It's getting late.
The glint of the setting sun against the black glass monolith of a tower outside their window burns in Light's eyelids where they rest against L's shoulders. Another shiver wrecks through him and L wraps his arms around him tighter, fingers tracing soothing circles against the sweat-slicked shirt that clings to the crests and dips of his ribs.
It's one of those rare evenings when the dying light of the sun hits everything the right way before going down and the entire apartment is washed in gold. L's spectacles gleam like chandelier crystals at the edge of Light's bleary vision.
It's getting late.
L's phone vibrates somewhere under the never-ending sea of bedclothes.
'Light?'
He feels the hum of L's voice rumbling against his chest before he hears it, and even that is muffled by the mounds of scarves and pillows that surround him.
'Light?', L's breath tickles against his hair and Light groans in response.
'Are you a little better now?'
L's fingers card through his hair, nails scratching gently against his scalp. Light nods, lies and L doesn't press it any further. The once sharp edges of their lies have now been eaten away by time and familiarity into this soft warmth that blurs right into the red-and-gold background. They hardly notice it now. Lies are dressed up in love are hardly lies now are they?
L's phone vibrates again.
Light is half asleep, his forehead is a warm, unpleasant weight against L's chest. His breath refuses to dissolve in his lungs, leaving an acid iciness in its wake.
He will get late. He can't get late, not today.
L sets Light's head against the pillows and brushes the hair back. Light doesn't lean in to his touch like he normally does. Sleep has melted his inhibitions, stripped him bare to the bone and left him naked. It is refreshing to see him like this, unapologetic and politely aware of how perfect he is to everyone else, when he doesn't feel compelled to spell out constant reassurances of fidelity in the subtle language of gentle touches and secret smiles. That's the Light he wishes he could afford to love: the one who shakes off his arm in his sleep when they wrap around him, the one who forgets to buy more of L's strawberry milk when he finishes it. But this Light deserves someone younger, someone who can show him the world and love him in every way there is to love someone. Not a college professor with bad eyesight and more bills than he can pay.
Light now wears the bruises L leaves on his skin as a brand and L hates himself for liking it but L loves how Light's brown eyes look up close, when they are intertwined together, lips on lips, fingers on skin. Light's eyes are like some distant nebulae for L to discover, a cluster of would-be stars, dreams and promises and L maps them out with his lips. He knows Light, all the sharp lines and soft edges of him. He whispers Light's name and in his ears, it sounds like fading strains of a love song and Light shouldn't respond to something so undeserving but he stirs, fingers reaching out and L catches them with his mouth, kissing on the knuckles.
'Light..'
The name feels like rose petals and silk on his lips, it always has and this is all L has to offer. He doesn't say anything else. All those years and what seems like lifetimes ago, he had written poems, turned up every day outside Light's house with arms laden with roses, kissed his lips by the flickering flame of a candle. But the memories of that time are bleeding into each other, all fading now, like the dying embers left in the wake of a raging inferno that had once devoured him.
The clock Nate had gifted them chides L silently, each tick resonating ominously, crashing over L like the unforgiving waves of the rising tide but he is helpless. He can't leave, not right now. Light's fingers clutch at his shirt and he nuzzles against his chest sleepily.
'I'll be here forever. I'll never let you go.'
L holds him close, lips resting against his eyes, Light's eyelashes flutter against his jaw and he wants to kiss him again. All these weeks, perhaps even months, L realised, had been a seemingly unending litany of long work shifts, aching necks and falling asleep on two opposite ends of the bed before even getting to ask each other about the day. The mornings are same, hasty breakfasts and faces hidden by newspapers, occasional comments about the recent man in Sayu's life, L's exchange students and chores.
L suddenly realises why Light smiles when L tells him he loves him.
'Is that a line from Hideki Ryuga's new movie?', he asks as he wraps his arms around L's neck. L blushes like he's supposed to, and Light doesn't let him answer like he's almost afraid of hearing it.
L leans over him and Light exhales with a soft wheeze, the cold is getting worse. His face is flushed and there's snot under his nose that L doesn't wipe away. He touches Light's chest, feeling the laborious rise and fall of it, the ribs expanding and contracting under his palms. It is a miracle, he is a miracle wearing L's old sweatshirt and L will never not be in awe. The familiar ache in his chest is back and L rues himself for forgetting what he needs to do, what he has always known, what he knew the moment he first set his eyes on Light.
