* MORAL / DESTITUTE .

                                                                 send a word

          pets obviously weren’t allowed at wammy’s house   ( that’s far too much individuality )   however that didn’t stop some of the kids from keeping an odd animal in their room from time to time. depending on how sneaky they were or what kind of animal it was, they’d get away with it for some variable of time before roger or another care-taker swiftly   ‘ disposed ’   of it. 

          since wammy’s house was surrounded by woods which then had a creek in it some ways towards town, the most frequently found pets were squirrels, mice, bats,   &   frogs. on one occasion however, a badger was found after having burrowed through a child’s closet into the next room.

                                                               headcanons

          i genuinely don’t think L could hate anyone to the point of detest if they weren’t a murderer as awful as kira. i think murder is the biggest crime in L’s opinion. taking a life like that is unforgivable, which is to say, perhaps the person he detests the most is actually kira   ( as boringly canon as that sounds ). 

          that being said, i wanna pose another question:   if murder is the worst thing possible in L’s eyes, what then, does he think of himself ?   it’s quite canon that L’s gotten many people killed   ( for just one example, the fbi agents ),   so it’s quite plausible that, aside from kira, L hates himself the most. 

          aside from criminals however, i think L’s the type of person to have a lot of secret opinions he doesn’t act on or allow to show in his personality at all. he takes his role as L, as justice, very seriously   &   as such, he’s almost demanded to be impartial. taking my limited knowledge of the english monarchy for example, he’s a public figure such as the queen;   unable to have outright opinions that would sway others unintentionally.

          so all L is really allowed to detest is criminals.

@moraldestitute​ :|| start(er) of the show!

His footsteps crunched along the stray gravel scattered on the asphalt. It was a slow and thoughtful pace, a bit of a stagger to the sides as he flicked the ashes away from a cigarette; intoxicated, but not outright drunk– aware enough of everything around him, at the least.

The singer had been returning to his residence from one of Shibuya’s many bars and nightclubs, where he had done a solo show as a favour, paid in some cash, and the rest in drinks. 777 didn’t really mind it; the band was busy producing another album and didn’t have time for larger shows, so whatever gigs they (or in this case, he) could get, were welcomed (as well as the free alcohol; more so, that as a Reaper it was exceptionally difficult for one to become “drunk” in the first place. He still enjoyed it, however.)

It wasn’t unusual for 777 to be followed partially on the way home, almost exclusively by fans, but often enough they’d drop off by either looking at the time or the sheer distance 777 walked (often skirting through alleys and corridors in attempts to prevent fans from finding out Def Märch’s home address. He didn’t live far, but the confusing navigation was something he did completely out of habit now.)

However– something about tonight felt… off. Normally, by now at least, he would have been alone, but yet he still felt as if he was being watched and followed. If he strained his ears, he swore he could almost hear the gentle footsteps of someone else stopping as he stopped, walking as he walked. A human would perhaps chalk it up to paranoia and book it home, but–

777 was not human. He hasn’t been human for a very, very long time.

One again, he stopped, guitar bouncing softly against his back, but did not look behind himself. It wasn’t as if 777 had expected to see anything over his shoulder, either, as when he had looked earlier on his trek gone, nobody was to be found.

777 was not the type of man to ever be concerned about his safety: he knew that in a street fight, he would be the likely victor. Knife in his pocket, a dumpster nearby to bash someone unconscious if need be, some scrap two by fours further down the alley. Self defense was self defense; the only issue he had at the moment, was being seen as he phased into the UG. Even in the event of somehow getting his ass handed to him, stabbed or whatever else would happened, he couldn’t die from it– you can’t kill what was already dead (unless it was under certain conditions; he knew from experience.)

Really, all he could do was keep walking, or confront the situation as it were.

“I know you’re following me,” A loud, disgruntled sigh turned itself into an annoyed, and tired snarl. “I’m not playin’ any fuckin’ games, so ya might as well show yer ugly mug, cuz I ain’t movin’ from this spot till ya do. I got all night.”

          as far as investigative means go, trailing someone physically rated very low on the productivity scale. humans   ( or whatever you could call a thing that retained sentience )   had a pesky thing called paranoia   &   for whatever biological sense warranted it, could often tell when even the quietest   &   most obscure presence was following them. even so, L would go so far as to say it wasn’t completely useless   --   just a bit ostentatious to presume it’d get him very far.

