I don't own a thing.
I think this was because I've always wanted to see this pairing. I'd love to see more. Mikami really is one of my favorite characters, and he deserves so much. There are 5 parts to this story, but they're more or so progressions in Teru's mind rather than chapters. (Warning: No actual penetration occurs... sorry. In my next fic.)
1. Denial
2. Bargaining
3. Anger
4. Depression
5. Acceptance
(This story involves a playlist series that I will accompany with most of my stories. To receive the playlist for optimum viewing pleasure, get in touch with me.)
Also, this story is meant to be what you make of it. It's up to the viewer on why or how or what's causing this to all happen. Enjoy.
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Self-Induced Euthanasia and the Five Stages of Death
Part I: Denial
God does not exist.
No. He does. Of course he does. He's going to save me. Won't he? Haven't I served him well? Didn't I? DIDN'T I???
Mikami tore at his hair and pulled small chunks of it out. His head flew around spasmodically and his body shook uncontrollably. He screamed and kicked at the small hard bed and it flew a few feet in the air and bounced off the concrete walls of his cell.
His body contorted wildly and his spine stretched as he covered his ears and screamed for god to save him. His hands trembled and his lips quivered in desperation—chapped and dry. Like the rest of his body, screaming for life.
"GOD! DON'T LEAVE ME!!!"
He pounded on the cellar door. The door that was 3 inches thick. One that locked from the outside.
His fists collided painfully with the concrete and he banged on the door hard enough to where his knuckles and joints started to become bloody and raw. He scratched at it until his nails split and kicked at it until he couldn't stand up anymore.
Teru fell to his knees, exhausted. His body sunk into itself, and his moist forehead fell against the icy wall. He panted and his mind raced, his eyes darting around refusing to believe his surroundings.
His eyes shut tight and he bit his lip. Chills crept up his back and he held onto himself. A tinny sound came from a speaker on the ceiling, and a cold voice trickled mercilessly out of its heart.
"Mikami. You've yet to await trial. Please cease all masochistic behavior. You will be given the death penalty soon enough."
It was that young white-haired boy again. The one that brought an end to the justice he was trying to accomplish.
L.
He buried his head in his hands.
That was it, of course. The end. No cry for help could save him. No one would listen, because he was everything that he loathed in a human being. He had become the despicable scum of the earth he had tried so hard to eradicate.
I'll be saved. I know it. I did well. I did.
I must've.
And like the voice of god, that thing called L spoke again, as if it was watching his very thought process.
"The world will be a much better place without you in it."
And with that, Teru curled up on the floor with shame.
Part II: Bargaining
Dark hair hung over his eyes as he drifted in and out of sleep. His body was sore and tense, and he rolled over, his spine popping in a few places and he crawled steadily toward a bundle of blankets on the floor. He was shivering and tears clung to his lashes. As he breathed in, mucous rippled and he coughed thick and painfully. His knees drew up to his chest and he prayed for someone. Anyone. Anyone to recognize that what he did was right and to thank him.
He wanted the tender touch of another. He was desperate for the comfort of someone who recognized his greatness. His intelligence, wisdom, beauty… anything.
Like whenever his god would visit him and give him this when he was doing well.
But that man wasn't god. That man was a fake, and Teru had fallen to his seduction. But he wanted desperately for God to hear him. He would do anything. He didn't want to believe he had been wrong all along, and he would do anything to have God ease his suffering.
Help me not feel anything anymore God. Please. And give me the life I deserve. Please.
Where was God when he needed him?
Please come to me. Don't leave me.
He rolled onto his back and his eyes shut again.
"You've been alone for a long time, haven't you? Wanting to bring justice into the world?"
At first he thought it was the speaker talking again, but it was a different voice, and it sounded clearer. It was also deeper and less bitter than the other one.
Teru's head tilted towards the side, and his neck was so stiff it was painful. But he tried to lift his hand up, but his arm was sore and it flopped down helplessly. Mikami tried to open his eyes but he couldn't.
"And because of that, it was so easy for you to fall victim. You needed someone. But your god failed you."
Shut up.
"He was just another murderer."
Anger etched upon Teru's face and he flung an arm upward in a pitiful attempt to strike whoever was talking. His heart raced and his head felt dizzy like this was a nightmare and he couldn't move. He fell over onto his stomach and his breath was knocked out of him.
"To you, I'm the devil aren't I?"
L.
