Chapter Text
He rolls over. His wrist is still bruised - a blossoming speck of violet smudging out into a fascinating welt. Like the handcuffs are still there, just imbedded in his flesh. He rolls over again.
"Light."
L's irritating voice cuts through the focused silence. The pitter patter of his keyboard doesn't halt, but his wide eyes glance up at Light, thumb in his sugar stained mouth. A wide variety of sweets litter the table in between them. "You seem quite restless."
Light turns his head towards L. His lips quirk into a small, almost unconscious smile, as if rolling around a tasteful joke. Ha. Ha. Haha. L will never prove he's Kira -instead Light has rendered him, the world's greatest detective, a mere madman in his suspicious that, to everyone else, will seem like nothing but paranoia.
Hilarious. And utterly humiliating - for him.
Light sighs, dropping his smile, and suddenly...he feels like playing. Manoeuvring himself to a sitting position on the velvet sofa, he grants L his full, rapt attention.
"I suppose I am," he says, "but I just keep thinking..."
L stops typing, slightly gliding the laptop down his lap as he, in turn, looks at Light with his intense, black pools of eyes. Light tries not to smirk.
"Indulge me," L asks. A timid, even well-behaved air hangs around him, like a weary dog, ever since they caught Kira and his notebook with the rules. The rules, that cleared Light innocent. And Light has never felt better. Soon...and the world will be his blank canvas to paint upon...
"Well, honestly it's the existence of that second notebook that's bothering me-"
He cuts himself off, all previous thoughts and ploys forgotten in a whirlwind.
L must've heard it too, his head tilted to the ceiling in confusion.
"What was that?"
There- again! Somehow it sounds just like...
"A crying child," L declares bizarrely, but he's right, because it really is the sound of a wailing child. L's eyes widen, thumb slipping from his wet grasp, and he freezes, too, in the absurdness of it all.
For a moment they sit as still as death, as if ignoring the surreal sobbing would make it go away. But it doesn't flicker into nothing - it goes on and on. Noisy, pathetic sniffs, and hiccups, and childish, high-pitched noises reach them without fading into the crevices of their imagination.
Somehow Light recovers first.
He stands to his full height, swiping a butter knife covered with flecks of whip-cream off L's plate, and clutches it in front of him like a sword.
"Watari and the others are out," L says slowly; a calculating frown mars his brow. He saunters over to the numerous screens - Light follows suit - and together they study each and every screen. Light grips the knife tighter in his fist, heart thundering dangerously. They're all empty, null of life and movement, except...
The last camera. On the top floor. His pulse jolts at the sight.
"Ryuzaki?"
A sparse, tiny form sits in an unsuspecting corner with its legs drawn up defensively, head bowed and obscured by its knees, its whole frame shaking with each squeaking cry. A child, no doubt, a small, trembling child with a shock of black hair. Crying in their headquarters.
"...Let's go intercept it," L responds. His voice has an odd, unbelieving tinge to it as he speaks. Not quite blank, but not quite shocked, either.
They tread lightly on the stairs, small, cautious steps in tense silence - all the way up. A trickle of fear runs down his spine; could this be a trap after all? Not for them, the detectives, but for Kira? No, that's impossible. He's been careful, covering his tracks with genius detail. The sobs grow louder with a feverish intensity as they near the upper floors.
L brings one pale, slender finger to his mouth in a hushing motion and pushes open the door.
It doesn't notice them at first, so submerged it is in its misery. But then it lifts its head, and-
Light stops breathing. He can feel L, besides him, also stop breathing.
The child, with his ebony black hair, snow white skin, and huge pools of grey eyes, looks just like L, minus the eyebags. But L's characteristics are deformed on him, sitting not as snuggly as they do on L. No...on second glance, he looks just like Light. Why, the straight nose, the cupids bow shaped lips, the definitive, long set of jaw...
A dizziness overcomes him, and he sways on his feet.
"Papa?" it sniffs.
Oh god, just kill me now.
"Who are you?" L says, bewildered. He seems a bit more composed, in contrast to Light, who feels like screaming his throat raw. Because what did it just call him? Mentally, he opts for dragging a metaphorical hand through his face. "How did you get in?"
The child stands on wobbly knees, wiping the snot from his face with the back of his sleeve. He staggers towards them and Light, frozen like a deer in headlights, does not react when it flings itself on his person. L takes advantage of his shock and quietly plucks the knife from his grasp, one of those familiar frowns on his shell-shocked face. Apparently, he's judged the child to not be a threat.
"Papa!" it repeats. Burrows itself in Light's jacket, a solid, warm press against his chest. Then, before he can recoil, or say something, or do anything, it's suddenly L's turn to be molested by a toddler. It wraps an arm around him and in that childish, high-pitched voice, wet from sobbing, shrieks,
"Daddy!"
L's mouth parts. Eyebrows flying up. Eyes widening almost comically. Light feels sick to his stomach.
"I..." L stammers faintly. His hands flutter unsurely in the air.
The only warning they get is the thundering of heavy, overlapping footsteps, before, with a clang of screams, the taskforce bursts in through the door - finally there in all their shuffling, idiotic glory.
They must've sensed something was not right, or L must have sent a signal. Matsuda holds a gun in his rocky, trembling hands, pointed vaguely in front of him. He's sure that they're saying - shouting, maybe – something indistinct, but that gets briskly cut short the minute the child turns his head towards the men, one eye closed against L's chest, and an arm still clinging stubbornly to Light. His dad pales dramatically at the sight. Aizawa chokes.
