I Thought Perhaps We Could Sit Down for Tea [OPEN, June 25]

[dead_black_eyes]

Characters: L Lawliet and OPEN to anyone
Location: Death By Pastry
Rating: PG
Time: June 25
Description: 104 degree heat and being blind aren't dissuading L from shaking his cabin fever and going out to do something. Without help. In public. If you recognize him under all those seasonally inappropriate layers and the bulky cyborg sunglasses, flag him down and harass him. He'll run into a lamp post before he can run very far.



It was more difficult to see the little flashing lights on the insides of his glasses
in broad daylight. Contrast between light and dark was all L could see, and the Sun interfered significantly with that meager aptitude. Not as much as it could have, due to what L could only conclude was considerable cloud coverage, but going was still slow, breathing air that was so hot and humid he might as well have been moving through bathwater.

He refused to carry a cane, which made traffic difficult, but he took the roads that weren't as busy, counting steps, pausing to listen as his cameras read text and relayed the information to him via his ear bud. Altogether, minus a few jarring bumps into bewildered strangers and city sounds that blended confusingly into one another, it was a smooth enough journey to one of L's old haunts, Death City's pastry shop.

He was almost unrecognizable, dressed inappropriately for the sweltering heat, with a winter coat piled on top of a sweater and a wide-brimmed hat that he only pushed back when he needed to "read" something. He spoke quickly and softly when he ordered his coffee with cream and eight sugars, as if concerned that someone might hear him and identify him based on the sound of his voice. When the barista handed it to him, though, trusting that he could successfully close his hand around an object that was right in front of him... well. There was only so much L could discern about the world based on a series of blinking lights.

"Damn it!" The barista hissed as the cup dropped onto the counter and they were both sprayed with flecks of hot coffee. "Man! You still have to pay for that, you know!"

L cleared his throat, taking a deep breath. When he spoke, it was in a low, measured tone.

"You're going to get me another cup of coffee and some napkins. I'm going to find a table; you can bring them to me. Take your time. You can clean this up, first."

"Huh! That's rich, you drop coffee and it spills all over the place, and now you're telling me to..."

L set his jaw. "I'm blind," he said bluntly, briefly lowering his glasses enough for the barista to see the clouded, opaque corneas.

There was an awkward silence, and then a muttered, hasty apology as the barista snatched up a rag to start mopping up the counter.

With coffee dripping from the front of his wool coat and a few people stepping helpfully aside, having heard the exchange, L pushed through the line to find an empty table.

Comments

[the_great_hero]

Hamel had seen L walking down the street, shuffling really. The layers of clothes and the flashy glasses were super interesting. He walked along behind to see what he was doing, entering the shop behind him, not ordering and then trailing along as L found a table.

"Here." He pulled out a chair for L and really wasn't going to yank it away or anything. There was an important question he wanted to ask. It trumped watching a blind guy fall on his ass. It was critical really.

He didn't wait for any answers from him instead he blustered right on to the dire question.

"That's a great costume! Where did you get it? Especially the glasses!"

[dead_black_eyes]

L had ventured out the door prepared to deal with some measure of injury, but already, his quota for insults was nearing the critical zone. L had a way of freezing out people who insulted him, his cold eyes and biting tone almost palpable in their ability to instill intense discomfort in anyone who got on his bad side.

He could appreciate well-intentioned innocents to a degree, though. And even well-intentioned idiots. Time would identify which of the two the young man was, suddenly present to aid him with his chair (insult #1) and then comment on his heavy, but not particularly ostentatious coat and hat (insult #2).

He settled into the chair, sitting normally, placing his thin hands palms-down on the table top. When he spoke, it was in a cool, neutral tone that hadn't decided yet whether the person who had approached him was worthy of tolerance or wrath.

"You sound new."

It was an allusion both to his unfamiliarity with Hamel's voice and the way Hamel clearly didn't know the first thing about dealing with finicky, recently blinded detectives.

[the_great_hero]

Fortunately, Hamel could be completely oblivious to other people's feelings... on a regular basis. And all manner of staring didn't bother him most of the time.

"New to the store? Yeah I've never been here before." Sorry bro, you're gonna have to hate him harder. "Do people who've been here a while get light-up glasses? Or is it one of those buy nine glasses get a pair for free?"

