DN -- Chocolate Always Loves You Back VIII: Cut and Dry
Title: Chocolate Always Loves You Back
Chapter: 8. Cut and Dry
Fandom: Death Note
Pairing: Light/L
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 3,383
Warnings: AU, moar bloodz
Summary: Light Yagami is not having a good Valentine's Day. Between the new guy with the candy fetish, his partner, Matsuda, and the unsettling new case... the chocolate may be the only thing that loves him at all.
Author's Note: Chant with me now -- "U-S-T! U-S-T!"
VIII - CUT AND DRY
Lawliet’s eyes lit up as he bit into a cookie.
He then proceeded to cram the rest into his mouth and wash it down with milk.
Light was glad he’d had the foresight to make the cookies rather small, as otherwise Lawliet might have been in serious danger of asphyxiation.
Light realized that he was watching a bit too interestedly as Lawliet licked crumbs from his lips, so he pointedly surveyed the rest of the room as well-only to discover that Near, holding his glass in two little white hands, was gazing at him unblinkingly over the rim.
“Did you come here just to feed us cookies?” he asked when he saw that he’d garnered Light’s attention. “Or was there something else you wanted as well?”
Light decided that there should be a limit on how intelligent children were allowed to be.
He wasn’t entirely sure how he intended to enforce the ruling, but he would work on that part.
“I did want to ask you a few more things about the case,” he explained, folding his arms on the tabletop. “I don’t know if Lawliet told you, but just the other night he and I found another victim.”
The boys turned to Lawliet in impressive-and unsurprising-unison.
Lawliet shrugged. “It wouldn’t have made for the best topic of dinner conversation,” he commented.
Light rummaged in his pocket and produced the photocopy he’d made of the picture taken at the coroner’s. He smoothed out the creases so that the boys could see the girl’s face, pale but peaceful where she lay on the steel slab, lips bloodless, eyes closed.
“Her name is Angela Avery,” he told them. “She was nineteen, and it seems unlikely that she was connected to Sander and Billy. Did you know her?”
Matt fidgeted, Mello frowned, and Near twirled one slender finger in his hair.
“I knew her,” he replied. “She used to hang around the flower shops asking for spare or rejected flowers to sell to tourists. And she knitted, too, when she could get the yarn. She and I talked more than once.”
Mello looked askance at Near. “Why d’you know everybody?” he inquired.
Near directed his answer at Light: “I’m sure it comes as a tremendous surprise,” he remarked, “but virtually everyone feels inclined to mother me.”
There was a silence, and he sipped at his milk.
“Angela wasn’t involved in anything unpleasant, as far as I know,” he went on, “but as I said, we weren’t particularly close. She didn’t associate with Sander’s group, though-she was mostly on her own.”
“Presumably making the urge to take care of you twice as persuasive,” Light mused idly.
Near’s round face scrunched into a faint pout. “You have no idea,” he muttered.
Light drummed his fingers on the table. “But she wasn’t involved with any drugs or anything, to the best of your knowledge?” Near nodded, and Light tapped his fingers against his chin instead. “We keep coming back to… they must have been looking for something else…”
Lawliet raised his eyebrows-or so Light assumed; the cobweb-shadow bangs made it difficult to tell-and considered each of his charges in turn.
“I trust that none of you have gotten mixed up with any of that?” he prompted.
Mello snorted and retrieved a spare chocolate chip that had escaped to a corner of the Tupperware. “Chocolate’s the only drug I’m interested in,” he announced.
This, after Near attracting mothering types, was the second-greatest shock of Light’s life.
Near drank more milk. “No,” he said.
Everyone looked at Matt.
He shifted, glanced away, and fiddled with his goggles.
“…Matt?” Lawliet asked gently.
Matt’s face went white, then pink, and his green eyes welled suddenly, shining with tears. Then he hid his face in his hands and unleashed a heartrendingly piteous wail.
“It’s not my f-f-fault!” he cried. “And-and I know they’re bad, but-but they’re so good, too, ’cause they make me feel happy, and-and I can’t usually get them, but I feel smarter and safer and better and-and-” He raised his head long enough to address himself plaintively to Lawliet, breath hitching, tear streaks smeared across his cheeks. “-and-and-I’m s-sorry! I won’t-I won’t again, I’ll just-just-please don’t send me away!”
Lawliet’s mouth had fallen open.
Matt scrubbed hastily at his eyes, desolate and desperate both. “Please!”
Lawliet looked at Mello, who stared at him with equal anxiety, and then at a considerably calmer Near.
“Matt smokes cigarettes,” the littlest boy reported. “When they’re available.”
