[L's breathless bites slow, then pause entirely when Mello ceases to just watch him and actually speaks. An assertion, no room for argument, followed by...
...is it reassurance? Mello's attempting to be gentle, sincere, hospitable. And it's all too strange for every bit of it to land, but an imperfect and fractured attempt doesn't matter so much as flawless sincerity, and though it's complicated, it's there, as gleaming and pristine as one of the distant diamonds over L's own frozen lake. Is he thinking about that violent gash of a split in the ice that they both felt?
It's difficult to tell through the bond, with one of them drinking, the other feeling it past his own restored sobriety.
He considers all that Mello's said silently and deeply, turning the plate in his fingertips and lifting the fork in his left hand. He starts to pick at the eggs, closest to him at 6 o'clock; the bacon is at 12 and remains untouched.]
I know you don't mind that I'm here, but...
[Another small mouthful, the sound of teeth on tines.]
...I think you mind that I need to be.
[Mello is dying inside, clearly, because he is beginning to realize how little he can actually learn from his mentor. He imagines that though they're here alone, and L is willing, and Mello is successfully patching a crater in the ground, it's no kind of victory to him. A trampled standard, a shattered figurehead. Every fear that had separated L from the rest of the orphanage is here in the all-too-human flesh.]
I like the eggs. I don't go in for pork, but... you couldn't have known that. Thank you for making this.
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...is it reassurance? Mello's attempting to be gentle, sincere, hospitable. And it's all too strange for every bit of it to land, but an imperfect and fractured attempt doesn't matter so much as flawless sincerity, and though it's complicated, it's there, as gleaming and pristine as one of the distant diamonds over L's own frozen lake. Is he thinking about that violent gash of a split in the ice that they both felt?
It's difficult to tell through the bond, with one of them drinking, the other feeling it past his own restored sobriety.
He considers all that Mello's said silently and deeply, turning the plate in his fingertips and lifting the fork in his left hand. He starts to pick at the eggs, closest to him at 6 o'clock; the bacon is at 12 and remains untouched.]
I know you don't mind that I'm here, but...
[Another small mouthful, the sound of teeth on tines.]
...I think you mind that I need to be.
[Mello is dying inside, clearly, because he is beginning to realize how little he can actually learn from his mentor. He imagines that though they're here alone, and L is willing, and Mello is successfully patching a crater in the ground, it's no kind of victory to him. A trampled standard, a shattered figurehead. Every fear that had separated L from the rest of the orphanage is here in the all-too-human flesh.]
I like the eggs. I don't go in for pork, but... you couldn't have known that. Thank you for making this.