Death Note Files Challenge #1: The Candidate

Death Note Files Challenge #1: "The Candidate"

Challenge: A small adventure between L and Watari that involves the first time they meet

AUTHOR'S NOTES:
L's real name is revealed in the "How To Read" book. However, this makes no indication of whether this is the name he was born with or not. In this story, I posit that perhaps his "real name" is what he legally changed it to sometime during his life, and that his birth name was not, in fact, a single capital letter.
Not sure if this constitutes a full-bodied "adventure", but whatevs. It's what I was able to come up with. Let's say that it's an adventure of forging new relationships. So there!
Also, this story is essentially me vomiting my headcanon all over the place. Be warned that I ship Watari x Roger 6eva, because gay dads raising a bunch of child prodigies in the scenic south of England is basically the best thing ever.

****

Akin to London, Geneva was chilly, gusty and iron grey, awaiting the onslaught of Winter.
Roger tailed his partner doggedly through the winding suburban streets, clutching at his valise. “Remember, Quillsh, he must fulfil all the required criteria. I shall be testing him. I can’t have you filling up the house with any more charity cases who are simply adept at finger painting and grade I piano lessons.”
Quillsh Wammy smiled, and opted to say nothing. The tedium of this well-worn argument could still chafe him at times, but it was much easier these days to simply allow Roger to go through his motions. The amount of times Quillsh had found him in the Wammy House games parlour, deeply absorbed in a spirited round of hearts or dominoes with these so-called ‘charity cases’ betrayed where the man’s sentiments truly lay. ‘Detest children’, indeed. And Quillsh was the Queen’s favourite corgi.
He rapped gently on the panelled front door of a tidy, wide-windowed row house, all oblongs and bleached stone. He braced himself, this was not the first time he had expected an ill-disposed reception from the guardians of a prospective inmate of the orphanage.
A few silent moments dragged by before the locks were unclicked and the door swung sharply open. Levin Lawliet held out a stiff hand to Quillsh. “Mister Wammy. Mister Ruvie. Good evening. Please come inside.” His sentences were as short and unadorned as he was.
Quillsh and Roger were led into a large, square lounge room, with armchairs that looked almost too smart to sit upon. Regardless, their host gestured for them to be seated, and perched himself in the centre of the oversized sofa. “My wife is preparing tea and will be in shortly.”
“How delightful. Thank you for your hospitality, Mr. Lawliet,” Quillsh responded, all smiles and English geniality. Roger repressed an urge to scoff— Quillsh would probably have tipped his hat and offered salutations to a rabid skunk, if given the chance.
“Let’s get to the matter at hand,” Levin Lawliet insisted, clasping his fingers on his lap. “I am determined to send the boy somewhere, and the sooner I can do it, the better. I can’t have him staying here. We simply do not have the space or the time to be dealing with a child of such… particular facilities.”
“I believe he was an advanced-placement student at his primary school in London, is that correct?”
Levin looked away from Quillsh. “I’m sure Alessandro insisted on keeping his nose in a damned textbook from the moment he left his mother’s womb. No child of my perfect brother would ever be allowed to be average.”
Quillsh took a furtive deep breath, making to side-step the sore spot he had just roused. “What are the boy’s day-to-day habits like?”
“He’s obsessive. The child psychologist reckoned that it’s some form of post-traumatic stress disorder. He wants to possess a complete understanding of his surroundings, as if this would somehow keep him safe. I only met him once before the accident, he was a weird enough kid then. Now he’s even worse. He never plays with other children, but he’ll crouch there on the floor, staring at my own son and daughters for ages, like some creepy statue. It scares the daylights out of them. He reads too much. My wife has a hell of a time bathing and dressing him. His posture’s terrible, too. It’s as if Alessandro never bothered to teach him proper manners.”
At this point, a buxom, comfortable-looking woman in pastels floated into the room with a tea tray.
“Mister Wammy, Mister Ruvie, thank you so much for coming!” She tweeted, and immediately began serving the beverage in delicate china cups. “Please help yourselves to these gingerbreads, I baked them myself.”
The delicacies were partaken of, and once Mrs. Lawliet had settled herself beside her husband, she daintily dipped her own gingerbread into her cup and asked: “Has Levin informed you of our little situation?”
Quillsh nodded. “Indeed. You are most generous to have taken in your nephew after such a tragedy.”
Mrs. Lawliet’s lips pursed. “We would be grateful to you if you choose to place him in your establishment. His behaviour and his needs are far from that of a typical child. A boy of his considerable genius deserves a better environment—”
The sound of porcelain smashing filled the high-ceilinged room. Levin had thumped his cup and saucer down on the coffee table with enough force to crack them both in twain. Scalding, amber-coloured tea pooled on its mahogany surface.
