Chapter Text
“You won't be able to manipulate me this easily, Detective.” You spat through clenched teeth. Keeping your composure was immeasurably hard when you had lacerations from your shoulders to your ankles.
L sighed as he began to lay a plastic sheet over the couch in the middle of the room. “I assure you I am trying to do nothing of the sort.” He finished splaying it across the couch and gestured to it. “Now would you please lay down before you bleed all over the carpet? A maid finding blood stains in my Hotel room would not do good for my reputation. Especially when it’s yours.”
“You're really comforting, aren't ya?” You exclaimed, although L simply grabbed your arm and guided you over to the sofa.
“There will be opportunity for sarcasm on the couch…” and he unceremoniously plopped you down on the plastic sheet, the uncomfortable fabric crinkling underneath your weight. You winced as your cuts brushed against both the fabric of your own clothes and that of the plastic, leaving red smears in your wake.
L simply observed your pain with a simple “Hm.” Before he walked off to, you assumed, gather some medical devices to stop you from dying.
He has to have another motive here, you thought to yourself. There's no way that L, thee L would not only expose his weird looking face to you but bring you, a criminal he’d been chasing for years, back to his quarters unless he wanted something and desperately at that. And from what little of the media you manage to watch in your corner of the world, you had a feeling you knew exactly what it was.
The news was currently raging about a ‘Kira’, a name dubbed by the public. You hadn't paid the most attention to it admittedly. It seemed to just be some sort of public craze that would die down like any other wave in the world. But it had lasted significantly longer than you'd expected.
One day you came across a newspaper stand selling the latest update on Kira and decided to nab yourself one. The headline was something extrapolated and over dramatic but it certainly had an effect on you. ‘Kira kills three more criminals in their cells, what more judgment will be passed?’
No way. That couldn't possibly be a real story that actual, trusted new outlets were reporting on. Right? But the further you read the more convinced you were and the deeper the seed of dread buried itself into your stomach.
What confirmed it was L himself appeared over a live news broadcast, that dumbass voice changer you'd managed to become familiar with speaking out to thousands of people.
This was real. Some person was just out there, anonymously walking amongst salarymen and tourists. And being as seedy as you were, you were in line for the noose they were tying.
You startled at the sound of fabric colliding as L crouched down beside you. The sleeves of his oversized shirt had been rolled up to make room for an assortment of about 6 moist, white towels.
“I take it, from your expression, you've figured out why you and I have grown so intimate as of late.” Without giving you time to respond, or rather not focusing on what you could possibly have to say, L pressed the towel to a rather glaring wound spanning the length of your shin.
You winced, feeling the moistness of your blood mix with whatever was on the towel.
“Oh, calm down. It's only soap and water, the worst is definitely yet to come.” He responded cooly, eyes focused on the task of cleaning your wounds out.
“Don't say that…” you grumbled, hating how vulnerable you were right now. This was exactly what he wanted. You both knew that, should L have approached you in person out of the blue you wouldn't have greeted him with kind regard, probably even punched him knowing you. So he waited for you to be in a state where need another person’s help was essential so that you'd be forced to listen to what he had to say.
“Yes…” he laid the last of the towels across your torso. “I have been advised not to make attempts at comfort before…but that is irrelevant to what I want you here for.” He wasn't even trying to hide the fact he had ulterior motives. It was so very L, but so unconventional you were still shocked by it.
You looked down at the white towels gradually blotting with patches of red. You were pretty sure this wasn't a standard medical practice.
“So what do you want me here for?” You made your tone insistent. If you were going to be offered a deal you wanted to know exactly what it was and how it benefited you.
“You're intelligent enough to gather that I want you here in relation to the Kira case. But I'm guessing you don't know why.” he spared you his gaze for the duration of his words before he went to touch the towels, squeezing the one over your shin hard against your skin before pulling it away with his index finger and thumb.
“Read my mind.” You replied sarcastically, although through gritted teeth at the expense of the pain. You could feel your wound throbbing as L’s grip was taken off it.
“Mm..” he hummed neither in approval or disapproval of your comment. “I want you as bait.”
Your jaw dropped. There was no build up, no warning, just plain and simple what he wanted from you.
L made no effort to get an answer from you. He just went back to tending your wounds, wrapping them with bandages as you were left to stew over his words.
“A-Are you serious?” Was all you could muster out after that.
And L, as always, responded with indifference. “I perfectly articulated myself. I want you as bait.” He repeated as if you genuinely needed it spelling out for you
“How can you just ask me something like that!?” You exclaimed, making L wince at the sound of your voice raising.
He sighed. “I wasn't asking.”
“Huh?” You didn't like that answer.
“You do need a lot repeating for you today. Although I suppose you have lost a significant amount of blood so perhaps I can let it slide…” after finishing you up he cleaned his hands and went back to that stupid pose he hit of putting his thumb halfway into his mouth to the point where it obscured his speech. L cleared his throat and spoke once again. “I said I was not asking you. This is more of an informing rather than an asking for permission.”
“What are you talking about? I didn't give permission for anything. I don't wanna risk my life just so you can have another bullshit solve!” You had to take care when trying to recall from both anger and disgust, trying not to aggravate any wound.
“May I remind you, Miss F/N that you have consistently ranked within the top 50 criminals across multiple countries for the past 5 years now? And now I have you here, in my hotel room, I have nothing stopping me from handcuffing and turning you in right now. It certainly would be another ‘ bullshit solve ’ as you put it to satisfy me.” L’s version of frustration was something you didn't like. It unsettled you, he just unsettled you as a person to be frank so the idea that you could be on his bad side irked something within you.
Part of you couldn't believe what he was saying. He was brilliant, there was no denying that but you didn't know he had it in him to not only work with a criminal but to also threaten them.
“So you're-”
“Blackmailing you, yes.” He finished your sentence for you in an infuriating manner that only served to display how he had the upper hand. It was undoubtedly smug, although just subtle enough for him to have plausible deniability should it be brought up.
You sat in your own dreading silence, you could feel the horrible build up of terror and anxiety in your chest, threatening to burst out in an ugly display of emotion you did not want the Detective to bare witness to.
“Why me?” You asked after a drawn out silence. “Why not any other criminal? We're all disposable, right? That's the philosophy this Kira has after all. Why not some other petty thief?”
“Because you are no petty thief, F/N. Your crimes are unimpressive to say the least.” He began unpromisingly. “However the elaborate web of fake identities you have concocted for yourself is beyond genius. I have to admit it took me months to track you down in the first place and then several more to confirm that it was in fact you.”
As L spoke there was an unidentifiable gleam in his eyes, one that burned as he spoke in admiration of you. Although it was gone as soon as it had arrived, leaving you to focus on what was actually being said.
“So that's it, huh? I'm a shield for you and the rest of whoever is working on this case.”
“Effectively, yes. Although there is one more thing I have failed to mention.”
“And what is that?”
“I want you on the Kira task force.”
“Huh?”