Death Note Fan Fiction ❯ PITCH ❯ My Kingdom for a Horse ( Chapter 15 )

PITCH

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Light x L

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Part 15

 

L is a reclusive detective who takes his job seriously. Too seriously, in fact. Once he takes note of how neglected and stagnant his life truly is, he decides to make some changes. Challenges arise through an unanticipated meeting. AU

 

A/N: Sometimes chapter titles are hard to come up with. I try to make them be ones that actually provide a point of reference in the story so that, going back, you could say "Oh yeeeeeeeah, I remember that chapter. That was the one where..."

Well, sometimes I fail, but I do try. :P

(For those of you who are thinking, 'What the hell? This update is totally not on time, you LIAR!' I apologize. Life intervened, my beta was not available, my wrist bones are grinding together in my right hand, and I am also one completed test closer to my IT certification. Efforts supporting potential job-getting will have to trump fanfiction activities. (I was trying to not apologize every time I updated, but inquiring minds wanted to know the details.)) 

Disclaimer: (See part 1 for full disclaimer.)

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Pitch: (def.) 

A substance commonly utilized to bind materials in construction... Tar pitch appears solid, and can be shattered with a hard impact, but it is actually fluid. Pitch flows at room temperature, but extremely slowly. To attain maximum fluidity, to be used, it must be exposed to heat.

 

Minds are like pitch. To reveal their full potential, they must be exposed to environs that apply stress. They must be challenged.

 

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Part 15: (My Kingdom for a Horse)

Raito stopped by his own home after dropping Lawliet at his. He'd let him go without any arguments, wanting to ascertain a few things elsewhere as quickly as possible.

He'd felt it odd that his home security had been triggered, marking an intrusion shortly preceding his guest's disappearance from the dining room. The message had buzzed through on Raito's phone - that movement had been detected and recorded at his residence. He'd checked his cell when Lawliet excused himself from the table, not needing to give anyone else in the room his full attention, and there it was. Naturally, he excused himself shortly afterwards as well, wanting to locate his elusive dark-haired quarry to see what had been distracting him, and to see if there was a connection.

Raito stopped his car in his driveway, throwing it into park.

He'd heard enough.

He'd seen enough.

The quick flash of Lawliet's dark, evasive eyes. The way he jumped when Raito had eventually made himself known.

Nervous.

Guilty.

But to what extent?

He slammed his car door, glaring up the walk to the front door. He doubted anyone was still inside. But, if they were, he would deal with them.

His shoes crunched sharply on the pavement as he stalked towards the door.

Likely, they had fled. It would almost be too convenient if they hadn't - allowing him the opportunity to tie up loose ends before they flapped too freely. Then he would check the video feed to garner more information about the person ballsy enough and insane enough to intrude on his domain, and almost certainly hear the other half of that conversation his dear, dear Lawliet had been hiding from him.

His hand twitched into a fist as he gained the stoop.

No one messed with the sanctity of his surroundings without severe consequence. No one.

---

"Aiber," L called out finally. "Are you here?"

Crunch, crunch.

Windswept dirt and fine gravel protested under his feet. Probably glass was in the mix as well - he could see something winking in the gloom from time to time when the faint light caught it just right.

Muttering to himself when there was no response, L relented and pulled out his cell phone. He redialed Aiber's number and waited. The call rang through, but no one answered, and he did not hear a phone ringing in his vicinity.

Damn it, is he really not here?

Was I wrong and he never intended to leave Raito's at all? Was he buying himself more time??

L snapped his phone shut and turned on his heel. Perfect. Just perfect. I should have just told Raito about it in the first place. But for now, I've got to--

The impact sent him nearly sprawling as his first long stride, made without quite looking up, walked straight into something solid. No, not something... someone. Because he could feel a steadying grip on his upper arms, which was what had saved him from crashing to the ground.

As expected, between the brightness of his phone's lcd screen and the brighter light he was now facing with the streetlights ahead of him, his eyes were ill-adjusted and he couldn't see properly. He stumbled as the hands which wrapped around his arms pushed him backwards and sideways, confounding his footing, until something solid hit his back.

"Hey!" L got out as soon as falling was not an imminent danger. "What do you think you're doin--?"

Whatever color might have been in his pale face felt like it had drained in the quick flash of a second as a rough mouth covered his. Pressed against what might have been one of the concrete pillars, unable to turn his head away as his mouth was forcibly violated, L began to panic.

"Mmf--!" The concrete ground against the back of his head as his lips were plied further apart to accommodate the wet heat of the stranger's intrusion. But there was something passingly familiar about... the grip of those hands and the faint smell of cologne... and the taste of the kiss which L had been trying not to notice was a little familiar, like... L's eyes widened in shock, a shudder wracking through him. This was.... Aiber?! 

Yes, he was certain it was. Instead of calming him down, however, that little detail kept him panicking.

He didn't like this - being jumped without so much as a word made it seem like he did not even know this man at all. What was going on in his head? Aiber didn't appear to be drunk, only the faint touch of alcohol was in the kiss, if you could call it that. So, had he lost his mind, then?

L twisted in the man's grip, trying to loosen it to break away, or at the least, regain the use of his mouth.

"Hmf ee gnnn!" he protested in a growl. It should have sounded more like 'let me go', but, well, he supposed that this was why humans hadn't been born with two tongues - it would make language far less eloquent.

For a fraction of an instant, L gained the freedom of movement to bring his heel down sharply upon Aiber's foot, causing the man to pull back with a curse, though his grip on L only tightened.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" L raged, tying to shake the blond man's tenacious hold. He could see well enough now - Aiber's wavy blond hair, and the angry, nearly sullen expression he wore as he suffered the pain in his foot.

