Here we are again. Thanks to everyone who reviewed. I love you all. :D Newbies, people who've stuck around from the start...I read each and every review you guys send and your feedback is the best thing since sliced bread. No joke. Continue to tell me what you think! I'll be needing a super boost because I want to get the 31st and New Year's done as soon as I can. They're the stuff everything's been leading up to and lots of loose ends will be tied up, so stay tuned! Oh, and I've determined there will indeed be an Epilogue.
Stuff generally listened to was the ficmix for his. I separated January 31 songs from what's on 8tracks so you can listen without fear of spoilers. That stuff will get its own playlist posted whenever the 31st gets put up.
There will be a brief author's note at the bottom.
I don't own Death Note.
December 30
Festival of Enormous Changes at the Last Minute
7:15 AM.
Light sighed.
Certainly, it was later than L usually roused him from his slumbers – out of boredom, he was sure – but he wasn't at all eager to face the day. Having holidays day after day made one painfully aware of the days of the month. It wasn't like summer vacation when Light scarcely cared to know if it was Monday or Tuesday. They all blended together anyway.
48 hours.
2,880 minutes.
It made him want to bury his face back into the pillow and sleep through it, rather than face it. He still felt drowsy and L hadn't bothered to take his attention away from his infernal laptop. He was typing furiously on the thing, which Light supposed had woken him in the first place. The man could probably type as fast on the keyboard as he could play the piano.
And at seven in the morning L refused to be pianissimo.
December wouldn't allow the sun to arrive any time soon so Light fumbled for the light switch on his lamp. He glanced at L as he brought himself into a sitting position. The detective's eyes were far-off, probably not even focused on the screen, with an absolutely unreadable expression. While L remained absorbed in his own thoughts, Light went ahead and began brushing his flattened auburn hair.
That teddy bear stared at him from across the room with black button eyes. His face fell as he realized he'd nearly forgotten the thing those past few days. It sat in a generally unused corner in a chair by itself. It had occurred to him before that the bear was probably the first stuffed animal he'd received in years. People knew him well enough to figure that Light Yagami had no use for something so juvenile. He fancied useful things instead, like ties or wristwatches. Those were the sorts of gifts he got on birthdays or Christmas. That is, until L.
All it could do was sit and stare vacantly, as it was doing now. The only purpose it held was to occupy space. It couldn't tell the time and he couldn't wear it every day; it didn't really do anything. Yet somehow that was why he liked it. The bear was pleasant to look at and its fur was soft like velvet. It reminded him of childhood, like the whiff of Play-Doh or the feel of gritty sand from the playground. L had given him his boyhood memories in a teddy bear when he couldn't bear to remember his own.
He'd stopped brushing his hair and slid off of the bed. L's fingers drew away from the keys and it left the room oddly quiet.
"Light."
Light switched his attention to the now-alert man.
"L." He let a hand rest on the foot of the mattress. The sheets were rumpled from sleep. "Don't tell me you lodged another brush in your hair."
"Hilarious." L's mouth didn't even twitch upwards. He looked tired; it showed in his dark eyes. "But no."
L never explained what he did those late nights on his laptop. The tight-lipped detective ignored his inquiries for the most part, only answering vaguely that he did "Kira research." Despite his silence on the matter, Light saw glimpses into L's eyes that he suspected went unnoticed by the man. Each morning Light would crack open his bleary eyes, still not fully out of the tiring weights of sleep, and see L slowly age. Light only saw it in those blackest of eyes.
L worked without end but when the sun crept over the horizon and just enough light poured into the room that Light could scarcely discern his waking dreams from reality, he saw it.
Light did not flinch and kept their gaze locked. It wasn't there, not now.
"Is there something important you – "
"Yes," L curtly said. His voice hadn't risen. A hand moved to tilt down the screen of his humming laptop almost to a close. The detective contemplated the stitching on the comforter a moment.
L's heavy stare returned to Light.
He'd forgotten again how dark those bags were beneath L's eyes.
"I know you were on your way to the restroom, but I've been wanting to disclose with you the details for today's holiday as soon as I could. It is, perhaps, the most difficult."
Light raised a brow, confused. "You could've told me when I was brushing my hair a few moments ago rather than now, of all times."
