Death Note Fan Fiction ❯ PITCH ❯ Comeuppance ( Chapter 24 )
[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]
By: selena281 
This is really chapter 23.
Anime/Manga: Death Note Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Psychological / Romance / Angst / Drama / Comedy | Type: Yaoi | Uploaded On: 05.01.2011 | Pages: 4 | Words: 5.3K | Visits: 280 | Status: Work In Progress
This is really chapter 23.
Anime/Manga: Death Note Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Psychological / Romance / Angst / Drama / Comedy | Type: Yaoi | Uploaded On: 05.01.2011 | Pages: 4 | Words: 5.3K | Visits: 280 | Status: Work In Progress
PITCH
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Light x L
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Part 23
L is a reclusive detective who takes his job seriously. Too seriously, in fact. Once he takes note of how neglected and stagnant his life truly is, he decides to make some changes. Challenges arise through an unanticipated meeting. AU
A/N: I am so tired right now.
Disclaimer: (See part 1 for full disclaimer.)
Pitch: (def.)
A substance commonly utilized to bind materials in construction... Tar pitch appears solid, and can be shattered with a hard impact, but it is actually fluid. Pitch flows at room temperature, but extremely slowly. To attain maximum fluidity, to be used, it must be exposed to heat.
Minds are like pitch. To reveal their full potential, they must be exposed to environs that apply stress. They must be challenged.
Part 23: (Comeuppance)
Sachiko was straightening up the kitchen that night. It was late, and not exactly the sort of thing she wanted to do at this very moment, but things needed done and she was hoping to gain a little extra time tomorrow morning because of it.
She felt better having packed the lunches for the next day, and getting the mess of dishes under control, but there were so many things she'd rather have done instead.
Soichiro was out tonight. After dinner he'd had to run back to the station to work on a case that was in the critical stages. He grumbled about it and the hours, but she knew that he loved his work and would never have picked another career, given the chance to do things all over again.
She idly wondered if her son felt the same way, or if her daughter would as well, once she determined what she would be doing with her life. The girl seemed somewhat frivolous at the moment and more preoccupied with boys than she should be if she wanted to excel in her studies...
Sachiko shrugged to herself. She couldn't say that either of her children had turned out quite as she or Soichiro had expected. But as long as they stayed out of trouble and led happy lives, she would be content. She felt no need to dictate their decisions or criticize their choices. Her husband, on the other hand... he seemed unable to leave Raito alone. It was borne from his disappointment, she was sure. He'd often, when they had first married, talked of having a son that would follow in his footsteps. He liked the idea of having a family tradition of law enforcement, and wanted it to start with them.
She supposed it was a nice notion, just like a family of doctors, or florists, or whatever the profession happened to be, but Raito seemed set on rebelling against it at every turn. It wasn't as if law enforcement wouldn't suit him. She suspected that it actually would have, and quite well, but her son was headstrong and was perfectly willing to fight against her husband's dream tooth and nail.
Soichiro was convinced that everything Raito did was only done to embarrass him or make him angry.
She wiped down the last counter in the dim room which was illuminated only by the light over the stove.
She had no idea why Raito did some of the things he did. But she could see where her husband got his impressions. It was like her boy had been born to be at odds with his father. They just could not see eye-to-eye.
Giving the kitchen another once over, she thought she heard the sound of a car in the driveway.
Odd. Soichiro should be gone for hours yet. She wiped her hands on a dish towel to dry them and headed towards the door. Her ears picked up a faint, feminine voice, then the closing of a car door. Sayu? Well, that would be odder still. She rarely visited during the week due to classes.
She looked out the small window in the door and caught two silhouettes in the headlights. They came partway up the walk and then the taller one motioned the other away. The shorter one made no move to do so until the taller one bent to kiss them. Afterwards, the taller one came up the walk.
She heard the jingling of keys, and decided to just open the door for her son and let him know that she had seen.
He looked up as she did so, keys in his hands as if he didn't know quite what to do with them. "Good evening, mother."
"Good evening," she responded, swinging the door open for him to come in. "To what do I owe such an unorthodox visit?"
He smiled at her, shaking his head as if she'd said something ridiculous, and yet it looked all wrong. He waltzed in as if he always came at this time of night, during the week, when in reality, they'd rarely seen him over the last several years until he'd taken up with L. She certainly hadn't minded the change. If anything, she was convinced that the boyish, dark-haired detective would be a good influence on him.
"If my visiting is an inconvenience, I can go. I don't want to put you out." He looked around. "Is father out?"
"Yes, he's working on a case."
There was a strangely disapproving look that ghosted over her son's face, but it was gone again in a moment.
"Let me look at you, Raito," she said, turning him this way and that as she took in the fancy attire. "Were you working as well?"
Another strange look crossed his face, gone in a heartbeat, before he smiled. "Do you like it? It's not everyday we have a meeting with such important clients."
"I suppose not," she agreed. By the feel and the cut of the clothes, they easily could have cost as much as a month of their income - something Soichiro would not have hesitated to comment on disapprovingly. He never missed a chance to critique Raito's line of work. "Is that why Misa was with you?" She studied his face openly and watched in surprise as he turned away from her.
