A/N: If anyone can name the artist that does this song, you'll win! And if anyone leaves any feedback whatsoever, they'll be full of win too.
...coz I never trust a man with a razor in his hand...
L knew he was being illogical. Reasonably, the situation he was in could get no worse on the grounds of something as everyday as a haircut. Still, he really didn't want it. He didn't fight the prison barber, but he fought himself not to fight. It was hard, his whole body was trembling as they pushed him down in the chair and started the big metal hair clippers. They buzzed loudly like a very big and angry wasp, and for a moment he almost sprung out of the chair. Instead he clutched the armrests and told himself it didn't matter, it was just hair, it'd grow back, given enough time, and it was downright silly to put this much value into it. It was just that he was used to having that fringe to hide behind, that black curtain that he could shake down in front of his eyes so that it darkened and softened the world for a bit. It was like a warm blanket, an illusion of safety. And now it was cut away from him.
"You sure have a lotta hair, boy!" the barber said, pushing the machine through the thick, black mop on his head. The blades were going blunt, and the man was in a hurry. The clippers kept snagging and pulling his hair and it hurt. L shut his eyes and thought of Watari. He was devastated by his death, but also glad he wouldn't have to see him this way. They had let him go to the funeral, after everyone else had left. Yes, there were worse things to lose in life than your hair.
After being made to walk through some kind of air-lock type of box in his underwear, they had given him some light blue clothes to put on, almost like scrubs. They were better than the coarse orange overalls, but wearing clothes identical to everyone else's made him feel strange, sort of like a ghost or a shadow, and it was so cold in here that he would have been less than surprised if someone had told him he had actually died and gone to the afterlife reserved for losers. A stocky, heavy-set guard was waiting for him when he stepped out of the barber's room. He had a nasty look of sadistic boredom on his face and when he spotted L a sly grin spread on his face. L hiked up the plastic tray with his sheets, blankets and change of clothes, clutching it like a barrier between him and the guard.
"Heavy, is it?" the guard chuckled. "I guess that's what pencil-pushing does to you." The way L was slouching must look like the box was weighing him down, or else the guard just wanted an excuse to taunt him. Yes, come to think of it, that was more likely. L didn't answer just stared ahead of him, focussing on a dark patch on the concrete floor.
"Hey," the guard raised his voice, "I'm talking to you!" There was a sound of sliding metal as he flicked his wrist to extend his telescopic baton, which he tapped against the side of the plastic tray. L didn't shift or flinch. He had no idea how to react to this. The guard leaned closer, getting into his personal space, just like L himself would do when he tried to put someone off balance. It proved surprisingly effective even when you were aware of the technique.
"I know who you are," the guard mumbled. "I didn't believe it when they first told me. I mean, look at you! You're just a punk kid. And I always thought the great and formidable L was American." There was definitive scorn in his voice, worsening as he continued, "Yeah, yeah, now you're going to tell me you are, aren't you? Isn't that what all the damn immigrants say? 'We're American'. Heh." he poked his baton into the contents of the tray, like he was looking for hidden things, but it was just an excuse not to get going.
"Not as smart as they thought, were you?" the guard continued, "And don't you get any ideas in here now, you hear? Do you think you can outsmart me?"
L looked up and met the guard's eyes before he could stop himself. His mind collated the signs and give-aways of the guard's face. L had found that you could form a surprisingly accurate estimate of someone's intelligence just by observing and listening to them for as short a period as a minute. The less intelligent the target, the shorter time it took to ascertain this fact. There was one exception, however; those who were clever enough to play stupid. L concluded that he did not believe this guard to be one of those. He might be shrewd enough to keep himself up to date on what went on in his field of work, but beyond that... L could see a man who did not have a wide perspective on the world. He had an answer to the question, but knew that it was a trap and he did not reply.
"Do you?" the guard said, hitting the baton off the side of the tray again, harder this time. "Speak up. I know you speak English. You think you're smarter than me?"
L stared at him. What did he expect, an insult or an obvious lie?
"I think it does not matter," L said quietly, "you are the one in the position of authority."
The guard stared at him for a few seconds, trying to work out whether what he had said was an insult or not. Then he laughed, an ugly, hard sound.
