#wow i haven't tagged anything as that in...... *takes long drag on pipe*

[francisthegreat]

do i .... do i honestly see a "death note" fic in this wips list ... i gotta know - love, not enamored anon

hello judgemental anon listen ok this is a file of forgotten fics okay let me LIVE

also fandom knows no shame and has no sense of time passing do you not know this? this death note fic will sit in my gdocs until i die. it’s collecting dust. it’s a relic of a bygone era and a beacon. it exists outside of time and space. its behind the cut and its the cryptid of my wips. i want to believe

(*x files theme song plays*) 

A note about Yagami Light: he slouches only when he is being watched. 

Alone, his back is ramrod straight at all hours of the day, his shoulders pulled cruelly into the sort of line that speaks of militant control. It is only when he becomes aware of being observed that he carefully curls them toward himself, pronounces it more in the evening and smiles tiredly at assertions of, “You look beat, Light.” 

Once in a while he slips, when his focus narrows to a single point or he’s especially distracted, and there’s a moment - a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment - when his body is one unbendable, unbreakable line. 

A note about L: he never blinks. It follows that he never misses one of these moments; he only files them away for later.

Sleep, too, eludes him. Sometimes he will slip into the dark void of complete unconsciousness for an hour or two and then slam back awake, shuddering with the notion that he’d been just about to put something together. 

Then, of course, he puts something together. Light says the chain chafes his wrist but doesn’t offer any further complaints on it.

After two days of the chain, a problem becomes apparent: Light sleeps. 

More specifically, Light talks in his sleep. 

Most specifically, Light talks about L. 

The talking never reveals enough information to form any sort of theory, just small huffs of breath and the occasional half-murmur of L’s name, but it sends L careening toward a question so dangerous it stops the blood in his chest. 

If he fell asleep, what would he say? Would he put some deep, vulnerable part of himself straight into the hands of the most prolific serial killer in human history without even knowing it? Would he speak his own name? Would he speak Light’s name?

And further, what is Light dreaming about? 

L has never put stock in dream psychology. It is a soft subset of a soft science, and consists mostly of conjecture and wanking, both of which L abandoned years ago.

Which, of course, makes his burning curiosity all the more concerning. 

A note about curiosity: L cannot recall the last time he was burningly curious about anything. Mildly so, yes. Detached interest, yes. But true, consuming, burning curiosity? An outlier so far outside L’s observable universe it is almost entirely alien. 

Yagami Light, too, is such an outlier. It stands to reason, then, that his alien curiosity would be regarding Yagami Light.

He resolves to let it go for now, but spends a disturbing amount of free time devoting his curiosity to it.

On the 5th night chained together, L still has not slept, and his body is approaching its limit. Light, outlier that he is, notices.

“Ryuzaki,” Light says, and L feels that foreign pang of disappointment  exclusive to Light using his alias, “You need to sleep.”

L waves him off. If he sleeps now, he will shut off for approximately 12 hours, which is not at all acceptable until he’s solved the case. If he sleeps now he will lose approximately 12 hours of surveillance, anywhere from 2 to 12 Kira killings depending on who is currently occupying Kira’s frustratingly nebulous power, at least 14 servings of strawberry cake, and no less than three instances of Yagami Light stretching enough for his shirt to ride up.

L dwells uncomfortably on that last thought for a moment and then shakes his head.

He’s not thinking clearly.

Light says, “You’re not thinking clearly. You’re exhausted.”

L resists the urge to stick his tongue out at him and adjusts in his chair.

A note about identities: L has never gone this long in the presence of another human, and so has never had to keep up the exaggerated charade of his own identity for such an extended period of time before. It is unexpectedly exhausting.

His back hurts. He wants to stretch out and sleep.

Light pokes him with a metaphorical stick.

“You’re not going to be any help if your brain doesn’t work, you know.”

It is a testament to L’s exhaustion that he doesn’t argue. He simply shuffles out of the room and drags Light behind him to go make himself a pot of coffee.

“This isn’t coffee, Ryuzaki,” Light laughs, sticking his finger into L’s cup. “This is engine sludge.”

A note about Light: he has been different since the end of his solitary confinement - freer, somehow. More…innocent. He laughs more, jokes more. It is almost as if he is a different person. He even seems to approach flirting, sometimes.

Light takes his finger out of L’s cup and sticks it in his mouth. L stares.

“Sludge and sugar,” Light amends.

L blinks and takes a sip of his coffee. It tastes sweeter than before, and raises all sorts of awful questions about the specific taste of Light’s skin.

A note about L: there is a 75 - no - 78.9 percent chance that he is slightly sexually attracted to Yagami Light. Which is a problem.

Contrary to popular opinion, L is not clueless about sex. In fact, he enjoys it very much when it benefits him, and has found he’s rather good at it.

The problem, of course, is that this is not the time or person, and also that the likelihood that Light feels the same is under 12 percent.

So he drinks his coffee in silence until Light says, “Come here, Ryuzaki.”

L’s stomach does something awful and he pauses with the cup halfway to his lips. Light smiles, and it’s so honest and sincere that it scares the shit out of L.

