Music used:

Asylum from The Silence of the Lambs OST

Quid Pro Quo from The Silence of the Lambs OST

Again Again by Lady Gaga

Brown Eyes by Lady Gaga

Monster by Skillet

Bullet by Bon Jovi

Blue by Birthday Massacre

Toxic by Blowsight

Snow began to swirl around outside, landing on the ground only to be trampled by an overexcited bunch of younger kids. It would never settle at this rate. It took a lot of snow to cover Wammy's anyway, what with how large it was. Beside the courtyard stood the main house that contained the oldest classrooms, all of the bedrooms and the dining hall. It was Victorian-styled, and had been around for hundreds of years, expanded on several times. The sports fields were just behind that, and the dance studios/gym next to the field. Underneath the dance studios were the firing ranges, and across from the dance studios were the obstacle course and the newer schooling block (including the library). A quarter of a mile away from the obstacle course, in the middle of a field, controlled explosions were happening for experimental areas away from the stables. If you traveled in the opposite direction of the obstacle course beside the dance studios you would find the leisure block and the playing fields. Adjacent to the playing fields were the gardens, which ran alongside the main house. All of this was surrounded by a three-foot-thick stone wall built in the eighteen-hundreds.

It was from the main house that L and I left, heading in the direction of the gardens several people had gathered in that morning. It was frosty already, and as we sat down on a bench beside the pond, our movements made a distinct crunching sound. Automatically, he pulled his knees up to his chest. It was only then I took note of what he was wearing, not his usual attire, just the same colors. A button-up shirt had replaced his usual baggy one, and he was wearing jeans that actually fit him. He could be mistaken for normal.

Except I knew the truth.

He didn't look at me straight in the eyes when he spoke, preferring to talk outwards and let me listen. A chilling wind brushed past us as we glanced in opposite directions. I wondered fleetingly if L was slightly autistic, if he had trouble keeping eye contact because he just didn't get people. Then I remembered how much annoyance his team members found because he wouldn't back the hell off.

"I have been thinking," he told me, "that since you are number one you should undergo some sort of training."

"Training like what?" I asked.

"It would be beneficial to your education if for maybe twice a week, when you would have ordinary lessons, you joined our team instead. According to your test results, your level of reasoning and deduction are exceptionally high. A couple of days would not severely affect you. I am certain you would be capable of coping," he admitted.

"Why now? Slo's been number one for ages, and he hasn't had any sort of weirdo training program," I pointed out curiously. I folded my arms.

"That is because Slo did not achieve as high grades as you when he was number one. I invite you also to bring young Mr. Chaos and Slo with you, for they do require experience. Am I correct in thinking the boys have become good friends over the time Chip has been here?" he said.

"Yeah. Sort of." I was… getting in on the Kira case at last?

"Well, now that is out of the way…" He seemed to relax visibly. "Would you like to spend some time with me at some point?"

"What?" I spluttered.

"Yes, why not? When our schedules are empty and the case is not quite so hectic, we should spend some time together – as family." He was arranging this in his head, shocking me so badly I barely had time to retort shrewdly.

"Did C tell you to say this?" I demanded angrily.

"C? What does C have to do with this?" he replied, startled. "I wish to spend time with my niece."

"She did, didn't she?" I snapped.

"Actually, no, she did not ask me to say anything! She merely suggested it a month or so ago, and I listened. The prospect was sound for me, so I pursued the course of action I have just displayed. You see?" he explained.

I gaped at him. Nothing could be said.

Eventually we had to say something, and this had been plaguing me since I'd first heard about it.

"What exactly is your relationship with C? What are you?" I pressed. "Friends? Associates? Acquaintances? Lovers?"

L made a hushed, disgusted noise in the back of his throat, which surprised me. He was glaring straight ahead, at the gardens before us. Something in his expression was twisted to make me think he hated something.

"We are not quite friends," he confessed frostily, "and definitely not lovers. We are merely two people who can do nothing but co-exist. I work beside C because I must, and she works beside me because I pay."

"But-"

"Friends get in the way." He shot me a cold look. "You of all people should understand that."

"Shut up!" I said loudly. "All my life, I've been on my own, and I've always thought I was better than everyone else! I was number seven! Only now, when I've got my friends, did I reach number one! Friends never fucking hold you back, you got that, you dick? You should take care of your own!"

"So you would support your friends?"

"Of course I fucking would! Leo and Slo – they mean too much to me for me to ignore them!" I shouted.

L smiled at me then, and I knew I'd been played. He tucked his chin to his chest and held his shirt collar between his thumb and forefinger. I suddenly blushed bright red, barely believing I'd just fallen for such a simple trick.

"Did you hear that, boys?" L asked them. He looked up at me with that same enraging smile on his face. "They heard."

I stood up from my place on the bench, turning to him sharply. "I will see you at dinner tonight, L. Be careful not to choke on your food."

XXX

He shuddered in his cell, his laughs fading away. Hisses and low murmurs replaced them, barely coherent. People in cells beside him had retreated to the metal shelves beneath brick-like mattresses that were their beds, terrified of him. He cackled again, louder to scare them, before coughing and trying out a deep chuckle. He was hidden in the dark, prepared in case anyone approached the bullet-proof glass.

