Point of Succession Chapter 16, a death note fanfic

Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note and I'm not making any money off of this.

Chapter 16

Giovanni walked down the hall, pace brisk enough to be urgent but not so much that he'd raise alarm. And that was key here, considering everything he'd been doing today had been under the radar and well outside San Francisco's jurisdiction.

He didn't pause to knock, walking straight into Naomi's office. "Something came up."

The dark haired woman's head snapped up, regarding the younger officer as if his own head had just popped off. "You're kidding."

Giovanni shook his head, passing her the print off he'd just acquired.

"On a single word alias?" She took the papers, there were only two, completely disbelieving. This could either be incredibly good fortune or a really really bad, sick cosmic joke. Naomi was banking on the latter, things were never that easy. The universe was fond of proving that.

"That's the issue with old aliases," Giovanni said, shutting the office door behind him and taking a seat across from Naomi. "They become known. Your Attach was burned by the yakuza in 99. NPA suspected he'd been working as an informant, leaking confidential information to them."

"We'll we're better than the NPA," she commented blithely. "I need to know for sure." Then she glanced up at him, slightly displeased. "You only have a surname."

"Junko, yes. Minor criminal family, suspected ties to the Yakuza and Russian Mob, nothing proven though."

Naomi's eyebrows rose as she leaned back, reading the short report herself. "Why the hell would the Yakuza burn him if he was working with them?"

"That's where things get interesting."

"I don't like interesting."

Giovanni ignored her. "The Junko family doesn't exist."

Naomi stared at him. "The hell do you mean the family doesn't exist?" she asked, voice dangerously low.

Giovanni leaned forward, resting his arms on his knees, mouth thinned in a line of unease. "I mean there is nothing on anyone by that name. No finger prints, no bank accounts, just a sketchy crime record where he's only suspected of having ties to the organization, not actually participating in the things they do." He took a breath, looking head on at Naomi, gauging her reaction. But there was none, unless utter blankness could be considered emotion. "I contacted an undercover operative," Giovanni continued. "He says Attach started dealing with the Yakuza in 97."

"So they kept his identity a secret after burning him?" Naomi shook her head. That made absolutely no sense. What the hell was the point of a burn if he was revealed to be part of a nonexistent family?

"Last record of him was when he was burned. Naomi, the report says he was only a kid. No more than fifteen."

"1999…" Naomi rummaged through the pages laid out across her desk, murmuring haphazardly to herself as she did so. Before Gi had come in she'd been looking into Sayu Yagami. The girl's history was one gigantic fictional read. Honestly, Naomi had no clue how to girl was still alive, how she hadn't killed herself or at least gone into a psychiatric state of complete unresponsiveness. Teenage girls just didn't come out of a hostage situation whole. 1999 was about the time it had all gone down. But what made even less sense was the yearly runaway report the girl's mother had been filing. The father on the other hand, Soichiro Yagami, couldn't seem to care less, and that was completely out of the man's character, or reputation at least.

Seemed Light had left a lot of family drama in a suitcase at the Japanese airport terminal. Family had some major baggage.

"What are you thinking?" Giovanni leaned forward, trying to read the pages spread over Naomi's desk.

"Sayu was kidnapped by the Yakuza…"

"You think the boy was kidnapped too?"

Naomi honestly didn't know what she was thinking. But there was a connection between Attach and Sayu Yagami. Between Sayu's kidnapping and Attach being burned. There was a connection somewhere in the muddled mess, damn if she wouldn't find it.

Matt walked out of his bedroom and into the "family area" of L's new hotel room. There'd been no explanation for the move, though Matt suspected it had something to do with L's mad dash out the door earlier that morning. Which they still had no explanation for, and that kind of pissed Matt off. L was a fucking vampire, paler than the bright side of the moon. Matt had never even seen the man in direct sunlight. And that was because L didn't do outside.

Unless it was for a case.

So Matt was willing to bet his entire videogame collection Beyond Birthday had been on L's radar hours ago, perhaps even in punching distance. Which meant Mello was on L's radar, and the Detective hadn't said a fucking thing.

Matt had to resist the urge to kick a hole in the wall of L's shiny new hotel room.

The internal hostility plopped down into the leather armchair with Matt. It was only then that he saw the carefully arranged and slightly disturbing place setting laid across the coffee table. He recognized that gun. "Where did you get that?"

The gun in question sat, disassembled lying neatly over a heavy duty, plastic.

"London Homicide." The detective didn't even have the decency to deadpan that response.

"You stole it?" Matt demanded, flabbergast.

"No, he did." L pointed at Light, who was sitting casually beside him at the dining room table.

That was another thing Matt considered kicking the detective over, Yagami's sudden reapperance. Though he quickly rethought the course of action, deeming it unwise as flashes of what happened last time Matt had resorted to physical violence rushed through his head. L had literally handed him his ass.

