warnings: all the usual. and a bit of gore. and slight dub-con. and, uh, attempted non-con (and not involving the two characters you'd think.)
notes: YOU MEAN THERE'S PLOT IN THIS CHAPTER? WHOA, JUMP BACK. I know, it's an unlikely event with this story, so I felt I should warn you. For real, though. Things start happening. Lots of Mello this week, and a surprise guest appearance by someone who will surprising to absolutely no one ever. Sorry this update was ridiculously slow. I was 1) traveling, 2) sick and 3) sewing at a break-neck pace to finish my cosplay in time. animazment this weekend! weee!
chapter twelve - the cure for death.
"As if, darkness were indeed the proper element of our essences, though light be more congenial to our clayey part."
- Herman Meliville, Moby Dick: or, the White Whale
"I fucked someone else," is one of the first things Light says.
There are no pictures on the walls here. He likes that. His parent's house is covered in pictures of him as a child. He's the same person, when it comes down to it, as he was and as he's always been, but he resents himself anyway simply for ever having been even slightly different from what he is now.
"Misa?" L asks, without looking at him. "I'm sure she appreciated it."
"Not Misa," he says, setting down the box of donuts. L does glance up then and he looks like a machine with all of his wires gutted out. Light wants to imagine that it's blatant jealousy, that it's raging in him like a storm, but is pretty sure that that's mostly just L's face.
There are no pictures. He has no pictures of L, which would be unremarkable - why would he want pictures of L? He's not particularly good looking and he's right there, besides - but for the fact that no one has pictures of L. No one. Light makes a note to himself to buy a disposable camera next time he goes out. It's an owning gesture, in some ways. They say a photograph can steal your soul.
L sits up. "Hmm. Light-kun has so many girlfriends, it's hard to keep track."
"It wasn't a girl," he says. L is on the floor with a mess of papers. Light sits down on the bed and shrugs out of his jacket, slips off his shoes. "Do you mind if I get some sleep? You can bounce your theories off of me afterward." He lies down, spreading out and pulling the top-sheet up to his hips. The space heaters have made the room pleasantly warm. L's bed is always unmade.
The pillows smell like L in a slightly disgusting way and Light makes another note to wash them. It's all little notes these days. Grand plans are tiring and he's got plenty of time. L takes up his time these days. L is what he has these days. That -
That's a disgusting way to think.
Light's skin is itchy. He waits for L to respond and feels his skin heating up, wants to strip but doesn't want to be naked. He sits up in bed. "Did you hear me?" he asks, throwing nonchalance to the wind, because it clearly isn't working. His voice sounds loud. The heater is louder.
"You were getting some sleep?" L says, glancing at him over his shoulders, and Light can tell from the look on his face that this is all a joke to him. He might be jealous and he might not, but he's too much of a stony bastard to show or tell or give Light any emotional satisfaction. He almost smiles and Light knows it even though L gives no indication of it and Light wonders if it's L or him who's having these thoughts, L's thoughts. Maybe L is just a projection of himself and doesn't exist at all. Maybe he's locked his own mind in a windowless room.
No, that's not right. That's crazy in the first place, but in the second place, that's not right at all. L is important because he is proof of life, of sentient, worthy existence beyond Light himself. If L is Light then the world really is rotten to the core, and there isn't anything worth saving.
"I said I slept with someone else," Light repeats. He hears his own annoyance. He's ashamed of it, but also proud in a way, because no matter how immature he gets, he's still the obvious adult in the relationship.
"I heard you."
Light is sitting up in bed and L is sitting on the floor and it's too hot in the room. "You know I could escape if I wanted to," L murmurs after a moment, "don't you?"
Light is sitting up in bed and L is sitting on the floor and -
"Yes," Light says.
He gets out of bed and sits down next to L on the floor. "Ask me about the man that I had sex with." His words are too hot in the hot room and, before L can do as he's told, Light reaches over to the space heater to turn it down. "Hold on." He moves back. "Okay, ask me."
L tilts his head, like he doesn't understand, but it's only for a moment - it only takes L a moment when it comes to any puzzle - then he smiles indulgently. "Tell me about the man you had sex with, Light-kun."
The honorific is representative of something - maybe of the boy that there are photos of all over Light's old house; pictures of a child's stolen soul - and Light would resent it if he could remember to. He'll make a note of it. "He was nothing like you," he says. He wants to lay his head on L's shoulder, but that feels like something he can't touch right now, so he lies back on the floor. The carpeting is dirty. Light is so tired. "I thought he was at first, but he wasn't. He was unremarkable. He was just like the rest of them."
"I'm going to tell you a terrifying secret, Light-kun," L says, trailing his along on the floor next to him, touching the dust with his flat, blunt nails. It's all so dirty. Light makes a note to vacuum.
He slips his hand into L's. It's very cold in comparison, like shoving his fingers into a creek. "Tell me," Light says. Time passes very quickly all of a sudden and it feels like minutes have elapsed, even though it's quite obvious they haven't. "Tell me."
"The secret is that I am just like the rest of them," L says in a whisper that sounds too loud. "The secret is, so are you." He presses his lips to Light's knuckles, one at a time.
"No," Light says. He might be laughing, but then suddenly he's not. He's definitely not. It's too hot. He wants to turn the heater lower still. "You're lying."
"You'll grow out of this someday, I'm sure," L says, brushing Light's hair out of his eyes. "We all go through phases where we want to destroy the world."
But no, no, that's wrong. Light is God and Light is a savior. Light can do anything. Light can fuck guest lecturers and Light can own people and Light can walk with monsters at his back. He wonders where Ryuk is. He doesn't miss him, but he's used to him, and it feels wrong that he's not there, grinning through the walls.
L is pressing something cold and dead to his forehead and it spikes his blood wrong.
"I want to save the world," he tells the cold dead thing that is actually L's hand. "I'm trying to save the world."
"You're burning up," L says.
Light smiles. Light smiles because finally someone understands.
"He put his cock in you yet, or are you saving that honor for me, princess?" Bert says, tapping his ashes out. The ceiling fan is on today, even though it's cold enough already that Mello's fingers shiver in his thin gloves, and Watson has just gone in the front room to talk to some man that Mello's not allowed to speak to and couldn't care less about.
"Fuck off," he tells Bert, not looking up, and trying to keep the teeth-grit anger out of his voice. Bert is a fuck, but it's not as bad as it could be. That's his mantra of late: not as bad as it could be.
Bert's eyes twinkle at him, lips twitching, and he doesn't want Mello to keep quiet or calm, wants screaming and tantrums and childish things, little boy things. Fucking pervert.
"I'm only trying to help you, doll," he says, flicking his cigarette twice in quick succession. "Wat, yeah, he's alright on the job, but a right sod outside of it. Best be on your guard, or he might slip you it without you even knowing." He quirks his eyebrow and it's ugly - uglier - the sort of casual obscenity that Mello's trying to force himself to be okay with.
