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“Light-kun?”
L’s quiet call echoed through their small outpost like the coo of a long-dead ghostly child, and Light scowled. Kicked the wall, too, in case his partner needed to use echolocation to find him fighting with his snow boots by the door.
“Over here!”
Slamming his foot into the floor might help. Light was never going to enjoy suiting up just to venture outside like this. But he’d take it over freezing to death, as L had discovered the risks of, the first time he’d gone for a midnight walk and Light had narrowly avoided this depleting to a one-man research mission by virtue of seeing him leaving without so much as gloves, and immediately hounding after him like a husky in the snowy fields that had become their life.
L rounded the corner to see Light with his cheeks flushed, back pressed against the wall as he wrestled his laces tight enough to cut off blood circulation to his foot. He looked as wraithly as he always did out here, after a cursory, frustrated glance from Light.
Backlit by the exposed lightbulbs they had hanging from the ceiling, his winter coat hanging loosely around his shoulders and thumb resting between his pale lips, L looked almost like a lost child. Sunken eyes trailed over Light, bare toes curling against the rugs Light had been forced to put on the floor, to keep his partner from getting splinters. He moved like a ghost, padding silently across the entranceway to their outpost to his side of the gear they kept hanging by the door.
“Is Light-kun sure he should be going outside today? He seemed more irrational than usual.”
“We ran out of decent food a five days ago, and we’ve got another two before the next supply drop. Yes, L, I am irrational, so I’d like to get some work done before I lose my mind.”
“Perhaps he already has. Do I look like a hallucination?”
Light looked up, lips curling in frustrated disbelief at L taking this anything less then deadly seriously, and stared at his partner’s wide eyes, and the north he’d produced from his outdoors bag and was holding under his chin.
“You look like you’ve already lost your mind. Stop trying to make me feel better. You could have brought actual backup rations like me, not- five kilogram bags of sugar, or whatever it was.”
“And yet Light-kun is the one upset about the situation.”
“It’s your fault.”
“We will both survive. I am surviving happily.”
L wasn’t even getting ready. Light paused, both to catch his breath with both set of laces done up to the tops of his ankles, and to stare in open exasperation across the narrow hallway. They were meant to have left an entire minute ago, by the schedule, and it was still annoying him that he’d lost track of time while writing up findings from their last expedition to their equipment, three days ago. It was difficult, when the sun seemed unreliable, this far north.
“Get ready, L, or I’m going without you.”
“You are not. I would report you to our superiors for attempted suicide.”
“Like they’d give a fuck.”
“And volunteer myself as the geographically nearest trusted figure in your life. Do try not to swear, Light-kun.”
L smiled sweetly, as he dropped to the floor and pulled on first socks, then his entirely unlaced boots with ease, his coat falling behind him like a cape.
Mildly aghast, Light leaned back against the wall as his heart rate recovered both from the outright threat, and the exertion of getting kitted up, and considered asking for a relocation at the end of this mission. L was threatening him. He was sure he could pull it off.
He never would. It was L, after all, and after a moment spent wrestling with his own pride, Light remember that all of that was actually perfectly reasonable procedure, and it was just the fact that it was L saying it with such flippant confidence that was pissing him off.
In revenge, he stood on the back of L’s coat under the guise of reaching for both of their hats, and held out L’s over his head for him to take.
As expected, when L tried to get to his feet, he was caught at his shoulders. It was a little mollifying, for him to hit Light’s shins like a kicked kitten, eyes closing on impact as his lips twisted into a pout the moment he realised what had happened. L crossed his arms, and pushed his head back, glaring up at Light.
“Light-kun. If this is your reaction to my concern for your wellbeing-“
“Silence, gremlin.” Light dropped his hat onto his face, and pulled his own beanie on, looping his scarf around the lower half of his face. L already had his gaiter around his neck, pulled up like a bank robber to cover half his face with the black material. “Gloves?”
Light hadn’t let him forget that incident. They both had plenty on each other in the way of stupid decisions.
“Gloves. Light-kun never forgets, does he?”
“It’s stored right alongside the memory of how you brought solid sugar instead of extra rations.”
