Work Text:
A Curtain on The Scarlet Sunset
“Holtson, may I ask you for your insight on this theory of mine?” Detective Kendra “Kay” Burton shot a glance at her colleague, the trembling of her eyes made worse by the tiredness and the coloured contacts. She tried to focus on him, instead of the words that had been blurring in front of her eyes for the past few minutes. Private Detective Lewis Holtson, L’s new cover identity, stood next to the window facing Pembroke Square, lost in thought with a cup of now lukewarm coffee in his hand. He had come a long way from the scrawny, feral child who had arrived at Wammy’s House with her all those years ago; now, her friend was moving his first steps in the adult world of investigation, doing actual field work, instead of solving cases behind a laptop.
He didn’t like it.
Leaning abandoned against the wall, he was probably contemplating all the loopholes of their contract as Kensington Police Station consultants, to end his apprenticeship on the spot and get back to Oxford to finish his second degree. She could tell it by the way his free hand was fiddling inside the pocket of his blue-grey, striped trousers. Taking in the sight to try and rest her eyes from staring at a screen most of the day, she had to admit that her friend made quite an impression, with that strong sunlight on his unkept raven hair, the contrast between light and shadow exquisitely Caravaggio-like. His drapey Armani power suit complimented nicely his tall, lean build, and the brooding expression in his grey eyes would have made any catwalk model jealous.
Still, he wasn't paying attention, and that day K really had no intention of doing any overtime at the Police Station. “Ground control to Detective Holtson?” she raised an eyebrow and a corner of her mouth, quick to add, as a threat: “Don’t make me sing it.”
She kept realigning the stack of papers between her white fingers, hoping to get as much work done as she possibly could before coming back home. The case they were working on was full of dead ends, and it was getting late.
The sunlight was starting to take on warmer tones, the shadows of London’s outline stretching across the floor against the blinding orange. Her colleague drew the curtain with a careless gesture, before reaching her in intentionally slow steps. He sat back on the sofa that she had insisted on having in the office designated for her personal use, the look in his tired grey eyes more distant than usual.
K uncrossed her long legs, draped in striped trousers that matched L’s, bumping on the coffee table overflowing with dossiers and a tray with their afternoon tea on; she moved to her left to make room for him and put the sugar bowl in front of him before he could complain about the mess.
“K, we're alone,” he finally whispered. “You may as well call me L.”
She gave him a side eye, trying to suppress a smirk. “Nonsense. First rule while undercover: you’re always undercover. I’m pretty sure they teach it as well in the Rudbeckia Program.” She managed to catch herself before playfully elbowing him, lest she made him spill the dreadful coffee the other officers had brought them. It smelled like tar.
But yes, of course L knew how to go undercover. Every course of study at Wammy’s House taught its students to keep their identities a secret, to the extent that she didn’t know shit about her other classmates’ origins. But that wasn’t the point. L just had an aversion towards that particular job, and the cover identity that came with it.
He had been particularly grumpy for a while, which was rather strange, since they had almost managed to gather all the evidence needed to close the case they were working on; a gang of burglars had been pulling jobs in many companies in different areas of London, stealing computers, scanners, printers, photocopiers, etc. A rather trivial case that the two former students of Wammy's House would not have paid any attention to; nevertheless, it had ultimately fallen into their hands after a security employee, who was unfortunately working late on the evening of the latest robbery, had been found dead in his office.
“The thefts are a cover,” L had ruled rather boredly that same morning, as soon as K had handed him the documentation.
“Excellent, Holtson,” she had sneered, turning to Kensington's chief Inspector. “As you can see, my partner came to this conclusion by barely casting a distracted glance at the first page of the file. While you... How long have you been working on this case again?”
The bearded policeman had opened and closed his mouth, rolling his eyes.
“Miss Burton,” he had failed to acknowledge her status as a police officer. She had shrugged it off; she was used to it by now. That was why she took every chance to be a bitch. “You’re really going to tell me that you believe—”
“The modus operandi is extremely recognisable,” L had interrupted, his tone a bit more cutting than usual, and forgetting his usual pleasantry. He handed the folder back to K and put his hands in his pockets. “They stole hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of goods, no signs of forced entry were found in any of the affected locations. They don't seem to follow a pattern, and the search for the stolen goods has yielded no results. All that stuff seems to have disappeared from the UK, but no trace of it has been found on the foreign market either. Average time of each job: seventy minutes, which drops to forty in seven cases.”
