On the ninth day of Christmas
my true love sent to me
nine burning candles
[Title] Milestone Birthday
[Fandom] Death Note
[Rating] G
[Word Count] 343
[Notes/Summary] Matsuda’s not sure he’s happy about turning thirty.
Matsuda was trying not to think about being thirty. It sounds way too big an age to have reached. A solid number of years that should belong to a solid kind of person, who’s got their life figured out and always knows what they’re doing and is probably married.
Okay, he’s working on the special secret task force to catch the most prolific serial killer the world has ever known, but (as his dad said grumpily when he called to wish him happy birthday) the secret part means none of it’s going to count towards his reputation or be a factor in getting him promoted, in fact it might even be the opposite, and he should think about where he’s looking to go in life…
And working on the task force, which is chronically understaffed, means working all the hours he can and pretty much never seeing anyone but his co-workers, so marriage is looking pretty unlikely for the foreseeable future.
Birthdays were much easier when you were a kid and you just got given presents and getting older was a good thing.
But when he gets to work Raito smiles at him warmly and says, Happy Birthday, Matsuda-san like he really means it, and Misa, in between getting ready to go out to a shoot, stands on tiptoes and gives him a kiss, and Ide, the next to arrive, hands him a white scalloped bakery box and says, slightly belligerently, Many happy returns. I got you some cake. That’s the kind of thing you like, right?
The thing about birthdays when you’re older is that the small things, like one piece of cake, like one birthday greeting, kind of mean more. Actually they mean a bit more than they should. Matsuda doesn’t want to look like an idiot, so he only says, thank you, and then, hey, but shouldn’t it have a candle in it? Aren’t you meant to sing and stuff? Ide rolls his eyes and then Matsuda can say, Seriously, thank you, that was nice of you and mean it.
[Title] Night on the Town
[Fandom] Akira
[Rating] PG
[Word Count] 284
[Notes/Summary] Kai compares nights out before and after the cataclysm.
It’s not like Kai didn’t like going out on the town before, when the town was still standing. Okay, mostly going out on the town meant speeding down the highway on a bike you didn’t pay for trying to hit other bikers with iron bars, but sometimes it did actually mean going to a bar with loud music, drinking your weight in booze, and making out with a girl in an alleyway. And hey, it wasn’t bad, if the beer wasn’t too shit and your mood got into a virtuous circle and your friends weren’t being more than usually obnoxious. But more often than not, the beer was shit, the music was the stuff you’d heard a million times before, you’d much rather be out on a bike, and then your friends got into a completely avoidable argument or punch-up or trouble with the cops.
Now the only booze is stuff brewed in people’s cellars or stockpiled from before and sold at a premium, there’s no music, you spend every day on a bike searching for food and supplies, and most of your friends are dead. For a while, he and Kaneda and Kei don’t go out, nobody goes out, everyone’s too busy trying to survive. When they do, the windows are still boarded up, and everyone on edge like they’re expecting another cataclysm to wipe them out any second, and instead of strobe lights there are just candles, fat and half-melted, stuck to every table. But none of the three of them are dead and the booze isn’t quite bad enough to turn any of them blind and the candles keep burning and the three of them drink a toast, to absent friends.
[Title] Blackout
[Fandom] Jet Set Radio
[Rating] G
[Word Count] 346
[Notes/Summary] The GGs wait for the Noise Tanks to put the lights back on.
Tab and Beat and Gum and Garam and Mew are eating noodles when the lights go out.
“Oh, come on, again?” Gum mutters through a mouthful.
Garam shrugs. “At least we finished the cooking.”
Tab’s already scrambled to his feet, and Mew hears him crashing about in the dark little kitchen. Then there’s the scrape of a match and the garage is filled with soft candle light.
“Hey, you guys are prepared,” Mew says. “I knew I’d joined up with the right people.”
“Of course,” Tab jazz-hands; he’s still holding the candle and the flame quivers. “I mean, the only one who didn’t grow up in Tokyo-to is our fabled leader. Gum and I spent a bunch of evenings telling ghost stories while we waited for your Noise Tank pals to put the power back on.”
“They’re not my pals,” Mew says, sticking her tongue out at him. “I did my own thing, thank you very much. Gotta say, though, it was pretty fun going skating in the blackouts.”
