Chapter Twenty One
Love in Time
!Chapter Edited! Fixed the Mello misspell (my bad)
L hated this.
He hated it so much.
L had not left Light's side again since going to the hotel. It had been harder then he thought it would be to be apart.
The first problem he had with it was the new base at some hotel.
The hotel was unfamiliar. L had only spent less then a day in it before taking up residence at Light's side in the hospital. He had only used it in the time between accusing Light then letting him go and learning Light's whereabouts after discovering his life was in danger.
Normally that would be an issue, as L lived his life moving from hotel room to hotel room, but normally it was not this bad.
Everything was there, all the equipment and food and supplies; the usual entourage of junk that followed him from location to location. He used to like the way how seeing all this familiar stuff made the whole world see smaller in the way that it looked the same no matter where you went.
And the furniture, it all looked the same, typically. Beds weren't that different. Couches and chairs weren't that different. Doors weren't that different. Even the color schemes of hotels and buildings were pretty much the same.
It was almost comforting.
But now he hated that a hotel room looked so similar yet so different. Where was the couch that Light had fallen asleep on after they played tennis? The coffee table on which they dined, and then Light had insulted the amount of sugar he ate? The bed that Light and he had shared?
Since when did he care about change?
The second problem was his successors.
He knew his successors were in that building, but he had no desire what so ever to see them. He never liked interacting with other people much, other then Light and Watari.
And his successors… they always watched him. They studied his every move. They aspired to be him. They would one day replace him.
By some kind smile from fate (not that he believed in fate) he did not run in to his successors, but he felt their unseen eyes watching him the entire time he was there.
His third problem was, that after all the trouble to get to the hotel and all the annoyances he had to deal with, he barely got any sleep. The night had been long and the sleep fitful.
He kept worrying about Light waking up and him not being there. He dreamt that he missed it and Light never forgave him. He dreamt that he didn't miss it and that he went back to a Light who was still asleep.
What would be better? What would be worse?
Why was everything so unsure now? He used to be in control but now… damn.
This was getting tiring.
When he went back he found nothing had changed.
This was tiring.
This was worse.
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"God, this is boring!" Mello exclaimed, slumping over onto the desk in front of him, landing on the keyboard. On the screen of the computer in front of him the symbol "?" started to fill the screen. Mello didn't think he could ever have been more bored in his fifteen years of life.
"No one cares if you are bored." Matt replied.
The red-headed gamer was also seated at a desk, but unlike Mello he had hooked up a game system to his monitor and was currently battling some level of boss, opposed to trying to solve a case like je was supposed to be doing.
"I thought being the acting L would be more exciting." The blonde complained.
"You think a lot of things."
"I'm just so bored." Mello whined, lifting his head off the keyboard then smashing it back down.
"If by exciting Mello means doing something of a higher caliber then we are used to and commanding more power, then I agree with Mello, however Watari isn't allowing us to start any new major cases beyond the usual small cases we worked on back at the orphanage." Near said from the corner, sitting at a third desk, in front of which was a Lego board full of Lego soldiers upon Lego horses in full Lego wardress. It appeared he was arranging them for battle, which might be interesting to some, but Mello could care less.
"Shut up Near. Nobody wants your input! Besides I wasn't talking to you, I was talking to Matt." Mello sneered.
"Yeah, sure, me, whatever," Matt responded, pressing buttons furiously on his controller.
"I know you weren't, I was just am expressing my mutual frustration, but I also wanted to encourage you to be quiet, hoping that agreeing with you would end your need to complain. You are being very distracting," Near said with a twist of his hair.
"Distracting from what? Your Lego playing?"
"Yes."
"I'm so sorry, your highness," Mello apologized, dragging out the sorry dramatically.
"Thank you."
"I was being sarcastic, you dense little robot!"
"I know, but that's was the closest you ever get to actually apologizing to anyone except for Matt."
"Well Matt's a likable person, unlike everyone else." Mello huffed.
"What's your definition of likable? Chain smoking hackers that walk the line of the law and chaos?" Matt asked.
"Yeah. Those kind of people are the best kind of people." Mello smiled, leaning back into his chair.
"Are you done complaining?" Near inquired.
