Hey hey hey! I'm back! For now! I honest to God don't think I'll be updating next week, busy, busy, busy, busy! But I'll try and update at least once more after this one, so that I can wish you all a Happy New Year before it actually starts. So yeah. That was all I had to say, I can start writing now.
**NEWSFLASH! (not really it's a disclaimer, but still) I do not own Death Note or anything related to it. I only own my original storylines and characters. Also, I make typos. And I am often too lazy to correct them, so if you hate reading stories with typos, you've been warned.
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52. Don't Want To Go
She knew that not answering was confirming his words, but she simply didn't have anything to say. She had this coming, after all. This was what happened when you owed Beyond. You just… did what he said until you made a mistake. And then you die.
She sighed. She was discovered now, it was no use. L hadn't found them yet, at least, not that Beyond had informed her, so letting them go now would certainly make Beyond angry. But what could he do, from wherever he was? She had the Death Notes, didn't she? Were there more than this? What could he do if she left now and hid away from him? She could move to a different country, change her name. He would be too busy running after L. Right?
'Listen, kid,' she then said and she saw the boy's eyes widen at the words. 'I have had a pretty rough couple of months. Take the notebooks, and your friends. And leave. I will not help you get back to wherever it is you want to go.' She breathed in sharply and then sighed as if she was blowing all her life out of her. 'But I won't keep you guys here, either. I'm done. Just… done.' She quickly stepped to her desk and almost threw the notebooks at the boy, who was still looking at her with widen eyes.
She just sat down in her chair, sighed again and finally accepted the fact that she majorly screwed up. Because she was not Beyond, because she was not L. She would never have been able to become L. She didn't have the strength for that. 'Well, what are you waiting for?' she asked when the boy still seemed refusing to move. 'Shouldn't you be going off saving your… companions?' She knew that they were not his friends. Not really. 'Like a proper successor?'
For a second he pulled a face that suddenly made him actually look like his actual age. It made her smile, even though she tried not to. She was too human, in a way. That was a weakness, at least, as far as this situation was concerned. Humanity is all she had, in the end. That was the only thing she wanted to keep.
'Thank you,' the boy said before leaving her office, arrogant enough to not ask her for any keys. She had to give it to him; that boy had enough strength to succeed L.
She just did not understand why he would want to.
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'Come with us.'
She looked up from her desk and stared at the boy in her doorway. Not the small one, not the angry one. Matt. She should've known. She had known, if she'd thought about it. 'What?' she asked. Not because she hadn't heard him, but because she was hoping he would elaborate. His words did not make any sense to her.
'Come with us,' he repeated. 'We could help you.'
She pulled an eyebrow up and crossed her arms. 'Help me?' she said cynically. 'I kidnapped you!' She said those words, but in her head, his words were repeating. He wanted to help her?
'I'm not stupid,' he said, 'I know that you're not doing this because you want to. So, let us help you. He can't get to you if we protect you.'
'Or he'll simply kill us all,' she said, but regretted it instantly. She hadn't been planning on giving away that he was right.
'He won't,' he answered while shaking his head. Sometimes, just sometimes, she thought she could see who he used to be. But mostly, he just seemed like a beaten up, stray kitten to her. One that she had no right to take care of.
She dug her nails into her shirts, so hard that she could feel them against her skin. 'Let me ask you a question, Matt,' she said and she couldn't help but notice that he shivered when she said his name. 'If you had to choose between me or that Olivia girl, who would you pick?'
He froze, was silent. He didn't understand where this question came from, she could tell. She watched his expression careful as he put together – of tried to put together – what it was that she wanted to hear. 'You think… you don't think that I am… interested in her, do you?'
'No,' she answered almost immediately, 'but I do believe L is interested in her. And I also believe that you – all three of you – would prioritise L above yourself, which makes me loathe every single one of you.' She inspected her nails to make her lie seem less obvious. 'So no, I won't be going with you. That's almost like kidnapping me.'
'You're not a kid,' he said, a smile in his voice.
She looked up from her nails. 'Neither are you.'
There followed a moment in which they just stared at each other. And she wasn't a social disaster like most people associated with Wammy's House where, but staring at him like this made her realise that she had no idea how to properly get rid of a young man.
She sighed, had to look away. 'Why do you want me to come with you, Matt?' she asked, now knowing that it wasn't about her safety.
