Archive of Our Own

Light felt L’s attention prick onto him the second his ears swivelled, beaming like satellite dishes directly towards his approaching footsteps.

It didn’t make him waver. It had, initially, when it hadn’t been bad enough that the detective had been making himself fully at home, and had apparently decided to start making Light feel unwelcome in his own apartment, glaring at him like an intruder every time he dared to approach his unwanted houseguest.

Now, his patience was wearing thin.

Light didn’t much care for L’s reasons at all, which worked in his favour, and against him, at the same time. The detective could have turned up at his doorstep with nothing more than a whim for meeting strangers or with the literal mafia on his heels, it wouldn’t have made an ounce of difference.

Light had let him in because it was L, the great detective, the one he’d admired through his father and tried to get the attention of through notes on his case files. The one he’d thought had never known him. The one he’d almost forgotten his obsession with, as much as he could forget anything.

For the same reason, he hadn’t initially believed L’s identity. That was until, still standing sullenly on his threshold and clutching a suitcase like his last line of defence against the world, L had stood there, and told Light the exact location of the Death Note, before glaring at him, and asking again for a bed to borrow.

There could have been no one else, who would have known to tell him that. Light had never told a single soul about the thing.

All he’d ever used it for, in fact, was solving the Misa Amane case, nearly five years ago now. When it had dropped in front of him, he’d read through it, like any sane person would, and it had come back to him, when he’d seen the murders begin on the news. So he’d amended his father’s notes. Dropped a tip at the police station, knowing that L, the detective Light had considered his rival in more childish years, had personally come to Japan to investigate the seemingly supernatural killings.

The things he’d said would have only been things someone could know if they knew the way Amane had killed. Light listed off every rule she was bound by, even handing over a description of his own notebook in the presumption that hers must be the same.

He’d never known what had been done with his information. He knew Amane had been arrested, then executed, and that his father had come back to working regular hours, but he’d still been a teenager then. Far beneath any ideas of being told adult business, far less the most confidential case in Japan’s recent history.

Light had learnt to live with the hope that he’d helped L in some way, and nothing more.

So, standing there, staring dumbly at his childhood idol, and hearing L describe exactly what he’d done with a murder weapon he’d only ever used to stop another had made Light wonder if he’d been in a dream he’d had at seventeen.

It had been relieving, if absolutely nothing else. If Light ignored the fear, the immediate questions, the suspicion and defensiveness, it meant that L really had noticed him. Enough to pursue their anonymous lead, enough to know it was him, enough to keep watching him all this time. It felt fuzzy inside, the idea that the detective L had been watching him for the last half decade.

However, as soon as Light reached the end of that emotional avenue, he was reminded of the wider picture. L had been watching him for years. Knowing he had some strange, supernatural killing device that had gotten Japan’s deadliest mass murderer executed without trial.

Light had wondered if he was going to die, to the only person he’d ever respected.

Alongside those emotional responses, there had been a few more domestic, trivial ones too. Such as why L would ever approach him, when Light had done nothing abnormal at any point in his life, including now. Why the detective looked like shit. Why the detective was his age, as Light had struggled to comprehend seeing a man he’d imagined a thousand times in the flesh.

There were a lot of things he hadn’t expected, about L. Him to be in his early twenties, him to be a cat hybrid, him to look like he had the sleep schedule of Light in his first few years at uni and the posture of a morose teenage boy.

Light hadn’t expected L’s eyes to pierce him like a butterfly, and for his deadpan to spell out, in small words for Light’s bewildered mind, that he needed a place to stay, and he was only saying all of these things to prove to Light he was who he said he was, and that Light had good reason to owe him a few favours.

That much, Light had understood. He wasn’t being threatened, exactly. But L was saying that he’d done Light a favour, without ever speaking to him, knowing about his Death Note and doing whatever he had done to keep Light clear of Amane’s fate. Now, he expected something in return.

It had been dizzying, to be launched into repayment for a debt he hadn’t known he’d owed in the form of giving the world’s greatest detective a room in his postgraduate apartment, when Light hadn’t known the man in the flesh until a week before the current day, and hadn’t thought L would ever know him.

In all honesty, that was why he hadn’t joined the NPA, after he’d graduated. Guilt had crept up on him, as he’d run through uni. Light had wondered abut this exact situation, somewhere in the endless musings of his eternally bored mind. If, when he walked into that police station, L would be waiting for him, ready to have him arrested for the crime of using knowledge he shouldn’t have had for good.

