A/N: This story is named after the song Hey! We OK by Never Shout Never. It seriously doesn't have any correlation to the story, it just made me think of L for some reason. No idea why. Anyway, continue. :)

L didn't want to die.

It was quite the contrary, actually – he was afraid of death. The thought of disappearing into oblivion unsettled him like nothing else did, not that anyone knew. Even more disconcerting was the thought of death by Kira. If he lived to survive the case (which he was almost 88 percent sure he would not), heart attacks would hold a special, terrifying place in his heart.

However, even with being logical enough to deduce that he probably was going to die, L still didn't want to.

He wasn't sure if the task force could sense that. He knew that his lackadaisical attitude was off putting to the small group of men, even with the amount of times L had proven it wasn't that he didn't care about the case (of course he did; this was the largest case and most difficult criminal he'd ever faced), it was just simply the way he was. But, he did not expect them to understand. He didn't expect anyone to understand.

(And it turns out the only one who ever did was a mass murderer. What a shame.)

Death was the frightening, unavoidable force that was pushing the men, being their motivation when everything seemed helpless, when leads were nearly nonexistent, when the world seemed doomed and the people walking the Earth seemed irreparably damaged.

So, every night, when L cut, it was not to bring him closer to death.

He'd only ever tried to explain the concept to Watari. It was not that he was suicidal; he simply needed to clear his head. Usually the need was not so insistent, but with the migraine that was the Kira case, the detective's head got cluttered faster than it ever had before. What was previously a once every few weeks habit was now a daily one. It definitely wasn't an improvement, but it wasn't making L concerned, either. It was more of an inconvenience, if he had to put a word to it. Failing to cut would lead to mood swings, irritability, lack of concentration. Those kind of internal distractions were intolerable to the man; he needed to stay sharp. Snapping at his team for no reason would not help catch Kira.

And if the only thing that would relieve the pressure in his mind was the feeling of a blade slicing his skin, he wasn't going to argue.

Watari was the only person who knew, having found out simply because L hadn't expected him home so early one day. Well, it wasn't that he didn't expect him, rather that there had only been a five percent chance of him getting off work before the usual time. The older man had given him a long talk after the initial shock of the situation had worn off. Discussed the consequences. How harmful it was. He had even called L careless for risking his life in such a way.

But he wasn't risking his life. He knew where to cut and where not to, where major veins were, where the skin was the weakest. He didn't need the adrenaline associated with almost committing suicide. No, he just needed the pain. Needed the invisible hands to release the grip on his brain a little, just enough to where he could think.

He hadn't expected Watari to understand – he still didn't – so he had simply just nodded and pretended to pay attention to the lecture, while his mind, fresh and at ease and calm, had moved back to his latest case.

L didn't think anybody he associated with would understand. And the only person who maybe would was almost most definitely a serial killer.

What a shame.

In the end, it was a small, careless miscalculation, one that shouldn't have made any real difference in the grand scheme of things. But, despite the three percent chance of it mattering at all, it did, and it would now be one of the things that kept L up at night.

The day before had been long. There had been something that resembled a lead (though, because it had nothing to do with Light Yagami, L was doubtful from the beginning), and the entire team was so excited that they stayed up half the night, investigating as much as they possibly could. It turned out to be nothing, a series of Kira-like coincidences, and when everybody left, the mood had turned very, very sour.

Though he would never dare to show it, the whole thing left L's head a jumbled mess. He had felt desperation trying to claw its way out of him, trying to alter his judgment, and it took nearly a third of his brain power to stop it. Their only lead in what felt like years, and it couldn't even last a full twenty four hours? It was pathetic. L was pathetic. He knew the public was afraid, and that they had trusted him to stop this monster of a person. And he was failing. Failing miserably.

By the end of the night, he was losing the battle against his mind. Almost immediately after everyone left, he was muttering goodnight to Watari, shutting down the unnecessary machines, and then trying not to run to his room. To his bathroom. To his relief.

The cutting session that had ensued was messy, sloppy. Carefulness wasn't even in the vicinity of his train of thought. Almost nothing was. The anguish that was filling his heart blocked out everything else, until the pain got sharp enough that it left his mind blank, empty. When coherent thoughts starting drifting back in, L wasn't sure if he had blacked out or not. A glance at a clock, which told him it was more than an hour after he came up there, made the idea seem very probable.

