The entirety of the day has been in preparation for this moment, and so, of course, when you get inside the apartment everything starts moving unutturably slowly. You can feel a twisting knot low in your stomach, and you can barely think about anything else, wanting to snap at Ryuzaki, "hurry up"—but that would bring across the entirely wrong impression. You aren't here to merely 'get this over with.' At least—Ryuzaki can't feel that way.
As to what you feel… this is what needs to happen, you remind yourself. If I don't act now, the moment will pass. If the task force stumbles on the Third Kira's pattern… if Aizawa makes a fuss about the lack of surveillance on your floor… there are so many possibilities, slim though they may be, that will stop your plans short before they've played out. If you are to be a new version of yourself, someone whom Ryuzaki relies on completely, you need to back it with an undeniable symbolism that he won't be able to disregard.
Sex.
Despite your general disinterest in the matter, you're fully aware that it's a pivotal symbol in the human language. Touch, unreliant on words. Vulnerability and power. Loyalty, love; any one of these things and all of them are embedded into the collective consciousness surrounding this act. To cast everything into different perspective, such an act is necessary; to create a transformation that revolves around his perception of yourself. He doesn't believe in your truthfulness, your motives?
Okay, fine. He doesn't have to believe it. Not intellectually. He only has to feel it. He only has to want to.
Ryuzaki drops your phone onto the console table in the hall, and you walk through the main room toward the bedroom; but before you get there, Ryuzaki takes a sudden detour toward the kitchen.
"You're having a snack right now?" you ask, as he grabs the entire fruit basket in his arms.
"No, this is for later," Ryuzaki says.
"...Okay. Sure." You push the door open for him, and he wanders over to the round table and deposits the basket next to his closed computer. Then he drags you over to his bedside table, poking around in one of the drawers before pulling out a short length of rope.
"Something simple should be sufficient," he says, wrapping it thoughtfully around his hand for a moment. Then he glances over at you. "How about, hands behind your back, and we use the usual strap for your feet?"
"Taking the handcuff off?"
He nods.
"Sure, that works."
You walk over to the bathroom with him trailing behind you, and grab the strap that hangs from the hook by the door, before moving back into the center of the room. The overhead lights are on, on a dimmer, and the curtains are still open from this morning. Faintly, outside, the night glitters.
You lean down, attach the leather strap around your feet, and then Ryuzaki pulls the key from his pocket and takes the long handcuff off of you, and then himself, coiling it in a faintly shining pile on the floor.
For a second, you're struck by the distance between you; more than six feet, it seems almost uncalculable. Then Ryuzaki turns back, walks toward you with the rope in his hand.
He stops for a moment, just looking at you, and you meet his gaze boldly. Then you pull your shirt above your head and throw it onto the bed.
An expert in this art would've taken his time. Turned the undressing into its own act of seduction. You aren't pretending to be anything but who you are, the brutal honesty your guard against his suspicion. We might be playing games, L, but I want this.
Do you? his look seems to reply.
"Are you planning to stand there all night?" you ask. "Or are you admiring the view?"
Ryuzaki rolls his eyes. "Ah, light of my life, if I were to extoll your virtues we'd never get moving."
You groan at the pun, and he chuckles, stepping around to your back to tie your wrists together in a loose but firm knot. You test it, when he lets go, trying to force your arms apart; but, though you strain, you can't break it. Just as effective as handcuffs, then.
"Nothing's pinching?" he asks.
"No, it's all good," you assure him.
"Hm." He holds your arm, then, and shoves you forward, and you half-fall, recognizing he's trying to get you onto the ground. Kneeling again.
Ryuzaki, you're nothing if not predictable.
"Such eyes," Ryuzaki says, offhandedly. "I'm fond of them, but I think in this case…" he walks back over to his bedside table and you crane your neck to watch him as he pulls out a blindfold visor, "they'll have to be covered up."
He walks back to you, and standing in front of you, tilts your chin with one hand. Not a grab, but a gesture that you need to move with in order to play this game.
