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The room swims in and out of focus: glimmering diamonds on lovely necks, muted pink and gold, paper lanterns, champagne bubbles breaking at the brim of crystal flutes, platters of art disguised as food that seems a right fit here in its senseless, aesthetically perfect way, all being carried by young men dressed in garish uniforms straight out of a book on fairy tales. It looks picture perfect, like the same old childhood fantasies fed to every little girl about the lavish parties thrown by the Prince for his beloved, but there’s a hollowed out emptiness that resonates in the soft chimes of laughter. Everywhere you look, you see masks and insincere conversation. Somewhere not far away, someone has rubbed on way too much of Tom Ford’s Noir de Noir and it’s heady after notes pummels into the back of Light’s nose like a speeding train, leaving a sore ache in its wake. If a 100 pound bottle of cologne could fill up one’s lonely nights and empty bed, then there wouldn’t be any need of such inane gatherings and plebeian, mindless chatter.
‘It’s so nice to see you.’
‘You look exquisite.’
Light has smiled enough and nodded enough and had averted the hungry gaze of at least four men. They single him out in the crowd and that is an easy enough task. There are few in the room with such an arresting presence. The silk shirt sits snugly against his chest, warmed by his skin. It’s almost like he has lost a part of his hearing a little while after he entered the room, it’s something he has always done, retreating into the familiar quiet depths of his mind when the cacophonous drivel of the trivialities of those around him get too much. He had no idea what had been spoken to him throughout the evening and it probably doesn’t matter anyway. He’s an accent piece after all, a beautiful, exotic token, and his presence is both a desire and a necessity.
'Lucien’s young man? He is incredibly well-mannered. They make an excellent pair.'
This is the third party he’s been to in two weeks and his mind is dangerously close to shutting down when-
‘She looks like a Christmas tree.’
The words are breathed out into his ear, sending a gush of warmth right into the personal space he had been painstakingly preserving all evening from the roving eyes and his body reacts to it embarrassingly faster than his alcohol-numbed brain does.
L’s hand slides over his to take the glass from his limp hand before it falls to the floor but that does little to mask the moan that slips from his mouth like a profanity uttered in the middle of a church. The woman in front of them turns, her patronizing smile clearly says that she has heard him.
L’s arms wrap around his waist, ‘Are you okay?’ and he can barely look at him without remembering the little rendezvous they had in the men’s room not half an hour ago. His elbow still hurts from where it had knocked against the tiled walls when L had all but shoved him inside an empty cubicle and got down on his knees.
‘Where’s the ring?’, Light had slurred, hands curling into the inky mess that was L’s hair, ruining the coiff that took a lot of painstaking coaxing with hair gel to achieve.
L didn’t answer, not with his voice anyway, and Light’s opened heavy-lidded eyes just in time to see L’s teeth on the zip of his trousers, and the rest is a blur anyway. He just remembers L’s mouth on his earlobe, the moist warmth of it as he dressed him up again.
‘I love these trousers L, if I find them ruined..’
L smiles a little as he’s tucking his shirt in.
‘That’ll technically be your fault’, he says, wrapping an arm around Light’s neck and bringing him into a kiss that leaves him breathless and pliant, fisting against L’s jacket for purchase while the haze of alcohol and oxytocin shrouds him with warmth.
They had returned to the party, hand in hand and Naomi had coughed into her appletini, mock-choking while they settled in the comfortable corner of the room beside her, heads drawn close together, the metallic frame of L’s glasses digging into Light’s temple as he whispered in his ear over the din, making Light come almost undone once again, his hand rubbing enticingly on L’s thighs.
‘Time for the token gay couple to go home’ Naomi nudges L in the shin with her heels, her head resting on Raye’s shoulder and he snorts in response, Light is all but asleep, both from exhaustion and the incessant teasing.
‘We’re happy to represent’, Light giggles, and the sound of his laughter rings oddly, Naomi raises an eyebrow. This is so uncharacteristic of him. He must really be tipsy to giggle like that and want curls like a vice in L’s chest, all consuming and unannounced. His fists clench around Light’s waist, soaking in the smooth, warm skin he finds there. They really do need to go home right now.