He had taken his hand out of his pocket to run it through his thick black hair, tangling its waves further, his arrogant grey gaze ruthless and disdainful as a stormy sea looking down on a makeshift raft.
‘Dutch Boats in a Gale,’ K had thought. It had been a while since her last lunch break spent at the National Gallery. She used Turner’s paintings as a barometer for L’s mood, like weather forecasts.
“If you were to investigate further, you would probably discover that some of these companies have taken out insurance against theft of office supplies in the millions. You focused on the stolen goods, thinking that the burglars obtained the proceeds from them, and you excluded the possibility that some of these companies agreed to simulate thefts and collect the insurance money.”
K had closed the dossier and handed it to the inspector, the grin on her face widening.
“This is why private detectives like us cost so much, Inspector.”
The man had given her an annoyed look, and refused to pick up the folder.
“These are reckless assumptions based on a hasty analysis of a negligible portion of the data collected,” he had growled, his red face and pointing finger contrasting with his attempt to make himself look smarter.
“Now you two brats will take charge of the case, go to that stupid office you had cleared out so you could do whatever you wanted, and if you haven't solved the case by tonight, you can pack your bags and leave this police station. I'm sick of your know-it-all attitude!”
And he had turned in haste, motioning for his men to leave.
“I had heard great things about you, Detective Burton,” he had spat her tite, giving her one last, patronising glance, picking up his jacket from the back of a chair and putting it on with a snap. “The adoptive daughter of the great Roger Burton, the prodigy who joined the police at 18 and immediately made the greatest arrest of Boston police that year.”
Well, she was sixteen back then (or fifteen?), but it was better for both L and K to hide their age as best as they could.
The inspector had turned to her partner, then. “But since you joined that presumptuous boy, you have become an arrogant hyena!”
K sipped her tea, absentmindedly twirling a lock of her burgundy wig around her index finger, while recalling the event of that morning. The inspector was right, in a way: working with L had brought out the worst side of her once more ,the one who had made more than one teacher at Wammy’s House reconsider their life choices. Professor Ruvie had tried to warn Ol’ Wammy time and time again that letting K and L pair up during projects was a bad idea, but they always got the best results. Yes, they defied every authority and rule ever established, but no one could do it like them. If she kept on at that rate, though, she would soon build such a bad reputation that she would never again find a partner or a team. And she needed people to work with. She wasn't like L, who could solve a monstrously complex case entirely with his own skills.
She turned to look at him, at the top detective of the Legion, wondering as she often did about what made him so out of her league. About the reasons why he could see clear connections where everyone else just saw a tangled mess. He could always spot Ariadne’s thread in a haberdashery. There was no doubt that he was the most talented of the Second Generation of Wammy’s House students. If someone had to be at the head of the Legion of superdetectives that the academy for geniuses was creating out of the Rudbekia and Poinsettia Programs, it couldn’t certainly be A, who was still trying to cope with his crippling anxiety, nor B, whose academic results were inconsistent; J was too much of a hothead, more brawns than brains, while F had an emotional side that could slighlty affect his impulsive actions. While K…
True, K had dismantled a Russian mafia cell in her first month as a police officer. It had been child’s play, thanks to the preparation provided by the Poinsettia Program; after all, before the end of the Cold War, Wammy’s House lived on government funds to raise superspies to infiltrate the USSR. Still, the help of Lieutenant Roger Burton and his investigative team at BPD had been crucial in dismantling the entire cell. And she couldn’t help but wonder if L could have managed to do it on his own.
She pushed that thought to the back of her mind and turned to her partner, raising an eyebrow. No matter how talented he was, there was no use to it if he just sat there, his pale face resting limply on his hand, his gaze lost in the deep black coffee, even if his pouting expression on any other day would cause her a surge of cute aggression.
It was one of those moments when she wanted to bite him; more aggressively than playfully, if she had to be honest with herself. Still, as she usually did, she kept her touchiness to herself. He was overwhelmed enough without her testing his touch aversion levels for the day.
