You Reject My Advances and Desperate Pleas [February 14]

[dead_black_eyes]

WHO: Lazarus Lawliet and YOU
WHEN: That loviest of days, February 14, pretty much all day
WHERE: Espresso Yourself
WHAT: Someone higher up on the management ladder saw an ironic valentine and thought it would be awesome if baristas handed out hand-made ones to customers on V-Day. As the shop's resident "writer," L was given some scissors and a magazine and tasked with this. The result... well. Tag this, if you really want to see the result.
WARNINGS: L would rather be detectiving. L's grasps on irony, humor, romance, and valentines are also tenuous at best, especially together. This could get dark.



Since hiring L, Espresso Yourself had been a very accommodating employer. Equal opportunity and largely catering to college-aged hipsters, their customer base and employees consisted predominantly of Millennials, and every stereotype had softly saturated much of the shop's attitude toward the generation. L had enjoyed leaning on crutches in the past, finding ways to pardon himself from the ordeals of living life and interacting with other human beings. He had used and abused diagnoses and disadvantages for this purpose, but Espresso Yourself, as a business, seemed determined not only to accommodate his needs, but to boost his self-esteem by making him feel important and necessary.

A young woman in a higher management position had beckoned him aside the day before, offering him an "important project" to keep such a "talented writer" busy. Following his most recent echoes, L thought he knew what actually comprised an "important project," but it had been awhile since his last echo, and it was beginning to frustrate him. He'd been a child-saver, a detective, and he'd been very good at what he did, and every day another pulse didn't occur was a day he was being denied and held hostage by his own life.

Excitedly, the woman had handed him a stack of magazines, some glue, some construction paper, and a pair of blunted safety scissors, explaining the project. Her over-bright eyes and too-wide smile told L that she knew about him, and had therefore dismissed him on an unforgivable level. The condescension was newly unacceptable to a man who knew that his preincarnation had been great, and he resolved to make the project uniquely his own.

Behind the counter, he has a stack of them next to the cash register. They resemble ransom notes more than valentines, but at least his standard look of utter contempt is dialed back a bit. You might actually feel like you can approach the counter today.

Comments

[dead_black_eyes]

"Brains are very nutritious. It's the best gift I could give an innocent animal. But like I said... Wrong. Taking a life isn't something a human should do unless the situation is very dire and there is no other choice."

[shiromadoushi]

"'Very dire,'" Bakura repeated with a snort.

[dead_black_eyes]

"Like, if your life is immediate danger and you're not stronger, then it can be excusable to use deadly force."

[shiromadoushi]

"If the life of those I care about is in danger, which it is as long as that ass is gunning for us, then it's still excusable."

[dead_black_eyes]

"That's excusable too. But ideally, everyone would get out of the situation alive, so that the justice system could handle it from there."

[shiromadoushi]

Another snort. "Justice system... Have you missed how corrupt the cops are here? The man murdered someone who had gone to him for help, then murdered his entire family and pinned it on someone else to try and kill him too! And he has the cops in the palm of his hand! Like fuck any so called 'justice' system is going to take care of that!"

[dead_black_eyes]

L was preparing to return with an answer, but his tea dropped from the fingers that delicately gripped it and he went ash-grey, shaking and breathless.

[shiromadoushi]

Bakura blinked, taking a small step back. "...you okay there...?"

[dead_black_eyes]

After a moment, L nodded stiffly, glancing down at the spilled tea.

"Think so... just a heck of a pulse..."

[shiromadoushi]

Bakura looked at him with a critical eye. "...over that. What I said, I mean. The hell did you remember...?"

[dead_black_eyes]

"I think... it was definitely about justice. I said I was justice, and then I tried to get someone to kill me." He paused, as if unsure whether or not he should say more about it.

"...it felt amazing."

[shiromadoushi]

....

"Tried to get someone to kill you," Bakura repeated, tone disbelieving. "What, did you think you were immortal or something or was past you as big of a nutbag as you are now?"

[dead_black_eyes]

"I don't know... I didn't have that much detail. I think I knew I was safe, at least... but I could feel my heart beating in my ears..."

[shiromadoushi]

"Adrenaline junkie..." Bakura sighed deeply. "Or just taunting the hell out of a guy who couldn't get you. Or that you were pretty sure couldn't, if you were still scared..."

[dead_black_eyes]

"Hey..." L protested quietly. "You don't know him. He probably had an excellent reason for it. Something to do with a case."

[shiromadoushi]

"The hell good reason could there be for taunting someone to off you? Just to see if he'd still try? Entrapment or something like that?

[dead_black_eyes]

"I don't know..." L said, appearing distracted as he nudged a dishrag from the counter onto the floor to start mopping up the spilled tea with his foot. "I don't have that much information. But it definitely accomplished something important, and if it felt good... that was just incidental."

[shiromadoushi]

Bakura sighed deeply, leaning back against the counter away from the spill. "Called someone's bluff or something, probably..." he reasoned before taking a small sip of his tea. "Or got him to make a mistake. That's normally how the shows go..."

He paused. "Or it could be how the other you died."

[dead_black_eyes]

"You don't know," L repeated firmly. "I'm not going to speculate wildly until I know more, and this person was me in another life."

[shiromadoushi]

"Isn't that what you do as a detective? Speculate until you figure things out?" Bakura returned idly, looking down at his cup.

[dead_black_eyes]

"Speculate, yeah... but not the way you're doing it. It's too random and unsupported... you have no evidence."

[shiromadoushi]

"Heh..." Bakura's chuckle was faint, but still amused. "As if evidence is ever anything with this sort of thing. You make guesses until something hits a nerve or you get an 'update' on your flashbacks."

[dead_black_eyes]

"This is my life we're talking about. I'm not going to assume that I was some kind of creep before all this, too. What are the odds?"

[shiromadoushi]

"Considering the rest of us? Pretty damned high."

[dead_black_eyes]

"That man? I don't know him, but he saved my life. He continues to save my life, every day, just by having existed and by having anything at all to do with me. So I say he was a hero. I say that he had his reasons. And also that I know better than you what was in his mind."