The Time that Remains

Fandom: Death Note

Pairing: LxLight

Word Count: ~1600

Summary: Listen: Light Yagami has become unstuck in time.

A/N: This is probably one of the weirdest stories I have ever written. Warnings for melancholic rambling, tenuous definitions of the term time travel, Kurt Vonnegut references, and a wildly irritating L. (Also, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that this is all albasti's fault.)

"When any Tralfamadorian sees a corpse, all he thinks is that the dead person is in a bad condition in that particular moment, but that the same person is just fine in plenty of other moments."

― Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

It is winter when Light Yagami realizes he has lost his place in time, like a bookmark that's slipped from the pages of a novel.

The December light is colorless, and dying trees search for weak spots in the exterior walls of the orphanage. In quiet rooms, children and housecats sleep in artless piles. Cobwebs blockade entire wings of the estate, while spiders discuss springtime warplans in secrecy.

In the cold, the pulse of Light's ankle monitor becomes erratic. He leaves Wammy's only on days when L walks the blue road to Winchester to buy tarts at the Christmas market. Sometimes, they drink mulled wine from styrofoam cups and wander the empty town center, avoiding snow that slides from the terraced roofs. L pets a stray labrador that lives behind the butcher's, while Light stares at silhouettes moving in lit windows and feels his life escaping with each breath.

"This will keep happening, again and again," Light says, because it pleases him to throw obscure phrases at L, who is still rather traumatized by the existence of supernatural notebooks. From somewhere to the west, a church organ plays a carol in a minor key.

L pays the remark no attention at all.

Much later, L finds Light looking through photographs in the library's archives. They are yellowed kodachrome prints of smiling nurses in dappled sunlight. Light remembers Wammy's during wartime, and the smell of morphine drips and fermented antibiotics. Light remembers Wammy's when it was a field of yellow wildflowers with a stone monolith at its center. Light remembers the arrival of longships with great dragons carved into their bows, and fair-haired men with axes and wolfish dogs. Light remembers mammoths rooting their trunks into the ryegrass. Light remembers a vast ocean, empty and churning with potential energy.

L removes Light's glove ― the radiator is broken, the tip of Light's nose is numb ― and traces the green veins on the back of his hand.

"Matt is accusing you of terrible things," L says.

Light tries not to look at him directly. It is too disorientating, now that he's fallen from the timeline. Light sees a younger L fleeing a housefire with a pet mouse cupped between his palms. He sees the L who'd led the charge against Kira, waving a Union Jack atop a smoldering battlefield. He sees an L that grows into his arthritic joints, and another whose body is dredged up from the Thames, and every permutation in-between, layered atop each other like glass panes.

Light's ankle monitor vibrates to signal its batteries are low.

"I stole cigarettes from his room," Light admits, because L already knows or they would not be having this conversation. In the long winter, even criminals seem to have gone into hibernation. L would not miss the chance to chase Kira, no matter how petty the reason.

"He seems to think you've sabotaged one of his pet projects."

All the trouble in Light's life begins and ends at Wammy's House. Light remembers the amber globe beneath a bell jar, appropriately labeled DO NOT TOUCH, SERIOUSLY, THIS OBJECT POSES A DIRECT THREAT TO THE SPACETIME CONTINUUM. It had been wedged between an ashtray, and a pile of signed computer chips that smelled vaguely carcinogenic.

Light has always had a weak spot for mystical objects of boundless power.

"Now, that's just paranoia. I hope you are proud, L, these children take after you in profound and disturbing ways."

There are many ways to time travel, Light learns, but none that will spare you irrevocable and deep existential damage. The first time Light regains his memories of Kira, it is like falling asleep on a train and waking in a distant, unpronounceable country without proper documentation. Travelling with the amber globe is different, of course, and feels as though that same train has derailed and set fire to the countryside.