“Come on…” she limited herself to messing with his thick hair, resisting the urge to comb the tangles away, and placed her cup on the table. “All we have to do is identify the hacker from the alarm company who helped the burglars, and we're done. We’ll do the paperwork tomorrow. Inspector Myles just wants the names of the suspects.”
The quickest way for K to get to the answer would have been to ask Q to look into the case (one hacker to another, kind of), but she wasn’t allowed to submit police reports to anyone other than the people in that building. And their deadline was approaching incredibly fast.
L brought the cup of coffee to his lips, without a single hint of acknowledgement of her presence. He couldn’t disguise a grimace at his drink, though.
K sighed. Now he was getting on her nerves, even if she was more than prepared for his sudden withdrawal. The other agents had messed up their lunch orders, and also their coffee, which they had left while mumbling something she couldn’t catch: L hadn’t liked it. L hadn’t liked it at all.
“We would’ve finished ages ago, if only you’d done something all afternoon,” she frowned at him. “I know that you’re upset because they’re messing with you, but come on! You wouldn’t want to be here more than it’s necessary, right? And then, working with other people is part of our apprenticeship. Not everyone will accommodate your needs, and I know it sucks, but you need to be ready for it.”
The thought that someone would pick on L, once clocked his “quirks”, made her want to throw punches, but she wouldn’t always be there to back him up. He had to learn to be more vocal.
“And I know this case isn’t exciting,” she got on, gesturing towards their – her – scattered notes. “But make your peace, because this is work as well.”
He finally grunted, without turning.
“I will make such a name for myself that I will be able to choose only the most interesting cases.”
The rolled-up file in K’s hands landed with surgical precision straight on the back of his neck; L was expecting it, though, so he pushed the cup of coffee away from him so as not to spill it onto the drapey trousers. It ended on the floor, missing the carpet by a mere inch.
“Stop being such a spoiled brat, Sherlock!” she growled, feeling the blood rush to her head. Too bad she was wearing coloured lenses, she thought, otherwise her red eyes would have been a good indicator of how frustrated she was with this behaviour. She could excuse his crankiness, but to a point.
But she was already regretting lashing out, and half-mouthed an apology. Because he was upset about something, and she couldn’t help him if he didn’t talk to her. If he kept behaving as if she didn’t exist.
Finally, L looked at her, his dull, grey eyes unreadable. He placed his coffee on the table and reached out for the papers in K’s hands, bumping into her shoulder to let her know it was okay.
“Let's get on with it, then,” he sighed. “But rest assured, if you ask me, we’d be better off in another police station. One might argue that it’s not their fault if they forget my requests for a sandwich, but calling you ‘Miss’ is deliberate. And calling you ‘love’ is outright insulting.”
K refrained from brushing off the other officers’ behaviour; she was used to people looking down on her because she was a gi— a woman. Agents who had never made a single arrest, calling her ‘sweetheart’ or something. But yes, she could become violent as soon as someone called L “autistic” in a mocking tone, so she could understand where her partner came from. She began to explain her hypothesis, hoping that L would stop thinking about what had happened that afternoon. She leaned to his side, keeping the opposite end of the dossier, while pointing the data she had circled in nervous red strokes.
“I’d say it’s clear that the victim was killed because he recognised one of the burglars, and since he was in charge of security, I’d say he recognised the hacker. In all likelihood, the companies committing this fraud hired a group of foreign professionals for the job, and the hacker had to be with them, since the systems couldn’t be disabled remotely. The victim was probably acquainted with the hacker, either because they are the same person who installed the security system, or because they met at some conference on the topic, or because they attended the same graduate school. I would rule out the first hypothesis, however. What do you say?”
She turned to him, only to find him even closer than she'd expected: L's face, half covered by his stupid, messy hair, was all she could see. It was all she could see, as his lips pressed against hers. Soft, smooth, still tasting of burnt coffee, their touch gentle but firm.
A sudden change, like the weather at sea, one that K hadn’t anticipated, one that her barometer couldn’t foresee. It had caught her off-guard, her lips disclosed, so that her own, trembling breath mingled with his.
