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

[ironyman]

Tony let him take his time, barely resisting the urge to ask if he'd like some coffee with his sugar. Rue didn't seem like he'd get the joke, and more importantly it would derail the conversation.

"Okay, first, I can build this in my sleep, I'm a genius, it's what I do. Please, I've built way more complicated things in way worse conditions."

A miniature nuclear reactor in a cave with bits and pieces of missiles, for instance.

"To pay me would be insulting, frankly. Second, I'm a nice guy. Philanthropist, superhero, saved the world, again, what I do. I'm a do-gooder, I do good, like giving free shit to a weird blind kid who puts fourteen sugar cubes in his coffee. You don't look like you'll turn into a power-hungry supervillain, so I think I'm safe there, but even if you did you'd be stupid because anyone could just knock the glasses off your face. And if that motivation isn't good enough for you, third, I'm also really bored."

Tony paused to sip his coffee as well as let Rue ruminate on the offer. He had to add, however, a further thought. Kid seemed like he needed it.

"Fourth, don't be a schmuck. If you want something, go for it, none of this 75% certain crap. You won't get anything like that. Piece of advice."

[dead_black_eyes]

Unfortunately, L's sense of humor wasn't particularly strong or healthy. Many aspects of his personality somewhat resembled plants that had been watered regularly but kept in the dark, with moist roots that plunged deep and sickly, unhealthy leaves that had no sense of when to flower or seed. Some geniuses, like Tony and L's own partner Light, were also charming and sociable and well-rounded enough for any odd habits to go unnoticed or be forgiven. Others, like L and many who had come after him, were bound and limited by their neuroses to the point where they were savants in specific fields, but ill-suited to life outside of a locked room with several faintly glowing computer screens. Though L had done much, he had seldom needed more than an internet connection and a few trusted liaisons to carry out his work.

So he wouldn't have laughed, and Tony made the right call.

"In summation, it's easy, you like helping people, you're bored, and I should be more assertive?" He asked, stirring the sludge-like paste in his coffee cup with a thin, tapered index finger. "I haven't been blind for very long. I won't pretend that I'm content, being able to see nothing except a few flashes of light. But I've had some... setbacks, lately, to say the very least. So. If you're going to do this for me, out of the kindness of your heart, contributing your time and your talents and your advice, I don't want a minor improvement over this pixelated nightmare. I don't want you to change your mind today or tomorrow. I don't want charity, the food you didn't eat or the shoes you're finished wearing. I want an elegant solution. Something that becomes a part of me, something that you would wear yourself, in my place. Something you stay up late working on, that has not been built in your sleep."

[ironyman]

"Correction: easy for me. Big difference."

The tone Tony used was perhaps strangely not that of bragging. It was confidence belonging to a man who was so certain of his talents that he accepted them as fact. Tony Stark did not boast of his intelligence, he restated what was already true. He built impossible things, things that lesser minds in his fields could only dream of, and he had a genius and creativity few could match. Making the distinction of easy for him and easy for anyone else was necessary, and not just to stroke his ego.

"And no," he continued matter-of-factly. "I won't give you what I would wear myself, because what I would do is probably really dangerous, experimental, and in general a bad idea. And while I am notorious for enacting bad ideas upon myself, I'm not going to do it to a kid."

He sipped his coffee with an air of finality, as if daring Rue to argue.

"What I will give you, however," he added. "Will still be pretty damn cool."

[dead_black_eyes]

It was a tone L recognized. It wasn't just that he was brilliant and confident in his abilities; he used to have an entire fleet of people training to take his place someday who were similarly brilliant and confident. All geniuses, all prodigies, all too neurotic and arrogant to function well in society but perfectly suited to compete for the coveted title L would relinquish when he died.

He'd even had a tech genius. That tech genius was actually in Death City, but like his other successors, certainly not interested in talking to the man whose obsessive inability to let go of his final case had been seen as a betrayal.

"Yes. It's a difference I understand," he replied mildly. "And your reasons are kind and I'm sure your intentions are to protect me, but I'm not exactly in a position to lose much. I'm 25 years old, I'm blind, and the experimental and dangerous excite me. 'Pretty damn cool' is impressive for a science project. But if you're as good as you say you are... as my will to live needs to believe you are... you can have some fun with this. I'll sign a waiver, if you want me to."

Go big, or go home.

"Do you gamble, Mr. Stark? My job relies heavily on my ability to see. My job is my raison d'être. If this was any game with any stakes, I would be all in. I'd rather risk everything for the best you can do than settle for the safe and easy and, within the scope of your professed ability, mundane. It's what I want, and I'm going for it."