Flash-Forward: Accepting Reality – 1 Year, 6 Months Since the End
L and After sat poised on the roof of Wammy's House, laughing as they watched Noir walk away disappointed again, thwarted once more by Light's infallible logic. It had certainly gotten easier to get rid of the little vampire hunter since Light moved in.
Noir was eighteen now, but still hadn't given up the notion that Wammy's House was full of vampires. He wasn't wrong, of course, but they couldn't risk him telling the entire town their secret, even if they weren't sure he would be believed.
"I think…" After said, biting back giggles, "that we should tell the little one the truth, and see how he takes it. After all, maybe he only has the courage to keep confronting us because he doesn't truly believe what he's saying."
L tilted his head to once side, considering the possibilities. "We could send everyone out for the night, and lure him in… Play with him, a bit, before the reveal. That would be fun…" The raven-haired vampire grinned wickedly. Noir had been accusing them for too long with no real proof. It was time to see what he would do when confronted with the real thing!
xXx
They gathered Light, Beyond, and Aisha, as well as Near, Mello, and Matt, and went to talk to Watari about their idea. After assuring the elderly man multiple times that they weren't going to hurt Noir, they just wanted to tease him and scare him, Watari reluctantly agreed. L, wielding his authority like a royal scepter, managed to arrange for everyone to be out of the house for one night.
They planned roles, scenarios, tricks and traps. They set up an emergency plan as well, considering that the goal was not to scar Noir for life. He trusted Light, to a degree. At least, he didn't believe that Light was a vampire yet, which would work to their advantage if they needed to get him out. He would go with Light.
"We might need a little bit of extra help." L said. "Aisha, can you find a few others who wouldn't be adverse to tricking Noir?"
"None of Felix and his group. They want to hurt him." Light said. "But any of the others…"
Aisha nodded agreeably. "It'll be like Halloween." she said. "A haunted house for him to explore."
"But this time, the haunting is real." L laughed. "Let's see how great the nerve of the vampire hunter is!"
xXx
Three days later, everything was prepared. L was returning from undoing the circuit-breaker for the house, shutting down all the lights. Near held his hand, walking beside him back up towards the kitchen.
"You're okay with this, Near? We can fake it, you know." he asked.
Near nodded. "You're like my father, sorta. It would be terrible if I didn't trust you enough to let you do this. It only has to be enough to bleed, right?"
"Yes." L replied. "You can talk to Matt in the kitchen while you wait. He'll be cuffed in there for a while, I'm sure. Remember, Noir doesn't know you, Matt, or Mello." There was a long row of fake handcuffs down one wall of the kitchen, now, and poor Matt would be cuffed there for most of the evening. For authenticity's sake.
"Light's leaving the letter on Noir's doorstep now, so we'll see if he bites. I doubt he'll be able to resist!"
xXx
When Noir received the letter, he was more than a little confused. "'We've set up a haunted house for our favorite little vampire hunter'? What a load of baloney…" Still, it would be a chance to get a good look at the inside of Wammy's. Maybe he could find something incriminating in there; something to prove once and for all that L and his friends were not the innocent humans that they played.
His mother had confiscated his weapons again, but he doubted he'd need them for pop-up ghosts and laughing wallhangers. Or, god forbid, fake spiderwebs. So it was with a cheerful mood that he walked up towards Wammy's House. There was another note on the front door saying, "If you can last through all the horrors inside, we'll give you a prize!" Noir chuckled, opening the door and wandering into the entrance hall.
The door slammed behind him, and when Noir went to try it, he found it locked from the outside. How did that even work? But it had to be a gimmick. The doors would open once he 'won'.
Looking around the bottom floor, he didn't find anyone. There were the typical, silly haunted house decorations, which he laughed at. He took the stairs to the second floor, and all the decorations stopped.
He wondered briefly if he was supposed to have stayed downstairs, but there were a few people on this floor, who waved at him absently on their way by. He found Aisha and Beyond in one of the playrooms, playing checkers.
"Hello, Noir." Aisha said politely. She reached for the board, and suddenly there were two of Beyond's pieces sitting next to her. Noir hadn't even seen her move.
"How are you, little hunter?" Beyond teased. "Find anything interesting yet?"
"Cheap-o decorations." Noir replied. "This isn't scary at all."
Beyond's eyes seemed to glow, until the only color left in them was red. "I suggest you find L; he set all of this up…"
Noir took a step back, nervously, and realized that the game of checkers was over. Aisha had won. He hadn't seen either of them moving the pieces!
