DN -- Chocolate Always Loves You Back IX: Many Meetings
Title: Chocolate Always Loves You Back
Chapter: 9. Many Meetings
Fandom: Death Note
Pairing: Light/L
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 3,383
Warnings: AU
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: I can haz sleep nao? ._.
IX - MANY MEETINGS
When Light stirred, shifted, and awoke, there was a round white face with huge gray eyes six inches from his nose.
He stifled a mortified howl and scrambled backwards as far as the couch would allow, gathering the blankets hastily around him as if they would protect him from…
Near.
Light stared at the boy where he sat cross-legged on the floor, gazing placidly back.
“Good morning,” Near offered. “I was waiting for you to wake up.”
“How long have you been sitting there?” Light demanded.
“Not too long,” Near answered, more enigmatically than Light would have liked. “Will you make us pancakes?”
Light’s heart rate had mostly returned to normal. “Pancakes?” he managed.
Near nodded sagely. “I believe it’s relatively traditional to indulge in more extravagant breakfasts on the weekends…?” he prompted. “I was hoping you might be persuaded to make something for us.”
Light scrubbed a hand across his eyes and attempted to work his legs and set his bare feet on the floor. “Don’t trust Lawliet with the stove?”
Near gathered himself to his feet as well, somehow delicately and awkwardly at once. “He has enough trouble with the microwave,” he replied. One finger crooked around a curl, wrapping it about the knuckle. “You could make waffles instead, if you wanted.”
“I’ll make both,” Light decided, folding the blankets and setting them on the arm of the couch, “if you have a waffle iron.”
Near trailed interestedly as Light headed into the kitchen. “Mr. Wammy has lots of things in the cupboards, but I haven’t had time to index them all…”
Light started opening cabinets. “Help me out, Near,” he urged. “Find me a big glass bowl first.”
When the scent of sizzling batter, sweetened by the vanilla extract Light had unearthed among the spices, made its misty, mischievous way down the hall and sidled through the gaps beneath the doors, it was only a matter of moments before Lawliet made an appearance.
Or, rather, his even-more-tousled-than-usual head did, peeking around the doorframe to examine the proceedings.
“Yagami-kun never seems to run out of hidden talents,” he remarked.
“Near helped,” Light replied, gesturing with the spatula to where the boy was sitting at the kitchen table, swathed in an apron that trailed on the floor, and slicing strawberries. There was a smudge of flour on his cheek, though of course you had to look awfully closely to distinguish it from the rest of his skin.
Lawliet smiled. “May I help as well?”
Light pushed a plate heaped with steaming pancakes at him. “You can help eat,” he suggested.
Lawliet seemed to be pretty pleased with that arrangement.
He’d made his way through three strawberry-topped pancakes by the time Matt skidded in, wide-eyed and anxious.
“Mello’s sick,” he said.
There was a poignant pause, and then Light thanked his lucky stars that he’d just finished a batch of pancakes, which made it possible to twist the stove dial to the off position, move the frying pan to an inactive burner, and hasten after a racing Lawliet and a Near clutching the bulk of the oversized apron to his chest.
Mello was curled up in his bed, blond hair plastered across his forehead, his face eerily pale where it was visible around the comforter that was drawn up to his shoulder.
“I’m feeling better,” he promised weakly.
Matt, standing to the side, was twisting nervously at his pajama top, which was green with a splash of black stars on the front. “That’s what you said ten minutes ago, Mel.”
Mello still had the strength to scowl. “Yeah,” he countered, “but I mean it this time.”
Cautiously, Lawliet sat down on the edge of the bed and brushed Mello’s hair back, clearing it out of his eyes. “What sort of ‘sick’ is it?” he inquired. “Stomach-sick?”
Mello nodded, squirming a little closer to Lawliet, who considered the situation before asking softly, “Is there a reason why this might have happened?”
Mello flinched, and Matt blurted out, “He had a chocolate bar!”
Lawliet turned to Matt slowly, as if he hadn’t expected this advent all along.
“Shut up, Matt!” Mello wailed.
“No chocolate’s better than you being sick!” Matt protested.
“Nuh-uh!” Mello retorted.
Lawliet set a hand on Mello’s arm, and the boy obediently quieted.