"That's your way of saying I'm the boss?"
"Yes."
"You got that right. Hell, what do you know, maybe you are a genius after all!" he laughed again, and then, like flipping a switch, his face turned back to that contemptuous sneer. "Right, move it genius." He shoved L in the back to start walking.
The walk through the corridors to his cell gave L a first glimpse of just how bad the situation was. He knew what criminals were like, of course, but in theory. He had never seen this many of them, in one place at the same time, from the inside. He was like a wild-life observer thrown into a pack of lions; no matter how much knowledge he had of their behaviour, it was hardly going to help when they decided he was for eating. Or playing with.
The inmates were making an awful racket, shoving and shouting and making rude gestures to anyone in sight. L felt that his analogy with the lions did not hold up to scrutiny. Lions were after all graceful, impressive animals. There was nothing even remotely graceful about these men. They were more like barnyard fowl, pugnacious roosters strutting and pecking and fighting--not for the attention of any females, but for a place on some opaque inner social scales. They were prime examples of the type of beings that Kira had wanted to rid the world of. L couldn't help but wonder if this experience would cause him to re-evaluate his view of the killer. And that thought frightened him.
"Open on four!" the guard called, and a section of bars rattled aside. "Scofield, say hello to your new cellie. I'm sure you two will get along fine, you can have staring competitions and keeping quiet races."
From where he was standing, L could not see into the cell, or see the man the guard was addressing. Horror images of some huge bald, tattooed, beer-bellied man with poor hygiene and poorer morals flashed through his head. Then the guard gestured into the cell with his baton and L took a step forward, into the doorway. And breathed a small sigh of relief.
The man in the cell looked only a few years older than him. His hair was cut very short, of course, and he looked... surprisingly normal. Average build, average expression of distant and calculating assessment of L's person. L looked up at him from under where his fringe had been and clutched his tray. Behind them, someone screamed in pain and an alarm went off. The cell door rattled shut.
"Have fun boys!" the guard said, "although, not too much, know what I mean?" He left, grinning to himself, and L looked around at his new home.
The cell was tiny, just a bunk-bed, a miniature table nailed to the wall, a toilet and a sink with a small mirror above it, made of some material that wasn't your ordinary breakable glass. L stepped forward and stared at his reflection in the scratched, unsharp surface. He didn't recognise the man in the mirror, but whoever he was, he looked terribly vulnerable. No hair, just a very dark shadow over his scalp, and the circles under his eyes seemed darker than ever too. He became aware that the other guy was watching him and turned around slowly to set his plastic tray down on the lower bed.
"I'm Michael," the man finally said, and after a bit more silence, "You have a name?"
L sighed. He did—that was the problem.
"Ryuzaki," he tried. It was useless of course, the truth would come out soon enough. There was always someone who knew, who started a rumour, and soon the whole place would know that he was a famous detective. Used to be a famous detective. And of course it would be worse when this Michael person found out that he had lied. But just for tonight—just for this first night—he chanced his arm at anonymity.
"Ryuzaki," Michael echoed, without mangling the pronunciation too badly. "Japanese?"
L nodded. Even though he had spent several years in England as a child, that seemed such a long time ago, and his English had taken the backseat during his time in Japan. Quite far back to be honest. It wasn't his language anymore, and it felt wrong in his mouth when he spoke it, like he was chewing rocks. So he kept quiet and sat down on the bed, pulling his legs up and staring blindly ahead. It really was over, wasn't it? Check mate. Only, it had not ended like he had expected. From a very early stage, he had known—or believed—that the Kira case would not be over until one of them was dead. He or (Light) Kira. Now they were both still alive, and the wrongness and inconclusiveness was eating at him. Still, there was nothing he could do about it.
"Yeah... that's my bed," Michael said.
"Oh. I'm sorry."
L moved his stuff and climbed up onto the other bunk, crouching there instead. His head was spinning with hopeless thoughts. No computer, no tapes, no files. No case. The total lack of anything to do was already starting to make him itch with displeasure. He had been here ten minutes. Roughly a million to go. One million fifty thousand plus change. And that was with good behaviour. Ignoring the cold draught around his head, and the adrenaline fuelled voices outside shouting inexplicably about fish, L rested his head against his knees and slept.