And Hope To Die
Wammy's children may never grow up. This is still life.
(Disclaimer: Death Note ain't mine, but the characters you don't recognize are.)
Awash with an archetypal hazy English night, the medley of claret and lime, flaxen and indigo stained-glass forsook the vanity of Wammy's reclaimed church. Beyond sundown, the nave's new purpose as a welcoming lobby was obscured if only by the waxing imaginations of forever discontented children. Old whispers from playtime past still whirl in the chamber, empowered by an uncertain fear of malicious spirits that hold sway, in shadow, over what was once a house of God. It's the walls that resonate with talk of blasphemy, it's the walls that permit a foreign draft, it's the walls that keep the wards.
There is a stillness that presides here, and when the air is thin, it slips.
"Ahh—!" A scream; it ricochets in the fine acoustics of the space. It's uneven. There's a hint of rasp, like she's hoarse from too many previous attempts. It is a she, isn't it? The pitch is high. The inflection is difficult to discern given the fleeting material. Playback by memory proffers emphasis on an open /æ/.
One second and a fraction of another skidded by before a deep thud rolled out via the hardwood floor, followed by another that's relatively shallow. She was standing straight from a height more than one hundred and fifty centimeters, or bent and it was deliberately delayed; and if posture didn't matter, then she'd ignored the risk of a falling injury and dropped with haste. The thud was heavy, but it couldn't have been more than nine stone. The chance of a prop couldn't be ruled out.
"Shriek! Gurgle!" Faux surprise curdled inside sarcasm and an ode to soap opera clichés. The voice had arced forcefully, striking the idea of a feminine soprano (or more like a falsetto) grazing half-masked brogue, high into the dust laden rafters. Hindsight suggested guilt by design. There was no thump or bang, but snickers trickled in, only partially muffled.
So willing to pounce on a wavering flock, the shepherd bared fangs. "No laughing!" was a simple, loud, and all too serious command that rung out from the inky darkness, although the monotonous gossamer medium of a tone depreciated the desired authority. Almost in response, a pew, one of a few that had been retained after the remodeling two decades or more ago, scraped across the floor in two sharp, grainy bursts of unnecessary noise. Someone had bumped into it. Eight stone.
"Five," came steadily announced by way of a partly mature baritone. "Four." Like the tolling of the bells in the tower, he continued; and the hollow clop of thickly soled boots synchronized to his cadence. "Three."
"Ahhhhh—"
"Two."
A weighty clunk tailed the drawled yelp only after the countdown's update, and then a spasmodic array of other dull noises like flailing arms and legs were haphazardly appended. A pew was shoved yet again, and echoes crashed all around them. The excess sound draped an amnesty of distraction over the last minute kill.
"One." Electricity fizzled and buzzed at the will of one flicked finger to a switch. A single shaft of stale fluorescent light plunged upon the speaker and wreathed his head of blond hair with a vainglorious halo. For an instant, against the unlit ex-chapel, the black of his clothes struggled to isolate him from the building itself. Time swallowed down his grandeur as opalescent curtains of light befell the floor seven paces before him, and then fourteen, and so on in domino effect until the drearily unfurnished space was bright enough for a twilight mass.
This congregation, however, wasn't to be found on its knees with heads bowed in prayer. Five others were scattered around the room, all children close in age to mister sic transit gloria.
Two were sprawled benignly on the ground à la violent attack. A third was half laid on his side, propped up on both elbows. A fourth was standing. The fifth—
"Near, are you alive or dead?"
—perched, with one leg folded under him (the other was left to hang), on honey colored pew against the south wall. The smallest child among them steered his dark eyes away from the crowd. Each party rounded out their silent theories with glances around while he replied, "alive." And although it was a matter of fact, some kind of pleasure unfurled inside the sound of that one word rather like blades of grass sprouting through cracks in pavement. Near had chosen to sit there, on a pew, on an object already red flagged, feigning naive innocence feigning blatant guilt.
An influx of flat scratching—denim across the floor—stirred the crowd and smoothed the furrowed brow of the blond. Another boy on the opposite side of the room wriggled on his belly with one hand extended, rattling, "avenge me, Mellooo..." Seemingly then, the last bit of the redhead's illegal energy left him and bare flesh flopped to the polished floor. Nearby, another pew jutted out from its former place flush against the wall by several centimeters. His angle relative to the skewed pew was inconclusive. It had to have been the same pew that had been moved twice, right? Only one was out of place.
"Shut up, you're dead," brusquely dismissed the boy in black. Lank, gold hair fluttered with the swift crane of his neck, the redirection of his blue eyes. Six paces out from the stairs to the narthex, another victim was shifting to sit up because his dark-skinned arms were sore. Appearing all too unconcerned with the state of the investigation, the fifteen-year-old began idly picking at the drawstrings entwined at his waist. Across the room, the only female in their party arranged herself, too, flat on her back with her fingers woven behind her head.
"Linda died first," Mello perfunctorily supplied. With his hands propped limply on his hips, the boy then captured the redhead center in his sights. Mindless twitches dug fingernails into the seams of his slacks while he canted back his head, studying the distances. Uprooting the stagnant lull so eager to conquer the nave, Mello said, "then Iscariot, followed by Matt."
