AN: Okaaaay, it's story time! This is explosively AU, LxLight (with Beyond Birthday thrown in, not quite a threesome, but...you'll see. -.-) and MattxMello (and Near along side), with cameos from a good part of the cast. I was originally going to post a long chapter, but I decided on posting smaller chapters more frequently. That's a good thing, right?
Everyone might be a bit out of character, but it's AU and sort of a comedy, so that's to be expected. Rated M for language and future content. *waggles eyebrows* Okay...maybe not that kind of content...I haven't decided yet.
This has been beta'd by the amazing Dlvvanzor. Check out her great stories!
Every fic has it's mistakes; constructive criticism is well-recieved, as is praise. XD Enjoy the first installment of Russian Roulette.
The only disclaimer for the story: I do not own any copywrited material that may appear in this fic.
Prologue:
In which L runs out of cake and hates socks.
In most cases, L Lawliet could keep up his end of a conversation.
"Did you hear me?"
In most cases, he had a fairly large supply of diabetes-inducing sweets piled around.
I think I'm out of cake again.
This wasn't one of those cases.
"Hello?"
I always seem to be out of cake. One day I'll just go out and by an entire bakery.
A sigh. "You're not listening, are you."
That'd be nice. I wonder why I haven't done that before. I could have strawberry cake…
"Hel-lo?" An irritated growl. "So help me, if you're thinking about cake again…"
Cheesecake…
An exasperated huff of air crackled through L's laptop speakers. "I don't understand why I keep coming back to you. There's plenty of others willing to do the job… is anything I say going to reach you?"
Chocolate cake…
"I eat puppies?"
Thoughtful silence on the other line.
"I'm going to become a radical terrorist?"
Silence.
Growl. "I have a fetish for men in drag?" Actually, that one was true.
Startled blink. "Your hobbies are not my business, Domni."
Bang. Bang. Bang.
"It sounds like you are slamming your head into something. You really shouldn't do that."
There was a calculated pause accompanied by deep breaths. 'In…out…in…'
"But really, Domni? Men in drag? I've always had my suspicions, but…"
'Fucking out!' "I am not going to grace that comment with a response." He could practically hear the other man laughing quietly, and made a valiant effort to regain his composure. "Now that we're paying attention, I gave you a name, L. Soichiro Yagami. Remember who he is?"
No. No, I do not, because I am too busy thinking about my alarming lack of cake.
"L?"
"Not now. I am in the middle of the grieving process."
"Grieving… grieving what?"
"My cake."
"What?"
"I am not one for swearing, but the gravity of the situation requires it: I have no fucking cake."
"Would you please try focusing for a few milliseconds?"
L, crouched on the floor in an empty room save a laptop and a few stray cake plates, rifled through his mental files to place a face to the name. Yagami… oh, right. Middle-aged man, Glasses, funny-looking mustache. Seriously. Creepy mustache. "Chief of police, Kanto region?" He grimaced as the words left his mouth. Ooh, that was a mistake. He shouldn't have made it sound like a question. He had to sound sure of himself, because—
"Should be easy enough, especially for you." The voice came through on the laptop's speakers, interrupting the man's thoughts and sounding almost indifferent as it suggested the demise of one of Japan's most well-known police officers. "L, the famous assassin?"
—Because he was a professional.
"There are some forty million people in the Kanto region; finding one man among the masses is not an easy task. My fee remains the same as ever, Domni," L said, the dryness in his voice lost through the effects of the voice scrambler.
He leaned over a bit and picked up some cake crumbs with the tip of his finger, then brought the finger to his mouth. Just the few bits of sweet cake brought him relief, and L let out a sigh of pleasure.
…Yes, it was weird.
And yet L would insist he was one of the most normal human beings around.
He chose to ignore the fact that one of the only people he had to compare himself to was a rather psychotic thief known as Beyond Birthday.
"Fair enough," Domni said easily, knowing better than to press the situation. The last time he tried to negotiate the price, the assassin had, well, thrown a fit to rival a spoiled child. So he moved on to the next matter. "When will the job be done?"
"Within 48 hours, after I receive my… compensation, of course." Yes, payment. L wasn't greedy– for the most part– but why not make money doing something you enjoyed? Because he certainly found a thrill in his occupation, if one would call it that. He'd been responsible for the deaths of enough people (rich, famous, and the like) that the police had gotten involved.
It would be quite entertaining to kill the police chief after he had held a press conference, barely two weeks ago, promising to capture L.
Well, perhaps not entertaining to kill. That would be over with the pull of a trigger, a blow to the head, whatever method he decided to use. (Like, Colonel Mustard in the freaking Conservatory with the Lead Pipe.) The thrill came from the planning, actually; L had always enjoyed a battle of the minds. No, it would be entertaining to see the aftermath. The media would have a field day with it.
"I think I should wait to pay you until after I see that it was you who killed him," Domni said lightly. "We don't want another Recoya incident, do we?"
"Don't talk down to me," L replied coldly, masking his irritation. He was annoyed to feel heat rise to his cheeks.
Domni had been reminding the killer of the screw-up every chance he had. The last time he had "hired" L, his target, Recoya, had been murdered just before L was able to fire his gun from the roof of a nearby building. Recoya had collapsed out of nowhere, declared dead by poison dart. Utterly humiliating. Someone had found out L's mission and had carried it out before he could. That was his target, dammit.
If he had a nickel for every time something like that happened…
Well, he'd have just the one nickel, actually.
Insert sweatdrop here.
Still, the whole thing was kind of grating on his nerves.
"Relax. Just get the job done, and you can keep your money this time. Expect the deposit to be made in a few hours." With that, he cut the connection, leaving the assassin fuming. Why did he subject himself to such talk from the man?
