Etched 7b
Title: Etched
Summary: It was a brief fling that lasted much longer than it was supposed to. One a student and part-time forensic artist, the other the greatest detective in the world. When it ended, both were sure they'd never meet again. But fate had other plans. AU.
Pairing: L/Light
Rating: R
Chapter 7a
"L, can I talk to you?"
L glanced up from his computer, and to his mild surprise he noticed night had already long since fallen.
Near and Mello were currently on their way to France, with varying degrees of hostility and ill-intent towards L's life, and at the moment it was only L and Matt in the dimly-lit room hovering above the tiny dotted lights of the city below - Watari having undoubtedly retreated to bed hours ago, unlike the rest of the city, which seemed to be just awakening and heading out to explore what the city became under bright neon and flashing signs.
"I suppose, judging from your serious demeanor," L answered, removing his pecking fingers from his keyboard in an attempt at civility, "that the obvious and admittedly immature response of, 'You already are,' would be unappreciated at the moment. But yes, Matt, you may talk to me. If you mean, 'May I continue speaking with you, about a subject which you will likely find distasteful,' then again, yes - though I may refuse to answer any and all of your questions, and I warn you I might chose to leave the conversation if I become bored. With that in mind, please continue."
He settled back into his chair in a comfortable crouch and peered up at Matt expectantly.
"I'll keep it simple then," Matt said bluntly. "I know you fucked Light."
Ahhh… L hadn't been expecting that. However, it was too early to tell if this was a positive or negative development, so he reserved further reaction until he had a better understanding of the situation.
"I see. So you were the one who wiped the tapes."
Matt nodded. "You probably shoulda realized this was a possibility, but when I set up the cameras in here I set the feed to stream to my laptop as well. Just a little extra security."
"How very efficient of you. I suppose, when I did not call last night to inform you and Near that the hotel was available for sleeping, you assumed I had invited someone over, then checked your handy little security feed to verify this assumption?"
Another nod, shameless and relaxed. L really should have anticipated this. Even though Matt had removed himself from the running of becoming L, it didn't mean he should be overlooked or forgotten. After all, he was a contender for the position, should he ever want it. He was in the same bracket as Near and Mello, in terms of capability (and nosiness), and setting up an extra feed would be a natural response.
"Yep," Matt said with a flash of a smirk that, in terms of sneaky mischievousness, reminded L rather suddenly of one he had seen briefly last night on Light's lips during the heat of one of their games, though Light's was much more self-assured and radiated the sort of charm that made people willing to toss each other - and themselves - off cliffs if they thought it would please him. "You should be glad, too. I realized this morning you hadn't cleared the footage yet, so I decided to be a pal and wipe it for you. You oughta give me a raise or something."
"I assume it did not occur to you respect my privacy and not view the tapes." L's voice was dry, his eyes wiped blank as he regarded his third underling.
"L. Look at what we do for a living. We fuck privacy in the ass then spit on its pussy on a daily basis."
L heaved a sigh and looked around for some cake, though there was none to be found in the immediate vicinity. "I thought not. Though I find it interesting you have assigned the concept of privacy a female orientation. How much did you watch?"
"Just long enough to know not to come back last night. Nothing dirty. Who do you think I am, Mello?"
L shrugged as single shoulder, up then down in a silent show of his own indifference. "Like you said - we are not accustomed to valuing others' privacy. Did you delete the tapes or simply remove them from obvious sight?" Despite his projected apathy, L would admit to a little private anxiety. He did not feel entirely comfortable with the knowledge that someone else might have footage of him, even someone as laid-back as Matt.
Especially someone as creative and capable as Matt was, who had a streak of Mello-nurtured mischief.
"Deleted, you paranoid ass. You can check my computers if you want - all of them. I didn't keep them for my own nefarious purposes."
"Unnecessary. For one, I have no doubt that if you truly wanted to hide something electronically from me, you would be able to do so. For another, I see no motivation for you to use such videos against me and no possible gain for you even if you did. You would not be believed in your claims of my identity. Now, did you have a purpose in such a direct declaration of your knowledge in my business, or was that all?"
Matt settled onto the sofa across from L's chair and looked him dead in the eye.
"I want to know what the hell you think you're doing."
"Ah, Nathan the prophet," L muttered, bracing himself for reprimand and parables of greedy sheep-snatching - or in this case, Light-snatching.
"What?"
