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Everything was too much.
From the typing on keyboards burning a horrible clicking sound into the grooves of his skull, to the chain clasped around his wrist, making him want to rip his skin off with it.
L had had enough.
He glanced over at the boy sat beside him, breaking out of the thoughts he had been lost in for at least an hour instead of working on the case that desperately needed an answer, just to find him staring right back. Their eyes locked, and just for a second Ryuzaki had a horrible feeling of nothing. He couldn’t tell what the other boy was thinking, feeling, or even why he was staring.
‘For the world’s greatest detective, you can be horrible at reading people’, The man thought bitterly, his eyes still locked onto his suspect. An impending sense of dread filled him as he slowly realised he was looking in the face of pity.
-
Ryuzaki had been still for hours.
Well, not still. More so stagnant. He had been twitching in his spot for a long while, not moving to type, or read, or even pick up one of his many treats that had accumulated over the time he had spent zoned out. Light could feel it coiling in his stomach, not a feeling he had ever felt for the detective, or anyone really, but he couldn’t ignore the feeling of worry creeping up his spine and stalling at his throat, making him hesitate to speak up on the matter. Ryuzaki was acting odd. Not unusual, but strange enough for him to notice.
So it was a bit of a shock when the detective’s head turned to meet his, eyes locking in an unwelcome moment, any feelings for each other lost between them and dispersing into the air around them.
It was then that Light really looked at him.
Ryuzaki looked ill. He appeared much paler than usual, his already porcelain skin looking almost see through as he traced some veins he could see nearer his eyes. The eyes in question, usually two large saucers constantly analysing and always locking in on details almost everyone (he must admit, himself included) would miss, appeared to be glassed over and unfocused, as if he were somewhere else entirely. For all Light knew, he might’ve been.
On top of that, he looked like he was going to be physically sick any second now. His throat bobbed in a way that made Light uncomfortable. His legs appeared to be shaking under his (worrying low) weight and his hand came up to brush his bottom lip, as if testing the waters.
Unexpectedly, the older man stood up fast, fast enough to startle Light, and started to head towards the elevator. It was in that moment that Light was genuinely starting to worry that Ryuzaki would actually be sick. He didn’t think the detective even had the capacity to succumb to something so human.
As they both stood in the elevator, Light dared to glance at the boy, no, man to his right. He was jittery and acting extremely out of character. Not even in the two weeks which he had been chained to the man already had he seen Ryuzaki act anything but himself. This odd display of humanity was enough to raise the anxiety overflowing Light’s body. It was more than he could bear.
“Hey, Ryuzaki, are you quite alright?”
Light winced as he was saying it, clearly the man was not ‘quite alright’, and he was sure that anybody that could see him right now would tell him so. Hell, even Matsuda might have given them a double take.
”Light, I am quite fine.”
Ryuzaki answered immediately, in what many would’ve seen as a cold dismissal, but it raised many alarm bells in Light’s mind. Ryuzaki had called him Light. Not the usual ‘Light-kun’ he was used to, or even the occasional ‘Kira’ or ‘Kira-kun’ he would sometimes find himslf responding to when the older man felt cheeky. No, he had called him by his first name, no formalities and no hint of playfulness in his voice. The man had let something slip from his mind, meaning he must’ve been feeling dreadful.
-
L felt dreadful.
He felt as though he could hardly stand still, his mind racing at a speed he wished his body could achieve right now. He knew what needed to be done.
Cutting wasn’t a new phenomenon for him. He’d spent years silently relying on pain to get him through rough days. When he was merely eight years old and working on his first case, he innocently started digging his jagged fingernails into his forearms to help balance his mental stability, hoping he could just hold on to his last piece of sanity as he finished the case. That’s how it always went.
His next case after that took longer. The longer it took, the more extreme measures he had to turn to. It was always a race between his intelligence and emotions to see which would win. His intelligence always won. He always solved the case before he gave into his emotions.
Until A.
It turned out it wasn’t a case that broke him at all, it was his successor. As he stared at the body slowly seeping blood on to the gravel, he realised this was his destiny. He watched his successor, his own family, suffering in their last moments and could only feel raging jealousy. Jealousy that they had escaped and L was still stuck here. Once he returned back inside his ‘home’ (to him it was much more of a facility), he picked up the sharpest object that was available to him, a knife.
