I wonder, I wonder, what really happens in other people's heads when they hear your name?
Who are we, to other people?
I want some things to be happy, so I write them so they can be. Why? Because it's easier and harder at the same time.
0o0o0o
Pressed together up against some side hallway, kissing a perfect mix of desperate and steady. Every slide of bared skin on skin was hot and satisfying and underscored by teeth tugging on lips and hands braced against the closest steady surface to keep them from falling to the floor.
'You're so good,' L managed between alternately coaxing Light's mouth open and having his neck ravished with sharp nips and bites.
'I get to have you-' Light broke off in a gasp. 'To have you for my own. No more deals, oh God, no more 'just for tonight'. You are mine,' he whispered, not commanding, but raw with emotion.
This wasn't going to end like their 'just for tonight'. It couldn't. This deal meant that they could run away together, into their own universe, governed by their own laws.
'No more 'just for tonight'.' L echoed. 'Yes. Yes, definitely.'
Maybe it was the feeling of weightlessness that came from telling the truth in the Kira Case, maybe it was the surreality of this corridor tucked away, with a meeting they could still hear going on barely a dozen doors away. Maybe it was just the insanity of a suspect and a detective becoming more than. Maybe it was just the quietness of breathing and steady kisses with words murmured underneath, but the sweet nothings Light kept repeating started to take on real weight and words and meaning; he was saying 'I love you', that beautiful forbidden promise.
'I love you,' Light said again, unsteadily, then with more confidence. 'I love you, L,' and I don't care whether you say it back. L said it back, he was repeating it back to him, over and over, breathlessly, shakily, like he couldn't believe he was saying the words.
Kisses and their new deal and soft laughter, all woven together by names and three words in repetition that never wore out.
You are not Kira, L promised. You have two sides, one is Light, one is Kira, and they are different, and I've fallen in love with one. I can do that, right? I can love you and hate your other side, can't I, and not feel like crying when I think about what our endgame will be?
Too much time was passing. Their absence was obvious now; people were going to start becoming suspicious-that is, if they hadn't already heard them, or poked their heads out of the conference room and chanced a look left to see their head detective and major suspect kissing and moaning and whispering frantic I love you's.
'How much do you care about me?'
A long silence. L imagined the echo of what would have been Kira's answer, 'Where is this coming from? You know I care…'
It was sudden and out of place, and L knew that. He hadn't meant to say it. It had just happened, like cloudbursts in August or making decisions that led to late confessions or finding yourself thinking of someone too much.
Light could say many things, 'I don't know', 'enough', 'a lot'. Or he could parrot, word for word, what L had heard the last time he had asked.
'Enough to know that L as...you, and L the detective, are different.'
It was a Light answer, full of references that L couldn't understand, that probably only made sense inside Light's head. The Kira suspect never answered any direct questions, but he seemed to hear all the other pleas, and his words soothed those. It was not the answer from last time, it was different, and it was enough.
He was enough, this childish, beautiful young man, they, together, were enough.
A soft, choked noise, barely audible, L's hands whitening at the knuckles. Those was the only indications the raven-haired man gave that he was crying.
'It's okay. It's okay,' Light soothed, holding L closer and letting his fragile body shudder against his chest.
'I-I don't know why I'm crying…' L whispered.
0o0o0o
He did know why he was crying.
L had asked Beyond the same question once, 'How much do you care about me?' And Beyond had looked him in the eyes without flicking up to the supposed numbers above his head and smiled a shark's smile.
'Enough that I always come back, don't I?'
L had laughed then, because it was the only thing to do. You had to play all of Beyond's games and solve all of his little diversions, or else. You couldn't take Beyond or anything else seriously, you couldn't talk for too long about things you loved, or people would pry apart the cracks that showed when you did and rip you apart.
Just because L was Beyond's lover didn't mean he was safe from his power plays. In fact, he was most vulnerable.
Beyond, Beyond, Beyond, his old protege who had always stood unbalanced on his razor blades, between the rational face he showed to others and the absolute animal he became when alone. Alone, or with L. Beyond didn't seem to register the difference.
L had lost count of how many times he'd had come out of the bedroom with bites and bruises from their 'playing'. And for someone who kept meticulous track of anybody he'd loved or gotten invested in as a suspect-or both, in two cases-it must have been too many times.
He could still remember that low, smoky voice, once smooth and amused, then roughened by fire, but still cold and deep and carrying on at least three separate conversations somewhere far away from you.
'It's been too long.' Their running joke every night they managed together, whispered against skin before falling into the bed with their clothes on the floor. Maybe it was too long without a good partner, one you could look at for a fraction of a second and share a million things.
The worst were the nights when Beyond had taken the name Rue and had run away to create a case L would refuse to solve. L remembered the act that had incurred that, but only as something like a dream. If he accepted it was a memory, then he'd have to face all the consequences and burn scars lacing Beyond's throat and back.
0o0o0o
'It's okay,' Light said again. All he could do was try to hold down the insistently rising panic. Seeing L cry was like seeing your parents cry when you were young. Terrifying. Surreal. Wrong. You had gone from being the one who could crawl under their covers when you had a nightmare to the one holding their shuddering shoulders as they screamed for it all to be over.
It was not something a child should have to do. Yet it happened.
It shouldn't have been so hard for the seventeen-year-old man to see his boyfriend crying. For anybody else, it would have simply been a moment to hold them close until they could pull back together again.
