Title Dedicated

Rating: T

Categories: Romance/Angst

Pairing: L x Raito or Raito x L (doesn't matter, as there is nothing explicit.)

Warning(s): Spoilers for the whole Manga, implied Yaoi and homosexual love. Mentions of torture and a view of heaven that may or may no coincide with any religion.

Summary: Only Raito-kun would be so arrogant as to assume that L still loved him. LxRaitoxL. Post-Vol. 12. A Valentines Day Fic.

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Mu was a horrible place. Dry, wet, hot, cold, hideous and agonizingly beautiful all at the say time. It seemed like a desert, with sand all over the ground with a constant breeze whenever he was chilled and seriously lacking wind whenever he was heated. Constant hunger gripped him and thirst tore as his throat but for as long as he wondered through this place -it had to have been years, decades, centuries -he hadn't died or collapsed from emaciation.

He was not allowed sleep. The first days -weeks? -he'd attempted to curl up in the sand, using his blue suit jacket as a pillow and a sort of drape so keep sand from blowing into his face. He'd lay there for hours, thinking he was suffering from insomnia but after a few days of this is became apparent that he would not be allowed to rest.

So he walked.

Tiredness didn't grip him at all times, as thirst and hunger did. It became most apparent when he had to go through a task. Because Mu had tasks, trials, tests, examinations -something like that. He'd been through five of them. From what he could gather, they were supposed to judge whether or not he got into Heaven or was sentenced to more time in this dreadful place.

This abandoned, lonely place that was Nothingness.

Each test was terrifying. Painful. Mentally and physically. It took him days -weeks -months -to recover from the anguish they put them through. Many of them are about Ryuuzaki. L. They taunted him with replays of the smirk he displayed upon the detective's death. Scenes of their nightly exploits mocked him, gasps and cries of pleasure filling his ears until he collapses in the sand, holding his head.

Other times it was Ryuk. Ryuk, the Shinigami who had murdered him, laughing at him. Laughing, laughing, laughing, that Hyuk, Hyuk, Hyuk over and over and over…echoing in his mind so loudly, so entirely that it seemed to encompass his entire being. He gripped at the sand and wished for death on many occasions. Not that he really wanted to die, of course, they were empty requests. He would have never asked if he weren't already dead.

Because he was. Ryuk had killed him. Like he'd killed L. He wondered if Ryuuzaki had gone through this as well, or had he been so moral that he'd gone straight to heaven…? The thought pleased him, to think that Ryuuzaki had gone through this same thing. This connected them, as their genius had connected them all that time ago. Torture, they shared.

At the same time, he highly doubted it. L would have gone to heaven, wouldn't he? If Raito had been wrong - and he must have been for this punishment be so agonizing -then that meant L had been right. He hated that. He was still sure his justice was right, and had much time to stew in his unfair life and death. But just as much time was devoted to trying to not go crazy in Mu, a desert land full of torment.

Just when he thought he couldn't go on anymore, when his abundant will threatened to show the first signs of wavering, he was faced with another task. This one left him curled up on the ground, sand flying around him as his body throbbed in pain and his brain seemed to burn as though the cerebral water had been replaced by acid, and his throat felt like he'd swallowed a harsh poison that was eating at his flesh.

The first thing that changed was the wind. The wind settled and then stopped completely, and Raito was in too much pain to notice it much at all. Then the sand underneath him turned to soft cushion and then the pain dissipated, until he relaxed comfortably, his muscles going lax. He hadn't even realized how tense he was until he was sinking into the cushions of whatever he was on.

He pried his eyes open and he saw he was in a bed in a clean room. So very clean that along with no dust there was also nothing else inside the room but the bed, and on the opposite wall, a door. He didn't want to stand up. He'd been walking for so long…he just wanted to sleep…

But it was only a psychological need. Suddenly he was not tired, nor hungry or thirsty and although he'd been walking for what must have been several years, his legs were fine. He felt as though he could run for miles. The temperature was warm, but not too warm, so much so that he could snuggle into the blankets without being uncomfortably hot.