“I,” he said, “of all people, know quite well how difficult it is to refrain from eating sweets first thing in the morning-or all the time-but if it’s making you ill, I have to encourage you to prioritize your health. Does that sound fair?”
Mello sniffled. “I guess,” he mumbled. Then he frowned, then he cringed, and then, with blotchy pink flaring in either cheek, he scrambled out of the bed with a “’Scuse me” and bolted.
The bathroom door slammed shut, and Lawliet sighed, holding out an arm to Matt, who immediately scampered over to redeem his hug.
Near wasn’t above taking one, either.
Light stifled the part of him that wondered when his turn would come.
-
Light was back on pancake duty by the time a much heartier Mello padded into the kitchen.
Near swallowed a perfectly square bite of pancake and commenced cutting the next. “Feeling better?” he asked.
Mello wrinkled his nose at the apron draping past Near’s dangling feet. “You look like you’re wearing a dress,” he declared.
“He’s fine,” Near decided.
Setting a plate in front of Mello, Light reflected that a few minutes of puking did sometimes work wonders.
Lawliet started collecting the dishes when the boys tossed their forks down and went stampeding up the stairs to brush their teeth, the condition they had to meet before being allowed to go play Frisbee in the backyard.
Light insisted on taking the stack of plates from Lawliet, who reluctantly let him undertake to clean up his host’s home in favor of returning to the table to make short work of the rest of the strawberries.
Most people didn’t believe Light when he told them that he actually enjoyed this sort of thing.
Lawliet smiled as the return of the elephants’ footsteps on the stairs segued into yelling in the yard.
“They love the Frisbee,” he explained. “And the bikes Quillish bought them the other day. I daresay we’re spoiling them rotten,” he mused, “but given the lives they’ve lead until now, I can’t bring myself to put a stop to it.”
“They’re good kids,” Light replied. “And they’re not going to waste the opportunities you’re giving them; they know better than that.” He smiled, too, as he loaded the dishwasher. “I think it’s a really wonderful thing that you’re doing for them.”
Lawliet pushed a fingertip around in the water and strawberry juice that had collected in the bottom of the plastic container. “Quillish is trying to get the adoption papers,” he divulged quietly. “He knows a lot of people. He’ll be back Tuesday, and he said he’ll try to make some phone calls before then. It’s difficult, because they have very little in the way of documentation, and I’m concerned that we may not succeed.”
Light toweled off his hands and joined Lawliet at the table. “Don’t think like that,” he suggested. “Isn’t there at least a little interviewing in the process, even in circumstances like these? You and Quillish are perfect for them, and they adore you. If there’s any justice in the world, that’s going to count for a great deal.”
Lawliet nibbled at his right thumbnail. “‘If,’” he murmured.
Light ran a hand through his hair, which was in need of a thorough shampooing; he was acutely noticing this morning’s lack of a shower. “You’ll charm them,” he promised. “And if you’ll excuse me just a moment, I’m sure I’ll be a bit more charming myself once I’ve got some proper clothes on.”
He figured it would be true-even if they were yesterday’s clothes. None too surprisingly, Lawliet’s borrowed pajamas wanted something of refinement.
Lawliet blinked, all big eyes and hovering thumb. “I suppose,” was the verdict. “But those do look rather nice on you, Yagami-kun.”
Light tried not to blush like a schoolgirl in a television serial; he honestly did.
It was futile, but at least he tried.
-
When Light returned a few minutes later in yesterday’s outfit-berating himself for failing to consider the possibility of bringing a spare one before concluding that such a preparation would have been too creepy altogether-he proffered the borrowed pajamas, folded neatly like the sheets.
Light liked folding things. There was nothing wrong with that.
Lawliet smiled and accepted the bundle, cotton rustling softly against his palms. He set it idly on the table, and there was a long moment of fairly awkward silence, in which Light slid his hands into his pockets, and Lawliet gazed raptly at the clock, which was tallying the seconds much too slowly.
Then Lawliet frowned.
“It’s quiet,” Light realized.
“At the risk of sounding like a low-budget horror film,” Lawliet muttered, voice going tight as he swept to the nearest window with a view of the yard, “too quiet.”
This silence wasn’t long enough-it shattered, and Lawliet was striding past him to take the stairs two and three at a time, calling as he went to order Light to check the front.
