With CL gone, Auguste couldn't help but feel a little… lonely. He hadn't realized he was used to having her around. He was too selfish to devote his entire life to her, but it was still somewhat reassuring to have her always shining in the backdrop. But she had to do this. For herself, of course. Not for anybody else, just herself. So he was left all alone while she ran off with Goldilocks and Red Riding Hood. Oh, he was just fine with Matt. Actually, he quite liked Matt. He had a bit of a weakness for cute girls, as anybody could notice, but he was still a pretty good guy. It was Mello he disliked. Selfish and a drive to become what he just couldn't accept he never could. He's heard of people hating others almost as an instinct for representing what they secretly saw as themselves. That's what CL probably thinks… He had, after all, forgotten to mention on little detail of his life that, well, wasn't so little.
He knew why he hated Mello so much, and that was because he was jealous. Auguste had flaked. He had given up. He couldn't take it, couldn't handle it… and Mello… he yearned for it. He wanted it so much more than anyone else. He would fight for it, even with the knowledge that it was impossible to win. Mello wanted so badly what Auguste despised, because he could never have achieved it. He was the first, and they pitied him. So they let him give in to his selfishness. They even gave him an alibi, so he'd never have to be bothered by it again.
That was what Auguste told himself, at least. That was his reasoning for hating Mello. But deep, deep down in his subconscious, he knew that he actually, really did hate Mello because he really was like Auguste. He was like a mix. A mix of Auguste and the person that drove Auguste to do what he did so many years back. Auguste really did want it in the beginning. He wanted to be the next L. He was excited, even. Then that person had to come along and drive him to, at one point, acute insanity. Mello shared that manipulative quality. He shared that unreasonable drive to become number one. Mello was a mix. A mix between Auguste Benjamin Agnes and the notorious Beyond Birthday. But Auguste kept that locked far away, too far for his sanity to notice.
Feeling nostalgic, Auguste went up to CL's old room. She hardly spent any time there whatsoever, so it hadn't changed much throughout the years. The walls remained white, with basic furniture and a queen sized bed. He rummaged around for the pistol he had given her so long ago, and as though it was some ancient artifact, she's never used it. Maybe she lost it. He looked around a bit just in case. Eventually he got to her nightstand, where he found a familiar looking journal.
My journal? How amusing. It was, indeed, his journal. He even remembered writing a secret code in the back for fun. It was almost an anomaly that CL had found it. He turned it around and opened the back, where the coded message was written. As he suspected it was finished, and by the looks of the faded pencil lead, it had been finished some time ago. What was odd, though, was that although almost half of it was written in CL's all caps handwriting, the rest was in a neat cursive. He never remembered CL ever writing in cursive aside from signatures. Maybe someone had gotten a hold of it before her and didn't finish. He chuckled at the message, which read;
"The pen may be mightier than the sword, but so is a handgun.
A good bullet will pass through anybody's skull, no matter how thick. Think about that if you ever get annoyed at gun practice.
What if the true future generation L actually has parents?"
He chuckled again, and put the book down, not bothering to look at any of the previous passages. He knew what they were composed of, and looking through them again would probably just make him even more paranoid than he already was.
…,,,…
"Okay, let's go." Said Mello, leading CL to the car parked outside of the apartment. Matt still had to keep an eye on Misa, so he couldn't join.
"Where exactly are we going, you haven't told me yet." CL asked, sliding into the passenger's seat of the car.
"Visiting someone. Is that a problem?" As usual, he was being ridiculously difficult and easily annoyed.
"I was asking." She said quietly, trying to avoid his temper as much as possible. He glanced at her a second before taking a deep breath and elaborating.
"Her name's Halle. She works with SPK now but she used to work for the CIA. She leaks me info from time to time."
"Huh. Never thought I'd see you working so covertly to get information from Near of all people." She teased. His grip on the steering wheel tightened, but he was smiling, nonetheless.
"You're just asking me to kick you out the window."
"That'd be like kicking out your bodyguard." She said, shaking her pistol at him.