"That's irrelevant. I won't take up much of your time, though." He absently toyed with the hem of his sleeve, but otherwise stayed motionless where he sat. "Today is The Festival of Enormous Changes at the Last Minute. Your goal is, to put it simply, this: by eleven fifty-nine tonight you will share one statement with me. I will do the same for you. However, there is a catch. It has to change something. I don't want to place any stricter guidelines on this…as it's entirely up to your interpretation. You have until then to decide."
Light's feet nearly carried him to the bathroom, but he kept them rooted. L already began to make his move for his "spot" outside of the bathroom door, paying no heed to his motionless form.
"L, could you at least elaborate on 'something.'"
The detective felt the texture of the carpet beneath his toes, half sitting on the mattress and half standing.
"Hmmm…" L hummed. He put on a half-hearted show of being rapt in fascination over the carpet fibers. "'Something' in that sense. It is, but not limited to, opinions, events, plans, feelings, notions, situations, or, if you so choose, this floor's feng shui. I'm not particularly picky today."
In a moment's time L crouched stationed beside the bathroom door playing Tetris on his phone. Light shut it behind him and turned on the florescent bulbs.
Light had walked past the sink. Untouched were his toothbrush, the medicine cabinet, his face wash, and his razor. He gently closed the toilet lid and sat upon it. Faint sounds from L's phone traveled through the crack beneath the door and whispered in his ears.
This was his only chance to sort out things without being put under a microscope. Spending more than ten minutes would make L suspicious, and yet he would have to make it enough.
Water dripped from the showerhead like lone drops of rain.
Remembering the cold tile against the bare skin of his feet brought him back to his senses.
There was L, and there was Kira.
Less than 48 hours.
L wanted to capture Kira because what he did was evil. The memory of the word coming from L's lips felt bitter in his mouth. L breathed to catch criminals like Kira. He would crouch in a chair and work on his computer as if the devil were on his heels, popping sugar cubes into his mouth and slurping down anything caffeinated endlessly. He would relinquish his own safe hermit lifestyle to study a man who could very well kill him if he allowed the slightest slip. L resolved himself to catching Kira at any cost.
Too many had died.
He'd never seen L smile, not until yesterday. It reminded him of a child. A child that, perhaps, donned the suit of a man far too quickly and couldn't quite find the zipper. L had let some things slip through, but why?
To let one's guard down, Light reasoned, was to signal that one felt safety. What reason though could L possibly have to feel safe around him? Day in and day out L was sure to remind him that he suspected him despite Light's vehement and consistent denial of the claim (if the chain wasn't enough of a reminder). The smile couldn't have been false; he'd familiarized himself with some of the contents of L's bag of tricks and it hadn't been one of them. Not even god knew why, but things had evolved far past what he could've classified as merely a ploy, a trap.
Kisses still burned on his skin. Light settled his head onto the palms of his hands.
Things were all too real. He wanted L more than he ever wanted anything else.
Kira.
Light pursed his lips into a thin line.
It was never a choice of whether or not he wanted to continue being Kira anymore. His own desires had little effect on how he would proceed. "Quitting" the Kira business altogether would mean boring Ryuk. With that his name would be written down and he would die. So, he had to find some way of appeasing L while still being Kira. One wrong move and everything would be gone. Prison would result in Ryuk's displeasure, killing him. Ceasing judgment, his own desires aside, would have the same ending.
L would return to his glowing screen and eat sweets while the hour hand ran laps and he would continue to grow old. Only this time there would be more shadows beneath the bed in which he never slept.
Then there was Rem. Or rather, Misa.
Rem would not kill L unless he gave the order – god, he didn't want to give that order. Misa had those damned eyes, as useful as they were. That is, when L hadn't mattered. Sometime at the party he'd have to find a way to speak to her. She would risk her own life to do things she thought would please him. He'd written her that note months ago, buried under the ground with a Death Note, requesting her to remember the name she'd seen floating above L's head when she'd first had the eyes. Light knew Misa well enough to know that she would not pass up the opportunity again. She would do anything for him because she loved him.
How could he keep her happy and still have L? He shuddered to imagine the scenario of breaking up with the bubbly model. Misa would be enraged or heartbroken or depressed or any combination of terrible resulting emotions and he would have to face Rem. Rem had never liked him and would have no problem with writing his name down, as would Ryuk.
