InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "screamed the speck of dust..."

meticulous_soul (meticulous_soul) wrote in mirage_rpg,
@ 2009-02-08 19:40:00

Current music:	Casey Chambers- "Rattlin' Bones"
Entry tags:	complete, day 31, l lawliet, laura moon

I Left My Home, I Left My Love, I Left My Faith Back There.
[Who]: L and Laura
[When]: Day 31, Afternoon
[What]: L isn't bored, but wants to hang out with Laura anyway. She's that cool~
[Rating]: PG for now, for likely deep thoughts.
[Status]: Technically open, though they'll likely be forced!polite to anyone else who shows up, lol

It puzzled L, that Laura might possibly believe that he wouldn't want to spend time with her unless he had absolutely nothing else to do. She certainly wasn't easy on herself, when it came to the appeal she held for others. He could understand, when he thought about it as others might... but it was a forced way of thinking, for the secretive detective. He was the type of man who named spiders but left others hanging without even an approved fake moniker for himself. Except for Laura, of course. Laura was different. She knew to call him by his professional codename. It was closer than he allowed most people to get. And, yes, he considered Laura a "person."

The commons area was a well-furnishes, quiet room with a fireplace, though with agreeable weather like they had been having, it was not in use. Perching on an armchair, L organized his thoughts (as was his custom before a planned conversation), craning his neck and watching for Laura.

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meticulous_soul
2009-02-08 09:34 pm UTC (link)

Laura's appearance, though announced by the soft, coordinated strike of her heels against the wood floor, was startling, to say the least. L had not seen Laura yet in the daylight, and though she had clearly put a great effort into looking polished and formal (L would never have guessed that a pair of jeans could look that dressy), she still looked strangely... sick? Pathetic? ...dead? L bit his lip, his eyes tracing over Laura slowly, avoiding her bruised-looking eyes but dwelling thoughtfully everywhere else. He had a vivid photographic memory, and though the effect was that he was studying Laura, in actuality he was doing something similar to taking many individual, mental snapshots and filing them neatly away in his well-organized mind. Perhaps it was that distinctive scar, or the unnaturally pale hue of Laura's skin, but overall, it reminded L of autopsy pictures as well as the typical "profiles" he created for every person he met.

"You look very nice," was the simple, quiet verdict after almost an entire minute of cementing her image in his memory. Hours later, L would have been able to describe, precisely, every detail of Laura's appearance with the notable exception of the color and shape of her eyes.

Nibbling his fingertip, he set aside the book he'd been holding; not reading, but simply running his long fingers over the pages every now and then, as if doing so stirred up the very essence of the words within. The title was in Russian, along with the name of the author, and L treated it somewhat reverently even as he turned his attention to Laura. "How are you today?" he asked, very correctly, clearly doing his best to behave. A slight breeze through the open window allowed him to catch the high notes of Laura's perfume, tinted with cloves, and that slight, musty, dank smell of something most humans are afraid to identify for what it is.

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spitandviolets
2009-02-08 09:59 pm UTC (link)

The staring was a bit unsettling. She'd never had somebody look at her for that long, and that silently, before. She knew that he registered, now, that she looked...dead. The previous night he'd seemed different, like she was like anybody else. It was as if, now, the spell was broken with daylight. She was just some walking corpse, not the person that he'd spent so long talking to under cover of darkness. Was he startled? Was he unsettled? Should she have been more careful to hide her autopsy scars?

"Nice?" she echoed, as if that was the last word in the entire world that she would have used to describe herself. Shrugging it off, Laura rested her chin on her hand. "No, it's nothing special. I dressed like this all the time. Just because you're... in the past tense... doesn't mean that you have to dress in rags. I mean, I didn't get to go shopping in Chicago until after I had passed. It was nice. Lots of shops. And Mirage seems to have picked up on my like of nice clothes."

In contrast with L, there was probably nothing Laura couldn't tell you about his appearance, color and shape of his eyes included. She didn't even have to stare. It was the memory of his face, the face that popped up when she tried to find him using his light. He looked almost as tired as she did in the light.

"It doesn't feel like a different day for me," she chuckled, hugging one knee to herself. Her toes wiggled inside of her shoe. New heels were always tight. "I don't sleep. It feels like you and I parted ways eternities ago, though. Time is both long and short for me. It's complicated. I'm fine, though. I found everything I need in my room, as you mentioned I would."

She couldn't figure out the distance. Why was he being so reserved? Had she done something wrong?

