Twenty Themes, a death note fanfic

Title: Twenty Themes- Death Note
Archived: LJ, ffn, and Skyehawke
Rating: Generally PG to PG13 with one or two that get up to not-worksafe. For those who care, 5 and 16 are the dirty ones.
Warnings: Some suck. Some don't. Some have no relevence to anything. Most are incredibly boring and unoriginal. All are exactly a hundred words.
Notes: Inspired by jaebilit's Twenty Drabbles. I would never have tried tackling the themes without seeing how utterly cool hers were. They can be found at her LJ (username "jaebi lit" with an underscore where the space is) or at her skyehawke account (same name). The themes are from the 20 Themes comm on LJ.

ETA: After I posted this one, I didn't check to see if the formatting was correct, which I should have done. Today, I looked over it, and realized that ffn ate all of the punctuation at the end of quotes. To anyone who had to read through that, sorry. I fixed it up and it should be right now.

01. carnival

"If you blink, you will miss it," Ryuuzaki muses. "The entire trick depends on you missing that crucial step."

"Of course," Light says. He sits back and watches the magician on stage.

"Doesn't it bother you," Ryuuzaki asks him, giving him a sideways glance.

"No," Light says, easily. "I know I can figure it out."

Beside him, Sayu leans towards the stage and she gasps, "How does he do that"

"Of course," Ryuuzaki says. He draws his legs up underneath him and settles down to watch.

Halfway through the show, Light glances over and notices that Ryuuzaki does not blink.

02. social graces

"Light," Misa calls from across the mall. She is dressed in pink and black and looks ridiculously childlike. When Light and Ryuuzaki do not walk any faster towards the escalators, she stomps her foot. "Light," she yells. She waves her hands frantically, and Light sees that she has tied her hair with bells. Light imagines he can already hear them and prepares himself for several hours with the sound in his ears.

"Isn't it rude to make a lady wait?" asks Ryuuzaki sardonically. He tugs at the chain and forces Light towards the escalator.

Light can hear the chain clang.

03. sexuality/criminality

Ryuuzaki reads over the files that Watari has sent him. His nostrils flare, and Light thinks he looks like a dog catching a scent. When Ryuuzaki scrolls down with the mouse, his hands come out of his sleeves and into the light of the monitor. They are washed blue, dead against the white sterility of the computer.

"Ryuuzaki," Light says, fascination drawn out of him like a string.

Ryuuzaki turns to him. "Yes, Light-kun."

Light says something inconsequential and Ryuuzaki turns away. Ryuuzaki is absorbed in this investigative love, and Light can watch him for hours.

And he will, too.

04. hourglass

Misa likes corsets; they pinch her waist in and make her beautiful. Sometimes, she pulls them so tight that she can hardly breathe, and she thinks, "Light will love me if I am beautiful."

She cannot maintain it for long, and she is forced to untie them, sensation and air flooding her in equal, heady measure.

Light looks at her like a bug underneath a microscope. But she has seen photographs of insects, has seen their delicate, pinched bodies, and she envies them.

So when Light looks at her like that, not seeing her but her shape, she thinks, "Yes."

05. English breakfast

Light wakes up, feeling heat against his cock. He is shocked awake by the cool of exposed flesh and the hot of an open mouth. His fingers twist in the sheets and he gasps. He looks down and sees Ryuuzaki, the chain spread in a lazy arc at their side.

"What-" he begins to say.

Ryuuzaki hums, and Light throws his head back against the pillow.

"Ryuuzaki," he tries again. He releases his left hand from the sheets to grab at Ryuuzaki's hair instead. It is thick and slightly greasy.

He finds he cannot grip it hard enough.

06. one-half of a photograph

Ryuuzaki and Light watch the old version of Parent Trap late at night for no particular reason. Sayu has long since fallen asleep, and they have learned to move in tandem as to not jangle the chain.

