notes/warnings
+ swearing
+ loads of internal monologuing
+ this was intended to be part of a larger chapter, but the whole thing just got too big. I fail at fic management.
Concern
When L wakes, he is immediately aware of two things. One, his stomach hurts. And two, his head hurts.
Dear god, what happened last night?
He remembers the Williams' case, and then Mail with a bottle of wine, and then. Oh no. And then he had the bottle of wine. And then Rae got really angry about something, and there are big blank gaps in L's memory about everything in between. He's not even certain as to how he actually got into his bed.
How could he have been so repulsively stupid? What has he given away? To Rae. To anyone. Have his powers of deduction been permanently reduced? He's never even ingested alcohol before.
Has he given Mail some sort of horrible new habit with which to destroy himself?
Someone thumps on his door. The sound jars horribly, sparking a white-hot jolt behind his eyes.
"What?" he asks bleakly. He feels both disgusting and exhausted.
The door opens to reveal one irritable Naomi Penber. Of course. No-one else would dare to wake him at this hour of the...afternoon.
"I have absolutely no idea what has gotten into you," she tells him sharply. "And right now, I don't really care. Your figurative son has been violently ill for the past three hours, and keeps asking me to kill him. The two of you got drunk last night, I presume."
"Yes, that is correct," L agrees, ashamedly.
"Then you need to get up, go downstairs, and deal with Mail like the responsible adult you pretend to be," she orders, crossly.
He is technically her boss, and technically this is none of her business, and technically his head may actually fall off if he ceases to be horizontal.
But he also knows that she has more common sense than any other member of his team, and if she says he needs to go to Mail, then he needs to go to Mail.
"Leave it with me," he says, in the most authoritative tone he can muster. After she leaves, he allows himself three more minutes of blissful solitude before gritting his teeth and dragging himself from his bed.
He was emotionally vulnerable, yesterday. He admitted to caring for - no, loving - Mail, and he drank himself into a stupor out of some misguided notion of support, and he is pretty sure he managed to severely upset Rae, and there are a whole lot of things he would rather not face right now. But he is L, and he has a responsibility to this world as long as he lives in it. He's had his celebration. He has had his night of excess. No more of that, now.
He staggers downstairs and orders a breakfast of painkillers and weak tea before heading to Mail's bathroom. The younger man is hunched over his toilet, possibly looking more miserable than he ever has before.
"I want to stop feeling," he whispers, as soon as L enters the room. "L. I've had enough. This is enough."
"It's just dehydration," L explains. "If you continue to be unable to keep water down, I will have Watari give you intravenous fluids. You should return to your normal level of health by this evening, at the latest."
"My head is thumping," Mail tells him. "Dear fuck. I want it to stop. I want him back. I want to go home!"
In all of L's life, he has never truly had a home. He suspects Mail probably feels the same.
No. Mail doesn't feel the same. He built his home around another person. That is the principle difference between the two of them.
"It's all right," L murmurs.
Honestly, he has no idea what to do. Or what to say. He's never been one for providing comfort. He's never been the nurturing kind. He doesn't have any friends for a reason.
"I'm so tired," Mail tells him dejectedly. "So long. So hard. I don't even know what the fuck I'm bringing up, because I haven't eaten anything in like a year, and this stuff sure doesn't taste like wine."
L frowns, and reaches a decision. He shuffles across the cool, tiled floor and crouches down right behind Mail, wrapping his arms around the younger man.
"Don't do that," Mail growls, struggling. "Don't touch me. Fuck."
Memories from last night come flooding back in vivid detail, when L himself used similar phrases numerous times. His skin crawls under his clothes, but he's safe here, and Rae isn't here, and he's supposed to be focusing on his protégé.
"I have earned this much," he replies confidently. "I look after you."
Mail claws at his hands.
"You don't understand," he says wretchedly. "I don't want anyone else...to..."
"I know," L replies, trying not to focus on just how fragile and sharp Mail feels beneath his arms. "I know. It's just today. Just until you are well again."
Mail turns to look at him. His face is paper-white. His dark blue eyes look empty and tired. The sheer pain in his expression provokes a visceral response from L, who pulls him closer. The younger man sighs, defeated, and ceases his struggling. L doesn't loosen his grip. He probably needs the contact. It has been so long.
"Okay," Mail replies unhappily. "Just for now."
L still has some gaps in his memory of last night, but he is comforted by Rae's baleful silence. If he had given away anything important, Rae would be treating him with smugness and delight.
Therefore, the results of last night - as far as he can deduce - are that his Shinigami now knows he is both ticklish and socially inept.
Nothing too damaging, really. Rae probably knew at least one of those things already.
"I've been thinking about it," he says softly, sipping his tea. "I've been thinking about it since my headache stopped, but I still haven't come to any conclusions."
Brown.
"I don't need your fucking help, Lawliet!"
Red. L blinks. So fast. Why does it happen in a matter of seconds sometimes, and at other times, last for minutes on end? What is the trigger?
Rae reads his expression far too well.