Near also seemed to be unappreciative of what L had brought home with him. "What is he doing here?" the boy asked, for once sitting on an armchair and not the floor. His tone wasn't accusatory, but the expression leveled in the albino's black eyes was far from inviting.

"Well he has brought us valuable information and he's worked with Beyond in the past," L explained, eyes zoned in on the slice of cake balanced atop his knees. With the precision of a surgeon he speared the icing flower decorating the cake with his fork. "Any scruple I may have previously held for including Mr. Yagami in the investigation has dissipated as I feel time is running out. I also thought, since you think he's working with Beyond, you'd want to keep an eye on him."

Matt couldn't help but glance at the youngest of their investigative team, though one would have to be highly dysfunctional to even consider everything going on as team effort. L was a bastard. Near was suspicious. Yagami was a wild card. And Matt… he merely wanted to firmly embed his boot into the ass of the man footing the room service bill.

"You think I'm working with B?" Light asked, looking across the room at Near. "Good for you," he nodded his head in approval, a faint smirk on his lips.

"How is that good?" Matt, demanded, not that he was really taking the question seriously, he just needed to distract himself from murdering L. It sounded as if Light was mocking Near, but then considering the twerp's declarations, who could blame the man?

"Paranoia," Light chirped, trying and failing ignore L's tongue whipping frosting off the top of his cake. "I've never seen a good detective without it. Even when wrong they're usually right."

L smiled in agreement, or maybe he was just happy to have cake, Matt honestly couldn't tell. "So Near doesn't trust strangers easily, what are you paranoid about Matt?" the Detective inquired.

Pink hair fell into Matt's line of sight as he slouched into the armchair's cushions. "You. I don't trust you right now," Matt admitted tersely. "Where did you go yesterday?"

A glint lit in L's coal black eyes as he stared into Matt's own irises. If the Detective was looking for a staring contest Matt felt more than obliged to deliver. He glared right back at the raven haired man.

"I went to get the gun from Mr. Yagami," L said levelly.

Matt folded his hands across his chest, frowning. "And that warranted running?"

"It's good to remain in shape."

"L, stop it," Light admonished, taking pity on the teen and moving the subject along. "It's not the gun that's important. It's what was inside."

L's stare didn't falter from Matt's visage, but he did pout. "And that the police report conveniently decided to leave out."

"You sure it wasn't deleted?" Matt asked, hacking mind already whirring through the facts.

"I'm fairly certain it was," L stated coolly. "I'll need you to run a full scan of the police database, check for hacks and recently deleted files and then trace it if you can. But before that, take a look," he nodded down at the table where the disassembled gun lay. "Light and I already have it memorized. Do the same."

The underlying lilt of steel present in the detective's voice had Matt looking down. The gray of gunmetal smiled cheerily in the natural light streaming through the skylight above their heads. He wasn't too familiar with firearms, aside from the basic handling procedures. Mello had always been the one to get a hard on looking at the heavy machinery, Matt preferred the non-bloodied approach. Brushing his fingers over the barrel of the gun Matt pulled a neatly rolled piece of paper out from the tip and spread it over the table.

The paper was stiff, stark white against Matt's own knuckle-white hands. Surprisingly he didn't shake as he saw it, the calligraphy perfect B, hideous green ink outlining small, neatly printed words into the twisting shape of the letter. Turning the paper in a circle he read over the short note.

Day Three… 5… 4….

Day Two… 3…2…

Zang, zang, uranium goes boom.

X marks to spot. Here lies M.

Uncertainly Matt looked up at L. "Is this a fucking treasure map? Please tell me we're not going to go digging…" he didn't specify who they'd be digging up, just let the words hang in the air.

But L didn't speak, he just sat, crouching at his seat, steadily nibbling away at his cake.

Light however did answer. "It's a very specific Map," the man commented, eyeing it from where he sat. "I mean it practically tells us where we need to go."

"And where exactly is that? Last I checked London didn't look like the letter B."

The twenty year old laughed bitterly. "B wants us to go to him, that's what the big B is for, the X is where he'll be, which is supposedly where M, who I assume is your kidnapped friend, lies."

Reassuring the information was not, but Matt didn't quite know how to approach the situation. Beyond's newest little puzzle, though simple on the surface, was a bit out of his intellectual range the deeper he read into it. He just wished someone would come up and say they'd find Mello alive, that this wasn't the last clue, that they weren't just being jerked around by Beyond sticky strings.

"He's very arrogant, isn't he?" Near had folded himself over in his chair, sitting cross-legged with his elbows resting on his ankles, chin in his hands. The chair dwarfed the boy's small frame, but his voice was incredibly assured.

"He thinks he can play with me like this, of course he's arrogant," L quipped.

"I meant the constant "B"s," Near clarified. "He's signed everything with his first initial. The sheer amount of pride he's shown in his work is overbearing, if not nauseating. Frankly, it has me confused, more than this immature note does."