‘Politically correct guestlists make parties boring’, Raye wisecracks and L hums in assent, nose swimming at Light’s hairline.
‘You are just here for the aged whiskey Raye, don’t lie’, Light accuses him, words slurring slightly, raising a finger and L grabs it, almost unconsciously, holding it to his lips and kissing it.
‘Jesus L, just take him home. This isn’t uni. I can’t let you use the upstairs bedroom’, Naomi’s mouth is scrunched up and L fishes the apple slice from her martin and pops it in his mouth.
‘Buy some concealer if you won’t stop necking each other like you’re 15. You have class tomorrow don’t you?’, alcohol makes Naomi bitter and Raye pats her arm absent-mindedly while she peeks at the pink flush of the broken capillaries pooling under the skin at L's neck.
‘Don’t remind me’, L gets up, disentangling himself from Light and leaving him against the table. He straightens his tie, looking for the middle aged dean of academics who adores Light enough to excuse them for leaving so early and L apologizes thoroughly, before accepting the congratulations on their engagement. The old man claps him gently on the shoulder and warmth pools inside him, filling him up till he is sure he must be look luminous and obviously love-struck. Light is right where he had left him, waiting eagerly and L could feel the phantom ache of separation deep inside him, making itself known in the breath that catches in his chest as he looks over at Light, and the distance separating them might as well be miles.
’Good night Lucien’, the professor adds with a knowing smile and shoves him gently in Light’s direction and L’s legs carry him towards the couch and his arms wrap gently around Light, who stirs, and breaks into a smile so heart breaking, so beautiful that L is struck dumb for a few seconds.
‘You’re back, where were you?’
He sounds rose-petal soft, honeyed, velveteen and L is pretty sure his expression will give Naomi enough ammunition to tease him for life.
Smooth, cold fingertips stroke L’s face gently and he leans in and kisses Light deeply, tracing the corners of his mouth with his lips.
Raye clears his throat loudly and the kiss melts into something less intense.
‘Go home L and straight home. Don’t stop midway.’, Naomi calls out and L gives them both a one-armed hug before hauling Light up and leading him out.
It’s raining and they’re too old for this, but his heart flutters like it used to when he was 18 as Light whispers something in his ears.
‘God Light, I still have to drive us home without crashing the car.’
Memories are strange things. Sometimes they fade away into the background and are replaced by newer ones, their vivid colour bleeding into the sepia toned past. But sometimes, they refuse to go away and attach themselves to every insignificant object that you thought didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. They demand to be noticed, to be relived and Light knows it all too well. The couple of raindrops slide down the car window in a silent crawl, chasing each other and he watches them catch up with each other and become one. London must have changed so much in 5 years, and they’ve stopped by this same red light so many times before. Light doesn’t remember all those times, but what he does remember is his first day, their first day together in this city that he has grown to love. The roads are slick with a fresh wash of rain, the sullen sky casting its reflection in the wet pavement. The car feels warm and dry, impervious, disconnected from the rest of the world. L’s knuckles are white, fists balled up against his sides and Light doesn’t reach over and smooth out the tension from them. The city outside is fogged out around him, blurred at the edges, facades fading into each other. The only places that stand out are the ones where they’d left their footprints, bits of their souls as their story wrote itself in tender touches, shared umbrellas and glistening raindrops shaken from hair by shivering, tentative fingertips.
They’re going through the motion these days, on autopilot, arriving and leaving the flat as silently as possible as if any sound would disturb the fine shroud of dust and cobwebs on the photographs that hang from the wall.
