Death Note Fan Fiction ❯ A Balm for Social Failure ❯ Shreds ( Chapter 35 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

A Balm for Social Failure

(Chapter 35: Shreds)
Light x L

L begins to suspect something is missing from his life. He believes the key to be in social interaction - his weak point. At the appearance of the enigma named Light Yagami, he is challenged to rise to the occasion.

Disclaimer: see ch. 1 for full disclaimer

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Chapter 35:

"You think I'm Kira."

These were not the first words L expected to hear upon coming back to himself.

Not that he had anything particular in mind, but that statement most definitely was not in his top 10, nor in his top anything. Unless, perhaps, he had a short list of things he most fervently wished never to hear again, especially at a time like this. Then, it would most certainly rank.

His brain functions were still impeded by the overwhelming heat of his skin, and the dim, ebbing shudders twitching through his limbs. Light's long legs were entwined with his, though their bodies no longer remained in such intimate contact as they had been.

L despised the way in which Light would bring these kinds of things up, with such perfect timing as to through him off of his guard. The brunette had always done it on purpose, it was too coincidental to be otherwise.

'You think I'm Kira.' Light's voice gave nothing away and implied even less.

L chased away the hazy fog that was settling over his mind in the afterglow, cursing himself for complicating matters by letting this happen. He should not have allowed the brunette to steal his reason and indulge in such things. Intimacy was the worst thing for keeping his mind sound and sharp.

Surely Light knew this and had planned the situation around it, staging everything in the hopes of gaining information to the question he now asked. L's reaction would have been evident to him in this scenario. His masks were lowered and the other boy would be raking him with his intense scrutiny, feeling out answers whether L responded verbally or not.

L was at a disadvantage.

He hated that and the feeling that Light would force his way in, and would stay between him and his defenses, never allowing him the chance to regroup or gain distance.

"What gave you that idea?" L responded without inflection.

Light's memories were deviant compared to reality, but likely only in subtle ways. L did not know this for sure, but he would be careful to keep as much unwanted truth from his words as he could get away with. The brunette knew L had been holding him here, but as to the reason for it.... There was no reason for Light to assume it was because L thought he was Kira. Shouldn't Light's mind have fabricated some other reason? Something more palatable to his freshly cleansed conscience?

"It's written all over your face," Light said softly, lips brushing featherlight against his cheek, drowning him in that feeling of closeness.

L's eyes closed against it, and the sinuous, deconstructing purpose of the gentle touch.

Something that had bothered him - that he had pushed aside in the moments after that first searing kiss, being unable to fight the claim it laid upon him - was Light's demeanor. What had happened to the reserve and the hesitant behavior the brunette had embodied not so long ago? What had caused him to act in a manner so similar to the way he'd been before he'd lost his memories?

And this process of being cornered so smoothly, so expertly...

"Nothing is written all over my face," L said, pushing at Light's chest in an effort to unpin himself.

He was melting in the heady embrace and his sated body was trying to drag him down into the blissful peace of sleep. Damn Light for doing this to him just so he could question him.

"You also haven't bothered to deny the statement."

You think I'm Kira.

The feeling of unease settling into L's stomach was due to the change in Light. It was a little more than the brunette merely coming back to himself after a stressful ordeal. His words, his expressions, they all spoke of Light's demeanor when Kira was close to the surface. His dismissal of the rape he seemed to remember... that too was the skirting of accountability that Light had been guilty of so many times.

Was this Light? Or was L witnessing some permutation of the Kira personality? One with many of the same traits, but less the memories of the death note, and without the extreme, unpredictable violence.

"Why should I?" L scoffed. "It's preposterous."

No, it isn't. But I need Light to tell me something, anything to give away a clue as to his current mental state. Could the Kira personality have remained intact, altered in such a way? Brought to a bearable level, but still, quite far from tame?

Light's fingers wrapped around his wrists, flesh and blood shackles that kept him from moving.

"I don't believe that it is," Light's voice was quiet, his eyes shuttered but searching, "and you validate that assessment with your attempts to evade me in word and deed."

"You're paranoid."

Light frowned.

L didn't want to admit why Light had been detained. He'd wanted to keep that knowledge as far away from the other boy as he could. "You were a suspect, yes," he said, glaring up at the other boy in what he hoped was convincing annoyance. "However, it was because of your father that I named you my prime suspect and chained us together. He was interceding too much."

Light appeared to think upon that. "You make it sound as if you wanted to bypass his disapproval of us as a couple, but you couldn't have been thinking that way at the time. You avoided any advances I made, and were largely uncooperative in realizing the potential our relationship actually held."

L shifted uncomfortably.

