[A] lternative

[ ɪɴᴅ.||ꜱᴇʟᴇᴄᴛɪᴠᴇ A of Death Note; 18+] The first child, A, was unable to handle the pressure of living up to L and took his own life…

[beyondthebackup]

Alternative's next breath caught in his throat as an unpleasant sensation snaked up his spine like a fever's chill. ❛  you aren't scared of me, are you?  ❜

"You aren't scared of me, are you?"

Backup whispers, straddling Alternative in his twin bed for the very first time.

A's eyes snap open in an instant, clearly startled no matter how hard he may try to hide it. It's the dead of night, so dark that B is nothing but a shadow, even as he presses his weight down onto A's body.

"I wonder...what were they thinking, putting us in the same bedroom?

Did they intend for us to get along?

If you were in a different room, you could at least lock your door. I'm excellent at lockpicking, but you'd have a potential witness in your roommate.

Here, it's just A and B. Every day and every night...even as we're asked to compete. To destroy one another.

They must've known one of us would be devoured eventually. Like a parasitic twin in the womb. There is not enough room for the both of us.

Do those adults really think it will happen fairly and cleanly? With one of us just accepting defeat? I don't believe that for a second.

This...must be part of the test. Our proximity. If they wanted two geniuses to survive long enough to be of use to them, they would've locked us both in cages and kept us as far away from one another as possible. Otherwise..."

B reveals the scalpel A gave him as a peace offering all that time ago. A cannot see it - he can only feel the chill of metal pressing against the thin skin protecting his jugular vein.

"It's just too easy for me to win. Right now. For all your brilliance, dear A, none of it can protect you from the weakness of your flesh."

Lightly, carefully, almost lovingly, he grazes the sharp tip of the blade down the length of Alternative's neck.

"A moment ago, you were unconscious. You might have never woken up. Even now, you're completely at my mercy. I could do whatever I wanted to you and no one could stop me. That has been true every single night you've slept next to me in this bed. Do you realize that?"

Suddenly, B shoves the scalpel into A's mouth, pushing it against the corner of his lips. He leans forward until their foreheads meet, and A can feel the warmth of his excited breath.

"I think about it all the time."

For a few agonizing moments, they stay just like this. Perfectly still. The silence and the darkness cloaking them in a world where nothing else exists. Frozen in time.

B withdraws the knife in one swift motion, cutting into the corner of A's mouth as a result. It should sting and bleed, but not scar. At least, not permanently. B slips the scalpel back into his pocket and slowly sits back up.

"Goodnight, Alternative."

B crawls from A's bed and back into his own.

[a-for-alternative]

生き甲斐 | Purpose || Reason for Existence

[bbxkira]

Death Note Another Note: The Los Angeles BB Murder Cases- Victims ↳Believe Bridesmaid(44), Quarter Queen(13), Backyard Bottomslash(26)

[a-for-alternative]

♰  Full Resolution 

[ Notes on The LABB Case ]

[deathnotewiki]

July 31, 2002: The first victim in the L.A. BB Serial Murder Cases, Believe Bridesmaid, is found dead.

[beyondthebackup]

[Carefully folded, a delicate pink note tucks itself between the tree's undulating seams. The ripples of bark, communion ash against the blushing paper, a meek sail cresting dark waves blissfully unaware of its existence on the periphery of an expanding whirlpool, a crater left by bruised knuckles. The note reads:] "I daydream of reciting bible verses in backless Sunday dresses, brushing my fingers through your hair as proverbs pour out of me. I would shiver against your lips pressed lush and hot between the valleys of my unguarded virtue. I want you to kiss me so hard that I bruise like bitten fruit, I want you to sink your sanguine carnality into me, divorce modernity and pretend we are in some distant century, sincere and snarling into each other's skin - my muse red in tooth and claw, my savage love... You could infiltrate me so tenderly, daring my will to resist this pull from God with your succulent serenade. My voice would grow small and sharp as a misericord's blade, glinting promises of mercy asking you to slip it between the petals of my armor, all that's left to guard sense from sin. - ♡"

The early morning jogs began as a necessary staple of B's training regimen.

Victory is less about raw strength than it is about stamina and endurance, his trainer told him, if you can outlast your opponent in a fight, you win.