Well, Wammy Boy Number One was having trouble with the note too. He must have been channeling Mello's spirit because Matt would be lying if he didn't feel a slight inkling of vindictiveness to see Near struggle with something for once.

God he wanted Mell back…

"Talk to Light," L droned emotionlessly. "He wrote the profile." And then the Detective drew back into his thinking shell, shutting himself behind an invisible wall of impenetrable thought.

Near faced his chosen adversary head on, face blanker than a sheet of paper. "The last crime scene was rather tame in my opinion, especially for a man of Birthday's tastes. He crowned the body with his name but no one was there to see it. No one saw it. He locked the corpse in a basement away from public eye. We and the police were the only ones to see his work. It seems out of character for someone that likes calling attention to himself."

"Yes… I'd say it was hard for him," Light agreed placidly. "Even when speaking with him he's theatrical, you see it in the sound of his voice, his over exaggerated movements. He would've made for a great Shakespearean actor," he smiled shortly, the expression barely reaching the corner of his lips. It disturbed Matt, but he kept his mouth shut.

"The first scene was incredibly public," Light went on. "And the sheer amount of blood was eye catching enough. The last one, it was quiet. Muted. It doesn't fit his profile."

"Which means someone told him off for making such a scene the first time," Near concluded as if it were the only thing to be gained from the information.

Matt on the other hand, was a little less convinced. "Because it's out of character that's what you think?" he retorted, staring at Near incomprehensibly. "How do you know he's not just trying to throw us off? Hell, does it even matter? That girl is dead already and we have a note in front of us point towards another potential victim!"

"And there's a possibility Beyond has an accomplice," Near argued. "Is that not also important?"

"It's not when it's just a theory!" Matt shot back. "Where the hell is the proof?"

Near opened his mouth to respond but L cut him off through a mouthful of cake. "Matt is right Near, you need more proof, but I like the theory. It would make sense."

"It also means that his next target's going to be bigger, more public," Light interjected pensively. "He won't stay lying down, in fact, chances are he'll be acting out with this one, if he does indeed have an accomplice."

L nodded his head, fork in his mouth. "Yes, I suppose that inferiority complex you tagged him with would spur that type of response."

"No," Light shook his head. "He'd do it just for the fun of it."

L glowered slightly. Maybe it was something inherent to all Wammy children, or just the ridiculously intelligent in general, but L did not like being told he was wrong. Although something else was present in the Detective's frown, something a little less bitter and possibly more… sad.

"Great," Matt snapped. "The man's one twisted fuck job. Now what's with the map? It say's M is here," he pointed to the elegant X dotting the top right corner of the paper, eyeing the letter as if it were radioactive. "Where the fuck is there?"

"There is the end of the countdown."

Silence met L's bluntness.

The words bounced against Matt's emotional shield, but he held up, observing nothing more than a hefty crack in his mental defenses. Proof was now in front of him, and ignoring something didn't make it go away. Ignoring the obvious did not make the obvious any less noticeable, just harder to bear. L had just proven that, and in an irritatingly matter of fact tone. Only four numbers wound across the page, defining the outline of the letter "B" and ending with two. Simple, and yet it was frustratingly difficult to comprehend. "M" was at the end of the countdown, end of the countdown meant the end. Matt's mind, however logical, rebelled against the notion, green eyes churning violently.

Mello. Wasn't. Dead.

At least not yet.

"Is the note all the information we have?" Near asked. The boy was regarding Matt placidly from across the room, expression less hardened, though still lacking in anything resembling human emotion. "Last time there were also particles on the victim."

"Forensics says we've nothing like that here," Light said. "Plus, I checked the body, there was nothing aside from the bruising, which I'm pretty sure says nothing about his next target."

"So all we've got is a cryptic map with a literal deadline. That's not very reassuring."

'You think?' Matt couldn't help but think. "From when though? When does the countdown start?" If the countdown started the very day they'd found the hanging body Mello was dust in the wind, that was one percentage L could calculate all he wanted and it'd still come out at one hundred. However, Matt had a feeling the seconds had started ticking off the moment L had ran from the hotel room.

"Today, the day we found the note, it starts today." L made a particularly obnoxious slurping sound around his cake, which apparently had ice cream in it, eliciting an exasperated glare from Light.

"And what makes you so sure?" Light gave the raven haired man's ice cream an indecipherable expression, mouth thinning as L's tongue continued to make alien noises.

Aside from that L didn't answer.

Suddenly Matt found himself a new mantra. 'I will not stab my boss…I will not stab my boss…I will not stab my boss…' Calling every amount of zen his chakras were capable of at that moment Matt took a deep breath. He'd let L get away with it, acknowledging the fact that L wasn't unzipping his lips and he was going to have to hack into the city street camera system in order to follow the man's earlier movements. So long as Watari hadn't erased them yet.

