notes/warnings
+ warnings for somewhat graphic torture. but not much of it.
+ warning for actually updating in a reasonable period of time YAY.
+ warning for things actually starting to happen.
Devotion
This time, they don't use nails. They use garden stakes.
This time, they don't want to know anything. Your kidnap and torture is supposed to be a message for Near and L.
This time there is nothing you can say or do to make them stop.
In the space of a week, they solve eight cases. Three serial killers, a ring of online terrorists, a jewel thief, a presidential kidnapping, and two underground black-market criminal organisations.
And then they have nine days left. Nine.
Raye comes to see him that evening. L has ordered Raye to keep an eye on a handful of people. Just in case.
L has also ordered him to keep this monitoring secret from both Mail and Rae.
"Wedgewood is attending an awards ceremony in London this weekend," Raye says, leaning one shoulder against the doorframe. "She's rumored to be arriving Thursday evening."
"No news about Buzz?" L enquires, delicately dunking an entire strudel in his tea.
"No. Nothing about a man in a Transformers mask, either."
The mask is probably not significant, and the information is probably not pertinent. If new-Near had the strength to beat old Near, then he is likely to stay in the first world for a very long time.
Even so, it is good to keep an eye out.
He waits for an insane amount of evidence before he acts, and he does not partner with legal institutions that implement any sort of death penalty.
He sounds like a fairytale character. He sounds like he probably never gets very much done. He also sounds like the sort of person L wanted to be, when he was still growing up.
He sounds like that boy, caring so much about everything and everyone, and so very, very clever.
L shakes his head. New-Near isn't the priority. On Thursday, Grianna Jones will arrive in this city.
"Thank you, Raye Penber. That is all I needed to know."
Slowly, quietly, in the confines of his own mind, L starts to form a plan.
Detective Inspector Charlotte King stands in the hall, outside the Chief's office. She's nervous, but her hands are steady.
She is a good officer, but that is not the same thing as a successful officer. A successful officer, upon waging a one-person campaign to have the Chief endorse a particular private detective, would not promptly reverse that advice just because it was the right thing to do.
A successful officer would protect their reputation, their career.
King prefers to protect people's lives.
Buzz was a mistake. A blip on the radar. L is back in full force, and the CEO-killer is still on the loose.
They need L. They need L more than she needs this job.
The doctor is a good one. She doesn't criticize you, she doesn't look at you with pity, and she doesn't even tell you that you need to lose weight.
She just shakes her head, says 'infected', and bandages your hand.
You feel strange while she does it. Nobody ever touches you these days. You are repulsive and you are all alone.
You still remember everything that happened, in exquisite, excruciating detail. You still remember the voice of the man with the helmet. You still remember being so frightened you wanted to be sick. You still remember the exact moment you felt the bones in your hands start snapping.
And they didn't even want information from you. Things are different, now. Things are changing, and you are scared.
The doctor's fingers are warm and gentle. You look away. You haven't been able to sleep since you were abducted. You haven't been able to do a lot of things, with a useless right hand and a barely-functional left hand. Dwayne has been following you around the house, cutting up your food and making your bed and helping you get dressed. And making fun of you, because Dwayne thinks everything is hilarious and oh god you hurt so much, all the time. There's still no chocolate anywhere. There's no escape.
And yet, today is a good day.
The doctor smiles some more and prescribes you several enormous-looking antibiotic pills. She tells you to stay out of trouble for a while and recommends a vitamin supplement.
"Also," she says, "the guy you came in with is really cute."
"I know," you tell her.
You probably don't have any right to say that, but she's already being unprofessional and nobody else can hear you.
Besides, everyone knows you're in love with him. Everyone except for Dwayne, who is pathologically, irrevocably fucking dense.
The doctor sees you out, and pats you on the least-sore part of your shoulder. You are secretly glad that there's still one person left in the world who Near hasn't convinced to hate you. Yet.
Matt is slouched in a chair in the waiting room, chin propped up in one hand, car keys dangling from the other. He's making faces at a pair of curly-haired toddlers playing on the other side of the room. There's a window right behind him, and sunlight on his hair, and he's just. Gorgeous.