"The concept of a photograph being ripped in half is ridiculous," says Ryuuzaki. "If they wanted to keep the picture, then they should cut the photograph with something more precise. If they wanted to destroy it, they should have burned it."

"And scatter the ashes?" Light asks sardonically. Half of his face is illuminated by the screen. "Ryuuzaki, it's Parent Trap."

"Yes, and?"

07. empirical law

Sayu is tired of chemistry. She is tired of school and of her brother's effortless brilliance. She is tired of how he comes home with Ryuuzaki on weeknights. She is tired of their six-foot radius and their occasional scuffles in the room next door. She is tired of how they whisper-yell at four in the morning and how they get quiet when she deliberately turns in her bed to make the bedsprings creak. She is tired.

But she knows, that no matter how tired she is, she does not matter. It is simply Ryuuzaki and Light, and that is all.

08. suicide, self-destruction

L notices Sayu keeps a simple hair tie around her wrist. She explains that if she needs to tie her hair, then she'll always have one nearby. For the sake of discussion, she gives him hers, and says ironically, "In case you ever need it."

He does not tie his hair, but he keeps it anyway. When he is bored, he snaps the band against his wrist, and inspects the red line on his flesh. The sting is immediate, but the mark fades after minutes.

He thinks they are beautiful, those marks against his skin.

So he does it again.

09. "perfect score"

It has become tradition to watch movies with Light. Ryuuzaki does not sleep well, and Light despises being asleep when Ryuuzaki is not. So they watch movies, Light sitting on the left with Ryuuzaki to his right. They don't speak, because Light's exhaustion sometimes overcomes him and he falls asleep on the arm of the couch.

Though he will never admit it, Ryuuzaki writes Watari emails to find romances. Not because he enjoys the stories, but because the music is soft and swells and diminishes with every breath.

Ryuuzaki doesn't watch the movie then, but the slow inhale-exhale of Light.

10. voyeurism

There is something terribly inelegant about cameras. They may be state-of-the-art, but they are still impersonal and plastic. There is no risk.

When Ryuuzaki had observed Yamagi's household, the cameras were tiny, and each one alone was useless. He had to string the room with them to get a complete picture. Sometimes, Light would look directly at a camera, and Ryuuzaki's breath would catch.

Was he caught at last?

No. Always no.

Now, inches away from a sleeping Light, Ryuuzaki touches Light's cheek gently and whispers, "And now"

Light does not respond, but this, Ryuuzaki thinks, is infinitely more interesting.

11. 'residual '

After Light dies, Ryuuzaki feels something he later identifies as regret.

It is not because Light has died, it is more that Light has died like that. Anonymously. He is ultimately just another person killed by Kira, interesting only in that he had not commited a crime.

Or not.

Ryuuzaki stays up late at night, facing down an emtpy screen and searches the internet for "Yagami Light." When he finds seven thousand, six hundred and twenty sites on the subject, he reads each one.

Many share Light's name, but not his face, and that is what makes his Light special.

12. Eden, loss of Eden

The pieces fall together and Ryuuzaki suddenly understands.

"You're Kira," Ryuuzaki says, and he begins to mutter to himself. "Your god of death found your cameras and had your Death Note. You gave it up so you could escape me. You knew about Amane. You were using her. You were toying with me."

He inhales swiftly.

"You- Kira- were careless. I know who you are, how you work. And justice will prevail."

Light smiles and says, "Yes."

The book is open and Ryuuzaki strides forward to take it. Then he sees:

figures out the secret. Dies of a heart attack.

13. 4:00am

When he was young, Ryuuzaki had hated the huge, empty rooms that Watari had got for him. They were cold, even with the luxurious blankets spread over vast beds, and unwelcoming, even with the friendly smiles of the maids who weren't allowed to talk to him.

Rather than complain- he knew Watari would have changed it immediately- Ryuuzaki requested only one thing: windows.

