Fanfic / Sing to Me

L's life has never been easy. Especially when you're a four year old trying to survive in Tokyo. L's childhood before he met Watari.

A dark Death Note fanfic about L's backstory, containing murder, organized crime, drugs, and child abuse. Basically, everything that can go wrong, does. Completed.It is also about how L developed his Magnificent Bastard tendencies and bizarre habits.You can read it here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/32960185/chapters/81803299

This work features examples of:

• Abusive Parents: Aiko, being a traumatized drug addict, is not a great mom. Also, foster mother Ena, who tries to drown L once and stabs another foster kid.
• Abuse Discretion Shot: In written form. While the writer doesn't shy away from showing physical and verbal abuse, the few instances of sexual abuse are only alluded to.
• Addled Addict: L's mother is this. Also an unnamed character who mugs L at one point.
• Adopt-a-Servant: Chiko treated L (who was only 5 years old at the time) as a servant rather than an adopted son, making him cook dinner (and then flying into a rage when L made the kind of dinner that a kindergartner with a massive sweet tooth would think of), and making him clean.
• Adopting the Abused: Watari rescues L
• Adorably Precocious Child: L, as you might expect, is very much this trope.
• Adults Are Useless: Most of the adults are either abusive towards L, or are unable to protect him.
• Affably Evil: Ena is a very nice woman who also suffers sudden bouts of murderous insanity.
• Age-Inappropriate Dress: Justified: Botan, the guy who makes L wear skimpy clothes at the age of six, is a pedophile trying to present L to another pedophile as a "gift".
• Agonizing Stomach Wound: L nearly dies after being stabbed in the stomach
• The Alcoholic: L's mother is a heavy drinker, because her life is just that miserable.
• Animal Motifs: Nishio is compared to a vulture and Botan is compared to a hyena. L is compared to a raven.
• An Offer You Can't Refuse: Nishio [[makes a deal with L: work for him or be killed.]]
• Aren't You Going to Ravish Me?: L is surprised that Watari isn't interested in molesting him, torturing him, or exploiting his intelligence.
• Asshole Victim: Several times:
  • Sweets shoots a man who just raped him and filmed the ordeal and was about to go after L too.
  • Watari shoots Botan in the head. Given that Botan is a violent criminal who sells drugs to teens and rapes little boys, it's hard to feel sorry for him.
  • Same goes for Nishio
• Attempted Rape: This happens to L several times.
• Auction of Evil: When Nishio realizes that he can't fully control L, he sells him at a weapons auction.
• Ax-Crazy: Ena tries to kill L and another child. She has no clear motive for this other than that she's deranged.
• Badass and Child Duo: L and Watari: Watari is an international agent who goes against orders while on a mission to take down a Yakuza boss to rescue a child being trafficked. The child is L, who, being a genius whose talents were being exploited by said Yakuza boss and who feels enormous guilt for being complicit in the crimes, kind of also fits the badass role in the duo.
• Bathe Her and Bring Her to Me: Botan has L bathed and dressed up to be presented as a gift to Nishio.
• Became Their Own Antithesis: L ends up working for the very villains he set out to take down, constantly shoving aside his own morality for the sake of survival when he had once been willing to put himself in danger to help others.
• Beautiful Singing Voice: L has this, even as a child.
• Big Brother Bully: Ichiro.
• Big Brother Instinct: Sweets/Kaito and later Ichiro have this towards L, despite not being related by blood.
• Blackmail: L finds out about Ichiro's boyfriend and drug problem and uses it to blackmail him into...getting him ice cream and taking him to the library.
• Blood from the Mouth: L coughs up blood on several occasions, usually from blows to the head or chest.
• Blood-Spattered Innocents: L ends up covered in Kaito's blood
• Boom, Headshot!: How Watari kills Botan and Nishio.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: L only snaps out of it when Nishio tries to force him to kill another child.
• Break the Cutie: The entire fic is about this happening to L.
• Broken Bird: L. And his mother. And Sweets. And Ichiro.
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday: Nishio has a bit of trouble remembering killing Kaito.
• Canon Character All Along: The Reaper is Watari
• Cast Full of Gay
• Cheerful Child: L is this in the first few chapters. The cheerfulness gets beaten out of him.
• Children Forced to Kill: Indirectly, but Nishio forces L to help him weed out any disloyal underlings.
• The City Narrows: L lives in a cardboard box in an alley that is frequented by drug dealers and prostitutes after his mother dies* Corrupt the Cutie: Nishio does this to L.
