Another chapter up, finally! And a rather angsty one, too…
The title for this chapter is quite obvious too…wink wink nudge nudge tickle.
By the way, guys…I freaking love writing Matsuda. He's so cuddly.
Anyway! Please enjoy this installment in Through Glass! Today is yet another day that I don't own Death Note!
The memory of the previous night had not yet sunken in for Amelia when she awoke the next morning, but she knew that she had most likely done something quite foolish judging by the smile on her face.
It was perhaps the greatest rarity for her to greet the morning with a smile at all, for normally she groaned and cursed the sun for coming out and distracting her mind from the sleep that she adored so. But this morning in particular…she felt soft, warm, ambiguous.
She sat at the edge of the bed and combed her fingers through the tangled mass that was her hair. She remembered the bitter taste of vomit in her mouth and expeling it into the toilet; L holding back her hair…but the events that followed were a mere hazy blur. She stood up slowy, cautious to make any drastic movement on her weak, ailing legs and listened closely to voices that came from the living room of the hotel suite.
So they've started without me, she thought acrimoniously. Well, I suppose I'll just have to make a late entrance.
She rummaged through her bag for a pair of sweatpants and pulled them on. Before she moved any farther, she noticed a small piece of paper resting on the nightstand. She picked it up and smirked at L's vigilant, light handwriting and began reading his note:
"Amelia, I think it would be best for you to rest in bed today instead of putting your body under strenuous work. You proved yourself quite worthy to the task force last night, but your fever concerned me, dare I say it. Please do not be your usual stubborn self and push your weakened state even further today."
She placed the paper back on the nightstand and twisted her lips into a defiant smile. She wanted to laugh at L's letter, for she could easily tell that he knew she would defy his advice and attend the meeting regardless of how sick she had been. She would be lying if she said that she had improved entirely back to her normal, healthy state, but she refused for him to keep her away from the task force even for one day. There was important information that she could be missing out on, interesting discussions that she would be missing, and she kept this in mind as she strolled into the living room clad in her less-than-flattering pajamas.
"Good morning, gentlemen. What have I missed?"
All of the men looked up, including L whom crouched in his armchair about to take a bite out of his strawberry cake. His eyelids fell halfway down in his eyes in an unimpressed fashion and he said dully, "I presume that you did not read my note."
"Oh, I did," she said simply. "But I deem this case to be far more important than a sheer fever, Ryuzaki." She took her seat on the empty chair across from L, battling his stare with one of her own.
"You were sick, Lise?" Matsuda questioned from the couch. "Are you feeling any bet-"
"Lise had a very high fever last night, and I advised her to rest for the day to make a swift recovery," L explained in a dry tone. "But it appears as though she has made a dramatic resurgence already."
Amelia was the only person in the room who could pick up his sarcastic style of phrasing his words, and she narrowed her eyes slightly at him with the corners of her mouth upturned into a challenging smile. He returned the smirk and it quickly vanished before a third party noticed the interaction between them.
I saw that, L…
"Lise!" a cheerful voice said when Amelia entered the kitchen to refill her coffee. She saw that it was Matsuda, much to her relief, and she grinned at him. "Matsuda!" she said, imitating his excited voice with gusto.
The young man laughed and gestured to her empty coffee cup. "Need more?"
"I can get it, but thanks. Why are you out here away from the others?" She leaned her back against the counter and watched him refill a mug with coffee.
A fleeting expression of guilt passed over Matsuda's eyes and his cheeks turned to a pale shade of pink. "I was annoying Aizawa with too many questions, so he said that I could make up for it by getting him another cup of coffee."
Amelia frowned slightly. "You shouldn't let him treat you like that, Matsuda," she said with sympathy. She had already realized that he was the black sheep of the task force, and it only made her feel a closer bond to him, for she had experienced being the outcast of a group all of her life. Of course, she was not quite as merry and childish as Matsuda, but she could nevertheless relate to him greatly.
Matsuda blushed and shrugged slightly, chuckling. "At least I get to work with you and Ryuzaki!" he boasted with a charming innocence. "Kira sure is going to have a hard time getting past us now!"
His optimism should have made her smile, but it sent a cold sensation through the pit of her stomach at the memory of the newspaper article she had seen her landlord reading. She plastered on a smile and nodded. "He sure is, Matsuda," she said, masking the pain in her stomach with the cheery tone in her voice.
