Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

It's a strange feeling to be alone in someone else's house. If I didn't have a conscience, I suppose this must be what it feels like to be a hitman waiting for his victim to come home. Knowing that there are no guards around makes me feel very vulnerable, and that makes me realise how much I hate being dependant on their brand of comfort. I'm not officially AWOL and I'm sure that someone is watching the house. A car with tinted windows is parked outside and I keep checking on it from one of the upstairs windows which has a view of the road. It might be paparazzi or it might be a crazy who wants to kill me, but I don't want to phone security incase I appear paranoid. I don't trust anyone on my security team, even before one of them disclosed my location to a journalist. I don't make their jobs easy for them, so I doubt their loyalty, but I have their respect. They're not paid a high enough hourly wage to be loyal and I don't hide my resentment of their presence when they are around. I suppose that I should try to be nicer to them and pat them on the head every so often for being good guard dogs. Kiyomi sent them all bottles of wine at New Year but I didn't notice any improvement in their attitudes. They're very ungrateful, really.

L took B with him so he could attempt to be a decent host and friend, but more likely, it was to get him away from me. Last night, B expected us sit through a documentary calledPsychiatry: An Industry of Death. I sighed next to L for ten minutes in my gulf of depression, because a little bit of patience always pays off when you make sure that people notice that you're being patient. L's pleased with how I'm dealing with B because he knows that he's 'difficult'. I said that it was nice that he has his very good friend over. I'm happy for him, yes. B can stay as long as he likes, yes. L suggested that we should have an early night instead of watching the documentary with B. There are quite a few rooms and closed doors between the lounge and L's bedroom, and I didn't want B to labour under the illusion that we were sleeping. I screamed my fucking head off.

I walk from one room to another with intent, hoping to find locked drawers and secrets. B had locked his bedroom door, which is to be expected from such a distrusting little shit. I found a spare set of keys in L's desk though, so it didn't do him much good to underestimate me. If I was B, I would have taken better precautions. I was excellent at chemistry and physics at school and dabbled in pyrotechnic devices.

In any case, I don't know why he bothered to lock his room. There's nothing of any interest in there, apart from a journal which is coded using a very weak symmetric-key algorithm, and there was nothing in that which I didn't already know or wish I didn't know. Most of it was about psychiatric disorders and shopping lists. I did find what amounts to a small pharmaceutical dispensary in a very studious looking leather bag. Mikami and Jeevas would have thought that they'd found the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.

And I found some things of Stephen's, of course. Some of the clothes in L's room are of very bad quality and are too substantial to be his, so they must be Stephen's. I'm surprised that he has quite so many clothes, since they're all essentially duplicates of the same boring t-shirts, jeans and badly-tailored spy suits in the same cut and colours. His intention must be to blend in but he wouldn't have a clue how to dress anyway, the stupid twink. His Rive Gauche suit would look excellent on me if I had it altered. It's cataclysmic that he owns it. If I was a lesser man, I cry. I'd rather see it burn on a barbecue than let it be worn by someone like him. I thought about packing all his shit up as a gesture of good will and to get him the fuck this house once and for all, but I decided against it. He's also made some kind of scrapbook which I thought belonged to a manic middle-aged woman at first. It's full of receipts (what the fuck?), ticket stubs and annotated photographs of what I presume must be his revolting family, and some of the moron himself with L in various settings, but always with the same inane, forced smile which comes from awareness of the camera. I perfected the ability to make even the most staged of photographs look candid years ago, but looking back, I don't think that I ever had a problem with it. After I've been through the nauseous scrapbook and the loose papers and photos inside, I toss the whole lot into a suitcase. If I didn't think that I could find anything better to do, I'd probably painstakingly cut L out of the photographs just to pass the time.

The house is artificially lit, even though it's the middle of the day, and it gives me a headache. All the blinds must be closed wherever I am unless I'm officially supposed to be there. I can't seem to settle in this house, and this is a premonition of sorts for after I've left politics, I guess. L in Tokyo with no repercussions. Everything will be better for him. He will have the kudos of snagging a PM and making me leave my job and family for him, while I'll be jobless, useless, friendless, scorned by everyone, a joke for the international media and stuck in this house. I don't like being idle, but there's an atmosphere of agitation here which I'm positive is because of B. He's like an old woman who's long gone but leaves her strong stench of lavender behind. Eventually, I go back into L's room and find B's penknife in a drawer - the one L used to slash Jeevas' tyres. My thumb rubs over the length and delicate curves of the wooden handle which has been smoothed down to an almost sea-worn sheen from decades of palms glossing over the surface. The crudely carved and childishly coloured in letter B in the wood looks more ridiculous that I remember. Then I have a bath. I've already had a shower but I really have searched this whole house for things of interest, so I sit in a bath of water and salt crystals, smoke a cigarette, and flick the blade of B's knife up and down until I almost hypnotise myself. Not a thought goes through my head, and when I come back again, my fingertips are wrinkled and ugly.

When L and B return just after five, I must look like I haven't moved all day. By now, I feel like I own this house - I own it and I hate it – so to have a psychiatrist and a lawyer invade this space and my silence with their cackling shit is very irritating to me. Neither of them say anything and I don't welcome them back, I only watch them like a ghost as they carry in Comme des Garçons and bookshop bags. Don't tell me that B is sinking into retail therapy. I imagine him trying on the 'Poor King' collection and coming out of the changing room to show L various pyjama and frock coat ensembles, like a peacock who's trying too hard to be quirky and individualistic. He's supposed to be a fucking professional.

If L wants a king above all men then he's found one already. I'm the people's emperor with golden eyes; why would he look at B when I'm around? Oh. He looks nearly adequate in that coat. As I watch B trying the coat on for no reason other than to show off - like I'd be jealous of it, like I'd wear that - L asks me how my day was. I don't know what he could think that I've been doing, locked in his house. At first, I think that I should defend myself, although he hasn't accused me of anything. Sometimes I forget that other people can't hear the thoughts in my head too, since they're so loud. They have to shriek and push and shove against all the other ones to be heard.

'Yes, I'm fine. I've had a well-deserved break,' I tell him. 'No, I'm not going to see Kiyomi today.' She needs to learn that I turn hot and cold like a fucked up tap and she should treat me with respect if she knows what's good for her. I have one of L's divorce lawyers pre-booked and she's lucky that I'm staying around long enough to support her through her pregnancy. I trusted her. Bitch. 'Oh, nothing. I've been reading about conflict in geo-strategic flash points across the Eurasian land mass, the purpose of which is to stop unification and subsequently enable global hegemony of the superpowers. Yes, it's very interesting.'

Behind me, L reads his post, talks to B, eats a cream cake and rolls a piece of my damp hair between his fingers, probably just to demonstrate that he's mastered the art of multitasking. I start reading the papers he's brought back with him, starting with the most cerebral. I'm on page four and I'm not big headed at all, but I look like the fucking ace of spades in the photo. Then there's a very fleshed out, dramatic, completely false article about Kiyomi and me across pages seven and eight. Thankfully, the bill isn't mentioned, so that's a good sign that my cabinet have thought it over and seen my incomparable good sense. 'A woman's been murdered in Tokyo? All over the news, is it? She was wealthy? Oh dear.' Funny how her murder is media bait, but the prostitute who was murdered last week only got a five-inch column towards the back pages, isn't it? She was lucky to get that much; she only did get that much because it was a slow news day. The world's always been like this, it's just that no one cares. No one likes a poor person who throws their honest sins in your face, but it's a tragedy if it happens to a dishonest but rich person.

L decides that we must be fed properly instead of scavenging for whatever we can find in the kitchen like hyenas, and he mourns the fact that we have over a hundred years between us, and yet none of us have any inclination to cook, even when faced with starvation. Someone always feeds me. I can't remember the last time I went hungry, because people are falling over themselves to cook for me.

"You're not going to be happy with cake for dinner, are you, Light?" L asks me. No, I would not be happy. "You're so high maintenance. That's it then, I'm setting up a standing order with that restaurant in town."

"You mean, the village," I correct him. Misa's got a mention in the women's section. She's still alive? This paper is really starting to slide since it included a gossip column at the weekends.

"It's classed as a town."

"It's a prehistoric village populated by chickens and huts," I say. It might be a slight exaggeration.

"Listen here, Mr Swanky Pants. You -"

"Mr Swanky Pants?"

"Yes. You will eat what you're given and be grateful. No one turns down cake unless there's something wrong with them," he tells me authoritatively, putting a pile of envelopes next to me as he stalks off.

"And there's definitely something wrong with him," B mutters. L stops to point at him like a prison warden. I never know who he'll side with when B and I sling insults at each other, but that was uncalled for and L must agree. Because of my two outstanding performances yesterday, three if you count my bill speech, L must think that I deserve to be defended.

"No cake for you," he says.

"That's ok, I want pizza."

"No pizza for you either. I will have your cake, Light can have your pizza and he will be fucking grateful."

"Why can't I have pizza?"

"Because no one takes the piss out of Light apart from me," he states, then disappears into his useless kitchen which might as well be a garage for how little it's used. B glares at me, which is his new favourite thing to do, and I smile at him over the top of my paper, which is my new favourite thing to do.

"It's called... now, I know this word in English... partisanship. Preferential treatment, whatever you want to call it," I explain. He laughs or gargles to himself and opens the book he's reading. Living with a Psycho.

"You know what you are?" he asks. "I've finally been able to think of a succinct way to describe you."

"I can hardly wait to hear it."

"You're just milk that's gone sour. You might look ok, but you leave a bad taste in the mouth."

"I know a lot of people, including L, who would disagree with you."