"Did it just happen again?" it demands.
"Briefly," L concedes. "I think you should take me to the Shinigami king. Since I am not interested in impressing or pleasing him, I might be able to find out more information than he is willing to give you."
"The king would eat you for breakfast," Rae replies darkly. "Or possibly for dessert."
"Dessert would make more sense," L agrees. "I probably taste relatively sweet."
Rae is staring at him intently again, as if it seeks to read something right off his skin. L shifts in his seat, still feeling a little uncomfortable.
Nobody touches him, damnit.
"Is there a possibility that you have taken ill?" he enquires, trying to direct the conversation back to Rae's apparent weakness and gain the upper hand once more.
"Gods do not become ill," Rae tells him derisively.
"But is there an analogue of being ill?" L probes. "Can Shinigami become possessed? Poisoned? Can they go mad? Can they be rerouted, somehow? It isn't as if your kind is absolutely immortal, after all?"
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"The death notes," L replies simply. "You need them to live, yes?"
Rae smirks.
"That is true, right now. But when I succeed the throne, I will be sustained by my subjects. Every time a Shinigami kills a human to extend its own life, a small amount of that life force is automatically redistributed directly to the king."
"Taxes?" L asks, somewhat amused. "How very feudal."
"We are a monarchy, L."
"Yes. Perhaps you ought to think about upgrading to a democracy, or some sort of republic. After all, the Shinigami realm is rotting, isn't it? Something must be changed."
"It will not rot once I am king," Rae replies with conviction. "When that day comes, everything will change for the better."
"I believe, from what I know of your ideals, that the human world will suffer," L muses. "But perhaps at that cost, you will be able to save your own world. I neither approve nor disapprove."
"I disapprove of you."
"So immature."
L reaches for a cupcake, and then remembers that he is not yet recovered enough to stomach sugar. He places it back on the tray forlornly.
"So you are not ill," he continues. "Huh. But I think we can safely assume two things right now, with ninety-two and ninety-one percent certainty, respectively."
"Yes?"
"One," L says, counting delicately on his fingers, "we can assume that what happened with Grace's name was not something brought about by the gorgon."
"I suppose," Rae replies grudgingly.
"And two, we can assume that this is not my fault, despite what you said last night."
"I'm surprised you remember anything about last night."
"Believe me," L says sombrely. "I will be staying away from your hands for quite some time."
Rae snickers a little, slowly returning to its old self.
"And why is this definitely not your fault?"
"Because you have told me you can only be adversely affected by humans you care about," L informs it. "This was further confirmed when your eyes were weakened around Grace, whom you clearly had feelings for. Now, there is no possibility of you having feelings for me-"
"Absolutely not."
"Quite. Therefore, either there is an internal cause, or...you have fallen for another human, who is presently affecting you."
"I don't fall for humans. I don't fall for anyone."
"What about Grace?"
"She was a frightened little girl. I wasn't in love with her! I was trying to protect her!"
"But you claim to be trying to protect all the good people in the world, yet you did not become impaired until you met Grace. Therefore, she must have been at least somewhat special."
"You're theorising again," Rae snaps vehemently. "I don't love anybody. I care for everybody, end of story."
"Somewhat special," L reiterates. And therein lies his possible salvation. If there is someone new who is important to Rae, then. Well, Rae might fall for that person completely.
And be obliterated.
But if, if Rae is a human stuck in hell, then L cannot stand for it to be harmed because of him. And if it is being tested, then...
Then what is he supposed to do? The test must be to make him use the note. If he doesn't kill anyone else, he chooses to doom this person to hell for all eternity?
No, he cannot be responsible for that.
So…what to do, then?
There's only a six percent chance Rae is human. He needs more evidence. He still has a year to decide what he ought to do.
"I'm not like you," Rae informs him. "I don't have favourites."
"Hm?"
"Do you want to sleep with him?"
L gapes.
"What…what are you saying?"
Rae grins and moves closer. Reflexively, L leans away from it.
"Your favourite. You're attracted to him, aren't you? You're just trying to wear down his defences until he'll let you in."
"You are sick," L tells it, horrified. "I would never-"
"Just like you would never kill someone," Rae continues. "Except, wait, you attempted to kill me. In cold blood. And now you're fucking with my eyes."
"I will not violate Mail, and I am not attempting to sabotage you," L whispers, absolutely furious. "You have spent so long gazing out the window, Shinigami. Why don't you look around you and gain some perspective!"
It is not human. It cannot be human. He does not need to worry, because it is nothing more than an evil Shinigami. It is not his problem. It will not fall, because it doesn't have a damn heart to begin with. He clambers out of his chair. He has better things to do than sit here and be insulted.
He'll find a case. He'll find something. And then he'll solve it on his own, too.
"Off you go, then," Rae tells him nastily. "Flounce out of the room. Just remember, Miss Marple. Remember this."
It is suddenly right behind him, a bony hand resting either side of his ribcage. L freezes and sucks in a breath. He can deal with this. He is sober, now. He has trained himself to deal with this.
