notes: and on this week's episode of a lot of words and no plot events i bring you chapter 14 of nights. i have two apologies to make, the first being about the wait for this update and the second being about the quality of writing contained therein. it is not my best by a long shot and i struggled so much with this but, short of rewriting the entire thing (which would have taken another two weeks at the least) i did as much as i could with it. i have to treat this fic like an experiment, and its chapters like a series of experiments, if i don't want to go crazy and weep in shame at everything about it. sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, and that's okay.
i'm going to work really hard to make the next chapter better, for myself and for you guys. if you make it through this one, my hat off to you, and thank you, thank you, thank you for sticking with me this long. over 150k is amazing to me and not something i ever considered i'd achieve this year, and it's because of all of you that i've made it this far. i can't tell you how much i appreciate your support (and any constructive criticism too!).
special thanks to tai black for sending me a sweet message and encouraging me to post this, despite how unsatisfied with it i am. it mean a lot to me, doll!
chapter fourteen - still no surviving.
"Despair has its own calms."
- Bram Stoker, Dracula
No one really goes into Wammy's former-observatory for anything other than drinking and making out, and nobody at Wammy's really drinks or makes out, so that had more or less just left Mello and Matt with a cool, empty room in which to smoke and talk and take the piss out of whoever'd been bugging Mello that day. Now Mello's gone and the air is too cold and the smoke from Matt's cigarette mixes visibly with his breath. He coughs on a lung-full and then pretends that he hadn't. Mello had always ragged on him for it, had said he'd probably die of second-hand cancer or something and then Matt'd be sorry. Always smiled like an arse and flicked balled-up notes at the ends of Matt's cigarettes, saying maybe one day they'd catch and the whole building would go up in flames - said it like a good joke, like nothing at all.
His aim had always been off, though; never quite hit the mark.
"Where do you think he is now?" Near says from the doorway, pale and eerie and suddenly there, like a ghost haunting the early morning.
Matt glances at him briefly, but doesn't pause his handheld game. "Are you trying to make conversation?" he asks, just because he knows that Near isn't and wouldn't ever.
He doesn't move from the doorframe, just curls a finger through his hair. "No," he says. "Roger told me to ask you." Matt snorts, could have figured out as much on his own - he's number three, after all; or is it two now? - and jams his finger harder than he needs to into the 'X' button. "He said to pretend that I was asking for myself but that I would really be asking for him."
Matt grits a smile. Near says it like a clueless child, but then that's the technique, isn't it? Matt's sure he's being manipulated somehow at this very moment, but then he couldn't truly care overmuch.
"Good job on that," he tells Near.
"I'm not stupid," Nears says, taking two very measured steps into the room. He looks like something discarded and small. His eyes are wider than usual. He's doing it on purpose.
"I know you're not stupid," Matt says.
Near takes another two steps. "I could have manipulated the information out of you."
"So you are trying to make conversation," Matt says dully. Near keeps moving closer, slowly, cautiously.
"Do you miss him?" Near asks, nearly standing over him now.
Matt frowns, nearly misses the jump, thumbs tapping furiously to keep up. "Yes."
"Did you ever kiss him?"
Matt's fingers stop. He misses that time, falls into a pit, gets the cheesy 'game over' screen with the winding-down music that plays in his head, even though the sound is off. Retry? He wants to set the game aside but he doesn't want to Near to see him set it aside, or know that that is the kind question that makes him set things aside.
"What?" he says, which is stupid and ridiculous and obvious, obvious, obvious, but he doesn't know what else to say.
There's a hole in the observatory ceiling, the glass shattered near the apex of the dome. There's plaster over it, but the cold air still gets in. It's been like that since Matt came to Wammy's, since before him, even. Nobody remembers there ever not being a crack in the ceiling. Nobody remembers the observatory ever being in use. It's common knowledge that Roger could afford to fix it, and less common - but widely suspected - that L's the one who refuses to let him. No one really knows why. Not that many people care, anymore. Mello had. Mello cares about everything.
Matt's fingers tap awkwardly at the screen, haphazardly pretending to still play, as if Near hasn't already noticed his sudden stiffness.
"Linda and some of the girls were wondering," Near says, casually, like that's just the sort of thing you say to someone. He looks at Matt expectantly, who frowns, finally tossing away the gameboy and plucking up his cigarette.
"No," he says. Then, almost as an afterthought, "Fuck off."
"Did you want to?" Near asks.
Matt takes a long puff, looking away, and tries to seem unconcerned. "What is this, Jeopardy! or something? No. Why would I want to kiss him?"
Near shrugs, face blank, but he looks too clever and too sure and Matt doesn't like him right now. He's always just rode on the coattails of Mello's loathing, only along for the ride, but never really had the energy to hate the little bastard properly. Probably still doesn't now, but he likes to pretend otherwise.
"He could pass for a girl," Near says.
Matt's chest skitters a little bit and he feels gross, like a pervert, like some creep taking up-skirt shots of a school-girl. Mello would fall asleep next to him all the time, would stay up all night studying and then pass out on Matt's shoulder or lap, pretty and too helpless for the kind of person he was. Matt would think about touching him. Not - not in a bad sort of way, not sexually or anything - just, his hair, his chin, the tips of his fingers. His nose. He's got a nice nose, and girly hair. That's what Matt had told himself at first - he was pretty like a girl, small and smooth - and - and so it made sense. Nothing wrong with it, nothing to do with Mello at all.
Then Matt had walked in on him in the shower, got an eye-full of cock and a wet towel thrown at his head and a lot of over-reactionary swearing directed at him - and had backed quickly out of the washroom, hard and ashamed and utterly resigned to his attraction.
"I'll tell him you said that when he gets back," Matt says, laughs almost, trying to play it cooler than he feels.
Near tilts his head. "What makes you think he's coming back?"
Matt taps his burned-down cigarette against the tip of a new one, balanced awkwardly between his lips, and it lights nicely, pretty, like a forest fire cupped under his palm. Like everything burning, everything ruined forever and ever. He knows he's being melodramatic. Roger had said as much to him last week in order to get him to buck up on his studies, but Matt's more or less committed to the role. Mello's gone, so someone has to do it.
He breathes out a puff of smoke and says, "What do you want, Near?"
Near collapses inwardly, falling do the floor in a casual heap a few feet from Matt, as if that's the invitation he'd been waiting for. "Beyond Birthday escaped from prison two weeks ago," he says, getting comfortable, like the cold stone floor is as good as any surface for lolling about.
It takes Matt a moment to process the words, takes him a moment more to recognize the ridiculous name. B. One of the original Wammy kids. The Beta to L's Alpha. Or was A Alpha? He was the suicide kid, Matt remembers. So maybe L was Omega? Either way, B was definitely Beta, or back-up, or possibly just bat-shit, from the stories Matt has heard.
"What, that psycho guy?" Matt says, taking another drag. "I thought he'd been executed or something." There have always been whispers around Wammy's, and Beyond Birthday had featured rather heavily in some of them. And then hadn't Mello been on a kick about Beyond Birthday a few years back? Over something L had said, presumably.
"That was one of the popular theories circulating," Near says, so clinically and professionally, even while rolling around the the floor. "It's been disproved."
"How do you know?"
"Roger told me."
Matt taps the ash off the end of his cigarette. "Okay. Why are you telling me, then?"
Near looks up at him with those wide eyes again. "Because you're my friend."
Matt can't help the snort he lets out, choking a bit on the smoke in his lungs, and it turns into a cough. He smiles self-deprecatingly as he hacks it out. "Near, don't fuck around. Why are you telling me?"
Near's eyes stay wide and genuine for a moment, before calming down, the childish sparkle fading in on itself and leaving him dull and without any particular affectations once again. "Because," he says, pushing himself back up to his feet, "Beyond has been spotted around the English countryside and no one knows where Mello went. I thought if you were worried about him, you might be more likely to tell me where he is." He stands there, looking at Matt, face not changing, not even a twitch. The switch might be disconcerting, but then Matt's used to it - everyone at Wammy's is.