"I thought I'd stay here tonight. Is that ok with you?"
"Of course, dear." She might have asked why, as he had not stayed the night in this house since he had gone overseas, but he had already started towards his room. She truly did not mind him staying - it was the very reason she kept his room for him - but everything about this was... odd.
She stood there, contemplating the dashing figure her son cut in his expensive clothes, and the smile that, like on television, looked too bright to be contained in one room. He was grown now, and had chosen his path. He'd made any number of decisions, and had never gone back on a single one that she knew of... until now. Why on earth would he have been kissing Misa? He'd decided long ago that they were not compatible. He'd endured the confusion of his parents and the harping of his sister, all who thought she seemed perfect for him, yet he had patiently insisted that things were over between them. For good. He never gave a reason.
She heard the shower running a moment later, and decided that when he was finished, she would go talk to him.
---
Raito dried his hair mechanically, kicking the clothes he'd been wearing further into the corner. His mother was wondering what he was doing here. Not that she minded his presence; he knew that to be true.
He wasn't quite sure himself what he was doing in coming here, except that it meant Misa couldn't follow him in to spend the night as she would have at his place, or hers. But it was more than that.
Perhaps... he was hoping to talk.
Insane, was it not?
He ran the towel over his body, rubbing it dry more vigorously than necessary. He rather detested talking about himself, and just now, he really wanted to be left alone. So why was he sure that talking was a motivation in coming here?
He wrapped the towel around his waist and walked down the hall to his room. There were not a lot of clothes here anymore, but there were a few. Just enough to be inviting. Just enough to provide for any needs he may have if he'd ever chosen to stay the night. And he had not done so since leaving the country.
How long now had she been keeping this room for him, his mother? He'd never told her to, and yet, just now, he felt selfish and negligent and entitled that he had never told her not to.
He pulled some clothing out of the drawers. It was clothing from his old life. Nothing fancy, just things that fit the function without causing an excess bleeding of money from the bank. Plain grey cotton pants he could sleep in. A plain black t-shirt, a little tighter now across his shoulders - more fitted upon his lean frame than it had been a few years ago.
He opened the blinds so that light could come in from outside, and turned off the overhead light. The bed seemed smaller than he remembered, but that was due to the size of the one he used now. He sat down upon it, moving back so he could lean against the wall, letting his eyes adjust to the mixed illumination of moonlight and streetlights.
His thoughts were tumultuous at this moment. And they would have followed him no matter where he'd decided to lay his head for the night.
Since that phone call at the restaurant, nothing had gone right. He wasn't thinking clearly and he knew it. Someone had to put on the breaks, but no one was there to do it. He seemed unable and was just going with the flow around him, completely out of his head.
Coming here... why had he? What was the point? Only he knew the map of events that had led him here, and all he could hope for in disclosing any of it was judgment.
Despite this, he felt a little better being in his old room. Sentimentality, Raito? He laughed at himself. It was ridiculous, considering it was him.
---
The soft knock at the door did not surprise him overly much. "Come in," Raito said, pasting a sonly smile on his face though his mother might not see it in the faint light.
She came into the room, stopping at the edge of the bed. Her hands were on her hips as she looked down at him with bewilderment. "What were you doing kissing Misa?" There was a definite edge lurking in her voice.
His hackles went up, but he did not let it show. It was a valid question, after all. "So you saw that, did you?"
Funny, he found that not only did he not want to talk about it, it was quite possibly the LAST thing he would have wanted to have to talk about just now.
"Raito..." she warned. He could almost hear the tapping of her foot. Impatient. Knowing he was evading her question and calling him on it. Tap. Tap. Tap.
Where had that desire to talk gone? In its place, he was feeling trapped. Edgy. He did not know how to proceed, or if he could, or even if he should.
Irritation was starting to leak in and it was a sign he was starting to think too much. Guilt was starting to seep in as it had so many times this week, and anger was quick on its heels. How had he done what he had done in that motel room, and without batting an eye? That made him monstrous, did it not?
And that was what drove this feeling, this need to erase the guilt of what he had done to Lawliet by topping it with something worse, to rebel against that guilt with everything in his power. Accepting that guilt meant to accept blame. Accepting blame meant that he was in the wrong, and that label of 'monstrous' that rose to the fore. It was ill-fitting, blinded him, made him angry. It twisted his thoughts and made him determined to earn that title, if he was to bear it. If he was to feel guilty, he might as well earn that guilt. If Lawliet was to look at him with accusatory eyes, he wanted to have been reprehensible. That was preferable to having lost control, having regrets and being unable to make amends.
But wasn't it also something less inspired? Wasn't he allowing things to happen that he did not want at all, merely to see how much it took before he really lost it? Wasn't he just being self-destructive and devaluing himself for the sake of something he didn't quite understand? Offering some sort of penance, masochistically, though nothing of the sort had been asked of him? It was like a downward spiral. For as bad as things became, he was compulsively making it worse. He felt as if everything were out of his control and the least he could do was make a contribution to his own chaos.
Like now. He was about to do it again. And there was the kick of adrenaline as he stood at the brink of it. He waved off her question and looked her in the eye.
