fic: death note, l/light, pg-13.
I call this personal gratification fic. When you read it, you'll know what I mean. It's written with manga in mind, as I haven't seen anime/movies and I quite frankly don't care about them.
soul refugee, or: teachers and students
fandom: death note (manga)
pairing: vaguely l/light
rating: pg-13
disclaimer: Ohba & Obata own. I don't.
words: ~2,100
notes: I don't know how much trippy, pretentious fic there exists for this fandom but this is one of the stories that will appear really weird to most people. It takes place post-canon but disregards a lot of canon since I've not read chapters after chapter 63 (vol 10), just read spoilers on how the whole thing ended, so in a way none of that 63-final chapter stuff matter. It's, um, slashy but not. Just read it and make up your own mind.
Existence after death is blank. Light is surrounded by white. White everywhere he looks.
He stays in place, figuring it out, standing up and sitting down and lying on his back until he understands everything. But time passes, or feels like it passes, and nothing changes, nothing happens, it's just him and his thoughts and then he moves to another place to think. Again, and again, and nothing changes, and his brain is tired but he can't sleep and doesn't need sleep.
He doesn't understand it and he can't figure it out. He can't break this down to pieces and solve it, and for the first time in all his life and non-life, he feels lonely somehow.
There's nothing but white and him and he takes a step back and runs a mile and there is nothing but white and him. His body is weightless, colourless somehow, and he runs without getting tired, without feeling anything.
He's sick of being dead. There is no sense of time and he could've been dead for days, months, years, and he's going crazy. Crazy with the loneliness, crazy with the exhaustion, crazy because of the failure he faced along with death.
He wishes there were walls so that he could run into them. He wishes the surface he walked on was hard enough to fall on, beat his head against, anything to feel anything to feel anything. But nothing ever does feel like anything and he doesn't need food, sleep, nothing human and for once in his life and beyond-life, he wants his head clear of thoughts, as well.
Light screams and screams and screams until he can no longer hear the sound of his own screams. His senses are numbing as non-time goes by. Little by little, fading.
He runs even though he can't hide, can't escape. He wants to find something, anything. Anything to feel anything to feel anything.
He runs and faces more light, more white, more white for miles that aren't miles, everything infinite and never-ending. He runs though time doesn't and he's not going to find anything but he has nothing else to do but try.
*
Until the day he finds L.
He runs and suddenly there L is, a figure like the dead body, like the annoying creature smelling of cookies and sugar and tea, the bulging eyes hiding a fast mind; like the L he knew.
Light runs to him and doesn't stop until his hands are full of L, that lanky form around his arms. He hugs L and doesn't let go, to make sure L's really there and to prove everything doesn't fade, everything isn't white.
L isn't light. He's real, a weightless but existing form like Light and Light's losing his mind over the discovery, squeezing L tighter and making noises of relief, fascination, happiness, sadness. He's laughing and sobbing against L's shoulder and L is doing nothing but all he needs is L to be there. His salvation, a quiet rag doll he can hold and hold on to the hope that this thing won't disappear.
To feel anything to feel anything.
“Yagami Light,” L speaks, and the sound is real, it's L and Light won't let go, even when L pushes him away.
He looks down and sees his tears all over L's clothing, staining L's (white white white) shirt and he feels sorry for a moment and then happy again. He broke the monotone of his previous post-mortal existence. He did it. He smiles at L and L just looks at him, eyes boring into his brain and for once Light stares at L without any intentions. He's bare under L's gaze and that's new.
“Don't cry. This isn't redemption,” L says and steps back.
Fear sets in Light's being and he steps forward as L steps back. He's not letting go. Not now. Not ever, whatever that is. He doesn't know what it would mean to spend an eternity with L but it's better than the alternative - eternity with nothing at all.
Does he want redemption? Does he need it? He's too overwhelmed to think straight at first, just focusing on not letting go of L, his hands grasping cloth tightly and his form settling against L's, but then a thought occurs to him. What if this is redemption. What if he can be freed from all this.
Suddenly everything is not white any more, everything is gaining colour and L's skin turns from the palest white to somewhat closer to skin colour. L's eyes flash just then and Light knows something is happening, and he likes it. He's not letting go of L, he needs L now. Needs.
“What is redemption? Tell me.”
L looks away. “Your tactics have lost their subtlety.”
“If this is not redemption, what is?”
“You can't have redemption.”
“I can have anything.”
Anything, not to feel, but to own. He was weak a moment ago, but now he is strong. He's in control. Stupid L, who couldn't see that he was Yagami Light and he could play this game to his advantage like any game he had ever played and won, like all the many ones.
Stupid L--
L is fading. L is turning back into white (and white and white) and fading into the background of everything, and what Light is holding is getting thinner. Less real, actual.