"Near, I would like you to create a profile and collect any further evidence supporting your accomplice theory. I'm intrigued." Okay, so L was opening his mouth but it wasn't divulge information, only orders. "Matt, I already told you what I want you to do. Mr. Yagami - "

"Is not a student and therefore will not be taking your lead," Light smiled cheerily at L.

"No, but I am the one signing your paycheck," L fired back without blinking.

Light's smile didn't even falter. "What do you think you are, my sugar daddy?"

"You're moving into the hotel room."

"I am not!"

Matt's head volleyed back and forth between the bickering duo. If he didn't know any better he'd say the two of them were flirting. Shaking his head, he stood and left the room in search of Watari. Clearly, the conversation was over and they weren't going to be discussing Mello.

Matt found the older man in the security lounge, which was in fact, a lounge. A chandelier, crystals shinning dimly in the low lighting being emitted from the candle shaped bulbs, was suspended from the high ceiling, almost as large as Matt himself. Against the far wall, television monitor after television monitor was freshly mounted, the disarming scent of plaster still hanging in the room's air conditioned atmosphere. L had definitely upped the ante in terms of tech and it only cemented Matt's conclusion that Beyond had contacted the detective. The added security, which left Matt unable to even take a piss without having a camera shoved into his face… and on other areas of his body. Beyond Birthday was the only reason for it.

L's suspicion that the countdown B had so playfully left behind had begun that morning further supported the theory. Only one event had taken place then and that was L running as if Death's cute, psychotic hellhounds were yipping for his ankles. Most likely scenario, B had called L and the detective had ran after the fucking cunt. It was an idiot move in Matt's opinion, the image of Beyond's body contorting at odd angles, crawling towards him across a dust covered floor, the man seemingly a very extension of the basement's darkness, it was a picture Matt wasn't going to be losing anytime soon. For L to go running towards that without informing anyone, it was stupidity in its finest form. Worse, it showed the detective was still being pulled around by B, like a lost dog on a leash, L had no fucking clue what he was doing. Unless he was doing a very professional job of making it look like he'd no clue what was going on in Beyond's mind.

The teenager threw himself into one of the tall backed swivel chairs that surrounded the round, oak conference table beneath the chandelier. Two love seats and a few arm chairs also shared the room with the table, but they were currently covered in wires and an array of technological devices that would have both Steve Jobs and Steve Ballmer drooling. Watari didn't seem to mind the mess though as he sat at the table, positioned directly opposite Matt, carefully observing the youth over a stack of files laid across the wood.

"Was it B?"

Watari's patient smile evaporated instantly at the mention of Wammy's second failure, but the elder man held Matt's gaze. "Did you not ask L?"

"He didn't answer. Smoke, mirrors, look anywhere but here, he evaded the question by hitting on Yagami."

Matt withheld a chuckle at the screwy expression that flitted across Watari's face for a second. Perhaps that wasn't something you were supposed to tell L's mentor, but it added some levity to the conversation.

"And will Mr. Yagami be staying with us?" The question came out surprisingly smooth for the rapid paling of Watari's complexion.

Matt snorted. "No sane individual would want to stay with L, but I doubt L is going to let him leave, and if he does it won't be unattended."

"Are L's intentions towards Mr. Yagami pure?"

It was Matt's turn to blanch and Watari laughed gruffly, causing Matt's cheeks to flush a shade of red equal to his past hair color. Talk about cheap payback. That was so not something Matt needed to be thinking about. But he had to hand it to the old man, he knew how to play.

"You're better than L at evading questions." Matt called the bluff. The acting had been flawless, the elderly man's shock believable, if only for a second. But Matt knew better. When the individual occupying the same air space as you was a trained assassin, who also spent his time in a basement perfecting baby bottles, you paid attention. He kept his countenance blank, not emotionless, simply without the telling signs of distress. Picture perfect contentment and a healthy dose of one lazy ass sat over Matt's expression as he stared down L's mentor and pulled a PS2 from his pocket.

"Who do you think taught L?" Watari grinned.

Matt chuckled, swinging his legs to land on the table and engaging an alien in combat, Watari's brows scrunching together slightly at the display. "Good point, but I still want to know, was it B?"

Watari closed the files open before him, neatly placing them in a leather briefcase equipped with a thumb print scanner. Sensitive material, Matt's curiosity perked at the ears, but he held it at bay.

"I believe it was."

Four words and once more Matt was bottling his anger. That was the kind of information one shared with the class, even if their class was a bunch of degenerates in comparison to L's own intellect. He folded his arms irately over his chest, green eyes darkening to the blackness of a forest that never saw sunlight, fury polluting the irises. If he only knew what to fucking do, what kind of shit L was trying to pull. But it all came down to something rather simple. Resources, L had them, Matt didn't. Matt was nothing but a number three slot, barely good enough to be the Padawan Learner to L's mighty Jedi Powers. Thus, he didn't get a shiny piece of plastic like Near and Mello to spend on whatever he fancied. What he did have was a steel toed boot ready to be shoved into areas of L's body one didn't talk about in polite society.