"I think I'd fucking notice," he says, shoving his hair out of his face. It slips from behind his ears. Bert says it makes him look like a girl. Mello thinks Bert looks like the wrong end of a motorcycle accident, but has kept as much to himself out of sheer self-preservation.
"Of course you think you fucking would," Bert laughs, thick and dirty and mocking with every breath. "Little poof."
Could be worse, Mello reminds himself. He could be stuck with an asshole who actually has more than one insult. "You're the one who keeps talking about cocks," is all he says in response, picking the dirt out from underneath his nails. Soap, he needs to buy soap. Soap and toilet paper and new socks. People things, things anybody can buy. It's not that hard, not so bad. He's just living like anybody would.
Aside from running drugs for a gang, of course, but then the devil is in the details and Mello's always been a good Catholic boy.
Bert knocks him on the side of the head with the back of his hand, not overly rough, but it's more the principle of being shoved around by someone with a negative IQ and some big ideas for himself than anything else. Could be worse, of course, but still.
"Shove off with the lip, alright?" Bert says, more with the air of someone handing out advice than reprimanding. "You think that's going to get you far?"
"I think I'm gonna get me far," Mello tells him. He pulls his gloves back on.
"Spirited little bastard, aren't you?"
Mello ignores him. Watson comes back out in the next moment, and Bert's expression shifts ever uglier. Watson doesn't even glance at him, just nods at Mello and motions for him to follow. He stands, barely resisting the urge to flip Bert off as he goes.
"What do you mean? How'd he get sick?" Misa squeals into the receiver. L winces and turns it to speaker as Rem watches on, head stuck halfway through the wall. He wonders if it's uncomfortable, to fade into matter, or if, to a Shinigami, the human world is already an uncomfortable place to begin with.
"The same way anyone does, I'd assume," he tells her, leaning back against the wall, "unless there's some special godly caveat that no one's told me about."
Light is in bed, wrapped up in blankets now and mostly asleep, although he rolls around and groans and mumbles incoherent abuse at L every so often, which is at least evidence that he isn't too altered by his incapacity.
"Ryuzaki!" Misa snaps, the admonishment dressed up in pretty little breaths and frills of speech, but underneath that, he can tell that she's genuinely worried, which is something to her credit. She's like Light in some ways, but very unlike him in others, and this is one of them. She is so steeped in romance, in pretty affectations of love, that it feels less genuine than it probably truly is.
"He'll be fine, Misa-san," L tells her. "It's just a fever. He'll sweat a lot and be pale and sickly for a few days, but it will all turn out fine. I just need a few things - more bottled water, some extra blankets, - "
"Books," she says, in the same eureka sort of voice that Archimedes surely used, "he likes books!"
"Books would be fine," L says.
"I have a shoot, but - whatever, I can cancel." He can hear the jingling of her purse, covered in charms and keychains as it is, in the background, off-shot of the hurried rush of her breathing.
"And the taskforce?" he asks,.
"I'll tell them Light has to stay home sick," she tells him sternly, "so don't get your hopes up. You're not going to use this as a chance to escape."
L sighs, glances over at Rem. He knows that well enough.
"I'm sure I wouldn't dream of it," he tells Misa. "Although I do have the key and Light's cellphone, so you'd better hurry up. Bye now." Her shock is audible on the other end, but he hangs up before she can go into hysterics. The line clicks off and, if he moved his fingers fast enough, he thinks he could probably -
But then Rem's skeletal hand is tugging the phone out of his grip, her eyes thin and wary, and his chance is gone. She holds the phone at arm's length, as if she's mildly disgusted by it, and the look she shoots him communicates the same impression.
"You should not have said that," she tells him dully. "She'll panic."
"She'd do that anyway," he huffs, slumping back into the wall. Light's breaths have gone even. He's flushed and pretty, even in sickness. L feels ill for wanting to touch his heated skin, to fetishize his pain, which is rather unreasonable, seeing as he has no qualms about it most days.
"You're not getting out," Rem says, and he doesn't doubt her resolve. It's clear she doesn't like Light, but she seems quite dedicated to carrying out his orders nonetheless. As soon as Light had passed out, L had gone for his phone, for the key, for the first chance of escape - he hadn't planned it that way, hadn't even really decided, it was just instinct; he'd seen the sky from the bottom of the well and he'd jumped, reaching for it - but Rem had stopped him, had taken away the ladder.
She looks like a wisp of ethereal decay, but she's solid, if only sometimes, and she'd had his wrist twisted between her bone-rot fingers before L had even so much as flipped on the phone, snatching the key out of Light's jacket with the other hand. It's a bit ridiculous, because he hadn't exactly taken her into account in his calculations - she's a god of death, why should she play their human games? - but it's become obvious that he should have. L's surety of his own possibility of escape may now have been no more than posturing, unless he can reason with her, which doesn't seem altogether very likely.
"You hate Light," he says, as less than a question, but it's still probing, and she looks at him as if she knows that.
"Yes."
He smiles a tight, lying smile. "What a coincidence, so do I."
She tilts her head the the side, and the thick tendrils of something that surely isn't hair move with her. "Do you think that I'm stupid?" she asks. She sounds annoyed, but then no more than usual. "That because I am a Shinigami I must lack understanding of human relationships? He puts himself inside you." She spits the words. The air around him spins with her presence, and it's not quite ghostly and it's not quite godly, but it's something thick and recognizable. Like death without the rot, without bodies and dirt and worms and thin spring mornings in a graveyard that smells like grass and petrol.
L scratches his head and glances over at Light.
"I put myself inside him sometimes, too, you know," he tells her, in what might be an attempt at levity but is probably just mindless, guilty floundering. He is guilty, in his way. "But that doesn't matter so much, when it comes to my job."
Rem's eyes tilt sideways, or look as if they do, and then she's moving very close to him, so close he thinks he should feel her presence - some kind of weight or heat or chill, the way you would with a person - but she is not a person and it's just empty air, only with a face that stares back at him.
"Would you kill him," she asks, "right now?" She looks at Light, sounds almost excited. "I wouldn't stop you. If you killed him, Misa would be free."
Ah, and that's what it is, isn't it? The girl. They always do it for the girl. "Misa is your stake in all of this?" he asks, not because he needs confirmation, but because he needs this angle, can use it. If he could just - just -
"I'm her Shinigami," Rem says.
"I see," L says, head titling to one side. "Not Light's?"
Rem gives a lifeless bark of something that might be derogatory laughter, and L takes that as confirmation. Which means that there must be another, which means that Rem isn't L's only chance at bargaining, isn't his only possible ally. If the other one hates Light as much as she does, perhaps he can -
"You're avoiding the question," Rem tells him, leaning in closer. Her eye blinks at him disparagingly. "Would you kill him, if you were promised escape?"
