Author: casuistor
For: mklt
Pairings/Characters: Light Yagami, Teru Mikami
Rating/Warnings: General
Prompt: “Mikami/Light , walking home together”
Author’s notes: This is a post-canon divergent AU where both Light and Teru survive the events of the warehouse and find themselves sharing a cell for the indefinite future. Teru does not have memories of using the death note because Near burned the notes at the end. Light has his memories intact because I’m assuming he was able to switch the death note in the Task Force’s possession out for a fake one. Given that I wanted this to be more based in canon I did end up interpret “walking home together” a bit uh.. liberally. You did specify a preference for hateships after all :P Anyway, I really hope you enjoy!)
Compared to the average Japanese, Mikami Teru has a strong sense of right and wrong. What was “good” and what was “evil” did not require an explanation. His sense of justice was innate, and like a compass unerringly led to a path of righteousness. Teru had no need for anything else – he was just because he did not know how else to live, and his way of living was just because that was the only way his way of life could be. It was a convenient tautology that could have been taken from the pages of any logic textbook as an example of fallacy, but he’d never acknowledged it as such. Some things in life were simply true by definition.
Even as he became a prisoner hidden behind locked doors somewhere in the bowels of Tokyo, he was still desperate to find ways to make the narrative of what occurred at Daikoku Wharf, if not clean of any personal culpability, then at the very least more palatable. It simply doesn’t make sense that an unremarkable (albeit unusually unscheduled) visit to the bank on the 26th of January could play an instrumental role in the end of an era of divine justice.
Suppressing a violent shudder, Teru clasps his hands together tightly as he sits on the edge of his narrow cot and tries not to breathe too loudly. On the inside, he hasn’t stopped screaming.
The smell of chlorhexidine soap coming from the man sharing his cell fills Teru’s nostrils, but there are no chemicals potent enough to make him forget how the scent of that man’s blood had made the back of his throat burn with vomit.
The cell is small for one person as it is, and Teru no longer knows why he expected to be detained privately. This is, by design, surely meant to be a personal hell. Not just for him, but for that man too. In a way, he supposes he’s relieved that he left his glasses at home for some peculiar reason this morning. No need to look at the imposter in crisp resolution.
Hours pass in silence as Teru cycles between the need to claw at the walls of his new home and willing himself to fossilize on the spot in anticipation of an inevitable confrontation. For years he’d yearned for the god’s arrival, and every day since his dearest hopes became reality, he’d dreamed giddily of one day walking alongside his god. Metaphorically speaking.
God never had a face in those innocent fantasies. God was protean and immutable, unknowable and familiar all at once and nothing made Teru happier. Even when it became increasingly clear that god was indeed a person rather than a truly divine force of will, Teru had simply recalibrated. God wasn’t defined by a physical form.
But you? You’re not god. You can’t be god. God would never fail. God would never have let this happen. God would never–
And so his thoughts continued, until Yagami Light made a benign noise – a cough, a sniffle or a shiver – and startle Teru so badly that he’d forget that he’d been adhering to a sensible policy of staring pointedly at his own hands and feet.
Yagami Light is very human and very much in pain. Lying in a cot with the thin blanket pulled up to his nose, brow furrowed and eyes squeezed shut, Yagami looks no older than a teenager fresh out of high school. A sickly, pale boy like that couldn’t have been the leader of a movement to change the world – alleged magical notebooks and shinigami be damned.
Teru can only suppose that it’s physical pain that’s keeping Yagami’s mouth shut for the time being. When Yagami Light had been carted away in an ambulance, there’d been nobody in the world that Teru had wanted answers from more. Now that they’re prisoners together, every second is leeching years off his life. Arguably that can only be a good thing. He closes his eyes and buries his face in his hands.
Perhaps beyond these walls, Kira was still carrying out judgments and Yagami Light’s true purpose was to serve as a decoy for god, and Yagami Light had dutifully deceived everyone at the warehouse. Perjaps Teru himself was merely the sacrificial lamb of a sacrificial lamb. The fact that he’s even entertaining something this ridiculous ought to be reason to stop, but a bitter ‘God could have cut out the middleman’ is all he can manage to think through the band of pressure squeezing his head.
A bodily gnawing pain grows in intensity and his breath gets sourer and sourer, but when a tray of food is pushed through a slot in the door, Teru ignores it. He’d been so excited this morning that he’d rushed through his breakfast. And for what? I don’t deserve this, I want –
A lawyer. One phone call. He could leave a message for Nakajima; she was a reliable sort.
Nakajima-san, I’ve been abducted and am currently being held prisoner somewhere in Tokyo. Please promptly inform the chief of why I will not be at work for the foreseeable future and then request a police investigation on my behalf, thank you.
The futility of such desires threatens to swallow Teru whole. Save me. Help me. I want to go home. God…
Rather foolishly, Teru steals a glance at the man across the room.
