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—The first thing his blurry eyes see when he wakes up is a sterile metal plate with a single shiny red apple placed on its side as if knocked over. There’s a slightly torn napkin draped over the edge of the plate - it’s creased and ajar, an afterthought.His cheek burns from the cold floor. It’s not scratched or bruised - in fact, his body seems intact and uninjured, though drowsy and cramped from being dumped on the ground. However he got here, it wasn’t through violence. Drugs, then.His eyes finally focus. Past the apple, he can see a tiled silver wall. His eyes burn as they strain to look up. A tiled silver ceiling. He can’t see any visible cameras or microphones, but he’s certain they’re there. He can’t feel any sort of cushion behind him, shielding him from the cold floor and wall. In fact, there’s nothing other than the apple.No chains either. His wrists don’t feel chafed or scratched. Odd. He would’ve thought that after the precedent set-After a pause, he jerks his arms over to rest his aching cheek on his hands and freezes, glancing around and listening for a telltale voice.Nothing.Not even a hint of static.Fine, then. He supposes that’s the game they’re playing this time.The lack of closeness is only on his side.He’s sure there are hungry eyes on him.—He doesn’t have a sense of time down here. Maybe it’s the drugs, or maybe the human body is so weak that even after just waking up down here without windows or clocks he can’t tell the difference between minutes and hours and days.His only help is the apple.It’s rotting.Must be days, then.He’d only gotten up once. His body had quickly protested and he found himself slumped back on the ground, specks of white dancing in his vision, the sickly-sweet smell of the apple clouding his mind. Nothing had changed. There was no voice, no motion from whatever doors must be here. Maybe there’s no one watching him. Maybe he was put down here to be forgotten about.No. No.This is some sort of test. That’s how they play. They don’t throw each other into holes in the ground and leave each other to rot. That would be like throwing the game. Like losing.It wasn’t nothing, that night-He hasn’t had water in days, he thinks.—He passes out. He passes out again.There is a large metallic cup with metallic water in front of him when he returns to the living.—The apple goes away. The cup goes away too, but it comes back with more water. He drinks it in a way that could be described as grateful, but he does not think he should be grateful in the least.He finds the glint of a camera poking through a crack in the wall. He pours the metal water on it. He wonders how expensive these cameras are, how many of them.The apple certainly wasn’t expensive.“Is this how you play when it’s all stripped?” His voice is like a crack in the husk of a dried fruit. “It’s brash.”—There are two apples here now.—It feels like he is being poked at with a stick.—He is losing his mind.—He lost his mind long before this. He was perfectly intact. He lost his mind. He was doing the right thing. He was terrified. He made all of his choices with his own righteous and sensible mad self.—He didn’t break last time. He won’t break this time. Honestly, this desperate venture was a foolish idea for his current voyeur in the first place. Nothing to be gained here. He’s perfectly fine. He curls up and shudders, hiding a smile, the smile turns into a laugh, he’s hiding his laugh and he’s hiding it with his fat tears going down his chilled cheeks and it’s all hiding he is not crying he is laughing.The next time an apple appears, he bites into its crisp flesh it with a savoring flair that could almost be described as erotic (or predatory) in nature.His tongue, wet and runny from the metal-water, licks apple juice away from his lips. “I think you are a fool.” His teeth must be in awful shape from the lack of dental care around here, but he imagines that when he bares them, they’re white and wolfish as always. He doesn’t have a mirror to check.His sleep is as feverish and as open as usual.—When he wakes up, there is a familiar cuff around his left hand. He follows the chain feeding from it to a hook that could not have been planted in there in the few hours of sleep he should’ve gotten. More drugs, then.Is he even in the same room?It’s as gray and dull as his cage. He thinks he knows the cracks in the walls by now to know this is the same place.“You were unprepared for the chain,” he murmurs, just to hear his thoughts repeated. “To put in the chain.”What is the point of all this?There’s a sudden burst of frustration that rips through his chest, and he bares his teeth, which are still white they still must be white. His fingernails bite into the palm of his hands and he imagines blood spurting out from where they sit right by the cuff.Was this place somehow supposed to tame him?To make him sweet and submissive like his weak other-self?Pretty enough to kiss?No, no.He’d felt it, that night, even if he didn’t know what it meant back then.This version of him is the more desirable one. This version of him is what those teeth in his throat had been searching for.What a hypocrite.—He is good with his hands. The cracked concrete is off in no time.—There is a creak.There is a secret door.He processes those two pieces in a split second, one after another, holds them in his hands as his eyes tear up from the sudden brightness spearing them.The figure silhouetted by it should be a ghost.In fact, it is a ghost. It is a ghost. He has decided it.He tilts his head like a dog.The figure smiles. It is cavernous. It is consuming.He can’t decide if he wants to laugh.The door closes. The figure is still there. It sits in a crouch in front of the seamless door, so seamless it could’ve just disappeared.And he realizes- this was an expensive room. Just on the outside.He wonders if the meager interior is an insult or praise.Or maybe, as he’s starting to suspect, it’s the ghost playing with its food.The ghost stares at him with those alive eyes. Calculation. Curiosity.Fondness.That’s right. He has one card. A very important card. The reason he’s here, most likely. He is going to slit the ghost’s throat with that card.As if reading his mind on his face, it smiles. It gestures at his empty plate. “Shinigami love apples.”He is going to use its heartstrings as tooth floss.Instead, he sits up straight as if he is still simply a schoolboy. The ghost likes it when he acts innocent. The ghost likes it when he acts guilty. He crosses his arms in front of him. The concrete is behind him.The ghost tilts its head to match his. “Are you hungry for something other than apples?”He does not move.