Death Note Fan Fiction ❯ Eclipse ❯ Eclipse ( Chapter 1 )

Disclaimer: Not mine.

AN: Set roundabout early volume seven.

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Sometimes glancing in the mirror makes him want to throw up, but he doesn't know why. There's no logical reason for it, there's no sense in it, but it leaves him swallowing bile and trembling like a leaf or wilted flower in the sun.

He can't remember the last time he's seen sunlight, or rain, or the clouds in the sky, and he wonders if it matters. He wonders if he's going to die here. He wonders if he's already dead, but his heart still beats, his lungs still breathe, and he thinks he must be slowly going mad, chained to this, chained to him, chained to something not-quite-human and entirely too strange to really be real.

The investigation team doesn't see it - only the flicker in his father's eyes reveals a shade of raw terror, and he's not close enough to understand - but in the darkest corners of his heart, Light knows that something is wrong. It's in the way he moves, the way he feels, the way he has to fight every single moment, the way he dances between Misa and Ryuuzaki, too reassuring to one and too afraid of the other. It's a strange, twisted little knot, tangled up in his chest, and every day, he can feel the noose tightening, in the squeeze of Misa's fingers on his arm, in the calm, precise cruelty hiding behind the soft curl of L's dangerous smile.

He thinks he must be going mad, because he knows he deserves it, even if he doesn't know why. Spiral in, ever-closer, and maybe they're dancing to death, all three of them, because she's there and he's there and this is his life, now, gone so horribly wrong, and when he looks at L, there's a thrill of sick glee that twists his innards to knots and makes breathing feel like drowning.

There's a monster sleeping under his skin, and he's terrified, because he knows that Ryuuzaki knows, and is slowly coaxing it to waking, and he couldn't stop him if he tried. They're both too stubborn, and he's too curious for his own good, but if he really is Kira, someone needs to know and kill him, short and swift and soon, before he can do any more harm.

He doesn't want to die. He might have to die. He's terrified of going alone, and he's terrified of being a murderer, and he's terrified of L.

The days are fading, and he can feel his own eyes closing, and he knows, he knows, he knows.

It will all be over soon.

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When Misa smiles, it's like rotten flowers and sunlight in rain, and when she dances, the world crumbles to ashes beneath her feet. Pages filled and filled and filled again, and a glance and a twist of the pen is all it takes to build a new world, shaped in the image and eyes of god.

Love will conquer all.

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He isn't wrong.

He is never wrong.

He cannot be wrong.

But he doesn't want to die.

In his own way, he's as much of a fanatic as Kira, and when Light looks at him, he's only afraid because they're such perfect mirrors of one another.

It's almost reassuring to know that there has only ever been a single outcome to this - it won't be so bad when a death comes from the hands that love you - and either way, they will kill each other, it's just a question of who gets there first.

Selfishly, L hopes it's him. It's childish, it's impossible, and it's silly, but he doesn't want to die.

He doesn't want to die.

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