Author's Note: They're presumably speaking English, but not having L use honorifics would just sound weird, so I'm afraid we'll all just have to cope. XD
II. Death Grip
Matt and Mello were getting carried away. Light was getting tempted to carry them away. And then to dump them into a sewer somewhere.
"So you're chained together all the time?"
"So you take showers together?"
"So you sleep together?"
"Haha, they totally do!"
"And they're into bondage!"
"Kinky!"
"You think we can get a chain?"
"We could clothesline people!"
"Are you kidding? We could strangle people!"
"Matt-kun and Mello-kun," Ryuzaki cut in, "how did you come to be in Japan?"
"We flew in," Mello answered airily.
Ryuzaki frowned. "How did you afford that?"
"We didn't," Matt replied eagerly. "I hacked into Wam—er, Watari's computer, and we jacked some of his Frequent Flier miles."
The thumb rose to Ryuzaki's lips again. "I presume that is how you found this location," he noted.
Matt and Mello beamed like small, completely psychotic suns.
"And now that you're in Japan," Ryuzaki continued, raising his eyebrows, "we all must go directly back to England in order to find Near."
Instead of looking chagrined, Matt and Mello merely nodded enthusiastically.
Ryuzaki shuffled over to the bed and drew a suitcase from beneath it. "Will you hand me the box of candy, Light-kun?"
The specification "of candy" narrowed it down to half the boxes stacked neatly by the closet. Well, three-quarters.
"Which?" Light asked.
"The white one the size of a small dog, please."
Light hefted it and brought it over. They were probably going to need it.
x
All too soon, both members of the Kira Crusader Crew were packed and ready.
"To the airport, then," Ryuzaki announced.
Mello snatched the car keys off of the countertop, jingling them merrily. "I'll drive!" he sang.
As they followed, suitcases in tow, Light looked worriedly to Ryuzaki. "Should I be concerned?" he inquired cautiously.
"Concerned, Light-kun?" Ryuzaki replied absently. "No."
Light drew in a breath for sigh of relief.
"You should be terrified."
x
During the sparing moments in which he wasn't fearing for his life too avidly to do anything other than pray, Light composed another entry for his advice column. It was the only course of action—other than screaming like a little girl on helium, anyway—that he thought might permit him to retain his sanity.
Dear Bright,
I love my husband, but he's the craziest driver I've ever seen. It's gotten to the point that I'm worried about my safety and that of my children. What should I do?
Signed, Loves Him, But Terrified
Dear LHBT,
DIVORCE HIM. RUN. AVOID MAJOR HIGHWAYS. RUN!!
Love, Bright
When at last Mello swerved into a space in the blissfully desolate parking lot, Light attempted, with some difficulty, to pry his hands from where he'd clenched them around the armrests in what had to be called a death grip. It was nothing short of a miracle that his knuckles, white as they were, hadn't popped right out of his fingers and rocketed upwards towards the roof of the car.
Then again, he would have given all of his knuckles to have this trauma erased from his life and memory.
"Here we are," Mello chirped.
There was a pause. Matt peeled his hands from over his eyes.
"Am I dead?" he asked weakly.
"Not yet," Mello replied cheerfully. "Not by my doing, anyway."
Matt considered, looking woozy. "Do you have a bag?"
"A what?" Mello prompted.
"A bag," Matt repeated.
"What kind of bag?"
"The airtight kind. So I can throw up in it."
Mello clapped his cohort heartily on the shoulder. "Walk it off, Champ," he recommended, hopping out of the car and stretching luxuriously.
Ryuzaki turned to Light.
"I hope that didn't permanently traumatize you, Light-kun," he remarked, wincing.
Light tried to say "I think I'll be okay in about a week," but what came out was a forlorn-sounding "Nng."
"Next time, Light-kun," Ryuzaki promised, unfolding from his seat and climbing out, "I will drive."
Light's brain filled in an automated response. "You can drive?"
Ryuzaki spared an enigmatic smile over one hunched shoulder. "I can do anything," he said.
Light didn't doubt it. The man could pilot a helicopter, after all. Light wouldn't be surprised if he could jump up and fly.
"Yeah," Mello called over his shoulder, Matt staggering along beside him. "Only you drive like an old lady."
"But I drive like a safe old lady, Mello-kun," Ryuzaki replied calmly. "Rather than like a lead-footed young man living on borrowed time."
—
Matt thumbed desperately at the rightmost button.
"Frigging—Mudkip—"
He realized he'd said that aloud and glanced around to see if anyone had heard him, but the pudgy businessman in the window seat had fallen asleep with his mouth open, the better to emanate faint, whistling snores, and Mello was leaning out over the aisle to talk to L on the other side.
