title: postcards from r'lyeh
word count: ~1500
rating: t
summary: light yagami and the old ones.
pairing: l/light
a/n: you don't actually need to be familiar with the lovecraft mythos to understand this story, but a fondness for multi-dimensional demi-gods definitely helps.
Postcards from R'lyeh
"I know always that I am an outsider; a stranger in this century and among those who are still men." — HP Lovecraft
i.
Kira sends him postcards from the edge of the world.
BEAUTIFUL INNSMOUTH, this one proclaims. The text is accompanied by a photograph of a disintegrating waterfront home topped by a widow's walk. A bald figure with frilled fins squats over the weather vane.
L has never heard of Innsmouth. He types the word into his web search, but finds only a number of articles regarding the violent mating rituals of deep-sea mollusks.
Light's handwriting reminds L of jagged crosses in a churchyard. Light had once committed murder with perfect penmanship, but he hasn't been the same since glancing into the howling abyss. Still, L is fond of the esoteric messages Light sends him from places that do not exist.
This one reads:
I think you would like this town. Aside from the bulging eyes of the locals, and the pervasive scent of beached coral, the seaside is lovely. You would be particularly interested in the lighthouse, visible in silhouette along the far horizon, as its construction predates the evolution of humanity. I miss you.
— LY.
L files the card with others from imaginary towns, like Dunwich and Arkham. The postmarks span two centuries and four continents, only three of which L has heard of. The box smells of brine, bilge water, and Light's foaming hand soap.
L imagines Light standing at the tide's edge, windswept and monochrome, ready to take the last step off an abrupt precipice.
ii.
Light disappears shortly after their first encounter with the Old Ones.
It had been in Brussels, or perhaps Bruges, L cannot be sure. Their memories had been somewhat scrambled by an encounter with a fourteen-eyed god, who'd coated L in viscous yellow mucous before being sucked back into the Void.
Light takes the existence of the Old Ones in stride, having spent two years in voluntarily co-habitation with a shinigami. L, however, has trouble with this parcel of metaphysical knowledge, and spends several months feeling as though he has tripped and fallen forward out of his body.
Light funds the excavation of secret libraries in the Roman catacombs. He spends hours translating handwritten journals, while L 's nose bleeds into a folded handkerchief. Light scours antique stores in Rotterdam for a jade amulet shaped like a hound. He arranges interviews with mental patients, driven mad after participating in Kabbalistic rituals that caused living toads to tumble from the clouds.
"I don't know what the big deal is," Light says, swatting at a floating squid that's slipped through the hole hovering over their bed. It had popped open after Light's mispronunciation of ancient Babylonian quatrain. L sneaks one glance into the rift, and sees a landscape of immense bell towers, chiming in unison. A violent hiccup erupts from his diaphragm.
"Would you give me a hand here?" Light says, wrangling the squid between the hotel's twin beds. Its suckers leave ringed pockmarks on Light's forearms.
L doesn't move. He chews a handful of chocolate covered raisins, and watches Light send the squid home with a final heave. The Void closes behind it, sealing with an audible zip.
"Why are you doing this?" L asks, after, while they lay pressed together beneath sheets that smell faintly of seafood. Light's index finger is mapping the soft mound beneath L's bellybutton. L imagines the pale bones in Light's hand, pieced together with atoms spit from the center of the universe, fourteen billion years ago.
"You know why," Light says, in the same conversational tone he'd used to destroy L's deeply held convictions about reality. He kisses the bulge of L's hipbone. "Don't worry. I know what I'm doing."
When L awakes the next morning, Light is gone.
iii.
Ryuk stops by while L is solving a double homicide from his flat in London.
"Hey, can I try that?" he asks, and dips a claw into the icing on L's cupcake. Ryuk smiles. His teeth are an inadequate dam for the smell of grave dust and stomach acid that drifts from his mouth.
"What are you doing here? Have you seen Light?" L asks, evaluating his body for signs of an impending heart attack. There is a dull throb in his left arm. L struggles to recall if he'd started feeling it before or after Ryuk showed up.
Ryuk shrugs, and plucks a yellow sprinkle from the cupcake.
"He passed through the shinigami realm a few weeks ago, but I haven't seen him since. He said he was heading to R'lyeh, but no shinigami will go there. Hey, want to hang out? Do you have an Xbox?"
"What's in R'lyeh?" L asks, moving the rest of his dinner out of Ryuk's reach. Ryuk's pupils expand into violet rings. Two tarnished, silver hearts sway from Ryuk's earlobes.
"We don't talk about that," Ryuk says, and helps L set up the wireless controllers on his console. They play Tekken, and Ryuk beats L three times out of five, but refuses to elaborate on where Light is going or what he may find here. Ryuk wanders out sometime before morning, taking a fifth of Watari's scotch and an apple tart wrapped in wax paper.
L finds himself nostalgic for the days when Light kept company with gods that were relatively benign, aside from the murder notebooks.
iv.
Light sends another postcard, six weeks later. L is in Beijing. Orbs of green light weave through pollution in the night sky. The city air makes L feel hollow, like it is siphoning something essential from inside him.
The postcard is slipped beneath his door, while L argues with the British Ambassador over his cell phone. This one is black with a single white pentagram at its center. On the reverse side, is a return address in a language L is certain has no origins in human speech. The card is stiff, like it's been soaked and dried several times over. It is addressed to:
L Lawliet
Somewhere
Somewhen
Beneath this, Light has written, "By the time you read this, I'll already be home."
The hotel door unlocks, and Light lets himself in. He is dressed in a black suit and damp yellow galoshes. There is a tendril of seaweed wrapped around his left ankle, and he is accompanied by a small, amphibious humanoid on a leash. It gives a resonant burp, and Light feeds it a strip of dried fish out of his jacket pocket.
"When did you get a key?" L asks dumbly, because Light's eyes are the color of dawn, and L is quite sure there is webbing between Light's fingers, and L honestly cannot think of a better question at the moment.
"What the hell are you talking about?" the Ambassador asks from the other end of the line.
"You gave it to me. Or you will give it to me. Or are you giving it to me right now? I'm sorry. It's been a while since I've experienced linear time. Say, do you have any coffee?"
Light closes the door behind him, and lets the creature off its leash. It hops towards L, and dips an orange tongue into the crevice between L's toes. Light has always been fond of unusual pets, L thinks, remembering Ryuk.
"Don't worry. Olkoth is house trained. And he only excretes noxious mist, anyway."
They follow Olkoth into the kitchen, and Light fixes them coffee, leaving muddy footprints on the tiles. Light drops six sugars into L's mug. As Light's sleeve shifts, L catches a glimpse of shallow, spiraling scars on his wrists.
"Where did you go?" L asks.
"Everywhere," Light says, and L gets the feeling he means this in the most literal sense.
"You actually did it, didn't you?"
Light reaches for L's hand and uses his thumb to smooth L's hangnails. The webbed fingers will take some getting used to, L thinks. Olkoth emits a low, happy rumble and leans against Light's thigh.
"I did. But that doesn't change anything."
They go back to solving cases.
Light only occasionally summons the Ultimate Abomination, or doles out wrathful vengeance. While L disapproves, he acknowledges that isstrategically advantageous to have a celestial mass of tentacles at one's disposal. Olkoth eats lizards he plucks from the windowsill, and L struggles with the existential implications of his flatmates. Light is finally a god, and aside from the all-encompassing fear that leaves L bawling wildly in the night, life goes on as normal.
FIN