He doesn’t remember much after that. He remembers watching the blood slowly drip from the first wound, counting the seconds it took for the gash to be completely filled with the red liquid, finding it hypnotising. He remembers shakily standing after realising he was sat in a pool of his own blood, and making his way to the shower. He remembers the pain he felt as the lukewarm water slowly cascaded down his body, travelling deep into his wounds and drowning his blood.
He remembers experiencing the best sleep of his life that night.
Now here he was. The case had no end in sight but his emotions were slowly overtaking.
-
The elevator dinged as they reached their floor and Light didn’t have to wait to be dragged straight to their room. Ryuzaki walked at such a pace that Light had to almost jog to keep up with, leaving him no time to think about what was happening.
They reached their room in record time and as Light went to open his mouth to question just what the other man was doing, he was quietly interrupted by the clanking of metal as one half of the chain fell freely under gravity onto the carpeted floor. Light could only stare at it. A loud bang bought the boy back to his senses, and he looked up just in time to see the lock of the bathroom door twist into place.
What just happened?
Now it was Light’s turn to feel physically sick as he stared at the bathroom door in disbelief. Ryuzaki never unchained them. Not when they were showering (which Light would still insist to be useless, as they would always just wait outside for one another anyway), not when they were using the bathroom, not even when they were sleeping. The only time they were ever free from the shackles was when they were changing, and even then Ryuzaki always had his eyes trained on Light.
‘Maybe he is just sick, in which case I should help him,’ Light thought to himself briefly, that being the only explanation he found even remotely plausible. However, the more rational part of his brain was telling him that this cannot be true, since the man simply would’ve just left them chained together, regardless of what he was doing.
Only then did Light notice the water from the tap was running, and had been for the last few minutes. He was completely clueless. He wasn’t even sure how to act, whether he should stay in the room or rejoin the rest of the task force downstairs. No, that would be too strange, they would have an onslaught of questions that Light would be unable to answer, and how could he cover for something he didn’t know about?
Before he knew it, Light was sheepishly making his way towards the bathroom door, and gave it three gentle knocks.
“Hey Ryuzaki, I know you’re probably not feeling the best right now, is there anything I can do to help?”
-
Not feeling the best right now was the understatement of the year.
He felt numb. His brain had gone blank and his left arm emitted a distant ache that he was lost in. L felt euphoric. That was, until, the second round of knocking broke through his haze, bringing him back to earth.
”Uh.. Ryuzaki? Are you okay in there? Can I come in?”
A naive and innocent voice seeped through the cracks in the walls L had meticulously set up around himself. The dull ache in his arm had morphed into a harsh stinging as he went to wipe some blood off.
He was met with his own raw and damaged skin. Years of scars had collected there like trophies. He eyed the white ones he made when he was younger, when he was still emotionally vulnerable to the sight of a crime scene, any sign of death reminding him of A. He moved along to look at the ones he made during later adolescence, when everyone was forming friends and talking about life as if they had a choice. Not him though. He would stay awake late into the night, thinking about when he could get his next fix. He looked further up his arm, burn scars from when he was even older and had gained more independence. These scars were more rounded, less deep. He took up smoking just to burn himself with the cigarettes, hoping to somehow prove to himself that he was still alive. That didn’t last long, Watari couldn’t allow his model detective to have such an obvious flaw.
Then he thought about Beyond Birthday.
Beyond was maybe the only one in the whole facility to ever look at him. Look him in his eyes. Acknowledge him. They didn’t have a relationship, they didn’t have feelings for one another, they didn’t get along like how the other kids did. But they never once made each other feel weird. They were both the only sane and normal members of society that had ever existed. They never bothered with talking, they both understood each other on a level they would never reach with anyone else.
So that’s why, when L was watching Beyond Birthday get dragged away in handcuffs years after he vanished, he completely lost it. The only other person in the world that was like him had gone completely insane. Beyond gave him one final glance over his shoulder as he was being pulled away. They both knew what that look meant. They both knew it was only a matter of time before fate caught up with L.
L just had to see whether fate would bring him to the same sordid ending as A or Beyond Birthday.
There was not one inch of skin on his arms or legs that had remained unscarred from that night.
L had already lost to fate.
-
After his second attempt at acknowledgment was met with silence, Light knew something was very, deeply wrong.
”Ryuzaki, you’re starting to scare me, can I please come in?”
