Boo.

First Update in Four Years.

I kind of grew up. I hope my writing did too. I know my subject matter did.

Beta'd by Nilahxapiel. How's that for a gunshot memory? So, Shall we?

Step Lightly,

Mikanis

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Clarity: n. The quality or state of being clear : Lucidity

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Stalking, was the only word for this. He allowed it, though whether Mello himself was the target of his mind, Beyond wasn't sure. That silence, those seconds in the void, haunted him like a droning bell in the chaos that followed. There was something off, something wrong with the way those eyes had flashed open, and despite his effort to narrow it down and apply his lifetime of education to the matter, that silence kept tugging him off course. Every time he'd tried to retreat in the last twenty-four hours, all he'd found was…static.

Stasis wasn't working, and for a genius of that caliber to go so long without rest, without departure and dissociation, it was…frustrating. Beyond couldn't remember the last time he'd felt an emotion as strong as frustration.

Before Mello, at least, because there was still that spark of rage, flickering like a candle in the darker corners. It burned, waning and waxing again with the intensity of his thoughts, lulled into complacency at the memory of those sapphire eyes locked on his for the descent down the stairs, and flaring at the wrong line of muscle moving under that ache. Mello had hit him.

And Mello had a name now, didn't he?

His lip curled in the dark, toes tensing against the carpet in the shadow between the windows in the great hall. His tongue moved behind his teeth, sore from their harsh edges but no longer bleeding. Beyond paused in his steps; stopping just shy of the moonlight filtering through the towering glass that broke the monotony of the English night. Four more like it lined the great hall, interrupted only by the balcony casting a long line down its length, and the stairs that rose to the second story. In the quiet, the air seemed to breathe with him, like a current he'd interrupted that stilled with him to acknowledge the small hurts that lingered from the encounter. The light was discordant, silver and blue painted over every available surface, robbing the wood and fabric of all warmth from the day. It made him long for fire, but the boys had not come to the library, and upon finding it empty, the staff had not bothered to light the fireplace, nor fill the bin with timber so that he could do it himself. His library was dark, and it felt like a mockery of that…peace. Silence as a living thing was a friend of his, the only entity he'd ever dared to associate such affection with, and the dark shelves in the dancing light with the cool glass pressed to his arm was the closest physical state he could find to echo the static void in his head. When Beyond severed, it was for his sanity, and the general protection of those stupid enough to interfere with him. It was quiet, the wheels still turning, but slowed for contemplation without direction, for the opportunity to clean and dust individual gears and puzzle over things best left in the dark. The fire likened itself to that, constant motion and destruction for the sake of moving energy, to defy the problem of having too much energy, justifying it by simply existing. Beyond could never truly sleep without the static. Or so he'd thought, until he heard what real silence felt like.

It was peaceful. It felt like an ache in an old limb suddenly cut off, nerves severed so sharply that there wasn't time for pain, the shock swallowed it and left it…hollow. The beating drum of his mind ripped in half, the staccato of his heart stilled, the beast of his psyche pausing to breathe because those eyes were more hypnotic than any spider, than any brush of the wind over the moor grass of a frozen winter in the English hills; nothing, had ever, felt like that.

And now the static was driving him mad. Like a raging dog, but never so disgraceful, he wandered the halls, hunting for silence. Stalking Mello, or at least the idea of him. Looking for closure, for peace within himself, and had there been a way to stitch it back together, to glue those pieces back into place, Beyond wasn't sure he'd be content with it again. It was the illusion of peace, as apt and broken as the opportunity itself had been; the utter contradiction of it, the rage and the complacency melding into cohesion like they'd belonged together to begin with, like a poison that made him perfect…he wanted it again. He wanted to possess that, for more than mere seconds, more than the drop he'd gotten, sharp and sweet like blackberry and blood on his tongue.

XXXX

Three days. Three days and nine hours, and Beyond pushed open the door to his library feeling as though the rage and numbness were draped about his shoulders like a warm cloak. 'Dangerous' was a word mentioned a time or two in his profile, along with other titles like 'unbalanced', ' fractured', and 'psychotic'.

All of them referred to possibilities, they all were simply warnings of the direction his training could take him, but they trusted his intellect to be his saving grace. They trusted him to be too smart to succumb to baser instinct and cruelty. They desperately tried to believe it, at least. Seventeen and damaged and powerful in all the ways that could destroy a man from within, and Beyond was basking in it now. God, it had burned like a coal in his chest before, just embers waiting for the appropriate whisper of air to remind him that yes, he'd been alone and yes, this place had taken everything from him, raped his childhood in the name of the greater good, and the only thing that had kept him from burning it so far was the knowledge of the trite boredom he could have had instead. The simplest endeavors over analyzed, picked apart, he would have been a prisoner in his own mind if they hadn't taught him how to use it. Still, a font of rage in his chest lingered, growing with every course they added to his list of supposed accomplishments, waiting on another man to die before he was deemed of use. He felt like a bomb gathering dust, right there, in his time-forsaken little window, waiting for winter to pass into the warmth strong enough to chase the snow from the shadows.

