While living at The Wammy's House, L suffers a concussion and begins to be tormented by memories of his parents, coming to him in the form of horrible nightmares. As his dreams become more vivid, he starts to wonder if there's more to them than just his past coming back to haunt him.
Read it on AO3.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
So this is a fic I wrote based on the prompts for Febuwhump 2022. As I wrote these microfics, it felt right to make them into chapters and suddenly I was writing a new story.
She pulls the dark blue covers securely around me, the fitted flannel sheet with the tiny foxes and bears is soft to rub my feet against.
“How are you feeling, my L? Are you snuggly?” Her voice is soft and sweet, just the way it was when she read me stories before the inevitable nighttime struggle of not wanting to go to bed.
I don’t say anything. She looks so young…too young. Then I realize how tiny my hands are clutching the blanket. I’m younger, too…too young.
Her smile remained, pale pink lips without so much as Chapstick coating them. “Close your eyes my little Love. You will be asleep before you know it.”
“But I’m not tired.” It had been a long time since my voice was so small.
Her words skip from her mouth in gentle laughter before she kissed me on the forehead. “That’s okay. You will be soon.”
“Your kisses hurt.”
“I’m sorry.” She turns off the light on my nightstand.
“Please don’t leave me…”
“I can stay until you fall asleep.”
“No…I mean ever.” I wiggle restlessly beneath the sheets, suddenly trapped in the darkness of the room.
Grinning she drops to the floor, clutching her stomach.
No this isn’t how it happened. It wasn’t here.
“Why aren’t we in father’s den?” I fight my way from the shackles of the bedsheets and jump down from the too high mattress, kneeling by her side in a pool of blood growing beneath her. “You’re not injured?” The room spins and I feel sick, the crimson puddle warm under my feet. “Where is the blood coming from? Mama?”
No…this isn’t how it happened.
“I’ll save you, Mama. I won’t let you die…”
With a sharp draw of air into his lungs, L opened his eyes wide to let in as much of the glow the computer monitor offered. He cast his stare to his feet and sighed. The ice pack had fallen from his hands in the night and melted beneath his feet, an uncomfortable an unwanted sensation. He stood up, wobbling and falling back to the couch before he remembered why he had the cracking pain in his skull, his foot slamming into the coffee table in front of him, sure to leave a bruise.
“L! L! Are you alright My Boy?!” Watari frantically skidded into the room, stopping just short of where L sat. “Your jeans…the bottoms are soaked as is the cushion. Let me get you some dry clothes.”
“Wammy...” He dragged his steel-blue eyes up to meet the icy ones made warm by whom they belonged to.
“Yes, L?”
“…Nevermind.”
“I’ll be back in a moment. Perhaps you will find your pajamas comfortable for once. Maybe you can even fall back to sleep.” A simple nod marked Watari’s exit, and L was alone with the demon that had awoken in his mind.
I haven’t thought of her in years. After all, wasn’t that the entire point of the puzzles and games I horded for myself, learning the curiosities that surround the orphanage, playing the stock market and ultimately becoming a detective?
With his open palm, He rubbed his eyes, scowling at the memories now haunting him.
I’ve had dreams of her before…my mother and my father, but never this twisted. Their deaths…
I had no control over my father’s, but hers…
Why now? And the details so blatantly wrong, details I worked hard to rid myself of.
It seems This damn concussion dislodged the recollection buried in my brain.
I suppose I know better…now that I’m seventeen. I know that a five year old couldn’t stop what happened to her, but…It will always be a failed rescue attempt…Push it from your thoughts like you’ve always done…but that will not change the fact…
A/N: You can read what happens earlier in this story on AO3.
*~*~*~*~*~*
I stand on an embankment to a river.
The waters are calm…too calm,
Like glass reflecting back my worst fear.
“We can’t find her.”
I don’t know who this man is, but he seems to know me, older with glasses and salt and pepper hair.
“So? She could have flown away.”
Another sets his hand on my shoulder, black hair and wide innocent eyes try to convince me otherwise.
“I’ll walk the shore with you again, but Chief says We’ve done everything we can.”
“Why do you insist on telling me she’s gone?”
“The bay has been dragged several times and no body has been found. She’s been presumed dead.”
“No…NO! She wasn’t real.” I turn to see Watari standing with the others. “Tell them they’re wrong. Tell them! Even you said it. She was nothing more than a dream…If she wasn’t real then she can’t be dead!”
“I’m sorry L…” Is all the man I have trusted for most of my life says to me.