L glances at the door. This is a terrible question, very unreasonable, and he resents its being asked. "Misa will be here soon," he says.
"Avoidance," she snaps at him.
"Reasonable precaution." He pushes himself up slightly, even though their disparate sizes cannot be much accommodated for. "I know it probably doesn't make sense to a great and glorious god like yourself," he says, and the humor in those words is detectable, if not obvious, "but we humans, we're petty. Death isn't enough. Death is empty. I want defeat. I want to win." He looks at Light, curled and shivering under the blankets. He's flushed and L would still like to touch him and still sees the slightly unhealthy implications of such. "And, I want - I want him to realize that he's wrong."
Rem doesn't snort - he's not sure that she can - but makes a noise of relative equivalency. "And you want to continue to exchange bodily fluids with him."
L flicks his finger against Light's forehead, brushing his hair up and out of his eyes. "Yes, that, too."
"Typical. You humans are all alike." Rem doesn't look angry, not anymore than usual, and she slinks dourly back into the corner, phone and key still clutched in their respective hands. "And you're all in love with Light Yagami."
L wants to laugh, but doesn't. "Not all of us. I'm sure there's someone, somewhere who isn't. Maybe in Europe, or the US. You should check."
She glares at him. He lays his head down next to Light's, which is likely the antithesis of practical health, but he's so pretty and so imprecise in this moment, no longer a picture of studied glory, but a frazzled, messy human, just like the rest of them. He's shivering and groaning and surely hating his current existence, finally on level ground with everybody else.
Things get dim and dark and hazy, and he thinks he falls asleep before Misa gets there.
She drops the supplies he'd asked for on the bed next to him, and not with particular kindness. He blinks up at her, trying to sort her face in his mind for a moment - it all fades out with sleep and suddenly he's not sure where he is and she's Wedy, poised over him with a hand on her hip; he almost winces for the nonexistent cigarette smoke - and she huffs and he blinks again and it's just Misa in pajamas, looking harried and disapproving.
"You scared me to death, you know," she says, shoving a stack of books into his lap and going over to tuck another blanket around Light. "I though you really might escape." L goes to reply, but she's not even looking at him anymore, lips pressed to Light's forehead. "Get better, okay?" she says softly, and it's strange how quiet and intimate it is. It's easy to forget sometimes, but she must really care for him, given all that she's been willing to do. She doesn't act like it, doesn't act like anything real, and it's easier to see her as an obnoxious prop than it is a human person, but if L does that, he's more like Light than he ever truly wants to admit to being.
"He'll be fine," L says, sitting up. His head feels heavy and he hopes she's brought coffee.
Misa brushes the strands of hair out of Light's eyes, hands soft and imprecise. "I should take him home, or to a doctor. He needs proper care," she says.
"I have medical training."
She shoots him a look that squeals just as indignantly as anything she ever says. "So do doctors."
L plucks at his lip. "Yes." The shadows are long in the room. There are no windows and the lamps are too cheap. It feels old here. He looks at Misa. "He'd rather stay with me," he tells her.
Misa looks at him, looks back at Light, and glares at both of them, though with very little true malice, and huffs, settling down into a chair at the bedside. That, of all things, is not what convinced her, and L realizes, rather suddenly, that she was always going to let Light stay.
They sit in silence for a few tiring minutes, Light occasionally blinking awake and mumbling and Misa trying to force feed him a bit of water, with it all ending in a slow, silent catastrophe. What do you do when everyone in the room vaguely hates everyone else?
What have they always done?
"You spoke to Rem?" L asks her after a while.
Misa nods. "She told me how you tried to escape as soon as Light collapsed. You probably would have just left him there on the floor if she hadn't stopped you, huh?"
"Probably."
That makes them both quiet. Light blinks awake a few minutes later, looks at them both with hazy, displeased eyes, drinks some water, and then goes back to sleep. L tells Misa to go home. Misa tells him that she can kill him anytime she wants. L scratches his neck. Misa examines her nails.
Eventually he takes back up the files for the Kaito Hidaka case - Light still insists on calling it that, despite Kaito Hidaka being an apparently innocent bystander, and L finds it difficult to commit to arguing such an irrelevant point, so it's more or less become the case's name - but he gets little work done with Misa staring at him with mild, resigned dislike through-out the course of it. It's almost an hour before he sighs and hands her a file.
"You can tell names from photographs, right?"
She looks at him cautiously, then nods slowly. "Yeah."
"Please take a look at the suspects listed on this page and tell me which, if any, are using fake names," he tells her, and adds, after a beat, "and don't kill any, mind you."
She stares at him. "You want my help on a case?" Her hair is back in a pony-tail, but there are strands slipping out of it, falling messy against her neck. She is a very pretty little thing, and although he understands Light's rationale to a certain degree, he thinks it's probably more fortunate for Misa to have attached herself to someone like Light than someone like L. They are both terrible people, in their ways, but then so is she, and Light is at least senseless and childish - he knows not what he does, no matter how precisely he measures the world. L is different.
L could take someone like Misa Amane apart bit by bit; L has before.
But she's staring at him wide-eyed and pretty now, just like her boyfriend will do, and - although the difference in age is not large - he feels oddly like some older man charged with looking after two enormously helpless children who are incapable of doing a thing for themselves.
So he looks at her as kindly as he knows how to look at anyone, and nods. "I'm sure you'll be much more helpful than Light. All he does is sit around and criticize my technique."
Misa's eyebrows go up and she softens for a moment, almost smiles. "Just on cases?" she asks. Yes, very pretty.
L could possibly force himself to smile back, but it strikes him as altogether too cruel, so he just nods again, if with something of a tired humor in his glance. "Yes, just on cases."
There is a moment of quiet, fortuitous mutual acceptance that disappears as soon as Light rolls over, groaning softly for, "Ryuzaki," and looking very pathetically ill. Misa glares at everything and nothing in particular, hunkering down over her file like it's some sort of prize that she's won. L drags his thumb along Light's chin and says, softly, "Ryuzaki's not here anymore."
The night takes a long time to become day, and Misa falls asleep with her head on Light's abdomen. L doesn't sleep at all.
He feels it in him. Something hot and tearing and sick, and he can't tell it from himself, from his body or his bones. There's something cool on his face and it steams up his skin. "You're sick, Light," its voice says. "You're just sick, calm down."
You're hurting me, Light thinks, and thinks he says it, and then he's blinking and L's leaning over him, eyes wide and shocked and he looks young, like a child, like their positions are reversed and Light thinks, he'll go, he'll leave, I need to wake up and stand up or he'll get away, but he also thinks, mostly thinks, you're hurting me.
There is water on his face and L's hands are clawing at him and he claws back and someone else is speaking and he says what he doesn't mean, which is, "Get off, get off."
Then there are no hands on him and the dim space grows patterns and he's staring at the ceiling and then the ceiling is staring back. Light is terrified for a moment, like that first instinctual reaction, the first day of a long and glorious companionship. He'd seen Death in his bedroom and he'd greeted him like a friend.