Things had been so much simpler when he'd just hated L. Without realizing it, he'd probably known about the tormenting high-wire act that wanting L to live entailed all along. Hate was so much easier.
For anything to work he'd have to take another chance. If he went through the next two days passively, L would die. What would become of him if he just let that happen?
There was no one like L. His hair was a mess but his fingers tingled remembering how it felt to run them through those locks. His mouth could conjure insults and Shakespeare for any occasion and he knew he could never tire of kissing him. There could never be another to forever remain a mystery to him and yet be so similar. L was a jigsaw puzzle – there were pieces of varying hues and designs he would always convince himself could fit together but never would – that he'd not ever tire of.
There wouldn't be any more challenges after L. Or if there were, they would never be as great. He'd use Misa when necessary and return to an empty bed at night, reaching for black silken hair but only touching air.
So another wager it was. Everything would be risked for L.
Light glanced at the hands on his wristwatch and saw that his ten minutes he'd assigned himself were nearly up. He went through the motions of preparing himself for the day; the toilet flushed for his camouflage. Light couldn't exactly figure why he bothered to check his mask in the mirror before he left. They never really worked around L anyway.
At 11:59 PM he would take his chance.
Light grasped the knob and opened the door, flicking the lights back off in the bathroom.
They sat side by side at the kitchen table, waiting as the seconds on the wall clock ticked away. L busied himself with the ever-present sugar cube bowl. He handled the cubes with the steadiness of a surgeon, stacking one atop the other; though, of course, not every one of them evaded his stomach. Each new addition to his latest structure, whether it be skyscraper or pyramid, caused small tinkling sounds on the chain. Light stared listlessly at the pepper shaker. And such were their mornings waiting for the arrival of Watari and breakfast.
A cube was tossed into L's waiting mouth. He spoke around it as it gradually dissolved in saliva.
"Light appears to be particularly interested in the pepper. I regret to inform you that it won't go very well with your breakfast." He licked the sugar dust that had formed on his fingertips and another cube joined the first, crunched into microscopic pieces.
Nevertheless, Light still stared at the shaker. He said with an air of indifference, "Something sweet, then. Not surprising."
"Well, I'm sure Light's coffee will balance out the sweetness of his breakfast; it's horridly bitter." It sounded as if L had sipped Light's coffee himself with how laced with disgust his words had been. And yet L still appeared perfectly neutral.
Only if Light became a gambling man could he envy L's poker face more than he did already.
He sighed and adjusted the metal cuff on his wrist.
"How long could you even manage without sugar or caffeine? I suspect there's more of those things in your veins than actual blood."
L glanced over but Light still appeared to be totally absorbed in staring down the pepper. He, however, went back to snacking on his sugar cubes and hardly seemed concerned. A leaning tower of sugar was becoming more challenging than he'd imagined. He kept his eyes on the precarious state of the wobbling structure.
"A day or so, perhaps. I just grow more and more irritable as time stretches on. Are you cataloging different ways to torture me, perhaps?"
Finally Light brought his gaze over to L and his rapidly growing saccharine civilization. L built and Kira destroyed. The cuff began itching on his wrist again and he fought the urge to readjust it.
"Hardly," he replied at length. "Once I may have, but I'm starting to suspect that I'm developing Stockholm Syndrome…"
"Because Light is so easily influenced. You'd give Ingsoc a run for their money…" A small frown settled on L's face as the leaning tower continued to lean further to one side and toppled. The cubes scattered everywhere, from the cold kitchen floor to Light's beloved pepper shaker. He examined a floor-cube for grime and germs and continued, "On second thought, you'd probably weasel your way into a very comfortable place in the party. You're very skilled with people."
"Well, 1984 has long since passed. I guess I missed my golden opportunity." Light flicked a stray cube back to L, managing to avoid destroying the surviving buildings. "Just think, I'd be there with the bigwigs sipping champagne or wine or whatever it was they had –"
" –instead of your victory coffee," L finished.
"As if your sugar with coffee is any better."
"Actually, I've been trying stevia with my coffee lately. You've probably never heard of it."
Light shot an annoyed look. "I don't live under a rock, L. People are using it to replace sugar as a sweetener."
"No need to be so huffy. I just never expected you to be a glucose connoisseur."
