Chapter Text
“When I became Kira…” Light says, and L knows what this is.
It is not Light sharing with a lover. It is not Light confessing to being Kira.
It is suicide.
The worst and the best kind.
L’s heart soars and the hatred feels sweet, immeasurably sweet.
Only a fraction of it is bitter.
L hurts Light with words, as he's always done. He speaks of Light’s deepening suffering, Light’s unavoidable fall from grace, and they ring with finality as the bells toll for L…
For Light.
For Light.
They do not toll for him.
Light’s surrender is his defeat, the last and the most devastating. For all Light knows, L could stage his death tonight - and what, pray tell, Light would ever do? Cry for his family to forgive him? Scramble, fight, endeavour to erase the video and audio proofs of him being Kira from L’s computer somehow?
Light’s surrender is the confirmation, the assurance and the guarantee. He understands all he must understand about the cameras, their purpose. He might have even accepted the fact of their existence.
And, oh, he knows - and it feels incredible. He has no way to outplay L here, no way to manipulate him or run.
It seems Light must have despaired enough to not even attempt it.
He merely kept coming back.
It is a validation that Light has been dying for L’s attention.
L's heart is full, and his eyes burn from his pained, triumphant joy and Light's precious heartache.
He was right.
Light fell enough not to be able to kill L.
Has he not been able to kill L before?..
It doesn't matter. The truth is as follows - Light fell enough not to attempt killing L. Light fell enough to hope for L’s compassion, if not for the reciprocation he will never get.
Unbelievable.
Terrible.
What a sorry excuse of a man.
Perhaps, if L tells himself this enough times, he will truly believe it.
He must grind the fruits of his victory while they are ripe. He handcuffs Light to the headboard of the bed, he taunts Light, and Light stays silent as much as he possibly can.
As though he believes L cannot fathom Light being in love with him. As though he thinks L would ever ignore the truth purely because he dislikes it.
As though L could be blind to Light’s pitiful attempts at catering to him; pampering him.
Since Light thought L could not, L paid attention.
L taunts Light by inquiring about the reasons for Light sparing him for months on end.
Predictably, Light refuses to disclose them.
What for? To irritate L further? To maintain one last mystery as though L has not known the answer? To preserve the remains of the dignity he has dragged through dirt, blood and grime to build something that could never be real?
But of course. Light has no desire to grant L his perfect victory.
So be it.
L entertains himself by forcing a toy into him.
Light trembles, cries, heaves. L's heart pounds and his hands are wet, but he is glad about all of it.
Perhaps Light is having a quiet panic attack. It is this suspicion that makes L’s own skin clammy, but he has a plan. He has a goal, a strategy, and a scenario in mind, and it is a fair one - for Light to feel precisely what L felt that first night.
The fear of death. The pain of betrayal. The helplessness, the hopelessness, the expectation of approaching end.
And, to be frank, L is actually being kinder with that - choosing a physical alternative to the psychological torment that he had felt. Light should be grateful.
That might be L’s petty vengeance talking - yet he won’t stop himself from having one night of satisfaction.
If Light can survive it… they will be even for November 5th. However much it stings L to admit it; he’s never been interested in self-deception. He comprehends what he is feeling, what makes him feel and how to regulate it whenever there is a chance he can accomplish that dismissal.
Yes, it is different from that night, indeed. Light didn’t agree to this. Light screamed outright. Light knew it was revenge and intentional torment rather than a victory lap for self-satisfaction. Light knew L would not allow him pleasure and malicious comfort Light granted L after L talked about the bells.
L should not be sorry.
He should not be a tormentor, either.
But a good man could have never caught Kira.
Thus, L does what he must do - to tighten the noose, to fight Light, to show that Light should never doubt his power or attempt to dismiss his feelings and emotions.
How can L trust him with his life, safety, peace.
Light must have known for a long time that he had lost.
But then, Light did not ask for L to stop. Light did not plead for mercy; Light did not fight.
It seems Light understands the purpose of the exercise.
Or, possibly, he does not. Maybe he is merely that scared to protest.
He looks disturbed. Weakened, unsettled, taut.
Exposed.
Distressed…
God, it’s hot.
