These Dark Days

Chapter 2

Well, this is chapter 2.

TRGGER WARNINGS: SELF HARM

XXX

As L was reading a book about a crime from the 1940s, he felt his eyes droop. He sighed in annoyance. Even though it had been at least three days since he had last slept, he didn't want to let his eyelids close. He stood up and slowly made his way to the bathroom. Without bothering to flick on the light, L turned on the sink and started to splash his face. Once he felt the blanket of exhaustion recede a bit, he stumbled back into his bedroom. However, a few minutes after he continued reading, the drowsiness returned, and L couldn't fight it this time. He rubbed his eyes and blinked a few times in a final, desperate attempt to stay awake. But, inevitably, his eyes slid shut…

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

"MOTHER! FATHER!"

"RUN, RYU, RUN!"

SLAM! THUNK!

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

"NO!"

"RUN!"

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

"RUN!"

"NO!" L woke up with a scream.

He bolted upright and gripped the fabric of his shirt.

"AHHH! AHHH!" he screeched.

L, unable to stop, continued screaming until he felt a pair of hands grab his arms.

"Ryuzaki!" he heard Watari call out to him.

The voice was enough to break L out of his terrified haze. He stared up, wide eyed, at the old man before he recognized the familiar, stinging pain in his arms. The blood drained from his already pale face, leaving it almost white as he immediately realized that Watari now knew the secret he'd been hiding for years. His gaze quickly went to his hand, where he found his knife that he didn't remember grabbing.

"Ryuzaki…," Watari said slowly. "Calm down…"

L took a deep breath in and forced his mask back onto his face. Watari gazed at him sadly, knowing that L hadn't calmed down at all, but chose to hide his emotions from him.

"Ryuzaki… what happened?" he asked, still holding onto L's wrists.

"It was just a nightmare… It's not a big deal…," L replied monotonously.

Watari sighed.

"If it's something that makes you scream like that and start cutting up your arms, I'd say it's a pretty big deal," Watari disagreed.

L flinched slightly when he heard those words, but he didn't say anything back.

"Come on. We have to treat those," Watari said as he made L get out of bed and follow him into the bathroom.

As the old man treated L's cuts, he didn't say anything, and L was just as silent. L watched the red swirl down the drain as the water washed away the blood. With the blood gone, he could see that the cuts were deeper than they usually were. Then, L was so busy with his thoughts that he didn't even notice as Watari disinfected and bandaged his arms. And he didn't even notice the tears that started streaking down his guardian's face until he was pulled into a hug and he felt the tears drip onto his shirt.

"Ryuzaki… You can't keep doing this…," Watari whispered sadly.

But still, L couldn't bring himself to respond or hug the man back. After a few minutes, Watari released him from the hug and calmed down his own emotions.

"Alright. You have school tomorrow, so you should go back to sleep," he told L. "But we are still going to talk about this. Alright?"

L nodded, unable to try to argue against the man on the subject. So, L slowly made his way back into his bedroom. However, rather than do what Watari instructed him to and go to sleep, L spent the rest of the night staring up at his ceiling with his thoughts rapidly shooting through his brain.

XXX

So, this is all I have written for this, and I don't really plan on writing more.

Bye, I guess.