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The night Ryuzaki dies, L appears in Light's bed.
In Light's arms are a towel and a pair of pyjama pants, neither of which belong to him. L sits cross-legged in a standard king, hunched over a slim notebook computer which is creasing and no doubt heating the sheets to a fire hazard. The desk is mere inches away. Light had lost the fight for a four-poster with a canopy, which might have granted him some meagre protection from the blue light of L’s ever-on laptop, but it hadn't mattered anyway, because L had soon after migrated to the bed they shared given it had no impact on his horrendous posture anyw
Whose memories are these?
L glances up.
“You can shower first,” he says, zeroing in on his towel and pyjama pants in Light’s hands. “I’ll be a while.”
“I can't find my loungewear.”
“It's in the hamper. You can borrow mine.”
“Thanks,” says Light, and wakes up.
The L in Light's dreams has bags as bad as the real one did. Sometimes they're worse, because for as much as he loves Light, they are not cuffed together, and Light's pleas are of no consequence to L’s stubborn habits.
Ryuzaki’s funeral is a quiet affair known only to the taskforce. It's sincerely pathetic. Nobody outside their little group will know he died; few had really known he lived. Light steps into his skin and takes from him the last of what little he’d had: his legacy. His name. His victory.
L pours him Earl Grey on Sunday mornings and adds just one cube of sugar. Light glazes a roast and makes fondant potatoes out of a cookbook they ordered from abroad.
“Do you have any thoughts on the Kira investigation?” Light manages to ask once. The amount of agency he has during these dreams fluctuates, but the awareness is—more frustratingly—pretty stagnant: it's there, oh yes, but it's there in the way your keys are there when you've dropped them in the drain.
L is driving them to the coast for a day away. He glances over at Light and Light finds his hand on L’s knee.
“That old thing?” L asks.
“Did we solve it?”
“Try to relax, will you?” L says, amused. “We're on vacation.”
Who was it? Who was Kira? Light wakes up.
Every night before he sleeps, Light pictures Ryuzaki's corpse.
It's not hard. Watching him fall from his seat, hearing that spoon clatter, it ranks as one of Light's favourite memories. The feeling of Ryuzaki going limp in his arms, the way his hand slackened as it hit the floor. Seeing that light in his eyes for the first time at the very moment it faded. Feeling the warmth in Ryuzaki’s flesh and knowing the last of it that there ever would be belonged to him. Light relives it again and again with relish. It's the last picture in his mind's eye before he drifts off.
L hands him a sweet potato youkan without looking.
“This is my last one,” he says. “Please have it.”
Light takes it.
“You like them more than I do,” he says.
“Have it anyway,” says L. “Then, please go buy me some more.”
Light keeps expecting blood. Or something. Isn't that the sort of thing that comes with guilt, usually? That must be what this is, right? Some grievous head wound, a blank and leaking eye? At the very least a telltale heart would do.
“Are you okay?” asks L.
“What normally happens when you're feeling guilty about something?”
L finally swivels to eye him. “I already told you that you can have it,” he says. “If you're feeling guilty, just go buy me more right now.”
“That's not what I meant,” says Light. Then: “Is that why you offered it to me? So I'd feel bad and buy you more?”
“Well, we don't have any more, so I'll have to go without until you do,” L says matter-of-factly, so Light goes to Funawa and then he wakes up.
“Ryuk, are ghosts real?”
Ryuk hovers upside down in front of his face. “Light-o,” he says gravely. “That's one dumbass question.”
“I'm just asking,” Light says, a little defensive. “Shinigami are real, so why not ghosts?”
“Why, you being haunted?”
“I don't know,” says Light.
“Actually, me neither,” says Ryuk. “I've never seen one, though. Who knows?”
“Why do I ask you anything,” mutters Light.
Ryuk hovers closer. “Who's the haunter?”
“It's nothing,” says Light. “Just a few strange dreams, that's all it is. I thought I should try and work out if they're being driven by guilt or something else.”