Matt sobbed, watching for the reaction from between his fingers.
Lawliet blinked at Near, then at Matt, and then he pushed his chair back, stood, and shuffled over to lay one hand gently on Matt’s head.
“I’m not going to send anyone away,” he said.
Matt sniffled forlornly and peeked up at him. “You’re not?”
“Of course not.” Lawliet stroked his hair. “Obviously, I’d rather you didn’t smoke for your own sake, but I’m hardly going to cast you out.”
Matt’s bottom lip quivered. “R-really?” he asked meekly.
Lawliet smiled and patted his head. “Really,” he confirmed.
Smiling shakily, Matt moved to wipe his nose with his sleeve.
“Ah-!” Light cut in, snatching a paper napkin from the holder on the table to shove it urgently at him.
Matt smiled a little wider, bashfully now, accepted it, and blew his nose.
Lawliet gave him another encouraging pet.
Light pocketed the picture and folded his hands on the table. “Anyone up for a walk on the beach?” he asked.
-
In retrospect, it was nice that Lawliet had agreed without calling him on his imbecility.
Over-intelligent brunet, above average height, aged twenty-three. Enjoys impossible cases, gallons of coffee, and long walks on the beach.
Is an idiot.
Light shoved his hands in his pockets and kicked at the warm sand sliding about his feet, but it was difficult to stay angry with himself with the gray-blue water swelling, cresting, and breaking so close by, waves nibbling gently at the beach, ushered in with white foam hissing at their edges. Miraculously enough, the sun was out, glinting on every ripple, turning sailboats into beacons and seagulls to wheeling white kites. Clusters of kelp littered the shore, wet leaves gleaming, and lay tangled and broken amongst the rocks, and the air was almost bursting with the brisk tang of the salty air.
Lawliet, his own flip flops dangling from his curled fingers to free his feet, was contentedly monitoring Matt and Mello as they scampered around at the water’s edge, playing chicken with the waves and squealing at the less-than-tropical temperature when the water won. Near stayed at Lawliet’s side, maintaining a safe and wary distance from the sea currently two-toning his companions’ rolled-up pants legs.
It was all so charming that Light started to wonder if it was possible to overdose on idyll.
It seemed frighteningly plausible, at the moment.
He had a sudden, overwhelming urge to take Lawliet’s hand.
Fortunately, biting his tongue hard distracted his twitchy fingers, and staring intently at the sky gave him time to rethink the plan and berate himself appropriately.
And then Lawliet’s breath caught, and the other man stopped short.
Near and Light each walked another step and a half before they’d finished processing the information-but when they had, they swung around fast enough that Light’s head spun.
Lawliet’s jaw was set, his eyes squeezed shut, his fingers clenched around the flip-flops’ plastic supports. The sand around his right foot was reddening precipitously.
He opened his eyes just enough for a slice of gray to show.
“I believe,” he muttered, “that I have stepped on a piece of glass.”
It was funny, about I told you sos-they were at their most extraneous when they were the most applicable.
Light put both hands under Lawliet’s elbow to steady him as he raised the wounded appendage for inspection. Sure enough, a jagged shard had lodged itself deeply in the center of his foot, and it was bleeding profusely.
Light had figured that the pleasantness wouldn’t last.
He darted around to Lawliet’s disadvantaged side and threaded his arm under the man’s bony shoulders.
“Lean on me,” he instructed, “and let’s head for the car. I have a first-aid kit, and the bathrooms by the parking lot had a water supply…”
It was fairly worrisome that Lawliet had nothing cutting to say.
…Light wanted to pause to slap himself across the face, but there wasn’t an opportunity.
Staggering laboriously back to the lot like the finalists of some cataclysmic three-legged-race, Lawliet’s measured breath by his ear, the lean body pressing warmly against him for leverage, Light reflected that the universe was an incredibly sadistic place to live. Matt and Mello circled, moth-like, with wide, horrified eyes, Near strode alongside, twisting furiously at his hair, and a trail of blood-beaded sand stretched behind them to mark their way.
All in all, a typical afternoon at the beach for two brilliant detectives and a trio of persecuted orphans.
He eased Lawliet carefully down onto the low cinderblock wall that sustained a faucet for the purpose of washing sand off of small children. Light was about to use it for a highly-unprofessional but nonetheless reasonably delicate medical procedure.
What else was new?
Mello had caught the keys he’d tossed before Light thought to wonder what he had just asked for, giving his key-ring to a miniature maniac-but the boy was too grave-faced and frightened to pull a stunt now.
“Open the trunk,” Light instructed. “It’s the small white box on the floor on the right.”
