The Topology of Compassion

Disclaimer: Please see Chapter 1 for full disclaimer.


Chapter 12: Dinner

The words scribbled across the page stood in full stance against the crisp white page for which they were printed upon, each letter appearing to Michael's young, inexperienced eyes as carrying a message he had very limited ability in understanding. The paper which sat before him, a forgotten remnant of the case Near had been working on earlier that morning.

It'd been a little over a month now since Mello had showed back up alive at the SPK building, and within that time it seemed to the young boy that nothing had really changed between his parents; if anything, the two had actually become more strained for reasons the young child couldn't quite figure out.

To him, it seemed to only make perfect sense that the two should be working to better get along considering their allotted second chance together. But that wasn't at all what was happening, and more and more that very fact had been bothering Michael.

Perhaps, he considered to himself, the two of them just didn't know how to move past whatever their disagreement was behind them. Further, perhaps there was something that he could do to help them along.

He looked up from the undecipherable span of letters forming words upon the page before him, looking to Rester on the other side of the bar he was seated at, "Rester." He spoke up, bringing the larger man to turn from the counter he'd been preparing lunch at, "You're not married, right?"

Rester's blue eyes widened momentarily in surprise before bringing himself back under control from the surprising question, "No, I'm not. Why?" He asked, is tone incredulous and wary as to what was on the blonde's mind.

"No? Then that means you go on a bunch of dates, right?" He sat up in his chair, leaning on his arms on the counter top and starting again before the older man even had time to, "Rester," he said, "I want my mama and daddy to go on a date." He stated, "They're always so mad at each other and I don't know why. I think what'd help them is if they went on a date! That's what people do when they really love each other, right?"

The boy's words caused Rester to only further give him a confused look, "A date, huh? I don't know if that's what the two of them really need as much as they could probably benefit from some counseling or something…" Rester said, though more to himself than to Michael.

The boy, though, shook his head anyway, "Daddy told me that if I could get Mama to agree, then he'd go too. Rester, you gotta help me. If you don't I'll stop doing my lessons!"

Rester, unfazed entirely by the boy's demands, instead turned fully towards him, removing the apron that'd been hanging around his neck, folding it on the counter, "If that's the case then why do you need my help? All you need to do is convince Near to go on one." He paused, looking up in consideration, as though his words had only just registered in his mind, "Then again, that might be a bit difficult…"

A brief moment of silence passed between the two where Michael allowed the older to consider over such an idea before he finally broke in, "No, Rester, that's the easy part. Mama is easy to convince. But what you gotta help me on is the date. I don't know if you know this, but I don't know anything about dates!"

The second in command smiled at both the sheer amount of confidence within Michael's words, as well as the sheer sense of innocence about both him and his venture. He finally gave a nod in response, the smile remaining across his features, "You've got a few years before you need to start worrying about dates, Michael. But, if you think that you can actually get Near to agree to go on a date with your dad then I might be able to think of something to make one happen." There was a bit of hesitancy in his words at the thought of setting his boss up, but on the other hand, the idea of working to make sure both Near and Mello at least somewhat got along during this forced time together was not entirely unappealing to him, either. And for that, he was willing to work with Michael on this venture.

Michael nodded his head viciously, leaning back off the counter and beginning to climb down off the high stool, "Better start thinking, then! We don't have much time, Rester!"

The look on the older man's face fell immediately as he watched Michael move, "Wait, you meant you want this to happen now? Michael, there's too much that still has to be done first! What about your lessons? What about lunch?"

The words fell upon deaf, or rather too determined ears, however, as the young boy was already darting across the room and out the door without another word offered to the commander.

Michael raced through the old SPK building, passing through halls that he had long since familiarized himself with, through doors he knew held contents that were more familiar than the back of his hand till he reached the upper level investigation room, or rather the default location that he went to when he wanted to find Near.

The room was as dark as it always was; flooded by the usual dull lighting from muted monitors that shone different pages and news stations with an almost ghostly manner about them.

"Mama." Michael announced his presence immediately, his bare feet padding against the cold tile as he crossed through the space over to Near who sat constructing a tower of dice before him. The young boy's thoughts moving quickly with each step he took, looking and planning the best way to go about constructing the date that was being secretly set up.