There was no one on the driveway, no one out back-Lawliet’s face was grim as he hit the ground floor again, darting into the kitchen to pluck a Post-It note off of the fridge, jamming it into Light’s breast pocket without so much as a by-your-leave en route to his flip-flops by the door.
“That’s my cell phone,” he announced. “Call me if they come home.”
“I’m not staying here,” Light informed him, stepping into his own sandals as he spoke. “I’ll try the beach; you go the other direction.”
Lawliet looked at him for four full seconds and then nodded.
“Call me in fifteen minutes either way,” he instructed as he herded Light outside. “In case I’ve found them.”
Light nodded too, strode to his car, unlocked it, slid in, buckled up, and backed down the drive, Lawliet a blur of silver and white in his rearview mirror, a splash of black hair rippling in the wind before he disappeared.
Light’s knuckles ached where his fingers were clenched around the wheel, and he knew he wasn’t driving particularly well-indeed, he was quite aware without the helpful assistance of a few horn-happy motorists who were practically tailgating him anyway. He ignored them in favor of scanning both sides of the road to the best of his ability, looking for red, yellow, and white, but the innumerable clusters of children never included the truant trio that he sought.
There was a spot of vibrant color by a convenience store-but no, that was a girl, pigtails swinging.
Light didn’t think he would mention this particular mistake to Mello.
He was sweating cold by the time he’d forged through traffic to the beach, ten of his fifteen minutes having elapsed-but wait-there were three small bicycles meticulously locked at the rack in the parking lot they’d used yesterday, and he couldn’t be sure, but-
Light slipped his Accord into the first space he saw, damned his seatbelt to hell more than once, fought free of it, and jumped out of the car, slamming the door behind him.
But yes-yes, there were three little figures to match the bikes, separated from the bulk of the beachgoers by some distance, two of those forms climbing on the boulders that bridged the gap between cliffs and sea, the third sitting on a lower rock with his knees up beside him.
Light hoped briefly that Lawliet had found the only piece of glass in the expanses of the sand, snatched both of his flip-flops in one hand, and, uninhibited, ran until he could make out the stripes on Matt’s shirt-just to be sure.
Then he fumbled for the Post-It and dialed.
Thirteen minutes.
The line clicked immediately.
“Have you found them?”
“Yeah,” Light answered, trying not to pant audibly. “At the beach.”
Lawliet sighed, and the relief that poured into Light’s eardrum was almost thick enough to be tangible.
“I’ll meet you back at the house,” he said.
“Got it,” Light replied.
It was weirdly refreshing that Lawliet didn’t waste time with formalities before hanging up.
Light put his sandals back on to cross the rest of the way to the boys.
“Pardon me,” he interjected, “but I think Lawliet would prefer you to be supervised.”
Mello, ever the showman, leapt from his perch and landed, with a small explosion of sand at impact, on all fours like a cat.
“We got bored,” he declared.
“Mello thought the air here might help his stomach,” Near corrected in a mumble that didn’t pass without a glare.
“I’m fine,” the blond insisted again.
“Either way,” Light cut in, nervously watching out of the corner of his eye as Matt clambered down much less gracefully than his cohort had, “can’t you play in the yard?”
Mello kicked at the sand. “We’re used to going where we want,” he muttered.
“Things are different now,” Light told him, slightly surprised at his own sudden gentleness. “And we have to be especially careful given what’s happened. Lawliet gets really worried about you-and what would Mr. Wammy say if he came back, and Lawliet had lost you all?”
Mello ducked his head, but not before Light saw guilt flash onto his features.
“Whatever,” the blond concluded, but he started trudging towards the car without any further protest.
-
Lawliet was waiting to help unload the bikes, and when that was done, he demonstrated a superhuman ability to hug three children at the same time.
Light was more than a bit impressed.
“You’re welcome to explore the city,” Lawliet told them, “but please-just ask one of us to go with you. We’ll be perfectly willing.”
Ten minutes saw a flurry of promises and apologies, at the end of which Light found himself making tea again as Lawliet rummaged in the fridge for further strawberry supplies, a precious bunch of terrors having galloped up the stairs to verify Matt’s assertion that he could beat the next level of some video game that fell outside Light’s range of cultural consciousness.
When they had both succeeded in their tasks, he and Lawliet sat wearily down at the table again, side by side.
