P.I.S. Chapter Fourteen: Tick Tock, Tick Tock
If the world itself had a heartbeat, I believe it stopped in those seconds. My legs suddenly felt chilled from the inside, as if my blood had been replaced with ice water. I heard Mello snarl something animal-like and his lips thinned out into a twisted look of hate and disgust while Matt's lips grew tight like his eyebrows, half-glaring at the shadows; neither were looking at Beyond's silhouette though, which was probably a good idea. I adverted my attention to L instead. They way he stood clearly spoke that he was on the defensive. He stood almost a foot in front of us, protecting us I realized. His dark eyes were narrowed at Beyond, on the devil eyes I could not see. His back was straight, chin held high, and arms still at his side, yet I knew that those arms would move quickly if they needed to.
Another fit of hysterical laughter floated from the roof top. Then Beyond took a step off the roof and fell to the street, landing on his feet and hands in a crouch. The streetlight illuminated him in an orange glow like the rest of us. He curled his body into standing and lifted his head to us.
I looked right into his eyes.
I heard my conscious chastise me for doing something so idiotic, but whatever I expected to happen did not happen. Matt and Mello did not follow my steps and were safely looking at Beyond's feet--which were bare--and were safe from any illusions or hypnotic attacks. However, I could see every outline of red and black in those eyes, every detail that could sling me through the same mental ordeal that Mello had suffered from just minutes ago, but nothing happened. It could be that he wasn't looking right at me but at L. Eye contact must be a must, and Beyond was not matching mine. He and L were having a stare down. His eyes were also the same as we saw in the photograph.
L's voice suddenly came to me from the day prior when we had first learned of BB's history. 'I had to block off his eyes because of complaints from people complaining about nightmares where his eyes were present.' Now looking into his eyes, I could see where this came from. His red eyes looked inhuman, like he was a demon from Hell that had wrapped itself in the skin of a normal human.
It was then I realized just alike Beyond Birthday and L physically were. The clothes were exactly the same, I would even guess the same maker. His messy black hair matched L's unruly strands to minutiae details. But I could see differences, too. Beyond was skinnier whereas L was just thin. His nose was slightly off center and his eyes seemed a little too round to match his face, as if surgery had widen out the edges and created the dark circles under his eyes--which is probably the case. His thin lips curved into a twisted smile, not cat-like like L's but just sinister.
All this only took seconds for me to do because the two other figures followed after their master and jumped down to the road as if gravity was in their favor. One of them looked as if he would fit perfectly in at a high school or university. His white shirt and pants looked to be of uniform, even the glasses he donned even gave him the stereotypical look of a math geek. I wasn't very interested in what the other guy who stood on Beyond's other side looked like but more of what he was holding. We couldn't see clearly what he was holding on the roof, but now on the ground we could see he was holding something large and white in his arms.
Near.
He appeared to be sleeping heavily, but I was pretty sure that was all. If he were dead, they wouldn't hold him so carefully or being holding him at all. However, that did not stop Mello from making another snarl. Matt stopped him by squeezing his shoulder.
"It's been so long since we last saw each other face to face," Beyond said, greeting L as if they were simply bumping into each other.
"Eight years to be exact," replied L, voice calm and solemn. "I'm assuming that if I told you to turn yourself in, you would just scoff."
Beyond's smile widened, showing his canines. "Ah, you know me so well."
"I know the profiles of many psychopaths, B."
"Yes, but I hold a more...personal part."
L's eyes flickered from Near to Beyond. "Release Near and we'll settle this once and for all. One on one. You and me."
Beyond closed his eyes and laughed. "Ellie, Ellie. You know full well we cannot fight in the street. Our commotion would attract unwanted attention. However, I do have a plan in order, but it will need time."
"What plan is this?" L postulated.
"I know of a place," said Beyond, "that is far from human contact so we will not be disturbed. We will fight one on one to the death. The winner walks away alive."
"Release Near to me and I will accept your terms."
