notes/warnings
+ to all my wonderful readers (and anyone who happens to be browsing this page) - have a wonderful christmas/new year/holiday season if you celebrate it, and enjoy the time off if you get it. I am thankful for all of you year-round. :)
+ please be aware - posting schedules and chapter lengths may be varying a bit as we draw towards the end of this fic. for example, this chapter is a little short, but the next one should be up in a week or so. it's hard to make promises when I'm on holidays and busy and away from home, but I'll be trying my best to get this up ASAP
Equilibrium
They are both still awake, still having the same old argument. Eight hours left together, and Rae still cannot stop L from being an utter asshole about Kira and everything he stood for.
Which was justice and freedom and things like that.
"There are lots of stars out tonight," Rae observes. "There must be a star for every person that Kira saved from criminals."
Okay, Rae may be slightly off its game today. It still hasn't fully recovered from L being fucking stupid and almost dead and…
Don't think about it.
"Probably," L says. "There aren't nearly enough stars in the sky to represent all the people he killed, though. And you'd probably need a hundred skies to hold enough stars for all the lives he ruined."
"You're an asshole," Rae says. "Why do you always do this?"
"You brought it up," L says, sounding upsettingly exhausted. "I said that I accepted your goals. Why are you pushing this particular issue? Why is Light so important after everything that happened?"
What kind of a question even is that?
"He's…not," Rae insists, frowning, both defensive and slightly confused. "You're the one who keeps bringing him up."
"You brought it up," L says again, pinching the bridge of his nose. "And I think about Light a lot because right now I am a human with a death note, and it is important that I never become him. I learn from his mistakes."
L stops, suddenly, chewing on his lip.
"So he made you a better person," Rae says, triumphantly.
"That was not his intention, and it was not a positive reflection of his morality," L says, firmly.
"So many people have changed since the first world," Rae says, chewing on one bony finger. "What's to say he hasn't become a better person, too?"
L lifts his head, finally looking interested. The omnipresent rain is wetting his hair, making it clump around his face and fall wetly into his eye.
"Oh?" he says. "Has hell frozen over already? I'll just ski in and get Mello out then, shall I?"
"You're dodging the question."
"And you are doubting him," L says. "Trying to placate me with the idea that Light might have somehow become a decent human being means you are no longer convinced he was right to do what he did."
"No!" Rae snaps. "Now you're twisting my fucking words."
I didn't say that. I didn't mean that.
Light never did anything wrong. Sure, he made mistakes, but he never made big mistakes. He never fucked up anything important.
And I would know.
"I am repeating your fucking words," L says, diplomatically. "You are essentially arguing with yourself. Besides, I don't need a reasoned argument to hate Light. Aren't you forgetting all those people he killed in the first world?"
"They were all evil!" Rae protests, immediately.
"And unimportant, I suppose," L says, lip quirking. "Have you forgotten that one of them was me?"
The whole area suddenly swings into silence, as if an invisible blanket has descended around Rae, muffling the noise of the rain and the street below.
"Forgive me if I'm wrong," L says, the only sound in the world, "but I was under the impression that you weren't particularly tolerant of me dying."
No, Rae thinks. This feeling isn't particular denial. This is abject, panicked denial. A word to hold back the thoughts that are forming in Rae's head, the thoughts that are suddenly far too coherent.
No. Nope. No.
And then a more specific, detailed refrain.
Rem killed L. Rem killed L. Rem did it. Rem killed L.
Nobody else did it.
I.
"I'm sorry to do this to you," L says, getting to his feet. "But that is the truth. In the end, you can only side with one of us. Light and I are polar opposites. He is evil, and while I may not be particularly good, I hate him with every fibre of my being. I will always oppose him."
But.
L touches Rae's skull gently. Nobody else has ever touched Rae like L does. Nobody that mattered, anyway.
Then again, nobody else matters like L does.
Fuck, no.
I didn't.
Rem.
L's death was orchestrated, and Rem was only ever an instrument. Rae knew that. Has known that all along.
