Lightning Strikes Twice, Chapter 5
Title: Lightning Strikes Twice
Rating: R
Genre: Angst
Summary: AU from near the end of the Yotsuba arc. A tissue of coincidence and an obsessive heir to a criminal syndicate half-unearth the name of a dead teenager and a corresponding event in L’s past, and both L’s shaken mind and Light’s curiosity won’t allow it to be simply reburied afterward.
Author’s Notes and Warnings: This is in the same continuity as two fics on the Death Note kink meme - “Because No One Will Believe What They Say,” written by yours truly, and “Remorse,” the sequel written by a different anon. Reading those beforehand shouldn’t be necessary to understand this one, but FYI, especially if “should” doesn’t line up with “is.”
Contains language, violence, rape, general dark themes, etc. Please note that the views of characters herein certainly don’t always match my own.
Chapter Five
20 November 2004
There were yellow roses on the wallpaper in the hallway, ran the transcript of the statement. He took me into a bedroom. The floor there was wood as well. There was a double bed with a quilt on it. The quilt was red and white patchwork. He pulled the quilt onto the floor. Then he dropped me onto the bed.
L was right, thought Light as he read the printout. Kay Ellis had had an excellent memory, and a keen eye for detail. According to other entries in the file it had been no trouble pinpointing the house, especially since he’d also gotten a glimpse of the owner’s surname on a tag on his keyring (Redding), and heard the others address him by his first name (Terry, short for Terrence). From what he gleaned of the trial (L’s data naturally pertained more to the investigatory phase), the defense’s argument had been not over identification but consent.
He lay on top of me and kissed me on the mouth. Then he asked me if I’d ever done it before. I told him I hadn’t before today. He told me to think of it as a wedding night, because I was never going to get a proper one.
***
The surveillance cameras were state-of-the-art, and L could easily zoom in close enough to read along with Light, while using the view from another camera to observe his reactions. He didn’t do this the entire time, of course. He wasn’t fixated.
He looked up from a follow-up report on the arrest of one of Reynard’s allies and saw that Light was frowning deeply. L pressed a combination of keys and the page he was holding nearly filled one screen.
... never going to get a proper one. I thought that meant he was going to kill me. Then he laughed and said that sometimes one got surprises.
L had been surprised first, but Redding’s surprise was undoubtedly the bigger one. He and his friends had selected their previous victims on the basis of a combination of vulnerability, likeliness to report, and lack of credibility if they did report, and until then they’d selected well or at least luckily - but that time he’d chosen someone who could and would expose him and destroy him. Kay Ellis had proven strong enough to start bringing him to justice. L was strong enough to finish.
The paper dropped out of sight of the one camera. On the other, Light was turning the chair over to the computer, where he typed rapidly. L could zoom in on the screen as well, and he did so. As he watched, after several trips through search engines, the website of the Glass River Gazette loaded.
Ah, he thought as Light proceeded, he was looking at that. He’d seen enough; he returned to the follow-up reports, his mood improved by the reminder of how Redding gaped from behind the bars of his cell that night.
***
2-19-2004.
The former leader of a group of teen rapists has been accused of assaulting a fellow inmate in prison.
Kenneth Collins claims Terrence Jonathan Redding, currently twenty-seven, attempted to kill him after Mr. Collins rejected his advances...
Light rolled his eyes. Apparently that old habit died hard. He skimmed down.
Mr. Redding may already spend his life in prison for his role in a series of gang rapes from 1994 to 1996. He was denied parole in October 2003.
With his mood somewhat improved by this reassurance, Light returned his attention to the statement.
***
21 November 2004
It was a small thing that set it off on the next stage, an utterly trivial thing, and he would think that perhaps if he hadn’t read along with Light it would have done nothing and it would all have stayed restricted to dreams. He’d dropped a gumball and it had rolled under the desk, so he got out of his chair, knelt in front of the desk, and reached.
His hands stretched out before him, bound with the palms together, the long ends of the rope trailing.
“Come on, get up.”
One-two and he tilted his elbows, jamming them into the floor to propel him upward, drawing his now-untied legs under him. The steady throb of pain abruptly flared under his back. He choked back a cry; he was holding back more now, with his throat nearly bloody. The noise he’d made already should satisfy them.
He pushed up again with his hands, and they wrenched slightly in their bonds. It would have worked better if he could have turned his palms downward. He knelt, gasping, made to unbend one leg, nearly crashed back down. His hands waved in midair, seeking support. It was probably for the best that he didn’t catch the leg of any of the five surrounding him.
“Come on.”
“Please.” He thought that maybe this was a test. If he couldn’t get up maybe they would decide to kill him. “Please, I...” another minute, just another minute -
He was standing now, swaying, and just when he’d gotten there his feet were knocked out from under him and he fell backward into arms that proceeded to scoop him entirely off the floor. Another flare set off inside him as he stared up at Redding, which partly subsided as he let his head fall to the side. He was carried out of the kitchen, into a hallway with rose-papered walls.
He wasn’t in the hallway. He was under the desk, among the various cables, breathing hard. Stupid, he told himself, this was stupid, they weren’t here, he was in no danger.
No danger? part of him howled. How could he still think that when not half a mile from headquarters a group of trivial criminals had -
He scooped up the gumball and reemerged, reseated himself, tossed it among the discarded wrappers and popped a clean piece of candy into his mouth. He concentrated on rolling it about with his tongue, noticing the flavor only incidentally, making his breaths slow. It didn’t matter, he told himself. It would pass. It had to pass. Kay Ellis was not dead; that only meant L would have to throttle what remained of him.
***
23 November 2004
It might sometimes seem, looking from the outside, that L knew everything, saw everything, or at least had the potential to if he bothered. Watari knew better, and knew also that he himself was hardly omniscient at the best of times, but as he sat surrounded by screens he saw quite enough.
He slept far more than L, but even so their schedules were by no means a complete overlap, and once he knew what to look for he could always go over the recorded footage. Night after night he watched the outward manifestations of nightmares, and wondered how many might spin away with no visible sign. There was very little to work on in this lull as they cleaned up the pieces of criminal organizations and waited for the test results, nothing that would call for round-the-clock work, but the smears under L’s eyes seemed to grow even darker. Watari could not have said how L stretched out his waking hours as day after day passed, leaving nearly no time one could point at and say he was stalling or doing busywork, but there they were. He couldn’t be quite called jumpy but there was something in the quick way he would turn his head and regard this or that... of course vigilance was natural, and to be encouraged, but it all seemed somehow off. But what could be done about it?