The L-copy shook his head. "No, no, no. I need him as leverage over you for now, L, to make sure that you don't go running to the Company for an army after me. I need to know you'll play fair."
"You have my word, Beyond."
"Yes, and as much as I respect your word, it is not enough." Scrawny shoulders lifted in a shrug. "But I will also give you my word that no harm will befall on him. He will simply stay sleeping, peacefully."
L's eyes narrowed. "Why are you holding him hostage when I already promised you I would show up?"
Beyond's wry grin gave me chills. "Because I don't want you to lose your motivation. He's the youngest, yes?" He looked at the sleeping boy in the other man's arms. "He's so small, like a child." The wind swept Near's white hair into his face.
"Let. Him. Go."
The tone was so menacing that I was almost shocked to hear it being spoken from L's lips. I swallowed and felt Mello tense but he made no other moves. Beyond seemed amused. He smiled at L's sudden dark tone.
"Save your anger for the battle, L," he said, "You are all going to need it."
"Explain, Beyond."
I watched as Beyond's lips suddenly turned to a frown. "Quit barking orders like I'm your dog. I'm in charge right now."
"I apologized. I stepped out of line." It took me a second to realize that L's retort had been sarcastic.
Beyond sniffed. "And you're a liar, but I will explain. It will be my team versus yours." His grin return. "The survivors win. Ah, Darwinism. Survival of the fittest. So! It will be four one on one battles. It couldn't get any better!" My stomach curled at the way he spoke of fighting to the death like it was a trip to the amusement park. He looked gleeful as he continued to speak. "One on one, face to face, vis a vis. It will be decided once and for all, L, who is the better man! Who is the better L!"
L glanced back at us. "Four? Other than myself there are only two on my team as Near is...out of commission." It appeared that he did not care what Beyond said about being the better 'L' but on the number of players in this twisted game.
Beyond raised an eyebrow. "What about the pretty boy?"
"He is an asset, not a team member. He is not even in alliance with the Company," L said.
"He follows you though, right? Like a little lost puppy, he follows his master, and you are his master. And he wouldn't do so if he didn't have any abnormal abilities like the rest of us."
L's lips curled in aggravation. "He is not going to fight, Beyond."
I looked down at Mello who hung unsteadily to my support. I knew Matt was more of the laid back type and disliked anything that required physical input. Compared to the muscular guy holding Near, the slim boy who looked like he had something up his sleeve, and a psychopathic killer, the only one of us who probably stood a glimmer of a chance was L, but even I knew he could not last long against all three of them. Even face to face with just Beyond, I couldn't let him fight alone. I couldn't allow any of them to fight alone.
"L." His name came so easy from my slightly parted lips. He turned his head to look at me. "I'll do it." His stared at me as though he had forgotten I was there. "I'm on your side," I said, "I'll fight."
I saw a glimmer of regret and sympathy flutter across his face. "Light, this isn't your battle."
I swallowed but nodded my head. "I know."
"You don't have any skills of combat."
"I'll learn."
We stared into each others eyes for almost a few minute. Reluctantly, he closed his eyes and turned away in defeat.
"All right," he said to Beyond, "It will be us four. When do you want this to happen?"
Beyond crossed his arms and looked smug that things had gone his way. I scowled. "In one month I will send you directions to my choice of destination. No firearms, but bring what you can."
"And you will not lay any harm to Near."
The sinister man raised his right hand like he was pledging to a boy scout vow. "I promise."
"I mean it, BB," hissed the ravenhead, "Not a single hair on his head should be touched. If anything comes to him, I will have more people sent to your location than the British Army, and there are many angry people who will not hesitate to kill you."
L's threat did not seem to deter Beyond in any way. "You're the only one I want, Ellie. I'm saving it all for you." Then, surprisingly, he bowed. "Now, we will depart until we meet again in thirty days." He smiled at L, showing off his teeth. "Get some sleep, L. You're going to need it."
The three turned away and walked into the shadows, and we let them.
"Are we just going to let them go?" Matt asked incredulously, "Do you really trust that he won't kill Near?"
