Note: Hey, I'm so happy that so many people have put an alert on this story and so many of you reviewed! I just love looking at the reader traffic application – it's so exciting that so many people from all over the world are reading this!
Special thanks to Translucent Darkness – and don't worry about L ;). Many thanks to all my readers!!
And one more thing – I'm not rushing towards the M rated content because I want to establish some points before that. But it's almost there.
Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note.
Chapter 10
Inside the bedroom, both men were getting ready for the night.
"How many death notes does Yagami-kun posses?" L asked as he followed Light to the dresser.
"What makes you thing that I'll tell you?" Light answered, opening the drawer and pulling out a black T-shirt.
Technically Light didn't own any of the notebooks any more. The third Kira's notebook, which had been captured by the investigation team, now belonged to Light's father, who was the first one to pick it up. The one, which had been buried, was owned by Misa and the last one was with Ryuk.
"Since we'll be working together from now on, you should give me more information, so I am more useful to you." L responded, not bothering to look away as Light began undressing.
"Don't take me for a fool, L. I'll decide which information you need." Light said gracefully and held out his left wrist towards the detective, expecting to be uncuffed, so he could change into his nightwear.
"Very well." L ignored the extended hand, still staring wide eyed in Kira's direction. "I think that there are three notebooks at the least - Kira's, Second Kira's and Third Kira's notebooks. Third Kira's notebook is here. One notebook is currently functioning with the Second Kira, who must be Misa, no doubt about that. Her message about meeting Kira, exchanging notebooks and seeing reapers finally makes sense and all is very obvious… However, the notebook we have cannot be Kira's because names cannot be erased from it, and there are no handwritings by Yagami-kun in it. It is impossible that Yagami-kun has been writing in Second Kira's notebook, because in the beginning the two functioned separately and simultaneously. Thus, there is another notebook hidden somewhere and possibly more."
Light raised an eyebrow. Impressive. He figured it out.
"I should find more work for your smart head, L." Light said, allowing a little smile. "Now, unlock this!"
L stared at the cuff on the wrist.
"I'm sorry, Kira-kun. I'm afraid Watari kept the key."
Light narrowed his eyes. Damn it, I forgot about that!
"Should I ask him to come and accompany us tonight, so Light-kun can take care of all his sanitary needs?" L offered insincerely.
Light thought about it. It had been a rather emotional and long day. Light needed to change the shirt. Or at least to take it off, but he didn't want Watari anywhere near, especially knowing that he didn't have the geezer's name. Somehow, Light wasn't sure if the outwardly calm elder gentlemen was going to hesitated to detain Kira, even if Light threatened to kill the world's top detective.
Light wished he could ask L who Watari was as a person, because it was evident that there was much more than a butler and a driver to L's primary connection to the world. Light had seen Watari shoot a handgun from a helicopter…
But he couldn't because that was going to betray the fact that he didn't know Watari's true name.
"No, don't." Light answered L's question. He undressed from the shirt and tugged it up the chain, which connected the two men together. Now it was hanging through its sleeve. Light neatly tied it around itself, so it didn't drag. "But tomorrow I want you to convince him that you are capable of holding the key yourself."
Light moved towards the bathroom, L followed. Light turned around.
"How are we going to do this?" Light asked.
"Kira is in charge. We'll do it any way he wants." L answered, causing Light to raise his eyebrows, even thought Kira was aware of his enemy's awkward social skills.
Light tried several ways of solving the problem. He wanted to be alone in the bathroom, but it turned out that there was no way to leave the detective outside while wearing the chain.
Light growled and walked inside the bathroom, pulling L along. This is the last time that I'll allow this to happen. Light promised himself.
"Turn around!" he ordered, before he took it to relieve himself, knowing that Ryuuzaki wouldn't, unless instructed.
Light hated the feeling of being completely robbed of his privacy. He hated it and it made him aggressive.
The moody teen stood in front of the sink and began brushing his teeth. Ryuuzaki waited standing on Light's left side. Light studied their reflections. Ryuuzaki was watching the real him, while Kira was watching his enemy's reflection.
It was curious to see from an outsider's perspective the concentration evident on L's face as he stared at Light. Light had never seen this look directed towards anybody else, besides himself.
Light averted his eyes sideways to catch Ryuuzaki's. This stare reminded him of Ryuk. The detective was only passively there. Watching him.
"Wash your teeth!" Light ordered, just to make Ryuuzaki snap out of it.
The detective complied, leaning over the sink and brushing his teeth.
"Do I have to make you do everything?" Light asked with annoyance.
Ryuuzaki turned his head slightly to glance at his chain-mate. His inky black eyes didn't betray anything.
Both men were done.
"We need showers." Light said. "You are first."
"I don't need to shower." L said after a pause.
"If we're sleeping on the same bed, you do."
"I'll be sitting on a chair by the bed."
"Get in!"