A knock sounded on the door scarcely after L managed to finish his sentence and in came Watari. He pushed the familiar food cart into the kitchen, the thing usually filled to its limit with sweets and pastries with the occasional fruit. Now it presented to their table two proud milkshakes adorned with mountains of whipped cream and bright red cherries on top. L's eyes brightened considerably while Light's posture deflated.
Watari set the clearly strawberry flavored one before the eager detective while Light received what he assumed was vanilla. The whole dessert was entirely white except for that red cherry. Watari took his leave without a word while Light plucked the fruit from his "breakfast" and dangled it a few inches from his face. Whipped cream clung to its skin and had already begun to liquefy.
L did notice Light's overall disinterest in his vanilla milkshake, but his own strawberry one snatched whatever hopes Light may have had of getting any of his attention as soon as it met his lips. In the blink of an eye he devoured the ornamental cherry and followed suit with the rest of his meal. Light, meanwhile, still held his cherry by its stem between two fingers , the others curled gently towards his palm. Perhaps when he woke from his reverie, L wondered, he would have discovered the answer to the energy crisis. He could understand inspiration from a maraschino cherry.
L's spoon scraped against the sides of the glass and moisture began to fall in tears down the sides. The vanilla milkshake remained practically untouched. He gulped down the remains of strawberry liquid with satisfaction and had started to reach for a delicately folded napkin when he noticed something enter his realm of vision. Frozen, he turned his head and saw Light's cherry held before him. The tiny fruit now rested in the palm of his hand.
"You can have it," Light said, finally. His milkshake had already melted slightly.
"Oh?"
L cursed himself for not thinking of anything possibly better than "oh," but it would do well enough. He stared still wide-eyed at the thing, unsure if it was or wasn't a figment of his imagination. It would be a cruel trick for his mind to play indeed.
Light lengthened the reach of his arm a few more inches to further confirm the offer. "Yes. You like these things more than I do."
Without a word L's pale fingers picked the cherry from Light's hand, ghosting the surface of his warm palm. He examined it briefly like Light had, as if it was the single most precious thing he'd been given. But it quickly found his lips and he chewed the fruit slower than he had the last. He could taste the lingering drops of whipped cream with cherry juice and completely forgot how his own milkshake had tasted.
Light brought his own gaze back to his neglected milkshake and gathered a spoonful of the mostly melted dessert.
The tree's time was up.
L suggested they work on taking down the Christmas tree in the living room. Or in other words, L more than likely just wanted to gorge himself on its candy. Really, it didn't matter to Light as long as he didn't sit around for the remainder of the day idly until that fated minute before midnight. He caught himself now and again glancing at the time on his wristwatch; it had become so much of a habit. Each slip created a weight in his chest.
An hour passed and he'd hardly noticed.
It created a small fear, deep down and hiding in his stomach. He felt it gnaw on his insides like the first pangs of hunger and quickly pushed it aside. Losing his composure would spell the end, feeding that fear with his anxieties. Light Yagami had no anxieties.
He took in a full, steady breath and released it silently.
Light stood in front of the tree, just now aware of the simple round ornaments that had joined the dangling mittens. At one point or another they'd come to be, probably because of Watari, but he'd never noticed until now. His face probably had only a foot at best between a shiny red one, like a finely polished apple. They were only in greens and reds and as his hand went forward to pluck that very one from the tree to be put away he caught something in its distorted reflection. L's face, stretched at the sides, peered from behind him. His eyes were as black as ever and the sudden image nearly startled him. Nearly.
He calmly set the red ornament into the basket on his arm and reached for another. L hadn't been looking at him through the ornament. His vision had been focused a little more up and to the right, where there just so happened to be a plump mitten. A foil-wrapped Santa winked from over the top.
In the blink of an eye the mitten with the chocolate Santa disappeared to join the other candy-filled mittens on the couch. L perched beside his pile of goodies with just enough length on the chain to spare. He pulled the ends of the wrapper of a caramel square and let the candy drop into his waiting mouth. Wrappers already began to litter the floor around the couch. And L appeared to care less about the mess.
But there were still some of the more 'traditional' ornaments left to take down. Light reached for a smaller one, a light mint green.
He set it into the basket with the others and spoke over his shoulder to the other man, "This was the first Christmas I had that didn't include just my own family of four." L only hummed in response, chomping still on the particularly difficult piece of caramel. Light continued, "What have your past Christmases been like?"
