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Light had seen stranger things turn up in his bedroom than ghosts, that much was true, but the shock of seeing L once again gave him some pause as he stared at the empty chair in which the dead detective now sat, gnawing at a hangnail on his thumb. As he did in life, he looked unhealthily pale and his darkened eyebags did little to reassure anyone of his health, but what concerned Light, as someone who considered himself relatively familiar with L, was the slight transparency of the man he once knew.
“You are not hallucinating, Light.” L announced, reading Light’s mind, “I am still very much dead, I am sure you are pleased to know.” His tone was typically flat, but there was a bite at the end that he was hardly being subtle in expressing.
“Why have you returned?” Light asked, loosening his tie as he sat on the edge of the bed that he shared with Misa. She had gone out for the night, and Light was looking forward to the few short hours of leisure he was afforded to enjoy on his own. Now, with L’s arrival, any chance that he could take some time to himself was certainly compromised.
“You attract supernatural forces. They bend to your calling.” L tested the ground with a foot, before standing up, his awful posture maintained through his hunched shoulders and arms that didn’t appear to know where they were meant to go. Perhaps Light noted these regularities of L’s character to offset the uncanny nature of his spirit’s presence, but the odd heaviness in his chest alerted him to something he had refused to admit to himself. He missed L.
“What is the afterlife like?” Light surprised himself with this question, bursting out of him like a child who recently discovered death. L smirked at its simplicity.
“There is no afterlife. No pearly gates, no hellfire. It is neutral, empty. It is exceptionally easy to fear, the ability to comprehend such nothingness is far too much for our mortal minds to consider.” Light leaned forward as L approached him, “But once the pain of death has passed, the human mind shuts down, and you are alone as the core essence of what you once were. An energy, if you will. Transferable.”
“So how am I seeing you as you were?”
“That is who I was to you, Light. I am real, and I have come back specifically to haunt you, because you have attracted me, but it is through your gaze in which you perceive me. Try to touch me.”
Light doesn’t hesitate as his hand reaches for L’s, expecting the coolness he had felt during his lifetime without the pressure of a living being pressing back in return. However, when his hand slipped through, not even the gust of a spectral presence sending shockwaves through his body in response, Light found himself struggling to confirm what it meant.
“You really are gone.”
“Correct. You really did kill me, Light.”
Light watched as L reached out and touched his cheek, without feeling his hand there. Light no longer had to hide himself around L anymore, there were no more secrets to be kept from one another. Light felt a bubble of sorrow rise up to his throat, a half formed regret that he had no means to indulge in. L was always going to have to die, there had never been a chance the two could have formed a meaningful relationship, not given the circumstances in which fate brought them together. It was so cruel.
Light would never be able to brush his hand against L’s white cotton t-shirt again. He would never press his face into the dark shadow of hair and smell that artificial strawberry scent that only children’s hygiene products could emit so vividly. He would be unable to discuss the Kira case with anyone who would appreciate his perspective as L had done, unafraid to even challenge him at times. Most importantly, Light would never find himself truly comfortable with anyone else in the same manner he had with L. Yes, he only revealed his true nature to L at the final moment of his life, but he felt as though for that brief instant, he enjoyed a release from his self imposed burdens.
“I miss you.”
“I know you do. Lie down, Light. Imagine that you can feel me next to you.”
Doing so, Light was strangely aware of an unusual warmth that came from beside him. He looked to the ghost who smiled, his round eyes widening so his dark pupils dilated, “Are you comfortable?”
Light nodded.
“Touch yourself for me, Light.”
Light felt his cheeks heat up. The two had been intimate in life, so this was hardly a matter of embarrassment. Yet as he revealed himself, kicking off his khaki trousers and underwear, the reality of his obedience to a man he had killed weeks prior had him feeling a mixture of emotions he could hardly understand. His fingers idly, almost reluctantly, approached his dick as his mind weighed heavy under these feelings he was not at all acquainted with.
L frowned. Light was unaware as to whether ghosts had a tendency to be telepathic, but L’s ability to pick up on the small nuances in people’s behaviour had always been sharp, “Light, look at me. I want you to forget how you are feeling right now. You must contend with the weight of your crimes for the rest of your life, and while I do hope you are punished for it during this lifetime, I want you to focus on yourself at this moment.”
Light was surprised how such a statement resulted in his erection. Cooing encouragingly, L instructed him to stroke it. Light held the base of his cock in his right hand and pulled up and down slowly, biting his lower lip. He hadn’t touched himself in so long, and he felt his body weeping for attention.
L repositioned himself so he crouched on top of Light. Had he been alive, he would have crushed Light under his weight, the way in which he was sitting, but instead Light was confronted by L’s face close up against his as he continued to masturbate, his gestures becoming gradually more fluid as he maintained focus on the other.
L had not been attractive, it had been Light’s initial judgement when he first lay eyes on the man. Yet as their lives became gradually more interwoven, Light became more compelled with the World’s Greatest Detective. The amount he knew of L was far less consequential in comparison to the mysteries of his character that he would now never learn. Those large black eyes no longer felt intimidating and the gentle way in which he said Light’s name grew on him to such an extent that he wanted to hear him say it again.
“Light.” L whispered, so close that Light thought he was going to kiss him, “Light…”
The other whimpered, pressure building up as he remembered how the two of them had lay beneath the covers, their hands traversing the plains of their bodies slowly and deliberately. His fingers pressed against L’s pulse, the sigh of an exhale caressing his face. Signs of life.
“Keep going, you’re so close.” L’s hands appeared to curl around Light’s dick, following the same speed at which Light was moving, getting faster as he relaxed into that loss of control he associated with L. Light shut his eyes tightly, releasing a chorus of moans as he approached his climax. The danger of being too close, too intimate with one another and yet the overwhelming desire to unburden himself of his secrets, his confessions, almost irresistible. He had killed L, and yet he had chosen to return. He accepted him in a way no one else would.
Light came, spilling out over the sheets. Panting, he took a moment to recover before opening his eyes. He was looking directly at the ceiling of the room and, sitting up, he turned his head in both directions.
“Ryuzaki?”
The room was empty, and Light suddenly had a small taste of afterlife in that loneliness.