"Yes, I do." L suddenly looked more weary and down than he had before. His normal posture returned. "He's an evil man, but he's an honest, evil man. He won't hurt him."
"Yeah but--"
"Matt."
It was Mello who spoke. He was looking down at the concrete. "L's right. We have to follow the rules that Beyond Birthday set up for us. If we make any jumps too early, he will die and it will be our fault. What we need to do right now is get stronger and train for battle."
Matt frowned at his friend but ultimately sighed. "Okay."
L was already dialing a number on his cell phone. He looked at me. "You have no choice now, Light. You have to learn how to fight, how to kill and not be killed, in less than a month."
I didn't say anything, but I suddenly felt claustrophobic. What the hell was I thinking?
Matsuda returned when L called him and he took us back by teleportation—which almost made me sick again. My body and mind suddenly felt drained and deplete. A headache was forming between my temples and I realized I hadn't eaten since this morning. The logical thing to do was to eat, but I needed to train and learn how to fight, but when I asked L, however, he felt he agreed with the obvious choice first.
"Get some sleep," he told me, "You'll pass out from exhaustion and hunger if we work right now. And Mello also needs to rest. We'll pick up early tomorrow morning."
"What should I tell my family?" I asked him.
L seemed to ponder this. He nibbled on his the pad of his thumb—How he had not chewed off the skin left me baffled—and a grin tugged at his lips. "Tell them you're going camping with some friends."
Camping. Though my parents were a little more lax than others, I doubted they would be overjoyed of me telling them I met a few friends and decided to go camping with them in a foreign country; I was a good son but even this would raise some eyebrows. I walked to the room I shared with my sister while thinking of Beyond and Near and Mello and L. Anxiety gripped me. Now I had a time clock over my head slowly ticking past the seconds to thirty days. In thirty days, I would fight for my life and the lives of my friends. In thirty days, I would risk everything I had for people I had met only two months ago.
In thirty days, I would either be alive or dead.
I walked into the hotel room to see my family gathered around the television while The Last Samurai with Tom Cruise played. My mother and father probably barely understood the English dialogue but could still follow along. My sister was breaking up pieces of a chocolate bar as her eyes watched Tom with idolization. I crawled into the tangle of arms and legs of my family and situated myself comfortably next to my mother.
Neither of them said a word to me but my father nodded in a way of welcoming. They didn't ask where I was though I knew Sayu told them the same excuse I told her, though I could hardly remember what that had been. My mother put her hand on my knee. I knew why they didn't ask where I had been; because they trusted me. I was their honest to good, never faulty son. They trusted that I could do no wrong. They had no idea I had been hiding a secret from them my whole life. They hid no secrets from me but I did. I felt I was letting them down.
"I love you guys." I wasn't expecting the words to come out when I was thinking them, and neither had they. They looked at me slightly perplexed but my eyes remained on the screen. I could only vaguely recalling saying that phrase to a select few who I meant it to. If I came out of this alive, I vowed to tell my family I loved them more often.
My mother squeezed my knee. "We love you, too, son."
We finished watching the movie, or at least they did. I pretended to while my head reeled with thoughts of battle, broken bones, pain, and forceful dementia. My sister narrated the story line for our parents who nodded their heads dumbly as they tried to follow Sayu's frantic fan-girl talk of Tom Cruise's character. When the credits rolled, my parents wished us good night and left to their adjacent room. I took a long shower after realizing how sweaty and chlorine reeking my skin was. I was so tired, but as I laid my head down to sleep while I listened enviously to my sister's heavy breathing my thoughts would not cease and desist. I watched a few minutes of television at a low volume for about an hour. Nothing good ever came on at night.
Knowing that doing nothing would not help my morbidly-genius thinking, I stood up and tiptoed my way out the door, making very little sound as possible. The hallway lights were glowing brightly, as if it were daylight outside. I didn't run into anyone while I walked to L's room. When I was at his door, I contemplated whether or not to actually knock; it had to be nearly two a.m. and he should be asleep, but I also remembered him telling me that he doesn't sleep.
