[AnOTP, canonized!]: For Muraki

[justiceis_red]

Light dreams fitfully and often.

In his room, he seems fast asleep, one arm flung out, the other curled against his chest. It's the Yellow Box again, Near sitting legs crossed in front of him, monotone voice tearing all his disguises to shreds, and trying not to laugh because it doesn't matter, Near doesn't realize this but Light knows.And as

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[silvereyedphage]

It's one of the off nights, when he isn't astral feeding from his protege and shaping the youngster's already indomitable spirit, but Muraki is restless and so he lets his own spirit emerge, walking through the aether of the Mansion. To his eyes in this form, the sleepers around him are generally peaceful miasmas of energy, some more active than others. But he senses one in particular that is anything but peaceful, one he recognizes a little too well, but in a good way. So, Mr. Yagami, all is not calm with you, despite your quest for a perfect world, free of sin and crime? Hmm... let me have a closer look, he thinks and enters the aetheric space surrounding Light. Leaning over him, Muraki takes hold of a wisp of a fear that's trying not to be fear and rides it down.... down... backstreaming it to the source of this emotion and reaching in to observe...

[justiceis_red]

Light, meanwhile, is struggling to rise from a pool of blood, already knowing he's going to die and fighting the knowledge. Because he is afraid of death, more than anything - and afraid of this kind of death even more, hating the humiliation and the failure even more than the pain.

And Near's eyes - the hatred here is stronger than anything - watching everything, impassive, emotionless. You are more of a monster than I ever was, Light thinks savagely, thus far unaware of a not-quite stranger's presence in his dream.

[silvereyedphage]

He hovers on the fringe of the dream. Your darkest hour, is it? he thinks. When the moralist was on the wrong side of the law? Well, that can happen when you make yourself more just than law enforcement.

He studies the youngster with the silvery white hair and huge eyes. Odd little whelp. Looks like he could be a bastard child of mine...

A thought crosses his mind. He contemplates using this figment as a locus, to start manipulating this dream in his favor...

[justiceis_red]

Oh, Muraki. That is a fabulous idea. The dream starts to flicker here, though, all the edges sharp and crystal clear but the images themselves seeming to shimmer, as though he's trying to fight his way clear of this, all of this.

Not that it works, ever. Death always comes to drag him down into darkness where only black eyes gaze at him through the bars of a cage too tight to move in. His expression in life spasms, clenches slightly.

An unpleasant memory, made more so by Near's continuous, emotionless gaze. As if this is nothing. And it isn't, it's everything.