notes/warnings
+ swearing.
+ grief, and the aftermath of death.
+ some violence.
Here
L walks like he's on his way to the gallows; shoulders hunched high, eye fixed firmly on the floor. He doesn't seem to notice Rae at all, and he certainly doesn't notice when Rae is suddenly yanked into a nearby broom closet.
"Hi," Ryuk chirps. "Please don't hit me again."
Rae glares at the other Shinigami, torn between disbelief and raging dislike.
You.
You have some nerve, showing up here, after everything you've done.
After everything you've done to him!
Right now, Rae loathes Ryuk with every fibre of its being. But Ryuk has a very useful habit of accidentally revealing important information, and Rae is good at pretending that everything is fine.
"I won't hit you," it replies, with false and vivid cheer. "Why are you here?"
When I am king, you will pay.
You'll pay, and pay, and pay. Just like all the other bad people. Just like everyone who ever hurt him.
Wait, what?
No, it's okay. It's okay for that to be a priority. L is a good person.
No!
L can't be a good person, because.
That would mean.
Cannot ever have been wrong.
Cannot.
Ever.
Wrong.
Don't look.
No. No, that wasn't the way it was. Rae hasn't been thinking straight. Rem killed L. Rem killed L all on her own, to save her precious Misa.
Of course.
Rae is okay. Everything still makes perfect sense. Everything is fine.
"Mostly, I just came to say goodbye," Ryuk says, with a shrug. "I won't be around here much any more."
"Good," Rae replies, emphatically, and Ryuk seems to crumple a little.
"Look," Ryuk whispers, drawing repulsively closer. "Listen to me. There are other things going on. You need to be careful."
"What do you mean, 'other things'?" Rae queries irritably. "How is that meant to be at all helpful?"
Everyone is so paranoid. It's ridiculous.
Things will be better, soon. When L writes in the notebook. When I am king.
"Look, I can't tell you," Ryuk says, wretchedly. "Just…know this: the brown eyes won't stop you from ascending the throne. No matter what anyone says. More importantly, pay attention to what is going on around you. Pay attention to L. Think about things."
Ridiculous.
"Everything is under control," Rae says, dismissively. "You may leave."
"That's what you thought last time," Ryuk ventures. "But last time, things didn't work out so well for you. Don't you remember?"
"Things worked out just fine," Rae says, sweetly. "I'm here, aren't I?"
"Yes, but…"
"And you clearly have places to be," Rae continues. "I'll see you around."
"Right," Ryuk says. "Er. Right. Bye."
He disappears just as quickly as he arrived, and Rae immediately goes looking for L.
It has more important things to tend to.
L can feel it coming, rising in his throat like bile. He can feel the anguish and the emptiness. The absence and loss. All of the things that Naomi used to do, wanted to do, should have done.
Gone.
His fault.
His fault.
The plush bedroom carpet feels alien and bizarre underneath L's feet, and he loses his balance slowly and sinks to his knees. He wants to claw his brain out of his skull, so that he might make this stop.
Guilt. Melancholy. Shame.
The emotions roar through his mind, screaming, steamrolling everything else. He is nothing. He is small. He is useless. He did this. He can still feel the weight, the circle of steel around his right wrist, weighing him down, counting out his last days, mocking him.
Somewhere, out there, Light still exists. Maybe Light can even see him, right now.
And maybe L deserves that.
He cannot breathe. He can't move. Naomi and Raye should have had children. They should have had a long and happy life together. He should have protected what they had. He should have defended them. He should never have let Naomi get involved with the Takada case.
He should have gone to Roper's house.
He was selfish. And with his selfishness, he bought Naomi's death. Raye ought to hate him. Everyone ought to hate him.
And Naomi will never come. Naomi won't be there to bring him in, out of the rain. Naomi will never tell him to calm down. Because Naomi can't.
L might never reach her again. He might never reach any of them. And he's so tired and so angry. And it's raining - barely, mist drizzling out of the sky - but he's rooted to the spot. Too weary to even punish himself properly.
L hears the door lock into place, and he manages to turn his head just enough to see his Shinigami standing behind him.
Go away, he thinks. But he can't even. He can't even talk. Rae doesn't matter. Nothing matters. Except this: he failed Naomi, and he failed everyone. He is a filthy, pathetic human being, and he doesn't deserve anything.
"L? What are you doing."
