Title: Myrrh
Fandom: Death Note
Rating: G
Length: 200 words
Content notes: none
Summary: Gevanni will not die today.


Today will be a day like the day before and the day after: the long game takes patience, and when he is tempted by the weight of the gun by his side or the brush of the wire taped to his chest or the slick of sweat at the back of his neck, he will think of Near bent alone over his Lego figurines, painting slowly and with great care, drips of acrylic color staining white fingers in a white room.

He will follow his target and the pattern will not change and he will be seen but unseen. People will look past him as unimportant, as they should, as they must, and a bit of half-remembered poetry will rise up: alone in the press of people traveled he, and Gevanni will dismiss it as belonging to a time in which he had another name.

In the subway, packed in sardine-tight, he will be so close to Mikami that his scent will be distinguishable from all the others, and Gevanni will smell paper and salt and a subtle hint of expensive, musky cologne. He will not smell blood, although he will think he should.

And he will not die today.