notes/warnings
+ swearing
+ lots of percentages. seriously.
+ I don't own anyone (well, except Jasmine, but like, who cares) but since I've mentioned a lot of other fictional characters in one scene, I should probably acknowledge them. Lady Macbeth is from The Tragedy of Macbeth by William Shakespeare. Catherine Earnshaw is from Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. Sherlock Holmes belongs to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. And Jane Marple is from Miss Marple series by Agatha Christie. Everyone else is from Death Note. Butchering of characters by me.
Invisible
R doesn't actually go anywhere, of course. He lives in the complex, with N, and starts picking up small jobs as a freelance detective. L knows that most of his work is mundane, ordinary stuff, and his fees are comparatively low, as they should be.
R is no L, after all.
Still, he's civil enough when he runs into any of them in the hall, and he hasn't attempted to access any secure files, so L is happy to keep him around for as long as he wants.
Eventually, of course, either N will go, or R will come back.
Seventy-seven point five one percent, and twenty-two point four nine percent repectively. It is most likely that they will both tire of sleuthing and finally move on with their lives.
L, on the other hand, is never happier than when he's solving cases.
And he reminds himself of this. Constantly.
A few months of nothing go by. N occasionally brings him a report on one of the more outstanding difficult cases going on in the world.
"This one is from the county Clare. There have been sixteen cases of rape in the past five days. All of the victims have been male, blonde, and between the ages of thirty and forty. Evidence suggests all were attacked by the same individual, possibly a woman."
"Five days?" L queries. "The local authorities have exhausted all their resources in five days?"
"I don't know," she concedes, pushing her hair out of her eyes. "But people are panicking. No one feels safe. Look, this is a copy of a message the chief of police published in most of the British papers yesterday."
L takes the scrap of paper from her, dangles it in front of him, and scans it briefly, picking out the key lines.
...most insidious and prolific series of crimes since the turn of the...
...baffled even the most capable and experienced detectives...
...believe our only hope now is the detective commonly known as...
...if anyone knows where he is, or is capable of getting into contact with L, please, contact this number.
L scratches the back of his head.
"How absolutely pathetic," he says, letting the paper drop to the floor. "Do people not realise that I'm just one person? I can't save everyone."
You could have a damn good crack at it, his Near voice tells him. But why should you? This is just laziness and cowardice.
"That's true," N agrees. "But it seems like they could really use your help right now."
L gathers another forkful of his apricot cheesecake.
"Please contact one of the journalists for the local paper in Clare," he instructs her. "Give them this message. When the police force starts to rely on celebrity detectives in lieu of attempting cases themselves, that is also criminal."
"L!" she says sharply. "Those people must be already frightened, and you want me to distribute this?"
"Yes," L muses. "On second thoughts, please have Watari deliver a copy of that statement to every police station in Clare. The public are probably shaken enough by the incompetence that clearly underpins the first message."
"I was thinking more that they'd feel abandoned," she says through gritted teeth. She's been much shorter with him since her husband left. L thinks she partially blames him.
Incorrectly, of course. He is in no way responsible for R's life decisions.
"In that case, please add this. L will contact you if and when you truly need her help."
"Her?"
L smiles to himself.
"We must keep up the enigma after all. In communications with the general public, I tend to refer to myself as being of either gender, as well as from various cultural and religious backgrounds. I also believe I once purported to be a paraplegic."
"And what about that time you claimed to be Batman?" Rae says boredly. "Or was that really just a rumour?"
"Fine," N says. "Understood. I will do that immediately."
"Thank you," L says politely.
He listens to her footsteps getting fainter down the hall, and then turns to his Shinigami.
"For the record - not that you could be considered as any sort of viable record - but for the record, I have yet to announce myself as a fictional character."
"I see," Rae says thoughtfully. "To be honest, if I had to assign you a fictional character, I'd go for...hmm. Lady Macbeth. Or maybe Catherine Earnshaw."
L rolls his eyes.
"Do those two have anything in common? Other than both being female, and dying tragically?"
