(Written for dn-contest's prompt 'the dead watch over the living'. This was so much longer than I meant for it to be. Light & L can't shut it up. If they only stopped adding two tablespoons of Consequence to their breakfast cereal every morning. Psssht. Those two. I may go back to L's thoughts on mortality someday; I sort of had to cut him off here…anyhow, do enjoy--)

The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness. … Nature expects a full-grown man to accept the two black voids, fore and aft, as stolidly as he accepts the extraordinary visions in between.

-Vladimir Nabokov, Speak, Memory

Light's become accustomed to the chafe of the chain: with night it grows cooler though he sweats beneath it. He got used to it quickly. He hopes it's not surrender to think you can get used to anything.

Because he has gotten used to this: six feet from Ryuuzaki awake six hours after anyone else, a hunched silhouette against a bluish-white monitor that fills the room with shades of black; his shadow on the wall, shadow-slices on the floor, the shadow of his back and the coal-dark corners of the room. Light's learned to sleep through it. The insomnia that plagued him before his brief incarceration has disappeared.

So Light is surprised to see the digital clock read 3:34 AM as he opens his eyes, wincing.

(--the tug on the chain—like a sent and metal shiver.)

He blinks, letting his vision adjust. From here he can barely see what's on the screen. He can translate Ryuuzaki's raw statistics as well as his bizarre English scrawl in the margins of newspapers (joined-up writing, he said with a quirk of a smile) but—aah, probably not from this distance. He knows what the aim is, anyway. As they draw closer to solving this Yotsuba puzzle the detective, well…intensifies, he supposes is the word. If that's possible. Ryuuzaki is many things. Intense is one of them, but—

"Sorry to wake you, Light-kun."

"—it's fine," Light says, sitting up. "How did you know?"

Ryuuzaki lifts his right hand, chain dangling from his wrist. He looks like a marionette from here. "You moved."

"Did you?"

Ryuuzaki doesn't answer. His attention is back on the computer and his thumb's in his mouth.

"What are you working on?"

"Research."

"That's vague," says Light frankly.

The answer's wry. "So is the research." He wraps his arms around his knees. "I doubt that Light-kun would find it interesting."

"You don't—" –Light rises, careful to take quiet steps until he reaches the small pine desk. "—do vague research, Ryuuzaki. I don't—" …and the screen, strangely enough, focuses into a document; paragraphs in tiny font, interrupted by short sentences that break off halfway and slip into another wall of text—and then a list; bullet points; scattered on the page like—it's almost a collage but it's definitely writing. "What's that?"

--and with a click the screen goes dark.

The room does, too so Light doesn't know if Ryuuzaki sees him scowl. Ryuuzaki just says, "A translation."

Light sighs. "Of what?"

"Ideas, mainly."

Ryuuzaki, Light reflects, not for the first time, might make sense, but not with any common tools.

"That's vague, too."

"Light-kun is very precise," says Ryuuzaki, a slight lilt in his voice that's a mosquito in Light's ear, "and is always hungry for details."

…and somehow Light knows that translates to another you're Kira. He rubs his eyes, aggravated at his still-adjusting night vision; aggravated at Ryuuzaki's damned suspicion; aggravated in that general morning way. "So are you."

"They taste good." Ryuuzaki shrugs. "Details. I'm synthesizing some statistics. I prefer cake on the whole, however. Would you like some?" –he gestures to one of four china plates balanced on the desk—one of the two that still have some cake on them, no doubt sitting untouched for some hours. Light grimaces, imagining how stale they must be now. Honestly—

"No, thank you."

"As you like," and to Light's mild disgust but not surprise Ryuuzaki helps himself, and (mouth full) adds a decently long sentence—muffled completely, of course, but with an explanatory inflection. Light waits with, he supposes, surely more patience than Kira's ever required. He politely requests a repetition, once Ryuuzaki's face is somewhat less bulging. Ryuuzaki blinks. And he says: "I was thinking about cemeteries."

…He said more than—but, what's the use? "Why?"

"If Kira continues to kill, they may visibly fill up faster."

"…That's a morbid line of thought," says Light, raising an eyebrow. "Not a very useful one, though."

"And cremation is favored by many people these days anyway." Ryuuzaki nods in agreement. "I was just considering it mathematically—whether Kira's murder of murderers yields a higher body count than the murders the murderers themselves might have committed."