Near looked up from the tower, both curious and confused at the boy laden within his own gray eyes that so mirrored his child's. This action alone told Michael that Near had not been so engrossed in whatever case he'd decided to undertake, as it apparently was not interesting enough to take his entire attention away from his surroundings.

"What are you working on?" Michael asked, feigning normalcy in both tone and action as he finished crossing the space between the two of them and sat beside Near, his wondrous look gazing towards the perfectly constructed tower before them.

Near continued to watch him, "I'm just working on a case of embezzlement from one of the top banks." He sighed a bit, "Working with Mello makes the prospect of using what spare time I have available to look into murder cases quite unappealing. Too many lucrative killings at once, I suppose…"

Michael's eyes remained upon the tower, his young mind unable to entirely understand the things Near was telling him. But it didn't bother him, at least not as much anymore, as he'd come to realize that that was just the way that Near always was; especially in this moment though he was willing to forgo looking for a simplified explanation from his mother, as Near had already unknowingly provided him with the leverage he came here looking for.

"Why aren't you working with Daddy today?" He asked, leaning on one of his hands and seeing the sense of ease it immediately seemed to arise out of Near at Michael just having one hand occupied that he didn't have to worry about it reaching to touch his dice tower.

Near remained quiet for a long moment in consideration of how to properly word his response to Michael's question, "Mello seems to think that he is running that investigation on his own, alone, and therefore tends to get quite perturbed with me quite often merely for pointing out his plans shortcomings." Near explained, shrugging as he did so, "I figure it best to back off at times and allow him to think that he's indeed working on his own. It's a peace keeping method at absolute best." Michael nodded as Near finished, "It's for the best that way."

"Daddy never tells me anything about what you two are working on."

Near's look moved over to the boy once more, "That too is probably for the best, Michael." A brief pause crossed them both before he continued, "You've yet to tell me why you're up here, Michael. What's Rester doing that you got away from him?"

"Making lunch." The boy responded automatically, though he felt himself begin to heat up as the moment became more vital, the time he had to execute a plan he hadn't quite formulated becoming vital by the passing second. What was he going to do, or what could he say that Near wouldn't immediately read through? He'd have to stick to his gut on this, and as underhanded and perhaps conniving as it inherently was, he'd have to use the sole bit of information he had in order to progress; the one bit of information that Near may question yet ultimately would be unable to read through without at least observing for himself.

"Strange that you don't want to work with Daddy more…" Michael started, reaching out to fumble with a lone six-sided die that'd yet to be added to the stack, "He's been talking about you a lot, Mama." Without moving his gaze from the die Michael could feel Near looking down to him, investigating his words to best of his ability; hanging off them, really.

Michael knew he had Near, now. "He said that things have been getting better between you, which is good since that's what he thinks is best for me." He said with a shrug. "You and Daddy are my parents, I don't know why that's not good enough to be nice to each other."

Near sighed, looking away from the young boy and back to his tower, the look in his eyes saying that even he was beginning to consider destroying it. "It's not always that easy, Michael." His words trailed off from that point, as though his thoughts were drifting away with his words, unable to let them find air to say to Michael.

The young boy shrugged, "I dunno. Daddy seems to think it should be, and he wants to try to make it work. Don't you?"

Near's brow creased together, his fingers reaching up to thread through his hair, "Mello didn't say that. That's not the sort of thing he says."

Immediately Michael felt his entire being heat up with the embarrassment of being called out so bluntly by his own mother. He felt himself unconsciously shrink into himself as though it would conserve his own sense of self and protect from Near's knowing gaze. "Uh huh. You don't know, Mama, 'cause you don't talk to him about anything other than work. Maybe things would be easier if you talked, like he wants to."

"What exactly are you trying to get at? Don't pander around your point, Michael."

He shrugged, "Daddy wants to actually talk to you, Mama, and actually get somewhere with it to make a difference." He stated.

Near's eyes remained on Michael, observing every subtle shift in his little frame and reading through his words to whatever discreet message he was trying to slip in with his spoken words, though whatever it was seemed entirely unclear through the mist of childhood complexities that came with improper speech patterns. Finally, though, he sighed, "I suppose attempts at communication can only hurt so much at this point." Near finally relented, picking up the single dice that Michael had been fumbling with and placing it atop the tower that still stood before them, in the back of his mind beginning to brace himself for whatever onslaught may await him.

