Disclaimer: I do not own or profit from Death Note. Rated T for slashy goodness. Also? This contains (vague, but still) SPOILERS for up to & including Episode 25 of the anime. Please be forewarned.
Note: To all those who enjoy my EEnE fan fiction, I plan on continuing them ASAP. I just… had to write this first. Also? This story was written for the 30 Nights community on livejournal (prompt #34, Bonus – It's Hard Not To Love You). If you're interested, please check out my personal writing lj, tales_by_ghosty. Hopefully, that will push me into updating it more often. Heh.
Anyway, enjoy! Peace, all.
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Faith for the Faithless
By Ghost Helwig
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It is easy, to love Light Yagami.
Everyone does it. Misa, the task force – it seems everyone Light encounters, at school or out in the world, falls in some sort of love with him. For the longest time, it is something L understands, in theory, and is pleased that he is immune to. For he cannot love Light Yagami – Light Yagami is Kira. And Kira stands for everything L hates.
Arrogance. Judgment. Selfishness. Cowardice. Kira moves seemingly without fear, able to conquer everyone – but really, the way he hides himself away from the world only shows how truly fearful he is. Though a murderer, he obviously does not want to die himself – though willing to judge, he cannot abide being judged. Kira is a child, and a spoiled one at that.
Kira is everything L hates. And Kira is everything L hates in himself.
But that, he shows to no one.
After Light's confinement, when they are forced to work together, bound by handcuffs as L knows they are already bound by their determination, L thinks Light begins to understand him. Surely he begins to understand Light – they work in such close proximity, he can't help but learn who Light is, see the passion and the brilliance and the thirst for justice that dwells within. He cannot help but be drawn.
Dark to the light, he thinks. Moth to the flame. Icarus to the sun. I am going to get burned.
And yet, even knowing this, he cannot stop himself.
So one night, as Light prepares to sleep, L stares across the distance at him, stares until Light finally turns his head to look at him. The fading light from the moon shining in the window illuminates half of Light's face, shines in one glittering eye. The chain between them, that stretches between their separate beds, suddenly feels too long to L. Far too long.
"Go to sleep, Ryuzaki," Light finally says, but he doesn't close his eyes. So L ignores his command, as he suspects Light wanted him to. It was just another lie for the camera that no one was watching, another lie to fill the space between them. Light really couldn't ever just be honest.
Another thing he and I have in common.
"I despise Kira," he says instead, waiting for Light's reaction. Light just frowns at him, a small little frown that betrays nothing. L chews his thumbnail, wondering if he should leave it at that; but he never was the type to let something go. Not even for a moment.
"But I do not," he pauses briefly, feeling something cold settle in his stomach, "despise you, Light Yagami."
Light stares at him with slowly widening eyes. L does not understand why what he said was so shocking – surely Light was used to being liked. No – Light was used to being loved. So how could his statement be such a shock…?
"I… don't despise you, either, Ryuzaki."
That… somehow was a shock. Although not nearly as much of one as Light standing up, crossing the distance between them with only a few quick strides. And suddenly, L finds, as Light looks down at him where he is sprawled in bed, the chain between them has become far too short.
"You infuriate me," Light says. L can only stare at him with his unblinking eyes and listen intently. "You frustrate me with your insistence that I'm Kira. You confuse me. You startle me."
Light is watching him too closely; L watches his eyes move from neck to mouth to higher still, until they are staring at one another. Slowly Light reaches out, traces L's lips with his fingertip.
"You make me feel," Light says, and L doesn't know what to make of that, because he understands it so well. But Light is not waiting for an answer, just touching his flesh with obvious fascination, as though it is not just skin beneath his fingers, but something else entirely.
"You're the only one who does."
L's release of breath is caught in Light's mouth that presses against his; their tongues are intertwined before L's brain has fully caught up to the fact that Light Yagami is now kissing him. For a detective renowned for his quick mind, L finds himself struggling even to think beneath the press of those sweet lips.
But the sweetness in Light's mouth is a lie; L knows that. Everything about Light Yagami is staged, too perfect to be real, just a façade he can hide his real self behind. The trick is figuring out just who, what, that real self is. An obvious genius, a little arrogant, more than a little antisocial, and too proud to let anyone in? Or a psychotic mass murderer, obsessed with creating his own, restrictive utopia over which he would reign as a god?
Even if I believed in a god, Light, I would not believe in Kira.
With that in mind, he pushes Light away.
The flash of hurt in Light's eyes – had that been genuine? Surely not even Light had taught his eyes to lie. But before L can figure anything out Light is sitting on the bed beside him, his face turned away, caught in shadows.
"You still think I'm Kira." So flat. L listens for hidden meanings in everything Light says, but in that he hears nothing; nothing he can name.
"Of course I do," L says. He may lie just like Light, but he has never lied to Light. Not without it being a test of some sort – and he can't even imagine using something as… intimate as all this as a test.
But you would. No – Kira would. If you are Kira, you came over here with a specific purpose. You intended to seduce me – no, that isn't it. You intended to make me think you were trying to seduce me. You knew you would fail. But then, why do this? To what purpose is this?
"Stop it." Light sounds aggravated now. L stares at him, watches Light shift on the bed, just one leg crossing over the other. But the movement is stiff, jerky; not at all the calm, smooth grace L associates with Light.
"I can hear you thinking," Light says, and for just a moment, L panics, thinking Light was being literal. But even he knows that that cannot be one of Kira's mysterious powers. If it was, and Light were Kira, he would be dead a thousand times over, as he thinks his true name to himself quite often, just to remind himself that he used to have one. A name. A life beyond… all this.
"You can?" L keeps his tone light, noncommittal; he knows Light isn't fooled. "Then do you want cake, too, Light? Perhaps a nice strawberry-"
"You weren't thinking about food. You were thinking about Kira."
Hardly a challenging deduction, Light.
But then Light looks at him, meets his gaze with those startlingly piercing eyes of his, and L's inner critic is abruptly silenced.
"I am not Kira," Light says, and the earnestness in his voice brings the critic back briefly – so corny for one so composed and proper – but all too soon L can't think straight again. It isn't that Light is so damn pretty (although he is), or that he seems sincere (although he does) – it's that feeling he gets when Light looks at him. Like sensing like. Fellowship. Understanding. Here is someone he understands, who understands him, and who is pleading only for his belief…
With belief comes faith, he thinks. Faith… Faith is what the faithful bring to their god. It is their sacrifice. If the god is just and merciful, it is their only sacrifice. But Kira…
You are not my god, Light. And I have no faith left for anyone, god or mortal alike.
Although… he can understand Kira. He can sympathize with the need to rid the world of its evils. He wasn't ever so idealistic – he became a detective to challenge his intellect, not to fight evil, or be the "hero of justice" Watari told him some of the younger kids at Wammy's House had taken to calling him – but he can still sympathize. It was a noble goal.
But a noble goal soaked in blood was not really noble at all.
And suddenly, though L can still feel Light all along his skin, feel his lips pressed in close, he doesn't think they've ever been farther apart. Not even when he had no idea who Light was.
Light is still looking. And in his eyes, for a moment, L sees a flash of red. A trick of the light, certainly. L's mind is not fanciful enough to entertain any other notion for long.
Light takes the hint his silence provides and finally returns to his own bed. He stretches out facing away from L, curling on his side – showing his enemy his back, his vulnerability, to create a false sense of his innocence. Or shutting out the man who'd rejected him. Either explanation sounded equally plausible.
But as L lays back down, as he tries to shut his mind down so that he can snatch the few hours of sleep he and Light allow themselves each night, he thinks he hears the sounds of bells.
*The End*