When everyone else was asleep, he would crawl out of bed and sit in front of the glass and lose himself in the city. There were so many complex mechanisms to study.

Now, he just watches Light.

14. machiavellian

Misa holds a strip of meat between two fingers and makes a face. "It's so stringy."

Light sits in front of her and chews without comment. His Adam's apple bobs as he swallows. He takes another bite.

"Light," Misa says, putting the meat down. "Light. Why didn't you take me? I'd have been much sweeter," she says. She is coy in all the ways that don't matter- he can still see the scratches on her skin where Ryuuzaki had struggled.

"I can't afford to lose you," he says.

Ryuuzaki stares. Light kicks the head into the brush, then resumes eating.

15. generic Tokyo

"The storyline is absolutely ridiculous," Ryuuzaki continues. "It-"

Light cannot stand hearing Ryuuzaki talk any longer. He overanalyzes and dissects and ruins every thing that Light had once enjoyed. Light wraps his hand around the chain, then jerks it. As Ryuuzaki trips, Light shoves him into an alley and punches him across the jaw.

For one brief moment, Light sees an utterly shocked expression on Ryuuzaki's face. The next, he sees Ryuuzaki's face solidify into impassiveness as he kicks back.

After their scuffle, Light wipes a line of blood from his chin and says calmly, "Well. I liked it."

16. cell

The cameras lie: Light does not sleep.

When Ryuuzaki enters the cell, Light knows that Ryuuzaki has put the cameras on loop, bypassing all of the security that he put up. It is ridiculously simple, and he cannot believe that nobody has noticed.

"Yagami Light," Ryuuzaki says, easing the door shut.

Light inclines his head in response.

Light knows that before the night is through, Ryuuzaki will force Light to gasp his name- one of his names- over and over again, until the syllables on his lips are the only coherent words. Until then, he will not say a word.

17. apocalyptic cults

The members sit in an clumsy pentagon, watching the candles burn down to ashes.

"So," the leader says.

"Yeah."

"I can't believe there're only five of us now."

"Mmhmm." Four heads bob up and down in concilatory agreement.

"To Kira," the leader yells. "I mean- shit, he's a hoax! I mugged a kid two nights ago, and you don't see me getting a heart"

The four remaining members of the cult exchange glances as their leader clutches his chest and falls to the floor.

After several awkward moments, they snuff out the wicks, take off their robes, then leave.

18. oxymoron

Ryuuzaki sits in front of the television monitors during the day, hands filled with new data. When he eats, his meals are peppered with new revelations on Kira. He does not sleep, but searches Kira cult sites on the internet out of a morbid fascination. After hours, he collapses in front of the computer, his brows furrow and he mutters Kira's name. He lives on Kira.

"You know," Light says one day over lunch. "I don't know why you're so concerned about Kira. Even if he knew your name and face, I don't think you have a life to take."

19. public transportation, buses

Ryuk sits on the bus seat, twisting himself into something resembling comfortable. He does not mind public transportation; people were often interesting to observe. Recently, however, they blended together into a mess of anonymous flesh. The differences in appearance do not matter; they all have the same bored expression burned into their beings.

"Ryuk, was it?" he hears someone ask. He looks up.

Ah, he thinks. Misa's. "Yes."

Rem sits down in the seat next to him, then says savagely, "You keep your Light away from Misa."

"I would love to talk," he says, grinning. "But this is my stop."

20. stagnation/disease

"I never have a chance to just look up anymore," Light says. "I remember when I was little I would show Sayu constellations. I used to love seeing the figures appear from dots."

"They're just stars," Ryuuzaki says.

"What?" Light looks surprised, then he points towards the sky and said, "Look- there- can you see those three stars? The really bright ones."

"No. But I've read about them."

"You-" Light stops abruptly. He leans his head back. "I guess."

Beside him, Ryuuzaki squints. He would let Light think what he wanted; Ryuuzaki kept his increasingly bad eyesight to himself.