Death is floating above him now and he says," Hey Light, you're looking kinda rough."
And this is okay, this is his friend. This is who he is and this is what he owns and what he rules, and where is the Death Note, where is the Death Note? Kaito Hidaka is getting away, Kaito Hidaka came back from the grave that Light had put him in and slaughtered all the children, and they'll be more, there will always be more, bodies upon bodies upon bodies - and why do we do anything but burn the dead? Why make graves? There's not enough room in the ground and not enough room for the ash, either, all the ash in the world, and Light has to kill Kaito Hidaka again, and Light has to kill L. Light has to kill L and Misa, too, and Rem, and then it will be just him and Ryuk and a clean, safe world.
A world with only good people in it.
"Bring me the Death Note," he says, and he knows he says it, but the first few words fade out as he speaks them and the last two are the only ones that make it out into open air, but it's okay, it's okay, that's all that matters.
Ryuk keeps grinning. From somewhere to the side, Light hears L's quiet, unamused voice. "He's delusional, of course."
Of course. Of course of course of course - and what does he know, really? He's a human being, with a human body, and he's never touched anything big or bright or glorious, he runs from beautiful things because he knows they will prove him ugly in comparison, and why, why of all of the people in the world - billions of people in the world, some of them must be good - why is it L?
Why does he have to own a thing that eats at his skin?
They've turned the space heater back up, although Light flits in between being violently hot and wracked by shivers. Misa mostly sees to him, although she's constantly dropping things and making disgusted faces and flaunting her incompetence in a thoroughly unconvincing way. It's possibly endearing. He could possibly wish them well from this angle, but likely only because Light is passed out and his distaste for her is masked by that pretty, sleeping face.
L's half glad that Misa's here. If she wasn't, he doesn't know what he'd do. Probably strip Light and let him shiver and fuck him in his sickness. There's a frightening poetry in that image, and although in practice it would probably be less than enjoyable, the idea of it sparks something in him.
"Ryuzaki, he needs to go to a hospital," Misa tells him eventually. She might be right. They haven't got a thermometer but it's easy to see that his fever's high, too high, but then it hasn't been very long and in all likelihood he'll come out of it just fine.
There's a niggling part of L that's almost using this as a test. If Light kills himself with a fever, then good riddance. The world will be saved and L will be free and everything will work out. If Light dies then L gets himself back and the world resets and is made safe again.
And if Light lives, then L gets Light.
It's a win-win sort of situation, except for the part where they all lose.
"If you take him," he tells Misa, "I'll likely escape while you're gone."
Her thin brows shoot down and she crosses her arms and she looks like 99 percent of her doesn't believe him for a moment, but there's always that voice, that little voice of weakness. "You won't," she says. "Rem won't let you." She sounds sure, but she's not.
"Ah, of course," L says, then goes quiet, quiet enough for her to think that's there's something hidden in his voice, the edge of a genius plan. Truth be told, he has none. His only possible avenue of escape is in Rem, and in order to get her to work with him, he needs to speak with her, and in order to speak with her, he needs to be alone. He might be better served to let Misa take Light, but then he might have been better served to let Light go a long time ago, and he hasn't yet.
It has to be a new game now. It used to be about the burden of proof, about catching Light out, proving his superior intellect by crushing one that possibly matches his own. That's over and done with. If he gets out, then he has enough evidence to convict, and if he convicts then the game is over and that's the end. They need a new game, so L will fashion one.
It's not enough now to crush Kira's empire. He has to crush the man - god - himself. He has to make him understand, and in order to do that, he needs to be around him, as much as possible, as close as possible. Needs to crawl in when he's at his weakest and find the parts that will bend, the parts that L can carve his name into.
L Lawliet.
They all know his name. It's rather freeing, in a way. He's got the noose around his neck, but no one is kicking out the chair from under him.
Misa shoves up her sleeves, rubbing her hands nervously along her arms and then shoving them back down. "I love him more than you, you know," she says. Her eyes blink pretty at him and he wonders what it would be like to be Misa Amane, how it would feel to be trapped under smooth skin and false smiles, a whole world standing up and clapping as she performs for them. And then he thinks, maybe, that he doesn't need to swap bodies to know the feeling well enough.
"You should go home," he tells her. The heat in the room is making his skin itch.
She slumps back, challenge unmet, looking as if she couldn't move if she wanted to. "I'm not going anywhere."
Light breathes thick and violent next to him, then subsides. L shifts, glancing back at the Kaito Hidaka files, then back at Light, says, "When he wakes, I'm going to fuck him. Would you like to stay and watch?"
Misa stops, startles, but quickly realigns herself, twirling a bit of hair around her fingers. "Yes," she says, meeting his eyes.
L thinks she, contrary and stumbling, is so like Light. He can't tell if it makes him like her or hate her more, only that the comparison is dug so deep into his perception of her that, in his eyes - loathe as he is to think himself that sort of blind, daily idiot - without her love for her darling lover, she would be less than what she is. Not by worth, but by sheer critical mass. Light weighs too heavy to leave no marks, and Misa is a thing made for marking.
The problem is that L is, too.
Light wakes to L's hair scratching at his skin. He hates him very much in that moment, for how uncomfortable he's made everything, for how close he is, but then L's handing him a bottle of water and Light is gulping it down, sloshing some on his chest, but he doesn't care. His body feels worn, but in a strong, survivalist kind of way, like he's just run several marathons without noticing.
"How do you feel?" L asks. He's looking at Light with something curious in his eyes, something that wasn't there before. Light thinks he might be too exhausted to feel attraction, because otherwise that look would tingle along his skin and make him dizzy.
"Terrible," Light tells him. "What happened?"
"You got sick." L hands him the water bottle again and Light's not thirsty anymore, but takes a few more slow sips anyway.
"I know," Light says, even though it really only connects right then and he can recall the flashes - it hurt, it burned, he felt like he was being roasted alive and L was the one with blow torch. His body is still too hot, and he drinks deeper. "How did I get sick?" he asks, as if that's something L would know. It could have been the taskforce, someone at University, maybe -
"The man you slept with?" L suggests, so casually that they might as well be drinking buddies discussing Light's love life.
"Mikami," Light tells him, after a moment, deciding that he wants L to hear the name, wants him to know it and remember and feel sick with jealousy every time he thinks of it. The idea of any of that seems wildly unlikely, but Light wants it anyway.
L nods. "Right, him."
Then Light feels himself being shoved back into the pillows as L climbs on top of him, and Light wants to shout about the indignity, the cruelty, the heathen violence - just another reason why L is a bad, bad man, a man who rips things open - but his skin is so cool and Light's is so hot, and as he shoves his clothes away, pushing closer, it feel better than anything like this ought to.
