Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Light kisses like a virgin, which L does not expect. The first time L gives him a handjob his eyes go very vacant, his shoulders tense, he comes so quickly that it would surely embarrass him if he were someone else, someone with a greater capacity for shame. At breakfast the next morning he acts as if nothing has happened but does not avoid L’s eyes. If anything, he looks into them more often and for longer, as if seeking some clue as to what it all means.

Eventually, he asks, “Ryuzaki, do you still think I’m Kira?”

Without even glancing away from his computer screen, L says, “Of course.”

Light says, “I see.” His posture stiffens, the air around him grows icier. He feels used, L thinks, or else just disgusted.

L doesn’t know what to feel. When he’d kissed Light the night before, he’d been looking for Kira in him, but all he’d found was an eighteen-year-old boy who didn’t really know what to do with his tongue. He understands now that Light has probably rarely if ever acted on any of his sexual urges, or even admitted to himself that he has them. His heart had thudded in his chest like a small animal’s when L had touched him. He had gotten so hard so fast. He had tasted sweet and there was nothing frightening about him.

That’s how L knows that Light is different, has changed. Because before now, Light always frightened him. That was what made him so interesting. That was what made him so obvious.

—

The next time they shower together, L drops to his knees in front of him. He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t ask permission, he just does it. He hears Light give a sharp intake of breath and watches his flaccid cock twitch, growing harder at once.

Light says, “Don’t,” when L puts his tongue on the tip, but instead of stepping back or pulling him off he threads his fingers through the wet strands of L’s hair and pushes in deeper. L sucks him off in a matter of minutes and then he swallows. Light’s face turns very pink, his breath grows ragged, and he makes them get out of the shower because he says he can’t stand up anymore.

In their shared bedroom, L lets Light dress before he reattaches the chain to his wrist. Light slumps into the desk chair and stares, glassy-eyed, away from L, out the window. L dries his hair, dresses unhurriedly, and at last snaps the chain back onto his own wrist.

Still addressing the window, Light says, “Why are you doing this?”

Casually, L replies, “Why do you think?”

“Because you’re sick.”

L pauses, glances at him. He wonders how much of this is homophobia and how much is fear of any sort of intimacy at all and how much is simply justified discomfort with L himself.

“That’s your best guess?” he asks.

Light shakes his head and makes an expression of moral superiority which L finds sort of cute. “It’s a test. You’re out of ideas and you want to know how I’ll react to something like this. You think I’m Kira, and this is your way of goading me, trying to get me to lash out.”

L blinks and doesn’t deny it.

“You’re lucky I’m not Kira,” Light says.

L tilts his head to the side. “And why’s that?”

“Because if I was, I’d kill you for that.”

L’s pulse beats harder. A feeling of warmth glows through his lower belly. There he is, after all. Kira’s not gone, just buried. L tries not to let it show on his face how much he enjoys this remark.

He says, “That would be a bit of an overreaction, wouldn’t it?”

Light finally looks at him. He shrugs and appears almost abashed. “Well, he’s hardly subtle. I’m not saying it would be justified.”

“If you’re really not Kira, then how could you presume to know what he would do?” L asks. Then, because he can’t stop himself, he adds, “Maybe he’d like it.”

Light’s face colors. He looks out the window again. A plane flies overhead and they both listen to the roar of the engine as it grows and then fades, Light in the chair with his face turned away and L standing as far away as the chain will comfortably let him, barefoot, hair still dripping a little bit, watching him.

Finally, Light asks, without daring to look at him, “Did you like it?”

“Yes, of course. Why else would I do it?”

“Because you’re trying to drive me out of my fucking mind?” Light suggests.

“Oh, yes, there’s that, too.” L takes a few steps closer. “I’ll do it again, if you want me to.”

“Right now?” Light says, looking frazzled.

“That would be somewhat excessive. Later. Tonight, even. If you want.”

“I don’t,” Light says, forcefully.

L only shrugs and suggests that they get back to work.

—

That night, Light goes back on his word. He falls asleep at the furthest edge of the bed that he can possibly get from L and then wakes two hours later, breathing hard and sitting up quickly. He doesn’t say that he’s had a nightmare, but L can tell from the way his eyes dart around the dark room. He drains the glass of water on the bedside table and says nothing. L continues to work on his laptop, pretending he’s not paying any attention to him.

Finally, after several minutes have passed and his breathing has settled down, Light says, “Can you—?”

“Hmm?”

“Nothing.”

“What is it, Light?”

“Earlier today, when you, um—”

“Sucked your cock?”

“Don’t say that.”

“Sorry. Would you prefer a creative euphemism?”

“I would prefer for you to never mention it again, at all, ever.”

“Sure.” There is a long, soft silence between them, the only sound the clicking of L’s fingertips on the keyboard. Finally, he says, “But would you like me to do it again?”

Light says, “Fine,” quietly and haughtily. As if he is the one doing L a favor by agreeing.

L shuts his laptop. The only source of light in the room, muted and bluish though it is, disappears. The night seems deeply and oppressively black, but slowly L’s eyes adjust. He moves clumsily across the bed. Light lies there like a patient preparing for surgery. L cannot help but find his repression somewhat charming. As he straddles Light’s lower legs and pulls down his pajama pants, he kisses one of his hip bones very softly, and feels the way that Light’s stomach clenches in response, a sort of fear reaction.

“No one else has ever done this to you before,” L observes.

“Don’t talk,” Light tells him.

L snorts. With an intonation of irony, he says, “You’ll make me feel used.”

Light knots his fingers into L’s hair and pushes his head down, closer to his dick. “I don’t care.”

L’s cock gives a little jerk at the words. He breathes softly on Light’s as he pulls it out. It’s already wet at the tip and L likes the smell of him, the taste. He feels attracted to Light, his inarguably perfect face, his body, his very soft and clean fingers gripping L too hard by the hair—but it is Kira that he really wants. It’s Kira that keeps him up night after night, Kira that fascinates him. Light’s body is only a costume. What L wants is the monster within it.

This time, Light does not passively freeze and let L pleasure him as he had before, but fucks his mouth, holding his head down. L gags a little bit but doesn’t even try to stop. Spittle drips down his chin, his nose runs, he strokes one of Light’s thighs softly, he thinks about how it felt when Light punched him in the face that first time and he thinks about what it would be like to be killed by him—heart attack, what’s a heart attack really like?—and he grinds his cock into the mattress between Light’s legs and when Light comes down his throat, he swallows.

Light breathes heavily at the ceiling and then, after a few minutes of awkward silence, he says, “Thank you,” which only serves to make things, if possible, more awkward.

L rolls back across the bed and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. He’s dazed and still hard but also somehow satisfied. After another minute, he opens his laptop again. “You should get back to sleep,” he says. “We have a lot of work ahead of us tomorrow.”

After a moment, Light asks, “What about you?”

“I’m not tired.”

“That’s not what I—nevermind.”

When L glances at Light, he is looking at him. Not at his face, but at his body. Hurriedly, he looks away. L’s lip hitches. He’s sure Light could feel him get hard while he sucked him, could feel him rubbing against him.

“What did you mean?” he prods Light. Testing.

“Nothing. Forget it.”

“That’s not helping your Kira percentage very much.”

“What?”

“After all, this is exactly what Kira would do. He’d let me get him off multiple times without even bothering to offer to get me off in return. It wouldn’t even occur to him. Because,” L adds, completely unable to restrain himself, “he’s evil.”

He can practically hear Light’s eyes rolling. “You’re so fucking twisted.”

L presses his tongue against his front teeth. “Yes,” he agrees. ”A little bit. I apologize. I’m having far too much fun at your expense.”

“You really do get off on this, don’t you?” Light says. It’s half an insult, half a legitimate conclusion.

“Yes,” L says.

“You want me to be Kira,” he snaps at L in the dark. “And you want to suck Kira’s dick. You’re fucking psychotic.”

“I thought we weren’t supposed to talk about it ever again at all?”

“I should report you.”

L doesn’t necessarily think he is wrong to suggest such a thing. “I did ask your permission,” he points out.

“You physically chained me to your body and made me sleep in the same bed as you. You’re a creep and a fucking predator.”

“I could sleep on the floor?” L offers.

“You’re lucky I’m not Kira, because if I was I’d do some really awful things to you.”

L’s eyebrows rise. His softening dick twitches at the words. “I see. What kinds of things?”

“Go to bed, L,” Light snaps at him, and rolls over.

“Ryuzaki,” L corrects. Light does not react. After a long pause, L says, “I won’t touch you again, if you don’t want me to.”

Light says nothing and eventually, after several minutes pass, his aggravated silence dissolves into the soft rise and fall of his breath. L doesn’t get any more work done. He thinks about the way Light’s whole body craters when he comes. He thinks about the kinds of awful things that Light would do to him if he were Kira, which he is.

When he wakes up, only a few hours later, still on his own side of the bed, Light’s whole body is pressed up against his, the chain spread across their bodies, very cold where it touches L’s skin.

—

It is difficult to be in a fight because they cannot leave each other alone. Light more or less ignores him all morning, and then, during the lunch break, while the rest of the team is out, he finally asks L if he would like some green tea. L says yes and Light brews and pours it with a strained and pointed silence. L thanks him and is about to take a bite of a croissant when Light pulls on the chain so hard that he falls halfway out of his chair.

“Ow,” L says flatly. He tries to climb back up again but finds that the chain has very little slack remaining. Light is holding a decent amount of it in his hand. Curiously, L slides the rest of the way out of the chair, down onto the floor. “What are you doing?” he asks, though he has a guess or two.

“It’s a test,” Light says, his expression very composed. “I’m seeing how much you like it when I do this.”

L swallows, can’t help but smile slightly. There’s the monster, rearing his beautiful head. “I like it,” he says, “quite a bit.”

Light’s breath quickens. “You’re fucked up.”

“Perhaps.”

“If I was Kira,” Light says, and his eyes are glassy, his voice hushed, he’s obviously never done anything like this before, he’s probably never even stuck his hand up a girl’s shirt, he’s got this flush that rises even when he’s trying to act like he’s in control and L thinks he’s beautiful, very very beautiful, “I would make you—do that to me again right here and now, when anyone could come back from lunch any time.”

“Okay.” L’s voice comes out more softly than he intends it to. He begins to crawl towards Light, across the floor.

“Wait,” Light says, a note of panic rising in the word. “I’m not Kira.”

L stops and sits back on his heels. “So, you don’t want me to?”

“It’s—there are cameras in here.” Light is getting very flushed.

“There are cameras in our bedroom.”

“What? What the fuck, L?” He jerks, hard, on the chain, and L falls forward a little bit, which makes his dick twitch in his pants.

“There are cameras everywhere in this building. Except for the top floor, but there’s nothing really up there. The whole point of all of this is to monitor your every move. Or didn’t you notice?”

“Do you—watch the recordings?” Light asks.

L thinks he knows which recordings specifically Light has in mind. “Not usually.” He shrugs. “Would you like to see them?”

“No. Definitely not. I see enough of you as it is.”

L nods. He considers that fair. Then he says, “If you’re not going to let me suck it, can I at least finish my lunch and drink my tea?”

Light looks horrified by the arrangement of words that L has said out loud. He opens his mouth, closes it, breathes in heavily through his nose. “You really have no shame, do you?” he says finally, letting go of the chain so that L can climb back into his chair.

“I’m sure I have at least a little bit.” L sips his tea. “This is good. Thank you, Light.”

Light, seemingly at a loss for anything else to say, says, “You’re welcome.”

—

That night, when Light is changing before bed, L does not politely turn away as he usually does.

“I can feel you looking at me,” Light says.

Nothing very tantalizing is visible, only Light’s bare back and the concave line of his spine where it dissolves into shadow. He is excessively physically attractive and L wants to pin the butterfly to the board and study it.

“Does it feel good?” L asks, softly.

