Archive of Our Own

*

“L, be advised. Someone has been killing a number criminals in prisons—“

“Yes, I heard. Disgruntled corrections officer in a Japanese prison. Poison. Simple,” L replied, not looking up from the piece of angel food cake he had been savoring. 

“—all over the world. At the same time.” 

That made L look up. 

One look at the case file Watari complied for him told him it was likely more than a police academy dropout with a savior complex. Yes, this was worthy of L’s attention. Days later, when the world’s leaders called upon him, he was ready for them.

*

The flight to Japan was a long one. L spent it eating Skittles, brushing up on his Japanese, and mulling over possible profiles. Kira, as they were calling him, a play on the English word ‘killer’ (and, statistically, it was a ‘him’, so L would work with that until he came upon evidence that pointed to a woman.)

Kira had a superior intelligence. He was likely older, given the massive sphere of influence he would need to have in order to execute the murders as worldwide and simultaneously as he did. He would have to be massively wealthy as well…yes that narrowed the list of possible suspects. 

Until, of course, L’s Lind L. Taylor broadcast proved Kira could kill completely remotely, with no possible access to the prisoner. No, certainly L must have missed something. The only way Kira could have killed Lind L. Taylor was with magic. Despite his taunting of the serial killer to kill him where he stood, thereby confirming on national television that Kira needed a name and a face to kill, L didn’t believe in magic. No, he was certain that Kira, whoever he was, had developed such a sphere of influence that he only needed a name and a face to direct his underlings to the correct suspect. Magic was not real. 

Yet he could find nothing, absolutely nothing, that proved Lind L. Taylor was killed by one of the prison staff under the direction of a powerful overlord. Subsequent autopsy reports on other victims confounded things further. 

“And you’re absolutely certain no chemicals were found in the inmates’ blood that could have caused a heart attack?” L asked as he chewed on a fingernail.

He heard the medical examiner huff on the other end of the line. 

“Absolutely sure. I ran tests for every compound I could think of that even might cause a heart attack, even one that function with the rarest of interactions! And then I ran more based on recommendations from my colleagues and half the pharmacists at the local hospital! Nothing!”

“I see…” L licked his lips, suddenly wishing for something to chew on other than his fingers. “If you don’t mind, I’d like my own pathologists to confirm your results.”

“Do whatever you want,” the medical examiner growled. “But here’s the other thing. The tests showed not only a complete lack of troponin in the victims’ blood, but also no evidence of anything that could have caused an ischemia so massive as to kill the heart before any evidence of damage could manifest.”

“I’m sorry?” 

“Ah, yes, I forgot. You’re a detective, not a physician.” 

As it turned out, L knew perfectly well what the medical examiner was referring to, seeing as he’d gotten a degree in biochemistry (among others) and dabbled in forensic pathology himself for years in his spare time (never kind the exposure from his job). He had merely been prompting the man to elaborate, but let him have his jab all the same.  

“Elevated troponin levels in the blood signal heart damage,” the medical examiner clarified. “One would certainly expect to see elevated levels in fatal heart attacks, and certainly I would expect to have been able to find the cause of such massive ones. But there’s nothing. It’s like their hearts just…stopped.”

Hmm. Interesting. He’d almost certainly missed a compound in the blood. 

Except for the part where they hadn’t. Further reports from multiple labs confirmed no obvious cause of death for the victims.  All signs pointed to some sort of supernatural power, but that simply couldn’t be possible. L was a man of science. There was an explanation for everything.

Except how Kira could control his victims before he died. That shouldn’t have been possible. But, apparently, it was. 

L relented then and decided to treat it as something ‘supernatural’ and not give it too much thought (it made his head hurt. Nothing ever made his head hurt) until they had Kira in custody, at which point he would prove Kira killed by a scientifically explainable method. Figuring out exactly how Kira killed was taking away too much of his attention, and he couldn’t have that. Identifying patterns to build a profile and ultimately catch the man was much more important. 

He ran over the facts with the new (albeit Kira-less and now much smaller) task force. (A shame, really. L was certain Kira was the type of killer to want to monitor the investigation into his crimes and had been hoping the man would make it easy and show himself early on. But alas, L was a patient man. He could wait.)

1. Kira can kill with a name and a face, hence why all task force members would use fake names from there on out.
2. Kira lives in the Kanto region of Japan and has access to police files. Whether or not he is a relative of a member of the police force or a computer science engineer has yet to be determined but will be soon. To be elaborated on later.
3. Following the death of American FBI agent Raye Penber, it is likely Kira was someone Penber either met or, more likely, was investigating during his time in Japan. 

Soichiro Yagami was understandably aghast at L’s proposal to surveil his and the police commissioner’s families. If L had had a wife and a daughter, he may have just broken someone’s nose over it, but it appeared Chief Yagami was a better man than he. The best he could do was permit only himself and Chief Yagami to surveil his family, out of respect for the women. Thankfully, the other man accepted it without too much of a fuss. L really hadn’t wanted to insist.

*

Soichiro Yagami’s son was Kira. (At least, there was approximately a 7% chance he was, but that was more than anything else they’d found.) 

The boy was far too innocent. A diary in the drawer? Pornographic magazines hidden in the atlas box? All technically normal for someone his age, L reassured Chief Yagami because L was only 7% sure, but the boy was really quite suspicious. 

It was the magazines that gave him away. L knew a gay man when he saw one, and Light Yagami fell out of the gay tree and hit every gay branch on the way down. L would know, being quite queer himself. And he was never wrong. 

Protecting two secrets, are we? L mused. Really, all of this would have been more believable had those magazines been gay porn instead. Even I would have believed that was all you were trying to hide. 

But it wasn’t, was it? And the fact that Light was still hiding the fact that he was gay from his family made L quite sure Light knew he was being surveilled, likely by people who knew him personally, as well as that Light had something else to hide. Hence the 7—no, 11% percent now. And steadily climbing. 

Upon voicing such suspicions to Watari (carefully out of earshot of Light’s father —L may have been a bastard, but he wasn’t so much of an asshole as to out someone…at least not with any proof other than personal anecdotes), the man had simply nodded without looking away from his computer.

“Yes, he is your type, isn’t he?”

L had stared at his mentor for a long moment as he ran over that statement a few times in his head to make sure he had heard it properly before responding. “I resent that.”

Watari did look up then. “It’s a fair question, Ryuzaki, especially after Budapest. Is he really gay, or is he just your type?”

…All right, so L had been wrong once. Embarrassingly so. “You know, it’s really quite rude to bring up Budapest at a time like this.”

Watari chuckled. “Really? I happen to think it’s quite amusing.”

L clucked his tongue. “Oh, I’ll tell you what’s amusing, Watari. That time in British Columbia with that horrible goose. How it chased you half way around that one park to the top of the hill and then you rolled all the way down.” He cracked an uncharacteristic smile. “Now, that was funny.” 

Watari grimaced and rubbed his back at the reminder. “In any case, Ryuzaki, tread carefully where Light Yagami is concerned. Take care that your attraction does not cloud your judgement.

L seethed. “I still resent that.” 

He was a professional after all. Whatever his personal opinion of Light Yagami, he still had every intent of investigating him as a mass murder. Budapest and his unfortunate personal, non-work related escapades were never to be repeated and had no influence on this current case. None whatsoever.

*

Watari had chastised him to no end when he suggested  surveilling Light in person. 

“It’s an unnecessary risk!” 

“No one can keep up a mask 24/7, Watari. And the stress of a college entrance exam should be enough to cause a few cracks, wouldn’t you say?” He had completely ignored his mentor’s grumblings thereafter and went ahead with his plan. 

It was, he discovered as the proctor yelled at him to sit properly, very difficult to concentrate on a test when the single most beautiful man he had ever set eyes one in his life was sitting two rows in front of him. And it was a damn shame that person had a 13% chance of being Kira. 

Much to L’s surprise, the tension L read in Light Yagami’s body did not change at all before, during, or after the test, suggesting that whatever the boy was stressed about had nothing to do with his education prospects. 

Make that 15%. 

If Watari had chastised him for his first plan, he nearly blew a gasket at his second. 

“Reveal yourself to him?! In public? At To-Oh commencement?!”

“He certainly won’t be expecting it. It might just be enough to make him crack, and a crack is all I need,” L reasoned. “And, if Light Yagami is not Kira, he will be a valuable asset to the team. All that aside, I always did want to go to college.”

“L, you have three degrees.”

“Four,” L corrected, biting on a hang nail. “But I never attended in person.”

Watari leveled him with a look of hearty disappointment. 

“I think no matter how well thought-out you claim your reasons are, you’re letting your own personal attraction and desire to meet him get in the way of your good judgement.” 

“In a case with stakes as high as this, one must take risks.” 

Watari regarded him cooly. “Stand up.”

L frowned. “What?”

“You heard me, Lawliet. Stand up. Sleeves up.”

L sighed heavily. “I’m not using again, Watari.”

“The last time you said that you overdosed within 24 hours. It’s simply not like you to put yourself so squarely in harm’s way for the sake of one case. At least not when you’re sober. Stand up. Sleeves up.”

L complied with a hefty sigh, well aware that objecting would only delay the inevitable. 

He indulged his inner petulant teenager and rolled his eyes as his mentor thoroughly inspected the veins on his forearms. 

“Satisfied?” L asked as Watari straightened.

“No,” the man sighed. “Here I’d given all our new coworkers Narcan just in case they happened to run into a junkie on the street.” L seethed at his word choice. “But that will be wholly ineffective if you overdose on cocaine.”

L didn’t bother to reply. It wouldn’t have been helpful. 

Watari looked him in the eye. “You’re a grown man. You can make your own decisions. But I will not cover for you again, Lawliet. If the few men we have lose trust in you because they discover you’re a drug addict, the fallout will be squarely on you.”

“You’re absolutely right, Watari. What I do in my spare time is my business. But I thank you for your concern.”

Watari shook his head sadly. 

“And I’m not a drug addict,” L added sharply. “I can stop whenever I want.” That sounded painfully flat even to L’s ears.

“Yes, of course,” Watari replied tonelessly. “Let’s just hope someone gets to you in time when you inevitably OD again. Because I would be very sad if I had to bury you, especially from something as preventable as this.”

L pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’m not going to OD again, Watari. I use chromatography to test the purity now.” 

Watari continued to shake his head, looking about fifty years older than he already was. 

“I don’t have a problem, Watari!” L insisted, defensive anger flaring in his chest. 

Sure you don’t, a part of him whispered. L ignored it. He didn’t stick around to hear his mentor’s reply. 

*

In the end, Watari relented to L’s plan, on the condition that L cough up the illicit drug stash the man knew L had. L agreed. Because he wasn’t an addict, so he could stop whenever he wanted. 

Yes, that was definitely true, he thought irritably as he drummed his fingers on the armrest of his chair. It was also true that Watari had missed a few of L’s hiding spots when he searched the room for any drugs L had failed to surrender. He could not, however, be seen to be visibly high so soon after claiming to be going sober, so he laid off the drugs for a few days. Not that it was hard to be sober, because it wasn’t. 

(Except for the part where it was.) 

I’ve been using too much too frequently, L lamented as he and Light took a quick break between sets of their tennis match. Ow, he nearly hissed out loud at the uncomfortable ache in his chest. Somewhat concerning, that. Perhaps he would have to look into taking better care of his health.  

Light saw it right off, because of course he did. Really, L should have expected nothing less given his spectacular deductive skills. 

“Drug of choice?” Light asked him, frowning at the detective from where he stood a few feet away in the middle of the fucking sidewalk at To-Oh. Considering L had just confessed he was investigating Light as Kira, he had been expecting any number of other questions or defenses, but…not that one. 

Nonetheless, L replied without missing a beat. “Cocaine for the most part.”

Light seemed surprised at his honesty. “Wow, okay. Taking the whole detective Sherlock Holmes thing to heart then?”

L snorted, irritated. “In response to your obvious judgement, I’m sober now. And considering I used to dabble quite heavily in various opioids, I’d say cocaine is a bit of an improvement.”

Light stared at him like he had antlers growing out of his ears. 

“…Not really…” A long moment of silence. “I’m…sure you’ve considered this, but…if the police you’re working with find out about this…”

Kira percentage raised to 20%.  

“I’ve been with you the entire day and I’ve seen you consume nothing more than a cup of green tea and a little water. Most days I’ve seen you in class I regularly see you exhibiting signs of mild hypoglycemia —or less than mild right now, really, Light, you should really eat something, you look like you’re about to pass out—and you always decline invitations that have to do with food. In fact, I’ve never seen you eat in public. Tell me, is all that intentional?” 

He watched as Light visibly recoiled. “What are you implying?”

“I don’t know, Light, what am I implying?” 

“Relax, I wasn’t going to tell anyone about you!” Light hissed. “Because it’s none of my goddamn business. If you want to destroy yourself, that’s on you. Don’t take it out on me!”

L sighed and rubbed his eyes as Light turned to leave. “Light… Light!” He reached out and caught the boy by the elbow. When Light turned to look at him, expression sour, he continued, “I apologize. Just as what I do to my body is my business, what you do to your body is yours. I won’t say your habit is healthy or that I think it’s good for you in any way, but then again, those in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.” 

Light nodded stiffly. “…It’s fine.” After a moment he added, “You’re the first person to ever notice.”

L’s lips quirked in a small smile. “As you are for me. Besides my mentor, of course, and he only noticed because the first time I OD’ed it was in his basement.” 

“Wow,” Light murmured. “Were you okay?”