B defeated A in the athletic realm a long time ago, that was undeniable, and yet it wasn't enough. The envy rolling A's eyes whenever B showed off, the pounding of his heart betraying fear as B pinned him to the ground again and again and again until it was insisted that B spar with someone closer to his skill level...

Ah, the humiliation was palpable. It was an amazing feeling.

Alternative even lowered himself to a full-scale retreat, begging Roger to remove him from the class because he couldn't handle it.

Now, the early morning jogs are something B does of his own volition when he is in the mood and the weather is tolerable, to keep form and assure Alternative that in this avenue he would always be inferior.

On days like this he is usually awake before anyone else, which is what makes the odd little sign of human activity in the form of a pink note in a tree particularly eye-catching as B slows to a stop in front of it and catches his breath.

This is the tree he used as a sandbag and passed on his usual route around the orphanage. Still, besides that gaping wound he left in its trunk, it is one unremarkable tree in a sea of many. That note could be meant for anyone. B plucks it from its perch anyway, immediately thinking of the previous letter he discovered in his desk and reads it.

The letter could be meant for anyone, but twice is quite the coincidence.

Trained to be a detective from the time he was small, that glaring focus takes over and he almost doesn't take the time to enjoy what the letter is saying.

Almost.

Sunday dresses?

---------- Obelus Yoriko Umbral A ----------

Though Obelus is Catholic and the only person on B's mental list he's seen carrying a bible, he has a baffling insecurity about his bare arms and taking off the stupid flannels he wears all the time. B still intends to compare their handwriting, but unless he's playing some elaborate game (which B feels he is too lazy for) it is highly unlikely that Obe is the author of these notes or interested in wearing backless Sunday dresses. Besides, if he wanted to fuck, he'd just say so.

Even more than the hunger inherent in the delicately penned words on the page, B is struck by one thing in particular -

My voice would grow small and sharp as a misericord's blade, glinting promises of mercy asking you to slip it between the petals of my armor, all that's left to guard sense from sin.

B recognizes the blade from books he read on the High Middle Ages years ago.

Specifically, that it was meant to be a last resort - to kill your enemy during a struggle, or kill a knight with a fatal wound to gift them a more painless death. Usually with the aim to pierce the eye, the brain, or the heart.

It's a morbid way of putting things.

Whoever this person is, they consider their situation dire. The note says so itself - sin and death.

Whoever they are, there's a reason why they're hiding behind pretty little notes.

B smirks to himself. He's having fun.

He pockets the second note, and resumes his jog.

[a-for-alternative]

—He takes too fucking long…

His heart thudded against his curled fingers, blanched white at the knuckles.

A tremoring ache through the arc of bones rattles silently against living wood, his ribs finding their places in the knotted ridges of bark under his sternum.

He sank into the uncharitable valleys of it's uneven notches with a furtive exhalation, one final breath that brings him flush against the arm that looms over the footpath like a darkening omen.

His fingers withdrew with the careful grace of an experimental brush across violin strings not daring to create a sound— they release their clasp around the limb and everything slows, everything balancing on blind faith as he lets go of their safe guard to find the trigger…

The stiff curve presses false promises under his touch but he knows not to believe it, the contact he makes is so fine that his finger barely shivers with the pulse of his blood...

His body stills, breath clutched in his lungs, he starves for air as the raven head emerges over horizon in the cross hairs.

Salient-blue eyes center like chipped alabaster over a quite grave.

He can still feel gravity tugging tenderly at his senses like a girl's cloying perfume, imperceptible and luring, even the threat of falling cannot make it beyond the periphery of his concentration; nothing else matters now, his focus is a tunneling vortex with Backup at the nexus of all that scarlet hatred.

He squeezes down, lets loose the first glinting bolt that cuts the air like shrill screech.

— The first shot nearly clips B's ear and he stumbles a startled half-step

Both are motionless as B inspects the shimmering stem of a long masonry nail, lets the inkling permeate into chilly understanding as the reanimated movement of Alternative's index finger silently draws back the notch...

He turns to follow the path of trajectory, the invisible seam in destiny that brings his eyes to its origin.

Alternative doesn't flinch, he wants him to look fidelity in the face.