Rae's voice is just noise. The wind rattling the windows. The siren-pitched screaming inside his head. The bells, tolling over and over.
I am a monster.
I am a monster.
Everything is broken.
No one was saved.
I AM A MONSTER I AM!
L sees Rae push the hair from his face, but he barely registers the touch. His senses have become dulled. He is imploding on himself, and he deserves it.
Leave me alone. Don't look at me.
"It wasn't your fault," Rae says.
Rae is usually so intelligent, but today it is completely wrong. All his fault. He called all of the shots, and he called them wrong. And now Naomi is stolen from them, dead before her time, vanished into some other world.
L won't see her. L will go to hell. He'll burn in hell for this. Light will laugh at him forever.
"Are you just going to kneel there and shake? You aren't even crouching. Come on, this is ridiculous. You can't jungh. Ngh. Mnghngh."
Rae's voice is becoming gibberish, too. The inside of L's head aches. There are no distractions up here. There is nothing.
He didn't save a single person. He deserves this.
Eventually, Raye gets up and drags himself to his room, mostly to be free from Watari's scrutinising stare.
He yanks the cover back and clambers into his bed. There is still a well-worn divot next to him, where Naomi always used to sleep.
Raye wonders if their child would have looked like her. Would have had her eyes, and her blunt fringe, and her steady hand. He wonders if it would have been strong like her.
Gone.
Raye stuffs his fist into his mouth, and screams until his voice gives out.
Half an hour passes, and L still doesn't move. Doesn't even seem to be able to recognise Rae.
"Okay, that's enough," Rae informs him. "This is counter-productive. You need to sleep."
L gives no response at all. His whole body is trembling terribly, but other than that he seems to be wholly entrenched, hypnotized by his own sadness.
Rae grabs him by the shoulder and pushes him off balance. L hits the floor with a wince-inducing thump, and stays there.
And still, he does not speak.
"Cut it out!" Rae says, angrily. "This is ridiculous."
L's hands are curled into loose fists. His face is fixed into an empty, vacant expression. It's almost like he's…
He's not dead. He's fine. He's fucking breathing, whatever other reflexes might be dulled. He's fine.
He's alive.
L's life should never, ever have become important.
"Don't you ignore me," Rae tells him, coldly, leaning over him. "Fucking listen. Get up!"
And Rae might as well be mumbling quietly in the corner, for all that L seems to notice.
You're not dead.
Stop pretending to be dead.
Fuck you!
"LISTEN TO ME, YOU LITTLE FREAK!" Rae yells, right in L's ear.
L doesn't even blink.
Rae picks him up in one smooth movement, and throws him against the wall. Hard enough to bruise. Hard enough to leave a perceptible dent in the plaster. Hard enough to really, really hurt.
L doesn't so much as blink. He doesn't even seem to be processing. He sucks in breath after wretched breath, as if on autopilot.
"Fuck you," Rae says, venomously. "You're beyond repair."
And then, the Shinigami turns and walks away. Better to end this before it begins.
I don't want someone who's broken inside.
I deserve so much better than that.
L feels like he's drowning. Like he's being swallowed up in a sea of Naomi and wasted potential and a child he'll never meet.
My fault.
The ceiling is blurry, and the contents of his room are almost impossible to make out. His back aches where he connected with the wall. And yet the sensation is detached and remote, like he's just reading about it in a book. Like his mind has been cut free and suspended, so that he might steep in his own unforgivable shortcomings forever.
And Rae. Rae hurts him, and then Rae leaves.
He doesn't deserve anything. He doesn't deserve any of the people around him. He doesn't deserve this luxurious carpet, or his enormous bed, or the money he's earned. He doesn't deserve to eat, or sleep, or feel.
This is good and right.
Don't go.
He doesn't. He doesn't want to.
L is freezing cold. He might never be able to move again. His breathing is stuttered and noisy. Rae hates him.
That is right and good.
But he's so alone, in here. He replays Raye's earlier accusations over and over, amplified a thousand times in L's fevered mind. L imagines forcing himself to go to Roper's house. He imagines himself dying to save Naomi, before it became too late.
The only good thing he could have done.
I am revolting.
Don't go.
It doesn't matter. He is damaged. He is worthless. Rae might as well leave, because he will never be able to give it what it wants. He will stay this way forever, because he should.
Right and good.
