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L is a dead man walking, and Light is back in his right mind.
He’s been sloppy, though he should have predicted that would be the outcome when he deliberately excised huge chunks of his conscious brain. His memories of that blurry, foolish time are intact, perfect, but he reviews them with a clinical, intelligent eye, like a researcher picking apart the emotional impulses of a primate in captivity. He is foreign to himself. He can’t believe he’s been running around playing the innocent ingénue all these months, giving so little consideration to the traps L’s laid for him since the beginning. Offering L trust, and friendship, and, most unbelievably, the use of his body.
The sick part is that stupid, earnest Yagami Light, who pinky-promised he wasn’t Kira and just wanted to get to the bottom of this oh-so-terrible situation, hadn’t thought to weaponize that particular tool at all. At all!
He likes to think he’s smarter than that, but fuck, he supposes he’s wrong. He had allowed himself to sink into the warm, deep pool L had created for him, ensnared in L’s arms, in his bed, and had apparently barely thought twice about it. Hadn’t considered for a second the fact that L’s desire for him could blossom into an exit route — that Light could catch him off-guard while the vaunted genius was busy thinking with his dick. Had only thought as far as stupid shit like whether he and L would keep fucking once Kira was caught. If perhaps they could work together, after, since in spite of their differences, they made an excellent team.
For fuck’s sake.
It’s okay, though. Light can change that. He can regain control over this situation. He’s going to come out on top here. There is no other option.
L can tell he’s changed. L takes his usual little barbs on the chin when they’re in mixed company, same as it ever was, but clearly expects him to be his pliant, pretty boy when they’re alone, who says please and asks nicely for what he wants and clings to L while he fucks him stupid. That’s not Light anymore. That was never Light.
Light is himself, now. Light is icy and imperious and cruelly beautiful. L thinks he’s submissive and sweet and desperate, expects him to fall wanton into his lap with his toned thighs apart and his doe eyes wide. L is wrong.
Light is perched demurely on L’s desk in the room they share (not for much longer), tracing his socked foot up and down L’s thigh and watching him with disinterest he doesn’t have to put on. Light had called him over with a shimmering tone and a certain glint in his eye and L had followed, like a fish to a lure, and Light had hooked him. The fact that they’re no longer handcuffed to each other is helpful in these matters. Light is a master of the come-hither glance, if he does say so himself, and now L actually has to cross the room to obey, which Light finds rather sexier than simply turning to glance at the other end of a chain.
He sat down when Light indicated he should, like Light was going to slide off the desk and onto him with some inventive new way to plead to be filled. Light is not going to do that.
Light is going to make him fucking beg for it.
L is watching him with that tracking, raptor-eyed gaze he gets when he’s trying to work Light out. Light can see the gears turning in his brain. He has one knee up in his typical curled pose, like he can’t help it, but the other is extended into a normal position, showing himself to Light. He’s hard, but that isn’t Light’s problem. Light isn’t touching him, just continuing that slow, irritating drag over the denim seam that covers his inner thigh, pointedly ignoring the thick, pulsing line that he occasionally just brushes with the very tip of his toe.
“Light,” L says calmly.
“Hm?”
“What are you doing?”
“Minding my own business,” Light replies. “What are you doing?”
“Obeying a summons,” L says dryly. He leans back in his chair and spreads his legs a little farther, but not far enough to slip out of Light’s reach. He looks lazy and entitled and serene, as he always does, and it pisses Light off.
“Oh,” he says, keeping his tone airy, “did you think I needed you for something?”
“Light made a very deliberate point of calling me over here, did he not?”
Light shrugs. If he’d had a fur on, or something — not that he’s in the habit of imagining himself in such things — it would have slipped blithely off of his shoulder.
“I didn’t necessarily have a purpose in mind,” he says, and here he does actually push the ball of his foot against the pronounced strain between L’s legs, nudging at it like he’s never seen an erection before. L twitches but doesn’t respond; Light is rewarded with only a sharp little exhale, which won’t do. He grinds onto him harder, more deliberately. L catches him by the foot like a frog to a fly and holds it in place, and when Light glares at him in obvious offense he only takes his foot in his other hand as well and starts rubbing his ankle, like he’s his fucking boyfriend or something. Gross.
“I struggle to believe that,” L replies conversationally. “I find that typically when you look at me beneath your lashes and beckon me to you there’s an ulterior motive to the action.”
Light’s eyes narrow further. “Presumptuous of you.”
L shrugs. “Is it not my job to draw conclusions based on historical patterns of evidence?”
“I don’t care what your job is,” Light says, and it sounds complaining even to his own ear. “It doesn’t entitle you to draw conclusions about me.”
L cuts him a skeptical look, not deigning to dignify that with a response. He’s still working out Light’s Achilles tendon with his thumbs, and Light’s foot is still nestled squarely against his dick, where he’s pushing subtly against it, encouraging. Light pulls out of his grip, glowering back at him in cold disapproval.
L lets out a long, indulgent sigh, as though Light is a child throwing a tantrum, and sits up, balancing his elbow on his knee and dropping his chin into his hand. “Light,” he says calmly, and there they are, back to square one. “Is there anything to be had for me here, or should I go find another way to occupy my time?”
The fucking nerve of him. Light leans down so their faces are inches apart.
“You’re not getting anything from me,” he murmurs, low and dangerous, “until you ask me very, very nicely. I am no longer in the business of providing sexual favors to you for free.”
Silence hangs between them for a moment. L doesn’t look irritated. He doesn’t even look surprised.
He looks amused.
Light’s going to wring his fucking neck.
“Okay,” L says, and Light is going to wipe that fucking smirk off his face if it’s the last thing he ever does. “And may I ask the going rate?”