He hated being at the detective's mercy. More so however, he hated the complete lack of trust L was displaying. L had never met Beyond, had never so much as spoken to the man. Matt had, and they were memories Matt tried very hard to repress. Matt was familiar with Beyond and Matt damn sure knew Mello. He could read the blonde like an open book. Common sense dictated Matt's knowledge to be a valuable resource, and thus, if L were a reasonable human being, L would share his intel with Matt, then maybe they'd find Mello before the blonde was a lost thought decomposing at the bottom of the Thames.

The silence of Matt's anger was stagnant. Watari took it in stride, leaving the boy to his musings, allowing Matt to make sense of the situation at hand.

"He used to hide under my bed when I was little," Matt said finally, his words softly muted. The anger in his eyes had dulled some. Watari wasn't the one he was angry with. Though a nice helping of blame could be placed atop the man's shoulders, Matt wasn't going to crucify the Wammy's House founder. It would be unproductive and a little stupid.

You didn't insult the man who prepared your food, especially when his chemistry expertise extended beyond the world's most harmful, yet non lethal, poisons. That was one case of diarrihea Matt was not too keen on.

Watari glanced down at the desk, his lips thinning in what Matt assumed was shame, but the shadow that fell over the gentleman's face made any emotion hard to distinguish. "Yes, I remember Roger telling me about it."

"I hit him with a baseball bat one night and the next day he tried to smother me with a pillow," Matt stated matter of factly, the memory set apart from his actual recollections, as if it were something that had happened to another kid, in another country. It wasn't personal. It didn't affect him.

Disassociation made acceptance so much easier.

"Roger said you were having a pillow fight."

Matt scoffed, denial like that was beautiful, if not concerning. "Roger says a lot of things. X told A when he heard B and I screaming. A came in and tried to strangle B with a friggen yo-yo, I remember the thing lit up like a spastic firework. Those two were whack jobs Watari. They spent five minutes trying to kill each other, but they did so with a smile on their faces. They were enjoying it. Fuck, they laughed. Did Roger tell you that?"

"Matt…"

But Matt didn't want to hear it. He was on a roll, and the venting train of repressed anger chugged on, full speed ahead. "Do you remember when X was adopted?"

Watari opened his mouth, intent on answering, but Matt was faster.

"You wouldn't," he shook his head, pink locks falling cynically before his face. "You weren't there." The words were abrasive, like sandpaper rubbing against the inside of Watari's throat, not at all the way Matt had been intending to speak to the man who'd sponsored him through eighteen years of life. Funnily enough though, he couldn't bring himself to care. "She told me when she left it was the best thing that had ever happened to her. She knew she didn't have what it took to be L. And staying would've killed her, if A or B didn't spill her blood first. X wasn't anywhere in the realm of intelligence A and B occupied. She was happy about being adopted."

Strange, if he didn't care about what he was saying why the hell couldn't he look Watari in the eye? The man had taken a back seat in this entire debacle, B's newest string of murders, half the time Matt forgot he was even there. Yet, Watari was at the center of it all. Was Beyond Birthday not the man's responsibility? Was Mello, who was set to graduate that very year, not Watari's responsibility? Did they mean nothing to the man? Was he, and every other kid sleeping in a bed under the Wammy's House roof, nothing more than a piece of play-dough, poked and prodded with deductions, equations, criminal profiles, and IQ tests until they took the shape of L?

Matt couldn't say Watari's silence was helping his case any.

"When A committed suicide, B… he lost it."

Watari glanced up, eyes wide, but there was little regret in them and it punctured Matt's heart. "That I was there for."

"Yeah, a week after Roger's persistent begging," said Matt, tone even, noncommittal. The level, normalcy with which he was speaking surprised the teen, he applauded himself for that, even if the mental clapping was done to the bitterest of music. He was however punching the PS2 buttons harder than was necessary. "And then you kept him in a nice little padded room for ten months, nurses and quacking doctors going in, all confident, and five minutes later committing themselves to their own institutions. I may have only been seven but I still saw it, wasn't like there was much else for me to do."

"You weren't old enough to participate in classes."

"And that makes what I saw all right?" Was the man even capable of admitting culpability?

Watari sighed, aging twenty years instantly as he sagged into the chair. Apparently he did shoulder guilt, it just wasn't they brand Matt was looking for. Matt would never understand the man sitting before him and he really wouldn't ever want to.

"He's coming after you," Matt informed his elder. Not that he thought that little tidbit had escaped Watari's notice. But it needed to be voiced, maybe then the man would understand. "He blames you."

The response Matt got was not the one he expected.

"As he should, as you should, as A should." Watari straitened in his seat, grandfatherly smile gracing his visage. The mask the wolf wore when hiding amongst the sheep. "X was right. Wammy's doesn't offer a life of salvation, only select students can manage the atmosphere, the education, the pressure of living up to their own intelligence."

