Nine.
Light spent a week recovering. He got professional treatment for his injuries, slept in his soft bed, ate all his favourite foods. It should have been a wonderful time full of freedom and relief, but it felt strangely anticlimactic. Of course he was happy to be free, safe, alive. Of course. Back among his friends and family. What was left of it.
His mother fussed over him like never before, and he realised that he took her for granted. She had always been there. Then, he had been called a spoiled mammy's boy not too long ago. He tried not to think too much about it, and he tried really hard not to think about Mello/Mihael/M locked up in a cell at the police headquarters. They'd want to interrogate him. He'd tell them that Light was Kira. They would not believe him. Light hoped.
With casts on his hands, special shoes to take his weight off the injured toes, and shot up with painkillers, he was supposed to stay at home, but the combined efforts of Misa and his mother were driving him out of his mind with their constant babying. He moved back into the apartment instead, and halved the problem.
Walking into the living room, he got a powerful flash-back from the abduction. He remembered that he had not heard a sound, but he had smelled the ether and known, spit-seconds before it happened, what was going on. The adrenaline had coursed through him, and there had been some fear, but there had also been that other, tiny feeling at the back of his mind. The way he supposed murderers sometimes felt when they were caught. That small bit of relief that someone had managed to stop what they didn't have the power to stop themselves. But of course Light could stop being Kira if he wanted to. Of course he could. He could stop tomorrow, but he chose not to. He was doing the world a favour. He was justice. He owed it to humanity to continue his work.
Misa seemed to have received no ill effects from Mello's interrogation. She told him that Mello had been 'very creepy but not violent' and she had not been that afraid. She had been more angry that he had taken Light, and even attacked Mello physically, so he had shoved her away and tied her hand and feet. She wasted no time wanting to show Light how happy she was that he was back, but he wasn't in the mood. He blamed his hands and knee, but it was her bubbly cheerfulness that was the real turn-off. She had been the second Kira, but now she was just Misa again. Apparently, she had forgotten what it was like. Or, perhaps, she had never understood, never felt the pressure like he did. Nobody did.
Then one morning when he got into the kitchen, she was all over him in seconds.
"Light!" She clung to him and kissed him. "Last night was amazing! You were so... passionate! It made me feel so special, so sexy, so... "
Light froze while she kept blabbing. He had no memory of doing anything passionate with her last night. Was he sleepwalking—or sleepfucking—on top of everything else now? He was losing control. And it was that damned Mello's fault. He had knocked everything off track with this damn kidnapping.
"But Light..." Misa said, "why did you call me... Meesha? Like on that letter?"
Meesha? Light just shrugged his shoulders and ate his breakfast, wondering what other things he might get up to while he was sleeping. This was certainly a development for the worse.
But the real blow didn't come until he had kissed Misa goodbye and was heading out the door. Meesha. No, no, no. He would never have called her that. Not in a million years. And unfortunately, there was only one other name that could sound anything like it while mumbled in the throws of passion. Mihael. Impossible. She must have heard him wrong. It was the only explanation. It had to be.
He tried to concentrate on work, damage control, planning what to tell Near. The time-frame was screwed. Mikami didn't have the notebook anymore. Light didn't even know if he was alive or if Mello had killed him. Mello had ruined everything. And all Light wanted was to see him. Speak to him. Perhaps get revenge; he remembered clearly the desire of 'bringing justice down on the blond tramp oh so hard'. Those had been his thoughts. Would that make him feel better? Perhaps.
They didn't want to let him at first. They said it was too soon. Light had to pull rank to finally let him agree to go in alone and have the cameras turned off. Mello was shackled, they said, and shouldn't be able to do any harm. They had taken the death note off him. It was in a secure place. Light sighed in frustration and pulled the door open while they were still talking at him.
Mello—Light had to make a mental effort to think of him only as Mello—was sitting on a small cot attached to the wall. He was wearing orange prison overalls, and his hands and feet were indeed shackled. He was staring at the floor, his hair hanging down around his face, hiding most of it. He didn't look up as Light came in.