"Should I be worried?" he asks Near, scratching his ear again. In truth, he's got no idea where Mello might be - London, the US, Japan already - who fucking knows? He could guess, sure, but then so could anyone, and he'd rather leave it to them.
But, if Mello's in serious danger -
"He's fifteen," Near says, and doesn't blink. "He's got no money, no relatives, and nowhere to go. You should be worried anyway."
Matt's skin itches as Near walks away. His game screen blinks up at him, the pixels flashing obnoxiously. Retry?
Misa wakes with L's hair tickling her cheek. It's rough, clumping and unwashed, but her eyelashes flutter against it and it's nice - nothing earth-shattering, nothing to fall in love over - but it's just nice. She ought to have nice things, sometimes, ought to -
Oh. She opens her eyes and his are right there, wide and on curious and on her, like she's a specimen under a microscope and he's the man in rubber gloves, running tests, taking notes. That's less nice. She pulls the cover up more fully over body, shielding herself even though she's completely clothed. That's a naked kind of stare. Things are never as nice as she wants them to be.
L blinks at her and she sits up, arms folding across her chest. "It's really creepy to watch people while they sleep like that, Ryuzaki," she says.
The hand thrown across L's back twitches and a soft breath of laughter ruffles the hair on the back of his head. "Don't I know it," says Light's muffled, sleepy voice. He sounds beautiful. She can only see the tips of his hair, his fingers and his shirt sleeve, but he's so beautiful.
L grunts, position shifting slightly, but he looks comfortable. Light strokes his arm for a moment, the gesture peculiarly sweet, but after a few seconds his body goes tenser and his movements more studied. She wonders if he always clams up as he wakes or if it's just because she's here.
The room is pleasantly cool. Someone must have turned the heater off. Maybe Rem. Rem, who had held her against her will last night, stopping her from chasing L, from using her Death Note to stop him. She's not sure what had happened, but L is here and Light is here and they're both both alive and relatively unharmed, so it all must have worked out fine without her.
Misa ties her hair back in a ponytail as Light sits up. She says, "This is weird."
L yawns. "It seems perfectly unremarkable to me."
Light starts smiling, but then stops, moving unsteadily up and out of the bed as he mumbles, "That's because you're a whore." There's a click and a slight jangle and then the chain is dropping on the bed and he's padding softly across the floor, picking up loose pieces of clothing. Both Misa and L watch as he chooses a sweatshirt, pulling it over his head with a slight wiggle. It's almost endearing. Misa feels almost endeared to him. He'd stabbed her with a needle, she remembers, but that seems minor in comparison to the calming benevolence of the moment.
He checks his watch. "Come on, Misa, we've got to get back to the apartment before morning." He glances in the mirror, frowns and pulls up his hood. "Suspicions aside, I really don't want to be seen like this by anyone I know."
Misa watches as he attaches the loose end of L's cuffs back to the headboard, and she should feel something - jealous or angry or betrayed - but it's not coming. She stands brushing her hair out of her eyes and looking for her shoes. There's the stack of books she'd brought over for Light a day and a half ago, sitting untouched by the door. Everything shifts strangely as she moves and it's not right, the world tap-dancing under her, bright and too much at a time.
"What even happened yesterday?" she asks, more quietly than she means to. There's a hip-shift and head-tilt and a hair-flip that she needs to do, a little extra bit of pep that she needs in her voice and it usually comes easy - more natural to her interactions than not - but right now it's all stilted, achey in a distant way. She blinks, sees a flick of metal and Light's stern face and then it goes blank, the image twitching behind her eyes. She looks up. "You drugged me, didn't you?"
Light's still examining himself in the mirror, wiping invisible smudges off of his face. He barely seems to hear her.
L is curled up on the bed, finger to his mouth, and he glances between Light and Misa and then makes a sound that is maybe pitying and maybe disparaging as he rolls his eyes. "Did you?" he asks, addressing Light. "Jesus, you're a terrible boyfriend. I should track down this - Mikami, was it?" He looks to the ceiling, tugging on his lip. "Send him a letter of warning."
"Who's Mikami?" Misa asks, before she can stop herself. She doesn't know why she would stop herself - Light's her boyfriend, her responsibility, she has to know these things - but listening to them speak to each other is like picking a scab, like teasing herself with all sorts of things colored misery. There's a circuit here, one she's left out of, and she wants to dig a place for herself in it and she wants to go back to sleep and she wants -
She wants for Light to not stab her with needles. She wants him to not drug her, not shrug off everything she says, not glance right past her like she's a plant or some kind of light fixture. She feels like a cardboard cut-out of a girl when she's around him, like she's not even real. Like the only thing that's real is him, and she just - she wishes he wouldn't stab her with needles.
"I mean it, Misa-san," L's saying, but he's not even speaking to her, staring across the room at Light, who's, of course, staring back, "you should cut and run while you still can."
"I don't know what you're talking about," Misa says, pulling on her shoes, and she's not quiet or anything, but it's like her words simply fade into the air, not reaching either of them. Where's Rem? She needs Rem. She needs someone to look at her and see something.
"I don't know what's given you the impression that she still can," Light says, straightening out his sleeves. He's unkempt this morning, face still lined with yesterday's sickness, but still so lovely. Misa would like to touch him and most days she would, just grab on and hold tight until he shoves her away, but this morning she pulls her boots on and doesn't move.
"Hiroshi Ono, Light," L says, as Light gathers up everything he'd brought the other day, handing some of it off absently for Misa to put in her bag. "Make the call."
Light sighs, rolls his eyes. Misa has no idea what they're talking about and doesn't really care. "I should just kill him," Light says. "Nip it the bud."
"Oh, like you nipped me in the bud?" L asks, voice rougher suddenly. "Yes, that worked out well." He sounds angry and Light looks angry and Misa -
Misa's angry, too, she thinks. Quietly, staunched and snuffed out, but there's fissures of something twisting under her skin. What had happened last night? Light had been on the floor, she remembers, and she had tried to help him, but he wouldn't let himself be helped, wouldn't let her touch him.
"I'm not even sure if he's the right man," L says, "and if he's not and you kill him, you'll not only end the life of an innocent person, but you may rob us of a valuable lead in apprehending the real killer. Set aside your notebook for once and use common sense."
L Lawliet, Misa thinks. It could be very, very easy, and then he's gone.
Light huffs, throwing the bag of supplies Misa had brought by yesterday over his shoulder. "Yes, of course, I'll just take the advice of the man chained to bed."
"As the man who chained me to the bed," L mumbles, "you haven't exactly got a leg to stand on."
Light Yagami, Misa thinks. That could be easy, too, maybe.
Light smiles and it's sharp and he's still not looking anywhere but at L, almost leaning down over him, fingers stressing the sheets against the mattress and L meets his eyes, doggedly unconcerned, and Misa stands by, not doing anything in particular. She feels more apart from the situation than she maybe ever has, even though she'd apparently shared in a bed with the two of them last night. It feels like everything has skipped ahead by entire chapters, and she's left leafing from page to page, trying to catch up.
"If last night proved anything," Light says, low-voiced and more intense than the early morning, half-awake situation probably necessitates, "it's that I have the follow-through to do it, and would have, in a more coherent state of mind." He flicks L's hair out his eyes with one quick finger. "So don't get too comfortable."
L doesn't flinch, just rolls his eyes, glancing to the ceiling. "I don't know how I could be comfortable with your cock digging into my back all night."
Light's expression tightens. "You want to talk about excessive sexual - "
"Shut-up," Misa says, quietly at first, but then - "Both of you - just, shut-up."
L breathes out, puffing at the ceiling without looking at her as Light shoots a huffy glare over his shoulder. He hates being interrupted. He hates a lot of the things she does, and she wants to be heard and she wants to stand firm and she wants to tell them that they're both as bad as the other and should just let it go, whatever it is, but instead she looks at the floor, quiet again, and says, "Misa has a headache."