God, you hate your life.
But not today. Not right now. Not from this second until he drops you back home and leaves again.
You don't need anything special from him. All you need is to be near him.
Right now, everything is okay.
"With all due respect sir, I'm surprised that you're not working on the CEO case."
Rester is standing stiffly in the centre of the room. There are wrinkles gathered at the corners of his eyes, and the set of his shoulders is particularly tense.
Nate will have to give him another day off, soon, or his judgment will become impaired.
Working with ordinary people is irritating. Sometimes Nate misses the orphanage. But not very much.
"The executive killer is almost interesting," he says, pushing a building block across the floor. "But it won't be my case for much longer. Expending energy on it would be wasteful."
The case would be actually interesting, if the culprit were operating on a larger scale. But he's restricting himself to Dublin. He's unambitious and boring. And that's not the real point. The point is that L is presently statistically exceeding him. It's heartening to know that Nate's one-time role model isn't a complete loser. The other real point is that Nate has other jobs. Other things to do. He likes to keep busy.
He is Buzz, and he exists to do jobs. To solve puzzles. To set the world right, back in order, back in line. To undo the work that Kira did.
Nate takes the wooden dolls from their storage cabinet under the red sofa. He's painting them to replace the finger puppets he had to leave in the first world.
"I understand," Rester says, even though he doesn't understand at all.
Rester never questions Nate. But he stays. He stayed when the others left. When that man - with his Optimus Prime mask and his oversized sweater and his mechanical voice and his team of one – captured the Calestone Killer without any help from anyone, and the others defected to him like pawns in a chess game, Rester stayed.
He would be Nate's oldest friend, if Nate had friends. As things are, he's Nate's most reliable employee.
"Good," Nate replies.
The Rester-doll is finished. There are others. One for Gevanni, because he was a particularly useful employee. A red-haired doll with a wrinkled face for Quillsh Wammy. And then there are two identical dolls - one with green-brown hair and the other with yellow - that he always keeps right next to each other no matter what. And another in black and blue and white, still unfinished.
Nate is still deciding what sort of person L is. He works somewhat inefficiently, and yet at times he seems to operate with the capacity of two people.
So far, the only descriptor Nate is sure of is 'interesting'.
"That's good," he says, again.
The world is a fascinating place, and he wants to know everything there is to know.
L and Rae go off to do secret-best-buddy-totally-platonic-not-at-all-sleeping-together detective things, and Raye is left, as ever, with Mail.
He's gotten good at ignoring Mail during his free time. He can just turn on the television and put his feet up and eat cheap takeaway food and laugh along with the bad sitcoms and completely disregard the lurking sad figure sitting hunched by the window.
He can. But he doesn't always. Because, well, Mail is very nearly almost his friend.
"Hey," he says, gruffly. "Hey, you want a can of…some sort of soda?"
Raye doesn't actually keep track of what he's drinking. That was something Naomi had always done for him.
Also he's probably setting himself up to get punched here, but in all his grieving, through all those horrible days, he never really truly understood Mail.
Maybe he's still trying to.
Mail stares at him. He doesn't even frown. He just stares, blank and empty.
"No," he deadpans.
"Oh," Raye says. "Is there, uh, is there a point to it? The starving yourself? Are you trying to die again?"
"Shut the fuck up now," Mail tells him calmly, turning back to the window.
He has the picture in his lap. It's more damaged than Raye remembers, yellowed and frayed. Criss-crossed with a thousand soft creases and torn in several places from overuse. Raye wonders what Mail will do when it disintegrates completely.
"I think you could get better," Raye says. "If you wanted to."
"I don't want to," Mail tells him, without hesitation.
He had the answer lined up in his head. He's already thought about this. He's already decided.
How can someone throw away their whole life like this?
"Yeah," Raye replies, heavily. "I figured."
He stays next to Mail for a little while, and then goes back to his sitcom.
The next case is an interesting one. A very specific mass murderer, who targets only rich business executives. It's a case that was originally given to Near.
Buzz. L should call him Buzz now.
That's how it is, sometimes. Police organisations will pick and choose the best private detective to help solve their most complicated crimes. There was a time when L was the only real choice. Now he has to compete.