It made sense. In an all too destructive way, it made sense.

"I don't blame you," Matt assured, though Watari apparently needed no assurance whatsoever. He didn't know why, but he honestly couldn't bring himself to blame the man for everything that had happened. He wasn't some Holden Caulfield wannabe, he wasn't going to sit and bitch about the unfairness of life. There'd only been once core lesson to the Wammy curriculum, and it was simple to say, comprehension of it, however, was much more complex: Life wasn't fair. "But you're wrong. The first generation, you fucked that up."

"Language!" Watari snapped instantly, as if the admonishment were a reflex.

Matt shrugged sheepishly, internally balking over the notion that that was all Watari had to say to him. "And the professors, they put as through a lot of sh…" Matt caught himself at Watari's warning look. Suddenly something was very off about this conversation. "…stuff, they put us through a lot of stuff. But mine is the first generation where no one's tried to off themselves or run away. Speaks of progress."

"You're saying you have faith in me?"

"I'm saying I understand what you're trying to do. But we're still children, kids, immature hedonistic little beasts. Add on to that we've more IQ points than we know what to do with. A and B failed, epically, X got adopted, Y and Z… they did something with bio-terrorism I think. But compared to L, they amounted to nothing. What was the big difference between the way you raised them and the way you cared for L?"

And suddenly, Watari's smile was genuine, and heartbreaking. Holy hell was it sad, as the point of Matt's diatribe sank into the very air they were breathing.

"Would it absolutely, fucking kill you to come home more than you normally do?" Matt asked, eyes shining with what he refused to acknowledge as unshed tears. Tears that would not fall for Mello, for X, for A, hell even for Beyond fucking Birthday and L who had no fucking last name. Anguish for himself and a childhood that was too screwed up for words. And then there was the hope, an insidious little drop of hope that maybe Watari would make it all better. God knew Rodger had no fucking clue what he was doing as headmaster.

There was no answer from Watari though, so Matt got up, intent on leaving Watari with a newly uncovered burden, compliments of the shit Matt had just unloaded.

"Matt…" the voice came softly, but with a hint of a smile. "Language"

Matt bowed his head as he stopped at the door, a faint grin on his own lips, holding the PS2 up in salute. "Blame it on all the video games rotting my mind from the inside out. L does."

L glanced at the door adjoining his room to Watari's. No matter the country, no matter the city, no matter the hotel, L's room was always adjacent to Watari's and there would always be a door in between the two, one which could be opened on either end. Even at Wammy's House, when L had been a child, there had only been plaster and fluffy, pink insulation to separate him from the man who'd saved him from the boredom. Watari had been his salvation from the lull, calling him, even at a painfully young age, calling him to the knife which brought excitement, the only prescription his mind prescribed to alleviate the boredom. Watari had saved him. L would not let B take that away from him. He wouldn't let B have the elderly man, he wouldn't let anything happen to Watari, not even a paper cut. L was fairly certain that if Watari sliced the pad of his forefinger on a trifling piece of paper Beyond would have been the one who handed him the paper, and from it, somehow, B would lend the older man a flesh eating disease which would consume Quillish Wammy from the inside out. From a single cut B would commit murder.

The amount of paranoia it took for L to concoct such a nightmarish fantasy was a talent L rather prided. It also warranted the construction of tin foil hats and a security system that would've made the Secret Service jealous, but that was beside the point. L wasn't going to allow Beyond anywhere near his mentor.

But how to prevent it, that was hard to determine when L had yet to grasp the plot Beyond was writing. Everyone was nothing more than a character in Beyond's little black notebook of pain and cruelty, and he was one sadistic author. L was past feeling the anger of his situation, instead he just felt cold, empty, and tired. Only days had passed and already he was tired.

He needed a break.

Spinning idly in his chair, the room blurring as his feet propelled him in dizzying circles, his nose twitched. The scent of burning flesh rolled in soft clouds of gray through the hallway door and into L's bedroom. L, surprisingly, didn't actually know what burning flesh smelled like, but he imagined it to be similar to the noxious odor migrating into his bedroom. And then L realized what he was smelling wasn't precisely normal. He was up and out of his room in a heartbeat. It wouldn't do to have just moved into a new hotel only to have Matt or worse, Near, burn the place down.

Foreseeing the need for a fire extinguisher, L darted into the kitchen only to skid to a halt at the sight which greeted his eyes.

"Uhh…" L stared as Light Yagami beat the crap out of the kitchen stove with a charred oven mitt.

At least nothing was on fire.

Light turned and instantly blushed, for once the actual emotions he felt showing on his visage. "Hey L…" he started awkwardly, eyes not quite meeting the detective's face.

Internally, L chuckled at the sight, the word adorable instantly springing to mind. Really, all the scene was missing was a gingham apron, maybe in cherry red… Snapping his mind off that particular, and rather dangerous, trail of thought, L grabbed the oven glove off Light's hand and with it quickly removed the pot from the stove's burning, coil surface, switching the stove off in the process.

