museboxedin | Don't Think You've Made It Under My Skin [DN/Borderlands Crossover] (Reply)

Calling it a red-eye is accurate. It's a killer combination, just like L and Light when they manage to work together without burying their feet and fists into each other's faces. Drip coffee and espresso can drive away exhaustion even through a formidable tolerance... but always the one-upsman, L ensures his jittery wakefulness with an altogether disgusting amount of cream and sugar.

His heart could burn itself out in his chest; would they assume it was Kira and not even bother with the autopsy that could exonerate him with proof of the detective's arrogant folly?

He takes another grim sip, tongue swiping the cloying sweetness from his lips as he watches the sped-up footage of Light Yagami going about his day. It's house arrest, and dull. Cameras in every room at every angle, just a few floors above him in Light's lavishly furnished suite. Yagami is as suspicious as a housecat, studying, napping, showering, eating. No change in expression, no suggestion that he might have once more awakened to the part of him that is Kira.

L knows how it sounds. He's seen it in his handler's pale blue, uncertain eyes. Sharing his theories with Watari is part of the deal, part of the chain around his neck that keeps him from flying too high and burning himself to ashes. Ryuzaki... Kira's power, passing between people? And how should you know if it passes again? Do you intend to hold the boy indefinitely, in case it appears in him again? You have a lead with Yotsuba. You must pursue it, and stop fixating on what you may never know, what may not even be possible.

L and Watari are not speaking, for the moment. L needs his time to sulk and throw his tantrum, and fixate in the dark while his sole confidante takes his rest.

A television is on over his shoulder, flickering, droning. He's been half-listening to break up the monotony of a day he believes must be intentionally boring on Light's part. It's an interview with Pandora's smug governor.

"The secret to my success, Miss Walters? Hey can I call you Barbara? Barb? Barbie? The secret to my SUCCESS, Barbie, is that everyone else is a *BEEP* *BEEP* *BEEP BEEEEEEP*. I'm just a guy, you know, who found an opportunity, and uh. Barbie, my opportunity was just wrapped in other people sucking *BEEP* through a straw. You see a stairway, you know, and you have to step on some stairs to climb it! I know you know, Barbie!"

L blinks. Arrogance, he knows. Arrogance that's loud, and arrogance that's silent. He knows what he prefers; his headache knows.

Barbara Walters knows. Her laughter is bawdy and warm, but her eyes are bright and scared in a face frozen by injectable toxins.

"Jack, honey, you. Are. A. Hoot! Now, the name is Handsome Jack. Are you really, under that mask? I think I speak for all the gals at home when I say we're just dying to know!"

"Well Barbie, funny thing! You WOULD die if I showed you, because... I'd have to kill you!" Tense silence, broken by laughter. Jack's is louder than Barbara's, and alone of the two of them, he sounds like he's actually amused.

L reaches for the remote to mute the TV. Enough killing in the world. Joking about it is just tedious.

Watching Light's non-criminal activity is tedious. He sets aside the remote, leaving the volume where it is.

"Seriously, though, Barbie... with that psychotic killer on the loose in Japan, you'd think more people would be wearing masks. The smart thing to do, if you ask me. That's me: big brain, big numbers in my bank account, REALLY big *BEEP*."

"Big deposits of Eridium, and who you sell it to, are what the world is watching. Who's ahead in the bidding war?"

"Butt stallion."

"I... beg your pardon?"

"Sorry. Inside joke. You wouldn't get it."