Work Text:
Light has learnt to tolerate all the annoying habits of his off-putting investigation partner after some time of being handcuffed togheter.
He's grown used to sleeping through the constant keyboard clicking, he stopped noticing how giant the mountains of sweets on L's desk were, he even manages not to scream when he sees the devilish monstrosity of the human washing machine in use.
After another day of pure hard work, he finally tries to fall asleep, when he hears a sound different from the other ones of L eating. It sounded like paper being ripped, slowly.
"Ryuzaki... what are you doing...?"
Light asks sleepily, as he rolls over to face him and sees the insomniac shove the ripped part of paper into his own mouth.
"Did you just-"
"I'm working."
Typical to him, L either really didn't understand what he was getting at, or he was just playing dumb. Either way, his clueless expression was awkwardly cute.
"Did you just eat paper?"
Light was fully awake now, he sat up and stared at L like he just ate his mother instead.
"Oh, yes."
The detective kept acting as if it was the most normal thing to do. In fact, he bit another piece off.
"Stop that!"
The younger man stood up and took the paper away from him.
"I swear to god, you don't even need Kira to efficiently kill yourself. You can't just eat paper!"
"No, you can't. More like you shouldn't. You'd get a stomach ache. But believe me, my body has grown accustomed to many things yours couldn't handle. Now give that back, I ran out of cake."
That answer has only confused Light further.
"So you only eat sweets... and paper?"
"Sweets and non-edible objects, to be precise. Now give that back."
"But... Why??? How??? What???"
He stared at the detective with wide eyes.
"If you must know, things like paper, cotton, skin, nail polish, soap... they taste exactly like you would imagine. Mostly because you can often tell by the smell. And the texture you already know because you touch them on a daily basis. So it's not scary."
As L explained the reason behind his behavior, he sounded like a toddler. But that wasn't really anything surprising, really, it's a man that doesn't even get dressed on his own.
Light processed his words slowly, still staring at him. It's not... scary. What does he mean, scary?
"You're... scared of real food?"
"Yes, I suppose so. Food is unpredictable and has various flavors and textures. You never know what you put in your mouth. I only eat sweets because I know I like them."
At this point, L gave up on trying to get the paper back and simply started chewing on a candy wrapper he didn't throw away previously. Seeing the concerned and freaked out expression of his partner, he added another, even worse sentence.
"Don't worry, I'll throw it up later. I don't wish to poison myself."
Light was at a loss of words. Despite that, he somehow kept on arguing.
"You... That's... That doesn't even sound like a quirk anymore, that's some eating disorder level habit. You're not only gonna get diabetes, at this point you'll cut up your digestive tract and damage it even more with vomit. And how do you even get any vitamins?"
"Hm, I suppose vitamin deficiency might actually be another reason why I crave non-edible things."
L stated, looking up on the ceiling, thumb to his mouth.
Light just blinked twice.
"Wow. I hate you."