Flattery (Flattened)

[Natto]

Title: Flattery (Flattened)

Author: Natto

Fandom/Original: Death Note (Another Note novel influenced)

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Rating: PG-13

Wordcount: 9,458

Summary: L has a cold, and B makes it his personal mission to catch it, dragging an unwilling A along for the ride.

Authors Notes: This is my first time writing both A and B, as well as my first time writing anything that could be reasonably posted on this forum. It's dedicated to Dove--first of all, it was a Christmas present for her, and second, I never, ever would have been brave enough to write anything like this if not for her encouragement. Dove, you are amazing. Anyway, I hope you all enjoy this, and that you'll leave me a comment or two!

~`~`~

“Hahh…hahh…hahchoo!”

If B’s count is accurate (and it undoubtedly is), then that’s the seventeenth time L has sneezed in the past half-hour. This is not typical of him. To B’s knowledge (which is somewhat lacking in this area if he’s honest with himself—until today B has been more interested in L’s academic and professional records than his medical ones) he does not suffer from any allergies. Unless he does. If he does then he does and that explains all the sneezing, but in any case, this is abnormal behavior on the part of L’s nose.

Up until now, he has not dared to question L, or even enter the room. Instead he’s pressed against a nearby wall, stealing glances every time L makes a significant sound. Which today seems to involve an excessive amount coughing, sniffling, and sneezing. Unless B is not nearly as skilled at interpretation as he believes himself to be, this means that L has been infected with some sort of pathogen—rhinovirus? influenza? something more sinister? Either that or he’s faking it. For…some reason. He might need to fake sick for an upcoming case. But this doesn’t sound fake to B, and the wastebasket full of sodden tissues doesn’t look fake either. He drums his fingers against the wall, wondering if it’s alright to ask about his health. He might not know much, but he does know that L is prone to frequent illness, so such a question could easily be considered annoying or redundant. When L sneezes again (louder, this time, and closely followed by three more that almost sound like explosions) B decides to risk it.

He pushes open the white, splintering door and pads softly into L’s bedroom. The detective is huddled at his desk, snffling audibly. A thin, blue-yarn blanket is draped across his slumping shoulders, and he is pressing a crumpled tissue to a red-rimmed, swollen nose. “Hello B,” he says, voice thick with congestion. “What are you doing here?” After speaking he collapses into a coughing fit, presses his mouth to his knees. He says, “I don’t think you should be here. I seem to have come down with a cold, and I wouldn’t want you to cahh…ahhchoo!” He stops after sneezing, doesn’t bother to finish the sentence. B smiles and swears that he has an excellent immune system, tells L that he shouldn’t worry, B won’t catch a thing.

“Is there anything I can do for you?” he asks, failing at forcing his twitchy lips into a warm, sincere smile. “Perhaps I could get you some tea, or some more tissues? Then again, your nose has already become rather chapped…you probably shouldn’t be blowing it so often. I could get you some medicine, would that be better?”

L responds to all these generous offers by coughing into his pulpy, near-useless tissue. He tells B that while it’s kind of him to offer his services, he really doesn’t want B risking his health to do things that aren’t strictly necessary. “I can get my own supplies,” he croaks. “I’m not so sick that I require assistance.”

Though this makes B sizzle with rage, he does his best not to ball his fists. He keeps his temper, gnaws his lip until the skin comes off and says brightly, “that’s fine. I wasn’t trying to imply that you were a helpless invalid, I just wanted to know if there was any way I could help. Anyway, L, I’d better get back to my studies. Since you’re ill rather frequently, I think it’s wise for me to be prepared, don’t you?” There was no point to that barb and B knows it, but the rage needed to come out somehow. It’s not true anyway, L has time left to solve cases, shove cake down his glorious, gluttonous throat.

Right now his throat is raw and scratchy and coated in snot. B fights the urge to make him tea despite his protests, to spike it with something that will make him even sicker. L is staring at him with a gaping mouth that’s more likely be the result of a blocked nose than shock—he’s used to B’s thoughtless cruelty. But he says in a small voice, “that was uncalled for. You’re right though, you should return to your studies. And please, think before you make comments like that. It can easily be taken the wrong way.” B doesn’t think that there’s a right way to take something like that, but he says nothing. Slips out the door with a manic smile stretched across his face.

~`~`~

B’s room is not particularly close to L’s, due to his parents tragically surviving two years too long for a nearby room to be open. Luckily A, one of the few people in Wammy’s House who will tolerate B’s presence for more than five minutes, has a room only two doors away. Though B doesn’t think it wise to spend more time with L at the moment, he wants to keep an ear out for him. According to the medical records that he’s just hacked into, (and according to Watari during his many lectures about better health management) L has been treated for pneumonia on three occasions, and bronchitis on at least four. He’s also the frequent victim of sinus infections, and he has more colds per year than B has had in the past decade. B had known that L was unwell more frequently than most, but he had not known the extent of it. L is apparently quite fragile, and despite himself B finds himself infuriated. B boasts a stellar immune system, he rarely falls sick, and he’s never experienced complications like the ones that litter L’s records.

Watari would say that this is because he works endlessly, eats terribly, and bathes rarely. B would say that it’s because pathogens adore L, and they don’t want to leave him. Apparently, they can’t stand B, and that simply isn’t fair. It’s bad enough that B’s hair is stringier than L’s is, and that the circles under his eyes almost always result from makeup. It’s bad enough that he can’t keep his eyes open past 1 AM, and that he doesn’t like cake no matter how many times he tries it, but this, this is unbearable. It means that their bodies operate in a fundamentally different way. And it means that L could very well die before B proves how much better he is than A as a replacement.

And so, he drapes himself across A’s ugly, ratty orange quilt, grinds his head into the ground as A tries to ignore him. B won’t let him, B alerts him to the detective’s every sniffle and cough, and when that’s not happening he drones like a wasp about whatever pops into his head. Sometimes the things he says are benign, like “what do you think of the new jam Roger bought for the kitchen? Personally, I’m not a fan. I don’t like jam with seeds in it, they get stuck in my teeth and it takes forever to clean them out.” But sometimes, they aren’t so benign. “L is going to die from this,” he spits, violently shoving the second volume of A’s 26-volume encyclopedia set in front of the first. He knows this isn’t true, but he likes the nervous, watery look in A’s hazel eyes.