"Are you feeling better? You seemed pretty miserable earlier. You didn't end up catching one of those parasites, did you? I hope not."

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meticulous_soul
2009-02-08 11:01 pm UTC (link)

"Yes, nice..." L said, tilting his head to the side. "I really cannot imagine doing so much, to look nice every day. It must be very difficult." L was clearly not interested in maintaining his appearance; words like "neglected," "wild", and "apathetic" sounded right, when he was being described by one of the few people who had seen his owlish face. There was something that impressed him, however, about people who took care to wear nice clothes, and take care of the way they looked. Was it really all simply habit, for Laura?

"To be honest... I have not slept here, yet," L said, the explanation for his own drawn, dull countenance emerging. He seemed restless, and slightly jumpy; L was a nervous creature when the sun bleached away shadows and shade, and caffeine was the only thing keeping his heavy lids propped up over eyes so dilated they looked black instead of steel-grey. "I found myself wakeful last night, and unable to relax sufficiently. Maybe tonight will be different... I don't want to pass out," he said unhappily, as if it were an unavoidable condition that came with his taxing lifestyle. Smiling palely, he tried to match Laura's affected cheerfullness, even though his humanity slowed him down.

It was as if a switch had been flipped, after the parasite comment. L's mind had finally adjusted completely to Laura's state, and he flashed a rare, radiant smile, displaying teeth oddly white for someone with his dietary habits. "Oh, it is you," he said, suddenly animated despite his weariness. He looked like a child who happened to live on coffee and sugar cubes, his youthful expression at odds with the alarming shadows in his eyes and cheeks. "I was not certain, at first, but there is no mistake now after hearing you talk like you did last night... you are Laura, and I know you, and I am glad that you are here." he leaned forward slightly. "I don't think I have any harmful parasites. Thank you for asking. How was skating, today? You did say that you would tell me, in person."

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spitandviolets
2009-02-08 11:51 pm UTC (link)

"I put more effort into it, into my appearance, now than I ever put into it before. It takes a lot more to look even presentable. The only thing I can't complain about is my hair. It generally does what I tell it to, unless I have a cowlick. It's the only thing, sometimes, that I recognize as being the same. You get used to it, though. I like dressing up and looking...nice. It makes me feel good. It's the best that I can do. I have some obvious physical failings. I could let myself go. I could just not bathe, and not brush my teeth. I don't sweat and I don't eat; what's the point in doing either? I think, though, that I am still trying, desperately, to be a person. I am trying to be at least a shadow of the Laura Moon that I was when I was alive. If personal hygiene and having pride in my appearance is what it takes, well, so be it."

She couldn't imagine that he hadn't slept. It disturbed her. That flicker of her heart faltered a moment. Not sleeping could lead to any number of problems, none of which she wanted L to suffer. Picking at her nail a little bit, she was thoughtfully silent for a moment. "You should try to sleep," she said, looking up at him with that bland, cold expression. "If you don't, you're going to be more susceptible to disease. How am I supposed to..." She shook her head. That would be a little too aggressive and creepy. "Even you aren't safe from microorganisms, and I'm sure that someone brought the common cold here with them."

Pass out? That sounded even worse. She vowed to pay special attention when he mentioned that he was tired. She'd find him and carry him to bed, no matter where it was that he happened to be when he passed out, if he passed out, or if he fell asleep. She was certain that she could be gentle enough in transportation that he wouldn't be awoken by her carrying him. It would give her something to do at night and would give her an excuse for being perched on his balcony most nights. Wait, what? What was she thinking? Her brain was working in odd ways, and it needed to stop. She had no right to protect him, or to watch over him without him knowing. A pause. She was going to do it anyway.

His personality change was sudden, and she wasn't used to that. People were pretty consistent in her book, so someone who shifted so quickly was completely new and unique. "You didn't know it was me? Who else would I be? Do you think that there are many people walking around the resort looking like this?" She gently motioned at the dark circles under her eyes. Leaning forward, she gently stroked the back of his hand with two fingers, hoping it wouldn't unsettle him too much. She was ice cold. "Just me. I'm the only person lucky enough to be me." Sarcasm. It was wonderful when it was delivered deadpan. "Though I'm glad that I'm Laura, and you know me, and that you're glad I'm here. You had me wondering who you were with the whole distant personality. Was it really that hard to see me last night?" Her fingers absently picked at the scar trailing from her left collar bone. If one looked carefully, one would be able to see the thick, black cord that had been used to stitch her skin and muscles back together.

