Another BB fanfic. I'm becoming slightly obsessed.
Pairings:
L/Light (current)
B/L (past)
Matt/Mello (mentioned)
Warnings:
Slightly dark themes, yaoi, character death
He shouldn't be here again. He had told himself that this had to stop. He'd told Light as well, and the younger man had nodded like he agreed, but here they both were again. Out of breath and delirious with spent lust, their bodies locked together as tightly as the manacles currently lying on the floor usually joined them. L pushed the brunette off him firmly, scooting over to the other side of the bed to scoop up the handcuffs. That was the last time. He insisted it to himself again and again as he cuffed their wrists together and as Light wrapped a toned arm around his thin shoulders. He wouldn't find himself here again. But who was he kidding? Maybe he had a thing for murderers.
No, it wasn't right to compare them. Beyond Birthday and Light Yagami were as different as it was possible to be. One wild and one controlled… one selfish and the other supposedly caring. Light wanted a better world, B would have been quite happy to watch the world burn. Kissing Light was beautiful and euphoric, but kissing B was like partaking of the sweetest sin. He had tried to stop himself from indulging in that sin just as he was doing now. But he had been doomed from the offset.
The first time he noticed Beyond Birthday was at A's funeral. The boy was hunched over in his oversized winter coat, gazing into A's open casket. L watched him, trying to work out the boy who was now next in line to claim the crown of the world's greatest detective. B was hard to read. From what he had been told, A and B had been good friends, yet B showed no sign of remorse at the other boy's untimely demise. In fact, he appeared vaguely bored.
L was fascinated. He became even more so when B reached his awkward teenage years, the time when a boy becomes a man. Well, Beyond Birthday was becoming a man all right, and he was trying to become L. The adolescent slouched around in baggy clothes, throwing out phrases that L himself might be proud of coming up with. It was interesting, very interesting.
It happened one day in September. L had come round to the orphanage to visit, looking briefly and politely at a few of the new residents Wammy had rounded up before heading to see B. He thinks that maybe he knew as soon as B locked his bedroom door exactly what the other man had been planning. He wasn't surprised when he felt himself being pushed up against the wall, B's tongue dancing deftly around his mouth and skilled fingers exploring his body. He certainly didn't try and stop him.
As they had sex on B's bed, L wondered exactly why he was letting this happen. B was taking the lead, so the detective merely had to enjoy the ride. Which he certainly couldn't deny he was doing. The feeling of the younger man thrusting deep inside him was incredibly satisfying, and oddly addictive. After L had politely shook B's hand and gone for afternoon tea with Wammy, wincing slightly from his raw backside, he knew that it wouldn't be the last time.
It wasn't. He found himself making excuses to visit the orphanage, found himself spending a lot of time in Beyond's bedroom. Well, B could be the next L after all. He ought to be moulded into shape by the real thing. It had nothing to do with the feverish, bittersweet feeling when B silenced him with his lips, unzipping L's jeans with one hand and groping his thighs with the other. Nothing to do with the mad rush of emotions when B looked up at him from his carefully mastered crouch, a small smirk spreading across a face which otherwise resembled L's own. Of course not.
He wasn't quite sure why he became so dependent on having B inside him. Maybe it was the danger; the pure thrill of crazy sex with his protégé in the middle of an orphanage. Not a single of the other occupants could ever have imagined exactly what the awe inspiring and reserved L got up to with Beyond Birthday when they were alone together.
It was never love. They both understood from the very beginning that love simply did not enter into the equation. It was never said, never mentioned, never even crossing their minds. B was a very selfish lover; he never bothered preparing L before entering him, never worried about the pain that he caused him, which the older man soon got used to as yet another bittersweet side to their relationship. He knew that he was just as self-centered, although slightly less able to show it from his position as the submissive.
"B… oh… B…."
"Ahhh… L…"
Moaned pseudonyms harmonizing into a wonderful crescendo, single letters falling from both of their lips to convey the ecstasy of the moment. L wondered whether one of the reasons he enjoyed sex with Beyond was that it made his clone completely drop his façade. Maybe he was the only person to have brought out the true man beneath the mask. B grunted and growled as he moved violently in and out of L, while the detective whimpered and moaned beneath him. B wasn't even trying to copy L's cries of passion, sticking firmly to his own. They were each clearly defined individuals. Their own person.
Their last time was probably one of the shortest. A knock on the door startled them midway through, and L hurriedly got to his feet and pulled up his jeans. B stood up as well, lazily touching himself as L checked himself quickly and then walked towards the door.
"Bye." B called, his voice slightly thickened with lust.
L ignored him.