"I slept with Misa," he said point blank. He felt sick and giddy all at once, and all that scrubbing had still not removed the unwanted feel of it from his skin! He looked at her with an impartial expression. Unrepentant. His skin was raw with how hard he'd scrubbed.
And would he not do it again? Punish himself with things he did not want, proving to himself that this was probably how he would spend the rest of his life without Lawliet? Even now it was so muddled as to whether he was trying to get back at the detective or get back at himself. He oscillated too wildly between feeling vindicated and feeling aggrieved that he really was ceasing to make sense of it all.
"You WHAT? What about L?"
Was it sick that he translated her appalled reaction into how he wished Lawliet to react if he knew? That he gained some sort of satisfaction that Lawliet would be upset over such a thing? That for all his running away, he still fucking cared about things like this?
Raito smiled pleasantly, feeling a total disconnect. "What about him?"
(Monster.)
He took in her horrified reaction, reveled in it as much as he feared he was letting things go too far, maybe wanting her at last to see him as some sort of messed-up individual and not just her precious son. He supposed he was feeling destructive. And this was the son you held on to for so long. He thought at her as they stared back at one another. This was the son you kept this room so long for. Even in his head, his voice sounded like a sneer. Are you proud, mother?
Her expression darkened and he waited for the blow. "You must be blind," she snapped out at him, "because I know you're not stupid."
Stupid? She'd never dared to utter such a thing to him before. Indignation rose up and over the other feelings, breaking the spell. He felt a very ordinary glare take residence upon his face.
"Why on earth would you jeopardize things with him?!" She railed at him. "He makes you happy, I can see it. Though I can't say he deserves the likes of you, what with how you're acting."
He'd never seen her like this. He wasn't quite sure how to act. "Thank you, mother," he said drolly, "it's nice to know that you'll always be on my side." Sarcasm seemed fitting.
She moved forward in a flash and smacked him. It stung, but judging by the fire in her eyes, she'd wanted to hit him much harder. "Stop being a spoiled, melodramatic brat," she demanded vehemently, "and tell me what's going on."
The challenge was too hard to resist. He wanted to meet her disapproval with the full scale of his crimes. Still nihilistic, he supposed. He lowered his masks, eyes slanting at her. He'd never shown her what lurked beneath. He'd always been rather convinced she would be appalled and leave him where he stood.
His hands fisted briefly where they lie upon the bedspread then relaxed.
"Are you sure you're up for that?" he said seriously, dropping his standard tones, and using his true voice. His eyes glinted in the darkness. No fluff here. No parts to play. He supposed the time had come where he just wanted to see what she would do, and damn the consequences.
Their gazes locked, assessing each other, engaged in a way that was dissimilar to any other time. Her face was tight, but he could not quite discern what the feeling behind the expression was. What are you thinking, Mother? The tension was holding steady, much like the silence between them.
Finally, something gave. She narrowed her eyes at him. "If you think I'd never noticed what you've been playing at all these years, you're sorely mistaken." Her voice sounded irritated. "I raised you, Raito, I saw these masks when they were but fragile children's playthings." She gave him a look that said she was offended that he had overlooked her powers of perception. And, for the first time, he noticed a slight strain in her face. How much was bravado? Could he undermine that or should he leave it be?
"Touché, mother of my heart."
It was quite sarcastic, he'd admit. But he'd never seen her like this and he felt the need to test his boundaries. If she was pushing herself in order to deal with him, or if this was an unveiling, he wanted to know.
"Get on with it, my precious, stupid son."
So starts the name-calling. Interesting. He'd earned it, though, and he really would have had to be stupid if, as by her estimation, he'd never noticed she could see the real him. But he had seen it. He just hadn't known the extent of it and couldn't exactly bring it up.
His intrigue with this new dynamic got his mouth moving. "I have found myself in a quandary at work." He watched her fixedly as he spoke. "I overstepped my bounds by some miscalculations on my part and now I am faced with an ultimatum. Something that will greatly impact both L and myself, if we are indeed still a couple. Only I have been disallowed the pleasure of communication with him at present."
She crossed her arms and just looked at him. "Translation," she prompted.
"I'm a depraved human being who has possibly screwed up the one relationship I ever cared about."
She looked somewhat startled. He imagined any mother might react that way hearing her son call himself depraved. It was a rather evocative word after all, though appropriate.
"Was this screw up before, after, or during the Misa thing?" she asked, re-securing her stern face.
"Are you assuming it's entirely my fault?" he accused her sharply. He'd practically announced his transgression just a moment before, certainly, but he didn't appreciate her assumption. She had yet to know anything. The fight, the words exchanged, and all the many things that led up to what happened... all of it was not his fault. There was blame to share.
"You look guilty as sin. I don't see much wiggle room here."
He frowned, unable to argue with what was probably a most accurate assessment. It was how he himself felt about it off and on anyway. "Before the Misa thing," he said shortly. "Which was brought on by the work thing, which was brought on by me pushing things too far with L."
For some reason, he felt like recent events were being trivialized by her open manner and her lack of abandoning him in disgust. It bugged him, this acceptance. Was it real? Did she truly understand?