Lawliet managed a strained smile. “Not too small for a rather considerable bit of stupidity, I hope.”
“You couldn’t have known,” Light responded, hesitating with his fingers centimeters away from the offending glass invader. “And think of it this way-you’ve saved some barefooted child a great deal of agony.”
“A kindness to my country,” Lawliet gritted out as Light bit the bullet, clasped the shard, and sharply pulled.
The offending article came out in his hand, dripping, a red pool swelling on the damp cement below. Light set the glass gingerly on the wall by Lawliet, then gently took the assaulted foot and guided it under the thin stream of water gurgling from the spigot, carefully washing it clean of crusting blood and clinging sand. He motioned vaguely to Mello, whom he’d half-sensed, half-noticed hovering by his shoulder. The open kit was thrust before him, and he wiped his wet hands on his good shirt to rummage for the gauze-
-which he very gracefully knocked out of the container in his haste, sending the spool bouncing to the ground to unfurl among the noxious water by the drain.
“Shit.” He took a breath, flexed his hands, and corrected: “I mean… darn.”
“Goddamn motherfucking son of a bitch?” Mello supplied with a weak smile, searching Lawliet’s face for confirmation.
Lawliet mustered a grin. “Don’t let Quillish hear you talk like that,” he advised.
Light selected a broad bandage, which would have to do for now, rinsed the wound again, and applied the adhesive before too much new blood could gather along the line of the laceration.
For the first time in his life, looking at the paltry temporary fix, he regretted his decision not to go to med school.
Lawliet pitched his inanimate assailant into the closest trashcan with more fervor than the action required, accepted Light’s offered arm, and limped back to the car, where they solemnly regrouped.
Near fastened his seatbelt. “Will that need stitches?” he inquired.
“I hope not,” Light replied, checking his mirrors and backing out, irked by his own acute consciousness of the way he’d braced his arm against the back of Lawliet’s seat. Now was most certainly not the time, but his powers for willful ignorance had pathetically failed. “If the bleeding doesn’t stop soon, we can take a trip to the E.R. and get their opinion on the matter.”
Lawliet wrinkled his nose. “I think,” he said, “I’d rather bleed.”
-
Luck tired of toying with their collective patience, however, and offered a reprieve: a lot of hydrogen peroxide and some clean gauze fixed the worst of Lawliet’s predicament, and delivery pizza and a child-friendly comedy cured the evening of the gloom that had settled so suddenly on the afternoon.
Aiding and abetting his invalid colleague was exhausting, and Light accepted Lawliet’s offer of a quick cup of tea once they’d finally shepherded the boys to bed.
Of course, it would have been downright awful of him not to insist upon actually making the tea himself, but it was still generous of Lawliet to make the gesture.
It was quiet enough in the kitchen to hear the clock counting out the seconds as they sat at the table, Lawliet with his foot up on a chair other than his own for once, and savored the warmth.
Light couldn’t think of anything to say that wasn’t personal and didn’t sound like a come-on, so he hid his self-disgusted grimace behind the rim of his borrowed mug-which he’d selected at random, and which was from Yellowstone National Park-and resorted to the obvious solution.
“What case were you working on, again?” he asked. “Something to do with a bomb threat…?”
Lawliet scowled into his tea. “He builds ready-made bombs,” he corrected, “and sells them or their components to people online and through proxies-he uses drug addicts, generally, because they’ll do anything for the cash and are often prison-bound even before he gets to them. It’s just that-this man, this human being-he doesn’t care. He doesn’t care what these weapons are used for, who uses them, who dies as a result-he doesn’t care if children end up with third-degree burns or worse; he doesn’t care if we jail the more immediate culprit. All that matters to him is being paid. All that matters is the reward. It seems sometimes as though the world has been given over to people like this, to people who look no further than the next payoff-to people who just don’t care.”
Light rubbed at his forehead. “I don’t mean to sound arrogant,” he sighed, “but some days I wish I had the power to change things-to change everything. I can’t help feeling like I’d do a better job of it than the people who get the chance.”
Placidly Lawliet smiled. “Arrogance,” he noted, “is inevitable for people like us.”
Light hated that he loved the inclusion.
-
One-thirty in the morning snuck up like the ruthless ninja-assassin that she was.
“Oh, dear God,” Light said blankly when he caught sight of the clock. “I guess I should have seen that coming from a mile away.”
“Or an hour,” Lawliet commented.
Light stood and went to the sink to wash out his mug. “Damn it,” he remarked over one shoulder. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to keep you up quite this long…”
Inadvertent double-entendres. This kept getting better and better.
