notes/warnings
+ three months later, she finally manages to update.
+ warnings for language, Jas trying to control people, the usual things.
Tremor
"No," Jas says, emphatically, the entire spectrum of her omniscient gaze focused squarely on L, only on L. "No. No!"
You were my mascot.
You were supposed to always be strong.
You were supposed to fight this demon.
Why didn't you do what you were supposed to do?
Jas feels a rush of anger, of illogical, petty rage. She's never asked anything of anyone. All she ever needed was for this one human to keep being strong, to keep being good. All she needed was for one person to give her hope.
But L is weak. L crumbled. L is still hanging onto Rae's hand, even though he is mostly asleep.
None of this was supposed to happen.
Jas curls her hands into fists, her fingernails digging painfully into her palms. She wishes she could bleed. She wants Remira to be here. She desperately wants a witness, someone to talk to, someone to attenuate this rage that plagues her.
You let me down.
There is no such thing as a good human.
"So be it," she says, dramatically, gravely, even though nobody will ever know.
With fury comes relief. She tied her resolve to L's. Now that he has failed, she can…she can do anything. She can choose whatever path she likes. She could bring the world to its knees. She could exterminate the entire human population. She could overthrow the king, and rule the Shinigami realm.
But no. She doesn't want those things. She wants…
"On your head be it," she tells L, softly, hating him for not being able to hear her.
L wanders in at a quarter past eleven, looking drastically better than last night.
"Any information from the internet service provider?" he asks Mail, sounding businesslike and ordinary. His eye is bright, his skin looks freshly-scrubbed, and he's wearing clean jeans and a shirt that is actually white.
Amazing, what a good night's sleep can achieve, Raye thinks, somewhat smugly. He's never personally found sleep to be so very beneficial, but he imagines it works differently on a chronic insomniac. Besides, problems often seem more manageable in the morning, and L's problems aren't of the all-encompassing my-wife-is-dead variety.
Raye hates him a little, but that's okay. Raye is learning to work with that.
Mail briefly glances at L, then back to his computer.
"You slept with the skeleton," he deadpans.
"What?" Raye sputters, nearly dropping his coffee cup. "No, he didn't! What kind of a thing is that to say?"
L's expression sours immediately.
"Do you really think that sort of derailing is going to work?" he asks, coolly. "I'm still waiting for an explanation for what you did yesterday."
And Raye would really, really like it if L just came out and denied Mail's ridiculous assertions. Because there's this awful, niggly part of Raye's imagination that wonders whether L actually is involving himself in something terrible.
Surely not.
Surely.
It's a skeleton. Made of bones. Which are made of teeny, tiny skulls.
Even L isn't that weird.
"You don't want an explanation," Mail says, lazily. "You just want an argument."
Aaand they're doing this again, apparently.
"You hurt someone I care for," L snaps. "I am allowed to want an argument."
Mail actually looks at him, then, eyes flashing and dangerous. Great. Now they're both angry. This is just going to be fucking lovely. Raye just loves refereeing fights between his pedantic, infantile colleagues. And it's not like any of them have criminals to catch, or anything.
Mail gets up out of his chair.
"So?" he says. "Fuckin' throw me out, then. I don't care."
"You've never cared. But you never used to be a liability."
L raises his hand, stares at it, and then lets it drop back to his side. If they actually come to blows, one of them is going to snap in half. They're both skinny and fragile and undernourished.
"Come on," Raye coaxes. "This is pointless."
"I hate you," Mail says, without much emotion. "I hate you so much."
"You hate me?" L echoes, in disbelief.
"You have a life," Mail tells him. "You have a life and you're just fuckin' throwing it away-"
"I was not throwing it away. I was doing it because I –"
"If you fuckin' say it's because you fuckin' love that thing I will fuckin' punch you," Mail snarls. "Don't you dare fuckin' tell me what it's like."
L's eye widens, and he recoils. For a moment neither of them speak. Then Mail sits back down in his chair, and L stares at him with a hollow expression. Mail is infuriating and exhausting and he can always win every argument because his life is just that awful. And L will always lose, because L cares too much for Mail. Even now, perhaps, when Mail has actually hurt him. Even now, L can't stop. And maybe he's only just starting to realise that.
Or maybe something has happened to make L a little bit softer. Or…no, not thinking about that one at all.
Raye reaches out awkwardly and puts his hand on L's shoulder.
"Leave it," he says, quietly. "It's not worth it. What's done is done."
