Chapter Text
I didn't know he could hear thoughts.
Nobody told me that. That feels like information that should come with the job orientation. Here's your desk, here's your access card, here's the man in the corner who can read your mind, good luck.
Nobody said anything.
So I had absolutely no idea.
-
The first day I noticed something was wrong was a Tuesday.
I'd been looking at him, which, fine, everyone looked at him, he was objectively interesting to look at, that wasn't a crime.
And I'd been thinking something extremely normal and professional, like, why does he sit like that, that cannot be comfortable for his spine, and he'd looked up.
Directly at me.
With an expression I couldn't read.
I looked back at my file. My face was warm. Extremely normal. Completely fine.
An hour later I was thinking about the case, genuinely, actually thinking about the case.
And I had a thought that was something like if L would just look at the third entry he'd see the problem immediately, why hasn't he looked at the third entry, look at the third entry—
He looked at the third entry.
I stared at my screen.
Okay, I thought. Coincidence.
-
It kept happening.
I thought this tea is too hot, and Watari appeared thirty seconds later with a second cup at a lower temperature. I thought I wish someone would open a window, and L stood up and opened a window and sat back down without explaining why.
I thought, once, in a moment of weakness, he had really nice hands, and he looked at his own hands with a briefly puzzled expression.
I pressed my face into my file folder and stayed there for a while.
-
Here's the problem with realizing someone might be hearing your thoughts:
You immediately cannot stop thinking.
I spent the entire next day trying to think about nothing. Blank. Empty. White noise. Professional thoughts only. Case files. Timestamps. Statistics.
What I actually thought, in order:
Don't think about him. Think about the case. The case has timestamps. L also has timestamps, probably, he seems like someone who knows exactly what time everything happened. What time does he wake up? Does he sleep? He probably doesn't sleep. He'd look better if he slept. Not that he looks bad. He looks — stop. Timestamps. Focus.
He made a small sound from across the room.
I looked up.
He was looking at his monitor. But the tips of his ears were slightly pink.
I stared at the tips of his ears for three full seconds.
Then I thought, very clearly, extremely loudly, like I was shouting it directly at him:
CAN YOU HEAR ME??
He went very still.
I watched him not react with the focused attention of someone watching a bomb to see if it ticks.
Then, slowly, deliberately, he turned and looked at me.
His expression was unreadable.
Mine was probably not.
OH NO, I thought. Extremely loudly, almost like shouting.
He looked back at his monitor.
I looked at my file.
The room was very quiet.
-
I spent three days trying to have no thoughts.
This was NOT successful.
On day one, I achieved approximately forty seconds of genuine mental silence before my brain produced, completely unprompted:
Do you think he likes cake or does he just eat it because it's there? He seems like someone who has genuine feelings about cake. I have genuine feelings about him having genuine feelings about cake. this is a problem.
On day two, I tried thinking in a different language. I don't speak enough of a different language for this to work. I got three words in and my brain just translated back.
On day three, I tried to only think about the case. This lasted until he walked past my desk and I thought he smells like— stop STOP stop!!!!!!!
He stopped walking.
Stood there for a second.
Then kept walking.
I put my head on my desk.
-
Oh, finally, he came to me on a Friday.
I knew he was coming because I heard his footsteps and oh no oh no oh no approximately seventeen times before he arrived.
He stood beside my desk. I looked up. His expression was doing the neutral thing, which I had learned was not actually neutral.
"I need to tell you something."
"Okay," I said. Out loud. Professionally.
Please don't be what I think it is.
Please be something else. Please be about the case. Please—
"I can hear your thoughts," he said.
I stared at him.
I KNEW IT, I thought. Extremely loudly.
He blinked.
"You knew."
"I suspected," I said. Out loud. Then immediately thought: I suspected because you opened the window and because of the tea and because you looked at your own hands that one time—
He looked at his hands.
"Please stop doing that," I said, as I frowned and rub my eyes,
"I'm not — it's not deliberate. I can't turn it off."
"Since when??"
"Always. As long as I can see someone's face."
Oh, is that why he’s such a good detective???
Oh, wait.
Then I thought about EVERY thought I'd had in the past three weeks.
Every single one.
In sequence.
Oh.
My face went through several colors.
"You're—" He paused. His expression did something I couldn't identify. "You're the loudest person I've ever encountered."
I looked at him with guilt.
"Everyone else's thoughts are manageable. Background noise. I've learned to filter." He paused again. "Yours are not filterable."
"I'm so sorry," I said.
"Don't be."
"That sounds like a complaint."
"It isn't."
I held his gaze.
He held mine.
I was thinking about something. Something loud and clear and completely un-filterable. I could feel it sitting right at the surface, obvious, the kind of thought that might as well have been said out loud, given the circumstances.
He could hear it.
Oh, he IS hearing it right now.
I watched his expression do something careful and complicated and then settle into something I recognized from the past three weeks, the something without a clean label.
"Well," I said. Very quietly. "This is embarrassing."
"For both of us," he said.
"You've been hearing my thoughts for three weeks."
"Yes."
"All of them."
"Yes."
"Including the one about your hands."
A pause.
"...Yes."
I looked at my desk.
Thought, very clearly, directly at him, since there was apparently no point in doing anything else: so what are you going to do about it?
He was quiet for a moment.
Then, carefully, he pulled out the chair beside my desk and sat down.
Close.
The closest he'd voluntarily been.
"I'm still deciding," he said quietly. "The data is—" A pause. "Significant."
I looked at him sideways.
He was looking at the desk.
His ears were pink.
I thought, softer this time, less loud: take your time.
He looked at me.
The corner of his mouth moved. Barely. Almost nothing.
"Thank you," he said.
We sat there.
The room was quiet.
My thoughts were not.
But for once he didn't seem to mind.