On the tenth day of Christmas...
Jan. 4th, 2010 07:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tallulahgsmy true love sent to me
ten tricky choices
And surprisingly enough, only one of the resulting fics is Saw-related. I'm quite pleased with myself.
[Title] Listening
[Fandom] Death Note
[Rating] G
[Notes/Summary] Sachiko worries about her children.
Soichiro's hours were becoming longer and longer, and soon he was only sleeping at home for about half the week. Sachiko told herself not to care, that she should have expected this, and tried to revel in having the bed, and the covers, to herself. But it was too quiet at night now. It was too quiet, and she listened too hard. If either of the children had still been a baby, she would have slept in the same room as them, like she'd done when both of them were very small.
Being a mother for the first time had been scary, but of course she had been expecting it, to some extent. Looking at her son's tiny hand wrapped round her finger, she had thought of how new he was, how vulnerable, and how she was going to have to teach him everything, turn him into a proper person instead of this bizarre creature which didn't even have a functioning memory yet.
She'd listened too hard then, as well - partly for sounds from Raito, breathing (was it still there) mumbles or whimpers (was he going to start crying) - and then, of course, footsteps, noises outside (what if someone broke in) odd sounds that she knew were probably the heating system or the house settling, but couldn't be sure about.
The insomnia and hyper-alertness had passed, of course. And Raito had grown up into a little boy who had a personality and could already read and laughed at his own jokes until he fell over and loved playing with the Rubik's Cube someone had given him, and Sachiko's initial worries had been replaced by others easier to define and to solve.
Being a mother for the second time was different. In some ways it was easier, because now various things were less surprising and she no longer panicked that the baby was going to die because it wouldn't stop crying, or that she was a bad mother because she hated it for causing her to be awake at three a.m. And Raito was sweetly fascinated by his little sister, and gleeful at being able to call himself a big brother, and, although he was only three, could already understand the concepts of being quiet because Sayu was asleep, or playing on his own because Mum was busy with his sister, or not throwing a tantrum in the shop because he was the older one now. Perhaps it was because Raito got such a lot of praise for the maturity he was displaying that Sayu grew up into a louder toddler than her brother had been, more prone to screaming to see if she could get her way, more prone to doing something she'd specifically been told not to while looking round to see if Mummy was going to do anything to stop her. Sayu wasn't interested in books and tended to do things like leave her toys outside or scribble on them with felt tip pens. She had less... it was a stupid word to apply to small children, but less charm.
And Soichiro was almost never home, and Sachiko found herself listening too much again. Sayu was four now, and both children rarely disturbed her at night. So that gave her far more time to lie awake and ensure that she would know what to do if ever there was a fire, or if someone broke in. She knew that she was being silly, but she told herself that it was important to be prepared, to make sure that the children would be all right. Again, she had done this when Raito was a baby, but then Soichiro had been around more, she'd been able to incorporate him into her contingency plans.
Now it gnaws at her that she'd have to run from one bedroom to the other and then dash down the stairs dragging two sleepy children behind her. She worries that there won't be enough time. And then she worries about what she would do, if, if she realised that there actually wouldn't be enough time. If she could only go to one bedroom. (It's ridiculous to even think like this, but isn't it better than not thinking about it at all, assuming you'll be safe? Soichiro doesn't usually talk about work to her, but once or twice he's told her stories about people whose only function now is serving as an awful warning.) She worries away at the problem but she can't make it work out. Raito is older and cleverer, and if this were a story he would think up some resourceful, childish way to save himself. But Sayu is more obstinate and hates being woken up in the mornings, and she runs awkwardly, stumbles often. (Sachiko sometimes wonders how she can assess things like this at all, whether it makes her horrendously cold-hearted. But it isn't as if she can ask other mothers if they think about the same things. She herself only thinks about it at three a.m., and thoughts at that time don't count.) Sayu is her little girl, just out of toddlerdom and prone to the same distracted frown as her father. But Raito is her son, and hugs her and tells her he loves her lots, and if he was killed, everyone would talk about how tragic it was that such a brilliant, clever child died so young, how sad it was that only the average sister was left. Oh, they wouldn't say it to Sachiko's face, but she knows it every time Sayu's teacher shakes her head about how Sayu's struggling with maths, what a shame it is that she's finding it so much more difficult than her brother did.
In the mornings Sachiko hides her tiredness behind black coffee, and kisses both her children goodbye with equal affection.
[Title] Logical Extremes
[Fandom] Death Note
[Rating] G
[Notes/Summary] Kiyomi Takada writes down a name for the first time.
Takada tells herself that it's stupid to do something this important when you're tired and not fully prepared, and so first she takes a bath and then she makes herself some tea and then she spends some time ensuring that the apartment is as warm as she wants it to be and then, angrily, she realises she is doing exactly the same as she did when she was at university and about to start revising a topic she knew she was going to find difficult.
And so she sits down at the table and stares at the pen and the sheets of lined paper and the laptop open and displaying faces.
This really is not that difficult.
Takada has always despised people who profess to take a certain ethical stance and then don't. She despises people, in fact, who are unaware of any kind of obvious logical inconsistency in their thinking. How can they be so stupid? Don't they ever examine their own motives and beliefs?
She's never thought that she'd be thought highly enough of to actually help Kira.
Well. No, not quite that. She'd assumed that someone like her would remain off his radar, as a good, law-abiding, productive member of society. Oh, she'd known that she could offer more, but she wasn't going to be like those lunatics on Sakura TV. It should be that if you approved of Kira, you were polite and dutiful and refined because it was so obvious that Kira wanted that. Not lawlessness and religious mania. It really wasn't that difficult to be the best that you could be. Discovering that Raito Yagami is Kira has only proved her point. Yagami feels exactly the same as her about this.
She's worked hard enough for this. She's worked incredibly hard, to the point that her mother asked her doubtfully if she was sure it was wise putting so much into her career when she hadn't had a boyfriend since college. No one voices any of those criticisms now. She has a mass of adoring followers now. She has people who hold up signs in the crowd proclaiming their admiration of her. She has people who respect her for her skills, her politeness, her elegant manners. And she wants those things. It's not polite to admit it out loud, but of course she wants them. Who wouldn't?
Yagami had no difficulty in doing this, and so she won't either - and so suddenly she's grabbed the pen and began scribbling names, her handwriting messy and smudged, only pausing to check the spelling of a name or make sure that she's still linking it to the correct face. Yagami left her and there is no way that he will ever know about this hesitation, just like there's no way he will know how she cried quietly in her room at university, into her arm so no one would hear.
And if you want respect, you have to be willing to do whatever it takes to earn it, when the time comes. She's already Kira's voice. It only makes things better if she's his avenging hand as well.
[Title] Skin Deep
[Fandom] Akira/Saw
[Rating] R for violence
[Notes/Summary] Kaneda and Kai are trapped in a deadly test of character, and time is running out... Written for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
tannakitten, who wanted Kai, Kaneda and gore.
"You can't," Kaneda gasps. "Seriously, Kai, I know I never listened in biology but there is no way I'm going to survive you hacking into my guts with a rusty knife."
"Well, what the fuck do you want me to do?" Kai knows if he starts thinking he's probably going to throw up through sheer panic, so he doesn't think, he just yells. "I don't try and get the key, the bomb goes off. If I try then we can patch you up and get the hell out of here and maybe we'll both survive. It seems obvious to me!"
"I am your leader and I say there's no fucking way I'm going along with this."
"Okay, fine! You've got three minutes until we get shredded!"
Kaneda's eyes dart from side to side but Kai can see a terrified version of the same resentful look he gets when he's forced to study creeping across his face. "Fuck. Fuck you and fuck him and fuck everything."
Kai is already scrabbling for the butcher knife. It is rusty and grimy and he doesn't even want to pick it up, let alone use it to chop into his friend's stomach. Don't think about it. You're a goddamn Capsule, you can do whatever crazy shit you have to. It's just like biology class. Like those hearts. Didn't even faze you - Kaneda, shuddering, is already fumbling with his T-shirt, wrenching it up - then, thinking about it, pulls it off, shrugging his jacket back on over his bare shoulders. His skin's tanned and smooth and he looks way too young for something horrible like this to happen.
"If you don't get on with it I'm gonna pussy out," he says, and grits his teeth and closes his eyes. Kai doesn't hesitate (the thought of lying there waiting for someone to do that is too horrible). He lowers the knife to the skin and at first all he can do is make a thin cut to the side of Kaneda's belly button, like he's peeling an apple or something, right over the thin, barely-healed scar that Jigsaw must've left. Kaneda curses and Kai knows he's making his friend beg to be chopped open and that's just sick, that's really sick, and so, gulping, he sinks the knife down into the flesh. Not too deep. Some resistance - like organs or something? Okay he can't throw up. How long now? No, looking at the clock is just pointless, wasting time, and the knife is about an inch in now, Kaneda's shuddering and his hands are scrabbling against the concrete floor and then he's gripping the folds of his jeans with them til the knuckles turn white. Kai knows twisting a knife is, like, a bad thing, but he thinks if he draws the blade out he'll never get the guts (oh god) to put it back in and so he does twist it so that the wound will be cross-shaped. That's when Kaneda starts yelling. The colour's all gone from his face, already, and he's just yelling, not even cursing - Kai wants him to be cursing, that would mean it's still Kaneda underneath, inside -
The key can't be too deep in, right? Right?
