This was originally written as part of Chapter 7, but I decided it stood better on its own. The storyline that is introduced here will eventually become relevant to the main arc, as you'll see when you get to the end.

warnings: implied abuse (munchausen by proxy)

(interludium)

9 April 2007

Detroit, MI

Every other day of the week, Cody Callahan volunteers at a different nursing home. On Fridays it's Maycrest Manor, an ugly, brick-and-shingle building from the 1970's that's located a stone's throw from Mount Cross Cemetery - as if the elderly needed more reminding that death was breathing down their neck.

Death is always breathing down their necks.

Cody wears the standard candy-striper uniform, a thin, pink-and-white smock that droops over his shoulders and ties at the waist. The fabric is cheap and rips easily, and it isn't striped, as one might expect, but patterned in a faint gingham. Cody has worn striped smocks before, though, once even one that was a solid hot pink, like a wad of wet bubblegum. From Cleveland to Detroit, he's volunteered at over twenty hospitals and nursing homes. He's helped a lot of people, and he feels good about his work.

The work isn't hard. He pours water, fetches magazines and newspapers, re-arranges blankets, empties bedpans. Mostly, he listens. In hospitals, the ill are lonely and restless; in nursing homes, the elderly are often reduced to giant, wrinkled babies, blinking dumbly and drooling from the corners of their mouths. Some of them, though, know exactly where they are and what awaits them.

Mr. DeMatteo is one of the livelier patients at Maycrest. He has bad hips, but can still get about with the aid of a walker. He has hearing aids in both ears, and wears his oddly full hair slicked back in a salt-and-pepper pompadour. Whenever Cody enters the room, Mr. DeMatteo calls him 'sweets' and asks if he has a boyfriend.

Mr. DeMatteo, like most people, believes that Cody is a girl.

Cody isn't a girl, and doesn't want to be one. He doesn't particularly care about being a boy, either. Things go easier, though, if people believe he's a girl. That's what Tami always taught him.

"I like your hair, sweets. It looks real pretty."

"Thank you, Mr. DeMatteo." Cody doesn't actually have hair, Tami started shaving it off when Cody was eight years old. He has a lot of wigs, though, and the one he's been wearing to Maycrest hangs to his shoulders in loose, strawberry-blond curls that look a bit like ribbons on a birthday present.

Cody waters the plants that a well-meaning relative left on Mr. DeMatteo's windowsill, feeling the old man's eyes follow his every move.

"How are you feeling today?"

"Like shit." Mr. DeMatteo coughs roughly into the hem of his blanket.

"I'm sorry to hear that." Cody sets down the watering can and starts stacking a loose pile of newspapers. Mr. DeMatteo is in the early stages of Alzheimer's, but still cognizant enough to know what looms ahead.

"Cherish your youth while you have it, because it's all downhill from here."

Cody eyes the wavering lifespan illuminated over Mr. DeMatteo's head. He still has four years left. In that stretch of time he'll begin to have difficulties eating and going to the bathroom on his own. Walking will become more difficult; eventually he'll be bed bound. At that point, he'll be more prone to infections and illness. Maybe it will be a blood clot that takes his life, or maybe it will be pneumonia. Or maybe it will be Cody.

"As soon as I feel my youth slipping away, I'll probably just end things," Cody says, pulling up a chair and looking straight into Mr. DeMatteo's wet, red-rimmed eyes. Cody knows that by the time he leaves, the old man will have forgotten their conversation. He always forgets their conversations.

"Jesus, what a thing to say." Mr. DeMatteo laughs drily. "I used to think the same thing when I was a kid like you, I guess."

Cody is 22 years old, barely 5-foot-4 in stocking feet, and weighs roughly the same amount as a middle-schooler. Most people think he's 16.

"Are you happy here?" Cody tugs at a strawberry curl and looks away - another trick Tami taught him. To look vulnerable, a little afraid. It's not the same thing as being cute, but it still works.

"Look around, sweets. This isn't the Ritz-Carlton."

"But do you feel like you're suffering?"

Another dry laugh. "Sure. But I thought that when I was 40, too. Even when I was 20."

Cody can relate. He can't really remember a time when he wasn't suffering, either, but things haven't been so bad lately. Not since he started helping people.

"Cody?" One of the CNAs pokes her head in the door. "Can I get your help in the lounge for a minute?"

"Of course." Cody stands up and brushes off his smock. "See you later, Mr. DeMatteo."

"Bye, sweets." The old man's gaze trails Cody all the way to the door.

The nursing home lounge is kept immaculately clean, but - like the residents - is starting to show its age. The furniture is all sickly pastels and heavy wood grain. An upright piano sits under the window, and a fish tank burbles in the corner. The remains of a large sheet cake and some cookies are spread out on one of the tables.

"It was Mrs. Kline's birthday," the CNA says, gesturing at the leftovers. "We'll need to box these up and throw them away, I guess. Unless you want to take them home?"

Cody's eaten the nursing home's cookies before; they taste of sugar and chemicals and crumble like sawdust when bitten into. "My mom's diabetic," he explains. "But I wouldn't mind eating them."

The CNA looks doubtful. "You sure? They're not very tasty."

Cody starts consolidating the leftover cookies onto a single tray. "That's okay. They're better than nothing." As he handles the sweets he feels the CNA watching him in a quiet, considering way.

They take the tray to the break room and find a big ziploc bag for the cookies. After stowing them away, Cody turns back to the CNA, his head cast downward.

"Um, do you think I could take the cake home, too?"

"Sure."

"Oh, good." Cody smiles and reaches for another bag.

"Wait."

Cody turns his head, taking in the woman's concerned expression. She walks to her locker and yanks it open, hand fishing through her purse until she finds her wallet.

"Here." She passes Cody a crisp, twenty-dollar bill. "Buy yourself some real food. You're still growing, you should be eating better."

Cody feels a genuine blush creep across his face. He isn't proud of being a grifter, but it's all he knows - all Tami taught him.

"Are you sure?"

"I insist." The money shakes in her hand.

Once his two hour shift is up, Cody walks home with bags of cookies and cake tucked into his backpack, the twenty dollars squeezed into his wallet with the rest of his money.

As his shoes scuff across the cracked sidewalk, Cody wonders if Tami would be proud of him. Thinking about Tami is a hard habit to break; she was less a mother and more his master, training him in the art of deception from the time that he could walk. Not that Cody realized it at the time - no, that inkling didn't come until much later, when his mother started shaving his head, started calling him her 'daughter,' started asking around online for donations.

This is my beautiful baby girl, Cody. She's been epileptic her whole life, and now she's been diagnosed with leukemia. I am on disability and am unable to work, but I love my little girl to pieces! Anything you can spare will be appreciated. God bless!

Cody really can't remember a time when he wasn't suffering something.

"Hey, Cody. Can we buy some apples with that money?"

Cody's eyes briefly glow red, then glance upward to meet the Shinigami's. The creature's shadow never fails to feel like comfort.

"Sure, Ryuk. What kind do you want?"

NOTES: Thanks for reading! Sorry for the lack of Light and L, but they're coming soon, promise!

Let me know your thoughts?