L confirms what he is thinking about when he admires Light’s shaking thighs. They are strong, lean, and terribly appealing - the same as everything about him. They just plead to be gripped, scratched torturously slowly, until Light starts whining, and painted with delicate bruises in the shape of hands holding them.
His tense stomach. His trembling hands as he is trying so hard not to get hurt by the handcuffs. His shining wet eyes, painfully pale face, well-kissed lips, stuttering breaths.
All L’s.
Light will lie there and take it obediently, pointlessly dreaming he could resist - and still letting himself be invaded, forced open to the point of stinging and soreness. Having to keep the heavy toy L forces into his unused body, knowing that it makes him too disquieted to move.
He’s so vulnerable. So pliant.
L’s mouth is watering undignifiably. He craves to see Light even flimsier, absolutely incapable of talking back. Wholly dismantled, being slack and owned, trying and failing to even tense to express a nonverbal protest.
Though L can’t indulge in it. Not yet.
L pulls Light’s legs up, and Light wails in terror and pathetically tries to kick him.
L’s heart unpleasantly skips a beat.
When he lies down, he cuddles up to Light, wanting his unwilling warmth to soothe his bitterness, to comfort himself.
It doesn’t help Light.
Light cries for hours, nauseous and scared.
L pretends to be sleeping. Light’s warmth barely helps with the unnerved, sick anxiety in L’s chest.
Light evidently is trying to stop sobbing. He clearly does not enjoy whining; yet even when he manages to subdue his crying to the quietest whimpers, they are so hopeless, anguished and heartbroken, as if he is expecting to be tortured and killed, that L struggles not to give him any consolation.
L’s thoughts race in circles.
What is this show of grief?
L can’t tell.
Why does Light act as if his torment is excruciating?
Is it really unbearable?
L has no desire to know.
He can not let himself know.
Lest he will fall into the trap of condoling with Light.
Rather than with himself.
L cannot allow himself to give Light any advantage; L has no desire or capacity to sympathise for two.
He might be feeling like he has to, but…
No. Not now.
Light quietens come the morning. Or, at the very least, it might seem so. Asking him about it or checking in on his state is not a luxury L cannot afford. Neither for gloating nor for calming himself.
L fucks him.
It feels divine.
He will be dreaming for months about Light’s screams of delight, overwhelmed and wet moans. His whimpers, sweet and blissed out, - they do something horrible to L’s sanity and heart that seemed as if it had iced over in long months when Light’s hands, smirks, and taunting were scorching L’s flesh and eyes.
L hates remembering that this - this nausea, euphoria, torture - is meant to be love.
That it is made of love.
He thinks he wishes he had never had it.
Only Light’s cries of pleasure have been ridiculing his self-protecting thoughts.
Light is a work of art now. L wishes it were simpler. That Light being unusually cute and amusingly helpless were not affecting how captivating he is, how much L wants to inhale his every exhale and force out his every tear.
It feels as though L’s mouth was meant for heating Light’s skin; L’s hands know exactly how to stroke Light’s tensing sides, gentle thighs, and L can’t pull away for the life of him, he has never could. Not since he has seen Kira being teary-eyed, wanting and afraid of him for the first time.
This tenderness and fervour radiating from the source of his self-disdain and distress make him crave to snarl, weep, smile, and love bloody Kira till the sun sets again.
L wants to see Light being this open for taking by him all the time.
It is a twinge of delirium and a glance of paradise. Entirely unacceptable and irritatingly uncharacteristic.
L wagers that, ideally, he will come to his senses soon.
Later, he hates being right.
He does come to his senses.
He cleans Light up, frees Light, tries to give Light water.
Light is being an ungrateful, hostile bastard.
It hurts, but L should have expected it.
He did.
He can hate Light for it.
After all, he can hate Light for many things.
For example, L can hate Light for uttering, "If you want to have a moral high ground, at least let me have one good night."
As if nights with him were not good.
What a liar.
Calmly, L puts on his to-do list to teach Light when Light is or is not allowed to talk back.
And yet, with that, L thinks...
They are more or less even for that first November night.
Obviously, Light has more debts to settle.
At this point, it is enough to soothe L.
Light likes L emotional.
And L likes Light vulnerable.
And they both like the other helpless.
Hence, truthfully, Light should have known what L would do.