“That’s ridiculous,” A says, shoving his glasses up so far that the lenses leave a dent in his forehead. “If there’s anything wrong with him, then it can’t be anything more than a cold. Colds don’t kill people, B.”

“Oh, but you’re mistaken!” B shouts, leaping to his feet and pointing skywards, kicking A’s quilt to the floor. A collects it quickly, folds it up neatly and places it back on his bed. He doesn’t notice what B’s done to his encyclopedia, and B does his best to keep from laughing. He says, “colds kill people all the time. People with compromised immune systems, infants, the elderly, not to mention they can cause complications in anybody if they aren’t treated properly. All it takes is a little misdirected snot and boom! you’ve got pneumonia. It is entirely possible to be killed by a cold. Just because you’ve been lucky so far, A, doesn’t mean that a sniffle can’t be a death toll!”

A heaves a huge sigh, goes back to his desk and searches for a pen that B saw roll onto the floor five minutes ago. He says, “well, L isn’t any of those things, is he? It can happen, but it isn’t likely, so can we just drop the subject? He’s L, he can’t die yet, and he couldn’t possibly die from something so…” He stops, kicks the pen out from under the radiator. B takes this an opportunity to pounce.

“What do you mean he can’t die yet, he’s L! He can die whenever he wants to! And would you prefer he die defeated, die because he lost a case and someone killed him? Do you really want there to be someone alive in this world who can legitimately claim that they killed L? They’d go public with that, they’d ruin us! You’d have to start from scratch as a detective, and I’m not confident that you could do that. You’d fail, and you’d end up flipping hamburgers for a living. Is that what you want to do with your life, A? Do you want to flip hamburgers?”

“I don’t think I’m ever going to understand your thought process,” A says, visibly shaken in spite of his snide tone. “Listen, it doesn’t matter. L will be fine. Though, you should probably leave him alone for the next few days. You’re difficult to deal with at the best of times, but you’d be insufferable to somebody who’s ill.”

B cackles, flings himself back onto A’s bed and rolls off of it, leaps to his feet. Once he’s standing he says, “I have to spend some time with him A, and you will too. We’re not going to be able to catch anything if we ignore him completely.

“Catch…anything…B, no, that’s stupid! I know you want to be L’s clone or something, but this is going way too far. Neither of us have time to get sick, we have exams coming up and besides, I doubt L would approve of it.”

“The chances of L approving of anything I do are so minimal that I don’t even consider it a factor anymore,” B grunts, crossing his arms and making a vain attempt not to pout. He won’t admit it, but he does crave the detective’s approval. However, B’s behavior is so bizarre that the best he can hope for is attention, recognition. Right now, L is ill and B isn’t, and that’s unacceptable. He’s got to emulate L in every way, and he’s got to do it better than A can. However, a victory would be rather hollow if his semi-rival doesn’t participate. “Listen,” he says, curving his annoyingly straight back to lean into A, whisper into his waxy ear. He debates telling him to get a Q-tip, but decides that it’s more important to tell him the plan. “You and I are going to catch L’s cold. It will be a competition. Whoever can most closely replicate his symptoms is the winner. The winner is someone who can ask the loser to do his chores for the next two weeks. The loser is someone who has to say yes.”

“That is the most ridiculous plan I’ve ever heard in my life,” A scoffs, flipping angrily through a book on behavioral psychology. “I won’t participate. You can go ahead and do whatever you like—I am going to laugh so hard when you get too sick to study properly, and I beat your exam scores once again.” A probably thinks he’s dissuaded B, but the very fact that he’s attempting to do so spurs B on further. His lips curl into a manic grin, and he asks A to, at the very least, join him in observation of the great detective. “It will be educational,” he says. “L is still working on a case in spite of his illness, and if we’re to succeed him, then we should know how one goes about accomplishing that. You should learn that especially, A.”

Though A most likely knows that it’s a trap, he grudgingly agrees. A has a tendency to give in completely to his illnesses, sleeping for several days straight over mild infections. This is pathetic, and it thrills B to know that this flawlessly intelligent boy has a weakness of any sort. But he’ll pretend to be A’s friend, or at least someone who’d like to help him correct his flaws. So long as it gets him his way, that is. And this is working, A is padding down the hallway towards L.

~`~`~

They sit huddled outside of L’s doorway, notebooks in hand. A is scribbling notes about God knows what—B has no idea what he could actually glean about L’s ability to tolerate disease just by looking at him. B is taking notes too, but his are of a more concrete variety. He’s got to document L’s symptoms exactly, because he can’t just catch a cold, he’s got to catch L’s cold. Unfortunately for B, what few colds he’s had have been concentrated largely in his throat, and that doesn’t seem to be the case for L. This will make things quite a bit harder, but B is always ready for a challenge.

The open package of aspirin indicate a headache, a fever, or both. L is shivering slightly, and L’s room isn’t cold in the least, leading B to suspect a fever. The rapidly dwindling box of tissues, as well as the empty box and soaked contents filling the wastebasket indicate moderate to severe nasal symptoms. The fact that these used tissues are indeed soaked means that his nose is behaving more like a running faucet than a stoppered bathtub. The first, empty box of tissues is decorated with pictures of cupcakes, and the second is a plain brown color, which may mean that L is growing rather frustrated with the situation, and no longer cares tremendously about aesthetics. The brown box bears the label ‘with aloe’, whereas the cupcake box does not appear to. The skin around his nose is now as red as blood…okay, diluted blood, B just wanted this to involve blood somehow. That explains the aloe. He sniffles every five seconds, blows his nose every fifteen. Despite this, he continues typing with remarkable speed—B would think that the time needed to blow his nose would slow him down some. He types through coughing fits too, coats his keyboard in germs when he fails to cover his mouth. It’s only when the coughing fits are so intense that they snap him forward that the detective ceases typing. He stops when he sneezes, too.