Eventually, he'll find the other end of the chain. Eventually, Light will come for him. Eventually. Rae will be long gone. Might have already left. L can't see. He's not sure if he's on the floor or the wall or the ceiling. He's not sure where the rest of his body is.
Maybe he's already dead.
Maybe he's in hell for this.
Good.
Rae.
He's not worthy of the life he wanted. And it's only now, when he's barely functional, barely alive, knocked half-dead by sheer force of grief, that he can finally recognise what he wanted. Long afternoons and too much cake and winning, and Rae, his partner, always his partner, always there. Thirty years time, and still not gone. Still not in the Shinigami realm.
He is repulsive to want such things. He is repulsive to want anything at all, after what he has done. He got Naomi killed, and he got Matsuda killed.
And Rae hates him.
Good. Right.
L thinks of how Naomi must have felt, overpowered by the notebook once more. Sick and exhausted and angry and still fighting.
She was amazing.
He killed her.
He…yes, he killed her. He should never have employed her in the first place. He should never have trusted himself to be around people, to care for people and not destroy them.
But he did. Greedy, greedy asshole. He's got no right to judge anybody. He doesn't deserve his own name, the name his mother gave him, the name that became a symbol that became an enigma and filled people with hope.
They ought to see him, now. Fallen from grace, exactly the way Kira did.
That's what he is, isn't it? Pretending to be righteous, just like Light. Killing people, just like Light. There's nothing to choose between them. Light would probably like him, now, if they met again. L is his mirror image.
Naomi died bravely. He wonders if she cursed him, in the confines of her own, possessed mind. He wonders if she will ever know just what he deprived her of. She ought to rage. She ought to punch him in the face.
Good. Right.
He ought to just end his own miserable life. But he can't move.
Rae stands halfway into the hall, so that L's door passes through its midline.
You're not good enough for me.
You're not.
What will happen to you, if I leave you now?
L is still a trophy, even broken. And he still…he likes Rae.
Rae…Rae deserves better. Rae deserves a perfect person, but…
This is just mental illness. It's to be expected. L is weak, and morally ambiguous. He criminalizes Kira along with the world's worst murderers and rapists. He doesn't really understand anything.
Ryuk was wrong. L doesn't have power over anyone at all. People feel obligated to look after him, but he's still pathetic underneath. He's tiny and fragile; no harm to anyone at all. He tries to fight for good, even though he doesn't understand it. He's the sort of person who ought to be protected. And educated.
Rae can have other people. L doesn't need to be its only. But L's face is almost translucent, and his jaw is slack, and he still looks dead.
And Rae goes back to him, because.
L is just a person. And he tries. He does try.
I did it for people like you.
Raye fades in and out of consciousness, disorientated and lost. Naomi haunts his dreams, and her absence punctuates his every waking moment.
He is lonely.
He's lonely, and he wants her. He wants her to come back and hold his hand and pull him through this. He wants to… hell, he wants to mourn the loss of their child with her. Anything but this. He'd take that option in a heartbeat. He'd sacrifice the one thing that represented everything he had ever wanted, just to have her back.
That makes him a terrible person. How can he even think this way? His daughter. His son. Stolen from him, just like Naomi.
He's not a terrible person. He couldn't choose one over the other. He wouldn't. He wouldn't. If he had their child here, he could raise them to understand how wonderful and beautiful and strong Naomi was. He could still build himself a future. He could.
Raye's face is wet, smeared with tears and snot. His eyes feel like they're burning. He keeps trying to force himself to go back to sleep, like maybe if he loses consciousness one more time this will all turn out to be a dream and she'll be here.
What is he supposed to do now? What is he supposed to do? It's pointless leaving, but he cannot bear to be around L for another second. All Raye's ever known is crime and criminals and keeping people safe.
And they've saved so many people, Raye and Naomi. They defended so many lives. So many people owed them.
And where were they, when Naomi died? Sitting in their perfect, normal homes. Sipping tea. Not doing a damned thing, that's for certain.
It's not just L. It's the whole world. The whole world conspired to work Naomi into her grave. Raye hates this place. He wants to die and be dead. He wants an end.
He wants her.
He wants her.
There is no substitute. In the whole wide fucking universe, there is no one like her. He'll never be okay again. He might never even leave this room again. He'll rot here, and that might be enough.
Raye rolls over and stares at the window. The night sky looks exactly the same. Time will pass. And Naomi's loss will go largely unnoticed.
