Disclaimer: I do not own Death Note.

A/N: Please read the author's note at the end of this chapter after you finish! I'd put it up here, but it contains a spoiler for this chapter so I can't. But please do read it before you decide to stop reading this fic because of this chapter's contents.


Despite all that, I didn't know where the Death Note was. Thoroughly depressed, I slumped my way to L's desk downstairs. The chaos was, for the first time in my life, comforting. Because it was his, and right now, it was all of him that I had. The pens strewn all over the place, the papers clearly not in any kind of order... I wondered how he could be so efficient in such a mess, but that was just one of the many things about him that defied reason. Both Sophocles and Plato would have had a fit.

In a burst of passion or rage or some other strong emotion, I swiped my arm over my own desk, scattering everything across the table and the room. It clattered to the ground with a satisfying racket, the likes of which I had never purposely created before. Even as a child, I had been hyper-organized and polite.

I stared at the mess, fighting the overwhelming desire to put it all back where it belonged. To re-alphabetize anything that had letters on it.

But no. I refused to. I didn't know why, but I knew that I absolutely could not. Giving in would just prove something about me that I didn't want to be true. That, and I just plain didn't want to be like that anymore. I could be the kind of person with normal, healthy levels of organization. The kind of person that might not get around to cleaning this kind of thing up for days. The kind of person who, as a child, hadn't refused to finger-paint, and whose parents hadn't had to teach him to climb on the bags of mulch they sell at home-improvement stores.

Or maybe, I thought as I picked up the pens, grouping them by color, I didn't have a chance.

Suddenly my phone vibrated, startling me out of my well-deserved self-deprecating thoughts. I fished it out of my pocket with two fingers, smiling a little, and flipped it open, expecting it to be L.

But my phone didn't recognize the number and neither did I. I opened the message and my eyes went wide when I read it. Just one word:

'God?'

I dropped the phone and stumbled back as far away as I could get.

I stared at where it lay on the floor, blinking peacefully. Was it a prank? A coincidence? It had to be. Someone had to have just texted a random number with that message and happened to get Kira. But, in all seriousness, what were the odds of that? L would know.

I understood instantly that I should tell him about this- assuming he was himself, of course- so I picked up my phone and full-out ran to our bedroom.

Empty. He wasn't there.

I ran to the room that contained one of his other desks and sighed with relief at the sight of him resting his head on the wood, face pressed into the mess that was present on this table, too. The smell of sawdust assaulted me, and I remembered that Watari had been renovating this room to fit a desk for me in a place that would be compatible with handcuffs. With a little luck, L would be lucid now. I really needed him- I was too freaked out to handle this on my own at the moment, because the thought was haunting me... what if it was someone who knew? And someone who really, truly thought that Kira was a god? What if he was the first of what I had once imagined as a crowd of worshippers? And he had to be smart, because he had found me. At least smart enough to find someone he could suspect. That was no more than anyone else had done, but still.

Anyway, it was probably just a prank, right?

"Ryuuzaki, I just got this text message..." I said, doing my best to remain calm, walking towards him. Closer to him, I smiled despite my worry. He was cute as always when he slept, resting quietly, the hum of the computer the only sound in the small, dusty room.

I reached out and stroked his hair.

Sound sleeper; he still hadn't moved.

I let my hand slip to his shoulder and squeeze it. "Hey. I'm sorry to wake you, but this could be urgent." I shook him. "Ryuuzaki?"

Nothing.

Panic made my voice shoot up at least half an octave, and my shaking of him became more and more forceful. "Ryuuzaki? L? L! You answer me right now!"

I whirled him around in the chair to face me. His head slumped forward, limp.

I shook him violently, tears invading my eyes and voice. "Lawliet! Answer me!"

In my hysterics, it finally occurred to me to check for a pulse. I checked it four times in every place I knew of at which one could take a pulse.

Nothing.

He had no heartbeat.

L was dead.

Why? Why was he dead? How could he be dead? There was nothing wrong with him! He looked perfectly okay... poison would have meant foam or something, knives or guns would have meant blood... strangulation would have meant bruises... and there wasn't a mark on him!

...Except for a small trickle of blood that was just then creeping down his face towards his lips...

Frantic, I pushed back his hair and found, of all things, a nail. Right up to the hilt. Right through his frontal lobe. Right where I had shot C.

I noticed that the computer was off.

It wasn't the computer that was making that sound.