Light freezes. He seems not to have expected the question at all. His shoulders tense up and then, after a moment, they release, as he says what L can only assume is actually the truth.

“A little bit. Mostly it feels uncomfortable. I know that you’re looking for Kira, but I also know that you’re not going to find him in me.”

“Don’t be so sure. How well do you actually know yourself?”

Light turns to look at him, but doesn’t answer.

Instead of waiting for him to, L asks, “Can I kiss you again?”

Silently, Light nods. L stands and slowly approaches him. The chain dangles between them, then drags on the floor as they get closer. L kisses him softly on the lips, once, twice, then on the corner of his mouth, along the jaw, against his temple, and then back to lips, which part and then push back. Light kisses him hard, takes L’s skull in his palms and digs his fingertips into it, sucks his lip, bites him. Too much, too fast. L can smell it on him immediately: he’s already hard.

L usually sleeps naked but, for Light’s sake, since they’ve been chained together he has simply been keeping his jeans and t-shirt on most nights, sometimes kicking his jeans off late at night to sleep in his boxers. He is still fully clothed when Light pushes him onto the bed. Light unzips his own pants and pulls his cock out, still completely ignoring L’s, which makes L feel unexplainably and ravenously good. He wraps his own hand around Light’s and they stroke it together as they kiss, barely pausing for a moment to breathe.

L can tell that Light is afraid of coming too quickly again, because after a few more seconds he pushes L’s hand away and begins pushing up his shirt, pressing his chest to L’s, pushing their skin together. This is the first moment that it occurs to L that Light is actually quite attracted to him, that he feels the same pull that L feels, the same heat. The baseless but very strong desire to be physically close, upon or inside each other.

When Light finally pulls his mouth away to breathe, L says, because he cannot help himself, “If you were Kira—”

“I’m not.”

“But if you were, what awful things—ah—would you do to me?”

“You’re sick,” Light says, and starts touching himself again. “You’re fucking sick.” He grinds into the seam of L’s jeans and L at last reaches down and undoes his own zipper. He pulls his cock out and pushes it against Light’s, which is already very wet, dripping with precome. Light grunts, humping against him, head falling forward, forehead pressing against L’s temple, as his grits into his ear, “I’d hurt you.”

“Yes,” L says to the ceiling, his eyes open wide.

“I’ll hurt you,” Light says, and L can’t tell if he’s mishearing another I’d as I’ll or if already Light is blurring back into Kira. He says it again, though it’s hushed, halfway swallowed, and then he comes hard all over L’s hand and cock and lower belly. L feels the way his body strains just before it collapses.

Light falls into him and curls against his chest, burying his face in the crook between L’s shoulder and head. He breathes hard and grips L’s shirt with his sticky hand as L jerks himself off, barely lasting a few minutes after so much self-denial. When he comes he feels a bliss which is closely tied to fear. He knows that Light is Kira with his body even more-so than his mind.

He blacks out for a moment and when he comes to, Light is asleep and their combined semen is drying on L’s skin, making him feel filthy but also sort of pleased. Now that he has emptied himself and can think more clearly he feels almost guilty for how he has been treating Light. The way he cannot stop himself from fetishizing the worst parts of him. He feels warm and soiled and empty, and he falls asleep that way, with Light’s sticky hand still clutched in his shirt.

When he wakes again it is much later, the night is much deeper, and Light is pulling him out of bed and over to the bathroom, turning the shower on, stripping and getting in. Bleary, L doesn’t bother to undo the cuffs, he just pulls off his dirty shirt and lets it hang on the length of chain which he leaves to dangle outside of the shower as he climbs in. They wash separately and don’t speak to each other. L looks at Light but Light doesn’t look at him. It is pleasurable for L to know that he is eroding his perfect veneer, getting under his skin.

The bathroom fills with steam, the mirror fogs. L knows that Light wants to hurt him because Kira wants to kill him, and even he realizes that it’s fucked up for him to take pleasure in that knowledge, but he has no power to stop himself. Is it because Light is beautiful? A lot of people have wanted to kill L and it hardly results in this kind of reaction. But Light’s beauty is not enough. It’s his mind, his vacuous and violent spirit, and something else, something lower even than that which L has no name for but knew immediately, on first contact. Light has to be Kira because nothing else could account for the heat and the violence that was between them from the first moment they met. If Light isn’t Kira, then he’s nobody, just another suit pushing pencils, just another bright boy with ideas bigger than his head. L knows himself; he wouldn’t obsess over just anybody this way. It would have to be a demigod. It would have to be some perfect little psychopath like this.

When they are clean, they crawl back into bed. L stays naked but Light pulls his pajamas back on. They look warily at each other in the dark, and L thinks that they won’t speak at all, but then, at last, Light asks, voice quiet and uncharacteristically vulnerable, “What are you doing to me?”

L almost feels sorry for him. He really doesn’t know, does he? What has happened to him? What happened to Kira?

He says, after some deliberation, working hard to come up with the right words, “I’m not doing it to you, Light. I’m just showing you what’s already there.”

Light closes his eyes, hard, as if blocking out an image he doesn’t want to see. He rolls over, the chain rattling as he moves, and goes to sleep or tries to.

—

Light barely acknowledges him for days, and L lets him do as he pleases. He doesn’t worry about losing any of the progress he’s made. This kind of reaction, which is obviously fear-based, a compulsion disguised as a rejection, means that things are working exactly as planned. Light still speaks to him in front of the team, though he challenges him more often than he had before, disagrees with him more outspokenly, and seems to take a particular kind of pleasure in proving him wrong. L also takes a particular kind of pleasure in it. When they are alone, however, Light virtually ignores him. L recognizes his silence for what it is—bait—and doesn’t take it. Within four days, Light frustrates himself into breaking his own stonewall.

After a team meeting during which L had been particularly uncompromising, a quick, strained and uninteresting dinner, and another hour of arduous busywork, Light and L go back to their shared bedroom and everybody else either goes home or to sleep. As soon as the door shuts behind them and the lamp at the bedside flickers to life, L feels a hard tug on his wrist. He doesn’t even have time to turn around before he feels Light’s body press up against his back.

L is wary but mostly excited. He hears the chain clink as Light raises his hand to grip him by the hair, none too gently, muttering, “What is wrong with you?” into L’s ear, his voice pitched low and accusatory.

Something hot and bright flutters in L’s gut. He keeps his voice level. “You’ll have to be more specific.”

“What exactly is it that makes you feel like you’re so much better than everyone else?”

L can only assume Light is referring to the attitude he’d taken toward Aizawa during the meeting. He looks into the dim room: the recently made bed, the papers on the bedside table, clothes strewn over the chair. A boys’ room. He thinks he could easily ask Light the same question but knows he’d never get an adequate answer.

He says, “I’m not better than anyone. Just quite a bit more intelligent.”

“See,” Light says, using the grip he has on L’s hair to turn his face sideways, bringing L’s ear closer to his lips. “You’re unbearable.” His clothed erection digs into the side of L’s hip.

“On the contrary, you’ve been bearing me admirably.”

At that, L feels a twitch of Light’s facial muscles that could be a faint smile. For all his dislike of L, his swallowed fear, his petty annoyance, his valid distrust, he is also clearly sort of fond of him.

Without replying, Light pushes L toward the bed. L doesn’t resist, doesn’t turn around to look at him, just stumbles a few steps forward and kneels on the edge. Light pushes him down further, onto his stomach, his hands careful, his movements strained. The chain clinks around them, their limbs get caught in it. Light huffs, casts most of it out of the way, then reaches down beneath L to unbutton his jeans, practically climbing on top of him from behind.

L thinks, dazed with stupid lust, that Light is finally going to touch his cock, but he barely even grazes it, just shoves L’s pants and boxers down his hips so that he can press himself, mindless and hard, against his ass.

“Kira,” L mumbles, because he’s a brutal person, but also because he likes the way that name feels in his mouth.

“Don’t call me that,” Light grits, sounding almost panicked, just as he finishes undoing the zipper on his own slacks.

L feels the wet warmth of him immediately, hard and soft at the same time, and for a moment he almost thinks that Light is going to try to fuck him just like this, with no preparation, no lube, no clue what he’s doing or interest in how it will make L feel, and part of him is frightened by the possibility of physical pain, and part of him craves it—where is Kira?—and he doesn’t know if he feels more relief or disappointment when Light only ruts against his bare ass like an absolute fucking teenager making a mess of his very first date.

“Light,” L breathes, because no matter how puerile Light’s desires or unimpressive his performance, L is obsessed with the very hair on his head, the soft fog of his breath against the back of his neck, his terrifying ideals, his weak and accusatory heart. He could put his sloppy, forceful, post-adolescent dick anywhere on L and L would like it. He’s rarely liked anything more.

“Don’t talk,” Light says into the skin of his neck.

With one hand he reaches up to cup his palm over L’s mouth, and L licks his fingertips just to freak him out a little. That makes Light flinch, then grip harder, as if trying to suffocate him, so L bites one of his fingers softly and Light just humps him harder, pressing down between his ass cheeks so he’s rubbing up against his hole, and L hardly thought this was where the Kira investigation would lead him, but then again life is full of surprises, that’s what makes hope possible. He rubs his aching cock against the neatly made bedspread beneath their bodies. Light pushes two, then three fingers into his mouth and within a couple of minutes comes all over him with a strangled groan.

Light’s body slumps on top of his and L feels Light’s heartbeat thudding through his own chest. He is a dead weight, just an animal really, like everybody else. L doesn’t know how he will ever get over the sheer pleasure of reducing someone so untouchable and impeccably managed to a sweat-soaked, shame-laden mess. He lies beneath him and basks in the feeling of being held down.

After a few minutes Light’s sweat begins to cool and he rolls over onto his back beside L, his pants undone, cock soft, eyes closed. L’s sure he does not have any desire to see what he has done.

If he was trying to be Light’s sweetheart, he’d show some mercy and let him shelter in his denial, but because he’s trying to take him apart and figure out what makes him tick, he goes for the jugular.

“I suppose,” he murmurs softly, “that if you were Kira you would have done something even worse to me.”

Light’s whole body visibly stiffens. He doesn’t even open his eyes when he says. “If I was Kira, I would kill you.”

L’s neglected cock gives a pulse.

“Don’t you understand? I would just kill you.” Light blinks his eyes open and slowly focuses them on L’s face. “If I was him, why would I waste my time screwing around here with you for so long?”

L chews at the dead skin of his lower lip. “That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”

“Why do you need me to be him?” Light asks, finally looking into L’s eyes, insistent and genuinely curious.

L had not expected to have to answer that question. What can he say? That he pinned his hopes—fears?—to Light the first moment that he saw him? That before his confinement, everything about Light—his voice, his gestures, his eyes, his smell, his smile—had made it plain that he intended to do something unspeakably bad to L? That when that underlying aura had gone away, L had nonsensically felt as if he had lost something, been severed from the one person who somehow seemed to innately know him best? That he locked him up so that he could watch him while he sleeps because that is the only time his face relaxes, his guard goes down? That he is a very bad man with a very bad and ever-growing fetish? That he knows because he simply knows. He feels it in his gut, it comes to him in dreams, it’s woven through all his files, his footage, his reams of scrupulous notes: Light and Kira are inseparable.

He doesn’t say any of that, but rather something close enough to the truth to be believable, but vague enough to keep Light guessing and destabilized: “I suppose so that I can be less lonely.”

Light metabolizes that information slowly, then, with a new undertone in his voice, something almost gentle in it, he says, “You don’t need Kira for that.”

“Unfortunately, I do.” L rolls onto his side to face him. “You see, good-natured, sweet-tempered Light Yagami and I don’t actually have all that much in common. I need a merciless bastard like Kira in order to be understood.”