The hours passed, and Amelia sat cross-legged on the floor slowly tending to the lollipop in her mouth next to L. As more videos of the FBI agents' death entered the room courtesy of the others, the two studied each and every movement of a man named Raye Penber.
It was a dark feeling consuming her as she followed the steps the man made on the video, knowing that his death was approaching quickly at the end of the tape. And the handsome Raye simply walked, unaware, keeping his mind on his tasks to be completed that day…it depressed her.
The other men had left the room to have a cigarette, refresh their coffee cups, or to simply stretch their legs after a long stretch of time of studying camera footage, which was why Amelia was taken off guard when Aizawa entered the room with another armload of tapes. "Damn, these things get heavy after awhile…" he muttered.
L glanced up at Aizawa blandly and gestured to the coffee table in front of him. "Yes, please set them there," he instructed, turning his gaze back to the screen.
Amelia scoffed at his lack of gratitude towards the man who had taken on the labor of lugging the tapes into the room, however cold as he was to her for simply being there. She looked up at the man and nodded out of respect. "Thank you for your help, Aizawa."
The appreciation in her voice made his eyes widen, his jaw go slack, and he cleared his throat. Nodding back at her, he unloaded his arms of the tapes and they settled on the coffee table in crooked, towering stacks.
Amelia watched as L picked up a sugar cube and delicately placed it upon his tongue. He closed his mouth and rolled the sugar around in his cheeks, making a soft sucking noise when he opened his mouth to speak.
"Raye Penber exited the train after an hour and a half and immediately collapsed from a heart attack," he said under his breath.
Amelia turned her attention back to the screen and focused on the camera footage. "We've already established that," she said as she chewed upon her bottom lip in concentration.
L glanced over at her for a moment, but turned back to the television. "Thinking aloud is a common method of piecing information together, Lise," he said wryly.
"I'm aware of that," Amelia responded with an equal irony. "I'm just trying to pull out new information instead of dwelling on the obvious."
L raised his brow quizzically. "Is that how you see it? Dwelling?"
Amelia sighed, knowing that her phrase had not come out the way she had intended. All she wanted to do was concentrate on what she had not observed on the tape yet, but she could never seem to find the right words whenever she was with him. "No, Ryuzaki, but your thinking aloud is distracting me. Why are we even still talking about this?"
She looked at his sharp profile and saw that he was sucking on a fresh sugar cube between his fingers with a soft smirk upon his lips. "You started the debate in the first place," he muttered.
Amelia's eyes widened at his comment and she clenched her fists in frustration. "Well, you were the one who felt the need to repeat the same thing over and over again while I was trying to concentrate."
"You sure have a quick temper, Lise," L responded with his usual air of clueless teasing. He looked at her out of the corner of one dark eye. "In fact, I don't remember you being this temperamental before."
He was sucking on that damn sugar cube between his lips, his long fingers holding it with such fragility as though it would shatter under his touch. The unintentional sensuality of the act was infuriating her, for she knew that it was the reason behind her strongly flustered state. She was used to his teasing by now, it was a part of their relationship, but not the arousing sight of his lips wrapping around the sugar so innocently and unknowing of the effect it had on her.
"Can we please just drop this?" she said. "My headache is returning."
Lie. She felt fine, besides slightly heated, but she knew that if their conversation continued she would do the unthinkable: blush.
L made an inquisitive sound in his throat and popped the remainder of the sugar cube into his mouth. "It must be the stress you're under right now," he remarked with a chaste thoughtfulness.
Amelia sharpened her gaze on the screen, although she was too distracted to pay attention to the task at hand. "I'm not stressed," she said offhandedly, flicking her hair out of her eyes.
"You're trembling."
"I'm cold."
"Has your fever returned? You could be undergoing chills."
Again with the mocking tone. Amelia squinted her eyes shut and inhaled deeply."We've already discussed how it pisses me off when you pull stunts like this," she said shakily.
Without missing a beat, L said, "And I have told you my reasons for doing so."
Amelia had not expected his comment, and the calm tone to his voice eased her anger slightly. Damn, she thought, he got me there. She hung her head low and let her hair pool over her face. "Which only makes me feel foolish. Now, can you please rewind the tape so that I can actually watch it?"
L pressed the rewind button and gave her a curious, dark look. "Foolish, you say."