If B is to emulate L’s illness, he’s going to have to find a way to sound like him. L’s voice is rather flat and unexpressive, and B is still trying to tamp down his own screechy enthusiasm. He isn’t sure if he can exert such control over involuntary functions, especially when he doesn’t have a tremendous amount of practice with them. Of course he’s coughed, sneezed, sniffled, and blown his nose before, no one goes through sixteen years of life without doing those things, but he’s never put conscious thought into it. Last night he had coughed a great deal after his apple juice went down the wrong pipe at dinner, but he hadn’t thought about how it sounded, he’d just coughed. Now, he listens. L’s coughs vary—sometimes they tear through his throat like wild beasts, and sometimes they sound strangled, like there’s a rat living in his bronchi, struggling for freedom. His sniffling sounds like someone trying to sip the dregs of a long gone milkshake with a straw, and when he blows his nose it gurgles and squeaks. He generally has to spend a few seconds dabbing at errant globs of mucus that cling to his upper lip afterwards. B finds this utterly disgusting.

He doesn’t know if he can imitate these things. However, he thinks it might be possible to imitate the sneezes, and given that they’re happening approximately once every two minutes (more if you count the fits of three to four!) it seems like it might be beneficial to attempt it. They don’t sound particularly unusual—the pattern seems to be one drawn-out sneeze with a lot of hitched breaths and vain attempts to stave it off, followed closely by two or three rapid-fire explosions. B attempts to write down what this sounds like, for future reference, (something like ahhh hehhh chew and then hichoo! hichoo!) and he suppresses a giggle because it looks almost angry.

He wants to collect more information, find out for sure what the aspirin was for, but A is growing impatient, A is tapping his foot on the floor. B doesn’t want L to hear anything (though his head is likely too filled with snot for him to hear much) and he doesn’t want to wreck his chances of making A participate. He doubts that their brief exposure to the germ-ridden detective will make either of them sick, but if it anyone falls ill it’s going to be A, not B. “Let’s go,” he says with a smirk. “I think both of us have seen enough for now, don’t you? We need to get back to our studies.”

~`~`~

When L shows up for dinner at the orphanage dining hall, it’s an utterly delightful shock for B. L rarely enters the dining hall at the best of times, preferring instead to receive meals in his room when he’s home, which is almost never. B thinks it rather inconsiderate for L to engage in communal eating while he’s a walking germ factory, and so he saunters over to his idol and presses a crumpled napkin against his broiling cheek. “What are you doing here?” he asks, letting the napkin flutter onto L’s food tray. “Don’t tell me that you mean to give the rest of us your cold. I know that you’ve been trying to improve upon your selfish personality, but L, this really isn’t the best way to do that. Try sharing something that other people actually want.”

L makes a pitiful attempt to snarl at him—instead he ends up spiraling into a six-minute long coughing fit. B stares lazily at his nonexistent watch, steals a few sips of L’s tea. “I…you’re right I just…wasn’t really thinking…” L rasps, swiping a strand of saliva from his mouth. “I just thought I should have some actual food for once…usually when I’m here, I just have Watari raid a nearby bakery. It’s been difficult to think clearly, lately, I…all my coherency is being used up on the case I’m working on, you understand. I should probably take my food and leave before I…ahh hehh…” The hitching breath doesn’t lead anywhere, and L swipes irritably at his likely prickling nose. “Well, it was a pleasure meeting with you B, but I—hichoo! ahchh!” He stops talking, buries his face in a fistful of tissues.

“Are you by any chance allergic to the word I?” B asks, lifting up a piece of L’s dark, greasy hair. “Because you seem to be sneezing every time you say it. Well, not every time, but close enough. Do you think it’d be possible for someone to be allergic to their own eyes?”

“I doubt that very much,” L says, voice so clotted with congestion that B can hardly understand him. “Listen B, I have a lot of work to do, and I’ve got to get back to it immediately if I plan on getting any sleep tonight. And as much as I hate to admit it, I’m in dire need of sleep.”

“Oh, of course you are,” B croons sweetly, dramatically grasping at L’s tissue-filled hand. He sneaks a few into his sleeve as they’re speaking, smiling grotesquely the whole time. “You probably haven’t had a proper rest in days, and you’re sick, it only makes sense that you’d be worn out by now. You don’t have to do all this work on your own, you know. A and I, your protégés, we could help you. We’re in dire need of more hands-on experience anyway, and what better time for that then now? You’re home for once, and I’m sure that you could use the help.”

L snatches his hand away, narrows his eyes at the decrease in their contents. “Thank you very much for the offer B, but overseeing your activities would be a distraction, and would require more energy than I currently possess. Until you’re fully trained detectives, you’re less a help than you are a hindrance.” He pauses for a strangled coughing fit and then says sheepishly, “no offense.” B wonders if he ought to act wounded just for fun, but he decides against it. He doesn’t want to hear what his mentor has to say about the stolen tissues, and anyway, L looks distressingly tired. “I…hate to cut this short…” L groans. “But I need to…need to work, and…” And with that, he turns around, and walks a crooked path out of the dining hall. He’s forgotten his tray of food, and B decides he can use this to his advantage.

~`~`~

And he does. B starts off by eating nearly everything that L has touched. It’s the standard food of the sick, a rapidly cooling bowl of soup, and a cup of tea that’s just as cold. (Though to L’s credit, or perhaps just the dining hall’s, the soup is minestrone rather than chicken noodle.) He’s eaten maybe two spoonfuls of the stuff, but two is plenty. B downs the rest of it, drains the tea even though he hates the cloying flavor of vanilla and hazelnut. Finished eating, he shakes the snotty tissues from his sleeve, and lets them fall onto L’s discarded tray. He rolls them over the surface, rubs it so hard that the mucus looks like little more than a water stain. His hands are sticky and repulsive by the end of this, so he rubs his eyes and sticks a finger in his mouth, winces slightly at the taste of L’s snot. When he sees A walking into the dining hall, highlighting something in a bulky textbook as he walks, B puts the tray on the top of the stack. Just as planned, A picks it up unthinkingly, and starts wandering aimlessly around the dining hall, collecting miscellaneous bits of food as he goes.

If this isn’t enough to get at least one of them sick, then B will be very shocked indeed.

