DN -- Certainty
Title: Certainty
Collection: The Margins
Fandom: Death Note
Characters: Near, Mello
Rating: G
Word Count: 424
Warnings: none
Summary: But then, he always has understood things.
Author's Note: Near Near Neary Near. Oh noes, a name spoiler!
CERTAINTY
Nate River is surprisingly perceptive for a boy who never ventures outside alone.
Maybe it’s the books he tears through-figuratively, of course-on the rare occasions that the toys are put away. Maybe it’s the glimpses of network television between stints of news coverage. Or maybe it’s just that human emotions are patterned and predictable enough that a runt of a white-haired genius (mad scientist hair? He’s always wondered) can apply his systematic brilliance to the ostensibly inexplicable problem of the human heart.
Whatever the case, he understands Mello, very likely better than Mello understands himself. He thinks this is because Mello exists in extremes, and extremes are measureable. He can track their trajectories. He can gauge the way that passion oscillates on the spectrums that span love and hatred or glee and rage, and he can do it with precision.
He doubts that Mello understands that.
He thinks about Mello a lot in his spare time, and he thinks about the way they will not look at each other-no, on second thought, they will. But just for a moment. Just for a taste.
He’s prepared when that moment creeps close (creeps near?) and, wordless, he watches the train shudder along the track. He doesn’t turn until it is almost too late, until the moment has duly and definitively arrived. The live feeds from the countless cameras could tell him when, but he doesn’t need them.
He extends the photograph, and before Mello snatches it and swivels on his overstated heel, their eyes meet-just for a moment. Just for a taste.
A moment is enough for a genius, of course, to confirm each and every one of his diverse and sundry suppositions. Nate River’s hypotheses are rarely wrong.
The one thing Mello has always sought for without knowing, always reached for without seeing, always ached for without feeling, is someone with no regard for his wits and his worth, someone who doesn’t mind the sliver of midriff between pools of leather, someone who couldn’t care less about the carnage that has claimed his face.
Near doesn’t know if he is that someone. (The uncertainty is strange.)
But he knows that the Dear Mello he traced out on the back of the old snapshot is necessary in a way that Mello probably won’t even fully comprehend.
He returns his attention to the locomotive puttering over plastic rails, humming a little to himself.
For Mello is dear to him. Near, you might say, to his heart.
And of that he is quite certain.
Collection: The Margins
Fandom: Death Note
Characters: Near, Mello
Rating: G
Word Count: 424
Warnings: none
Summary: But then, he always has understood things.
Author's Note: Near Near Neary Near. Oh noes, a name spoiler!
CERTAINTY
Nate River is surprisingly perceptive for a boy who never ventures outside alone.
Maybe it’s the books he tears through-figuratively, of course-on the rare occasions that the toys are put away. Maybe it’s the glimpses of network television between stints of news coverage. Or maybe it’s just that human emotions are patterned and predictable enough that a runt of a white-haired genius (mad scientist hair? He’s always wondered) can apply his systematic brilliance to the ostensibly inexplicable problem of the human heart.
Whatever the case, he understands Mello, very likely better than Mello understands himself. He thinks this is because Mello exists in extremes, and extremes are measureable. He can track their trajectories. He can gauge the way that passion oscillates on the spectrums that span love and hatred or glee and rage, and he can do it with precision.
He doubts that Mello understands that.
He thinks about Mello a lot in his spare time, and he thinks about the way they will not look at each other-no, on second thought, they will. But just for a moment. Just for a taste.
He’s prepared when that moment creeps close (creeps near?) and, wordless, he watches the train shudder along the track. He doesn’t turn until it is almost too late, until the moment has duly and definitively arrived. The live feeds from the countless cameras could tell him when, but he doesn’t need them.
He extends the photograph, and before Mello snatches it and swivels on his overstated heel, their eyes meet-just for a moment. Just for a taste.
A moment is enough for a genius, of course, to confirm each and every one of his diverse and sundry suppositions. Nate River’s hypotheses are rarely wrong.
The one thing Mello has always sought for without knowing, always reached for without seeing, always ached for without feeling, is someone with no regard for his wits and his worth, someone who doesn’t mind the sliver of midriff between pools of leather, someone who couldn’t care less about the carnage that has claimed his face.
Near doesn’t know if he is that someone. (The uncertainty is strange.)
But he knows that the Dear Mello he traced out on the back of the old snapshot is necessary in a way that Mello probably won’t even fully comprehend.
He returns his attention to the locomotive puttering over plastic rails, humming a little to himself.
For Mello is dear to him. Near, you might say, to his heart.
And of that he is quite certain.