First off, this is a oneshot. I have no plans to continue it. Second off, I am (not) sorry for the warping of characters therein.
Disclaimer x2- Yeah, I wish. Doubly, even.
Warning- cracky, AU!GW- as in, same time: normal lives with reference to our-time legal processes, British spelling, attempted humour, judicious swearing, character warping. Minimal 1x2.
Enjoy, hopefully.
The first entry he wrote was simply venting. He picked up the pen, scrawled the name and exactly how he wanted the bastard to suffer before his eventual death in excruciating detail.
Said bastard being the criminal (he didn't care what the jury said) who had, not two hours ago, been acquitted of two counts of assault with a deadly weapon and one account of murder simply because the very damning evidence that Wufei himself had found, had been lost.
Conveniently lost without a trail.
Which, when added to the suspicious donation of an indecently large sum of money by a multi-million dollar corporation just that morning, smacked of bribery, and the justice system being thwarted again.
It was one of the reasons Wufei sometimes hated his job. He'd lost count of the number of times he'd had some prick cornered, all but condemned and locked away indefinitely-until-death, only for his hard work to be undone by an idiot jury and a charming smile.
Frustrating just wasn't a good enough word for it.
So he took out the notebook he'd confiscated from a suspect's flat three years ago (and, when the case against the young man had been thrown out, kept as a quaint keepsake since the boy in question hadn't asked for it back), and with all the calmness of the eye of a hurricane, described the exact angle at which his katana would enter the bastard's unmentionable orifices (yes, plural intentional) before he was slowly eviscerated with the very same weapon.
When he heard the next day that the man had died of a heart attack that evening, he shrugged, made all appropriate noises of sympathy for the family, and celebrated that night at the local pup with his partner. It wasn't their original intention when they walked into the popular drinking spot, but three beers later Wufei had admitted that he was glad some sort of justice had taken place, even if it wasn't through proper channels. Duo, his partner, had simply stared at him before chinking their bottles and stating solemnly, "To you, Bastard. May you rot in Hell".
There was a reason he liked Duo, despite the various arguments they found themselves having.
For a few months, that was the end of it. Wufei continued to feel like he and his partner were the only honest pair in the station, and if anything, became more paranoid for it, jumping at shadows he swore he could see in the corner of his eye. Duo told him he was going crazy 'cause clearly my purple orbs can see nuthin',' atrocious accent and all.
Wufei tactfully declined to mention how Duo's 'purple orbs' had been more than a little distracted of late by the Force's new sniper. His braided partner would only deny it emphatically.
The next case they took to trial was relatively minor for them. Multiple accounts of theft and one assault and battery; the kid had only owned up because he needed an alibi for another, more serious accusation. Apparently, ASBOs were cooler than gaol time in the current street climate.
Wufei had snorted, and pressed the judge for a harsher sentence, as the accused was clearly not regretful.
The judge hadn't listened. The kid got 60 hours of unpaid community service and a police shadow.
Wufei got the first round bought for him by his partner, the second by the tall, blonde-haired stranger at the bar, a raging hangover the next day and an increased sense of paranoia when he realised that that was all he could remember.
On his desk though, was some evidence of his actions; the paragraph of his sloppy kanji began with (God forbid Maxwell ever find out) 'Dear Diary' and contained a running, if sarcastic, commentary on the trial and the aftermath.
A loose square of paper was trapped under the notebook. Wufei moved it aside, absently noting that it was the same one he'd ranted away in some months ago. He stared at the square he'd uncovered.
Was that a phone number?
Wufei decided then and there that they would need to find a new local. Again. At least (he hoped) they hadn't actually been kicked out of this one- but he couldn't bear to go back after apparently making such a fool of himself last night.
He wondered if Duo, with his much higher tolerance for alcohol, was suffering as much as he was. One could only wish.
Dialling his friend's number (and determinately ignoring the square of paper that faintly demanded to be dialled instead) Wufei surmised that Maxwell wasn't answering his home phone.
With a sigh, he dialled the idiot's mobile number.
After a minute (and one redial) somebody finally picked up. But the voice was unfamiliar; lower, and accented differently to either Duo or himself. "Who is this?" He inquired, forgoing pleasantries.
The voice didn't seem to mind his lack of manners, repeating himself in the same monotone. "You've reached Duo Maxwell's mobile. Do you want me to pass on a message?"
And fainter, in the background, the dulcet tones of a manic, five-foot-seven American who must've been yelling to be heard at all, "Give it back, ya bastard, that might be important! Hey, not the braid! Heero! No fair!"
Wufei's astute mind put 2 and 2 together and came up with wanker. Duo didn't appear to be suffering at all, and the world had further proved its mockery of a sense of justice.
"Tell him that I expect him to show up for our shift this afternoon, limp and all," Wufei growled. Why did Duo get laid and he only got a hangover?
There was a pause on the other end. Finally, a smug sounding "Hai," came through, and Wufei disconnected the line.
Thoroughly disconsolate, he turned on the news.