The scorpion arm draws wider than his rival's shoulders, like the fleshless bones of a vulture's wings, arcing like death took them in midflight— It takes Backup a moment to realize he is staring down the nose of a loaded crossbow. This is not a fledgling impulse, Alternative conceived this years ago. It had laid in wake like a viper in the pit beneath their floorboards since the day Alternative knew he might need a backup plan for the backup plan. Initially, it provided the serendipity that divested the founder's car of road worthiness, such that L was left stranded just long enough to meet them, just long enough that he might glimpse the derangement in their second best... what A saw and what he kept so well disguised from their guardians. But, it's purpose evolved with Alternative's errant conscience and Backup's opportune interest in concocting poisons— Should Backup ever surpass him, he would make his rival's hobby into the modus for murder. B's insidious toxins loaded into the biting quills of this orphaned invention would enable Alternative to dispose of L and let blame fall on the deviant usurper. Backup had always scuffed at decorum, disparaged the first child for the dishonesty underpinning in a good reputation, but Alternative did not obey because he was a sycophant or a coward... he was patient.

Alternative savors the subtle ripple of delight coming through B's depthless eyes, sunless as vagrant windows of an abandoned house time forgot.

' I know you're in there, you bastard. '

One fluid motion like rain tracing a pane of glass and he's lined up his sight. Staring into the deep hollows of those armageddeon eyes with not even the curl of breath to disturb a defecting lock, nothing matters but Backup and the sharpness of his aim.

' So, you'll just let me have you? '

Alternative's finger moves into the laminal space that separates unrequited animosity from consummate savagery and when a venomous simper draws over Backup's lips— he pulls the trigger.

[unehistoiredenfantecorche]

[thats-pretty-gay-art]

Death Note: Another Note Manga (FanMade)

This is a FANMADE manga adaptation of the Death Note novel 'Another Note'. The characters belong to Tsugumi Ohba and the story belongs to Nisio Isin. Because this is an adaptation there are portions of the story that have been tweaked or removed to better fit the format of a manga. As such I still recommend you read the original; The last thing I want to do is dissuade people from reading the novel version. WARNINGS: Graphic imagery (including violence, gore, and suicide) and mild language

Here’s the link on a different post cause tumblr won’t show it in tags otherwise :P

Thank you!

[a-for-alternative]

[y-the-youthful]

"... While I don't enjoy being seen like this, I don't feel there is much other choice. I'm not feeling well, B is trying to take advantage of that and I am trying to find somewhere to sleep that he can't easily slither into."

"Come in, come in." Z is off elsewhere for the night, so his space is free. She makes sure the door is closed and puts a door stop in place. This is a B-free zone. "You can have my bed, it is no worry at all."

Hers does also happen to have better blankets.

"Do you need anything? I can make a drink?"

[a-for-alternative]

There is a tenuous disgust at the corner of his mouth, subtle as a reptile through reeds, only a trimmer of existence shivered to the surface before it disappeared somewhere —living, breathing, buried beneath skin and pseudo-civility.

Somewhere beyond the reach of sight, Alternative bit into the bitter fruit of malice he had fostered long ago for Backup, refusing to swallow her saccharine invocations without a proper chaser.

For every charitable remark she made was followed by the internal renunciation that he held back behind his teeth.

—B is a brat the way a switch blade is merely an instrument composed of metal alloy

—B cares about me the way fire cares about kindling, the way the blade cares about blood

—B is a stray that ought to be adopted out, returned to the pound, put down-

The mere mention of that pernicious little sociopath irked something right on the edge ungracious but he managed to still hold his tongue, letting her compare the harbinger of his ruin to a house cat.

Backup had long since shed his performance of innocent ignorance, no longer pretending he lacked the grasp of English, that Alternative was spoiled and resented having attention divided between him and the new baby.

He is not my brother, he is a brood parasite, the egg of a cuckoo left in the nest of foreign parents that fail to recognize the artifice for what it is.

Alternative collected himself and began to consider the bed of Yoriko's roommate, "You never told me, if you liked him... Don't you and your roommate share a common origin?"

"I've thought that was why they roomed you together that and... the rumor is that Z only likes boys. Well— ...maybe the thought was that you and he wouldn't have too high an affinity for each other."

"I'm sorry if I am being too presumptuous, ... I don't even know if you like boys, Yoriko."