          then again, it’s valid to call into question why he, of all people, is currently on the trail after this underground, grudged-out rocker. fallen from grace, some can say, though generally speaking, the public never knew enough about the detective to mourn his loss. the world assumed kira had won   --   as he now reigns, uninterrupted in his creation of a new world, there’s little L finds himself willing to do. jaded, bitter, aging in no graceful way, indeed;   the case of his lifetime stolen from him like the lives lost to kira, himself   ( who is indeed, light yagami, though there’s no point in barking up that tree anymore )

          puzzles, still, hold their allure, as they always had. L hadn’t dropped out of the womb aspiring to be a detective   --   he had always been a child, hungry for details, complications, evidence, solutions. with nothing else to occupy this time in his life   ( a time loosely called retirement, though he’d always envisioned it being much more peaceful than this, if he had ever been so lucky to reach this end )   he’s found himself pigeonholing otherwise normal occurrences in search for something to dismantle, if only to put it back together again.

          he’s found it here   --   for the last several months, he’s been   ‘ investigating ’   the curious case of def märch, a local but popular japanese rock band. in his prime, this feeling that something nefarious was going on here would’ve been called a hunch;   now it was just paranoia.

          still, being an arm-chair detective for all those years hadn’t worn away his roots;   he’s been able to get snippets out of the locals to feed the idea. without the detective badge anymore, he could certainly be called a stalker   --   though even with the badge, plenty of people called him that anyway. 

          this case   ( if there was one here )   was perhaps his most confusing yet. somehow this band connected back to a new york gang, the murder of a woman,   &   the disappearance of her son   --   which all then connected back to the man standing in front of him. california based, even if he had just been a boy back then, his parents were something awful to reckon with. but that wasn't the thing that irked L here the most, leading to this confrontation moment. what evidence L had gathered on the identities of the members dated back to the 70s   &   80s   --   before him stood a man, maybe 20 years old.

          there was a feeling that L had been grasping for straws here but even their tech support, futoshi, had confirmed that something seemed   ‘ haunted ’   about the members   --   that boy had a loose mouth on him, if they were all trying to hide something, but L gathered that he, specifically, didn’t know very much for facts. still though, the suspicion had been confirmed. something odd was going on here.

          “ triple seven, ”   L greets in english, confirming his position of having been following the intoxicated rocker. with a lack of resources   &   people to tell him otherwise, L had no other way of delivering on his evidence short of confronting the man himself. dangerous, probably, but he had his own methods of self defense.

          L was a boy too sick, too delirious, too sad,   &   too introspective to do much else aside from exist between the four walls of his adoptive home. the misery   &   trauma of his early childhood impacted   &   continue to impact him long through his adolescence   &   young adulthood. as a child he is violent, unaware to those around him, constantly triggered into a state of fight or flight   --   the only thing his adoptive father can do is place him in a room padded for his own safety   &   hope the boy regains awareness.

          he does,   &   soon after, as though he begins channeling his madness into something productive, the child proves his worth. from murders seen on the television   &   newspapers, to questions posed by authors well beyond his reading age, to investment banking, to this, that,   &   the other   --   the boy far exceeds expectations. he is a genius, by no stretch of the imagination. he is creative, thinking outside the box consistently. he is brave, fearless, thoughtful, inspirational.

          &   his father, his newly adoptive father, is nothing but an innovator   --   an inventor   &   this boy may just be his best invention yet. quillsh wammy sees the potential behind this child’s eyes   &   gives it a direction;   perhaps not one the boy ever wanted for himself, but he can’t complain. there are plenty of puzzles here, in the world of crime solving,   &   that’s all he wanted. the child is sick, however,   &   quillsh sees that. he does what any logical man would do   --   seeks to make a duplicate of the original device.

          the boy had no say in it of course, it wasn’t his idea   &   he never condoned it   ( in fact, he can recall a very stark memory where he fought with his father for the first time   --   these children don’t deserve to turn into something like me )   however the program is formed under his name regardless. generations of children are taken in, experimented on, psychologically tortured, emotionally neglected in the pursuit of creating another genius detective.

          the children stare at him like he’s something to be feared   --   maybe he is, honestly, but he doesn’t mean it. do not touch, the care-takers say with their eyes, keeping intensive watch whenever he ventures towards the others here;   this one is neither soft nor forgiving. there’s something off about him   &   that’s very clear from how the walls of his room are padded with gentle pillows. at night, this wing of this desolate manor reverberate with the effort this young boy puts into the attempt of slamming his soul from his body. in the day it’s quiet, far too quiet for comfort. as the floorboards squeak beneath the errant foot, it sounds like a screech from something haunted, something that wasn’t made to be found between these walls.