"Yes, somewhat. You can stop the tape here, this is where I wanted it-"
"Do I embarrass you that much, Amelia?"
She was surprised enough by hearing her own name again, but his question in general made her stomach flip. She stared at him in a dull shock and shook her head slowly. "No, I just…"
"You're lying," L said gently. "You basically just told me that I do in fact embarrass you."
Amelia stood up abruptly, suddenly uncomfortable, before saying, "I need some more coffee." Without warning, her arm swung out and struck the tower of tapes upon the table. With a grimace, she watched them crash to the floor in a jumbled heap and scatter across the floor sloppily. Amelia crouched back down onto her knees to recollect the tapes, cursing under her breath. Leave it to me to do something like this right now…
"Here, let me help you," the deep voice of L spoke from in front of her on the floor.
She shook her head in protest and frantically began stacking the dozens of fallen videos onto the table. "I can handle it," she said stiffly. "You didn't knock them over, I did."
"Yes, but that's beside the point. Let me help you." L grabbed a tape and placed it on top of Amelia's forming stack. She looked up at him incredulously and took his tape off of the stack and placing it back on the floor. "I can handle it!" she repeated, growing embarrassed yet again. She felt so stupid and inferior whenever people helped her with her own fault's tasks.
L kept the same blank look on his face as he picked the tape back up and placed it on the stack yet again. "You really are impossibly stubborn at times."
Amelia flashed her eyes up at his and blurted, "Because you are, too!"
There was no sudden shift in the man's expression, but his mouth opened so subtly that it could hardly be considered a reaction. Those inquiring charcoal eyes stared into hers with a quiet intensity, his ghostly white complexion sharply contrasting with the evidence of fatigue that lurked under them. She did not realize how close his face was to hers until she felt his warm breath on her face when he spoke. "Yes, but you don't admire my stubborn side as much as I admire yours."
He was speaking so quietly that she was sure that the conversation was going to grow personal; that, or L wanted her to lean in closer to him…
She steadied herself in her kneeling position with her hand on the floor and locked her gaze onto his. "It's natural for me to not wish to appear weak when I'm embarrassed. There isn't room extra vulnerabiliy in this case…"
Her voice trailed off as L's expression hardened slightly, the tension in his jaw and his lips growing. His eyes remained their standard , burning blank. "It's too late to be worrying about your vulnerability. You even agreed with me when telling Matsuda of the dangers that we are all under."
Amelia sighed, knowing that once again her remark had not come out as planned. "I don't want to add any unnecessary weakness to the situation." She hesitated before continuing, "So, perhaps it does embarrass me when you bring that weakness out, however you do it."
A faint twitch of a smile came to L's lips. She narrowed her eyes as she studied his face, his lips…his eyes…
Damn it, those eyes…stop it!
"But I doubt that I have that same effect on you," she said quietly, innocently, switching the situation around. If L wanted to play this game of emotions with her, why not play back?
Then again, he was L.
He scratched the back of his head nonchalantly and said, "That's quite backwards thinking for you to use. How do you expect me to prove you wrong without submitting to the weakness that you fear?"
Something in Amelia's stomach flipped and fizzled as her heartbeat echoed in her ears. She had gotten an answer out of him…but not quite the one that she had expected…
…Submitting to the weakness…
He was just staring at her without a hint of remorse, as if he did not know what the word meant. Amelia swallowed hard while searching for appropriate words to respond with. "I don't expect you to prove it," she whispered hoarsely.
W-what? Amelia, you dumbass…you never say anything right…
"That may be true, but how do define 'proof'?" L responded, his voice barely audible due to its softness.
Amelia felt the falling sensation sweeping over her mind again. What the fuck is happening to me? Stop this. STOP THIS.
L's eyes remained glued onto hers, and Amelia vaguely wondered if he had blinked once since they began talking.
I want…
Her mind disconnected with her body and she focused on his eyes.
I want to…
Somewhere in the back of her head, something was screaming for her to back away and take a few deep breaths, release this tension in her heart without resorting to this…
I want to kiss…
She did not lean in any closer to him, but her eyelids grew heavier. She was not Amelia Lasswell any longer, but an embodiment of a yearning that had pounced upon her without warning.
I want to kiss L.