"Good!" Michael exclaimed, the nerves of his words falling away as he moved and stood up again, "But you can't go talk till later, otherwise you'll just talk about work, and that's not good. So don't go till later tonight, and you gotta go to the old place you lived at here in the building, too." He explained quickly to Near even as he picked himself up off the floor and began to run from the room again, whether out of excitement for all he was setting into motion or because it shortened the amount of time left to Near to call him out.

Though Near's look continued to follow him, "Tonight? The old apartment? Michael what are you-." The door to the room slid closed and Near was left alone with his innumerable questions, and surrounded by a case that had neither held his attention before, and did little to do so now.

'What are you trying to get out of this?'

-:-

The walk to the old apartment felt as though it was the longest one Mello had taken since he'd essentially come back to life and reappeared to both Near and his own son. The trek from the elevator down the hall to the door seemed to take forever as his thoughts ran to memories he'd tried not to relive while he resided within the building, to everything that'd been and everything that no longer was. Coming back here left no defense against any of the plagues within his mind, but the words of his son rang through him like a clear, guiding light.

"Mama wants to talk to you." He'd said, "Things are going to get better. He wants to make things better." Where had Michael heard such words, or rather what had Near said that could realistically have given their young son such ideas. It was this consideration more than the thought that anything may actually be changed which drove him onwards.

He grasped the cold metal door handle and let the door swing open, into the room he'd once been so familiar with, yet at the time seemed to be nothing more than the setting to a story he'd seen from the outside with little to no actual participation within.

The inside, however, made him almost immediately come to a stop in the doorway. The expansive room was cast not in its usual, familiar darkness but in the dim lighting of a single candle lit upon the table sitting to the left side of the room that Mello had never seen used before. Likewise sat upon the tabletop were two plates of prepared food.

'What…'

"I assume your thoughts are the same as mine." Came Near's voice from the center of the room, dragging Mello's attention away from the sight and over to the younger detective who he found seated in his usual manner in the center of the room, separated from the blonde by the wrap around couch.

"What is…," He couldn't even seem to formulate the words.

"Apparently we've been duped."

"Duped by our own son?" Mello thought aloud, something about even the mere idea seeming implausible. Michael was so young, so outwardly innocent and blind towards all that happened between Near and himself. How had he come to formulate such a plan, and for what reason? Where did he even begin asking such questions, and to whom?

"Apparently so." Was Near's response with a heavy exhale as he looked up from the few robots he had positioned around him and over to the table that had been set up.

Mello's look followed the younger's, but within his mind he could hear the words of his past self ringing through that he'd perhaps mistakenly said to Michael on the first or second night of his return: 'Rester told me once that when two people are mad at each other, but actually really like one another, a good thing for them to do is spend time together by going on dates and stuff! So you and Mama should do that.' He heard Michael's voice, and his own subsequent response, 'Maybe. How about this… If you can convince Near of that, then I'll go on one with him.' How foolish he'd been to think for even a moment that someone sharing genes from someone like the both of them wouldn't live up to such a challenge.

How foolish he'd been to think that any child that contained Near's genes wouldn't find a way to use something of such caliber to his advantage. But what was the advantage… what was he really trying to get out of him and Near that the two weren't already trying on their own?

Perhaps this was Michael's own indication to them that he wasn't seeing enough progress, that he wasn't seeing the image that he wanted and expected to see out of them. But Michael was just a boy and Mello couldn't find it in his heart to back out of this now with merely the explanation of: 'well that's not always how the world works'. The boy had fantasies for the life he wanted with his parents, but unlike Mello, Michael had inherited some sort of gene from Near that drove him into action, to strive and fight for those things he wanted. How could Mello ever bring himself to destroy what the boy had created for his own selfish feud with his rival?

"I'm can't be sure of exactly how any of this came to be considering all the variables involved and lack of substantial evidence. But whatever the case, I'm not partaking. I'm not doing this with you." Something in Near's tone came across accusing, immediately blaming Mello for having some hand in this.

Well… he wasn't entirely wrong, Mello supposed.

