It had been exactly six months ago that he and Light had visited the candy shop together.
Half a year, was that really true? Had he known Light half a year? It felt like minutes, like they had barely been with each other at all. Time passed so quickly, one moment he was Kira, the God of the New World, and another moment he was the sweet, innocent Light who checked on his candy reserves and informed him that he had three days left before Watari needed to make another supply trip. Blink too long and he was Kira again, clutching the notebook and screaming as the memories flooded into him, another blink and he was Light once more, begging him to stop hurting him. And after that there was only Light, Light confessing his schemes, Light giving him the notebook, looking absolutely ashamed, Light telling Rem that he would no longer be Kira and so there was no reason to fear for Misa's life, Light with that roguish grin as he chattered excitedly about the Shinigami realm.
And Light, gurgling and gasping with a mouth full of blood as he pleaded with him to leave-
Anyway. The candy shop.
The memory started with one of those rare weeks when Watari needed to return to the orphanage to check on the successors since Roger had something better to do (fucking Roger, he was the laziest man L knew, and L knew a lot of people). L had dismissed him without much concern, there wasn't much to do at the Kira Investigation Headquarters anyway. L's main suspect was suffering from amnesia and they had just about no leads as to who was committing the current Kira murders. L had thought he had had everything under control.
"Nope, we've completely run out." Light notified the detective on the third day, holding up an empty jar of candy with a smug little grin on his face. L knew the brunet didn't approve of his eating habits (few people did) but to take such joy in the fact that he would be going through withdrawal for the next two days until Watari returned…(it raised his Kira percentage by 2% off the bat).
Anyway, by the end of the first day sans sweets, L was in a foul mood. Sitting at his desk solving one of his Deneuve cases in a fury, he typed out the final damning lines of his deduction and slammed the laptop shut. He swiped the computer off of the desk for good measure. It crashed to the floor at Raito-kun's feet as the boy worked quietly by his side.
Curling his fists, L fixed his glare on the brunet, who slowly and deliberately closed his own laptop and swivelled his seat to face him, his expression impassive.
"They refuse to take action!" L vented suddenly, throwing his hands up at the sky. "The imbeciles, they refuse to act on the proof I have given them! What else can I do? All I can do is prove it! I can't catch their criminals for them!"
Light sighed as if the weight of the world was on his shoulders. "Okay then. Ryuuzaki, get up."
L crossed his arms. "What for? I have three more cases with these idiots-"
Light gripped the bridge of his nose as he stood up, whipping his brown coat from the back of his chair, where he draped it every morning in the hopes L would finally let them go outside that day. The handcuff chain jingled as he pulled the coat on over his uncuffed arm.
"Just come on, Ryuuzaki." Light gave him an impatient glance out the corner of his eye, waiting for the detective to give him the key so he could yank the coat over his other arm.
"You are being secretive, Raito-kun. Kira percentage up one percent."
"How fucking mature." Light rolled his eyes. "Watari was right, you do act like a spoilt child."
"Yes, let's all value Watari's opinion when it was he who left me without candy." L grumbled, making Light groan.
"You're impossible. Look, will you shut up if I buy you some candy?"
L eyed him suspiciously. "Where will you get the money, Raito-kun?"
"My father left me emergency money, I'm sure he won't mind if I use it to ward off my fucking nervous breakdown." Light reached into the pocket of the coat draped over one of his arms and pulled out a stack of Yen. Against his own better judgement (seeing the money in Light's hands sent L into a spasm of joy) he hurriedly drew the key from his pocket and threw it at his Kira suspect. The boy smirked as he unlocked his cuff, pulled on his sleeve and locked it again.
"So, L." Light started as he was pulled along by the chain of his handcuff down the sidewalk. "Do you know where the candy shop is or are we just running around until you find one?"
L grinned. "I know the perfect place, Raito-kun. Don't you worry."
Light grew tense as they pushed open the glass doors of a store that looked like a candy-themed wonderland, the smell of sugar a fog around the place for at least a block. "Listen, L, I only have enough money for like two candy bars, got it? I'm not buying the whole shop for you."
L narrowed his eyes at his suspect. "Your money is enough to buy three deluxe chocolate bars or ten average ones."
The brunet stared at him. "I'm not letting you spend all my money, L! Who do you think I am?"