Light's breath steams and he tries to think of a decent protest, but they're all silly, make him sound weak and young and victimized, and that might be the role he plays, but that's not what he is, not truly. As L draws his chilled hands along Light's ribs, up and around his back, pulling his close, Light roles his head to the side, plays bashful, and notices Misa, asleep in a chair on the other side of the room.
He freezes. "You can't - "
"She wouldn't mind," L murmurs, and then he's kissing him very softly and very heavily and Light's body is sinking down; he thinks he must be relapsing into sickness and he wants to cough on the violent breath that stirs up in him. He feels L's cock against his thighs, not as cool as the rest of him, but nothing to Light's slow-burn body temperature. His skin slides against L, and he smells like sweat, smells like something left out in the sea, and he needs a shower, he needs a change of clothes and clean sheets and to be out and away from L to where he can think proper thoughts instead of just jerking his hips in a slow, defeated rhythm and opening his legs.
He doesn't use a condom and that maybe should bother Light - because L's been everywhere, been had by everyone, is probably more diseased than most prostitutes, but then L is careful and L is good and L wouldn't do that to him.
Except no, that's all wrong, because there is nothing L wouldn't do to him, no hurt he wouldn't revel inflicting on Light, because he is cruel, and he is close and he is getting in too to fast, and then Light's back bends a little and he pretends he isn't choking down his voice - doesn't want Misa to hear but doesn't want to admit that - body opening for L like something owned instead of something that owns.
"You love me," L tells him, rolling his hips.
Light doesn't confirm or deny, doesn't need to, just grabs at the thin bones of L's back and grits his teeth and tries to smile, like this is all a joke, like this is their joke, but it comes out like a snarl and his lips are chapped and then L's kissing the corner of them, drawing a breath down his chin, reaching in so deep and clawing out his insides, and it's not fun, and not even really pleasurable in the right ways, but Light's body quakes and when L finally bothers to put his hand on him, to jerk him off, to give him something - it feels like scraps, like the barest hint of what he deserves - he cants and winces and spills across L's fingers, feeling drained and ruined immediately after, like L has infected him with a whole other sickness.
He lies back until L finishes, strokes along his shoulder with weak hands. Misa is still asleep, so that's something, and his body aches in a way that's too good to mind. "Bastard," he murmurs, and kisses L on the jaw.
There's a raid.
Not on them - Watson's too good, and whoever's above him is good enough that Mello doesn't even know his name. But they're picking up from a certain supplier and, apparently, it's one that the cops have been closing in on for months. Watson tells him this while they're crouched under a table, warm breath whispering against Mello's ear, still tinted almost comical - just a big joke, the drugs, the police, all of it - by the smile that never quite drops out his voice, no matter the subject.
Mello breathes deep, tells himself that he's not going to die, that this isn't a big deal, that if L were under this table with him, he'd be just as bored and unconcerned as usual. That's the way to be, that's the only way to be. Mello keeps it up, even as they make a run for the back room, even as Watson's arm is grazed with a bullet and Mello has to half drag him out into the back-streets, down an alleyway and into a dumpster. They huddle there with the rats and the used needles and the week-old Indian food, until they're passed. The cops move in a neat line, one after the other, fast and professional. Mello hates them.
Mello works for justice, lives for it, even, but he hates those who can't manage it as well as him and these - these idiots, just doing what they're told, too blinded by orders to think for a moment about what it is they're really after, really working for. Watson is bleeding all over Mello's new jacket and that's not justice, can't be even close.
"Come on," he mumbles, shoving the lid up after enough time has passed. The metal creaks and Mello vaguely considers vomiting. "Come on," he says, tugging Watson out after him, "we have to go, they'll - "
"Calm down, kid." His smile is less than usual, but just as clever. "Deep breaths and all that."
"I am calm!" Mello hisses, rolling off his glove and pressing it to Watson's arm, missing the actual wound a few times before he gets it right. Staunch the bleeding, staunch the bleeding, no one's going to die - it's just a flesh wound, it's just -
Watson's neat fingernails are in Mello's hair then, tipping him back to look up, thumb dragging along his temple, and Mello doesn't think anything of it then. "Calm," he repeats. "Now, we're going to go back to mine and get out my first aid kit and my hot cocoa mix, and after I'm all healed up and you're good and warm, then you can panic all you like, alright?"
Mello nods. "Alright." Watson's hand is warm on his head. There is blood on both of their skin. He nods again. "Alright." Something moves thickly in the shadows - not a cop, not anything to worry about - and Mello reminds himself to take deep breaths and all that.
Watson's flat is not what he'd expected, but then maybe he should have.
There are books everywhere. On shelves and on tables, on stacks on the floor, and covering most of the chairs. There's even a couple half balanced on a dying house-plant. The rooms themselves are small, and the floors are cold, and only half of the light switches work. Watson points him in the direction of the toilet, where Mello digs out the first-aid kit from behind mountains of loo books and brings it back.
He's done this before, if only in practice. Roger didn't like to entertain the notion of them having anything to do with gunshot wounds, but Watari had insisted, and set-up lessons for those interested on basic first-aid and, well, less basic first-aid. Mello can quote most strange medical study reports word for word, and describe the pictures in astonishing detail, too. He'd earned extra credit for that.
He patches Watson mechanically, hands still shaking. He says it's because of the cold. Watson just smiles like he doesn't believe him and nods to the thermostat. The heat goes up and Mello doesn't stop shaking. They both pretend that he does.
Mello makes cocoa for himself and tea for Watson, and listens to him talk, fairly undramatically, about his first ever gunshot wound.
"Was younger than you." Mello's eyebrows go up. "Had been in the business far longer, though. Was just a sprog when I got picked up by a nice man with a lot of money and a lot of drugs, in need of somebody small to do some small jobs for him."
"A regular Artful Dodger, huh?" Mello says. Maybe it's the books and maybe it's the shared life-threatening experience, but he's starting to feel a strange sort of affinity for Watson. He's not a role-model, certainly - Mello would sooner die than end up living this sort of life in this sort of place; not to mention the whole criminal thing - but he's easier to like than L has ever really been, and a better conversationalist besides.
"More of a Master Bates, really," Watson says, as Mello takes the kettle off of the stove. "Anyway, I was by myself more or less, and being as young as I was, when the cops found me out, they assumed I'd been caught in the crossfire and sent me to hospital, where, finding that I hadn't got any parents and hadn't for a long time, they put me into foster care. Now, the streets were a rough place, mind, but nothing compares to the hell that being passed round the tilt-a-whirl of social workers was, and as soon as I was healed enough, I fucked off out of there fast as I could. Though not before raiding the kitchen, of course."
