Author's Notes;;
Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note or any of the characters. I'm just a fan and have no way to get you in contact with anyone, even if I wish I could. :)th
Warning 1: This fic is rated M for Mature content. If you're below age, you should guide yourself away from this story. The mature content (Adult Language, Adult contents...) may not be in this chapter but will be in future chapters. I will post a new warning for chapters that have it within.
Warning 2: This fic may contain spoilers.
Note 1: This fic takes place while the two are chained. So, in other words, this is set during the time in which Light has forfeited the Death Note and his memories.
Note 2: I really really like reviews. Why? It keeps me on the right track and keeps me motivated to write more. Your thoughts are always appreciated.
Note 3: I have read the Manga, seen the Anime and the movies and will be taking things from each and blending the things I liked best from each. This may wind up slightly A/U, so this is the only warning about that which I will give. Please do not get angry at me for not sticking to the Manga or w/e, this is my story. However, any constructive criticism, questions or just plain comments are always welcome. ^_^
And now for the story:
Chapter One:
It had been exactly five days since I had chained him to me, exactly five days since he had been released from imprisonment as one usually thinks of the word's meaning. Now he was in a different form of imprisonment, and if I had been in his position I'm not sure which would have been worse for me. True enough he went to both willingly, almost too willingly, although the obvious drive to clear his name was evident in his eyes. But was that drive there because he was truly innocent, or was the drive there because he was guilty and wished nothing more than to clear suspicion on him so he might resume his active role in the killings perpetrated by the mass-murderer proclaimed 'Kira?' Some said he was a homicidal maniac; others dedicated websites to him and praised him like a god. But I knew better. Kira was most definitely homicidal, and he wasn't a god. Kira was human. On top of that, in regards to being homicidal, he was a maniac, but he was not yet a maniac in true. He had a cool, calculating mind beneath whatever face lurked in the shadows, and the level of genius was rare and far between. There was only one person in the world that I had met that had the potential to outshine even me in the department of intelligence, and he was chained to my wrist on suspicion of being Kira.
There were times when I was positive he was Kira, but the amount of physical evidence that was not in my possession was over-whelming, and then there were the times when doubt would flood my mind and senses and scream at me that I had the wrong man – I had made a mistake. At the moment my biggest failure was asleep, and so I was left alone with naught other than my thoughts to entertain me. Most would presume that I liked to sit and think, which was often true enough, but boredom settled into the pit of my stomach as gentle snores wafted through the air like something tangible enough to slice with a knife. It didn't help that I had been feeling rather restless as of late, and his snoring had been something that either infuriated me or something I could detach myself from completely. The result, of course, depended upon my mood. And at the moment agitation was the feeling that won me over, but I didn't know why.
Another thought process to follow into the recesses of my mind in self-evaluation was what was promised by this flittering in my stomach that caused my blood to boil as the palpable snores drilled into my very skull with their repetition. The chain rattled between us, slithering over the bed sheets as Light flipped onto his stomach, jerking my right wrist with him as the chain lay passively across his back, but my scowl only deepened, brow furrowing as my fingers itched to wring his neck. They itched, too, for keys to stroke but the sound of the tapping would keep the teenager awake and I had learned over the first few days this was not a good thing. A Light low on sleep was thoroughly un-productive when it came to the investigation and often irritable, no matter the amount of coffee consumed. What was it that made him require so much sleep, anyway? I could go for days, no, perhaps longer than a week without a wink of it. True enough my eyes would droop, and eventually I would crack and break like any other human and slumber, but catching small naps once in a while was more sufficient than society's preordained box of eight hours a night.
Ah, a more comforting thought process to follow, an escape from what otherwise would have followed as self-criticism as I chased this new train instead. Following the curving tracks away from myself and towards society, instead of the knotted and twisted tracks within myself, I wondered why people did so much to fit into the aforementioned box. Their whole lives were lived in imprisonment and they weren't even aware of it. It was the reason I was stared at whenever I went outside into what Aizawa referred to as the 'real world.' It was the reason people muttered and whispered about 'that odd man who looked like he'd rolled out of bed and hadn't even showered.' It wasn't that I didn't shower, nor did I wear the same clothes every day, I just didn't see the point in anything else. The jeans and white, long-sleeved t-shirt and light blue boxers were my outfit of preference and I truly didn't own anything else. I just owned a multitude of those particular articles of clothing. And although I often fell asleep in my clothes, I did shower once a day (unless I truly had more pressing matters) and after the shower I would change into a fresh set of jeans, shirt and boxers. No one other than Watari and the other boys at the orphanage had had reason to know this, at least, that was before I'd chained Light Yagami into a new kind of imprisonment. Firmly attached to my wrist by way of his own left wrist, the boy had been driving me insane from day one.
