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“They hurt you.”
“Light-kun says that like it matters.”
Shrugging, Light slid down the wall beside L, scanning the pavement splayed before them like an operating table. They were on the right perspective for it to be so, looking out from hardly half a metre off it. L even lower, his chin hunched between his knees, his body once more performing contortions to allow for a full expression of his moods somewhere that wasn’t his face.
Right now, Light didn’t even need to glance into his downcast eyes, to know that L was radiating carefully apathetic misery.
“It would matter to the supervisors. When I tell them.”
“When. If, surely.”
“When.”
“Light-kun is trying to provoke me into confiding in him, rather than a figure of authority.”
“Wouldn’t you rather?”
“No.”
Impressively, L managed to pull himself into an even smaller ball. His wings fell, in layers of dim white feathers, shrouding his entire body like a cloud over the moon. They were patchy. Light’s eye caught on the scarlet, reflecting out of his identically-coloured irises.
“You want me to protect you from them.”
“I would like you not to make me admit it.”
“I can do that.”
With a thin veneer of fondness, a fragile cover for the bottomless ocean of complications and desire that lurked below, Light stroked over the small amount of L’s hair visible, and pushed back of the wall to his feet. It was uncomfortable for him, to straighten his legs, after such little time like that. L was going to be in for hell.
Well. He had already asked Light for help.
Bending down, Light stroked down on L’s wings, pushing them back like he was guiding a doll’s joints. L was an instrument of L’s own creation, doing what Light said only if he condescended to master the deepest inner workings.
L got to his feet of his own volition. His head stayed bowed, his shoulders hunched forward, but he fumbled up the wall independently, while Light waited.
“Your neck looks like it needs medical attention.”
It was said in the same soft, worried tone, yet L hummed shortly, clearly not appreciating the joke in the words alone.
“Funny.”
“Complimenting me? You really are hurt.”
L was quiet. His lack of a sense of humour was clearly working in favour of apathy, rather than irritation. Light should really stop humiliating him in public, if he had the barest ounce of decency, as the theoretical yin-yang would demand of him.
As it happened, that buried spark of goodness would manifest, just for the little pool of darkness surrounded by wings of light that was Light’s nearest thing to another half.
Light’s hand found a spot just below the base of L’s wings, pulled in and shivering slightly as he walked on cue. L was nothing more than an amalgamation of buttons, when Light was in the right mind to press them, and he nothing more than a storm for L to shelter in the centre of.
They walked together, L’s hands twisted together and eyes fixed on the floor, whilst Light kept watch for any passers-by. They entered the building unaccosted, shadows scattering from L’s heels, and their feet moved in sync. L copying Light.
The stairs were easy. Light was wondering if people were avoiding them. L was hardly dripping blood, but he was dripping hurt, and an injured angel tended to drive off the ill-intended. Something about holiness leaking like blood from a puncture wound. It drove off the worst of the accursed beats they were schooled alongside.
For Light, though, it came full circle, his monstrosity tamed by L’s flickering radiance. L seemed so small, and so fragile, his wings barely covering this hunched shoulders where they hung limply from his back, and Light’s demeanour seemed to reign itself in.
The silence between them was the same as that between a neutron star and a black hole, while Light waited, quietly, as he always would, for when and if L would fall to darkness.
There was no need to rush.
Their room was dim, metal bedframes and thin daylight filtering in from the high-small window. Something of a cell, something of a… space. Something grey, as their colours mingled and L slumped against him.
“I would like to sleep now, Light-kun.”
“And would you like me to fix your wings while you sleep, or for you to pretend I won’t?”
L shook his head, and made for his low mattress. It was less a bed, than a compilation of things someone might reasonable deem to appear on one. Blankets, for him to hide under. Pillows, for him to throw at Light. Stuffed toys, which he routinely compared to Light in the most unsettling ways possible.
He clambered onto it, and curled there, nested in the soft things without making a single move to pull them closer. With his eye closed, he seemed almost peaceful.
Only Light could see the blood spots still littered through his feathers, the bruise he was disguising as sleep-induced as it bloomed around his eye.
L whined, when Light sat beside him.
“I’ll tell them not to touch you.”
“Light-kun… is not going to interfere on my behalf…”
“Oh, I can interfere. How does it hurt, compared to last time?”
“R- reference… scale of two points more. Don’t-“ L flinched, rolling onto his side with his wings flying up to protect himself. “Touch my side, Light-kun-“
“Noted. See, if you tell me things-“
“I was telling Light-kun not to touch me-“
“Maybe if I listened, you’d be dead by now, and save us both the-“
“Neither of us can die, so Light-kun can quit trying to make me emotional-
“Oh, because that’s so hard-“
“Light.” L’s wings shifted, and he tucked his head under a pillow, his voice coming out muffled and plaintive. “Things hurt. Try not to touch them. I would like to sleep.”
L knew how to push his buttons back, too. A simple challenge, that Light would love to bite back was impossible, without knowing where he’d been injured. But he could figure it out.
“Sleep then.” Rolling his eyes, just while he couldn’t be seen, Light tugged a blanket out from the mess that constituted a bed and tossed it over L’s legs. “I’ll wait for you.”
L grumbled, but went obediently limp, feigning sleep in that way he had to in order to convince his body he was actually resting. It took effort, apparently, to lure himself into sleep.
Light was a little grateful that he didn’t have to be the one to find the button that allowed L’s mind to wage reasonable debate with his body. It seemed like a little too much work. He didn’t like the idea of getting his hands that dirty.
For now, L was effectively asleep, or would act as if he was, with the appropriate mental functioning. He wouldn’t violate his own rules to snark at Light.
Which gave Light nice, efficient free rein over his angel’s body. More than anything, L was admitting a little need to relax. It was an easy trade.
His fingers threaded through those pale white feathers, rubbing at the blood crust on one of them, as one would a child’s back. It flaked off, under his fingers. Light considered it.
After a moment of thought, he licked the residue from his fingertips. Something about angel blood. Or just L’s blood. Light wouldn’t feel ashamed for indulging such a small urge. It coated his mouth, despite only being the very traces of past violence, and was an easy substitute for any urge he might get to harm L.
Primarily, he was going to let L sleep. Sort through his feathers. Perhaps get a damp cloth, to wipe the blood from the wounds that might well have already healed. When L woke up, Light would find him something to eat to replace the energy.
If L had the darkness within him to fight demons for the fun of it, Light was sure he could find the speck of brightness that must be within him to perform a little kindness.