He glared over at Near, but immediately caught himself from growing frustrated at the detective's inability to see what was lying right in front of him as placed by his own son. "Do what?" He asked, throwing the accusation right back into Near's court, "This is nothing. This is just dinner. Who turns down free dinner?" He asked with his own shrug, stepping further into the room and over towards the table. He could feel Near's suspicious stare following after him, "Besides, Michael got that second in command of yours to fix all of this for you and I. That alone means I have to partake."

He could practically see Near's gray eyes narrowing on him, "Passive aggressive power play? I figured even you to be too mature for such actions."

Mello merely shrugged in response, finding the table laid out nicely with a board of various cheeses cut into perfectly shaped cubes, a bread bowl filled with what appeared to be spinach dip and a side plate filled with various kinds of quiches. Close to the center there was a silver bucket of ice with the brim of a bottle of wine sticking out, though sitting next to it was likewise a bottle of scotch. The sight made Mello chuckle, as though it was Rester's way of saying, "Good luck, but just in case everything goes wrong, this should help."

"So, when you were looking for second in commands, was it a requirement that they be able to cook, too?" Mello questioned, stepping around the table and grabbing the bottle from the bucket, observing it to be red. He turned back to Near a bit, his mind beginning to run away with ideas before he'd even managed to get Near to the table. If he could get him there, anyway.

Near was the one to shrug, utterly ignoring Mello or the scene laid out before them, "It's not necessarily a stated requirement, but it's written in the fine print."

'Of course it is.' Mello considered to himself, thinking of how much time someone in Rester's position would have to spend with someone like Near, someone who barely had any ability to take care of himself. He sat down at the head of the table. "You might as well come sit up here. Michael organized all of this; you can't just ignore everything he did. What would that tell him about his worth?"

"His worth?" Near considered, "His worth is not the important factor here, Mello. What's more important to me is figuring out where exactly he could have possibly learned to be so conniving." Those steely gray eyes moved over to meet Mello's blue ones, all accusation suddenly placed upon him.

"You think he got it from me?" Mello shot back, "We're both trained in manipulation and being able to con, Near, I just happen to be the one who uses is much more directly than other people seem to think I do." He said, taking one of the blocks of cheese and popping it into his mouth.

Something in Near's look shifted with Mello's words, as though considering both what the blonde was saying to him as well as everything placed within context. As though somehow he'd suddenly remembered his own investigative capabilities and the prime subject that had been placed before him; the same one that had been used as the subject beneath his microscope whenever there was no one else of use.

With a slight sigh Near let go of the robots he'd been fumbling around with and stood up, "Fine." He said simply, offering no further explanation in terms of justification behind his reasoning for joining. Though little more ever seemed necessary when it concerned Michael, and Mello was fine with that.

Near came to sit beside Mello at the table, his indifferent eyes looking over the food laid out before them. Near's eyes glimmered in the flicking of the sole flame emitted by the candle, casting the orbs in a way Mello had never seen them before, some way that was almost mesmerizing in their own right. For the briefest of moments he found himself content to just stay exactly where he was, staring into Near's cast eyes and reading into the mysteries he'd yet to unravel.

"This was very elaborate of him." Near commented, "He's trying pretty hard."

"Can you blame him?" Mello responded.

"Perhaps."

"No, you can't. You know he's just looking for communication, for actual progress." There was slight accusation to his tone, as though placing the blame upon Near for whatever their was between them not progressing either at all, or fast enough.

Near exhaled with a slight roll of his eyes, "Whatever it is that he's looking for is unfeasible, Mello. You and I haven't gotten along since inception of whatever you want to call our relationship* with one another and it's irrational to believe that just because we're forced to share space immediately means that we'll move to even an amicable state with one another."

Sometimes boundaries needed to be pushed, and sometimes things needed to be said that had been otherwise resting within the air between the two of them, and when placed back within this space, something in Mello brought him back to all of those times he'd shared with Near. Back before Michael, back before he'd spent a year away and everything had been utterly destroyed. Maybe it was the room itself bringing him back, but maybe it was fondness of heart…

"We've been amicable before." He said, quieter, reaching over the food laid out before them for the chilled wine, working to uncork it as he continued, "True things were different then, but it happened, so who's to say…"

He exhaled as he poured himself a glass of the red liquid that was nearly black in the low lighting. "It's been a long time since we've been in this room, you know." He said, his words coming out closer to a whisper, as though the utterance of anything louder would disturb the latent emotions that were left painting the room.

