Death Note Fan Fiction ❯ Rules ❯ Chapter 5 ( Chapter 6 )

Rules

 

Chapter 5

 

When the phone rang, Elijah did not move from the couch. Both Rich and Julie were home, so one of them would answer it. The person on the other end would want to talk to one of them anyway. No one ever called looking for Elijah. The phone was never for him.

 

"Elijah?"

 

He looked up at Rich who had entered the room with the cordless. His "father" smiled at him with crinkled brown eyes.

 

"It's for you."

 

Surprised, he took the phone in two fingers. Had Light called him for more tricks and lies wrapped in sweet coverings of insincerity? Yes, that had to be it. He lifted the phone delicately to his ear and gave the customary greeting, expecting to hear that familiar voice slide through the earpiece to engage him in battle. Instead, a different, decidedly female voice answered.

 

"Hey, 'Lij. How you doing?"

 

"A-Annie?"

 

"Yeah, it's me. What's up?"

 

"Why are you calling me?" he asked, truly astounded at this turn of events.

 

She laughed a bit at the surprise in his voice. "Dunno. I was feeling a bit down and wanted to talk to someone."

 

"Don't you have girlfriends to do that with?" A thumbnail had worked its way into his mouth, and he nibbled on it in confusion.

 

"Yeah, but even the best girlfriend gets annoyed at you after a while if you're harping on the same stuff all the time."

 

At that, he understood. "Mark?"

 

She sighed. "Yeah." Out of nowhere, she exploded, "He's just so stupid! What, is he completely blind? I mean, I know guys are dense -- no offense to you, of course -- but I'm practically throwing myself at him, and he just isn't getting it!"

 

Gently, Elijah scratched the back of his head with his free hand. "Why don't you just ask him if he likes you?" he asked innocently.

 

"Yeah right, 'Lij," she scoffed. "Like it's that simple."

 

Elijah certainly thought it should be that simple, but then again, girls were an entirely different species when it came to some subjects. Quickly, he searched his mind for everything he knew regarding the emotional habits and rituals of young women. It didn't amount to a whole lot. He did remember one important fact though: chocolate and chick flicks heal all wounds.

 

"Annie," he ventured, "would you like to come over here? We could watch Katherine Hepburn movies and eat ice cream."

 

Dead silence reigned on the phone for at least a minute. "Are you serious?" she finally asked.

 

"I like ice cream," he replied evenly.

 

"Aren't you afraid of drowning in estrogen?"

 

"Why? Do you have a vat of it large enough to submerge my head in?"

 

After a few more moments of silence, Annie burst out laughing. "Elijah, you are the best!" she proclaimed. "I'll be over as soon as I can. I'll buy the ice cream, okay?"

 

"If you like."

 

"I do like, and I'll see you soon. Bye!" The phone clicked as she hung up her end.

 

As Elijah pressed the button to turn off the cordless, he thought of all the times past that someone had declared him "the best". It had happened quite frequently. The best in school, the best in tennis, and at one time, the three best detectives in the world. But no one had ever before used that description for him the way Annie had. It felt different and strange to him. Even so, he liked it. He liked it very much.

 

Smiling, Elijah put down the phone and wandered over to Julie's movie collection. Rich found him several minutes later, chewing on his fingers and happily debating the different merits of Cary Grant and Spencer Tracy.

 

xXx

 

The pen in Light's fingers danced madly on the top of the table. Before him lay several books, plucked recently from the library's shelves, all open to various pages. His head rested in his hand, eyes trained on the book immediately in front of him. To an observer, he was deep in studious research just like most of the other students in the building.

 

Light's mind, however, was on fire from his most recent conversation with Ryuk. Bits of it kept floating through his brain, over and over again, until the words had burned themselves permanently into the fevered tissue.

 

"So if I run him over with a car?"

 

"You'll send him to the hospital, but he'll make a miraculous recovery."

 

"And if I shoot him in the head?"