Light frowns. “But if I’m supposed to be Kira—”

“You’re—complicated.” L studies him. The soft skin of his lower belly where his shirt is pushed up. His long eyelashes. His hands which are pristine, his fingers which were just in L’s mouth. He says, “I don’t want to kill him, you know. I would only send him to trial if I absolutely had to. What I would prefer,” L tells him, testing, testing, “would be to keep him.”

They’re two feet apart but L can practically feel the way that Light’s pulse kicks up when he says that, though he only rolls his eyes, laughs it off.

“You mean, keep me? Lock me up in a room somewhere and force me to do awful things to you?”

L can’t suppress his own small, grim smile. “Don’t give me any ideas.”

Neither of them say it, but Light must be thinking, just as L is, that he’s already doing that.

—

Something changes between them. Or, rather, something changes within Light which then affects the dynamic of their relationship. He seems to, in a sudden and somewhat unforeseen change of heart, come to accept L. Or, more accurately, to accept his own attraction to L, to embrace their mutual fascination rather than rejecting it again and again.

He stops looking away from L’s body when they shower or change clothes. When L moves subtly towards him in the bed, Light doesn’t feign resistance or disgust, but reaches for him, pushing L’s head down eagerly over his lap. He tells L about his dreams: labyrinths of unfamiliar faces, dreams of being chased, hunted, dreams of childhood, the deaths of his parents, guilt over something he cannot remember. Most of these dreams implicate him, but rather than trying to hide the evidence from L, he offers it to him like a gift. Sometimes in the mornings Light kisses him slowly and sweetly, as if he has momentarily forgotten that they are in the process of destroying each other. With practice, he becomes a better kisser.

They argue about the egalitarianism of Immanuel Kant’s ethical theory. They discuss the fiction of Kobo Abe. Light makes L cups of tea and sets them down on tables and desks with his careful and very clean hands. They begin to collaborate more productively on the case, and the progress comes quickly, the work days falling away almost effortlessly into long, dense nights.

In their midnight discussions, Light is insistent: “If someone in the Yotsuba group is Kira, then how could I be?”

“We don’t exactly know what Kira is. Is Kira’s power a tool? A form of technology? Does it operate on some heretofore undiscovered quantum principle? Or is he a creature, some sort of demon, a foreign consciousness that can hijack the bodies of others to bend them to his will? Perhaps you’re not the villain at all. Perhaps you were only a victim of possession.”

“You can’t really believe in that crap, L.”

“Ryuzaki.”

“That’s not your name.”

L rolls his eyes. “Neither is L,” he lies. “I’m only suggesting possibilities. But no, I don’t believe that to be true. After all, if I thought there was a chance that your actions were outside of your control, that you were guilty of nothing, I’d—“

“Let me go?”

“Unlikely. But I would, at least, take much less interest in you.”

“Twisted,” Light says, as he often does, idly wrapping a length of the chain around his hand without appearing to notice he’s doing it.

L realizes, after about a week of them fucking around obsessively with each other, that Light isn’t avoiding touching his dick out of disinterest or even, as L had suspected and sort of enjoyed, pointed neglect, but because he is clueless as to what he is doing and doesn’t want to look like a fool. When L discovers this, he takes Light’s hand in his own and leads him through a long, sloppy and delirious handjob, after which he sleeps unusually well. Light is nothing if not a quick learner and once he’s confident about his abilities, he uses them to his own endless advantage. They show up late to their work days, freshly showered, and take longer bathroom breaks. Light is paranoid that the team will find out about them but cannot manage to reign himself in at all, while L, on the other hand, finds the prospect of discovery genuinely humorous. 

Kira becomes less of a sore spot between them and more of a game. Light constantly tells L not to call him Kira, yet seems to have no issue at all with saying things like, “If I was Kira, I would just stop right now and leave you like this,” while in the middle of jerking L off. L struggles, at times, to remember who, exactly, had imprisoned whom in the first place. Whose chain is this, anyway, and why is he always being led around by it?

He finds he is becoming increasingly enamored with Light, the person, rather than just Kira, the concept. Light’s intentions are pure but he is easily led astray, corrupted. He wants power, much as he refuses to admit to it, and L gives it to him just to watch it eradicate his purity. Sometimes Light is rougher than he intends to be, maybe than he thought he could be, and L can see that it scares him. In the dark of the locked bedroom, Light is someone else. Not Kira, not even close, but not the pristine self that he sells everyone else. L does what he can to draw out the monster, to bait it. When Light pushes him too hard into a wall and slams his head back against the plaster, L laughs, almost giddy. When they get into another fistfight in front of the team, L whispers, “Yes, Kira,” just before Light hits him again.

Yet growing in among the filthy games, the arguments, the night terrors and the accusations, there is a tenderness that is so heavy L finds it increasingly difficult to bear. Light is hardly more than a boy. If he is, by some miracle, not Kira, then L is ruining him. If he is Kira, then he is already ruined. When he sleeps, L watches him. Strokes the downy golden hairs on his temples. He takes liberties with him even when he is awake, takes pleasure in being near him. Kisses the insides of his wrists, touches the soft skin behind his knees, his inner thighs, makes him laugh—“I’m not fucking ticklish, stop, L,”—whispers dirty things in his ears, drags his bare feet up his calves under the table in the investigation office. Light will kick him off, shrug him away, roll his eyes, say things like, “You’re way too obsessed with me.”

L will tongue his teeth and say, “Yes.” He’ll say, “Of course,” or, “How could I not be?” And when he does, he can tell that Light likes these answers, that they feed something within him which has never before had any nourishment at all.

—

The first time they actually have sex, he can see that Light is overwhelmed, afraid of his own body, of L’s. L has procured lube because Watari knows how to carry out a discreet errand without asking questions and, anyway, he’s lived with L for most of L’s life. He knows him.

L had taken excessive pleasure in coating Light’s dick in it, slicking himself, watching Light’s face as he had begun to push inside, winced, slowed, pulled out again.

“I could do it to you, instead, if you want,” L offers.

Light grits his jaw and something like shame shows briefly on his face before he disappears it. “I wouldn’t let you.”

L could have predicted as much but he feigns confusion. “Why not?”

“Because I don’t trust you,” Light says, just before he finally manages to push in, past the tight ring of muscle, too quickly, without any grace or technique.

L makes a guttural noise in his throat. He breathes out slowly through his nose. It hurts, but not in a way he dislikes. It’s been a while since he’s done this and the soft hum of pain is enveloping. Within him, Light’s cock pulses. He doesn’t move. L reaches up and softly strokes his back, watching his face as he winces, as if he is the one being hurt. L doesn’t trust him, either, but that’s the whole point.

Light pushes in a little bit deeper, but doesn’t move other than that, and the gasp he gives at the movement is viscerally satisfying for L. He knows he will replay this moment in his head over and over again: the dissolution of Light’s control, the way that pleasure obliterates him.

“You can move,” L says, gently.

“I can’t,” Light says, turning his face from L’s.

L drags his fingers through Light’s hair, along the edge of his jaw, his touch very soft. He uses one of his heels against Light’s lower back to push him in further. Light shivers. L clenches his asshole around his dick and Light thrashes, fucking hard into him with a strangled gasp.

“Don’t,” he says, “I can’t—I’m—”

L doesn’t know what it says about him that he finds even Light’s premature ejaculation unexplainably and excessively hot. He whispers, “You can,” into Light’s crumpled face. “You can do whatever you want.”

Light fucks him once, twice, again, again, his whole body tense as if he is bearing some incredible weight. Within a couple of minutes, just as he is beginning to graze the right spot inside of L, he comes with his eyes clenched shut and his mouth open in a soundless gasp. He shudders for a few seconds and then he stills, sinking down onto L and trying to control the sound of his labored breathing. L wraps his arms around him, kisses him even as he jerks his head away, tucking it down against L’s shoulder, clearly humiliated. L kisses his earlobe, the side of his neck, the top of his shoulder. He is entranced by Light’s shame, it feeds him. Inside of him, Light’s cock softens, still very hot and slick.

Stroking the top of Light’s head, L, because he’s a heinous bastard who loves to gouge the wound, says, “Thank you, Kira.”

Light groans weakly and pulls out of him, pushing himself away. L tries to hold onto him with his arms and his legs. Light grits, “Don’t touch me,” extricates himself, falls to the side, and turns his face from L. L looks at the line of Light’s spine and thinks about how worrying it is that he really meant it when he told Light he could do whatever he wanted. Slowly, he moves toward Light’s body, wrapping his arms around him and aligning his chest to his back, disobeying a direct order.

“Don’t,” Light says.

L doesn’t listen. He kisses the side of Light’s neck very tenderly.

“You make me feel sick,” Light tells him.

“You make me feel things,” L says, “that I cannot describe.”

He holds Light as his body cools down, his heart rate settles. After a while he appears to compose himself, to come back to his body. Eventually, he rolls over and presses his forehead against L’s.

“Why are you doing this?” he whispers, not for the first time.

“Because I’m a very bad man?” L tries.

Light cannot suppress a small, brutal smile. “L.”

“Because,” L says, soberly this time, “I understand you.”

Light looks back at him with an unprecedented helplessness in his eyes, Kira obviously nowhere within him, and L understands nothing.

—

They continue to go on weekly dates with Misa, and each week L can tell that Light is more and more uncomfortable. Which is good, which is what he wants. Even as they dress—L in the same clothes he always wears, Light in something flattering but not too flattering, they’ve got to be merciful with Misa, after all—Light tries to get out of it.

“Do we really have to keep going to these?” he complains.

“This is Misa’s only demand. Otherwise, she’s quite a pleasant prisoner. Besides, she’s your loving girlfriend, Light.” L looks sidelong at him, holds in his smirk.

“She’s not. We’re not together anymore, whatever she’s convinced herself. I’m not interested in her that way.”

For all his supposed disinterest, Light is spending an exhausting amount of time perfecting the sweep of his hair across his face for Misa’s benefit. L gives a little tug on the chain to hurry him up and the look Light gives him in response—the way a dog owner looks at a dog when it pulls on the leash—makes L feel deeply unprofessional feelings.

Light finishes up and they slip out into the hallway.

“Why did you date her in the first place, then?” L asks, doing his best to take the tone of someone who is not cross-examining a suspect. He’s not entirely successful.

“I don’t know,” Light says, as he always does. “Pity?”

They stand side by side in front of the elevator doors, the chain hanging limp and heavy between their bodies.

L says, “You have never struck me as someone who is particularly moved by pity.”

Light rolls his eyes. The elevator arrives and the automatic doors slide open. As they enter, a pleasant automated voice announces their trajectory.

Once silence falls and the elevator begins to rise, Light shoots L a conspiratorial and vaguely sweet look and says, “Maybe I just have a tendency to make really incomprehensible romantic decisions.”

L allows himself to be charmed.

Then he asks, “Did you have sex with her?”

Light stiffens, looks caught out. “No. Why are you asking me that?”

“I’m just trying to understand if there was any reason for you to date her, other than her being the second Kira. I thought perhaps there was a chance you were simply using her, in that way.”

He jolts his eyebrows. Light looks insulted, even annoyed. It’s an expression that suits his face, the arrogant line of his mouth, the infinitesimal shift in the angle at which he holds his chin.

“You mean,” he says, fingers curling around the chain, “the way I’m using you?”

Those words make L want to do things he shouldn’t. He could drop to his knees. He could kiss Light on that tender place behind his jaw and below his ear. He could join the legions of freaks on the internet who call themselves Kira worshippers.

Instead, he gives Light a cloudy look and then immediately ruins the moment by saying, “What about Kiyomi Takada? Did you have sex with her?”

Light frowns. “How do you know about—”

“What do you take me for, an amateur? I know everything about you.”

Light huffs a soft laugh but he looks more uncomfortable than amused. “Why do you want to know if I had sex with Kiyomi? She has nothing to do with the Kira case.”

