I heard say to me, "Beware how thou steppest;
Take heed thou trample not…
…the heads of the wretched weary brethren."
Whereat I turned, and saw before me…
…the woeful shades within the ice
One day later
"Stop trying to force your opinions on me."
"I am not forcing my opinions on you; I am only making it clear how opposed I am to what you did."
"And you don't seem to understand that for a new system to work, people must die, sacrifices must be made, otherwise no one will listen. I had to make examples out a few to even out the sides. I mean, you had the full support of the FBI and the NPA at the time. What was I supposed to do, not put up counter-measures? What I did was merely self-defense."
"You call taking out twelve respectable FBI agents self-defense? Then what about Miss Naomi Misora, what did she do? Is she not justified for seeking out the killer of her fiancé? Was it wrong of her to seek out justice for herself and her husband-to-be?"
"That's just an unfortunate circumstance. I can't make everyone happy. A few must suffer so the majority can live in peace."
"That seems to be your theme," L said, "that a few must suffer. But then if that is the case, why didn't you take most of that suffering upon yourself instead of fleeing from it?"
"And be caught by you sooner?" Raito asked, incredulously. "The ones with the ability to make things happen should never give themselves over that easily. And you'd better not say anything because you'd never throw yourself in front of a camera to save anyone."
"That does not mean you can use your intelligence to excuse yourself from punishment. You should be punished twice for even thinking that because you should know better, more than anyone else…"
"Know better? I do know better. No one else would use the deathnote as I have. You've seen Higuchi -- he represents what most if not all people ever think about: money."
"Do not be conceited," L said, disapproval laced in his voice. "Higuchi only represents a small class of individuals that are extremely wealthy and extremely greedy. You have never known want for anything in your life. You are far from poor. Do not talk ill of other because they have their priorities to maintain. Money is important; it might not be important to you, but it is important to those that do not have any."
"You know that's not what I meant."
"But that is how it sounds."
"Well then what about you," Raito countered, "you're not exactly poor yourself."
"No, I am not. But we all do not start off as billionaires," he said dryly. "We all must start somewhere, however low we are and however far we have to climb."
Throughout his words Raito had been carefully watching him. "Can I ask you something about your background?"
"No," L replied tersely.
Raito scowled, quick to object. "Don't you think that's unfair? That you know everything about me, but I barely even know --"
"Yes it is unfair so leave it alone," L told him, and Raito was surprised at how quickly he was dismissed.
There was an awkward silence following that remark.
L felt suddenly annoyed with himself. "This is not about my background," he reasoned, "this is about yours." Pausing as a thought came to him, he said, "let me ask you something, how do you think your father would react if he knew the kind of person you turned out to be?"
"You make me sound like I'm the world's most ungrateful son." Not surprising Raito reacted unfavorably towards his question, but L would persist, nonetheless.
"Then how else should I look at it, if that's the wrong perspective to take?"
"I've always done everything that my father has expected of me," Raito recounted without any trace of his usual condescension. "He raised me to be a certain way and I would never embarrass him with anything less. My grades, my behavior, my duties to him... question whatever you want about me, but never question the love I have for my father or my family. Everyone else can go to hell," Raito stressed, "but there has never been a point through all of this where I have ever stopped loving my father, my mother, or Sayu."
L did not doubt that Raito loved his family; the only purity he had left was solely directly towards them. But Raito had also been getting steadily worse as the days went by and he continued to use the notebook. L was confident that it would not be long until that love was wholly corrupted, like everything else in his life, and that when the time did finally come, Raito would kill his family if it meant saving himself.
Even now, L was pretty sure Raito would have taken that route to avoid capture.
"And your family loves you more than anything," L replied, suppressing his last thoughts. "But don't you realize how much you would hurt them if they found out what you have done? How much you had already hurt your father, how much he had to suffer as he listened to his son being accused of crime after crime. If you really love them as you say, you would have stopped the moment you realized that notebook could kill. You would have thrown it away."
"It's not that simple," Raito disagreed. "If I had done that things would still be the same, festering away under jaded laws and an even more apathetic public. Don't you see that it's people like my father, the righteous and self-sacrificing ones that suffer the most under such a worn-out justice system."
