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Misa thought the whole idea of the chains was very gross. "It would be kinky and kinda hot if Misa was on the other end," she said, eyeing Light in a way that was supposed to be seductive. "But since you're both guys, it's icky. Besides, Light, the only one you're supposed to be tied to forever is Misa!" She gave a humongous pout, folding her arms under her chest.
"Like I've already said, Amane-san, I'm not doing this because I want to." L scratched at his cheek thoughtfully. "If Yagami-kun really isn't Kira, then he should have no objections, because I'll be taking this off the moment my suspicions are gone."
"Sti-i-ill," Misa wheedled. "It's like promise rings only way bigger! With way more links! Or, or – noooo," her eyes grew wide with horror. "Wedding rings!"
Light only just kept himself from rolling his eyes at these theatrics. Of course he wouldn't enjoy being tied to Ryuuzaki every hour of every day for the next few days, but if that was what it took to prove his innocence, then he was willing to go through with it. Besides, he didn't want things getting any more suggestive than they already were, so he kept his tone breezy as he said, "Well if this is marriage, I am definitely requesting a divorce."
"Misa agrees!" She turned to her captor and nodded her head several times. "You should get a divorce now!"
L smiled at this, although the way he did it seemed to be more calculating than amused. "It'll have to wait a few more weeks, I'm afraid."
Six afternoons later, it was taking not only the Chief, but also Aizawa and Mogi (while Matsuda helpfully waved his hand and said something like, hey guys, you're going to really kill each other, y'know that?) to stop their fighting. Light's chin was bruised in a way that Misa would almost certainly despise L for, and the detective's cheeks were swollen on either side, as if he had stuffed his mouth with gumdrops. There was a lot of panting and scuffling and resentful air in the room afterwards, and even if the brawl had ended, the staring match was far from over. While Matsuda continued to laugh nervously, as if it could help somehow, Light threw up his hands and said, "This isn't going to work, we're never gonna finish the case like this. I can't work with this guy," and here he pointed at L accusingly, while the detective pulled at his lower lip in an ugly imitation of a pout. "I can hardly stand to be near him. Why doesn't anyone else notice that he is totally insane?"
"I would prefer insanity over being Kira, any day," L responded amiably.
"I'm not Kira!" He stood up so quickly that L flopped forward a bit, the chain tugging at his wrist in a manner that Light vehemently hoped was painful. "I'm not Kira, I'm not capable of killing that many people, why would I even want to?"
"Why indeed." L stood as well, and sloped over to his chair, squatting in it almost cheerfully. "Don't we all wonder?"
Light said nothing, although he did pick uselessly at the chain around his wrist for a while. He didn't like this game they were playing, he didn't like the way his father and the other officers just sighed at their fights as if they were naughty boys hurling insults across a playground; he especially didn't like the way some stupid part of him wondered if L wasn't actually right, if he did indeed have that capacity for evil; but that wasn't possible, because Light knew what justice was, and it wasn't Kira.
It wasn't L either, though. Definitely not, he grumbled to himself, as he watched the detective lean into a microphone and say, "Some bandages and two cold packs, please, Watari. And tea for everyone, thank you."
He knew that the dislike was mutual, but L couldn't be vocal about it because he had decided on their link in the first place; if he let the idea that it bothered him fall from his lips at any moment, the Chief would be on his case right away, demanding that his son be released. That was what Light thought, anyway. He was sitting outside the bathroom door, fiddling with the chain, listening to L hum nonsensically in the shower. The man couldn't carry a tune. Or maybe he wasn't humming, maybe he was mumbling. Either way, he was taking his time today, and Light was certain that he was only doing it as some other form of irritation, maybe revenge for his swollen cheeks. After all, L never looked like he combed his hair or worried about what to wear, and he walked around barefoot everywhere; hygiene did not seem to rank high in his list of priorities.
"Are you finished yet?" He called out tersely, after they had wasted another five minutes.
There was no answer, although the sounds of running water died away, then stopped completely. After a moment, L slunk out past him, drying his hair with one hand and pulling down his shirt with the other. Light caught a glimpse of purple stretched over the detective's ribs, and vaguely wondered how old the bruise had been. They had been at each other's throats the whole week. He had dark spots scattered all over his body, too, and even if Watari never seemed to run out of first-aid kits, this constant fighting was starting to seem ridiculous.
He didn't know why he hated L as much as he did; the feeling seemed to come from everywhere inside him, black and bitter, burning with an incomprehensible rage. L was annoying, that was true. L was tiresome and suspicious and a braggart and good for nothing but getting cavities, and Light knew all of this, but sometimes he still didn't think those were reasons enough for him to feel spite of this magnitude. Normally Light would be smart and gracious about such things; maybe he'd wish the man diabetes, but there were times when he looked at L and he just wanted him to die, wanted his heart to explode and for blood to run from his eyes, for him to curl up on the floor and beg for mercy and...
"Yagami-kun, will you be taking a shower, or are we going to return to the conference room now?"
"Of course I'll be taking a shower," he snapped, more angry than he was supposed to be, and before he could stop himself - "I'm not a slob like you." He shook his head quickly, drowning out the violent images that had been floating through it only moments before, then he grabbed his towel and headed for the bathroom. Before stepping inside he paused, and gave a half turn. L had clambered onto the seat he had just left, and was staring at the floor through his toes.
"L. Does it hurt?"
The detective answered without looking up. "Only as much as yours does."
That was all right, then. He made sure to shower just as long as L did, although by the end of it he still didn't feel entirely clean.
