Death Note Oneshot - Tumblr Posts

A DUTY OF CARE.

pairing: nate river/near & gn reader.

word count: 2k

content: talk about marriage, major spoilers for all of death note, food mention, domesticity, hurt/comfort kind of, reader is from wammy's house.

note: my part in @cyancherub BFTD collab!! this was such a blast to write n i'm really happy to be a part of it!! go check it out, heed the tags, etc <3

“I think…” Near ventures one unremarkable afternoon in midwinter, pausing in the middle of a thousand-piece puzzle, “we should get married.”

Your hands pause over the tea kettle. “Um. Near?” you say cautiously, wondering if he’s finally lost his damn mind. “We’re... not together?”

He looks at you; he looks entirely unruffled, considering what he’s just said. Anybody else would be flushed, or avoiding your eye, or fidgeting, but not Near. There’s not a hair out of place. Well, there is, but that’s more in a literal sense, and your fault besides. You’d meant to cut it last weekend, it was creeping past his shoulder blades again.

“Yes we are,” he rebukes quietly, puzzle piece held aloft. “We’re always together. You all but live here now.”

“Yeah, but that’s…” You pinch the bridge of your nose briefly. “It’s different. We’re not, y’know, in love.”

Privately, you used to wonder if Near could even feel things like love. Now - now that you’re older, you realise how stupid that line of inquiry ever was. Near loves. He loves quietly and subtly, and with no thanks to Wammy’s house which squashed every emotion together into ‘bad distracting wrong’ until he couldn’t tell what from what. There’s a helplessness to it, the way he looks to you most of the time to tip him off on what emotion he should be feeling. It’s a mark of the Wammy’s kids you just barely managed to avoid. That inclination towards dispassion. Monotony as comfort.

So yes, Near loves. And after all these years - the meeting, the departure, the loss, and everything after that and everything in between - you’ve come to realise that you’re included in this little exclusive circle, too. It’s gotten pretty quiet these days, though, with the loss of Watari and L, Mello and Matt. It’s really only you and Giavanni and the SPK that recline beneath Near’s watchful eye. And it’s there if you really look for it - in the way his fingers curl briefly in your clothing when you have to leave. In the words that almost leave his lips, the quick glance of silver when his eyes flick to yours. It’s that haunting loneliness, the one you’ve come to recognise in the own lines of your face when you catch it in the mirror.

Near loves you, and he’s loved in return. But it’s not… well, it’s never been…

He tilts his head, mulling this over. “Does that matter?” he asks softly. “Many people get married for other reasons. Money, or power, or appearances.”

“Well, I want to get married to someone I love,” you shrug. “I think.”

“You’ll wait until you retire if you do that,” Near says matter-of-factly, going back to his puzzle. His moon-white hair swings past his ears, obscuring his face from your face, casting his soft features into shadow. “You won’t drag anybody you love into this life.”

You blink. “How - how did you know that?”

“You told the man in the blue tie about it,” he says mildly. “What’s his name? I’ve forgotten.”

“It’s Rin. Were you spying on me?”

He doesn’t meet your gaze; that childish avoidance returns in the subtle hunch of his shoulders, the way his fingers twirl a puzzle piece idly. “I told you I wanted to keep a closer eye on you. Do you think you’ll marry Rin?”

“God, Near…” You heave a deep sigh, rubbing your temple tiredly. “He asked me out for coffee. It’s hardly a proposal. I’m not getting flooded with those, don’t you worry.”

“Not flooded,” he agrees. “You’ve only had one, and you’ve yet to give it an answer."

The kettle clicks. You turn your back, trying to ignore the flutter of your pulse as you pour the two of you drinks. Green tea and honey for yourself, black for Near. He stopped taking sugar when Mello died. Monotony as comfort.

You set the mug on the floor before him, to which he mutters a quiet word of thanks and lifts it to his mouth. His pale, lithe fingers peek out of the gaping sleeves of his shirt, smooth and unshaking. You’ve always envied the reign Near has on his emotions, but sometimes you suspect he envies the manner in which you have no reign on yours at all. They spill out of you like someone’s turned on a faucet, whether you want them to or not. He’ll never have known the freedom of that. He’s been prodded and shaped into filling L’s shoes, no matter what it did to his mind or his soul. It makes you feel desperately sorry for him, but you’d never admit it to him. He’d think you were patronising him. He’s childish like that.

Your tea is too hot to drink, so you set it aside. Near avoids your eye.

“Let me brush your hair,” you offer.

“... It’s alright as it is,” he shifts.

You roll your eyes. “No, it isn’t. Besides, you won’t have another break for days, knowing you. Where’s the brush?”

He scowls, just barely. “Where it always is.”

You smile and get to your feet, heading for the chest of drawers by the television. And, okay, maybe there is a strange sense of domesticity here, with the two of you cross-legged on the tatami mats, sipping tea from mismatched mugs from your own cupboard, a hairbrush having ‘a place where it always is.’ It’s like that brief period in your life where you lived with a roommate, a year or so after you left Wammy’s. It’s certainly nothing like anything you had at that school.

