Another chapter, and so soon that I have very little to say except thanks for all the response! Oh, and in case you haven't noticed, all the 'science' in this fic us absolute bullcrap and made up simply to sound cool.
Since L was basically antisocial and a control freak, he drew from the mysterious depths of his baggy jeans a fiendishly difficult riddle for the three boys to squabble over whilst he and Light went to look for K; although for some strange reason he was rather partial to the company of his three best students, when it came to an interrogation, he liked to be in full control. Light had always felt rather smug about the fact that only he was ever allowed to assist L in an investigation as anything more than a coffee boy, although of course he had never said as much to Matsuda's face. Come to think of it, he might have to reconsider his tact since the airheaded detective was apparently dating his sister.
"Are you coming, Light-kun, or would you rather serve as a door-jamb for the rest of the day?" L asked innocently. Light's head snapped up, and he realised he had been standing with one foot through the door for the last thirty seconds.
"I'm coming," he said with as much dignity as he could scrape up off the floor. Mostly, he was just thankful that none of the squirts at the orphanage were tall enough to place any mistletoe death-traps above the doorframe.
"I trust Light-kun is familiar enough with the average Wammy's child to know how to act," L said, his tone assuming that he did.
"I've managed to live with you, haven't I?" Light teased. L gave him a fond look.
"Yes, but I get the distinct feeling that you and I are exceptions to almost every rule."
Light smiled knowingly in response. That was something he could second. How many genius detectives ended up dating the genius criminals handcuffed to their person?
"If I can be accepted by Matt, Mello and Near, I'm sure K will be no problem," he assured L.
"Of course. Just one moment," L replied, pausing for a second to look Light squarely up and down. Light blinked, confused, then yelled out as two pale, spiderlike hands flashed up to ruffle up his flawless hair.
"Why- you-" he spluttered in the face of L's wicked grin.
"You will do very nicely, Light," L decided happily. Light tried to scowl, but at that moment an acrid smell met his nostrils, and it turned into a grimace. Two small blond heads peeked out of a door further up the corridor.
"L? Can you get K to stop polluting the corridor? It's bothering my tropical fish," one of the heads said.
"Wait, is K's lab in his room?" asked Light incredulously. "Isn't that dangerous?"
"The lab is in the basement," L said, "but since it has been destroyed, I suspect that K has relocated to his own bedroom to continue his experiments."
"Is that allowed?" Light asked.
"The rule at Wammy's house is if you can win the argument against Roger, you can pretty much do whatever you like," L shrugged. "Why do you think Mello's allowed to wear leather? After two hours of violent rhetoric about freedom of expression, we just gave in and accepted it."
"I suppose that's the same premise under which you've never had a haircut," Light sighed.
"And under which you are allowed to spend three hours in the bathroom every morning," L reminded him.
"At least it makes the apartment smell nice. This whole corridor smells like a fireworks factory."
Trying not to breathe too deeply, L and Light made their way to where the air was thickest and most foggy, and unanimously concluded that this must be the centre of operations. L turned the handle, and both men entered bravely.
The room was fairly standard for Wammy's, which meant that it was approximately the size of a small classroom and supplied with lab, benches and Bunsen burner as per request of the resident; L's own room had a library to rival any palace, and an explosion of cuddly animals. Somewhere under the chemical fug and the mess of test tubes, files and instruments Light didn't even want to begin to describe, there must have been a bed. Seated in the middle of a mound of wires, several tubs of eruptive substances with the consistency of volcanic yoghurt and what looked like shredded pink and gold paper, sat a small child.
If a comparison had to be drawn, he looked like Near on electric shock treatment wearing his father's labcoat. Assuming rather erroneously that he had a father, and that said father had a labcoat, in any case. His hair was probably light brown, and probably nicely curly on a good day, but the ends were currently scorched black and sort of frazzled, and he had tied up his bangs with what looked like a pipecleaner so that they stuck directly upwards like a miniature brown explosion in suspended animation. His eyes, when they flickered towards his guests, were the same vast black pools with which Light was so familiar, but instead of stormy grey there was just a lick of green submerged by his huge pupils.
"L," he greeted briefly, and went back to dipping coloured paper into a vat of bubbling liquid.
"May we sit?" L asked politely. K gestured vaguely at what might have been a sofa; it was hidden underneath the fearsome grandfather of a chemical still, and what was definitely some sort of complicated maze. Complete with rats. Light made a mental note not to move his feet too much in case any of them had managed to find their way out yet.
"I'm sorry to hear about the lab; I'll have Quillsh begin repairs immediately," L told the tiny scientist.
