A/N: So, due to my newfound obsession with diseases of the human psyche (heh, I now know what classes to take in high school!) I have decided to write a ficcy that incorporates them. Sorry about other stuff I've been ignoring folks, the going's been tough and I'm not in the mood to do anything lighthearted anyway (besides mindless crack). Sorry if I offend anyone who actually DOES have any of these conditions, I'm trying to make it as accurate as I can, but I have taken a few, ah, artistic liberties with them. I'm also farking with ages, relationships, you name it! I was actually really feverish when I started writing this a while back, and I just now got around to actually getting it in a good condition to be published.
Delirium is actually kind of fun, but not when the floor decides to warp and trips you up while you're holding hot soup D:
Note: I am really sorry about the random lines that sometimes appear, I can't make them go away! Please ignore them unless they are dividing present time from flashback (in italics) or demonstrating a timeskip.
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Home
That was the thing that bothered him most about it, they called it a home. They dressed it up in comfy chairs and colorful paints, but it was most definitely not a home. It might have been a generalization on his part, but homes don't have bars on the windows. Homes don't have masses of sterilized needles, or, usually, padlocked doors.
Like his
Maybe he wouldn't mind it so much if they just started being honest and called it what it really was
A prison
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A hopeless case.
That was what they told L, his cousin BB was most definitely a hopeless case. And he'd had to accept it with a sigh and a nod, because he had expected as much himself.
And then BB himself had grown mad, and when BB was angry, he was prone to throw things, and it was with great relief that L had decided to leave the problem to the staff. He excused himself from the room (narrowly avoiding the book that had sailed past his head) and walked down the hallway, through a swarm of patients, visitors and nurses. It was hard to tell who was who, with the patients and visitors. Some of the patients looked so completely normal, like they didn't belong here at all.
Sometimes when people think of a mental hospital, they think of a dark, towering building from the twenties with plain white walls, bare light bulbs and electric shock treatment. Not so much the case here, L thought as he looked around him.
All in all, it was a very pleasant facility. There were hardly any like this left, the term 'mental hospital' being considered unorthodox (the place was, indeed, a high quality psychiatric hospital) but he himself might not mind staying here, if ever the pressure got to be too much (although it was just a musing thought, he still felt uncomfortable thinking about it).
L sighed and slouched, his worn, hated sneakers squeaking against the tile floor of the hall. Sometimes he felt the patients understood him better than 'normal' people. They were, for the most part, certainly kinder towards his general appearance. He frowned, allowing himself to pout a little.
If he'd been back home, it would be time for Watari to bring him cake. BB had liked cake too, before he'd had to come here…was there cake here? He'd have to look into that.
L looked around, wondering if it was safe to go back to BB yet without risking having an armchair launched at him. Probably not, they'd probably come get himwhen his cousin was ready…if he ever calmed down, that was.
L sighed again (inwardly remarking on how much he was sighing today-was that normal?) and lowered himself onto an armchair near the reception desk, putting his legs beneath him and taking up his normal half-crouch sitting stance.
He surveyed the room. It was a pleasant, pale blue; the light wood of the armchair matched the color of the wooden desk, and of the other chairs. There was even a small bookshelf, filled mostly with magazines and newspapers (L figured that magazine racks were easily breakable, and could he hazardous in a place where people such as BB resided).
There were three armchairs and a couch in the little nook, with a coffee table squeezed in the middle, and a stack of coffee cups balanced precariously in the center. There was also an end table attached to his armchair, with an adjoining armchair on the other side, currently occupied by someone dwarfed behind an overlarge newspaper. An overweight man in a too-tight suit slept on the couch, but the other chairs were vacated, other than one that a pacing woman would sit in for a few moments whenever she passed.
The newspaper rustled, and a young man appeared from behind it, suddenly, like a magician had pulled him out of a hat. L turned, looking at him. The boy, a few years younger than himself, looked very familiar-
"Yagami Raito?"
Raito looked up, confused, the newspaper coming down "Yes. Who are you?"
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Breathing heavily, rain drenching his copper hair, Yagami Raito stopped to catch his breath, leaning against a dirty brick wall. He looked around; this alley was on a street close to the water.
He was lost, and most definitely in a bad part of town, a smoky bar a little way down the road was pouring out a mass of drunks, college students, and poker players, who all seemed to know the area better than he did.
He was so tired…it had to be at least three in the morning; he'd never find his way back to the hotel at this rate. Raito looked down the alley, which was decorated with a few dumpsters and a newspaper blowing forlornly down the street.
