Thank you all for being such giant sweethearts. You give the best reviews anyone could ask for. C:
This chapter doesn't have the funny scene that I promised, because I couldn't get to it as quickly as I had planned, so sorry about that. It's definitely definitely going to open the next chapter though, so you can look forward to that. Plus, this change means that the fic is going to be 13 chapters long instead of 12 chapters, so woot woot, more time with you and L and Light and Watari. :)
I realized that I should probably note that I have nothing against the current pope. He's pretty rockin', as far as I know. I'm sure (I hope?) that he would never actually support Kira.
I don't own Death Note, the Bible, or the math puzzles I adapted from the internets.
Watari was eating a very British breakfast, with bacon and toast alongside the pancakes, though he had made natto gohan and miso soup for Light. It called attention to just how far the three of them had come in the past few months, to what extent the secrecy and formality had slowly dropped away. L and Light listened and ate quietly.
"I suppose it started when I realized that you kids were together, the night we all went to the hospital for the first time. I was horrified, of course, but I did my best not to let it show."
Light saw in his peripheral vision that L flinched, which made Watari pause.
"I don't mean because Light is a man, of course, whatever Roger might have to say on the subject. I've come to quite my own conclusions over the years. I mean, because my son was in love with a mass murderer."
When had Watari started thinking of L as his son, rather than almost his son? And when had L, who had not flinched this time, accepted this designation of Watari as his father?
"I admit, Yagami-kun, that I felt a bit more amenable to you when I found out that you had brain cancer, because it's difficult to hate someone with cancer, and because L and I both thought that the cancer perhaps had something to do with you being Kira. And perhaps it did, but then you really became Kira, and you attacked my son, and you killed Higuchi, and we both saw the tapes that showed your face as you did so. You were remorseless."
Holy shit. They had tapes of the whole time that Light had been Kira with them. He could remember if he wanted. He could watch himself kill. He could watch himself strangle the man he loved. He could see Kira with his own eyes. Did he dare? He felt sick, despite the prochlorperazine he had just taken, and he set his chopsticks down.
"And so I was remorseless in return. I allowed myself to hate you. I doubt that you remember the conversation, but I went to you when I thought L was fast asleep, and I admitted to you that I wished you dead."
Now Watari had set his fork down, looking concerned, and L was the only one still eating, munching steadily on Pocky and maple syrup with a pancake.
"Admitted is perhaps a light word. I was cruel to you, and again all I can do is apologize for my behavior. On the day that you got back from your second oncologist appointment, you and L were discussing the Bible, asking each other which was your favorite part."
Had they really asked each other that? Who could have brought that up? What could Light possibly have answered? It was an important religious and historical document, of course, but people didn't have favorite parts of it. That would be ridiculous.
"Your conversation made me feel guilty about not having an immediate answer to the question, and about not having gone to church in so long. I went looking for my rosary in the middle of the night, while it was L's shift and I was supposed to be sleeping, but I couldn't find it, and I couldn't remember the last time I had used it anyways. I found a Bible eventually, something I had picked up in a hotel somewhere, perhaps, though it was the New International Version, so perhaps not. Regardless, I was flipping through, a bit aimlessly, familiarizing myself with the order of the books again, when I heard a voice saying, 'Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?'"
L's eyes had gone very wide, not because Watari had shifted into English to quote this voice, but because Watari was hearing voices period. Light could just imagine what L was thinking. Schizophrenia. Twenty two percent. No, twenty four. But Light had researched schizophrenia before, and Watari didn't seem to have schizophrenia. In fact, his mental health seemed better than ever. Light was sure that L would be on an online symptom checker before long, just like he had done with the cancer, but he wasn't so sure that L would end up finding anything.
"That was what God said to Paul in the book of Acts—"
"I know," L murmured, surprising them both.
"Well, yes. I don't mean to imply that I think I'm Paul, or that I think I'm being called to be the next great leader of the church, though the pope could certainly use a whack upside the head, if you ask me. It was just a shock to be compared to someone responsible for killing and imprisoning every early Christian he could find. I didn't understand, and quite frankly I was offended at the suggestion. I even said so out loud, feeling quite silly all the while, if you must know. But there were no more voices. Still, I was feeling guilty and unsettled, so I looked down to where I had stopped flipping, and I decided that it was as good a place as any to start reading. I started right there in Romans 12 and I made it all the way to the end of the chapter. Do you know what it said?"
Watari looked at them expectantly, as if he actually wanted an answer, but L was still slurping up his maple syrup, so Light ventured, "Thou…shalt not…murder?"
