A/N: Ever had one of those nights where you shut off the light, get cuddled into your blankets... and can;t fall asleep? That's my hell at the moment.

So, I guess I'll write chapters until I can't take the overwhelming exhaustion. :)

Enjoy!

(L P.O.V)

"So there are lacerations around the victim's torso?"

"Yes." Wammy replied. "But nothing too deep. Meaning they weren't intended to be the killing blows."

"The same lacerations on the male bodies. Meaning our killer is nothing more than an everyday serial killer. Probably has some sort of sexual tendencies around it. But he's doing his killings spastically and with no reason to it. Whenever he feels like it, or needs that rush, he needs to kill. The majority of man and woman are the same so it's far less likely this has anything to do with relations and sex. These are the types of monsters that need to be leashed. It's absolutely terrible that this is being done."

"I agree." Wammy commented. "So we must find this killer and soon."

I sighed. "You'd think that the task force could do this themselves and quit wasting my time, but I suppose since I'm being paid for this I might as well continue."

My phone suddenly buzzed and I looked at the number. It was Yagami. But what was he doing texting me so late at night?

"Where are we meeting today?"

Today?

I looked out my window and saw that it was indeed late in the morning. I suppose I lost track of time.

I looked to Wammy. "Did you find the warehouse outside the city like I asked?"

The old man nodded. "Yes, and I made sure it was air tight as you specified. I also got the heaters, the fans, the fire pits, and the dry ice. Are we headed there now?"

"Yes." I said as I texted Light the directions to the warehouse. "And we should leave immediately."

"Of course. I'll go get the car ready."

With that he went outside, making sure we had the supplies with us. It wasn't long before I joined him and we were off to the warehouse.

It wasn't a far trip and when we'd arrived we got right to work with getting the supplies in the warehouse. After this was done, it was purely up to Light and myself to do the rest.

Speaking of the brunette, he arrived twenty minutes after we did and was stunned to see all the supplies I'd brought. All he'd brought with him was his bag with notepads and pens.

"Wow, you really commit!" He exclaimed.

I strode up to speak with him and introduce him to Wammy.

"Light, this is my guardian, Wammy. He's the one that helped me move all this here. But after this, we're on our own."

"Understood," he replied, handing me a notebook. "We'll need to record every hour we spend with this project. Plus we'll have to see if there's a way we can make the cloud bigger – if at all – and see if we might get some weather coming from it."

"Then let's get started." I said as I showed him over to the heaters and fans. "First off, we have to create a damp environment in this airtight housing. How we do that is we have some snow from outside and we melt it slowly and spatially. I'll leave you in charge of the temperatures while I spread the snow along the ground. Remember, it needs to be absolutely humid in here."

"Got it." He said as he went off to do his job and I left to do mine.

I grabbed as much snow from outside the warehouse and soon spread it along the floor. Considering this warehouse was abandoned, I doubted anyone would care that we turned it into a house for a cloud. Light did excellently with spacing out the heaters so that the heat would be even throughout the warehouse. The fans would come later, along with the dry ice.

"What are the chances that this will work!?" Light called to me over the heaters.

"Under forty percent, but those aren't bad odds!"

When the place was thoroughly heated, and we no longer needed to wear our winter clothes, we changed the temperature to a slow building heat that would make the room more Mediterranean and humid. After the humidity rose to perfect levels, then came the hard part. But we had some time to write down our first hour of work in our notebooks.

After that was done, came the waiting. And that in itself seemed to take forever.

Thankfully, Wammy had brought us some snacks and drinks while we waited for the perfect temperature.

While we waited, I asked Light more questions about him now that he was more willing to answer me.

"So why is your father so strict with you and what you're learning? This doesn't seem quite right."

He merely shrugged. "He just is. He's always wanted me to have a good life and grow up having a good family and wife. I suppose he thought some things that I was learning didn't need to be learned. But I suppose he was wrong."

"And how about the book I loaned you?"

He seemed vaguely interested in this. "Actually, you were correct. Reading War and Peace isn't that difficult in English since I already know the words basically. So, I'm not far off from learning to read and write in English."

"Good. You'll need that skill. I guarantee you."

Light then lay down on the floor and sighed contently. "Alright, now it's your turn to answer a few questions."

I hummed. "Fire away."

He took a moment to think of a good question. "Alright. So where did you learn to speak Shakespeare's plays so well? Honestly, you showed me up pretty bad yesterday so I deserve an explanation."

"It's like I told you before, Light. Shakespeare speaks from the soul. The words are everyday things we think about without knowing. Hamlet was contemplating suicide in the soliloquy you tried to do, but I don't know that you've truly contemplated it. If you have, then you must put your feelings forward as such. The roll you play is the roll you must become.

"For example." I said as I turned my head to him. "Name another of Shakespeare's works."

He took a moment to think. "Macbeth?"

"Alright, so what's the main mood of the play?"

He sat up a bit, leaning on his elbows. "Revenge? Anger? Guilt and desire? I don't really know. I just know the lines."

