Authors Note: Oh Gosh, Hi! I'm completely new to this fandom, so I don't have a clue what the favorite pairings are or what sort of plots are cliche in this area. I'm new to Death Note altogether...I haven't even finished the series yet, but I just had to write this. I tried to keep it as accurate to the plot as possibly, but I had to tweek Light a bit because...well, because he's an evil bastard and that doesn't work here. lol So, even if it's a bit off, I hope you can enjoy it anyway. PLEASE review and let me know what you think. I haven't ventured out of the SP fandom in some years and I'm incredibly nervous writing for an entirely new set of fans. Please let me know how I did!

This is written as a one-shot. Chances of it converting into a multi-chaptered fic are slim.

This is from L's point of view (POV).

I own nothing!

I Should Be Angry:

I should be angry.

Because of him I couldn't even die properly. It was pathetic really; even in death I was too consumed to walk the path I'd earned to eternal life. Isn't that what I had worked so hard for throughout my short existence? I was on the good side, I brought justice to those who were wronged. I deserved to rest in peace.

And yet I found it wasn't quite so simple. There were too many things I had overlooked, too many things I had left unfinished. And all because my logic had become muddled with emotion, something I'd never had a problem with prior to the Kira investigation.

And it was all because of Light Yagami.

Yes, of course I should be angry. That was the logical solution to this situation. I was dead, defeated. I had lost, and what I should have been doing was sulking like the childish person I am, or at least take the high road and claim eternal salvation. But I found it difficult somehow, even knowing my murder was the direct result of his desire; even knowing he laughed and clawed tauntingly at my grave, his eyes crazed and jovial.

I knew the truth, and the truth was that the Light Yagami who set up my murder became a different person once Kira was removed. The true Light Yagami was not responsible for my demise—the Death Note was responsible, his Shinigami was responsible, Kira was responsible, perhaps even I was a little responsible. But not...my Light-Kun.

Through the darkness, I waited patiently for his arrival, crouched at the foot of his bed, knees to my chest. I was surprised that in my spirit form I had miraculously retained the sense of touch, and I was thankful. The sheets were soft and warm, comforting on my bare feet. The thing I found most disheartening was that I could no longer ingest anything, and there was a half-eaten chocolate bar sitting on the desk. Its wrapper gleamed with silvery temptation, ambrosial and pale against the faded glow of streetlamps seeping through the curtains. I watched it carefully, thumbing my lower lip.

It appeared that death could not squelch one's fondness of sweets. Damn. It was a mockery to be a ghost defeated by Kira and haunted by chocolate. Even more ludicrous was the fact that I was still not mad, not at Kira and not at the offending candy bar.

...Okay. Perhaps I was just a little upset with the candy bar.

I looked toward the window, concentrating on the sound of rain pelting against the roof. Thunder rolled quietly in the distance, but that seemed to be growing ominously closer. Yes, I really should be angry, but the truth of the matter was that I was actually growing a bit concerned. Light-Kun was a big boy; however, bad weather was dangerous, even for intellectuals. And that storm would be hitting sometime within the next twenty minutes.

From somewhere downstairs, I heard the door click, and I knew that it was Light-Kun. I could sense it, feel it somehow. I'd always known his presence by the sheer force of magnetism he emitted whenever he was close to me.

I pulled my thumb away from my mouth and held on to my knees. This would be the first time I would see him since I'd been killed, and Light-Kun...he was the last thing I had seen just before my eyes closed permanently.

The hinges on the door creaked. A sharp fan of light cut across the room, momentarily catching the electricity of my phantom. Light-Kun gasped and jerked back, but my image was invisible to the human eye when illumination was unmoving, and although he caught a glimpse, I was no longer there. Or so it appeared that way to him.

His fingers scraped blindly against the wall as he fumbled for the light switch. His eyes—wide and frantic—never left mine, and I almost believed he could still see me. Then the room flooded with an artificial glow, and it only took a moment for him to recover.