Light's logic was impeccable. Unfortunately so. "Uncooperative?" he said snidely, dredging up acidic words to fling at the other boy. "Oh, then I suppose you do remember forcing yourself on me?" He had to turn this around - make the debate about something else.

"You were not opposed," Light said loftily, "despite your flailings to the contrary."

Such arrogant surety in that voice. At odds with the frown, but the frown was meant to admonish L, nothing more.

'I don't recall doing anything you didn't, in actuality, want at that time. If I had truly abused you, would we be here like this?'

That time... It was amazing that Light was writing it off, if he truly did remember that harsh scene.

Resentment prickled through L and, this time, his voice was biting. "Since you are so keen on telling me how I feel, why don't you explain to me just how I should feel over being raped? Please, enlighten me as to how I might bypass the anger and disgust I feel every time I think about it." This time, when he yanked at his hands, they came away.

Light released him, allowing him to sit up and gain the distance he'd so desired.

It only served to remind him how naked and vulnerable he was.

Light carried himself the same, clothed or not, so it was difficult to even think of them as both being nude in the same manner. Light's tawny shoulders were squared, and he moved to hide nothing.

L brought his knees up to his chest, hugging them and letting his head rest upon his knees. He didn't need to stare at Light's blank, flawless face. Didn't need to see his amber eyes become so still and flat while regarding him. It was the sort of face one would make while trying to decide how to deal with something troublesome, something that decided to act up now and then. It was the sort of face one might wear while contemplating the effort expended in trying to resolve an intermittent problem versus leaving it alone to work itself out.

"L..." a hand touched L's shoulder. He shrugged it off. It did not return. "I apologized for what I did."

It sounded like a request for pardon rather than regret or guilt. Maybe L was being unkind, but he could swear there was petulance in the tone as well.

"Yes, I suppose you did. But I am beginning to believe you only regret my response to such a thing, not the act itself." He lifted his head sharply and caught the tail end of surprise flickering over that face. "Am I correct, Yagami-kun? That the look I've see in your eyes is the urge to revisit that fate upon me once more?"

Light blinked rapidly, the only motion in his stony face. He did not look away, but neither did he offer a rebuff.

"It seems you've decided on your own what is and isn't acceptable to me," L said harshly, hating the confirmation of Light's silence. Why couldn't the other boy see that there were limits to how much you could hurt people and dismiss their feelings as inconsequential or fake?

Something changed in the brunette's face. Subtly. "Ryuuzaki, I never meant to hurt you."

((That's a lie))

L unfolded himself, displaying his marked skin. "This is unintentional?"

---

Light looked over the evidence of their lovemaking, unable to keep from cherishing every darkening mark, but L's displeasure made it bittersweet. L had wanted it, the breathy catches in his throat and his ardent moans had been proof enough, so why was he trying to deny it? "No, but you--"

...liked that. Light stopped himself before saying the taboo words, but the sentiment carried.

Why didn't L understand? He did not wish to truly damage him or inflict the sort of hurt L was claiming... but this and that were two different things.

He wouldn't hurt L.

He wouldn't.

But L's eyes claimed that he had, and that it was not only terrible, but unwanted, and wrong.

And rape? Rape? He'd never done such a thing! Couldn't. Just like he could never murder someone. But L had, and L was sitting here casting aspersions upon him when he was innocent!

He remembered that night, the one L was referring to. He'd been jealous, he supposed, that was why he had been rougher than usual, taking pleasure in the small pain he caused as he bit in to L's flesh. He'd been angry. L had been doubting his sincerity again, and soon after, had been trying intentionally to make him jealous. Intentionally.

((He begged you to stop))

And with that useless girl Misa, no less, adding insult to injury. It was his own fault if I was a little rough!

((Blindfolded and bound, he pleaded with you to stop))

It was not rape.

It wasn't.

(It was.)

I would never do such a thing. It's unthinkable.

((You liked the taste of his pain. You still do.))

No.

(Liar.)

He did not thrill to the sight of L's pained eyes, or the drooping of his head as anguish filled him. He did not treasure the helpless tremors of that slim body, nor the jerks and shudders that ran through it as he took flesh between unyielding teeth.

((Liar.))

I'm not sick! he raged at the inner voices. But secretly, he wasn't so sure. How had he justified these things in the moment, when L was before him? It had seemed so right. The flitting thoughts of causing the other boy pain had felt nearly romantic, and so very intense. How now did they feel misplaced or ill-conceived?

"I'm not Kira," he heard himself say. "Convenient of you to dismiss any behaviors of which you disapprove to him - to 'another personality'. But I assure you there is no one in here but me. This is who you chose, this is who you saved, this is who you professed to have feelings for."

Light couldn't make sense of everything he was saying. Saved? But all L had done was incarcerate him...

...and fake his death...

