Chapter Text
“I have reason to suspect that Light… is Kira,” L announces.
Light feels his stomach drop and tumble, this part wasn’t what he expected, it wasn’t what he was told .
“You’re crazy!” Misa shrieks.
But Light can see that carved line of L’s mouth curl ever so slightly into something that bleeds all too familiar when it comes to the detective getting his way. His fists curl, it’s all madness right now, and for as long as Light had known L this surely has made its new mark as the man’s most immature stunt yet.
“I hate you.”
“Pleasure to see you again as well, Light,” L says smoothly with his shoulder to hip propped against the doorframe. He was always like this— well, at first Light had taken L as the socially awkward and non-confrontational type, but the more one gets to know L, the more this young man is revealed to be oozing all things mischief.
Light should’ve known, he should’ve known it was this old… friend, luring him in on the very case he was already hungry to help solve. Hacking the NPD database is all but a breeze, imagine how much of an idiot he feels like not making the connection—
“It’s Elliot.” He dangles the cellphone between his thumb and forefinger, a weird presentation of his finding. “Advanced Human Biology, seat C-6. And your default lock screen is quite mundane.”
Elliot, the murmurs of a dear ghost coming back to bite like a fresh cut that stings more excitedly than painful.
“Why the hell did you drag me into this?” Light skips over the taunt. Reuniting could’ve been simplified to a run-in and chat over tea, rip off the bandaid and get things over with since he’s finally moved on— of course not something he should ever hope to expect out of L .
L tilts his head, enough to rest against the doorframe as well while he distantly gazes back at Light. He’s shameless.
“I missed you,” the man says and crosses his arms.
“You’re terrible.”
L smiles.
“No, really,” Light insists, he can’t even help his expression twisting in dismay. “You’re going to accuse me of mass murder just for the sake of revisiting those good ol days? ”
It’s quiet here in the hallway, eerily quiet, and clean, yet Light still feels the impression it gives of a hotel building and he’s tempted to cap his anger from instinct of not disturbing other residents. But no one is here, and L doesn’t give a damn, he tugs a lollipop from its wrapper and loudly crumples up that garbage before stuffing it in his pocket. Unaffected by Light's fit.
“Yeah pretty much,” he says with his teeth roving around the sucker, it’s shape juts out his cheek. He talks around the candy. “But think about it, the task force refuses to believe me anyway, and if anything, their effort is going to be spent on proving you’re not Kira. What’s there to worry about?”
“The fact that this isn’t about me to begin with.” Light is furious, he’s spent so much building this life path to serve, to be stable and successful, and L rips it out from under his feet just to stare with candy in his mouth like it’s a goddamn movie.
It’s a long way to redemption now, here with L, the way they separated before were on terms he refuses to remember nowadays. Reality happened, his brain tells him on instinct, vague and hypnotic with the actual truth held at bay, and they knew better than to even entertain the kind of “stay in touch” trap naive teenagers fall into believing. Because next thing he knew, the only relevant person Light ever really had during that part of his life had blasted out of reach once the clutches of high school weren't holding him down.
“It’s not, honestly. But we’ll still solve the case in due time, and your intellect will be especially useful,” L says flippantly.
The attitude takes the cake, it sets Light off and cracks his tolerance to the point he grabs a fistful of L’s shirt, yanks him into the hallway before pushing him to the wall. His own gaze burns into those mocking marble eyes.
“If my name isn’t cleared by the end of this…” he starts, voice low and trembling as L tentatively licks the bit of sugar off the corner of his own lip.
“Thank you for returning it, at least…” Light takes his phone from the boy’s dangling hold on it. “I’m uh, I’m Light by the way.”
Elliot crooks a smile when he stuffs his hand back into his jean pocket. Light has seen this mess of black hair before, and the poor posture, only ever getting a name to it now. But, apparently, there wasn’t the same oblivion on Elliot’s end, because he shrugs and says—
“Yeah, I know.”
L clutches Light’s strained wrist from where he’s pinned. It doesn’t seem like a lie, what comes out of his mouth, but then again the last time Light thought so he never saw his friend again.