“Not in my neighbourhood,” Garam says. “That’s a one-way trip to murder town. Or fallin’ in the canal.”
“Yeah, I mostly stick around inside when I can’t see where I’m going,” Gum says. “Though, I dunno, Benten-cho pitch black… I can’t quite see it. I feel like you guys would have back-up party generators.”
Mew shakes her head. “It goes as dark as everywhere else. Just I know the place super-well, and, I don’t know, it’s kind of a thrill. Also, your eyes kinda get used to it. And sometimes the moon’s out. I always used to tell myself maybe it was haunted, though, you know? Really spook myself out.”
“I had Gum and her penchant for scary movies to do that,” Tab says, putting a chipped plate into the centre of their circle and sticking the candle onto it. “But, I don’t know, maybe we can give it a go sometime. Black-out skating.”
“If we don’t wipe the Noise Tanks off the map first,” says Gum. “In the meantime - anyone want to hear a ghost story?”
[Title] Light a Candle to the Dead
[Fandom] Death Note
[Rating] PG
[Word Count] 329
[Notes/Summary] Most people don’t understand why Misa dresses the way she does.
Some people think Misa only wears the gothic Lolita stuff because it’s cool. Like, well, you know, Misa wants to be a model or get into singing or be an actress, of course she’d dress to be noticed. They assume if the fashion was different, Misa would be different too. And of course, they’re not totally wrong. Misa’s got a dream and you have to look the part. She doesn’t paint her face shocking white, and she didn’t do something like pierce her lip or stretch holes in her earlobes. And she has plenty of cute things, sparkly dresses, for when they’re needed.
Why have the gothic stuff at all, then? people might ask. You don’t need it. You could go full-on lolita, with lace and ruffles and a bonnet. Oh, you’d look like a little doll!
Misa could. And will, if she has to. But in the meantime, she’s keeping the black, and the fishnets, and the silver jewellery, and the candles on every available surface that she lights whenever she’s curled up on her bed reading a magazine or looking at stuff online.
She can’t explain why, of course. If she tried, people would only say, Oh, of course, you’re still sad about your mum and dad. It’s like mourning.. Because they don’t know that it doesn’t matter what she does or doesn’t wear, she’ll always be feeling it underneath that they’re gone.
But the clothes you choose to wear are the ones you feel express some kind of truth about you, right? Some kind of truth about you or about everybody. Misa’s going to stay cute for as long as she can, but she is a girl with dead parents, a girl who nearly got stabbed to death in the dark, a girl who’s looking for Kira. Even before she found the notebook and the god of death who followed it, putting on the black clothes and lighting the candles kind of felt like coming home.
[Title] Survival Romance
[Fandom] Akira
[Rating] PG, brief non-explicit mention of sex
[Word Count] 382
[Notes/Summary] Kaneda/Kei. After it all happens, Kaneda still isn’t much of a romantic. Kei likes it that way.
Kaneda doesn’t usually do what he refers to as the mushy stuff. When he brings stuff home, it’s food or spare batteries or bullets, practical stuff as much a gift for him as it is for Kei, seeing as they’re homeless and literally building a life out of the ruins in a currently-seceded city-state.
He regularly tells her she’s hot, and they regularly make out, and when it’s not too cold and they’ve got privacy, a power supply, condoms, and a source of heat - which doesn’t always happen, but they get lucky every so often - they actually have sex, clutching each other under a pile of blankets. They bicker if it isn’t working, or laugh about it, or he makes dirty jokes and she pretends to be too cool for them and sometimes finds them funny despite herself. She hopes he knows that if she didn’t love him, she wouldn’t do this.
On one anniversary, several years after, he puts a line of candles down the table scavenged three years ago (the leg repaired with an old floorboard) and, when she raises an eyebrow, shrugs: “Girls like romantic crap, right?”
“Are you worried I’ll get swept off my feet by some Prince Charming with roses and chocolates?” she says, smiling.
