COFFIN

He buries himself in piles of books and sticks of sugar cubes. You remove them, and he breaks. You see the scars.

L fic

pointless. can be considered post-The Last Name.

And if you're perceptive enough, you'll figure out why L's the way he is in this fic.

apply standard disclaimer here.

-

L doesn't think he's going crazy.

He already knows he is.

Because he can't sleep, when it hurts somewhere in his heart. (It reminds him of a hole. Like a bullet just shot right through, there.) When he closes his eyes, he is reminded that he is incomplete somewhere. When he sucks in his breath, he is reminded that the next one might be his last. He counts down to his final day on the calender. Twenty-three days left, but he knows he's already too far gone.

They don't see him at all nowadays.

He hides behind books. He shoves them away. Tells them excuses that he is working on his cases. He keys in furiously into his Apple white labtop. He is normal. He is as usual. Nothing has changed. He crouches on his white chair, and munches on his sticks of sugar cubes. Donuts. Sugared popcorns. Marshmallows. (Sometimes, he even finds the time to roast them near the fireplace.) He likes them. He eats them all the time.

Yet, he is starting to notice how it hurts when he chews and bites.

As if -

As if somebody's supposed to be there watching him enjoy his snacks and meals, but there is no one.

He gets the eerie feeling as if someone's watching from behind again. He turns around, and sees nothing but air.

(He is going delusional.)

He doesn't know when it is, that when they open the brown oak door, he starts to frantically pile up the books in front of him so they don't see his face. See that he needs sleep. There are rings around his eyes. They don't see his features, his facial expressions, when his mouth is full of sugar, and colors, and flavors. He doesn't know when he starts pretending to smile, to reassure them that he's still the candy-loving man who geeks over his cases in front of his labtop, and doesn't go on sleep because it disrupts his momentum at work.

He's getting tired of this sick, stupid pretense.

And decides to break, at long last.

This time, when they open the door, he'll show them.

And there are no books standing today. No signs of sweet, no sugar, no colors. Just a blank monotonous sheet of black and white where he simply blends into the background when he wears plain, plain, bland and very insignificant white. (They won't notice him when he merges into the wallpaper of the room, right?)

There is simply, L.

Clad in jeans and white long-sleeved shirt. Without shoes, as usual.

Nothing.

And that is when they realize - that's all he is left with.

Nothing.

Not, when there is a hole in his heart, and he has no longer the thousand and one candies, nor the piles and crazy stacks of books and papers to bury him in, to hide him in, to build his virtual coffin where he can nest when he wants to.

There is L.

Put the mirror, and then you see a crack down the middle.

owari