Constant Temptation

Constant Temptation by Dragonrider4000 is an AU Death Note fic told in the ancient tradition of the OOC / slash mode. It begins with the standard Light and L fall in love during the Yotsuba arc but quickly deviates into something with more original content. As L and Light come to a mutually beneficial arrangement, one of L's old enemies uses all the hype over Kira to escape from prison, intent on destroying L and all he holds dear and because he keeps changing his appearance he is protected from the powers of the Death Note. Even with the combined forces of Kira, Wammy's House, and The Mafia at his disposal will L be able to put a stop to Beyond's reign of terror?

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Tropes used in Constant Temptation include:

• Abusive Parent: Souichiro Yagami
• Acceptable Breaks From Canon: Screw the timeline. Mello's gotta be a mafia leader and he's gotta have that scar!
• Accidental Pervert: Mello, Matt, and Near just happened to start watching L and Light's bedroom activities.
• The Aloner: L
• Alternate Universe Fic
• Anything But That
• Archnemesis Dad: Souichiro Yagami.
• The Atoner: Light, kind of, sort of. He has no qualms about killing but has toned it down a bit for L's sake.
• Attractive Bent Gender: Mello, Matt, and Near
• Bad Guys Do the Dirty Work: Light is more than willing to Shoot the Dog for L's sake, as is Rem out of loyalty and a desire for vengeance, also the mafia rides to the rescue.
• Badass Family: Wammy's House
• Badass Longcoat: L when preparing for the finale battle with Beyond.
• Badass Teacher: Light
• Because I Said So
• Being Tortured Makes You Evil: Subverted. Light's Rousing Speech breaks Jason of his conditioning.
• Beta Couple: or rather, "Beta Threesome" of Matt x Mello x Near
• Big Bad: Beyond
• Big Screwed-Up Family: Wammy's House
• Boys Love
• Brains and Bondage: Light is very into bondage and he teachs L how to play.
• Break the Haughty: poor, poor Light.
• Broken Ace: Light, L, and Beyond.
• Broken Pedestal: Light with his father.
• Brought Down to Normal: Ryuk, and for a time Light is stripped of ALL of his weapons.
• Calling the Old Man Out: Light to Souichiro and B to L.
• Caught with Your Pants Down
• The Cavalry
• C-List Fodder: Several Original Characters and a few members of the Kira Taskforce.
• Cold-Blooded Torture: courtesy of B.
• Cool and Unusual Punishment: Dresses.
• Cool Teacher: Light
• Costume Porn: Mello, Matt, and Near's punishment. See above.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Both Light and L.
• Dark Fic: kind of a given with Beyond behaving in character...
• A Day in the Limelight: for Sayu and Sachiko, Ryuk, Watari.
• Demoted to Extra: Misa
• Denied Food as Punishment: B to his prisoners.
• Despair Event Horizon: my God, yes.
• Dirty Cop: Souichiro Yagami.
• Disguised in Drag: Mello, Matt, and Near
• Distress Ball: Light picks it up almost immediatly after he decides he doesn't really want to be Kira anymore.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Light explains to L that he has gotten so good at acting and secret keeping because he is gay and trying to conceal it from his extremely homophobic father... (also he's Kira but he doesn't know that at the time).
• The Dog Bites Back: Jason.
• Don't Tell Mama: The trio find themselves in a position where they have to confess to spying on L and Light...

Near: Are we sure we want to do this?
Mello: It's not like you to have doubts.
Near: I don't usually face such definite trouble.
Matt: That is the one thing we can guarantee will happen. We still in agreement over who to confess to?

Mello: Light?

Near: Light.

