A/N: I was really hesitant about doing this chapter only because I wasn't sure how people would react to my changing around the original so much for it. But, in all honesty I couldn't find any other way around it that would make the story progress the way I need it to. Though… I don't think it'll be that bad.
Disclaimer: I do not own Death Note, or any of the characters.
WARNING: This has spoilers to chapter 109. I've changed it around a bit from the original but this is just a precaution so I don't get people complaining.
Chapter 11: Silence
The next couple of weeks moved by slowly for me in that each day was always different than the previous one had been. I was surprised by this at first, breaking out of the day to day routine that I'd become so accustomed to was not something I adjusted to easily.
I'm not sure if Mello somehow knew about the repetitiveness of my days, or if it was just coincidence. But it seemed that everyday something different would happen because of him.
One day we'd be in the common room and he'd ignore me for Matt (though every once and a while I would feel his eyes trail back to me).
Then the next we'd stay in my room for a good amount of the day.
His patience, though, was what surprised me most of all. I never thought he would be able to sit, and stay in one place for too long of a time without exploding out at something. But I'd seen him do it more than once now.
It was the days where it was just he and I that his change was the most noticeable. I would play with my toys on the ground and he would be either on my bed or somewhere close by, silent as could be.
I would watch him out of the corner of my eye and observe as his own orbs went in and out of focus and I'd wonder what it was he was thinking so deeply about. I only questioned him on it once…
"Mello."
His eyes shot back to me, locked and focused instead of the far away gaze he'd been sending to the floor. "What?"
"What are you thinking about?"
"Nothing, Near!"
I flinched away at the harshness and stayed silent. If Mello didn't want to tell me what he was thinking then I wasn't about to press into him and try and figure it out. But I would be lying if I said I wasn't interested by it.
Needless to say the following days were relatively quiet; I didn't mind.
But then one morning I awoke to the same thing. Quiet, and peace. Mello was gone, just like he always was. It seemed like every night I insisted that his sleeping in here was pointless, but every time I did he ignored it. His stubbornness was certainly still intact.
I knew how it worked, just like it did every morning. I would first take a shower before going out and downstairs to the common room. There, Mello would eventually find me and something would eventually happen. As to what, I could never be sure.
So after making sure my white hair wasn't dripping wet from the shower anymore and I looked presentable enough, I took some of my rubrix cubes and exited from the quiet room out into the hallway. It was about ten-thirty in the morning but the halls on this floor were oddly quiet.
I could hear the other orphans movements on the first floor though.
Something wasn't right.
Cautiously I slowly made my way down to the first floor, making sure to take in every detail around me in the hopes of trying to figure out what was making everything seem so very wrong.
The solid objects around me were the same as always, nothing was different about Wammy's as a whole.
But the other orphans, how they moved and held happy smiles on their faces that I'd never noticed before, was what made me stop momentarily.
I was at the bottom of the stairs, the ideal place to watch people as they moved from one place to another. I was like a statue to them, always there but hardly noticed.
"Excuse me." I stopped one of the girls that had been walking closer to me than the others. "What's going on?" I asked in my normal, quiet tone.
"Are you kidding?" She drew back in what I could only determine to be shock. "Have you not heard the news?"
I stayed silent, waiting for her to continue and answer my question.
"We're going to talk to L today." She walked away as she spoke.
I had never before felt the surge of emotions that blanketed me at that one moment. With that one name everything ceased to exist. My heart pounded hard against my ribcage, I felt myself growing evermore nervous as numerous thoughts filled my head at once.
We were going to talk to L? Now? Why? How? I wasn't sure I could deal with being in the same room as my once idol. I didn't know how I would react and the unknowing scared me.
Had he somehow heard about the way I'd been staying around Mello more than normal? But who would have told him something like that? But if they had… did this mean he was making his presence known to me again in order to show that he was still in control?
One thing was certain though, I did not want to be anywhere near him, in any sense of that word. I did not want to have to hear his voice, or constantly have to wonder about any underlying meanings to his words.
But there was no way around this. I'm the number one candidate to succeed L, and therefore I'd be forced to anything that has to do with L. Of course I'd be expected there this time.
I couldn't think of any lie to get myself out of this.
As I stood at the bottom of the steps, my hands fumbling with the cloth covering my arms I barely registered someone walk up to me.
"Hey."
My focus came back to the room around me, and my eyes rested on Mello standing in front of me, who had been the owner of the voice.
There was a solid look in his blue eyes, the normal expression that he held when in public. One of his hands was in his pocket while the other held one of his chocolate bars to his lips, though he seemed to have waning interest towards it.
"Did you hear?" He asked bluntly.
I just barely nodded.
He motioned towards the hall where the rest of the orphans were slowly making their way to; probably back to one of the far classrooms that was more than likely emptied for this specific event.
He moved to begin following the others but stopped when I stayed in place. "Come on," he said looking back at me once.
My head lowered till I was looking down at the wood floor but followed him nonetheless. There was no way out of this; it was meaningless to even try looking for a one.
We entered into the classroom at the end of the hall, there was a single desk with a computer and speakers set up on it; everything else had been cleared out.
All the other kids sat around the front of the desk, but I positioned myself a ways away from them in the back and tried to keep my nervous hands busy with one of the cubes I'd brought. Mello leaned against the far wall, the same expression graced his face but he seemed more focused. He looked more like he was waiting for something specific to happen.
