Disclaimer: I do not own Death Note, anime or manga.

Full Summery: Light momentarily pulls free from the clawed grasp of the demon known as Kira and succumbs to his own true desires. The sudden chilling realization comes crashing down on him that the only person whom he could ever love and the one he's been plotting to murder for so long share the same face and name: L.

Light is determined to end this nightmare and save Ryuzaki from the monster he's become but it may be too late to change history. For even as Light beholds the horrible truth, the sickening feeling of the great detective's blood dripping down his hands is almost palpable.

Part one of a three part saga in which L and Light struggle against all odds to see the world from the same side of the battlefield and unlock the icy bindings that hold tightly to their frozen hearts. Can they save each other in every meaning of the word? Or will the ground run red with the blood of the looser in this deadly game?

AN: Rated T for language, sexual themes, and dark qualities.

Chapter I

Cracks

I'm not exactly sure how it happened, what insane combination of circumstances got me to where I am now, or whose sick twisted idea of a joke this was but I suppose it doesn't matter. There I was, sitting in some deserted cold dark stairwell with L. The future god of a perfect world, allowing my mortal enemy—the one I had grown to hate—first to touch my bare feet, then to dry them, and finally to massage them! I mean, what the hell was I thinking? And yet somewhere....somewhere deep down inside...I wanted this—no I was begging, begging on my hands and knees for this.

My rational mind chastised me tremendously for that last thought. Why was I being so...so...stupid! But for once in my life, I ignored my realistic side and let this desired torture to continue, both relishing and hating each passing second as those pale spidery fingers danced over my feet, sending shivers up and down my body that I desperately tried to hide and goosebumps to break out like an unstoppable spreading epidemic over my skin.

Abruptly, after what felt like an eternity and yet only a second (depending which side of my suddenly schizophrenic brain I looked at it from) the spell was broken by the sound of Ryuzaki's phone and I found myself wishing, like everyone else on the Task Force, that he'd follow his own rules about silencing communication devices.

That in and of itself was surprising enough but what I came up with next was even worse. I realized that the instant he picked up that cell phone, this moment would be forever lost and every step he took from that point onward would be leading him to his impending execution. For some insane reason, I didn't want that. Not yet anyway. So in response to these irrational feelings, my deluded mind came to this crazy conclusion: I don't have to let it end.

If I'm ever asked or interrogated about what happened next, I swear that I'll deny it with more fervor and determination than my identity as Kira. ...Damn, what the hell is wrong with me!

As Ryuzaki stood up—forsaking the towel—he made to answer his phone, lifting the device between his thumb and forefinger towards his ear. I stopped him; stopped him with four simple words I never should have let escape my lips. "R-Ryuzaki," my voice was pleading and slightly trembling. Damn, I never meant it to be..did I? "Please don't..."

He stared at me questioningly with those bottomless wide gray eyes, his finger frozen millimeters above the button that would answer his death summons.

"Don't stop..."

He looked speechless. He wasn't.

His eyes narrowed in confusion and he cocked his head to the side. "Light-kun?" he asked softly, his depthless eyes searching mine for an answer; an answer I couldn't, wouldn't give.

He tentatively lowered himself so that he was once again crouched in his strange way on the stair below me, then he set aside the ringing device and just stared at me. It seemed as if he would remain there, silent and staring in that weird unsettling way of his until I answered.

Shit!

After only a few brief seconds, I looked away. I couldn't stand to gaze into those gray orbs anymore. They were filled with so much sorrow, grief, and...was that fear? I felt the serpents Guilt and Regret rear their ugly heads within my chest and squirm mercilessly around in my stomach. I made him feel that way...but...that shouldn't bother me should it? Well whether it should or not, it did. L is Kira's—is my biggest opponent; the largest threat to the creation of a new, evil free world, but that fact aside, is L evil? No. No he is not. He is really a very righteous person. Probably the most just man that I ever had the misfortune to meet. But that didn't change the fact that—

My frantic thoughts screeched to a halt and my mind went blank. L was touching me. During the time I had been mentally debating with myself, the detective had crept forwards so that his knees were just brushing against my own. Then he had reached out, and with a smooth, long fingered hand, gently cupped my face, turning mine to his.

At first I was under the impression that this was merely Ryuzaki's odd nature manifesting itself in a kind way of saying, "Hey Light stop avoiding it and just tell me what you meant already.", but then he started moving his thumb in a slow soothing rhythmic motion across my left cheek, carefully tracing the curve of my cheek bone, down my jaw line, and finally lightly over the corner of my lips, his actions causing my heart to flutter rapidly as though it was me who was having the heart attack this time.

Oh double shit!

"Light-kun," murmured Ryuzaki quietly, staring in almost as much shock as I felt at the offending hand, "please...tell me what you meant by that."

