[The level to which L is aware of his own denial is questionable. He seems to at least realize that there are contradictions and paradoxes at work, that he is struggling to resemble his typically logical and collected self. No one should have that kind of power over him; not Mello, and not any of his Bonded, and yet his panic at helming a situation with so many uncontrollable factors is battering him, and those attached to him, like so many violent waves in a storm.

He's angry. Frustrated. He has nowhere fair to fling that anger. Crookytail's hedonistic nazzling into his lap isn't worthy of it, and Myr, present and exhausted and trying anyway to help him sort this tangled mess, isn't either. The chess board is already scattered, and he's already scrambled something of his own with a haphazard potion.

He knows that Myr is right. There's so much he can't control, so many puppets dancing too far and breaking their strings off. He's not even babysitting his watch, which at least feels controllable even if he can't police the activity of others.]

The takeaway's that a reckoning is coming, then.

[Anything to stave it off. Anything to keep it from crushing him, and the others in his path.]

He saved my life, you know. At Alder's gathering. A shade's claw clipped me, tearing through a crowd, and he could have let me bleed out on the spot. Don't you think he would have? If he really intended to end me, here?