The god of death grins at him nastily, clearly indicating it thought that both traits fitted L perfectly.
"I mean, couldn't I at least be Sherlock Holmes?" L asks idly.
"Miss Marple, and that's my final offer," Rae maintains.
"Done," L says, smirking a little. "In my next letter to the public, I shall confess to being Miss Marple."
You're being very silly, Near-voice informs him.
And it's right. He is. He's...hell, he's fooling around with Rae. Like children. And yes, it's true that none of the others are bothering to converse with him much, mostly because he chastises them for it. But that is as it should be. Conversation is frivolous. Now, he's being frivolous. He doesn't need a Shinigami to talk to. He needs to work. Hone his mind. Train his body. Calculate and pre-empt.
He needs to be L.
That's right.
"No more of this," he says firmly. "I need to work."
"Whatever," Rae says airily. "Some of us don't need to slave away every hour of the day to win our battles."
"I don't see you winning any battles," L remarks. The death note is hidden under his shirt, containing only Rae's name and a scribbled cupcake.
"That's what you th..." the Shinigami trails off and spins around suddenly, to face the door.
"What is it?" L asks, peering through the gaps between its ribs. The doorway is empty.
"I thought there was someone there," Rae says. "I'm sure there was."
"You were mistaken," L says seriously, a comment which the death god seems to be completely unprepared for.
"Yeah," Rae says, sounding unnerved. "I suppose I was."
The two-year mark comes and goes. Christmas comes and goes. The Penbers go off by themselves for the holiday. Last year, the two of them had a little mini-party with Matsuda. They played board games and burned lots of bakery products and laughed at nothing. Even L had joined in for a little while.
This year, L spends Christmas with M, sitting in the office with the lights off and alternating between work and staring stonily out the window. Which is a perfectly appropriate and effective way to spend what is nothing more than another day, and he doesn't miss Matsuda even once.
Really.
L accepts another case after that. A serial killer again, this one targeting attractive teenage girls. He goes to France, then Russia, then France again during his research, and the murderer's methods are impeccable enough that the case is something of a challenge.
Even so, he wraps up the whole thing in fifteen days.
Three more girls die during that time. Their deaths were useful. He could not have caught the killer without them.
If one isn't ruthlessly clinical, then one is prone to human error. Emotion-based error.
L doesn't make errors. He makes calculated sacrifices.
Rae screams at him that he's as bad as the murderer.
The parents don't ask for an apology, and L doesn't offer one.
That's just the way it goes.
They stay in Vancouver for a little while, chasing a big-time fraudster known only as 'Mack'. The case is really too easy for them, but L accepted it for tactical reasons. He chewed through a lot of funds bringing down Yotsuba, and the government is willing to pay a hefty sum for Mack's capture.
N comes to him on the second day.
"Can Raye come out here for a night or two?" she asks politely. "We've been away from home a lot recently, and he -"
"No," says L.
A resignation is a resignation.
N stares at him incredulously.
"May I ask why?"
L taps out a few more words on his keyboard before he answers.
"No, you may not."
L watches her expression flicker between disbelief and anger.
"You're really an asshole, did you know that?" she asks quietly.
"I tell him every day," Rae informs her, ineffectually.
"Try to avoid bringing personalities into our working relationship, please," L murmurs. He really has better things to do right now.
N slams her fist down on his desk.
"Goddamnit!" she shouts.
"Please keep your voice down, this room is not particularly -"
"Don't shush me! You're going too far, L. Do you hear me? You're going too far."
L doesn't understand what she means. He's a genius, and a detective. He always goes exactly far enough, and no more.
He always wins.
Out of the corner of his eye, L sees someone stick their head around the doorway.
"Now look what you've done," he mutters, turning slowly to face the newcomer. "You've brought M into the..."
There's no-one there. And when he runs the few steps between his desk and the door and checks the hallway, there's no-one there, either.
"You too, huh?" Rae asks.
It doesn't happen again until two weeks later, when Watari is driving him to downtown London in order to purchase approximately half a sweetshop and an entire bakery.