“Nah.” Then, “Now, some Prince Charming with high-grade weaponry and a folder of state secrets… so I figured, hey, make an effort.” He’s gone hunting and trading for gifts, too: a non-cracked pair of sunglasses, a bar of chocolate, a coat with longer sleeves. She hadn’t thought he’d noticed how the old one didn’t fit any more. She doesn’t mention that, though. He’ll only act like it was no big deal. She thinks she sees how he was able to lead a gang of delinquent teenagers, what feels like lifetimes ago. He’s got her back; she’s in his life and he assumes she’ll stay that way and maybe he cares enough to make an effort, just to be certain. And if something or someone ever comes for them both, if they ever have to fight again, she knows he’ll be there. She knew that before he ever bought her any gifts or before they got to any anniversaries. She takes his hand and squeezes his fingers. Smiles, and thanks him for it all.
[Title] Forty Seconds
[Fandom] Death Note
[Rating] PG
[Word Count] 380
[Notes/Summary] After it all happens, Matsuda keeps dreaming.
Matsuda keeps having the one dream.
They’re in one of the hotel rooms L stayed in, or they’re in the shiny new HQ he built for them, or they’re in Raito’s apartment, or in a hotel in Los Angeles, or any number of places Matsuda recognises as somewhere he worked. Sometimes it’s him and the rest of the task force, sometimes it’s him and old colleagues, or even his brother or his parents, or friends from elementary school, but whatever it is, they’re all at work, he’s got things he needs to be doing, and Raito is there. Raito is there and everything is normal and Matsuda walks over to him, or they’re sitting next to each other, or Raito is showing him some paperwork.
Raito is smiling at him and talking to him as if everything is normal and he is writing down names. He always does it so quickly, one name per line, sometimes glancing over to watch the news, sometimes just seeming already to know all the names to write. Matsuda is watching him do it and he never knows what to say. Sometimes he pretends he hasn’t seen, and sometimes he wants to yell stop or grab the pen out of Raito’s hand but he can’t move, and sometimes he remembers that Raito has already agreed with him that it’s okay for them to die, Matsuda, they’re criminals, they deserve it. Even if the names are ones he recognises, people he went to school with, people in his family, the names of the rest of the task force.
Even if he does do something, in the dream, it’s always too late, because each name only takes a few seconds. Sometimes, he thinks about how he’s going to do something and then he looks over and all the names have been written.
Matsuda knows it wasn’t really like this. Raito was never stupid enough to think he could get away with writing names down in the murder notebook right under their noses.
At the same time he knows it was exactly like this. Raito deciding that someone should die, and then, within a few seconds, that person being dead. Blowing out a candle flame. Nothing more than that. Matsuda always wakes up feeling like he can’t breathe.
[Title] Points of Light
[Fandom] Battle Royale
[Rating] PG, mention of death and grief
[Word Count] 443
[Notes/Summary] Shuuya tries to remember the dead.
Shuuya would like to light a candle for each of them. Of course, that’s not really possible. He and Noriko keep some candles in the apartment, but those are in case the power goes out (which it does, often, because they don’t always have enough cash to feed the meter). You don’t waste the stuff you’ve stockpiled for when the worst happens. And they don’t even always light them - sometimes it’s easiest just to get into bed and cuddle up to stay warm and sleep until it stops being dark, or at least until you have to go to work.
He’d like to light a candle for each of them, but even after they start managing to keep the wolf from the door, even after they move to a place where the electricity’s on contract and they start being able to pay the bill each month, it still doesn’t feel right to buy candles just for that. Partly it’s the expense, partly it feels like… like he’s turning them all into home décor or something, brightly-coloured ornaments and nothing else, wrapping each death up in wax and glass.
He spends most of his time working, and when he’s not at work he is at home with Noriko because she understands what no one else does, plus every second he spends with her is one he nearly didn’t have because they nearly didn’t survive. But there’s a church on his way home and one day he sticks his head round the door - it’s pouring with rain and he wants to catch his breath and stop remembering that rainy morning on the island, after Yukie and the others died, after he found Mimura’s body, he wants not to be hearing it in the hiss of water. He steps inside and he sees the rack of candles.
