I can't tell you all how much I appreciate your reviews! Thank you so, so much. :)
I'm pretty sure the Greek should show up on all of your screens, but if there are a few weird gaps in the dialogue like 80% of the way through, that's probably why.
I don't own Death Note, Hamlet, or the New Testament.
They took their evening showers at four in the afternoon. They had informed Watari without uncertainty of Light's decision to forgo treatment and had asked him to schedule regular check-ups with a trusted oncologist, and it was now time for them to catch up on some much-needed rest. Even L was going to try to sleep tonight. Neither of them had mentioned their nightmares. It was one of those nights for simply riding them out.
Light was blow-drying his hair in front of the bathroom mirror, and L was crouching on the closed toilet seat. His arms were folded around his legs, his chin was resting on his knees, and his hair was very dark, very uncombed, very wet, and very dripping.
"Hey." Light turned the blow dryer on L, who flinched like an irritated cat. "If you're planning on actually sleeping tonight, can you also plan on drying your hair? I'm tired of waking up with my face in a bunch of wet sheets."
"Okay," L said absently. He picked up his towel from where he had dropped it on the floor, and, with astounding laziness, dabbed at his bangs a few times before dropping the towel on the floor again.
Light turned off the blow dryer to show how incredibly serious he was.
They stared at one another with only the whirring of the bathroom fan in the background, and then L said, "It's only water."
"It's annoying."
L just stared.
"Are you seriously going to be an asshole about this and not just pick up a towel and dry your hair? Because if you are"—Light wielded the blow dryer like a weapon and L's eyes went wide—"then I have no choice but to dry it myself."
L's eyes narrowed. "You're teasing again, aren't you?"
The blow dryer clicked on and Light pounced.
In usual circumstances, L would have been able to defend himself quite easily, but these were fairly unusual circumstances. As it was, L reared away from the approaching blow dryer with enough force to catapult him off the toilet seat. Light followed, standing over L and aiming the blow dryer at his hair, laughing until L managed to twist his legs around Light's legs, pulling him down and knocking the air out of his lungs.
"Oof," Light grunted, and then L was trying to wrestle the blow dryer from his hands, and, wonder of all wonders, he was actually smiling, apparently despite his best efforts. Light allowed himself three seconds to be distracted by this surprising turn of events on L's face, and then he gathered all his strength and concentration to launch the both of them into a barrel roll across the bathroom floor.
The maneuver ended with the two of them crashing into the wall and Light pinning L down, mostly out of some combination of aerodynamics and sheer luck. "Oof," L grunted, the sound a bit muffled because Light was lying on his diaphragm. Before L could reorient himself, Light shifted so that he was sitting on L's torso, freeing his hands to hold the blow dryer high and pointed vaguely towards L's hair. L laughed, squinting against the hot air in his face, and lunged upwards just enough to knock the blow dryer out of Light's hands, sending it skidding across the floor until it yanked hard at the cord and popped out of the socket, sputtering into silence.
"Whew," Light sighed, planting his hands on either side of L and catching his breath. "Well. I suppose we can call this yet another impasse."
L was absolutely beaming. "I would call this a victory on my part," he managed, diaphragm still pretty compressed, "seeing as my hair is still wet."
"Less wet though," Light pointed out. "Especially your bangs." He passed his fingers through L's bangs experimentally, finding them cool and damp but definitely not dripping anymore. Now L's bangs and all the rest of his hair had fallen away from his face, revealing it to be very clear and flushed and striking.
"Light-kun," L said wheezily, with his fingertips on Light's knees, "I can't breathe."
"Oh." Light stared down at L for another few moments, and then shifted his weight and rolled off. They lay quietly on the cool bathroom floor, staring at the buzzing fluorescents above, listening to each other's breathing and their own heartbeats.
"How old are you?" Light asked.
"Twenty-four."
"Oh. Hm."
"Does that surprise you?"
"I thought you were closer to my age. Six years is a bigger age gap than I was expecting."
"Does it matter?"
"I guess not. I was just thinking."
They lay there for a little while longer, and then L tugged at the chain.
"Hm?"
"I'm tired, Light-kun."
"Then let's go to bed." Light heaved himself upright, but L continued to lay there, now with his eyes closed.
"I hope," he said, "that you it will not impress poorly on me if I wake up in a less than professional state of mind."
"I think professional got thrown out the window when we started sharing a bed."
"I'm serious."
"Me too."
L eyed him skeptically.
"Come on." Light stood and held out his hands. "I have brain cancer and you have a lot of trauma and we both have nightmares. Whatever. Let's just try to get some sleep before we go back to work tomorrow." Light wiggled his fingers, and L grabbed onto his hands so he could be heaved up. "Let's go."
Light woke cursing, sweating, and fumbling for the lamp. It had been the same nightmare: the dark maw, the sick world, and worst of all the laughter. With trembling fingertips he traced his mouth to make sure it wasn't smiling. "I'm not Kira," he whispered. He felt the shape of the words against his fingers and could not tell whether they were untrue.