Light knew that he wasn’t thinking this through, but he was desperate. That desperation must’ve been loud in his voice because he finally (to his relief) got a response.
“Light, as I told you earlier, I am fine. There is no need to worry, and no, you may not come in. I need to shower now so please busy yourself with something,”
Ryuzaki’s wavering voice replied. It didn’t quite sound like the detective, it more so sounded like someone impersonating him.
”Uh, okay? I’ll stay in here though, just in case. You can… you can always talk to me you know,”
Light replied with a small grimace. He had never been good at comforting people. The last time he ever attempted to give emotional support he was met with a harsh slap across the face by his crying sister (to his credit though, she wasn’t crying once he’d finished talking to her, just more so shouting and angry).
“That won’t be necessary,”
The detective replied, still in the same uncanny voice. Light was so lost. He had no idea what to do. Was the man upset? Has the severity of the case finally caught up with him? Has he finally reached his breaking point?
Light resigned himself to the bed as he waited for the only person with any answers to his questions to emerge from the bathroom.
-
Although L had drastically calmed down, he was still struggling with breathing steadily and normally. He moved mechanically, letting water wash over him, cleaning his arms, washing his hair, and trying his best to avoid catching himself in any reflective surface.
What felt like hours must’ve only been around 20 minutes as he carefully stepped out of the shower and covered his arms pathetically in thin plasters. He didn’t think anything of it. He knew he should be ashamed, he wasn’t oblivious. He didn’t feel sad while doing it, he never felt angry, and he never felt embarrassed. Working around others meant he simply had to conform to what was socially acceptable. This is why L went to extreme measures to make sure his dirty little secret never got out. Not because he cared, but because he knew others would.
He silently got changed back into the clothes he was previously wearing, noting the little specks of blood dotted around the knees of his jeans. He spent his final minute of privacy schooling his expression back to normal. Light was smart, much smarter than he had anticipated, but L was smarter. He could play off any questions, ignore the looks the younger man was giving him, and eventually manipulate him into thinking this was just another one of his ‘quircks’ Light loved to claim he has. He could lie as easily as he could breathe, but Light could pick up on it as easily as he could blink. That’s what made him dangerous. That’s why L was so attracted to him.
-
Light was never one for romance or relationships. He didn’t feel anything towards Misa, and to be truthful he doesn’t even remember why he decided to date her, but he stays with her nonetheless. He can that appreciate she’s attractive, she is a model after all, but she just never peaked his interest, no one had. No one until Ryuzaki. Ryuzaki should’ve been unattractive, he didn’t sleep, he had awful posture, and he had strange quirks that could repel anyone really. But that’s what drew Light in.
He couldn’t help but wonder about the man. What did he like? What was his favourite colour? Where is he from? (That one was obvious really, the slight British accent slipping into his voice when he was particularly tired was unmistakable). Light needed to unravel the mystery of the man he was chained to.
More importantly, he needed to figure out how to help him.
So Light waited. And waited. And waited. Until eventually, the detective confidently walked out of the bathroom, sporting damp hair and wearing what must’ve been the same clothes from earlier. He casually walked over to his desk and crouched in the same position he always did. He looked tiny.
”There’s no point going back down, I assume the rest of the task force have left already. It’s late, you should get some sleep,”
The stoic voice of the detective said, breaking the silence. He was right, it was getting quite late and Light was finding it hard to ignore the heaviness of his eyelids.
Ryuzaki’s demeanour remained unchanged. To anyone else, he appeared to be acting his usual self (which was, in itself, unusual). However, Light noticed the subtle stiffness of the older man’s body, how his fingers typed just a beat later than usual, and even how his eyes were darting faster than how they normally did when the detective was digesting information. Although Light loved hated it, he so desperately wanted to help Ryuzaki get back to his usual self.
”Maybe you should sleep tonight too, Ryuzaki,” Light started, determined to get the man to sleep tonight, if just for a few hours, “How long has it been now? Three days? I’m sure your mind would work better if you just had a good nights sleep.”
-
L stopped typing once he heard Light finish his suggestion. Truth be told, the man really was feeling the effects of his insomnia, worsened by his recently weakened state. Sleep was never something of an important or particularly wanted aspect of life for the detective. He wasn’t afraid of much, but being left in the most vulnerable state possible for multiple hours every night wasn’t particularly appealing to him. But he couldn’t deny that he would benefit greatly from it right now.