The trip is uneventful until they pass one particular block - on the left side of Meppeldorp street - and L is suddenly hit with a tremendous sensation of being observed. Monitored. Spied upon.
But the street is empty. Has always been empty.
Hasn't it?
"Did you see someone there?" Rae asks warily, pointing at where the apparent spectre had been.
Either I'm getting paranoid, he thinks grimly. Or someone is following me. And doing a damn good job of it.
Ninety-six point six three percent chance he's just paranoid.
Of course, last time he thought someone was watching him, it ended in him being glued to an evil Shinigami overlord. So he's not prepared to disregard the other option entirely.
"No," he tells Rae honestly. "I didn't see anything."
R passes him in the corridor, presumably on his way home for the night.
L knows he's presently investigating a couple of possibly corrupt police officers. He also already knows that the whole case is based on nothing, and that R will unfailingly find them to be innocent and disappoint the erratic whistleblower who reported them.
He knows, but only through his own research. Not because R's told him anything.
R tries awkwardly to pretend he doesn't see L until they're almost shoulder-to-shoulder. Then he gives a cold, uncertain smile.
L ignores him.
Conversations with Matsuda aside, the possibility of other supernatural, mythical, or religious creatures is always at the back of L's mind.
If there are death notes, then what else is there? Are there gods from other religions?
Who operates hell, anyway? Who decides who goes free and who stays?
There is clearly some sort of intelligent design to the afterlife. There's no other explanation for any of the things that have happened.
Which means, theoretically, there ought to be someone he can talk to about Mello. But who is the someone? Hades? Pluto? St Peter? Allah? And even if he found out their identity, how would he track them down to bargain for his protégé?
And Mello aside, he thinks hastily, before he gets unnecessarily sad, what else is out there? Are there other invisible things?
Should he be concerned?
No, L thinks. I've got enough to worry about with my own invisible things, right now.
In three months time, they'll be exactly halfway through the five years. Rae seems to be resting for the moment - not trying too hard - but L is certain that once it realises time is running out, it will pull out all the stops. And when that time comes, L needs to be ready. He needs to be psychologically impermeable, physically strong, and mentally unshakeable.
In short, he just needs to keep going exactly the way he's going, and everything will be fine.
All thanks to his inner Near voice.
That's right.
"Do you, Jasmine Michelle Manna, take this man to be your lawful wedded husband?"
The sun is too hot through the stained-glass window, your suit doesn't fit properly, there's glitter in your eyes, and you just want to go home. You'd rather be kidnapped and tortured again than stay here and witness this.
But he asked you to be here, so here you are. Trapped in this place until they drive off into the sunset in their honeymoon car. The church is packed. They only invited friends and family, but Matt is pretty popular, and everyone in the world seems to adore Jasmine. She looks like a princess with her pale, bare shoulders and her hair tied into an elegant and sparkly knot.
She looks right at you when she says 'I do'. Gloating, you're certain. She can't really be as sweet as everyone tells you.
But right here and now, you kinda hope she is. For his sake. As much as you fantasise about him dropping her like a tonne of admittedly attractive bricks and spending the rest of his life hanging out with you, you don't ever, ever want him to be hurt.
And he loves her, so. So you'll try and be as nice to her as you can. You'll continue to pretend you don't hate her. You might as well make an effort for the Jeevases. They're the only people in the world who care what you think, after all.
Jeevases. That's what they are, now. His and hers. A matching set.
It makes you a little sick.
You can feel the chocolate buds melting in your shirt pocket. You know that every single person in the church knows you really shouldn't be here. You're not best man material. You're not 'best' at anything.
"I do," says Matt, and you realise, suddenly, that the priest must have read him his vows while you were daydreaming.
You missed the whole thing. He's smiling at Jasmine. You love him with all your black, pathetic, cold little heart. You'd do anything for him. He is your world, and now someone else is his world, and that's exactly as it should be.
He'll probably never hug you again.
You stare out the window, at the brilliant orange sunset. You can see the horizon, and you wonder if there's anything else out there. If there are other planets, other dimensions, other times and places. You wonder if there's an afterlife. If there's a hell.