Their home lies in ruins, either too filthy or too clean at times and everything they had painstakingly built and collected and surrounded themselves with for all these years lie in waiting for them to return. Light comes home a couple of times a week, mainly for a fresh change of clothes and almost never at the time when L is here. When you share a roof and a bed with someone long enough, their routine becomes your own and the silent agreement between them leaves Light the afternoons to himself while L has the evenings. The nights are theoretically his as well, this flat has his name on the papers, it’s his now. But Light’s potted cactus still sits at the window sill of his study, the dog eared copies of Yukio Mishima’s books he loves so much are waiting for him in the box that he hasn’t yet taken away and if he concentrates a little, the smell of that ridiculously expensive cologne still lingers around the sink, seeping into his nostrils and poisoning his insides with that cloying old sense of loneliness that used to whisper into his ears in all those nights when he’d pretended to be asleep with his head on Watari’s lap, while his mother settled in a new house with a new family and unknown faces in a different part of the world without him. This loneliness is his constant companion, it has woven itself into every thread of this being such that he is barely aware of it anymore.
But not Light too. Not him of all people. He was supposed to stay. How many more people will slip through his fingertips before he crumbles to dust himself?
The dust covers on their bed lie untouched, like the way it has been since last month when Light had walked out and none of them knew if he’d ever return. He did return, but this Light wasn’t the Light L had held hands with under the table back in that diner in Shibuya while Soichiro Yagami sat in front of him, obviously charmed by the shy and accomplished young professor who’d been his guest. This Light wasn’t the Light who L had kissed and held so tenderly in his arms that night in Karuizawa, aware even then of the bird-bone fragility of what they shared. This Light wasn’t the Light who had left everything behind and followed L to the other side of the world and not regretted anything, holding onto his hand on the plane and smiling into the kiss, even when L had felt like he’s stealing away something precious and that guilt hadn’t left him even after they’d moved in together, a piece of paper clutched in hand, a piece of paper that spelled out what they’d always been for each other. They were invincible together, and it was like everything else had ceased to exist.
The neighbours had been enchanted by Light, and so was L’s mother. That warm glow in his chest was the reality that anchored him place while he watched her gush over them both from behind the screen, miles of distance forgotten. But then, who wouldn’t love him?
When he’s not crashing on Naomi and Raye’s spare futon with armful of papers and cups of over-sweetened tea, L keeps to his study for the most time when he’s in the flat. The rest of the house is a minefield of one memory after another that sends a gush of pain in his chest, like that delirious head rush left in the wake of those secret scars his teenaged self had given himself when the acid fumes of self loathing bubbled under his skin and burst forth in red from his ruined wrists.
Light had kissed those scars so many times, whispering quiet soothing words to them, like they had ears and the phantom ache he used to get with every wrong twist of the damaged nerves there had all but disappeared.
Every now and then, when he’d yank out books from the top of his shelf, scraps of paper would fall out, yellowed at the edges:
‘You are my Light.
I must have been blind before I met you.’
L doesn’t remember when he’d written them, he doesn’t remember the look on Light’s face when he'd seen them or if he’d seen it at all. L doesn’t remember how his own face looked like reflected on the dull warm brown of Light’s eyes and the realization hits him, sudden and all-consuming. Light hasn’t spoken to him in over two weeks, and the timber of Light’s laughter, the soft cadences of his whisperings are fading from his memory. He only remembers that inexplicable pang in his chest, or that shiver at the root of his spine he used to feel in response to them. L’s mind is a ship lost in the swelling, turbulent sea of numbers, facts and information. All the little details: the pink flush of Light’s cheeks when he blushed, the rough burn of Light’s stubble against his cheek when he had forgotten to shave, Light’s breath warm against his neck when they’d just woken up together, his mind will forget all of this with time.
His tips of his fingers, the curve of his lips, his whole being will always remember. Forgetting was never an option.
Something looms above them, unspoken, invisible and crushing, and Light slams on the accelerator with more force than he means to. L doesn’t make any comment, his head is ducked to the side, and Light catches a glimpse of his own face reflected against the steadily darkening background of the city outside them. His eyes are sunken, gray shadows under his eyes and his face is almost identical to L’s in its gaunt, corpse like profile. Bitterness swirls inside him and the next turn inevitably brings them to the bookstore they used to haunt.