"So, seems like we have a little role-reversal here," Light said. "Except I don't have a gun and you don't have any information that I want. I guess if I was to torture you, it would be purely for pleasure."
Mello raised his head a little, glaring from under his fringe. Light could see bruises on his face, a swollen lip. Somebody had gotten rough with him. That little squeeze in Light's stomach was stronger now. He had no idea what it meant. It was like writing down a name, that surge of power, yet not quite the same.
They had told him Mello wasn't speaking. They had not got a single word out of him.
"How come you didn't tell them?" Light taunted him. "That you found Kira and he confessed? Perhaps you didn't think that they would take the word of an criminal, orphaned slut over that of L?"
He walked up to Mello and leaned down slightly to look at him closer. Mello's face was impassive. He looked at Light, seemingly without emotion, and it was pissing him off. Light raised his hand. It was still bandaged, only the tips of his three middle fingers sticking up from the cast. He couldn't make a fist, and if he slapped Mello, he would likely hurt himself more than Mello. Instead he reached out and stroked his cheek in mock tenderness. Mello didn't pull away.
"I bet you're not so happy that you can't be killed by a death note now, are you?" Light said. "I'd wager that you'd sooner take thirty seconds of pain and then oblivion, to what's in store for you now?"
He could feel the power wash through him at his own words, but it wasn't enough. He wanted to see fear, anger, anything. Instead Mello looked like him like he was insignificant. Enraged, Light pushed him down on the cot and straddled his hips, much like Mello had done to him. He bent down and hissed, "Perhaps you think you'll get sentenced to death regardless? No. You're vital to the Kira investigation. Until the case is over—which looks like it could take quite some time—you're mine. And I'll keep you alive. Stripped of any rights, you'll have no say in anything, no control, not even over your own body which will be mine to do what I like with. You'll be nobody. Nothing, except my little toy..."
Surely, that would cause a reaction, but Mello looked back at him without a hint of fear. There was a fire in his eyes and, if that wasn't enough, he lifted his head from the cot and tilted it just so; an invitation to a kiss.
As shocked as he was at the act, Light wanted to claim this prize, this kiss, so much that he almost fell for it, but he stopped himself in time.
"You're going to bite me? I think not. I think I'll wait until I get a harness on you, a bit between your teeth..." he sneered.
Mello dropped his head back, and damn it if there wasn't the smallest hint of a smile on his lips as he said, "Chicken."
Light's eyebrows shot up. He would challenge him? In this situation? The squeeze had turned into a strange churning and Light moved one of his knees so that it rested against the vulnerable place between Mello's legs.
"You bite and I'll crush your balls."
This time there was definitely a smile on those lips, and it was driving Light crazy with conflicting desires. He wanted revenge, he wanted... He bent down and mashed his lips against Mello's, trying to feel in control. But Mello's lips were pliant and yielding and his tongue came out to tickle against Light's as he arched up, grinding his hips into Light's knee. The action made Light's breathe out hard. He wanted his hands free from the bandages so he could... No! He jerked back, getting off Mello and stepping away from the cot.
"What's wrong, Light?" Mello purred, self-satisfaction written all over his face. This was all wrong. Even though Light was the one in power now, he was still playing Mello's game.
"Don't try that with me!" Light snapped. "I know what you're doing but it's not going to help you!"
Mello only licked his busted lip and gave Light a knowing grin.
"What? You think payback is beneath me?" Light asked.
"I don't think anything is beneath you."
There was too much innuendo in his voice. Light pounded on the door to be let out, and hurried to the bathroom where he splashed cold water on his face and stared into the mirror. He was L. He was Kira. He had outmanoeuvred and killed his first opponent and now captured another. He was doing well. He was in control. In control. He brought his fingertips to his lips, still tingling from that kiss. What on earth had he been thinking?
Back out in the control room, the security monitor was back on and showed Mello sitting there, looking right into the camera. Challenging. Daring. Light told them that he was still refusing to speak and left them to it. He needed to get out now. Get away from those piercing eyes, that knowing smirk. It was intolerable. The whole thing. Just intolerable.
A/N: And so the road grows dark and twisted... Please let me have your thoughts!