Not without effort L managed to finish chewing and swallowed his candy. Light could hear the ruffle of wrappers as L already reached for another morsel. His stomach had no limits.
"Not terribly eventful." The detective bit the head off of a Santa chocolate. What would have been silence was occupied by the sound of L pulling down the foil wrapper to the level which he deemed appropriate for continued consumption. "My Christmases have been, as of late, a few festive cookies and eggnog with Watari; occasionally by myself. Holidays do not have precedent over my work, however. At least until presently."
"So this year now that you have to give the day some attention, you make up for your past lack of hoopla?" Light ventured, reaching for one of the last dangling ornaments. He nearly had to get on his toes to get the damned thing.
"Light is always consistent with his questioning my capacity for hoopla. It's getting rather strange. But," he said with a pause, contemplating a tightly wrapped lollipop, "I suppose you can look at it that way. I haven't had a real Christmas – or at least one remotely resembling your family's rendition – since I was eight."
Light's hand had made its way to the dastardly ornament (finally) but stopped. The number struck a chord in his mind very quickly and abruptly.
Eight.
L was in his twenties. Suppose he was barely in his twenties, at the age of twenty years exactly. He had gone a minimum of twelve years without "Christmas." While Light was sure even in childhood L was certain to have figured out Santa Claus sooner than his peers…
Eight…
Light's mind came to a screeching halt.
L told him he had been eight years old when his mother passed away. His mother was his last surviving parent, his last relative. Orphanages from eight to eleven. Then L, the detective.
Everything had ended at eight.
There were no more Christmases. How could there have been? At Christmas you received gifts from your parents or, when you were young, under the pseudonym of Santa. Then there were friends, girlfriends, boyfriends, siblings, best friends… You would spend the holiday with them, maybe adhere to some kind of tradition, but at least do something. None of that existed anymore the year L turned eight.
A holiday Light merely took for granted barely existed for L for well over a decade. All of the things he couldn't have done at nine, ten, eleven, twelve, and on – setting out cookies, a note for Santa, reindeer food, mistletoe, gifts – he had finally done with Light. He'd tried desperately to make up for too many lost years in one Christmas with Light, the very person he knew would be his murderer.
With hardly a second gone by the ornament joined the others in the basket. Light set it down, done with his task. He drew his eyes over to where L sat. Just as he tried to grasp for words the man unveiled a lollipop and spoke.
"I rather liked this Christmas, though." He gave the bright pink lollipop a thoughtful lick, sampling its flavor. "The variety in the Yagami household and its level of festiveness was enjoyable. Refreshing. Oh, and by the way, I may have to talk your father into divorcing so I can marry Sachiko-san."
"…wait. What?"
He peered over his candy as if the answer was too obvious. "Her baking is heavenly. Though it would be unfortunate to have to be your step-father, I will admit…" He frowned at the thought and brought the lollipop back to his mouth, as if to alleviate the problem.
Light released a sigh. "You enjoy statements with good shock-value too much." The chain turned more lax as he went to take a seat on the other side of the plush couch. L's candy pile sat in between them on the center cushion, dividing the couch in half. Light fished out a stray wrapper that had wedged itself in the piece of furniture. Reading the label for a short moment – butterscotch – he tossed it aside and returned his attention to L.
"I'll have you know I can cook and bake just as well as she can." He crossed his legs, dignified even when doing the most common of actions, and continued, "No need to tear apart a household."
L stared at the younger man, lollipop dangling from his mouth. Ever so slightly he tilted his head to the side.
"Interesting." The lollipop shifted its position in his mouth so he could better speak around it. "You almost sound threatened by the idea. Tell me, would you prefer to take her place?"
"Whatever. Again, you're not serious."
"Oh? You can tell so easily? Even so, I can hardly believe your claims of baking prowess. I've witnessed it firsthand. Your oatmeal muffins were nothing short of depressing." L's teeth crunched up whatever was left of the lollipop and tossed the stick over his shoulder, no longer having a use for it. He briefly licked his lips for any remnants of sticky sugar.
Light shifted his position to better face him, knee nearly creating a dint in L's miniature candy mountain. The almost-catastrophe went unnoticed by L, however. His stare remained fixed on the auburn-haired man.
"That's not even a fair representation. I was distracted, a rare occurrence. Even my mother admitted once that my cream puffs are more exceptional than hers." A smirk tugged at one side of his mouth.