And there's someone sitting on the floor by his fucking bed.
"Have you no decency at all?" Raye rasps, viciously. "What the hell are you doing here?"
"Sitting," Mail replies, primly.
The fucking asswipe.
Rae grabs the nearest solid object he can reach, which turns out to be the alarm clock, and launches it at Mail's head.
"Ouch."
"Go away," Raye yells. "Leave me in peace."
Mail rubs briefly at his temple.
"Nah. Think I'll stay here."
Raye gapes at him. He's never met someone so…so self absorbed. So selfish. So blind to the suffering of others.
A perfect miniature L.
"Do you think this is helping?" he demands. "Do you really think this is useful?"
"It is helping," Mail replies, with utter certainty.
Raye picks up a vase, but his usually-perfect aim fails him and it smashes harmlessly against the vanity.
Harmless. Useless. Helpless.
That's all he is. Useless fucking husband. Letting his sick, pregnant wife take on a serial killer all on her own.
"I hate you," Raye says spitefully. "Get out, or I swear I'll kill you."
He will. Then L will hurt. L will hurt like he hurts, and L will finally get it.
"I lost someone who never loved me back, and who I will, without a doubt, never see again," Mail tells him, almost politely. "The first night, after I realised…L sat with me. Like this. And I lay on my bed and threatened to cut off his head. In gory detail."
"I do not," Raye spits, slowly and deliberately. "Care. About. You!"
"What you're feeling right now, I've lived with every day for the past five fuckin' years," Mail tells him, finally sounding angry. "And I'm telling you, it helps."
"I'm no better off than you!" Raye howls. "I won't ever see her again!"
"Really? You're not going to die so you can be with her?"
Raye doesn't want to face that question. He doesn't want to deal with the one possibility that brings out the worst in him.
"What if there's nothing?" he says, pitifully, staring at his pillow. "What if there's nothing?"
Mail would die if there was even the tiniest chance that he'd get to see the love of his life again. He'd disembowel himself right there, with a fucking chopstick, fuelled only by hope and desperation.
Raye isn't that sort of man. He wants a chance. He wants his chance. He wants his fucking family.
He ought to die. He ought to see her again.
Naomi wouldn't want me to die.
Or is that just an excuse? Isn't he allowed to be scared? He's lost so much. Isn't he allowed?
Mail must be judging him. Mail must think he's selfish. He isn't selfish. Not for this.
Raye pushes his hand along the mattress, and gazes at his wedding ring. Tiny circle of gold. All that remains of what they had.
"How does it help?" he asks, finally. "You being here. I don't feel any better. How does it help?"
Mail sticks an unlit cigarette in his mouth, and rolls it between his lips.
"Stops you from going completely mad," he replies, sagely.
"I'm still here. Come on. Just snap out of it."
L is cold. He's practically the temperature of the floor. He cannot seem to stop trembling, and he cannot seem to move, and he cannot seem to do anything at all. It's as if he's been paralysed completely.
"I'll start force-feeding you vegetables. I'll…I'll torture you again. I'll put you out the fucking window if you don't snap out of it."
Rae has never felt so powerless in all its life.
Abruptly, it wonders if L feels the same way, isolated inside his own mind, unable to successfully commune with his body.
No, no, no, no, no!
Not dead!
Rem.
Almost without thinking, Rae kneels down on the floor and gathers L up into its arms. L's limbs flop around, unresisting and ragdoll-like, but there is still a little rigidity in the curve of his spine. Like he's trying to maintain that infernal squatting position, even while being held.
You can't die.
You're mine.
Do you know that? You're MINE.
It's okay.
Rae jostles L a little, pulling him closer to its chest. The flames lick around his body, bright and harmless, until the two of them almost seem to be part of the same entity. If Rae tips L's chin a little, it almost seems like he's making proper eye contact.
"Fuck you," Rae says, quietly. "Fuck you for everything."
Good. Right.
L is neither of those things. He murdered Naomi, and he murdered her child, and he ruined Raye's entire future – just like he ruined Mello's – and he failed to kill the first Kira and he's an awful, horrible, disgusting, monstrous, ugly, pathetic, stupid…
L realises suddenly that Rae is cradling him. That Rae is still here. His mind stumbles on that revelation, momentarily derailed from its guilt-ridden monologue. Momentary silence.
Oh.