“Ah, I forgot how stubborn you are. Such a child.” Its voice is horribly soothing.A monster. Truly, a monster.He is going to be its undoing. He was its undoing, even back then. Back when there was no bite in his kiss. Back when he was eager out of innocence. Back when he was boring.A tsk. “You weren’t boring. You were a locked safe.”Did he say that out loud? “Does a cage make me even less boring?” he snaps like a dog.No answer. The ghost pads across the concrete.He is going to-“I know, I know,” the ghost murmurs.Click.The chain is no longer on the hook. The chain is on the ghost.His mouth opens with a soundless hiss, until it is not soundless, until he is laughing like a man who has gorged himself on blood. Tears leak out of his eyes and land on the metal of the cuffs, and he thinks they should sizzle and burn up like his wrists are.“Desperate fool.” His voice is jagged and he knows the ghost and what the ghost wants.He still sits with his back straight.The ghost is sitting beside him.The ghost is silent.“You want to tune me. Your cage was not working.”“Perhaps I want to hold you,” it murmurs.Just like that. A cut string. A torn wall.His teeth are a dog’s.His cough is a sick dog’s that should be brought behind the shed and shot.“Lethargy,” he spits. “Anemia. Immune system dysfunction. Malnourishment.”“Symptoms of an unbalanced diet, yes.”“That’s one way to name this.”“Would you like to kiss me?”His smile is empty. “You are a lovesick fool.”“You wanted to kiss me last time we were chained. I would like to repeat this experiment.”“Stockholm Syndrome.”“You know that does not exist.”“Trauma bonding.”“Was I really that horrible to you?”“You want me to spit in your face just so you can lick it up.”“How bold. One would think you are flirting.”“You’re the one looking at me like you want to fuck me raw in the dust you put here.”“I can get us a bed.”“Does my father know?”“Your father is clueless.”“How many people know?”“Ah-ah-ah.”He bristles.“Be kinder,” it croons. “I am the only one between you and execution.”“And the torture was necessary?”It sighs. Its eyes linger on him. “I want you bare.”“I want you to finally feel how much pain you give others.” His voice is solid and steady, with just the right hint of a tremor. The noble honors student. “Will you ever feel guilty?”It sighs again.“Stop it!” The voice crack now. The gritting of his teeth. The frustration in his shoulders is not fake. “Stop being- stop being so emotionless! I’m a person too!”“Of course you are.”Its eyes are so fond.“You can still keep up your mask. Even after all that,” it murmurs.“Or maybe there is no mask,” he fumes.This is so infuriating. For all the ghost can play with him and claim to see the real him, he sees the truth as well. Yes.The truth is- the ghost did not know what to do with him before dumping him here.He made the ghost hesitant.He stares at it.“What are we doing here?” he whispers.It raises its arm, chain jangling. “Right now, I am with you.”His gaze is incredulous.“I am being serious.”“For how long?”It smiles. It looks sinister. It looks loving. “However long it takes.”He is going to braid its nerve endings into its hair.Its smile grows. “You’re plotting to kill me.”“No.” Worse.“It’s okay. I understand.”He barks out his laugh. He knows he looks and sounds insane.“You’re coming back. I can tell.”“You think so?”“Mhm.”“Do you know what would help me ‘come back’ faster?”“What is that?”“Getting me some proper goddamn food.”It smiles again. “As you wish.”Its curled up walk is almost graceful as it unlocks the handcuff and puts it back on the loop.He sits like a dog.It is gone soon. The door disappears.The silence permeates his heart.The silence.It is silent without the ghost.Why is it silent? Why does it need the ghost?The ghost is a ghost. In fact, if he tries, he can imagine that it was just a hallucination from his poor diet and his isolation.There is a ghost kiss on his lips.A ghost kiss on his neck.A ghost that should’ve gone silent and still in his arms. A ghost that should be dead.Wouldn’t everything be better if it was dead?He closes and opens his eyes again. The room is silent.There is a scream building in his throat.A creak.He grabs the concrete and lunges.Warm, warm body, living breath, living huff of air, living everything that wouldn’t be here if the ghost was dead and buried. Living skin, living muscle, living hair, living beating heart.He sits on its stomach just because he can.He stares at its eyes.Living eyes.It does not have any food with it.For a second, their breaths just fill the air. Permeate all that silence.A living hand brushes through his hair. Pulls his head closer.His hand shoots out and the concrete is at the ghost’s neck, sharpened edge pressing down.The ghost’s big eyes just blink at him. The hand on his hair does not flinch.“Do you remember what I told you?” it whispers.“You told me a lot.”“Don’t be a fool. If you do this, you die too.”“Do you think I care?”“Yes, I think you do.”He snarls.The ghost’s fingers pet through his hair gently.“I think you like this side of me better. I think this is well deserved.”“Maybe.”Its other hand wriggles out from under its pinned chest and grabs the side of his neck, pulling him closer, the other hand still petting his hair.It smiles. “Call me a hedonist.” It pulls them together sharply, violently.He growls and bites at its lips; it hums in response, the vibration traveling into his mouth.The kiss is nothing like it was back then. It’s messy and desperate and full of anger and blood. He tastes iron on his tongue and kisses harder. The hand on his neck tightens like a vice and the mouth on his is somehow soft and plush for belonging to such a monster. His hand moves from its stomach to the side of its body, running up and down its ribs, pulling its vile self closer. It’s still petting his hair.The concrete is still on its neck.It doesn’t pull back. Its kisses are sloppy and full of desperation. Vile.He rears his head back.L smiles at him. “I can still get us that bed.”“When I escape, I’m eating you alive.”“Of course.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
—The next time the ghost visits, the chains are in hand and there is blood in his mouth before he knows it.He is stewing on the bare concrete like an animal, teeth slightly bared and fingers tight to the ground like he’s ready to burst apart.The doors are soundless, but he can sense its presence just by how it affects the bones in his body, how they suddenly feel infected.“Food?” he hisses without looking up. “You promised last time. And I don’t suppose you can be respectable about one thing.”“On its way.” Black hair blocks an expression he imagines in his head as mocking.No.It’s been too long. He isn’t reliant on one creature’s whims.He snaps up and bites at the pale hand in front of him because it will not feed him and it should and he shouldn’t want it to. The hand pulses under his teeth, blood rushing to the surface and coloring what otherwise is lifeless. It tightens. His eyes are slits.His tongue has barely lapped at the blood weeping from pale skin - he is hungry and he shouldn’t wait for this and he wants to punish punish punish - before he is shoved to the ground with the other hand.He doesn’t bother to pull himself up. He licks the blood from his teeth and lips, now dotted with dust. A hand pets his hair softly.