"Yes, but you keep by-passing the real dilemma here, which is, does all of your planning justify betraying and hurting your family like this? Don't you understand -- I had Watari tell your father and the investigation team that you are dead."
L could feel that welling of words that always struck him in Raito's presence and which he did not have any control over, but which always had overwhelming control over him.
"How do you think that makes him feel? Or how will it make your mother and sister feel -- knowing that she has so suddenly lost her child or that your sister has lost her brother and only sibling. I doubt it is a good feeling," L said. "Your father has not told them yet. He is still in denial and searching around in France as we speak. But I do not want Yagami-san to suffer that way, so I will be sending him the remains of his son soon."
Raito's eyes widened.
"Unfortunately, I am not finished with you yet, so I will be sending a look-alike in your place. It was hard to find someone with the similar measurements and skin tone; luckily you do not bear any birth-marks or scars that would give us away. Not to mention that the face of your look-alike was completely shot-off, so it is hard to tell, even for a mother, what her child would look like after that. Your father will want meticulous testing done on the body, so I will have someone fake the results of the autopsy and blood-work and any other miscellaneous detail that would add to the authenticity of your double."
Raito's face had grown pale at L's clear-cut explanation, his breath hitching every so often.
"It would be for the best if your family had the funeral now; that way, they will be given the chance to grieve and move on with their lives that much sooner."
Raito was no longer staring at him, amber eyes trailing along the ground with a focus that belied the lost look on his face. "I don't feel like talking to you right now," he said.
L opened his mouth to say otherwise, but stopped. He could tell that Raito was determined to ignore him: by the fixed way he was staring down at the ground and the stiffness in his hands as they clenched around one another. Raito was going to continue to disregard him and nothing L could say right now would change that.
He slowly rested his hands on the rims of his wheelchair, his fingers running idly on the cold metal.
"Yes…l suppose we'll have our talk later."
"Rem-san, what is Raito's shinigami like?" L asked, and had to wait for his answer as the shinigami watched the monitor that showed Misa. "Rem-san?"
"What does it matter?" she responded. "It will not change anything if I were to tell you."
"But you can answer it, even if you cannot tell me where he is right now."
Rem floated over to the other monitoring station and stared at another screen that showed Misa from a different angle.
"Is he similar to you? Would he break any rules in the notebook to help the mortal that has his own?" L stared down at the notebook that he had confiscated from Higuchi, but was really Raito's in disguise.
He had asked Rem to finish writing down all the rules in this notebook and she had actually done as requested. But getting her in a talkative mood was always another story. The only thing she seemed to care about was checking up on Misa. Then when she was satisfied that the blonde was being taken care of, she would float off in the middle of any of L's attempts to talk to her, disappearing to the snow-covered rooftop for a couple of hours to possibly contemplate on her situation.
"Is he even a he?" L asked, swirling his fork around in the icing generously smothered over the top of his cake. "Any information that might be helpful before you disappear for today," he said, looking up to see half of Rem's body already swallowed up by the wall.
L stared blankly forward and thought he could not blame the shinigami. If he could escape through walls whenever people started bothering him, he would never be caught in the same room for more than a second.
"He and Raito are alike," Rem suddenly revealed. She was still missing half of her body to the wall, but that did not seem to bother her at all.
"He supports what Raito does?"
"He sits there and watches if that's what you mean," Rem said.
"Am I to believe that he would come here and kill me to save Raito?"
Rem's facial expression stayed the same, but the air around her seemed to grow less serious. "When I said Ryuuk and Raito are alike, I meant he only cares about himself and he won't stick his neck out for anyone. When you meet him, you will understand," she said, whilst completely disregarding the laws of science and sinking into the wall like it was made out of water and not plasterboard.
"Ryuuk?" L slowly pronounced. He looked down at his cake and hoped that he would get to meet the owner of that name very soon.
Hunde walked in with a medical-case and Raito's eyes followed him closely as he opened it and began to prep right in front of him. Tailor, walking in behind him, grinned at Raito and made a motion towards the doctor.
"Today we have something special for you," and as the ex-soldier said this, Hunde took out a hypodermic needle from the small kit. He injected a clear vial and then pulled back the syringe to slowly drain the fluid from the tiny container.