“Genius.” He menaced, his voice low. “I am so sick of that word. The countless, arduous, thankless hours I put into study and application and years of work. Earning a position in the biggest bank in all of Switzerland. Struggling my way through late nights and working weekends and sheer bloody hard graft, seizing a managerial position before the age of twenty-five. Earning enough to put my kids in the best schools and setting my ingrate parents up for the rest of their worthless lives. And all of that falls away, worthless, cursory, unnoticed, in the face of darling little Alessandro’s bloody genius! Who paid off Mama and Papa’s mortgage? I did! Who inherited everything, including all attention and praise? Alessandro, AND his great pile of student debt, AND his precious Cambridge PhD, AND that mongrel Jap wife of his!”
Quillsh was hotly rankled by this, but remained silent. He had known Rei Lawliet-Yamaguchi, and had held her in the highest esteem. Never had he seen a more talented young girl, or a more passionate teacher. Never such a waste of brilliance and promise. The world had lost a truly inspiring tutor of young minds in her.
“The damned idiot goes and dies on us, and WE’RE landed with his maladjusted half-breed brat! And I’M expected to indulge another GENIUS in the family!”
“Now, now, dear,” Mrs. Lawliet arose, set on smoothing out the fractious aftershocks of her husband’s tirade. “Let’s not be so negative. After all, Mister Wammy and Mister Ruvie may be able to help us!” She began clearing the mess on the coffee table, pulling out a clean dishcloth from God-knows-where.
“To be honest,” Roger piped up, crossing his legs, “you haven’t exactly made the best case for us to take the little nipper on. Your comments seem to suggest that he is a difficult charge.”
“Perhaps now would be a good time to be introduced to him?” Quillsh suggested, sympathetic to Mrs. Lawliet’s desire for civility.
The couple’s teenaged son was called to fetch the child. Ethan Lawliet was short like his father and stocky like his mother, blonde and apple-cheeked and coarse in every respect. He clomped noisily up the stairs, bellowing: “OI! SKIDMARK! MAMA AND PAPA WANT YOU DOWNSTAIRS! NOW!”
For a short while, there was no response. Then, the muffled voices of two boys bled down to the lounge room. One, Ethan’s, was bellowing and brusque. The other was lilting, measured, and almost imperceptibly soft. The exchange quickly escalated into an argument, and then a swift succession of hard, heavy thumps came, rattling the walls— no doubt Ethan was mercilessly manhandling his luckless quarry.
At length, the youth came downstairs once more, dragging along with him a boy who was smaller and much slighter than he—no more than seven or eight, but tall for his age, and slender. The delicacy of Rei Lawliet-Yamaguchi was very strongly echoed in his physique and supple non-resistance to his cousin’s might. A scruff of mussed black hair obscured most of his pale face. Ethan shoved him before the adults in the room. He stood before them uneasily, slouching, pigeon toed.
“Remember your manners.” Levin commanded, his voice metallic.
“How do you do,” came the breathy little voice. “I am Lucian Lawliet.” He stared up at Quillsh with unblinking eyes of dark grey, searching the man’s lined face unapologetically. A bony pale thumb was then instinctively drawn to his mouth.
“Don’t suck your thumb!” His uncle hollered. Quickly, apprehensively, the boy’s hand flew back to his side.
Quillsh stood, facing him. His too-English smile split his face. “Lovely to meet you, Lucian. My name is Quillsh Wammy, and this is my partner Roger Ruvie.” Presently he gestured to the red-haired man, who was eyeing the child intently from his seat. “We come from a place called Wammy’s house, in the city of Winchester. It’s a special home for gifted children, such as yourself.”
“Your necktie has approximately one hundred and seventy-six lozenges on it,” Lucian stated.
Quillsh’s eyebrows rose. “Oh? How did you deduce that?”
“I simply made note of the quantity of lozenges at the broadest and thinnest points of the garment and formulated an average from those two figures. I then multiplied that by the number of vertical rows I counted. I multiplied that number by two to account for the underside of the fabric.”
“But what about the part of the necktie hidden under his collar?” Came Roger’s observation from the armchair.
“Ah,” Lucian responded, his thumb returning to his mouth. “I did not account for that. I could perhaps take the number of lozenges at the narrowest row, then deduce how many rows would constitute an inch’s worth of fabric. Mr. Wammy’s neck looks to be about 17 inches in diameter… I estimate that the final figure would then be around two hundred and eighteen.”
“He does this all the time,” Ethan groaned, burning for a chance to clip his dweeby little cousin across the head.
“Perhaps you gentlemen may want to speak with Lucian alone?” Mrs. Lawliet suggested. “Come Levin, Ethan, let’s leave them to talk things over. Please excuse us.”
“Capital idea,” Levin muttered, too glad to be leaving his accursed brother’s hapless son out of sight and out of mind. The three of them transferred to the kitchen.
