Author's Note:
The first of a four part set of seasonal introspective pieces. As each Season will be from a different fandom, they are set as one-shots.
The first (Autumn) will be Death Note, the second (Winter) Tsubasa Chronicle, the third (Spring) Naruto, and the last (Summer) xxxHolic. None of which I have any rights to.
L Lawliet loved the autumn. Loved to walk through the apple orchards outside of Winchester with the scent of wood smoke, crisp fruit, and wet leaves in his nose. Loved, despite his hatred of any sort of footwear, to crunch through the fallen foliage kicking up swirls of red, orange, and yellow with his hiking boots.
He loved the way that the verdant green of summer seemed to shimmer and melt into the shades of flame come September. The vermilion of the sugar maple outside his old window at Wammy's House, the blaze of the oak by the drive, the sedate gold of the birches in the gardens all called to the fire in L's own soul. For L Lawliet was a passionate man, though his socially awkward demeanor seemed to belie this facet of his personality. Passionate for justice, for knowledge, for victory. The warm cauldron of hues in the fall seemed to L to embody these things far more than the showy riot of color that painted the world in spring and summer. Certainly more than the glittering chill of silver-white and blue that followed the season of his birth.
And the human embodiment of the season, if L had ever seen one, was Light Yagami. Impossible otherwise for his skin to be the precise golden-cream of an October dawn, his hair the shimmering bronze of the fresh-pressed cider L craved the rest of the year. His eyes, even more so. Unless a person got very close to Light, his eyes appeared to be a soft caramel shade, like the dipped apples Wammy always procured from God-knows-where for the children (and child-like adults). It was only those rare fortunates to share breathing space with Light that were able to see the depth of the hue. The irises were for the most part a clear light brown that, while pretty, wasn't truly that unusual. The inner core, however, had a miraculous starburst of rich sepia that made Light's gaze ever-changing with his mood. When he became excited or happy, pupils dilated, Light's eyes seemed to shift from amber to garnet, engulfing all those around him. Even the World's Greatest Detective was not immune, and in the days of their enforced togetherness, L had more than once fallen prey to that glow, his cheeks answering it with a crimson stain of their own. In these moments, L the symbol of Justice gave way to Lawliet the man, who desired nothing more than to touch his lips to the boy's and see if he could taste that ever-present flame within him. Lawliet, in the private vaults of his mind, dubbed this look September Eyes, and to the detective it held all the magic and mystery of the season itself. Since the capture of the Yotsuba Kira, Light's eyes also held the other intrinsic value of autumn- death.
L was no foolish sentimentalist. He found it ridiculously ironic that a man whose profession was to track down murderers held the season of mortality in such high esteem. The fall was when the Earth lay dying, bleeding out its magnificent color as if in defiance of the chill silence of its winter grave. Even the day of his natality, now a festival of candy and brightly costumed children, was in ancient times something much more dire; a ward against the one day of the year spirits could return to the world of the living. The day of his birth, the Day of the Dead. And L's own winter was fast approaching, as he had known from the first day he saw the hoarfrost of December appear behind the warmth of Light Yagami's eyes. No amount of bells rung from church steeples or carved pumpkins on doorsteps could chase away the spirit that hounded L's every step now.
As he stood on the rooftop of the Taskforce Headquarters in the driving November rain, L knew that he would face this Winter as he had faced all the others. Resigned and just a little bit sad, yet determined to hang on to every fading minute, like skeletal trees clinging desperately to the last few delicate leaves.
For Light Yagami was the Autumn, and L Lawliet loved the Autumn.