Chapter Text
"I'm not sure how I got here," Light tells the Vice Principal.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean--" he shakes his head. "Nevermind. I apologise for wasting your time."
Light steps over the Death Note on his way home. He isn't thinking, or he's thinking too much, or--
He never would have gone back on purpose, never would have undone any of it, but to have it all undone for him--
If he touches it, who's to say he wouldn't go back to the future?
No, Light has a life again, a life as more than God, more than Kira, and he isn't about to let that go.
All of the hostages die. Light had forgotten, but his father mentions it over dinner and Light feels the blood drain from his face as he stands and runs.
He clutches the toilet and tries not to cry or throw up too loudly. His father knocks.
"Light, is--" he cuts off, and Light knows what his father's uncertainty sounds like now. His father clears his throat as Light gags silently on bile. "Is everything okay?"
"Uh," Light says, and it's not like him, but nothing is like him anymore. "How is Matsuda?"
The silence rings in his ears. Light remembers the way poor Matsuda sounded clutching that gun and the way it all echoed. Maybe he's dying there still and this is all just echoes.
"Matsuda went home early. He caught a stomach bug."
Did that happen before? Probably. It's exactly the kind of thing that would happen to Matsuda.
"I'm okay," Light says. His voice cracks and he swallows acid. "I'm okay."
There's no other way to fix the world. He's already made his choice to never write down another name, but if it dropped into his lap right now, he wouldn't be able to stop himself from painting Kurou Otoharada across the page in toothpaste or vomit.
There is no other way to fix the world, and the way that worked didn't work. There is no way to fix the world.
So what does Light want?
The Death Note is on his bed now, and Light knows how Ryuk can get. He sighs, and slaps his hand down onto the cover.
"You had me shivering with that little step over the book, Light. Why would you tease me like that?"
"Go away, Ryuk."
"So cold! What, you don't want to be God anymore?"
"I'm not talking to people who killed me, Ryuk."
"But I got us a do over! And this time you can--"
"I don't need another Misa, Ryuk."
"But it'll be so boring! And that little scene in the bathroom is going to be a daily..."
Light tunes him out and only half-listens to eye the notebook. It's likely the only way he can get L's attention again. Otherwise, why would L ever come near Light Yagami?
There's a knock at the door. Light's memory of Before is patchy but he would have remembered if Sayu had any of her little friends over the first night. He would have remembered.
The muffled noise of the door opening and his mother making noise and then Sayu sprinting up the staircase. Knocking on his door.
"Light there's someone here for you!" Ryuk opens the door right as Sayu bangs on it another time, giving the impression that it just hadn't closed all the way. "He's kinda cute-- hey, get up! Why are you friends with a guy that disheveled, I thought you thought shampoo was more important than God?"
Light gets up and lets the death note slide down between his bed and the wall.
L is on their porch. Who else would it be? Light steps out to block the doorway with his body like it would actually keep L out of the house if he wanted to enter.
"Matsuda says you died. Badly."
Light heaves a sigh and shuts the door.
"What do you want."
L takes a lighter out of his pocket.
Light sighs again, his second of many.
"I'll go get it."
The car that takes them into the woods is black and sleek and unmarked, and stocked with sweet drinks. Light feels his lip curl when he sees them and L laughs at him.
"You got me," he tells Light, once the car starts moving. "How did it feel? I keep wondering."
Light's mouth goes dry and he shakes his head.
Like flying. Like falling. Like winning the tennis match that made me quit. Like I was dying too.
"You're a lot less fun when I know you're Kira," L complains.
"You knew before," Light snaps. "The whole time you knew. You were playing."
L stares at him.
"I stepped over it this time," Light says. "And then Ryuk brought it to my room."
"How does he feel about you burning it," L muses, as if they aren't both still wondering if Light will just write his name instead.
"He thinks it's funny enough that I threw up about the hostages."
L thinks, or Light assumes he's thinking, but he never was sure what was happening under that hair.
"Your first kill," he mumbles, lips against the metal curve of a soda can, already empty. "Do you regret leaving him his life?"
"Of course I do," Light says, and his throat feels raw with tension as he speaks. "I wasn't-- I wasn't thinking. And I didn't want to watch TV."