"Dammit, L," he hissed through clenched teeth, "you didn't have to break my goddamn foot."

"I'll break more than that if you don't let go of me."

"I'm doing you a favor," Aiber said harshly. "Or had you forgotten why you're here?"

"I didn't come here to be assaulted. I came here in the hopes you would see reason-- and what the hell kind of favor would that be?"

Aiber's pale blue eyes looked cold and alien in the shadows. "I'm going to ruin him, L." He leaned closer, his voice barely above a sneering whisper as he gained L's ear. "Utterly... Fully... Completely..."

L didn't move a muscle, breathe, or even blink.

Could he go so far as to imagine it - what it would be like if Raito was taken away, imprisoned, and gone from his reach?

"But I'm giving you a chance to stop it," Aiber continued in a hushed tone, as if he was whispering the secrets of the world in L's ear. His lips brushed against it, taking the delicate lobe between his teeth. L twitched, and a fine tremor was working its way through him.

What am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to do??

Must he go along with Aiber in order to help Raito, or should he put an end to this and let the cards fall where they may?

"It's... not my problem," L said palely, not even believing himself as he said it. He was feeling more trapped by the second, though Aiber's hands had loosened and were sliding down his arms.

"It is your problem," Aiber reassured him. "but it doesn't have to be for long."

L closed his eyes tightly and swallowed. "What is it you require of me?"

"Whatever I ask of you."

"I will agree to nothing if you are not specific," L said thinly. They both knew that he had as good as agreed already - this was mere formality. L was trying to brace himself.

"I want you as a partner again. Business was good when we were together."

"If that's all, then I'll agre--"

Aiber silenced him with a long lick at his throat. "You know I want more than that this time, L."

"No, I don't know," L protested. "It makes no sense at all why you would... would want..." He trailed off as Aiber's hand settled upon his hip and the blond pressed bodily against him. L's heart was beating wildly in his chest like a scared rabbit's.

"Sense," Aiber said against his throat, his other hand tangling in L's hair. "It's not about sense or rationality. I want you. I want to feel your bare skin against mine and I want to see you unable to keep denying me."

Aiber's mouth was hot on his neck as he pulled L's head back to expose it. Each unsolicited touch was like a lead weight in L's stomach. He couldn't do this. But how could he not do this...?

"Aiber - I can't... do this... you and I are... I mean, it's..." Aiber's hand on his hip slid upward, under the edge of his shirt to brush the skin of his stomach, making it jump.

"Why don't we test your resolve right now?" Aiber said in a slightly roughened voice, skimming his hand up L's body and across his chest.

"N-now?!"

"Submit yourself to me, or the deal's off."

Aiber wanted to have sex in the dirty, abandoned halls of the old train station?! For real? He was out of his godforsaken mind.

L wanted to tell him as much, but Aiber seemed to have decided that this was it. If he resisted here, Raito really would be breaths away from prison. He couldn't stand the thought of seeing the brunet stripped of everything and thrown in a tank of humanity from which there might be no return. How would someone like Raito bear up under the loss of his freedom?

"No, I..." L started to say. If anything, not here.

Everything in L's being protested the hand that began unbuttoning his pants and the mouth that descended on his, more gently this time, but all the more vulgar for the man's intent. Raito. Can I endure this for him? L wasn't even sure. Every moment that passed, he was on the verge of stopping this, of calling off this insane agreement. If only he didn't think too far ahead... he wouldn't feel the apprehension laying on his skin like a fine sweat.

"Well, well, well," a third person's voice said darkly, obscured and faint, due to the place's acoustics, so that the precise location of its owner was anyone's guess. "I turn my back, and look what I find."

Something sharp and black speared through L, something like hope or despair only it was too burned and charred to be recognized as one or the other. It can't be him... what are the chances? Hope lived like a dying ember. It was flickering in its final moments as L realized how this would all look to someone who did not know the whole story.

And through it all, Aiber was not releasing him.

Crisp footsteps sounded closer and closer, and L was being smothered by the blond man's mouth on his, a new panic rising in him with the surety that it was Raito. One of L's hands was held in a unforgiving grip against concrete, the other pushed at the blond man unsuccessfully. It had to be Raito and Aiber knew it as well, which was why he wanted them to be seen like this.

The footsteps stopped. A white, collared shirt was evident in the gloom and the muted shine of steely eyes was visible despite the shadow over their owner's face. "What am I to do with you?"

Raito's voice was different from any way that L had ever heard it.

He had the sudden swift fear that they were about to be shot.

Aiber, his point having been made, ended the drawn-out kiss, leaving L to cough weakly as he sucked in air and tried not to feel sick. The blond man kept L pressed up against the concrete but turned to face Raito with a smile. "Once again we meet after hours, boss. Might I suggest we leave work at work? As you can see, I'm a little busy at the moment."

L could stare nowhere but at the ground as those sure footfalls sounded closer. His tensed body flinched and wound tighter with every closing step. He couldn't face Raito. Maybe being shot wouldn't be so bad? Of course, the very prospect was still terrifying...

"Perhaps you should step away from there so we can talk properly, Aiber," Raito suggested in a voice devoid of human emotion.

"Does it bother you, boss?" A condescending smile was in his voice. L cringed as Aiber nuzzled his neck, taking his provoking of the brunet to new levels. L struggled again, needing to be far, far away from this.

"Release him, Aiber."

Aiber laughed. "Are you going to make me if I say no?"

In a physical fight, Raito would likely be at a disadvantage. He understood that, right? L tried to say Raito's name, but his throat was too dry to accomplish it and it came out as a faint wheeze. The flicker of burnt amber eyes was utterly alien as they passed over him, making his blood run cold.