I have to save him.
From the world,
from me
and
from himself
'I'm sorry I have been leaving you alone. I'm sorry'
Light dreams on, as the red-gold dusk melts into the inky blackness of evening and L watches the pinpricks of illumination from the city underneath them dancing on their walls. The room is dark and silent. A glass house suspended among clouds, and this reminds him of the trip they had taken to Karuizawa a couple of years ago. Laughing at nothing in particular, hands held under the table, warm sake and the picture in the silver frame on the bedside table remains the tangible evidence of what L has often considered to be just a dream. It snowed that year, and L brushed the little flakes off Light's eyelashes, arms wrapped around each other in the backseat of the taxi. They sneaked kisses in the hotel elevator like they did in the university library as teenagers.
L remembers the warmth of Light's back against his chest, his lips on his neck, hair tickling his face, feet sticking out from under the duvet and he didn't care. He didn't care when Light had him pinned behind the dusty bookshelf at the very back of the university library, dust coating his hair and knocking his glasses askew, he couldn't breathe then and Light has been stealing the breath from his lungs to this day.
Remembering those memories now have the bitter aftertaste of grief and it is tainted with the noxious, crushing fog of despair that L has learned to think of as his compass. Love swirls like a sickness deep in his bones, heavy with earth-shattering realization of the inevitability of separation and death which are now one and the same for him. L wonders if Light can hear his thoughts and he half wishes he could wake him up and tell him everything.
He can feel himself disintegrating, coming apart, dissolving like a spot of ink on wet paper and at the same time, he feels himself coming together somewhere far away, the jagged pieces of his consciousness sewing itself up from scratch with new memories, a new life and a new name. The faces remain unchanged, one face in particular and it winds itself in every single one of L's memories, like universe itself was born from it, from him and it's like the gravity that anchors him to his place in the fabric of space and time. He can almost taste all those lifetimes and they all end in a broken heart. That phantom pain is physical and he can feel it sometimes when he gazes for a second too long into Light's eyes. A spoon falls from his hand somewhere and he is in Light's arms. There's too much red and Light smiles like a ghost, and looks down at him with eyes made of broken glass.
The room suddenly feels strange, airless and unreal and the world tips over sideways, casting L on the roiling waters of a turbulent sea. His slippers discarded by the door, the papers he had been correcting before Light's fever has spiked, Light's jacket draped on the back of the chair, photographs of his parents, the book he'd been reading with the page marked by a chocolate wrapper: the evidence is all around him and yet he feels like he doesn't belong here, the person on his the bed is a murderer, his murderer and he should run, but they're tied together, wrist to wrist, with metal and other intangible things he doesn't know about. L breaks into a sweat, heart pounding and it's like he is the one with a fever.
'Kira'
Something shifts inside him and L opens his eyes.
His phone is vibrating again. He grabs it before it wakes Light up.
2 New Messages.
He really should leave now.
He flips the phone open.
Tea is getting cold. I am cold. Come and find me fast. It won't be long now.
Received: 4:52 pm
We don't have the time for games. The sand in your hourglass is running out.
Received: 5:15pm
L scribbles a hasty note for Light, making up some half hearted story about Mihael needing some help after being apprehended for speeding. The phone vibrates again and L grabs the car keys from the bowl beside the door.
The traffic along the expressway is smoother than usual and yet, the tightness in L's chest hasn't loosened even a bit. The sleepy, surreal haze his nightmare had left him in has now all but dissipated and he checks the address again. It would still take twenty minutes to reach and he drums his fingers absent- mindedly on the steering. The radio is on in the background, just something to fill the claustrophobic silence with. Outside, the world outside moved on ahead of him, like the river flows around a rock in its path. L looks outside the window, outside the glass case he's always in. Salarymen making their way home after a long day, hordes of schoolgirls outside cafe's magazine's bearing the garish photo of the pop idol Sayu adores so much. The news reader on the radio drones on about a hostage situation unfolding somewhere not far from here. L's ears pick out the name 'Otoharada' from what could almost be static for all he cared. The name jumps out at him and it's like meeting a person for the first time who has the face of someone you have seen in your dreams. It has been a strange day and he has been preparing for it for a long time now, but all he wants is to finish this so he can go back home to Light again.