"I've found the hacker," Mail deadpans, loudly. "If you're interested."
L sucks in a long, shaky breath.
"Thank you," he says, tensely, through gritted teeth.
Mail passes him a scrap of paper, holding his arm out at a random and unhelpful angle without actually looking away from his monitor.
"Dennis Rink. He's fuckin' nobody in the hacking world. No idea how he managed it."
"He's in Guildford," L murmurs. He glances wearily at Raye. "I will go."
"Alone?" Raye ventures.
"No, not alone," L tells him, and his expression doesn't change. It's nothing. It's definitely nothing. Mail is imagining things. "Take…take care of him until I get back."
"Understood," Raye replies.
Geniuses. They don't make any sense at all. If Naomi were here, she'd know what to do.
If Naomi were here.
"Rink is just a university student," L says, thoughtfully, staring at his laptop. "He's only twenty-one. He died for the first time when he was two years old, and grew up in the second world. There's no record anywhere of better-than-average programming skills."
"So someone is using him as a front," Rae says. "Obviously."
"Perhaps."
L is a little more twitchy than usual. His voice is a little softer than usual. But he's still thinking clearly, still working, still focused on the case. He's not all doe-eyed and fluttery and throwing himself at Rae. He's still himself.
Why didn't I think of this sooner?
Because it was never an option, sooner. Nothing can ever get in the way of Rae's plans. Not even L. Especially not L.
Rink's house is large, but ordinary-looking. Low-security.
"He's not expecting anyone to take interest in what he's doing," Rae says, dismissively. "Stupid."
The world is full of stupidity. Stupid people aren't bad, necessarily, but they're annoying. They're only useful in how easily they can be controlled. Of course, hacking the news is a pretty dumb thing to do in the first place. Rae has no sympathy for Rink.
Come to think of it, Rae has never had sympathy for anyone.
L shakes his head.
"Look at the shoes on the balcony," he says, softly. "Look at the makeshift letterbox repairs. Rink isn't stupid. He's poor. He probably can't afford good security."
"He's still stupid," Rae insists.
L stares for a moment.
"I forgot," he tells Rae solemnly. "I forgot how different our views were."
"I'm right," Rae tells him. L is in love now. He's supposed to listen. He's supposed to be at least a bit easy.
"You're wrong," L replies.
"I'm right!" Rae insists, more loudly, but L is already walking towards the door.
Dennis Rink isn't just poor because he's a student. He's poor because he has custody of both of his stepsisters, and he barely makes enough to feed the three of them. But that's not something Rae would have thought of.
This is problematic. L is attached to a Shinigami who still fundamentally supports Kira. After all this time, L still hasn't managed to make it see that Light was evil. And yet, despite their differences, they still…
If he stops to think about it, L starts feeling odd. Strange and gritty and tense. He has occasional flashbacks to what they did this morning, to how he felt, to the fact that he is actually trusting this skeleton.
To the fact that he's trusting this skeleton with more than he's ever trusted anyone with, ever.
But L doesn't stop to think about it often. Everything is fine. Everything is better than fine. He's solving a case with Rae, and he never dreamed he'd get this chance again. He's determined to make the most of it.
He can feel terrible about everything else later, when he gets back to his headquarters.
There are only two entrances to the house, which means there are only two ways out. Watari is waiting near the back door, in case things go wrong.
L doesn't just want an arrest. He wants the truth. He wants to know why someone would devote their time to erasing so much important, public information.
Maybe he's just a sociopath. Maybe he's just a vandal. But maybe there's something else.
L readies his fake ID, and knocks on the door.
On the day the notebook came to her, she asked why. She asked why, and the notebook said…
Jas stands in the dark, suspended on the nothingness. In this whole universe, she is the only thing that moves.
Keehl sleeps, head tipped back, hands folded in his lap. His breath is faint, and he is perfectly still. To the untrained eye, he might appear dead.
Well, he is dead. They are all dead. All the thousands and thousands of humans that she guards. That she imprisons and judges and protects.
Millions of humans. The loss of one won't even register. Nobody will know. Nobody will care. If he never leaves hell, people will simply presume that he deserved to stay.
She's never had anything for herself. The notebook owns her, the notebook is her.
The notebook said…
The notebook said 'because'.
She could just take him. Change his world. Make him believe that he wants to be by her side. She can give him wings and a sense of obligation and make him her companion. She can give him back his old body, his real body, and he'd probably be so pleased that he would never question anything she did.