“Then I’ll find her myself.”
I step toward the water and give myself to the sudden waves…
“NO!”
“L…are you alright?”
“Wammy? Why are you here?”
“You were so out of sorts earlier I came to check on you and found you asleep, so I decided to stay.” Watari closed his book and looked at his son. “I will ask again. Are you alright?”
The young detective didn’t know how to answer such a simple question. “I suppose I have no other choice.”
“The doctor called and you have been completely cleared to return to all your regular activities.”
L nodded his understanding, frowning. “That’s good.”
Watari took a deep breath and smiled at him. “I’ve been giving some thought to these nightmares you’ve been having. I know you don’t want to look into your past, but I thought it might be helpful for you to spend time with some of the other older residents here. Perhaps this girl in your dreams is your mind's way of telling you you’re lonely and-”
“No…”
“L if you try though it might-”
“She’s not here Wammy and I don’t want to find her.”
I will be the cause of her death…I won’t let that happen. I refuse to let that happen. I would rather be alone for the rest of my life if it means she lives.
Whomever you are, I will push you from the back of my mind...I will forget you ever existed...I will Keep you safe...
“Well, I know that My Boy. She’s in your imagination.” He laughed kindly, but it felt like L had been kicked in the heart.
L stood and pulled on his jeans, turning his back to his father figure as he shoved his hands into his pockets. “I’d like a new case please Wammy. A difficult one.”
Watari followed after him. “Alright. Captain Quinn of the NYPD wants your help with a human trafficking case his team has been unable to take down. He was thinking your talents could help them find the break they need.”
Scuffing his bare feet across the floor, L sat down in front of his computer, his lanky fingers pushing the mouse until the screen came to life, washing him in a familiar blue glow. “Alright Watari. Link me up to him.”
A/N: You can read what happens earlier in this story on AO3.
L leaned against the window, watching as the younger children on the playground built a snowman. “You’re going to have to keep an eye on Mihael. He’s trying to start a snowball fight.”
Watari just shook his head, a slight grin pushing his wrinkles. “He’s a spirited one, that boy.”
“He seems to have taken a disliking to Nate as he’s been the main target of Mihael’s attack, though Nate takes it in stride. I see no signs of retaliation…”
The smile slowly faded from Watari’s aging face. The last thing he wanted was a repeat of what Beyond and L had. “I will make Roger aware of the situation, especially of Mihael’s tendency to escalate situations.”
L pressed his thumb to his bottom lip, a tiny smirk gracing his expression. “You might want to do so sooner than later. It appears Mihael has entered into a full-on brawl with Julian. I suppose not everyone enjoys being pelted with a stray ball of ice.”
“I’ll go break them up before someone gets a black eye. Will you be alright until I get back?”
L gave him a simple nod, the smile falling from his face as he continued to stare out into the yard, his mind bringing him back to a much darker time.
…
L opened his eyes and gasped. It was so dark and damp…cold. He hated being cold.
“Mama?” His tiny voice barely managed to squawk out the word.
He knew she wouldn’t answer. He knew she was gone and was almost certain his father was as well.
…and if they were gone…no one would come looking for him.
He sat up, pulling his legs to his chest and resting his chin on top of them. He tried to scan through the blackness, but only one of his eyes could widen against the dark that surrounded him.
There was little he could make out. A sliver of light trickled down a stairwell, but where it led, he had no idea. In the corner, a pale yellow light came from an unknown source and it offered little comfort to the child who began to tremble at the realization of what had happened.
He buried his face into his knees and immediately regretted it. His mouth hurt, his eye hurt, his neck hurt…
He ran his tongue along where his teeth used to be, the taste of blood making him instantly sick to his stomach.
Don’t panic…Only three of them are missing…Mama said I would lose them eventually. This just made it happen sooner… It will be alright…
He raised his fingers, Icy and still lanky despite being so small, to his eye and lightly pressed into the welt that engulfed his once wide blue eye.
That’s right. The man that hurt Mama…he hit me. My eye…I can’t see out of it. I can’t even open it. I’ve never had a black eye before. What if I can never open it again?
Tears leaked their way out of the swollen socket and with it brought a pain he couldn’t have imagined.
He crawled forward and tried to slink his way through the bars that kept him confined to a 4x4 space, but the bars were too close together, even his slender body couldn’t slither through.
Suddenly L couldn’t breathe, the stale musty air refusing to find its way into his lungs.
Help me…I want my mother…my father…I want to go home…I’m going to die here…Help me…please don’t leave me.