Fourteen from the still-standing Reinhart to Near on the right, twelve to Matt on the left, and Linda had been tagged out twelve paces from Near. They'd been arranged as points in a parallelogram sans Iscariot.
Near was a runt who couldn't be called athletic, so the notion that he'd sprinted across the room after killing Matt was absurd. He wasn't panting or sweating at all, and that supported the theory. Besides, those feet of his were always covered in over-sized socks, and it was impossible to run on the waxed floors with those.
Reinhart, the curly-haired weirdo, was poised perfectly; he could have run the gamut and then backpedaled to where he stood, stuck in front of the stairs near the second victim. No intelligent criminal ever returned to the scene of the crime; however, to appear innocent, it was a play by the book. His missing Near didn't make a lot of sense, though. Reinhart would had to have walked right past him.
The same applied to Linda, provided Near had remained on the pew for the whole round. If Linda had faked her death, she could have killed Iscariot and then had plenty of time to move around, kill Matt, and thereby effectively herd Reinhart, in an effort to survive, back toward the steps. However, she would not have had time to make it back across the room. Since Iscariot and Linda were both equal distances away from the last victim, more or less, the same could be said for him.
So, that left only one person.
Intrepidly, Mello wrung out the name like sodden clothes. "Matt."
The game was done, they could see it. Stillness presided.
The air was thin, they could feel it. It smothered the embers of a dangerous smile.
But it's slipping.
"Nope," Near spoke clearly.
The nave erupted in overconfident dispute.
"It was obviously Reinhart, you have to consider the theory of-"
"Haha, no! If you weren't so thick, you'd understand that there's no way Matt could crossed-"
"The order of death isn't even right! Listen! If-"
While the sidelined players argued, Mello was swearing that sometime, admist their play, a window had shattered. That would explain, without damaging his pride, the icy current of air that flushed him with gooseflesh. In spite of the escalating voices and sharpening tactics of the debaters, the blond heard nothing but the resonation of the game's events. In his head, he rewound the timeline, skipped forward through the static, sketched and re-sketched faces in the darkness before smearing them out in an ashy blur akin to chalk dust. This was same image conjured by erasers sweeping one of many blackboards in the school; and just like in every class, on every assignment, Mello wanted to deny the most obvious conclusion because Near had spoken it first.
But, it was better to be wrong for the whole world than right only in your own head.
"Near knows it wasn't Matt because Near is the killer." Crossly, Mello filled in the blanks for the quickly quieting audience. "That's why it's played in the dark. Only the killer knows."
After a moment of room-filled reflecting and acceptance, Iscariot said, "L would know."
"L would know," agreed Linda matter-of-factly.
The electricity manifest in the blond boy's blue-eyed glare was unceremoniously defused with only the practiced aversion of Near's unaffected gaze. Mello slid from the light without further word. At least, nothing audible, nothing outside his own skull. Over his shoulder, the brief conversation by the others regarding another round wasn't entirely tuned out, but not for want of a do-over. He deliberately strode for the southwest door so that when the group agreed it was time to turn in, it would be his fingers at the light switch. Defeated, but not outdone.
Darkness exploded through the artistically fashioned glass windows lacing the nave, ravenously overwhelming the dead lights and blinding all those beneath them. The sound of hasty feet covering ground boomed across the empty floor. It was just one pair, then two, then more. Every other step, they landed in unison and provoked from the chamber pyre flies of dust and rumors of long since finished sessions of tag. This time, though, the last one in line happened to be the night's winner. Only when alone, Near finished his sock-clad trek to the door with a bolt across the waxed floors, in the midst of which he locked his knees and skated through the threshold.
On gauzy mornings, sleep is evanescent. Exhaled, it floats in the air as if it were warm breath in winter, and it disappears just as bleary eyes begin to focus. Sundays, waking at Wammy's House feels strange because, although the bells toll just the same as any other day, the halls are clean of rushed noise and no one is cracking books open or paying too much thought to dressing. Through doors left open, occasional figures in nightclothes can be seen ambling down to a breakfast whose scent drifts, beckoningly, up into the dorms. But the ceiling is better for staring at while the body won't yet move and the mind is sorting through dreams that are rapidly wriggling back from whence they came, like earthworms into the ground after rain. And in the meantime, crank windows push out and permit the world in, and summer pervades the musty smell of hard water and old things that are latent in the converted church.
Birdsongs made an odd duet with the mechanical music that bubbled from the speakers of Matt's handheld game console. Mello was used to it, he always had been. It would have been unsettling to wake up without either. While he was chasing broken scenes of the life he lived purely in slumber, the persistent beat became Morse code in his head and a fraction of his attention became devoted to reading gibberish. Sloughing the covers and letting his legs hang off the bed helped to reorder his thoughts. Robotically, the blond is stood up. The joints in his fingers were still stiff and they protested when the tips tugged at the char black shirt in which he slept. Matt didn't look up from his video game, but that was normal.