”Very well Light,” He replied after little convincing, “I must admit that it may help with the case if my mind is well rested.”
L looked at Light then, noting the hints of relief subtly molded into his features. The older man made no attempt to move, only standing and reaching for Light’s half of the chain to unlock it when the younger man needed change his shirt, only then securing it back on his own wrist. L made no attempt to change at all, finding it a useless endeavour.
The detective waited for Light’s signal to get into their shared bed, making sure they were a reasonable distance away so that L could curl up into his usual foetus position. He found comfort in the way he was protected within this spot. He heard the lamp quietly click off and Light roll over to face away from him.
”Night, Ryu..,”
Light quietly murmured, being interrupted by a yawn. Ryu. He liked that.
”Goodnight, Light.”
-
Light woke up when it was still dark to the sound of steady breathing next to him. While he was glad Ryuzaki was finally sleeping, he couldn’t ignore the slight pang of annoyance he felt at the way the detective was still curled into his usual position. The younger man briefly wondered whether his body was permanently damaged from it.
It was only after a minute of silently thinking to himself that he realised why he had woken up at such an early hour. His hand that lay closest to the detective (he must’ve been shuffling around in his sleep) was covered in a thin, almost sticky liquid. He bought it up, closer to his face as he tried to determine what it was. Light soon realised this would be impossible since he couldn’t actually see anything and turned to reach for the lamp by his head.
The golden light flooded his senses and the younger man had to rapidly blink to adjust his eyes to the uncomfortable brightness. However, once they had focused enough, Light looked back towards his hand to see it covered in a sickly red colour that was unmistakably blood.
Without a second thought, Light quickly ripped the bedsheet off of him and the detective only to be met with a puddle of blood that had formed under the detectives sleeping form. His eyes locked onto the detectives left arm, which appeared to be the source of the blood, as the sleeve was completely stained red and clinging to the man’s skin.
”OH MY GOD!” Light shouted, unable to properly think about what was happening, “Ryuzaki, wake up!”
Light had grabbed onto the smaller man’s shoulder and started shaking him, panic flowing through his veins. ‘He’s not dead, is he? No surely not, I can literally hear him breathing,’ Light’s thoughts were racing, only stopping when the man beside him started to stir awake.
”Ryuzaki! Get up you’re bleeding!”
Light all but shouted once he saw the detective groggily blink his eyes open. That seemed to fully wake him up though, since as soon as he the younger man had said it, Ryuzaki shot up, wide eyed, and began to move.
-
L couldn’t think. He couldn’t bring himself to talk, to explain what was going on, or even make up some lazy excuse. Not like Light would’ve believed him anyway, he had literally bled everywhere. How do you make an excuse for that?
The detective felt as though he was on autopilot, as he stiffly moved to stand up, Light mirroring his actions, and mechanically started removing the bedsheets and stained covers. He threw them somewhere else in the room and went to move to the bathroom to clean himself up, when he was harshly pulled back by the chain, hardly suppressing a wince as he felt his wrist jolt backwards.
”-zaki, what’s going on? You can’t just leave! Have you seen yourself?”
He heard Light shout through the hazy mask over his head, ’How long has he been talking for?’
When L didn’t respond, he felt himslf getting tugged back yet again. However, this time his body couldn’t handle it, and he stumbled backwards as he let out a tangled whine of pain as the clasp of the chain directly hit one of his cuts.
-
Light watched in confused horror as Ryuzaki stumbled to the floor in pain. The quiet thump that he made when he hit the ground snapped the younger boy out of it and he was by his side in an instant.
”Ryuzaki, please just tell me what is going on. First you leave the task force and run to our bathroom while having some sort of breakdown, then you come out like nothing happened only to bleed all over our…”
Light quietly trailed off at the end, reality hitting him are in the face.
”You bled over our bed from your wrists…”
He stated, slowly moving to touch the detective as you would a wild animal. Light gently placed a hand on his shoulder, the detective having curled up into a ball and gently rocking back and forth. If he was crying he was doing so silently, but Light didn’t even know if he was capable of that. Hell, Light didn’t even know that Ryuzaki could be so human.
”Ryuzaki?” Light started, unsure of how to approach the situation, “Can you hear me?”
Light asked with an uncharacteristic softness to his voice. The shaking man in front of him didn’t answer, leaving the younger man at a loss.