It had been a childish fear. But it had put Light off, and the adrenaline crash of realising he’d run away from his childhood dream had made him decide to forget about all things L, Misa Amane, NPA and Death Note all together.

He’d been living a normal life since. Freelancing psychology as a face behind a screen, maybe in a subconscious tribute to his childhood rival. He consulted on stadium design, occasionally dabbled in military development, had links to a thousand lofty industries as nothing more than an email address that knew how people would think.

It was an interesting change of pace, from the life of crime that had so captivated him. When he was avoiding the policing industry entirely, Light found a thousand other ways people were interested in why other people did what they did. From musicians looking for a favour to a festival director asking after the psychological impact of tent floorings, Light kept himself entertained with meaningless little jobs that added up to something that felt worthwhile.

Really, it wouldn’t have been hard for L to track him down. He worked remotely, but his address was registered perfectly legally, and the thousands of people he knew weren’t hidden themselves. Nothing about him was trying to hide. He’d just… hoped he’d be forgotten, and his childhood plays at detective work lost to nostalgia and wondering if there was a different life, where he’d chased the dreams he’d had at the age of seventeen.

Light didn’t regret not doing so. He had a nice life here, hundreds of niches carved out where he could feel in touch with the entire world. He went out for lunch with a business director he’d helped with floating on the stock market. He was emailed monthly updates on a longitudinal social work study he’d consulted on. He’d become an expert respected as much as a professor, just by picking his plays and noticing a few things other people didn’t.

People respected him. But they didn’t try too hard to know him.

Then L had turned up, looking like a drowned cat who hadn’t changed an inch of his lifestyle since Light had once admired him, and doused Light in the ice-cold reminder of what it felt to be understood.

He’d gotten used to being needed, in the life he’d made for himself. It had been second instinct, once L had proven why he should say yes, to do so, even as suspicion tracked after the detective who’d settled in his apartment with an air of exhausted satisfaction.

For L’s part, Light would maintain he hadn’t been told nearly enough. His own lifestyle was legal, but legalities almost meant nothing to someone of his intellect, and it was hardly even a challenge to keep himself private enough that no one would ever look for L here. He could give L everything he asked for without knowing a thing, but that didn’t change that he’d like to.

One thing that hadn’t changed about Light, was that he still hated not knowing something.

All L had told him was that Light had better be careful. Once his initial numbness had passed—which had taken a few days of Light walking into his living room to find a cat hybrid pacing his carpets like a wraith—he’d seemed upset, jumpy, almost suicidal. He worked, he worked just as hard as Light remembered his father working, in Amane’s days, but Light struggled to imagine Amane ever losing to the listless misery that hung over L’s work ethic these days.

Light had his own theories. His work was challenging, but he had mental effort to spare, and his endless carousel of volunteer work paled in comparisons to the rekindled fire that was deducing L, this time from far less distance.

L had a case. It wasn’t a new case. That meant that it was probably the thing that had driven him to such desperation that he’d hunted down an anonymous helper to a long-closed case and demanded shelter. The fact he’d done so at all must mean that he was facing an unprecedented threat to his being.

So, the outline of the solution Light had been searching for was that L was running away from something he’d never faced before, so dangerous that Light was his last recourse.

It seemed to have already taken something from him, too, to provoke such wariness. Light had found L staring into space at times, alongside his refusal of food and complete rejection of sleep. Textbook symptoms of grieving, exacerbated by the fact that L wasn’t saying a word to Light about it, and wasn’t seeing anyone else to talk to.

He had little more to go on than that. If he so much as tried to look at L’s laptop or notes, the detective hissed at him and occasionally clawed at his face, if Light had made the mistake of sneaking up on him. Then he didn’t say a word the whole rest of the day, as opposed to his terse requests for strange foods or comments on Light’s own lifestyle. The former was worse.

Therefore, in staying away for L’s sake, Light had denied himself any more information. And given rise to a resentment of the cat hybrid, which was beginning to manifest as impatience.