But that's okay. It's good, in fact.
"We do nothing but solve cases all day," Rae says.
"You like solving cases," L points out calmly, without looking up from the documents strewn across his desk.
"In theory," Rae points out. "But it's kind of exhausting that we work hard and arrest hundreds of people, and the criminal population doesn't seem to be decreasing at all. Haven't you ever thought about that?"
L checks his watch. Twelve thirty. It has been almost eighteen minutes since they last had an argument.
"Do we have to discuss global criminology and ethics again?" he asks, quietly.
"Yes. Because you keep being wrong."
"I see," L says.
The CEO-killer is female, with long blonde hair. She's left plenty of DNA at the scenes of several of her crimes. The problem is that she doesn't seem to be anyone. They cannot find a single person who matches her DNA.
"So," he murmurs. "What will you do when you are king? Emulate Light?"
"I'm going to make the world a better place."
"By killing all the criminals."
"By doing your job a lot better than you're currently doing it. Besides, it's okay because I'm a Shinigami. It's our job to judge people."
No, that isn't true. Rae is being naive. Gods of death are meant to be impartial. The only one judging people is the hell-god. And Rae is maybe someone in hell, and maybe something terrible is going to happen, and L has never been in love with anybody before.
"I'm not sure that's okay at all," he replies, softly.
Matt spends the entire drive talking about Jasmine.
You don't interrupt.
Rae dreams every night. The same dream, always the same. It's comforting, in a way. Absolute. There can be no doubt this is some sort of test, and Rae is clearly passing.
Rae is just wonderful in general. It kind of hopes it actually gets to meet this stupid kid at some point in the future.
Although it's not actually entirely sure what he looks like. He's just a concept. Maybe.
Doesn't matter.
Rae isn't scared of anything. It has L, and it isn't afraid. It has never been afraid, of course, but now it is especially unafraid.
Look out the window.
Ignore the boy.
Change the world.
Rae rolls over, and narrowly avoids smacking L in the face. They share a bed now. They're like a proper couple.
Everything is great.
Except, there's something wrong with the dream. Some tiny, niggling, uneasy detail, the identity of which still eludes Rae. At first, it had been convinced the window was a lie; too clear and perfect to exist. But in the dreams, it can see the faint reflection of its eyes in the glass.
And if it's not the window.
The two chairs the shining thing the boy the boy the boy.
And there is nothing wrong with the shining thing.
Then it must be the boy. He's wrong, somehow. Like he shouldn't exist. Like he's defying physics, or like he's wholly out of place.
And, well. What could be more out of place than stopping Rae from becoming king? So it makes sense that the boy is wrong. It has to be that the boy is wrong.
You're wrong Rae thinks, smugly, to a boy who probably doesn't even exist.
Then it goes back to sleep.
L has been brighter lately. He's been eating desserts and solving cases and training hard, and Watari is so very relieved.
The world needs L. Everyone needs L. And so, L needs to be okay.
He is okay today. That is all Watari can ever hope for. One more day of saving people, one more tomorrow.
He briefly glances in the mirror, and adjusts his jacket minutely. Nobody here cares about how sharply he's dressed, especially not L. But Watari cares. It's the one thing he's kept, from back before he met L. From back when he was a famous inventor, living as an eccentric foreigner in Japan. From before the day that the local police brought him an expressionless, dead-eyed orphan because 'nobody else could handle him'.
"But," the old inspector had said, "he is extremely intelligent, and you have no heir of your own."
Perhaps, in slightly different circumstances, they could have grown together that way. As doyen and apprentice. As teacher and student.
As father and adopted son.
But they did not. Neither of them had the drive to bond with the other, and L's passion for justice far outweighed Watari's passion for things that worked.
In the end, they were what they have always been. Detective and handler.
"Watari?" L's voice crackles over the intercom.
All these years, a secure and untappable intercom system, and still they don't call each other by their names.
"Yes, L?"
Watari hopes he wants food. He has a new coffee cake recipe that he's been interested in testing out.
"Are you alone?"
This isn't about cake, then. Watari scans the room carefully. No spies, no bugs, no lurking skeleton monsters.
