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Light Yagami is slipping.
Near supposes endless solitude does that to a man. It's not as if he wants for anything, not at all—in stark contrast to the prisoners Light habitually used as bait, his cell is less iron bars and more extended vacation. Sometimes (often), Near watches him, wandering through his miniature library like a ghost, aimless and exhausted. He picks at the spine of each book one by one, listless, occasionally picking it up only to put it straight back. In the beginning he read voraciously. He'd still been recovering from his gunshot wounds back then, and he had no other way to cope with his newfound existence than read.
Time has eroded him. He's become boring.
Still, Near watches.
The SPK—now only known as L's subordinates—had called him crazy when he ordered for the basement of their headquarters to be turned into an apartment of sorts. Light was comatose and Near was the only one to sit at his bedside because his feet were starting to ache. Halle and Rester were at the door as if ready to bolt with Stephen standing guard outside. Near remembers the drip of the IV coinciding perfectly with the ticking clock hanging proudly above Light's head like a bad omen.
Crazy, they said. In my best interest, he replied. He'd already made his promise; he was going to lock the man up until the day he died. Unfortunately, he wasn't a sadist. Besides, which is worse: the illusion of free will, or the basic respect of knowing your station?
Light has three meals cooked and delivered to his doorstep every day. He also has a pantry, kitchen utensils, a bathroom, a private gym—the only thing Near couldn't in good conscience give him was a TV. Letting him watch the news, especially in those first few months, would have been detrimental. Near knows this man. He knows him and he wishes he didn't, in all honesty, but you can't change the past any more than you can flatten Kira's ego.
So. There's a walking corpse in Near's basement. Let's start there.
Perhaps the biggest point of contention here is that Near comes to visit. Only sometimes, only when he's free. The pretense of his soft white underbelly is just that, a pretense, because Light knows full well about the cameras hidden in every crevice of his little hell, recording each of his movements from all angles 24/7. He has weapons, and plenty of them (smother Near with a pillow, stab him to death, just strangle him if it comes down to it) and he itches for the shot much like his hand itches for a pen. The frustration on his face is delicious and they both know his uncuffed wrists are nothing but a joke. One wrong move, one poke to Near's shoulder, and he dies where he stands.
They play chess.
Near moves his rook and tells him, you're losing weight. I gave you those dumbbells for a reason. Light scoffs and says, who have I got to impress? You?
Precisely.
At first Light had been skittish, like a mauled animal unsure if it's allowed to recover. That skittishness soon turned into rage and that rage had him clawing at the walls and ripping up bed sheets, creating a mess unlike which Near had ever seen. Amusing. Nobody came to clean it up, and Near delighted himself in watching Light sullenly clearing scraps from the floor and going so far as to vacuum for good measure. Grinning to himself, and feeling the weight of Stephen's judgemental stare on his back, Near pressed the mic button and told him, "You missed a spot."
Such outbursts have been few and far between lately. In the plainest of truths Light has become little more than a docile pet, spending his days eating, shitting, and staring at the ceiling. Nothing excites him. Nothing piques his interest. Near watches, takes note, rearranges a few things in his sleep to see if he'll notice and he always does. But he never pays it much mind, rolling his eyes before turning over and closing them. Only one thing seems to rouse him, and it's three knocks on his wooden door followed by the movement of five separate locks.
Light sits up on the leather couch and stretches like a lazy cat. "Nate," he acknowledges, the last living person to do so—Near is eerily reminded of a housewife greeting her husband, only to wave the thought away. As far as wives go, Light is a pretty lousy one.
A board is tucked into the crook of his underarm.
"Shall we?"
Sometimes they talk. Sometimes they don't. Usually, the games go on for hours, only stopping when Near deems it necessary or when Light is seconds away from falling headfirst into the squares. He's more crass than he used to be, Near has noticed. He tells him this—tells him he's lost his charm.
"Don't have anyone to practice on anymore," Light sniffs, fixing his posture. "Except you, but that's a Sisyphean task. You never had any charm to begin with. Nothing to bounce off."
Near inclines his head, pale strands of hair falling past his shoulder. "Ah. It seems I've won again."