Light would have thought, after a week, L might have relaxed. Light had done nothing but made sure he would feel safe, deliberately ’happening’ to make L dinner at the same time as he bought new locks, showing the detective the ones he was choosing and listening seriously to the feedback. L hadn’t eaten dinner, but he had given feedback. Light had given him his privacy, too, and indulged his horrible diet, and he’d even bought L new clothes and a burner phone still in packaging, since the detective had arrived without one on himself.

All small gestures, all wrapped up with minimising all the things Light knew might give rise to suspicion. Whatever he could do, to make L feel comfortable enough to maybe talk to him, or at least to stop going for his eyes when he offered to make tea.

Really, Light was sure anyone else would have marvelled at his patience. Even if it didn’t bother him, even if he couldn’t help but see L and feel a desire to help, he was sure any other sane person would have long since gotten sick of a roommate they hadn’t asked for, who attacked them, stole their powdered sugar out of their cabinets, and took over his entire spare room and half his living room, after threatening them with possible execution.

On that basis, Light was beginning to feel like he was entitled to something.

He’d been getting more comfortable with L, too, even if it seemed to be far slower going with the cat hybrid. Light had learnt how he liked his tea. He’d learnt to leave his lights on, otherwise L would fall asleep accidentally, then overwork the next day to make up for it to such an extreme that he might hurt himself. He did things without being asked, not just because L didn’t ask, but because he’d learnt that he could.

Now, Light was using all of the goodwill he’d hopefully acquired, and walking straight up to L. From the front, so as not to get his cheek gouged open, and perfectly calmly, which might enrage the detective, but was a risk Light was willing to take.

And L was listening to him.

“L.”

Light wanted his full attention, even if it meant he pried the detective’s claws out of his current work.

He got it, at the cost of feel like death itself was staring out at him from behind those empty black eyes. L blinked up at him, not as angry as usual, but just as apathetic. Just as much misery and tension and exhaustion held in between his tail and his ears.

Light placed the two sheets of paper he’d been holding in front of L, kneeling down on the floor in front of where he was crouched, working on his laptop. One sheet went either side of it, and Light carefully pushed the screen forward, shutting down the device as L stared at the printed words without reading.

“Choose.”

That got L’s attention. Something between terror and hatred flashed in his eyes, and they refocused, scanning over the lines as his lips twisted in pure disgusted displeasure. It was a nice emotion to see on L, who exhibited nothing but anger and fatigue otherwise.

When he was done, he looked up, and shook his head, rage held in the twist of his lips. A warning for Light to drop this now, and it might be willingly forgotten.

But Light was staring at L. Who looked a mess, his hair clearly unbrushed for days, unwashed for longer than that, because Light could say with absolute certainty that L hadn’t showered in his entire time here. The bruises under his eyes were beginning to look like he’d been punched, and his lip was trembling, if Light really took the time to look.

L was in a state, and it was only getting worse. So, Light tapped the papers insistently, softening his smile to something approaching apologetic, while remaining merciless.

“The therapist is a friend of a friend from university. I’ve never met them, and they’ve worked in prison rehab, so they can keep a secret. The vet is private, and they’ll do house visits.”

Light had taken time with this. Even if L somehow broke his iron resolve to get at least one of these accepted, he wanted to put in the work. He’d researched both of them, deciding those were the most pressing issues, and nothing about them should provoke L’s rejection for any external reasons. If he was resisting, it was because of his own stubbornness.

Another head shake, and L moved for his laptop. Light moved it away. The look he received could kill, and he wondered if L had been sleeping so little he’d lost all ability to speak. But, no claws. Clearly his attempts to win over L’s decency hadn’t been entirely for nothing.

“One of them. Just one.”

Still nothing. Light sighed, and sat back on his heels, holding L’s laptop over his knees and giving him a truly regretful look that he was being forced to do this.

“I’ll choose for you, then.”

This was a big, big risk. Light didn’t like taking it. But he needed something, even if it was tearing open a wound, because otherwise L would carry on killing himself behind his walls. Light would love to be able to earn his trust normally. He’d love for something in his life to be normal.

L’s low hiss didn’t pass for talking, apparently. And it did its job, making Light have to take a moment to regather himself, and swat away the primal instinct to turn and run from the lion about to pounce on him. There was no lion, it was just a severely underweight and sleep deprived cat hybrid with delusions of his own survival on this path. Light would win, if L really did attack.