"What people might tell you and what people think are different things. When people say that you taste like strawberries or cherries or a raspberry macaroon on a summer's day, you shouldn't believe them, you know. People taste like base metals, egg whites, vinegar, lemons, shit, and sodium chloride. L must eat a lot of mints for a reason, and I presume that you are the reason."

I continue to smile, and when he looks up to see what effect he has or hasn't had on me, I flip him off with my middle finger. I expect this to be the end, but he takes a knife from his pocket, wipes the blade on his shirt sleeve and looks like he's going to throw it at me.

"I don't think that L would be very happy if anything happened to me," I say. It's all bluff. All lies, all threats and no fucking action.

"He'll get over it," he replies.

"I don't think he would. I think it might kill him."

"You have a very high opinion of yourself. I had noticed."

"B, it's not like you haven't had the opportunity to get in there. You've had nearly thirty years to have a pop and there's no need to take your jealousy out on me. I know him, he would have slept with anything. A sombrero, for instance. He was very free and easy and accepting of all up and comers. I'm not saying that I haven't had my moments, but I was like you for while; everyone was so fucking disgusting. But I got over that. Him though, I'm surprised that he's not riddled with disease. We're lucky that we live in a medically advanced time. A hundred years ago, his nose would probably have dropped off and he'd be dosing himself with mercury."

"He's always careful."

"I can assure you that that's not true." I set my paper to one side so I can lean towards him. "Both of us were very careless and trusting with our health. Can I tell you something? Since we're friends and like telling each other stories which the other person might not want to hear? I found out that he'd been fucking around with at least two other MPs while he was supposedly exclusive to me. I don't think that safety was very high on his priorities. Your L. I was a bit… annoyed."

"He obviously didn't think that much of you," he says, but he's shaken, I can tell. L's recklessness in the otherwise carefully considered route to success which is inherent in politics, law and every other institution can't be that much of a shock to B, but being hit with evidence that L did and probably still would screw anything apart from him, is.

"No," I laugh and shake my head. I love this. "You see, I knew that he was a bastard. I knew it and I didn't mind. I've known a lot of bastards in my life, but he won me over as King of the Bastards, until I met you. I've wanted to talk to you all day. Can I tell you something else?"

"If you have to," he says, flinching back to his book all the same. His eyes are shining like his knife and it strikes me that he's peculiarly attractive in a desperate, beatnik sort of way. He doesn't want to hear anything else about his precious L, but he believes every word I say. I'm going to overload him with information until his hard drive burns up.

"When we started seeing each other again, he fucked me in an alleyway without my consent. I could have fought him off, yeah, I have excellent upper body strength. That's not to say that my lower body strength is weak – I do crunches and could crack someone with my thighs like a walnut - but I wasn't totally against the idea in principal. I just didn't like the alleyway and someone could have seen us. I'd only just managed to get him to speak to me again, never mind put his dick anywhere near me, with or without spit, so I suppose that there was emotional coercion in play. I could argue that it was under duress, anyway. Now, what is the word for that? Begins with 'R'. It did make me think." I pause to tap my cigarette into L's empty cupcake case while I muse over it all. I feel relieved to have voiced my violation to someone who will feel more pain from it than I do. B really is in the right profession. "But, he spoke to me while he was doing it. He made me look at people walking on the street and told me that they were mine. I said that I didn't want them. I don't, not really. And he said: 'Don't lose your empathy, Light. It's all you have.' What do you think he was trying to teach me there? Because it's all about teaching. He's always trying to teach me something or prove something and make me admit that he's right."

"You're lying."

"Because he thinks that he's my tutor, you know. I'm his Hephaestion," I tell him proudly, waving towards L's statue with my cigarette, "just like that marble fucker over there, and he's going to teach me things. What do you think he's teaching me?"

"I don't believe you."

"Don't then. It don't care. I've been with him for nearly five years and do you know what he's taught me? In the cruelest way, he's taught me that I can't do anything. I thought that I could. He helped me get here just so I'd learn that all I have is him. There is no goodness, there is no hope, there's no point in trying. There is only me and him. I'm not good; I'm something that's only fit to be used in an alleyway surrounded by refuse and rats, and I always thought that I was better than that. Isn't everyone better than that? I thought that hewas better than that, but he taught me that any of us could be Astbury. Being civilised has been hammered into us, but underneath, we're all Astbury. I couldn't have asked for a better tutor. But do you know the cruelest thing? Once, he sold himself to me - that's how he made me feel. It was in return for something. It was a business deal and didn't he make sure that I knew it. I could tell you everything he said to me; that I'm mad, that he created me, that I'm nothing, and he threw Stephen and everyone else in my face. He dislocated my shoulder trying to get my clothes off once. Everything was all to teach me this one thing: I have nothing but him and we're all that matters. If that's right, then he should have nothing but me, but you're here, and you're not needed anymore."

"I'm not leaving him with you," he tells me with a broken voice, like his balls haven't dropped yet. Poor man's deluded.

"Ha! You have such a rosy little view of who he is, don't you? It's all Easter bunnies and sad eyes and inner torment with you. Nobody knows him like I do and he knows me better than I know myself. He's been waiting for me his whole life, like I have for him, and right now, I think I'd do anything to make sure that you're not in the way of that. I get the feeling that you're not going to take your marching orders well. Not like Stephen, Stephen was a dream. You can threaten me with pots and carving knives, but I'll threaten you with a contract on your head. I can do that. I can phone someone now, you'll be dead by midnight and they'll never find a body. Do you know how they'd get rid of you? They double up coffins at funeral homes. They'll put you in foundations where they're laying new roads, they'll grind you up and feed you to pigs, or maybe they'll just send you off to sea to be eaten by crabs. I'd rather avoid your unexplained disappearance because it might upset L, but you have to get in line, B. I could make him choose between us. Is that what you'd like to see? Would that prove it to you?"

"He wouldn't choose you," he says firmly. I can understand why he'd say that, but he's still a fucking idiot.

"He would. What's more, if you fork your tongue at me again, you little bitch, or try to harm me in any way, he'll never speak to you again. I made him get rid of Stephen and I'll make him get rid of you. I'm not very nice when I'm upset. So, which is it? Are you going to take the hint and go, or are you going to force my hand?"

"You're all talk. It's all that you politicians can do."

"Fine," I breathe out, leaning back into the chair. I couldn't care either way. I don't know anyone who would kill him – I wouldn't associate with someone like that – but the threat is believable and would frighten off most people. In a way though, I'm glad that he's stubborn. It'll be more fun this way. "You have until the end of the day to see reason, or tomorrow, you'll be catching a flight out of here, just like Stephen. And if you mention this little conversation to L now, you'll just be out a lot sooner. See who he'll believe, or who he'd rather believe. Who he'd ignore the truth for. You know that I'm telling you the truth about him, and I'm sure that he's done worse things that neither of us know about, but you don't care. It wouldn't worry me, but you don't want to believe that he's like that because he's your L, your crying waif. But he's not, he's my bastard, so don't fight me. You will always lose."

The finality of my statement, delivered in a way I wish I could employ in the House but can't because of established political etiquette, makes him anxious enough that he makes a display of standing up. "I think it's knife time Prime Min –"

"I knew that I should have bought a tea tray," L says through a mouthful of God knows what as he comes back into the room. What the fuck is he eating now? Once his metabolism eventually calms down, he'll be fat as a lord and I'll have to leave him. B immediately puts the knife back into his sheath of a pocket, and I look at L like the innocent that I am. I'm thrilled by this idea of tea trays. Tea trays are very useful, important things and I'm sure that they prevent injuries and fatalities involving tea. It's a great oversight of L's if he doesn't have one and he should remedy the situation straight away, because he needs a tea tray for some reason. I'm desperately worried about his safety and could not be more interested in his plight. He sets three cups on the table, awkwardly unhooking his fingers from one of them and spilling tea all over the place. "Fuck. I'm burning my fingers off here, I'll have to get one. Are they a bit old person, or would I make it look sophisticated and European? Tea trays look so decadent. A bit queenie, maybe, but I think that Sherlock Holmes had one, so if it's good enough for him then I should have one, shouldn't I?" he asks us. Looking between myself and B, he must sense that we were at the point of killing each other or fucking in front of his fireplace. "Is everything ok here?"

"We were just talking," I say happily. He doesn't believe me and look at B's nervous and stricken face, while B looks at me like I should confess or do something stupid. Oh, I have you, you emotional wreck of a robot.

"Are you alright, B?" L asks him.

"Honestly, L!" I laugh and blow some cooling air over my tea. "You make it sound like talking to me is dangerous."

"Have you ordered pizza?" B inquires, trying to regain his composure. He manages it, I think. It would be convincing. The only thing which gives it away is how his face has become vaguely pug-like. L buys it anyway, because it's easier, and he sighs as he sits down next to me.

"A nice delivery boy is on his moped with your pizza as we speak."

"Empty calories," I say. It's the rule of L's house but it doesn't mean that I have to like it.

"You like pizza," L tells me. Once a month, maybe. I'm so grateful that he's here to tell me what I like and don't like.

"I didn't say that I didn't, but it's still empty calories."

This fact is accepted and we both look at B like we're expecting him to entertain us with a dance routine, since he's still standing up. After a second, he eagerly grasps onto a reason to leave.

"Oh, I brought that photo of you and the Judge!" he says, already heading towards his room. "I forgot because of all this soap opera stuff that's been going on."

