hadriel | Je me fous du passé

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Je me fous du passé

[The feed opens with Bianca. She stands in Delight's bar, the lighting rearranged to get as close as she can to the appearance of being on stage, and she glares into the camera and takes a large swig of the glass in her hand before she makes any sound.

Then she sings. Inside the bar, her voice is strong enough to rattle glasses.

People listening to the feed on the network may hear the familiar Lancastrian accent of Kate, grumbling almost inaudible complaints. Most of them seem to be along the lines of why did I agree to this and why did I give up booze.

The song ends and Bianca casts a grateful look at Kate before launching into speech.]

I have lived a long time, my friends. I am sorry for many things. I've been unforgivably careless of people's hearts and hopes. I've allied myself with the most treacherous of worms - I have trusted too much, cared too much, and -

[She stops.]

Or not cared enough. I have broken people for my own gain. I have sold myself to a power I knew to be malevolent, to buy my own life. I have tormented those I believed I loved, and abandoned those I know I did. Kate -

[She gazes, stricken, past the camera.]

I pulled you into this scheme. You almost died. Sharon and Maketh did die. I'm sorry, so sorry, for that.

[And then she lifts her chin, defiant.]

But I'm not sorry we made the attempt. I'm not sorry for taking a risk on the chance of buying all our freedom. Are you watching, Hope? Did you feel it, just when it started? The only real hope I've felt since coming here? I hoped so hard to end you.

I'm only sorry we failed.

[There's a brief resigned sigh from behind the camera as the feed goes out.]

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The northern most bridge, past Delight's bar, on the other side. If you follow the trail, you'll come across an empty temple; I'll be there.

[ It doesn't matter how long it takes Mello to get there, Sharon's there first, having obviously been nearby during the duration of their conversation. She's leaned up against a corner of the building. There's no sign of her white vest, instead replaced with a dark, hooded sweatshirt, and the hood is pulled up, only partially obscuring her features. There's no immediate sign that she has a weapon on her, but anyone observant will catch the hilt of a dagger tucked in her left boot, and something ]

[It's not too long before he shows up - jacket hood pulled up over his head, unnecessary sunglasses over his eyes. He does note the weapon stashed in her boot, because he can't not observe every available small detail, but his own pistol remains stowed away at the small of his back, in the waistband of his pants. He doesn't take care to deaden his footsteps as he approaches, but his voice is quiet when he calls her name to announce himself:]

Sharon.

You don't look suspicious, or anything. [ Sharon manages out, a bit of a wry grin crossing her features (an expression that looks off with the dark circles, and pale pallor of her skin), before she pushes off the hard stone of the temple, stuffing her hands into the pouch of her hoodie. Her fingers brush upon the familiar shape of Hope's cellphone, the golden seal of Metatron, and then Fear's orb—it makes her skin crawl just to touch it, but she can't leave it behind, not willing to let it fall into another person's hands. ]

[The corner of his mouth twitches in a not-quite smile, an acknowledgment of the absurdity of the situation.]

Yeah, it's a better look for crowds, usually, but I can't really afford to take chances.

[It's weird, seeing her alive again - equal parts discomfiting and reassuring. It's something that should be impossible, or at the very least, relegated to the realm of miracles. The dead have never once returned, in Mello's experience - not as anything more than memories or dreams. He clears his throat and looks down to fidgeting with the cuff of the glove on his right hand.]

What I'm going to tell you - it has to stay a secret. That's why I didn't want to tell you over the phone.

[He drops the glove's cuff and folds his arms over his chest, then glances back up to Sharon again.]

Can I count on you not to repeat any of this? I think you'll understand why in a minute here, and it may seem like an incredibly slim chance that the person I'm talking about will ever show up, but again - I can't afford to take chances.

[ She watches him fidget, picking at the cuff of his glove, and wonders, briefly, if he's uncomfortable around her. It wouldn't be the most off-the-wall reaction given the fact that he murdered her less than a week ago, she's been alive less than a day, and has a strange, powerful array of abilities at her fingertips. It could be habit, or nerves, as well, given the subject matter they're about to discuss.

Sharon frowns. It's not the first time she's been asked to play secret keeper, and it's not the first time it's come from someone she hasn't exactly been on friendly terms with. ]

I can't make any promises. [ Just like with Ronan. She could lie, but there wouldn't be much of a point. ] We don't always have power over what we say, or do here, but I will do my best.