It smells like biology class. Only no nice sharp chemicals, just the manky meaty blood smell. Kai draws a breath and hears it retch and Kaneda blinks and then he bellows, "Don't you dare, don't you dare wuss out now -" He's gasping and Kai closes his eyes a second as he reaches forward and plunges his fingers into the hot wetness of the wound. Blood. Blood and slipperiness and hot and Kaneda is shuddering and Kai wonders what the hell he'll do if he can't find the key, and whether you survive long enough to feel yourself being ripped apart by a nail bomb and he's going deeper, fingers sinking into red darkness and he's going to kill him, this is all his stupid fault, he can't, he -
Hard jagged metal in his hand. He wrenches it out - blood's oozing down his palms, his wrists - and runs for the bomb, if it goes off now there won't even be whole limbs left of him to find - and jams the key into the slot and turns it, and thank god, thank fuck, thank everything, the countdown pauses and the lights dim.
"Kaneda, quick, let's get moving, he said the door would open -"
Kaneda sits up a little. Kai didn't think it would be possible for him to get any paler, but somehow he is.
"That's my blood all over your hands," he observes, grinning shakily. "I'm gonna want it back, sooner or later."
Kai is tempted to try and think up a pun involving guts before he decides now really isn't the time. So, shrugging, he just presses the T-shirt to Kaneda's wound, ties it in place with his tie, and says, "Come on. I'm sick of your moaning."
[Title] Light of the Living Dead
[Fandom] Death Note, with added zombies, following on from my fics for earlier days
[Rating] PG-13 for violence and swearing. Also, character death
[Notes/Summary] As survival becomes ever-more difficult, tricky choices have to be made...
It all happened way too fast, Matsuda decided afterwards.
One minute they were all talking about Near and Matsuda was trying to think what else he could say to get Raito to stop looking so coldly furious and then the next minute there was a crash and a smash as the zombie beat out the glass in the window with its fists and then started to clamber over the piled-up desks towards them. And it lashed out and they all scurried back but Raito didn't move far enough, like the worry was slowing his reflexes down a bit. And they fired and fired and Matsuda managed to get it through the head (that seemed to be what worked, just like in the movies) but not before it had taken a few more staggers towards them, snarling, and torn Raito's shirt.
And then Matsuda was running across to the window and realising that the thing had been on the fire escape (it was - it had been - a girl zombie, in a pink skirt) and he was about to say something clever (though he didn't know what, because the window was smashed and so more zombies were going to - and so that meant -) but then he stopped when he realised that neither Raito or Ide were listening, because they were both looking at the torn sleeve of Raito's shirt and the bloodied skin beneath it.
"Oh, no..." Matsuda blurted it out before he could reflect on what a stupid response it was. Raito's face was blank. He reached out as though he wanted to touch the wound, then pulled his hand back.
"They said on Sakura TV," Ide says, hoarsely. "Once they draw blood from you, that's it."
"Well, we're not going to take their word for it, are we?" Raito looked up at him. His eyes were wide, his mouth curling into a slight smile. "Sakura TV are famous for their creative approach to the truth, after all."
"Under the circumstances, I'd rather not risk it."
And then Ide was pointing his gun at Raito and that happened too fast as well, by the time Matsuda was saying, "Don't... stop -" it had already happened as if he wasn't even there.
"What the hell are you doing?" Raito said.
"You can't stay here."
"You can't make me go out there."
"I said you can't stay here!" Ide was shaking - the gun swaying slightly. Matsuda would've laughed except for the fact that, you know, it wasn't actually funny. "You think we can risk it? If you change into one of them, you're trapped with us!"
"And if I go out there, I'll be dead!" Raito's eyes flicked from Ide to the shinigami, briefly. It was munching on another apple, looking kind of like a human eating popcorn at the movies.
"Better you than me."
"No," Raito said. "No, you can't do this. I'm not going to let you, I'm not going out there with - for god's sake, put down -"
"Don't you get it?" Ide shouted. "You're dead already! That's it! It doesn't matter if you die in here or out there, the fact is you're going to turn into one of them and you're sure as hell not going to do it near me!"
"No! I'm not - I'm not going to - I wouldn't -"
"You're just as human as the rest of all the poor bastards who've already succumbed. A To-oh degree isn't going to change that, you know -"
And that kicked Matsuda out of his stupor, it was something mean, like it sounded as if Ide had always been jealous of Raito and that was bad, Raito was amazing -
He was raising his own gun and he was saying, "Stop. Stop, we can't -" but Ide wasn't listening - the words were all jerky as he carried on, "If you want, I'll - I'll shoot you here, it might be easier, god knows I owe your father that much, I don't - but you can't stay, you know you can't -" and Raito was snarling back at him, "Don't you dare, you're just scared, I mean it, put the gun down -" and then he seemed to notice Matsuda -
And he was looking at Matsuda and he was looking so scared, as scared as Matsuda himself often felt, and he was saying, "Please - Matsuda, you have to help me - you can't let him do this -"
"I..."
"Stay out of this," Ide was shouting, "you know he can't stay here, if he stays here he'll kill us -"
Matsuda realised he was still holding his gun as if he was about to aim it but his arms felt heavy, he didn't know what he was going to do next. He started saying something, something like, "Ide... we can't, we could, we could see what happens -" and Ide was cutting him off, "Don't be so fucking stupid, you saw how strong they are!" and Matsuda wanted to scream at him to shut up, to just let him think - but there wasn't any time to think. That was the problem. Ide was already turning back to Raito: "Go on. Don't make me -" and Raito was looking at Matsuda and he was pleading, "Don't, Matsuda, don't let him - I can help - I can save us -"
And so Matsuda aimed his own gun at Ide just because Ide was clearly the one who needed to be stopped, Ide was the one who wasn't thinking. Only then, then it all went wrong. Because Ide didn't stop and didn't listen, he was just pulling the trigger and then the next second Matsuda had fired too. He hit Ide in the hand, knocked the gun out of his grasp, and he thought that would be enough, but it wasn't. Ide dropped to his knees, screaming, blood pouring from his fingers, but he was diving for the weapon even so and Matsuda thought - he thought - he must be one of them already - it must have got him too -
And then he fired and fired again and again and if he did that he didn't have to think about maybe having to kill Raito and when he lowered his gun Ide was sprawled across the floor, blood already seeping through his shirt, eyes looking at nothing.
That was the thing. It had all happened too fast.
It was almost dark by the time L showed up. Mello was still sitting on the draining board, gun in hand, taking the opportunity to eat some stale bread. He was a little concerned about the food situation. They'd not got much in because, you know, they were going to go on something that was to all intents and purposes a suicide mission and if they did survive, they'd buy milk and noodles afterwards, when they knew they'd be around to eat them. He hadn't anticipated the fucking zombies.
He was sitting on the draining board stuffing bread into his mouth because he knew he had to eat, just 'cause he felt kind of sick and pissed off and tired and like not eating again ever didn't mean he should go with those instincts. He'd learnt that in the Mafia, if nothing else (actually, a lot of what he'd learnt in the Mafia was coming in useful now). You ate stuff when you could and then you were less likely to screw up due to hunger later.
Matt had stopped playing those damn games and was perched on the worksurface next to the sink, swinging his legs and glancing out of the window.
"If this is shinigami stuff," he said, "you reckon a shinigami could reverse it?"
"Maybe. I doubt Sidoh could, but maybe someone with more brains than a sandbag. But it's not like we can even see them if they're about."
"One of the Kiras could help."
"Yeah, well, I'd go right round to Yagami's place and kick the door down if it wasn't for the fucking zombies everywhere." Mello snarled it, partly because he knew Matt was right. Their options were either to find a shinigami, or to hole up here and wait until they starved, dehydrated, went mad and killed each other, or were ripped apart by walking corpses. Or, to put it another way, their options were to venture outside to find a shinigami and get ripped apart by walking corpses, or hole up here and etc., etc.
But it wasn't just the shitty odds that were getting to him. He could admit that to himself, if not to Matt. Part of the reason he'd not made a decision yet was because he was waiting -
And so when he did see a skinny, pale figure shambling down the street, it was almost a relief. Get this over with.
Except that he still didn't know what he was going to do.
"Oh, hell, here's another one," Matt was saying, but Mello pressed his face to the clammy windowpane, squinted through his breath on the glass. Yeah. Yeah, it was L. Face even more bony and shadowed than it had been the last time Mello had seen him, clothes filthy and torn, expression slack and stupid, stupid, L was never stupid, but it was still - it was -
"For fuck's sake, Mello!"
"It - it's -"
"It's another one of them, what's wrong with you?"