"Yes."
"I want you to send a tape to one of the national television stations."
A tape. Tapes are practically defunct in this day and age. L must be worried about being hacked.
"And make arrangements to pay them any money that they require in order to air the tape contents at eight o'clock on Thursday evening."
"Understood," Watari says, even though he never, ever understands.
Not since they died. He empathises with L, but he cannot understand. Detective and handler. That is all. Watari glances at the mirror again. His hair is getting redder, even as L's grows more grey. Only stress makes people age, in this second world.
"And please keep this a secret from the others," L continues.
"Also understood. Is there anything else?"
L pauses for a moment.
"Could you bring me cake?" he asks, quietly. "Or maybe coffee?"
Watari smiles.
"Yes," he replies.
If L goes alone. If nobody else comes. If he goes in disguise, by many vehicles so that he cannot be traced, then nobody else will be hurt.
He needs to talk to Grianna Jones one more time. He needs to know everything that she knows. And if possible, he needs to confront the hell-god.
He has dedicated his life to saving people he barely knows. He is not about to let someone he loves slip away from him without putting up a damn good fight.
Because he knows. The hell-god is everywhere. In the way people forget. In the way Rae is no longer bothered by its own illness. In the way the library locked him out, and the way thousands of people died without anyone dying at all. He knows of the hell-god, and he will not give up.
Not yet. Not until it's over.
So, on Friday, he will go to a place. And everyone in the United Kingdom will know he'll be there, somewhere in the crowd. And people will want to see the famous detective, so there will be a crowd, and perhaps nobody will notice him at all.
Perhaps. It's a flimsy plan, but he doesn't have anything else.
There's no point in warning the others. Mail may go running to Rae if he decides it's a good idea. And Raye is of no possible help. Besides, L already sent Raye instructions earlier in the week. Important instructions, not for right now, but for always.
If anything happens to me, please take care of Mail.
If anything happens to Mail, it will be L's fault. Even if L isn't around. Even if L is dead and has been dead for many years, it will still be his fault. Mail is his son, and the one person he must always look after.
And if anything happens to Rae, then that will be L's fault, too.
It's a flimsy plan, but he will undertake it gladly.
Mail finds a permanent marker, and is inspired by it. He writes Mello's name on the wall of his room, over and over, a thousand times.
I hope you're okay, doll.
In a single night, he fills all the white space with Mihael and Keehl. He also tries to copy Matsuda's precious drawing onto the back of his door, but fails miserably.
Oh god, I'm sorry.
You deserve better than this.
You deserve better than to be dead, and have nobody remember.
He steals a ladder from the storeroom and writes across the ceiling. He doesn't stop when his neck starts aching. He doesn't stop when night falls and the room grows dark. He doesn't stop when Raye fuckin' Penber knocks on the door and yammers something unimportant about vindaloo and tea.
He never wants to stop.
Not stopping is the only peace he ever gets. Finding some new way to remember Mello is the only time the inside of his mind stops screaming.
Nothing will ever be enough, and Mello will never ever come back, and Mail will never be okay.
Mail accidentally smears a letter and curses loudly.
I'm so sorry, doll. I'm sorry.
L solves the CEO case and considers another. Members of a particular parish keep disappearing. One every month. No evidence. No bodies. The police are stumped.
It's Thursday morning. L accepts the case. The church is located in Dundee, it's reasonable that L would want a standing surveillance, and Rae can't fly very fast. It's the perfect excuse. If L is lucky, Rae will never know that he put himself in a dangerous situation in order to meet a supermodel.
Of course, if he isn't lucky, then he'll be captured or dead.
Rae will probably be angry, if anything happens to him.
Probably.
Rae probably cares for him, at least a little bit.
L isn't really convinced of that, though. And it doesn't matter. He doesn't really need to be loved. He just needs to protect the people he loves. Which reminds him, he hasn't heard from Mail in almost a day.
L's hand hovers over the intercom button. Maybe he's worrying too much, but he only has four people left in the whole world and he needs to look after all of them. And also everyone else in the world.
God, he's so tired.