~`~`~

Come the morning, B’s sinuses are as clear as a cloudless sky. His throat feels mildly scratchy, but he knows that that’s due to screaming. The previous night he had had one of those pesky nightmares about his dead parents that his subconscious always seem to think are a brilliant idea. And so he’d yelled a lot, kicked the blankets from his bed and woken up in a sweaty heap on the floor. He’s already gotten over it, moved on to trying to figure out how to accomplish his plan.

He isn’t ill, and this bothers him. B’s immune system would be the envy of anyone who actually bothered to envy such things—it defeats germs with precision, and it doesn’t lose its mind and attack things like grass pollen and peanuts. As such, the lengths he’s gone to have yielded no results whatsoever. But that doesn’t mean that A has not succumbed. B creeps into the sleeping boy’s room, hides his physics workbook behind the radiator just for kicks. A’s breathing seems slightly off, and he’s sleeping with his mouth open, a puddle of drool and mucus collecting on his pillow. This doesn’t guarantee anything—A does suffer a small collection of allergies—but it’s certainly enough to get B’s hopes up. He bristles a bit at the thought that A has fallen sick before him, but he anticipated this. A’s immune system is simply weaker than B’s is, there’s no getting around this unfortunate fact. He’ll simply have to do it better than A does, even if he can’t do it sooner.

“Wake up,” B says, swinging his arm above his head and reaching down to tug on A’s hair. “It’s almost seven; you’re going to be late for class if you don’t get up. If Princess A didn’t need a 45-minute shower every morning then Prince B might let her sleep, but as is, Prince B would be negligent of his princess’ needs if he did not wake her up.”

“Sleep…princess…B what the fuck are you talking about…?” A mumbles with a congested snort. “Oh great…” he groans. “My nose is really stuffy; I hate it when this happens. Ugh, this sucks, I can barely even breathe. Where are my…B do you see a package of tissues lying around anywhere?”

B sees them, but he kicks them under the bed. He won’t have A’s nose attaining blood-red perfection before his own does. “No,” he says. “Haven’t seen them. Have you decided to participate in my challenge after all? I’m absolutely thrilled to hear that, A! Congratulations on a wise choice indeed.”

“I didn’t decide to do anything,” A croaks, rubbing his nose in exasperation. “Your challenge is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard of in my life. I just…maybe my allergies are acting up or something. It’d be weird because they’re usually a springtime thing, but it could be…or maybe I just caught his stupid cold on my own. Unless you—B¬—you wouldn’t, would you? You weren’t…you weren’t deliberately trying to make me sick, right? That would just be…that would just be wrong and…you’re not, right? B?”

“Of course not,” B says with as bright a grin as he can manage. “I would never do such a thing to you. But it seems that you’re already ill, so is there really any point in resisting my challenge? You may as well find some way to enjoy your illness instead of lying around in bed for days on end. I hope you don’t plan on doing that again, A.” B leans closer to his friend, spider-fingers resting on his shoulders. He says, “it’s rather pathetic.”

A clears his throat, shrugs B off in an attempt to appear more annoyed than embarrassed. “It’s the only excuse I ever have to take a break. You don’t understand, you don’t work nearly as hard as I do. Don’t judge me.” B grips his shoulders again, shakes him hard to watch the numbers swirl above his head. “Would you stop that?!” A yells, trailing off into a coughing fit as soon as he does. “Oh fuck, I think I really am sick…”

“You’re already winning the competition,” B hisses, narrowing his eyes. “You’re ill, and I, tragically, am not. You may very well defeat me whether you like it or not, but if you agree to compete, you’ll get two weeks without chores. It would be unwise not to compete with me. I am quite certain that L would not approve of his protégé letting such an opportunity slip through his fingers.”

A nods slowly, swipes at his nose with his sleeve. This doesn’t mean that he’s agreed with B’s proposition, or his logic, but it does mean that B has made progress. When A lets out a sneeze that sounds absolutely nothing like L’s, B corrects him; “you need to draw it out in the beginning, and try to be a little less high-pitched”, and A responds with another nod, this means to B that he’s convinced him.

~`~`~

By the next day, A’s stuffy nose had progressed to a full-blown cold. He shows up for class sick for the first time in recorded history, apparently having decided to take B’s deceptively well-meaning advice into account. The rest of the class is less than thrilled about this—the orphanage is littered with neurotic children, many of whom are germaphobic—but A is trying hard to contain his disease. His used tissues are deposited into a small plastic bag that he keeps in his desk, and his coughs and sneezes are muffled into the crook of his arm. This makes B giggle a bit, hand over his mouth and canines poking over his bottom lip like a vampire. L would never be so considerate, and when B finally attains this blessed ailment, he won’t be, either.

He hasn’t attained it yet, and this annoys him to no end. He is growing weary of A’s company, and it isn’t as if he can trail L instead. Despite his illness, the detective is spending a few days meeting with a French military official who claims to know something about the case L has been working on for the past week. Watari had apparently advised him against this meeting, claiming that travelling to France wasn’t wise in his condition, and that it wasn’t really fair of him to spread his germs to military officials who probably had quite a bit of physical labor to attend to. L left for France this morning all the same, and B is stuck trying to catch the virus secondhand.

At least it’s easy to follow A. Aside from mandatory activities, which B is generally scheduled for as well, A doesn’t do much of anything. He doesn’t go to the dining hall for his meals (and B uses this as an excuse to barge into his room with a tray full of things he knows A doesn’t like to eat) and he doesn’t go to the library as he generally does after lessons. Instead he heads straight for his room and burrows under his blankets with one of the many books that he feels compelled to read over and over again. B has read all the books they’re assigned, but unlike A, he only reads them once. He doesn’t care to be better than A, only to match and possibly defeat his mentor. And his mentor only reads through material once.

Two nights of this and B still has yet to fall ill. To make matters worse, A’s cold appears to match L’s with alarming precision. This is an illness that varies tremendously from person to person—in some people a cold looks more like the flu, in other’s it’s a mild inconvenience, and in B’s case they’re generally misinterpreted as strep throat. A appears to have even less patience for his congestion than L had, if that were possible. He holds a tissue to his nose at all times, and when he isn’t speaking he’s trying to rid himself of excess snot. Though his sneeze is still more high-pitched than L’s is, that can be explained by the differences in their voices in general, and it isn’t like B’s voice is any more similar to L’s than A’s is. His cough sounds like it tore from the great L’s throat, and it occurs at approximately the same rate that L’s had. Unless something changes very, very soon, A is going to win this bet.

