A/N: I don’t own Death Note, okay? Anyway. There is something mildly hilarious, at least to me, about the amount of fanfic I can directly trace to my theology revision recently. This one stemmed from reading Revelation 21:1 as part of studying for, yes, my Revelation exegesis exam. Don’t ask me how I got from there to writing about Near but it is true that I always thought the poor old ocean was dealt with a wee bit harshly myself. The title comes from a poem by John Lyly (1554-1606), and has no real connection except that the words made me happy.

For the record, this was written as a one-shot, but has been made chaptered. Therefore the 'one-shot' - this chapter - is now kind of like the prologue to the rest of it. ;)

Dedication: for Tierfal, yet again. She knows why.

1: About The Sea

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.
~ Rev. 21:1.

Near put the down the book and was quiet.

Mello, who’d looked up at the movement, gave him an expectant, eyebrow-raised glance that promised a much more imperative well? if his unspoken question weren’t answered.

Near shrugged with a lift of one shoulder. “I… I think it’s sad about the sea,” he said.

Silence reigned, but for the whimper of October rain against the bedroom window.

Mello stared.

Near shifted his fingers, with the demeanour of someone who wasn’t entirely in control of what his own hands happened to be doing at any given moment, and picked at the corner of Mello’s pillowcase.

Mello stared a little more. “You— you what? What the hell does that mean? You just read all… all that… and you’re sad about the sea?”

Near’s face fell slightly; Mello looked cross. Blowing tumbled strands of white hair away from his eyes, he pushed the Bible away with his toes, as though it were the root of all his problems (and perhaps it was, more than he knew, at least where the blond was involved).

Mello stalked over, shoved the book further out of the way, and then sat down in its place, his eyes fixed intently upon Near’s. “The sea?” he repeated, absolutely incredulous.

Near’s fingers wibbled, but the movement didn’t make it to his voice, which remained steady. “I understand why it happens in the book – symbolism – changeability – the fact that nobody knew what the ocean held. But… I like the sea. Once… I went to the seaside once. I was… smaller, and there were shiny pebbles, and a piece of purple glass that had been worn down till it looked just like a marble, and it was very windy, and a woman with warm hands took me paddling; the water was tickly.” Near paused, looked slightly bothered by what he’d just said, then shrugged, a little helpless beneath Mello’s continuing glare, and added, almost shamefaced, “I like the sea a lot, I think.”

Mello’s eyes gleamed fierce, then gentle, then fierce again, as though he weren’t even sure if he were angry at Near for being stupid, at God for having had the temerity to remove the sea from Heaven when Near wanted it there, or at himself for being unreasonable enough to care either way. He just glared at Near for a long few minutes, because at least glaring was no big leap from their usual interaction, and the smaller boy’s fingers mangled the corner of Mello’s pillow with a tenseness that gave lie to his calm exterior.

“Come on,” snapped the older boy, when his glare had reached a conclusion with itself. “Proper clothes would be too much to ask, but at least put shoes on. You do own shoes, don’t you?”

Now it was Near’s turn to stare.

Mello tossed his head impatiently, as though Near were being deliberately dense (which was of course preposterous). “I’m taking you to the seaside. With the pebbles,” he added in a rush, face flushing red, and his voice broke off as he buried his head hurriedly under the bed with the rationale that he was searching for an old pair of his own sneakers, which he knew were lurking around somewhere simply because he never threw anything out, and also for the money he’d saved up for a rainy day, which it clearly was in more ways than one.

“You’re – what? – but Roger—” Near’s fingers flexed tightly against Mello’s shoulder, the warm swirls and lines of his fingerprints burning onto Mello’s skin where they missed shirt and encountered neck.

Mello’s head banged sharply against the underside of the bed and he reappeared swearing, cheeks aflame, and one hand rubbing at his aggrieved scalp. “Roger won’t even notice we’re gone until Monday,” he muttered gruffly, eyes looking everywhere-and-nowhere all at once. “He’ll just presume we’re locked away studying – and we’ll be back by then anyway. Don’t be a sook, Near, I’ve done it before. With Matt. Last summer.” Mello’s voice left no room for argument as he shifted onto his knees beside the bed, face down to conceal its pinkness, and shoved the old sneakers (which he’d found behind an earless teddy, three cricket balls, and a pile of dog-eared paperbacks with chocolate thumb-prints) roughly onto Near’s little socked feet.

It really was much too stupid, Mello thought.

And then, because he never seemed able to shut up, he muttered, almost plaintively, “But there’s a river in heaven, you know, Near. That’s what it says. A really big river. And river’s are nice too, right?”

Near wriggled his toes happily inside Mello’s old shoes and, as Mello knotted the laces firmly, he smiled a beatific little smile at the blond head inclined before him. “I guess.”

Mello dragged a raincoat from behind his bedside-table and hide his sigh of relief beneath the sound of it rustling.

That was alright then.