Later, when it's all over, when the crowds file out of the church and into cars and then into the big fancy restaurant that Jasmine's parents insisted on paying for. When you've squashed into Dwayne's beat-up, smelly buggy because no one else wanted to ride with you, and when you've discovered there's nothing chocolate at the buffet. When you've dragged yourself into the upmarket co-ed bathroom to unsuccessfully try and clean the sticky brown stain off your shirt.
When you've forever held your peace.
When it's all over, Jasmine finds you.
"Look at you," she says, smiling radiantly. "You're a mess, Mihael."
She's referring to your clothes, not your personality. But the phrase applies to both.
"It's my own fault," you mutter. "You don't need to worry about it."
But she's already fishing a lacy white handkerchief out of her pocket and wetting it in the sink. She's a good woman.
You know that.
Thankfully, you're spared the mortifying experience of her cleaning you up like you're five years old, because Matt sweeps into the bathroom, twirls her around and presses her against the wall.
"There you are, honey."
"Here I am," she beams at him, and then she giggles. Matt kisses her deeply, and you start edging hopefully out of the room. He turns to you as an afterthought.
"Thank you for coming, man," he says, expression flushed and earnest.
"No problem," you say, thickly. You've been at the reception long enough. You could leave now and no one would notice. People would probably be grateful if you left now.
But then they grab you, a hand each, and you're pinned between them.
"You should come and dance with us," Jasmine croons. "It'll be fun."
Actually, you can't imagine anything worse. You'd prefer to drop dead then and there and spend the rest of eternity in the fiery pits of hell.
Sometimes the horizon seems so small. It's been one of those days. You're doubting reality. You do that, when things get really bad. Near once explained that it was because you have at least nine separate psychiatric disorders.
"Do you think there's anything else out there?" you blurt out ineloquently. "Other than this world, I mean?"
Matt blinks at the non-sequiter. He squeezes your shoulder, and part of your melts inside.
He's hers now. You can never forget that.
And it's not like he was ever, ever yours.
Your gaze drops from their faces. Jasmine's dress is made of satin and lace. It perfectly accentuates the curve of her breasts, and pulls in neatly at her waist.
"I don't know," he says brightly. "I'm a little caught up in right now, to be honest."
"That's right," Jasmine agrees. "Why don't you try a little harder, Mihael?"
You're not really sure what she's talking about. You're staring at the way her dress fits snugly over her stomach. More snugly than it did five months ago, when she first tried it on.
You don't want to know. You really don't want to know.
It's not as if Rae has let up on him, far from it. It keeps coming to him with terrorists and murderers, always cleverly and thoughtfully selected so that the world would seem to benefit greatly from their sudden death.
It has also taken to prefacing everything with 'I know you're evil now, but...'.
He's not evil. He's not. Both Rae and N make unpleasant remarks about the dire-sounding cases he turns down, but he's always picked and chosen his jobs. He refuses to become just another freelance detective, just another consultant. He needs to save his strength for the really terrible, impossible things.
Sometimes, Rae still bothers him a little. But he keeps telling himself that it's completely, utterly wrong, and shouldn't be paid any attention. He knows full well it's only trying to make him use the death note for its own means, anyway.
It is the evil one, not him. And it's clever.
It points out the terminal patients when he passes through a hospital, pontificating on an exhausted and ancient-looking woman who is sobbing and begging her nurse to 'jut let her go'.
"Still no," L mouths.
Wouldn't a dying person be considered to be 'on death row' and therefore invalid in your quest, anyway? he wonders.
"You think you're so tough, don't you?" Rae says bitterly. "You think you're completely oblivious to pain and suffering now."
Not oblivious. Just sensible.
"That's okay," the Shinigami continues, grinning suddenly. "I know you. You can't keep up the tough-guy act forever. You'll crumble, soon, and when you do, I'll be right here."
L smiles to himself.
He's never going to crumble. Never.
They wind up in Washington on the heels of an international terrorist. N manages to catch the woman entirely by herself, and jokes that she doesn't need L any more.