Lawliet cradled his mug, eyes on his strawberry prize.
“Thank you, Light-kun,” he said.
Light attempted to hide in the steam issuing from his cup. “You’re welcome, Lawliet.”
Lawliet selected a piece of fruit, smiling faintly. “I have a first name,” he noted.
“I figured you must,” Light replied-bashfully, it had to be admitted. “I’ve just never heard anybody use it.”
“I prefer Lawliet. My first name is… abnormal…”
Light sat back, grinning ruefully. “You’re talking to Illumination Boy.”
Lawliet smiled again, wryly this time. “True.”
Light folded his arms, giving the other man ample time to choose his words.
Lawliet chose, all right.
“I suspect,” he began, blowing on his tea, “that my parents never really wanted me in the first place. They were… jetsetters, of a sort, I suppose-wandering feet, bitten by the travel bug; pick your favorite platitude. Infants and airplanes, let alone infants and adverse climates, aren’t exactly suited to each other, and I… can’t help but imagine that they were more disappointed than anything else.” He sipped, watching ripples spread. “They left me with nannies and babysitters most of the time, often for considerable stretches. I remember that period intermittently, and I don’t believe I liked it, but there wasn’t much of a choice.” Lawliet set down the mug and fingered the handle, as if it might yield up the answers. “I was… four and a half when their plane went down over Chile. There were no survivors.” He lifted the mug to sip again, delicately, and Light utilized the reprieve to swallow a dozen questions. “Quillish was my mother’s brother, and he took me in immediately. I don’t know where I’d be otherwise.” He met Light’s eyes for the first time since starting the narrative, and there was something of a dark, bitter humor in his gaze. “They named me L. Just the letter; nothing more. I guess they expected something more, and they were describing the incompletion that they saw.”
“L,” Light repeated, uncertainly at first. “L…” He pursed his lips and slowly shook his head, smiling. “No, I like it. It… fits you, somehow. Unconventional and uncompromising.”
Lawliet fiddled with the edge of the strawberries’ plastic container, the corners of his lips curling upward almost despite him, a touch of pink in his cheeks.
“L,” Light said again, lower and more softly now.
Once more Lawliet raised his eyes, and Light read everything in them.
His mostly-steady hand brushed Lawliet’s jaw, settling against a warm neck, feathery hair dark and smooth about his trespassing fingertips, and they drew closer in odd little jerks, uncannily synchronized; none of this was any less unnerving for its inevitability. Light forced himself to breathe, as Lawliet was doing gently but all too perceptibly against his mouth, and a few fingers fluttered against his arm, nothing but fragile fabric shielding him from them-
There was a tactful cough.
The speed with which Light and Lawliet broke apart would most likely have defied the expertise of a slow-motion camera, upon which they would have been visible only as a pair of blurry streaks moving in opposite directions.
Near was looking pointedly at the linoleum where he stood in the doorway, face averted, and, judging by the heat rising steadily towards his forehead, Light was fairly sure that his own face was going to ignite.
An irresistible glance revealed that Lawliet wasn’t faring much better.
Light’s colleague, however, managed to clear his throat and beckon to Near, coherently enough, and even mustered a sheepish smile. “What’s wrong?”
Near shuffled over and stood between them-more, Light thought, for protection than to make a point.
“I didn’t want to mention it in front of Mello,” he said, “but someone was watching us at the beach.”
Unfortunately, Light had enough law enforcement experience to know very well that any pedophile in the world would give an arm and a leg for a chance to sink some predatory teeth into any of these boys-but something potent and immovable in his gut told him that this incident was not a coincidence.
Near turned his pale face up to search Lawliet’s above him.
“I’m scared,” he told his benefactor, sounding almost confused.
Lawliet wrapped both arms around him.
“So am I,” he sighed, giving Light a meaningful look over Near’s unruly hair. “But I swear to you that it’s going to be all right.”
Light raked a hand through his hair and turned to the best solution he knew.
“Near, can I get you some tea?”
-
An hour later, Light had returned to his apartment, and his coveted shower was finally within reach.
Something crinkled as he shed his shirt, and he retrieved the Post-It note.
He just looked at the number for a long time-probably longer than was remotely necessary to memorize it, let alone to determine what it was.
If he smiled to himself as he set it down on the nightstand, surely it was only at the prospect of a hot shower at last.