"I… think I'll go find L…" he said uneasily, backing away before fleeing the room. Beyond and Aisha glanced at each other, then burst out laughing.
xXx
Noir went back downstairs, where the plastic decorations continued to mock him from their corners. The sun was going down, and he went to the light switch in the entrance hall.
The lights didn't work.
He took a deep breath, walking over and hesitantly slipping through the doors into the dining room. He saw L sitting at the far end of the table, illuminated by soft candlelight. L looked up and saw him, beckoning him closer.
"Hi, Noir. Having fun?" he asked.
"I'm not scared." Noir said, taking a seat on the other side of the table. "What are you doing?"
"I'm going to have dinner. I was busy setting all of this up, so everyone else has eaten already. It should be ready in a few minutes." L said. "You can wait here with me for a while, if you just want to rest."
"I don't understand why you're doing all of this. It's so lame." Noir said, watching wax slide down one of the candles. "Your lights are broken, by the way."
"All part of the atmosphere." L said. "The real fun has yet to even start. We're hoping that you'll have had a real scare by the end of tonight."
"Nothing vampire-like, yet. Just grinning plastic skeletons. Are you doing that on purpose?"
L smiled. "Perhaps we're just saving the best for last. Oh, dinner!"
The door in the corner opened, and a figure in black swept out carrying a large silver platter. Noir caught a glimpse of white, and figured that it was some sort of giant cake. Even he knew of L's abnormal diet. But he was shocked when the person set the plate down and was gone again. A child was lying on the platter, seemingly asleep. He was wearing white pajamas and had pure white hair. L smiled hungrily.
Noir glanced back and forth between the little boy and L's hungry expression. "L…?"
"This is Near." L said, never looking up at the vampire hunter. "He's an orphan. We picked him up a few days ago. No one will miss him." He reached out, lifting Near's wrist, bringing it close to his face and inhaling deeply. "Delicious…" He bit back a laugh, knowing that it would ruin the moment. He couldn't look up, but he could imagine the look on Noir's face. Near was good at pretending to be unconscious.
"L… Please tell me you're kidding… This is a game, like the fake spiderwebs…" Noir whispered, drawing back from the table.
L finally looked up, and grinned broadly, flashing fangs. "Why would I kid about something as serious as dinner?"
Noir scrambled backwards, away from the table and L, to press against the wall. He was still expecting L to stop, to laugh and say it was all a joke and wasn't Noir scared? But L didn't, and Noir watched in horror as L lifted Near from the platter.
"L, don't!" Noir begged. He cursed his mother for taking his weapons away at such an inopportune time. Was L really going to…?
Cradling the child in his arms, L leaned down, breathing Near's scent for a moment before letting his fangs pierce pale skin. Noir whimpered, wishing he could sink into the wall, and L looked up.
"What's wrong, Noir? You wanted the answers…" There was blood on his lips, and he licked them absently.
Noir bolted, running through the nearest door, just to get away from L. He found himself in the kitchen, and stared in horror at the row of handcuffs along the wall. And in the last set of cuffs… was another child.
"Hey!" the boy yelled at him. "Help me! The key is on the counter!"
Noir ran over, finding the key quickly and undoing the cuffs. The boy slumped, rubbing his wrists, and said faintly, "I'm Matt. They caught me a few days ago. Are you…?"
"I'm human." Noir said urgently, sounding shaken. "We have to get out of here, but the front doors are locked."
"There's a window on the second floor that leads out over the back porch. We can get down from there." Matt said. "My friend, Mello, got away before they chained me up. I don't know if he's still in the house."
"We'll look on the way." Noir said. As they ran for the back stairs, he murmured to himself, "I always thought that they were vampires, but I never realized what that meant!"
As they ran down a second-floor hallway, dark due to the broken lights, they found a blond boy looking around frantically. Matt froze, then cried excitedly, "Mello!"
The boy turned, and Matt ran to him, hugging him tightly. "Mello!"
"I heard the commotion downstairs. I've been hiding for days. Are you okay?" Mello asked worriedly.
"Yeah, I'm fine. This guy helped me."
Mello looked up at Noir over Matt's shoulder. He smiled, then, his eyes glowing bright blue and fangs peeking over his lower lip.
"Matt…!" But Mello had started running, faster than was possible for any human, and had taken Matt with him.
Leaving Noir alone again.
He turned blindly and stumbled into a random room. Matt… Near… A smooth voice broke the silence from behind him, cutting through the darkness.
"There you are, Noir." After said silkily. "L sent me to look for you." Beyond and Aisha slipped soundlessly into the room behind him, blocking the doorway. Noir sank into a corner, uncertain what he was even doing anymore. He was scared. This… was something he couldn't fight off.