You have to pay, or they ask you to pay, if you want to light one, and he’s still in the habit of weighing up the pros and cons of every purchase no matter how small (you should save up what you have, in case you need to make a run for it). But after that, every so often, when he can remember and be sad without wanting to scream or punch something, he’ll step inside a church and pay a dollar and light a candle to one of the people who died. Maybe it’s better that way. Each of them gets to shine as one, just for a bit, to be more than just one of the mass of dead. Each one a point of light somewhere in New York. It’s not much, but it’s better than nothing.
[Title] Birthday Cake
[Fandom] Death Note
[Rating] G
[Word Count] 296
[Notes/Summary] Watari brought each of the task force cake.
L pretty much never shared his cake. Okay, Matsuda doesn’t mind, he’s a grown man, he didn’t join the police force to eat sugary stuff all day, but he did think it was kind of rude anyway. Of course he never said anything, because that would’ve been even ruder, and people would’ve assumed it was because he was only thinking about his appetite, and this was the famous L, after all.
But each time it was someone’s birthday, Watari brought that person a small cupcake with a tiny lit candle in it. Aizawa stares at him in bafflement in May and then ignores the cake, lets the wax melt over the top of it while noting down the results of the analysis on the tapes the Second Kira sent. The Chief, pale and sunken-faced in his cell in July, eats the cake along with the rest of the food Watari brings him, barely seeming to notice what it is or why it was brought to him. In September, Mogi nods in polite appreciation, blows out the candle, and eats the cake before he returns to checking Yotsuba employee records.
Watari never brings L one of these little birthday cakes - whether that’s because L’s birthday never comes round, or because he doesn’t want the task force to know when it is, or Watari will bring him an enormous cake covered in candles out of hours, Matsuda doesn’t know.
L and Watari are killed on 5 November.
Matsuda doesn’t think about his own December birthday much until it’s nearly over. When he does remember Watari with the little cakes, it stings. It’s not about missing out on cake, of course it’s not. It’s that it never occurred to him that Watari wouldn’t survive to do that for him.
[Title] Inside, Candlelit
[Fandom] Death Note
[Rating] PG
[Word Count] 1979
[Notes/Summary] Matsuda/Misa. Raito and Misa are getting married. Matsuda loves weddings, even if the bride seems lonely.
Like she knew it was going to end up this way
nine burning candles
[Title] Milestone Birthday
[Fandom] Death Note
[Rating] G
[Word Count] 343
[Notes/Summary] Matsuda’s not sure he’s happy about turning thirty.
Matsuda was trying not to think about being thirty. It sounds way too big an age to have reached. A solid number of years that should belong to a solid kind of person, who’s got their life figured out and always knows what they’re doing and is probably married.
Okay, he’s working on the special secret task force to catch the most prolific serial killer the world has ever known, but (as his dad said grumpily when he called to wish him happy birthday) the secret part means none of it’s going to count towards his reputation or be a factor in getting him promoted, in fact it might even be the opposite, and he should think about where he’s looking to go in life…
And working on the task force, which is chronically understaffed, means working all the hours he can and pretty much never seeing anyone but his co-workers, so marriage is looking pretty unlikely for the foreseeable future.
Birthdays were much easier when you were a kid and you just got given presents and getting older was a good thing.
But when he gets to work Raito smiles at him warmly and says, Happy Birthday, Matsuda-san like he really means it, and Misa, in between getting ready to go out to a shoot, stands on tiptoes and gives him a kiss, and Ide, the next to arrive, hands him a white scalloped bakery box and says, slightly belligerently, Many happy returns. I got you some cake. That’s the kind of thing you like, right?
The thing about birthdays when you’re older is that the small things, like one piece of cake, like one birthday greeting, kind of mean more. Actually they mean a bit more than they should. Matsuda doesn’t want to look like an idiot, so he only says, thank you, and then, hey, but shouldn’t it have a candle in it? Aren’t you meant to sing and stuff? Ide rolls his eyes and then Matsuda can say, Seriously, thank you, that was nice of you and mean it.
[Title] Night on the Town
[Fandom] Akira
[Rating] PG
[Word Count] 284
[Notes/Summary] Kai compares nights out before and after the cataclysm.