'I—' he begun, then stopped. She looked up to see the expression on his face, one that gave away way too much. He would not be the successor if he kept that up.
'Sweetheart,' she said cynically, 'don't go there. No.'
He didn't look hurt by her words, like she'd intended. He almost looked annoyed. 'You talk to me as if you think that I am stupid but I'm not. There's a girl back in the orphanage. And… well, she likes me. I know she does. I mean, I ignore it, but that doesn't mean I don't notice. I do notice. I noticed her. I noticed… you.'
Oh god, he was actually going there. She breathed in sharply. 'And? What did you expect? Well, now that I know you know, I can come with you and everything's okay. Rainbows and butterflies. Tra la la.' She rolled her eyes. 'Feeling don't matter in this line of work, sweetheart. Now get out. Before I really change my mind.'
Silence. Chilling and terrible. Then he suddenly stepped forward. And it shook her so much that she shot out of the chair. 'No. I won't. Because I know how this will end. You will have to run and hide and he will find you. And kill you, if that's even the worst case scenario. I don't care what Matt and Near think. I don't care what you think. But for now, I will protect you.'
She breathed in sharply again, but now it sounded way more hysterical. 'Why? Because I am being blackmailed into being Kira? Because I might have fallen for you?'
'No, don't be ridiculous,' he answered, so quickly that her eyebrows shot up. 'The answer is easy. You want me to choose between you and Olivia?' he asked, his face looking so sane right now, as if he understood everything, could do everything. He had never seemed more powerful than that exact moment. 'Fine, I chose you. And I will do that for as long as you let me. So, please. Pleas. Come with us. We can help you.'
She couldn't help but stare at him, at loss of words. She was older than him. Not much, but still a considerable amount of years. He didn't really know her, this was the first time he had gotten a good look at her face. But he wanted to protect her. For some reason, he wanted to help her, without blackmail, without expecting anything in return. As if he was surrendering. Something else a successor should never do. Her heart dropped and she fought a vague smile that was trying to find a way to her face.
When her answer came, it was softer than a whisper, so soft that she wasn't even sure if he could hear her. '…Okay.'
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'You look like you've just seen a ghost!' Matsuda said, which showed that his choice of words was always so incredible unfortunate.
'And you look like you've spilled coffee on your shirt,' I said as I sat down on the couch, on unfinished game of chess on the table in front of me. I moved one piece, just to see if L would notice when he got back. I knew he would, but I wanted to confirm it for myself.
I'd kissed him, here. So much happened after, so much that was unknown to me. I frowned and looked back at Matsuda. 'Hey Matsu,' I said, trying to sound as friendly as I could, though it came out extremely awkward.
He shot up as if I'd startled him. 'Yes?'
'Come here,' I patted the space besides me. 'I want to ask you something.'
As stupid as people sometimes thought Matsuda was, he was smart enough to be suspicious of me as he walked over to the couch and sat down a considerable amount of space away from me. 'What is it?' he asked carefully, clearly still suspected me.
'Tell me about it,' I asked, leaning forward to add importance to my words. 'Tell me every single details about the Kira case and everything you remember.'
He looked at me as if I'd just grown horns. 'What?'
I simply smiled. 'Will you do that for me?'
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'Mello, where are you going, we can't just—'
'Well, we can't also stay here, can we? We'll steal something, or something like that, what else can we do? It's not like you have your passpo—'
Mello stopped talking when Near showed Mello his passport, that he'd kept hidden. He put it in the pocket of his jeans before continuing talking. 'Look, you can't just run off and rob a bank, hoping that that will solve everything. We need a plan. We need to contact L.'
'No!' Mello spat. 'Matt begged me not to. He begged me, Near! Matt never asks me to do anything! Never! You might not have any friends, so you don't know what this feels like, but if he does not want me to contact L, I will not. And besides… we can do this on our own!'
Near pulled an incredibly sour face and Mello knew that if he could not convince that kid right now that he would contact L on his own. But Mello wasn't going to risk that. Matt had a good reason to ask that of him. After everything Matt had done for him, without asking questions, without (much) complaining, couldn't he do something for him once?
He stared at the boy, knowing that the prick had power over him now.
It freaking pissed him off.