"What should I do?" it asks, quietly, genuinely afraid.
L grins suddenly, white teeth glittering in the dim moonlight, looking suddenly and impossibly charismatic.
"Renounce him," L suggests. "If you choose my side, then renounce him. Attack him on sight, if ever you should see him. Rule your world as you will, Shinigami prince, but don't involve him. Renounce him."
Light wiped their memories so that Misa would be caught. So that L would make moves to arrest her. So that Rem would have no choice. That was what happened.
"But…" Rae says, and then trails off.
Rae's world is different now, but it changed a long time ago, slowly and insidiously. Like a cancer.
Or a cancer treatment, slowly burning out the worst parts.
Rae cannot think. Cannot move.
"Think on it," L says. "I am going to bed."
Jas looks especially appealing tonight. Her hair is shiny and soft-looking, falling into curls at the ends. Her face is perfect, but not flawless. She looks attractive and approachable. Appealing. She is offering to save Mello from a life of pain and suffering and psychological torture. From a life of never being good enough, of never having anything good.
From a life of hell, literally.
She has crawled into his hell-box with him. She will take him out of hell and into her dimension. She will explain away the oddities at first, try to remain in keeping with the image of an angel. Over time, she will introduce him to the concept of Shinigami, of other worlds, of the hell-god.
She will always be his hero. He will have no choice but to love her. Nobody else can offer him anything.
She stays with Mello, touching him gently, benignly, as he makes his choice. His hell has made him a careful thinker, no longer rash and impulsive as he used to be.
Perhaps, if he had been given the chance to grow up in the first world, he would have softened anyway. He would have become a little less of what Near made him, a little more of what Jeevas made him.
Instead, he will be everything that Jas makes him. No human could ever ask for more.
She is, essentially, god.
Mihael looks up, eyes bright, and pushes the hair out of his face.
"No," he says, with absolute certainty.
"What?" Hope says, sounding shocked, suddenly not quite as beautiful as you thought she was. "What do you mean, no?"
"I can't come with you," you say.
It's the obvious answer. You are an idiot, and so you give simple responses. She shouldn't be confused.
The room seems to be shaking, wobbling at the corners. You wonder if the hallucinations are going to come back. You wonder if you are about to incur the wrath of an angel. After all, she loves you, or something.
God, you just rejected an angel. You are such a fucking loser that you have no idea why you are even still alive.
You are exhausted by the thought of being still alive.
"But this…this place is hell," Hope stammers. "Almost literally. Don't you understand? You will suffer here for the rest of your life. And I cannot come back to save you."
"Yes," you say. "I understand."
Maybe you don't understand. You're pretty stupid, after all. Maybe you are making a big mistake, but you are still convinced that this is the right thing to do.
"So, come with me," the angel says, smiling shakily. "I'm trying to help you, here."
"No."
"But you'll be all alone-"
"No."
"But you're stuck in an asyl-"
"No."
"But your mind is decayi-"
"No."
You are practically in tears. You can already feel the pain seeping back into your hand, insidious and ugly. You are frightened of the years to come. You are frightened of growing old in this place, in this hospital, in this world. But this is the real world, and you have to stay.
"Why not?" Hope demands, sounding angry. Sounding like you've ruined everything. You probably have. You're good at that.
"Because," you say, weakly. "What if Matt needs me?"
"Why," she says emphatically, "would Matt need you? When has Matt ever needed you? What would you even be able to do to help him?"
"I don't know," you say, pathetically. "But..but…what if something goes wrong one day? Like, what if he ends up all on his own, or something? What if something bad happens, and I'm not here to help him because I'm not in this world? I'd never ever forgive myself."
"But I love you," Hope says, tearfully.
"I like you a lot," you tell her. "Thank you for trying to save me. Um."
"Um what?" she snaps.
"l probably won't get out of this place for a long time," you tell her. "So, before you go, can you take him a message from me?"
You're going to try your best, even if you keep failing. You are going to eventually get released from this horrible hospital. You feel strangely hopeful. Like a weight on your mind has been lifted.