“Vet, I’m thinking.” Light picked up the intake form, filled out almost entirely. Hybrid laws were weird, sometimes, and he’d decided not to go for one that would fully accept L with only Light’s signatures. He’d decided it would feel aggressive, and might lead to difficult legal situations if he implied he was L’s owner. “They’ll wash you, too. Do you like baths?”

“No.”

That was a whole, entire word, and Light looked up, impressed. L looked feral. There was a definite risk to this endeavour, and it hadn’t lessened, but a little worry did loosen in Light’s chest, and he grinned, setting the form back down.

“Hi there.”

“I am not going to a vet.”

Perfectly reasonable, if Light had to be honest. Human doctors had been on the table too, but he’d gone for a vet on the grounds that doctors didn’t much enjoy being asked to bathe and declaw their clients while said client was hissing like a tiger. Vets, however, were angels on this earth.

“Therapist, then.”

“No.”

That rejection came so fast and so furiously that it sounded like L was about to snap something. It was more personal, fierce and defensive and fuelled, and it had Light’s entire interest within an instant.

“Why not?”

“Me talking to a therapist would mean as much as Light-kun speaking to his father for career advice.”

“So... inherently unpleasant, nonsensical to your lifestyle and deliberate choices, ultimately unhelpful and likely to give someone false hope?”

“Precisely. Light-kun is all I chose him for. Including tactful.”

There were several things Light could say to that. Firstly, that, by his reckoning, L hadn’t had a choice. There would have been no reason to choose him. Secondly, what he did say aloud, in a voice so terse he almost reminded himself of his own professors.

“I have been tactful. And all the positive feedback I’ve gotten is that you aren’t attacking me right now. I would love to continue to house-train you-“ Glaring, Light watched for the inflammatory language, and watched L scowl right on cue. “If you’d made me think that playing along wasn’t going to end with you dead.”

“So Light-kun is making me someone else’s problem.”

L’s eyes were dead, and his voice was flat. None of the overspilling genius Light had grown up imagining. None of what he’d imagined, really, aside from stubborn.

And smart, even in whatever state he was now. It was the right blow, one of the few that made Light pause, and reconsider. He could see how, to L, who must have come to him as an absolute last resort, the idea of going to someone else for his needs—while intended as a way of him not having to trust Light with everything—could seem suspicious.

It didn’t make L any less annoying for refusing, but Light saw where he was coming from.

“I’m making sure you don’t feel like I’m pressuring you. You’re only here because you threatened me, to be clear, so excuse me for being cautious.”

“I wasn’t threatening you.” L’s eyes averted, and his ears twitched back. He sounded almost sullen, not merely numb. “I was making sure you knew this was important. If… I was going to feel pressured by Light-kun, I would have run somewhere else.”

“You don’t have anywhere else to go.”

“I had other options.” As his tail flicked, L reached for it, pulling around his waist and hugging it gingerly, his gaze fixed on the floor. “While I was… otherwise uncommitted, I wanted to see what Light-kun was like in person. Until now, he was… all I could ever had hoped to choose in better situations.”

Light’s heart was skipping every other beat, right up until the point L looked up at him, tail-tip in his mouth, and his eyes were shining with tears. Then, every organ in his body stopped working at once, leaving his heart to drop straight down to his stomach.

L had chosen him. For reasons, reasons that had been valid, until this moment, when Light and done something he knew was stupid and made L feel backed into a corner. Until now, he’d been doing everything right.

“I’ll go back to that, then.” Light felt his voice pick up, almost hurrying over itself in his rush. “We- you don’t need to do this, L, not if you really are happy, you just… didn’t seem it.”

“I’m not.” Fur clung to the saliva on his lip, downturned as L puled his nail across the floor between the two forms. “Light-kun is what I wanted. He is not wrong about what I… may need.”

Perhaps he’d gotten a concussion when Amane’s arrest had been announced, and this was a coma-induced dream. Light felt all the excitement of a seventeen year again, shot through with the sober wonderment of a young adult. The great detective L, the figure that had been the closest thing he’d had to an imaginary friend when ordinary children had bored him, saying Light knew him better than he knew himself.

Maybe Light had always been a little scared of himself, ever since he’d picked that notebook up off the ground.

“So… vet?”

“No. Light-kun should know why I do not do vets. And a therapist… remains useless to me. As I made clear.” L’s claws appeared, scratching down the printed typeface, then piercing it, tearing gouges through the paper as the faintest hint of a smile played across his lips. He seemed to enjoy playing with his victories. “However… Light-kun is the only person I find myself trusting, at this point.”