• Crazy Homeless People: One of them tries to steal from L, beating him up when he realizes L has nothing on him worth stealing.
• Creepy Child: L is too smart, too observant, and too calm most of the time. He has a dead look in his eyes. He also is not above using violence when pressed, and he's pretty damn good at it.
• Creepy Cute: L is very much this trope in this fic. A small child with ashen skin, large vacant eyes and a demeanor that ranges from Dissonant Serenity to (sometimes violent) emotional outbursts... and yet, he's very much The Woobie, and his odd quirks and constant struggle with morality are quite endearing.
• Creepy Monotone: L starts to develop this tone of voice. Because of the trauma.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Several.
  • L's mother is raped and stabbed several times by a client
  • Nishio is fond of inflicting these on people who cross him.
  • L stabs Nishio several times with a screwdriver, including in the eye and the genitals, before Watari deals the coup de grace in the form of a gunshot to the head
• Dark and Troubled Past: The entire fic is this for L
• Delusions of Parental Love: Downplayed. Aiko does love L, but she also clearly is manipulative and abusive towards him.
• Department of Child Disservices: The social worker keeps leaving L with terrible foster parents, including Ena (who is out of her mind and randomly violent), and Chiko (who treats his foster children like slaves).
• Discreet Dining Disposal: L shoves some vegetables in his pockets so he doesn't have to eat them.
• Disposable Sex Worker: Played with. L's mother and Sweets are treated by the rest of the characters as this, but clearly they were very important to L.
• Disposable Vagrant: Since L has no living family or legal records, nobody really notices or cares if he just disappears somewhere.
• The Don: Nishio Touma.
• Double Standard Rape: Female on Male: Averted: The unnamed woman who buys L from Nishio and is quite obviously about to rape him is portrayed as 100% creepy in and out of universe.
• The Dragon: Botan is this to Nishio.
• Dramatic Dislocation: L suffers a dislocated knee that he has to pop back in himself.
• The Dreaded: The Reaper is this.
• Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: L, naturally.
• Empty Eyes: L develops these. He also notices that his foster mother has this sort of expression, and is immediately wary of her even before she tries to drown him
• Entertainment Above Their Age: L, being a Child Prodigy, regularly independently read mystery novels meant for much older children when he was only 4 years old.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Nishio has a daughter who is the only person he loves. Then again, he says that he loves L like a son, and that didn't stop him from selling him on the black market as a Sex Slave, so...
• Evil Orphan: L becomes more and more angry and vengeful over the course of the fic, but he ultimately refuses to become this
• Excellent Judge of Character: Sweets is quite good at sniffing out the crazies, and he teaches L this skill.
• Exhausted Eye Bags: L, of course. He develops these because he stays up all night reading, researching, and scheming instead of sleeping. Kaito also has these.
• Eye Scream: L stabs Nishio in the eye with a screwdriver, "sending pieces of eyeball splattering across the pavement". Yeesh.
• Eyes Never Lie: Kaito and L can see evil and/or madness in someone's eyes.
• The Fagin: Aiko is this to L. Justified, as she needs the money just to stay in the hotel room they live in.
• Family Eye Resemblance: Aiko says that L has his father's eyes. This is not a compliment.
• Fat Bastard: Implied with Botan, who is described as gluttonous and having meaty fingers. He is also described as lumbering into a room.
• Faux Affably Evil: Nishio is very polite as a manipulation tactic.
• Females Are More Innocent: Aiko is traumatized after a sexual assault and Ena is just deranged, while the antagonistic male characters (Jiro, Chiko, Nishio, and Botan) are just sadistic and perverted monsters. Downplayed because Ichiro is also antagonistic, but he's portrayed as a sympathetic troubled teen, and the unnamed woman who buys L at the weapons auction is just a pedophile and has no Freudian Excuse. And of course, L is morally gray but he's very sympathetic.
• Forced into Evil: Nishio gives L a choice between "working for him" and "death".
• Forced from Their Home: L's mother was kicked out by her parents after getting pregnant.
• Forced to Watch: Nishio forces L to watch many people die.
• Forceful Kiss
• Foreshadowing: When L first meets Botan, he tries to attack him with a butter knife. Later, L stabs Botan through the wrist with a shiv made of rusty metal
• Forgotten Fallen Friend: Played for Drama: as L is brainwashed to work for Nishio, he begins to forget why he even wanted to kill him in the first place, forgetting all about Kaito.
