Drabble 1
L wakes up sweating, pressed against Light's back, the chain cutting into his neck.
He does not sleep, because he dislikes the nightmares that come with slumber, but at some point in the night, he had fallen victim to it.
He cannot help but hate himself for a fraction of a second.
Light turns in his sleep; the chain bell-rings as his arm snakes across tangled sheets.
Bathed in the laptop glow, Light looks beautiful and fragile, and L, his heart still thudthudthudding, tells himself that he Light could not possibly be Kira.
L finds comfort in this denial.
Drabble 2
The days in the jail cell are the worst--Ryuk's body has snarled itself up (slip-and double-knotted) for want of apples, and he can do nothing about it. The cameras are omnipresent, unblinking eyes, seeing all, hiding nothing, and apples never come with the sparse meals Light is given; Ryuk supposes this is because apples are hard to eat when your hands are chained behind your back.
It is unfair, but watching Light suffer (the shinigami has never noticed just how fragile humans are, before now) holds his interest.
Upside-down, Ryuk watches the boy and chuckles at his dwindling lifespan.
Drabble 3
Matsuda has never fired a gun before, and he is scared by the sonic boom and the recoil, but he hides it behind determination and anger.
He's something to prove, but the bullet is flying and he's not sure what to prove, yet.
It hits Light's wrist--the blood begins to drip, flow, stark and red and terrible.
Matsuda, Matsuda is scared to death, and the fear settles over him like a lead blanket, all weight and hindrance. But he is a hero. Near is safe. He's a fucking hero, but he feels guilty and nauseous and horrible--very unheroic.
Drabble 4
Sayu cannot help but worry about her big brother. He's become increasingly serious and solitary--he says he's studying, but she sometimes doubts this.
Light is probably just acting like a teenaged older brother. But she knows something's off about him, and it worries her.
Perhaps it's the Kira case keeping him so preoccupied. It would be so like him to slave over something like that, even though he isn't part of the official investigation team.
It does not, however, explain why he occasionally talks to himself, or his sudden craving for apples.
All logical explanations, but Sayu still wonders.
Drabble 5
Light feels that there is a gross, but appropriate, irony about him watching Ryuzaki's burial. It makes him feel like a voyeur--he's playing at L, but instead of watching life, he's tuned to Channel Death, and it's nothing short of wonderful.
But standing in the woods, watching dirt and shovels move in halos of artificial light, he feels like such a garden-variety serial killer. Burying corpses in the woods, as if he's a dog with a bone.
Still, he has won. Kira has defeated L, and he is smiling, watching the detective's top-secret burial, voyeurism of the worst kind.
Drabble 6
Misa feels guilty for disrupting Light's sleep schedule, but she really does try to be quiet. It's not her fault that he's a light sleeper –he rather lives up to his name, in that respect. But sometimes she just can't take being alone, and sneaks into the room that he and Ryuzaki share, curls up against the brown-haired boy, presses her nose against him and inhales the deep, musky smell–sweat, cologne, Light.
Misa loves such nights, even though she can feel him jolt awake against her, even though she can hear Ryuzaki chuckle softly when this happens . . . it's her sanctuary.