There's something missing here, and they both feel it hard. Light will openly taunt him, finding new ways to mock anything from his hair to his clothes to him being a cheap not-L, and Near will take it. Maybe offer a few barbs of his own. But their hearts aren't in it, not like they used to be. It's the routine of things; Near comes to forget about everything for a while and Light humours him for the sake of mental stimulation. He's a social creature, and it works out well for them both.
Something is missing. Near feels it in the woven fabric of his pyjamas and how his heart bleeds blue. He feels it in Light's bloodshot eyes, and the photo of Mello he keeps in his breast pocket. It's in the way L forms on people's tongues, said with undeserved reverance or spite. There is a fog over him. The other kids were never afraid to call him a robot, back at the House. They said he was alien, some kind of machine come to life. This is the first time he really feels it.
One day, he brings a gun to a knife fight.
"This isn't a toy," he throws the pistol into Light's lap, who is currently sitting with his legs crossed on the floor, saucer-eyed, "And it's loaded."
Light looks up at him, ghost-white. "What the hell are you doing?"
"The cameras are still on," Near ignores him, making himself comfortable on the carpet, "But I can disable them if you wish. Well, go on. Show me what you can do."
Light has never killed with his hands. That, Near is sure of, and his perception is only solidified by the way his lips move incandescently as if reciting a prayer. No sound comes out for a good five seconds but he picks up the gun regardless and turns it over in his hands, half-disgusted half-reverent, knuckles flexing on the holster.
Near watches, pretending his mouth isn't dry. The cameras are on, yes. Halle is upstairs and can see everything, yes. The only reason she hasn't marched down here is that Near preemptively told her not to, and L's word is law. He wonders what Light will do, wonders if he views every kill equally, whether it's page or bullet.
He thinks of the warehouse. He thinks of Matt.
Light's hands tremble. "You must really want to die," he croaks.
"I want you to show me," he repeats, "What you can do."
A stillness settles over them. Light is just breathing, Near may have stopped several minutes ago. Does it matter? The longer he puts this off the more annoying it becomes. Just shoot. It can't be that hard. Point, aim, shoot. Mello did it—in fact, Mello did much, much worse, and he seemed fine with that.
"You have ended over one hundred thousand lives," Near's voice grows severe. "What's one more?"
He leans forward. "What's my life?"
Light laughs. It's a real, genuine, honest-to-God laugh, starting at the stomach and settling in the base of his lungs. Near hasn't heard him laugh like that since claiming false victory at the warehouse, and he clenches.
"I knew it," Light breathes. "I knew it—you hate this. You hate your life. You didn't want any of this, did you? And now you're coming to me for help, for a way out."
A pleasant, tingling sensation begins to manifest in the tips of Near's fingers. He sits as he always does, with just one knee drawn to his chest. Light sees the way his toes curl into the floor, socks dirty, and starts crawling towards him. The predator has recovered and the gun is still in his hand.
"You're not L," Light hisses, and then he's gripping Near's throat, pushing, pushing. "I've said it before and I'll say it again. You'll never be him and you know it. You hate it, don't you? Hate me for beating him and pushing you into this. Does it hurt?"
Near chokes out the last dreg of air left in his lungs and the grip only grows tighter.
"You little shit," the murderer spits, pointing the gun to Near's temple. He still hasn't disabled the cameras; Halle must be on her way. But that's fine. She won't get here in time.
Light's breath is hot against his ear. "I don't even know how old I am anymore."
"You're twenty-nine," Near grunts, teeth bared. "Going on thirty."
For a small and sacred moment Light's hand goes slack and it's in the quarter-second after this, the one where Nate gasps in a fistful of air, that the door bursts open to reveal each of L's left hand men pointing their own guns at Light and screaming for him to freeze. Tragic, really, how this intrusion startles them both, causing Light's finger—already on the trigger, naturally—to jolt forward.
A crack vibrates through the air. The clock stops.
When Near opens his eyes all he can see is the wide, knowing grin on Light's face. He can't hear anything, his ears are ringing too loudly, but he can make out the words on his lips.
"A blank," he's saying, "Of course it was a fucking blank."
Near lies there like a dead fish while Light is hauled off him, cuffs already being administered.
"Leave it," he murmurs, marvelling at how Halle's protests may have been made underwater, they're that unintelligible.
"I said, leave it. He knew."