[dead_black_eyes]

Hate implied passion. Hate was an emotion that was on the same level as love, in terms of strength. Hate, in L's world, was reserved for those who truly deserved it, like his very own rival and partner, for instance.

Hamel was heading straight for detached contempt, but he still had a narrow grace period to revise his initial, unflatteringly ignorant impression.

"New," L asserted. "You sound new. Like you haven't been in Death City for very long. Like you don't know what's going on. Like you're still grasping for something like a foothold in a world you don't understand yet. Because the only alternative to your ignorance is that you have no sense of self-preservation or consequence, and don't see it as a very real possibility that I could perceive a mean spirit in those remarks and deck you."

Never mind that L looked like he barely weighed 100 pounds. There was something about the guy that suggested he was a lot stronger than he looked.

[the_great_hero]

Hamel wouldn't partner with someone he hated. Unless they paid him a lot. Hamel would throw away dignity for some cold hard cash.

"Everyone else around here knows where to get the glasses but me or something?" He looks baffled. That can't possibly be true or more people would be walking around flashing. "I've been here about a month but you're the first one I've seen with them."

Hey did this guy just call him stupid? The blind guy who spilled his coffee was threatening to hit him? It didn't matter that L couldn't see, Hamel made a snorting sound. It was pretty impressive that he'd made it mostly around the store and everything but that was totally different from decking a guy who fought for a living and had the full use of all his senses. And Hamel had no idea how good L was at using all his senses in addition to the glasses and the he might be able to deduce how to hit him somehow.

"Look buddy, all I want to know is where you go the glasses." Those were the most important part. He could put layers on someone till they looked like a snowball just fine. The flashing glasses though, that was a whole different story. They'd be awesome and distracting at night reflecting off of someone's face.

[dead_black_eyes]

L, on the other hand, could only seem to partner with someone he hated. The alternative was a nurturer the likes of whom he hadn't yet found in Death City, or someone like his former Meister, Gamzee Makara, whose Weapon ability allowed him to resonate with literally any Weapon. Otherwise, it was likely that bad resonance with L would actually injure Meisters who attempted to wield him. That was how caustic the detective L happened to be. L's motivation for partnering with someone he hated had less to do with a desire for money, and more to do with slavish devotion to the idea that incredible things were born of adversity, as long as both sides were equal.

"If I'm the first you've seen with them, wouldn't it stand to reason that everyone else doesn't know where to get them, or else hasn't a need for them?" L asked patiently, in the same tone one might use when addressing a very dull or very young child. Perhaps a bit of both. "My friend bought them for me because he thought they would help me. I don't know where he got them, and I don't particularly care, but your desire for them is unnaturally strong. You would have no use for them, the fact that you noticed them at all tells me as much."

[the_great_hero]

Sometimes it doesn't pay to be picky. Or maybe it does?

"Well if you're going to point that out then why the hell were you asking if I was new like I should know something about flashing glasses?" It's probably good L can't see his expressions because Hamel has a really bad habit of making rude faces. It couldn't help the situation any. "Who's your friend, I'll ask him."

He's pulling out his phone to make the note and he frowns at L. "They flash. And glow. Do you have any idea how useful that would be? I have all kinds of things I can use lights for. It opens up all sorts of new options." He's sort of trailing off and mumbling to himself about the effect in the dark and other things that don't make much sense. If L is hoping for someone who follows strict logic he's not going to find it in Hamel. Although the man is a simple creature he's also part demon and his motivations can be odd. But the core desire for money and adoration will likely never change. Even if most of the time he fucks up the adoration part spectacularly.

[realimperfect]

Coffee was a life blood. A life blood that even Re-l Mayer hadn't quit after her short stay in the clinic not too long ago, though her intake had gone down in exchange for tea. She was trying, though how long that would last was entirely up in the air. She's dressed in unusually light clothes for the heat, eventually relenting to applying large amounts of sun screen and not sweating like she was inside of a volcano in that all black ensemble. She was hard headed, but not enough to endanger her health (yet again) where there was no such thing as her personal doctor in this place, or somewhere she wasn't utterly repulsed by the idea of how possibly not clean it could be.

