In The Spaces Between Words

---Unwell---


The many nights of little to no sleep had taken their toll on the college student, and Yagami Light was down with a slight fever today. L watched impassively as Misa fussed over what was, in his opinion, a mild and commonplace affliction as the Yagami boy silently pleaded with him through bloodshot russet eyes to please make her leave. They had gotten out of bed the normal time and started working on the investigation after a light breakfast as usual. It hadn’t taken him long to notice the other’s sluggish movements, lack of focus and the way the younger genius kept rubbing his temples and forehead tiredly. When Light had turned to face him while replying his enquiry regarding the brunet’s health, deep hazel eyes had been bloodshot. That was when he’d abruptly pressed a hand to an unusually warm forehead, announced the astonished boy sick and sent him to bed. Of course, that meant that he’d had to go along as well.


Naturally, Amane Misa soon caught wind of it –most likely from Matsuda, no doubt- and promptly threw a tantrum over not being informed earlier about “such a critical event befalling her beloved Light,” demanding to be allowed up to the room to see her boyfriend. He’d relented, needless to say, since she had every right, really, and observing the two Kira suspects together might bring more truths to light. Misa was clearly nowhere nearly as brilliant as Light and therefore more likely to slip up if she was acting, especially around the brunet. It wasn’t that her acting wasn’t perfect; Amane Misa was probably a genius actress, but she wasn’t as sharp as Light at figuring out what was and was not a clue to him. So here he was stuck with this almost painfully one-sided couple, watching the blonde lavish her overweening attentions and overbearing anxieties on the younger genius from where he sat in his usual position on the bed with his feet under the covers beside said prodigy, who looked like he’d almost rather be in hell.

“That pervert has been overworking MisaMisa’s Light!” she complained rather loudly as she threw her arms protectively around the Yagami boy, glaring daggers in his direction, and he wondered whether he was going to die, since all the Second Kira needed was the face, and the model was probably the sort that would kill over minute trivia like these.

Light sighed tiredly. “Misa, I’m working to free us both from an erroneous accusation. This has nothing to do with Ryuuzaki.”

Just as he wondered why the brunet was bothering to lie blatantly in his defense, the girl insisted, “It has everything to do with him! If he didn’t make those ridiculous accusations in the first place, MisaMisa and Light wouldn’t be stuck here in the first place!” She briskly grabbed the small damp towel on the younger genius’s forehead and dropped it into the basin of iced water on the floor before wringing, folding and replacing it. Then she turned to stick her tongue out at L, and he merely lifted a hand to nibble on his thumb, successfully ignoring and repressing the childish urge to return the gesture.

“I’m here of my own free will, Misa. It can’t be helped that the evidence is against us. That’s why I have to make sure the real culprit is caught. You should understand that,” Light told her patiently. It was obvious to the detective that whatever patience the boy had was quickly dissipating, and it probably wouldn’t be long before Light snapped.

The ditzy celebrity pouted but didn’t argue. Instead, she asked, “Have you taken any medication yet?” Her hazel eyes were brimming with concern and worry.

“Yes, Watari brought some paracetamol after taking my temperature,” the brunet replied, deceptively calm.

“What was the temperature?”

“38.5 degrees Celsius.”

“Oh no! That’s high!! Has Light been sponge-bathed in cool water yet?”

He watched as the boy squeezed russet eyes shut, clearly repressing the urge to scream. “No. And it’s actually only 1.5 degrees above normal.”

“Oh. Still… Let MisaMisa do that for Light!” The blonde reached for the towel, but Light grabbed her wrist to stop her.

“There’s no need for that. I just need some sleep.” He smiled, but it was forced, and L figured that if he could tell, then the young actress couldn’t possibly be oblivious.

The spirit of enthusiasm proverbially rose out of the girl’s body and flew away. “Alright then,” she said with only a mild pout, something that he was certain wouldn’t faze Yagami Light in the least. “Sleep well, Light.”

