Hi, thanks for reading so far. I'm really enjoying writing about B's character, so I hope that's reflected in my writing. Here's part 3, so enjoy and let me know what you thought. Au revoir!

Part III- B stands for Backup

B had been at the home for a while now. He'd lost track of the weeks, being hooked up to machines, talked to by important men who wore glasses and kept pens on top of their ears, and tested, time and time again. He was given puzzles. They were all so easy, it hardly required thought from him. The only tests that he enjoyed were the detective ones.
Criminals would commit their misconducts and then construct elaborate webs of deceit that no ordinary officer could handle, and when the case grew cold, Wammy would take B out of the play room and plant the papers in front of him to solve. Of course, every time, B would laugh manically and ask why they were giving him something so easy to decipher. These criminals… were stupid.

"Why do criminals leave such obvious clues?" B mused, swinging his legs back and forth, sat on A's lap in the playroom chair. "They do it so messily, allow officers to make links between one site and the next. Yeah, they're not too smart, are they, A?"

A pushed the pair of spectacles further up his nose and nodded. "But the detective can be at fault sometimes, too, B."

He tilted his head to the side. "Yeah, they're not too smart either. Even though the murderer was stupid and left clues, the detectives still couldn't do it. Who is more stupid, then? The detective or the criminal?"

"I know a smarter detective than any other."

"Really?" He bounced up and down. A pressed B's shoulders and forced him to sit still, and after a minute of squirming, the boy calmed. "Really, really? Who?"

"His name's L," A said, nodding. "He was the best child Mr Wammy ever found. He bought him back here, named him L and then L grew up to be the greatest detective who ever lived. He hasn't ever taken a case on and not solved it. Plus, he does it all on his own, without ever showing his face or telling anyone his real name. It's extraordinary." A's eyes shone with admiration, which had B feeling somewhat uncomfortable.

"You really like L, don't you?"

"I've met him once, when I first got here. He's still young himself, but incredible. I'll never live up to his standards."

"The greatest detective, huh? Incredible? Maybe one day, someone will make a crime even he can't solve. Yeah… that'd be funny." He sighed, and clapped his hands together. "Come on A… let's go outside and play instead. We can play criminals."

A paused in thought and a smile spread across his face, masking the emotion caused by talking of L. "You'll be the criminal and I'll be the detective, right?"

"Yeah, yeah, like always."

The boys leapt from the chair. The other children raised their heads momentarily, before disregarding them both and returning to whatever they were doing. B knew from the beginning that these children were too self-absorbed to care. Then again, so was he.

He grabbed A's habitually clammy palm with his own bone dry, and urged him faster. The garden was huge and rarely used by the children, so weeds and flower snaked the trees, giving them a wild look when they strained out from among the dark emerald grass. They burst out the door and the cool breeze of early spring gathered around their ankles. Even though the day was overcast, B was still enthralled by the garden as much as ever, having rarely experienced this taste of outside life.

Without warning, B pressed his hands to the taller A's chest and pushed hard, sending him tumbling to the ground.

"B," he said crossly, "Don't be so rough."

"I just killed you!"

"I'm the detective, not the victim."

"Oh, yeah, sorry." He couldn't help himself. Standing there, so innocent, A was asking for it. His eyes found their way to above A's head. The numbers shifted, and B's toothy grin faded.

"Is there something wrong?"

B bit his lip, but shook his head. "Catch me!" he yelled, and bolted into the undergrowth. He glanced over his shoulder at A, who shook his head, curled his lips into a smile, and got up to chase him.
A was always forgiving him, unlike the other kids. When B pushed them, pinched them, asked them to do something interesting with him and A, they cried, or sometimes ignored him. A was the only one who would smile and shake his head, forgetting it ever happened and remaining by his side. It was advantageous to have a person in your life to back you up.

The thicket was filled with twisting branches, nettles and prominent roots, so B was forced to slash his way through with an arm in order to see. A shiver ran down his arm when it was pricked, and blood ran down, right up into his shirt, staining it was scarlet. He stared at it in fascination.

"How could a plant hurt me more than a broken mirror?" he said, and giggled. "The world's so strange."

"B? Where are you? I can't see you anywhere!" He heard the distant shout and burst into laughter.

"I'm not meant to tell you where I am! That's beyond stupid!"

It was becoming apparent, however, that B was getting lost. There were parts of the undergrowth he didn't recall from the last time they had played out here, the flowers weren't present because of the lack of sunlight here, the foliage was too thick to crawl through.
When it dawned on him, he kicked a tree. He kicked it again, and again, and again, seething with the shock and frustration. How could he have allowed himself to get lost? When criminals escaped from prison and went into the forest, was this how they felt? When they knew a policeman was out there somewhere hidden and unseen, lying in wait for them. When they knew they would either stay lost forever or go out and get apprehended once again.

He placed his foot back down, and it found something on the ground that wasn't meant to be there. It was metal, heavy and solid enough to stub his toe on.

"What's this, then?" He bent low and picked it up. It really was heavy. A code was carved along the side of the barrel. The whole thing was covered in dirt and mould, and the trigger was rusty with age and disuse.

"B- I see you!"

Soon enough, A burst through the tangle of foliage, to see B standing totally motionless, fixated on the metal object in his hands.

A's face went white. "B, put that thing down!" He grabbed B by the shoulders.

"Get off!" B cried. "Look, A, it's a gun. Judging by the weight, I can still use it."

"Why would you want to do that? Listen, I'm older than you, so listen to me, okay? You put that gun away, because Mr Wammy would find it and throw you in jail, I'm sure."

"I'd never be stupid enough to let him find me," B laughed.

"Just put it back where you found it. You aren't meant to be a criminal, B. You're better than that."

"Huh?"

"Do you know why we're even brought here by Mr Wammy? Why we're all smart?"

"No…"

"It's so we can be successor to L and carry on his work when he dies." A frowned and turned B to face him, surprised that a few specks of blood dotted his pallid cheeks. "I'll never be good enough. I'm a complete failure, so you have to be the backup instead."

B had stopped laughing to listen, but started again and revealed the same toothy grin that had captivated so many others. He still hadn't perfected that, hiding his emotions. It was a furious expression. Not only because A considered himself to be a failure when he could match B in intelligence, but because he had suggested that B should be the one to copy L, be the backup that Wammy needed. Backup, him? No. Not ever.

He stashed the gun in the side of his trousers and tucked his shirt over. The cold metal brought up goose bumps on his soft child's skin, but it felt right, somehow. He'd find a way to store it somewhere where not even A could find it.

As they walked back into the house together, A hissed in B's ear, "I still think this is a terrible idea."

"You'll keep this a secret for me, won't you?" B insisted. He jammed his fist into A's stomach to affirm his point.

"I don't want to see you get into trouble."

B sniffed, and stared down at his fist.

He'd just punched the first person to say something like that without ulterior motive. Even his mother, that smiling woman, hid a tremendous torment with those shallow words. He had punched his boy, A, and A had simply smiled.
For the first time in his life, did he feel truly guilty?

In the dorms, later that night, B crawled out of his bed, padded across the room and slinked under A's covers to lie beside him.

"I'm sorry," he mumbled into A's pillow. "I can't help being crazy. It's these eyes. I wish they'd disappear."

A murmured something in his sleep, but didn't wake. B threw back his head and sighed.

"But while they're here… I'll never be mere backup."

And the gun lay in swaddling sheets, buried in a locked trunk underneath the eight year-old's bed.