L had huddled himself on the chair and held aniseed balls between finger and thumb and talked, his voice low and quiet and Mello had been thinking for the past five years why didn't I say more, ask more, I was a stupid kid, I wanted to impress him, I wasn't thinking straight - He was almost at the door. Damn it, if anyone could hold off zombie mind-control L could, right, couldn't he, couldn't he? And - and then -
He'd have someone to help him, he'd have L on his side, he'd beat that idiot Near and, and he wouldn't have to die -
- he wouldn't have to die -
That was what did it. He'd never been a coward and suddenly he was firing his gun and the pale figure outside was twisting and jerking and then it fell back into the shadows and was gone. Mello only stopped pulling the trigger when he realised there weren't any bullets left to fire.
Silence, until at last Matt said, "That was him, wasn't it. Or you thought it was."
"So - so what?" Mello realised his voice was croaky.
Matt shrugged. "I should've done it for you."
"Like hell. Just because you're a Doom fanboy doesn't mean you're a good aim in real life." That didn't sound fierce enough, so Mello carried on, "Besides, it wasn't a problem, it just freaked me out a bit, that's all. Fuck, if he was back, I'd never get to be the new L. Like I always said, I'm gonna win, whether it's L or Near who're in the way. Now - you know what we're gonna do now?"
"Something stupid?"
Mello grinned, even though he didn't feel much like smiling. He always knew what option he was going to take, it was just before he didn't have the balls. Or maybe before he didn't need a distraction from the thought of shooting L in the head, of possibly wrecking the only chance he'd ever get to have his hero back.
Matt probably worked out a lot of this stuff. He certainly didn't look particularly surprised when Mello told him, "We're gonna steal a car, go find Kira, and have a chat with his shinigami."
Raito's feeling a little calmer now. All right, he's been wounded by a zombie, the journey from the HQ to his apartment cost him the rest of their ammunition, darkness has fallen and the only ally he has with him is Matsuda; but on the other hand he's hiding somewhere with walls, food, small windows and only one exit, and he's managed to get rid of all but the most credulous member of the task force, who is in no state to think clearly anyway.
"All right, Ryuk," he says. "You must know how to reverse this."
Ryuk chuckles. "Aren't you worried about Matsuda hearing?"
"No, at the moment I really am not!" Raito tries not to look at the cut on his arm. There's an odd, mushy numbness spreading out from it - when he moves his fingers, it feels like his arm's on a time delay from the rest of him. How long has he got? Don't think about it. "Tell me how to reverse this and do it now." Matsuda's looking round, but numbly, like he can't really take in what's been said. It doesn't matter what he hears, anyway.
"I dunno if I remember." Ryuk smirks, his huge teeth glinting in the glow from the one remaining streetlamp outside.
"Listen to me," Raito says, trying to prevent his voice from shaking. "Either you tell me, we sort this out, I buy you a bag of apples, and you get to watch us humans scurrying around being entertaining. Or you don't tell me, the human race is destroyed by the living dead, and then the shinigami die out because zombies have no lifespan to take. It really isn't a difficult choice." He keeps his eyes on Ryuk's glowing red ones. If Ryuk doesn't - but Ryuk will, everyone obeys Kira in the end -
- but if Ryuk doesn't -
But this time, Ryuk laughs, springs up to crouch on the table. "Well, seeing as you put it that way. I dunno if this is right, but I'm guessing all you've got to do is reverse the stuff you did before."
Matsuda gasps, starts to speak, but Raito tunes him out. The most important thing is to restore order to the world. His guilt as Kira can wait. "Using my father's name?"
"Well... no. See, I reckon this happened because you tried to bring someone back from the nothingness, right? But you can't just bring one person back. You... opened up Mu and it flowed back into corpses. So, you need to give back what you've taken -"
"Ryuk, you clearly have no idea what you're talking about, so just tell me what you think I need to do."
"You perform the ritual backwards, using someone else's name. That kills 'em and restores the balance. I guess, anyway. It might be you can't fix it at all. But it's worth a try, I guess. You just need a name and face and to know they're not dead. I guess it won't work if they're undead." Ryuk chuckles, grins at Matsuda, who recoils. "Hey, I'm glad I'm not you right now, you've got victim written all over you -"
"Shut up, Ryuk!" Raito snaps.
"Raito," Matsuda says, his voice shaking a little, "tell me you didn't... tell me it wasn't like it sounds."
"I made a mistake, that's all."
"You - you asked the shinigami to turn everyone into zombies, that seems like a little more than a mistake to me!"
"Do you know how desperate I am to fix it?" Raito grips Matsuda's shoulders, lets his eyes widen, bites his lip. "I know people are dying out there and it kills me that it's my fault!" He swallows, glances away. "All I can do is stop this before it can get any worse." But Matsuda's already twisting away, shouting: "If you knew - you should have stopped it right away - Ide and Aizawa are - and probably Mogi and Misa-Misa as well, it's just us, you could have protected them if..." His voice trails off. Raito wonders if he's working out, belatedly, that confessing to the slightly more intelligent (or at least more naturally suspicious) members of the task force that he'd asked a shinigami to raise the dead would have resulted in awkward questions. He sees no reason to let Matsuda mull over that conclusion. He leans over the other man, brings his face close.
"Ide's dead because of you," he says softly. "We all do things we're not proud of and then don't know how to reverse them. Don't we?"
Matsuda goes still.
"I thought..." He swallows. "I thought I had to -" He glances at Raito's wound, then away.
"Exactly. I thought I was doing good, too. The shinigami lied to me, Matsuda, it told me that I could - I could bring my father back. How could I have resisted that?"
Matsuda stares at him, then glances at Ryuk. "You - you were trying - but why -"
"Because I miss him." Raito lets his voice tremble a little. Focus. You can do this. His mind is not becoming cloudy and slowed, that's just psychosomatic symptoms brought on by the thought of the infection. All he has to do is calm Matsuda down. "I miss him so much and... I couldn't sleep, I couldn't think, I... I have to hunt down Kira. You know I swore I would. I couldn't let things go on like this!"
"You could have talked to me!" Matsuda yells, and he's trembling. "I miss him too, I know it's not the same but - but you could have said, if you were sad enough to do something like this, you - I thought - I thought..."
Raito's prepared to bet that the sentence was supposed to end with something like I thought we were friends. He rubs a hand across his eyes, slumps into the chair. "I know. I know how stupid I've been. But now I want to fix things. We can save the world, Matsuda." Can he actually talk Matsuda into voluntarily giving up his life to end the plague? It would certainly make things easier than trying to do it surreptitiously, not to mention it would allow the man to die happy in the knowledge that he's been a hero. And then the entire task force would be dead and Kira couldn't be blamed. "Wouldn't you like that? We could make amends for what we've done. It's not a difficult choice. All I need you to do is help me."
"Well - of course I'll help you, I never said I wouldn't help... I just..."
"There's no time for questions now," Raito says. "I promise, afterwards, I'll explain everything." He helps Matsuda to his feet, squeezes his hand quickly. "Just help me get everything ready. Don't look so frightened."
Misa feels like she's always been waiting for death to be walking around the streets and nothing stopping it. And seeing people stumbling along the pavements just in their normal clothes but with their faces grey and their eyes filmy, it's like the Eyes, like now she can not only see when people will die she can see the ones that have died, too.
She thinks she might be more scared than she feels. They parked the car outside the apartment block and now they're creeping up the stairs, hoping they won't run into anyone dead. Mochi has the gun again, but Misa doesn't mind.
They got to the building where the task force HQ was and there were zombies all over it - Mogi had pointed out the smashed window on their floor. He'd refused to go in and she'd known she couldn't make him, not this time, if she shot him it would probably be better than going in. And she didn't want to shoot him. She didn't want to kill people not using the Note. She just didn't, okay? But she'd begged for Mogi to drive her to her and Raito's apartment. Just to check. There was still a chance. If he wasn't there, then - then there would just be nothing but corpses chasing her and no Raito, no Kira. Then maybe she'd shoot herself and then Mochi could do what he liked. She thinks she might have said that to him at some point, 'cause he's being nicer to her now, not angry any more. Of course, he's got the gun. Perhaps she could just jump out of a window. If Raito's dead, but he might not be, he's the cleverest person she knows, and he was going to make a new world, maybe this is like one of those death-and-rebirth things -
The apartment door is open. Misa thinks she actually stops breathing for a moment. But it's just open, not off its hinges, not battered and kicked in. That - please - Mogi is creeping closer, gun in both hands - she sticks close to him, tries to focus on looking around for hidden threats, she can do her best, if she doesn't look inside her home then -
There are voices. Mogi stops, stands still, and Misa presses against him, and they listen.
"So, all you need to do now is write someone's name." A smirky voice; Japanese spoken with an ever-so-slight English accent. "That's right, what's-your-name - Ryuk?"
The shinigami is laughing. "Yup, as far as I know. Like I said, I'm not making any promises."
Whoever it is can see Ryuk. That definitely can't be good.
"You know -" That's Raito, voice cold with fury - "it would be ironic if some more of the undead made their way in here and slaughtered us before we had a chance to complete the ritual."
