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It’s towards the end. Handcuffs no longer restrict their movements — and it’s a running joke to pretend that they ever had. Light and L were attuned to one another an hour after they were placed and, as worrisome and equally intriguing as it was, their adaptability, as with their intellect, humor, and wit, had matched long before the thought of surveillance had passed through either of their minds. There were times where Light’s body was dragged up the stairs and others where Light had purposely wrapped the chain around his wrist so L could walk only as far as he allowed him, but those were intentional ebbs and held a purpose that ranged from being a vague annoyance to outwardly mischievous. It was rare that they faltered without forethought and yet Light wonders, just how he let L get so close to burrow himself under the logic and willpower that kept everyone else at a distance? The facade and contradiction of Light Yagami: perfect son, the brightest student, someone so undeniably normal?
(They’re not close. Light Yagami and Hideki Ryuga are close. Light Yagami and Ryuzaki are. Gods who hold mortals close are fools.)
Normal people didn’t find themselves at the center of a serial-murder investigation. That was something Light might have thought before. No, he supposes he isn’t normal. He’s extraordinary. He’s a God. He wants L to grovel. (Not really, but that’s what God should want. Followers that won’t oppose him or nitpick his words until they hardly make sense to his own mind. Followers that won’t get frosting in the crevice of his spacebar and then offer to clean it for him with the same sugar-coated hands. Followers that won’t smile at him.)
Light’s memories return. Two hours later — after the helicopter, after gathering Higuchi’s personal effects into evidence bags, Light decides in a fit of manic energy that he wants to end L’s life with his own hands. Just for the night, one more night which would be L’s final, he has to stop his shoulders from shaking as they lay beside one another.
Customarily, Light slept facing away from L. He finds that L does not extend the same courtesy. Fatigue began to chip away at that stubborn will and, gradually, he found himself dozing off facing the wrinkles in his unchanged shirt. Tonight, though, he stares at the ceiling as if that would separate him from the energy that his body thrums with. He’s not nervous. Even as a headache works its way up his temples and his jaw aches from the force of his clenching teeth, he will never admit to nervousness — not when his victory lies a foot away from him.
Chained together, there were many ways a person could die. A slip in the shower could kill anyone without the pull of a supernatural force, but how could he lure L into the bathroom with him? No, that wouldn’t be any good, especially not with the recent acquisition of the Death Note. They had no pretense to shower together; not anymore. (It wasn’t as hands-on as Light would have appreciated either, but that desire was beside the point of his concern). It would have looked suspicious no matter how he spun it; L dying the same week they recovered what is possibly humanity’s greatest weapon. It would have been irresponsible, and stupid, and impulsive to continue on with this train of thought (and yet, he can’t stop himself, his thoughts spinning and spinning and spinning into endless circles like embers against a grey, winter sky). He would have to kill off the entire task force. He could kill off the entire task force. He could kill off the Director after the fact. He would have to —
L shifts.
He would have to —
“Light-kun.”
His chest swells, expelling a breath that is supposed to sound like a response is more trouble than it's worth. “What is it?”
“You’re staring again. It’s quite distracting.”
His eyes unfocus and return with a startling clarity. When had he turned onto his side? Like this, he can see L’s profile. The gaunt point of his nose as he glances over his shoulder at him, which slopes into the thin, shadowed valleys of his eyes. His hair is longer than before his confinement, longer than he can remember. Dark curls fall past his ears and splay against his upper back. Humidity, Light learned through months of careful observation, could cause it to frizz. It’s chaos, a quiet entropy that Light can hardly see in the dim light of the room.
“I don’t mean to keep you.” L says and Light pauses. What a senseless apology. He opts to ignore it, but finds that he can’t allow the dismal tone of L’s to linger in the air. It doesn’t quite irk him in the same way as being disobeyed does, but there’s a tinge of familiarity that’s lost on him. His palms start to sweat.
“I was spacing out. It’s been a long day,” he says, instead of the obvious, pristine answer of: ‘you’re not’.
“Clearly. You usually try to keep your tone cordial — or, at least amicable. Then again, when we’re alone, I can’t exactly hold you to those same standards. It really is amazing,” L continues, even if Light knows that he doesn’t think it to be that great at all, “how you manage to keep up your facade.”
“If you have something to say, would you mind getting to the point? It’s late. Some of us actually enjoy sleeping.”
“Eight hours every night. You never falter, never deviate from those standards you set for yourself.” His rigidity doesn’t seem to bother L as much as he intends to.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“I think you know exactly what I’m getting at.”
“I don’t.”
“I’d imagine you would say the same thing in front of your father.” Silence. He’s not sure what they’re discussing anymore, but Light’s sleeping schedule is not particularly pertinent. And then: “If you were to kill me, Light-kun, how would you?”
