AN- Oh my god, I'm so sorry. I had the most God awful writer's block with this scene! It was just...unbelievable! And it's soooo important...I fully credit my friend Nilahxapiel for this chapter. Without her constant encouragement, and poking, I don't think I could have gotten this done. Throw me a bone so I know I'm forgiven, please. I feel so terrible.
That being said...Um...I'm sorry. I'm so, damn, sorry. You'll see. Now, let's watch someone go crazy, shall we?
Step Lightly,
Kani
XXXX
It was a rare instance, at first, that the flashing fire of hatred wound its way through Light's soul and robbed him of his common sense. A moment, a brief exhale, and then his humanity would return to him, unscathed. It was a brief, fleeting thing, the rage that sent his heart into his ears and colored a fine line across the bridge of his nose so thoroughly unfamiliar that at times…Light didn't even acknowledge it.
It usually happened in the second that his eyes were granted light again, when the pain of it was most intense, so harsh that he hardly felt the cuffs shifting. It came when the light went away, and the headset sealed his ears, the silence returning with a gentle vacuum of air.
Hatred was petty. Hatred was for weaker men, a flaw, and a crack in the chiseled stone casing of his soul that simply could not be tolerated. It was a human trait, something so far beneath him that he didn't dare accept for what it was.
It came like the strike of a whip (a ringing backhand). It was the twist of a thorn in his side, much like the damn chair that he spent the majority of his days in. It was a rip, a tear in the fabric of his sanity. In the void of the blindfold and the deafening silence, it sifted into a diamond-like clarity that could not, would not, just refused to go away.
So Light grudgingly admitted that…just every now and then…he hated Watari.
The blinds went on, the blinds went off. Days passed.
XXXX
It wasn't enough to warrant his attention, hardly enough to voice, and never, ever, enough to take into consideration with his plans. It was not hatred…just annoyance, irritation at the most. It came and went with the sensory blinds, and occasionally cast itself grudgingly into the corners of his thoughts when the man chained him to a support beam in the living room for his two hour's exercise. There wasn't anything to blame it on, aside from sheer boredom, and his over abundance of spite. It was a natural reaction to finding himself at the mercy of a man that would sooner kill him than look at him. That's what he told himself, when Watari returned him to the chair, and lifted the Velcro blindfold.
…But it was so petty. So human.
Two weeks gone, spent in a cycle of wasted time, light and dark. The blinds came and went.
XXXX
They said that pity bred contempt, and as a God rising to power, he hardly found it charming when the old fool stared at him, such pity in his eyes. Contempt was painted over every muscle of his face like the heartache that Light himself denied he was feeling.
The hatred never helped…he would never say that it helped. It merely filled the void…hours stretched into eternity in the black, and when the blinds came off; he allowed himself the hatred because there…just, there in that moment…he was complete again. He didn't dare try to comprehend the relief the emotion provided him. Hatred, while human, and petty, was also powerful.
The blinds went on, and the blinds went off.
XXXX
It was so quiet. He lost track of the hours he'd been counting…a long time ago. Time was an immortal thing now, a beast that he dared not court. It didn't matter, because it bent and fractured, and he was too damn tired to keep up with it.
The blinds went on, the blinds went off.
He did not miss L.
Even with almost month of absolute, infallible silence under his belt, Light did not miss L. He might have missed the interaction that L provided, the company, the contact (the power)…and even their unyielding walls gave him more to think about than his days of stark nothings and cold exchanges afforded him by the man's servant. The man himself, however? No…Light missed the world. He missed life itself.
The truth of it was that Light felt he was beginning to go a little crazy, trapped in his unending cycle of nothing…knowing that somewhere, out of reach, out of grasp, L might be unraveling all his plans. Paranoia made a nest in his thoughts and randomly plucked at his mind, making him tense in his chair and waste necessary energy. It left him exhausted, sick of the silence, and of nothing. It annoyed him to no end to have nothing else to think about, but damn it, it'd been too long. He should have heard something by now. He was counting on Takada to hold on a bit longer, until he managed to escape…a task that he'd thought would be easier with L half a world away.
The hours he spent chained to his chair, however, told him differently.
He felt completely useless, trapped and running in circles, afraid to take the next step because he needed reassurance. He needed to know.
He did not miss L.
The blinds went on, the blinds came off.
Sometimes….
XXXX
L.
L, L, L…the bastard, his name wasn't even long enough to justify cursing with. It rolled silently from his tongue in the dark hours he spent in his cell, his mouth working aimlessly as the pain in his neck grew, and the muscles stiffened to a point that sleep was impossible. Or perhaps, he was speaking out loud…he couldn't tell anymore. L.
