[When L speaks, there's often multi-layered pitfalls and meanings, and nearly always a keen and razor-sharp wit underlying all that he says. When he's silent, it almost says more; he's letting Mello carry the conversation while he merely drinks in the rash ambition that is carefully masked, but still heedless of what all but promises to go very wrong.
Pulling out might always be an option that is offered. Mello might even mean it when he says that he would not hold it against the detective to drop their union should he find the toll too steep. But oh, he also knows that once Mello feels what it's like to be in a Bond, with one he has held in high regard and idolized for so long, it will be a battle to ever extract himself from it. Access to the way L sees the world, and reasons, and thinks and plans and philosophizes, will hold Mello in their thrall until he simply won't be able to let go.
His breaths are shallow and even, just as they were when Mello last saw him pallid and dreamless.]
Power means different things to different people. It could be strength or knowledge, or influence.
[Control. And all that that implies.]
You said before that our goals might not always align. You also communicated a desire to keep your assets to yourself until you were assured of their trustworthiness. As far as Bonds are concerned... sharing goals and assets is just the beginning. You're privy to things you might not even want to know, at times, if the connection is especially strong.
[And with their shared background? It's possible that it could be strong in ways no one without their unique context could ever emulate. L bends forward, sipping at the rim of his glass without lifting it so as to avoid a spill.]
My most immediate concern is that "power" means something different to you. My greatest concern is that our philosophies might be irreconcilable, and the fact that you couldn't work with Near lends credence to that possibility.
[Pieces of Mello exist within L. Arrogance, of course, and a competitive nature, but also a deep and plaintive gash of humanity that aches and bleeds and bites. But the same is true for Near, and those conflicting pieces may well be both L's more dominant side, and wholly irreconcilable for the proud creature who sits on the other side of that Kahlua bottle.]
no subject
Pulling out might always be an option that is offered. Mello might even mean it when he says that he would not hold it against the detective to drop their union should he find the toll too steep. But oh, he also knows that once Mello feels what it's like to be in a Bond, with one he has held in high regard and idolized for so long, it will be a battle to ever extract himself from it. Access to the way L sees the world, and reasons, and thinks and plans and philosophizes, will hold Mello in their thrall until he simply won't be able to let go.
His breaths are shallow and even, just as they were when Mello last saw him pallid and dreamless.]
Power means different things to different people. It could be strength or knowledge, or influence.
[Control. And all that that implies.]
You said before that our goals might not always align. You also communicated a desire to keep your assets to yourself until you were assured of their trustworthiness. As far as Bonds are concerned... sharing goals and assets is just the beginning. You're privy to things you might not even want to know, at times, if the connection is especially strong.
[And with their shared background? It's possible that it could be strong in ways no one without their unique context could ever emulate. L bends forward, sipping at the rim of his glass without lifting it so as to avoid a spill.]
My most immediate concern is that "power" means something different to you. My greatest concern is that our philosophies might be irreconcilable, and the fact that you couldn't work with Near lends credence to that possibility.
[Pieces of Mello exist within L. Arrogance, of course, and a competitive nature, but also a deep and plaintive gash of humanity that aches and bleeds and bites. But the same is true for Near, and those conflicting pieces may well be both L's more dominant side, and wholly irreconcilable for the proud creature who sits on the other side of that Kahlua bottle.]