Still I looked everywhere but into his eyes. There where emotions surging though me that shouldn't be there. Everything felt so out of place, so wrong and yet...so right. At this point I was literally warring with myself. The two opposing sections of my mind that had once been perfectly blended were now as different as day and night and were struggling desperately for supremacy.

Ryuzaki sighed but his soft caress never left the side of my face. "If Light-kun refuses to tell me what he meant," the sleuth stated in his usual monotone, "then I will be forced to guess at the meaning of those words for myself." He smiled. "And that could lead to some...well rather interesting scenarios."

I know the phrase is overused, but those last words were the straw the broke the camel's back. I quite rudely told my rational side to shut up, deciding that for once it was time to do what I wanted. Not what "Kira" wanted, but what Light Yagami wanted. And right now, Light Yagami wanted L.

In one swift, and mostly spontaneous movement, I leaned forwards, grabbed The World's Greatest Detective, and roughly pulled him down on top of me, tightly wrapping my arms around his lithe form. As the distance between us vanished and I felt his strong surprisingly warm body pressed so impossibly close to my own, I lost all sense of reason. All thoughts of Kira and creating Utopia disappeared, almost as if I had given up ownership of the Death Note once again.

I felt more then heard him exhale a sharp yelp of surprise before my hot mouth captured his, pressing our lips almost painfully together. L's entire body stiffened as my trembling fingers tangled themselves in his ebony locks, forcing his lips to remain my captives for just a little while longer. His hair was softer than I had ever imagined that it could be, it felt like liquid silk running through my burning digits. And God, his taste! He tasted of freshly picked wild strawberries sweetened by the purest sugar. It was irresistibly mouthwatering and I wondered for a brief moment why the forbidden fruit was believed so wrongly to be an apple.

The deadly kiss lasted for only a few scarce seconds but it was long enough to betray my long hidden feelings and make my intentions perfectly clear; as I stated earlier, I wanted L.

I released him, allowing my hands to fall limply to my sides and L to push with his own against my pounding chest, lifting his body away from my own numb one. Once air had attempted to fill the aching vacuum that had formed between our two forms, he once again fixed me with that intense gray stare that could penetrate the deepest of mysteries, but this time, I didn't look away. I couldn't. I desperately needed to see his reaction, to see if he mirrored the ludicrous desires I had begun to harbor since that silver chain had bound us so unwillingly together but as I'd feared, his walls were once again looming indestructibly before me and I could no more determine what he was thinking than see any form of intelligence behind my own recent actions.

As he continued to stare mercilessly at me, much as I imagine he would gaze at a stubborn glaring flaw in the way he deduced life or this case was suppose to play out, a horrible silence, darker and deeper than the vast caverns of Kira's heart, began to claim a seemingly everlasting victory between us. I mentally cursed and wished hopelessly that I had just let him answer the phone; anything to spare me such tragic humiliation.

Then Ryuzaki did the impossible, he broke the foreboding silence but the words he used to do it were so outlandish and seemingly irrelevant that I doubt even the devil himself could have prepared for such a blow. "Well," he said, surprisingly calm for the current situation, "I see that there is some truth to the way your last name is spelled after all."

I was only able to blink dumbly up at him. What the hell is that suppose to mean? He thinks I'm a "Night God"? His response was so stupefying that I didn't even know where to begin in replying.

Noticing the way any glimmer of intelligence had most likely left my eyes, he clarified as if this was just one of his standard deductions. "English charters and backwards."

"Imagay"? ...I-ma-gay... I'm-a-gay! My eyes widened and if I was even capable of sinking to the level of turning red from embarrassment then I'm sure I though I had successfully been able to interpret his latest puzzle, I was still no closer to being able to answer him. In truth, I didn't understand it myself and getting tossed into the highly stereotyped group of homosexuals was less than productive. It wasn't that, it was people, more specifically, it was L. I had never felt the way I did now around anyone else but Ryuzaki. Not Yuri, nor Takda, and certainly not Misa. It scared me and a large part of that fear could most likely be contributed to the fact that it was Kira's mortal enemy to which I was so inescapably drawn to.

Despite my continued inability to make any sound, L seemed satisfied. He stood and took a few steps away and for a fleeting moment my heart seemed to ache. After thoroughly humiliating me, it looked as though he was just going to leave and act as if these past few minutes were just as surreal as they felt.

The heat of desire that had been enveloping me began to quickly transform in to the slightly different heat of anger and would have continued shifting if Ryuzaki hadn't stopped walking away and then spoke in his emotionless voice that was just slightly less unemotional then usual. "Come on, let's go, Light-kun. It seems it's all worked out." Then almost inaudibly, "though not nearly in the way I expected it to..."

The first conclusions that flashed across my deluded mind—those involving Ryuzaki leading me to his room so we could finished this half baked scheme—were quickly dismissed due to their absurd nature. The thoughts that replaced them—in which L used this as evidence to more firmly accuse me of being Kira and used the security footage of the hall (yes, I could apparently be stupid enough to be caught on camera snogging L) to support that theory—while much less pleasant and potentially problematic, sounded vastly more probable.

