Butterflies

I do not own Death Note, nor its characters.

Chapter One: strange bed fellows

"The body is a house of many windows: there we sit, showing ourselves and cry on the passersby to come and love us."

- Robert Louis Stevenson

Light was just him self. He couldn't be anything else, he mused to himself, no, he couldn't be. He would know, wouldn't he? He would know if someone was living in his mind with him, at least, that is what he hoped.

He gripped the rope he held so that he would not fall on the bus tighter. This inner conflict was, at best, annoying. Many times his mother had told him that to be him self was the best thing to be, but how could he when so many people were expecting him to be so many different people. It was so very difficult to please them all, even when he knew that they were never to be pleased. No, not so for them. Everyone wanted a different part of Light.

Sighing, he maintained his balance as the bus lurched forward. This was his stop. Tiredly, he made his way out with the rest of the people on the bus, stepping off into the winter's chill. The people stepped around him, their bodies jostling his in their haste to get to their next destination. He frowned and furrowed his brow, thinking to himself of what he had been. He walked quickly until he reached the small hotel that was his destination. Reaching for the door, he stopped his motion before it was finished, retracting his hand back to his side. It was always a strange and difficult decision to open the door. Opening it would mean that he would be falling into another web of lies that he himself had spun to catch himself and whomever was there when he opened the door. This was not a door. This was a choice and Light was hardly ready to make it.

The first thing he did was touch the handle, before gripping it, and pulling lightly at it. The locking mechanism fluidly clinked and fell, causing the door to push forward and open. Light entered and made his choice.

A very thin man greeted him. His shirt was a tightly woven garment of many different threads that Light could not place. He held out a hand, which Light took delicately. The very thin man looked Light up and down and touched his face softly.

"You are exactly as I thought. Very beautiful."

"Most say I'm pretty." The very thin man pushed his finger on to Light's lips tenderly, almost lovingly, like a lover who had something important to say.

"Most are wrong. Beautiful, like a Maiden's Blush rose. Pretty is a throw away word, and you do not look at all like a throw away person."

Light suppressed the urge to laugh. This whole night, this whole thing, it was all based on the throw away ability to be pretty. Being pretty was a whole concept, a whole world made from being a pretty person. That was why Light was here. To be pretty, to be what ever the very thin man wanted. Light was always wearing masks, and he put each one on with the knowledge that each one will leave a piece on him until he had nothing left under the mask, just a pretty face to be kissed and touched.

The very thin man led him through the ratty hotel, up and up to a small room, the number fallen upside down to form a six. Light felt a tug as the very thin man pulled him in, stopping at the bed. It was a small thing, seemingly collapsing in on its self, the coverlet thin and worn form misuse. The very thin man looked at Light and sighed to himself, reaching next to him for a bag. He turned around and gave Light a look.

"Take your clothing off please. I have forgotten to get your name."

Light took off his coat, shirt, and pants, standing in only his undergarments. "Tsuki. Tsuki is my name." He knew better than to ask the man's name. It is a rule, one he made up himself a while ago. Never ask for a name, one will be given in time when the man or woman feels it time to reveal who they are.

The very thin man pulled out four straps and hooked one end of each to the bed poles. Light pursed his lips in seemingly innocent fear. It wasn't. He'd seen stranger.

"Off." The very thin man pointed to Light's undergarments. Light slipped them off and waited for further instruction. The very thin man guided him down and hooked his limps with the straps, tightened them so that he was rigidly locked in a spread eagle position, every thing on his body without cover. It was not a problem. Light wasn't himself, so he wasn't showing any part of himself. Tsuki was the one with his body out there for the very thin man to touch. It was his mask to wear.

"Thrilling." The very thin man looked down at Light, who softly bit his lip. Did he say something bad? Did he ruin the very thin man's fun? Had he crushed his own mask?

"Ah. Most react in such a way. I like it, especially with beautiful people like you Tsuki." His accent was a soft English tone, one which kept his sentences clipped and terse. The name Tsuki rolled off his tongue in such a manner that Light was sure he knew it was fake.

"Most."

"Most. But you see, I like it this way. It's like pinning down a butterfly. Keeping things down, beautiful things that I can hook and catch, watch and admire. Love."

"Love?"

