Disclaimer: I do not own Death Note.

A/N: Yes, this seems like a pointless 'meet the parents' deal, but it leads to other plot events. Somethinghas to be happening when stuff happens, lol.

I was getting some serious jetlag from traveling what felt like every few minutes, but I was incapable of turning Ryuuzaki down- I knew he wouldn't go these places without me, so I didn't have the heart to say no. If possible, we were becoming even more attached at the hip than when we were actually attached. Of course, we hadn't been handcuffed at the hip, but my analogy stands.

So, when he told me he wanted to meet my family, I could quite easily stare at him in horror, but I couldn't actually give him an outright 'no.'

"But... you... didn't you have cameras everywhere in our house for a while? You already know everything you need to know..."

"I have not met your mother or your sister. I admit I am inexperienced in these matters, but is it not customary?" he said innocently.

"Bastard," I muttered. Because it was. Of course.

"I would very much like to go. Unless Light is embarrassed of me, in which case I would understand." He blinked large, hopeful eyes at me.

"You already knew I was about to agree," I sighed. "You didn't have to try to guilt me into it."

"Good," he said approvingly. "I will drive."

I doubted that anyone in recorded history had ever had as many near-death experiences in the course of a twenty-minute drive as I did, but records were made to be broken. As I was deciding how best to contact Guinness Book of World Records (letter or email?), the terrifying and/or amazing driver called my name.

"Yeah?"

"Are you prepared for an uncomfortable question?"

"You had no trouble asking me a million times if I was Kira," I pointed out.

"I will take that as consent," he warned me. "If your mother happens to ask... how may I present myself... in relation to you?"

"Oh! Um..." We listened to the road noise for a while as I tried to come up with an answer. Would my mother freak out if I called him my boyfriend? My lover? My, what, my partner? Didn't that imply permanence? Would 'friend' be safer, and let her figure it out? And what about my fujoshi sister?

"I think," I said slowly, "that you can say whatever you want. "Whatever we tell my mom, she'll have to figure it out eventually."

He didn't look at me. "What would you prefer me to say?"

Was The Great and Powerful L seriously asking me what we were?

"Ryuuzaki, there's no word for what you are to me," I replied, only half joking. If ours wasn't a complicated relationship, I didn't know what was.

"Do your best," he commanded.

"You already know what you want, but you're trying to get me to say it first. Just call us whatever you damn well please," I protested. "I'll agree, and no one will have to know that even we are confused about it."

I was watching him now. I had challenged him and he knew it, but it was also true. In my brain, Ryuuzaki being 'Ryuuzaki' was a full enough description; I had always felt strongly about this person, starting with deep, black hate.

"I am not opposed to the idea of being with you perpetually," he suggested, as if he hadn't just run that sentence at least fourteen times in his head which, for L, was like writing a dissertation on the subject.

That took a moment to sink in. I mean, I understood the words instantly, of course, but then there was a beat. And then I began to freak out. Inside.

Light Yagami, do you take L to be your...

Because I had never actually stopped to wonder, 'How long?' I had never gotten past the present. I assumed that it was only a matter of time until I was caught and brutally executed, despite whatever L did to try to stop it from happening, because I was Kira, and Kira didn't deserve to live happily ever after, no matter what Ryuuzaki might say.

But if it was possible... if he wanted me forever, as I somehow understood that I'd always want him, and if I wasn't going to be dead in the next twenty minutes, then yes.

I do.

"Well, then I guess you should say we're partners, then," I said casually.

As easily as I could see through his 'innocent' expression, he could see through my 'casual' expression and knew that I was dead serious.

"I think it would go over better than 'the one who sodomizes your son,'" I added.

He chuckled as we pulled into my driveway. "I imagine so."

The truth was this: I was pretty sure it was going to be awkward no matter what.

But my mother flung open the doors and ushered us in, tittering away about whatever benign thing was on her mind at the moment and about how good it was to see me. Had we not been in Japan, she would have hugged us both to death. I could smell warm cookies, however, which for L was better than a hug, and I suspected that my father had something to do with that. L could smell them, too- I knew by the way he kept staring in the direction of the kitchen. My mother left us alone to go tend to them.

Sayu came bounding down the stairs. "Misa?" she called as she turned the corner. Then she saw L, who may in fact be the polar opposite of Misa, and smiled at the stranger. "Hello! When Mom said Light was bringing a friend, I just assumed she meant that kind of friend." She laughed. "Hi! It's nice to meetcha!"

"Ryuuzaki, this is my little sister Sayu. Sayu, this is my p-partner Ryuuzaki."

I felt sick. I really wished my little sister didn't have to know, like, right off the bat.

Her reaction shouldn't have been surprising. She squealed like the fangirl she was and launched herself at L. "Seriously? Ohmigosh! I'm so excited! This is so great! I have a gay big brother!" she enthused, bouncing around us.

L, graceful as ever, patted her awkwardly on the back. I shrugged at him, and he mouthed, 'It could have been worse,' which was very true.

My mother heard the commotion and returned, holding a tray of steaming cookies with oven mitts and looking a little bit frantic. "Sayu? What's all the fuss about? Is everyone okay?"

"Light's gay, mom!" Sayu announced elatedly.

"What?" Mom said, trying to keep up.

"Mom! Light's gay and this is his lover and he brought him here to meet us and his name's Ryuuzaki and he's so interesting-looking and doesn't Light look happier than normal and they're so cute together!"

L's eyes did not leave the cookies.

"You can take one," I told him.

He looked at my mother as if she were an angel come directly from Heaven, which he didn't believe in. That someone other than Watari could actually make cookies... in their own home...

