Disclaimer: I do not own Death Note.

A/N: Rated M for a reason. :) By the way, this is going to be cheesy, but ALSO sickeningly sweet, and also rated M. Sweet, sweet M-rated cheese.

I sat down next to him on the bed, not saying anything initially. A few long moments passed that way, with us just sitting, with L just staring at the floor.

Finally, I said, just trying to break the oppressive silence, "So why didn't you want me touching that book?"

"'L, do you know? Gods of death love apples.' That is the note Kira indirectly wrote to me," L answered in monotone, wiggling his toes. "I saw something that proved the existence of shinigami, so I knew the cause of it had to be related to Kira. Therefore, that notebook must be related to Kira, and as such, I would prefer that you avoid contact with it at all costs."

"But Higuchi confessed that he was Kira. Is. So I can't be."

For some reason, upon saying it out loud, relief flooded my system even more than before. I wasn't Kira. I mean, I knew that... but...

Well, imagine what it's like to finally have proof that something you've been afraid is true for so long, isn't. And when that thing you were afraid you were was Kira? The one you hate the most, and the only thing the one you love would never accept. I mean, L would be able to accept an extra toe, me losing my dick, me having some kind of breakdown. I believed that. But if I was Kira he'd never accept me... Would he?

To my surprise, L agreed with what I'd said. "This is true," he said expressionlessly. He wouldn't look at me. Why wouldn't he look at me? He fished around in his pocket for a while, removing candy wrappers and lint, finally finding the key. He freed his wrist, and then gently took my hand, placing it on his lap. He slipped the key in, turned it. The cuff was released, and he deliberately removed it from around my wrist, placing it on the bed behind us. He intertwined our fingers, staring at them intensely.

He didn't look up once.

I was free. I was no longer handcuffed to someone who thought I was a serial killer. I could be more than a few feet away from him- an unsettling concept. Stockholm's Syndrome is a bitch.

But freedom. I could go to the bathroom by myself. I could choose when I wanted him in the shower with me. I could spend as long as I damn well pleased doing my hair. How had that happened, finally? After so much time? (I had to remind myself that it really wasn't that long, only a few endless days.) There was only one solution. L was still testing me, even now.

"Ryuuzaki, I know where you're going with this. If I'm Kira, then I won't argue and I'll let you remove the handcuffs. But since I'm not, I'm going to tell you: just because Higuchi is Kira doesn't mean I'm not, or haven't ever been."

He began to massage the chafed, scarred skin of my wrist, pressing his thumbs deep into the muscles with a skill I wouldn't have expected. It felt incredible with his typist's fingers.

"Yes," he mumbled.

I took him by the shoulders, pulling my wrist from his grasp. "Would you please stop testing me?" I begged him. "Why can't I convince you, when you're the only one I really care about convincing?"

"That's why you care," he said softly. "Because I'm the only one you can't convince."

"No. It's not. I just want you to know that I'm not Kira. If L has to think that, fine, but can't Ryuuzaki just... love me? Like you said you do? I mean..." I didn't know where to go from that. I shook my head and let the sentence die. "So, do you want me to move my stuff back to my own room, then?" I asked sadly, letting go of him.

What I was really asking was: So, do you still want this, now that we're back here?

I did. I knew that much. And I think he knew what I was really asking.

He still didn't look up at me, but he said, quietly, "Please don't."

His unspoken reply to my unspoken question: Yes.

"Light-kun," he started. He came to a hard stop and looked at me, finality in his expression. "I can no longer be objective."

"What?"

"How I have been functioning until now, how I have been able to love you and simultaneously attempt to prove you are Kira, and send you to your death... I could do it before, because I was both L and Ryuuzaki. L wanted to catch Kira, and Ryuuzaki loved Light. But, as I assume you recall, you changed that. Because L and Ryuuzaki are one in the same... we can't go against one another. I have tried to consolidate our separate goals, but it is impossible. I must choose. I must either prove that you are Kira and have you arrested, or I must..."

And all of a sudden he was on top of me, all around me, tipping me over onto my back and pinning me, his forearms on either side of my head, staring into my eyes. "Higuchi confessed to being Kira. Higuchi is Kira. But is Light-kun also Kira? This is what has been going through my mind." He stopped again.

My heart was going crazy. I was dizzy. I didn't know why; it wasn't like we hadn't done this before. But there was so much emotion in L's words, so much desperation... His big, dark eyes flickered with doubt for a moment, but what it was that he doubted, I had no idea.

"Ryuuzaki?" I prompted him.