"Does it matter?" Light says tiredly. "Murder is murder."

"My position exactly."

There is silence, wherein Light contemplates the fact that Ryuuzaki's contradicted himself and Ryuuzaki's expression in the dark, eerie and still.

"I just find it interesting."

"What is, Ryuuzaki?"

"That here we've been discussing murder without once discussing corpses. And gods of death without discussing death."

"…You know, I really think you should get some sleep—"

"Death is physical," Ryuuzaki muses. "For all that Kira causes heart attacks, I bet that he never thinks about that, the physicality of death. That makes it feel like murder—smell like murder, when it has tangible consequences for the—"

"Ryuuzaki."

A pause. "Yes, Light-kun?"

Light doesn't like this conversation. It feels like a test, an accusation—like saplings for a nightmare-arboretum. He knows from his brief experience with his father's NPA cases that one language and one language alone is appropriate for solving a crime. He knows to keep it in the boundaries of rhetoric and fact. It's late and Ryuuzaki is a bloodshot unpredictability whose stranger behaviors must be caused at least in part by what Light has to suppose is a complete lack of sleep.

"At least lie down or something."

"I'm not tired," Ryuuzaki objects, sounding for all the world like Sayu used to when she was about eight and wanted to watch another television program.

"Try it. Please."

"What does it matter to you?"

Oh, I'm not falling for that. "I'm concerned for your health, Ryuuzaki. I'm not so confident in my own abilities that I think I could stand in for you if you fell ill during the investigation." The ceiling fan is a 

soft whirrr; it catches air and tosses it at the back of his neck and he shivers. "And you will, if you don't get any sleep."

…Ryuuzaki could be gratified, or he could be mocking, when he says: "Thank you for your concern, Light-kun." –either way he does uncurl abruptly and go to sit on Light's bed with a bounce. Light, startled, watches him with curiosity.

He seems somewhat uncomfortable, or annoyed. He lies down, turns over to one side, frowns, turns to the other.

Ryuuzaki's crumpled paper; wrinkled shirts; uneven posture. Light's tried to imagine Ryuuzaki with a creased and furrowed face like Watari's before, just because the man, while so childish, acts like such a damned sage without warning. The image, Light has found, has always been impossible to conjure. He doesn't know why.

He takes Ryuuzaki's seat, and spins it in one slow circle before he stops facing the computer. "Do you mind if I look at this?"

"Go ahead."

So he turns the monitor back on, and the room is lit again, though not at all well. Dim lighting suits them. Things are rarely clear here, daylight or no daylight. "…Is this Italian?"

"First page," says Ryuuzaki, not missing a beat. "The second is Latin."

"…Latin."

"I may as well practice."

Some fraction of a giggling dream-Misa makes a snide comment in the back of his head about Ryuuzaki's complete and utter lack of a social life, which Light tries charitably to ignore. "I suppose that helped you learn Italian."

Ryuuzaki shakes his head, turning over again. He's curling back up into something of a fetal position. "Italian helped me learn Latin."

"Have you ever been to Italy?" says Light, grasping at a brief non-Kira topic.

Ryuuzaki doesn't answer.

"Why did you learn Latin?"

"It's an easy language." No arrogance. "The Romans are interesting. They understood their proximity to death more than we do." –death again. "Because they fought so many wars, I suppose. And life expectancies were shorter then."

Why does he want to talk about death?

"This isn't a war we're fighting now? Against Kira."

"Hardly." Ryuuzaki waves a hand dismissively. "It's a duel."

…You really are—

"Facilis descensus Averno," Ryuuzaki quotes, "sed ad auras evadere est labor…"

"And that means…?"

"The descent to Avernus is easy, but it's hard to escape to the air."

"Avernus," Light says, with some reluctance. "Is that Hell?"

"Yes."

(Heaven or Hell.

--something—

He can't remember.)

"Thanks to Kira, Avernus may have a problem with overpopulation…"

Ryuuzaki laughs under his breath—a whispering sound like sandpaper. "I imagine so. While if Kira were to continue indefinitely the earth would have the opposite problem."

"Why?"

"More people exist bound for hell or Kira's judgment than heaven, if you subscribe to that sort of thing."

"…Do you really believe that?" Light asks.

"Neither anyone's Hell nor Kira seem very discriminating." Well, at least—"And the human race has proved itself unjust and avaricious."

Oh.