"I'm glad that you're all right." I was worried when you weren't at my group activity. "I would have preferred swimming to the skating, though more people may have realized that I was deceased when I was in a swimsuit." Realizing that she was still touching his hand, Laura pulled back, curling into her chair. "It was a little bit redundant, me skating. I already have superhuman speed and strength. I was very good at skating, and I was very fast. I was worried about the humans who were there. Not one of them was very good at it, but I didn't want to impose on them by helping them. You humans like to do things by yourselves, after all. I came off as aloof and distant, though I'm not sure that's really a bad thing. I don't even usually go out during the day. It's so hard to pass as a person in the light." Her eyes studied her lap, fingers picking at a loose thread on her jeans.

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meticulous_soul
2009-02-09 03:56 pm UTC (link)

L bit the inside of his cheek, listening to Laura talk about her beauty ritual, such as it was. It seemed like it would be an uphill struggle, as time took its toll on a body that was decaying. Though L's mind hopped naturally to that type of thought, he really disliked thinking about it too much, where Laura was concerned. It was true, that he had never been squeamish about death, but also that he had never known, personally, anyone who was dead. Laura was, in addition, his friend, so thinking about her in the past tense was more difficult for L. The last friend he had had, after all, was a suspected murderer who was infuriatingly good at hiding his evidence. Or... perhaps his apparent guilt had been the desperate grasping of a brilliant mind at its breaking point. L could never know for certain.

Perhaps any breaking he had been subjected to would be healed in Mirage. "I don't like to sleep," he said, a bit childishly. "Hours go by... things happen, and I..." I can't watch. I can't control. I am helpless against nightmares, a knife in the darkness, a flood, the tiny bite of a mosquito who just wanted to feed her young but happened to be carrying malaria or West Nile. "I don't like to sleep," he said, looking wary and fractious as exhausted people tend to. "Besides... we are on a different planet... I do not know if I will wake up to find myself on another, as that is what happened before... I can deal with change, but there is only so much I can take." he pinched the bridge of his nose, taking a deep breath, letting himself calm down before he could get worked up over what he couldn't change.

"It's all right... the truth is that I remember people by their voices and their speech patterns. I am not particularly good at reading expressions or appearances... and if someone had been mimicking your appearance well enough to fool me, they would not have been able to replicate your exact timbre... speech patterns, accent, cadence... and so, I am now completely sure that it is you," he said happily. It might have seemed odd, for him to place so much faith in his ear, but he had had some frightening experiences as a child. Once, an assassin had impersonated Watari, and L had never quite gotten over that. While no one on Mirage should have any reason to want him dead, the looking threat of being murdered was as natural to L as the sun setting each day. "It was hard to see you... and someone might have taken advantage of that," L said, his voice as cheerful as it ever got. Though he initially tensed, at the touch of her cool hand, he relaxed much more quickly than he had the night before.

As Laura related skating and how redundant it was to someone who already possessed her level of speed and agility, he shifted slightly. "If it was fun, does redundancy matter, so much?" he inquired, glancing down at her hand as it stroked his. They both had pretty fingers, he thought, long and slender and pale, though his nails were more ragged. And then she withdrew, and that was the end of that. The way Laura curled into her chair reminded him strongly of his own tendencies, especially in childhood. It caused him to furrow his brow in perplexed concern. "Some of us like to do things by ourselves... but I don't mind a bit of help, now and then. I am not good at everything... I am actually good at a very narrow range of things. I would not have done well at all, if I had been left to my own devices on Earth," he admitted. Many examples came to mind, but he cited one in particular, wistfully. "My caretaker, on Earth, always made sure to arrange for me to be fed... even though I don't know the first thing about cooking. But... even if you seemed aloof... did you make friends?" L asked, wondering who else might have been there with Laura.

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spitandviolets
2009-02-09 10:01 pm UTC (link)

As she listened to him, Laura became even more acutely aware that L was fragile. He was so delicate, so like a rose, it was almost as if he was made of glass. She knew that human beings were fragile. That was not something that she could deny. L, though, was even more so, and she felt sorry for him. He was in grave danger with her around. She was a monster, and a dangerous one at that. Laura didn't know her own strength at this point. She always touched lighter than she was intending to, and it seemed to be about normal. What if she slipped? What if she messed up? That would be agony. Hurting someone who didn't deserve it, possibly killing him? No, that thought was too frightening. This was a bad choice. He'd said that he hadn't seen her much since they had parted ways, and he had seemed to genuinely desire her presence. That presence, though, was far too dangerous. He was at risk every second that he was with her. He was beautiful, and breakable, and fleeting. Hell, what was she on about?