Slowly, Light carefully extended his arms out, wary of frightening the man, and leaned forward, wrapping him in an awkward hug. He felt the older man momentarily stiffen in his hold, before relaxing in his grip and tucking his head in the crevice of Light’s shoulder.
Light didn’t dare make any noise, frightened of shattering the intimate moment of vulnerability between them. He let the detective gently nuzzle against him as he bought a hand up to wrap in the older man’s hair, slowly massaging his scalp.
-
When L zoned back in, he was met with an unexpected warmth as he realised his body was being held by another. He focused on the hand moving in his hair, determined not to completely break down as he felt his thoughts collect themselves. His eyes stung, his arms hurt, and his body ached with the weight of years of trying to ignore it. Ignore the fact that no matter what, he was just human.
It wasn’t that he was ashamed of his habits, even if he had ever been, he was well past the point of being embarrassed now. He just didn’t want to stop. While he knew that no one knew of his destructive habit, he was well aware that if they did, they’d make him stop and probably try to get him some form of psychological help. Help he did not care for. He only cared about whether he could keep going. Although he would never admit it, those few months after Watari had made him stop smoking may have been the worst of his life. One of his safety nets, something he could rely on to postpone any mental breakdown he knew was inevitable, had been stripped away from him. He couldn’t begin to imagine how much he would suffer if his primary safety behaviour was also taken away.
He was so confident that he could hide it from Light. Why would Light ever assume that he participated in self-harm? He wouldn’t. The great detective L would never stoop so low. Maybe if he was in England, someone may have figured it out, but Japan tends to be a lot more taboo about uncomfortable topics like this. He was certain that Light would never bring it up, even if he had reason to suspect that L was harming himself. Even if he did, L could just make up some lazy excuse about his questioning raising his Kira percentage, and Light wouldn’t dare bring it up again.
But it was all laid out now.
L having a meltdown earlier in the day, locking himself in the bathroom in an uncharacteristic moment of stupidity, immediately showering after, and then bleeding through his shirt onto the bed overnight, only to then have a breakdown when confronted about it.
’God,’ L thought, his first clear thought in hours, ‘you really are pathetic.’
-
While Light was trying desperately to think of a way to approach this with Ryuzaki, he was gently pushed off by the detective as he started to uncurl himself.
Before Light fully moved away, he stared at the detective’s face, hand still on his shoulder. He noted that his hair was messier than usual (which Light didn’t even think was possible), and looked drier. His eyes weren’t red like how Light was expecting, they were just wet. They appeared to be glossed over but seemed to focused on Light, as if he was the only thing grounding the older man. His eyes flickered down to the detective’s mouth, thin lips slightly downturned in what appeared to be Ryuzaki’s resting face (not that Light had seen much of it, the man always had a mask of indifference plastered on him).
Light had stared longingly at those lips many times, even before he realised he may have been attracted to them. To see them frowning made his stomach clench uncomfortably. He would do anything to see him smile. A real, genuine smile.
It was then that Light fully moved away, the hand on Ryuzaki’s shoulder coming down to rest on his knee, far enough away to maintain a healthy distance but still close enough to feel particularly intimate. He gave another glance to the sleeve that was soaked in blood, trying to fully wrap his head around it.
Light had heard of self-harm, naturally. He’d seen it dozens of times in mediocre Western media, usually depicting a teenage girl cutting herself and getting some sort of psychological treatment by the end of it. He’d even once gone out of his way to research it, falling into online groups where people openly discussed it and shared their experiences. It never made much sense to him, there was never one clear reason as to why people did it. Some said they find it easier to deal with physical pain then emotional pain, some said they’d become addicted to the satisfaction of watching the blood flow out of their bodies, and some even said that they were simply bored and decided to try it. He never understood their reasoning, and simply assumed it would never be a problem he would have to face.
Now, sat in front of Ryuzaki, maybe the man he loved the most, he felt sick. He couldn’t imagine what had happened to make him feel like he had to do this. Light was almost hanging onto the hope that, like some people he’d seen in the online communities, he was simply just bored. He knew that wasn’t the case. Whenever Ryuzaki got bored, he would pick up a new case, or put more effort into the Kira case, or even just stuff his face with a sickening amount of sugar.