It’s not like Kai didn’t like going out on the town before, when the town was still standing. Okay, mostly going out on the town meant speeding down the highway on a bike you didn’t pay for trying to hit other bikers with iron bars, but sometimes it did actually mean going to a bar with loud music, drinking your weight in booze, and making out with a girl in an alleyway. And hey, it wasn’t bad, if the beer wasn’t too shit and your mood got into a virtuous circle and your friends weren’t being more than usually obnoxious. But more often than not, the beer was shit, the music was the stuff you’d heard a million times before, you’d much rather be out on a bike, and then your friends got into a completely avoidable argument or punch-up or trouble with the cops.
Now the only booze is stuff brewed in people’s cellars or stockpiled from before and sold at a premium, there’s no music, you spend every day on a bike searching for food and supplies, and most of your friends are dead. For a while, he and Kaneda and Kei don’t go out, nobody goes out, everyone’s too busy trying to survive. When they do, the windows are still boarded up, and everyone on edge like they’re expecting another cataclysm to wipe them out any second, and instead of strobe lights there are just candles, fat and half-melted, stuck to every table. But none of the three of them are dead and the booze isn’t quite bad enough to turn any of them blind and the candles keep burning and the three of them drink a toast, to absent friends.
[Title] Blackout
[Fandom] Jet Set Radio
[Rating] G
[Word Count] 346
[Notes/Summary] The GGs wait for the Noise Tanks to put the lights back on.
Tab and Beat and Gum and Garam and Mew are eating noodles when the lights go out.
“Oh, come on, again?” Gum mutters through a mouthful.
Garam shrugs. “At least we finished the cooking.”
Tab’s already scrambled to his feet, and Mew hears him crashing about in the dark little kitchen. Then there’s the scrape of a match and the garage is filled with soft candle light.
“Hey, you guys are prepared,” Mew says. “I knew I’d joined up with the right people.”
“Of course,” Tab jazz-hands; he’s still holding the candle and the flame quivers. “I mean, the only one who didn’t grow up in Tokyo-to is our fabled leader. Gum and I spent a bunch of evenings telling ghost stories while we waited for your Noise Tank pals to put the power back on.”
“They’re not my pals,” Mew says, sticking her tongue out at him. “I did my own thing, thank you very much. Gotta say, though, it was pretty fun going skating in the blackouts.”
“Not in my neighbourhood,” Garam says. “That’s a one-way trip to murder town. Or fallin’ in the canal.”
“Yeah, I mostly stick around inside when I can’t see where I’m going,” Gum says. “Though, I dunno, Benten-cho pitch black… I can’t quite see it. I feel like you guys would have back-up party generators.”
Mew shakes her head. “It goes as dark as everywhere else. Just I know the place super-well, and, I don’t know, it’s kind of a thrill. Also, your eyes kinda get used to it. And sometimes the moon’s out. I always used to tell myself maybe it was haunted, though, you know? Really spook myself out.”
“I had Gum and her penchant for scary movies to do that,” Tab says, putting a chipped plate into the centre of their circle and sticking the candle onto it. “But, I don’t know, maybe we can give it a go sometime. Black-out skating.”
“If we don’t wipe the Noise Tanks off the map first,” says Gum. “In the meantime - anyone want to hear a ghost story?”
[Title] Light a Candle to the Dead
[Fandom] Death Note
[Rating] PG
[Word Count] 329
[Notes/Summary] Most people don’t understand why Misa dresses the way she does.
Some people think Misa only wears the gothic Lolita stuff because it’s cool. Like, well, you know, Misa wants to be a model or get into singing or be an actress, of course she’d dress to be noticed. They assume if the fashion was different, Misa would be different too. And of course, they’re not totally wrong. Misa’s got a dream and you have to look the part. She doesn’t paint her face shocking white, and she didn’t do something like pierce her lip or stretch holes in her earlobes. And she has plenty of cute things, sparkly dresses, for when they’re needed.
Why have the gothic stuff at all, then? people might ask. You don’t need it. You could go full-on lolita, with lace and ruffles and a bonnet. Oh, you’d look like a little doll!
Misa could. And will, if she has to. But in the meantime, she’s keeping the black, and the fishnets, and the silver jewellery, and the candles on every available surface that she lights whenever she’s curled up on her bed reading a magazine or looking at stuff online.
