Chapter Fifteen:
CONTENT WARNING: Body horror and sensitive content?
The next morning, Erin was woken up from the blessed moments of restless sleep she had managed (in which she had had a weird dream that she'd been watching an outdoors theatre production wherein L had gone up on the stage and explained who the story's culprit was to the whole audience, which in turn made the actor who was playing the culprit try to kill him and that had then made Light show up and kill the actor) by the sound of a soft knock on the door, and the clatter of dishes.
Curious when no one said anything, or otherwise made their presence known, the young woman pulled the pillow from over her head, and then shoved back the blanket that had been tucked well up to her chin. Sitting innocuously on the small breakfast table/desk that supported the coffee maker was a tray with a cover and what looked like a sticky note on it.
As if she would be able to figure out what in the blue blazes was going on she looked towards the speaker which had been her conversation partner of late. It remained stubbornly silent and unhelpful.
There was nothing for it but to take a look. Which she did, padding across the room with exactly the amount of trepidation one might use when trying to wrangle a rabid racoon.
The note was brief, listing the things she would find there. Breakfast being what caught her immediate attention, the second being that a notepad was included for her to record any of her dreams as she needed.
Curiously she lifted the lid on the tray. She nearly wept with what greeted her. Pancakes. Pancakes with blueberries, and a little dish of butter to one side and another with—was that maple syrup? She dipped a finger in to test it and decide that Watari was probably her favourite person in the entire damn world of Death Note and that she was going to do everything within her deeply limited abilities to keep him alive, and she did not care a single bit if she was being emotionally manipulated. There were also two thin slices of ham that smelled like heaven, some and a glass full of deliciously jewel toned fruit juice.
The ecstatic Erin nearly missed the two small books that were tucked in next to the meal. One was simple and black and had an elastic band wrapped around it. The other was crisp and new and declared in simple white text "William Shakespeare: Four Tragedies: Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth". The last one was a real surprise and she stared at it dumbly for a moment, trying to figure out if she'd been tossed into a different reality once again. She even opened it and fanned through the pages as if that would reveal whatever trap was hidden behind the gift.
And then she remembered that sometimes things can just be good.
Supposedly.
She sat in to eat the breakfast she'd been given, while flipping through the book with great enthusiasm. She had to give up eventually, on account of not wanting to risk getting butter or sticky syrup on her new gift (a concern she belatedly remembered to show to her new dream journal), but her eyes kept drifting back to it in disbelief.
When she had finished eating and had cleaned up, she settled down on the floor with a pillow in her lap to begin reading.
The crackle of static interrupted her, and she hurled the pillow at the speaker in childish vexation.
"I take it you did not experience any unnatural episodes in your sleep?"
She considered telling L about her dream but decided against it. It was not what he was asking about. "No." She sighed through gritted teeth. "Why did you even give me a journal if you're just gonna harass me the minute I wake up, anyway?"
"Technically you have been awake for fifty-three minutes. Furthermore, I am not always going to be immediately available, and its best you record every detail you can before you forget them."
With her eyes squeezed shut, Erin breathed in slowly through her nose. Her irritation was mostly performative—something she caught herself displaying openly to break up the stillness of her isolation, an overt display of humanity in the face of such things being so stifled. As quickly as it had spiked, it had died down again. It wasn't like she was a teenager grumbling at being dragged away from her hobbies to do chores. Besides, if she was generous, she could see how L might have actively held off interrogating her until after she had eaten and washed up. Maybe. She might have been giving him more credit than he was due.
"Don't you have the investigators to deal with or something?"
"They are busy currently and have stepped out for the moment."
She tried to figure out how that whole situation worked. Sure, most of her conversation with L had taken place in the deep hours of the night, and she figured the team had to head home sometime and get some sleep. But it had been portrayed that they worked very late hours, and Erin could see them rotating on shifts… and what of the previous morning?
"Must be quite the juggling act," she mused. "How'd you explain having to send Watari to make sure I wasn't about to go Corpse Bride on you?"
"There are some things about this investigation which require going to the various crime scenes—often prisons. We no longer have much in the way of ground forces so there is plenty of work for them to do outside of this building."