Light could nearly lose himself, in that addictive sense of attention paid. Of being understood, wanted, by one of the few people he’d ever wanted in return.

It took a little effort, to get him back to himself. He had to close his eyes, and think, very, very rationally, about any burningly obvious questions he should be asking right now so as not to appear some lovesick idiot.

“What… about Watari?”

That was good. A little knowledge shared, telling L that Light knew L knew how much Light knew about L. He knew the only point of contact he’d ever used with the NPA, because his father had mentioned L’s messenger in the few times they’d seen him during the Amane case. Light hadn’t been surprised to hear that even his father didn’t get to meet L in person, and a little relieved.

Another thing special to him, now.

But for whatever reason, the question didn’t seem to land how Light wanted it to. L froze, dead in place, all humour or happiness sliding off his face like a mask. He stared, blankly, and tears began to build again, his ears pressing so far back they left dents in his unwashed hair. His tail curled tightly around his waist, just below where his chest began to move with small, restrained sobs.

Panic felt like lightning to his veins, and it was an effort not to grab L and wipe his tears before they fell. Light had to sit back, shove back his emotions all over again, think as fast as he possibly could.

“L? What- what’s wrong?”

L shook his head, and they were back to that, apparently. Light needed something to do. He was useless, when he had no obvious task. In the same way as it was one of his hardest challenges to himself to find his own work, he’d always enjoyed it most when someone pointed him at a supposedly unreachable target and told him to try.

He would try anything now, to keep L from crying in front of him at the mention of his representative.

“Is-“ Light caught himself, scanning L anxiously, concluding that more questions, right now, couldn’t possibly be the answer. “-no. Sorry. Is- do you… want me to do anything?”

One of L’s hands moved, covering his mouth, perfectly timed to the choked, awful sound of pain that slipped out of him. Every nerve cell in Light’s body was vibrating, his own heart racing as he could see every tiny breath L took between the tears rolling down his cheeks.

“Tissues? I can leave? Or food?”

His father had always said he tried too hard to make Sayu happy, all the time. But neither of his parents had objected when Light had doted on them, either, and it had been an unfailing strategy most of his life, except now, when his own fear of making another mistake might leave him trapped in place.

L launched himself at him. Light was glad he was kneeling already, as the cat hybrid collided hard with his chest, and for a moment, he was terrified that he was being attacked. But L had gone limp, sobbing, not making any more effort beyond that initial movement to get closer. Leaving it to Light to do the rest of the work.

With as such permission as that was, Light temporarily set aside all sense of restraint, and pulled L closer, hugging the cat hybrid clumsily to his chest as L cried into his shoulder. He was warmer than expected. His ears didn’t move.

“Watari… isn’t with you any more.”

Dead. That must be it. It made everything make sense, why L had chosen a place on his own, why he was so desperate for somewhere no one would find him, why he’d been grieving and angry and numb. Light had never known L through anyone aside from Watari.

The nod he received was confirmation enough. Light wouldn’t push further.

He could just wait, shifting whenever L nudged against him particularly needily, letting tears soak into his shoulder. Wonder how his life had come to this, when he’d spent most of it since his greatest teenage years subconsciously avoiding the very man now crying against him.

Light was careful, not to get ahead of himself. This didn’t necessarily mean much at all. He knew grief better than average, even if not personally, and it could be simply that L needed someone. He might not be special, he might just be a happenstance that had haunted L throughout his life.

That felt a little special too, in its own way.

Eventually, L calmed down. He seemed to be half-asleep, in fact. Light poked his side, and received a small, endearing hiss, and the barest hint of claws where L’s hands had ended up limp against his hips.

“You’re going to fall asleep on me if you stay there.”

It was a simple statement of fact, carefully neutral of any judgement. Privately, Light was deeply, deeply relieved that he’d finally found a non-intrusive off switch for L’s endless machinations. A little human contact tended to relax most people, and L must not get a lot of it, with his lifestyle.

Plus, it meant he felt safe, wrapped around Light and entirely uninterested in getting off.

“L?” Without thinking, Light moved one hand, stroking through L’s hair where it fell onto his neck. He didn’t get near his ears, a little more relaxed now, but still almost invisible amidst the blackness. “Detective, this is… very unprofessional…”

Nothing. L was out cold, having apparently cried himself into exhaustion in the space of a few short minutes.