"Perhaps I will." The sound of a gun being cocked echoed within Raito's affirmative response.

"Oh god," L murmured weakly, sliding bonelessly to the ground as Aiber let him go. Why was there a gun? Why was there a gun?? Guns complicated things... Guns were hardly ever a good thing...

"Now, Aiber, I know we didn't always see eye to eye," Raito said in a faux-confidant voice, as if he were righting a misunderstanding between good friends. "But the ruthless invasion of my home?" He tsk-tsked at the larger man as he paced in front of him. "That's hardly a forgivable offense, in most anyone's eyes. I think you'll agree that I'd be within my rights to see justice done?"

Once again, came the metallic click of a cocking gun.

"How many people are with you?" Aiber asked in an offhanded way, unable to rouse his usual good humor.

L looked up and realized for the first time that Raito was not holding a gun. He looked around, trying to find figures in the darkness. There should be at least two.

"Would you like to take a ride with my associates, Aiber? I'm sure they'll bring us to a satisfactory conclusion."

"If you're arresting me, I want to see badges," Aiber said stonily.

"Arrest you?" Raito began to laugh and it was an ugly sound. There was a loud scrape as he turned on his heel and began walking away. "Take them," he said coldly with a wave of his hand.

Them? L thought frantically as a flurry of movement came from the dark. "Hey - wait... Raito!" Raito didn't think he was involved in this too, did he? Rough arms grabbed him up as a burlap sack was pulled over his head. "Raito!" he called out as he struggled, the air he breathed quickly becoming stifling. Amidst the scuffling, and Aiber's protests as well, L could hear the crisp, measured sound of Raito's receding footsteps.

 ---

Hours later, a light came on in the room L had been kept in. Since the car ride, during which he'd been shoved in and out of a vehicle like a sack of potatoes, arms bound behind him, he'd been here. 'Here' was apparently a small, plain room from what he could see through the holes in the burlap.

Before being tied to the chair he was currently occupying, he'd been led around roughly by what sounded like at least three people through an obstacle course of stairs and elevators.

Just before being tossed in here had been an even greater trial. He'd heard a door swing open and had been pushed forward into it, told that this would be his last chance at a bathroom, so if he knew what was good for him, he'd make use of it.

He'd been granted the use of of a single hand, so he might use the urinal, the other being held behind his back. His sight, however, was denied him. It was not a process he ever wanted to repeat, nor think about in detail. Verbal instructions as to the relative location of things offered a nerve-wrackingly imprecise way of going about things, in his opinion, and he should rather be held at gunpoint next time so long as he could see. Well, if there was a next time.

Afterwards, he'd been brought to this room, and left to wonder what they'd done with Aiber, and what was to become of him.

"Is someone there?" he called out, turning his head. Just now, he'd thought he'd heard something.

There was no response, though a small scuffing noise convinced him he was not alone. 

A sudden pressure at the binding on his hands told him someone was checking his bonds.

"I'm going to release your hands," a stranger's voice said. "You have a visitor."

"Then why would you release me?" he asked aloud, more to keep this other person talking than for any other reason. What sense was there in releasing his bonds now? Did they not fear him making a break for freedom?

They ignored the question but said curtly, "Leave the covering on your head until you are told to remove it."

The door opened and closed again and L was left in silence. He waited a minute or two but was not rewarded with the permission to regain his sight. He tapped his leg in annoyance for several moments before whipping the burlap off of his head. Before him was a white, foldout table and sitting across from him, hands steepled in front of his face, was Raito.

L blinked in disbelief, a riot of reactions vying for supremacy in that instant. Shock, hope, indignation, anger, fear.

"I thought you might do that," the brunet said, a ghost of amusement lingering at the corner of his mouth.

L just sat, blinking at him and trying to make sense of his presence.

...it wasn't working. He was completely and utterly flummoxed.

"Do you know why you're here?" Raito asked solemnly, sitting back in his chair.

"I haven't the slightest, nor do I know where 'here' is."

"Hmn. Predictable once more." Raito gazed at him with unrelenting severity, letting silence close over them before breaking it once more. "Tell me, now, just what was going on between you and Aiber this evening."

"Can I expect you to be forthcoming as well?" L asked testily. His treatment over the last few hours and Raito appearing to be, more or less, the  'standard' and sane version of himself was making his timidity shrivel back.

"Perhaps." Raito said nothing more and sat waiting for L to speak.

L sighed and crumpled the burlap in his hands. "Well, I guess you knew somehow that Aiber broke into your home..."

Raito didn't bother to nod, he just stared with that unflinching gaze of his.

"Well...." L frowned. "He contacted me recently, somehow knowing of the room you keep locked, and was attempting to interest me in unlocking it. Apparently he heard of it from Misa, as well as the details about your comings and goings."

"And you had no interest in such things?"

L sighed. "I'd be lying if I said I didn't, but I certainly never agreed to be a part of Aiber's efforts."

"So your reason for meeting him tonight, cutting your earlier plans short was...?"

Raito's distanced way of describing things and his reserved manner were chafing. Your earlier plans, instead of 'our' earlier plans... He also refrained from addressing L by his name, and his eyes looked unfriendly.

"He was blackmailing me, Raito," L said with exasperation. "Surely you saw enough that you didn't doubt that?"

"I'm withholding my opinion until you finish."

"He was determined to break into your house to try and find something incriminating with which he could tarnish your career. The motivating factor for him was that he might be able to use such a thing to ensure my cooperation in preventing it. And though I had mixed feelings on the matter, I generally would have done what I could to prevent it, but I drew the line at whoring myself out."