"Yes. I love every person I take into my bed." Light looked at the ceiling. There was a mold growing on it and it was a heart wrenching orange fuzz that grew and took over the peeling wall paper, stretching like creeping fingers over it.

"Love is a terrible notion to entertain."

"It isn't the notion of love, it's the fact. I love you."

The very thin man leaned over Light and touched his lips on his shoulder, licking it with the tip of his very wet tongue. It felt strange. Light minded his manners and kept his lips closed.

"I love you and all the other people who have been here before you. Love is a fact that though we like to avoid it, we can not and therefore we find it easier to make into some sort of wrenched thing that hurts us, when really it's not. It's not terrible or bitter. It's really wonderful. If you love, you find things so much more lovely, so very bright and hot and wet."

Light gasped as the very thin man kissed his neck, tortured it with touches. His fingers slid in and out of his belly button, mimicking his future actions.

"I've never found it easy to love." Light emitted softly. The very thin man looked at him curiously.

"So beautiful. Love should come easy. But the wall, the wall around you. It's terrible and high and I so wish you would take it down."

He slipped off his own pants and his penis came out, touching the skin of Light's stomch. Light shivered and gasped as a pair of dexterous fingers went into his anus and stretched him. It wasn't anything new but it felt fresher. Stupid. He was beginning to believe what the very thin man said. Was this what love making felt like?

"I never think to love people. They're gone so quickly that I hardly notice whether they are here or not. They never seem to be very open. I suppose that's why I do this."

The very thin man slid his penis into Light's anus and began to thrust in him, pleasantly warming him. He touched Light's face again, tenderly and with a gentle tug on his lip. A childish, affectionate gesture, one lovers would share.

"The ability to have passionless, nameless sex to me seems difficult. So much love wasted. How could one even think that it would satisfy?"

"I don't know." Light doesn't know why he's babbling on now, the very thin man coaxing all this flow of truth. "I don't like being attached. I'm not just me, I'm also every one. I'm everyone you love. I embody it. That's why I can't love just one person. I can't be just one person, I have to fill voids for people, people who need a person that I can be. A face that I can wear, to make them feel better, one moment out of the day."

The very thin man thrust in to him again and he thrust back best he could with his restraints.

"So you pretend to feel for someone you don't even know. That's a horrid thing to do. You can't be everyone. A mask is only good for some time before it breaks."

Light stopped and let the very thin man thrust into him, hotly touching his face and arms.

"I want to love every one Tsuki, that's my problem. I want to love everyone and…I want them to stay. That's why I capture butterflies and put them on the walls and in my bed. Beautiful creatures to come and let me have what they keep in precious boxes. I want to love every one. Pin them all down." He touched Light's cheek and traced his finger down it. He thrust one last time and Light came, came loudly and softly, crying because he felt like he was in love. It was beautiful. He saw oblivion.

He saw the very thin man touch him and softly whisper as his cum entered Light.

"I want to love you Tsuki."

Light looked at the very thin man and pursed his lips. The very thin man untied the restraints and Light felt his arms go limp. He got off of Light and let Light get up and put back on his clothing.

"Love is a very dangerous notion to entertain." The very thin man looked at the sheets, which were wet and mussed. He nodded and put his pants back on.

"More dangerous still is to let it entertain itself."

Light sighed and held out his hand. "Payment still is needed, love or no."

The very thin man handed him a small roll of cash, which Light placed in his pocket. He looked at the very thin man and suddenly he looked very old.

He touched the handle, grasped it, and pushed, but stopped and turned, softly uttering a question.

"What is your name?" The very thin man touched his wrist softly, tapping on it.

"I don't go by any names. Many people used to call me things, but I haven't had a name in a long time. I do have a small little thing you may find me with."

"Oh."

"Beautiful Tsuki, my Maiden's Blush, may call me L."

Light whispered it to himself and found pleasure in the word. He turned and left, the very thin man sitting in an old chair that was falling to bits. The bus was leaving in barely an hour and Light needed to get to the station in time.

He swept himself away, wanting to be quick. He had another man in the morning, a supposed play boy with a love of dirty young kittens. The dull throbbing of his past session lessened as the tossing about of the bus distracted him from more pressing thoughts.

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the end of chapter 1

A.N. Written while watching a combination of V for Vendetta and The L Word on silent.

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