A/N; Er... I have no excuse for this. I was just reading some fanfics when suddenly I was smashed in the head with the urge to write some KidxLiz. Then this monstrosity appeared. It sorta has a Beauty and the Beast thing going?
Disclaimer; I just own a computer and a rabid imagination. Also, a slightly sadistic streak.
He was a beast, barely human, condemned to live alone in his bleak castle for all eternity. Madness gnawed at his fragile sanity, slowly swallowing him whole, sinking it's fangs deeper, ever deeper into his hideous soul.
His prison, however, is his sanctuary. The plain, clean white walls surround him comfortingly, whispering that all is well. The candles burn, perfectly even, smokeless. The picture frames hang just so, the simple sight might deceive a sane person, as though he hadn't spent hours upon hours agonizing over even the slightest tilt or lean out of place. Yes, everything here has is place.
It is when he is forced to wander the outside world, not a thing of his own choosing, mind you, that the madness truly closes in. The need to re-arrange, to fix, to destroy it all is overwhelming, so he instead focuses on the few small, rare shadows of beauty he can find, fleeting as they are. People stare at him when he rambles on about the glory of a perfectly colored butterfly, its patterns unmarred by break or blemish. Crazy, they whisper amoungst themselves, that young man is crazy.
He wonders how they don't see it except when he allows himself to be happy, forces himself to be happy, sickens himself with saccharine glee. Blind, they are all blind. How they cannot see how hideous they are, their world is, he cannot fathom.
His father tries to force him to take a partner, some nice girl to keep him sane, keep him normal. Each picture is more hideously uneven than the next, each smiling face more distorted before his eyes as he tries to force himself not to watch as his father's cloak twists and curls any which way, no rhyme or reason to be found, drawing his gaze, tempting him to re-arrange, to fix, to destroy.
What is Father saying again? Spirit twitters on foolishly and he can hardly hold in the sigh of relief when he is allowed to leave, ignoring the unevenness of the guillotines, look how nicely spaced they are instead, he thinks to himself with enough force to silence the need. He sighs in relief when he reaches the mansion, waiting with it's clean walls, perfectly even candles and paintings hanging just so.
The relief is gone with the air from his lungs though, and the need takes its place. The death scythe had scratched the clean, even black of his door frame, exposing the pale oak beneath the surface. He gnaws his lip, biting down until he can taste blood, as he searches desperately for something, anything that he could use to even it out.
He soon gave up on that, however, too much ugliness here, he must focus on fixing the door. His perfect fingernails scratched at the black paint, hardly making a scratch. Again, again, again. He ignored the painful splinters under his fingernails and the cracking, snapping, breaking of the delicate nails. He digs at the wood for longer than he can recall, frantic, desperate, mindless.
When he finishes the door frame is a mess of bloody scratches and his fingers are a bloody mess. That doesn't matter though, because the previously whole door frame is even again, beautiful again. He stuffs his dripping fingers into his pockets, unwilling to stain his floors, as he returns to his silent abode, perfect and lovely. By the time he sits, silent and alone, at his table its 7:07 and he despairs.
One day, later in time, though its hard to tell through the haze of the need the whispers of madness, he find himself wandering the world at his father's behest once more, hardly an uncommon occurance. He can tell, with sudden clarity that this is Brooklyn, he can feel the familiar presence of death all around him, ever changing, ever the same. It has a different feel here, just like everywhere else, its colder, more sudden and messy and careless. It is no surprise then when he is mugged, though the mugger themselves are a different story.
A blonde girl who talks to her gun, her hair just a bit uneven at the ends, her blue eyes scared beneath the cocky facade. He tried to focus on her eyes, nice and even in color, but that jacket she was wearing that just hungoff of her at odd angles as did the unlit cigarette that dangled off of her cracked lips to one side. He wanted to re-arrange it, to fix it, to destr-
No, this was a girl, a living breathing girl, he couldn't just destroy her. Not that she was what was imperfect, she was just fine, lovely even, it was her clothes, her attire, her rags that bothered him. He doubted she'd let him destroy those either. So he did the unthinkable, he walked away, laughing manically to make sure he wasn't followed (or so he told himself). Even as the need grasped jaggedly inside his mind he focused on the last beautifully similar, even, right thing he'd seen; the Thomson girl's blue eyes.
As he rambled about them beneath his breathe the people he passed gave him odd looks, mothers grasped more tightly at their children's hands and druggies rolled their eyes. Crazy, they whispered, crazy or high, some kind of delinquent.