Obviously, the doctor could have prepped the needle outside, but it always made people more anxious when they were made to witness the motions that led up to their actual torture.
Physical pain might get some to talk, but it was the apprehension of what was to come -- the wait, the uncertainty of what could possibly be in that small, clear vial and the heart-pounding seconds in between knowing that usually got most.
Raito was more psychologically complex than your average teenager. That much was clear. He was abnormally good at coping under stressful situations as these two had learned, and any methods they had used so far had lacked a certain edge.
Of course, they had learned that Raito was deathly afraid of the water torture, but even that was not enough to get them results.
The problem was they were attacking his body to get to his mind, and while that was always a sure-fire way to get to people, the parameters that L had placed down on them was going to cancel out any affect they might have had with Raito.
No, if they wanted results, they might as well just skip over the body and go directly for the mind; and what better way to do this than to use a truth serum. Now, there was no absolute serum out there; many of them were just ethanol-based and had the same effect as a great buzz. It might lower inhibitions, but it did not guarantee confessions of any kind.
The same thing was true for the serum they were about to use. Sodium pentothal might interfere with higher cognitive functions in the assumption that since lying was much more complex than telling the truth, if you confused the part of the brain responsibly for higher level thinking, then the person under that influence would begin giving honest answers.
It was a tidy idea that some psychiatrists had come up with, but that was less applicable in actual situations when taking into account how uselessly chatty the person could become and how lying under the influence of this drug was still very possible when the subject had established a story in their head…
True, there was no perfect truth serum out there, but Doctor Hunde had gone through enough black-market pharmaceuticals to know which ones were more effective; and this one, despite defects, was a continuous winner.
In tandem to turning the syringe upside down and flicking it several times to remove the air-bubbles, the doctor insipidly ordered Tailor around, treating this as if it were a routine check-up. "Can you please hold him down for me?"
Raito went absolutely pale when Tailor began approaching him.
"Where do you want me to put him?"
"Just leave him there, although I wouldn't mind having a table for this sort of thing."
"Ask before the fact, doc," Tailor grumbled, hunching down in front of Raito and yanking cursorily on his elbow to check the handcuffs behind his back.
Pressing into the wall as far as he could go, Raito got that deer-in-the-headlights look on his face before Tailor grabbed his shoulder and pushed him further back.
The doctor was walking up to them, he expelled some extra fluid from the needle-tip and stooped down on Raito's other side. "Turn his head and hold him still."
Tailor pushed Raito's head to the side, exposing his neck -- a move that caused the teen to start acting out his panic as he kicked a leg out and tried to twist away from the hand on his shoulder.
"Hold him still, Tailor."
"Yeah, just hurry up and stick him in the neck already."
Mr. Hunde sighed and moved closer to Raito. He saw the absolutely petrified look on the boy's face, and maybe somewhere deep down inside, he pitied him for a second.
However, any of that sympathy dried up and blew away like sand when Raito's arm suddenly darted out from behind his back, the handcuffs still attached to one of his wrists!!
Using the edge of the handcuff still on his wrist, Raito caught Tailor right above the eye, cutting him deeply and getting the man to release him.
"Shit," the doctor hissed, but didn't even need to drop the syringe as Tailor quickly recovered and back-handed the boy right across the face and hard enough to knock him out cold.
"Goddammit" Tailor cursed, holding the cut over his eye. "Why are those handcuffs open?"
Raito fell forward, unconscious, and Mr. Hunde noticed something had fallen out of his mouth.
"Tailor, come see what I found…"
"Jesus Christ, I'm gonna kill this little fucker." Blinking the blood out of his eye, he squinted at the object as it was held up in front of him.
"Where in the world did he get that?" Tailor asked, pressing down hard on the gash with his thumb and wiping across to try and stop the bleeding.
"I think I have an idea," Hunde said. He pocketed the item, and turning towards the boy again, he checked his syringe and then injected him in the neck.
"Go get L. I need to have another talk with him."
"Guess what we found in his mouth?" was the first words to come out at L as he passed through the door.