He's shaken by the fact, more than he wants to be. Falling on his knees, he grabs L by the feet, the only thing that doesn't seem to fade away as fast and he holds, holds tight and is scared again, fearful and uncertain and sad.
“Don't leave.” He thinks he says it once but it seemed to echo out of his mouth and he repeats it over and over and over again until L stops fading.
“Thank you,” Light says and doesn't repeat it, not a phrase he uses often, not something he thought he'd have to say to L. For keeping him sane, for staying, for not leaving, not now, at least not now and hopefully for ever though Light doesn't know what that means.
*
“This is the hell that awaits those who use the Death Note,” L tells him and he's still holding L, scared and desperate to know L's not a hallucination. To know L's there like Light's there, though “there” might be a questionable concept in this context as it is.
“Vacuum is worse than pain. Nothing is worse than everything painful and awful and nauseating,” L continues and looks down on Light, who's lying next to him, arm over L's sitting form.
“I know,” Light says and wants to repeat it, but doesn't. L has to stay. Has to.
“Especially you.” L doesn't say anything more but Light knows what he means. Light needs something. When he has nothing he goes crazy. Anyone would but especially he.
“Are you real?” Light asks.
“Does it matter?” L asks, staring at Light with intruding eyes and Light decides maybe it doesn't.
*
They stay like that for what feels like a forever, probably is a forever. They say words but there's no enlightenment and Light doesn't try to trick L or please him. It's no use. His senses are dull and the only thing that he feels he can see clearly, feel clearly, is L's form, black hair and skin and denim and cotton. Maybe it's not real, but he knows they're both dead and if this is how he has to be forever, he can settle for it.
His senses are dull but there's not much that could be worse than this, peculiar fading where he's losing sense of everything, time and space and he could be floating in space and it's not like he has a body and he grips onto L tighter, squeezing cotton shirt and denim trousers into his fists until his knuckles turn white.
“It's okay,” L comforts him, and Light doubts everything and then nothing at all. What is, is, and will forever be, or so he's tricked to believe.
It's okay. He knows nothing, and doubts everything and it's supposed to be okay because he can sense a form of a human being he used to despise when he lived. He has no clue whether L's real, whether he's real himself, and everything is okay because L says so.
If it's a revenge, it's the sickest sort of such but Light doesn't lose his hold on L because punishment is better than nothing, than nothing at all.
*
His senses turn dull. He's not sure if everything is white or whether he just can't see the colors, the shapes any more. Except L.
L, L, L. He holds onto L and doesn't let go, even when he doesn't recognize the texture of denim, cotton, skin, and he panics and kisses L, just to see if he can still taste.
He can. L tastes like sugar.
Light wants to romanticize that everything around him suddenly has colors and shapes and textures he can see and feel and smell. But instead everything stays the same, except for L, who's more real somehow, actual, and Light kisses him harder, just to feel anything to feel anything.
*
“What if this was a lesson?” L asks him when Light stops kissing him (desperate, non-sexual but hungry for something he knows he can't have here, not ever again - little too late for anything).
“This is a lesson?” Light asks back and his head is spinning. He hasn't thought of anything for a while, it's like his thinking and logic is bleeding out from his ears. His grip on L's shirt tightens. No. No, no, no.
“I didn't say it was. I asked what if.”
Light thinks about it. Thinking is a long process in this existence. “It would be a bad lesson. Vague and not to the point. Confusing.”
“What if that is the point? To confuse you?” L's not looking at him. L never does.
“I'm not confused,” Light lies.
“And I'm stupid.”
“Well, I did outsmart you.” One corner of his mouth rises in a self-content manner, he can't help it. He won L. He beat L. L, L, L. He won the first round. So what if he lost out on the second?
He was always one step ahead of L. Always ahead.
“Then why am I not the one holding you like my non-life depends on it?” L asks and Light's so shocked, he lets go for a second.
L doesn't disappear. Not right away. Not before he looks at Light straight in the eye, and gets the same look on his face as when he sucks on candy, thoughtful, calm.
“How did you do this?” Light asks him, angry now, seeing how things are, figuring it all out only now with L's form fading from under his touch, his eyes.
“You shouldn't have played God,” L replies.
“How?” Light screams now, over and over again, and finally he's feeling anything, everything, anger and heat and hatred and sadness and loss.
“You might have made more friends that way,” L tells him and fades and fades until everything around Light is white again. All white and bright light that hurts his vision. He screams until he can no longer hear his screams.
*
He runs and runs and runs miles that are not miles, not going anywhere, not getting tired, and falls down on the surface not hard enough to hurt, but not soft enough to be slept on, either.
He runs and stops and then runs again.
Repeating the cycle for what feels like a forever.
*
Sometimes (so many times in a forever) he wonders what it is he was supposed to learn from all this.