"Well, you're correct with all of the emotions. Lady Macbeth desires the throne, but she feels guilt over the blood on her hands. The people and soldiers are angry that their king as betrayed and killed, and that their loved ones suffer at the hands of Lord Macbeth. And revenge? They all have the need for revenge. The men, the women, the soldiers, the witches… everyone. That's why you must feel these emotions in your soul when performing them. Otherwise the play falls short."

"I suppose you are correct." The brunette commented. "But I can't feel something that I don't at the moment."

"Then bring it back from a past even that ever made you feel like that!" I demanded. "Believe me, it helps."

"Oh yeah?" She grinned out. "Prove it."

I took a quick moment to think before coming to the right emotion to bring up with the correct work of Shakespeare.

"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" I began, reciting what I'd foolishly believed many weeks ago.

"Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

"Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

"And summer's lease hath all too short a date:

"Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

"And often is his gold complexion dimmed,

"And every fair from fair sometime declines,

"By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed:

"But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

"Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,

"Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,

"When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,

"So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,

"So long lives this, and this gives life to thee."

Light was silenced by this. In complete awe over the words I'd spoken. If he only knew how sad they truly made me.

Finally, he spoke. "That was beautiful, Ryuzaki. Did you used to recite that to someone?"

I shook my head. "But it was recited to me once or twice."

He was kind of confused by this before he got the message.

"Oh! Oh, I'm… oh… I had no idea you were… um… uh…"

"I'm not gay, Light." I said, a bit annoyed with him. "I consider myself a pansexual, or an Asexual. I have no rhyme or reason to the ones I like. I just happen to like them, male or female."

"But, wouldn't that make you… erm… Bisexual then?" He asked, more than a little uncomfortable with the topic.

"If you really don't want to speak about this, we can stop now. I know a lot of people are uncomfortable about the topics of being anything but heterosexual…"

"No!" He defended, dialing it back a bit when he realized how loud he'd been. "I'm just… curious, is all. I just don't really understand how someone can be attracted to the same sex. I mean… isn't it weird? You know he's… well… how do I put this?"

"Light," I said as I turned to him fully. "You don't have to…"

"But I'd like to know." He interrupted. "I just find it… well… interesting? Is that the right word?"

I hugged my knees a bit tighter to my chest. "Yes, I suppose that is the correct word a straight man would use." I sighed. "If you'd like to know, then here…

"I can't tell you why I like men as much as woman, the same way you can't tell me why you like women. It's the way we're born. Just like I can't choose to be smarter than you."

"Excuse me?!" He snickered out. "You wanna take that back, or should I make you?!"

"Light, I've done nothing but prove myself to be smarter than you since the day we met."

"That was a few days ago, you barely know me!"

"Fine then. What's the eighty-fifth digit of pi?"

"Eight."

"Capital of Switzerland?"

"Bern."

"Square root of negative one?"

"Imaginary unit. Basically nonexistent."

I grinned a bit at him. "Not bad. I'll maybe consider you smart if we can get this cloud up and going."

I heard the man chuckle at me and when I looked back at him, he smiled.

"You know, you don't smile enough, Ryuzaki. It suits you."

I scoffed a bit, looking back to the ground. "Yes, but emotions can get you into trouble if you aren't careful."

There was an uncomfortable silence after this and I was beginning to feel the anxiety in my chest, wanting to go home and forget this place. But Light had offered something that made it all go away.

"Would you like to come over to dinner on Friday night next week?"

I was stunned. Why on earth was he inviting me over? Could this be a trick? What did he have to gain by doing this?

I decided to trust my gut and decline him. "N-no thank you, Light. I appreciate the offer, but…"

"Come on." He interrupted. "We're ordering pizza and watching the new Hideki Ryuga movie. Well, my sister and Misa will be watching it. The rest of us are going to silently mock them from behind the couch."

"So, it'll be you and your friends there." I made sure.

"And my mother and sister. But you can ignore Sayu. My mom make's the best sweets." He tried offering.

I scoffed playfully. "Wammy makes the best sweets."

Light scoffed back. "My mom could cook circles around your Wammy!"

I waved him off playfully. "Please, your mother knows nothing about sweets and cakes. She probably learned off of trial and error. Wammy is a masterful chef and baker."

"Well maybe you should come by and try a cake or two!" He challenged.

"Maybe I will!" I got in his face, the smile creeping up on me.

"Maybe you should!" He smiled back.

And that's when I backed off a little. The smile he wore… it reminded me of Derek. But there was something off about it. Something… I liked.

Light noticed my change in demeanor. "Ryuzaki? Is something…?"

"I'm fine." I interrupted, standing up from my spot. "I'm just going to go… change the settings of the heaters." And I walked away from him.

I didn't like the way my head was spinning from this. His smile… it as so much like Derek's it scared me. Did this mean he was like him? Or was I just seeing things? Maybe I was just missing him. Missing Derek. He couldn't have been all that bad, right? Not if he recited sonnets to me. Sonnets I remembered. Maybe Wammy was wrong about him… maybe everyone was wrong. Maybe he'd change for me. What if he had changed, and that's why he went looking for me.

I held my arm where one of the bruises still was. He hadn't meant to hurt me. It was an accident… a mistake. He probably just wanted to apologize to me. That was it. That sounded most likely.

Maybe I'd call him tomorrow… make sure Wammy didn't know. That would make me feel better.

Wouldn't it?