B isn’t going to do that whiny brat’s chores for two weeks or even two minutes. It doesn’t matter if A has the least chores of anybody in the orphanage, that this will hardly make the slightest bit of difference in B’s daily routine. What matters is that B will not lose to A, not at this. Because this is crazy, this is something that no one would consider a real accomplishment, and as such it’s right up B’s alley—not A’s.

Sometime around two in the morning, A succeeds in sneezing the way L does, a drawn out ahhh hehhh chew in place of his customary high-pitched hehchh! Though it probably wasn’t intentional, it’s right on the mark and as such it sends a spark of rage down B’s spine. His response is to march into A’s bedroom. The boy is shivering under a pile of blankets, apparently having developed the same fever that L tried to quell with aspirin. B tosses the blankets from the bed, crabwalks on top of him and then lets his shaking muscles give way—B needs more practice with crabwalking. And so he’s lying on top of A, crushing his glasses into the bed and hoping he’ll break them. Knowing he probably won’t, because they’re plastic. “A,” he hisses, digging the back of his skull into A’s cheekbones. “It’s about time you hand it over. I won’t have us fighting on such an uneven plane. I haven’t even had the chance to try and replicate L’s symptoms, and you’re already doing splendidly.” A struggles underneath him, shoves him to the side and stares at him past glasses that are wildly askew.

“Give me the virus,” B insists, pinching A’s diluted blood nose. He leans in closer, presses jam-specked lips against A’s chapped and spitty ones. Aside from the time he snuck into L’s bedroom and pecked him quickly on the lips while he was sleeping, this will be B’s first actual kiss. Given B’s lack of appeal to the general populace, it is not unlikely that it will be his last. Because of this, and because of the fact that the longer he does it the more he’ll be exposed to the virus, B savors this kiss. He tongues the backs of A’s unbrushed teeth, tries to see if he can stretch his tongue to his uvula. This doesn’t work, so he holds his friend so close he thinks he’ll shatter. A’s lips part briefly, long enough to let a tongue in, but he soon begins to struggle. B keeps going. It’s only when he’s shoved aside once more that he stops. And when he does he stares into A’s snarling, tear-streaked face with the same grin he once saw plastered to the face of a convicted rapist. “I’m not giving up, A,” he says, grin falling abruptly flat. “I don’t care what I have to do, I will have L’s illness. It isn’t right that you should get everything while I’m left with nothing, just because you’re first in line and I’m only second. Do you know how good second is? There are hundreds of children in this orphanage you know, second is a major accomplishment! I’m not going to be outdone by you, again.”

And with that, he stomps off, face caving in in a vain attempt to stave off tears. He can’t leave on that sour note, though. Can’t let A think that this is actually about something meaningful. And so he leaps back into the room, pounces on A’s not-yet-replaced blankets. This time his smile is as bright as the sun. “Princess A is so cute when she’s angry,” he says, pulling at a lock of A’s unwashed, unbrushed auburn hair. “It’s a challenge, but Prince B will win her heart yet!” A responds to this by sneezing in his face, and B considers this a great gift, and a testament to their friendship.

~`~`~

B stays up until five in the morning, runs laps around the orphanage with no coat on, straight after washing his hair. He doubts that these methods will help much, but they certainly can’t hurt. And he is rewarded for his dedication. B wakes up at seven o’clock with a hacking cough and a fiendishly sore throat. When he realizes this his glee forces his fists into the air. He croaks a cry of celebration, claps his hands like a child. But his ecstasy doesn’t last for long. He might be ill, but his symptoms are a far cry from his idol’s. His throat is a painful, prickling mess, but his nose is an afterthought—yes, he’s slightly sniffly and congested, but this doesn’t have much of an effect on B. He doesn’t even feel the need to use a tissue, that’s how mild that particular symptom set is for him. L and A have killed trees with all the tissues they soaked through. He had planned on attempting to replicate L’s sneezes, but as it is he doubts he’ll have the opportunity. He lacks a significant fever, and he has an additional symptom that takes some time for him to notice—his voice is almost completely gone. Little issues from his throat but squeaks, croaks, and coughs, and the words he does manage sound strangled and bizarre. L had been perfectly capable of speaking, even if he was sometimes stuffed-up enough to render his words unintelligible.

He should have anticipated this. This is simply how colds manifest themselves in B’s body. He can only recall one time when he had experienced something like what L and A are now, and that was when he was too uneducated to appreciate it. He’d considered it a messy nuisance, and had whined endlessly as he sneezed his way through a flurry of tissues. Now he’s cursing himself for not appreciating it when he had it—perhaps if he hadn’t been such a little bitch about it, his body wouldn’t insist on depriving him, now. Besides, the symptoms he does have are equally unpleasant—it’s not as if B likes getting sick in the first place! He would much rather not be sick at all if he can’t do it the way L does!

All isn’t lost. He can still turn this around in his favor. He just has to figure out how.

~`~`~

B spends every spare moment outside of classes plotting ways to change his symptoms. It’s easy for him to devote all his time to this—his laryngitis makes sure that he won’t be speaking much to anybody, and since this joyful little virus is apparently spreading like wildfire, their teachers have been lenient about homework. Everywhere B goes he sees somebody coughing or sneezing, and he can’t help but twitch with jealousy whenever he sees them chained to a handful of tissues. His heart goes out to those unfortunate souls like himself—voiceless and coughy and nothing like L. It’s pitiful. Bad enough to be sick, absolutely abysmal to oppose L while doing so. B doesn’t like spending time with these people. He wants solutions, not emotions, and for that he has to get to work.

It’s harder than he thought it would be. There are concrete ways to acquire illness in the first place, but tailoring your symptoms is another matter altogether. For a while, B is at a loss for what to do. That night he orders kimchi from the local Korean restaurant, basing this decision on the fact that spicy foods cause runny noses. However, eating it turns out to be completely counterproductive. Not only does it completely clear his sinuses for a good forty minutes, but it makes his throat hurt so badly that he nearly claws it out. He tries making himself sneeze by sticking a Q-tip up his nose and twirling it around, but it only happens once, and the resulting sound is so unlike anything that ever came from L that he doesn’t have it in him to continue.