Mello hands him his tea, shoving a stack of books to the side to make room for himself on the edge of an armchair, his own cup wrapped in between his fingers, warming his hands quickly. The heat spreads through him and his legs start to ache, adrenaline fading off to leave him wasted and dejected in its wake, but he feels strangely comfortable here, almost safe. He has to trick himself into sleep most nights, or else he'll waste away the night thinking, planning, falling into jittery, thankless stupors that he regrets in the morning - but right now, in the low orange light's of Watson's little flat, he feels as if he could drop right off with little effort.
"You're an orphan," he says, blowing softly across the top of his cocoa.
"Yeah, and what?" Watson asks, voice too retired to sound combative, but his accent makes it unkind, even if he doesn't mean it to be. He doesn't speak like the sort of person who's read all these books.
Mello shrugs. "Nothing," he says. There's a point of bonding there for them, somewhere, but Mello's got a goal to work towards and getting on isn't as important as getting the hell out of here. He shouldn't talk about his past or who he is or where he comes from, or even mention where he's going. He can't leave a mark. He doubts they'd come after someone so low down on the food chain, but better safe than sorry - and besides, he doesn't want L to know. If he - when he finds him, Mello wants him to be proud, and working for criminals to achieve his ends isn't exactly going to earn him extra credit.
This is a chapter of his life that isn't going to make it into the autobiography. This is just downtime, a time-out from who he really is. Once he gets to Japan, it will all come back - the tests and the papers and the unending succession of grades by which he's measured his life thus far. He will be who he is again. He will be someone.
For now, he just drinks his cocoa and stays quiet.
Drunken laughter echoes from the streets below. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and Watson grunts at him to use a napkin. He goes over to the kitchen and pulls a few out of the bag, but doesn't use them, just traces his eyes across the spines of the books stacked haphazardly in the dish-cupboard. "Hey, do you mind if I read one of these?" he calls back into the front room.
"Read yourself silly," Watson mumbles back, standing, "but damage any of them and I'll break all your fingers." Mello freezes where he is, rapidly reconsidering, before Watson snorts and glances at him over his shoulder. "I'm taking the piss, lad. Have at it."
He nods at the shelf and Mello grabs the first book that looks vaguely interesting, too uncomfortable to deliberate much. He moves back to the front room and his overcrowded chair as Watson pulls open a very scratched-up and decrepit looking laptop with his undamaged hand.
"You can take the bedroom, if you like," he offers, without looking up. "I've work to do and kiddies like you need quite a bit of sleep, don't they?"
Mello shrugs. "I'm fine," he says, cracking open the first page, fingers tracing over the words. It doesn't even have to be a particularly good book, he doesn't care, just the sensation of reading is comforting. He's barely been scraping together enough to make rent and buy food, and books have lately become luxuries he cannot afford. Watson's got a veritable library here, though, and this isn't the sort of place he'd particularly mind staying.
Maybe he can mention how he's an orphan, appeal to whatever's sympathetic in Watson, and swing himself an invite. Rent will be one less expense that Mello has to subtract from his Tokyo fund, and Watson's not half bad, anyway. Mello's not one for extraneous company, but Watson's a little like Matt in the way that he takes up such a small amount of space, half the time you can forget he's there.
Mello barely makes it past the first chapter before his eyes drop closed, and he doesn't even force them back open. For the first time in months, it feels okay to sleep.
If he dreams, it's all a scuffle, too twisted up with memories and thoughts and the echoing shouts from the streets below to come to anything coherent, and he wakes not thinking of the rolling tide in his head so much as the weight spread across him. He tries to sit up, neck aching from the position he'd slept in, and can't.
Then he feels it.
"What - "
A hand comes up, knocking softly into his chin, and his belt buckle clinks and he can feel his trousers pooled around his thighs - and he doesn't need to ask, not really. He knows what.
He blinks up at Watson and he can't think quite straight for a moment, thoughts veering off in different directions and is this really happening? This can't really be happening. This kind of thing doesn't happen. He'd know. He'd get fair warning. It wouldn't happen to him. He tries to speak and a palm comes up to cover his mouth, the rest of the body pressing his firmly down, keeping him pinned, and what is this? What is this?
"That's a boy." The words warm his neck all at once and for a moment he can't even tell where they're coming from, even thought Watson is right on him, is right there, it feels like they're coming out of a vacuum. A person wouldn't do this to him, it's just circumstance, Watson wouldn't - "Shhh."
Mello watches his mouth move and then all at once he's kicking out, bucking wildly and shoving his elbows up. Go for the eyes, L had told him once. You're small. Work to your advantages. Speed over strength, and always go for the eyes. He doesn't know how he recalls the memory so clearly now when he hasn't thought particularly of it in years. It's one of the few things L's ever said directly to him that Watari didn't put him up to, and, as a child, Mello had treasured it for that reason alone. Then he'd gotten older and had become too cool to treasure anything.
He goes for the eyes. His thumbs jam up, one arm snaking out from under Watson, but he misses by less than an inch, colliding with the bridge of his nose instead, and without enough force to do any proper damage. Then his wrist is grabbed, bent awkwardly into the same hand as his other, and he feels so small. Had Watson always been so much larger? So much stronger? Had Watson always…
"He put his cock in you yet, or are you saving that honor for me, princess?"
Oh god. Ohgodohgodohgod. "Get off," he shouts, and his voice sounds panicked, too panicked. He scrambles, feet kicking, body jerking wildly and then there's a hand in his hair and his head's being jerked back and he can't, he can't -
"Calm down, lad," Watson says softly, casually. He doesn't even sound winded. Mello can hear the usual smile tinging the edges of his voice. "You're going to hurt yourself."
As if this is him, his fault. As if his trousers aren't slipping down to dig into the backs of his knees, and, oh god, he's fucking - he can see - there's a hand on his thigh, and what the fuck is that? What - he's never even - why is he doing this?
"Best be on your guard, or he might slip you it without you even knowing."
Oh fuck, oh Christ, oh Jesus fucking - no, no, no - the hand on his thigh keeps moving, upward, upward, and he's a good Catholic boy, his mother always used to say so, and he never ought to take the name of the lord in vain, but Jesus fucking Christ. "Get the fuck off me," he tries to shout again, but it all whooshes out on a breath and doesn't sound half as strong as he intends it to, "get off, get off, don't - you fucking bastard, don't you dare!" The hand and his hair jerks him hard and he feels the sob catch in his throat and he doesn't care, he doesn't care. "Get off! I'll fucking kill you! I swear I'll fucking - "
The palm across his face hits hard and he can feel the mark fading into his skin, but he doesn't care, he doesn't care. That fucking bastard.
"I think I'd fucking notice."
Of course he fucking would. Of course.
Watson's shifting his position - a better angle, probably; of course, of course - and Mello wonders if he'll be killed if he fights and wonders if he'll be killed anyway, but none of that really factors into his motivation for jamming his knee up into Watson's crotch, hitting at a decent enough angle for him to grit his teeth and choke down a howl, but he wonders anyway. There's only a split second for him to move and maybe he should kick Watson again, really give it to him, but he just scrambles off the chair, moving as fast as he can to get up, just get away, get away.