Pulled from her meditation, she looked over at him, eyes staring at his face. "You need to sleep," she said. She had wanted to use his name, to make the address more personal, but she wasn't sure what ears were around. "It can't be good for you, staying up like this. I know that there's a lot going on around here, but you will crash eventually. If you don't give in, it will be messy, and it will be hazardous." What could she say that would convince him? Ah! That was a possibility. "Would it help if I said I'd watch over you if and when you finally decided to go to sleep? It seems that you had many caretakers at home, so maybe, if one could simulate such an environment, you would not be so vehemently opposed to getting the rest that your body clearly needs."

"Why would someone be mimicking my appearance?" she asked, dumbfounded but unable to effectively communicate her shock and awe. Laura didn't come from a world with disguises and intrigue. She didn't know people who tried to kill other people, not in terms of assassinations, and his words sounded like something out of a movie. "Who and why would they take advantage of such a fact? I mean, who would want to be me? That makes no sense. You really are overtired."

"It was probably fun. It wasn't horrible. I met an older woman who reminded me of my mother, and I met a man about your age who reminded me of my late husband. There was also some shrimpy blond kid there. He just grumbled and complained the whole time."

If he had vocalized that he thought that Laura had pretty anything at this point, she probably would have melted. She thought that she was completely horrible to look at in the light. Laura liked to keep her nails painted to hide the bluish tint to her nail bed. He was so warm, so comforting to her. Reluctantly, she pried herself away. It was fine. She didn't need to be reminded of how cold she was all the time. Touching people, feeling warm, only made going back to being frigid all the more depressing.

"What kinds of things are you good at? I don't mean it as an insult, I'm just curious to know if there's anything you haven't mentioned yet. What kinds of things do you need help with?" As she was asking her second question, he had already given her at least one answer. She was wholly unable to imagine a world in which someone had servants, or caretakers, as he called them. From a very young age, Laura had been forced to do everything for herself. She was fiercely independent. Her eyes studied him. Biting into her lower lip, she shrugged to herself. It couldn't hurt. "Would you like to go get something to eat? Have you eaten since arriving, or are you on strike from that, as well?"

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meticulous_soul
2009-02-10 11:31 am UTC (link)

Glancing at Laura, L wondered what was going through her mind. Being a genius didn't make him a psychic, and he was far from an empathic prodigy. He never would have guessed that he was in danger, of all things, near her... in fact, he would go so far as to say that he actually felt safer near someone with no reason in the world to want to hurt him. It occurred to him that a "friend" was someone who helped and allowed friends to help them, in return. Had he ever had a "friend" like that before?

"Ryuzaki, you fell asleep at work again. You'd better be careful, or something bad could happen." a smirk.

"It won't happen again." Trying to avoid the guilt, and overcoming sense that he was pathetic. That Light thought so. That Light was waiting for just the right moment to kill him.

"Of course it will. You're only human, Ryuzaki. You should get some sleep... in a bed, for a change. Then you can spend the hours we're both awake being more productive." So helpful. So worried, so Machiavellian and apparently caring.

"You're right... I do need to sleep," L conceded, looking a little bit ashamed on top of exhausted. He had a long history of denying his humanity to himself, pushing his body beyond its breaking point just to try to find that point, and overcome it. Once, he had asked Watari if he was an android. Watari was an inventor, after all, and L's memories of childhood were sketchy and fractured, at best... Watari had laughed, invited L to cut himself, and bleed, and heal, as humans did, and then to ask that question again and listen to himself. L had been bitterly disappointed, knowing that he had limitations. Knowing that he was, indeed, fragile. "It... would help, if you could watch me," he decided. She had suggested it, not him, and she sounded like she wouldn't mind. "It would help me, to know that someone is nearby... thank you." If a friend was someone who let a friend help... L could only deduce that he was, indeed, being a friend.

"You never know... people mimic each other all the time," L said, staring straight ahead and biting his fingertip, as he was prone to doing. "For many different reasons... sometimes it's subtle, even unconscious... other times, it's malicious." he shrugged, not elaborating further, letting what wasn't said carry his meaning.

He had to bite his cheek again to keep from breaking into an all-out grin. He'd known a shrimpy blond kid who grumbled and complained, himself. Mello, his maybe-successor. Were they already contacting the orphanage, to get some of those kids on the case he'd been withdrawn from? "It sounds like you met some interesting people. Is it good, or bad, to be reminded of home by people who seem like others you have known?" he asked, tilting his head.

