Dropped

“Well, we have to talk to L,” says Mello, as though this is the most natural and understandable thing in the whole entire world. As though this is as easy to do as walking down to the library and checking out a book, as inarguable as gravity.



“He probably knows nearly as much as we do,” argues Near. He isn’t sure how, but he, like all of them, tend to look at L with a certain worshipful attitude. Logically he knows there is no such thing as infallibility, but the person he played chess against...



That had just been the once. It had been two in the morning, night of a thunderstorm, and Near was out walking the hallways rather than lying in bed and thinking, eight years old and with his fingers wrapped in his hair. L had heard him walking past his door, and had shot an arm out into the hallway and simply grabbed him by his collar, and dragged him in. The young detective had announced that he was playing chess against himself, but it had come to a stalemate and that he needed Near’s help. When they had nearly reached a stalemate again, L’s wide eyes had grown wider, and he had smiled strangely and said ‘you are either Near or Mello’ and Near had felt a surge of warm, glowing pride and love like nothing he had ever felt before in his life. He’d thought he was going to cry on the chess board, and apparently so had L, because he gave him a strawberry and walked him to bed.



But Near remembered the chess strategy most of all, and it had been unequivocally brilliant, and he would have lost, and probably still would, even four years later.



So. To Near, L must know these things. He only realizes that the assumption is possibly fallacious when Matt shakes his head.



“He isn’t sure how it’s being done. He has a suspect, who he’s keeping a close eye on, but Mello’s right. We need to find a way to tell him.”



Sighurd was on the floor, ignoring this conversation, devouring one of Mello’s chocolate bars. Apparently, it took being a shinigami to get him to share, because he’d certainly never given Matt any.



“The logical answer is to tell Roger,” Near noted. Matt noticed the lingering uncertainty, but Mello didn’t seem to. It seems Mello is trying to think of an objection, which shouldn’t be that surprising, given his typical attitude towards authority figures.



“And now,” Matt stresses. He climbs to his feet, and the other two look at him with surprise.



“It is 1:13 am.” That would be Near, with cutting precision, even though there isn’t actually a clock in sight.



It wasn’t nearly this late when they came in here, but when you meet a shinigami for the first time, you interrogate it, this much was obvious to all of them, “I do not think he would take our words kindly. We have very little in the way of proof.”



“We have the note.” Matt swallows, “And we have her. And L needs... needs help. What if Kira accepts the shinigami eyes? What then?”



He would die. Mello and Near look at each other, and climb to their feet. There is no help for it. Roger will have to be woken.



None of them could possibly have predicted how astonishingly badly it would go. Maybe L could have, but he was a little older and a little wiser. Maybe Near had an inkling, and wanted to ask Mello not to come in, but kept silent. Maybe they should have waited until proper morning. But even when they try again the next morning, they’re dismissed.



See, because it’s impossible, and they should confine their research to the rational, and Mello and Matt have always been trouble makers and Near is susceptible to peer pressure (they all realize when he says this, that Roger is sort of a fucking twerp) because of his socially ostracized situation, and no he doesn’t want to see their notebook and if they don’t get out of his office they’ll all be severely disciplined.



“You would think,” snarls Mello, in the hallway later, “that having been fucking told that the shinigami had come up more than once, he would be at least slightly inclined to listen.” Matt looks out the window, and Near doesn’t miss this. Mello, caught up in his anger, most certainly does.



“Well, then there’s nothing to be done but to leave.”



They look at Near, whose fists are clenched at his sides. He looks determined and terrified. Matt doesn’t think he’s ever even seen Near in the yard.



But they’re geniuses. And he’s right. So they don’t waste their breath, or any time, arguing.



“Midnight, at the front gates, pack lightly,” whispers Mello dramatically, and Matt cuffs him across the back of the head, and corrects him.



“Except where we’re leaving a eight pm, because it’s a forty five minute walk to the nearest bus route, and the last bus for downtown leaves at nine. And Mello?” A glare. “If you forget the fucking note I’ll kill you. Near?”



Wide eyed blink.



“Don’t bring more than one toy, and try to think small, okay?”



Near frowns at him reproachfully. Even though he was probably right.



“Don’t be late.”