Author's Note: L+Light, spoilers for episode 25/chapter 58. A small, belated tribute to L. All sorts of criticisms are welcomed! Also, I love the rain.

Rainwater

The day L dies, it's raining.

The sky, it cries cold clear tears. Light's own are hot and salty; he tastes them at the corners of his mouth. A crocodile's tears.

The funeral is small, secret, furtive. No preacher, no words, just a pathetic pile of upturned earth and a blank granite marker, though six feet under the coffin is rich mahogany, lined with silk and velvet. Fitting, Light thinks, if not ironic.

They stand together, faint bedraggled huddles blurred by rain and mist – bodies, nothing more. Light remembers the way L's had looked, stretched out on a marble slab in that chill and empty room. L sleeping? he'd thought, until he remembered that L was dead and that he had won and a hot gush of triumph had flooded the pit of his stomach.

Misa clings to his arm, mascara smeared and nose dripping. Stop it, Light says. You'll get makeup on my suit.

Misa only cries harder. Somewhere else, Ryuk laughs.

It is raining, the day of the funeral.

Light thinks about the way they had met, that day in the rain. Bells, L had said, a wedding, or maybe – (a funeral). Light smirks at these little half-truths.

It will be so easy, without L's fetters and chains. Too easy, without fake friendship and fake emotions and fake words used like a surgeon's tools. Without the constant traps and games and that sticky sprinkle of sugar sweet crumbs over the computer keyboard.

Without L.

Through his tears, Light laughs.

It's raining.