Summary: Because not every scene made it into Ohba's story. Here we have vignettes with related themes, featuring a number of characters and settings. Non-graphic LxLightxL lemon in Chapter 1.
Disclaimer: I do not own Death Note, and I make no money off my fanfics. I and my fangirly squealings are unworthy of being sued.
I thought I was finished posting at FFN – but the bug's been with me again lately, mostly as a result of editing my other stories a few weeks ago, due to FFN's reformatting. So, if you love this story, thank them, and if you hate it, blame them. Anyway, this three-part oneshot, like my fic, "A Dream on Silence," was originally supposed to be part of a much longer LxLightxL story I'll never finish. I starting looking through my drafts of the story recently and decided there were a few scenes that could be salvaged as stand-alone vignettes. So I polished and largely re-wrote them, and here they are! They have similar themes, so there is some rhyme and reason behind the way they're slapped together. They're presented in chronological order, and they take place in the same DN universe, which is basically canon but with a humping Light and L.
As you may have noticed, the title says, "Counterpoint Trio," while this story as posted seems to have four chapters. The fourth posted chapter is a drabble I choose to call a "Bonus Mini," and it's only tangentially related to the rest. Mainly, I just like it and thought it would be a nice coda to the story. Also, it allows my story to have both three and four chapters, which makes me very, very happy, for reasons that should become clear by the time you've read the thing.
I called it Counterpoint Trio because in music, counterpoint refers to musical lines that sound different and have different rhythms on their own, but sound harmonious when played together. These vignettes are basically that way, too, and so I think they're best read together.
This first scene takes place at an indeterminate time – mainly because it was originally two scenes, one set quite a bit later than the other. On the one hand, Light appears to be without his memories, while on the other, L talks about rules of the Death Note which he only learns after Light regains his memories. So, let's just ignore that last bit and pretend L learns about the Death Note sooner than in canon, okay? Okay. Let's go!
Chapter 1: East and West
Light closed his eyes as L kissed up and down his body, running his hands here, there, and everywhere with unusual urgency. Trailing his own fingers up into L's hair, Light encountered a constricting cloth over L's eyes.
A blindfold?
"They say your other senses grow sharper," said L, a bit breathlessly. Light stared at him in shock and arousal, unable to believe that the man who never closed his eyes would let his guard down so far, and wondering how long he had been planning this and when he had prepared that black cloth... Then L leaned down to kiss him and Light that decided none of that mattered now, roving his hands over L's body while L ran his own fingers greedily over Light's, as if trying to re-learn every inch through touch alone. Though careful, those hands were unusually clumsy, and throughout L's slow exploration they poked or scratched Light more than once.
"Sorry," L whispered after accidentally elbowing Light in the stomach, his lips close to Light's face so that the whisper tickled his chin. Light smiled a smile he knew that L could not see.
Now L was straddling Light, sitting back on Light's stomach with his calves clamped tightly against Light's sides. He found that he was enjoying the strange feeling of not knowing how to orient himself in space, and the heady dizziness that accompanied it. He felt like a child playing a new and interesting game, still unsure of the rules but thrilling to the experience.
He smiled as an idea occurred to him.
"Marco," he called into the void, the corners of his mouth upturned.
He could almost see Light's baffled face staring up at him.
"...You're supposed to say 'Polo,'" L clarified.
"Oh...uhh...'Polo.'"
"Ahhh, there you are," L breathed, and with that he lowered himself atop Light, so that they lay skin to skin from ankle to shoulder. And then they were kissing...soon they were rocking together in a slow rhythm that grew to feverish grinding, pleasure spinning higher and higher like a cyclone until it finally subdued them, and they sagged against each other, gasping. L pushed off the blindfold and flung it somewhere, making a mental note to use it again one day.
"…Marco Polo?" Light asked, after they'd had a minute to come down.
"It's a Western children's game, Light-kun, I wouldn't have expected you to know it. But as I'm sure you know, Marco Polo the man was one of the first Western explorers into the Far East." His hands moved suggestively over Light's body. "Exploring undiscovered Asian territory..." he whispered. "Learning its secrets…"
Light shivered, but held his ground. "And haven't I learned any of your secrets, too?"
"Not any ones that matter. Barring a catastrophe – which could still happen – you will never know my name, or where I was born, or where I usually live, or anything substantial about me."
"Oh, I don't know about that," Light said playfully, and when L gave him a suspicious look he squeezed L's asscheek to make his point clear. "Anyway, I know a number of important things about you. For one thing, as you've just hinted, you're a Westerner."
"De facto, yes. But I have some Eastern blood in me, and I've spent time in a variety of countries throughout my life, including some in this part of the world."