"God no, shut up. I'm still bored! We are finally abroad and out of that damn orphanage and we are spending the whole time cooped up in a high rise hotel, solving cases we basically already solved, eating nothing but take-out, and driving ourselves crazy!"
"Actually, you are driving us crazy." Matt added.
"Well that's only because I'm crazy bored and you are being annoyingly apathetic about it." Mello pouted.
Near looked over from his soldiers and gave Mello one of his more annoyed looking blank faces. "We can't do anything more advanced unless we have the go ahead from L, and he currently is distracted by more pressing matters."
"Shut up, Near. More pressing matters? You mean that man who got stabbed? Kira?" Mello's hands twitched and he reached into his pocket and pulled out a warm chocolate bar and began unwrapping it.
"Yes. That's who I mean." Near answered.
"Who is Kira even?" Mello wondered.
"Kira is a person who had been doing vigilante acts and investigating and working with the police to solve a number of crimes who had evolved into a now proven urban legend," Near recited.
"Shut up! I know who Kira is, I read the files same as you! I mean who is Kira to L?" Mello growled.
"Someone L loves." Matt said simply.
"L can love?" Mello stared at Matt with a blank face.
"Anyone is capable of love." Matt reasoned.
"But L? His is emotionless robot, same as Near. Always had been and always will be."
"Everyone feels emotion. Except for sociopaths. And we have already had Near tested on that and he is not one, so be nicer to him please."
"Shut up, Near." Mello barked at Near from across the room.
"I didn't say anything, Matt did." Near responded.
"You're trying to control Matt again. Trying to convince him you are somewhat decent, which we both know you aren't."
"He's not controlling me," Matt said, "You just can't face the fact that I have no problem with Near, only you do."
"Whatever," Mello grumbled, "Back to L supposedly loving this guy."
"His name is Light Yagami. L hasn't left his side since he was put in the hospital, except that time Watari forced him and told us that if you bothered him, we'd all get in trouble."
"He warned all of us not to bother him."
"He directed it at you."
"No he didn't."
"He was looking right at you."
"That's not important."
"Anyways, there is that."
"So what? Maybe L feels guilty that he got hurt under his watch." Mello frowned.
"Not likely. Many people have gotten hurt and died under L's watch, it's something that can't be helped with the line of work we are in and the evil we battle. He has never reacted like this before." Matt paused his game and put down the controller and turned to face Mello. The significance of the action was not lost on the blonde, who was now nervously nibbling at his chocolate while crinkling the foil wrapping unconsciously between his fingers. "I found video recording of Light in L's acquaintance preceding the murders by not even day, possibly a coincidence but using Misa's testimony about how Mikami saw Light with another man just before his first murder and matching it with the footage I believe this to be the catalyst that caused Mikami to start his string of murders. In the video Light was in L's old hotel base. Light had been carried in by L and Watari and placed in a bed, where they proceeded to give him some sort of medical attention. It looked like he had a fever. L and Light barely spent anytime in the same room other then what appeared to be a conversation, the sound for which I've yet to uncover."
"So?" Mello questioned. "So what if they somehow knew each other before the case began? That means nothing. That doesn't mean L loves the guy."
"After that, in the security recordings of L's hotel base there are random blank sit that start occurring late night on different nights. I have reason to believe it was because Light and L got together and L edited the recordings and moved the video clips of those times to a more secure location for privacy reasons."
"Privacy reasons? You have no proof that it was Light. And are you insinuating that Light is L's boyfriend? But that's impossible!"
"It's not impossible, Mello, Stop being so dense. What's so wrong about L being in love? What's so wrong about loving another person?" Matt looked away from Mello for a brief second, and action that didn't go unnoticed by Near, who twirled a strand of his hair around his finger.
"It just seems wrong. It makes him more…" Mello trailed off, looking for the right word.
"Human?" Matt suggested.
"Yeah… I guess."
"Don't forget L is just human, like us. He is not perfect, and if loving someone is imperfect to you, then that proves he's not perfect."
"Why the hell are we working so had to be imperfect?"
"You can't be perfect. Give up on trying to be that. Just be you, who is pretty kick ass. That's the only way you stand even a chance against Near in this successor race." Matt turned back around to his screen, floating his finger over the pause button.