“Well, excuse me for thinking they would give us comfortably enough food.”
“You don’t believe that for a second. We both know they never do that.”
“I wanted sugar. Does Light-kun want both of us to be miserable?”
Light didn’t dignify that with an answer. If he did, he’d say something rude, and then L would be really upset at him, and it really wasn’t safe, to go outside without a trustworthy partner at your back. If one of them did starve or freeze to death out here, the other’s necessity was null and void.
They got the rest of the way ready in silence. Light zipped up his beige coat to his chin, making sure all the ties were cinched in so it was close to his skin, his grey and white striped scarf trailing down his chest and back. He pulled on his double-layered gloves as he checked his boot lacing, making sure they weren’t going to come undone, then tugged his wooden beanie down to fully cover his ears.
L was dressed in a similar length coat, entirely in black aside from some vaguely sporty white stripes arcing over his shoulders. It looked a little like it was drowning him, with his face hidden in both his own thin hat—because he didn’t like his hair being held down—his thin black gaiter, and the white fluff of his hood, already up. Only his eyes were visible, as he kicked unhappily with his lower-ankled boots.
Their eyes met, and L gestured with his head to the door, which Light had unlocked before they’d gotten everything on. Honestly, it was hardly worth locking in the first place, but Light liked the security. Even if there wasn’t another living with opposable thumbs in any direction for as far as either of them could walk.
When he opened it, Light almost forgot to close his eyes, and brace against the influx of cold air. L slipped past him, immersing himself in the sub-zero temperatures as quickly as possible, while Light yanked the latch back into place as fast as possible so there would still be warmth to come back to.
Outside, L had already picked up their equipment bags. Thankfully light at the moment, since almost everything was set up in their observation spot, a short hike away. It didn’t much bother either of them, to leave them outside. They were a good way from civilisation, and L had remarked that only vaguely suicidal hunters would come out this far at this time of years.
Which was reassuring, in a way. The only people in this part of Greenland were scientists or killers.
Light swung his backpack on, as L hitched his own bag up onto his shoulder, and shot him a vaguely impatient look.
“Yes, I’m ready. Let’s go- try not to freeze to death in the same of science.”
“Light-kun is so passionate about the research mission he chose with me.”
“Passionate about the research. Not where it has to be done.”
“I’m here for the pretty lights, personally. And the geography. Did you know-“
“I’m sure I do.” Light lead the way, tramping through the low-lying foliage that coated the landscape in dark, scraggly green, where it wasn’t just ice or rock. “You’ve told me everything at this point, I think.”
L seemed to have taken an interest of their home for the previous and upcoming two months, and Light had become accustomed to the various useless facts rattled off at this every time they went outside. It was like the cold triggered something in L, and made him want to start spouting as much knowledge as he could before they really did freeze to death.
Light was loathe to admit he had learnt quite a bit. It was annoying, because it had been things he hadn’t known, and didn’t know how L had found out at all. It made him feel like L was the actual scientist of them, and he was just tagging along as a pack mule.
“-I was going to say, we could try a shorter path.”
Light squinted back at his companion, at L’s hunched posture like they were in the middle of an arctic gale, and wondered if this was a very drawn-out murder attempt.
“Across unknown tundra nearly in the arctic circle?”
“Yes. I was looking into it, last night, and plenty of large animals cross straight through, as opposed to circling around the coast. It will definitely support our weight, and it might make Light-kun less unhappy with the world if he has to be outside in it for less time.”
L was eyeing him, like Light was some feral animal liable to bolt across the peninsula if left unsupervised and frustrated. Of which he was only the latter, but had been considering homicide to obtain the former.
Perhaps L had a point. Light was definitely overdue to cut him some slack, since L had been being more patient than he deserved, as he became increasingly irritable over the past few days. Their supervisors had given them enough food, but they were both seventeen, and L had minimised his own share as much as was legal in an apparent attempt to prove he didn’t need human food.
So, it was L’s fault. But he’d also been suffering Light’s pacing, his early-morning alarms, his mandated calls home with his family every other day, and his demands to not sleep alone in their shared room and bed.