“Let’s get you a shower next, hm?”His hair is fine and if it’s not then that’s because the ghost has changed it.The spindly fingers move to his chin and pull his head up. “Did my hand feed you?”He has licked all the blood from his teeth and lips.“Your teeth as just as sharp as I remember.”He finally rolls his eyes up, his gaze meeting tar pits. Ugly. Inhuman. His nails scrape at the ground. They don’t scratch further. His arms glide up to slink along his side, his spine popping up vertebra by vertebra, his legs shoving themselves under his pelvis. His student-self sits there. His eyes are preening and empty to devour.“You are still hungry, yes?”His teeth snap at the ghost’s hand again.The hand is jerked away just in time. The tar pits gaze at him.Some part of him, he knows, should be absolutely smoldering, seething and spitting, at this new version of himself, and that part of him is right and his is spitting at himself, but he is also acting perfectly fine. He is sitting up straight just like he should at the dinner table.Warm hands press at his cheeks, one with blood trickling down it. “You aren’t a fool. You know there is better food to bite at.”Wrong. He wants to devour L until there is nothing left of the ghost that refuses to leave, until the blood he cannot fit in his mouth - and it would, it would fit perfectly, because everything about him fits perfectly, but then it wouldn’t because he refuses to do as he’s told - until the blood he cannot fit in his mouth can be wiped away neatly and burned.—The chain is a bind, and whatever form it takes, it takes both of them. Both of them to bind, and both of them to be bound. Both of them to pull and both to be pulled.Light is very quickly learning this.What can prod him can also be prodded.And when there are soft lips prodding his, stealing his, with barely-contained fascination, fixed to a burning point like a sunbeam through a magnifying glass, all he can think is - you locked me away, lied to me, bound me in this trap just to get me to say what you want, and now I can hurt you. This is all this is. Nothing else. Nothing else.But he can’t say that, of course.Because this man is accusing him of horrific crimes and he is not that kind of person. He is not the kind of person to hurt a man who hurts him. Never mind innocents.Never mind innocents. He can focus on this.There’s a not-so-soft sigh exhaled from somewhere around him and he doesn’t realize it’s from his own mouth before soft spider fingers clamp over his mouth and night-sky eyes stare at his own disapprovingly.They are in a storage closet. This is not comfortable. This is not safe. The rest of the investigation team is just a hall away.He narrows his eyes. He supposes they’re more teasing and suggestive than hurtful. That is on purpose - that is a lie.This is a lie. For both of them. Of course, L only wants him to confess. Of course, L only wants to hurt him. Of course, L does not want him.He closes his eyes as he’s embraced again and he refuses to open them, merely letting those warm, warm focused lies burn him up from the inside.—There are no apologies.He has learned many things, but he has always known this one. Apologies are for preaching and not for practice.So he does not apologize for biting, and he is not expected to.“You will be bandaged,” he says instead.The ghost examines the bleeding hand. “Yes.”The bleeding hand is turned on him. The cuff clicks. He stares at it.The ghost releases the cuff, tracing cold fingers down his arm. The paths they leave should not grow more hair, he thinks.“Do you want me to kiss you?” he murmurs, voice brittle.Tar eyes blink.“Your experiment.”A hum. “I ruined it.”“How?”“It does not work if you know the hypothesis.”His head tilts. “You don’t have self control.”“No. I would argue that I have exemplary self control.” A cavernous smile. “Would you like food?”He stays still this time. Smiles, bats his lashes. “Yes, please.”The ghost shakes a scruffy head.The other end of the chain is hooked to the loop.The panel slides open again. He tries to twist his head to see something, anything, but it is only pure darkness that swallows the ghost up.Fitting, perhaps.The panel slides shut. It should have more noise. He thinks maybe it should slam.He thinks back to the first time the ghost visited. He thought it was a hallucination, back then.L even then had always seemed like somewhat of a contradictory hallucination. A spirit in his cold breeze of a form and yet somehow more burning, more palpable than anything he’s ever felt in his life.The ghost could still be a hallucination. And it angers him, oh it does, that the ghost’s presence is the only thing letting him know that he’s experiencing realness.He has enough dignity not to break apart on the floor.He has not done that already. He hasn’t. He hasn’t spewed up his whole self to splatter on the ground like a meal he couldn’t keep down, like he can’t keep himself in his own body.He stays still.The thoughts bubbling with nothing to stifle them are an unfortunate concession. There is nothing he can do about them. Nothing at all. He has accepted this - he accepted this a long time ago.He wipes his lips with one hand. No more blood on them. No more blood on his teeth. He can still taste the unfortunate life it sprung from.This time, maybe, he could pretend that he did kill the ghost a second time. Bashed its head in with the concrete that was just aching for L’s blood, L L L - slithered his hand into those infuriating brains, wet them in the blood spurting from that specter of a body, laid down in all of that red until his own body left a patch in the gore.Maybe he could’ve died there.Maybe they’re both ghosts.His lips twitch up at that thought, bottom lip trembling, and he’s giggling again, high-pitched laughter bubbling in his through and spurting out the gash of his mouth. The door slides open, and ghost fingers soon find their way around his neck and cheek.A dry kiss on his forehead. A murmur. “This next part will be painless.”His head jerks up, teeth bared, ready to bite again - but there’s a stab in his arm and soon he feels fragile, dissociated, derealized, like he’s just barely overlapped with himself.Those ghost eyes are eating him alive, and no fair - he is supposed to be the one devouring.—He wakes up with a familiar burn in his cheek - this time, though - the perpetrator is bright white instead of stone-bleak silver.Tiles.He looks up groggily, and there’s a single enclosed light shining right above him, unrelenting in its attack on his eyes. He groans.And of course, of course, the ghost is beside him - and of course that makes him feel grounded, and he is suddenly very afraid that he was not surprised by both happenings.