Journey below [L x reader] • Death Note

Chapter 10 | don't look back

The underworld wasn't too bad when you weren't in Tartarus, and the more time L spent down there the more he got used to it like everyone had been saying.

The one thing he was the most happy with though was that mask Hypnos gave him, he'd been sleeping like he was in a coma ever since he got it. All those years of insomnia finally shooed off, his Eyebags would remain but for the first time ever he was feeling well rested.

Although waking up from a sleep that deep meant he found himself in weird positions.  Like this morning... evening... whatever time it was.

He'd woken up from the deepest sleep he'd ever had, one leg off the bed, blanket wrapped around an arm and pillow under his knees rather than his head. How he ended up like that he had no idea but he sat up, pushing the mask up so he could wake up properly and took a second to fully become conscious again.

"Fuck- what year is it..?" He mumbled to himself, rubbing his eyes.

Well rested yes, but he also felt like he'd need dragged through a bush backward from sleeping in such a weird position. You know the sleep was good when the folds of the sheets dent into your skin, and the arm he'd been leaning on was covered in them.

Finally he managed to get out of bed and stumbled over to the window to try and see what time it was based on his gloomy the underworld was. But when he opened the curtains he almost had yet another heart attack when he was met with... a nose... a big one.

It sniffed the window, and then another one did, and then another one.

"What the fu- oh Cerberus..." he said.

Cerberus guarded the entryways to the underworld and one wasn't too far off, no surprise he'd pass by on a walk.

Half dressed, L sleepily opened the door to look up at the three headed dog.

"So are you here to chew me up or what?" He asked.

Despite this dog being massive and having three heads, it sat there and panted like a normal dog. One of the heads reached down to sniff L, and he found himself being inspected by the hellhound.

"Ok... guess you're friendly to the shades that aren't in Tartarus then... and ones that don't try and escape" L said.

"Oh looks like you've got a friend huh?"

L knew that voice, it was his good shade from before.

"Not sure why he's here but he is" L said.

"He takes walks sometimes, he's only vicious to those hades tells him to chew up" Eurydice replied.

The shade who'd been on her weekly shop for fruits and vegetables reached her hand up to give one of the heads a scratch, making the massive tail wag back and fourth.

"Wow, I thought he was meant to be a scary murder machine but he's acting like a puppy" L snickered.

"Oh he is a murder machine, but not to us. He's a good boy"

L reached up to scratch another head, earning a satisfied growl from the hound.

"You know one time I heard Zagreus crying because he only has two hands and Cerberus has three heads so he can't pat them all at once. Even gods are softies sometimes" Eurydice said.

"Honestly I don't blame him, I'd feel bad for leaving a head out" L replied, using his other hand to pat the remaining head.

"Cerberus must have noticed a new smell and come to check it out since you've been here for a while now. And I see you've well and truly settled in"

She eyed down L's just rolled out of bed look, finding it amusing. Must have been one hell of a sleep for his hair to practically defy gravity like that.

"Everyone was telling me to go to Hypnos for my sleep so I did, no regrets. Thanks to him I've never slept so well in my life... well afterlife. I never slept well in life" L replied.

"Clearly. Told you you'd settle in after a while. How's the Kira thing going, you and (y/n) made any progress?" Eurydice asked.

"A bit, we know where the case is at the moment and we found that bloody shinigami. Thanatos wasn't pleased with him"

"Oh I can imagine he'd be royally pissed"

The hellhound thoroughly enjoyed the head pats, but decided it was time for a tummy scratch and rolled over taking up most of L's front yard.

"Awww what a sook. Alright you get tummy scratches" Eurydice laughed.

"For a dog with three heads triple my size he's really puppy huh?" L added.

"Got any ideas on how to sabotage the case?"

"A few... but it's a bit early to tell which one will work out. They're still picking up the mess of the case after I died, I swear I was the only one actually trying to solve the damn thing"

When L thought about death, he definitely didn't think about giving a huge dog tummy scratches while bitching about Light with a famous Ancient Greek shade. But, life... afterlife... is full of surprises. And to be frank he didn't really mind the way things were turning out so far.

"How's (y/n)? I've heard about them in passing" Eurydice asked.

"They're good, very fun to mess around with. They're a good mix of taking their job seriously and also having fun with it. They're definitely helping get the job done but didn't object when I threw a book at Kiras head, in fact they encouraged it" L replied.

"Uh oh, am I sensing a dynamic duo coming on?" She teased.

"Well considering they both enable my dumb plans are reel me in when I get ahead of myself, probably"

L liked you, he really liked you. Your laid back attitude while also being serious about serious issues was a good mix of fun and trustworthy. In fact he was looking forward to seeing you again next time he went up to the surface with you. He wasn't lonely with you, you kept him company in his afterlife.

"What about your partner? How's he?" L asked.

"Orpheus? Even though it's been thousands of years since his mistake, he still feels bad. He practically clings to me, not that I mind. He's probably writing yet another song for me" Eurydice explained.

"I see where he's coming from though, must have been a guilty life after that mistake"

"I was mad... but I did feel bad for him because I knew he'd be beating himself up over it. Although I wasn't expecting him to die so soon afterward, it was a nice surprise to be reunited with him for good though. You know even if he was murdered by a wine cult..."

Well... Ancient Greece was a very uh, different time. Being killed as a sacrifice is definitely not a good thing but when you're dealing with a cult that worships being drunk and praying to Dionysus things were bound to get out of control. At least he got to come back to his wife in the afterlife, yeah that's probably the only good thing to come out of the situation.

"Ancient Greece was wild..." L pondered.

"Oh yeah, it was a riot. Nothing like the times you're from" she replied.

"And yet people from my time still know about your story, it clearly made an impact on humans"

"In a way, it's kind of an honour. At least our tragedy taught humanity something. Never look back"

Never look back...

Eurydice slipped out of Orpheus' grip all because he made the fatal mistake of looking back. L went through his life following the moral of their story, don't look back. Now, he needed to find a way to trick Light into making that same fatal mistake of looking back.