Hope looks at you forlornly, limp and sad. You get to your feet and hug her tightly.
You get the feeling that both of you are fucked up.
"Tell him I'm going to come home," you say. "Please."
"You won't even remember me," she says, distressed. "You'll wake up on this floor, and you won't remember me. That's how it works with angels."
"Maybe," you reply. "But I'm going to try, all the same. Who knows? Maybe we will meet again."
"No," Hope says, abruptly, pushing you away.
Then everything goes black.
The constructs of hell are looking a bit shaky tonight. Ryuk examines them, and then decides to travel via the Shinigami realm instead.
Kai calls out to him, more in derision than greeting. Ryuk waves and keeps flying, death note clasped tightly between his hands. The pilfered page is hidden in the center of the notebook. Ryuk doesn't dare touch it. Rumours say that if a Shinigami touches that page, they'll turn into something like her.
And Ryuk likes himself just the way he is.
He doesn't stop, not even to rest for a moment. This cargo is too precious, and he doesn't dare risk being caught. He's not even sure what the punishment would be, it's that bad.
His wings are actually starting to hurt. He's never done this much exercise in his life.
When I get back to the third world, I am going to eat so many apples, he thinks, snickering to himself.
Tonight is a good night.
Jas doesn't collapse. She doesn't scream in rage. She doesn't tear apart the world, and she doesn't rain suffering down on those in her care.
Keehl made his choice.
She goes on, as she always has. Chin up. Lonely and angry and resigned and struggling. Chin up. Status quo. Is, as it ever was, unchanging and unchanged.
He chose Jeevas.
She should have known all along. She has a job to do, and there isn't anyone else but her. There has never been anyone else, and she was stupid to expect otherwise.
If I were to force him, I'd be no better than…than the other one.
God, she is so tired.
Keehl will never be mine.
But she goes on.
Eternity is a long, long time.
Raye gets up early and checks the news. Something odd happened in London last night. A young firefighter was found dead in his own home, without any injuries at all. His death wasn't considered to be particularly remarkable until they conducted the autopsy, and found that his heart had literally exploded.
The police are saying it's some sort of weird spontaneous disease. Raye isn't so sure, though. The man had reported seeing ghosts in his house days prior to his death, and.
Well.
Raye isn't sure monsters and ghosts aren't real. Which is weird, because he thought he would be. But now that he thinks of it, he vaguely remembers being certain, at some point, that they were real. Like, didn't he tackle monsters on a case, or something?
Some sort of beast? Like a chimera, or…
…a gorgon?
"Grace Backstrum," he says, suddenly, with absolutely clarity. "Holland. Oh my god."
You wake up in your bed. In your actual bed, in your actual house. Dwayne is standing next to you, chewing worriedly.
"You've been unconscious for days," he burbles. "I was nearly almost going to call the hospital."
"I was at a hospital," you say, even though you aren't sure why. You feel disoriented and panicked, like something bad happened and you missed it.
"You haven't been to a hospital since I met you," Dwayne says.
"Oh yeah," you say, feeling stupid. "You're right."
Of course he's right.
Your hand still hurts, though.
Mail doesn't move when Raye first bursts into the room, shouting. He's always reluctant to give his attention to anyone who isn't Mello.
Maybe L is the exception. Maybe.
But today is also an exception. Because today something is wrong with the room that he spent all night inscribing with Mello's name.
"Give me the pen," Raye demands. "I want to write something on the wall."
Mail does move, turning to look at his colleague.
"Did you do this?" he demands, gesturing at the wrong bit on the wall. The bit that doesn't say Mihael or Keehl.
"I'm going to come home?" Raye says, curiously. "You didn't write this? But it's in your handwriting."
He takes the pen from Mail's fingers, and scribbles Holland was real in neat letters near the bottom left corner of the wall.
Mail doesn't waste time with talking. He goes over to Raye, and punches him in the shoulder. Hard. Raye flinches and drops the pen.
"Ow. What was that for?"