L halted his wheelchair in front of the two-way mirror and peered at Raito, tied to a chair, head slumped forward and unmoving. "What exactly did you do to him?" he asked, appearing to not care at all about Hunde's question.
"Sodium pentothal," Tailor said simply. L glanced over at the ex-soldier, particularly over his right eye. Then turning back towards the doctor, he looked down at his suddenly proffered hand and the object that was in it.
"Do you have any idea where he could have gotten this?"
L stared at it, and then reached into his back pocket and took out his cell phone, which was, as expected, missing the screw-on antenna. He looked up at both men and smiled. "Ah, I believe that would be mine."
Tailor and Hunde both looked at L in complete disbelief.
"You walked in there with a cell phone?" Tailor asked.
L looked as unbothered as ever. "I go everywhere with my cell phone."
Tailor closed his eyes and then pointed angrily at the two-way mirror. "You know what, that's not even the problem here. The problem is how exactly was he able to get close enough to you to unscrew your goddamn cell-phone antenna without you noticing!"
L looked at the doctor.
It was obvious what the answer to that was.
It might have only been for a minute, but that kiss had given Raito enough time to rifle through his pockets for something useful to jimmy his handcuffs open. How embarrassing that L had fallen for it so thoroughly that he had not even been suspicious of the kiss, had not even been aware enough to realize that Raito had taken his hand off his neck at some point during that time -- that it even took only one of Raito's hands to slip into his clothing and make a complete ass out of him.
Of course, it was a fluke that he had not used his cell that day, but still, for Raito to go ahead and do this, despite knowing he could be found out at any time, attested to just how much he cared.
L could truthfully say that he was the type of person that did not get embarrassed easily. He couldn't even remember a time in his life where he thought he should feel shame for something he had done.
Today, however, was a different story.
"Are you going to tell me?" Tailor demanded. "I checked his handcuffs and maybe not as thoroughly as I should have, but we usually don't have to worry at all when it's impossible – or it should be – for him to get something like that from one of us."
"I will admit that it was wrong of me to walk in there with a cell phone, but I employed you because you are a professional. You know what to expect with these types of jobs."
"I didn't expect to nearly get my eye gouged out," Tailor complained, "because that spiteful little prick was aiming for my eye."
Interrupting his partner with a rather annoyed-sounding cough, Mr. Hunde turned to L. "We would only like you to be more careful and maybe a little more considerate of our situations when you step into that room. There is also one more thing that I would like to talk to you about," Mr. Hunde continued, but was suddenly cut off as L began to notice Raito stirring awake.
"Can you please hold that thought?" L abruptly handed over his cell phone to the speechless doctor and reversed his pockets in front of them. Then without further ado, he opened the door to Raito's cell and went in.
Both men silently stared after the detective.
"So be straight with me, is that guy autistic?"
"Don't ask me those kinds of questions when there are cameras around."
"L…?" Raito murmured, blinking his eyes open. The tone of his voice was significantly different from what it had been this morning and that of the past few months: less severe, more gentle, and a million times more bewildered. His face was so open that it was like staring at another person. The unfamiliarity from his gaze alone was unsettling.
"Hello Raito-kun, how are you feeling?" L asked, noting all the nuances of change and outright differences in the person sitting across from him. "How does your head feel? Does it hurt or are you feeling more dazed?"
"What?" Raito asked, drowsily.
"Never mind," L said, getting his answer from that. "Do you know why I'm here?"
Raito squinted at him before faintly replying, "To talk to me…like you always do."
"Yes, so this is no different from all those times. Do you feel up to talking to me?" L asked, testing Raito's susceptibility to requests.
L was treated to another rare sight from Raito, a look of confusion on that normally superior face. "What are we talking about?"
"Nothing yet, but we can talk about anything you like." L wanted the serum to have more of an effect before he started asking him anything about the notebook, so he would hold off on any of the important questions.
Raito was trying to sit up straighter, but his hands had been tied behind his back and linked through the open space behind his seat, the ends of the cord fastening his hands together further knotted around the arms of the chair. "Where are those two guys from before?" Raito questioned lethargically. He was trying to sit up again. "They're here, right?"
"No, it's just the two of us," L assured, "as it has always been -- or for the most part anyway."
