A/N: Sorry if it took a while to update again. I've been busy, what with classes starting up again in only two weeks. I've been doing a lot of shopping and all, and trying too spend some more time just relaxing before I can't anymore.

And thanks again to everyone who faved/alerted/reviewed this. It means a lot to me, and feedback is always welcome (:

I don't own DN, or Anberlin's 'Paperthing Hymn', which I thought of the entire time I wrote this chapter. I suggest listening to it, if you haven't already.

Chapter 4: Hands Are Distant Lullabies

Beyond was a solitary creature, he always had been.

Oh, Lawli, you seem so tense. Would you like me to help you relax~?

Having to be alone for the rest of his life should not have been a problem. At least, that was what the raven-haired man liked to tell himself to ease the nagging pain in his murderous heart. He missed the late nights, the warm caresses and hungry kisses, the soft sheets and loving words. A part of him longed for the affection and time that seemed to be spared only for him.

"Beyond, what is it? You know I am busy..."

"Oh, but my Lawlipop is never too busy for me, is he~?"

People regarded him as a murderer, a heartless criminal - the first of which, he was. But heartless? BB would never describe himself as such. A bit cold, perhaps, but not heartless. Because, whether anyone wanted to believe it or not, Beyond Birthday the serial killer was human. At times, B himself wished it was not true; pushing aside his personal feelings was far too tiring, and when they all came rushing back, it hurt twice as much. It was a part of what he felt had to do in order to protect himself from being hurt, much as L tended to do, locking all traces of feeling away behind that blank face.

Soaked to the bone from the pouring rain, the young man only watched as his first successor was lowered into the ground. B's cries seemed to fall on deaf ears, and blind eyes watched unblinkingly as the pitiful scene unfolded before him.

"You don't care, L! You don't care! How could you just stand there like that? Heartless bastard!"

Oh, but how Beyond loved to watch that perfect porcelain mask shatter. And what he loved even more? He was the only one with the ability to break L's mask. He could turn the stoic detective to a quivering, emotional mess with the greatest of ease, and the touch of his spindly fingers against silken skin.

"A-ah! Beyond..!"

Did he hate L? Quite the contrary; he hated that his beloved detective would allow him to be locked away, without even so much as dropping by for a visit. Beneath the anger people thought he had kindled towards the mysterious L, there was love. Granted it was a twisted, sick kind of love, but love nonetheless.

"I wonder what my Lawli has been up to," he mused aloud, staring around the white room from his perch on the small bed. Said piece of furniture creaked a bit as he shifted his weight slightly in an attempt to be more comfortable. He had heard bits and pieces of conversation from outside his door, and over the past few months, the new thing to talk about was 'Kira'. A childish killer who, the more B heard, seemed to be quite the coward. Killing without ever showing their face... Such a shame, as far as BB was concerned. He quite enjoyed seeing the look of utter horror on his victim's face, and hearing their ear-splitting shrieks.

But that was beside the point. L, being the person B knew he was, would certainly attempt to solve this case at one point or another, if he was not working at it already. And that was what had been bothering the lonely young man with shinigami eyes. He cared not that, from what he was hearing, Kira seemed only to target criminals. It did not matter much that he, as a criminal, only had a matter of time before he fell prey to the killer as well.

A murderer who met his death by the hands of another murderer, B thought, suppressing a chuckle. It was only fitting, he supposed. After all, there was nothing he could do to 'atone for his sins'. It was best that he embrace death - which, at this point, already sounded better than living out his existence here in this horrid place.

But his Lawli would be targeted as well, if Kira found out that the world's greatest detective was on his trail. That was something B hoped he never lived to see. Images of the raven-haired man he grown so fond of, doubled over in pain, eyes wide as he clutched his chest, flashed through Beyond's restless mind. He would not let Kira kill his L. With a knot forming quickly in the pit of his empty stomach, B knew there was nothing he could do to protect L.

There, in the quiet loneliness of his white-walled prison, he rolled over onto his side and closed his eyes. Though he had never been a religious man, he uttered a silent prayer for his Lawli, in hopes that it would be enough to save him.