Warm as a summer breeze.
She didn’t put up any resistance as she felt his hand wrapping around her waist tightly, the other leaving the dossier they were holding to caress her neck with his long fingers. K’s were still gripping her stupid notes.
Before she could think, she heard the sound of paper sliding on the carpet, while she pushed her stupid partner away from her.
The sudden absence of the warmth coming from his body left her shivering.
“What… What?!” she squealed in a voice that was a little too high-pitched, feeling her hands shaking, feeling the blood rising to her brain again and... tears in her eyes?
The detective in front of her looked equally astonished. Suddenly paler, black pupils eating away the grey, and that damned, wet mouth opened in surprise.
“I’m sorry, I don't know, I…” he whispered, jumping to his feet and burying his face into his hands, strands of raven hair peeking from his long fingers. K reflexively extended a hand towards him, as she had done countless times during the years, to brush away his discomfort.
She closed it around nothing upon realising that she was being his source of discomfort, now.
“Forgive me. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again,” he kept repeating in a steady voice that was nonetheless starting to show the cracks underneath.
He sprinted towards the door and closed it forcefully behind him, leaving K reaching for his afterimage.
She banged her fist on the coffee table, gritting her teeth.
“Shit,” she hissed.
The kiss wasn’t a problem. It was a slip-up. Nothing to worry about, they could talk, or they could forget about it. They were adults, after all. Well, more like children forced to become adults when their peers started worrying about growing facial hair and getting their period, but still. They had been adults in the bodies of children for years, now. They knew how to sort these kinds of things. They were clever. Extremely clever. It was a piece of cake. Child’s play. They would sit and talk like the adults they were. Totally. So that wasn’t the problem.
The problem was that L was hurt. L was shocked and hurt and had run away.
And she couldn’t let him.
She stood up. Too quick, because her head felt dizzy.
He had kissed her. That stupid moron had kissed her. They were working, and he wasn’t even listening to her because he was going to kiss her. Like an idiot. How could they keep living under the same roof after that? Why hadn’t he thought about it? What did that mean for the bond they shared?
She shook her head, forcing herself to regain some semblance of clarity.
It wasn’t a big deal. They just had to talk about it.
“Hey!” she growled, walking towards the door with heavy steps. Her vision was peppered with black stars, while every movement carried more repressed energy, every beat of her heart pumping flames through her veins.
She started running before she could realise it.
She stormed through offices, bumping into every policeman within a radius of two meters in her path, ignoring the shocked looks of those people who had just seen Private Detective Lewis Holtson run for his life. Some of them were bent over the ground picking up scattered papers, making it apparent that her partner hadn’t given anyone the time of their day during his escape from the police station.
She went down the stairs with a loud clatter of heels, gripping her suspenders to keep herself grounded, her blood pumping directly in her ears and darkening the corners of her vision with quickening pulsation, giving the entire world a frantic rhythm. Her mind was buzzing with angry thoughts and logical dissertations, but the only thing she knew for certain was that she had to find him. To face him. To tell him that he should never run from her, that he should never leave her for so little, that… that…
She bit her lips, only to find a ghost of the lingering taste of coffee from his. A sensory hallucination, surely provided by her mind while she was about to open the door of the police station, ready to run towards the park where they spent their breaks, where he walked barefoot and she beat the time of the music she listened to on her walkman. She was sure he was heading there.
But when she opened the door, all she could see was fire.
London, always covered in a blanket of smog; England, where they had invented, like, seven different kinds of rain… that day, someone Up There had decided to give her all the sun they could. A big, looming orange ball behind the top of the lower buildings on Earls Ct Rd, threatening to burn through her retina, directly into her brain.
“Shit…” she hissed, shielding herself with her arm.
The glare of the setting sun was Hell to her albino eyes. Her skin started tingling under the unshielded light, but she dismissed it as usual as a figment of her imagination.
“Holtson!” she shouted blindly, ignoring the curious looks of passers-by. “Holtson, come back here!”
She tried to look around, but the world was already an indistinguishable blur beyond her teary eyes.
She heard the footsteps of a pair of Oxfords approaching, and the breathless voice of his stupid partner, whispering: “K, have you gone crazy?!”