Fighting later was easy, relieving, as he pummeled the nasty, vicious, hideous men who had cornered the latest objects of his fascination. Perfect twins, twin guns, shiny and lethal and in need of help. The younger one smiled and laughed at him. Silly, silly she called him? Not crazy, not mad? Though her sister, the first he'd met, hardly had a hard time labeling him as such.
When he made his offer he met the older sister's eyes firmly. She was beautiful, choosing to join him in his bleak mansion of her own volition, but forced to do so by her circumstances. He'd seen fear lurking in the back of her eyes a minute ago, ready to eat her whole if she let it, but now she was resolute, fearless, doing what she must and so untouchable by fear.
It took some convincing, of course, and he found himself perplexed at their answers more often than not, but the two agreed to follow him home. When they did they viewed Death City in ways he'd never though to himself. Patty, as the younger one was called, pointed and laughed at all sorts of stuff and wondered at the strangest things.
"You can really afford to get food like this all the time?" She'd asked, incredulous at such a simple thing that he had always had. So much so that it worried him, just how had these two lived their whole lives, surely it couldn't all have been how they were living in Brooklyn, could it? The pain that flashed through Liz's eyes told him it could.
"Yes, and now so can you." He responded quietly, pleased when she grinned so brightly, so crookedly, that it should've bothered him somehow.
By the time they finally returned to his mansion he was very tired, exhausted from quelling the need all day long, smothering it, ignoring it, though today it hadn't even been that hard. All he had to to was find a pair of perfect blue eyes and focus on them for a while.
"What's with your creepy door, huh? It's got blood all over it." He started, having been too distracted to remember that they'd even reached the mansion. He eyed the door apathetically.
"Its mine." He responded uncaringly before entering his house, not silent, not alone. He ignored the way Liz stared at him, some unreadable feeling in her eyes. For once the time agreed with him, it was eight O'eight, a perfect number, a perfect time of day, and he ranted of his glee, much to Liz's dismay and Patty's amusement.
For the first night since he can remember he falls asleep just fine, no niggling suspicion that the sink is still running or the painting is tilted. The next day he lets the girls go shopping, they need things, right? So he hands them a mound of cash and sends them on their way before sitting down to fix his hands, still damaged and splintered from that trouble with the front door.
He started with the splinters, gently grasping them with his tweezers and tugging them out, dropping them in a small cup to avoid getting blood on the table. He followed that with a pin, stabbing the same place each splinter had been on the other hand. He frowned at how difficult it was to fix his hands while using them, but he had to, to re-arrange, to fix them, to destroy them.
Next were the fingernails, filing clipping and shaping, though his left pinky nail was beyond repair, broken off halfway down. He frowned again when he accedently ripped his pinky nail off, then grimaced and positioned the tweezers, gripping his other pinky nail firmly, readying himself to make his trembling hands even. He dropped the torn-off nail into the cup, annoyed with himself for making a mess of the table.
Now he'd have to even out the blood spatter on the table and he did, smearing his dripping fingers across the pristine surface, determined to sate the madness, the hunger, the need. Every time he succeeded in making a perfect pattern it was ruined by the droplets still falling from his wounded fingers. He cursed himself as he continued to connect the spots into trembling lines, hating himself for letting something so irrelevant as pain interfere with his perfection.
Once he'd finally managed to stop dripping onto his lines he started on the cuts. One on the other hand for each he'd gotten from the door. The scalpel wavered as he pierced his hands, over and over, tiny rubies falling to shatter, unseen and ignored, on the table below.
He was beginning to feel satisfied, nearly done, when it happened. He missed, his pain-racked arms jerking wildly on what would have been the final cut, plunging the scalpel towards his body with too much force before he could even think to stop it. He eyed the damage speculatively, annoyed at himself, he'd been so close. The long gash along his forearm bled heavily but the wound where the scalpel had stabbed his side was hardly bleeding at all around the surgical instrument, his mangled hand still wrapped around its handle, sticky with drying blood. He stared at the handle, the pain still not registering as more important than the unbalanced appearance.
His fist tightened around the warm, slippery metal without his telling it to as he resigned himself to what had to come next. The pain of tearing out the scalpel, he'd expected, but what he hadn't expected was for Liz Thomson to come barging in right that second, hauling bags and boxes full of who-knew-what, but luckily alone. He was very glad, for some reason, that it hadn't been Patty. He was unsurprised by the shock and horror in her usually-guarded eyes, and he met them, unashamed and weary, knowing that there was no way she would be staying now.