He takes the next turn and the road curves into a quiet neighbourhood, posh apartments with manicured lawns and foreign–made cars in the garage. L hopes he can finish this before he attracts the attention of the security on patrol. His watch tells him it's just before 6 and he kills the engine. His phone has no new messages to show and what if he really got late? He considers switching it off and turning it on again when he notices something on the dash.
A flash of pink.
A pink phone rests against the dusty maps and L is sure it wasn't there a second ago. It rests oddly on his palm, a charm dangling from it. L remembers the character on it, he'd heard Light talk about it so many times. Akazukin chacha, Sayu adored it when she was in school. The phone seemed to be off and he couldn't get it to switch on again. He'd have to ask Mihael later it belongs to anyone he knows.
He seems to be the only person on the road and L reaches over to release his seatbelt when something moves quickly across the road and he catches a glimpse of it in his peripheral vision.
A hand reaches out to grab the pink phone from his hand. There's someone in the car with him.
That someone smiles, long, pale fingers twirling the phone around his hands.
'Lawliet'
L is frozen in place, hands reaching out to open the door so he can get out but they just won't budge.
The stranger regards him with a knowing smile, legs crossed and L swears he has seen him before.
'Who-Who're you?',
'and how do you know my name?', the stranger replies in a perfect imitation of his voice.
'Is that really what you should be asking now? The clock's ticking. You need to get it before anyone else does, and a little birdie tells me the shinigami is already here.'
L's phone vibrates and he scrambles to get it.
Listen to what I'm saying instead of checking your messages. It's bad manners.
Received: 6:13 pm
There's a pause and for a moment they just look at each other.
Perfect imitation. Perfect opposites.
L remembers that smile from another lifetime, strawberry jam and straw dolls, seething, uncontrollable rage and a terrible mockery of his own that brings him to his knees with guilt. Light wasn't the only person he couldn't save.
'I know you don't I?', L asks and the stranger rolls his eyes.
'We can have a nice chat later on and I'll tell you everything you've missed. '
L scampers out of the car and into the quiet night.
He doesn't need to go far.
A black object lies unceremoniously on the road in front of him and L breaks into a sprint.
Everything in his life has been leading up to this moment and the enormity of it is lost in breath that catches in L's throat.
His mind is hazed with a constant chant of Light's name and he sinks down on the ground in front of it, nondescript and unassuming that has ruined everything so many times before. He clutches it to his chest, the malignant lure of it seeping into him like poison and tears form at the corner of L's eyes, tipping over and he swears he hears a soft chuckle coming from the direction of his car. He can feel invisible wings beating soundless against him and he braces himself for whatever comes next.
Dead eyes, corpse like pallor, wanton hideousness, an abomination. Is this thing what pushed his Light off the edge? Did its constant whispering drive him to insanity?
L stares at it and the God of Death looms above him, regarding him with the kind of interested disdain reserved for vermin scuttling around, killing each other in trying to survive.
'Shinigami?'
The thing nods and L reaches out, handing the notebook back to its waiting hands.
'I picked it up. I am the rightful owner of it now.'
The shinigami nods.
'You were not meant to pick it up.', it hisses in a voice that reminds L of the wind blowing through the willows in the cemetery his parents had been buried in back in Winchester.
'But I did. Now I want to give it back. I am giving up ownership of this Death Note I picked up.'
The shinigami leans closer to him, as if its dead eyes can see right through L's skin and flesh and into his heart.
'Interesting.'
Humans never fail to surprise the Gods of death. Such strong spirits locked in such fragile vessels. Their foolishness and naivete is always amusing. There are so many stories and the shinigami remembers hearing this one. A man, an insignificant mortal who was foolish enough to love someone who was hardly even human and was willing to let time crush his bones again and again just to spend that last eternity with his beloved. He stumbles from universe to universe, from lifetime to lifetime, with broken memories that confuse more than they reveal with no direction to point him in the right way but his blinding love. He picks thorns from rose stems and bleeds himself, again and again.
That story is popular, it reverberates from time to time among the circles of bored shinigami, wasting their endless lives away with nothing else to do but regale each other with stories. Very few get to live one, and it never ends well for those who do.