“The correct answer might seem to be that you wouldn’t, that you would never think to do such a thing, especially with what is already levied against you, but before you try to claim your innocence, please understand that isn’t what I’m asking.” L says, like this isn’t some opportunity to even the score. Yeah, right. Does L think he’s stupid? (No, he doesn’t. He’s made a point to address his superior intellect on more than one occasion, publicly, but Light isn’t looking for the obvious to be stated. They’re passed that now. He doesn’t want a boring truth. He wants a game.)
His stomach drops and the ground slides out beneath him, falling and bracing for the impact of the rain-wet cement below; one of those rare feelings that reminds him of his own humanity, but origins meant very little when faced with the prospect of godliness. He can’t decide what startles him more: the reminder that he does in fact have blood that flows through him, skin that flushes when caught, or a heart that hammers at the sight of L staring at him like a sore, beaten loser. “I’m not Kira.”
“That’s not what I was asking, but I appreciate the affirmation. You can’t possibly be Kira. I have no evidence, other than your connection with Miss Amane — who is the second Kira.” And the more tenuous evidence of the death of Raye Penber, but he purposely negates the fact. Light has won and, anyway, he knows that his mind is quick enough to catch what he does and does not mention. “ ...Is that what I’m supposed to say at a time like this?”
“Stop it.” Light can’t take it anymore. He pushes himself up onto the bed and presses his palm to the side of L’s face, hard enough to sting, but without the force to bruise. The lack of resistance makes him press harder, his fingers pushing into his nest of black hair until they snag. It’s too easy to meet his gaze, his other hand braced against L’s shoulder to hold him against the bed. L lets him.
L just lets him.
Light looms. His nostrils flare. He breathes too hard for L to look so mesmerized. His hands creep towards his neck and hold his collar. He can feel the loose, frayed threads cut off the circulation in his fingers. They’re numb, white at the knuckles, and shaking. The tick of his watch, which Light wears to bed for reasons unknown, marks each passing seconds. Patterned, ribbed steel presses against the nape of his neck. “Ryuzaki, just stop it.”
“It’s not as easy to asphyxiate someone as movies and television lead you to believe. You would have to completely block the airways for five minutes at a minimum, and it would only work if you continue to apply three times as much pressure against my windpipe. Under the assumption that you’re able to keep that same pressure for the entire time — ”
Light squeezes tighter, teeth gritting. His vision blurs again. Wet drops slide off of L’s bare wrist, unseen, unspoken, forgotten.
“You’ll leave marks like this, Light-kun.” But, finally, he’s showing his first signs of a struggle. The natural flow of his words falters to a breathy staccato. His eyes are wide and he’s — smiling? If L had the use of his hands (which are raised to Light’s forearms, placiant, infuriatingly unconcerned), Light imagines a thumb would be hooked into the red of his mouth. A sheen of glass falls over those large eyes of his and Light hopes (needs) it to mean that he’s about to lose consciousness.
“It will be obvious to anyone who finds my body, assuming you would leave it in a place that’s able to be discovered. From what I’ve observed…” L continues to speak, his voice raspy and his trachea straining to accommodate for the hands around his throat, and Light squeezes until he can’t anymore.
“It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Why don’t you — Why aren’t you stopping me? What’s wrong with you, Ryuzaki?”
Light-kun, L says in the second when Light adjusts his grip. Though he’s not, Light wants to believe that he’s pleading. Spit coagulates in his throat, giving his name a gurgling, warped intonation. The grip of L’s hands start to weaken, sleeves of Light’s shirt slipping between the notches of his knuckles.
Light gasps, as if Kira’s victims hadn’t cried, screamed, and writhed where they died. It happens every day. He knows the process. Heart attacks are sterile and nigh indetectable; there is a gasp of recognition, seizing of the chest, and then a victory. His hands drop. A red ring stretches around the width of L’s flushed neck. A single, graceless motion sends Light flying off of the bed and towards the open door of their shared bathroom.
Twenty-two seconds with minimal force. Ten seconds with added pressure, L notes through the haze in his mind. The gaps where his fingers rested are a startling red. Circles fizz behind his eyelids, hand held against the throat that, just a few seconds ago, Light had seized. He certainly wasn’t trying to kill me. Or, if he was… it was a very poor attempt.
L hears retching. A part of him wishes to give Light the privacy he needs (a part that he has smothered up until this final precipice — the bells had foretold his start and finish, quiet when Light-kun speaks and louder in their silences), but the larger, hungrier shadow of his existence urges him to investigate. He waits until Light is not coughing violently (figuring that — in the instance that he somehow acquired the Note, he wouldn’t be able to do so with his head ducked into a toilet bowl) and pushes the door open from its halfway point.
