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Lonely and lost to light for evermore,
Save when to thine my heart responsive swells...
~ Lord Byron, The Corsair (1814), canto I, st.14, 'Medora's Song'.
"Good morning.”
L shifts contentedly amongst the sheets, enjoying the way they pull slightly at his hips as he moves, and buries his face deeper against his pillow. Despite his better judgement, and the fact that logic would suggest that the detective would usually be the earlier riser between them, L has grown to love waking up to the sound of the young man's voice wishing him a good morning; he smiles even though he isn't fully awake yet.
Light's voice is soft, and there's something equally soft trailing along the length of L's bare back.
Bare back?
L blinks his eyes open, murmurs "Morning, Light-kun" out of sheer habit, from the familiarity of waking up with Light beside him, their chain rattling between them in the mess of sheets and... and then he remembers. The chain is gone, Kira is gone, and the young man seated on the bed beside him, making the mattress dip just a fraction beneath his slender weight, is nobody but Yagami Light, Yagami Light and innocent, innocent...
L realises suddenly that the softness smoothing its way up and down the bumps of his spine is the pad of Light's thumb. He shivers, and decides that 'innocent' probably isn't the most appropriate of adjectives. And then he remembers—
“Oh.”
The detective rolls onto his side, displacing Light's trailing thumb, and stares up at the younger man.
Light just smiles gently, and moves his hand to stroke along L's bare arm instead. “Oh, indeed,” he says. Then, “You don't remember—?” At the question, a slight shadow of concern passes over his face, darkening his eyes just a little, as he gazes down at L quizzically.
There's a second where L doesn't remember, but then, oh yes, he does. It's a mess of images, a mess of sensations – gleaming wineglasses, and bright laughter, and slender hands, and pretty, clever amber eyes, and a strange uncertainty about where to look, and yet a need to stare as though to stare would be to consume life itself and – finally – really?– the taste of Light's lips, surprisingly sweet, surprisingly warm, surprisingly willing to be possessed and captured by his own.
“I thought I sent you home,” remembers L suddenly, his mind struggling to rise above the half-haze of still-sleepy, not to mention the distracting pressure of Light's hand, so alive, where it has come to rest against the bone of L's angular hip, only just visible above the crumpled sheets. “Mogi-san drove you... after the celebrations... since you could go freely, go to your family, go to your home. Your home. Home.” The word appears to have stuck to the top of L's mouth and yet, counter-intuitively, it keeps on slipping out. He shakes his head slightly to clear his thoughts, his hair settling anxiously around his face as he peers up at the young man beside him, trying to understand, trying not hope too much, trying not to loose himself in Kira's gone, Kira's gone, Kira's gone; trying to find a way to the shore in the midst of the sea that those eyes (brown-gold-pretty-brilliant) are busy drowning him in.
“You did,” concurs Light, a mischievous smile playing at his lips. His hand shifts back into motion, sliding away from L's hipbone, smoothing up the centre of L's chest (making him tremble), and then grounding itself at the side of L's face. Light's fingers brush against L's hair, his thumb stroking, stroking, just a breath away from L's lips. L wants nothing more than to tilt his head just a dash to the right and take that thumb in his mouth; he wants to test whether the boy tastes as good as his shifting-dancing memories are assuring him he does. “You did,” repeats the Japanese man softly. “But you told me to go home, L, so why would I be there instead of here?”
For a self-confessed genius, L muses semi-absently, he's having remarkable difficultly following the general gist of the conversation this morning, and the word home, home, home is now looping and whirling in his mind like a slightly crazy mantra. He's eighty-seven percent sure that it's Light's mobile thumb, against his face, which is causing the main problem. That, and the growing realisation, now that he's gazing up at the boy properly, that Light's hair is magnificently sleep-tousled, and that the buttons of his shirt (yesterday's shirt? all worn and crumpled?) are almost completely undone, inviting L's eyes to drink in the sight of lean, pale-gold skin beneath it's open shadows, inviting...
Remarkable, the difference it makes now that Kira is gone. The unwelcome third of their relationship vanquished. No spectre between them like the hangman's noose.
“Did we...?” asks L carefully, reasonably sure that make love doesn't need to be added to the end of his question for clarification, seeing as this Light he's talking to. He's also suddenly slightly unsure of where to look again and so, naturally, chooses to gaze directly up at the boy, with wide-opened eyes, studying his every reaction intently.
...is Light blushing?
“No. We didn't. Not... not yet,” answers the younger man, a flick of his thumb catching briefly at the corner of L's mouth, and making the detective's dart out to touch against it, whether his mind is in agreement or not.
For a second (a pounding heartbeat), L's tongue plays nimbly with Light's thumb. Then he releases it, damp against his cheek now, licks at his lips, and says, ever-so-intellectually, “Oh.”
“I... think I might have fallen asleep,” adds Light, only slightly embarrassed. “The wine, you know.”
“Ah.”
Outside the window, the world is waking up. The lights of Tokyo are dressing themselves in their daylight attire, early-rising salarymen and careerwomen are packing themselves into bullet trains and busways, cats are creeping into patches of peeping sunshine, and children are yawning their way to breakfast. L needs a moment to breathe, so he disentangles his soul from Light's grasp upon his face, shakes the bed sheets from himself, and walks to the window, pulling at the blind's cord till it opens at a slant and lets the dawn glow in against his face. He's vaguely conscious of the fact that he's completely naked, and wonders just how far he'd planned on taking things before Light had passed out last night (he remembers it now: the hands, the fingers, the hungry press of flesh to flesh, and then the overpowering need for sleep, as though the very world had risen up and beaten them both soundly with the realisation that they were free now, free now, and it was just too much to take in all at once). He hears Light move indecisively on the bed for a moment, and then the young man walks up behind him, and comes to a halt in silence, just out of reach. Light stays there, still and waiting; waiting because he knows L, waiting because he knows how he would be thinking himself, were he the one at the window.
And then L steps backwards, once, twice, until his back is pressed against Light's front; straightens, so that they stand the same height, and rests his head sideways against Light's head. The boy sighs a warm, contented sigh, and wraps his arms around him, pulling the detective closer.
L lets out a breathe he hadn't even realised he was holding, and hums to himself as he catalogues the feel of it all.
“My name is Lawliet,” he says, gently.
“Lawliet,”repeats Light in a whisper, as if he had just been given the secret to the foundations of the universe itself.
Together, they watch the new sun rise.