“Now,” L says, “I’m just trying to figure out if I should add the deflowering of pure young men to my list of wrongdoings.” He widens his eyes comically at Light. “For Kira’s information, of course.”

A complex mix of emotions shows on Light’s face. There’s embarrassment at having his obvious virginity called out, but also something like heat at the word wrongdoings. L enjoys locating and aggravating Kira’s pleasures among Light’s confusion and denial.

“No,” Light says, quietly. “I didn’t have sex with her. I haven’t had sex with anyone but you.”

“No other men?”

At the words, Light expression becomes hypervigilant. “Of course not. Don’t be ridiculous.”

“It’s not an unreasonable question.”

“I’m not attracted to men,” Light says, which is patently ridiculous of him, but he looks and sounds as if he fully believes it.

“So,” L says, as they arrive on Misa’s floor, “it’s just power, then?”

“What?”

Just before the elevator doors slide open, L says, “That’s what’s been getting you off every time, right?”

He gives Light a knowing look, then slumps out of the elevator, and Light has no choice but to follow him, as always. He holds back whatever it is he wants to say to L in response. Whatever he wants to do to him, too.

—

Misa talks enough for all three of them, but of the two men involved in this highly unconventional and unethical menage a trois, L talks more than Light does.

Misa pleads, “Can’t you just give us five minutes alone, Ryuzaki?”

“Only five minutes?” L glances sideways at Light. “It sounds like she knows you pretty well after all.”

He tries to shovel a bit of fruit tart into his mouth but it falls off his fork because Light jerks hard on the chain. He makes it look like an accident, a mere side effect of his shift in position, and doesn’t even look at L at all as he does it.

This has become an essential facet of their dynamic in recent days: L goads Light, presses his buttons, makes him angry, and then when they are alone in the depths of the night Light will take his frustrations out on L’s body, and then in the morning they will both wake up feeling refreshed and clear-headed. It is impossible to argue, whatever Light remembers or doesn’t remember, that Kira is not present in this arrangement. It is equally impossible to argue that L does not find himself increasingly distracted from his stated intention of finding Kira within Light by the pleasure he gets from simply looking for him.

“Don’t be gross,” Misa says, squealing with performative disgust. “That’s not what I’m even talking about.”

L manages to get the tart into his mouth and, around the mouthful as he chews, grossly says, “I apologize.”

“Misa,” Light says, with long-suffering forbearance, “I think you’re confused about how things are between us now. As I’ve said, it’s not appropriate for us to have a relationship while we’re both under investigation.”

“Well, yeah, it’s not like I’d actually wanna do anything here, where there’s cameras freaking everywhere and he’d probably be watching the whole time.” She points her delicate little black fingernail at L.

L makes a who, me? face and continues to eat sloppily.

“I know how you feel about Light, Ryuzaki,” Misa sing-songs. She’s teasing but L’s not sure she doesn’t actually mean it, too.

“You don’t think I’d prefer to watch you, Misa-Misa? I’m a big fan of yours.”

Light appears to be very uncomfortable with the turn the conversation is taking. Misa, on the other hand, who has been starved of attention for months and is probably bored out of her mind, appears to be enjoying the banter and innuendo.

“Well, you didn’t chain me up to your own body, did you?” Now she’s wagging her finger at him. L can admit to himself that he does find her very cute.

“I thought that would be highly inappropriate. However, if you’re offering to prioritize the investigation, I’d be happy to order another chain. We can all three of us go everywhere together. I’d even show magnanimity by chaining you to Light’s other wrist, instead of my own.”

Misa giggles in a way that L thinks sounds a tiny bit flustered. “Oh yeah?” she says. “And we’ll all sleep on futons lined up in a row?”

L doesn’t blink. “Light and I sleep in the same bed,” he says.

“What?” Misa gasps, leaning towards them across the table. “That’s crazy.”

Light looks as if he is in a brand new circle of hell that was specifically created for the occasion. He says, “Can we please talk about something else?”

Misa ignores him entirely. “Does he snore?” she asks L avidly.

“Of course not.”

“I’m so jealous,” Misa half sighs, half groans. L wonders if he is actually making her a little bit horny.

“Just say the word,” L tells her, “and I’ll get you your very own chain.”

“He’s not serious,” Light says. Then he gives L a sidelong glare. “Do you want me to leave you two alone?”

“Ew, Light, sweetie,” Misa whines, “don’t even joke about that. He’s gross.”

“I’m gross,” L agrees, and serves himself another piece of tart.

—

After their “date,” as Misa continues to call their weekly lunches, L and Light spend several hours working with the team, watching the Yotsuba footage, trying to pick apart the nuances of the interactions, to follow any breadcrumbs that Kira might be leaving for them, however inadvertently. The work is dull and thankless. The Yotsuba men are not nearly as interesting to investigate as Light was, and continues to be.

At the end of the day, when they head up to their bedroom for the night, L already knows what Light is going to say to him once they are behind closed doors. He’s felt him thinking it all day. Felt his annoyance, and behind it: his expectation, his excitement. L is getting good at winding him up. Feeding the monster.

“So,” Light asks, almost as soon as the door clicks closed behind them, “do you have a crush on Misa, too?” He cocks his head to the side, keeping his tone of voice very casual and disinterested. “It would make sense, since you think she’s a Kira.”

“She’s a very attractive woman,” L states. “It’s hard to imagine how any man could be immune to her charms. He’d have to be some kind of homosexual, or something.”

He shoots Light a pointed and very comical look. Light’s expression barely flickers but L can see that the comment bothers him, and also that he likes it, a little bit, the way that L refuses to believe any of his lies, even and especially those that he himself believes. That’s the whole problem here: that they like each other as much as they do, despite every reason why they should not.

“You were being too obvious in front of her,” Light tells him, beginning to undo the buttons of his shirt.

“Why does it matter if she knows?” L moves to unlock the safety deposit box on the bedside table, where he keeps the key to the handcuff chain. “If you’re not dating her, then—”

“I don’t want anyone to know,” Light says. “Not ever. Why would I?” He holds up his wrist, waiting patiently for L to momentarily undo his cuff so that he can take his shirt off.

“Is that because it’s me?” L asks. The key makes a little clicking noise in the lock, as it always does. He grazes Light’s wrist with his fingertips as he takes the cuff off, then again when he snaps it back on a few seconds later. “Or because it’s you?”

Light doesn’t answer the question. He looks L up and down and then he begins to unbutton his khakis. ”Just don’t say anything like that in front of the team. Or my father. If anyone knew what you were doing to me up here, they’d have me out of these cuffs instantly. Maybe even off the taskforce. Then where would you be?”

L cannot tear his eyes away from the line of Light’s abdominals, disappearing down below the waistband of his briefs, his fly undone, the outline of his dick in his pants, just barely hard.

“I’d miss your company,” L says softly. “Or I’d be dead. One or the other.”

Light smiles. “Take your clothes off,” he tells L. “I need a shower.”

L does as he’s told. Likes doing what Light tells him to do. Light likes ordering him around, is getting better at it, more confident. Is getting better at sex, in general, though L still enjoys his fumbling, his helplessness in the face of pleasure. When Light fucks him in the ass, L is merciless with him, clenching around him, making him come even when he doesn’t want to. He wakes up to Light’s morning erections, falls asleep with Light’s come drying on him, sleeps better than he has in years. Sometimes he feels like he is getting very close to Kira, and other times he thinks that Kira is long gone and never coming back. Sometimes he thinks that he should just admit to himself that Kira is no longer the only thing he wants from Light.

Under the hot spray of the shower, L jerks Light off slowly, for a long time, sucking a bruise onto his collarbone. Afterwards, when he asks Light to return the favor, Light just says, “Why don’t you ask Misa?” and leaves him hard.

“She would slap me if I did,” L says, as Light shuts off the shower and shunts a towel at him.

“You might like that,” Light says, obviously enjoying himself.

L rolls his eyes and follows him out into the steam-filled room. He might.

—

As the Yotsuba case intensifies and begins to take up more of their attention, L and Light spend less time screwing around and more time with the team, in the center of headquarters, bent over their screens, playing and replaying the tapes, talking through all their various theories, the possible scenarios of capture. They give each other mocking looks. Sometimes L will squeeze Light’s thigh under the table, just to rattle him a bit. He asks Light to pour him cups of coffee or hand him jelly danishes and Light, sharing an eye roll with another member of the team, will do as he’s asked. He tries to keep his mind on the work, but he can’t stop himself from playing with Light just a little bit.

“Maybe Namikawa is the third Kira,” he suggests one afternoon, after replaying a clip of Namikawa over and over again, studying it closely, feeling Light watching him the whole time.

“What makes you say that?” asks the chief, from his seat down at the far end of the room.

“Nothing concrete at all.” L looks sidelong at Light and smirks. “Just a feeling.”

Under his breath, Light says, “I’m sure Namikawa gives you a variety of feelings.” He pulls extra hard on the chain when he and L get up to take a bathroom break.

Even when Misa manages to pinpoint Higuchi as the most likely candidate for the third Kira, something that genuinely interests L and even worries him a bit—how did she suddenly get so clever?—he and Light cannot manage to restrain themselves from charming each other, publicly, without much subtlety.

“Higuchi, really?” L sighs.

“You don’t think it’s him?” Light asks.

“It’s not that I doubt Misa’s deductive genius.” L does not disguise the inflection of irony in his tone. “It’s just that he doesn’t impress me, as far as Kiras go.” He looks Light pointedly up and down. “He’s hardly a worthy adversary.”

Light’s smile is small and self-satisfied. “Are you saying you wouldn’t chain him to your own body?”

“I would prefer not to. Three’s a crowd.”

Matsuda, who is close enough to them to hear this entire exchange but too pure to know what to make of it, pipes up, “If everything works out and we really do catch Kira tomorrow, maybe even the original Kira, then you won’t need to keep Light locked up for much longer, Ryuzaki.”

“Yes,” Chief Yagami agrees, appearing behind them. He looks exhausted but cautiously optimistic. “Just hold out a little longer, Light. Soon this could all be over.”

Light gives his father a look full of warmth and resilience and heterosexuality. After his father walks away, he gives L a look that is very different.

—

They plan the Sakura TV broadcast for the following evening. The whole team is up late preparing: Matsuda going over his lines again and again with Mogi, the chief coordinating with the NPA, Watari procuring a helicopter, L and Light seeing to every loose end, straightening out every detail, preparing their plan with a kind of giddiness, like children up the night before Christmas. Light is not only exceptionally intelligent, but he thinks as L does, their minds work in the same way. Constructing a sting operation with him is abjectly pleasurable in a way that L’s work usually, at this point, simply isn’t. L thinks of what they could do together, if Light wasn’t Kira. He begins to wonder whether they might be able to, even if he is.

They go to bed late and don’t fuck, hardly touching except incidentally, up late talking over everything, the case, the plan, what they expect, what they’re afraid of. Light falls asleep long before L does. L stares at the ceiling and tries not to imagine the future, to think of what will happen after tomorrow night. He doesn't even realize that he’s fallen asleep until he’s awoken, abruptly, by the sound of a short, agonized yell.

He sits bolt upright. The yelling has stopped but he hears the clinking of the chain, sees Light’s outline shifting in the dark. He’s sitting up in bed, looking around as if he is unsure of where he is, breathing heavily.

“It’s okay,” L says, reaching for him. He encounters Light’s bare chest, finds his skin very hot, feels how quickly his heart is beating. “You’re okay.”

“L,” Light says, catching L’s hand where it’s laying against his chest and holding it. Finding L seems to calm him down, stabilize him. He lets out a deep breath.

“You’re safe,” L tells him.

Light nods. He lets go of L’s hand, reaches for his glass of water on the bedside table. After taking a long drink, he lies down on his back and stares up at the ceiling. Slowly, his breathing begins to regulate.