“Are you sure you want to leave now, Yagami-kun?” Lawliet asked. “The bars will be closing shortly, and I don’t know that I’d feel comfortable letting you drive so late after such a day.”
Light slotted his mug into the dishwasher and stepped forward to take Lawliet’s, striving not to brush the other man’s hand with his. “I’m sure I’ll be fine…”
“We have an extremely wonderful couch,” Lawliet persisted, smiling so genuinely that Light’s refusal stuck in his throat.
“I’d hate to impose,” he improvised.
“Not at all,” Lawliet returned, hopping up and hobbling off with startling alacrity for someone in his circumstances.
Light stared at the water overflowing from Lawliet’s mug, running over his fingers, and swirling down the drain, and wondered what, exactly, the world had planned for him next.
“Here, Yagami-kun,” Lawliet bid from the other room.
Light flicked off the kitchen lights and followed the sound, discovering that Lawliet had laid out sheets and blankets on what did, in fact, look like a couch fit for a king.
When he received a pair of spare pajamas and a clean toothbrush, Light couldn’t help but start to wonder if perhaps Lawliet wasn’t a little too prepared for this-as if he’d hoped for it all along.
-
He and Lawliet were in the alley where they’d first found Angela, though there wasn’t a body now-just the two of them, standing together, looking idly at the ground.
Then he glanced up, searching for Lawliet’s face, and saw instead that the other man held his hands out in front of him, palms up, a deep diagonal slash cut across each one.
“Lawliet!” he reprimanded. “What are you…”
He took Lawliet’s hands in his, blood collecting in those pale palms now, dribbling between the slim fingers and drawing stark lines down the narrow wrists. Blood everywhere, on everything, staining shirts and skin, and Light’s own hands were slick with it as he tried to staunch the flow-
A slow-moving horror cinched around his heart and clambered up his throat, and it choked him as he met Lawliet’s eyes.
They were losing focus-glazing over, going still.
This time Light looked down, where he saw the thickening red line betraying the gash that bisected Lawliet’s chest.
Nonono oh God no please not you-
Light’s eyes snapped open to a dark room.
His heart was rattling around his ribcage like a pinball going for the high score, and he had to sit up, sheets crumpling around his waist, and gasp in air to breathe properly.
A few long seconds of frantic self-reassurance and adjustment to the blue-white glow of the nightlight tucked tactfully by the wall stabilized him, but the shuddering terror sent aftershocks trilling up and down his spine. Just a dream. Just a nightmare. Just his subconscious being a total bastard for no good reason, like it had always loved to do.
Struggling to shake it, Light slid out of the bedclothes and padded down the hall towards the bathroom Lawliet had pointed out, feeling for the wall to direct him in the dark. He found the doorframe, gently shut himself inside, flipped the light-switch, and stared at himself in the mirror, expecting something to pop up behind him and slit his throat at any second.
He planted his hands on the countertop and concentrated on breathing slowly. He needed to be part of the solution right now.
Obligingly, as if with a hint of an inadequate apology, the water from the tap warmed up quickly, and he splashed his face four times and mopped off the excess with the first towel he could reach. A tap to the switch plunged the bathroom into blackness again, and he fumbled his way back out to the foyer, where the couch was waiting, unassuming and unchanged.
He hadn’t been sitting, head in hands, for long before he heard the telltale tat of bare feet on the hardwood.
“Yagami-kun?” Lawliet called softly. “Are you all right?”
“Fine,” Light answered-which was, by this juncture, at least partially true. “What are you doing awake?”
Lawliet sat down not far away, pulling his knees up to his chest and wrapping both arms around them.
“I have somewhat severe insomnia,” he replied. “I’ve just begun with a new medication, but… it and I have not become accustomed to each other yet.”
Light wondered if, perhaps, that was what the endless quantities of sugar were for-overcompensation.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” he managed. “That must be… difficult at the best of times.”
Lawliet’s curled form seemed to shrug. “You do what you can,” he responded, “and that’s all anyone can ask.”
Light nodded and fought the instincts telling him to look at Lawliet’s hands-to confirm that they were whole.
A strangely tranquil silence reigned, and then Lawliet unfolded to the floor.
“Shall I leave you to it, Yagami-kun? Is there anything I can get you before I do?”
“I’m fine,” Light repeated, “but… thank you.”
He could barely see Lawliet’s smile in the darkness, but barely was enough.
“You’re welcome, Yagami-kun,” Lawliet promised. “Goodnight.”
“Goodnight,” Light offered, settling again.
And maybe it could be good, one way or another. Maybe it would.