'Because he's the only one who actually pays you on time?'
Oh. That's right.
At least L could trust him. Not that Domni had anything against him: he didn't know his real name, his location, nor his appearance, which was basically how L liked it. The only correspondence he had with his clients was through computer, where L used a voice scrambler. After being deemed trustworthy and performing a full background check, L would permit a person to tell him the name of their desired kill. Then, after some research, L would state a price, no negotiations, depending on the person and location.
L would receive payment, and clients would receive a guarantee:
A kill.
Every time.
As a constant of L's, Domni received the same price for all of his requests. The killer had done six- soon to be seven- jobs for the man.
Now… which matter to be attended to first: the chief, or this new threat? If he didn't follow through with his mission this time, L was likely to lose his credibility, and, with it, his clients. If he could only figure out who it was that killed Recoya…
For what felt like the hundredth time, L turned back to the laptop and pulled up a tab, knotting his fingers into his black hair in irritation. On the screen was a security tape from the scene of Recoya's death. He was just looking at a shop's display through a large window… he raised his hand to point at something, which was right about when L had raised his gun… and then…
He went down, clutching his neck.
Out of nowhere.
"Why?" L quietly asked the room at large, starting the clip again and leaning in to get a better look. Wait for it… wait for it…
"There!" L said triumphantly, pausing the video quickly. A flash of silver –the dart, obviously– was coming from the left. Manipulating the zoom, L got a view of everyone in the area.
No one looked particularly… well, killer-y, for lack of a more appropriate word. No one out of the ordinary, anyway. (He was tired, and proper adjectives weren't exactly on the top of his "To Think About" list. So, killer-y was going to have to do.)
Hold it. There was someone talking to himself, standing in the middle of the street as people passed by them on either side. Okay… weird. Certainly Kanto region had its share of crazies, but L hadn't seen very many people who talk to themselves, oblivious to all surroundings…
…While clothed entirely in black leather.
The hell?
L leaned even closer towards the computer, and—
Zzzt!
—and it shocked his nose pretty painfully.
"Ouch!" (Which was L-speak for "Holy mother of &%$!")
This was why he hated socks. Shuffling around the stupid apartment with its stupid shag carpeting in stupid socks, which he was only wearing because it was practically below zero and he had forgotten to pay the damn bills.
Again.
You'd think the carpeting would keep his feet warm enough, but nooo, so he puts on the stupid socks, and, wouldn't you know it, he gets shocked in the nose.
Frowning, the man drew his feet up and yanked the socks off, cold weather be damned.
He leaned in again (more carefully this time) to peer at the paused image. Now it was clear; the person wasn't talking to himself, he was speaking into a wireless headset and gesturing emphatically. Blonde hair, and an effeminate figure that almost made L think for an instant that it was indeed a woman, though a closer look countered that thought.
Possibly, if he was lucky, L would find someone else in range of the camera that was wearing a communication device too.
Right. And then the fucking magical sweets fairy would come and bring him strawberry cheesecake.
Apparently not.
At any rate, it was foolish to be suspicious of someone simply because of their clothing.
But black leather? Seriously? It sort of screamed high-maintenance, possibly gay man. Though, maybe that was just L's opinion.
L reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose in a mixture of frustration and exhaustion. He hadn't slept in maybe four days, and it was catching up to him in more ways than one. As if to drive the point home, L's gaze focused on a lock of hair hanging in front of his face: one of the hairs was silvery.
What. The. Hell. Going gray at twenty-eight? "Blasphemy," L muttered, plucking the offending hair out and letting it float to the floor. Perhaps a less stressful job was in order.
…Yeah, right. (He could, like, be a greeter at Wal-Mart. "Welcome to Wal-Mart. Get your useless shit and get out before I shoot you in the face. Have a smiley-face sticker." That'd work well.)
It was a good thing L didn't particularly care about appearances; evidenced by the way he was dressed. He wore a long-sleeved white T-shirt and blue denim pants nearly all the time, and that suited him just fine. His trade didn't exactly require a specific uniform, so he chose to wear what was comfortable.
A quick check of his account showed that Domni had come through with correct amount of yen, which meant he had about forty-eight hours to find Yagami Soichiro and dispose of him.
Truth be told, it wasn't difficult to find where he would be, the search made that much easier as L was currently staying in the Kanto region. Chief Yagami had a meeting tomorrow with Yamada Isao in a casual restaurant surprisingly close to where L was now. The coincidence of their locations was enough to make the usually apathetic man smile. Really, this was unfair to Domni. Charging so much for such an easy job was almost criminal.
Ah… not that the job in the first place wasn't criminal.
Because... like... it was.
Anyway. How was he going to kill Soichiro Yagami? Poison, perhaps? Toxins were for the most part quick and reliable, such as they were, but it might be in his best interest to do the job from a safe distance. Guns were effective enough, perfect for long-range, and with a silencer it'd even be stealthy.
Sort of.
However, there was still the matter of his…nemesis? It'd be just his luck for Yagami to be killed before L had the chance to do it himself.
Which would mean no pay.
Which…wasn't exactly a problem, to be honest. The killer had more than enough money around in various bank accounts, in various types of currencies, all around the world. He was set, monetarily speaking.
Really, it was just irritating that someone had managed to find out who his target was, then locate and kill said person before L did. Such a feat made this new threat quite the admirable foe. Killing L's targets was a proposed challenge: Figure out my identity, find me, stop me.
It was a challenge that the assassin was eager to take.
After all, L truly hated to lose.
And...there's the prologue!
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-Chrysus