"We were fighting, Mother, and have been doing so over certain topics for some time now." He sounded conversational, even to his own ears. It was totally wrong for this. "I'd never known myself to feel so incensed by someone else before, not like this." She nodded gravely, and waited for him to continue.
"I decided to level the playing field in my own way." He couldn't quite believe he was telling her this. What would it accomplish? But his mouth was still moving and part of him wanted to display the transgression to her, to see how she would react, to see what her moral compass showed him. "I drove us to a remote location, to a motel, where I proceeded to bind him to the bed, threaten him physically, and attack him psychologically." His tone turned self-deprecating as he said the last, "Then I violated and taunted him, all the while ignoring the voice in the back of my head that told me, 'maybe this isn't such a good idea'."
She looked at him with a blank expression and it was remarkably like the one he'd seen on Lawliet.
He added by way of explanation, not remorsefully, but bluntly, "I was jealous and I felt like things were falling apart. I couldn't do anything but what I did."
((What do you think of your son now?))
She nodded, not condoning his actions, but reserving judgment for the time being. It was somewhat infuriating. Still, she looked less than pleased. "And how does that tie to work?"
"I left early yesterday and was unreachable until today," he said flippantly, "being preoccupied as I was."
Her lips twisted. "Indeed."
He crossed his arms. "I also thwarted an attempted assault upon L's person the other night." It was easier to focus on the anger he felt at this particular piece of the story, than to keep himself open as he'd had to in relaying the things with Lawliet. She'd lost her chance to strike at the heart of him. "It's a detective he worked with in the past that is now the Chairman's pet project. I tied him up and left him in Lawliet's closet for them to pick up. The background is that Aiber, that's the man's name, is being groomed for my previous position and is currently seeing Misa."
He was starting to feel restless, his eyes began to dart about the room. Divulging information was not an easy task for him, and it had not escaped him how... unorthodox his actions had been in some instances. Would she feel obliged to do something about him, her dysfunctional son? Surely his actions could be seen as criminal, dangerous, or unstable. Would her allegiance be to family or the common good?
He'd tried to sound like any normal young man speaking of work. Would it take the edge off?
What in the hell was he thinking to tell her all of this? Maybe she was humoring him and the very next thing she'd do would be to have him committed. He didn't like to think that of his own mother, but hearing himself talk of all of this... could anyone blame her?
Normal. He needed to go for normal now and mitigate the damages.
"Having everything happen in short succession made things a good deal more complicated. I forgot about a crucial meeting and missed it, the Chairman took me off of the entire affair and put Mikami on it, of all people. Then he informed me that I would be able to voluntarily end employment, never to work in the field again, or I can take over for him when he retires and spend the rest of my life licking Misa's boots."
"Son," Sachiko said frankly, "I think you have been working in a very unhealthy environment."
"Understatement," he muttered, playing normal as if it were a violin, all of his cadences echoing it. The understated ranting and complaining about work, they were normal things that should blot out some of the other. "Though I thought I'd been making such progress..."
"I also think that you'll be lucky if L decides to speak to you again," she broke in.
His words faded from his lips and he felt his stomach drop out, hearing his ever-present fear voiced by his own mother.
Panic was a good estimation of the feeling jagging through him right now. He felt a sharp stab at his temple as it began throbbing. "Is that so?" he said lightly, the room spinning about him a little too energetically.
"You're thinking that if you have lost him already, you may as well make the move to save your career, aren't you?"
He'd closed his eyes but he could hear the frown in her voice. "Perhaps," he admitted cagily.
"And yet, you don't know in the first place whether or not he'd have it in his heart to forgive your outrageous behavior."
He nodded. Here was the judgment. Her disapproval was cutting. Surprisingly so. Maybe because it affirmed the guilt he'd already been feeling.
"Raito, you're my son, and I love you." She said the words as if they were a requirement she had to fulfill. "But it does not mean I will turn a blind eye to your actions. It does mean I will be truthful with you, because I think it is the truth that you need to hear."
She paused. "I think it would be unreasonable at this point to expect forgiveness. There was no excuse for what you did, no matter how justified you may have felt in it at the time."
His head started to pound, rebelling against her simple, logical words, disowning them. It was too easy for her to stand on the outside and say these things. It was so different on the inside. She did not know Lawliet like he did. She had not seen nor heard the interactions that began all this. She was being biased, but not in his favor. What had started out as a leveling with her, was beginning to make him feel caged. Hunted.
His hands closed upon themselves emptily.
Right now, the desire to seek Lawliet out, to chase him down and not allow him to back away was becoming too strong again. He wanted it so badly, wanted it with every fiber of his being. But he refused to violate the conditions the detective had set. He refused to be the final, ruinous force upon their relationship.
"Anything else you would care to add, Mother?" it took a great effort to not sneer the words, to make them civil. That racing feeling in his chest was back - the one that had driven him to do oh so many things...
"Look at me," she said.
He complied, letting her see the war within him and his flagging restraint. She did not flinch back. Much.
"No matter what he decides, I think you would be better off to find work elsewhere." His mother sounded like she was trying to be comforting now. Funny, since she had been the one to set panic loose within him in the first place with her poorly chosen words. Her blunt, bleak proclamation had struck him worse than anything prior. "Not only would you be unhappy with Misa, you would be killing whatever chance you might have with L."