Light pitied him, really. That was definitely the only thing infusing his sigh with fondness, as he stroked through the cat hybrid’s hair again, enjoying the slow heartbeat against his chest.

——————

“So?”

Light knelt up a little, finding a better angle for both his knees on the bathmat, and to angle the shower handset into L’s hair. They’d been at this for only a few minutes, and neither of them were quite comfortable yet.

“So what?”

L had woken up, and nearly torn Light’s throat out on the spot. It had been lucky Light couldn’t possibly sleep himself, with the detective so vulnerable, and also pressed against him in the most uncomfortable way, after about an hour. He’d managed to throw L back against the sofa, and get him pinned long enough for the furious look in his eyes to die into vaguely regretful melancholy.

Light had given him a few minutes, backing off far enough for L to pull his knees into his chest, and admit that was the first time he’d sleep in nearly three weeks. Not just the week he’d been here, but since Watari had died at all.

He’d shut down, after that, face half-buried in his knees and for once, sitting on the floor like a person.

He’d adopted the same position now, after Light had made it abundantly clear that crouching in his bath like a goblin was not going to be acceptable. Curled into a ball, staring at Light’s bathroom tiling, just about accepting that he was going to be bathed, and his compromise on this matter was that Light hadn’t requested he remove his filthy clothing, or his arms from his knees, or his sour attitude towards the whole idea of touching water.

So, L hadn’t. It was almost a relief, to have him sulking about something as mundane as a bath, after a week of him barely operating at all.

And Light was taking revenge for the difficult position on his knees by pressing a few questions into L’s still vaguely drowsy mind.

“So do you know who they are? If they’ve killed anyone else?”

“Yes.”

L’s voice was muffled by his knees. Water was running in streams straight through his greasy hair, down his sodden white top, his face, and the side of the bathtub, onto Light’s knees. On the upside, he didn’t seem to be crying anymore. Light was gaining confidence, and L seemed to be facing his grief head-on.

“Who?”

“Long story.”

“About what?”

“My entire life.”

L sunk down a little, or made to, before Light quickly turned the water onto his face, and he straightened in abject misery. Nothing about this was pleasant, according to L’s body language. Light was surprised he’d ever cleaned himself at all, when the fundamentals of the activity provoked such hatred in him.

But, he was tolerating it, and he was doing very well. He might have switched from being numb inside to trying to be numb on the outside, but there had still been minimal barbed complaints, and for that Light was grateful and impressed. He was wondering if L responded to treats, then consequently if there were any he could offer that the detective wouldn’t either just steal from him or order for himself.

“We have time.”

“Not if it makes this take any longer.”

“…Fair enough. I’ll finish this in five minutes, no matter what.”

“…It won’t take five minutes. My life isn’t that interesting.”

“Well, I’m interested, and you might as well distract yourself.”

L huffed, and moved again, but not enough for Light to have to spray the apparently hateful water anywhere aside from his hair. Light’s hope was that the shampoo he’d been working through in layers would run down his body, enough to have him halfway clean by the time he wrestled L out of his absurdly dirty clothes. It had been necessary, to get to this point, to let L sit in his own grief and apathy, but Light did regret it being so.

“I… well, we can skip the very first bit. I was raised in a home for incredibly gifted children, for the purpose of… making them more.”

Light hummed, demonstrating his interest and trying to take L’s attention elsewhere, as he worked more shampoo through another layer of black hair. It really was like grooming a cat. He had to go in sections, or L would get twitchy about his whole head being wet at once, and his hair turned out to be an awful lot thicker than it seemed.

Light had hopes that L’s hair might look nice, by the end of this.

“I was their greatest success.” L sniffed, his voice vaguely smug, even as his head dipping a little lower. Light let him have it. “But there were- are… lots of others. My age, and younger, now. Watari always wanted someone who’d live up to me.”

“Impressive. I see where you get the ego.”

“One of them was killed.”

L said that just to spite him. It worked, and Light splashed a little water onto his lap by accident in a flash of guilt, cursing under his breath. A few hours, and he already was making stupid mistakes like reacting to the things L said without listening to all of it and calculating the appropriate response.

“When?”