Misa! Takada! Mikami, what are you doing? Hury up and write down their names!! Teru’s throat constricts with sudden outrage. You can’t save me, you couldn’t even save yourself. You’re not god. This is all your fault.
“Mikami.”
Immediately Teru gets to his feet, fists balled. He has half a mind to correct the man speaking to him, but feeling too tired to bother with a pointless argument, resigns himself to leading by example.
“Yagami-san.”
Teru’s palms are coated with a thin film of sweat. He wouldn’t have dared call a true god by name without permission, but he does so now. And we both know why. Truthfully, he’s a little proud of his defiance, but the sentiment is undercut by the fact that Yagami doesn’t have the decency to acknowledge the disrespect as a proper insult.
“I’ve evaluated the situation and I’ve determined that the only way that everything makes sense is to assume that your name was written in the note.”
When it’s clear that the remark was meant to provoke a reaction other than ’you can’t be so dim as to miss the fact that I’m alive’ Teru replies with dry contempt. “I see.” Say something useful, damn you.
Yagami sits up slowly, gingerly moving one leg over the side of his cot after another His discomfort is obvious, but Teru can’t help but feel he thoroughly deserves it.
“Sit.”
It’s unquestionably an order, and one that Yagami clearly expects compliance with. Teru isn’t a man who is contrary for the sake of being contrary, but this… He opens his mouth to fire a retort.
“Or stand if you prefer. It makes no difference to me,” Yagami finishes with an audible shrug.
Teru narrows his eyes. “I’ll do that without your permission, thank you,” he says coolly. Strained civility isn’t particularly satisfying, but he can’t seem to marshal his thoughts without it.
Yagami raises an eyebrow incredulously, and Teru’s fists tighten.
“As you wish. But as it appears that we’ll be imprisoned together for now, don’t you think hostility is wasted energy? I’d rather not provide our captors with entertainment.”
On some level Teru sees a grain of truth in this, but that only makes Yagami all the more despicable. “You presume to lecture about dignity.” The vindication he gets when Yagami narrows his eyes is exhilarating enough that he’s able to sit down without feeling servile.
“No,” he says after a drawn out pause. “I was talking about a theory. You insisted on a more frivolous subject.”
Teru exhales forcefully as though punched in the gut. He’d never been one for laughter before, but with his face pressed into the rubble of the world as he’d always known it, all that’s left is unorganized, petrifying chaos with Yagami Light’s face.
“What could possibly be more frivolous than theories that don’t have meaning? Will that theory undo the irreparable damage you’ve done?”
Yagami’s jaw tightens, as they lock eyes. “Trusting you to understand a set of simple instructions was foolish.” A beat. “It must be convenient to simply forget your own oversight.”
Teru purses his lips, thoroughly disgusted that moments ago, he’d stretched the limits of his imagination to rebrand this man as a person who might be in a similar situation to himself.
“Assuming your knowledge of the powers of this ‘death note’ is complete and accurate, how would you know that your name wasn’t also written?”
The question doesn’t seem to faze Yagami. His tone is the most confident it has been all conversation. The SPK had taken his tie, as a “necessary precaution" but Teru is no longer sure who that was meant to protect.
“Because writing my name in the note to force a confession would’ve been meaningless. You were merely a means to an end. You were the person I was relying on. Turning you against me would’ve been strategically optimal, though impossible given your beliefs. But you gave them an opening by killing Takada on your own. You led the SPK to the note by going to the bank and they’ve been controlling your actions ever since.”
An icy silence. Going from having too many words to know what to say to having none at all seems to rip open a vacuum. Teru doesn’t fully understand how the poison coming out of Yagami’s lips could possibly be true, but he stares with magnetized revulsion. The continued insistence on an alternate reality that makes just a little too much sense to safely dismiss offhand numbs him from head to toe. If he’d been chosen by Kira, there’s no question that he would have dutifully and delightedly carried out god’s will. I wanted to be seen by Kira. I didn’t want this.
Somewhat anticlimactically, it’s Teru’s stomach that ends the standstill with a squelch of displeasure. “You have no proof.”
“Should you die within the next twenty-one days, that’ll be sufficient proof. The note can only control a person’s actions for twenty three days.”
Now fully aware that Yagami is actively waiting for him to drop dead, Teru turns his back on the despicable boy who might have been god.
“I used to dream about walking by your side. They were nice dreams then.”
I’ve never really shipped mikalight (though now I do a bit) but I was reading about Christmas traditions in Japan and I was intrigued by the romantic aspect and Christmas cake and this idea came to mind. Maybe Light made reservations at a nice restaurant on Christmas Eve and Mikami gets a little daring? I thought this might be the closest thing Mikami has said to “I love you” so far. I hope you like it!!!
(I am very tempted to write this out so if you are interested, feel free to message me!)