She can have him. She's powerful enough to just take him. She's powerful enough that she'd never get caught.
L had his moment of weakness. This will be hers.
The notebook said 'because you are…'
She barely remembers what the notebook said. It doesn't matter. It's hers now. A single thought, a few scribbled words, and she can railroad Keehl's entire existence.
There are other things she could do. Less drastic things. She could offer him the option to be with her and then wipe his memory. She could take away his second chance, and just keep him in his hell-box like a piece of artwork.
She can mold the whole world. But why should she do that? Why should she exercise restraint? There are plenty of things that are less drastic than a human sleeping with a Shinigami, too.
Especially that Shinigami. Jas stomps her foot hard, instinctively.
She's so tired. She's exhausted. She's sick of her responsibility.
She is the notebook. The notebook is her.
She already has the changes mapped out. How she'll wake Keehl, and what she'll say. How she'll manipulate his thoughts and emotions as she speaks. How she'll make him forget Jeevas, even if she can't force his love from him.
Easy. None of these things are difficult.
Jas reaches out with her right hand.
It's still a big step. It's such a big step. She's never done anything like this before. She promised herself she was allowed to do this.
It's not like she's turning evil.
Jas hesitates, her hand hanging in the air, in limbo.
She asked why, and the notebook said 'because you are moderation'.
Not good. Not bad. Not neutral. Just…balanced.
The notebook said…
Everyone knows that notebooks can't talk.
L doesn't torture Rink. He just places him in the surveillance room and has Watari question him by video-link.
Rink will talk. He loves his sisters. He knows that L knows where his sisters live, where his sisters are staying right now. He'll talk easily.
"This turned out to be a simple case," L says, softly. "I'm sorry."
He's not really apologizing to Rae. He's just…sorry. They have a little under three weeks left together. There might not be another case.
There might not be another case, and Rae isn't going to stop supporting the original Kira and L still doesn't know whether or not he ought to use the notebook. Everything is a mess.
Rink struggles against his binds and begs to be let down. L watches him intently. They've been through his possessions. They know he wasn't working alone. They know he was part of a large, unstructured organization consisting of at least two hundred hackers. From Rink's laptop, they'll be able to trace at least twenty or so of his associates.
An underground ring of hackers isn't anything new. Hacking public news websites is new. Destroying information is new.
Someone like Dennis Rink getting involved in something like this, even though he has so much to lose, is also new.
"I'm interested in why he did it," Rae says, resting its bony elbows on the desk. "Our preliminary research indicates that no money changed hands."
"Poor people aren't always motivated by money," L says primly.
Inwardly, he's thrilled. He'd almost forgotten what it was like, to have someone who thought the way he did. To have someone like Rae, who arrives at the same conclusions at almost the same time.
Idly, he wonders if this is what Mail and Mello were like, back when they were together.
"Everyone is motivated by money," Rae says, knowingly. "Money and power."
"Not all of the time," L says, quietly. "Not everyone."
Rae rolls its eyes.
"Were you always this pathetic?" it complains, poking him.
L finds himself grinning for a moment, despite everything.
"Stop that," Mail snaps at them, from the other side of the room. "I'm fuckin' trying to work. Go and be awkward somewhere else."
L sobers instantaneously. He's still furious with Mail for everything. And he can see, now that he's looking, that Rae's wings are smaller than before.
It's happening again. It's happening quickly. This is exactly what L wanted to avoid.
Rink is blathering about how much he loves his sisters, about how clever and beautiful and smart they are. About how they aren't involved with the hacking ring, and how he wants some sort of promise that they'll be protected. All L wants to know is why.
"Fuck you," Rae tells Mail, with dignity.
Not for the first time, L wonders how old the Shinigami really is.
"Your sisters are of no consequence to us," Watari replies, politely. "They are presently uninvolved with this investigation. I suggest you answer the original question."
Rink stills, and gives a disbelieving little laugh.
"Why? You mean you honestly don't know? It isn't obvious?"
"Hey," Mail mutters, and L wants to ignore him, but he just can't. "Hey. Something's…something's wrong."
His voice sounds soft and strange, like he's going to faint. L rushes over to him, because he always, always has to look after Mail, even when he's angry, even when Mail has ruined everything.
Mail clutches at his face, hard enough that the skin starts to bleed beneath his fingernails. L touches the top of his head.