There doesn’t seem to be anything he can do to change his symptoms save for faking it—B starts carrying vast amounts of tissues despite not needing them, and he sniffles dryly whenever he remembers to do so. Pretends to be loopy with fever, and strains his voice to speak, ignoring how it sears his throat to do so. He tells A with a hideous croak that he thinks he might beat him, and A responds by asking just who the hell is judging this competition, anyway. He sounds like he’s had cement funneled into his sinuses, and this makes B shudder with jealousy and rage. It doesn’t help that A keeps fixing him with death glares every time they catch each other’s eyes. Perhaps he’s reading too much into their exchange of pathogens—after all, most people do place some emotional weight on lip to lip contact. B isn’t going to pretend that he didn’t get some enjoyment out of it, but he isn’t going to let A know about it, either. And he isn’t about to let A know that he’s losing the fight.

But he is losing. His illness seems to be of a variety utterly foreign to L’s, and when L returns from France sicker than ever, this seems all the more apparent. The first thing L does when he walks in the door is sneeze, as are the second, third, fourth, and fifth things. This quickly gives way to a coughing fit, which pleases B, since one of the only symptoms they seem to share are rib-shattering hack-fests. When the coughs subside, he waves weakly in B’s general direction, and then stumbles towards his bedroom. Though B knows that an invasion will not be appreciated, he darts into the room all the same. “How was your trip?” he croaks, drumming his fingers impatiently against the door frame. L shakes his head and says that he wasn’t able to accomplish much.

“I wasn’t able to make it to more than one meeting,” he growls, burying his nose in a fistful of tissues. After emptying what looks like a large chunk of brain into them, he says that five hours into the trip his illness had worsened significantly. “I ended up stuck in bed the whole time, and we only came ho…hoaaachoo! hehchuh!...excuse me.” He sniffles, blows his nose again. “We came home once I could drag myself onto the plane. I think this is either the flu disguised as a cold, or a cold that’s mutated into pneumonia. I’ll be going to the doctor tonight to find out.”

B twitches when he hears this. He doesn’t want L to have pneumonia, because that means he’ll have to find some way to acquire it himself. His patience for this competition is wearing as thin as the raw flesh in his throat, and all he wants to do right now is down a boiling cup of tea and stay in bed for a while. What he wants doesn’t matter though. If L has pneumonia, then B’s lungs will have to drown in mucus too. But he doesn’t say any of this to L. Instead he gives a wan smile and says that he’s sorry L’s gotten worse. “I’m sick too,” he says, voice creaking like an old staircase. “My throat is killing me.”

After coughing for three minutes L says that his throat is hurting him badly as well. “I told you to stay away from me,” he says, wriggling his nose to stave off an impending sneeze. “Illness is contagious, the last thi…heh…hehchoo!...thing I want to do is spread this around the orphanage. Whatever it is, it’s apparently rather debilitating—temporarily so, of course, but all the same. Everyone here has work to do, and I don’t want illness slowing them down.”

“Oh, everyone’s already sick,” B says with a shrug. “You’ve started an epidemic, L! We all do so want to be just like you, so it’s quite kind of you, re…” His voice gives out, and really ends with a high-pitched squeak. He coughs his voice back into commission, thinks he’ll get himself that tea once he’s done speaking with L. L narrows his watery eyes at him, and opens his mouth to ask a question. But before he can get a word out, he too lapses into a coughing fit. It lasts long enough for B to dash out of the room. He’s not about to explain himself to L, not until he’s succeeded in a perfect imitation.

~`~`~

L returns from his doctor’s appointment with the news that he does not, in fact, have pneumonia or the flu. Instead it’s just a particularly wretched cold, of the sort that Watari says he ought to expect if he stays up for days and doesn’t shower or eat anything except cake. He appears to be rather embarrassed about this, and he only tells B because B pesters him for as long as his voice will allow him to. It makes sense to be embarrassed—a great detective wouldn’t like to think that he was forced into bed for several days for a mere cold. It is not, in B’s opinion, a mere cold. First of all, his inability to imitate it completely has rendered it more of a rival than anything else but second, L seems genuinely, dreadfully ill. With the amount of time that’s elapsed, he ought to have made a full recovery, but he hasn’t even started in that direction. His coughs sound increasingly breathless, and his nostrils and upper lip are ringed with a much deeper shade of red then before. He sneezes twelve times before he even reaches his room, and apparently lacking in tissues, he leaves a slimy trail of mucus on his sleeve.

B stands by the wall outside his mentor’s room, rubbing his own throat to stave off a coughing fit. L must be feeling really ghastly, because it’s only 8 PM and already he’s lying in bed, ripping a tissue from a turquoise box in time to catch another sneeze. The tissue is annihilated by it, soaked into uselessness, and L fishes out another one immediately and drains his nose. B stares transfixed, trying in vain to figure out how to transform his own nose into such a congested, dripping mess. He has no idea, and knowing that he doesn’t know makes him grind his teeth in exasperation. He considers stealing L’s snotty tissues, shoving them into his sinuses and hoping that that would spark something, but before he can take any action, A shuffles over, looking nearly as ill as L does. Half his face is buried in a handful of tissues, and by the sound of A’s snorting and sniffing they’ll be soaked in no time. “What are you doing here?” B snaps, ignoring the sting in his throat when he speaks. “Can’t you see that L is trying to rest?”

“I have something I need to speak with him about,” he says icily, a fit of coughing momentarily breaking his resolve. “It’s none of your business. Stop trying to talk to me, I can barely understand you, and I doubt you have anything good to say, anyway.”

“I bet it’s about me,” B rasps, flattening his body against A’s and letting a manic grin wrap its way around his face. “I bet you’re going to tell him about the bet, aren’t you? If not that then…are you going to tell him I kissed you? You reciprocated, you know. You didn’t try to stop me right away. Part of you must have wanted it; otherwise you never would have let me get away with kissing you for even a moment. Does L really need to know that you’re attracted to me? Shouldn’t we keep that between the two of us?” He could say more, but it sears his throat so badly that he shuts his mouth, gulps a few times in the vain hope that his saliva will fix this. A is staring at him, open-mouthed with shock and stuffiness. Abruptly, he pushes past him, screeches to L that they need to have a conversation about B. B cannot allow them to have this conversation. He doesn’t care if L sees him trying to stop it, it just can’t happen. And so he lunges for A, knocks his rival to his knees in front of L. L leaps out of bed, leans against the wall to steady himself once he does this. Gasping, he implores them to stop, and after stealing A’s glasses and stomping briefly on the small of his back, B relents.