She blinked and saw the boy's long, dark jacket sliding in front of her, shielding her from the sunlight. L kept his gaze down as he held it up behind his head, his white, crumpled shirt half untucked.
"You shouldn't be running around at this hour without sunglasses or protection," he muttered.
“You shouldn't run away like a thief from the office while we're working!” she retorted, turning and giving her back to the sun.
“I get it, they made you uncomfortable, and you don't want to work today, but cutting and running like this seems a bit too much to me.”
She motioned for him to get dressed and follow her.
“But…” he finally looked at her, without otherwise moving from where he stood.
“And don't stand against the light, it's hard for me to look at you in the face,” she turned with one hand outstretched to block the light. “Let’s get back inside.”
But he gave her an annoyed look.
“Stop treating me like I’m made of glass!” he blurted out, his voice trembling. “It’s humiliating! I didn't run away because I didn't want to work, like a brat throwing a tantrum. Or because the others messed up my schedule or put pickles in my sandwich or called me retarded, or whatever you think I’m upset about.”
The last drops of blood that hadn’t reached her brain yet were suddenly sucked away from her limbs, making her almost fall.
They had called him what?!?!!?
“Deal with it!” he pressed on, his eyes basically begging. “Slap me because I kissed you, yell at me that you don't want to see me anymore, that I've crossed the line, tell me to stay away from you, but please... for once in your life, look at me as if I were a man. A man who can be held accountable, a man you don’t need to protect.”
His words cut like glass. Because why the hell did he think she looked down on him? Because she had saved his life once, in a sense? Because she had stopped J and every other bully from hurting him further?
Her hand reached for her burn scar, hidden under her foundation.
Because of that memento, the one he couldn’t look at without pain in his eyes?
And how about him, then? How many times had he saved her from herself? Not only when he had stopped her from cutting her veins, but every time he had just been there for her? Did he think it wasn’t enough?
Did he think he wasn’t enough? For her?
K clenched her fists and put her best effort into reaching him in two strides. She stood inches away from his nose, using him as a human shield against the scarlet sunset, against that sun which that evening seemed to want to burn everything around her. She grabbed him by the knot of his tie, resisting the urge to pull him closer, and tried to steady her voice while whispering: “No personal matters when we work. It's the rule, and you know it. That’s what I’m holding you accountable for, now.”
She couldn’t stop her eyes from darting between his lips, still so unnervingly slightly apart, and his eyes, a spark lighting them.
Sun Rising Through Vapour.
She gulped and averted her gaze. “Please, do me the favour of going back up to our office to do what we're paid to do, what we're here to do.”
She walked away from him and went to open the door of the police station. The people who had been watching them curiously for a while were now gone.
“Let's get done with this case already, partner,” she bowed and motioned for him to enter. She didn’t miss how her heart had just fluttered at the word. She bit her lower lip, while inhaling through teeth. “And tonight... shall we go on a date?”
The boy had reached her, but at those words, he stopped again, looking even more shocked than before.
“What?!”
K swallowed around the lump in her throat, cursing herself for being so stupid as to act without thinking it through a thousand times. Without any contingency plan. Just plain brain-dead asking him out, just like he had kissed her on a whim. Yeah, now they were both at the same level of reckless behaviour, but that brush of his lips on hers had been an instant, while a date…
She shook her head. She was in the game, now. Better play with open cards.
“I mean…” her blood now flushed on her face. “I’m not stupid. I saw how you look at me. I probably realised it before you even realised it yourself. And, let's be real, we care about each other…”
She looked down.
“... a lot. So we should talk about it. We’ve been tiptoeing around it enough. We’re adults — well… you get what I’m saying, we’re mature enough to decide if there are solid bases for a…”
The oxygen was gone. So was her saliva. She felt like a fish suddenly yanked out of the water, about to meet its fate.
“... a relationship of sorts,” she half-coughed, “or if it’s something entirely physical from your part and nothing more.”
“That's enough!” L almost cried, closing the door behind her. “This is embarrassing.”
Then he sighed, ran a hand through his hair and glanced at her as he put his jacket back on.