"If I wanted a bodyguard with a weakness for the opposite sex I'd hire Matt." He replied, smug.
"You really can't let go of that, can you?" She said, putting her pistol away in one of the inside pockets of a new black leather trench coat, which Auguste had gotten her a day or two after breaking into a CIA headquarters building. That made things a bit ironic, in their current situation.
"Oh relaaaax," he said, finally sparing her a glance.
"I know you're not stupid enough to go around fucking some loser douchebag tool without a first date. I just like putting it against you."
"You make it sound like I'm some sort of 'high class' prostitute." She muttered. He gave her a suspicious look.
"Mello!" She exclaimed, and he laughed. She hadn't heard him laugh in so long. She smiled beside herself.
"I'm as much of a prostitute as you are a pyromaniac." She said.
"Oh, but you see, I am a pyromaniac."
"I guess that puts me in a pretty awkward situation, then." She replied, and he grinned.
…,,,…
Auguste, as CL's caretaker, obviously took great consideration into her wellbeing. That's why he set up a wonderfully timed appointment, after checking up on some SPK files, which L had made sure he would always have access to. L really did like him. Still, this situation was almost as funny as it was ironic.
…,,,…
Mello had stopped the car around a block behind Halle's apartment, for precautionary reasons. He leaned his head back and looked at CL as she opened the door and stood up. Damn, she looked good in leather.
"Are you coming?" she asked, popping her head back in. Her hair was back as always, but she still had the leftover fringe and bangs, like she did the day after the accident. Thinking about it made his scar start to itch and he was jarred out of his reverie.
"Whatever." He said, and got out.
When they reached the door to Halle's apartment he picked the lock while CL stood watch and entered the large space. Definitely nicer than Mello's and Matt's. Mello looked around and took out a handgun of his own while CL kept her hands in her pockets and looked around the space. Something felt off. Maybe she was getting rusty, but she just couldn't put a finger on what it was. With her guard up she jumped when she heard a familiar voice coming from the kitchen space, where Mello was.
"I knew I felt everything suddenly become tense. Always a pleasure to see you, Goldilocks." Auguste?
Maybe it was because whenever Auguste was around she always felt relatively safe, or maybe it was because she was just getting rusty, but by the time she felt something sneak up on her it was too late.
"I see you finally managed to afford a new coat, you bitch." She flipped around, and felt something cold and hard come into contact with the same part of her jaw where she was pistol whipped around a month or two earlier. Immediately her head flew back, and she stood motionless like that for about three, seconds, though to her it seemed like a couple minutes at least, before stumbling back into someone and having an arm wrap around her stomach, preventing her from falling over.
"Hey. I told you not to do that," Auguste said sternly at Halle, who still had her foot up in the way when she kicked CL, though the person holding her wasn't him.
"You could end up re-opening the wound and she'd be in a bit of trouble." He explained, back in his normal tone.
"She still deserved it, after what she did to my hand." Halle muttered, putting her foot down and fixing her shirt. CL regained her balance and gently pushed Mello away, before popping her jaw back in place.
"When did you get your cast off, I'll use that to grade my marksmanship." She asked impassively, irritated at such a rude introduction. This was not the right thing to say, because Halle hurried up to her and grabbed her by her collar, grinding her teeth.
"Two days ago. I'd like to see you try to break into that building now, the guards sure ain't fucking around any more." Halle said, before regaining her posture and sitting down, crossing her legs.
"They can walk?" CL replied, standing next to Mello. Halle looked irritated at the comment, but ignored it.
"I apologize, Mr. Agnes, I lost my temper. She and some other dumbass broke into the facility I previously worked at and stole a piece of valuable data." She explained, ignoring the two blondes who took a seat on the couch.
"Oh, don't apologize. After all, I'm said dumbass." He said cheerfully, smiling at the woman who now had a very shocked look on her face.
"But why would you go through all that trouble for data already accessible to you through the SPK?" she asked, appalled.