Beyond told himself that he was better designed for the job than L was. They'd intended to teach him how to be unbiased, objective, and instead, he'd merely discovered that he was completely without compassion. When they'd started drilling the finer points of the law into his head, they'd tried to teach him right from wrong…but what use was that grayscale? What was the point when every wrong could be justified with instinct, and every right with the bearing of someone's pleasure? It was frivolous, useless...trite.

Like that damned bench…Beyond stopped, and yes, he'd been stopping in his tracks a lot the last few days. He felt trapped, his crimson eyes narrowing in distaste at the spot that he'd claimed for himself out of the whole of the mansion. He'd been unable to shut down, to think clearly, to sleep, to eat, to function, with the way that his mind was working now. Limbo was hellish. The rage kept him burning, kept him moving, tapped and rushing through his blood like black ink because he had so many years of it to draw from, but here…nothing to work with, no puzzles, no pleasures, no problems, just an endless rush of time moving past him with no chance of ignoring it now. The static he'd once clung to didn't dull his senses, it pervaded them, like a thick fabric held over his face. He couldn't breathe under the pressure. He couldn't function. They were lucky he'd managed to steer clear of the other children as much as possible, because this was the most prolonged walk he'd ever been on.

He'd had three seconds of peace. Just three. The boys had not returned to his library, and while the fire burned brightly now in the hazy silver and gold of a winter afternoon, he found himself asking what he wanted to do. What did Beyond want to do with his time, since he couldn't ignore it. He wasn't sure what had happened, much less whether or not it could be replicated, and considering that the initial encounter was summarily concluded with blunt-force trauma on a boy a third smaller than he was, Beyond highly doubted that someone would be willing to help him experimenton the matter. He could always set the bench on fire.

Something clicked, in his head. Bloodstained eyes moved over to the fireplace and the timbers within as his heart picked up slightly. If he picked one up and held it to the glass, it would fog over from the heat battling the chill beyond the panes. Water making itself known from the air, like peace had from the silence, materializing as though it had always been there, but just out of reach and unseen. Then the curtains would catch, white gauze fluttering away to ashes, thick white smoke curling over the shelves, and black, thicker, when he set the torch to the seat cushion and the organic material caught next. They'd lose a lot of books. Valuable tomes stored here, in the upperclassmen's library, all gone to ash. He wondered how long he could stand there, whether the smoke would drive him out first, or if he'd be discovered before then.

Beyond had no wish to die, but that warmth would be interesting, to feel the depth of the fire as a pervasive counterpart to the bitterness welling in his chest. He brought his eyes back to the bench, watching it char and crumble in his mind's eye, flames already licking the shelves where he rested his shoulders, smoke rolling through and under each row of books until the paper caught, hearing the wood snap. He took a step forward, bare feet silent on the carpet.

The impact was sharp. Something more solid than flesh could ever be drove into his side, so sudden that he thought he'd fainted when the room was snatched away from his line of sight. There was a weight on top of it, but the fall to the floor meant that bar forced every scrap of air from his lungs immediately, and he barely managed to get his forearm between his head and the rug before he shared the same fate as Mello. Which was likely the boy's intent. He heard breathing in his ear, something slow and measured as he picked his head up in time to see the golden hair flash in the fading sunlight, and those lithe shoulders draw back to drive the handle of the baseball bat directly into his temple. White, white static behind his eyes, and Beyond snatched at the wood with a hiss of breath through his teeth, because he counted it pure luck that Mello wasn't quite strong enough to knock him unconscious with a blow like that…yet…and not for lack of effort. His arm tensed, and pushed, and instead of allowing it to lock his elbows up like Beyond had intended, Mello used his resistance as leverage to stand and snatch it back out of his reach, freeing the weapon. He kept it in one fist, drawing a long arc to bring it crashing into the older boy's shoulder. It was bright and brilliant, and if he'd seen it coming and tensed, it would have done at least twice the damage. Next, he was driving a boot onto Beyond's hip to flatten him onto his back and swinging again, but the pain…brought him back.