I didn't find a photo of L and his father in B's room. I must have overlooked it, unless he put it under the floorboards, but it doesn't matter. Now that he's gone, I drink my tea, feeling very satisfied with my puerile victory. I will hold onto this all day, stacking it on top and reinforcing my other victories, and later on, I will act my age and consolidate our fraternal triangle so that I can break it.

"Is everything really ok?" L asks me, languidly lifting his cup to his mouth. His hands are beautiful. I must not get distracted though, because he's trying to hide his worry and suspicion behind a don't give a fuck attitude used by the British royal family during the war when they were pretending that bombs weren't being dropped around them. I feel sorry for him, like I should confess and we can plot together, but he wouldn't, because B's his blood brother or some shit, and delicate relations between amoral creatures must be well timed and executed. He's too sober to be forewarned and forearmed anyway.

"Yeah. Well, y'know, he's very protective of you for reasons we're not supposed to acknowledge or talk about."

"I wish you'd drop that."

"I bet he has the walls of his house covered with photos of you."

"I said that I wish you'd drop it, Light," he snaps at me. This might be more difficult than I thought. Luckily, the drinks cabinet now looks like a well-stocked bar.

"Ok... Where did you take him?"

"An astronomy exhibition. I know, try not to be too sad about it. I bought you a present, actually."

Oh, he thought of me when he was walking around an astronomy exhibition. That's nice, I suppose. He reaches into a plastic bag at the side of the sofa and unboxes a mug with a badly-transferred picture of the moon on it. He hands it to me and I'm shocked by how shit it is. What the fuck?

"It's a mug," I say.

"With a moon on it."

"Yes, I did see that. That's very funny, L."

"I knew you'd love it," he grins at me and relaxes back with the self-satisfaction that you'd expect from a victorious war commander. "You're still plain old Light to me, but everyone needs a personalised mug. You have one now. You've practically moved in."

"Yes," I say, setting the mug on the table, unconvinced by the significance of it. If he'd given me a walk-in wardrobe with all my clothes inside, then I'd understand. "How is Stephen?"

"Hmmm?"

"I know you saw him today, L. I'm not stupid. You didn't see him yesterday because you were with me, so you would have seen him today. Plus a suitcase is missing from the bedroom and there are some gaps in the wardrobe. It's considerably less denim in there."

"Damn you. You're so pleasant to look at that sometimes I forget that you're quite intelligent. I didn't see him, I left a bag of his things for him at Naomi's."

"Naomi?"

"He's staying there. On a sofa. Oh, Light. I feel so fucking bad," he says regretfully. God, give me strength.

"You spoke to him then."

"No."

"You must have, or you wouldn't have known that he was staying at Naomi's."

"Mikami told me," he explains quickly, staring straight ahead. He's losing his talent for coughing up undetectable lies.

"That's a lie."

"No it isn't!" he bristles at being found out. My lie detector is going mental after being recalibrated. "What's with the questions? Mikami told me before lunch yesterday, when we were waiting for you. I didn't mention it because somehow I knew that you'd act the way that you're acting now. I mean, perish the thought that I should actually care that he's homeless because of me. I just dropped some things off for him so that at least he has clothes and a toothbrush. I was thirty seconds, if that. Ask B, he was in the car."

I try to ease the truth out of him by rubbing his leg with my hand, but it's unusually sexless and doesn't affect either of us. Maybe I'm losing my talent? We continue to look at B's book and the shining pool of spilt tea on the table.

"And what was the message?" I ask calmly.

"What message?"

"You would have given her a message to pass on if you really didn't speak to him, wouldn't you?"

"My message was: 'Hi Naomi. Please could you give this bag to Stephen? No, don't call him. I'll speak to him next week about arranging to have the rest of his things picked up.'"

"That's a lie too."

"Fuck, Light, it is not a lie!" he lies exasperatedly. It's feels less tense now, and a little less comparable to a hangman preparing his best friend for execution by avoiding eye contact, commenting on the weather and asking him what he's doing on Friday night. I'm not willing to show any emotion at the moment, because B would like it and because it would include shouting and slapping L across the face repeatedly with a newspaper. L breathes deeply a few time to prepare himself for the telling of an epic tale of endurance and sacrifice. "I just wanted to get the meeting out the way, which went well, thanks for asking. I had to take B into Tokyo so at least he can say that he's went somewhere when he was in Japan, and come home. That's it. Now I wish that I hadn't been in such a rush."

"Oh, to see me, you mean?" I ask before sipping my tea. My heartstrings remain untouched, even though L's really trying to put the damage on by sulkily picking at the skin around his nails to convey hurt that his devotion is unappreciated.

"Yes, to see you. I don't suppose that I'll see you much next week. Me staying at the Kantei is just asking for trouble and I can't leave B here alone anyway."

"We'll work something out. And how was the meeting?"

"Interesting. Murders, murders everywhere."

"You're not defending murderers anymore. I won't be linked to it via you. You have to maintain an upstanding reputation as an employee of my government, so stop being a fucking prick. We spoke about this."

"Yes, we did speak about it, and you'll be pleased to know that I'm reining back on being a prick. I'm acting as the prosecution for the state on this case in accordance to your wishes, oh mighty one."

"You are?" I ask in surprise. This is new. I feel like I should check his temperature. "But you never have before."

"You're speaking to one of the chief legal advisers to the government," he says with no sense of pride. "You forget that, just like you forget that I did two extra years of intensive training at the Bar, unlike some people who do a law degree and waste it by becoming a fucking statesman instead. I just didn't have the time to participate much in regards to the public prosecution service, what with my obligations to the firm and PR. I'm not interested in fraud and the majority of homicides are really insulting to someone of my standing."

"But you're interested now?"

"Serial killers interest me," he tells me huskily but matter-of-factly, like there's a sexual attraction to serial killers which everyone must share. All my muscles seize for a second.

"Oh."

"They don't come around too often, and I desperately want to speak to this one. He sounds completely amazing."

"How is he amazing?" I ask. My face must be a knotted mass of confusion and bitter disgust, but he's sunk into some kind of respectful affection reserved for cases he particularly likes. He must see them as other people see a lauded TV series.

"Maybe not amazing, just... better than the usual. His planning and execution, excuse the pun, was almost brilliant, only he wasn't as good at hiding the bodies. As far as we know, he's been killing for ten years, but I have no doubt that he's killed more. If I could speak to him, I'm sure that I could appeal to his ego and he'd sing like a bird."

"What did he do?"

"He posed as a retired doctor to perform free treatment, maybe abortions, off the record and out of the goodness of his heart. That's what I think, based on statement from a woman who was befriended by him and told this load of shit and that he could help her. She didn't take him up on it, very wisely. I think that he probably knocked the women out, strangled them while he raped them, and buried them in his garden. The best part was that one of the bodies was found a few years ago in a outhouse, and he blamed her husband, who was a lodger there. I mean, fuck, the police didn't even search the house and garden properly. He had a femur propping up one of the fences, for Christ's sake, but they missed that. So, because they fucked up, he killed at least four more women, and an innocent man was executed. Makes you wonder whose fault it is, really. I'd like to prosecute some of the investigators as accomplices, but there's a problem with the law. You should fix that, Light."

"I hate incompetent people," I say, and he looks at me sadly, like we're sharing an unusual disappointment in the human race. We must hate them more than other people do. It's been my experience that people who say that they hate incompetence are usually incompetent themselves.

"I do too," he replies, and he looks so young that it's laughable. He reminds me of myself for the first eighteen years of my life, looking into the mirror with my fishbowl eyes. When I was called down to dinner by my mother, my reflection would sympathise with me. Sometimes dad would be there, but normally his chair was empty. When he was there, he'd look like a martyr and his despair was so intense that I felt like it singed me. I never asked him what he was thinking. Maybe part of me knew the reason, or maybe I didn't want him to smile and lie to me.

Before I realise it, I'm pressing my mouth against L's, and it might be the first time I've done so without intending to initiate something distracting or to kill off any reluctance he might have in doing what I want him to do. I imagine that it's more in friendship and understanding, but I don't really know for sure. It might just be boredom. I hope that he doesn't think that I share his perverted admiration for murders or that I like the mug he bought me. In any case, footsteps interrupt me and I fall back against the sofa in frustration that there's yet another person around. There's a conveyer belt of people whose only purpose is to get in my way.

L's pinches his lip lightly while he looks at me, and B holds a photo out to him with an accompanying whine to get his attention. My veins are full of justified malice.

"That's a good thing you're doing. Prosecuting him," I tell L, trying and succeeding to make B sound even more screechy in comparison to my soothing, seductive voice. I should narrate audiobooks, really. Poor L is defenceless against it and his expression is similar to Kiyomi's when I married her. She wasn't surprised that I was waiting at the altar until she got her act together, but I was. Why did she have to take so fucking long to get it over with? If she wanted to create tension, then it was completely lost on me because I was just bored. Her dress did compliment my suit perfectly though. Oh, my virago.

"L. The photo," B says, the nagging shit. I despise him. I want to rip him and leave my bloody handprints all over his arse.

"How did you become a legal adviser in the first place?" I ask.

"I stood for election to the board, I won," L replies. "You're not the only one with landslide victories under his belt."

"So you just turned up in Japan and became a government legal adviser?"

"I didn't just turn up. I built a reputation. I came here with one already, but I made it more impressive quite quickly."

B's impatience is now showing itself in a similar way to a child during a long car journey. People with children must feel this way when they're about to have sex and their cockblock kid walks in, having pissed himself. "L?"

"Just a second, B," L says, realising that I think there's more to it. "Ok, Light. It's very difficult to get on the board, yes, so it might have helped that the Attorney General is a friend of mine. Well, I say 'friend', but Mihael fucked her on top of a piano. Thankfully, the piano suffered no lasting damage."