“Don’t worry about it.”
He lets go with a harsh fling of L’s arm out of his grasp, his anger soaking into pain and frustration every heart-thundering step he takes on his way to the elevator.
The steel doors shut and that lightning breaks loose, he kicks the wall, devastated by the current mind-toying reality at hand now and his hands come shaking to cover his face twisted in fury.
“God— dammit Elliot!”
L’s next theatrical act is the set of handcuffs that bind them together now. Light “can’t be trusted without supervision”; it oversteps everyone’s boundaries despite only really concerning Light’s personal space. Misa is quick to call L a pervert and his father is just as disapproving in his own more sophisticated way.
But it doesn’t matter now, they’re playing board games after Light’s eyes are rotting on the third day of seeking out clues for the real Kira.
“Can I just say—“
“No. Don’t speak.” Light rolls the dice and moves his game piece.
“Can I just say: a girlfriend now? Really?” L looks at him skeptically from behind his share of cards.
“What’s so wrong with that?”
“Besides the uncharacteristic attraction to women? I wouldn’t have expected you to at least date an idiot.”
Light scoffs. “Uncharacteristic? You don’t get to speak for me. Misa is nice.”
It’s not a mystery where L’s nagging comes from, since the beginning of their shared social life L had always been ruthlessly critical of the people Light had ever hung out with. It wasn’t so much the attitude that struck chords, but the way in which L was always right in some form. Why did the boy always have to dig so deep? Why’d he have to raise so much brutal awareness?
Light has cracked the code since then, and this kind of banter brings back a certain nostalgia.
“If overbearing equates to such, then I suppose…”
“You’re jealous.” Light huffs as he moves his game piece.
L’s demeanor isn’t any different, he still hides behind his bent knees with a hand on the carpet to keep his balance propped. He exhales, shameless as his eyes glaze over the cards, the board, then slithering up Light’s body to meet his stare. “I wouldn’t have to be jealous to speculate the truth.”
Maybe it’d be nice to strike a chord somehow in L, but nowadays he’s so passive and rolls with every punch as if expecting nothing less of their reunion. It’s arrogant, the way they separated and now Light has been dragged back into this game like a pawn for his partner to play with.
I hate him, Light thinks. Because it’s so easy now, to hate, when there’s no explanation to feel otherwise. It isn’t fair, and he realized before that as a teenager, giving doesn’t always mean getting.
Hating L is easy right now because he’s not a person anymore. The detective is just a ghost. Not a classmate, not a companion, not his…
“If that’s the case then I’m sure it’ll be just as easy knowing the circumstances won’t change at your will either.”
Misa is kind, overly so, and reluctantly it’s true she’s obnoxious and overbearing, Light doesn’t need L’s opinion to already see that. The way she plunged into his life uninvited was a whirlwind in itself; it… it almost felt like he didn’t have much of a choice, really. Everyone saw her clinging to him, his mother wanted to meet this girl the yappy neighbors had excitedly come back to report about, gossip of top student Light with a blazing girlfriend was surfacing everywhere on campus to where it was unavoidable, and soon enough he had to just put his foot in his mouth and fake a smile. As long as Misa doesn’t open her own mouth too much, he could manage to uphold this kind of reputation.
Until L came along, trudging onto campus in those plain sulking clothes and having enough audacity to remain level in the face of seeing Light again for the first time in years. He had to suspect Light was Kira— but not only that, Misa was suspected as well, the girl having been detained without L even bothering to meet her in person like with Light.
“But what about yours? You have your own will, yes?”
“Of course I do. Everyone does,” Light snaps. “Just like how you used your own to drag Misa into this too. If you know I’m innocent to begin with, what’s the point in the added non essential weight?”
L plays his turn and takes time to tap his piece around the board, his other hand holding a cup of overly sweetened coffee up to his lips.
Tap.
He sips. The world revolves around him inside that utterly delusional mind, time waits on his behalf, the room is quiet, and his tone is passive.
“If by ‘non essential weight’ you mean your girlfriend, I suppose this is finally my time to say I do, in actuality, believe she is Kira.”