Sure enough, L's eyes subtlety widened. "Truly? Could you back up such a claim if put to the test?"
The glimmer of hope in L's eyes didn't go unnoticed by Light. It only convinced him to not bother fighting the smirk that had been threatening to spread across his face. When you managed to impress L, Light learned, it was not an opportunity to be passed up.
"Perhaps," Light drawled.
"I could have acquired whatever ingredients you deem necessary…"
"I'm sure you could, but I'll prove my 'prowess' some other time. You already ate enough candy to make a normal person sick, and I'm sure you're not even finished. Maybe during a time when Watari serves tea…"
L moved closer to his candy pile, as if to better discern what he felt like devouring next. He still peered at Light with curiosity, as if taking into account whatever subtle movements he could pick up. Light's eye caught a candy or two slide off onto the floor as L rummaged, attention diverted to the moving objects. Their brightly colored foils reflected light as they fell.
"Light is being unusually pleasant today. Sharing, offering to bake sweets… I almost feel as if you're an assassin in disguise, dragging me into a false sense of security with pleasant lies." He pulled out a red gumdrop and examined it as he spoke only to later drop it back into the rest of the various candies. "Are you?"
Light cocked an eyebrow. "Thanks, I guess, but I'm not exactly –"
And before Light could ever hope to finish his sentence a pair of lips silenced him. L leaned precariously over the pile between them, a hand gripping the back of the couch to keep from falling. Despite his efforts to clean them of the saccharine coating they'd developed the taste lingered on Light's mouth, though the warm lips quickly retreated as did L's form. His eyes had barely gotten the time to close, having expected far more than the brief taste L afforded him, and were half-lidded.
He stared with confusion, albeit weakly, at the raven-haired detective.
With an air of nonchalance, L said, "Well, I'll be leaving my candies here to get my lap top. I have to attend to the emails I've accumulated in my inbox this morning."
Sure enough, he stretched his legs from the couch and his bare feet hit the floor, not bothering to fix the rumpled state his clothes acquired from sitting on the couch. He'd nearly passed Light's sitting form and reached where the coffee table ended when the chain ended with a rough jerk. L began to look over his shoulder but his body became pulled backward and onto a previously stunned young man. He struggled – and nearly failed – to keep a surprised sound from bubbling from his throat.
His chest collided with Light's and found himself gazing directly into a pair of molten amber eyes. L's laptop became the absolute last thing on his mind as Light's grip let go of the length of chain completely and an arm snaked its way across his back, the movement causing him to shiver. A hand trailed up his cheek and buried itself in his hair. His body felt electrified by touch, the radiating warmth, and those eyes. Light had him held captive not with the chain, but with a single look.
Light pulled him closer against his body, closer than he ever thought possible, not breaking the gaze until he tilted L's head to the side ever so slightly and kissed him. L hardly needed to be coaxed into parting his lips, allowing Light to entering his mouth with a hungry tongue. His long fingers finally came to life and clutched tightly to Light's shirt, mind growing fuzzy. Fingertips moved across his scalp as Light continued tasting him, continued holding onto his slender body as if he would never want to do anything else.
The snow couldn't always fall, and yet for hours large snowflakes drifted past the windows like bits of lace. L stared out with his nose inches from the glass, eyes nearly reflected in it. He kept his breaths shallow as to not fog the glass. Light flipped through the channels on the bedroom television some feet away.
The snowstorm would end just as December would. Flakes hit the ground almost as if grains of sand in an hourglass. He felt cold in his own skin.
But each one that drifted pass was lovely. L couldn't tear himself away from the sight. The wind would sigh, disrupting their calm descent, and blow them in swirls or against the glass. With one pale finger he would press against where the snowflake had stuck. Cold seeped into his skin from outside while his own feeble heat melted the fragile flake. Destroying it had been far too easy; he had never intended to do it. Just as his he moved his hand to touch where another had been he stopped. A lone, unbroken snowflake clung to the glass just above his eyes. He had never seen one so perfect.
And before he could blink the wind let out another long sigh and the snowflake had gone. L let his hand drop to his side.
Would he have chased after it, even as it mixed itself in all of the other countless flakes? Would there have ever been another as lovely, worth trudging through and breaking the ones beneath his feet? But if he ever did find it again, would he only melt it in his hands?
