Ficlet Two: Test
Author's Note: Well, I was planning to write my pair of angsty denial-fics, but I had to get this out there. Not even Kokoro Sabishii, who I run most of my Death Note randomness past and therefore will show up in these author's notes quite a lot, has heard this one, although the last line is a topic we've discussed and snickered over. Hope she likes it, and that it makes you laugh too.
Disclaimer: Denial Land passports, anyone? But I own chocolate chips! …I'm so addicted…
ON WITH THE SHOW!
So this popped into my brain this afternoon, as I was 'productively' reading my way through my Death Note-slash stories list, and made me laugh, and made sense (sorta).
As much as he hated the chain, when he actually thought about it, Raito had to admit (very, very, very privately) that he'd gotten used to it. It was a horrible thought, and he avoided thinking it for as long as possible.
But it was true that he rarely noticed it anymore. In fact, he wouldn't have remembered that he was still chained to the scruffy detective if he hadn't made an unwise move away from the table they were sitting at.
L glared at him briefly, one hand the only thing stopping him from sprawling across the table, the other in his mouth, before the flicker of irritation vanished, to be replaced by the same blank look he sported so often.
It went against his nature, but Raito muttered, "Sorry," just to keep the peace, because being chained to L was bad enough without being chained to an annoyed L in the bargain. (If there was actually a Hell…) Taking advantage of the momentary slack, though, he used the extra give to snatch the cold drink out of the fridge that he'd been trying to get in the first place before sitting back down.
The pale youth ignored him, stacking sugar cubes into a construction Raito could swear was geometrically impossible in an effort to illustrate just how much he was ignoring the teen.
Raito bit back a sigh. And they'd been getting along so well for once. Impulsively, he brought it up.
"You know there's a betting pool on how long it takes before we start fighting again?" he asked, fairly sure the answer would be 'yes'. Asking L 'do you know', especially about things that happened inside the task force headquarters, was essentially a rhetorical question.
"Matsuda's prediction expires thirty minutes from now; Soichiro Yagami, in two days; Mogi, by six PM today. Aizawa has reserved judgment, with amusement," Ryuzaki rattled off without even looking up from his construction. At this rate, it was going to be a close call between running out of sugar cubes and the laws of physics realizing they were being mocked. Raito briefly entertained the idea of tugging on the chain again, just to wreck the whatever-it-was, but abandoned it.
"Anyway, we were talking about school. Do you still want to hear boring stories about school?"
For the first time since being pulled off balance, L looked up. "Yes, Raito-kun, I am listening."
Grateful that they wouldn't end up proving Matsuda right (there was quite a bit of money riding on the bet), Raito launched into another string of depressingly normal school stories, trying to avoid shivering at the direct, glassy stare he was receiving from L. He never got used to it.
"Actually," he interjected a few minutes later, "I think you got lucky. Somehow I don't see you as having to take tests."
Contemplatively, L looked up at the ceiling, thumb creeping towards his mouth again. "Before I met Watari, one of my guardians tried to administer an IQ test to me."
Swallowing his surprise at the unexpectedly volunteered information, Raito responded, "Somehow, I'd like to hear that story."
"Hmm," L said thoughtfully. A few seconds went by, and Raito wondered if he'd actually have to ask outright. The man, he'd learned, either could not take a hint, or deliberately pretended that he couldn't in order to get away with being as rude as he wanted to, whenever he wanted to.
"I failed it."
Raito just hated the sensation of fizzy drink heading into his nostrils from the intersection of swallowing and surprise.
"You what?" he blurted when he could speak again.
The detective on the other end of the chain gave him a look that Raito interpreted, from long practice, as sarcastic. Novices would term it 'blank'. "Ironically enough, I do not enjoy being investigated."
"You do like your secrets." Look, he could be sarcastic too!
"I need my secrets," L pointed out didactically.
And Raito was just so not going there. "So, how did you manage to fail an IQ test? Is that even possible? I suppose you've already answered why you would."
L smiled around his thumb. "I was very little, so he thought it best to have it given aloud, by a psychologist, instead of in a written format. Never mind that I could already read faster than he."
Anxious to keep the words flowing—had L ever volunteered information like this?—Raito inserted, "They put an actual person in the room for you to manipulate? What did you do to the poor man?"
"Absolutely nothing."
L had the deadpan void-stare down pat, and Raito wasn't even going to try to coin one of his own in competition. Instead, he tugged very gently on the chain in an effort to convey impatience.
His companion ate a handful of chocolate chips, and announced, "I fell asleep."
"You didn't!" He would!
"It was boring," L explained with perfect equilibrium, as if that was a perfectly good reason to fail an IQ test.
Raito raised one eyebrow sarcastically. "And you just really liked messing with his mind, didn't you?"
Oh, and now the smile was venomous. "I can honestly say, Raito-kun, that I have never quite outgrown being an absolute brat."
Author's Note: Brat-Chibi-L WILL make an appearance later on. Because he's so much fun, and because I promised Kokoro I would.