"What a stupid place for a class trip." He muttered to himself, straightening up. Sure the museums in the city were nice, but after hours, when the students slipped away from their chaperones and hit the night town, the city seemed like a threatening place, at least to him, but maybe it came from being the son of a police officer.
He always seemed to be more cautious, aware of danger, and they mocked him for it, but he knew he was right, remained silent. He recalled an earlier conversation with a friend, who'd wanted to slip away from the class during the museum tour and look around on his own "I think it would be fun. Do you wanna come?"
"Honestly, do you have any idea how many murders happen when people go off alone?"
"No…maybe you should try being a little less uptight, huh? Have some fun once in a while?"
"Being brutally murdered isn't exactly my idea of fun…" It was true, more murders did happen when people were alone.
He'd gone out to try to find a drugstore to buy some headache medicine, and now he was cold, wet, and hungry, wandering the city like a lost dog.
Now he was alone.
"Maybe we should all be wearing collars with identification tags." He murmured, the mental image of a bunch of high school students in collars amusing him for all of three seconds.
The rest of his junior class was probably back at the hotel, wondering where he was…if they'd noticed he was gone yet. Maybe they were trying to convince an unsuspecting bartender that they were college students instead of high school students. Despite feeling tired and wet, Raito smiled inwardly, yes, that was exactly what his so-called-friends would do-
There came a crashing blow to his head, and hands ensnared his neck
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"So you work with my father, right? Then it's an honor to meet you, Ryuga-san…"
L had explained briefly and evasively of the relationship between him and Raito's father, and only said that he had worked with him-it wasn't exactly a lie, but Raito had never asked if they'd actually met…
L figured it wasn't cordial to lie when you'd only known someone for about ten minutes.
"Please, call me Ryuzaki. But I do work with your father…Yagami-san is a good man; he has a strong sense of duty. He is very proud of you, speaks of you sometimes…"
"Yeah…I hope to follow in his footsteps one day." Raito looked at L appreciatively, then checked his watch, sighing. "I've still got time. Are you here visiting someone?"
"Yes, I've got a cousin. You?"
"Oh…well, actually, I live here." replied Raito, a tinge of pink appearing in his face. He had to learn to stop being so self conscious…however; L didn't seem to mind, taking it all in stride.
Soichiro had never told L that his son needed psychiatric help…then again; it wasn't exactly L's business to know. He looked the boy over. Handsome, anyone could see that. Proud in the way he sat too, like he was prepared to fend off any insult someone might throw his way. "Ah. I see." He nodded, obsidian eyes searching, so much portrayed in the few words.
Raito shifted uncomfortably "Yeah well…I'll still go to school in the fall. It's not like I'm raging mad or anything."
"It's okay, I understand why you're not comfortable talking about it. You don't have to tell me anything." But L was curious now, and the words were more like a silent invitation for Raito to open up and start spilling his guts.
"Oh. Well, thank you." Brown eyes narrowed "But you want to know, freak, don't you?"
Raito looked at him a second longer, as if trying to recognize a long forgotten face, then tried to smile. It looked normal enough, but, as L noticed when he looked closer, it didn't quite reach his eyes.
"It's none of my business Raito-kun, but really, I am curious…what's wrong with you?" Are you waiting for something? I can't imagine your favorite place to hang out is the lobby…"
A shrug "It's calm sometimes. I am waiting for an appointment, yes." Raito drawled casually, not bothering to elaborate.
L didn't miss the hesitancy "I am waiting for a cousin of mine…he gets rather angry sometimes, you know. I suppose I'll go see him again after he's calmed down." The detective remarked wistfully, half-hoping that his own elaboration would elicit a more detailed story from the boy.
It didn't "Well, I guess I'll see you around then."
"I guess so, Raito-kun. But for now, if you are not busy, would you like to chat?" The question was phrased innocently enough, but Raito could hear, oh, he could hear the other man's true intentions.
Or maybe he was just being paranoid again.
"I thought we were chatting." Raito offered wryly.
"Perhaps, but I believe we were merely conversing to pass the time while we waited for our respective appointments. Which is not quite the same as chatting." L gnawed thoughtfully on his thumb "but now we may speak more in depth, yes?"
"Er…whatever you say, Ryuzaki." Raito raised his eyebrows, Ryuzaki was, if nothing else, certainly shaping up to be a character. "So who's your cousin?"