It probably said a lot for how much things had changed that he wasn't even questioning her on how she knew that he had been receiving guests. The thought made her tired, because it reminded her what a hellish whirlwind of a ride she had been on, which wasn't really something she needed yet another reminder for.
The misplaced girl was quiet for a long moment, her thoughts drifting away from that dismal reflection to something else that she had thought of at first during their conversation the night before, and then again during one of the brief stints where she had been pulled awake by that uncomfortable feeling that she'd forgotten to do her homework (a feeling which had pursued her for way to long after school). She hadn't really decided on whether it was something she even wanted to mess with, but in the light of day she couldn't help but think it would only be fair of her to at least give L the option.
"Hey. So. Um. I know a little bit about the case that you first worked with, or, um, met Naomi Misora. I think. Technically it was written by a different author. And I don't know how much collaboration there was? I never looked into it. And I don't know when this happens, if it even does. But. That was one of the criminals who Kira got to. I don't know if you even know what I am talking about. Maybe it's not even part of this reality, and maybe it would not matter to you either way. I just thought I should mention it. In case. Um. He has the eyes of a Shinigami…"
This was followed by a very long pause indeed. Either because he thought she was having a stroke and spouting off gibberish, or he was trying to parse her nonsense. That, or he might have been trying to wrangle down some errant emotion. She was given no clues either way, and she was satisfied to let that particular dog lie, having done her job. It was in his hands now, and he could do with it what he willed.
"You have spoken of these eyes several times, but you have not clarified what you mean by that. I presume it has something to do with the second Kira not requiring a name to kill, as you mentioned yesterday?"
This caused Erin to feel a surge of impatience towards herself. "Oof. Sorry. Yeah, that was something I probably should have been clearer about. Quite frankly I barely even know what all I said the other night. Given that I was coming down off a panic attack that's not super surprising, but still. Yeah, so, you need a name and a face in order to kill, you can control the manner of death so long as you specify how within a certain time frame, users of the Death Note don't go to heaven…" She began to list tapping her fingers on the cover of her book to mark each fact. "Anyone who touches the Death Notes can see the Shinigami, and you can trade half your life span to be able to see the true name and life span of all people. Not something Light will ever do—something he vows to himself. Think it had something to do with not being able to rule the world if he was dead. Not sure. Also, there's a lot of theories that using the Death Note means that you become a Shinigami when you die, but I have no idea if that's just a fun fan theory or if it was officially confirmed. I feel like there was more but…"
"You don't remember," oh there was definitely impatience in that one.
She scowled and shrugged with a sharp, jerky motion. "It's not like I thought I was ever going to need to know all this," The young woman argued defensively. "I know it'd be helpful if I could just regurgitate the whole story to you, but I'm a normal person. I don't just remember shit." Again, she felt like wreaking vengeance on L by doing something petty. She briefly considered mentioning the shipping but decided that would be too embarrassing for her to even bring up. Annoyance at him aside, that didn't mean she could just harass him with things that were private.
Even if he held no such compunctions.
She sneered at the journal on the desk.
Well, there were also grounds to believe it would not even perturb him. Teasing someone about crushes and romantic inclinations, real or not, was hugely juvenile, and she could practically see his nonplussed face and pre-emptively felt the sting his dismissive response. Yeah. No. No resorting to silly playground tactics, even if it would have at least flustered a normal person.
"Look, I'll let you know whenever I remember anything else. I'll write it down. Don't forget that I also want this case to end well, alright?" She smoothed her hair back from her face stiffly, stuffing her frustrations back down deep, and knowing she was going to have to be doing an awful lot of that in the coming future. As the saying went; there was no rest for the wicked.
"Good," the detective returned briefly, and then the sound cut out entirely, giving Erin the clear message that their conversation was over. Perhaps a member of the investigation team was on their way back. Perhaps Kira had decided to have a bunch of criminals take a swan dive off a building because it'd make for a dramatic statement. How was she to know with L going all Mother Gothel on her?
"Good" she mimicked under her breath with much exaggeration and snark. She'd probably feel embarrassed about her immaturity in no time, but she really was not in the type of situation that brought out the best in people.