 

"You'll miss, the gun will jam, or the bullet will avoid anything important and once again he'll make a miraculous recovery."

 

"How is that possible?"

 

"How is the Death Note possible? There is no logical explanation this time, Light. It simply is."

 

Light's brow creased harshly with the force of his frustration. If he had to accept that the how was beyond logic, then he would, but that still left the why. Someone on the other side of life had revived L in another form and made him essentially immortal. There had to be a reason for doing that. What was it?

 

As usual, his first instinct gravitated to catching Kira. But then, as usual, that idea floundered under the facts of the present situation. If some Angel of Heaven wanted to end Kira's reign, he should have sent L back to Japan and in his original form. Or just stepped in himself and sent one of those lovely mythical thunderbolts crashing down on Light's head. So that wasn't the reason … probably.

 

However, if he looked at what had actually occurred, the solution that arose didn't make much sense. L, who had never had a family, friends, or anything even remotely resembling a normal life, had been hand-delivered to an intelligent, doting, childless woman and her equally intelligent, easy-going husband. Had L come back to life simply so he could experience the happiness he had never had? Surely not. If Heaven made a habit of that, there would be millions of revived people walking around, and everyone would have noticed.

 

Which led his reasoning back to the start once more. Why? What possible objective could L have that would require an infinite lifespan? And why couldn't he, Light Yagami, genius extraordinaire, God of the New World, stop obsessing over it long enough to finish his damn homework?

 

The pen stopped dancing as Light's fingers clamped down on it hard and squeezed. He would have to redouble his efforts to get information out of Elijah. Doing it obliquely seemed best for now. Gaining the support and trust of Ethan and Julie and the others and then using them against Elijah by subtly directing them to do what he, Light, wanted. Elijah was naturally on alert whenever Light was around; he would never suspect an attack through the ones he had allowed close to him.

 

Internally, Light cackled in utter glee. The pen exploded.

 

Light looked mournfully down at his ink-stained hand. He was going to get to the bottom of this if it killed him. After all, he was running out of pens.

 

xXx

 

"Remind me again how she talked you into this."

 

Elijah turned bored eyes to Ethan. "She didn't talk me into it," he replied. "I agreed."

 

"That's right!" Annie cried. She briefly appeared between the two young men, grabbed them each by an elbow, and beamed brightly. Then she was gone again, disappearing into the rows of fabric, feathers, and stuff that sparkled. "So no complaining," her voice floated back to them.

 

Ethan pressed a hand to his forehead and shook it slowly. "She's going to dress you up like some human-sized doll, you know."

 

"Yes, I know," Elijah admitted. He scratched the back of his head idly. "But it will make her happy," he continued, "so I'm willing to be dressed up for a while."

 

The feeling of Ethan's fingers on his head made Elijah start slightly. He turned his eyes to the other and saw the wide smile on the younger man's face as he ruffled Elijah's hair.

 

"You're a good friend, 'Lij."

 

"I am?"

 

The smile softened ever so slightly. "Yeah, you are."

 

Ethan knew. Elijah had told him. That he had no memories of friends, had no idea how to make them or how to behave when around them. Ethan had reacted just how Elijah had thought he would. Annie would have smothered him and Mark would have been too flustered to help, but Ethan just gave Elijah small pushes in the right direction and offered bits of praise every so often. It was just what Elijah needed, and he was truly grateful for it.

 

"Ooookay!" Annie sang as she reappeared with half a dozen costumes in her arms. She dumped them on a convenient display of makeup and false teeth. With her fists on her hips, she declared, "I couldn't decide whether to go Gothic scary-like or just plain cute, so I brought a bit of both."

 

Ethan noticeably winced. "Cute?" he echoed with obvious horror. "Don't you think we're all a bit old for cute?"

Annie just stuck her tongue out at him and pulled a black cape off of the pile. Instead of instructing Elijah to put it on, she draped it around his shoulders herself. "So I was thinking that flowing capes are always good. You could be a vampire or the Phantom or Zorro or something." She finished securing the cape and stepped back to examine him.