Light still looks annoyed, but he straightens, picking up the rest of his things and not glancing back at L. "We have to go," he says, flicking out a hand to gesture Misa out the door ahead of him, calling back, "I'll make the call if I have time," in a voice that teases the notion that he'll purposefully forget.
Rem is waiting in the hall outside, arguing hushed and flat-eyed with Ryuk, but she goes quiet as soon as she sees them. A pit of something blessed and strangling with relief lights in Misa's stomach at the way Rem's head turns, the way she looks Misa up and down, as if checking for signs of damage. The moment is calm and freeing and she almost forgets Light is there, pulling the door closed behind her.
The effect is somewhat ruined by L calling, "Enjoy the walk of shame, Light-kun," from his tilted pose on the bed.
four hours earlier.
He's dreaming something heady and close, but it all flies out, replaced by the saliva in his mouth and the thick, real weight of the pillow against his face and the blanket across his chest and L's back curving under his hand. He's hot and he pulls himself up and over the sheets, breathing and blinking and thirsty, trying to get a grip on reality. It's dark. Someone must have turned the lights off. Maybe it was him. L's skin is cooler, feels less frantic under his fingertips, but not for very long. Light shifts, realizes he's hard against the backs of L's thighs, which explains the tautness in his muscles and the flowering heat in his face and maybe even the wild buzzing in his head. Maybe that's just sleep.
Maybe that's just a sound the world makes.
Light reaches down, feeling himself, adjusting with more stroking than is probably necessary, but then he's 18 and L's shirt is riding up and there's no reason on earth he can think of why he shouldn't jerk off all over L's back. Except maybe the sparkling idea that his front would be better. His face would be better. Him being awake and aware and humiliated would be better.
Light's wearing sweatpants and he's not sure why or how or if he was wearing them yesterday when he'd killed L - and he'd killed L - not really, not really, of course, but that's semantics, isn't it? But then he looks at L's still body and there's a momentary jerk of reality where his whole mind comes to a halt and there's just - nothing more than a split second - but there's just that moment where he doubts his memory, where it all could have gone differently, where L is lying in this bed next to him without a pulse, without a voice, without legs that will fight when he spreads and shoves between them.
Then everything snaps back into focus and L takes a breath in his sleep, hair puffing out of his face and Misa sighs softly next to him and - and Misa is next to him and that can't possibly be allowed. It makes Light angry in a sparking, firelight kind of way. Makes him want kill L all over again just on principal, want to see Aiber and Wedy's bodies, wherever they are, want to write Misa Amane in his Death Note.
He lies back down, lining up is body against L's, pressing into the warm crevice between his thighs. There's too many clothes in the way and maybe Light should shove his own pants off, if anybody's, but he tugs at L's instead - he's sleeping in jeans, of course, always the fucking jeans, and the material is rough against Light's fingers, buzzing against his skin, and he wants, he wants -
L's body suddenly goes very stiff, and not in the way he wants it too, jerking straight, head moving up, elbow slamming out to catch Light in the ribs. He barely manages to suppress the yelp bubbling at his throat, hand going to his abdomen as he chokes on the breath lodged in him. "Fuck!" he gasps, barely managing to keep his voice low.
He can feel L against him, moving, squirming, trying to shake him off in a flurried, panicked, altogether uncharacteristic scramble, but at the sound of Light's curse he freezes. "Light?" he says, tensed, but stilling at least, as Light gains his air back.
"Who else would it be?" he snaps, as quietly as he can, voice a harsh whisper. Far less seductive than how he'd originally intended to sound when he'd had his hand down L's waistband. L glances at him over his shoulder, dull eyes wide and deadpan, not seeming as if they have any trouble making him out in the dark, and shrugs. Light sits up, crossing his arms, and says, "Oh, a lot of people, I suppose."
L doesn't respond, doesn't even blink at the bait, just looks down at his lap where his jeans have been unbuttoned and shifted down a bit. "I was asleep," he says, blankly, looking back up at Light. "That's assault."
Light glances at Misa to makes sure she hasn't woken - he's not overly fond of this arrangement, but if he shoves her out of bed, she's sure to wake up and squawk at him - then back at L, rolling his eyes. "You did practically the same thing to me yesterday."
"It's always Old Testament justice with you, isn't it?" L murmurs. His voice isn't any lower than usual, but it still manages to seem quieter than Light's.
Light's skin is still hot. His cock is still hard. L looks as appealing in the dark as he does in the low lamplight usually coloring the room, as he had under the harsh fluorescents in the investigation headquarters. Oh, headquarters. Light will have to go into work tomorrow. Back to the daily grind. He wonders who's died while he was out of commission. He hopes everyone has. The city streets are too crowded and there are too many people out there that he has no desire to put his mouth on, who's hair he doesn't want to stroke with soft fingers. They're of no use. The world is all dirty and it's their footsteps spreading the muck.
One day it will just be him and L. One day. Later.
"I want to fuck you," he says, moving back towards L, pressing his length against the mess of sheets and bedclothes between them. He puts his mouth to the edge of L's jaw, right between his ear, sucking softly on the skin. He'd washed most of the blood off of his face before they'd gotten into bed, but his nose still rather aches. It's still feels good, in an unsettling way. Just the right amount of pressure.
He feels the flutter of L's eyelids like a breath against his cheek.
"You tried to kill me yesterday," L says, tone flat and unmoved as Light skates his finger back down to his crotch. It's a lot like a romance novel except for the girl on the other side of the bed and the fact that they both smell rather suspect. In romance novels everyone smells like a fucking rose. Light assumes. He's never actually read one.
He squeezes L, wants him to harp on about the attempt on his life, maybe give a whole monologue on it while being fucked, but he just skips over a catch in his throat, jerking slightly against Light, pressing into his hand, and says, "You killed Aiber and Wedy."
Well, yes. Yes, that's an established fact. No need to bring it up now. Light doesn't want to think about the fact that L has fucked Aiber and L has fucked Wedy and L has fucked whoever else - Matsuda, probably. That seems likely. And now it seems as if he's going after Misa. Light grinds against his hips, shoves his boxers down, too, and is as annoyed as he is turned on. The man just can't sit still, can't stop from throwing himself at the nearest warm body - for 'research,' of course, but then they both know it's some sort of deep-seated emotional disorder. Maybe it was his childhood. Maybe Daddy didn't hug him enough, or maybe he hugged him too much. Maybe Daddy was dead. Maybe L doesn't even have parents and just sprouted out of the ground like some weed that you can't keep out of the garden, and no matter how many times you uproot or spray him, he keeps coming back up. The only thing left to do is set the whole garden aflame. Watch him burn himself out.
Light mouths at L's neck, his ear, the slant of his cheekbone, and doesn't move much, doesn't blink, but his hips press slowly back into Light's hands and the heat is unbearable. Light is going to fuck him whether Misa wakes or not. Whether the police storm the door with guns and frowns and arrest warrants. His father could walk in. God, he wants his father to walk in, wants the whole investigation team to watch L squirming underneath him, made into a completely helpless thing.
L's breaths have gone heavier, his movements stilted by how much he wants it - god, of course he wants it, he always wants it, who wouldn't want Light - and puts a hand to Light's chest and says, "You killed Aiber and Wedy," again, in a low, mottled growl, holding the words up to Light like a shield, like that's going to keep him off.
Maybe if he was less turned on he'd care more, but as it is, he only wants L's legs and close breaths and rough, repetitive movement - like the animals, almost, like beasts, but then not, because the friction is glorious, above anything, and it flashes behind his eyes like paradise, like the garden set afire.
"I've killed hundreds of people," he whispers into L's ear, barely thinking about the words as he says them. "They're nothing special. Neither are you." He squeezes L's cock, shoving his legs apart, and the gutted, flushed look on his face makes Light's head swim. "Take your clothes off."
"The - " L bucks up into his hand, " - bathroom."
He's getting Light's fingers wet.
"Afraid she'll wake up?" he says into L's hair, glancing over at Misa's form, shifting slowly with even breathes. "I thought you said she wouldn't mind? Or was that only when I was sick and incoherent and you could do anything to me?" He runs his hand along L's face, softly, skin fizzing on contact. "Are you sick and incoherent now?"
