Death Note Fan Fiction ❯ Going to Marrakesh ❯ Crash ( Chapter 11 )

Disclaimer: Not mine.

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Crash
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"Misa," he whispers against his shoulder, eyes shut, anticipation coiling in his stomach. "We have to get to Misa before it's too late."

The whirl of the blades and the roar of the engine muffle his words into silence, but he traces them onto his palm, and L stiffens, then pins his arms behind his back. Hold enough to keep him trapped, hold enough to not betray himself, hold enough to remember that he must not reach for his watch, not now where he can see and feel and hold, not now that he can no longer risk a murder. He pulls against his hands just a little, wanting to reach for him, wanting to test the worth of his trade, and L's grip tightens painfully in the heartbeat's moment that passes before he lets him go.

Light glances up into his eyes and is pleased with the darkness there, pleased with the implicit trust and warning, and he wraps his arms around him again and holds on tightly, fingers sliding low to curl into his belt loops and brush against soft pale skin. The returning caress is all soft threat and curbed violence, and it makes him smile. So this is how our game will go? It makes him want to laugh and steal kisses and slit throats, but his own glowing satisfaction is abruptly banked when he thinks on Rem, winging her way through the night's confusion and waiting for the right moment to strike.

There's confused chatter over the radio, arguments and shouting, demands for attention and direction, but Light smiles to know that they're being ignored, every last one of them, because the drama below is a farce and they're the only ones who know. The smell of L's skin is sharp and clean as he breathes him in, lips pressed against his vulnerable throat, mouthing fortysecondsfortysecondsifIonlyknewyourname, while L traces KiraKiraKiraKira along the curves of his spine and buries his face in his hair.

In the end, there's only us, he thinks abstractly, and watches through the window as the city blossoms beneath them and the world falls into flame.

* * *

They negotiate as they shuffle their way out of the helicopter, sidle past Watari and slam the doors behind them, speaking in aborted glances and half-touches, the Note dangling between them like something prophetic, but Light just hopes it won't slip past his sweaty fingertips and drop to the floor, because then it won't be a dance anymore, it will be annihilation.

Instead, he closes his eyes, breathes in deeply, and says softly and clearly: "For her freedom I'll give you a full confession."

He doesn't have to look to see that L tilts his head inquisitively to the side and blinks only once. "Why?"

He folds his free hand until the nails bite into his skin, pain enough to focus, pain enough to keep them both alive. "Because I don't want us to die."

He knows they're both thinking of Rem. It's something of a relief, not needing to explain, and if L had questioned him, he'd probably go ahead and kill him anyway, for not being as perfect as he wanted to believe.

Wouldn't he?

"That is a good goal," L says softly, and watches him as he flinches, blood welling between his fingertips and sliding down to drip on the floor beside them as they walk together down the hall.

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When it comes to Misa, there's no stopping and no second-guessing, because she'll make her own way regardless of what they want - but because she loves him, he can negotiate, and maybe she'll listen if it suits her own ends.

She always answers well when he acts like he needs her.

They rush into the room where the team has abandoned her and crash into her in a tangle of limbs and clinging and fallen silver, and she's the only way to save them, so he buries his face in the curve of her throat and whispers "MisaMisaMisaMisa it's all gone wrong" and by her gasp and the hands in his hair, he knows she knows they both know, and his grip on them both is damning as the pounding of his own heart and the feel of slick paper beneath his fingertips.

"...wrong?" Her gaze slides up, and his breath freezes in his chest, but her eyes widen and her pretty painted lips part in a delicate 'o' and at his side, L tenses, dark eyes narrowing in something sudden and threatening that reminds him forcibly of vicious speed and strength, and they all know that he would have no qualms about hitting a woman.

Light knows they're all wondering how long it would take him to kill her.

His one hand is still bound to L and dragging, so he can't really embrace her and plead for her silence, but instead of fleeing them both, she goes very still and quiet and bites her lower lip with pretty little white teeth, and neither one of them is fool enough to overlook when her sweetness drowns her sour. "...what do you want me to do?" she whispers, and he breathes out and knows now that he can save them.

"Just tell Rem that you're safe now. We're going to be okay. Everything's going to be okay." It's a mantra and a promise and a hope and a lie, but it's better than dying, better than dreaming, better than humanity and godhood and everything else in between.

She sways a little against him, soft blonde hair tickling his nose, warm and familiar and fragile, fragile, fragile - shattering trust means shattering lives, and they're a kite-string ready to snap. "...I know his name now," she whispers against his throat, "but I don't want to kill him."