More of those blunt, brutal words. How could she think that she was mitigating her estimation that Lawliet could never forgive him, by referring to some fleeting, hopeless and maimed chance that all was not lost?
He took a breath and tried to consider what she was really trying to say to him, all that aside.
The death of his career. The end to years of hard work, years of enduring that which had to be endured, all to culminate into nothing. That would be its own kind of penance, would it not?
Raito felt a stillness fill him, a resolve that beat back his whirling thoughts, not a lot, but just enough. She was right, and they both knew it. She was wise, his mother.
"I'd like to be alone, now."
"As you wish," she said and quietly left the room.
Sachiko was straightening up the kitchen that night. It was late, and not exactly the sort of thing she wanted to do at this very moment, but things needed done and she was hoping to gain a little extra time tomorrow morning because of it.
She felt better having packed the lunches for the next day, and getting the mess of dishes under control, but there were so many things she'd rather have done instead.
Soichiro was out tonight. After dinner he'd had to run back to the station to work on a case that was in the critical stages. He grumbled about it and the hours, but she knew that he loved his work and would never have picked another career, given the chance to do things all over again.
She idly wondered if her son felt the same way, or if her daughter would as well, once she determined what she would be doing with her life. The girl seemed somewhat frivolous at the moment and more preoccupied with boys than she should be if she wanted to excel in her studies...
Sachiko shrugged to herself. She couldn't say that either of her children had turned out quite as she or Soichiro had expected. But as long as they stayed out of trouble and led happy lives, she would be content. She felt no need to dictate their decisions or criticize their choices. Her husband, on the other hand... he seemed unable to leave Raito alone. It was borne from his disappointment, she was sure. He'd often, when they had first married, talked of having a son that would follow in his footsteps. He liked the idea of having a family tradition of law enforcement, and wanted it to start with them.
She supposed it was a nice notion, just like a family of doctors, or florists, or whatever the profession happened to be, but Raito seemed set on rebelling against it at every turn. It wasn't as if law enforcement wouldn't suit him. She suspected that it actually would have, and quite well, but her son was headstrong and was perfectly willing to fight against her husband's dream tooth and nail.
Soichiro was convinced that everything Raito did was only done to embarrass him or make him angry.
She wiped down the last counter in the dim room which was illuminated only by the light over the stove.
She had no idea why Raito did some of the things he did. But she could see where her husband got his impressions. It was like her boy had been born to be at odds with his father. They just could not see eye-to-eye.
Giving the kitchen another once over, she thought she heard the sound of a car in the driveway.
Odd. Soichiro should be gone for hours yet. She wiped her hands on a dish towel to dry them and headed towards the door. Her ears picked up a faint, feminine voice, then the closing of a car door. Sayu? Well, that would be odder still. She rarely visited during the week due to classes.
She looked out the small window in the door and caught two silhouettes in the headlights. They came partway up the walk and then the taller one motioned the other away. The shorter one made no move to do so until the taller one bent to kiss them. Afterwards, the taller one came up the walk.
She heard the jingling of keys, and decided to just open the door for her son and let him know that she had seen.
He looked up as she did so, keys in his hands as if he didn't know quite what to do with them. "Good evening, mother."
"Good evening," she responded, swinging the door open for him to come in. "To what do I owe such an unorthodox visit?"
He smiled at her, shaking his head as if she'd said something ridiculous, and yet it looked all wrong. He waltzed in as if he always came at this time of night, during the week, when in reality, they'd rarely seen him over the last several years until he'd taken up with L. She certainly hadn't minded the change. If anything, she was convinced that the boyish, dark-haired detective would be a good influence on him.
"If my visiting is an inconvenience, I can go. I don't want to put you out." He looked around. "Is father out?"
"Yes, he's working on a case."
There was a strangely disapproving look that ghosted over her son's face, but it was gone again in a moment.
"Let me look at you, Raito," she said, turning him this way and that as she took in the fancy attire. "Were you working as well?"
Another strange look crossed his face, gone in a heartbeat, before he smiled. "Do you like it? It's not everyday we have a meeting with such important clients."
"I suppose not," she agreed. By the feel and the cut of the clothes, they easily could have cost as much as a month of their income - something Soichiro would not have hesitated to comment on disapprovingly. He never missed a chance to critique Raito's line of work. "Is that why Misa was with you?" She studied his face openly and watched in surprise as he turned away from her.
"I thought I'd stay here tonight. Is that ok with you?"
"Of course, dear." She might have asked why, as he had not stayed the night in this house since he had gone overseas, but he had already started towards his room. She truly did not mind him staying - it was the very reason she kept his room for him - but everything about this was... odd.
She stood there, contemplating the dashing figure her son cut in his expensive clothes, and the smile that, like on television, looked too bright to be contained in one room. He was grown now, and had chosen his path. He'd made any number of decisions, and had never gone back on a single one that she knew of... until now. Why on earth would he have been kissing Misa? He'd decided long ago that they were not compatible. He'd endured the confusion of his parents and the harping of his sister, all who thought she seemed perfect for him, yet he had patiently insisted that things were over between them. For good. He never gave a reason.
