Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Light had never considered himself to be a sociopath. Sure, he’d had his moments, some twisted thoughts here and there, a few apathetic reactions to things that he knew he should care about, maybe telling more lies than was considered socially acceptable. But still, he’d never really thought about it as a problem until recently.

He'd never had friends, not really. He had classmates who hung around him and girls who clung to him, but he’d never truly felt anything but apathy and perhaps boredom during their interactions. Every word said to him went in one ear and out the other like white noise, although he’d sometimes humor them and engage in conversation just to be polite. It wasn’t as if he was actively looking to avoid people, but nobody matched his intellect or piqued his interest enough for him to care to know them.

So, instead of having friends, Light threw himself into schoolwork and sports. He studied repeatedly and became the best student in Japan and then the junior high tennis champion. Even so,  Light eventually progressed so far above the rest of his class that even that didn’t interest him anymore. He became completely and utterly bored.

Light’s life no longer had a purpose. Yes, he still received empty praise from his parents and teachers, but he had become numb to all of it after a while, hearing the same phrases over and over again. He had multitudes of people to hang out with, and his parents allowed him to do whatever he wanted because they trusted him. Still, nothing managed to fill the all-consuming void of sheer emptiness within his body.

Eventually, feeling bored became feeling nothing at all. Light hadn’t cared very much at first, but soon, the feeling began gnawing at him constantly. It was all he could think about.

One day, however, he discovered a way to fix it. It may have been a rather unconventional way, but still, it worked.

Light woke up to the cold feeling of a tile floor underneath his body, groaning as the bright lighting of the bathroom entered his eyes.

Wait… the bathroom? 

Light sobered up quickly and sighed as he looked down at the floor, a mess of blood pooling around him to form a puddle on the floor.

Fuck.

He’d cut too deep again.

When he’d first started, it’d been a way to relieve numbness, to remind himself he was alive and not 6 feet under in a grave, reliving his 7 minutes of after-death consciousness in an infinite time loop.

Now, he wasn’t exactly sure what the reason was. The word addiction had run through his head multiple times, but he’d pushed the thought out of his brain. It was not an addiction; this method of coping helped him, it didn’t harm him… Well, not irreparably, anyway. 

Ever since the Kira investigation had started, though, he'd grown unsure of his own justification. 

The Kira investigation had been the most interesting thing that Light had ever participated in. 

For once, the constant ache of numbness had subsided and was instead, replaced by a drive for the investigation. He wanted to catch Kira more than he’d ever wanted anything in his entire life. He finally felt truly alive. 

So why was he still inflicting physical harm on himself every night?

To that, he’d made excuse after excuse to himself, eventually twisting it into more of a punishment than a coping mechanism.

You deserve this. Why the hell were you so useless during today’s investigation? It’s your fault that we didn’t find any new evidence or leads. You’re supposed to be one of the smartest in Japan, yet somehow, you’re barely doing better than Matsuda, and he’s an idiot!

Were his thoughts as he’d taken his blade and slashed across his arm over and over again, wildly, instead of in his usual cautious, methodical way.

He couldn’t afford to be slow and careful with it anymore, not while being chained to L. The detective was currently asleep and would likely be for the next 12 hours (at least), but Light still didn’t want to take any chances. Lucky enough, though, the chain had been long enough to extend from L’s tipped-over chair (Light still didn’t understand what the point was but didn’t question it- L was extremely eccentric, and believe it or not, Light had found this to be one of his more tame habits,) to the bathroom, so Light could do it more comfortably without worrying that L would wake up and wonder what the hell he was doing.

However, this time, he’d forgotten to account for the minor issue of his veins . He'd typically cut precisely to where he wouldn’t hit any major arteries or anything like that, making it just enough to cause him pain but not any permanent damage. 

He’d failed to consider the fact that although the cutting part was technically faster, it’d likely take him longer overall to stop the bleeding and hide the evidence anyway. He silently cursed himself as he looked toward his wrist and saw crimson gushing out from an extremely deep cut.

Shit.

He reached for a black towel and began to make somewhat of a tourniquet with it, hoping to staunch the blood flow before he either took too long and someone came in, or he bled out to the point where he needed medical attention and then got questioned by the members of the task force, Watari, or his father. He didn’t want to think about the last one; that would be the worst of all.

He was extremely grateful that when L had decided to handcuff himself to Light, he’d let Watari take the cameras out of the bathroom to give him a slight semblance of privacy. After all, it wasn’t as if anyone particularly enjoyed watching that camera, and if L was in trouble, he could simply tap one button, which he wore on his belt, and Watari would be there immediately. L did inform him, though, that if he did anything suspicious, then the cameras would be reinstated immediately.

After he finished the makeshift tourniquet, he took a moment to thoroughly examine the room.

This is.. not good.

It’d been bad enough the first time he’d looked, with the pool of blood surrounding him. Now, he examined the full damage and saw that somehow, along with almost the entire floor, part of the wall was also covered in blood (likely a result of the vein cut,) and so were the bathtub, toilet, and sink- which thankfully enough, wouldn't be very difficult to clean.

Light attempted to stand up but sat back down immediately, black spots clouding his vision as his body threatened to give out right then and there, resigning himself to just grabbing some paper towels and cleaning supplies from under the cabinet where they were kept and attempting to mop up the blood on the floor.

Dammit, this is going to take a while… 

In his half-lucid state, it took him about an hour to finish cleaning the floor (yikes). He unwrapped the towel from his arm, checking to see if the cut had stopped bleeding yet. He’d been checking about every 15 minutes between cleaning up, and by the last time he’d checked, the bleeding had slowed down. 

He sighed in relief as he uncovered the wound again and saw it had stopped bleeding.

He took some gauze and medical tape and began wrapping up his arm, not wanting the wounds to get infected and for him to have an even bigger problem to deal with. 

It took him considerably longer than it should’ve, as he was delirious from blood loss and also trying to do the job with only one hand, but he finished after about 30 minutes and then began to clean up the rest of the bathroom, washing off his blade and sticking it back into the razor he’d originally taken it from. 

Then, he turned off the light and walked back into the bedroom as calmly as he could. He winced as he looked at the time on the digital clock: 

4:37 AM

He’d been in there for three hours, somehow. He wondered how nobody had gotten suspicious of his absence. After all, there were still security cameras in the bedroom. Did nobody see an issue with the prime suspect of an investigation disappearing for that long?

Oh, wait. 

He remembered. Matsuda had volunteered to watch the security cameras during the night in a futile attempt to help the investigation. Of course, the task force had put up some resistance ("Matsuda, this may not be a good task for you..") but surprisingly (or maybe not,) L had just rolled his eyes and agreed. In all honesty, he probably just wanted Matsuda to shut up, which Light definitely couldn't blame him for; Matsuda's whining could be highly annoying. It wasn't that serious of a task anyway, not for the current moment, at least. If he did make a mistake, they could just never allow him to do it again. If he didn't, well, the rest of the task force would have more time to focus on important things, and the absence of Matsuda would undoubtedly mean fewer interruptions and fooling around and more work.

Besides, for some reason, since L and Light were handcuffed together, L had seemed slightly less suspicious and on guard around him. He wondered why, but he wasn't going to ask and get L to restart questioning him about "being Kira" every 5 minutes.

He probably fell asleep, Matsuda… you idiot. 

This may have been the first time Matsuda’s stupidity had helped Light; even if it wasn’t on purpose, Light silently thanked him. He would’ve almost certainly been caught otherwise.

Wait. 

He swore quietly as he realized that his shirt was most definitely drenched in blood from his recent activities.

What the fuck do I do about this..? I can’t even take off the damn shirt because we’re handcuffed. I would need him to unchain me first, and well, obviously, that’s not going to happen. I can’t cut it off either because even if I did, I wouldn’t be able to put another shirt on, and that would be even worse… he'd also definitely notice even if I did put on a new shirt and check the security cameras and that would just increase my Kira percentage again…

Normally, Light would’ve probably tried to find another solution, but after all of the blood loss and the fact that it was 4 AM, he was incapable of it.

Oh well, the shirt is black, so the blood probably won’t show. Given how long it's taken me to clean everything up, it’s probably dried or close to it anyway. Also, the bedsheets are dark anyway, so even if it isn't dry, it’ll be fine—maybe.

He shook his head at his actions,

How stupid.

He had not been thinking clearly. Normally, he would not have been this careless…

I can’t do anything about it now, though, I guess… 

He climbed into the bed and fell asleep almost immediately.

Chapter Text

It’d been a while since Light had slept properly; most nights, he rolled around restlessly in bed, and even when he did manage to fall asleep, he’d be woken mere hours later by some sort of nightmare.

Tonight though, Light managed to sleep peacefully—perhaps the blood loss was a good thing. It seemed his body was too tired to do anything except crash into a dreamless, restful sleep.

However, all good things come to an end, and he woke up to L standing over him, looking somewhat like a sleep paralysis demon as he stared at the younger man with wide, obsidian eyes; his face as expressionless as usual.

Light had been unnerved the first time L had done this to him. It was downright creepy, especially in the early mornings when the sky was still dark, and all Light was able to see were his eyes. Now, though, Light had gotten used to it.

He rubbed his eyes and yawned as he sat up, stretching.

“Good morning, Ryuzaki.”

L continued to stare at him expressionlessly for a few more seconds before repositioning himself to sit on top of the bed in his usual crouched position, chain softly clinking as he moved. 

“Good morning, Light-kun. You seem to have been very tired; it’s currently about 3 hours past the time that you would normally wake. Is something the matter?” 

L put his thumb between his chapped lips, waiting for a response.

“No, yesterday’s investigation must’ve taken more energy out of me than I would’ve predicted.” Light lied, hoping that it would sound believable. He usually didn’t have any problem with being convincing; but L was a lot more perceptive than most other people.

“Hmm..” 

L regarded him, knowing that Light wasn’t being entirely truthful, but also not finding it a big enough deal to push the topic. He would save his energy for more important interrogations. Besides, he could check the security cameras on a whim and knew that Light knew this, too. He wouldn’t have been so much of an idiot as to do something incriminating. Still, it was a bit strange that Light would lie about something like this. 

He decided that he would figure it out later. Right now, all he wanted was a piece of cake.

“Look, see? L and Light are here, Matsuda. I told you they didn’t get killed by Kira in the middle of the night,” said Aizawa, a look of annoyance on his face. “He was talking and panicking about it non-stop for hours ,” The man said, now addressing Light and L.  “Where have you guys been?”

Light was about to speak up, but L spoke first.

“My apologies, Aizawa-san; my erratic sleeping schedule seems to have caught up with Light-kun. He’s not used to staying up so late, so often, and it appears his body was trying to compensate for that lack of sleep.”

Aizawa looked at them for a second and then nodded, turning back to his work. The rest of the task force members seemed to accept this as well and stayed silent (even Matsuda, surprisingly).

L and Light took their respective seats and began to work on collecting data through news articles and such and reviewing the deaths of Kira’s victims. 

