Death Note Fan Fiction ❯ Going to Marrakesh ❯ Precipice ( Chapter 10 )

Disclaimer: Not mine.

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Part Ten: Precipice
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When the Death Note falls into his hands again, he gives a silent cry of shock and recognition and has to close his eyes against the rush of wind through his hair and memories pounding inside his skull. IdiditIdiditworkeditworkedyesohfuckwhatdoIdonowfuckyesno -

He turns his head and meets L's stare, fingers freezing even as they're reaching for his watch, because he can't do this with him watching, with him knowing -

"...oh, goddamn it," he whispers, because this, at least, wasn't supposed to be this way. We were both right and now we're going to have to die, aren't we?

He lets the Note fall to his lap and smiles and reaches for him, like they've done something good, like this is a victory, and L clambers across the seat and lets him rest his cheek against his shoulder. Light inhales slowly, closes his eyes and just holds on, even though the playacting is making him sick and he doesn't know what to do with the piece of Note burning a hole in his wrist.

I don't love you and you don't love me and I don't want to kill you and I want to hold you while you die and Misa needs protecting and my world needs to be saved and you're going to have to die now, die soon, and I won't cry for you either, I won't, I won't cry at all.

And there's a choice to be made, but he made it ages ago, and there's no way to stop now, not with so much riding on his own freedom, on L's death, on Misa's life.

This is so unfair, he thinks, I thought I was stronger than this, and it's sad and pathetic and disgusting but the part of him that cries nononoIdon'twanthimtogoIdon'twanthimdeadIdon'twanthe'smineIdon'twanthimt oleavemealone! is the part he's been living for these long months, and if he figures it out, he'll be dead too, and his beautiful dream will shatter when it's only half-born.

He tilts his chin up and kisses L with the Death Note held between them, while below his father and the team arrest Higuchi and extract Misa and Watari takes over the controls of the helicopter and it's getting so late now, he has to start planning and thinking and finding a way to salvage this and save Misa but all he can think of right now is that he doesn't want to let him go.

What is it worth? he wonders, thinking of the idiots below, the girl waiting for them both, and a future in glory tainted by brain-numbing boredom that will stretch on and on and on until the day that he dies.

Light slides his way into his lap and curls his fingers into night-dark hair and kisses him again, wet and hungry and deep and starving, because there's no time left and no way to let it go. I'll make it good for you, he whispers against the sweetness of his lips, You're my best friend, I'll make it good - the best, just you and me, it'll just be us and my new world and everything will be beautiful -

He's not crying, but he's clinging, because he doesn't know how to make this better, doesn't know how to save the world and his biggest mistake, and if he confesses now maybe he can save Misa and maybe L will live, but he doesn't want to die and he doesn't want to die and he has a world to save but the idiots will never know and never understand and being a god shouldn't mean that you have to sacrifice the one lovely thing the rotten world has produced -

Slim fingers tilt his chin up, push him softly away, and over the roar of the helicopter blades L mouths 'Kira,' and Light plasters on a tired smile and shakes his head and tries to play the game, but he's knocking over his own pieces with every moment that he hangs on, and maybe the sour churning in his stomach is the knowledge that someone's got to die even though he's never cared before - but oh, that's not true, he remembers it now, a night spent shaking under the covers with a leering shinigami watching over him, glowing eyes in the dark - and the other people don't matter, criminals are criminals but he's gone from hatred to not-hatred so fast and so hard that it's making him sick, and for once, he doesn't have a plan on what to do because he can't figure out who he's supposed to be.

I hate you for doing this to me, he whispers against the paleness of his neck, closing his eyes against the black hair tickling his eyelashes, I hate me for letting this happen and I hate Misa for making this necessary and I hate everyone for being so pathetic and I have to kill you, I have to kill you, I have to, I have to - I shouldn't have to do anything, this is so fucking stupid!

Stupid, silly children, and a world bleak and empty without him. He's getting tired of dancing, and L is as greedy as he is - if he falls in, L will never let him go.

And all he has to do is break out of the cages he's slaved over building, blood-gilt and lined in silver, topple the piles of bodies he's built up to make his throne.

Light has always been a selfish child.

"You're right," he is what he says instead of a pretty lie, whispered softly against the worn cotton of his shirt like the precious secret that it is, like he's feeling disgusted and horrified with himself, which he is, but not for Kira, never for Kira, because Kira was never wrong. If I forfeit I haven't lost. "You were right all along."

L exhales slowly, tilts his head down, and pulls him fully into his arms for the first time ever, wiggles them around until they're entwined in a messy sprawl across the back seats of the helicopter, and Light presses his face harder against his chest and bites his tongue until it bleeds for his beautiful new world, lost to his own weakness and what an idiot might call humanity. He's gambling again, half-lost in memories of fleeting sweetness and sour that lingers, and L will never, ever be able to win this from him.

"This is my victory," he breathes, swallowing down the taste of copper and closing his eyes, fingers curling to claw into pale fabric and the paler skin beneath it. Now make it worth my while.

Beneath his cheek, he can feel L's heart beating.

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