you up."
It's not the first time the leader of the SPK has quietly dozed off among his toys. At first Gevanni frowned on it as unprofessional, but he's quickly come to learn that his and Near's notions of what professional means apparently come from two completely different dictionaries, and despite the pajamas and the wallowing around on the floor and the way he sulks and throws his toys when he doesn't get his way, somehow Near gets the job done. He's had to build a mental wall of suspended expectations when it comes to Near and everything else related to the Kira case.
If anything, he feels a little bad, because unlike the rest of them, it's not like Near retires to bed and sleeps at night, even when the investigation is going slowly. So on the rare occasions he does fall asleep, they really do make an effort to keep their voices down.
The boy—young man—whatever's black eyes train on his, staring him down with unnerving intensity. His jaw is set and his hands grab at the nearest toy, gripping it with white knuckles.
"There is no need to apologize," Near responds in a jarringly soft tone, not blinking. Unnerved, Gevanni turns back to the time tables he and Rester were looking at, exchanging an oops sort of glance with the older man before going silently back to work.
Instead of returning to his nap or turning his attention to his toys, however, Gevanni can feel that Near is still staring at them, the gaze as bright on the back of his neck as a sniper's laser focus. Rester apparently feels it too. Self-consciously Gevanni points to a number that might be relevant instead of speaking aloud, hideously aware of the rustling of his jacket sleeve. They hadn't even been speaking that loudly. He wonders if they're still irritating the investigator and can't imagine that they aren't.
"Have you found anything?" Near asks, startling him, and he realizes he's been holding his breath.
"No, sir," Rester says quickly and shortly.
The silence hangs heavily for a moment, and the young investigator breaks it. "Please let me know immediately if you do."
"Yes, of course, sir."
Silence falls yet again.
"Where is Lidner?"
"…She's still at the first screening for Takada's bodyguards, as per your orders, sir."
"Yes, of course," Near says, in as tone as though he'd known the answer perfectly well before he even asked. Of course, that is often the case when he asks a question, but he doesn't often sound it. Gevanni exchanges a glance with Rester.
"Sir," Rester says cautiously, turning slightly in his seat. "Is everything alright?"
The truth, which Near would never tell them, is that it was not their voices that woke him, but his old childhood nightmare, back and worse than ever. Worse than ever, because now it's not a mystery anymore—it's the same echoing, empty world, yes, without voices, that he searches in growing panic; but instead trying frantically to discover where everyone has gone, he knows everyone else has been killed by Kira. Mere moments ago Near searched the entire SPK headquarters, first padding slowly and peering around doorways, moving through the building more and more quickly until he was running so his socked feet slipped on the smooth floors, and found nothing of his team except their names written on sheets of notebook paper, in a place and time that seemed far more vivid than the reality that surrounds him now.
"Yes," Near replies calmly, finally turning back to his toys. "Everything is fine."