At the thought, she was jerked out of her trance and simply stared at him, as if coming back up for air after nearly drowning. Her hands were trembling; she was confused at her own sudden inner outburst of emotion, in which had attacked her senses virtually out of nowhere. She had wanted to kiss L…no, she had needed to kiss L. After twenty-two years of having never kissed any male on the planet, it had caught up to her.
Perhaps she was simply tired.
"The others are returning," L said, seemingly back to reality as well. Amelia nodded quickly and cleared her throat as she placed the stacks of tapes back on the coffee table as if nothing had happened.
Shit, she thought, either that was a serious bout of hormones, or I've fallen.
To protect herself from any unreasonable jitters, she chose the former.
As the task force returned to the room and took their seats once more, L feverishly dug into the bowl of ice cream that Watari had brought to him.
What had happened?
He had not directly confessed anything to the auburn-haired girl that had been clouding his thoughts lately, but the manner in which she had gazed at him had made him wonder if he had spoken too much.
He spooned another mouthful of ice cream into his mouth and glanced over at the said girl. They had not spoken since the confusing incident, and they both seemed almost relieved that the task force had decided to return to the footage room at that time. Besides, perhaps now they could both concentrate on Raye Penber and not each others' definition of "proof".
Amelia sat on the floor, legs crossed tightly, fiddling with her earlobe. She had not looked at him since he had informed her of the men returning, and he had not provoked her to do so.
"Are we still looking at Raye Penber, Ryuzaki?" Ukita asked as he sat down next to Mogi.
L nodded mutely, his mouth full of strawberry ice cream and the spoon still in his mouth. He swallowed and dipped the spoon back into the bowl. "Yes, we want to take a closer look at him. Lise and I find him particularly interesting."
For some reason, he saw Amelia's shoulders bob with a quiet laugh, and he simply continued eating his ice cream and listened to the others sip from their coffee cups and chatter about something unimportant to him.
He kept his eyes on Amelia, whom was reaching up to press the play button on the VCR and start the video from where L had rewound it. A small portion of her back was exposed when the bottom of her shirt fluttered at the action. His eyes widened at the unexpected sight, and he shoveled another mouthful of ice cream into his mouth to distract himself and winced when the coldness hit his gums.
"While Penber was on the train, he accessed the file that Kira used to kill the FBI agents, correct?" Amelia asked. The tone in her voice had turned professional and stern once more, and she kept her back to him.
L smiled to himself and did not answer her. He wanted to see how much she could deduct without his help on this one…not as a method of teasing, but as a test on her own behalf as a newcoming detective.
He knew that she would not let him down…
Directly after the dark-haired man on the screen collapsed, both Amelia and L noticed the exact same thing. Amelia sat up straighter and leaned in closer to the screen, her eyes narrowed severely, while L loudly demanded for the tape to be rewound.
They had both seen it.
"Envelope? What are you talking about?" Aizawa asked, standing up and coming closer to the screen to see more clearly.
As the members of the task force watched the footage once more, Amelia looked over her shoulder at L from the floor while the others marveled at how Raye Penber had left the train without the envelope that he had had before boarding.
L stared back at her as the girl smiled softly, nodding her head once at him. He nodded in return, allowing his lips to crack into a quiet smile as well. While the task force crowded around the screen, they relished their brief moment of connection until Amelia slowly turned back around, earning a friendly pat on the back from Matsuda.
"Did you expect it?"
L glanced around his shoulder at Amelia as he stood in front of the window, his hands in his pockets. She was approaching him with a steaming mug in her hands, clad in an oversized white sweater and black shorts, her hair piled on top of her head in a tangled cluster of auburn. She took a seat upon the windowsill next to him and gazed out the window, a soft smile on her fair face.
"Expect what?" he asked, eyeing her with question.
Amelia's shoulders bounced lightly with a chuckle. "The outburst when you announced your plan. The surveillance cameras?" She brought the mug to her lips and took a sip from it. "The men looked as though they wanted to rip your head off."
"Perhaps they did," he said, "but it was a necessary move. That is, if we wish to narrow down any possible Kira suspects." He looked at her out of the corner of his eye as she stared out into the darkness, the dim light from the table lamp by the couch shining upon her profile. Other than when he had seen her sleeping, it was the most pristine he had seen her yet.