What L had to do.
He must keep reminding himself of the chosen line of reasoning - he needed to overwrite the script of their story. To fix the power imbalance, he takes his revenge - since his pride was weeping, and the more it was hurting, the closer the dagger of distress was inching to his self-worth rather than his ego.
He will smirk and tell Light this once Light asks.
If Light wonders about his story.
L would not tell that he needed to paint over the memories of Light taunting him.
Of Light holding him down and kissing his tears away, looking at him as though no one and nothing else mattered as long as Light had L and power over him.
It hurt, soothed, ground at L.
Haunted him.
It all haunted him.
All this time.
He was fighting not to think of it. He was dismantling them both to get over it.
Though some torments, meaningless as they were, ate his way under his skin.
Just as Light clawed at his heart.
And made L unable to forget the most devastating things.
He did not blame himself. For about a month, he had been straining himself, looking for the signs of the nonexistent guilt, thinking that, maybe, he had only chosen to believe that he was not at fault. He had never been not in control before, and he had been convinced that everything was his choice and his will.
Then, he realised he did not believe himself to be the catalyst.
He was merely devastated. Who would not have been?
He kept thinking about it.
Running possibilities for the long-past events in his mind, pleading his tears to stop and his heart to quieten.
The most devastating truth was that it was him who agreed to sex.
Who kept agreeing to sex.
It haunted him. It haunted him - the knowledge that that autumn night - and the winter nights afterwards - he'd agreed to sex himself. He could not overpower the thought that maybe Light, whom L has successfully convinced that L has never loved him, thought L really was a “whore”. The person who wanted sex with their future murderer even knowing letting them take him would not change a thing about the murderer’s intentions. Who craved sex not because he was unexpectedly, inescapably, desolately in love and needed closeness to breathe in the reality of his defeat. Who was haunted by the suspicion Light was telling himself it was L who asked for it, who invited Light to fuck him, who kneeled and begged for a throwaway glance.
That perhaps Light thought L was the one being a self-delusional martyr.
That perhaps Light thought that L was the selfish, self-pitying culprit.
That perhaps L himself not thinking it did not matter to Light.
That Light didn’t think L had simply wanted too much, loved too much, unwillingly dreamed and unbearably needed, always needed, a shred of attention to angrily lie to himself that he had been getting something out of this all, that he knew what he was doing and was fine.
That since the moment L saw Light’s face change when the handcuffs came off, there had not been a day when L did not need this.
He could not let it happen.
Light is quiet. L induces he is exhausted, and it is what L wanted to happen, and it only makes him feel worse - unhappy, bitter, as though he wished Light would somehow pull through and sneer at him; perfect, menacing, pretty ruin L could not handle looking at and desired so devastatingly when he was so fragile, so close.
L leaves him to sit in the living room of the living quarters. Light half-lies on the couch, and he does not bother to switch the lights on.
The air is stale in L’s room. He has grown unaccustomed to its cleanliness and serenity, to how bare the shelves are now and how untouched - the bed.
The door is knocked on at 10:35 PM, after L has refused dinner for the fourth time.
After his nervousness had finally subsided after the weeks of him plotting and being on edge.
Too stressed at the possibility of Light seeing through his disguise.
Light opens the door.
L lifts his eyes from where he is hunching on the bed and stares at him coldly.
Light doesn’t look fine.
He looks fantastic. Put together, with hair meticulously combed. Skin glowing from the generous skincare and concealer applied under reddened impassive eyes.
He is dressed in home clothes.
“Do you have something you still wish to discuss?” L asks, making it clear the answer is “no”.
Light languidly comes to sit by his side anyway.
Light’s every step is unhurried, leaden. It does something disturbing to L’s throat.
Light sits by his side. L could touch his hand.
And his place of rest becomes yet another battlefield.
Light swallows, looking down, keeping his face a mask.
Perfect.
He looks perfect.
It makes L despise him a little.
“L…”, Light begins, and L puts up one hand, done with the circus.
“Get down,” he says. He is aware of where this is going, and it probably should go that way. He must feel pleased at Light doing this to himself.
Unexplainably, L feels nauseatingly defeated again instead.
And Light takes his clothes off.
Beautiful.
Practised.
