Warnings: AU, implied character death, angst, spoilers for L's name, dark!fic, future slash/yaoi

Characters (main): L, Light

Characters (secondary): Ryuk, Matsuda

Chapter Rating: PG-13

Disclaimer: Owned by Ohba Tsugumi, Obata Takeshi, et al

Summary: "As I was going up the stair / I saw a man who wasn't there / He wasn't there again today / I wish, I wish, he'd stay away."

A/N: All verb tense changes are deliberate and much thought over—perhaps more than is healthy for one person.

::Birds of a Feather::

"Birds of a feather flock together,
And so will pigs and swine;
Rats and mice will have their choice,
And so will I have mine."

A man threatens a woman and small child with a battered kitchen knife. An angry snarl stretches his mouth to its limits as he shouts invectives.

"What about him? Can you kill him?"

"You want me to turn to sand or something, kid?"

A delicate period of silence. "Of course not."

Ryuk chortles dryly and watches the scene play out in the human world with Light perched upon his shoulder, small feet idly kicking against his clavicle, little fingers twined in his coarse black hair to maintain balance. He likes the kid, has from the moment he first confronted him with the existence of shinigami. The child didn't scream or cry or do anything silly or annoying like that—just stared at him owlishly for a few moments before launching into an intense interrogation about everything Ryuk knew concerning the usage and limitations of the Death Note.

Far more entertaining than if he had bawled his eyes out in terror.

Though, come to think of it, seeing the kid's scared face or teary face might not be too bad…

He snorts quietly to himself. Not likely such a thing will ever happen. The kid has a warped sense of humor, had one even before Ryuk killed him and the King brought him back.

What a brilliant stroke of luck to get this particular child, who knew just how much of his plans to unfold to keep the shinigami interested, but not enough to allow him to predict the outcome, when he "accidentally" dropped a Notebook in the human world. And the apples, can't forget those beautiful, deliciously sinful delights of juicy goodness. A line of drool threatens slip from the corner of his mouth. Mmm, apples. Fresh apples. Apple pie. Apple bunnies. Apple strudel. Applesauce. Apple—

"How about that one?"

The hole in the floor of their world displays a different human, male again, sitting lethargically in some dark, close-walled space. The name and lifespan swim lazily above his head.

"Eh, I probably could. Wouldn't give me all that much life. He doesn't have too many years left."

The shinigami-child hums tonelessly in acknowledgement.

"You should just write some names down yourself, kid. Then your Eyes would finally mature."

"L-niichan has my Book right now," Light reminds him with a sharp little smile.

"You've at least written a few yourself before you dropped it, right?"

Light laughs brightly, like a sudden explosion of glittering crystal shards. "That would have been cheating. This game won't be any fun unless I give him my existence."

Ryuk feels his level of interest rise. His ever-present leer stretches wider. Yeah, he likes the kid, likes Light. He made a deviously fascinating human, made a better shinigami as a human than the real shinigami do as, well, themselves. And, now, as a shinigami himself…

This, whatever this is or will become under Light's exquisite manipulations, is going to be good. This is going to keep him entertained for human decades.

In his head he once again pats himself on the back for bribing the King with his precious stash of apples—mmm, apples—to pull Light's soul out of Mu before it completely unraveled. So what if something else might have snuck in along with it, or if the King willfully added something in the reshaping of it—nobody knows how to shake of up the worlds of the living and the dead quite like this kid.

"Once he writes a name, everything will begin—and he will write a name," Light says, voice sweet with honeyed anticipation and darkly rich with worldly knowledge.

"You really like that human, dontcha, Raito?"

"Of course." No further explanation is forthcoming, and isn't that just like Light? Handing out tidbits to titillate, but never letting the whole of the matter be revealed until the very, very end.

"You really like apples, don't you, Ryuk?"

::Plague Dancer::

"Ring-a-Ring o'Rosies
A Pocket full of Posies
"A-tishoo! A-tishoo!"
We all fall Down!"

"You shouldn't fall asleep here."

The clack-clack-clack of the wheels upon the track and the anxious creak of the cars as the train takes a turn in tunnel catch upon the gently reproving voice and jerk him out of the sudden wave of weariness weighing down his eyelids. Rubbing a gathering of sleep-grit from the corner of his right eye Matsuda Touta looks around, mouth split upon a raw yawn.