They’d been at this for hours until Light finally spoke up,

“Ryuzaki, come over here; you need to see this.” He said, a slight twinkle in his eye.

L nodded and walked over to him,

“What is it?”

Light motioned towards the computer to show several highlighted names.

“Anyone look familiar?”

L looked closer at the computer; this list seemed to include many well-known business people, specifically those in higher-ranked positions. 

“Hmm.. so Kira’s started killing business people now? How interesting..” L muttered, obsidian eyes still scanning over the page.

“And that’s not all,” Light said, showing him the graphs.

“Notice any general trends?”

L raised an eyebrow as he looked around. Almost every company seemed to have seen a dip in its profit and growth rates, except for Yotsuba.

“I see.”

The rest of the task force had come over to look at the file as well and were now examining it with looks of confusion. Matsuda frowned at this.

“So what, do you think Kira’s started a killing service or something?”

L and Light exchanged looks of exasperation at this; in what universe would it actually be probable for Kira to start a killing service? L felt a spark of amusement flicker through him at the thought of Kira advertising his “services” on a billboard in the streets or something similar, but just ignored the comment and continued to analyze the data.

“Hm, based on this I believe that it’s probable that we have a new Kira, someone who’s likely a part of Yotsuba- and a high rank as well.”

All of the task force members froze, Matsuda turned to L as if he’d just seen a ghost.

“A-another Kira? ” He squeaked.

L almost snorted at the sound he’d made, it sounded somewhat like a mouse. Still, he knew at least some social etiquette so he just nodded.

“Yes, another Kira. The original Kira seemed to want to kill criminals to conform to his idealistic view of justice, and wanting to be a God of some sort, passing judgment on people. However, this new one is likely only doing it as a front to try and draw attention away from his true intent- which is not to punish criminals, but likely in the selfish desire to achieve something such as a job promotion. Of course, the original Kira did seem to be a childish person so it’s possible that he just got a job at Yotsuba and wanted to get high up really fast, but it’s clear that Kira was at least somewhat intelligent, and would not draw attention to himself in that way. This new Kira has also been killing off lesser criminals who the original Kira probably wouldn’t have, so it’s pretty clear to see that this new Kira’s heart isn’t really in it.”

L looked towards Light, trying to gauge a reaction from him. Unfortunately, his facial expression only portrayed interest and excitement, nothing that would be able to incriminate him as Kira; how annoying. However, there did seem to be something different about him today, L just couldn’t put his finger on it.

While the task force panicked (mostly Matsuda) and ran around like headless chickens trying to get a grasp on the situation (also Matsuda,) L took the time to truly examine Light. On the surface, he looked the same as usual. Neat, put-together, and professional; L thought for a moment that perhaps he could’ve just had an extremely small change that L was just overexaggerating such as a change in the way he parted his hair or something, but that wasn’t it either; L watched him complete his morning routine every day and it hadn’t differed from the usual. So what could it be?

L frowned, truly starting to wonder if he was going insane as a result of lack of sleep for some sort, but that wasn’t possible, he’d just slept for three hours last night, which was a lot more sleep than he usually got; so if anything, he should be more observant and awake than usual.

He was broken out of his thoughts by Light speaking;

“-yuzaki, hello?”

L blinked a few times.

“I apologize, Light-kun. Can you repeat that?”

Light rolled his eyes at the raven haired detective.

“You were staring at me for like five minutes, want to tell me what that was all about?”

L put his thumb to his mouth, still eyeing Light as if he were an ant under a magnifying glass.

“Mm, Light-kun, have you altered anything about your appearance in the past twenty-four hours?”

Light’s eyes flashed with panic for a millisecond, of course most normal people wouldn’t be able to notice it- not even the NPA detectives, probably. Light was very good at keeping up the appearance that he was perfect, after all, it wasn’t all that difficult either, given the difference between Light and the officers’ intelligence levels. But L was the best, the only one who could actually match that intellect, and he was very good at being able to spot even the smallest changes in facial expression.

“No, I don’t believe I have. Why do you ask?” Light said calmly.

His voice didn’t betray any sort of emotion, and his face was now blank. L had to admit, he was a really good actor (liar); probably up to par with L himself.

“You just seem off from your usual demeanor. Has there been an issue?”

“No, there hasn’t been. Maybe it’s because you’re looking at me after actually sleeping for once, people tend to look at things differently when they’re sleep deprived.” Light said smoothly. 

He’d made L almost want to believe it, but L knew better. Nonetheless, he wasn’t going to make it into a big deal in front of the task force and have them get into another fist fight or something of the sort, lowering their opinion of him even more than it already was. That would likely be very annoying to deal with, and besides, L could probably figure it out himself anyway.

“Mm, maybe you’re right,” He said to the teen, still eyeing him suspiciously but not saying anything else.

Light just nodded and turned back to his computer. He seemed- oh, so that was it.

L’s suspicion was right, Light had changed. Not appearance wise though, he just seemed… stiffer than usual.

L wracked his brain, trying to figure out anything that could’ve caused it, but came up with nothing. Perhaps Light had become Kira again or something. After all, he did have a very different way of carrying himself as Kira. L had noticed it when Light started to act strange during his confinement, his movements had become a lot looser, and his expressions less strained. 

This didn’t seem like the same type of stiffness as then, though, it looked less.. intentional.

L scanned his movements closely as he began to type away at his computer again, he seemed to be moving one hand a lot less than the other.

Hmm, perhaps Light had somehow injured himself? 

It did seem like the only probable explanation for this new behavior. He decided he would wait until the rest of the task force was gone to confront him about it.

Chapter Text

It was around nine pm when the last of the task force members had retired to their room for the night (excluding L and Light, of course.)

Light and L were both quietly searching through files to see if they could make any more connections to formulate evidence for the investigation; the only sound being the click-clacking of their keyboards, and the occasional sounds of L gnawing on his sweets, or drinking his diabetes inducing drinks.

Thirty minutes in, L suddenly broke the silence.

“So, Light. When’re you going to stop lying to me?”

Light didn’t even look up from his computer.

“About what, Ryuzaki?” He murmured absentmindedly. He was fully prepared for L to go on about how Light should confess to being Kira, or something equally ridiculous as he did nearly every day.

“Well, Light-kun lied to me this morning, and has been acting strange all day.”

To this, Light looked up in irritation.

“What’re you talking about, Ryuzaki?”

“I believe you know exactly what I’m talking about, Kira-kun.”

Light almost growled. This again? I mean I expected it, but I’m not sure what he hopes to achieve by saying things like this all the time. Even if I was Kira, he knows I’d be smart enough to not be tricked into admitting it- although I suppose it doesn’t serve any harm for him to try, doing it can only benefit him, after all- which probably means it won’t stop, that’s annoying.

“For the last time, Ryuzaki, I’m not Kira. Do you really have to do this every day?”

L simply hummed at this and seemed to be contemplating for a few seconds.

“Sure, so if you aren’t Kira, then you won’t mind me asking. Why did you really wake up so late today? I’ve never seen you get up at a time past seven am.” 

Light’s expression switched from annoyance to an unreadable expression.

“Ryuzaki, you try making me stay up with you most nights until around three am. It would make sense for me to actually need sleep, believe it or not.”

L looked at him, unfazed.

“When I put surveillance in your house, even when you would stay up into the early hours of the morning, you still never managed to sleep that late. Why do you suppose this change would occur now ? After all, even though I do try and limit the amount of time wasted on sleep, you whine at me until I give in and you force me to be constrained to that room as you sleep.”

Light was really starting to look agitated now.

“What, so now you believe that I’m Kira because I’m sleeping too much?”

L plucked a mochi from the stack on top of a plate and ate it.

“Well, if you weren’t, then there would be no reason to lie about the real reason, now would there, Light-kun?” He asked, through a mouthful of mochi.

“That is the real reason, Ryuzaki. If you’re trying to get a confession out of me, it’s not going to work, because I’m not Kira.”

“Mm, so perhaps there’s another reason for this behavior that can explain it? I don’t recall lack of sleep causing a change in body language as well.”

“What’re you talking about?” Light snapped, a glint of fear momentarily appearing in his eyes before it was violently snuffed out and replaced with a cold, unfeelingness again.

Shit, he thought. I figured he’d be more likely to notice than anyone else on the task force, but still.. Any excuses I make will definitely be weak in his eyes, and it’ll just increase my Kira percentage. Although I suppose it wouldn’t matter, after all, even if he’s intelligent enough to notice all these things, my father and the others on the task force won’t let him convict me on the evidence that I slept in late and changed my way of standing.

“You know very well what I’m talking about, Kira-kun. Even the way you carry yourself has changed. Why do you believe that’s the case?”

“I don’t know, Ryuzaki. I’m a teenager- did you expect me to act and look the same way forever?”

L put his thumb back to his lip.

“Hmm.. I suppose not. But the way that you’re moving suggests to me that you may be injured. That is not a normal comportment, and you cannot pass it off as such. Perhaps one of Kira-kun’s victims decided to fight back?”

L knew that this was very much not the case. Obviously, Kira killed from a distance so he wouldn’t actually face off with one of his victims or anything like that, and even if he did Light wouldn’t be so much of an idiot as to do it while he was chained to L, (even if he was asleep or anything else) and surrounded by cameras that would catch his every movement. This was simply a form of baiting him into getting annoyed enough to tell L what had really happened. He was aware that there was absolutely no way any of this proved that Light was Kira, but honestly, at this point he was just interested and wanted to know for his own sake why Light would decide to lie about something so trivial.

Light looked at him in disbelief for a second, before just shaking his head and turning back to his computer, closing out the tabs.

After that statement, L’s ulterior motives became completely clear, so he just ignored it. He wouldn’t give L the satisfaction of getting upset and accidentally outing himself in the middle of an angry rant or something. He wasn’t stupid. He also just wanted to get out of this conversation as fast as humanly possible, just thinking about the events of last night made him feel ill and he didn’t want L to try and confront him about that, too.

“I’m tired, let’s go to bed.”

L was surprised that Light hadn’t tried to argue with him more on the topic. Yes, it was probable that Light had noticed his intentions, but Light also never just gave up in the middle of something like that. This was very strange indeed.

L eyed him suspiciously before nodding slowly.

“Yes, I suppose Kira-kun needs his beauty sleep if he wants to continue playing God.”

L’s eyes searched Light’s face for some sort of reaction, but got none. Light was getting stranger by the minute; now he really needed to get to the bottom of this. Not now though, obviously, it was clear he wouldn’t be getting anywhere with it tonight so he wasn’t going to waste his energy for the time being. Next time, though, L would get him to spill.

Light seemed to be on autopilot as he dragged L along with the handcuffs, and walked up the stairs into their room; immediately slipping under the covers of their bed without even bothering to get out of his day clothes, even though he was usually an extreme neat-freak who refused to even get close to the bed with anything that had touched the outside of the room.

I’ll figure out whatever secret you’re hiding, Light Yagami.

Chapter Text

Light’s arm itched terribly. He hadn’t gotten a chance to actually change the bandages because of L’s newfound suspicion in him, and he’d begun to worry about the risk of infection.