'Something tells me we'll meet again', the Shinigami whispers before taking flight and disappearing against the moon suspended over the sky like the feeble approximation of a limelight. The stranger in L's car smiles one last time at the scene unfolding in front of him like the magnificent crescendo of an opera and he too disappears into the night, fading into the night air like smoke.
The leaden weight has lifted from L's shoulders and his tears spill over on the road. It's over. It's finally over. The death note won't find its way back to Light anymore.
Not far away, two teenagers slip past the sleepy, overworked security guards and their giggle dies at the sight if the strange man weeping openly sprawled on the road ahead of them. They walked ahead, head bowed, brightly colored notebooks in hand.
'I hope she's awake, do you think she'll walk past the window?'
'I hope so!', her friend giggles excitedly.
'We're outside Misa-Misa's house!' she whispers to someone on her phone.
'Did Mihael make you cry?'
'Why?'
Light strokes his thumb under L's puffy, red-tinged eyes, trying to rub away the shadows under them like he has so many times before. L's hands feel cold against his and L kisses at the pulse on his wrist, the smooth cold metal of the watch fogging up with his exhales.
'Either that or you're catching my cold.'
L doesn't reply and encloses him in an embrace that surprises him with its intensity. He nuzzles against L's neck, the faint smell of his aftershave is warm and familiar and it feels like home. Light kisses his neck and he feels L's hands cup the back of his neck as he brings them into another kiss, pulling Light over him as he lays down against the pillows.
Light doesn't get to speak and they kiss like they've met after being starved of each other for years. L's fingers thirst for his touch and it scares him, the urgency of it all sits uncomfortably on Light's mind. It's like the world will cease to exist tomorrow and tonight is all they have left for each other.
'L..'
He has to pry L's face away from him and hold him close to look at him in the eye. His irises have all but disappeared and it's like looking into the ever expanding void at the heart of the universe. It draws Light in and this time, he is the one to not want to end the kiss.
It's going to rain soon and the curtains sway gently with the breeze. Light's fingers tug at L's and the watches clink together.
'Tell me about these again', he asks.
L strokes a strand of hair away from his eyes.
'Watari made them for us. They're synced to our heartbeats. Yours is synced to mine and mine to yours.'
'So they're completely useless to tell the actual time?'
L laughs.
'It's the sentiment that counts. As long as we are together, your time and my time will be inseparable.'
Light links their hands together and hold them up. The metal sits on their wrists like handcuffs and they are bound together for all life now.
'And what happens when one of us dies.'
'Time will stop for the other', L whispers, ancient and knowing and Light is like a child in his arms, naive and ignorant of such things.
'I would have said yes even if it was just a ring you know.'
L laughs again and this time Light joins in. The nebula cradled in the arms of the universe. Yin and yang, they kiss endlessly and the time between them ebbs and flows in circles, bending, changing, shifting under their influence.
The thud is unmistakeable and it reverberates throughout their quiet apartment. Light sits up in bed, alarmed. L sleeps on, unperturbed and he entangles himself from L as carefully as he can. He pads off silently across the room towards the kitchen where the sound came from, not bothering to put on his slippers.
The fruit basket has tumbled onto the floor, apples strewn all over. A couple of them have rolled under the cabinet. One sits precarious at the edge of the table and Light catches it before it falls over.
Something moves behind him and Light doesn't need to turn around to know who it is.
'I think I told you to keep it down when he's in the house Ryuk.'
He tosses the apple behind him and the crunch echoes off the walls of the apartment.
'Make sure he doesn't wake up', he instructs and it is satisfying to see a god yield so easily to his whims. But then, he is a god himself isn't he? L surely thinks so. He tells it all the time.
The ink on the name he'd written in the evening hasn't dried yet in places and the ink shines like blood in the moonlight.
Otoharada.
L's arms wrap around him as he's putting the apples back in their place an hour later.
'What are you doing Light?'
His voice is rough from sleep and he nuzzles against his neck, sucking gentle kisses against the still feverish skin.
'I couldn't sleep', Light lies against L's lips as he leads him back to their room.
Another god watches in the distance, adorned in black feathers, lips frozen in a smile.
'Humans are really interesting.'