"What, may I ask, are you doing?"

Light faltered, embarrassment shining in his widened, frazzled eyes. "Iwasmakingsmores."

L paused. "Excuse me?"

"I was making smores," Light reiterated, slowly, as if he had to force the words from his throat.

Smores. Melted marshmallow and chocolate sandwiched between two graham crackers. L's mind immediately supplied the information regarding the snack. It was easy to make, ridiculously easy actually. Making the treat barely even qualified as cooking. How the hell did someone mess up smores?

L voiced the question to Light and it brought a frown back to the younger male's face. "The marshmallows wouldn't melt!" he protested. "And then they just burned!" Light threw his hands at the countertop, skin smacking against marble in frustration.

L couldn't help it. He laughed. Light Yagami, the picture of perfection, immaculate, poised, and incredibly confident could not make a campfire treat. The notion warranted a fair amount of humor in L's opinion, the murderous look Light was shooting L however said otherwise.

"It's not funny."

L was quick to disagree. "On the contrary, it is quite comical. And would be more so if the scent of burning sugar and whatever else the hell you threw in that pot were not so debilitating."

Light blinked, glanced back at the countertop where the pot with the charred marshmallow innocently sat, and then glanced back at L. The urge to hit the Detective over the head with the thing was communicated telepathically and L relented, if only for the sake of his brain cells which would die at the onslaught of head trauma. Taking the pot out of Light's grabbing range he deposited it into the sink.

"Would Light like me to show him how a smore is made?" L asked.

Light did not miss the fact that he was still being mocked. "No thank you," he clipped. "It would defeat the purpose if you did anyway."

L's brow furrowed. "What was the purpose?"

Embarrassment and annoyance easing away as he leaned against the countertop, Light straightened. "You missed dinner," he stated simply. "And with your appetite, it was about time for you to be getting grumpy. No one wants to deal with you when you're grumpy."

Well that was unexpected. Though any explanation for why Light, who's only edible vice was caffeinated and took an average of five minutes to be made, would be compelled to make a sticky, sugar high inducing snack would have been beyond L's logic, this was not what he'd anticipated.

"Did you draw the short straw?" L ventured, still unsure if what he'd heard had been correct.

Light rolled his eyes. "No, unlike you and your children, I was raised with a basic set of manners. I was doing you a favor."

"I fail to see how burning down my kitchen would be doing me a favor."

Light threw a marshmallow at L's head, which the raven haired man deftly caught and popped in his mouth. Exasperated, Light began cleaning up the mess he'd made, which to L seemed to have required an extreme amount of energy if all the man had been doing was melting marshmallows.

Brushing broken graham cracker bits into the trash, Light admitted, "I've never really cooked before. Most of my meals come from takeout menus."

L stepped to the side and began gathering the marshmallows, which seemed to have happily exploded from the bag, and placing them into a bowl. "Light must really do well at the FBI to be able to afford such."

The profiler in question scoffed. "Why else would I put up with you?"

"Oh, so Light is only working for me to advance his career, it all makes perfect sense now," L declared, pulling back a drawer and removing a box of shish kabob sticks.

"Of cour… What are you doing?" Light paused in his cleaning, watching as L began to spear the marshmallows with the thin sticks.

Popping another piece of white fluff into his mouth L couldn't help but smile. "It truly does amaze me that Light has no idea how to do this. Here," he handed a stick to Light and produced a lighter. "Normally one would do this at a fireplace, but for conveniences sake we'll work with what we've got."

Abnormally quite, Light watched as L flicked the lighter on and the grasped his hand, directing the marshmallow into the flame. The candy sponge browned within the heat, the acute smell of burning sugar, much more pleasant than the fumes Light had produced earlier, wafted off the stick. Pulling the marshmallow back, both men watched as the white surface puckered, bubbling against the heat and turning into a blackened char. Quickly, L blew out the flame, leaving a trail of smoke to float off into Light's face.

"Now," L instructed, picking up a graham cracker and a piece of chocolate, "You place the marshmallow onto a cracker and with the chocolate and then take another cracker and sandwich it in between, which allows you to slide the thing off of the stick."

"Why are you doing this?" Light asked, staring at L as he removed the stick from Light's smore.

"Because it is utterly pathetic that you do not know how to make a smore."

Affronted, Light took his hands away from L, who for some reason seemed reluctant to let go. Carefully he examined the stack of gooey, stickiness. Chocolate melted down the side of the cracker, warmly dripping over his fingers. With a grimace he licked the sweetness from the appendage. L could only stare.

"It's cute too," he said suddenly, completely foregoing shame and professionalism.

"Excuse me?" Light stammered.

L's lips twisted into a smile that was utterly genuine and slightly childish and he moved in. He didn't know what made him do it. Stress, libido, or maybe the need to just feel something other than anger and helplessness, the need to be in control of something, not that he could ever fully control an individual such as Light Yagami, but he tried anyway.

