Mr. Monk and the Detective's Secret
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Adrian Monk was a living legend on the San Francisco police force.
Barely a year into his job he'd unintentionally shown up almost everyone he'd worked with. His current partner, Stottlemeyer was the only person who could yet put up with him, not only because of his tendency to be almost brutally frank in his analysis of crime scenes and his almost inhuman speed of putting clues together, but because he was, to put it rather simply, rather odd.
Well, that's not quite true.
One other person was able to put up with him, the one person to whom his oddities didn't matter and were to her, simply a part of what made Adrian Monk himself. Her name was Trudy Ellison. She and Monk had met nearing the end of her time at college, where Monk had been working at the library; at that time he had been even odder that he was now. Monk had moved through his studies at an amazing pace wile at university, and had graduated quickly, almost as if he'd covered the work many times before.
Yet at the same time he had been almost incapable of most human interaction.
Trudy had kept a secret from Monk, one that would only be revealed years after her death. A secret that had for years eaten at her, because she knew that Adrian would never have kept any such secret from her.
This was not quite true.
Adrian Monk had a secret.
And it was a big one.
The first part of this secret being that he was adopted. Only his adoptive brother, Ambrose, and parents knew this. And since his mother had passed away and his father had abandoned them long ago by this time, the only one around capable of revealing this secret was Ambrose.
This was something Ambrose would never do to his brother, not when he was the only person who knew just why the secret had to be kept.
Adrian had shown up in San Francisco with only a name, a slight English accent that he'd quickly lost through intentional analysis, and some immaculately forged paperwork.
He'd shown up on the Monk family's doorstep after calling ahead at almost twelve years of age with an explanation of being a distant relative who'd recently been orphaned, with the Monk family being his last living relatives. He's been tidy, well-organised and very clean, not only in appearance but in the carefully falsified paperwork legitimising his story.
He'd been accepted and legally adopted into the family with little fuss and almost cool indifference, something he rarely minded and was in fact one of the reasons he'd chosen that family at the time, another was the fact that they did actually have the same last name as him, which he could have faked having himself if he had to, but even if it wasn't the safest thing to do in his quest to stay hidden, he at least wanted to keep the only think he'd thought of as his.
His name.
After many years, he did confide some of his past in his new brother, but only information that would allow his brother to realise why it was best no one knew he had been adopted.
For in truth, Adrian's secret was this; for the first seven years of his life after originally being orphaned, Adrian Monk had lived at Wammy's House in England. He'd lived with no name other than a single letter, 'A', and had spent that time under constant pressure to succeed, for Adrian had been first in line to succeed the famous detective L.
During this time he had that one goal, to be a detective and succeed L. In reality he just wanted to be a detective, to make the world a better and more ordered place. But he had to be first; his compulsive behaviour told him there had to be perfection.
Living up to L was the only thing that mattered at Wammy's House, and Adrian wasn't the only one it affected. While Adrian became more and more obsessed with order and balance, the person nearest to overtaking him in becoming the next L was going down a much more frightening path.
Beyond Birthday had never been normal, but that could be said about any member of Wammy's House. B and Adrian had been what could almost be called friends at one point. And while Adrian had been easily unnerved by the younger boy, something B enjoyed doing to poor Adrian, he had never felt physically threatened by him.
B may have broken into Adrian's room and rearranged things a few times, but that was often a result of Adrian having been unable to control himself first, and breaking into B's rather messy room, at least in comparison to Adrian's, first to straighten things up.
B often had a habit of staring just above people's heads with a lopsided grin, his eyes a dull almost red colour that caused much trepidation in those forced to approach him. B would often stare just above Adrian's head with slight confusion, as if expecting something that wasn't happening.
As time wore on however, B became much more frightening.
It started not long after L came to visit the orphanage in person. The most famous detective they discovered, was also the youngest. L was at most fifteen, but hunched over like someone a century older. His wild black hair had made Adrian twitch in horror, but not nearly so much as the over-large white long-sleeved shirt, scuffed jeans and crushed shoes worn with no socks.
Adrian had used every ounce of self-control to stop himself trying to just fix the disorder the teen radiated. He'd listened to what the detective had to tell them, but couldn't focus on the actual meanings of the words used.
Eventually he shifted his gaze to Beyond if just so as to avoid looking at L. Looking at B, Adrian saw an expression he'd never seen on the other boy's face before.
Absolute and complete adoration, with something else; an almost hungry expression on his wide-eyed face.
With a cold feeling of realisation Adrian realised, B didn't want to succeed L. B wanted to be L.
Later, Adrian would find B sitting in his room or in the gardens, surrounded with straw, making strange dolls.
Making Wara Ningyo, a type of voodoo doll.
Adrian would have rolled his eyes at the thought of B actually believing in such nonsense, if he wasn't so focused on cleaning up the straw Beyond had started to drop everywhere he went.
What did worry him was when he entered his room one day, exhausted in his attempts to live up to Roger's expectations and needing to clean up wherever B went. Adrian was starting to suspect B was leaving the messes around deliberately to sabotage him. What he found on his desk, while he couldn't say he wasn't expecting something like this; he couldn't help but finally feel intimidated. On his desk lay a Wara Ningyo, the letter 'A' written in large font on its front, and a length of string tied around its neck in a hangman's noose.
After surveying his room quickly to make sure B wasn't attempting to hide anywhere to watch him, he pulled a hand wipe out of his pocket and a small evidence bag out from a desk drawer and lifted up the doll to drop in and take to Roger.
As he lifted the doll up however, he noticed something written on its back. Turning it over he stared at the two words on the back of the doll.
His name.
His real name.
Adrian Monk.
The name he had not been referred to once since setting foot in Wammy's House.
His breath caught in his throat. How did B know? No records of the orphans real names were kept anywhere in the orphanage and he knew for a fact he'd never told B his real name.
"Hello Adrian." He heard from the door.
Spinning around, Adrian turned to face B. The boy looked surprisingly different to how he usually looked, instead of his usual dark clothing he was wearing a white long-sleeved shirt and jeans, his feet were bare and his usually neat hair was mussed up in a way unusual to the boy. This cut though Adrian's surprise, and with a twitch of his shoulders at being forced to see such an untidy appearance, it took him a moment longer than it should have to realise who B was attempting to dress like.
"B..." He said, his voice quivering slightly.
"You know, something has been bothering me about you Adrian." B said casually, "Your numbers keep changing. According to them you'll either be dead in sixty years, or six days."
"Numbers?"
"Everyone has them. When they run out, you die; simple as that. What I don't understand is yours."
The black haired boy stepped into the room and approached Adrian, shoulders hunched.
"When the time comes, preferably in less than a week, let's just say I'll be happy to be the one to assist."
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Within the next week, Adrian did one of the few truly spontaneous things he's ever done in his life.
He left Wammy's House.
He wrote out a suicide note, detailing exactly how he would appear to die, and choosing a method unlikely to be expected to have him leave a body as evidence.
This in place, he used his cash savings that he'd kept hidden and unspent for years to get as far away as he could.
Away from B.
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Authors Notes: As of now this will only be a one-shot. However, I do have an actual plot in mind for this story, if I get the time and motivation to write it out.
(I would appreciate any feedback on this one-shot, and if I should even bother writing more for it, since there doesn't seem to be much interest in my continuing with this idea.)