However, Near seemed to pick up on the shift in mood, "Indeed." He said; his own words quiet and somber. "The last time…"

"I know, I know." Neither quite wanted to broach the topic of what had happened, or what sort of implications each of their actions had had upon the other. As if they both wanted to say, but neither wanted to let themselves reveal their own hurt.

"Things have spiraled quite out of control, you know." Near commented with a slight exhale, his gaze moving out to the rest of the room, "Sometimes it seems hard to know how things ever really got to be the way they are now."

"You kept a secret." Mello stated bluntly, "That's how all of this started. If you'd been upfront from the very beginning perhaps none of this would have happened."

Near glared at him, but shook his head, "That's not quite what I mean." He paused, "More so I meant after that… after everything." His words were intended to be vague, intended to be misleading to keep Mello from seeing through to the veil to whatever message it was he was simultaneously trying to portray to him.

Mello sighed, "There's not much we can do now." He looked back to Near, eying him carefully, "You should have some of this." He stated, motioning to the wine he'd opened and begun to sip on.

Near looked from him to the glass then to the bottle, shaking his head, "No, the idea of inebriation is not something I'm too fond of."

"It's not inebriation, it's having a glass of wine with dinner." Mello stated. "Have you even had wine before, or any alcohol?"

"No."

"All the more reason to." He said with a smug grin, lifting the bottle and beginning to pour a bit into the empty glass next to the plate set up before Near. "Having a taste isn't going to kill you, Near." He stated, putting the bottle back down and taking a drink of his own, eying his rival who looked incredulously at the glass.

"What purpose does it serve to know the taste of alcohol?"

Mello shrugged nonchalantly, finishing his own glass, "You'd be surprised, sometimes it helps things." He stated, "It just… makes things easier."

"Looking to alcohol to help someone with their problems is a weak way out which does nothing to actually resolve any of the problems at hand." Near's response felt as though it'd been read straight from a textbook, though at the same time so did many of the things he let slip from between his lips.

"We're not resolving problems, though." God knew they were practically incapable of something like that. "It's just… easing them, so to speak. Besides, what's the worst that can happen? We're both stuck here anyway, and maybe some wine or scotch would help you actually talk to me for once without sounding like you're reading from a book."

Near shrugged, his suspicious look moving from the blonde down to the glass, though his slender fingers did finally reach and take the glass, bringing it up to his lips for a sip; immediately his face scrunched together in seeming confusion. "Strange." He stated.

"The word is: dry. Red wines usually are." He gave a small smile as he watched Near curiously place the glass back on the table for a brief moment before he took it back up and another sip, as though the one had not been enough to satiate his own curiosity for the drink. "Everyone should have at least some sort of experience with liquor in their life." His own smirk grew as Near hesitantly finished the glass that had been poured for him, "So, you don't like red wine. Maybe you'll like something a bit stronger. Let's try the scotch next."

-:-

The bed seemed to drastically dip as Mello came to lay upon the bed in the single bedroom of the apartment, the world slowly spun around him as the effects of the liquor Rester had laid out for he and Near were taking their course. Beside him, Near lay parallel to him on the mattress, his eyes staring straight up at the ceiling, though half-lidded and bearing a hue of slight pink across his cheeks.

Mello's lips rose in satisfaction with himself at having somehow been able to convince Near that it was in his best interest to partake in drinking liquor with him. Though in the back of his swirling mind he wondered if it had really been his own persuasive arguments or if it had been Near's own outreach for wanting to be rid of whatever it was that plagued his mind. The latter thought scared him more than he wanted to admit.

He turned suddenly on his side, ignoring the way the world swiveled and spun around him more intensely, "We should make a baby."

Near looked over to him, his eyes glassed over, and distant in their slight inebriated fog, "A baby? Mello, no, that's completely out of the question at this point."

The blonde smiled, "Is it, though? Michael would be overjoyed, you know, having a brother or sister around to teach and play with. It wouldn't be so bad, and this time we wouldn't be separated for the first four years of their life." The more he thought about it the more the very notion seemed to make sense and the better it sounded. "Besides, I never even got to see what you were like with child." He halfway teased. "Yet another memory we could add to this place, too, you know."