The main hall through the dorm was drafty and cold, so much so that some kids dragged their blankets along with them like robes for princes and princesses and heirs to a throne kept under wraps as well. The lavatory was all the way back—past the classrooms that ironically wouldn't be used on this day, and the ample windows veiled with filmy curtains that showed the cloister and the courtyard from a second story vantage. If the stride was leisure enough, if the eyes were curious enough: it was difficult not to feel small. Over the years, Mello learned to ignore that view and concentrate on the mirror that was visible in the gaping doorway at the end of the hall.
After that, there was a short trip back to his room to grab house shoes that he'd forgotten upon first departure. Rather than turning his wardrobe inside out, Mello forewent any formal sort of waking up and sluggishly rushed into the long walk down the wing, the stairs, through the west vestibule, the archway, and into what served as the orphanage's dining hall. There, maple and cherry wood, eggshell white marble columns and chair rails, and glassy, drab gold floor tiles made for a palette that ran together like badly laid watercolors dribbling down a canvas. Mixed together, a ginger brown revealed the inspiration for the cloths on the tables that were positioned in an incomplete box. The dispirited color hid the stains children were bound to make, but it also weighed down the room.
Five doors down, someone was taking severe liberties with Bach's Prelude and Fugue on the House's original, restored organ. Despite missing pieces and improvisation, the melody surged through the hallways with a lofty and vivacious energy insomuch that it made the day a little less languid. Even the sun, as it cut through the misty cloud cover and wove around neighboring buildings, seemed more agreeable; and when its rays touched the multifaceted, tinted windows, their depictions were newly lucid. They and their adjoining walls soared in spite of gravity. Meanwhile, the eclectically garbed wards stood out against their surroundings, failing to possess the majesty that came with completion.
Despite all the things that make the ground floor of Wammy's memorable, and because complacency is blinding, each ward had their attention stolen the moment they passed through the archway not by the breakfast spread or the erratic, humble din from the kitchen—these things are trite and commonplace. Rather, Mello's rubber soled feet fell to a definite halt three strides into the hall because he had to turn and squint at an easel propped in the southeast corner of the room. Within two seconds, he'd made the decision to move closer as he couldn't see through the two kids huddled near the posted announcement.
Crumbs from rolls bitten into without a napkin or plate beneath littered the surrounding tile. Mello neglected to put effort into avoiding tracking the mess. He was just as dissociative with manners, and that was illustrated by the hand he immediately planted on one of the kids' shoulders. They were promptly shoved aside. Details, details—askance, he studied the handwriting: the curves, the height of the cross and pressure in the dots, the spacing betwixt letter and punctuation. Leaping without looking, he spun to scan the main body of the room. "Roger?!"
The Wammy's House
Nineteenth of June
In the East Hall, a special assembly and audience with L
shall be conducted from eleven to twelve hundred hours.
Please bring only relevant items and be on your best behavior.
In retrospect, if Roger, the head of the orphanage and proxy to the founder Quillish Wammy himself, had been in the dining hall there would not have been need for the easel. More than likely, the old man was busy making arrangements. Well, if this weren't a prank.
Having snatched a sugar frosted piece of toast, Mello darted back down the vestibule. In under a minute he'd made the trip to the East Hall's double doors, but they were locked fast. The vestry-turned-headmaster's office was empty sans another ward looking for Roger, too. By the time Mello had climbed—in a loud, running march—the stairs to the dorms, his meager excuse for a day's first meal was gone. Sticky prints were left on the doorframe he grabbed to prevent from dashing passed his room.
"Where's Roger?" the blond demanded.
Matt, nearly a statue and slave to the last level of his latest game, glanced up wearing a look of what could have been alarm if one did not consider the fact that he'd shared the room with Mello for a year already. These antics, they were nothing. "Haven't seen 'em," he insipidly responded. With his concentration broken, there was little harm in pursuing the issue. Curiosity was slick lips embracing the query, "what for?" They remained parted, rather bored, when the answer didn't come right away. Maybe it was awe after that.
It's seven thirty-two.
Not since years ago amidst the bustle of early morning mass had these walls felt this sort of charge in the air. Every gaze that met across the hall induced a spark, a chemical reaction that posed the question: do you know? Among most of them, quick smiles or dramatic giggling confessed a yes, and if it was a no then it wouldn't be for long.
Reinhart was seated in the dorm hall with his back to the wall, and his expression suggested feelings of despair and lack of self esteem. Linda and Dahlia (who had abandoned the organ and Bach) rowdily headed for the stairs. The former crouched by Reinhart for a moment before being torn away by a better use of time. Three other children were taking turns trying to distract, thieve, and evade Iscariot; all because he was pouring over books normally kept on the top shelf in his room. The rest were downstairs, except for a laid-back brunette who took to passing time with Matt in the only room marked with an M, exchanging ideas and theories about who and why and how and what else.
It's eight nineteen.
Pacing the vestibule, Mello fingered a giant chocolate bar that he won't permit himself to eat.
"Hey, have you seen Near?"
"Hasn't come down yet."
He was definitely not guarding the dining hall.
"Is Near up yet?"
"I don't think so."
The easel was collapsible. It would be easy to stash.
"Do you know where Near is?"
"Probably in his room."
This is stupid.
