A/N: Thanks for the reviews and favs! :)
Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note
* Contains Spoilers for the series *
L looked down at the waist-line of his jeans. They were almost uncomfortably tight. A normal person would say that they fit perfectly, but L was not a normal person. Gaining weight was not unnerving, but it was slightly inconvenient, as his clothes no longer fit to his liking. He couldn't afford any distractions from the case, not at this point. He needed to spend every second watching Light and Misa on the monitors. The fact that both Misa and Light were currently restrained was inconsequential. They still needed to be watched.
"Watari, it appears that I will be requiring new clothes," L said while scratching one foot against the other.
"Indeed, what size clothes will you require, Master Ryuuzaki?"
L frowned as he detected a hint of sarcasm in Watari's tone.
"Watari, this recent weight gain is suspicious. There is a 67% chance that someone has drugged me, 30% chance it is stress from the case, and 3% chance my body's metabolism is slowing down as I age."
"Perhaps you should eat healthier," Watari suggested. "Incorporating fiber into your diet along with-"
"Body mass is not an accurate indicator of health, Watari." L shifted on his chair. "Now that I think about it the timing is entirely too coincidental for my weight gain to be natural. Whoever is causing this is either involved with the Kira case or trying to get my attention."
If someone had drugged him, then it must be someone on the task force, or closely associated with the task force. Most likely Light or Matsuda. There was a 35% chance it was Light, 40% chance that it was Matsuda (although only 0.00003% chance that Matsuda had done it on purpose), 2% chance it was an outsider, and 8% chance it was another member of the team, most likely Aizawa. And of course, there was another, more insidious possibility.
"You know, Watari, there's a 15% chance it's you. You might be trying to trick me into eating healthier."
"Indeed. Might I remind you that there are easier manners to force children to consume vegetables, if I were inclined to behave in such a fashion?"
L made a face. "Watari, I am almost certain that my recent weight gain is connected to the case. Therefore I will not alter my eating habits, and narrow down my list of suspects based on reactions to my weight gain. Kira is childish and hates to lose. So if he saw me gaining weight, he might gloat. Plus there is a 37% chance that Kira is secretly a chubby chaser."
"…"
"There is nothing to worry about, Watari. I have the situation under control."
"Very well. I shall order several new pairs of clothes for you."
"Thank you, Watari."
x
The next day L started testing his hypothesis during normal work hours for the task force. . He had Watari order ten flats of strawberries, five packages of marshmallows, twenty-five assorted specialty cakes, some shish-kabob skewers and a mini grill.
He dangled the strawberry in front of his mouth licking it seductively with his tongue. L skewered the strawberry, followed it with a marshmallow, then a piece of cake, put the monstrosity on the grill and covered it in honey. When the honey started to caramelize, L pulled the skewer off the grill and started chewing carefully up one side of the skewer. He moaned loudly in pleasure. Matsuda mumbled an incoherent apology, blushed and ran out of the room. L smiled to himself and gently nibbled on a caramelized strawberry.
Aizawa glared. "Ryuuzaki! Shouldn't you be concentrating on the case?"
"I need sugar to focus," L blandly informed him, popped the entire skewer into his mouth, then pulled it out suggestively.
"Then eat your damn sweets already!" Aizawa fumed. "Why do you have to make such a spectacle of yourself?"
"You seen to be rather tense today, Aizawa," L noted. "Perhaps you should take a break."
Aizawa grumbled something about high-maintenance detectives and stomped out of the room.
L finished eating his sweet monstrosity and started licking his fingers. The results of his first test had been intriguing. He could now rule out Aizawa as a perpetrator of his weight gain (with a +/- 0.005% margin of error). Matsuda was still a possibility, but L doubted that the man had either the brain power or maliciousness necessary to purposefully drug him. L sucked on an index finger and gazed at the monitor. It would be interesting to try his test out on Light next.
x
L had to wait until Misa Amane and Light got back from the hospital before he could move onto his next round of testing. Muscle atrophy was an inconvenient side effect of keeping suspects tied up for nearly two months. It was depressing; he had hoped to get results from the mock execution. Maybe Light wasn't Kira after all…
At least he could investigate his mysterious weight gain while the Kira case stalled. There was a 79.8% chance that the two cases were connected, which therefore meant that he needed to observe both Light and Misa closely for both cases.