“Obviously. Naloxone is a very powerful substance…Perhaps one could deduce that he suspected earlier than I thought considering he had it on hand.”

Light nodded minutely. “Well…I won’t tell anyone about your drug problem if you don’t tell anyone about…” he trailed off. L picked up for him.

“About your eating disorder?”

“I don’t have an eating disorder.”

“And I don’t have a drug problem.” Light huffed a small laugh, which L ignored. “Just an unhealthy habit. Much like my sweet tooth.” 

“Okay, Ryuga.” Light smiled at him then what appeared to be a real smile. L felt himself relax a little, despite himself.

“Of course, I should remind Light-kun that any attempts to kill me via drug overdose would be a fatally obvious mistake on Kira’s part. And the control-related aspect of having an eating disorder does raise your Kira percentage to at least 25%.”

“Why are you so fixated on me killing you?”

“Don’t be obtuse. Light-kun is Kira.”

Light sighed and shook his head. “We were having a moment, Ryuga. Did you really have to ruin it?”

L cracked a smile. “You mentioned that tea shop. If you still care to go, we should. You really do look like you’re about to pass out.” 

As if on cue, Light swayed dangerously and turned a very interesting shade of white. “N-no, I’m fine—“ His voice cut off as his eyes widened, suddenly panicked and unfocused. “I can’t see anything,” he whispered.

L had seen that one coming a mile away. He took the boy by the hand and led him over to the nearest bench, an arm around his back to keep him from actually tipping over. 

“Why can’t I see anything?!” Light repeated, terror plain in his voice.

“Your blood sugar is probably in the gutter after playing so hard on probably no food. Here,” L dug a few pieces of candy out of his pocket. “Eat this.”

Light shook his head. “I’m fine, just give me some water—“

“Light, you do realize that if you actually pass out, I will take you to the ER and your family will find out you suffer from…anorexia, correct? Probably bulimia too, your salivary glands are a bit swollen… Now take the damn candy and spike your sugar so we don’t have to do any of that.” 

Light didn’t answer, but took the candy from L. 

They sat there in silence until Light began to look slightly less like death incarnate (quite fitting for Kira, really). 

“Better?” L asked. 

Light nodded slowly, taking a few sips of water before turning a rather unfortunate shade of green. L heard him get out a strangled “Oh God…” before he doubled over, clutching his stomach, and vomited up the sweets L had given him. 

It was…sad, L mused as he rubbed the boy’s back, to see someone suffer like this. A part of him wondered if this was similar to how Watari felt. The part was unhelpful and quickly silenced. 

“Hey, is that Light Yagami? Is he okay?” some random guy and who appeared to be his girlfriend yelled from down the path. L hated people.

He rolled his eyes in annoyance as Light curled in further on himself, letting his hair fall low over his face. 

“No,” L deadpanned. “This is a random person I found on the street. Now why don’t you stop staring at sick people and mind your own business before someone tells your girlfriend you’re cheating on her with her best friend.”

Whether or not that was true, L had no idea, but it worked to get them to leave, the girlfriend screaming at the top of her lungs and drawing all the attention away from Light. 

“Come on,” he said to Light, who was still curled around himself looking absolutely mortified. “You mentioned a nice quiet, private tea shop not far from here?”

*

As far as L was concerned, Light only survived the walk to the tea shop out of sheer force of will. (L was…actually quite concerned and was, for a moment, beginning to doubt that Light was Kira. It was entirely possible that he had simply stumbled upon a genius teen hiding an eating disorder from his family who happened to see a surveillance camera in his house and acted accordingly. Hell, he probably thought it was his family who had set up the cameras.)

A voice that sounded suspiciously like Watari hissed at him that he was fooling himself and he knew it. All this meant was that Kira had an eating disorder, nothing more. 

L had taken the liberty of ordering for the both of them and settled them into the back booth Light had pointed out before quickly disappearing into the bathroom, perhaps to clean himself up (or perhaps to purge himself of the rest of the sweets, who was to say really).

He came out after a little bit, just after L had finished doctoring up his cup of black tea.

“Thank you,” Light said, voice sounding rough. He didn’t meet L’s eyes.

“You’re welcome.” L nodded towards Light’s drink. “Matcha with skim milk. I put a few sugars in it.”

“I don’t take my tea with milk or sugar.”

“Today you do.”

Light ducked his head further, uncharacteristically unbalanced. “It’ll make me sick,” he hissed under his breath.

“Drink it slowly. You’ll be okay.”

Light took a small sip without a fuss. 

They sat in somewhat companionable silence for a moment before L asked, “Better?”

Light nodded. “Yeah…embarrassed as hell, but yeah…”

“Don’t be embarrassed. I would tell you that it isn’t your fault…except that in this case it kind of is… But this is no more embarrassing than having your mentor find you covered in your own vomit with a needle sticking out of your arm, so believe me when I tell you that I’ not judging you.”

Light tensed up a little and shrugged stiffly. 

L regarded him carefully, sipping at his tea. 

Light took another small sip of his own. “…Did you seriously use all that sugar?”

“I have a sweet tooth.”

“Do you have any teeth left, drinking that much sugar?”

“One or two.”

Light chuckled softly. “Isn’t it good though? This shop is one of my favorites. They make such good tea and coffee however you like it. It’s also really private, which is nice.” He raised an eyebrow, a glint in his eye. “No one will even give you a hard time about the way you sit.”

“I don’t sit like this because I want to,” L deadpanned. “I sit like this because I have to. You see, if I were to sit normally, my deductive skills would immediately be reduced by roughly 40%.”

He watched, amused, as Light stared at him like he had antlers growing out of his ears. 

“Seriously?” the boy asked.

L gave it a moment before letting a light smile cross his lips. “No, absolutely not,” he agreed, unfolding his legs and arching his back to crack it. “I am perhaps the only person on the planet who managed to throw out their back while sitting down. I have a habit of hunching over in my seat like a banana and sitting with my knees up like this forces me to straighten up to an extent, or at least gives me some support.”

“Or you could just like, buy a good chair and work on your posture.”

“But that would be admitting defeat.”

Light laughed at that, and L found himself feeling something impossibly fond blossom in his chest. He squashed it immediately. 

You’re giving too much of yourself away, Lawliet, he scolded himself silently. Light Yagami is Kira and this is not a date. Stop acting like it is.

“So,” he went on. “You mentioned wanting to ask me something earlier. What was it?”

Light shrugged, his voice taking on something of a fake polite tone that L had been hearing on him for a while now (which had before and did again raise his Kira percentage), almost as if he were acting on stage. “I’m sure that can wait until after you’re convinced I’m not Kira.”

With the way you’re acting, how calculated you are, fat chance of that.

“So please, let’s talk about whatever you want.”

L wondered if the boy perhaps regretted his offer after L broached the subject of what he had wanted to talk about, that being a test of Light’s deductive reasoning skills using Kira’s victims’ own suicide letters (truly, the phrase L, do you know: gods of death love apples had been keeping him up at night).

The tests only signaled further to L that Light may very well be Kira (the boy was very obviously taking longer deciding what to bring up with L rather than actually analyzing the images, indicating he may very well already know what there was to find in the letters, and his anger at ‘losing’ when L produced a fourth fake picture was extremely telling), which was horribly saddening. Had the boy sitting in front of him not in fact been Kira, L could have seen himself becoming quite fond of him. 

But what was there to be done about that.

They were both knocked out of their thoughts by two ringing cell phones. The news that Soichiro Yagami had suffered a heart attack and the subsequent horror on Light’s face dropped his Kira percentage to nearly zero, in L’s opinion.

*

L hated hospitals. He had hated them since he was fifteen years old, how old he was the first time he OD’ed on heroin. What a horrific experience that had been.

Well, obviously he’d almost died, and detoxing off of heroin was the single worse thing he’d ever experienced in his life, but…well. He hadn’t been the only person he’d hurt that day, let’s just leave it at that. He’d since overdosed on various drugs four more times since then, cementing his hatred for hospitals, doctors, medical care, the whole sort. 

But all that unpleasantness didn’t stop him from following Light to the hospital to see his father. 

To L’s honest to God surprise, the chief had survived. Stress, they said, leading to angina. Not even a real heart attack, though given the man’s age and smoking history, they would keep him overnight to monitor him and run more tests.  

L was thrilled, truly. Chief Yagami had been invaluable to him thus far and it would have been a major problem had he been killed by Kira, but part of him still lamented that the man’s life meant that his son’s Kira percentage skyrocketed back up. Light was a good actor, L would give him that, but if he thought L couldn’t see the menace in his eyes when the chief confirmed his identity nor hear the actor’s tone to his voice, then he was just kidding himself. 

When Light agreed with him that he understood why L suspected him, it only raised his Kira percentage more. 

You’re too crafty, Light. Always saying the things you think I want to hear.

If you made a mistake, said something incriminating and then backtracked, I’d be more inclined to think you weren’t Kira. 

Only Kira would think to try and be so perfect.

“I hope this has given you something to think about,” Watari said flatly in their native English as they drove back to the hotel late that night.

It took L no more than a second to understand what he was referring to. “I resent that.” 

“Forgive me if I don’t ever wish to walk into your bedroom and find you half dead with a needle in your arm,” Watari shot back. “You know, I hate hospitals as much as you do.”

Indeed, L thought, staring silently out the window, he wasn’t the only person he’d hurt with his drug habit. Not even remotely.

He would be lying if he said he didn’t regret all of it. But what use was regret to any of them.

*

The business with the second Kira complicated things to say the least. It irked L to no end that there were two little mass murderers running around the streets of Japan.

And he couldn’t figure it out. It was like he was finishing a puzzle and was one missing piece away from seeing the whole picture. He was so close to the truth, but he just couldn’t touch it. 

He needed a kick in the pants. Or…something like that. So he piled Watari and the task force down with a multitude of errands and locked himself in the bathroom. 

L had been rather surprised Watari hadn’t found the meth behind the toilet, seeing as that was probably the most obvious place to hide illicit drugs. He hated using meth, to be honest. It always made his nose bleed and took far too long to actually kick in (he rarely injected drugs anymore —it was too easy for Watari to spot if he used in his forearms or thighs, and he had just never been able to get himself to inject between his toes) and the dry mouth was annoying as hell, made him stumble over his words and choke on his own tongue. It was also painfully addictive.

Never as good again as the first hit, he lamented. Because that had been good. 

Well, no use dwelling on what he could never biochemically achieve again, he mused as he tapped some out of a small container onto the back of his hand and snorted it. 

He swore and pressed his hand against his nose. That burned. But, hopefully it would give him the boost he needed to make headway in this case.

As it turned out, it did no such thing. 

It woke him up, that was for sure. It also briefly knocked out his ever present sweet tooth.

If you’re not careful, L, it’ll knock out your actual teeth, a little voice that sounded suspiciously like Watari’s hissed at him from the back of his mind. Unhelpful.

“Ah, Light, perfect timing,” he said amiably as the boy walked into the room. 

God, he was beautiful. And exactly L’s type. Shit.

Ah, yes, one of the other reasons L hated using meth. The, ah…aphrodisiac effect was distracting to say the least. Especially with someone as beautiful as Light around. 

They discussed the video in great detail. Light saw through L’s little test regarding the second Kira and came to the same conclusions as L. It was perfect, really.

“This would be an effective means of provoking us,” L mused, fingers drumming on his knee. “The idea of their union is very threatening. However, this is also one less reason to suspect that Light is Kira.”

The idea thrilled Soichiro, who then quickly scolded his son for willingly putting himself in a Kira metaphor to correct L’s theory. 

“L would never agree to go on TV no matter what threat he was facing, and he wouldn’t allow someone else to die in his place. The L I know would find some way to escape.”

“So, you figured it out,” L replied, cracking a small smile. So he had been paying attention. 

“The only reason I’m comfortable saying such things is because I’m not actually Kira,” Light said sheepishly, chastened by his father’s rebuke. It was adorable. 

“That’s a good point,” L murmured. “You’re not Kira. At least, it would be a problem if you were Kira because…” I want to see you spread out in my bed. One of the only minds in the world that can keep up with mine. I want to have you, worship you until you beg for mercy. I want you…

Well, he could hardly say that, now could he. “I feel that you are the first friend that I have ever had.”

Light stared at him in complete and utter shock and stuttered out, “Uh, yeah…I know what you mean. The two of us have a lot in common.” 

L took a sip of his tea. “Thank you.” 

When he looked over at his…friend…he was grinning down at him. 

“And I have missed having you around at school,” Light added. “We should play tennis again soon.”

“Yes, we should.” I want you more than I have ever wanted anyone or anything in my life.

Later, with the task force dispersed to their various tasks, Light leaned down next to him an whispered with a raised eyebrow, “Are you high?”

L took another sip of his tea. “As a fucking kite.”

Light snorted. “So is that where all your genius comes from? Is this something I should be trying?”

L looked over at him sternly. “If I catch you using —and I will catch you— I will report you to your father immediately.”

Light laughed nervously. “Jeez, Ryuzaki, I was only joking.”

“Good.” L turned back to his tea. “If you ask Watari, I am active destroying my genius by using illicit drugs.”

“I mean, you risk overdosing every time you use, so…he’s kinda right.”

“Hmm.” 

It was somehow less annoying coming from Light.

Later that night, the task force having gone home, L leaned his forearm on the shower wall and muffled his moans in his bicep as he fisted his cock hard enough to hurt, Light’s beautiful smile burned into the back of his eyelids. 