That wasn’t totally the reason, though. L had been keeping even more of a watchful eye on him than usual, not sleeping a wink for the past five days which was excessive, even for him. Light honestly couldn’t remember the last time that he’d gone this long without a blade dragging across his skin; he’d been using it as a coping mechanism for years. 

The only situation where he had actually stopped for an extended interval of time was during his confinement, but somehow, those fifty days of pain couldn’t even come close to what he was feeling now. During the confinement, he’d been essentially deprived of everything, so he’d had more to be concerned with than just his- whatever you want to call it.

But Light knew that there was only so much that he could get away with while being under constant surveillance by the world’s greatest detective. He was finding it extremely hard to basically quit cold turkey, though- although he still swore to himself up and down that this was not an addiction, the fact was that the longer he went without doing it, the worse he felt. 

Over the past few days, it’d become nearly impossible for him to focus with the constant itching of his skin, begging him to take a knife to the flesh, cutting through it like a piece of soft cake, oozing strawberry jelly after the incision. He knew that eventually, he was going to crack.

His usual concentration and sharp deductive skills had been affected so much that even Matsuda had looked concerned and asked him if he was ill or something. Well, he supposed he was- sick in the head, at least.

L had actually gone from being annoyed and suspicious of the change, to actually starting to look worried. This was bad; Light knew he had to do something, or else he really was going to get caught. The stuff he had tried to do to stop this from happening was somehow making him more suspicious than if he’d just taken a knife to his wrist right in front of L’s face.

Light knew that L couldn’t stay up forever, though. But knowing him, he’d probably also arranged extra surveillance now that he’d noticed Light’s strange behavior. He wasn’t sure he cared anymore, though. He was actually starting to get desperate. 

So tonight, he lay awake in bed, hoping that the detective next to him would fall asleep so that he could relieve his gruesome, masochistic desires. To his utter annoyance, it hadn’t taken L long to realize that Light wasn’t actually sleeping.

“Light-kun, I know you’re awake.” L had whispered into the quiet dark of the room.

Light momentarily froze, before catching himself and responding coolly.

“Yes, I’m aware. I wasn’t exactly trying to keep it a secret.”

L almost rolled his eyes at this; when had Light gotten so bad at lying? When L had first met him, one of his most prominent traits (at least in L’s eyes) was his ability to manipulate and lie, without even giving anyone a shadow of doubt about what he was saying. Even if he’d tried to convince someone the Earth was flat on some sort of whim, he’d likely be able to achieve his goal without even expending much effort.

Now though, it seemed that his impeccable manipulation tactics had gone away, along with his deductive abilities and charisma, and had been replaced with something like a twitchy, short-attention-spanned child. This was extremely unlike Light, to a point where it was genuinely baffling L. It really hadn’t been that much of a big deal at first, L had just wanted to know what had accounted for Light’s sudden, nearly-unnoticeable change in behavior- it was part of the game, after all; but now, this change had escalated to the point where it was beginning to be quite alarming for the detective. He was starting to exhibit symptoms of a drug addict who had been suffering from withdrawals, which of course, he was not. 

L had done very extensive background checks, and it was pretty clear that Light wasn’t one of those edgy teenagers who went out late, smoked, drank, partied, etc. Of course, he could’ve just been hiding it behind his perfect facade, but L sincerely doubted that. After all, in the time that he’d physically interacted with Light, he’d had absolutely no indicators of this type of problem; and no matter how good of an actor he was, there was no way of hiding side effects from hard substances like that. So what could it be? This was more effort to solve than the actual damn Kira case.

“Mm, I’m sure you weren’t. So why is Light-kun up so late? He’s usually asleep by eleven every night to maintain his beauty .” He said, exaggerating the last word in a mocking tone.

“Just not tired tonight, I guess.” Light said, his worn-down tone of voice contradicting his statement.

“Well then, I suppose you wouldn’t mind continuing to pursue leads for the Kira investigation, since you’re so awake.” 

If Light said no to this, then he was definitely up to something.

Light paused for a moment before replying.

“Sure.” He said, sitting up in bed and flicking on the lamp next to him. 

Even though he claimed to be wide awake, the shadows under his eyes told another story. L made a mental note of this as he watched Light grab his own laptop off the bedside table and open it, beginning to browse through files, likely reviewing the progress the others on the Task Force had made that day.

L studied him for a few more minutes before returning to his own work, deciding that Light wasn’t very likely to do anything to incriminate himself, and working on the actual case was probably more likely to get him somewhere other than in a state of extreme annoyance.

The pair continued like this for about an hour before L heard an odd scratching noise and a slight shaking of the chain. He paid no mind to this at first, figuring that Light just had an itch somewhere and needed to scratch it, a phenomenon that was not important enough for L to actually care what it was.

But then, it continued, getting rougher and causing the chain to make rattling noises. After his hand had been shook from his typing one too many times, he turned to glare at Light and tell him to stop, but the words died in his throat.

Light looked almost desperate as he scratched his arm through his sweater. It was perplexing for L to watch; what was he doing? This was extremely out of character for Light, and L didn’t really know what to make of it. 

After he’d watched it go on for about another thirty seconds, he decided that it was probably a good idea to stop Light before he actually broke skin and hurt himself. He reached over and gingerly pulled Light’s hand away.

“You are shaking and rattling the chain, Light-kun. What are you attempting to do?”

Light looked startled for a second, before tugging his hand out of L’s grip and turning to face him.

“I’m not attempting to do anything, Ryuzaki. There was simply an insatiable itch, you probably know the feeling; it is quite common.”

L looked at him with eyes narrowed in suspicion. Yes, he was aware that it was a common thing among humans, but something about that scene just didn’t sit right with him.

“Uh huh.. You’ve gotten worse at lying, Light-kun.”

Light looked taken aback for a second.

“I’m not lying, why would I lie about something like that? ”

Technically, it wasn’t actually a lie, there was an insatiable itch. Just.. not the normal kind, more of the kind where he wanted to rip and tear at his own flesh until he could see the white and yellow of fat and muscles and red sprayed from his arms.

Light didn’t give him a chance to respond and simply said,

“I’m going back to sleep, Ryuzaki. Good night.”

He put the laptop back, switched off the light, and quickly slid back under the covers. Even though that wasn’t full relief, it had helped Light somewhat. He’d felt the wounds start opening back up underneath the cloth and bandages and it brought him a sort of twisted feeling of ecstasy. 

L, for once, stayed silent as Light fled their conversation under the pretense of “ going back to sleep.”

He simply stared at him, listening to the brunette’s breaths become slower as he began to drift off to sleep.

Chapter Text

Light was not having a good day, and it wasn’t even dawn yet. He’d woken up to L nearly dragging him out of bed, trying to wake him up in order to be able to get sweets. Watari had apparently come down with a cold and wasn’t feeling well enough to cater to L’s needs, so L actually had to do things himself for once.

Unfortunately for Light, the fact that L needed to do things meant that he needed to follow, even if it was five in the damn morning. He really didn’t understand why the detective needed to eat sweets so badly; yes, they were good tasting (well, L clearly thought so anyway,) but did he really need to eat them at all hours of the day?

Whatever, it’s not like I can do anything about it. If I try to argue with him, he’ll just make some nonsensical claim and I’ll have to go along with it. Plus, he does get really pissy when he doesn’t have sweets and I’m not trying to deal with that.

So Light followed him, groggily rubbing sleep from his eyes and nearly tripping over about five different objects as he was dragged along.

After they’d made it to the kitchen and L was scrounging around the cabinets and fridge, looking for sweets like a pale rat, Light became vaguely aware of the pain in his wrist. Apparently, L’s harsh pulling had broken his stitches open; he definitely needed to do something about that later. Perhaps during his showering time? Light hadn’t really done anything during that time in fear of L doing something like barging into the bathroom in order to prove that his suspicions of Light being Kira were correct, but he really did need to fix his stitches, change his bandages, and perhaps cause some more damage.

He sighed as he watched L pull an entire chocolate cake out of the refrigerator, looking at it with almost a lustful look in his eyes.

“You know, it really wouldn’t kill you to eat something healthy for once. There are non-desserts that taste very good.”

L shot him a glare,

“Absolutely not. Anything which is not a sweet is a disgrace to society.”

Light rolled his eyes, he knew there was no convincing the detective to look out for his health but it was worth a try, anyway. At this point, L would be more likely to die from diabetes than being killed by Kira.

“Uh huh. Are you done invading the kitchen? I want to go take a shower.”

L grabbed a few boxes of pocky and strawberry filled panda bear cookies in addition to the cake, and then nodded.

“Yes, don’t take too long though. It’s nearly impossible for me to work while you’re constantly shaking around the handcuffs, and I want to go back to working.”

Light just ignored his statement and tugged him along, making sure to be a bit harsher as revenge for what L had done to him before.

They reached the door of the bathroom, and Light walked in, closing the door as far as he could while still being able to accommodate the chain, and began to undress himself.

After he’d finished, he finally looked down at his wrist. He’d expected it to be pretty bad, considering he hadn’t paid any attention to it for such a long time. He’d even ignored it while he showered, re-wetting the bandages every day for about five days without changing them. He knew it was a terrible idea, but he also knew that L had been getting suspicious of him and he didn’t want to spend a long time in the bathroom and make himself even more of a suspect.

Of course, L still was suspicious- but Light also knew that he definitely couldn’t wait another day to take care of the wounds, so he braced himself, taking off the bandage (it took a bit of effort, it seemed to be glued to his skin at this point).

He nearly let out a gasp at the sight. He hadn’t expected it to look great, but he didn’t think it would look this mangled .

The gashes were still imbedded deep into his skin, his stitches were ripped open, and the wounds dripped blood lazily.

That wasn’t the worst part, though. No, the worst part was the pus seeping from the lacerations. It was a sickly yellow color, and there was a lot of it.

And as if that wasn’t bad enough, the unharmed skin surrounding it had also turned a shade of red. It was definitely infected.

Light groaned.

Goddammit. As if the actual cuts weren’t bad enough, a fucking infection? I can’t even get it treated or else everyone will know. Am I going to die..?

He paused for a moment.

Well.. maybe that wouldn’t be so bad. I mean, you don’t matter much anyway- the world would be better off without you. The only reason anyone even acknowledges you is because of your grades, that’s it. Do your parents talk to you about anything else? Ever? Do they ask you how you’re doing? They ask Sayu that. Your mom also chats with Sayu about things other than her grades, although father doesn’t- but that’s just because he’s a work-aholic who never even comes home. Either way though, you have quite literally no redeeming traits besides your brain, and even that is debatable.

He shook the thoughts from his head. He shouldn’t be thinking about this sort of stuff, he’d probably be fine.. right?

There was a small voice inside of his head screaming at him to just tell someone no matter the amount of embarrassment he would face; because it was either that, or death.

He silenced that voice though, and just switched on the shower, it would be good for him to rinse the wounds.

He threw his bandages into the trash can (making sure to also leave paper towels and such on top of them so that nobody would easily notice them) and stepped into the tub, closing the curtain behind him.