[Chapter VII] [Chapter IX]
Chapter: 8. Cut and Dry
Fandom: Death Note
Pairing: Light/L
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 3,383
Warnings: AU, moar bloodz
Summary: Light Yagami is not having a good Valentine's Day. Between the new guy with the candy fetish, his partner, Matsuda, and the unsettling new case... the chocolate may be the only thing that loves him at all.
Author's Note: Chant with me now -- "U-S-T! U-S-T!"
VIII - CUT AND DRY
Lawliet’s eyes lit up as he bit into a cookie.
He then proceeded to cram the rest into his mouth and wash it down with milk.
Light was glad he’d had the foresight to make the cookies rather small, as otherwise Lawliet might have been in serious danger of asphyxiation.
Light realized that he was watching a bit too interestedly as Lawliet licked crumbs from his lips, so he pointedly surveyed the rest of the room as well-only to discover that Near, holding his glass in two little white hands, was gazing at him unblinkingly over the rim.
“Did you come here just to feed us cookies?” he asked when he saw that he’d garnered Light’s attention. “Or was there something else you wanted as well?”
Light decided that there should be a limit on how intelligent children were allowed to be.
He wasn’t entirely sure how he intended to enforce the ruling, but he would work on that part.
“I did want to ask you a few more things about the case,” he explained, folding his arms on the tabletop. “I don’t know if Lawliet told you, but just the other night he and I found another victim.”
The boys turned to Lawliet in impressive-and unsurprising-unison.
Lawliet shrugged. “It wouldn’t have made for the best topic of dinner conversation,” he commented.
Light rummaged in his pocket and produced the photocopy he’d made of the picture taken at the coroner’s. He smoothed out the creases so that the boys could see the girl’s face, pale but peaceful where she lay on the steel slab, lips bloodless, eyes closed.
“Her name is Angela Avery,” he told them. “She was nineteen, and it seems unlikely that she was connected to Sander and Billy. Did you know her?”
Matt fidgeted, Mello frowned, and Near twirled one slender finger in his hair.
“I knew her,” he replied. “She used to hang around the flower shops asking for spare or rejected flowers to sell to tourists. And she knitted, too, when she could get the yarn. She and I talked more than once.”
Mello looked askance at Near. “Why d’you know everybody?” he inquired.
Near directed his answer at Light: “I’m sure it comes as a tremendous surprise,” he remarked, “but virtually everyone feels inclined to mother me.”
There was a silence, and he sipped at his milk.
“Angela wasn’t involved in anything unpleasant, as far as I know,” he went on, “but as I said, we weren’t particularly close. She didn’t associate with Sander’s group, though-she was mostly on her own.”
“Presumably making the urge to take care of you twice as persuasive,” Light mused idly.
Near’s round face scrunched into a faint pout. “You have no idea,” he muttered.
Light drummed his fingers on the table. “But she wasn’t involved with any drugs or anything, to the best of your knowledge?” Near nodded, and Light tapped his fingers against his chin instead. “We keep coming back to… they must have been looking for something else…”
Lawliet raised his eyebrows-or so Light assumed; the cobweb-shadow bangs made it difficult to tell-and considered each of his charges in turn.
“I trust that none of you have gotten mixed up with any of that?” he prompted.
Mello snorted and retrieved a spare chocolate chip that had escaped to a corner of the Tupperware. “Chocolate’s the only drug I’m interested in,” he announced.
This, after Near attracting mothering types, was the second-greatest shock of Light’s life.
Near drank more milk. “No,” he said.
Everyone looked at Matt.
He shifted, glanced away, and fiddled with his goggles.
“…Matt?” Lawliet asked gently.
Matt’s face went white, then pink, and his green eyes welled suddenly, shining with tears. Then he hid his face in his hands and unleashed a heartrendingly piteous wail.
“It’s not my f-f-fault!” he cried. “And-and I know they’re bad, but-but they’re so good, too, ’cause they make me feel happy, and-and I can’t usually get them, but I feel smarter and safer and better and-and-” He raised his head long enough to address himself plaintively to Lawliet, breath hitching, tear streaks smeared across his cheeks. “-and-and-I’m s-sorry! I won’t-I won’t again, I’ll just-just-please don’t send me away!”
Lawliet’s mouth had fallen open.
Matt scrubbed hastily at his eyes, desolate and desperate both. “Please!”
Lawliet looked at Mello, who stared at him with equal anxiety, and then at a considerably calmer Near.
“Matt smokes cigarettes,” the littlest boy reported. “When they’re available.”
Matt sobbed, watching for the reaction from between his fingers.