The people in the cheery yellow store glanced over at the duo as they entered and blatantly stared at the handcuff chain. L was amused to think of it from their perspective, it must have looked like some sort of gay kink, and between such unlikely people too. One an upstanding, decent, attractive nineteen-year old and the other a strange hunchbacked detective with crazy hair and circles around his eyes dark enough to look like smudged kohl.
While Light tried to hide the chain from prying eyes by sticking as close to L as possible, the detective couldn't bring himself to care. He busied himself with filling his basket with everything that looked delicious and exotic within the shop: cake, cupcakes, chocolate bars, chocolate sticks, wafer sticks filled with cream, ice cream, jellybeans, and one (just one) sugar-dusted doughnut filled with whipped cream and melted chocolate. Light noticed his stash, breaking out of his embarrassment-induced stupor and staring at L.
"Ryuuzaki, I said two candy bars. What the fuck?"
L gave him a small self-satisfied smile. "Raito-kun, you said you are paying for only two candy bars."
"Yeah, so what's up with…that?"
L's smile grew. "Well, Yagami Raito, you are forgetting one important detail. I happen to be a billionaire." With a smooth swish that he would be proud of for days, L adjusted the sweets in his arms and whipped out a shiny credit card. Light's eyes grew impossibly large.
"Does Watari know you have that?"
"No." His smile stayed wide as he propped up his mountain on the cashier's counter, making the poor cashier gawk before hurrying to cash it in as quickly as she could. "But again, Raito-kun is forgetting that I am twenty-five years old. I am very much capable of handling my own finances."
"I don't call this handling finances, Ryuuzaki." Light said haughtily, raising his nose at L. The detective laughed.
"Would you prefer I save it all? Billionaire, Raito-kun. I can afford to buy myself candy."
Raito-kun did not lower his chin, looking down at the detective. "You know, regular billionaires donate their money to charity. They don't splurge it all on cake and ice cream."
That made L chuckle. "Charity? Raito-kun wishes for me to spend my money on a charity?"
Light gave him an incredulous look. "Why are you laughing? I mean, blind schools, orphanages, dying countries…"
"For your information, Raito-kun, I do manage an orphanage." L paused a beat. "However, since Raito-kun cares so much, I shall donate to any charity of his choice if he helps me carry my sweets."
Light shook his head disdainfully at the grinning detective. "Whatever, Ryuuzaki." He scooped up some candy bars and the tub of ice-cream, leaving the bulk of it to the raven-haired man, who picked it up gladly and waddled over to the exit. Again, all the customers were staring at them, their whispers rustling behind them. Light looked pained, ducking his head and keeping his gaze firmly in front of him.
"Raito-kun is embarrassed of me." L stated after a few minutes. Light gave him a withering look.
"Yeah, no shit, Ryuuzaki. You are an embarrassment."
L crossed his arms haughtily as they approached headquarters and entered the elevator. "Whatever it is, Raito-kun, at least I am a happy embarrassment." There was a pause, one, two, three, and Light burst out laughing, much to L's surprise. These were the initial days of the handcuffs, L wasn't used to hearing Light laugh out loud yet, and definitely not genuinely.
"That you are, Ryuuzaki. That you are." The brunet chuckled, patting L's shoulder in a way that was not at all condescending or demeaning, in a way that seemed…friendly.
It made butterflies flutter in his stomach.
They carried the sweets all the way to the kitchen on the residential floor of the headquarters, where Light hopped onto the counter and crunched on a carrot as L deliberated on which sweet to start with first. They had bought too many, and L's stomach was growling far too loudly for him to make a logical decision.
Finally, the teenager pointed his nibbled carrot at a particularly scrumptious-looking half-melted bar of chocolate as he swung his legs under the counter. "I suggest that one, it looks good."
L glanced up at him, baffled. "You like chocolate? I thought you didn't like sweet things."
Light smiled amusedly. "I don't, but I make an exception for dark chocolate. It's not sweet, you see."
Slowly, a wide grin split the detective's face. The butterflies clawed at the lining of L's stomach as he hopped up onto the counter beside Light. He grabbed the brunet's carrot and flicked it away.
"Hey!" Light protested.
L nudged the boy with his shoulder. "Forget your carrot, we'll split this."
