Warnings: AU, horror
Characters (main): L, Light
Chapter Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Owned by Ohba Tsugumi, Obata Takeshi, et al
Summary: This house has been waiting so very, very patiently for so very, very long, and it has no intention of letting you go. Welcome to Wammy's, Light.
A/N: Be forewarned—this is a peculiar child of a peculiar brain. Whether the reader may find anything worthy of approbation, the author cannot say—except that zie hopes the reader will show enough human respect and dignity to refrain from sacrificing zir upon the alter of the reader's indignation. Thank you most kindly for your time and for, if you may be so inclined, a memento of your visit in the form of a review. The author is, as always, the humble and pitiable servant of your entertainment.
::Wicked Little Things::
~Track One~
You shouldn't greet every housemate you meet on the stairs.
'There's an unspoken rule at Wammy's…'
A small grunt leaves Light's mouth as he bumps into the older boy. Rubbing his smarting nose, he shuffles back to give L a sleepy glare.
"What is it?" he asks in Japanese, voice caught on a yawn. Before them the hallway and its rectangles of uncertain moonlight falls up into the velvety darkness of the stairs leading to the second floor bedrooms. The warm, sticky hand holding his smaller, cooler one squeezes tightly.
From the toilets behind them the sound of a leaky faucet can be heard. Drip. Drip. Drip. L's breathing, inaudible before, becomes harsher, fills up the silence in between each hollow drip.
'While going from the toilets on the first floor to the bedrooms on the second…'
As the seconds creep by, as the dazzle from the fluorescent toilet lights fades from his honey-dark eyes, the child begins to hear another sound—soft, insistent, rhythmic. Like nail-less fingers rubbing against the worn carpet running up the stairs.
"Ryuuzaki-niichan?"
"Light-kun must close his eyes. Must close them and not look no matter what," the pale-faced teen says on a strained whisper. The hot hand about his grips him tighter, too tight. The body before him trembles with a strange intensity. "He must not stop on the stairs for any reason. He must keep walking."
"Hai," the child whispers, heart beat picking up, skin cooling under a sudden slick of sweat. Obediently he squeezes his eyes shut, pressing the lids together until starbursts of brilliance crawl over the nerve endings.
The disquieting whisper of sound from the stairs continues, relentless.
A jerk on his hand and L leads him forward, forward towards the darkness, towards the noise. Even their harsh breaths, their wildly beating hearts cannot drown it out.
'If you encounter something at night…'
Light stumbles at the first step; L drags him up, drags to the next step and the next and the one after that. Closer and closer to the sound and its source. Then it's right there, right there on the next step.
The child swallows loudly. No, he wants to whimper. No, I don't want to go any further. I don't want to. Please don't make me.
His knees lock. Tears gather at the edge of his dark lashes. He can't do it. He can't!
'Don't acknowledge it…'
The grip on his wrist changes and suddenly he's born up in the teenager's wiry arms, his faced pushed against a slick, goose-pimpled neck. L's sour sweat odor fills his nose.
And the noise is at their backs, fading away as L takes the steps in great upward lunges.
Hiccoughing, small fingers tangled deeply in the teen's loose white shirt, Light clings to the older boy. Even when the door to their shared room closes, he doesn't release his hold and neither does L. Trembling and clutching at each other, they huddle under the covers of Light's bed.
'And don't speak about it.'
The next morning finds Light and L in the infirmary. The nurse on duty doesn't ask about the three scabbed-over scratch marks on the child's right calf.
~Track Two~
Not all questions asked should be answered.
Light frowns as he finds the toilet paper dispenser empty when he sticks his small fingers into the opening. His dad always told him to clean up for the next person who might come in and use it. A small child's aim is not perfect, after all.
Outside the toilet room that smells strongly of disinfectants, urine and musty old wood, he can hear the other children gathering noisily for dinner. Nobody will know it's him if he doesn't wipe up the spattering of droplets on the cream-colored bowl's rim, but he will. He will know and feel guilty for not doing what his dad told him to do.
And some part of him, that part that he squashes down every morning, still believes that his dad will change his mind if Light is good. That he'll come and take him back even though the last Light remembers of mom is finding her one spring afternoon swaying gently back and forth from a thick brown rope in the room for his new baby sister—a sister who didn't come out right and he never got to see except as a little white box.
So he's good and does what he's told. But his dad hasn't called—is it work? Is it the time difference or for reasons Light doesn't want to think about—and all his emails say the same thing, "How are you, Light? Are you doing well? Are you being good?"
He stares at the empty dispenser, hands curling into small, pale fists.
Then someone enters and crosses, light-footed, the cracked, pale yellow linoleum to the other stall. The rickety wood door closes and the lock slides into place. Light's mind races, picking through the words and sentence structures he knows in English.
In halting fits and starts he asks the other boy if he'll pass some paper under the uneven lip of the wood partition between stalls. Silence, not even the muted sound of cloth rustling.
"Red or blue?" the other occupant asks, at last, in a faint whispering trill. "Red or blue?"
Light's brows pinch together underneath the tidy fringe of his bronze bangs. Unease feathers across his skin, drawing it up into goose-bumps. He opens his mouth and closes it swiftly. He has already memorized the names, faces and voices of the other residents here, both child and adult. He doesn't recognize that voice.
"Red or blue?" the other asks, louder, angry. Light jumps as something slams into the wood partition, making it rattle and groan in its metal anchors. A film of sweat slicks the back of his neck and the creases of his palms. Nausea fills his stomach and the back of his tongue. An electronic whine fills his ears.
"Red or blue?" This time the words come out sweetly, coaxing and coercive. Something like fingers scrabbles insistently against the thin wood.
Raising tremulous, cold hands to his ears, Light squeezes his eyes closed because he knows, knows, that if he looks at the gap underneath the partition, he will see something staring back at him with dead eyes.
Chapter End
After Note: The Thing on the Stairs is based off of an old fear of this author. Red or Blue is based on a Korean/Japanese urban legend/ghost story. Please feel free to relay your own ghosts stories or experiences. Who knows, this author might transform one into a drabble for this series.