In Another's Shoes
Summary: A short trip outside of the investigation headquarters has several unforeseen side effects for Light, L, and Misa. Each is forced to adapt to their new situations while working to catch Kira. What will come of it?
Disclaimer: Death Note is the copyrighted property of Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata, not me. If I owned Death Note I would be the happiest person on this beautiful little planet. But I'm not the happiest person on the planet, therefore it is not mine.
...The second part of the chapter, as promised!
Chapter 2 Part 2: A Change in Perspective
Light was not the only one who had awoken that morning in a state of confusion. The normally sleepless, ever-vigilant detective had also awoken to rather unexpected circumstances.
The first of which being that he had been asleep at all in the first place, and on a bed no less.
L never slept unless he consciously chose to, and when he did sleep it was in the exact same position as when he was awake (Matsuda had been correct in his observations after all). The only times he ever reclined in slumber were when he was horribly sick or so sleep-deprived that his body finally overrode his mind in its demands for rest and recuperation. He had not actually chosen to sleep on a bed since he was a small child.
So something was obviously wrong, because that evening L had, of his own volition, buried his head in a pillow, curled up on his side and had let the darkness take him.
But now, it was morning, and events were already unfolding for the two other inhabitants of the Kira Investigation Headquarters. L was soon to be dragged into the mess.
As in, he was literally dragged into it.
More specifically, he was dragged violently by his wrist off of the bed he had been so comfortably and uncharacteristically sleeping upon. The force that was pulling him was headed in the direction of the bathroom adjacent to the bedroom that he and Light had grown accustomed to sharing.
Despite this jarring disturbance, it took the world-renowned detective several seconds to shake off his grogginess in full, even while being dragged backwards over the carpet. He felt extremely tired, his limbs hanging like lead off his frame, despite having slept more during this night than he had in several weeks.
He wondered vaguely if this was what Light felt like waking up every morning, with his mind left in a haze and his limbs so heavy with sleep. If so, then he really should be more understanding of his adolescent roommate in the future, since the experience was downright horrible.
L wouldn't wish this mind-blurring stupor upon anyone, even a suspect of mass murder.
Focusing now on the events currently unfolding, L pulled himself up off of the ground, wincing at the fresh rug-burn that streaked his arms and back with red-hot pain. L had a very high threshold for pain, but such a large amount of chafing was hard to ignore. It was, however, the pain that helped the most to push L's mind up out of its haze, jump-starting his brain faster than even the best cup of coffee ever could. He was alert within seconds, and ready for anything. Once his mind had begun working in full, he'd noticed two abnormalities almost instantaneously.
First off, the handcuff that had been chained to his right wrist last night was now, however impossibly, attached to his left instead. He could tell without even looking at it really, because his left arm had chafed the worst from its rough journey across the carpet. The steel cuff had dug into the flesh of his wrist hard enough to leave a nasty bruise.
Secondly, he was not wearing his usual white shirt. He recognized the fabric on his arm as being that of the sweater Light had gone to bed in that night, having collapsed without even the energy left to change his clothes. However, he apparently had summoned enough energy to change L's clothes with his.
But he couldn't possibly have achieved all this; Light did not have the key necessary to unlock the handcuffs, and he could never have lowered himself enough to do something as disgusting as to wear the detective's grungy vestments. L just did not know what to make of it. His intuition, which he trusted most keenly, screamed that something about this whole situation was terribly amiss. Just at that same moment, L heard a much louder scream coming from the bathroom into which the handcuff's chain led, pulled taught across the distance like a tripwire.
L combed the area with his eyes, alert for any sort of threat or danger within the plain living quarters. Seeing nothing out of the ordinary, he relaxed himself slightly and allowed his curiosity to rear its head in his mind. What could possibly be going on? L walked over to the bathroom, rubbing his sore wrist now that the chain was slack, and peered inside.
He froze, his eyes wide. L Lawliet, an investigative genius who held the position of being the three greatest detectives in the world, was dumbstruck.
He stared into the bathroom, not moving a muscle, for a long moment. He looked down at his hands, his arms, and then back into the bathroom.
Suddenly remembering the whereabouts of one of his several hidden spare keys, L crouched down next to the wall three and a half feet from the bathroom door. He pulled out a small chink from the bottom wooden lining of the wall, the outline of the small piece barely visible, and removed the key from behind it. After slipping the small piece back into place, he deftly removed the cuff from his wrist, rubbing at the throbbing red welt underneath.
He stood then, and strode over to the wardrobe that lay across the room, his mind abuzz with questions and theories and solutions. He didn't know all of the situation, but he knew, from the resolute feeling in his gut, what he would see.
He faced the mirror. It was confirmed.
L was so momentarily distracted he barely noticed the sound of running footsteps approaching.
The elevator doors slid open, and Light bolted through them. He ran down the familiar hallway, knowing the layout enough to make his way without thought. Finally reaching the door to the bedroom, he flung it open wide, following the sounds of quieted screams. He could see, trailing out of the bathroom, one of the ends of the handcuff that was usually attached between him and the detective. Light finally arrived at the door, and peered inside. What the hell was going on now?