One more time, you remind yourself. I'm doing this because it's necessary. I will be completely believable. This time, he won't catch me in a lie.
He slides the visor over your eyes.
"All right?" L asks.
"Yeah," you say quietly. There are no sights anymore, only that shadow in which his voice cuts. L stands up, walks a few steps away and comes back with something else, a smooth, flat strap. It shivers against your skin as he winds it around your chest, over your back, holding it there for the barest instant without tying it, before sliding it slowly away.
You force yourself to let go. To linger in the sensations, to cast away your strategies—this is not the time for any of that.
When L lets go of the flat strap, it catches the edge of your nipples for an instant and then falls, curling, down to your lap. Carefully, he picks it up again, laying it horizontally against your ribs, cool and slow. Barely letting his fingers brush your skin.
But you can feel the presence of him. When he takes the strap once more and wraps it around your waist; lets it open to fall around your hips, your breath catches.
"Okay?" L asks quietly.
"Okay," you say, and he rests his fingers against your hip. A burn without pressure. Dangerous.
You want to struggle, to pull yourself away and crawl out of the room, out of the apartment, out of your skin until you become something that doesn't need to think anymore; you want to erase from memory the way you sway toward him as though in need. Your momentum is bound, drawing only round him like even blind the gravity-wells of his eyes make you spiral.
At the end of it is death.
He sighs.
Stands up, and you can hear the shift of weight, the zipper on his jeans being pulled down, a cap being opened and the faint slide of lotion into his hand. It's not the first time you've heard L masturbating. It's not even the second. But there's something different about this, about being here in front of him, unable to see a thing. He's standing close, you can tell, and it's not the minute sounds, slippery and ragged, but something about the way that bit back gasp seems to echo, as trapped as though in its own well; and then his hand in your hair. The pad of his right thumb brushing against your forehead, back into your hair, taking a firm grip, and he pulls down gently. You follow the motion.
As though in a vacuum, for a moment—a pure nothing. And then, wet and hot, the feel of his release clumping in your hair and down your neck, sliding against your skin leaving goosebumps behind.
"Okay?" L asks quietly. The word seems to travel in over unalterable distances. You want to speak but you're afraid, if you open your mouth, that the words will be lost in the desert between you, so you only shake your head, yes. Your skin buzzes.
He bends down, presses his hand against your wrist for a small moment, and then against your ankles. After a moment he stands back up, and for a second he's not touching you at all; the suddenness, after so much presence, like a shock. You think you make a noise of frustration; at what you aren't quite sure. But. You know…
You can't tell what he's doing or how he's watching you, he is as remote as the camera had been back in confinement; remote and all-encompassing. Pitiless.
And you can feel the tightness against your pants, so hard it's almost pain.
Yes, I thought this might happen—
No; you had planned for it.
This is all going according to plan.
You remind yourself of that again. Hold onto the thought against the stickiness dripping down you, against yourself.
Hiss when he brushes against your crotch, the lightest butterfly-press at first, and you bite your lip. He moves slowly, with infinite patience, and you don't at first become aware of the dissonance that through proprioception he still seems to be standing. And yet—touching you?
As though barely.
As though.
Then, you feel that pressure slightly more, the shape in movement, and—
He's getting you off with his foot.
Your cheeks burn. The stickiness on your hair and neck prickling. You're flooded with shame like wine, warm and overpowering; L will stand above you, touching you like the most unclean of things.
You're not sure how you managed to avoid it thus far; feeling. Perhaps you really had traveled through the vastness of the galaxy in order to hide in its shadows. But, now, you are kneeling on the floor, your knees aching, your hands pulling tightly at implacable ropes, and you are caught captive below him, a common criminal.
Kira. L.
Oh, your hatred of him fills the inside of your mouth. It is in the ache of your thighs and the heaving struggle of your breath, the solid soiled nearness. I like you more now that you're broken.
Did you beg for this? Did you see the evidence of his depravity and ask to be debased, because you couldn't get enough? Isn't it enough that you've done everything you've ever been asked—when society cast you as a killer, didn't you give it all up? And smile?