[ For all that's happened between them, she has no interest in betraying Mello's trust in her. ]

[It's a satisfactory answer; Mello is aware enough of the reality of this place and the gods' respective aims to realize that there is no concrete guarantee of secrets staying secret. It's a gamble, to confide this in her, but it's a risk he's willing to take if it means she'll have a better understanding of who he is and what he's about - and curiously enough, Mello finds that this is a thing he wants. He nods, mouth pursed for a moment as he considers how best to begin his explanation.]

I mentioned that Kira is a murderer, but I didn't tell you how he kills. In the world where I'm from, there are beings known as shinigami - gods of death. Like the name implies, their sole function is to kill humans. How they do this is with a notebook - each shinigami has one, and all they have to do is write a human's true name in the notebook while picturing that person's face. Forty seconds later, unless otherwise specified, that person will die of a heart attack.

[He pauses, studying Sharon for how she'll react, if she'll accept this premise or wave it off entirely. Ai had been quick to dismiss it when he'd told her, but Sharon, he thinks, may be more willing to accept it, given who she is and what she's experienced and what she can do.]

I know it sounds like bullshit - I probably wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen the Death Note in action or spoken with the shinigami it belonged to.

[ Sharon's jaw tightens as Mello speaks, and her eyes narrow, clear signs of suspicion. It sounds a lot like bullshit, like a way to yank her around, but she's willing to give him the benefit of the doubt—for what reason, even she couldn't quite say. There isn't anything for him to gain lying to her. ]

Yeah, kind of. [ The fact that he can acknowledge that, however, seems to lessen her doubt, and she motions for him to continue. She can see where it's heading already: Kira got a hold of one of the notebooks, and got his murder on. ]

[That's the exact reasoning he's counting on her being smart enough to pick up on - it's too stupid-sounding of a story to be made up, because there's nothing for him to gain with such an outrageous lie. He nods again, slightly shifting his stance, and continues.]

So some idiot shinigami dropped its notebook into the human world, and a human picked it up - someone with delusions of grandeur, lofty ideas about ridding the world of every single criminal element therein. Sounds great in theory, right? Except no one person should ever have that kind of power over the rest of the world. Justice is a system, and it may be flawed, but it's better than allowing one self-proclaimed ruler to act as judge, jury, and executioner for the world at large with a single stroke of the pen.

[There's a subtle change in Mello's demeanor as he makes his way through this explanation - a tightening of his jaw, a hardening of his voice. Absently, he reaches for the rosary hung around his neck, gloved fingers closing into a fist around the beads.]

Kira has held the entire world in a vice-grip of terror for years, executing not only legitimate criminals who may have been sentenced to death eventually but anyone who opposed him. And one of those who opposed him and was executed for it was someone important to me, and to the world.

[He frowns, shifting his gaze to the ground as he remembers the day he and Near had been called into Roger's office and told that L was dead. It's a difficult memory to recall, for many reasons.]

That's why I vowed I'd be the one to stop him.

[ The loss still cuts him, Sharon can tell that much despite her lack of general observancy, and she purses her lips together tightly. He's after vengeance, and that, that she understands on an immensely intimate level. Those who hurt you deserve to suffer. It is a life motto. ]

And you'd do whatever it takes. [ She understands. She did whatever it took to get her revenge, and it killed her, too, just in in a much different way. ]

By any means necessary.

[It does boil down to a question of vengeance for him, at the very core of the matter. He had no reason to pick up L's case once he abdicated the title to Near; the choice to continue after Kira was a personal one, twice over - retribution for L, and beating Near to it in a bid to prove once and for all who was better.

But he knows now that he'll never be better. And the overwhelming regret spawned by revisting that knowledge now pushes something dangerously ugly and explosive high up in his chest, something that threatens to tear out of him if he doesn't focus on tamping it back down again. So he takes a deep breath and swallows hard, releasing his grip on the rosary and folding his arms across his chest again, and the feeling subsides.]

I'm not the only one who's tried to stop Kira, of course. I've had competition. But Kira is very clever, and he's been working right under the noses of the police, pretending to be part of an investigation against him. He has a number of tricks he's used in order to fool everyone, and one of those tricks is a fake notebook.

[This is the hardest part to talk about - the plan that involves his death. He pauses, taking a series of slow, even breaths in preparation for what he says next.]

One of my competitors - the only real competitor, in fact, a longstanding rival of mine - thinks he has everything figured out. But he doesn't know about the fake notebook. He's failed to consider it as a possibility. So I have to show him that Kira's got even him fooled, and I have to do it by forcing Kira's hand into revealing that he's been using a fake where it can be seen and keeping the real notebook hidden. He has to write a name in that notebook, and it has to mine. If I don't do this -

[A hard frown creases his mouth as his words halt for a long moment of silence before Mello picks up again.]

