Hey there! This is a little holiday treat from me to all you guys, because I love you! I have to say that I am happy that the holidays are here because most of my favorite authors updated (I guess the free time is helping very much here) and so I got happy reading away these days :D

This is rated T for some mild violence (if you can call L and Raito's fights violence), some mild language and some suggestive themes.

This is set during the time that Raito and L are chained together and Raito doesn't remember being Kira. One-shot.

Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note and I'm not making any profit out of this.

Morning, investigation room.

"They are bruised again!" Matsuda proclaimed loudly when he noticed L's bruised jaw. He kept pouring the detective his morning tea. "Did you two fight again?"

"Yes, we got in a fight in the bathroom." L said tactlessly.

"In the bathroom? You mean naked!?" Matsuda spilled some tea over the cup. L glanced at him and the young detective began wiping the liquid with his sleeve, chuckling nervously.

"We don't usually shower with our clothes on, Matsuda," Raito said glaring at L.

"Yes… I guess." Matsuda stepped away.

Ryuuzaki met Raito's angry glare with an innocently blank look.

"What is wrong, Raito-kun? Didn't we get in a fight this morning in the shower?"

"Yes, we did. I just don't see why we have to talk about it," the teen frowned.

"Why did you get in a fight this time?" Matsuda couldn't help his curiosity.

"It doesn't matter." Raito said.

"I asked Raito-kun to pick up the soap from the ground…" Ryuuzaki began anyway.

"You mean, you dropped the soap and then tried to make me pick it up…" Raito said between clenched teeth.

Matsuda's eyes grew wide open from excitement and he almost clapped his hands. The rest of the investigation team exchanged nervous glances.

"Why would it be such a big issue who picks up the soap?" Mogi asked from the background.

"It is very simple!" Matsuda replied enthusiastically. "It's because if one of them bends down…"

"Shut up!" several voices shouted in unison.

L and Raito glared at each other.

"I mean, if you are both straight, it shouldn't be an issue, right." Mogi said in his defense, feeling uncomfortable talking about this in front of Raito's father.

"I can only guarantee that I am straight," Raito said. "That's why Ryuuzaki should pick up the soap." Raito added, folding his arms in front of his chest.

There was a moment of silence, in which somebody's father prayed that the conversation was over.

"However, just for the record, Raito-kun picked up the soap." L said, eyes innocently on the ceiling.

Raito didn't dignify the last statement with an answer. Instead he furiously typed on his keyboard.

"I think that the two of you should think about what was just said and draw some conclusions about some things," Matsuda said. "I think you should pay some attention to the fact that you are both nervous about bending for the soap. If it were me, I probably wouldn't have even thought about it! I would have just bent to get the soap, because I wouldn't have even considered the possibility that I might get… I mean, because I am so straight that I wouldn't even think about it! So you two should think about that… you get what I mean?"

Matsuda winked at the chained duo. Mogi snickered at Matsuda's rant. L and Raito gave Matsuda level stares and span around in unison to face their computer screens.

Raito propped his chin on his arm and lazily stirred the mouse, whereas L sipped from his cold tea.

"What do you think of Matsuda's sexuality now?" Raito said quietly.

"Now the probability of him being bisexual is about 98% and homosexual - 46%." L responded in a low voice, not turning around. "I am also 100% certain that he is an idiot."

"I always wondered why is he a part of this investigation anyway." Raito said.

"He makes really good coffee… sometimes." L stated.

"I can hear you." Matsuda said, face bright red.

"I am sorry, Matsuda. Your coffee is almost always good, to be fair." L said.

It was always annoying to bath together after a long day. But if the two men had insulted or otherwise confronted each other during their work day, their mutual baths were even worse. There was something about the confined space of a shower, the intimacy of the fact that they had to strip and if that wasn't enough, they had to scrub their bodies clean while standing mere feet away from one another.

Raito's veins were already boiling because he was still mad about Ryuuzaki's insolent mentioning of the soap argument they had had during their morning shower. He understood the connotations and he was aware that they weren't supposed to mind picking up the soap in front of each other, if they were completely straight. However, the teenager told himself that he could never be too careful with the eccentric detective. The chain that bonded them was just one thing to constantly remind him how weird the young man was.

That was the reason for Raito's nervousness, according to him. But what made him even more nervous, was that despite Ryuuzaki pretended to be oblivious to the connotations, he refused to bend for the soap too, which was in direct contrast to the innocence he feigned.

They both stepped into the shower, Raito pulled the curtain behind them and Ryuuzaki turned on the hot water. As he always did before Ryuuzaki started annoying him, Raito completely ignored the black-haired detective and imagined he was alone. The shower was equipped with two shower cranes, for the duo's convenience. Each one of them got one, so theoretically they didn't have to interact during their showers. However, usually Ryuuzaki shamelessly stared at his suspect as Raito washed himself, as if he could find evidence of the teenager's guilt of being Kira, in the way he applied shampoo to his hair.

This time, however, L wasn't eyeing Raito. The brunette wondered briefly if the detective was annoyed at him as well. Nothing could be read off of Ryuuzaki's face. Raito found that both irritating and fascinating.

