Hey guys. So this is going to be a story about L's life. I mean doesn't everyone want to know why he is the way he is? It bothers me that his name is L Lawliet. L is not a name. I went searching for clues as to how L ended up as the amazingly quirky person he is with absolutely no results. So in the spirit of artistic interpretations of existing characters (or fanfic) I am creating my own scenarios. I'm going to be exploring a history that I made up, so if anything is incorrect I apologize, and also, get over it. I will be including some psychology stuff, but I'm only in Psych II in high school so don't expect me to delve too deeply.
There will be LxLight toward the end but that was not meant as the central purpose. Light fans, I'm sorry but he will not appear much in this fic. I will be bending Death Note to fit my needs but I will try to remain true to character.
All things considered, I hope you enjoy my fic. Flames will be read and probably have a damaging effect on my self-esteem so if it makes you feel better…go ahead. I'll keep writing anyway.
I do not own Death Note in any way shape or form.
This is L looking back on his life before he dies. Onward and upward…
L may not have remembered his name after what happened, but he surely remembered the incident. And all that came before it. That was perhaps the most merciless part of the ordeal: his memories. L's memory was impeccably well intact and functional leaving him nowhere to escape the past that haunted him right to the edge of his sanity.
He had lived comfortably with his parents in an old manor house. The walls were made of crumbling brick covered in ivy that climbed into the cracks and bloomed in the summer. A lawn of green grass sprawled for an acre surrounded by woods lush and deep. Although the house was well endowed with modern amenities, it appeared to be a timeless haven lost in the English countryside. L loved every part of the outside, it was the inside that caused him grief.
The door would open and slam, waking a very young L from his nightly slumber. He would lay awake, his heart beating faster, listening intently to see if his mother had indeed left. Some mornings he was lucky, he could hear the tires of her car fling gravel against the windows. Most mornings, however, he was greeted by sunshine, birdcall, and a horrific screeching.
"You horrific child," would come her voice. L could always hear her making her way down the hall, every footfall making the old boards creak under her heals getting louder and louder. " What have I told you about sticking that thumb in your mouth?" she would ask, day after day, her voice steadily rising in anger. "If you cannot stop, I will be forced to cut it off!"
L would immediately pull it from his mouth, feeling his anxiety rise as she approached him. Mariella was a beautiful woman with glossy black hair and deep green eyes framed in black lashes. She was young, shapely, and talented. And L loved her. Even though she would yell at him or slap him, for all of the times she was docile and kind L loved her. Even fear was not enough to deter the young boy from his beloved mother.
"Why would you do this to me? Your father has gone again and I know he is sleeping with that blonde slut from his office. I suppose that if you weren't here, I wouldn't be so damned miserable. Why? Why do you hate me?" her hand would connect with his face and the tears would well up as so many times before.
"I'm sorry, Mommy," he looked at her with large brown eyes. His sniveling and crying only disgusted her. She wanted him to know what it was like to be forgotten, to be left alone and miserable.
"I'll give you something to be sorry about," she said, and grabbed a handful of his hair. She pulled him down the stairs, deaf to his cries and pleading. In her drunken haze it seemed like nothing more than background noise, the protests of a plaguing demon about to be exorcized. She pulled open the cabinet under the sink, filled with cleaning bottles and dish rags, but there was just enough room for a small boy. She pushed him inside and closed the cabinet, locking it with a bicycle chain.
"No! Please let me out! Mommy!" L cried, as he pounded on the cabinet. He was scared, he did not want to be left alone in the cramped space.
"You will stay in there and if I hear another noise I am going to start putting you in the dryer," she threatened. L pulled himself away from the wooden door. He could only pull his knees up to his chest in a tight crouch. He replaced the thumb inside of his mouth and found it soothing. He stayed there for the rest of the day.
His mother let him out just before L's father returned home from work. She hurried him outside and scrambled to straighten things up before he got home. L was grateful to be freed and started running about the yard. He found a few new wild flowers that he kept in a book, labeled by their scientific name that L learned from an encyclopedia he had found in his father's office.
