His body was tense. So tense, in fact, that it almost hurt. He could feel his veins clenching with in his arms: He could feel the muscles straining, almost hear the ligaments aching and the blood vessels popping. Every ounce of self control he had was being used in this last struggle: His mind over his body. Which would win: The calm, rational side that had always curbed these bizarre feelings he'd been getting more and more lately, or the wild bestial side that he could hardly restrain anymore? The beast struggled inside him, fighting against the muscles that held his arms down, struggling manically against the bones of it's own cage. He wanted to cry out: Scream, yell, anything to restrain his own dark mind. His own dark spirit.

But Raito Yagami, with his light brown hair and wise, deep eyes... He wasn't fighting for his life. He wasn't running; he wasn't on the brink of death. No, the young man was sitting in a computer chair. At a glance, he looked calm, relaxed. No one could see what was going on inside the vast planes of his complicated mind. No one could feel the hot blood rushing through his veins, and no one else could hear his thoughts. Those dark, twisted thoughts that were racing through his mind more and more these days, every time he looked over to stare at that peculiar, hunched over form, sitting in that unextraordinary black computer chair.

Calm as he was on the outside, he was being torn apart on the inside. Quite literally, it felt. He could almost imagine that beast, whatever it was that had been conjured up inside of him that day, he could imagine it clawing at his insides, ripping and shredding all that he needed to survive, leaving only the twisted, hollow husk of what had once been him. Of what had once been all that he was.

Raito shook himself slightly, hiding the motion as a shiver due to the cold. But no... physically, he was fine. The healthy hue of his face was obvious, and, as ever, he was well-groomed: Sleek, perfect. Raito expected nothing less. But, if you could have looked deep enough into his mirrored eyes, you would have seen the tortured, writhing mess... all that was left of his battered, tormented soul. He wasn't sure how much more he could take, how much more before he snapped. How long would it be, he wondered, before he lost control, before he gave up everything for those thoughts with in?

It was best not to think about that. He sat, watching the computer screen. He had to at least pretend to care about what was going on onscreen. Pretend... pretend and watch. But he couldn't watch the screen. He could force his eyes toward the screen, but all he saw was that strange, elusive being that had haunted his dreams. He was there when he closed his eyes, he was there when he looked into the mirror. This figure that danced in his own dark eyes, mocking his wrecked, perverted mind.

Oh, Raito knew that it was all going down hill. L was figuring it out, slowly, but it wasn't that. You can only kill so many people before everything inside of you begins to fester, to rot. Humans weren't designed for that, and Raito was no exception. Kira may have achieved an almost god-like status, but Raito was still a man, just barely out of his teens. Death did not sit well with childhood innocence. So childhood innocence was twisted, knotted, morphed into those depraved dreams that now haunted his waking mind nearly as much as they did his sleeping one.

They weren't dreams, though. They were so much more. And always focused around one thing, and one person. Ryuuzaki was always there, his scruffy black hair hanging dangerously before his eyes, which were usually shut as beads of sweat ran down that pale neck, and across the lean, smooth torso that Raito's resourceful mind could quickly and easily imagine. Often they were entwined, as lovers would be. He would find himself being all gentleness, all sweet, tender, and kind. L would return his kisses, in a manner which, when waking, Raito could hardly fathom. This was one of the more... innocent guises L took, in Raito's dreams.

Then there was the playful side. Often light-hearted, the L he imagined in these dreams was bright and mischievous. He'd simply appear, or throw his arms about Raito's neck, or run his tongue across Raito's cheek, only to run away himself moments later. The times he spent with this L were always quaint and daring: Stolen kisses under, cliche, mistletoe, hands held in the dark of movie theaters, dramatic kisses by a picnic basket in a field. Things of that sort. This L, though he got on Raito's nerves, was jovial enough, and the jokes this fantasy L cracked never failed to make the him that he imagined laugh.

When Raito was feeling lonely or overwhelmed, L would take on yet another form. These dreams were rarely romantic, which was a pleasant relief to Raito, who had, up to this point, liked to think of himself as heterosexual. No, this L was a companion. Someone he would talk to, someone who would understand him. He found himself spilling his soul to this creation of his mind, and this L always understood. He never judged, he never pointed fingers. They would sit for hours in the library of Raito's troubled mind, pouring over the tomes of his memories and emotions. They sat in the gentle contentment of friendship, and nothing more.

Sometimes, however, in the fantasies displayed before him each night, provided endlessly by his idle mind, things would be hotter, deeper. There was little tenderness or joking here: It was all about flesh on flesh, hot breath and burning hands and reeling thoughts. The kisses would become passionate and demanding, and his lover would stop being polite and curious. He had to admit, these were often his favorites. The L in this version was sultry and commanding; this L wore black if he wore anything at all, and had none of the hints of innocence in the former two. He was willing and more than ready.

Raito liked to imagine him like this, though he obviously knew it was his mind's pointless musings, and the L he saw every day wouldn't have reacted any of these ways. No, the L who so often sat by him, so close Raito could trace the line of his jaw, or have counted every lash around those soulful, sunken eyes... This L, the normal L, wouldn't have reacted softly and sweetly like the first of his dreams. If Raito had ever dared, like he had been tempted to on that day, to move forward just a little more, press his lips to L's... He couldn't imagine how L would react. No... he was lying to himself again. Just like he was lying to everyone else.