Just to keep them together? It didn't make sense. Light knew his father would prefer his adult son being with someone he didn't approve of as opposed to being dead. And what led to that decision?

"I love you, Ryuuzaki," Light heard his voice sour on the edges with mockery. "Would you throw me away so easily?"

Why can't I affect anything? Light wondered. His mind was like a prison, trapping him inside of it. He didn't like the way he sounded, the burnished edge to his voice which was poised to inflict hurt.

The whipcrack of a hand against his cheek made his head spin.

"You dare say that to me?! After everything I've done? Nothing with you has ever been easy."

Still, the conversation was so very distant.

"Was it hard to kill him for me, L?" Taunting. He couldn't see L's reaction, but heard a small, sharp intake of breath. "Your hands are red, but now I'm yours. I was touched by your display of devotion." The last sounded genuine, pleased. There was a pause. The feeling of drawing close to another body. "I never knew that you would go so far," Light's other voice whispered against soft skin. "But how did you do it?"

Light couldn't hear the response very clearly, but his chest felt constricted as he sensed the crumbling composure of his partner.

Multiple personalities...

But shouldn't they be separate and unaware of each other to qualify? He was aware... he had felt the foreign thoughts, sometimes believing them to be his own... he'd thought it was a reaction to stress, but...

He tried harder to concentrate and pull his thoughts back in line with the ones that made sense. He disowned the thoughts that were driving the voice that was his, and somehow not his. They were rancid, polluted, and chaotic.

"Teru told me I was Kira," Light's not-voice purred with dark, irreverent humor, "right before he--"

Light did not catch what he whispered into L's resisting ear, as he pushed through the cloying fog of his mind, but felt the resulting anguish reflected in every line of the other boy's body. Pain burst upon him then, in the form of a grinding headache, the pressure behind his eyes making him fall to the bed with a groan.

It was all he could focus on, and his eyes had to remain tightly shut for the light was scorching. Even through his lids, it was too bright and he had to bury his face in the comforter. Excruciating was the only word for it. He was blind and he couldn't sense what was around him to any great extent.

He knew a sudden moment of panic, however, when weight shifted upon the bed, away from him, possibly off of the bed entirely. He'd hurt L. Well, some part of him had. Would L abandon him over the malicious things his not-self had uttered? What if L were to just leave him here, deciding he was no longer worth the trouble?

"Ryuu...zaki..." he groped blindly for any evidence of the other's presence. Speaking was inordinately difficult.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I didn't know I was messed up. I had no idea.

"Please..."

Don't leave me.

Desperation curdled in his chest as his fingertips met with nothing but air and the same fabric he felt beneath his cheek.

Was L still within the room? Light couldn't say. "Ryuu...zaki..." that raw feeling inside of him was leeching into his words, pouring out the frantic state he was into those small syllables in a way that he had never before allowed. Being calm and collected had been paramount for most of his life. It didn't seem to matter right now.

He winced as he tried to gather himself enough to lift his head. It felt like a 12 pound bowling ball perched atop a toothpick. But he had to see. He bit his lip against the unbidden sounds of suffering that tried to breach the silence, muffling them to faint things in the back of his throat. "Ryuu--" he tried again, pulling his forearms beneath his chest, shuddering from the violent wave of nausea that followed.

"Light, stop moving," L's voice ordered him, quiet but unyielding. "Lay back down." Hands were on him, pressing him down, and he didn't know whether the prickling, wet heat in his eyes was due to the affirmation of the craved touch, or because he didn't deserve it. And still, L might only be acting out of kindness.

He didn't want that.

"-zaki," he fought to get out. "It wasn't me." I wasn't the one who hurt you. He needed L to know this. L's voice was woven of the flatness that guarded his inner thoughts, his emotions. He was shielding heavily right now.

"Shhh." A hand stroked over his hair, almost too fast, as if it were an ingenuine gesture of soothing. Light's hands fisted in the bed sheets, the burning behind his eyes growing more insistent. Once more, the light touch. The bitterness of it was like bile in the back of his throat, but he could not reject the gesture, nor could he help the way it both soothed and stabbed him.

---

L stayed with him, despite the horrid buzzing static of his thoughts, stroking that smooth, rich brown hair until the younger boy fell asleep.

It was all too much to process at once.

His brain staggered under the influx of so much information. Light, Mikami, Kira... the personalities and how they'd adapted... It all muddled and bled together, and his hands were starting to shake now that he unclenched the iron fist of his control.

He had been right, in that Light was possessed of two distinct personalities even now.

The one that resembled Kira did not directly remember being Kira, but it more honestly remembered events that had taken place. Charming, smug, poisonous. That personality remembered the rape, remembered Kira guessing at his love for Light, remembered what had happened between Light and Mikami... and lost no time in using any bit of information to ensnare, hurt and trap him. It was Kira's style of maiming love.