Three days ago, he’d the dubious good fortune of seeing L abruptly freeze while retrieving a candy from under the desk; a few seconds’ inattention and he would have missed it, missed the inexplicable quickening of his breath. He caught another piece of such fortune the next day. L was going through another follow-up report when he froze again, breath audibly catching, blinking rapidly for several seconds before continuing to scroll. Watari looked up the section of the report. It concerned an American con artist named John Redmond, alias Red Jack. Watari had to think a moment before coming up with a possible association it might have awakened, but a mind like L’s would certainly link things with greater speed.
Then it was the morning of the day after that, the twenty-third, with Light Yagami scheduled to be dispatched to the States in under twenty-four hours. L had expressed a lack of preference for breakfast. Watari, going over a mental list, suggested cream horns - cones of pastry, piped full of whipped cream in various flavors. L said those sounded good, but when the platter arrived he gaped at it outright. This time Watari couldn’t imagine what it might be associated with, except in the crudest manner of rampant symbolism (though crude associations could by no means be ruled out). L gaped, and then said in a voice that sounded altogether too unsteady for the subject matter that given further consideration he would rather have scones.
“Are you -”
“Yes. Of course.”
That night, Watari decided that even if he still didn’t know quite what was to be done, something had to be.
***
It had been four days since he’d gotten access to the files, and Light had been drenched in information that nonetheless failed to fulfill his essential and original bit of curiosity. It had been eighteen days without any known killings, and it wasn’t as though picture identification was a much greater risk than showing his face at all, so Light had his picture taken and was quickly handed the passport needed for overseas travel through conventional means. It was in the name of Light Asano, and this “Light” used different kanji, so as not to be completely incautious (superficially the last name was pretty clearly one step from Asahi, but Light also knew the story of the forty-seven samurai, and decided to think it was a good sign that L had given him the name of a man that had gone against a Kira, even if that Asano had ended up committing ritual suicide and been avenged only posthumously).
Misa promised to call every day, no, every morning and night (“You really don’t have to,” he said, and reasoned her back down to once a day). His father told him once again to take care. His mother, not knowing the particulars, still fussed over him. Sayu reminded him to get her some souvenirs.
He was one of the few people left in residence in the building, and for long stretches he could almost forget about the other two; they didn’t exactly bump into one another often. His bags were mostly packed. The night before departure he added the last of the files he’d spent most of the previous few days reading. Then L called, out of the blue, and asked him if he’d like to come up a few floors for dinner and a friendly sit-down. “I doubt it will be much of an incentive for you,” he said, “but there will be cake.”
Light laughed. “Cake? In that case, how can I resist? I’ll be right up.”
He would have readily resisted, he thought five minutes later, if he knew what else there would be. Friends did not ambush friends with a visiting Misa Amane.
***
They weren’t his friends, L knew, but they still seemed to be going through the appropriate motions of friendship. Misa hadn’t even tried to confirm Light would be present before running over from her apartment (maintained all these months in better condition than she’d left it), though to tell the truth she could have easily assumed she could find him in headquarters either way. He’d called each of them to further the pretense on his own end. The pretenses were meshing nicely; the atmosphere became convivial enough once Light recovered from his consternation at the presence of his self-proclaimed girlfriend. Misa had just retold her version of the story of how she’d caught Higuchi’s confession on tape, in between picking at her food (it was very good food, she hastened to assure him, but she was still on a diet. He refrained from putting forth the brainpower hypothesis again).
“So then Misa got back to headquarters and everyone was running around and finally Matsu said - oh, I was so worried!” she blurted, leaning forward. “I’m so glad you’re okay!” They were sitting to either side of her at the square table, and L could almost pretend she was addressing him - though why, he thought a moment later, would he want to pretend that?
Now she was definitely addressing him. “Are you staying in Japan?”
“I will be leaving soon.”
“Aw. Misa’s going to be so lonely without you two, come back soon, okay?”
I doubt I will, he was about to say, but for some reason he didn’t. Of course it wasn’t at all true, since he’d likely be coming back once the rule finished testing on the first of December, and on that occasion he’d certainly see Misa even if she herself never actually saw him again, but it wasn’t as though that had ever stopped him before. Still, he nodded.
They moved to the couches, leaving the dishes on the table, L assuring them it would be taken care of later (later, when Misa wasn’t there to see Watari’s face). Misa talked a while longer about her latest offers for movies and modeling, trailed off slightly, then asked, “Since you have all this stuff here, are there games we could play?”
“I know we have chess and shogi somewhere,” said Light, “but those are for two people at a time, and I don’t know -”
“Oh, you can play and Misa can watch. Misa would like to learn.”
“Ryuuzaki? What do you think?”
“If you want.” It wasn’t as though he had pressing business. Once this was over, though, he should choose another case for the interim. Though Kira’s killings might have put something of a damper on crime rates, there remained a considerable backlog from which he could have his pick.
Light excused himself to retrieve the sets. After the door closed, Misa folded her hands and said “You caught them?”
“Yes.”
“That’s really good. Sometimes...”
Why was she bringing this up now? he wondered. Did she just not want to upstage Light in front of him? After all, about all Light had done in regard to catching them was carry the message to Aiber. “Sometimes what, Misa-san?”
“It must be nice to take care of it yourself,” she said. “I couldn’t have...”
“Are you still grateful to Kira for ‘taking care of it’?”
She made as if to jump up. “What? Are you still saying -”
“I am not.” This time he lied as easily as he was accustomed to. “You are cleared, Misa-san.”
“Well, yes,” she said, letting out a high giggle. “It’s just been so long with all of that, you know? And no, Misa’s not. He wasn’t at all like Misa imagined. He was just a dirty old man. At least Misa found Light.”
Light arrived with the boxes in short order, setting them on the table between the couches. They were stacked, the chess set on top of the shogi set. L took the lid off, took out and unfolded the board.