If I don't do this, he'll be killed. And I can't allow that to happen.

Why not just... [ She starts slow, almost as if she's choosing her words carefully. It feels a lot like she's seeing Mello for the first time—beyond the intricate layers of pride, temper, and leather he's built up around himself; a mostly complete picture. He's a much better person than he gives himself credit for. ]

...let him die? [ Her blue eyes settle on his, searching them, curious rather than cold. ] You'd then be able to take out Kira, beating your rival, and avenging your friend. [ It seems like BINGO, right there. Unless you care too much. ]

[Therein lies the problem: Mello does care too much, and he always has. Even though he is entirely capable of cold, logical calculation, he has always been ruled by his emotions, and it's with respect to Near that his emotions have been the strongest, ever since the day they first met.]

I can't let him die because ... he's important. To the world.

[How does one begin to attempt explaining the significance of someone like L to someone like Sharon, whose world likely doesn't contain him? Mello wrote about skyrocketing crime rates in the document that told the story of the LABB Murders, but that's merely an impersonal aspect of L's capabilities. Even though he left it behind years ago, Mello is still a child of Wammy's House, an institution that encouraged those within to believe in L as a pinnacle of achievement, and L was of utmost importance to him - not just as an objective toward which to reach, but on a deeply personal level as well. That's something he left out of what he wrote for Near to find after his death. Too sentimental, perhaps - too much of a clue as to why he decided on the gambit he did, why he chose to sacrifice his own life to keep Near in the game. Near was rightfully L, and the world needed L. And there's an echo in what Mello says now of what he told Sharon just before he shot her down. She may be able to piece that together, and if she does? Maybe it's another level of understanding as to why he came to her apartment with a determination to put a stop to the dangers she'd unleashed on the city.]

And I'm not.

[There's no self-pity in how he says this; it's entirely factual. Losers aren't important to the world; they have no place in it, nothing to offer.]

I'm expendable. He's the one who needs to survive.

Fuck the world. [ There is no hiding the sudden vitriol in her voice, or the way she stands up a little straighter, expression tight and teeth clenched in disbelief. The items in her pouch jingle, and clang together as she removes her hands from it, crossing them across her chest as if to distance herself from him. The world has never done anything for people like them, does not care for them; in fact, it's the very reason people like them even exist.

Why protect—die—for a world that wouldn't do the same for you? Mello has never given Sharon the vibe of being particularly altruistic, so either the reign Kira has over his world is truly nightmarish, and has made a significant impact on him, or he cares more for his rival than he would like to admit. Perhaps both. ]

How can you want to protect it when it's made you feel that way? [ Expendable. It's a world that's done nothing except destroy his sense of future, and self-esteem; it doesn't deserve what Mello is doing for it, and maybe, perhaps, neither does his rival. ]

[He's not an altruistic person at heart - his actions are almost entirely selfishly motivated, and they always have been, for the most part. Even his desire to beat Kira was more about Mello than the rest of the world - his sense of vengeance, and his sense of accomplishment in getting to the finish line before Near.

Her question is a good one, though. Mello's actions wouldn't make sense to anyone who doesn't have the fundamental understanding of Wammy's House, the way it works, the way it breaks and remolds its children into a very specific image.]

Because it's the only thing I know.

[On some level, Mello understands he is fundamentally broken; he's too smart to not have a strong sense of self-awareness, and everything he has done since the day he left the House has been carefully calculated to produce very specific results, with that sense of self-awareness in mind. It's why he acts the way he does, says the things he says, dresses himself in clothes designed to stand out. But as much as he has been a shaping force in the world with the things he's done in service of reaching his goals, he knows that he is just as much an entity apart from it, too. It's a natural end result when you take an orphaned child with no ties to the world and give him a secret identity and a goal beyond what the rest of the world is capable of reaching for. He is in the world, but not truly part of it - not the way most ordinary people are, with familes and friends and hopes and dreams to give them roots. Maybe that's why it's easier for Mello to accept the idea that he is an expendable resource instead of a person with inherent worth beyond the results he can produce.]

I'm not naive, Sharon - I'm realistic. There isn't anything else after this for me. And there are sacrifices that have to be made in any battle.

[Which isn't the first time he's said this in the course of this conversation. He frowns slightly; he's usually better at elucidations than this.]

Let me try to explain it another way - do you play chess at all?