"Yeah, you know what? It would also be ironic if this thing doesn't do what it's meant to and turns the person whose name is written into another walking corpse which then massacres us. I don't trust you or the death god, to be quite honest. And it's not like Matt's not keeping a lookout. When the chips are down, he can keep his eyes off a screen for more than a few seconds." Footsteps; the voice gets a little closer. "Anyway, Kira... we've got to pick a sacrifice."
"He's -" That's Matsu, but he sounds more sad and scared than Misa's ever heard him sound before and she feels bad for him as he stumbles on, "Stop saying that! For god's sake, he's not, you're wrong, you have to -"
"I thought I told you to keep quiet and keep your hands behind your head. You might want to be co-operative, seeing as I've got kind of a tricky choice to make here."
"Mello," a new voice says, "much as I love your obsession with drama, I'd really like to get rid of the zombies before some of them make their way up here. Can you get on with it?"
"Okay, okay, fine. All right, Kira - as far as I can tell, this idiot hasn't done anything really wrong, whereas you've... you know, murdered hundreds of people in the name of justice. You're a police officer, I'm sure you can see where I'm coming from."
"Just what I'd expect from the former leader of the Mafia." Raito still sounds furious, but his voice is a bit shaky; just a bit. "Not particularly interested in proof, are you?"
"I've got all the proof I need."
"I doubt L would agree with you."
"You shut the fuck up about L!" Mello sounds so vicious that Misa ducks round Mogi, she can't let him, she can't - "When it came to it, L could do what needed doing, and in addition to that, you killed him and I swore I'm going to have your head on a fucking plate for that!"
"They said you were always blinded by emotion," Raito is saying. Mogi grabs at Misa's arm but she shakes him off, what else does he think she's going to do? "Still, once you've got rid of your only suspect, I'm sure that'll be enough for you to close the case. I don't know if Near would see it that -" He's cut off with a gasp; Mello must have hit him. Misa tries to think - it sounds like there's two of them and if they're ordering Raito and Matsuda about and have made it here without being attacked they'll probably have guns - and okay, Mochi has a gun too but he'd probably make a fuss about shooting them or he'd want to ask questions about Kira or insist on doing all the work and he's not doing anything right now, he's just waiting, and she can't just wait -
Mello is laughing. "Oh, Kira, what's this? Doesn't look healthy, does it?"
"Get the hell off me!"
"Well, I don't know why you're being so arrogant. You're going to be lurching about hunting brains in, what, a couple of hours? I mean, your arm looks gangrenous. Hey, idiot, don't you think it's a little selfish of him not to be volunteering himself when he's screwed anyway and you're healthy apart from the stupidity?" And then Matsuda yelling, "No, I won't - I had to save him -" and there's a shot and all at once Misa works out what she has to do, and it's not a difficult choice at all.
Mogi was already running in when he heard the shot and so they're distracted by that, the two guys in ski masks, Raito is already trying to wrench the gun off one of them and Mogi is levelling his own weapon and Matsuda is on his knees clutching a bloodied patch on his arm and no one cares enough about Misa to stop her dashing over to the notebook and scribbling down her own name with the pen lying next to it.
"Stop it!" she yells, snatching it up, hands shaking. "Stop - stop it, it's all right - Raito - look -"
They stop and look at her and she feels giddy and high because she's saved Raito, saved everyone. She stares at him and tries to smile: "Raito - I know you'll miss me but... I had to -"
"Oh god, Misa-Misa, oh god, no..." That's Matsuda, looking white and sick and he tries to stand up and then slumps back. "No, you didn't have to, you've got to cross it out or something -"
"You're on the Kira task force and you still think crossing names out will work?" one of the ski mask guys - Mello - says. "You really are dumb."
"Shut up," Matsuda yells, "Misa, you can't, I should have - it should have been me -"
"It's all right," Misa says, but she isn't looking at Matsuda, she's looking at Raito. Raito should be pleased. Has she screwed up? Did he have some other plan? She thought - "Raito - please -"
Raito blinks, as if his thoughts were elsewhere. Then at last he says, "It's all right, Misa."
Misa dashes towards him. How long has she got? She's expecting every moment to be knocked off her feet by a heart attack, she has to get to say goodbye, he has to tell her that he loves her -
She's just reached him when it hits her and oh it's like someone crushing her chest between their hands and she doesn't want to cry, she wants to be brave, but she's crying anyway and she's digging her nails into Raito's arms and can't he tell her? Can't he say that he loves her? She's falling, the kitchen is blurring and darkening around her and she's sorry, she's so, so sorry - someone - Mochi - is catching her, helping her to lie down, and people are saying stuff but she can't hear what it is and Raito is just looking at her, unperturbed as if this isn't a surprise. That makes her feel a bit better. She was part of a plan, and that's something.
[Title] Companion
[Fandom] Portal
[Rating] PG
[Notes/Summary] GladOS reveals an unpleasant choice to be made. Spoilers for Chamber 17.
It's a metal box. It's a goddamn metal box and there is absolutely no reason she should have a problem with throwing it into an incinerator! For heaven's sake! And she's gritting her teeth and frowning because she thinks if she doesn't she might cry and, and she remembers that she hasn't cried in years because she always does this, gets angry instead and she can hear her breathing getting fiercer in the silence -
It's a stupid metal box with stupid hearts painted on it and it is a fucking inanimate object. It doesn't care that she's letting it down. She's not letting it down! It's a metal box! She was only telling it don't worry, we'll get to the end of this because it helped to reassure her. She was pretty much just talking to herself, which is kind of loopy anyway but not as loopy as thinking the cube is alive. The AI even warned her about this. Shit, if she just knew there was someone else out there that she could work with, someone who wasn't either an insane computer or a lunatic scribbling poetry on the walls, then dropping the damn thing into the fire would be a hell of a lot easier.
She has to get a grip. She's going to have to push the button and then run over to snatch up the cube and throw it in before the hatch closes, that fucking bitch is even making this into a puzzle.
She has to get a grip and get this done on her first attempt 'cause otherwise she thinks this might be the first time she considers giving up. And she's not going to do that. She's not going to spend her life in this place scrawling on walls and seeking companionship from objects. She is going to get out of here and she's going to do it in one piece.
Yeah.
She rubs a hand across her eyes, grips the portal gun more tightly, and prepares to start running.
[Title] Ceremony
[Fandom] Death Note
[Rating] PG
[Notes/Summary] Mello prepares to leave Wammy's House.
Mello deliberately doesn't indulge in any kind of goodbye. He just runs back to his room, crams various possessions into a rucksack, grabs the emergency bar of dark chocolate taped under the bedside table, and -
He's going to hightail it out the window, the way he usually leaves the room when he's doing something that the rest of the orphanage (bar Matt) don't need to know about. But in the end, he doesn't. He doesn't want to remember the creak of the window opening and the lichened bricks scraping his ankles and the handholds covered with ivy, he doesn't want to top up the memory just so he can play it back later. That'd get you feeling all sad, and he suspects feeling sad is not going to be an option for him, not any more. Heck - hell, it might even get him feeling like he doesn't want to leave, and that's certainly not a fucking option, not now.
He goes out through the front door instead, scuffing his feet on the black-and-white tiles and giving the finger to the high gates once he's passed through them.
[Title] Choices of Leaders
[Fandom] Jet Set Radio
[Rating] PG
[Notes/Summary] Gum and Beat meet again under awkward circumstances.
"Long time no see."
"Yeah, I said I was sorry, all right?" Gum folds her arms, digs her nails into her hands. The wall is cold on her back; she knows her companion's perched on the ledge of the half-pipe. She doesn't like this place at night, especially not in this situation.
"If it were you, would you be satisfied with just a sorry?"
"Probably not," she says. "But I get pissed off about everything. You were always more chilled."
"This isn't a joke, you know."
"Yeah, you think I went back to the garage being all hey guys, I just left Beat trapped under a bus so's I could save mine and Garam's miserable asses. Who's up for pizza?"
"I dunno, did you?"
"Oh, fuck you." Gum really wants to turn round, scream the words up at him, but in some ways there's more satisfaction in being calm. He clearly wants to cast her as the stone-cold psychopath. "You really didn't know me so well, did you? Come on, leader man, you really telling me if it had been me you'd have dashed in and got you and Garam nabbed as well? Mathematically, it doesn't work out so good."
Beat breathes in; breathes out, the sound is harsh. Gum is glad she can't see his face. Hell, if it had been her wouldn't she have been fuming once she got out?
"I just came to tell you I was out of here," he says at last. "This place has kind of lost its shine for me."
"Just 'cause I'm yelling curses at you doesn't mean I don't want you to come back." But she isn't surprised, really. Perhaps it's easier for him if she is given the psycho role. Then he can pretend that shitty choices like that don't happen to good people.
ten tricky choices
And surprisingly enough, only one of the resulting fics is Saw-related. I'm quite pleased with myself.
[Title] Listening
[Fandom] Death Note
[Rating] G
[Notes/Summary] Sachiko worries about her children.
Soichiro's hours were becoming longer and longer, and soon he was only sleeping at home for about half the week. Sachiko told herself not to care, that she should have expected this, and tried to revel in having the bed, and the covers, to herself. But it was too quiet at night now. It was too quiet, and she listened too hard. If either of the children had still been a baby, she would have slept in the same room as them, like she'd done when both of them were very small.