"That is all," Rae says, releasing him. "Just don't forget, Lawliet. If you start tampering with my eyes again, I will make your life very, very difficult."
As the new year begins, they hit another slump. Presumably the criminals of the world have worn themselves out in the festive rush. Things are a little tense at L's base. Absolutely no-one is on speaking terms with him. Mail seems to be unnerved by his recent display of affection, Rae skulks around and mutters underneath its breath, and Naomi isn't bothering to conceal her disgust at his actions on Christmas day.
Both she and her husband are also becoming increasingly convinced that he is unfit for his job. He knows. They are not as subtle as they might think.
He isn't sure that he's fit for his job, actually.
Which is probably why he takes the very first case that comes along, and refuses to let anyone else help him. It's nothing, really. Two gory murders, both rich and successful young men. Any sufficiently-competent detective inspector could probably solve it with ease.
But he needs to prove a point. He needs to sink or swim on his own. Because whether he stays or leaves, what he needs right now is certainty.
Naomi spends four hours sparring with Watari, and eventually staggers to bed, physically and mentally exhausted.
Raye is already snoring, out like a metaphorical light, and she is glad for the silence. He weighs her down, sometimes. He wears her out, just like the others. Sometimes she feels as if she adopted him, instead of marrying him.
He wanted so many things from her, once she was dead and with him again. He wanted children, and home-cooked meals, and crackling fireplaces, and subservience. And she loved him enough that she might have said yes. Yes to everything. Yes to being nothing more than Mrs Penber for the rest of her days.
Yes to safety.
But then L came along, and changed everything, in his usual shuffling, unobtrusive way. Even Raye didn't try to compete with how she felt about L. With how much she wanted to work with him. When he had offered her a job – by way of a polite little letter that turned up inside her triple-deadlocked hatchback – even Raye hadn't dared to dissuade her.
Maybe he thought that if she was forced to choose one or the other, she would leave him and go with L. And honestly, maybe she would have. Raye is her stability, her husband, and her home. But L…L is her dream job. Her career. Everything she wants in her life. Fighting crime, saving innocent people, saving less-than-innocent people, saving people. Making the world a slightly better place with every second that she lives.
She was never particularly enamoured with the idea of procreation, when all she had to look forward to was a big dusty house and menial chores. But now she is living in a dangerous, knife-edge world, filled with geniuses and murderers and mayhem. Where her own identity is the most frightening thing in the world. Where intellect is the only thing that lets anyone sleep soundly in their bed at night. Where they might all be killed at a second's notice. And it is here, right here, that she wouldn't mind having a tagger-along.
Because this world, this world right here, this is the one she wants to teach about. As selfish as it is, she wants a child that is more her than Raye. She wants to raise someone to be intelligent, brilliant, logical, and strong. It is the best start to life she can possibly imagine giving.
In essence, she wants to take Raye's warm, domestic world, and wrap it tightly around L's beautifully nightmarish world, and make her home in both of them. Yes, that would be perfect.
Raye is a sensible future.
L is her idol.
Was her idol.
He isn't any more, of course. She has no inclination to become a burned-out, overtired, emotionally-defunct, lonely hero-of-yesteryear. She has watched him become systematically decimated, by murder, by death, by guilt. By Light. By Matsuda. By everything in between. L's is not the sort of job that one grows old in. L's is the sort of job that one has for five, maybe ten years, and gives up. Moves on.
But no. He will stay until it ends him. She has seen a similar thing happen before. Tiny, fragile dogs, that are obsessed with chasing the wheels of fast-moving cars on the highway.
Inevitably, one day there will be a flat dog on the road. And the cars will fly past, and the drivers will not even notice. And nothing will have been achieved.
She cannot comprehend his most recent depression. In a way, she blames herself. She is certain that he can read her disapproval. He makes mistakes. He gets himself kidnapped. He teaches small children to swear. He gets Mail drunk. At times, it almost seems as if he simply does not think before he acts.
And that…that is such a far cry from the man she knew. The man she admired. The man she practically wanted to be.
It is time to stop chasing the tyres, my friend, she thinks wryly. She knows Watari wants to see him settled. She would like to see him settled, too. His identity is still protected enough. He could become an ordinary citizen without too much retribution. Better to quit with his reputation still intact, right?
And that is the other irritating thing. L is powering through cases, solving them at least seven percent more efficiently and four percent more accurately than he ever has before. Mail crunched the numbers yesterday.
And yet, he seems almost unhappy with his results. As if…as if he thinks he isn't trying hard enough. Or as if someone else is solving the cases instead of him. But they aren't. She doesn't understand.
There is a lot she doesn't understand. Maybe it's time to say something.
She is his deputy, after all.
Raye rolls over, muttering something about guns, and hugs her from behind. Naomi touches his hand.
It's not as if she doesn't love him.
It's just…this. All of this. This whole situation is unbalanced, somehow, and she has no idea what she needs to do to set it right.
But she's going to damn well try.
