It popped into my head, so...
I'm gonna take my anthro exam in about an hour and a half, so what do I do? Write ficlets, of course! I studied last night, and I'm gonna review before the exam, but it popped into my head, and I figure, eh, it'll help my mind relax...so, here it is. Another insane Death Note AU ficlet. This one featuring actual Death Note characters!
Background stuff: this is set in Liert and Ray's world, after Light and L have ended up there through magic. By accident. They were rather surprised. They meet their alternate universe doubles--Ray for Light, Liert for L, and Sir Wakar for Watari. This world has magic and stuff. This isn't the first time Light and L have ended up traveling to another universe, but it's still not something they're really used to. *laughs* So, anyway, this is in Light's POV...dunno if I really did it right, but...oh--and this AU goes by the 'Kira was a separate entity that took over Light's mind/body through the Death Note' thing, so...yeah, this is non-evil Light. So, I based his personality off of Yotsuba-arc Light, although it still may not be very in-character, it's my first time writing him...anyway, here it is.
Sleep
(Light reflects on how much Liert is not like L.)
It surprised Light how much it bothered him to see Liert sleep.
Well, not sleep, Liert didn't let them see him sleep. Trancing, Sir Wakar (after a few days Light had finally managed to stop thinking of him as not-Watari, they looked too much alike, acted too much alike, and it bothered him for reasons he didn't understand) had called it. Part of his magic. Light was so far past the point where magic seemed strange to him that he didn't even notice the strangeness of that being a perfectly normal explanation for something.
Liert didn't have dark circles under his eyes, didn't stay up until it was insanely late (or early, depending on how you looked at it), didn't run on three hours of sleep and somehow stay sane. He slept more than a normal person did, in fact--Liert slept at least nine hours a night most of the time, ten if he could manage it. He had to, Sir Wakar had told them; without sufficient sleep, Liert wouldn't be able to use his astral-projection abilities properly. Light didn't know what that meant and didn't ask; his life was strange enough already.
Seeing Liert use the astral-projection was stranger still. Comparing it to sleep was the only way Light could even begin to understand what Liert was doing, and it did look like sleep--his breathing evened out, his face went blank and almost peaceful, he was still and unconscious. At least, it looked like he was unconscious; Sir Wakar told them that Liert's mind was actually still active, just elsewhere. The idea of a person's mind wandering around separate from his body still made Light's head hurt.
Light had seen Ryuuzaki sleep a handful of times. He slept curled up on his side, him thumb still in his mouth, sometimes mumbling vaguely. He was a light sleeper, and he never slept for very long.
Liert slept like the dead. In his astral-projected state, it was literally impossible to 'wake' him without using magic. That terrified Light on some level: the idea of being trapped in eternal slumber, his mind unable to return to his body, never moving, never waking again...it had never before ocurred to Light to be frightened of something as ordinary as sleeping, but now that he had seen Liert astral-project, he wondered if that was why Ryuuzaki almost never slept. Maybe it was just too uncertain, too uncontrolled.
Liert looked too peaceful in that not-sleep; when he was awake, he spent most of his time glaring balefully. Seeing his face blank and passive and not filled with scorn and disgust for the world as a whole was almost too incongruous.
Ryuuzaki looked pretty blank all the time, and was generally a calm person. He didn't give off an indefinable sense of being dangerous. He didn't project an aura of total hatred for everything that existed.
But their faces, their faces were so similar, except that one was sleep-deprived and the other wasn't. The same dark eyes (except Liert's had silver lines in the irises, the mark of his magic, or so Light was told), the same corpse-pale skin, the same ridiculously messy black hair. The same angles, the same everything. Like twins. Twins with completely opposite personalities, and it bothered Light.
It bothered Light most of all that when Liert astral-projected, his face was so still and unmoving that it was almost like seeing Ryuuzaki dead.
[the end]
See, the first line popped into my head, because one major difference between Liert and L is that Liert sleeps. A lot more than L. He has to, because of his magic; magic-users need to recharge, and sleep is important for that. But Liert hates sleeping and refuses to let most people (exceptions are Sir Wakar and later on Ray as well) see him sleep because he has paranoia issues. So, I realized that Light would never have actually seen Liert sleep, only astral-project, which looks kind of like sleep to someone without magic, like Light. And it would be really weird for Light to see someone who looks so much like L sleep so often. Also, the astral-projected state also resembles death, because it's sort of hibernation-ish, to keep the body alive and well while the consciousness is gone. So, breathing goes down to almost nill, heart rate drops a lot, etc...so, it also creeps Light out because he looks like L, but dead. And in this AU, Light knows full well that he almost killed L (or rather, Kira almost killed L). So, it bothers him.