Edited 2016-07-28 20:08 (UTC)

[ Because it's the only thing I know.

In only a few words, Mello manages to extinguish the blustering inferno behind her eyes. Her shoulders sag, and she deliberately looks away from him, attention Eastern. She's still angry, cool fury knotting her belly, but it's not entirely aimed at her killer, but the world, and the circumstances that have made him what he is now; the world that chews up innocence, and destroys it.

She shouldn't feel any sort of fury at his world, shouldn't even care, but she finds that she does. At the mention of chess, she rolls her eyes, and she would laugh if she had it in her. ]

Don't you dare. [ She's not interested in chess analogies, not interested in the explanations beneath his decisions because, frankly, she doesn't care about that. She cares about the fact that he's willing to try and change the future for his friend, but not for himself. It's bullshit. It's hypocritical of her to judge. It's stupid. No amount of logical explanations will change how she feels.

She kicks a rock idly, watching it tumble and bounce across the dirt, eventually hitting a rubble pile and coming to a stop. This feeling is uncomfortable, so she swallows it back. Her lips purse. ] Things could be different for you.

[ He has this chance that she doesn't feel she has anymore, and he's throwing it away. ]

I've already considered all possible scenarios, Sharon. Believe me - this wasn't a decision I made lightly.

[And it's not one he ever intended to talk about with anyone, either. Mello kept Matt in the dark on purpose, because he guessed that he'd try to talk him out of it the same way Sharon is now. In fact, he's only discussed this one other time, with Near, after he'd first arrived, and that had been an almost overwhelmingly uncomfortable experience. Mello never expected he'd have to justify his actions to him, of all people, and Near's trademark passivity in response had hurt more than Mello cared to admit, even to himself. So it's a perplexing thing, for Mello, that Sharon - who has every reason to hate him and want him dead - is so insistent on the idea that he could come up with a different plan, one in which he survives, when someone who has a much longer and more complicated history with him had more or less accepted it without question. It's enough to sprout the sharp beginnings of a headache behind his eyes. Mello pulls his sunglasses off his face and pinches at the bridge of his nose.]

That's what I'm trying to explain by bringing up chess. The object of the game is to capture your opponent's king while defending your own from capture. All other pieces are expendable in service of that goal, even the queen, which is the most powerful piece on the board.

[He drops his hand from his face and looks up at Sharon again, mouth pressed into a thin line. Carefully, he folds the earpieces of his sunglasses down and tucks them away in his inside jacket pocket.]

I'm not a king, Sharon. I know that now. I wanted to be, for a very long time, but - refusing to face reality is like trying to win a staring contest with an oncoming freight train.

Edited 2016-07-31 21:17 (UTC)

[ She wants so very desperately to argue, and it's evident in the way her mouth opens, and then snaps shut as she changes her mind. He's made his decisions, that much is clear, and arguing it won't change it—trying to explain why she feels this way won't change it.

So, fuck it.

She refuses to meet his gaze. ]

Fine, whatever. [ like a stubborn, petulant child. ]

[Mello can recognize what a concession looks like, when you still have arguments heavy on your tongue and you decide to swallow them instead. It's not really a victory, but he's grateful for the ending of it anyway. There is something very important to be said about the element of lived experience and how it molds one's sense of understanding; those who haven't lived in Kira's world and didn't grow up the way Mello did may be able to imagine what it's like, but the bone-deep knowing can't be exactly the same. And Mello doesn't exactly regret that - Sharon has her own unique set of traumatic circumstances she's lived, and that's more than enough for one person, he thinks.]

Yeah ... well, that's what I wanted to say, anyway.

[He shifts his weight in the uncomfortable silence where they've arrived.]

I should probably get going again.

Probably. [ But it's said moments later, and hangs in the air awkwardly. She shifts, wonders if there's something else she should say, but then simply moves to leave. As she walks away, back to him, she says: ] If you need me, give me a call; it's under Heather Mason.

[ Her phone is registered as Heather Mason, and though many know her as Sharon, she's never gotten around to changing it. ]

Heather Mason.

[He nods, repeating the name, imprinting it on his memory, and he wonders: is that who she was before she was Sharon? A question for another time, perhaps. It seems they've formed an alliance of sorts, for the moment, and that, he thinks, is a good thing. He allows himself a brief, faint smile as he digs his sunglasses out of his jacket to slip back over his face and calls after her:]

You too. I'm under Mello.

[ She responds with a simple two-finger wave, not bothering to look back at him. He's lucky she didn't, she would have told him to ditch the glasses. ]

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