Being a mother for the first time had been scary, but of course she had been expecting it, to some extent. Looking at her son's tiny hand wrapped round her finger, she had thought of how new he was, how vulnerable, and how she was going to have to teach him everything, turn him into a proper person instead of this bizarre creature which didn't even have a functioning memory yet.
She'd listened too hard then, as well - partly for sounds from Raito, breathing (was it still there) mumbles or whimpers (was he going to start crying) - and then, of course, footsteps, noises outside (what if someone broke in) odd sounds that she knew were probably the heating system or the house settling, but couldn't be sure about.
The insomnia and hyper-alertness had passed, of course. And Raito had grown up into a little boy who had a personality and could already read and laughed at his own jokes until he fell over and loved playing with the Rubik's Cube someone had given him, and Sachiko's initial worries had been replaced by others easier to define and to solve.
Being a mother for the second time was different. In some ways it was easier, because now various things were less surprising and she no longer panicked that the baby was going to die because it wouldn't stop crying, or that she was a bad mother because she hated it for causing her to be awake at three a.m. And Raito was sweetly fascinated by his little sister, and gleeful at being able to call himself a big brother, and, although he was only three, could already understand the concepts of being quiet because Sayu was asleep, or playing on his own because Mum was busy with his sister, or not throwing a tantrum in the shop because he was the older one now. Perhaps it was because Raito got such a lot of praise for the maturity he was displaying that Sayu grew up into a louder toddler than her brother had been, more prone to screaming to see if she could get her way, more prone to doing something she'd specifically been told not to while looking round to see if Mummy was going to do anything to stop her. Sayu wasn't interested in books and tended to do things like leave her toys outside or scribble on them with felt tip pens. She had less... it was a stupid word to apply to small children, but less charm.
And Soichiro was almost never home, and Sachiko found herself listening too much again. Sayu was four now, and both children rarely disturbed her at night. So that gave her far more time to lie awake and ensure that she would know what to do if ever there was a fire, or if someone broke in. She knew that she was being silly, but she told herself that it was important to be prepared, to make sure that the children would be all right. Again, she had done this when Raito was a baby, but then Soichiro had been around more, she'd been able to incorporate him into her contingency plans.
Now it gnaws at her that she'd have to run from one bedroom to the other and then dash down the stairs dragging two sleepy children behind her. She worries that there won't be enough time. And then she worries about what she would do, if, if she realised that there actually wouldn't be enough time. If she could only go to one bedroom. (It's ridiculous to even think like this, but isn't it better than not thinking about it at all, assuming you'll be safe? Soichiro doesn't usually talk about work to her, but once or twice he's told her stories about people whose only function now is serving as an awful warning.) She worries away at the problem but she can't make it work out. Raito is older and cleverer, and if this were a story he would think up some resourceful, childish way to save himself. But Sayu is more obstinate and hates being woken up in the mornings, and she runs awkwardly, stumbles often. (Sachiko sometimes wonders how she can assess things like this at all, whether it makes her horrendously cold-hearted. But it isn't as if she can ask other mothers if they think about the same things. She herself only thinks about it at three a.m., and thoughts at that time don't count.) Sayu is her little girl, just out of toddlerdom and prone to the same distracted frown as her father. But Raito is her son, and hugs her and tells her he loves her lots, and if he was killed, everyone would talk about how tragic it was that such a brilliant, clever child died so young, how sad it was that only the average sister was left. Oh, they wouldn't say it to Sachiko's face, but she knows it every time Sayu's teacher shakes her head about how Sayu's struggling with maths, what a shame it is that she's finding it so much more difficult than her brother did.
In the mornings Sachiko hides her tiredness behind black coffee, and kisses both her children goodbye with equal affection.
[Title] Logical Extremes
[Fandom] Death Note
[Rating] G
[Notes/Summary] Kiyomi Takada writes down a name for the first time.
Takada tells herself that it's stupid to do something this important when you're tired and not fully prepared, and so first she takes a bath and then she makes herself some tea and then she spends some time ensuring that the apartment is as warm as she wants it to be and then, angrily, she realises she is doing exactly the same as she did when she was at university and about to start revising a topic she knew she was going to find difficult.
And so she sits down at the table and stares at the pen and the sheets of lined paper and the laptop open and displaying faces.
This really is not that difficult.
Takada has always despised people who profess to take a certain ethical stance and then don't. She despises people, in fact, who are unaware of any kind of obvious logical inconsistency in their thinking. How can they be so stupid? Don't they ever examine their own motives and beliefs?
She's never thought that she'd be thought highly enough of to actually help Kira.
Well. No, not quite that. She'd assumed that someone like her would remain off his radar, as a good, law-abiding, productive member of society. Oh, she'd known that she could offer more, but she wasn't going to be like those lunatics on Sakura TV. It should be that if you approved of Kira, you were polite and dutiful and refined because it was so obvious that Kira wanted that. Not lawlessness and religious mania. It really wasn't that difficult to be the best that you could be. Discovering that Raito Yagami is Kira has only proved her point. Yagami feels exactly the same as her about this.
She's worked hard enough for this. She's worked incredibly hard, to the point that her mother asked her doubtfully if she was sure it was wise putting so much into her career when she hadn't had a boyfriend since college. No one voices any of those criticisms now. She has a mass of adoring followers now. She has people who hold up signs in the crowd proclaiming their admiration of her. She has people who respect her for her skills, her politeness, her elegant manners. And she wants those things. It's not polite to admit it out loud, but of course she wants them. Who wouldn't?
Yagami had no difficulty in doing this, and so she won't either - and so suddenly she's grabbed the pen and began scribbling names, her handwriting messy and smudged, only pausing to check the spelling of a name or make sure that she's still linking it to the correct face. Yagami left her and there is no way that he will ever know about this hesitation, just like there's no way he will know how she cried quietly in her room at university, into her arm so no one would hear.
And if you want respect, you have to be willing to do whatever it takes to earn it, when the time comes. She's already Kira's voice. It only makes things better if she's his avenging hand as well.
[Title] Skin Deep
[Fandom] Akira/Saw
[Rating] R for violence
[Notes/Summary] Kaneda and Kai are trapped in a deadly test of character, and time is running out... Written for
tannakitten, who wanted Kai, Kaneda and gore."You can't," Kaneda gasps. "Seriously, Kai, I know I never listened in biology but there is no way I'm going to survive you hacking into my guts with a rusty knife."
"Well, what the fuck do you want me to do?" Kai knows if he starts thinking he's probably going to throw up through sheer panic, so he doesn't think, he just yells. "I don't try and get the key, the bomb goes off. If I try then we can patch you up and get the hell out of here and maybe we'll both survive. It seems obvious to me!"
"I am your leader and I say there's no fucking way I'm going along with this."
"Okay, fine! You've got three minutes until we get shredded!"
Kaneda's eyes dart from side to side but Kai can see a terrified version of the same resentful look he gets when he's forced to study creeping across his face. "Fuck. Fuck you and fuck him and fuck everything."
Kai is already scrabbling for the butcher knife. It is rusty and grimy and he doesn't even want to pick it up, let alone use it to chop into his friend's stomach. Don't think about it. You're a goddamn Capsule, you can do whatever crazy shit you have to. It's just like biology class. Like those hearts. Didn't even faze you - Kaneda, shuddering, is already fumbling with his T-shirt, wrenching it up - then, thinking about it, pulls it off, shrugging his jacket back on over his bare shoulders. His skin's tanned and smooth and he looks way too young for something horrible like this to happen.
"If you don't get on with it I'm gonna pussy out," he says, and grits his teeth and closes his eyes. Kai doesn't hesitate (the thought of lying there waiting for someone to do that is too horrible). He lowers the knife to the skin and at first all he can do is make a thin cut to the side of Kaneda's belly button, like he's peeling an apple or something, right over the thin, barely-healed scar that Jigsaw must've left. Kaneda curses and Kai knows he's making his friend beg to be chopped open and that's just sick, that's really sick, and so, gulping, he sinks the knife down into the flesh. Not too deep. Some resistance - like organs or something? Okay he can't throw up. How long now? No, looking at the clock is just pointless, wasting time, and the knife is about an inch in now, Kaneda's shuddering and his hands are scrabbling against the concrete floor and then he's gripping the folds of his jeans with them til the knuckles turn white. Kai knows twisting a knife is, like, a bad thing, but he thinks if he draws the blade out he'll never get the guts (oh god) to put it back in and so he does twist it so that the wound will be cross-shaped. That's when Kaneda starts yelling. The colour's all gone from his face, already, and he's just yelling, not even cursing - Kai wants him to be cursing, that would mean it's still Kaneda underneath, inside -
The key can't be too deep in, right? Right?