"I thought it would make for good practice. I take full credit for the incident involving your hand. I apologize." He said, bowing. CL felt Mello become tense next to her.
"That's a bit of a stretch just for target practice." Mello spoke up, narrowing his icy stare at Auguste.
"How would you know? You prefer blowing up buildings to get your way. And look at what that got you." Mello stood up at this, and reached for his handgun, but Auguste cut him off.
"Here's your picture. I went through the trouble of getting it for you since you'd probably end up killing Near, and I can't let that happen." He said, and flung a single picture at Mello's direction. It was a picture she didn't recognize; one of him at Wammy's around four years ago. Mello caught the picture and glared at Auguste before turning back and looking at CL. She was confused, obviously. She had no idea why Auguste was there, because he would never look out for Mello. Which meant he came here for her, but why?
She saw Mello start to leave and stood up and came after him, but Auguste caught her arm. Both she and Mello turned to look at him. He had never done something like that before.
"You don't need her anymore, right?" Auguste asked Mello, who looked ready to break someone's neck.
"Yes." He said almost immediately, and Auguste let up his grip on CL. He sighed, before reverting once more to his usual self. It was strange to see all these mood swings on Auguste, he was usually just cheery or stoic.
"CL. Assuming you'll stay with Goldilocks here for your own personal goal of catching Kira, I suppose I'll get out of your way. You know how to contact me if you ever need anything. Bye-bye~!" said Auguste, who was out the door with a wave.
Mello, irritated, followed after him not shortly after. CL followed, but Halle stopped her when she got to her door. She turned to look at Halle, who pulled out three pictures from her pocket. She pulled CL closer and whispered.
"Mello told me to get these immediately, when I first leaked him information. He said it was an emergency. I know now they belong to you. Here." She said, and handed her the pictures. Then she closed the door abruptly in her face.
Pictures? She looked at the first one, which was one Cody, who at the time was around nine or ten at the time, took. He liked taking pictures of kids of the Wammy's house, since a lot had interesting qualities about their looks. He only took a few of her, because she was one of the more "normal" ones, but when he did he'd always take one right after she turned to look at him when he called her name. When she asked why he told her it was because he could get a better shot of her eyes because she always looked bored or impassive. It made sense, looking at it. Another odd thing about Cody was that he never anybody the picture of them, but kept it. Of course, when some would leave, he'd give it to them, and they always looked so happy. Matt had told her, after stealing one of himself from Cody that it was actually very odd, because you remembered the moment of when he took it but you never knew what exactly it looked like, so it was always really nostalgic and kind of weird.
She saw his point, now. In the photo, it was a sunny day, and CL had been looking out the window. Her eyes were more wide open than usual and were even lighter with the sun, which had casted a wide glare that blocked out most of the top left corner. She smiled.
The second picture was one of her with smears of chocolate all over her face. She remembered one time Matt and Ratchet had found a melted chocolate bar from one of Mello's stashes and had smeared it all over her face, stole Cody's camera, and took a picture of it. She looked more annoyed than anything, and they had screwed up her hair.
The third picture was yet another one of Cody's. Only this time he hadn't told her he'd taken it. He always told people when he took pictures of them. But not this time. It was a picture of herself and Mello in the library. It looked late out, and they were studying. She remembered that all too well; staying up till the break of dawn studying. She had her fingers through her hair, and was squinting at one of the problems. Mello was beside her, with his hand on his cheek. He was looking at her, but his hand obscured his expression. It was strange, because usually it was her looking at him while he studied.
"Are you coming?"
CL froze in her place. Mello was directly behind her, with his head resting on the juncture between her neck and shoulder. He snatched the three pictures away from her and walked back down the stairs to the first floor of the apartment building, but his gaze remained on the pictures.
"Would you like to recreate this?" he teased, waving the second picture at her face.
"…Shut up."
…,,,…
Okay so I just want to know if everybody is okay with the pace these chapters are coming out? Is it just way too slow? Let me know, and always feel free to PM me.