Raito slumped, giving up on his endeavor of sitting up. "Then it's okay if I go to sleep? I know you'll wait for me…" Raito's eyes had been halfway open since waking and now they were slowly closing. L stared at him and then suddenly clapped his hands loudly together, causing the brunette's eyes to fly open.
"Yes, I could wait a very long time for you, but don't you think it would be unfair to do that to me?"
"I guess so," Raito said simplistically, which was very out of character for him. Then he moodily added, "But you usually wait. Did I do something wrong? Are you mad at me for going through your pockets when you weren't looking? I told you not to hold it against me."
"Is that what you meant? I thought it was for something else."
Exasperatedly, "why would I apologize for kissing you?" he said, inadvertently turning it around on him so Tailor was given a reason as to how the detective had lost his cell phone antenna. He seemed to have lost that sleepy drawl to his voice, but L supposed being angry would do that. "You enjoyed it, so why should I apologize? Or why should I stop myself from kissing someone if I feel like it."
A rap came from the window that was most likely a complaint for L to get Raito away from this topic.
"Especially when it means I get something in return."
L made a motion for them to cut the audio devices around the room.
"Hitting that guy in the face was the best birthday present I ever got."
There was another louder rap at the glass, but L made the motion again, and thankfully no knock followed his second signal for them to cut the audio. He didn't feel like letting them listen in on this conversation. Raito had already given him a confession, so this option was more than open to him.
"I don't get why you were being so stubborn about wishing me a happy birthday," Raito said, out of the blue. He was gazing at him peculiarly. "I don't get it and yet you still gave me a birthday present, letting me go through your pockets like that. You're so weird sometimes…"
L was very thankful that the audio was off because that kind of comment, despite not being true, would nevertheless get him in trouble.
"Don't mistake my carelessness for cooperation."
"Then why'd you stick your tongue down my throat?"
L stared at Raito, and for the first time in his life, he didn't have an answer.
"Don't give me that look," Raito said, staring back at him. "You always get so huffy with me now, like I ate your last piece of cake or something. What's the big deal? It was only a kiss. I've done much worse to you and you never got so uptight about it."
Well, these kinds of drugs were known for making people talkative, and Raito was certainly being chatty. He was also being very casual with him, something that he no longer did, having naturally exchanged that easy air for one of distance and coldness.
"Yes, it was only kiss. I suppose I should grow up," L replied, smiling as he was given that bored perusal that Raito had a habit of doing in the past. "I already know how you truly feel about me, so that kind of thing should not bother me." He rested his chin down between the cradle of his knees as he rested one of his feet on top of the other.
"That I hate you?"
L closed his eyes. "Yes, at the moment I am not exactly crazy about you either."
"It's complicated too," Raito murmured back.
L opened his eyes. Past the "I hate yous" he did not really expect anything else. "The way you act, I would think things are fairly simple in that head of yours that does not love anyone but yourself. It is not like I do not understand why you dislike me so much." L titled his head to the side. "The hindering of your world progress, your dethronement, the torture, our vast ideological differences, my habit of clipping my toenails on the bed we used to share -- yes, there are many reasons why you would hate me with all the fiber of your being."
L was caught off-guard as he noticed the faint smile at the corner of Raito's lips.
"Then do you understand why I liked you so much?"
L stopped and stared at Raito.
Exactly what amount of Sodium pentothal was he given?
"I had fun playing with you. The most fun I ever had in my life."
L frowned. People were dying left and right, and he was more preoccupied with how much fun he was having. But L supposed that was the kind of creature Raito was, utterly selfish to the end.
"You thought it was fun too."
"Yes," L admitted, and could not deny that he was also that kind of creature. "You certainly know how to show a boy a good time."
His remark was met with a raised eyebrow. "Don't make me sound like some prostitute…"
L smiled at that. "Yes, you are right, you are no mere prostitute; to sleep with Raito-kun one must prepare to die soon afterwards, so in truth, you are an extremely expensive prostitute."
Raito scoffed at him. "You're the one who accepted my deal in the first place."
"I may have had a brain-lapse when I was thinking it over."
