He doesn't mean to fall sleep on the couch. Yes, he draws up his feet, and yes, his fingers course through the puppy's fur even slower than before, but he has every intention of drinking the coffee Beyond has made for him and getting out of there.
"It's OK, it's OK," Beyond soothes, when L jerks upright like he's been shot. The blanket he's been covered with falls to the floor. The puppy has long left him and is in his basket in the corner. It's dark. Beyond's face is illuminated eerily only by his laptop screen, watching L from the other end of the sofa. He wisely doesn't move any closer. "You're OK. Relax."
L goes to the window to get away from him. He doesn't know what the surveillance team are doing. He told them to be relaxed, and they seem to have taken him at his word. He needs to be more careful. He shouldn't relax around either of them.
"What time is it?" he asks Beyond.
"Just after one." Beyond pauses. "I told Soichiro you're here, that you were sleeping. He wanted you to call him when you woke up."
L texts instead, on the off chance that Soichiro is sleeping himself. He doesn't relax until he gets a reply. Nothing important, the older man was just checking up on him. He also has a message and two missed calls from Light, which he ignores.
Beyond puts his laptop away. "Do you want some cake?"
They eat slices of strawberry cake at either end of the couch, cross legged and facing each other. L hopes the sugar will revive him, like it always does, but it makes him even sleepier.
"Go back to sleep." Beyond smiles at him. "I'm not going to hurt you. You can have my bed, if you want. There's a lock on my door."
L shakes his head.
"I know." Beyond gets up and goes to the kitchen, comes back with a dark bottle and two glasses.
"I'm not drinking, Beyond," L snaps. "I'm trying to wake up."
"L, you have to try this," he says, like they're 12. "I'm telling you, it's like honey in a bottle. You won't believe it's alcohol."
"I have to drive," he protests, but he eyes it at the mention of honey.
Beyond pours him a miniscule amount. "Just try," he begs. "You'll hate yourself if you don't."
L tries, and gives an involuntary moan at the sensation. "It is just like honey," he says in wonder.
"I know, right?" Beyond is nodding and pouring him more. L puts a hand out to stop him. "It's mead. The lady three houses down makes it. Can you believe it? She did it for her son's graduation, and it became a thing from then. I met her walking Chacha." He pours himself some. "What, do you still think I'll hurt you? I'll drink more than you if it'll make you feel better. This stuff is too good to share, anyway." He takes a generous gulp.
L takes a cautious sip. It really is divine. "What's the alcohol content?"
"I don't know, like 40%?" he giggles. "She doesn't put that on the label."
L can feel it.
He ends up finishing the glass and lets Beyond pour him another, letting Beyond get two ahead of him, reasoning that he can hardly harm him if L has the advantage.
They take the remainder outside, warm with mead, the grass lush and wet under their bare feet. The puppy follows them sleepily, a fluffy zombie, out to the wooden deckchairs at the bottom of the garden, and flops between them.
"I need to get a lawn mower," Beyond observes lazily.
L is staring at the stars, not listening. "You have a really nice house," he tells him, loosening with the drink despite himself.
Beyond giggles in the dark. "You're drunk, L, go home."
"I'm not. I wouldn't dare."
"You're not still scared of me, are you?" He says it like they're kids again. "Come on, Lawli."
"You're mentally ill."
"Be nice," he says idly, unoffended. "When Chacha grows up, I'll have him attack you for insulting me."
"I'm pretty sure Chacha's a shih tzu, Beyond. They don't get much bigger than your ankles."
"Really?" He sits up to look at Chacha, tilting his head. "I'm going to look so gay when I walk him."
"You are gay, aren't you"
"So? I don't believe in stereotypes."
L actually laughs then. His stomach loosens pleasantly, unfamiliar with the sensation.
Beyond lies back down and puts his hand behind his head. "Do you remember that time Wammy took us to Madame Tussauds in London?"
"The chocolate fountains," L says at once, picturing the strawberries and marshmallows, the creamy flow.
"And you said if you got rich enough, you'd buy one for the Wammy House."
L smiles at the memory. "Whenever I bring it up, Roger says somewhere needs decorating instead."
"I used to love those day trips to London."
"Me too. Remember those puppies in Harrods? And they let us hold one?"
"And those cakes in the V and A."
"The aquarium."
"The eye."
"The street puppets."
"The time A went missing in that bookshop."