It smells like biology class. Only no nice sharp chemicals, just the manky meaty blood smell. Kai draws a breath and hears it retch and Kaneda blinks and then he bellows, "Don't you dare, don't you dare wuss out now -" He's gasping and Kai closes his eyes a second as he reaches forward and plunges his fingers into the hot wetness of the wound. Blood. Blood and slipperiness and hot and Kaneda is shuddering and Kai wonders what the hell he'll do if he can't find the key, and whether you survive long enough to feel yourself being ripped apart by a nail bomb and he's going deeper, fingers sinking into red darkness and he's going to kill him, this is all his stupid fault, he can't, he -
Hard jagged metal in his hand. He wrenches it out - blood's oozing down his palms, his wrists - and runs for the bomb, if it goes off now there won't even be whole limbs left of him to find - and jams the key into the slot and turns it, and thank god, thank fuck, thank everything, the countdown pauses and the lights dim.
"Kaneda, quick, let's get moving, he said the door would open -"
Kaneda sits up a little. Kai didn't think it would be possible for him to get any paler, but somehow he is.
"That's my blood all over your hands," he observes, grinning shakily. "I'm gonna want it back, sooner or later."
Kai is tempted to try and think up a pun involving guts before he decides now really isn't the time. So, shrugging, he just presses the T-shirt to Kaneda's wound, ties it in place with his tie, and says, "Come on. I'm sick of your moaning."
[Title] Light of the Living Dead
[Fandom] Death Note, with added zombies, following on from my fics for earlier days
[Rating] PG-13 for violence and swearing. Also, character death
[Notes/Summary] As survival becomes ever-more difficult, tricky choices have to be made...
It all happened way too fast, Matsuda decided afterwards.
One minute they were all talking about Near and Matsuda was trying to think what else he could say to get Raito to stop looking so coldly furious and then the next minute there was a crash and a smash as the zombie beat out the glass in the window with its fists and then started to clamber over the piled-up desks towards them. And it lashed out and they all scurried back but Raito didn't move far enough, like the worry was slowing his reflexes down a bit. And they fired and fired and Matsuda managed to get it through the head (that seemed to be what worked, just like in the movies) but not before it had taken a few more staggers towards them, snarling, and torn Raito's shirt.
And then Matsuda was running across to the window and realising that the thing had been on the fire escape (it was - it had been - a girl zombie, in a pink skirt) and he was about to say something clever (though he didn't know what, because the window was smashed and so more zombies were going to - and so that meant -) but then he stopped when he realised that neither Raito or Ide were listening, because they were both looking at the torn sleeve of Raito's shirt and the bloodied skin beneath it.
"Oh, no..." Matsuda blurted it out before he could reflect on what a stupid response it was. Raito's face was blank. He reached out as though he wanted to touch the wound, then pulled his hand back.
"They said on Sakura TV," Ide says, hoarsely. "Once they draw blood from you, that's it."
"Well, we're not going to take their word for it, are we?" Raito looked up at him. His eyes were wide, his mouth curling into a slight smile. "Sakura TV are famous for their creative approach to the truth, after all."
"Under the circumstances, I'd rather not risk it."
And then Ide was pointing his gun at Raito and that happened too fast as well, by the time Matsuda was saying, "Don't... stop -" it had already happened as if he wasn't even there.
"What the hell are you doing?" Raito said.
"You can't stay here."
"You can't make me go out there."
"I said you can't stay here!" Ide was shaking - the gun swaying slightly. Matsuda would've laughed except for the fact that, you know, it wasn't actually funny. "You think we can risk it? If you change into one of them, you're trapped with us!"
"And if I go out there, I'll be dead!" Raito's eyes flicked from Ide to the shinigami, briefly. It was munching on another apple, looking kind of like a human eating popcorn at the movies.
"Better you than me."
"No," Raito said. "No, you can't do this. I'm not going to let you, I'm not going out there with - for god's sake, put down -"
"Don't you get it?" Ide shouted. "You're dead already! That's it! It doesn't matter if you die in here or out there, the fact is you're going to turn into one of them and you're sure as hell not going to do it near me!"
"No! I'm not - I'm not going to - I wouldn't -"
"You're just as human as the rest of all the poor bastards who've already succumbed. A To-oh degree isn't going to change that, you know -"
And that kicked Matsuda out of his stupor, it was something mean, like it sounded as if Ide had always been jealous of Raito and that was bad, Raito was amazing -
He was raising his own gun and he was saying, "Stop. Stop, we can't -" but Ide wasn't listening - the words were all jerky as he carried on, "If you want, I'll - I'll shoot you here, it might be easier, god knows I owe your father that much, I don't - but you can't stay, you know you can't -" and Raito was snarling back at him, "Don't you dare, you're just scared, I mean it, put the gun down -" and then he seemed to notice Matsuda -
And he was looking at Matsuda and he was looking so scared, as scared as Matsuda himself often felt, and he was saying, "Please - Matsuda, you have to help me - you can't let him do this -"
"I..."
"Stay out of this," Ide was shouting, "you know he can't stay here, if he stays here he'll kill us -"
Matsuda realised he was still holding his gun as if he was about to aim it but his arms felt heavy, he didn't know what he was going to do next. He started saying something, something like, "Ide... we can't, we could, we could see what happens -" and Ide was cutting him off, "Don't be so fucking stupid, you saw how strong they are!" and Matsuda wanted to scream at him to shut up, to just let him think - but there wasn't any time to think. That was the problem. Ide was already turning back to Raito: "Go on. Don't make me -" and Raito was looking at Matsuda and he was pleading, "Don't, Matsuda, don't let him - I can help - I can save us -"
And so Matsuda aimed his own gun at Ide just because Ide was clearly the one who needed to be stopped, Ide was the one who wasn't thinking. Only then, then it all went wrong. Because Ide didn't stop and didn't listen, he was just pulling the trigger and then the next second Matsuda had fired too. He hit Ide in the hand, knocked the gun out of his grasp, and he thought that would be enough, but it wasn't. Ide dropped to his knees, screaming, blood pouring from his fingers, but he was diving for the weapon even so and Matsuda thought - he thought - he must be one of them already - it must have got him too -
And then he fired and fired again and again and if he did that he didn't have to think about maybe having to kill Raito and when he lowered his gun Ide was sprawled across the floor, blood already seeping through his shirt, eyes looking at nothing.
That was the thing. It had all happened too fast.
It was almost dark by the time L showed up. Mello was still sitting on the draining board, gun in hand, taking the opportunity to eat some stale bread. He was a little concerned about the food situation. They'd not got much in because, you know, they were going to go on something that was to all intents and purposes a suicide mission and if they did survive, they'd buy milk and noodles afterwards, when they knew they'd be around to eat them. He hadn't anticipated the fucking zombies.
He was sitting on the draining board stuffing bread into his mouth because he knew he had to eat, just 'cause he felt kind of sick and pissed off and tired and like not eating again ever didn't mean he should go with those instincts. He'd learnt that in the Mafia, if nothing else (actually, a lot of what he'd learnt in the Mafia was coming in useful now). You ate stuff when you could and then you were less likely to screw up due to hunger later.
Matt had stopped playing those damn games and was perched on the worksurface next to the sink, swinging his legs and glancing out of the window.
"If this is shinigami stuff," he said, "you reckon a shinigami could reverse it?"
"Maybe. I doubt Sidoh could, but maybe someone with more brains than a sandbag. But it's not like we can even see them if they're about."
"One of the Kiras could help."
"Yeah, well, I'd go right round to Yagami's place and kick the door down if it wasn't for the fucking zombies everywhere." Mello snarled it, partly because he knew Matt was right. Their options were either to find a shinigami, or to hole up here and wait until they starved, dehydrated, went mad and killed each other, or were ripped apart by walking corpses. Or, to put it another way, their options were to venture outside to find a shinigami and get ripped apart by walking corpses, or hole up here and etc., etc.
But it wasn't just the shitty odds that were getting to him. He could admit that to himself, if not to Matt. Part of the reason he'd not made a decision yet was because he was waiting -
And so when he did see a skinny, pale figure shambling down the street, it was almost a relief. Get this over with.
Except that he still didn't know what he was going to do.
"Oh, hell, here's another one," Matt was saying, but Mello pressed his face to the clammy windowpane, squinted through his breath on the glass. Yeah. Yeah, it was L. Face even more bony and shadowed than it had been the last time Mello had seen him, clothes filthy and torn, expression slack and stupid, stupid, L was never stupid, but it was still - it was -
"For fuck's sake, Mello!"
"It - it's -"
"It's another one of them, what's wrong with you?"
L had huddled himself on the chair and held aniseed balls between finger and thumb and talked, his voice low and quiet and Mello had been thinking for the past five years why didn't I say more, ask more, I was a stupid kid, I wanted to impress him, I wasn't thinking straight - He was almost at the door. Damn it, if anyone could hold off zombie mind-control L could, right, couldn't he, couldn't he? And - and then -
He'd have someone to help him, he'd have L on his side, he'd beat that idiot Near and, and he wouldn't have to die -
- he wouldn't have to die -
That was what did it. He'd never been a coward and suddenly he was firing his gun and the pale figure outside was twisting and jerking and then it fell back into the shadows and was gone. Mello only stopped pulling the trigger when he realised there weren't any bullets left to fire.