Lucifer.
"It was never my intention to humiliate you or hurt you."
Mikami's hands gripped the concrete floor and he used all the strength he had to edge himself away from the voice. He was only capable of moving a few centimeters, but fell short from the crippling pain along his muscles.
He panted and his eyes grew watery. He hid behind his hair in disgrace and prayed for the voice to leave him.
"You're L", Teru said. It was more a statement than a question. His voice was shaky and raspy, and it hurt to talk.
"Yes."
The fallen god pursed his lips and his eyes fluttered to a squint. He made out a silhouette through his thick eyelashes.
"The boy that has you in confinement is just a makeshift copy of me. A successor. A tool used to my bidding", L continued.
Teru tried to get a better view of the unmoving, hunched form and his brow creased.
"Like how you were to your god."
Mikami grit his teeth. Do not speak of that maggot you piece of shit.
"But he isn't your god any longer, is he?"
The voice was beginning to get on Teru's nerves, and he covered his ears in irritation. But he couldn't hide his infamy. He shut his eyes and tried to turn away as he curled into a fetal position.
The waxy shuffling sound of bare feet crept near Teru's collapsed form and delicate fingers pushed back the fallen one's moist tresses from his eyes. The unexpected tender contact calmed the man's raging mind.
As the warm fingers brushed his forehead, his muscles lessened their tension and he opened his eyes into two dark cesspools staring back at him. They gazed through him inquisitively and Mikami suddenly felt humbled.
Tears formed in glassy shaking fountains in his dark eyes, and Teru extended his arms to attempt to touch the white angular face that floated in front of him. His face contorted and his mouth opened into a desperate frown and his eyes grew wide with fear and pain while a vein threatened to burst in his forehead.
"Save me."
The serene face with darkness plaguing from their eyes grew blurry and distorted through the Teru's tears and near-sighted vision as it backed away in the darkness. But Teru tried to stop it from leaving him. He managed to get on his knees in desperation and flail his arms around blindly, though there was nothing there anymore. But he called out to the wide black eyes that bore into his soul. The annoying stoic and beautiful voice that unscabbed his misery. He wanted to feel those long pianist fingers just for a brief instant again. Just to feel that this was real.
His usually tranquil and serious face grew distorted in melancholy again and tears leaked from his eyes. Maybe this was another form of torture for being one of the worst criminals to have visited this world.
Before he could relinquish in his sorrow, he fell onto the floor in exasperation, and closed his eyes. All the while, praying to be rescued.
Save me.
He cried himself to sleep.
Part III: Anger
Mikami slid his glasses higher on the bridge of his nose and he flicked the newspaper up to a stiffer position. He started writing on a paper next to him and he moved a piece of hair out of his eyes. His demeanor was calm and professional, despite being locked in an underground cell with no direct contact to the outside world. He was fine, for the time being. You can't spend every living moment in despair.
The speaker buzzed and out leaked the chilly voice again.
"That is quite a short will Mikami."
Teru didn't even bother to glance up. The corner of his mouth twitched and he rubbed his nose.
"There is no one to leave anything to. This is sort of pointless actually."
"It's a shame you have to say that."
Teru rolled his eyes, annoyed. Is this pathetic child actually trying to make casual conversation with me? Even though he arrested me and he knows I'll be on death row? A pretentious little bastard, isn't he?…
"If there is any—
"How many criminals do you talk to in person, I wonder? Not many I suspect, because you probably feel safe and secure behind those big adults and that speaker, and I'm sure a computer screen too."
He lifted a brow; the boy is trying to mock me by speaking with me. What an arrogant little shit. The nerve… If he wants to talk to me, he'll have to listen to me.
The speaker was silent for a moment.
"I've just gotten word that you will not stand in a trial, but be sentenced to death directly."
Mikami's expression went from collected to hateful in an instant. He clenched his teeth and all the muscles in his face tensed as his eyes bulged out.
"GODDAMN YOU!!!" Teru flung the chair he was sitting on at the speaker and it was knocked off the wall and busted in half in a splitting 'CRACK' on the floor.
Near popped the head off of his toy robot in anger.
"Rester! Gevanni! Sedate Mikami! NOW!"
The sudden outburst knocked the tall American men out of their seats. This abrupt spark of rage from the small boy actually unnerved them, and for one to deal with Near, they usually had to be very collected.