It was only a few moments later, after Roger and one of the other female officials came in that the screen flickered on.
I instantly diverted my eyes away and fought against the temptation to look up. I had looked long enough to take note of the old English L that came on the screen as well as the camera that was mounted at the top of the screen.
He could see us, but we couldn't see him.
L could see me.
My hands began to shake, and heat up at the thought of being watched by him. I tried to focus on the cube in my hand and move the pieces into the places I wanted them to go, in order to distract myself. But somehow his scrambled voice found a way to penetrate my concentration.
"Good morning, everyone," he said. Behind all the scrambling I could still make out his natural voice. "I'm sorry this is so sudden. We were going to do this later but because of recent events, we decided to move this to now. I figured this would be a good chance to allow anyone to ask anything they want and I will answer it. It's a way to personally know more."
People's hands were already beginning to raise, ecstatic about getting the chance to get to ask the person they were trying to become any question they wanted.
I, on the other hand, tried to keep silent and block it all out.
I tried to imagine that I was not in this room. I was not being watched by the one I had once called my idol. I wasn't even sure if I could call him that anymore… but if I didn't then was I even qualified to be in this race to succeed him?
As he spoke, answering someone's question about his thoughts on past cases, memories began to surge through me.
I could hear every word he had ever told me during those 'meetings'.
"With the way you are now you can't even hope to succeed me."
"How are you conceited enough to think you're any better than the others vying for that spot?"
"You're nothing; everything you've gotten was out of luck."
"I placed you in that position and I could just as easily take you out of it."
They were all ways to make me fight just a little harder, to push myself a little more and comply with all of the things he wanted me to do. All of those sick acts that was done in the hopes of pleasure.
But there was no pleasure in it. There was only regret and disgust.
L had moved to another question while I was being overtaken by my memories. I didn't know how long it had been anymore, or how many questions he had answered. I hadn't even been aware enough to register his answers and observe them.
I was still slipping from my top spot…
"If you measured good and evil deeds by current laws, I would be responsible for many crimes." I closed my eyes and willed his voice out of my mind. I tried not to think about how right he was about that.
"The same way you all like to solve mysteries and riddles, or clear video games more quickly, for me too, it's simply prolonging something I enjoy doing." Oh, that's right, he's talking about justice.
If only they knew. None of them would call him justice.
I tried to fight against the memories of watching him cause so much physical pain to me. Tried not to re-live the feeling of his hands moving over so many places I didn't want them to. I desperately fought against the sensation that came back to me as I remembered the pain of being taken against my will the first time.
My hands stopped. The multi-colored cube was now complete again and I was without anything to keep my hands busy.
The memories took over and I could feel myself beginning to crack under them.
They were no longer only sensations filling me, but were not images to play across my eyes. I could see so many scenes of what we'd done all at once. I was disgusted with myself even more.
"Now," L's voice cut through my memories and only his voice reverberated in my head, "let's move to something a bit more specific."
Everything became silent. The air around me was thick; my heart desperately beat against my chest and my lungs begged me for air. But I couldn't breathe. I couldn't blink. I couldn't move. All I could do was wait for what I knew was coming next.
"Near." He said slowly, as if trying to be careful with my name.
I swallowed, hard but silently, and began to turn towards the screen.
"He's not here."
I froze instantly in place and my eyes followed everyone else's that flew to the far wall. To Mello. "Mello, what are you talking about?" One younger girl asked, frustrated at him.
But Mello's eyes were locked on the screen, and that alone. There was no emotion in them to show me what he was thinking, or what he was doing. All that I could read was the pure intensity being radiated off it.
"Why not?" L asked, almost as carefully as he had said my name.
"He didn't say."
L paused, "why do you think, Mello?"
"How the hell should I know, I don't know what he thinks! Maybe he just didn't want to." His expression only hardened.
"I see." L said, "well, when you can, tell him that in the future I'd like to discuss this case with him. I think he'd find some interest in it."
Mello's eyes narrowed towards him. Mistake. L probably said that probably in the hopes of getting to me (which he certainly succeeded, as I had to turn my whole gaze away from him), and to see Mello's reaction.
Mello's that impulsive, and L knows it. I couldn't help but wonder and fear what he saw in that at the same time.
"Fine." Mello answered.
There was a brief moment of silence around the room. The other orphans were looking between the three of us, simple observers to a story they didn't understand and thus had nothing to input. I wish they did though.
I wish they would turn back to their idol and talk to him again. I hate having their questioning eyes burning into my back. What are they expecting, for one of us to fill in the gaps to the story? It won't happen. I want them to turn back and let this scene go; I need to be out of their painful gazes.
A younger girl suddenly asked another question to L and I was relieved when the eyes seemed to turn away from me.
I waited another moment, till I was sure that they were all turned back towards L, then silently gathered up my stuff and stood up. If I was portrayed as not even being here, then I didn't want to remain here any longer.
Without a look to anyone else in the room, and before anyone could notice my movement, I left from the room out into the silent and empty orphanage.
A/N: So this kind of came out like I wanted. I think my descriptions were good but that's about it. What I REALLY wanted, was for there to be an underlying meaning to everything Mello and L said. But I couldn't think of any real blunt way to put it. So I had to stick with the simple stuff. Oh, and I didn't mean for L to be as OOC as he kind of seems.
Please review!
-Forbiddensoul562
