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Near’s control room is dim. Darker than it was before. It takes Mello a moment to realize that it’s because the monitors are off— the only light is from the overhead fluorescents. It’s an ugly glow.
Near himself is crouched on the floor, like he was earlier, except he’s facing Mello this time. He knows better than to turn his back when they’re alone.
“Mello,” he says in that maddening tone, flat as fuck yet somehow taunting, the slightest lilt shining through. “Welcome back.”
“Near,” Mello returns. It sounds less hostile in the air than it feels on his tongue.
The space around them goes silent for a few beats, then. Neither of them move, blink. Mello loses his patience first. He always does.
“So?” He shifts his weight from one foot to the other. Brushes his wrist against the handle of his gun, just to remind himself that it’s there. “What the hell do you want?”
Near smirks. “Who said I wanted anything but your company?” He twirls a strand of hair around his finger. The gesture is so familiar that it makes Mello’s chest ache. “Perhaps I wished to spend time with an old friend. It’s been a long while, hasn’t it?”
Mello scoffs. “Oh, is that what we are?”
A tilt of Near’s head. His smile skews, bafflingly, a bit more genuine. Bizarre little bastard.
“Isn’t it?”
At the gentleness in his voice, Mello stiffens. Touches his gun again, this time with the tips of his fingers.
“No,” he spits, “it isn’t.”
The metal of the Beretta is only cool on one side. The warmth of his skin has seeped through the face that's pressed against his lower abdomen. Even through the thin leather of his gloves, Mello can tell the difference.
It isn’t a surprise. It’s fucking basic physics, thermal conduction. It puts him on edge, though, to be reminded— even steel will warm if it touches flesh for long enough.
Once, he thought Near to have a heart of steel, or of stone. He’s known better since the day he left Wammy’s. He can still feel where Near’s arms wrapped around his waist if he thinks hard.
Usually he avoids thinking of it at all.
“What, then?”
Near’s voice pulls him back to the present. It feels wrong. Near was meant to be a thing of the past.
“Nothing,” Mello says. It comes out uneven. He clears his throat. “We’re nothing.”
Without warning, Near gets to his feet, unfolding himself and rising to his full height. He’s barely grown at all, Mello notices. Two or three centimeters, maybe.
He looks unsteady, too. It makes Mello want to step forward and offer a hand. Makes him want to betray himself.
Then Near smirks again, a glimmer in his eye, and Mello’s compassion is replaced with clean, easy anger.
“What happened to you?” Near asks, a false air of graveness to him. “You used to be such a good liar.”
Mello tackles him.
It happens without him thinking about it, without him meaning to do it. Old habits do die hard. One moment, Near is a meter away, swaying on his feet, small and serious and fucking infuriating, and the next he’s under Mello on the floor. The faint look of shock in his eyes brings forth an old rush of satisfaction, a forgotten feeling of triumph. Surprising Near isn’t the same as outsmarting him, but it’s as close as Mello ever gets.
“You arrogant little shit,” he hisses. “You really think you can just keep fucking with me for fun? Are you that stupid?”
Near tries to push him away, clumsily clawing at Mello’s shoulders. “Intelligence-related insults from the— the one resorting to physical violence, that’s—”
Mello catches his wrists. Pins both Near’s hands to the cold linoleum with one of his own. The layers of leather and cotton between them are his saving grace. Insulation. Near glares poisonously, lips turning down at the corners, and the rage is new but the pout is not. The nostalgia hits Mello all at once.
Five years gone, over a dozen men dead by his hand. Dozens more dead by his thumb on the button of a detonator. The world in his palm, and then gone. So much has happened. So much has changed.
And yet— not five minutes alone with Near, and suddenly he’s fourteen years old again, livid over a perceived slight. A provocation that might or might not have been. Grappling with Near on the floor of the library over it, because he doesn’t know how else to get an ounce of control. Over Near, over anything at all.
“Get off of me,” Near grits out, kicking his legs.
“No.” Mello leans on him harder. “Tell me why you called me.”
More futile kicking. A little squirming, too. Then, begrudgingly, stillness, save for labored breath.
“I missed you.” Near’s delivery is flat, like always, but it sounds like it hurts him to say. Maybe it does.