Watari shook his head. "It said, 'Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment.' It said, 'Be devoted to one another in love.' It said, 'Practice hospitality.' It said, 'Do not repay anyone evil for evil.' It said, 'You, then, why do you judge your brother or sister?' I must have read these five chapters dozens of times since then. Every time I read these words, it's like I read them with fresh eyes, and a fresh heart." Impossibly, he set a careful, wizened hand over Light's. "Yagami-kun, you are a brother to me. You are a son to me. I will do everything I can to show Christ's overwhelming love for you, and I will apologize every time I fail miserably to do so."
"What about the weeping?" L's voice was hard, though it was a bit difficult to take him seriously when he was in the middle of licking his plate clean.
"The weeping?"
"You were weeping," L said into his plate. He lifted his head, a sticky spot of maple syrup on his nose. "You were weeping, and you were singing a hymn."
Watari went red, but he said, "So I was."
"Well?" L demanded.
"What can I say? I was…overwhelmed."
"How so?"
Understandably, Watari looked uncomfortable to discuss his tears like this, but he powered through, looking down at his plate. "I felt…the love of God. I felt the presence of the Holy Spirit. I felt the weight of all my mistakes, and I felt the glorious relief of forgiveness through Jesus' work on the cross."
L looked unconvinced.
"I told you that you were overreacting, and that you wouldn't believe me."
"Excuse me for doubting your sudden conversion, when I had been under the impression that you had been Christian from the womb."
Watari looked contemplative. "I don't know whether my faith was genuine in the past. I certainly didn't act like it, but who can know for sure? I'm only glad I can spend the rest of my life truly knowing the Lord."
Light was suddenly struck by how old Watari was, and how he would inevitably die one day, likely when L was still relatively young, in the next decade or two, perhaps. L would be alone. What would he do then?
L peeked over at Light questioningly. He was wondering whether Light believed it, or whether he thought Watari was hiding something else. Light was skeptical to be sure, but Watari seemed like he was being honest about it all, and now that shinigami were real, who knew what else could be out there? L saw something like this answer in Light's face, and he looked peeved. He shook his empty box of Pocky at Watari meaningfully.
"Are you sure you don't want any fruit?"
"Quite. Light tells me that I need to gain weight."
"I just said that you looked like you were losing fat andmuscle," Light clarified, not wanting to sound like he was some asshole criticizing his boyfriend's appearance. "I wanted to make sure you weren't starving. I'm sure you can eat fruit and still gain weight."
L shook the Pocky box thoughtfully. "I suppose," he said slowly, "I could have some strawberries."
Watari's hand, which was still on Light's, gave a little squeeze, perhaps a thankful one. "Coming right up."
Light had been standing with his hand on the doorknob for nearly half an hour. This was almost worse than being stuck when trying to go to the bathroom.
L was somewhere on the other end of the door separating their bedrooms, perhaps working on a case, perhaps doing some obscure research, perhaps showered, perhaps still in the clothes from that day. But definitely cuddly. Yes, there were almost certainly cuddles waiting for Light on the other side of that door.
It felt silly to think like that, but Kira had been in his brain for so long that it also felt nice to think things that Kira would never think. Detoxing. Like pouring lavender laundry detergent into his ears.
Light was so busy imagining lavender laundry detergent swirling around his cancerous brain that he didn't even hear the footsteps until they were already at the door, followed by a deep breath, and then hesitant knocking.
"Yes?" Light said immediately, betraying that he had already been waiting at the door.
"Oh," L said, startled. "Good evening, Light-kun."
"Good evening."
There was a moment of awkward silence, and then L asked, "Can I come in?"
"Can I come in?"
The silence happened again, and then L said, "Of course."
It still took Light a few seconds to work up the courage to actually unlock the door, but it was worth it seeing L standing there in his pajamas, which were Light's favorite set of them: a white tee shirt and blue pajama bottoms, both of which were ridiculously soft. L knew how much Light liked them, which maybe was why he had been prompted to buy so many soft clothes as a pick-me-up for Light the other day. But something was different today. Light always liked how L looked in pajamas, but this time—
"Your hair."
"Hm?"
"It's not wet."
L shrugged. "I took a shower early, so it would be dry for you. I know you hate when the bed gets wet."
That fucking cutie.
Light attacked him, if you could call it that, because L responded so consensually that he almost lifted Light off the ground. They didn't tear each other's pajamas off, partly because they both quite liked each other's pajamas, and partly because L had somehow picked up on Light's cuddly, lavender laundry detergent mood, and he was responding in kind. They ended up scavenging all the pillows they could find on the floor to make a pillow tent on L's bed, inside of which they curled close and gave one another math puzzles to solve.