But he did it anyway. He looked at the boy and, for once, talked to him like an equal. Even though he hated the fact that he was – in fact – his equal. 'Look, Near,' he said as calming as he could, already completely annoyed. 'I know that you think you know best, but that girl? She let us go, even though that did not benefit her in the slightest. She helped us. Don't you think we should help her?'
'She's A,' Near replied.
Mello was silent for a while. Then he frowned. 'Excuse you?'
Near sighed. 'She's A, Mello. One of L's first possible successors. Remember, the one that died?'
'No,' Mello replied, stepping back. 'She can't be. A died.'
Near shook his head. 'Not, apparently. I believe that Beyond Birthday helped her fake her own death so that she could leave the orphanage without problems. No one was going to force her to keep secrets, no one was going to force her to stay.'
All the puzzle pieces had already fallen to place in Mello's mind. 'So the reason she doesn't want L to be informed, is not because she think he will prosecute her…'
'…but because he actually personally knows her,' Near finished. 'Exactly. Such a person… do you really want to protect her?'
This was what Near did. He got into your head. Like super glue. Like a really annoying piece of gum. But Mello was strong enough to pry Near's influence out of his brain. 'That's not for me to judge. I want to help Matt and if he wants to help her, so be it. Go inform L if you want to, I will not stop you. But don't think you will be a great successor when you have literally no one on your side.' Mello turned around after that and walked back into the motel. He had been screaming to Near in the parking lot of the place, but it had hardly seemed like a dangerous thing to do. No one here cared about their problems, their backgrounds. Most people here might not even know who L was.
Good for them.
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Getting herself a separate room wasn't really a big deal, especially since she was paying for the goddamn rooms. She had had a job, it had paid enough, not an awful lot, but she could've afforded a better place if she'd wanted to. She did not want to.
When someone knocked on the door, she knew who it was. She thought about not answering for a while, but then got up with a sigh and walked towards the door, opening it. 'What do you want?' she asked Matt.
He handed her her wallet back. He was wearing different clothes now, better ones. A sweater and pants that fitted him better. His shoes were the same, but that was also better. 'Thank you,' he said as she grabbed it.
'No problem,' was her genuine reaction. After all, this had been her fault.
Matt smiled softly and it warmed her heart in a way it should not. 'That's the first genuine response I've gotten from you today.'
'No it's not,' she said, without thinking about the actual truth of the statement.
He smiled at her again. Then he suddenly asked her: 'How old are you?'
She looked at him, shocked. 'Why?' she asked, not sure where he was going with this question.
He licked his lips. She hated herself for noticing that. 'Well, okay, then I ask another question. Can I come in?'
No. Yes. 'You shouldn't,' she said, licking her lips as well. 'But you can.'
She stepped inside the room to let him in and he closed the door behind him. She felt awkward just standing there, so she sat down on the bed, hoping that that would somehow make it better.
It did, in fact, not.
'So, I was thinking,' Matt started.
'Not an odd way to pass a time for a detective,' she replied as seriously as she could.
He looked at her as if he wanted to laugh but couldn't. She wanted to laugh, but did not allow herself to. 'I was thinking,' he repeated, 'that after we've caught Beyond, we could leave. Together.'
She was almost completely sure that he hadn't thought this through at all. 'And then?' she asked, sounding cynical again.
'And then we can do whatever it is you want to do,' he explained. 'I might not look like it, but I'm not poor, you know? I mean, I don't have my wallet here, but at home, I can— Well, you know. I used to hack into things to earn money. And program certain things. I was trained and I'm quite good at it, so—'
'What is it you're trying to tell me, Matt?' she asked when she noticed he was starting to ramble. Rambling was one of the most noticeable side effects of what Beyond had done to him. That and the way his head moved sometimes, as if he was being pulled by something. It was kind of unnerving to watch.
He had been walking through the room until that point and now stopped and looked at her. 'What was it again?' he asked her, as if she would know.
She sighed. He really did not some professional help someday. But like this, Wammy would let him leave. He was no use as a successor for L like this. 'I don't know, Matt,' she answered and he looked like a lost child.
He came to her then, sitting beside her on the bed, Which was a terrible decision, because now she wasn't able to think straight. She'd never sat on a bed with a man before. Which sounded awful, considering that she was already twenty-one. Considering that she had been free for years now. Considering that she should know better.