‘Then’ and ‘now’. Two different lifetimes separated by only a few years. It wasn’t a clean, easy break for either of them. Light had only begun to realise it now, as the interiors of the car suddenly seems too small for the both of them. The bookstore shines like a beacon, the memory blinding white with luminosity. Back then, he’d thought this breathless, head-in-the-clouds rush of having someone look at you like you’re the sun would be enough. He’d thought love would be enough, enough to soothe his homesickness, enough to soothe his frayed sense of identity, enough to give him a purpose.
It’s everywhere, that phantom of his old self. It’s in every bookstore they’d kissed in, every park they’d walked through, hands linked, in every restaurant with flickering candles and bunches of roses on the table. Light has very few regrets, and most of them have the rainy London cityscape as the background. It’s not just the car, this city itself is too small for the both of them now.
The trek up that sickeningly familiar flights of stairs is a dreary one and L’s footsteps ring against his ears, violating and intrusive and Light flinches inwardly with every step. The over head lamp doesn’t turn on when Light gropes around for the switch.
‘You didn’t replace the bulb did you?’
The first words he’d spoken in weeks and it slips out before he could even stop himself. It’s a question that hardly needs a response, but Light turns to look at L anyway, the darkness makes it easier.
L’s face is shrouded in shadows, but his gaze is insistent and clearly apparent in his stance. That awkward tangle of his limbs is gone, all melted into a nimble, unassuming confidence that breaks through at times. It’s this strange allure that made L stand out like a polished gem set alight by the sun’s rays from the sea of faces at the packed auditorium back at Todai.
That charm had dissolved to almost nothingness in all this time, replaced by rough edges and disappointments. By the third year, Light was convinced that the man he’d fallen in love with so hopelessly back in Japan had to be someone different from the selfish, stubborn, unbearably cruel person who had breakfast at the same table with him.
In the darkness of the stairs, lit up by the slivers of the streetlights filtering in through the blinds on the landing window, Light was positive that the old flame was flickering back to life from the dying embers it had been reduced down to. It was irresistible then and it still has that grasp on him, Light notes as anticipation settles cold and heavy against his chest. The hair at the nape of his neck prickles uncomfortably under the intense, unseeing scrutiny of L’s gaze. Time stutters and eddies sluggishly around them, or maybe Light is just exhausted.
L moves silently, almost like a ghost and he takes off his glasses with one fluid stroke of his hand, his movements flickering at the edges almost in slow motion, set to the rhythm of Light’s heartbeat that’s reverberating in his chest. L’s other hand wraps around Light’s wrist, pulling him up the stairs. He doesn’t fumble with the keys, and there is a new, unfamiliar smoothness in his movements that wasn’t there before, it feels out of place. But Light doesn’t have the time to complain. His breath is knocked from his lungs as he is pinned to the door from the inside.
‘L..’
The flat is so quiet that L’s breath against his ear sounds rings out loud with vulgarity. The windows are closed, curtains unmoving, every corner is like a shrine to their slowly dying love, shrouded in darkness but their lips find each other anyway, breathless and angry.
Their masks slip away at almost the same time and it tastes like that old familiar taste of triumph, that old refrain of us-against-the –world at the back of their minds, they move against each other slipping into every crack, in every fold, in every empty space they had tried to vacate so thoroughly over the last few months. Distance means nothing: miles melt into metres, metres into inches and inches finally into nothing. L’s skin begins where Light’s does.
Where were you all this time? I’ve missed you.
L’s hands are everywhere, yanking Light’s shirt out of the way and relishing the feel of the smooth, milky skin on his back, running his hands all over, pulling him flush against his own chest. Light is still dazed by the suddenness of it all, but he hides it well, slipping his hands under L’s jacket and slipping it off his shoulder with a fluid flick of his wrists. L’s hair is a mess under Light’s ministrations, his lips warm and already kiss-bruised, pupils blown as Light flings him against the cabinet in the hallway. L curses under his breath as the sharp corner of it digs into the back of his knee, pain erupting like fire and the sound of his pained moan sets Light over the edge. He doesn’t let him complain, tongue stroking languidly along the smooth, moist warmth on the insides of L’s mouth.