Ryuuzaki turned his entire body towards Light defiantly. Light saw the challenge in the detective's body language.
"Don't start again." Light warned. "If you don't do it yourself, I'll wash your head in the sink!"
Suddenly L attacked, falling to his knees before he directed a cruel kick towards his enemy. Light lost his breath with a scream and flew back, hitting a wall. L had calculated the blow this time – the chain was long enough not to tug the detective along. Light barely recuperated before L attacked again, kicking him in the abdominal again, causing the teen to buckle in two. The next one was a punch through Light's face.
Kira fell to the floor, breathing quickly, trying to catch his breath. He saw black spots on of his blurred vision.
L pounced on Light, holding his neck with both hands, suffocating him. Light's fury fueled his resistance. Using his full strength and superior weight, after a few attempts he managed to push L off and held him pinned to the floor in turn.
Light remembered their earlier exchange and cruelly punched L under the chin. The spot was already bruised and even though the detective didn't lose consciousness this time, he dropped Light's throat.
Light caught L's wrists and used his knee to continuously kick the detective's abdominal and chest. His enemy struggled until his breath became ragged with groans.
"Did you have enough?" Light shouted.
L didn't answer, just breathed heavily.
"Do I really have to do this?" Light was shaking with exasperation. He truly didn't enjoy any of it.
He got up, pulling L with him. The detective balanced on his own feat, and Light took the liberty of pulling L's sweater up and off, the same way that he had done for his shirt.
L wrapped his arms around his bruised chest, but Light didn't pay attention to him. Kira is not a tyrant. Light thought. I don't enjoy hurting someone who is already helpless. But he is leaving me no choice. He probably wants me to feel bad about myself!
Light reached around the detective's frame, unbuttoning his jeans from behind, closing his own eyes, trying not to think of what he was doing. The jeans were undone, Light just had to pull the loose garment off the hipbones and then they were down to the floor.
Light hesitated to touch the other's boxers. He didn't want to go that far.
Light decided that L could shower with his boxers on and pushed the pale back forward into the bath cubicle. L's head turned and the detective gave him a hateful look over the shoulder before he grabbed the shower curtain and shoved it between the two youths.
Once the water was on and L began to shower, Light let out a small sigh. He had hated the whole exchange.
For some reason, ever since he had heard the detective's name, he couldn't bring himself to hurt the man. He didn't enjoy it anymore. Every time he hurt L he felt his own mood ruin as if he had taken a beating himself. Every bad word, every punch… as if it mentally tired him.
He waited for the detective to finish his quick bath and felt bitterness clenching his throat. I should be gloating! I won. Why am I so moody!?
L was out. He grabbed a towel and gave Light a very vile look. He wrapped the huge towel around his body, covering himself from the knees to the shoulders.
L looked even more rebellious now.
Light undressed completely. He thought that the detective was too pissed to pay him any attention. But once Light was bare-naked, L turned and scanned him purposefully from head to toe.
Light felt himself blushing, even though he knew that the detective had seen him naked many times before, and even though he knew that now L was doing it to infuriate with the breach of personal space.
Light straightened to his finest posture and gave L an arrogant look.
L tightened his lips and Light left him like that, getting inside the bath cubicle.
Finally out of the bathroom, the two men got under the covers of the bed. Light was shirtless, but L had slipped into his old cloths. They both stretched and kicked each other, annoyed at the presence of foreign limbs in their personal space.
Light was too tired to give L any instructions that night. He wanted to sleep. Besides, he didn't feel completely in control, knowing that he wouldn't have the key until the next day.
"Ryuuzaki, let me briefly go through what we'll talk about tomorrow." Light offered.
"…"
"I want the key, first thing tomorrow, understand? Come up with something, I want you to have a plausible explanation for Watari by the morning."
"Kira-kun doesn't want us to have any more shared bathroom experiences?"
"Did you enjoy what happened?"
"No, but I thought that Kira-kun did."
Light was tired, but the detective's remark was aggravating, so he shuffled to his elbow to look at his enemy better. It wasn't too dark in the room, even with the lights off.
"I didn't get to do any of the fun stuff." Light teased. "I was about to fill the sink with icy water and sink your head in it... Then let you breath and beg me to stop… and then again in…"
"Light-kun has a wonderful imagination! This is another trait we share!" L propped himself to his sitting position. "Would he like to hear my fantasies about him?"
"Humor me." Light growled.
"Light-kun is in a sterile white room, with bright neon lights and sound isolation. Well, of course he has no way of knowing, because his eyes and ears are detained and he is sitting strapped on an electric chair…"
"That's not too original, Ryuuzaki."
"Alright, what about this? Light-kun is running down the corridor, trying to make it for the exit, but unfortunately I shoot him through the knee cap…"
"How would that ever happen? Give me something plausible, please!"
