A/N: I've actually had this written for a little over 4 months now, but I only just got the time to type it up a week or so ago at the school library, and time now to get it up. Updates will be sporadic, and I'll try to get Tail up if I can. I'm also working on getting a Drarry typed up that's been stored on my phone for a few months now, so I'll work on that when I get some time. Giftfics are being put off until at earliest, summer and at latest, a few years, when I don't have to constantly deal with my parents. Hopefully I'll get a smartphone sometime soon, and I can upload fics on the go. IDK. I also have an idea for a fic called Empty Chairs at Empty Tables, which came to me after watching Les Mis (wonderful movie, btw), which I made work on on the side. Probably either an AU HP fic or an original fic, most likely friendship. IDK though, it's just an idea.
For those of you who don't visit my profile (which is, like, all of you), I have a FictionPress account under the same username as my FFN account. I've got a few stories up, so go take a peek? I also have a Tumblr (nekomimi98 . tumblr . com), which is primarily Merthur/Brolin, with some SuperWhoLock thrown in for fun, and a bit of Homestuck as well. Follow me? ;)
I had fun with this fic. It really appealed to me, and I hope you have as much fun reading it as I had writing it. :)
Guardian Angel
Light first noticed him while he was waiting for his bus. He had been scanning the worn buildings around him disinterestedly, as if they had somehow changed since he had been here last, a day ago. Oddly enough, however, something had changed, and he saw something shift on a rooftop out of his periphery. Sighing, he pulled out a newspaper and unfolded it, then leveled his gaze over the edge of a paper.
He saw a man, crouching on the edge of the building's roof. The man had messy black hair, huge black eyes, and pale skin. He was wearing a rumpled white long-sleeved t-shirt and baggy blue jeans.
Light turned the page of the newspaper and scoffed quietly to himself. This city was full of weirdos; what was one more added to the lot? After all, he'd learn his lesson soon enough. There would be a gust of wind, or he'd lose his balance, what with the way he was sitting, and he would plummet to his death.
Almost as if the man had sensed his thoughts, he shifted slightly, and something flared behind him. Distracted by the sudden movement, Light glanced up.
With a shock, Light noticed that the man had wings. He surreptitiously studied the other people at the bus stop, trying to determine if any of them had noticed the man, but they all seemed oblivious to the oddity on the rooftop opposite them.
Light looked up again, but the bus game screeching in and blocked his view. With one final fruitless glance, he boarded the bus.
The next morning, he was waiting on the rooftop long before the bus came. It had only taken a quick smile for him to be allowed onto the roof, and now he waited near the ledge, absently filling in the crossword in the paper.
"You need only call my name, and I will answer," came a voice next to Light's ear. It had no inflection, but Light thought he could make out a hint of playfulness.
It took all of Light's self-control not to jump. He turned to his side and nearly leaped back as he came face to face with the same raven-haired man from the day before. The man was crouching on the ledge again, eyes wide, wings slightly outstretched, and maybe two inches from Light's face.
"And what exactly is your name?" Light asked, a little annoyed, once he recovered from the shock.
The man stared at him, seeming to deliberate about something. "You may call me Ryuzaki," he said finally. "I am your guardian angel."
Light snorted. "Yeah, right. An angel. That's rich." He folded up his paper and headed towards the fire escape so he could catch his bus on time. "Do what you want, it doesn't matter to me," he said breezily as he stepped onto the pavement.
He didn't get a reply.
He didn't see Ryuzaki for several years after that. He had graduated from college with a degree in law and had quickly built up a thriving business. He had never lost a case for an innocent victim, and he had never won a case for a guilty one, though he executed the trials so perfectly it seemed as if he had tried his best and the decision was beyond his control.
He had just left his office late one night when he felt a presence. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end, and he casually glanced around. With a shock, he noticed Ryuzaki trailing him from about a block away. "Stalker," he muttered, but he looked straight ahead and kept walking.