She leaned closer and pressed a chaste kiss to the brunet’s lips before reaching up to take the towel to dip it in the basin of iced water again. After she had wrung the cloth, folded it neatly and placed it back on the boy’s forehead, she tucked the blankets more snugly around him. Light closed his eyes pretending to sleep, hoping she would take the hint and go away, but ten minutes later, she still showed no sign of leaving. Silently cursing a certain private investigator, he reached out under the coverlets to pinch the older man’s ankle. He felt raven eyes train on him instantly, and began to trace characters on the other’s foot, scraping his nail lightly over cool dry skin.

L blinked wide obsidians down at the Yagami boy’s seemingly relaxed and peaceful face as he felt a fingernail tracing something on his foot. Line… Wait. One, two, three strokes… Mi…Horizontal line, one stroke down… no, two strokes down. Oh, sa. Misa. Misa wo… he… heya… Misa wo heya ni… Oh. The younger genius wanted him to send Misa back to her room. Well, it wasn’t as if he didn’t already know that; he was simply waiting for Light to snap. People did irrational things when they were angry, so there was a higher chance of the boy letting something slip if he were Kira and simply acting. He took a moment to consider the profits and consequences of doing so, but eventually decided to take pity on the sick. In any case, there were many other ways to anger Yagami Light. “I believe it is time for Misa-san to return to her room,” he announced, fishing out his mobile phone and pressing the speed dial for Watari. “Watari, please escort Misa-san back to her room,” he said when the other picked up, hanging up thereafter without awaiting a response.

“No!” the blonde in question protested immediately. “You’re not tearing us apart! Misa won’t let you!!” She threw her arms protectively around her beloved and clung on as if for dear life, glaring angrily at the detective.

Russet eyes opened as their owner sighed. “Misa, be a good girl and go back to your room.”

“But… But…” Her eyes brimmed with moisture, yet another tact that wasn’t going to affect Light. “Misa wants to stay with Light…”

“I’ll just be sleeping anyway,” the boy reasoned.

“But who’s going to take care of Light?”

“I will.”

He tilted his head back slightly as two heads whipped around to face him, one at near breakneck speed, the other somewhat slower.

“Now why would you do something like that?” Misa demanded suspiciously after a moment of shocked silence.

Light looked like he wasn’t quite processing the situation.

L shrugged, moving to bite the nail of his middle finger instead. “I have to watch him anyway. And if it is simply keeping that towel cool enough to be useful, it will not be much of a bother.”

Just then, there was a knock on the room’s heavy wooden door before it opened several inches. “Ryuuzaki,” Watari greeted, bowing his grayed head slightly. Then, “Misa-san.”

The blonde looked pleadingly at Light who simply looked expectantly from her to the door and back with the teeniest bit of apology in his expression, remorse that L didn’t doubt was merely an affected civility.

“You may return later in the evening,” he said as an afterthought. Perhaps she would do something later to make the Yagami boy really hit the roof and show his true colours.

The ditzy starlet visibly brightened at that even as the brunet forced a smile. Light was clearly angry at him as it were, so perhaps Misa’s contribution wouldn’t even be necessary.

“There you go, Misa. You can see me later.”

She nodded with a cheerful smile, twirling slowly towards the door with her hands clasped behind her back. “Misa will bring Light nice, hot chicken soup or porridge later then!”

The younger genius nodded.

“Watari will get you what you need for that,” L said with a glance at his guardian and assistant who inclined his head agreeably.

At that, the model paused at the door. Turning to look at him, she reluctantly said, “I guess you’re not so bad after all.” Her light brown eyes were sincere and open. “But. You’re still a pervert!” she accused huffily, pointing at him. “You like kinky shit like tying people up and handcuffs, and you want to be alone with Light all the time! Light belongs to MisaMisa, you pervert!”

She stuck out her tongue at him indignantly before storming out of the room with Watari at her heels, leaving him blinking wide eyes at the sudden change in attitude. Humans, especially the females of the species, were such complicated creatures. Why couldn’t everything be simple like numbers, computers and machines? The instant the door clicked shut completely, Yagami Light turned to him with a murderous look that immediately raised the likelihood of the boy’s being Kira by about fifteen percent. If looks could kill, he was certain he would be dead by now. Well, alright, maybe Light wasn’t Kira then. However, it was still too early to discount the possibility, since if Kira needed a name and a face to kill, then he obviously didn’t kill by simply looking at a person. The problem was he still didn’t know how it was done.