[a-for-alternative]

[B spots Alternative in the dining room, bending over slightly to set down his tray at an empty table. There's only one proper thing to do in a situation like this. Draw your hand back as far as you can and smack his ass as hard as you can so that people turn and look.]

[The startled gasp tore out of his throat before he could retain it behind his teeth. His lips thinning in annoyance, he shot a baleful glare at Backup over the sleep starved shadows rimming his eyes.]

[It drew the attention of his peers and the question hung between them— Will you take it laying down?]

Today was the first time they had shared lunch in years, a shaky attempt to resolve the incivility he felt towards the other for the threat he posed. Psychologists might call it ‘Reaction Formation’ but he called it tactical necessity, if only to pacify the tempting predilection for quid pro quo. Evidently, Backup had no such intentions of restraining himself for the sake of a threadbare peace. He was well pleased to sleep next to a seething Alternative who would bide his time and strike only when it was most opportune— or he was left without options.

[Alternative let his tray drop to the table, the way he would a heavy book to the desk surface where B attempted to take a furtive nap.]

"That's it- I've had it with you!"

[In a singular swift motion, he dipped two fingers into the heel of his shoe and peeled it off. Brandishing it in his right hand, he struck Backup across the backside in return-]

[y-the-youthful]

"... While I don't enjoy being seen like this, I don't feel there is much other choice. I'm not feeling well, B is trying to take advantage of that and I am trying to find somewhere to sleep that he can't easily slither into."

"Come in, come in." Z is off elsewhere for the night, so his space is free. She makes sure the door is closed and puts a door stop in place. This is a B-free zone. "You can have my bed, it is no worry at all."

Hers does also happen to have better blankets.

"Do you need anything? I can make a drink?"

[beyondthebackup]

B withdraws the thermometer from A's throat as roughly as he jammed it in.

"Well, well, well. Would you look at that? You have a temperature," B smiles in a way one might smile when seeing an adorable dog pass by. "Poor thing. Well, I guess I have no choice. I'll have to take care of you."

B tosses the thermometer behind his back and heads for their bedroom door.

"Don't move, I'll get you water."

B returns a few minutes later, but A did, indeed, move.

That fever was high...and that loser's too proud to go to the infirmary half the time, plus he knows I can find him there...

...Yoriko.

Those two. Alone. In her bedroom. All night.

B throws the glass of water onto the floor, and predictably, it shatters into pieces.

He flops onto his bed and screams into his pillow.

All because B put sedatives in A's water once or twice. Just because he extracted a couple of vials of blood that one time, and then he lifted those handcuffs, and that taser, and-

Well, he didn't put anything in the water, this time! He was seriously only gonna study him a little, and he would've done a good job, he got the top score in the mock surgery exam last week, and anyway it would've confused him if he actually did a good job, so he was gonna do a good job! Seriously!!!

He was seriously thinking about doing that!

Well, well, well. If it isn't the consequences of his actions.

[a-for-alternative]

  Alternative tucks a blood smeared left hand out of sight of his friend, while he could have gone unnoticed from afar, at this distance he thinks he won't escape scrutiny for the crimson collecting at the curve of his nails. 

  That’s embarrassing.

  In light of his stinging ego, he had put up a valiant effort to dodge but the anemic sensation lingering beneath his skin makes him clumsy. It’s a small mercy that B was too preoccupied with drinking in his distress to notice he had cut his hand on a knife surreptitiously placed so he might fend him off -- life is full of unjust irony like that. 

 Retreating to his childhood crush is only a little less humiliating than staying in his own bedroom in this state is terrifying. How little she must think of him... If they were ordinary teenagers, he could at least lie to her, he could tell her his parents were unreasonably cruel and his home had run out of trenches to hide in. Maybe he wished that were the case, there was something particularly demoralizing about being pushed out of your own ‘home’ by someone who was your own age and equal in all ways that mattered.

 As he entered the room, the finality of the concession left him right on the cusp of dismally bitter. He wanted B to come find him just so he could tell him, ‘Fuck you’ and ‘Die’. But, if ill-will had the power to inflict anything, B would have dropped dead a long time ago.

   I just want him to fucking die.

 The only thing his seething did was leave him with a hard feeling in his stomach that would keep him up or give him nightmares or both.

“I really appreciate it. I hate to put you out of your bed, ... I don’t want to infringe if I can help it.” 