They stared at each other in front of the elevator, which that day had decided to take a detour around the entire block before coming down.
“A date?”
“That’s what I said.”
“This evening.”
“If you like.”
“You're kidding me.”
“Do you really think I would go that far?” she growled, blushing and looking away.
He frowned slightly, while the grey in his eyes clouded.
The Parting of Hero and Leander.
“You say that I have the most formidable intuition in the world, that I could solve any case I put myself to... but I really can't understand you right now. You’re talking like you’re doing preliminary research, not like someone who’s been kissed out of the blue.”
“Do you want to go out with me or not?” K tried to moderate the irritation in her voice.
L shrugged.
“Since we’re playing the Rationalists… Well, I am stuck in a teenage body with raging hormones, and I live with a girl I trust, who happens to also be quite attractive and fairly intelligent. Sometimes. She asks me out. What could my answer possibly be?”
She sighed, trying to hide a smile.
“Then go and solve the case yourself. I'm going home to get ready. See you at eight. Where would you like to go?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Your treat?”
“‘Course,” she rolled her eyes. “My date, my treat. So, Italian, traditional, Indian, French...?”
“Somewhere with good desserts,” he raised one corner of his mouth in a cheeky smile. “The hacker we are looking for is from the Jameson&Sons company. He's Czech. The victim must have recognised him upon hearing him speak; his mother is from Brno: he might have recognised the language first, and the man second, since they have surely met at a charity dinner held by the company just two months ago. They were both there, and in at least a couple of pictures, they can be spotted talking in the background. Probably bonding over shared roots.”
K sighed and put a hand to her forehead, eyes narrowed to slits, but being careful to hide the smile on her lips from the boy.
“Then go directly to the inspector. I'm going up to get my things. We’re going to the Italian restaurant where we ate on your birthday.”
It was a good thing that K remembered the exact layout of the itinerary she usually took to go to work by motorbike, the cameras, the traffic lights, the buses and vans making deliveries, and, what was more important, the patrol routes.
Because she got back to Shoreditch in twenty-five minutes instead of thirty-eight, driving like a madwoman.
What had gotten into her, she couldn’t explain.
She waited until she triple-locked the door behind her before starting to scream.
What had gotten into her?
Asking L out?
Well, his kiss had not been completely out of the blue. She had eyes, and a bit of brain as well to discern what was hidden behind his intense gaze most of the time.
Yet, she had done nothing to prevent it. Sure, she had tried to get him another job, but the moment he had made clear that he wanted to stay with her, she hadn’t pushed it. She had merely applied to enter the FBI, hoping they would call her before such a catastrophe could happen.
Because, well, the two of them dating could be nothing but a catastrophe.
For weeks, she had pretended to go out in the evening, pub crawling, after one-night stands, just to discourage him. She had lost count of the nights in which she had returned home at four, taking off her heels, certain that he was still awake studying, certain that he would hear her, certain that he would picture her returning from a man's house, when in reality she had been wandering on her motorbike along the banks of the Thames.
And yet...
Each of his hidden glances gave her an adrenaline rush. The annoyed tone with which he sometimes welcomed her back from her "escapades" gave her a perverse pleasure. The thrill she felt upon every not-so-accidental brush of their hands, every skin contact, every bump of their hips made a disturbing grin rise to her lips.
Because she couldn’t help it.
Because it was “wrong”.
Because he was the dearest person she had, together with Bjarne. He was family. He was family in a way that, no matter what could happen between the two of them, the bond they shared was stronger. No matter how much they fought or misunderstood each other, they would always put their bond first. No matter the distance, no matter the time: they would always find their way back to each other.
Because that was what family meant to her. And L had been the first family she’d ever had after losing her own.
But teenage crushes are just summer dreams, and nothing more. The burn with the intensity of the sun of that January evening, too close to the Earth, but then they’re gone with the next breath, leaving only ruins behind.
And she couldn’t let it happen. She couldn’t let her bond with L be destroyed by a fling. What if they messed up everything?
So why had she acted on L’s impulses, instead of backing down? Giving him a chance to think about the consequences? How pissed off Ol’ Wammy would be upon finding out that his golden boy was directly defying his rules?