He twitched a little, unruly hair sticking out in all different directions. In the distance, a cry of pain combined with plenty of little grunts reached him. He noticed several security guards run past his cell, horrified. He called out to them in that high-pitched, movie-psycho voice he knew frightened them.

"There goes another one, boys!" he shrieked. "He's better to society dead, isn't he? He makes a pretty carcass!" He sniggered again.

The prisoners were getting more rowdy now, panicking and yelling random frantic statements at the guards. They saw bloody scrapes carved into the walls of his cell with his nails and most evaded him. One of the guards, Maloney, hammered harshly on the glass in his cell.

"Shut it, you!" he snapped.

"Another one bites the dust!" he sang in response, loudly and out of tune.

The stench of fear and rage was thick like poisonous gas in the air. Maloney bashed the glass again crossly with his truncheon.

"Did you 'ear what I said, you rotten piece of shit? Shut the fuck up!" he snarled.

"You're so rude," he accused, leaping lithely to his feet and walking slowly towards the glass. He banged the glass with both palms, forcing Maloney to jump back. Through gritted teeth, he muttered roughly. "I hate rude people."

Maloney shivered, keeping an irritated face.

"You mess with me again, sunshine, and you'll spend a week in solitary, you got that?" the guard threatened.

Smirking, he mimed zipping his own lips and nodded. The guard made one mistake he should never have made, though. He turned his back on him. Ignoring the man in the cell like he was nothing, Maloney looked away, standing guard in front of the cell. Instantaneously, the man in the cell tore a strip from the collar of his grey jumpsuit and tied a pen to each end. He pulled the spring out of the mattress on the metal shelf and flattened it out into a long, sharp piece of wire. He then proceeded to sew the wire into the cloth with his hands before feeding the pen through a hole in the glass in front of his cell designed for air. Silently, he flicked his wrist, making sure the cloth was able to twist back, the pen reachable through another hole. Maloney never even noticed until the wire was around his neck and it was too late.

Maloney crumpled to the ground while the man in his cell sat back and called out nonchalantly.

"Man down, man down." He sounded almost bored.

"Ryuzaki!" gasped Richter, one of the guards who came to investigate. "Ryuzaki killed him!"

"That's Mr. Ryuzaki to you," the man they named 'Ryuzaki' corrected him.

Richter's two colleagues, O'Brien and Stanley, hurried Maloney's lifeless body away to the morgue, where fifty inmates were already stored. Since Kira, there were less prisoners and more corpses…

"What do you want, Ryuzaki? Why did you kill Henry Maloney? Did you think it would get you out, help you escape?" Richter asked him, rage filling every fiber of his being.

"Well," Ryuzaki sighed, "he was being terribly rude…"

"You killed him because he was rude?" Richter roared. "What do you want?"

Ryuzaki leant forward, his nose hardly an inch from the guard's. A smirk adorned his pale face.

"I wish for a phone call."

XXX

M and C stood in the utility room in front of the dreaded washing machine. They were not looking forward to this one little bit. In a green plastic wash-basket in front of them sat around fifty pairs of underpants. They moved towards it hesitantly and lifted the lid on the massive, American-style washing machine. M was holding a bottle of fabric softener in one hand and some washing machine liquid in the other, keeping them at arm's distance as if they were deadly weapons.

"Well, this is a great way to spend Christmas," M commented sarcastically. "You ready for this?"

"This is going to suck, isn't it?" C grimaced.

"Like a sugar-free lollipop," they said together.

Laughing, they moved forward, picked up the wash-basket and put it on the table beside the horrible appliance they would have to use.

"Maybe we should just shrink everything," M muttered. "Or mix Near's underpants in with some pink clothing dye."

"This doesn't have to be totally boring," C shrugged. "We could try the Identity Game."

"The what?" M raised a questioning eyebrow.

"The Identity Game," her friend answered. "We have a guess at who each pair of pants belong to. You up for it?"

"Oh… hell yeah!" M grinned. "Let's see – who's first?" She fished into the basket and took out a pair patterned with Link from The Legend of Zelda. "Matt."

"What about these?" C hooked a pair of Y-fronts bleached white. "Near, I bet."

They tossed both pairs into the washing machine and carried on their game.

"Ew, gross," M giggled, taking out a pair of black leather ones. "How can Mello wear these? They must be seriously bloody uncomfortable. Doesn't he get chafing or something?"

"Ugh, mental images!" C mimed vomiting.

"Oh, I forgot!" M smirked. "Visual mind. You have to picture whatever someone says, right?"

"Shit, I wish I'd never told you that," C snickered.

"Mello naked! Picture it!" M taunted evilly. "Picture it!"

"How is it you're not on the FBI's most wanted list?" C groaned.

"Because I'm clever and I don't get caught for what I do," the redhead teased. "I'm not that evil, anyway. I could have said picture Roger naked."

