They meet each other in the bleak, black nothingness that is the afterlife.
L trips over a dry, blood-colored rock, lands hard against another warm body (other humans are rarely found here, and though he doesn't mind the solitude, the silence and smallness he feels are sometimes maddening). On top of the body, on the ground, he moves his hands against a chest, over a beating heart. He can feel lapels, and knows that it's a double-breasted suit. This makes him think of Light–he'd always loved the boy's high school uniform, the sharp efficiency of a suit jacket, the way the tie spilled red down his muscled chest, like blood . . .
"Are you all right?"
L pushed himself off of the man, vaguely aware that he had been causing him discomfort, and settled back on his haunches, toes curled. "I'm fine, sorry."
He hears the man sit up–rocks move beneath him, scrape scrape. The man reaches out and places his hand on L's knee, just to feel another person, for reassurance, more than anything, and says, "I'm Ray Penbar." There's a nervous laugh in his voice, and L can't see his face in the dark–can't see anything at all, actually–but he knows he's not lying. It's just something he can pick up; he's had a lifetime of practice, after all.
"Nice to meet you, Penbar-san. I am Enrique."
There's nothing to lose by giving him his real name, L realizes, after he's already spoken the words, but lying is a habit, and a hard one to break at that.
"This man is not Kira, so why am I worried?" The detective says this aloud, chewing on his thumb, and Ray asks, timidly, "Excuse me? Did you say Kira?"
L watches him, quiet.
"I'm sorry," Ray explains. "But Kira, Kira killed me." More nervous laughter.
L places spider-fingers over Ray's hand, makes a noise of realization and discovery, "Aha? He did, did he?"
And Ray says, "Yes."
L considers telling Ray everything (he's nothing to lose, after all)–"I was killed for Kira by a god of death, I died in Kira's arms, Kira, his name is Light Yagami, and you probably know me as L, I know you, you know, I watched you die on video, I saw pictures, I saw the envelope, I knew everything–", but he doesn't. He bites his tongue. He has nothing to lose by saying this, but he has nothing to gain, either.
Ignorance is bliss. L lets Ray Penbar lay rest his head on his bony, shaking shoulder, and says absolutely nothing.