Any thoughts of Light scrawling his name into a sequestered notebook vanish with what he comes across: a tight, white-knuckled grip on the edge of the sink. (When he stumbled in, he must have turned the light on. The fan whirs in the background and the faucet runs, which Light turns off — as if it is some great offense to become nauseated by the prospect of taking a life. Maybe to a God, it is.)
The lengths Light went to conceal genuinity were amazing — and, if one were to think about it for more than a second or two, worrying. A perfect specimen stood stock still against the cool tile of their bathroom floor, with his shoulders tensed so tightly that a touch could shatter that image of composure.
To put it bluntly: he’s never seen Light so shaken up. It’s informational overload; with so much to take in, he’s not sure where to focus or what separates the important parts from what intrigues him. Light-kun is pale. Light-kun’s hair falls into his face with the way his head dips. Even in his play-acting, there was an uneasy sense of perfection. Like the slate of windows that line their bedroom (something L is more familiar with now as he jumped from hotel to expensive hotel than his childhood — there were smudges everywhere then), glass that is too clear to see his own reflection unnerved him. There isn’t a separation between what was logically there and what a person wanted to see on the other side… but, if that reflection is an integral part of the foundation, it’s illogical to ignore it’s absence, isn’t it? L wondered why the others were so blind to it, but then he remembered — Light is charming. Light has a beauty that doesn’t negate his wickedness, but cultivates it.
Conventional beauty never stood for much in L’s mind. To those that prided themselves on achieving that narrow goal of acceptability, a beautiful monster was still just that. Fabrics of certain textures made the tips of his fingers tingle unpleasantly. His thick hair wouldn’t take to a brush (and further, L hated tearing up under the bristles of a fine-toothed comb). His own appearance was a calling card to that particular virtue — or, rather, he understood the position that attractiveness could award a person. When that person is vain and more than aware that his attractiveness could be wielded as a weapon against the world’s greatest detective, it becomes imperative to steel oneself against such an underhanded play. In private moments, when Light is asleep or wrapped up in research that would mean his end, L can appreciate it.
In another life, under different circumstances, he wonders what would become of them if they had met before and, in doing so, L knows that his fate is sealed. A year with Light Yagami bleeds into every year that L has lived without him. When he allows himself the opportunity to be frivolous, (which is rare — it’s nonsensical to ponder a life beyond his next meeting with the task force and even then, his scheduling is to put others at ease under the inevitability of his own death), he thinks he might understand what young lovers must feel. Possibility. Security in another person. Understanding. Light is something to be swallowed by. He devours without so much as lifting a finger; and with the recognition of the fondness that exists between them, L has willingly stepped into his trap.
...Ah. Light has distracted him again.
“I understand that you’re upset that Higuchi died, that doesn’t mean that you can just give up. You’re being reckless.” He has the audacity to sound annoyed. Petulant. Finally, the Light Yagami he knows stands across from him. Water drips down his chin and L gazes at him through the mirror, a proxy that he can tolerate.
“Your reaction was… within reason. I’ve held you under suspicion for long enough. Even while we infiltrated Yotsuba with proof of another Kira, I wouldn’t let you out of my sight. Anyone would be frustrated.” L raises his chin and, through the mirror, the red of Light’s eyes deepens under the amber glow of the fluorescents. They aren’t going to talk about the way Light gripped at his shirt, or the way his tears fell and hit his wrist, or what is going to become of him tomorrow, because that is not the Light Yagami he has come to love.
“You were testing me to see if I could.”
“And you’ve proven to me that you couldn’t. That’s all I wanted to see.”
“That’s…” Ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous — and, Light would argue against the proof that presented itself, wrong, but his pride prevents him from saying what they both know. L walks closer, places his chin against his shoulder and lets his forehead slip down to the top of his back.
“Let’s go back to bed.” Light says instead. His eyes are still puffy and red. He’s trembling, still. Still. He turns, looks at the fading mark against L’s neck, and reaches to smear his hand against it, as if it were powdered on in a quiet gesture of repentance. He takes L’s hands into his, thumbs at his palms, and softly, gently, starts to guide him there.
“What compelled you to stay? Miss Amane has taken her leave. She was under no obligation to continue living here. I would think that anyone else would have wanted her company.”
“You wouldn’t understand. You’ve never been in love.”
L faces away from him that night.
It’s not a matter of how or why Light will kill him, but a matter of when and, as it happens, as Light’s hands curl around his shoulders under the guise of protection (and maybe, maybe that’s the case — he doesn’t want L to feel more pain than he must), L finally allows himself to drift off in Light’s arms.