Orgasm clearing his head of the meth-induced “clarity”, he toweled off his hair and dumped the rest of the drug down the drain.

*

Light-kun was Kira. L was certain of it. The problem was, he couldn’t prove it in such a fashion that it would hold up in court.

No innocent man would turn himself in in the fashion Light did. The phone call to Misa Amane mere minutes after her seeing him was evidence enough for L, because the famed Misa-Misa was quite obviously the second Kira. 

It all made so much sense, and he was so close to being able to prove it in court with both of them in custody, when all his proof disappeared along with a decent chunk of both their memories and personalities. 

L stared at the screens as both of them begged for their release and strongly regretted his decision to finish this case sober. 

*

Watari just about strangled him when he heard L’s plan to chain himself to Light Yagami —the man he thought was Kira— what are you insane???

Perhaps it was a bit transparent, but after hitting dead end after dead end and having both Kiras in his custody and no way to prove that they were guilty, he was dying for a hit of cocaine or something to take the edge off the bitter frustration he was constantly bathed in. Not least of which was caused by the beautiful boy that was Light Yagami. 

L was loathe to admit it, but Light had somehow wormed his way into the detective’s cold heart. Especially since his recent personality change.

L had been attracted to him before when he was still Kira. His sharp eyes and wicked intelligence would have been enough on anyone to catch L’s attention, but on someone who was the epitome of L’s type…

Oof.

And now, that bite gone from his eyes, was left a boy who was, quite honestly, sweet. (Except for the part where he was blatantly using Misa Amane, though perhaps that was simply a leftover symptom of Kira.)

Now, L was left with someone who expressed often how happy he was to hear L’s voice, who would smile up at the camera with eyes too innocent to ever belong on a mass murderer like him. (Someone who had kept L’s secret, who had entrusted L —more or less— with a secret of his own…)

L had no business being as taken with him as he was, and Watari said as much. 

He was right of course, but L didn’t care. 

*

L had certainly earned Light, Soichiro and Misa’s hatred after the stunt he pulled. All three of them returned to headquarters drenched in sweat and more than a few tears, shaking like leaves. 

He wouldn’t have been surprised had they all punched him in the face. 

No, instead they all responded with bitter acceptance to L’s new terms. 

Except for Light. 

Alone in L’s —no, their— room, Light slammed him up against the wall and snarled at him, faces mere millimeters apart. 

“How could you! Why, why would you do that why—“ He was hyperventilating, tears pouring down his cheeks. L could recognize trauma symptoms well enough. He had just opened his mouth to try to calm the boy when his mouth was suddenly covered by Light’s in a brutal kiss. “I hate you,” Light whispered against his mouth. “I hate you, I hate you—“

L grabbed him by the waist and kissed him until the events of the day were a distant memory.

*

Watari did not agree with what he was doing. Positions switched, or had he been the one overseeing Mello or Near acting similarly, he would have done more than just fail to agree with it. But L always had been a stubborn son of a bitch. And while he could be as patient as they come when it came to his work, when it came to his personal life and himself, he had never been very good with waiting. 

Light Yagami in his bed underneath him was every bit as beautiful a sight as he had so often imagined since laying eyes on the boy. And he got to see it every fucking night. 

He must have done something right in his life. 

It had been clear to him that first night when Light kissed him that the boy had little to no experience beyond kissing (which fit, given that he had been hiding his homosexuality from his parents, and faking it was never easy for anyone, much less so for someone who had to maintain an erection while faking it) but that did not stop him from being a pushy, demanding lover (which also fit, to be honest). 

It’s not as if L was complaining. 

No, he thought, his face buried in Light’s neck as he rolled his hips, the boy’s velvety soft walls squeezing so perfectly around him, he was not complaining. 

During the day, there was admittedly a lot of tension between the two of them, and for good reason. What L had subjected Light to in the quest to confirm or deny his identity as Kira was not something that could be brushed off. Indeed, more often than not, the boy awoke in a cold sweat next to him, panicked from nightmares L had to shake him awake from. 

Light rarely spoke to him in the morning, most often didn’t even look at or acknowledge him. And for the most part, L let him be. 

Then there was the whole 24/7 deal, which was terribly difficult for them both. Never a moment of privacy. For L, it meant not using. Ever. Which was…hard. Really fucking hard. Harder than he cared to admit. But equally, using in front of Light almost seemed like an admission of its own. 

I’m so addicted, I can’t stop using even to avoid being seen.

L’s pride wouldn’t allow that. So his body suffered the consequences.

Equally, Light was extremely annoyed that his eating disorder was so fully visible in front of someone. He couldn’t hide it with L tethered to him, couldn’t skip meals with meals being prepared for both of them, couldn’t even eat and then throw it back up when no one was watching because L was always there. 

So, more often than not during the day, they sat facing away from each other, trying to pretend like the other wasn’t there, ruining the ways they kept themselves together (or destroyed themselves, dealer’s choice). 

But at night, it was always Light that grabbed L by the back of the neck and kissed him, stripped the clothes from their bodies and pulled L atop him, desperate for something. And it wasn’t as if L ever turned him down. 

“Ryuzaki,” Light finally said one morning as he choked down his breakfast while L drummed his fingers irritably on his leg, attempting to ignore a very strong craving. “Can we make a deal?”

“About?”

“I’ll look the other way when you use a couple times a week if you do the same for me one meal a day.”

L glanced up at him but said nothing. 

“Come on,” Light hissed. “Is that not the real reason you’ve been so depressed? I’m not stupid. It’s not because you were wrong about me being Kira, it’s because you can’t use while you’re chained to me! I’m saying you can. Not even in front of me, do it in the bathroom and I’ll cover for you. I’ll honestly be able to say I didn’t see anything. All you have to do is ignore the fact that I don’t eat breakfast. I think that’s fair.” 

L would never take that deal (he would if he was desperate enough). He did not want to take that deal (he did). Only a drug addict would take that deal. 

But, same as Light Yagami suffered so terribly from anorexia and bulimia that he could not bear to eat even three small meals a day without skipping or purging them, so was he —the famous, unbeatable detective L— a drug addict. 

Nothing more… he thought, lying on his back on the bathroom floor, a needle in his hand and a flood of dopamine in his brain as Light waited outside …than a fucking junkie.

Just like Watari always said. 

*

“You’re…so chill now,” Light commented late that night as L sat beside him on the couch, nodding off. 

“I’m always chill,” L answered. 

“I mean, I guess, but…but look at you.”

L did not need to. He already knew what he looked like. He had already gotten a scathing text in English from Watari, asking him how he could be so stupid as to use so openly. 

This is Japan, L had answered back. Few here have seen what someone using looks like. 

Watari hadn’t responded.

“What did you use?” 

L shot the boy a glare, glancing at the clock on the wall to make sure it was past the time audio and video were turned off at night, what small bit of privacy L could wrangle them. 

“Heroin,” he said simply. 

Light stared back at him. “Heroin?!” he exclaimed. “I thought you said you only used cocaine!”

“I said nothing of the sort,” L replied, staring at the far wall. “I said I was preferential to cocaine. But unfortunately Watari fully cleaned me out right before we went under constant surveillance so I would not be caught, and a bit of this from long ago was all I had left.”

Liar, L’s brain murmured. You’ve got a little bit of everything. And even if you didn’t, even here, you could always get more.

“You just…jump around like that? I thought people had their drugs of choice.”

L sighed, turning to face the boy. “When it comes to substance users, Light-kun, it has nothing to do with ‘drug of choice’. You take my cocaine from me, I use meth. Take that from me, I’ll jump to heroin. I get clean off of those, I’ll develop a habit of another kind. When it comes to what we want, the answer is more.” He made sure Light was looking him in the eye. “Sounds a bit like your disordered eating, doesn’t it? You’ve never lost enough weight, have you? More, and never enough.”

Light stiffened immediately. “Why do you always have to turn it back around on me? At least I’m not the one shooting up in the bathroom.”

“But you are the one skipping meals and throwing up the ones you do eat.”

Light glared. 

L merely raised an eyebrow. “All I mean to say is that in this, Light-kun, we are the same.”

Light let out a heavy sigh. It was a long time before he spoke again. “Why do you use?” he asked quietly when he did.

It was L’s turn to sigh. “I’ll tell you why I use if you tell me how your relationship with food became so disordered.”

After a pause, Light agreed. 

“You first,” L prompted, hardly willing to bare a part of his soul to someone who may be Kira without first hearing what the boy had to say.

Light took a deep breath, fidgeting. “The pressure,” he finally said. “In elementary school, it was easy to be excellent. As I got older, it got harder. My family expected so much of me. I was always perfect, so I had to continue being perfect.”

L considered that. “It never seemed like you had to try very hard. At least not in school.”

“Of course I made it look like that!” Light hissed back, an edge to his voice. “It felt like everything in my life, no matter how much thought and planning I put in, was so out of my control. I couldn’t be certain of any of it. But I could be certain how much I ate. And stupidly I believed that if I was lighter, I would be a better tennis player. The only thing I got out of that was injuries. I never told my family, but that’s why I hung up my racket after junior high. I physically couldn’t play anymore. And instead of stopping, I just…kept going.”

In the dark, L thought he might have been able to see tears in Light Yagami’s eyes. 

“And now I can’t stop,” he whispered, his voice thick. “I’m tired, L. But I can’t stop.”

After a long moment, L replied, from deep in his soul, “I understand.” 

Light sniffed, wiping a hand over his face. “What about you? Why do you risk death multiple times a week for a temporary high?”

L shifted where he sat, chewing on his thumb. Ironically, the only thought that popped into his head was that he was not high enough for this conversation. 

“I became L at the age of fourteen,” he said simply. “I had already graduated high school at the age of twelve and finished my first degree in forensic psychology a year later. Everyone was convinced I was ready. They told me I was the smartest person in any room I’d ever been in, and that I’d be unstoppable.”

“They?”

“They,” L repeated, refusing to elaborate. “I’d think you could imagine the kinds of things one sees in my line of work, Light-kun. I may have been ready for the work itself, but I was still just a child.” He shut his eyes, relishing in the warm wash of heroin. “I think the first time I got high was the first time I saw a dead kid. A dead kid I’d failed to save in time. Never mind that the dead kid looked too much like--” 

Near. Mello. 

All of them.

“—someone I knew from my past. Someone who had been dear to me.” He sighed. “And one could say it’s been rather downhill from there.” 

Light was quiet for a long moment. “A few months ago, back before I turned myself in…” he began, “…why did you freak out at the word shinigami?”

Briefly, L thought the question completely out of left field and was about to remark on Light’s choice of words, ‘turn myself in’ before he realized that it wasn’t. L had said downhill from here. It was a very fair question. 

“I’ve overdosed more than a few times,” he answered. “One of those times nearly got me. Let’s just say I saw something in between passing out and waking up in the hospital. Something I couldn’t explain.”

Light made a small sound and moved closer so that he was pressed up against L’s side, his head over his chest, his arm draped over L’s waist. “We’re a mess, aren’t we…” he whispered. 

L wrapped his arms around the boy, unable to do anything but agree. After a long time, he said very softly, “Perhaps I, in active use, am not the best person to be telling you this, but…there is help for people like you. You don’t have to live like this, Light-kun.”

Light very obviously pretend to be asleep. 

L let it go.

*

The case was almost more ups and downs than L knew how to handle. Between his tumultuous relationship with the boy he was chained to, the idiot who called himself Matsuda, and the others who grew more and more frustrated him by the day, it was hard to believe he’d ever made it here: flying a helicopter above Tokyo as the chased down the third Kira: a monster of a man named Higuchi. 

They would catch him very soon. They would find out how he killed, and from there they would figure out how to stop the power or however it was that they did it from being spread before tracing it all back to Misa Amane and the first Kira. 

It would all be over soon. 

All the same, L thought as they hovered over the scene playing out on the highway below, he could only hope and pray that he’d been wrong about Light Yagami. 

He’d been chained to the boy for a long time now. Certainly it had been some of the roughest times of both their lives. Light had dropped at least another ten pounds from his already tiny frame and had taken to napping a lot, exhausted as he was. Try as he might, L could not convince the boy to eat more food without throwing it back up, so the least he could do was give him vitamins to keep him from becoming too terribly sick. It helped, if only a little. 

Similarly, L had fallen face first into a heavy drug addiction. Between the stress of the case in general and the knowledge that there was a very decent chance he would end up dead at the end of it, L hadn’t bothered to try and limit his use all that much. It was beginning to show on him, to the point where the others, sheltered from drugs even as they were, had begun to get suspicious. Light had stepped in then, redirecting conversations, covering for L when he was too visibly high to hide it, and helping him deal with cravings long enough to avoid being caught using, regularly shoving sweets and other things in front of him to help him hold off. 

The time they spent together too, up on the roof where there were no microphones just talking, tucked away in a corner in the middle of the day, Light in L’s lap as they kissed just to feel something good for a change, Light curled up against him at night, sometimes even managing to coax L and his drug-induced insomnia to sleep a bit…

It did more for L than drug or anything else ever could. 

Whether it was all good or bad, L didn’t know, but one thing was for certain: he wasn’t sure he could imagine a life without Light Yagami in it anymore. And he didn’t necessarily want to. 

You make me want to get clean, he thought as he let the helicopter touch down. For the first time in my life I would stop using of my own accord. I want to help you stop, too. After all of this, I want to build us a life. 

And I will, if you’ll come with me. 

If you’re not Kira.