... Being such a stickler was a pain.

However, she's more than a little distracted by.. whatever get up she had just passed by, stopping her furious attentions on her communicator, talking to Vincent, in order to study whoever.. that was underneath the coat and hat. What kind of light show was going on with those glasses, anyway?

Well, she might just be able to leave the line if only to say - "What the hell kind of get up is that?"

Such a nice way to talk to your neighbors, Re-l.

[dead_black_eyes]

The "light show" in question was relatively discreet, the flashes only occurring on the inside of the dark lenses, but a keen eye could certainly catch them.

This voice happened to be familiar, the first one (barring Light's) he'd heard that day. And more than a little inconvenient; the downside to being a pariah was the risk of running into people who knew who you were in public. Being ignored was hardly a problem for the detective. In fact, he preferred it... but being specifically called out and addressed for something unusual wasn't his idea of a fun or comfortable day.

Whatever happened to just letting a man sit and drink his coffee in peace?

"I'm afraid I'm not sure what you're referring to," L said. "I'm not dressed particularly outlandishly, am I? Unless I've grabbed some of Bakura's clothes by mistake, or a cruel joke has been played on me, I'm fairly sure it's not a 'get up.'"

He remembered, vaguely, telling Re-L after her incident that he would tell her later, in detail, what had happened in their apartment that had required such lengthy and thorough cleaning. Perhaps she didn't remember, though his sightless status was fairly new and still unexplained.

[realimperfect]

Unfortunately for L, Daedalus had made sure that keen eyes for shooting and observing were a sticking point in making her the best 'version' of Re-l that had had created yet. Which meant that though she wasn't necessarily super human, and there were definite downfalls to such good sight, the lights behind his glasses were... at the very least noticeable.

There was no drinking a coffee in peace with Re-l around - L should know this by now. Not when he looks the way he does, and to a girl groomed not to stick out in a crowd spots someone who is clearly not sticking to things. Not that she really had much room to talk, considering she still liked to wear her long sleeved, all black get up every once in a while in the desert heat.

"You're dressed for nuclear winter in the middle of the desert, for one." Forget the fact that she'd come here to get Vincent and herself some coffee - this was far more interesting. "And two, why the hell is something flashing behind your glasses? Either it's that or I need to go back to the clinic to get my eyes checked.."

[dead_black_eyes]

L gnawed on his lower lip, reaching up and tugging at the dark strands on the back of his neck.

"It's just a coat," he finally sighed, speaking in a clandestine undertone "And the glasses... after what happened in my apartment, I ended up having some fairly severe chemical burns. The result was damaged vision. But I can still see light patterns, so. Hallelujah."

If that sounded sarcastic, well... it was. Wholly an completely.

[realimperfect]

"You live in a desert, in case you haven't noticed. Why the hell would you need a coat, right now?" Re-l has no concept of keeping her voice down much lower than it usually is, at the moment, leaning in with an utter disbelief lodging in her mind that this was real life. At times, she sort of missed he regulated life of Romdeau city.

There was nothing quite so odd, there. However, at the implication of chemical burns it would be a small miracle if he didn't feel her tense and bristle, leaning in to nearly hiss across the table even if he was being sarcastic with her, at the moment. Damn it, she'd moved in to a shiny new apartment to be away from this sort of carnage.

"What in the hell was going on in there that you have chemical burns?"

[dead_black_eyes]

Thank you, Re-L, for that bit of snark. It really lightens L's mood and makes him much gladder that he ran into her.

"Can you keep your voice down, please? It wasn't my intention to make a spectacle of myself, with or without help. In fact, I wanted to avoid attention as much as possible."

Clearly agitated, he bit the pad of his thumb, turned his head distractedly to the side, and practically mumbled the answer into his collar.

"A corpse burst on me. It was the formaldehyde."

[realimperfect]

"If that wasn't your intention perhaps you should have someone look at you before you left your apartment today. Or where ever the hell you're staying." Well, someone got irritated fast. She does, at least, take a seat so that it doesn't quite look like she's leaning in and being so heated with him standing. At least, well, she's hoping that it might draw some attention away. She's well aware that she's a little too tall to b doing those types of things without creating a scene rather easily.