“What is the meaning of this?” L says with a sniffle that sounds like he’s trying to suck up an ocean. “What on earth are you…A, to your feet, B, come here. Both of you...ahh…heh…hehchuh! hichoo! ehchoo! Ugh…sorry, both of you need to explain yourselves. Now.” B doesn’t want to explain, and for a moment he considers clamping a hand on A’s chapped, gaping mouth and dragging him out of the room for a further thrashing. But he knows that L isn’t likely to let this go—he might not care tremendously about his successors, but the fact that he doesn’t care and ought to care might be enough to make him pretend to. And after A finishes emptying his streaming nose into a tissue, he’s ready to talk.

“B has been doing something absolutely reprehensible,” A chokes, narrowing his eyebrows and clenching his shuddering fists. “He has been purposely spreading disease. He got himself sick. He got me sick. He’s probably gotten half the orphanage sick! He’s doing it because he wants to be like you, and he wanted me to compete with him. You need to do some…somethi…ihh…hehh hehchoo!” He stops and trumpets angrily into his wad of tissues, stomps on B’s foot once he’s finished. The pain hardly registers, though he knows that A is stomping hard. That sneeze sounded so much like L’s do that it’s almost intolerable, B’s fingers are itching to wrap themselves around A’s scrawny neck. Instead he returns the foot-crushing, glad that neither one of them is wearing shoes. “I hate you,” A growls, rubbing one foot against his ankle, unconsciously imitating yet another one of L’s gestures. Mocking B with every motion, flaunting his superiority. B wants to wrench his arms from their sockets.

“Is this true?” L asks, perching on his bed like an awkward bird. “B, you must realize how dangerous that is. I don’t claim to know everyone’s exact medical histories, but there are very young children and elderly people here, and I’m pretty sure that one of the children has an immunodeficiency disorder. You could very well be endangering their lives. Besides, it’s just plain creepy.” L is obviously disturbed by this, and he seems to be trying his best to minimize the symptoms of his illness, to hide anything that B could possibly want to imitate. He isn’t doing a good job—all he’s able to do is bury his face in his knees and keep it hidden. “Please tell me that A is mistaken,” he sighs. “This would be a new and impressive height of insanity if he weren’t.”

“Why would I make this up?” A shrieks, voice catching in his throat and causing a coughing fit. “I’m not looking to get anyone in trouble. I wouldn’t bother with something so petty. Something just needs to be done about this. I mean, what’s next? What if he decides to do this with a serious illness? What if you get hurt and he decides to start injuring people?”

L looks up again, stares at B with a combination of menace and exhaustion. B figures he’d better step in and explain himself. After all, it boils down to mere flattery—B wanting to be like his idol, and to prove that he can do it the best. He hasn’t spread it to everyone, only A, and he has no idea how A came to the conclusion that he is responsible for his cold. There are so many other conclusions that could be drawn here, and B almost finds it offensive that A would choose this one. The idea of speaking makes him shiver, but all the same he croaks, “A is indeed mistaken. I only tried to make myself sick. As you can see, I strive to be like you in every way.” He pulls on the hem of his white, long-sleeved tee-shirt, pokes the zipper on his pale blue jeans. Slouches further because he had momentarily forgotten about L’s rotten posture. “This is merely another attempt at imitation. It would be unacceptable for me to be healthy when you are unwell.”

“You and I will have to have a long discussion about what forms of imitation are acceptable, and which are not,” L says, tearing another tissue from the turquoise box. They’re almost gone now, and B wonders how many boxes he plowed through while in France. L holds the tissue over his nose and sneezes harshly, follows it by a long fit of coughs. “Right now it’s a little difficult to hold a conversation, but let me just say, this is unacceptable. I want you to immediately cease all attempts to imitate me in this manner. You seem to already be sick—you must make an effort to recover quickly. Don’t try to match symptoms, don’t do anything unless it aids your recovery. Illness is nothing but a nuisance. It prevents work from getting done. I might very well lose this case, because I wasn’t able to obtain all the information I needed, and they might be able to hide things before I return. Watari’s there trying to make up for my failure, but it may not be enough. Illness is failure, B. You’re lucky it doesn’t happen to you often. Don’t try to change that.”

Of course, B has to bow to this request. Though he doesn’t agree with L in any sense (why should he toss out the bad and keep the good, what B wants to be is L, not an excellent detective or excellent human being or even someone functional and alive. If L somehow contracted HIV then B would want his blood, if he got cancer B would eat it. If L claimed to hate Nirvana, B would cease to reference their lyrics! He’d do anything, anything to become this man) he knows he has to acquiesce, for now. After all, how can you be just like someone if you violently disagree with them? And so he promises L that he will cease this foolishness immediately, and that he won’t try to do it again. Next time, B won’t involve tattletales like A. Next time, he will do this alone, and do it better. B will not be defeated, not even by the word of L.

With a sunny wave he says, “I hope you feel better soon, L,” and then he plods towards his bedroom, crawls under a messy pile of blankets and digs around under his pillow for cough drops. Finding nothing, he falls asleep to the sound of his own hacking coughs.

~`~`~

The next morning, B wakes up with a stuffy, streaming, stinging nose. Almost immediately upon drawing his first waking breath, he feels a sharp prickle deep in his sinuses. Despite the fact that he’s been waiting for this, he flares his nostrils in a half-hearted attempt not to sneeze. Because L had done that at least once or twice, and it hadn’t helped him a bit. B lacks tissues and B doesn’t want to get snot everywhere, so he cups a hand over his mouth and nose and lets loose. “Hehhchuh! Ahhchoo! Hichoo! Ahh…ehh…hehhh…hehchoo! Hahhchh! Choo!” Once he’s finished he stares at his filthy hands and rubs the mess off on his pant leg. His nose still burns, warning him that another fit is on the way. He sniffles loudly, relishing the way the snot sounds as it’s slurped back into his sinuses. Breathing through his nose has become impossible—he’s so stuffed up that closing his mouth means asphyxiation. He might as well try to breathe through his elbows. When his throat is occupied by coughs, he nearly suffocates.

