bakerstreet | a primer for the small weird loves

[ Near hears one of the adults coming down the hall and he doesn't want to be taken back to his room. Not yet. He crawls into the blonde hair boy's room and moves around the scraps on the floor as if they were a maze, making sure not to make a single sound.

He doesn't want to disturb the pristine bed, even though it looks so invitingly clean, and anyway, the floor suits him just fine. He might get in trouble for this, but he doesn't care. He crawls under the bed and takes his dice out again, building up a fence around himself much like the wooden one in the room and lays down there, eventually falling asleep. ]

[When Mello woke up, the first thing he started doing was fiddling with his scraps. If he had bothered sitting up first then he might not have noticed that someone was curled up under the bed.

What?! Why was the white-haired boy here?! This was Mello's area, no trespassers allowed! He sat up and started fuming.]

HEY!

[ Near jerks awake when Mello yells, nearly knocking over his own dice, but just manages not to. He doesn't sit up, because he does remember there's a bed in the way, but he does peek out over his small fence to look at the other boy.

He stays calm, even though that's not the feeling the blonde gives off at all.]

Hey.

[What is wrong with this kid? Mello points at him and makes use of the limited English vocabulary he knows.]

NO!

[ Near didn't want to leave the boy alone after all that howling, especially because he had wanted to play with him. He didn't want to lose track of the blonde- but he doesn't know how to communicate that.

He's not sure what he expected from a boy who bit someone else, but Near still frowns and starts collecting his dice, putting them back in the small bag. He leaves one out and crawls out from under the bed, pushing it with a small finger over toward Mello. ]

[What?

Mello stared at the die, keeping his eyes on it over the entire path it took from where it emerged from under his bed.]

[While he's pushing the die, he moves around all the scraps on the floor, like going through a maze again, careful to leave them untouched.

He stops when he gets close enough to the other boy, leaving the die there for him. Then he points to himself]

Near.

[He gave the white-haired-boy a long suspicious look, then snatched the die off the ground and scooted back, holding it protectively against his chest. He gave "Near" a defiant look, daring him to object.]

[ During his short time at the orphanage, Near has found that sometimes hoarding toys is the only way, especially when the other children often steal from him. He doesn't let it get to him, just collects different toys. Dice are the easiest to collect, so he has plenty more where these came from.

When he offers the die to the blonde, it's his to keep if he wants it. Near hopes that maybe next time the other boy sees him playing with dice, he'll want to play as well. So he doesn't object at all, instead he just points to himself again, giving the defiant look a small smile. ]

Near.

[And then he points at the blonde hair boy, urging him to tell him his name]

[Yes, he knew darn well what the white-haired boy was asking for. The one thing that they had told him he could never give anyone ever again. After he had lost absolutely everything else, they came and took his name, too. He was still so ANGRY about that.

Then they tried to give him a new one, without even pretending to replace the family he had just lost. It was only a first name. It wasn't even a GOOD first name. It was the kind of nonsense name you would call a pet, not a human being. So he had refused it. Wouldn't answer to it, wouldn't identify himself by it. Just like he refused all the other stuff they kept trying to give him. The marbles were in the toy room for anyone to use. So was the food in the cafeteria. But that bed? And those special toys? Those were supposed to belong only to him. Only to the one who accepted that stupid fake name.

But now he had a die that didn't come from THEM, those stupid name-thieves. After glancing at the door to make sure no adult was about to walk in, he scurried back to his corner. He carefully tugged the scraps away from the end of the chipped baseboard, then very delicately pushed the die into his secret hiding place. He smiled as he tucked the scraps back into place to camouflage it.]

[ Near hadn't really gotten used to his name all that much before he got here, so getting a new one seemed more exciting to him than anything. It was like a code name and he liked that. He could be someone different- someone better here. He was really too young to care either way and Near sounded close enough to Nate anyway.

He doesn't remember much before he got here, but he remembers that Nate was always supposed to be quiet and Nate was some kind of abomination. Near is the genius kid who can solve puzzles better than anyone else, even at his age, because he's allowed to now. Maybe he was too easily lulled into the comfort of this place, even if most of the kids tried to pick on him, but no one treated him like they used to and adults seemed to respect him- though he's not at the point where he fully understands respect, yet. All he knows is that he gets food and toys here, and doesn't have to make himself small and hide as much.

So he's accepted his stupid fake name, just like he's accepted a lot of things here at Wammy's, because there's no point to be resistant to them. This blonde haired boy obviously feels differently. Near can see the defiance in his eyes. He can tell that this boy doesn't like it... or maybe he just doesn't understand.

He looks on curiously as the die gets tucked away into some sort of secret hiding place and he supposes it must mean something if the boy trusts him enough to see it. If he trusts him with that much, then maybe Near can trust him too. He glances around the room and finds some crayons, carefully moving around the scraps again to get to them. He pulls out a light blue one and grabs one of the smaller scraps next to him and writes N A T E as best he can, then holds that out to the other boy as well. ]

[He watched intently while the white-haired boy started touching the ruined things all over the floor, and even more intently when a shard of crayon became part of the equation.