L works. He works, and works, and works. Rae ignores him, and finds its own cases to solve. He fills the silence with evidence, with data and details, and times and places and hints. He works like he used to, when he was young and actually enthusiastic about what he did.
He works like it might actually bring Mello back.
The murderer is crafty in unorthodox ways. The motive is uncomplicated; a hatred of straight, white, successful men is not exactly an unusual thing. There are no concealed messages, no demands made, no strange symbols. There are no implausible break-ins, or inconceivable methods of death. Knife to the heart is about as basic as it gets.
There is simply… no trace. No witnesses, no fingerprints, nothing left behind. L is playing cat-and-mouse with a murderer who has nothing to prove, and nothing to set him apart from anyone else.
No psychological games. This is a maths equation. Evidence-gathering. Nothing more.
He can do this.
Rae dumps a stack of paper on his desk. L can tell from just one glance that there are at least three separate cases in there.
Damnit.
"Done," it hisses, managing to sound both disgusted and smug at the same time. "I'm leaving for an hour. Protect the note."
The threat is unspoken. L nods just once, and does not meet its eyes. There is a forty-two percent chance that it is going out to gather evidence, which means it is working on yet another case, which means…
Four.
Hell.
L lets himself rest his forehead against the desk. The wood is polished and cool. His instincts tell him to check through Rae's reports in detail – especially since he will have to present the findings as his own – but he feels heavy and listless, and he is tired of sleuthing.
Him. Tired of sleuthing.
He might as well face it. There is no point him verifying Rae's work, because the Shinigami runs rings around him. Outclasses him, in every possible way. When it leaves him - if for some murky, inexplicable purpose it leaves him alive – the others will quickly realise that he has become an empty shell. Incapable.
He flips through the pages delicately. The Decreaux case. Eight members from the same, affluent, extended family were found dead and floating in a nearby river. Rae apparently followed their butler and witnessed him killing the most recent victim. Simple. It has handwritten a little note about where the man stashed his dirty, bloodstained clothes, so that L will have evidence.
So that Rae remains a secret. So that L can take the credit.
The Lennard case. Two sisters disappeared without a trace from the same crowded town square six years apart. The case is only really worthy of L's attention because of the media hype surrounding it.
Rae has extracted a chat-room log from the computer of the supposed parents, proving the whole scenario was an elaborate hoax. The sisters are alive, well, and living abroad.
Well, that will be easy. L can simply say he hacked into the computer himself, remotely. He droops in his chair. This is possibly the most demoralising experience of his life. He is relying on someone else to do his job. All of his job. He has narrowed his own murder case down to five individuals, all of which are presently floating around the ten-percent suspicion mark.
Hardly progress.
And the worst part is, he doesn't believe that Rae is intentionally doing this to hurt him. The Shinigami is simply expressing its interest in human cases, and justice. It is trying to help. And it is displacing him.
He glances at the third case. The recently-infamous Londonderry Strangler, responsible for raping and murdering at least twenty-eight people. Rae has linked every case back to a young doctor named Arthur Griddon. The unusual footprints found at the scene of every crime match Griddon's expensive imported boots. And he has no alibi.
Perfect. L wants to cry, he is so frustrated.
But no. He has more important things to do. An entire hour free from Rae cannot simply be squandered, not at this time.
He hops out of his chair and pads across the carpet and out of his room, seeking the company of his oldest and most loyal employee.
He is not yet enough of a fool to waste the opportunities he is given.
"Watari?"
The older man lifts his head, smiles mildly at his employer, and waits. Twenty-five years of working for L have taught him that it is pointless to attempt to anticipate requests.
Unless, of course, such requests are associated with sweets. He is well-prepared for those. But L would not bother to visit Watari in person for something so very basic. And an empty sugar bowl would not cause him to wear such a lost, destitute expression. Something else is wrong.
Watari is getting heartily sick of L looking so sad.
God knows he doesn't deserve it. Whatever he is going through right now, has been going through for years, he doesn't deserve it.
Watari doesn't know what it is, exactly. But he will not ask. L will tell him when he needs to know.
"What is it, L?"
There are enough people arguing with him as it is. Enough people debating his decisions, arguing his tactics, and questioning his resolve. Ever since he stopped working alone – the very first sign of defeat, of old age, of exhaustion – L has always reiterated the same thing. He needs people like Naomi and Mail. People who can think for themselves.
Now, Watari theorises that L is using them as a failsafe. As a crutch. He is frightened.
And Watari will expertly hold his tongue. He will hide his sympathy behind an obliging smile and a tray of cake. He will not say the things he wants to say, because L does not want a reward. He does not want a comfortable ending. He wants to go on forever.
Sometimes Watari honestly believes that L doesn't know how to be happy.
Touta Matsuda had been a good influence. Watari wishes he had stayed with the team for a little longer. He had made L smile, and he had made L safe, if only for a short time.
He ought not be thinking these things. He is getting old, too, but he works within his means. He does not brutalise his mind the way his young employer does. L will burn out before he does, and that is a damn shame, a crying shame. Someone ought to do something.