L…
It echoed dimly in his thoughts in the hours he spent above ground, in Watari's presence. There, he didn't dare open his mouth, but his tongue still made the motion, touching the back of his teeth lightly.
L.
Always L…mocking him, waiting patiently to come back and tell him that it'd all gone wrong.
Come back to kill him, his mind supplied, and Light smirked into the nothing, because that was absurd…but still….
A month, he waited in silence, not knowing.
The blinds came off. The blinds went on.
XXXX
There came a time when he woke to find himself upon the death bed. He knew by his position and binding exactly what table he was strapped to. He said nothing…he didn't turn his head at all, paralyzed by the thought that…just perhaps…he'd lost.
It was…humbling, to say the least.
Had L won? Had L finally (come to kill him) overpowered him at last? Had he worked around the chains Light had spent so long putting in place…the chains that L himself put the lock on the night in his cell?
He'd struck him, made Light powerful. Slapped him like hatred.
Wait, that didn't make any sense. He ignored the thought.
They'd spent a moment, he remembered, an eternity, staring each other (death) in the eye. They'd taken a minute to understand how much they'd changed. Just before he'd gotten up and walked away. So far away that Light couldn't control him, and perhaps…just perhaps…out of his reach. He'd lost, then.
Regardless. (The fucking blinds went on….)
Watari hadn't had the nerve to warn him that he was about to die. Where was his preacher, his lawyer? Where was his final meal, his final bath, his will? The man was going to kill him. Just…let him die. The blinds went on, and the blinds came off, and Watari was…Watari was going to…but why?
Would the blinds come off to reveal L at the table, Death Note in hand?
Light felt that something was ready to snap as he hung there, suspended in the air by thick canvas straps that held him so tightly, so coldly, in place…to await his death. The death of a God.
How does one kill a God?
That final, fractured piece of thought, a bit of soul-glass lodged itself somewhere in his conscious thought and oh, his mind bled. That question, that damn question, and he thought he knew the answer once…to walk away, like L had, to leave him without closure, to kill him without ever putting him to rest. He didn't know. He needed to know.
…And it was there, hanging upon the table, that he realized he was going die like Misa.
Like Misa.
….And…L was his Light. Something, some vital piece of his logic, shattered at that realization, and when the needle pierced his skin, he said nothing…he made no sound.
…But in the depths of his soul, he was screaming at the irony.
Why? How did one kill a God?
No one answered.
He waited…thirty seconds, forty, a minute…two…he gasped for air that he was not being denied, breathing slowly, evenly, deeply, his final breaths, because he knew that eventually…another would not come.
The blinds came off.
"It was merely a B12 shot, Kira. L needed the video footage for one of his plans."
And oh, sometimes…just sometimes…he hated Watari.
XXXX
L called.
L called, and that was the final suture in the wounds that Light was nursing. He heard the voice from a distance, because Watari was deaf in one ear, and kept his cell on speaker phone. He was standing, shirtless, in the living room while he stretched, leashed to his pole (like a dog, a fucking dog!), and allowed his exercise.
He froze, balanced on one foot while he pulled the other up to stretch his aching knee, and listened. There wasn't much to work with; just a faint mutter, but he knew that voice. He knew it well.
Staring up at the loft, Light got the insane notion that L had returned (come to kill him), and Watari was hiding him from the young god. He felt hatred slap him again, and for a moment…a brief moment, he hated Watari.
It was just that broken piece of his mind, however…he felt it like a paper cut whenever he thought about the old man. He shoved it to the background. The damage that his supposed brush with death merely days ago had caused, was similar to the flap of skin on a fresh wound that one hasn't the heart to tear away. He was drawing parallels in his thoughts, lines that didn't matter, and he knew it.
Light felt that sometimes he might have gone a little crazy.
So, Light shoved that momentary insanity away with an annoyed shake of the head, and stood in the floor, listening to the voice he'd waiting (wanting) to hear for over a month.
But for now, at least, he was still capable of shoving that violent pain into the back of his thoughts…for now.
He was still standing there, staring at nothing, when Watari came downstairs.
The blinds went on.
XXXX
It hadn't taken much.
It hadn't taken much, not at all.
Light now regarded the prone figure on the floor before him with a kind of lost confusion. The old man's ribcage rose and fell, labored breaths of a pain that Light couldn't imagine holding him firmly to this world…to Light's world. The cut at the base of his skull bled, but not too much. Just enough. He'd calculated everything, the angle, the stroke itself was measured. He didn't want Watari dead.
It hadn't taken much…oh no, not at all.
Because sometimes…just sometimes….
