Chapter Text
July 1 1993
I have yours (do not edit or repost)
The summer doesn’t really hit till late, rolling in with a sweet stickiness hanging thick in the air of Lawliet’s room. Not that there’s been much time to comment on the weather. In the wake of solving the Scriever phreaker case, L has been offered a flurry of new cases, some based on the growing BBS web, others more traditional.
It’s for that reason that B is left alone sketching right now, fondly tracing out the shape of a memory he wants to have certain. Lawliet is speaking as L to the Chicago police department about a string of murders connected by the presence of a certain variety of candle. I’m sure we’ll bounce ideas about it soon.
For the first time in nearly a month, B considers going to class, if only for the comfortable novelty of it. But nah, it’ll be too hot in the classrooms. His eyes wander to the pile of conspiracy-theory laden cheap magazines that Lawliet likes to skim for interesting crimes. ‘Interview with a Child Mastermind– the Robin Hood of our Age ’ catches his eye.
Well. They certainly didn’t waste time turning him into a freakshow.
B opens up the article, which features photographs from Walter’s trial and even a gimmicky interview with terse answers from Walter himself. Guess he’s doing alright, then.
Wammy kept them updated on the trial–it had been a short process, which mostly landed a lot of the fallout on Walter’s dad, after all. Walter was doing a short stint in what A referred to as ‘hand-holding juvie for rich kids’, but seemed to be receiving as much positive attention as negative, once the details about the cancer research came out.
B’s eyes linger on a quote:
‘What was the moment you decided to take on the role of a Robin-Hood for the World Wide Web?’
‘When I stole over a thousand pounds and no one had noticed. I didn’t have a reason to keep the money.’
‘Were you thinking of what your mother would have wanted? If that’s not a sensitive question.’
‘I don’t think she would have wanted this.’
‘Well, yes, I mean– but you have done some good.’
‘[Pause]. Yes.
“Hey, how was the head of the Chicago Police Department?” B smiles automatically when Lawliet slouches into the room, shucking off his usual long-sleeved tee for a short-sleeved one at last.
“I actually ended up speaking to the state commissioner, who was comparatively useless. I believe he may have pulled rank to speak with L, but knows next to nothing about the Peano case. I let him know I was not impressed.”
“Tch. Bigwigs always sticking their nose where they don’t belong. Glad you told him off.”
“There was good information left by the head despite that. Though the heat is making it difficult to think. Catching up on the case?” Lawliet settles in the couch next to B and leans over to look at the splashy article.
“Maybe reminiscing a bit,” B slips his hand overtop of Lawliet’s, despite the warmth, “You want to take a walk? I bet the breeze is better out in the forest.”
L smiles a little at how the humidity has added volume to B’s curly hair, then flips the magazine shut on the grainy, black and white photos of Walter. “I heard from Maria that Walter is doing security consulting for firms looking to expand on the web. She’s working for him, actually. Under the table, of course.” Since Salisbury L and Maria worked together twice, though the last time they spoke she warned him that she was going to take on a new identity, soon. Maria is too much like Merrie, she had said through a puff of her ever-present cigarette. L hadn’t asked for further explanation; one of the things he liked about Maria was that she kept one foot in the present and the other in the future. The past was irrelevant.
B lifts an eyebrow, though his tone is unsurprised. “Never met a wall she didn’t wanna learn how to scale, I guess.”
“That’s rather an understatement.” L digs his pager out of his pocket, checks the most recent number, and tosses it aside. He’s learned from experience that casework isn’t all that compatible with their walks in the forest. “Yes, let’s see if we can’t get some fresh air.”
They swing their hands a few inches apart as they cross the grounds behind Wammy’s house. It’s not that they’re hiding their relationship, really, but they’re not drawing any kind of attention to it, either. It’s not just that they’re both blokes, but that most of the other students still remember them as cousins – but L has never cared much what the other kids say about him, and he’s very nearly always been the subject of rumours.
A is on the archery range, bow hoisted over her shoulder as Barrett and Jonathan take turns in front of the target, each battling to impress her. L doubts either of them stand a prayer. Her face wrinkles in a smile as they head for the forest path, and she lifts her bow in a small salute at B’s passing wave.
When the canopy of trees closes in around them, they clasp hands automatically, heading for the sound of trickling water. The branches overhead create puddles of cool shade, and a mild wind rustles the leaves.
“Nicer here,” L admits. They have just as much privacy in his room, but not even the two fans he’s set up on the windowsills have done much to cut into the heat wave.
“Really nice. Wanna go swimming? It’ll be cool, and it’s not that deep,” B nods encouragingly as the path starts to wind close to the bank of the stream. Not that we won’t be going off that path soon, though.
“Alright. Let’s go further than you did in May, though.”