"Nothing," L waved the returned analogy away with a wave of a chalky-white hand. "Continue with your scolding. I will try to listen, though I really feel it is uncalled for. I have done nothing wrong."
"I'm not saying you did anything wrong, I'm not saying you didn't," Matt said in a sort of verbal eye-roll, leaning back against the pillows. "I'm just wondering what was going on in that messy head of yours. Did you even think this one through?"
L paused, seriously considering. It didn't take long.
"Yes, I thought it through very thoroughly," he said confidently. "I met Light, wanted to sleep with him, and did. There was no need for any further deliberation on the matter."
Matt sighed heavily, as though L were purposely acting like a difficult child. L did not appreciate this, considering it was coming from someone several years his junior and currently in his employ.
"Listen, L," Matt was saying, "you have the right to sleep with whoever the hell you want." Good, at least they agreed on that point. "But if you're going to sleep with Mello's boyfriend two days after he broke up with him, you bloody well better make sure Mello doesn't find out. That's incredibly insensitive - especially if Mello had found out by watching a tape of you fucking Light into the coffee table."
"I thought you didn't watch anything 'dirty', as you phrased it," L said quietly, not actually very concerned. Modesty was a concept he had never been overly bothered by.
"That was an accident, and trust me, I didn't want to see it. Your scrawny arse was a sight I could have gladly gone without."
"I would dispute your uncomplimentary - and false - word choice, but I find I do not care enough to make the effort." L fished into his pocket and withdrew a small hard candy, unwrapping it with a quick tug of his teeth and popping the smooth treat into his mouth. "Tell me" he said, his words a little distorted as they wrapped around the butterscotch. "I was under the impression Mello was not particularly attached to Light, save for as a convenient outlet for sex, and that it was by his own actions that the relationship was terminated. And while his initial reaction to the revelation would likely be unpleasant, I had not believed it would make a considerable difference to him if I were sleeping with Light."
Matt, probably motivated by L's own oral occupation, withdrew his half-disintegrated cigarette from earlier and lit it up with a flick of a lighter he always kept on hand.
L frowned. Really - out of all the Wammy addictions, Matt's appeared to be the least healthy in an immediate sense. But L had no intention of interfering. Especially considering the levels of sugar he consumed daily, he didn't really feel he had room to speak. If Matt decided he wanted his toxins in his lungs rather than his stomach, that was his choice.
"Mello fucked him for two months - exclusively," Matt said casually, but L was intrigued by a slight twitch in his thumb, so small he very well could have imagined it. "Do you realize how unusual that is for him to actually make the effort to be faithful to one person for that long? Yeah, he cheated and they broke up, but it wasn't like he wanted it to happen. I'm not saying he was in love or anything - because he definitely wasn't - or that he's at all broken up about ending things with Light. It really was a casual relationship, and it wasn't a big deal for him to see it end." Matt spoke smoothly and easily, as though discussing the mildly interesting way his cigarette smoke curled towards the ceiling, with no sign of outward distress.
"I'm just saying that…well, he liked Light," he continued with a shrug. "As a person, not just something to fuck. Enough to limit himself to one guy for two months, and I think that's gotta be the longest exclusive relationship he's ever had. You've never been in a relationship L, not even a casual one, so it's difficult for you to understand. You've never even fucked the same person for more than, what - a week, with that chick in Vienna? And that was just because she could make a pretty good angel's food cake."
L would probably have classified it as 'excellent', not just 'pretty good', and he didn't at all enjoy being told he couldn't understand something, but he nodded anyway, recognizing it was important for Matt to get whatever was swirling around his mind all out in one go.
"Mello and Light were just about sex, yeah," Matt was continuing, nothing but relaxed calm in his voice, "but you have to realize that when you fuck someone for that length of time, emotions are going to get involved. Especially for someone like Mello."
How interesting. L was sure of it now - every time Matt said Mello's name, his thumb twitched. It was possibly a reflex of years spent gaming, a reaction to stress and a conditioned response to an impulse to act, but it raised the question of why Matt would react in such a way to his friend's name.
Was there something of a romantic sort going on between Matt and Mello?
L had never considered it before, having never seen anything to make him believe the two saw each other as anything but brothers, comrades in arms and mischief. Perhaps his former reasoning was due for reevaluation.