There was a catching of breath a few feet away. Light turned his attention to L's side of the bed, but found only a violently trembling lump under the sheets.
"L?" he whispered to the lump. "I mean, Ryuzaki?"
The lump's trembling settled down for a moment, but could not be contained and broke out with as much fervor as before, except that it was now accompanied by an unsettling sort of choking noise. So this was the unprofessional state of mind Light had been warned of. Quite frankly, he was so shocked that he found it difficult to have any sort of emotional reaction at all.
"Are you alright?" Light asked because he could think of nothing else to say.
"Go back to sleep!" the lump cried in some crude imitation of L's voice, and Light felt his stomach drop. "I'm alright!" The sheets pulled tighter over the curled body, but this seemed to increase the shaking rather than alleviate it.
Sitting up, Light started to stretch out a hand, and then flinched it back. "Maybe you just need some fresh air," he suggested, the shock doing funny things to his voice. "We can go upstairs to that level with the balcony. Or we can even go up to the roof or something. Oh, or a warm glass of milk! Want me to get you a warm glass of milk? You said Watari gives that to you when this happens."
"He hasn't done that in fourteen years," came the tremulous reply. "I'm fine, really." The more he talked, the more he seemed to calm down. "I just need to wait. It'll pass."
"Well, how long will you need to wait?"
"Yagami-kun, you can go back to sleep. Do not let me keep you awake."
Light frowned. "What's this Yagami-kun all of a sudden? I'm not going back to sleep until you do."
"This is all the sleep I will be getting tonight. I would advise you to do your very best to get some more rest."
Light twisted to see the alarm clock, and he saw one-one-four-two glowing back at him. "It's not even midnight yet! You have plenty of time to go back to sleep! And, look, you're not even shaking that much anymore!"
"That is unusual, but, all the same, I know from years of experience that this will be all for me. But I will not use my laptop or any other light-producing devices, so you should have no trouble getting back to sleep."
Light sighed. "Okay, this is absolutely ridiculous." He scooted across the bed, closing those couple feet of cold sheets that had remained undisturbed this whole time, and sat right next to the lump that was L. "Get out of these sheets at least. You're going to suffocate."
"Light-kun!" L's voice leapt. "I hope this will not be a repeat of the blow dryer incident, because I am in no mood to play."
"Neither am I," Light said. "This isn't healthy. And it's not like I'm one to talk, but this is no way to deal with whatever nightmares you have."
"You know nothing about my nightmares," L snapped.
"Maybe, but I know a lot about nightmares generally. And if I listened to you about the warm milk thing—"
"You pushed the milk off the counter."
"—then you have to listen to me about this sheets thing. Now come on. I'm willing to wrestle you on this one."
"Fuck you."
The sound of L swearing was more alarming than the sound of him having an emotional breakdown. It confirmed to Light that L had been allowed to soak in his trauma alone for far too long. "Okay, that's it," he declared, and followed through on his threat.
But L wasn't budging on this one, and in no time he was kicking out and trying to toss Light off the other side of the bed. Unfortunately for himself, he was too effective and he ended up not only tossing Light off the side of the bed, but causing himself to be dragged along. They hit the ground with a terrific thump, the sheets pulling along with them, but not enough to cover L very effectively anymore. Everything above his knee was now visible. He and Light met each other's gazes, and L burst into tears. He curled into his characteristic crouch, which suddenly looked much closer to the fetal position, and buried his face in his knees.
Light had overstepped. This was different than the other three times they had fought: first out of anger, then out of despair, and most recently out of playfulness. This hadn't been a fight, but an attack. Light was flooded with guilt.
"Okay, I'm sorry," he said, sitting up, close to L but not too close. "And that's an apology, just so we're clear. I guess getting out of the sheets wasn't a good idea. I shouldn't have pushed you. If you want, we can get back in bed, and I'll leave you alone, just like you asked."
But L was too busy with his tears to give any sort of coherent response. So Light just sat beside him, looking down and brushing his hands slowly across the carpet. Eventually, the tears stopped, but still L did not speak. Light folded his legs and set his hands on his knees and continued to wait. Then the sheets rustled and L tentatively set a hand over Light's.
"That," he whispered, meeting Light's eyes in the semi-darkness, "was highly unusual."
"Good to know," Light whispered back, frozen, but for his words and his heart picking up.
"I feel—I feel that I could possibly go back to sleep. It was—refreshing, I suppose."
"I'm glad to hear it."
"Light-kun?"
"Yeah?"
"Thank you."
"Oh." Light couldn't remember the last time L had genuinely thanked him. "You're welcome, I guess. I still feel bad though. I don't want it to become a regular thing for me to attack you against your will. I'm okay with sitting next to you though."
L smiled, a comfortable, natural smile, as if he thought that it was so dark that Light couldn't see him. "Do you mind if I do something else highly unusual?"
"Probably not, though that's pretty vague."