Tick tick tick…
Light is here, his ego beaten to the ground already from bearing the burden of this accusation, all at the hands of someone who left him for nothing at the first chance, and now… now the same person is ready to dig their nails into his life and tear it apart like child’s play again?
Shhhhhwp
The tip of the pen finishes the last of Elliot’s doodle on Light’s otherwise neat page of class notes. They’re huddled shoulder to shoulder at the back table, wrists and hands brushing along each other’s skin and paper. Excuses excuses.
‘Me & Light in <approximately> 5 yrs: partners in crime’
Light can’t help the grin his mouth cracks into at the sight of such a shitty drawing, two smirking stick figures, hand in hand, just vaguely resembling the two of them.
“Approximately,” he murmurs pointedly with a smile. “And crime? Really?”
“What? You think ‘partners in law enforcement’ has a better ring to it?”
It’s getting harder by the day to stifle his snickers.
Light didn’t know why all those pages weighed more in his chest than the love notes from girls that would flutter from his locker. He didn’t know until it was too late.
And all at once it takes over him, this insurmountable surge of rage that has him pouncing forward and thrashing up the board game by its edge, the pieces fly everywhere. But that’s not his target.
“You sick bastard! ” Light shouts as he shoves L to the floor and knocks that taunting cup of coffee out of his grip. Hot tears prickle at his eyes, they taint his vision a burning red fury and it’s so easy holding this man down by the neck when his own is still sore from a noose of heartbreak that should’ve been unraveled by now.
“What makes you think it’s okay to put her life at stake too for this game, huh? You already fucking ruined mine, so why? Why?!”
It feeds this pit in his stomach he didn’t know he still had. A match flicked into a bundled bonfire of baggage where L stole every first from him and made it a last with nothing to spare. Grief, betrayal, anger.
He’s seething, but the world is coming back now in small, horrifying bits…
Light looks down and sees tears welled up in dark grey eyes, wide and rimmed with shock under a flare of black bangs.
“Ggh… gchghh…” L mouth quivers wetly around his alarmed chokes.
And something moves in Light’s peripheral. Something that shakes: a raised silhouette right beside his face, crying in the sunlight that slashes through the blinds of the balcony door ahead. His heartbeat is quickening, Light feels realization set in.
The skin of L’s hand seers a hot pink under the glistening burn of his scorching, spilled coffee.
Drops fall down off limp fingertips, each landing with the sound of a choked cry and as Light turns his gaze back down he immediately reels back from shock at the sight of a dark splattered stain on the man’s shoulder.
“Shit! Oh shit, L, I-I-I didn’t mean—“ Light scrambles, yanking over a useless box of tissues in his failing effort to take it all back.
L is wailing, and the sound brings an onslaught of unpleasant flashbacks of accidents and school fights, yet it’s almost more wretched to endure as someone who’s caused it. Light’s forgotten how even someone like the detective isn’t immune to everyday fragility.
“We need to get out of here. We can’t let it sit for long and—“
Light is on autopilot, his mind putting a plan into place and the train tracks of his thought process slot together, leading him to their mission of solving this situation somehow .
It’s a hassle getting L off the floor to begin with. Light doesn’t know much about burns, just enough from cooking accidents his mother has gotten into, or how Sayu grabs her curling iron by the stick like an idiot. Remove any covering clothing, rinse the affected area…
L doesn’t seem to speak coherently throughout it all, just wails and whimpers, “I need…”, “Ow, no no,” “—hurts it hurts.”
It hurts on Light’s end too. Be careful what you wish for, it reeks in his head. He didn’t want L to be hurt like this but a simmering grudge still wished the pain he bore was served right back on the same platter. Light wasn’t burned by coffee, he was burned by someone he trusted.
It’s not fair, he thinks again. Life isn’t fair.
Because in the end he ends up right back with this man anyway. Maybe not a pawn, but a player, at the end of the day L is still being entertained with a reaction.
“Ryuzaki,” Light tries the alias for attention when the other man is stripped to his boxers and guided to the running shower. Cool water is waiting.
It’s no use.