L came in, smiling when he saw him. "So the little vampire hunter falls…" he said. "Interesting…" He began to walk closer, and Noir shut his eyes.
There were cool hands, stroking his neck where his pulse ran, running through his hair, tilting his head back. His mind was a blank except for the overwhelming terror running through him. He faintly heard L's voice, whispering next to his ear, "Well, you wanted to know…"
Nightmare, nightmare, NIGHTMARE! he begged mentally, but he somehow knew that everything was all too real. There were lips against the vein in his throat, and he whimpered, bracing himself for pain.
"Enough." Everyone around him withdrew, and Noir had just enough coherence to look up and think, Light?, before everything went black and he fainted.
xXx
Light sighed, lifting the unconscious young man into his arms. "Remind me to thank all of you for not doing this to me."
"Did we take it too far?" Aisha asked worriedly.
"He'll be okay." L said. "Now, we have two options. We can take him home, demolish all the evidence, and let him believe it was a dream… Or we can let him wake up and explain."
"I'd rather let him think it was a dream." Beyond said. "Who knows what he'd do if we tell him the truth?"
"We swear him to secrecy." L said. "Likely he's scared enough of us now that he would do whatever we said. We are vampires, after all, and I'm sure that now he thinks we'll kill him. He thinks I killed Near." He glanced back at the doorway, where Mello, Matt, and Near were watching interestedly. "Let's get the lights and go up to the roof. We'll tell him everything."
xXx
Noir awoke to cool night air and the knowledge that his head was resting in someone's lap. He sat up with a start, turning to stare with wide eyes at Aisha. She frowned, worried, and he looked around frantically, seeing the others sitting in a semi-circle around him, trapping him. They were on the roof of Wammy's, and there was nowhere to run.
"Noir." L said quietly. "We're sorry. This was meant to be a joke, mostly for our sake. We apologize if we scared you too badly."
"I think we took it too far." Light said.
Noir stared at them, then blinked in amazement at the completely unharmed Near sitting in L's lap. He glanced around again, seeing Matt and Mello sitting higher up on the roof, and then looked back at L. "This was all a joke? It wasn't real?"
"I never said that…" L murmured. "It was a joke at your expense, yes… But it was very real." He smiled faintly, reaching up to hold his lip out of the way and show the young vampire hunter his fangs. Slowly, each of the others in the circle did the same. "You were right, Noir. All of us are vampires. All of us except for Matt."
Noir sat perfectly still for a long moment, then scrambled past Aisha so that he was no longer sitting in the middle of the circle. "No way. No way…"
"You wanted to believe it before." After said.
"That was before I was trapped on a roof with seven vampires!" Noir wailed. Beyond sighed, getting up and walking up to him. He effortlessly pinned the younger boy to the shingles, and frowned.
"Listen, kid. We're not going to hurt you." he said. "But you can't tell a soul about us, do you understand?"
"You're not trapped, Noir." L said. "We'll gladly take you back inside."
Noir nodded quickly at Beyond, showing that he understood, and then looked at L. "How… How did this…?"
L smiled. "Even vampires need a place to stay, sometimes. Let him up, Beyond."
Beyond grumbled, but released the younger boy. Noir got back to his feet, then said very quietly, "Explain."
They told him everything. The House, Light coming to stay, the truth about everything that happened with Kira… Noir listened to all of it, and when they were finished explaining Light asked, "So… Are you okay?"
Noir nodded shakily. "I… think so."
"You're like Light and Misa." Aisha said. "You have an open mind, to accept all of this. You understand why others cannot know about the house."
He nodded again. "I think… I need to go home."
Light smiled deviously, the expression usually found on L looking out of place on him. "Let L and I take you home. You'll get there much faster."
Noir blinked, but nodded hesitantly. L smiled as well, glancing at Light, and each of them reached out and grabbed one of Noir's arms.
"Wait, what are you…?!" But then the two vampires had jumped off the roof, dragging the hapless teenager between them.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!"
Aisha glanced at Beyond. "Do you think he'll be okay?"
Beyond nodded, grinning. "Of course. L and Light will take good care of him!"
Aisha rolled her eyes. "That's… kinda what I'm worried about." Although, it did feel good to have told Noir the truth, after close to five years of him snooping around. She remembered the little thirteen-year-old who had gotten a glimpse of L and Beyond fighting in a tree one day, and based on what he'd seen remained convinced that they were vampires ever since. Now it seemed like their little family was complete. Aisha smiled.
"You're right. He'll be fine."
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I decided that all of my flashbacks were depressing. So I wanted to write something funny, like scaring the bejeezus out of poor Noir. :D Yeah...
Li