"You killed them," L says, moving his hips against Light, letting him kiss him.
"Yes."
L breathes out again, looks dizzy, looks pretty. Light wants to melt him down for scrap and keep him locked away in jar. Light wants to set him out to sea, to burn the ashes.
"Bathroom," L says again, eyes rolling back, and Light smiles and concedes, if only because the sink counter will provide better leverage.
four hours later.
Light stands in the shower for several minutes before he starts washing himself. His knees feel bruised but when he looks down, there's no marks. Must be under the skin. He can't decide if the sex last night was brilliant or terrible, or if it had even happened. L had acted like it hadn't, but L is like that. Light wouldn't normally doubt himself or his perception of the world, but the last few days have been a fever dream that he's just scrubbing from his skin now. He's missed two days of work, Misa had said, but he feels like the entire bus of existence had passed him at the stop, which is a no good metaphor that L would rip apart if Light were to say it out loud. If L were here.
He shuts off the faucet and towels off, feet cold against the tile. Don't they have a bathmat? Misa ought to have bought one. That's what Misa's here for.
He comes out of the bathroom with a towel around his waist and stares at the clothes laid out on the bed. It looks like a suit that L would make fun of. Maybe that's why he'd chosen it.
Misa's in the doorway. "Who's Mikami?" she asks, casually, which of course means it's nothing but.
"Quiet, Misa," he says, running his fingers along the tie. It was a birthday present but he's forgotten who from. He'd started wearing suits more often when L had disappeared. He's told everyone it was because things were getting really serious and he had to be more professional. His suits are always black or dark gray. Everyone else says he's in mourning, and he lets them. He likes that answer better, anyway.
God doesn't wear black. Heh.
He's more or less mentally blocked out Misa's presence by the time he feels her finger on his chest - small hands, too small, and gentle and shaking, almost. He looks down, and she's staring up at him with wide eyes and it's an annoyance more than anything else, and -
She leans up on the very tips of her toes and she kisses him and it's not at all like her hands, not gentle or questioning, just on his mouth and on his lips and right there and he freezes. He doesn't know how to react to this. Misa is allowed to stay because she's a good little soldier. She sits and she stays and she does what she's told and - and she's kissing him like she's trying to be L, like she's watched and studied and mapped out the variables - but then, Misa couldn't map her way down the street, so what is this.
He shoves her off after half a second, frowning down and not really knowing what to do. Does he hit her with a rolled up newspaper? Put her in a time-out? She's looking up at him like she expects one of those things and is prepared for it - would love it, even. Everyone's always signing up to be a martyr, aren't they? Everyone's always pencilling him in as their doomsday villain.
He's sure she wants him to shove her away, just so she can throw herself back at him, but he does it anyway.
"Don't touch me," he tells her, stepping back. He sounds less impatient than he'd like and more wounded, like she'd backhanded him instead. Maybe she had. Reality is twisting up on itself these days and he's not sure which way is which.
It's not even been an hour and he misses L.
"You're my boyfriend," she tells him, standing straight and tall, hands on her hips. She'd rehearsed this, of course. He can tell.
She still hasn't showered, is in her pajamas, and her hair is sticking out at unflattering angles. She's so small he thinks maybe he could squash her like a bug. Ryuk is in the other room, juggling apples and making faces at his reflection, and Light wonders if he'd tell Rem. Wonders how Rem would kill him - if it'd just be a simple heart attack or if she'd dress it up, make it hurt.
He's going to have to get rid of her before he does anything else. Kill her with love, or something to that effect.
"It's not a real relationship, Misa," Light says, calmly, keeping his voice even. "I don't want to be your boyfriend. I don't want to touch you and I don't want to kiss you. I want your eyes and I want your Death Note and I want you to do what I tell you. And I'm telling you not to touch me."
He steps back, picking up the button-down laid out and holding it up to himself in the mirror. He's waiting for her theatrics, for the squealing and little balled fists, but it doesn't come. He watches her reflection blink and stiffen and look like it might cry - it's not a good look for her - as he puts his shirt on.
"What should I do?" she asks him. She's being eerily quiet, but it's such a relief that he doesn't bother questioning it.
Light smiles placatingly - 'atta girl - still holding the towel closed on his hips, and nods over at the Death Note that he'd retrieved from under the floorboards of L's hide-out. "What you do best."
Watson hadn't shown up this morning, and that's all wrong. Bert's the one who stays out, gets pissed, and falls asleep against the rubbish bin outside the pub on 5th. Watson's meant to call, to track him down, to do the high and mighty berating, hands on hips and teeth visible through his smiling lips. For all that Watson gets up to - the boys with tape over their mouths, the wriggling - he's never once missed a meeting.
So Bert trudges down to his piss-hole apartment half past eight - brings Mckinley along just in case shit's gone down - and shouts about tax evasion until one of the tenants lets him into the building, because apparently Watson can't be arsed to drag himself out of bed and answer the door.
"You sure he didn't get caught in the raid last night?" Mckinley asks after the third knock, because Mckinley is a fucking idiot. That's why Bert likes him. He keeps birds, pretty cockateels and he's got pictures of all 4 or 8 or whatever amount in his wallet, likes to bust them out and pass them around at parties. Watson once shot him in the foot, so they're not overfond of each other. Maybe that's another reason Bert likes him.
"The raid wasn't on us," he says, knocking again, "and they should have been out of there before it happened, unless the little punk slowed down business." He stops, glances back at Mckinley. "You haven't seen the boy around today, have you?"
"Who?" Mckinley asks, but he's mostly glancing at his phone. Bird-sitter updates.
"The boy," he says, snapping his fingers to get Mckinley's attention. "About this high, choir boy hair-cut, not particularly bright. Pretty thing, though. Just Wat's type." He leers because he knows it makes Mckinley uncomfortable, but it doesn't yield anything but a shrug and the snap of his phone as she shoves it back into his pocket.
"Doesn't look like he's home," Mckinley says. Tosser.
"He's home," Bert says, even though he's not sure either way, and nods at the lock for Mckinley to get to work.
He drops to his knees, slipping out the lock-pick kit with fingers that are used to this and maneuvering it quickly. Bert hears shuffling on the other side of the door. His lip quirks and the superiority is a pleasant spearing sensation in his belly. The sound of them sorting it out sure perked him right up, and it'll be nice to be the one tapping his foot, checking his watch - not that he's got a watch - and berating Wat for his absence.
Then the lock clangs apart and Mckinley falls forward, face knocking against the door. The shitty off-white paint-job is smeared in blood and Mckinley is dead at his feet. Bert blinks, can't move, half expects it all to rewind in the same breath, like a momentary cerebral seizure, but it doesn't. He thinks he should be horrified, the customary reaction dinging like a service bell in the back of his head, but there's mostly just a sense of confused offense. As if Wat had just shot Mckinley in the head as a personal insult more than anything else, a fuck you, a parade to trample all over his one moment of superiority. What does he mean by going around shooting people?
Shooting people. Mckinley's dead. Mckinley's dead and those 4 or 8 birds are all fucked, are going to have to eat each other to survive. Who takes care of people's pets after they die? Bert's never had any pets. He'd wanted a dog when he was 10 but his mum had just said, "You don't want your father to beat the pup, too, do you?" and left it at that.
He should leave, he thinks. That's the next thing. He should leave. What if Wat tries to frame him? What if he tries to take him out next? He doesn't move, though, and the second shot doesn't come.
There's an eye, though. There's an eye blinking at him through the hole where the lock used to be. Pretty, Bert thinks. Pretty and not Watson's. The eye smiles at him and he really should go, go, go -
"So nice of you to join us, my dear compatriot," the eye says.
The pavement is dark with last night's rain and the investigation headquarters has a romantic, end-of-the-world feel about it today, stark against the skyline, somehow separate from the other buildings. It's nondescript, but it still just doesn't belong.
