A/N: I had great tutorials last term, where I learnt a lot of interesting stuff about bees, and was inspired to write this one-shot. I can imagine L and Light having conversations like this.
Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note. The quote at the end is from a paper on bees called Comparing foraging behaviour of small and large honey-bee colonies by decoding waggle dances made by foragers by Beekman et al.
It was another day in the task force headquarters, and Light and L were enduring yet another date with the effervescent blonde Misa Amane. L was munching his way through yet another slice of cake, and Light was watching him disdainfully, whilst ignoring the irritating female who was presently clinging to his left arm. He was remembering fondly the time when he had yet to meet these two permanently annoying fixtures in his present life. Misa was wittering on about something nonsensical, and he was diligently making small sounds of acknowledgement despite the fact that he was paying no attention to her.
He was pulled suddenly out of his blissful reverie when the blonde gave a yelp and pulled on his arm suddenly.
"Eee! Light! There's a wasp! Save me!"
Ignoring the fact that she was attempting to use him as a human shield, he allowed his eyes to drift across to the open window, where a small black and yellow insect was pacing back and forth on the windowsill.
"That's not a wasp Misa-san." said the detective in a bored voice, glancing up at the insect momentarily from his cake. "It's a bee. It will not harm you."
"No Ryuuzaki, don't be silly," Misa chided. Light smirked internally as the dim-witted blonde called the world's greatest detective 'silly'. "Bees are big and fluffy and sweet. That thing is small so it's a wasp. And even if he was a bee he could still sting me."
L stared at the blonde wondering how she could possibly be wrong on so many counts in one go. Sometimes the blatant ignorance of the general population stunned him. "While it is true Misa-san that bumble-bees are 'big and fluffy', honey bees are not. And that creature over there is a honey bee. She won't sting you. Bees are nowhere near as aggressive as wasps. Oh, and if it were a male which is highly unlikely, since drones are actually fairly useless beings that rarely leave the hive, you'd be at no risk whatsoever. Only females have stings." Misa glared at him incredulously at being corrected.
"Someone must be keeping a hive nearby then?" Light asked trying to maintain the already fragile peace within the room. Seriously must everyone involved in this investigation act like children.
Not necessarily Yagami-kun. Bees will travel up to 12 kilometres from their hive in source of resources."
"12 kilometres? That's, uh, a long way" said Light stupidly.
"Well bees are known for their hard work." Light rolled his eyes, sighing despondently. Now she had decided to treat him like a three year old. "That's where the phrase comes from after all. Busy as a bee. Kind of like you guys, putting work before fun. That's why you won't let us go on a proper date after all."
"Well there's that, but then there's also the fact that I'm handcuffed to this guy." Light held up his wrist where undeniably there was a handcuff attached to a chain which ran across the floor and to a matching cuff on the wrist of the detective opposite him. "Who knows what people would think if we went out in public like this? And speaking of work, we should probably be getting back. Kira's not going to catch himself after all."
With that he peeled her off of his arm and stood up. The panda eyed detective swallowed the last of his cake somewhat regretfully, but stood to leave, grateful to escape from the presence of this mind-numbing female. Said female insisted on a parting kiss from her reluctant genius boyfriend, before happily waving them goodbye.
The pair made their way down the stairs towards the main investigation room.
"How come you know so much about bees Ryuuzaki? I get the feeling you know more than you were allowed to say." Light enquired casually.
"I told you I spent some time in England, the place I stayed at kept a hive, which unfortunately isn't around any more."
"Oh, I did hear something about disappearing bees…" Light said, attempting to profuse some knowledge.
"Colony collapse disorder. It's mysterious, no-one knows what causes it, people just come along to the hive one day and all the bees are gone."
"Well, I guess the cause would be easier to pinpoint if it were merely a case of dead bees. They could isolate the cause from their bodies."
"Well the culprit is not always found so easily. After all, we know the cause of death for the Kira victims, but that hasn't helped us find him."
"I should have known you'd manage to bring this back to Kira. It's all you seem to think about."
"Well, bees have been used as models for human society, so why not mention Kira?" said L, smirking slightly at the irritated teen.
"Because they live in a dictatorship? I guess Kira can easily be considered a dictator"
"Well, he does seem to think he's God. But no Light-kun, that's not why. And anyway I think of bees as more of a democratic society?"
"I thought the queen was in charge?" asked Light, feeling increasingly stupid, an unfamiliar feeling which L seemed particulary good at bringing out in him.
"Oh no, all the queen does is lay eggs. It's the workers that appear to make all of the decisions."
"How does that work then? Surely every worker would only do what's best for itself. And I can't imagine they can think very well, they only have tiny brains after all"
"Of course, what best for the individual is a healthy hive. Bees are eusocial, they cannot survive outside of a hive structure. And they don't think per say, merely follow the basic directions written in their genetic code. Honey bees are especially complex when it comes to working as a hive. Much better than ants or even bumblebees."
