Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note or Kit-Kat. I own a lot of tea though. And will be going to make myself a cup as soon as this is posted. Lyrics are The Smiths.
Note: Swings and roundabouts here, folks. Angst to drunken angst to tea-filled fluff. Not much happens here, to be honest, it's more setting-the-scene for the next few chapters. Just a quick note, here, I will be experimenting with at least one, probably two, pairings in this that I haven't really explored before. I don't think either will come to that much long-run fruition, but will be good for the ride. Lots of fun ideas for where this is going. Updates may take awhile though because…I have failed at real life and need to try to salvage it quickly.
Anyway, enjoy.
x
Chapter Four: May
frankly mr shankly i'm a sickening wreck
i've got the twenty-first century breathing down my neck
Spring is starting to force its way through the air properly now, permeating the last hints of frost in the breeze and spreading a lazy, languid warmth through the cities. The first ten days of the month passed idly and without incident, bringing them here, to the tenth.
Matsuda browses in shop windows and wonders what kind of things you buy for a man like Aizawa on his birthday. He decides on a tie and some cufflinks because he really has no clue, and he keeps getting distracted by magazines and top hats and he's pretty sure Aizawa wouldn't appreciate either of those.
He pays for the gifts in an over-priced department store and says 'yes' when they ask him if he wants them gift wrapped. He takes his time handing over the money and checking prices on the way out, because today, for the first time in ages, he has had something to do, and that has done more to distract him than anything else. A couple of drinks before bed helps him sleep better but he can't really justify spending his whole day drunk, so for those hours he just has to try to stop himself thinking about being begged to help by a boy who never even bowed his head to God.
He is walking past the café when he sees Misa. She is sitting alone (what else did he expect?) with a cup in front of her. She is dressed demurely, in faded jeans and a long sleeved black top. For a second Matsuda considers just walking by, but by the time he's really formed the thought his hand is already on the door, pushing it open.
A bell tinkles and a couple of people glance up at the new arrival. Misa isn't one of them. Matsuda ducks his head shyly, uncomfortable under the attention. He half turns towards the counter, not sure what he's going to do now he's in here, and then steers himself towards Misa's table.
She is studying the table cloth. Her blonde hair is, as usual, loose about her face. It's grown a little since he last saw her.
"Misa?"
She looks up and at first he thinks she doesn't recognise him. Then she smiles and says, "Oh, hi, Matsu!" and pushes out the chair opposite her with her toes. Matsuda grins a little awkwardly and sits down. He asks how it's going and she nods and tells him 'fine', and then the question is flipped over and he answers the same way. They don't say anything else until a woman, a few years younger than Misa, floats over and asks Matsuda what he wants.
When his order arrives (plain coffee and a slice of cake) Misa comments that it looks good. Matsuda has been studying her face now since he came in and he's pretty sure there's something wrong. She is careful to fix her features into the same smiles, the same casual, easy happiness, but there's an undercurrent of tension and uncertainty. He feels it more than sees it, because he's always been that little bit more in tune with Misa - the two of them, the emotional ones, never quite on the same wavelength as everyone else, never quite keeping up.
Matsuda digs a fork into his cake. It's a little dry and crumbles under the force of the metal.
"So," he starts, at a loss of where to go next, "how - how have you been?"
"Misa has been fine," she answers, arranging sugar packets into a pattern. "I miss Light, though."
She doesn't ask when he's coming back. Matsuda's never been bright but that sets alarm bells of in even his brain.
"We - haven't heard from him," he says. It's not a lie but guilt is still twisting its way up inside him, tightening its grip on his stomach and chest.
"Misa knows you'd have told her if you had."
"Yeah, that's right."
Again, silence. Misa continues to play with sugar packets and Matsuda tries to convince himself that he doesn't feel too ill to eat his cake.
Misa looks tired. He wonders if she's been sleeping, he wonders how much she knows about Light and about Kira, he wonders how much she remembers…if he were a bit smarter, he'd do the same thing Ryuzaki always used to do and try to work it out with sneaky, innocuous little questions. But he's not, and never has been, anything like Ryuzaki, or like Light, and he can't help but sigh because people like that are exactly what Misa needs right now. Smart people, people who are beautiful or eccentric, not slow, cowardly, bumbling little Matsuda.
He's the only one there, though, so he has to try to help somehow.
-
It is very early in the morning. The sun is just crossing over the horizon, beams racing across fields and roads to light up the world. Everywhere, people are starting to wake up, go through their morning routines and being their days. Things are starting to grind into motion, cogs and wheels turning together to pull the sun higher into the sky.
Distantly, there is the noise of a plane. The dew-stained morning is quiet apart from this, a dull humming growing louder and louder. Then the machine is overhead, engines whirring and billows of white emitting from the back of it. It passes over.
Curled in one of the chairs is a boy. He is nineteen, almost, and has his feet pulled up against him, heels resting on the edge of the airline chair. His is the window seat, with the blind pulled halfway up and sunlight reflecting off the white of his clothes, his skin, his hair.
He is asleep, and this is unusual. This boy does not sleep, especially not in a place so public as an aeroplane. The man next to him reads a book on insects, and turns the page quietly. Every now and then, he scratches his chin and glances over to his young charge. He is glad that the boy is sleeping, even if the boy will be silently and imperceptibly frustrated about it when he wakes up. Because he hasn't been sleeping enough, and they've been moving around so, so fast - Bosnia, then France, then back to Japan, England, then San Francisco…now they're crossing the Atlantic and are heading to Madrid. The man thinks it will be too warm for the boy, but at least the white he wears will keep him a little cooler than black leather.