Please…please don’t be Kira…

A notebook. Kira killed with a notebook, or so Higuchi said. And that was becoming more and more believable by the second, seeing as every successive member of the force who touched the thing, beginning with Chief Yagami, screamed and spoke of a monster the second they touched it. 

They brought it over to him, and without a moment’s hesitation, he reached out and took it. And the only thing he had to say about it was that the thing he’d seen the night he OD’ed really had been a shinigami. And that shook him more than he had any idea how to express. 

Well, that and the realization that there were two notebooks, possibly more. It was the only logical conclusion to come to, given the existence of multiple Kiras. 

“Ryuzaki?” Light barked, curled up in his seat just a bit. “Is it true? Can you see it too?!”

“Mmhmm,” Light said simply, absentmindedly holding the book out to Light. 

To his surprise, Light shrank away. “No thank you,” he whispered, his voice shaking just a little. “I believe you. I… I think I’d rather live my life without seeing shinigami on every corner. I’ll see one the day I die and that will be good enough…”

L frowned. “Are you okay, Light?”

The boy nodded shakily, shrinking back from the notebook even more. “Yeah, I…I don’t know, something’s just telling me not to touch that. Screaming at me not to…Curiosity killed the cat and all…”

L nodded, rather wishing he too had gone the rest of his life not knowing how close he had truly come to death that day in Watari’s basement. 

With Higuchi successfully locked up, they all soon found themselves spread back out over headquarters, analyzing the death note as the rules written inside it called it. 

Some of them were fake. L was nearly sure of it. There was plenty of room on the front page to have written all of them there before the border was added around them, but two of them were written on the back page. Those were the ones L…well, he’d been about to say would bet his life on were fake, but that hit just a little too close to the chest (very poor choice of words) for his comfort. 

And when the killings picked up yet again (a fourth Kira, some said, but they were too similar to the killings of the first and second Kira, and considering they began right after Misa Amane was freed, he would bet his next hit (that’s better) that it was her) he knew he would have to test them. 

It was the only way to put Misa behind bars for good. At least then they would have two out of three Kiras. 

So, itching for a break in the case and getting just a little bit frustrated, he might have decided to do something drastic. And in the end, it was his downfall. 

He came up with a plan. Everything they had done thus far, every lead they had followed, pointed to Light Yagami and Misa Amane being the first and second Kiras. These rules had ruled them out, but Kira would have certainly been smart enough to fake it. Moving forward at all, as far as L was concerned, meant disproving the rules. 

And there was only one way to do that without risking harming anyone else. 

No one on the task force, not even Watari, had any time to do anything more than let out a stunned gasp before Light had grabbed him by the front of his shirt and dragged him away, up to the roof where there were no microphones, into a corner where there were no cameras. It was pouring down rain when Light finally let him go, swung him around to face him and give him a proper verbal thrashing.

“How could you even consider it?”

L brushed himself off (as if there was anything to brush off the soaked cotton). “It’s the only way to advance the case,” L answered simply as Light visibly fumed.

“Really? That’s the only way? Have you considered moving your massive ego out of the way and maybe considering that you’re wrong about Misa? And about me. Don’t fucking lie to me, I know that if the rules turns out to be false, it puts me back on the chopping block too! Can you really not let go of your pride long enough to admit you miscalculated and start looking for other leads?!”

L blinked slowly at him, his hands shoved in his pockets as rain pounded down on his back. “And I will do so. But to move on to other suspects, the originals must first be well and truly cleared, wouldn’t you agree?”

Light stared at him like he had antlers growing out of his ears. “And if you’re wrong?” he asked. “What then? You just straight up fucking die?”

“I suppose so.”

Light shook his head. “No. No, there are other ways to confirm or deny that Misa Amane is the second Kira. I…she’s obsessed with me, maybe I can wear a wire and get her to tell me. But there are other things we can try that don’t involve you potentially dying! Please, I’ll even help you do it in secret, but you don’t have to put your life on the line!”

“My life has been on the line this whole time, Light-kun, this is really no different.”

Light’s eyes grew suddenly very dark. “You don’t get to fucking do that.”

“Do what?”

Then those eyes filled with tears. “I…I know this is stupid given the things you’ve subjected me to, how long you’ve suspected me with little evidence of being a mass murderer, but…but I’ve never in my life had a friend like you, okay? You…you know everything! About my eating disorder, about my being gay, and you’re still fucking here. You didn’t leave when you found out those things, and…”

Light glanced over his shoulder to make sure no one had followed them before finishing. “And I’m finding it hard to imagine a future without you in it in some form,” he finished shakily.

L stared back at him, his heart clenching as he heard loud and clear the words Light did not say directly. 

“Please, L,” Light whispered, reaching out and taking L’s face between his hands. “Let’s do this another way. Not like this, please.”

Oh, Light… L thought, his eyes slipping shut as he leaned into the boy’s touch. I can’t believe I let myself fall for you, let you fall for me…

But we can’t move forward unless I do this.

“Light-kun,” he began, resting a palm directly over the boy’s heart. “Think of it from my perspective. I’m positive those last two rules are fake. Positive. Previously, we had overwhelming evidence that Misa Amane was the second Kira save the murder weapon. And she is still alive. This is time sensitive, so—“

Light drew back like he’d been burned, real pain in his eyes. “How could you.”

“Light,” L said firmly, taking a step towards the boy. “I feel the same way about you that you do about me but—“

“But not quite enough that you’re not still willing to think me a mass murderer and attempt suicide to prove it.”

L scoffed. “It’s hardly suicide, I—“

“Fuck you, L,” Light spat. “If you want out of this case, then just abandon it! No one save the task force know your face. You could disappear wherever you wanted! No effect on you. You don’t have to fucking die.”

“That’s not even remotely—“

Light was visibly crying by then even as rage burned hotly in his eyes. “All those times you said you OD’ed, all those times you used because you said you needed to for the case, and this is how it’s going to end?” 

He shook his head and, finally displaying the volatile teen L knew he had locked tightly away. His mask finally slipping free and allowing him to just be, Light said something stupid. “If you want to fucking die so bad, why don’t you just OD? Why do you have to involve all of us?!” 

And then he was running, tears pouring down his face as he fled the roof, down the stairs to God knows where.

And L, thoroughly soaked by the rain, just stood there. 

Logically, he knew that had come from a place of profound concern, of fear, and of anger no nineteen or twenty-year-old had any capacity to handle indefinitely. Light had just practically admitted to being in love with L in an attempt to keep him from risking his life in this way, and L had thrown it back in his face. It had nothing to do with him or his drug addiction, really.

All the same, it hurt nearly as bad as it had the first and only time Watari had hit him, smacked him across the face and beaten him with a wooden spoon until he cried for daring to use and promptly OD when a five-year-old Near had been under his care. 

No, it might have just hurt worse. 

So L, being the junkie that he was, responded to it in a way only a junkie would. He went down to his room and he used. 

He was upset, so he didn’t pay as much attention as he normally did. He was normally meticulous about his dosing, especially since he had been in Japan, (especially since he had seen the shinigami after his last OD) but this time, he just eyeballed it. 

And from the time he walked out of the elevator and back into the main room with the others, a fresh track mark on his arm under his sleeve, he knew he had made a terrible mistake. 

He tried to fight it at first. Just breathe, L, he told himself, count them out if you have to. 

But he was nodding off, and it was getting more and more difficult to keep his eyes open with each passing breath. And the second he looked down and saw the blue tint to his nails, he knew he was in trouble. Real trouble. 

“Watari…” he tried to say, but the man was too far away to hear him. “Light—“

He was only vaguely aware that he had fallen out of his chair after that, could just barely hear Light screaming for Watari, see the task force running over to him, shouting that Kira had gotten him…

No, L thought as everything faded away. This one…

This one’s on me.

*

To be honest, L hadn’t been expecting to wake up from that one. Maybe he really had thought it was Kira, or maybe he had just assumed that his nine lives had finally run out, especially with a shinigami standing over him right there in the room with him. 

But they hadn’t, he realized as he woke up to the quiet sound of beeping machines. 

Hospital.

He was…he was alive.

The second thing he noticed was the lump on the bed beside him. L blinked a few times in an attempt to clear his blurry vision before his eyes finally focused on a brunette head resting on folded arms on the bed beside him.

“Light?” he whispered, coughing quietly as his dry throat protested. 

The brunette head moved and Light’s tired, drawn, and stressed (and beautiful) face came into view.

“L!” he shouted, scrambling to his feet before throwing himself into L’s arms. “L, I’m so sorry!” he sobbed, his arms tight around the detective’s neck, his face buried in his hair. “I’m sorry for what I said! I didn’t mean it, I swear. I swear, I’m so sorry… I’m so sorry…”

The sigh of relief L let out then came from the depths of his soul. “I know…” he whispered, lifting a heavy limb to rest on Light’s head, carding his fingers gently through soft strands. “I know…”

“I love you, that’s what I meant to say up there!” Light gasped out between sobs, holding onto L all the tighter. “Against all odds, I fell in love with you, L, I didn’t want to see you die. And I’m so sorry for—“

L cut him off. “Shhhhh,” he soothed, resting his other hand —the one with the IV, he realized— on Light’s back. “I heard you. I heard what you meant to say.”

Light squeezed him just a little bit tighter before pulling back, though he left a hand intertwined with L’s. “How…how are you feeling?”

L shifted, groaning as every muscle in his body screamed. “Like I got hit by a train,” he groused, settling back against the pillow. “That’s Narcan for you. Though I assume they’re giving me methadone now, yes? Otherwise I would really be incapacitated by withdrawal with how much I’ve been using.”

Light didn’t answer, simply stared down at their intertwined hands. “There’s something else…”

L waited patiently, though he had a good guess as to what was coming. 

“The others…the task force, they…”

“Quit, I assume,” L finished for him when he trailed off.

Light nodded. 

L sighed heavily, shifting so he was laying on his side facing the boy. “I expected that,” he murmured, staring at nothing. “Watari warned me a thousand time that would happen if they caught me, but…well. I suppose no addict has a problem until they have so many, they can’t see straight.”

When he looked up at Light, the boy had tears dripping down his face. 

L squeezed his hand gently. “This is on me, Light-kun,” he said firmly. “Regardless of what you said. Even if you hadn’t said it, I probably would have gone and used just the same in preparation for writing a name in that notebook and would have ended up here anyway.”

More tears filled Light’s eyes. “I…I thought….” he whispered. “I thought Kira got you…” 

“He didn’t.”

“I heard you say my name, turned and saw you fall and then you were just on the ground and your lips were blue, you weren’t breathing and I thought—“

“It wasn’t Kira,” L reassured him. “It was just me being…stupid. Unbelievably stupid.”

Light said nothing more. 

L rubbed his thumb back and forth over Light’s knuckles, enjoying the feeling of the boy’s skin under his. “Has Watari been by?” he asked, not sure if he wanted to hear the answer (not sure if he wanted to know just how badly he had ruined his life this time).

To his honest surprise, Light nodded. “He’s been coming and going since I’ve been staying here. I guess…he’s got a lot to prepare for. They’re..they’re kicking you out. As soon as you’re medically cleared to fly, the Japanese government is deporting you…”

L blinked. “Deporting me…” He turned that over in his head a few times. “That seems…a bit extreme.”

Light shrugged, still staring at their hands. “Watari left just before you woke up to get us dinner. He…dropped off a few things…”

L turned to look where Light vaguely gestured, to a pile of letters on his beside table. Resignation letters, by the looks of the top one, a vicious scroll signed by Aizawa that said something along the lines of ‘I can’t believe I ever risked my life for a fucking junkie.’

L turned back over, not bothering to pick them up. He could only assume the rest said something similar. 

“You’ll see me again, Light-kun, if you want to,” he reassured the boy instead, turning back to him. “I’ll leave you a way to contact me. You’ve become very, very important to me, too.”

Light’s eyes slid shut seemingly gathering his thoughts, but said nothing more before Watari walked back in.

“L!” the man exclaimed, setting down the two bowls of ramen he’d been carrying and running to L’s bedside, dragging him into his arms.

Vaguely, L heard Light say something like “I’ll give you a moment to talk” before slipping out the door and shutting it behind him, for which L was grateful.

“I’m sorry…” he whispered in English, nearly melting into the embrace. “I’m…”

It was his turn to be shushed as Watari held him tighter. “I’m just thankful you’re alive, Lawliet, and that everyone there had their Narcan on them. It took all of it and then some at the hospital for them to revive you.”

L believed that. 

Watari pulled back, looking L over like the concerned parent he really was. “I assume Light Yagami told you what will happen next.”

“Yes. Everyone in the task force resigned because they refuse to…” he glanced over at the top letter “…risk their lives for a fucking junkie, and I’m being deported by the Japanese government after ruining my reputation with my drug habit. Does that about cover it?”

“Mostly,” Watari agreed. 

L sighed heavily, hanging his head. “Maybe that’s for the best…” he muttered. 

“Perhaps it is.”

L flinched just a little, but he’d been the one to say it first, after all. “I…” He paused, swallowing around the words he knew he needed to say. “I think I needed some time off anyway. I…I need some help with this.” 

“Lawliet…” Watari breathed, tone undecipherable before becoming painfully so. “You have no idea how long I’ve waited to hear you say that.”

L melted back into his mentor’s arms, head resting on the older man’s shoulder. “No, I do,” he answered. “I’ve known it since the first time I used… I’m so tired, Watari…”

“I know, L,” the man answered. “I know.”

*

Light looked absolutely nothing like himself where he sat on L’s hospital bed, watching the detective get dressed. 