"Hey, Light!" Matsuda calls from the front door. He's standing there with an unopened umbrella and a coffee, the latter of which he hands to Light when he comes to join him under the outcropping of steel and silicone above them. Light thanks him, doesn't drink it, and pretends like he doesn't notice Matsuda's face when he realizes he's just handed Light his own coffee. He doesn't ask for it back, anyway, and Light doesn't offer. It's almost empty, anyhow.
"Morning, Matsuda-san," he says, smiling, tired of course, but happy to be back all the same. Everything he ought to be.
"I'm glad you're feeling better. What was it, stomach bug? My cousin had it and she had to stay on the toilet for - "
"I'd rather not go into details."
"Right."
"I'm fine now, so let's all just get back to work."
"Right."
Matsuda's discourse is as stimulating as ever, but there's something off about him, different - it's in the way he's looking at Light. Like he's really looking at something and not just existing near it. Light adjusts his collar, tries not to be moved by the fact that he's being studied by a man with the intellectual capacity of most common kitchen appliances and smiles pleasantly.
"Is there something wrong, Matsuda-san?" he asks.
"We haven't found L," Matsuda tells him, pushing his hair out of his eyes and blinking as it flops right back into place. He really needs a hair-cut. And a suit fitting. And a lobotomy. Or maybe Light's just irritated. He still has cuts in his mouth and he smells like Misa's raspberry shampoo and, although Kira hadn't stopped judging while he was out of commission, he'd certainly been less active. There is is scum on the streets and he feels it corroding his shoes.
"I didn't think you had."
Matsuda swallows, nods, looks longingly at his surrendered coffee, but doesn't ask for it back. "Light, can I ask you something? About him, I mean. L, that is."
He's more nervous than usual and Light can't decide whether he's amused or disgusted, but he slides his eyes over to him and plans to allow the line of conversation out of simple curiosity, when a hire car pulls up in front of the building, waxy and overly luxurious, almost gaudy. He watches, somewhat amusedly, as Mogi climbs sheepishly out of it, apparently trying to sever his association with the vehicle in question as quickly as possible.
His face goes blanker than usual when he spots Light and Matsuda watching him from the front steps and Light takes a distant sort of pleasure in that - it's the small things, the things where people are intimidated by your presence, that really make life worth living - but it's all sapped in a moment. The moment he sees the suit.
Just the sleeve of paisley, powder blue and he thinks, no, at the same time as he thinks, there can't be two men in Tokyo with the exact same terrible fashion sense - but then, no, that can't be right. This can't be right. Aiber steps out of the car after Mogi but that's all wrong, a lie, because Aiber is dead. Timothy Morello. He'd written it in the Death Note. He'd written it. It had been the real thing, not a shopping list, and he remembers smudging the ink on his thumb in the frazzled excitement - finally, finally pay-back for the large fingers and the long glances and the curl of hair at the back of L's head, being played with absently, like he's used to it, like it's familiar. Aiber should be buried, gone, six feet under in an overly ornamented grave and shipped back to his home country to lie under a stone that says Repose en Paix in flagrant script. Not here. Not getting out of a car and nudging warmly, conspiratorially, at Mogi's shoulder.
It's wrong, wrong - do-over, try again, is he still in that bed in that room with L's hands climbing on him, swimming in visions and aching with the air around him?
No. No, he's here. The pavement is wet with last night's rain and he's holding Matsuda's half-used coffee cup in his hand and watching Mogi and Aiber approach the building. Light wants to put his hands on him, rip back that ugly blazer and check for seams, check for places where he might have been stitched up and put back together, because how else - how else -
The names. The names were in the system and the names were not too hard to find - difficult enough, but still. Maybe he was meant to find them. Maybe L planted false names because he knew Light could hack the system and he knew that he would go for Aiber and Wedy first. Maybe all the names of operatives are false. And all that fuss yesterday, the escape attempt, the disbelieving anger and boiling upset, it was all just a show.
It was a little performance put on to keep Light occupied.
For what?
Matsuda is still looking at him like he has something to say, but Light brushes him off, takes a few steps down to meet Aiber and Mogi halfway and bows politely. "Mogi-san, good morning. Aiber-san, I didn't know that you were still in Tokyo."
Aiber smile is wide and frozen false - "Why wouldn't I be?" - and Light loathes him, wants to claw his eyes out with a pen and make L watch, make everyone watch and see and understand. Immorality will not be tolerated. Fingers in L's hair, fingers up his shirt, fingers on him will not be tolerated.
This must mean Wedy's alive, too. Maybe she's waiting just around the corner, ready to spring a trap. Maybe this is all just a trap that L has set, that Light has been running headfirst into since day one. Since the first night and L's lips and his fingers, all over Light, stripping him of his own will and replacing it with this quiet, floundering, half-false smile that L will make in the dark, with lips on his neck. He'd made it last night. He'd done a lot last night.
Light's got no time to panic, though, no time for anything but a pleasant smile returned at Aiber and a nod of his head. "I hope you don't mind, Aiber-san, but I'd like to talk to you alone for a moment."
He looks to Mogi to signal for him to join Matsuda and scatter, but he's not met with the laconic agreeableness that is usually a staple of Mogi's presence. Instead his eyes are calm and firm, his voice even - not accusing, but still Light hears accusation in it - when he looks to Matsuda and says, "Actually, Light, we were wondering if we could talk to you." Aiber appears to take this as a cue, because his smile suddenly jags genuine and he's backing down the steps, nodding his way out, as Mogi speaks.
Light looks to Matsuda, sees the same determination on his face, if more quivering. "Yeah," he says, "we just want to talk about, um - about L."
As Aiber's hire car drives away, Light suddenly finds time to panic.
seven hours earlier.
L's forehead is against the mirror and he can barely see his reflection, just the water stains on the bathroom sink, the rust around the faucet. Light is in him, and it should be demeaning - Light keeps squeezing his hips, keeps whispering things in his ears that are clearly meant to demean - but, there's mostly just quiet and their breaths and the drip of the shower leak and Light's hair tickling his back and, truth be told, they both know that, "You love me," means something that's more like the inversion, so when Light's harsh whispers turn from dirty to, "You love me, you love me, you love me," as his thrusts speed up, L's not sure how to rationalize that with the rest of everything.
Everything that has ever happened says, no, no, this is no good, and L likes to pretend to be reasonable, to pretend to do the right thing - but this is stupid and this is wrong and with enough silent nights, enough of Light on him and in him, he can no longer pretend that he doesn't realize that.
They have forfeited all the right choices. Aiber and Wedy are dead and Light has the emotional ability to kill him and if he were truly what they all think of him, L would not stand for this. But he's not, is he? Great big fakes, the both of them. The garden is a lie and the infallibility is an even bigger lie.
L is still the boy in the church, the boy by the new gravestone that sticks out among the older ones, reciting his favorite prime numbers to a mustached man with twinkling eyes and a lot of money. He is the boy in the confessional, hand over his mouth, trying not to breathe, trying not to be heard, as he watches the blood spill across the floor, reflecting in the stained-glass window.
He is the boy gathering evidence, forging all the prints and sleeping in closets and saying, Look at me, I'm brilliant. Look at me and take me out of here and give me something better.
Everyone thinks they deserve better than what they have. Everyone thinks too well of themselves. The only thing that separates Light from the rest of the world is the magical notebook and the can-do spirit. The self-aggrandizing loathing of everything around him? That's human nature.
Or, that's L's nature, anyway.
Light comes shivering, whispering, "You love me," like a pathetic little prayer, and as he slumps onto L, the pain of his unsatisfied arousal sharpens for a moment, before tapering down as Light pulls out. It aches and L's face is warm, his eyes bleary in the mirror, but he's not sure he wants his desire to be fulfilled. The spark is heady, violent, running over all thought and making things very clear and very unnavigable at the same time.