"-and today's headlines for those who've just tuned in: coincidental deaths of judicial staff stuns police investigators! Minister for Defence refuses to comment on actions in the Middle East! Sentenced teenager found dead in his own home-"
Wufei stopped listening. He switched the TV off and decided to beat the headache out with some old fashioned exercise.
Later that day, as he waited outside the station for his partner to turn up (he had six and a half minutes left, and counting), he found himself overhearing other people's conversations.
"Did you hear?"
"Well, she said-"
"Give it up, he won't call back-"
Wufei was in dire need of a reminder as to why he did his job again. What was it about humanity that made them worth saving?
"FEI!"
He barely had time to turn and brace himself from the braided missile that hurled itself at him. Even with his preparations, Wufei found himself on the floor, glaring up at violet eyes.
"Maxwell! Get off of me! And it's Wufei, you imbecile!"
The demon in disguise grinned. "But you gotta come meet Heero!"
Wufei blinked. "Would that be Mr Dark and Scowling over there?" He nodded his head past Maxwell's left shoulder, at the figure of the sniper Duo had been drooling over for weeks.
Duo turned and looked. His grin, if possible, grew wider. "That's him," he confirmed. "Heero babe! Come say hi!" His shout, accompanied by the wild 'come hither' gestures he was making with the hand not still pinning Wufei to the floor, attracted most of the attention of the street.
Wufei was confused when he felt one pair of eyes still staring at him. He searched the area visually, as much as he could from his vantage point, and was about to give up when he spotted the winged skeleton laughing at him from the roof of the building opposite.
Wait, what?
He blinked, and there was nothing standing on the roof but gargoyles.
"Maxwell, move!" He ordered, finally shoving the man aside in his haste to get up. Ignoring his partner's screech, he took off at a run into the block of offices whose roof the- something- had been sitting on.
He knew he wasn't going crazy. He'd been paranoid and restless for weeks now, like something was watching him. And there was only one exit from this building. Whoever or whatever it was, it wasn't getting away from him.
An hour, and one hearty dressing-down from his superior later, Wufei was forced to conclude that either he was going crazy, or something more whacked-out than the anime he knew Duo watched on occasion was happening to him.
Well, he refused to believe the former was true.
But- really? Laughing skeletons?
He put the matter out of his mind and focussed on the report detailing the latest bastard they were taking to court.
By the end of his shift, when Duo turned up at the door and suggested, "Pub?", it was a matter of seconds before he was sliding on his leather jacket and following his partner out of the building. It had been one of those days.
(Not to be confused with one of those nights, although Wufei hadn't had many of them recently, damn it.)
The pub turned out to be an extremely good idea- right up until Wufei stumbled out of the taxi (alone, damnittohell) and fumbled his way through opening his front door. It wasn't the opening of the door that was the problem in and of itself, or even the closing and locking of it behind him again.
The problem was the apple-eating leather-wrapped skeleton sitting on his coffee table that the opening of the door revealed.
The even greater problem was that Wufei's inebriated mind only hmph'd and spouted out, "I hope you're planning to replace that. And stop stalking me, damn it, I'm paranoid enough as it is." He swayed past the snickering creature and added one last thing before going to bed. "And if you're going to giggle, do so quietly. I need to sleep before the trial tomorrow."
He closed his bedroom door behind him and thought no more of his skeleton stalker before falling asleep.
That, right there, was his biggest problem of all, as the shinigami Ryuk took it as implicit permission to stay, and furthermore, clean the house out of apples entirely.
Wufei had no idea, at this point in time, what was waiting for him the next morning.
Which was the main reason why he didn't wake up in a screaming panic, complete with bullets flying and enough swearing to shame a sailor. In fact, he woke up, blinked blearily, and hit the snooze button on his alarm clock hard enough to break it.
Then the curses started, when Wufei realised he now had a pile of wires and plastic where his torture device used to be. Stumbling to the shower, he made a mental note to get a new alarm clock before his mobile ran out of battery and failed him as a replacement in the meantime.
Stumbling out of the shower (walking was an activity solely reserved for after his first- second- fifth, to be honest- cup of caffeine), he made his way to the kitchen, not expecting anything but his normal, everyday appliances and the box of obnoxiously expensive ground coffee.
What he got was something a little different.
What he got, in fact, was a leather-wearing skeleton idly flicking through the pages of his rant-notebook as it (he?) happily floated only a few feet upside down from the ceiling.
Wufei debated the merits of blowing his brains out, simply so he'd manage to wake up. People normally woke up just before they actually died, right?
The skeleton looked up from the notebook, and grinned nastily. Considering Wufei could see every one of his teeth before the gesture, it was some achievement.
"We finally meet," he said, flipping himself over so now he floated a few feet from the floor. "I'm Ryuk, and I'm very upset with the fact that you've been using my death note as a mere diary. Don't you even realise the fun you could have with this thing?"
Before Wufei could hope to take that in, he added, "By the way, you're out of apples. Might want to rectify that sometime soon, before I get any- ideas."
The grin turned from nasty to evil.