She can’t explain why, of course. If she tried, people would only say, Oh, of course, you’re still sad about your mum and dad. It’s like mourning.. Because they don’t know that it doesn’t matter what she does or doesn’t wear, she’ll always be feeling it underneath that they’re gone.
But the clothes you choose to wear are the ones you feel express some kind of truth about you, right? Some kind of truth about you or about everybody. Misa’s going to stay cute for as long as she can, but she is a girl with dead parents, a girl who nearly got stabbed to death in the dark, a girl who’s looking for Kira. Even before she found the notebook and the god of death who followed it, putting on the black clothes and lighting the candles kind of felt like coming home.
[Title] Survival Romance
[Fandom] Akira
[Rating] PG, brief non-explicit mention of sex
[Word Count] 382
[Notes/Summary] Kaneda/Kei. After it all happens, Kaneda still isn’t much of a romantic. Kei likes it that way.
Kaneda doesn’t usually do what he refers to as the mushy stuff. When he brings stuff home, it’s food or spare batteries or bullets, practical stuff as much a gift for him as it is for Kei, seeing as they’re homeless and literally building a life out of the ruins in a currently-seceded city-state.
He regularly tells her she’s hot, and they regularly make out, and when it’s not too cold and they’ve got privacy, a power supply, condoms, and a source of heat - which doesn’t always happen, but they get lucky every so often - they actually have sex, clutching each other under a pile of blankets. They bicker if it isn’t working, or laugh about it, or he makes dirty jokes and she pretends to be too cool for them and sometimes finds them funny despite herself. She hopes he knows that if she didn’t love him, she wouldn’t do this.
On one anniversary, several years after, he puts a line of candles down the table scavenged three years ago (the leg repaired with an old floorboard) and, when she raises an eyebrow, shrugs: “Girls like romantic crap, right?”
“Are you worried I’ll get swept off my feet by some Prince Charming with roses and chocolates?” she says, smiling.
“Nah.” Then, “Now, some Prince Charming with high-grade weaponry and a folder of state secrets… so I figured, hey, make an effort.” He’s gone hunting and trading for gifts, too: a non-cracked pair of sunglasses, a bar of chocolate, a coat with longer sleeves. She hadn’t thought he’d noticed how the old one didn’t fit any more. She doesn’t mention that, though. He’ll only act like it was no big deal. She thinks she sees how he was able to lead a gang of delinquent teenagers, what feels like lifetimes ago. He’s got her back; she’s in his life and he assumes she’ll stay that way and maybe he cares enough to make an effort, just to be certain. And if something or someone ever comes for them both, if they ever have to fight again, she knows he’ll be there. She knew that before he ever bought her any gifts or before they got to any anniversaries. She takes his hand and squeezes his fingers. Smiles, and thanks him for it all.
[Title] Forty Seconds
[Fandom] Death Note
[Rating] PG
[Word Count] 380
[Notes/Summary] After it all happens, Matsuda keeps dreaming.
Matsuda keeps having the one dream.
They’re in one of the hotel rooms L stayed in, or they’re in the shiny new HQ he built for them, or they’re in Raito’s apartment, or in a hotel in Los Angeles, or any number of places Matsuda recognises as somewhere he worked. Sometimes it’s him and the rest of the task force, sometimes it’s him and old colleagues, or even his brother or his parents, or friends from elementary school, but whatever it is, they’re all at work, he’s got things he needs to be doing, and Raito is there. Raito is there and everything is normal and Matsuda walks over to him, or they’re sitting next to each other, or Raito is showing him some paperwork.
Raito is smiling at him and talking to him as if everything is normal and he is writing down names. He always does it so quickly, one name per line, sometimes glancing over to watch the news, sometimes just seeming already to know all the names to write. Matsuda is watching him do it and he never knows what to say. Sometimes he pretends he hasn’t seen, and sometimes he wants to yell stop or grab the pen out of Raito’s hand but he can’t move, and sometimes he remembers that Raito has already agreed with him that it’s okay for them to die, Matsuda, they’re criminals, they deserve it. Even if the names are ones he recognises, people he went to school with, people in his family, the names of the rest of the task force.