But L didn't cry. He wasn't supposed to. He was supposed to be invulnerable and indifferent and look up after a fight with dispassionate eyes.
'It's okay,' Light said, and held L closer, wishing he didn't have to be the adult, and L didn't either.
L shaking and gone, Light dreaming of different worlds where everybody functioned like it was still childhood, agreements to stop saying 'just one night'.
I am Light and you are L and we are not detectives or suspects, we have gone back into our own universe.
It was not the Kira Case there, thank God.
0o0o0o
Nothing lasts forever. They had to return to the real world, wracked with guilt that they'd allowed so many moments of weakness. They'd felt good, though.
'Was that what would have happened if we were normal?' L asked.
'Yes. Did you like it?' Light smiled and leaned down for a kiss, reminding himself it was allowed.
'I think we need more practice.' L accepted, humming happily.
'In another universe, we did.' L's pleased purring cut off, and the gentle embrace hardened. 'Sorry.'
'It's true, though.'
L didn't look much different with supposedly blotchy eyes from crying. The sleepless shadows covered them up. Hopefully it was just because of that, and not the chance that L had been crying as well as not sleeping.
As expected, their absence was not overlooked. Mogi gave Light a suspicious look when they'd sat down, and L's fingers twisted secretly in his wasn't helping Light's casual expression.
The ink pressed against skin, and L turned his hand over to complete their last note, the one they would let fade instead of cutting the threads of.
Maybe the Kira Case was awful and dangerous and double-bladed with more than two sides. Maybe agreeing to anything that had led them here was a mistake. Maybe trying to build their own sanctuary in the middle of a hurricane would hurt more in the end.
But maybe they could catch a moment between gales and rebuild, smiling at each other and the words on their palms.
They didn't deserve to try to be safe. Nobody truly does. But they would take it, take anything, take each other as a pause from the chaos. It was enough.
I have this feeling, L wrote with his finger on Light's back, hoping the wide strokes would reduce any trace of his meaning to aimless scribbles, that my life is going to end by your hands, and soon.
And I'm sorry that it has to be this way, that we couldn't have had more time.
And that I'm writing this. It seems like a betrayal.
I'm sorry for everything, Light-kun, and I wish so badly that everything was different and our rules carried into the real world.
If Light had realized what L was drawing out, he didn't give any indications, and they fell back into their old rhythm full of breathing and not, Light's hands gripping tight but not deep enough to hurt, the look in his eyes both possessive and giving as he whispered, 'I swear, I'm going to best you one day…'
'As I'm trying to you,' L responded, and they laughed. This was their ritual, rolling over in bed closer and closer, still not finding to what depths their puzzle pieces could connect.
The car chase was fast and heady and filled with screeching tires and barked, staticky commands. The sports car careened through traffic, pursued by the police. Light could practically smell Higuchi's gritted-teeth desperation.
They watched it all indifferently from above, a circling bird of prey to dive and pick off weakened animals-and deliver a quick stab to the lions that had stalked it. The chopper was silent save for the steady thrumming of the blades, which had long ago faded into background noise.
We've cornered you, Kira, Light thought in satisfaction. And after we clean up all the loose ends, then maybe this case can finally be closed and I can go back to something like a normal life. A glance of skin on skin, and a shiver went down Light's spine. Something, possibly, with him.
A life together, after he'd convinced L to retire from being a detective and he'd finished school. Somewhere quiet where they could build a foundation for their relationship on something less volatile than the Kira Case.
Maybe they'd even make everything official, get married, and raise a family…
0o0o0o
The next few minutes passed like a movie. Or maybe it was hours. It didn't really matter, because in the end, they got to the same point: L holding the Death Note and Light reaching for it, and his fingers connecting with the black cover and suddenly everything went dark and bright and truthful and awful.
A television, panting as he'd written a fake name. Rivals, true rivals. Something with black feathers that had perched like a raven; Ryuk. Misa. Rem.
Plans all falling into place like puzzle pieces and dominoes, perfectly every time, except for when they didn't.
Cameras.
Writing, hands flying over paper, ink smudged. He'd taken pride, no, pleasure in delivering justice. Knowing he was a killer, and then that feeling slowly being smothered by the endorphins trained to release forty seconds after the last stroke of his hand.
That awful biting obsession to run back home and let the pen and paper dance their deadly routine.
He had become addicted to death, and it was the best drug he could ever have.
Names, sheets and sheets of them, lined up in rows like inmates for the noose.
A thousand lives, penned down, each stroke of the pen severing red strings of fate.
He'd killed them all. I am justice, he'd cried.
The power of a god.
L, L, L, the rival of Kira and lover of Light.
Who am I?
He'd pleaded with the universe to answer for eternities, so long he'd forgotten the real question he was asking. Everything had faded into static. So when the universe finally answered, it was sharp and bitter and taunting.
The world, the life he'd imagined? Nothing but that: a fruitless hope.
I am Kira.
0o0o0o
Imagine yourself differently. Imagine yourself as your own perfect image. Would you be happy, if you had brought the change upon yourself with memories of your old life?
Or, if you'd been born that way. Would you hate it, and want to be someone else?
:: Snow falling from the sky and when you look up at it and feel tiny and dizzy and insignificant
-LyingMonsters, the one who laughs at things nobody else would and thinks until the world drops away