... That was the boy's name. The one they took away. It had to be.

Instead of being just another person who took it away, he dug around in his scraps until he found a shard of red crayon. That, and a really small shred of paper, was enough for him to get to work. Ultimately, he needed two pieces to fit the whole forbidden thing. M I . H A E L

Gently, he set the two shreds on the floor facing the other boy and lined them up next to each other, holding both pieces down firmly to prevent any accidental taking. Then he looks up, curious about the other boy's reaction.]

[ It's promising, once the blonde haired boy starts looking around for something to write with, collecting his scraps. Near vaguely remembers at one point that the adults told him not to share his name, but that doesn't seem very important now. This does.

He scoots closer, watching the other boy writing with the red crayon and then he furrows his eyebrows as he reads what's on the two scraps.

M I H A E L. Near doesn't say the name out loud, but he mouths it silently, so he can feel it on his lips. He smiles, then pulls his own name back and start ripping up the scrap so no one else can see it, nodding for Mihael to do the same. They know each other's names, now. No one can take that away from them and they won't get in trouble for it because no one will see it. ]

[He was planning to eat the pieces, just to be sure, but the white-haired boy's plan made much more sense. He smirks gleefully while ripping his own scraps to teensy tinesy bits.

Then, after tossing them into the air like confetti, he looks around his mess for new supplies. A shard of green crayon, first, then one of the bigger scraps of paper. It's almost the size of his palm. Carefully, he draws a capital "M" on the far left side, then slaps the paper down on the floor between the two of them before grabbing for the white-haired boy's hand to shove the green crayon shard into it.]

[Near doesn't make as much of a confetti mess as Mello does, but he still scatters the ripped up pieces around as well so none of it looks suspicious.

Then he's back to watching his new playmate writing some more. He catches the 'M' but he's more surprised when his hand is being grabbed so he can use the green crayon next. He looks at their hands for a moment, then nods and pulls the paper a little closer to him, writing down an "N" in the far right corner. Yes, that makes sense.

He looks at the two letters, then takes the liberty of drawing a small smiley face in the center of the paper between the two letters]

[Oh alright, maybe there IS a good reason to accept what these adults are offering him.]

Mello. Em-ee-el-el-oh. I am Mello.

[The blond boy's accent was too much of a kludge to identify, at least from those few sounds. It was a conglomeration of all the accents that had spoken English around him at Wammy's house. He had no other experience with the language to draw on.]

[ Near watches the other boys lips as he spells out his code name. Yes! That must be his code name. He likes it. ]

Mello.

[he repeats out loud this time, unlike Mello's real name, which will stay hidden in his head forever. A lot of the kids here have different accents, so it doesn't seem strange or pieced together at all. ]

We can play?

Play.

[Mello (He could probably start thinking of that as his name) had heard the word more than a few times. It seemed to mean very different things to different people. He looked at the white-haired boy (Near, that boy's name is Near) skeptically.]

[ Near ignores the skeptical look and presses on. He sets the crayons down and digs around in his pockets. He has his dice of course, a deck of cards and a piece of chocolate. He lays it all down in front of him, then glances around the room. There's actually a good amount of toys here that all look untouched.

He gets up, bringing over a box of dominos as some marbles. He knows Mello likes marbles, at least. ]

[Mello snatches up the chocolate the instant Near lets go of it, watching as the boy just lets him do it. Does Near really care more about these things, these useless little objects, than chocolate? How is that possible?

When no attempt is made to wrestle the chocolate away from him, Mello relaxes a little and actually starts paying attention to the objects. He peels open the chocolate, glancing up again to see if the boy is going to fight him for it before sticking it in his mouth. The change that comes over him when the chocolate hits his tongue is striking. Mello immediately calms down. Much more calm than he was, anyway.

With his free hand he reaches out and jabs an index finger at the domino box.]

[ Near vaguely acknowledges Mello's reaction to seeing the chocolate, and that he thinks it might get taken away or fought over, but he is absolutely more interested in the plethora of tosy set out before them. He pays much more attention to the way the other boy seems to relax once he eats it. Maybe if he has more of it, there will be less biting other children and even less howling. That was uncomfortable to listen to.

He smiles, pleased with the domino selection and he pushes everything else to one side, then opens the box, lifting it up high before dumping them all out so they scatter between the two of them. ]

[What is that boy doing? Is he trying to make a mess? Near is being naughty and going to get in trouble. The idea offends Mello, somehow.

After waiting for a piece of paper to come floating down out of the box and realizing that it's not going to happen, Mello reaches out to snatch the empty box out of Near's hands. With the chocolate entirely in his mouth now, Mello had two hands to use when examining the inside of the box. And the outside. Deciding that the words on the outside of the box must be directions of some kind, Mello held them out and pointed insistently at them.

They weren't directions. Worse, the photograph that had been used for the front of the box had been set up by someone who had no idea what the rules of the game were. It depicted an illegal configuration of pieces.]

a primer for the small weird loves

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