A/N: No, that's not a song. I couldn't think of a song for this chapter. If anyone has any suggestions... ah, who am I kidding?
He wasn't used to concrete floors. He was used to the luxury thick-pile carpet in hotel suites and, of course, the headquarters. And even though he was supposed to be one of the smartest people in the world, he found that he could be pretty stupid when it came to every-day things. Like putting shoes on before walking outside.
Being an orphan was no fun for anybody, but that aside, L realised he had led a very sheltered life. Since his talents had made themselves known at quite an early age, he had never been required to do any heavy physical labour. Watari had always been there to look out for him, and when he got older and started working on cases, Watari had not seemed to mind playing the butler role. He had allowed L to slip into a lifestyle where he didn't have to think about chores like making food or keeping warm. Clean clothes appeared in his closet, all his favourite snacks on the tables. He was allowed to live like a child. Someone—had it been Watari? But it seemed unlikely that he would say such a thing—Anyway, somebody had once described L like 'a computer in a child's body in a man's body'. And perhaps there was some truth to it. Whatever the reason, the cell door had just slammed shut in the morning, leaving him on the outside. With not shoes on.
The floors of the prison were nothing like carpet; they were gritty, cold and hard. L scratched one foot with the other absently while the guards counted them to see that nobody had gone inexplicably missing during the night. L saw Michael look down sideways at his bare feet, but he didn't say anything.
"Alright, move out!" one of the guards shouted, and the inmates started walking down the stairs towards the exercise yard. The stairs were made of metal grating and hurt to walk on barefoot.
The minutes dragged. Out in the yard, the other inmates did more strutting around and pissing in territories. L had no time for it, but sat down next to a wall in his usual manner and tried to think of something else. But, he was knew and different—always different—and there was no way he would be left alone. He counted thirty-five seconds until the first person came to bother him.
"My, my, what do we have here?"
The voice was a lazy drawl—southern, L thought, even though American accents was not his field of expertise. The man it belonged to was a gangly white forty-something man with a long weatherworn face and a scraggy goatee beard. He peered down at him with a little smirk that L didn't like the look of, not in the least.
"You're a very... exotic fish to be swimmin' these here waters, ain't ya?"
What was with the piscine theme? Must be some regional slang for the new-comers. L ignored him, but to his horror the man squatted down in front of him, leering.
"You know, rare little thing like you might find it a mite tricky to fit in around here," he drawled on, "the blacks ain't gonna want ya. The Aryans won't touch you with a barge pole... we had one such case before and... But I digress. We're talking about you now..." And the man sure seemed to love talking. He was not going to go away. He continued, "This your first time? I can see it is. We'll let me give you some friendly advise, completely for free and all; you need someone to look out for you in here. Someone to... cover your back. So, what do you say?"
"No thank you."
"You need some time to think about it. That's fine. I'll be around. Don't take too long is all. I might get impatient. You wouldn't like me when I'm impatient."
That was funny, because he didn't like him now. Impatience would hardly make a difference. But at least he didn't seem to know who he was and that was good.
"Think about it," he said again, and put his hand on L's foot.
The sudden skin contact was so unexpected and unwelcome that L very nearly launched that same foot into his face, but he restrained himself at the last second and shot the man an angry glance instead. Perhaps the man saw something in his eyes, some desperation or determination, because he held up his hands like at gunpoint and laughed.
"Whoa! Not into public displays of affection? Well, that's fine too. All in good time..."
He stood up and moved away at a leisurely pace, leaving L alone again. For all of 325 seconds.
The day seemed like it would never end. There was nothing to do, nothing to even think about, since no matter what conclusion he arrived at, he would not be able to act on it. He couldn't remember ever feeling so... pointless.
He kept having to move as people came and claimed his little patch of grass was "theirs" or tried to tell him there was some kind of levy associated with sitting there. It was tiresome, and his mood was dropping to an all-time low in tandem with his blood sugar levels. There was nothing to snack on, and lunch was hours off. This was going to be a problem for him, he realised with a detached unease. He had never been officially diagnosed, but he knew that he would feel bad if he didn't get his sugar. Headaches, anxiety, hunger. Watari had told him he might be hypoglycemic, and that he should go to a doctor and have it checked out, but that hadn't happened. What was a doctor going to do anyway, prescribe medicine? Why would he need medicine when he had cake? Now, there was no cake, and he knew that if Watari had been right, he could be in serious trouble.