L, purely out of curiosity, goes to visit the Tracking Library again.
He's only been there twice before. Most recently, he went just after Mello died but failed to turn up on L's doorstep. It was then that he discovered that both Mello and Light were in hell.
And the first time he went, well. That was to check up on her.
She was in hell too. He rested easier after that.
But, the thing is, now he knows that people have a chance. That someone in hell might be released. And that's both heartening and frightening.
Not that he's overcome with emotion. Far from it. He simply wishes to be able to plan ahead effectively.
So he goes to the library again. To check. Because if any of them have been redeemed, he should probably know.
And maybe he should check up on Matsuda, too. For posterity's sake. Nothing more.
The library isn't situated in the best part of town, and he sees the filthy little alleyways and slumlike buildings bordering on the grounds as soon as Watari drops him off.
"Please come back for me in half an hour," L instructs, before closing the door. He heads for the ice-creamery next door. He needs sugar before he can do anything else.
"I don't understand," Rae tells him. "Why have you come here? Has someone else died that you want to know about?"
L glances at it.
"I wish to find out if those I know to be in hell continue to be in hell," he says succinctly.
"Uh, I think hell is pretty permanent," Rae informs him, as if he's being stupid. "It is hell, after all."
So there are things that even you don't know, L notes. How interesting. All of that boasting about how the king is able to save humans from hell, and you don't even know about redemption?
Why would the Shinigami keep their future king in the dark?
Another test, perhaps?
"Maybe you are right," L concedes. "Still, we are here. I might as well check."
"I think you're crazy," Rae says, narrowing it's eyes at him. "No, wait. I think you're cheating."
"Cheating?"
Rae folds its arms sulkily.
"You really don't know anything, do you? The Tracking Library is a special zone. Only humans can go in or out."
L stares up at it.
"You can't come in?"
"What excellent powers of deduction you have," the death god sneers. "Yes, that's correct."
"Maybe I should just spend the next two and a half years in there," L says thoughtfully. "Some peace and quiet would be nice. Congratulations, by the way. It's our halfway anniversary. I didn't get you anything."
"Dick," Rae says under its breath.
"You really have been here too long. You're learning human curse words."
L stops murmuring under his breath for a moment and turns to the perplexed-looking ice cream vendor.
"I'd like a triple, please. Mint chocolate, toffee, and bubblegum. And extra strawberries. And extra nuts. And extra fudge. And extra chocolate topping. And extra caramel topping. And a spoon. And a wafer. Actually, can I have two ice-creams?"
The vendor stares at him with his mouth open, before rolling his eyes, muttering something about 'bloody gothic kids', and scooping his dessert.
"I love American ice cream," L comments, mostly to Rae. "It's just the right balance of sweet and creamy. I could eat it all day, every day, for the rest of my life, and not regret a thing."
"I will remind you of that when you're morbidly obese."
"Why? Is that likely to happen in the next thirty months?"
Before L can actually procure his ice-cream, he's interrupted by a wheezing, terrified sort of scream from the nearby alleyway.
"Now what?" Rae grumbles.
"One moment," L tells the vendor, and goes to investigate.
He finds an elderly-looking man curled up on the footpath. Beside him is an overturned wheelchair, one wheel still spinning uselessly in the air. Beneath him is a trickle of blood, and there is a large gash on his forehead.
A few seconds later, L spots the club on the ground by his feet.
"What happened?" L asks him, eye slowly scanning the area. There are throngs of people milling around the library. His attackers could have gone in any direction.
"I don't understand," he wheezes. "Th-they said they w-w-wouldn't hurt me if I gave them all my m-money."
He's shaking, and his eyes look absolutely terrified. L shakes his head.
A petty mugging certainly isn't up to his calibre.
"I'll call an ambulance for you," he offers. "And the police. One moment."
He steps further into the alley to help block out the noise, turns his back on the old man, and pulls out his mobile phone.
Approximately twenty five seconds later, something big and blunt connects with his skull, and the whole word goes black.