"A restaurant sells sushi in boxes of six, nine, and twenty. What is the largest amount of sushi that you cannot order from this restaurant?"
"A criminal is trying to sneak a prisoner out of jail. The jail is surrounded by a square moat that is ten meters wide, from bank to bank. The criminal can only find two planks that are nine meters long each, but he manages to cross the moat regardless. How?"
Sometimes the math was too complicated to be done without paper, and the riddle had to be explained with the algebra waved over, and sometimes the riddle was mathematically unsound or physically improbable, and they got to tear the riddle to pieces. Eventually, it started getting late in the night, and the ratio of speech to silence grew smaller and smaller, until L said that he couldn't think of any more riddles.
"I have one last one," Light said, brushing through L's bangs with his fingertips. "It's an easy one. Straight algebra. Nine X minus seven I is greater than three times quantity three X minus seven U. Solve for I."
L did the algebra out loud, slowly, and answered, uncomprehending, "I is less than three U?"
"Yes."
"Yes?"
"Well, write it out."
L scrawled it lazily into the air above their heads, and he only had to get to the three before he started smirking. He turned and pressed closer, kissing, and then murmuring, "I is less than three U too."
"I hope you mean you too, and not U2."
They fell asleep in each other's arms, and they woke up in Light's screams.
Light had good days, and he had bad days. At first, the ratio of good days to bad days was increasing. L let him take over as Deneuve, pulling back to focus on Eraldo Coil, whose last case had been the Yotsuba one. Watari didn't even protest, seeming to genuinely trust Light not to abuse the responsibility he was being given. Light really was free. There were times when he would ask L a clarifying question, repeat the question upon not gaining an answer, and finally look up, irritated, only to find that L was not in the room at all. The realization would come with a stab of loneliness, but then he would take a deep breath, write down the question to ask L later, and continue working. He wouldn't have the luxury of health and autonomy for long, and he didn't intend to let himself waste it.
The mental stimulation of being a detective was a glorious rush after spending so long in prison. And, yes, the cases were heavy, filled to the brim with death and treachery and corruption, but what could be worse than the Kira case? That's what he thought at first, at least.
It turned out that the Kira case was disturbing in terms of quantity, but not in terms of quality. Kira was clean, killing with heart attacks most of the time, only otherwise if he was experimenting or being sneaky. Heart attacks were clean. People exploded from the inside, without leaving behind anything but the tears of their loved ones. And even these tears were sparse, because it was criminals that were dying. Kira was not a public figure who could lie, cheat, or steal. He could be said to be wrong, but he could not be said to be selfish. He did not degrade women or minorities. He was not fabulously wealthy. In some ways, the Kira case was overwhelmingly terrible. But in other ways, the Kira case was the clear, fresh surface of the vast ocean of crime.
He told L that he loved the work he was doing, but L could see that it was taking its toll on him. When Light had finished solving the two most pressing of Deneuve's cases, L suggested that they go for a vacation. No work. No real world. Even no Watari, if he wanted. And he could choose the location, of course. But Light could hardly imagine having so much time to sit uninterrupted in his own head. Just when he had thought that Kira had taught him all he could about know human cruelty—his own cruelty—he discovered that he had a lifetime of learning ahead of him, and this new flood of information was swirling through his brain like raw sewage. He doubted that even a week of lavender laundry detergent would be enough to get it out.
Besides, it was only a matter of time before Light would look at the tapes.
It took more than a bit of digging, but he found the files eventually. There was an obscene amount of information, and he didn't know where to start. He eventually picked the tail end of October, because he couldn't remember the exact date, but he knew he must have become Kira again somewhere around there. The 29th was when the prison footage started, so he worked his way back from then. There he was, in the evening, sitting in his cell, perched at the edge of the bed, staring at the floor. No, not perched. Rooted. Like a boulder. Like a statue. Like a thousand kilogram missile. Why was his mouth curving like that? Light shuddered, and rewound the tape. He had been sitting in that same position with that same awful curve to his mouth for the past two hours, ever since he had pulled himself off the ground. Why had he been on the grou—? Oh.
"FUCK." The laptop shuddered with the force of the speakers, and Light scrabbled to turn the volume down. "FUCKING HELL."
"Light?"
Dammit. L had heard. Light knew he should have scavenged for some headphones. He paused the recording, just as he saw himself digging his fingernails into the ground. His face was contorted. He hadn't even known the muscles around a human being's mouth could move like that.
L was knocking at the door. He had already tried the handle, which was locked, and he didn't bother trying it again. "Light-kun, what's going on in there?"