Several hundred feet down a snowplow labored through the streets. Large piles of snow formed on either side and were blackened with grime. Light's snowflake would have been perfect.
Something set itself on L's shoulders and he turned around in confusion. His searching eyes took in the form of Light standing behind him, regarding him with a sense of peculiarity. He felt a shiver wrack his frame. When he reached to touch his shoulder he felt the cotton of a thick blanket.
Just as he drew in a breath to question Light's odd behavior the man stepped around him and closed the open window. He could feel snowflakes melt in his hair and he made and attempt to brush them out as best as he could. L never could remember when he chose to open the window in the first place but he drew the blanket around his body tighter.
Light wiped his damp hands off on his pants and said, "Honestly I can't figure how you've lasted so many winters."
"Hmm." L stared down at his feet. "The blanket is appreciated."
"No problem."
He picked back up the remote he'd set down on the nightstand and switched to the next channel. When Light had returned to the side of the bed he commonly occupied L shuffled to the empty spot beside him. The blanket had been pulled over his head like a hood and covered all but his face. Strands of hair poked out here and there like crow feathers. His eyes remained steadily forward and stared more past the television than at it.
Like clockwork Light would go forward a channel every ten seconds. The activity interested him more than whatever any channel had to say and L did not complain. It wasn't until a good fifteen minutes of mindless channel surfing did something catch his attention. He lowered the remote slowly and let it rest on the comforter.
"Yes, in only two days the New Year will be upon us and one question is in everyone's minds: how many will be punished by the mass-murderer Kira, still at large? While Kira has given an opportunity to regular criminals to evade his supposed New Year's judgment, there has been little decrease in the crime rate. Police figures estimate that numbers will have in fact been unchanged compared to holiday seasons in the past. Some felonies have even been said to be done to spite Kira's promise such as…"
L remained still beside him. He couldn't bring himself to pick back up the remote control and change the channel to anything else. The news sickened him. Light felt in him the purpose that had driven him as Kira claw on his insides and he wanted desperately to fix the atrocities before his eyes. But as soon as he glanced to L's figure off to his side, knees drawn tightly against his chest, he sickened himself a bit instead. If he were a monster, if he were still fully Kira, would he have killed L by now?
He thought of his duty and the soft feel of L's lily-white skin and felt tormented.
The channel switched. A nature documentary.
Light looked at his own hands and saw they were empty. A hand had made its way out of L's blanket cocoon and snatched up the remote. In what light there was in the room he could see blue veins against the flesh of L's turned arm. Deciding that the documentary on three-toed sloths was satisfactory, the detective dropped the remote back onto the bed, swiftly brought his arm back into the warmth of his blanket, and moved over slightly to rest his hooded head on Light's right shoulder.
To say that Light was anxious would've been putting it lightly.
There were fifteen minutes until midnight and there he was, standing in the middle of the kitchen twiddling his thumbs while L worked at procuring a hefty slice of cake from the fridge. Only until a generous amount of chocolate syrup and whipped cream had been added – with a side of ice cream – did the detective abandon the kitchen to meander elsewhere.
Light checked his watch again. Thirteen minutes.
He followed L down the hall, past the living room, bedroom, closet… With the cake platter held ever so carefully in one hand L opened the door to the main hallway of their floor, off in the direction of the elevator. Puzzled, Light shut the door behind him and caught back up. Once inside the elevator its doors closed silently. L pushed the button for the basement floor and used the same hand to pick up the fork resting on his plate.
Standing up in an elevator twelve minutes to midnight L was eating cake. Five floors down and he'd already eaten a sizeable chunk, not a spot of whipped cream or chocolate on his face. His chewing and the sounds of the fork hitting the plate were the only sounds until Light decided he would go mad; he could only check his watch so many times in one minute.
"L, why are we going to the basement floor?" He fixed his gaze on the elevator's changing numbers above his head as they continued to descend. "I thought it would be more convenient and reasonable to just sit on the couch or something."
Fork dangling from his mouth, L responded, "Perhaps." The piece of silverware went and gathered some more cake and L watched it with interest. As he gathered some of the chocolate sauce that had fallen off of the sides of his dessert, he continued, "What I have in mind is more suited to our purposes, however."