It's nine forty-five.
Kids were camping out in front of the East Hall doors.
It could be real.
What would someone have to gain from it if it was a hoax?
Would L even agree to this? Would L have time?
Would L come in person, send Watari, or appear on screen?
Would L alter their voice, or show their face?
Would L shake hands?
Would L hear them out or cut them off, even stand them up?
Would it be worth holding your breath...
"Mello!" Matt had a way of scattering thoughts simply with the sound of his voice. The tone wasn't meant to interrupt, but it did harbor a sort of insouciance. Possibly, because he was so magnetic, that explained the throng of wards tailing him. One of the younger ones was literally clinging to the hem of his boldly striped black and white shirt.
Though the candy bar maintained its shape, with easy pressure it began to collapse and melty chocolate oozed over the edges of the wrapper. Foil pressed to his tongue, Mello could only be bothered to arc an eyebrow at the gathered crowd.
"You are coming, aren't you?" The amount of doubt between the lines there was despicable.
Previously reclined, the blond was disturbed enough to straighten up in his lounging spot. The stained glass had been broken and removed years ago, but the empty, circular frame in the courtyard's stone wall remained. No one quite recalled that a martyr once posed there. Before replying, Mello carefully removed the squished chocolate from his mouth by way of two fingers: his index and thumb. "There's still more than an hour to wait."
"Have you thought of what you're going to say?"
"Say?" Mello babbled back as if he'd never heard the word before in his life. It made more sense thereafter, but only a little. "Why, what've you got?"
"Robinson's confession, thirteen-twelve-ninety-nine." He was smirking, smug and anxious. "Isn't that good?"
"I wanna know when L's birthday is so I can send him a present!" squealed the little boy at Matt's side.
"But you won't know where to send it," chided Linda. "Think of something better. This could be your only chance."
The only chance, and it had to be now.
Why couldn't it have been before Near was dumped on Wammy's doorstep?
Second place, it was supposed to be temporary.
Temporary, it shouldn't have lasted two years.
Seven months.
Two weeks.
Five days.
It's ten fifty-six.
Every tick from the grandfather clock at the end of the East Hall's corridor, every swing of its pendulum, propelled The Wammy's House into an accelerating state of restlessness. Fairly, the wards were divided, but it was likely that Mello was alone in hoping for a last minute reprieve. Sheer will kept his heart rate steady, but he didn't have the power to paralyze the hands of the clock. Still, the blond was a dark stain on the wall, and he stared Father Time in the face as though those nefarious blue eyes could intimidate even him. It would be foolish to believe in or hope for that, though; so Mello was instead allotting figures to the chance that this special assembly would actually come to pass. The probability that the announcement was a terribly sadistic joke was growing slimmer by the second. Another and another of the children joined the waiting gaggle outside the double doors.
Near was the last to arrive. It wasn't a ploy for fashion. There was meaning behind it, surely. It was the fact he didn't have many friends among Wammy's wards. He coexisted just fine, usually, but given the events of the night prior, the maneuvers he executed now, to continue his isolation, were transparent. His timing was perfect. If he had come down earlier, Roger would not have been there if anything—
"What's going on?" The question, his tone, was damp, dull. Near was perfectly immune to the House's overt excitement. It seemed like a good quality; after all, level-headedness often contributed positively to complex and difficult puzzles. The problem here was, in avoiding the keyed up crowd, Near had pointed his question at Mello.
The crinkle of a candy's wrapper was the only reply. So snide, Mello brought the long withheld chocolate bar to his mouth and bit off a chuck that would, via its size, excuse him from speaking. This is me ignoring you, Near. For once, his expression did not bare resemblance to that of a hungry tiger. Instead, his presence was comparable to a vulture's lazy, unending overhead circles. Passive aggression suited him, for even at fourteen, Mello could appear quite precocious and mature when he cast his fiery emotions aside.
To Near's rescue came Reinhart who was silently lamenting a few paces away. He was closer to the group, yet a rogue. "We're to have an audience with L at eleven," he mumbled, mindlessly manipulating the frill of his chemise's sleeve.
"Oh?" returned Near with only a fraction of inquisitiveness.
"I suppose he's going to choose his heir." The conjecture, when introduced on the verbal plain, had somewhat of a devastating effect on nearby wards. Startled looks turned down the corridor.
"There's no reason for L to do that," Near said plainly. "Unless he or she is going to die. In which case, a scheduled audience is implausible."
"What if it isn't implausible?" countered Iscariot, scooting on his knees into the conversation. "What if he's anticipating it because it's inevitable?"
After plucking earphones from her ears, Dahlia's caramel tanned hands settled on the red trousers clothing her hips. She cut through Iscariot's misstep effortlessly. "Death is always inevitable."
"What if he knows he's going to die soon?"
"Then he wouldn't be wasting time with us, he'd be working to prevent it."
"What if he can't?"
"Shut up!" Distress bloomed like a mushroom cloud inside Reinhart's shout and the accompanying slam of half-formed, feminine fists against the tiled floor. His pose, with his head hung over his lap, illustrated pure, instinctive defense. "L's not dying!"