He would at least try to salvage some dignity, he could have some grace about this, if he tried hard enough. 

“If you don’t mind... I would like something to tend to a cut.”

[y-the-youthful]

If Yoriko had any inclination of his thoughts, she would have said something along the lines of 'I think nothing foul of you, I am happy when you let me help', and he would have come up with another excuse on why he was lesser for it, and she would have said it again.

Saying it out loud would not help him, but there was the need to say it anyhow:

"It makes me happy when you let me help." No lies, no deceptions, an altogether rare thing in a place like this. "I will not lie, it is also because I am less likely to get sick than Z who has a habit of flinging himself upon the floor and wailing Hamlet quotes when ill if only so that I summon C to put him out of his misery."

It is partly true, and Z would stick with the statement to keep Yoriko from feeling like a full liar. He did, indeed, quote Hamlet for hours until his throat was hoarse but he did not fling himself to the floor. Could not, rather.

"I suppose B was playing a game of 'let's gut another victim'. He does not know when to stop." As though spoke from experience, which is true. Boredom was the bane of his existence and the bane of theirs as a result. She shuffled under the bed and pulled out the first aid kit. "Do you want to do it or can I?"

Can. Yoriko knew A's way of thinking in a way. Any plea for help was smothered with a brutality for wanting the illusion of strength where none was to be had, or to be needed. The only way Yoriko knew to play the game was to make it something that she wished to do, to give him the option. A would rather face collapse than be seen as weak. Making it her desire to do such things for him was one of the few ways to let her help at all.

[a-for-alternative]

Alternative always appreciated Yoriko’s forthrightness, when everyone else had such an artifice about who they were, Y was authentic. She was the closest thing to a whole person A believed he had ever met, not stunted by the expectations or the whims of an unchecked ego, Y was unapologetically herself.

But, that also made his growing feelings for her uniquely foreboding... Her actions could never be attributed to a bloodless enterprise like the pursuit of L’s title, if she transgressed or betrayed you, it was intentional and it was it’s own ends that she had made closure with.

He detected the delicate patter of a droplet of blood hitting the floor and felt a twinge of embarrassment course through him.

  “It’s fine, really. It’s not that bad...” 

      He quavered, finally withdrawing his hand from behind his back, hoping she would not notice the blood running down his forearm. 

   Was it more humiliating for her to think he had let B do this or that it was the result of his own failing to thwart an injury exactly like this?

   “I-...uh-? ”    She takes his hand in hers and without equivocation begins inspecting it with undaunted attention, her fingers pressing into the sticky essence that comes through the skin. He drinks in the gentleness of her touch, the gentle slope of her nails, the way girls just smell nice even when they aren’t trying. 

  Her hair is softly quaffed and threatens to cascade into her eyes when he reaches out and tucks it back behind her ear before he means to, it feels uninvited, he isn’t sure why he didn’t suppress the impulse.

      “ It’s.. clean. I just need it covered.”

[y-the-youthful]

There is a silence, a lingering pressure of something unacknowledged in the gentle touch that Yoriko would not announce. Yoriko was not in the nature of speaking such thoughts, letting others decide what was to be said out loud. It did not stop the slightest lean of her head into that hand that dragged back into place once the sensation had passed.

They were similar in that way, neither treading too deep into that realm of possibility, always too frightful that they had read everything wrong. As B would put in, in more bullying terms, they were both cowards.

"Then I will believe you." Yoriko is at least comfortable with whatever pace is taken. Whether things stay exactly as they are, things move on, or she is ultimately left behind as is inevitable as their worlds stand apart in the future (which is a guarantee she could bet money on) Yoriko can at least say that every time there was the option to be kind, she did so.

Perhaps it is then a violent contrast to lick the blood off her thumb as she searched for a bandage suitable enough. There was always that crude undertone to her. That, in the end, a tiger was still a tiger no matter how much you called it a cat, and she never wasted resources. Even blood.

"It did not seem too deep, at least, so you should heal well enough." Is said as she finds one that works well.

[a-for-alternative]

The slide of her fingertips leaves tingling trails behind a warm caress that is quickly washed out by the searing ache of the wound. The sensation slips way from tangibility so rapidly that he wishes he was daring enough to draw them up his arm where they could savor the ghost of her touch.