“Do you want to talk about it?” L asks, after a minute.

Light often has nightmares, and recently he has gotten in the habit of describing them to L. I’m being chased by something, I don’t know what it is, but I know it’s bad, or, My parents are dead. I’m a child and I can’t find them and I just know they are, or I’m locked in a room and I can’t move, my hands are tied behind my back, there’s something looking down on me from above. A monster.

But tonight he says, “No,” and doesn’t elaborate, just rolls over so that his back is towards L, curling in on himself slightly, like a child who is afraid or ashamed.

L moves toward him in the bed. He feels Light’s body tense up reactively as he wraps his arms around him from behind, feels his pulse flutter. He lines his chest up with Light’s back, breathes in his scent, kisses him very softly on the back of his neck. Presses one of his palms to the center of Light’s chest. He thinks he knows what kind of dream Light had. He knows what it is he doesn’t want to talk about.

After a few minutes L feels Light’s body relax into his, the tense arc of his shoulders deflating. His sweat cools on his skin, his breathing steadies. He smells like himself, his very soft and clean boy smell. L breathes with him and tries not to want things that he cannot have.

Very quietly, Light asks him, “Do you think this will all be over tomorrow night?”

“I don’t, no.” There is no reason to lie.

“Even if we catch Higuchi?”

“Yes, even then.” L draws his fingertips idly across Light’s sternum. “Higuchi’s just a puppet. It’s whoever’s pulling his strings that we need to watch out for.”

After a long and weighted silence, Light says, “You think it’s me.”

L doesn’t deny it. He traces the letter L across Light’s chest without really thinking about it. He says, “I think you’re here with me right now, in bed, not doing anything nefarious.”

Light pulls away from his body and turns to face him. In the soft gray dark L can only barely make out the whites of his eyes.

“There are holes in my memories,” Light says bluntly. “Things that don’t make sense, don’t add up. Decisions I made that I cannot understand no matter how hard I try. And there are other… memories—not things that happened, but things I thought about, imagined.”

“Fantasies?”

Light looks away from his face, shifts his gaze to the wall behind him. “Of a sort.”

“If you’re trying to say that you think about killing me,” L says softly, “don’t stress. I already know that.”

Light catches L’s hand in his, clings to him.

“I don’t want it,” he says, almost pleadingly. “I don’t want that. You—I like you so much, L. You’re actually a decent person, underneath all the bullshit. You’re very funny. You’re the only person who has ever made me feel understood.”

L hurts for him. In his stomach and his chest he feels a sick and heavy longing for Light’s safety, his happiness, his company, the weight of his body in the bed beside his own. He knows that it is almost impossible that things will be okay.

Gently, still holding Light’s hand, he says, “That doesn’t mean you’re not Kira.”

Light sighs, shakes his head. “Maybe I was, somehow, at some point.” He darts a pointed look at L. “This isn’t a confession. I have nothing to confess. I have no idea what the fuck happened to me.”

L believes him.

Light tightens his hold on L’s hand. “But I know I won’t ever let it happen again. Whatever force or thing did that to me, I’ll make them pay. We will. We'll bring them to justice. You and I.”

L doesn’t necessarily believe that, but he doesn’t say so. He just holds Light, runs his fingertips soothingly down his back, whispers quiet and unserious things into his ear until he feels his weight relax, the fight goes out of him, his body lulled at last into releasing some of its fear to sleep.

—

L doesn’t notice the difference until it’s already too late.

Everything and everyone is loud and overwhelming: the helicopter, Higuchi’s screams of terror, the panicked and confused aftermath, the ripple of whispers running through the ranks of NPA officers that Kira is dead, the reunification of the team—Aizawa, how we’ve missed you!—and of course the dissolution of the entire basis of scientific rationalism brought about by the discovery of the Death Note and its accompanying guardian.

L has always suspected that there were things that existed beyond the reach of his mind and his senses, he just never believed he’d ever have any access to them. He didn’t expect to be able to see a monster and talk to it. However, it is not a completely unforeseen development that Kira’s power has turned out to be something supernatural, as there were no obvious conventional explanations for his killing method. L just didn’t expect it to be something so… hokey.

The book itself looks like something Misa might accessorize with, more like a prop than an otherworldly artifact of massive destructive power. L would be tempted to doubt that it was the genuine article, to think it was just another ruse, another of Kira’s red herrings, if not for the indisputable fact of the shinigami who calls itself Rem. This creature cannot be dismissed as a fake. This creature makes the hair on the back of L’s neck stand on end. He is fascinated, almost transformed by this encounter with something so much bigger than himself. Kira’s power is, indeed, in some dark and twisted sense, divine. L has not been playing hide and seek with some run of the mill criminal mastermind. He’s been fighting with an angry little god.

In the main room at headquarters, among the morass of argument and activity, L looks over at Light and imagines him writing names in this dumb book and cannot believe how blind he has been. How many dull evenings did he spend watching surveillance footage of Light, back at his parent’s house, bent over the desk in his bedroom, writing in his notebooks? School work, L had assumed, or a journal, a diary. He’d thought nothing of it. That’s the genius of the notebook, he realizes, the way it blends into the world of bland human affairs so effortlessly. L wonders if it, in reality, is not a notebook at all, but something which only takes on the form of one. His pulse quickens.

So, Light gave his notebook to Higuchi and that made him forget about it? Or the shinigami, Rem, took it from him and erased his memory? Did Light know he would forget? Did he want to forget simply to avoid suspicion, or because he was sorry, because he had changed his mind? Did Misa have her own notebook? Did they share this one? Exchanged notebooks with a friend in Aoyama, L thinks. He feels stupid for not understanding, but how could he have?

The rules only make sense up to a point. The last two disqualify L’s suspicion of Light and Misa instantly and cleanly. The team rejoices, so relieved to finally have proof that Light could never have been Kira, but to L these rules are only an inconvenience. They convince him of nothing. He knows that Light was the original Kira because he knows Light, in ways that none of the others do or could.

But if Light isn’t Kira anymore and no one else believes him to be, then how wrong would it be for L to let him get away with it? To just give up, give in, say he can’t crack the case. If he has the notebook, then Light won’t have access to it—unless there’s another?—and if Light truly doesn’t remember being Kira, then is it really even just to punish him for Kira’s crimes? If Light’s memories of killing all those people are gone, then does Kira even exist anymore? Is L just coming up with loopholes, trying to side-step justice, to avoid doing his job, simply because he doesn’t want to give Light up? Because he doesn’t want to hurt him. He doesn’t want him to die.

But of course, all of this ignores one very obvious and weighted question: who killed Higuchi?

If it wasn’t the shinigami, then the answer is clearly Kira. But where is Kira?

L looks at Light, who has been talking with the others nonstop, as L sits in silence and tries to think his way through this mess. There is something, he has to admit, ever so slightly off about him. L had chalked it up to the drama of the whole operation, the destabilization brought about by the Death Note. Sure, Light has reacted in all the correct ways, with shock and awe and confusion and intelligent analysis, but still, there is something almost imperceptibly different about him. L can’t put his finger on it. It’s nothing he’s done or said, it’s simply his energy, the way that he feels, the way that he has been looking at L. Never quite in the eyes, but with quick and indirect glances, which linger longer only when L is not looking back at him. Light’s gaze is not, L realizes, there in the main room with everyone talking around him, friendly. Not a bit.

Something seizes inside of him, a convulsion of bright, hot fear. He stares at Light, the line of his jaw, his face turned away as he speaks to Aizawa. Tries to catch his eyes. Tries for some form of recognition, that conspiratorial energy they share, the knowing smiles and long burning looks.

There’s nothing there. Nobody home.

Where and when did Light disappear? There was too much happening. In the helicopter, as they flew over the scene, he had been laughing, giddy, having the time of his life. Brushing L’s hands with his own on the control panel. When Higuchi died—?

When Higuchi died, Kira returned to his former host. L feels this knowledge drop into his head like a ton of bricks. Feels clobbered by it. But then who killed Higuchi? How—

“Ryuzaki,” Chief Yagami says, with the impatient air of someone who is repeating themselves, “can you please remove the cuffs now?”

L blinks, looks from the chief’s face to Matsuda’s, grinning with relief, to the rest of the team who look equally as hopeful, all the way to Light’s. Light who is still not looking at him, but past him, at the far wall, wearing a subtle expression of satisfaction, ease.

L swallows. “Light,” he says, demanding that Light—that Kira—look at him.

When their eyes meet, L sees all of it, so obvious that he can’t believe that nobody else has noticed. There is a delinquent child’s thrill in Light’s expression: pleasure at getting away with something. And behind it, an emotion that L can only describe as rage, pure and pitiless.

L looks down at the chain connecting their wrists and all at once, however inconvenient for the investigation, L wants out of these handcuffs just as badly as Light does. He is no longer chained to his friend, his familiar late night companion, his perfect, frightened, clever and helpless boy, but to a stranger who wants to kill him.

The team stares at L expectantly.

L says to Light, “Let’s go upstairs and I’ll get the key. And then,” he adds, with a brutal look, “you can finally, at long last, be free of me.”

—

In the elevator, they avoid eye contact. The silence is heavy and deliberate. L becomes aware, as they rise up and up and up together as they have so many times before under such better circumstances, that, whoever the person beside him is and however different from the Light Yagami that he has come to know so well, he is still extremely attracted to him.

He wonders if Kira feels it, too, that tense current in the air between them. L remembers this feeling from before. During the tennis match, or sitting at the restaurant, or feeling him lean over his shoulder at the old hotel headquarters, pointing at something on his screen. Facing him down and watching him craft beautiful and complex lies with the care and inspiration of an artist. Feeling his eyes on the back of his head and knowing that he was thinking about killing him. Everything that made Light stick out so obviously as Kira is back, raging in him like it had never left at all.

L knows that he shouldn’t say what he is about to say, that it’s not the right move as far as the investigation—it would be better to play dumb, to pretend as if he hasn’t noticed any difference in Light’s demeanor—but he understands now, with a kind of pitiless acceptance of himself, that the investigation is less important to him than the game.

So, just before they reach their floor, quietly and calmly, he says, “Welcome back.”

Light says nothing but L can tell that his whole body tenses up. The chain clinks softly. The elevator dings pleasantly and the doors slide open and they step out into the hallway, tracing the familiar path back to their bedroom which will not be their bedroom anymore from this moment on.

Once inside, L goes straight for the safety deposit box. He feels Light’s merciless gaze on his back. Feels frightened and excited by his own fear. He can’t help thinking: You’re lucky I’m not Kira, because if I was I’d do some really awful things to you. He wonders what, if anything, Kira feels towards him now, aside from murderous rage. He wants to find out.

So, with great irresponsibility, rather than unlocking the cuff around his own wrist first, as any sensible person without a death-wish would do, he crooks his finger at Light and says, “Come here.”

Light does as he’s instructed. Uneasy and careful, L unlocks the handcuff around Light’s wrist, leaving himself still chained up. He hears Light’s breath catch subtly in his throat and looks up at him starkly from under his eyelashes, as if daring him not to like it.

Light catches the unfastened cuff in his other hand and holds onto it. He doesn’t pull on it as L expected—hoped?—he would, but tightens his fist around it, stares at L with something in his eyes that might be anger, might be disgust, might even be fear. They are standing very close together. L can feel the tense heat of him when he, at last, speaks.

Light holds out the now unfastened cuff to L and, in a voice which, without differing significantly from his usual speaking voice, contains something inherently degrading within it, says, “Do you want to put this one on your other wrist?”

Warmth floods through L’s whole body. He understands, with a new kind of terror, that never once in the past month had a single thing Light said to him, however dirty, made him feel even half as aroused as this one simple sentence.

Pulse beginning to pound, L shakes his head.

Light makes a movement with his eyebrows which L has never seen him do before. “No? What about,” he suggests, holding up a length of chain, “wrapping this around your neck, like a leash?”