Light searches for reason, for meaning in the way his skin responds to L’s touch again. He reaches out in the void for a sign that all isn’t lost after all, that they can be saved. That there’s still some love left in him.
L’s fingers are at his tie and L all but rips it from his neck and Light groans into the kiss, mouthing wordless swears against L’s lips.
‘No don’t!’
‘Hmm?’ L’s lips busy themselves at Light’s collarbone, sucking kisses along it, Light pants against his ear, fingers clenching against his hair again.
‘Give me the tie’, Light insists, and his voice breaks into a moan that sends warmth gushing in L’s belly as he grinds their hips together. The friction is unbearable and Lights fingers scramble to undo the zip on his trousers and L covers his hands, twisting them behind him, jutting him closer to L’s chest, their hips grinding in another delirious haze of pain that tapers off in mind numbing pleasure that leaves Light shivering against L’s jaw, his lips pressing against Light’s forehead in a mockery of tenderness.
‘Give it back L’, Light’s mouth is a persuasive presence on L’s neck, his breath tickling around L’s throat and the wrist holding Light’s arm in place tighten painfully.
This isn’t love, Light realizes, undressing L and marking his bare skin with his mouth. This is something else. This isn’t about kisses that taste like champagne and quiet, sweaty lovemaking on the single mattress in a bare apartment. This isn’t a beginning, there’s no rosy warmth, no sweet nothings whispered in the ear, forehead kisses and love that seems bottomless and infinite, the last truth in this universe.
This is different. This is lust, primal and sheer, unbearable want stripped raw and naked: pulsing , throbbing, ripe with wanton desire and that has the filthy aftertaste of regret. Words have no necessity when their skin melts so deliciously into each other. They latch onto the cries that they coax out of each other’s mouths, like it will be enough to heal everything. Everything else is meaningless, L’s books topple over from the bookshelf and lay in an inelegant heap against Light’s shirt on the floor, the cover slips off open to a snapshot of L’s face on the jacket, his proud smile.
If only they could see how desperate you are for my touch.
But this is a show for an audience of two and Light eases them both into the flat, ever the graceful performer, trying not to trip over the discarded clothing strewn on the floor, waiting for the chance to pin L against the nearest flat surface and make his voice break the way it does when Light uses his mouth on him. But L isn’t one to give up so easily, he meets Light’s blows head on and deals out some of his own, leaving blood to pool under Light’s skin in bursts of red. It will be a sight to behold come tomorrow and the thought floods him with more want, shameless and hungry as he signs off every last kiss on L’s skin with silent curses for every moment he’d spent falling out of love with him.
L lets his arm go and pulls Light’s tie from his pocket.
The material sits silken against his arms and Light’s lips look inviting, warm and moist, but he settles for his eyes and the tie sits against it like it belongs there, the blood red crimson against the flushed pink of his cheeks and L’s hands deftly tie it behind his head while his lips drown his complains.
‘The tie..L..’
‘It costs more than every tie I own, I know.’
He pulls the dustcover off the bed, sending it pooling on the floor, dust motes dancing whatever Light that seeps through their curtains. He pushes Light against the bed and Light’s head sinks into the familiar softness of their pillows and he whimpers, fingers groping around in thin air, like he has been parched, starved from touch for a long time. He isn’t used to this kind of vulnerability and it almost overwhelms him, the lack of control eroding his inhibitions and making it crumble into dust, pulled clean from his sweat-slicked skin like his trousers and the bed dips as L’s knees grind against his hipbones, his hands find L’s face and L is as still as a statue, breathing against his fingertips and the moment melts into another, indistinguishable from each other. L’s arms wrap around his waist and his mind cannot keep up with this new shift in position and in L’s demeanour. He flinches, that familiar fear of the unknown gripping him as L wraps him an embrace, resting his head against the crook of his neck. Light can feel L’s eyelashes tickle his skin and if he couldn’t feel it before, he feels it now: the burn of nostalgia spreads through his bloodstream like a drop of ink in water.