L calculated that there was a 3% chance Misa Amane was somehow responsible for his weight gain. She might only be pretending to be an idiot because it was expected of her. There was also the fact that Misa had exclaimed "Wow, you've gotten really fat, Ryuga!" with a little smirk as soon as she had seen him.
Clearly Misa could not be an idiot all of the time, or she never would have been able to meet with the first Kira without L finding out. Of course, Misa's involvement with the Kira case was so obvious that it was entirely possible the whole thing was contrived to frame Light and Misa. Just thinking about all the infinite possibilities was almost enough to give L a headache.
Still, L mused during Misa and Light's "date" as he finished a piece of tres leche cake, he could at least try and figure out who was behind his weight gain. And it was an excuse to indulge himself in extravagances like the tres leche cake that had been flown in from Mexico that morning, and the chocolate fountain he had Watari purchase yesterday. Maybe he could give the chocolate fountain to Mello as a gift after he finished using it.
"Damn, I've never had such a pathetic date," Misa complained from the other couch.
"Just pretend I'm not here," L said as he dipped a forkful of red velvet cheesecake into the chocolate fountain. He then started licking his creation delicately with the tip of his tongue while covertly watching Light and Misa's responses. Misa scowled at him in disgust. Light twitched slightly and glanced away.
"Ugh, you're such a disgusting pervert, Ryuuzaki." Misa sniffed and turned away from the chocolate atrocity. "No wonder you're so fat."
"Do you want some?" L asked with a full mouth of melted chocolate and cheesecake.
"Eww, cake, I'd get fat just like you," Misa complained. "Besides you probably already have your disgusting perverted germs all over it."
"Your stomach has a pH of approximately two," L informed her. "The acid would kill most micro-organisms that might be in your food."
"Like I'd believe you! You're probably just trying to get me infected with your perverted germs!"
"Ryuuzaki, shouldn't you be working on the case?" Light asked.
"No, I've decided to spend today eating cake instead." L waved a forkful in Light's direction. "Do you want some? It's very good."
"You haven't discovered anything new about the case in over a week," Light pointed out. "What's wrong with you?"
"I suppose I am depressed about the case. And my recent weight gain of course." L smiled surreptitiously. He certainly was not above being emotionally manipulative to get his way. "It's very disconcerting." L mournfully shoveled another forkful of cheesecake into his mouth for added dramatic effect.
"Misa knows why you're gaining weight, Ryuuzaki! You need to eat healthier." Misa leaned back into the couch with a satisfied smirk. "Huh. And I thought you were supposed to be a genius."
A guilty look passed across Light's face before he glanced away again.
Ha! I'm almost certain you are responsible for my weight gain, Light Yagami, L thought. Now the question is, why and how did you do it?
x
Light could remember doing a lot of things, but not why he did them. He looked at L, knew he was responsible for his increased weight. It didn't make sense now that he'd try to slow L down, to get him to lose confidence in the case, but it must have made sense back then. It had to have just been a prank then, a harmless prank, or mostly harmless. Maybe Light had been trying to win, to solve the Kira case first. L probably deserved it, after everything he had put Light through.
L was typing on his laptop computer now, still balanced in that ridiculous crouch on the edge of the bed since he couldn't get any farther away thanks to the chain. His chubby cheeks puffed out like a chipmunk under all that fluffy black hair. L could almost be called adorable, if it was ever possible to consider someone like L adorable. His waist was more filed out, and if he lifted his shirt while scratching, Light could see the way his stomach pouched out, nearly forming a neat roll at his waistline. The detective didn't look sharp or bony anymore with the added weight. Unfortunately, his annoying habits such as staying up all night or dramatically typing remained unchanged.
Light was lying on the bed trying to sleep, but it was kind of hard to sleep with an insomniac detective pounding away on his keyboard.
Light blushed as he thought about his previous response to L's weight gain. He wasn't entirely sure why he had done that either. A part of his brain whispered that it had felt good. Light frowned and pushed the thought away. Now he was tired and just wanted to sleep. "L, if you stay up so late you're going to gain even more weight." Light hadn't mentioned the weight gain before.
Then L closed his laptop with a snap and crawled over. Light grunted as L sat on his chest. L stared down at him. "Light-kun is interested in my weight gain. I wonder why."
"I just want to go to sleep," Light grumbled.
"Why can't you sleep, I wonder?" L brought a finger up to his lip. "Is Kira-kun suffering from a guilty conscience?"
"What? Of course not!" Light tried to push L off but the detective was too damn heavy. "I just can't sleep with you clacking away on the computer."
