Past in Present

Sorry for the delays – I’ve had a busy semester and a lot of family problems.

If this chapter had a title, it would be something like: wrenches in the gears.

We’re heading into the final few chapters, I think. Not bad for a fic that was supposed to be 10 pages, max, and is already five times that.

----

They settled back into a familiar routine… L seemed to have fallen back in line, though he had even more of a tendency to stare off into the distance, to withdraw. Still, Light allowed it, though he himself wasn’t sure why.

L was different, shaken from his brief meeting with Johan. Light didn’t know what to do about it. It wasn’t that he cared if L was miserable, but his work was suffering. Johan’s trail had gone frustratingly cold and Tenma hadn’t contacted them and he needed L at the top of his game.

But he didn’t know what to do to get the detective there. All he knew how to do was provoke him, upset him. Short-lived victories that did nothing to increase the detective’s ability to focus.

So he changed tactics. Worked at setting L at ease. It was strange to be polite to him, felt stilted and confining. He didn’t know how long he’d be able to keep it up. Instead of responding, L took it for granted almost, nodding at Light vaguely whenever he spoke, otherwise ignoring him.

Fine. Light was too furious with him to care anymore, deciding to work on finding Tenma-sensei himself.

----

Days had gone by. He had lost count – or perhaps never really started counting – days of tight, icy politeness that had L reeling even more than he had been after his meeting with Johan. Whatever Kira was up to, it bothered him quietly and disrupted his concentration.

By the second mistake that made him let out a irritated string of curses, Light had turned to him with a cool look and a mocking, drawled “Existential crisis again?”

“Shut up, Light.” He gritted out tightly.

For several moments he was aware of searching eyes on him before he heard Light turn back to his own work.

Maybe he wasn’t planning something. L’s head had been in a whirlwind, thinking of too many possibilities, picking up and discarding them so quickly that it was exhausting even him.

And if contemplating the case and Johan and Kira’s next move wasn’t enough, he couldn’t stop thinking about them. About L, Kira, what they both had done and where they fit – if anywhere.

Damn Johan and his skill at manipulation. L raged silently, absolutely furious that he allowed their prey to unsettle him, to make him look at everything from new angles.

“Perhaps you should tell me about it.” The voice suddenly behind him sent chills up his spine. He hadn’t heard Kira stop his typing, or get up. Too lost, too vulnerable. Goddamnit.

Kira slid up to him, hands dropping to his shoulders, rubbing them in a mockery of a soothing gesture. Or perhaps it wasn’t meant to be a mockery, it simply ended up being one by virtue of Kira being Kira.

L reached for a lollipop from the bowl of candy he still insisted on keeping near him, toying with it between his fingers. For a moment he wanted to obfuscate, to keep Kira out of his thoughts. But no – if he was going to have these thoughts, damned if he was going to have them alone.

“Johan makes me think. In a way that you once did.” He couldn’t help that small dig, honestly.

“What is that supposed to mean?” Kira’s voice was tight and L didn’t care.

“Both Kira… and L… are fallacious. We both have worked outside the confines of human decency, to further what we see as the greater good.”.

“Howso?” Kira’s hands were light on his shoulders. L almost expected his knuckles to be white with anger, but he supposed that the superhuman control still hadn’t slipped. He really hadn’t expected it to.

“Kira’s justice is empty. It makes promises that it cannot deliver.” He chose his words slowly as he stared at the screen in front of him. “How many times have we had governments in this world who have done horrible things? The Nazis, the Russians, the Americans … even Japan have all had government officials who quietly commit atrocities – at home and abroad – for the ‘good’ of the people.”

“Kira cannot be omnipotent or omnipresent. He is human, Light. You are human, for all that they revere you as a god.” He paused, popping the lollipop into his mouth and leaning forward out of Kira’s grip to scrutinize something on the screen of the computer. A grainy image that tugged at his memory, begged to be put in its place.

“Am I?” Ah. There was the harshness that he relished, threading into Light’s voice and reminding L of how it used to be with them. The conflict just making life sweeter and sharper.