She heard the shower running a moment later, and decided that when he was finished, she would go talk to him.
---
Raito dried his hair mechanically, kicking the clothes he'd been wearing further into the corner. His mother was wondering what he was doing here. Not that she minded his presence; he knew that to be true.
He wasn't quite sure himself what he was doing in coming here, except that it meant Misa couldn't follow him in to spend the night as she would have at his place, or hers. But it was more than that.
Perhaps... he was hoping to talk.
Insane, was it not?
He ran the towel over his body, rubbing it dry more vigorously than necessary. He rather detested talking about himself, and just now, he really wanted to be left alone. So why was he sure that talking was a motivation in coming here?
He wrapped the towel around his waist and walked down the hall to his room. There were not a lot of clothes here anymore, but there were a few. Just enough to be inviting. Just enough to provide for any needs he may have if he'd ever chosen to stay the night. And he had not done so since leaving the country.
How long now had she been keeping this room for him, his mother? He'd never told her to, and yet, just now, he felt selfish and negligent and entitled that he had never told her not to.
He pulled some clothing out of the drawers. It was clothing from his old life. Nothing fancy, just things that fit the function without causing an excess bleeding of money from the bank. Plain grey cotton pants he could sleep in. A plain black t-shirt, a little tighter now across his shoulders - more fitted upon his lean frame than it had been a few years ago.
He opened the blinds so that light could come in from outside, and turned off the overhead light. The bed seemed smaller than he remembered, but that was due to the size of the one he used now. He sat down upon it, moving back so he could lean against the wall, letting his eyes adjust to the mixed illumination of moonlight and streetlights.
His thoughts were tumultuous at this moment. And they would have followed him no matter where he'd decided to lay his head for the night.
Since that phone call at the restaurant, nothing had gone right. He wasn't thinking clearly and he knew it. Someone had to put on the breaks, but no one was there to do it. He seemed unable and was just going with the flow around him, completely out of his head.
Coming here... why had he? What was the point? Only he knew the map of events that had led him here, and all he could hope for in disclosing any of it was judgment.
Despite this, he felt a little better being in his old room. Sentimentality, Raito? He laughed at himself. It was ridiculous, considering it was him.
---
The soft knock at the door did not surprise him overly much. "Come in," Raito said, pasting a sonly smile on his face though his mother might not see it in the faint light.
She came into the room, stopping at the edge of the bed. Her hands were on her hips as she looked down at him with bewilderment. "What were you doing kissing Misa?" There was a definite edge lurking in her voice.
His hackles went up, but he did not let it show. It was a valid question, after all. "So you saw that, did you?"
Funny, he found that not only did he not want to talk about it, it was quite possibly the LAST thing he would have wanted to have to talk about just now.
"Raito..." she warned. He could almost hear the tapping of her foot. Impatient. Knowing he was evading her question and calling him on it. Tap. Tap. Tap.
Where had that desire to talk gone? In its place, he was feeling trapped. Edgy. He did not know how to proceed, or if he could, or even if he should.
Irritation was starting to leak in and it was a sign he was starting to think too much. Guilt was starting to seep in as it had so many times this week, and anger was quick on its heels. How had he done what he had done in that motel room, and without batting an eye? That made him monstrous, did it not?
And that was what drove this feeling, this need to erase the guilt of what he had done to Lawliet by topping it with something worse, to rebel against that guilt with everything in his power. Accepting that guilt meant to accept blame. Accepting blame meant that he was in the wrong, and that label of 'monstrous' that rose to the fore. It was ill-fitting, blinded him, made him angry. It twisted his thoughts and made him determined to earn that title, if he was to bear it. If he was to feel guilty, he might as well earn that guilt. If Lawliet was to look at him with accusatory eyes, he wanted to have been reprehensible. That was preferable to having lost control, having regrets and being unable to make amends.
But wasn't it also something less inspired? Wasn't he allowing things to happen that he did not want at all, merely to see how much it took before he really lost it? Wasn't he just being self-destructive and devaluing himself for the sake of something he didn't quite understand? Offering some sort of penance, masochistically, though nothing of the sort had been asked of him? It was like a downward spiral. For as bad as things became, he was compulsively making it worse. He felt as if everything were out of his control and the least he could do was make a contribution to his own chaos.
Like now. He was about to do it again. And there was the kick of adrenaline as he stood at the brink of it. He waved off her question and looked her in the eye.
"I slept with Misa," he said point blank. He felt sick and giddy all at once, and all that scrubbing had still not removed the unwanted feel of it from his skin! He looked at her with an impartial expression. Unrepentant. His skin was raw with how hard he'd scrubbed.
And would he not do it again? Punish himself with things he did not want, proving to himself that this was probably how he would spend the rest of his life without Lawliet? Even now it was so muddled as to whether he was trying to get back at the detective or get back at himself. He oscillated too wildly between feeling vindicated and feeling aggrieved that he really was ceasing to make sense of it all.
"You WHAT? What about L?"
Was it sick that he translated her appalled reaction into how he wished Lawliet to react if he knew? That he gained some sort of satisfaction that Lawliet would be upset over such a thing? That for all his running away, he still fucking cared about things like this?
Raito smiled pleasantly, feeling a total disconnect. "What about him?"
