Disclaimer: I do not own Death Note or The Notebook.

A/N: Attack of the fluff and the OOC-ness!!!!

Also, spoilers for The Notebook, which is an incredibly sweet movie.

Somewhere in this fic I developed a brief obsession with the term and idea of a 'knot.' Yeah. I dunno. I can only tie my shoes, nothing more complicated than that. But... they're just... so cool! I'll be over it by tomorrow. ^^

Even though the Kira case was over and done with and it had been arranged so that Light would never get Kira's powers back, L still found it endlessly amusing that Light's favorite movie of all time was The Notebook.

It was funny on several levels, really, not the least of which was the fact that it was the chick-flick-iest chick flick L knew of.

And then there was that whole thing with the title and the Death Note.

L didn't even mind the movie. It was just that, at some point, Light was gonna have to stop making him watch it with him every weekend. L had of course tried to get out of it, but Light had given him those eyes and, although he used them only rarely, they were always effective. Always.

Even so, L had managed to come close to shutting it down a few times. The only problem was what happened after the movie. That, he enjoyed. Immensely. And as much as Light liked having sex with him, L knew he'd refuse as revenge if L blatantly repudiated. The boy could be such a girl sometimes.

There are only so many times you can watch a depressing movie until it stops making you cry, L thought as he stared blankly at the screen, mentally reciting the lines along with the characters. He had memorized every word of every scene the first time he watched it- the lines now made regular appearances in his dreams, when he managed to sleep.

Only so many times, unless, apparently, you're Light Yagami.

It was so strange. Light was up to L's level exactly, so he knew he had it all memorized just as thoroughly as he did. So what did the boy get out of watching it a million times? Every single Saturday, they watched this movie. Every single Friday, Light expressed at least once how excited he was to watch it again. Every single Sunday, the soundtrack was stuck in L's head. It would get out of his head by around Thursday, just in time for Light to start talking about the movie again. It was a vicious cycle, and Light seemed totally immune to how annoying it all was.

L sighed as Light sniffled. Somehow, knowing (exactly!!!) what was going to happen seemed to make the movie even sadder for him. As admittedly sad as the movie truly was (even L had cried the first time), it simply didn't make any sense to the older genius how such an intelligent person could be so profoundly influenced by the same thing over and over and over and over...

He looked at his lover and saw, for the hundredth time, tears rolling quietly down his cheeks as he watched, riveted to the screen. It just didn't make sense.

No matter how many times L saw that, though- and he only saw it when they were watching this movie- he couldn't get used to seeing Light cry.

Incidentally, this was another reason that he put up with the constant The Notebook-ing: Light cried absolutely gorgeously. He was beautiful, always, as a rule. He couldn't help it. Even when he had been bound, gagged, dressed in baggy black clothes, and tossed into a cell for fifty days, he had been beautiful. He even broke beautifully. It was the only time Light seemed human. Such an imperfect, human action as crying contrasted with his normal front of something that was significantly superior to humankind and it was endlessly comforting to L: if someone as incredible as the one he loved was human, then it was okay that he was human, too, as hard as he tried not to be.

L held out his arms and Light shifted into him, comfortably, intimately. The older male wrapped his arms around him and held him tight.

He sat and simply loved the feeling of the boy existing in his arms, so healthy compared to him. So... at ease in his skin, when L had never fit in anywhere. So easy to be with but simultaneously impossible to understand. Other people thought they understood him. Soichiro, for example, had no idea how complex his son really was. How many masks he wore, how he was always lying, always acting. Even minus Kira.

Only someone who truly understood him could understand how impossible he was to understand.

...Luckily L had always been fond of conundrums.

Right then, L almost told him he loved him. Almost.

As the movie drew to its melancholic close, L could feel, as usual, the shaking of Light's shoulders. He leaned around and kissed Light on the side of the neck.

"Light-kun," he murmured into his skin, "why, if this movie upsets you so much, do you insist upon watching it every weekend?"

Light looked at him, bringing his sleeve to his eyes to wipe them dry. With that was erased the only evidence that he had been crying- no red face, no puffy eyes, no snot. Even when he spoke, his voice showed no proof of his emotions. "Do you not like the movie?"

L shrugged. "I don't mind it, per se. It's more the fact that I can't see what you so appreciate in it."

Light raised and lowered one shoulder. "I guess I just... find it... beautiful. What he does for her, I mean. He reads her that damn notebook every single day on the off chance that she'll remember him that day. She's gone. Any normal person would give up. But he'd do anything for a few more minutes." Tears escaped the corners of his eyes again, and he hurriedly wiped them away. "It makes me think about what I would do in the same situation. If, when we're old, you get what she had, and you forget everything and don't recognize me. And I always think about how I'd do anything, anything, to get you back, even if it was just for a few minutes. For a few seconds. And I wouldn't stop until we died, hand in hand, just like that. Because any other way would be unbearable."

"I see," L said quietly.

Light sat up a bit straighter, readjusting himself around to face L with his body, so he didn't have to crane his neck anymore to see him. "Do you?"

"I believe so. If you don't agree, you're free to elaborate."

The younger man put his hand on the other's cheek, and L leaned into the warmth of the touch, still looking at him. "I love you."

L froze. No one had ever said that to him before. Ever. No one. They'd all assumed that he was too advanced to want to hear it, or that he was probably tired of hearing it everywhere he went, when neither was the case because no one ever had said it to him. Not even Light, when they held each other at night or kissed passionately around the corner away from the rest of the Task Force, like they had had to in the beginning so, so long ago.

He knew Light must have seen his reaction (the boy could read him like no one else could), but he continued. "By that, I mean that you're the only person I could ever love, and, well, would ever want to." He paused. He removed his hand from L's face, letting his fingers brush over his mouth as he dropped his hand back to his lap. "And by that..."

Light smiled a little, and L felt his lips rise a bit in response, without his orders or even consent. No one else could do that to him.

"By that, I mean that I always will love you."

''Light," L said simply, for lack of a better reply.

"I want to marry you somewhere that it's legal, and live with you, solve crimes with you, grow old with you, and, when the time comes, die with you." He gave a sad little half-smile and gestured at the silent television with a motion of his head. "Like that. At the exact same time, because it's gotten to the point where I can't exist without you anymore, Ryuuzaki."

L took him by the face and kissed him, hard, which, for Light, was enough of an answer.

But seriously, though. Light was gonna have to stop making him watch the damn movie with him every weekend.