It's a little too late for lessons.
But it never is for revenge.
soul refugee, or: teachers and students
fandom: death note (manga)
pairing: vaguely l/light
rating: pg-13
disclaimer: Ohba & Obata own. I don't.
words: ~2,100
notes: I don't know how much trippy, pretentious fic there exists for this fandom but this is one of the stories that will appear really weird to most people. It takes place post-canon but disregards a lot of canon since I've not read chapters after chapter 63 (vol 10), just read spoilers on how the whole thing ended, so in a way none of that 63-final chapter stuff matter. It's, um, slashy but not. Just read it and make up your own mind.
Existence after death is blank. Light is surrounded by white. White everywhere he looks.
He stays in place, figuring it out, standing up and sitting down and lying on his back until he understands everything. But time passes, or feels like it passes, and nothing changes, nothing happens, it's just him and his thoughts and then he moves to another place to think. Again, and again, and nothing changes, and his brain is tired but he can't sleep and doesn't need sleep.
He doesn't understand it and he can't figure it out. He can't break this down to pieces and solve it, and for the first time in all his life and non-life, he feels lonely somehow.
There's nothing but white and him and he takes a step back and runs a mile and there is nothing but white and him. His body is weightless, colourless somehow, and he runs without getting tired, without feeling anything.
He's sick of being dead. There is no sense of time and he could've been dead for days, months, years, and he's going crazy. Crazy with the loneliness, crazy with the exhaustion, crazy because of the failure he faced along with death.
He wishes there were walls so that he could run into them. He wishes the surface he walked on was hard enough to fall on, beat his head against, anything to feel anything to feel anything. But nothing ever does feel like anything and he doesn't need food, sleep, nothing human and for once in his life and beyond-life, he wants his head clear of thoughts, as well.
Light screams and screams and screams until he can no longer hear the sound of his own screams. His senses are numbing as non-time goes by. Little by little, fading.
He runs even though he can't hide, can't escape. He wants to find something, anything. Anything to feel anything to feel anything.
He runs and faces more light, more white, more white for miles that aren't miles, everything infinite and never-ending. He runs though time doesn't and he's not going to find anything but he has nothing else to do but try.
*
Until the day he finds L.
He runs and suddenly there L is, a figure like the dead body, like the annoying creature smelling of cookies and sugar and tea, the bulging eyes hiding a fast mind; like the L he knew.
Light runs to him and doesn't stop until his hands are full of L, that lanky form around his arms. He hugs L and doesn't let go, to make sure L's really there and to prove everything doesn't fade, everything isn't white.
L isn't light. He's real, a weightless but existing form like Light and Light's losing his mind over the discovery, squeezing L tighter and making noises of relief, fascination, happiness, sadness. He's laughing and sobbing against L's shoulder and L is doing nothing but all he needs is L to be there. His salvation, a quiet rag doll he can hold and hold on to the hope that this thing won't disappear.
To feel anything to feel anything.
“Yagami Light,” L speaks, and the sound is real, it's L and Light won't let go, even when L pushes him away.
He looks down and sees his tears all over L's clothing, staining L's (white white white) shirt and he feels sorry for a moment and then happy again. He broke the monotone of his previous post-mortal existence. He did it. He smiles at L and L just looks at him, eyes boring into his brain and for once Light stares at L without any intentions. He's bare under L's gaze and that's new.
“Don't cry. This isn't redemption,” L says and steps back.
Fear sets in Light's being and he steps forward as L steps back. He's not letting go. Not now. Not ever, whatever that is. He doesn't know what it would mean to spend an eternity with L but it's better than the alternative - eternity with nothing at all.
Does he want redemption? Does he need it? He's too overwhelmed to think straight at first, just focusing on not letting go of L, his hands grasping cloth tightly and his form settling against L's, but then a thought occurs to him. What if this is redemption. What if he can be freed from all this.
Suddenly everything is not white any more, everything is gaining colour and L's skin turns from the palest white to somewhat closer to skin colour. L's eyes flash just then and Light knows something is happening, and he likes it. He's not letting go of L, he needs L now. Needs.
“What is redemption? Tell me.”
L looks away. “Your tactics have lost their subtlety.”
“If this is not redemption, what is?”
“You can't have redemption.”
“I can have anything.”
Anything, not to feel, but to own. He was weak a moment ago, but now he is strong. He's in control. Stupid L, who couldn't see that he was Yagami Light and he could play this game to his advantage like any game he had ever played and won, like all the many ones.
Stupid L--
L is fading. L is turning back into white (and white and white) and fading into the background of everything, and what Light is holding is getting thinner. Less real, actual.