Mikami panted and his face was curled into a horrible scowl. He hunched over with his back slowly moving up and down as he inhaled and exhaled, and his face hidden in shadow.
The door burst open and Mikami was flung to the ground from the relentless force of the two men slamming into him. In an instant, he was pinned down, his glasses were knocked off, and his face now starting to bruise once it hit the floor, while his arms were almost pulled out of their sockets. He caught a sudden glimpse of something long and thin shining in the dim incandescent light from the lone light bulb on the ceiling.
A sharp pain stuck the side of his neck and he cringed until the tendons stuck out of it like tight ropes. He kicked and flailed trying to gain the upper hand, but he felt as though his body was trying to move through sludge and he fell to the weight that seemed to become unbearably heavy, wrestling him down.
As his body submissed and felt frozen and dense, his mind kept racing and yelling inside, trying desperately to kill these two men with his wrath alone.
I'll kill you… I'll kill you… I'll kill you…
They stood up slowly, staring into his hateful eyes. The younger and darker haired one rubbed some blood off of his lip and he gazed at Mikami, pitying him. His tall form was only a black blur to Teru's wavering eyesight.
Teru reached a hand into the air shakily, his heart thudding frantically at first, but beginning to slow. His face couldn't hold his odious expression much longer as the muscles began to give in and he couldn't hold his arm up anymore. He longed and prayed he had his fingers wrapped around one of their necks, but his body was losing strength. Though his mind was still feral and violent.
The older and better-built man simply stared past Teru and turned around to leave, the younger one following him and they both locked the door with no look back. Their obscure forms leaving his periphery of vision.
How dare you run away from me… I'll murder you both…
His body felt bound and stiff, and his mind began to slow. Mikami's eyelids hung and threatened to shut, hoping they could do so forever. But he fought on, denying and defending himself against death.
He knew not where his mind led to as it trailed into its paralysis.
---
The air wasn't quite as damp and stuffy as he had remembered. It wasn't as cold either, which was refreshingly relaxing. Just the right temperature…
"Are you tired of eating that stale bread and tap water?"
Teru's eyes flung open and he saw the hazy darkness surrounding him. He instinctively felt around for his glasses, but someone else placed them on his eyes.
He blinked and sat up, looking into the wide soulful eyes of that one before.
"L?"
The other man smiled at him—albeit, slowly and crookedly, as though it was something hard for him—but it was there. He placed the tip of a delicate finger to his lips. He got up closer to Teru and crouched down next to him, with his knees drawn tight up to his chest.
Those large beautiful eyes shone like beacons through Teru and he said, "Well, are you?"
For the first time, if not for a long time, then ever, Teru smiled. Wholly and truly. Not a vile wicked smirk; not a grin of reverence and blind worship; a smile of empathy and sweet joy.
Someone… cares…
"I'll take that as a yes." So the one originally called L leaned over and picked through a black box filled with something. He didn't rummage through, he picked at it. Handling things ever so gracefully with the tips of his fingers, touching it as little as he could.
He held up a strawberry by the long cut stem with the tip of his thumb and forefinger. The deep juicy red fruit dangled from his slender hands tantalizingly, and Teru could see every bead of moisture and every seed upon it. His mouth was dry and he tilted his head up as L held it over his mouth.
"I usually don't share these, but I'll make an exception with you."
Mikami took what he thought was a fruit so delicious, it should've been forbidden.
His teeth clung to the fruit first, holding it gently between them, and the tender skin of it trembled between his incisors, until giving in to the pressure and split slowly into two pieces. It was tangy and sweet, and very moist. As he chewed, the juicy sweetness erupted in his mouth, filling it with a succulent saccharine taste, sliding down his throat. But the ripe strawberry was ingested all too fast, and he wanted more…
Mikami's eyes rolled back and a weary smile carved into his face. His eyes shut and he groaned, "More…" He opened them again when his wish wasn't answered, and he gave an amused frown.
The quirky man with the wild black hair was busy being ravenous with the rest of the strawberries. It wasn't subtly sexual; it was just teetering on the edge of animalistic.
Teru craned his neck, "So… You aren't going to share any more of those?"
L picked his head up, "Hn? Why? One wasn't enough?"
The man with the glasses let out a single chuckle, but he smiled all the same. He hid behind his hair and savored the moment.
The one with the wide eyes put a finger to his mouth again, "Hmm, well, I think I should be going."
Teru's head jolted up more exaggeratedly than he would've allowed someone to see, "What? Why?"