Mutely and full of feelings of self and detective loathing, I followed Ryuzaki on his long trip through the large building. I was so involved in desperate attempts to think my way out of this horrible situation into which I had immersed myself, that I failed to notice where ever we were headed was located in largely the same direction as L's—and until recently—my room. Still, I refused to believe that my slouched guide had followed the same advice I did (losing his brilliant mind) until we came face to face with a familiar door that some how always felt immensely different from the rest of the identical looking ones that lined this deserted hallway.

L slid in the key card that would grant us entrance and, pausing, his hand on the latch, turned to look back at my still mostly soaked form. I did not fail to notice that the walls he used to lock himself away from everyone around him were rapidly crumbling and the emotions that were gleaned from the quick glance were enough to set my heart pounding again. Surly this couldn't be the cruel reality in which I struggled to survive day after day. It had to be a dream, one of those dreams I had desperately tried to hide from Ryuzaki during our forced confinement together. There was no way in heaven, hell, or where ever I was damned to go, that this was real.

By now, L had already entered to room and, noticing the absence of my following presence, again turned those impossibly deep eyes, half hidden by untamed raven locks, towards me. "Are you going to come with me, Light-kun?"

It was a simple question but I knew that the meaning and significance behind it were much deeper then just whether or not I would step over that thresh hold. The decision I made now could severely alter the course of my carefully plotted future and change mine, Kira's, L's, and Ryuzaki's lives forever. But given the choice to stand on L's doorstep contemplating all the innumerable possibilities, or entering and finally procuring the thing I had deeply desired for so many months, I decided follow the recent trend and abandon rationality. I stepped inside.

As soon as I had walked a reasonable distance inside, Ryuzaki nimbly closed the sturdy door and I heard the sound of the manual lock click firmly into place. "Ryuzaki, I—" But the detective cut me off by the holding up of one of his long fingers. Puzzled I watched as he walked quickly over to one of the computers and began to rapidly type something out on the keyboard.

I blinked in surprise. He's working? Now of all times? On what, the case? "Ryuzaki," I questioned again, "what are you doing?"

Again, the only answer I received was the single digit silently requesting my patience.

Feeling ticked off but not enough so that I thought it necessary to leave—I'd passed the point of no return long ago—I walked across the carpeted floor and sat down on what used to be my side of the bed, directing my gaze around the still familiar room.

After about a minute of hurried clicking, the great L stood to face me and I couldn't help but notice that standing hunched as ever in the middle of the scarcely furnished room, hands buried deep in his pockets, eyes peeking timidly out from behind ever messy black hair, The World's Greatest Detective looked much less intimidating and much more awkward than I ever remembered.

"I disabled the cameras in this room; set them on a loop," he stated quietly as if was was a child admitting to playing hooky.

I was speechless. He disabled the...then that means he...he really does want this.

Taking advantage of my continued silence he walked over to the bed and hopped up next to me, curling his knees tightly to his chest and placing the habitual thumb lightly on his lips. "I'm not really sure where to begin, Light-kun, or even if we should pursue this any farther than it has already gone..." He narrowed his ever calculating eyes, still preferring to stare at the door rather than me. He began to fidget and vigorously worry the already abused thumb. "Needless to say, what we have done and what we are continuing to do, severely compromises the case," a small smirk appeared on his lips, "and my reasoning abilities."

I laughed softly. Well at least that was something. Wait...didn't Matsuda's incompetence negatively affect his reasoning skills? Great, I being lumped with Matsuda and Misa as a disturbance.

The man beside me sighed and then turned to face me, all trace of a smile or any happy emotion gone, lost to concrete concerns of grave seriousness. But his eyes, so many of the emotional barriers that had kept me and everyone else out were gone. The gray orbs had lost their opaque nature and were practically glistening with long hidden feelings and desires. That image—though so vividly seared into my memory that I can recall every detail—is still to this day, impossible to describe. And though I knew not what to make of it then, I was sure of one thing: I liked his eyes like that and wished selfishly that I would be the only one to see them that way. The only one to cause L to feel.

"If you turn out to be Kira," he murmured, the emotions in his eyes transferring to his low voice, "then I don't know—"

Not here, not now. Kira would not take this away too. I couldn't believe how blind I'd been before, or how twisted I'd let my notion of justice become. Kira was justice, but now had become a sore loser willing to sacrifice everything and anyone to gain his victory. Not L. Not now. I gently but firmly grabbed L pulling him closer to me and removed two more barriers between us: his thumb and knees. Then, with my face inches from his own, I spoke the truth: "Kira's not here right now."

Our lips met.

~My Fallen Angel~

AN: Please review if you enjoyed this first chapter. I really would love if you'd voice your opinions.

-Asiera