Following a brief pause, Dahlia reiterated, "everyone dies. Even L." The calm, clear words translated to the eerie, soundless swipe of a sword. Reinhart's forehead fell against his knees, and his arms moved to hide his flushing face, but the shudder of his shoulders was telltale.
"Oh, stop, you baby," and variations murmured through their crowd. Linda wove forward, crouched, and put an arm around the crying kid.
"Look," Iscariot began again, "this kind of thing is unprecedented. Something provoked it, and it has to be important enough that L is setting aside time for us."
"Maybe it'll become a regular thing."
A raucous laugh attacked the random comment from somewhere in the back.
"Roger arranged it," Matt reflexively offered, managing neither to agree nor disagree, without glancing away from the faintly glowing screen of his handheld.
"Oh, sure. A guest of the month. That makes perfect sense. Maybe he can get the Pope next."
"L wouldn't be a guest. It could be a homecoming. We don't know if L will appear in person or through some other media."
"L would not appear in person."
So, they were going to hammer it out now like a hypothetical in class.
Wammy's children were trying to turn the whole affair into a riddle with intent to solve it, but the differential clarified the very indefinable nature of their subject. Assumptions were fine when linking clues in a case, but not for building a bridge in the dark. If this went on for much longer, the lot of them would drown or maroon on some isle of flimsy half-logic.
"There's a chance L is retiring."
"Only the old and feeble retire."
"How do you know L isn't old?"
"He hasn't been around for that long!"
"He could still be old."
"It could be L wants to share a case with us."
"L works alone, stupid."
"But Watari—"
"I bet it's a test. With a case, or questions. An evaluation."
"Will the failures be kicked out of Wammy's?"
"Maybe L's disbanding the House."
"It's not L's House. It's ours."
The grandfather clock chimed. The bells in the tower pealed.
It's eleven o'clock.
One of the East Hall's double doors clicked, unlocked, and clunked free of its frame. Eyes darted, breath caught. This is it said the pasty, aged hand that pushed the outward swinging door to the wall. Roger, in gentlemanly Sunday attire, flexed the doorstop to the floor and then addressed the second door. When this was done, the headmaster glanced the assembled children up and down, beckoned gently, and moved inside once more.
Stillness reigned. The wards were petrified. They were braced for a stark change in life as they knew it, but the question remained: who first? It was nearly like penguins clamoring at the edge of an ice floe. Someone had to hit the water eventually.
Exhaling smoothly, Mello clenched his chocolate in three fingers, stepped over Iscariot, and strode, casually, straight into the Hall. His mask of neutrality was flawed, of course. He'd hesitated with the rest, everyone knew, but the fact he rose to this challenge, even as banal as it was, extinguished a lot of fear. The drone of arcade music playing in the background cut off thereafter, and Matt rose to follow. The little boy still attached to him plodded along with the redhead's wider gait. More trickled toward the room in their wake.
The East Hall was usually a recreational space, but today most the games, almanacs, radios, and play paraphernalia were put away. Upon entering, the place looked smaller than it should have possibly due to the fact the windows on the wall opposing the doors were closed and shuttered, and the hardwood floors lacked the glittery sheen they would have possessed in direct sunlight. Instead, a ghostly shine was set upon the planks by a lit, white screen. On an ordinary table, with ordinary speakers flanking it, was an ordinary laptop. This, at least, was the impression the wards got as they came across the room.
Mello was eyeing the setup from a relaxed lean against one window's sill. The rest of the orphans were drawn to the centerpiece (next to which Roger sat in a chair) like moths to a flame. Iscariot's fastidious fingers parted pages of highlighted passages in books while his peers sprawled or carefully picked places to sit nearest the table. At some point during the commotion, Near had placed himself a good distance from the group where he was inexplicitly surrounded with puzzles and Rubik's cubes.
"Good morning, House." Roger was warm, trouble-free. The assembly couldn't have an ominous connotation with that kind of opening, could it? Reciprocated salutations rippled through the group, nevertheless. "Is this everyone?" he inquired, eyeing their number and barely mouthing a count. Heads nodded, looks were exchanged. "In that case..." noise from the other side of the room wisped over them. Some staff member closed the doors. "I would like to lead you in a discussion.
"On the fifth of May, nineteen eighty-four, in Willemburg, one Julia Erikson was found dead in her flat by her neighbor around three in the morning. Erikson's flatmate was said to be sleeping, however the reason given for the oddly timed discovery of the body was disruptive noise, a physical altercation, that went on intermittently over the course of twenty minutes. Julia herself showed no outward signs of injury; there was no evidence suggesting forced entry to the flat. The post-mortem explanation for the victim's death was asphyxiation. In this case, the flatmate was arrested due to testimony from several other neighbors regarding the sounds, as well as family and acquaintances who cited prior domestic problems. However, the neighbor committed perjury during the trial and the flatmate was ultimately found not guilty.
"How many of you, given the opportunity, would choose to investigate this further?"
A few of the children shifted in place. Faces were made, contemplative and musing. One reason, of many, arose from Iscariot in a ginger bass. "What about double jeopardy?"
"He said investigate, not necessarily convict," reminded Reinhart, who now looked composed even if it weren't entirely true. "Given the opportunity..."
