Darkness and silence bring the fear in your eyes tonight

[onamissle]

[Cold winter coming down around him; Mello remembers this chill from a childhood in Winchester. Freezing droplets of water — but all of the discomfort falls to the wayside with the knowledge that L is not all right.]

[It's different when Mello is the cause, but this situation brings an anxiety that trembles deep into his nerves, his bones, and he needs to assuage it as soon as possible.]

[So he finds L, golden — non-existent thing that he is. It's no wonder to his protege that someone would choose to make him a King, of all things.]

{The chill creeps up his skin and spine and neck and cheeks as he walks toward the other, no intention at play. This is triage, he tells himself. Nothing more.]

[Clothed in thick, black leather and fur, a cashmere scarf wrapped half-way around his face: Mello might appear intimidating to the average person, but this is L.]

What's going on?

[Half-muffled behind the scarf, and he thinks that L looks like absolute shit. High as he remembers Matt in their NYC studio, melting into the couch with his eyes half closed and dazed, words nearly beyond him. Nearly in another world: unreadable]

[Despite the ever-living tense atmosphere between them, Mello holds his ground, his posture confident and sure. Pale eyes are concerned, narrowed, his spine tense.]

[Whatever their constant strife, this is a man that Mello would kill for.]

Comments

[hearthebell]

[Through the muddled, stolen connection that allows emotions to pierce tandem comprehension, Mello might notice that the dense shroud seems to shift around L's dulled manner and senses. There's a reaction, even if it's distant and delayed, unease crescendoing to alarm, and then flatlining to dread.

Because Mello shouldn't be here. He pulls against the magic restraining him with his bracelets and chains, and Mello might glimpse a white chalk outline at his back. The effort is short-lived before he sinks back in exhaustion, but it seems to bring some flushed color to his cheeks, and clarity for the moment at least.]

I can't, Mello. As much as you might not want to hear it.

[His eyes stray, as they often have in this stifled darkness with only a dimly lit basin of water to illuminate it, towards Light Yagami's maybe-corpse. It's difficult to parse his expression, but only because Mello wasn't there to see the same one when he disappeared, himself.]

I'm bound to stay here. If you're lucky, you can still get out.

[onamissle]

[Any reaction from L is something — water from a stone — and Mello latches on to it like his last gulp of air, pulls at it with something he's never known existed within him. Whatever is going on here, it's almost beyond his limitations but — ]

[The firebomb who took off when he was just a kid in order to defeat the World's Greatest Villain has never known any limits, has he? And he knows L; knows him more than he should due to the bond that should have never been formed.]

[It is what it is, now.]

[Body so hot and tense that it's on the verge of snapping and crumbling into cinders, he somehow holds it together and focuses on the only thing that matters. A sharp breath, two, and he's seeking to hold on to L's eyes. (Fight with me, fight with me) and Mello knows, has always known — ]

You want to die, [And it's an accusation.] Always wanted to.

[Gripping harder and harder; everything hurts the both of them, doesn't it?]

Not happening.

[hearthebell]

[L's eyes lock onto Mello's, cool grey and light blue. There's something uncommonly wild and strange about the former, strained and pained.

He pulls back against the damp stone wall. Mello is hurting him, but it's grounding.]

I want to live a life with purpose. A life where I'm needed...

[A life that was accounted for, when he was still young and his replacements were being chosen. His dark eyes are still a child's in so many ways.]

You're me. With Near. I'm superfluous, in the world you knew.

[Whatever you may think, and the man is wide-eyed and devastated, just quietly.]