Instead of replying, he dominated my lips. I could taste his desperation, his confusion, his hurt. He still didn't believe me. He still thought I was Kira, and he thought I was lying about it.

Was he... crying?

I pulled back to look at him.

He was.

Granted, there were no tears. His eyes weren't red, weren't glazed. But he'd either dropped on purpose or been unable to maintain his normal block on his emotions, and I could see it all. Pain. Conflict. Love. Rivalry. Confusion. Desperation. Hope.

Agony.

"Light-kun, are you Kira?"

"No," I replied simply. I wasn't. I couldn't be.

"Light," he said, dropping the honorific. "You are Kira. I know this. Please. Confess. I will not... I can not... turn you in. They would kill you, call it the death penalty. And... I cannot watch you die. If you tell me now, if you confess it now, right here, I can save you. I... I will make you stop killing. I will use my influence to get you out of trouble, help you find a way to never get caught. You wish to create a world without criminals, a utopia. Light-kun... Kira... if we work together... for my side of Justice... we can create that... without so much blood on your hands..."

"I'm not Kira," I insisted as sincerely as I could. Long years of acting all the time had made it hard for me to sincerely be sincere. "If I was, I would tell you right now, right this moment. I can't lie to you, not like this. I'm not."

"Light-kun, I know that you are. You must be. There is no one else it could be... I know that you are..."

"Ryuuzaki, how can you know something that isn't true?" I pleaded.

"Because even now, when my body and my heart cry out for you- even now I believe it, as I have believed it for a very long time, and if I can still believe it even in the face of such overwhelming personal bias... then..."

My heart broke and I kissed him quickly. I pulled back and looked into his bottomless eyes, searching for a change.

More pain. And more love.

"I'm not Kira," I told him for the millionth time. "I'm sorry that I don't have a better answer. But I'm simply not Kira. Ryuuzaki, I swear to you. I'm not."

I knew, though, that I would never be able to convince the one I loved that I wasn't the one he hated most of all.

I reached out to him, touched his face. "You chose me over L," I whispered.

"Evidently," he murmured, nosing into my hand, inhaling deeply.

"I'm sorry," I said at the same volume. "I... would never have asked you to change yourself." I chuckled hollowly. "Well, maybe except for how you never brush your hair."

My poor attempt at humor did not have the desired effect. I meant to relieve the tension, to change the subject (changing the subject, like making a chart, always helped, after all). I didn't mean, though, to make him do what he did. Not that I complained.

He ignored my comment and kissed me again, slowly, deeply, slipping his fingers from my face to my hair. He did something with his overly-talented tongue that made me moan, something that no one had ever done to me before, as many people as I'd been with in the past.

"I love you so much," I breathed.

I felt him try to smile a bit and he replied around our kiss, "The last time you said that, you were mostly asleep and wishing me a good night."

I couldn't stop kissing him. It was impossible. I noticed that he wasn't stopping either, so I figured this was okay. It was gonna have to be, because when he glided his fingers down to my shirt buttons, I came very close to losing control. I let him undress me as delicately as he had removed the handcuffs, brushing my skin with his fingers, stooping down occasionally to kiss my lips or my throat or my chest. When I was naked, I paused, looking at all of him for such a long time that he'd have blushed, had he been anyone else. I couldn't understand why this man was so beautiful.

He took my hand and pulled me onto his lap, and somewhere in my mind I was coherent enough to be impressed that he knew about this kind of thing. Although, knowing my porn-writing detective's hobbies, I shouldn't have been surprised. He touched me gently, almost reverently, dragging his fingertips along my chest, my sides, my stomach, lower. Without a word, he molded our bodies together, pressing into me, curling up around me and putting his chin on my shoulder, holding me from everywhere, and all I knew was him.

And we made love, our bodies moving in perfect synchronization, silent except for our labored breathing, his occasional quiet moan, my occasional sharp intake of breath. He finished in me with a shuddering sigh, using his hands to take me with him, and one of us whispered I love you although I didn't know who, but it didn't really matter because the other said it back and his hands moved to my face, holding it, gazing at me, his eyes glazed with lust and the love he had just professed. He laid me down gently, lying next to me, taking me in his arms and holding me close.

I bundled into him and listened to his heartbeat as it slowed to normal. I fell asleep to its steady rhythm.

"You touched my heart, you touched my soul, you changed my life and all my goals.

And love is blind and that I knew when my heart was blinded by you.

I've kissed your lips and held your hand, shared your dreams and shared your bed.

I know you well, I know your smell; I've been addicted to you."

-Goodbye My Lover, James Blunt