L's tone is crisp, just a bit tetchy, when he answers, as if he's reminding Light that he is not in the position of a disapproving parent who has caught a child engaged in something naughty.
"I've told you what it was, and it has stopped. You weren't here; I'd liken it to carrying or displaying a photograph of someone who was gone."
The difference, of course, being that L would never as Light had known and interacted with him during the Kira case... but as Light has and continues to note, L's time here has required change. His normal comfort zone did nothing for his health, on a physical or mental level, and it was bound to be a learning curve given the way L typically spent his life. Back then, he could afford to sever himself from all connections with other humans. Here, a trial by fire has required him to adjust and cope and learn, and though his intelligence has allowed it, the combination of his nature and nurture still haunt him in ways, warp his existence into something more tangled.
"You sound so surprised."
Chuffed with a breath of humorless laughter, tinted with gentle self-deprecation.
"You probably shouldn't; I am a human being. There are just times and places where such matters are appropriate, and my old life disallowed 100% of them. It would have been selfish, not to mention dangerous."
The detective could engage in both selfish and dangerous behaviors (not to mention myriad inappropriate ones), and had over the course of the investigation. For him to draw a line anywhere is significant.
"I suppose I mean both. Bonds, and the kind of relationships typically associated with romance. As I mentioned before, overlap between the two is not necessary, but it is also not uncommon."
Both of his partners had been Bonded to him. It's not like L to let people get close unless he already knows them. Gaining that kind of ground with him is a constant process and a rather gradual one, as it is for all who are slow to trust.
no subject
"I've told you what it was, and it has stopped. You weren't here; I'd liken it to carrying or displaying a photograph of someone who was gone."
The difference, of course, being that L would never as Light had known and interacted with him during the Kira case... but as Light has and continues to note, L's time here has required change. His normal comfort zone did nothing for his health, on a physical or mental level, and it was bound to be a learning curve given the way L typically spent his life. Back then, he could afford to sever himself from all connections with other humans. Here, a trial by fire has required him to adjust and cope and learn, and though his intelligence has allowed it, the combination of his nature and nurture still haunt him in ways, warp his existence into something more tangled.
"You sound so surprised."
Chuffed with a breath of humorless laughter, tinted with gentle self-deprecation.
"You probably shouldn't; I am a human being. There are just times and places where such matters are appropriate, and my old life disallowed 100% of them. It would have been selfish, not to mention dangerous."
The detective could engage in both selfish and dangerous behaviors (not to mention myriad inappropriate ones), and had over the course of the investigation. For him to draw a line anywhere is significant.
"I suppose I mean both. Bonds, and the kind of relationships typically associated with romance. As I mentioned before, overlap between the two is not necessary, but it is also not uncommon."
Both of his partners had been Bonded to him. It's not like L to let people get close unless he already knows them. Gaining that kind of ground with him is a constant process and a rather gradual one, as it is for all who are slow to trust.