"That's not what it looked like to me," Raito said, crossing his arms.

"Ugh," L said in disgust, throwing the burlap at Raito's head. "Fuck you," he said getting to his feet and pacing. "By that time, he'd already been in and out of there and was ready to feed you to the media hounds."

"Sit," Raito said.

"I'm too agitated to sit." He glared at Raito. "You know, I had a feeling this might happen. I would stick my neck out for you and you'd take it completely the wrong way." He started pacing again. "But in the end, the thought of you getting shipped off to prison for one thing or another bothered me too much to leave it alone."

"That's where we are right now."

"What?" L asked incredulously, stopping in his tracks. "Prison?" He swore and started to laugh in nearly the same breath. "The irony is too much for me."

"Well, anyway, I'm done here," Raito said casually, straightening his shirt as he rose from the chair. He walked unhurriedly towards the door, utterly dismissive in his manner.

"That's it?" L asked, voice sounding broken and accusatory as denial burned sickly in his stomach. Prison? He was going to be tossed into prison for the crime of trying to keep Raito from that very fate?! "You're leaving me here??"

Raito turned to look at him, a slow pan down and up his body. "I'd rather you come with me, but I suppose you can stay if you're set on it."

"Raito... what... you...." L spluttered. Speech was an elusive thing at times.

"Sorry about all of this," the brunet said flippantly. "I was beyond irritated."

"So you knew I was innocent??"

"I was fairly certain," Raito said with a shrug.

"You--! You're totally sadistic!" L accused him. "Do you have any idea what you put me through?"

"Of course. I was here nearly the whole time."

L hung his head. That's it. Life had ceased to make sense. "Can I go home now?"

"If by home, you mean my house, then yes."

L began to protest, but stopped at the harsh gleam in Raito's eyes.

"I warn you, I am still well beyond irritated."

L bit his tongue. "So what did you do with Aiber? Is he still among the living?"

The strange look L had seen earlier, that expression devoid of human compassion, crossed the brunet's face. "For now," he said darkly. "Prison is too good for him."

L could not ascertain from that statement whether Aiber was incarcerated or waiting in a hole somewhere to be killed off. It was a disturbing thought. "Raito... those men, were they yakuza?" The method of their capture certainly seemed mafia-esque.

"I'm not at liberty to discuss that, but Aiber has officially been put under arrest, thanks to some favors I called in."

"Wait - those were police officers?" L said incredulously.

"Stop asking me, or I'm going to leave you here," Raito said with finality, opening the door and stepping out into the hallway.

L scrambled out after him before the door could shut, not wanting to be in that room for even another moment. He'd make an effort to keep his mouth shut. For the time being anyway.

---

True to his unspoken word, L refrained from asking questions. Even when their long walk through the bright, yet somehow dismal, corridors with their shining floors led them eventually to a waiting police cruiser which proved to be their ride home.

So where was Raito's car? How did he get here? L wondered these things in silence as they descended the cold concrete stairs to the vehicle below. It was also strange how thoroughly their presence here was ignored. No one had stopped to ask them what they'd been doing wandering the halls. It hardly seemed proper protocol for a police station, especially one as vast as this one. L took a quick glance behind him and judged the white building to be at least 5 floors. A compact 5 floors with possibly more beneath ground level. The building itself was on a corner lot, set a good distance away from any other buildings, and was surrounded by a lawn that seemed well maintained even in the dark beyond the illuminated walkway and parking lot.

Might Aiber be in the bowels of the building? Tied to a chair as L had been? Was that were Raito had been before making himself known? Had he done something to the man already, while wearing that wax mask of inhumanity?

Or had Aiber never been brought here at all?

If L had been seen as a potential innocent and Aiber was deemed guilty, how then had their treatment differed? While L had been slung into the back seat of a vehicle, had Aiber been tossed into a trunk? If prison was 'too good for him' as Raito had said, did it make sense that he would have been arrested? Was Raito lying about that?

So many questions... so many things sat uncomfortably unresolved and un-addressed.

They rode in the back seat of the cruiser in silence. It was a longer ride than expected, proving the station not to have been a local one. That, too, set L on edge. Was there a reason Raito had avoided the local one at which his father was stationed?

L fidgeted, ill-at-ease and still wondering at Raito's maintained displeasure with him, though he'd been proclaimed innocent of any wrong-doing. He really did want to go home - to get some distance from all of this and to think. He wanted out from under the thumb of oppression and this cloying feeling of helplessness.

And that is what he was right now - helpless. He was at Raito's beck and call, unable to affect the flow of events. He was adrift in a current not of his own making, and it needled him, pricking blood every everlasting second.

The cruiser stopped in front of Raito's house, the driver somehow knowing its location without directions. Raito opened the door and slid out, and L was able to see his car in the driveway. How then had he gotten to the abandoned train station? L highly doubted that he had walked.

He slid across the stiff, vinyl seat and out of the car. As soon as L was free of it, Raito swung the door shut with heavy thud, the swift motion fanning him with displaced air and the forceful sound of it making him jump. He half entertained the idea of taking off as the cruiser pulled away, but Raito's eyes intercepted him and crushed the thought with the look of a born tyrant.

L chewed the inside of his lip as he followed Raito up the walk. He hated suffering the brunet when he was angry.

And why should he be detained here, when Raito's anger seemed directed squarely at him? Shouldn't he be allowed to leave so that his companion could cool that temper instead of feeding it?

They entered the house with an impenetrable silence as their accompaniment.

L searched it for cracks as he was led down the hall. He did not want to go near the locked room. Not tonight. "I fail to see why you want me here if you're so pissed off at me."