"Oh God. On a piano?"

"Just like in Pretty Woman," he says, nodding his head.

"I haven't seen that, so I don't what you're talking about. But Mihael started working for you a year after I met you and you were already a legal adviser then."

"No, he started working as my PA a year after I met you. Really, Light, I would have told you this before, but you never asked about me or what I did or for my PA's backstory. This interest in me that you have is a fairly new development in our relationship. Mihael was just some guttersnipe I helped out of a nasty situation in return for a steady, boring, overpaid job at the firm. He's very useful. Of course, when I found out that he'd been abused in such a way, on a piano and by someone of status, I felt a moral responsibility to report it. I also felt the need to let her know my intentions first. She wasn't aware that Mihael was my employee and pleaded with me to make all of it go away, so we came to an arrangement. State prosecution is one thing I haven't done because I never cared about it, but it looks good on my wikipedia page and you said that you'd like me to prosecute rather than defend, so..."

"You set her up?" I didn't doubt it for a second.

"I wouldn't put it so strongly. You're very dramatic and everything's black and white with you."

"That's stupid coming from a lawyer."

"I'm a barrister."

"Whatever. There's wrong" I say leaning towards the left, "and then there's right," I add, leaning to the right. "You set her up, or you didn't set her up."

"You're so difficult. You really test my patience with insignificant details. She met Mihael at court while he was waiting for me to finish a case, and she was so bowled over by his charisma and tight trousers that she neglected to find out anything about him apart from to try to test his stamina."

"But... they don't have pianos in court."

"No. Your law degree wasn't wasted on you, was it? No pianos, and more's the pity. I think a chorus of 'Imagine' every now and again would improve proceedings. If you really want to know the gory details, then I'll tell you. These statements may or may not be correct, but say that Mihael told me about her interest and I arranged a little party for various law officers courtesy of Lawliet & Company. And say that I encouraged Mihael, in the nicest way possible, to have a good time and make full use of the bar. Mission accomplished."

"You never told me that," B says, and his obvious horror wipes L's smile off his face. "That's not what you said. You said that you applied and were chosen. You're too good to resort to blackmail to get any position."

"It wasn't exactly blackmail. I would have got it without speeding it up but it's a very long-winded process," L tells him. I can't wait to hear this non-excuse. "There are a lot of interviews and studies and committees and I think I'm too good to wait that long when there are faster ways to go about it.

"I think it's low. It's something that a shit lawyer would do," B grumbles. He's not happy with his mythical tower of L exposing his own rotten footings, but I think it's funny that he's very reserved. If he was more emphatic, then he'd risk upsetting L, but passive aggression can be overlooked.

"I'm a barrister," L corrects again. "And I'm definitely not shit. I just don't like wasting time."

"I'm disgusted with you."

"I'm not," I say softly, making L turn towards me again. The corner of his lip rises as he's condoned by me. It's a nice moment, but of course B ruins it by throwing the damn photograph into L's lap and then throwing himself into a chair opposite us. He looks like his spine has turned gelatinous from anger.

L turns the photograph over and my heart lurches. It's the photograph of L and his father that I took from his desk and is now in a locked drawer in my office at the Kantei. I forgot all about it.

"Yes," L breathes out as he looks a the photo. "That's what he looked like."

I have to react in a normal way, I can't just stare at this photograph in silence. I don't want to be overenthusiastic and raise suspicion, because there's a thin band of safety in between saying nothing and saying too much.

"How old were you there?" I ask, smiling. Maybe I seem too interested? If I do, L doesn't seem to notice.

"Seventeen. I was leaving for university. If you look very closely, you can see B's tears on the camera lens."

"I thought you went there together."

"I went a year early," he explains, never taking his eyes off the photograph. He'll be depressed all day, moping around the house and being sad about some dead cock. I can depend on L for one thing: when he's depressed, he dresses like a slob. He is not putting that shitty cardigan on again, I will not allow it. "So, there he is. I thought I'd feel better, but I feel worse."

"You have to let it go. You should burn it."

"No!" B exclaims.

"I can't burn it," L says, but doesn't sound as horrified by the idea as B does.

"Some people should be erased from your life," I tell him. "Deleted."

"But you can't erase them from your memory."

"Yes you can. Burn it."

"If I did that, Light, he'd still be there. No, I should frame it. Don't you think?" he asks me. I don't want that photograph around, no. The only reason I didn't slice L's father off the copy I have is because I fully intended to give it back. Well, I was going to plant it somewhere in L's pit of an office, but then he left and the photograph was pushed to the back of a drawer to gather dust after my wedding.

With subtle disapproval, I shrug my shoulders and laze further back into the sofa. "Up to you."

"Thanks for the photo, B," L mutters, placing it face down on his lap.

"He's got some other photos," I say. B glares at me again, and he really is very good at it. He's a pro. L is still reeling from seeing his horse-faced father again and struggles to sound interested.

"Oh?"

"Yes, in his wallet. You look very stupid in them."

"I can't believe that I ever looked stupid."

"Give them to him then," I tell B, smiling as I trace the outline of my bottom lip with my finger. "It's why you brought them, isn't it? So you could reminisce over old times?"

B grudgingly reaches for his wallet. I hope that as soon as he opens it, hundred of photographs of L will fall out onto the floor and L might actually realise that his best friend has an unhealthy obsession with him and probably wanks over these photos several times a day. He bet that he does; he spends a long time in the bathroom. Sadly, my dream scenario doesn't happen. He pulls out one photo and hands it to L, who looks it over like a louche bastard.

"Oh. I look stupid," he says.

"What were you thinking of, wearing that coat?" I ask good-naturedly. "It looks like a poncho."

"It's pastel blue and it wasn't a poncho. You have to bear in mind the fashions of the time. I'm just sad that I can't blame anyone for it. I bought it myself."

"You don't look stupid," B slimes. Pfff...

"Where's the other one, B?"

I half-expect him to claw at my eyes but he just gives up his treasures with as little fanfare as possible. I can't believe, however, that L doesn't think that it's strange that his friend has multiple photos of him on his person at all times. He must think that these photos are gifts that B's brought for him, because he doesn't show any sign of giving them back.

"Will this fun ever end?" L sighs as he takes the other photo. "Oh my God. When was this taken?"

"Charlie's party," B says.

"Charlie? Oh, the fruit fly, yeah. No wonder I look drunk."

"Do you like any women?"

"The mute woman who does my dry cleaning is lovely to speak to," he answers with not a shred of shame. "So, there I am and I look stupid. Thanks."

"I could get them blown up for you," B offers. He's going to get them copied incase L does keep them. I laugh and he looks at me with such loathing while L picks up the photo of himself and his father again, missing the whole war of wills going on around him.

"You'd actually blow them up for me?" he asks. "With explosives? Can I watch?"

"You know what I mean."

"No, thanks. No need. Here you are, Light," L says, handing me all three photographs. "Put them somewhere, will you?"

He stands and goes to the kitchen, looking like he's dragging his legs rather than walking, and with his back now curved into the depressive slouch he takes on when he's tired or troubled or both. I used to think that he looked slovenly when he did that, but it reminds me of bending him into uncomfortable forms during sex now, so I don't mind it so much. It's just where my mind goes. B also watches him leave, and when he's out of sight, turns back to me. He must get terrible stress headaches from going from the wide-eyed, slack-jawed gaze of wonder he wears whenever he looks at L, to the furrowed brow, thin-lipped frown he wears whenever he looks at me. Sometimes he goes between these two expressions dozens of times a minute and it's hilarious. Some botox would probably help.

A smile now feels natural on my face after years of it being like an alien contortion I performed on request, and I smile at B now as he watches me slip L's photos into my wallet.

B comes back from his walk after dinner at precisely the right time. Well, a few minutes later would have been better, but this will do. L's talking to me, so he doesn't hear the deadened sound of B's bare feet. He's telling me about a execution which he saw carried out in Florida years ago, thanks to a friend of his father's who admitted him as a witness. He's also a dove tail joint between my legs, niched there while I sit on the table. His face presses into my neck while he whispers to me smoothly and darkly like tar in the lungs.

I take short, shocked gasps of air at strange moments, trying to exert some control over the tight discomfort inside my trousers as he speaks, but I jolt and shiver against him from certain words and the way he says them. And now B's a part of a moment we're spinning - he's sharing it, it's ours – we've all been drinking to varying levels of excess and I see the night unfolding perfectly. I've challenged myself to make it happen precisely as I imagined it over the last few days, and in more detail over the last few hours after I'd set my heart on it.

L's talking about cycles of voltage and the duration of alternating current to destroy internal organs and make the heart beat like it's been hit by a fuckload of cocaine. Eight seconds of 2,450 volts, a one-second pause, then twenty-two seconds of 480 volts, a twenty-second pause, and then repeat. Three times. What an extravagant way to kill someone. He says that you have to see death to truly understand it. Man is only ingenious at finding new ways to inflict pain and death. His father said he should see it, because if you throw shit at your wall of a son then maybe something will stick. When the witness box door was opened after the execution, L was sure that he could smell almonds. And that, my friends, is when I was told what an electrocuted criminal smells like.

"Maybe it's not justice unless they die," L whispers to me, and I lean closer to him and his voice, because it's like the sea to me. It's like the sea on a dark night when you can't see it, but it's there and it colours my life. "Should murderers get sentenced to death or a cell and a bed and a TV and healthcare and fucking fabric softener?"

"Death."

"Maybe life is prison is worse."

