[L's sopping a bit, the drips absorbed by his sleeves and his collar as he continues to take action, or at least... he tries to take action.

For a moment, he does think that he'll be murdered. Knowing what God is capable of, how he could surely unravel a molecule just as easily as mend it, he doesn't even tense. There's just a sudden rush of endorphins and a strange descending haze of preternatural calm. It's what happens to people in accidents, or rabbits ripped open by foxes. It is, in short, the body saying release your burden, because hope has already fled with it.

He tries to overcome it with will alone. God's touch is both hateful and sorely craved, and the paradox fidgets in the back of his mind as hair is smoothed away from a damp and ugly face, that not even a mother could love, in the end.

He closes his hands as the black-eyed man takes them, so they will tremble less noticeably. Loose fists at the end of scrawny wrists, half-hearted and conflicted symbols of resistance. They're just as easy to interpret as the Emperor's awful not-smile.

On the cusp of Heaven's Gate, did Applewhite wear that same smile? L reevaluates, regroups, and arranges his sharp and pale features into his closest facsimile of foreboding concern.]

It's human nature to strive... and to fight, when there's a better way.

[I'll fight you.]

Let me try, while we're resting. If I don't find what I'm looking for... I'll trust you.

[I'll let you.]

Like... Paul trusts you.

[He does trust you, in some way, though he might not choose that word.]

Is he out there, right now, with something you're owed?

[This is like defusing a bomb, he thinks. Maybe one like the one they fled; maybe one worse.]