Beyond blinked, and the static faded, leaving only the ringing in his ears as blood rushed to the initial blow and hazed the vision of his right eye. His arm snapped up and caught the bat just below the boy's grip, rolling the force of the strike through his arm to negate it and then trapping the wood in the curve of his elbow. Mello half crouched above him and stilled, caught when he refused to the release the bat, and caught again by the look in those dark eyes. True light, sunlight, though fading fast, washed them both, and in those few seconds, they were together again. Present and cognizant, and furious. He was, Beyond could tell, righteous fury lit those eyes into a shade of blue that he didn't think he'd ever seen before. His own were bloody and dark, like a smear on a brick wall, and Mello's gaze tightened when he saw it. He remembered that look, the immediate pain that followed it, and Beyond fully intended to remind him of the laws of cause and effect. He'd brought a weapon, which was fine…it made this even. Three days at least since he'd even laid eyes on the boy and it was already replaying in his head, the way those cobalt stones had widened and watched him , begging questions they already knew the answers to as they fell out of reach. He remembered that sound, the crack of his head hitting the floor and wondered if Mello had gotten a fraction of the same gratification when he struck him over temple. He hoped so. He got rather lonely in his head sometimes. It made it sadistically simple to drag other people into it with him, and his lips curled in a wicked grin as he stared up at the beautiful blue eyes he'd been itching to claw out for days. Mello faltered, Beyond did not.

Mello reacted, however, when Beyond twitched the muscles of his shoulders to pull the handle of the bat to his chest and break the boy's grip. He dropped, let both of his knees collapse to put his full body weight into whipping his sharp elbow into Beyond's face. It burned. Burned richly, deeply, cracked his head to the side, and it didn't stop there. He dropped closer, just followed him down to make himself less of a target and when his fist made another brilliant connection with Beyond's jaw, the whispers in his head started…talking. Electric shocks, stems of pain radiating through his head, bringing all thought to bear on his next step, his next move, grabbing the boy's wrist and driving his own elbow up, following the motion to roll them. Beyond was not weak. He was not small, and while he wasn't as lithe and defined as the body below him, he was still hard in all the ways he needed to be…and several that he didn't. When the momentum continued on and downward to press his forearm over the boy's throat, he earned a gasp and an immediate struggle to get his chin under the pressure so that Mello could breathe. It didn't work. Beyond didn't let it. He let his body rest laxly between the boy's knees, using his weight advantage to pin him. He caught a glancing blow to the top of the head and ducked nearer to his own arm to avoid more of them. When Mello's struggles took on a panicked note, seeking less strategy and more efficiency, and then further, when they degraded to the simple equation that getting Beyond up meant getting air, Beyond slowly spread his arms and legs, forcing Mello's open at the joints with his reach. He pried the boy's arms up, pried that fist out of his hair and shivered, relenting just long enough to let him cough and inhale—

And he hit him. Sat up long enough to bring a ringing backhand across that beautiful face and watch his entire body seize in shock. His head whipped to the side, cheek crimson and hedging black where the tips of his fingers made the sharpest contact, and it was just a beginning. Just a taste. The rage purred, his eyes gleaming, that smile settling into a self-satisfied smirk as he brought his hand up again and struck him in the same place with the back of his fist now. That earned him a hiss, and Mello bucked beneath him, but he was open, and Beyond was heavier. His heart roared in his ears, his voice trapped somewhere deep in his chest as he struck him again—crack—"You surprise me."

Not a solid angle, not enough connection. Mello tried to throw his free arm in the way, but he was stunned, misjudged it, too slow—CRACK—

"Nghn!" Something flickered. Wilted, almost. Beyond tilted his head, his heart racing almost painfully in his chest, blood raging through its course because this was a taste of what he'd been craving, and hadn't realized it until it slapped him in the face. Blue eyes tinged red in the iris from the abuse turned back to him, still angry, still fighting, still….defiant. It was perfect. He wanted the fight. He wanted this, for the first time in his living memory, someone wanted something from Beyond that resided in his hands, and not his head. Revenge, perhaps Mello simply wanted to make this an even exchange of pain and it had taken him three days to recover. Perhaps Mello himself was waiting on a deciding factor to unhinge him, and it had taken three days for his rage to agree that retaliation was the only way to know peace…Dozens of options, all of them bastardized from the scraps of personality that Beyond had picked up over months of observation, from yellow boy to Golden boy, to the boy with a fucking Name….

