Disclaimer: I do not own Death Note. But you knew that already.
This is rated M for sexual situations, and some language, I suppose. I shouldn't have to say that this is a yaoi fic, so if it's not your cup of tea, feel free to exit.
We can surely cross over this shining field together
Right now, I'll hold on to the strength of our entwined fingers
And I won't let go of your loneliness
We can surely find a small light deep in the darkness
Looking for the jewel's sleep
I believe in the power to overcome the night
- Marina Inoue, "Jewel"
~ L ~
It's as though I am being broken apart, but there is no pain. A close word for it would be 'dissolution,' but even that is not correct. Piece by piece, I descend from the shinigami world to the Earth. A most curious feeling, one I have never felt before, one that cannot be explained. Every part of me merges with the atmosphere as I come to the ground. Upon taking my first steps, which cannot be felt, I know now that I am a ghost in the world of the living.
Once a need is expressed in the afterlife, you know where the object is that will satisfy it. My need to find Raito manifests itself and I can feel him...no, see him. After death, all five senses are gone, but a sixth remains. What I named as my intuition and gift for detective work was heightened after death and now presents itself as a different sort of sight. I can see clearer than before, something I could not achieve with human eyes. My sight and intuition are now one.
I enter the abandoned warehouse where I would find Raito. How fitting for someone like Kira, who will soon be abandoned by his host. They are all there, even my successor, Near. I watch as Matsuda (who was not useless at all, I know that now) takes his final shots at Raito. His shaking body collapses to the floor, the blood flowing from each wound. He howls in pain and rage, his voice reverberating on the rusted walls.
"WHERE ARE YOU MISA? TAKADA!" he calls out, but there is no one to hear his cries.
Kira has fallen.
Had I been alive, I might have predicted it would end this way. Would I have done anything about it? Would I have been like Near, just observing it all in a calm manner? No, none of them in that room had feelings close to what I feel for that dying man. I might have abandoned all reason to come to his aid, though he harbored a criminal within his mind. Most uncharacteristic for L, who derived pleasure from truth and justice.
As a bodiless form, knowing his end has come, there is a sense of peace within me. After the immeasurable time in the world of the dead, there is comfort knowing that he will join me at last. A need that I have expressed, the single most important one, is to have Raito with me again, separated from the world he deemed rotten.
The shinigami, Ryuk, notices my presence. He cackles.
"Well, if it isn't L," he mutters under his breath. He will take Raito soon. I know it. It is the truth.
~ Light ~
I was never a murderer, Kira screams.
Matsuda's shots had reduced me to a bleeding, useless sack of shit. It would not stop the Kira within, who continued to scream at Mikami to write their names down. Though he had been thrown off his pedestal, his godly throne, into the dying body of a human being, he would not give up. He called for his lackeys—Misa, Takada, Mikami—as I bleed out onto the concrete, the pain overpowering all my senses.
They're all gone, Kira. We're the only ones left, I say to him.
But I'M GOD!
Who are you kidding? We were never God, Kira. What else were we but a human with a notebook? You were nothing. I was nothing. In the end, we both will die. Ryuk said so. Anyone who uses the notebook will neither go to heaven or hell, and they certainly won't die happy.
The world is still rotting! I still have work to do!
The world may be rotting, but neither of us can change that. You're not God.
What the hell is wrong with you, Yagami? Get up and do something!
I closed my eyes.
We will die here. We deserve to die for what we did to everyone. We deserve to die for what we did to L.
I wondered if he was watching my life fading away...
But Kira would not have it. He would not die there. With the last bit of my energy, we bolted out the door, trailing blood on the pavement. The sun had begun to set, filling every inch of sky with violet and red. The world passed by in a blur. So fitting for the end of my life, which had barely begun. The pain and fatigue was too much to bear, but it was my punishment. Kira didn't want to die, but I didn't want to live either.
What would my life have been without him? Would I have been normal? Would I have gone to school as normal students do? Gotten a job, gotten married, had children? Would I have eventually met L and fallen in love with him as Yagami Raito? Would he have died so soon? The questions kept coming. The past came up in glimpses, a past as a regular human being. I knew the world was rotting back then, but I was powerless. There was nothing I could do but live my life.
And I was happy.
I stumbled a bit, feeling my body slowing down and giving in. Was there anything positive about my life after the Death Note?
Yes.
L was the greatest thing that Kira could have ever given to me, no, the only thing that Kira had given me. I had the pleasure and excitement of meeting someone that was my equal, someone that was the most incredible person, someone other than me that outshined all of humanity. If it weren't for the Death Note, we would have never met. I would have seen him on the street, possibly, and would have never taken another glance at him. Another strange face in a sea of strange faces.
I noticed that Kira had not said anything since I left the warehouse. He was gone, and Yagami Raito was the only one left.