L lets the silence lie between them and Light doesn't know how to bury it. Doesn't know how to bury anything without digging it back up again later.
"What," Light begins; clears his throat, stops.
"Hm?"
"What are you doing here? Yourself?"
L starts to chew the edge of the can and Light's ears ring. He crumples the aluminum while snatching it away and tosses it into the floorboard.
L blinks at him, large eyes inscrutable as ever. Light is realising he never understood a thing about L, only thought he did.
"You wanted my attention. I'm giving it to you."
Little black spots dance in Light's vision.
"Besides, don't pretend you'd agree to this if it were anyone but--"
L's neck is warm beneath his hands and soft and easy and his eyes look nice half shut, and there's something hard in Light's side and he's--
Light lets go, and L keeps the gun pressed in against the bottom edge of his ribcage.
"I'm sorry, I don't know what came over me," Light says, words far from his mouth which is far from him.
"Lie."
"It's pronounced Light," Light says patiently, and L's face twists. Is that humor?
Light is struck by the need to make L laugh. To exert power over this man in some form that won't catch his flesh a bullet.
"I'm surprised to see you with a gun," he changes the subject.
"Watari's conditions for coming to see you were strict."
"I'll get you home before curfew," Light says.
"No thanks. I know how you treat your girlfriends."
"Excuse you. I'm a perfect gentlem--"
"You're not interesting perfect."
"What?"
"You're not interesting when you're perfect."
"What is that supposed to mean?"
L smirks, expression childish, a flash of Near across his face.
"It means I wish there was footage."
Light scoffs, and turns away to look out the window.
"We should probably test this," L muses, holding the note by one corner.
"Go ahead," Light says.
L tears out a page and slips it, folded, into his pocket.
"Later," he murmurs. He holds the lighter out.
Light stares. Swallows.
"Well?" L says.
Light takes the lighter and clicks it, hands more nervous than he can feel right now. The lighter is new; the flame is large.
"We could--"
L moves the Death Note into the flame and Light's words die in his throat like a bird trapped in a chimney.
We could do it together. You and me. We could do it. With your help I would be unstoppable. And you could make it really work this time.
And Light's thumb left the button as soon as flame touched paper, but it caught all the same.
"Sorry, what were you saying?"
L holds the burning notebook and looks through the growing flames at Light, face old and young and knowing and ignorant.
"You're going to burn yourself," Light tells him.
L sets the notebook down to burn, then looks back up at Light from his squat.
"Were you inviting me to be your second Kira?"
"You'd be the first Kira in this world."
Light doesn't know what makes him say it. Why he offers. The notebook is burning. They aren't going to speak again after this.
"I know how Kira dies," L says. "I'm not interested."
"Badly," Light mutters. He laughs, choppy and stark, like pages flipping too fast to read.
"How did it feel?" L asks.
"Like winning at tennis."
They dig through the ashes together looking for parts that didn't burn. Light finds quite a few and dutifully holds them out to L.
Whatever it is L thinks, Light would have burnt it on his own. L didn't need to come and do it with him. Didn't need to come in person at all.
He can't tell if he's glad he did or not. They light a little pyre of scraps and watch it in silence. Light doesn't know what he's feeling. Light doesn't know how to tell anymore.
There is ash on Light's hands and on his face. In the car L yawns and rubs at his eyes with dirty fingers and Light takes his hand, yanks it away.
"Huh?"
"You don't want death note ash in your eyes."
"I already died."
Light swallows, hand grasping tighter like he can keep L from leaving anytime he wants.
"How--" he begins. He can't finish the sentence.
L's head tilts. His eyes roam over Light's face, then down to their joined hands.
"Mm. You didn't let me finish my cake."
Light swallows so he won't speak. Then he speaks anyway.
"But how did it feel?"
L's small smile is larger and more bright than the lighter flame.
"Good."
"You died well," Light murmurs, and L's eyes are too knowing, too close. Light turns away again.
Their palms sweat together, sticky and then slick as the minutes pass.
"I wonder if you'll die at the same age again," L muses.
"I wonder if you will," Light retorts.
"Maybe I will."
Light's stomach turns. He swallows.