It's the last run of the night before the stations shut down until the early morning rush, so he's pretty much alone in the car. The only other passenger, a middle age business man with graying temples dozing fitfully in the seat farthest from him, doesn't seem to be the owner of the voice that shook him awake. Maybe he's just hearing things in that liminial moment between unconsciousness and dreaming.

Then the sticky summer air filling the train car with all the odors of those who have passed through today—their soaps and shampoos, colognes and perfumes, and, above all, their sweat—shifts and a familiar scent plays with his senses: milky and animal, sweet and exotically spicy. A film of sweat slicks his palms and his grip upon his briefcase tightens until the color flees to paleness.

Curled up on the seat, small knees pressed against his chest, is the bewitchingly unsettling apparition of Yagami Light. "You shouldn't let your guard down like that, Matsuda-san, even if you are tired," the child says with a trace of smile.

"R-Raito-kun—wha—?"

The child's hand closes over his mouth before he can get much further into his incoherent shout of surprise. "Stop being an idiot," Light's expression quite clearly says as his honey-dark eyes track to the business man shifting restlessly at the other end of the car and then back to Touta.

"Your stop is next," the apparition murmurs, slowly pulling his small hand away, diamond-glitter claws lightly tracing across the detective's shock-parted lips. "Did you want to miss it?"

This must a dream, the man thinks with just a hint of sleepy hysteria. Another dream. But why? Why of Light and why now?

He continues to wonder, dazed and slightly frightened, as the automated voice system announces his stop and a small, cold, delicately—deceptively—fragile hand slips into his. Silently he follows this child who cannot be off the train, across the platform and up the stairs to the streets of his neighborhood. As he watches the top of the young head crowned in silky cinnamon-caramel hair bob along beside him, feels the small hand trustingly gripping his own, he finds himself possessed by a curious desire to own, to protect and keep. Even if this is a dream.

And he remembers the first time he saw this child as something other than a glossy photo attached to a victim's profile folder.

Remembers the crazed man holding a kitchen knife against the abducted child's tender young throat. Remembers the calm, unaffected look in Light's eyes as the bitter blade bit into his skin and freed a small rill of crimson. And when the man had turned the knife on the cops closing around him, Touta had taken the shot.

One bullet had ended two weeks of frantically searching for the chief's missing son and two hours of a tense standoff. Before the man's shout of surprise could even stop bouncing around the unfinished warehouse, the other officers swarmed him, separating him from the little boy he so desperately struggled to retain hold of.

And there stood little Light, impassive and flawless as the man screamed for him beneath the squirming pile of officers and paramedics wrapped him an emergency blanket and urged him over to where his frantic father waited. Their eyes had met as the child had crossed the floor to his father and the little boy had given him a faint, approving smile, just the slightest quirk of pale, pink lips. It was like getting a promotion and ten Medals of Commendation.

He had wanted to protect the Yagami child from that moment on. Fiercely. Irrationally. Had wanted to lock the child up and away from the filthy world and make it so he would only experience beauty and kindness.

Then he had listened to the abductor's confession, his breathless, teary words, and felt disgusted with himself—because that's what that man had wanted, too. Among other things left unspoken and sealed away in the case's file. The Yagami child was a minor after all.

But both of them had failed in their own way because Yagami Light is dead now. Dead and buried, and the sweet creature clasping his hand is just a figment of his overtaxed brain.

"Did you know that shinigami like apples?" the child asks, effortlessly breaking into his roiling, uneasy thoughts.

A line of cold sweat rises along the ridges of his spine. Those words…

"W-What?"

"Will you buy me some, Matsuda-san?" Light looks up through the orderly fringe of cinnamon-caramel hair framing his brow, eye dark like rich honey, and smiles guilelessly. "Apples. I like them."

Chapter End

Afterword: All the author wishes to take an all-too short moment to convey zir deepest gratitude towards those especially kind individuals who took the time to honor zir with their regards: Hime, lokiwolf, rpln, fairlyironic, silly, Shivera, AddictedToReading. Most profound and heartfelt thanks goes out to Zira Angel for being the first reviewer of Chapter 4!