At the very least she was feeling better than she had the evening before, so hopefully she wasn't about to come down with a raging cold, but she'd hold off on hoping until the evening passed without her symptoms coming back. Her luck was not something to be relied upon after all.
Hopefully she'd be given her sleeping pills before she went to bed and then with some decent rest going for her, she'd be that much more prepared to handle just everything.
Although that did make her wonder how her attempts to reach Ilmort would go. Hopefully it'd make things easier as opposed to harder but given her dismal luck she rather doubted it. In fact, the thought made her open her mouth to ask L before she remembered that doing so wouldn't necessarily work for her. She would have to do it later, whenever the detective next felt the need to badger her. And anyway, what did he know about this? Genius L might have been, but he was both skeptical about whether the things she was saying were even true, and not prepared for the supernatural—no one at all knew anything about her situation. There was no baseline information for him to scrounge up. She'd be more worried if there was.
Erin considered what she should do, tapping the spine of her new Shakespeare collection against her chin thoughtfully, before reaching out towards the journal with a huff. She made a note to ask L about his thought on how sleeping pills might affect her weird new form of dreaming when she got the chance. Not with the expectation that he'd have answers for her, but he'd probably want to test the results based on some sort of scientific method, and she didn't want to give him an opportunity to scold her if she failed to bring it up and something did go wrong. Besides, he was unfortunately good at reasoning, so chances were he'd at least be able to suggest a decent hypothesis based on things she wasn't even considering.
And then, that out of the way, she turned her attention back to her book and tried to get some reading done.
Tried being the operative word, on account of the fact that her brain refused to cooperate with her. Mostly she found herself staring blankly at the pages, zoning back in to realize that she'd computed nothing of the last few pages she had flipped through.
Also, despite how tired she was, she found sitting still to be incredibly hard. Her heart was stuttering away in her chest, and her fingers were twitchy. It felt like she was being watched or something. Well, technically she was under surveillance. But this was that uncomfortable jittery feeling of needing to check over her shoulder every five seconds, because she was sure that someone was there. Trying to resist the impulse was no use, as it only made her heart rate skyrocket further, and at one point the agitated young woman twitched hard at a creeping sensation that sent cold chills down her spine.
Alarmed, she got to her feet and squeezed herself into the narrow corner between the set of drawers and the wall, if only to give herself the comfort of knowing that there was no one behind her.
Uncomfortably she wondered if she had somehow been found—that there was some invisible Shinigami hovering over her.
"Ilmort?" Erin hissed under her breath, half wishing he'd drop down from the ceiling like some sort of upsetting spider, laughing his ass off at her ridiculous mortal skittishness.
But no such thing happened, much to her dismay. The sensation had abated slightly, but the fidgety energy, like static under her skin, lingered. There was some consolation to be found in the fact that she was horribly overtired and had been high-strung for several days. Chances were that she was just coming down off that, her body too tired to keep up with the stress. Give her one good meal, and a gentle uncomplicated gift that allowed her to practise a familiar old hobby and suddenly her subconscious had decided she was safe and that it was time to crash.
Inconvenient, for sure, but not as terrible as being spied on by unknown forces.
Too on edge to fully close her eyes, she let her vision slide slightly out of focus, and tried to steady her breathing, and focus on that. To ground herself and remember that she was safe.
Not easy to do when logically she was pretty much as unsafe as she could get.
Surprisingly, she found herself wishing for someone to talk with. Reading was apparently more concentration heavy than she could handle and maybe some mindless television would have helped, but what she really wanted was active comfort and consolation. She wanted to cry and whine, and for someone to tell her it was all going to be okay—even if it wasn't. Telling herself to suck it up and stick it out only made her more upset.
"Ah hell," she groaned out loud, if only to drag herself from the internal pit of self-pity she had dug herself into. Unfortunately, she had no follow up to her dismal exclamation.
It was going to be a long day, and if she wasn't actively climbing the walls, or systematically dismantling everything within sight by the time L checked back in on her, it would be a miracle.
X.x.X
Erin was not shredding any blankets or prying screws from furniture when the crackle of static informed her that L had decided to make his presence known once again. No, instead she was weeping into a bowl of Tonkotsu Ramen, entirely convinced that she had never experienced such fulfillment in her life. Her day had been an entire tribulation in patience, self-restraint, and half-hearted meditation, but the food somehow had chased all of that away.