L stood inside, staring into the mirror in a look of horror and confusion and fear. His hair was a mess (more so that usual, anyways), his face tear-streaked and absolutely deformed with misery and fear. The detective, whom Light had never seen looking anything less than totally calm and devoid of emotion, seemed to be having a complete nervous breakdown. Light had never seen him the other man even remotely sorrowful, even after months of being chained to him; and here he was crying his eyes out and shrieking inconsolably at his own reflection.
Finally noticing Light's approach, L turned his miserable countenance to face Light, but before Light could even say anything to him L's jaw dropped, his eyes widening to the size of dinner plates before finally rolling up into his head. His face and body grew slack, and the detective practically swooned onto the cold tiled floor. He had fainted.
Hearing a noise behind him, Light turned around from this most unnatural spectacle. As clear blue eyes met with deep brown, Light felt tempted to follow the raven-haired detective's example and let the rushing blood in his ears swamp his senses. This was all just too much for one morning.
Misa Amane had awoken that morning from a clinging leaden slumber. A fog hung grey and humid in her head as her awareness slowly returned, beckoning for her to fall back into the deep emptiness of the dreamless sleep.
After a long, stretching moment suspended in indecision, the attractive and talented young model mustered up the strength to pull one eyelid up just a sliver. Through that small crack of a window, her gaze focused, her blurred vision clearing until she could completely make out the large form that lay within her vision. When she finally awoke enough to identify the shape, her eyes opened jarringly wide with shock.
For there, right beside her on the bed and deeply asleep, was an angel. Misa's angel, an angel with beautiful wispy brown hair and a face a god would envy. Misa blinked her eyes several times, positively sure that she must be dreaming, even going so far as to pinch herself to confirm the reality of the situation. Assured by the stinging pain shooting up her arm from a fresh small welt, she lay her head back down again upon the pillow, gazing contentedly at her boyfriend. He was so beautiful when he slept (though of course, he was just as breathtaking when awake), his normally meticulously controlled face completely slack in his rest.
The lashes sweeping his cheeks were long and luxurious, the cheeks and cheekbones themselves were finely sculpted. His lips were slightly open in breath, his supple hands curled in front of his face. Misa felt a hot blush rising to her cheeks, her blood pounding drum-like against her skull with her stomach fluttering and twisting like a flag in a storm.
This was the first time Misa had ever been able to see her Light asleep, and he looked just as sensual and elegant deep in slumber as he did when awake, though he looked significantly more peaceful unconscious. Misa laid quite still beside him for what felt like an eternity, matching his soft breaths with hers, memorizing his features, absorbing every detail of every single fiber of his being. If he were awake, Light would have told her to stop staring at him, but now she had the opportunity to drink her fill. She lived for Raito, and would just as happily die for this Adonis-like being.
Misa was now, however, awake through and through, all lingering vestiges of sleep shed from her body as it began to prepare for the day ahead. Her blood and bones positively vibrated with energy, and Misa could no longer keep herself still. She was hesitant about breaking this moment, this rare chance to simply be with the young man she so adored, but soon she could remain still no longer. She took one last long lingering gaze at Light's sleeping form, smiling softly under her blush, and upon impulse she moved. She leaned forward towards Light's peaceful face, kissing his parted lips as gently as the brushing of a feather, careful not to linger or wake him. Her blush deepened.
Finally, she sat up, a jubilant grin lighting up her features. She did not know exactly how she had gotten into a bed with Light, but she would not, for all the world, make even one complaint about the circumstances. Her happiness was as large and bright as the sun, fueled by her love.
She surveyed the room, confirming that she was, indeed not in her own bedroom, which was on a lower floor of the building, but was instead in the chamber normally shared by Light and Ryuuzaki, her sense confirming that the older detective was nowhere to be found. Misa stuck out her tongue at the thought of the black-haired pervert, good riddance to him. He was always with Light, accompanying him all around the investigation building, outside, and the annoying older man even had the gall to join Light on his dates with Misa. Misa puffed her cheeks out with anger at the thought, but her heart was bursting with triumph at the fact that she was finally alone in a room with Light, which was a great victory indeed!
Coming up out of her thoughts, Misa became, at last, aware of a thin chilling ring of cold that was wrapped about her left wrist. She leaned over to examine it, finding that the source of the cold was a silver shackle, connected to a long steely chain that wound its way across the bed until finally connecting to a matching cuff on Light's arm. The chain clinked faintly with the movement of her arm. Misa pondered the situation for a moment, greatly confused as to what Ryuuzaki had intended with the action of chaining Light to her instead of himself.
After a moment of thought, Misa exclaimed, though only really talking to herself, in conclusion,
"Misa knows! Ryuuzaki-san must have had so much fun on the date last night that he decided to reward Misa by letting her sleep with Raito! He never even sleeps anyways... But what's wrong with my voice? Oh no, did I catch a cold last night? I know it was a little cool but maybe it was just enough for Misa to get sick..."