L feels like he blacks out a little bit.

“No,” he says, “thank you.”

“No?” Light repeats, almost as if he is mocking him.

L swallows. His cock twitches. He begins undoing the cuff on his own wrists, trying to keep his movements steady. He says, “I would have assumed that you would want to go enjoy your newfound freedom as soon as possible.”

“I’ll enjoy it,” Light says, lip hitching, “don’t worry.”

L cannot for the life of him tell if this is a death threat or a come on or both at the same time. When he looks at his face again, L sees that Light is looking him up and down, almost appraisingly.

He takes a couple of subtle steps backwards and says, “Not tonight, Light.”

A hard, angry look appears in Light’s pupils for a half-second before he disguises it. Kira, L understands, with a pulse of inconvenient pleasure, doesn’t like to be told no.

“Well, I’m obviously not going to insist, if you really don’t want to,” Light says, forcing a tone of placidity. Then he lowers his voice. To L’s ears he sounds unfamiliar, almost predatory, when he says, “But we don’t have that much time left. You know that, right?”

Pulse thudding in his ears, L says, “I know.”

Kira gives him a clever look before going to the door. L stands there, still holding onto the chain, understanding that he really is good and fucked. Not simply because Kira is still planning to kill him, and probably very soon, but because a part of him—the abjectly physical part, the dumb man part, the part filling up with blood at this very moment—wants it.

—

That night, L locks his bedroom door. Then he waits. He half expects Light to come by, half wants him to, and is fully relieved when he does not. He stays up until after 3 AM, which is routine for him, and then, when he is sure everyone else, even Watari, is asleep, he creeps out into the hallway, takes the elevator down to the main room, and looks around.

It isn’t there. L is troubled. What if it withdraws to its otherworldly realm by night? What if it levitates across the city skyline like a large, malevolent balloon? He checks the camera feed, scrolling through angles, and at last sees it on one of the lower floors, simply floating down a hall.

He takes the elevator down and tries to keep his footsteps soft as he walks through the hallways.

“Rem,” he calls.

The thing stops, turning towards him in midair. Something fascinates L about its movements but he cannot put his finger on what it is. It tilts its ugly head and stares at him with decided insolence.

“Rem,” he repeats. “I need to ask you some questions.”

“Is this not a time when humans sleep?”

“I need to talk to you about Light Yagami.”

Rem’s expression darkens, if possible. “I know nothing about that.”

“I don’t believe you,” L says.

“It makes no difference to me what you believe.”

It turns, as if to float away, and L hurriedly steps around it, blocking its path. He doesn’t actually know if it is corporeal or if it can go right through him.

“This is very important. I need to stop Light Yagami. The fate of the world depends on it.”

“What do I care for this world?” Rem asks.

L often asks himself the very same question.

“What do you want?” he tries. “Do you want—anything? Do you feel desires? Or emotions? Fears?”

Rem stares blankly at him.

L says, “If you want lives, I can give you lives. If you want souls, I could probably do that. If you want money for some reason then that’s easy. What do you want? Is there anything at all?”

L perceives the beginnings of a waver in Rem’s expression, a crack in its death mask. Is that curiosity he sees beginning to glow in its eyes?

“Believe me,” he continues, “you don’t want to be mixed up with the likes of Yagami. You can’t trust him at all. Whatever he’s said to you, whatever he’s done, it’s a manipulation. As soon as you are no longer useful to him, as soon as your needs don’t meet his own ends, he’ll betray you.”

“I know that,” Rem says.

And there it is: a chink in the armor, a hole in the plan. L feels his chest seizing up with hope. This is it, his best chance to live.

“Just tell me what you want,” L says, “and then I will tell you what I want.”

—

L keeps his distance. Light tries, on multiple occasions, to get him alone, but L avoids him like his life depends on it. And it does. He needs to get Light alone one more time, but under controlled circumstances. He builds his house of cards quickly while, in secret, Light builds his own.

L releases Misa because it is one of Rem’s terms, and because he knows he has to do whatever he can to keep her away from him. She has the Eyes, is Light’s eyes, is Light’s good little minion. L understands perfectly why Light has, in a sudden and unforeseeable reversal, begun his relationship with Misa again. “I owe it to her to try, after all she’s done for me,” is what he’d said to the team, but after, when no one else was looking, he’d given L a thoroughly comical expression, as if they were both in on the same joke. L knows, as he watches them embrace outside on the security camera, that they are whispering about killing him. He knows that is all that Light wants now, all he’s thinking about. L can see it, plain as day, on his face whenever he looks at him across the meeting room.

L has trouble sleeping without him. Overbalances his weight when moving around, accounting for a counterweight that is no longer there. His bedroom is too quiet, too cold. His showers are dull. His cock is in a toxic relationship with his hand. He touches himself, imagines Kira’s brutal fingers on him, his dominant writing hand—ha—but it makes him feel depressed and sort of disgusted with himself. He only talks to Rem at night, when everyone else is sleeping. Days pass in this way and then one morning L wakes up and it is pouring rain outside and he knows. He just knows that today is the day.

He spends the morning as usual, working with the team to gather all the data they can on any suspicious deaths that might have been caused by Kira through any means other than a heart attack, now that they know that such a thing is possible with the Death Note’s power. To L this is just busywork, meaningless in essence. He doesn’t need to gather anymore evidence. He has already found Kira. 

They work steadily through the afternoon and then at a certain point L announces that he is, uncharacteristically, taking a break. He doesn’t say where he is going or what he is doing but he imagines that Light will keep tabs on him on the security cameras. Most of the feeds in the building are available on the main console, except for most of the bedrooms, bathrooms and a few other specific areas which only get sent to the hard drive in Watari’s surveillance office and automatically backed up. Watari can watch them at any time but L has asked him, for the last several weeks, not to. As L rides the elevator to the top floor of the building, he feels sure that Light is watching him as he steps out of the frame, disappearing off of any of the visible recordings. He has surprisingly little anxiety about the lure he is setting. Even though he is now deeply warped, he believes that he still knows Light, at his core. He feels almost sure that he will come up. That he wouldn’t want to miss this chance.

L takes the utility staircase up to the roof and goes out into the rain. It’s been days since he’s been outside and the air feels good in his lungs, the usual Tokyo smog washed away in the torrent. It smells of wet concrete and the smell sparks a feeling in L, something foggy and sad,  indistinctly connected to his childhood. Somewhere in the distance, a bell is ringing. L looks out at the skyline, blurry and gray. He imagines the future, also blurry, also gray. Within minutes, he is soaking wet.

It takes even less time than he anticipated for Light to seek him out. When he looks away from the view and back towards the building, he sees him standing there under an awning, watching him. Light calls something to him, but L cannot make it out through the downpour. Light tries again, unsuccessfully, and then, with a look of long-suffering patience, he comes out into the rain himself. He’s in a flattering white button down upon which raindrops appear one after another, quickly running together. L is already drenched, hair sticking slick to his neck, clothes beginning to grow heavy.

“What are you doing out here?” Light asks. He has to raise his voice to be heard over the sound of the rain, even standing at L’s side.

“I wanted a little fresh air.”

Light’s small smile, while beautiful, looks forced. “I think that’s water you’re breathing.”

L does not smile back. “You should go in. You’ll get wet.”

They watch each other through the weather. L is starting to get cold. Starting to feel grief weighing in his gut like a stone. He looks at the droplets of water getting caught in Light’s eyelashes. It is grief for somebody who is already gone.

“L,” Light says.

There is almost a shade of longing in his voice. L suddenly understands, in that moment, that something can be a lie and the truth at the same time. His eyes go to Light’s lips of their own accord. He watches them tense as Light tries to control his expression.

“You’ve been avoiding me,” Light says.

L says, “Yes,” and then, before Light can say anything else, he kisses him.

Light seems surprised at first, body freezing momentarily, but warming quickly, opening. L realizes within seconds that he has never kissed this person before. He smells the same, tastes the same, but he is not the same. His hands on L’s shoulders feel as if they want to crush him more than to touch him. He is hungry in a different way, violent in a deeper way. L cannot help but like it too much, all of his senses burning with the abject pleasure of physical contact with the object of his very worst fantasies.

They get too rough too quickly. Light pushes, L pulls. Their soaked clothes are a heavy barrier, an agitation. L’s body pulses quietly, with fear as much as with want.

“Light,” he breathes, pulling back to look at his beautiful, beautiful boy, whose face is softly flushed, whose eyes are full of barely concealed hatred.

“Let’s go inside,” he says, and L can hear it: Kira is not making a suggestion, but giving an order.

L only nods. By now the bell is clamoring, is roaring.

—

Inside, the panoramic windows show the city from every angle, though the rain spatters the panes, blurring the image. The room is empty, the floor so shiny that it’s practically mirrored. This room has no function, it only exists for the view. The design of the whole building is so claustrophobic that L had wanted somewhere that was sunny, somewhere he could go to breathe, but as it is, he has never actually stepped a foot up here until yesterday. He had to come up to make sure that it was suitable.

And it isn’t, really. There is no furniture and the floors are hard and cold. There is something antiseptic about the room while at the same time almost surreal, as if it exists in a completely different time and space from the rest of the headquarters. L can feel himself leaving a puddle behind him as he walks across the metallic floor, in the direction of the staircase that descends down to where the elevators are.

“You’re making a mess,” Light calls after him.

L rings out his hair with his fists and glances at Light over his shoulder. “As is my way.”

“You’re way too wet to walk around in those clothes,” Light tells him. “Take them off.”

L stops. He knew this would work. It is almost too easy.

He doesn’t need to be told twice. Holding Light’s gaze, he extricates his arms from the shirtsleeves that cling sticky to his skin, then pulls his shirt over his head and throws it onto the floor in a wet heap. His jeans quickly follow. Standing there in only his boxers and his soaking wet hair, L feels cold and unusually vulnerable. He is placing a lot of faith in his own supposition that, given everything he knows about who Kira is as a murderer and who Light is as a person, he would not lower himself to kill L with his bare hands. Too messy, too indiscreet, too intimate. Kira would never do his own dirty work.

L cocks his head to the side. “Well,” he says, “you’re wet, too.”

Light can no longer suppress his look of utter satisfaction. “Not as wet as you.”

He steps slowly toward L, like a cat stalking its prey. L tries not to flinch when Light puts his hands on his waist and pulls him towards him. He can feel that Light is holding back, but there is something vicious in his touch, a barely restrained anger buzzing in his fingertips. The way he kisses L makes it obvious that he wants to kill him.

L kisses back like he wants to be killed. Light knots his fingers into his hair and jerks his head backwards, kissing along his jaw, teeth scraping the flesh there. His grip tightens. L winces but doesn’t make a sound.

“I miss you,” Light says between kisses. “I miss the chain.” He catches L by one of his wrists, acting like it’s a joke, but there is an eagerness underneath the words that is telling.

L rolls his eyes, though the words send a flare of heat through him. “Sorry, you’ll have to go without. I’ve revoked some of your privileges.”

“And why’s that?”

“Honestly?” L blinks at him. Their faces are very close together, their combined breath making the air between them humid. “Because you’re scaring me.”

Light looks at him openly and L sees Kira very plainly in his expression, but also everything else that exists between them. With a jolt, half hope and half terror, L understands that it is all still there. Light’s feelings for him are deformed, perhaps cauterized, but they’re still there.

“But you like it,” Light says quietly.

“Yes,” L says. “But I don’t actually want to die. You know that, right? It’s a game, a fetish. It’s not real for me.” He stands there practically naked and stares bluntly at Light. “Not the way it is for you.”

He expects a heartfelt denial, with the predictable overwrought delivery as usual, but Light doesn’t even bother this time.

He drops his hands from L’s body, begins unbuttoning his own damp shirt, and says, “I don’t believe you.”