As Light pushes himself up and off of him, L thinks he's going to be left to jerk himself off and wishes Light would go in the other room and stop huffing, at the very least - nevermind that they're chained together; just like the old days - but then he's being jerked around by the hips and Light is on the ground before him, pretty knees against the ugly tile, pretty face looking up at L, and he doesn't bother with his usual sparkly little boyish charm, all bedroom eyes and teasing breaths, just goes straight for it, wrapping his lips around L's cock with the vehemence of an apology. Maybe for coming quickly. Maybe for killing him.
Maybe for Aiber and Wedy.
His legs go weak, body leaning loose against the counter as Light swallows him down, and remembers how Wedy would give blowjobs like a pro, how Aiber would run soft hands along his thighs, trying to ignore all the, "You love me,"'s he feels towards Light just then.
seven hours later.
On the list of people that Mello would love to see right now, Bert is miles from the top, but - even though Beyond is tying him up, salivating with a lust for more massacre - Mello would rather him be here than not. Even if he dies. He tries to feel guilty about the jolt of satisfaction that he gets from Bert's terrified scrambling, but he can't quite.
He's a bad person maybe - a criminal, a kid in so far over his head he's buried - but at the very least, he can comfort himself with the knowledge that there are people who are far, far worse. One of them is standing the middle of the room, fastening Bert to a chair and humming something that's maybe Metallica and maybe Bach, though the beat is too uneven and interspersed by hateful giggles to properly tell.
Bert is swearing, shouting at B to let him go, and this must be a really shady flat complex for no one to have come by now, unless Watson has got sound proof walls or something. Maybe he has. Maybe he has a reason.
Mello's still chained up on the floor, heart still on his chest and still warm, the blood soaking through his shirt to stick heavy on his skin, but he's mostly gotten used to it by now. Like the first time you hear about death as a kid - it's hard to process, hard to really rationalize with sky and cartwheels and your tiny child fingers - but after a while it sinks in and then it's just normal, a part of the world. The heart on his chest is just a fact of his existence now, like anything else on him - his skin, or his own heart, thumping twice as quickly in his chest, maybe just to make up for the stillness of the other.
Bert is loud, the word cuntbox getting more use than it's maybe ever had before and Beyond is just laughing, just absolutely charmed by Bert's struggles. Mello is equally annoyed by the both of them, but any remaining intimidation that Bert's height and weight and booming voice might have lent him is far overshadowed by B's tinkling giggle and the stuttered tap-tap-tapping of his bare feet on the floor.
"I'm going to cut your heart out," B says to Bert, practically climbing into his lap, skittering fingers crawling all over him. Mello can only see it at an angle but it looks like porn or a snuff film or both. Like watching something while drunk and unable to tell the floor from the ceiling from your hands and your head.
"Get off me, you gangly shit, get off! Do you know who I am? The police will be here any minute! My boys will be here! Get the fuck off!"
Bert's voice is higher than usual and his grammar is better, less posturing, more plain terror. And it is terror. Bert is at least three times as wide as Beyond, if not much taller, and B's barely done anything but tie him up yet, but he's afraid. Very afraid. There's something about B that just makes your skin crawl, your stomach turn. Mello had thought it was paranoia when he'd stared into the dark outside his window and seen the dark staring back, but it clearly wasn't.
Beyond Birthday, if not evil incarnate himself, comes pretty damn close. His presence rings with it. His laugh rings. The phone rings. Hello. Yes, Roger here. L's gone? Yes. Alright. The phone is set down.
Hello, 911? Yes, it's Mihael Keehl here. There's a heart on my chest.
"I'm going to cut it out with a scalpel. I have a scalpel. I have a couple, would you like to see?" There's the clanking of metal and a shake of the floor as B hops around. "This is a rib spreader. Pretty cool, huh? It was on sale, too. I mean, I stole it, but it's the principle of the thing, isn't it?"
There's a heavy struggle sound and Bert's rough breath and B's maniacal amusement and Mello, there on the floor with a heart on his chest and enough time to get used to the situation, just rolls his eyes and calls, "Would you quit it with the heart shit? Just kill him like a normal person!"
"Shut the fuck up, Mello!" Bert yells back, too terrified to bother with insulting nicknames. It's maybe the second time he's called Mello by name.
He doesn't understand, of course. He's not bright in the first place and panicked enough to only lock onto kill him and nothing else, but Mello is trying to help him. Beyond had slit Watson's throat before cutting him open. It doesn't sound like he intends to do that with Bert. Evidently, he intends to take his time, enjoy it. Better to be dead than alive for your own dismemberment. Maybe Mello would be better served to just keep his head down and stay out of the line of fire, but the more time that passes, the more time that he has to think, the more it becomes obvious that Beyond Birthday is not actually planning to kill him. It's a quiet wish in the back of his head, a sneaking suspicion, but one that feels true enough to bank on.
"Seriously," he says, twisting around to look at B. "Why even bother with the heart? You're just wasting time. Don't you want to go to Tokyo? That's what you want, right?"
No matter how he shifts, he can't quite see the look on B's face. He thinks maybe that's on purpose, some specific placement, but then B climbs off of Bert to come stand over Mello, leering down, finger to his lips: L, ugly and reinterpreted. They don't look alike really, except in shadows, in half moments. The nose is all wrong.
"It's metaphorical resonance," B spits, picking up the heart on Mello's chest and dropping it back. It lands with a dull, wet splat. It's heavy, a hunk of meat.
"It's stupid," Mello says, looking up at him. He feels like all of his blood has settled in the back end of his body. He's been on this floor for months or something. He's really fucking hungry.
B smiles, does a twitchy little hair-flip that's more effeminate than it isn't and puts a hand to his hip. "Metaphorical resonance is stupid. Didn't they teach you anything at the academy for children no one wants?"
Mello feels like he's probably being insulted, but then that seems far less important than the heart on his chest or the murderous smile staring upside-down at him from above. Besides, B was one of those same children that no one wanted. And Mello's parents died anyway - they wouldn't - they would have kept him if they could have.
So, when he says, "Fuck you," it's not with any particular heat. He's more tired than he is angry, and even though there's a creeping, frazzled fear at the back of every part of him, he keeps it down, tries not to process the possible eventuality of being cut open, a heart on someone's chest. He won't kill you, he won't kill you, he won't -
"Let's play a game!" B squeals, turning on his heel. "Riddles!" He leans down over Bert, who spits at him, a husky breath of phlegm catching B in the face. Beyond just laughs, leaning forward to lick Bert on the cheek, which seems to having more of an insulting effect than his own attempt had. "For every one you get wrong, you lose a hand, and you've only got two, so best to ration them."
Mello blinks his eyes away as B does something that looks curiously like sucking on Bert's ear.
Okay, okay, no problem. He won't do that to Mello. He won't kill Mello and he… probably won't do that to Mello.
"The first one is this," B says. "God sat in a chair. Are you paying attention? God sat in a chair and looked over a neat little list of names, all in pretty rows and it was just so nice. Nice and organized. Killed it right away. God sat in a chair and he killed it right away." He's brushing his hands through Bert's hair and he keeps repeating it, or something to the same effect, all God and a chair and a lot about names and Mello stops trying to find meaning in the words after a while.
It's not a riddle or some kind of genius puzzle. It's just madness. He's just mad. Beyond is not going to help him and Beyond is not going to know where to find L. Beyond is crazy and he's licking Bert, whispering, "Killed it right away, God did," over and over and over. Mello's so hungry it's faded out of him, barely tangible anymore. He's tired and he might fall asleep here, a heart on his chest.
"What are you asking me? What's the riddle? Stop - stop, I'll answer it, just tell me what you want - just - "
"God sat in a chair. Killed it right away. Aren't you a clever man? Aren't you hiding from it? Don't you know?" He strokes down Bert's face, has a strange, twitty little flair sometimes that sounds more like a joke than it does real psychosis, but then he's got a rib separator and a keen desire to use it, so there's no arguing that there's any lack of psychosis.
Mello would like to fall asleep. Mello would like Beyond Birthday to shut-up. Killed it right, he thinks, away. It doesn't even make sense. Maybe it's grammatically correct as a sentence, but it's nonsensical in the context it was provided. God isn't a murderer, anyways, and the little alter boy in Mello is vaguely offended by the implication that he is. Killed it right away, that's -
That's - oh.