He knocks into a stack of books and his trousers are still around his knees and when he's tackled to the floor and pressed down face first, he's only vaguely shocked, but more dully, shakily resigned, even as he struggles and yells, biting his tongue with the force of his words, scorching his throat with the intensity of his voice. He screams, he's screaming and his body is moving too fast, like it's been switched into a different gear, but it all feels like it's going far too slow. He feels like he's underwater, like this a dream and he's watching from a bird's-eye-view above, an uninvested observer.
He is a movie that's been played over and over, one he's seen so many times that he can map all the movements and speak all the words in time, knows every beat before it happens.
This is a thing that happens all the time. He's pressed face-first to the floor, but it's not unusual. It's in the papers often enough, and L has solved these sorts of cases if they're widespread enough or if a few bodies pile up with them. But this - just this, this moment where he is shaking like a rabid animal and Watson is pinning his wrists to his back, one hand trailing along his thigh, whispering, "Calm, lad, calm. You're not such a bad kid, are you? No, no," in such an unremarkable, gentle, smiling voice - this moment is nothing.
In the grand scheme - and that's what it's all about, that's what L deals in and Mello is aiming to deal in - in the grand scheme, this might as well not be happening.
Then Watson's pressing awkwardly against his spine and he can feel him, can feel it, and he feels woozy and distant and like he wants to pause the film and this is not happening, this is not happening, and he wishes Matt were here in a far, far removed part of his mind, not that he'd want Matt to see him like this, but it's just such a big, strange, horrible event and it feels like something Matt should be here for.
And then -
And then -
The floorboards creak but barely anything else moves and then the warm, solid, gutting weight of Watson's body is gone and there's an aborted breath and something like a yell and Mello's falling forward onto his elbows, trying weakly to push himself up, when he feels a splash of something heavy, warm and wet across his back. Semen, is his first thought, in a very detached, clinical way, but it's not - it doesn't smell right.
He rolls over slowly, movement suddenly stilted and he knows he'd been afraid of this whole situation, been panicked and frantic, but the whole room feels different now, atmosphere shifted sharply to the other end of the scale. It's cold and dark and frightening, like a horror movie has walked in on him. Mello pushes himself up, turning around to try to see where Watson's gone, but a very silent part of his mind already almost knows. The shadow at his back, like a guardian angel.
He blinks up, eyes adjusting properly to the low light, and stares at L and L stares back - made of familiar shapes; white and blue and black, thin arms and skeptical eyes and - and for a moment, Mello almost believes it.
Then L's stance shifts and he's not L anymore, not anyone Mello's ever seen before, maybe not even a human being. Maybe not even real. Maybe none of this is. He's standing there, bent awkwardly over Watson's limp, heavy body that's collapsed half on the chair. There's something thick and dark dripping from his mouth, down his chin and onto the flimsy material of his shirt. The man who is not L has a knife and he has a grin and he's really nothing at all like L, actually, switching to a stranger in one quick, stilted second.
Mello tries to sit up and realizes that his trousers are still undone, leaving him bared and weak.
The man smiles and tilts his head at him, and drops Watson's body to the floor, moving over to crouch down next to Mello and do up his zipper and button with sharp, quick fingers and a jag of a smile. Mello can't move. This isn't happening, this probably isn't happening - but if it is, if it is -
"Little boys like you should be in bed at this hour," Beyond Birthday says to him, in a voice that sounds like gravel under a tire and tinkling, silvery things.
Mello blinks, stutters for a moment, then - for lack of anything else to do - punches him squarely in the jaw. Then he starts screaming again.
Light is cool with sweat and he smells like a hospital. Like flesh.
Misa is still asleep in her chair and one of her pajama legs is rolled up at the end and he can see a thin strip of shadowed skin, bare and smooth in the dark. He doesn't know what time it is or how many days it's been since he'd come here. Since he fucked Teru Mikami and then came to L and lay down on the ground before him. One of them was always a sacrifice but he can't tell which it is anymore. Maybe both. Maybe they're each a respective offering to a respective god. Maybe Light isn't the only thing in the world; maybe he's half of something.
No - no. That's ridiculous. That's something you'd write in a mass-produced greeting card. That's something he'd say out loud but not ever really think. His thoughts aren't his own anymore. Ever since L tripped in on pallid feet he's been tangling up in Light's wires. He's so tangled up now that if Light wanted to be rid of him, he'd have to cut him out. Like a parasite buried under the skin. He'd have to cut.
His fever's broken and he feels weak from it, but in a sated, happy way, like after a day of vigorous exercise. L presses a room-temperature hand-towel to his head that might have been cool and soothing at some point. His wrist is bent in on itself and he moves lazily, like Light is a fixture he has to wipe down but doesn't particularly care about the cleanliness of.
It smells like a hospital.
"You really shouldn't have sex with people who are barely conscious," Light says to him, sinking down into the pillows even though they're heavy with the feel of his sickness.
He's too tired to change the sheets. He doesn't even have a change of sheets. He'd only bought the one set. His mother had always done this sort of thing for him before and it had never occurred to him to buy two sets of sheets, but that's what people do, right? You put on one set while you wash the other, or else you'll have no sheets for a few hours. It's so simple, but mystifying in a vague way that must have something to do with his sickness. L is still pressing the towel to his forehead, his cheek, but Light wishes he'd just use his bare hands instead.
He doesn't respond, is barely looking at Light when he shifts to drop a file on his chest. It lands off-center, hits so softly it could be nothing. "Hiroshi Ono"
Light's mind rolls around the word, waiting for the click, but it doesn't come. He opens his eyes. He doesn't know who L's talking about. He looks down at the file on his chest, then to the side at L, who's studiously unwrapping a selection of small, brightly colored lollipops, back bent awkwardly as he lines them up over his pages of notes. L watches the line of his jaw. It's jerking almost imperceptibly, and Light realizes he's counting quietly under his breath.
He looks down at the file again, sitting up to crack it open. Several unflattering photographs of a middle-aged man with a wide chin and small, bright eyes falls out, along with some printed stats and a few crumpled, coffee-stained notes. L's thin, scrawling penmanship loops across the page. He writes in English and Light wishes he wouldn't, but he drags the pads of his fingers across it anyway, feeling the indentations of the pen.
Then he reads the words. Hiroshi Ono. Early fifties, unmarried, and unremarkable in every way. Just a regular salaryman.
Light glances back up at L. "He did it?" It's not even been a week and L hasn't left this room; he's good, but he's not that good. "You can't know - "
"He's my number one suspect," L says, lining up his lollipops so that they're all facing the same way. Then he picks one up and drops it in his mouth, teeth knocking against the sticky surface with a series of small clicks. "It's just a hunch, so I could be wrong, but 9 times out of 10 my hunches are correct." He slides his eyes over to Light and smirks without twitching a muscle. "Case in point."
