Death Note Fan Fiction ❯ Going to Marrakesh ❯ Fever Dreams ( Chapter 5 )

Disclaimer: Not mine.

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Fever Dreams
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He's freezing. He's too hot. The sheets are too cold and too uncomfortable, and he's been staring at the ceiling for so long his vision has begun to swim. His chest is aching and his sinuses are stuffed and in some small, abstract way, he misses his mother. She at least would have made him see a doctor. Who do I have to kill to get a decongestant? Light wonders, and rubs his bruised ribcage ruefully, darting a glance across the expanse of the bed. He should have known better than to pick a fight when he's not at his best, but he'll be the first one to admit that L makes him lose his temper.

Bastard. I hope you die.

From up here, the sound of the street is muffled, but the acid glow of the neon lights below bite into the solitude of the night, and it's utterly creepy in a horror-movie sort of way, the world backwashed in blue, the air conditioner humming low, and the sound of his own heartbeat ringing too-loud in his ears. In the stillness, the spool of the chain is a silvered noose wound around his throat, his wrists, and dangling from lazy puppet-master fingertips, bitten raw and dripping pale blood to the too-sterile carpet.

He blinks, but the illusion doesn't go away, and when he shifts to prop himself on his elbows, the sound is disturbingly loud in the not-quite silence. He's made his decision now, he thinks, and even if it shatters whatever it is that there is now, he's restless and tired and maybe a little bit crazy, so he'll do it now because the only thing he's sure of is that they won't get any second chances.

The other boy might be a statue, or a piece of abstract art, and when he half-closes his eyes in sleepiness, L is just a blur of white and black washed in silver. Pretty, he thinks, pretty with his sharp angles softened and his intrusive eyes a shadow away.

He licks too-dry lips and mouths the words I hate you but it comes out like a caress, and when he yanks on the chain, it gives him a rush of vicious satisfaction that one pale wrist jerks backwards with a sound that's ugly and delicate all at once, like a glutton stuffing his face with dainty fingertips, like a Madonna painted black.

He thinks of Misa, and thinks that she will understand.

L turns to stare, blank and not-blank and like a laser despite the murky dark, and Light smiles, lips pulling into a grin that's too-wide and a little bit painful and maybe a little bit mad.

Pay attention to me, you bastard, he thinks, and slinks forward, all cat-smile and calculated arch, and it's the best show ever because L sees right through it.

"Yagami-kun," L says simply, and he wants to bite the not-smile off of his lips.

"Ryuuzaki," is what he says instead, and presses a knee to his thigh and gives him a smile in return, too-dark and too-hungry and too-transparent and not transparent enough.

L's smile spreads, and he slips from his perch onto the bed, a graceful-awkward folding and shifting that couldn't look so good on anyone but him, and Light lets himself fall artfully back, all mussed hair and pale skin chain-bitten and dark eyes half-lidded in satisfaction. Look at me, look at me, look at me, he insists, and watches the life-leeching bleed of not-color in his hair and on his skin, and feels his breath get short and taut and painful in his chest.

He moves like a ghost in the dark, and it's lovely as death, and forever lies bleeding in the sand.

You're not human, he murmurs happily, lips forming words he doesn't utter, and he shivers at the brush of too-cold fingers against his bare throat, the faint clink of the chain slapping itself as he tugs at it, trying to coax him closer.

In the silvered dark, L's eyes stare right through him, and he thinks I want and Maybe I should kill him and IwantIwantIwantIwantIwant and if I were Kira I'd kill you so I wouldn't have to share you with anyone else and play with me you're mine my playmate mine mine mine and L just laughs at him, silent and still and coiled up like a spring, ready to leap and bite and fight and not do anything at all.

"L," he says, and watches the light get drowned in his eyes. He likes saying it, likes breathing it, likes that he can whisper it, low and hot against one pale shell ear, and he trembles when cool lips brush his skin and the murmur of "Light" is lost in the sweep of his soft dark hair over the beat of his pulse.

"Kira is the best thing that ever happened to us," he whispers, and relishes the bite of blood in his mouth and the crash of expensive electronics to the floor, a pool of glinting metal and sparks that they fall into, biting and scratching and gouging, and with pain screaming from his spine and blood trickling too-dark to the floor, he arches himself up and steals a kiss, wet heat and old sugar, and if he weren't a narcissist and much too smart for it, he could be in love.