When it was finally time to eat, he shuffled inside with the rest of them, making casual detours around those who looked the most belligerent. As of yet, no-one seemed to have found out who he was. Perhaps he wasn't as famous as he had thought. Now that was a sobering thought.
The canteen was a large open room with benches and chairs, much like a school cafeteria. The food was ladled onto some lightweight metal trays by other inmates, and L tried in vain to identify the food. It was... brown. Brown with a side order of a yellowish grey and something that made a passable imitation of bread. It looked disgusting, but he was starting to feel weak and cold and sweaty, so he resolved to eat it no matter how bad it tasted. It would probably contain trace amounts of sugar, if nothing else. He waited his turn in the queue and received a glob of whatever it was. Finding a table at the periphery of the room, he sat down and dug in. Too late, he realised that he had sat down without thinking. Sat down like he'd normally sit down. Apparently his manner of sitting constituted some kind of a provocation in here.
Someone was talking at him. He had been far away in a daydream about a small coffee shop in Japan, some faraway meeting. But someone was not only talking at him, but even using some racist epithet and reaching—completely unbidden—for his bit of bread.
"Don't," L said, pulling his tray out of reach of the long-fingered inmate.
"You talkin' back at me, boy?" the prisoner said, like he was actually surprised. He was big, L noticed; big and ugly. His arms emerged from the cut-off stumps of his t-shirt like sides of beef, imprinted with dark blue tattoos; anchors and the like. He was a walking stereotype. And as such, his pre-recorded voice track was as confrontational as it was predictable.
"Leave me alone," L said, avoiding eye-contact.
"Are you trying to tell me what to do?"
"I'm asking you. Leave me alone... please."
"Give me your bread and I might consider it..."
But he wouldn't; it was obvious. He couldn't understand where the drive to bother him came from in these people, but they seemed to be helpless against it. Normally, he would have tried to reason with the man, or simply moved away, but he was getting irritable from the low blood sugar, and his tolerance level was rapidly approaching zero. When the man reached for his food again, he twisted around quickly and grabbed the edge of the table for support as he put one bare foot against the man's chest and pushed away hard. It was not quite a kick, more like a powerful shove, and it sent big ugly careening backwards, balance lost, until his momentum was halted by another inmate's back. It was like putting a match to a petrol tank, and the brawl exploded with such speed and ferocity that it almost seemed like they had been waiting for an opportunity. L grabbed his slice of bread and ducked between the fighting men, dodging punches and swinging limbs. He'd just made it to the door when one of the guards got a hold of him. An alarm went off and more guards came in with their batons and started shouting about lockdown. As they dragged him off, he saw that they were doing the same thing to Big Ugly, who was ranting in his direction, his eyes wild like a stampeding cow's. He was going to be another problem, later.
L had hoped that they would put him in solitary confinement, where he would get to be alone for a while, but apparently the warden wanted to talk to him. L knew what was coming next. The warden knew who he was, and why he was there, and—surprisingly—seemed to sympathise with him. He told him he couldn't give him any preferential treatment and gave him a lecture on not fighting and keeping out of people's way, but afterwards he was returned to the cell. Michael was already there, and he looked stressed and annoyed when the cell opened, like a business man being interrupted doing something important with a short dead-line. L could see him put something very discreetly into a pocket, and he noticed that the items on the small table in the cell had moved around. The guard, however, didn't seem to notice anything unusual, and walked off as soon as the door was locked.
"You're not wasting any time, making enemies." Michael said.
L climbed up into his bed and sat down. This was almost as good as solitary. Michael wasn't that talkative. He was wearing a short-sleeved shirt today and his forearms were covered in tattoos; many small motives weaved together to form a whole. L was a little surprised; based on his personality, he never would have thought him the type to have big tattoos like that. There was something there, some little niggling thought in the back of his head, but he was too tired to analyse it closer. He had lost his bread in the melee earlier, and the hunger was like a small fire in his stomach. He wondered fleetingly what it was Michael had hidden away when they came in, if it was a weapon or something dangerous to him, but realised that unless it was a chocolate bar, he really couldn't care less right now. He curled up on the bed and went to sleep. He dreamed about angels and demons.