Light Yagami was one of those people that liked to appear as if he belonged within the box. I was convinced he'd managed to find a way to sneak out, to keep the façade up that he lived and breathed the air inside the box, but he really snuck out and while garbed in his label clothing, hair neatly brushed, he committed the worst of both crime and sin. If Light was Kira, than he was murdering people. And yet Light's father's words came back to me now and again. It was not the person who killed that was evil, but the power to kill that was the root of the trouble. And so the question became which had come first, the chicken or the egg? Or had the two been born together? No, if that had been the case then the murders would have begun long, long ago. That would mean that Kira had been killing since he was old enough to know someone's name and realize it went with the person's face. And both I and Light agreed that Kira was definitely in either High School or College, perhaps Middle School.
There were often times when I wanted to pull at the black tresses adorning my own head and scream in frustration. I'd never had a room-mate before and, while I understood the need for adjusting to the existence of someone else being within a six-foot radius of myself twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, it was a lot more frustrating than I had ever imagined. And it hadn't even been a week yet! And the constant mind-games we often had between us had not only intensified, but neither of us had much time to rest our brains from the constant assaults from each other that it was no small wonder that, even now when I had some time to rest and have time away from Light's mental attacks, my mind still raced in thought. I had become somewhat accustomed, adjusted, to the constant thinking required to both withstand the testing of he who might be Kira and yet to test him in return that in my time away from all of that my mind was still too active to let me truly rest. And then there were the times when I had other thoughts of my suspect that I knew I shouldn't have.
My lips curved into a small smile as I recalled the first time I had laid eyes on Light Yagami. The chestnut-brown hair and matching eyes on the monitor were set on features fairer than those of any Prince from any fairy-tale, and yet my task dominated my thought processes so nothing further could penetrate until the second to last day. It was one of those fleeting and rare moments when his eyes, knowingly or unknowingly, had stared directly into one of the many cameras set up in his room and my world stopped spinning. And while I had protested that I had not chained Light to me because I wanted to, there was a small part of me that was happy with the situation that was apart from detective holding captive his suspect. And that was a part of me I didn't want to delve too deeply into. It was easy to see how people might find Light attractive, and I had been attracted to people in the past. It hadn't happened often, but I had had my own celebrity crushes, but they hadn't really formed until I had read interviews. No, that was untrue, there were several that had formed before the interviews had begun, and some most of those dissipated as soon as the idiot or moron had opened their mouths, but there had been the rare occasion where the words they spoke only made me like them more. And I had also noticed that among those I found most appealing physically, most were of the male variety.
I was not a perfect person and I had my faults, like any other human, but even I had to wonder at the ludicrous situation I found myself in because I couldn't deny that I was attracted to Light. I had hoped it would subside like all my previous attractions once I got to know him, or after I had gotten bored of him, but it hadn't. It had only intensified upon meeting him in person and learning that his mind may truly have been a match for mine; may even surpass my own, something I was loathe to admit. But I had always been good at compartmentalizing, and I could work around this attraction. I could bury it so far within me that I could ignore it completely at times. I could never forget, for it always burned within me, no matter how I tried to thwart or dampen the flame. I had starved this flame of what I thought it needed to survive, but it still flickered within me.
I leaned back, arms wrapping almost protectively around my shins and chin resting on my knees as my hair hit the headboard of the bed softly and I realized I had traveled the tracks of self-inspection despite my longing for otherwise. Not only that, but I had come to one of the largest tangles that the train had been forced to stop altogether. And I had a choice: I could try and unknot it so the train could continue its dangerous route, or I could turn away and put this all in the back of my mind into the 'think about later' section that was feeling rather crowded as of late. My toes shifted, curling in and out as if without my active knowledge and when my eyes caught them even that small quirk annoyed me and I ceased them. I had plenty of bad habits, and that was least among them, but turning my attentions on something small and not worth mentioning was a distraction from where my thoughts had been previously. Much like the thoughts about society should have been, but my train had re-routed itself back to what I didn't want to think about. I often wondered if that was why thoughts did things like that. If one consciously didn't want to think about something, what was the subconscious doing, what was it thinking? Did it want to think about it, and if it thought about it enough was that was pushed it to the conscious level? Perhaps, but not enough scientific fact was known about the subconscious yet.