L moved his hand away from Light's, but only so that he could plant both of his hands on either side of Light's legs, and then he leaned in, so slowly that Light had ample time to process what was happening, so slowly that Light overthought it until he was left utterly stunned, and then pressed his mouth very carefully to Light's mouth. When he leaned away, just as slowly, Light followed him forward and slid a hand around the back of his neck to keep him close. L's hair was unexpectedly soft. They kissed for a few long moments, and then pulled away and stared at one another with wide eyes.
"I've never done that before," L whispered.
"Me neither," Light whispered back, all sorts of questions about his sexuality bubbling to the surface.
L sighed, and the motion made him sink closer towards Light. "I don't mean this specifically with you. I mean anything at all with anyone."
Light's heart thundered and his stomach flipped at the closeness at it all. He slipped his other hand onto the back of L's neck, wondering and eager. "Okay," he said, because it was surprising but not terribly so.
"Okay?" L echoed.
"Mhm." Light leaned in, but L sank back, pulling away. "What's wrong?"
"I don't want you to feel obligated to me. This isn't a test, and a positive response will not decrease your chance of being Kira, neither will a negative response increase your chance of being Kira."
Light frowned. "I know that. L, I'm doing this because I want to."
L had closed his eyes, and Light realized that it was because he had used the wrong name—or, rather, the right one.
"You're not obligated to me either, you know," Light reminded. He started sliding his hands away from L's neck, in case he felt trapped. "If you want, we can—"
But L caught Light's wrists before he could move too far away. "No. It's just that I find it difficult to fully believe that you could truly want—this—with me." He reddened, astonishingly. "No one else ever has, you understand."
Light did understand, but that didn't mean he agreed. He tugged his wrists free so that he could hold L's face in his hands. He kissed L's forehead, nose, and mouth, just once each. "I've never wanted anyone the way I want you, so I suppose this is new for the both of us."
This time Light was the one to start the kiss, and this time it continued for much longer. Things only came to a sudden halt when the bedroom was filled with a piercing, too-familiar alarm.
"Oh my god," Light groaned, rolling off of L, who tugged at the chain in a feeble attempt to call Light back. "I have to turn this off, which means that you're going to have to get up." With L sighing and the alarm continuing, they clambered back onto the king-sized bed, and Light stretched out a hand to smack the top of the alarm clock, and then he yanked at the cord, unplugging it easily, and threw the alarm clock onto the floor. "Phew," he sighed, falling back into the pillows. "It's exactly midnight, which means that I must have forgotten to set the time on the alarm before turning it on. Whoever decided to set alarm clocks to midnight automatically obviously didn't think it through very well." His rant concluded, he turned back to L, who had snuggled into the typically untouched pillows in the middle of the bed, placing him at quite a close distance. Light was just about to panic about how fast L apparently wanted to move when L yawned.
"Excuse me," L said, blinking lazily. "It looks like I'm tired."
"Wow. Then you should probably go to sleep."
L yawned again, this time ducking his face into his chest, and then said, "Alright."
Light clicked off the lamp and tucked himself back into the covers, hyperaware of just how close L was. All these nights, it hadn't really felt like Light was sharing a bed with anyone. But now he could feel the warmth of L's body mere inches from his, and he could hear L's slowing breathing, and he could feel how the bed shifted as L wriggled into a more comfortable position. And because of all these things, Light could no longer remember exactly how to fall asleep in the first place, and for a short but excruciating while he stared up at the ceiling and tried to recall how tired he had felt when he had first gotten into bed.
And then, quite unexpectedly, L's head tipped forwards and his soft hair spilled across the pillow, tickling Light's bare arm just below the sleeve of his tee shirt, and Light realized that L had already fallen asleep. And somehow, out of everything that had happened in the past twenty minutes, this was the most incredible part.
Neither of them was able to sleep through the night, of course.
The first time, Light woke up still sweating and cursing but no longer reaching for the lamp, because he felt L warm and steady and dozing next to him and that was enough. This time the nightmare had contained the same city, but now overrun with swarming black ants, crawling up the buildings like ivy, lining the sidewalks like grass, churning in the streets like flood waters. Light did not fear or hate ants, whether in the dream or outside of it. In fact, with every step, his snug, tightly-laced dress shoes crushed dozens of ants, and with every step he sped up, now jogging, now running, now sprinting, crushing more and more ants each second, and echoing through the streets was the sound of his laughter. Upon waking, he whispered, "I'm not Kira," and he held his shaking fingertips to his lips. "I'm not Kira. I'm not Kira." And he whispered it again and again until he fell asleep.
The second time, Light woke up in the middle of the nightmare, in the sick world but before the laughter had really started up, because L had woken him by clinging to his arm.
"I'm sorry," L whispered when Light groggily—sweating but not cursing—turned towards him. "That was an apology. I didn't mean to wake you, but—" L started loosening his grip and inching away.
