Disclaimer: I do not own Death Note.
A/N: Happy belated birthday, L! And... actually, it's your death day too! Have a horror fic!
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"Back again?" The voice resounded off the walls of the dark, abandoned factory in which he made his home. His voice, which had always been disturbingly like L's, was calm, amused, and, as always- and as L was himself- frighteningly aware. Awake, despite the self-imposed sleep deprivation. Brilliant.
B smiled dementedly as L approached almost blindly in the darkness; bare, callused feet tapping softly on the steel of the floor. The murderer's eyes followed every motion his idol made, flicking back and forth intelligently, missing nothing. He smiled wider, and with it, his nearly-flawless reflection of the older male was distorted by display of emotion that L would never have allowed to cross his features.
The detective shuddered despite himself, cold tendrils of what he vaguely knew as 'fear' slipping down his hunched spine. There was something about the eyes. B's eyes had been a light, clear blue when L had first met him. They were now burgundy-red as coagulated blood, and for good reason. One can only taste so much blood before one's body starts to reveal it.
BB smelled like blood, as well. The bitter copper tang made L's eyes water, his teeth ache, and his mouth salivate in retaliation. L swallowed.
"You always were a glutton for punishment," the murderer mused, laugher in his voice, bringing a hand to his scalp and clutching at his hair, grinning. He threw back his head and grinned at the ceiling for a moment, dreaming of something unimaginable and ending his laugh with a sigh.
The long, thin scar down L's back twinged, actively aching where it looped into a 'B' and fading away again where it continued to his waist. He suspected that he knew exactly what B had been remembering that brought such perfect ecstasy to his face.
The demented fit of jubilation having passed, he refocused his dissecting eyes on L. "So, how may I be of assistance?" the monster asked politely, eyes wide. "I assume you did not come here for the tête-à-tête." He sat on one of the many instances of broken-down machinery, unerringly similarly to L, smiling as if he had all the time in the world.
L shifted his weight and tried to pretend he hadn't. He slouched more than usual to make up for it and shoved his hated hands deep into his jeans pockets. "I have a request," he said at last.
"A request!" B proclaimed, mock-grandeur dripping from his voice. "Outstanding! State your desire- I would be delighted to oblige, if I am able." He looked at a fingernail and then attempted to clean it on a tooth with no apparent success.
L stared at his nightmare long and hard, trying to calm his heart so that his anxiety wouldn't creep into his voice or eyes or face. BB raised his eyebrows expectantly, widening his eyes further to look like L's and tilting his head in that peculiar way that people who knew L always associated with him.
Monster. Imitation. His own, personal demon. A nightmare brought to life. His nightmares themselves. When L slept, however rarely, he dreamed of Beyond and screamed. He woke up with his face and pillow soaked, and sometimes his sheets as well. BB, who was everything to him. Everything he hated, everything he obsessed over, everything he thought about in the long hours between two and four in the morning.
"Kill yourself," the older male said finally. His monotone, as always, did not fail him.
BB paused, thoughtfully. "Interesting. I must admit, that is not what I expected."
L said nothing. The silence in the factory that resulted was deafening. For a long moment, BB said nothing. He may have been listening to that silence, letting it permeate the conversation to fluster L even further. He may have just been listening to it because he enjoyed it.
When he spoke again, he was louder than necessary. He smirked a bit when L jumped. "So you wish me to end my life," he pondered aloud. "I am not opposed to this idea in principle, but I must have a reason..."
L waited for him to figure it out- he knew he would; he himself had taught the other man how to think. He had taught him how to think exactly like him, which had led to all of this madness, all of this murder. All of the blood that was, indirectly, on his own hands as much as on BB's...
"Oh!" the blood-stained creature said merrily after a moment. Hm. Not quite as fast as L would have figured it out, but none too slow, either. He put a thumb to his bottom lip and tugged on it, and L got to see in the mirror what it would be like to have streaks of blood on his chin. "I understand. I suppose I can do that. It would be mutually advantageous, after all. And I, of course, have no other desire than to please you."
He didn't mean to say it- it was an unbreakable habit, teaching B. "And how is that, Beyond?" Just like a teacher.
As L could not forget his past teaching B, B could not help but answer him as if it were one of the million hypotheticals that L had proposed to him over the years.
"The benefit for you- I will be out of your life; your demon finally put to rest. The benefit for me- I will win. I will have broken your Justice. You will never again be able to call yourself innocent. You will never again sleep peacefully, if you ever have."
L nodded approvingly. He managed to stop himself before he praised him.
"Very well," Beyond Birthday decided. All business, he removed a knife from his baggy jeans- jeans identical to L's. He placed the tip of the blade at his wrist and then paused, noticing that L was still there.
"You needn't watch me," he said amiably. "I assure you the task will be carried out. It is not as if you are forcing me." What he was really asking was: why are you still here?
L nodded as a general response but did not move an inch.
"As you wish," BB chuckled, and plunged the dagger into his left wrist. His eyes closed in bliss, his mouth opening in satisfaction as his fingers curled then crumpled. Slowly, pleasurably, he dragged the blade proximally, all the way to his elbow, splitting the vein lengthwise. Blood blossomed from the thin column where first cutaneous membrane, then connective tissue, then muscle tissue were irreparably severed. He cut deeply, unrepentantly, grazing the bones beneath. The radius, and he adducted his shoulder blades, arching his back, twisting the tip of the knife to the right in his arm to shred more tissue and scrape the ulna, as well. He moaned as if in orgasm. There was too much damage- death was assured. Even if L tried to stop him now, it would take a hospital, and there was no hospital close enough to stop the steady flow before B could exsanguinate.
The reflection stared at the original through now-sightless eyes, still smiling. He never gasped, he never cried, he never screamed.
"I hope this haunts you forever, L Lawliet," he said through heavy breaths.
As BB's body slumped over and the light left his eyes, as his heart shuddered to a suffocated stop, as the knife slipped from his long, thin fingers, and as Beyond Birthday finally, finally died, L replied, "It will."