"Soichiro said you're fond of sweets," she said hesitantly, confused by the intensity of his concentration and by the look of love now on his face. "Actually, what he said is, 'He doesn't eat anything but sweets,' but I assume he's exaggerating."

"You'd think so," I agreed, and took a slightly-too-hot cookie, handing it to L. "He's the opposite of me in almost every way, so as much as I don't eat sweets, he does."

He took a bite out of it almost reverently. My mother liked this; a small, fond smile was tugging at the corners of her lips. I leaned in and whispered to her, "His mother died when he was four, you know. He's doesn't remember anything like this."

My mother instantly adored him. "Ryuuzaki, is it? Come with me. You cannot possibly continue to eat those without milk. And this is the second batch- there's more where they came from."

He followed her like a baby duck (baby panda?) follows its mother, his eyes huge, the cookie still in his mouth, the incarnation of 'nom.'

I rolled my eyes at Sayu, pushed her by her forehead, and went to join them.

The evening proceeded in much the same way. My father came home for dinner, and that wasn't so bad because he already knew everything. We always used to eat in silence. Now, for whatever reason, we were talking, laughing, and shouting.

"So," my mom asked at a comfortable lull in the conversation, "How did you two meet?"

My father kept his mouth shut, and Ryuuzaki and I glanced at each other. With our eyes, we agreed to make something up.

"Well, it was at the coffee shop close to my school," I said. "I had planned to play tennis after some coffee, so I had my racket. Ryuuzaki was a part-time waiter there to help pay for school, and when he saw the racket he challenged me."

"Light-kun cannot resist a challenge," Ryuuzaki said seriously, adding the '-kun' for what I assumed was politeness' sake.

"So he ditched work and I ditched my coffee, and we went to play."

"I didn't even know it was a date," he said monotonously, eyes wide and unblinking as he took a sip of milk. "In addition, I was fired the next day. I believe it was worth it, however; there is a surplus of minimum-wage employment opportunities, but I have yet to come across anyone at all similar to Light Yagami."

My sister stifled a squeak and my mother looked charmed. My father merely looked impressed at the smoothness of our joint lie. And there was a little bit of truth in there. I mean... we'd played tennis... and there was a coffee shop...

"So are you in looooove?" my sister teased.

"Yes," Ryuuzaki answered bluntly.

I think I turned red, but I would need a mirror to know for sure.

If it was possible, Sayu's grin got even wider. I wanted to tell her that her face would stay that way, but I was still too busy being embarrassed to form an actual sentence. I caught my parents glancing at each other, speaking in some code that only the two of them knew.

The conversation was pleasant for the rest of the night.

It didn't end until a little after midnight, which was not too late for L (or, inherently, me), but according to my mother was too late to go home. She insisted that we spend the night, and Ryuuzaki, who now all but worshipped the woman, accepted the offer.

I had been in Ryuuzaki's childhood room, and now he was in mine. Not only was he in my room, he was sitting on my bed, talking approvingly about my mother. I had been right: he adored her as much as she adored him. Mutual adoration. Adoration is a good word.

Ryuuzaki, on my bed. It was strange to see him in this room I knew so well. I was used to seeing him in his domain, but this was absolutely mine. He sat where handfuls of people had sat before, here this late only if I had snuck them in. For whatever reason, though, it was different just because it was him.

He looked around, interested. He'd seen the room through the cameras, of course, but it must have looked different in real life.

"Your pornography," he said matter-of-factly. "You keep it in your bookshelf, if I recall. I understand that you purchased it as a means of hiding your true actions as Kira, but is it not more conventional to hide it under one's mattress?"

Right. That's why he looked different, sitting there. Because he was different.

"Uh, well, that was part of the plan. I figured someone like me, assuming I actually cared to hide it, would have a slightly more creative place to do it than under the mattress." I told him about the Death Note fire-drawer, and the 'key,' and the fake bottom. He was thoroughly impressed.

"I told your father, 'when I was his age, I did strange things, too.' He looked at me as if I didn't think I did strange things now, and as if I were completely mad for thinking it."

I laughed, picturing my father's expression. "You should have gotten a picture," I said solemnly. "Maybe he'll make the same face if you say it again. I'd really like to see that."

He laughed, then laid down on my bed exactly as I usually did unless sleeping- my arms behind my head, my feet on the floor, my knees bend over the edge. "I see," he said interestedly. He sat up, looked around some more.

"Where were you when you first saw the Shinigami?"

Then it hit me. Something that I didn't realize had been poking at the back of my mind since I'd gotten my memories back.

Where was Ryuk?

"I was..." I pointed. "There. Ryuuzaki, where's Ryuk?"

"I do not know."

"The Death Note originally comes from a Shinigami. For a human to have it, the Shinigami must drop it in the human world, and the human must pick it up. I... it was complicated, but basically I switched which Shinigami would go with which Death Note, renounced ownership of one of them, the one Ryuk would be attached to, and then buried it without touching it. So, the next person who touched it should have become the owner, and Ryuk should have possessed him. I dug it up and touched it, so I should be the owner right now... and Ryuk should be following me around. But where is he?"

I frowned. L, not nearly as intimate with every subtle nuance of the murder notebook as I was, just watched me.

"Ryuk thinks I'm interesting, so he would have come down right away. The only way it's possible is if I'm not the owner. And the only way that could happen..."

If my hair had all turned white in that moment, I wouldn't have been even remotely surprised.

"...is if someone else touched it first, got the explanation, and then decided to rebury it without revoking ownership."

"I'm not a perfect person- there's many things I wish I didn't do.

But I continue learning; I never meant to do those things to you,

And so I have to say before I go, that I just want you to know...

I've found out a reason for me to change who I used to be.

A reason to start over new, and the reason is you."

-The Reason, Hoobastank