So, if it were true, he would be okay with this. Right? Right.
I knocked on the door four times with the back of my knuckles. L answered it and looked at me with a regal expression on his face as if he knew I would be there in the middle of the night; I suddenly wondered if he did know I was coming?
His lips curved into a smile. "Good evening, Light-kun," he said, "Please come in."
I moved past him inside. The only light on was a lamp but the furniture had been spread out, leaving the living room with an open space. I noticed a plate with some fancy cake and a few cookies and a cup of tea that looked to have gone cold. I turned to L and realized that he had a slight sheen of sweat on his skin and he was holding a glass of water instead of tea like I usually saw him sipping.
"What have you been doing in here?" I asked.
"Making sure I had not become rusty in my combat skills." He sat down on one of the chairs against the wall. Like always, he sat with his knees pulled to his chest.
"You said you took capoeira, correct?" I asked, sitting myself into the seat next to him.
"Yes," he said, taking a cookie from the plate, "I wouldn't say it's capoeira exactly, but it is similar to it. Cookie?"
I declined. "Why do you sit like that?" It sounded rude but I was curious. Seeing him sit like that all the time made my thighs and calves ache, but it made his legs stronger as I remembered that kick to the chest he sent me a while back. It seemed forever ago.
"If I don't sit like this then my thinking decreases by forty percent," he said as he chewed the peanut butter cookie.
I wasn't quite sure what he meant or if he was tricking me. It was best to let it go, I decided. He gulped down some water to rehydrate himself after what I was sure was a work-out. When sat in companionable silence. It suddenly hit me that it was two o'clock in the morning and L was practicing his combat moves just as he told me I needed my rest.
"You said that you couldn't sleep," I postulated, looking over at him with a slight puzzled face, "Why? Why can't you sleep?"
He was watching me while hanging his thumb between his lips, not actually biting but keeping it there. I heard a small amount of air exhale through his nose. But instead of answering my question, he shot one at me.
"As someone who hears the thoughts of others, you must grow tiresome of thinking, yes?"
I blinked, slightly startled and slightly confused. "Sometimes," I replied, "But I've gotten used to blocking out other people's thoughts and focusing only on the ones I want to hear."
"Hmm." L removed his hand from his mouth and placed it on his knee. He looked up at the ceiling like he never realized it was that color. "I used to be able to do that. Stop thinking, I mean, not hearing other's thoughts. My job is to think strategically. To profile and capture deadly criminals with preternatural abilities by outwitting them. Needless to say, I'm very good at it. Whenever I needed to, though, I was able to shut off all thinking and have my brain on silence. This allowed me to get the right amount of sleep I desired and be refreshed in the morning." His eyes fell from the ceiling to stare at the wall. "But now I cannot do that. My brain continues to think obscene thoughts, thoughts I wish I never thought of. My brain will focus on one subject or object or anything really, and keep me reeling about it over and over. I must study and examine every angle of whatever I'm thinking." His eyes looked over to me. "I'm guessing that's the reason you're here today?"
My eyes looked at his. They looked so dark and heavy and weary now. I remember sleepless nights of hearing the thoughts of my family or strangers across the street. I remembered feeling so tired and palled and the migraines I got were monstrous. And L had to endure this for eight years...
...eight years?
My head snapped up. He was deciding on what cookie to select. "Wait, you said you haven't slept in eight years, correct?"
"Yes."
"And you caught Beyond eight years ago." I saw the corners of his lips twitch into a true smile. I was on the right track, I knew it. I just had to keep laying out what I knew. "And you told my father that Beyond's powers were similar, but that his was stronger." I frowned before I could finish the rest. I didn't want to actually.
But L seemed glad that I discovered his secret. He nodded his head approvingly. "Yes, Light-kun, it was Beyond that did this."
The feeling of grief and panic suddenly washed over me. Red, demon eyes danced around in my cranium. Beyond could do...that? I felt nausea and sick all of the sudden.