He hissed in pain as the water made contact with the wounds. 

That fucking hurt..

He’d never cut this deep before, he wasn’t exactly sure what to do with the wounds- especially since they were infected . But he figured that the best course of action would be to try and clean the cuts, put disinfectant on them, and then bandage them up again. There wasn’t a lot else he could do anyway, with L watching him all the time.

He quickly washed the wounds, finished his shower, and then stepped out of the tub.

He grabbed a few q-tips, some alcohol, neosporin, and bactine- applying each one of them gingerly to the wounds, trying not to make any noises of pain which would alert the detective to his activities.

He knew he should definitely restitch the wounds, but he definitely didn’t have time for that so he just hastily wrapped the bandages as tightly as possible, layering them so that the blood would be less likely to seep through. 

This was fine.

Everything was fine.

He quickly got dressed, brushed his hair and teeth, and did his skincare before walking out the door, back to L.

L frowned as he saw him.

“Light-kun, you took approximately fifteen minutes more than you usually do. Is this your idea of some sort of petty revenge because I dragged you up to get sweets?”

Light’s nerves were honestly pretty frayed from the whole experience, so he just shrugged, not wanting to say anything that he would regret later on.

L looked at him with an unreadable expression for another moment before starting to walk away, dragging Light with him.

They entered the Task Force room. Normally, the room would be empty when they arrived; Light could honestly say that this was his favorite time of the day. No Matsuda to rave about idiotic things, no Aizawa to yell at everyone, and no Soichiro Yagami to silently judge his son.

Unfortunately for him though, he walked in to see Matsuda sitting at one of the computers. When he heard the door open, he jumped up and waved.

“Ryuzaki, Light, good morning!”

Light hid an annoyed glare with a fake smile; not his best acting, but Matsuda was stupid enough that he wouldn’t figure it out anyway.

“Good morning, Matsuda.” 

He and L chorused, side eyeing each other when they realized what the other had said.

“Wow! You guys are spending so much time together that you’re starting to be in sync, that’s so cool!”

Neither L or Light said anything to this, choosing to ignore the young rookie in favor of doing their own work.

It took about another half hour before the rest of the Task Force started to arrive as well. Light bid monotone greetings as they walked in, L not even bothering to say anything, and Matsuda started to yap at them like an overexcited puppy (nobody responded to anything he was saying, it was way too early for this.)

Then, as if this day couldn’t get any worse, Misa suddenly decided to appear.

“LIGHTTTT!!!” 

She screamed, jumping onto his lap and hugging him tightly.

Light almost fell out of his chair

“Wha-? Oh. Hi, Misa.”

He said, trying not to sound as miserable as he felt. He could almost feel L smirking at him as he attempted to loosen Misa’s grip on him a bit.

“Light! I’ve missed you so much, we need to go on a date soon!!!!!”

“Oh- uh- well, I don’t think that we can. Ryuzaki and I have a lot going on right now in terms of the investigation so we don’t have a lot of free time and he probably also doesn’t want to attend one of our dates anyway, considering that he’s handcuffed to me.”

Misa pouted,

“But Lightttttttt”

Then, L spoke up,

“Don’t be ridiculous, Light. I am not going to forbid you from hanging out with your one true love. How about this afternoon?”

Light fought the urge to climb over to L’s chair and throttle him and his stupid smug face that Light just knew he had on. Still, he needed to keep up appearances.

“Oh, sure. If Ryuzaki’s okay with it.”

“YAY!!” Misa squealed.

Light really wanted to bang his head into the wall right now.

“Okay, well. I’ll see you later then, Misa. I still have work to do right now, but I’ll be with you in a bit.”

Misa nodded enthusiastically and gave him a kiss before skipping off to do whatever Misa does.

As soon as Misa left the room, Light turned to glare furiously at L. Unfortunately, he didn’t look fazed and just smiled innocently.

“Isn’t Light-kun excited to hang out with his soulmate?”

Light almost growled,

“Yeah, sure.” He said stiffly. Man, he was going to kill L for that later.

Chapter Text

Sitting in this room made time seem like it was going by ten times slower. The annoyance he’d felt on the last date that he’d been on including L and Misa didn’t even compare to this one. At least during that date, the fight with L had been somewhat entertaining.

But this time, L had stayed unusually quiet, (although he did look over very smugly at Light every few minutes) and Misa had climbed into Light’s lap and was ranting at him, giving him kisses whenever she was in between her annoying speeches. For the second time in his life, Light really considered hitting her to get her away from him. Unfortunately, he couldn’t do this even if he wanted to, though, because the Task Force was still watching through the cameras (and likely more closely this time, they probably wanted to prevent the genii from getting into another physical scuffle.)

Misa was truly suffocating him, literally. Her raving definitely wouldn’t have been as bad if she wasn’t right on top of him, leaving him unable to move or switch positions. His legs had fallen asleep and he was sure that he was going to have a migraine later from how damn loud her voice was.

He was also overheating immensely for some reason. Perhaps it was the actual temperature of the room, but if it were too hot Misa would’ve definitely started complaining loudly and vexingly until L either decided to turn down the thermostat or simply get up and leave, pulling Light with him (he really wished this would happen.) Perhaps it was just her body heat?

No, she clung to him all the time and he’d never felt like this before. At this moment, Light felt positively ill. 

Was that it? Maybe that’s why everything had been so agitating lately. Perhaps he was coming down with a cold or something. He’d just need to rest for a few days and she’d be back to her normal level of irritating-ness. 

Still though, something really didn’t feel right about this.

He was suddenly pulled out of his thoughts by Misa bopping him harshly on the nose.

“Huh- what was that for, Misa?” 

She pouted at him,

“Were you listening to anything I was saying?”

Light had not been, but if he told her that, she’d probably flip out and start screaming and crying or something. He decided to just take a guess and hope for the best. 

“Yeah, of course I was. It was something about the movie you’re filming, right?”

“No! I was asking you if you wanted to go on another date on Saturday- there’s this really cute Sakura festival going on, it would be so romantic!”

Light inwardly winced, he prayed that L wouldn’t answer in affirmation for him before he got a chance to respond; he did not want to spend any more time with Misa for like- the next month.

“Sorry, Misa. I’ve just had a lot on my mind recently- but I don’t think we can have a date again for a while, we’re really busy working on the investigation.”

Misa looked at him strangely for a second, confusing Light. He knew that the excuse was believable, especially to someone like Misa- so what was the problem?

“Why are you blushing, Light ? Thinking about the investigation makes you blush now? Tell me the truth! Are you thinking about other girls? HUH?”

She leaned down until they were nose to nose, Light was now even more baffled. He was.. blushing? He never blushed, so perhaps Misa was going insane?

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw L looking at him with a calculating expression. Okay- so maybe he was blushing? It was probably from the heat in the room or something.

“No, Misa. The room is just a little warm, that’s it.”

L and Misa both looked puzzled now.

“Light-kun, the temperature of this room is set at sixty eight degrees. I sincerely doubt that you’re overheating.”

Light really was confused now, he swore it was warmer than that. The surprise must’ve shown on his face and L walked over to go look at him, pulling Misa off of his lap to get a better view.

Light’s cheeks had indeed been colored a light pink-ish color, a very big difference from his usually pale complexion. This was very strange, L didn’t think he’d ever seen Light look like this. Perhaps he was sick? It seemed to be the only viable explanation.

“Light-kun, are you ill?” L murmured, reaching over to touch the younger man’s forehead and nearly recoiling at how hot it felt. 

Light shrugged, he really didn’t want to be having this conversation in front of Misa. Knowing her, if he was ill, she would likely follow him around 24/7 and try to cuddle with him to “make him feel better (worse.)” She’d fawn over him and never leave his side because she would insist that she needed to take care of her sick boyfriend or something like that.

“Hm, well I suppose it’s time for us to leave then.”

L said, after getting no response from Light. It was very fun to torture him, of course, but nobody deserved to have to deal with Misa’s antics while they were sick.

Light had never felt more relieved in his life. Thank God. Finally, he could stop listening to the blonde’s high pitched, grating voice that gave him a migraine every time he heard it.

“What? No! We’ve barely had two hours for this date! And if Light is sick, then he should be with me so I can take care of him since I’m his girlfriend!”

L only sighed and started to walk towards the door, ignoring Misa’s shrill shrieks behind him. He knew it would be pointless to argue with her, so he wasn’t going to waste his breath.

Light had almost jumped up in excitement when L started to leave, and hastily followed; relishing in the peaceful quiet that fell as they closed the door behind them and began walking down the stairs. Thank God it was just L here with him, his voice was nothing like Misa’s and honestly, the baritone was extremely soothing- especially when compared to the high-pitched squealing that Misa’s voice was comprised of.

“You never answered me, Light-kun. Are you unwell?”

Light shook his head,

“It doesn’t matter, we have an investigation to work on. Kira doesn’t stop for illness.”

L looked like he wanted to say something, but bit his tongue. Light was an adult, he could take care of himself and ask for a break if needed; it wasn’t L’s responsibility to parent him, after all. If he wanted to continue working, it wasn’t any of L’s business.

"I found another. The branch manager of Yotsuba's biggest rival bank, died on September seventh when he slipped on the steps of his home." 

Light said, looking at his computer with a concentrated expression.

"September seventh was a Friday. I checked once more, and discovered that the deaths that are beneficial to Yotsuba are concentrated around the weekend. At first, the time of deaths were random, but gradually, they became more concentrated around Friday nights through Saturday afternoons."

Soichiro said with a grim expression.

Matsuda looked at him in awe,

“It’s amazing you spotted that, chief!”

Soichiro muttered something about how he technically wasn’t the chief anymore, but neither Light nor L paid attention.

“This should be some sort of hint, Dad.”

Light said, looking up from his computer and turning towards his father.

"I haven't lost you and Ryuzaki yet, I don't want to be dead weight here." Soichiro stated bluntly.

“We already knew that this new Kira had some sort of alliance with Yotsuba. After this revelation, I’ve deduced an 88% probability that Kira is in fact, a higher up at Yotsuba. That was my theory before, but now it’s almost definitely confirmed. We need to thoroughly investigate Yotsuba.”

L explained, still scrolling through charts on his computer.

Light half-listened to the rest of the Task Force talking about strategies to catch Kira, and using the two criminals to help. Their names were Wedy and Aiber? Ah, it didn’t matter anyway; he’d probably figure it out eventually. He really did want to pay attention, but his symptoms from yesterday had worsened, and his condition was deteriorating more and more throughout the day. 

His wrist had truly begun to burn with pain, and it was hard not to yell out every time he rubbed it or hit it against something, even softly; and he switched between having fits of uncontrollable shaking with chills, and feeling he was being melted on the ground on a hot day in Australia.

He was beginning to really get worried- this was definitely not normal. Never had he been sick like this before, it was extremely strange. He thought back to the lacerations on his arm which had seemed to be quite infected a few days ago. Could it perhaps be something relating to that?

By the burning pain in his wrist and the symptoms he was currently experiencing, he was almost certain that it was. He’d known it was bad, but not this bad.