Amelia nodded. A loose strand of hair grazed her cheek at the motion and she swiped it away. "I know. I'm not particularly against it, I knew that it would be an effective next move." She let out a sleepy sigh. "I think it would be appropriate if I were to watch the footage of the women of the households, though. That was the only point that I was concerned about."
"Of course," L replied quietly as he steadily kept his eyes on the side of her face.
The two were silent for a stretch of time as they relished the peaceful quiet of the room after such a hectic day. L observed her in fascination as she bit her bottom lip and simply stared out the window as if she had never seen out of one before. There was still such an innocence that she possessed that both charmed him and confused him.
The fact that he was noticing her awkward sense of beauty at that moment made him only more interested in every upcoming movement the girl would make.
"L?" Amelia inquired softly.
"Yes?"
"Have you ever done something foolish, but felt no remorse for doing so?"
Her question was so out of the ordinary that his eyes widened slightly, but he thought upon it for a moment and looked back out the window. "I suppose the Kanto broadcast could be considered a risky move on my part, but I don't regret it, for it brought me one step closer to Kira. Why do you ask?"
He had an acute idea as to why she was asking. He knew perfectly well that she had wanted to kiss him during their brief moment of close contact, although he was clueless as to why she harbored such a desire towards him. He had seen her eyelids grow languid, her cheeks flush, her gaze go foggy, and all the while he had sat there in front of her with a tape in his hand wondering what the hell he was supposed to do. The event had sprung upon them at such a peculiar time that his mind had for once drawn a blank. He had never been intimate with anyone before; even a simple kiss was foreign nature.
For having one the most brilliant minds on the planet, he could not kiss her.
L heard her heave a gentle sigh and she shrugged. "I was just curious," she said. "Sometimes I confuse myself. Just forget that I asked."
She placed her feet back down on the ground and was beginning to walk away, but he stopped her, still facing out the window. "This has to do with our encounter, does it not?" he asked as-a-matter-of-factly.
He saw her stop walking in the reflection of the glass and he felt a gentle amusement in the fact that he had taken her off guard, but he chose not to taunt her for it at the moment. He simply stared at her reflection, a mere six feet away from him, and remembered her blushing face, her heavy eyelids, the questioning way in which she looked at him.
"Nothing gets past you. I hate that," she said. She turned around and slowly walked towards the kitchen, mug in hand, but L was not finished with her just yet.
"You claim that you don't feel remorse for your actions today, Amelia," he said, gazing at her through glass.
"Yes, that's why I just stated so," she responded.
L turned around to face her now, his hands remaining in his pockets, black hair falling over his eyes. He did not hesitate before saying, "Then why did you stop yourself?"
Amelia somehow managed to keep a neutral expression on her face, perhaps because she had prepared herself for his question, but there was still a subtle hint of her eyes going wider than before. There was a pause hovering in the air between them and they simply stared the other down, challenging to see who would falter first.
Neither were losing, yet neither were winning.
"Is that you admitting that you did not want me to stop myself, L?"
Clever answer, Amelia, Lthought, I'm quite pleased. He watched her bring her mug to her lips and take a sip, keeping her eyes locked onto his. This newfound elegance in the manner in which she answered his questions…he was not sure whether to be proud of her or extremely frustrated.
"Is this you trying to get me to admit something that you inwardly wish to be true?" he asked with a smile. This could grow to be quite fun if they kept it up…
Amelia placed her free hand on her hip and narrowed her eyes. "Is this you being an arrogant ass?" she retorted.
He could sense the amusement in her voice and saw her lips threaten to give away a laugh as she suppressed it. He brought his slender thumb to his mouth and rested it upon his bottom lip, grinning while doing so. "I win."
Amelia tilted her head down suddenly, staring at him in shock. "What?"
"You cursed first, so I won," he said, clucking his tongue against the roof of his mouth sympathetically. "And you were doing so well, too…"
Amelia made a strangled sound in her throat and continued walking away again. "You could have at least specified the rules, if this was meant to be a contest," she said in a strained voice, in which sounded like a mix between fury and holding back hard laughter. She exited the living room of the hotel and disappeared into the kitchen. L stared at the space that she had occupied, still gliding his thumb across his lips distractedly, and turned back to the window.
Little do you know, Amelia…you've already won.
Don't hate me too much for not having them kiss YET in this chapter…but I'm a tease. What can I say?
Reviews, pretty please with L on top? No one resist that yummy goodness.