“So you’ll be going back to school then,” L said, part of him needing to fill the silence that should have been filled with all the things left unsaid between him, but neither of them could bear to say.

“I guess,” Light answered, staring down at the floor as he rubbed his painfully thin wrists.

L swallowed down a swell of worry. 

What will happen to you now that I won’t be here to keep an eye on you?

But there was nothing to be done about that. 

“You guess?” he said instead, pulling his shirt over his head. “How could you not return to To-oh? And with a full semester’s worth of experience. If my name means anything at all in this country when you get to looking for jobs or internships, I’ll gladly write you a letter of recommendation.”

“Even though you spent the whole time thinking I was Kira?”

L gave him a small smile. “Even so.”

Light returned it weakly. “So does this mean I’m finally in the clear?”

L shrugged. “I’m not thinking about the Kira case anymore, to be honest. I think it’s been made very clear that that whole mess is not my responsibility anymore. Besides, thinking about it just makes me want to use.” 

Light was quiet for a long moment. “What…what will happen to you now?”

L looked over at him. “I’ll go home, go to rehab. Someone else will take over in my stead, most likely. No one will want to work with an addict, so they’ll have to. After rehab, I…I don’t know what I’ll do.”

Light made a small noise of agreement. “After all this…thinking of going back to my old life just makes me feel sick.”

“In what way?”

Light swallowed. “I just…I’ve realized that ever since I was a little kid, it’s like I’ve been completely alone in a series of crowded rooms. Now that I know what it’s like to have someone see you, really give a damn…I don’t think I can bear that anymore. And I can’t stand the thought of going back to being perfect little Light Yagami, but what few people I have —my family— will despise me if I don’t…”

L hadn’t been planning on saying it, even though it had been on his mind since he heard he was getting kicked out of Japan. Light was right, L cared about him, and because of that he hadn’t wanted to offer anything that might distract Light from his future, but…

“Have you ever considered doing a semester abroad?”

Light stared at him with wide eyes. “…What?”

L shrugged. “Some people take them as a way to work out what’s important to them. It gets them out of their comfort zone, offers new experiences…It might be beneficial.”

“And…” Light whispered. “And where would I do this semester abroad?”

“Wherever you like,” L answered. “Again, if my name means anything anymore, I can help you get in anywhere you want. Even if my name is worthless, there are many people in powerful places who still owe me favors. But…if you…wanted free room and board, you could…” 

He chewed on his lip, warring with himself over a thousand different things. In the end though, he just said fuck it. “…You could come with me.”

When Light said nothing, he went on. “We leave tonight. Might be a bit of a quick turnaround and I’m going straight into rehab anyway, but you could come out to meet me at the start of next semester—“

“What time?”

L blinked. “What?”

Light stood up. “What time are you leaving tonight?”

“Um…I think six—“

“I have to go then. I need to pack and say goodbye to my family. They’re going to hate this, so I have to get in and out before they’re home so I can say goodbye over the phone or my dad will never let me leave with you.”

L shook himself out of his stunned stupor. “Light, there’s no need to rush. When I said ‘come with me’ I really meant—“

“If there’s space for me on your plane, L, then I’m coming with you,” Light said firmly, a bit out of breath, but surety in his eyes. “I need out, L. Out of Japan. And I need help, too. I know that. This whole thing with you has really highlighted it. On your second day here, I stared having chest pain. I thought it was just anxiety, but Watari took me down to the ED just to be safe, and the doctor told me I….I needed to stop what I was doing or I would be dead in a month.”

L’s eyes widened at that. He hadn’t expected that, but then again…perhaps he should have.

Light was trembling by then. “I’ll never get help here,” he whispered. “Everyone will know if I do and my pride won’t allow that. So…so if I want to live too then I have to leave. You said there was help for people like me, right? Is there help where you’re from?”

“Yes,” L said. “Yes, Watari will get you in somewhere good.”

When Light fell in his arms, L could feel just how thin he was. How had he not noticed before? 

“Thank you…” Light whispered. “Thank you…”

*

Truth be told, Light leaving with him turned into a huge fucking mess. 

Light had done what he’d said, had gone home to pack a few things and grab his passport before meeting L at the airport where they would leave, only to run into his sister at home. He’d told her he was leaving, going abroad to find himself, and that he would call when he decided where he was going. 

It had sounded like a solid story to L, given the trauma and stress of the past year or so, but, despite Light’s request that she keep quiet about it, she had immediately called their parents. And Soichiro Yagami had gone straight to the airport, finding Light standing right next to L.

It had ended in a huge, very public fight —one that almost ended in L getting arrested after Soichiro thought he was abducting his son after tormenting him emotionally for months— which had backed Light into a corner until he was forced to cough up the real reason he was leaving. 

“Look at me, dad!” he shouted, his face white and eyes red with tears as he yanked his shirt up to his chest, baring his visible ribs, spine, and concave stomach. “I have a problem,” he whispered with a trembling voice. “I’ve had a problem for years. Remember when I quit tennis? It was because of this. All those time I ‘went out with friends’? It was a lie. All of it.” He had been shaking badly by then. “I’ve played your perfect son for years, but I’m not. And L has been the only person who’s bothered to see that. Go ahead and think I have Stockholm Syndrome or whatever if you want, but I’m still leaving. And to be honest, I’m an adult now. You can’t actually stop me.”

Soichiro had stood there, stunned to his core as he stared at his son.

“Just let me go…” Light whispered. “Everything I’ve done, I’ve done to make my family proud, and I just…I can’t do that anymore. I need to go with L so I can get the help I need.”

“Son, you can get any help you need right here—“

“No,” Light said, cutting him off. “Not really. I need to go somewhere where nobody knows my name or my face and start over for a little while, until I can figure out where it is I’m going. You can support me in that and we’ll part ways on good terms, or we don’t have to speak for a while. It’s your decision.”

In the end, Soichiro let Light go. The man loved his son more than anything. As it was, the look of devastation on the man’s face as they walked away left something of a mark on L’s soul. 

Light broke down once they were in the air, sobbing deep, gut-wrenching sobs, and L held him the whole way home to England. 

*

“So…home is England?” Light asked as they sat in a coffee shop in Liverpool, taking a few days to acclimate to the massive upheaval in their lives before going off to their respective treatments. 

“It is,” L agreed, taking a sip of his sickeningly sweet coffee (caffeine and sugar stood in for drugs alongside his methadone, sue him). “Happy to hear I don’t have an accent when I speak Japanese.”

Light made a noise. “Every now and again you make a mistake that marks you as being a non-native speaker, but for the most part I’d have thought you grew up speaking Japanese.”

L shook his head. “I’m just good at languages.”

Light agreed. “Can I…ask you something?”

“Of course.”

Light turned his cup of tea between his fingers. “Like I said, I kind of thought you grew up speaking some Japanese at home…but to be honest you don’t really look Japanese, so…what is your ethnicity exactly?”

L shrugged. “Anyone’s guess. I was left at a safe haven hospital at eight weeks old and grew up in the system until age 8 when I was adopted by Watari.” More or less. “But if I had to guess, I would say mixed race, some sort of Asian and some sort of European. But I’m technically British by nationality.”

“That’s fair.”

L hummed. “What mistake do I make?”

“You drop your honorifics. No Japanese person would ever do that. And you use some odd language sometimes, though that does blend into your personality.”

L snorted, draining the rest of his coffee. “So what is your first impression of England?”

“Rainy. Damp.”

L barked a laugh. “Fair enough.”

*

“So…this is home, then?”

L gazed around the entrance to Wammy’s house, the dark walls, the dust, the smell of an old house. He had missed it, thought of it often during his time abroad and since he’d been back in England at rehab, where he’d stayed a very long time, until he was certain of his recovery, as had Light stayed in his own treatment facility as well. 

“I suppose so.”

Light sniffed. “I’m…surprised you let me in here, given this is where they train all the little you’s.” 

L scoffed, before sobering. “I…should tell you. About Misa Amane—“

“I heard,” Light said stiffly, staring at the floor. “Suicide, right?”

L nodded.

“Kira, or…”

“Who’s to say,” L replied. “But her death was several months ago and nothing resembling the original Kira killings —or any of the subsequent, for that matter— has occurred.”

“So she was Kira all along.”

“The second Kira,” L corrected. 

“And the real one?”

L shrugged. “Unless he starts killing again, I suppose it doesn’t matter. The case is long closed now, Amane and Higuchi having been blamed for all of it. Until the original Kira appears again, should that happen, I suppose we should just leave Pandora’s box closed.”

“Yeah…” L whispered. “Let’s do that.”

L was quiet for a long moment. “You look good, Light.”

The boy cracked a small smile. “You too, L.”

L smiled back.

Light fidgeted just a little, looking around the place before turning back to L, his gaze focused quite blatantly on L’s mouth. “L, can I—“

The detective kissed him before he could finish his sentence. 

Light melted right into it. 

*

Mello, in a typical Mello fashion, knocked L clean over with a literal flying hug after jumping off the stairs the second the boy laid eyes on him. 

“You know, Light,” L huffed from the ground, rubbing a thrilled Mello’s back, “I think I lied about hurting my back sitting down.”

Light chuckled from where he stood by the wall, offering Mello a tiny bow in typical Japanese fashion.

“So this is Kira?” Mello asked in English, getting off L’s stomach and standing to look Light up and down.

Light fidgeted, leaning away from the boy as he helped L up. “Them, too?”

“I guess they were following the case from afar. It’s not my fault you look Sketchy, Light-kun,” L answered with a light smile. “On that note, how’s your English?”

“Fine,” Light answered in the language. “Accented probably, but…”

“Not that bad,” remarked Mello. “Don’t feel bad. I had an accent too when I first came here. Most of us do.”

Light smiled indulgently. “Thanks, buddy.”

The fifteen-year-old nodded with a raised eyebrow. “Who’da thunk it. Kira’s pretty nice.”

“Enough, Mello,” L chided, ruffling the boy’s hair and accepting another hug.

“Missed you, L,” the boy murmured into his chest. “I was really worried about you.”

L pressed a kiss to the top of his head. “I missed you, too.”

“So you lived. I wasn’t expecting that.”

Mello sighed heavily into L’s chest at the sound of the soft voice coming from the top of the stairs. L did not turn around as Mello extricated himself from the detective’s arms, catching Light’s eye and giving him a firm look to let it go. 

Light simply stared back at him, clearly confused. 

“So glad you have so much faith in me, Near,” L finally said, turning around. 

The young albino boy stood at the top of the stairs, the white pajamas he always seemed to wear making his skin and hair seem all the paler, which in turn made his violet eyes stand out all the more. That, combined with his monotone and sharp way of speaking could make him just a little bit frightening for those who did not know him. For L though, it just made him sad, because he still remembered what Near had been like before…

Just before. 

The boy took a few steps down the stairs, staring intently at L.

“Easy, Near,” Mello hissed at him, fidgeting where he stood beside L. “He just got home.”

“I’m aware.” 

L regarded him carefully. “It’s good to see you, Near.” 

The boy simply stared up at him. “I wish I could say the same.”

“Near!” Mello snapped.

The younger boy was not to be deterred. “I can say I would have much preferred it had someone else come home in your stead.”

“Near, that’s eno—“

“You remember A, right?”

“NEAR!” Mello leaped forward then, clapping his hand over the young boy’s mouth. “He’s just mad, L,” he said, though L could see clear as day that both boys had something to hide.

“What about A?” L asked carefully, glancing over at Light, who was watching quietly with a furrowed brow.

“Nothing!” Mello said far too quickly. “He’s fine.”

Near removed Mello’s hand from his mouth. “He’s dead.” 

Something cold settled in the pit of L’s stomach. “You shouldn’t joke about that,” he said slowly. “No matter how much you want to hurt me.”

“I’m telling the truth,” Near said simply, and that was only confirmed by the way Mello did nothing to deny it. “He took your place after you overdosed on an international stage. But the pressure of cleaning up your mess and living up to your skill was just too much for him. So he killed himself.”

When Mello again gave no objection to the claim, it was as if the bottom fell out from L’s world. 

A was…dead?

Because of him?

“And I just keep asking myself—“

“Haven’t you done enough, Near?” snapped Mello. 

“—Why didn’t you just take a little bit more?”

Oh, that hurt. That hurt. But like hell if L was going to show it.

“Then you would have died in your rightful place and A, the innocent one, would still be alive—“

With a loud crack, the boy had fallen to the ground, a hand pressed over his mouth. 

Mello stood over him with a truly vicious look on his face. “Shut the FUCK up, Near, or I’ll—“

L’s put a hand on the boy’s shoulder, pulling him away and silencing him. “Near—“

But the younger boy, blood dripping out from under his hand, simply got up and walked away, his point made. 

The second Near was out of the room, Mello nearly fell into L’s arms, trembling. “Don’t listen to him, he’s just hurt and he doesn’t know how to handle it. He still wakes up with nightmares from that one time, you know? And they’re real bad, but he won’t talk about them, not even to me. But he doesn’t mean it. We’re all so glad you made it back. When I heard what happened, I—“ He hiccuped, holding onto L all the tighter. “I stayed up three nights praying for you, rosary after rosary just so you could make it back and I could see you one more time—“

L shushed him, rubbing the boy’s back as he calmed down, even as his own heart ached so badly it threatened to break. He had never been more grateful for anything in that moment than for Light’s hand on his shoulder, a silent and nonintrusive gesture of support.  

“So he was telling the truth, then?” L asked, when Mello had calmed down. “About A?”