Like a chessboard, or a checkerboard. Checkerboard was the more common term for the design of the kitchen floor. Alternating squares of linoleum in black and white, each square a size his open hand would easily fit into. He had a long time to look at them, lying there as they got ready, lying there trying to curl into a ball that would spiral in on itself and disappear as they decided what else to do to him...
L heard and a moment later saw the board landing sideways across the open box, falling closed. The backing of the board was solid black. His head began to clear.
“Ryuuzaki?”
***
“Ryuuzaki?” Light repeated. L stared at the chessboard for another moment, looking as though it had somehow contrived to bite him, before realigning it in the box and replacing the lid. “... so,” he ventured, “shogi, then?”
“Do you have an objection, Light-kun?”
What was the matter? Had L developed an allergy to the game? He certainly hadn’t been allergic the last time they’d played, a month and a half ago. “Well, actually,” he said, inspired (though inspired to what he couldn’t have said), “I’d really rather work on chess tonight.”
“Then,” said L after a moment, removing the lid once again, “we will play chess.”
They played, and it soon became clear L was off his game. Maybe it was partly because he seemed so reluctant to look at the board. Instead he stared at Light even more than usual while he marched his pawns, knights, rooks, bishops, queen, and finally his king to their clean deaths and their mass grave at the side of the board.
Even Misa was frowning slightly. Her opinion of him was pinned sky-high, to be sure, but she didn’t have to assess him realistically to assess L’s blunders. “Misa... thinks she understands now.”
Light was feeling somewhat guilty by the time he opened his mouth again. “So,” he said again, “shogi -?”
L’s stare sharpened. He was already replacing the white pieces on the board, quite deftly considering he still wasn’t looking down. “Best of three, Light-kun?”
“Sure,” he managed. “Best of three.”
L rallied halfway through the next game, but his two subsequent victories weren’t enough to erase Light’s memory of the look that had been on his face for the first.
***
24 November 2004
Misa left so late it had become early, yawning as daintily as she could manage, and Light followed, dutifully offering to accompany her home. L counted off after the door closed behind them, then once they were well gone took the stairs to the room he’d been staying in and used the computer there to set about looking for a diversionary case.
After finishing the overview of a bombing and turning to a money-laundering scheme, he started to think that perhaps he should stop it. It wasn’t too late. He could say that new information had settled the matter of Margot Foxfield (information he could soon gain by dispatching another investigator), and he would tell Light that his efforts were appreciated but redundant, tell Ms. Foxfield there had been a change of plans.
That was ridiculous. Light had already read the files on both cases. He would learn little more from actually going, nothing of any importance.
He’ll guess.
And what if he did guess, assuming he hadn’t already? What if he did? What did that matter?
The bombing, he decided abruptly, he’d do the bombing. He asked Watari to send the relevant files on the case. He never got them.
When he heard the knock on the door he thought it might be Light, back from escorting Misa, but he remembered he’d never told Light where his new room was. Watari was his second thought - delivering the files in person for some reason. And it was indeed Watari, but when he peered through the glassed hole in the door, he saw no sign of them, unless Watari had it folded up under his suit for some reason yet to be known.
But it was Watari, so he opened the door and asked without preamble, “Is there a problem with the files?”
“This has nothing to do with the files.” Watari headed forward, into the room, and L sidestepped, closing the door after him. So something private, then. He tried to figure what. It wasn’t coming to him as easily as it ought to. Some unpleasant surprise he needed to be discreetly notified of?
“I believe,” said Watari, “I have some cause for concern.”
That. “You do, but your concern is unnecessary.”
“I’m afraid I can’t believe so.”
“It’s a natural reaction. It will pass shortly.”
Yes, part of him piped up then, it would pass just as it had the last time. It would burrow in and stay dormant and then, when he was securely shut in with it again, it would reemerge like his private Red Death -
- but he knew the trick now. He had been sixteen the last time, there had still been many things he didn’t know, and he hadn’t known better than to carry the poison fragments with him. This time he could be rid of it for good, if he could refrain from feeding the flames this time they would flare out and die and it would be over and L could, cleansed, go on with life -
Watari was speaking again, seemed to have been doing so for some time. He was going at a slow rate, though, and L didn’t think he’d missed too much of it that he couldn’t extrapolate.
“- can’t say it seems at all advisable to take on -”
His mind jerked and spun into high gear again, filling gaps, drawing links.
“- seen to. Once this is done with, I must insist on at least one month -”
- one month, one month at least, and after that another month, and another, because there wouldn’t be a least, month after month for him to sit idle and deteriorate, for his mind to spin itself apart - months for convalescence he didn’t need, convalescence that would go about sinking him deeper, how could he get himself back together with nothing else to think about, when he couldn’t even function -
“- Mello and Near -”
- it had been Mello’s idea, after all, Mello who had retrieved him from the syndicate when he couldn’t extricate himself. And as for the syndicate they knew, and their allies, and who knew who else by now, they would know his face, the secret traveled around the world before he could even start to chase it down, might as well stick his thumb in a dike with a hundred other leaking holes all around, it was over, that was what this meant, it was the beginning of the end. So simply swap out Kay Ellis who’d been foolish enough to show his face again. L would go on without him -
“L?”
“No,” he breathed. “No, I can’t. I can. I can still.”
A hand reaching out, placed over his. “L -”
“Don’t!” He recoiled, stumbled backward and somehow fetched up against the far wall, next to the bed still perfectly made and starting to gather dust. “Don’t... no... don’t, I -” Irrational, completely irrational, if anyone would never do that to him Watari would be the one, though he’d certainly been wrong before. Either way he was doing a horrid job proving his case so far. He made himself go forward. “I can still work. I can function.”
The uncharacteristic look on Watari’s face was as taken aback as though he was going forward with a butcher knife in hand. “I’m not arguing that,” he said as though he thought if he didn’t say it L would spring on him. “But this needs addressing, before -”
“It does. I’m addressing it.”
“Understand, I’m hardly suggesting you ought to be tied to a bed for a rest cure -”
L heard himself laughing from what seemed like a great distance. Watari was the one to step backward now. “I know you’re not speaking of rest, Watari. You’re speaking of... of retirement.”
“I most certainly am not -”
“You’ve never lied to me this badly before.” He’d thought, for example, for quite a few years that A and B had stood a real chance.
“I simply believe that in light of your recent condition it seems reasonable to -”
“It is not.”