He closed his eyes and exhaled, leaning up against the doorframe. I was distracted for more than a few minutes by the soft whimpers that flowed through his parted lips; I'm not quite sure if he was laughing or crying or possibly both. He took a deep breath, then swallowed hard and kicked the door closed behind him. The Shinigami (Ryuk, I've come to find he's called) appeared out of the shadows and paused when he saw me. Then he laughed, deep and powerful, clutching at his stomach like he'd positively detonate if he didn't.

It was clear that he could see me, but I wasn't concerned he'd tell Light-Kun. He was far too entertained by the prospect of knowing something Light-Kun didn't to give that sort of information away. At least not for free.

"What's so funny, Ryuk?" Light-Kun asked tiredly, his voice cold. He moved toward the middle of the room, a crackling noise accompanying the rhythmic motions of his pace. I traced the sound to the cellophane bag of tea cookies dangling loosely from his fingers.

My finger found its way back to my lips, quirked with speculation. Light-Kun had never been opposed to sweets, but he had never particularly cared for them either. The fact that his room was littered with bags of candies and desserts of quite a large variety—some still sealed, some empty—was quite peculiar. If I didn't know any better, I'd almost think he was setting a trap for recently deceased detectives with a ravenous sweet tooth. But that was impossible.

Or was it?

And more important, if he were setting a sort of ghost-trap, what would he gain from my capture? He had sought out to destroy me before I could catch Kira, and though I hate to admit it, he had succeeded. What more could he possibly want?

Ryuk was laughing with much more vigor at this point. Light-Kun tossed the bag of cookies onto his desk, covering the half-eaten chocolate bar, and fell into the chair. He tilted his head back, supporting his neck with interlocked fingers.

"Ryuk..." he said again, sighing. "I'm really not in the mood for games. Whenever you laugh like that, it usually means bad news for me. So why don't you just tell me what it is?"

"Well, that would just take all the fun out of it, now wouldn't it?"

Light-Kun closed his eyes, saying nothing, and this seemed to annoy Ryuk. He snatched the fresh bag of cookies and tossed it at my head. It skipped across the mattress and landed on the floor, narrowly missing the alarm clock. I almost leapt for it, almost tried to catch it as it flew by. Sheer habitual neediness of sugar would reduce even the most sophisticated person to canine behavior, but I was more intelligent than that. It would be pointless to capture a bag of flying cookies when I could not eat them; otherwise, I'd be on the floor ripping the bag open with my teeth.

"And what's with this sudden obsession you have for sweets?" Ryuk asked, his voice accusatory. "You never liked them that much before. Or are you just building a shrine devoted to L? You don't actually miss him do you?"

Light-Kun's eyes opened. Slowly, he sat up, staring coldly into Ryuk's ever-smiling face. After a measured pause, hot and thick with altercation, Light-Kun crossed his arms and looked away. "Of course I don't miss him."

"Sure you don't."

"He was annoying."

"Uh huh."

"And patronizing."

"That explains why you've been so depressed, even when you aren't pretending to mourn his loss to keep up appearances."

"He sat like a monkey."

My eyebrows shot up. I looked down at my folded legs for a moment, then decided I didn't particularly care if my crouching habits resembled that of a primate. It never seemed to bother him before, and I was certain by the degree of his tone that he was nitpicking, trying desperately to find a plausible retort.

"Sounds like you're lying," Ryuk said, calmly. "You wouldn't lie to me, would you, Light?"

"Look, Ryuk!" Light-Kun smacked the flat of his hand against his desk and stood, glaring. His upper lips curled back, revealing a pearly row of prefect teeth. "He was interfering with my plan for the new world. It doesn't matter if we had become friends or not, he was getting too close to catching me. He knew who I was. He knew, and he said himself that I was going to get the death penalty, or at least life in prison. If I were lucky."