“Of course you are, Light.” He paused and then laughed a little. “And Johan has no use for humans.”

Kira’s hands grasped his shoulders again, fingers finally tight, bringing a familiar and almost pleasant pain. “You think he doesn’t care about me?”

“Someone without a name has nothing to fear from Kira’s justice.” L said it softly.

Kira’s voice had razor bite to it. “What?”

“Something Johan said, when we talked.”

“And what do you think it means?”

L let out a breath and relaxed as much as he could in Kira’s hands, thinking. “The journalist Tenma was working with… Wolfgang Grimmer. On the surface, he is everything that he claims to be. However if you dig deeper… every single one of his documentation is faked. He doesn’t exist.” L gestured to the computer so that Kira could double-check his work if he liked. “A Kinderheim graduate. I wonder… does he even remember his true name? So, functionally, he would be…”

Finally Kira’s fingers loosened, slipping off his shoulders. L relaxed for a moment, then inhaled sharply as Kira spun the chair around to face him. “Someone without a name. An interesting theoretical concept.”

The eyes that bore into him were cold, calculating, but for the time being held no malice. L let out a breath, speaking quietly. “Can the note kill someone like that?”

“I have no idea.” For the first time, Kira really looked human again. Doubt, uncertainty. All the emotion that neither of them let exist, coalescing in a single instant, draining away the next. Kira reached up, tugging the lollipop from L’s mouth, and replaced it with his own mouth. The kiss was hard and punishing, all teeth and tongue and iron.

Kira kissed him until L felt like him might actually pass out, and then he pulled away, hand gripping his shoulder, pinning him back to the chair. “You will not push me any further, or we’ll go back to the handcuffs. Do I make myself clear?”

L swallowed, nodding just once; hating himself for backing down in the face of Kira’s anger. But Johan was right… and he had no idea what to do about it.

---

Weeks more of L keeping his head down around Kira and Johan’s trail having gone frustratingly cold were almost intolerable. Light was about to do something drastic when he finally got a call.

Without a word to L, he left, going to the hotel room, knocking on the door and standing in breathless appreciation when Tenma opened it cautiously, before letting him in.

“Sensei.” He stepped in, shutting it behind himself as he drank in Tenma’s appearance. He was cleaner-cut this time, wearing neat if worn clothing, shaved. His hair was still long and ragged and he was still terribly thin, but it didn’t detract from the whole picture.

“Light-san.” Tenma took a chair. “I’d offer tea, but this isn’t exactly the best-stocked hotel…”

Light smiled, sitting too. “I’m fine. Are you all right?”

Tenma hesitated. “Yes. No. I don’t know.” He sighed and reached into the bag he was carrying, handing Light a file. “I feel like this is going to be the end.”

Light felt his eyebrows raising in surprise as he took the file, opening it slowly. “What happened?”

“We saw him. Nina and I.” Tenma’s face looked drawn, grim. “Spoke to him. He….” Tenma shook his head slowly. “I fear he will do something drastic.”

“Why?” Light said, a touch dryly. “The things he’s done so far aren’t drastic enough?”

Tenma pressed his lips together, shaking his head. “Worse. Much worse. I’ll be leaving as soon as possible.”

“For?” Light said distractedly, reading a little more carefully, details more complex than he ever expected to learn about Johan’s life.

“It’s in the file.” Tenma rubbed the back of his neck lightly. “I think he plans to end it.”

Light let the file shut, looking up at him with a frown. “End it?”

“Nina shook him… more than I think anyone ever has.” Tenma kept his eyes down, on the papers between them. “I cannot be sure what his plans are. But if I know him… the whole town is in danger.” Tenma said it softly, looking pained. “He may be planning the ultimate suicide.”

“Ultimate suicide?”

“We have found Franz Bonaparta. I cannot imagine that Johan has not discovered the same.”

Light frowned more, but let it go. “You cannot go.” He cut in, already thinking of the troops he would send, in Tenma’s stead.

“Light-san.” Tenma began, then tightened his jaw. “Light-kun.” He said it firmly, making Light look up, his eyes narrowing. “I am sharing this with you only because I feel you should know. I will not have you interfere again.”