This is it, the Holy Grail. The closest B will come to acquiring L’s symptoms. His sneeze might not be identical, but it’s close enough, and L’s had varied a bit since his last official observation. His throat still pains him greatly, but L had said that his throat hurt, too. What matters is that his nose is so blocked that when he ventures out for tissues, it takes three tries and a five-sneeze fit to blow it successfully, and that when he does succeed, he wrecks the tissue. He’ll be killing trees in no time, just like A, and just like L. He may not have beaten A, but a benevolent god has taken pity on him—he now possesses L’s most prominent symptom. And oh, he’s going to enjoy lording this over both of them.

His nose burns again, and he sneezes into a waiting tissue. When he’s finished he can hear L doing the same. With a crazed smile, B continues the endless task of draining his sinuses.

Edited December 31, 2008 by Natto

[littlesneezer18]

Oh MY!!!

[dove]

Natto, I know I already thanked you for this (well, if you consider stuttering out random bits of appreciation through my drooling epic fangirl seizure to be ‘thanking’ you) but let me just say again how much I truly appreciate and adore this ridiculously amazing fic. I was more than happy to be your inspiration behind it, and I’m so glad that you were brave enough to post it here. *love&epic hugs*

[Cerulean Flower]

I agree with the other comments. You've written a wonderful piece. I love Death Note and I'm happy there are several fics on the forum! Thank you!

[doggo]

I don't know the characters A and B, but the way you're using the scenario to get into maximum fetishistic detail without making it sound forced is ingenious. This is a daring, twisted (in the best way!) fic and makes me feel all kinds of naughty.

Seriously, that cold. A work of art. That's how they should be. I have a major thing for the whole can't-breathe-thing and the way you're indulging my sick mind with it is just GAHHHH.

Besides, the ending is great! Thank you for posting this.

Edited January 1, 2009 by Shiny_bug

[lalaland~]

There are soooo many things I love about this fic♥♥♥♥♥♥

LKJJBFJKSHNUOFSBKSBSJKBACCBSBSACSABSASAJSAJSFSJFS1!!!$*^%

coherency...not....functioning x.O

[Natto]

littlesneezer18: Oh my indeed. XD; Sounds like you liked it. I'm glad! <3

Dove: I'm so happy you liked it. Seriously, you have no idea how happy it makes me that you did. It's somehow much easier for my first post to be a present then it is for it to be something I wrote on my own, but I hope to post some things of my own volition soon. I had so much fun writing this, I can't even tell you. You have been so encouraging and amazing and you just rock so hard. <3

Cerulean Flower: Thank you, I'm glad you liked it! I'm really happy that there are a decent amount of DN fics here too. I hope to contribute more to the cache in the future!

Shiny Bug: YOU! Ahh! Fangirl moment! You're actually the means through which I found this forum--your DN fic came up in a google search. And I loved that fic. So I'm spazzing happily over the fact that you not only read, but liked my fic! You really should read Another Note, B is a great character. This is my first attempt at writing him, and I guess if someone who doesn't know the character liked it, it went over okay! And writing about psychos who want to imitate everything someone else does is a GREAT way to faciliate...er...observation. Otherwise it's hard to logically describe these things... And...you liked the cold! Whoo! I tend to be over the top with things like this, I like to make them really SICK because of it, even if that's not terribly realistic. Anyway, I am honored that you liked my fic! *bows*

lalaland: XD; Coherency is for quitters. You're the girl who wanted to write about Mikami, right? I cannot wait to see what you come up with there.

Edited January 3, 2009 by Natto

[Melody]

Ok so I am a huge fan of death note and I know this is old but this is an amazing fic! One of my favourites on the whole forum! I applaud u for doing such an amazing job and I was wondering...deathnoteowner? Have u read this fic

[SpookyScarySkeleton]

Ok so I am a huge fan of death note and I know this is old but this is an amazing fic! One of my favourites on the whole forum! I applaud u for doing such an amazing job and I was wondering...deathnoteowner? Have u read this fic

. Oh jeez someone knows me. Why yes I have read this fic before, it's amazing. But I think that was when I was just lurking around random sites a year ago almost, when I did not have an account on this site. When I'd lurk around serching "death note sneeze fanfic" on google. Thank you Melody for reminding me of this fic, it's a true masterpiece

[Natto]

Thanks, guys! I've written a lot of other Death Note fic on this forum, actually. I'm glad you enjoyed this one. It's been so long, I completely forgot that it even existed, but I remember writing it while trying to sell stuff at a craft fair...ahh, memories. Anyway, thanks for the sweet, unexpected comment! A masterpiece, wow, dang. Also, DeathNoteOwner, that is exactly the search term that led me to this forum in the first place. XD;

[SpookyScarySkeleton]

Thanks, guys! I've written a lot of other Death Note fic on this forum, actually. I'm glad you enjoyed this one. It's been so long, I completely forgot that it even existed, but I remember writing it while trying to sell stuff at a craft fair...ahh, memories. Anyway, thanks for the sweet, unexpected comment! A masterpiece, wow, dang. Also, DeathNoteOwner, that is exactly the search term that led me to this forum in the first place. XD;

. Have you posted this others?. If so then link them id enjoy reading them. Well yeh a masterpiece hah. Yeh I'm pretty sure "death note sneeze fanfic " lead me here or "one direction sneeze fanfic" or "avatar sneeze fanfic". My google history is erm weird .... *whistles*. Fanfics..

[Natto]

Okay, so the longest one I wrote is in the Adult Board, so I can't link you to that. I didn't remember that, so sorry if I made it sound like I had more material for you than I had. Here's what I do have. One is a drabble thread http://www.sneezefetishforum.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=32912&hl=, and the other is about L needing to fake an allergy for an investigation and trying to do so by attempting to catch a cold from A. http://www.sneezefetishforum.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=33127&hl= Enjoy!

[Melody]

Omg thank u for the other links now I'm excited