He's shaken by the fact, more than he wants to be. Falling on his knees, he grabs L by the feet, the only thing that doesn't seem to fade away as fast and he holds, holds tight and is scared again, fearful and uncertain and sad.
“Don't leave.” He thinks he says it once but it seemed to echo out of his mouth and he repeats it over and over and over again until L stops fading.
“Thank you,” Light says and doesn't repeat it, not a phrase he uses often, not something he thought he'd have to say to L. For keeping him sane, for staying, for not leaving, not now, at least not now and hopefully for ever though Light doesn't know what that means.
*
“This is the hell that awaits those who use the Death Note,” L tells him and he's still holding L, scared and desperate to know L's not a hallucination. To know L's there like Light's there, though “there” might be a questionable concept in this context as it is.
“Vacuum is worse than pain. Nothing is worse than everything painful and awful and nauseating,” L continues and looks down on Light, who's lying next to him, arm over L's sitting form.
“I know,” Light says and wants to repeat it, but doesn't. L has to stay. Has to.
“Especially you.” L doesn't say anything more but Light knows what he means. Light needs something. When he has nothing he goes crazy. Anyone would but especially he.
“Are you real?” Light asks.
“Does it matter?” L asks, staring at Light with intruding eyes and Light decides maybe it doesn't.
*
They stay like that for what feels like a forever, probably is a forever. They say words but there's no enlightenment and Light doesn't try to trick L or please him. It's no use. His senses are dull and the only thing that he feels he can see clearly, feel clearly, is L's form, black hair and skin and denim and cotton. Maybe it's not real, but he knows they're both dead and if this is how he has to be forever, he can settle for it.
His senses are dull but there's not much that could be worse than this, peculiar fading where he's losing sense of everything, time and space and he could be floating in space and it's not like he has a body and he grips onto L tighter, squeezing cotton shirt and denim trousers into his fists until his knuckles turn white.
“It's okay,” L comforts him, and Light doubts everything and then nothing at all. What is, is, and will forever be, or so he's tricked to believe.
It's okay. He knows nothing, and doubts everything and it's supposed to be okay because he can sense a form of a human being he used to despise when he lived. He has no clue whether L's real, whether he's real himself, and everything is okay because L says so.
If it's a revenge, it's the sickest sort of such but Light doesn't lose his hold on L because punishment is better than nothing, than nothing at all.
*
His senses turn dull. He's not sure if everything is white or whether he just can't see the colors, the shapes any more. Except L.
L, L, L. He holds onto L and doesn't let go, even when he doesn't recognize the texture of denim, cotton, skin, and he panics and kisses L, just to see if he can still taste.
He can. L tastes like sugar.
Light wants to romanticize that everything around him suddenly has colors and shapes and textures he can see and feel and smell. But instead everything stays the same, except for L, who's more real somehow, actual, and Light kisses him harder, just to feel anything to feel anything.
*
“What if this was a lesson?” L asks him when Light stops kissing him (desperate, non-sexual but hungry for something he knows he can't have here, not ever again - little too late for anything).
“This is a lesson?” Light asks back and his head is spinning. He hasn't thought of anything for a while, it's like his thinking and logic is bleeding out from his ears. His grip on L's shirt tightens. No. No, no, no.
“I didn't say it was. I asked what if.”
Light thinks about it. Thinking is a long process in this existence. “It would be a bad lesson. Vague and not to the point. Confusing.”
“What if that is the point? To confuse you?” L's not looking at him. L never does.
“I'm not confused,” Light lies.
“And I'm stupid.”
“Well, I did outsmart you.” One corner of his mouth rises in a self-content manner, he can't help it. He won L. He beat L. L, L, L. He won the first round. So what if he lost out on the second?
He was always one step ahead of L. Always ahead.
“Then why am I not the one holding you like my non-life depends on it?” L asks and Light's so shocked, he lets go for a second.
L doesn't disappear. Not right away. Not before he looks at Light straight in the eye, and gets the same look on his face as when he sucks on candy, thoughtful, calm.
“How did you do this?” Light asks him, angry now, seeing how things are, figuring it all out only now with L's form fading from under his touch, his eyes.
“You shouldn't have played God,” L replies.
“How?” Light screams now, over and over again, and finally he's feeling anything, everything, anger and heat and hatred and sadness and loss.
“You might have made more friends that way,” L tells him and fades and fades until everything around Light is white again. All white and bright light that hurts his vision. He screams until he can no longer hear his screams.
*
He runs and runs and runs miles that are not miles, not going anywhere, not getting tired, and falls down on the surface not hard enough to hurt, but not soft enough to be slept on, either.
He runs and stops and then runs again.
Repeating the cycle for what feels like a forever.
*
Sometimes (so many times in a forever) he wonders what it is he was supposed to learn from all this.
It's a little too late for lessons.
But it never is for revenge.