He's dropped from exhaustion, the man thinks. He can keep this up for a month, maybe, but then he's got to fall, to crash, because not even L took on this many cases, this fast, this young. After so much.
He exploded into the detective world by solving the case of the century single-handedly, and the history books will know nothing of it. The man rubs an eyebrow and returns to his book. He tries not to think too much about the boy, because it messes with the mind, to try to work out someone so different, so abstract and removed. He fishes out a phone and sends three messages, containing contact details for the hotel they'll be staying at. The old SPK members are kept up to date on where they're going and how to get in touch. The man isn't sure why this is insisted upon, why the boy thinks he has some debt to repay or some honour to show, but he goes along with it, on the off-chance that Near will let someone, anyone, help him.
-
Matsuda gets far too drunk and Mogi offers to drive him home. Matsuda doesn't really give an answer so Ide answers for him, a resounding "yes please and thank you".
Mogi can't really say he's surprised. Matsuda has passed out so he slings him over his shoulder and carries him downstairs, after bidding a quick farewell to Aizawa. Eriko had been casting the young cop dirty looks all evening, as he consumed more and more of the alcohol on offer, and got gradually more obnoxious. Mogi is sort of glad he passed out of his own accord, otherwise, he would have knocked Matsuda out himself.
He tucks him into the front seat and buckles in his limp form. He pats Matsuda's face a few times, half-heartedly trying to wake him up. It doesn't work. Mogi sighs, and moves round to the driver's side. He starts up the car, and pulls away. Matsuda wakes up.
"S'happenin'?" he mumbles.
"I'm taking you home," Mogi answers shortly.
"Why'sat then?"
"You're drunk."
"Oh." Matsuda lapses into a rather thoughtful silence. Mogi thinks he might have passed out again from the sheer effort of it all. "S'happnin'?" he repeats, after a few minutes.
"Try to decide on being awake or being out and stay that way, okay?"
"Okay," Matsuda replies, and promptly ignores the advice. He drifts in an out of consciousness for the rest of the drive, and comes round for the last time as Mogi's headlights illuminate Matsuda's building.
"C'mon." Mogi clambers round and helps the younger man out. Matsuda slumps onto his shoulder, and the two of them together makes it tricky to negotiate the stairs (even trickier to open the door, when Mogi has to fumble around inside Matsuda's pocket looking for the key, without dropping him) but eventually they make it into the apartment.
Mogi deposits him on the sofa and glances around the place. It really is a mess. Clothes are strewn about the place and there's a faint smell that makes Mogi wrinkle his nose. He rubs his head and lets out a breath. Matsuda's in a bit of a state, it seems.
Mogi only half blames him. He doesn't mind so much that Matsuda's feeling this bad about everything; more, he expected him to cope with it better. Evidently, he's not. Five years ago, Mogi wouldn't have cared. Now, Mogi wants to pull him out of it, make sure he's okay. He wants to take care of his friend, and stop Kira from hurting him ever again.
The times, they are a-changing.
-
Lidner is sleeping when her phone starts going off. She jolts awake, struggles with the sheets and grasps for the small, bleeping object, only to find out that she's forgotten to change the tone again and it's only a text. Too wide awake now to go back to sleep, she flips it open and checks the message.
Moving again, new contact number as follows…
She smiles. Despite being woken up at - she checks a clock - four in the morning, despite it being the first night of good rest she'd have had in a while, she smiles, because…Near is still thinking of them. He's still keeping them in the loop.
She yawns, but it's a waking-up yawn and not a falling-asleep yawn. Reluctantly she rolls out of bed and pulls a robe over her pyjamas. She pushes hair back out of her face and heads for the kitchen. She fills the kettle, and spoons instant tea and sugar into a mug.
"He got you, too, huh?"
Lidner turns round, and Rester is in the doorway, similarly garbed. She quirks an eyebrow. "Phone woke you up?"
"Indeed." Rester stretches his arms above his head and moves into the room. "Whatever you're having one, would you make me one too?"
"Tea," she says, picking up a second mug from the shelf.
"Oh, lovely. How British."
She rolls her eyes, but gently, and pulls a pack of biscuits out of the cupboard.
"Making quite the party of it," Rester comments dryly.
Lidner casts him a look as the kettle comes to the boil. He is lean, defined under the thin layers of cloth he's wearing. She looks away, and begins to pour hot water. "Get me the milk."
It appears next to her, Rester's big hand moving away from the carton. He shakes it, mumbling about condensation, and wipes it on her robe. She swipes at him with a Kit-Kat.
"Easy, easy! You could take an eye out with that."
Lidner frowns and regards the biscuit. "It's…chocolate and wafers."
"Being wielded by you," Rester points out. "I'm not counting anything out."
Lidner can't help but laugh. She's been laughing a lot recently. Since the Kira case ended, she knows they've both been out there on their own separate worlds, going through things no-one they used to know could understand. To have someone there who's been through the same thing, who just understands…it's good for both of them.
And Rester isn't so bad, not at all as harsh or severe as he comes across. He's all professionalism in the workplace but he's eased off since they moved in together, he's easier to be around, he jokes, he smiles. And Lidner's starting to relax.
She hands him the mug. "Here. Don't worry, I haven't poisoned it."
"I know. I've been deliberately keeping an eye on it."
The jokes are bad, she concedes, little more than banter. But it's more than she's been used to.
And Rester really isn't that bad at all, once you get to know him.