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Fifty Days	By : sashocirrione Category: Death Note > Het-Male/Female > L/Misa Views: 2868 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Death Note, and I do not make any money from these writings.

Chapter List
- 33
- 34
- 35
CHAPTER 34: False
L was stunned into complete immobility. He desperately wanted to turn to see the barely-visible figure at the edge of his sight, but at the same time he wanted nothing more than to never get a good look. There was a crawling sensation in the pit of his stomach and prickles running up the back of his neck.
He was frozen, overwhelmed. His thoughts simply did not work for a few heartbeats.
Mikami said, "You look ill, L. Are you feeling sick?"
Matsuda is dead. He could not possibly be alive. I saw him collapse and I've seen the police reports and other records that deal with finding his dead body and burying it. His body was undamaged and easily recognizable so there could not have been a switch. Faking all that paperwork, and also faking the recognition given by Matsuda's family members, it could not be done.
The figure took a few steps closer, becoming just slightly more visible, and said, "You're not going to remain chained to Light forever, are you? We'll catch Kira, and then we'll have a de-chaining celebration. Lots of sake for everyone!"
There was something wrong with Matsuda's face, still at the edge of vision. L could not bear to turn and look directly.
Mikami and Misa are not reacting. Besides, if Matsuda were alive and here, Mikami would already know my story is false and events would now be unfolding differently.
Just then, blood began oozing out around the hinges of a cupboard just behind Mikami, slowly dripping down, thick and red, pooling on the counter below. L's eyes flicked to the side to study it.
Matsuda is a hallucination. Either Mikami drugged my food, or I am going insane, or Mikami has written my name. Or, perhaps I am wrong and Matsuda is a ghost. If shinigami can exist, ghosts can too, though I wonder why...
Misa pointed at the natto on her plate and said, "Good!" Then she moved her finger to point at the almost-finished cabbage rolls and said, "Best ever! Best, best, best."
Misa seems unaffected. I doubt she was drugged.
The crawling sensation was getting more distracting. The number of invisible spiders had multiplied and L fought the temptation to swat at them. They felt so real and there was a building paranoia, a growing conviction that they must, somehow, be real spiders despite all evidence to the contrary. It was completely, utterly illogical but L wanted to believe in the spiders.
Think! I must think before my thoughts become too chaotic. What does Mikami hope to accomplish with this?
L felt a hand on his shoulder and his stomach did flip-flops. He couldn't help but turn then; he turned and looked the Matsuda-thing full in the face. There were no eyes, just deep gray-black holes, tunnels that led back and back, further than could exist within the space of Matsuda's head. The tunnels had a slight swirling motion to them, their edges rotating ever so slowly. L wanted to scream and jump back, he wanted to get the thing's hand off his shoulder, but he held himself in place.
Mikami said, "What is it?"
L looked back to his plate, willing that the unnatural hand would be removed from his shoulder and that the thing wouldn't speak to him again, trying to force control over the situation as he would in a bad dream.
Mikami will question me. He is trying to confuse me, so that I can't remember the details of my own story and will be caught in a lie, or so that I act out of character. Fortunately, what I've shown him is my true character, except for liking Misa. I should answer no questions unless I am completely and utterly sure of the answer. Drugs cannot force a confession. If they could, law enforcement would be very simple.
Finally, the pressure of the hand left his shoulder and L sighed in relief. The spiders were annoying but tolerable as long as that walking, talking symbol of his guilt and failure would go away. Matsuda had died as a result of L's poor planning, of his inability to consider Misa as the serious threat she turned out to be. However, L's spoon was catching his eye, drawing his concentration away from the task of wishing Matsuda gone. The spoon was looking very sinister even though there was nothing visibly wrong with it.
L had the feeling that if he turned it over there would be something unspeakably disgusting on the other side of it. He carefully slid it away from him across the table. It was contaminated, wrong. It was exuding pure evil.
L giggled.
L did not realize how far he was leaning over until his nose hit his plate. In the next instant he felt a hand on his shoulder and screamed, whipping his head up and around to see Mikami standing there. Just visible over Mikami's shoulder, Matsuda was standing on a little ladder with a paint can, painting the wall a bright, searing electric blue. As soon as L glimpsed him, Matsuda started humming.
L said, "You drugged me."
The muscles on just one side of his neck gave out and his head flopped to the side, resting on Mikami's chest.
He smells like strawberries. Is that the scent of his body wash? Why do they make so many things that smell good but taste terrible? It just makes you want to consume them. Drinking perfume was such a terrible idea; I'm lucky I didn't poison myself. Grandma was so angry.
In a dry voice, Mikami said, "You will not die from it. I know that for a fact."