He wants to laugh and scream and dance, because this is so stupid and if only they'd known so much sooner this wouldn't be happening, he'd almost be a god already, but now, now...

What the hell have I done?

"I screwed up," he admits softly, because it's ridiculous to ignore your own weakness, because she deserves the truth, because her lifespan's in shreds and it's her choice but it's his fault, and he doesn't feel guilty, just sympathetic, because now he knows what it's like and it's absolutely miserable, to want and want and want and still not -

"...your dream." She pauses, looks up at him, then glances back at L, who's just watching them, close and cool and calm and a thousand miles away from them both, because of the three of them he's the only one who hadn't - but that was a lie too, a condemned criminal facedown on national television and no remorse in the distorted voice of the entity known as L. Not quite a murderer, no, but of the two, which is the worst crime, self-justified torture or a righteous death for the sake of a golden future?

...please let something about you be real, please please please please tell me, my new world is dying... But that's foolish and stupid and he's not a child, and this is the mistake that will kill him because he's already started dying - what kind of a god would let this happen to himself?

A miscalculation, a lie, a lie, a lie and a knife to the throat, but he's so pretty, he's so pretty, why is he so pretty it would be so easy to kill him -

Misa's grip on him tightens, binds him back into reality, and he looks down into the fierceness of her eyes and the gentleness of her mouth as she says, swift and decisive, "We'll be happier this way."

"You think?" he murmurs, already regretting his choice, fingers itching for a pen, because maybe now they could salvage it, maybe the new world could still form, maybe maybe maybe - but he doesn't want, and he does want, and L is right there and still not saying a word -

Misa smiles up at him, soft and luminous. "I won't tell you his name," she says simply, and beside him, L only blinks once, impassive as always even now that his life has been saved. "I'm going to make us happy even if it kills us."

"It might," he warns her, but she just smiles wider, soft and sweet and poison-in-honey gold.

"I'm not afraid of dying," she says, and curls her arms around the two of them and laughs, warm and bright and vibrantly alive, and he wonders if that makes her the strongest one, unafraid of the truth and unafraid of mortality.

It's close and too warm and slightly suffocating, the three of them, damned to life and clinging, and he sighs and leans into her embrace, into L, because all that's left now is survival, and if the world goes to hell, they're so far away from it that it doesn't matter anymore.

Olympus-high, Light thinks dreamily, Olympus-high and never falling.

In the quiet, all he can hear is the rush of his heartbeat in his ears, and his grip on the Note tightens reflexively - but when his fingers brush L's, he relaxes again, closing his eyes and just breathing. The rabble are nothing. All precious things are here and his own. It's almost like godhood, maybe, but he's too tired to really care anymore. Kira will live on in the hearts of believers, and the fanatics will take up the cause, and things won't be perfect but they won't be too horrible - it's only human nature, and right now, crashing from his adrenaline high, all he wants is to sleep. Life for a life, and once is once, and he wonders when his crusade melted into a vendetta.

He drowses a little, sinking back with them onto the overstuffed sofa, a tangle of limbs and cotton and lace, and falls into lazy dreams of ripping L's throat out with his teeth. His blood tastes sweet as Misa's perfume, and when he opens his eyes again, she's curled against them both, blindfolded with her hands bound behind her like something pornographic, her breath soft against his chest. Worn denim rubs softly against his cheek, new steel glints from his wrists, and he stares up at L and presses against the fingers running through his hair.

"You'll be beautiful dying," he murmurs sleepily, "you know that, don't you?"

L smiles then, soft and secret and terrifying, leaning down to brush lips and noses and ink-black hair in an upside-down caress. "You'll die screaming," he whispers, and Light closes his eyes against the thrill running down his spine.

"Sick bastard," he breathes, and L laughs, soft and husky and silvery-dark.

"Homicidal maniac," L replies, and it makes him feel beautiful.

"I'm a god," he says softly, stretching as luxuriantly as his new handcuffs will allow and tilting his chin up for a kiss.

"You're psychotic," L says mildly, and Light smiles up at him, his pretty heathen, his infidel darling. You are the only one who sees me.

"What does that make you?" Light asks, rubbing his nose against his cheek, an over-affectionate caress from one liar to another. This changes nothing. This changes everything, and he can feel his heart beating, can drink in his breath and make it his own, curl in around him and slide his hands down his back, sweet murder singing in his veins, in the brush of delicate fingers through his hair and trailing down his throat.

L has always loved strangling him.

"Mmm. What indeed?"

Light laughs.

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