[Chapter VIII] [Chapter X]
Chapter: 9. Many Meetings
Fandom: Death Note
Pairing: Light/L
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 3,383
Warnings: AU
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: I can haz sleep nao? ._.
IX - MANY MEETINGS
When Light stirred, shifted, and awoke, there was a round white face with huge gray eyes six inches from his nose.
He stifled a mortified howl and scrambled backwards as far as the couch would allow, gathering the blankets hastily around him as if they would protect him from…
Near.
Light stared at the boy where he sat cross-legged on the floor, gazing placidly back.
“Good morning,” Near offered. “I was waiting for you to wake up.”
“How long have you been sitting there?” Light demanded.
“Not too long,” Near answered, more enigmatically than Light would have liked. “Will you make us pancakes?”
Light’s heart rate had mostly returned to normal. “Pancakes?” he managed.
Near nodded sagely. “I believe it’s relatively traditional to indulge in more extravagant breakfasts on the weekends…?” he prompted. “I was hoping you might be persuaded to make something for us.”
Light scrubbed a hand across his eyes and attempted to work his legs and set his bare feet on the floor. “Don’t trust Lawliet with the stove?”
Near gathered himself to his feet as well, somehow delicately and awkwardly at once. “He has enough trouble with the microwave,” he replied. One finger crooked around a curl, wrapping it about the knuckle. “You could make waffles instead, if you wanted.”
“I’ll make both,” Light decided, folding the blankets and setting them on the arm of the couch, “if you have a waffle iron.”
Near trailed interestedly as Light headed into the kitchen. “Mr. Wammy has lots of things in the cupboards, but I haven’t had time to index them all…”
Light started opening cabinets. “Help me out, Near,” he urged. “Find me a big glass bowl first.”
When the scent of sizzling batter, sweetened by the vanilla extract Light had unearthed among the spices, made its misty, mischievous way down the hall and sidled through the gaps beneath the doors, it was only a matter of moments before Lawliet made an appearance.
Or, rather, his even-more-tousled-than-usual head did, peeking around the doorframe to examine the proceedings.
“Yagami-kun never seems to run out of hidden talents,” he remarked.
“Near helped,” Light replied, gesturing with the spatula to where the boy was sitting at the kitchen table, swathed in an apron that trailed on the floor, and slicing strawberries. There was a smudge of flour on his cheek, though of course you had to look awfully closely to distinguish it from the rest of his skin.
Lawliet smiled. “May I help as well?”
Light pushed a plate heaped with steaming pancakes at him. “You can help eat,” he suggested.
Lawliet seemed to be pretty pleased with that arrangement.
He’d made his way through three strawberry-topped pancakes by the time Matt skidded in, wide-eyed and anxious.
“Mello’s sick,” he said.
There was a poignant pause, and then Light thanked his lucky stars that he’d just finished a batch of pancakes, which made it possible to twist the stove dial to the off position, move the frying pan to an inactive burner, and hasten after a racing Lawliet and a Near clutching the bulk of the oversized apron to his chest.
Mello was curled up in his bed, blond hair plastered across his forehead, his face eerily pale where it was visible around the comforter that was drawn up to his shoulder.
“I’m feeling better,” he promised weakly.
Matt, standing to the side, was twisting nervously at his pajama top, which was green with a splash of black stars on the front. “That’s what you said ten minutes ago, Mel.”
Mello still had the strength to scowl. “Yeah,” he countered, “but I mean it this time.”
Cautiously, Lawliet sat down on the edge of the bed and brushed Mello’s hair back, clearing it out of his eyes. “What sort of ‘sick’ is it?” he inquired. “Stomach-sick?”
Mello nodded, squirming a little closer to Lawliet, who considered the situation before asking softly, “Is there a reason why this might have happened?”
Mello flinched, and Matt blurted out, “He had a chocolate bar!”
Lawliet turned to Matt slowly, as if he hadn’t expected this advent all along.
“Shut up, Matt!” Mello wailed.
“No chocolate’s better than you being sick!” Matt protested.
“Nuh-uh!” Mello retorted.
Lawliet set a hand on Mello’s arm, and the boy obediently quieted.
“I,” he said, “of all people, know quite well how difficult it is to refrain from eating sweets first thing in the morning-or all the time-but if it’s making you ill, I have to encourage you to prioritize your health. Does that sound fair?”