"I'm not going through that again, Mello. You don't understand." There was a finality in Near's voice that silenced Mello's half hearted teasing and left the room quiet once more.

Through the quiet, instead Mello began to focus upon the thoughts that'd been consuming him all night: the very fact that this room, and everything within it, had been the center of so many instances over the past few years and had seen so much. "This room…" He practically mumbled to himself.

"I know." Near said in a mirrored tone.

"Why did you leave?" Mello asked, lying back on his back to stare up at the ceiling for a long moment before looking over to his rival, observing the way the night sky and the lights from the rest of the room illuminated his body just enough for the blonde to be able to see. It was a good representation of how Mello had ever really seen Near and his mind to be.

"Leave?" Near asked, inhaling deeply, "You're speaking of the new apartment? I didn't have a choice, Michael didn't like sleeping on his own on a different floor. Besides, this place… it held too many memories in it. Those which were both good, and bad." The way his words fell from his mouth, the way he spoke them said they were meant to be kept away from Mello and held close to his being, yet the slight inebriation of alcohol running through his veins allowed them to finally breach the surface.

"What were they?" Mello proceeded in a whisper, as though asking such would somehow jolt Near back into his right mindset and once again the lockbox of his mind would be sealed.

"Everything." Near said, reaching for his hair and fumbling with a strand as best he could, "I spent a lot of time in this place, Mello. I spent a lot of nights listening to you talk when you didn't think I could hear you, I spent a lot of time considering whatever it was we were trying to make happen, and whatever it was we were. I've worried a lot, and lost a lot of sleep over you, and cases, and Michael. I spent all of that time with him here… before he was born, considering what to do, what to say." He exhaled, "Those memories are all quite suffocating to me, now, and I often find it quite hard to live with them… with myself."

Mello was silent for a long moment, taking in everything Near said to him in his moment of weakness, or perhaps the moment he'd taken for himself to allow his walls not to completely come down, but to crack just enough to allow Mello a glimpse into what lay beyond them; to all that he'd been keeping from him all this time. Perhaps this was all deliberate, but regardless Mello was at a loss of how to handle it all. What could he say? How could he possibly begin to try and fix all of the things he had allowed to go so wrong in Near's life?

"But did it help?" He instead found himself asking.

"Not as much as I would have liked."

Mello sighed, feeling the weight of the world resting upon his shoulders and his chest, as though now suddenly in this state Near was somehow telling him that not only was Michael's well-being his concern, but so too was Near's. Though it seemed that even with the added weight, it was not crushing or suffocating. It seemed… natural, to him.

He reached over to Near pulling both of them closer together till Mello could wrap his arm around Near's thin waist through the darkness consuming both them, their minds, and the space around them that left them so encapsulated and utterly trapped within a past they couldn't ever seem to escape. Though in it too held a sense of secrecy, as though within this constructed 'date' that Michael had attempted to form for them it had indeed allowed them to communicate and to move through the tension that'd suffocated their actions all month.

In that brief, paused moment where everything on the outside of their shared room seemed so inconsequential, they could allow themselves to merely be without needing labels, or explanations, or expectations.

He moved to place his forehead against Near's, for that one moment allowing their chaotic worlds to spin together in an orbit that finally seemed to make sense, and in that moment it felt as though the blonde was holding not only Near, but all of his fragmented pieces tightly together and in place for the first time in a year; the only thing keeping him from splitting apart. "It's fine." He whispered, letting his own defenses fall for the other, "It'll be fine. I'll make sure everything turns out alright, even if it's not quite perfect."

"Why?"

"Because that's what people do when they're in love." He whispered out his best kept secret as their lips brushed together.


A/N: Well, I apologize for the quality of that chapter as the edit job on it was rough, on my part, at best. But, at least it was a sort of eventful chapter! We've certainly got progress happening! And that last line! I'm not sure if anyone else but me realizes this, but this is the first time in both stories that the word 'love' has been used between these two. There are quite a lot of implications in using that word! There are way too many things I could say about this chapter, but all of it is pretty inconsequential compared to what all of you thought of this! So, please be sure to let me know you're thoughts and opinions! Also, the posting of this chapter marks me having now broken one million words posted on this site! It's taken me ten years, but there's that! … Anyway, please let me know what you think.

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-Forbiddensoul562