He started to panic internally, what am I going to do?

He did want to die, but not like this, not painfully. He’d read about all the suffering the sepsis patients felt before they died, unfortunately the only real way to not feel any pain was to be in a coma, which he definitely was not.

He honestly started to debate telling L. Would he tell my father? Probably not, to be honest. I think if I really wanted it to be covered up, he wouldn’t. Would he even be able to help, though? Sepsis was a bitch to treat, but if he got it treated earlier, it would definitely take away some of the pain that he would face if he didn’t.

He stayed deep in thought, his movement slow and robotic on the keyboard as he half-concentrated on the case, barely acknowledging the departure of the rest of the Task Force a few hours later.

“Light-kun, perhaps you should go to bed now.”

L said, looking at Light with a glint of concern in his eye. The brunette looked like death warmed-over.

“Huh? Oh.. yeah, sure.”

Light said, clumsily getting up from his chair. Luck wasn’t on his side though, apparently, because as soon as he stood up, it seemed his legs weren’t capable of holding him up and he fell to the ground.

L’s eyes widened and he crouched down in front of Light, checking if he was still conscious (he was.)

“Light-kun? Are you alright?”

Light groaned as he picked himself up from the floor, grasping onto the chair to keep himself from falling over again.

“Y-yeah, just uh- got a little dizzy for a second, I guess.”

L really didn’t know what to do with this situation, so he just nodded. Without being asked, he put an arm around Light to keep him stable as they walked up to their room; his worry spiking even more when Light didn’t protest at all. He was normally so prideful, so why..

Then, he saw it. 

As he was lowering Light down onto the bed, his sleeve had rolled up slightly (he was too woozy to even realize,) to reveal a shallow looking cut.

L raised an eyebrow at this, it didn’t seem to be too important, but..

He narrowed his eyes.

“Light-kun, what’s that on your arm?”

He watched as Light’s eyes widened for a second and he froze, sobering up immediately.

“What do you mean?”

Light resisted the urge to pull his sleeve down, knowing that it would only draw more suspicion.

“The red mark, is that a cut?”

Light made a show of glancing at it,

“Oh, this? Yeah, the handcuffs have been digging into my wrists since you like to very unceremoniously drag me around.”

He prayed that L would believe his lie, although he probably wouldn’t. But even so, he hoped that L would at least have the decency not to question him about it- after all, he’d only seen one cut, and it wasn’t deep enough to actually cause worry.

Apparently he got lucky, because L just gave him a sidelong glance and went,

“Hmm.”

Light really didn’t want to figure out what that meant, so he just stayed silent, pulling down his sleeve and readjusting himself on the bed so the blankets covered him.

The room was silent for a few moments, before L once again decided to break the silence.

“So, Light. When did you start?”

Light rolled over and gave him a confused look. What was he talking about?

“What do you mean?”

L motioned to his arm,

“When did you begin harming yourself?”

And Light’s world imploded.

Chapter Text

“H-huh?”

For a second, Light’s face showed sheer panic; but it was gone just as fast and he plastered on a soft smile which didn’t reach his eyes. He felt almost dizzy from anxiety.

“Are you alright, Ryuzaki? I’m not sure where you got the idea that I’ve been harming myself, but I can assure you that that’s not the case.”

He said with a forced calm, trying to control his breathing to keep from arousing L’s suspicion- it wasn’t working.

L was looking at him with a gaze that was halfway between amused and concerned. Light couldn’t blame him, he probably looked like an idiot right now; there was no way L was going to buy that lie.

“Really, Light-kun? When you lie to me there’s usually at least some part of me that’s willing to believe you. Please stop trying to deny it, you know as well as I do that the jig is up.”

“No! It’s not- I mean- I’m not- I don’t-”

L cut him off,

“Sure, well if you’re being truthful, then you should have no problem rolling up your sleeves and showing me.”

“I don’t have to do anything ,”

Light spat. Why did L care so much, anyway? It wasn’t any of his business, and it had nothing to do with the Kira investigation.

L just looked at him for a moment, his dark, abyssal black eyes staring into Light’s warm, caramel colored ones. For a second, Light lost himself in the older detective’s eyes; he’d never really paid attention to them before, but now he found himself thinking about how pretty they were, the charcoal color..

Then, he was snapped out of it as L suddenly made a grab for his wrist. Before Light even had time to react, L was yanking up his sleeve, revealing the bandages, absolutely soaked in blood.

L recoiled. He’d known it probably wouldn’t be a pretty sight, but he didn’t think it would be this bad.

He held Light’s wrist in his hand for a moment, examining it, before the younger man came back to himself and jerked it away from him.

L glanced at Light’s face. He’d expected him to be angry or something, but instead he seemed to just look shocked, and extremely ill. L could swear, he was turning green.

Then, he abruptly stood up, nearly falling over in the process and began walking towards the bathroom.

“Wait, Light-kun- please sit back down, you nearly collapsed a few minutes ago, you shouldn’t be out of bed.”

Light ignored his words, quickening his pace towards the door.

L was almost sure that Light had hidden blades in that bathroom- after all, there really wasn’t anywhere else he could’ve hidden them; there were cameras everywhere else. Clearly though, Light wasn’t stopping and he needed to do something.

L yanked the chain back, catching Light by surprise as he was dragged backwards.

“ Fuck- What the hell was that for? Jeez, L. I just needed the restroom, that’s all.”

L regarded him with a blank stare,

“I find it quite suspicious how you suddenly need it right now, as soon as we’re having this conversation.”

Light just shook his head, not saying anything,

“Light-kun.”

L murmured, trying to put on a gentler voice.

“Please, come over here. I won’t tell Yagami-san or any of the others, I just want to make sure that none of them need immediate medical attention, and that they’re healing properly.”

Light stayed silent for a few more seconds, before promptly lurching forward and throwing up.

L winced at the sight, poor Wammy; cleaning that up was going to suck.

Light continued to retch for a few more minutes, L standing there awkwardly, not really knowing what to do.

“S-sorry,” Light rasped after he’d finished.

“It’s quite alright, Light-kun.”

L handed him a tissue to wipe his mouth, which he gladly accepted.

“What are we going to..?”

Light trailed off, not wanting to finish the sentence; the entire thing was extremely embarrassing and he wanted out as soon as possible.

L seemed to know what he meant anyway, and grabbed his hand, leading him out of the room- trying not to think about how nice Light’s hand fit in his.

The two walked until they reached another room across the hall, this room looked pretty much exactly the same as the one they’d just departed. L would get Wammy to clean it up later, but right now his priority was to sort out whatever was going on with Light.

Light seemed to be swaying on his feet again by the time they went inside the room; L was becoming more worried about the nature of Light’s illness with every passing moment. He led the teen over to the bed, sitting down next to him.

The men were both silent, neither were quite sure of what to say.

After they’d sat in silence for a few minutes, L grasped Light’s hand in his, making the brunette turn towards him. 

L looked at him, then looked towards his wrist. A clear unspoken question lingering in his eyes.

Slowly, Light nodded, knowing that there was no way out.

How could I have been so stupid.. I know he said he wouldn’t, but what if he DOES decide to tell my father? He would kill me..

Light almost winced at the thought. His family had always thought of him as the perfect, golden child. If he did anything that they considered to be imperfect, he’d be punished.

When Light was only five years old, he’d made a 99% on a spelling test. His teachers had congratulated him, he’d gotten the highest score in the class, and they were pretty difficult words for a child. He’d come home to share with his parents the good news. He’d never expected the sheer disappointment in their faces.

“A 99%?” Soichiro had said, face full of anger and dissatisfaction. 

Light, being a child, didn’t pick up on his father’s tone.

“ Yeah! My teachers said I scored really well, are you proud of me?!”

His father didn’t reply for a few seconds, confusing the little boy.

“ Uhm.. dad?”

Soichiro had unfroze after a few seconds, and then backhanded Light across the face, hard. Knocking him to the floor.

His ears rang as his father screamed at him. 99% wasn’t perfect, so therefore he was a failure and a disgrace to the family.

From then on, Light had made sure to do everything perfectly. No matter what it was, there was simply no option of imperfection. He had to be the best.

If his father found out about this, though, he would be dead . Not that his father would care about him , but the fact that it might reflect badly on him as a parent would absolutely infuriate him. Light could not have that happen.

Light thought about all of this as he watched L cautiously pull up his sleeve again, for the second time that night; but this time, more gentle.

He gazed at the black haired man as he began to unwrap the bandages from his arm, clearly trying extremely hard not to hurt him any further.

L paled as he saw the gaping wounds, it looked like something straight out of a horror film. Light’s whole arm was red and inflamed, and there was red tinting his veins as well. The wounds seemed to range from about ¼ to ¾ inch deep, and ½ to 1 inch wide. There were torn stitches which had furthered the lacerations of the limb and pus leaked from many of the gashes.

The detective wasn’t exactly fazed because of the gore; after all, he’d seen much worse. It was just the fact that this had been caused by Light, himself. He spent all day, every day with the man and it’d taken him this long to figure it out? It was a lot easier to see the wounds of faceless murder victims than those of people close to you.

Close to me? Wait, where did that come from? He’s my prime suspect, nothing more. We are not close, although we may be PHYSICALLY in close contact.

L steeled his voice, forcing himself to sound calm.

“Light, these are infected. You need medical attention as soon as possible- I believe you might have sepsis.”

Light’s eyes widened slightly. That was definitely not good.

L continued,

“Fortunately, Watari has worked as a doctor in his past, so it is likely that he’ll be able to treat you. This building has a mini-hospital on one of the floors, which the Task Force does not know about, so they won’t be able to bother you. Does this sound okay?”

Light really didn’t see any other option, so he just nodded.

L reached out a hand to help him up again so that they could go.

Light grabbed it, using the detective’s strength to hoist himself up before letting go and standing up on his own.

L began to walk towards the door, Light trying to follow. 

His head felt like it was filled with fluff, it was so..

He didn’t get to finish the thought before his eyes rolled back into his head, falling forward, his vision going dark.

Chapter Text

Light woke up to the steady beeping of a machine.

He opened his eyes but closed them immediately, letting out a small groan at the feeling of bright light assaulting his corneas. 

“Light!” 

Said someone whose voice Light couldn’t really identify in his disgruntled state.

“Are you awake?”

He felt a weight on the bed, indicating that someone had sat down.

Light again tried to open his eyes to see who had decided to invade his personal space.

He blinked the fog from his eyes as he took in his surroundings, he was surrounded by white walls and bright, fluorescent lights which were nearly blinding. He looked to his right and saw a machine, showing the steady rhythm of his heart, and realized that he was also connected to an IV.

What had happened?

Before he could think any further, he felt a weight land harshly against him.

“LIGHT! I’M SO HAPPY YOU’RE AWAKE!”

Ah dammit, it was fucking Misa. He knew he’d recognized that voice somewhere.

He finally looked up at her and fought the urge to shove her off of him.

“Why’re you here? What happened?”