Gripping the younger man's wrist, he didn't wait for a response, he simply captured Light's lips with his own, plunging his tongue into the shocked mouth beneath him.

The smore crumbled as Light tensed, fist crushing the treat and mirroring the sudden feeling of Light's brain imploding. Fuck he had better be hallucinating because there was no way L's tongue was in his mouth, massaging against his own, and damn if it wasn't good.

Stumbling, Light's back hit the marble counter, arching against it as L maneuvered his body against Light's. He wound his other arm around the twenty year old's trim waste, simultaneously pulling Light against him while pushing into him. Clothing rumpled, L relished the feeling of Light's hand combing into his own ragged locks of hair dragging his face closer to Lights, their mouths pressing closer together.

It was seconds, of frivolous release, of self abandon, of unyielding heat racing down L's spine. It was good. Too good, just one simple kiss and he was losing the ability to coherently think. And that had never been the plan.

'Fucking stupid idea,' his mind thought. But his body, his tongue, they were completely separate from that thought, moving into Light, grasping for the other male as if he were a life line, something precious that could slip away. And maybe that was it. Light wasn't his. But goddamn he wanted the boy to be.

Light gasped as L nipped against his lower lip, the sensation engulfing his body in a thin layer of fire, icy enough to raise goose bumps yet maddeningly hot. It was like bathing in dry ices. Searing, cold, heated, and ultimately filled with a pleasurable smokiness.

L's grip lessened, but he didn't pull away. Light was left blinking and panting as L's lips gently moved their way down his neck, fingers appearing from nowhere and pulling at the collar of his shirt. Light's head moved back, resting against the cabinets mounted to the kitchen wall and L licked, nipped, and sucked, and breathed. The detective took in the scent that was Light Yagami, lungs and heart constricting against it in contentment. Blinking, L glanced up at Light, taking in the ruffled, shocked, and pleasurable emotions shining in the man's eyes.

Yes, this was very bad indeed.

He was beautiful, stunning, even in florescent lighting which made everyone look pale and sickly, Light was perfection. And tainted. L could feel it, he'd kissed it, opened it up. He refused to look at it, but the scar was there.

One more thing he needed to save from B.

Sighing, he rested his forehead against Light's shoulder, their forms relaxing into each other. But neither said a word. Eventually they both ended up on the floor, backs against the countertop, leaning against each other. L's arm was still tangled around Light's waste, Light's own wound around the Detective's neck. Both were picking at the remnants of the crushed smore cemented via marshmallow to Light's palm.

"Tell me about your work with Beyond." L didn't know why he was whispering, but something had him keeping his voice down low.

Lips quirking up at the sides, Light's head lolled against L's boney shoulder. He'd been waiting for that. "You have the report, don't you?" he asked, popping a graham cracker bit between his lips.

"I've memorized it," L stated tonelessly. "But I wish to learn more."

"What more could there possible be?"

'You creating a deranged plot with a murdering lunatic involving prison escape, kidnapping, murder, and a good amount of intrigue…' Bleak as the thought was, L couldn't help it. Blame the tin foil hat he wore. The ties between Light and Beyond, L couldn't help but feel they were strong, stronger perhaps than even Light wanted to admit. He'd seen video of the pair's meetings, listened to recordings, and he wasn't lying when he said he'd memorized Light's thesis. Light knew Beyond in a way L didn't. The relationship, which had developed in only a matter of weeks, was distinctly personal. And somewhere in B's plot, in the story unfolding which had Watari and Mello's fates hanging in the balance, somewhere Light stood. Maybe not at the center of things, but his orbital position was pretty damn close.

L's arm tightened around Light's waste. Subconscious or conscious, L wasn't sure which the movement was.

"I would've been happier with a month long interview," Light said finally, in answer to the question.

L nodded. "I saw the request. In fact, I was the one who denied it."

He felt Light's muscles tense, but otherwise no emotion presented itself in the younger male's face. "That's unsurprising."

"Beyond was enjoying it too much," L informed steadily. "He was in prison, he wasn't supposed to enjoy anything."

"That was my fault," Light admitted. "I was young, naïve, I wanted him to trust me. Becoming his friend seemed to be the only way."

"And is that all you were? Friends?"

"Jealous?" Light quirked a brow, smirking.

L returned the smirk, pulling at the marshmallow clinging to Light's finger tips and winding it around his own. "Maybe. It would compromise the case if you and Beyond had ever been romantically involved."

"The case is already compromised," Light deadpanned.

L pouted, sucking the sticky, white substance of his finger. "Light is evading my question."

"Light is evading your question because the question is in fact, absolutely ridiculous."

"How so?"

Light turned, looking straight into L's endlessly black orbs, and smiled. "If there is one thing Beyond Birthday does not handle well, it is rejection."

A/N: Yeah, I do fluff too.