“You’re feeling guilty about killing someone? That's new.”
“Well, I don't know if I am,” says Light. “That's why I asked you.”
“Hey, Light, it's not like it's rare for humans to miss each other or anything,” says Ryuk, so Light politely doesn't hear him.
Sometimes they speak English. Sometimes it's Russian and L smirks at Light’s stilted expression. French, and a little less so. Often it's Japanese. Actually, mostly, it's some non-language of perfect comprehension that they somehow both know, and when Light walks his feet slide, unable to grip the floor any more than he can reality.
Sometimes it's Japanese. Crystal clear Japanese and unmistakable for anything else.
“Raito-kun,” says L. He fixes Light with that familiar single-minded intensity.
They are sideways, Light registers. They're in bed. The sun comes from behind L’s head. Cool fingers stroke his cheek. Not unpleasant. Not dead.
“Aishiteru,” says L.
Light comes to wakefulness choking on his own vomit. He spends the rest of the night lying next to the toilet, periodically retching to the sounds of Ryuk hyuking above him.
“Do you think the eyebags are hereditary to the L name?” asks Matsuda one day.
“What are you talking about?” groans Aizawa.
“Hey, don't get mad! I'm just saying, Light-kun’s been getting darker and darker circles since he took it on, that's all.”
Light touches his undereye. It's tender. “I just haven't been sleeping well,” he says sheepishly. “I guess the stress of the investigation is getting to me.”
“You should take it easy!”
“Some of us could do with less taking it easy,” Aizawa mutters.
Soichiro touches Light's shoulder. “It must be difficult,” he says haltingly. “Carrying Ryuzaki's burden, on top of the fact that you must… miss him.”
Last night, L had cooked Light an omelette with cheese and no sugar. They'd had it by candlelight and Light had teased L about the strange lumps and burnt bits until L had grumbled that he'd never try cooking again if this was the reception he'd get for his trouble. Then Light had gotten up to unveil the black forest cake he'd picked up after work from that trendy new bakery, and L had not appreciated it one bit, correctly recognising it as less of a show of affection and more of a show of ‘up yours’. Then he'd eaten more or less the whole thing with his hands and not spoken to Light at all until Light took him out to the balcony and made him dance with him under the moonlight, holding each other and rocking rhythmlessly back and forth. Then Light had woken up, thrown up again, taken twice the recommended quantity of sleeping medication, and passed out on the floor.
His father is looking sympathetically at him. Light manages to croak out, “Yeah, I do.” It sounds sufficiently like grief to throw off the trail.
“Why are you here?” Light asks, one of the nights when he's cognizant and in control.
L pauses with the spoon halfway to his mouth. It's a stunning tableau of one of Light's favourite and most cinematic moments.
“Don’t you want me here?” he asks. “I can go to a different room.”
“Why would I want you here?” snaps Light. “I killed you. You're dead.”
L puts the rest of the chocolate snack in his mouth and swallows it. His tongue snaps out to catch a bit of fudge on his lip. “Are you dreaming, Light-kun?”
“It's a nightmare,” says Light. His hands are trembling. L’s hand reaches to cover them. “Ryuzaki…”
“It's L. Don't you know my name, Light-kun? You should say it more.”
“You don't sound like you,” says Light. “You're not you. I don't want you.”
“Did you ever want me?” L’s thumb runs little circles across Light's hands. “You're shaking, you know. You should get more sleep.”
Light wakes the moment L’s lips touch his. For a long moment he lies paralysed, sick with the smell of clean linen and soap.
“Are you real?” Light asks the next night.
L continues eating. “Is this a riddle? I think therefore I am, is that it?”
Light swats the salt shaker out of L’s hands, annoyed. “I know that's sugar. You know what the doctor said. You can't fool me.”
“I guess not,” says L fondly, then picks up the godforsaken sugar shaker and goes right back to shaking.
“Are you real ,” Light demands.