"I'm good at some things, like everyone," L said, rubbing his bare toes against each other. However, when he tried to be modest, it usually backfired on him. "I'm good at learning languages... math... music... I like philosophy, a little, and astronomy, and entomology... I'm very good at puzzles and seeing patterns. I see patterns in everything... and I can't forget things. It is useful, sometimes, but it makes my head hurt, more often than not. It makes me see patterns where there actually aren't any, and... well. That makes me paranoid." he closed his eyes, looking like he just might drop off, but quickly opened them again when Laura mentioned food.

"I... actually am very hungry." he was too embarrassed to admit it, but he was incredibly worried about poison.

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spitandviolets
2009-02-12 01:12 am UTC (link)

When his face got like that, and she wasn't even sure what expression it was exactly, it meant that he was lost someplace. His mind had, seemingly, wandered off and was somewhere that Laura couldn't follow. She was glad, then, and a little relieved, when he returned. It felt like he was in a little less danger when he existed in the present tense. His mind, when it was caught up in itself, was a mysterious and foreign land, a place where she could neither find nor protect him. What use was defending and protecting an empty body, a shell of the person that she saw fit to guard? It left her with an even colder, emptier feeling than usual. A touch of the void, perhaps. The void. That was a scary notion.

"You don't need to thank me," Laura said, watching him. "You know for a fact that I don't sleep, and I get very bored at night. Everyone that I know on this planet needs sleep, and I would never be the one to insist on wakefulness. I remember, faintly, how a good night's sleep felt." She paused. Her mind was fuzzy, like a television channel picking up two broadcasts at once. "I also know what it is like to be afraid of going to sleep. You...never know what could happen to you when your eyes are closed for the night. Also, there's a whole wide and wild world going on out there. The idea of it passing you by is enough to drive a person mad. Add nightmares to the list, and I can fully understand." Her hand raised to her forehead, rubbing slowly. After a few moments the mixup passed. She could never tell who she was when the signals got crossed. Whose memories were those? Someone alive? Someone dead? "You don't have to worry about it while I'm on watch, though. Just let me know when you want to sleep. Or, if you feel that you haven't the strength to tell me, just fall into it. I'm perfectly capable of carrying you, and I am certain that I could find someplace to put you." Maybe her bed would be used for its intended purpose instead of by some crazy dead woman who liked to pretend that she was able to rest.

L liked to ask interesting questions. When she had come back, Laura didn't think that there was a single question that anyone could ask her that she would find difficult. Once you were in the past tense, everything seemed incredibly blasé. Still, he succeeded in making undeath interesting. She liked that about him. The fact that he genuinely seemed to care about her answers also made it a touch more enjoyable. "It's a bad thing," she answered in her dull, flat tone. "It makes me realize that maybe my world, in life, was too small. I thought that the people that I knew were wholly unique and interesting. They were special to me. I wonder, though, if they were special because they were mine, because they were all that I knew. It might be that they're just like everybody everywhere, but I saw so few places and met so few people that I never noticed how ordinary people like Shadow were. I'm not certain. We're usually blind to the ordinary qualities of those that we care about in life. In death, I find that I see people much more clearly. If I had met you while I was alive, I don't think that I would have understood you at all." I never would have realized that you are a lantern light in a world of flickering candles. I never would have known that you shine.

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spitandviolets
2009-02-12 01:12 am UTC (link)

"Languages, huh? The only language I ever knew, and poorly, was French. I always had dreams of going to Paris one day, of seeing the Eiffel Tower. Math, as I've said, was beyond me, though I liked listening to music." Her nose wrinkled slightly. "I despised philosophy and theology. It's caused too many problems to be worth anything. Also, no one knows if they're right. No one can ever know if they're right." One of those crooked, ironic smiles touched her lips, but it never quite reached her eyes. "Except me, though I'm not much of an anybody anymore. I bet I could argue theology with the best of them. First hand knowledge and primary sources always beat hearsay and theory." She shrugged. "I always liked astrology, though that doesn't have anything to do with astronomy."