"What is it?" he asks. "What's wrong?"
"He's finally having a breakdown," Rae guesses.
"Shut up," L orders.
"Something's wrong," Mail repeats. His eyes are glassy and dim. "Something's happening. She can't…she can't…don't let her…"
Watari turns away from the speaker, and spears L with a questioning look. L kneels down on the floor and shakes Mail's shoulder.
"Nothing is happening," he says, with certainty.
"Is he asleep?" Rae wonders.
"You aren't helping," L says, tensely.
He has occasionally wondered whether Mail's mind will eventually implode. Whether he'll go mad from grief, from the sick little half-life he's forced himself to live, and forget who he is entirely.
What happens to the mentally ill? Are they restored when they die? Or do they go on from world to world, never stopping, never safe.
"She's..:" Mail begins, and then shakes his head, as if everything is hopeless.
Is this really madness, though?
Or is this the hell-god again?
"There aren't any women here," L points out, gently.
Mail blinks at him blearily.
"What the fuck just happened?" he asks, rubbing at his face. "Why do I feel awful?"
"I have no idea," L replies, honestly.
Why should she exercise restraint?
She is god. She is the ruler of the universe. She is everything Light Yagami ever dreamed of. Everything that he could never be, that he could never have achieved.
But she is not like him.
And still, she does not wake Keehl. She does not move.
If she stays alone for all eternity, she might eventually become unstable. She might go mad. So in a way, taking a companion is a sensible idea. A good idea. Something that L would approve of.
No.
L would never approve of this. Even in principle. Even if he didn't know that it was his protégé she was considering. L defends all lives. L is good, with a capital 'g'.
Jas is moderation.
What does that even mean?
Taking Keehl isn't a terrible thing. She knows for a fact that he would make her happier. They would both be happier, if she plucked him from hell. She would be his hero.
Jas has always wanted to be somebody's hero.
And yet, she cannot do this.
With a frustrated, noiseless growl, Jas lets her arm drop back to her side. Keehl sleeps on, unwitting and undisturbed.
Jas shakes her head. She could come back tomorrow. She could come back in half an hour. She could try over and over, every second of every day, and she'd eventually override her own cautious nature.
But she would always be unsure. If she took him, she would never be certain. She'd always wonder whether she'd crossed the line.
She has to take him based on merit. He has to choose to stay with her.
She is omnipotent. She can make him an offer he can't refuse. And the outcome will be the same, and she won't have done a single thing wrong.
Jas turns on her heel and leaves, humming quietly under her breath.
She will live for all eternity. She must always be able to live with herself.
The tremors ease quickly. L lets him go without another word, and they proceed with questioning Rink.
For the briefest of moments, Mail feels incredibly relieved.
He doesn't understand why.
"Why have you locked me up?" Rink asks. "I'm not a murderer. I'm not a criminal. I'm not a bad guy at all. I might not be a hero, but I'm not a bad guy. I haven't done anything wrong."
"Right," Mail mutters. "Those websites just hacked themselves, did they?"
Occasionally Rae wonders what Mail should have been like. What sort of person he was before he died and became a semi-human shell.
Rae doesn't really care one way or the other. Mail is just one more boring, ordinary person with poor personal hygiene and a fairly standard fairytale-style tragic love. Rae could probably go out onto the street and pick out twenty people who'd be just like him, given the same circumstances.
But Mail is important. More important than anyone else, even.
More important than anyone but L.
L is presently twirling on his chair, listening to Rink and staying within arm's reach of Mail. Rae has the strange, childish urge to push him over. To tussle with him, and make him childish and flushed and entertaining again.
Rink is still talking. Rae shakes its head, annoyed at itself for getting distracted.
It never used to get distracted.
"You have to believe me. I did it to protect people. We all did it to protect people. That's what our organization was called."
"Ordinary Angels," Watari says, reading from his laptop. "Yes, I did notice that. Who did you think you were protecting?"
"In this country," Rink says. "In the past five years alone, there have been over a thousand proven cases of people being convicted of felonies they didn't commit."
"That's not true," Rae says, promptly. "The justice system is better than that."
"It is definitely true," L says, with a weak smile. "There was a paper published earlier this year. The research was very thorough. The justice system is quite fallible."
"I fail to see the connection," Watari tells Rink.
"Criminals are criminals," Rae says, sharply. "When society has decided that that's what they are-"
"Then society is sometimes wrong," L retorts. "This is the reality, Rae. Statistically, Light must have killed dozens of innocent people."