L stops eating. “Light-kun,” he says with tenderness. “I thought you were smarter than this. Am I affecting your ability to regulate your emotional response to the situation? You're asking the wrong question.”
“And what's the right question?”
“It doesn't matter whether I'm real,” says L. “The important fact is that you have doubts, which means you have some reason to believe I'm not real. Which would mean I'm some kind of manifestation of yours. Of course, then the natural question is, regardless of whether I'm real, what would the reason be for my creation? That's a much more interesting and pertinent question.”
“I already asked you why you're here.”
“I'm here to eat pudding,” L points out. He eats more pudding. “Besides, how am I supposed to answer that if I'm not real?”
“Do you think—okay, accept the premise for the sake of argument that you can think for yourself.”
“Okay.”
“Do you think you're real?” Light asks.
“I do,” says L. “But of course I would say that, even if I were your figment. Does that really tell you anything?”
“No,” says Light. “But I wanted to hear your thoughts anyway.”
L looks at him affectionately. It's an expression Light would never have been able to imagine when L was real. There's something uncanny in it.
“Wake up,” Light mutters. “Wake up.”
“I'm not asleep,” says L. “You already know that, though.”
Light doesn't jolt awake this time. He comes to slowly with the sun filtering through the window, warmth caressing his outstretched empty hand.
Light sneezes for the fourth time in a minute and Matsuda says, “Hey, someone must be talking about you a lot!”
“Sorry,” says Light. “Must be allergies.” The night before, L had brought him flowers.
The dreams have not abated as time as passed. If anything, they've grown steadily more coherent. Light knows the layout of the apartment he shares with L by heart. So well, in fact, that when he falls out of bed in the middle of the night to stumble gagging to the bathroom, he'll smack into the east wall feeling for a door that isn't there.
There is no one to ask whether L’s preferences in his dreams match his real world counterpart. It doesn't matter. L is a figment; this much must be clear. Some manifestation of something. It isn't beneath Light to concede that part of him misses L, if only because nothing interesting happens without him. But a farmer might miss a pig and still butcher her for lunch. Regret and necessity must coexist.
The relationship his dream self has with L brings him no joy, nor pain. No pangs in his gut, no tugs on his heartstrings. Just sickness and unease like eating too much sugar. Funny, that. L is whole and healthy and doesn't seem to resent or suspect Light at all. Actually, it's a little boring.
Why is he there?
“How do I get rid of you?” Light asks, while L is tying his shoes for him.
L looks up from kneeling. “I suppose you could kick me,” he says offhandedly.
Light looks up too. They're standing on a beach cliff.
L finishes tying the lace but doesn't get up. He shuffles around and stares out at the ocean.
“Doesn't it bother you when I talk like that?” asks Light.
“Not really,” says L. “That's the way you are.”
Light sits next to him. A little awkwardly, L plops his head onto Light's shoulder. L is taller than he is, plus he's squatting while Light is sitting, so the angle is all off and L is contorted like a croissant. He seems perfectly content.
“Do you like this?” Light ventures. “Us?”
“Of course,” says L.
Light waits for L to ask back, but he doesn't. They watch the waves.
L points to something in the distance. “There's a whale breaching over there,” he says. Light looks, but just before his eyes find the spot, he wakes up.
“Ryuk,” says Light. “Are souls real?”
“I dunno,” says Ryuk. “The names humans come up with for stuff don't really mean anything to Shinigami.”
“I suppose that makes sense.”
Ryuk cackles. “You aren't about to ask about soulmates, are you?”
“Maybe,” says Light, annoyed. “I was thinking about those old myths, the ones where humans were originally two people together who got separated. I just can't think of a reason why Ryuzaki is still living in my head.”
“So it's L, huh?”
“Didn't I tell you that? Well, you should have been able to guess.”
“Yeah, I did,” says Ryuk. “I wasn't expecting you to come out and say it, though. So what's he do in there? Throw things? Go woooooo? ”
“Don't watch so many ghost movies. He doesn't do any of that stuff.”
