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It’s the edge of winter, the snow melting into muddy rivulets, and L has been shipped back to the orphanage.
L, freshly eighteen to Beyond’s twenty-one, fragile and waifish in his red overcoat and boots. He’s got corpse-pale skin and bruise-purple circles below his eyes. Beyond watches him from the upstairs window as he makes his way through the path from driveway to doorstop, accompanied as always by Quillsh, who trails behind like the benevolent master of a dog.
He looks ill. He always does, but this time he looks worse, and not for the first time Beyond wonders what they’re doing to him out in the world. Not that Quillsh would harm him in any direct sort of way, but they loose him on those cases with bodies and burnings and horrible sex crimes and expect him to be okay when he’s such a delicate little thing. He has a hard bearing but a soft heart.
Beyond could break him if he wanted. Sometimes he worries that he has. This time, he’s determined not to.
L disappears from view and Beyond pushes off from the window and heads downstairs to greet him. He put on his nicest black sweater for this.
L is in the foyer, cast in wild stained-glass light; L is stamping his boots to get the mud and snow off of them. L meets his eyes as he comes down the staircase. Nods once. Something flickers in his expression that Beyond can’t parse. It’s desire, or else it’s fear. Something incongruous, inappropriate. Beyond nods back.
And then Watari is bustling in, saying hello, Beyond, saying look who’s here to visit, as if L were a beloved pet instead of — well, whatever it is he is to Beyond. A brother, a kissing cousin, a mirror twin.
L looks away. Beyond does, too.
This will all mean nothing.
Oh, he is grateful for the reprieve from the loneliness. The orphanage is so empty without A, his long-buried friend — now there’s a grief that always shimmers beneath the skin. When L isn’t here he wanders the halls like a haunting. A hungry ghost, on the hunt for things to devour.
But L brings out the worst in him; he knows this. And he brings out something in L that is difficult to describe.
He slips away before L is finished taking off his outer clothes. Back into the safety of his room.
At dinner, which Quillsh insists Beyond attend, L picks at his food with the petulance of a child much younger than he is. They are sitting at the too-long dining table, which is made for a whole roomful of people; the orphanage is built for more than have ever inhabited it. L pushes mashed potatoes around his plate and casts glances up at Beyond, who eats hungrily. He’s setting a positive example, he supposes.
He is the adult and L is the child. L is the god, shining bright and brilliant; he is the alter at which Beyond kneels, the persona he will someday become. But he is also a teenager. He has an ordinary name floating above his head. He must be handled with care.
Beyond pretends not to notice the looks. Let L court him. He’ll be good this time.
“Eat,” Roger admonishes. Then, “Why won’t you two talk to each other? Did you have a fight?”
Beyond wonders when they would have the time for that.
“Yes,” says L. “Why aren’t we talking?” He glances up at Beyond again. Beyond turns back to his food.
He wants a lot of things.
He wants to do a lot of things for and to L.
“Just tired,” he mumbles. “And starving.”
L tries to kick him under the table but it’s too large. He can feel the tip of his socked foot against his shin. He moves his legs away.
After night falls, after Roger and Watari have disappeared to bed, there’s a knock on his door.
He’s lying on his bed, staring up at the ceiling, still fully dressed; he couldn’t summon the energy to change. He tells himself not to answer.
He’s going to be responsible, for once.
Then he flings his legs over the side of the bed and gets up and walks to the door. He opens it.
L is standing on the other side of it — of course he is — dressed in pale blue pyjamas. His hair is a mess and his eyes are very wide. His feet are clad in white socks.
“You’ve been ignoring me,” he says, matter-of-fact.
“I haven’t been,” Beyond tells him.
“Yes, you have.” L steps inside and shuts the door behind him. Then he stands there in Beyond’s room and rubs one foot against his ankle, blinking stupidly. He can look very vacant sometimes but Beyond knows this is not true, knows there’s always something ricocheting around below the surface. He’s never quite figured out if L does it on purpose. He thinks probably not.
Beyond’s room is small and fastidiously neat. There’s barely anything in it except his bed and his desk; the latter has a few textbooks and a tidy pile of manga on top of it. Roger and Quillsh have given him presents over the years but he throws them out. He likes his life sparse. L is the only complicating factor in it.
“Why?” L says.
Beyond looks away.
L takes a step towards him.
Beyond’s whole body sings.
“Is it because —“
Beyond steps forwards. He grabs L by the arm and shoves him against the wall. L lets out a little gasp. He does not sound unhappy.
Beyond puts two fingers beneath L’s chin and lifts it upwards. He snarls at him. “We’re not doing this again,” he hisses. “We’re done. Finished. Kaput.”
L giggles. It’s a bizarre sound, unbecoming of him, but Beyond has heard it before, with L laid out beneath him. He has coaxed it out of him. He had drunk it down like nectar.
“You’re my brother,” Beyond tells him. “You’re a child.”
“I’m eighteen,” L tells him. “I’m not your brother. Do we share a drop of blood?” He trails a hand down the centre of Beyond’s chest. Beyond slaps it away. “And anyway none of this has ever stopped you before.”
Beyond is weak.
He tells himself it’s not his fault. It’s L. It’s L doing it to him. He leans down and kisses him.
L slides his hands around Beyond’s waist. He tastes like sugar.
Beyond steps away. “No,” he says, more firmly this time. “Not tonight. Go back to your room.”
“No,” L says. “I don’t think I will.”
“I’ll hurt you,” Beyond tells him. “If you don’t leave me alone, I will.”
“I’ll let you.”
He can’t help it. He can’t help himself. He kisses L again and this time L slips his hands under his shirt, cold fingers against his ribs. It’s not entirely pleasant but Beyond wants more of it; he wants and wants and wants.
He nips L’s lip then shoves him away, back against the wall. L laughs. Beyond strides past him and opens the door. “Out,” he says. “Or I’ll call Quillsh.”
L rolls his eyes. “No, you won’t.”
“Yes. I will.”
He wants to kiss L again. He wants to crush him against the wall, stab him, break him, rape him; he wants to own every iota of him in whichever way that transpires. He wants to take this effervescent little god and turn him human. He won’t. He’ll be good. He takes L by the arm, yanks him forward and shoves him out of his bedroom. “Go back to bed, L.”
L looks at him. Drags his eyes up and down Beyond’s body, as if searching for something. He does not seem to find it. He turns. He goes.
Beyond shuts the door. Then he locks it behind him.