“Now, please, listen to me.”
I have been listening, he almost said, and I’ve heard quite enough, but he needed to calm down, needed to display his reason, so he quieted and listened some more.
Watari continued. “I have no intention of stopping you taking cases for good, but I can’t in good conscience watch this continue. You need time to see to this, and I can see if you have your way there won’t be any. I expect you want to say now that having your way worked excellently the last time something of this sort happened -” In fact L, listening, had wanted to say nothing of the kind, until Watari brought up the possibility. “- but I will say now that I’ve come to believe that it didn’t. You function now. I won’t argue that. How long can you go on in this manner? You need time.”
“I’ve had time in abundance for the past two weeks,” in fact for most of the past month, “and it has been counterproductive. I require another case -”
“To distract yourself.”
“No. I need to use my time or go mad with boredom. Is that such a problem?”
“No, you’ve dealt perfectly well with dead time before. You hardly seemed bored tonight, or this morning, or each time you got round to sleeping in the last ten days. It’s clear boredom is not the problem.” He sighed. “You accuse me of lying, but I know you are not at all all right.”
“I will be.”
“Not if this goes on as it is.”
“I will be.”
***
He hadn’t seen or heard such an obvious gamut of expression from L in quite a long time. Growing wide-eyed horror had become blank-eyed fear had become frantic pleading had become bitter hysteria had become bitter scorn. And now the pleading note was entering his voice again. He’d backed up against the far wall once more, staring at Watari like a trapped animal about to start tearing at his own leg in an escape effort. It was making Watari feel far more like a horrid person than he thought he ought to be feeling. “You said I need time,” L said, slowly, deliberately. “Then let me have time. I can see to it myself. I’d like to see the file now.”
“I have just explained,” said Watari, “why I haven’t given you the file.”
“If you won’t allow me to work, you may as well have tied me to a bed for a rest cure. What do you think I ought to do about this that I haven’t already?”
He had never before seen L so desperate to go on with his work. Keen, yes, but not desperate. But then, Watari himself had never done anything of the sort before. He took a deep breath. “What you can’t do alone.”
“Give an example. You already know everything about it. What else do you expect me to say?”
“I do not.” L seemed suddenly even more afraid at that. At what? “At any rate, you needn’t say it to me. In fact it may be better if you don’t.”
He laughed again; at least it was probably laughter. Watari’s memory of his laughter over eight years ago was likely rather airbrushed with time, but he was fairly sure it had never been so strangled. “Then who else? Shall I say it to Light? It might give his father another heart attack. Or I suppose Mr. Mogi can keep his silence well enough.”
“I was considering in the way of someone else entirely.” He was becoming less and less confident by the moment of his own ability to handle any part of this. But who else?
“Someone to tell me how much I hold back?” Watari too remembered L’s last sally into counseling at the age of twelve; the oblivious (or rather over-perceptive) psychologist had gone away convinced of ghastly abuse. It was a good job they’d used false names for the excursion.
“There won’t be a need to hold back.”
He smiled now, thinly. “Because it’s already out.”
“No.” Though that was a factor in his split-second consideration, and the twist to L’s smile showed him how badly he lied. “There are... graduates of the House.” Like the auxiliaries, X, Y and Z, them and their contemporaries. And then there were the psychologists that were hired on at the House after the disaster of A and B, but they were used to working with children, however gifted the children, and the time for them was long past in this case. “They already hold their tongues on part of the matter. If they might need to know a little more... it won’t be too much of a reach.”
“Won’t it?”
“It won’t.” As he said it, he convinced himself. “Not where your welfare is concerned.”
L was the one to breathe deep this time. “If you are concerned about my welfare, then -” He stopped, took another such breath.
Watari spared him from making another plea for the file. “If you are so certain abstaining will do more harm than good, we can discuss this in the morning. Seven at the earliest,” he amended when he saw L glance toward the clock, evident preparation for arguing technicality. “I won’t assist you in taking up another case just for procrastination.” He was about to mention again that Near and Mello would willingly step into the gap, but decided bringing up the successors was not the best idea at the moment. It would likely bring L’s brain back around to his odd fear of being discarded.
He was leaning against the wall now, upper back still hunched forward, looking to the side. “Procrastination implies I have some eventual intention, however remote, but allow me to guess. If I refuse to speak to your graduate then you will withhold your assistance altogether. Is that accurate?”
“You needn’t do that specifically. I only want you to -”
“Address it, involving another person in the process. Yes. We can discuss this in the morning.”
Watari nodded and said “Good night.” He backed out of the room. L’s face remained turned toward the wall.
***
No nightmares tonight, L ordered himself, then cancelled the order given the low chance he’d listen. He thought of calling Watari back and seeing if he could obtain a sedative-hypnotic, but the thought of the tablets or the pills filled him with revulsion. It was... understandable, given the manner of their recent use. He didn’t want to see Watari and he didn’t want to see a sedative, so that was it for that thought.
He returned to the chair and sat with his head turned upward, counting off.
At six hundred two - he doesn’t know everything.
But Watari didn’t need to know, did he? He’d stopped it. The Foxfields had paid. No need to dwell on it any longer. Six hundred three, six hundred four...
Redding had paid, and the other four, and lack of need wasn’t stopping him dwelling on that, was it?
A memory bobbed up. He reached for it, but it eluded him. The elusion spurred his pursuit, and by the time he realized he probably wouldn’t like it when he caught it he was too far gone to care and his count was irretrievably lost. It had been in bed, he remembered. He’d been looking at Light and thinking... what?
Reproducing the situation might aid recall. So he got off the chair and climbed into the bed and slid under the covers and arranged himself in the position he’d most often adopted while sharing a bed with Light (on his side, at least, not laid out flat on his back or stomach, the recall that might invoke was undesirable). Then he craned his neck over and did his best to pretend Light was lying on the other side...
He remembered his realization that night, drowsy and only kept awake by the still-foreign sensation of the cuff on his right wrist, that he hadn’t gotten rid of what was left of Kay Ellis after all. He remembered thinking, what could he do about it? He couldn’t crack the shells, couldn’t give another one an opportunity to get in.
Don’t let him in. Stop him finding out.
Too late, he thought as he drifted off. It’s too late.