“Bullshit,” Mello says, though some small part of him knows it’s got to be true.
Near’s brows pinch together. His dark eyes glimmer with frustration, but they’re softer than before. Thawed-out. “I am being sincere. You were my first friend.”
Mello scowls. When Near first arrived at Wammy’s, he followed Mello around like a lost puppy. Until they were placed at the same class level, and Near became the new golden child, Mello allowed it. Even then, though, he wasn’t that nice to him. He wasn’t ever Near’s friend.
“You were,” Near insists, evidently reading the doubt on his face. “My— my only friend. Still.”
A painful fondness twists inside of Mello. He feels a little sick. “Shut up.”
“Your photo,” Near says suddenly. “What did you do with it?”
The square of paper is burning a hole in his pocket. He intended to burn the fucking thing itself, but oddly found he couldn’t bring the paper to flame.
Dear Mello. The words have been haunting him all damn day. Making his scar sting. Making his head buzz.
“I set it on fire,” he lies, badly and belatedly. “It’s ash.”
If Near catches the deceit— and Mello bets he does— he doesn’t bother calling him out. “I see.” A pause. “You’re cutting off my circulation. If you release me, I— I won’t try to retaliate. I didn’t call you here so we could fight.”
Mello huffs, half-scoff and half-laugh. He lets go of Near’s wrists, though. Watches the younger boy rub his hands over each, the blood-flow returning. His skin had been warm through the gloves, at the start.
“Why did you keep it?” Mello blurts. He wants to ask why did you write that? too, but the keeping itself is even stranger. Near could’ve burnt it, and saved himself a lot of trouble. “What, were you— did you wanna use it to bargain with?”
“No,” Near says, meeting his eyes again. His right hand wanders to his hair. “I just wanted it to be safe.”
“You could’ve destroyed it,” Mello points out. “You didn’t have to hold onto it.”
“Ah.” He hesitates. “It was not mine to dispose of. I didn’t want to make that decision on your behalf.”
Throat raw, Mello nods numbly. He thinks, again, of Near with his photo. Five years he looked after it. Did he have it up his sleeve even while he slept?
“The people in the room today are the only ones who have seen it,” Near adds. “I trust them with my life.”
He does not say I trust them with yours. Maybe Near doesn’t consider that his trust to lend, either.
Silence thickens the air. Mello’s tongue is leaden in his mouth. It occurs to him that their position— his body halfway on top of Near’s, their faces close, their breath mingling— feels pretty fucking intimate, absent aggression. He shifts, thinking of rolling off or standing up.
“Mello,” Near says softly. Hoarsely.
Two syllables Mello has heard a million times, but somehow— somehow this feels like the first. There is wordless meaning hidden in Near’s voice, in his face. Mello abruptly feels unstable. Like Near could touch him, and he’d melt.
His hands are on either side of Near’s head, black gloves blending with the floor. He really should move away, but he finds himself held in place by some invisible force. Gravity, or electromagnetism.
Near’s hair is askew, some strands of it stark against the linoleum, others wound around his right index finger. He releases them and slowly moves his hand towards Mello’s.
His knuckles brush Mello’s bare arm. Mello’s eyes snap to the place where his skin meets Near’s, and the air leaves his lungs in a great rush. It feels ridiculously, stupidly illicit. More intimate than any sex he’s ever had, somehow.
He is so focused on that one point of contact that he fails to notice Near’s other hand reaching toward him.
Near touches his neck. Mello gasps, filling his lungs again. His eyes meet Near’s. It’s a mistake. He feels himself right there on the precipice of something dangerous. Teetering on the edge, unable to walk back to safety.
“Mello.” Near curls his warm fingers around the back of Mello’s neck, tender. “Come home. Stay here.”
Warmth spreads from the points of contact across Mello’s whole being. It hurts. Aches like nothing ever has before. He collapses, wordless, blanketing Near’s body with his own. Pushes his face into the crook of Near’s neck and breathes in, trembling. Thrilled and frightened, he winds his arms underneath Near. Around him. He holds him close.
A moment later, Near returns the embrace. He’s stronger than he looks. Squeezes Mello tight.
Mello chokes on emotion, then swallows.
He thaws.