And Watari knows how well L can read his expression. He knows that L must have some idea of the nature of his recent thoughts. And L will read that, incorrectly, as a sign of disillusionment. Because L never misses an opportunity to judge himself harshly.
Perhaps, then, he ought to speak up. Break the quarter-century silence. Say something.
Say what?
You need to sleep now.
Let your successors take over.
He is gone. You are safe.
I want you to be happy. Have you ever been happy?
Thank you.
This will not always be your responsibility, L. There are others, even if they are not as good as you.
He is gone. He cannot come back.
Let someone protect you for a change.
Do you have any idea how much I admire you?
It will be too late to stop when everybody knows your face.
Do you honestly not realise that they all love you? Even Mail, somewhere in his shrivelled little heart. Because that is the sort of person you are. Why are you so blind to the effect you have on those around you?
He cannot ever, ever, ever, ever, ever come back. I swear.
There are no words. What can be said to a hero of this magnitude?
There is no cajoling the selfless.
"L?"
"I want to retrain myself," L replies evenly, his face sickly in the bright fluorescent lighting.
Watari's perfectly-schooled countenance does not belie the heaviness in his heart. He is a professional, above all else.
"Again, L?"
That is all the protest he will venture. Repeating the question, just once.
Are you certain?
"Yes, again," L says firmly. "I am becoming weak."
There are few things he enjoys less than torturing L. Watari allows himself just a split second to reflect upon this, but apparently it is still too much time for the young man's liking.
"Do you not wish to do this today?" he challenges, his one eye piercing and hollow. "Are you ill? It is quite important that we do this now, you see."
"I am quite healthy," Watari assures him. "I simply–"
"Then have you decided that you would rather work for someone else?" L asks, suddenly quiet. "You have never hesitated before."
He looks so young, standing in the middle of the expensive tiled floor in his worn-out white shirt, shoulders hunched and lips pursed. He looks as though he is preparing to be burned by Watari's answer.
"I will work for you until I am incapable of any useful voluntary motor control," Watari assures him. "Which equipment would you like me to use today?"
"Category two, I believe," L replies, thumbing his lower lip.
Oh. Desensitisation. Surely L knows that criminals rarely, if ever, resort to tickle-torture.
Still. He must have a good reason.
Rae comes back during the final phase of his resistance training and giggles at him briefly, then goes about its business. L, feeling only slightly renewed, researches his case through the night and well into the later hours of the morning. His only company is a giant raspberry torte, which is more than adequate.
It is luck, rather than strategy, that leads him to an unexpected clue around lunch-time. A single ginger hair found on the fourth victim, who was himself most distinctly white-blonde. The man had no known associates with that particular hair colour.
It cuts his suspect list down to one person. One. George Muttby, an outspoken human rights activist who was near the scene of crime for all eight deaths.
Eight. Six more people have died since he started the case. How many of them could a more competent man have saved?
Case closed.
Sometimes L despises himself.
The back of L's head itches. He has been wearing the patch for too long, but he does not wish to take it off.
Not in front of Rae.
He is not bothered by the scarred, uneven, slowly-sinking hole in his face. He has never cared for his own aesthetics. But he does not want to show the Shinigami that weakness.
Which is prideful and silly, because it already knows. It knows what he cannot do. It is there all the time, towering over him him, observing his actions, criticising his thinking, knowing.
He plans to reveal Rae's case findings one-by-one over the next few days, to keep things believable.
He is so unendingly pathetic.
How will he ever save Mello like this?
"So, what do you think?" Rae asks, managing to sound both conversational and derisive at once. "It's good, when you can walk into any building you choose and completely escape notice. When you can follow someone closely for days without having to show cause. When you can fly."
"Does this mean that you admit that you have not usurped me on brains alone?" L asks softly. "That is somewhat encouraging, I suppose."
"Is it? Does it really matter?" Rae jeers. "I am better than you in every possible way. That is all."
"Perhaps."
It is early morning. The sunlight is pale and weak, and barely reaches the corners of the room. He has cramps in his hands, and he isn't exactly sure why. His shirt is so dirty it is almost grey, and his body odour is becoming thoroughly unpleasant.
"Did you even bother to read through my cases?" Rae asks laconically, propping its elbow up on his desk.
"'Skimmed' would probably be a more accurate term."
He has never set much store by flying. Perhaps he sets his sights too low.
"Huh. You're such a freaking lose-"
"And I thoroughly appreciate your help," L adds miserably. "You are very clever, Shinigami. Your work will save a lot of lives."
And that is a good thing, because someone has to. Someone has to do this job, his job, at which he is failing so completely.
Maybe that will be the ultimate outcome – the intended outcome, even – of their time together. Perhaps this is not about the king, or even the Shinigami. Perhaps the world is simply lining up a new L.
And that isn't fair. He chose his successor, damnit. He chose, and then Mello was snatched away from him by a force of nature that he cannot change and he cannot outsmart. And maybe Mello would still be alive and well, had L chosen someone else.
He isn't sure any more.