Sitting up further seems like a lot of work, so Light just slumps down into the pillows, resting his forehead haphazardly against L's shoulder and smiling with his voice. "Should I bring him here so you can fuck the truth out of him?" he asks, harsher than he means to, but then he feels harsh, rather suddenly.
L doesn't care about justice, doesn't care about truly saving anyone. He just wants to win. He's just doing a job.
"Just send an anonymous tip to the authorities, if you could," he tells Light, nudging him slightly to the side, like the physical closeness is causing some sort of intellectual strain. He's lining up his lollipops again, setting the sticks straight, and he keeps lining them no matter how straight they get. "I want to see what they'll turn up."
Light lifts himself from L's arm, wants to frown but doesn't quite. There was a moment of closeness there, thin and strung out and the reason for all of this, really - L brings moments like that with him everywhere, brings them out when you least expect them - but it's gone now.
"Not your type?" Light says.
L crunches his lollipop. "I'm sure I don't have a type."
Light draws patterns just above his skin, almost touching his arm but not quite. "I'm pretty sure your type is me."
L looks at him then and Light makes sure to sit up more fully, putting his body weight on one hand so that he's not thrown off-balance when he leans forward and kisses L on the edge of his jaw. L bears it like something he has to suffer rather than something he revels in, and it's strange how he can switch so easily - pressing Light into the pillows one moment and barely taking notice of him the next.
He huffs, blowing his hair out of his eyes with a stoic impatience. "I don't even like you very much," he tells Light, but his voice lightens and he sounds almost kind again, a stilted condescension.
Light watches the bones at the top of his spine shift under the skin as he leans forward, and realizes, all in one moment, that L is humoring him. That L is always humoring him. He wants to snap his neck and he wants to bury him underground, with the dirt and the worms, and he wants to watch him burn up in a whirl of flames and charred flesh and suffering. Light is not a thing to be humored; L is not a thing high up enough to even be able to lower himself, but he glances at Light out of the corner of his eyes like that's just what he's doing.
L Lawliet.
L Lawliet L Lawliet L Lawliet L Lawliet.
He wishes he'd never learned the name. It's so tempting and his fingers itch for a pen. The name has made L's death too easy and that is something that is not allowed to be easy. That is something that everyone will suffer with, if it happens. When it happens. If, when - he doesn't know, can't decide. His plans keep breaking down, being reestablished, then breaking down again. L keeps breaking things.
Light doesn't pull L around by the hair, even though he could, just speaks to his sharp shoulder.
"I killed Aiber and Wedy," he says. The words are a part of Light, but suddenly they're outside of him and he doesn't know quite how they got there. They sound quieter and less important than they maybe should, but L still freezes, still and solid, where he sits. "I couldn't get Watari's name, but their's were easy enough," Light continues casually, "right there in the system. The system I would never be able to hack, remember?"
He turns his most charming smile on L, and even though he's still drained in some ways, there's a jagged lightening to the world in that moment, and he realizes that things aren't quite so bleak as L knows how to make him think. The world is open and the world is large and, most importantly, the world is his.
Light is justice, and L is Light's and everything will be alright, perhaps.
L still hasn't moved. He doesn't turn, doesn't look at Light.
"You're lying," he says after a moment, like it's a conclusion that he's settled on after much studious consideration, rather than the panicked, desperate attempt that it is. Light smirks to himself and maybe L can hear it because he turns his head very slowly in the next second.
"No," Light says, lips quirking. It's such a beautiful moment. He wishes he had a camera. Misa is stirring, making soft sounds that drift slow across the room. L is still so, so still. He looks at Light with very calm eyes and says, for a second time, "You're lying."
Light just shakes his.
Then it hurts.
His breath grunts out of him and the pressure sparks up, curling under his ribs, jamming into the flesh and twisting with a rabid vehemency that has him doubling over, arms wrapping around his abdomen to shield it, desperately grappling to get L's hand off, off, away - just get it off - just -
It hurts.
His eyes are watering and he doesn't know what's happening, only that something slams into his shoulder and there are suddenly feet by his head and a flat surface against his back.
"Light! Light, oh my god!" Misa's voice is too sudden and loud and it echoes hollowly in his head. "Ryuzaki, stop!"
Light tries to sit up but his head is still fuzzy and his limbs ache with a sort of nausea and it feels like there's something wriggling around under his skin, something with teeth. L says something and Light hears the words but they don't go together properly, he can't make sense of them - they're just two syllables floating around inside of his head as Misa screeches impotently.
"Now," and, "Rem," L says, and Light tries and he tries - and then suddenly L moves off the bed, steps over Light's body and goes further than he should be able to and it all rather clicks into place. "Now Rem," L had said and Rem's done something - traitor, traitor, of course she's a traitor - and L is free, chain gone from his wrists and how is that possible? How is this happening?
L doesn't turn, doesn't even say goodbye, and as Light pushes himself up and tries to stop the room spinning, he can see Misa thrashing around in Rem's hold, yelling so wild, too loud - "Why are you doing this? Rem, how could you do this to me? You said, you said…" - and L is unlocking the door, is turning the key, and how is that fair, how is that a part of the plan? How is this going to help anything?
L is walking away, L is getting away, and Light barely feels like he can stand, let alone chase him, and he's already disappearing down the hall, he's already gone. Misa's still shouting and maybe crying and Rem just holds her, stoic and unconcerned, as if she's not even here at all, and that's when Light sees it. It's sticking out of Misa's purse, one of several sheets. Some of them are written on, some aren't. Light reaches out, without really deciding to, and picks one up.
He grabs one of her mass of gel pens and the letters are so easy, so simple. He feels like he's written it a hundred times before, like it's traced into his skin somewhere. He can't even see L anymore, he could be out the door at this point. His fingers ache with it, but this was always an experiment that could be ended at any moment and a big part of him always more or less knew it would end up something like this. There is a scale, somewhere, and it's wavered for a while, but things eventually always come down in favor of the world.
His brave new world.
"Is it beautiful yet?"
His arm aches to move, but he quickly scrawls L Lawliet across a loose page of the Death Note anyway.
tbc.
end notes: "wow Jaye (that's my name, jsyk), I'm really glad you decided to write your fic this way instead of writing it in a way that makes actual sense and isn't dumb as hell," said no one ever. writing is hard, you guys. It's like, I want to make a thing go a certain way and then if goes in the exact opposite way and I just stand there shrugging. that's literally my writing process.
okay, couple of things - 1) this is not the last chapter. not even close. 2) don't break out the pitch forks and torches just yet, kay? 3) I think think the whole 'you can always trust someone who likes books' trope is way too overdone in fiction. well-read people can be rapists, too. 4) stay tuned for the adventures of Mihael Keehl and Beyond Birthday! wee!
if you review I will giggle and squeal and kiss your face. thank you all for reading, regardless.