Shakily, Mello nodded. “It ain’t your fault…” he whispered. “A had been struggling for a while. We all knew it. B and I tried to get him some help, but the higher ups said no, he couldn’t expose himself that way, being first in line and all. He looked so bad the night before he left, I thought for sure they’d let him stay and send somebody else…”

L frozen then, his fingers tangled in Mello’s fiery red hair. “Mello…”

“Hmm?”

“How old was A?”`

Mello shrugged, stepping out of L’s arms and wiping the tears off his face. “Seventeen, I think. I didn’t really know him that well.”

Seventeen…

L saw red. 

“Watari said not to tell you for a few days, give you time to settle in--“

“I’ll come talk to you later, okay?” L said suddenly, staring straight ahead. “You and Near both. B too. But first there are one or two things I have to say to Watari.” 

The boy nodded, scuffing the toe of his shoe on the wooden floor. “B ain’t here…” he whispered. “He…left. After A… He wasn’t himself no more.”

L stared at him, trembling with rage. “Is he alive?”

Mello shrugged. “I guess, I… B, he…he got…violent. After A. He hurt some of the older kids real bad and then he just disappeared. After A, and after what happened to you, I…I don’t want to know what happened to him, L. It all hurts too much.”

L nodded stiffly, offering the boy what he hoped was a reassuring look. “Why don’t you head on down to the kitchen. I told Watari to pick up some extra dark chocolate for when I got home, just for you. Go get some, I’ll meet you there.”

Mello smiled back faintly and disappeared down the hall.

Light squeezed L’s shoulder, rubbing gently. “L—“

“Could you give me a minute, Light?” L asked, voice terse.

Light nodded, giving L’s shoulder one more squeeze before saying he would wait outside. 

L could only suppose most people in the house heard him as he shouted at Watari in the man’s third floor office, but he didn’t care. He rarely yelled, rarely believed that any situation could be won or even improved by a raised voice, but this…

This particular situation mandated rage.

“He was a child!” L yelled as Watari stood behind his desk, silent, unmoving. “Let me say again how this all went. First you take me at what, fourteen? Even for me, the coldhearted bastard that I am, I didn’t handle that shit well, did I? No, the shit I saw on cases fucked me up to the point I started shooting up at fifteen. And because that all went so well for me, when I finally fuck up enough to ruin everything we’ve ever worked for, you take another child and toss him in head first and then act surprised when he kills himself? Hmm?”

“Mello told you then?”

“Near,” L snapped. “Right after he told me that he wished I’d died from my overdose so A might still be alive. What next, you’re gonna toss him in head first? I know that’s your plan, I know he’s top in the stats no matter the fact that he’s barely 13. We’re just getting younger here, aren’t we. And when the stress breaks him down, too, who will you send in next? Mia? Can we expect her to be about 9 before she’s needed?”

“Enough, Lawliet.”

“‘Enough,’” L mocked, shaking his head in disbelief. “We were children, Watari. And the kids you’re sending out there now are still children.”

The old man too looked very, very sad. “This was not my decision, L.”

“It never is.” L fixed the old man with a hard stare. “Whoever’s decision it is, tell them this: no more kids. No more. Or else we’ll have to see just how big of a stink I can make, eh? With all my contacts, I can’t imagine anyone involved here would ever recover from it.”

Watari sighed, pushing his glasses up his nose. “You shouldn’t make threats you’re not willing to follow through on.”

“Yeah? Well I just lost the single most prolific serial killer the world has ever seen before promptly overdosing on smack in front of four Japanese cops and by extension the entire world. There’s a lot I’ll follow through on these days.”

“I’m sorry, L. About A,” Watari said just before made it out the door. “I should have protected him more.”

“And what about B?” L hissed. “Yeah. I heard about him, too. How many more, Watari? Next time I come back, will I be standing here with you telling me you wished you’d protected Mello better? Or Near?”

“I’m sorry, L. But there was nothing else I could do.”

L left before he could say anything he’d regret. The truth of it was, they all should have protected those kids better. L most of all. 

*

“What can I do, L?” 

L made a noncommittal noise, sagging further into Light’s side. “Nothing,” he said simply. “There’s nothing you can do.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry. Quite the mess you’ve walked into when I promised you peace…”

“Hush,” Light answered, carding his fingers through L’s hair. “Of course you couldn’t have predicted the sudden death of a loved one. God forbid.” 

L pressed closer, shifting so that his ear was over Light’s heart. “I grew up with these kids, Light. A, I…I should have protected him. I knew he was next in line, I didn’t even think of him… Of course I never thought that after what happened with me, they would send another child out… And God, B…”

He shook his head. “Watari takes good care of the kids,” he said. “But Watari Isn’t always here. Most of the time he comes with me. I don’t know if it’s because of my addiction or something else, but he rarely leaves my side. And while he’s away, other people take care of the kids. They’re not as kind as any of us would have them be.”

“How do you mean?”

L shuddered. “I’ve heard things from the kids. Or rather, Mello has. I’ve been closest to him as of late, so whatever he hears, he calls and tells me. It’s been like a revolving door of staff as of late, because someone’s always trying to exert their will over them. Hell, a group of the smartest kids in the world? Getting one of them on your side is a great way to ensure that your agenda lives on. And every now and again, we’ll get someone that tries to hurt them. I throw them out the second I hear it, but I’m always too late for someone here…”

Light hugged him tighter.

“Even when I was L,” he murmured. “I couldn’t keep them all safe.”

After a moment, Light spoke. “You are still L,” he said. “The taller boy with blonde hair…Mello, right? He found me earlier and told me that your reputation isn’t ruined. You’re credited with solving the Kira case. The story goes that the investigation fell apart after you made your final ruling, and that it was only after that the evidence emerged to corroborate you. Japan has only privately refused to cooperate with you further because of what happened. He said that apparently stronger powers would prefer you in your job than out of it, addiction or no.”

“Lovely,” L muttered. “If only that meant something.”

But it did mean something, he realized after only a moment. It meant that no more of the kids would be sent to suffer in his place. 

He was nearly 26 by then. He could handle what the world wished to throw at him.

Light wrapped his arms tighter around him, his cheek resting atop L’s head. “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“Near, was it? He…seemed to have something against you.”

L sighed heavily. 

That…was a story he did not want to tell. It was perhaps the worst thing he had done over the course of his addiction. But, if Light was going to be involved with all this —with L— he deserved to know. 

“Remember I told you about the time I OD’ed in Watari’s basement when I was younger?”

Light nodded.

L let out a shaking breath. “Well…I had kids under my care at the time. Specifically, I had Near under my care. Most of the kids were pretty self-sufficient. They’d lived here a while and didn’t generally need much looking after. But Near was still pretty new, only five years old. If you haven’t noticed, most of us here are a bit neurodivergent, and for him, coming to this loud, unfamiliar place from wherever he came from was hard. He took to me when he got here…”

L smiled slightly. “God, he followed me everywhere and I was always holding him, he’s always been so little…Anyway, he…Well. I was seventeen years old and struggling royally with heroin. The adults left the house, and when I was sure they weren’t coming back, I took the opportunity to use. I didn’t even think that of course Near would come looking for me. Anyway, he…he was the one that found me.”

Light let out a soft breath, rubbing L’s back.

L shut his eyes against the memory. “It was the one and only time Watari ever laid hands on one of his kids. He beat the ever living hell out of me when I got home from the hospital, told me that he’d come home from getting groceries and could hear Near crying from down in the basement. He said the poor kid was just shaking me, bawling, but I wouldn’t wake up because by that point, I was mostly dead. Hell, when I woke up in the hospital, Watari brought Near to see me and he just climbed on my bed, latched onto me and wouldn’t let go for two days, until I got out. After that though…”

L blinked, a single tear sliding down his cheek. “After that, he wouldn’t associate with me. Wouldn’t look at me, would scream and run away if I tried to touch him. And over time, he just…faded. And you’ve met him now. Hyper-focused on his work, no real friends —Mello only partially puts up with him because he feels responsible for him, but to be honest even Mello bullies him. He’s cold and calculated. Like me, honestly.”

Light shook his head. “You’re not cold, L. I never thought that even for a second after I met you. Calculated, yes, but never cold.”

“I’d say I was pretty fucking cold to use drugs in front of kid.”

Light sighed and said nothing more. 

L stared straight ahead, his gaze dull. “He’s never forgiven me for making him see me like that, has held it over my head as he’s gotten older more times than I can count. An he wins every time because he’s right to. Of all the things I’ve done, Light-kun, I regret that the most.”

Light was silent for a long moment. “…Thank you for telling me, L”

L himself said nothing for the longest time. 

“I have to go talk to Near,” he finally said with a heavy sigh, sliding out from under Light’s arm. “Tomorrow, we’ll get you set up with school. I wasn’t lying about that semester abroad.” 

Light shook his head. “L, don’t worry—“

“You asked what you could do,” he interrupted. “Let me do this normal thing.” 

With a soft nod, Light agreed. “We’ll get through it, L,” he promised.

Despite the pain in his heart, L believed that.

*

The fourth floor hallway was equally as dark as L remembered it. Near’s room, too, tucked away in a small back corner, was exactly as he remembered it. The boy was in his bed when he cracked open the door, the moonlight shining through a small skylight in the ceiling. 

L treaded quietly across the floor, careful of the trains and blocks that littered the floor. At thirteen years old, L doubted the boy was still interested in them. More likely, the familiarity and routine of them brought him comfort. 

Near was more of a creature of habit than any of them —quite a statement to make — had only a small number of things that would comfort him and he still did not tolerate change well at all. That was why every day he wore the same white pajamas (the material of other clothes being intolerable for him) went to class, played with his toys, and did his work in the same order, went to bed at the same time every night. As much as he could force it, nothing ever changed. 

L sat down very carefully on the edge of the boy’s bed, taking in the stiff line of his back. If he had been asleep, he wasn’t anymore, likely hadn’t been since L opened the door. But he did not acknowledge L in any way.

“When you were little,” L began. “You always wanted to stay up so late. I still remember carrying you around because I was the only one who could get you to sleep. Now you go to bed at 8pm.”

“Your speeches still put me to sleep.”

Oof.

Near: 1, L:0

The boy always had been as sharp as a knife.

L sighed softly. “I’m sorry, Near,” he finally said.

The boy immediately stiffened. “What use is that to me?”

“It’s part of my Twelve Steps,” L explained. “We seek to make amends with those we have harmed. And I know I hurt you, Near. That was never my intention, but that doesn’t matter. My decision caused you harm. And I regret it.”

Near said nothing.

“You’re very important to me,” L went on. “And if there’s anything I can do to make amends for the things I’ve done while using, I will gladly do it. But if you’re not open to that, I understand.”

Near curled up slightly, his arms clutched close to his chest. “Did you know my mother died of an overdose?”

L’s heart caught in his throat. “…I did not know that, no.”

Near began to tremble. “I watched her die. I was just a baby, so I couldn’t do anything for her. I knew you were using, too, right from the beginning. It looked the same on you as it did on her. Like death.”

L…could find nothing to say to that. He was right after all.

The young boy was damn near shaking by then. “I blamed myself. I thought that if I had only been better, had stayed closer to her that she would not have died. Why you think I hung onto you so much? I thought I could stop you from dying. Then I found you.”

“I’m so sorry, Near,” L whispered.

The boy continued. “I knew what was happening to you. I remembered. I screamed and I cried for someone to help you because I could not bear to watch you die like she did. But then your lips began to turn blue.”

L went out on a limb and rested a gentle hand on Near’s back.

Near froze at the touch. “I realized then that it wasn’t a matter of if but when. You were always going to die from that disease. I accepted that. It’s just that it’s been torture waiting for it.” 

It was a long time before L spoke again. “I’m not going to die from it now,” he said quietly. “I’m sober seven months now.”

“You’ll relapse,” Near replied flatly. “Statistics aren’t in your favor. Especially not since you’re going to go back to being L. What was it you said, no more kids? You yell very loudly when you want to. Let me ask you this: do you truly believe you can save us? Let me save you some time. You’re far too late for that.” 

“I’ll spend the rest of my life making up for what I’ve done, Near. I promise you. That’s all I can offer you.”

“I don’t think that will mean very much to me, seeing as the rest of your life is not likely to be very long.”

L was about to give up then, to leave Near in peace and accept that this was bound to happen with at least one person he’d hurt, when he saw something through the dark. A small dark spot on the boy’s normally pristine white sleeve. When L reached out and touched it, it was damp, and his fingers came away with the metallic smell of blood. 

“Near, are you hurt?” he asked, his brow furrowing.

The boy said nothing, drawing his arm close to his chest and tucking the spot under his wrist and out of sight.

“Near—” L said turning on the reading light.

There, just peaking out from under the edge of Near’s oversize pajamas, were a series of straight, neat lines on the inside of his wrist, leaving the words you are far to late echoing in L’s head.

“Oh, Nate…” he whispered softly, though he knew better than to say anything more. As much as he wanted to chase the evils of the world away from this boy, to try would only be insulting. There was nothing he could do except bear witness to the boy’s suffering. 

Near curled up even tighter, and L watched as tears welled up in the boy’s violet eyes. “I know I’m next,” he whispered, his voice still perfectly monotone despite the sadness and fear on his face. “Next in line to succeed you. But it doesn’t look like L’s successors meet very happy fates, historically. And how could they, when even L himself did not?” He tucked his arm close to his chest. “I suppose we all have to have something to hold us together.”