... Which had probably been the point when they'd been arranging her genes, but, moving on..

"... That's disgusting." As if anyone would have considered it a fun time. "I'm not quite sure I really want to know this story more than I want to move down a floor or two.."

[ironyman]

Caffeine. The perfect fuel for a busy genius who definitely didn't have trauma-induced insomnia. He just... felt like staying up for 64 hours straight.

... Okay. Maybe a little insomnia. Not so much that you'd notice.

Tony already had a table when he noticed the fiasco at the counter. He couldn't hear what was said besides the barista's exclamation, but with the way the kid was shuffling and moved aside those bulky glasses, it was pretty obvious what the problem was. Not to mention how he was dressed. Jeez. Apparently being blind caused him to not notice things like the sun. The... really creepy chuckling way-too-close-why-haven't-we-burned-to-a-crisp-seriously sun.

"Hey, kid," Tony called out as the stranger passed his table. "Anybody tell you it's summer?"

[dead_black_eyes]

The layperson, even one in full command of all of his senses, might not have been able to notice that little bit of insomnia. But even if L had been able to see, he might not have given it much thought. Chronic sleeplessness, after all, was what he considered normal, along with a variety of other bad habits that have bleached his skin and wasted his scrawny body to the bone.

A man... in his thirties or forties judging by the sound of his voice, perhaps, addressed him as he brushed by. He also called L "kid", which, while not an unusual perception since the detective looked the better part of a decade younger than he was, was not something L was accustomed to hearing on a regular basis. Being an authority figure meant that usually, his honorifics and titles were upgraded regardless of how childish he appeared.

Not that many people in Death City viewed his authority as valid, or even knew about it to begin with.

Immediately, the stranger's comment put him in a dark mood, so he responded in a way that seemed tonally appropriate.

"Is it, now?" he asked. "I figured I'd just suffered a sudden, traumatic death and ended up in hell."

[ironyman]

Sadly, Tony was well used to annoyance. It seemed to be the response to anything that came out of his mouth more often than not. As such, he barely acknowledged that testy tone and responded in his usual snarky deadpan.

"So Satan dressed you up like the kid from A Christmas Story." Tony's He gestured at the kid's clothing. Seriously, who dresses like that in this weather? (Nevermind Tony's own layers, a T-shirt under a sleeveless hoodie, but that was to hide the glowing circle in the center of his chest. He had good reason to dress like a shabby teenager, thank you very much.)

"Just take off a coat or... three."

[dead_black_eyes]

The unfortunate truth was that L was so easily annoyed, and his recent experiences and the ensuing isolation had admittedly caused much of the positive developments his personality and social skills had accrued to backslide. Some of it he couldn't help. Some of it he was directly responsible for, and knew it full well. 100% of it couldn't be helped at the current moment, and therefore, neither could his tetchiness.

L was always pleased to point out people who threw stones from glass houses, or called the kettle black while being firmly classified as pots. Again, his impaired vision (two quick blinking lights were the only indication he had that Tony was even a human, or was at least shaped like one) wasn't exactly a boon in the snark department.

"I don't watch pictures, or celebrate Christmas. Sadly, your reference is wholly lost on me, but I'm sure it is both apt and devastating to the ego," he responded in his typical monotone. "That being said, I'm not overheating. The air conditioning is always turned up too high in the summer, anyway. Since I spend more time indoors, I dress for indoors."

The layers served other purposes, of course. The long sleeves hid scarred wrists that took a long time to explain when most people were content to draw their own sordid conclusions. During the month he was being stalked by his former insane successor and the following weeks after the little psycho's disastrous parting shot that had resulted in L's injury and blindness, he hadn't slept or eaten much, and the result was a weight loss of around six pounds. A stomach flu for most people, but frightening on someone who was already considered drastically underweight for his height.

"I'll 'take off a coat or three' when I start to sweat. At present, it doesn't seem imminent," he said coolly, outstretched fingers closing around the back of a chair.

[ironyman]

Tony raised his eyebrows. Kid clearly had a temper on him, so he let the topic slide with a shrug he knew the stranger probably couldn't see. He obviously had reasons for the layers, reasons that he defended like a snarling pitbull and that Tony frankly didn't care enough about to pry.