“I’m definitely up for that,” B knocks a shoulder against Lawliet’s, smirking at the double entendre. They’ve come a long way since the fevered tension of two months ago. Though, yeah– there is some tension still there. B grins as he quickens his pace past the oaks and alders, long since knowing the twists and turns of the acres of forest like the back of his hand.
After they’ve crossed several hundreds of yards into the deep brush in gentle conversation, B turns at a familiar birch to find the murmur of the stream again. When they get to the sandy edges of the bank, B wastes no time taking off his slightly sticky clothes and wading into the water, gasping a little at the sharp cold.
Lawliet, for once, seems to be taking his time stripping down, which is a peculiar contrast to how willing he is to wander around nude in his room with B present. The sun, dappled through the trees, gives his pale skin something like a glow. He catches B’s eyes, letting his gaze crawl over B’s skin with a slight smirk before resuming folding up his clothes on the bank.
Lawliet steps forward almost tentatively, his eyes on his bare toes against the forest floor. What’s he thinking so hard about? B smiles a little fondly, it’s not like he’s not going to get distracted in a minute anyways.
“Hey,” B kicks his foot into the stream, sending up a jet of cool water in Lawliet’s direction.
“Hey!” Lawliet sputters a little back, the cold water dripping down the hollows of his ribs.
“Stop thinking so much and get over here,” he settles into a crouch amidst the quick flow of the water., shivering a little at how sensitive he is to the cold, but never taking his eyes off Lawliet’s hungry grey gaze.
L never really feels naked except for when he’s naked outside in the open, the wide blue eye of the sky blazing overhead. Picking his way carefully over the stones at the water’s edge, he finally plunges in to his waist, the cool water a relief in more ways than one. He tries not to think about slicing his foot open on a rock or broken bottle and splashes over to B, curiously envious of how at ease he is in the elements, ducking down so that the water laps at his shoulder and dampens the ends of his hair.
“Feels good,” he admits, and B lights up, swishing closer for what could either be a kiss or a dunking maneuver. Never one to not take the initiative, L lunges forward and latches onto B’s shoulders, grinning as he pushes him under the stream’s lazy current.
B comes up sputtering and wiping water from his eyes, scoffing once before sending a wave in L’s direction. They lark around like that for a few minutes, laughing easily until a comfortable silence falls between them and L finds B’s hand beneath the rippling water.
“Hey.” B tilts his face up for their usual, effortless transition into making out, but L holds himself back in the water, having trouble knowing what to look at. A crow in the nearest tree at first, then an unusual shaped boulder, and then finally at B’s hazel, gold-flecked eyes.
“I love you, you know,” L blurts out, his face immediately heating up so that he wishes he could dunk it in the cold water. It’s not that he hasn’t said it before, but it’s always at those moments when they’re touching each other, on the verge of or just after getting off. He doesn’t even know why he’s said it just now; it wasn’t planned, just something that rose up out of him unbidden, like a sneeze.
L takes a half-step back, expecting B to laugh, maybe, or perhaps quip back the old Han Solo line: ‘ I know.’ But B only wraps his thin arms around L’s shoulder and squeezes him tight.
The words seems stuck in B’s throat for once, overwhelmed by the sudden, raw vulnerability in the careful way Lawliet holds him tightly back. But it’s true.
He really is that important to me. And I’m that important to him. It makes him feel giddy and strange, like such a thing might not be possible, that Lawliet might slip away with the slow gurgle of the stream of he doesn’t hold tight.
Lawliet almost shivers a little in the water, and B clutches him tighter, again recalling that strange, fierce desire to protect that had risen up, though much weaker, around Walter Scriever.
But it’s Lawliet that’s the strong one, isn’t he? B loses the shape of that thought in a kiss, turning his head to catch Lawliet’s lips.
“I love you too, L Lawliet,” he smiles in what must look so soppy that Lawliet laughs a little, grey eyes dancing underneath the red letters and numbers.
“It’s nice here, but a little too cold, actually–”
“We can head back to the bank, the sun will dry us off, warm us up a little.”
“Alright, that sounds perfect,” Lawliet stands up a little too quickly, almost losing his footing.
“Careful!” B swoops upright, catching Lawliet’s hands and waist before he tumbles face-first into the water.
“I’m okay, I’m okay,” Lawliet nods, but B can feel his heartbeat picking up, the way his grip tightens on B’s wrist.
“Don’t worry. M’always going to have your back,” B says it more seriously than he intends, lacing their fingers together. Lawliet squeezes his hand back.
“I know,” Lawliet leans on B a little as they scrabble out of the water, settling in to the sand and the sunlight.
“I know,” he repeats very quietly, and kisses B again.
Just Kids [do not edit or repost]