He sat up effortlessly and slipped off the bed, his clothes that had been lathered in sand were now crisp and clean and his hair was neat on top of his head. He felt better than he ever had in his lifetime. Raito walked out the door and was met with whiteness so clear and concise it almost hurt. He could somehow see for miles, and yet nowhere at all as if he were both omniscient and blind.

"Where…am I…?" Raito thought aloud, almost afraid that this moment of peace would be ripped from him just when he had grown used to it. That was just like Mu, filled with tricks and false hope.

"Have your reasoning abilities decreased so much?" a voice asked, and Raito did not hear it so much as feel it. It was as though his ears played no part in it, but the voice was coming from within himself.

Raito spun around to look for the own of the voice, an all too familiar baritone that flowed through him, sparking both warmth and frigidity. When he turned, he found the room that he'd been in gone and he was overcome with apprehension. He was lost in a sea of whiteness, alone -no, not alone, but with someone invisible.

"I'm not invisible," came the voice again, "You just don't want to see me yet."

"I do want to see you," Raito snapped back, and suddenly, almost violently, he appeared in front of him. It was so disturbing for see him there, messy black hair, dull black eyes, baggy jeans, cotton shirt and all.

He was staring at him the way he always did, which Raito found strange. Trying to figure him out, but it was already obvious that he as Kira. L knew it now, and Raito knew it. He hadn't a while ago, and in the midst of his cursed unknowingness he'd fallen for the detective. Of course, when it had came down to it, Raito had to choose. It was do or die and he had chosen to do it. And here L was again, standing in front of him, staring at him, staring at him like…

…liked he'd never left.

"Raito-kun," L cocked his head to the side, "Have you figured out where you are yet?"

Raito looked around again, the whiteness suddenly much more soft and comforting instead of piercing. He looked at L, who looked back at him, and it occurred to him then just how very dead they both where. In Mu, he'd felt alive. Horribly. There had been too much pain for him to actually be dead, but standing here in this place with L -who he knew was dead -and he was with him….he was dead too. He was dead, and it was so very obvious where he was.

"Heaven."

"That's correct," L nodded and lifted his thumb to his mouth. Raito's eyes were drawn to the finger; it was so odd to see L doing that after all this time. But he wasn't sure what he expected. L wasn't one to change, but it was still disconcerting. "It took you a while to get here. Did you go to Mu?"

Ah. So L knew about Mu.

"I…did," Raito replied slowly. L's mouth wasn't moving. His voice still felt like it was coming from inside him, and now he knew it was. "How are you doing that?"

"You can do whatever to want here," L shrugged lightly, his lips still not moving except to give a small smirk, "I always felt that talking was a hassle. Especially when I had to explain things to people that were very obvious to me."

Raito nodded and then stepped forward a few steps until he was only feet away from L. He could do anything he wanted in heaven? Fine. He wanted to be back there.

And just as suddenly as L had appeared before him, they were both abruptly in a familiar room. Raito looked around, and of course, everything was just as he remembered. He'd wished to be back here because this room was where it had all happened. Where they'd first kissed, first had sex, first said….

This was were he wanted to be, even more than heaven, back in this time where he had ceased to be Kira for just a little while.

Now all that was left was to see how L reacted to it.

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Of course, L recognized the room. He was the one who'd gotten the building it was in to be built, and he remembered everything that happen happened inside it as well. He'd spent many of the first days of his time in heaven inside this room, but it was obvious to him that there was no reason to brood. Heaven was free of all real human influences. They were just souls, and there was no need for him to be so intent on staying in the past.

Yet his soul, even drenched in the paradise that was this wonderful kingdom, had actually felt out of place among the dead. He too had gone to Mu, but had suffered through only one test before being allowed into heaven. All in all, he had been there for only a few days. It was a horrible place, a desert land with a dishwater blue sky that never changed. He only knew how long he'd stayed there after he'd gotten to heaven, and in heaven you knew whatever you wanted to know. He also knew Raito had been in Mu for much, much longer than he had.

Standing in front of him, the boy -or rather, man now -was no less beautiful than he had been when L had last seen him in person. He was older now, only a year or so younger than L was at the time of his own death. In heaven you could not watch the human world as you could in the Shinigami realm, as though it were a television you could tune to a certain persons life. You just instinctively knew things.