"Hey." Light stopped him by fumbling for his hands in the darkness. "It's fine. You actually woke me up at a good time. So, thanks."
L took one of Light's hands and pressed in to his chest. "Do you feel that?" His voice was soft with wonder.
At first, all Light could feel was L's heart racing at an obscene pace, but, as he waited, he realized that L was calling attention to the fact that his heart was slowing. Eventually, after a few minutes, his heartbeat had settled to a steady, gentle thump.
"I sometimes stay up all night waiting for that to happen," L explained in a murmur. "How is it that the only person who can calm me down is Kira?" He said this last part very quietly, but still confidently, and though it was too dark for either of them to see the other's face properly, Light imagined that L was watching carefully for his reaction.
"Maybe it's a fetish," Light whispered, too genuinely terrified at the thought of being Kira to say anything else.
And L heard this in the way that Light's voice lifted and shook. He released Light's hand from where it was still pressed against his chest, and he wrapped his arms around Light's neck and tangled his legs in Light's legs in what could only be called a full-body embrace. This was how they fell asleep, and this was how they woke up.
It was the first time either of them had been in love, and it showed. At first Light was worried that the closeness would dissolve in the daylight, but as he was buttoning his shirt that morning, L—who dressed twice as quickly—sneaked up behind him and kissed him just above his collar and buried his face in the crook of his neck, and Light laughed and relaxed in towards him, and the both of them knew it had not been a fleeting mistake. Neither of them knew what exactly to call it though. Love, relationship, and dating all sounded too trite for what felt to them a deep and unspeakably unbreakable bond between the only two people in the world who really mattered. And yet, on the other hand, they were quietly and powerfully aware of quite how brief it would inevitably be.
"Should we tell them?" L asked, leaning against the bathroom counter as Light flossed his teeth.
"What would we say?" Light returned. He took a moment to get at his back molars, and then continued, "They don't need to know anything. I'm not even planning on telling them about the cancer."
L frowned briefly. "You're not going to tell your family about your cancer?"
Light sighed, and he flossed halfway down the bottom row of teeth before speaking. "Not yet at least. I don't want them to worry."
"Well, how should I act?"
"You can act however you want. Why are we even talking about this?"
L frowned deeper. "I am not entirely oblivious to social cues, Light-kun. I understand that being involved with me in such a way is not necessarily something you would wish to broadcast, and I will respect that."
"It's not like it really matters anymore, given how little time I have left."
"And yet it does matter whether your family knows about your cancer."
"Because I don't want them to worry."
L let Light finish the rest of the bottom teeth in silence. Once Light had coiled up the floss and thrown it away, L observed, "You're speaking inconsistently."
Light sighed heavily, and as the air rushed out of his lungs, his torso curled in on itself and he ended up with his elbows on the counter and his head ducked between his arms. "I don't know," he admitted into the hollow of his chest. "I don't know what's happening. I barely even know who I am anymore. I need to just—" Light sunk his hands into his hair and pulled tight, and he remembered his tumor straining against the confines of his skull.
"You need to work," L diagnosed with a mild sigh. He pushed off the counter and sunk his hands in his jean pockets. "You're bored out of your mind."
Light froze.
"You haven't worked on the case in over sixty hours. Stress and bantering and newness are no substitute for genuine challenge." Slowly, Light felt L's slim, firm hands ease his fingers out of his hair. "Take a deep breath," L instructed, "make yourself presentable, and let's go."
"I'm not bored," Light said, unconvincingly. "I have you."
L shook his head. "It's not the same."
"How did you know?" Light now demanded, because L was right. "You even figured it out before I did."
"Because I was bored by yesterday afternoon," L said. "That was why I indulged you with the blow dryer incident, you see." Light laughed at what now was a nickname, shaking his head fondly. Something changed in L's stance, and he lowered his voice as he said, "I suppose I have my loathsome boredom to thank for seeing you in this new light."
Of course Light leaned in at that, but L surprised him by ducking out of reach. "Don't let me distract you," he reprimanded, smirking. "Kissing me won't make you any less bored and moody."
"It's worth a try," Light shot back, puckering up, and L took another few dancing steps backwards, grinning. "Now you're the one teasing," Light accused, laughing, amazed to find himself flushing. "Will I get my kiss sometime today?"
"Yes," L promised, his hands back in his pockets, looking like his usual mischievous self. "It's just a matter of when."
And so it was that when Light had breathed deeply, swished with mouthwash and re-combed his hair, and left with L to join the rest of the taskforce, he found that he not only had to pay attention to the work that had piled up in his absence, but the astoundingly flirtatious signals that L was sending him at random intervals throughout the day.
"Can you pass me those papers, Light-kun?" L asked, and when Light did, instead of picking them up delicately with only two fingers, he took them like a normal human being so that they would have an excuse to brush hands.
"What is that you're looking at, Light-kun?" L rolled his chair over, pulling at the desk to propel himself along, and pressed his arm rest right up against Light's arm rest. "Hmm…" He leaned in even closer, so that their shoulders were touching, and he delivered some vague compliments about Light's intellect before rolling away.