He met the brunet’s gaze, thinking of Kira, and found his thoughts drawn to the Greek myth of Medusa he’d once read as a child. Medusa with the terribly beautiful face and venomous snakes for hair, the Gorgon whose one look would turn you to stone, and Kira with the façade of justice and the ways of violence and death, the harsh and mysterious arbitrator whose slightest whim could kill you—the two made such a striking parallel. And if Light were Kira, then he was certainly a Medusa with his striking good looks belying his twisted and corrupted brilliant mind, a mind that could find such unfathomable methods to rid the world of evildoers and those that opposed him. Powerful, yes, beyond human, yes, but not indestructible, as Perseus proved when he slew the terrifying yet beautiful monster and as he certainly believed Kira to be as well.

“You did that on purpose,” Light accused angrily.

“That depends on what you are referring to, Yagami-kun,” he replied nonchalantly.

“Don’t Yagami-kun me, Ryuuzaki. You knew I wanted her to leave aeons ago and that I would much prefer she not return later,” he declared crossly, glaring up at him.

“Correct,” he affirmed without even batting an eye, seeing no reason to pretend it was unintentional. “I wanted to see you lose your temper at her.”

A pause. “So that I might let something Kira-like slip if I’m hiding anything at all,” the younger genius surmised slowly.

“Yes.”

“Or so that she would unthinkingly let something slip while quarrelling with me.”

“Yes.”

“If I were Kira, I would kill you right now, Ryuuzaki,” the boy hissed vehemently through gritted teeth, rolling onto his side to face away from him.

For a long moment, L said nothing, certain that the only reason a fight hadn’t broken out yet was Light’s current physical condition. Perhaps the brunet really wasn’t Kira; if he were, he wouldn’t say ‘if I were Kira’ in that almost wishful way. He wondered if there was any effective way to test the theory at all. It was depressing, the way they never seemed to get anywhere with this investigation.


Light hid a sigh. L was never going to let that theory of him and Misa being Kira rest. It was frustrating how the detective spent each day coming up with ways and means to test said theory. Even sick as he was now, the other refused to allow him a day’s peace. Suddenly, a sharp cry of pain from behind him had him jolting into a sitting position in alarm, all his anger forgotten as the older man’s hand rose abruptly to fist in his white shirt over his heart. The sugar addict toppled onto his side, another sound of pain escaping chapped lips, and writhed in agony, right hand clutching at his heart like it hurt terribly, like he was having cardiac arrest.

A heart attack? Could it be Kira? “Ryuuzaki?! What’s wrong?!” he asked, panic flooding his system as he moved closer to the other anxiously.

A strong pale hand closed desperately around his wrist in a painful grip. “Kira…” the P.I. whispered hoarsely as if with great effort.

“Hang in there… I’ll call an ambulance!”

He reached over to fish the oddball’s mobile phone out of the large denim pocket, the nearest phone around, only to have another sallow hand stop him. He looked up in shock to find the older man staring calmly at him with a serious look in onyx eyes, all traces of pain or suffering gone from the other’s expression.

In a flash, he realized that the typically unorthodox eccentric had faked a heart attack to observe his reaction, another test to see if he was Kira, just as said detective taunted, “Afraid you’ll be arrested if I died now, Kira?”

There was a moment of stunned silence wherein he proverbially died choking on the other’s sheer gall as fury surged in his veins, and then he was shoving roughly at slim shoulders in a violent rage, yelling, “Christ, Ryuuzaki, quit being such an asshole!!” He sat back down on his side of the mattress, as far away from the older man as he could get without leaving the bed, running a hand through his honey-brown hair as relief mingled with wrath to produce a heady mix of frustration that made him want to tear his hair out and/or throw something, preferably at the root of the problem. “I can’t believe I was actually worried about someone like you!”

Abruptly, a wave of vertigo swept over him, most probably the fever catching up with him now that the adrenaline rush of panic had ebbed. The room tilted and spun, and he felt himself falling somehow before strong fingers wrapped around his forearm in a vice-like grip and pulled him back.

