AN: You may notice this is not, in fact, Time Is Running Out, which ought to be next. The truth is, I am nowhere near done on that one, frankly haven't worked on it in a while. However, I have been sitting on this part of the fic for almost a year (as it is impossible for me to work linearly) and I just want it out there. So I apologize for the confusion. Maybe when I get on this piece again, I'll take this part down and put it in its proper place. But for now, please enjoy and heed the rating.

Also, I've joined LJ and started posting some things there. So far only things that I've posted here, but Ascendancy will be going there at some point as well and I will not be posting that one here. The link to my LJ spot is in my profile.

Title: The Small Print

Rating: M for language and context, I suppose

Genre: Angst/Romance

Summary: Raito always has a great deal to say to L. Too bad he's not around to hear it.

Warnings: Profanity, mentions of male/male sex

God, I fucking hate coming here, I really do. It's some kind of compulsion that drives me to do it, something I don't completely understand and would prefer to ignore but … so far I haven't. Every year, on the same dates – April 3rd, June 1st, August 13th, November 5th, and December 5th. It's more than you deserve, far more, but … like I said, it's a compulsion.

I hate weaving through the stones, hate knowing that under my feet are decaying bodies, futilely preserved in tiny boxes for … what exactly? Do their relatives plan on digging them up periodically just to make sure that, yes, they are, in fact, still dead? Do they really need to hold on to that one last piece of physical evidence? And talk about a waste of space. At this rate, half the planet will be a graveyard. I'm glad they'll burn me when I go. But of course that will be a long long time from now.

I don't know why they gave you a cross. Actually, to be perfectly frank, I don't know why they bothered to bury you. It's not like we knew anything about you. Maybe you wanted to be mummified and displayed in a museum. Maybe you wanted to be hurled into space. Maybe you wanted to be tied to a boulder and sunk to the bottom of the Mariana Trench. Really, who knows with you?

Mostly, though, when I say I don't know why they bothered, I mean I don't know why they bothered to do anything for you. Some misplaced feelings of respect and probably guilt, I guess. And I suppose we couldn't very well leave your corpse hanging around the building…. Not that we ended up doing anything with it anyway. Sometimes it bothers me, thinking about it, about the rooms I used to live in, with you, unused, gathering dust and stale air, preserved in its own sort of way….

"Raaaaaitooooo! How long are you going to be here? This is boring!" God! Can't he shut up for one fucking minute?! I regret being stuck with him, but, given the couple other options I've seen, he's probably the least aggravating pain in the ass. Doesn't say much for the shinigami as a whole.

"I don't know how long I'll be here. Go find something else to do for a while." I hate that I have to put my hand over my face, like I'm grieving, to talk to him. Then again, it's probably not bad for appearances.

Do you know that when I sit here, on top of your grave, eyes closed, head back against your marker, I imagine some kind of phantasm of you comes to sit beside me? That should probably irritate me, concern me, but it doesn't. I sit here beside you and remember.

On the good days, I remember our battle. The steps we took to get closer to each other, break down the protective shields we had built without revealing ourselves in turn. Traps laid, taunts subtly and not-so-subtly thrown, parts acted. You had some good moves, I'll admit it. The entrance ceremony still rankles. But it didn't matter in the end, did it? I still won and that's what makes looking back on those times so pleasing now. I can sit beside you, quiet for once, and just remember. It's probably the most amicable we've ever been.

On the bad days, though … that's when I remember the other things. The things that make me want to turn to that phantom of yours, wrap my hands around your neck and choke the life right out of you, again and again. I suppose I can't be too angry about working with you, actually helping you. No, not at all, because that was my whole plan. Being genuinely friendly with you on occasion would even be a natural side-effect, unfortunate but true. But the fucking….

Well, God! What did you expect?? You fucking chained me to you, you twisted son-of-a-bitch! What did you think would happen? Still, if I had known, I would have thought of something else, come up with a different plan. Anything so that I wouldn't be plagued by these memories.

Against the wall, your strong legs wrapped around my waist like a vise, one hand clenched on my shoulder while the other scrabbles along the wall for purchase, my fingers gripping your hips so hard there will be bruises later.

In the stairwell, my pants around my ankles, my hands holding on to the railing so tightly my knuckles are bone-white while the edge of my shirt is clamped between my teeth to keep the cries and screams from echoing as you mercilessly pound into me.

On the bed, rolling and pushing and struggling and thrusting until we collapse in a heap of flushed, sweaty skin, too exhausted and weakened to even muster up enough movement to get away from each other.

The one time in the shower which ended in us having to bandage each other up as the combination of water-slick skin and surfaces and our violence proved too dangerous.

It was always fucking – never love-making, never sex, not even screwing. We were always so angry, which made it so violent, so intense and unexpected. I'd walk through the door only to have you slam me up against it. You'd close your laptop and get up from the desk only to have me pushing you up against the window. We never even kissed. Except that once. And that's part of what has me so angry, so maddened.

Because, as much as I want to deny it, as much as I want to forget, I know that part of the reason we always fucked was because we couldn't make love. And sometimes … we wanted to. We wanted to be gentle with each other, wanted to show … something deeper than a physical need or some sort of bizarre competition, an undeniable impulse. But … we couldn't. Because of who we were and what it was and where it was all inevitably going to end. And that just made us angrier and so we took it out on each other. Really, sometimes I can't believe one of us didn't end up dead before my plan played through. Wouldn't that have been something? Death by sex…. I have to say, that's one I've never used.