In the sweeter dreams, where L was gentle or playful or dominant or caring, Raito reacted just as he would have expected himself to, more or less. Certainly, the waking Raito would have been less eager to crawl into bed with the black haired man, or to cuddle and whisper pointless, mushy sentiments to him. But at the same time, it was all possible. He acted like himself. He laughed when he might have laughed, or was serious when he would have been serious. In his own dreams, he was himself. A hero; steady and unchanging, despite L's many faces. But it wasn't the roguish L that so tormented his mind, nor the sensual one, nor any of his other forms. No... it was those terrible dreams where L was being himself that made Raito wonder what he was, and what kind of thing was taking over his mind.

This final type of dream was more like the nightmare of someone who was mentally disturbed. These bizarre nightmares were the most commonly occurring, and the ones that had the most sway on his poor being. They would always start as a normal day on the Kira case. But Raito wasn't Kira, in these dreams. He was simply himself: Raito Yagami. He would sit there, next to L. But then the office would suddenly be empty. It would only be him, him and that undefinable person, who was a man and a child at the same time. And then... things would go bad.

Raito would capture his lips in a fierce kiss. L would be shocked, too startled and confused to know how to react. The hunter, observing this momentary weakness to shift from his chair and move over to that of the prey. The beast's fingers would find their way to L's shirt, pulling up at the soft white cotton of the other boy's shirt, fiddling with the button on his pants, which were only getting in the way. At this, L would wise up. His dark eyes would widen and he would break the passion of the kiss, shoving Raito away. He always looked so frightened, so exhilaratingly startled.

From that moment, L was doomed. If Raito managed to wake up before then, if he managed to alter the course of the dream before that point, if he managed to somehow end the dream there, then he didn't have to see what the animal wanted, what the beast within him was capable of. He could wake up and, laying awake in bed, staring at the ceiling, create a million different scenarios where things would end better for the both of them. But if the hunter smelled that fear, saw that innocent face so terrified, so betrayed... Well, then L didn't stand a chance.

The beast would move against L. They were taller than him. Not by much, but slightly. Normally L could defeat Raito, but not this time. L couldn't defeat the creature, the animal. They over-powered him. Raito, the part of him that he could still recognize as him, saw how weak and scared he could be, and wanted to become the sweet, warm Raito of dreams long passed. Wanted to hold him softly, brush his hair off his forehead, do anything to make him stop staring like that, to make him stop pleading into his ear. "Wait, Raito-kun, please..." The words rang against his skull. But the animal was too far gone. They crushed L against the wall, every inch of body pressed against every inch of body. A painful, battering kiss was forced upon L's protesting lips.

Then they moved down the hall. The bedroom. The creature, which had been everywhere in their headquarters, knew right where it was. Of course it did. Raito had shown it the way, taught it everything he knew, let him see where L's bedroom was, where he would have slept, had he slept at all. They forced L down onto the bed, the creature and him, despite his feeble attempts to escape. Laying on his back, pinned down against cotton burgundy sheets, L's face was visible. L always looked beautiful, somehow. His hair, messier than normal, his face, glistening slightly with perspiration from the struggle, and his clothes, pulled at odd angles and pooling out around him... these were all attractive enough. But it was his eyes... it was his eyes that always led the creature on.

He looked defiant, daring, as if he was prepared to handle anything that Raito could throw at him. The monster wasn't about to turn down that bet. The gargoyle moved to undress L, to get a better look at the thing it was taking, dominating, ruining. The last item removed was the shirt. That shirt he always wore, the worn cotton soft from multiple washings. As Raito forced L onto his stomach, that white shirt fell to the ground, dropped casually. It rested there as Raito undid his pants. Then, as L's muffled screams began to tear through the air, it seemed to fade, slightly, lose it's brilliant, glowing whiteness. It pooled on the dark carpet, pooled like L's murdered innocence, murdered trust.

That was when Raito always woke up, after seeing that white shirt, the symbol his mind associated with everything that was L, fall to the ground like a wounded animal. These dreams, these were the dreams that were tearing him apart on the inside. That were slowly killing him. Because Raito couldn't lie to himself forever, because Raito Yagami was human.

Raito loved L in the only way he knew how to love anyone: He knew, secretly, that L was the only person who he could have ever respected, appreciated. But at the same time... Raito hated L. He hated his innocence, his naive ideals of justice and order. But more than just that... Raito hated him for having everything that had been taken away from himself. Raito couldn't live in a world where right was right was wrong. In his world, wrongs made rights, and rights were useless.

So Raito Yagami had dreams.

Horrible dreams, where he did heinous things to L, where he took everything from L. And these were the feelings that followed him into the daytime. The good and the bad. The Raito he cared for and respected wanted to love L, make things alright somehow, let everything come out. That was the part of himself that just wanted L to be happy, in his own strange way, and be happy with him. But then, battling, the continuous battle, was the beast that wanted to be there, wanted to watch the light leave those hatefully brilliant eyes. Wanted to take everything from him, and turn him into a hollow shell, just as Raito himself was becoming.

And Raito was still left to wonder... What would happen if I kissed him? Held him? Would the beast take over, would I rape the only person to ever get close to me? Destroy him? Or love him? What if I move in right now, test it, see wha-

"Raito-kun... I got the files on the latest victims..."

That innocent voice, that blissfully unaware 'Raito-kun', that was what pulled him back from the brink. Raito relaxed, and business continued as usual.

The beast, for the time being, was restrained by a simple cage of words. Words that Raito himself could not form. L... L was his weakness, his strength, his conqueror, and his savior.