XXXX
L glanced over sharply as his cell phone began to ring. His mouse moved towards the clock at the bottom of his screen and he marked with a frown that it was still daytime in England. His current residence was well into its night hours, however. His eyes traveled uneasily to the phone again, though he made no move to pick it up.
He and Watari had parted on… professional terms.
If it were a normal call, to check on the case or give him an update of some kind, Watari wouldn't have waited until now. He would have called when L still had the entire team at his disposal, and his Japanese counterparts were capable of acting quickly on the information. He probably wouldn't have waited at all, unless it was something that L couldn't give to the team.
…Something about Light.
That being the current question, did he really want to answer?
It was just Watari. He shouldn't be afraid of Watari, no matter how difficult things between them became. Annoyed with himself, he blinked once and snatched the cell up as the final ring ended. A careful flick of his wrist, and the cool metal rested against his ear as he returned his attention to his work.
"Hello?"
"Sometimes, I hate Watari."
The words upon his screen blurred.
XXXX
"Light?" A thrill went through him at the detective's tone, hesitant…almost afraid. It'd been too long.
"Yes." There was no point in denying it…the old man lay bleeding on the floor at Light's feet. The cuff that had held him to the wooden beam now held him, instead of Light. The end table that used to reside by the couch still lay on its side a few feet away, the corner glimmering damply with blood. It had been hard to swing it, because he was so much weaker now. But it hadn't taken much. "It's me."
There was a moment of silence, and Light chuckled darkly…a broken sound to his own ears, but he supposed it was appropriate. He felt rather broken. "Don't bother with the hostage negotiations, L. He's alive."
"Watari lives?"
"Sometimes I hate him."
"Light, you've said that already."
"I hate it when you correct me." Light stood, running a hand through his hair. His eyes stayed on the figure before him, untrusting even in light of the crimson pool gathering beneath Watari's hair.
"It's just not like you to repeat yourself." L's voiced sounded forced…almost hollow. "What have you done to him?"
Light smirked to himself, setting off aimlessly down the hall. "Why don't you pull up the cameras and find out?"
"…Just tell me."
"I might have concussed him… you remember the end tables in the living room?"
"…Yes."
"I threw one at him." Light wandered past the workroom, where he'd spent so long staring at the back of Watari's head. "He fell down. He's breathing however."
What was he looking for? He leaned in the door way and stared over the tables, fingering the keys in his hand. It was a small ring, with five keys upon it…something familiar to him. He'd often seen it hanging from Watari's belt. One of them opened the handcuffs, another, the cell. That left three more to play with.
"What are you doing, Light?"
"Did you miss me, L? You've been gone a long time, you know. What have you been up to?"
"…Light."
"Talk to me, L. That's all I want." He ducked and looked beneath the bed, eyes lighting up as he was presented with a safe.
"I have killed Sidoh."
Light paused in his dragging of the metal box, surprised. "You killed him?"
"Yes."
"Did he hurt you?"
"Yes."
Light smiled. "Did you deserve it?"
"Light, I don't see the point in opening that." A new note of tension entered the detective's voice, and Light twisted around to grin at the camera in the corner.
"I see you, too." He set the phone and key ring on the floor and braced his feet upon the bed frame, pulling the box out. He could hear L saying something from the floor beside him but he ignored him, cursing his lack of strength when the heavy thing only shifted in inches. Finally, the safe cleared the frame, leaving gouges in the wooden floorboards. The silver keyhole and number lock glinted dully in the lamp light.
He picked the cell phone and keys up again, smirking. "Look what I found."
"Light, he's bleeding. You left him…" Yes, the tension was definitely up in that normally composed voice. It made him shiver.
"Shh…it's fine." He tried a key. "He'll be okay."
Perhaps it was his tone, but the detective's sudden silence made him pause. "Light, stop."
"Ah, you would like that wouldn't you? What were you thinking L? Leaving an old, decrepit man to watch Kira like that…I'm a god." He tried the second key and the lock clicked open. He reached inside, feeling blindly through a stack of cash, documents…
"You're not a god."
His hand closed around something cold, and metallic. He brought the pistol out and stared at it…dim recognition lit his features. It was the same pistol that L had pulled on him all those months ago in his training. The memory of it made him smile. "This is yours, isn't it, L?"
Silence on the other end of the line. He went fishing again and brought out a fully loaded clip. The bullets glinted from their casing, gold-toned and the smell…the smell reminded him of Sidoh. The scent of death was in the gun-oil. It made him grin.
Yes, Light felt pretty broken right now.
"Light, put that away."