As it was, the boy to my right seven years my junior, was the cause for my cease of thoughts for which I was grateful. He had moved again, and with a grim satisfaction I noticed his eyes flutter open and he pressed his face into the pillow, groaning almost inaudibly. Light was more than my suspect, he was the closest thing I had ever had to a friend. I had once called him a friend, but I doubt either of us really believed it. Other than Watari, Light truly was almost a friend. If we perhaps trusted each other more then we would be friends without any doubts between, but that could never happen unless he or I could prove him innocent; and I was trying my utmost to prove the opposite. "Are you alright?" I asked calmly, head tilted to the side as I leaned all my weight on me feet and turned to face him, thumb practically in my mouth as my eyes widened to take in all of his actions. Anything was suspect; after all, he was probably Kira. The percentages were not in his favor, a fact I was keen to prove yet, if I had to do so, my life would be changed irrevocably.
"Ryuzaki-kun," his muffled voice permeated through the pillow it spoke through. "It's almost four in the morning and I'm awake, but otherwise I'm fine. But I do have to go to the bathroom." I watched as the pillow was shoved aside and Light's face emerged once again, sleep still in his eyes as he flipped his legs over the side of the bed and stood, stretching. He began to walk, having to go around the bed and the chain wrapped around one of the posts before jerking the boy to a halt and I smiled. It wasn't a nice smile, it was an I'm deliberately pissing you off type of smile. "Oh, come on! It is way too early in the morning for this!" His voice was stronger now, angry, which seemed fitting. My own sour mood sprung forth as I planted myself more firmly on the bed and just kept smiling at him, testing to see how angry he would get. "R-Ryuzaki-kun." He tugged on the chain and I didn't move; I showed him no reaction as he tugged several more times. I could feel the metal digging into my wrist and knew he was attempting to get me to move with pain, so I kept that smile plastered on my face until he kicked at the foot of the bed. He swore as he hurt his toe against the wood and I finally stood up, lifting my wrist so the chain went over the top of the poles before jumping off my own side of the bed and beginning the ten-foot walk towards the bathroom as if I'd intended to go there all along. On the bright side, for me, he was awake now and because of that we could get to work. I didn't plan on letting him go back to sleep.
The door to the bathroom was located next to the closet, so I took the time to unlock the cuff around my wrist long enough to take off yesterday's shirt and slip on a fresh one. Then I changed boxers and pulled on some jeans. Why the Hell was Light so damned slow? Checking my watch I noticed barely two minutes had elapsed and at last the mechanical sound of a toilet flushing graced my ears and the door opened. "No…no." His voice, higher in pitch than my own, was clearly in protest as much as his eyes betrayed his distress. "Why are you all dressed?"
"Why do you think, Light-kun?" I asked, head tilting towards my left shoulder as I stared at him in my usual unblinking fashion. And then before he could utter a word of reply I added, "It's morning! Therefore," my right hand raised and one finger pointed straight up, surrounded by the nothingness that was air. Then again, air wasn't exactly nothing, but that was a train of thought for another time. "Therefore," I continued, "it's time for work! Kira won't catch himself, after all." And so I watched as he picked out clothing for the day in a painstakingly slow sort of way and undid the clasp on his wrist long enough for him to change shirts before clanking it back on. Out of the respect he 'requested,' I turned around as he switched boxers and put on khaki pants that apparently 'went with' his brown sweater. And then I walked towards the computer that was in our room and turned on the monitor, connecting to the network
With a few more simple keystrokes I permeated password protected file after password protected file and barely blinked when I heard, from my right, "Ryuzaki-kun…I need – coffee. Yes, coffee, I need to stay awake. Or maybe even a shower. I can't just get up and go like you can!"
I turned my neck slowly so I could face him and blinked once, twice, and then turned back to the computer and brought up several pie-charts that depicted the deaths of criminals lately. After a minute I stood and locked the station and said, "Coffee it is, I could use some breakfast, anyway. We can shower later before the others get here."
Author's Note (again):
THANKS FOR READING!!! Please tell me your thoughts if you've got the time or inclination. I promise, good things are on the way in chapters to come ;)