"They shouldn't be allowed to see blue skies. It's an insult to the victim if their murderer lives. It's an insult to everyone if they're allowed to live. They're poison."

"No mercy?"

"No. Never."

He kisses me and I don't know if he thinks that I'm heartless or full of heart. Behind him, I see B at the threshold of the room and I wonder how long he's been there. How long has he been watching L push the hair from my face to sloppily mouth at my cheekbone in between pouring words into my ear? Did he hear the words? I feel like the volume of my life has been adjusted for clarity and intensity, and it makes me close my eyes for a moment. I have to watch B watching us and hope to God that he doesn't make a sound and ruin this for me. He could either make it or break it, frankly.

L tells me that he loves me, but B couldn't possibly hear it from where he is. That must be rectified.

"What was that?" I ask L, who laughs and slides against me in response. I smile at B, who's still standing there with his rictus expression while he's being gutted from the inside, and congratulate myself for always making the best of a bad situation.

"I love you," L tells me, but he's still far too quiet.

"Louder."

"I love you, fuck's sake!"

And B must have heard that. I laugh softly against L's hair so wisps of it fly within my breath and stick to my lips. I am content. B's brain must be boiling in its juice from the electric currents that he's generating and inflicting upon himself. This is my third night under the same roof as him, and his veneer of the best and purest friendship is peeling, exposing the desperate longing and envy underneath. The poor, sad bastard. I don't think that he'd even know what to do with L. The more he sees of him with me, the more he must realise how he's allocated him a personality which doesn't match. The disappointment makes him irritable but resigned, like he's permanently hungover. Even if I felt any sympathy and the man wasn't a twisted hulk of a dead tree, I'm in the last position to offer solace. I don't see why I should.

"So you could smell almonds when he died. Tell me more," I say.

"He was dead. There is no more. Nothing."

"Mu," I groan against the side of his skull and the combed hair at his temple. There isn't a word which describes the emptiness of it so well. We're all going to die and we're all going to the same place. "You should do me here."

"No. B –"

"B will enjoy it. Are you embarrassed?"

"Some things should be private, Light."

"Since when? There's nothing to be embarrassed about, is there? I'm sure B knows all about the dangers of repression. What are your thoughts on sexual repression, B? Psychologically speaking."

As soon as I address B, L looks behind himself to see the plastic-looking humanoid and steps away from me guiltily, wiping his mouth on his knuckles. I don't think I've ever felt so righteous as I do when B's looking down on me like I'm a life sentence of horror.

"I'm not a follower of a certain well-known hypothesis," he says condescendingly.

"Ha! Hypothesis. And what would that be in psychiatric terminology?"

"I could tell you, but I'd have to charge you my standard fee."

"You're welcome to stick around if that'll do as payment," I say, pulling L back towards me by the waist. B's face remains unchanged. Under every mask, there lies another, exactly the same. L pushes my arms away and takes up his vodka again, leaving us to continue our spat.

"You could just read Foucault," B replies. He picks up his empty glass before he continues, because he's not done with me and I haven't even started with him. "That is, if you can read. I think that you decided a long time ago that there's no point in reading when you can be a libertine. That was your decision and your poor education shouldn't be visited on me."

"Are you saying that I'm an illiterate slut?" I ask, casually standing up. This is so funny, oh my God. I could curl up on the floor and laugh until my spleen falls out, I swear.

"You must have some uses."

I walk towards him, and I don't know if he thinks that I'm going to hit him. He straightens his back like he's expecting some kind of assault, but I only put my hand around the glass he's holding, letting my fingers sit lightly over his. "Mmmm..." I sound out with a half smile. "Let me make you another drink."

His hand is cold from the night air and he doesn't move, he just looks at my hand and then back at me. I let my eyes drift and linger over his face until he panics and pushes the glass into my hand before he steps away from me. He's one of those. I'll have to treat him like a frightened horse. Like all repressed people though, it should be worth it. Once you get them going, they go like the fucking clappers.

"I'll make one myself," he says frostily.

"Don't be stupid, it's one of many things I'm good at."

"Like me," L moans on his way to the kitchen. His glass is empty. "Except I'm only good for mixing drinks and suing people."

"He's good at a few more things than that," I tell B, since I'm an authority on the subject.

"I know."

"Do you?" I ask. When I move towards him, he freezes up again. God almighty. "I don't think we're talking about the same things."

"Go away," he says sharply.

"Why?"

"You smell."

"Of Tobacco Vanille and Noir de Noir, I know. You're still a little boy inside, aren't you. Why don't we be friends?"

"I like the way we are. I don't want your drink."

"I'm sure that L will have it, so it won't go to waste. Let me give you a present."

"What?"

"I could make him. If I ask him, he'll do it," I say confidently, lighting a cigarette to cement it. "We'll all have a bit more to drink and give you a present."

"What are you talking about?"

I laugh and check that L's still out of the room before I lean closer to B's ear like it's a secret I'm going to tell him. And it is, more or less. Or a Pandora's Box. I'm trying to keep hope inside. "Turn around, turn around. But he was already asleep."

"What's going on?" L asks, and we both look at him standing there with his selfish vodka.

"We're just having a chat," I explain. "We've agreed to be friends, haven't we, B."

"Oh. That's nice."

"L, could you get B a drink and put some ice in mine, please? I forgot," I say. L takes the glasses and doesn't show much sign of being suspicious, but he probably doesn't care much by this point. I turn back to B and smile to encourage him. "See, it's nice. That's the official verdict, we have the blessing of he who matters. And now that we're friends, what do friends do? He's in a very good mood. Do you want to know what I did to him to achieve this amazing and rare feat? Maybe I could show you. Maybe I could put you in a good mood too."

"No, thank you."

"Be quiet now," I whisper, breathing in near a throbbing point in his throat. "Is that... Carbone by Balmain? I remember the review for that. 'Resin notes in this spicy aroma evoke the hallowed silence of old world churches. Black fig, musk, bourbon pepper and vetiver add sensuality and masculinity.' Am I right? It's just like being in a church, isn't it? Can't beat a black fig."

L comes back, sloshing the two drinks around when he trips over something. I'm trying to convince B that I'm serious by letting my eyes warm him a little. He really is the most hopeless thing if there isn't equal antipathy between us.

"What are you doing?" L asks. He and B have the same habit of standing still when shocked and I always find it funny, like L's face is funny when I smile at him and rest my head on B's shoulder.

"Play with us."

"What?"

"You're not asexual," I laugh softly into B's ear.

"Light, leave him alone."

"Some friend you are," I tell L, then go back to B so no one but him can hear me. "Do you want me to ask him? You don't know what I can do. I could have him fuck you stupid - would you like that? That's a rhetorical question. But are you brave enough? On your deathbed, would you rather be thinking 'what if I had?' or 'what if I hadn't?'"

L says my name again angrily as he approaches us, forces drinks into our hands, and I notice for the first time that he seems very anxious about this whole exchange.

"You're neglecting him, L. I'd like to watch you two sort out all this shit. Give me a present. I gave you one."

"What present? What do you want?"

"Oh, nothing. It's just that tonight is all stops and starts and interruptions and voyeurism. I don't know about you, but I'm pretty turned on right now."

I suppose that I am suggesting incest as far as he sees it, but I really can't believe that in thirty years, when they were in close proximity and in times of drought, that he never once thought of it. He storms off back to the kitchen instead of shouting at me, so I know that all is not lost.

"He just needs to think it over," I tell B comfortingly. "Now, which way would you like to go. I'm thinking that you'd be a very aggressive top, which would be interesting, because I can be too and so can L. It's caused problems in the past. But L... sometimes he gets a bit lazy. I'll give you a tip: he has a prostate fixation. You have to attack at the right angle. The angle is all important."

"You rabid fuck," he snarls at me. My God! How dare I speak about L in relation to something so vulgar and human? It's unacceptable!

"That's quite an accurate description, yes," I laugh. "But I'm sure you'll find that out for yourself. And I've got a lovely set of pipes, but I guess you know that already."

"People who scream like you do usually feel like they have something to make up for."

"Not in my case."

"If you don't get away from me I'll -"

"I've seen you looking at me," I say aggressively just to shut him up. "You and your phallic knives. Give me ten minutes."

He doesn't respond, so I'm done with him for now. It's time to move on to the big bad. I pick up the drink L left behind and find him propped up against the worktop in the kitchen. When I walk in, he looks distinctly unimpressed with me but it's not an absolute no, he's just not very happy about it.

"You forgot your drink."

"What the fuck are you trying to do?" he asks. Oooh, he's angry in a 'where are my handcuffs?' way. I'm a bit drunk already, so I have to stop myself from making a funny noise.

"Ha. Nothing. He just gets to me, that's all."

"Please don't," he says, his voice softening as I rub his arms. "He means a lot to me and I don't think you understand."

"You said please!"

"Just leave him alone."

"Please?"

"Please."

"But he desperately wants to be included!" I tell him cheerfully. Why's he so serious about this? His eyes have taken on a steely tone underneath the vodka glaze, but he's going to lose this one and he knows it, no matter what he says.

"Look, I'm only going to say this once so you better fucking listen. You do whatever you want to me and whoever else, but you leave him out of this."

"He's waited his whole life for you to notice him."

"Shut up."

"Are you honestly telling me that it never occurred to you? From what he said, you've been searching for 'Oh! If only someone would love me!' when it's been there all along. You knew."

"Fuck off, Light."

He turns away from me, so I just lean against his back instead like his conscience. He's dead in the water. "But you were scared that if you did that, he'd see what you were really like. It's funny, because that's exactly the same reason why he hasn't done anything."

"I know, ok. Just leave it."