My eyes snapped open wider, hours upon hours of post-death speculation coming together in a single flash. My hand fell away from my mouth, back to my knee. I felt defeated for the second time; guilty for the first.

I should be angry, I thought frantically, feverishly. I didn't want to be the bad guy. I didn't want to be the loser and the bad guy.

Light-Kun leaned back against the desk and raked all ten fingers through his hair. He sighed. "I was his first friend ever?" he said, leering. "I think almost everything that came out of his mouth was probably a lie. He made me think we had formed some sort of a friendship just to get closer to me, just to convict me. All his talk about percentages was grossly understated. He knew I was Kira the moment we met at the University, and the entire thing was just a sham."

"How can you be so sure?" Ryuk asked. Not like he cared, more like he was simply curious. "The guy is dead, he can't even defend himself."

"He doesn't need defending, Ryuk," Light-Kun said. "He knew I was Kira, and he was aware that I knew he knew. But that didn't stop him from telling me—from telling everyone in the room—that Kira would get the death penalty. He was taunting me because he knew he had me." A calculated pause; a deep, stubborn breath; and then softer, sadder, "He wanted me dead."

The thunder rumbled louder, shuddering through the clouds. I closed my eyes, squeezed them tight.

...Oh, Light-Kun.

"So that's it then," Ryuk said, not any more affected than he had been since the start. "You don't miss L, but you miss Ryuuzaki. At least, you miss the person you thought he was." He paused to chuckle, casting a fleeting look in my direction. "My, it sounds just like one of those day-time soap operas. It's so touching."

Light-Kun grabbed the closest thing to his hand and hurled it at Ryuk's face—the Death Note. The corner caught him just above the eye, and he stumbled backward and crashed against the door, more from shock than the sheer force. He shook his head to clear it, rubbed his eye.

"Well, if you're just going to be a Grumpy Gus, I think I'll go out for a while, find myself some apples. It's a lot better than sitting here with you while you pout and throw Dead Notes at my head."

"Good," Light-Kun snapped, stalking across the room to collect the abused bag of cookies. "I'm sick of your secretive snickering anyway."

"If that's how you feel, then I'll just go," Ryuk said. He pulled himself up off the floor and leaned over to scoop up the Death Note, brandishing it in front of his face. "But I'm taking this with me. I don't want to miss out on anything you do that might actually be fun."

Light-Kun fell back against the bed, inches from touching my toes. I stared remorsefully down at him, still shocked and wide-eyed, clutching my knees to my chest.

"Just don't lose it," he told Ryuk, his voice on the brink of surrender.

Ryuk opened the door, but he paused halfway out. "Oh, and Light? One more thing before I go: You'd better watch what you do, cause L's still watching your every move."

Light-Kun's eyes flew open. He sprung upward as Ryuk closed the door behind him, then sat blinking, his gaze darting frantically around the room.

"Light-Kun," I whispered, moving forward. But thunder crashed outside the window as I spoke, and Light-Kun thrashed out of bed before I could touch him. He flicked the lights off, blinking to adjust his vision to the sudden darkness, and swept the room with greater care.

"Ry...Ryuuzaki?" He whispered, breath tight and still.

I sat frozen for a moment, abnormally hesitant about what I should do. It was evident he hadn't heard me the first time, and the probability of him hearing my spirit voice, even if I shouted, was just below six percent.

"Light-Kun!"

But it was muffled beneath a resounding thunderclap, and he didn't even flinch.

"I must be going out of my mind." He flicked the light back on, snatched something from his bookshelf, and sat on the ledge of his bed.

Curious, I leaned over his shoulder, watching as he opened the goodie bag and pulled a single cookie out. It was square, nearly flat, and the color of sand. He twisted it between his fingers, scrutinizing each crevice as if he were trying to count every grain of sugar it contained; a jeweler examining the rarest of gemstones yet not quite wanting it if he finds even the tiniest scratch along its glossed and polished surface. I looked at his face and wondered what he was thinking, watched his eyes narrow as he gnawed his lower lip.