"I'm not angry with you," Raito said shortly. "Not entirely."

The clipped words did not inspire a vote of confidence, nor did the sudden grip on his wrist as he was then pulled past the previously locked room and pushed into the bathroom at the end. The quick flood of illumination as Raito flicked on the light was disorienting, but not as much as L's confusion with what the brunet wanted from him.

Raito crowded him further into the room, shutting the door behind them. His face was set in a perpetual look of displeasure, and the only change in it was that when he looked at L, it intensified.

Raito directed him towards the sink where he was made to brush his teeth. Not that he didn't want to. Mint would be a welcome change from other things. It was just that Raito's tyrannical gaze was burning a hole between his shoulder blades and it was making him uneasy. L scrubbed the toothbrush over his teeth and tried not to meet the dark gaze that locked to his every time he glanced up. He put more focus on brushing, and tried not taste the underlying, psychologically-present quality of the second kiss that Aiber had forced on him, nor the queasy rolling of his stomach when the entire situation played out in his head for the umpteenth time.

L stared straight ahead, eyes on his own, reflected ones. Deep, dark, and framed by tension that he had not known was showing on his face. Just what had Raito done with Aiber? Raito, whose handsome face had never looked colder and more foreign than the moment before he turned his back and walked away.

L spat the minty foam into the sink.

Rinsing the brush, he had barely started to slide it into the toothbrush holder when Raito was turning him around with rough hands. Then, with military efficiency, L was suddenly being stripped of his clothes.

Shirt. Pants. Everything. Until clothes had been peeled back and he was wearing nothing but Raito's gaze.

"Raito?!"

Confusion was a word that was starting to feel inadequate.

"Quiet."

L swallowed hard, trying not to let this affect him. It wasn't anything Raito hadn't seen before, but the brunet's unflinching assessment of his body was setting his nerves further on edge and feeding this sort of wild self-consciousness born of uncertainty and his lack of being able to predict what would happen at any given moment.

---

"Quiet," he said, looking Lawliet over thoroughly. He frowned, noticing the mark on L's throat. Unacceptable. "I told you he was not content to leave you be. How could you let him get his hooks in you?"

"I wasn't--"

Raito felt his lips twist in irritation and shoved the slighter man into the shower. He didn't care that his own clothes would be drenched as he followed suit and held Lawliet under the spray, gripping his thin, pale shoulders in his hands. He held him there until dark hair turned darkest black, becoming weighted with the water that poured over the spluttering detective. 

Raito wanted to scour him clean. Erase the touch of the other man that had been forced upon his body. And he wanted to somehow still the rage that was still burning so relentlessly within himself.

Taking care of Aiber was not enough to let him gain equilibrium. The foreigner was out of the picture for now,  Lawliet was in his hands, and still he was not satisfied.

---

L flailed, wondering if Raito was going to attempt drowning him.

Just as he thought the water had finally found a direct route to his lungs, he was pulled free and attacked with soap and a fierce set of hands.

"If you'd let him have you to protect me," Raito said tightly, "did you think it would end there?" The brunet scrubbed at him with shampoo and soap, leaving his skin red and a bit raw.

"Well, I don't know--" L started, bristling somewhat at the condescension that leaked into Raito's voice. It was the implication that he had been about to do something so obviously stupid - by the brunet's estimation, at least - that was setting him off. 

"I'll tell you then," Raito said, his hard gaze looking nowhere but at where his hands worked. "It wouldn't. It would only be the beginning. I would have found out, and even before I had, Aiber would have been looking for ways to keep you all to himself. He would have blackmailed you with your infidelity and used that as a means to keep you from me." He pushed L under the water again.

When L was allowed to breathe once more and open his eyes, he found Raito's darkened eyes staring back, holding a complicated expression that he couldn't quite untangle.

"Don't you ever compromise yourself like that for me again, Lawliet, do you understand?"

L blinked at him rapidly, looking a little lost.

My intervention was unwanted... unnecessary?

...stupid?

I thought I was doing the right thing... Despite how much I didn't want to do it, I thought it would have been unforgivable to do nothing. But by this, I'm perceived as a meddler?

Raito leaned forward and pressed a slow, emphatic kiss to L's lips, his eyes sharp. "I'm responsible for my own actions. Don't ever get involved like that again."

L felt even smaller and more insignificant than before, especially as he was naked and shivering and Raito was not. He was being berated for the loyalty he had shown? Loyalty that had been compelling enough to risk himself for someone else's sake. Wasn't that a sign of caring?

Was Raito telling him not to care?

He sagged against the wall, averting his eyes. "I... won't."

Am I trapped in a one-sided attachment?

Had he almost done something damaging to himself that would have been viewed as nothing more than an inconvenience to the person it was suffered for? L sank to the floor of the shower, clutching his knees to his chest and shivering.

After a long moment, Raito knelt next to him. His clothes were becoming further soaked in the spray.

He reached out, resting his hand upon L's head, nearly gently. His fingertips felt as fleeting upon L as an alighting sparrow on a branch. "What goes on in that head of yours sometimes, I wonder," Raito murmured, his voice losing the hard edge it had maintained up till now. "Next time, just tell me and let me deal with it."

L remained motionless while Raito spoke.

His feelings were oscillating so wildly that he couldn't keep up. Was he supposed to feel relieved? Unsettled? He could barely put name to the heart-clenching ups and downs that were racing through him. Above it all, he had almost, almost given in to Aiber in order to protect Raito. Why? Why had he nearly done that? It wasn't like him to do things like that. And more distressing still, it was unwanted.

'Next time'? Would there be a next time? Just who was this man he'd been trying to protect?
 
L felt something press against his brow and realized it was Raito's forehead touching his.