When L wakes up, he's being dragged out of an unfamiliar car by two broad-shouldered, suit-clad men. He deduces from the way his body doesn't react to his brain that he's also been sedated.
No reason to panic. He's trained himself in techniques of still being functional while being chemically impaired.
"So, not really a hurt little old man, are you?" he slurs, as the person in question emerges from the drivers' seat. The wound on his face has magically disappeared, and he looks younger than L originally estimated, maybe in his late fifties.
Damn.
L has no excuse, none at all. He should have picked up on this. He should have picked up on all of it, it should have been easy. The clues were all there, the way the blood didn't clot right, the angle of the wheelchair, the way the man spoke. He should have picked up on it.
Too preoccupied with Mello, and Rae, and the Shyster, weren't you?
He should never be preoccupied. Never.
"I don't understand," he says, as diplomatically as he can manage. "Why have you abducted me?"
He needs to know who they think he is. His hands are bound behind his back, quite adeptly. No easy way to undo the ties, even for an escape artist such as himself.
Which means he's dealing with a professional.
"An eye for an eye," the man says simply, and L is momentarily stunned to have his own line fed back to him. "Take him inside, gentlemen."
The building is huge, twenty-seven stories, and not one single sign of life. No cars in the parking lot. No lights on in any of the windows. Nobody hurrying around the lobby. Empty. Dead. Abandoned.
And there isn't another building within half a mile of it.
As expected, then.
He presses his elbow to his jeans pocket. If he can just hit the right button to make a call to Watari, he ought to be fine. But his captor whips around as soon as he moves, and snarls at him.
"I don't think so," he says acidly, grabbing L's phone and throwing it to the ground. L watches it skitter across the polished floor.
"Good god, Lawliet. What have you gotten yourself into this time?" Rae enquires cheerfully.
Yes, I bet you're enjoying this. Let me guess, you're going to try and convince me to use the death note to save myself?
Well, that's not going to work.
The old man pulls a blindfold roughly over his eyes. L needs to know why he was targeted. There is only a zero point eight zero percent chance they know who he really is, but there's a thirteen point four seven percent chance they've connected him with L, somehow.
They march him up a long flight of stairs. If the average estimation of two landings per floor is assumed, then he winds up on floor twenty-two. Then he's pulled in a new direction, onto soft carpeted floor, in a darker area - a small room, probably - that smells musty and disused.
Blinded and sedated. This ought to be a new challenge.
Of course, there's always the off-chance he might die.
"If I were you, I'd be worried about being violated right about now," Rae says gleefully. "This all seems to be meticulously thought out."
You joke about such things, do you? L thinks. And yet you pretend to care for the victims of crime.
Even if you genuinely thought I was evil, believing that it is okay to wish evil upon people - simply because they are also evil - makes you even worse. You ought to know that.
Or maybe you don't understand the story of Light Yagami as well as you claimed.
L hears the faint shing of a pocket knife being opened, and feels a cord being cut behind his back. His hands are momentarily freed, separated, and shoved against the wall, immediately fastened into what feels like stainless steel shackles.
They didn't kill him when he was unconscious, so they must want something from him. And they haven't removed his belt. He still has those two advantages, if nothing else.
"That's it," says an unfamiliar voice, probably one of the goons. "Everything is in place, boss."
"You may leave," he hears the older man mutter, and two sets of heavy footsteps make their way back to the door.
So he doesn't want to talk in front of the hired help, L surmises. Then this is thirty point two seven percent likely to be a personal matter.
L tries to recall the older man's face with as much clarity as possible. He has a neatly-trimmed goatee, grey hair, and a pointed but relatively handsome face. Brown eyes. Based on his accent, he probably grew up in or around New York. The clothes he's wearing are expensive and tailor-fitted, so he clearly has money.
He is also entirely unfamiliar. The more L turns over what he knows, the more he's convinced that he's never met this guy before.
Which means nothing. He hasn't met a lot of his clients. And he hasn't personally approached or contacted a lot of the criminals he's arrested.
But still, it's unsettling.