"You know now you've said that I have to picture it!" C cried out in horror. "Holy crap, that is vile! Excuse me while I go pour bleach in my ears to fry my brain."

"Heh, sorry," M laughed. She picked up a pair of boxers this time, Calvin Klein ones that seemed normal in comparison to what they'd seen previously. "Meh, these are so boring."

C stared for a moment before blinking spastically, as if she'd gotten something in her eye. "Whose are those, then?" she asked, turning her back on M and trying to ignore how unbearably hot it had suddenly become in the utility room. A scary flash burn was tearing up the back of her neck.

"I don't know," M mumbled. "Probably one of the older boys'."

"Mm, yes, probably," C agreed hastily.

"Are you all right?" M questioned. "You sound sort of… flustered."

"Do I?" C laughed with a high-pitch accidentally. "That's odd; I'm fine."

"Uh-oh," M said. She grabbed hold of her friend's shoulder and spun her around. "I know that laugh. You're avoiding something. And you're embarrassed!"

"I'm not embarrassed, M. Leave me alone," C snapped.

"Oh, you're really embarrassed."

"I'm not!"

"So what is it? Does washing clothes make you think of something from home or whatever?"

"No! Stop it!"

"C-"

"For God's sake-"

They were interrupted by C's phone ringing out 'Bullet' by Bon Jovi. C turned away to answer. It was lucky she did, for that way M couldn't see her face when the familiar, throaty, sarcastic voice began to echo in her ear. Her fingers loosened; she almost dropped the phone.

"Claire Riddle," she muttered.

"Still so formal. I would expect nothing less from you, young lady," the man on the other end of the phone said.

"I suppose that this is not a social call, so it would be foolish of me to treat it as such," she whispered. "So, to put it bluntly, what did you call me for?"

"Oh, you are so cruel to yourself, thinking that I would only call you for work. I was wondering if you would do me a little favor, though, if it's not too much trouble," he said coolly. "L completed this task for me fifteen years ago. Would you be as kind to do the same?"

"This is about Kira, isn't it?"

"Yes. I want a death certificate, and I want you to sign it."

"How could you phone me with this news?"

"How did I do it? Oh, you know me, I have ways. My method this time was by strangling a prison guard with a cleverly made piece of wire, with cloth to make it easier to maneuver. He squealed like a pig when he died, making a bit of a funny choking noise to heighten the comedy. I have a suspicion he was choking on his own tongue. It was rather amusing."

"I don't want the graphic details. When will the prison send me official documents?"

M's head snapped up, intrigued as she was by the word 'prison'.

"Later today, I believe. All you must do then is sign them and send them to somebody with a medical PhD so that it is signed by a professional who could have proclaimed me dead. I know you have a PhD in forensic psychology, but it is not the same and besides, it must be signed by two people at least. Richter will sign also, as witness. That will make me immune to Kira. Why try to murder someone who is already dead?"

"I understand. When do you suggest I tell any others?"

"As soon as possible. Spread the word. Tell L in private. He must be the only other person on your team to know the truth. Now look how you would look if you were told I had just died in a prison fight or some such event. And no smiling, that's not funny."

"Thank you for informing me. Goodbye."

"Goodbye, C."

When C hung up, she turned to M with dead eyes. She could feel the blood draining for her face at what she'd been requested to do, yet she knew this was her way of saving a life. When they caught Kira, it would be easier to save lives, but until then…

"C, who was it?" M asked curiously.

"Prison," she whispered. "They called to tell me that… B is dead."

M froze.

"B?" she gasped. "How did he die?"

"There was a fight in the canteen. Another of the inmates started it, and he was caught in crossfire. He was stabbed in the throat. They were too late to save him. Apparently his last words were, 'I guess my numbers are up'," C said quietly.

"Oh my God," M murmured. "B…"

"I'm so sorry," C told her. "An official report is being sent here later, perhaps tonight."

M picked up another pair of underwear, cotton patterned with green and brown cross-hatch diamonds. Sickened, she pinged the elastic so that it shot out in the direction of the door – just as L walked in. Usually, they would have laughed at Roger's underwear being flung in L's face, but today they didn't seem to care.

"What is wrong?" he enquired, confused at their silence.

"It's B," C murmured, tucking her hair behind her ear very deliberately. "He died this afternoon."

Her gesture was a signal – it meant an improvised lie, and he knew it. They had invented the sign when they were on their first case together and it was necessary for them to get the gist of one another's plans without voicing them. He acted appropriately, nodding his head somberly and turning away. He was followed out by the two women, neither of whom were crying, and they agreed quietly to go to the staff room to inform the others.

L was doing what K had said that he should do – he was taking care of his own.

The rest of the documents arrived late in the evening, at eight-thirty. C scrawled a feigned signature across the dotted line, as did L, and Beyond Birthday was pronounced dead for the second time in his life.

Now celebrating the 25th chapter anniversary of 'LAWLIET: Blood Ties'. It contains more words than its prequel, yet has, so far, less chapters...

It's also, in my opinion, better than the original.

Please review letting me know what you think - if you have any questions about this chapter, put them into your review and I'll get back to you!

C.