Lawliet blinked at Near, then at Matt, and then he pushed his chair back, stood, and shuffled over to lay one hand gently on Matt’s head.
“I’m not going to send anyone away,” he said.
Matt sniffled forlornly and peeked up at him. “You’re not?”
“Of course not.” Lawliet stroked his hair. “Obviously, I’d rather you didn’t smoke for your own sake, but I’m hardly going to cast you out.”
Matt’s bottom lip quivered. “R-really?” he asked meekly.
Lawliet smiled and patted his head. “Really,” he confirmed.
Smiling shakily, Matt moved to wipe his nose with his sleeve.
“Ah-!” Light cut in, snatching a paper napkin from the holder on the table to shove it urgently at him.
Matt smiled a little wider, bashfully now, accepted it, and blew his nose.
Lawliet gave him another encouraging pet.
Light pocketed the picture and folded his hands on the table. “Anyone up for a walk on the beach?” he asked.
-
In retrospect, it was nice that Lawliet had agreed without calling him on his imbecility.
Over-intelligent brunet, above average height, aged twenty-three. Enjoys impossible cases, gallons of coffee, and long walks on the beach.
Is an idiot.
Light shoved his hands in his pockets and kicked at the warm sand sliding about his feet, but it was difficult to stay angry with himself with the gray-blue water swelling, cresting, and breaking so close by, waves nibbling gently at the beach, ushered in with white foam hissing at their edges. Miraculously enough, the sun was out, glinting on every ripple, turning sailboats into beacons and seagulls to wheeling white kites. Clusters of kelp littered the shore, wet leaves gleaming, and lay tangled and broken amongst the rocks, and the air was almost bursting with the brisk tang of the salty air.
Lawliet, his own flip flops dangling from his curled fingers to free his feet, was contentedly monitoring Matt and Mello as they scampered around at the water’s edge, playing chicken with the waves and squealing at the less-than-tropical temperature when the water won. Near stayed at Lawliet’s side, maintaining a safe and wary distance from the sea currently two-toning his companions’ rolled-up pants legs.
It was all so charming that Light started to wonder if it was possible to overdose on idyll.
It seemed frighteningly plausible, at the moment.
He had a sudden, overwhelming urge to take Lawliet’s hand.
Fortunately, biting his tongue hard distracted his twitchy fingers, and staring intently at the sky gave him time to rethink the plan and berate himself appropriately.
And then Lawliet’s breath caught, and the other man stopped short.
Near and Light each walked another step and a half before they’d finished processing the information-but when they had, they swung around fast enough that Light’s head spun.
Lawliet’s jaw was set, his eyes squeezed shut, his fingers clenched around the flip-flops’ plastic supports. The sand around his right foot was reddening precipitously.
He opened his eyes just enough for a slice of gray to show.
“I believe,” he muttered, “that I have stepped on a piece of glass.”
It was funny, about I told you sos-they were at their most extraneous when they were the most applicable.
Light put both hands under Lawliet’s elbow to steady him as he raised the wounded appendage for inspection. Sure enough, a jagged shard had lodged itself deeply in the center of his foot, and it was bleeding profusely.
Light had figured that the pleasantness wouldn’t last.
He darted around to Lawliet’s disadvantaged side and threaded his arm under the man’s bony shoulders.
“Lean on me,” he instructed, “and let’s head for the car. I have a first-aid kit, and the bathrooms by the parking lot had a water supply…”
It was fairly worrisome that Lawliet had nothing cutting to say.
…Light wanted to pause to slap himself across the face, but there wasn’t an opportunity.
Staggering laboriously back to the lot like the finalists of some cataclysmic three-legged-race, Lawliet’s measured breath by his ear, the lean body pressing warmly against him for leverage, Light reflected that the universe was an incredibly sadistic place to live. Matt and Mello circled, moth-like, with wide, horrified eyes, Near strode alongside, twisting furiously at his hair, and a trail of blood-beaded sand stretched behind them to mark their way.
All in all, a typical afternoon at the beach for two brilliant detectives and a trio of persecuted orphans.
He eased Lawliet carefully down onto the low cinderblock wall that sustained a faucet for the purpose of washing sand off of small children. Light was about to use it for a highly-unprofessional but nonetheless reasonably delicate medical procedure.
What else was new?
Mello had caught the keys he’d tossed before Light thought to wonder what he had just asked for, giving his key-ring to a miniature maniac-but the boy was too grave-faced and frightened to pull a stunt now.
“Open the trunk,” Light instructed. “It’s the small white box on the floor on the right.”