"Ouch." L pouted, mournfully sticking out his bottom lip. "I've burnt myself on my tea, Light-kun," he complained, leaning in to present the lip for closer inspection. "What should I do?" And Light stumbled out of his chair and dragged L into the kitchen, where he presented L with an icepack and narrowly avoided making a move when it turned out that Matsuda was on the other side of the freezer door.
Light couldn't find it in himself to be anything resembling annoyed, partly because it was so unexpectedly and frustratingly fun, but mostly because every time Light's headache popped up again, his heart rate would start to hike up and his head would swim, but after no longer than a minute or so, L would inevitably be there, offering Light some of his cookies or asking for a sip of his coffee or tugging discreetly at the chain, and the interaction was enough to ground him long enough to bury himself in work again.
If anyone on the taskforce thought anything unusual was going on between the two of them, they were either polite enough or horrified enough to say nothing about it. Matsuda did stammer something to Light about how he was glad that the two of them had made up after their big fight, but Matsuda was also the stupidest of them all and there was no way he would ever be the first to figure out anything in the course of his whole life.
Somehow, a mild discussion about Light's choices in statistical analysis on the Kira case had devolved into a heated debate on the legitimacy of inductive reasoning.
"Under no circumstances can you judge an argument or a rhetorical tactic solely by its practical applications or apparent viability."
"Under no circumstances? How can you say that when the opposite is so clearly true? Theoretical assertions are meaningless if they have no real world relevance."
"The ability or lack thereof of our human minds to understand pure, theoretical truth is a limitation not of that truth but of our minds. To say otherwise is to take a spiraling descent into a pit of hopeless postmodernism from which there is no possible return."
No blows were exchanged, no name-calling took place—other than, arguably, postmodernist—and no voices stretched above a conversational decibel, but the taskforce was cowering in the kitchen under the guise of having a mid-afternoon meal all together because of the sheer velocity and ferocity with which each statement was hurled at the other. At one point, Matsuda could be spied peeking his head around the doorframe and wearing an expression of extreme despair at the apparent collapse of their friendship, but Light's father could be heard barking at him to get back into the kitchen, and afterwards no one dared try again.
"So, we have settled that the both of us contain in our viewpoints a strict, absolute truth," said Light, who had taken a pro-induction stand. He had turned his chair all the way towards L, and he had his feet planted widely and firmly on the ground. L's chair too was facing Light directly, but his body was curled slightly away from him, and his toes were curled fiercely around the edge of the chair. "All that remains is to reconcile whether a reasonable conclusion can be reached on the basis of past evidence and future dependability, and I assert that it most absolutely can."
"It can," L allowed, "if you are willing to make a fool of yourself." Light scowled. "Future dependability has zero meaning when the future is necessarily always unknown. Past evidence is only as constant as the circumstances surrounding that evidence. The world is continually changing, and you cannot build something as concrete and crucial as fact on such an unsteady surface."
"So you're saying that only deductive reasoning can be depended upon?"
"Yes."
"And when there are not enough facts to rely strictly on deductive reasoning?"
"Then perhaps truth will remain unknowable. It is better to accept your limitations than to be incorrect. You will object that accepting a limitation is a limitation in and of itself, but you are incorrect. I speak from experience, but you speak from idle daydreams."
"Ad hominem!" Light accused, somewhat victoriously, leaping to his feet.
L frowned, sulkily, because he had slipped up. And because he was a sore loser, he sunk only deeper into personal remarks. "Perhaps this will change your mind," he grumbled. "If I am to use only deductive reasoning, the percent chance that you are Kira is only around—" Here L flashed seven fingers and then zero, because the percentage had leapt because of the brain cancer, but he couldn't admit that to the task force. "But if I am to use inductive reasoning as well, the percent chance that you are Kira is one hundred percent."
Someone fell out of their chair in the kitchen—almost certainly Matsuda, to use inductive reasoning yet again—but Light, who now knew the deeper implications of L's accusations, was unperturbed. Very calmly, he sat back down, rolled his chair closer, and whispered, "So be it."
L went still, and then he said, quite loudly, "Yagami-kun, perhaps we can continue this conversation at a later time because I need to use the restroom."
That definitely hadn't been the response Light had been expecting. Was L going to take his private remark as a confession and arrest him in secret? At this point, Light wasn't sure whether he would necessarily resist. But before he could think of a proper objection, L had stood up and started moving at a reasonably fast pace towards the nearest bathroom. Maybe he really just had practical concerns on his mind.
The moment the bathroom door swung shut, L backed Light up against the side of the paper towel dispenser and kissed the living daylights out of him.
"Holy shit," Light mumbled into L's mouth. "Oh my—" And Light threw his arms around L's neck and stopped talking.