It wasn't routine – not quite yet, and not that he wanted it to be, come to think of it - but after seven days he was finally getting a little more than an hour of fitful sleep. The chain was long enough so that L could sit on his chair in front of his laptop, a few feet away, while Light lay in bed attempting to remember what dreams were like. At this rate, he'd have eyebags to match the detective's, and while he didn't care so much for looks the idea of even slightly resembling L made him want to gag. He wondered, vaguely, if this was what a marriage slump felt like, what with the emptiness on the other side of the bed, the lack of sleep, the tired memories of freedom, the accusations and false smiles – so commonplace that he felt he could spew a fountain of insults without even batting an eyelid. I hate you so much, L, and I have no idea why. I think you want to make me hate you.
Then he remembered his mother, and all those nights his father never came home from working on a case, and he decided this wasn't like that at all. This was different. He had no idea how matrimony slipped into the equation (holy hell, that was disturbing); it was the lack of sleep getting to him. It made his temper short in the mornings, and his memory weaker. He couldn't even remember what they had been fighting about. L had this uncanny way of knowing the perfectly wrong thing to say at all the right times, almost as if he could read Light like an open book and was tearing the pages out just for kicks.
"L," he murmured. "You really never sleep, do you?"
The detective was holding a cold pack against one cheek. He had been switching it around from either cheek for the last half-hour, and typing dedicatedly with one finger. Light wondered if this display meant that he was ambidextrous, or just retarded. His voice was muffled as he answered, "No human being can survive without any sleep," as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"Then you're not human." Light said. For some reason it came out like a bad joke.
"You wouldn't be comfortable sharing the bed anyway," L answered, but it sounded like a challenge instead of a statement. Light had to stop himself from sitting up, because something inside him screamed that means he'll win and he never wanted L to win even if he didn't know why. L winning meant Kira losing. That was supposed to be their goal.
"It's your bed, you can sleep in it if you want. I don't give a damn."
L wheeled around in his chair to face Light, and in the pale light from the computer screen his features were horribly garbled – the eyes too big, like eclipsed suns, the mouth torn between a sad smile and a frown, the eyebags a stark reminder that no matter how much time he wasted eating cake, he did work pretty hard. For what was decidedly far too long, they remained frozen like that, staring at each other, at the bruises on each other's faces and the invisible scars that the case had left all over them. This situation, Light found himself thinking, would have never happened under ordinary circumstances, but the circumstances had stopped being ordinary when Kira appeared, and when L decided that Light and the murderer were one and the same. He didn't even know what this situation was, but it definitely wasn't him inviting another man to crawl into bed beside him.
Something in L's computer suddenly went ping, and he turned back to face the screen abruptly. Light rolled over onto his other side and squeezed his eyes shut, feigning deafness as L answered, much later than was appropriate, "I do."
Apparently that didn't stop him from sliding into bed several hours later, sighing in a manner that plainly showed he was exhausted. Light was halfway to dreaming, but he still had enough sensation to shudder.
L was still up earlier. Light knew he would have been. He wasn't even sure if he hadn't just imagined L finally going to sleep the night before; it was definitely odd enough to have been a figment of his imagination. Before Light had even managed a yawn L was already walking out of the room, pulling at the chain so that Light was forced to crawl out of bed, no matter how much he didn't want to.
"I'm very hungry," the detective stated, as if in explanation.
"Well thank you for not disturbing my sleep," Light answered shortly, although he wasn't sure if he was being sarcastic. The idea made him feel suddenly exposed, but he decided not to think about why.
The kitchen was empty when they arrived, but then again, there was a coffeemaker in the conference room, and nobody liked to eat quite as much as L. He busied himself looking through his treats in the walk-in pantry, digging through packets of jam tarts and cookies and Pocky, while Light fetched a carton of milk from the fridge and some cornflakes from the counter. It seemed ages before the detective finally sat across from him with a strawberry shortcake, two chocolate muffins and a piece of toast with apricot jam. They ate their breakfasts in relative silence, and Light found himself thinking about his parents again, sitting across from each other at the dining table, reading the papers quietly and trying to avoid the topic of stress.
That happened every day. This...he would never get used to it, and would never want to.
L glanced at him from around a mouthful of mashed bread and jam, and it took Light a moment to register that his cheeks were still swollen from yesterday. He sighed. He wondered what he could say. We can't keep fighting like this, Ryuuzaki. We're too old for this sort of game. I don't think this is fun, do you?
Instead he found himself muttering, to his infinite horror, "Look, I'm sorry."
L's eyes widened. They widened and widened and he would have probably looked disbelieving if he didn't have half a piece of toast in his mouth. Light crossed his arms, because there was something accusing about those wide eyes, and there was that weird part inside him again that had started to scream, don't surrender, you goddamn fool! but it was too late: if this was surrender, he already had.
L swallowed his toast. He opened his mouth, then shut it. He pulled at the chain. He sighed.
"If you mean that, then I've certainly given you less credit then you deserve." He paused. "Raito-kun."
There was something very sad about the way he said it, like it was defeat; like it was his surrender. Light didn't know why he was taking note of this, so he stood and picked up his empty cereal bowl and started to carry it to the sink. L stood to let him, picking up his cake plate and eating from it thoughtfully as he followed behind. "I don't know what you mean by that, L, but all I said was sorry." The chain dipped into soapy water, and Light imagined it breaking away and disappearing forever. It was going to happen soon. It had to.
He didn't want to face the consequences otherwise.
The next time they fought, which was approximately twelve minutes into the meeting, even Matsuda had to help tear them apart.