Then, he noticed L standing silently in the corner of the room, watching the pair interact. He looked absolutely wrecked, the dark bags under his eyes were somehow even more prominent than usual, and his hair was wild (and not in the tangled, messy-bedhead way that it usually was, it looked like it’d been pulled violently.) 

Misa seemed to not even hear his question as she began to ramble,

“YOU’VE BEEN OUT FOR LIKE THREE DAYS! OH, I’M SO HAPPY MY LIGHT IS BACK!!”

She began to smother him with kisses, and this time he really couldn’t suppress his urge, pushing her back.

“Please.. don’t,”

Misa looked shocked,

“What?? I’m your girlfriend! You should be excited to see me, don’t you love me?????”

She started becoming hysterical and tearing up fast, making Light want to bang his head in the wall to stop her voice from invading his ears. She kept on going on like this for about a whole minute before Light had enough.

“Oh my god, Misa. Can you just shut up for once? 

Misa froze, she looked halfway in between having a mental breakdown and smacking him. 

Light realized what he said a little too late and silently cursed himself, he could normally keep his annoyance under control but this was too much, too soon.

For fucks sake, that’s going to make me bug her even more. Maybe I should just apologize and it’ll make her leave? I’ll just say I’m still tired and overwhelmed or something.

“Look, Misa- I’m sorry I just- I feel like I just got run over by a car, okay? I think you should leave for now. I need to speak with L alone as well.”

This apparently wasn’t the right thing to say either, because evidently, Misa didn’t understand boundaries.

She began screaming and crying about ‘how can you prefer L over me? I’m your girlfriend! You want me to leave but not him? ’ Punching him in the arm repeatedly for this “offense.”

Light’s head felt as if it was about to split open. His vision was swimming and the blood roaring in his ears made him feel as if he was underwater. He began to hyperventilate as Misa continued to scream and abuse him, the part of his arm that she was hitting was unfortunately his wrist- which was fortunately hidden under the blanket so she couldn’t really see why he was in the hospital (unless L had told her, but he sincerely doubted that- he’d probably made some sort of excuse about him being ill or getting into a fight or something.)

Tears started to prickle in his eyes, this reminded him too much of his old life at home.

Of course, he was playing the role of the perfect son so his beatings didn’t occur very often, but at any slightest mistake, his father would hurt him badly.

Not that Misa’s current physical violence was anything compared to what he’d faced at that time, but it still gave him somewhat of the same feeling as it did back then, and he hated it. Now that he’d been handcuffed to L, he wasn’t used to it anymore.

He felt nauseous, his heart monitor beginning to beep faster as he curled into himself, unable to say anything to Misa or defend himself. He hated showing weakness, but he really couldn’t help it this time. His mask had slipped, revealing part of the true Light Yagami, hidden beneath a facade of the perfect golden boy. The Light Yagami that nobody seemed to like, not even himself. The scared child who simply wanted to be loved by someone, and not for his grades, or his looks. 

ToomuchtooloudithurtsohfuckwhydoesithurtsobadIneedtogetheroffofmesomeonehelp

In the end, he just closed his eyes and took it, giving up. He’d probably get in trouble if he tried to physically fight her, anyway.

After what felt like hours (although it was probably only around a few seconds,) he felt Misa being ripped off him.

He faintly heard what sounded like an argument, but couldn’t concentrate or really listen through his heart pounding in his ears, blocking out the noise of the world around him.

Apparently Misa had ended up leaving because after a few seconds, the dialogue had stopped, and Light could vaguely hear footsteps walking towards him.

Then, he felt a weight next to him which felt oddly comforting for some reason, unlike Misa. The person wasn’t freezing cold like she always was for some strange reason, but also wasn’t overbearingly hot, they were just the right temperature. He felt them grab his hand, noticing how soft and smooth the skin on the other’s body felt.

Then, he felt a set of arms wrap around him, pulling him close to their chest. They began to speak, Light didn’t register the words being spoken, but the person had a soft, tenor voice which made him want to curl up in their arms and stay there forever.

This man’s presence was somehow extremely soothing, and he began to calm down a bit. His heartbeat was no longer loud in his ears, and he started to understand what the person was saying.

“Come on, Light-kun. Match my breathing, you can do it; you’re okay, I promise.”

He did as the man said, trying to slow down his breathing to match the unknown person’s exaggeratedly slow ones. This person seemed quite familiar, but in this state, he couldn’t quite figure out who it was.

He opened his eyes; they widened dramatically as he realized just who the person was.

L?

Well, that was new. He never pegged L as the type to do something like that, but the detective was always surprising him; that was one of the things he liked most about him, he wasn’t predictable, he was a challenge to figure out and one of the only interesting things in Light’s life.

He let out a small grunt as he pushed himself up, turning around to face the man. He hadn’t realized how close they were, though, so he ended up face to face with L, their noses nearly touching.

The genii both hastily scooted back a few inches, Light nearly tumbling off the bed but catching himself.

“Uhm.. hi, Ryuzaki.”

“Hello, Light-kun.”

L had almost never been so infuriated in his life, Misa was so insanely annoying, he wondered how she hadn’t been drop-kicked off the grand canyon yet, or something of the sort. 

She was so overdramatic, always getting emotional at the slightest thing happening. L honestly wasn’t sure what she expected Light to act like when he woke up; he had lied to her about the reason he was in the hospital, wanting to protect Light’s privacy since he’d specifically asked him not to tell anyone. But still, being extremely sick with the flu was also a pretty valid reason for someone to not want to interact with others at that moment. 

He hadn’t planned on her finding out, he had been planning on telling everyone on the Task Force that Light was going to be taking a break for a few days because being handcuffed to L had made him extremely exhausted to the point he couldn’t work or something like that. But Misa had seen him carrying Light to the med-bay and demanded to know what was going on.

He was honestly too stressed to form a good excuse, so he settled for telling her that he was ill, figuring that it would still keep her from bothering Light too much. Sepsis was not a comfortable thing to deal with, and although Light was his main suspect, he cared about him still needed to ensure his well-being for the sake of the investigation (at least, that’s what he told himself.)

He really hadn’t expected her to go that insane on Light. It was clear that the young man was nearly delirious from his medications and barely knew what was going on. Of course he wasn’t going to want somebody screaming and jumping on him in the first few seconds that he was awake. Wasn’t that common sense?

Even with all that, though, he really hadn’t expected her to start hitting him, not like she hadn’t in the past (like when she thought that Light had taken advantage of her when he kissed her or some other ridiculous thing) but Light was barely even registering what he was saying. 

When Light started hyperventilating, it was clear to L that he needed to get Misa out, and fast. Light seemed to be having some sort of panic attack, and Misa didn’t even notice as she continued her tirade of hysterics.

He’d grabbed her by her waist, removing her from the bed, and told her to leave. Of course, she tried to argue, but L wasn’t having it this time, shoving her out of the door and locking it.

Then, he’d went to Light, who had curled up in a fetal position, hugging his knees to his chest as a few tears dripped down his face. He didn’t exactly know how to help, he wasn’t very good at emotional situations; but he did remember in a psychology textbook that he’d read at some point in time that others could be calmed down by being close to someone else, and listening to the beat of their heart of their rhythm of breathing, as their body would start to match that (even if subconsciously.)

After what felt like an eternity, Light’s breathing had started to slow and unexpectedly, he turned around to face L.

For a moment, he stared into Light’s warm, cinnamon colored eyes. They were very beautiful, even when he was crying. 

Then, he realized what he was doing and snapped backwards, almost launching himself off of the bed in his haste to get away. 

Detectives should NOT be having those thoughts about the main suspect of the murder investigation they’re trying to solve, what the hell-

He awkwardly stared at Light from his new position on the bed, and Light stared back, looking just as uncomfortable. 

It was clear that Light didn’t really know what to say, so he’d simply greeted the older detective.

“Uhm.. hi, Ryuzaki.”

“Hello, Light-kun.”

L said, trying not to sound uncomfortable. He usually wasn’t in such close proximity with people, especially not those he was attracted to-

No,

He stopped his train of thoughts right there. This was not the time, they were sitting in a hospital room with Light barely being lucid. 

He sat up in the bed, returning to his normal crouched position in an attempt to make the situation slightly less weird.

L stared at Light for a few more seconds before sighing, he really didn’t want to do this, but..

“Light, I believe we need to talk.”

Chapter Text

Light rolled over in the bed, turning away from L and attempting to get as far away from him as the medical equipment would possibly allow.

He’d known this was coming, of course; but that still didn’t make it any less daunting. He hated how even though L had known him for such a short time, he still somehow managed to learn more about Light than anyone had ever before. It was like he could see right through him.

Light would usually be able to lie to those who’d gotten close to figuring out any sort of truth, but L was different.

Well, obviously.

Light almost rolled his eyes at his internal monologue, of course L was going to be different- he was literally the world’s greatest detective. In all honesty, he really wasn’t sure why L cared so much.

Maybe he just enjoyed tearing down Light’s pride or something of the sort, it was a more valid explanation than him genuinely looking out for Light’s wellbeing. Still, he hated how every lie he told, L’s eyes told him that he knew what was truly going on.

It was almost as much endearing as it was frustrating, and for that he hated it even more. He was not going to fall for the detective that had put him in confinement, and constantly accused him of being Kira. 

It’s like he’d developed some form of Stockholm syndrome, but still, L was the only one who actually understood him. That wasn’t necessarily a good thing, but nobody else ever had.

He shook the thoughts out of his head,

Stop thinking about things like that, you’re quite literally L’s prisoner at the moment. It’s his job to make sure you don’t die on his watch so you don’t ruin his reputation by doing so. No other reason. Even if he does understand, he’ll only use the knowledge to hurt you, or as evidence that you’re Kira.

“ Light.” 

L repeated, surprising Light with the lack of usage of the usual honorific.

He was going to get Light to finally tell him what was going through his head. Perhaps he’d picked up self-mutilation as a coping mechanism for being Kira? It did seem like a very Kira-ish thing to do, after all, sadists usually had a side inclined to masochism as well. But then again, Kira would probably think of something like that as weakness, not allowing himself to sink to the level of a poor, self-destructive, miserable human, when he believed himself to be God. He would not let himself be reduced to the struggles of lowly mortals. He had way too much pride to do so; so maybe Light really wasn’t Kira? There was a less than 5% chance that someone holding such high regard for himself would resort to doing something like that, ruining their perfect image.

L decided not to say anything about that, though, it probably wouldn’t make Light anymore inclined to tell him information; quite the opposite, actually. 

Huh, actually- if he took himself out, then the Kira investigation might be solved..

L shushed his thoughts. 

Yes, it would be quite ideal for the sake of his investigation if Light had just died, but.. somehow that didn’t feel right. Also, it would be less likely that they would be able to find out how Kira was actually murdering people. Of course, they’d still have the people in the Yotsuba group, but it was highly probable that the police force would ruin that without Light to back up L’s ideas. They were absolutely too unintelligent to actually do anything beneficial, Light was the only true asset to the team as far as L was concerned. His apprehension to the thought of Light’s death was a bit strange, though, considering the unethical methods he’d used to solve prior investigations- Lind L. Tailor’s death hadn’t exactly been morally correct. He hadn’t ever really considered people to be essential to an investigation, either. He’d always preferred solving cases alone, without help from anyone, so this was extremely out of the ordinary.