He had learned to read when he went to nursery school. As soon as the other children had finished learning the alphabet, he had already begun to read at a fifth grade level. None of his teachers believed that he understood what he was reading, but let him entertain himself regardless. Now, at the age of six, he found nothing more fun than absorbing information from encyclopedias and dictionaries as there was nothing else to read in the house. Being as L was not allowed to watch television, sorting plants and solving his father's 1000 piece jigsaw puzzles satisfied him, until he found the chess board and an old master's guide. New worlds of logic opened up to him after that.
In an unfortunate turn of events L's mother lost her job and was forced to stay home with L while his father worked ungodly hours. Sometimes Laurence Lawliet would not even set foot in the house for two weeks straight. If in fact the man did make it home early enough for L to lay eyes on him, the man would have nothing to do with his son. L would have to sit in his room and listen to the two adults argue over things he could not yet understand.
For two years L was not allowed to go to school. His life fell into a familiar routine that he came to accept as normal. Mariella would wake him up as the sun rose, accuse the boy of ruining her life, and yank the thumb out of his mouth. He would try to apologize, try to make it up to her. He truly felt back for making his mother so unhappy, for making his father leave. He sometimes gave her boquets of flowers or other gifts.
"Here mommy," he said, holding out his very favorite teddy bear. He wanted to cry at the thought of being separated from his friend. He loved the bear very much, but he would give it away if it meant making his mommy happy. "I want you to have him. I want you to feel better,"
His mother looked at the bear with one eye fallen out, it was filthy and had matted fur. "This is a disgusting old thing," she said. "I'm going to throw it away," L begged her not to. But in the end the bear was thrown directly into the fireplace.
After L's apologies he would be taken back to the kitchen and stuffed into the corner under the sink, stuck in a broken haunch for hours on end. At first he begged and pleaded, struggled and pushed to get out. But after so long he resigned himself and no longer argued as he was shut up in the darkness for the day. He would sit there with his thumb back in his mouth, and think hard.
Mommy was sad because daddy was gone, and daddy was gone because of L, therefore L was making mommy sad. It made perfect sense. He tried to think of ways to get his daddy back, but the man was never in the house long enough for L to talk to him. One day the thought occurred to him, he could write his daddy a letter and give it to the mailman.
L waited until Tuesday, the day when Mariella went grocery shopping and let L remain free in the house. He grabbed a blue marker and a piece of paper and an envelope from his mother's desk.
"Dear Daddy," he wrote in his sloppy, childish handwriting. "I wish you would come home. I am sorry for making you leave and making you sad. Will you come back so mommy will stop keeping me under the sink all day long?" he put the letter into the envelope and wrote the address of his father's workplace on the front. He had memorized the address when he saw a previous letter left out on the counter when his father was home.
When the mailman came up the long gravel drive, L unbolted the door and ran as fast as he could with his letter, smudging and smearing the blue marker as he went. He fell twice, unused to running as his time outside had been greatly reduced as of late. "Wait!" He yelled as he sped toward the truck.
"Hello there, little one," said the mailman. He was a kind looking man with rosy cheeks and sparkling eyes.
"Will you give this to my daddy?" L asked, handing the man his letter.
"Well you need a stamp on it," said the mailman, " but you know what? I have some extra ones. I'll be sure he gets it, okay?" L nodded, he took off running back up the drive right to the back yard to enjoy the sunshine while he could.
It took three days for L's father to come home unannounced one afternoon, screaming at his mother.
"Where is he?" his father yelled, throwing something at a wall. "Where is my son you crazy bitch?"
"Lawrence! Stop it! You're hurting me!" she screamed, a loud thud came from the hall close to the kitchen. L heard his father's steps as he came closer to the sink his mother was screaming for him to stop, that it was not what it looked like.
"Really? So you chained our son under the sink! What the hell is wrong with you?" he asked, pulling on the chain so hard that the handles ripped off the thin wood. He pulled L out from cabinet forcefully, taking in the boy's pale skin and wide eyes. Pangs of guilt and sorrow flooded the man as he saw the bruises and cuts on the boy's face and arms, he was dirty and uncouth, obviously his mother had not been taking care of him at all besides feeding him.
"He's a terrible, nasty child. He needs to be sent away, somewhere for deranged children," she screeched, pointing a finger at the small boy. L put his thumb in his mouth and hugged his father in glee. He was so happy that his daddy got his letter. Now his mommy would be happy, now his daddy had rescued him.