The hot water splashed over the teen's tanned skin. Raito gasped from the temperature difference before closing his eyes and washing his face, splashing towards it with his hands. Ryuuzaki glanced at the teen before dumping his head under the stream. The water straightened his thick unruly hair into a sleek waterfall of inky strands around his pale face.

Raito unhooked his shower crane, adjusting the water temperature slightly to something less hot. He held the shower crane in his right hand, directing the water to where he wanted it to go, whereas Ryuuzaki stood numbly hunched under the water stream. Raito reached for the soap and used his left hand to rub it over his chest. He kept his eyes on the indifferent detective warily before proceeding to rub his thighs.

Ryuuzaki turned his head slightly to give him a tired stare.

Raito glared at the attention and proceeded by rubbing his shoulders and arms. He looked away somewhat nervously but determined not to crack under the fixed stare, which without doubt aimed to annoy him. He told himself that he wasn't bothered, that he didn't care if the pale wide-eyed monster was staring at him or not… yet somehow the pressure of his hand increased so much that the soap flew out of his grasp and landed on the tiles of the floor.

Ryuuzaki didn't move his eyes from the teen, whose attention appeared to be very firmly fixed on the wall in front of him. The detective found it amusing that Raito was turning red; however he didn't let it show on his blank expression. And was it just the steam of the hot water that filled the shower or was it that Raito was fuming?

Raito twisted his eyes in his eye-sockets to see the detective with the smallest smile on his face and an index finger lightly resting between his lips. The man waited to see how the proud teenager would react.

With his darkened from anger gaze firm on the detective, Raito crouched his knees, slowly descending towards the floor, his arm extending to find the soap. The two didn't break eye contact until Raito was up again, soup in hand.

Ryuuzaki turned his face down for a second, effectively hiding an amused chuckle with his spilling black hair.

Raito saw the detective's shoulders tremble lightly, which could only mean that he was being laughed at. Raito's glared even more severely when Ryuuzaki finally looked up and their eyes met again.

In his fury Raito dropped the soap again. Now Ryuuzaki didn't hide his malicious smile. Raito, clenching his teeth in anger, summoned his self-control and slowly crouched again, trying to reach the soap without moving a step from where he was standing. The soap was out of reach.

"I don't understand," Ryuuzaki said conversationally, as he moved to the soap, his toes barely touching it, "why does Raito-kun insist on dropping the soap in front of me today…"

Raito, refusing to look up and see the detective's expression, made a difficult step forward in his squat, trying to get in the soap's reach. Ryuuzaki drawled it back with his foot, away from the teen's struggling hand.

Raito made one more step in his uncomfortable position.

"That doesn't look too easy," the standing man commented. "You should have just bent for it, Raito-kun."

Raito clenched his teeth and reached for the soap. Ryuuzaki lifted his foot off the soap, cooperatively it seemed. However the detective used the same foot to give the teenager a light push on the shoulder, sending him back to fall on his backside over the cold marble tiles.

"I told you that you aren't very stable like this," Ryuuzaki said.

Raito looked up. If looks could kill, the innocent-looking detective would have dropped dead.

Ryuuzaki gave the soap a light kick, sending it at the younger man. Raito stayed silent on the floor as the detective stepped back under the water stream and continued to shower. Ryuuzaki didn't miss the anger that was more than evident on Raito's face – he had turned red, his eyes flashed and his lips were drawn in a brutal snarl.

The teen fought the urge to jump and grab the detective's knees, sending him directly to the floor, where he could beat the living crap out of him. The only thing that was stopping him was that they were completely undressed and the idea of him climbing on top of the detective's naked body was… disturbing.

Not that Raito couldn't picture it vividly - he could almost imagine how the man's pallid skin would feel, wet and slightly warm thanks to the water. He could almost imagine how slippery his hold on the men would be, how he would probably slip off, fall and hit his knees on the floor, the contrast between the warm, steamy air and the cold tiles. Ryuuzaki's skin, the only thing he could grab for support… he could almost feel the difference between the smooth marble and the fleshly texture of the detective's body.

Raito pushed away the thoughts, getting up with the soap in his hand. He was very angry, but decided not to show it. Instead, he was to be crafty and get his revenge.

He kept scrubbing himself, focusing completely on his plan. And he didn't have to wait in order to set it in motion.

"The soap, please," Ryuuzaki held out his delicate hand to Raito.

Raito barely suppressed the grin that wanted to distort his smooth lips as he put the soap in the other man's hand, making sure the the detective would drop it as soon as Raito let it go. Ryuuzaki tried to grab the soap better before it fell and Raito quickly spun around, innocently turning his back on the scene. He began washing his face, and heard the soap drop.

There was silence and when Raito glanced back over his shoulder he saw the detective waiting with a bleak expression on his face.

"Raito-kun, please, give me the soap properly this time." L said impassively.

"Why should I pick it up? You dropped it." Raito said and he turned around to wash his hair, snickering quietly in anticipation.