"You're welcome?" Rae offers, sounding a little bemused by L's sudden, bitter gratitude.
L glances up at the Shinigami. His demon, his curse, his rival. Towering bones, and fire, and blades, and chocolate eyes, and feathers, and…
Oh no. Not again.
"Anytime," he replies steadily. "That is what I am supposed to say according to common etiquette, I believe?"
Rae blinks at him.
"L? It's happening again, isn't it?"
It sounds a little tremulous. Whatever this thing is, L is reasonably convinced that Rae is genuinely frightened of it.
"Yes," he says briskly.
"You're doing it again!"
And here we go, L thinks grimly. Well, no point in dragging this out all day. He gets resolutely to his feet.
"Go on then," he says sharply, holding out his arms. "Go on. Have your vengeance on me, if you truly believe it will fix anything. I know you are desperate to blame me for this. Go on!"
Rae grabs him by the collar of his shirt so that it bunches and pulls tight around his throat, choking him.
"Stop it," it demands shakily. "Stop this. Stop it!"
"I can't."
"It is your fault!"
"I stand by my own hypothesis," L rasps. "It is the fault of whomever you care for now."
"There isn't anyone!"
"How do you know?" L mutters, feeling faint. "Would you know if that boy came back? The one from your nightmares? The one you once had feelings for?"
Rae drops him as if he has become burning hot. And it has suddenly developed a functional nervous system.
"Don't bring him up," it hisses. "And I never…I never…I. You are making ridiculous assumptions."
"As are you," L agrees. "In all of our time together, I have never shown you any malice at all. You have less reason to suspect me than I have to suspect you."
It is apprehensive, this time, rather than raging. Sometimes, its actions are so predictably, utterly human that L cannot help but wonder.
"You are evil," Rae tells him darkly. "That is all the reason that I need."
"If you truly felt that way, you would be an abysmal detective," L replies, touching his throat gingerly. "Therefore, that statement must be a lie."
"Whatever. Why isn't this dissipating?" Rae asks, frantically rubbing at its eye sockets, as if that will help.
Sympathetically, L touches his own dead eye. He knows how it feels. He keeps daydreaming that one day he will wake up and his depth perception will be back.
"I do not know. My knowledge of you, and the laws of the Shinigami world, is not sufficient to allow me to ascertain the exact cure," L replies. "Have you tried ignoring it?"
"You think that if I ignore it for long enough it will set in permanently," Rae wails. "You just want everyone to be debilitated like you!"
"I want you to be silent," L commands, raising his voice. "You are behaving like a child. We are two of the most brilliant sleuths in any realm. We will work this out."
Rae stares at him. The colour of its eyes deepens by at least three shades.
Why? Why now?
You cannot possibly be human, can you?
How can he know? How can he possibly know anything?
He must find out. Even if Rae suffers, even if Rae must be sacrificed. Even if it makes him a terrible person, he needs to learn how the afterlife works. How hell works. Because he must, he must, save Mello.
At any cost.
Because Mail is coming to pieces and there is nothing L can do.
"Oh, so you are offering to help me now?" the Shinigami asks sarcastically.
L glances around for inspiration, and tosses the notes of his recent case into Rae's lap.
"First of all, we should find out whether this condition will subside without interference. You should focus on something else. Try reading over my case and tell me if I have missed anything."
Rae snorts, and begins arranging the pages across the floor.
"What, no confidence in your own ability, Lawliet? I can't say I'm really surprised."
L grins inwardly. Sometimes, Rae is so completely predictable that it is almost idiotic. It never misses an opportunity to criticise him, and he knows it will spend hours pouring over his notes, trying to find holes in his logic.
So easy.
Or perhaps it is desperately looking for a distraction. Yes. He should be careful not to oversimplify these things.
He reaches for his laptop, and begins scouring international news channels for a new case. He needs the head-start, after all.
Rae's eyes stay brown for thirteen hours. The longest change yet. L wonders whether it is getting worse, or whether the time frame is simply randomised. It grizzles at him without any particular venom, and then announces that it is going to 'check up on' his case. Rae is a terrible effect on his ego. Perhaps that is how it ought to be.
The last thing he wants is to be that person who is convinced he is still capable, long after everyone around him had disregarded him as incompetent.
Better to know the truth.
And in some strange, removed sort of way, he does feel guilty about what is happening to his Shinigami. Much as it has nothing to do with him, he is about point one five percent certain that he would voluntarily change the colour of Rae's eyes, given the chance. The brown eyes seem to almost denote a different entity, as if something else about the death god changes at the same time. They lack the burning, godawful hatred that L has become both familiar and exhausted with, and seem almost normal. Like Rem's eyes. Eye.
Where is Rem, anyway? He needs her help. Is she avoiding coming simply because she does not wish to benefit Rae?
For not the first time, L muses as to what could possibly have happened between them. Rem does not seem like the type to hate easily. Rae must have wronged her quite severely.
When Rae returns, it is all snarls and blood-red eyes, and L pushes his research aside with a sigh.