Soon they had shifted so that L had his back pushed against the only slightly more comfortable bathroom door, and Light was rediscovering the softness of L's hair and the taste of his neck, and L was working Light's dress shirt from out of his slacks, and that was when the door started pushing back. L and Light both paused in their ministries to stare at one another in bewilderment, and then the door-pusher identified himself with one word: "H-hello?"
"Matsuda-san," L ground out in the quietest possible whisper, scowling. Light ducked his mouth into the crook of L's neck to muffle his laughter.
"Is this locked?" Matsuda's voice could be heard musing. The handle on the door wiggled freely, clearly unlocked, but L dug his heels in and Light kept his hands planted on the door, and Matsuda gave up after a few more half-hearted tries. "Where did they go?" Matsuda wondered mournfully, his voice trailing off as he wandered away.
They waited in silence until they couldn't hear any more footsteps. "That was close," Light finally whispered. He kissed at L's jawline so that L wouldn't think the secrecy reflected poorly on Light's feelings about him. "You pulled a real stunt surprising me like that. Can you imagine what would have happened if he had walked in on us?"
"Yes," L said, too agreeably. "This was very dangerous."
"Oh, I see." Light pulled back to see L staring at him with wide, innocent eyes. "You get off on danger, don't you? I suppose you don't deal with horrifying, terrifying crimes every day for no reason."
"Pot and kettle," L said warningly. He pulled Light closer by his belt loops, and corrected, "I get off on seeing you not bored."
Light laughed. "So, vigorous philosophical debate is what does it for you?"
"Yes," L said.
They kissed, full of the knowledge that Matsuda was still stumbling aimlessly around on the other side of the door.
"You're brilliant, you know," L murmured between kisses. "Absolutely brilliant. Light, Light, Light." And then he said it in English: "Brilliant."
"I know," Light said, and it probably wasn't the most romantic response, but it was as soft and as honest as he knew how to be.
"You're brilliant no matter what happens."
"I know," Light said, but now the words stumbled on the way out, and they clung to one another, flushed and shivering. "I know."
It was almost the end of the work day when Light realized it. He sat up straighter in his seat, compressed his mouth, and cleared his throat. "Ryuzaki," he called, as calmly as he could. "Can you come over here?"
L rolled his chair over in that ridiculous way, and the chain coiled on the floor as it slackened.
Light crooked a finger, and L leaned in close. Light pretended to sift through a stack of papers as he whispered, "Watari has access to all the cameras in the building."
L waited a moment, and then he said, "Yes?"
"And there are cameras everywhere in the building, meaning that he can see anything that happens anywhere in the building."
L thought for another moment, and then he very quietly said, "I can assure you that Watari is very knowledgeable about how to observe in the most respectful way possible. He is not new to dealing with extreme levels of surveillance."
Light sighed impatiently. "I don't care about that. What I'm saying is that Watari might know by now."
L blinked twice. "Of course he knows."
Light convulsed discreetly. Once he had gotten a hold of himself, he hissed, "And do you not see any problem with that?"
"Light, you already know that Watari is the closest thing I have to a father."
"That makes it even worse."
"Besides, I speculate that he was under the impression that we were romantically involved earlier than we actually were."
L allowed Light a few seconds to figure that out, because it was obvious when you knew what to look for. "Ohhhh. So, at the hospital—? He thought that when you hit your head it was because—?"
"Well, you were shirtless."
"Yeah, because you were bleeding all over the floor."
"But you can see how it would look to an outside observer."
"And when he said he wouldn't look at the tapes— Oh."
"The both of us can be assured, based on his earlier promise and based on his character as a whole, that when—when, not if—he catches sight of something that he doesn't want to see, he won't watch. Again, he is the closest thing I have to a father."
"Oh dear god."
"It isn't nearly as bad as you seem to think. Unfortunate, perhaps, but it can't be helped."
"Are you sure he just…won't look? Doesn't he still suspect me of being Kira? Isn't that irresponsible of him? What if I tried to kill you?"
"Though I have not had this discussion with him, I can safely assume that he has correctly assumed that my relationship with you indicates that I have concluded that it is worth the security risk."
Light took a few moments to make sure that when he spoke, it would still be as a whisper. "You can't just let me kill you."
"If you aren't Kira, there is no risk."
"And if I am?"
"You know how I would feel about your being Kira."
Light's jaw hardened. "You're starting to sound like Misa."
Carefully, thinking through the words as he said them, L said, "Misa was the second Kira. For all my apparent statements to the contrary, I would be a fool to think that Misa was a fool. After all, she did find Kira before Kira found her."
Light's ribs constricted, and his skull was too small for its swelling contents. He stared down at the chain connecting his wrist to L's, tethering him to the earth. "I wonder," he said, "what would happen if, in the limo on our way to my next oncologist appointment, I started kissing you."
"Don't you dare," L reprimanded. "You'll give him a heart attack. Or, worse, you won't have to worry about killing me because he'll kill you. He's the closest thing I have to a father, after all."