I'm no longer Kira. It was a truth that I was sure even L would believe.
With all the strength I could muster, I made my way into another abandoned warehouse. Though I bled profusely, the pain was slowly leaving. I lay on the rusty steps, my body tired and weak. The weight that was Kira had been lifted, but I was exhausted. I could not go on much longer, and it was useless to try. That's when I knew I would die there alone, not at all like a god. I only hoped that I would go quietly into the darkness. Ryuk wouldn't wait for me to die. Who knows how long it would take if I was locked up in prison, and I knew he wouldn't hang around. Any second now, he would write down my name...not Kira, but Yagami Raito. Would I see L again? Was that possible?
You will not go to heaven or hell. You will go to Nothing.
And L appeared before me. The world went black, and I saw a blinding light.
And I knew that Ryuk had done it.
"L Lawliet."
I uttered his true name, as though I knew it all along.
He was the light, no longer blinding, but utterly beautiful. L was pure light. He was stripped of his human form, a single soul with the power to illuminate the darkness. My darkness. I felt his warmth surrounding my being, whatever I had become. Was this the afterlife? Was this heaven? No, I thought. I don't deserve to go to heaven. I had done too much, made too many people suffer by my hands.
"You will not stay in the void."
I noticed that he spoke to me in a manner that was beyond human speech, almost as though we communicated through our minds, merging into one single entity. It was an inconceivable though for someone like me, but I knew it to be true. The feeling was far too splendid and my soul ached in the belief that it would soon be over for me. After all, a murderer cannot go to heaven. I wasn't going into the void, but somewhere far worse.
"Though all humans go to Nothingness, we will be sent elsewhere. But you know this. You can feel it, can't you?"
He was right. I couldn't deny it any longer. Something wonderful was ahead, and I knew the truth of everything. I knew how much he loved me, though he was afraid to say it while we were alive, or even admit it to himself. It was love that shone in the darkness, love that would bring me out of it. That was why he had come back for me and spared me from the hopelessness of Nothing.
"I don't deserve this."
"Whether or not you deserve it is of no concern to me. You felt remorse at the end of your life, and that warrants exemption."
"But what I did to you is unforgivable."
"I have eternity and I have you. All is forgiven."
"So you really have come for me, L? But why?"
"You already know why. What reason do you have to ask questions now?"
"But—"
"I've been given permission. Their only request is that you tell them what transpired on Earth, as I have done already. From there, we will return."
"Return? To where?"
"You'll see soon."
"Even though I was Kira?"
If a smile could be felt, I felt it within L.
"You were never truly Kira. Light was there all along."
"Do I appear to you like you appear to me?"
"You're even more brilliant."
"And so it ends, " said Light.
He looked to L, missing the beautiful light that hid behind his human image. The translucent eyes, as wide as they were in the world of the living, bore into him, but they were still beautiful. Perhaps even more so, now that all that was left of L was his unyielding spirit.
They had retained their ghostly forms in the shinigami world, for the shinigami could not adjust to the blinding light. It was a curious thing that Light was slowly adjusting to, accepting that all he was experiencing was the truth. Had anyone told him on Earth that all these things were true, he would have laughed in their face. Kira would be convinced there was no other god in existence but himself.
"I think Ryuk had the best time out of all of us," said one shinigami.
"Even though he had to do something stupid for it?" asked another.
"At least he did something exciting."
One of the shinigami turned to Light and L. "So, what'cha gonna do now?"
"We're going to return," said L.
"Lucky day for you two. That doesn't happen often."
"Yeah, I wonder what you did to deserve it."
"Maybe Ryuk put in a favor? I heard some shinigami can do that."
"You think he's that nice?"
"Hahaha, you're right. It's probably not him."
As the shinigami talked amongst themselves, Light noticed L walking towards what appeared to be a swirling portal. He followed behind him, and the shinigami world disappeared.
Light felt himself merging once again with L, as though he were in a cocoon that was purely L. He did not know how long they remained that way, but he did not want it to end. The times that they were intimate could never compare. As a human being, Light could never connect to L like this. Human bodies were walls, each their own, without any possibility of combining.
Never too much, it was just enough. This, thought Light, is heaven to me.
"What we believe manifests here," said L. "What we want also manifests here."
"You know what I want."
"A world where we are no longer Light and L."
"I know now where we're going. I guess I knew all along."
"This is our second chance. We will go back, but we cannot go together. It will be a small price to pay."
"Then I'll do my best to find you, L."
"And I will do the same, Light."
From the second story, a young boy looked out the window of his classroom. He watched as the autumn leaves fluttered to the cold ground. A sense of déjà vu came over him, as though he had done the same exact thing before. Shaking off the weird feeling, he focused on a boy, pale and blonde, running on the campus grounds. It looked like he was late for class. His heart pounded loudly in his chest.