"What is it now?"
"You are a fucking idiot!"
You are swearing now? What does that mean? Why are you indulging in such a useless, innately human activity?
"That statement is neither helpful nor specific."
"He had a mistress, you tool. The fourth victim was seeing another woman on the side. Their relationship was kept strictly secret, but there are some pretty damning text messages in his phone. She has ginger hair. She also has a valid alibi at the time of the murder."
L sags a little. He ought to have carefully considered that possibility, but it hadn't even crossed his mind. Has he honestly sunk so low?
"Then we can no longer be sure George Muttby is the murderer," he says quietly. "I understand."
"You can be sure he isn't the murderer, more like," Rae scolds. "That man wouldn't even kill his own head lice. I doubt he'd be deliberately responsible for the death of another human being."
"Profiling alone is not evidence," L warns it, already grumpy with the idea of having to re-open his case. "And did you happen to notice the trigger?"
"No, actually. I was a little busy trying to catch a killer and make sure an innocent man doesn't get locked up for life."
"Very commendable," L murmurs. His jealousy feels like a physical entity now, throbbing inside his chest, scrawling the word 'worthless' in invisible letters over his skin. "But that still won't help us for next time."
"I'm taking this case off you, douche," Rae informs him disgustedly. "Honestly, what the hell is wrong with you?"
L would like to know the answer to that question, too.
When things are a little worse than normal, when work is difficult, when one's entire career and reason for living is crashing around one's feet, when in doubt, L has one solution. Just one.
Gelato.
A bucket of gelato.
"You do know it's the middle of winter, right?" Naomi points out gently. It's the first time she's spoken to him in a week. L thinks he ought to smile at her, but it seems like entirely too much effort.
He does not deal with depression particularly well. He has always been a poor loser.
Like Light.
"Mm."
She rests one arm on the back of an empty chair and leans down so that their faces are level.
"You know," she says warmly, "sometimes I'm surprised that your enemies can't locate you just by tracking all the bulk sweet purchases made in England."
She must have actually forgiven him, then. L should be glad. He should care, at the very least. On a professional level, he needs her. More than any of the others. Well, more than any of the other humans, anyway.
He wonders if this would be easier if he had someone to talk with about Rae. He no longer trusts his own analysis.
He no longer trusts his own analysis.
"Mm."
She will probably go back to disliking him, if he just keeps grunting at her. Maybe she will even leave. Or perhaps she will scold him, first.
He observes her without emotion. Her long hair is thick and shiny, and it never seems to get in the way, even though she constantly leaves it loose. She's in perfect shape under her street clothes, and the lines around her eyes are faint and few.
She is roughly his age, and yet, he has become old, and she has not.
"L?"
Aging is the same in this second world. The years are the same length, so people accumulate them in the same way. But maturation is different. People tend to gravitate towards being young adults, the phase of life when one is most healthy and cognitively adept. Children seem to grow up quickly, physically and mentally. The elderly regain the strength and abilities of their youth. Watari has some strands of red in his once all-white hair. And yet, Soichiro seemed older than L had predicted. Clearly bodies can still become worn out here, if not by years, then by stress and sadness and care.
"L."
L wonders what will happen to him, in the end. Will he destroy himself, or will his identity be uncovered, dooming him to a life of running forever, and never stopping?
He wishes he could see the counter over his own head. But even the Shinigami eyes will not grant him that particular privilege.
"L!"
He helps himself to another spoonful of lime gelato.
"Yes, N?"
"What is it?"
L pauses for a few seconds, mostly for effect.
"I believe it is you who asked the question, N," he points out politely.
"What ails you, L?" Naomi asks again, sounding mildly irritated. "What's wrong? You have been so upset lately, and for no discernible reason. What is it? And don't tell me it's Matsuda or Grace. I know you, and this is not the way you grieve. This is to do with your work, isn't it?"
L places his thumb against his mouth.
"It is nothing."
It is none of her business. Were he forced to give up the note to another person, he would choose her. But he would much prefer to keep it his secret. Safe.
"I'm sure you are lying," she counters confidently.
"Are you? How sure are you, Naomi? It doesn't do to be so unspecific," he chides.
"One hundred percent," she says quickly.
"You are making that up."
"Am I? Are you sure?"
L hangs his head and regards the floor.
"I have trained you well, I see," he breathes. "That is a relief."
This is her cue. This is the part where she speaks her mind, where she tells him the truth. This is where he finally, finally has to hear this from someone he respects.
It is time.
Naomi leans down further, and kisses him on the cheek. L jerks, shocked, and touches his skin tentatively.
Misa, he thinks stupidly. I told her I could have fallen for her.
He cannot remember, now, whether that statement had been an admission or a lie. But this is not Misa. This is someone he trusts and cares for.
"I will help you," she tells him gravely. "Wherever I can, I will help you. I promised that at the beginning, and I keep that promise still. The rest is up to you."
No.
"Maybe there is a decision I need someone else to make," L tells her weakly.