Light sighed, and nodded, shortly. He could restrain his temper. If L had researched it, it was probably fine. L seemed to know everything anyway.
“I would.”
There would be repayment, but it wouldn’t be worse than L demanding Light cuddled with him. It was a fair pastime, when they were both only a few layers of insulation away from near-arctic temperatures, and also only had each other for human company. It had stopped feeling weird, after the first week, and had hardly been before that. They’d known each other long enough.
It was impossible to tell if L smiled, but he did move ahead, head bent as if to study to foliage they trekked over. Light had given up telling him he’d get himself eaten by a bear, since he was neither fully sure they had bears around here, and L seemed physically incapable of straightening his spine.
His foot hit something, and skidded, and Light scowled.
“If this is an ice sheet-“
“Its not. Go to your right, it should be entirely rock there.”
Grumbling in the privacy of his own head, and sorely wishing dinner was a little more enjoyable to contemplate, Light swerved a few metres to his right, tracking between their usual path and the one L was confidently walking across like a teenager who’d taken the same path to school his entire life.
L was something of a sight, framed by the mid-afternoon watery sun. They didn’t get much of it, and it almost worked in his favour. The whips of the fluff on his hood looked like his hair did, if it had been light cream, and there was a certain familiar shapelessness to his figure. His boots crunched through frosted flora, and Light could imagine him muttering to himself, across the ten metres that must have been between them.
A pretty silhouette, really. Even hunched, with a coat like a cloak going down to the backs of his knees, and hands shoved in his pockets. He’d get himself caught in a snare, like that, and Light considered calling out to mock him into being a little more careful when-
Pain, blasting through his chilled skin, sending blood up and out of his ankle, the grating feeling of nerves against bone, his own sharp cry, the way his other knee fell to the ground as Light’s vision went white with burning agony against his frozen pain receptors.
His fingers, scrambling for the source of his agony, found metal, clamped around his ankle. His mind through up a desperate thought of those snares he’d been about to call L to watch for, and a curse slipped past his lips, his perception and thoughts blending into a torrent of agony as jaws of the bear trap scraped against his bone. His gloves hands pushed at it, and the shrieking inside his head got worse, and Light wondered if he had been sent here to die, after all.
“Light, get your hands off that.”
L practically slapped him, shoving every part of his body not intricately involved with the mechanism away from it, and crouching down in Light’s blurring vision, hunched over and blocking his view of his own foot.
“Fucking- oh my god, L, that- that hurts so fucking bad, did you know-“
“Of course I didn’t.”
L’s voice was sharp, and empty. Thinner gloves poked at his upper calf, and Light noticed hysterically that L still wasn’t wearing the proper gloves. There were so many things he could repo his companion for right now. He was going to, if L didn’t work some kind of miracle, and presuming he didn’t fucking die on some miserable tundra north enough in Greenland to see some phenomena of solar and atmospheric gases.
“L- L, oh my god-“
Light felt his head fall back, his elbows failing him as he collapsed onto his back into the scraggly plant life, breathing hard. L was still prying at it. Every movement hurt, because of course the thing couldn’t have severed all connections between his foot and his body, no, Light could feel every grating sensation of fragments of bone against each other. He could feel ho much it hurt.
Softly, L shushed him, but didn’t say anything more. It wasn’t reassuring. Light felt something set down beside his unharmed leg, and heard another small grunt of anomy he could only presume was made by him, as he struggled to look up.
That earned him L’s hand on his chest, pushing him back down without looking up, and Light felt the air leave his lungs as his body forgot to cooperate.
“Stay down. Did… you know…”
“Don’t try to distract me, L, I- I will-“
“You will stay down.” L’s voice was quiet, and mild, and that was scary enough for Light to finally remember to listen to his companion, when one of their lives was in danger. “And let me distract you.”