And he'd come looking for Beyond. He'd laid in waiting here for how long, an hour at least…waiting for the older boy to come looking for his static and share this, to vent this incredible frustration because there it was, echoed in his eyes, a shared poison. Rage. It was in his shaking hands, his labored breaths, his coiled muscles fighting in earnest now, and Beyond didn't relent. It was nothing compared to his training. The full extent of the damage they were willing to inflict on him didn't extend to the youth below, there wasn't a need. They had their plan B, their back-up, they had Beyond. Why break the pretty things, when the wicked ones served the same function? The wicked things were easy to kill; who thought of slaughtering spiders after they'd served their purpose of clearing the flies. No one liked killing cats, too soft, too much of a heartbeat, too much will to live. They liked living. They fought to survive. Beyond just fought to destroy. Mello fought him, his hips trapped to the floor, his body shorter and smaller and weaker, pegged in place by the older boy with ease, and there was a tense exchange of motion that ended with Beyond trapping both of his wrists to his chest. The fighting became panicked again, helpless and desperate as he was, and that spoke to the wicked things in his head that encouraged him to not just experience the rage, but to enjoy it. Go ahead and take his time. Drag this out and make it an opportunity to scrape the poison out of the shadows of his head, because it'd been so long, and he was sopretty like this, with his lips swollen and his cheeks dark, hair sticking to his forehead and his nails digging wherever they could reach and tearing at his skin. Fighting to live. Fighting for control. Fighting for freedom. Such petty goals, if Beyond cared to think. His heart was drumming in his own ears, hissing deeper breaths from the depths of his chest and this was just…amusing. He'd brought a bat. He'd brought a fucking bat, like that was going to make a difference when Beyond finally got his hands on him. Dangerous. Unbalanced. Wicked.

CRACK.

Open-handed, insulting, Beyond slapped him. It drove the air out of his lungs and Mello fought to get it back but the pressure on his chest made it hard. His eyes watered at the pain. Beyond slapped him again, and Mello grimaced, forcing his teeth together, again, and he choked on the sound of pain, letting his head rest against the floor in hopes of creating a smaller target. Beyond tilted his chin up, and drew back again, meeting those eyes calmly, chuckling under his breath when they slammed shut in the split-second before the impact, anticipating it, bracing for it. His face was getting dark…not fast enough. Not evenly, either, Beyond had only closed his fist to one side. He adjusted, drawing further up the boy's body, and Mello tensed and locked when he realized his intent. "Ah!…f-fuck…."

He shook himself weakly, and Beyond watched those lips part to reveal a bright red wash over his white teeth, something cut within…he wanted to taste it. His own tongue was pressed to the roof of his mouth, still tender from where his own teeth had slammed shut when the boy came after him on the stairs. He paused, watching him breathe heavily through his mouth and swallow thickly to clear the copper taste, but he could smell the blood on his breath. He dipped low again, trailing along the line of his jaw, waiting for Mello to shake the impact and come back into his own head. He pulled away as those eyes cracked, just slightly, and froze. There…they didn't see him. That hazed look, that thick gloss of pain in them now wasn't there before. Before the blow, and after the fall. When Beyond, in his criminal musings, had drifted down the stairs chasing that ghost of silence, he was looking at what had been missing before he drew away. Mello had never fainted after the fall…he'd just…lain there. And let him come closer. He'd waited to see what happened next, whether he could get close enough to strike again, and when Beyond had knelt over his fallen form, come close enough that he could smell his skin…. "…I surprised you, too."

The haze cleared somewhat at the sound of his voice, but clarity was impure, under a thin haze of confusion. He didn't expect him to understand immediately, the pitiful look on his face spoke of ringing ears and soft skin that burned like fire. Beyond was slightly breathless, eyes roaming his features and the fan of his hair, breaking his concentration as he returned to those eyes after a moment and found Mello waiting. Slowly tensing underneath him, winding up either to the brace for the next blow, or preparing another attempt to throw him off, Beyond wasn't sure. Mello swallowed thickly again, shuddering at the taste, then he spoke again, through his teeth, "Get off me."

Beyond wrapped his hand around his throat, tightly, pressing his stinging fingertips to the line of his pulse. Mello panicked instantly, and he basked in that for just a moment before shifting to draw his knees under him. He wasn't cutting off the airflow, not quite, just…challenging it. Daring Mello to argue with him further, to force him to overpower him again, because if he kept stoking this fire, Beyond wasn't sure he'd be able to dampen it again before he actually hurt the boy. This was too much. This was close, closer than he'd ever allowed anyone to be in the longest time he could remember. Beyond didn't touch people, as a general rule. Mello shifted under his grip, his eyes hard and clear and it'd be…easy, to kill him, despite everything those eyes promised. The fight wasn't over. The war wasn't, and Beyond wasn't sure what the point of it was, but there was war, in those eyes, in the setting sun. The light had shifted from warm to grey with the coming night, the fire dancing more prominently behind them and leaching some of the depth of color from the younger boy's eyes. Beyond's grip tightened slightly despite himself, feeling that heart jump up to race under his palm, warm and fleeting and inexorable for now, because Mello refused to give up. Beyond might kill him, but he would have to fight to. Fight and work, and try…it would require an effort, those eyes swore it.