Laura rose to her feet and smoothed her clothes off. Making her way to his chair, she gently smoothed her hand over his forehead, fingers lightly playing with his hair. "Does it hurt badly?" she asked. That deadpan made things very difficult for her. No matter how genuine she was, nothing ever sounded right. "I don't know how to help paranoia," she said, shaking her head. "Does the knowledge that fate is a random force and really doesn't have a set pattern help at all?" Hopefully, coming from her, such a thing was believable. She did not, in fact, know that for certain, but it was a personal philosophy. Still, it did explain why bad things sometimes happened to good people and sometimes happened to bad people. If it was just a random sampling, because her case, and Shadow's case by the transitive property, was a rarity. The gods very seldom took personal interest in anybody, and fate, being a force that ruled even the gods, probably took less interest. Shoot. There she was, doing philosophy.

Moving in front of the chair, she offered her hand to him. "Let's go find food," she said, as if it were the obvious answer to everything about which they had just spoken. "I'm sure that there's a kitchen around here somewhere. A restaurant would be better, considering you don't know how to cook and I no longer can taste anything, but I could make you something. I managed to keep myself fed when I was alive. It might not have been impressive, but it was edible." The fact was that Laura had been a fairly excellent cook. She probably could have gone to school for it. Her chili was famous. Unfortunately, she had always cooked by taste. "Maybe we'll even find you something sweet."

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meticulous_soul
2009-02-12 03:02 pm UTC (link)

"That expression," as Laura put it to herself, was what L's mother had seen every time she looked into her son's face. A phantom of a child, really, always somewhere else, living in a world with strict and complicated rules and where fear was the heart of being alive at all. His work and purpose had drawn him out, given him an outlet and a way to learn how to understand human beings like himself, but before then, he wasn't sure what he had been. Whatever it was, it had been enough to drive his mother mad.

"That's exactly it," he said, raising his eyebrows at Laura's list of nighttime dangers. "There are a lot of reasons to not want to sleep. Before meeting you, I thought that death must be like being asleep forever, and that's why I did not want to waste life in a state like that." Did those words make sense, especially if not sleeping was essentially self-destructive and ultimately shortened life? Probably not... but truly, L was exhausted. But Laura's offer was something he appreciated... someone to watch him while he slept. Maybe not cameras, or a roomful of armed police detectives who were loyal to his cause... but someone he had found no reason to distrust. That was an accomplishment, in L's book.

L had known many, many people, even if they hadn't known him, and only a few of them had been "unique." Incidentally, Laura was one of them. "If it means anything, I have never met anyone like you," he said, shrugging one shoulder in that controlled, careful way that showed how much attention he paid to even the most natural actions. "Most people don't understand me, and I don't understand most people... you wouldn't have been alone. I am happy that you feel you can understand me now, though," L said, an encouraged uplift at the end of his sentence. His own voice, like Laura's, tended towards an unsoothing monotone, but occasionally, he made more of an effort to sound like he had a feel for natural speech patterns. Usually, it was only because he was mimicking a pattern he had heard someone else use, precise to the point where it clearly wasn't his inflection.

"Français?" L asked interestedly. "My mother spoke French at home... it was the first language I heard. I liked it." He spoke it fluently, of course, but it seemed a little redundant to share information like that. It was like bragging, especially after Laura said that she didn't speak it well. "The Eiffel Tower is overrated," he said helpfully, instead. "Philosophy is something I enjoy but do not take too seriously... I like some of the Russian existentialists, like Dostoevsky... but otherwise, it is merely an idle hobby. Theology... I stay away from, but I am certain that your experiences make you something of an expert on the topic." He tilted his head quizzically when Laura mentioned astrology, since it was something he had little to no experience with. "Astrology? You mean... star signs? The sun traveling around the Ecliptic and passing through the constellations of the zodiac?"

He closed his eyes, able to better tolerate contact without visual sensory input. The soothing feel of Laura's cool hand felt nice against his forehead, and he sighed quietly. "Not badly... it is not a physical ache. I suppose that your confirmation of such a thing is more comforting than knowing that people kill people... and that some people are easier to kill than others, and that killing comes more easily to some." it made L dizzy, to think about such things. The last time he'd felt that sense of vertigo was in early November, on the chilly rooftop of that building, contemplating death and control and how they related to each other. Ironic, that he was here now, closely associating with someone who cared nothing for control (he deduced this from her statements about fate) and was an embodiment herself of death. He took her hand when it was offered, pulling himself to his feet. "I don't mind. Just as long as the food has some sugar in it, and no meat," he said, biting his lip. "I don't like the way meat tastes. Did you cook a lot, back on earth?" it was notable that L did not say something like "when you were alive," choosing instead to relate to a state they shared. They were both passengers of Spaceship Earth, now somewhere else.

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