• Fostering for Profit: Chiko.
• Foster Kid: L and Ichiro.
• Freudian Excuse: Aiko was raped, and then kicked out by her family for having "premarital relations". She abuses L because she can't take out her anger on the rapist or her family, so she takes it out on her kindergarten-age son. Yeesh.
• Friend to All Children: Watari abandons his mission to kill Nishio when he realizes that following orders would mean allowing L to be sold as a Sex Slave. The comments from another agent implies that "disobeying orders to go save some kid" is a recurring issue with him.
• From the Mouths of Babes: L does this early on, asking Kaito if he "sells sex like Mama" and asking is Kaito will let him stay over again "if I smell like a rotten fucking corpse".
• Get It Over With: L asks Watari (who he believes is going to kill him) to get it over with quickly.
• Give Me Back My Wallet: The fic opens with L on the receiving end of this.
• Go for the Eye: L stabs Nishio in the eye with a screwdriver
• Go-Go Enslavement: An extra Squick-tastic version when Botan give L to his boss as a gift.
• Good Eyes, Evil Eyes: Nishio, who is ruthless and sadistic, has beady eyes. L, who is a child in this fic and will sometimes sacrifice his own safety for what he believes is right (but nonetheless is often coerced into behaving in immoral ways), has the unnaturally large and vacant eyes he has in canon.
• Good Is Not Soft: Kaito may be nice, but he will shoot you if you threaten him or someone he cares about.
  • Watari is 100% willing to shoot people to protect L.
• Groin Attack: L stabs Nishio there with a screwdriver right when Nishio is about to rape him
• Guile Hero: L, naturally.
• Happily Adopted: L almost gets to be adopted by the Yagamis, but ultimately defies this trope when he runs away to avenge Kaito instead.
• Hard Head: Chiko breaks a bottle over L's head, and yet he seems relatively okay after that.
• Hates Being Touched: L tends to flinch away from being touched, as a result of being a victim of physical and sexual abuse. Just like in canon, he beats up several other children who tried to hug him because he mistook their affection for an attack.
• Hate Sink: Nishio and Botan are both vicious gangsters who kill people in brutal ways (including their own underlings), kidnap and sell children as prostitutes, and are all-around just the most hateable characters.
• Hearing Voices: L has many conversations with Kaito's ghost.
• Heroic B So D
• Heinous Hyena: L compares Botan to one.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Subverted. L tries to shoot Nishio with his own gun, but it turns out that the gun wasn't loaded because Nishio was only testing his loyalty.
• Hollywood Tone-Deaf: Sweets is this, by his own admission.
• Honor-Related Abuse: Aiko was kicked out of her home after being raped.
• Hooker with a Heart of Gold: Kaito, aka "Sweets", is a rather foul-mouthed male prostitute, but he's one of the few characters in the fic who genuinely cares about L.
• Humans Are Bastards: L certainly thinks so.
• Human Trafficking
• Hurt/Comfort Fic: Not romantic, and very light on the comfort.
• Hypocritical Humor: "Watch your motherfucking language."
• Icy Blue Eyes: The Reaper/ Watari has them.
• If You're So Evil, Eat This Kitten!: Nishio tries to make L shoot Ichiro to prove his loyalty.
• I'm Not Hungry: L rejects Nishio's offer of cake.
• Impaled Palm: L inflicts this on Botan in self-defense.
• Improvised Weapon: L stabs Botan with a piece of rusty metal off his bed frame.
  • Later, L nearly kills Nishio by stabbing him over and over with a screwdriver
• Indy Ploy: L pulls one off near the end.
• Innocent Awkward Question: "Do you sell sex like my Mama?"
• Insane Equals Violent: L observes his foster mother doing all sorts of deranged behavior (such as pacing around in the middle of the night, staring at the wall and talking to herself, and staring at a kid's wound for a suspiciously long time before she takes care of them), he realizes that she's dangerous when she tries to drown him for seemingly no reason other than that she got the sudden impulse to hold his head under the water. Later, she stabs a little girl, again with no real explanation other than that she's insane.
• I Surrender, Suckers: L [[spoilers: pretends to accept the fact that Nishio is going to kill him, and asks Nishio to take his virginity first as a ploy to get him into a vulnerable position and then stabs him.]]
• Jabba Table Manners: Implied with Botan. While L only hears him eating, he describes the "disgustingly loud chewing noises" and "thick swallowing".