"I was seventeen when I captured Beyond," L said, "Very young and very naive. He was meant to be my proxy when he was only two years younger than I. As I told you, I wasn't a very nice person. I never met anyone who could hold an intellectual conversation with me, so I lacked social contact. Usually when someone picks a proxy or proxies, they get someone who has the abilities that are similar to their own. Beyond's abilities were nearly identical to mine, so they set us up." He smiled, but it did not look happy. "Beyond was so happy that I would be his mentor, but I wanted nothing to do with him. I wanted to be alone and to work alone. I remember refusing Beyond to learn properly how to handle this power. I told him to learn on his own as I did."
I listened intently. An image of a teenage L came to my mind and a teenage Beyond. "He did, didn't he?" I asked in a small voice, "He taught himself, I mean."
L's nod confirmed. "I wasn't aware of it, though. Like I said, I only saw him on three occasions, though sometimes I would get reports that I would glance over. He began using his powers on his classmates, seeing how far he could push them. It eventually ended as one of his classmates killed themselves before graduation. Instead of frightening Beyond, it thrilled him to know he could cause such destruction without lifting a finger. He ran away, went to Los Angeles, and killed more and more people." His spidery fingers raked through his disheveled hair. "I wonder constantly if he would have turned out different if I had taken him under my wing."
By listening, one would think L was just a cocky bastard, which I was sure he no doubt was, yet something else was tickling brain, something he was circling around but never reaching. My eyes widened a fraction when I realized what it was he was avoiding.
"It wasn't that you resented Beyond. It was that you resented his ability."
L raised a quirky eyebrow. "You believe I was jealous of Beyond having my abilities?"
I shook my head. "No, not that. I believe you disliked the power itself, not Beyond. That was the first reason you declined teaching him. It was after the fact that things began to grow...eccentric."
Now that my theory was out, all that was left was to wait for whether he claimed this as true or not. He blinked at me and then returned his eyes to the ceiling.
"Nothing good every comes from altering reality."
That one sentence was enough. His voice was monotonic, but I could sense behind the mask he presented that he not only disliked his talent but probably hated it, too. Corrupting minds to make them believe and see what you want them to see... I mentally shuddered. I thought about my powers and the days I remembered asking myself 'what use is this?' but I realized that good could still come out of it. But... L's powers did not seem like so. True, maybe he could ease the pain of others by making them forget—as in Misa's case—but it would always be there, wouldn't it? And just like he said, nothing good would come from altering reality because it was corruption all the the same.
I stared at L, seeing him in a new light. He always seemed cold and unnerving, stoic and cautious, but I knew the truth. He was a very compassionate person, though he would never admit it. Behind the passionless facade was the true L, the L who hurt and loved and cared and sympathized. He didn't want to hurt people, and he felt his powers did. I remembered how angry he became when Beyond had Near. He kept his heart locked away, but even I could see how much emotional pain he was hiding. He was worried, but he was so calm...
"What's the matter, Light-kun?" he asked me, "You look so lamented."
A heavy knot grew in my chest, pushing my heart aside to make room. I looked into his dark, dark eyes and saw myself staring back at me with such a depressing look. The same eyes that never closed for sleep, that saw the destruction that ruinous people created, and that held every million and one thought that crossed his mind. My heart felt like it would burst. I wanted, I wished, to take away the wounds I couldn't see and never knew about. I wanted L not to carry such burdens on his shoulders. I wanted to heal him somehow.
Yet, I could think of nothing to console him. Somewhere in my thinking, I took his hand. I examined his fingers and his knuckles. They were long and thin and his nails were jagged from biting. I cradled my face into his hand. It was so warm. Then his other hand cupped my face and we were kissing slowly, passionately. My arms wrapped around him, grabbing his shirt and pulling him tighter. I wanted to be connected. I never wanted to let go.
I just wanted L, me and L. No Beyond, no preternatural world or powers. Just us. In this moment.
Now.
(A/N): The second chapter of my one day update. Sorry again guys! I keep forgetting about this site.