He flopped over onto his side, still tucked into a ball as he brought his thumb to the gap his teeth had left, screwing his one eye shut.
Please…please don’t leave me.
The door opening snapped him from the memory he had learned to dodge and outrun with every case he took on, grateful for the easy escape from his past.
“L, Are you alright? You look troubled.” Watari hung his coat on the rack by the door.
“Yes, Wammy.” He made his way to the sofa, stepping onto the cushion and gripping his toes into the plush fabric. “Please bring me a case immediately.”
Watari hesitated, wanting him to rest but knowing arguing would do no good. “…Which one?”
“It doesn’t matter. Anything will do.” Tucking his legs to his chest, He rested his chin on his knees. “The more difficult the better.”
A/N: You can read what happens earlier in this story on AO3.
Late afternoon began to make room for twilight. L sat in the back of the town car, legs tucked to his chest with his shoes left on the floor mat. He stared out the window as they approached the orphanage, watching people wait at crosswalks before hurrying off to their families.
His mind wandered to such luxuries, wondering what it would feel like to return to a home where someone waited for him, that was happy to see him and cared about what he did while they were apart.
Someone that loved him.
Deep down, Part of him longed for that one day, but it was a part he ignored and neglected for fear of letting it become real, another obsession, one his mind couldn’t easily piece together into reality. Instead, he buried it inside the depths of his heart, a heart in which he hated having, nothing more than an organ that had caused him endless pain in the seventeen years he had been alive, one he would gladly have removed with no anesthesia if it meant to never again feel the all-consuming emptiness that dwelled inside him, an emptiness he filled with Other People’s tragedies, something to distract and numb and guard against his own…
“Are you warm enough back there, My Boy?”
“Hmm? Yes, Wammy.”
“I can turn up the heater if you want. You’re usually so sensitive to the cold.”
“I’m fine. I guess I just don’t feel it as much as I used to.”
A/N: You can read what happens earlier in this story on AO3.
*~*~*~*~*~*
I wake up to total blackness. At first I think there is no light, but there’s a blindfold covering my eyes. I don’t remember them doing this to me often…only when they didn’t want me to see where they were taking me.
“What do we do with him? We can’t keep him here forever.”
“We keep trying to get the location out of him, and if he doesn’t give it up, we get rid of him.”
I’m in the cage…the cage my kidnappers kept me in for so long.
They’re planning to kill me. I can’t see them, but I know they are watching me.
Now my hands are tied to the bars…
No, not the bars. To a bedframe.
I’m an adult now, but my feet still don’t touch the bottom of the mattress.
“What do we do with him? We can’t keep him forever.”
I don’t recognize the voice, but there is no mistaking the one that replies.
“Oh, you really have no imagination. I’m not surprised. All that power and you just write names with no flare to the execution.”
“It was enough to get rid of you.”
Beyond’s laughter carries every mocking word he speaks. “Is that what you think?”
Suddenly It’s very cold. I’m bound and blindfolded, naked and exposed. My heart is pounding so hard against my ribs it’s shaking my entire body.
I yank hard against the restraints, but nothing happens. I twist my arms until my wrists are raw, and I try to call out but no sound will come, breath refusing to find its way into my lungs.
Then I feel fingertips on my chest.
“Don’t touch me!”
“It’s okay, detective.” Her hands are warm and gentle as she drags them up my arms.
“Please let me go.”
“You’re already free.” Taking both my hands in hers, she lowers my arms from above my head. I completely relax into her hold.
“I am?”
“Mhmm.” I feel her press herself against me, and I rest my hands on her bare back.
“Will you take the blindfold off me please?” I lean into her, finding a comfort in her embrace I didn’t expect.
“I already took it off you.” Her breath is hot against my lips and I breathe it deep inside me.
“You did? Why can’t I see?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are we alone?”
“Yes. They’re gone. You’re safe now.”
Tentatively, I run my hands up and down her sides, starting at her ribs, over her hips and halfway down her thigh before repeating the pattern. Her skin is so soft, like silk draped across me, straddling me as she nuzzles my jaw, slowly leaving a trail of kisses down my neck to my collar bone.
"That feels..." my breaths hitch as I try to speak. "I like this...your kisses."
"I know. I know everything you like." Softly, she rubbed the tip of her nose to mine. "I think we've kissed every inch of each other."
“Is this our future?” I gasp the words and pull her closer.
“It is if you want it to be.”