“Kira—”

“Don’t call me that.” Light’s voice wavers. He looks away from L, concentrating on the buttons of his shirt.

Interesting. So then, L knows where the boundary is, what to push against. Is Light refusing the name because he suspects that he is being recorded or watched? Unlikely. L had told him that there are no cameras in this room, and surely he double-checked the feed to confirm it. That is, L is sure, the biggest reason that Light followed him up here. But, if it’s not for fear of having this used against him as evidence, then why? He already knows that L knows, that denial is pointless and tiresome. So, then the reason must be—

“Do you like it too much?” L can’t help his small smirk. “Kira,” he practically coos.

Light undoes his last button, his hands beginning to lose their steadiness, and shakes his head. L doesn’t believe him. He drops to his knees in front of Light, the floor very hard and cold on his bare skin, and looks up at him in a way he hopes is supplicatory. Light freezes, his nostrils flare, he looks almost afraid.

“Kira,” L repeats, more firmly.

Light says, “You don’t know what you’re doing.” But there is heat in his eyes and a very familiar pink glow in his cheeks when he looks down at L.

“You’re my god,” L says, his face level with Light’s crotch. He does know exactly what he is doing, but it is also barely a lie.

L sleeps wakes eats breathes Light, thinks obsessively and endlessly about Light. He likes when Light hurts him and he likes when Light is sweet to him and he likes when Light lies beside him in bed, laughing softly in the dead of night. Light is gone now but L still likes those things.

Kira’s breathing grows heavier, his stare gets very vacant. L knows that look, knows Light’s whole body, every crevice, every terror.

“It’s true,” L continues, as he undoes Light’s fly with careful fingers, “that I want to stop you, that I’m going to stop you, but that doesn’t mean I don’t worship at your altar.” He pulls at Light’s jeans and kisses the bare skin of his lower belly. “You don’t need the chain,” he says. “You can choke me with your bare hands, can’t you?”

Staring down at him, Light lets out a strangled, guttural sound, not quite a yes or a no.

Casually, L asks, “Were you planning to kill me that way, or are you going to use the Death Note? Somehow, that seems so impersonal.”

The outline of Light’s half-hard cock is visible through his briefs, and when L speaks, it jerks excitedly. Instead of rejecting the words and calling L fucked up, as he normally would, he grabs him by the hair and, with his other hand, pushes down his pants and pulls his cock out.

“How do you want me to do it?” Light breathes.

L tries to hold in his smile. “I told you, I don’t really—”

“In the fantasy, then,” Light insists. “How do you want me to do it?” He rubs the tip of his dick against the seam of L’s lips and L, of course, opens. “Fuck.” Light immediately pushes in, pushes all the way to the back of L’s throat and winces with pleasure. L struggles not to gag and likes it. Because his plan is working, and because he has needed this for weeks, months, maybe from the first moment he saw Light, learned of his existence.

Fucking roughly in and out, Light mumbles, “How about like this? You want to choke just like this, L?”

L can’t speak so he only sucks harder, throat spasming. He can feel himself dripping in his boxers. Light clenches his jaw, hips canting forward.

“I’m going to kill you,” he tells L, hoarsely, almost lovingly. “But not until I’m done with you.”

“Yes,” L gasps when Light finally releases his grip on his hair and lets him breathe. That’s good. That’s what he needs.

Light’s face is extremely flushed, his eyes blurry with need. “You want it,” he tells L, and he sounds fascinated, entranced.

“Yes,” L repeats, because it’s exactly what Light needs to hear, and also, less importantly, because it’s true.

“You can’t lie to me, L. I know you’ve wanted it this whole time.” Light is getting carried away, so turned on that he isn’t bothering to hold back anymore. “That’s why you found me. That’s why you brought me here, chained us together. I understand you now.”

L is playing a game, doing a scene, trying to save the world and, if possible, himself, but that doesn’t mean that Light is wrong about him.

He nods because he knows Light wants him to. “Kira,” he breathes.

“Yes,” Light says, and smiles at him. Then he walks over toward the staircase and descends the top few stairs, his cock still jutting obscenely from his slacks. L makes a move as if to follow him, and Light orders, “Don’t stand up. Crawl.”

L rolls his eyes at the floor and does as he’s told, unable to prevent himself from liking it. When he reaches the top step, he sits down on the edge.

“I suppose that makes you happy?” he asks Light, who sits down beside him, still mostly clothed.

“Very.” Light grabs him by the chin and turns his head from side to side, examining him like human chattel. “You’re going to let me win, aren’t you?”

“Ah,” L breathes, as Light’s grip tightens on his jaw. He doesn’t confirm or deny this assertion but hopes his outright submission speaks for itself.

“You’re going to let me kill you,” Light continues, exciting himself. “You’re just going to roll over and take it. God, L.” Light kisses him roughly, L lets himself be kissed. “You should let me keep you. You should let me keep you alive.” His mouth is very close to L’s when he speaks, his voice so quiet it’s hard to hear. “We could be happy.”

L laughs at him outright. He can play up the parts of himself that he knows Kira likes, but he cannot pretend to have gone completely out of his mind.

“We couldn’t be,” he says. “You’re delusional, Kira.”

Light’s touch immediately becomes incredibly rough, even punishing. He pushes L down onto his back and pulls his boxers down around his knees. L falls back, lets himself be manhandled. 

“You don’t want to be happy,” Light grits at him, pulling his boxers off the rest of the way and kneeling on the step below him. “You don’t want anything good. I’m trying to build something beautiful and you’re trying to destroy it. Roll over.”

L obeys, thinking to himself that, although he knew all along that Kira must be an insane person, he never actually applied that insanity to Light. Light, who is always so poised, so kind-hearted, so impeccably managed, is slavering at him like a psychopath. Is a psychopath. And yet L still cannot help but feel the same tremendous attachment to him, the same utterly unjustifiable compulsion to give him whatever he wants, to please him, to hold him close and shelter him from himself.

“Don’t you understand?” Light grunts in L’s ear, as he slicks his hole with only precome and spit. “I’m not the villain here, L. I’m saving the world. I’m saving the world and you’re trying to destroy me.”

When he pushes inside of L the pain is tremendous, blooming hot. L swallows a groan and presses his forehead against the cold floor. His knees are on the step below, his upper body balanced against the floor at the top of the stairs. Light, bent over behind him, fucks him mercilessly, without a moment’s pause to let him adjust, clearly without an ounce of interest in how it feels for L. L’s cock leaks, his pulse pounds, he feels like he is being annihilated and not in a good way, but somehow he understands with perfect clarity that this is what he needs.

“Give me your name,” Light practically spits in his ear, still fucking him roughly. “Tell me your name.” L says nothing, only breathes heavily. Light wraps his palm around the front of L’s neck, crushing his throat, and says, “I don’t need it. I’ll kill you, anyway. But you should give it to me. You should give me your life instead of making me take it by force.”

L struggles to breathe. The pain is melting into a featureless, gooey pleasure, Light’s cock inside of him finally hitting the right angle, starting to feel good. After a minute, his vision begins to blur. He sputters, tries to speak, and Light releases the grip on his throat probably just because he thinks L is about to tell him his name.

Instead, L just gasps for breath and says, with a kind of brutal reverence, “Light.”

“No, call me Kira.” Light’s voice is beginning to falter, the hint of a familiar whimper of pleasure building in it. “That’s all you really wanted from me, isn’t it? You wanted this the whole time.”

“Yes,” L croaks.

Light finally wraps his hand around L’s dick and begins to jerk him off. L pants, his hips snapping forward, then backwards onto Light’s cock. The pleasure rises around him, obliterating every thought, every feeling, regret, fear.

“It’s going to be such a shame when I can’t do this anymore,” Light groans, his voice breaking. “Why don’t I just keep you locked up in some room and kill you—really—slowly?”

L comes with a shattering feeling, spilling into Light’s hand. Light continues to fuck him, continues to mutter filth into his ear, but L cannot comprehend any of it, it runs together in his head like noise. He feels several of his vertebrae crack, feels something loose in his head snap back into place, feels like he is going to win this game and also, at the same time, like he has already lost it. The room disappears for a moment, the bells ring through him, and then there is the cold floor and Light’s body on top of his, crushing him as he comes inside of him in several long, shaky convulsions.

L does not move from the floor for a long time. Parts of the Kira case that had never made sense fall into place, their solutions obvious, elementary. The order of operations which Light used to kill Raye Penber and the other FBI agents, the moment when he must have surrendered ownership of the Death Note back in the cell, the first day Light and Misa must have met in Aoyama—all these things and more become extremely clear. 

Light pulls out of him, stands up, stumbles around. When L finally looks up at him, he can sense Light’s self-disgust, as heavy in the air as if it were a real, corporeal substance. He understands fully now that Light did not do or say any of that to him because it was part of his master plan, but simply because he could not help himself.

The second thing he notices is that Light, lacking anything else to clean himself off with, is using L’s discarded wet shirt to wipe his dick off. So Kira is not just a psychopathic murderer, he thinks, but also a fucking asshole.

When he’s finished, Light drops the soiled shirt on the floor and begins to do up his pants, to button his buttons, straighten out his hair. L watches him from the floor, still on his stomach.

“So,” he asks, dully, “was that a confession?”

Light scoffs. “That was just a game. A fantasy. Like you said, it wasn’t real. I was just giving you what you wanted.”

L assumed he’d say something like that, but he was just testing the waters. It really doesn't matter, at this point, what Light says. His goose, as they say, is cooked.

“Well, thank you,” L says, sarcastically, “Kira.”

Light doesn’t touch him as he walks past him and begins to descend the stairs. He barely even looks at him. “Anytime, Ryuzaki.” He says the name, as always, mockingly.

There is a bit of an awkward moment as Light waits for the elevator and L watches the back of him, thinking: what an annoying person. When the ding sounds and Light finally gets in the elevator, he doesn’t turn around and look at L one last time, doesn’t glower or laugh maniacally. He just keeps his back to him as the doors slide shut.

L, feeling defeated even though he knows he is about to win, uses his own, already filthy, shirt to clean himself up, and to clean the mess off the floor beneath him. He finds when he wipes at his asshole that the wetness is not just from semen, but that there is the faint, fleshy pink of blood mixed in. How unpleasant. He decides to throw the shirt away when he gets back to his room.

He barely dresses, then digs his cell phone out of the back pocket of his jeans and calls Watari.

“Can you please turn off the third elevator camera feed as well as the feed for the hallway on the floor where my bedroom is? Just for the next ten minutes. If anyone on the team notices, just tell them it’s a technical problem and that you’re working on it.”

“Certainly.”

“And also, I need you to forward the last hour of video and audio from the top floor to my personal drive, as soon as you can.”

“The top floor of bedrooms?”

“No, the actual top floor. The roof access. It’s a closed recording, in the same subfolder as the bedroom feeds. But Watari? Please, whatever you do, don’t watch it. Just send it.”

“Of course, L.”

“Thank you. We’ll talk later.”

L hangs up, waits a minute, and then presses the button for the third elevator.

—

Back in his bedroom, L runs a bath.

As it fills up, he logs onto his laptop and sees the team preparing to leave for the usual dinner break. Making sure that Light is in his own bedroom—still showering, it seems, trying to get the stain of L off him, no doubt—he sends a message to everyone on the team except for Light informing them that they are not to come back to headquarters after dinner tonight. Those who have been sleeping at headquarters are instructed to take any important personal belongings with them, as L informs them they may not be able to access the building for a few days, because he needs to run long overdue security maintenance before they continue the investigation. Naturally, they all assume that Light has received the very same message, because none of them wait around to inform him about it. They all just leave within a half hour.

At last, L thinks, he is finally and blessedly alone with his beloved monster.

Well, not completely alone. Halfway through his bath, Rem floats in through the bathroom wall.

“You are soaking in water,” she observes.

