Authors'Note: The title is from the song NightTime by The XX. Should you look up the song, pay attention to its lyrics; they're surprisingly appropriate.
This is just something written quick and dirty as a characterization exercise, mostly, but I do like how it turned out. It's complete for now, but we may eventually add a second chapter from Light's point of view.
Night Time (November)
He knew. He knew things had changed. He simply wasn't sure just when it had happened (slowly, he thought, a creeping change he hadn't picked up on for a long time) or why (because it made no sense, and everything made sense if you studied it long enough, didn't it?).
But at some point, he'd begun to like... things. He liked the way that Light could trace the same thought patterns and tell what he was thinking. He liked that Light looked at things a little differently and could pick up on things he missed on the first pass. He liked that Light could surprise him.
He liked the reactions he could get from Light. Light worked so hard to be charming and friendly and kind, and even that kindness seemed to be nothing but affectation, nothing but the way he'd learned to survive. He was dedicated to the mask he'd made, and it was so, so rewarding to make that mask slip, just a little, and watch his eyes narrow and watch his tightened lips try to keep from pulling into a full-fledged scowl. It was sharing a secret. It was letting him know that I know who you really are and knowing that he'd never let go of that and would pay attention all the more in the future.
He liked that Light paid attention to him, and that it was not out of awe or idolization. He liked that he could make Light watch him as closely as he watched Light. He liked that Light remembered small things, tiny things, throwaway things, and brought them back into play later; it felt good, to know someone else for whom everything was more meaningful than it seemed to be for most other people. And he liked when those things were about himself, like when Light remembered how many sugar cubes he took in a cup of coffee when everything was going well, or when Light passed him the chocolate sauce for his sundae without being asked.
He liked it when Light lost his temper - the fearless raw emotion of it, when he just couldn't communicate further with logic alone. He liked that freedom and wanted it, just a little, for himself. It was blessed and terrifying.
He liked watching Light sleep. He liked that Light trusted him (that Light accepted that he'd forced him to trust) enough to allow that vulnerability. He liked the rhythm of his breathing and the small twitches of dreams about his hands and mouth and eyes (though he never asked what the dreams were about, or if Light remembered them at all).
He liked that when he slept, sometimes he woke to Light staring at him the same way. He liked that Light never talked about it - not because he never talked about it, but because he sometimes saw Light wearing that same expression, and knew what he was thinking of.
He liked it when Light mentioned that they were friends. He liked it very much.
And he hated himself, and he knew that he should not like any of these things; at some point, vigilance and deception had become obsession, and that obsession was dangerously close to addiction.
There were things he disliked, of course. But they became increasingly understandable things, and they seemed to become less and less important as time went on.
Primary among the things that he disliked was that Light was, indisputably, Kira. That had been the source of their interaction, and it was wall between them. Sometimes he caught himself looking over that wall, or found a hole to look through. It wasn't nearly as disturbing as he thought it should be.
Finding out how Kira killed had almost broken the wall down all together. It was nothing. It was pushing a button. It was unreal. It was magic in the most basic and arcane sense, and humans were generally no longer trained to deal with such, through long lack of exposure. Psychologically, it was entirely understandable that Light had progressed as he had.
Because Light did want things to be better, for everyone in the world. He truly did. He'd become Kira knowing that he sacrificed himself, but he'd believed it the best course of action when faced with the choices he'd been given. Even the most questionable things he'd done had been because he'd been trying to protect what he'd established. He'd had no choice.
In that way, it was the fault of no one but L himself that any non-criminals at all had died. But he'd suspected that possibility even as he'd enacted those plans.
He'd deluded himself. Perhaps he was doing so again. That was all right; it was entirely as it should be.
It seemed entirely likely that Light, Kira, could understand that more clearly than anyone else. It would be best to talk about it.
He didn't. He didn't know how to begin. He thought about it almost constantly, but had no experience to draw upon for help, and no one he could ask without damaging Light in the process.
It didn't make sense that he wouldn't be able to reason it out, given enough time. And there was time, wasn't there?
It was all right, if there wasn't. It'd be no one's fault but his own.
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