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In all Near's artistic replications, Mello has had the same hairstyle.
The strands of gold formed perfect straight lines that Near couldn't ever hope to achieve. Mello was a perfectionist with an ego, and his grooming habits reflected the same razorblade precision that he lived by. It was always so difficult to capture with sculpted plastics or clay. Linda had tried to draw and paint Mello when they were kids and despaired when Near would notice its imperfect rendering. Depictions formed only the most basic of models for the way that Mello seemed to carry the very essence of sunlight ringed around his face.
Just when he had begun to approach a semblance of accuracy, of course, things began to change. It was bothersome, to live in a changing world, where the people aren't static like the figures he uses to represent them. It was also what makes it endlessly fascinating. Mello’s face was painted by a scar, now, his hair uneven and only partially restored with the help of keratin treatments and the careful snip of drugstore hair scissors. It fell in slightly jagged layers, parted lower across his face. Light refracted along cracked glass, or across the facets of a gem. More chaotic, perhaps, but no less sharp.
Since he'd come in the first time in years, staring Near in the face with his only remaining good eye from beyond his altered hair, Near has longed to touch it.
His own hair, of course, is soft, but chaotic. Flyaway curls frizz into puffs and are tugged back into clumps under Near’s fingers. It's texture luckily doesn't get oily easily, but under his distracted neglect it knots and tangles. It dosen’t flow like molten gold under his fingers. Near used to ask his staff to provide him with sections of silk, to fill the vivid craving for the sensation, he dutifully frayed the edges into a satisfying mess of perfectly soft strands.
“Near.” As always, it is Mello who brings him out of his own head, into the present. They've just finished debriefing each other on the current case, and Mello has yet to commandeer their hotel bathroom, to apply that stubborn and diligent attention to his appearance. There's an untouched bed for the both of them, which Mello has ignored for the provided desk, and Near the carpet. Mello has stepped forward carefully among the Lego structures that crop up during Near's workday, to be closer in his space. It's an almost painful amount of closeness.
“Hey, listen to me when I'm talking.” The words imply impatience, but his face is soft, and it feels almost like a joke that Near is meant to be in on. He fixes his eyes on Mello’s remaining intact eyebrow; the other split by the reaching edge of his scars. “Are you planning to let your hair grow out?”
Near's hair is longer than Mello's now, reaching just at the center of his sternum in S-shaped white bristles. “I haven't given it any thought.”
“Are you planning to even take any care of it?”
“I wash my hair.” Near doesn’t need a specialized machine or person to wash him– a bath with a few toys in it will suffice. His staff routinely provides him with such a setup.
“... and that doesn’t answer my question. You've got a million split ends.”
The layers of Mello’s hair reach down to him with the older man standing over him like this. It would be so easy to reach out. “I don't particularly care about my hair.”
Mello snorts a laugh and dopamine sparks across the transmitters and receptors in Near's brain with a jumble of more complicated endorphins. Mello’s smile registers an achievement among the taxonomy of sensory events in his mind, even if the object of his mockery is Near himself. Perhaps especially if it's a smile for Near. “That’s obvious.”
A moment passes and they stare at each other. And then– “Come here.”
That's how he's ended up here, reaching up a wet hand that the strands of Mello's hair stick to. It probably feels like he's pulling, but for once Mello isn't complaining.
Near can't complain either, even as the smell of the conditioner is strong in his own hair, even as Mello presses too hard and scratches at his scalp. The way it slightly hurts clears his mind like a peice being slotted into the puzzle, jostles free the tension grinding between the gears of his thoughts. Near has been bathed before, mostly by attendants at Wammy's when he was younger.
The care that Mello is applying to him is different.
His fingers yank through the soapy mass like it’s a riddle worth solving, rather than a chore on the way to a more important task. It’s rough, yes, but Near is being handled like he’s worth loving.
“Let me cut it just a bit,” Mello asks, “Just to clear the damaged part. Then you can see if you want to grow it out.”
Near would let Mello do anything if it meant touching him. Near thinks about Mello’s finger’s on his neck, thinks about the careful slice of scissors in Mello’s hands. The impossible precision that he’s worked so hard to create. There were better kinds of change.
“I would like that.”