Mello sniffled. “I guess,” he mumbled. Then he frowned, then he cringed, and then, with blotchy pink flaring in either cheek, he scrambled out of the bed with a “’Scuse me” and bolted.
The bathroom door slammed shut, and Lawliet sighed, holding out an arm to Matt, who immediately scampered over to redeem his hug.
Near wasn’t above taking one, either.
Light stifled the part of him that wondered when his turn would come.
-
Light was back on pancake duty by the time a much heartier Mello padded into the kitchen.
Near swallowed a perfectly square bite of pancake and commenced cutting the next. “Feeling better?” he asked.
Mello wrinkled his nose at the apron draping past Near’s dangling feet. “You look like you’re wearing a dress,” he declared.
“He’s fine,” Near decided.
Setting a plate in front of Mello, Light reflected that a few minutes of puking did sometimes work wonders.
Lawliet started collecting the dishes when the boys tossed their forks down and went stampeding up the stairs to brush their teeth, the condition they had to meet before being allowed to go play Frisbee in the backyard.
Light insisted on taking the stack of plates from Lawliet, who reluctantly let him undertake to clean up his host’s home in favor of returning to the table to make short work of the rest of the strawberries.
Most people didn’t believe Light when he told them that he actually enjoyed this sort of thing.
Lawliet smiled as the return of the elephants’ footsteps on the stairs segued into yelling in the yard.
“They love the Frisbee,” he explained. “And the bikes Quillish bought them the other day. I daresay we’re spoiling them rotten,” he mused, “but given the lives they’ve lead until now, I can’t bring myself to put a stop to it.”
“They’re good kids,” Light replied. “And they’re not going to waste the opportunities you’re giving them; they know better than that.” He smiled, too, as he loaded the dishwasher. “I think it’s a really wonderful thing that you’re doing for them.”
Lawliet pushed a fingertip around in the water and strawberry juice that had collected in the bottom of the plastic container. “Quillish is trying to get the adoption papers,” he divulged quietly. “He knows a lot of people. He’ll be back Tuesday, and he said he’ll try to make some phone calls before then. It’s difficult, because they have very little in the way of documentation, and I’m concerned that we may not succeed.”
Light toweled off his hands and joined Lawliet at the table. “Don’t think like that,” he suggested. “Isn’t there at least a little interviewing in the process, even in circumstances like these? You and Quillish are perfect for them, and they adore you. If there’s any justice in the world, that’s going to count for a great deal.”
Lawliet nibbled at his right thumbnail. “‘If,’” he murmured.
Light ran a hand through his hair, which was in need of a thorough shampooing; he was acutely noticing this morning’s lack of a shower. “You’ll charm them,” he promised. “And if you’ll excuse me just a moment, I’m sure I’ll be a bit more charming myself once I’ve got some proper clothes on.”
He figured it would be true-even if they were yesterday’s clothes. None too surprisingly, Lawliet’s borrowed pajamas wanted something of refinement.
Lawliet blinked, all big eyes and hovering thumb. “I suppose,” was the verdict. “But those do look rather nice on you, Yagami-kun.”
Light tried not to blush like a schoolgirl in a television serial; he honestly did.
It was futile, but at least he tried.
-
When Light returned a few minutes later in yesterday’s outfit-berating himself for failing to consider the possibility of bringing a spare one before concluding that such a preparation would have been too creepy altogether-he proffered the borrowed pajamas, folded neatly like the sheets.
Light liked folding things. There was nothing wrong with that.
Lawliet smiled and accepted the bundle, cotton rustling softly against his palms. He set it idly on the table, and there was a long moment of fairly awkward silence, in which Light slid his hands into his pockets, and Lawliet gazed raptly at the clock, which was tallying the seconds much too slowly.
Then Lawliet frowned.
“It’s quiet,” Light realized.
“At the risk of sounding like a low-budget horror film,” Lawliet muttered, voice going tight as he swept to the nearest window with a view of the yard, “too quiet.”
This silence wasn’t long enough-it shattered, and Lawliet was striding past him to take the stairs two and three at a time, calling as he went to order Light to check the front.