"This one's for you, L," He finally said, fanning it against his mouth. He slid the morsel between his teeth and snapped it in half, then turned to the yearbook he had pulled from the shelf. I watched him flip expertly to a page near the back, the photo he stopped on glossy and set in sepia.

I didn't have a heart anymore, but it was interesting to ponder what it might be doing at this moment if I still did. I couldn't feel the body's functions—the pounding of my pulse or quickening of my breath—but I could still feel emotion, and it swept through me like an endorphin rush, more powerful than anything I had felt when I was alive.

This was Light-Kun's only picture of me (Naturally; pictures of the great detective L would be all over the internet in seconds if I had allowed my photo to be taken), but this was the exception, taken during our acceptance speech at the university when I was posing as Hideki Ryuga.

It was amazing to see the contrast between Light-Kun and myself, two complete opposites and yet so alike in mind. We were two sides of the same coin, a balance of good and evil. I had asked myself on numerous occasions if Light-Kun would have actually looked up to me if he hadn't been Kira. Would the friendship we had built with judgmental, suspecting hands actually been stable and real?

I'd like to think so.

Light-Kun pushed the rest of the cookie between his lips and slowly chewed, his eyes never leaving the page. His thumb rolled over my profile, a ginger, lingering caress that seemed so out of character I had to look back at his face to make sure it was still him.

I couldn't tell what he was thinking or if he was even feeling anything at all. He was good at hiding behind an ice mask. He had to. Being the owner of a Death Note—and especially being the owner of a Death Note who also happened to be Kira—made that trait absolutely necessary to ensure his survival. But in the confines of his own room with no one present (as far as he was aware), without even Ryuk as a potential witness, he still appeared to be completely stoic. It was as if he had gone so long pretending not to feel that he couldn't break character even when he was free to do so.

Before I could think to stop myself, my abnormally long and pale fingers were stretching toward him, reaching until the tips barely whispered against the hair above his ear. With a gasp he whirled toward me, and the yearbook thumped to the floor. I yanked back, curling my fingers into my palm. Light-Kun's breathing filled the room, loud and uneven as his eyes went on a frantic tour, roaming right through me. I stared back with a mixture of surprise and excitement, my eyes hauntingly large at the revelation: I could touch him.

I could touch him and he could feel me.

"Light-Kun," I whispered again, and this time he flinched.

"Ryuuzaki." Bit by bit he closed his eyes, then breathed deep. "Somehow, I swear I can still feel you. It's like...you're always next to me."

I reached out to him again, and with careful gentility slid my fingers along the curve of his jaw until I had cupped his cheek in my palm. He shivered delicately, leaning into the touch as tears began glittering beneath his eyelashes. I cupped his other cheek and brought our foreheads together, unable to comprehend the force of emotion coursing so dominantly through my non-existent body.

It made absolutely no sense. My earthly sentiment should have perished. At the very least, I shouldn't be enveloped in such tender emotions. I should be angry. God help me, I should be angry.

A trembling sob ripped through Light-Kun's chest, and I felt the first tear march down his check, warm and saline, delicately brushing mine like a single fallen star.

I moaned as I brought our lips together; a soluble, lone hum that tickled gingerly against his mouth. He hesitated a beat, then slid his arms around my neck. I ran my tongue along his lower lip, tasting the sweet remnants of the tea cookie he'd eaten, not even quite sure what I was doing anymore. His mouth opened under the pressure of mine, allowing me to deepen the kiss. Thunder exploded in the distance just as my tongue brushed his. The window rattled in its wake, and a second later the lights fluttered and died.

Light-Kun pulled back, panting, and stared incredulously into the darkness. "Ryuuz-"

I stamped my lips against his again, quickly cutting him off. He moaned in protest, but soon relented under the gentle persuasion of my tongue. It was better than cookies, better than cake, better than donuts and chocolate and ice-cream with sweet cherries on top. Light-Kun was the essence of delicious.