"It is yours." The pieces slid together with the click of a well preserved machine, mechanical and efficient. He glanced into the safe and found a plastic bag with his personal affects in it…his wallet, his watch…his clothes. He dumped it on the floor and instead filled the bag with cash. He didn't bother with the documents…they were likely of no use to him, or wouldn't be if he were on the run. Done, he closed his little treasure chest. "You're very quiet L. Almost a month…surely you have something to talk about. What did Sidoh do to you?"
"He clawed my back. The damage put me in the hospital for a few days."
Light closed his eyes and took a deep breath, suddenly very, very jealous. "How terrible."
"Light, what are you doing?"
"I'm leaving."
"Why did you call me? I know to look for you, now."
Why had he called? Light didn't remember, really. He picked the bag and gun up and headed for the door. He could see the body in the living room.
Not a body yet… if the man were still alive, that is.
Oh yes…that's why he'd called. "I had a question, actually. You see, I'm rather confused right now. I believe two months is all I can take of solitary confinement before I decide to get out."
"Yes, that seems to be the extent of your tolerance."
"You would know, wouldn't you?" Light made his way back into the living room, his bare feet almost silent in the hall. The old man was still bleeding, his hair encrusted with a crimson and black stain. Light hadn't called L right away. He'd let it sink in that he'd just…done the first violence of his life. The first, real, honest violence…he'd hurt someone with the intent to kill.
"Light?"
"Hmm?"
"Your question?" The detective's voice wavered slightly, betraying him.
"Do I have your attention?" Light glanced at the camera in the opposite corner of the room, mounted level with the ceiling. "Who am I talking to?"
Silence…then quietly "Me."
"You?"
"…Me."
"Good." Light righted the table he'd thrown and leaned on it, staring into the ruddy, wrinkled face on the floor. "Do you want to know what I thought about when I hit him?"
L sounded drunk. "What did you think about, Light?"
"I asked myself if a God would do this." Light's voice took on a slightly distant quality as he replayed the scene in his head.
The table hadn't weighed much, but it'd been hard to lift. Watari had been walking by, reading a file, unaware that Light had spent the last twenty minutes trying to hook his foot around the table leg to bring it into reach. He'd been so careless. There'd been a sickening crunch as it connected with flesh and bone, and man had dropped to the ground without a word or cry.
There was a bloody trail from where Light had to drag him close enough to the get the keys and move the cuff.
The smear was black now, almost dry.
"A God wouldn't. You're not a God."
"Don't interrupt me." The man fell quiet and Light braced his elbow on his knees, staring at the gun in his hands. "Sometimes I really hate Watari. It's not something I can help at this point."
"I understand." Tension…and now fear. It was almost arousing, hearing that underneath his words.
"No, No you don't. He's been putting those damn blindfolds on me for two months now, L."
Silence.
"And I started hating him. I have a right to hate him. He's…defying me. Sinning, if you will."
"Light, you're NOT a god!"
"It's in your best interest to stop saying that. If I'm not a God, then I'm human, and I'm going to kill him." Light muttered quietly. "It's a simple fact at this point. I hate him, L. He faked my death…granted on your orders, but I'll deal with you later. He didn't bother to tell me it was a hoax until I was holding my breath and waiting on my heart to stop. Am I a God or not, L?"
"Light…don't do this."
"I hate him. I can't…help it." Light tilted his head to the side, eyeing the camera quietly, the gun loose in his hand. "And when he wakes up, he's going to be after me. You can't do it yourself, and you know it. I'm safer if he's dead."
"…Light, you can't…you can't murder him. Are you insane?"
"Yes. And whose fault is that? He shoved a needle in my arm, L. I didn't get a courtesy meal or priest…I thought he was going to kill me. I hate him."
"Light, don't…"
"I hate him, L. So much."
"You hate me too."
Light's tone was silken, his mind strangely blank. "And I'll get to you, eventually."
"What do you want?"
That was the question, wasn't it? The slow rise and fall of the man's chest was hypnotic, and he watched it, unable to look away. It was life…beating there beneath the gentleman's vest.
"I'm a god, L. I don't want anything."
L said nothing, and Light licked his lips. Sometimes…just sometimes….
He needed to go…get as far as he could as quickly as he was capable. For all he knew, L had already called the board, or Wedy, or someone.
So…he asked his question.
"Would you call me God, L?"
Silence, nothing but the sound of quiet breathing filtering over the speaker.
He clicked the safety off and sighed.
The pistol rose.
L panicked. "Light! Stop!"
"I'll get to you eventually."
"LIGHT!"
"Shh…."
The shot was loud. It was raw, real, completely, irrevocably definite. The back of Watari's head exploded in a rain of crimson; blood, flesh and bone painting a swathe across the floor in a widening arc. Blood and fragments of his teeth fell from his slightly parted lips, the hole in his cheek garishly bright. The breathing stopped.
It just…stopped.