He’d never asked the older man about his childhood. Light knew he wouldn’t answer. However, he could imagine what it was like. Having no parents (it was obvious Watari wasn’t his biological father, besides he never acted as much of a father figure anyway, more like how a teacher would a student), being raised to become the world’s three greatest detectives, and never having the chance to be a child. Light knew if that were him, he would’ve broken under the pressure years ago.
He’d also heard of Rue Ryuzaki.
It didn’t take a genius to notice the physical similarities between L and Beyond Brithday. Although a few years had passed, Light remembers that case being bought to the public eye, being labelled as ‘unsolvable’. Light remembers L solving it. He also remembers exactly what the perpetrator looked it. Light remembers when L asked him to call him ‘Ryuzaki’, his mind immediately sparking the connection. The younger man had stayed awake countless nights thinking about it. Were they somehow related? Did they know each other before the case? They must have, Beyond Birthday going by ‘Rue Ryuzaki’ to the public could not have been a coincidence. Not only that, but L being the only one to be able to solve the case and also just how similar they looked was too perfect to ignore. That must’ve affected L, he is only human after all.
Light didn’t know where to go from here.
-
For once, L wasn’t sure what his next move was going to be. Everything he did was calculated, meticulously planned to make sure he could hold the power in any given scenario. He couldn’t stand this. He knew Light knew what was going on, anyone could’ve figured it out. He didn’t know how Light would respond.
Was Light luring him into a false sense of security? Was he going to use this information against him? Probably, if he was Kira. Although, L was becoming less and less convinced of the man’s guilt everyday. That didn’t help either, the omnipresent thought at the back of his mind nagging him, that maybe he was wrong this whole time. Fuck, he wanted to stop thinking.
-
“Can I see?”
Light surprised himslf with the question. There was clearly no hiding it now, even if Ryuzaki did try to lie, he wasn’t going to buy into it.
The older man didn’t show any emotional reaction to his question, his face still plastered with hints of sadness. He did, however, offer his left arm out to Light, while ducking his head as if he was… scared?
This didn’t help shift the younger man’s confusion. Why would Ryuzaki do something he didn’t want to? That’s not like him. Was he scared of what would happen if he didn’t?
Despite this, Light was glad that the detective was able to listen and didn’t put up a fight. Light gently held the man’s hand just below his chained wrist and tried his best to carefully pull back the ruined fabric from his arm. This proved to be quite the challenge as the blood seemed to have dried and the sleeve was plastered to Ryuzaki’s skin in a way Light could only assume was painful.
Light tried to look at Ryuzaki’s face only to be met with the top of his head, the detective still looking down at his own lap. He wasn’t in his usual crouch position, he was sat more normally with his legs tucked loosely up to his chest. The older man was still shaking slightly, and Light felt a pang of guilt in his chest at the sight.
”Hey, Ryu, I’m not going to judge, okay?” Light started, unsure of where the nickname came from. It felt natural, almost intimate, “Whatever it is, I’ll try my best to help. But I need you to work with me, okay?”
By the end of Light’s comforting (?) words, the older man was looking at his face, still with the same blank expression he’s been wearing since they had woken up.
Light had finally pulled back the fabric off the older man’s arms and worked up the courage to look down.
He was met with too many scars to count, white, purple, and fresh. There were so many that Light could barely see skin anymore, just a bumpy texture of scar tissue covering all of his open arm. It was mostly covered with dry, crusted blood, although some of the fresher cuts (which Light assumed were made earlier when Ryuzaki ran off) where slightly bleeding from where they had closed up against the fabric of his shirt, only to be reopened when Light pulled it back. There was what appeared to be thin plasters that had been completely bled through, and ultimately rendered useless. Light concluded that this must’ve been years worth of scars, considering how they were all in different stages of healing. Carefully, Light slowly went to touch them, Ryuzaki remaining still throughout the whole ordeal. The younger man felt the texture of his arms, some scars protruding out of the skin, and bulging out of the older man’s arm, whereas some were more sunken into the skin, like indents, giving them an inconsistent feeling.
”Is that all of them?”
Light’s wavering voice questioned, fearing the answer. When the older man remained silent, Light released his grip on the man’s left hand and moved to the right.
When he quickly pulled back the sleeve of this arm, he was met with a near identical sight. He could see more clearly on the man’s right arm the severity of his scarring without the layer of blood obscuring the sight. He again ran his fingers gently up and down the man’s forearm, feeling uncomfortable in the way that some of the scars were bigger than his fingers. Instead of stopping, he rolled the shirt sleeve up past Ryuzaki’s elbows so the fabric was resting bundled on his shoulder. He was faced with mostly the same sight, apart from some round scars that stood out. Light immediately recognised them as burn scars, most likely from cigarettes due to the shape and nature of them.