"It's not like he's going to be jealous," Matt went on, tapping a sprinkle of ash onto a waiting tray on the coffee table between them. "But it's an adjustment, you know? Up until a coupla days ago, he was the one in bed with Light and had been for the past two months. It'd be a little weird for him to think of his ex-boyfriend sleeping with his boss, no matter how he felt about the ex-boyfriend. You understand? I'm not saying you shouldn't fuck Light - I'm just saying it could be a lot messier than you're probably expecting if Mello finds out. Just, be careful."
Matt crossed one leg casually over the other, apparently having said his piece and content to leave it at that. Unfortunately for him, L wasn't quite finished.
"Are you interested romantically in Mello?" he asked in his usual straightforward manner, seeing no reason to dance around the topic like a couple of teenage girls.
And Matt's mouth slipped open, his cigarette almost falling out, his legs uncrossing quickly as his body straightened up.
"Fucking hell, man - did you even listen to what I was saying?"
Oh, this was very interesting. Matt's thumb had gone past twitching and was now tapping against his leg, and the vehemence of his outburst was more telling than any denial he could have spoken. Matt was hardly ever demonstrative - not at all like Mello, who could shoot off like a rocket at the drop of a well-worded insult. Matt was calm, laid-back, hardly ever ruffled, and if he was upset it meant there was a nerve hiding somewhere beneath all this talk of being careful with Mello's feelings.
Matt seemed to realize he had reacted too severely, and forcefully made himself relax back against the sofa in apparent calm.
"I've been listening," L stated slowly. "And I would like to point out that I did send Mello out of the country for the week. By the time he returns this will likely all be resolved, and there should be no difficulty. I admit I forgot to wipe the tapes in time, but it was not intentionally done."
And Matt smiled easily, all traces of his minor eruption vanished from his body.
"Yeah, I realize that. So you're gonna sleep with this Light guy again? That's unusual for you. He musta been pretty good then, huh?"
L just nodded, his mind still whirling over the possibility of Matt having feelings for Mello.
"Right," Matt took a long drag of smoke. "Didn't mean to come off with a lecture or anything. Have fun with Light, I guess - and I'll be camping out at Mello's place while he's in France, so you can have this place to yourself. Just do whatever you need to get this out of your system, preferably before he gets back."
L nodded again, deciding it was better not to take offense by Matt's unusual attempt to dictate his life. "I will be aware of Mello's feelings, and I will be careful not to injure them. Though I don't precisely agree with you that it would be particularly difficult for either of the two to meet again. "
"I don't know this Light guy, so I can't say what's going through his head - and even with Mello it's hard to know how he'd react. He might just laugh and think it's funny. But still - it's pretty shitty to rub it in his face like that, which woulda happened if I hadn't wiped the tapes."
L wanted to protest that he had intended to do nothing of the sort, but Matt gave another careless shrug and continued.
"Anyway, I was just asking what you were thinking. It's probably not gonna be a big deal either way. And about Mello, I don't have any 'romantic interest' in him. I care about him, 'cause we've been through a lot together, but I don't want to fuck him. Okay?"
Matt was looking directly at L's…nose. L nodded, waiting to see if Matt would go on, as he seemed to be in a mood where words came out without quite the same care he usually gave - another sign of some sort of turmoil, even minor turmoil, going on beneath this all.
"I mean, not that he's not hot or anything - because he is, you know - but I'm just not interested. Besides, even if I was interested - and I'm not - it would be stupid to risk our relationship. So yeah, I'm not interested." He finished the declaration firmly, now looking straight into L's eyes, as though realizing he had been rambling unconvincingly and trying to repair the situation.
But it was too late. L wasn't the greatest detective in the world for nothing, and it wasn't an easy task to lie to him, even for someone as skilled at controlling his emotions as Matt - and even if the person was lying to the himself at the moment, like Matt appeared to be.
"Very well," L said simply. "I will give you the privacy you have denied me and not press the matter. As long as it does not interfere with your work, it does not concern me. I trust you will be careful with Mello's feelings."
Matt just grunted noncommittally, clamming up in an effort to fix any damage he may have done, and took a long pull from his smoke, his eyes drifting to the window in a silent move to end the conversation.
L turned back to his laptop, giving himself a mental pat on the back.
That had been a decent game. It had started with him being lectured, yet in the end he had been the one extending a stern warning. Not a bad play, in his opinion.