The bus had just pulled into the stop when Light reached it, and he was in the process of pulling out some change to pay the fare when something pulled him back. "Get on a different bus," came a familiar monotone. "Say you don't have enough change or that you forgot something at work; it doesn't matter. Just don't get on that bus."
Light felt the first stirrings of fear settle in his gut. In a miraculously steady voice, he said to the bus driver, "I'm sorry, I left a rather important file at my office. I'll catch the next bus."
"Whatever," the driver muttered, and sped off.
Light watched the bus turn the corner, then whirled around to face Ryuzaki, angry words already on his lips, but Ryuzaki stopped him in his tracks.
"I understand that Light is upset, but Light needs to trust me," the strange man muttered vaguely. "After all, I am his guardian angel." He shuffled backward, shoved his hands in his pocket, and slouched away. Then, seeming to remember something, he turned around and said, "Remember, if ever you need me, just call my name."
Light watched him disappear around a corner, then sighed and sat down at the stop to wait for the next bus.
That night, when he was watching the news, the reporter began to talk about a deadly car accident. "A drunk driver ran a red light and crashed into a bus, just off the intersection of…" The screen turned to an image of the site, and with a start, Light realized it was near his bus stop, hardly three miles away. Looking more closely, he saw that the bus was the same as the one Ryuzaki had prevented him from boarding that night. Horrorstruck, he tuned back in to what the woman was saying.
"…were on the bus when the accident occurred. No one survived. Now, in other news…" The camera returned to the reporter as she began to talk about a budget issue, but Light had stopped listening. He remembered why he hadn't been on the bus, and was suddenly immensely grateful to Ryuzaki.
He didn't see the angel again for about a year, though he suspected that Ryuzaki had saved him time and time again. There was that time he had lost his passport at the airport, missed his flight, and later learned that the plane had a faulty engine and that a single passenger more would have caused it to crash. There was the time he had been about to cross the road when his cell phone began to ring and he couldn't seem to find it. He fumbled with his pockets for a few moments before deciding to just ignore his ringing phone and call the other person back in a minute. But when he looked up, he saw a run the red light and speed through the exact location where he would have been standing had he crossed the road. The phone stopped ringing as soon as the car passed, and Light quickly ran to the other side of the street. There were many such instances as these, and each time, Light felt a little more grateful to Ryuzaki.
About six months after he had been pushed past the alley he used as a shortcut, where a young woman had later been raped and killed, he saw Ryuzaki again. This time, the angel was simply perched on a rooftop, much the same as he had been when Light first saw him, where he could see everything without having to move much. He locked eyes with Light for a brief second, then continued scanning the crowd; for what, Light didn't know. He wondered about it for a second, but then put it out of his mind.
As Light was passing one of the man dark alleys that populated the city, he was roughly grabbed round the neck and yanked through the entrance. A burly man spun him around and shoved him against the wall, then punched him in the stomach, knocking the wind out of him.
"Give me your money," he said in a gravelly voice.
But Light paused, sure that Ryuzaki was on his way even now. Though, he wondered why the angel hadn't warned him about this?
The man punched him again. "I said, give me your money!" And maybe the pain made him delirious, or maybe it cleared his mind, but suddenly Light realized what had happened. This wasn't a life or death situation. That's why Ryuzaki hadn't come. A phrase from long ago echoed in his ears.
"If ever you need me, just call my name."
"Ryuzaki," Light gasped. "Help."
The man paused before bursting into laughter. "Who you calling to, little chicky? There ain't nobody who's gonna come help you." He dissolved into another fit of laughter, but Light watched triumphantly as Ryuzaki alighted on a windowsill.
"I believe he was calling to me," Ryuzaki said casually. The man's laughter ceased, and he glanced up. His eyes went wide.
"How did—When did you get up there?" he stammered out, losing some of his bluster. Light smirked.
Ryuzaki examined the wall behind the man's head. "Just now, by flying," he replied in a bored voice. Almost casually, he let one of his wings flare, and Light had to stifle a laugh as his would-be attacker stumbled back.
"What are you?" the man whispered fearfully."