But he is not, Backup is right —it's cowardice.

The thought is swept away by the sight of her tongue licking his blood. For an instant he isn't sure he saw it, it occurs with such a fleeting mundanity that he nearly thinks he must have misunderstood, there must have been another explanation for her licking her fingers like she was sampling icing from a cake.

" uh-ohh, right—"

So preoccupied with trying to untangle her actions, he is almost caught off guard by the words that came out next.

"... I'm sorry- I really do appreciate this, though I never intended to become a task for you to tackle at bedtime— I will have to return the favor."

Her phone chimes blithely, a twinkling and eerie ring that A instantly recognizes; Backup was trying to settle the score before he even knew his next move.

" ... Perhaps, when I am better, I could tend to you somehow?"

At least, she would never have to know this was all due to his own foibles, he could still outmaneuver Backup if he didn't make too much of a fool of himself.

Alternative runs his fingers over the immaculate bandage and admires her work as he seats himself on the end of her bed, Yoriko's practiced hands could out do even the most seasoned in the infirmary.

"You've gotten really good at this... You know, I overheard the others talking about you the other day. I think they're right, Z is really fortunate to have you as a roommate, if only I had gotten so lucky."

[apostateapologist]

"Justice has more power than anything else." "Power? By power…you mean strength?" "No. I mean kindness." He said it so easily. Misora almost dropped the phone.

— Another Note: The Los Angeles BB Murder Cases - Chapter 6

[bbxkira]

Death Note Another Note: The Los Angeles BB Murder Cases- Victims ↳Believe Bridesmaid(44), Quarter Queen(13), Backyard Bottomslash(26)

[saturnscholar]

Could I possibly request my A in A7, please? >-<;

The golden child and his cloud

[y-the-youthful]

✉ i want them all

㊁ : emergency

[TXT: Absolutely Delightful]

I think they tried to kill me. I'm scared. [Deleted]

Come see me please.

♡ : endearing/affectionate/loving

[TXT: Absolutely Delightful]

Is it strange that I like patching up your injuries? You should give me better times to be affectionate with you or it's going to get confusing.

👅 : sext/suggestive

[TXT: Absolutely Delightful]

You have beautiful hands, I'd like to feel them more.

♪ : musical/lyrics

[TXT: Gone.]

[CosmoSheldrakeOwlSong.mp3]

★ : wrong number

[TXT: Gone.]

We cannot let them incinerate him. I won't let it happen.

☯ : angry/hateful

[TXT: Gone.]

You bastard, how dare you leave me behind. What am I supposed to do with this?

This is what happens when you don't tell me things!

I hate you.

Bastard.

Scumbag.

I miss you. ♖ : drunk/drugged

[TXT: Gone.]

I wonder if this would have been a slower option than how you went? I don't think we can compare notes.

Is your ghost reading these texts in that coffin of yours.

If yes send me a vaguely ominous message in my ear before I finally go.

Fuck.

I'm still here.

I think I heard you.

♛ : worried

[TXT: Absolutely Delightful]

You haven't sent any messages in a while. I hope you didn't stay up all night again. I'll come up with breakfast, it's too loud downstairs.

♘ : late night

[TXT: Gone.]

I don't know if I believe in ghosts. You can say whatever you want to me, I think I'm too scared to see you. I cannot smell a ghost I think. I don't know where you are. What would happen if I dug you up? We weren't able to find your grave, but if you text me maybe you can tell us.

We can do whatever you want, I promise I'll do it. B will even behave.

One time when I asked L how he felt with being L he told me I would know soon enough. I didn't know it then but I think I do now.

Lonely.

Please come back, I hate this.

I promise I won't complain anymore.

[a-for-alternative]

#A in his coffin just flipping through his phone after waking up because they buried it with him

㊁ : emergency

[Text: sanctuarY]

Don't Go

[VOICE MESSAGE]

". . . . . . "

". . . . . help. . . "

[jabbaimond]

Hey death note fans, im doing a fun little expirement thing. Reblog this post and put in the tags your favorite death note character, your sexuality, if youre an introvert or extrovert, if youre passive or assertive, and chose one: emo, goth, or scene

bonus: if your favorite character is Light, also tag whether or not you agree with Kira's ideals