Ouroboros

Ouroboros.

(L, Mello Near. A never-ending circle of love, lust and venomous misconceptions.)

Mello loved L. That was fact.

L wanted Mello, age difference or no age difference. That was fact.

Near was the silent bystander, waiting for his chance with the volatile blonde. Even that was fact to those who chose to look hard enough.

But this story is more than one made up of cold facts and statistics. This story is made of obsession, love, hate, and betrayal all tangled together in the spider's web that makes up Wammy's House.

-

It was no secret that L-- the three best detectives in the world; brilliant, eccentric L-- had very little self-control. He would eat the richest cheesecakes, the sweetest ice-cream sundaes, even if it made him ill. Indulging in Mello was no different, and the administrators at Wammy's politely turned a blind eye, because really, this was L and who were they to deny him? So no one asked about the bite marks on Mello's thighs, or the hickey's blooming like roses on his neck, or even why he slept through classes the morning after L first showed up.

And Mello, all life and energy and cracked faith, loved the attention. L was his mentor, his lover, and his family by bonds if not by blood. Mello hung off every word L uttered be it lie or truth, flung himself before the elder's feet to worship the ground he tread on. After all, an afterlife in Hell was nothing compared to the emptiness being alone invoked.

And Near, brilliant, gifted Near with his dice and sharp sharp mind, had never met L in person. He's never seen L's disheveled appearance nor heard the stories he has to tell. Instead he hears them from Mello's kiss-swollen mouth, and wonders if the blonde will ever smile like that once L is dead and gone. He doubts it, somehow.

But like all things, paradise becomes flawed after time. Then it shatters into eternity, into painful, glittering dust.
Mello's world crashes and burns along with his heaven at three words,
"L is dead."

His keeps his façade up, because what else is there to do? He questions and he shouts and he gives up everything he's worked so hard for. Then, dressed in black (for mourning, for L for-) he walks out.
"L Is Dead"

Near doesn't watch him go, but he wants too.

Mello trashes his room, his ears still ringing with his idol's fall to earth. There are no tear tracks on his face because god damn it he's almost fifteen and L, the lying bastard didn't lov-
"L Is Dead"
He sobs into clenched fists and hates himself more than he should.

Finally, when Mello leaves the House in a haze of white-hot anger and slipping sanity, Matt takes up cigarettes to feed his craving for self-destruction. He hisses murderously from behind the veil of tar and cancer-smoke, his red eyes hidden by tinted goggles, "I hope you're happy living someone else's dream, Near."

There, in the solitude of his playroom, Near is left to wonder: if he became L, with his eccentric ways and ragged appearance and harsh percentages, would Mello come back? Would he stutter and flush and beg for kisses the way he had with his predecessor? Near smiles slowly, one hand rising to curl his hair-- he hopes he can find out.

But years later, after Kira's reign is over and Yagami Light is not but another pathetic corpse among millions, Near stares at his knees with a blank sort of detachment. There's a blood red rosary clutched loosely in one hand, and a mask with someone else's visage printed in the plastic in the other.
He is alone, like always, and somehow it's fitting.