There was no one on the driveway, no one out back-Lawliet’s face was grim as he hit the ground floor again, darting into the kitchen to pluck a Post-It note off of the fridge, jamming it into Light’s breast pocket without so much as a by-your-leave en route to his flip-flops by the door.
“That’s my cell phone,” he announced. “Call me if they come home.”
“I’m not staying here,” Light informed him, stepping into his own sandals as he spoke. “I’ll try the beach; you go the other direction.”
Lawliet looked at him for four full seconds and then nodded.
“Call me in fifteen minutes either way,” he instructed as he herded Light outside. “In case I’ve found them.”
Light nodded too, strode to his car, unlocked it, slid in, buckled up, and backed down the drive, Lawliet a blur of silver and white in his rearview mirror, a splash of black hair rippling in the wind before he disappeared.
Light’s knuckles ached where his fingers were clenched around the wheel, and he knew he wasn’t driving particularly well-indeed, he was quite aware without the helpful assistance of a few horn-happy motorists who were practically tailgating him anyway. He ignored them in favor of scanning both sides of the road to the best of his ability, looking for red, yellow, and white, but the innumerable clusters of children never included the truant trio that he sought.
There was a spot of vibrant color by a convenience store-but no, that was a girl, pigtails swinging.
Light didn’t think he would mention this particular mistake to Mello.
He was sweating cold by the time he’d forged through traffic to the beach, ten of his fifteen minutes having elapsed-but wait-there were three small bicycles meticulously locked at the rack in the parking lot they’d used yesterday, and he couldn’t be sure, but-
Light slipped his Accord into the first space he saw, damned his seatbelt to hell more than once, fought free of it, and jumped out of the car, slamming the door behind him.
But yes-yes, there were three little figures to match the bikes, separated from the bulk of the beachgoers by some distance, two of those forms climbing on the boulders that bridged the gap between cliffs and sea, the third sitting on a lower rock with his knees up beside him.
Light hoped briefly that Lawliet had found the only piece of glass in the expanses of the sand, snatched both of his flip-flops in one hand, and, uninhibited, ran until he could make out the stripes on Matt’s shirt-just to be sure.
Then he fumbled for the Post-It and dialed.
Thirteen minutes.
The line clicked immediately.
“Have you found them?”
“Yeah,” Light answered, trying not to pant audibly. “At the beach.”
Lawliet sighed, and the relief that poured into Light’s eardrum was almost thick enough to be tangible.
“I’ll meet you back at the house,” he said.
“Got it,” Light replied.
It was weirdly refreshing that Lawliet didn’t waste time with formalities before hanging up.
Light put his sandals back on to cross the rest of the way to the boys.
“Pardon me,” he interjected, “but I think Lawliet would prefer you to be supervised.”
Mello, ever the showman, leapt from his perch and landed, with a small explosion of sand at impact, on all fours like a cat.
“We got bored,” he declared.
“Mello thought the air here might help his stomach,” Near corrected in a mumble that didn’t pass without a glare.
“I’m fine,” the blond insisted again.
“Either way,” Light cut in, nervously watching out of the corner of his eye as Matt clambered down much less gracefully than his cohort had, “can’t you play in the yard?”
Mello kicked at the sand. “We’re used to going where we want,” he muttered.
“Things are different now,” Light told him, slightly surprised at his own sudden gentleness. “And we have to be especially careful given what’s happened. Lawliet gets really worried about you-and what would Mr. Wammy say if he came back, and Lawliet had lost you all?”
Mello ducked his head, but not before Light saw guilt flash onto his features.
“Whatever,” the blond concluded, but he started trudging towards the car without any further protest.
-
Lawliet was waiting to help unload the bikes, and when that was done, he demonstrated a superhuman ability to hug three children at the same time.
Light was more than a bit impressed.
“You’re welcome to explore the city,” Lawliet told them, “but please-just ask one of us to go with you. We’ll be perfectly willing.”
Ten minutes saw a flurry of promises and apologies, at the end of which Light found himself making tea again as Lawliet rummaged in the fridge for further strawberry supplies, a precious bunch of terrors having galloped up the stairs to verify Matt’s assertion that he could beat the next level of some video game that fell outside Light’s range of cultural consciousness.
When they had both succeeded in their tasks, he and Lawliet sat wearily down at the table again, side by side.
Lawliet cradled his mug, eyes on his strawberry prize.