The amber globe is less than an inch in diameter and crudely cut. The first time Light holds it and sees himself waving dully from the future, he spends the next four days in bed, willing his mind to remain within the confines of his body. At times, he feels as though the bonds between his atoms are snapping. He keeps the window closed, frightened he will be captured by a draft and scattered across the courtyard.

"I can't believe you're going to die on me now," L says, "I haven't even begun to properly gloat yet. I want years to gloating ahead of me. I want to gloat at odd moments, when you've briefly forgotten I'm gloating."

L brings him beef stock and hot tea, and points out that Light does not have a fever, and also that the Derry Strangler has killed another two prostitutes over the weekend.

"If this is some sort of spiritual crisis, then I am not impressed. Have Mello teach you the Hail Mary, and let's get back to work."

Light does, but it takes several days to adjust to this new, indeterminate world. Only Mail Jeevas seems to recognize why Light clings to the bannister as he traverses the staircase with exaggerated steps. The stairs exist in this moment, but do not for the majority of time in either direction, and therefore their reliability is tenuous at best.

"You'll get used to it," Matt says, and Light sees him leaning against the striped wallpaper in the hall, and also pockmarked by bullets at a Tokyo intersection. So it goes. "That's what you get for going in my room, you know. To be honest, I'd expected you to have the fortitude required for a life of uncertainty and fear."

"Will it stop?" Light says. He briefly wonders how he can get away with burning Wammy's and everyone in it and imagines Matt's absurdly red hair, aflame.

"Eventually, but you'll just want to look in again. Luckily, I've upgraded my security systems. You owe me a pack of cigarettes, by the way."

"Where did it come from?" Light asks, and Matt shrugs, revealing the deep space above his collarbones. Matt is thin, unkempt, and looks as though weeds are about to sprout from his eye sockets and ears.

"Strange things fall out of the sky sometimes. But you know that, don't you, Kira?"

All futures have already happened, and Light does his best to dwell on the ones that involve a penthouse in Tokyo, and a park where veiled women light incense for Kira, and Misa Amane singing hymns on international television. England is cold, and its bells toll only for dead men, and Light's boyfriend has crooked teeth and an internet addiction.

"You have been exceptionally strange lately, Light-kun. I hope you are not plotting. You know that plotting will do you no good in this household. Unless I am involved in the plot, of course, and in that case, please divulge," L says and refreshes the police blotter. Snowflakes are flattened against the window like insects.

Time has only partially straightened, and Light still has difficulty telling cause from effect. Occasionally, snow is sucked into the sky, or his blood drags backwards through the chambers of his heart. Two days ago, Light had broken into Matt's room, but found the amber globe replaced by a post-it stating, I TOLD YOU NOT TO COME IN HERE ANYMORE.

A second note read only: ASSHOLE.

Light supposes it is for the best. He is tired of futures in which orphans rise to positions of unimaginable power, and he is left shuffling through dark rooms, winding the clocks, stirring the fires. L is staring at Light over the ledge of his laptop, and Light sees a handcuff chain flickering between their wrists.

"I have a confession," Light says, but is immediately off-put by radiant grin L gives at that statement. "Oh, never mind, I should have realized that phrasing would be perversely exciting to you. What I wanted to say is: e-mail me the Derry files. If I'm going to be trapped in this orphanage, I may as well have something to do. "

In the hall, the grandfather clock gives sixteen chimes and then takes one back. Light wonders if he is truly in the present, or only paying this moment a visit from some distant chapter, in which he is neither happy nor sad.

"Oh, Light. I can tell by the sardonic tone of your voice that you have returned to us from some dark night of the soul. For a moment, I was afraid you might truly be filled with remorse and humility. Welcome back, old friend. I have missed you."

"Please stop talking and e-mail the files."

It is winter when Light Yagami realizes he has lost his place in time, like a bookmark that's slipped from the pages of a novel and been carelessly returned. He still cannot tell where his story begins or ends, but there is a first page and a last page and at least he is nestled somewhere in-between.

Fin.