Silence, until at last Matt said, "That was him, wasn't it. Or you thought it was."
"So - so what?" Mello realised his voice was croaky.
Matt shrugged. "I should've done it for you."
"Like hell. Just because you're a Doom fanboy doesn't mean you're a good aim in real life." That didn't sound fierce enough, so Mello carried on, "Besides, it wasn't a problem, it just freaked me out a bit, that's all. Fuck, if he was back, I'd never get to be the new L. Like I always said, I'm gonna win, whether it's L or Near who're in the way. Now - you know what we're gonna do now?"
"Something stupid?"
Mello grinned, even though he didn't feel much like smiling. He always knew what option he was going to take, it was just before he didn't have the balls. Or maybe before he didn't need a distraction from the thought of shooting L in the head, of possibly wrecking the only chance he'd ever get to have his hero back.
Matt probably worked out a lot of this stuff. He certainly didn't look particularly surprised when Mello told him, "We're gonna steal a car, go find Kira, and have a chat with his shinigami."
Raito's feeling a little calmer now. All right, he's been wounded by a zombie, the journey from the HQ to his apartment cost him the rest of their ammunition, darkness has fallen and the only ally he has with him is Matsuda; but on the other hand he's hiding somewhere with walls, food, small windows and only one exit, and he's managed to get rid of all but the most credulous member of the task force, who is in no state to think clearly anyway.
"All right, Ryuk," he says. "You must know how to reverse this."
Ryuk chuckles. "Aren't you worried about Matsuda hearing?"
"No, at the moment I really am not!" Raito tries not to look at the cut on his arm. There's an odd, mushy numbness spreading out from it - when he moves his fingers, it feels like his arm's on a time delay from the rest of him. How long has he got? Don't think about it. "Tell me how to reverse this and do it now." Matsuda's looking round, but numbly, like he can't really take in what's been said. It doesn't matter what he hears, anyway.
"I dunno if I remember." Ryuk smirks, his huge teeth glinting in the glow from the one remaining streetlamp outside.
"Listen to me," Raito says, trying to prevent his voice from shaking. "Either you tell me, we sort this out, I buy you a bag of apples, and you get to watch us humans scurrying around being entertaining. Or you don't tell me, the human race is destroyed by the living dead, and then the shinigami die out because zombies have no lifespan to take. It really isn't a difficult choice." He keeps his eyes on Ryuk's glowing red ones. If Ryuk doesn't - but Ryuk will, everyone obeys Kira in the end -
- but if Ryuk doesn't -
But this time, Ryuk laughs, springs up to crouch on the table. "Well, seeing as you put it that way. I dunno if this is right, but I'm guessing all you've got to do is reverse the stuff you did before."
Matsuda gasps, starts to speak, but Raito tunes him out. The most important thing is to restore order to the world. His guilt as Kira can wait. "Using my father's name?"
"Well... no. See, I reckon this happened because you tried to bring someone back from the nothingness, right? But you can't just bring one person back. You... opened up Mu and it flowed back into corpses. So, you need to give back what you've taken -"
"Ryuk, you clearly have no idea what you're talking about, so just tell me what you think I need to do."
"You perform the ritual backwards, using someone else's name. That kills 'em and restores the balance. I guess, anyway. It might be you can't fix it at all. But it's worth a try, I guess. You just need a name and face and to know they're not dead. I guess it won't work if they're undead." Ryuk chuckles, grins at Matsuda, who recoils. "Hey, I'm glad I'm not you right now, you've got victim written all over you -"
"Shut up, Ryuk!" Raito snaps.
"Raito," Matsuda says, his voice shaking a little, "tell me you didn't... tell me it wasn't like it sounds."
"I made a mistake, that's all."
"You - you asked the shinigami to turn everyone into zombies, that seems like a little more than a mistake to me!"
"Do you know how desperate I am to fix it?" Raito grips Matsuda's shoulders, lets his eyes widen, bites his lip. "I know people are dying out there and it kills me that it's my fault!" He swallows, glances away. "All I can do is stop this before it can get any worse." But Matsuda's already twisting away, shouting: "If you knew - you should have stopped it right away - Ide and Aizawa are - and probably Mogi and Misa-Misa as well, it's just us, you could have protected them if..." His voice trails off. Raito wonders if he's working out, belatedly, that confessing to the slightly more intelligent (or at least more naturally suspicious) members of the task force that he'd asked a shinigami to raise the dead would have resulted in awkward questions. He sees no reason to let Matsuda mull over that conclusion. He leans over the other man, brings his face close.
"Ide's dead because of you," he says softly. "We all do things we're not proud of and then don't know how to reverse them. Don't we?"
Matsuda goes still.
"I thought..." He swallows. "I thought I had to -" He glances at Raito's wound, then away.
"Exactly. I thought I was doing good, too. The shinigami lied to me, Matsuda, it told me that I could - I could bring my father back. How could I have resisted that?"
Matsuda stares at him, then glances at Ryuk. "You - you were trying - but why -"
"Because I miss him." Raito lets his voice tremble a little. Focus. You can do this. His mind is not becoming cloudy and slowed, that's just psychosomatic symptoms brought on by the thought of the infection. All he has to do is calm Matsuda down. "I miss him so much and... I couldn't sleep, I couldn't think, I... I have to hunt down Kira. You know I swore I would. I couldn't let things go on like this!"
"You could have talked to me!" Matsuda yells, and he's trembling. "I miss him too, I know it's not the same but - but you could have said, if you were sad enough to do something like this, you - I thought - I thought..."
Raito's prepared to bet that the sentence was supposed to end with something like I thought we were friends. He rubs a hand across his eyes, slumps into the chair. "I know. I know how stupid I've been. But now I want to fix things. We can save the world, Matsuda." Can he actually talk Matsuda into voluntarily giving up his life to end the plague? It would certainly make things easier than trying to do it surreptitiously, not to mention it would allow the man to die happy in the knowledge that he's been a hero. And then the entire task force would be dead and Kira couldn't be blamed. "Wouldn't you like that? We could make amends for what we've done. It's not a difficult choice. All I need you to do is help me."
"Well - of course I'll help you, I never said I wouldn't help... I just..."
"There's no time for questions now," Raito says. "I promise, afterwards, I'll explain everything." He helps Matsuda to his feet, squeezes his hand quickly. "Just help me get everything ready. Don't look so frightened."
Misa feels like she's always been waiting for death to be walking around the streets and nothing stopping it. And seeing people stumbling along the pavements just in their normal clothes but with their faces grey and their eyes filmy, it's like the Eyes, like now she can not only see when people will die she can see the ones that have died, too.
She thinks she might be more scared than she feels. They parked the car outside the apartment block and now they're creeping up the stairs, hoping they won't run into anyone dead. Mochi has the gun again, but Misa doesn't mind.
They got to the building where the task force HQ was and there were zombies all over it - Mogi had pointed out the smashed window on their floor. He'd refused to go in and she'd known she couldn't make him, not this time, if she shot him it would probably be better than going in. And she didn't want to shoot him. She didn't want to kill people not using the Note. She just didn't, okay? But she'd begged for Mogi to drive her to her and Raito's apartment. Just to check. There was still a chance. If he wasn't there, then - then there would just be nothing but corpses chasing her and no Raito, no Kira. Then maybe she'd shoot herself and then Mochi could do what he liked. She thinks she might have said that to him at some point, 'cause he's being nicer to her now, not angry any more. Of course, he's got the gun. Perhaps she could just jump out of a window. If Raito's dead, but he might not be, he's the cleverest person she knows, and he was going to make a new world, maybe this is like one of those death-and-rebirth things -
The apartment door is open. Misa thinks she actually stops breathing for a moment. But it's just open, not off its hinges, not battered and kicked in. That - please - Mogi is creeping closer, gun in both hands - she sticks close to him, tries to focus on looking around for hidden threats, she can do her best, if she doesn't look inside her home then -
There are voices. Mogi stops, stands still, and Misa presses against him, and they listen.
"So, all you need to do now is write someone's name." A smirky voice; Japanese spoken with an ever-so-slight English accent. "That's right, what's-your-name - Ryuk?"
The shinigami is laughing. "Yup, as far as I know. Like I said, I'm not making any promises."
Whoever it is can see Ryuk. That definitely can't be good.
"You know -" That's Raito, voice cold with fury - "it would be ironic if some more of the undead made their way in here and slaughtered us before we had a chance to complete the ritual."
"Yeah, you know what? It would also be ironic if this thing doesn't do what it's meant to and turns the person whose name is written into another walking corpse which then massacres us. I don't trust you or the death god, to be quite honest. And it's not like Matt's not keeping a lookout. When the chips are down, he can keep his eyes off a screen for more than a few seconds." Footsteps; the voice gets a little closer. "Anyway, Kira... we've got to pick a sacrifice."
"He's -" That's Matsu, but he sounds more sad and scared than Misa's ever heard him sound before and she feels bad for him as he stumbles on, "Stop saying that! For god's sake, he's not, you're wrong, you have to -"
"I thought I told you to keep quiet and keep your hands behind your head. You might want to be co-operative, seeing as I've got kind of a tricky choice to make here."