But for those investigations, you didn’t hold any f-

No. He did NOT have feelings for Light Yagami. He wasn’t sure why the thought had continued to pop into his head so much over the past few weeks, but he did not. He couldn’t; Light was the main suspect in the murder investigation that he was conducting. The only reason he cared was because he didn’t want to lose a good chance he had at catching Kira, or at least- that’s what he told himself.

L gently grabbed Light by the waist as to not aggravate his injuries and turned him over to face him; but before he could get a word out, Light, looking quite dazed, finally spoke,

“Uhm, L- what happened? I don’t exactly remember..”

L contemplated how to say it in a way that didn’t sound insanely terrible, but he figured it wouldn’t be any use sugar coating it so he just went out and said it.

“You passed out due to your self-injury which was not treated properly and caused you to develop a severe blood infection, also known as sepsis. You were very close to dying- I must say, I almost doubted your survival.”

He deadpanned, knowing that Light would want the full details, no matter how gruesome.

Light’s eyes widened momentarily,

“..I see”

He paused for a second, looking past L, seemingly taking a lot of interest in a tree outside of the window. He didn’t look at L as he asked his next question.

“Does my family or the taskforce know?”

“No,”

L said, and Light breathed a sigh of relief.

“I managed to convince them that you had come down with a very bad case of the flu and were unable to get out of bed for a few days, but I assured them that Watari was taking care of you. Of course, your father wanted to see you- but I convinced him that it wouldn’t be a good idea as you were ‘severely contagious’ and he should not come into contact with you and risk compromising the Kira investigation.”

Light nodded,

“And Misa?”

“Well, she ran into me and Watari while we were carrying you to the infirmary but somehow we managed to convince her of the same story, despite you literally being right in front of her- how she didn’t notice is beyond me, but I assume you wouldn’t want her to know about it.”

“You’re right, I wouldn’t.”

Light was amazed at how genuinely oblivious Misa could be. He knew she wasn’t the most observant person, but that was absolutely insane. Not that he was complaining, of course, but it seriously made him question the fate of humanity.

“So, Light-kun.”

Light tried to keep a poker face, he knew what was coming. There was definitely no evading it this time.

“Yes, Ryuzaki?”

“Why do you do this?”

L asked, examining his bandaged arms.

Light sighed,

“Well.. I suppose it started off as some sort of punishment for myself. I was eleven years old when I started, I’d just gotten a 98% on an exam and my father had yelled at me, while my mother just looked really disappointed. I went to my room and scratched myself until I almost drew blood, I told myself that was what I deserved for being a failure. And well.. I guess it kind of spiraled from there. Eventually it went from scratching, to scissors, to eventually.. razor blades.”

L kept on his usual blank expression as Light spoke. Yes, this did make sense; it seemed like a very Light-like thing to do. After all, he prided himself on being perfect in every way so whenever he wasn’t, it clearly took a huge blow to his psyche. 

“I see.”

Light was almost shocked at the lack of reaction- he figured most people would be horrified to an extent, or pity him or something like that. But this was L he was talking to, he wouldn’t do that- which Light was extremely grateful for. He hated being pitied.

“Well, I believe that it would be a good idea for you to stop, obviously. But it isn’t quite that simple either- I believe that you’ve now become addicted and that’s why it’s gotten to this extent. Am I correct?”

Light seemed to contemplate for a moment, was he ?

No, he couldn’t be. He was not one of those people from the TV commercials- the ones that told their stories of how doing drugs and smoking destroyed their lives. He was perfect, he was nothing like them. 

He shook his head,

“No.”

L raised an eyebrow, giving Light a onceover. 

“Mm.. is that so?”

When Light didn’t answer, he spoke again.

“So what is your explanation for what you’ve currently been doing with the razor blade then?”

“It’s just a punishment. I could stop if I wanted to.”

L didn’t believe this, but Light would definitely realize at some point in time that this was not the case. He probably already had, but was still in the denial phase.

Oh well, it wasn’t as if there was any point in arguing with him. He’d just let Light figure it out for himself if he hadn’t already.

“I see.”

Light turned back away from L, and the older detective stood up.

“Well, I must go, Light-kun. Watari will likely come to deliver your food and pain medication soon. I will return the next time I have an opportunity to.”

Light nodded, not saying anything and continuing to stubbornly look anywhere but L.

L left the room, lock clicking shut behind him as he exited.

Light groaned as he rolled around to take a more comfortable position.

Shit, that was actually a disaster.

Chapter Text

Unfortunately for L, it took Light a few weeks to fully recover. He thanked God that it wasn’t more, because the Task Force and Mr. Yagami were beginning to become suspicious of Light’s whereabouts. After all, L couldn’t really blame Light’s absence on illness for three whole weeks, that was just concerning. It’d worked for the first week, but then he’d started switching to things like:

“Oh, Light decided he wanted to work from the bedroom today because he wanted to have a quieter space to collect his thoughts.”

Good thing the Task Force was pretty gullible, if L had told those lies to someone from Wammy’s house, he probably would’ve been laughed at for telling such an unbelievable story.

Finally, though, the infection had pretty much faded and Light was cleared to go back to working with the Task Force. Although, there were now some new restrictions in place.

The cameras around the bathrooms and other places had been reinstated; not to Light’s knowledge, of course. L wasn’t going to tell him for the moment, even though he knew the younger would figure it out eventually. He didn’t want Light to find other ways to harm himself without L knowing; so even if L did see him doing anything, he wouldn’t speak up about it. He’d rather supervise Light committing his self mutilation to make sure he was at least somewhat safe (if it could be called that,) than be completely oblivious to it, and have him end up dead from blood loss or another infection.

He knew that Light would probably expect the cameras anyway, but he also wouldn’t know where they were, so he wouldn’t be able to take the risk of doing anything.

Light seemed extremely grateful to finally be let out of the hospital room that he’d been detained in. He’d dragged L straight outside and forced him to take a walk with him around the area, with L begrudgingly following along only because he didn’t want to go back to the Task Force and have to listen to Matsuda ask annoying questions, and have everyone interrogate Light.

However they did have to go back eventually, L internally sighed as they reached the door to the Task Force room, how annoying.

The first thing they heard as they walked through the door was Matsuda’s voice (of course.)

“Guys, I’m being serious! What if he really did get kidnapped by the North Korean government-”

What the hell is he even talking about-

“OH WAIT, GUYS! HE’S BACK!”

Oh.

The whole Task Force turned to look at them after Matsuda’s exclamation. 

“Light? Where have you been for the past few weeks?”

L could see Light tense for a millisecond before smoothly lying;

“Oh, I got sick and I wanted to get rid of all the symptoms completely before coming back here to work- I didn’t want to infect anyone, especially since you guys are so crucial to the Kira investigation. Having you guys out of commission would be detrimental to catching Kira.”

It was fascinating how easy lying came to Light, his Kira percentage was increasing by the second. L had never seen someone so practiced and so flawless at telling lies, not even the most charismatic criminals L had dealt with came anywhere close to Light’s skill.

Ah, so he’s like the monster that you described yourself to be to the Wammy children once- it is true that birds of a feather flock together; maybe that’s why you l-

No.

L dismissed the thought. The only reason Light had managed to catch his attention in such a way was because his game had been more interesting than anything else he’d played with the subpar wannabe criminal masterminds. It had absolutely nothing to do with personal feelings, he was just a new source of entertainment, that was all. It was like a child receiving new toys on Christmas; they spent the whole day absolutely infatuated with the toys because they were a new thing, different from all the other stuff they had. Within the next few days, though, they’d forget about it and lose interest as they adjusted to it. L was just in the ‘Christmas Day’ phase, he assured himself.

He was snapped back to reality as Matsuda started rambling excitedly

“That makes sense, you’re so considerate, Light! I would’ve never been able to go that long without coming back to work on the investigation, it’s just so much fun!”

L and Light both side eyed him at that, fun? The Kira investigation was many things, but fun wasn’t one of them, although L supposed it was pretty entertaining. 

“You were gone for so long, I thought you’d gotten kidnapped by Kim Jong Un for information on the investigation or something! Like there was this press conference..”

L chose to not listen any further, he could actually feel himself losing brain cells listening to whatever Matsuda was trying to say- seriously- Kim Jong Un? Was he on drugs? L made a mental note to think more about that later.

He almost smirked at Light’s facial expression, the man looked absolutely dumbfounded at what he was hearing- it seemed the few weeks of not interacting with Matsuda had un-desensitized him. Or maybe Matsuda was being more stupid than usual, the rest of the Task Force hadn’t said a single word, although Soichiro had flashed Matsuda a look of disapproval and Mogi’s expression made him look like he wanted to jump off a bridge.

“Erm.. Kim Jong Un…?”

Of all the things Light had expected to come back to, this was not one of them. He decided to just tune out Matsuda and go sit down at his computer- Aizawa would probably make him stop talking, anyway, he looked ready to kill.

Light was immensely grateful when the day was over and the rest of the Task Force had left, leaving him and L alone. 

The two ended up working in silence together for about another hour before L spoke up,

“Are your wounds healing well, Light-kun? Do you still feel ill?”

Light thought about it for a moment before shaking his head,

“No, I’m pretty much fine. My wounds are healing alright, they’ll probably be completely healed in the next three weeks.”

L hummed in acknowledgement, typing away on his computer as he listened to Light’s response.

“I see.”

L said, not bothering to continue the conversation. The two detectives once again sat in a comfortable silence, clicking through the crime documentations of those who had been killed by Kira, trying to find any pattern that would give them more leads.

After about another half hour, though, Light found that he couldn’t concentrate anymore- well- not really, he could, he was just focusing on the wrong thing. 

For some reason, L was particularly eye-catching tonight. It wasn’t as if his appearance was anything out of the ordinary, he still wore the same clothes as he wore every day, his complexion was still pale, and he still had large bags under his eyes. Normally, Light wouldn’t think anything of it, but tonight, he couldn’t think about anything other than how badly he wanted L. Perhaps he was going insane, maybe it was just because it was late at night, Light was too tired to think straight. Yes, that had to be it. 

There was no way that Light was actually attracted to L. Sure, he’d been finding many of L’s actions endearing over the past few months, but that still meant nothing. It was likely just admiration, after all, L was the world’s greatest detective, and Light found his intellect fascinating. But still, he’d never felt like this before. Not just for L, he’d never felt anything like this in his entire life . To be fair, during his stay at the hospital, he hadn’t gotten the chance to.. indulge himself in the activity that he usually did once a day for a whole three weeks, but this was just crazy.

He stared intently at L who was sitting in his normal, crouched position at his computer, sucking on a lollipop as he worked. Light resisted the urge to groan in annoyance, of all the things L could be eating right now, it had to be that ? There truly was no God. Unfortunately, this had only heightened Light’s arousal, which had now manifested itself physically. Light quickly rolled his chair closer to the desk and crossed his legs, trying to keep any sort of reaction from showing on his face. He did not need L finding out about this.