"Of course. You crouch like an Easterner, yet your barefoot habit couldn't seem more foreign here, where everyone wears socks and slippers at home. You love cake and ohagi. You always drink black tea instead of green, but you never add milk the way the British do. Your Japanese is flawless, but you don't belong in Japan. You are neither here nor there, a real citizen of the world, not to mention an expert at keeping us all guessing what you really are. In the end, though… your loyalty is to the West, isn't it?"
"Inasmuch as I have any loyalty to any place at all – any sense of belonging anywhere – I suppose you could say that. And it's interesting you should bring that up, because I have long considered Kira to be a uniquely Eastern foe."
"Really? How so?"
"Well, Kira deals with Japanese superstitions and magic, with mythical figures such as the shinigami; he fancies himself a god – a kami, like the old emperors of Japan were thought to be. He may believe that his is the way of the future, and a global way at that, but in truth he represents Japan at its most insular and old-fashioned."
"Hmm. Perhaps…"
"I, however, come from a very different place. I was born in the West, and as you pointed out, that is my home insofar as I have one. Science is my way; computers and electronics invented in the West are my tools. I look to the world at large, not some little island in the Pacific – or the Atlantic, for that matter. I always look to the future, never the past."
"Now that I don't doubt. It's hard to imagine that you even have a past, let alone a home nation with a past as long as Japan's."
"That can be an advantage," L whispered. "If I had not erased my own past, Kira would have killed me long ago. And as for him… If he wants to make this a battle of Eastern magic vs. Western science, or the past vs. the future, then I can tell you now which side will win. It won't be his." His face was inches from Light's, and he stared hard into Light's eyes as he spoke. After a moment, though, his gaze softened and he relaxed his body against Light's – with some effort, like a tight fist unclenching. He laid his head on Light's chest, and Light reached down to stroke his hair, and they remained like that for a minute or two.
"Maybe I don't give enough credit to all that old superstition, though," L continued without raising his head, seeming much calmer now. "Until this case, I would never have thought shinigami existed outside of old wives' tales, but now I know better. What else don't I know? Heh, I've always thought it a fascinating, even silly, quirk of Japanese and other East Asian languages that the words for the number four are the same as the words for 'death' – 'shi' in Japanese, 'si' in Chinese, etc. It's the Westerner in me showing itself, I guess. But it would appear that you were right all along. 40 seconds from writing until death, 400 seconds to write down details... Is there something the East knows that the West doesn't? Some metaphysical knowledge...?"
"I think the multiples of four are just a coincidence, Ryuzaki, like many things people see as meaningful… Ryuzaki, do you know the story of the shi-ju shichi-shi?"
L raised his head and grinned at Light. "Of course I do, Light-kun. It's been called the national legend, has it not? A renowned samurai master is put to death for drawing his sword on the powerful Lord Kira Yoshinaka. His disciples and students, the Forty-seven Ronin of the story's title, band together in a vendetta against the lord, killing him in the end, but not without condemning themselves to death, too. Yes, it's an interesting coincidence, the themes of shi and a campaign against Kira bound together in this old story, so intrinsic to Japan. Not a very happy tale, though, is it?"
"I suppose not."
"Huh...three times unlucky..." L mused. "Well, at least they did get their Kira in the end...Didn't they cut off his head, and bring it to their master's grave?"
Light raised his eyebrows, but the corners of his mouth turned up. "You don't have to seem so happy about it."
"Well, I always love a good revenge story. You ever read Hamlet, Light-kun?"
A/N: Somehow, despite my love for LxLightxL, which is well-documented on my profile, this is my first posted fic in which they actually talk to each other. Weird.
In my original story, Light was supposed to be blind from birth, à la Nilahxapiel's challenge a million years ago. So, the idea was that L puts on the blindfold to see what sex is like for Light, and they end up having kinky sex in which neither of them can see, so for once they're equal that way. But I like the scene this way, too. No matter what the excuse, a blindfolded L is always a good thing XD
I put in the bit about how L crouches "like an Easterner" because the sight of people crouching just like L is not uncommon in East Asia. I see people do it in public every day, here in Seoul; it even said in one of my Korea guidebooks to keep an eye out for it. I don't know how common it may be in Japan, having never been there (yet), but I suspect it's not too different from here. I also read online somewhere that in China, where many bathrooms still only have squat toilets, it's not unheard of to actually see footprints on toilet seats, care of confused Chinese who don't know any other way to go! Suddenly those jokes about L on the toilet seem even more awesome, don't you think?
Alright now, if you liked Chapter 1, let's mosy along to the next...