And as Light laughed and L fought back a grin, Light's lungs expanded and filled and his mind cooled and stilled, and his heart said to him, "We're-not Ki-ra. We're-not Ki-ra. We're-not Ki-ra."
They were curled with the sheets pulled over their heads. Their routine of actually taking evening showers in the evening had returned, and Light was slowly brushing the dampness out of L's hair with his fingertips. L was tracing the surface of Light's free hand, intermittently doubling back and retracing and retracing and retracing like rewriting and rewriting and rewriting a tricky Greek declension. Last week they had discovered their shared knowledge of Greek, and they had taken to occasionally drawing letters on each other's cheeks and collarbones and ribcages in lieu of speaking.
But now, both hands occupied, Light did speak, softly, the words echoing against the marble walls draped over their bare bodies. "What do you think will happen afterwards? For you, that is. Not for me."
"I used to want to be cremated," L said, knowing where Light's mind was wandering, because they were both always thinking about it. "But then the whole attempted self-immolation business happened." He sighed. "How inconvenient. I know it won't matter when I'm gone, but I can't seem to make myself put it in the will. It's left as burial with an unmarked grave stone."
Light paid special attention to making sure L's bangs were dry, and then he said, "That wasn't what I meant."
L's fingers stropped retracing, now moving absently without remembering their paths. "Are you looking for an eschatological discussion?"
"There is nothing afterwards," Light said, not answering the question. "All that is left is what impression we have made on the world. The world is all that counts."
"Do you want me to disagree with you?" L asked.
"What do you think you're going to do when I'm gone?" Light asked, again without responding to the actual words L had said.
"Most likely what I have spent the past twenty four years of my life doing."
"So you're saying that I won't have made an impression on you at all."
"You're not making any sense," L said, measuredly. His fingers had slowed until they were now almost still. "Is this going to be a debate, or shall we simply speak at one another?"
Light seriously considered the question, and then decided, "A debate. I will take the position that there is no afterlife and that the purpose of life is to have made the greatest impact possible."
"Greatest how?" L clarified. "In magnitude or in quality?"
"Both. If impact were to be measured by the range of the real numbers, the goal would be to attain the highest possible positive number."
"And I assume that I am to be devil's advocate."
"To the greatest degree possible."
L took a moment to consider which of the many disagreeing worldviews would be the most antithetical. He eventually decided, "Because I have absorbed this position so fully over the years by Watari's mere presence, I will posit that there is an afterlife, which consists of either being in the presence of God or not in the presence of God, and that the purpose of life is to glorify God by enjoying Him forever, a large component of which is being reconciled to, through, and by God."
Light's brows lifted.
"The first step to proving your opponent wrong is fully understanding their position," L said.
"You've proven Watari wrong?"
L smiled. "In my own head, which is the only place that matters." Light laughed, and L smiled wider and closed his eyes. "Go ahead and start."
"There is no rational way to come to the conclusion that any sort of afterlife exists," Light said at once. "Based on all the evidence seen so far, nothing we do in this life has any impact outside of that immediate sphere."
"Inductive reasoning," L murmured, his mouth hitching up at one side.
"How would deductive reasoning ever be relevant to an eschatological claim?"
"The historicity of Christ," L answered at once.
"That's a question that's several steps removed from anything relating to eschatology."
"Εἰ ἐν τῇ ζωῇ ταύτῃ ἐν Χριστῷ ἠλπικότες ἐσμὲν μόνον, ἐλεεινότεροι πάντων ἀνθρώπων ἐσμέν."
Light understood over half of the words there, but his impromptu Koine Greek translation skills were rusty.
"Don't tell me you haven't read the New Testament."
"Not in Greek."
"That's the only way to read it properly."
"Okay, Mr. Purist, just tell me what it means."
"You probably read the King James Version too."
"Just tell me what you said."
"Terrible. Oh well. 'If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are most miserable of all people.' The ultimate truth and historicity of Christ is intimately linked to any eschatological reassurances. The one is the foundation for the other."
"If the latter is the foundation for the former, then we're back to inductive reasoning."
"Fortunately for my side of the debate, it is the former that is the foundation for the latter, therefore we are firmly grounded in deductive reasoning yet again."
Light frowned. "I don't know enough about the historicity of Christ to debate the point."
L shrugged. "The gist of it is that the historical evidence is bountiful, but, as always, inconclusive. There is nothing stopping you from saying that perhaps an advanced alien civilization beamed the body of Christ through the graveclothes and into their spaceship, but in that case the whole of human history could be explained by one alien intervention after another."
"You're the master of percentages here. How bountiful are we talking?"
L shrugged again, sighing, because they were slipping away from the topic at hand. "Low nineties. No higher than mid-nineties. No higher than ninety-eight, certainly."
Light's eyes went wide. "Is that including inductive reasoning?"
"Not at all. Including inductive reasoning it would be a firm one hundred percent, but, as you know, I do not believe in inductive reasoning."
Light fell silent.