Matt was a respectable opponent (not that L truly saw him as an opponent), with a fair mastery of his expressions and emotions that was often overlooked in favor of Mello's and Near's more blatant intellect - but this minor engagement of words and warnings and twisted interrogation had only reminded L of how fun Light had been to play with.
Matt could generally handle himself pretty well in a game with L (and L admitted he treated most of his interactions with others as a game), and it was at least mildly interesting to play with him. He could occasionally slip under the radar and bop L on the nose.
But Light hadn't just known how to handle himself - he had met L at every point, matching him and challenging him and ensnaring his attention.
But in all honesty, L didn't have time to continue along that train of thought. Light would either call or he wouldn't, but either way L had a case to focus on.
Crime had waited long enough, and, as he had reminded himself several times throughout the day, he had a job to do.
+
Two days later
Light strode confidently through the doors of the police station, on his way to do a sketch for a witness. A routine job, one he could probably do with his eyes closed.
As he passed the receptionist's desk, empty at the moment, he noticed an unread newspaper sticking off the edge. He glanced at his watch - still a few minutes until he had to be in the interrogation room.
He slid the newspaper carefully out from under the stack of papers strewn on top of it and quickly scanned the headlines, his back to the security cameras.
There was very little of interest - an apartment fire in a precinct north of here, a well-loved politician retiring, a new bakery opening.
He flipped to the international section.
A short article about a stolen diamond from a French museum, currently under investigation.
A little insert about political unrest in a small African country.
Heavy flooding in eastern China.
But there, at the bottom, an affronted headline declared:
Painting forgery brought to light? Experts claim a fake!
An ironic grin briefly worked itself onto Light's lips, quickly washed away.
He folded the paper up and slipped it back on the desk, continuing his stroll down the wide hallway, his footsteps crisp and controlled.
It was a small piece of news, unimportant compared to more urgent current events, and one that would likely go overlooked by many. Most of the world wouldn't care, or even notice.
Not yet, at least.
Light nodded to a harried secretary has she rushed past, laughing inside as she blushed and nodded back, almost tripping as she tried to keep walking and greet him at the same time.
The game was beginning, the pawns just barely beginning to slide the first couple of squares forward. It would be a slow game, requiring patience as it built over time, but Light's blood was already beginning to thrum with anticipation.
For better or for worse, it was starting.
TBC
Summary: It was a brief fling that lasted much longer than it was supposed to. One a student and part-time forensic artist, the other the greatest detective in the world. When it ended, both were sure they'd never meet again. But fate had other plans. AU.
Pairing: L/Light
Rating: R
Chapter 7a
"L, can I talk to you?"
L glanced up from his computer, and to his mild surprise he noticed night had already long since fallen.
Near and Mello were currently on their way to France, with varying degrees of hostility and ill-intent towards L's life, and at the moment it was only L and Matt in the dimly-lit room hovering above the tiny dotted lights of the city below - Watari having undoubtedly retreated to bed hours ago, unlike the rest of the city, which seemed to be just awakening and heading out to explore what the city became under bright neon and flashing signs.
"I suppose, judging from your serious demeanor," L answered, removing his pecking fingers from his keyboard in an attempt at civility, "that the obvious and admittedly immature response of, 'You already are,' would be unappreciated at the moment. But yes, Matt, you may talk to me. If you mean, 'May I continue speaking with you, about a subject which you will likely find distasteful,' then again, yes - though I may refuse to answer any and all of your questions, and I warn you I might chose to leave the conversation if I become bored. With that in mind, please continue."
He settled back into his chair in a comfortable crouch and peered up at Matt expectantly.
"I'll keep it simple then," Matt said bluntly. "I know you fucked Light."
Ahhh… L hadn't been expecting that. However, it was too early to tell if this was a positive or negative development, so he reserved further reaction until he had a better understanding of the situation.
"I see. So you were the one who wiped the tapes."
Matt nodded. "You probably shoulda realized this was a possibility, but when I set up the cameras in here I set the feed to stream to my laptop as well. Just a little extra security."
"How very efficient of you. I suppose, when I did not call last night to inform you and Near that the hotel was available for sleeping, you assumed I had invited someone over, then checked your handy little security feed to verify this assumption?"
Another nod, shameless and relaxed. L really should have anticipated this. Even though Matt had removed himself from the running of becoming L, it didn't mean he should be overlooked or forgotten. After all, he was a contender for the position, should he ever want it. He was in the same bracket as Near and Mello, in terms of capability (and nosiness), and setting up an extra feed would be a natural response.
