Thank you for any review posted for the last chapter! I love reading them. Sorry this chapter's a bit shorter than the previous ones, but it has a rather important plotpoint. I am currently suffering with a lergy, so this chapter was posted because I was feeling like crap. (Dammit, I was writing about feeling like crap only yesterday...) No change in the poll results so far, plus no votes on who you think K should end up with.
Music for this chapter:
'Romeo and Juliet' by Alexandre Desplat
'The Call' by Regina Spektor
I do not own Death Note or any of its characters, just the OCs.
"O, Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou, Romeo? Deny thy father and refuse thy name; or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, and I'll no longer be a Capulet," Fall read aloud. Ugh. Since she'd volunteered to read that out loud, I'd threatened to vomit promptly over the two new boys sitting in front of me. Usually I could cope with classroom drama.
"Very nice, Fall," C praised. "Does anyone here know what it means when she says, 'be but sworn my love, and I'll no longer be a Capulet'?"
Several hands shot up. "You're new, aren't you?" She gestured to a boy with brown hair and brown eyes, eyes daring him to answer. "What's your name?"
"I go by the name of Hamlet," the boy shrugged. "She's basically saying, 'if you love me, I won't be a Capulet anymore'. She's willing to give up who she is in order to be with that gayboy Romeo."
"Shut up!" hissed the boy next to him. "Hamlet."
"Well done, Hamlet," C chuckled. "Yes, you're right. Juliet says aloud, without knowledge that Romeo is there, that if he will love her, she will give up on her entire family, and with that, the feud that they have been carrying on with for so long. And Hamlet, if you think that Romeo is, in your words, a 'gayboy', you are sorely mistaken. In fact, at the beginning of 'Romeo and Juliet', Romeo's a bit of a player."
Most of us sitting in the class by C's feet laughed, except for Hamlet and the boy next to him, who nudged each other and frowned. Given his reaction to Hamlet's insult of Romeo, I supposed that boy went by the same alias, Romeo. Romeo and Hamlet – were they brothers? I wondered who'd started the whole Shakespeare love-in. Why hadn't they gone for more badass aliases if they liked Shakespeare, like Demetrius from 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' or Orsino from 'Twelfth Night'? How about Lear or Anthony, or Iago from 'Othello'?
"Okay, so I'm going to have you all take a shot at reading these aloud with the character you want to try," she grinned. "For the females who aren't exactly Juliet's greatest fan, there are other female characters, plus you can read males' voices if you want. All the Romeos, go to one side of the room. I don't think we could take your egos over here. We need breathing space."
I sighed, flicking through the script. None of the characters jumped out at me singing 'read me, read me', so I turned to the page with the cast list and shrugged. Prince of Verona, it was, then. I wasn't going to be Juliet – no fucking way. I wasn't declaring my love of anyone for shit. I leant up against the door, only to find someone was knocking, trying to get in. I turned around, peered out of the glass in the door and jumped back, seriously freaked out.
He gave me one of those looks, as if to say, 'look, I'd know we've got our differences, but if you don't let me in, that'll piss me off'. I rolled my eyes, opened the door and let him in, that irritating, slouchy sleuth. Ryuk hovered behind me, giving L the exact same glare that I was.
C was reading over Io's shoulder, giving her a hand with a truly gothic Juliet. "Deny thy father and refuse thy name; or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, and I'll no longer be a Capulet," she said in just the right voice, not too emotionless and emo, but with not too much doting. I could imagine it coming from Io's mouth, which made the corners of my mouth twitch upwards.
"Shall I hear more, or I shall I speak at this?" L quoted. I covered my mouth with my hand hastily, finding it nigh unbelievable that L even knew that quote.
"What man art thou that, bescreened in night, so stumblest on my counsel?" C shot back at him as she turned around. "No, really, L, what are you doing here? Drama lessons, I can imagine, aren't really your thing."
"Travel plans," he said firmly. At this, my back straightened like I'd had a rod stuck up it.