It’s nice. Especially with Near.

Your fingers dance down his parting, separating his hair into halves, and you’re not remiss to the slight shudder that passes through his narrow shoulders at the contact. You work on the bigger knots first, easing them apart with your fingers, and tut. “You shouldn’t let your hair get this long if you’re not gonna take care of it.”

“That’s your job. You’re the caretaker.”

“Caretaker?” you laugh, digging the brush into his scalp. He winces in response, a petulant whine leaving him. “You couldn’t pay me enough to be your caretaker. You’re hopeless. I’m just an idiot with nowhere else to go.”

There’s a brief pause. And then Near speaks again, quieter this time, with a wavering hesitance that makes you think he’s measuring his words. “I’m glad you have nowhere else to go,” he confesses. “I like having you here.”

Your throat sticks. “With you?”

“Where I know you’re safe.”

The brush pauses halfway down his neck, and phantom pain throbs through you. It’s never easy, being reminded how deeply Near feels these things, because it always makes you feel like you don’t do enough for him. But he shies from contact, and words of affirmation seem to do little for him. Maybe just having you here is enough for him. Affection seeps through your chest, sticky and sweet as syrup. Unable to help yourself, you lean your head into the back of his, breathing against the soft, pale locks of hair. He tenses in response, a breath getting caught in his throat, but it’s surely a mark of how much he cares for you that he doesn’t push you off. He simply sits there, stoic, allowing you to get a reign on your feelings.

The two of you exchange pain in this familiar little dance. It's the way it's always been. The day after Matt and Mello left Wammy's, he'd waited until you sat down on the floor beside him and slumped right into your lap. It was the first time he'd ever voluntarily touched you.

And when you were sickly and flushed and riddled with fever, Near had crept into your room, a silent white shadow. He pressed one of his favourite dice into your hands, and it was deliciously cold against your heated palms. He'd sat there for the rest of the night, eyes pale and unblinking, tugging nervously as his shirt, like he was waiting for you to die.

After a minute, you clear your throat and you peel backwards. You resume the monotonous brushing of his hair, sweeping it over his shoulders for easier access. It really is getting long. You’ll have to cut it soon. God, you're actually starting to sound like his caretaker.

Well. Caretakers have a duty of care, don’t they? Your fingers toy with a strand of pale hair, considering. It’s not really that far off.

“Why d’you want to marry me?” you ask, which you feel is a reasonable question. Near shifts.

You half expect him not to answer. For a good minute, he doesn’t; the silence presses in, not uncomfortable, as you work your way slowly through his hair. It’s soft to the touch, because you make sure he washes it semi-regularly, and it smells like standard drugstore soap. All of him smells like this - clean, pressed, all fresh linen and scented laundry detergent and unlabelled soap. At least it’s clean, you reason to yourself. Mello smelled like the acrid curlings of cigarettes and leather and cologne, and Matt was worse. Near is clean in the same way that L was.

Finally, he pries opens his mouth to answer. “I… did all I could to keep everybody alive,” he begins slowly. “Matt and Mello died. L and Watari. Even Kira in the end. I thought if I tried something different to keep you close, it might have a different ending. Is it… really that unreasonable?”

You swallow hard, because, okay, that was maybe the most painful thing he’s ever said. You set the brush down and manoeuvre around him, taking a hold of his hands. He runs freezing cold, always, terrible circulation even from when he was a kid. In the winter, you used to sneak down to the kitchens and fill hot water bottles for him, press them between his sheets. He'd curl into them with shaking, numb fingers, coin-round eyes peering up at you from beneath his pale fringe.

He doesn’t meet your eye now, not even when you curl your fingers around his and encourage it. “Near…”

He clears his throat lightly. “Never mind. Don’t think about it anymore.”

“Hey.” Two fingers on his jaw, tilting his head to look at you. His pale eyelashes flutter in surprise, mouth gently parted as he awaits your response. “I have a duty of care, remember?”

His face twitches. Could be understanding or confusion, but because this is Near you lean toward the former.

“Alright,” you pull in a breath, smiling. “Let’s get married. Why not?”

Near blinks. “What changed your mind?”

“Oh, what always changes my mind?” you laugh. “You, of course. Anyway, it’s like you said - I’d never pull anyone I loved into this life. But you’re already in it. In fact, you’re the centre of it. Nobody’s simultaneously as safe and in as much danger as you are.”

“And that’s somehow better?” he asks dubiously. You roll your eyes.

“You’re gonna have to stop questioning me so much when we’re married,” you chastise.

Near cocks his head. “Ah... I think I’ve made a terrible mistake.”

And then you laugh, mirth bursting from you before you can reign it in, and though Near doesn’t smile, there’s a softening in the lines of his face, a safety, maybe, in the way his eyes relax as they track your expression.

It's not a relationship. Maybe you could call it that to save time, but it's not. But it's something. It's love, in your own ways. It's safety. It's more comfort than you've ever felt with anyone else, and if the price of keeping that was marriage, well...

There were worse people to be married to.

So I read the Deathnote oneshot