Title: Dreamt Of
Fandom: Death Note
Collection: The Margins
Pairing: Light/L
Rating: G
Word Count: 427
Warnings: unwarranted philosophizalizing, obnoxious wordplay
Summary: A late-night two-genius debate.
Author's Note: Because randomly writing drabbles at half-past midnight for fandoms I haven't touched in months is pretty much me in a nutshell.
DREAMT OF
Light settles his chin against L’s shoulder. “Aren’t we allowed to be happy?”
It’s strange how even in a soft bed, with a warm body, the demons never cease their whispering.
“I can’t imagine it’s a matter of allowance or disallowance,” L says.
Light smiles. “As if there’s anything you can’t imagine.”
L blinks. “I can’t conceive of children.”
“And yet you have several.” Light is very nearly purring.
“I didn’t bear them.”
“I can’t either.”
“You’re a wretch and a scoundrel, Light-kun.”
“You avoided the question; it’s no more than you deserve.”
“Again with a word implying merit and permission,” L says. “Who grants allowance, Light? Who decides what we deserve?”
“I don’t know,” Light says, with a flash of the sharp and elusive irritation. “We do. For ourselves, at least. That’s what I mean-let’s just let this be all right.”
“Then shall we weigh our deeds objectively on the scales of Justice?” L asks. “In that case, I don’t know that we ought to be ‘allowed’. We’ve done and been things ordinary people cannot comprehend, and we have made such unwitting ordinary people into our pawns.” He lifts one narrow hand from its burrow in the blankets and considers his half-curled fingers and his palm. “We have wrought death and fled it. We have built and ruined. We have cast ourselves as more than human beings, it seems. We have asked for many things-too many things. I have asked for power, for resources, for truth. I don’t recall asking for happiness.”
He raises the hand to the moonlight, slender fingers spread.
“I do not believe in karma, Light-kun, because all available evidence indicates that the universe is uncontrolled and arbitrary, but I do not rule out the possibility that my intellect is simply not adequate to process the pattern of a greater design. Perhaps there are more things than are dreamt of in my philosophy.”
“Perhaps you’re overanalyzing,” Light says.
“It’s unfortunate,” L says, “that with governments and nation-states and any and all conveniences on a series of little strings, a man can still be powerless.”
“I wouldn’t say ‘unfortunate’,” Light says. “Humbling, yes. Frightening, maybe. But it’s the fear of dying that makes us live, isn’t it?”
“That seems somewhat reductive,” L says. “Does fear of darkness lead us to the light?”
“In your case,” Light says, wrapping a hand around the one L holds outstretched, “yes.”
And when the thin smiles melt into smearing kisses, Light thinks You taste like heaven, and L thinks You feel like home.