The face L pulls makes him laugh.

"You piss me off so much," he says softly, smiling, "And I hate you and I want you to die and before we get killed, we should fuck."

"That's disgusting," L tells him, and shoves him towards the bed. He goes gladly, preening and proud, but when he reaches for him, L shrugs him away, and he knows that he won't be his tonight. He knows that in the morning, he'll look over and feel like an idiot and a bumbling teenager again, because in the light of day he can at least pretend at sanity, even though he's starting to wonder why he bothers. But they're already scared of L, even if they're too stupid to realize it, and his pretty mask has been on so long that he's forgotten how it comes off, or if it ever did at all.

He folds his arms under his chin and blinks up at him with bright eyes and a charming smile, the tang of copper still biting his tongue, and thinks honesty is a strange thing to share with someone whose lips speak only lies. "You're my best friend," he says sincerely, sure of his words even if he's still not sure what they mean, "we'll catch Kira together, and then we'll have cake."

"Liar," L tells him, and he muffles his laugh in the blankets and reaches for him, hungry for that brightness, aching to be real, but L slides away again, and he hates him so much that it feels like euphoria, bleeding out in the dark. "You hate cake."

Light laughs his way into a coughing fit, laughs until his eyes sting with tears, laughs until he's sure he's going to throw up all over L's already half-ruined expensive electronics, and drinks the tea that L gives him, syrupy with sugar and vile as poison as it coats his teeth and the back of his throat. It's almost sweet, in a demented sort of way, except that he burns his tongue and L spends the rest of the night ignoring him.

In the morning, his fever breaks, and he rolls over and stretches languidly, trying to shake the heaviness from his limbs. It doesn't quite work, but he manages to sit up and blink groggily over at his bedmate.

"Good morning, Light-kun," L says, and peers at him over the screen of his laptop. "You are feeling better." It isn't a question.

"Mmm," Light agrees, eying him warily. And the opening volley?

L tilts his head and stares at him for a long moment. "Three more days," he declares, and turns back to his computer.

Light blinks, muzzy-headed and slightly more bewildered than usual. "...wait, what?"

"Three more days. You should be healthy enough by then."

Mentally, he runs through a checklist of case-related activities that could be negatively impacted by the lingering traces of his illness, and comes up empty. "Healthy enough for what?"

This time, L smirks at him, then raises a thumb to his lips and bites down softly, just a flash of white teeth and pink tongue against pale, pale flesh.

Light has never been more thankful for the fact that he doesn't blush. Instead, he half-lowers his lashes to something that's a good imitation of shyness and slides across the bed, feeling out the first steps of this new twist of the game. When he's close enough, he pauses, and L glances up at him, expression placid.

It's quiet for a long moment as they contemplate one another, detective and suspect, one and the other, and then Light lunges forward and fists a hand in night-dark hair and steals another kiss, salt-copper on his tongue and dripping with sugar - my choice my choice if I want it I'll take it I'm the only one you like so we'll have some fun before we die, won't we? - and later, when the team comes in, he's normal again, all pretty show and tell, and if his face feels like it's cracking, L is the only one who will notice, and no matter how badly he wants to slide into his lap and bite him until he bleeds, he's trained himself for far too long to tarnish his image now.

Why do I even bother? he wonders, and is disgusted by the gleam of appreciation in Matsuda's eyes as Misa flounces in and latches onto his arm, but not by her, because she's not as stupid as the rest, not where it counts, and he's wary of her even if he doesn't know why. So he lets her cling, and he lets her chatter, because even if she bores him, she's keeping his secret, and there's something like death in her eyes, even if L is the only other one who sees it.

The rest are blind - she's a brilliant actress, after all - and Matsuda loves her for her sweetness. It's cute in a pathetic sort of way, but he wants to tug her away from him, because even though she's not like them, she's not like anyone else, either.

Kira-mad, he thinks, and even though her babble is tiresome, their three-sided dates are a breath of normalcy in a world that's twenty-odd degrees left of normal.

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