Lawliet managed a strained smile. “Not too small for a rather considerable bit of stupidity, I hope.”
“You couldn’t have known,” Light responded, hesitating with his fingers centimeters away from the offending glass invader. “And think of it this way-you’ve saved some barefooted child a great deal of agony.”
“A kindness to my country,” Lawliet gritted out as Light bit the bullet, clasped the shard, and sharply pulled.
The offending article came out in his hand, dripping, a red pool swelling on the damp cement below. Light set the glass gingerly on the wall by Lawliet, then gently took the assaulted foot and guided it under the thin stream of water gurgling from the spigot, carefully washing it clean of crusting blood and clinging sand. He motioned vaguely to Mello, whom he’d half-sensed, half-noticed hovering by his shoulder. The open kit was thrust before him, and he wiped his wet hands on his good shirt to rummage for the gauze-
-which he very gracefully knocked out of the container in his haste, sending the spool bouncing to the ground to unfurl among the noxious water by the drain.
“Shit.” He took a breath, flexed his hands, and corrected: “I mean… darn.”
“Goddamn motherfucking son of a bitch?” Mello supplied with a weak smile, searching Lawliet’s face for confirmation.
Lawliet mustered a grin. “Don’t let Quillish hear you talk like that,” he advised.
Light selected a broad bandage, which would have to do for now, rinsed the wound again, and applied the adhesive before too much new blood could gather along the line of the laceration.
For the first time in his life, looking at the paltry temporary fix, he regretted his decision not to go to med school.
Lawliet pitched his inanimate assailant into the closest trashcan with more fervor than the action required, accepted Light’s offered arm, and limped back to the car, where they solemnly regrouped.
Near fastened his seatbelt. “Will that need stitches?” he inquired.
“I hope not,” Light replied, checking his mirrors and backing out, irked by his own acute consciousness of the way he’d braced his arm against the back of Lawliet’s seat. Now was most certainly not the time, but his powers for willful ignorance had pathetically failed. “If the bleeding doesn’t stop soon, we can take a trip to the E.R. and get their opinion on the matter.”
Lawliet wrinkled his nose. “I think,” he said, “I’d rather bleed.”
-
Luck tired of toying with their collective patience, however, and offered a reprieve: a lot of hydrogen peroxide and some clean gauze fixed the worst of Lawliet’s predicament, and delivery pizza and a child-friendly comedy cured the evening of the gloom that had settled so suddenly on the afternoon.
Aiding and abetting his invalid colleague was exhausting, and Light accepted Lawliet’s offer of a quick cup of tea once they’d finally shepherded the boys to bed.
Of course, it would have been downright awful of him not to insist upon actually making the tea himself, but it was still generous of Lawliet to make the gesture.
It was quiet enough in the kitchen to hear the clock counting out the seconds as they sat at the table, Lawliet with his foot up on a chair other than his own for once, and savored the warmth.
Light couldn’t think of anything to say that wasn’t personal and didn’t sound like a come-on, so he hid his self-disgusted grimace behind the rim of his borrowed mug-which he’d selected at random, and which was from Yellowstone National Park-and resorted to the obvious solution.
“What case were you working on, again?” he asked. “Something to do with a bomb threat…?”
Lawliet scowled into his tea. “He builds ready-made bombs,” he corrected, “and sells them or their components to people online and through proxies-he uses drug addicts, generally, because they’ll do anything for the cash and are often prison-bound even before he gets to them. It’s just that-this man, this human being-he doesn’t care. He doesn’t care what these weapons are used for, who uses them, who dies as a result-he doesn’t care if children end up with third-degree burns or worse; he doesn’t care if we jail the more immediate culprit. All that matters to him is being paid. All that matters is the reward. It seems sometimes as though the world has been given over to people like this, to people who look no further than the next payoff-to people who just don’t care.”
Light rubbed at his forehead. “I don’t mean to sound arrogant,” he sighed, “but some days I wish I had the power to change things-to change everything. I can’t help feeling like I’d do a better job of it than the people who get the chance.”
Placidly Lawliet smiled. “Arrogance,” he noted, “is inevitable for people like us.”
Light hated that he loved the inclusion.
-
One-thirty in the morning snuck up like the ruthless ninja-assassin that she was.
“Oh, dear God,” Light said blankly when he caught sight of the clock. “I guess I should have seen that coming from a mile away.”
“Or an hour,” Lawliet commented.
Light stood and went to the sink to wash out his mug. “Damn it,” he remarked over one shoulder. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to keep you up quite this long…”
Inadvertent double-entendres. This kept getting better and better.