"Kira," he says from the floor. His voice is hoarse, either from the yelling or from all the water he's not had in the past however many hours, and he has to say it again for B to hear him properly. "Kira. You're talking about Kira, aren't you?"
Killed
it
right
away
That's unbearably stupid. Stupider still that Beyond expected Bert to realize. Or maybe he never did. Maybe he doesn't care. Maybe he gave Mello the edge on purpose. He smiles from his perch on Bert's lap, smiles like a hooker trying to make tonight count and turns, takes Bert's meaty face in his hands, and snaps his neck.
Mello winces, but there's less blood than there could have been and he can't force himself to be overly heartbroken about it. Maybe he should be? Would L be? Maybe he should ask Beyond. Maybe he should stay still and quiet and hope that he fades into the floorboards. Maybe not.
"I thought you were going to cut his hands off," he says softly, after the stillness passes.
There's a moment, right after someone dies, where you don't quite believe it. Everything hangs there, stilted, waiting for them to wake up, for the joke to be revealed and the laugh track to play. Sorry, I was just sleeping. Sorry, I'm still here. The human body doesn't seem so fragile, but it is, and it breaks very quietly and very quickly, and there's no whoosh as the soul rushes out. The chorus of angels is either very quiet or not there at all. The moment passes and then they're just dead, and they don't smile or spit or call anyone a cuntbox. It's just flesh that's going to go bad very soon. It's not very much at all.
"I thought you were going to cut his hands off," Mello says, and B smiles and comes down to sit cross-legged beside him, pulling Mello's face toward him by the chin.
"Of course I always keep my word," B said, his grin suddenly smaller, almost sheepish, almost a joke made of self-deprecation. His eyes are bright and not altogether there, but he strokes Mello's forehead very evenly and he's not altogether not-there, either.
"Prayer time," Beyond says, whispering very close to Mello's ear. He's not sure what he'd been expecting it to smell like, though certainly not spearmint, but it fills up the air around him, making it sharp and cooler almost. Beyond Birthday is the ugliest sort of murderer - there are bodies a few feet away in either direction - but he smells like tic tacs. He smells good.
He brushes Mello's bangs out of his eyes and it should be disgusting, but he's tired, he's tired and - "Our father," B begins, "who art in Japan, hallowed be thy charmingly effeminate name."
Kira, he's talking about Kira again.
"Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in the land of the dead. Give us our daily death toll and forgive nothing, because nothing is forgivable." He stops, seems to lose his train of thought, the thread of the prayer that Mello could recite from memory and has been able to since childhood. B frowns, and repeats, "Nothing is forgivable."
Then he's tugging at the chains on Mello's hands, pulling him from the radiator and twisting him over so that he's on his stomach again. Mello tries to kick him off, just on principal, tries to knock him away, but it's no good and he's not strong enough and not committed enough. Even if he got away, where would he go? His only friends in the city - and he uses the term loosely - are dead on the floor, and if he goes back to the gang, they'll only want know what had happened, how he'd made it out alive.
B is here and B wants to go to Japan and B is a crazy person, maybe, but his voice is soothing as he whispers down to the top of Mello's head. Soothing and cruel. He doesn't look all that much like L, but he rather sounds like him.
"God and Kira and all the saints, Mr. Lawliet and his crown of thorns, they will not forgive you." He kisses the top of Mello's head. It's disgusting; it's calming. It's a hint of spearmint. "You're a bad babydoll, just like me." Another peck, light but powered by a violent sort of uneasiness. "You're one of the boys who eat dirt." He tips Mello's face up by the chin. "We're going to be friends, Mihael."
"It's not Hiroshi Ono," L says without looking up, as soon as Light walks in. "I changed my mind." Looking at Light feels like it might be a lot of work. "It's the girl that's getting to me. Why a girl? What is he trying to tell us? Maybe he just doesn't discriminate when it comes to gender - very kind of him, that - but if he was so blase about his choice of victim, you'd think that the crime scene wouldn't be so exact. No, it's measured, it's all measured. He's no idiot, our perpetrator."
Light doesn't respond and after a moment, L does look at him, eyes trailing him around the room as he moves hurriedly… cleaning up? He's throwing L's old coffee cups and donut boxes into a rubbish bag with an unnerving sort of vehemence, clearing the room with little discrimination as to what he's throwing away.
"Not a mastermind, perhaps," L continues, and there's a wait in his voice, an offer for Light to stop him anytime he sees fit, "but we can't all have Death Notes, can we?"
Light finishes cleaning very haphazardly, tossing the bag down to pull out another, which he begins shoveling L's clothes into. A shirt falls to the ground and Light leans down to snatch it up but misses and has to reach for it again. He looks far me discomposed than L has ever seen him. He wants to pin him down by his pretty-boy butterfly wings and study the phenomenon: the sweat on his brow, the way his fingers curl around the things he touches, holding too tight or not tight enough.
"We have to go," he says to L, tossing a plastic bag at him. He's really going wild with the bags today. "Pack up the files, or throw them away - I don't care. I can print them again. Just, get up. We have to go."
L's brow twitches, but he tries to appear less puzzled than he is. "Go where?"
"Anywhere," Light snaps, the leather on the bottom of his shoes marking patterns into the carpet. He hasn't bothered to take them off. "We have to get away from here, before they have me followed."
"Who?" L asks, thumb going instinctively to his lip.
"Shut-up. Just stop talking. I need to think and I can't think with you talking." He drags a unstudied hand through his hair, shoving it up out of his eyes. L watches it for a moment longer, trying to tell whether Light is legitimately having one of his regularly scheduled mental breakdowns, or is just embarrassed, and settles rather firmly on the latter.
"So, it's the cavalry, then," he says. "Have they found you out already?"
It makes sense that the taskforce would wise up eventually, especially with Watari around, presumably leading them in the right direction. Maybe Aiber and Wedy's deaths had clued them in. Perhaps they had been necessary, a means to end, the only way to achieve - victory? No, definitely not. Being found chained to a bed by a few sub-par police officers, rescued and taken back to the ivory tower where he could recount Kira's evils firsthand - a survivor of terrible personal violence - that is not victory. Soichiro Yagami would apologize on his son's behalf, over and over and over.
Soichiro Yagami would probably actually just put a gun in his mouth and be done with it.
Light glares. "Come on. Get your things in order. You can pretend that you want them to find you, but like I said, we both know it's not like that." He moves close to L, like he's going to touch him, like he's going to cup his face and be very romantic - if unpracticed - and dazzle L with his eyelashes and his finger pads and the huffs of warm breath that stream out with his voice.
He doesn't, though. He doesn't touch. He stands a foot or so from the bed.
"You say a lot of things," L says, sitting up straighter. "I don't know how I should be expected to remember them all."
Light looks at him for a while, then blinks, turns to one of the bags and starts digging out something he'd previously packed away. L knows before he sees, knows before Light smiles this hazy, self-deprecating smile over his shoulder and says, in a pretty, teenage tenor of a tone, "You want me to keep you, don't you, Ryuzaki?"
He moves closer, fills the needle and squirts a bit in preparation, taking L's arm with his other hand and spreading the skin for penetration. L thinks about fighting, but the truth is that Light is not completely wrong. He treats it like a joke because he is afraid that he's wrong, but the truth is that, while L does not want to be kept, he wants to stay.
People are dying all over the world at Light's command and L wants to stay.
Light digs the needle in, pushing down with no hesitation, no particular care for the way that L tenses, breath purposely leveled. He blinks heavy and looks up at Light, wonders what the world will look like when he wakes and says, "You're going to kill me for real one of these days, Light-kun."
nine hours earlier.
L feels hollow with Light on him. Like his chest cavity has been emptied and the blood and guts and necessary things have been taken out and put away somewhere that he can't reach.