Misa's voice was indeed very changed, hanging heavy and low in her throat despite her energetic tone. The edges of her words had a rough feel, nothing like her usual exuberant soprano at all. The voice that her ears had heard had seemed strange and unnatural, and yet familiar at the same time.
She ran her thumb along her throat absent-mindedly, and pulled her hand back with a start. Her neck felt different, thick and muscular rather than slim and delicate, and to her horror she had felt a strange bump coming out from the front of her larynx. What was that bump? Her stomach began to lurch, leaden and knotted in her growing horror.
Upon pulling her hand back, she had a good view of that appendage as well. Her hand was huge! It looked larger and strong, with long and spindly, capable fingers. Clinging upon the bones and muscles was abnormally pale skin that stretched, to the girl's horror, all the way up her arm to the sleeve of what was, without a shadow of a doubt, a loose white ill-fitting shirt. Misa knew what she had worn to bed, and what she was wearing now was very different to the garments (if they could be called even that) that she had fallen asleep in. Something was wrong, horribly wrong. The dream had become a nightmare!
Misa was panting, panicky now, feeling along her entire body frantically: her legs (now long and clad in worn blue denim), her head (her hair was now shirt and untidy, strands running rampant across her skull in full bed-headed glory), her face (which had lost some of its softness and curve in favor of length and blunted angles), and the most damning fact; her chest…. Flat as a board, broader and wider than she had ever felt it to be.
Thoughts ran wild in the model's head, fear and shock and terror turgid within her, the emotions washing up from the gaping wellspring in her stomach. Her new feet, attached to new legs, carried her at top-speed to the bathroom.
The turmoil of her emotions was so strong as to leave her oblivious to the tug of the chain as it stretched taught between her wrist and that of the other figure on the bed.
She was deaf even to the thudding sound, followed by a low groan, as Light's body was first pulled violently off of the bed and then dragged mercilessly across the carpet.
Misa's pale hands grasped the doorknob tightly and flung the portal open, stepping finally into the small chamber. Her eyes passed unseeingly across the room's sturdy medicine cabinet, cheerful wallpaper and quaint white toilet, to finally rest upon the unapologetic answer that lay inside the mirror. Her eyes met their reflections, as pitch-black as the sightless coal eyes of a snowman, and Misa reacted in the only way she could.
She screamed.
She screamed and screamed, clenching her eyes shut and opening them just enough to make her let loose another, a higher and louder, scream.
The frightened, deeply affected girl began to babble. Misa was not even aware ofthe words she was saying, too deeply buried in shock and disbelief to see properly, much less hear.
Misa was in such despair and such confusion that she lost track of time, oblivious to all of the events unfolding around her. She finally took notice of the situation when she heard footsteps at the door.
She paused in her bewildered stupor to turn and look at the newcomer. She felt her jaw dropping in shock at what she saw, or rather, WHO she saw.
She saw, as if looking inside some strange and unfathomable mirror, her own image. Her own blue eyes, shining waterfall of blond hair, her own slim and graceful figure clad in sleepwear that was skimpy but not too revealing, alluring without being obvious about it.
The sparkling blue eyes that she had only ever seen in reflection stared at her in surprise, but barely had time to blink before Misa felt the ground give way as the world collapsed into darkness.
To be Continued
Author's Notes:
Sorry I took so long in posting this new chapter, but the writing has been difficult to organize. It was hard to decide whose point of view should come when. At one point I even decided to change one part of the scene, and therefore had to go back and change all three perspectives of the scene. Blarg! I seem to have the tendency to make things hard for myself. As they say, you are your own worst critic.
So yes, this is a body-swapping story (you probably already knew that, as I said I'm not at all subtle). The idea had been stewing in my head for a while. I really, really liked the concept of something a little outside of the usual two-characters-swap-bodies story. A three-person rotation seemed much more fitting for our three main Death Note characters. You'll see why I swapped them as I did as the plot progresses.
I realize that all of the perspective jumping might have made the actual order of events rather confusing, so just to make everything clear, I've laid it all out. The timeline goes thusly:
1. Misa wakes up/Light wakes up
2. Misa pokes around/Light scopes out his surroundings
3. Misa discovers changes & rushes to bathroom/ L begins to wake
4. Light discovers changes - Misa screams loudly/ L is awake and discovers changes
5. Light heads up to investigate/L sees Misa, unlocks cuffs and goes to mirror
6. Light arrives/Misa sees Light and faints
7. Light & L see each other
Chapter End.
Writing Misa was surprisingly easy for me. I don't know quite why, but she just flows out of me with ease. Maybe it's because she's the most normal of the three; I don't have to try and make her sound like a genius, she's just an emotional, love-struck teenaged supermodel.
Any reviews, constructive criticism, speculations or suggestions are greatly appreciated! As you all already know, more reviews mean a more motivated author. Story alerts are also an adequate form of encouragement. Even if you don't do anything, thank you for reading thus far.
Hope you liked it,
-Nubial Sheep