The sudden closeness set off a riot within him.

"I couldn't stand it if you suffered on my account," Raito said in a barely audible voice, as if he didn't actually wish L to hear it. L looked up and caught a bare expression that fled the brunet's face as hastily as his voice adopted its usual tones. "Though your expression of loyalty was impressive, I'm afraid that admitting as much might encourage such idiocy in the future."

Tightness settled in his chest like a poignant weight that was both disconcerting and unfamiliar, and made it hard to look Raito in the eyes.

"Are you calling me an idiot?" L mumbled past the unsteady feeling of relief.

"I guess I am," Raito said in a playful tone that was not matched by his solemn, assessing eyes.

"Then I guess you won't mind if I call you an asshole," L remarked sullenly, testing him with the harsh words, closing his own eyes as the strength went out of him.

"I suppose I could find it in me to let it slide."

Cautiously indulgent. That was how Raito sounded. He was watching for L's reactions every bit as much as L was watching for his. He was uncertain, then. They both were. Somehow.

The moment was closing in on them, feeling too close and immediate. It was trying to settle once more in L's throat like a heavy weight.

"Your clothes are getting wet," L said after a long moment of silence broken only by the sound of running water.

"Want to help me take them off?"

L had to look up at him again to see if Raito was being serious. Even looking, he couldn't really tell, but the brunet's eyes looked warmer than they had in ages.

Raito gazed at him with that warm yet somehow tragic look, making L's heartbeat quicken as his elegant fingers reached up and traced the curve of his cheek. He felt that hand slide unhurriedly along his jaw, then underneath his chin as Raito leaned in, tilting his face up to receive a soft, tentative kiss.

He felt the touch all the way to his toes, though confusion washed into him as well.

Was Raito ever so hesitant? L was unnerved by this unprecedented behaviour: 'tragic', 'upset'. These were emotions that the brunet did not express. Anger? Irritation? Surely. But what kind of thing could cause an individual who closely resembled a sociopath to feel melancholy when he otherwise seemed so untouchable? If Raito was truly unstable, L might have to  wonder if he was in some sort of peril here. Despite Raito's talk of 'next time's, L had gone against the brunet's wishes, though it was unknowingly, and something unseen may have shifted. 

"I don't want you to be with anyone else," Raito said distantly, his hand trailing down L's neck in an unwitting caress. "Ever. I realized that when I saw Aiber running his hands all over you."

Killing someone could achieve that effect, L thought, frozen as Raito's fingertips brushed the side of his throat and then settled around it. He tensed, not sure of the brunet's intentions. Had he himself become a liability?

"Raito."

With the uttering of the brunet's name, L broke the spell, and there again in Raito's amber gaze was that look of unhappiness. "What do you want, Raito?"

Raito's hand slid from his throat to trace one of L's collar bones, his eyes following. "I want to be in control again."

"I've never seen you not in control," L said carefully.

"Then I am a great actor, because I haven't been in control since I met you."

L kept silent for a few moments, the inappropriateness of the conversation taking place like this, in a bathtub with one of them naked and both of them wet, suddenly striking him. "And yet you have more control than I do, so what should I make of that?"

Raito looked at him contemplatively, then retreated, leaning back against the wall of the tub. "Hmn."

Inappropriateness reigned further in that L found his eyes were getting caught on the near-translucence of Raito's utterly soaked white shirt and the way it molded to his body as he'd reclined. He could see every contour of smooth, leanly muscled flesh and the darker spots of color under the shirt where his nipples were.

He wrenched his eyes away to the questionably safer locale of Raito's face and said, "If I were in control, we wouldn't be here like this right now."

Raito's eyes were watchful, like a wolf's, drawing him in while keeping him at a distance. "And where would you be?"

Plain truth devoid of artifice and games had this feel to it. This hurtling, unstable ground that was suddenly between them like a battlefield. It felt more dangerous than the misleading and the obscure.

"At home, maybe." If he had never gone to meet Aiber, and had not spent hours at the police station, he might well be home by now. Even upholding his earlier plans with Raito, he could have been home by now.

"So it is only with my insistence that you stay near me." The wolf-like look intensified, covered poorly with a veneer of boredom. "Given your preference..."

"That isn't what I said." L frowned at him.

"Tell me, Lawliet," Raito said, toying with the button of his collared shirt as if considering undoing it but making no move to do so. The intended effect was probably to draw L's eyes to it. If so, it was working. "What am I to you?"

L was perplexed and shook his head slightly. How could he hope to respond to that when he didn't even know the answer himself?

Nimble fingers flicked the button open and settled on the next. "Not even a try at that?" Raito asked. "No professions of undying love?" Flick. "No testaments of devotion?" Flick.

L had given up on gauging the brunet's mood. He had not quite given up on trying to pry his eyes off of the widening gap in Raito's shirt, however, though he was, as of yet, unsuccessful.

Flippant, dangerous, yet somehow vulnerable while being mocking. Raito embodied all of these things and made the large bathtub seem too small to hold it all in.

"Come now, there must be something in there for me," Raito said engagingly. His eyes were contradictory - the playfulness was not there, though something of the tragic look was. Flick. "Something lasting..."

"I don't know what you want from me," L said, feeling troubled. What was Raito trying to accomplish? Was it shame he was trying to procure from him as he flaunted the body that L had succumbed to time and time again? Or was he merely feeling uncharitable and wanting to rub L's feelings in his face with his taunting before cutting him loose?

Raito's expression darkened, a flash-rage as he ripped the last two buttons clean off with a vicious tearing of his shirt as he sat up. "Why are you the only one who acts like you don't need me?!"