Slowly.
His wrists bear marks of abuse, and that is enough. If L buried his memories, it could look like it was not sexual.
His body is clean otherwise.
Light lies down. L pulls off his shirt - he can’t bear the thought of fully baring himself yet.
Light watches him with tired, matte eyes. So honest, so pained, it cannot be real. L cannot recognise this picture and should not be memorising it because he might start doubting his sanity if Kira is being nice and it is not fake.
Light's expression is darkened, corners of his mouth - downturned.
Light whispers, "I’m so sorry, L.”
L cannot.
Process that.
“I’m sorry...” Light starts, half-distracted and alien.
“Stop,” L can only force it to speak itself, not spooked but harshly. “Stop.”
“I am not. Saying this for my benefit,” Light pushes, and here it is - this tightening of his mouth, narrowing of his eyes when he raises his chin and locks gazes with L - so that L cannot turn away.
“I don’t care,” Light presses, voice growing more sure, although it is nonetheless frail, “Whether you forgive me, I don’t need this. I just want you to feel okay…”
“Shut up,” L snaps.
The way he has never snapped before. Too obvious, too hostile.
Almost cracked.
He hastily patches up his facade.
“I’m not trying to force you to acknowledge it…”
“I like hurting you during sex,” L says. “Be aware.”
That renders Light silent.
His breath is caught in his chest.
“I don’t want this," L says. "I don’t want to hear you. You are not the victim.”
Light stares.
“I am not saying I’m the victim,” he is on the edge of throwing his hands, and the last thing L wants is for Light to start dragging him into the argument.
Light’s eyes are getting wet.
Again.
“You are not listening to me,” he hisses, face painted miserable, pressing a hand to his heart.
“I don’t want to listen to you,” L forces.
“L, please, just wait…”, oh God.
Again.
“No.”
“Please, just a moment…”, when will he let L be.
“I know,” L grits out into his face, uncomfortable from rage heating up his muscles, “What you want to say, and I don't want to hear it.”
L knows, perhaps much more than Light does, that no war can be won in anger.
It can only be lost.
But L much rather lose to his fury than to Light’s sorrow.
He puts his hands on Light’s chest before Light can start talking.
Light falls silent, eyes widening.
He instinctively grips the bedsheets.
L wishes he could close his eyes.
He starts moving his hands over Light’s body. Massages his shoulders to Light’s twitch, rubs palms over his nipples to Light’s half-choked inhale, takes Light by his thighs and wraps his legs around his waist, pressing their groins together and rocking against Light slightly, waiting for him to begin letting out sounds of endorsement.
This is the battle Light has come for. This is the restitution - or retribution - Light thinks L expects - an eye for an eye.
And it is the relentlessness L must show.
The foreplay is as much for him as it is for Light.
It is slow and silent. It takes a while for Light to start breathing louder, to start lightly squeezing L with his thighs, to start flexing fingers around the fabric and rhythmically tensing up his abs.
L feels harder and breathless, maybe because it is taking so long, with just one type of motion, and their contact is familiar and mild, especially when he has no urge to lower himself to put his mouth on Light’s.
It is long, torturous, ecstatic, mindnumbing minutes of closeness and beginning to want Light’s touch when L remembers, amidst the haze, what he has to move on to.
He puts his hand on Light’s neck.
Light instantly, instinctively jerks in fear.
Then, realises what he has done and freezes.
They pant, eyes locked, and bodies - fully entangled.
Unavoidably intertwined.
L wants to lean down. Kiss, moan, bite, caress, merge them together, but he should not.
And he can’t.
He wants to press on the sides of Light’s neck carefully.
But even after so many past rounds of the breathplay of all other kinds besides this and closing Light’s mouth.
Light looks like L won’t be able to. Like Light won't handle it and L won't want it. Even after so many past rounds of the breathplay of all other kinds, after choking Light to cries and orgasms, after sealing his lips shut with kisses, finding out that this was what Light enjoyed as well - even if he did not fantasise about it the way L did.
L’s mind is not working right. Not with heat under him and warmth around his sides.
He asks, “Can I put handcuffs on you?”.
And Light’s face goes ashen.
L’s heart stops.
If he seems cold or furious, he doesn’t mean to.