"Oh, yeah." L laughs again, remembering. "And he'd nearly finished the book by the time we found him, and then he cried because Wammy wouldn't buy it for him."
"Yeah. Only he did buy it for him, didn't he?"
"I don't know. Maybe he went back and bought it himself. I remember him having it."
"Yeah."
They lie in silence for a little while. The puppy sighs between them.
"We didn't have as many good memories as we could have," L observes, after a bit. "The kids at Wammy's have a lot of holidays and trips now. It's nice."
"We didn't have any money," Beyond points out. "You don't go into… orphandom for the profit. Wammy probably didn't have much even with his inventions. I remember when you got older and he started taking you places, when Roger came on the scene, and there were suddenly more kids, that's when we got money. That's when everything started changing."
L absorbs this in silence. "Is that when A…?"
"I don't know," he admits. He rolls over to face L and puts his head on his elbow. L wonders, distantly, if his Shinigami eyes can see in the dark. "We were never close. I couldn't stand him, to be honest, because he was better than me. I think he knew."
"There are two kids like that now," L says, picturing the blondes. "It worries me. I'm supposed to choose between them. You know, who gets my title, the prime inheritance."
Beyond snorts. "You should just divide everything amongst them equally. Let your title die with you."
"Or let the title become W, for Wammy's," he muses out loud. "Then anyone can use it, dip in and out as they please. There's no…pressure."
"Hmm."
They fall silent again. L sits up for another sip of his drink, even though he still feels it in his blood. Beyond seems to have finished his. L can feel his eyes watching him.
"Does Yagami know these things?"
"Mm?" L tries to make out his eyes in the dark. It seems thicker out here in the suburbs, away from the city lights. "Know these things about me, you mean? Of course not."
"Do you want him to?"
"I can't think like that, not in these circumstances."
"That's as good as yes," he murmurs. "Pity, isn't it?"
L thinks about Light. "He doesn't like you much. What do you think of him?"
"Spoilt brat," he snorts. "You can do better. Quite like the girlfriend, though."
"Misa Misa? Isn't she more of a spoilt brat?"
"Slightly. But I've always had a sympathy for the neglected." He swings his legs to the side of the deckchair and sits, so they are face to face. "Yagami doesn't like me?"
"He says you're jealous."
He laughs, softly. "Perhaps I am."
L hears him move on his chair, but he doesn't realise how close he is until he feels lips warming his own. It takes L a moment to realise what's happening.
Then he pulls back as if L has struck him. "Sorry."
L stares at him in the dark. He's surprisingly unafraid. "It's OK," he says, but Beyond doesn't seem to hear him. He stands, a little off balance, and scoops the puppy up from the grass.
L finds their glasses, and follows him into the house.
Beyond rests the puppy back in his basket, who sinks in without opening his eyes, while L puts the glasses in the sink. His heart is hammering. He is unsettled, not sure he wants to be tipsy any more.
"Where's your surveillance?" Beyond drawls, without looking round at him. "Was that a bluff? I could have killed you out there, or when you were napping. I could kill you now."
L says nothing. He moves away from him, back to the couch, and folds the discarded blanket on it.
Beyond sighs, gets to his feet and comes to him. "If you want- "
L kisses him, unthinking, catches his arms to keep him from coming nearer.
He is afraid, but curiosity, and mead, have made him brave. He is also tired, and he just wants to be close to someone and not be hurt. If only Beyond had been his friend from the start. If only Light wouldn't lie to him at every second sentence, and L could be with him instead.
Then Beyond groans and jerks L backwards, pushing him up against the wall, breathing hard, and L gets a sick sense of déjà vu when he looks in his eyes. Their feet touch, cold and wet from the grass. Beyond remebers and collects himself, pulls himself off. "Lawli. L. I'm sorry. I - "
"It's OK." L pulls him back by the shirt and holds on, shaking only slightly. He doesn't know why he does it. "Just don't – don't – "
And he can't finish because Beyond is on him again, biting his neck, and he was going to say, don't hurt me, but he can't quite bring himself to, because now he's thinking maybe he wants Beyond to hurt him, maybe it will make him feel better.
When Beyond touches him, he's still afraid but it's different this time, it's better, it's rough then gentle, then rough again, it's good, and L's head goes back as he realises this is what people do, he gets it now, he gets why other people are so important.
It is only a tiny, far away part of him that wishes it could have been Light instead.