L couldn’t stand it anymore. He scooped the boy up and into his lap, wrapped his arms around him and held on tight. “I suppose we do,” he acquiesced. “But it doesn’t have to be something like this.”

“Will you tell Watari then?” Near asked, ignoring what L had said as he hung like a rag doll in L’s arms. “I suppose you must.”

L blinked, his had stroking over Near’s silk-soft hair. “No,” he finally answered, fingers tangling in the strands. “I won’t. I know well enough that you’ll just find a way to keep doing it, only in secret. I always did. I’d rather you know you have someone to come to, someone who’s not going to judge you or try to change you, to help you when you need it.”

“That’s what Kira is to you, then? And he is Kira, L. You know that, right?”

L sighed. “Yes, that’s what Light is to me. And for better or for worse, that case is closed. I don’t think about it. It just makes me want to use.”

“We can’t have that.” A beat. “Will you really not tell Watari?” 

“That’s correct,” L whispered, praying to a God he didn’t believe in that his hunch would pay off. 

“You’re really sober?”

“Seven months.”

“You said no more kids. Can you make assurances that that will extend to me?”

“Yes. You won’t be next in line until you’re ready and a legal adult, too. We might be safe behind our computer screens, Near, but the things I see, the decisions I have to make…It makes kids into child soldiers. I won’t stand for it. Not after what happened to A and B. I’ll spend the rest of my life, too, making up for not being louder about it before.”

After a long moment, Near uncurled and wrapped his arms around L’s back, relaxing just a little into his embrace. 

“So long as you promise…” he whispered into L’s shirt.

“I promise.”

“And you won’t leave again?” 

L rubbed his back, considering his answer carefully. “I might not be here all the time,” he finally said, “But I won’t be absent. I can promise that.” 

Near relaxed further into his arms, letting off the softest sigh of relief. 

A while later, nearly an hour, Near spoke again. “You know…we all habit habits like this, right?”

L, who had been dozing himself, was wide awake at the boy’s words. 

“Even Mello,” Near went on, fingers playing with the fabric of L’s shirt. “You know that chocolate he always has with him is all he eats, right? Because it’s a sweet, no one pays attention, but he doesn’t eat anything else, never comes to meals. He always says it’s because he’s sleeping in, busy, or studying. None of it’s true. There’s a lot of drugs here, too. And alcohol. Any vice you can think of, really.” He pressed a little closer to L. “I don’t want any part in any of it. So I stay up here.”

L hugged the boy just a little tighter, very, very troubled. “And the caretakers, are they aware of this?”

“Undoubtedly. It’s more of a question of whether or not they care. Which they don’t, unless it affects our grades.”

L stroked the boy’s hair gently. “Does Watari know?”

“Maybe he does now that he’s back, but how could he have before? He’s always with you.” Near began to tremble, just a little. “Will you help us, L? No matter what my opinion of you may have been over the past eight years, even I can recognize that you’re the only one who really cares about us. I mean…I suppose Watari does, but his hands are tied more than most of us realize. You’re really the only one who can help us, the only one with enough potential leverage to make things change.”

L shook his head slowly in disbelief. He had been away for far too long. 

“The world will not have an L until this place is changed,” he promised. “And we both know that the world cannot function without an L to clean up their messes, right?”

He felt Near smile against his chest. 

L carded his fingers through the boy’s hair. “And if that’s not enough, then you’re right. I do have leverage. I could probably bring down any major western government in a day if I wanted to. And unless they listen to my concerns, I will.”

Near nodded, accepting the kiss L placed on top of his head. 

The young boy fell asleep like that, propped up against L’s chest, cuddling him like an oversized teddy bear. L let him, was more than happy to provide the comfort, and lay back on the bed, resolved to his post for the night. 

Near slept the whole way through without nightmares, his small body (much too small for a boy his age) half-draped over L’s, his thin fingers twisted in the material of L’s shirt. 

*

L could not remember the last time he had cried. As he thought back, it might have been after he OD’ed in front of Near, as Watari shouted at him and hit him, furious and terrified of what L was doing to himself. Yes, that was it. The drugs had numbed everything since then. 

But the drugs were no more. There was nothing left to numb him to the honest to God mess of a life he’d had. So, as he stood in front of A’s grave on a cold, rainy London day, he cried. Eight years worth of tears, he cried.

There was not a doubt in his mind that he would have relapsed that day had it not been for Light (just like Near had said). L, for once in his life, had put on a suit to go visit A (to pay his respects, to beg his forgiveness). When his hands had shaken too much to tie his tie, Light had done it for him. Light put on a suit, too, and went with him, stopped off at a local flower shop to get some lilies to leave by the grave. And, as L stood with his face buried in his hands, tears dripping down his face like the rain around them, Light stood with him, an arm around his waist, just being there. 

“I’m so sorry, A…” L whispered through his tears, wishing like hell that he had done everything differently.

Light in turn gave the headstone a respectful bow. “Rest in peace.”

Michael Thomas, the headstone read. At least they’d had the decency to bury the boy under his own name rather than the name they had given him, A. For Alternative.

The higher ups’ dehumanization of them ran deep. 

Light took him to his favorite cafe after they left the cemetery. L followed where he was led without comment, his mood as black as the day and as the coffee he was drinking. He couldn’t bear the thought of sweetness that day. 

Light sipped slowly at his own matcha latte with skim and two sugars (his favorite, and the same drink L had gotten for him after their first tennis match…coming up on two years ago now, wasn’t it). 

“How are you doing, L?” the other man asked gently.

L did not reply.

Light took another sip of his drink. “There’s an NA meeting just down the road starting in about an hour,” he said. “I was thinking it’d be nice if I went with you today.”

L huffed a soft laugh, staring at nothing even as gratitude welled up in him.

So Light had seen what Near had seen, that L had been skipping the core of his recovery plan: community. That he hadn’t gone to an NA meeting since he’d been out of rehab, and that he’d been struggling royally as a result. 

“This one’s law enforcement centered,” Light added. “If that makes you more comfortable.” 

I’m not going to let you drown. Not while I’m sitting right here.

Slowly, L nodded. “That sounds nice,” he murmured, his voice rough. “I guess it’s never too late to start my 90 meetings in 90 days, right?”

Light agreed with a smile. 

Yes, Light stayed with him that day, went to the meeting with him, listened as L told the story of how his drug habit had hurt someone close to him and had recently been a complicating factor in the suicide of his ‘cousin’. He hugged L after, saying how proud of him he was. 

Absentmindedly, L couldn’t recall anyone ever having said that to him before. 

*

“So,” L said many months down the line, sitting once again in his (their) favorite cafe. “Have you…enjoyed your time here in England?”

Light nodded, staring down at his tea. “Yeah. I really like it here. Especially now that I’ve gotten used to the dialect.”

L nodded, unable to think of anything more to say. 

Light had been there with him for a year and a half. The first year, Light had taken a leave of absence from school, focusing on his recovery for a good bit of it, a which point he couldn’t start in the middle of a semester, so he had worked with L in straightening out Wammy’s house. 

L had fought the hard battle with the people who ran the ‘gifted’ program, making threats to create change and following through on said threats when the higher ups —who, as Near had said, only seemed to care about the future of the name L— called his bluff. 

But, as he had promised Near, L wasn’t bluffing. They figured that out pretty quick. 

Light had spent the time in between completing his intensive treatment and starting school working with the kids, gaining their trust and identifying what they needed help with. He and Mello had become especially close after Light had told Mello about his own struggle with eating, and had helped the boy get into some treatment of his own. 

All the kids loved him because he stood up for them, made sure that whatever habits they had, they were helped, not punished. 

“I mean,” L had overheard Light arguing with one caretaker, a kid in his arms. “Ten-year-olds don’t generally start snorting cocaine without a pretty damn good reason, wouldn’t you say?” 

Things were…not perfect at Wammy’s house, but they were better. They were getting better. 

Then Light had gone to school for a semester. L visited him regularly, and he would go on to remember it as some of the best days of his life. For a split second each time, it was almost as if they were normal people in a normal relationship. 

It was…nice.

But the semester was close to ending now, and soon enough Light would be back on a plane to Japan and…everything would change. L was not looking forward to it.

“I don’t think I’m allowed back into Japan,” L murmured. “But any time you want to visit me, I’ll fly you out here. Or we could meet anywhere around the world. In between…while I’m aware how difficult long distance relationships can be, especially across time zones, I’m willing to put in the effort.”

Light nodded slowly, not looking at him. And L’s heart dropped into the pit of his stomach. 

“What are you thinking?” L asked cautiously, not allowing himself to think about what his partner of over two years might be considering, nor what he himself would do if it came to pass. 

Light was quiet for a long moment. “I’m thinking about this apartment I saw near campus.”

L blinked. “What?”

“It’s for rent,” Light went on. “Close enough for me to take the bus to school, but close enough so that you won’t have to travel quite so far from Wammy’s house.”

L stared at him, not allowing himself to hope.

“I…” Light continued, “…talked to my advisor here about…enrolling full time. Transferring from To-oh, I mean. She said I could do it. I’d have to mess around with my student visa which could be annoying, but—“

“There are plenty of people in immigration who owe me a favor,” L said quickly, his heart beginning to beat in excitement.

A smile began to grow across Light’s face. “And I was thinking…you’ve been complaining a lot about being 26 and still living at home. If you were to stay there…live there…with me it would be an easy commute back so you could keep your promise to the kids and still be there during the day.”

L was grinning widely by then. “Are you asking me to move in with you, Light-kun?”

Light grinned right back. “I don’t know, maybe.”

“Well,” L said. “In that case, I think I should head back to Wammy’s so I can call in that favor. In the mean time, you go get that apartment.”

“Don’t you want to see it first?”

“I trust you.”

Light leaned over the table and kissed him then. It was the most wonderful thing L had ever felt in his life.

*

“Oh my Lord, L, you are so lame.” 

L frowned at Mello, glancing over at Near, who sat beside him reassembling a toy truck. The boy merely shrugged at L. 

“I think it sounds fine,” Near offered. 

Mello scoffed. “He’s proposing to his boyfriend, he can do better than over dinner.”

L rolled his eyes. “What do you think I should do then, Mello?”

“Something more romantic than that.” The boy leaned back, drumming his fingers on his knee as he considered. “Okay. How did you two meet?”

“He was my primary suspect in a major case.”

“But like how did you meet? Where, under what circumstances?” 

“I spooked him at the To-oh welcome ceremony.”

“Of course you did.” Mello considered more. “What about the first time you kissed him? Where was that?”

“Right after I had his father pretend to kill him to get him to confess.”

Mello let out a frustrated sigh. “Good Lord, L, why is he still with you?” He nudged Near. “Come on, have an opinion!”

“I have an opinion,” Near answered, not looking up from the model truck he was building. “And I think L’s plan sounds very nice.”

L smiled at the boy, marveling at how much he’d blossomed over three short years. 

He had done quite a bit of work with Near in getting him to talk about what drove him to self-harm, and to be honest, he had been stunned at the answer. 

“I don’t want to be the next L,” Near had finally told him one night. “I’m good at detective work, but I don’t enjoy it. I don’t enjoy the uncertainty, the constant inconsistency, I…” 

Even talking about it, he had begun to shake. 

So L had removed him from the line of succession. That one had been a tooth and nail fight because truly, Near was the best. He saw patterns no one else did, not even L, and had an objectiveness L could only envy. But he would never flourish in the position if he didn’t want it. So L took him out. 

The stress of his future removed, Near had done very well in recovering from his habit. L and Light had then worked with him on helping him adapt some of his other habits to his new future in the real world. Light had helped him find clothes that weren’t pajamas made out of fabric he could tolerate, had gotten him little truck and bear keychains to put on his backpack so he could still have his comfort objects without encountering stigma over them, something that had always bothered him greatly. L had introduced him to building models, which the boy had loved. 

He’d gone on to pass university entrance exams at the age of fifteen and, a year later, was flourishing in structural engineering, his ability to look ahead allowing him to avoid many issues in design. 

“I think I’ll go with that, then,” L murmured, smiling. 

“So lame,” Mello lamented.

*

L married Light Yagami just over two years later on the shores of Norway, right after Light had graduated from school with a degree in international law. With his sharp mind and unshakeable confidence, he made a fantastic lawyer and was an invaluable asset to L’s continued detective work. 

And he was, of course, the love of L’s life.

Signing their marriage license was perhaps the most exhilarating thing L had ever experienced. It was a shame that they couldn’t marry in England, but they could marry here. L still had some hope that one day things would be different, but in such a beautiful place, marrying the love of his life, it was the furthest thing from his mind.

There was an extra moment of significance to the day. After they spoke their vows (they had both said they wouldn’t cry, they would be in public after all, and they both failed miserably), L held Light’s hands in his, his wedding ring a new, comforting weight on his hand, and spoke. 

“I, Lawliet Wright, take you, Light Yagami, to be my husband.”

And he watch, a smile on his face and warmth in his heart, as Light’s eyes widened, tears filling them. 

“I, Light Yagami, take you… Lawliet Wright, to be my husband.”

Kissing him then felt like sealing a promise. 

Yes, L must have done something right in his life to end up here.

“Lawliet Wright,” Light said again as they stood outside the courthouse, letting Watari take pictures of them. “That’s your name?”

L nodded. “Yes, that is the name a nurse at the sanctuary hospital chose to give me. I can’t say why she chose it, and to be honest I hated it for the longest time. I began calling myself L long before I came to Wammy’s house, but it’s grown on me through the years. Only Watari calls me Lawliet though, and generally only when I’m in trouble.”