L leaned forward so that his hair tickled against Light's nose. "Perhaps my weight gain and Yagami-kun's guilty conscience are connected," he said. "I have a hypothesis. Would you like to hear it?"
"No, but I'm sure you'll tell me anyway," Light grumbled, and shifted uncomfortably under L's weight. To his horror he felt himself getting hard.
L leaned forward even more and Light could feel the detective's warm breath against his ear. "You drugged me, Yagami-kun."
"How could that possibly be true? I was confined during most of the time you gained weight."
L's eyes glittered. "You don't directly deny it? Interesting. And you noticed my weight gain started before you were confined."
"That doesn't prove anything."
"I have a second hypothesis, Light-kun, would you like to hear it?"
"No! I'd like to go to sleep instead of listening to you and all your crack-pot hypotheses!"
"I think that Light-kun put the drug in my coffee grounds since I know that he helped Matsuda with the coffee one day. If Light-kun refuses to drink the pre-sweetened coffee, then he is responsible for my weight gain."
Light wrinkled his nose. There was no way he would drink that coffee. And of course L had to frame every test so that if Light behaved like a normal person his Kira percentage would go up, but if he passed the test, his Kira percentage would go up for trying too hard to not act like Kira. "Ryuuzaki, that's unreasonable! You know I hate sweets."
Apparently that was all the proof L needed. "Why did you do it? Were you trying to interfere with the case? If so, your percentage of being Kira-"
"Why does everything have to be about the case?"
L sat back, too far back. He looked surprised for a few seconds, then smirked down at Light. "Or maybe you had a different reason."
x
It was too much, being confined for fifty days, handcuffed to L's wrist, and now the detective was acting like Light could be a mass murderer just because of a stupid, yet ingeniously planned, prank, and L was grinning down at him victoriously, and it wasn't fair. He felt something moving across his stomach as L pressed back and realized L was starting to get hard too.
"Are you ready to admit to your crimes, Yagami-kun?" L taunted.
That was it. Light couldn't take anymore. He punched L and rolled them over so that their positions were reversed.
He didn't know why, but he had a burning urge to get L back for everything he had done, to exert power over him for once. To let the detective know he wasn't as invulnerable as he thought he was. Light leaned forward until his lips were against L's ear, mindful of the bugs and cameras that probably filled the room. "Yes, I did that to you L," Light whispered. "I made you gain weight."
L's eyes widened. "You admit to it?"
Light laughed. It was so satisfying to gloat and sit on top of L and hold his wrists down. It was intoxicating, to have all that power over L, better than he had ever imagined. "Only to you," he whispered, teasing. "You have no proof."
L looked annoyed. He freed one of his hands and grabbed a fistful of Light's shirt. "I'll get proof soon enough."
Light struggled to re-pin L. "Why don't you try having the coffee grounds tested, L?" he teased. "You won't find anything suspicious."
"Maybe I will," L said defiantly.
Light laughed again. "I doubt it," he said confidently. He stared down at L. "How does it make you feel, to be so powerless?"
L somehow twisted his leg up and kneed Light in the stomach. Light rolled over, and L immediately started grabbing at his wrists.
Light kicked L off the bed, and smirked evilly when he heard the portly detective hit the floor with a thud. Too late, he realized that was a really bad idea when he felt L yank on the chain, landed on top of L, and had the wind knocked out of him. L didn't waste any time and tried to wrestle Light to the floor. Light fought back, but he was at a disadvantage with less body mass to use as leverage. As he wiggled out of a headlock, Light discovered a way to use L's bulk against him.
It was extremely satisfying to hold L's soft pliant flesh between his fingers and pinch and twist. Light laughed as L gasped in pain.
L dug his fingers into Light's buttocks and pinched him back. Hard.
Light grabbed a fistful of L's fluffy hair in retaliation. He screamed in outrage as L copied his move by grabbing a fistful of Light's up to then perfectly styled hair.
They kept rolling and fighting until they finished, gasping for breath. Light felt a warm sticky liquid fill his underpants.
Light lay on top of L, panting. How was he going to explain this away? Hopefully L had the same problem, but if he did that would mean- !
"Yagami-kun," L said, not meeting his gaze. "Perhaps now would be a good time to clean up and change before bed."
Light stood up. "Fine, I'll go first." He held up the chain expectantly.
L looked at him coyly. "Surely Yagami-kun knows by now that I can't unlock the chain until the Kira investigation is over."