'It wasn't me.'

L knew exactly what Light meant, knew from the desperation in his voice that Light must now be cognizant of his other personality's doings. Light must have finally seen the gaps, and discovered the truth somehow.

L shut himself in the bathroom and drew himself a bath. He avoided the mirror.

The Kira-like personality had not been in control while they'd had sex. Light had been reserved - much more restrained than he could have been. Almost as if he was straddling a middle line between the two personalities, one which was close to being his true self. It was only after that he had become different. Once Kira had been brought up.

Mikami had told Light he was Kira. And then, L had been holding him here under suspicion of the same. Had that personality fixated on that? Did it crave the title, and the power that came with it?

The thundering water echoed uproariously in the tiny room. The ceramic tile and empty walls amplified it.

Light's other personality balked at murder, retained a steadfast set of morals, had re-written events in the past to mitigate the extent of his wrongful behavior, and could not remember Mikami defiling him.

L stepped into the tight heat of the nearly burning water. It surrounded his feet, ankles and calves with skin-nipping force, forcing his skin to flush an angry pink where it touched. He sank into it slowly, wincing as it enveloped him mercilessly.

The Kira-like personality hadn't seemed to mind what had happened to Light's body, so long as it could use such information to get a reaction out of L.

'He waited for you, you know,' that personality had said, twisting the knife, 'waited for you and thought of you until finally the wretchedness of having someone he didn't care about touching him and using him like that became too much, and I was called out.'

The smile on the brunette's face was cruel as he leaned to whisper even closer to L's ear. 'Should I recount it for you?' The sweep of a sly tongue hotly traced his ear as L was frozen in horror. 'Teru suffered from ill-timing... but his technique did not lack for fervor.'

The sick feeling in L's stomach amplified at those taunting words. Coiled and ugly, they twisted within him. Rage, guilt, regret, and sorrow vied for dominance. Lastly, however, disgust. To let this personality of the brunette's get to him like this, to be unable to stifle the reactions, even as the other boy practically drank them off of his skin with nuzzled affection, loving the distress he was in.

Love.

This Light's love was like an oil slick. Covered in it, he had no chance to pull away. He would suffocate and die beneath it.

It was while the hopelessness was riding him that an odd thing had happened. A fine tremor had worked its way through Light's body and he very nearly curled in upon himself. L saw a change in his eyes before they clamped shut, his teeth clenching as he turned to the side and buried his face in the mattress. A groan of pain escaped him then, echoing tension in the body that was still partially overlapping L.

It was instinct that drove L away, pulling him from the one that had said such horrifying things to him. Yet instinct also bade him stay. He watched Light, listened to him call out, tried to deaden himself to it, but knew he could never abandon him. This personality could wring blood from a stone heart calling out like that.

And it was so sudden, the emergence of this other self, along with the timing... he was certain that Light had pushed through to the surface with a will.

'It wasn't me,' he'd said desperately, as if to erase the words his other self had inflicted upon L.

The headaches. Migraines. Whatever it is that they were... Why did they only affect that one aspect of Light? Was it that his was the main personality, and the other was a shifting into some smaller, concentrated set of traits? He could only speculate.

In a way, though, he was relieved. Light had been able to assimilate his personalities before... he could do so again. It was the captivity with Mikami that had forced him to split once more. This time in a slightly different way than before - Kira formed to absolve Light of guilt, the Kira-like personality formed to preserve Light's more innocent nature. The Light he had been seeing as a stranger acted more wholly pure than Light truly was, but that was a symptom of the way the second personality came about. It wasn't that Light was so utterly different without the Kira aspect as L had first assumed.

His Light was in there, buried between two extremes.

He had been close to stable before Mikami came along, despite the ill effect Kira's integrated presence still proposed. But Light would put himself back together again, this time without Kira, and they would both be better off for it.

It would take time.

But even with the sword of this held to his throat, the uncertainty of when he might deal with the crushing Kira-like personality, L knew he still found Light to be worth it. He would probably endure Light cutting him to shreds before he could ever leave him alone.

---

TBC

A/N: Thank you to those of you that reviewed last time. I had been feeling rather lackluster of late, part of which attributed to the lateness of this chapter. The other factor was that I am not in possession of as much free time as I was when I was making weekly updates without fail. In fact, I should be studying right now, but I was getting quite anxious to finish this chapter and get it posted already. :(

((Also, I may be moving soon, and suddenly there were quite a lot of things to take care of!))

There will be an update to PITCH soon also. I had been working on that previously, when stuck with aBfSF, and I just need my beta to whip on eye on it before posting the chap.

P.S. No, I am not abandoning this story. I'm sorry if the delay led anyone to believe that was the case! DX