“Excuse me?” Light felt himself flooded with disbelief, staring at the doctor who was no longer slouched, but sitting very straight and gazing at him directly.

“You tried to keep me out of this once before, but it is impossible. I am the one Johan has designated to bring him down. I won’t sit aside like a coward again.” Tenma paused, then when Light couldn’t find a thought to fling at him, he pressed on. “You may be Kira-sama, but you are not a god.”

“What precisely do you mean?” Light grit out, feeling an echo of L in Tenma, suddenly.

“Kira-sama is too idealistic for this world. I may have doubted Kira-sama’s justice before… but now, I am convinced.” Tenma said, standing. “I will end this – I have to. But it will not be to punish Johan for his wrongs.”

“And what will it be for, then?” Light said it harshly, standing too. “You call me idealistic, but you are the one – you act almost as if Johan is sympathetic.”

Tenma flinched, looking away from him for a moment. “Perhaps he is, in a way. But that isn’t important either. All that is important is saving who we can.”

“If he is so sympathetic, why would you have to save anyone?” Light reached over the table, grabbing Tenma’s arm hard, dragging him around. “He’s a monster.”

“Anyone can become a monster, Kira-sama.” Tenma said it quietly, twisting his arm to easily break Light’s grip. “You should, perhaps, know that better than anyone.”

Light inhaled sharply. “You are treading on thin ice.”

Tenma shrugged a little, picking up his bag. “I don’t care. I’m doing what I have to do.”

Light seethed, but didn’t make a move to stop Tenma as he headed for the door. He waited for several minutes before calling the police,

Tenma would elude them, almost surely… but they could follow.

He was on the way back to the hotel when he got the news.

----

L should have known something was wrong when Light stepped into the room so silently he barely heard anything but the click of the lock.

How did you do it?” His voice was low and menacing and made L’s eyebrows shoot up because for once he had no idea what he was being accused of.

“Do what, Light?” He kept his voice level. Kira wouldn’t believe true confusion though he was feeling it, ironic as it was.

“You couldn’t know where they were, and I’ve been monitoring all your activity. Unless, of course, you recruited Johan...”

L scoffed quietly, ignoring the sting in his lip, the taste of more blood. “Johan isn’t recruitable. I’ve told you this already.”

“Oh yes…” Kira’s voice was perfectly a perfectly smooth, seductive purr that did nothing to soothe L. “You told me Johan wouldn’t work for anyone.”

“Has he worked for anyone else?” L shot back. “Anyone offering him power, fame, money?”

Kira’s eyes on him were hard and cold. Unconvinced.

“He hasn’t and he won’t. You know as well as I do that I have nothing to offer him. The only thing I could offer him would be you – and we’ve already established he gives you about as much care as you deserve.”

L expected the punch, after that. He never quite expected how strong Kira was, but that had always been the case. He stumbled back, fingers pressing to his split lower lip, laughing a bit under his breath.

“You always did have a violent temper, Light. But honestly, in this situation, beating the answer out of me won’t work. I still don’t know what happened.”

“Misa and Mikami.”

The answer was flat, but enough. L’s eyes widened slowly. “They’re…”

“Dead.” Kira grabbed L’s arm, pulling him in. “How did you do it?”

“I didn’t.” L grit out, seeing the madness in Kira’s eyes. It was always present, but rose and fell like a tide. It was rising now. “You know I am not the only enemy Kira has made.”

Light opened his mouth to answer him, but the phone cut him off, insistently ringing. He snatched it up, still fixing L with a glare that threatened to burst into rage at any moment. “Yes?”

Light listened for several seconds before he sucked in a breath sharply. “I see. Be ready for us in five minutes.” He hung up the phone slowly.

“Trouble?” L asked, warily.

“Not yet.” Light stalked towards him, hand shooting out to grab L around the neck. “You will behave while we finish this. Do you understand me?”

L nodded slowly, unable to tear his eyes away from Light’s, or keep his thoughts away from one swirling certainty.

He had to get away.