"I don't--"
He heaves, and L pulls a bag out for him. Holds it to his face in a display of the basic physical competence he normally leaves to others. Unless it's tennis with Light.
Unless it's Light.
Light wonders as he vomits if realising L had a gun is how Yuri felt that morning he called her for a date. Yuri? Yuki? He can't remember. He should remember. L makes him feel like an idiot. Like a girl. He can't wait to get out of this car and never see him again.
"Death made you sensitive, Light."
L's hand is in his hair keeping it out of his eyes. Thumb on his forehead. Light makes a sound he doesn't approve of, a pathetic thing curled into the back of his throat like a blade.
The car pulls up outside Light's house and L lets him finish throwing up. L gives him a napkin. L slides a can of ginger ale into the pocket of Light's khakis.
"Don't kill anyone," L tells him, patting the pocket he put the page in.
"Don't die," Light says, voice rough from puking (and only from puking).
There's a black notebook resting on his bed when he gets home, cover blank. Light blinks twice and then stumbles back down the stairs, onto the porch--
L-- the car-- is gone. Light looks up at the sky.
Light gets back home again at three with even more ash on his hands. He washes them in the kitchen sink.
He sets the ginger ale on his desk.
He wakes up in the morning with a notebook across his face.
"I need to speak to Matsuda, please."
Matsuda catches sight of him and turns around.
"Matsuda!"
He starts walking faster.
"Matsuda, wait!"
He goes through a doorway and turns a corner where Light isn't cleared to follow.
"Please."
The footsteps stop.
"It keeps happening," Light says. "He'll know what I mean. Tell him it keeps happening."
"They'll run out of notebooks eventually," L says, and Light grips his cell phone hard enough the plastic creaks. "Or word will get around and all the other shinigami will know to avoid yours."
"He's not my--"
"You'll figure it out. Don't kill anyone."
"Don't--"
The line goes dead.
Light's fists clench and he hurls the phone at his closet door. The battery comes out and the casing cracks.
He puts the battery back in and calls the number back, but it doesn't even go to voicemail.
The notebooks slow down. He gets them about once a month in college. He keeps to himself. He haunts the tennis court, but never plays. Misa Misa is on the radio and Light wonders if L visited her too. The idea makes him want to serve a tennis ball through a window.
The notebooks slow down more after he graduates.
Light's patients say his bedside manner is good.
"It's just the people who were in the room," Matsuda explains, a little too loudly. He hasn't had a single sip of his drink, but he's acting drunk, and so is Light. "That's why the Chief doesn't know."
"Then why does L remember?"
Matsuda shrugs.
"Ryuk called it a do over," Light says with a snort. "Some do over."
Matsuda shifts on his stool.
"I'm joking."
"You're not very funny, Light."
"I have an urn full of death note ashes on my mantle and you want me to be funny."
"It would be worse if you were funny," Matsuda says, and he says it like he can get away with it, like he's politely spitting it into a napkin to be thrown away. "Sorry."
He drains his drink and puts cash down on the bar.
"Matsuda--"
"I have work tomorrow. Good seeing you, Light."
He doesn't mean it.
Light hasn't tried L's number in years, but he tries it when he gets home that night and lets it ring four times before the embarrassment overwhelms him and he snaps the phone shut. He's kept his flip phone for the same perverse reason there's still a can of ginger ale sitting on his desk in his apartment.
But L never answered back then, and he isn't going to now.
His phone lights up and begins to chime, and Light fumbles to open it back up and answer,
"Hello?"
"Have you killed someone?"
"Not unless you count unborn embryos."
Several seconds of silence. Light shuts his eyes and convinces himself he's ruined his chance.
"Oh, you're a doctor?"
The way he says it, it's obvious he already knows. He's been keeping track. Light shuts his eyes and tries not to feel so relieved.
"Well, I can't go into law enforcement."
"I look forward to your malpractice lawsuit."
"It's--"
The chime of L hanging up. Again.
Light grits his teeth and calls him back.
"What?"
"I'm still getting notebooks."
Kind of a lie. It's been nearly a year since the last one.
"What do you want me to do about it?"
Light pauses. He looks down at his hand, the hand that L held in the car that night they burnt Ryuk's notebook together.
"Did you keep Misa from hunting me down?"