Like L knew that Raito had moved in with Misa Amane after killing him. He knew Raito had took his title as L for six years, pretending to try and find Kira. He knew that Matt had been shot to death, Mello had died thanks to Takada and Near had been Raito's downfall. He knew that Matsuda had shot Raito before he died, and that Ryuk had written Raito's name down in the notebook. He knew Raito had begged for mercy and cried in his final moment, scared to death of what would happen after he passed on…

He knew Raito had been Kira.

And that meant Raito had killed him.

He was standing there unmoving, and he looked like a doll. A cruel, cold, hard, heartless, unmoving doll. In some ways L thought he might be. Should he crack him open just to see if he was hollow?

He was looking at him in a way that to any other person would have been unreadable. L knew better. He knew the barely noticeable tilt of the eyebrow and the subtle widening of the eyes and the shine in the irises were a way of asking him if he remembered him. Remembered what they'd felt.

And if he remembered, then to let them go back to the way things were.

Raito had been right to fear Mu. Mu was worse than any hell that any devil or god could dream up, and he'd seen a few people that had gone insane from their stay there. Mostly murderers and rapists, those who spent centuries inside the place. Raito had been a…special case. He had spent quite a while there, it was true, and L had seen men go mad from less, but Raito had gotten off easy.

He'd killed hundreds of thousands of people. But there a question of morality and self sacrifice that had to be factored in. L didn't agree with it, but in the end, it had not been his choice. Raito deserved to be treated just like every other arrogant, self-righteous, megalomaniac murderer in the world.

But at the same time, with the man standing before him, in the room they were in, with that look on his face…

Damn him. He was just standing there, that the same room, with that look on his perfect little face. What did he want from him? No, no, that was a stupid question, so very stupid. It was obvious what Raito wanted, what he was asking for -no, demanding.

Only Raito-kun would be so arrogant as to assume that L still loved him. After he'd killed him. Was he supposed to just take it? Just supposed to kiss him like everything was okay? Were they supposed to sleep together in a replica of the bed they used to….

Raito was still gazing at him, and L was still chewing on his thumb, hard. Where he alive he would have already bitten through his thumb and been working on the index finger, but as it was, his thumb was not even throbbing. Emotional pain, however, the pain L felt whenever he remember the cruel smirk that Raito had given him upon his death, was not gone. Not even heaven could completely heal such things.

And yet L felt an overwhelming feeling, one that he'd pushed away along with this room after entering heaven. Because there was no use brooding over what happened in life…or whom…

But Raito was still standing there, and he wasn't disappearing. He wasn't fading into darkness like he hand when L's eyes had shut on final time in the living world. He wasn't gone in a flash like he was whenever L conjured his image in heaven, only to hate the figment for not actually being Raito-kun. (because he could not generate Raito's reaction to everything, although it did make him feel better to see Raito's face every once and a while.)

Even if he soon he felt much worse as the man was ripped away from him yet again.

Raito seemed to be wavering, although he really didn't show it. But L had simply been standing here for a long time, doing nothing in particular except for glaring back at Raito and thinking. He considered saying 'yes', but his pride was too hurt to say something so outright. He considered saying 'no'. It would certainly serve Raito-kun right for murdering him so ruthlessly. But then Raito, aware that L didn't not want him around, would leave and find his own heaven elsewhere.

He just would disappear…

"Death…" L started wearily, actually speaking through his mouth this time. He lowered his thumb from his mouth and tucked it into his pocket, "Death is no fun, without Raito-kun…"

Raito smiled widely. It was the smile L remembered seeing, the Kira-less smile that held no fakeness or spite, or at the most, homicidal intent. And they kissed, and it was the kiss L remembered sharing when they'd been together all that time ago, in this very room. He wasn't sure if Raito loved him still, or even if he ever had; Mu changed people, and it had been so very long ago.

Whatever love they had could be genuine. It could be. Or it could be just like the room they were standing in, only a heavenly replica of what it once was.

Only Raito-kun would be so arrogant as to assume that L still loved him.

But, in the end, it was true. So it really didn't matter.

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Happy Valentines. :P Reviews, please?

Nilah