"Hey!" Mello.
"The odds are in my favor, as I am above you in ever class and test. The only thing I don't understand is why they still let you think you have a chance." Near jabbed.
"Shut up." Mello growled.
It was silent for a minute before Mello spoke up again.
"So say L can love, and he loves Light or Kira or whatever we call him. What does this mean for the future?"
"I don't know. That's up to Light and L." Matt un-paused his game and resumed his boss battle.
"Do you think he might try to be a successor? I mean you saw his file, you saw his test records."
"I frankly don't care. Que sera sera." Matt said, and with a not to dramatic smash of the buttons, his boss lay before him, defeated.
It was silent once again.
Mello finished his chocolate bar and balled up the wrapping into a tight, compressed sphere, rolling it between his palms. "It has been six days. Will L stop waiting at his beside like a guard dog and actually do something? Will Watari slap sense into him again? Will… will that man wake up?"
"He will." Matt assured.
"What makes you so sure?" Mello asked.
"It would be a boring end to the story if he didn't."
Matt started the new level and in the distant corner Near's Lego cavalry started a march. Mello turned back to his own computer and decided to try working again.
"This is why you do have a chance to be the successor." Matt added.
"What do you mean?"
"You are the one who asks the questions."
"What does that got to do with anything?"
"Someone has to."
"That doesn't make sense."
"Whatever."
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How many days has it been?
Seven.
Yes.
On the seventh day L found himself sitting by Light's side, using the movable food tray attached to Light's bed as a platform for a sugar cube construction project.
Right now it was a castle, with several turrets and an open draw bridge, which sat on a crumbled sugar cube moat. It wasn't an overly complicated castle, space was limited and only so much detail could be made with the amount of cubes. L was currently working on the tallest tower, where the sugar princess would be trapped until her handsome knight came and rescued her.
It was a beautiful day. The air was cold, but the sun shinned in a gray-blue sky, unblocked by the clouds which loomed at the edges of the horizon.
The sunlight streamed in the windows, falling short of the bed, creating a rectangle of light on the ground. Half of one of L's feet rested in the rectangle, one leg outstretched and the other leg curled up to L's body, L's arm wrapped around it to keep it in place. L's cheek was pressed into the top of his knee, and he was assessing the placement of the most recent cube.
There was a cough from the hall. Silence. Then another fit of coughs. L put aside the sugar cube he was holding and stood up, stealing across the room and looking out the thin rectangle window that opened out into the hall.
A patient walked by, dragging an IV along with him. The patient was old, by L's guess in his sixties. Watari was around that age. The patient looked old, withered, and tired.
L stepped away, interest lost. He wandered to the opposite side of the room and glanced out the window to the outside. He wasn't really looking at anything in particular. Birds on a far off ledge that took flight, leaving shadows streaming through their wings, a delivery truck milling in an alley, the gleam off the windows off a high rise…
"Hey."
The voice was scratchy and rough.
It was beautiful.
L turned around slowly, as if not to spook the person he hoped to see alive asleep. There on the bed lay a very awake Light who stared back at him, head still supported by the pillow.
"Hey." L replied, keeping his voice calm, when on the inside he felt like singing.
He walked to the bed and sat down, taking Light's hand into his own. Light stared at their hands, his face unreadable. Then his gaze returned to L's eyes. L searched Light's, knowing his searched his in return.
L was just relishing in seeing Light's brown eyes, when suddenly they changed. With just a blink they went from alive and intelligent to empty and listless. He pulled his hand away from L's and rolled over on his side, an action which must have been painful but Light gave no sign that he had felt it.
A bittersweet taste was left in L's mouth.
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Thanks for reading!
Please review if you feel strongly moved in any way.
You were right, Light had to wake up sometime, and he did, but will it go how you wanted it to go?
Only time will tell!
Please also tell me any theories you have of how it will go, I enjoy reading them!
Enough chit chat, go read something, I'm going to write some more.
!Edit! Hey guys! I put down sociopath for what Mello was trying to insult Near for being (words words words, they're all we have to go on) but it has come to my attention I may have meant psychopath, so I went online to see what was what, and I am now confused as hell.