"Detectives out there aren't as good as Wammy alumni and alumnae. Looking over the crime scene photos and whatever evidence might yield something. For instance, if the flatmate was innocent," Linda emphasized as she spoke certain words, and they arced radically enough to rival the ego inherent in their context, "then there's still a bad guy to catch."
"A bad guy from nineteen years ago. You also have to think in terms of the fact that there is no other suspect."
"There wasn't mention of other suspects. That doesn't mean there aren't any. The neighbor could be a suspect."
Dahlia raised two fingers. A jumble of plastic and metal bracelets fell from her wrist to her forearm. "Inadequate information."
"Ugh. Okay, first investigate the investigation, then decide whether it's worth investigating further? That's ludicrous," decided a stout boy in the front row.
"Suppose," Roger interrupted, "the disclosed information was the complete record."
The Hall quieted briefly. Wide, bewildered eyes set on the headmaster. The lot resembled kicked puppies. Dahlia eventually spoke up, obviously pained by the development. "But it's inadequate."
Restively tucking her hair behind her ears, Linda posed, "so it's a lost cause?"
"You'd have to start from scratch. Do your own footwork," Matt instructed, switching hands with which to cradle one side of his face. A yawn weakened the conviction in his voice. "But, it's really pointless for anyone other than city police to do that."
"Yeah." The children rallied.
"Why not take into account," Reinhart murmured, "that that really is the whole case. Justice has been served."
Iscariot was too eager to rip that argument to shreds. The twitch of his fingers suggested he wanted something to hurl at his peer. "You're just repeating Linda."
"Erikson could have killed herself. She suffocated, but it's not stated how. Some methods would explain the noise the neighbor heard. And the neighbor was obviously trying to blame the flatmate on the stand, so it doesn't take too much of a leap of the imagination to figure the former could have altered the crime scene."
"So? You're still suspecting the neighbor," Iscariot criticized.
By this point, it was obvious by the participation in the argument exactly who would want to investigate the case, although their motives were probably ridiculous. To be right, to be first, to have the last word. Mello recognized it for what it was. He was still nursing that chocolate bar, but the strident ambience in the room had killed his appetite, and he'd it lain against his bottom lip. He didn't return the candy's weathered corner to the unkind edge of his teeth even as the discussion wound down. Rather, he curled his lip or slid his tongue across it, savoring the taste but at the ready to counter any dodgy statements that bothered him too badly.
As Reinhart, Iscariot, and a select few in-and-out players started in on minutia, most of which was practically imaginary, the laptop hummed and the screen cut, in a flash, to another. Splat upon an empty white backdrop stood a blatant L in cloister black font. The headmaster wasted his voice calling Wammy's children to attention. "Everyone..."
The cold, frequency churned, modified voice in the speakers completed the thought with, simply, "a show of hands would have sufficed." And apparently the person on the other end of the connection wasn't inclined to contribute anymore than that. Seeing as the children had abruptly clammed up, star-struck or something like it, that was just fine.
There was only the occasional clack of a puzzle piece into its space on a board to ruin the awkward peace. Near wasn't even facing the laptop, but his eyes darted in that direction to examine the set up. Each child was left to their own devices, at this point, to pick up the slight discrepancy in the computer's frame and the small bubble of glass that indicated a camera and microphone. So, L is a hypocrite.
"L has set aside an hour of his time to visit with us." It was up to Roger to move them along, apparently.
"I'm between cases at the moment, actually, so I have all the time in the world." The context indicated some emotion must have been attached to that statement, but the voice scrambler destroyed all hints of it. Wammy's children were given a stay of bliss in not knowing just how depressing boredom could be. "However, if business calls, I will cut this communication short. Therefore, if there's anything anyone would like to say, I recommend seizing this moment."
Despite this urging, the children hesitated several seconds more before Matt's self-appointed sidekick, Charlemagne by alias, sat forward on his knees for a closer inspection of the laptop. After this, he elected to comment aloud, "you don't have anything to say to us?"
It was natural to assume a celebrity like this, popping in for a scholastic assembly, would recite a speech, but Wammy's House was hardly comparable to pedestrian universities and prep schools.
Without missing a beat, L torpidly replied, "your headmaster insists I refrain." The lack of clarification there, this time, illustrated emotion even without evidence of L's true tone. It well could have been described as a call to arms.
"Why, Roger?" The children bleated, but all they were returned with was the slow, dignified shake of the man's head. The crowd before the laptop stirred, frustrated. For all the splendor of their reputation, which of course preceded them, they looked like normal, everyday kids whose candy had just been torn away.
Because Wammy doesn't want to sow another B. Because Wammy doesn't want to cut down another A. So they'd never hear what a disappointment and a bore that discussion was, and that Julia's case was simply a vehicle to expose how many of Wammy's current wards could be fooled with Cubix Zirconium or cared more for shiny tinsel than real precious stones.
"L?"
"I'm listening." This arose from the mysterious detective's stock of amiable manners. No one noticed the seams fusing one persona to the next.
Dahlia continued, "who's your favorite composure?"