Light opens his lips slowly.
“This one is a BDSM equipment piece,” L rushes to clarify. His whole being is on high alert from the horror he sees in Light’s eyes. L doesn’t remember feeling so…
Afraid?
No. He does.
Light is still mute. Light’s body is rigid.
And suddenly, fervently, L wishes Light would never watch L with this look in Light’s eyes.
L is torn between “You don’t have to be afraid” and “No problem if not”, but they are too fucking kind, and he still… feels hurt. He still wants to let Light feel the helplessness and despair L has felt once, to make Light afraid for his life and for his fate in L’s hands. Afraid of what L could do to him…
And what L didn’t.
“You bought BDSM equipment?” Light whispers, white, wide-eyed, borderline dead.
As if he doesn’t know how much L likes being sadistic in bed.
As if Light himself doesn’t get off on feeling pain.
As if he has been blocking out the knowledge of how he gets so much hotter, moans so much louder, shakes from crazing aftershocks after orgasming from being hurt.
Light makes sad faces when he gets off on it, but he sure comes hard and often, completely open, from the softest scratching and the deepest pressure.
“You can…” Light says, and can’t not falter.
L understands the scarily daunting, painfully arousing sentiment, either way.
It’s an answer in and of itself.
L promptly gets to work to get him to gasp and lose his lexicon.
In a sauna of his thoughts, L pumps Light’s dick, and Light moans, throws his head back, holds himself back from bucking his hips, and L barely has the ability and time to pick up lube from the nightstand with one hand, get it on his hand and start prepping him.
Light starts whining, losing himself to occasional trembling.
He is tight. Too tight. L has remarkably few instances to compare this to, but he is certain that this is not okay.
“It hurts,” Light is turning to practically whimpering again.
What can L do about it when he is already being exceedingly mindful and textbook with his approach.
“I understand,” he says, faking steadiness, wishing wholeheartedly he could just stop now and it would not break anything.
“It hurts…”
L doesn't understand it.
The confusion is borderline dreadful.
He could have asked.
He couldn't.
Is he moving too fast? Is he pushing his whole fingers in too early, or is Light merely too taut, too sensitive from anxiety?
“This is not for you to enjoy,” L has to lie. “This is for me.”
He doesn’t say it.
Any of it.
L utters something placating, and while his limbs are numb and his temples start hurting from confusion, he keeps going.
Since stopping would be worse.
It is too heated, they are too hot, too deeply intertwined, and stopping now will make them feel like it was all for nothing. L’s pain and hatred, Light’s appalling self-sacrifices, the stress of today, the threats of yesterday and the wars of tomorrow. L wishes to never think about how Light would feel knowing he could not fix even the most insignificant things between them, repay a millionth portion of his debts. How Light would feel knowing L didn’t take anything from him because he had been too sensitive, too weak to make it worth L’s while.
How Light would feel thinking L does not want him and has no use for him.
L tries to stretch him more carefully.
Does not help.
L attempts stroking his thighs, trying to soothe him, biting slowly at his hips, struggling to distract him. L adds more lube, but it seems like it’s never enough, and Light whimpers from every slide of L’s fingers in him, tensing almost painfully around his knuckles. L adds one more finger, and it makes Light’s tautness worse instead of better, even as L is being torturously slow with it.
As much as it gets L harder, as much as he is intoxicated by Light’s little sounds of discomfort and the pose of trust Light has forced upon himself, L valiantly tries to stay conscious and remember that Light might or might not be getting hurt beyond what he wishes to feel.
Every second with his fingers within Light’s tight heat, his gentle walls erodes L’s sanity, the soundness of his judgment melting in the growing wildfire of touch, oxygen, electric current wound tight inside Light and inside him, between Light and him.
By the time a reasonable ten minutes had passed, by the time Light started sobbing and pleading for him to get on with it, by the time he had bottomed out inside Light, Light is gasping, teared-up and a little delirious. He is wet, so hard, with shaking legs holding L in a deadlock, and L is worse, and there is despair and desire in the air, L’s eyes are on fire, and they both are too desperate to finish and too unwilling to let it end.
L moves. Light thrashes with his hips to meet L’s thrusts.
His vision is blurry; Light likely can’t see it.