"It's all right; Matilda and Mary weren't hurt, there was just a lot of equipment damage," K replied calmly. "Roger let me install a lot of spare stuff in my room, so I haven't been too inconvenienced."
"When you say 'let'…" Light couldn't resist, like poking at a scab.
"I mean that he could not prevent me from doing it," K replied matter-of-factly. Light smirked a little. This boy reminded him strongly of L, who could be very sneaky when it came to getting what he wanted from either him or Watari.
"What are you making?" he asked after a second or two of nothing but vaguely glutinous sounds from the vats and the vague shuffle of paper.
"Christmas decorations," came the prompt reply.
"Uh, Christmas decorations?" Light eyed the mess before his eyes with suspicion.
"The film last night was Tim Burton," K explained. "The animal skeletons are next to the mulled wine." Both L and Light suppressed a shudder.
"Would you like some?" K asked politely. Light did not want to know to which he was referring.
"Have you made any progress on the issue of the chocolate?" L asked, carefully edging away from the rather horrible topic currently on offer.
"No good," K replied promptly.
"In what way?" L pursued.
"Can't be done unless Roger agrees to install a particle sub-converter, and he says pigs'll fly before that can happen, and I don't have much time to research animal aviation at the moment. But from what I hear, mass production is a fairly cheap way of supplying oneself with copious amounts of chocolate anyway, so I'm not too worried. Really, I'm more interested in gold."
It was a testament to how much time Light had spent around the wrong sort of people that none of the statements in the speech caused him any surprise at all. Nor did the fact that they had just come out of the mouth of a human being who reached the approximate hight of his kneecaps.
"What about the acid?" L asked, looking about as disturbed as Light, which was not very.
"Don't need any, Beta said he could get me some for cheap," K said. "Could you pass me that tube over there? No, not that one, the one with the mould growing in it."
Light exchanged a look with L, who shrugged. If he had been a more generous person, Light would have attributed to K a singular talent for sarcastic humour. As it was, he preferred to think that the boy just had no social awareness whatsoever.
"Mello is under the impression that there was some sort of unusual ingredient in the chocolate he gave you," L tried again patiently.
"Volacilic acid? Oh yes, that's why my lab exploded, you know," K said vaguely, adding a few drops of something to the mould test tube with a syringe.
"Do you know why something like that might be in chocolate?" L asked, his voice taking on a slightly pleading note; he was used to full attention whilst interrogating somebody, and Light knew he was wishing that a screen and voice alteration software were currently separating him and this minefield of unknowable substances.
"Hmm? I don't know. Why, do you?"
"Has Roger set you any homework to do over the Christmas break?" L asked innocently, thumb jumping to his lips.
"Make Christmas decorations," K responded immediately. "I'm investigating the mechanics of a paper chain."
"Then I wish to set you another project; tell me what possible motives there might be for putting volacilic acid into chocolate." L's eyes were alight with the obsessive glint of somebody who has already reached a conclusion and wants to confirm it with the world watching. Light sighed, very quietly.
"Yes, L," K said obediently.
"Just one question," Light added. "Since you've never met either of us before, how did you know he was L and not me?"
"It was the hair," K said, not looking up. "Thank you for visiting me. Please let me know when it's time for dinner. I hear it's chicken, and I've almost run out of bones."
L dragged Light out of the room before he could start the barrage of questions, so it was only L's wide, innocent eyes which were watching in mild amusement as Light compulsively checked his hair in one of the tinsel-decked windows.
"What did he mean by the hair?" he asked in bewilderment.
"Never mind that, Light-kun," L smiled his best enigmatic smile. "We only have an hour or so before it gets dark. I want to visit a candy store."
"But we have plenty of sweets here. This house is practically made of sweets!"
"However, I wish to do some research," L decided. "If Light-kun wishes, I will also buy him a Christmas present, although I am 86% certain that you no longer bear any grudge against me for bringing you here."
"You still have to be extra-nice to me," Light pouted. "And you're 14% wrong," he muttered under his breath.
Out of one of the many bay windows on the North front of the orphanage, a pair of wide black eyes with just a hint of green watched as two muffled figures, one slouching and scruffy, one neat and erect, walked hand in hand down the sweeping drive towards the town.
"They walked," he murmured to his silent room, his breath fogging up the glass a little as he spoke. "I wonder if they'll get back before it's too dark?"
In his agile fingers, a chocolate wrapper was slowly being shredded into tiny silver scraps. Behind him, a new set of experiments were already half set up.
So? Next chapter will probably be some nice Christmassy filler with L and Light, so look forward to it. And tell me what you think so far...