“C’mon,” that soft voice breathes into his ear. “I know you’re recovering from the drugs, so it’ll be hard to move, but you can sit down for this. After we move.”The voice is surprisingly gentle, and that just makes him bristle.A sigh, and then there’s a strong arm loops under his shoulder, leaning him against a regrettably corporeal flank before the other arm comes around to cradle his waist in that disgustingly gentle fashion. He’s pulled up, and horribly, awfully, vilely, he’s helpless against the ghost’s every ministration of his body. “Fuck you,” he spits, and he can almost feel a smile.“It’s okay. We’re just getting you washed up.”His eyes narrow.Hesitant fingers down his side, petting him as if he is a particularly testy dog.“It’s just a shower. You’ll be alright. I apologize, but you don’t have a choice in this matter.”That’s right. He doesn’t have a choice in any of this. The ghost said it himself - L is the only thing standing between him and execution. He locks eyes with the tar-pit gaze over his shoulder and he sees his own thoughts reflected in them along with expectation. Expectation to just go along with it.Because he didn’t take his chance. Because he didn’t splatter brains, cut straight through the neck, smash the jaw. Swallow that black heart whole in front of those watchful eyes.Oh, he wants to. He’s hungry enough for it. He could eat a heart. Especially that heart. Even if it’s just a ghost.But he just allows his stiff body to be paraded through sterile white doors and into another nauseatingly clean room. A shower head doesn’t drip because the ghost is far too rich for leaky plumbing - far too rich to let a Kira escape.And because the ghost is so confident in this cage for a pet Kira, the pet is left alone, doors closing soundlessly behind him.His legs crumple beneath him without thinking, and as his head rests against the wall, he can see a small wheel at the perfect height for him to turn on the water while sitting, indicating the temperature as well. There’s shampoo, conditioner, soap, body wash, lotion. There’s a little black line marked on the wall circling the wheel - assumably the place to twist the wheel at to get the perfect temperature.He closes his eyes. For some reason that, more than anything, makes him just want to cry.—The soap washing away the snakeskin of grime and dust and other bodily materials he doesn’t want to think about that have covered his body is regrettably nice.—And regrettably, that little black mark did give him the perfect temperature. Practically burning, but the ghost knows he likes it that way.—The shower blasts the next ten minutes into a blur; his hands move the products to his hair and his skin without thinking. Even shaky, his body knows how to primp its mask.He’s thirsty, too. That scalding water pours down his throat, and he can pretend it’s the ghost’s blood.Soon he’s just dripping onto the floor, one hand leaning on the wall, staring at the dribble of water leaking to the drain. The shower has been turned off, and the sudden quiet rings in his ears almost as much as the sudden influx of liquid does. His eyes are burning with soap, but his hands still have a few suds bubbling on them as well, and he does not feel like putting the effort into delicately scrubbing away both.There’s a quiet knock at the door.He squishes the suds between his fingers.A voice. “Light?”It is the first time he has said Light’s name since becoming the ghost.Light looks at the door.“I have a few towels for you. They’re warm.”The door opens just a crack, and that thin arm pokes through, holding a fluffy pale blue towel. “Don’t worry - I won’t come in. I have the other towels with me. You can wrap yourself up and stand on the dry mat here and I’ll give you the others, hm?”He looks up, eyes flicking across.There is a tiny glint of metal at the junction of the ceiling and two walls.He walks forward and roughly grabs the towel away, suddenly bitterly angry at this display of modesty, and glares at the camera.—The ghost is standing only a few feet away from the door when he finally steps out, foot landing on a flat white mat. The towel is large and it wraps around his thin - too thin - he’s hungry - form easily, resting at the bottom of his calves.The ghost quietly hands him a towel to dry his hair.He snatches it without so much of a glance, tightly controlled hands bringing the towel to his hair and raking it through the wet strands.“There’s a toilet here too. And a sink. I can wait outside if you’d like.”“Don’t bother.” His voice is curled into a sneer.It blinks at him. “Alright.”Once he feels that he’s sufficiently dried, he lets both of the towels drop away. This construction of modesty, of some semblance of concern for his boundaries - it’s only making his disgust boil more, especially considering the cameras, especially considering the fact that they didn’t care for any of this when they had the chain, especially considering he hasn’t gotten a toilet until now.The ghost doesn’t move, but he can tell - there’s surprise on that face.He could almost smile.Instead, he turns his bare back to it, hoping his hunger shows through the way his skin strains, and walks to the toilet, sitting down quietly and not breaking its gaze as soon as his eyes land back on it.A few moments later, he’s washed off, and the ghost hands him a luxurious wine-red robe that’s just as fluffy and warm as the towels were. He pulls it on and ties it around his waist.Eyes sweep over him. He crosses his arms. His limbs are stiff - better than trembling. The robe brushes his feet as he leans to one side, and he gets the bitter feeling that this vision of opulence given to him in deep red softness is satisfactory to the ghost.A hand is offered to him. It’s bandaged. “Come on. I have no need to drug you right now.”His lip curls, teeth just slightly bared.A flick of fingers, coaxing. Expectant.“There’s good food to be brought down to us soon. It’s being prepared right now. But I have a treat for you first, if you’ll follow me.”As if being held down by chains, his foot jerks forward slowly, followed by the other.The ghost smiles softly. “It’s alright. I promise.”There’s a flash of lightning behind his eyes. Promises mean nothing between them. And the ghost knows that - perhaps that’s why L’s smile is slightly teasing, just as it used to be.The ghost turns around and presses a hand to the wall, and it slides open right in front of him, revealing a dark hall illuminated only by a few tiled lights on the ceiling. The hall itself is simple and bare.He steps forward and pokes his head out, one hand on the wall, eyes slightly wild. His legs tense - but there’s a click and cuffs pulled from nowhere are suddenly binding his hands together. L pulls on a chain sprouting from them. A Kira-leash. He’s lucky he’s not wearing a collar.“Come on.”They both pad down the hall silently - the floor is carpeted, he realizes. There are only a few doors on the side, all of them without windows, all of them without labels.