Light released a shallow sigh. His gaze flickered to L. "And our purposes require that you consume a fourth of a devil's food cake?"
"With ice cream, Light."
"Of course," he said dryly.
There were seven minutes until midnight and the elevator finally came to a stop at the basement floor. L set his now-empty plate on the floor of the elevator and walked off into the dark. Light followed with some hesitation, trying hopelessly to make out figures in the blackness. The underground night was temporary, though, as L flicked a switch which caused several ceiling lights winked on. Around them stood not quite a dozen different cars but each as luxurious as the last. Off to one side was the familiar limousine in which Watari had driven them, coal-black and shining under the lights. L did not walk towards it, however.
To the left some ways away from the limousine sat a sleek slate grey sports car. L shuffled toward it and upon actually being able to touch the thing Light glanced down to check the manufacturer, as he'd not seen the symbol on the streets that he could remember and the far-off letters weren't kanji. An Aston Martin…
L stuck a hand into one of his deep jean's pockets and fished out a set of car keys. With a considerable beep and a flash from the headlights the car unlocked. He went to open the passenger door and crawled inside, the chain tinkling against the metal of the car. Light went to peer in the door to find out what the detective could be doing and he felt a tug at his wrist. There in the driver's seat, legs drawn to his chest and practically against the steering wheel, sat L. A length of chain rested in his hands and he gave another pull. Light grabbed at the frame to keep from losing his balance.
"Please take the hint and come in, Light," L spoke. He'd not put the keys in the ignition and could only be seen by the lights in the ceiling above them. "We're not going anywhere, rest assured."
Wordlessly Light complied and sat down on the fine leather seats. He pulled the door behind him closed and almost immediately he heard a soft click. Eyebrows furrowed, he turned back around to look at the door. It was locked.
"One," L began, calmly examining the keys in his hands, "I wanted to make sure we could find a place where no interruptions would be assured. I did not tell Watari we would be here, nor anyone else. Two, while the locked doors may seem a tad suspicious I figured it would be the best way to keep the both of us from backing out of the situation. Three, I purchased this car recently and thought it would be a good opportunity to finally examine it and its interior. And finally, we are nearly one minute to midnight."
Light leaned his head back onto the seat, staring at the car's ceiling. "And where could I run, exactly?"
"Oh, not far. That aside, though, could you hold your wrist out above the general area of the stick shift? I would like to keep a better watch on the time."
A quick and momentary fear ran across Light's mind – the scrap of Death Note – but he kept it from reaching his face and eyes. Unless L fiddled with the thing there would be no worries, and the possibility was highly unlikely… He complied with L's request and checked the time himself. Two minutes. 11:57 PM.
Both men watched the second hand flit across the watch's face for several seconds in silence. The keys L had held sat alone on the dash, chin partially on his knees.
Still keeping an eye on the time, as if finally feeling the weight of the situation he spoke a bit softly than he had before, "You have a very nice watch, Light. Did your father give it to you?"
"Yeah. He did." Light felt himself draw in a muted breath. 11:58 PM. His nerves began to take hold and he tried to make a feeble joke. "If I ever die in a freak accident I'll be sure you get it in my will."
L's mouth remained straight as he continued to regard the second hand's path. He didn't respond.
It drew closer and closer to the twelve and Light could feel his heart quicken. He would have to follow through. No matter what L chose to say, to reveal, he couldn't change his mind and make up something else to tell. Perhaps L didn't laugh because he felt the same consuming anxiety, or perhaps it was because he had known that Light's promise meant nothing. He thought he would die before Light and he could see the seconds of his life disappear. Light felt a growing weight in his stomach.
The last five seconds ticked by somehow slower than all of the last. He felt them more than when the school clock was about to signal his release, when sleep would not come one night, and when he had written down Higuchi's name. It took every ounce of his self control to keep his suspended wrist steady.
He drew in an uneven breath and the second hand reached the twelve. Light broke his attention from the clock to look up at L but found that his two deep black eyes were already staring into him.
"I'm –"
"I love you."
A/N: Chapter 31 immediately picks up from this point, don't worry. Chapters for December 31st and January 1st will hopefully be up in not too terribly long and will be posted a couple of days apart from each other. I don't want to torture everyone too much... You'll see what I mean. ;)
The exact car mentioned is a 2001 Aston Martin V-12 Vanquish. It's an English automotive company.