He was unsurprised when the nightmares arrived.
Rating: R
Genre: Angst
Summary: AU from near the end of the Yotsuba arc. A tissue of coincidence and an obsessive heir to a criminal syndicate half-unearth the name of a dead teenager and a corresponding event in L’s past, and both L’s shaken mind and Light’s curiosity won’t allow it to be simply reburied afterward.
Author’s Notes and Warnings: This is in the same continuity as two fics on the Death Note kink meme - “Because No One Will Believe What They Say,” written by yours truly, and “Remorse,” the sequel written by a different anon. Reading those beforehand shouldn’t be necessary to understand this one, but FYI, especially if “should” doesn’t line up with “is.”
Contains language, violence, rape, general dark themes, etc. Please note that the views of characters herein certainly don’t always match my own.
Chapter Five
20 November 2004
There were yellow roses on the wallpaper in the hallway, ran the transcript of the statement. He took me into a bedroom. The floor there was wood as well. There was a double bed with a quilt on it. The quilt was red and white patchwork. He pulled the quilt onto the floor. Then he dropped me onto the bed.
L was right, thought Light as he read the printout. Kay Ellis had had an excellent memory, and a keen eye for detail. According to other entries in the file it had been no trouble pinpointing the house, especially since he’d also gotten a glimpse of the owner’s surname on a tag on his keyring (Redding), and heard the others address him by his first name (Terry, short for Terrence). From what he gleaned of the trial (L’s data naturally pertained more to the investigatory phase), the defense’s argument had been not over identification but consent.
He lay on top of me and kissed me on the mouth. Then he asked me if I’d ever done it before. I told him I hadn’t before today. He told me to think of it as a wedding night, because I was never going to get a proper one.
***
The surveillance cameras were state-of-the-art, and L could easily zoom in close enough to read along with Light, while using the view from another camera to observe his reactions. He didn’t do this the entire time, of course. He wasn’t fixated.
He looked up from a follow-up report on the arrest of one of Reynard’s allies and saw that Light was frowning deeply. L pressed a combination of keys and the page he was holding nearly filled one screen.
... never going to get a proper one. I thought that meant he was going to kill me. Then he laughed and said that sometimes one got surprises.
L had been surprised first, but Redding’s surprise was undoubtedly the bigger one. He and his friends had selected their previous victims on the basis of a combination of vulnerability, likeliness to report, and lack of credibility if they did report, and until then they’d selected well or at least luckily - but that time he’d chosen someone who could and would expose him and destroy him. Kay Ellis had proven strong enough to start bringing him to justice. L was strong enough to finish.
The paper dropped out of sight of the one camera. On the other, Light was turning the chair over to the computer, where he typed rapidly. L could zoom in on the screen as well, and he did so. As he watched, after several trips through search engines, the website of the Glass River Gazette loaded.
Ah, he thought as Light proceeded, he was looking at that. He’d seen enough; he returned to the follow-up reports, his mood improved by the reminder of how Redding gaped from behind the bars of his cell that night.
***
2-19-2004.
The former leader of a group of teen rapists has been accused of assaulting a fellow inmate in prison.
Kenneth Collins claims Terrence Jonathan Redding, currently twenty-seven, attempted to kill him after Mr. Collins rejected his advances...
Light rolled his eyes. Apparently that old habit died hard. He skimmed down.
Mr. Redding may already spend his life in prison for his role in a series of gang rapes from 1994 to 1996. He was denied parole in October 2003.
With his mood somewhat improved by this reassurance, Light returned his attention to the statement.
***
21 November 2004
It was a small thing that set it off on the next stage, an utterly trivial thing, and he would think that perhaps if he hadn’t read along with Light it would have done nothing and it would all have stayed restricted to dreams. He’d dropped a gumball and it had rolled under the desk, so he got out of his chair, knelt in front of the desk, and reached.
His hands stretched out before him, bound with the palms together, the long ends of the rope trailing.
“Come on, get up.”
One-two and he tilted his elbows, jamming them into the floor to propel him upward, drawing his now-untied legs under him. The steady throb of pain abruptly flared under his back. He choked back a cry; he was holding back more now, with his throat nearly bloody. The noise he’d made already should satisfy them.
He pushed up again with his hands, and they wrenched slightly in their bonds. It would have worked better if he could have turned his palms downward. He knelt, gasping, made to unbend one leg, nearly crashed back down. His hands waved in midair, seeking support. It was probably for the best that he didn’t catch the leg of any of the five surrounding him.
“Come on.”
“Please.” He thought that maybe this was a test. If he couldn’t get up maybe they would decide to kill him. “Please, I...” another minute, just another minute -
He was standing now, swaying, and just when he’d gotten there his feet were knocked out from under him and he fell backward into arms that proceeded to scoop him entirely off the floor. Another flare set off inside him as he stared up at Redding, which partly subsided as he let his head fall to the side. He was carried out of the kitchen, into a hallway with rose-papered walls.
He wasn’t in the hallway. He was under the desk, among the various cables, breathing hard. Stupid, he told himself, this was stupid, they weren’t here, he was in no danger.
No danger? part of him howled. How could he still think that when not half a mile from headquarters a group of trivial criminals had -
He scooped up the gumball and reemerged, reseated himself, tossed it among the discarded wrappers and popped a clean piece of candy into his mouth. He concentrated on rolling it about with his tongue, noticing the flavor only incidentally, making his breaths slow. It didn’t matter, he told himself. It would pass. It had to pass. Kay Ellis was not dead; that only meant L would have to throttle what remained of him.
***
23 November 2004
It might sometimes seem, looking from the outside, that L knew everything, saw everything, or at least had the potential to if he bothered. Watari knew better, and knew also that he himself was hardly omniscient at the best of times, but as he sat surrounded by screens he saw quite enough.
He slept far more than L, but even so their schedules were by no means a complete overlap, and once he knew what to look for he could always go over the recorded footage. Night after night he watched the outward manifestations of nightmares, and wondered how many might spin away with no visible sign. There was very little to work on in this lull as they cleaned up the pieces of criminal organizations and waited for the test results, nothing that would call for round-the-clock work, but the smears under L’s eyes seemed to grow even darker. Watari could not have said how L stretched out his waking hours as day after day passed, leaving nearly no time one could point at and say he was stalling or doing busywork, but there they were. He couldn’t be quite called jumpy but there was something in the quick way he would turn his head and regard this or that... of course vigilance was natural, and to be encouraged, but it all seemed somehow off. But what could be done about it?