"Do you know it won't cause... umm... things... other problems."
"Not from one dose, no. You are completely safe, L. That is, unless you are lying. Then you are not safe at all. In that case I will get you."
Misa got up from her chair and slapped Mikami with her good hand. L stared up at the bright red mark left on Mikami's chin. He could almost see the outline of Misa's tiny fingers.
Mikami stuttered, "I-I am sorry. This is ne-neccessary."
L's head fell further and landed in his plate with a dull, distant-feeling smack, as if it were an event happening several rooms away instead of something happening directly to him. His thoughts felt as if they were trying to be pulled in several directions at once. L had the urge to begin dancing in time to Matsuda's humming, and he also was afraid that the horrible spoon would try crawling across the table to get him, and he could feel some of the spiders getting under his skin, skin which was oversensitive and throbbing. Things were slowed down. It was forever since Mikami had spoken, though L knew he'd only taken one breath in that time.
As long as I don't say anything I'm not absolutely sure of the answer to, it would actually help if I become an incoherent mess quickly. I should give in to the insanity.
L let himself fall from the chair but Mikami caught him. L giggled, slumping further every time Mikami tried to prop him up. He averted his face entirely from the sight of the Matsuda-thing. His skin felt like a bad sunburn cracking open every place Mikami touched him, sensitive, overwhelmed.
This is why I don't go in the sun. My skin is too fair for it unless I put on enough sun block to feel like I've been dipped in lard.
Mikami said, "Your hair is full of rice."
"That's because you're such a good cook. You get the rice so sticky!"
L was becoming a pool of liquid, flowing down Mikami's arms, trying to join with the floor.
Mikami pulled L up again and said, "What was the name of the soldier you gave three pages to on March eighteenth?"
L took his time, plucking at his hair and then licking rice from his fingers. He searched his memory, his concentration a white-hot focus. Dimly, from the corner of his eye, he saw Matsuda leaving the room. The bright blue design was still painted on the wall, two triangular blobs joined by a string of messy dots arcing between them. It felt extremely meaningful.
When L was absolutely sure of the answer he waited until Mikami shook him and then said, "Gerard Wingate."
Mikami made an exasperated noise and then in the next moment L's sense of balance went strange, and there was air underneath him but his mind wasn't deducing why. Mikami was moving and L was stuck to him. Carried along. Carrying.
He's carrying me.
Mikami said, "I can't talk to you like this. I can't look at that... that hair. It's disgusting!"
It is best to give in.
L turned his head into the shoulder next to him, breathing in the strawberry scent. He plucked delicately at the crisp burgundy fabric, leaving sticky bits of rice, immensely satisfied with the texture of it and the color. He could feel another giggle trying to escape and let it spill out, closing his eyes and pretending that spiders were not laying thousands of tiny eggs beneath his skin. His muscles felt weak and useless. Perhaps they had all been eaten up. L's head knocked against a doorframe.
In a commanding voice, Mikami said, "Stop moving so much!"
L held still, frozen, even holding in his breath until he started to get dizzy. Then he pulled it in as a big gasp, the sweetness and relief flooding all at once into his lungs.
They were in a different room and Mikami was trying to unload L onto a long counter with a sink at one end. L could not seem to assist. He had that puddle-like flowing sensation again and kept thinking he would ooze off onto the floor. It was impossible to believe that the counter was actually level.
Mikami said, "Stay very still."
L nodded, and locked his muscles in place. So, they existed, they hadn't been eaten away and filled full of great webby masses of spider eggs. He closed his eyes and concentrated on the stillness, on a complete absence of movement, on the hard sensation of the counter underneath him, pressing into the back of his head and the entire length of his body, right down to his heels. He didn't slide off the counter.
A moment later he felt a painful tugging, his skin being stripped away, but, no, it was just his shirt. It got stuck coming over his head and then with a few more of those oddly painful tugs it was gone and L felt cool air on his nipples. He shivered and stared up at the whorls in the wood on the bottom of a cupboard above him. It was getting purple, bloating outward. It would grow and grow until it fell on him - no, it was forming into something. The outlines of a closed eye developed, and then a mustache.
L focused on Mikami and saw him shirtless, his hair in wild disarray.
I must have smeared his shirt. He is getting clean too.
Then Mikami was suddenly way, way too close and pinning L to the counter with a strong hand in the middle of his chest.
He's going to rape me! No!
L struggled, but his limbs were made of syrup. He was about to scream when his whole body was slid along the counter and his head was suddenly hanging unsupported, a shiny metal faucet just above his face. Then Mikami supported his head and he felt cold water rushing down, an incredible shock that brought with it clarity, a sense of mental sharpness. He was safe, nothing was happening, only Mikami's hands in his hair, shampooing him.