“You shouldn’t need to amputate-“
“Quiet. Did you know that there is a ruin in south-west Greenland which happens to be called ’The Bear Trap’, and the function of it happens to be hotly debated, since-“
“Ry- Ryuga-“
Light felt his voice crack, as the metal clamps piercing his ankle shifted, and his whole body tried to rise off the ground in a violent attempt to escape L, who shoved him down again without much difficulty. Light could taste his own blood, where it was rushing to his head and out of where he’d bitten his own tongue. He stared into the dim sky, feeling L’s fingers moving on and around his ankle oozing blood into his insulating trousers.
“Since despite its name—and other name of ’The Great Trap’ in Greenlandic Kalaallisut—there has been little investigation into its true purpose. It is a dry-stone structure with a few square metres contained within metre-high walls-“
Every sensory input in Light’s head shut off for a moment, as the metal teeth buried in his ankle pulled, and he felt like some part of his stomach was being pulled up his throat along with them, as if attached by a fishing wire.
The pain mounted, for a single instant, as L’s hand yanked his injured foot into the air and dropped it to the side, and Light hear himself shriek again, as new things he didn’t know he could feel were torn from inside him.
When he returned to coherence, swimming through muddy oceans of adrenaline and his own blood coating the ice underneath his head, L was still talking, in the same empty voice, picking up right as Light tuned back in.
“-creating a space that, as my best guess, was used for storing things of importance that didn’t need frequent access. Hence, I would theorise a burial ground, of some type, although I’m sure it will take years for them to deduce that much, since no one wants to drag themselves this far out for what amounts to an elaborate-“
“Are you- are you done?”
“-elaborate pile of rocks. Yes, Light-kun, I’m done. I will need you to stay still a moment longer while I bandage your ankle, and I suspect we will be leaving for a hospital before you get more food, but your foot looks like it will survive.”
“A hospital?”
“Yes. Several fractures, at a guess, and a lawsuit I am sure you will be able to file. Feel free to offer me some of the payout.”
His head hit shrubbery again, and Light hear himself laugh, another sound of hysteria now tinged with dizzying relief. He was alive. He wasn’t going to have to die and have L carry his body back to civilisation.
“Not a chance. This is your fault.”
“I… am very sorry, Light-kun.”
He was serious.
Light startled upright, eyeing L in surprise. L didn’t really apologies. He justified, without excuses, but it was never full regret.
“I… only researched the geographical traits of this path, and I neglected to factor in your irrationality, or the fact that you would take my mention of large animals at face value. Admittedly, neither of us expected there to be… traps.”
Neglected to factor in his irrationality.
“…thanks for the apology.”
“Light-kun thinks I shouldn’t be blaming him at all.”
“I am the one with the broken ankle. I- really don’t think I am at fault.”
“Fault often results from idiocy, which is one of the most frequent causes of injury.”
Light stared. L stared back at him, dark eyes in a pale strip of skin surrounded by more darkness and off-white fluff.
“You’re calling me an idiot.”
“Light-kun is emotional-“
“I need to go to hospital! You are- calling me an idiot, when I just walked into a bear trap-“
“Correct. It was your fault.”
Light moved to punch L, and wasn’t quite sure what happened between the stab of what felt like a shard of bone through the flesh of his calf and the way his vision spun like he was in a dryer, but he ended up on his back, and L’s foot was placed carefully on his chest.
“Stay down. Am I clear?”
“Fuck you.”
“I will give Light-kun some sugar to improve his spirits.” Rolling his eyes, L crouched down again, rummaging through his bag for the first aid kit one of them always had to carry for exactly this situation. “When we both get home.”
That was terrible terms, but it meant they’d be getting back somewhere warmer soon. Between L’s reminder and his dying adrenaline, Light was remembering the cold, and it was doing nothing for his sour mood.
It meant he sat still, not trusting L enough to lie down again, and stared at his companion rather than his ankle as it was bandaged.
With the white lining of his hood, L’s flyaways looked a little more angelic. The white stripes cut through him like lightning, guiding a light brighter than any in their surroundings down the reflective strips towards his head. From the side, he looked… pretty.
That might be post-traumatic endorphin crash talking.
Light didn’t mind it. It eased the cold, and the pain, and his frustrations, to sit there, and let L wrap clean linen around his bloody ankle.