Light settles back so he’s leaning against the wall, folding his arms over his chest. For a moment he wants to get up and leave him sitting there with his dick in his hand like the idiot he is. But he won’t get many more opportunities for this. L has an expiration date, and it’s rapidly approaching, and if Light would like to exact this specific form of torment upon him he needs to do so now.
“Do you want to fuck me, Ryuzaki?” he asks icily.
“I’d appreciate the opportunity, if you’re offering,” L replies.
“Then I want you to beg,” Light says, supercilious. “And I want you to work for it. This impression you have of me as some slutty little nothing you can have whenever you want ends today.”
“That’s not at all the impression I have of Light,” L counters, but he’s nevertheless rising from his chair and sinking to his knees, and he’s harder than he was, and Light can’t get used to any of that, because he’s not going to have it for very long. “But I’m happy to pay any price he names, if he feels I’ve undervalued his skills.”
He’s peeling Light’s socks off. His warm pink tongue finds the bone of Light’s ankle. Light does not shiver.
“Good,” Light says, in no way any more breathily than he’s said anything else.
“Good,” L repeats, and his tongue on Light’s skin turns into a proper kiss, and the whole time he’s looking up at Light with his big dark eyes and something knowing in them that Light doesn’t like.
He pushes up the hem of Light’s khakis, making his way up Light’s bare calf with his mouth. “May I take these off?”
“No. Get creative.”
L’s lip quirks up in amusement. “Okay,” he says, and he lifts his hand and slides it up the seam of Light’s trousers, holding him flat and gentle. Light realizes all of a sudden that he’s visibly aroused, which rather puts a dent in the chilly impression he’s trying to exude.
L doesn’t make any smart remarks about this, which is in his best interest.
Instead, he drops his hand again and that seeking mouth finds Light’s clothed erection, warm and damp through the stiff fabric, and Light is seized by an urge to grab him by the hair and fucking choke him on it for daring to touch him that way, like he has the inherent right, that he nobly resists.
“What would you have me say, if I’m meant to beg?”
“I’m not feeding you lines,” Light sneers. “I’m sure you can come up with something.”
L clicks out a thoughtful, concessionary sound. “Surely it’s not enough to say that you’re the most beautiful man I’ve ever slept with. With whom I’ve had the best sex. Et cetera.”
“Not on your life.”
“Mm, no, I thought not. Mostly because those are lies.” Light bristles with rage, but not quickly enough; the flat of L’s tongue runs up the line of his cock, firmly enough that it’s as though he’s trying to taste Light’s bare flesh from beneath two layers of clothing. To his immense dissatisfaction, Light pulses under the contact. “Maybe, then, if I told you how much I’ll miss this?”
“Why would that be better?” Light says snidely, more than willing to call this entire thing off altogether.
L glances up at him and grins. “Why would it be better for me to tell Light that I can’t even be mad that he hopes, still, to bring this entire operation down around my shoulders, certainly resulting in one or both of our deaths, because I have so enjoyed fucking such a smart, pretty, perfect boy while I’ve had the chance?”
Light makes a strangled noise. L hums in satisfaction and mouths at him again, lapping intently at the spot he’s correctly pinpointed as the head of Light’s cock.
“Let me suck you off. Come on. I can’t work under these conditions.”
“You haven’t asked me politely enough,” Light chokes out, which he is rather proud of managing to do. “You don’t deserve to touch me.”
L doesn’t roll his eyes, but Light can practically see the effort it takes not to do so, even as he simultaneously sees his cock twitch. He takes up the practice of petting Light’s dick through his trousers like a small, tame animal, instead, and says, “God, I love when you’re a bitch.”
“I should tear your fucking head off,” Light snarls, and L laughs at him — laughs at him — and says, “I’m sorry — I’m sorry — I worship you when you’re a bitch, you horrible, beautiful boy. I do. When you kill me, can you please promise to do it with your bare hands?”
“You’re talking nonsense,” Light says raspily, because what else is he supposed to say to that? This conversation is quickly beginning to give him whiplash.
“I’m entirely lucid,” L contradicts, and he punctuates this by giving Light’s cock a squeeze which is not entirely kind, which makes Light’s breath catch quite without his permission. “You don’t understand. I love you like this. I’m so pleased that you’re being like this I don’t know what to do with myself. Do you get it? I wish I had more time with you, you idiot, you genius. I’ve very much enjoyed spending these last three months with you — well, most of the time — but I like you rather better when you’re unlobotomized. I am so wildly interested in fucking you right now that it’s hard-overriding all of my better interests. I don’t think you understand the extent to which you could have had me eating from the palm of your hand this whole time if you’d been playing the nasty little ice queen you actually are.”
Light feels several things at once. Foremost of these is anger, hot and throbbing, and close behind it is flattery, of the kind he’s always been embarrassingly liable to feel around L, and following not long behind that is intense, dizzy lust that kind of makes him want to kill himself. This was the point of this exercise, and yet hearing L spell it out like that, confirming his suspicions, making him regret having done anything this entire time other than fucking sexually subdue him, is almost enough to make him sick. He can’t do anything — can’t think of doing anything — other than what he does, which is to swallow hard and refocus and cast a haughty look at L down his nose and utter,
“All of that, and not a single instance of the word please.”
L breaks into a grin, immediate and insane, and says, “Please, Light. Please, please let me fuck you. You’re so fucking — perfect. I’ll die if I can’t fuck you.”
“Get up,” Light says hoarsely, and L stands up so fast it’s a marvel his skinny, anemic body doesn’t collapse on him and scoops Light terribly into his arms and it really is a shame, Light supposes, that he’s going to die anyway.