"Do you know about a resident named Beyond Birthday? Nicknamed BB…"
"Oh, him! He's batshit insane, isn't he?" asked Raito interestedly. He'd thought Ryuzaki reminded him of someone. "Everyone's always careful to avoid his room, because who knows what could happen when you annoy a guy like that…sorry." Finished the teen lamely, remembering only too late that he was speaking to the "batshit insane" man's close relative.
L raised his eyebrows, and a smile tugged at his lips "Raito-kun is very forward. Most people I speak with do not voice their thoughts as openly as you, even though I can clearly read what they are thinking."
"People tell me I'm good at that too…like right now, for example. I can tell you really want to know why I'm here, right?" drawled Raito, abandoning the formality that kept L from asking. This was way more interesting.
L's head lilted to the side, as if he was thinking. "I would, actually. But Raito-kun is in no way obligated to tell me, at the moment. However, if he would be so kind as to oblige and quench my curiosity…"
Raito fought down the anger that welled inside him "Who does this guy think he is that I'll just spill my guts about something like this so openly?"
L gave a pained expression that was rather reminiscent of indigestion "I've made Raito-kun mad, haven't I?"
"You certainly have made 'Raito-kun' a little annoyed, yes." Raito muttered, lowering his eyes from L's. It wasn't an action of defeat, he was too proud for that. It was more like an 'I'm-not-going-to-look-at-you-unless-you-fix-that-last-comment' gesture.
"Then I'm sorry, Raito-kun. I will make it up to you by getting you some coffee-"
"That's really okay-"
"-No, I insist-" L reached out for the coffee cups sitting on the table, but his sitting position made him overbalance slightly and his hand pushed past the coffee cups, grabbing onto the other side of the coffee table for support while the pile of cheap porcelain fell to the floor, shattering on impact. The overweight man across from them woke up with a jolt, and L cringed internally with every new crash. He turned to Raito to apologize, only to find the boy gripping the arms of the chair so hard his knuckles were turning white.
"Raito?"
-It was way too much, it kept bringing back old memories, and now he hated the sound of glass shattering-
"Raito, can you speak? Should I call a nurse?"
-the tile floor was covered in glass and blood, and he wasn't sure what caused what-
"Nurse! Please, he's shaking violently; I think the shattering of the glass set it off…"
"He might have to be sedated, please stand back sir-"
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Raito lay with his back against the wall, shivering. He brushed his fingers against the ground, felt broken glass and recoiled, more from instinct than from the barely registered pain.
His hair was matted with blood, and the rest of him must look like a wreck. He didn't want to open his eyes to inspect the damage, didn't dare to, hoping maybe it would be a dream when he woke up.
-Waking dream, waking nightmare, it was called lucid dreaming, he remembered-
He could hardly remember what happened…he tried to think, summon the images, but despite being incomplete and broken they were strong, too strong, fresh in his mind. He gave something like a whimper and slumped slightly, letting his head loll out.
His body slid sideways, and soon the grimy tile floor had risen up to greet him. It was wet and hot, and hurt his face, not the liquid itself, just the gentle impact of his head against the linoleum. He suddenly realized how much it hurt.
-He was on fire-
His head was splitting open, and there was fire inside, and fire in his lungs, but not fire, snakes, not burning but biting him when he tried to breathe. He panicked, tried briefly for some hold on the floor to get up, and slipped in the warmth of the liquid, splashing up.
-throat hurts, where is everyone-
Summoning every ounce of mental and physical strength he had, he cautiously opened one eye, and was promptly stung, gasping at the sudden, sharp pain, closing that eye and opening the other one. He was staring at a red ocean, a dark almost black red ocean, which reflected the streetlight outside.
-It hurt, hurthurthurt, and there were still splinters of ice, sharp, in his chest-
And suddenly he couldn't breathe, couldn't see, and the night was pitch black.
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A/N: Oh! I'm sorry for writing a new fic while I still have to update 11 Years Before, I just couldn't get this idea out of my head! I'm also sorry this first chapter is very short, but the next one will definitely be longer. I know psychological-disease-Raito has been done before, but I hope to put a new twist on it in later chapters. I would also like to thank paradisemomiji, Snowywolf94, AntoinetteRinSohmaHyuuga, and Sempai-chan (who does not actually have an account on fanfiction, although she should) for giving me feedback on my story, and AntoinetteRinSohmaHyuuga for not letting me get away with stupid grammatical mistakes, and being my first beta. I hope you liked!
Please rate and review,
Icemask12