“Here we are.” The ghost stops near the end of the hall and punches in a code right by another unassuming door. It opens with a slight push, revealing a room that’s too dark to see its size. The ghost pulls him forward without even looking and shuts the door behind him.For a second, they are both plunged into darkness, and he can only wonder what L’s death rattle would sound like in pitch black, how the bloody spill of the body beneath him would feel. Then the lights are flicked on from somewhere behind him and the moment is gone.The room is beautiful because of course it is. It’s furnished entirely in mahogany, with simple trim on the sleepy gray walls. There’s a peaceful mural of a lush flowing landscape that's covering nearly half of one wall. A large desk and dresser are placed neatly beside each other, with a vanity on the other side of the desk - and he can recognize products from their old room in the investigation building. There are three doors along the walls, presumably leading to a bathroom and maybe a closet and a sitting room. A white fur rug travels along the floor, dipping under the bed and stopping right before his feet. Sconce-style lights emit clouds of gentle gold along the walls and from one hanging from the ceiling. The mahogany bed is large and luxurious, the scarlet blankets heavy and the silver curtains draping around it from the ceiling just thin enough to see a shadow of many fluffy pillows. There’s a tall aralia plant climbing up from a ceramic pot right beside the bed with what’s assumably an artificial growing light shining on it. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he registers that it’ll cycle automatically - a small mercy, a gift, to let him mark the passing of time.There are no windows, though - and he hasn’t seen them yet, but he can feel the cameras on him.He can also feel that soft smile on him now. “Here are your chambers. I assume you’d like to rest.”He stays still, not trusting that the rug won’t stab right through the soles of his feet. A gentle tug on his cuffs forces him to step forward, the sudden warmth under him a stranger after so long with only cold floors. The ghost slides open the curtains even further, revealing the terribly inviting covers and blankets and pillows.“Rest,” L coaxes - right before turning around and sliding the chain through a cold loop right beside the large headboard, locking it with a click. The ghost steps past him and disappears, its exit marked by the quiet shut of one of the doors around him.His bare toes curl into the deep fur beneath him, and shakily, he lifts one knee up to drape a leg over the mattress, which has just the perfect give, which has perfectly soft blankets. He pulls the rest of his body up with a small exhale of breath - he needs to build more strength, he thinks vaguely.He rests his head against the plush pillow, letting his robe drape around his skin, and closes his eyes.No sooner has he dozed off when he is disturbed by a new weight sinking into the mattress in front of him. A familiar soft voice shushes him as his eyes snap open.The ghost is holding a kitchen knife.He snarls and starts to back away, against the headboard - before he’s stopped by a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Don’t worry. It’s not to hurt you.” The ghost reaches down and pulls up a bag.Spindly hands dip in and return with, of all things, a pomegranate.“It’s a treat,” L murmurs. “I know you’re probably tired of fruit and your body needs more nutrients and strength, but you’ll have more food soon. For now, let me.”His bound hands won’t allow him to do anything else, but he’s ready to snap his teeth.The ghost’s deft hands maneuver the knife to carve around the top of the pomegranate, popping it off and open as if it’s being scalped, allowing stray seeds to scatter around the blankets like droplets of blood. The ghost sweeps those as well as the shorn pink skin and bone-white top carelessly away with one arm. The knife slices down around the sides, separating it into chunks of flesh. Stained fingers open it up like a bloody flower, causing more droplets to splatter.One of those chunks is ripped off and held close to his mouth.His lips curl.A sigh. “It’s okay. Consider it a gift. From me to you.”The chunk moves closer, and his jaw snaps open, teeth biting down hard on those stained fingers, bitter seeds popping under his grip.The ghost winces, but oddly, he doesn’t move away, simply adjusting the chunk of flesh closer to Light’s tongue and teeth.He feels the gush of L’s blood at the same time as the fruit’s blood bursts out, and both mix in his mouth, until he can’t taste the difference, until he can imagine that L is offering up a piece of his own muscle or brain or heart.He growls and snaps up more, more, the blood coursing down his throat, sweet and bitter and metallic. The seeds pop under his molars like veins and arteries, crunching like bone.L yanks his bloody hand away only to pull away a fresh chunk of meat from the fruit and hold it in the same position, red dripping onto the now stained blankets - scarlet mixing with scarlet. Light sinks his teeth into it just as eagerly, and his eyes flutter shut, allowing the rush of red to burst into his tongue and slide down his throat again, savoring it, practically purring. His teeth bite down into pomegranate flesh and L flesh harder, deeper, until he cannot differentiate between the two, until he’s sure that it will scar.It’s a ritual - L offering himself up, Light allowing his teeth and tongue to savor the juice of his spoils. Eventually L runs out of chunks, and Light waits patiently, docile, not even pulling at the chain binding his hands, his eyes tracking the knife as it slices open another flesh-fruit, blood spilling down the edges. Light’s eyes are half-lidded in bliss as a piece is carved away and held to him. He’s smiling as his teeth pierce flesh.Of course, L runs out of fruit and pulls his hand away. Light growls in protest - L answers with a sharp smile and a wave of his knife. Light narrows his eyes at him, red running down the corners of his mouth and staining his face and neck and chest and robe and the blankets and pillows around him. L moves forward, knife pressed to the mattress with one hand, the other landing beside Light’s head. He leans forward and kisses Light just below his hairline, soft and slow, before pulling back and leaving Light oddly cold.L places the knife in his bag and his eyes sweep around the ruined bedding. “I’ll have someone wash that,” he murmurs. “Don’t worry. Go ahead and wash yourself up.” He stands up and unlocks the chain around the loop, then turns back to Light, who is still sprawled out on the bed, hands still cuffed. “Sleep well.”He pads away gracefully and Light is alone.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
