Switched [L x Reader AU] • Death Note

Chapter 2 | switchy

Maybe it was the fact you talked with L all day yesterday, but now you felt a lot closer to the people you knew were possessing the body.

You'd nicknamed them The Detective System. That's what you'd decided to call them when referring to all the alters. L seemed ok with that name too, giggling a bit at the sheer creativeness. Calling a system of detectives the detective system, so creative right?

You couldn't stop thinking about it now. You wanted to know more. Help find new alters, help him process the trauma, talk to the alters you didn't know yet. Ryuzaki was the one fronting at the moment, it seems L had gone to bed, then Ryuzaki woke up in the body to continue the case. You hadn't had the chance to talk to him yet, as he was directing the rest of the taskforce. But you wanted to talk to him and just make sure that he knew you didn't mean any harm.

All night you'd done extra research, learnt the terms, how DID works, the effects it has on the psyche, the body, the individual alters.

You learnt that alters who aren't the same sex as the body feel dysphoria. And child alters can get upset because they're 'too tall' or 'too big to be cared for' when fronting. You learnt that alters can be non-human, animals or mythical creatures. Even fictional characters can be alters.

Aside from that, you read up on all the roles in a system. Protector, host, co-host, gatekeeper, caretaker... so there so many.

You wondered if L had any girl alters in there that just hadn't shown up yet, or any child alters, or non-human alters. It'd be interesting to see how they adjust to the body.

You were snapped out of your curiosity driven thoughts by the sound of chairs scraping the floor as the taskforce got up to go about their work. Now was your chance to talk to Ryuzaki.

"Ryu" You said.

He turned to face you.

"Can we talk?"

He walked over, following you into the hall.

"What is it?" He asked.

"I just wanted to mention that I don't mean any harm to the system. I wasn't expecting L to just straight up tell me, you'd hidden everything pretty well. But I won't harm any of you, I want to help actually"

He seemed kind of shocked, like he wasn't expecting kindness so quickly.

"O-oh... Thanks. We don't usually get such... chill responses" he said.

"I know that you and L have probably seen some things you didn't need to see, but I promise you that nothing like that will ever happen again as long as I'm around"

He was silent for a moment, letting those words sink in. Ryuzaki probably wasn't used to such kindness. If he was the protector there's a good chance he was one of the alters that faced the initial trauma. He definitely had some trust issues, but if L was so sure of you, and you'd gone out of your way to research more, maybe you could be trusted.

"Thanks... that's a first..." he said, not really knowing how to respond.

But it seems someone else did, he immediately started to dissociate, feeling the presence of two alters.

"Lemme guess, L?" You giggled, watching him slip into the void for a moment.

"Y-Yeah, he and someone else are close. They can't front just yet, I still have a taskforce to wrangle" he said, snapping out of it again.

"L seems eager to front a lot"

"He is, he loves to help out with cases. He's the one that started the whole detective thing, but I kind of took over after a certain case that triggered him pretty badly. I'm just worried we'll have a run-in with those people again so I'm the main case worker. But I do let L have his fun too"

You remembered something L told you yesterday. Alters have their own appearances in the inner world. You knew L matched the body, but what did Ryuzaki look like.

"Hey... what do you look like in the inner world?" You asked.

"Uhh well, I'm a little shorter than the body. I have slightly longer hair with brown roots and the rest is black. I have blue eyes, freckles, I'm still pretty pale. And the eyebags, that something the whole system shares. In all honesty I think I was slightly based off an old friend of ours... I have the same hair and height" he explained.

You wished you could see the alters as themselves to get a better idea of their appearances.

"Hey I have an idea. Would you be able to find a picture of someone that looks close to you do? Maybe I could try and draw you and the rest of the system that doesn't match the body" you said.

His eyes seemed to light up, like he'd always wanted something like that to happen.

"You'd do that?"

"Yeah, I wanna be able to visualise you better"

A small smile crept cross his lips.

"Yeah, I could do that later on" he agreed.

He'd definitely caught on that the reason he was feeling that little extra bit dissociated at the moment was because he was talking to you. The other two wanted to see what was going on and talk to you as well. He'd definitely have to have a little talk with the others later about fronting to talk to you.

"Gosh, I better get back to work before the others physically fight me to front to joke around with you. Later, they can do that later" he said, slightly dissociated.

"We'll all chat more later. I better get my work done too. I'll leave so the others don't go nuts and you can ground yourself back into reality" you smiled.

"Thank you"

"We'll talk later"

With that you left, leaving Ryuzaki in the hall for a moment so he could push the others back as best as he could.

"Calm down guys, I know we all like (y/n)..." he mumbled to himself.

It was silent as he was slowly bought back to reality.

"Yes L we can ask her to make more cupcakes later, now let me work without floating into the shadow realm please..."