Title: Catching Smoke (620 WC)
Pairing: Kira/deceased!L, semi-Kira/Misa
Rating/Warnings: None really. Existential angst?
Disclaimer: Do not own.
A/N: More ambiguous one-shot-ness. Short impulse-fic, UNBETA'd. Lackluster antecedents and ellipsis/em-dash abuse, having written it at around three in the morning.
CATCHING SMOKE
There was a third person in bed with them.
Tonight, the God of the New World couldn't hear the shallow, girlish breaths of the blonde—slumbering so peacefully next to him, so foolish and content to be in his presence. He had his back turned to her. (Her attentions would never garner honest reciprocation, even in sleep.)
Instead, his focus was drawn like black magic to the phantom.
—The phantom that peered at him, ethereal form stretched lazily across the mattress beside him (yet making no impression in the still perfectly steepled wrinkles of the coverlet).
The phantom, painfully familiar and painfully real with every detail, was inciting the imagination. The progeny of his imagination—his human dreams, doubt, and guilt—were dangerous. Such emotions were too illicit to coexist with godhood, and God had kept them silently bottled in his subconscious.
He was playing a dangerous game by daring not to turn away. By not flipping over to face his "Queen." By giving into his morbid fascination. He couldn't rip himself away from those penetrating eyes. Those disturbing eyes, which had once smoldered with vicious ambition and life, were empty and predatory in the night. The phantom was only a shell—a mockery of the man. It was constructed to tempt, to distract. A personification of his humanness, dark and alluring, it beckoned him to abandon his pride and principles to chase lost dreams. It was indulgent to stare his would'ves, could'ves, and should'ves in the face—the beautiful, androgynous face with the piercing gaze.
But God couldn't afford to ride the waves of his emotion. His ideals came first and foremost. That's what he told himself when he tried to ignore the phantom's lips on his cheekbone, the purse of flesh chilly on his skin… When he tried to dismiss the cold hands that encircled his neck to choke, ghostly thumbs resting on pressure points, but instead delivering soft touches (as if the phantom couldn't find it in himself to hate his killer, his betrayer)… When he tried to turn a blind eye to the look of resignation in the deadened eyes as the phantom tried to convey his lost love in mute desperation, drawing God closer with pleading hands fisted in his shirt… When he tried not to react, staying stock still as the frigid breath stung him and the black hair tickled his forehead…
When he tried not to notice the tears that ran out of the hollow eyes, and the tears that ran down his own face in sympathy…
He was playing a dangerous game when he felt the pain in his heart—the regret and the longing that should have been foreign to God. The very things he had deemed asinine in his Perfect World coursed through his blood, his heart, and the fingertips that reached out to return those sweet, tragic caresses. He would forget his pride and throw everything away, so he could lie to himself for one beautiful moment. God drew the face of his defeated enemy towards his with greedy fingers (for a taste of human, passionate decadence)…
And the phantom dissolved, leaving human neediness aching in his palms.
He found himself trying to catch smoke, and felt the bitter truth churn in his stomach. He held his face in his hands, fingernails digging slightly into the skin as he tried to find purchase. He remained deaf, dumb, and blind to the woman beside him—numb to the delicate arm that circled possessively around his waist.
He laughed to himself, if it could be considered a laugh—more like a choked gurgle and a deranged smile. Because, in that moment, he realized he was lonely.
And he already knew that Gods ruled alone.
FIN