Wufei swallowed past the lump in his throat. "Ideas?" he managed to croak out. "What sort of ideas?" He decided then and there that this conversation was taking place before he had his morning coffee- because if he even tried to understand the ramifications of a conversation with a skeleton when he was relatively sane-
-well, sanity would no longer be a problem for him.
Ryuk hefted the notebook in one hand. "Ideas like this, for one. Must be the best thing I ever thought of, you know? Buckets of entertainment every time, letting a human get their hands on it." He chucked the book onto the table, pages flying open to land on the most recent entry Wufei had made. "But you're just no fun," and Wufei was horrified that he recognised the skeleton's tone as a whine, "because you've killed practically nobody, and even then, you're not doing it properly. It's like you don't know what to do with it."
Wufei picked up the book and flicked through the pages. "Do with it?" he echoed incredulously. "It's not like notebooks come with instructions, you know?" He looked up at the skeleton. "What did you expect me to do?"
Ryuk looked stunned for a moment. Then he cursed in a guttural tongue and snatched the notebook from Wufei's hands, flicking to the front cover. More cursing commenced as he took in the blank page.
"Knew I'd forgotten something," the skeleton finally muttered in English. "Stupid, how did I expect to have fun when I forget the simplest of things?"
Finally floating to the ground, Ryuk sat cross-legged and placed the notebook on the floor, just in front. "The first things you have to know are that this book is not any ordinary notebook." He grinned again (default setting..? the officer wondered in a dark corner of his mind), and Wufei had the realisation that coffee or no coffee, his day was going to get worse regardless. "And I'm not a figment of your imagination."
Wufei marched to the kettle and flicked the switch judiciously. "What are you, then?" he asked, half-fearing the answer.
"I'm a shinigami," Ryuk replied cheerfully, "And this here is my death note." He picked up the book and waved it at the officer.
Wufei spluttered. "Shini- what?"
"Or a god of death, if you prefer," the skele- no, the shinigami continued. "And this here," he waved the book again, "Is what I use to kill people."
The kettle beeped. Wufei poured himself a cup- half boiling water, half from the tap-and, closing his eyes, downed it.
Before opening them again, he spoke a prayer to god that the skeleton would have disappeared from his kitchen.
The shinigami was still there, and still grinning. "Wrong god," he sang happily. "And you're finally being somewhat entertaining. Keep this up, and I won't kill you after all!"
Somewhat interested in self-preservation, Wufei asked tentatively, "What do you count as 'entertaining'?"
"Now we're getting somewhere." Ryuk whipped a pen out of his belt, writing into the cover as he spoke. "So, the second thing you have to know are the rules: number one being, the human whose name is written in this note shall die."
He finished the sentence with a flourish, and held it up for inspection. "You still with me?"
The pieces started clicking in Wufei's mind. He staggered back, leaning on the countertop. "Oh, god," he whispered. "You mean-"
"Yup," the shinigami interrupted him, popping the 'p'. "You, Mr Police Officer of the utmost Justice, have joined the ranks of the murderers you catch and despise. But think- weren't you glad that first time that at least some sort of justice took place?"
Ryuk lived for the entertainment of it. Breaking a human's brain, while incredibly easy, was so amusing when done in the right way.
He could tell the exact moment the police officer's mind cracked under the strain, and added his next piece, sounding eerily like a teenager whose like he hadn't yet seen again, but tried to recreate as often as possible.
"And while you're on it, think of the other stuff you could do with it- even better, experiment. In the right hands, this book could change the world."
The officer fell to the floor, head in his hands.
What Ryuk didn't add was that he didn't really care if those 'right hands' were 'good' or 'evil', and if the world was changed for the 'better' or 'worse'. Human morality was a tricky and ridiculous thing, anyway.
While he waited for the efforts of his handiwork to finish, Ryuk filled in the rest of the note's rules.
When the officer, this Wufei, looked up again, Ryuk grinned at him. He'd needed a bit of prodding, but there was a new light in the human's eyes that suggested he could be nearly as entertaining as the first human to pick up his note had been.
There was never going to be another human like that, Ryuk knew.
But nearly as entertaining was better than no entertainment at all, and this time, there was no arch enemy on the horizon to stop them.
Not yet, anyway.
"You said, number one," the officer said hesitantly. "What are the rest of the rules? What are the limits?"
This could be good, Ryuk hoped, as he prepared for the ride.
"The limits?" he grinned, making sure all of his teeth showed. "The limits are what you make of them."
Eyes unholy, the officer leant forwards slightly. "And the rules?" he repeated.
Ryuk handed over the note, new ink only just dry. "Are meant to be tested," he said, with only a hint of suggestion in his tone.
Wufei's eyes scanned the page quickly and tried to take it in. He blinked slowly, and set his jaw.
"Ryuk," the officer said hoarsely, "let's see if we can change the world, shall we?"
The shinigami didn't correct the assumption of partnership at this point. It would be funnier to see the human flounder later.
Ryuk looked at what he'd made in the image of a boy he'd met centuries earlier, and simply laughed.
"Getting any apples soon?" he said, as he sat back to watch the ripples form.
This should be fun.