When he looked down at his arm, shock froze his body for maybe five minutes. The marks were not in any way planned, precise, or cautious. They were all over the place, some small, some large. Some shallow, some deep. The deepest ones were still trickling blood, and a grotesque red pool had formed underneath him. The detective could still see the faint white scars on the currently unaffected part of his arm, nearly a decade's worth of controlled abuse.

It was, for lack of better words, a fuck up. A major one.

Just a little deeper, a little more frantic, and he could have easily bled out. He really had put himself in danger this time. He had been careless. The realization made his stomach drop, and he was overcome with guilt and shame for a few minutes, until he grew frustrated. Cutting was supposed to make him feel better, not worse. So what he had made a mistake this time? Tomorrow night he would be careful. He would be in control again.

He was sure of it.

It hadn't taken him long to clean up, years of practice making the actions almost second nature. L would've been on autopilot, if there wasn't so much blood.

As he laid in bed, eyes wide and staring at the ceiling, he wondered if this mistake would be the one that revealed his secret. Several situations were possible; the deeper wounds could start bleeding and leave red blotches on his shirt, some member of the task force could accidentally bump his arm and cause him to wince, his sleeve could simply roll up. Usually his cuts were in a specific area, one that wasn't stressed much due to normal movement (limiting his motion would very easily draw attention to himself) and one that didn't cause a lot of blood loss. The wrist was one of the more commonly avoided areas, because of the risk of the veins, and because it was very easily seen. But, apparently, that hadn't mattered in L's panic-stricken state; his wrist was just as bad as the rest of his arm.

Sighing, the detective closed his eyes and stretched his body out, causing the tops of his feet to hang over the edge of the bed. It was a tactic he commonly used to relax himself, and, hopefully, fall asleep. However, sleep was most likely not going to come easy. L's thoughts were jumping from subject to subject, from strawberry shortcake to the probability that Light Yagami was Kira, from the way Near's eyes shone when he was playing with his toys to the way his small hand had felt enclosed in Watari's when he was young. Every few minutes or so his thoughts flickered back to his arm, like he was a dog on a leash and anxiety was his owner, tugging on his collar when he stopped to sniff some roses.

It was around six that his brain had finally calmed down enough for him to drift off to a dreamless sleep. Unfortunately, he was woken up a mere two hours later by his alarm (which was usually rendered useless, as, after minimal sleep, he often started his day in the middle of the night).

As he went through his morning routine, his mind sluggishly moved from thought to thought at a snail's pace. Obviously the stressful night combined with a couple hours of sleep wasn't mixing together well, and L wondered if this was how fast Misa Amane's brain moved on a daily basis.

Sitting in his bed, drinking his very sugary tea, he concluded that yes, that was probably the case.

L was downstairs an hour later, arriving later than the rest of the team, despite the fact that he had never even left the building. Nobody looked up at him as he walked over to his desk; it seemed that the mood from last night had, unfortunately, stuck.

The detective sat down in his chair and assumed his usual position, looking around for the bag of candy he always kept next to his computer. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Light glance over, stare at him for a couple seconds, then look back at his screen.

"Light-kun," L began, his voice booming against the silence that had previously taken over the room, "is there something you want to say to me?"

Light chuckled softly (a sound that, if heard alone, would make one think of a killer facing his latest victim), and then leaned back in his chair, crossing his left leg over his right. "Good morning, Ryuzaki."

A senseless, frightened part of his mind had expected him to ask, "What's that on your arm?" despite the fact that not only were the deeper wounds now bandaged, they were well hidden under his shirt. There was nothing unusual about him. He had made sure of it.

L decided not to answer; Light was just keeping up appearances, after all. But, after glancing around the room and seeing Soichiro Yagami's glare, he turned back to his computer and muttered, "Good morning."

He could imagine Soichiro's pleased expression.

Somehow, Light had managed to stay perfect in his father's eyes. L supposed it wasn't hard to do; Soichiro had watched Light grow up, watched him become the image of perfection that he was today. And obviously the son was more intelligent than the father. Light was probably smarter than everyone in the room, except for L, of course. It was almost effortless for Light to trick his father into anything, so it was no wonder that Soichiro believed in his innocence wholeheartedly.

