Bloodsoaked Desires
Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note.
'This is what you want, isn't it?'
An image flashes through my head, the dark crimson only his freshly spilt blood could produce streaking skin as white as paper.
'I don't want it, I don't!'
My frame shakes with tearless sobs and I hold my head with the anguish that comes with losing a battle, pulling at my dark hair with the frustration of knowing it is a battle against myself.
'That's a lie and you know it.'
I didn't know where the voice came from or why it so persistently tried to convince me to hurt the young detective. If I had been religious, I'd call it the voice of the devil, I figured it was some kind of a corrupted conscience because mine sure as hell was not doing it's job.
Though the blood really was beautiful...
'Yes, the blood, just imagine it...'
No, I couldn't afford to think such morbid thoughts. The only thing I trusted less than the sadistic voice inhabiting my mind was myself if I listened to it.
'Voice? This isn't a voice. This is you... and you want to hurt him.'
Cry out in pain, make him understand that I had the power to /crush/ him.
'No, no...'
The voice of morality was growing weaker and I could feel it. I told myself over and over again 'I don't want to hurt him, I don't want to hurt him...'
But I /did/.
The sheer beauty of pain; it was like art, a magnificent abstract only certain minds had the depth to comprehend the intricacy of. For a moment, I could understand why the sight of droplets on snow behind a frame of ebony inspired the queen to wish for a daughter with such features but in this case, L would be Snow White and the red lips came in the form of blood accompanied by salty tears and cries of-
'That's not what I want!'
Oh, but it was. No...
No, wait, hurting people was wrong. It was the cliched speech every responsible adult gave a child.
'Art is not wrong. You'll turn him into a work of art.'
Art...the calls for mercy and the fine combination of hatred and helplessness when an overactive ego meets it match and realizes it's lost the battle. And L would /never/ tell a soul because that would mean admitting he lost... to me. And I could do it again and again... absolute power in my hands and the seemingly unbreakable man groveling at my feet because I'd reduce him to nothing, absolutely nothing, because he dared underestimate the awesome power of Beyond Birthday, the stains of his pain leaving scars on the earth.
No.
The image was beautiful and the temptation more so but I would not hurt him.
'It's because you're too weak,' the voice in my head sneered. 'Because you wouldn't stand a chance.'
'SHUT UP!' I shout at myself, rocking back and forth, being attacked by bittersweet, broken pictures of the art that was mine and mine alone, of a masterpiece I had yet to create.
"Are you alright?"
And there he was, standing over me, and I had an overwhelming desire to give in, to take him and break him and paint his paper-white exterior with a brilliant mixture of blood and tears but I fought it down.
Was I alright?
Couldn't he see I was at war with myself?
"I'm fine."
'Liar,' I thought, and channeled my anger at the man hovering over me as if in reminder that I was still below him.
"...you seem tense."
I shrug and brush it off with a glare. He sits beside me and I stiffen because he's RIGHT THERE, SITTING RIGHT NEXT TO ME and I want to grab him by the throat and chain him to the wall and bring out a blade to drag oh-so-slowly across the scarless pale skin as he shook and begged for mercy and it would be SO DAMN EASY BECAUSE HE WAS RIGHT THERE.
"I'm not tense."
And he stares at me with those huge black eyes and I can't help but imagine tears flowing out of them.
'No, I won't hurt him...'
His hand reaches out to stroke my face and I want to grab his thin wrist and snap it.
"Don't touch me."
Because I don't want to hurt Lawliet, don't want to hurt L.
"You seem...different...lately."
'I am,' I think. 'I'm better.'
'And I'm going to step all over you.'
After looking at his face I find myself cursing him for being the most goddamn perfect canvas for a portrait of pain.
"I'm not different."
And I force my lips to curl up unnaturally into a smile, a task that most find easy to perform. He looks into my eyes and I wonder if he can see my name and lifespan the way I can see his. But I know he can't.
After a few moments, he stands up and walks away and I glare at his back. Did he ever see me as any more than a backup? I wonder if this is my slow descent to madness, if all evil begins with an unexplainable desire to inflict pain, to cause anguish, if maybe I was doomed to lose the battle with myself, if I was destined to give in to insanity as much as L Lawliet was destined to die on November 5th, 2004.
But I refuse to lose, hugging my knees to my chest and taking my thumbnail between my teeth stubbornly as a current of beautifully agonizing illustrations floods my mind. I wouldn't give the voice that so irritatingly infiltrated my mind without invitation the satisfaction, though it had some good ideas...
'You don't want good ideas, you want him at your feet, you want to hurt him!'
The voice was right, but physical pain was only skin-deep.
'He'd be at your mercy!'
'SILENCE!' I scream at myself, and the voice obliges. A small smile creeps across my face, and for the first time it wasn't forced.
Make L grovel at my feet, huh?
What I did to him physically would insult him far less than if I were to surpass him in what he was supposed to be best at.
And suddenly, it was no longer about turning him into a work of broken art. Now I would be the artiatl I'd create a tapestry of complications that never reached an end, and he would stare at it in awe knowing he would never understand it, searching for an artist who would never explain it. I'd disappear and leave him forever in my shadow. I'd become the perfect criminal, creating a case the great L himself could never solve.
L would finally be after Beyond Birthday.
And the scene of crime?
Los Angeles.