"Ha! I knew it. So, you did know. That makes what you've done even worse."

"What do you mean?"

"You owe him. You owe me. Don't forget your drink."

If he hadn't fooled himself all these years, this probably wouldn't be happening now. I never knew that he was such a coward. I offer him the vodka and this time he takes it, but not before he's given me the saddest baby animal look, like he's being pressed into doing a terrible thing by a despot and it goes against all his morals. What bollocks. I kiss his neck before I leave, and B hasn't moved an inch from how I left him. He looks almost disappointed when I smile at him. I wonder why I bother sometimes. Everyone's so awkward and I don't know why they have to make such a big deal of of it. God! I'm not forcing them to do anything. I'm sorting their shit out for them because they can't, that's all.

And not too long later, maybe half an hour or so, B's sitting on one sofa a fair way away, looking like he's waiting for a dentist, and L and I are sitting on the other sofa. L's adorably drunk by now - if you could say that about a fully grown man - and I'm nicely buzzing. As the one with responsibility for this, I have to make sure that I'm not too far gone. Plus, I want to remember this tomorrow. The TV is off and there's no sound unless L and I catch sight of each other and start giggling like we're children. Everyone is waiting for something to happen and I'm not sure if they're the same things. If B gets his way, his ideal scenario would probably be me collapsing on the floor and he and L running off to Las Vegas and a civil ceremony performed by Elvis. I snort into my book at the thought and L thinks it's because of him, because he's a car crash of funny, and he starts laughing.

Then B stands up abruptly. We watch him in a shocked silence, expecting a reprimand or some joint analysis session, but he picks up our empty glasses and offers to make us another drink. My thanks when he returns sounds hollow and suspicious, and the sting in the tail turns out to be that while my drink is vodka, L's is water. The bastard's just put a lot of of lemon in mine, which completely ruins it and masks the subtlety of a decent vodka which doesn't burn your throat out.

L sniggers drunkenly to himself again and there's no way to describe it. Pleasantly drunk. All limp and boneless so that his humour rocks him and nudges me and the book which I'm trying to read while I wait. It's very irritating that the words move up and down on the page.

I don't say anything, which is the best way I've found of getting his undivided attention. Just like a charm, he moves like a snake to the floor to crouch at my feet, dipping his head so he prises into the space between my chest and the book I'm holding in front of me. As his head appears in front of my book, I want to laugh, but I suppress it in order to watch him with the superiority of the unattached and unmoved.

"Mind if I interrupt?" he asks, clipping his fingertips on the corner of my book to pull it from my hands. He squints his eyes and moves the book in the air until he can focus on the words, then reads aloud with the gravitas of a Shakespearian actor, and quite well for someone who should be falling asleep on the nearest available surface. "'And so, in one point of view, the art of war is a natural art of acquisition, for the art of acquisition includes hunting, an art which we ought to practice against wild beasts, and against men who, though intended by nature to be governed, will not submit; for war of such a kind is naturally just…'" His voice drifts off and he rolls his eyes at me as he puts the book aside. "Yeah. Whatever, sweetheart."

I smile slightly at his damning conclusion of Aristotle's finest, and it's one of L's own books which I picked up only because it said 'Politics' on the cover. Very few books in his house are loved and treasured, they just take up space, regardless of everything he says about the importance of culture and considering other people's views. He never raves about any book without critiquing it in some way and disagreeing with something fundamental. He has problems with almost everything he comes across in life, and in that way, we're the same. Our minds are our own and can't be influenced.

He stretches up to kiss me slowly and I let him without moving or encouraging it in any way, apart from moving my mouth at his instigation. This must annoy him, because he becomes more dominant, or eager to please, I can't tell which. And at the right moment, I push down on the top of his head, forcing his mouth away. He looks at me with his still strangely clear eyes, and allows himself to be pushed to my lap. His spindly fingers obediently tackle a belt buckle, buttons and zips, and I watch it fondly. Then I look at B, who's watching as I'd hoped, but gives no indication of his thoughts. I admire that about him and drink the vodka he fucked up.

L laughs before he kisses the elastic-crimped skin under my waist band, and I think of Kiyomi telling me to go back to my whore. Well, I did. Kiyomi often leaves traces of herself on me when she does this. The first time, I found myself thinking of something celestial while I looked out the window of my office, though I can't remember what it was now. I thought how useful she was for helping to put me into the frame of mind for thoughts like that, but they vanished when she'd finished and there was nothing left but greasy red smears of lipstick on my cock, like blood. She'd smiled at me as a nighthawk in the nest that she was, covering her smudged mouth with a delicate hand.

"I told you that he was in a good mood," I say to B, and L forces a slight exaltation out of me. "So, do you want to know what I did to him? For him, I should say. I didn't get much out of it."

B looks back down at his book like this is all completely normal. You'd think that L and I are playing chess together and we're all adults who are patiently waiting to die.

"L?" I ask, stroking his hair back, but he's very preoccupied and I have to prod him again. "L, would you like to make me happy?"

"Nnnn..." he replies, rising back up and draping himself all over me as he kisses my chin. Just like Misa when she was sober. God.

"I want you to fuck B." It's a whisper only L would hear. He opens his eyes and laughs again after a moment, but his mind is cloudy and pliable. I'm not worried. "I'd find it very entertaining," I explain.

"No."

"It's not like I can bring any old person in, is it? Think of who I am. B's safe."

"He's my friend."

"So it's even safer. Kiss him then, to start with. Just a little kiss, that's all. You should help out your friends and make them feel included."

"Light, no."

"You kiss him all the time."

"Not like that." He shakes his head violently like a wet dog. His hair stands up in sharp looking spikes until I rake them back down again.

"I'm not saying how you kiss him, am I? I dare you. See if he'll kiss you then. Leave it up to him."

"What are you talking about?" B calls out from the other side of the room. L flinches from how loud and unexpected his voice is, but I ignore B and lean down to L's white face and the red blotches on his neck. Blotches and bruises.

"You know, if I was B, I'd find this very offensive," I tell him. "Go on. I know you've done it before. He told me."

"What?" he asks. His eyes are full of vodka and confusion.

"You don't even remember, do you. How sad. It's almost tragic," I sigh, mournfully stroking his hair flat against his head. "We have to make this right. After what I did for you yesterday, I think that I'm owed something in return. Or maybe this says a lot about us. You demand and I supply but not the other way around. Seems a bit unequal, doesn't it? It's something which I'll have to think about before we go any further and I leave politics and send Kiyomi the divorce papers."

"Are you talking about me?" B calls over again. I laugh at him and L does too as he stands up unsteadily. While trying to give the impression that he's articulate in mind and limb, he somehow makes his way over to B. I feel proud, like I'm sending my fledgling out into the world. In my mind, they're brothers, like L and I are brothers.

"Sorry, B," L says. "The gentleman wants to see me kiss someone. You don't mind, do you?"

"The gentleman?"

"I owe him a favour. I'm not bad at it, honestly. Just a peck."

"Because he asked you to?"

"You can have me on your couch later..." L nearly doubles over when he realises what he said. His teeth look very straight and white in a row on his pale face and I... I have to blink quickly to try to clear my mind. I feel like I've been hit by a bus all of a sudden. When I open my eyes again, L's sitting next to B and tries to be composed, only to start laughing again. "Ha! Light, I need a chapstick."

"Are you laughing at me?" B asks. L's face falls into the look of a stunned child who's been told off for something he didn't know was wrong. I worry that he's been brutally sobered up by B's question, because I think that we're running out of vodka.

"No," he says breathily.

"I'm not doing anything for him."

"Do it for me then?"

After a moment of watching them gaze at each other, I start to get bored of this idea altogether. They're completely useless and complicated and I think about just going to bed because my head's in it right now; it's cloudy and everything is getting more and more indistinct. But then B shifts closer to L until he's literally on the edge of his seat, and like a cat's angry tail my crossed leg bounces on my knee while I wonder about at what point I should step in. B cups L's drunken little face in his hand and looks so sorry to see him reduced to begging for simple kisses to please me. I think so, anyway. I'm hated and L is loved, but B is desperate enough to accept whatever's offered, even if I am the one handing it out. The affection there is disgusting, and even L looks awkward when faced with it. His eyes grow large as they look into B's. I know those eyes; it's like looking into the depths of a dark lake. Get the fuck on with it.

And eventually B does, but it's soft and pointless and I feel like I'm watching an old film under strict censorship. B's eyes are closed and I'm sure that this is like a baptism for him, but L's eyes are open and frightened.

"You can do better than that, L," I say, making my boredom clear. He forces his eyes shut at my criticism and he doesn't look any more comfortable, but he makes more of an effort, at least. He opens his mouth now and looks a little less like a piece of wood by a fire which should be burning, and I see just a faintest shock of light shining on B's red tongue, flicking and searching inside L's mouth. Of course B would respond with a grateful fervency - it was what I expected and hoped for. I have to inspect this from a closer position, like a child sitting inches away from a cartoon on TV. Something about this makes me feel godlike, playing with my lego sets. When they disappoint you, you can bring a flood or break the wicked sinners with brimstone and fire. Where are the men which came in to thee this night? Bring them out unto us, that we can have intercourse with them.But God intervenes at the right moment and saves those he loves, or ruins all the fun, however you want to see it. It's a stupid religion, all religion is stupid. What's mine is mine, and what's yours is yours. L isn't yours. I will descend and see.