“Then what?”
Kiss him, mostly. They'd kissed a lot last night. Once he'd woken, Light had brushed his teeth until his mouth bled and kept going.
“Nothing you have to concern yourself about,” says Light.
“Hyuk. Hyuk.”
This is going to sound like denial, so it irritates Light to acknowledge it, even to himself. But he'd never had romantic feelings for L when he was alive.
“That's a pity,” says L, lying partly clothed in their shared bed with his head on Light's stomach.
“Why, did you?”
“Not that I'm aware of,” says L carelessly. “I noticed your wording. Have you since developed some?”
“No,” says Light.
“I didn't think so,” says L, nodding with some solemnity. “Domestic life, it's more a matter of going through the motions, isn't it?”
“Have you? Developed feelings, I mean.”
“Does that matter to you?”
“Well, I'd like to know,” says Light.
“I suppose there aren't many curiosities left available to you,” L allows. “There isn't much space in our life together for a more interesting dynamic. A couple who constantly challenges each other wouldn't be able to live peacefully together, so I think it would be dysfunctional.”
“Are you bored of me?”
“It's hard to be bored of you,” says L. “A little bit.”
“Enough to leave me?”
“I don't think I can.”
Light's about to say, In what way? but his alarm goes off. This is probably for the best, but it annoys him, because the dreams never pick up where they left off, so a thousand threads stay loose.
L’s lips, slightly parted in surprise, give way to Soichiro’s frightened face.
“Light!” he shouts again.
Light jerks violently on the couch. He wipes a line of drool from his chin. “What,” he gasps. “What?”
Soichiro sags in relief. “Thank god,” he says tremulously. “We let you sleep, because you seem so exhausted lately. But then you started twitching and shaking and making all sorts of noises. I thought you were having a seizure.”
Light tries to get his bearings. “Your solution in that situation was to shout in my face and shake me? Dad, please.”
Soichiro looks sheepish. “I panicked.” He pushes Light's sweaty hair off his forehead and strokes it twice more for no apparent reason. “Were you having a nightmare?”
“I guess so.” Light held L’s face tenderly in one palm and told him he loved him. In English, then Russian, then French. Then Latin to throw him off. Then that it was true in every language. Then that Light wanted to spend eternity with him. The dream cut before anyone could get down on one knee or keel over or whatever might have happened next.
Light tries to picture Ryuzaki’s corpse and L’s sweet surprised face swims to the fore instead.
Soichiro, frowning, dabs at the sweat with his own handkerchief. “It must have been bad,” he says. “Light, you don't look well. You've been losing weight, and…”
“Sorry,” Light says, swallowing to stop his stomach convulsing. “I’ll just get some water.”
Soichiro hands him a bottle. Light smiles and nods like a good son, cracks it open.
“What were you dreaming about?” Soichiro asks.
I love you , Light whispered.
“I can't remember,” Light says. “Doesn’t matter, right? I'm not a child, so I know it's not real.”
In the most confusing turn yet: Light knows nothing for a while, then shocks awake in L’s arms, crying harder than he can remember ever crying in his life.
“It's alright,” L murmurs. “We're both fine. Do you want the light on?”
“Where,” wheezes Light, “where the fuck am I?”
“In our bedroom. Here, I'll get the light so you can see. Just a nightmare, Light, I'm right here.”
The lamp on their bedside table flicks on. Light registers the familiar furniture. The clock radio reads 4:40am. L is stroking his hair.
“Am I awake?” Light cries stupidly. “Are you real? I feel sick. I'm going to be sick.”
“You're not going to be sick. You're fine. Here, breathe with me.”
Light does. His cheek is on L’s warm chest and it rises and falls. Rises and falls. Remember when it deflated and stayed down? Remember the spoon? The hand falling limp and the fading light? Light is holding that hand, vice-like, and it's squeezing back. Rises and falls. L’s heartbeat is steady in his ear and it's right here in his chest. There are no floorboards in their apartment. Light feels L's lips touch his forehead.