But Soichiro was by no means stupid. In some deep part of his psyche, couldn't he see it? Couldn't he remove the parental eyes and view Light without bias? See the glint in his eyes, hear the edge to his voice? Was L the only one that could?

About a half an hour passed without any notable events. The room was almost silent, the only noise being the sounds of typing and clicking, and, occasionally, sighing. It made time go slower, each minute feeling like ten.

Suddenly, Light said, "Ryuzaki, come here."

L glanced over at him. He was staring at his computer screen, leaned in close, engrossed in whatever he was reading. His eyes were wide, taking everything in, and his right leg was bouncing.

Whatever he had discovered really had him interested, and even if L didn't trust him, he was far too curious to ignore him.

He wheeled his chair next to Light's and looked at the screen. It was a list of the most recent Kira murders, name and place and time. Scanning the information, he didn't see anything exceptionally fascinating – it was just simply the list, something all of the team had looked at many times before.

But Light's eyes were still wide, his body language screaming excited. "Notice these people?" He clicked a button, and then several names were highlighted. "Do you recognize any of them?"

L in fact did. They were all businessmen, some leaders of local companies. He didn't know any of them personally (he barely knew anyone personally), but he would hear their names every once in awhile. And they were all, apparently, dead.

"These men may have not been the nicest people you would ever meet," Light said, "but not one of them has ever committed a crime big enough for Kira to take notice."

L looked up from the screen and met Light's gaze with his own. The boy looked triumphant, extremely so, and with anybody else, the expression may have been cute. But with Light it was almost condescending, and the slight smirk on his lips screamed arrogance.

But he definitely had found something. A possible lead. But the fact that he, an eighteen year old boy with sociopathic tendencies, had found it before L, the greatest detective in the world...

He shifted his position slightly, so his wrist dug into the arm of his chair. Pain shot through his body, straight to his brain, and he felt immediately better. More alert.

Looking back at the screen, he scanned the list again. "Based on this...it would appear that Kira is part of the business world, possibly owning a company or trying to get promoted..."

"How would killing people get you promoted?" Matsuda asked from behind them, and when L turned around and looked, everybody was staring at him, their eyes wide with the possibility of catching Kira.

He looked back at the screen, where Light was searching for information on each individual victim. "Killing your company's competition would increase revenue, meaning that promotions would be more readily available..." L paused, biting the tip of his thumb as he watched Light's research, his mind not really focused on what he was saying to Matsuda. "Or you could just kill your boss and hope you get the promotion...but Kira wouldn't do that. That would be relinquishing far too much control in the situation."

"Kira's never killed innocent businessmen before," Soichiro said. "Why start now?"

"Maybe he was hoping nobody would notice?" Matsuda again.

"No, Kira doesn't hope..." L couldn't help it; his eyes slid over to Light, the boy still concentrating solely on his computer. "Kira is always sure of himself...he would never make a mistake like this."

"Well, obviously he did. I mean, there can't be another Kira, can there?" Matsuda laughed, a soft, nervous laughter, but it stopped when L didn't immediately say no. "Ryuzaki?"

"Yes, there can be another Kira," he answered after a minute of thought. "And there is. Whoever we're dealing with now, they're not the original Kira."

There wasn't even enough time for L's words to stun the room into silence; after a few seconds, Light was grabbing his arm, saying, "Ryuzaki, I've got it!" as he did so.

L immediately hissed through his teeth, the pain constricting his brain for a few seconds and leaving his thoughts blank. He felt Light let go, and though it was significantly less uncomfortable, he still had to wait another five seconds before he could move.

And when he did, Light was staring at him, his eyebrows raised. Though he didn't see them, he knew that the rest of the team was as well.

L just stared back, making sure his face was as calm and unbothered as it usually was. "I hurt my arm last night. It's not important. What did you find, Light-kun?"

He could feel everyone's gazes slip away from him one by one. They had no reason not to believe him, so why wouldn't they? Something as minimal as a hurt arm…it truly wasn't important.

However, Light was still looking at him, his eyes untrusting and suspicious. He had every reason not to believe him.

But, despite whatever he may have been thinking, he didn't say anything. He just turned to his computer, where he had the list open again, and everything resumed, like nothing had ever happened to stop it.