"What is the meaning of this?" Soichiro asks lowly. Dangerously. Light closes his eyes against the bubbling nausea. He takes a deep breath, and then two, and then he puts his hands on the child's shoulders with something akin newfound determination. If Light is great at anything at all, it’s this. He silently pushes down his shock and the dawning horror whispering ugly logic. Instead, he focuses on the kid in front of him.
"Look kid, how about we go downstairs and eat some cake? And then you'll tell us all about how you ended up here?"
L slinks away silently to the rest of the men. He whispers something to them in fast, quick conversation. They all pale even further, especially Matsuda, who looks on the verge of fainting at their hushed, harsh mumblings.
"But I thought this place was impossible to break into?"
His hurried words float to them in a panicked mess. L glances back, meeting Light's gaze, and for a moment an abstract, reluctant understanding swirls between them with no small amount of accompanying dread. He knows, on some instinctive, primal level...
He just can’t believe it.
"Okay papa..." the child murmurs. Light can't help the grimace and wince that overtakes him, especially at the sight of his dad. Soichiro looks betrayed, or, hell, in the midst of another heart attack, clutching at his heart with a scandalised hand; ragged, heavy breaths escaping him laboriously, at whatever L must have told him, or whatever he is seeing on the child's face.
Damnit all, Light thinks faintly.
Once the child had been properly placated with L’s sweets – it adored the strawberry cake the most, to everyone’s horror – and gotten tissues awkwardly thrown at it, the questioning could finally begin.
The poorly, not-at-all veiled fascination on L’s face as he studies the child is sickening, or at least odd, to say the least. He views it as if a particular experiment, or that he was in the presence of baby aliens. And the men with startled almost-horror. L begins with the most major, starkingly relevant questions first, like, 'how did you get here?' and "what's your name?', to which the child - Hikari Yagami - and wasn't that a fright - unhelpfully sticks its fingers into its mouth and mumbles something along the line of I just woke up here! Light has the very real impulse to write his name in the Death Note. Though it probably wouldn't work. The most worrying thing is how at ease Hikari seems. He regards them all with the certain twinkle of recognition - like they've already met before. Like they're his familiars.
He shudders.
"How old are you?" Aizawa gently prompts. He's the nicest one so far, acting like a real father.
"Six," it mumbles shyly.
A pause stretches as they all digest the information.
"So," Matsuda asks suddenly, "why do you call Ryuzaki and Light papa?"
The room goes very still. Matsuda gulps under the withering stare of Light's father, quickly averting his gaze downcast. Hikari giggles childishly - ugh - and with a ring to his voice answers:
"Because they're my parents silly!"
Hikari flings himself onto Light, making himself comfortable. He tucks himself in quite nicely. Light doesn't even react, so emotionally exhausted that he is, just lets it happen. Let's himself get cuddled by a six year-old. L clears his throat awkwardly.
"We've already confirmed the existence of the supernatural, so this shouldn't be much of a stretch. I suppose...I suppose Hikari here is from another, alternative universe where me and Light are seemingly in an established relationship with a child." L pauses abruptly, turning to the child in question, "Hikari. Do we look any younger, than from before?
Hikari snuggles closer, yawning.
"A bit, maybe. I don't know! Papa was grey," he responds, and then he giggles again, like this is all one very funny, elaborate joke. Hahaha you little fucker, Light fumes venomously. Just you wait till we neglect the fuck out of you. Do I look fit to be a parent? Does that sugar addict do?
NO!
"Perhaps," L says, deep in thought, "we shouldn't rule out the possibility of time travel just yet." He taps his finger against his mouth, contemplating.
"Ryuzaki, that is absurd," Soichiro says. "No offence to you but my son would never- never-"
"Maybe we solved the entirety of the Kira case together, and then settled down after that. Fell happily in love..." Light whispers dreamily, staring vacantly at the wall.
My life is one big joke. He's just glad Misa and Mogi aren't here yet. Small mercies. L glances at him out of the corner of his eye, opening his mouth to the despair of Lights already blooming headache.
"Highly unlikely," he says, and then he tacks on in a deliberate whisper,
"Five precent."
Light meets his creepy, wide-eyed stare head on. Accusing, endless black pools bore into him maddeningly, going on and on...Light could just about drown in them. Impale himself on their unforgiving quality.
"Or maybe I really am Kira-" collective gasps no one bothers to stifle "- and this is my way of getting your name. By baby-trapping you in hopes that you marry me," he finishes off dryly. He feels light-headed, faint, glaring at L with all his might, all as Hikari clings to him like an irritating fly.
"Is that a fantasy?"
"Oh yes, a sexual one."
"I'm flattered to know you jerk off to my face, but-"
"I keep posters of you on my walls," Light interrupts loudly.
"Do you touch yourself to them?"
"Gentlemen!" Aizawa yells. An embarrassed blush decorates his face, and Soichiro looks positively scandalized. Disappointed, maybe. Light's too hysterical to care. Hikari Yagami sighs contently, snuggling closer. He presses his face closer to Lights chest and folds his legs under him, so that he is properly seated in Lights lap. A yawn escapes him. L's boring gaze flits over to him.
"I didn't know a man could get pregnant, or well, I suppose it doesn't exactly work like that" L mutters quietly, mostly to himself, tone full of questions. "Maybe in the future somehow..."
A high-pitched, girlish scream breaks his musings with a screech.
"I'm home!"
Now it's Lights turn to pale.