[It’s not that, precisely, but it is like that. L realizes it as he wanders around Shōyō’s empty house, still damp from the tub, Omni in hand as his first priority, the one he reached for as soon as he had hands again and conscious thought and his brain was back online.
What makes him a good detective, single-minded and fixated and obsessive, can make him a terrible friend, and a worse boyfriend. After reading Shōyō’s response he sets aside the Omni, and Lycka hovers near it as he wanders through the house to do what he does: investigate.
The food that was here several days ago is largely untouched, save for a huge pile of donuts that’s been, presumably, used to feed his squid form. Soot streaks the floor in places (Paul) without having been swept up, which is uncharacteristic for someone as fastidious as Shōyō. In Shōyō’s room, the bed is rumpled and unmade, and a trace of blood is visible on the pillow. It’s some shuddering small relief that this was it, his death a soft severing in the waking world instead of the truly gruesome one that splintered him in the dream.
Since coming back, he’s dissociated from the memory of what happened to him with chilling efficiency. Just as the sight of his restored hand had startled and distressed him for a time, the restored integrity of a body that he felt disintegrate isn’t wholly natural, doesn’t feel right or good or stable. He’s had to disconnect to function at all; a world of Bigger Picture is lost because he’s clinging to one tree in a dense forest that drowns out light and sound. He peels himself from the trunk, limps off, and keeps looking.
Finally, he sees that the sword above the mantle is gone. Shōyō went to confront him; when? Paul was here; Shōyō wouldn’t have been alone. Then there’s Paul, who felt him shredding and came here burning alone and there is a whole backlog chronicling a story of fear, panic and misery that L will see, once he returns to his Omni and looks at his lost time, the suffering and pain caused by the price of blood and life that he had called worth it, at the time.
He crouches next to Lycka. Shōyō first; Paul knows the Emperor better, and the way that L thinks and operates. Paul appreciates sacrifice to a fault; Shōyō’s wound is not only fresh but completely new to him, poorly understood and raw and entirely unfair.
If he wants to keep his bargaining chip, he can’t even tell them, either of them, exactly what he lost his life to gain as leverage.]
The truth is precious to me, but I didn’t plan for it to come to light this way and actually had very little to do with it. I’m just one of many he killed in the days after he angered Mariana.
Are you going to try to attack him because you want to get back at me? You’ll get killed, too, if you try. When I died, I wasn’t trying to hurt you.
[Just conveniently disregard the possibility that it could happen as collateral damage, because that’s how he is, that’s the person Shōyō fell in love with and that’s the knife that L envisioned on the night he didn’t reject Shōyō’s kiss, and chose selfishness. He chose the promise of twisting that knife at some future point, and here they are.
He sets aside the Omni again and sets to work. He drains the tub after fishing out bits of donut, fills a bucket to mop the floor, strips the sheets and disposes of the pillow. He makes the bed with a clean set of linens, weeds out the expired food and not-so-fresh fruit, and takes it to the bin on his way out.
He leaves, wearing the same clothes he wore the night he stayed over and subsequently died in his sleep, an uneasy respawn who doesn’t know how to feel with the reality of someone else’s pain. The Omni is distance and safety; he can keep it with him and find a place that will serve a sleeper alcohol in July.
He’ll get numb before he can work up the nerve to demand things from John. Communication broke down with Shōyō because he’s just so good; conversely, L and John speak the same ugly language and use the same ugly currency.
When he finds a bar that will serve him, he asks for the cruelest shot he can, something sharp and pure that burns going down. He asks for two more, then he gets to work.]
Cw: death memories, alcohol use, grotesque introspective indulgence
What makes him a good detective, single-minded and fixated and obsessive, can make him a terrible friend, and a worse boyfriend. After reading Shōyō’s response he sets aside the Omni, and Lycka hovers near it as he wanders through the house to do what he does: investigate.
The food that was here several days ago is largely untouched, save for a huge pile of donuts that’s been, presumably, used to feed his squid form. Soot streaks the floor in places (Paul) without having been swept up, which is uncharacteristic for someone as fastidious as Shōyō. In Shōyō’s room, the bed is rumpled and unmade, and a trace of blood is visible on the pillow. It’s some shuddering small relief that this was it, his death a soft severing in the waking world instead of the truly gruesome one that splintered him in the dream.
Since coming back, he’s dissociated from the memory of what happened to him with chilling efficiency. Just as the sight of his restored hand had startled and distressed him for a time, the restored integrity of a body that he felt disintegrate isn’t wholly natural, doesn’t feel right or good or stable. He’s had to disconnect to function at all; a world of Bigger Picture is lost because he’s clinging to one tree in a dense forest that drowns out light and sound. He peels himself from the trunk, limps off, and keeps looking.
Finally, he sees that the sword above the mantle is gone. Shōyō went to confront him; when? Paul was here; Shōyō wouldn’t have been alone. Then there’s Paul, who felt him shredding and came here burning alone and there is a whole backlog chronicling a story of fear, panic and misery that L will see, once he returns to his Omni and looks at his lost time, the suffering and pain caused by the price of blood and life that he had called worth it, at the time.
He crouches next to Lycka. Shōyō first; Paul knows the Emperor better, and the way that L thinks and operates. Paul appreciates sacrifice to a fault; Shōyō’s wound is not only fresh but completely new to him, poorly understood and raw and entirely unfair.
If he wants to keep his bargaining chip, he can’t even tell them, either of them, exactly what he lost his life to gain as leverage.]
The truth is precious to me, but I didn’t plan for it to come to light this way and actually had very little to do with it. I’m just one of many he killed in the days after he angered Mariana.
Are you going to try to attack him because you want to get back at me? You’ll get killed, too, if you try. When I died, I wasn’t trying to hurt you.
[Just conveniently disregard the possibility that it could happen as collateral damage, because that’s how he is, that’s the person Shōyō fell in love with and that’s the knife that L envisioned on the night he didn’t reject Shōyō’s kiss, and chose selfishness. He chose the promise of twisting that knife at some future point, and here they are.
He sets aside the Omni again and sets to work. He drains the tub after fishing out bits of donut, fills a bucket to mop the floor, strips the sheets and disposes of the pillow. He makes the bed with a clean set of linens, weeds out the expired food and not-so-fresh fruit, and takes it to the bin on his way out.
He leaves, wearing the same clothes he wore the night he stayed over and subsequently died in his sleep, an uneasy respawn who doesn’t know how to feel with the reality of someone else’s pain. The Omni is distance and safety; he can keep it with him and find a place that will serve a sleeper alcohol in July.
He’ll get numb before he can work up the nerve to demand things from John. Communication broke down with Shōyō because he’s just so good; conversely, L and John speak the same ugly language and use the same ugly currency.
When he finds a bar that will serve him, he asks for the cruelest shot he can, something sharp and pure that burns going down. He asks for two more, then he gets to work.]