I've seen him before, but where?
"Lucas, would you please pay attention?" asked his teacher, glaring at him from the front of the classroom. Several students giggled.
"Sorry."
But he could not get the blonde boy out of his mind.
Lucas walked down the steps, his classes finished for the day. The windows of the building were covered in raindrops. He slowed down, reluctant to walk home in the rain. It was a good thing that he had his coat.
I hate this English weather, he thought. I wish I could move somewhere else. Like Japan.
He chuckled at that thought. There was something about Japan that he really liked, but he never knew what it was about it that was so appealing. Maybe he was Japanese in a past life. He turned a corner and walked out the front doors.
Out in the field, he noticed the blonde boy from that morning standing in the pouring rain. He looked up to the sky as passers-by stared and whispered amongst themselves. There was a lost look on his face, but Lucas wasn't sure exactly what was to be found in the heavy clouds. Covering his books with his jacket, he ran out into the rain to meet the boy.
"You there, don't you know it's raining out here?" asked Lucas. He felt his heart beating wildly.
"Don't you hear the bells? They're loud today," said the boy.
"Are you mad? There aren't any bells ringing!"
"I can clearly hear them." The boy turned his gaze from the sky to see Lucas. His blue eyes widened. "But it's you. It has to be you."
Lucas felt his cheeks grow hot.
He's beautiful.
He shook his head, putting the ridiculous thought out of his mind. "I don't know what you're on about, but let's get you out of the rain."
Lucas walked the boy back into the school and into the nearest bathroom. They dried off in silence, but Lucas could feel the boy's stare. Certainly, they had known each other before. Why else would he say "it's you"? Maybe if he knew his name, then he would remember?
"My name is Lucas. Yours?"
"Lawliet."
Lucas howled with laughter.
"What kind of a name is that? What was your mum thinking?"
"She says she saw it in a dream, in a message. I think it suits me, even if you don't think so."
They were both thirteen, but to Lucas, Lawliet seemed like an adult. It was unnerving.
"Where do I know you from?" asked Lucas, walking out the door with him. Outside, the rain had eased up.
"I think I've dreamt about you, but it's as though you didn't look like that."
Lucas looked at him.
"That's the same feeling I've got, Lawliet."
"I've got to go home," said the blonde boy. "Will you come?"
"To your house?"
"I would like it if you did."
Lawliet was strange, Lucas thought. He walked with his hands in his pockets and wouldn't stand upright. He didn't even have any socks on, which Lucas was sure that the teachers chastised him about.
On their way, the boys walked past an old abandoned mansion. The windows were boarded up, the grass overgrown, and the gates rusted. The sign read "Wammy's House," but Lucas was unsure of what sort of house it used to be. Lawliet did not turn his eyes away from the strange building. He stopped.
"What is it?" asked Lucas.
"I've been here before. But I can't remember when. Strange, I always pass this house on the way home."
"That's impossible. It's been abandoned for decades."
"But I've been sent here for a reason. I'm ninety-nine percent sure." Lawliet put his right thumb against his lip.
"What...ninety...fine, I won't ask." Lucas shook his head.
"Don't you see him? There, in the yard?"
Lawliet pointed to an old man with the whitest hair that Lucas had ever seen. He did look familiar, but Lucas was convinced that he'd never met him. Everything was getting stranger and he blamed it on Lawliet's presence. And that name! Even that was strange!
His company is probably no good, but it feels like I have to be with him, thought Lucas.
He glanced again at the man, who was playing with some toy in his hand. The old man looked up with frightening black eyes. A chill ran down Lucas' spine.
It's nice to meet the second L.
The voice of a boy about his age echoed through his memory, a lost one that he could not put his finger on.
"C-can we please leave? I've got a bad feeling, Lawliet."
The blonde boy nodded.
They walked off, distancing themselves from Wammy's House. As they came closer to the boy's house, Lucas felt comfort in Lawliet. Not only comfort, but relief, as though he had been looking for him. The search was finally over. Lucas smiled, feeling a fluttering in his chest. He was chained to Lawliet, had been since before he was born. What an odd thing to know, but he knew it. And he was happy.
"The only comfort is the moving of the river," he whispered. Lawliet turned to him.
"What was that?"
"Nothing. Nothing at all."
End
A/N: It's done! Though, I have to admit, this wasn't the original ending! I felt that the original ending was far too happy and sunshiny and over-the-top (similar to the dream that they had in the beginning of the fic), so I was drawn to this one. I feel that it's happy, but a little subtler. After all they've been through, they deserve that at least! I hope it's not hated too much, lol. Thank you all for the comments and for reading this at least, since this was my first long fic in years (and not my strong suit)! Hopefully, I'll continue to improve and maybe write more Light/L in the future. :)