"How so?"
"Communication between members of the hive allows them to optimise their activities. Surely Light-kun has heard that they dance?"
"The waggle dance right? Something to do with the angle of the sun to the food source."
"Yes, they can communicate angle, distance and possibly quality of a food resource. They have other dances as well. There's the tremble dance which recruits young bees to receive resources, and the grooming dance…" L pushed open the door of the main investigation room, to observe the others working. Well almost all the others. Matsuda as usual appeared to be unfocused on the task of catching the serial killer and was instead regaling some story to Aizawa who was doing a brilliant job of ignoring the bumbling detective. Struck with a sudden idea, he turned to Light. "That's not all. There's also the vibration signal which encourages the bees to work harder. Would you care for a demonstration?"
Light, who had picked up on the semi-playful tone in L's voice, as well as see him register Matsuda. Light didn't mind the detectives taking a break whilst he and L were on one of Misa's enforced 'dates', but distracting the others when they were clearly trying to work… He smirked. "Sure Ryuuzaki, why not?"
He followed a short distance behind L as he stalked across the room, kept close, of course, by the ever present chain that bound him as a suspect to the detective. He was bemused, as the legendary detective, reached out at the now fearful Matsuda and grabbed him by the shoulders. He shook him gently by the shoulders, the chain jingling slightly as he did so, then released him smiling at his handiwork as the man looked up at him confusedly.
"Please, get back to work Matsuda-san." said L as he turned and led Light, who was attempting to stifle his laugher behind his hand, back to their workstation.
"Uh, yes, of course…" murmured Matsuda, as he turned back to face his computer, deciding to refrain from any further unnecessary comments that afternoon.
The two geniuses reclaimed their seats and switched their computers on, before continuing their conversation.
"One of the aspects of bee life that I find most intriguing is when the hive, for whatever reason, needs a new queen."
"You mean when the old queen dies?"
"Or when the hive is going to split and the old queen leaves. As I mentioned before, it's the workers that have the control over the hive, and the will raise female eggs to become queens. The eggs are laid in a special part of the hive and are fed differently to the rest of the developing bees."
"Royal jelly?"
"Indeed. The workers treat the queen cells differently, favouring one or two over the others and this will generally emerge first. When a queen hatches, unless the workers stop it, it will kill all the other developing queens within their cells by stinging them."
"Ouch! That's rather vicious."
"Well, it's just a part of bee life. The colony can only have one queen after all. The workers will only stop this if the hive's about to split into more than two parts. The interesting thing is when two queens emerge at the same time."
"I can't imagine them getting on too well."
"Rather not. They will fight until one or the other is dead, and that queen will take over the hive. It's quite brutal, but only one of them can live and subsequently rule…"
"This is about Kira again isn't it?" said Light, surprised despite himself that L had managed to drag the conversation in that direction again. How hard was it for him to have an ordinary conversation without his paranoia creeping in. he supposed it didn't help that the person L was talking to was also his prime suspect, no matter how much Light knew he was innocent. "That nutjob isn't going to kill you Ryuuzaki; your name is still being kept a secret inside your head and nowhere else as far as I know, so there's not much chance of that. And since you don't go out in public as L, there's no way of getting it by the second Kira's methods either."
"I know that, Light-kun" said L with a weak smile, "even if he doesn't win, it's not look we're making any progress towards my victory either and it's a little depressing. And I'm worried about you becoming Kira again."
"Not again." Grumbled Light. "I don't know when you'll get this into your head, but I'm not Kira and I never was. You don't just forget murdering that many people."
There was an uneasy silence between the pair, which was eventually interrupted by the arrival of Watari with a vast selection of cakes for L to choose from, and a cup of tea of coffee for each member of the investigation. Light took a sip from his coffee whilst he watched L's hand add sugar cube after to sugar cube to his cup, before taking a sip and smiling with satisfaction at the excessive sweetness.
"You know I'm not surprised you know so much about bees Ryuuzaki, after all, like you they survive on a diet composed largely of sugar and little else."
Later that day, after the task force had gone home, and the two geniuses had moved upstairs to work on their laptops for a short while before Light went to sleep. (L did not usually sleep, the insomniac preferring to continue work whilst keeping an eye on his slumbering suspect. Light was not working on the Kira case, he was instead attempting to further his knowledge on honey bees so that he could catch up to or surpass L in this area, however inconsequential it was.
" 'One benefit of a social life is that nest-mates can direct each other to known food sources'." read Light, who was doing a little research into the subject of bees after L had piqued his interest earlier.
"Hmm, is that so Light-kun" queried L, his eyes glinting. "In that case Light-kun, could you please direct me to wherever you have hidden the rest of my cake?"