(Monster.)
He took in her horrified reaction, reveled in it as much as he feared he was letting things go too far, maybe wanting her at last to see him as some sort of messed-up individual and not just her precious son. He supposed he was feeling destructive. And this was the son you held on to for so long. He thought at her as they stared back at one another. This was the son you kept this room so long for. Even in his head, his voice sounded like a sneer. Are you proud, mother?
Her expression darkened and he waited for the blow. "You must be blind," she snapped out at him, "because I know you're not stupid."
Stupid? She'd never dared to utter such a thing to him before. Indignation rose up and over the other feelings, breaking the spell. He felt a very ordinary glare take residence upon his face.
"Why on earth would you jeopardize things with him?!" She railed at him. "He makes you happy, I can see it. Though I can't say he deserves the likes of you, what with how you're acting."
He'd never seen her like this. He wasn't quite sure how to act. "Thank you, mother," he said drolly, "it's nice to know that you'll always be on my side." Sarcasm seemed fitting.
She moved forward in a flash and smacked him. It stung, but judging by the fire in her eyes, she'd wanted to hit him much harder. "Stop being a spoiled, melodramatic brat," she demanded vehemently, "and tell me what's going on."
The challenge was too hard to resist. He wanted to meet her disapproval with the full scale of his crimes. Still nihilistic, he supposed. He lowered his masks, eyes slanting at her. He'd never shown her what lurked beneath. He'd always been rather convinced she would be appalled and leave him where he stood.
His hands fisted briefly where they lie upon the bedspread then relaxed.
"Are you sure you're up for that?" he said seriously, dropping his standard tones, and using his true voice. His eyes glinted in the darkness. No fluff here. No parts to play. He supposed the time had come where he just wanted to see what she would do, and damn the consequences.
Their gazes locked, assessing each other, engaged in a way that was dissimilar to any other time. Her face was tight, but he could not quite discern what the feeling behind the expression was. What are you thinking, Mother? The tension was holding steady, much like the silence between them.
Finally, something gave. She narrowed her eyes at him. "If you think I'd never noticed what you've been playing at all these years, you're sorely mistaken." Her voice sounded irritated. "I raised you, Raito, I saw these masks when they were but fragile children's playthings." She gave him a look that said she was offended that he had overlooked her powers of perception. And, for the first time, he noticed a slight strain in her face. How much was bravado? Could he undermine that or should he leave it be?
"Touché, mother of my heart."
It was quite sarcastic, he'd admit. But he'd never seen her like this and he felt the need to test his boundaries. If she was pushing herself in order to deal with him, or if this was an unveiling, he wanted to know.
"Get on with it, my precious, stupid son."
So starts the name-calling. Interesting. He'd earned it, though, and he really would have had to be stupid if, as by her estimation, he'd never noticed she could see the real him. But he had seen it. He just hadn't known the extent of it and couldn't exactly bring it up.
His intrigue with this new dynamic got his mouth moving. "I have found myself in a quandary at work." He watched her fixedly as he spoke. "I overstepped my bounds by some miscalculations on my part and now I am faced with an ultimatum. Something that will greatly impact both L and myself, if we are indeed still a couple. Only I have been disallowed the pleasure of communication with him at present."
She crossed her arms and just looked at him. "Translation," she prompted.
"I'm a depraved human being who has possibly screwed up the one relationship I ever cared about."
She looked somewhat startled. He imagined any mother might react that way hearing her son call himself depraved. It was a rather evocative word after all, though appropriate.
"Was this screw up before, after, or during the Misa thing?" she asked, re-securing her stern face.
"Are you assuming it's entirely my fault?" he accused her sharply. He'd practically announced his transgression just a moment before, certainly, but he didn't appreciate her assumption. She had yet to know anything. The fight, the words exchanged, and all the many things that led up to what happened... all of it was not his fault. There was blame to share.
"You look guilty as sin. I don't see much wiggle room here."
He frowned, unable to argue with what was probably a most accurate assessment. It was how he himself felt about it off and on anyway. "Before the Misa thing," he said shortly. "Which was brought on by the work thing, which was brought on by me pushing things too far with L."
For some reason, he felt like recent events were being trivialized by her open manner and her lack of abandoning him in disgust. It bugged him, this acceptance. Was it real? Did she truly understand?
"We were fighting, Mother, and have been doing so over certain topics for some time now." He sounded conversational, even to his own ears. It was totally wrong for this. "I'd never known myself to feel so incensed by someone else before, not like this." She nodded gravely, and waited for him to continue.
"I decided to level the playing field in my own way." He couldn't quite believe he was telling her this. What would it accomplish? But his mouth was still moving and part of him wanted to display the transgression to her, to see how she would react, to see what her moral compass showed him. "I drove us to a remote location, to a motel, where I proceeded to bind him to the bed, threaten him physically, and attack him psychologically." His tone turned self-deprecating as he said the last, "Then I violated and taunted him, all the while ignoring the voice in the back of my head that told me, 'maybe this isn't such a good idea'."
She looked at him with a blank expression and it was remarkably like the one he'd seen on Lawliet.