 

Elijah looked down at the cape for a silent minute and then raised his eyes to Ethan for the other's opinion.

 

"I don't know, Annie. It doesn't seem to suit him that well."

 

"Yeah, you're right," she agreed. Then she brightened, "Although it would look good on Light, don't you think?"

 

Ethan smiled at that as well. "Yeah. Hold on, let me call him." He pulled out his cell phone and moved a bit away from the other two.

 

Annie took off the cape and returned to her pile of costumes. After a bit of rummaging, she began pulling out a pirate outfit, but Elijah stopped her. "Ethan is going as a pirate, Annie. I should be something different."

 

"Okay…" A bit more rummaging. "What about these?" she asked, whipping out two full-body costumes covered in fuzzy faux fur. Elijah nearly fainted on the spot. One was a cow, complete with a pink plastic udder, and the other was a sheep with a blue bow around its neck.

 

"No!"

 

"Really?" the evil blonde menace asked innocently. She took a moment to examine each of them. "The cow is awfully cute, and you'd look just precious with your big blue eyes. I did like the sheep better though, and I thought maybe I could get a Bo Peep costume and walk you around on a leash all night."

 

"No!"

 

"What's the ruckus?" Ethan asked, returning to them again. His eyes widened at the sight of the costumes, and it took him a moment to find his voice again through all the choking. Once he had, he said evenly, "No, Annie. No livestock."

 

"Well, there was this adorable cat costume, too --"

"No, Annie. No animals of any kind. Do you want to completely drain his testosterone?"

 

She glanced between them for a minute -- Ethan's stern expression and Elijah's blank look of terror -- and then shrugged and put the fuzzy things away. "So what did Light say?" she asked as she pulled out a skeleton costume, held it up next to Elijah's body, and threw it back on the pile.

 

"He said no to the Phantom but that a vampire was fine with him. We're to pick up a cape and a set of teeth for him."

 

"Okay." She dug her fists into her hips and frowned at the heap of fabric in front of her. "Damn! I don't like any of these as much as I thought I would." Her eyes flicked to Elijah who visibly jumped at her scrutiny. "Guess I'll have to get creative."

 

He gulped, still mildly trembling under the intensity of her stare. "Creative?" he echoed with more than a hint of dread in his voice.

 

"Yeah. Come here." She quickly reached out and snatched his wrist in her hand. Pulling him along behind her, she went first to the wig selection, then to the accessories aisle, and finally back to the makeup -- Ethan had cleared away her rejected costumes by then. As she went, her grumbles turned to small clucks of approval, then hums of pleasure, and finally giggles of outright delight.

 

The entire time, Elijah said nothing. Her choices this time seemed fine to him, and only once did he feel threatened: when she passed by a rack of leashes and fingered one of them with a smile. Her current plan, however, had driven out all thoughts of furry animals, and by the time they were finished, he had to admit that she had concocted a fine costume for him.

 

"All right!" she cried out in joy when they had paid for his new items. "Now I just have to find something for myself!" And away she went again, leaving the two men alone.

 

Ethan looked over at Elijah whose mouth had dropped open slightly at Annie's declaration. Apparently, she had not warned him that she wanted to shop for both of them. Smiling, Ethan tapped the other lightly on the shoulder. "Would you like to get Cinnabon while we wait?" he asked, knowing full well what the answer would be.

 

Tired blue eyes shone up at him in deep gratitude. "Yes, I would like that very much."

 

"All right then. Let's go." He steered the older man towards the food court, remarking as they walked away from the store from Hell, "You did really well for your first time shopping with a woman. I'm impressed."

 

"Thank you … I think."

 

Ethan just laughed and slipped an arm around Elijah's hunched shoulders, partly as a gesture of friendly support, but mostly to keep the exhausted young man from collapsing to the ground in the middle of the mall.