"Light-kun is soundly sleeping and I am silently wrapping the chain around his delicate neck…"
"Oh, thanks for reminding me!" Light said, before he tugged the chain and wrapped it securely around the mantelpiece. Now the two men were laying one next to the other with one arm stretched up towards the sill. But there was no way to untie the chain without a considerable amount of noise, and no way to use the small length to suffocate anybody.
Ryuuzaki maneuvered in a way that allowed him to sit again, close to Light's outstretched arm. L's right hand wrist was chained closely to the sill and his fingers could easily touch Light's hand, which was detained right next to his.
"Good night, Ryuuzaki" Light said, turning a bit to the opposite side.
"Good night, Light-kun." L responded without any feeling.
L didn't want to sleep that night, unlike Light who doze off almost immediately, despite the discomfort.
The detective tried to use his free time to plot for the next day. However, as soon as his teen captor dozed off, L started feeling drowsy himself. The detective felt angry at himself. That was uncommon. Nevertheless, L had trained himself for this – there was no way that he was sleeping that night.
Still the events from the previous day occupied his consciousness more than the desired future plans. L felt angry and bitter because of his defeat. He was confused – how had Light found his name?
He also felt uncomfortable because of the position that Light had put him in. Now the whole team thought that he had a sexual relationship with his Kira suspect. That didn't look good at all. It made L angry to think that everyone assumed that he was chaining Light to himself in order to take advantage of the "innocent" teen.
But in the same time he was utterly confused by the way Kira was acting. The detective could quite literally still feel the other youth's arms around himself. He could point out the exact spots where Light's chin had rested on his head and on his shoulder. He could summon the memory of how it all felt, so clearly that it frightened him.
L felt a small shiver run down his spine and all hair on his body rising.
And then, when Kira had taken it to undressing him L had actually panicked. After all the attention, the detective hadn't been sure what would Light do. L's heart had been in his throat when Light had stepped behind him and extended his arms around his sides to unbutton L's jeans. What was even worse was that L hadn't even thought of objecting. It was as if he had gone numb. The feel of the other man's bare skin and the warmth radiating from it had caressed L's always cold flesh, instead of offending it. But Light's intentions hadn't been intimate, much to L's luck, he told himself.
L wasn't too fond of touching other people, or being touched for that matter. It was a rare occurrence and it usually wasn't pleasant. Light's punches had been the detective's treat of physical contact in the last few months. Apart from that, occasionally when Watari decided to be supportive, he would patronizingly put a hand on L's shoulder, much to the detective's irritation. Or when Aizawa decided
that L needed to be "shaken out of it". L remembered how weird it was when Light had tore Aizawa's hands off that day. Then Light had caught Ryuuzaki before he hit the floor. What had that been about? L had used all his ability to try to decipher Light's motivations, but he hadn't succeeded.
That was why the detective couldn't get Light's actions out of his mind. Light's embrace had been comforting and for some reason it had sucked out the pressure and negative emotions, which L had felt all day. Ryuuzaki couldn't understand why pressing yourself to another human usually had such bizarre psychological effects, when the actual action wasn't that special in its nature.
And thinking about it more, L couldn't help but remember how Light had kissed him. L didn't see the reason behind that kiss, because Kira hadn't needed the detective's sympathy – Kira was already on top of the situation. Why then? Surely Light was playing some mind game, which he seemed to be winning, because L found himself more willing to listen to Light's orders than he had ever thought he could be.
L licked his lips but refrained from touching them. They felt overly sensitive after that kiss… truly he had never thought that he'd want somebody's saliva all over himself, but Light's mouth pressed to his own, hadn't felt bad at all.
L massaged his temples and opened his eyes. I was dozing off?! What's wrong with me today…
L's body ached and he slipped down on his back next to the sleeping Kira. It felt incredibly comfortable to be that close to the man, who was threatening to kill him. L couldn't understand his own self. But he supposed that he had always had some soft spot for Light Yagami.
Falling asleep, L drifted into a memory.
He had always preferred working and living alone. He had sacrificed that for the Kira case.
When the detective resolved to handcuffing his Kira suspect to himself, L thought that it was one of the biggest sacrifices he had ever made for a case. To have somebody chained to him all the time… that was supposed to be torture.
The first few nights, L couldn't even bring himself to sit in the bed where Light was sleeping. He despised the idea of physical closeness, even to a clean, decent and perfectly handsome youth. He preferred to pull a chair and work all night.
However, time passed and L needed to get some sleep at some point.
The first night since Light's confinement when the detective decided to finally lye down and sleep for a couple of hours, L felt incredibly weird. Perhaps it had been only the weariness, but he fell asleep as soon as he touched the sheets, close to his sleeping Kira suspect.
When he woke up after 3 hours, he found himself curled up into a ball, but resting his forehead on Light's outstretched elbow. Maybe it was just the tiredness, but L hadn't wanted to move anywhere from there. He eventually had, but since that night, L had always somewhat looked forward to share the closeness of a bed with Light.