L gave a mischievous smirk that seemed to hide so many secrets behind.
"I need to reconcile the situation. I'll be back. Maybe."
Mikami would've tried to stop him, but as soon as he tried to get on his feet, L turned his back to him and strode onward with his shoulders hunched and his head tucked in, his bare feet sliding against the floor, into a foggy darkness.
Teru's eyes suddenly darted towards the small black box left on the floor. It contained a single strawberry. His instincts told him to inhale the fruit right then and there, but he fought it. He lolled down next to the box and put an arm around it, feeling the very form of it to prove that this might actually be real. Against so many odds, this should make no sense, and shouldn't have happened. Then why did it?
Sleep overtook him, but he didn't know if he was going to wake up or have his first dream for the night.
---
His slumber was interrupted abruptly by strong hands, and he woke up in an instant as he was shaken.
There was no explanation for why he was forced into wake, but before he could protest, his hands were handcuffed behind him and he was dragged toward the door.
For some reason he glanced around fearfully, not because of what was happening to him, but because of something else.
No. The box. Where is the box?
But alas, the light was dim and he didn't have his glasses on, but at the last second, right before the door closed, he could've sworn he saw the vague red shape, sitting in the looming shadows.
And then it shut, as he was taken into a hallway, with no idea as to what would happen next.
He was shoved onto his feet, and his glasses were thrown on his face. His hair was askew and there were deep pits that held his dark slanted eyes. This was all very apparent as he looked into a nearby mirror as he was brought into a large foyer littered with toys all over the floor.
Then a colorless wavy haired head turned around and Mikami met two large soulful eyes, not unlike the ones he stares into with so much wonder. He knew the genius hidden behind them, but there was also an ignorance to the wisdom that he knew this being could never possess like the one Mikami met.
And he hated how this boy tried to be that man.
Mikami's face turned into a horrible scowl, and he showed nothing but fury to the boy who sat hunched over in front of him. Mocking him.
The boy's face cracked a grin that would've normally appeared cute, but now seemed malicious to Teru, and he spoke.
"You claimed I didn't have the courage to speak to you face to face. Well here I am. You are below me; you are a criminal. I do not fear anyone inferior to me."
Teru felt helpless with his hands behind him, unable to be useful of any sort. But he couldn't just stand this child ridiculing him, with the same expression many other boys would have when they tortured Teru as a boy.
"Do you have nothing to say to me now that you're here?" The boy twirled a wisp of white hair around his finger, and the grin still stuck, if not grew wider.
Mikami bared his grit teeth.
"Did your god fail you?"
Mikami's breathing started getting ragged.
Near tilted his head back in defiance and said, "I know you hate Light Yagami for doing all of this to you, but you see, no matter how disgusting and pitiful he is…"
And out shone the white-haired boy's own wrath.
"You're just the same as he is. A criminal that has every right to be deleted from this world."
Teru snapped.
In a fraction of a second, he swung his arms over his head, unhinging the ball from the sockets of his shoulders in two painful pops, and he brought them back in together in two even more sickening ones. His face looked demonic and inhuman as it contorted into something violent and malevolent, spittle running down his chin, and his red shinigami eyes shone like beacons in the pale light.
Nate River.
His hands gripped the albino boy's thin neck and wrung it tight, burying his thumbs deep into Near's larynx. The boy struggled, trying to gasp for breath, but his frail body could only buck in unsuccessful protest as one hand clung to dear life on a toy robot.
Gevanni and Rester would've knocked Teru down, but they couldn't risk injuring Near, so they tried to pull Mikami off and break him away from the boy, but there was no escaping the man's death grip.
Needles sunk into Mikami's sides, but his hatred was too powerful to give in now. The wonderful sight of the small boy writhing in his suffocating grasp, with his pulse racing underneath his powerful hands. Now it was beginning to slow, and he could see the fake L's eyes rolling back.
But suddenly, Teru felt a horrible burst of pain strike him on the side of the head, and everything went black.
Part IV: Depression
"Are you lonely?"
The man with the wild hair was hunched over a few meters away with his back turned towards Mikami.
Mikami himself, however, was on the other side of the room resting against the wall with his head leaning against it.
He glanced at L from under the frame of his glasses. Which of whom was fiddling with something, but his form hid it out of Teru's blurry perception.
"Why would I be lonely?"
L stayed stationary, but merely shrugged.