There is truth to what Ryuuzaki said but—what a depressing outlook. Light likes to think that there is some hope, despite…—really, why else are they fighting Kira?

"Not that I mind," Ryuuzaki amends, and Light gives him a Look that, even in this light, can be understood as disapproving. "…What? I don't. I, too, am unjust and avaricious."

"…You've never said that to me before," Light says dryly.

"Didn't I? Oh. I told the investigation before you joined it, in essence." Ryuuzaki is facing away from him, but Light can hear the glint in Ryuuzaki's eyes. "I thought you knew."

He did know.

A little.

Far be it from him to be Ryuuzaki's judge or anyone else's, here, now. How can he condemn Kira for judgment and then follow suit?

But then, he thinks, everyone judges everyone around them, all the time, according to what they believe. The only difference is that the Kiras have the means to enact it…

He shudders. Ryuuzaki can't see it.

"…For someone who is 'unjust', you talk about justice a lot," Light comments at last. "With the investigation, when you address the public—"

"We have to do that," says Ryuuzaki, all logic. "How else can we get them on our side?"

"But that's Kira's tactic, too."

"I know." And so damned calm. "Fighting fire with fire. A display no audience will ever forget." …more of that whisper-laughter. "Either, around or below."

"—sorry?"

"Well, some say that the dead watch over the living."

…what a thought! That's been said before within Light's hearing, but he heard it as far more benevolent: a smiling and beloved relative looking down from heaven; ancestors watching with pride their descendants living good lives. Not as…oh, spectators at a boxing match or a crowd at a circus. Still…

"Do you believe that?"

Just some fragment of a second and—Ryuuzaki snorts. "Of course not."

"…Though if they do," Light adds, with a hint of amusement, "Kira had better watch his back."

He gets a small smile in return for that.

At length, Ryuuzaki shivers, shifting involuntarily. The bed creaks like an old door.

"Ryuuzaki?"

"…I wish I did," the detective says, absently—with that distraction that has come to mean honesty.

"You wish you—"

"Believed that." There is something sardonic in the way he says the word believe. "That the dead watch over the living."

"…Is there…someone you wish was watching?"

"No," says Ryuuzaki. That curious, lopsided pleasure in his eyes, gleaming. "But I should very much like to watch."

--of course.

"…Me, too," Light admitted.

"Death is truly a terrifying thing."

…leave it to Ryuuzaki to be matter-of-fact about that.

"I mean it." His voice is even, truthful. "I can hardly imagine anything worse than oblivion."

There have to be some things worth dying for, Light wants to say. Ryuuzaki has said it himself: that for the Kira case they have all put their lives on the line. But on the tip of his tongue the thought suddenly feels so…what? Naïve? But why is that? Instead he just says, "What is?"

"Light-kun knows the answer to that."

…does he? "Do I?"

Ryuuzaki—L, Light reminds himself—offers a wan and knowing smile. "Defeat."

…damn it, I—

"I—"

But it's true.

"…If most everyone is in Hell," Light remarks, "are the dead watching over us?" It's a stupid thing to say, but Light is a tired suspect whose three hours of sleep are no match for Ryuuzaki's weirdness tonight.

"Hmmm," murmurs Ryuuzaki. "Good point."

"I guess they look up."

"People look up to you already, Light-kun."

"…Thank you?"

"It was a compliment." It might be. Ryuuzaki stands, stretches, does a surprisingly agile backbend before approaching the desk once more. "You can have your bed back."

"You're sure you don't want to try and sleep?"

"I will have time enough when I die." He pokes Light, who rises and gets back into bed as Ryuuzaki settles in the chair, fingers already on the keys. "Good night and good morning, Light-kun. Let's give them a show tomorrow."

Good night and good morning. The words have something to them—the parallel structure, perhaps; the ominosity of church bells that ring out for death and good tidings. They linger in Light's ears as the clock says it is half past four. Still night-dark and yet morning; that's all that Ryuuzaki meant. good night and good morning. …the Yotsuba affair is coming to a close. Maybe that is why Light feels this strange anticipation, adrenaline where it shouldn't be. After that—what? Good night and good morning. Breathing in endings to exhale beginnings. The emperor is dead; long live the emperor. Fall off the edge of a cliff, you discover a valley. Good night and good morning.

That night he dreams triumph, terror, applause.

Before he sleeps, he does think: Okay, Ryuuzaki. I'll put on a show for you yet.