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It is the slight shifting that gives L pause, the rustle of sheets that has him glancing up from the documents he’d been parsing through under the light of their bedside lamp. The soft whimper that follows is what makes L look back, look again.
It has been about three hours since Light had pretended to fall asleep, and thirty minutes since he had actually drifted off, his body finally succumbing to the very human need for rest. Now, as if on cue, Light’s face twists, and he begins to toss and turn, tangling himself in the sheets.
The disturbance doesn’t bother L, who never sleeps much in the first place. He does feel bad about it, though—not enough to regret having thrown Light into a jail cell; he is still very much operating under the assumption that Light is indeed Kira—but yes, just a little.
After all, Light used to get a solid eight hours of sleep at home. From the screen of his computer, L had watched him sleep peacefully, with no sign of distress whatsoever, as reports of Kira’s murders streamed in during the wee hours of the morning.
It’s a little ironic, L thinks, pressing a thumb to his lip. Interesting. For a man to sleep perfectly fine while murdering people, and then be unable to sleep soundly at all after losing his memory of it.
Each morning, Light plays the nightmares off as nothing. He smooths things over and evades L’s questions with a smile, glib-tongued, all while the bags under his eyes grow deeper. Maybe he thinks L doesn’t know.
In sleep, Light looks afraid. He looks young, younger than how he usually acts. L is reminded that despite how they bicker as equals and try to one-up each other, Light really is still a teenager and barely an adult. He was raised in a relatively average environment. Light grew up with a father working in the civil service, a stay at home mother who cared for the family, and a little sister to dote on. It’s ordinary as can be—at least when compared to L’s own upbringing.
Deductive abilities aside, Light was just a smart boy before Kira’s power. To be constantly placed under suspicion of being a mass murderer and scrutinized by a detective who spent more time watching over criminals than ordinary people, it would be stranger if it hadn’t eventually taken its toll.
Beside him, Light starts to thrash around.
He hasn’t shown any hostility or resentment at L for his imprisonment—not that it would have changed anything. Though in the first place, it was Light who had suggested his own confinement and therefore L has no reason to be guilty about it. Not that he is. And yet…
“Light-kun.”
Light doesn’t respond.
“Light-kun,” L repeats firmly, keeping his voice level.
L has never woken anyone from a nightmare before, and thus he has no baseline that he can use to predict how Light might respond to being touched in the middle of one. After a moment’s consideration—when Light continues to struggle and shows no sign of waking—L accepts the possibility of being punched or kicked, and reaches for Light’s shoulder.
At the contact, Light’s eyes snap open. He sits up with a jerk, eyes darting around the room, lips parted and breaths uneven. Eventually, his wide-eyed gaze falls on L.
Being shown such weakness, there’s a part of L that wants to probe, to push, to drag it screaming out into the open: Go on, tell me. What did you dream of? Hey, Light-kun, who did you dream of killing?
But Light is also his worthy counterpart. Light should be composed; he should be a challenge. And then there’s the other part of L that wants to soothe away the distress that doesn’t belong on Light’s pretty face.
“It’s a nightmare,” L informs him flatly, not missing the way Light flinches when the chain between them clinks. “It’s not real.”
You’re safe, he considers following it up with. It’s alright. You’re safe here.
These are words that don’t mean anything to him, but he vaguely remembers that they stopped a child’s tears in Wammy’s House (that boy had been subsequently sent away). But L’s also never been one for empty platitudes, and he doesn’t think Light will appreciate being treated with kid gloves, either.
“We’re in the Kira Task Force Headquarters,” L says instead. “The security here is excellent.”
On hindsight, perhaps there were more comforting ways to put it.
“L,” Light breathes, that one syllable ragged.
“That’s right,” L says calmly. “I’m L.”
Another shaky breath, and Light shifts, weight tipping towards L. His face falls against L’s shoulder. L stiffens. Light stiffens too, until L tentatively drapes an arm over his shoulders. Then Light sinks against him, and it seems natural to settle him close.
They are friends, at least in name. L is comforting his friend after a bad dream. L’s accusations, Light’s pride, and their petty fights aside, the narrative is that Light isn’t actually Kira. At the end of the day they are on the same side and working on the same pages.
Are they, really?
The hands fisting the back of his shirt are trembling slightly.
L hums. “Light-kun shouldn’t expose such vulnerability,” he says knowingly. “If Kira’s power passes from person to person, Light-kun suddenly having nightmares may allude to a sense of guilt for killing all those people. It would increase the likelihood of you being—”
“Shut up.”