“Thank you, Light-kun,” he said.
Light attempted to hide in the steam issuing from his cup. “You’re welcome, Lawliet.”
Lawliet selected a piece of fruit, smiling faintly. “I have a first name,” he noted.
“I figured you must,” Light replied-bashfully, it had to be admitted. “I’ve just never heard anybody use it.”
“I prefer Lawliet. My first name is… abnormal…”
Light sat back, grinning ruefully. “You’re talking to Illumination Boy.”
Lawliet smiled again, wryly this time. “True.”
Light folded his arms, giving the other man ample time to choose his words.
Lawliet chose, all right.
“I suspect,” he began, blowing on his tea, “that my parents never really wanted me in the first place. They were… jetsetters, of a sort, I suppose-wandering feet, bitten by the travel bug; pick your favorite platitude. Infants and airplanes, let alone infants and adverse climates, aren’t exactly suited to each other, and I… can’t help but imagine that they were more disappointed than anything else.” He sipped, watching ripples spread. “They left me with nannies and babysitters most of the time, often for considerable stretches. I remember that period intermittently, and I don’t believe I liked it, but there wasn’t much of a choice.” Lawliet set down the mug and fingered the handle, as if it might yield up the answers. “I was… four and a half when their plane went down over Chile. There were no survivors.” He lifted the mug to sip again, delicately, and Light utilized the reprieve to swallow a dozen questions. “Quillish was my mother’s brother, and he took me in immediately. I don’t know where I’d be otherwise.” He met Light’s eyes for the first time since starting the narrative, and there was something of a dark, bitter humor in his gaze. “They named me L. Just the letter; nothing more. I guess they expected something more, and they were describing the incompletion that they saw.”
“L,” Light repeated, uncertainly at first. “L…” He pursed his lips and slowly shook his head, smiling. “No, I like it. It… fits you, somehow. Unconventional and uncompromising.”
Lawliet fiddled with the edge of the strawberries’ plastic container, the corners of his lips curling upward almost despite him, a touch of pink in his cheeks.
“L,” Light said again, lower and more softly now.
Once more Lawliet raised his eyes, and Light read everything in them.
His mostly-steady hand brushed Lawliet’s jaw, settling against a warm neck, feathery hair dark and smooth about his trespassing fingertips, and they drew closer in odd little jerks, uncannily synchronized; none of this was any less unnerving for its inevitability. Light forced himself to breathe, as Lawliet was doing gently but all too perceptibly against his mouth, and a few fingers fluttered against his arm, nothing but fragile fabric shielding him from them-
There was a tactful cough.
The speed with which Light and Lawliet broke apart would most likely have defied the expertise of a slow-motion camera, upon which they would have been visible only as a pair of blurry streaks moving in opposite directions.
Near was looking pointedly at the linoleum where he stood in the doorway, face averted, and, judging by the heat rising steadily towards his forehead, Light was fairly sure that his own face was going to ignite.
An irresistible glance revealed that Lawliet wasn’t faring much better.
Light’s colleague, however, managed to clear his throat and beckon to Near, coherently enough, and even mustered a sheepish smile. “What’s wrong?”
Near shuffled over and stood between them-more, Light thought, for protection than to make a point.
“I didn’t want to mention it in front of Mello,” he said, “but someone was watching us at the beach.”
Unfortunately, Light had enough law enforcement experience to know very well that any pedophile in the world would give an arm and a leg for a chance to sink some predatory teeth into any of these boys-but something potent and immovable in his gut told him that this incident was not a coincidence.
Near turned his pale face up to search Lawliet’s above him.
“I’m scared,” he told his benefactor, sounding almost confused.
Lawliet wrapped both arms around him.
“So am I,” he sighed, giving Light a meaningful look over Near’s unruly hair. “But I swear to you that it’s going to be all right.”
Light raked a hand through his hair and turned to the best solution he knew.
“Near, can I get you some tea?”
-
An hour later, Light had returned to his apartment, and his coveted shower was finally within reach.
Something crinkled as he shed his shirt, and he retrieved the Post-It note.
He just looked at the number for a long time-probably longer than was remotely necessary to memorize it, let alone to determine what it was.
If he smiled to himself as he set it down on the nightstand, surely it was only at the prospect of a hot shower at last.
[Chapter VIII] [Chapter X]