L sighed, closing his eyes, letting the water wash away his troubles. The hands were soothing. It felt like being a small child, being washed by another.
A sudden image popped into his head of Ryuk washing him in the shower, before Misa took over those duties.
L opened his eyes and said, "Hey, Ryuk! Mikami is better than you, yes he is!"
Mikami was leaning close but his voice came as if from very far away, saying, "Ryuk is in the other room. He got tired of watching us cook, remember? That show he likes is on television."
The bloated purple thing was gone from the cupboard, but was trying to reform on the wall. L kept wishing it away, making it disappear over and over.
L said, "I can control it, you know. Purple mustaches will never get me."
Mikami was getting into the cupboards. The sounds made by the opening of each door were unnaturally loud and produced echoing, strange and metallic.
Would oiling the hinges help? Maybe we should go shopping today.
Then L looked away and when he looked back Mikami was gone. L held perfectly still, afraid he'd slide off the counter if he moved even slightly. He could tell it was tilted but wasn't sure which direction it was tilted in. Were his feet higher than his head, or the other way around, or was it one side that was much higher than the other? His perspective kept changing.
Then Mikami was back and L was being swept up again, carried, at first feeling stretched out as if he'd left part of himself on that counter but then wiggling and trying to pat at parts of his body and at last feeling it all together, all in one place.
Mikami dumped him someplace soft and L squirmed, trying to sit up but it really was quite difficult. Gravity wasn't cooperating, and neither were his muscles, but at least the spiders were gone.
Towels, towels, towels, everywhere he looked. A few more searching looks and then he realized Mikami had covered an entire couch with multiple layers of towels.
He is concerned about my wet hair dripping on the furniture.
L pulled up a towel and tried to wrap himself in it, unsuccessfully. It was hopelessly tangled and he couldn't find the edge of it. He pulled it around and around. It was like a mobius strip.
He sighed and said, "Mikami, I'm cold. Can you help?"
Mikami turned his back and left the room in a huff. L tried to pull his legs up to sit as usual but it simply didn't work. He kept falling over. The walls were odd, trying to move further out or closer whenever L wasn't directly looking at them. He rotated his head rapidly, eyeing them one after another in quick succession to keep them in their proper places. Once he thought he saw Aizawa briefly reflected in a mirror, but when he glanced back nothing was there.
Mikami came back into the room with an armload of towels so big it nearly hid his face, and dropped one after another on L, until he felt he was swimming in them, buried except for his head, unable to tell which direction was up or down. But it was warm.
Mikami was sitting in a chair, with a new shirt on, combing his hair. L hummed along in time with the strokes of the comb and then varied his repertoire to add beeping at the end of each stroke, imitating the distinctive warning sound of a large truck about to back up. Mikami glared.
L stopped it and became occupied in trying to prevent the purple thing from forming on the ceiling. It was a swollen face. Whenever he let it develop very far it showed features of both Soichiro and Ryuk. It was immensely pleasing to let it form halfway and then banish it with willpower, watching it shrivel away.
Mikami was suddenly looming in L's face.
Mikami said, "Explain to me again all the details of the plan to frame Hideki Ryuga for being Kira."
"There was... um... stuff. Also, his manager died two months after Hideki had announced he would sue him. He seemed a good target, suspicious. Besides, his movies are a kind of cultural rot. It only harms Japan to let that kind of trash be popularized."
"You told me this before. I need all the details, every last one. Can you remember them again, or was it all made up?"
L rubbed at the towel, playing with it, and let his eyes drift to the ceiling once more.
L laughed and said, "Misa is sooooo pregnant. Have you seen it? She shouldn't even be showing, it's pretty early. I bet it will be a huge baby, bigger than me. Probably bigger than this house."
The walls suddenly shook back and forth vigorously. L watched them for a little while before he realized Mikami was shaking him. Mikami gripped L's chin and turned his face upward. L was suddenly staring into exasperated eyes, inches from his own.
Mikami said, "Focus! Wake up! You're not going to go to sleep on me!"
L saw no patience in those eyes.
As long as I answer almost none of his questions, Mikami cannot tell the difference between a drug-induced inability to focus and a genuine breakdown in memory caused by complex lies.
L deliberately drooled onto Mikami's hand. The hand was drawn back immediately with a gasp, and moments later Mikami was gone.
Just before L closed his eyes, Aizawa loomed over him and said, "What an annoying little shit!"
L had only enough strength to nod in agreement before overwhelming exhaustion took him into a deep but troubled sleep.
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Fifty Days