L's eyes widened as Raito lost his temper.

"Anyone else," he raged, rising to his feet like a mad angel, the shirt fluttering about him like wings, "Anyone else and I can see it clearly. But you? No. You're locked tighter than a steel trap and all I can see is you reacting. To me, to Aiber," he spat the blond man's name. "You're the only one that matters and I can't tell if you really even want me."

Being on the receiving end of a rampage, L found, was inconvenient. It put one at a disadvantage as it was hard to determine if there existed anything right that could be uttered in such a situation. But there was a simpler, dirtier tactic that could be used here.

L got to his feet and squared his shoulders, staring Raito in the eye as he said, "Tell me then, what I am to you?"

As expected, a difficult question like this stopped Raito in his tracks, closing his mouth so tightly that it was a firm line. Easy to demand, not so easy to answer. It was the one question L found he had the utmost difficulty in answering, and so it seemed that for Raito, it was the same.
 
Raito took his shirt off distractedly, looking like he was thinking of fleeing the bathroom altogether, then sat on the edge of the tub with an air of stubbornness about him. "I'm not answering that," he said after what looked like several long moments of deliberation.

"Then why should you expect me to?" L said, annoyed once more at the inequality that was set up between them time and time again. Even their current attire reflected it. Here he was, ass to the wind, while the considerably less-than-nude brunet had taken up residence in the direct path he'd need to take for a towel, never once considering that being naked might make him feel a little ill-equipped for something like this. "Not to mention, I have put up with a lot when it comes to you. I question my own sanity when it comes right down to it. And you want me to tell you how I feel?"

Raito was making a good show of intimidating the wall. He did not turn his sour expression towards L even once.

"You scared the shit out of me tonight," L said rapidly. "I have no idea what you are planning to do with Aiber, and Misa pisses me the hell off." He crossed his arms. "Your turn. Go."

Raito let out a noise of derision, then spoke in a similar rushed pace, "I hate Aiber; I haven't decided what to do with him yet. And I'm sorry for what happened tonight." He paused, flicking his eyes to L experimentally. "I'm willing to do whatever you want to make it right."

L leaned against the wall, leveling a suspicious look at him. "Whatever I want? Or are there a plethora of hidden exceptions that I'll find as I ask for them?"

Raito glared at him. "I said, whatever you want. Though I'm considering taking it back."

"Then I suppose you aren't as sorry as you let on," L said snidely. He really hated hidden catches. It made big promises all feel like such rotten lies.

Raito let out a noise of frustration, burying his face in his hands a moment. "Dammit, I'm really trying here," he said through them in a slightly muffled voice.

He slid them up then to brush his damp hair back off of his face, as if trying to mask a moment of weakness with a similar action.

Of all the things L really wanted from Raito... it was so hard to choose. He could ask that Misa be banished from Raito's personal space forever, he could ask that Raito man up and give him even a clue of how he really felt (torturing him was part of the incentive in that one), he could ask that he never be subjected to Raito's family ever again... But in the end...

"I need you to not kill Aiber," L said, "if that was what you are really intending." In the end, his conscience demanded he keep his former associate alive if it was in his power to do. It was selfish to do otherwise, though he appeased himself with thoughts of later kicking Aiber in the nuts so hard he would feel them on his tongue.

Raito frowned, staring again at the wall. "What if he's already dead?"

"You said he was in prison."

"Yes, I did say that, didn't I?"

L considered. "So, either you lied to me earlier, or you are trying to mislead me now so that you can still do what you want later. Your apology is becoming transparent already."

"He could be dead, in prison."

"Look at me and tell me that's the case," L said stonily. "Maybe I'll believe you."

Amber eyes flicked up at him. Raito sighed in annoyance. "Ok. Fine. He's not dead. And though I would love to have it be otherwise, I do not have a firing squad at my disposal with which to remedy that."

"I'm sure you have other ways," L said, overly aware that Raito had been quite specific at what he didn't have at his disposal. He never said he didn't have the means at all.

Raito was watching him again, with almost animal-like fixation. "You won't be satisfied with just that, will you? I'll leave Aiber alone, though the fact that you even asked me for that is grating; yet it still will not appease you."

"You're right."

They stared at each other, a contest of wills.

The shower head dripped intermittently in the background.

"What else do you require?" Raito said finally.

"A towel." It was getting damn cold in here.

Raito dropped his eyes to slowly pan up L's body, with every intent to embarrass him and push his luck. "Are you sure?" he asked in all innocence. "It won't be nearly as flattering as what you have on..."

"Yes," he snapped, garnering an amused smirk look from the brunet which wasn't hidden nearly well enough for him not to discern it.

"Of course."

Raito swung his long legs over the side of the tub and left a trail of water where his soaked pants dripped profusely, leaving L to fight down the color that had risen in his cheeks at the brunet's teasing. It didn't really help that the waterlogged pants rode low on Raito's hips or that L had an exceptional view of his lovely, bare back.

Focus, L. Don't let him distract you. No, don't focus on his abs, he berated himself as Raito made the return trip. Wrong focus. Wrong!

"Is there anything else you want?" Raito said in a sly tone as he held the towel just out of reach and rekindled the blush with another impromptu once-over of L's bare skin.

"If you don't want to be making things up to me for the next 48 hours, I suggest you start curbing your impulses."

"I'll make things up to you for as long as you let me," Raito said intimately, brushing a kiss against his lips. "If only you'll forgive me afterwards."

Raito pulled him into a slow, passionate kiss, one that wasn't so much about gaining control, but about losing it, slowly, deliberately. He explored L's mouth in the relaxed manner of someone who owned it, enticing L to more through gentle, thorough persuasion. It was hard not to fall into it. There was nothing really to fight against.

