grow old or something ; l/light ; T
warnings: canonical character death.
notes: i've decided to upload a few of my old drabbles and things to ffn (as they've previously just been on tumblr/ao3) so anything under 2k will end up part of this series of unrelated drabbles and short fics. this one is lxlight but most of them will be less popular pairings (lots and lots of misa x everybody). this one was written in february of this year for dear light-kun's birthday. it's set in the afterlife (shhhhh about mu) and is very rambly and nonsensical.
The afterlife is a bit like normal life, in that it's completely dull.
"What do you do all day?" Light asks L, who is sprawled on his back on top of nothing, staring up at nothing, and doing nothing in particular.
"Oh," L says dully. "I don't know. Solve cases, eat sweets, parley with unreasonable government officials."
Light looks around. There are no case files and no computers and no sweets and definitely no government officials. There's not even Watari.
"No, that was before," Light says.
"Yes." L doesn't look at him. L looks just the same as he always has, except horizontal. "That was before."
Before you killed me, is sort of implicit, and it seems neither of them feels overly inclined to make it otherwise.
Nothingness is aptly named; L is annoying; the days, if there are days, are long.
"I missed you, you know," Light tells him once, "after a while."
"Please don't."
"I did. I missed you." He isn't sure who he is trying convince here. He isn't sure why he is so close to L, why L's hair is tickling his sternum, only that is good to have a sternum and to know you have a sternum and for someone else to have hair and to feel it.
It's not black here, it's not white, it's not anything. Just him and L.
"I missed me, too," L says. It sounds dreary, almost melodramatic, the way he used to get sometimes, when they were alive and the world was made of things that you could touch and own and - eat. Light's not hungry, but god, he wishes he could eat.
"And now?" he asks.
"I think I've forgotten," L says. He shifts his head and his hair trails across Light's chest. His eyes are closed, they must be, but he feels L shift and enjoys it thoroughly.
"You haven't forgotten," Light says.
He opens his eyes and smiles at L, who is half in his lap by this time - and it would be weird, it might be weird if they were in the world and things were things that could be understood, but there is nothing here but L, nothing else to touch or know or grasp onto, and so they both take it as a sort of given that they can and should be as close to each other as possible. He smiles, though, can feel it in his mind even if he can't tell that his facial muscles have moved and then L is looking at him curiously.
"You are still charming," he says, with something like wonder and something like disgusted nostalgia.
Light snorts. "You're still not."
If nothingness had weather it would be a thin fog.
If L had weather it would be a tired Sunday rainstorm.
"We were never friends, were we?" Light says to him another time - if it is another time; it must be.
"What a strange thing to ask at a time like this."
Light's not sure what L means by time like this, but assumes it could have something to do with the fact that L's mouth is on his hip, and then on his thigh, and then other places that shouldn't function properly if you're dead - and are they dead, are they really dead? It's fact, but fact feels like a dream from here and Light can't tell, doesn't know and doesn't care and -
And.
"No," L says, sitting up and wiping his mouth and grinning in a far-off way, "I don't think we ever were."
The afterlife is a lot like normal life, in that you get used to it after a while.