“I do, but I don’t even begin to understand how it will come to be. I’m so isolated and I can only imagine that getting worse with more difficult cases. I never work with others in person. How would I even meet you?”
“Destiny of course.”
“Does that exist?”
“You’ll be amazed at what is possible and I will be with you the entire time...You just won’t know it.”
“How can that be? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Don’t worry about that right now. Just be here with me.”
"Kitten?"
"Yes, Love?"
"What else do I like? Please Show me."
Our mouths just begin to ghost each other’s…
“L, I hate to disturb you, but there’s an urgent call from that new inspector at Scotland yard that you worked with last week. He wants your assistance on another case.”
“Watari!” L growled, shifting beneath the blanket. “Damn it! Why would you wake me when all you’ve done is insist I sleep?”
“…Are you alright My Boy?” Concern widened the older man’s eyes. “After all the horrible dreams you’ve been having, I thought you would want me to tell you.”
“Fine, but tell him I will call him back.” L grumbled as he headed to his bedroom. “I need to take a shower.”
A/N: You can read what happens earlier in this story on AO3.
*~*~*~*~*~*
The chill of a late February night clung to L’s clothes as he shuffled into Watari’s den and flopped down on the sofa. Cold still rattled around inside his lung, and he tucked the old comforter left on the cushions around himself.
“Wammy? Would you bring me some tea please?”
The older man nodded as he hung up his coat by the door, looking at him with suspicion. “Of course my Boy…Are you feeling alright?”
“Yes. I just want to rest my eyes for a moment is all.”
Now There was no doubt in Watari’s mind that there was something wrong, but chose to wait to press the matter for when he returned with the tea.
Lately L had stopped fighting his need to rest. Being awake or asleep was just trading one Hell for another and at least in his dreams he had the chance of seeing her again.
Who are you?
L slowly blinked his eyes until they closed, letting sleep take him.
I’m in a wide concrete room…the floor is damp and sitting in the middle is Beyond.
She’s lying in his lap, eyes closed and limp like a doll, her features unremarkable but I know it’s her. I run and skid to a stop beside them, falling to my knees. She’s soaking wet, her hair sticking to her shoulders
“What have you done to her?” I try to pry her from his arms, but he just holds her tighter, burying her face into his chest.
“No! I’m protecting her you idiot! I’m saving her for you…for both of us.”
“If you hurt her I’ll never forgive you!”
I slide my hands beneath her and pull her to me, stoking her hair.
“Don’t you listen? I’m not the one that wants her dead.”
“Dead? Why would anyone want her dead?” Suddenly every fear I felt when someone I loved died flooded me.
Beyond only grins at me. “He wants me dead too, and Watari. He won’t win, but you won’t know that for a very long time.”
“Who? Who are you on about?”
“God of the New World of course.”
“Who the fu—”
“Some say he’s your greatest adversary, your only true match.” Beyond ran his fingertips down my cheek, his eyes burning into mine as he starts to pet her hair too. “We know better though don’t we?”
I jerk away from his touch and pull her from his reach. “What on Earth are you saying?”
“It’s time for your tea.”
“What?! You can’t leave it at that Beyond!”
“L, wake up. I have your tea.”
The detective opened his eyes and dragged his stare to Watari who was setting down a cup of warm Earl Grey.
“Wammy…I fear that the future may hold nothing but tragedy.”
“Why would you think that?” He scowled in concern.
L hesitated, thinking very carefully before he spoke. “I just…I suppose you can call it intuition.”
“L you can’t worry about your future based on a hunch.”
“No? Doesn’t a large part of how I solve mysteries depend on just that? Just because these hunches are coming in my dreams-”
“Wait. You’re having dreams that you think predict the future?” He tried to twitch away the smile on his lips. “L, that’s…”
“Don’t mock me, Watari! You don’t understand how vivid my dreams are…how real they feel.”
“Yes, but you’ve always suffered such afflictions.”
“These are different. I’m being told of things that will come to be. I’m concerned Beyond is going to go down a very dark path and I will go up against someone whose mind has reached godlike levels. He’s going to try to kill her…”
“Her?” Watari raised an eyebrow at his son and grinned.
“Nevermind that Wammy. I just think there may be something to this is all.”
“I wouldn’t worry too much about that. You’re still recovering from your concussion after all.”
L pressed his thumb to his bottom lip and hummed. “I suppose it is just how my brain is processing things while I heal.”
“I think that’s all it is. Please try not to pay much attention to them. Hopefully they will stop soon.”
L gave him a halfhearted smirk, not believing a word of it.
