A/N: First of all, I want to thank everyone for all the great reviews I got in my other story. I was really shocked to hear that people actually liked it lol and it raised my confidence enough to make me write another one. So thank you.

Ahem. This story. I'll admit, I had no idea where I was going with it when I started it, so I was pretty surprised to see what happened. It's kind of a fluffy story, because that's what it turned into. I hadn't planned it like that at all (I'm not making sense, I know, but try to stay with me here) so if it's a little OOC, sorry. This takes place during the period when they're handcuffed and Light is all cute and innocent. Oh, and it's rated M mostly to cover my ass. I learned the hard way that I fail at writing lemon.

Disclaimer: Blah blah blah not mine blah blah sex would be abundant blah blah blah you get the picture.

"L…Light…!" L gasps from somewhere beneath the other boy's body.

Light looks up from his expedition of kisses down L's abdomen to look at the naked man below him. This isn't a new position for the two geniuses; it's something they've found themselves in many times in the last few months. On that night when L informed Watari that cameras were no longer necessary in their bedroom, they had found themselves deeper into the sheets (and each other) than they had ever dared to go. Since then, it was quite a common thing to find themselves back there again.

Light looks down at his lover, this strange yet beautiful man under him, his flushed face contrasting nicely with his porcelain skin and black shock of hair. Just looking at him is enough to make Light painfully hard. You're beautiful, and you're mine. He grins, and resumes his journey down L's frail body.

"Light…" L says again, this time more clearly. Light looks up, startled to hear something unfamiliar in his partner's voice. Before he can place what it is, L continues speaking, panting slightly as he wraps his arms around Light's waist.

"I… I need you to do something for me," he says at last, tightening his arms as he looks away from his lover's questioning eyes. I have to say it, I have to say it, say it! How is it possible, L wonders, that somebody as intelligent as he couldn't tell Light, his equal, what he needs to say?

"Do something?" Light inquires seductively, raising his eyebrows suggestively and pulling L tighter to him as he begins to play with the detective's unruly hair. He had been quite surprised to discover, the first time he had run his fingers through L's hair like that, that for all it's messy appearance, it was surprisingly silky and soft.

"No, not something like that," L says slowly as Light buries his face into his slender neck. How do I say it? L swallows; of all the dangerous and complex things he's done in his life, this is by far the most frightening. Just say it.

"I need you… I need you to say you love me."

There, he'd said it. What he'd been holding back every day for the past few weeks: whenever Light's hand "accidentally" brushed against his during work, all the times Light had asked him, smiling sweetly, if something was wrong; and every night, from the times he would just stay awake watching Light sleep to the times when Light would stay up with him, and moved inside him. Now that I've said it, what will you do?

"I- what?" Light gasps, dumbfounded. He sits up, pulling their bodies apart and his hands from the other's hair. "I… I'm afraid I don't quite understand what you mean, Ryuuzaki," he says, slipping back into his formal speech used around the rest of the world.

L bows his head, his voice barely above a whisper.

"I need you to say it. Please." He looks up, and Light is beyond shocked to see tears forming in his deep black orbs.

"Even… even if it's a lie. I need to hear it." Please.

Light narrows his eyes. Could this be another game, another ridiculous test of L's to prove he's Kira? Would he really go this far?

"This has nothing to do with Kira, or the case, or anything but you and I," L ducks his head again as he whispers, responding as if he's heard Light's thoughts. Of course he would know what the other boy was thinking; they are lovers, rivals, and equals in all that they do. Even members of the task force had noticed how recently, the two seem to be finishing each other's sentences and actions often. Perhaps, Light muses, this is why he is so shocked at L's words. He never saw it coming.

"If I lie," he says at last, breaking the tense wall of silence between them, "then why would you even want me to say it?"

L raises his head, his onyx eyes meeting confused hazel ones.

"Because," L murmurs with a small smile, "as long as I hear it, I can trick myself into believing it's true." If the truth will hurt, then feed me the lies.

"But… why?" Light simply cannot wrap his mind around what L, the world's greatest detective, is saying. "Why would you… need to believe that?"

"Because," L says again as he twists and untwists the bed sheets around his fingers, "It is one thing to give you my body. My body is unimportant; it is nothing more than a material thing. Again and again, I have given it to you. But it is a completely different thing, Light Yagami, to allow you access to my heart. For that, I need you to say it, so I can imagine it's true."

"But…. But…" Light stutters, hopelessly at a loss for what to say in response. What COULD he say to that? The truth…what's the truth?

It's almost enough to make L laugh, this sight of his usually calm and poised Light so flustered and reduced to stuttering. So cute. L, however, is not one to laugh at other's discomfort, so he says what he knows Light needs to hear.

"I don't need the truth. Just say it." We both know that the truth, sometimes, is nothing more than a believable lie.

Light swallows. What else can I do? "Alright. I... love you."

Light finds, with shock, that it is far easier it was than he expected. It was amazingly to say those words. Not forced painfully, like with Misa; those words that he says to her taste sour in his mouth. Not obligatory, like with his family, where it only tastes bland. This… this tasted… almost natural. Like they were meant for L alone. So he says them again.

"I love you. I love you." Why haven't I said it before?

The words flow from his lips like tears onto L's soft skin. Unable to stop them, they keep falling as L says, "Thank you. That is enough," and pulls him back down into his body and the blankets. They continue to pour free with every touch of his lips against every inch of his lover's because that's what you are now, a true lover pale skin. They become the lyrics to the rhythm their hips make as they rock together, in perfectly matched harmony. They become Light's scream of ecstasy as he comes, possibly harder than ever. Even after, as L curls against him, he whispers it into silken raven hair until it becomes a lullaby for both men to fall asleep to.

"I love you…"

It is much later, far into the night, when L is awake again, and watching Light sleep next to him. Being the insomniac that he is, watching the moonlight play across the younger boy's face is something he does quite often. His beautiful face. The face of the man who covered him in words the detective never thought he'd ever hear. The man who said he loved him. How could someone, L ponders, who says such things to him possibly be a killer? How can this creature, who moves and talks and sleeps so beautifully that it breaks L's heart and brings him to say things that he'd always thought were nothing but silly clichés, possibly be a cold-blooded murderer? How can he bring me to life at night, but kill others during the day?

L pushes those thoughts from his mind. Those are thoughts for the morning, when he is a world-famous detective instead of somebody's lover. When I MUST suspect you. For now though, there's only this. He leans over the man he, in all defiance of instinct and common sense, loves, and whispers, "Sometimes, I can't be a genius. I love you, even if it was a lie."

Light, being the brilliant actor he is, feels L watching him as he pretends to sleep, and hears him whisper. A lie, he says. Was it a lie? When he says it to Misa, it's a lie, and this, this with L, didn't have that same bitter taste. It didn't feel like a lie. Therefore, Light concludes, it wasn't. Quieter than the wind against their window pane yet I know you, my rival, lover, equal, and the only man I've ever loved, will hear me anyway he whispers,

"I love you."