I loved you so much. What happened to us?
He once had a home in L’s arms, but he’s been gone for so long now that he’d almost forgotten how this feels like. Tears prick at the corner of his eyes, soaking the tie as L undoes the embrace, holding his face and touching their noses like they used to what feels like another lifetime ago.
‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Come back. I miss you so much.’
The words are breathed silently into his skin, and L’s breath is almost scalding, burning into his arms. They might have been kisses, Light really can’t tell anymore. His fingertips don’t remember anything but raw, untainted want that is engraved into his bones, he reaches for his old place, cradled against L’s chest, listening to his heartbeat wane into something that could be a lullaby. But he isn’t 18 anymore and love no longer fills up all the hollows worn away by neglect, the little cracks and fractures inside him made by loneliness and the crushing weight of responsibility that taint them like a disease. He needs more, wants more and finding that old warmth back is a long treacherous trek atop a steep hill and Light is tired, so tired. All he wants to do now is to look at L in the eye again, kiss him till he forgets who he is and then fall asleep in his arms.
Light shudders from the cold metal frame of the bed his back rests on. L’s lips are surprisingly gentle when they kiss the tears that leak from under the tie, easing him onto the pillows. L’s mouth leaves him again, but his fingers curl around his, as if to say ‘I’m here, I’ll stay.’
L’s mouth is Light’s own personal hell and his fingers clench against L’s hair while his other hand fists against the sheets, bunching them around him as L’s lips map out the familiar terrain of his body, making him buck helplessly into L’s mouth, leaving him boneless, toes curling where his ankles rest against L’s shoulder. His breath hitches and L remembers every little thing that sets his blood ringing in his ears, his release flooding him with sensations that threaten to pull him under.
L lifts his head gently and takes the makeshift blindfold off, and Light’s eyes scrunch close immediately, fingers raised automatically to rub some of the bleariness out, L’s hands wrap around them and he kisses his knuckles, hovering over Light like a well loved ghost. Light doesn’t want to kiss him back but he is grateful and anyone who shows him any sign of affection surely must desire payback in kind and Light will never be in anyone’s debt.
He brushes L’s hands from his hair and hauls himself up, flipping L over and straddling him. The tie is ruined anyway, like so many of his things that L had no regard for. L’s fingers stroke his arms and the gesture is patronizing in how comforting it feels and Light doesn’t need comfort. He doesn’t need to be held and kissed and made love to.
Not anymore.
The tie wraps around L’s mouth, holding it open, cutting into the corners of his lips and L groans in pain.
Light takes L’s hand and puts them behind his back so he is pressed flush against his chest again, L’s ribs dig into his own like they are wrestling for existence in the shared space between them, Light’s chest still moist with his release. His hands curl against L’s hair, yanking it back, exposing his neck and Light’s lips shower him with kisses. His lips fit perfectly in that dip between his collarbones and Light bruises the delicate skin there, grazing his teeth over and over. The sounds L makes ring in his ears and Light’s teeth sink against L’s neck as he jerks upwards. L’s arms have stilled on his back and he urges it further down.
‘Do it do it do it. Don’t keep me waiting.’
Touch me like you mean it, like the way you did when you loved me.
L’s eyes are as cold and empty as it has always been and today it is glassed over with something that looks a lot like pain and it feels good to see him this way. Lights lips warm the sensitive skin behind his ear and his eyes shut in response.
