Work Text:
“You touch me,” L muses, looking at Light upside down, L’s back on the old ground of the grave and L’s legs straight and pressed to the white marble cross, “you die.”
His skin looks normal, and he seems human; although phantomly tired.
Or maybe just not watching Light with the same intensity as he’d had before.
His bared neck would be perfect for Light to snap. Blackened irises reflect the lush greenery of the tree above him.
The plants grew without any assistance. L’s gravestone would get regularly cleaned on the Task Force’s initiative.
Light reluctantly paid for someone to do it.
L never moves off the earth over his coffin. It seems fitting.
And doesn’t.
“And why is that?” Light folds his arms across his chest. L could easily throw wet dirt on Light’s impeccable wool-cashmere suit.
Light got it as a luxurious gift for his hard work shaping the bold new world. Paid for it with L’s leftover money - not the ones Light had earned himself, off “L’s” new cases.
L had a lot left in his account. Light avoids using it for anything but gifting himself symbols satisfying his pride.
It was only fair.
Gradually, L tilts his head to the side. Light is standing almost above him, and L’s hair is a clean, inky mess on the rain-soaked soil. As if he had never escaped that rain, and Light buried him without bothering to warm him as if he had never escaped that rain.
“If you do it,” L stretches every note, self-possessed. As ever, “I will take it as you wanting to be with me. And kill you. Wouldn’t you like that?”
Light has heard this fairytale. It was just L not wishing for him to find out whether he feels corporeal.
Long ago, L would have managed to kill him. L would have been his last vision. The last drawing of L that he would make on the pages of the Death Note, after dreaming of L, in ink.
One last gift. Light could have given him knowledge of it; L could have given him death.
Light scoffs. The day is slipping closer to sunset. “Too late for you to try that.”
L raises an eyebrow in response. Death has frozen him human and brilliant, as he has always been and will always stay.
“I could still do that emotionally.”
Light’s laugh is a sudden, raspy bark, startling himself. God, his hand hurts like hell. “No. You can’t.”
His head is swimming out of nowhere.
The world is heavier on his shoulders.
His suit is leaking blood. Wounds under it have not been there seconds ago. Or they had been.
Has L known? Light hasn’t. Forgotten, maybe. Got overly focused on L.
He thought he was fine.
The sky is clearing. Reddening, and the tint of light loving L’s grave is turning golden.
Slowly, it is beginning to liven L’s face. As though he is getting more real. Closer.
His lips are not as blue anymore; more real. Looking less like forget-me-nots.
Light starts unbuttoning his jacket, hands shaking from pain. His shirt used to be white. Now it is deep crimson and sticking to his shoulder.
“Move over,” he mutters. It comes out more poisonous from agony than he would have preferred.
Momentary silence. Then, L folds his limbs and sits up, moving to free some space. “It will heal in a bit.”
“Shut up.”
Light’s legs are weakening. Trembling under his weight.
A few steps are all it takes for him to crumble. His knees crash into the puddle in the mug, and somehow it fucking sticks to him without ever sticking to L.
He has not come here himself, has he? He had come here enough times to have thought that he had gotten here minutes ago and spaced out in transit, or had dreamed of being here, as he sometimes does.
His face contorts in a grimace of pure disdain, and his tear ducts flare up from how undignified it is. He still sits his ass down near L, inches away from denim-clothed hip. L is observing him like someone well-known and, possibly, a little missed.
Light can’t even sit straight. He is sliding down until his head rests in moisture with a weirdly fresh smell. Of plants. Of life.
His forehead presses to L’s outer thigh.
He is shaking worse now. From rage finishing the job.
“You made it this far,” L notes, evenly, almost absentminded. “Pain will pass.”
“And you? Will you sleep?” he hisses, for some reason. He doesn’t question, “Will you leave me?”
“Mmm. No.”
Shuddering exhales are wrecking his chest. His lungs are unmoving, but he can speak. “And?”
“And?”
L chews on his bottom lip. It is pink, bothered by canines.
“Do you want to kill me?”
Light laughs at that.
Laughing with no air is strange. What is stranger is not feeling wrong.
His blood is mixing with the dark brown of the viscous puddles of the long-passed rain.
“It’s too late for that,” he concedes. Admission costs too much; L better appreciate it.
“Hmmmmmm,” is all L says with that weird rumble he makes when he wants to be a playful bastard. The corners of his mouth are upturned - might be an illusion - or might not be one. “If that is the case, get some rest.”
The pain is waning. L was right. Light is habitually trying to breathe.
“I thought you’d had enough rest,” he pushes to say something. “At the very least.”
“I have,” L agrees. “I’ll let you rest for a bit. Before I get to taking revenge on you.”
Light rolls his eyes. The blood has stopped flowing, and its traces on the ground are fading.
Like they have never been there in the first place.
He has enough strength to force his arm to hold him as he struggles and manages to prop himself up on one elbow.
L looks fine. The sun is setting. The marble is clean.
L looks alive.
And the world feels a shade brighter.
“I’ll torment you once you’re finished,” L promises. Calmness is brimming around him, and his smile is sly. “It won’t be long.”
Light groans and buries his face in L’s thigh.