"I want a divorce. Now. And I'm taking my son with me," he said. Mariella looked shocked for a moment; her face fell into a stony expression.
"A divorce? After everything I've been through, you want a divorce…" she trailed off and walked away. L heard her footsteps on the stairs, the door to her bedroom slammed.
"Daddy you're home!" L said after everything quieted. The man's brown eyes met L's, his weary glance was full of remorse but L only saw his father. His salvation.
"Yes, and I promise she will never hurt you again," he said. L smiled and hugged the man's neck, smelling the soft scent of cologne and feeling the rough stubble. Mariella came back down the stairs, L assumed that she would be happy now. He did not know what a divorce was, but it could not be bad. L had gotten daddy to come home, she would be happy now. But she was the furthest thing from happy. She pulled out a can from under the sink and started splashing the liquid everywhere. Lawrence put L down, grabbing for the can. They began fighting and L's father yelled for him to get out of the kitchen. L merely backed up. His mother pulled out a gun from her back pocket. A loud bang resonated through the room, it hurt L's ears and startled him but he did not close his eyes. His father's head exploded with a burst of red across the counter top. He fell to the floor in a heap.
"This hell will go up in flames," Mariella said, flicking a match from the book they kept over the stove. She dropped it and the kitchen was set ablaze. She ran forward, clutched onto L's shirt, and slammed his head against the counter. Her shirt caught fire, though, and she started screaming. She let go of the boy and L ran out of the house, as fast as he could, back down the gravel drive. But he only made it half way before he passed out from his head injury.
It was an hour before the fire trucks and police cars arrived on scene. L awoke halfway to the hospital, terrified. He cried and struggled, they had to restrain him so he did not pull out his IV's. The boy was covered in soot, bruises, burns, he had inhaled smoke and gotten a severe concussion. But not one would know what true injuries L had. Injuries of the mind.
When the eight year old boy woke up in the hospital, a calm was settled into him. Images of the fire, his parents, the last years, flooded back. He began to cry, but quietly. He had learned to be quiet when he cried, he was always afraid his mother would put him in the dryer. No one even knew he had awoken.
"There he is," said a kind nurse as she checked over tubes and needles in his arms. L stared at them in a panic and recoiled from the nurse's touch. He was expecting her to slap him across his cheek. That was how ladies were. "It's alright, darling. You are going to be just fine. Now, can you tell me your name?" she asked kindly. L thought but he couldn't remember. He shook his head, putting the tip of his thumb in his mouth tentatively, unsure if she would yell at him for having it there. "You can't remember?" she asked. He shook his head again. He really could not remember.
Over the next few days many doctors and nurses would ask him his name over and over again. But there were no records of him, everything burned in the house fire. The only thing they knew of was the name written on the tag of his jacket he was found wearing. On there, written hastily, was L. Lawliet, the jacket L had been wearing since nursery school when he needed his name written on it. From then on, everyone called him Lawliet. Or simply L.
Once L was feeling better, he began seeing counselors and therapists and other such people asking him questions. He told them about his mother, he did not see why not . Wasn't that normal for all mommys? They told him it wasn't, that his mother was a very bad woman. He loved his mother, he told them so. He just wanted her to be happy, to let him out from under the sink. He missed his parents, but he never cried in front of the strange people. He did not want to get in trouble.
Soon enough, a kind looking man with white hair and a nice suit came to talk to L. He asked L what he liked to do, what kind of games he liked to play. L told him about reading the encyclopedias and making his books of plants. He told the man all about the different wild flowers found in the forests, their scientific name, and the time they bloomed. The said that he thought L was a very nice young boy and very smart too. He said that L would come live with him, that nice man named Quillish Wammy.
"That boy is incredibly intelligent but his maturity is stunted. He has had little contact with other children his age, and none in the last two years. He has never had a formal education. There is no telling what kind of mental scarring he is going to have. He would be better off in a mental ward," said one of the doctors.
"I see his potential," Wammy said strongly. "L will be somebody important one day,"
Thanks for reading. Let me know if this is interesting and if you want me to continue. Any helpful critiques are much appreciated!
