This was inspired by TzviaAriella's This Is How I Disappear, when I read that Sachiko's cake was destroyed. The alteration here is that Light chose death by lethal injection instead and some things were jerked around so that I could write kissing. Don't ask.
Summary: L has something to tell Light as he stands by Light's death bed.
.o
There he was. Strapped to the chair that he would be executed in. For a man that was distraught over the reality of death facing him, right then he looked at peace. Accepting his situation. L had been curious as to why the mass murderer had chosen lethal injection out of all the available choices of execution, but Yagami Light was an individual that apparently loved to flummox L at any opportunity.
"This is it," L said as he stepped out of the doorway and into the room, closing the door behind him.
The session was supposed to be recorded, indicated by the blinking red lights in the dark corners of the room. However, L had requested for the cameras to be turned off and feed looped so that it appeared that he hadn't stepped away from the door. He didn't want to invite anyone into their world. A world cultivated exclusively by one's opponent, one that could only be understood by those who understood each other. Understood what drove one to commit acts which defied the laws. While the opponent may disagree with the other and fight tooth and nail to defend their position, they also understood their opponent. The red light disappeared.
L held in his hands a single slice of cake. The younger boy's eyes glanced briefly down at it.
"Soichiro had baked you a birthday cake, but the prison staff had taken it apart due to the potential for smuggling something in," L explained when he saw where Light's attention was directed.
"Hmm," the bound man hummed. His last meal had been a single apple. L assumed it was related to the note Light had left behind many months ago, about shinigami loving apples. What an unsatisfactory meal.
"I had her make another cake. Naturally the entire thing was not allowed to be brought in, but I managed to fight for this piece to be delivered to you."
"No thank you, I've already had my last meal."
L frowned, displeased by the dismissal of the food celebrating the boy's last year on this earth.
"I am going to feed it to you."
"Not interested." Despite Light's protests, L found himself at his side, determination lifting the plastic fork to cut into the soft delicacy, and lifted it to Light's mouth.
Light stared impassively at the detective,
"This is the last time I will be able to spend with you. I would appreciate it if you would accept my request of you to partake in this."
Light could have continued being defiant. Initially he'd planned on doing such until the very end. But the week of knowing he was going to die drained on his brain and mental stamina. At least he'd be able to remember his family's cooking instead of a nameless grocery-bought apple for his last meal.
With a frown, he opened his mouth, and L inserted the cake. After a moment of rolling the piece around on his tongue, Light spoke. "It was never easy for my mother to decide what flavour of dessert to make for my birthday. I wasn't a fan of sweets, so she'd try a new flavour each year. I'm surprised that she chose apple, as I've already had an apple cake in a past birthday."
L smiled slightly as he continued to feed small portions to him. "They say that the apple isn't the actual fruit that Adam and Eve ate form the tree of the knowledge of good and evil," L murmured as he wiped away trace amounts of crumbs from the corner of Light's mouth with his thumb. "That it was a metaphor."
Light remained silent as he accepted another piece of the cake, chewing.
"But eating it gave them the knowledge of evil, which contrasted to good, which was the only thing they'd known in the world."
A lonely mouthful of cake remained on the plate. L scraped idly at the plate with the fork, feeling suddenly uncertain.
He wondered how uncertain Adam and Eve felt once they were kicked out of the Garden of Eden. Losing the security they knew. Losing the pleasantries of being ignorant to what was wrong with the world. Having to deal with not having what one could call 'perfect'.
He was going to be losing that tonight. He'd found his Garden of Eden, but just like Adam and Eve, he was doomed from the start. Light was the fruit. The fruit that showed him someone of his caliber, someone who could see things truly the way he did, and yet still be able to maintain his own opinion for diverse conversation.
There was a saying, "It's happier to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all."
Knowing and suffering from the loss afterward… It really was voluntary suffering. Humans suffered in order to know, because knowing was more important than to not know.
"It wasn't an apple cake," he said, focusing intensely on those lips that he'd never seen touch sugar before today. His own mouth opened slightly, his hands bringing up the last piece and eating it himself. It was delicious. He refrained from eating any of the cake prior to coming here. He wanted to bring a surprise in this room not only for Yagami, but himself. He'd already known what flavour it actually was, but to experience it was a first for him.
Swallowing the delicious portion, he leaned in, invading Light's personal space even further. His wide eyes glanced up at Light's, they were widening and wondering what game L was playing at.
"It's jujube," he whispered before getting close enough to lick the sugar off of Light's lips. Just the sugar at first. The tongue that sought secrets lapping at the mouth that refused to release secrets. Secrets that L had suspicions about from the moment Yagami Light's profile was brought to his attention as a potential Kira suspect.
The younger boy wasn't moving away, so he advanced further. Tongue retreated in order for lips to make contact with the other's. He could feel eyelashes fluttering against strands of his hair that intermingled with those lighter-coloured bangs, the boy's mouth parting to brush his skin with gasps of air suddenly too hot for his body. L claimed those breaths, deepening their first and only kiss, the first secret he was able to entrust to Yagami Light. That he might feel a certain way about the boy that no one else, not even Watari, knew. L's secret which was sealed with the exchange of saliva, reluctant participation of this parody of a handshake, maybe even a quiet moan that was lost—perhaps it was Light's despair or L's own. L didn't know.
His heart was racing and his lips were hot and swollen and his mind encouraged him to go further but he drew back. L felt like Light would be leaving him with more questions than he had when he was considered living. Now, as he stared at the panting person with a flushed face before him, he saw a dead man he got to say his goodbyes to. Despite the many things in life that would become dull from Yagami Light's absence—things that he'd only realised had colour once Yagami was there—he was grateful. Many people in life died without having the chance to say all their goodbyes.
"It looks and tastes like an apple. But it is not an apple."
He licked his lips, wiping away the spit. Get rid of any evidence of his secret.
The two of them were human just like everyone else on that planet. They both looked like humans on the surface, and functioned (relatively speaking) as humans did. However, within, they were two different fruits entirely. Apples and jujubes may have looked and tasted the same, but they were inherently different species. One was considered forbidden (at least in more modern lore), the other was safe to eat and enjoy without the fear of exile from happiness.
L could have chosen to continue eating jujubes, but he'd chosen to eat the forbidden fruit, the one that had been Light's original last meal.
Yagami stared with a foreign look in his eyes. L wondered if thoughts were racing through his head, questioning every interaction they'd ever had. He wondered if there weren't any thoughts running through that brilliant mind, if it was stunned into silence from his actions. Silence would likely have been a reprieve from the reality of his situation, of his death sentence.
Reality… L had been kindling a fantasy of Light that would no longer have the possibility of ever existing in a few minutes, thanks to the impending execution. It wasn't something that was likely to have ever happened regardless. Fantasies. That's all it had been.
L withdrew, turning away and walking toward the door.
"I think this might be the first time I've actually enjoyed a sweet cake," Light said suddenly. "It's a shame the first time I tasted jujube will also be the last."
What a shame indeed.
He returned to where he'd been standing prior to the feeds cutting off. The red light returned. He stared at the man for a minute, opening his mouth as though to say something, but he closed it and headed out. He'd already shared what he needed to.
Two could keep a secret if one of them was dead. No one outside of their world would ever know.