"What?" she gasped. "Travel plans? L, we're on contract. Is this..." She lowered her voice, unknowing that I could still hear. "Is this about Kira? Have you got something?"
"I was studying Kira's latest victims and it seems that he is killing criminals exclusively in the Kanto region of Japan at the moment," L told her. "We have to leave, C. Kanto is exactly where Light started."
"But this... it isn't the beginning!" she protested. "It's been going on for over a month now! How do we know that Kira hasn't been looking at old reports for the case? There was that first televised announcement you made, and that made it pretty clear you knew he was in Japan. The Fifth Kira could have copied that."
Damn her! She could ruin everything for me!
"It's time, C," he murmured. "I'm announcing my work on the case. I'll start broadcasting immediately in Kanto, and then I'll move on elsewhere."
"L..." she sighed. "I guess there's no point trying to dissuade you, is there?"
"No, but thank you for worrying about me," he smiled. It was a strange thing, to see him smile, and I tried not to let it bother me. "C, I'm sure Roger will understand if I... if we... have to leave for a case. It's our job."
"How are you going to make any progress with K if you keep running away like this?" she hissed. Her words broke through the composed mask on his face and his eyes widened at her like he couldn't believe she'd even thought of me. My fists clenched, an automatic reaction, and I took a deep breath that managed to steady me. "L, she is your niece! You are her legal guardian!"
"If you like her so much, why don't you take her?" L growled. "You could be her new legal guardian."
"I'm twenty-five years old, L."
"You'd be a good mother."
"I know there's a compliment in that sentence, but I'm getting lost in the implications of it."
"C, put that aside. What matters now is Japan. We need to get there as soon as possible so we can broadcast." She eyed him curiously, tilting her head to one side.
"When you say 'we'..."
"I mean you and I. We will both be doing the broadcast."
"With you as the Great Detective L and me as... what? Answer me that, L. What am I to you, really?" she asked him sharply. When he didn't answer, she closed her eyes. "Never mind. Just forget it, okay? I'll have a word with Roger. In the meantime, I'm going to finish my lesson."
"You're studying Shakespeare," he realized.
"Yes."
"C, I'm stuck," Fall admitted, ruining the conversation. I shook my head. "I don't get how they would say this bit. It's all in Shakespearean gibberish." Trust Fall not to know how to say the classics. "I get she's meant to be absolutely crazy for this guy, but I'm totally lost."
"Oh, here... Fall, she's devastated yet questioning. Imagine you weren't allowed to date someone. Here's an example. What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet," C said smoothly with just the right amount of angst. She held out the book to the blonde girl. "Where else are you stuck, Fall?"
"Here," Fall showed her, flicking back a few pages. "The 'good pilgrim' bit."
"Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much, which mannerly devotion shows in this: for saints have hands that pilgrims touch, and palm to palm is holy palmer's kiss," she said softly. It was as if she was waiting for an answer, and as I blinked, I saw somebody else besides the Criminal Psychology and Drama teacher I had grown used to. It wasn't C there. It was Juliet.
"Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?" L chuckled. She choked out a laugh, barely believing, like me, that he was reciting the lines that Romeo would say in just the right manner.
"Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer," she tested him. Surely he couldn't know the rest of the whole fucking script? He was a detective, not an actor or an English teacher. What did he do in his spare time, recount every single line?
He took up the challenge, not backing down. Egotistical bastard. "O then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do: they pray: grant thou, lest faith turn to despair."
"Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake." She raised an eyebrow at him, folding her arms.
"Then move not, while my prayer's affect I take," he told her, and leant in.
My heart stopped. It was as if the whole room had frozen.
NO!
Ahahahaha! I love cliffhangers, don't you? Call me what you will, but L's taking your cake! Again, thanks to reviewers, favouriters and just generally, readers, of both LAWLIET: Blood Ties, and Scorpios Can Be Murder. It's such good fun writing both of them, and I look forward to hearing any feedback you have.
As you can kind of tell, I don't own 'Romeo and Juliet'. That belongs to the master himself, William Shakespeare. But it does provide a neat little scene/cliffie.
Thanks!
C.