”I didn’t know you smoked,”
Light’s stated, trying to gently break the silence that had engulfed them. He had no idea how to approach this. The younger man figured if he acted casual, the detective would be more likely to open up, less scared by the way Light was reacting.
”I don’t,” The older man responded, his voice hoarse from the lack of use. The first time he’d spoken since they’d woken up, and Light was so, completely relieved, “Not anymore.”
-
L stared at the man in front of him in pain. It was at this moment he didn’t care whether he was Kira, because even if this was a cruel facade Light was putting on, this was the closest L had ever come to loving someone. He knew it was foolish, he knew it was stupid, and he knew that it would one day get him killed. But he didn’t care. Because Light Yagami was sat in front of him, eyes locked into his, gently holding his hand, and he was showing him more affection than L had ever received in his life.
And he was worried. He was scared. He wanted to offer support, he wanted to help. L could see it in his eyes; the confusion, the pity, the anxiety. Everything. Light was feeling everything. For him. And L couldn’t bring himself to feel a single thing apart from devotion.
The world’s greatest detective was completely and utterly infatuated with his prime suspect, perhaps the most dangerous man alive, and he wanted nothing else.
-
Light was caught do guard when the next thing Ryuzaki did was lean forward. The older man gently placed his head against Light’s chest, perfectly under his chin, and lazily wrapped his arms around his waist.
Light felt a comforting warmth spread through his body as he relaxed at the touch, resting his chin on top of the detective’s head and copying the man’s actions by wrapping his own arms around the other man’s body, almost in a protective manner. He heard a small hum of approval from the man cradled under him, and Light could only sink into the feeling more as he felt his worry slowly being replaced by a soft kind of comfort.
He lifted his head and planted a soft kiss against the older man’s head, bringing up a hand to thread through the detectives long, disheveled locks, slowly massaging circles into his scalp.
He felt his eyes begin to close involuntarily, heavy with the weight of the night, and slowly began to feel Ryuzaki’s body slump against his as his breathing began to even out.
”You’re going to be okay, Ryu, I promise.”
-
Light woke up first with the sun shining through the slits of curtains. He has an uncomfortable cramp in his neck from how the two men were tangled up on the floor. Ryuzaki was clinging to Light, his arms wrapped around him and his leg propped on top of him, and Light had been curled around him possessively. As he went to sit up, the chain connecting them rattled loudly and alerted the other of the morning.
Light watched as Ryuzaki stirred and immediately locked eyes on his uncovered arms before presumably remembering what had occurred the night before. He turned to look at Light, almost to ask whether he had remembered the events of last night.
Silently, Light grabbed the older man’s hand and lead him lazily to the bathroom, the hints of sleep not quite out his system, and brought him to sit on the closed toilet lid. Light then quickly rummaged around the bathroom, they must have a first aid kit somewhere.
The younger man eventually found what he was looking for propped on top of the mirror and leaned down in front of the detective. The older man’s eyes had stayed trained on him the whole time, appearing to be unaffected by sleep. ’Maybe he truly doesn’t need sleep at all,’ Light thought for a moment, before quickly dismissing the idea when he remembered how fast the man was to fall asleep last night. As Light opened the first aid box to fish out the resources needed, L decided to break the silence.
”Light, I apologise for last night. That was completely unprofessional and has never happened to me before, I truly don’t know what came over me. I can assure you, you will never be put into that position again, and that I am truly sorry you had to be part of that.”
Light almost couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Ryuzaki was apologising for… having emotions? He supposed that the detective had probably never been so open with anyone else, a strange fact that made Light feel almost honoured. He was the first person to ever share such an intimate moment of vulnerability with the detective, surely the first to ever find out about his self-harm. Light couldnt just sit there and accept that apology.
”Ryu, it’s okay, there is no need to apologies for being human,” Light started, simultaneously working on treating the detective’s arm, “Truthfully, I’m honoured that you felt safe enough to let me help you last night. Although I’m sure you already know, I can’t just let you carry on with this, not when it’s causing you so much harm.”
It was at this point he could see Ryuzaki becoming restless, almost as if he wanted to protest but was holding himself back.