"Yes."
"Thank you."
"What do you want, Light?"
"Would it kill you to have a conversation?"
L has a way of making silence dry.
"You're not dead," Light insists. "And I haven't killed anyone."
"No," L admits. "I suppose you haven't."
"So?"
L's sigh is a breath of static and it tells Light he's won this round.
"How was medical school?"
"Easy."
"No it wasn't."
Light pauses.
"It wasn't," he admits. "Ryuk would leave a notebook every time I received a poor grade."
"Does he tell you to kill people?"
Yes. Sometimes.
"I haven't seen him since the first night back."
A shuffle on the other line, and when L speaks again his mouth is full.
"Tell you what," he says, around what is probably cake or candy. "There's a bakery a few blocks up the street from you. The one with the strawberry on the sign."
Light doesn't let himself feel anything as he responds. Especially not hope.
"I know the one. Sayu likes their coffee."
"Meet me there..." L trails off.
"When?"
"Tomorrow. Four."
"No. I work. Saturday afternoon or Sunday."
"Sunday, then," L says, and he hangs up.
Light doesn't manage to kill the silly grin on his face until he realises L never said a time.
He turns around and there's another notebook on his bed.
"Oh, come on," he mutters.
Light brings his laptop to the bakery when it opens Sunday morning and spends the day sorting through his email. He finds a query from a colleague that requires a full hour of his attention to sufficiently answer, and there's a few more long tasks to do. The rest, though, is mind-numbing.
L comes in half an hour before close. Light only made it this long because he took his watch off and covered the clock on his computer. He switched to hot chocolate after lunchtime.
And he thinks to be angry when he pulls the sticky note off the corner of his screen and sees the time, but he can't really. There's one reason L was able to waste his entire day and piss him off, and Light just doesn't mind it as much in light of that:
L knows him.
"Hello, Light," L says, sliding into the booth across from him. Light closes his laptop.
The other day he cut a slip out of the notebook before he burnt it; he slides it across the table now.
"I thought you might want this," he says. "In case you lost your sample."
L's eyes narrow.
"What's with the grid?"
Light traced grade-school style kanji guides for his name onto the paper.
"If you do have to kill me it should be with good handwriting."
Light really does think he's funny, but L just tucks the paper into his pocket.
"How was med school?"
"You already asked me that."
"You just talked about Ryuk, you didn't answer."
Light always sighs a lot more when he's talking to L.
"It was... interesting."
"Did you learn anything?"
Heart attacks hurt.
"How did it really feel?"
And L smiles.
"I knew what I was risking."
"That's not an answer."
"You haven't earned one yet."
Light tends to fall back on his manners when frustrated, and he does so now, standing to order two apple turnovers. He puts one in front of L.
"I don't like apples."
"Eat it anyway in case Ryuk is snooping."
"You're very petty sometimes."
"I learned it from you. Eat your damn pastry."
That makes L smirk, which is idiotic, because Light wasn't joking.
"What else did you learn from me while I was too busy trying to kill you?"
How to die. How to fall. How to lose everything.
"How to avoid answering questions."
"You edit half the things you say to me. How do I get you to stop?"
It's Light's turn to smirk.
"You'll figure it out, I'm sure."
"I'm sure," L mutters. "Well, not that this wasn't charming, but I have--"
"I'll walk you to your car," Light sighs, used to anyone who matters running away from him after a few sentences. "With my luck you'll trip and crack your head open and someone will blame me for it."
L kindly waits for him to pack up his laptop. He rudely tips his pastry into the trash.
Light is too busy giving him a dirty look to notice the threshold. His foot comes down onto the pavement wrong and slips out from under him. He falls, apple turnover sliding out of the little paper bag and into the street, laptop bag hitting him in the face and knocking the side of his head against the ground.
And L starts laughing. Cackling, really.
It echoes through time, in the bakery, in the warehouse, in that penthouse with their hands cuffed together. In Light's room when he wrote down Kurou Otoharada. In the woods where they burnt the notebook together. Light hears L laughing at him and he knows it's all over. He fell. He lost.
"It felt like this," Light says, once L has calmed down enough to offer him a hand. He takes it and lets L help him up. "Exactly like this."