Three days ago, he’d the dubious good fortune of seeing L abruptly freeze while retrieving a candy from under the desk; a few seconds’ inattention and he would have missed it, missed the inexplicable quickening of his breath. He caught another piece of such fortune the next day. L was going through another follow-up report when he froze again, breath audibly catching, blinking rapidly for several seconds before continuing to scroll. Watari looked up the section of the report. It concerned an American con artist named John Redmond, alias Red Jack. Watari had to think a moment before coming up with a possible association it might have awakened, but a mind like L’s would certainly link things with greater speed.
Then it was the morning of the day after that, the twenty-third, with Light Yagami scheduled to be dispatched to the States in under twenty-four hours. L had expressed a lack of preference for breakfast. Watari, going over a mental list, suggested cream horns - cones of pastry, piped full of whipped cream in various flavors. L said those sounded good, but when the platter arrived he gaped at it outright. This time Watari couldn’t imagine what it might be associated with, except in the crudest manner of rampant symbolism (though crude associations could by no means be ruled out). L gaped, and then said in a voice that sounded altogether too unsteady for the subject matter that given further consideration he would rather have scones.
“Are you -”
“Yes. Of course.”
That night, Watari decided that even if he still didn’t know quite what was to be done, something had to be.
***
It had been four days since he’d gotten access to the files, and Light had been drenched in information that nonetheless failed to fulfill his essential and original bit of curiosity. It had been eighteen days without any known killings, and it wasn’t as though picture identification was a much greater risk than showing his face at all, so Light had his picture taken and was quickly handed the passport needed for overseas travel through conventional means. It was in the name of Light Asano, and this “Light” used different kanji, so as not to be completely incautious (superficially the last name was pretty clearly one step from Asahi, but Light also knew the story of the forty-seven samurai, and decided to think it was a good sign that L had given him the name of a man that had gone against a Kira, even if that Asano had ended up committing ritual suicide and been avenged only posthumously).
Misa promised to call every day, no, every morning and night (“You really don’t have to,” he said, and reasoned her back down to once a day). His father told him once again to take care. His mother, not knowing the particulars, still fussed over him. Sayu reminded him to get her some souvenirs.
He was one of the few people left in residence in the building, and for long stretches he could almost forget about the other two; they didn’t exactly bump into one another often. His bags were mostly packed. The night before departure he added the last of the files he’d spent most of the previous few days reading. Then L called, out of the blue, and asked him if he’d like to come up a few floors for dinner and a friendly sit-down. “I doubt it will be much of an incentive for you,” he said, “but there will be cake.”
Light laughed. “Cake? In that case, how can I resist? I’ll be right up.”
He would have readily resisted, he thought five minutes later, if he knew what else there would be. Friends did not ambush friends with a visiting Misa Amane.
***
They weren’t his friends, L knew, but they still seemed to be going through the appropriate motions of friendship. Misa hadn’t even tried to confirm Light would be present before running over from her apartment (maintained all these months in better condition than she’d left it), though to tell the truth she could have easily assumed she could find him in headquarters either way. He’d called each of them to further the pretense on his own end. The pretenses were meshing nicely; the atmosphere became convivial enough once Light recovered from his consternation at the presence of his self-proclaimed girlfriend. Misa had just retold her version of the story of how she’d caught Higuchi’s confession on tape, in between picking at her food (it was very good food, she hastened to assure him, but she was still on a diet. He refrained from putting forth the brainpower hypothesis again).
“So then Misa got back to headquarters and everyone was running around and finally Matsu said - oh, I was so worried!” she blurted, leaning forward. “I’m so glad you’re okay!” They were sitting to either side of her at the square table, and L could almost pretend she was addressing him - though why, he thought a moment later, would he want to pretend that?
Now she was definitely addressing him. “Are you staying in Japan?”
“I will be leaving soon.”
“Aw. Misa’s going to be so lonely without you two, come back soon, okay?”
I doubt I will, he was about to say, but for some reason he didn’t. Of course it wasn’t at all true, since he’d likely be coming back once the rule finished testing on the first of December, and on that occasion he’d certainly see Misa even if she herself never actually saw him again, but it wasn’t as though that had ever stopped him before. Still, he nodded.
They moved to the couches, leaving the dishes on the table, L assuring them it would be taken care of later (later, when Misa wasn’t there to see Watari’s face). Misa talked a while longer about her latest offers for movies and modeling, trailed off slightly, then asked, “Since you have all this stuff here, are there games we could play?”
“I know we have chess and shogi somewhere,” said Light, “but those are for two people at a time, and I don’t know -”
“Oh, you can play and Misa can watch. Misa would like to learn.”
“Ryuuzaki? What do you think?”
“If you want.” It wasn’t as though he had pressing business. Once this was over, though, he should choose another case for the interim. Though Kira’s killings might have put something of a damper on crime rates, there remained a considerable backlog from which he could have his pick.
Light excused himself to retrieve the sets. After the door closed, Misa folded her hands and said “You caught them?”
“Yes.”
“That’s really good. Sometimes...”
Why was she bringing this up now? he wondered. Did she just not want to upstage Light in front of him? After all, about all Light had done in regard to catching them was carry the message to Aiber. “Sometimes what, Misa-san?”
“It must be nice to take care of it yourself,” she said. “I couldn’t have...”
“Are you still grateful to Kira for ‘taking care of it’?”
She made as if to jump up. “What? Are you still saying -”
“I am not.” This time he lied as easily as he was accustomed to. “You are cleared, Misa-san.”
“Well, yes,” she said, letting out a high giggle. “It’s just been so long with all of that, you know? And no, Misa’s not. He wasn’t at all like Misa imagined. He was just a dirty old man. At least Misa found Light.”
Light arrived with the boxes in short order, setting them on the table between the couches. They were stacked, the chess set on top of the shogi set. L took the lid off, took out and unfolded the board.