"Yep," Matt said with a flash of a smirk that, in terms of sneaky mischievousness, reminded L rather suddenly of one he had seen briefly last night on Light's lips during the heat of one of their games, though Light's was much more self-assured and radiated the sort of charm that made people willing to toss each other - and themselves - off cliffs if they thought it would please him. "You should be glad, too. I realized this morning you hadn't cleared the footage yet, so I decided to be a pal and wipe it for you. You oughta give me a raise or something."
"I assume it did not occur to you respect my privacy and not view the tapes." L's voice was dry, his eyes wiped blank as he regarded his third underling.
"L. Look at what we do for a living. We fuck privacy in the ass then spit on its pussy on a daily basis."
L heaved a sigh and looked around for some cake, though there was none to be found in the immediate vicinity. "I thought not. Though I find it interesting you have assigned the concept of privacy a female orientation. How much did you watch?"
"Just long enough to know not to come back last night. Nothing dirty. Who do you think I am, Mello?"
L shrugged as single shoulder, up then down in a silent show of his own indifference. "Like you said - we are not accustomed to valuing others' privacy. Did you delete the tapes or simply remove them from obvious sight?" Despite his projected apathy, L would admit to a little private anxiety. He did not feel entirely comfortable with the knowledge that someone else might have footage of him, even someone as laid-back as Matt.
Especially someone as creative and capable as Matt was, who had a streak of Mello-nurtured mischief.
"Deleted, you paranoid ass. You can check my computers if you want - all of them. I didn't keep them for my own nefarious purposes."
"Unnecessary. For one, I have no doubt that if you truly wanted to hide something electronically from me, you would be able to do so. For another, I see no motivation for you to use such videos against me and no possible gain for you even if you did. You would not be believed in your claims of my identity. Now, did you have a purpose in such a direct declaration of your knowledge in my business, or was that all?"
Matt settled onto the sofa across from L's chair and looked him dead in the eye.
"I want to know what the hell you think you're doing."
"Ah, Nathan the prophet," L muttered, bracing himself for reprimand and parables of greedy sheep-snatching - or in this case, Light-snatching.
"What?"
"Nothing," L waved the returned analogy away with a wave of a chalky-white hand. "Continue with your scolding. I will try to listen, though I really feel it is uncalled for. I have done nothing wrong."
"I'm not saying you did anything wrong, I'm not saying you didn't," Matt said in a sort of verbal eye-roll, leaning back against the pillows. "I'm just wondering what was going on in that messy head of yours. Did you even think this one through?"
L paused, seriously considering. It didn't take long.
"Yes, I thought it through very thoroughly," he said confidently. "I met Light, wanted to sleep with him, and did. There was no need for any further deliberation on the matter."
Matt sighed heavily, as though L were purposely acting like a difficult child. L did not appreciate this, considering it was coming from someone several years his junior and currently in his employ.
"Listen, L," Matt was saying, "you have the right to sleep with whoever the hell you want." Good, at least they agreed on that point. "But if you're going to sleep with Mello's boyfriend two days after he broke up with him, you bloody well better make sure Mello doesn't find out. That's incredibly insensitive - especially if Mello had found out by watching a tape of you fucking Light into the coffee table."
"I thought you didn't watch anything 'dirty', as you phrased it," L said quietly, not actually very concerned. Modesty was a concept he had never been overly bothered by.
"That was an accident, and trust me, I didn't want to see it. Your scrawny arse was a sight I could have gladly gone without."
"I would dispute your uncomplimentary - and false - word choice, but I find I do not care enough to make the effort." L fished into his pocket and withdrew a small hard candy, unwrapping it with a quick tug of his teeth and popping the smooth treat into his mouth. "Tell me" he said, his words a little distorted as they wrapped around the butterscotch. "I was under the impression Mello was not particularly attached to Light, save for as a convenient outlet for sex, and that it was by his own actions that the relationship was terminated. And while his initial reaction to the revelation would likely be unpleasant, I had not believed it would make a considerable difference to him if I were sleeping with Light."
Matt, probably motivated by L's own oral occupation, withdrew his half-disintegrated cigarette from earlier and lit it up with a flick of a lighter he always kept on hand.
L frowned. Really - out of all the Wammy addictions, Matt's appeared to be the least healthy in an immediate sense. But L had no intention of interfering. Especially considering the levels of sugar he consumed daily, he didn't really feel he had room to speak. If Matt decided he wanted his toxins in his lungs rather than his stomach, that was his choice.