Light is a mess. If he’s pleading or crying, L does not know what Light is trying to convey since blood is pounding in his ears, and he is hyperventilating from the beauty of disaster of it all, his grip on Light is becoming impossibly tighter, and when he rams into Light, it is purposefully rougher, for one reason - it feels so much more physically pleasurable this way. Light clenches around him weakly, abruptly, and moans through sobs at the right moments, as L manages, unconsciously, to get his thrusting and Light’s spasms unsynchronised.
L’s palm is over Light’s hand, and he is pressing Light into the bed with a significant portion of his weight, folding Light until Light can’t handle the stretching of his legs and puts as much strength in them as possible to push back at L.
It’s hell, and it is their paradise.
L’s mind is in some liminal space that his body lusts after, ready to die for.
Light is weak. Weak and sweet. And even if he weren’t, he’s everything L needs. Everything that brings him solace and whispers answers he wishes he could let himself hear.
If only Light really loved him, L could let himself be with him.
L could tell him everything.
Light’s arms are shaking, and his breathing hitches each time he tries to pull L closer - by his shoulders, his waist, his neck. His muscles must be overworked already.
L tells him not to try, stop doing that, snapping “Don’t touch me” between the thrusts, hissing “Stop it, Light” when having to pause to push Light’s hands away, not succeeding at it, “I said stop it!”, having to raise his voice, “Leave. Me. Alone!”, hearing Light argue something desperately, infuriatingly, anxiously in response.
L can’t get Light to stop this. Light’s breathing too close to his lips, suffocating him, Light’s touch scorches his skin, Light’s arms trying to wind up around his neck seem seconds away from starting to choke him.
Light’s words assault his brain with dull pain and craniotomic pressure.
At least Light is feeling good.
Light is speedily rambling something, words interjected with sharp moans and prolonged, raspy whines, as he is trying to get through to L, though L has no incentive to listen, because all Light tries tearily talking about is hurt, defeat and forgiveness that L cannot let himself have.
Here, he has nothing else to give.
“I don’t give a fuck,” L wants to grit out, to roar, to whisper. He wants to see the moment Light’s heart would crack.
He wants to think, “Good. This is good. All is right.”
It should taste of long-deserved, hateful satisfaction.
It would taste of ashes instead.
He cannot get blessed silence for a moment. Light’s pawing at him turns to clawing, and maybe it is deserved, maybe it is harsh, pained, rough, maybe Light should not be allowed to do it, but L lets him.
Light tries kissing him everywhere Light can reach.
L barely manages to evade him without stopping thrusting. Somehow, while Light’s body is growing weaker for unexplained reasons, his despair and determination are growing proportionally.
Maybe he thinks L will kill him, still.
L can’t.
He keeps going.
And, maybe, at some point, his lips, just once, end up on Light’s.
Minutes later, it ends.
L’s head swims.
Light is sobbing silently.
L lies by his side.
He is feeling hot. And ill. And like his eyes might start welling up soon - he is warm from Light in bed with him, nauseous from the raspiness of his abused throat.
Dizzy from the memories of Light under him.
From Light pulling L’s hand to lie on his neck half a minute before the orgasm.
“Let’s go shower,” L manages raspily for the dead silence.
He can barely hear Light’s sluggish, unaware hum.
L keeps lying there.
His arms don’t move. His legs are useless.
He doesn’t want to know what will happen to him if he wakes up tomorrow.
“Light?..” he asks just to ask Light something.
“Yes. One second.”
L waits.
“I…”
Light does something and winces in pain.
L doesn’t turn his head for a long, long time. Watching the ceiling is a much more peaceful activity. He might be deserving of a bit of calamity - but not from Light.
The sounds from Light’s direction continue for a while.
Until L turns.
The reality blinks off.
And on again.
Light can’t get up.
L’s mouth goes dry.
And suddenly, all the nights, days, weeks, months of pain seem absurd.
Light’s eyes are almost blind from tears. His body shakes, and L can see clearer than ever how deadly the combination of stress, pain and fear can be, even for someone like him. All his strength wiped out by just one day of torture following one night of terror.
It is hurtful.
It is distressing.
And unfair.
Why did he do that?