Light chuckled, squeezing L’s hand. “It suits you,” he whispered. “Thank you for trusting me with it.” 

“You’re my husband now,” L answered, his heart swelling at the word husband. “I trust you with my life.”

“Even though I might have been Kira? That you thought me Kira?”

L brought their intertwined hands up, pressing a kiss to the back of Light’s hand. “Whoever you may or may not have been, you’re not now. Now, you’re Light Yagami, England’s best lawyer, my partner in crime —or law, rather, and my husband. And I love you.”

“I love you too.”

The picture Watari got of them kissing then was perhaps the best one he’d ever taken.

*

After taking a few days to themselves to enjoy the beauty of Norway, the newlyweds made their way back to England and to Wammy’s house to celebrate with the kids. With their family.

The kids —many of them kids no longer— threw them one hell of a party (though L suspected Mello was behind most of it). L loved every second of it. 

“The little shit’s more observant than I thought,” L remarked, on his second piece of cake. “This is my favorite.”

“Layer two is mine,” Light agreed, a soft smile on his face as he took a bite. “Matcha.”

L smiled back. “I’m so proud of you, Light.”

His new husband blushed just a little. “What can I say, recovery is delicious.”

“I support that wholeheartedly.”

That’s not to say the entire day was lighthearted. L felt the holes of A and B more then than he had in years, and knew very very well that Light felt the hole of his missing family, most of whom had not reacted well to his decision to stay permanently in England, let alone marry L. That last bit had caused an almost vicious rift that not even L could patch up. 

“How are you doing?” he asked quietly, seeing Light step away from the festivities. 

“Okay,” Light answered, staring at the floor. “Sayu’s cool with us at least. She wanted to come to the wedding, but couldn’t because of school. She called me just before we got married and said she’ll make it out over her next break to celebrate with us.”

“I’ll be looking forward to it.”

Light nodded. “My mom called too and wished us well. She…doesn’t understand, but it seems like she at least wants to make peace. My dad though…” He just shook his head.

Light’s relationship with his father had not been good since the day he left Japan, so much so that Light had not been back to Japan since the day he left. That too left a hole in him, L could see, and while he tried the best he could to fill that hole by speaking Japanese at home and digging up all the best Japanese spots around London, none of it was a substitute for home. 

“Let’s not talk about that though,” Light finished, giving L a strained smile. “This is our party. Let’s enjoy it before we have to go back to work.”

“Yes,” L agreed, taking Light by the hand. “Let’s.”

*

For a few years after that, it was as if L was living in a dream. He still experienced the everyday frustrations everyone did, but overall, he would go so far as to say his life was perfect. 

Wammy’s house had become a home for orphan children that put special emphasis on education and opportunity, working with other homes to ensure the same. “L” had become a task force made up of people from around the world. Their numbers decreased pressure on any individual person and their diversity allowed them to do better work. Members of the task force were highly educated and well rounded. And most importantly, all of them were experienced adults. 

There would be no more children. And that helped L sleep at night without seeing A’s dead face staring back at him. 

He and Light lived in a small apartment in central London. After growing up in a quiet Tokyo suburb, Light loved the bustle, and L just enjoyed being in his home city after bouncing around for so many years. Light’s career as an international lawyer was flourishing, though he was no longer involved in L’s work. They had two cats and entirely too many plants, though L would concede that the bamboo did make for a nice atmosphere. 

It was…perfect.

Until it wasn’t.

L would never forget where he was when it happened. Mello, who had gone on to be a well-recognized artist, had been visiting Wammy’s house, eating some chocolate (of course) in the kitchen with some of the kids. Light had been in the living room playing with a few others. All had been well. Until L heard a blood-curdling scream.

Both he and Mello were up with a start, bolting to the living room, preparing themselves for any number of things that could have caused someone to scream like that, with such terror and horror.

What he found was Light on the floor, screaming and choking, looking as though he was having a seizure. 

And on the table beside him, just peaking out from under a pile of books and magazines, was the death note.

Mello ushered the kids out as L ran to his husband, yelling for Watari to call an ambulance as he tried to get Light to calm down. 

It was no seizure he was having, L realized the second he got a good look at him. 

“Light, Light breathe,” L tried to soothe, but Light would not be soothed, simply clutched at his head and curled up into a ball, sobbing until he hyperventilated and vomited. 

The paramedics had to sedate him when they got there. Light would allow no one but L to touch him, and could be consoled by no one. He was taken to the hospital then, kept overnight for observation, but none of the doctors who saw him could find anything physically wrong with him. 

Psychologically, he bore all the signs of a sudden shock and terrible trauma. And L would bet a lot of money on it having to do with the death note on the table. But he couldn’t confirm that, because Light would not speak to him, wouldn’t even look at him. 

For two weeks after that, everything fell apart. L did everything he could to try to help his husband, get him to talk, to tell him anything about what had been going on, but Light remained frighteningly tight-lipped. He relapsed, too, and badly. He simply stopped eating, would only drink a few sips of juice after collapsing more than once. And he still refused to even look L in the face.

For once in his life, L had no idea what to do, how to help his husband. In terrible danger of relapsing himself because of the stress, he picked up smoking, needing something to calm him down and just think for a second. But no matter how hard he thought, he could think of nothing. 

And finally, as two weeks bled into three and three threatened to bleed into four, he did relapse. He bought and took a single hit of cocaine, needing desperately to see if there was something that he missed. 

There was, he realized, high as a kite as he sat on his porch smoking. 

Light had touched the death note. It had been made clear late into he case, just before L overdosed, that touching the death note garnered a person special powers, like the ability to see a shinigami. Could that have been it?

No. Light new of the existence of shinigami even if he had never seen one.

L sighed, hanging his head as his cigarette burned between his fingers. 

“You know, L” Near said three days later, sitting on the same porch with L after the detective had called him, asking for help. “Given what you know about the death note, you know what he saw and what he remembered. You just don’t want to admit it.”

L did, honestly had from the very beginning, but he didn’t want to believe it, refused to believe it, until the day Light finally sat down next to him on the couch, curled up with his head in his lap, and just cried. 

L held him as he did, gently rubbing his back (he could feel the vertebrae once again) as Light tried and failed multiple times to speak only to dissolve back into tears. 

“Y-you were right,” Light finally got out. “I was Kira. I am Kira.”

L nodded slowly as Light shivered in his lap like he was freezing to death, his fingers curling weakly in the fabric of L’s jeans. He couldn’t think of a damn thing to say. But really, what was there to say? 

“S-so…” Light stammered after a while. “I guess this is it then.”

L frowned, still tracing gently patterns along Light’s side and back. “Why do you say that?”

Light snorted. “I mean you finally have it. The confession you’ve been looking for from me for so long. What will you do with me?”

L had to swallow hard to keep from crying himself. 

And he is Kira, Near had told him once. You know that, right?

You know, L.

“I knew, Light,” he found himself saying. “Ever since I saw you pull heterosexual porn magazines out of your atlas, I knew you were Kira.”

“Since…” Light murmured. “Since then?”

“You, Light-kun—” L answered with a soft smile, “—fell out of the gay tree and hit every gay branch on the way down. That, combined with you being so, so careful, knowing you were being watched yet making such a stereotypical attempt to cover yourself. Well, that and I caught your IP address looking at the files.”

“Fuck…” Light breathed. “I didn’t even think of that.”

“Well, you were only 18… Young and stupid.”

He managed to get a small laugh out of Light at that before his husband curled up even more. “You know what my plan was?” he whispered. 

“You were going to find out my name and kill me.”

“No,” Light answered. “I was going to make the shinigami, Rem, do it for me.”

L nodded slowly. “By endangering Misa and forcing her hand,” he finished. “I take it back. That’s ingenious.” He brushed a hand through Light’s hair before curling a gentle finger under his chin, turning the other’s face toward his. “But you know my name now, don’t you, Light,” he murmured. “I think the better question is, what will you do with me?”

Light stared up at him, stunned. “…What?”

L sighed, leaning back into the couch. “I knew you were Kira, Light-kun. I knew when I kissed you the first time, when I brought you to England with me, when I fell in love with you, and when I married you. Perhaps you weren’t Kira any longer —the truth, I see— or perhaps you still were and had just fallen in love with me and changed your mind, I didn’t care. To answer your original question, I’m not going to do anything with you. I won’t turn you in, nor will I tell anyone who will. So again. What will you do with me?”

Light trembled in his arms. “There’s a part of me that’s screaming at me to kill you. It wasn’t there before, not since I gave up ownership of the death note…”

“Will you listen to it?”

“No!” the other man gasped, clutching at his chest and wincing. “No, I don’t want to! I love you, L, and I love the life I’ve built here. I won’t give that up!” He relaxed suddenly then, falling over L’s lap like a rag doll, all the energy gone out of him. “I think the real question is: how am I supposed to live with what I’ve done? Kira…I killed a quarter of a million people…how….how is anyone supposed to live with that?!”

L continued stroking his hair, shaking his head. “Those fucking kids…” he muttered. “They just had to see a shinigami…”

They were just children. Several of them had been mere infants during the Kira case and were far to young to draw their own conclusions. They couldn’t have possibly known that Kira was among them.

Or that they would ruin both L and Light’s lives by bringing out the note.

*

“So where do we stand?”

Near —the only person L trusted with this— sat in a chair in front of him, with L on the couch. Light was asleep (finally) in their bedroom with the door cracked so L could hear him if he needed him. They spoke in soft voices so as not to wake him. 

L shook his head. “I don’t believe my life is in any danger. It’s his life that’s in danger. My Light has won out over Kira, at least for now, and it’s clear to me that he can’t live with what he’s done.”

Near’s face remained perfectly blank. “So where do we go from here?”

L tried to think. Really, he tried. But for all his genius, he could think of nothing.

“I don’t know,” he breathed. “I don’t fucking know.”

“It’s okay,” Near said. “You’re compromised in this case. You shouldn’t be making decisions anyway.”

L scoffed, standing.

“Where are you going?”

“To the bathroom to snort coke,” he replied curtly, fresh out of fucks to give. “What?” he asked, glancing over his shoulder at Near’s silence. “Don’t look so surprised. You and I both know you could tell I relapsed right when you walked in the door. At least I can think on cocaine.”

Near’s face remained emotionless, though L still noted the dullness in his eyes. “Just make sure you don’t overdose,” he said. “There’s no quick remedy for cocaine and your husband needs you.”

L shut the door firmly behind him.

*

L…owed much to Near. The boy (boy no longer) had forgiven him for the unforgivable, then promptly watched L do it all over again and still he saved him. He saved them.

“Light forgot his memories before,” the boy said, the teddy bear keychain Light had given him clutched in his small hand. “We just need to do it again. And this time, we’ll make sure he can never touch it again. I think it’s about time we ended the Kira case once and for all, wouldn’t you say?”

“We could destroy them,” L agreed. “Both of them. But what’s to say he won’t put two and two together? You and I certainly will.”

“He didn’t for years,” Near countered. “Even knowing the existence of the death note.”

L hummed, lighting a cigarette (in trying to keep his drug habit at bay —picking it back up again, it was as bad as if he had never stopped— he had needed something in place of it. Sue him). 

Near watched, eyes following the smoke rising in the night. “What wouldn’t you do for your husband?” he asked quietly.

“There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for him,” L answered immediately. 

“Would you live out the rest of your days knowing that he was the mass murderer Kira even if he does not? Could you bear that knowledge alone?”

L looked over at him. “I wouldn’t be alone. Like you said, you’ll figure it out, too. Besides, it’s not as if I didn’t know when I married him. The only difference now is that he knows too.”

So that’s what they did.

It was…a rather anti-climactic end, if L said so himself. The story of Kira and of the death note came to an end in a dumpster behind L’s apartment building. Near had stolen the death notes from Wammy’s house, while L had gone out to get accelerant. 

“Did anyone see you take them?”

“In about five minutes, no one will even remember they existed. How will they notice they’re gone?”

Fair enough. 

It was a strange feeling, the minute knowledge of the notes passed out of existence. The end of an era, as it were. The world’s most prolific serial killer would go unpunished in the eyes of the law. But, as L had noted, anyone who had used the death note would neither go to heaven or hell. L was happy to forget that part, though he couldn’t say he truly believed in heaven or hell. 

“Light?” L asked when he went back in, leaving Near outside to watch the fire burn. “Light-kun?”

“L?”

L sat down gently on the side of the bed, running a hand along his husband’s side. “How are you feeling?”

“Better.” Slowly, Light sat up. “I’ve…been sick for a long time…”

“Yes, you have.” L cupped his husband’s face gently in his hand. “But you’re doing better now.”

“Yeah. It feels like it.”

L hugged him then, hugged him so tightly, Light complained softly in his ear, but L still didn’t let go. 

They had a long way to go. Both of them had relapsed and neither of them fully understood why, but something in the air had changed. It wasn’t…quite so heavy anymore.

*

And so the Kira case passed into history. No one truly understood what the death note truly meant. Eventually, it came to be interpreted as a list of names Kira had kept of those he killed, somewhere where he detailed his murders. The quarter of a million people body count was believed to be greatly exaggerated. 

L, contrary to what he had believed, never did put it back together that his husband was Kira. He could have, certainly, same as he had the first time without knowledge of the note, but he never did. Whenever he went to think about it —the only case he hadn’t truly solved by his records, and the one that brought him his husband— something always screamed at him to stop. 

He listened to it.

El Fin.