"Wow. Ray of goddamn sunshine, aren't you," he replied dryly, deflecting the kid's ire with practiced ease. He'd been the dangerous combination of playboy, billionaire, and CEO for long enough to master the art of redirection.

"Well, there goes my Gordi La Forge reference, which would actually not have been devastating to the ego, thanks. Not a bad engineer, Commander La Forge, and bonus points for putting up with that Wesley kid. But I digress."

Tony took a long sip of his own coffee, set it down, and leaned back in his chair.

"The good Commander is an apt reference, ah, because he has a visor not unlike those." He pointed at the bulky glasses. "More high-tech, though, better visual output, less, ah, hideous."

Maybe extending an olive branch would help the kid's mood. And the glasses really were hideous. Tony gestured at that chair, adding for good measure: "You can sit down. You know. Hey, come on, it'll be fun. Oh. And Tony Stark."

[dead_black_eyes]

L's temper tended to take the form of quiet contempt rather than outward aggression; that being said, an experienced people-reader could doubtless pick up on it, even if his voice was even and an onlooker out of hearing range would assume that they were merely having a casual conversation in passing. And while a snarling pitbull might have been a little bit over the top for the detective's wiry, barbed manner and bearing, there was definitely something slightly wary and feral about him.

The digression was frankly wearisome. L hadn't had time for science fiction even when he could see, and he frankly had little appreciation for the arts or culture in general. His own life had been more eventful than any fantastical journey imagined by an author, and his experiences had wasted his body and spirit to the point where anything extra just felt superfluous and draining. Superheroes, myths and fads were all well and good for most people, but L stood outside of humanity's easily amused collective. There were only so many hours in a day, and his intimidating reputation was as much of a prison as it was a motive for its own upholding.

Well. It had been, anyway. Nowadays he was just struggling to find doorknobs and railings.

But it was strangely comforting that someone was openly making fun of him. He hadn't been sure what to expect out of his first solo outing since his accident. Patient tolerance or pity, but not ridicule... and it was, at least, something he could rise to.

"They are ugly, aren't they? Not that I have a reason to care about appearances. Aesthetically pleasing things are wasted on me, and that's not even a recent development."

He took a seat. "It's Rue Ryuzaki." Weird, yes, considering L's dark hair and fine features were the only things vaguely Asian about him. For the most part, he looked European, and spoke English with a perfectly bland, "media ready" midwestern American accent.

He slipped the glasses off, setting them on the table and closing his own bruised-looking eyelids. His damaged eyes were achingly sensitive to light. He turned them so that the back of the lenses, along with the little patterns they flashed, faced Tony. "They're not particularly streamlined. But a friend purchased them for me, in the hopes that they might help, and I would hate for his efforts to go to waste."

[ironyman]

Another time Tony might've questioned the name. Then again, he also knew a guy named Thor who spoke like Shakespeare, so unusual names didn't mean as much anymore. In this case, however, the name got nothing more than an acknowledging hmm, because there was tech in front of him.

"Butt ugly," he confirmed, leaning forward to inspect the glasses. "Both sides."

He scowled as he lightly handled them as if he found merely touching such inferior technology repulsive. Said scowl was all too evident in his voice when he spoke.

"Jesus. How did you get here in these? I'm sure these would be helpful if you lived in an 80's video game but the thing is the real world has a z axis. You need something that registers depth, ambient echo-positioning, ah, sonar. Maybe lasers. Shit, my robots have better visual mechanics."

He leaned back, dusting off his hands as if ridding himself of the inferior technology.

"I can build so much better."

[cardfortress]

Near hadn't meant to spend too much time at Death by Pastry. With his and Mello's mission to Mexico happening in only a couple of hours, the Weapon stopped by the shop to buy some chocolate cake for his partner, and grab a much needed cup of coffee for himself, before walking to a table where he knew he wouldn't be bothered by other customers.

(Not that people often approached him; he had a way of making himself look completely unapproachable, after all.)

Six minutes and twenty seconds later than what he'd initially planned-- his mind had been particularly busy lately, and he got distracted enough with his thoughts that he found himself staring sightlessly at his now slightly warm coffee-- he was about to leave his table when he saw a rather strange person come in.