By the time I reach the carnivorous scene and sit on the table in front of them to watch all this in technicolor glory, it's getting a little more interesting, but only because L in his drunkenness can ignore the bad with his closed eyes like everyone else does. Everyone has their eyes closed. I think of the detestable abomination of strange flesh, sex with strangers, sex with angels. B forcing L backwards is so perverse that it's funny and I think he's forgotten that I'm here. Maybe he'll be thankful to me for all time because I gave him this loan, innocent and sad as it is. L's there because I asked it of him, but B's probably living in a little fantasy which has been well nurtured and honed for decades. His hand, smoothing L's hair down like a rumpled bedsheet, makes me ache. Come back into my arms.

L must sense me there in my silence, and his eyes open to look at me with a rusty-coloured tinge of desire, like the sheen on dried black ink. I don't see B now and his gawping, heinous mouth. I lean towards them until L turns his face away from B, and if B doesn't catch the significance of this then I don't know if he ever can understand it. I want to crush him in every possible way. I want his heart to shatter and for him to pine to death in his office. Time will extend painfully for him, but everyone else will rush by around him at the speed of sound. My mouth catches L's, which is moist from B, it's dirty. But he grabs at my hair and pulls me down on top of him on the sofa. I wish I could see B. I wish I could see his face and see him move away to make room for me, to see him see me make L come alive and writhing and clutching and greedy for cleansing fornication. I wish I could see B's face when I place L's leg around my waist so it's resting on my hip, and me on all fours like an animal. Like Zeus turning into a menagerie of animals for a purpose, yes. Rain and coins and bulls and dreams.

L says that he can't breathe; the poor man needs life support. He makes labouring gasps on my shoulder until I push him away from me by the throat so that his head rests against this worn old sofa; lived in, fucked on by him and whoever owned it before him. Some man in a top hat and a woman in a bustle dress, refurbished, two women in wartime utilitarian suits, drugs in flares and suede, fringed shirts, left to rot, refurbished, L and whatever hole he could find. This sofa. Everything he owns must have a story because they're so old. B's behind me, and I imagine him watching with hatred and ancient love at how I pin L down and how L takes it. Yes, he always did because there are so few boundaries. This is no romance which involves Interflora. I lean back and my lips barely scrape B's mouth before he pulls away from me, making me bite my lip and carve the print of my teeth into them in frustration. There's no air here, I'm too high, I feel high. I'm an aide again, I'm back in Transport, I'm nobody, there's no oxygen. I feel licentious. He hates me. We should fuck.

"The offer's still there, by the way. He'll do anything I want," I say to him with a raised eyebrow. "Won't you?" I ask L then, like a caring master. L looks three sheets to the wind and purely running on instinctive carnality now. And that's the wonder of just the right amount of alcohol in someone with little restraint to start with. He reaches up to kiss me with the same tenderness with which I'd used to push him down. "You like B don't you? Do you want to make me happy, L?"

"Stop it. He needs to go to bed," B tells us. Dead fucking loser. Nothing but compacted atoms.

"What an excellent idea. You're not really there, are you? Neither am I," I say to L, whose face is snug against the curve of my throat. His hand runs up my chest, over the buttoned placket, finding no obstacle, with me between his legs and B behind me. I look across the room in front of me because I need some space. The thinness of the air and the heat in it and my swimming head makes me feel claustrophobic. "I think his frailty is so obvious that it makes people want to hurt him. Like a constant reminder of mortality. It annoys you to be reminded. You know, like how people prey on the weak? He looks that way, but it's not true. He's just one big lie."

"People don't want to hurt him; you do," B says. I imagine him so close to my ear. I want to feel his hands around my neck.

"Maybe. But he's hard to hurt. Hard to break. L? L, tell B about the night your father died. Tell him what you did to me," I ask with my hand running over his back as a comfort. He sighs a despondent, groaning 'no' into my shoulder, but B needs to learn about him. He needs to know what he is. "Remember Astbury?"

"Stop it," B growls, But it doesn't affect me. I want this out.

"What did you do to me?" I ask L again.

"I... I didn't mean it," he answers and it sounds like crying. Yes, he should cry. I feel nothing but a need for B to know the truth.

"You did, L. Remember? I was only being kind to you. And then you left me."

"I didn't want to."

"Then you came back and made me kiss your feet and you were comparing me to everyone you'd ever slept with and said that I was nothing without you, didn't you? While we were fucking, L! You made me do and say everything you wanted, you sadistic fuck!" He turns his face away and B puts his hand on my arm like he's going to drag me away to an execution chamber. I sound so angry and I don't know why. "And what about The Blue Note? The Blue Note. The alleyway."

"No."

"We had a fight about it."

"We didn't fight."

"I didn't want to see you again. I didn't want to do it there, did I?"

"No."

"But you did it anyway," I smile at the small admittance of truth from someone who's allergic to it. It's like a ring on my finger; mizpah, a promise of love eternal and all the things I should have felt on my wedding day if I was at all inclined towards romanticism. B's presence and his analytical brain is soiled by affection and longing which is so oppressive that he must realise, he must see, and I turn my face back to him with the smugness of someone who knows better. "That's your L."

His eyes flash up to mine and I see some understanding there which wasn't there before, but he feels no sympathy for me. If only he was drunk too and had the freedom I felt, but no, the patient has died. I close my eyes and smile from the satisfaction of being the wronged and from having the truth told. It's as close to justice as you can without blood being spilt. It's almost holy, what I feel.

"I'm sorry."

The weak words open my eyes and look down from where they came from, like it was unexpected rock thrown at me. L's lying back against the sofa with his heavy-lidded, waterlogged eyes which find no escape or relief. He can't cry because he doesn't feel it enough. I speak without thinking. The thoughts find words without me realising.

"Why have you hurt me so much?"

"I wanted you to admit it," he says quietly.

"Admit what?"

"That you loved me. I wanted to be sure."

"But I do love you."

"I wanted to know that you'd forgive anything I might have done, but I don't think you're capable of it. Forgiveness is proof of love."

All the air is pulled out of my like I'm in a vacuum then and it takes me a moment to process exactly why. He's prone and his eyes close slowly because he knows that he's said too much and he's been too honest; for what are we without our lies? I pull his dead weight towards me to hold him, because, for some reason, that's the most revealing thing he's ever said to me, like he's baring his heart to me after I was feeding him to B for my own entertainment. I got him drunk and he knew what I was doing and he didn't resist it, but it made him sad to be tied to someone by woven threads of emotion which built up over time to become chains. That's what I was scared of, but he shouldn't feel that way. I feel like such a despicable bastard now, like I'm rotting and exposed in a dark cell somewhere, surviving on sin. We should never have met, we shouldn't be here, I shouldn't have done this. And suddenly all the regret which maybe I should have felt long before now - years ago - infuses me with sadness. Why am I destroying the only thing I care about? When I met him, he was good. Under all of it, I knew he was good. And I know now why I wear these suits, why I don't love my wife, why I haven't given a single thought towards naming my child. I know why I put myself in a storm of hatred where I could only destroy or be destroyed, and it's all meaningless. What he says in those words means more than every 'I love you' he could say over a lifetime. In this moment, I see that disapproving of him makes me feel superior to the one person who ever meant anything to me. Not because I'm related to them and have to feel something for them, or because they love me, or because I'm required to by law - just because. And I feel like when I was lying on my bed with a broken face and I just wanted him to call me, to call round and to look at me, because I forget sometimes that there was a time he wanted nothing to do with me. I'd known him less than an hour before I looked at him across a dining table, and in my head I asked him to tell me that I'm not alone. For months, when he was away from me, I was alone, and I forget sometimes. I'm only alone when he's not with me. Him and his stupid face and thin bones and his brain and broken ideals and sweet wrappers everywhere and his shit music and his wet towels on my floor. He's always stealing my cigarettes and he doesn't give a fuck when I shout at him, but he does. And when he kisses me sometimes, the inside of his mouth feels furry from sugary drinks and wine and coffee and tea and I think: 'Brush your fucking teeth before you touch me, you bastard!' but I kiss him anyway, and I forget sometimes. I forget what it was like when I didn't have any of those things. I was perfect and alone.

"I would forgive you. You should have known that," I whisper through thick saliva. "We'll be different now."

And he says nothing, only puts his hand on my back so I know that he heard me. In this moment, I believe that we'll be different, even though I don't know if it's actually possible. Behind me I hear B tutting to himself and I hate him for mocking me and mocking us. He drinks his fucking bacardi.

L sits up and kisses me. He's woken up and he's someone else. He pushes me back so my head rests against B's leg, and B looks down at me. The view I have of him is through the bottom of his tumbler, as though I'm underwater looking at the clone of the man who's pushing me down. I reach up to touch his face, but he grips it at just a hair's breadth away. It's not allowed. I'm an exhibit he's not very interested in, tilting his head to one side to look at me like L does sometimes. The weight on my chest is L pulling my shirt up to my neck. There's nothing but dizziness and laughter in a coffin as I look past B's face to the ceiling, and everything's vibrating and out of focus. I think that whatever happens to me, ever, I'll live through it. My plane could crash because I trade altitude for speed, but I'll be the only survivor standing in the wreckage, surrounded by flames and fuselage and bodies.

"Clever. Look what you've done to him," B says. When he speaks, I think that it's to L, but his mouth doesn't sync with the words as I hear them.

"It was the truth."

B's hand pulls at my tie, first into tight noose, the end of which he holds up and laughs at before he unties it roughly. He looks towards L, and I see a razor cut under his jaw. It's just a line of dried blood but it seems like a zoomed in, low quality, pixellated image. My chest is being covered in long, dragging kisses, and the feeling is like a cold wind which makes me smile against my shoulder. When I open my eyes, a dark, gracile thing, ten feet tall, is moving towards me across the room. Passing through chairs and tables to reach me, just to reach me.