"No," Rae snarls. This isn't right. This cannot be right.
And if it is, then society is wrong. The justice system is wrong for being fallible. For misrepresenting innocent people.
It's not…
It wasn't…
Rae can't find the words. Rae cannot fucking find the words.
This has never happened before.
It was someone else's fault.
"Settle down," L says, patiently. "Nobody is blaming you. You're a god of death; you cannot be expected to understand the intricacies of human culture."
And then his eye widens and he turns to Watari.
"He was trying to protect people from Kira," he says, abruptly. "Rink was trying to erase the names and faces of criminals from the media. I am eighty percent certain."
"That's not counting the numbers of people who are imprisoned awaiting trial, and then found to be innocent," Rink continues, and if Rae had a notebook right now it would smite him on the spot.
Shut up shut up shut up.
"And how do you claim to be protecting these people?" Watari asks, patiently, stupid ugly stupid old man.
"The death penalty is illegal in all Western societies in the entire second world," Rink announces. "We protect people from Kira. We remove their names and faces from public access. That is what we did. That is all we did."
"That's sort of admirable," L says, quietly.
Kira was right.
Kira was right.
It wasn't.
It was your fault.
It was Rem's fault.
I…
Nothing is okay. Rae wants to break the world into tiny little pieces. Rae wants to find every single person who worked on that paper and scream at them until they admit they are wrong.
"In this case," L says, turning to Watari, "I would suggest we use our influence to try and get Rink and the other perpetrators a lighter sentence."
"Understood," Watari replies, and they're both idiots. They both don't understand a single thing.
If Rae could, it would erase L's memory completely. It would take away everything he ever learned. It would make him easy.
Nobody is blaming you.
Maybe he is easy, anyway. Even with all his knowledge.
L reaches up and touches Rae's bottom rib.
"Take it easy," he says softly. Like he's talking to Mail. Like he really cares. "Everything is okay."
On Wednesday, Gemma calls. Or at least, Gemma mumbles into the phone while Matt yammers in the background about how clever and awesome she is, and how he's totally teaching her computer programming before her next birthday.
"Hi Uncle," she says. "I'vegottadolly."
You don't actually give a crap about dollies. You remember as a child feeling sorry for the girls at the orphanage, because dolls and dollhouses and teddy bears always seemed so boring. Dinosaurs and trucks and superheroes and aliens always seemed so much more exciting.
Of course, then you just grew to hate toys, because toys became Near's thing, and you despise anything that reminds you of Near.
"What's her name?" you ask, because you aren't allowed to ignore Gemma for too long or Matt shouts at you.
"Gemma," Gemma replies. She's brilliant, but not exactly imaginative.
"That must get confusing."
"Not for me!" she says, gleefully. "Also, I have a policeman called Mummy and a rabbit called Daddy."
"And don't you dare laugh," Matt demands.
"Sometimes my rabbit gets lonely," Gemma continues.
It's weird, how quickly she's grown up. How well she can speak. Occasionally, you feel like time isn't quite right, either.
Or maybe it's the sky that isn't right.
There certainly isn't anything wrong with Gemma, anyway.
And it's odd, the way your heart clenches when she says the rabbit is lonely. Like that means anything. Like Matt isn't married with a doting wife and a child and dozens of friends.
"I'm sorry to hear that," you say, sincerely.
"Also I have a hippo called Uncle," Gemma adds. "He's you."
"Thanks a lot!" you exclaim, narrowly overriding the urge to swear. Gemma is small. She doesn't understand that you hate your ugly fat body.
She doesn't understand that you used to be someone else. Someone decent. Except you never were, really. Even that was a lie.
Gemma talks about nothing for another fifteen minutes. Then you go to your usual store to buy chocolate, but they've sold out and all the other stores are too far away.
It's weird. They've never sold out before.
tbc
notes/warnings
+ this fic is not abandoned, this fic is not dead. I am still incredibly invested in writing this story and getting it posted. unfortunately my real life is still demanding and unpredictable, and I am still not giving any deadlines for the next update. I realise that it must be incredibly frustrating to have a fic go from an update a week to one update every few months, and I completely understand that many of you may have given up/stopped reading etc. all I can do is offer my apologies and write when I am able. I know that I'm lucky to have readers at all, let alone ones who comment. I am grateful to all of you who have stuck with me through my flakiness and tardiness. thank you.