This was truly embarrassing, Light silently prayed for it to just go away on its own, but fuck, why the hell did L look so damn sexy over there? It actually made him mad. He tried looking away and made an effort to focus on his work, but the thoughts somehow got even more intense when he did that.

Light contemplated many different solutions to his little ‘problem’. He could just wait it out, but he was really sensitive right now since it’d been so long since he’d last been able to relieve himself, and he didn’t want to risk cumming in his pants. Dear God, that thought had managed to sound super inappropriate and embarrassing, even in his head. Thinking about this was starting to make him blush slightly, and L finally looked from his computer, a curious expression on his face.

“You seem to be blushing, Light-kun.”

L stated in a matter of fact tone, staring at him with his usual stoic expression.

Light didn’t know how to respond to that. It wasn’t like he could just deny it, so he settled for simply nodding.

“I suppose I am.”

He wondered why L had brought this up, anyway. Sure, he was known for being blunt and asking questions that most people would deem odd, but why would he care?

He felt slightly uncomfortable, feeling L’s eyes boring into him as if he were a puzzle that L was trying to solve.

“Why’re you looking at me like that?”

L stared at him for a few more seconds before responding,

“Light-kun usually never blushes. I am under the impression that there is something going on with him.”

L said, staring at him owlishly.

Light supposed it actually was kind of a fair question to ask, considering the only time he’d ever blushed in front of L was from a fever, when he literally had sepsis and almost died. But still, that didn’t make it any less awkward.

“I’m not sick, if that’s what you were wondering.”

L tilted his head at that response, seeming to analyze him even closer.

The only time Light has ever blushed was when he was sick with sepsis, however, I’m inclined to believe that’s not the case this time, especially considering he just got out of the hospital, which would make it extremely unlikely for him to have fallen ill.. So what can it be? 

He examined Light’s body language, trying to find something out of the ordinary.

Hm, he’s sitting with his legs crossed over each other which is pretty normal for him. His facial expression is exactly the same as well, except for the blush.. Everything seems ordinary, however.. 

He measured the distance between Light and the desk in his head,

Light usually sits around eighteen centimeters away from the desk. But today, he’s only around three, his abdomen is practically against it. That’s very strange.. I’ve never seen him sit so close before.. is this something to do with Kira? Is Light hiding something under the desk? What could he be hiding? It doesn’t look like he’s doing anything from this angle, and his hands are placed on top of the desk where I can see them. However.. Light is also very smart, so could he have found a way to be Kira right in front of my face? No, he wouldn’t be that stupid. He would’ve made more of an effort to hide his proximity to the desk..

“Stand up, Light-kun.”

Light internally cursed himself,

Goddammit. L’s probably going to try and accuse me of being Kira if I say no, but saying yes would mean showing him.. well, that. Technically, though, even if he saw it, he wouldn’t necessarily be able to take it as me being attracted to him. After all, this type of thing is pretty normal- the average male gets around eleven erections a day- but he also knows that I’m not the type to blush at something like that, even though a normal person might in this situation.. I wouldn’t let it affect my work, and it’s not like this has happened before. I ruined any sort of alibi I could’ve had with the blush, fucking hell.

“Why?”

L sighed, looking slightly annoyed at the question.

“Just do it, Light-kun. Refusing will only increase your Kira percentage.”

Light gave him a look of irritation, but didn’t say anything further. He stood up, feeling extremely self conscious. He was wearing tan, well-fitting pants. This sucked, immensely.

L raised an eyebrow as Light stood up, realizing the issue. He looked from Light’s crotch to his face and back again.

“I see.”

He said, an unreadable expression on his face.

Is Light-kun attracted to me? It’s not as if it’s uncommon for this to happen randomly, but something tells me that this is not random. Perhaps I’m overthinking since I’m admittedly attracted to him as well..

L had finally gotten over his denial phase, he knew it was pointless to try and convince himself over and over that he wasn’t attracted to Light, considering any time he thought about it in actual detail, he always drew the same conclusion. He liked Light very much. And unfortunately for him, his deductive reasoning skills had never been wrong before, plus, since Light had come back to work on the investigation today, L had to physically force himself to keep his eyes off of him.

It was honestly a bit funny, Light had spent much of his time being extremely annoyed with L as the detective constantly tried to get him to admit that he was Kira, even going so far as to get in a fist fight with him, yet now he was displaying signs of attraction? Was this some sort of Stockholm syndrome? And L was the detective who was supposed to be solving the case, yet he'd fallen for the person he was trying to prove to be a criminal. Relationship goals!

What do I even do about this now? I could probably just go back to working and ignore that this ever happened, but.. that’d look strange since I’d usually ask questions. And I do want to know..

“Are you attracted to me, Light-kun?”

L asked, his tone of slight amusement.

Light glared at him, although he didn’t say anything, basically confirming that he was. 

“Can I sit down now, L?”

“Hmm, no, Light-kun. Come here.”

L said, motioning him over.

Light was slightly confused at that, why did L want him to come over?

Even so, he walked over to where L was sitting, looking down at the detective who was still on his chair in his normal crouched position.

L analyzed him for a few more moments before speaking,

“It’s quite alright, Light-kun. I believe I’m attracted to you as well,”

His face was still expressionless as he said this, continuing to suck on his lollipop after he’d finished speaking.

Light froze in place, he hadn’t expected that. Not at all . L didn’t look like the type of person who would be attracted to anyone , it was very puzzling to him. 

“Uh.. okay.”

He and L stared at each other in silence for about a minute straight, neither of the men knowing what to say. It’s not like they could avoid talking about it, they were quite literally chained together.

Light couldn’t tell if this was going to be romantic, or simply awkward. In all honesty, L also may have just said that for the sake of the investigation to get closer to him and make him admit to being Kira. Damn, L.

Chapter Text

L looked up at Light, his expression unchanging, although there was a slight glint of amusement in his eyes as he took in Light’s extremely uncomfortable expression, his reaction was quite entertaining.

Admittedly, L was quite conflicted on what to do. Light was right there, obviously wanting him. But.. would it really be a good idea? Sleeping with his number one suspect for Kira didn’t exactly seem like the logical thing to do, however… Light was very attractive, and the more L thought about it, the more he realized that this could be extremely helpful to the investigation.

Obviously, when people were in vulnerable states, they were more likely to accidentally slip up and reveal something. This would be a dangerous game to play, though, because he may risk completely losing Light’s trust, and with that, probably a lot of the trust from the Task Force as well, since they were never very fond of him, but liked Light very much.

Would Light react to being called Kira during sex? L wasn’t sure about that, but if Light was Kira, then there was at least a slight chance of him reacting. It was clear that Kira had a God complex, so having someone pleasure him while calling him Kira was definitely going to invoke something, whether it was an outwardly shown emotion or not.

But wait, would it work if Light was submissive? Likely, no. Kira seemed to be the dominant type (well, he’d likely convinced himself that he was, at least), so his ‘Kira mindset’ probably wouldn’t be as prominent as his ‘Light Yagami’ mind at that moment. However- wait- maybe it would work. Testing if Light was Kira by forcing him to submit? Kira would never submit to his greatest enemy, he’d fight him all the way for sure. Although Light, Kira aside, seemed like the type to want to top for his reputation as well. But L concluded that Kira would likely be a lot more upset about being dominated than Light Yagami would. So which should he do? He could probably fight for the top role and win. Kira would be murderous, while Light Yagami would be extremely annoyed and pouty. Maybe that was a good idea.

Sure, this felt slightly wrong considering he actually had real feelings for Light, but he was curious to see what would happen. There was a high chance of this encounter leading to nothing (and possibly making things worse), but still... If it didn’t do anything, then it’d just keep Light’s Kira percentage the same, but if he slipped up, that could be a breakthrough in the case.

And maybe L did want to fuck him, or get fucked by him, but that wasn’t important (that was a lie). He’d be doing this strictly for the investigation. It wasn’t about Light’s gorgeous body or anything, not a chance. He liked Light, but still, that wasn’t why he was doing it (he was in denial again, apparently.)

Light could practically see the cogs turning in L’s head as he stared up at Light. He wondered what L was thinking, there were only a few viable options that came to mind; first, that perhaps L was genuinely interested in doing something and figuring out how to say it (highly unlikely given that they’d been staring at each other for a whole minute in silence when L was usually extremely blunt;) second, that L was finding some sort of way to link this to Light being Kira (extremely likely), or it could be something completely different, although Light sincerely doubted it.

L continued to stare at him for another good minute, taking in the sight of Light’s slightly flushed face and clear arousal before turning away and going back to his computer screen.

“Okay, you may sit back down now, Light-kun.”

What? Was this some kind of trap?

Light was extremely confused, L telling him to come over after admitting attraction to him had left some.. implications. But now he was just allowing him to leave? What was the point of making him come over there? Was it just to engrave the image into his mind of Light (or Kira ) in his eyes being submissive to him? It didn’t make any sense.

Light was slightly disappointed that things hadn’t gone as he’d thought they would. That stupid twink with his stupid mind games, how aggravating. 

Either way, he really didn’t want to get into an argument about this, even thinking about that conversation embarrassed the hell out of him; so he just nodded, and walked back over to his seat, his steps awkward as his arousal rubbed against his clothing with each step.

He sat back down, his eyes shifting to try and catch a glimpse of L every so often in his peripheral vision, but the other man didn’t even glance at him.

L could almost feel Light’s eyes on him, obviously confused and wanting to figure out what L had been doing. In truth, L himself didn’t know what he’d been doing either. He really had been thinking about taking Light right then and there, and he knew Light had expected him to as well; so why hadn’t he?

L’s thoughts were racing as he continued to stare at his computer, pretending not to notice Light constantly looking at him (although L knew that Light could probably see right through him.) Honestly, at first, he really had just wanted to see Light’s discomfort for a good laugh, although those thoughts had turned a bit.. inappropriate after actually seeing the younger man. But now, unease coursed through him. What was this investigation even turning into??

This wasn’t the first time L had thought about using sex as a way to gain information for an investigation, but no matter how much of a help it might be to this case, it felt strangely wrong, and L hated himself for it. He had already accepted his possible romantic attraction to Light Yagami, but this was completely unacceptable. Emotions didn’t get in the way of cases, that was not how L worked; he’d even went so far as to break the law in order to solve cases, yet somehow, the thing that stopped him was an attraction to some wannabe God with ego issues. Jesus fucking Christ..

Maybe he was overthinking this, perhaps it was a good sign that he’d finally developed some morals; after all, that had always been Mr. Wammy’s most common complaint about him: ‘L, are you sure you want to do this? This is a human rights violation, you know..’ but again, he couldn’t risk screwing up an investigation for this..

What do I do? The obvious choice is to sever any emotional feelings towards Light Yagami, but how? And why does it feel like I don’t want to?

This was definitely going to be an endeavor.