"Fuck off," Mail says, viciously. "Get your own room. You're ruining fuckin' everything."
Nobody understands. Nobody gives a fuck that the best person in the world is stuck in hell forever. Mail is the only one who cares. Who even remembers.
Fuck Raye Penber. Fuck L. Fuck everyone. Fuck whoever defaced the wall with I'm going to come home. What does that even mean, anyway?
Mail seizes the pen and scribbles over the abhorrent words, until every letter is illegible.
"I'm sorry," Raye says. "I'm just trying to remember."
"Fuck you," Mail says, again.
No, Rae thinks.
No.
Nope.
No. No, no.
No no no no no no no no.
No no NO no no no NO NO.
NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO.
The chairs the boy the sparkling thing it isn't a crown it was never a crown the boy the boy the boy the boy the chairs.
NO FUCKING NO FUCKING NO FUCKING FUCK.
"Your friend seems to still be on the roof," Watari says over the intercom. "I don't think it has moved since last night."
"I'm sorry to hear that," L says. "I was hoping it would be okay."
"Today is the day it leaves, right?" Watari asks gently.
"Yes," L says, glancing at his watch. "In forty minutes, in fact."
They are out of time.
L takes the death note from under his shirt, and lays it open on the desk. Then he takes a pen from the drawer.
This was inevitable.
Jas does not weep, but she does mourn. She gives up on L, and any hope that he might stand up to his evil companion. But that doesn't matter because she has faith – she has always, always had faith – that Rae's worst enemy was Rae itself.
True evil never reforms. That thing must never go free.
And there are other people. The more she looks at the world beyond hell, the more she sees them. Not heroes, not gods, not even powerful, but good. Good humans. Humans who give charity and expect nothing in return. Humans who die rather than hurt anyone. The kind and the gentle. Those who have nothing and still find something to share with others. Those who fight evil without becoming it.
And, at the forefront of all of them, is the human she has nicknamed the Prince.
Instead of L, Jas will invest in someone else. To remain moderate, she must always aspire to be good. Or so Jas believes. She has to make this up as she goes along. She has no mentor, no predecessor, no family, and no friends.
She is still weary from Grianna's stupid games, from Mihael's rejection. Still struggling, still tired. And so it takes Jas longer than it should to notice that a small part of her is missing.
Nobody, Rae thinks, with finality, nobody is ever ever ever allowed to hurt L.
But Light killed L.
No!
Yes, Light killed L. That was the entire fucking plan. That was the whole point of giving up the death notes and the memories and setting up Yotsuba and engaging Rem in the first place. In the first year of owning the notebook, Light had exactly two goals. Rid the world of criminals, and make L dead.
Yes okay, but.
But what?
Rae isn't even sure who it is arguing with, but it has the horrible suspicion it might be the boy in the other chair.
Okay, but look, there wasn't a way to rid the world from evildoers and let L remain alive.
Isn't that what they're doing now, though? Here, in the second world. Isn't L making a dent on the criminal population? Isn't L managing not to murder any innocent bystanders?
If Light was so clever, why didn't he come up with something like this?
Your arguments are starting to not make any sense.
The terrifying thing is that Rae is no longer capable of managing without L. The threat of losing him the other day was devastating.
Shouldn't have gotten attached.
But that's what good people do. They get attached. That is why new Near defeated old Near.
Suck on that, old Near.
Yes okay they've established that neither of them like old Near. Thanks for that, boy-in-classroom.
Wait, classroom?
Neither?
Everything is broken, and Rae is not okay.
But it will be, soon.
Ross sashays down the street. He's been circling the same old rundown church for a few hours now. Today he's looking for a real brunette. Jet black hair, and not a shade lighter. It's a challenge in a place like London.
He's up for a challenge. He found some pizza in the dumpster earlier that couldn't have been more than a day old. Practically a feast for a free man.
Ross fingers the knife in his pocket, tips his hat to a passing broad, and keeps walking.
tbc
a/n:
+ thank you for everything guys 3