New fic! Coming to you from Zoology this time! Don't you love school? This comes from reading Volume 3 and some post-lunchtime boredom. Hope you enjoy, and no, I don't own any of this.

When Light sleeps, he dreams. He knows he does, but he's never quite sure what his dreams are about. All they ever leave him with are wisps of thought, an imprint of something he can't describe. He likes to think he dreams about his utopia. About beating L. About peace. About winning.

He doesn't know that he's wrong, that those thoughts only come to him when he is awake. Ryuuk knows, though. Oh, how he knows. Shinigami aren't meant to sleep (though the present day monsters do so anyway, the lazy fools) and when Ryuuk has nothing to do, he watches Light sleep. Not out of some twisted sense of affection (or whatever it is that compels humans to do this) but because Light is so entertaining when he sleeps, because that is when the dreams come. Light thinks himself a god after all (Ryuuk bites back his laughter at this even in thought, because while Light is a fine Shinigami, he is not a god) and like any god, Light dreams and sees the Truth.

He sees the world as it really is; vile. Depraved. Corrupt. He sees the world in black and red, in stark whites and vivid flashes of color that make him cringe in his sleep. Red blood, black hearts, faces white with fear…but worst of all, he sees gray. Gray areas, gray shadows, gray sidewalks with so many cracks that everyone is slipping through, faster than he can catch them. Loopholes and exceptions and the gray walls of an empty cell because all the demons are out there on the red streets, with their black hearts and Light can't stop them all.

Ryuuk doesn't know that this is what his human dreams, but he sees enough to guess. When Light sleeps, he dreams, and Ryuuk watches as his face (that smooth mirror that reflects what the world wants to see) changes (shatters) and shows him for what he is. Light is not Kira - he and L be damned - Light's a scared little boy who's in so deep he's already drowned. Light cringes and twists and sweats as the Truth pounds itself into his mind, fuel for the fire that will burn him alive.

Light dreams in color, but sometimes he dreams in sound. He hears voices, whispers, sobs, but mostly he hears screams. Screams of the hurt, screams of the dying, screams of his friends and enemies, and sometimes screams of his own. Ryuuk knows when this is happening because it's the only time when Light talks, his one phone call from the cell that seems to hold only him.

"Shut up…shut up…shutupshutupshutup please, shut up…"

One night, Ryuuk thinks he heard Light say sorry.

There are three kinds of nights. Nights of color, nights of sound, and nights of stillness. These nights don't come very often, but when they do Ryuuk can only stare, transfixed. He is reminded of that human saying about a car crash. Light is like a stone on these nights. He doesn't talk, doesn't move, he barely even breathes. He looks dead, Ryuuk thinks, he's finally drowned under the weight of his power and ideals and the water filling his lungs is leaking from his eyes. It's the only time Ryuuk will ever see his human cry. He fought and screamed and clawed his way to death, but only the peace of sleep brought him tears. Years later, Ryuuk will think this and feel the laugh die in his throat.

He doesn't want to know what dream makes Light cry.

Light Yagami has told him, repeatedly, that he's never felt cursed since obtaining the Death Note. That he is the exception to the rule that curses all the human reapers. But Ryuuk is with Light every day, and he's seen the boy lie enough to know what's the truth and what's not. He's seen the proof.

When Light gave up the notebook, he never dreamed. Not once.