She had informed L at one point in their night time discussions that she was, in fact, a female shinigami, and L was surprised and interested to learn that such creatures have a biological sex. He had tried to ask her questions about their reproductive habits and she had ignored him until he’d stopped.

“This is a normal human pastime,” L tells her. “Also, doors exist for a reason.”

“What reason?”

“Knocking.”

Rem stares at him blankly. Then she says, “Light Yagami is planning to have me kill you today or tomorrow.”

“Yes, I could tell. Did Misa surrender the other Death Note?”

“Yes. I told her that Light Yagami wanted her to, that it was part of his plan. I told her that L was close to catching them, and that Light wanted her to lose her memory of the Death Note in order to protect her.”

“That’s good,” L says, “but even so, I’ll have to bring her back in. You understand that, right?”

Rem’s blank stare becomes blankly menacing. “I have done what we agreed, and now you must uphold your end. You said you would not let any harm come to Misa at all. If you do, I will write your name in my Death Note.”

“I understand,” L says. “Misa will be acquitted of everything. After this, no one will ever bother her about the Kira case again as long as she lives. But before that happens, I need her to confess fully and testify against Light.”

“She will not remember anything.”

“I plan to restore her memories as soon as I have her safely contained. She won’t have the Eyes any longer, if I do that, right? She won’t be able to see my name?”

“That is correct. But you must understand that Misa will never say anything against Light Yagami. She would die defending him.”

“Yes, how sad. But since I cannot record you in any way, and you can only be seen and heard by those who have touched the Death Note, I need her confession in order for any allegations against Light to be legally sound.”

“You will not harm Misa Amane,” Rem insists.

“I will not,” L agrees. “You can watch over the entire proceeding and make sure of it. You will stick around, right? I need you to convince the other members of the taskforce that I’m not simply crazy.”

Rem nods, though not happily. “As long as you continue to have the notebooks, I will stay.”

“I see. And if I surrendered the notebooks, I would lose my memories, correct? And Light would lose his?”

“You would all lose whatever memories you have of the Death Note, of looking at it, touching it, and thinking about it, and most memories which are direct consequences of the Death Note’s existence.”

“I would prefer for that not to happen.”

“I would prefer not to be stuck with you,” Rem says, “forever.

“I’m sure we can work something out eventually. For now, bear with me for a little while longer.”

Rem turns as if to phase back through the wall, then pauses. “He will not surrender easily,” she says, still facing away from L.

L says, “I know,” and then she disappears.

—

L barely sleeps at all. He spends almost the entire night cutting together the best, most incriminating footage and audio from last evening’s recordings of the top floor. This pastime is exceedingly unpleasant for him, because it involves seeing himself in a deeply unflattering situation, but he comforts himself with the knowledge that probably no one is ever going to see this video unless he is already dead.

As he works, he keeps tabs on Light, watches his bedroom video feed, watches him sleep. Light rises only once in the night, to use the bathroom, and then goes back to bed, but his sleep is noticeably restless. L wonders if he is simply anxious about what he expects Rem to do today, eager for his plan to come to fruition, or if there is some slight waver in his intention, some flicker of guilt in his stunted little heart.

L falls asleep at his computer around 5 AM and wakes half past 8. Light is already up and making himself breakfast in the communal kitchen. L decides to wait until after 9 to go downstairs. 9 is when the team usually has their first meeting of the day, so by the time L arrives downstairs, hair mussed, sleep still heavy in his eyes, Light is already uneasy.

He is sitting at one of the tables they usually use for meals, drinking tea, his knee bouncing with impatient agitation. When he sees L, he stills and takes a sip from his cup.

“Good morning, Light,” L says. “I don’t suppose you made coffee?”

Matsuda usually makes the coffee and they both know it.

Light says, “I’m going to guess that everyone is not late today by coincidence?”

“They’re not late,” L tells him, beginning to bustle with the coffee maker. “They’re not coming in at all.”

“You gave everyone the day off?” Light’s voice is careful, controlled, as if he is aware that he is in the process of walking into a trap.

“Not just the day. The investigation is over. The taskforce is disbanded.” The taskforce isn’t exactly aware of this yet, but they will be very soon.

“What exactly are you saying?” Light asks. But he must already realize.

“I’m saying that we no longer need to look for Kira anymore. We found him. We’ve even contained him. We should all give ourselves a pat on the back.” L gives Light a false, cheerful expression.

“Not this again,” Light says, rolling his eyes. “Could you please just let it go? I’m not Kira, and there’s no way that you could ever realistically make anyone else believe that I am. Why do we have to go through this over and over again?”

“This,” L says, as the coffee machine begins to rumble, “will be the last time.”

“I didn’t want it to have to be like this, L. I really didn’t.”

As Light speaks, L can tell that he is not panicked, and that perhaps he even means what he says. He thinks that L is about to die and a part of him probably does not want for that to happen, but it’s obvious that he does not care enough to put L’s life above his own victory. L feels sick. Even though he is not going to die, even though he’s going to win, it feels hollow when he thinks about how much effort he has put into beating Kira without killing him, when Light is more than ready to off him, without batting an eye, over his morning tea.

“I didn’t want it to be like this either,” L sighs.

“So, you’re going after Misa and I again?” Light says, loudly and somewhat theatrically. “You’re planning to pin us with some new evidence and put us to death?” He enunciates the words clearly, shooting sidelong looks at the ceilings and walls, as if Rem is somewhere up there, listening.

L watches Light count to forty seconds in his head.

The coffee maker beeps. L says, “No, not really,” and slumps over to pour himself a cup.

“What?”

“I mean, you, yes. You’re sunk, Yagami. But Misa, I have no interest in. After this investigation is over, she’ll never be bothered by me or any other law enforcement agency ever again, and will be free to live out a long and happy life. Or, at least she would be if she hadn’t halved her lifespan so many times.”

“Excuse me?”

L hears Light’s chair scrape back as he stands up. He drops sugar cube after sugar cube into his coffee and doesn’t turn around.

“Do you or do you not think Misa is the second Kira?”

“Oh, I know she is.”

“But you’re letting her get away with it?”

“Yes. Partly because I understand now that she was only your pawn, acting on your orders. But, more importantly, it’s because I, unlike you, try to keep my word.”

At that moment, on cue, as they had planned, Rem phases through the kitchen wall, appearing at L’s side like some kind of horrific sentinel. L finishes sweetening his coffee and turns around to face Light, who has gone very pale and still, looking between L and Rem like he cannot get his brain to comprehend what he is seeing.

Very softly and carefully—surely aware that he is being recorded, that every word he says will be used against him—he asks, “You two are friends now?”

“We are not friends,” Rem says.

“But we do have common interests.” L sips his coffee. “Rem wants to protect Misa from you just as much as from me. And, well, I don’t want to die.”

Light stares at him. L watches as the gears turn quickly in his beautiful head, as he runs through his options one after another. He has none, as far as L knows. It doesn’t matter if he has scraps of the Death Note hidden away everywhere. He doesn’t know L’s name and he isn’t ever going to.

“You’re insane,” Light says to him.

L thinks this is what they call “projection” in psychoanalysis. He says nothing.

“I’m not Kira, but no matter how much evidence there is for my innocence, you’ll never give up on trying to make me out to be, because you can’t stand the fact that you’re wrong.”

Light is not doing any of this for him, L knows, but for the cameras.

Annoyed, he says, “Kira, you can stop performing. There isn’t any need. I already have enough proof.”

“What?” Light snaps. “A shinigami? It’s an evil monster, L. Why would anyone believe anything it says? Why would you believe it over me?” A thought seems to come into his head, a plan forming in an instant. “Where is my father?”

“Your father is probably at home, with the rest of his family, enjoying a well-deserved break.”

“He’s not going to believe anything you say. No one on the taskforce will.”

“Maybe not at first, but once they hear Rem’s testimony and see how perfectly it aligns with my timeline of your actions and Misa’s, it will be hard for them to remain unconvinced. Once I’ve held you here for a few weeks without Kira killing anyone else, it will only become more obvious. And if I get Misa to confess, which I believe I can do, at that point it will be impossible for anyone to argue that I have the wrong man.”

Light shakes his head, both performing panic and also, L can tell, actually experiencing it.

“No one will believe anything you say. Especially not about me. You’ve lost your credibility. You’re obviously being swayed by emotions rather than logic.”

L knows that statement is perfectly true, but also that it doesn’t matter, at this point.

“I have more evidence,” he tells Light. “I have your confession. From yesterday.” He watches the confusion rise on Light’s face. “I hope that everything else will do the trick, however, because it would be very uncomfortable for me to have to show anyone that recording. However, I’m willing to do it, if it becomes necessary.”

He watches as Light’s confusion breaks into understanding, then mortification, then rage.

His voice is very quiet and hard when he says, “What are you talking about?”

“You don’t remember?” L tries to look guileless. “You told me you were going to kill me, but not until you were done with me.” Then he widens his eyes at Light, as if to say: fuck you. “If I die, that’s going to look very bad for you. Especially since I’ve informed my associates that, should anything happen to me, I want that recording broadcast on every major news channel in Japan.”

What L did, specifically, was send an email to Roger, which was entitled DO NOT WATCH: TOP SECRET, containing the encrypted recording and instructions on how to decrypt it and what to do with it, if it ever became necessary.

L can see that Light’s entire life is flashing before his eyes. 

“There—aren’t any cameras up there,” Light says. “You told me there weren’t.”

“I lied. Please try to keep up.”

Light’s jaw clenches, his eyes go livid. L can see that Light now doesn’t just feel like he has to kill him for the sake of self-preservation, but actually like he will enjoy the physical act of ending his life. He takes two steps toward L, so that they’re close enough that they could touch if they wanted to, which they do not.

Light seethes, quietly, probably trying to fall below the volume that the mics can pick up, “No one’s going to convict me on the strength of a fucking sex tape, L.”

L keeps his face very blank. “Maybe not. But I can ruin your budding career, your reputation, your relationship, and your family’s dignity with it. It’s unfortunate that institutionalized homophobia is still the norm, but even that aspect alone is enough to table your law enforcement aspirations indefinitely. The rest of it? Makes you look like you’re either Kira, or some sort of depraved Kira fetishist.”

“You’re in it, too,” Light barks.

L shrugs. “I’ve blurred out my face and bleeped out my name. However, if I’m dead I’m sure it will no longer matter what anyone thinks about me.”

Light shakes his head, seething. “I don’t believe you. There’s no way in hell you would show that to anyone.”

L smiles grimly. “Are you really going to bet your life on that?”

They stare each other down. Rem hangs in the air beside them, looking extremely bored. At the end of the hallway, L sees the edges of Watari’s jacket sticking out from around the corner, where he is waiting with his gun, as L had asked him to.

“You’re insane,” Light grits. “I’m getting out of here.”

“I’m sorry,” L says, “but I can’t allow that.”

Light turns around to see Watari moving carefully down the hall, his gun pointed straight at him. He looks from Watari to L to Rem, then back to L. There is something almost pathetic to his fear, like that of a cornered animal. L can see his rage in the line of his body. Utter, uncomplicated hatred burns in his eyes.

“You have no legal authority to hold me here against my will,” he tells L.

“Actually,” L says brightly, “I’m L, which means I can do whatever I want with you with no legal oversight whatsoever. But I have no intention of harming you unless absolutely forced. Watari will show you to your new room.”

Watari comes up behind Light and presses the barrel of the gun against his back, nudging him along.

Light shrugs off the gun, though he looks uneasy around it, and gets in L’s face. He’s so close that L can feel his breath, which smells like green tea, on his skin when he says, “I’m going to fucking kill you, L. Not because I’m Kira, but because you deserve it. Because doing it really will make the world a better place.”

Then he goes with Watari, his shoulders squared, his head held high, without looking backwards once.

-

tbc.