More than a few people have sucked him off before - hazard of the job and all - but this particular blowjob might be the most uncomfortable one he's ever had - which is saying something quite drastic, considering the Tallahassee killer with the two studded lip rings had insisted on getting quite intimate with him before L could properly confirm his guilt. It's not bad, not unskilled, not anything but blinding hot pressure, Light licking and sucking on the head of his cock, nibbling at the base, pumping him and kissing him and more or less worshipping him.
There's a pit in his stomach and this awful coiled energy at the tips of his finger and Light scrapes his teeth gently along his length, teases the way he does so well, the way L had taught him to, and feels it sharp and pressing all over his skin before his hips jerk and his hand slips and he comes with his eyes open, jaw locked and a breath caught in his throat.
Sometimes Light kisses his hips but he doesn't now. This moment and all the moments since L didn't die have been like china, handled gently, set away. Light is afraid of something and it twists itself into swinging overcompensation. No, he can't kiss L's hips, can't sleep the night through without grinding on is back, can't speak in anything but teasing reproach. They broke the skin yesterday, they really did. You can peel so many layers of something that you think there's nothing left to peel, only to realize that you've not even touched the surface.
Human epidermis is thick. Human consciousness is thicker, all a jumble and there are no clean lines. Light is Light and L is L and sometimes it feels like they're the exact same person, but feeling only goes so far and, in the end, there's still that wall of separation, all those layers, all that brain matter and raw energy and those childhood memories that haven't ever come up in conversation.
Is it possible to love someone enough when you do not know them enough? And is it possible that L could possibly be justified in maintaining his current situation without loving Light wildly?
He leans on the counter for a bit, taking heavy breaths, but Light is on the floor and L finds it only polite to join him. Light's face is warm with exertion as he tongues at the inside of cheeks lazily. The room is dark and the sweat on the back of L's neck starts to cool him quickly.
And do any of the justifications really matter? In this world, it's just he and Light, alone, hiding away, renegades. The leaking faucet and the cool floor tiles don't care about his reasons for staying or leaving or neither staying nor leaving. And Light doesn't care to listen to anything he says. So who is L trying to convince?
It's alright to be here, it's alright to care for him, of course, of course - except it's not alright and never has been.
So how do you justify the bad things? Do you fight them, or just pretend to fight them?
He leans over, lips close to Lights forehead and Light's forehead close to his lips, "I'll get you back. I'll get you back for all of it." He's not sure if he means Aiber or Wedy or the murder attempt and he's not sure if he means it all, but it's just a repetition of his words from yesterday, anyway. Yesterday's violence had resulted in a standstill and they need to kick back into motion. Maybe fighting's the only way to do it.
He expects Light to be cruel and uncaring - all the pretty attempts at disassociation - to say something spiteful and quiet and for the night to go on, but that isn't what happens. The problem with Light is that the right thing never happens.
He flips over, pushing up off his back to roll onto L, holding him down with his hips and grabbing him by the neckline of his sweat-soaked shirt and snapping, "You liar."
He pulls on L's hair and jerks his head up, and if L weren't sapped by his recent orgasm, he might be aroused by the position, but as it is there's that uncomfortable tingling in his head - the approving buzz caused by violence of any kind, usually when enacted upon himself. It hums through him and he frowns up at Light with chapped lips.
Light's brow is creased and he looks like he's trying to navigate his next assertion. "You're always acting like I've victimized you." His voice lacks the surety necessitated by the violence, and it makes for a strange blend of vulnerable and power-mongering. "You victimize yourself," he says, and his tone strengthens, like forming the words with his lips makes the more true.
And L thinks, alright, then. Let's have this if we're having something. Own me so I don't have to lease myself out.
He reaches up and cups Light's cheek, hand soft, barely making contact. "Tell me what else I do." It's blatant seduction, almost campy, that porno-line thrill that keeps the set-up from being too real.
Light loves it, though, absolutely eats it up. Of course. The faker something is, the more he attaches to it. Identifies with it, maybe.
"You make yourself into an object," he says, kissing L's temple softly - like kissing his hips, like L has just given him permission to love him by establishing a farce -, "and you offer yourself up for the taking. I don't know why." He kisses L's other temple. "Maybe you were sexually abused as a child. Maybe the only way you can live with the things you do is to take a beating every so often." Down his neck, against his pulse. Neither of them are quite hard but it's a lot like sex anyway. "Punishment or penance or whatever it is. You like to play the martyr. And you fucking love to be somebody's victim."
"And what about you?" L asks, as Light pins his hands. Steady, steady, it's just a game. "How do you live with the things you do?"
Light smiles at him and it's more confident than it's been since they got in the bathroom, since they started touching and looking at one another. "That's the difference between good and evil, isn't it?"
"You never said which one you were," L mumbles.
It strikes him then, with Light's mouth on his collarbone, bangs tickling his chin, that this is a lot like the games that he and B used to play. "Children always play," Watari used to say, when Roger would raise concerns, "and there's nothing wrong with a little rough-housing."
And maybe that's all this thing with Light is. Hormones and loathing and a little bit of rough-housing to work it all out. Maybe that's okay. Light's tongue against his skin tells him that it's very much okay.
"You could have gotten away from me today, but you didn't," Light says, pushing up to look at him. He's all eyelashes and cheekbones, a prime example of a boy, spread out over L on the bathroom floor. "You don't want to go." The kiss is too chaste. "You want me to keep you." The pressure is too light. This might not even be happening. "And I will."
They kiss for a while longer - very romantic-like, with the rust from the panelling in L's hair and the hard tile on his back, can't be too much before dawn - and then fuck again. L is the victim of the night, because that is the easiest thing to be.
12 hours later.
When L wakes, he's in a car, Light's hands on the wheel and Misa's bubblegum pop blasting from the speakers.
tbc.
end notes: so there you have it, folks. on the bright side, let's hope the writing quality can only go up from here. in all seriousness, i'd like to briefly explain what's been going on with me and this fic and why it's been a bit iffy lately, if you're interested:
so, i started writing this bad boy in october of 2012 (mostly as practice for nanowrimo - getting myself in the habit of writing at least 1k a day) and it just sort of spiraled. i didn't have much of a coherent plot outline when i started and i still don't really, but i did have a number of things that i'd always wanted to see explored in death note fic and never had, so part of the reason this fic has been so meandering and stilted from the get-go was because it was basically self-indulgent wish fulfillment. as i got more readers and got more into the story myself, it became more important to me and i tried harder to make it a quality piece of writing. unfortunately, i think that kind of backfired, because i tried so hard that it made writing it a lot less fun and the less i started enjoying it, the worse my writing got. on the bright side, i had about 40k stored up when i started posting in january, and so for most of the time this story's been updating my writing has been 30k ahead of my posting, which gave me a lot more time to edit and improve things. but for the last month or two, i've been drifting into other writing projects because writing this has gotten quite hard, so even though i edited and posted, i wasn't really writing his fic. so i decided, given my lack of interest, to make a decision. i gave myself two choices:
1) take an official hiatus and wait for my inspiration to come back
or
2) force myself to pick this up again and see it through to the end
well, as you can see from the fact that i'm writing this now, i settled on option two. what can i say, i'm a stubborn motherfucker. and you know what? i'm glad i did. i feel like i can do this. my interest in death note has been reignited lately and i feel more excited about writing 'Nights' than i have in months. trust me, this story will be finished. you have my guarantee. a man's word is his bond and all that. a woman's, too. the only thing is, because i don't have as many things pre-written, updates will probably end up taking about this long (three to four weeks). hopefully you can forgive me for that.
as for quality control, i wrote most of this chapter over a month ago. i can't promise to be brilliant or anything, but i can promise to do my utmost to make sure future chapters are better than this.
god, long notes are very long. kudos if you read all (or any) of that. this is, of course, the part where i beg for reviews, but in all seriousness, knowing that people are reading and care about this story means the world to me. but if you'd like to see this story finished, please let me know if you can! it would be unendingly encouraging. that aside, i appreciate all of my readers, even the silent ones. con-crit is also welcome, though as you can see i'm already well aware of the flaws. /jumps out the window
okay, that's all for now. thank you for reading.