"If you are intelligent enough to realise that, then you are probably wrong," Naomi replies, with a strangely infuriating smile. "Whatever it is, L, I have faith that you will get through it."
"I don't know what you are talking about," L replies, puzzled.
"Of course you don't. Please let me know if I can help in any way, L. We…we are still a team. All of us."
She leaves without another word, and L watches her go, hand still pressed to the side of his face.
L plans to turn in the findings of the Strangler case that afternoon, so he spends the rest of the morning re-reading Rae's neatly typed notes, paying careful attention to detail. He checks over the autopsies, which are all consistent with physical trauma and stabbing. He examines Rae's initial list of suspects, and the various circumstances and pieces of evidence that rule out the names, one by one. He notes the time and dates of the various attacks with the witness' reports.
Flawless. Absolutely flawless. L could not have done it better himself.
Rae saunters into the room, humming and wearing a nasty expression.
"I'm re-investigating three of the suspects you ruled out," it informs him sweetly.
L nods, and pulls up a medical history on Arthur Griddon, for no real reason other than that he wants to be seen to be busy. The man suffers from hair lip, short-sightedness, and premature arthritis in his left leg.
L stops, tilts his head, and then checks the photograph of the murderer's boot-prints.
Eight millimetres depth in loamy soil, both left and right. Identical. Not a man who walks with a limp.
Griddon is the only doctor in his district who performs late-term abortions. It is not impossible that someone might have a reason to frame him, and the boots would make such an endeavour laughably easy.
"We need to re-open the Strangler case," L blurts out, somewhat amazed.
Rae missed something. Rae.
They are even again.
"Are you done preening yet?" Rae demands pettily, slamming its hand down on the desk.
"If you break the wood with your superhuman strength, I am going to have a very difficult time covering for you," L points out comfortably.
Rae has not yet succeeded him. He can still do this. They both made errors, but he noticed Rae's and Rae noticed his, and L can learn from this, can grow from this, can become better from this.
A reprieve. A second wind. He is grateful.
"Whatever. I'm pretty sure I've found the guy who's been framing Griddon."
Rae passes him the computer without another word.
Yes. If we cross-check with each other, we can avoid this happening again.
L thinks that his recent tactics may have been irrational. He forced himself to work faster, and in turn, compromised the quality of his sleuthing. He tried to compete with Rae. He tried to keep the same pace that he kept when they both worked together. Which is, naturally, impossible. Alone, he can never be that brilliant.
Oh.
Right.
"I have come to a disturbing revelation," L announces, briefly sitting up straight.
"Go on," Rae drawls. "What is it this time?"
Its eyes are a dull red. So the change isn't absolute. Rather, there is a spectrum. A reflection of what? Proximity of something? Of someone? Rae's own emotions?
Emotion.
Two epiphanies in as many minutes. His doing quite well today.
"I think that our joint efforts are far superior to the sum of our separate efforts," L pronounces. "I think we ought to work together on cases, all the time."
"I was afraid you were going to say that," Rae replies rudely, but it shifts across the room to sit beside his chair.
"Thank you," L replies. "I will use my free time to find a way to fix your eyes, in return for your help."
"I'm not doing this for you," Rae warns, its eyes traversing straight through rust to brown again. "Oh no."
"That is unfortunate," L murmurs, wondering if he ought to test his newly-formed theory. "What does it affect, other than your Shinigami-vision?"
"Nothing," Rae growls. "I can still think perfectly well, thank you."
"Good," L replies. "I would hate for your intelligence quotient to drop any lower. Then you might not be any use to me at all."
Might as well try.
Rae stares at him in stunned silence.
"Excuse me?"
"You heard me," L replies blankly. "You need to be as sharp as you can possibly be if you want to work with me."
"You what?" the Shinigami spits. "I'm the one who has successfully completed two cases this week, and you have failed to solve even one!"
"Yes, but I have calculated our respective handicaps," L tells it smoothly. "You ought to be capable of solving at least four cases to my one, given your obvious advantages over me. Are you absolutely sure your mind has not been affected?"
Red.
"How dare you, you fucking bas-"
"And there it is," L notes, pointing at Rae's face. "Feel better?"
Rae's mouth snaps shut. It rubs at its eyes carefully.
"What? How…what did you do?"
"It is anger," L explains, confidently. "I do not know the trigger for the change, but your eyes seem to change back whenever you become angry. Now you ought to be able to control them on your own."
"Oh," Rae says awkwardly. "Uh. Thank you."
"You are welcome."
By the time the screen loads, its eyes are already dull again.
This isn't over yet.
tbc
a/n:
+ thank you for reading.
+ thank you to the people who are taking the time to review this monstrosity. I imagine I would keep going with this fic even if I didn't get any reviews at all, but they make me ridiculously happy all the same. Especially thank you to AishiExcel, and Moss E. :)
+ next bit is coming, hopefully in less than fourteen days! I have written most of it already (for once).
+ I apologise for this chapter being generic and filler-ish. stuff is happening in the next chapter, I promise. there will even be actual romance, soon.