In fact, she'd probably scream and run right out the door, making off with Patty and as much of his money as they had left. They could have it, that wouldn't bother him. Being alone though, all alone in his big, empty, silent house would drive him mad. He eyed the scalpel he held at arm's length, for once wondering if he already was before meeting that girl's eyes again. He was surprised that she wasn't screaming yet. She would be soon, though, he was sure of it. Any minute now. Why wasn't she screaming?
She met his unnatural yellow eyes unflinchingly and knelt in front of him, careful to move slowly so as not to startle him.
"So this is what your problem is, huh?" He stared at her, bewildered. The words drew themselves from his unwilling throat.
"I'm fixing it." Her eyes were unfathomable again as he tried to search them, madly, desperately. She nodded slowly, as if in understanding.
"Because it wasn't perfectly even, right?" He nodded, pleased that she understood.
"What happens if I stop you?" She asked, blue eyes determined.
He swallowed nervously, suddenly not wanting to plunge the scalpel into his chest, but unable to keep from wanting, needing to make it even. He really didn't want her to see, but he couldn't let her stop him, the need was so strong, he was surprised that he had even fought it back long enough to have this conversation.
"I have to." He whimpered, almost pitifully. She frowned, not sure what to do. "You shouldn't look." He muttered. Liz met his eyes again, shocked by just how vulnerable and human his yellow eyes could suddenly seem. She noticed his hand tightening around the knife again and caught his eyes once more.
"Will my watching keep you from doing it?" She hoped it would, but he was already shaking his head. Her lips tugged down into a frown and she grabbed his arm, the one holding the scalpel.
"Give me that." He shook his head, panic at the though that she was trying to ruin his balance bubbling up in his chest.
"I have to." He insisted again, and again he was perplexed when she shook her head.
"I'm not stopping you." She whispered hoarsely. He blinked blearily, confused and suddenly tired, probably from the loss of blood.
"What?" He asked, his grip on the knife relaxing now that he wasn't paying attention to it. He didn't even notice the dull metallic ring of it hitting the marble floor. Liz grabbed it with a grimace at the sticky feel of drying blood.
"If I let you do it you might mess up again, at least I can cut in the right place." He frowned, unsure just what she meant by all of this. He didn't notice she muttered something after that, staring as he was at his trembling hands. She helped the Grim Reaper out of his ruined shirt and held in a gasp at just how many scars stretched across his pale skin, each with a perfectly even counterpart on his other half.
Her hand was steady as she made the long, shallow cut opposite of the first, much deeper, arm wound. She released his arm, her fingers trailing delicately along his scarred skin to rest across from his most recent injury. The knife barely broke through his skin before she pulled away to eye her work critically.
He frowned.
"You didn't stab me."
She chucked the knife on the table with just a little but more spite than she usually would have, and turned to head to the kitchen.
"Eh, it looks the same." She was only lying a little bit. He looked down at the cuts and, dazed as he was, he couldn't tell the difference. Liz surprised him again when a hand holding a washcloth came into his blurry gaze, trying as he was to make sure the cuts were really perfect. He looked up at her, but she refused to meet his eyes as she washed his bloodied torso, then arms, then hands. He watched in fascination as she used the ointment and bandages he'd left out beforehand to patch him up.
When she'd finished she helped him up and, seeing how he was stumbling, helped him to his bed. Once he was situated he thought to ask where Patty was.
"Hm? She's waiting outside for me to get back with all of your valuables." He chuckled in sincere amusement.
"Planning on robbing me?" He smirked tiredly. She shrugged.
"Yep, I was." She shrugged again, uncomfortable with how comfortably they were talking about this, and she turned to go, but his hand weakly grasping her elbow stopped her.
"Stay with me?" He sounded so tiny and alone that she forgot that he was the son of Death himself, but she wasn't sure if he meant to stay living with him or to stay in his room right now. His warm, bandaged arms wrapped around her middle and made his meaning clear. Startled, she turned and found herself staring directly into his bright, vulnerable eyes, eyes like her sister's when she made that face she couldn't resist. She sighed.
"Fine, scoot over." She gave in fairly easily and climbed next to him, letting her arms fall naturally around him as he curled into her side, his fears, for the moment, quelled.
He felt her soul near his and breathed a contented sigh. She felt right next to him, like she belonged there and always would. Because of something he had noticed when he first met her, for all that she was mugging him at the time. Their hearts were symmetrical.
AN; Fixed some stuff here and there, like the fact that I'd completely forgotten about Kidd's arm injury the first time around. There were a few other things that bugged me too, so yeah; fixed! Mostly. Mostly-ish. Also, I don't bite my reviewers! Hope you enjoyed.