Author's Note: Updated at last! Sorry this and my other stories are taking so long, but life has a way of doing that...; Enjoy!
Dangerous Intersection
Kr-Crunch!
Giovanni winced and lifted and expensively leathered foot, his eyes immediately training on the powdery pile of what was once a stack of cheerios cereal. A prickle of annoyance surged through him, but he suppressed it just long enough to remember his task and take another step.
Snap!
"Jesus!" A lego man caught under the back of another heel and there was a hard, plastic ping as the head snapped off and hit the opposite wall. The occupational hazard of navigating Whammy House since Near's return almost made him want to demand extra health coverage. Near apparently considered it perfectly normal to use any space but the one designated for him to play out whatever ill-sorted thoughts that had consumed him for the past few months.
Some way down the hall, he could start to make out the rustle of heavy, baggy clothing on worn wood. The only rooms that branched off from there were unused—presumably storage areas. It wasn't uncommon to go looking for some mundane necessity of daily operation—printer paper or staples—and come across an action figure or two stashed away on a shelf or in a corner. The behavior was classic for children who had suffered serious abuse early in life, and more than a few times he's heard Hal and Lester whispering worriedly about Near 'reverting' to some previous modus operandi.
Whatever, Giovanni told himself, Near was Near and he'd never steered them wrong. And maybe whatever the thing he now held in his hands would help. How he wasn't quite sure.
"Near?" Giovanni stopped in front of a cracked pine door, the varnish faded, worn.
"What is it?" a familiar disembodied voice replied.
"Something came for you through priority mail. It's dated January 25...there was no name but the return address is a factory somewhere in LA. I did some checking and the property belongs to Whammy House—
"Let me see it."
Giovanni hesitated, not sure if he should slip it under the door or actually enter. Near hadn't cautioned him either way, and usually if he had some sprawling project like the City of Cards he would. As if to answer his quandary, four long, slender fingers slipped under the door frame. So he knelt, placed the packet on the tips of Near's fingers, and watched as they both disappeared in a swift, almost greedy pull. Why he waited, Giovanni didn't know. There was something about the date, the timing of it's arrival that made the packet's very existence a weight in his hands other than the eight ounces of physical paper.
Soundlessly, something crumpled to the floor beyond the door and without thinking, Giovanni turned the knob and entered, almost stepping on an immaculate sleeve in the process. Near had taken one look at the hand writing on the packet and collapsed. His clear eyes were fixed on the area of the wall exactly opposite, as if rooted there by something Giovanni could neither see nor sense.
"Near, are you alright?"
"It's from him." Near breathed. Giovanni didn't need to be told who him was, but the information was impossible—and for a moment his mind followed the impossibility to it's conclusion. Was he alive somehow? Was he back in Los Angeles, back at the sight of his first failure, trying to understand why he'd failed? Why Near had won?
"Near, he's dead. There are plenty of ways he could have arranged this. It's just another one of his sick jokes..."
"Shut up." Near commanded, picking himself up and the packet with him. The yellow envelope fell away to reveal the letterhead of a defunct boxing plant in the Los Angeles slums. Apparently Mello had used whatever was available at the time. The first page was a neatly printed note.
Dear Near,
I hope this shocks you out of whatever funk you're in following my death, if you are in fact in one. I don't expect you to be, as it's highly out of character...but when I first thought about writing this, I was not exactly myself either. I am even less myself now, if you're reading this.
Regardless of what victories you have won since defeating Kira, let the following account serve to remind you that as L you are never not at the precipice of another dangerous intersection. Maybe you're at one right now and don't need me to tell you this—but since amongst other qualities we both inherited L's superior cockiness—I'm telling you anyway.
And no, this volume is not about me, and if you choose you may disregard my commentary entirely. I can imagine that you've had more than enough of my constant, biting analysis anyway. This volume is about something that happened before you and I were ever in the picture, and it would do well to heed that 'before time.' Because if it is one thing I can guarantee you about a world after Kira, it is that there is no after. The past is present. So it has been, as you will see, and so it shall remain.
Mello.