“Are you sure you want to leave now, Yagami-kun?” Lawliet asked. “The bars will be closing shortly, and I don’t know that I’d feel comfortable letting you drive so late after such a day.”
Light slotted his mug into the dishwasher and stepped forward to take Lawliet’s, striving not to brush the other man’s hand with his. “I’m sure I’ll be fine…”
“We have an extremely wonderful couch,” Lawliet persisted, smiling so genuinely that Light’s refusal stuck in his throat.
“I’d hate to impose,” he improvised.
“Not at all,” Lawliet returned, hopping up and hobbling off with startling alacrity for someone in his circumstances.
Light stared at the water overflowing from Lawliet’s mug, running over his fingers, and swirling down the drain, and wondered what, exactly, the world had planned for him next.
“Here, Yagami-kun,” Lawliet bid from the other room.
Light flicked off the kitchen lights and followed the sound, discovering that Lawliet had laid out sheets and blankets on what did, in fact, look like a couch fit for a king.
When he received a pair of spare pajamas and a clean toothbrush, Light couldn’t help but start to wonder if perhaps Lawliet wasn’t a little too prepared for this-as if he’d hoped for it all along.
-
He and Lawliet were in the alley where they’d first found Angela, though there wasn’t a body now-just the two of them, standing together, looking idly at the ground.
Then he glanced up, searching for Lawliet’s face, and saw instead that the other man held his hands out in front of him, palms up, a deep diagonal slash cut across each one.
“Lawliet!” he reprimanded. “What are you…”
He took Lawliet’s hands in his, blood collecting in those pale palms now, dribbling between the slim fingers and drawing stark lines down the narrow wrists. Blood everywhere, on everything, staining shirts and skin, and Light’s own hands were slick with it as he tried to staunch the flow-
A slow-moving horror cinched around his heart and clambered up his throat, and it choked him as he met Lawliet’s eyes.
They were losing focus-glazing over, going still.
This time Light looked down, where he saw the thickening red line betraying the gash that bisected Lawliet’s chest.
Nonono oh God no please not you-
Light’s eyes snapped open to a dark room.
His heart was rattling around his ribcage like a pinball going for the high score, and he had to sit up, sheets crumpling around his waist, and gasp in air to breathe properly.
A few long seconds of frantic self-reassurance and adjustment to the blue-white glow of the nightlight tucked tactfully by the wall stabilized him, but the shuddering terror sent aftershocks trilling up and down his spine. Just a dream. Just a nightmare. Just his subconscious being a total bastard for no good reason, like it had always loved to do.
Struggling to shake it, Light slid out of the bedclothes and padded down the hall towards the bathroom Lawliet had pointed out, feeling for the wall to direct him in the dark. He found the doorframe, gently shut himself inside, flipped the light-switch, and stared at himself in the mirror, expecting something to pop up behind him and slit his throat at any second.
He planted his hands on the countertop and concentrated on breathing slowly. He needed to be part of the solution right now.
Obligingly, as if with a hint of an inadequate apology, the water from the tap warmed up quickly, and he splashed his face four times and mopped off the excess with the first towel he could reach. A tap to the switch plunged the bathroom into blackness again, and he fumbled his way back out to the foyer, where the couch was waiting, unassuming and unchanged.
He hadn’t been sitting, head in hands, for long before he heard the telltale tat of bare feet on the hardwood.
“Yagami-kun?” Lawliet called softly. “Are you all right?”
“Fine,” Light answered-which was, by this juncture, at least partially true. “What are you doing awake?”
Lawliet sat down not far away, pulling his knees up to his chest and wrapping both arms around them.
“I have somewhat severe insomnia,” he replied. “I’ve just begun with a new medication, but… it and I have not become accustomed to each other yet.”
Light wondered if, perhaps, that was what the endless quantities of sugar were for-overcompensation.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” he managed. “That must be… difficult at the best of times.”
Lawliet’s curled form seemed to shrug. “You do what you can,” he responded, “and that’s all anyone can ask.”
Light nodded and fought the instincts telling him to look at Lawliet’s hands-to confirm that they were whole.
A strangely tranquil silence reigned, and then Lawliet unfolded to the floor.
“Shall I leave you to it, Yagami-kun? Is there anything I can get you before I do?”
“I’m fine,” Light repeated, “but… thank you.”
He could barely see Lawliet’s smile in the darkness, but barely was enough.
“You’re welcome, Yagami-kun,” Lawliet promised. “Goodnight.”
“Goodnight,” Light offered, settling again.
And maybe it could be good, one way or another. Maybe it would.
[Chapter VII] [Chapter IX]