I followed Ryuuzaki's lifeless fingers and found a nail gun, plugged in, still humming cheerfully.

Watari had been renovating... probably in order to make room for a desk for me, as well, since L and I had been handcuffed together. He must have left the nail gun there temporarily, knowing L wasn't stupid enough to hurt himself with it, not knowing that he wouldn't survive to clean it up...

Had L killed himself?

Well, obviously.

But had he done it on purpose?

It couldn't have been suicide. My L wouldn't have done it on purpose, no matter what. That was simply a fact. He would never have left me intentionally. But maybe one of the "others" of him would... or had done it on accident...

This was my fault too. Not only was Watari renovating because of me, but it had been left there because Rem had killed Watari, which only happened because I exist.

All of it was my fault. Everything was my fault. And all because of a fucking black notebook and an egomaniac.

I collected him and carried him to the floor, where I fumbled him into my arms. I buried my face in his hair (and he still smelled like him, oh) and wept.

I'd assumed that he wouldn't die unless I killed him. It had never, even for a moment, occurred to me that he was just as human as I was and could just die like this. That he could just go and die on me, and be gone, but gone in a way that was a hundred times worse than when he'd been fourteen again or thought I was his father. Because there was no hope, not with this kind of gone. I would never see those beautiful, big, blank eyes again. Never watch his expression crack again. Never see him eat another sweet and get to laugh at the face he made- incidentally a remarkably similar face to the one he made when he was having an orgasm. Never meet his gaze again and know what he was thinking. Never hold him again, and never be held by him again. Never have to try to talk him into wearing something appropriately formal again. Never have to fight off his advancement as he held a stick of eyeliner. Never get dragged to another gay bar. Never tell him, half-asleep, that I loved him.

Never again, never again, never again.

"L," I said wetly, "We were supposed to be together forever."

But, according to Ryuuzaki himself, nothing lasts forever.

I had no more tears, but I kept sobbing, dry, rocking myself and the body of the one I loved, cradling him.

I don't know how much time passed. It was probably hours because I went undisturbed for a long time, with how rare it was for other investigation members to come into L's private office, especially considering the time of night.

Finally, as the sun was rising, there was a knock on the door. The person didn't pause, instead bursting right in.

I looked up through tear-blurred eyes and vaguely made out the forms of my father and Matsuda. "Light," my father said in his Officer Voice. "We heard you-"

They froze, their eyes huge, and I couldn't blame them. It's not every day you walk in to see Light Yagami sobbing hysterically, clinging to the dead body of the world's three greatest detectives, on the floor, rocking back and forth.

"Light?" My father recovered first, rushing towards me and wrapping his arms around me from behind. His unshaven face was rough against the skin of my neck, and he smelled like suit fabric. He held me tight, and I thought he was saying something, but I didn't hear or care to.

"W-what happened?" Matsuda stuttered, staring at L.

I knew I wouldn't be able to answer, so I didn't bother trying. Plus, I could never explain to them that he'd been killed by B, the Death Note, and L. They would never be able to understand, especially the 'L' part.

And all because of me. Because of Kira. If I hadn't gone back for the notebook...

The Death Note is absolute.

So I just shook my head, my sobs dry, and held Ryuuzaki's body closer to me. It was so cold. He had been cool before, but never this cold. I remembered thinking when I first met him that he looked like a dead body. I'd been wrong. But how could I have known that it would end up like this?

I was in a daze, and all I knew was that someone was trying to take L away from me. I let go without much of a fight. The sharp brilliance, the mischievousness, the self-control was all gone. There was no reason to cling to a Ryuuzaki-shaped mass of dead flesh.

No reason for anything.

So when I was led to our- my- room, I didn't protest. When my father sat me on my bed, I didn't fight it. When he tried to console me, I didn't say a word. When they finally left me alone, assuring me they'd be right back, I didn't care at all.

Nothing mattered, now.

Nothing.


"What have I become? My sweetest friend...

Everyone I know goes away in the end.

And you could have it all, my empire of dirt-

I will let you down. I will make you hurt.

I wear this crown of thorns upon my liar's chair,

Full of broken thoughts I cannot repair.

Beneath the stains of time the feelings disappear.

You are someone else; I am still right here.

If I could start again, a million miles away,

I would keep myself... I would find a way."

-Hurt, Johnny Cash


A/N: Yes, L is dead. However, I wouldn't recommend you stop reading because of that, because this isn't the last you're going to see of him.