Turn off the Light ch.5

He's saved the trouble of fabricating a response when the landlady opens the door and ushers them inside. The Captain asks perfunctory questions about what sort of lodger Dara was as the old woman with a thick German accent leads them to Dara's room. The answers are just as perfunctory, and Peter doesn't pay attention. Dara kept to himself, and she doesn't have much to say. She leaves them alone at Dara's door.

The room is small and Spartan, bare and utilitarian. There's a bed, a desk, a chair, a dresser, a window. There is no color, no touch of life or personality, no sign of mad genius. It doesn't at all resemble the office they visited this morning, and it is difficult to believe both rooms belonged to the same man.

Peter walks on eggshells around the room. He stares at the twin bed with its perfectly creased white sheets and comforter. The pillow isn't indented. The dresser reveals a small clothing collection, everything immaculately folded and neatly stacked. He goes to the desk. There's nothing on top except a fine layer of dust. He starts opening the doors. The top three are empty. The bottom one isn't.

There's a single red binder with a two-inch spine. Peter picks it up and flips the flimsy plastic open. Inside, there are newspaper clippings pasted onto white sheets of paper. Peter thumbs through them. The pattern isn't difficult to detect, even with the Captain peering invasively over his shoulder.

Each article has some connection to Myanmar. The ones at the front, which are marked with the earliest dates, are all political. They're either about the government or resistance movements thereto. The most recent articles, however, are largely different. Everything from the last six months is about the rice blight, and the government's inability to do anything about it.

government's inability to do anything about it.

At that moment the Captain's cell phone decides to ring. He backs away from Peter, answers the phone, listens for thirty seconds, confirms that he's heard correctly, and then hangs up. He turns to Peter. "We just got an analysis of the tea." He pauses, grimaces. "Leight was right. There were traces of lycorine."

"Inhibits protein synthesis," Peter recites dumbly. Leight was right, of course, and this is murder, and everything is wrong except the fact that Leight was right, as usual. "Found in a number of common plants."

The Captain nods. "What do you make of this?" He gestures to the binder.

"I'm afraid Mal was right." He sighs as the words echo in his mind. "There's more to Dr. Dara than meets the eye."

He returns to the apartment—not because he wants to face Leight but because he knows that Leight solving this case is more important than his feelings. It's late afternoon, the sun is setting, but the lights are off. Peter nearly trips over a stack of newspapers. "Mal?" he calls into the gray room. "Are you here?"

"Couch."

Peter's eyes have begun to adjust, and he can make out Leight's form on the couch. Leight's attention is focused fully on the wall straight in front of him, the wall on which he wrote and solved Dara's equations.

Peter sighs, takes off his coat, kicks off his shoes, sets his keys on the table. He's still dressed up from the interview, so he undoes the first few buttons of his shirt and rolls his sleeves up to his elbows. Then he goes to the couch, sits as far as possible from Leight, pulls his legs up, and hugs his knees to his chest.

"Where were you?"

Peter blinks. He turns to look at Leight's profile. The question, loaded with the subtlest shade of anger mixed with at least twenty other emotions, is not what he expects. He faces forward again, staring at the equations, heart rate accelerating. Calmly, he replies, "Chasing lightning."

"There was a call," Leight says, "while you were out."

"Did you take a message?"

"Dr. Ye from Crick University Hospital said to tell you she spoke with the head of cardiology. There's position, if you want it."

"Mal." Peter's hope collapses, a tower of cards under the lightest of exhalations. "I was going to tell you."

"Of course you were," Leight nods, "right after you took the job and moved out."

"Mal, it's not like that."

"Really, Peter? What is it like, then?"

"You want to know what it's like?" Peter's heart pounds; he hears the blood rushing in his ears. He may go deaf and blind, or he may fall dead, but he will most certainly regret this.

"I'll show you what it's like." He turns, leans in, reaches out to pull Leight closer, brings Leight's lips to his.

And suddenly he's trying to convey everything he doesn't know how to say aloud through that single gesture. He doesn't know if he's succeeding, but Leight doesn't pull away (because he's too surprised to respond).