L’s heart races as he watches Light trying to rise on his quivering elbows and failing, unable to breathe through pitiful sobs that twist his face into an expression of a victim, of a person truly, unjustly wounded. His suffering is pure and clear; to push more torment on him is to become…
L wishes he could think, “As bad as he is”.
But no.
It would be being worse than Light was.
Is.
L would rather let Light be executed as Light wanted to, instead of pushing him into the hellfire.
Or L wants to think so.
His hands shake either way. Obviously, Light can’t see it - although the knowledge would be useless for Light anyway. He has nowhere to run.
And L wants a lot of things - in general and from Light specifically.
L wants to stop whatever is going on with Light. Whatever martyrdom Light has convinced himself of, whatever petty feelings fueled Light’s decision to act so helplessly; as if, out of the two of them, he was not the one who, for months, possessed the power to kill the other. As if it was Light who was trapped with nothing to hope for but the mercy of his captor.
L wants to stop Light’s tears. Frankly, it is appalling to see Kira fall so low. He could have waited for L to leave or could have cried into the pillow, or in the shower, like he, apparently, has done before.
But no.
Light has to be the testament to L’s darkness.
Light has to be the evidence of L, between the two of them, being the one in the wrong.
When L is supposed to rest.
When he was meant to triumph.
Even if he knew he would not enjoy it.
“Get up,” L tells him coldly.
L’s body feels relaxed and hot, with no need for a blanket to warm him.
Free from the weight of the phantom shackles at last.
He is not in dire need of a shower - but he won’t have Light cry all over their - L’s, not their - bed. They do need two pillows.
Light is trying to quieten the sobs, at least.
He just can’t subdue them.
“Okay,” he croaks.
L can see his muscles straining in an evident effort.
Light is not managing to get up.
Light can’t…
And L knows that he has compromised himself.
Because, within seconds, he is dazzled by a sudden wave of ache and rage.
Their staggering intensity is what further gets him on edge. The way they disturb his judgment is barely short of violent, and the blood pounding in his head narrows his vision, and his chest constricts slightly.
What is this?
What is this overwhelming response of an unjustified strength, what is this loss of control?..
“Now,” he says.
With slowness, painful and pained, Light turns from his side to lie on his stomach, trying to press his knees to the mattress, pressing his forehead to the pillow, trying to get on his elbows and knees to get up.
Yet Light’s every movement is that of a well-torn rag doll. Wretched, twisted, and dishevelled. Messy sobs bordering on whining, a long-suffering expression on the angelic face.
L hates it so much he gets up.
Light involuntarily jerks away, and L’s blood heats up.
To the luck of both of them, Light doesn’t try to look up.
“Now,” L whispers, not hearing himself.
“Alright, I… alright…” Light forces himself to rasp miserably, and why, why, why, why, why is this so disgusting, why does it make L’s mind boil and his stomach churn, why does Light have to be a monster and a sufferer, an evil and a fragility, such a beauty, manipulator and martyr…
L says, “Last warning.”
Light drops his face into the pillow so as not to sob louder; though he seems to be trying to calm down.
He physically cannot get up.
L feels sick.
Why does he have to feel sick. Why does he have to endure more of this charade, why does he have to be a villain when, at every step of the story, it was Light who was cutting off his options, turning his chest inside out and doing… things… to him.
“I… I will…” Light forces, and it feels like trying to move a mountain.
“Get up,” L repeats as indifferently as he possibly can.
Since, it seems, Light needs to be told multiple times.
“We should shower,” L says on the autopilot.
And then realises he is saying “we”.
Anxiety grips his throat; he hopes Light won’t notice…
“No, I… you go, it’s fine,” why now, of all times, Light’s pretty voice scratches L’s hearing, why must L tolerate this.
Light is shaking even worse.
Anxiety subsides slightly - only because something even more terrible claws at L’s throat. He wants, he wants the end of his problems; he wants his compensation, justice, retribution, he wants this room in ruins, to tear apart Light’s whole life as he’s done to L’s freedom once, and L does not remember ever wanting anything this much before.
He wants Light to be the one showing compassion.
“Drink fucking water,” he whispers instead, to not pounce, as his hands, his teeth and nails are itching to grip, scratch, bite.