"I'm watching—" TV, Light had meant to finish, but he couldn't focus enough to lie. All he could hear was the echo of his screams rattling around in his skull: fuckfuckinghellfuckfuckinghellfuckfuckinghellfuckfuckinghellfuckfuck—
There was a sigh on the other side of the door, and it was almost louder than the echoing screams. "Light-kun, please let me in. I'm not angry with you for watching it. It doesn't even have to be a secret. You have just as much of a right to the recordings as we do. Just, please, let me in. I don't want you to watch it alone."
Light considered for a few moments, and then said, "I don't want you to watch me watching it."
"I won't watch you. I'll watch with you."
"I don't want to watch it knowing that you're watching too."
"Why? Because it will make you feel guiltier?"
Light compressed his mouth, and looked at his expression on the screen. He wished desperately for the resolution to be grainier.
"Isn't the only reason you're doing this to make yourself feel guiltier?"
"No."
"No?"
"I'm watching because I want to remember."
"You won't remember. That's not how the memories work, and you know it. All you'll be doing is forming new memories."
"It was me back there, and I want to know what I did."
"I'll tell you then. But there's no need for you to experience it. I think I've experienced it quite enough for the both of us."
Light was quiet, the mouse hovering over the play button.
"Light?"
"At least let me watch what I did to you."
"I'm not letting or not letting you do anything. You can make your own decisions. I'm just giving you advice because I love you."
Light stopped responding, and eventually L stopped speaking. Light couldn't be sure whether L had gone back to his bed though, or whether he was still waiting by the door.
Light waited five minutes, and then he muted the laptop, and watched his meltdown all the way through. It was like watching a horror movie. He watched it two more times. Then he rewound to where he was put into the cell, to where he was handcuffed, to where he was getting dressed, to where he emerged from the bathroom in a towel with a naked L, to where he sat crumpled on the bathroom floor in the middle of a conversation, to where— Oh.
It was indescribably worse than he could have imagined. After that first second, after he saw the look in his eyes when he jackknifed his arm up, snagging L's foot in the chain, he knew he had seen enough. He knew had seen more than enough, a thousand times over. But he couldn't stop watching. And it couldn't stop getting worse. The look in his eyes burned brighter and brighter. The panic in L's eyes grew wider and wider. The metal in L's skin cut deeper and deeper. Then L gagged, visibly, terribly, and Light's mouth curved, upwards, terribly, and he muttered something, and Light threw the laptop across the room, hard, where it crashed and clattered and closed and stayed altogether in one piece.
Light's hands shook, and he was pretty sure he would never stop being nauseous, no matter how much prochlorperazine he took.
Goddammit. He was a fucking idiot. He was never going to be able to sleep properly again.
The ratio of good days to bad days was decreasing.
"Why won't you touch me anymore?"
L was snuggled into Light's side as he asked this, so Light wasn't entirely sure what L could possibly be talking about.
"Actively, I mean," L said. "You don't mind if I touch you, and you'll touch me if I ask you to, but you never initiate contact anymore. Not since—"
L didn't finish, and Light didn't need him to.
"Is that why?" L asked in a small voice. "Is it because you watched it?"
Light exhaled, slowly, shakily. "I don't want to hurt you. It makes me sick to think of hurting you, even a little bit. I never want to touch you like that again, against your will, not even once. I— Well, I didn't realize that was the impression I was giving you. I thought I was just being more cautious. I'm sorry if I've been inattentive, or ungenerous."
"So, it is because you watched it?"
"Yes, of course."
"So, it isn't—"
Light waited. "Hm?"
"It…isn't…" L said slowly, quietly, barely more than a breath, "because…you…find…me…unattractive?"
Light frowned. "What?"
L ducked his head, and spoke more quickly, and even more quietly. "If I've been eating too much, or too little, you know you can—"
"Shut the actual fuck up." Light struggled into a sitting position, dislodging L from his chest. L lay propped up on his elbow, with his head down. "Do you know how much of an asshole you're making me sound like? Do you actually think I would stop loving you if you dropped or gained a dozen kilograms?"
"I don't think you would stop loving me," L said, still not looking up. "But if you were dissatisfied, physically, I mean, it would be understandable. We both know you were out of my league, physically, to begin with."
"I can't believe this is happening," Light declared, first to the ceiling, and then again, to L, "I can't believe this is happening. You had better just be looking for compliments, because otherwise I'm going to have to demote you down to Deneuve cases only, because your deductive reasoning is slipping."
"Don't tease, Light-kun. I'm being serious."
"I can't believe you think so badly of my boyfriend."
"Light-kun. Please."
Light sighed and fell back into the pillows, crossing his arms over his chest. "Fine. First of all, I'm upset with the people around you for giving you the impression that you're somehow in some unattractive league."