"Hey, I passed through Mail's room on the way here," Rae says, appearing unceremoniously by L's side. "He's alive and stuff. If you were wondering."
L grins automatically, and leans against the edge of Rae's hip. It isn't comfortable, but it is comforting, somehow.
"Thank you," he replies.
He doesn't ask if Mail is okay. Mail hasn't been okay since he died.
"I'm bored," Rae announces, resting one hand on top of L's head.
"I'm investigating a new case," L says. "I haven't agreed to it yet. I'll let you know."
"Okay."
Rae doesn't question it. Of course Rae doesn't question it. It isn't at all a strange thing to say. This is a case like any other, and Rae has no reason to suspect a diversion.
"Was Mail destroying anything particularly valuable?" L asks, conversationally.
"Were you attached to the whiteness of the walls?"
"Not really," L says. "I'm glad he's found something to do."
"Good point," Rae replies. "What's he going to do if you die, anyway? He'll have nothing to occupy himself at all. And I understand he has no plans to die again. I doubt he loves you enough to follow you. Theoretically speaking."
It's a fair point. Mail has dismissed dying as pointless, and he'll probably stay here forever, where he's most comfortable.
"Maybe I won't die, either."
"Maybe," Rae replies, grinning.
Of course, all of that is a lie. If L dies, he'll go to hell. Even if Mail follows him to hell, they won't be together.
But that isn't the point. The point is this: Mail may never die again.
The other, unrelated point is that Rae has no intention of ever ever letting L die ever.
Oh.
Fuck.
It's okay, though. Everything is okay. They are together and everything is fine.
"It's got to be the church doing it," Rae says, leaning over L's shoulder. "Someone is either killing or abducting those people."
"Those are my suspicions, as well," L agrees.
Rae pokes him, right up under his ribs.
"How suspicious are you?" it asks, almost affectionately.
L chews on his thumb.
"Eleven percent," he replies.
"You definitely just made that number up."
L glances up from the computer screen.
"How suspicious are you, then?"
"Suspicious enough," Rae tells him.
It's strange, being in love. He's working on a case, the same thing he's done every day of his life since his mother died, but the room is warmer and he feels happy and content on some primitive, animalistic level.
Rae is still touching his side.
"The church has mass every night at eight o'clock," L murmurs. "Will you go and run surveillance for me?"
He doesn't hold his breath. He doesn't do anything suspicious at all. He just waits.
"Sure," Rae answers.
Rae does a little research of its own. L might be Rae's human, but he is still only human and Rae is the best at everything so it makes sense that Rae wouldn't just take L's word for things.
Ha!
The church is suspending its eight o'clock mass tonight in order to help the police with their investigations.
See? See? This is why L needs Rae around.
Rae will go tomorrow, instead.
Mary Samuels props her head up in her hand, and plays the tape one more time. She's fascinated by the whole thing. By the message. By everything.
"This is a private message for Jacinta Wedgewood, from the detective known as L. Message is as follows.
We need to talk, Miss Wedgewood. There is something that we need to discuss, something that nobody else in the second world understands.
Tomorrow is Friday. Please meet me at midday. I will be at the very first place you ever posed for professional photographs. I will be with someone you will recognize.
This matter is extremely important, Miss Wedgewood. Please come if you possibly can. I will expect you to be in disguise. You have my most sincere regards.
End Message."
"Are we really going to play it?" Huck wonders, out loud. "I mean, we're a respectable channel. The sponsors won't be happy if we do something like this."
"Do you think it's really L?" Cheryl asks.
"If it's really L, then he's a lot stupider than the man I thought he was," Mary replies, derisively. "Everyone who knows Wedgewood knows where she first posed for shots. The foyer of the art gallery on Suffolk Road."
"And he's considered an enemy by most of the major crime organisations," Cheryl adds. "If he goes, he might be killed!"
"I wonder if he's in love with her?" Huck says, dreamily.
Huck sometimes has trouble grasping serious situations.
"Irrelevant and unlikely," Mary snaps.
"Do we play the tape?" Cheryl asks. "Because our crew are going to want an answer real soon. It's already a quarter to eight."
Mary considers this. The message is going to get them viewers. And eight million pounds for a single advertisement is lucrative in this day and age.