In fact, L's immediate question was met with her raising a hand, palm out in the direction of the speaker, something she realized almost immediately was pretty ballsy of her, but nevertheless necessary. It was just so tasty.
"The investigation team will be returning shortly," L explained, and she imagined him like a huffy cat being told no; chin pulled in, eyes narrowed. "Watari informed me there was something you needed to discuss."
Deciding not to comment on how she felt like some kind of side mistress he was cheating on his overworked officers with, Erin nodded distractedly, savouring the precious taste of broth and divinity. "Yeah. Watari gave me the sleeping pills," she began, while trying to figure out the best way to phrase her nebulous concerns.
They'd apparently decided against trusting her with an entire bottle of prescription grade medication. Watari's face had been inscrutable behind his black mask, but that had only made it easier for her to project her own thoughts onto him. After all, from their perspective she was an emotionally unhinged wild card, complete with an obsession with dying. They had every reason to mistrust her ability to make healthy life choices.
"… and it got me thinking about how they might interfere or, I guess not interfere, with my whole, um, dream thing. Astral projection? Lucid dreaming? Planar travel? Whatever. That sounds weird, but you get my point. I'm not sure how my brain is bringing me into the Shinigami realm, and if its affected by, like, what stage of sleep I'm in, and—" She cut herself off with an uncertain shrug and shovelled more food into her mouth if only to give herself something to do with her hands.
"Hm," L hummed thoughtfully through the speaker. "Yes, that is something to consider. Right now, our data is limited, and you seemed unsure if you would even be able to replicate the previous incident."
Well, that was an incredibly unhelpful response. "Yeah. Right. Well. I just thought I should mention it in case I somehow lock my brain in the Shinigami Realm or whatever. You know. Just to give you a heads up that you might be stuck with a coma patient come morning."
"Of course, the obvious solution would be to forego any interference with these exercises. Given that you were not medicated previously, it seems that introducing a new variable would only corrupt the data we receive."
She wanted to complain about the clinical way he was talking about her health and safety, but only in a distant, distracted way. For one thing, how else were clinical studies conducted with humans involved? There still had to be a specific and regimented method and trying to explain that in a way that wasn't the most efficient and precise manner was just a waste of time. Besides, given the way she had spoken to him like she was doing a character study for public exams, Erin didn't have much room to talk.
"Right," she replied eventually, stirring the last of the broth and noodles around in the bottom of her bowl. She wanted a good night of sleep desperately. Her jittery muscles and the ache behind her eyes and the dryness in the back of her throat were all demanding it. The option was there, and, for whatever reason, L wasn't telling her what to do. He'd not said she couldn't have them and take the risk—he'd merely commented that it was reasonable to consider the effect it might have on her efforts to speak to Ilmort.
Habitually, she sought out the way in which the detective might have been testing her, but her thoughts hit a wall of exhaustion and she could not be bothered to pursue that line of thinking. Mostly she just wanted someone to tell her what to do one way or another so that she didn't have to weigh the pros and cons and make the decision herself.
For how many people had L played that role? For how many decisions had he taken the initiative and made the hard choices where no one else was willing? Was that a burden that came with his unfathomable mind inherently, or was it something he'd taken on himself, aware it was the cost of his pursuits?
"Fuck it," she hissed, and scooped up the little plastic cup with the meds. Getting in contact with Ilmort was important yes, and she had agreed to help L as much as she could. But that did not mean she had to completely forsake her own self either. She'd already acknowledge how vastly different their resolve was, how much further he would take things than she dared to. She was selfish, and while she did not think L to be selfless, she thought he probably did a better job of balancing the two, or at the very least disguising his selfishness behind noble intention. It wasn't her fault if Light and L wanted to have some epic mental duel in a struggle for the whole bloody world, and it wasn't her fault if the Death God or whatever thought that inconvenient. She had no noble intentions; only guilt and dread and too much knowledge.
She was just so damn tired. She'd figure out the rest in the morning.
"…Very well," L commented. "We'll discuss the results tomorrow, unless you do experience negative side effects."