There's something unnatural in the room. I should tell someone, but I can't move. Suddenly it's right beside me and I'm disoriented by how it's like I'm going up in an elevator while the shadow is going down, but then there's just its face with skin so bloodless that it looks almost grey and decomposing, just shrunken tissue over deformed bones. It's wide smile just grins at me. It's an old friend to me. I hear someone laughing over B and L's short questions and answers to each other, then I realise that it's me who's laughing.

"Oh dear. Looks like more than one of us have had a little too much to drink. Poor Prime Minister."

"Mmmm..."

The demon's eyes are a corona of molten lava with a red core. His teeth look like sharp diamonds, and I don't think that he can do anything but smile at me, like I can do nothing but smile back. I'm a rag doll being stripped by hands that know me, and new hands which are inquisitive. In his face, I see the future, but he's not really there. Maybe the future isn't there either. A hand slides into my trouser pocket, pressing the silk lining against my hip and I rise towards it. I'm still looking at the demonic face looking at me with unblinking eyes, but my back mechanically curves upwards anyway until the hand is withdrawn.

"Oh, look at this. He planned the whole thing. Well, I guess that this useful. Where did you find him again?"

"I saw him at a funeral."

"How romantic. He's a very sick man."

"He's a beautiful man."

"No, not beautiful... I can't help you. Either of you."

I think it's B's hand which pushes my hair back from my face and draws soft, cool little swirls across my forehead like I'm nothing but a piece of paper. His voice is a solemn, grotesque contrast to L's warming slurs, muffled against my stomach. L leaves hot kisses like footsteps, but they go cold instantly. I shiver and the demon laughs at me until I laugh at myself. He's the thing in the mirror.

I'm still laughing in amazement. No one should see what I see, no one has seen what I see. I should be screaming. Part of me doesn't believe what's in front of me and it's the same part that finds the affection being lavished on me by two oblivious people to be funny. Bony black elbows and arms like branches propping up a joke of a face in front of me, and I can't pull my eyes away from it. It's skin is the texture of thick oil paint.

"Light, what do you want to do?"

"You and B," I tell the demon dreamily. A hand grips my face and forces me to look towards L.

"Light?"

"I saw something," I tell him. "Someone." My fear was delayed and it sweeps over me now and over L in turn.

"What did you see?" B asks me, but L talks over him, tracing my jaw with his thumb.

"Whatever it was, it wasn't real."

"Yes, keep telling him that, if you want him in an asylum," B says smugly. "He's transcended the realm of ordinary logic. What did you see?"

"A demon."

"Is he still here?"

"Yes."

"Where?"

"Next to me."

B's face looks down on me and I try to keep my eyes open but he makes me feel tired. "Is he often like this, L? You keep an eye on that demon, Prime Minister," he tells me.

"B, don't -" L says.

"He is there, isn't he?" I ask B. "He is real."

"You see him, so he's real to you. If only you can see him, you must be chosen."

I close my eyes and just listen to the words being said all around me until they become one voice arguing with itself.

"B, stop it."

"The more he hallucinates, the closer he is to the end. No drugs in the world could save him, they'll just make him numb to life; someone in a walking coma. But that might be an improvement in Mr Yagami's case. The more you encourage him to ignore the problem, the worse it's going to get. We should confront it. What does the demon signify? Why that particular form? Ask the demon what it wants, Prime Minister."

"Leave him alone."

"It's not him that I want anyway, but since he's here... I'll just get my camera."

"No you fucking well won't."

"No, no more cameras," I whisper. Before I know it, I'm upright, I don't know how. I'm level with B and my eyes float down to his chest and the perfectly ironed shirt over it. I start unbuttoning it with my numb and shaking fingers until he grasps them tightly in his hand to stop me. "I only want to see," I tell him coyly, and he lets me go. There's no mark where he said there would be. He said that it was ruined, but he lied. I kiss the thin layer of skin over the bone. "It's not so bad."

"What's he talking about?" L asks behind me, and I turn slowly to look at him over my shoulder.

"B told me about needle in his chest."

"Why did you tell him about that?"

"There's not even a scar," I mumble against the murderous place, pushing the shirt further open.

"Not there, no," B says. "The scars are in other places."

"Please don't talk about it," L tells us. It's painful for him to remember it. More painful for him than it is for B, I think, because B seems almost proud of it, and I identify with that feeling.

I rise up again, unbalanced, and when I kiss B's mouth, he lets me. It becomes a kind of torrent which I didn't expect from him. I'm surprised and feel awakened by it somehow. If I didn't have L - the original - then B would be the next best thing. He moves away from me, so I kiss his cheek instead. His stubble feels rough against my tongue, like a cat's tongue with little barbs. I feel his voice reverberate through his jaw as he speaks to L and looks behind me to see him compromised and having some kind of internal battle with himself.

"What's the matter, baby boy?" B asks him.

"Nothing."

"That's the problem with these things," I say, and turn around to face him instead and to unbutton his shirt casually in the hope that he won't even notice. "There's always someone feeling like they're left out in the cold."

"I don't want to do this, Light."

None of that. The damage is practically done now, he can't go back. I run the narrow point of my tongue over the edges of my teeth before I make a sad, sympathetic sound and kiss him, breaking him up like a melting glacier hit by global warming. While I kiss him, I feel a sharp pain behind me and the roughness of B's cool, unconcerned fingers. I bite down on L's lip so that he feels it too and winces like me, but he only helps steady me by my shoulders as I struggle to make out who's responsible for what crime. After a moment or two, I don't really care anymore. I mould myself into L's form as I'm induced and disentangled.

"I wish I'd worn gloves," I hear B mutter, then the familiar flip and click of a cap over the sound of my own heavy breathing. "Well, if I'm not wanted, you carry on then. He's kitted out and ready to go, L."

"No man left behind," I smile, curling back towards him. There's nothing worse than a threesome which is just two people fucking and one person wanking off. L moans, and not in the way I want him to moan. It's full of advance grief and regret. Sayu used to sound like that when I tried to explain algebra to her, and like the algebra, this is not fucking difficult.

"I don't know..."

"L, please."

"I know why," B says. I look between him and L and it's like I'm not there. If they decide between them that this isn't going to happen then it'll ruin the schedule I have planned. It'll still happen one way or another, I'll just have to resort to deviousness, and why put off until tomorrow what you can do today? This is really annoying. "I thought, I always thought, how disgusting I must be to you."

"There's nothing wrong with you," L tells him, reaching out to touch his face. "There never was."

"I've loved you forever."

Oh, fuck! Can we just get on with it already? I am primed and they're wasting time with all this shit. The more angry and jittery I become, they calmer they become, but there's a cutting off point to my agitation, like I hit a ceiling and can't feel much more. L smiles at B sadly, and I'm about to say something, but then I see the demon again, lank and tall behind L, and I think: 'Don't go near him, don't go near him!' but no one moves. No one can see him but me and I feel faint with the knowledge that I couldn't do anything anyway. Suddenly, L's faces clears with resolution and he stands, wobbling on the stalks of his legs.

"Let's do this thing right then. As right as it can be," he says as he walks away. There's a graceful dignity about him in his drunken sadness, and as I watch him leave, I'm overcome with dizziness and fall against B. He holds me up, and I look up at him and laugh.

"I hate rubbers with him," I say.

"I don't want to be infected by you, do I?" he smiles as he strokes my face lightly with his knuckles. He's always a little bit menacing, because I know he hates me. He'd get more enjoyment out of seeing me choke on my own vomit. His eyes are so bright they're like spotlights. They're like camera flashes in my face. "Where's the demon now. What's he doing?" he asks.

"Don't laugh at me, you crazy fucker... He's watching."

"Maybe he can see these. It might shock him. Do you know what these are?"

He holds a small box in front of me and I try to read and understand the dancing English characters.

"Zolpidem..." I sound out slowly.

"Ambien. Intermezzo, Stilnox, Sublinox, a sedative hypnotic which sometimes has quite exciting side effects, and you've just had a tiny dose. You shouldn't have let me make you a drink. They dissolve in alcohol like a dream, but they mix with alcohol like a nightmare. You went into my room. What did you expect?"

"Haaa! You... ahhh... you didn't have to go to so much trouble."

"I've always thought that you'd be much more pleasant when sedated. One of the possible side effects is amnesia, which I hope you'll experience. You'll wake up and you'll know that something must have happened, because you'll be like a battlefield after the night before in the morning. I really would not like to be in your shoes. Your dirty mind will start racing but you'll be too proud to ask exactly what happened. L will never mention it, if he remembers, and neither will I. But I will remember. That's what I'm hoping for."

"How clinical," I sigh, still laughing, though I don't know why it's funny exactly. My head sways against his chest in my tiredness, but underneath that there's rage and I want to overcome this, now that I know what it is. Maybe the demon was warning me. The demon is the bringer of revenge.

I just see L return and the demon's blue lips before I shut my eyes. My body wants to sleep but my mind, though fogged, is plotting.

"Oi, you," B shouts at me, followed up by a hard slap across my face. "Wake up."

"Don't hit him," L says. "What's wrong with him?"

"Not a thing. He's just relaxing, aren't you, dearest? L, I don't think we've done this before."

B's overpowering sense of control is hideous to me. My eyes snap open and I lunge for him so quickly that my head feels like it's spinning in revolt against me moving at all. I grasp B's hair tightly and pull his head back.

"You're going to suck my cock," I tell him. He laughs in reply as I force him to lean back until he's flat against the sofa with me straddling him. "Ok, L. You're first."