Of course you did! And now, he presses his toes against you while you lean forward, rutting like a beast.
The tightness in your throat rises along with the wound pressure. The insides of your body burn like acid. Even moving isn't enough; even this moment.
When you orgasm it's with the sense of inevitability; and you shake your way through it feeling a transient calm, like the eye of a storm.
He waits. You can hear him sit down on the ground before you, and he waits while you pull your breaths together into a steady line, until you open your mouth. "Jam," you say.
He leans quickly past you and unties your hands in a bare second, and you reach up and pull off the visor, blinking in the light.
"What do you need?" Ryuzaki says.
"I… I don't know."
"Do you want space?"
You almost laugh at the irony; space? I have too damn much of it.
"No."
He sits next to you while you move your position, bringing your bound feet in front of you so you're sitting with your knees up; and he presses against your side, holds out his hand and carefully rubs feather-touches along your wrists. They are covered with twisting whorls, barely-there marks pressed into your skin, and you can feel the texture the ropes had left against you like embedded memory.
After a bit, he says, "Is it all right if I get up and get you something to eat, Light-kun?"
"Yeah… thanks," you say, clearing your throat, and Ryuzaki stands up and takes the bowl of fruit from the table, bringing it back to place it on the floor, sitting back down beside you.
He peels an orange, hands the sections to you when you hold out your hand for it, and you swallow the bittersweet juice. Your gaze placed not on the room nor even the lights of the city outside the partially-closed drapes, but on somewhere invisible. The pith against the palm of your hand.
"I think I'd like a shower."
"Of course." Ryuzaki leans over to grab the long handcuff. He pulls off his shirt first, then attaches the cuff on the six-foot chain first around his own wrist. You hold your hand out for it to click home; then he undoes the strap around your feet and you stand up, wobbly. He stands up too and you grab his hand for balance, walking into the bathroom.
You pull off your pants and boxers, which are already drying sticky, and throw them on the floor, and Ryuzaki puts his in a similar pile before you get into the shower, turning the water all the way to hot. It does enough for the shivering in your limbs, enough to soften some of the hollowness that had suddenly descended upon you, and when you reach for the shampoo for your hair, Ryuzaki says, "let me, Light-kun?"
You look over at him. For a second tempted to refuse. But it strikes you, then, like a sudden relief, that he is not only the L who had been so remote; he is also Ryuzaki, pathetic and with a hopeful expression in his eyes; it feels like an apology; a righting. You hand it to him, and he smooths the shampoo through your hair, under the hot spray, and you feel yourself beginning to breathe again. When he puts it back into its holder you turn around, and without a word cling to him. Closing your eyes.
I guess I shouldn't be surprised that this happened, you think.
He brings his arms into a loose hug around your back, and you breathe, and try to speak, and giggle a little at the absurdity of it all.
"I'm okay," you say. "Did you have a good time, Ryuzaki?" You ask the words pressed against his skin, muffled by the falling water all around, the heat.
"I did, Light-kun. Thank you."
"You're welcome."
After that, things go back to normal. You get ready for bed as though it were any other night. Grab two toothbrushes and put toothpaste on both, handing one to Ryuzaki. When you get into bed, Ryuzaki says, "tomorrow, it would be good if you said something about what worked and what didn't. I don't want to have missed something that causes trouble for you."
"There's no need to wait until tomorrow," you say easily. "I think I already know. I think it was the fact that I got off… I thought it would be fine but, I don't know. It was just weird, and I didn't like it. Everything before that was okay, though. Even when you touched me. If we did something like that again, I think you'd be able to just tease and if I didn't come… even if I did it myself, after…" you struggle to explain, to sound in any way coherent and composed, "it would just… be different somehow."
"All right," Ryuzaki says. "On my side… even though I enjoyed this, it's not like I would be missing something if we didn't do anything sexual again. Do you believe me?"
"Yeah. I think I do."
And that's okay. I've already got what I want.
.
.
.