”You’re obviously not stupid, you know how bad it is, I’m guessing just looking at your arms that you’ve been doing this for years, and I can’t even begin to imagine any other scars you must have around the rest of your body.”
Light paused at this part, trying his hardest to gauge the other’s reaction, just to see if he did in fact have other scars littering his body. While the detectives gaze never faltered, Light caught the subtle clenching of the man’s jaw, telling him that he was right.
”I’m not asking you to tell me anything,” Light continued, feeling confident enough to face the matter head on, “But just know I want to help. Whether that’s me sitting here and listening to you talk, or helping you when you’re overwhelmed, or even just helping you take care of any cuts or scars that need it.”
Light had already finished cleaning and bandaging Ryuzaki’s arm by this point, but still held his grip on his wrist, scared that the man would disappear if he let go.
”I’m here to help, even if you decide you don’t want it, I’ll be here if you do.”
-
L didn’t know if he wanted it. He knows he should, really, but he just finds it impossible to want to give up a habit he’s had for so long. A habit he’s learned to rely on, to indulge in whenever he wanted. Truthfully, he loved it. He loved the way it made him feel, and the way it looked while he did it.
But he hated the way it made Light feel. The younger man hated this habit. L could tell that, although he made it seem as though he was indifferent, he truly wanted L to take him up on his offer of support. Although Light hid his true expression under a blank face, he couldn’t hide the way his fingers twitched or the way he bounced slightly while waiting for an answer.
It couldn’t hurt to try, right?
”When I was younger, I must’ve been twelve or so,” L started, warily telling this story to Light, still unsure of whether it was the right decision, “I watched another boy from my orphanage jump from the roof,”
He quickly scanned over Light’s face, checking for any hints of mockery or manipulation, but all he was met with was honesty.
”He was a little younger than me. He couldn’t take the pressure anymore. It wasn’t the best environment to grow up in, you simply had to be built for it. And if you weren’t, well, you’d struggle. I was lucky enough to do well there, otherwise I would’ve met the same fate he did. I liked to pretend I was untouchable, which I was really, no one ever messed with me, no matter how much they wanted to. But I liked to pretend that nothing ever got to me, that I wasn’t affected by anything. But I was. The night that boy, A, died, I couldn’t take it. I was so insanely jealous that he got the easy way out that all I could think to do was hurt myself. Hurt myself so that there was proof I was feeling just as much pain as he was. That although I never died under the pressure of it all, I was still just a scared child that could only take so much. I don’t think I ever truly wanted to die, I think I just wanted to prove to myself that I could if I wanted to. But I could never build up the courage to do what A did. He was a lot braver than me, he would’ve been a better man than I turned out to be.”
L finally finished, still unsteady with his words. He hadn’t noticed the silent tears that had been rolling down Light’s face. He also didn’t notice the tears rolling down his own face, only made aware of them when Light reached up to wipe them off, before pulling him into a tight hug. L didn’t hesitate to hug back this time.
-
Light was so elated that Ryuzaki had decided to open up, he genuinely thought the detective would completely close himself off and refuse any help he was offered. He felt an overwhelming feeling of sorrow hearing about the detective’s story, and he knew that was only part of it. He couldn’t stop the flow of tears running down his face as he found himself mourning the loss of L’s innocence and happiness, having died along side A.
”I’m not going to pretend to understand what you went through as a child,” Light began, feeling emboldened by the way the detective had trusted him with such private information, “But I know that must’ve destroyed you. To be exposed to such horrible circumstances at such a young age would’ve affected anyone. I’m genuinely amazed at how you’ve been brave enough to keep going for so long, knowing what you’ve experienced. You are the most mind blowing person I know and I am genuinely so grateful to whatever God that you’re still here despite everything.”
He knew it was cheesy and sounded stupid but Light genuinely revelled in the way it got a chuckle out of the older man. He carefully kissed the top of Ryuzaki’s head, mirroring his actions from last night, and grabbed a hold of the detectives hand, signalling him to stand up.
“I don’t think we should do any work today,” Light stated, giving Ryuzaki a once over. His appearance seemed to have improved from last night, his eyes more focused, and his lips no longer downturned in a lopsided frown, “But you should definitely changed out of those clothes, someone might think that there’s blood everywhere.”
And Light found himself content with the real, genuine smile that L gave him at that.