Silence saturated the East Hall for several seconds, as if L was preoccupied with his own thoughts of: oh, this is what children are. Somehow, he'd let himself expect something else to come out of this peculiar hour. This was a game of twenty questions. It was humorous but no less of a waste—partly since the crowd would never be content, partly because a good number of the answers L gave were boldfaced lies.
L heard himself answer but couldn't for the life of him recall the name he'd supplied after the fact.
This was a farce.
On the other end of a very long line, Wammy's children knew to take every response with a grain of salt. One by one, each of the students piled close to the laptop got in their piece and received a succinct reply. Elaboration was provided whenever someone got up the gall to inquire. Only twenty minutes had expired by the time the last curious question was uttered, and all but two kids had spoken. The highest ranked, in fact. Between brief instances in fascination, Near had completed a solid white jigsaw puzzle twice and had begun to toy with the closest Rubik's cube. Mello had somehow avoided crinkling wrapper foil for the assembly's duration thus far.
There was tentative silence when the need for a second round of turns became obvious. Agonizing the entire morning and narrowing down a lifetime's worth of ponderings to one query had been difficult enough for each of them. The dam had to break. Their role as carefully groomed students chipped away here and there, revealing Wammy's talented orphans to be capable of childish playfulness as well as periods of perfect, awesome calm while L spoke.
By the time Matt got his second inquiry in, all bets were off. As silly as it would have been under any other circumstance, a two-part question was the pluckiest thing to come out of the interactive audience. "What first encouraged your sense of justice, and what do you think you would be doing now if that foundation were absent?"
Sometime between Shakespeareana and favorite world tours, paltry chitchat had mutated into a plea for profound introspection. Like milk souring, their interest was turning toward the man behind the pseudonym, and L didn't much care for the auspicious light being thrown upon him. This trivia had less to do with education, more to do with idolism.
"It's not a sense of justice." Maybe they didn't need to know. Maybe they'd be better off not knowing. But that's really not how the world works.
"Figuring out difficult cases is my hobby. If you measured good and evil deeds by current laws, I would be responsible for many crimes. The same way you all like to solve mysteries and riddles, or clear video games more quickly—for me too, it's simply prolonging something I enjoy doing." The expressions of Wammy's children turned from gleeful excitement to heart-wrenching despair. It was certain that Quillish, a man of unwavering grace and subtle wisdom, would have an earful for him after hearing about this. About how L squashed what was evidently a god in the eyes of two dozen or so of the world's most extraordinary, irreplaceable apprentices.
Intrepidly, L stayed the course. "That's why I only take on cases that pique my interest. It's not justice at all. And if it means being able to clear a case, I don't play fair. I'm a dishonest, cheating human being who hates losing. That is all.
"With that established, the answers to your questions should be apparent."
It was over after that. Dead silence for a whole ten seconds going on ten hundred years.
No one wanted to ask any more questions.
The headmaster ushered the children to their feet and out of the East Hall.
The doors swung closed. Only one thudded into its locked position.
Mello's teeth were bare against dark chocolate, gritted not so tightly as to break the bar. The fingers of his left hand burned from the impact of the solid wood, but concerns about bruised flesh and broken nails lived only in the time it took to bat an eyelash. Inside the East Hall, the assembly continued without the wards; and, through the cracked door, it spilled out into the corridor.
Five steps away, Near's face was downcast, his eyes focused on the Rubik's cube he'd escaped the Hall with, but he neglected to swivel the puzzle and pollute the soundscape. Other orphans paused upon looking back. What became of them was a staggered procession of amateur, silent sleuths.
"I'll ask you to discourage further worship of L in that House," the mechanical voice rattled while Roger made his way back to the laptop. "Reverence is only useful to me in gaining the cooperation of governments, agencies, communities as a whole... I see no good end in misguiding Wammy's children."
There was an edge of anger, and undercurrent of distrust, in the headmaster's tired response. "You are a role model to these students regardless of who exactly they are and what they might think of you at any one time. Furthermore—"
"Forgive me, but if your pupils are being encouraged to aspire to be like someone, the profile should be correct. They asked, I informed; and I believe they'll rest easier knowing they aren't obliged to grow wings and don a halo to meet or transcend a fabricated standard. Now they will make their own decisions, just as I was privileged to do."
"If only you could have been so noble a few moments ago. Understand, L, you are not the end of the line, nor are you the best the world has to offer. Today, you may be; and today you probably turned your nose up at several cases because they didn't have enough drama, blood, or money to hold your attention. Some day, in succession of you, a less childish student of this House will pick up the cases you tossed by the wayside! And only then will the great L be more than a sigh in the back of every lawman's throat, or a pitiable daydream wafting through the lives of the common man."
Mid-rant, L had unabashedly muted his audio. Therein, blue, he watched the aggrieved twist of the headmaster's lips, the malcontent furrow of his brow, and spared not one thought as to what mister Ruvie would have to say if endowed with the knowledge of L's connection to the sympathetic Danuve, the crooked Eraldo Coil, or any number of his radically different alternates. When it appeared Roger was through, a flick of one key reactivated the audio, and then, numbly, L replied, "I understand."