‘No. No. Keep your eyes on me’,
Light’s breath is warm and cold and his hips roll languidly around L, the tightness is unbearable as Light keens against his chest. They cling to each other like they’d cease to exist if they let go, rocking against each other in an unfamiliar rhythm that burns in a fiery tempest of pleasure and pain through Light’s spine and steals the breath from his lungs and pushes him closer to the edge. L bites down on his tongue, letting Light take over and it’s such a privilege to see him like this. Every moan from his mouth, every snap of his hips, every press of his lips against his neck feels sacred somehow and L averts his eyes, unable to hold on to him any longer. His body betrays him in the worst way possible and his arms close around Light, finding his own rhythm that sends Light unraveling in his arms again. Light’s mind revels at the sensation. This isn’t sacred, it’s sacrilege. He remembers every taunt, every disappointed look, every time someone had called him names, slandered him because he loved someone he shouldn’t and this is him winning. The silky black edges of pleasure call him out to sea and he gives in. L’s touch to him is cold, clinical, rough at the edges, sharp, probing, violating, and he might just have been kissing his worst enemy but Light’s mind is torn asunder with every plunge, tottering at the edge of pain that force his eyes to tear up again and pleasure that makes stars burst red around his eyelids.
When he finally crashes over the edge, chasing after something elusive, it’s a triumph and a failure all at once. His moans reverberate through the house, tempered by L’s laborious breathing as he follows and it feels unclean, deplorable and their sins wash over them in warm, throbbing, undeniable roiling waves of pleasure that crash around them both and leave them moored, breathlessly clinging on to each other like they’re each other’s lifelines.
Light’s bones seem too weak to carry his weight and he crashes against L, L’s fingers undoing the tie, letting the salt from Light’s tears dissolve on his tongue.
Light puts a palm over his heart, and L wraps him in his arms, lips tracing across his face and jaw in soothing patterns and Light’s skin a map of his own making, painstakingly scoped out in measured touches and loving caresses for so many years. It has soaked into his unconscious, his own North star leading him home.
‘Maybe there is hope’, L thinks. It feels a lot like love and maybe it is that, not just an itch that needs to be tended to once in a while.
They shower in silence, soaking in the afterglow, scrubbing each other’s salt-sweet essence clean from each other’s skin and L kisses him against the counter, arms wrapped around his neck and maybe, just maybe, this is that big romantic gesture that’ll break through the invisible walls that have sprung up around them, Light would come back, and it’ll be like the old times again. God he’d do anything to feel him smile against his lips one last time.
The soft golden haze of dawn seeps against the room, melting away into the pale, barely there slivers of the afternoon sun that escapes from the impenetrable, immovable blanket of grey that blots the sky. Light wakes up warm and sore, L’s head nestled against his shoulder, and the morning after is almost exactly like he’d imagined. Every stretch of his limbs is painful, bruises making themselves known, the pale red half crescents of L’s nails stand out in pale expanse of his forearms. Light expected a headache, regret and the overwhelming need to entangle himself from L silently, and grab his clothes and be out the door as soon as possible. He’d had expected to spend the rest of the day in some pub, ignoring Teru’s calls and punishing himself with alcohol for his incredible lack of judgement. He can almost hear Teru’s voice inside his head, tinged with disappointment.
‘I know he’s a hard habit to break, but you are not even trying to get over this addiction.’
This doesn’t feel nothing like that. L’s mouth his slack with sleep and his hair is an untameable mop that tickles his jaw in an unassuming sense of intimacy. His mouth leaks a small puddle of drool on his shirt and the spot feels cold with L’s exhale washing over it and Light doesn’t prod him awake. It’s too simple, the planes of L’s cheekbones fit under his palms like a puzzle coming together and giving in to these sensations is too easy and it feels comfortable to just lay there under the threadbare blanket, skin brushing against bare skin and Light nuzzles into L’s hair, pressing sleepy kisses against the hairline almost unconsciously, groaning with every painful stretch of his spine. L shifts and the unforgiving weight of his head strains against Light’s arm, robbing it of oxygen and Light cusses softly, yanking on the arm from under him and crying out in pain as his shoulder wrenches painfully in its socket.
L jerks awake and he’s sober in minutes, and Light realizes with growing discomfort that this was probably the first time he’d got any sleep in weeks.
‘Did I hurt you again?’