"It's true."
"Stop it. Why are you doing this?"
"My hair is a disaster, but keeping it long is the only way that it feels comfortable. I feel twitchy for weeks after Watari gives me a trim." L said it like an apology and a defense, and Light was surprised by how much he cared. He had always thought that L kept his long for that very reason, because he didn't care what anyone else thought, not because he actively wanted to keep it that way.
"I love your hair. You know how much I play with it. It wouldn't kill you to comb it more often, but I wouldn't mind doing that if you asked me. I get the feeling it would bother you though, to have someone else comb your hair."
"I like when you wash my hair."
"I know. But that's different."
"Hm." L thought for a moment. "So, my hair doesn't bother you?"
"No. As long as it's clean, I love it."
"But I'm scrawny, and I have terrible posture."
"You're a real athlete underneath it all, and you know it. I don't care how much you weigh. I just want you to be healthy. And you do have terrible posture, but I've seen you stand up straight, so I know you can still do it, if you wanted to. You still have time to work on it before you're an old man stuck like that."
"So, you don't mind my body?"
"Mmm, I love it."
"Dark circles?"
"Side effect of the insomnia, which is a side effect of the nightmares, which are bad, but the dark circles themselves are perfectly fine."
"Clothes?"
"They're plain, and I would love to get you in a suit one day, but you're comfortable in them, and I don't mind as long as they're not dirty. Really, you're quite an attractive human being, and the only things that concern me about your appearance are the things that suggest that you aren't as healthy or clean as you should be."
L thought about this for a while longer, and then he said, "Do you think we would ever have been together if not for the brain cancer?"
These were memories that Light remembered quite well, and he thought through the sequence of events that led to that first kiss with L. "The brain cancer certainly helped bring us closer, which made me comfortable with joking around with you with the blow dryer. But it was when I landed on you, and you had your hair all fanned around your face, and your cheeks were red with laughing, and you were breathing hard… You were so human, not just L the impossible detective, and I was sitting on you. Something clicked." He remembered a little while longer, and then said, "We would have gotten together eventually. It was always just a matter of time."
L absorbed this answer, and then he admitted, "That wasn't exactly what I meant."
"Hm? What did you mean then?"
"Do you think," L asked, very slowly, "that the brain cancer lowered your inhibitions?"
Light frowned, confused. "You mean, the swearing?"
"And—" L ducked his head, and Light understood.
"Oh." He frowned deeper. "You're wondering whether I would ever have let myself fall in love with you if not for the brain cancer."
"Mhm."
"I… I'm not sure. I think I would have, eventually. Though I might have overthought it when you kissed me. I might have been worried about what my father would think. I might have been worried about my reputation. I don't think I ever would have made the first move. I wouldn't have thought you would ever be interested in something like that with me. But, now that I am in love with you, I know that nothing could change my mind."
"Do you think," L asked again, "that you would have become Kira if not for the brain cancer?"
The thought settled like bile on the back of Light's tongue, caustic and bitter. Eventually, he said, "I think that with Kira and with you, it was only a matter of time. The parts that I hate about myself were inevitably drawn to being Kira, and the parts that I love about myself were inevitably drawn to you. But both were also choices that I made. I chose to be Kira, and then one day I chose to not be Kira. I chose to love you, and I every day I choose to love you again. The parts of myself that I love have won out over the parts of myself that I hate, for now, but if the scenario was played out over and over again, I'm not convinced that the winner would be the same each time."
They were both quiet, and somber, and afraid. L shivered, and Light reached out to hold him tight.
"I love you," he said. "You've had trouble believing that in the past, but do you believe it now?"
"I don't know," L said. "I hope so. I'm doing my best."
A month had passed. In the last week, there had been two good days, and five bad ones.
He seized.
It had been a long time since the last one, and it was like in all that time, the neurons in his brain had been storing up energy for one massive misfire. It still wasn't a motor seizure, thank God, but it was a long one. He was hit by the wave of déjà vu while sitting at his computer, flipping through pictures from a murder scene, which triggered all sorts of awful Kira feelings, as if the seizure by itself wasn't bad enough. He couldn't speak at all for fifteen straight minutes, and when he finally could, the words were broken apart by sobs.
L called for Watari, of course, but there was very little either of them could do. L held his left hand, and Watari held his right one.
One to two good months, his oncologist had said. Was this the end of the good months? Did he only have four months left to live? Or, if he was going downhill faster than expected, did he only have two months?
"I don't want to die," he said, as if just realizing it for the first time. "It's not fair."
They were silent for a long time. Then, L glanced over at Watari, who nodded. "Light-kun, I have an idea."