“Why,” Light chokes, “is this. Happening to me?”
“Breathe, Light,” murmurs L. “I'm right here. Right here.”
Light breathes, and wakes a second time.
“Whenever I leave here, I throw up,” says Light.
L looks amused. “Does our relationship disgust you, Light-kun?”
“I’ve been meaning to ask, but why do you still call me -kun? Aren't we… Well, are we married? I can't remember.”
“Two years in spring, yes. I suppose it's a habit. Or… you could say an affectionate nickname.” L doesn't seem fazed that Light seems only now to be discovering the ring on his finger, unsure if it's always been there. He also doesn't seem fazed when Light tries to tug it off and finds it part of his flesh.
“I think I thought about proposing a few times ago,” says Light, disoriented.
“I'm glad you didn't. That would have been awkward. Is it our relationship or leaving it that makes you ill?”
“I don't know. Neither. It's like I'm another me doing all this,” says Light. “I do and say things I never would and it makes me feel dizzy and sick.”
“The incongruity would be disconcerting, I can see that,” L agrees. “Things like what?”
“Loving you,” says Light. “Wearing jeans?”
“Jeans are comfortable. You look nice in them, so I'm glad you wear them.”
“Do I love you?” Light asks.
“It doesn't really matter to me,” says L.
“Do you love me?”
“That doesn't really matter to me, either,” says L.
“What happens when you die?”
L smiles suddenly, a mischievous thing that looks out of place on L’s wide-eyed face. “If I knew, Light-kun, I couldn't tell you, could I? I thought you would be irritated if I told you the answer to a mystery I solved before you.”
“Will I see you there when it's time?”
L mimes zipping his lips, then mimes putting the key in Light's mouth right along with his fingers. They taste like icing sugar.
“Ryuk,” says Light.
“Yaa.”
“What happens when you die?”
Ryuk grins. “When you die? Nothing at all, Light-o. I told you that, remember?”
“I know. But what does it mean? Is it a purgatory between heaven and hell, or do I cease to exist?”
“Aah,” says Ryuk, “you're trying to find out about souls again. I have no idea. I'm alive, you see? So how am I meant to know? You should ask someone who's dead.”
“I tried,” says Light grimly. “He's worse than you are.”
The night before the Yellow Box Warehouse, L is leaning on the sofa with his head against the back. For a moment, Light thinks he's dead.
L opens his eyes to find Light's nose pressed against his. “What's the deal,” he says, sounding annoyed. He takes out an earbud.
“I've never seen you sitting like this. I was worried about you.”
“That's nice of you.” L puts a finger on Light's bottom lip. “I'm listening to music. Want one?” and he holds out his earbud.
Light puts it into his ear. He can't quite pin down the genre, nor what it sounds like. There's a piano in it somewhere.
Light sits next to L.
“Did you solve the mystery?” L asks him.
“No, and I won't. Not for a while.”
“That's good,” L murmurs.
“You're lying.”
“I'm a liar,” says L. “We've been married ten years and you didn't know?”
“It's ten now? Unless that's a lie too.” Light checks his ring. It's fused to him.
“If you find out,” says L, “tell me, if you can.”
“What if it's nothing?”
“It might be,” says L. “Did you ever figure out why I might not be real?”
“No. But I don't think you are.”
“That's a pity,” says L. “I guess I'll die with you, then.”
“That won't happen,” says Light firmly.
“If it does, I love you.”
“Is that a lie again?”
L actually rolls his eyes. “You've lost your touch. You ask me too many questions these days, like you can't figure it out anymore. I think you're done, Light-kun.”
They sit in silence for a minute. Light touches the earbud in his left ear and imagines himself fused to L by the torso, a creature with four legs and four arms and two heads that music flows through as though it were one.
“I'll miss you if you're done, Light,” says L.
“You won't. Because I'll see you again tomorrow night.”
L closes his eyes again.
“Maybe you will,” he says.