He didn't miss the older man as he walked into the pastry shop, clothed as he was. With the weather this unbearably hot, anyone wearing that many layers of clothing had to be either mentally challenged or trying to hide something, but the end effect made the stranger as obvious as if he'd been wearing flashing neon signs saying look at me instead, so Near looked. And it didn't take him long to figure out who that was.

Like Mello, Near had paid close attention to any information on L. Bakura had proven useless in telling them anything relevant and new, surprising absolutely no one; to say his Meister had been frustrated and annoyed with his last talk with Bakura would have been a severe understatement. Whenever he'd caught L on camera in the surveillance network, he'd always looked off, moving awkwardly and downright weirdly for his usual pattern of movement, but no alarm bells had sounded in Near's mind.

Right now, however, they sounded as loud and clear as if a siren was blasting inside Death by Pastry.

It didn't take a genius to figure out what happened just by observing the various people involved in the incident with the barista, but being able to read lips helped things along significantly. His eyes narrowed at what he found out, and when L made his way to find an empty table, Near knew he'd get home later than he'd planned on doing. He sent his partner a text message telling exactly that as he walked to the table at which L sat down, and took the seat in front of him, sitting down without announcing himself. He didn't want to give the older man enough time to put his defenses up any more than how high he usually wore them; after all, none of them ever let their walls down completely, and especially not in public.

"I see there's something else you've neglected to tell us about," he said in a flat tone, careful to keep anything from showing in his voice. It's been a while since he approached L at all, but he had no intention of wasting time with small talk or other pleasantries, and neither was he going to insult L's intelligence by playing nice.

[dead_black_eyes]

Dignity in manner and comportment had never mattered very much to L; as a detective whose ego was huge but entirely external, he had a reason to take pride in his accomplishments but not necessarily his appearance, posture, or the general impression he left on others. Not looking like a crazy person just wasn't high on his list of priorities, but at this time, not looking like L somewhat was.

He could probably have fooled a lot of people, too, with the layers and the glasses
and the conscious efforts to stay out of view. And he had been out of view lately, his brief and rare ventures outside the apartment since his accident numbering low enough to count on one hand. Unfortunately, Near was one of a select few who could spot him just about anywhere and under any circumstances, even when he wilted into his chair rather than sitting in his customary, peculiar manner. When a person stealthily settled into the chair across from him, an LCD pattern arranging and flashing accordingly behind his lenses, all he knew was that he was being joined by something animate and therefore likely human. That was enough to put him on his guard and alert him to the fact that, for whatever reason, someone wanted to talk to him.

And then Near spoke, revealing himself through a monotonous voice that L was rawly familiar with.

Though there were a lot of complicated emotions associated with his successors as a group, by now, he was still good at not demonstrating them. The glasses and eyes that looked deader than ever helped conceal that swift flash of recognition and from there, his face was placid and unmoving.

He did remove his hat, though, setting it on the table between them. The table was a barrier that, seemingly, needed to be built up just a bit more with this latest, unexpected turn. L reasoned that if anyone would approach him, it probably should be Near, given his ability to remain emotionally isolated from personal matters, but recent exclusions ...the silence after his get-well gift, the housewarming party Bakura had been told not to bring him to, and the intel mission that he was barred from... had made him realize that everyone, Near included, was probably of a like mind regarding what to do with him. As far as he knew, unaware of Bakura's misguided attempts, "silence" fit that definition well enough, and it had all happened while he was struggling to stay on top of two antagonistic relationships at once. One of those relationships had stopped being entirely antagonistic, and the other had culminated in a grisly gift that had left him blind, vulnerable, and very shaken. He had spun it into something positive in his mind, that at least he had taken the hit instead of one of what amounted to family, as even estranged family was still family... but it hadn't felt that way. It hadn't looked, or sounded, or been that way, except in name only, and everyone had started to meld into symbols and values once more. His successors meant the world to L, of course, and he would sacrifice himself to save a pair of pieces that were more valuable, of course, but they were ruthless and unforgiving and colder by far than the exhilarating rivalry he could claim made him feel alive. It was duty and obligation now, which felt nowhere near as rewarding as the victory that was a simple, civil conversation with the man L had once named a suspect to his face.