--His nose is pressed into soft cloth, face shoved into a pillow, skin blanketed by fabric so velvety that for a moment he’s weightless, mind unable to recognize where he’s at, only that his body must not move or he will fall back to whatever reality he’s found himself in. His eyes refuse to open.Except there’s a light on, bleeding through something - curtains - he remembers those - and his stomach is still hollow and empty and aching for real food, despite the fact that it felt so sated with blood earlier. It claws at his throat, begging. He groans.His lashes flutter against the fluffy pillows as he opens his eyes to be greeted with fuzzy darkness - the fabric that he refuses to move an inch from. His hands don’t even twitch as his body slowly readjusts to its waking state.It’s completely silent.There’s not even clutter from a vent, an air conditioner, a filter. The doors must be completely soundproof but even then the very walls must be altered to allow for such sensory nothingness. His nose twitches - the only sign that his body has reawakened - and he snuffles into the pillows, face digging deeper.Oddly, though, he begins to sense a curl of something within his nose. A smell.Food. Meat.His lip curls against the luxurious bedding. Finally - that bastard did what he was told.(Soundproof, but not smell-proof. How does that work?)He sits up, hair flopping into his eyes, and immediately hisses in pain. His back - hurts - burns - it’s as if there’s something buzzing up his spine and biting into his shoulders with many many needle teeth and ripping out chunks of flesh - the pomegranate, he thinks blearily, the pomegranate, ghost flesh, ghost blood must be poison to a human - and his hands tangle and claw into the sheets beneath him, his spine curling up beneath the blankets until he collapses face-first into his arms with a strangled moan. The handcuffs burn metal into his forehead.There’s a click of the door.“Light-kun? Are you quite alright?”He hisses, not ready to put in the effort to vocalize words.There a swish of curtains and then a hand on his shoulder, kneading into his skin through the blanket, and that burns-He scrambles away, curling into a ball.An exhale of breath. “We’ll have to give you a checkup. Your body must’ve handled confinement poorly.”And that- that’s condescending, or at least that’s all his animal brain can register it as, which means it is. He hisses again from under the covers. The only response to that is silence, deafening silence, silence without interruption from vents or air filters or soft breaths huffing so perfectly into his ear, silence like he’s being buried alive, and he’s suddenly so very afraid-He curls up into himself more, breaths getting quicker, heartbeat pattering.Those soft fingers stroke down his arm, up and down, up and down, and he finds himself leaning into them even as they burn.“What’s wrong?”(Everything, Light wants to snap. Everything’s wrong because you’re a ghost and you’re still here and I-)An hum from above him, a tut. “That won’t do. You wanted real food, right?” And it’s that same condescension and that cruelty and he wants to bite. He rears up, head bursting out from under the blankets-Only to be stopped by a hand on his chest and another on his bound wrists. The one on his chest stays firm and still, preventing him from moving further, and the one on his wrists slides up the cuffs and to his fingers, causing him to shiver, then grasps the chain sprouting up. His leash.“Please calm down.” That voice is still soft, still soothing as if taming a restless dog. “You wanted food, yes? It’s set up right outside. If you’ll follow me nicely.”His eyes narrow, but he nods stiffly, not struggling further.“Good.” And the ghost’s voice is practically a coo. Satisfied, like a cat with feathers hanging out of its mouth.His chain is tugged gently, and he slides out of the warm trap of a bed, wiping at his face with his cuffed hands. The burning in his spine has tapered to a low, painful thrum at the top of his ribcage.The ghost leads him to one of the doors at the far wall of the room, nestled right at the corner. He waits patiently, back straight like a good student, as the ghost clicks it open again and turns to face him. “It’s alright. There’s nobody else in here with us today. It’ll just be the two of us. I know you need to recover.”Recover from what you put me through, he thinks viciously but does not vocalize.A slender - cryptid - finger reaches out to pet his bound wrist, as if the ghost had read that thought on his face. Then there’s another tug and he’s led through the doorway.The sitting room is nice and simple. There’s a few chairs scattered around a cupboard with a fragile china set displayed in a glass cage and an unlit fireplace that must be just for show, a chessboard propped up on a elegantly carved stand, and tucked in the back of the room, a small coffee table with two chairs set facing each other. A waiting cart stacked with covered dishes sits beside it.Again, there are no windows.A pull on the chain signals him again, and he moves forward in a daze, nose twitching at the scent curling through the air. L turns to him and smiles. “You look anxious.”“Anyone would,” he finally snaps. “Anyone would after being starved.”“Come on, then,” is all he gets as a response.The ghost pulls up long legs in a familiar position as it sits down in one of the carved mahogany chairs, gesturing for him to do the same. He does, careful not to catch the chain on the table as he sits opposite. His fingers catch on the soft edges of the silky black pajamas he found in one of the dresser drawers, fiddling with the fabric. For a moment, it is as if they are back to how they used to be, talking about the case over lunch break, and L’s fake fake smile could even seem genuine if it was one of those days he felt like fooling himself into thinking so.“What would you like?” the ghost murmurs.“I could smell meat,” he states plainly, emptily, staring at the wood grain.“Yes, that makes sense.” And those eyes are studying him again.He stays statue-still in his chair, eyes fixed on the table.“Would you like it?” that voice coaxes.He shudders, hunger cavernous, and nods.A satisfied smile. “I would rather you have said please, but that suffices.”Light’s teeth flash, and the ghost chuckles, attaching the chain to yet another loop - it truly did make this to remind him of his status as the ghost’s pet every moment - and standing up briefly to fetch one of the silver-domed dishes from the cart beside them.He shudders at the faint smell of blood. A deft hand uncovers the plate, revealing a cut of wagyu still steaming from wherever it was carted from. Cooked rare, he thinks, still red-juiced, fat bubbling down the pinkish flesh. The scent hits him like a truck, eyes rolling back a little with the aroma of food he didn’t know he could miss this much.The ghost watches him eagerly.He manages to drag his gaze back to deep black eyes. “Do you have any utensils?” He’s somehow able to keep his voice steady.