He added by way of explanation, not remorsefully, but bluntly, "I was jealous and I felt like things were falling apart. I couldn't do anything but what I did."
((What do you think of your son now?))
She nodded, not condoning his actions, but reserving judgment for the time being. It was somewhat infuriating. Still, she looked less than pleased. "And how does that tie to work?"
"I left early yesterday and was unreachable until today," he said flippantly, "being preoccupied as I was."
Her lips twisted. "Indeed."
He crossed his arms. "I also thwarted an attempted assault upon L's person the other night." It was easier to focus on the anger he felt at this particular piece of the story, than to keep himself open as he'd had to in relaying the things with Lawliet. She'd lost her chance to strike at the heart of him. "It's a detective he worked with in the past that is now the Chairman's pet project. I tied him up and left him in Lawliet's closet for them to pick up. The background is that Aiber, that's the man's name, is being groomed for my previous position and is currently seeing Misa."
He was starting to feel restless, his eyes began to dart about the room. Divulging information was not an easy task for him, and it had not escaped him how... unorthodox his actions had been in some instances. Would she feel obliged to do something about him, her dysfunctional son? Surely his actions could be seen as criminal, dangerous, or unstable. Would her allegiance be to family or the common good?
He'd tried to sound like any normal young man speaking of work. Would it take the edge off?
What in the hell was he thinking to tell her all of this? Maybe she was humoring him and the very next thing she'd do would be to have him committed. He didn't like to think that of his own mother, but hearing himself talk of all of this... could anyone blame her?
Normal. He needed to go for normal now and mitigate the damages.
"Having everything happen in short succession made things a good deal more complicated. I forgot about a crucial meeting and missed it, the Chairman took me off of the entire affair and put Mikami on it, of all people. Then he informed me that I would be able to voluntarily end employment, never to work in the field again, or I can take over for him when he retires and spend the rest of my life licking Misa's boots."
"Son," Sachiko said frankly, "I think you have been working in a very unhealthy environment."
"Understatement," he muttered, playing normal as if it were a violin, all of his cadences echoing it. The understated ranting and complaining about work, they were normal things that should blot out some of the other. "Though I thought I'd been making such progress..."
"I also think that you'll be lucky if L decides to speak to you again," she broke in.
His words faded from his lips and he felt his stomach drop out, hearing his ever-present fear voiced by his own mother.
Panic was a good estimation of the feeling jagging through him right now. He felt a sharp stab at his temple as it began throbbing. "Is that so?" he said lightly, the room spinning about him a little too energetically.
"You're thinking that if you have lost him already, you may as well make the move to save your career, aren't you?"
He'd closed his eyes but he could hear the frown in her voice. "Perhaps," he admitted cagily.
"And yet, you don't know in the first place whether or not he'd have it in his heart to forgive your outrageous behavior."
He nodded. Here was the judgment. Her disapproval was cutting. Surprisingly so. Maybe because it affirmed the guilt he'd already been feeling.
"Raito, you're my son, and I love you." She said the words as if they were a requirement she had to fulfill. "But it does not mean I will turn a blind eye to your actions. It does mean I will be truthful with you, because I think it is the truth that you need to hear."
She paused. "I think it would be unreasonable at this point to expect forgiveness. There was no excuse for what you did, no matter how justified you may have felt in it at the time."
His head started to pound, rebelling against her simple, logical words, disowning them. It was too easy for her to stand on the outside and say these things. It was so different on the inside. She did not know Lawliet like he did. She had not seen nor heard the interactions that began all this. She was being biased, but not in his favor. What had started out as a leveling with her, was beginning to make him feel caged. Hunted.
His hands closed upon themselves emptily.
Right now, the desire to seek Lawliet out, to chase him down and not allow him to back away was becoming too strong again. He wanted it so badly, wanted it with every fiber of his being. But he refused to violate the conditions the detective had set. He refused to be the final, ruinous force upon their relationship.
"Anything else you would care to add, Mother?" it took a great effort to not sneer the words, to make them civil. That racing feeling in his chest was back - the one that had driven him to do oh so many things...
"Look at me," she said.
He complied, letting her see the war within him and his flagging restraint. She did not flinch back. Much.
"No matter what he decides, I think you would be better off to find work elsewhere." His mother sounded like she was trying to be comforting now. Funny, since she had been the one to set panic loose within him in the first place with her poorly chosen words. Her blunt, bleak proclamation had struck him worse than anything prior. "Not only would you be unhappy with Misa, you would be killing whatever chance you might have with L."
More of those blunt, brutal words. How could she think that she was mitigating her estimation that Lawliet could never forgive him, by referring to some fleeting, hopeless and maimed chance that all was not lost?
He took a breath and tried to consider what she was really trying to say to him, all that aside.
The death of his career. The end to years of hard work, years of enduring that which had to be endured, all to culminate into nothing. That would be its own kind of penance, would it not?
Raito felt a stillness fill him, a resolve that beat back his whirling thoughts, not a lot, but just enough. She was right, and they both knew it. She was wise, his mother.
"I'd like to be alone, now."
"As you wish," she said and quietly left the room.
____________________________________________________________
TBC
A/N 2: There you go. Double chapter. Sorry it took so long. Man, I cannot WAIT for vacation!