          the episodes end quickly, thankfully   --   the boy’s skin couldn’t take many more claw-marks   &   frankly, neither for much longer could his adoptive father take the screaming. the soulfulness behind the young boy’s eyes filled slowly once again, not all at once;   like a cup left outside in the english fog   --   day after day, if one checked, there’d be a fraction more pooling at the bottom until, all at once, it began to overflow. 

          his returned sanity places gears in motion, the ones in his mind begin working like clockwork. by age nine, he’s solving the front page murder story of the day. by ten he has over a million british pounds invested from eyeing the stock exchange graphs like a cat observing a mouse. by eleven the european investigation order is calling. by twelve, L is born.

          thirteen, fourteen, fifteen fly by behind a computer screen. the children begin looking at him differently   --   the faces contort now. obsessive, wondering, resentful. the successor program has been founded for years at this point   &   it haunts him, knowing there are children like him beneath these floorboards being fostered for one instance,   &   one instance only;   his eventual   &   inevitable death. he is sick   &   he knows it. the fevers spike, the mucous pours   --   disinfectant burns more than the children’s eyes sometimes. the house is sterile   &   so must he be. the food brought to him on silver platters is different from the rest;   sugar, light, sweet, fruit   --   they can’t take any chances   &   his throat swells too often. his spine curves like a hunchback kept in a bell-tower;   the similarities vex him to this day, he never set foot in the church for fear he’d never leave.

——— i would swallow my pride, i would choke on the rinds, BUT THE LACK THEREOF WOULD LEAVE ME EMPTY INSIDE. swallow my doubt, turn it inside out, find nothing but faith in nothing. wanna put my tender heart in a blender, watch it spin round to a beautiful oblivion. i burn, burn like a wicker cabinet. chalk white   &   oh-so-frail. the tick-tock of the clock is painful, ALL SANE & LOGICAL. i want to tear it off the wall. i hear words   &   clips   &   phrases, i think sick like ginger ale. my stomach turns   &   i exhale.

                                                              memory meme

          there was intense pain, everywhere   –   but mostly in his head. behind his eyes, at the base of his skull, throbbing at his temples. everywhere. his vision swam like heat permeating off the boiling concrete in august. everything was an exhaustive type of dry;   the desert of his tongue extended all the way down his throat, crushing the walls of his esophagus together.

         “ his fever’s gotten up to 105, sir, ”   L would’ve liked to turn around, shift his tiny body under the blanket to see the man who was talking to his adoptive father, but his neck had a soreness to it that he’d never felt before. he imagines this is what being paralyzed feels like, between the ache in his joints   &   how unimaginably heavy the blanket holding him down was. he almost can’t remember what moving his body of his own volition was like.

         “ have you upped his antibiotics ? ”   L took the calmness of wammy’s voice as something comforting. his adoptive father didn’t sound worried   –   L was a child, but he was wise enough to know that, if wammy was not worried, he shouldn’t be either.

         ( in truth, it just meant that wammy was prepared for L to die   –   it’s almost certainly a positive thing that the boy was too delirious in his fever to think much harder than he had )

         “ yes, sir, any higher   &   we’re risking permanent damage. ”

         “ go ahead then, just the once more. if he starts showing symptoms of colitis or kidney damage, we’ll stop. ”

         “ yes, sir. ”

         symptoms of colitis – abdominal pain, vomiting, inability to pass bowels. kidney damage – irregular heartbeat, shortness of breath –

         “ L, ”   he hadn’t realized his eyes were closed until he could feel the cool, wrinkled hand of his adoptive father press against his cheek.   “ L, can you hear me ? ”

         the boy whined a high pitched sound as he attempted to open his mouth. he hadn’t meant to make that noise   &   it bothered him, but it was all his throat could produce.

         “ it’s okay, ”   wammy reassured, tone as sterile as the catheter pressed into the crook of his elbow.

         as quickly as the man had offered support, it was revoked, though L’s not sure if it just felt like a quick moment or if his consciousness had given out at some point.

         “ he can’t die, ”   the next voice was roger, suddenly;   fierce, more uneven than watari or the doctor,   “ the first boy isn’t ready yet. ”

         a long pause ensued. again L wished he could see what was going on   –   even if he opened his eyes, all he’d be able to see were the dim shadows cast of the men’s figures against his floorboards.