And the sun is still up. It probably hasn't been half an hour. The others won't be missing him yet.
"Who are you?" he asks again, when he's sure they're alone.
The man takes a few light steps towards him and stops.
"Well, well," he says, disliking radiating from every syllable. "What's wrong? Could it be you're in a situation where you can't identify the bad guy, L?"
"Elle? Isn't that a girl's name?" L asks. It could still be a trap. This guy is unlikely to be one hundred percent certain of his identity.
He hears the slap more than feels it. He trained himself to be impervious to pain a long time ago. The side of his face heats up and stings.
"Don't play games with me," the man growls. "I know who you are. You're the detective known as L. Supposedly elusive, but I have to say, you were pretty damn easy to find. I suppose you weren't expecting anyone to have inside information?"
Inside information.
L runs through the possibilities quickly.
There is a thirty-seven point nine one percent chance that R has betrayed me. He has significant principles, but he's angry, and may no longer feel any loyalty towards the team.
The likelihood of treachery from N is ten point eighty-three. Someone would need to convince her that their cause was of a greater good than mine, and that would be difficult.
M is only one point zero eight percent likely to betray me. He would only be swayed if he was convinced that someone was or had access to Mello. Obviously, he wouldn't be easily fooled.
There is a point zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero five percent chance that Watari has betrayed me. Not negligible, but close.
Which leaves Soichiro as the only other one who knows my identity. Unless someone new has died. Near, perhaps, or Aizawa.
Or have we simply made a mistake? Has someone tapped into our network, or traced our phone calls?
"Have you been following me?" L asks out loud.
"What, didn't you even notice?" the man jeers. He sounds a little like Rae.
"It's been this guy all along?" the Shinigami asks. It sounds a little disappointed.
"In Vancouver?" L probes. "And in London? You've been following me for months?"
"I've been following you for about four hours," the man says. "Guess you must have a lot of people after you."
"Hmm," Rae says.
"All right," L says softly. "Presuming I am L, what is your quarrel with me?"
The man hits something wooden and hollow, probably with his fist.
"My daughter," he grits, sounding as if the words cost him dearly.
Hm. So it was a loved one. That's why you don't seem familiar.
"What did I do to your daughter?"
Honestly, it seems like everyone wants revenge on him, these days. It's crude, and almost boring. If he were a lesser man, it would be disheartening. The only people he harms are those who have broken the law. Yet there's always someone complaining because the mass-murderer who just got a life sentence was their dearly loved grandmother, or because he didn't catch the terrorist in time to save their brother.
Everyone is so selfish.
"It's what you didn't do!" the man shouts, and L can imagine his face reddening, a vein in his forehead starting to throb. He's angry. "You let her die!"
"Unfortunately, in the field of detective work, innocent people are bound to die," L says. He considers this for a moment and then adds. "However, I am sorry for your loss."
The man hits him properly then, right in the stomach. L doubles over a little, reflexively, struggling for breath.
"Bound to die? Bound to die? I see. And you won't help anyone, is that right? Even if they work for you?"
L hesitates.
She's worked for me?
"Who are you?" he asks again.
"Marvin," the man says, barely a whisper, right next to L's face. His breath reeks of cigarettes and sourness. "Marvin Kenwood. And her name... was Mary."
"Wedy," L says, finally making sense of it. "You're Wedy's father."
"That's right," the man says acidly. "Wedy's father. My little girl looked up to you. She did everything you ever asked for her. She risked her life for you, over and over again. And where did it get her? In the end, you couldn't even be arsed to phone."
Marvin, he knows, is a thief too. Taught Wedy everything she ever knew. Neither of them have ever been caught by the police.
"But me, I sat with her," he continues, his voice dangerously quiet. "I held her hand. I helped them bandage where the pieces of her head had been shot off. I was there. The whole time, I was there. Unlike you. Some boss you turned out to be. You disgust me."
"I know how you feel," Rae says, sympathetically.
"She never woke up," L says, frowning. "Why would it have mattered who was there?"
"It mattered to her memory," Marvin rages, hitting him again. "It mattered to her. Her boss, her own boss, who's cause she died for. Twice!"