"Mello," a new voice says, "much as I love your obsession with drama, I'd really like to get rid of the zombies before some of them make their way up here. Can you get on with it?"
"Okay, okay, fine. All right, Kira - as far as I can tell, this idiot hasn't done anything really wrong, whereas you've... you know, murdered hundreds of people in the name of justice. You're a police officer, I'm sure you can see where I'm coming from."
"Just what I'd expect from the former leader of the Mafia." Raito still sounds furious, but his voice is a bit shaky; just a bit. "Not particularly interested in proof, are you?"
"I've got all the proof I need."
"I doubt L would agree with you."
"You shut the fuck up about L!" Mello sounds so vicious that Misa ducks round Mogi, she can't let him, she can't - "When it came to it, L could do what needed doing, and in addition to that, you killed him and I swore I'm going to have your head on a fucking plate for that!"
"They said you were always blinded by emotion," Raito is saying. Mogi grabs at Misa's arm but she shakes him off, what else does he think she's going to do? "Still, once you've got rid of your only suspect, I'm sure that'll be enough for you to close the case. I don't know if Near would see it that -" He's cut off with a gasp; Mello must have hit him. Misa tries to think - it sounds like there's two of them and if they're ordering Raito and Matsuda about and have made it here without being attacked they'll probably have guns - and okay, Mochi has a gun too but he'd probably make a fuss about shooting them or he'd want to ask questions about Kira or insist on doing all the work and he's not doing anything right now, he's just waiting, and she can't just wait -
Mello is laughing. "Oh, Kira, what's this? Doesn't look healthy, does it?"
"Get the hell off me!"
"Well, I don't know why you're being so arrogant. You're going to be lurching about hunting brains in, what, a couple of hours? I mean, your arm looks gangrenous. Hey, idiot, don't you think it's a little selfish of him not to be volunteering himself when he's screwed anyway and you're healthy apart from the stupidity?" And then Matsuda yelling, "No, I won't - I had to save him -" and there's a shot and all at once Misa works out what she has to do, and it's not a difficult choice at all.
Mogi was already running in when he heard the shot and so they're distracted by that, the two guys in ski masks, Raito is already trying to wrench the gun off one of them and Mogi is levelling his own weapon and Matsuda is on his knees clutching a bloodied patch on his arm and no one cares enough about Misa to stop her dashing over to the notebook and scribbling down her own name with the pen lying next to it.
"Stop it!" she yells, snatching it up, hands shaking. "Stop - stop it, it's all right - Raito - look -"
They stop and look at her and she feels giddy and high because she's saved Raito, saved everyone. She stares at him and tries to smile: "Raito - I know you'll miss me but... I had to -"
"Oh god, Misa-Misa, oh god, no..." That's Matsuda, looking white and sick and he tries to stand up and then slumps back. "No, you didn't have to, you've got to cross it out or something -"
"You're on the Kira task force and you still think crossing names out will work?" one of the ski mask guys - Mello - says. "You really are dumb."
"Shut up," Matsuda yells, "Misa, you can't, I should have - it should have been me -"
"It's all right," Misa says, but she isn't looking at Matsuda, she's looking at Raito. Raito should be pleased. Has she screwed up? Did he have some other plan? She thought - "Raito - please -"
Raito blinks, as if his thoughts were elsewhere. Then at last he says, "It's all right, Misa."
Misa dashes towards him. How long has she got? She's expecting every moment to be knocked off her feet by a heart attack, she has to get to say goodbye, he has to tell her that he loves her -
She's just reached him when it hits her and oh it's like someone crushing her chest between their hands and she doesn't want to cry, she wants to be brave, but she's crying anyway and she's digging her nails into Raito's arms and can't he tell her? Can't he say that he loves her? She's falling, the kitchen is blurring and darkening around her and she's sorry, she's so, so sorry - someone - Mochi - is catching her, helping her to lie down, and people are saying stuff but she can't hear what it is and Raito is just looking at her, unperturbed as if this isn't a surprise. That makes her feel a bit better. She was part of a plan, and that's something.
[Title] Companion
[Fandom] Portal
[Rating] PG
[Notes/Summary] GladOS reveals an unpleasant choice to be made. Spoilers for Chamber 17.
It's a metal box. It's a goddamn metal box and there is absolutely no reason she should have a problem with throwing it into an incinerator! For heaven's sake! And she's gritting her teeth and frowning because she thinks if she doesn't she might cry and, and she remembers that she hasn't cried in years because she always does this, gets angry instead and she can hear her breathing getting fiercer in the silence -
It's a stupid metal box with stupid hearts painted on it and it is a fucking inanimate object. It doesn't care that she's letting it down. She's not letting it down! It's a metal box! She was only telling it don't worry, we'll get to the end of this because it helped to reassure her. She was pretty much just talking to herself, which is kind of loopy anyway but not as loopy as thinking the cube is alive. The AI even warned her about this. Shit, if she just knew there was someone else out there that she could work with, someone who wasn't either an insane computer or a lunatic scribbling poetry on the walls, then dropping the damn thing into the fire would be a hell of a lot easier.
She has to get a grip. She's going to have to push the button and then run over to snatch up the cube and throw it in before the hatch closes, that fucking bitch is even making this into a puzzle.
She has to get a grip and get this done on her first attempt 'cause otherwise she thinks this might be the first time she considers giving up. And she's not going to do that. She's not going to spend her life in this place scrawling on walls and seeking companionship from objects. She is going to get out of here and she's going to do it in one piece.
Yeah.
She rubs a hand across her eyes, grips the portal gun more tightly, and prepares to start running.
[Title] Ceremony
[Fandom] Death Note
[Rating] PG
[Notes/Summary] Mello prepares to leave Wammy's House.
Mello deliberately doesn't indulge in any kind of goodbye. He just runs back to his room, crams various possessions into a rucksack, grabs the emergency bar of dark chocolate taped under the bedside table, and -
He's going to hightail it out the window, the way he usually leaves the room when he's doing something that the rest of the orphanage (bar Matt) don't need to know about. But in the end, he doesn't. He doesn't want to remember the creak of the window opening and the lichened bricks scraping his ankles and the handholds covered with ivy, he doesn't want to top up the memory just so he can play it back later. That'd get you feeling all sad, and he suspects feeling sad is not going to be an option for him, not any more. Heck - hell, it might even get him feeling like he doesn't want to leave, and that's certainly not a fucking option, not now.
He goes out through the front door instead, scuffing his feet on the black-and-white tiles and giving the finger to the high gates once he's passed through them.
[Title] Choices of Leaders
[Fandom] Jet Set Radio
[Rating] PG
[Notes/Summary] Gum and Beat meet again under awkward circumstances.
"Long time no see."
"Yeah, I said I was sorry, all right?" Gum folds her arms, digs her nails into her hands. The wall is cold on her back; she knows her companion's perched on the ledge of the half-pipe. She doesn't like this place at night, especially not in this situation.
"If it were you, would you be satisfied with just a sorry?"
"Probably not," she says. "But I get pissed off about everything. You were always more chilled."
"This isn't a joke, you know."
"Yeah, you think I went back to the garage being all hey guys, I just left Beat trapped under a bus so's I could save mine and Garam's miserable asses. Who's up for pizza?"
"I dunno, did you?"
"Oh, fuck you." Gum really wants to turn round, scream the words up at him, but in some ways there's more satisfaction in being calm. He clearly wants to cast her as the stone-cold psychopath. "You really didn't know me so well, did you? Come on, leader man, you really telling me if it had been me you'd have dashed in and got you and Garam nabbed as well? Mathematically, it doesn't work out so good."
Beat breathes in; breathes out, the sound is harsh. Gum is glad she can't see his face. Hell, if it had been her wouldn't she have been fuming once she got out?
"I just came to tell you I was out of here," he says at last. "This place has kind of lost its shine for me."
"Just 'cause I'm yelling curses at you doesn't mean I don't want you to come back." But she isn't surprised, really. Perhaps it's easier for him if she is given the psycho role. Then he can pretend that shitty choices like that don't happen to good people.
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no subject
Date: 2010-01-04 08:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-05 08:24 pm (UTC)Happy holidays to you too! ^_^V
no subject
Date: 2010-01-04 11:24 pm (UTC)Yesss it's such a nice change for people to get voluntarily disembowelled mmm. I loved the description, and I felt a certain nostalgia with the smells of biology class (and that time I examined some cancerous organs in the hospital) :D Yes, formaldehyde and manky manky blood. YESSS.
I also love how Kaneda's making the best of the situation at the end with that grin. D'AAWW. <3
no subject
Date: 2010-01-05 08:23 pm (UTC)I'm glad you liked it, I was worried I might not have made it gory enough to suit you ;)
no subject
Date: 2010-01-07 12:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-07 07:28 pm (UTC)I knew what was coming with the Companion Cube but I was a little appalled that you actually had to struggle to do it (I mean, running to snatch it in time and stuff).
Yeah, me too. I guess I was just feeling more festive? *waves candy cane halfheartedly*