"I am playing devil's advocate," L reminded, but still Light did not know what to say from there. "This is all meant to be helpful to you. If it isn't, please feel free to go back to speaking at me."
Light sighed, taking the invitation. "My whole life, I've had the whole world open to me. There was nothing I couldn't do. But now I am running into a wall, and that wall is my own mortality mingled with some sort of looming existential crisis." Light's free fingers flinched in towards a fist, and they bumped into L's still hand. "That isn't true," he said, surprising himself with the discovery. "There were times when I had an existential crisis every time I went to sleep. I remember it happening as early as perhaps eight. Getting ready for bed is terrifying. You brush your teeth and stare into the mirror and see in your reflection an exact copy of every night for the rest of your life. It's like falling into a void and wishing you would hit the bottom already." He paused, precisely weaving his fingers through L's. "I knew what you were talking about when you quoted Hamlet."
L began to recite, murmuring, "'For who would bear the law's delay—'"
"No. That isn't it. 'To die; to sleep; no more.' It's all so unbearably tedious. I would rather it all stop then go on like this forever."
L's free hand started moving, tracing over the rolling seams of his and Light's knuckles. "Tedious?" He shook his head. "Terrible, perhaps, but never tedious. I am continually confronted by how cruel, chaotic, and unsolvable the world is. That does not make it worth giving up on, but that does not make it bearable either."
They fell silent, and, remembering each other's warmth, curled in towards each other, helitropic. "What is the missing two percent?" Light asked.
"Life is not beautiful," L said. "Life is not good. Life is an endless series of horror and cruelty. τὸ εὐαγγέλιον, the gospel, the good news, the good message—these are all words that express that this worldview sees life as ultimately beautiful, good, and organized for benevolent purposes. Οἴδαμεν δὲ ὅτι τοῖς ἀγαπῶσι τὸν θεὸν πάντα συνεργεῖ εἰς ἀγαθόν. 'And we know that to those who love God, He works together all things for good.' Inconceivable. For all our efforts, nothing works together for good. How could anyone see this world for what it really is and not conclude that it is rotten?"
The words made Light shudder, and he did not know why. "Watari has obviously figured out a way to do it."
L's eyes had been closed for most of the discussion, but now they opened. "What are you doing?"
"Hm?"
"I thought I was playing devil's advocate."
"I thought we were just speaking at one another."
"We were, but that does not mean that you get to usurp my position. Otherwise Watari will eventually have converted us without even having been in the room."
They laughed, and shifted, and opened their linked hands so that their fingers were spread and neatly aligned.
"Has this been helpful to any degree?" L murmured.
Light shook his head.
"What brought this on?"
"I'm just starting to wonder whether there's something out there worth living for. But I suppose there isn't a pressing need to decide whether there is or not, because I don't have much time left to live."
L restrained himself for several valiant counts, and then he pointed out, "Treatment is still an option."
"I still haven't decided whether there's anything worth living for. I'm not going to dump half my brain in the trash on a hypothesis."
L was not offended that Light did not say that L was worth half of his brain, because Light was not offended that L had not said that his life would take a dramatically different course once Light was gone. They were in love, and so they could be honest with each other about their limits.
"The one thing I do know," Light said as he resumed playing with L's hair, "is that I refuse to be embalmed."
L nodded, tracing the pad of Light's thumb. "Hell, no."
Things went decisively downhill in the last week of the first month. Light had already been occasionally whispering it to himself in bed after a nightmare, but now he regularly said it out loud, in the middle of buttoning his shirt, in front of the mirror after a shower, into the sink as he washed his hands for too long: "I'm not Kira. I'm not Kira. I'm not Kira. I'm not Kira."
At first, L said nothing. But then, in the first week of the second month, he started saying things. He would say things like "Alright" or "Okay" or, finally, "I know". When L said this for the first time, when they were buried in the thick middle of that second month, Light replied, "I love you," and, again, L said, "I know."
The morning sickness also started in that thick middle. First it was every few days, then every day, then after every nightmare. When this happened in the middle of the night for the fourth time, Light said, waking up, in a panic, "Fuck, L, I'm so sorry, but it's happening again," and L said, leaping off the bed, in a cloud of worry, "Ryuzaki, Light-kun. Please."
They went to three oncologist appointments, and not once did Light try to kiss L in front of Watari. On the way there, L and Light would exchange sweet philosophical and mathematical and literary nothings, and on the way back, they would not speak at all. Besides, at this point Watari had presumably been forced to recoil in horror from the security cameras so many times that it wouldn't have been terribly surprising anymore.
They almost made it three months without a seizure. The taskforce was closing in on Yotsuba, and the nightmare sickness was becoming a regular drill. But then it was day eighty-four, and the taskforce was closing in on Higuchi, and L and Light were buzzing and pleased and catching up on some much needed sleep and alone time, and they were warm and bare and tangled in the covers and each other when Light seized.
Light refused to go to the hospital until they had caught Higuchi, and that night was the first time that the two of them wept together.