Erin nodded sharply. Once at him, and then once more to herself. "Wanna tell me some percentages on how likely it is I'm about to go full zombie?" She joked, smile wry and only a little forced.
"Making an educated estimate with so little information would be pointless. It would be nothing more than a groundless guess."
She sighed. "Yeah. Figured. In case something does happen, I should warn you now: Don't let Ukita charge off on his own if the second Kira tries airing some kind of message on TV. At least, not without his face totally obscured."
"I'll bear that in mind."
X.x.X
The dream began as softly as a lullaby.
The flowers were lovely and blue and small beneath the stars overhead, like they were forming their own miniature constellations to reflect the galaxies in the sky. They stretched out through the field of moss and grass, toward a horizon that glowed with a yet unseen dawn, pale and gentle.
Erin felt relieved as she slumped to the ground, because it was not the Shinigami realm. And then she frowned, because she had been trying to get to Ilmort. Then, more consciously, Erin green tense because she was fully aware that she was dreaming in a way that mirrored what happened the two times she had been in that awful grey landscape.
Furtively, she looked around, half expecting someone or something horrible to pop up out of the blue and call her a criminal again.
But nothing did, and although she tried to remind herself that yes, sometimes things could just be good, the knot of fear in her gullet would not let the words ring true.
And then the sky heaved, like it was trying to peel itself away from a surface.
And it was not a sky, but the great horrible form of a butterfly and the constellations created the shape of bones on its massive wings. It lurched and twitched, as if it had been pinned to a table while still alive, and each of its movements sent all the world quaking, the motion tearing up the dirt, and scattering blue petals up into the air around her.
She covered her head and screamed. She screamed and screamed and screamed because she was furious, and terrified and she felt so terribly wronged. She wanted to wake up. She wanted to wake up!
But she couldn't.
And then with the sound of cracking ice, the butterfly got free, and behind it she saw something that made her eyes ache for trying to understand it, to perceive its shape. But there was no shape, because it was a hole, an absence, and staring at it felt like dying all over again, but maybe that was the gaping surging wound where her heart should have been, spluttering out thick dark blood that was near black, near ink as it soaked into her shirt and her frightened clutching hands.
"Justice comes," howled a voice, pouring out from the cavernous wound in the sky.
It did not speak in L's voice. It spoke in another voice, and it was so loud, so thunderous, and so destructive that she could not place it, though she searched for familiarity in it with ears that felt like they were bursting.
The world stilled, the petals frozen in the air like time had stopped.
Quieter, the voice spoke again. It was closer as if just over her shoulder, little more than a cajoling murmur. "I demand justice."
She gasped against the gurgle of blood, tried to turn to look, driven by some shred of will power she did not recognize, but the movement was too much, and her vision went white, and then dark.
X.x.X
She woke up screaming, her voice cracking on the sound, her lungs begging for her to stop, to breathe, and her throat felt near to shredding.
"—up! Can you respond?" The demand cut through the air, clipped by urgency.
Some small part of Erin's mind grabbed it, and she surged up in bed, heaving and gasping for breath. And then a strangled sort of wail tore passed her lips as she saw what surrounded her.
There must have been hundreds of them, and they covered everything—from the walls to the windows, to the floor and even her and the bed. It was a gently heaving mass of fluttering wings, like it was pulsing, like it was counting the beating of a heart. The faint glow from the markings on their wings only cast deep shadows that also flickered in time with the moving wings, creating the illusion that the whole room was alive. A few of the butterflies fluttered up gently from her sudden movement, but they were quickly finding places to settle down again, on the pillow and the mattress where she had been lying, trying to land on her, even.
She cringed away from them, her skin crawling. "Fuck! Fuckfuckfuck. L?"
"Yes. What is your status?"
"Status?" she demanded, terror deafening her to whatever might have been in his voice. "I don't know! I don't know, what's going on?"
"That is what I need to find out. Did you speak to the Shinigami?"
"No! No! I—L, I don't know what happened, but it-it-it was so bad," her breath was picking up in speed, trying to swallow up her words. Abruptly, and without thinking about who might be watching she reached for her chest, trying to find blood. There was none but she couldn't see, and it felt like there was something caught behind her ribs, and it might have been her own fear, but it might have been something worse.