"Mello fucked him for two months - exclusively," Matt said casually, but L was intrigued by a slight twitch in his thumb, so small he very well could have imagined it. "Do you realize how unusual that is for him to actually make the effort to be faithful to one person for that long? Yeah, he cheated and they broke up, but it wasn't like he wanted it to happen. I'm not saying he was in love or anything - because he definitely wasn't - or that he's at all broken up about ending things with Light. It really was a casual relationship, and it wasn't a big deal for him to see it end." Matt spoke smoothly and easily, as though discussing the mildly interesting way his cigarette smoke curled towards the ceiling, with no sign of outward distress.
"I'm just saying that…well, he liked Light," he continued with a shrug. "As a person, not just something to fuck. Enough to limit himself to one guy for two months, and I think that's gotta be the longest exclusive relationship he's ever had. You've never been in a relationship L, not even a casual one, so it's difficult for you to understand. You've never even fucked the same person for more than, what - a week, with that chick in Vienna? And that was just because she could make a pretty good angel's food cake."
L would probably have classified it as 'excellent', not just 'pretty good', and he didn't at all enjoy being told he couldn't understand something, but he nodded anyway, recognizing it was important for Matt to get whatever was swirling around his mind all out in one go.
"Mello and Light were just about sex, yeah," Matt was continuing, nothing but relaxed calm in his voice, "but you have to realize that when you fuck someone for that length of time, emotions are going to get involved. Especially for someone like Mello."
How interesting. L was sure of it now - every time Matt said Mello's name, his thumb twitched. It was possibly a reflex of years spent gaming, a reaction to stress and a conditioned response to an impulse to act, but it raised the question of why Matt would react in such a way to his friend's name.
Was there something of a romantic sort going on between Matt and Mello?
L had never considered it before, having never seen anything to make him believe the two saw each other as anything but brothers, comrades in arms and mischief. Perhaps his former reasoning was due for reevaluation.
"It's not like he's going to be jealous," Matt went on, tapping a sprinkle of ash onto a waiting tray on the coffee table between them. "But it's an adjustment, you know? Up until a coupla days ago, he was the one in bed with Light and had been for the past two months. It'd be a little weird for him to think of his ex-boyfriend sleeping with his boss, no matter how he felt about the ex-boyfriend. You understand? I'm not saying you shouldn't fuck Light - I'm just saying it could be a lot messier than you're probably expecting if Mello finds out. Just, be careful."
Matt crossed one leg casually over the other, apparently having said his piece and content to leave it at that. Unfortunately for him, L wasn't quite finished.
"Are you interested romantically in Mello?" he asked in his usual straightforward manner, seeing no reason to dance around the topic like a couple of teenage girls.
And Matt's mouth slipped open, his cigarette almost falling out, his legs uncrossing quickly as his body straightened up.
"Fucking hell, man - did you even listen to what I was saying?"
Oh, this was very interesting. Matt's thumb had gone past twitching and was now tapping against his leg, and the vehemence of his outburst was more telling than any denial he could have spoken. Matt was hardly ever demonstrative - not at all like Mello, who could shoot off like a rocket at the drop of a well-worded insult. Matt was calm, laid-back, hardly ever ruffled, and if he was upset it meant there was a nerve hiding somewhere beneath all this talk of being careful with Mello's feelings.
Matt seemed to realize he had reacted too severely, and forcefully made himself relax back against the sofa in apparent calm.
"I've been listening," L stated slowly. "And I would like to point out that I did send Mello out of the country for the week. By the time he returns this will likely all be resolved, and there should be no difficulty. I admit I forgot to wipe the tapes in time, but it was not intentionally done."
And Matt smiled easily, all traces of his minor eruption vanished from his body.
"Yeah, I realize that. So you're gonna sleep with this Light guy again? That's unusual for you. He musta been pretty good then, huh?"
L just nodded, his mind still whirling over the possibility of Matt having feelings for Mello.
"Right," Matt took a long drag of smoke. "Didn't mean to come off with a lecture or anything. Have fun with Light, I guess - and I'll be camping out at Mello's place while he's in France, so you can have this place to yourself. Just do whatever you need to get this out of your system, preferably before he gets back."