Like a chessboard, or a checkerboard. Checkerboard was the more common term for the design of the kitchen floor. Alternating squares of linoleum in black and white, each square a size his open hand would easily fit into. He had a long time to look at them, lying there as they got ready, lying there trying to curl into a ball that would spiral in on itself and disappear as they decided what else to do to him...
L heard and a moment later saw the board landing sideways across the open box, falling closed. The backing of the board was solid black. His head began to clear.
“Ryuuzaki?”
***
“Ryuuzaki?” Light repeated. L stared at the chessboard for another moment, looking as though it had somehow contrived to bite him, before realigning it in the box and replacing the lid. “... so,” he ventured, “shogi, then?”
“Do you have an objection, Light-kun?”
What was the matter? Had L developed an allergy to the game? He certainly hadn’t been allergic the last time they’d played, a month and a half ago. “Well, actually,” he said, inspired (though inspired to what he couldn’t have said), “I’d really rather work on chess tonight.”
“Then,” said L after a moment, removing the lid once again, “we will play chess.”
They played, and it soon became clear L was off his game. Maybe it was partly because he seemed so reluctant to look at the board. Instead he stared at Light even more than usual while he marched his pawns, knights, rooks, bishops, queen, and finally his king to their clean deaths and their mass grave at the side of the board.
Even Misa was frowning slightly. Her opinion of him was pinned sky-high, to be sure, but she didn’t have to assess him realistically to assess L’s blunders. “Misa... thinks she understands now.”
Light was feeling somewhat guilty by the time he opened his mouth again. “So,” he said again, “shogi -?”
L’s stare sharpened. He was already replacing the white pieces on the board, quite deftly considering he still wasn’t looking down. “Best of three, Light-kun?”
“Sure,” he managed. “Best of three.”
L rallied halfway through the next game, but his two subsequent victories weren’t enough to erase Light’s memory of the look that had been on his face for the first.
***
24 November 2004
Misa left so late it had become early, yawning as daintily as she could manage, and Light followed, dutifully offering to accompany her home. L counted off after the door closed behind them, then once they were well gone took the stairs to the room he’d been staying in and used the computer there to set about looking for a diversionary case.
After finishing the overview of a bombing and turning to a money-laundering scheme, he started to think that perhaps he should stop it. It wasn’t too late. He could say that new information had settled the matter of Margot Foxfield (information he could soon gain by dispatching another investigator), and he would tell Light that his efforts were appreciated but redundant, tell Ms. Foxfield there had been a change of plans.
That was ridiculous. Light had already read the files on both cases. He would learn little more from actually going, nothing of any importance.
He’ll guess.
And what if he did guess, assuming he hadn’t already? What if he did? What did that matter?
The bombing, he decided abruptly, he’d do the bombing. He asked Watari to send the relevant files on the case. He never got them.
When he heard the knock on the door he thought it might be Light, back from escorting Misa, but he remembered he’d never told Light where his new room was. Watari was his second thought - delivering the files in person for some reason. And it was indeed Watari, but when he peered through the glassed hole in the door, he saw no sign of them, unless Watari had it folded up under his suit for some reason yet to be known.
But it was Watari, so he opened the door and asked without preamble, “Is there a problem with the files?”
“This has nothing to do with the files.” Watari headed forward, into the room, and L sidestepped, closing the door after him. So something private, then. He tried to figure what. It wasn’t coming to him as easily as it ought to. Some unpleasant surprise he needed to be discreetly notified of?
“I believe,” said Watari, “I have some cause for concern.”
That. “You do, but your concern is unnecessary.”
“I’m afraid I can’t believe so.”
“It’s a natural reaction. It will pass shortly.”
Yes, part of him piped up then, it would pass just as it had the last time. It would burrow in and stay dormant and then, when he was securely shut in with it again, it would reemerge like his private Red Death -
- but he knew the trick now. He had been sixteen the last time, there had still been many things he didn’t know, and he hadn’t known better than to carry the poison fragments with him. This time he could be rid of it for good, if he could refrain from feeding the flames this time they would flare out and die and it would be over and L could, cleansed, go on with life -
Watari was speaking again, seemed to have been doing so for some time. He was going at a slow rate, though, and L didn’t think he’d missed too much of it that he couldn’t extrapolate.
“- can’t say it seems at all advisable to take on -”
His mind jerked and spun into high gear again, filling gaps, drawing links.
“- seen to. Once this is done with, I must insist on at least one month -”
- one month, one month at least, and after that another month, and another, because there wouldn’t be a least, month after month for him to sit idle and deteriorate, for his mind to spin itself apart - months for convalescence he didn’t need, convalescence that would go about sinking him deeper, how could he get himself back together with nothing else to think about, when he couldn’t even function -
“- Mello and Near -”
- it had been Mello’s idea, after all, Mello who had retrieved him from the syndicate when he couldn’t extricate himself. And as for the syndicate they knew, and their allies, and who knew who else by now, they would know his face, the secret traveled around the world before he could even start to chase it down, might as well stick his thumb in a dike with a hundred other leaking holes all around, it was over, that was what this meant, it was the beginning of the end. So simply swap out Kay Ellis who’d been foolish enough to show his face again. L would go on without him -
“L?”
“No,” he breathed. “No, I can’t. I can. I can still.”
A hand reaching out, placed over his. “L -”
“Don’t!” He recoiled, stumbled backward and somehow fetched up against the far wall, next to the bed still perfectly made and starting to gather dust. “Don’t... no... don’t, I -” Irrational, completely irrational, if anyone would never do that to him Watari would be the one, though he’d certainly been wrong before. Either way he was doing a horrid job proving his case so far. He made himself go forward. “I can still work. I can function.”
The uncharacteristic look on Watari’s face was as taken aback as though he was going forward with a butcher knife in hand. “I’m not arguing that,” he said as though he thought if he didn’t say it L would spring on him. “But this needs addressing, before -”
“It does. I’m addressing it.”
“Understand, I’m hardly suggesting you ought to be tied to a bed for a rest cure -”
L heard himself laughing from what seemed like a great distance. Watari was the one to step backward now. “I know you’re not speaking of rest, Watari. You’re speaking of... of retirement.”
“I most certainly am not -”
“You’ve never lied to me this badly before.” He’d thought, for example, for quite a few years that A and B had stood a real chance.
“I simply believe that in light of your recent condition it seems reasonable to -”
“It is not.”