“L,” Light tries again, but L is immovable, too self aware he knows the seering sting that waits and it’s a miracle in itself they aren’t living up to ‘an eye for an eye’ at this moment.
In high school, there were several times where Light had no clue where L’s mood stood, it’s not like it was something the boy always expressed or probably even bothered keeping track of at all, but the total absentmindedness was unsettling. It wasn’t until finding out about one of L’s buried passions (or, more accurately, hyperfixations), the secret to coaxing the boy out of his bubble was by not doing it at all. One would have to step into it, prod L’s vast knowledge on something he’s waiting to share about.
“Elliot,” Light says, and he tugs harder on the man’s hand this time. He gets a fleeting glance of attention before L stares back at the shower dwelling in his own drying, burning misery. “I… I was watching this sci-fi film a while ago and…” Oh there it is, that little straighten. If L was a cat, his ears would be upright at attention. “What the hell is a tractor beam?”
“A tractor beam is a mythical piece of technology with the purpose of—“
Years later he’s still a fucking nerd. Light tries to turn that into something sour he can chew on in spite but hearing L spiral back into his sci-fi trivia lectures only spurs the old pocketed image of him, a teenager with shaggy, tied back hair, standing in their school uniform with weird chunky colorful pins all down the strap of his bag.
Elliot would do this thing, where in the middle of marathoning all these stupid movies he would explain the logistics to the point Light opted for shoving a pillow in his face just to get him to shut the hell up. And when that didn’t work, pushing jelly beans into his friend’s mouth was the next best thing.
“Did you like the movie?”
Absolutely not, Light would think to himself.
“Yeah, it was pretty good,” he’d say anyway.
I don’t like the movie, I like you.
Light doesn’t know how to feel by the time L has finished talking about the Meissner effect in between chokes of pain from the water they both stand in. L’s stands in front of him, close, damp head on Light’s shoulder while his burned skin and Light’s clothes get soaked.
He feels sick to his stomach. It’s just not right, it shouldn’t take this fast to fall back into place.
He won’t let it happen.
L has to sleep on his side from now on, if ever getting any sleep. The man has always had a sporadic schedule when it comes to this, unyielding to even Light’s efforts. But Light doesn’t care now, he doesn’t care about L’s exhausted eyes or the bandages wrapped snug over his arm and shoulder, how his handcuff-partner types in more stilted movements and the sound of it makes it harder to sleep when guilt dwindles in his stomach.
“So,” Light hears L’s voice croak. Oh great, it’s that, he’s doing the very thing he hates as a last resort. God, just let Light keep pretending to sleep. “How has—“
“Fine.” Light interrupts in the dark while turned away.
“Doesn’t sound like it.”
“Since when has that ever been a problem for you?”
As if L gives a shit. As if five years later his devotion is still anew and what happened before just never did. It’s not that easy. Light has moved on now to a life and career path more fitting than ever.
“Was merely making an observation—“
“Well then keep that shit to yourself as if I don’t obviously know myself more than you do!”
A fucking smart ass. Nothing has ever changed.
L’s typing comes to a stop and all Light really hears is humming— the looming building they find themselves in and all this electricity, air conditioner that has Light drawing the covers tight around himself and over the cold cuff around his wrist, and his own stuttered breathing.
This isn’t fair.
The Task Force barely noticed L’s recent injuries from where they hid under his sleeve, until Matsuda stupidly asked about his bandaged hand.
“Light attacked me and my coffee happened to spill amongst the mess.”
Count on him not to sugarcoat for shit. So much for Light upholding his truthfully innocent reputation, the only people who really considered his frustration were his father and girlfriend. Misa all but gasped and latched onto Light like a lifeline, affirmations spilling from her mouth, so much so Light almost wanted to defend L but no…
“Mmmuah!“
Light’s cheek had turned damp from her kiss, and maybe just to twist the knife into his past, dark eyes glaring their way at that moment, he did nothing but smile with fondness. “Thank you Misa. I knew you’d understand.”
Not that L wasn’t prone to say anything about it. He’s especially keen on the evidence supposedly pointing toward Misa, Light would wonder if it had anything to do with jealousy but L has enough wit past that and after all…
It’s not like he’d care enough to pull off everything on Light’s behalf anyway. Of course, with the exception of accusing him of mass murder. Because that makes so much sense.