And Light pleads with him quietly, “I… can’t,” and L knows Light must simply be nauseous, but this is nonsensical - Light knows he should force himself.
Light does not.
L does not want to be this monster.
He wants, and hates, and questions, and knows far too many factors, far too many details, far too many thoughts considered and touches felt, and emotions unexpressed, and what was supposed to be a moment of pleasure and pride is one of the worst of their battles, because yes - Light’s been much nicer in this aspect.
Light has never hit him in bed - even if L hit him.
Light was opposed to that.
Light has never once left him to ache uncared for or alone. Even when Light was infuriated, and every gesture of Light’s was a taunt, and none of them carried real concern, Light would shower him with attention, hug him till the morning, hold his hands, and kiss him until the pain subsided. And after that.
What a kind, caring lover. Holding L together after cracking him into barely hanging pieces.
Is he expecting L to be better? When L has always been about truth, fairness and, when required, punishment.
Although he’s never been actively interested in it before.
He’s never thought he would walk out on Light and slam the door closed behind him.
Light is crying behind the door. Walls don’t help mute the sound.
L cannot walk.
He presses a hand to his forehead.
He’s burning with fever.
The hallway is spinning, and his eyes are blinking rapidly, trying to close.
The carpet under his aching legs might one day rub them to blood.
He hears the glass smashing in the room.
The glass breaking on the floor.
Light cries out in pain.
L makes it to his room in a haze.
It is full of his things.
His shortcake is on a plate on the floor.
The bathroom is arranged how he likes it.
And Light’s products are the best for his hair.
L showers slowly, battling the need to sink to the tiled floor.
He hardly wipes himself down after walking out of the shower and sitting down on the bed he has grown to despise.
It is the only neat area amidst the mess.
He stares at the pristine pillow.
It will smell of Light.
L does not put his head on it.
And here’s the thing.
He had fed his vengefulness a lot.
He has catalogued all he’d thought and felt back then. He had dissected and analysed emotion, impression, reaction. It had been written down as the longest psychoanalysis document he had created in his life. In the end, he’d summarised it into bullet points and created a checklist.
Of how he would hurt Light.
“I want you,” L had written, “To feel how you have made me feel.”
The full-body terror. The heartache of being betrayed and pushed down. The helplessness and anguish at helplessness, in the upcoming tide in which he could easily drown.
“I want people you love to know what...” and something in L twinged.
He restrained himself from correcting “what” to “who”.
“To know what you are.”
To know what L initially did not. What he had suspected all along. What could have changed the game if he had known.
“I want you to...”
And that’s where his usually vibrant imagination ran out.
He stared at the sheet. The unfinished words felt confusing. Almost mocking in their indecisiveness.
And here he’d thought he knew what he wanted.
He knew he didn’t want Light’s name in the Death Note.
“I want you to…” he thought.
Something that he couldn’t name had crystallised.
“Fix it somehow.”
He didn’t write it.
But it did stun his brain enough for him to feel like he did.
He tried writing more, and his hands might have wanted to write “Admit you care about me?”.
It could not be the first order of business.
No other ideas came to him.
And fixing it was not something Light was managing to do.
L has to mend things himself somehow.
He gets dressed and opens the laptop when sitting down at the desk.
So he does not have to mend lives that soon.
His whole being aches in a bone-deep, tiring exhaustion.
It was all Light’s fault, in the end and at the beginning.
First - treating his enemy like his lover.
Later - treating his lover like his enemy.
And those who have committed crimes had to repent and pay.
Light was perfect when he came.
Light always looks perfect when he comes.
When he sits on his bed hours later tonight.
L doesn’t look at his red eyes and pale cheeks.
L can’t handle seeing Light’s bandaged palms and the faint red tint on their whiteness.
His fingers shake.
Using a keyboard becomes a punishment.
“L?..” Light says.
His voice is barely alive.
Brave, hollow, confident, quiet.
“I…” Light starts.
“Okay,” L interrupts.
Light falls quiet.
“Okay,” L says.
He helplessly, angrily tries focusing on the screen.
His hands shake so badly he’s digging fingers into the keyboard keys.
Light shuffles behind him, and L is almost anxious that Light might just stand up and step towards him.
L does not see what he’s typing.
Must be something nonsensical.
“I will come in a second.”