His coffee hadn't yet been brought. He had nothing on the table to fidget with or stack as he arranged his thoughts. His acceptance of Near's presence fell into the duty and obligation category, very different from the time they'd gotten drunk together, and he already felt drained. Like Near, he knew that they'd probably both be there longer than they'd initially intended. But his determination didn't approach Bakura's, having already distanced himself personally from his successors and acknowledged that it should have stayed that way when they all ended up in Death City, so perhaps it wouldn't be long, at all.

"Well. We've all been very busy." He paused, seeming to weigh an important decision, before casually inquiring "You wouldn't leave me alone if I asked you to, at this time, would you? Because I would prefer that."

[cardfortress]

L’s reaction was only to be expected, and far from surprising: he built even more walls around himself immediately after Near spoke, going as far as making an already physical barrier even greater by placing his hat on the table; he could see the significance in that seemingly meaningless gesture all too well. That wasn’t the only thing he could see, however. L was too still, looked thinner than ever-- as Near could tell from his hands and his face, given how everything else was covered by too many layers of clothing to make a good estimate of his weight loss-- and he looked pale (well, even paler than how he usually looked like) and tired, but was thankfully devoid of any bruises and scrapes that could indicate recent fights. There was quite a bit of tension in his jaw, as well, and even though Near wasn’t the kind of person who concerned himself about others (except for very few and very special cases), he had to admit to himself that anyone else would have been very worried by now, not only because of the supposed blindness but also because of how exhausted and tense L looked like right then.

While a part of Near had changed significantly ever since he arrived to Death City, even going as far as having recently admitted to considering Genesis Rhapsodos his first friend, he still remained as ruthless and emotionally detached as he had always been when it came to most aspects of his life, as well as most situations that he couldn’t fix as swiftly as he’d hoped to. The whole situation of L sleeping with the enemy definitely fell into the latter category, and Near shared his partner’s views and frustrations on the whole thing, from feeling betrayed that L was far too close to the one person responsible for their deaths, to thinking that their former mentor was being childish and irresponsible.

He also shared Mello’s frustrations with Bakura and the boy’s stubborn and unhelpful attitude, but he avoided thinking about that; he’d rather not get angry to the point of being distracted, thank you very much.

When L spoke, Near narrowed his eyes. He was about to say I’m sure in reply to L’s statement about how busy they’d all been, but the older man’s next words shifted his conversational priorities very quickly.

“Of course not,” he said in reply, well aware that L already knew his answer but wanting to make quite clear that he wasn’t going anywhere until he got a few things cleared out. His voice was just a touch colder than what it usually sounded like, and Near wasted no time in doing what he came to L’s table for: he and Mello had a mission to attend and the older man clearly didn’t want his company, so the sooner they got this over and done with, the better.

“I’m assuming diabetic retinopathy was far from being the reason why you can’t see,” he said, in a tone that was a lot drier than he intended it to be. Surely L expected him to bring up the very obvious? “What happened?”

[dead_black_eyes]

Near's dry tone ignited a strange reaction in the other detective. The corner of his mouth twitched, curving upward in the briefest, bitterest fascimile of a smirk. He brought his thumb to his lip, and it vanished swiftly, but likely not before a keen and attentive eye could notice it.

You have no idea. You must hate that.

When he spoke, his tone was oddly easy, even friendly. It was affected, deliberate, and to some who had heard it before, marrow-chilling.

"You guess correctly, of course. 100% correctly, in fact. You're very good at this, and always have been. That's undisputed."

His hands returned to the table, fingertips absentmindedly turning his hat by its dark brim.

"But... it happens that you're asking me a question, now, that strays into territory that some might consider personal. Even sensitive. I could give you the cold facts, but to what point and purpose? I don't think you understand 'sensitive.' I don't think you can."

He stood the hat up on the edge of its brim, increasing the height of the makeshift barrier between himself and Near.

"Nothing happened that will affect you and Mello. That is what you really want to know. And that is what I am all too happy to tell you. Now you can stop forcing yourself to sit across from me."