“You’re a lot more defensive than I recall, Light,” L murmurs. His monotone drone still gives himself away. It’s been so long, but apparently not long enough.
“I was barely eighteen the last time…” The last time, the last time, the last time he… the last time they ever… it trails off like that the same way he didn’t get any actual closure.
“Exactly, have you not matured at all?”
“Oh you are not about to start this with—“ Light readily flings over the covers to meet this challenge eye to eye.
But L is there, sitting calmly at his side so close as he wears a smug smile at such a reaction to his dull tease. It feels as though the breath has knocked out of Light, he’s seen this look before, only a million times, just before the same thing happens after each one. The detective’s wide dark eyes drop just so…
…in contemplation. They’re soaked head to toe now after Elliot slipped and fell into the creek on the walk back toward home. Light almost caught him— almost, well at least his book bag was saved, right? And so he tossed aside his own to save the boy from the water. His friend looked like a miserable wet cat, and Light’s outstretched arm was shaking from laughter.
In the next second, he was all but yanked in as well. It was an awkward fumble in such cold water but a hot sun glaring through tree branches and into his eyes, reflecting off the water, setting their white uniforms a bright and blistering shade.
They’d shoved and shouted and laughed until his limbs ached and— “Okay we have t…”
And Elliot just looked at him just like that. The boy never smiled much, though when he did Light felt something pluck at a heartstring. His friend was looking at him and soon enough his lips.
Light didn’t have much practice but it was worth the trouble to feel. He thought this kind of thing would be gross, leaving lipstick on his face and a too-petite frame in his arms but this was different. This was messy, an adrenaline rush, his body pressed to another, firm and grounding as their lips dragged and teeth nipped and Light’s back tickled when fingers fluttered up the bare skin there.
“You know—“ Elliot didn’t seem to want words right now, he’d swallow them down every chance. So he keeps the boy’s mouth at bay, their foreheads pressed together and a wet face held in Light’s hands. “If you wanted to kiss me, you could’ve just asked.”
Light would’ve sounded more smug if he wasn’t so out of breath, his friend only backed him near the creek's edge even more.
“I want to kiss you.” Well that was easy. “I wanna kiss you… a lot.”
They did, to the point Light’s hastily unbuttoned uniform shirt was falling off his shoulders, heat flared between their groins, he never made half those sounds before, and the only thing that kept Elliot from ducking down to leave another mark after pushing back that sloppy, splintered wet black hair was the sound of leaves rustling and distant voices approaching.
Elliot— fuck. No— L is here now reaping the same mischief Light rest assured has long since grown up from.
He stops the man, fingers barely making it in time to press against his mouth as a stubborn barrier.
“I have matured,” Light says it sternly with those stupid black eyes boring into his now that this moment has halted. “It’s you who hasn’t grown up already.”
He turns back away and slips under the covers again before the whole reality can get to his head. But it sits there, even after he’s falsely fallen asleep, even after L barely audibly sighs and goes back to slow typing and for once that eye trick didn’t win out in his favor. It doesn’t make sense how after all this time, it still feels so fresh… he can almost feel those rosy sun burns like their first kiss was yesterday.
“Hey Prince Charming,” Elliot greets him at the creek with a smile. It’s their spot now.
Light feels his usual stoic face blend into a smile when he rolls his eyes and takes a seat beside his… he doesn’t know. Best friend, at least.
They kiss once— twice, maybe… four times before he can get a word out. “What does that make you then? My knight in shining armor?”
“I’d be a shitty one.”
“Yeah no kidding.” They both laugh, a rumble of chuckles just between them.
“I’d still be yours though.”
Elliot was so quiet, the words almost didn’t reach Light’s ears over the wind.
It settled pleasantly in his stomach at that young and stupidly naive age. Elliot was his, and he was Elliot’s. They didn’t put any labels past that, not that Light could bother to remember after adamantly suppressing it all.
Maybe that’s why it was so easy for his friend to leave, like none of it ever happened.