"She made her own decisions," L gasps. "You're angry because you're grieving, and you want someone to blame. I understand, but this is pointless."
"You don't understand, do you, you bastard? You don't know what it's like to have kids."
Briefly, treacherously, L thinks of Mail...of M.
L hears two rapid thumps, and deduces that Marvin has fallen to his knees. Then, L would probably be able to kick him from here. But with no way to remove the blindfold, that would be fruitless.
Better to keep him talking, then. The others will notice, sooner or later.
"I was so happy when I found out she was here, with me," Marvin whispers. "I...it doesn't seem like that long ago when she was a child. I raised her on my own, you know. Her mother left us and married a Russian man before she was six years old."
Six years old.
It's not an age L likes to think about.
"She was such a smart kid," he continues. "She always used to bring me home things she'd stolen from school. When she was twelve, she drove home in the principal's car. No one ever caught her. That's how good she was."
I don't really see how this is relevant to anything at all, L thinks.
"Even as an adult, she looked after me. Oh, she drew me a picture of you. Said to contact this man if anything happened to her and I was in trouble. She thought so much of you. You monster."
"I see," L says. He wishes he could put his thumb against his lips. As it is, his deductive powers are down by thirteen point one five percent because he can't hunch.
But his legs are free.
"No you don't," Marvin says sadly. "But you will. I'm going to show you how much it hurts to lose the one you love."
Torture? Really? I wonder if you'll be as good at it as Watari.
"An eye for an eye," the man repeats. "I'm going to take someone valuable from you."
Someone valuable? Well, it would be a shame to lose N. I'm sixty-seven point nine three percent certain you won't be able to get your hands on M no matter what you do.
But to be perfectly honest, no one is really valuable to me.
And love? I don't love anyone. I'm L.
"Of course, based on what Mary told me, there is only one person in the whole world that you value. So."
How naive, L muses. I do not value myself above everyone else.
Do I?
"I'll be doing the world a favour, anyway, by getting rid of self-serving scum like you," Marvin says vehemently.
"Because you believe that, as a criminal, you are in some way morally superior to me?" L queries calmly.
"I don't kill people."
Not all thieves stay thieves, L thinks.
Shyster. Blood. That boy.
Electric chair.
He shakes his head.
She's not here, she's in hell. She'll always be in hell. It's over. It was over a long time ago. Stop thinking about it.
Get a grip on yourself, his inner Near voice commands.
Yes. He is fine. He is, effectively, gripped.
And also shackled to a wall. Which is quickly becoming a problem, because there is a forty-nine point two zero percent chance that Marvin doesn't want to bargain, that Marvin simply wants him damaged. Or dead.
"Fine. What do you intend to do to me?"
"Oh...I'm not going to do anything," Marvin says, suddenly smug. "I'm just going to mosey on out of here and go home."
Sudden changes in mood. He is manic. He's grieving. He's not really in charge of his own actions. He's M, trying to blow up the Tracking Library all over again.
And there's nothing L can do for him.
"But, you see, the situation itself is going to put you in a bit of trouble," Marvin continues. "See, this whole building is rigged with just enough explosives to bring the whole thing down. The grounds outside are big enough that no innocent people should be hurt. I'm no psychopath, after all."
He gives a hysterical little laugh that belies his last statement.
This is what happens when people are ruled by their emotions, L thinks, pityingly.
"When are they set to go off?"
"In fifteen minutes," Marvin replies. "Of course, since you're such a genius, I'm sure you'll have no trouble freeing yourself and escaping. Or maybe your posse will come and save you. Or maybe not."
In fifteen minutes? L thinks. No, I don't think they will.
And neither do you.
Marvin pats his shoulder.
"Goodnight, L," he says, and L can hear the smile in his voice. "Good luck!"
He hears the door slam, and he knows he is alone.
tbc
a/n:
+ sorry my updating has gotten so slow - I don't seem to be able to churn this drivel out quite so easily any more. aiming for one update a week.
+ thank you, thank you.