L nodded again, deciding it was better not to take offense by Matt's unusual attempt to dictate his life. "I will be aware of Mello's feelings, and I will be careful not to injure them. Though I don't precisely agree with you that it would be particularly difficult for either of the two to meet again. "
"I don't know this Light guy, so I can't say what's going through his head - and even with Mello it's hard to know how he'd react. He might just laugh and think it's funny. But still - it's pretty shitty to rub it in his face like that, which woulda happened if I hadn't wiped the tapes."
L wanted to protest that he had intended to do nothing of the sort, but Matt gave another careless shrug and continued.
"Anyway, I was just asking what you were thinking. It's probably not gonna be a big deal either way. And about Mello, I don't have any 'romantic interest' in him. I care about him, 'cause we've been through a lot together, but I don't want to fuck him. Okay?"
Matt was looking directly at L's…nose. L nodded, waiting to see if Matt would go on, as he seemed to be in a mood where words came out without quite the same care he usually gave - another sign of some sort of turmoil, even minor turmoil, going on beneath this all.
"I mean, not that he's not hot or anything - because he is, you know - but I'm just not interested. Besides, even if I was interested - and I'm not - it would be stupid to risk our relationship. So yeah, I'm not interested." He finished the declaration firmly, now looking straight into L's eyes, as though realizing he had been rambling unconvincingly and trying to repair the situation.
But it was too late. L wasn't the greatest detective in the world for nothing, and it wasn't an easy task to lie to him, even for someone as skilled at controlling his emotions as Matt - and even if the person was lying to the himself at the moment, like Matt appeared to be.
"Very well," L said simply. "I will give you the privacy you have denied me and not press the matter. As long as it does not interfere with your work, it does not concern me. I trust you will be careful with Mello's feelings."
Matt just grunted noncommittally, clamming up in an effort to fix any damage he may have done, and took a long pull from his smoke, his eyes drifting to the window in a silent move to end the conversation.
L turned back to his laptop, giving himself a mental pat on the back.
That had been a decent game. It had started with him being lectured, yet in the end he had been the one extending a stern warning. Not a bad play, in his opinion.
Matt was a respectable opponent (not that L truly saw him as an opponent), with a fair mastery of his expressions and emotions that was often overlooked in favor of Mello's and Near's more blatant intellect - but this minor engagement of words and warnings and twisted interrogation had only reminded L of how fun Light had been to play with.
Matt could generally handle himself pretty well in a game with L (and L admitted he treated most of his interactions with others as a game), and it was at least mildly interesting to play with him. He could occasionally slip under the radar and bop L on the nose.
But Light hadn't just known how to handle himself - he had met L at every point, matching him and challenging him and ensnaring his attention.
But in all honesty, L didn't have time to continue along that train of thought. Light would either call or he wouldn't, but either way L had a case to focus on.
Crime had waited long enough, and, as he had reminded himself several times throughout the day, he had a job to do.
+
Two days later
Light strode confidently through the doors of the police station, on his way to do a sketch for a witness. A routine job, one he could probably do with his eyes closed.
As he passed the receptionist's desk, empty at the moment, he noticed an unread newspaper sticking off the edge. He glanced at his watch - still a few minutes until he had to be in the interrogation room.
He slid the newspaper carefully out from under the stack of papers strewn on top of it and quickly scanned the headlines, his back to the security cameras.
There was very little of interest - an apartment fire in a precinct north of here, a well-loved politician retiring, a new bakery opening.
He flipped to the international section.
A short article about a stolen diamond from a French museum, currently under investigation.
A little insert about political unrest in a small African country.
Heavy flooding in eastern China.
But there, at the bottom, an affronted headline declared:
Painting forgery brought to light? Experts claim a fake!
An ironic grin briefly worked itself onto Light's lips, quickly washed away.
He folded the paper up and slipped it back on the desk, continuing his stroll down the wide hallway, his footsteps crisp and controlled.
It was a small piece of news, unimportant compared to more urgent current events, and one that would likely go overlooked by many. Most of the world wouldn't care, or even notice.
Not yet, at least.
Light nodded to a harried secretary has she rushed past, laughing inside as she blushed and nodded back, almost tripping as she tried to keep walking and greet him at the same time.
The game was beginning, the pawns just barely beginning to slide the first couple of squares forward. It would be a slow game, requiring patience as it built over time, but Light's blood was already beginning to thrum with anticipation.
For better or for worse, it was starting.
TBC