"That's probably true. It didn't take long for you to decide. I thought you'd at least sleep on it." Smiling smugly, Raito said, "Though, I'm pretty proud of myself for getting you in one night. You seem like an impossible screw."
L titled his head the other way, trying that one on for size. He had been called many things in his life by the media, and out of the all his broadcasted monikers, "impossible screw" was not one of them. Give Raito the points for originality.
"That is true. I am very work-orientated," L said, half-joking, half-entirely serious. "It is hard for me to take that kind of interest in people. I will admit that during the first few months I was very smitten with you, but in a completely friendly and non-sexual way. After all, I had found my equal in you and I was quite excited at seeing your reactions to the things I did, the things I said…"
"We argued most of the time," Raito pointed out. "So is that what you were so excited about?"
"What about you? I was always under the impression that you hated contention of any kind?"
"I do, I absolutely detest it -- when it comes from you. But when other people argue about Kira, I don't really care since they don't have their facts straight. It's kind of funny when I hear those debates on Sakura Tv. I don't deny that there are a lot of ignorant people out there that support Kira. It's the same for your side. Idiots are everywhere. I just would rather not have to argue with any of them. The only one I feel I have to prove my point to is you. I want you and only you to hear me out. If I wanted to have a mind-numbing conversation without the drama, then I'd face the wall and pour my heart out to it instead of bickering with other people."
"That's how you see others?
"Most of the time," Raito said frankly. "No one but you tries to debate with me. I wish they'd learn how to stop being so boring."
Raito was contradicting himself. He said he hated it when they argued, but yet he wished more people would argue with him like they did. It was like a child acting out, the drugs were obviously helping to further exaggerate his feelings, but this was Raito at his core.
L opened his mouth to say something, but stopped himself.
Plainly put, Raito had some serious issues that had started way before he had even gotten his hands on that deathnote. The notebook might have acted as a catalyst -- the fact that Raito was given much more power over people's lives than any one person should have certainly had warped him -- but a catalyst never worked alone, it needed something to accelerate.
Raito had grown up with an idea firmly fixed in his head that he was the best; one that his teachers, his parents, simply the people around him all condoned as they steadily fed his ego until he grew apathetic towards them and their praise.
He had never had anyone to compete against, to knock a few notches off his belt, or even to understand him. L had grown up in an environment where people were overtly challenging him, always trying to beat him – they might not have come close, but he had people who were similar to him, who had the same drive, and who had not let his ego get out of control. As far as competitive atmospheres went, Wammy House was a figurative arena.
Maybe Raito would have benefitted from something like that…
"It makes sense that things turned out this way when you lack respect for people."
"I don't lack respect for everyone. I respect my father, I respect you."
"What about your mother?"
Raito gave him a strange look. "I love my mother, but I don't necessarily have to…admire her."
Biting the end of his thumb, L studied the person across from him. He had noticed this a long time ago. Naturally, he had never brought it up, but…
"Is that because you lack respect for females?"
There was a pause before, "what are you talking about?"
"You are a bit chauvinistic. I do not think anyone has ever tried to correct you about it."
"I…" Raito chuckled at him. "I don't see what the problem is."
"Of course, you treat men no better," L continued. "But you objectify women and use them for whatever purposes you see fit. I only wanted to point that out to you. You have some serious issues when it comes to the female gender, not to mention some other issues…"
Raito was giving him the "wtf" face.
"It could be that your treatment of women is simply a behavioral manifestation of the revulsion you have towards commitment or being tied down to one human being. That you believe by staying with one woman you are not as free as you ought to be and that the only person you should show that kind of absolute loyalty to is yourself. It also does not help that you do not think anyone is good enough for you."
Raito was as mature as they came, but in others matters he still had a lot of growing up to do. L did not feign to be any better, but at least he didn't run from commitment like it was the plague.
Tapping his two index fingers together, L then added, "But that is my diagnosis. I could be wrong."
Raito huffed at some strands in his face, narrow eyes becoming narrower. "It really bugs me when you do that."
"Ah…when I point out your flaws. Yes, I am disappointed that no one else does, but this is the world we live in, where a pretty face can get away with anything." L scratched the bridge of his nose. "But on the much more pleasant side of things, it is nice to hear that Raito-kun respects me. He should already know that I have always thought very highly of him, despite his insolence towards the woman who bore and raised him as well as every other woman he has ever come into contact with, not to mention his ego that is so very large that it could suffocate whole planets."