"I think we should look for other puzzle pieces," he was saying. "It's like Near's version of a breadcrumb trail, right? So we follow the pieces and find him."
The Yagami kid raised an eyebrow pointedly. "Are you suggesting that we should comb the entirety of Great Britain for a couple of puzzle pieces? That's the only lead you've got?"
Matt had an amusing mental image of Yagami-Kid down on his knees in a field of grass, parting the blades with a hairbrush and searching.
"I'm suggesting," Mello snapped back, "that you should shut your fat face and let me talk to L."
"Yer mom has a fat—"
"Children," L reprimanded calmly.
"I am not—" Light and Mello started to protest in unison.
"Tell that to all of the unfortunate people trapped on this plane with you," L remarked idly. He put a thumb to his lip, and they all went quiet in anticipation of what he would say next. L was like that and always had been. "Now, I think we should go to the orphanage first and see if we can turn up any other evidence. I believe you're right, Mello-kun, in assuming that Near would not leave a puzzle piece there for no reason, and it is therein the most logical place to begin."
Mello settled in his seat, pleased with himself now.
L set his long fingers into a steeple and considered them.
Light was frowning. Bit of a sour character, that Yagami-Kid. L needed to force-feed him candy. Or humility. Or a life.
"Who exactly is this 'Near' we keep talking about?" Light wanted to know. "And why's he so important?"
L turned his level gaze on his handcuff-mate. "Near," he explained, "is one of the boys at Wammy's House, an orphanage Watari founded for gifted children. Near, Mello, and Matt are the brightest three wards."
"Actually, Roger's trying to kick us out," Mello cut in, "'cause we're legal and all."
L blinked at him. "Then he evidently has not yet discovered that it is impossible to coerce the pair of you into anything into which you do not desire to be coerced." He attended Light again. "In the event that something were to happen to me," he noted, "Near would essentially be the last hope for mankind."
Mello pouted. "What about me?"
"God forbid mankind's last hope dress in lace-up leather pants," Light muttered. It sounded like a plea more than anything else.
"I heard that!" Mello growled.
L put his hands up for peace, a slightly harried expression crossing his face. "Mello-kun," he said soothingly, "you operate differently than Near. In the ice cream sundae of the world, he is a hand, and you are a spoon."
Matt snickered and elbowed Mello. "That means Near's grabbing your butt," he interpreted sagely.
"What?" Mello yelped.
Even Yagami-Kid had to laugh.
L applied his palm to his forehead. "That is not even remotely what I meant with my extremely poor analogy, Matt-kun."
It was only then that Matt noticed how bewildered the bespectacled young woman sitting on Light's other side looked.
He caught her eye and waved.
—
L followed Matt's line of sight. The neatly-dressed lady in the seat by the window was staring at them with wide eyes further magnified by her square tortoise-shell glasses, and she clung to her briefcase as if it was a rather oddly-shaped life preserver. Tentatively, with the air of one baiting a wild animal, she returned Matt's wave.
L supposed it was no small wonder she was mortified. Matt was peering through his goggles even in the dim ambient light of the plane cabin, Mello sported the usual shining leather ("flamboyant with just a pinch of prostitute," as L had once heard it described), and Light, conservative as he was compared to such company, seemed strange simply by association.
And then there was L himself, of course, his battered sneakers on the floor, his knees drawn up to his chest, his toes over the edge of the airplane seat, his hair jutting out somewhere into the periphery of Light's personal bubble. Come to think of it, their being chained together—he and the clean-cut, respectable-looking citizen that was Light Yagami—probably reeked of one of those officer-and-convict arrangements.
L wanted to assure their unlucky companion that her seat-mates were perfectly harmless, but she looked like she might go very abruptly into cardiac arrest if he addressed her directly.
Not that he could blame her, or anything, but he would hate to stir the nest of fire-ants that was the Kira business at a time like this.
It might also prove somewhat difficult to explain to airport security. Perhaps even more difficult than explaining the chain had been.
Before he could make a decision either way, a stewardess approached, offering them an impressively unperturbed smile.
"Peanuts, sir?" she asked L, proffering a small packet kindly.
L wrinkled his nose, shaking his head apologetically. "Do you have anything else?" he inquired.
"Allergic to nuts?" the stewardess extrapolated, giving him an understanding smile and a nod. She retrieved a different package from her apron. "Pretzels, perhaps?"
Salty things. All they had was salty things…
"No, thank you," L mumbled miserably.
When the stewardess had served the others and moved along, Mello hissed across the aisle.
"Psst, L—"
L glanced over.
Mello reached into his carryon and retrieved no less than eight bars of chocolate. He tossed two to L.
This trip, L reflected, munching happily, might just be survivable after all.