Light’s breathing stabilizes, and his weight eventually eases off L’s shoulder. He doesn’t quite meet L’s eyes.
“You’re with the world’s best detective,” L says, mildly amused. His lip curls. “There is nothing to be afraid of.” Ah, it came out sounding protective rather than sarcastic.
“The world’s best detective who keeps accusing me of being a mass murderer,” Light intones, with a deliberate sigh. There is a sheen of sweat on his forehead. He’s sweating a lot, despite complaining about the air-conditioning being too cold earlier. At least he’s recovered enough composure to put on airs.
“Are you alright?” L asks anyway.
“Yes,” Light says immediately.
They’re just going through the motions. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“Not really.” Light sinks back against the headboard. He looks exhausted. “Sorry. Did I wake you?”
“No,” L answers, even though Light had already known that. “Do you want to hear a story?”
Light raises an eyebrow. He stares at L like he’s trying to decide whether L is making fun of him or not. “A bedtime story? Don’t patronize me.”
“It was a genuine offer,” L says. He can be unsympathetic, but he is seldom unnecessarily cruel. “I thought a lullaby might help—however, I can’t sing at all. How about a case I took as Eraldo Coil instead?”
This makes Light smile, just a little. “You can’t sing. Who would’ve thought,” he huffs.
“It’s a story that was popular among the kids at the orphanage,” L baits.
Light glances to him sharply. “Orphanage?”
Of course, that would be the word that Light latches onto.
“Are you interested now?” L smiles. “No, you would be more interested in knowing my name, wouldn’t you?”
Light straightens, and some focus returns to his eyes. There, the usual Light, only slightly muted. A bit of shrewd intelligence. “Even if I am, that doesn’t mean I’m Kira,” Light says.
“I never claimed you were.”
Light shoots him an exasperated look. “Isn’t it normal to want to know about your friends?”
“Is it?” L wonders. This kind of blunt tone isn’t one that Light’s taken with him before. Regardless, L makes sure to play his part too. “I’ve never had any friends before Light-kun, so I wouldn’t know.”
Light settles in, this time a more appropriate distance away on his own pillow. He opts for a relaxing posture, hands behind his head, eyes on the ceiling. L watches him. “Well? Aren’t you going to tell me?”
There’s an impulse that L has to fight down.
He pulls out one of the more interesting cases filed away at the back of his mind and begins reciting the facts. This, too, feels a little strange. L rarely gives voice to things that aren’t provocations or orders. He rarely offers unnecessary explanations. He doesn’t know how to be gentle.
Instead of Light’s politically correct answers and backhanded flattery and half-baked lies, L hears his own bland and toneless voice fill the silence. With hypotheses, facts and deductions—and he tosses in a deliberately incorrect assumption.
Light’s half-lidded gaze finds his immediately. His eyebrows furrow, and a moment later, smoothens out. “You did that on purpose,” Light concludes in a mumble. “To test if I was listening.”
L feels his lips pull sideways. He allows himself to be corrected and continues to talk. There is a concentrated furrow in Light’s brow as he sifts through the information, now aware of L’s attempts to pull a fast one on him every now and then.
Light occasionally catches him, interjecting when he finds an inconsistency in L’s reasoning. It’s just a game to test the limits of Light’s mental faculties when he’s half asleep—or so L tells himself.
He also tells Light, whose bleary blinks are gradually slowing, the intervals between them growing, about the world’s largest mysteries. Classified information that could cause multiple wars quietly spills forth from his lips. He tells Light the world’s darkest secrets, ignoring the bigger ones that loom over them.
Light’s voice gets softer and softer and his interjections become sparser and sparser, until Light’s mumbling fades altogether, replaced by slow and even breathing.
Inanely, L lowers his hand and brushes his fingertips over the side of Light’s head. The texture of Light’s hair is as silky as it looks, a sharp contrast to his own. Light rolls over, nuzzling his cheek into L’s palm, trapping it between his head and the pillow. The touch of his skin is warm.
There’s that barest stirring in L’s chest again.
It’s easy to understand other people, to say what they want to hear and manipulate them. But perhaps they never really understand themselves, neither him nor Light.
In the face of this precious, parting glimpse of the person Light had been before Kira, L searches himself again. Does he wish that Light was never Kira? He looks at the sleeping figure on the other half of the king-sized bed they share and asks himself this: Does he wish for Light to return to being Kira? Does it change what he wants to do?
(But, in another world, perhaps…)
L doesn’t let himself complete that thought.