His question is almost rhetorical and Light snorts in response at the irony, the haze of sleep has clearly lowered his inhibitions to an embarrassing degree. L looks invitingly sleep-mussed, and Light has to suppress his fondness, decisions taken and words spoken in early mornings with his mind fogged up with sleep always come to haunt him later. But the smile that crosses his own lips when L helps to stretch his arms is feels so sincere and natural that it shocks him. He reaches out and presses his lips against the corner of L’s mouth in a chaste kiss, L wrapping him up again and burying his face in his neck.
They lie for what feels like hours, without touching, facing each other under the blanket, drinking each other in, soaking in each other’s presence, having those long undue conversations with their eyes.
‘Did you take ambien?’
‘I took two. One doesn’t work anymore’, L smiles weakly and rests his head against his arm while the other lies awkwardly around Light’s hand.
The muted glow of the evening settles around them and it should feel like an ending, Light is taking the red eye back to Tokyo tonight and who knows that will happen in the two weeks he’ll be away.
‘Move over’
‘What?’, Light leans over him to reach for the balled up pair of spare socks he keeps in the table drawer. His lips curl into a smile when his fingers find them, it’s like everything has been frozen like the way he’d left it and all that’s needed now is for him to come back.
‘Those are mine Light.’
‘Exactly. Show me your feet.’
L raises them and places them gently on Light’s lap, and Light slips the socks on them quickly and returns to occupy the warm space L had just vacated for him.
‘You snore when your feet get cold’, Light replies, speaking mostly to L’s neck and L’s lips find his forehead again, his hands tuck the blanket snugly around them and it makes it all the more easier for Light to pretend like nothing had gone wrong and they’d just moved in together and the neighbours could hear everything through the paper thin walls. L kisses him again, and Light smiles against his lips and all L can do is just give in suck more bruises on Light’s skin marking him:
Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine.
Go as far as you want, go where I won’t be able to touch you and hold you and kiss you like this but you’ll always come back because I’ll be waiting here for you.
This time, when L leans over and presses adoring kisses against his ribs, it feels like love, their fingers intertwine as they hold each other. It’s like the old times, like that moonlight night in that love hotel in Tokyo, breathless kisses in that elevator in their old hotel room in Paris. They make love and it’s slow and languid. Deep kisses that seep warmth right to their bones, soft smiles and silent promises uttered against each others’ lips.
By the time they manage to get out of bed the sun has already set outside, throwing the room in darkness, silent save for their breaths. L attempts to cook and Light scoops the half burned eggs straight from the pan and rests his head against L’s shoulder as he’s doing up the dishes later. L’s callused fingers smell of dish-soap and it tickles Light as he smiles into the kiss, leaning against the fridge, arms around L’s.
He’s walked this fine line so many times before, choosing L’s side every time and promising himself that there won’t be a next time. But all those things mean nothing to him now that he is rooted firmly to the present and the prospect of spending the next two weeks apart doesn’t fill him with dread and uncertainty. They are still broken, the shards still jagged, sharp enough to wound but there’s a strange feathery lightness in his chest, something soft and pure, something that he remembers to be hope. Maybe there’s still a chance for them.
They go straight back to bed and fall asleep together, L’s arms wrapped around Light’s and his lips pressed against Light’s forehead.
Light wakes up at dusk, sleepy-heavy and smiling, and the wrinkles of L’s shirt are imprinted on his cheek, and leaves before L even has the chance to wake up and kiss him goodbye again. L wakes up to an empty bed but there's a note left on the pillow that reads:
I’ll be back.
Two weeks later when Light returns, he has a moving crew with him and they pack away one half of everything in their flat. L returns home to find nothing amiss, he’d never paid attention to the place anyway, the only thing that mattered to him hadn’t been home in a while. Light’s tear soaked crimson Lanvin tie is waiting for him on the bed and there are two text messages and 5 missed calls from Naomi on his phone.
It’s 8 in the evening when L wonders if he can choke himself with it and finish what he’s been putting off since he was 16.