“Ah, of course.” The ghost pulls the plate over with one finger; his gaze tracks the cut’s movement. L takes out a knife, and it feels almost domestic as the beef is deftly cut into thin slices.L smiles and pushes the plate back along with a pair of chopsticks. “Please, eat.”Light’s fingers are trembling as he picks the chopsticks up, the small wooden sticks shaking in his grasp and clacking together. He manages to steady his hand enough to grasp a slice in his grip and pull it up to his mouth, L’s eyes focusing on his lips as they open. He places the meat on his tongue and melts into a sigh at the rich flavor.“Satisfactory?” The ghost’s voice is almost smug.He can only nod.A bit of the juice dribbles down the side of his mouth - he wipes it away, and it feels like blood, it feels like the blood he devoured from the ghost’s hand just last night, and like the pomegranate, this flesh is L’s dead-dead-dead flesh.He’s neat with the rest of the meat - his well-behaved instincts work for him, sitting him up straight and moving his hand like it’s on a marionette’s strings. If the ghost sees him eating like an animal, flesh-juice dripping down his lips, that’s its fault.He takes the napkin the ghost hands him and pats it around his lips and face like the domestic creature he is, placing a second napkin carefully on his lap and looking back at the ghost expectantly.Again, again, it smiles. “I have more for you,” it responds to the unasked question, gesturing at the cart. “Try not to eat too much. You’ll get sick.”Sick - a fresh bolt of pain strikes his spine, and he hisses. His fingers curl into clawed fists.“Shhh,” that voice coos.His eyelashes are glazed with tears.“Is it the food?” L’s voice is closer, and the words send a bolt of panic through him.“No,” he gasps, shaking his head.He looks up into those tar-pit eyes, which are now hovering right in front of his. “That’s what I thought,” the ghost murmurs. “Your checkup will be soon. Eat more, but don’t let it get too uncomfortable.” The ghost picks up a discarded napkin and almost tenderly wipes at a few spots Light missed on his face - and Light can only sit still, not moving a muscle.L puts the napkin down and slides another domed plate in front of Light, that smile curling his lips.—The ghost leads him back into his bedroom and lets him open the other two doors. One of them opens to a large closet, filled with clothes that have clearly been brought from his home (he glances at them and his eyes slide off; he feels disconnected, as if they belong to a different person) and the other leads to a small, sleek gym area (obviously the ghost wants to give his Kira enrichment); and the ghost quickly leads him to yet another door at the back of the gym (there are a couple of others in the gym, he notes, as well as other doors in the sitting room; he supposes those didn’t warrant a tour), which turns out to be the entrance to a peaceful library/office area.Again, no windows; again, the prickling sensation of cameras.He traces his fingers along the back of the hardwood desk, and the ghost glides up behind him. “The computer is limited,” he murmurs, referring to the sleek, modern setup before them. “It’ll let you do what I want.”What it wants. Of course.There are loops for the chain built into the walls all over these rooms, cold and metal and cruel. He hasn’t been attached to one yet, but he knows it’s only a matter of time.“Will I be let on my own here?” he can’t stop himself from asking, knowing full well that the cameras will never let him be truly alone.“You’ll be able to freely move about these rooms when left alone, yes,” the ghost responds, one finger on a bottom lip.He nods and falls quiet, staring at the books on the shelves around him. They’re sorted by the large range of subjects they encompass. Most of them are in Japanese or English (he wonders if the ghost plans on reading down here too), but there are a variety of other languages he can spot.He feels the ghost’s shadow against him as bare feet pad closer, but he doesn’t move.“Do you find it pleasing?” And the soft tone of that voice sends a burst of confused rage through him.“Why would you care?”“You are going to be living here. It’s only logical.” That smooth answer only causes another burst of rage, which in turn sends a bolt of lightning up his spine. He doubles over, his weakened muscles trembling.This time, he can’t stop himself from crumpling to the ground.—He wakes up in that same red-blanketed bed, except this time with his nose facing the ceiling instead of smushed into the pillows.He just closes his eyes, not wanting to face- well, anything.The aralia light is noticeably shining to the left on him through the veil of the curtains, which seem like they have been pulled all the way around him - besides the growing light, it’s pitch black.His mind is floating in space and he thinks he’s dying. Or he’s dead already, and this prison disconnected from time is his hell.He wonders if those eyes are watching him now. He can’t help but think they can cut through the camera’s feeble night-vision and view every motion of his perfectly in the dark.Which is why he doesn’t dare unfreeze himself.Each breath is calculated - same in time, same in volume, same in length. He doesn’t let himself think of anything other than that.It’s soundless. He notices this yet again. It’s soundless, and the lack of noise itself feels like a blanket, a large, heavy weight pressing down on his chest. It’s not comforting - if anything, it’s crushing - but it’s consistent, and permanent, and that feels like more of a luxury than the expensive bedding pooled around him.The light doesn’t turn on - not for a while, he doesn’t think, but his sense of time has been nonexistent since he was ripped from the above. The aralia light gives him some ground to stand on as he’s noticed before, but it only indicates the night cycle.There’s not even a clock ticking.No clock. That’s another thing.His knowledge of time is minimal and can be so easily taken away.Eventually, the darkness and silence feels less like a steady solid mass and more like something anticipatory. He doesn’t know what he’s waiting for, but he knows there’s something, something else, something above him or below him or within his very mind and it’s watching him and he’s waiting for it to make its presence known. It’s the ghost - it’s here and its eyes are in his brain.His cuffed hands push his body up like it’s been burned, and it quickly feels like it has - remnants of the lightning up his spine still clinging on, making him wince at every twitch of vertebrae.In the back of his mind, he notes that there’s no clink of chains connected to his cuffs.The ghost does not appear, even as he waits for it in the cloying black.He slides one leg over the mattress, toward the light source, and reaches out with one trembling hand to pull away the curtain blocking his view of it.The aralia plant has not changed - in the darkness it merely looks a little more eerie, the tops of the leaves illuminated by soft light cutting through the void. But the eeriness is oddly peaceful - or at least it would be if it, like everything else in the room and the darkness crushing it and him, wasn’t waiting for the ghost to appear