"Of course," she says, firmly.
Heaven help you, Mister L. I hope you know what you're doing.
Rae manages to make itself scarce for the rest of the day and, by five-to-eight, L can only hope that it is safely in Dundee and not about to make his life horribly difficult.
In five minutes time, his plea to Grianna Jones will be broadcasted around the country. And then tomorrow, he will go out and meet her. He would really like Rae to be absent for both of those things. It's really hard to protect someone when they keep trying to protect you.
L fidgets with his dessert fork. Parts of being in love are painfully familiar. Sometimes he still feels like he's desperately trying to chain Matsuda to the table, or frantically trying to guide Naomi out of Takada's clutches. Romance is romance, but devotion and the desire to defend, these things are constant.
And he doesn't even really know what he's fighting. He doesn't know for sure that Rae is in hell. He still doesn't know anything.
Even if he were to use the notebook, who would he choose? He cannot sacrifice another human for Rae's sake. He is not about to become Light. And he does not dare kill as a punishment. He isn't prepared to venture one step down that slippery slope.
So what is left? Kill someone who doesn't deserve to die? Who somehow needs to die?
How is L possibly supposed to know that? He is not god, and he has no right to judge people.
What other options are there? Kill Light? Declare him completely inhuman, and his murder categorically morally acceptable, and write his name in the notebook?
No.
Absolutely not. Never. Not even to save his own life. It would be better to let Light win again than to destroy him by becoming his mirror image.
L's world suddenly goes dark, and somebody says 'hey'.
L prises the bony hands from his face, cold fear rising up in his chest.
"What are you doing here?" he asks, tensely. "You're supposed to be in Dundee."
"Not today. There's no mass tonight. I'll go later tonight."
Okay, everything is still fine. Rae will leave soon, so all L has to do is stop Rae from watching television. Or talking to anyone else in the building.
He can do this.
"Are you okay?" Rae asks, peering at him with chocolate-coloured eyes. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing," L replies. "Everything is fine."
Everything is better than it ever was before.
I hope I don't die.
I want to stay with you.
"Okay," Rae replies. "Let's watch the news."
L freezes. Rae sounds casual. Maybe it knows, but maybe it doesn't.
"Wait," he says, quickly. But not too quickly. "I've been thinking. I want to talk to you about Kira."
"Again?"
"Yeah. I've been...trying to figure things out."
L grapples for the correct words, the words that will open up this age-old, incredibly useful argument and distract Rae from the television and give them both something to do all night that doesn't involve anyone else.
"Okay," Rae says conversationally, and reaches for the television. "After-"
L definitely does not panic.
"Listen," he says loudly. "I wanted to say that I agree with you. With what you're going to do once you're king. Killing the criminals. I've decided that it's okay."
Actually, he may have panicked just a little bit.
"Because…because you're a Shinigami. It isn't the place of humans to judge Shinigami."
Rae stares at him, hand falling back to its side. It stays silent.
L is babbling, speaking in half-truths, saying things he doesn't mean. They're running out of time and he needs to find the hell-god and he's never ever loved anyone before.
"I trust you," L finishes, with absolutely honesty. "You're not like Light. I trust you."
Rae still doesn't move.
tbc
a/n:
+ I'm going to use this space to just touch on a subject that's come up in reviews a few times. Namely, Aging In The Afterlife. Essentially, everyone in the second world gravitates towards being young adults. This means that old people tend to get younger in their looks, while children and babies can still exist and even be born into the second world, but they will grow up more quickly than usual. Only the very ill or the chronically stressed tend to age beyond 'young adult' in looks. Hope that helps.
+ also thank you all for being awesome and wonderful and reading this fic despite my slow-ass updates and my inability to reply to any of your awesome reviews. (I am working on this I SWEAR).
+ just a note to say I've updated my profile somewhat, and put in actual links and stuff. If there's anything that should be there that I haven't included, please please please let me know. I lost the links to some of the wonderful fanficart when I went through my bad period. /worst wannabe author ever.
+ I am presently at a stage of my life where I feel up to talking to people on the internet. so, you are welcome to hit up my inbox if you want.