How had I overlooked this before?

He broke off for air again, his hair a wild mess from my fingers moving so recklessly through the rust-colored tresses.

"Light-Kun," I whimpered, reaching for him again. Lightning streaked across the sky, temporarily setting the room in a magnificent glow. Light-Kun's eyes widened as the flicker illuminated my figure, flashing visibly for a moment in its glory.

"Ryuuzaki," he whispered softly, disbelief rocking his voice. Then stronger, louder. "Ryuuzaki!" Another crack of thunder, another flash of light. He was crying; the tears were dripping frantically from his chin.

And then we were on each other. Touching, kissing, grabbing desperately for clothes. I pushed him back against the bed and fell on top of him, my teeth scrapping teasingly across his jaw and down his throat. He grabbed onto my arms, arching into me as I bit into his skin and sucked gently.

Think logically, I scolded myself. Stop this nonsense!

But then Light-Kun moaned and moved his legs just a little further apart, chanting my name. My real name. He dropped all pretenses, whispering it helplessly into the night, like a plea. Like an apology.

"L."

My lips crashed onto his, and his fingers found their way to my back, slowly sneaking up my shirt. I paused to shiver; his hands were so warm, amazingly soft and deceptively ginger in the way they glided and caressed. He bit softly into my lip, and the reaction he elicited from me was lethal. I grunted at the sensation and involuntarily moved my hips against his. Slowly at first, so slowly. Beneath me, Light-Kun began to react to the movements, the front of his pants growing appreciatively large as we quickly found a rhythm.

Our tongues lashed together, desperate and needy as we rocked against each other on the bed. Pleasure tore through us; Light-Kun broke off to moan, gasping frantically for oxygen. I watched the emotions play across his face, a mixture of remorse and lust. He arched high into me, baring the smooth, creamy skin of his neck, his chin pointed momentarily to the ceiling. I traced the tip of my tongue from the hollow of his throat to his ear, biting tenderly along the way.

"L," He whispered, panting madly. His fingers found their way into my hair, curling gently into the wisps. "Please."

I moved back up to his mouth, kissing him with fervor. I didn't know what I was capable of in this "body," but Light-Kun was close. He wrapped one leg around my hips, his soft whimpers now coming out in full-blown cries.

"Light-Kun."

His eyes opened to look up at me, heavy and half-lidded with passion. I pressed my forehead against his, rubbing hard and shamelessly against his youthful body. He choked out my name; once, twice, then he was suddenly quaking beneath me, his gasps coming in quicker, harsher rushes. I didn't stop until he fell completely flaccid, eyes closed, still desperately trying to suck in much needed oxygen.

I placed another chaste kiss on the corner of his mouth, and he squeezed his eyes closed. His hands fell away to cover his face.

"I'm sorry," he said, choking against a sob. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

I leaned over onto my side and reached out for him, crushed him against my chest.

"I'm so fucking sorry!" He buried his face in the crook of my neck, dissolving into hysterical sobs. "There's no way to atone for what's I've done."

I stroked his neck lightly, gently shushing him. He was right, in a way: there wasn't any way for him to bring me back. What was done was done, and he'd have to live with his part in that for the rest of his life.

But that didn't mean he'd have to go on like this, digging himself deeper into the mess he'd created. It didn't mean he should go on being Kira, and it didn't mean he had to burn for it.

I chewed contemplatively on my thumbnail and allowed Light-Kun to cry himself into a restless sleep against my side. There had to be a way to obtain justice for all the innocent lives Light-Kun had wrongfully taken, but there had to be a way to do it that would inevitably clear his name, free him of the Death Note, and restore him to the Light Yagami who had been so willing to seek that justice with me.

What I needed was a strategy.

I really should be angry, but there was much too much to be done. It had been decided: L, the world's greatest detective, would not rest in peace until Light Yagami smiled again.

-BratChild3 :)