Walls
By EclipseKlutz
PG, K+
Supernatural/General?
Spoilers: Any time after chapter 58.
Disclaimer: As always, I own nothing.
A/N: I actually wrote this a long while ago and somehow forgot to post it (and I'm not entirely sure why I'm posting it now). From what I remember, it was intended to have a drabble-esque quality but still be something of a vivid story—and it was written for the sole purpose of breaking me from the irritatingly vague style I'd inadvertently adopted. So, enjoy, and I hope it's not too horrible.
"Yagami-kun, walls don't speak."
Raito's gaze never moved from the wall before him, the same wall he'd been staring at for longer than he was willing to admit. He'd never made any sense out of why he'd chosen this particular wall to be the vessel of his conscience—he assumed it was his conscience—but he did anyway, and it seemed to have taken the role on valiantly.
A soft sigh escaped his lips, "You speak."
"I am not a wall."
He felt his eyebrow arch at this statement, "Really?"
"Yagami-kun, if I were the wall you would be crazy and I would be something not myself."
Raito nodded slowly, "You're the wall."
"Walls don't speak."
Raito resisted the urge to respond with the same response as earlier, opting instead to close his eyes. He wasn't crazy, he knew as much. He was a genius, and there was that thin line separating genius from insanity, but he'd never stepped over it. At least, not to this extreme.
Finally, he opened his eyes again. The wall looked the same as it had before; there was no face, no form of the voice he was conversing with. The bodiless voice. It was somewhat unnerving, and had he not already proclaimed himself fearless he might have been a little afraid. As it was, he could do nothing more than continue talking to it in a vain attempt to achieve answers, "Why you?"
"Hm?"
"Why are you the one talking to me?"
"Yagami-kun, you are asking me a question I cannot answer. I did not expect to be talking at all, though it would make sense that I should talk to you. But I do not see why."
"You're as much help now as you were when you were alive," Raito mumbled bitterly. He waited a moment, expecting some stoic answer, only to receive no response. His conscience had gone silent… maybe. He swallowed his dignity for a moment, "I never thought I'd ask this… am I talking to my conscience?"
"I'm somewhat offended that you should think me the conscience of a murderer."
He could hear the amusement in the poltergeist's voice despite the words. A slight groan rumbled in his throat as he glanced around the room, seeking out some trace of the man he was speaking to. The dead man he was speaking to. Nothing.
A frown tugged at the line of his lips, "Murderer?"
A sigh, then, "Yagami-kun, I am dead."
"I was there," Raito said, an acerbic tinge to his voice.
"And you showed me who you were."
"A goodbye gift."
"You killed me."
Raito hesitated, entirely uncertain as to how he was supposed to respond to that. He closed his eyes again, trying to assume a relaxed demeanor. It was more difficult to argue, he decided, if he was unable to see his companion's eyes widen and expressions minutely alter.
At length, he said, "Indirectly. But yes."
"You would have killed me directly, given the chance."
Raito chose not to reply to that.
"I'm happy it was you."
It was difficult not to reply to that, though. He blinked, glancing around the room once again in a desperate attempt to find the person he was conversing with. When he again found nothing, he fixed his eyes on the wall, "What?"
"I have… never met my equal."
Raito continued staring, his throat a little too choked to issue words. Should he be complimented, offended? Should he apologize? (No.) Should he block out the sound of L's voice? (Why haven't you already?) Was he crazy? (It's a god-complex, not insanity.) A distorted noise made its way out of his lips, and he deemed it a valid response considering the whirlwind of thoughts running across his mind.
"I was the world's three best detectives; no one else could compete with me. You could, and therefore, I am happy it was you."
And he continued to stare, although his gaze was becoming blanker by the second. Finally, he managed to force something past the lump in his throat and dryness of his mouth: "Walls don't speak."
"That is very true, Yagami-kun."
"Then why are you still talking?"
His words were met with a long sigh. "Because, Yagami-kun, I am not a wall."