She knew he was watching her, but she wasn't sure what would happened if she looked back, so she did not. Instead she faced forward, wondering what would happen now.
He grabbed her hand suddenly, almost as if he hadn't meant to do that. But he did. And he held it like it was something precious. 'Cynthia,' he said and she heard it in his voice that he hated the fact that he did not know her real name, 'are you incapable of doing something dangerous?'
'Incapable? Matt, I fakes my own death!' she said, but she found she said it in a joking kind of way. This was getting close to flirting. She wasn't sure how she felt about that.
'Yeah. I know,' he said, giving her a little push. Then – with a sigh – he stood. She felt something resembling disappointment. 'I will get back to the room now.'
But he hadn't even said why it was that he came.
He was almost at the door when she decided to voice that thought. 'Why did you come here, then?'
Smiling, he turned around to face her. 'I was thinking of something dangerous, but I decided that you wouldn't like it, so I'm going back.'
Her jaw almost dropped. Fear of danger? Yes, probably. But maybe this was the kind of danger she needed. She stood, too, and walked forward, until he was so close she had to look up to look him in the eye. 'Do it,' she dared him.
He did not disappoint her.
He grabbed her face and pulled her towards him until their lips met. She was quite sure that he didn't have much more experience than she had, but there was no hesitation in his movement as he moved one hand to the back of her head and the other one around her waist, only so he could pull her closer.
Her fingers ended up at her sides, not sure what to do with them, until he kissed her mouth open and she forgot to worry about her hands. Then they naturally slipped to his shoulders, where they rested, just content with touching him.
Her breath was starting to quicken and she felt his heart beating under her hands, but the small voice that told her they needed to stop was easy to ignore. That was, until someone knocked on the door. 'Matt!' Mello shouted. 'Near won't listen to me! Can you come?'
When Matt pulled away from her, she leaned in a bit, almost reaching for him again, but then she stood straight, composed herself.
'Coming!' Matt shouted back, but he was staring – and smiling – down at her. He kissed her once again, quick and short, before turning around and leaving the room – and her.
She stumbled back until she sat on the bed again and brought one hand to her lips. She'd been kissed by a madman.
What a time to be alive.
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AND THE END. OF THIS CHAPTER. Almost no Allison today and no L whatsoever WHAT. Yeah. The Matt/A stuff kind of took longer than I thought it would, so we'll just have to wait until next chapter to see what L has been doing. Anyway. Hope you guys liked it, I'll wish you guys a Merry Christmas right now, because I probably won't be able to update next week! Bye bye and Merry Christmas!
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BabySealLover: Sorry! And not really any resolution to that cliffhanger, either. Not this chapter, anyway. Sorry about that!
InsaneUnicornCupcake: Not just you, I like writing crazy Matt xD He is much more unpredictable.
bored411: Yeah, I feel sorry for Watari often. But I also kind of blame him, he's kind of messing up this orphans by what he's doing, don't you think? Doesn't mean he deserves to die, though, hell no. Anyway, thank you and see? I updated! ;)
Nadine (guest): Welcome back ;D And yes, I do have a lot to do. I'm crazy for saying yes to every single Christmas activity in the neighbourhood… but it's just the way it is. And writing a review in a train is not weird at all. Maybe it's easier to follow your train of thought. (okay, bad pun. I'll stop) And autocorrect can be tricky, I know! My phone sometimes changed English words into the weirdest Dutch words… And about that, I'm Dutch, so I'm from the Netherlands! I live in Amsterdam, actually. Well, almost. I live right outside Amsterdam. And it wasn't bad at all, if I can understand it, it's good. That what I think, anyway. Greetings and until next time! – Sofia
Kati (guest): Wow thank you! I don't think I would be able to read 51 in just two days, that's like, amazing. And I hate it when other people don't finish their fanfics, so I strive to complete every single story I start. And thank you so much! Not much of Olivia and L in this chapter, but that will come. Merry Christmas!
EmeraldHeart1203: Yes, so many stuff's going on right now, it's almost hard to keep track of it all xD. But yes, BB being absent was intentional, good to know that it's unnerving, because he's supposed to be. We'll have to wait and see to find out what it is he's doing… *insert evil laugh here*
stydia kisses: : Thank you so much! It's awesome to know that people enjoy my story! Hehehe. *smiled shyly but happily*
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