And that was it. The next time he saw the man, B was a charred mess on a hospital trolley. Barely alive, not even recognisable. It made L feel sick. It would be a lie, however, to say that he was surprised at what B had done. The cruel murders, the cryptic clues, the teasing and the perpetual game of cat and mouse... L had known it was him from the beginning. He wasn't even surprised at B's crude attempt to take his own life; he had known that B certainly didn't fear death. Was he sorry? He didn't know if he'd rather that B had died. If B was dead, he wouldn't come after L next, which was what the detective had expected. No, this way L had won... this way was best.
He didn't visit. He got regular updates of the murderer's progress both physically and mentally, and each time entertained the thought of going to see for himself. But he never did, and now it was too late. The next time he saw the man was at his funeral, B's alabaster skin deathly pale and his sunken eyes staring straight ahead. Nobody had bothered to close them, and L didn't do it either. He put a hand on B's cold forehead, and then nodded for the coffin to be covered and for B to be sent to the furnace. He never visited the tiny plot where the ashes were kept. What was the point?
He still went to Wammy's to check on his miniature successors, but his main reason for going had been iradicated. He made himself check out the children that might one day become him, agreeing emotionlessly with Roger that Near was the best as of yet. He did have hopes for these smart teenagers, maybe one day they could become great detectives in their own right. When he thought about it, that was a lot better than B's attempts to completely absorb his personality. But he still felt empty when he looked at what used to be B's room. His second favourite young genius Mello occupied it now.
One day he caught Mello and Matt together in a secluded part of the institution. They had both just turned fourteen; old enough to be curious. Kissing frantically, their young bodies pressed together and Matt's hand resting awkwardly and shyly on Mello's crotch. For a moment, L just watched them. It filled him with a deep longing and irrational pangs that he couldn't quite place. He could almost imagine Mello to be B, clearly in charge and dominant over the inexperienced younger boy who was just letting him take control. But as L coughed politely to let them know he was there and they sprang apart with embarrassed blushes and stammers of apology, he realised that they were nothing like himself and B. Because B and L was something that didn't usually happen. It hadn't been normal, nowhere near as natural as the experimenting teens he had just seen. And Mello and Matt had a bond, if not love then something similar. L didn't fall in love. B couldn't understand any form of love.
Then there was Light Yagami. Calm and collected, dressing like a preppy male model. He ignited L's intellectual interest and sparked motivation in the detective to bring him down. For Light Yagami was Kira. L knew it, he was 100 percent sure despite the random low numbers he threw out at the task force. Light was a killer. And yet, L found himself in the killer's bed.
It was L's fault really; handcuffing a hormonal teenager to him was bound to end in trouble. He should have foreseen it. Yet he was genuinely shocked when Light pulled him close by the chain that joined them and mashed their lips together. It was L's fault for not stopping him, for letting himself be ravished by his suspect.
"Are you a virgin?" Light had whispered as he held him close right before they made love for the first time.
L had blinked and then nodded. B didn't count. B was nothing but a distant dream. And he did dream about him still, dreams of B following him, chasing him. With a knife in one hand and a smirk on his face. He had become a nightmare that plagued L's thoughts. Sometimes he had L's face. Sometimes he even had Light's face.
If he did compare them, they really were nothing alike. Murderers yes, but not a shred of any other thing in common. In fact, L almost felt like B had been the better man. B hadn't cared at all about his victims, but B didn't care about anybody. His interest in L was twisted and insane, and L knew that his mimic would willingly have pushed a blade through his stomach and enjoyed it as much as the sex. Maybe more. Light however was cold and calculated, and he was using L for his own personal gain; to create his utopia. He must think L stupid. Light was nothing but a child trying to play God. He was Icarus, flying too close to the sun. Everybody knew how that story ended; the wax that held Icarus' wings together melting and sending the boy hurtling to the ground. Pride comes before a fall, and Light would fall. Light pretended to want to help people, but really his ambitions were based on his ridiculous theomania and his deluded sense of grandeur. At least B didn't care about anybody, while Light only cared about himself.
Well, L would be a hypocrite to pretend that he wasn't the same. He cared for Watari and to an extent he cared for Near and Mello and Matt, his young counterparts. But not enough. He sometimes felt intensely lonely and wondered what it would be like to want to be with somebody enough to call yourself in love with them. Yet he had accepted that he would not feel this way for himself. Maybe it was nice to feel as Light did, that there was a sole purpose to his existance. But he didn't. All he had was the goals he set himself for the time, and this one was his greatest challenge so far. All he cared about was catching Kira right now. He didn't have a shred of compassion for the man who fucked him into the mattress each night, no matter what he pretended. He could let himself get swept up in the moment, and although he didn't quite know why he let Light do this to him, he wasn't losing his control.
It was like an odd sort of cycle L supposed as he lay in Kira's arms, snuggling against warm skin. B had been an uncaring killer, and he had been killed by the caring killer Kira. L would send Light Yagami to his death and end it all. He didn't have a purpose, but he had a goal, and he was going to beat Kira no matter what it took.