Even if he does do something, in the dream, it’s always too late, because each name only takes a few seconds. Sometimes, he thinks about how he’s going to do something and then he looks over and all the names have been written.
Matsuda knows it wasn’t really like this. Raito was never stupid enough to think he could get away with writing names down in the murder notebook right under their noses.
At the same time he knows it was exactly like this. Raito deciding that someone should die, and then, within a few seconds, that person being dead. Blowing out a candle flame. Nothing more than that. Matsuda always wakes up feeling like he can’t breathe.
[Title] Points of Light
[Fandom] Battle Royale
[Rating] PG, mention of death and grief
[Word Count] 443
[Notes/Summary] Shuuya tries to remember the dead.
Shuuya would like to light a candle for each of them. Of course, that’s not really possible. He and Noriko keep some candles in the apartment, but those are in case the power goes out (which it does, often, because they don’t always have enough cash to feed the meter). You don’t waste the stuff you’ve stockpiled for when the worst happens. And they don’t even always light them - sometimes it’s easiest just to get into bed and cuddle up to stay warm and sleep until it stops being dark, or at least until you have to go to work.
He’d like to light a candle for each of them, but even after they start managing to keep the wolf from the door, even after they move to a place where the electricity’s on contract and they start being able to pay the bill each month, it still doesn’t feel right to buy candles just for that. Partly it’s the expense, partly it feels like… like he’s turning them all into home décor or something, brightly-coloured ornaments and nothing else, wrapping each death up in wax and glass.
He spends most of his time working, and when he’s not at work he is at home with Noriko because she understands what no one else does, plus every second he spends with her is one he nearly didn’t have because they nearly didn’t survive. But there’s a church on his way home and one day he sticks his head round the door - it’s pouring with rain and he wants to catch his breath and stop remembering that rainy morning on the island, after Yukie and the others died, after he found Mimura’s body, he wants not to be hearing it in the hiss of water. He steps inside and he sees the rack of candles.
You have to pay, or they ask you to pay, if you want to light one, and he’s still in the habit of weighing up the pros and cons of every purchase no matter how small (you should save up what you have, in case you need to make a run for it). But after that, every so often, when he can remember and be sad without wanting to scream or punch something, he’ll step inside a church and pay a dollar and light a candle to one of the people who died. Maybe it’s better that way. Each of them gets to shine as one, just for a bit, to be more than just one of the mass of dead. Each one a point of light somewhere in New York. It’s not much, but it’s better than nothing.
[Title] Birthday Cake
[Fandom] Death Note
[Rating] G
[Word Count] 296
[Notes/Summary] Watari brought each of the task force cake.
L pretty much never shared his cake. Okay, Matsuda doesn’t mind, he’s a grown man, he didn’t join the police force to eat sugary stuff all day, but he did think it was kind of rude anyway. Of course he never said anything, because that would’ve been even ruder, and people would’ve assumed it was because he was only thinking about his appetite, and this was the famous L, after all.
But each time it was someone’s birthday, Watari brought that person a small cupcake with a tiny lit candle in it. Aizawa stares at him in bafflement in May and then ignores the cake, lets the wax melt over the top of it while noting down the results of the analysis on the tapes the Second Kira sent. The Chief, pale and sunken-faced in his cell in July, eats the cake along with the rest of the food Watari brings him, barely seeming to notice what it is or why it was brought to him. In September, Mogi nods in polite appreciation, blows out the candle, and eats the cake before he returns to checking Yotsuba employee records.
Watari never brings L one of these little birthday cakes - whether that’s because L’s birthday never comes round, or because he doesn’t want the task force to know when it is, or Watari will bring him an enormous cake covered in candles out of hours, Matsuda doesn’t know.
L and Watari are killed on 5 November.
Matsuda doesn’t think about his own December birthday much until it’s nearly over. When he does remember Watari with the little cakes, it stings. It’s not about missing out on cake, of course it’s not. It’s that it never occurred to him that Watari wouldn’t survive to do that for him.
[Title] Inside, Candlelit
[Fandom] Death Note
[Rating] PG
[Word Count] 1979
[Notes/Summary] Matsuda/Misa. Raito and Misa are getting married. Matsuda loves weddings, even if the bride seems lonely.
Like she knew it was going to end up this way