Page 53 of Natural-Born Cullers

“Ah. Is that you finally talking to me? D’you think you can manage my name yet?”

Light jerked upright in bed, a frown creasing his brow as his smile faded along with the scent of Brin’s cologne. It had been Light’s favourite too, because, Christ, he usually followed Brin into most things, right? But now the cologne stayed locked away in the bathroom, the key to even that kept under Simon’s control, out of reach.

“What the fuck do they think you could do with a bottle of cologne, huh?”

Blue particles shifted from an unknown draught at the foot of his bed, and Light buried his head in the arms across his knees and pulled them close as a shape sat on the edge of the bed.

“I mean, like you’d say: it’s not a bottle of beer, where it would only take the tap of the bottom of beer on the top of another—” Brin clapped his hands together and a hue of particles escaped into the darkness. “—to cause those vibrations that force the bubbles to pulsate, then, what…? Oh yeah, collapse in a few milliseconds, creating tiny fragments that exploded like any blast that released a huge amount of gas, and add—” He started to mimic Light’s pure English accent. “—m- or o-Phenylenediamine found in hair dye before all of that happened to burn through the skin as it exploded. Christ—” Brin snorted. “Is this what it’s really like being inside your head, bro? Fuck.”

Light gave a sniff, a deeper bury of head into his arms.

“Still never did have to light the fuse to cause the fire, huh?” said Brin. “Just have to open that mouth of yours.”

Light screwed his eyes shut, forcing everything that came on the echo of Lee’s words away, of what he’d done to him in the mix of everything else and—

“Seriously? Again, bro? You’re gonna make me do this too?” That came so quietly, and all the blue colour fell into greys. “You… okay.Light?” A tap at his shoulder again. “Hey. Light, you in any trouble, bro?”

Groaning, Light threw the covers aside, then put as much distance between him and the bed as possible.

“Oh, you almost told me to piss off then, bro.” A rub came at his arm from someone so close behind him. “Go on, please. Just tell me to piss off. I need to rest, I really do.”

Light frowned, so seriously.

“Nah you can’t, can you?” Another rub at his arm. “This really isn’t doing either of us any good. Try talking to them, not me.”

Light jerked away from the touch.

Talk? With the looks that kept coming his way? Everybody walked around him like sappers, looking for the landmines they thought he’d hidden under the settee, or they constantly patted him down for the detonators. But with Gray’s chokehold, there was mostly nothing left to do but eat, sleep, and wake.

So what was his grand plan?

The great mastermind to blowing up all the Queen’s secrets if he got the chance?

“Yeah, Simon was right. You see it, don’t you?” Brin moved over to the door. “Gray’s only teaching what he wants to teach, which is defence and how, well—to not be stupid enough to get caught with the detonator in hand, which—” Brin shook his head. “—too late for all that shit, right? And Simon isn’t about to be clumsy enough and leave his laptop on the dining chair for you to get access to, so what’s really left, bro?”

Yeah. What was left? All he had was this… silence.

His stay… here.

“Ah….” It came so quietly off Brin, and the greys shifted into such soft blues. “They’ll figure you out eventually, but you know that.” A hard exhale of air drifted over. “Christ, our kid… that offer of a father of his,hisway of being a father? You’re trading the silence and purgatory of the oubliette with me because if you can’t get to them, you want… need Gray to step up to the detonation pin?”

Light frowned.

“Still the little kid at heart, still waiting for his dad to handle the bastards disrupting your life, still lost as ever to lacking the words to call out against the world for him, huh? You know, in order for him to do that, you have to fucking talk to him and learn how to ask away from you thinking you lose a part of who you are each time.”

Light shivered. Gray was a culler. His own had turned on him, so by now… Light frowned. By now, considering Gray still walked these halls, it meant he would have turned on them, chewed into his own like they’d tried to chew into him. The thought of nothing left to fight terrified Light, who it let come out from his dreams and try and talk when he really wasn’t ready for listening, but he’d stop. He’d listen, he’d fucking find a way into any kind of grief or get out and walk away knowing the cullers were done and dusted because—

“Tell me you’ve had enough, and I’ll make it stop.”

Brin’s echo dropped all Welsh again, but this time, he carried every ounce of Simon.

“Just take up his offer, Light,” said Brin, all taste of home back in his Welsh lilt, all off greens on long Snowdonian walks. “Hold on to him, because holding on to me, our kid…?”

Yeah. He needed it stopped. Hewantedit stopped. He just hadn’t gotten a way to voice it and ask Simon and Gray if they’d made it stop the way he needed it all stopping, mostly because… because he’d lost everything by stepping into Gray’s world, let alone just losing parts of his own identity.

But he shouldn’t have to ask. Turning on his own, on other psychopaths, was what Gray did best. As Light had come around after taping the bomb between Cath’s legs and setting it off, Gray had gone back into the summerhouse, his silencer drawn. He’d finished what Light had done then, with one of the culler’s own just like he’d finished Zak off after Light had poured acid down his throat for slaughtering Brin. Gray would…shouldhave gone after the lead one too for calling them all in, then finished the rest because the dangers of leaving more out there….

Light rubbed at his head and tugged open the door. Cold tile bit into the soles of his feet, but he barely noticed as he headed for the bathroom. Keeping the lights off, the low light from the kitchen the only one to keep him company, he set the warm water running in the sink.

---