“You’re not well, Light-kun. Lie back down,” the insomniac instructed softly.

“As if you care,” he retorted bitterly as he acquiesced anyway. The P.I. didn’t care what happened to him; he only cared whether or not he was Kira.

A long pause followed, in which the oddball tucked the blankets back snugly around him. “I apologize for that. It was insensitive of me,” L said at last.

It was inexplicably hard to stay livid at the sugar addict when the other was looking somewhat like a kicked puppy and sounding as sincerely remorseful as he’d ever heard from the socially inept eccentric. Light sighed, closing his eyes to sleep. “You’ve always had that callous disregard for others.”

The older man remained silent, clambering gingerly over him to get to the floor on his side and retrieved the towel between two fingers from where it had fallen on his pillow to drop it into the basin of iced water. Pallid fingers wrung the piece of white cloth and daubed it gently at the beads of sweat on his forehead before the towel was folded neatly and placed onto his forehead. “You… You were… worried… about me?” the other asked tentatively at length.

“The only person around here who doesn’t seem very human is you, Ryuuzaki,” he riposted without missing a beat.

“When you say it like that, I feel quite terrible.”

The brunet turned slightly and cracked an eye open to look at his companion and felt some of his annoyance returning. Honestly, the sleuth could at least try to look like he meant it. “If you’re going to say it with that face, don’t even bother,” he responded, shutting his eyes again.

Wisely remaining silent where he crouched in his usual position on the floor, it was a long time before L finally said, “You should be sponge-bathed in cool water.”

“Just let me sleep,” Light groaned in reply, keeping russet eyes closed.

Another long pause, then, “Light-kun is angry with me,” the detective concluded.

The younger genius threw his hands up in frustration and tossed the covers aside. “Fine. If it’s that important to you, please be my guest. Or else you’ll start saying that I don’t want you doing anything of the sort because I have some mark on my body saying that I’m Kira, and I don’t want you to find it,” he bit out sarcastically.

L took the towel from the Yagami boy’s brow and dipped it back into the iced water. “Is there?” he asked as he wrung the fabric using only his fingers. At the dirty look the boy gave him, he shook his head slightly. “I apologize; stupid question. Please remove your shirt for this, Light-kun.”

The brunet said nothing, simply doing as he was told, and the investigator concentrated on wiping gently at tanned skin with the folded towel, occasionally cooling the cloth in the cold water again. Light shivered intermittently, and he asked, “Is it very cold?”

“Of course it is,” came the sharp retort from between gritted teeth.

“Please sit up, Light-kun. I need to wipe your back as well,” he requested, rising into his usual slouch.

The younger genius complied, and when he was done, the boy lay back down. He pulled the blankets back around that lean, well-toned body before crouching again to wring the towel dry. As he placed the towel back on Light’s forehead, he caught the other gazing up at him, all traces of anger gone from suddenly soft brown eyes, and found himself unable to look away. Twin pools of muted gold, muted to hide the brilliance in them till they seemed more like lakes of molten chocolate swirled with rich golden honey, were hypnotizing him, and he couldn’t quite determine whether the gold he saw was a brilliance of the mind or the gleam of evil and corruption. Or perhaps it was simply an effect of the sunlight filtering in through the crack between the curtains playing with his imagination, teasing his inquisitive mind that stubbornly refused to leave the unknown the way it was.

“The only person who’s ever done this for me is my mother,” Light whispered quietly. “Thank you.”

The curtains were drawn, and the room was dim; he had no choice but to stay, and he couldn’t ascertain whether the sudden lethargy that came over him was all up in his mind. He climbed back into bed beside the ill teenager, who looked up at him questioningly as he slid under the covers as well.

“I figure I may as well take a nap, since I can’t leave your side. Blankets reflect heat, so you’ll feel less cold if there’s more heat to be reflected,” he explained.

The brunet just smiled then, saying nothing as he closed his eyes again to sleep, and L wasn’t sure why the sight made his throat constrict, but he supposed he could probably figure it out when he next awoke.



A/N: Please tell me what you think of this part by leaving me a review! *hopeful eyes*