I like writing about doubles meeting each other...and I like writing about Liert. *laughs* He's so awesomely screwed-up. XD
Background stuff: this is set in Liert and Ray's world, after Light and L have ended up there through magic. By accident. They were rather surprised. They meet their alternate universe doubles--Ray for Light, Liert for L, and Sir Wakar for Watari. This world has magic and stuff. This isn't the first time Light and L have ended up traveling to another universe, but it's still not something they're really used to. *laughs* So, anyway, this is in Light's POV...dunno if I really did it right, but...oh--and this AU goes by the 'Kira was a separate entity that took over Light's mind/body through the Death Note' thing, so...yeah, this is non-evil Light. So, I based his personality off of Yotsuba-arc Light, although it still may not be very in-character, it's my first time writing him...anyway, here it is.
Sleep
(Light reflects on how much Liert is not like L.)
It surprised Light how much it bothered him to see Liert sleep.
Well, not sleep, Liert didn't let them see him sleep. Trancing, Sir Wakar (after a few days Light had finally managed to stop thinking of him as not-Watari, they looked too much alike, acted too much alike, and it bothered him for reasons he didn't understand) had called it. Part of his magic. Light was so far past the point where magic seemed strange to him that he didn't even notice the strangeness of that being a perfectly normal explanation for something.
Liert didn't have dark circles under his eyes, didn't stay up until it was insanely late (or early, depending on how you looked at it), didn't run on three hours of sleep and somehow stay sane. He slept more than a normal person did, in fact--Liert slept at least nine hours a night most of the time, ten if he could manage it. He had to, Sir Wakar had told them; without sufficient sleep, Liert wouldn't be able to use his astral-projection abilities properly. Light didn't know what that meant and didn't ask; his life was strange enough already.
Seeing Liert use the astral-projection was stranger still. Comparing it to sleep was the only way Light could even begin to understand what Liert was doing, and it did look like sleep--his breathing evened out, his face went blank and almost peaceful, he was still and unconscious. At least, it looked like he was unconscious; Sir Wakar told them that Liert's mind was actually still active, just elsewhere. The idea of a person's mind wandering around separate from his body still made Light's head hurt.
Light had seen Ryuuzaki sleep a handful of times. He slept curled up on his side, him thumb still in his mouth, sometimes mumbling vaguely. He was a light sleeper, and he never slept for very long.
Liert slept like the dead. In his astral-projected state, it was literally impossible to 'wake' him without using magic. That terrified Light on some level: the idea of being trapped in eternal slumber, his mind unable to return to his body, never moving, never waking again...it had never before ocurred to Light to be frightened of something as ordinary as sleeping, but now that he had seen Liert astral-project, he wondered if that was why Ryuuzaki almost never slept. Maybe it was just too uncertain, too uncontrolled.
Liert looked too peaceful in that not-sleep; when he was awake, he spent most of his time glaring balefully. Seeing his face blank and passive and not filled with scorn and disgust for the world as a whole was almost too incongruous.
Ryuuzaki looked pretty blank all the time, and was generally a calm person. He didn't give off an indefinable sense of being dangerous. He didn't project an aura of total hatred for everything that existed.
But their faces, their faces were so similar, except that one was sleep-deprived and the other wasn't. The same dark eyes (except Liert's had silver lines in the irises, the mark of his magic, or so Light was told), the same corpse-pale skin, the same ridiculously messy black hair. The same angles, the same everything. Like twins. Twins with completely opposite personalities, and it bothered Light.
It bothered Light most of all that when Liert astral-projected, his face was so still and unmoving that it was almost like seeing Ryuuzaki dead.
[the end]
See, the first line popped into my head, because one major difference between Liert and L is that Liert sleeps. A lot more than L. He has to, because of his magic; magic-users need to recharge, and sleep is important for that. But Liert hates sleeping and refuses to let most people (exceptions are Sir Wakar and later on Ray as well) see him sleep because he has paranoia issues. So, I realized that Light would never have actually seen Liert sleep, only astral-project, which looks kind of like sleep to someone without magic, like Light. And it would be really weird for Light to see someone who looks so much like L sleep so often. Also, the astral-projected state also resembles death, because it's sort of hibernation-ish, to keep the body alive and well while the consciousness is gone. So, breathing goes down to almost nill, heart rate drops a lot, etc...so, it also creeps Light out because he looks like L, but dead. And in this AU, Light knows full well that he almost killed L (or rather, Kira almost killed L). So, it bothers him.
I like writing about doubles meeting each other...and I like writing about Liert. *laughs* He's so awesomely screwed-up. XD