They broke the candy bar in half, getting the melted gunk all over their fingers. Light had whined about that for awhile, but after L smeared his white shirt with as much chocolate as he could the griping turned into carefree childish laughter that made the butterflies in L's stomach multiply until he could barely taste the candy.
Kira and L, sharing a chocolate bar, swinging their legs off the counter of a sunlit kitchen, feeling a barrier between them break.
"Expecto Patronum."
The tip of his wand glowed silver, as silver as Light's wand used to, spilling out into the ether, glowing brighter than the moon as a head stretched out from the mass, its body streamlining and growing powerful muscles. This time, it wasn't a magpie, it was a fox, its head proud and lifted high, its body glossy and handsome, flicking its long, bushy tail at L as it stalked forlornly around the room.
"Your Patronus is different." Ron said quietly from his perch in the corner of the dingy motel room they had huddled inside, not daring to return to Shell Cottage after robbing the Gringott's Bank. It would have put everyone in danger, not that L gave a shit about anyone at this point.
"Go." L urged the fox, which groomed its silky coat and crooned. "Go, you bleeding idiot. Get out of here!"
Hermione's lower lip trembled as she suppressed the urge to weep. "L, it can't find him unless you know where he is. If…if it's not leaving, that means he's either not at Gringott's…or…"
L gave her the most vicious glare he could muster, his heart pounding a million miles in his chest. "He is not dead, Hermione Granger. He is not dead, and don't you dare imply that again."
Harry squeezed his eyes shut, his fingers on his scar, but he looked discouraged. "I'm…I'm trying to see, but You-Know-Who's…blocked our connection, somehow."
L was disgusted. "You…you are supposed to be wizards. You use magic, and you can't find a way to communicate with someone?" His voice dripped with furious contempt. "I'm not asking for much, I'm not asking for a fancy animal spirit, I'm asking to see him. See him. I just want to see that he's okay. If I was in my world, with my resources, I could have achieved that easily. You, you're pathetic. No wonder you're being destroyed by that Dark Lord. Maybe you deserve to be destroyed."
Ron seemed sickly and pale, to L's bitter scorn. He stared blankly at the fox patronus, which curled up where it was and snuggled its muzzle into its warm fur. "Light's patronus was a fox? I never would have thought…I assumed it would have been a…a cat, maybe. This really beautiful Persian, sitting all royal and stuff. Kind of proud and stuck up, but…but caring and sensitive and intelligent, knowing just what to say. I only knew him for five or six weeks, but…that was all he needed, really. Five weeks and I would have given my life for him."
"Stop referring to him in past tense, you bastard." L hissed. "He's not dead. Hermione gave him a healing spell-"
"You never deserved him." Ron glared at the hunched man. "Never in a million years."
L's anger, which was already so close to the surface, came boiling over. His normally impassive face contorted with fury as he strode up to the redhead. "Yeah? Well neither did you. Neither do you. You fucking bastard, you think you know who he is? You think he's a kind, generous little flower, don't you? He's not. He's a childish, arrogant, prideful, brilliant man of his own right, and he is strong. He doesn't bend to the likes of you. He doesn't associate with the likes of you. I don't know why he tolerates you, but it isn't because he cares. He would never care for a spineless bastard like you."
Hermione stepped in. "Ron, L, please. This isn't the time."
L wheeled around to her. "Then when is the time? How long can I take this bastard disrespecting my Raito by pretending he can stand in the same league as him?"
Ron was flushed. "And I suppose you're in the same league, aren't you?"
"I am. I am, because he chose me. He chose me over an empire, over Godhood itself. Stop pretending-"
Harry cried out, interrupting L's rant and getting everyone's attention. The Boy-Who-Lived looked dazed, staggering around and collapsing with a whimper on the floor. Hermione ran to his side.
"Harry? Harry, what happened?"
Harry looked at her with large eyes, shivering ever so slightly. "Hermione…he's triumphant. He's happy, he's so happy. And…and I saw Light."
L immediately scrambled over. "What? What did you see? Is he okay?"
Harry shook his head, making L's heart drop down to his stomach. "He's healed, but…"
"But what? What happened to him?"
Harry turned back to Hermione, his eyes round and fearful. "We need to get the next Horcrux. Now."
.
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A/N: whew, it's been a while since I uploaded hasn't it? Review and comment please! It's really encouraging!