Help me, L thinks, desperately, because he still doesn't feel any better. Please help me.
He feels like he's tumbling, falling numbly through the floor, falling forever with no end in sight. He ought to die. He doesn't want to die. Rae is hanging on to him, but he's still falling, and no one can possibly catch him.
He has no anchor.
I love you, L thinks, because it doesn't matter any more.
He can't be salvaged.
Please help.
"I'm going to start singing at you. You don't want me to start singing, do you?"
Rae sort of feels like it's talking to a child. Or a person in a coma. It wonders if L can hear it at all.
Of course he can. He's fine. He'll be fine.
If Rae cannot beat this out of him, and it cannot reason this out of him, then there's nothing else it can do. It's made him as comfortable as it possibly can. And he still won't. Fucking. Do. Anything.
Impulsively, it wishes it had lips. Like some sort of fairytale-styled saliva exchange might suddenly break L out of this spell.
And whoa, okay. That's really. L is really. It would be good, possibly, to kiss someone who actually meant something. Who Rae actually wanted. Exciting, even. L is exciting. Every single thing that Rae takes from him, gains from him, is like some sort of huge victory.
As feeble and misguided as he is, he belongs to Rae, and so it is right that Rae claims him. Piece by piece. Victory by victory.
And Rae can't remember his lifespan any more. It's pretty sure its wings have gotten smaller. And that is a fucking disaster, but it can wait. Priorities. One disaster at a time.
L's face is very close. Rae might not have a mouth, but L definitely does; thin pale lips, delicate jaw, and Rae is suddenly struck with inspiration.
Since Naomi died, L hasn't touched his mouth. Hasn't allowed himself that crutch, that comfort.
Stupid. This isn't helping her. She's dead. Save yourself.
Rae rests its thumb across L's lips, and L suddenly comes up sputtering and flailing, like he really was dying.
"Hello," Rae says, tentatively. "You all right in there?"
L nods once, then shakes his head once, then regards the ceiling with urgent confusion.
"Help," he chokes. "Help. Stay. Help."
One hand closes around Rae's forearm, keeping his thumb in place. L threads his other arm spastically through Rae's chest, clutching like a terrified child, like he's hanging on for dear life.
"I'm here," Rae says, awkwardly, and L fucking bursts into tears.
It takes one and a half hours for L to exhaust both his lacrimal glands and his remaining stores of energy. And that's fine. He's alive, and he's okay, and Rae holds him. Rae keeps the pressure on his mouth, even though L is kind of drooling and gross.
You're mine. I've done this for you, you're mine.
I can give you what you need.
You don't ever get to leave me.
They stay that way for a few more blessed minutes. L starts sucking on the tip of Rae's thumb, like it's his own, and that's fine, too. Rae listens to the clock tick, and ignores L's fingers moving minutely against its sternum, and everything is okay.
Apparently L falls asleep suddenly when stressed, because he abruptly sags, head lolling backwards, eyes half closed. Rae is overwhelmed with terror and drops him on the floor.
"Don't do that!" it snaps.
It wasn't it wasn't it wasn't it wasn't!
He's fine.
It's not like he'll ever know.
L blinks up at Rae with a bewildered, sad little expression.
"I'm sorry," he mutters. "I'll just…I'll just go and. Um."
Rae scoops him up again. Bridal-style, one arm under his knees and one around his back. It's simpler than arguing with him.
It's good that Rem loves you. She won't be able to kill you again.
Yes.
L doesn't resist, but he doesn't exactly relax, either.
"I'm a terrible person," he huffs, pressing his cheek to Rae's ribs. "How can I ever live with this?"
"You need sleep," Rae informs him.
"But-"
"Shut up, now."
"But you were right," L blathers. "I finally realised that you were right. I am an evil person. You still think I'm an evil person, yes?"
Rae regards L at length. His shirt is riding up, exposing one malnourished-looking hip, his eye is unattractively reddened, and he more or less resembles a corpse.
If you'd just.
If you'd just see reason.
If you'd just…we could have…
"I think you're a tired person," it announces, out loud.
And then it collapses onto the bed, because L is pretty much surgically attached at this point, and it's easier than prising him off.
So you should be. You ought to want me close.
"You want me to sleep?" L asks, carefully.
Rae strokes its thumb over his lower lip.
"Yes."
"Okay," L whispers. "I will try."
tbc
a/n
+ thank you for reading.