from the shadows.His eyes flick down.Beside the aralia, just managing to be caught by the growing light, is a nightstand. On the nightstand is a notebook. A black notebook.His eyes widen and his teeth gleam in the darkness - not too much, not too much, eyes burn on his back. He reaches out and curls a finger along the smooth cover, just as smooth as he remembers.He’s stopped breathing. He flicks it open. The first page is not blank.Familiar scratchy handwriting covers the first couple of lines:‘Light-kun,I felt this might help. Write about your pain if you cannot speak of it.’A black fountain pen gleams in the faint light.His lip curls and he can just barely suppress the scream growing in his stomach. Before he can stop himself he’s snatched the book off the nightstand and rolled off the bed to the soft carpeted floor with a muffled thud, the book splayed on the ground, trapped under his hands like prey, and he feels disgust toward it, this weak, useless thing, this mockery of his power and his pride.He rips the spine in half.It goes easily because it is weak.He tears the pieces apart and then tears the torn ones apart again, letting them flutter to the ground to land among like-white fur, settling in and hiding like the trembling mouse this cheap copy is. Good, he thinks viciously, and slashes at the pages again and again with hands and nails and teeth.His face falls into the floor and he’s laughing, and he feels a burst-—There’s a hand petting his hair the next time he awakes, body still nestled within the white fur carpet. Tar-pit eyes devour his gaze as his lashes flutter open.“Light-kun,” L whispers.He doesn’t dare speak.L seems to realize this, and he falls silent as well, his fingers still stroking Light’s hair as if his captive is a precious thing. “What am I going to do with you?” the ghost asks the silent air.If Light was keen on fooling himself as he did back then, he could say that those eyes look lost.The ghost looks down at him and that sharp face softens. “What am I going to do with you?” the ghost repeats, brushing his hands down Light’s skin to hold his face gently.“You did this,” Light rasps, and that laugh bubbles up in his throat again.“Of course I did.”Light tries to prop himself up on one wobbly arm, only to buckle and collapse into the ghost’s lap. L leans in to shush him like one would a child before burying his head in Light’s hair, inhaling deeply, and when he sighs out it vibrates through Light’s skull. Thin arms interlock around his chest, his heart, and hold him tight.The ghost traps him, just as the darkness did, but this darkness is warm.He is too tired to struggle and so he just closes his eyes. His cheeks are wet, and nestled against L’s arms as they are, they smear his skin with tears. L makes no indication of minding.Light feels simultaneously like trapped prey, a slain beast, and a comforted lover. The dizzy thought makes him want to tuck his head in that carpet and never get up again. He is done. He is finished. He wants to bite and thrash, but there is so much pain…“Did you do this to me?” he whispers, and he knows that L realizes he is now referring to this new pain. For better or for worse, he knows.A pause. Then, “No. There would be no point to it.” And something about that itches his mind - his eyes open and narrow and he struggles to pull his head up to read whatever emotions are tucked within those eyes, but he cannot even do that. His head flops back down unceremoniously.There’s another pause, as if the ghost is waiting for him to struggle more, but he is utterly spent. And that, out of everything, causes surprise to show in the sudden tension of the ghost’s limbs. Like a kid whose favorite toy broke, he thinks bitterly.Instead of vocalizing that bitterness, he just further hides his face in the ghost’s lap. Pathetic, maybe, but he’s certainly ready to run. The ghost’s face presses into his hair. “We really do need to get you that checkup,” is all the ghost says.He doesn’t move his head. It brings back memories - good ones, or ones in which he was weak enough to think they were good, which makes it worse because he is oh so weak right now. He is frozen solid, and he refuses to allow himself to melt - even as he refuses to allow his cheek to move from the ghost’s stomach.Slender fingers land along his rigid arms, massaging the muscles - trying to defrost them, possibly. He doesn’t fight it, and the hands skirt up, the base of L’s palms digging into his knotted shoulders. He has to swallow down a soft moan - and he can practically feel the bastard’s smile, even though it’s moved away from the top of his head.He wants to huff, to snarl, to wipe that smile off with his nails, but then hands press into the top of his spine, fingers cradling his back, and it’s as if a cold bucket of water has been poured on him. This time, he can’t stifle his groan as he stretches out, the sensation causing him to practically melt into the body supporting him like a cat. There’s a crack of something shifting in his spine as those talented hands work at him, but he can barely notice as overwhelming sensation fills his body. He’s limp, liquid, sprawled out, and the panic sensation that is nonetheless there at this sort of helplessness is drowned out by pulses of pleasure. He’s never had a massage feel like this before - it doesn’t even feel like that, it feels like he’s floating-A soft, fond chuckle from somewhere above him. “If I had known a good massage was all it took to calm your scheming mind, I’d have tried harder after the rain.”And just like that, the moment is gone.He flips over in the ghost’s grasp, disconnecting fingers from his back, and cranes up his head to stare in tar-pit eyes. Buried in them is the itch he felt earlier, the fogged-up window that he’s sure is deliberately hiding. The ghost has many secrets, but he can always tell when one concerns him, and the fascinated gleam that the ghost just can’t conceal seems to confirm it.“What aren’t you telling me?” he asks quietly.Another small laugh. “Many things, Light-kun.”He frowns. “That’s not fair. I know that.”Lips connect to his forehead, then his cheek, then nuzzle in his neck. “Many things aren’t fair. One could argue that me keeping you instead of turning you in isn’t fair.”He growls. It vibrates in his throat against L’s mouth. “Stop playing with me. I’m not a fool.”“No. No, you are not.” Teeth scrape Light’s neck with the words, and he stiffens.There’s a buzz of something near his hip. He jerks back.L pulls his head up as well, but it’s to take a vibrating phone out of his pocket while Light watches with eyes narrowed in suspicion. He tries to listen in, but L unceremoniously stands up, dumping his captive to the carpeted floor.Light hisses and shakes his head, brain dizzy from the sudden movement. By the time he’s managed to clear his mind, L has snapped the phone shut, looking down on him with a face bereft of everything but stone-cold professionalism. “Your doctor is here.”