Roger wasted no time. “Now, Mr. Lawliet. Please be aware that Wammy’s House is an institution that will only take on children of considerable intellectual prowess. If we feel that you would fall behind in the rigorous curriculum that we set there, you will not be eligible.”
“May I have a piece of gingerbread?” Lucian’s attention had been caught by the treats that still lay upon the coffee table.
“You may,” Quillsh replied, sitting back down on the sofa. The little boy fell upon the tray of biscuits, picking one up between his thumb and forefinger. He then clambered upon the sofa, close to Quillsh, and crouched on the cushion with his knees bent into his narrow chest.
“Do you always sit like that?”
“I feel safer this way,” Lucian informed the man, talking through an indecent mouthful of half-chewed gingerbread. Roger, meanwhile, winced at the display, the side of his palm resting uneasily on his forehead.
“Do you want to come and live at Wammy’s House?” Quillsh inquired.
Lucian shrugged noncommittally. “It would be nice to return to England. Uncle Levin and my cousins certainly consider me a nuisance. I am teased by the children at the school I attend. Perhaps the inmates of your establishment would be more accommodating.”
Roger rallied himself to speak up again. “Your uncle mentioned that you are an avid reader. What sort of books do you like, Mr. Lawliet?”
“Various subjects. Physics, mathematics, detective fiction… I read at a tertiary level. I particularly enjoy Bertrand Russell and Arthur Conan Doyle.”
Quillsh smiled again, at Roger. “Most impressive, don’t you think?”
“Reading helps distract me.”
The men both looked keenly at Lucian. “From what?” Roger asked.
“I normally try to figure out everything that is going on around me, so I can anticipate anything that might happen. I can’t help it, I just do it, like blinking. It’s very tiring, especially when I am out of doors or moving around too much. When I read, I am able to focus on a single stimulus before me, and learn things that are interesting and helpful.”
Quillsh noticed a slight shift in Lucian’s body language. His command of grammar had slackened, his run-on speech resembled that of a regular child. At points, his voice wavered. This change betrayed a certain vulnerability in the boy that instantly tugged upon Quillsh’s heart. He dared not pry too much.
“Do you think perhaps this habit has worsened since the accident?” Roger suddenly probed.
Lucian said nothing. His head slowly lowered, and he pulled his skinny legs closer into his body.
Quillsh willed his breath and pulse to slow, wishing to become a serene, soothing presence for the orphan. He had learned from experience that children who suffered from trauma needed, more than anything, a level of comfort and empathy beyond verbal platitudes.
At length, Lucian spoke again. “Trains A and B are traveling in the same direction on parallel tracks. Train A is traveling at 60 miles per hour, and train B is traveling at 70 miles per hour. Train A passes a station at 12:20 P.M. If train B passes the same station at 12:32 P.M… then, at 1.44 P.M… they will meet and collide.”
His voice was steady, but had become imbued with a certain listlessness. He did not show his face. Quillsh tried to hold back from resting a comforting hand upon the child’s shoulder, but failed. Lucian did not shy from the contact, and remained perfectly still.
“I think that’s enough questions, Roger,” the man announced tenderly.
From his armchair, Roger inwardly buckled with guilt. He had not really meant to have been so indelicate. Earlier that day, he had been totally preoccupied with his goal of reining in Quillsh’s enthusiastic impulses, not to mention his bleeding heart. The process of selecting orphans to admit to Wammy’s house felt very much like escorting an animal lover to the dog pound, soothing the pathos that would no doubt arise from the young candidates’ tales of woe, and trying to prevent the possibility of adopting more little charges than could be realistically handled.
However, it was true that Lucian Lawliet was no ordinary child. His mother Rei would have been destined for great things, had her life not been cut so tragically short.
She had been one of Quillsh’s favourites. She came to Wammy’s House as a scared, doe-eyed little five year old, and Quillsh had doted on the shy girl like a daughter, teaching her how to laugh again. Her photo still hung on a prominent wall in his office. When he had been notified of the train wreck, Quillsh had cried and cried and cried.
From the subtle, ever-so-gentle connection that Roger had just witnessed, it seemed that history was bound to repeat itself. Hopefully, this time, providence would allow the youngster to thrive and grow, well into old age.
Before they left the house, Quillsh and Roger spoke once again to Levin, to ensure that all the paperwork would be arranged. As they headed for the door, light, uncovered little feet flew down the hallway.
“What are you doing!?” Came Levin’s reprimand.
“This is for you,” Lucian declared, handing Quillsh a rolled up piece of copy paper, “so you will not forget to admit me to your house.”
In rich black crayon, the boy had drawn an elaborate, scrolling letter ‘L’ upon the paper. It looked as if it had been painstakingly copied from an illuminated manuscript.
Quillsh held it to his chest. “Thank you. I will treasure it.”