• Jerkass Woobie: Aiko is a terribly abusive mother, but she is also homeless, addicted to alcohol, and was kicked out by her parents. It doesn't exactly excuse how she treats L, but it's still hard not to feel a little sorry for her.
• Junkie Parent: Aiko is addicted to heroin and alcohol. She's very sweet (albeit in a manipulative way) when she's sober, but when she's drunk or high, she gets *violent*
• Kids Hate Vegetables: Well, L does, anyway.
• Kill the Cutie: poor Kaito.
• Laughing Mad: "What's wrong, Nishio? Scared of a little kid?"
• Little Miss Badass: Gender-Inverted with L.
• Looks Like Cesare: L slowly develops this appearance.
• Made of Iron: Downplayed with L, who seems unusually able to recover from starvation, blows to the head, major gashes, strangulation, being stabbed in the stomach, and having his knee dislocated. However, he is hospitalized a few times because of these injuries.
• Mafia Princess: Nishio has an unnamed daughter that he goes to a lot of effort to protect. She's the only human being he cares about.
• Major Injury Underreaction: L barely reacts to getting stabbed because he's so hopped up on adrenaline.
• Manipulative Bastard: Nishio, oh so very much.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: It isn't entirely clear if the entities L keeps seeing and talking to are really ghosts or if it's just a side effect of his Sanity Slippage
• Meaningful Name: "Sweets" calls himself that because "he tastes sweet". Also because he has a major fondness for candy.
• Misdirected Outburst: L's mother has a tendency to lash out violently at him because she's angry at her parents, her pimp, her clients, the man who raped her, but she can't have her revenge on them, so she lashes out at her son.
• Mistaken for Prostitute: Since L is hanging out in an alleyway with an underage male prostitute, one customer thinks that he's a prostitute too.
• Mixed Ancestry Is Attractive: Discussed. Botan says that L's "dirty", but likes his unique features.
• Nature Adores a Virgin: A rare male example, done as squickily as possible. Botan decides against raping L because he knows Nishio enjoys being the first one to defile his victims.
• Never Had Toys: When Watari gives him a stuffed lion, L mentions that he couldn't remember the last time he'd had a toy.
• Never Suicide: Kaito's murder is staged to look like a suicide
• Nothing but Skin and Bones: L is this, due to being chronically underfed and even when he is given enough food, he's such a picky eater that he often refuses to eat.
• Nothing Is Scarier: What exactly did Botan do to L while he was drugged?
• "Not So Different" Remark: Nishio says this to L after L stabs him with a screwdriver and tries to kill him.
• Obviously Not Fine: L does this frequently.
• Original Character: Everyone except for L, Watari, and the Yagami family is an OC.
• Out, Damned Spot!: L repeatedly hallucinates that one floor tile is stained red with the blood of the people he's watched die.
• Orphan's Ordeal: The entire fic is this.
• Pædo Hunt: A shocking number of adults seem to have an unhealthy interest in child!L, although some of this may be his own paranoia.
• Parental Neglect: Aiko doesn't send L to school, rarely bathes him or combs his hair, and sends him out on his own to go pick people's pockets.
• Parental Substitute: Watari is this for L.
• Picky Eater: L, naturally.
  • Also, Sweets. Guess why he's called that.
• Pimping the Offspring: Jiro suggests that Aiko do this to L. She (thankfully)is appalled and does not take him up on this offer.
  • L overhears his foster father Chiko negotiating selling L to somebody for a night.
• Raven Hair, Ivory Skin: L, at least according to Botan.
• Rape as Backstory: Aiko.
• Rape Discretion Shot: Justified: Botan only molests L while he's drugged, so L can't really remember what happened to him.
• Reluctant Psycho: When L starts hallucinating ghosts and blood on his hands, he knows he's losing it. He tries to hide this and avoids letting it cloud his judgement.
• Revenge Before Reason: L gives up a peaceful home life with the Yagamis to go pursue Nishio as revenge for killing Kaito.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: L goes on one against the Yakuza members who abused and exploited him.
• Robbing the Dead: Sweets shoots a man who was about to hurt L, and then steals the contents of his pockets.
• The Runaway: An interesting example. L is nearly adopted by Soichiro and Sachiko Yagami, but runs away from them to pursue revenge.