She wanted to reach for the lamp, switch it on, but it was also covered in butterflies, their wings opening and closing in a way that was too gentle and delicate for the situation.
Her stomach heaved, and her fingers scratched at her skin where the vermin had been as she tried to get away from them but there was no getting away, they were everywhere, in her hair on her arms, on her face—
"Erin!" L commanded over her stuttering, choking wheezing.
"Get me out of here," she begged, "get me out of here!"
"That might take some—"
"L, I'm begging you, please, I-I-I need out, please." She started off with desperation, but it was quickly heating into a bubbling oil that was so, so very close to becoming rage and lighting a burning resentment. Her emotions were volatile, and very near to catching.
"Very well. You will need to listen to me exactly."
How badly she just wanted to dash for the door. How badly she just wanted out. But she sucked in a deep breath and nodded. "Okay. Okay. Okay let's do this," She muttered under her breath, shoring up every bit of resolve and willpower that she could manage."
L's directions were relatively simple, if not torturous. He needed her to move slowly and calmly. He wanted to avoid agitating the butterflies as much as possible. She agreed, for the most part, but it was excruciating. Every time she moved, she had to usher butterflies out of the way in order to keep from squashing them—they did not know what would happen if she did, but neither were inclined to test it out at that moment.
When she got to the door, he needed her to wait, explaining that they were putting a curtain in place on the other side. He wanted to keep the butterflies from escaping—yes, fair, good, she did not want them getting out either. She wanted to be very, very far away from them. She wanted them to be sealed away where she knew they couldn't get to her.
They're just butterflies, she tried to tell herself. Except that they weren't just butterflies. They just weren't
Finally stepping through the door was a relief, even though she stepped into what appeared to be an emergency decontamination tent. A person was there, dressed in a surgical smock, wearing gloves, and a medical mask. Old, wizened yes crinkled at her, assuring, and she realized amidst the numbed panic in her brain that it was Watari.
He set about tugging a few stray butterflies from her hair, carefully sealing them into containers, and asking her some questions about her health.
She was busy fumbling at her shirt, momentarily disregarding modesty. She had to know—
Where there had been none before was a strange jagged black scar, like a small crack running over her sternum.
A mask was held over her mouth before she had even realized that she couldn't breathe.
The urge to curl up into a ball and make herself as small as possible was overpowering, and it took a good few minutes of talking her down before Watari got her to pull her hands away from where they were pressed over the mark to take a look.
She must have blanked out, because the next thing she knew, plush carpet was passing beneath her bare feet as she staggered along behind Watari, a blanket clutched in her icy fingers, her teeth chattering. She was hustled without much ado through a door, and onto a couch, before the elderly man vanished somewhere else.
It took a minute for her to realize that sitting across from her was L, and not a figment of her imagination.
"I was my intention that this be avoided," he observed dryly.
A/N: KAKAKAKAKA! EIGHT YEARS! FIFTEEN CHAPTERS! 68,387 WORDS! At long last we get here! Finally, L in person! Might not be the most optimal or believable route to take, but it's happened! And, given that in the first Death Note fanfiction I started (can't say it was the first iteration of this one, not when they are now so vastly different) it happened in TWO chapters and was just straight up the dumbest scene ever, I REFUSE TO DOUBT MYSELF ON THIS ONE. FIGHT MEEEE (please don't I'm so squishy and waaay too sensitive)! Ahem. Yeah. So. All that aside, I hope this is good? Ironically, I started off the chapter thinking "Erin deserves one nice thing" and then I realized that it looked like the bad was also going to fit into this chapter. Whoops. Sorry~ Oh Man. I have way too much to say. Most importantly I do not take, nor am I an expert on sleeping pills. So. Take all that with a grain of salt. Or a spoonful. Secondly, as usual, nightmare editing. I tried, I really did, but its countered by my excitement to get this out there (aaaahhhh I'm actually so nervous ahhhh). Also, you folks are magical, and if I could force feed you chocolate chip cookies in gratitude, I would. But I can't. Alas.
Guest: Thank you so much! I appreciate the comment so much and hope to continue to live up to your expectations.