What are you doing, Light?

“What are you doing, Light?”

Light leans against the counter and tilts his head. He must know what this position does to his body, and his legs are far too long, and L has no control over his own thought processes and suddenly realizes how desperately he needs to sleep -

“I’m just gonna crack your back for you. It’ll help, trust me.” There’s that smile again. Different than before, so different that it almost makes L believe it.

“Why?”

Light huffs and says, “Because you’re going to cripple yourself crouching like that all day.”

Why do you care?

“Hm.”

“Come here and cross your hands over your chest.”

Is this how L dies? He sees four distinct possibilities: Light cutting his throat from behind him, Light smashing his head into the counter, Light slipping something thin and sharp around his throat and pulling, Light sinking a knife into his back -

No. No, if Light wanted to kill him with his hands, he would have done it already.

Yagami Light is Kira. He is 89.8 percent sure of this fact. Kira wants L dead. He is 100% sure of this fact. The only reason he is not dead is because Kira does not have his name. He is 100% sure of this fact.

L wants Kira dead. He is … 89.8 percent sure of this fact.

Only 89.8 percent? Why -

“Ryuzaki, stop thinking. It’s giving me a headache.”

I want to hear you say my name, L thinks, and immediately regrets it.

“I’m not able to do that, Light-kun.”

Light grins and says softly, under his breath, “I bet I could help,” and then raises his voice again to say, “For god’s sake, just come over here.”

“No,” L says stubbornly. “This is a perfect opportunity for you to kill me.”

Light rolls his eyes and sighs deeply, which is … not what L expects.

“You know we’re being surveilled, right?”

“I doubt it matters to Kira-kun. My name is the only one he does not know.” L takes another sip of his coffee. “After I’ve been eliminated it will be easy to deal with the rest.”

“Fine,” Light says, looking genuinely annoyed, and throws up his hands. “Fucking suffer forever, you idiot.”

L has never seen Light curse before. It is horribly, viscerally arresting. He wants him to do it again. He wants to make him do it again.

Light immediately puts his head in his hands and says, “Sorry. I’m really tired.”

L feels a stab of genuine guilt. In his refusal to sleep over the past 5 days, he’s forced Light to sleep in the rolling chair next to his computer, or on the floor, or sometimes slumped over the desk. 

In a moment of utter insanity, L walks over to where Light is leaning against the kitchen counter and crosses his arms over his chest.

Light raises his eyebrows and looks like he’s trying not to smile.

“You have to turn around, Ryuzaki.”

L hesitates. It sets off approximately 800 alarm bells in his head to turn his back to Light. It feels … wrong. Dangerous.

Exciting.

L turns his back. It thrills him all the way to his toes, so close to unbearable he can almost feel the hairs on the back of his neck standing up.

“That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

Light’s voice is far too close when he speaks, and L cannot see him, and three new scenarios flood his mind at once: Light could snap his neck with his hands - but that would require an inhuman amount of speed and strength and is far less common than it is depicted in movies, not to mention it doesn’t seem like Light’s style. Light could choke him to death, fairly easily as the way he’s leaned on the counter gives him the perfect leverage, and the thought makes L’s toes curl in a way that is decidedly unscientific.

The third possibility evacuates his head the second Light touches him, along with an alarming amount of his other thoughts.

Light wraps his arms all the way around L and leans back a little, whispers straight into his ear,

“Relax, Ryuzaki.”

Impossible. L can hardly breathe.

Something snaps like a branch and then three or four little cracks follow in very quick succession, and suddenly L feels his legs turning to liquid. It hurts.

“There we go.”

Light stops touching him and L immediately grips the counter top, spits out, “Kira.”

Light laughs, then stops. He stares at L with wide eyes. Was he always so short?

What is he looking-

“You, uh, you’re standing up straight now.”

So he is. He takes stock of his body: he can feel all his toes and fingers. That’s new.

Light’s cheeks are pink. That’s new as well.

L is possessed by a new burning question: Does this fluster Light because of L’s sudden height advantage? Does he feel angry at the possibility that L could be physically imposing? Or -

L steps very close to Light until Light’s back is pressed against the counter top.

“What are you doing, Ryuzaki?”

“Testing a theory.”

A note about physical arousal: it is nearly indistinguishable from fear in its physiological processes.

“What theory is that?”

L sees no reason to lie. “Whether you are afraid of me -”

“I’m not afraid of you, you absolute idiot -”

“Or whether you want to have sex.”

Light’s eyes get very wide. They are nearly exactly the same color as the  honey L sometimes puts on his fruit bowls.

“With you?”

“Yes.”

He puts his hand around Light’s wrist and notes that his heart rate is nearly double his normal baseline. Pupils: dilated. Cheeks: flushed. L finds that he likes this sudden height advantage very much.

“In case you are wondering,” L murmurs, and he must be delirious from exhaustion if he’s doing this, “the likelihood that you find me sexually attractive is just over 56 percent.” A significant jump from 12. He looks at Light’s mouth to see if he mirrors it - he does. “62 percent.”

#anon ask #wip meme #death note #wow i haven't tagged anything as that in...... *takes long drag on pipe*