Peter pulls back abruptly, thoroughly self-conscious. He retreats to his half of the couch. He can't look at Leight, not even as he mutters, "I'm sorry." He lets out a shaky breath. He speaks, stutter-stop. "You were right about the tea. Dara was poisoned. Lycorine—inhibits protein synthesis. Found in—"

"Shut up," Leight whispers, staring at him with the most indefinable look in his eye. "Just shut up."

Peter laughs. There is nothing funny. There is nothing funny at all, but there isn't anything serious either, and Peter doesn't know what else to do to relieve the tension building in his chest. His head is fuzzy. Everything is wrong.

He can't get out another laugh, so he swallows it down. "Why?"

"Because," Leight returns, "you're daft." He pauses. "Look at me."

Peter looks, even though he doesn't want to. They're closer than they should be, and through the shadows, he can see the spark in Leight's eyes. He can feel Leight's breath. He can smell the familiar smells (espresso, spearmint, nicotine). He inhales. His heart hammers. He may as well be deaf and blind, he's so full of fear, but he isn't regretting this just yet.

He swallows. "Have you solved the case yet?"

"No." Leight leans in.

He should be concerned by his hummingbird heartbeat. He should be concerned by how close Leight is. He should be concerned by everything about the way Leight is inching toward him.

Suddenly Leight's lips are on his. He sighs, his lips part, and once Leight's tongue enters his mouth, he loses track of his own limbs. He's vaguely aware of moving or being moved. His head hits the armrest of the sofa as he falls horizontal. Leight's on top of him, his hands running up and down Peter's sides.

They are groin-to-groin, and even with too many layers of fabric between them, the friction is deadly. It's been far too long—such a common refrain—and Peter has completely lost the power of coherent thought. All he knows is that everything is light and bright and perfect enough to erase the wrongness of this day as they slide and grind together.

They don't even make it out of their clothes before it's over, and they're entwined wet, sticky, and boneless on the couch.

"What just happened?" Peter asks, more than a little breathless.

Leight smiles, simpers, smirks, doesn't make the slightest effort to move. "I think it's fairly obvious."

"Mal," he sighs, desperate and hopeful and confused all at once. "Please." He doesn't know exactly what he's pleading for.

"Please what?"

And he groans. This is exactly the question he can't answer. He shakes his head and tries (futilely) to avoid Leight's eyes. "Please tell me what this means."

And that's precisely when Leight pulls back, smile-simper-smirk fading. "You tell me."

Peter struggles to sit up. "I don't know!" he cries, strangled. He's sinking. The light, happy flood of endorphins is gone. His heart is falling. Quietly, he continues, "That's why I need you to tell me."

Leight shakes his head. "It doesn't work like that, Peter."

"I can't keep doing this, Mal. I just can't. And if I—" He breaks off. Blinks. Takes a deep breath. "Do you want me to stay?"

"I thought it was fairly obvious."

"I need you to tell me," Peter says firmly. "I need to hear you say it."

Leight meets his eyes. His gaze his hard, direct, inescapable. "I want you to stay."

"If I do," Peter gulps, "things are going to have to be different. I just can't keep doing this." He knows he sounds like a broken record, forever repeating the same tired line, but he can't help it. He is broken and tired and forever stuck in this seemingly infinite time loop.

"They will be."

Peter stares back hesitantly. He shouldn't trust Leight. Leight would be the first person to tell him people don't change—can't or won't, doesn't matter, just don't.

"I promise."

And before Peter can stop himself, he feels himself grinning. "Okay."

They've never been like this before.

It isn't the location (Leight's bed, under the scratchy wool blanket) or the position (Leight wrapped firmly around Peter) that's new. They've done this before, a hundred or a thousand times, always after sex, always after Leight solved a case.

They've fucked and slept together and—dare Peter think it—even cuddled. But they've never been like this before. Leight hasn't solved the case. Leight didn't fuck him. And yet here they are, engaging in an activity that may or may not be cuddling.

Peter breathes in, savoring the moment.

"It's a code."

"What?" Peter blinks but doesn't move.

"The answers to the victim's equation. It was a shoddily disguised code."

"You know, Mal," Peter lets out a low exasperated sound somewhere between a chuckle and a sigh, "you're probably the only person in the world who considers murder good pillow talk."

.

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