• Sacrificial Lion: Kaito, aka "Sweets". Despite his initial reluctance, he quickly develops a level of Big Brother Instinct towards L, allowing him to share his hotel room, protecting him from danger, and celebrating holidays with him. His likability doesn't save him.
• Sadist: Nishio enjoys killing, raping, and psychologically abusing people.
• Self-Surgery: Downplayed, but at one point, after realizing he isn't going to get medical help, L pops in his own dislocated knee.
• Sex for Solace: L tries this near the end of the fic, hoping it will make him feel something again. It doesn't work.
• Sexy Discretion Shot: In written form: near the end of the fic, a 14-year-old L has (dubiously consensual on both ends, due to age) sex with another teenager. The act is not described in any detail, the scene just immediately cuts to the next morning.
• Sex Slave: L is narrowly rescued from this fate.
• Sheherezade Gambit: Subverted: Nishio is about to kill L, but L manages to get him to delay it slightly by offering to have sex with him. Instead of convincing Nishio to spare him, he takes the opportunity to stab Nishio to death.
• Sherlock Scan: Sweets is good at this, and teaches it to L.
• Sick Captive Scam: L tells Nishio that Ichiro is too sick to be sold overseas as a prostitute and that he needs to be kept under observation for a while to get better.
• Single Mom Stripper: Aiko resents L because getting pregnant with him made her have to become this.
• Sinister Shiv: L makes one out of a piece of rusty metal he pried loose from his bed frame. He gets some good use out of it.
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: Sweets.
• Sobriquet Sex Switch: L says that his mother wanted a girl and wanted to call her Elle.
• Sour Outside, Sad Inside: Several characters, including L, Ichiro, and Sweets.
• Sparing the Aces: L convinces Nishio to let him live and not to sell him to a brothel by showing off his intelligence.
• Stepford Smiler: Ena is very nice and friendly, but L immediately notices something "off" about her. She's the Unstable type, and occasionally tries to murder the children under her care.
• Stoic Woobie: L becomes this.
• Streetwalker: Aiko and Kaito are this.
• Struggling Single Mother: Aiko.
• Sweets of Temptation: Nishio tries to bribe L to his side with cake. It doesn't work.
• Sympathetic Villain, Despicable Villain: Aiko is a terrible mother, but she's a traumatized, drug-addicted, and desperately poor woman. Nishio is just plain evil.
• Technical Virgin: L says that he's pretty sure he's been touched inappropriately, but he doesn't think he was raped. Nishio later says that he's a virgin.
• Teen Pregnancy: L's mother was only 16 when she had him.
• That Thing Is Not My Child!: Zigzagged: Aiko is a very loving and protective mom... when she's sober. When she isn't, this is how she treats L.
• Thousand-Yard Stare: L gives this expression after Watari kills Nishio at his orders
• Trauma Conga Line: Basically the entire plot is this for L.
• Troubled Abuser: Aiko is an abusive mother, and she's clearly had a hard life herself.
• Troubled Child: L, naturally.
• The Woobie: L, oh so very much. Also Kaito. And Ichiro. And Aiko.
• This Bed of Rose's: Kaito reluctantly lets L stay in his hotel room.
• Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: At only the age of 8, L is far too cold, knows way too much about sexual topics, and curses frequently. He gets better. Or possibly worse.
• Tsundere: A platonic example with Sweets/Kaito, who very reluctantly ends up liking L.
• Tyke Bomb: L
• Ugly Cute: L is pale, underweight, has Creepy Shadowed Undereyes, Messy Hair, and an eerily empty look in his eyes. However, he is The Woobie and kind of adorable.
• Use Their Own Weapon Against Them: Subverted. Nishio hands L a gun to dispatch Ichiro with, but L turns the gun on Nishio instead. Except that the gun was never loaded, because Nishio already anticipated that L might do that, and was merely testing his loyalty.
• Villain Killer: The Reaper.
• What Beautiful Eyes!: L's eyes are slate gray, like in the anime. Multiple characters remark on them being very unusual and interesting.
• Would Hurt a Child: Nishio and Botan take great pleasure in it, in fact. Besides abusing L, they also are involved in child sex trafficking.
• Wouldn't Hurt a Child: Even under direct threat of rape or death, L can't bring himself to harm Ichiro. Granted, he himself is also a child, but still.
• Wretched Hive: The part of Tokyo that most of the fic takes place in.
• Yakuza: One of the major antagonists.
• Young Face, Old Eyes: A few other characters remark that L looks older than he really is because of the expression in his eyes.

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