The idea that one could sway the other's opinion was ludicrous, and each knew it. The conversation was over. There was only one thing left to say.
"In no form are you allowed within this House again."
Despite the scathing tone, L failed to hurt.
Months later, L made his first début live to the world. Sometime after, in that insomniac's playground between asleep and awake, there was a fraction of a second during which L wondered whether or not Roger would permit a recording of the telecast to be viewed by the wards. That good and virtuous shade of L's ever-changing character might restore a few broken hearts.
Maybe so.
The day he and Near were summoned, by their lonesome, into the falsely tranquil headmaster's office, Mello wrenched mister Ruvie from his seat by his collar. The solemn look Roger wore was appalling because it was more for them than L's passing, and L still meant something to Mello. Possibly everything. And for the briefest of moments, his left hand could burn, and he could be back in the corridor, hush and staring through the East Hall's cracked door. If he could make just Roger sorry, then maybe L could come back sometime...
Little more than five years to the day.
Time was flowing backwards.
Mello didn't like to think of L's death, but since leaving Wammy's House, he'd stared the grim reaper straight in the face, he'd spit in the eye of a so-called god, he'd killed and he'd nearly died himself. It was hard to get through a day without a memory or two bursting, painfully, like a boil in the back of his mind. Just stupid little things like the sick yellow and red ooze still seeping from second degree burns reminding him of the play of color on the stained glass windows on a rare sunny day. Tripping over scattered metal and wood debris on the way to his rats' nest of a safe house, and his drugged out head warping the racket into the sound of bells. The cold metal of his rosary's crucifix, worn in shrewd denouncement of a satanic, faux lord, suddenly touching seared skin and triggering images that old, converted church in Winchester. The way his left hand could feel as though it were burned despite being clean of scorch marks.
Wildly veering down memory lane made him nauseous. As far as he was concerned, it was better to grab hold of the wheel. At least then no one was left shrugging their shoulders after taking a wrong turn. Therefore, still suffering and ill a week after pressing the kill switch and saying so long to the mafia, Mello found that the dull scratch of pen on paper drowned out the haphazard, hazy reflections better than anything else. It felt like entire lifetimes had slipped through his fingers since he'd set himself to a task as mundane as writing a report. No, more like a journal, except with a more serious purpose. The term 'memoir' might have worked if the contents of the pages regarded his own self in any esteem. This was not the case, for when Mello began to drag ink across the glaring white, wrinkled loose leaf, all he could think of was L.
What began as venting swiftly transformed into sore palms, frayed nerves, and a sea of crumpled balls of paper. Pieces of obligatory recess, usually brought on by intolerable pain and then disconnection from a body swimming in hijacked morphine, proffered a miserable scene for the ex-Wammy's boy. In spite of the adage about never going home again, the dilapidated apartment had so rapidly grown to look like his old dorm the night before an important examination. Roger would not have been pleased, but then, he never was.
Blank spots and blackouts annoyed the writer in him more than the chicken scratch and incomprehensible babble he turned out. It was after the drugs ended and the burns had actually begun to show signs of healing that his assignment took a real shape. Somewhere between the pages, clarity unfurled.
Plan B. It was the homage that put an impish simper on his face as he picked up the phone. It might have even made looking in the mirror easier from then on out.
How anti-climactic dialing a few keys could be. For all the work it'd taken to obtain a simple number. The way the size and shape of the phone resembled that of a detonator.
The line clicked. Active.
In the background, arcade music; and familiar voice saying, "speak to me."
Alone in a room commanded by stillness, with the cell propped to his ear, Mello slouched forward. "Are you up for another round of Murder in the Dark?"
The icy, thin air wafting in through cracks around the windows caused the notes around the room to shiver in their stacks. His rosary, looped around a custom Glock and, for the moment, reduced to a paperweight, kept the past from fluttering into the air.
It merely crackled inside the earpiece.
"Serious?"
But it's slipping.
"Cross my heart."
Author's Notes
I started this months and months ago after a friend of mine told me about a game he used to play as a child. That'd be Murder in the Dark, and of course I automatically thought Death Note. I also wanted to weave in that scene from the oneshot manga continuation (and in fact some of L's dialogue featured here is directly quoted from the scanlation). Honestly, it was difficult, and that part is one of the ones I kept going back to edit.
After that, I still wanted to get in my piece about Mello's rosary. I happened to have been cleaning and rediscovered my copy of Death Note: Another Note The Los Angeles BB Murder Cases, so that just fell into place (sans the part in the novel where Mello refers to his own death?). Of course, the rosary thing ended up just being one sentence, which is kind of depressing. I couldn't get anything more to be cohesive, although there is a subtle tie in with the last line. Maybe I'll write it into another fic. That, and sort out when Mello met L with regards to this oneshot's angle.
Anyway, I really couldn't tear my personal canon away from Flamika's (google her!) take on Mello's recovery, so I avoided the subject as best I could. Hopefully the conclusion doesn't feel hurried for it.
For you R&R'ers, I'm wondering about tenses and point of views. Most of this fic is from Mello's standpoint, but it changes in a few paragraphs. Same goes for tenses, especially with the stillness slipped motif. Did that come off awkward?