"All of your aspirations, hopes and dreams have fallen, and you are being condemned to death."
The light outline of his shoulder blades protruded as his arms moved, but he did not turn around.
"All this because of someone who took horrible advantage of your ideals and morals, and deserted you to be punished."
Teru's mouth twitched.
"That wouldn't give a direct answer to why I'd be lonely."
L paused for a moment, and the air grew stale.
"You have no one to help you move on from this life. No one will blink an eye to your passing. No one will weep, and no one would feel an ounce of sorrow. No one will stand still to respect you, and no one will have your picture in remembrance. Not a soul will blink to your demise, and the world no not pause to your departure.
"If you were never born Mikami, it wouldn't matter. Without anyone, you cannot live on in memories or thoughts. In fact, you're already dead."
He turned around and crawled slowly up to the man sitting against the wall.
Mikami gazed at L, but his face was stoic.
L's wide eyes bored into Mikami like black vortexes into another realm.
"Do you feel your life is unfulfilled?…
"Kira?"
Of course Teru knew all of this. This had all crossed his mind before, and it left no mark on him. He wasn't unfamiliar with his own apathy towards himself, but to hear it from someone else…
He averted his eyes from L's.
From him.
He thought he cared, but it seems that this man of justice—man of nothing—man from nowhere is but a messenger. An escort to death.
He was dying.
I'm about to die, aren't I? I may not be now, physically, but I will die soon. That's why he's here.
Teru took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, "Did you come here to kill me?"
L merely tilted his head, "You will die within 5 hours, and your death certificate will say suicide as the manner of death, by means of asphyxiation."
The other man looked down and nodded.
"However", L lifted his face to look back at him, "You will actually die by a self induced lethal injection of cyanide. It will be unreported because it would've looked like murder on a person's part that had no authority to kill you. Because there was no explanation on how cyanide had gotten into your bloodstream."
Mikami looked at him in amazement, "What will happen to me when I die?"
Now the wild-haired man smiled, and reached behind himself. He pulled out a syringe filled with a light blue clear liquid and held it in the air for both of them to see.
"Do you want to find out?"
Tears threatened to fall out of threshold of Mikami's eyes, "Will I leave this place forever? Will I never regret ending my life? Will I find my life's meaning?"
L wrapped his arms around Teru's strong shoulders and beads of tears leaked tentatively from his eyes onto the man's skin. It had been so many years since he'd cried.
He chuckled, "Only if you're willing to open your eyes to find those answers."
Teru held onto L's arms and pulled him away for a moment, taking in the form and awkward beauty this man accompanied. L touched his face with wonder.
Somehow, their lips met and the warmth spread through each other like wildfire. Teru could taste L's slippery sweet tongue between his teeth, and he loved the sensation. But he pulled away from him to say something.
"I'm ready to leave this place."
Part V: Acceptance
His body lay putrefied and rotten, black and oily, with rancid liquids oozing from his greenish skin. The sack of putrid flesh was limp and covered with flies, and maggots writhed from his olive and jaundiced eyes and decayed mouth.
The white haired boy stared at the scene with pity and disgust. He got closer to the body and he held on to the little mask protecting his breath from the more harmful of airborne bacteria that could've been contracted.
In the body's right hand, it loosely held an empty syringe. No doubt this would complicate things for the boy. It defiantly befuddled him how the man had gotten a syringe and something to inject himself with. But nothing else seemed to be out of the ordinary. But his attention was shot to his left hand.
He loomed closer and pried open the fingers with his smaller gloved ones. It was strangely difficult at first, which was odd, since Mikami was already so far decayed. He must've gone through cadaveric rigidity before he died. Very rare but, it didn't seem to be something Mikami couldn't accomplish.
As he opened the hand, he pulled out a wrinkled and vaguely red shape. It had a few maggots in it as well, but upon close inspection, it seemed to have a small stem from what little bit was left.
All the color left Near's face as he dropped the rotten strawberry.
He stood upon stiffly and backed away slowly from the rotten mound of flesh that used to be Teru Mikami.
His eyes met Teru's blackish empty ones, staring farther than what Near could ever imagine. And on his sunken pallor, he wore a vague smile. Was it joy, or was it madness?
He remembered seeing that same smile on L whenever he would sit in his computer chair, eating strawberry shortcake.
And still, he never knew the answer behind that smile.
End Note: This will not be the end of this pairing...