Wammy’s kids couldn’t date each other. They were also discouraged from having stable relationships in general, since they had been stripped of basically every familiar bond upon entering. It was a matter of security, they said. But even if now the Cold War was over and the Wammy’s kids didn’t have to be weapons anymore, they still weren’t free.
And then… L didn’t know that she had the Huntington’s gene. That the illness could manifest at any moment, and she would lose her intellectual faculties; what would she be worth, then? What could she give to him, when her brain would fail her?
Could she really let him waste the best (so they said) years of his life with her?
She shook her head, digging her fingers in the red wig and throwing it away. It wasn’t like he’d asked for her hand, okay, but still… she knew he would be committed.
She just… knew him like that.
And she was bad for him. She was so unstable, and reckless, and prone to anger and depression. She was twenty (was she sure?) and still mourning the childhood she’d lost, the day she had woken up from her coma and had found herself in a body too big, in a world that had gotten on without her. She wasn’t ready for any of it.
So why hadn’t she stopped him?
The answer was so obvious that she might laugh.
It was the demon inside her. The one that led her to hit the punching bag until her hands bled, to dive into the icy waters of the Channel at night, to climb onto ledges that could collapse at any moment... to lock herself in the bathroom when no one was home, and stay there for hours staring at a razor blade...
That inner demon wanted L.
The demon wanted to destroy them both. To drag them down. Because, how could things end well, when she was such a mess of a person, just fragments of old China reduced to dust, that no amount of glue could put back together? She would just be his downfall, and she couldn’t allow it.
She jerked to her feet and ran to the phone, to call L and tell him that it was a mistake, and she would be better off somewhere else without him. The phone was next to the window, on the empty side of the living room, where the light poured in for the most part of the day, but the curtain was drawn, so she shouldn’t wo—
She stopped mid-movement, her heart in her throat, turning to the worn-out cloth keeping the now dim light of the evening out.
The curtain was drawn.
Because L always drew it for her, every time he spotted too much light coming from the window.
Because he would always shield her from the light.
K turned to the kitchenette, where the first drawers were locked, because it was where they kept the knives. L had the key.
Because he would always keep her safe.
Since they were kids, he had always looked out for her. Whether out of obligation or not, it didn’t matter.
L had been fighting the demon inside her since the very beginning.
If someone could make it work, it was him.
And, deep down, she desperately wanted it to work. To be free to look at him with the same burning intensity he reserved for her. To feel the stroke of his long, delicate fingers on her skin, his messy hair brushing her face. To cup his pouting face and kiss his grudge away. To let him lie on her lap while they silently read together.
She wanted the kind of closeness that is usually reserved for lovers, not only because she was very physical, but because… nothing could ever be enough, when it came to L. She could never hear him talk enough about his interests and theories, that way of his of painting such a detailed and interesting picture, even from the most modest of subjects.
If he were a painter, he would make a landfill look like The Starry Night.
She could never spend enough time watching him while they were in a museum, noting down every minuscule shift in his apparently impassive face, the tiniest hints of admiration or mockery.
There was just so much closeness two people could experience, but it could never be enough for K. Growing up together, living together, working together wasn’t enough; sleeping together wouldn’t even. Was there even a way to lose yourself in another person the way she craved to do with him?
While she was carelessly undressing on her way to the bathroom, she started to make a plan for the evening. She had been acting on impulse since he had kissed her out of the blue.
They needed to take a step back and think it through.
They could do it.
They were mature enough, both well-versed in psychology studies, and they knew each other as no one else could.
It would be fine.
Right now, K only needed to take a scorching hot shower to drown the demon inside her, gnawing at the bars of his enclosure, whispering in her ear to screw it all up, then choose something nice to be pretty for her date.
She got out of the shower with her skin bright pink and her eyes scarlet red from the heat, and stared at her burning reflection, for once, without any trace of uneasiness.
She would put on her green tartan skirt with a cream sweatshirt and black tights. She couldn’t wait to see L’s face upon seeing her all dressed up for once. All dressed up for him.
For once, she would be just a girl going out on a date. Not a young woman working as a detective, not a child forced to grow into a human weapon. Just a girl with her head full of dreams, and her heart beating a bit too fast.