"Get off of me." That voice was husky from the damage, thick from the red tint painting the inside of his lips like a taunt. Beyond shifted quietly, drawing him up from the ground at his own pace, letting his eyes threaten an unbelievable pain to be dispensed if Mello chose to pursue the encounter. He allowed him to stand and released his wrists. Mello coughed, wiping at his mouth , letting his hair cover his face as he spat, and shivered in revulsion, tasting himself. Beyond was still trying to calm himself, not quite trusting the other to be still, when the next words ground his mind to a halt in surprise. "Do you…always get off on hurting people?"

Beyond lifted an eyebrow, confused, then slowly he took stock of himself, of his condition and…yes, his erection. That…ached, in the most delicious way, something he rarely experienced because the mental and physical stimulation required to give him a hard-on were…astounding, to say the least. The older boy roughed a hand through his hair, bringing his eyes up to watch Mello do the same and—

A furtive glance, and then the boy dived for the bat. Beyond reacted, again, he was learning to let it just happen, and his leg whipped up, snapping the flat of his foot directly into Mello's face with enough force to spin him backwards on his feet.

Blood spattered across the floor.

Beyond froze, feeling it warm on the top of his toes, heart racing again in his chest as he brought it back down to restore his own balance and watched Mello stumble into the couch, groaning deeply. His hands were shaking when he brought them up, catching the flow in his palm as though trying to put it back, and something had burst, something substantial if not deadly. It painted over his hands and ran down his wrists and forearms, something had finally given and torn under the abuse and the pressure. He knelt there, leaning against the front of the couch, an elbow on the cushions as he tried to shake the ringing from his ears. The sky was growing dark. The fire was getting brighter. The world slowed down as he turned those crystalline eyes back to Beyond, and the color faded completely into the firelight…and the quiet. Listening to the embers pop, his labored air as he struggled to stay upright, but the taste of the blood made him sick, and Beyond was jealous, and fervently rooted to his spot in an effort to regain some scrap of his control, but he'd fucking hurt him…and now he wanted to fuck him. Like a bell tolling, that clicked into place, desire of a brand he'd never contemplated nor allowed to even mutter in his head, was there now, smirking at him. He looked helpless. He looked perfect. The rage subsided somewhat at the slack in the other's shoulders, there was no more fight to be had there now, whatever peace he'd just beaten the boy into, the submission suited him. He took a step forward, but Mello's head rocked back on his shoulders as he struggled to reach the couch at least, hand still covering his mouth as he swallowed again to minimize the mess.

Down his chin, his shirt, dripping to the floor…

Beyond lost—Closed the gap between them to snatch him up by the forearm and it was thick and warm between their skin, like a third presence in room. Mello's eyes widened, and there, finally, was fear.

And silence.

A closed fist to the temple, and his body went slack in Beyond's hands. He didn't let it go, didn't allow him to fall to the couch or the floor, but to call it consideration would offer sanctity to demons that he'd only just met. He stood here. His grip was shaking. His…body…was shaking. He felt it, like some far off tremor that spoke of weaknesses and adrenaline, and a pain in his head that was getting louder. But his hands reached, and pulled the boy up. He heard nothing, thought nothing, moved as though he no longer quite fit in his body, touched the world through water, held this kitten with gloved hands, easy to crush before he ever felt the damage and heard the screams. The mind was empty. The void was deep, and black, and..peaceful.

He pulled him down. Took him to the carpet, his soft eyes closed and his face marred by fine bruises, he laid him down in front of the fire, glancing over his shoulder as his skin slipped in the thick dark fluid, black in the fire, metallic and warm and engaging. Mello had locked the door when he found him and startled him out of his revelry. Brilliant boy.

Beyond brought a finger to his lips, nibbling slightly, basking in the way he had…nothing, there, to think about. The blood was pooling under Mello's cheek, drifting slowly towards the fireplace, and his breath had balanced out to something steady, and deep, a rhythmic pace of deep, pained sleep. Beyond's tongue curled over his lips, forgiving the old wound in favor of the recompense he tasted there, stark and unsettling. Where was he now? Arousal, violence…and peace…states of being, not thought processes. Not thoughts. Not thinking.

He shifted himself down, stretching out behind the lean line of the younger man's side, one arm sliding over his body to pull him firmly back against his chest, hold him close.

And Beyond fell asleep.