• Doorstopper: 102 chapters. It's not a fanfic, it's a NOVEL and totally worth the read.
• Earn Your Happy Ending
• Easily Forgiven: Kira.
  • Rather the ruthless crimes of Beyond and his gang are so terrifying and personal that the former Kira taskforce is willing to accept help from and stop pursuing Kira.
• Elaborate University High: Wammy's House
• Enemy Mine: L, Kira, and the mafia against B and his followers.
• Evil Counterpart: Beyond for L
• Evil Versus Evil
• Eviler Than Thou: B somehow makes Kira look like a decent human being.
• "Failure to Save" Murder: Light blamed himself for being unable to protect Taro and the others from his father.
• Fan Art
• Finger in the Mail
• Five-Man Band:
  • The Hero / Team Mom: L
  • The Lancer / Team Dad: Light
  • The Big Guy: Mello
  • The Smart Guy: Matt
  • The Chick: Near, Rem
  • Sixth Ranger: Light, Jason
  • The Obi-Wan: Wammy
• Flaw Exploitation
• Forced to Watch: B sends L live feeds of his torture sessions.
• Freudian Excuse: Light. His father arranged the deaths of his previous boyfriends.
• Freudian Trio: Mello, Matt, and Near.
• Genre Shift: Romance -> Horror -> Action Movie -> Romance.
• Gorn: Courtesy of B
• Guilt Complex: Light has a severe one even before becoming Kira. See Freudian Excuse.
• Hannibal Lecture: B gives one to Light after torturing his father. Light doesn't even flinch.
• Harmless Villain: Kira
• Has Two Daddies: Light and L to the trio and Eleanor.
• Have You Tried Not Being a Monster?: Lampshaded, see Does This Remind You of Anything? above.
• He Will Not Cry, So I Cry for Him
• Heel Face Turn: Kira/Light
• Heel Realization: "If I kept going now I'd be a monster!"
• Hero Harasses Helpers: L tries to drive his allies away because he's afraid they will be targeted.
• Hero Secret Service: The Taskforce, Wammy's House, and the mafia.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Jason (but he gets better), Rem
• Hollywood Hacking: all over the place but mostly done by the trio.
• Humanity Ensues: Ryuk is caught and punished for interfering in human affairs. This is his punishment. Ryuk decides it was totally worth it when Watari shows him how to make apple pie.
• Hurt/Comfort Fic
• I Just Want to Be Loved: L and Light
• I Just Want to Be Normal: Reformed!Light
  • Always Need What You Gave Up
• I Just Want to Have Friends: L
• In the Blood: Apparently Light got his warped morals and Axe-Craziness from his father...
• Irritation Is the Sincerest Form of Flattery: Beyond
• It Got Worse
• It Runs in The Family: In the right learning environment Sayu is just as smart as her brother. Also Light inherited his axe-craziness from his father.
• It's Personal: To get to L, Beyond is targeting all of L's allies, that is EVERYONE that L has ever had contact with.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Light and Mello
• Karma Houdini Warranty: If you think Light's a Karma Houdini in the beginning of this fic... it expires rather harshly later... when he really takes it for the team...
• Kid Fic: Light and L are something like surrogate parents to the trio and Eleanor.
• Kirk Summation: Light to Beyond, Beyond responds with Shut Up, Kirk
• Lamarck Was Right: In the right learning environment Sayu is becoming just as smart and confident as her brother.
• Lighter and Softer: Yeah really, (in terms of character interpretation at least, see Draco in Leather Pants)
• Loads and Loads of Characters: Along with most of the main cast tons of OCs are introduced to be slaughtered.
• The Mafia: Mello is the heir to one.
• The Masochism Tango: Light and L.
• Master of Disguise: Beyond
• Mercy Kill: "NOT FAIR!"
• The Messiah: L.
• A Million Is a Statistic: Kira is redeemable... Beyond is not...
• Mind Rape: Beyond is a master at it.
• Must Make Amends: Light after he gives up on being Kira.
• My God, What Have I Done?
• My Greatest Failure: when Rem fails to protect Misa from Beyond.
  • Light's motive in becoming Kira is RetConned to be much more personal. He seeks to bring justice to the world because his father killed his past boyfriends and he could do nothing to protect them.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: again courtesy of B.
• Not So Different: Light and L and B
• Not So Stoic: Light after he kills his father.
• Odd Friendship: Ryuk and Watari?
• Open-Minded Parent: Wammy
• Original Character: Jason, Eleanor
• Overlord, Jr.: In this ficverse Mello is the heir to the British Mafia.
• Overprotective Dad: Wammy. Also in this fic Souichiro is the evil version of this trope.
• Papa Wolf: Wammy, Light, L...
• Past Victim Showcase: After B tortures Souichiro. And later after B tortures Light. Both times the protagonists are Forced to Watch via video feed.
• Playful Hacker: Matt.
• Politically-Incorrect Villain: Souichiro Yagami is made into a raging homophobe.
• The Power of Friendship
• The Power of Love
• Power Trio: Mello, Matt, and Near.
• Promotion to Parent: Light and L are Parental Substitutes for the Wammy's kids.
• Psychologist Teacher: Light
• Punch a Wall: Mogi after the taskforce learns that Light really was Kira all along and that L was protecting him from prosecution.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech
• Redemption Equals Sex
• Redemption in the Rain: a certain scene from episode 25 is brought to mind when Light decides L is more important to him than his crusade.
• Reset Button
• Revenge by Proxy: Beyond targets everyone L has ever had any form of contact with in order to draw him out.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: After Beyond brutally murders Misa, killing Beyond becomes Rem's only goal.
• Samaritan Syndrome: both Light and L.
• Scars Are Forever: Mello and Light.
• Self-Made Orphan: Light
• Seme: Light. Very.
• Shoot the Dog: when Light kills his father.
• Shut UP, Hannibal
• Shut Up, Kirk: Taken rather literally.
• Slash Fic
• Sorting Algorithm of Evil
• Start of Darkness: In Backstory, Light's motivations are made more personal than just a crusade against criminals and evil in general.
• The Stoic: L and Light. When Beyond takes Souichiro Yagami hostage, and is giving Light, his father, and L "The Reason You Suck" Speech and how he's going to force them all to watch as he gives Da Chief a slow, painful Cruel and Unusual Death Light's response is to apathetically examine his fingernails, snark back at Beyond, and then screw up Beyond's carefully laid plans by Cutting the Knot. Protip: When your victim for Mind Rape is a Sociopath with daddy issues who can kill from a distance, holding his father hostage isn't going to give you the result you're looking for. However Light breaks down in a Not So Stoic moment immediately afterwards.
• Stuffed Into the Fridge: Misa.
• Super-Hero School: Wammy's House
• Survival Horror
• Tenchi Solution: Mello x Matt x Near.
• To the Pain
• Token Evil Teammate: Light and Mello
• Too Kinky to Torture: Subverted
• Torture Cellar
• Tough Love
• Trauma Conga Line: well, everyone.
• Troubled Fetal Position
• True Companions: L and his allies. He has more friends than he thinks.
• Villains Out Shopping: When not purging the world of evil, Kira enjoys playing harmless S & M Bondage games with his life-partner and teaching math to young geniuses.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Light with his father, Beyond with L.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Light/Kira before his Heel Face Turn.
• Wimpification: Subverted, Dragonrider manages to make the pairing Light/L without L losing any points in Badass.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Light/Kira is retconned to be one.
• X Meets Y: Death Note meets Angel meets X-Men meets Saw.
• Yaoi Guys: Light and L. Also Mello, Matt, and Near.