I think maybe I come to this place out of some vague, irrational hope that I can leave those memories here, with your corpse and your wraith. Especially that one. The one time we tried to show something else.

I still don't know why it happened. Like everything else, it was just one of those spontaneous things. And every day I keep hoping that the memory will fade, piece by piece, until I can shove it away somewhere and not think about it. But it's still crystal clear, still invades my thoughts at the least expected moments, making me grit my teeth and rub my forehead like I can work it out of there with my fingertips.

Early in the morning, cold saffron light trying to break through the blinds. You were dressed, sitting at the desk in your stupid crouch, watching me. I was zipping up my shirt, watching you. Why were we so fixated on each other that morning? Neither of us had said or done anything, but our eyes were locked on each other like magnets. When I was finished and had brushed a comb through my hair, you stood up and came over to put that damn metal restraint back on me. (And by the way, would it have killed you to have padded the cuff? You know, I still have a mark.)

We were still staring at each other. God, why were we doing that? Maybe if I had said something or if you had, nothing would have happened. But we didn't, we just kept looking as though we had never seen each other before. And you didn't have to step that close to me. You could have kept your distance, you didn't need to be right up against me like that. If you hadn't, we wouldn't have been able to lean forward, close what little bit of space was left between us.

If it had been wild, a little desperate like everything else we did, maybe the memory wouldn't be so chafing. But it wasn't. It wasn't. It was gentle and soft and … fucking kind. Like something we'd been doing the whole time, we'd always done, natural. Our lips parted, our tongues found their ways into each other's mouths, tasting and exploring and connecting. It was the only place we were touching, despite how close our bodies were, but it was enough. More than enough.

And then it was over and that was that. We never did it again, never talked about it, never even acknowledged that it had ever happened. But now I'm forced to carry that one incident around like a fucking shard of glass embedded in my body, every once in a while shifting to stab me anew and remind me of its presence.

I don't want to have that connection with you. I want to remember only the things I want to remember. Like the way you looked when your heart stopped, the breath left your body, your eyes finally closed forever. Do you know how beautiful you were like that? I wanted you so badly in that moment. Not like that. I'm not that disturbed. I just wanted to keep you, preserve you just like that in a glass case somewhere so that I could look at you, still and silent, defeated, mine. Like a trophy, a … shrine, to my triumph.

But no. You're here, rotting in the ground under a nameless stone (and I now know the name that should be on it, although it doesn't mean anything to me anymore). In way, though, it's hard to imagine that you don't look exactly the same as you did that day. There's something timeless about you. In my more ridiculous moments I imagine that you simply appeared in the world looking as you did the day I met you, never changing at all. Why do you inspire such weird thoughts?

I wish that I smoked so that I could put the butt out on your stone and then drop it on your grave. But I'm not carrying a cigarette or a lighter, just a rose wrapped in green tissue paper and tied with a green ribbon (the clerk took the time to curl the ribbon, too, a wasted effort). It's long-stemmed. And red. Just because.

I suppose I shouldn't keep fingering it like this or I'll ruin the petals, but it feels nice. Nicer than you ever did. And this petal … it feels smooth against my skin, my cheek, the way you never did, soft against my lips, like—

What's that game? He loves me, he loves me not? My version is Will I see him again, or Will I not? I suppose I already know the answer to that but I'm pulling the petals off anyway. According to Ryuukku there is no Heaven or Hell, we're all just going nowhere. I guess that should depress me but at least I know I'll be leaving the world a much better place than the one I came into. I'll be revered and worshipped. Not like you. Snuffed out after only twenty-five years, nameless, faceless, unknown and unmourned.

Not that I really care if I see you again or not. It's just something I wonder about sometimes. And it's not like I don't have these damn memories to keep me company in lieu of your person. Memories that I'm trying to get rid of anyway. Kind of ironic that the one thing I will never do again, give up the Death Note, would take the sting of those memories away. Of course, then I would probably actually mourn your death and that would be just as pathetic.

Well, according to the rose, I will be seeing you again. But what the hell do flowers know? And it's not like I care either way.

I've been here a lot longer than I thought, a lot longer than I intended. The sun's almost set. Of course, this time of the year it's always so early…. Speaking of which, I wanted to tell you that I won't be by next month. I know that's when I'm usually due but … until this thing with Mello and Near is finished, I think it's better if I don't come. Once they're taken care of, I'll be back. Maybe I'll arrange to have them buried here with you. I hope they're the last of it. It's interesting and challenging but it gets old after a while. That was a cheat, by the way, having them set up to take over. I suppose you probably think I cheated sometimes, too, but it's not my fault I knew more than you and knew how to use it to the best advantage. That's strategy, not cheating.

But I'll out-think them the way I did with you and bring them here to lie with you, three graves in a pretty little row. Maybe someday, when I've been truly accepted worldwide, I'll have this section of the cemetery specially marked, the ones who tried to oppose me and were brought down, a testament to my superiority. People will probably travel from everywhere to come and worship me here. Don't worry. I'll put up a chain or something so they aren't trampling all over you.

Anyway, I've been here too long. I have to go. Enjoy the rose. I think the petals look better, scattered like that.

Jaa ne, Eru.

AN: ^_^ Heh. Are you feelin' the crazy?

Next: Well, I'm not sure and I apologize for that. Probably Time Is Running Out.

19 Nov. '09