“Now, please, listen to me.”
I have been listening, he almost said, and I’ve heard quite enough, but he needed to calm down, needed to display his reason, so he quieted and listened some more.
Watari continued. “I have no intention of stopping you taking cases for good, but I can’t in good conscience watch this continue. You need time to see to this, and I can see if you have your way there won’t be any. I expect you want to say now that having your way worked excellently the last time something of this sort happened -” In fact L, listening, had wanted to say nothing of the kind, until Watari brought up the possibility. “- but I will say now that I’ve come to believe that it didn’t. You function now. I won’t argue that. How long can you go on in this manner? You need time.”
“I’ve had time in abundance for the past two weeks,” in fact for most of the past month, “and it has been counterproductive. I require another case -”
“To distract yourself.”
“No. I need to use my time or go mad with boredom. Is that such a problem?”
“No, you’ve dealt perfectly well with dead time before. You hardly seemed bored tonight, or this morning, or each time you got round to sleeping in the last ten days. It’s clear boredom is not the problem.” He sighed. “You accuse me of lying, but I know you are not at all all right.”
“I will be.”
“Not if this goes on as it is.”
“I will be.”
***
He hadn’t seen or heard such an obvious gamut of expression from L in quite a long time. Growing wide-eyed horror had become blank-eyed fear had become frantic pleading had become bitter hysteria had become bitter scorn. And now the pleading note was entering his voice again. He’d backed up against the far wall once more, staring at Watari like a trapped animal about to start tearing at his own leg in an escape effort. It was making Watari feel far more like a horrid person than he thought he ought to be feeling. “You said I need time,” L said, slowly, deliberately. “Then let me have time. I can see to it myself. I’d like to see the file now.”
“I have just explained,” said Watari, “why I haven’t given you the file.”
“If you won’t allow me to work, you may as well have tied me to a bed for a rest cure. What do you think I ought to do about this that I haven’t already?”
He had never before seen L so desperate to go on with his work. Keen, yes, but not desperate. But then, Watari himself had never done anything of the sort before. He took a deep breath. “What you can’t do alone.”
“Give an example. You already know everything about it. What else do you expect me to say?”
“I do not.” L seemed suddenly even more afraid at that. At what? “At any rate, you needn’t say it to me. In fact it may be better if you don’t.”
He laughed again; at least it was probably laughter. Watari’s memory of his laughter over eight years ago was likely rather airbrushed with time, but he was fairly sure it had never been so strangled. “Then who else? Shall I say it to Light? It might give his father another heart attack. Or I suppose Mr. Mogi can keep his silence well enough.”
“I was considering in the way of someone else entirely.” He was becoming less and less confident by the moment of his own ability to handle any part of this. But who else?
“Someone to tell me how much I hold back?” Watari too remembered L’s last sally into counseling at the age of twelve; the oblivious (or rather over-perceptive) psychologist had gone away convinced of ghastly abuse. It was a good job they’d used false names for the excursion.
“There won’t be a need to hold back.”
He smiled now, thinly. “Because it’s already out.”
“No.” Though that was a factor in his split-second consideration, and the twist to L’s smile showed him how badly he lied. “There are... graduates of the House.” Like the auxiliaries, X, Y and Z, them and their contemporaries. And then there were the psychologists that were hired on at the House after the disaster of A and B, but they were used to working with children, however gifted the children, and the time for them was long past in this case. “They already hold their tongues on part of the matter. If they might need to know a little more... it won’t be too much of a reach.”
“Won’t it?”
“It won’t.” As he said it, he convinced himself. “Not where your welfare is concerned.”
L was the one to breathe deep this time. “If you are concerned about my welfare, then -” He stopped, took another such breath.
Watari spared him from making another plea for the file. “If you are so certain abstaining will do more harm than good, we can discuss this in the morning. Seven at the earliest,” he amended when he saw L glance toward the clock, evident preparation for arguing technicality. “I won’t assist you in taking up another case just for procrastination.” He was about to mention again that Near and Mello would willingly step into the gap, but decided bringing up the successors was not the best idea at the moment. It would likely bring L’s brain back around to his odd fear of being discarded.
He was leaning against the wall now, upper back still hunched forward, looking to the side. “Procrastination implies I have some eventual intention, however remote, but allow me to guess. If I refuse to speak to your graduate then you will withhold your assistance altogether. Is that accurate?”
“You needn’t do that specifically. I only want you to -”
“Address it, involving another person in the process. Yes. We can discuss this in the morning.”
Watari nodded and said “Good night.” He backed out of the room. L’s face remained turned toward the wall.
***
No nightmares tonight, L ordered himself, then cancelled the order given the low chance he’d listen. He thought of calling Watari back and seeing if he could obtain a sedative-hypnotic, but the thought of the tablets or the pills filled him with revulsion. It was... understandable, given the manner of their recent use. He didn’t want to see Watari and he didn’t want to see a sedative, so that was it for that thought.
He returned to the chair and sat with his head turned upward, counting off.
At six hundred two - he doesn’t know everything.
But Watari didn’t need to know, did he? He’d stopped it. The Foxfields had paid. No need to dwell on it any longer. Six hundred three, six hundred four...
Redding had paid, and the other four, and lack of need wasn’t stopping him dwelling on that, was it?
A memory bobbed up. He reached for it, but it eluded him. The elusion spurred his pursuit, and by the time he realized he probably wouldn’t like it when he caught it he was too far gone to care and his count was irretrievably lost. It had been in bed, he remembered. He’d been looking at Light and thinking... what?
Reproducing the situation might aid recall. So he got off the chair and climbed into the bed and slid under the covers and arranged himself in the position he’d most often adopted while sharing a bed with Light (on his side, at least, not laid out flat on his back or stomach, the recall that might invoke was undesirable). Then he craned his neck over and did his best to pretend Light was lying on the other side...
He remembered his realization that night, drowsy and only kept awake by the still-foreign sensation of the cuff on his right wrist, that he hadn’t gotten rid of what was left of Kay Ellis after all. He remembered thinking, what could he do about it? He couldn’t crack the shells, couldn’t give another one an opportunity to get in.
Don’t let him in. Stop him finding out.
Too late, he thought as he drifted off. It’s too late.
He was unsurprised when the nightmares arrived.