L smiled. The great thing about the Sodium pentothal was that after a while of circulating through the bloodstream, it made the person under its influence unable to hold a temper. Being angry probably wore them out.
Luckily for L, Raito was entering that phase.
"...I like the way I can't predict your actions all the time. But when I'm really expecting you to do one thing and you do the opposite, I kind of hate it too," Raito said, still very calm. "Like when I assumed you would hide yourself, only to find you sneaking up behind me at my college-entrance ceremony. Or when I thought the last thing you'd want to do is bring up your suspicions about me after that tennis match, you tell me what percentage you think I'm Kira and then ask me what questions I have. And then suddenly announcing we're friends when we barely even knew each other…not that I know any more about you now…" Raito trailed off, picking up his sentence after a pause. "Oh and hinting at going into hiding and then popping up in front of me at school again. Then on top of that stealing Misa's cell and grinning about it when I wasn't even ten feet away."
L could not deny he had a good laugh at that one.
"I really hated you for those things…" and though he was saying all these things, his voice could not be more factual and dry. "But I also couldn't help but feel really…impressed by it, even if you were acting like a total jackass."
"Do not call me a jackass."
"Okay," Raito agreed. "I won't call you a bastard either."
"Please do that," L encouraged.
"Oh, do you want to know something else?"
L smiled at how seriously Raito asked him that question. "I am very open to all the dirty secrets you have hidden away in here." L tapped his finger against the side of his skull.
"Every time you got me angry, I would always think up the best plans afterwards. The angrier I got, the better the plan. You ever felt so motivated that you thought you could do anything? That's how I felt." Raito sighed in a familiar way, like how he normally did after they had sex. "I felt so challenged, like this was something that I could fail at, but at the same time this was something that I could win at too. I put everything I had on the line. I just wanted to beat you so badly. I wanted to win and let you know that despite all the odds set against me, I was still victorious over you. That I was better…"
L let go off the breath he had been unintentionally holding.
Intense, how Raito spoke, it was so intense. L could feel the pores rising on the back of the neck and along his arms. He understood what Raito meant. It would be impossible for him to get this far without knowing exactly what Raito meant.
As driven as he was by his principles, he was a million times more motivated by the challenge this case had posed. Pressure and confrontation, there was never a moment in his career where he felt these things so deeply, so fervently and so passionately that it really no longer was a question of morality when he went after Raito. All the decency and ethics and general goodness of a saint couldn't pull this case up from what it had degraded into, and the speck of integrity that had begun it all – gone! so that in the end the only thing that remained was the two who had started it all and their rather fucked-up feelings for each other.
L pressed his thumb against his front teeth. "I cannot believe how incredibly charming you can still be, even with an unknown amount of Sodium pentothal circulating through your system. That kind of sex appeal makes me wish that it was just the two of us and there was possibly a table in this room."
Raito crossed his legs and smirked at him. "Do we really need the table?"
L rubbed his feet together. "No, but before I start proposing marriage to you, there is one little thing that I would like to know."
"Yes?"
"Where did you hide Misa's notebook?"
A/n: That was a rather strange place to stop. That's probably one of them cliffhangie things that's so popular (unpopular?) with you kids today. I'm being booed right now, I can hear it. Anyway, I was actually going to have this chapter up a whole week earlier, but I got sick, so suckfest. I'll try really hard to get the next chapter up in one week, but if I do not accomplish my goal -- school's rolling around the corner -- then I have simply failed and I will bring it to you the next week. Hm…what kind of lazy promise is that?
1."I heard say to me…" From Canto XXXII, this is where Dante finally enters into the ninth and last circle of hell, where specifically traitors are punished, or those that have a special relationship with the one they betrayed, unlike the merely fraudulent who are punished in the eighth circle. They're frozen in a lake called "Cocytus," and how deep they are depends on what zone they belong to. The first zone of the ninth circle, from which the excerpt is taken, is called Caina, named after Cain. This is where those that have betrayed their kin or family are located.