"An angel," Ryuzaki said, tilting his head and leveling his owlish gaze at the man.
The man nearly tripped in his haste to escape Ryuzaki. "Please, don't hurt me!" he begged. "I'll do anything!"
Ryuzaki brought a finger to his mouth. "Run away," he said after a moment. "If I ever see you harm another person, I will break every bone in your body."
"Thank you!" the man exclaimed and stumbled backwards out of the alley. Ryuzaki watched him flee, then turned to look at Light.
"Thank you," Light gasped out as he recovered his breath. Ryuzaki said nothing, just watched as Light picked up his briefcase and smoothed out his clothes. He was about to walk out of the alley when Ryuzaki called to him.
"All angels have to be called by their charges before they can reveal their true names," he said. "My true name is not Ryuzaki. It is L." He stared at Light a second longer, then stretched out his wings, jumped off the ledge, and flew up into the sky.
Light raised his hand in farewell and watched until L disappeared behind the rooftops, then rejoined the crowd and continued towards his bus stop.
Light's meetings with his guardian angel grew few and far between as he grew older and more experienced. Occasionally, when he had a few minutes, he would call softly to L, and they would talk. It helped alleviate the boredom and monotony of Light's life. But it wasn't enough, no matter how much Light wanted to believe it was.
"L, the loneliness is killing me," he said one night as he lay in bed. L flew in through the window and alighted on the bed, tilting his head to show he was listening. Light's lips quirked up into the ghost of a smile as he realized e was closer to L than to anybody else he knew. "As long as I can remember, it's only been me. Even when I was younger, I was alone. No one wanted to be friends with the smart kid, the odd kid, and I didn't want to be friends with idiots. But they're all stupid. I have yet to find someone at my intellectual level. Besides you, I mean."
L nodded his understanding. Coming from anyone else, those words would have been a sign of arrogance, an insult. Coming from Light, though, they were simply the truth.
"I'll always be here," L said, nodding slightly. Light's smile tuned sad.
"I know," he said as he turned off the bedside lamp. "Thank you."
L stayed in the same position until he heard Light's breathing even out, then leaped up and flew through the ceiling to the roof. He stayed there the rest of the night, keeping vigil so that Light could sleep safely.
As Light grew older, the two became inseparable. Light kept up the semblance of a normal life, but in reality, he depended on L to keep him sane and grounded. On L's part, the easy camaraderie he had struck up with his human charge was not something easily given up. He, too, began to live for the time he spent with Light, up to the point that he always flew just a few feet above and behind the brunette. He had been watching Light since the lawyer's birth, and never before had he been so happy that Light had been assigned to him and not some other, less capable angel.
And then came the day when Light's heart finally gave out. He simply didn't have the desire or will to continue living, and, as if sensing his waning interest in life, his heart simply failed. L watched as Light collapsed to the sidewalk, doing nothing to prevent it from happening. Light's time had come, and L could do nothing to stop it, even if he wanted to. He watched as several passersby noticed Light and rushed to call 911, and flew behind the ambulance when it finally arrived. He circled the hospital as the doctors pumped life back into Light's heart, but he knew it was only a matter of time before Light rejected the borrowed life he had been given.
He flew into the room and stood slouching next to Light's bed just a moment before Light awoke. He watched as Light opened his eyes and sat up. Somewhere in the distance, the heart monitor flat lined. "Is it time?" he asked simply.
L said nothing, just nodded in reply.
Light smiled. "Will you take me?"
L nodded again.
Light sat up slowly, feeling something disconnect. But he paid it no attention. He swung his legs over the bed. L stuck his hand out, and Light gratefully took it. He felt something weighing down his back and turned to see he had wings, as white as freshly fallen snow. He smiled, and L smiled in return. Using L's hand, Light stood up and walked away, leaving a limp body behind for the doctors to find. He did not look back as he stepped through the window onto the ledge. He did not look back as, with one final glance at L, he leapt off the ledge. Hand in hand, they flew off into the sunlight.
FIN