What a dirty tactic, L thought. How was he supposed to demand repayment for all the injustices so far when being blind-sided like this? Raito's hand was smoothing down his side, and his thigh, like he was made of porcelain - a reverent brush of fingertips that made him burn inside.

Then they trailed back up, tracing his hip as Raito's mouth released his and descended on his throat, seeking sensitive flesh.

L shuddered, clutching at Raito as sensation rippled through him and his knees grew weak.

He wanted to tell the brunet to stop, to stop trying to distract him like this all the time, but he couldn't. The words were too elusive on his tongue, and he didn't want him to stop. He wanted this sweetly damning contact more than he knew how to explain...

"Let me make love to you, Lawliet," Raito's voice came in his ear, husky and slightly out of breath. "Please," he whispered with intensity, laying kisses upon L's fevered cheek.

How could he say no, or deny that he wanted the same thing while Raito's bare flesh was so hot against his? His body wouldn't lie, and the towel had long since fallen from their hands.

---

The relocation back to the bedroom was a blur, a hazy procession of secretive touches and fevered lips and the tantalizingly fleeting press of bare hips and thighs as they made halting progress. The cold roughness of the hallway against L's back as Raito paused to press him against it and violate his mouth as if he could not bear to leave it unmolested another moment... The taste of him, and the sensuous movements of Raito's sly mouth were building the hunger within him, feeding it so deeply that he didn't want to let go, didn't want even the small interruption that would bring them to a more suitable place... His heart was racing, and Raito's was as well, beating against his chest. That he could feel the brunet's arousal so viscerally as it pressed against him made the kisses that much more mind-breakingly erotic.

That Raito could desire him like this, as much as he desired the brunet...

Hurried kisses expressed the same need and impatience as L felt. And for a long moment, when they were halfway to their destination, they stopped inching forward altogether and it seemed that they would give in to passion there in the hall. Raito's rough sigh against his mouth and the ungodly press of taut abdomens against aching flesh as their hips met... L's arms wound around Raito and held onto him like he was drowning. Silken hair brushed his fingertips and he threaded them through it, forcing a harsher union between their mouths as he pulled Raito closer.

L didn't remember the specifics of how he ended up on the bed, only that he wanted to be there. Needed to be there, with Raito's amber eyes pinning him in place as surely as his body did.

"Aaah!" L cried out as Raito moved within him, thrusting so long and deep that he had long since given up on beating the flush from his face through sheer will.

He clutched at Raito's shoulders, overwhelmed with the feel of the brunet's body pressing his to the bed, aroused beyond measure at the sensual sounds that fell from those fiercely sexual lips, mindless with the cadence of their harsh breaths.

Why did he want this so badly? Need it so severely?

He'd barely given these things a passing thought before meeting Raito. Still didn't, unless the brunet was involved.

It came on so strong, and flew in the face of reason. He wanted the feel of their joined bodies like it was a tool to pry the lock off of Raito's mind and wrench the whole of his being into the light where he could inspect it and pore over it to his satisfaction. He wanted everything, and he could sense what was in there, even when he could not see it clearly.

But the frustration of not being IN there, of not being privy to every little secret corridor, was as maddening as the growing ache within him that could only be laid to rest with the clash of heated flesh and bruised mouths.

A warm hand wrapped around his arousal, stunning in the way it caused sensation to stab through him so immediately and desperately with its coaxing caresses. Damnable in how it broke his voice on the syllables of Raito's name until it no longer sounded like a name at all.

What was this feeling? This tightness in his chest? Why was it that he could hear the echoes of the brunet's words 'Let me make love to you' ringing in his ears as if they were being spoken over and over again, embarrassing him with their fervor and yet fulfilling something inside of him that was as dark and cavernous as the maw of a great beast?

The ache of lust swelled and stretched, pulling at his body until it was as tight as a wire, flooding every cell in his body with hypersensitivity. His damp hair on the bed, the dried water on their skin which was now replaced with a fine sheen of sweat, the intoxicating smell that was Raito, and the sliding feeling of him spearing L's body, sending shudders rippling through L with every movement.

He met the thrusts with his hips, conscious of the hand on his hip that was leading him in while tightening on his flesh with every gasp that passed the brunet's lips.

How honest they were like this.

How shamefully debased and smitten and totally gone on each other they were. And was it all the product of chemical reactions in the brain that made it so? That made it feel like they were flying in thin atmosphere, wanting for breath and yet feeling so free?

L's eyes slammed shut as sensation ignited in him like a roaring fire, drowning out all sound but the rushing in his ears and the sound of his own heart beating so hard and fast it seemed it might explode. He bit his lip hard to keep from voicing the sound in his throat, to keep that guttural noise in the darkness where it belonged. But he heard its twin in Raito's voice, tearing through the white noise as release tore through him.

---

They lay twined together, a mess of limbs that were haphazard and boneless, as sleep borne of exhaustion tugged at them both and breath came easier than before.

"I don't want this with anyone but you," Raito said in his ear, his voice slurring faintly as if he were on the verge of dreams and unconsciousness. "That's how I feel."

"I'm still not professing my undying love to you," L murmured back, turning his face into Raito's neck as the pull of sleep washed over him more insistently. He wondered vaguely why he'd said 'my', when he hadn't meant to say it at all. It made it seem less of a joke than he'd intended, and more like some kind of half-assed confession.

"That's ok; you don't have to say it out loud."

L would have hit him for the insinuation in his sleepily amused voice, but he found that consciousness was not with him long enough to accomplish it.

____________________________________________________________

TBC

A/N: liek omg pr0nz  o__o