He waited for five seconds, knowing that if the Ryuuzaki didn't reply by that time, he had probably decided to drop the argument for peace's sakes.

'Wrong move, Ryuuzaki,' Raito thought after the five seconds were up and he quickly spun back around just in time to see L squatting down and reaching for the soap.

With extreme delight Raito kicked the detective on the backside, sending the dark-haired youth to the floor. Ryuuzaki swirled around and now he was the one sitting on the marble tiles. He had a straight face on, perfectly masking his growing anger. Raito had put up a straight, almost bored face as well, as if he had nothing to do with what had happened to the detective.

The two regarded each other for two seconds, in which they exchanged their silent challenges.

In the same instant as Ryuuzaki pounced forward to grab the teen's knees in an attempt to pull him down, Raito spread his legs for support, leaving the man to grab only one knee and fail to push him down. The teen grabbed his shower crane and turned it to the detective, spraying a strong stream of water right into his face. Ryuuzaki protected his eyes with an elbow, and blindly grabbed further up, clenching Raito's thigh painfully, shaking the teen violently. Raito almost lost his balance over the slippery floor. In the instant before he thought he was about to fall down, his mind came up with a new defense/offence. He turned the water to freezing cold and pointed the stream at the detective.

Ryuuzaki screamed, causing Raito to laugh out loud. The detective dropped Raito's leg and tried to craw backwards, away from the chilly stream. With sadistic pleasure, Raito splashed the freezing water at the other man's overly-sensitive from the previously warm water skin.

Raito laughed hysterically and Ryuuzaki kept screaming and shivering for a few more seconds until his body got over the shock and he adjusted to the freezing water. With a snarl the detective jumped up on his feet and charged towards Raito. The teenager turned the water to boiling hot but it delayed its temperature change, thus not stopping the livid detective from dealing him a breath-taking kick in the gut. Raito's back hit the wall of the bathroom. As he slipped down to the floor he was no longer laughing at all. His eyes slowly cleared from the sparkles he was seeing and he found himself grabbed by the shoulders, lifted up and pined to the wall. Raito didn't manage to lift his hand to defend himself before Ryuuzaki punched him through the face. The chain jingled hitting the tiles simultaneously. L had clearly held himself back, because he could have hurt the teenager much more, Raito realized as he wiped his lips, tasting a little blood from his gums.

The teenager lifted his anger thick eyes to stare at the detective's face from just a feet distance. Now they both weren't entertained and Raito felt as if the small bathroom was overloaded with the static electricity building between the two opponents.

Before the friction turned into sparkles, the water still spilling from the abandoned shower crane on the floor, finally changed to the boiling hot that Raito had set it to, burning the toes of both men, making them ridiculously jump and gasp and forget about their argument for the time being.

A bit later, in bed, Raito turned to his bed-mate. Ryuuzaki was crouching on the bed with his laptop, whereas Raito was sprawled on his back, leisurely resting his head on his arms.

"So, tomorrow when Matsuda asks about your bruises, what will you tell him?" Raito said conversationally.

"When Matsuda asks why I bruised Raito-kun again, I will tell him that Kira had been more insolent and immature than usual." L said impassively, without turning away from his screen.

"I am not Kira," Raito said seriously, but then he changed his tone into a teasing one, "Won't you tell Matsuda that we fought in the bathroom again? And that when I dropped the soap I made you pick it up?"

"What about the fact that Kira-kun dropped the soap two times before that?" the detective's eyes were on him again, locked in the usual empty stare, but Raito knew better than to assume that there wasn't a warning there.

"That's not interesting, because it was uneventful. I bet Matsuda would be much more thrilled to hear that when you reached for the soap I gave you such an ass-sore that you probably bruised. But I won't be able to testify for that, because I doubt you'll let me see your ass ever again after tonight," the teen continued in the same airy manner. "Maybe we can use that to explain your weird way of sitting as well."

"Raito-kun is incredibly immature." L commented. "He fits the Kira profile perfectly in that respect. I should give him an additional 2% probability of being Kira…"

"So I kicked your ass and that makes me Kira?! Who is immature here?!"

"Ok, I can see that Raito-kun isn't tired at all. What about I give him some work to do tonight, so he doesn't waste the wonderful creativity of his mind?"

"No, Ryuuzaki, I had just finished talking, I'm going to sleep now."

"But Raito-kun was so keen on talking until now! And I'm sure that he can use his intelligence for something more productive than making clever remarks about my backside."

"No, please, let me sleep!"

"Or is it that Raito-kun finds my backside more interesting than other things? Does he care about my backside more than he cares about sleep, work, the investigation and the Kira case? I think I should tell Yagami-san about that."

"Please, Ryuuzaki, let's just forget about that!"

"Deal. Goodnight, Raito-kun!"

"Goodnight…" the teen turned to his side, pretending to be angry.

In reality he needed to hide his smile. Raito had to admit to himself that he was slightly amused and he couldn't suppress a secret chuckle, knowing that Ryuuzaki couldn't see him.

And unbeknown to him, L was quietly laughing behind his back as well.

THE END