“Three months ago.” As he worked through his words with that careful monotone, L was becoming inaudible, his ears digging so far into his hair shampoo was gathering around them. “Just one. But... Watari was next, after I thought I had found something.”

“That probably means you had.”

“It means it wasn’t worth it. I haven’t found anything since. I- I don’t… think I’m really trying.”

That last part, those handful of words that contained a world of pain and guilt and grief, could hardly be made out, between the running water and L’s knees.

Light turned the former off, most of the shampoo out of L’s hair, and sat back, waiting quietly to see if L needed a moment. It hadn’t been five minutes. But he wasn’t an asshole, and he could hardly imagine. He wished he could.

“Watari wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself.”

He didn’t actually know that. But it made sense, with his profile of the man. Light knew he was the only one who ever spoke for L, and he knew L now, seeming so broken without him. There was the implied link between Watari and the place that had raised him, too, the part of the story L had definitely skipped over like a stone over deep, murky waters.

As assumptions went, Light was more confident in this one than most. And he was sure he wanted L to believe it.

“I want to hurt myself.”

L’s voice was dead, inside and out, his knuckles white where Light could glimpse them clutching his knees. His shoulders were pulled as far forward as they could go. Like he was defending a void inside himself.

“You don’t.” Light toyed with the handset carefully, weighing up the pros and cons of dousing L in freezing cold water in the hopes of redirecting his misery. “You want to hurt the person who hurt you.”

“They haven’t hurt me yet. They might not even know I exist. They just make me scared. I’m sure Light-kun knows why that… hurts more for me than most.”

“Something has to scare you.”

“Was Light-kun scared of me? When he solved my cases from his father’s hacked computer?”

“No.” Light smiled, and set down the handset. Not for now. They could finish this later. “No, I… I was angry with you. You were my rival. Same way everyone who can do what you can is when you’re seventeen.”

“I was… not like everyone, when I was seventeen.”

“Nor was I.”

“So I had a rival.” L sounded like he might have been smiling, but it was impossible to tell. “An unknown benefactor and a rival. I wish I had known, so I could have beaten Light-kun back then.”

“I don’t.” Laughing, softly, Light looked away. It was awkward, and vulnerable, to bear the childishness of his soul like this. “I was scared of you later. When I left university, I… worried you’d find me. Thought you’d arrest me like you did Misa Amane, so I… ran away from the police.”

“I did always wonder why you did that. Such a committed young man, who chose such an unusual occupation. I was more watching you to make sure you were not becoming Misa, but… it was still strange. Not suspicious.”

“Freelancing isn’t so bad. It gives me privacy.”

“And… now me. All because of your fear of my persona.”

“I suppose. Do you believe in fate?”

“With you, Light-kun, I very well could.”

Light watched L, from behind. The figure that he’d imagined sitting beside him, when he did his revision. The name that came to mind when he practised his debates. In a way, L had been more pivotal to his development than his school. It had been so easy, to bounce his own ambition and ability off a faceless name.

Now, whatever L and once been to him had morphed, from idolised rival to something stranger. Something pitiful, who Light wanted to repay, in whatever way he could, for what he’d done to Light’s life. That triumph in the Amane case had given him the confidence to move out, to find his own form of work in this banal world.

Whatever they were to each other, it was probably outside any definition. Whatever it was, it could only exist with the two of them. Geniuses, orbiting each other like stars, shedding their light on the world as they thought themselves invulnerable.

Light felt like he might just have found a vulnerability of his own, in L’s hunched form, curled in his bath.

“I’m going to hug you.”

“Light-kun has gotten brave, now that he has seen me crying.”

“Quiet. Add this to the debt I apparently owe you.”

Not minding L’s soaked hair or equally sodden clothing, Light slipped his arms loosely around his shoulders, fingertips touching just beneath L’s clavicle as his head rested beside his jugular. They fit together, in a way.

The pieces truly clicked together, when L leaned his head back, a soft sigh slipping past Light’s head and lost to the air surrounding them. Relief, maybe, on L’s part, that he’d clearly chosen such a childish fool that would still idolise him after seeing him in such a pathetic state.

Light could hardly claim otherwise. They were both pathetic. Both terrible people, hiding behind the facade of philanthropy.

L purred softly, his temple against Light’s, and the world finally felt like how it had meant to be, ever since Light had made such good use of the notebook that had fallen into his life.