So I found the most PERFECT song that fits both Beyond and Hood. It's called 'Love Hate Love' by a 1990's band called Alice In Chains. I found the song while looking through my dad's CD collection and I fell in love with the song. It's really grungy but it is a great song. The lyrics are the reason why I thought the song would be good for both of them. I urge you to look them up and hell, why don't you check out the music video on youtube? :D

And by the same band, I found a really sad song for A, called 'Down In A Hole'. Yeah, I've had it on the 'song I'm listening to' thing I normally put up many-a-time, but it's such a sad, but beautiful song. It sends chills down my spine and sometimes it brings tears to my eyes ;-; boohoo, teB360 loves a song so much, she'd cry for it.

Disclaimer: Beyond is currently in my bed ;D
… While I'm on the floor D:
Moral of this: Beyond will always steal your bed BUT even though Beyond is on my bed, my bed is my property therefore Beyond is my property!

Enjoy~

Chapter 24: Winter's Bite

The frosty bite of the Winter's air passed in slight shifts through Hood's second year of staying at this god-forsaken orphanage, until she really could appreciate the delicious lick of the warm breezes which finally began to devour the cold ones, for the first time ever, she believed.

Her eleventh birthday was only but a few mere months away from then. According to her slowly changing gloomy moods to something in between the black and the grey of bad and horrible, she had no reason to celebrate and even feel the embrace of excitement cloud over her senses.

This orphanage was a sad, dark, dank hole in the middle of England and it sucked the life out of every single child that stayed here. It had taken its toll on her, she knew and there was no escaping that and her mental scars only made things harder. Hood was never a happy girl, but this place was no healing sanctuary.

People were slowly beginning to notice how jumpy and nervous she always was and eyes were always kept on her, to make sure she wouldn't have another episode like she did at the beginning of the year. She was paranoid. Everybody knew it and she knew that the others thought she was crazy.
All the talk about those large, thick-legged, hairy, brown, spiders crawling above her whilst she lay in the comforts of her own bedding had spread around. Nobody believed her, of course. England was far too cold to have any sort of creepy creature, like an arachnid, for instance.
It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair. IT WASN'T FAIR!

The girl felt like bludgeoning these people with a pipe for doubting her. She wanted to see them bleed, watch them sob, let them experience at least an inch of the pain she has suffered through; maybe that would be enough to make them realise how bad this was. They didn't understand. They were pathetic, sheltered, selfish, fuck-witted teenagers who thought they had the right to make things so much harder for her. Especially Beyond. Yeah. Especially him.

Apart from him mentally and physically torturing her with words; the point of his knife; and the way he could play with her emotions - sending fear trickling down her spine like thick, cold honey oozing slowly, drop by drop in long, stringy threads on the flat of a butter-knife until those threads finally broke, only for it to start all over again - he'd basically abandoned her in the darkness of that fear for that new, young orphan who was known only as 'Mello'.

Mello spoke broken English with a heavy Russian accent, but as Beyond had taken the boy under his wing, his English had improved vastly to the point where he could almost speak it fluently. That was quick learning and Hood was incapable of such a talent. That was probably why he'd left her, she decided. Beyond Birthday, the obsessive, compulsive, sociopathic and psychopathic teenager had grown bored of her. It only made her anger rise the way he just gave her the cold shoulder the moment that little blonde, foreign kid entered through the cast-iron, jagged and spiky gates of the pit everyone here called home.

Why did she feel this way? Why did the hands of her emotions tear her to pieces at that very moment he moved on to a new 'project'? She should have celebrated the fact that she was no longer prone to harm by his influences and the fact that her bodily scars finally had a chance to heal without the risk of them being torn open, again. Sure, Beyond had splashed a few bottles of hot, stinging vinegar onto her back where the giant 'B' had been carved to avoid infection but the flesh was weakly holding together and it wouldn't take much for it to break. She needed stitches, big time, and she couldn't exactly sew the flesh of her back up by herself. For one, it was physically impossible and for two, she had no experience in the craft. Beyond had flat-out refused to sewing her wounds up when she refused to grovel on her knees for him when she questioned him about it. Neither of the two gave in so the knife-wounds remained the way they were. On a second note, Hood couldn't exactly go and show them off to Roger or Wammy, or even the nurse, because then they would know that B had done this to her and then Hood will probably disappear without a trace, like C had.

Hood did believe that Beyond had something to do with C's, or Copy's disappearance. Why wouldn't she believe that? She basically knew him on a slightly personal level and also knew what he was capable of.
But while Hood only had suspicions, Zero knew. He had no physical evidence to go by, but he had a gut feeling and the strong memories of his sister and how she was involved with Beyond, but that was it. Putting two and two together, that gave him the ability to just know these things. He was always taught, his sister too, to always trust your gut feeling by both of their parents as a child. He was obviously the only one of the twins to take that advice into stride. Zero – Zeki lived by that rule.

.-.

"- and I've come to one-of-many conclusions; you believe you do not have the mental strength and capacity to deal with your emotions."

The sentence stung him, he knew, and he didn't want to give this counsellor the satisfaction of showing her how it had affected him with such a rapidity that it was a blur, but he knew his expression had already moulded into something dark and grey; something festering with boiling pains, un-satisfaction, and, simply depression. He could already feel his eyes begin to swell with unspoken-about tears threatening to break through his already weakened defences. The counsellor had to do a double- take to properly absorb him with her pale blue eyes; eating up his body language, the emotion carved into his features, the way he dressed, and even how his hair was done, like it was some sort of delicious meal.

The counsellor gained a peek of his neck which was sloppily covered by his jacket being buttoned to the very top. The soft flesh was damaged in a rash of reds, dark purples and greens, yellows and pinks which was thickly banded around his entire throat in a sickening display. The teenager had a thin, dark red, obviously fresh scar running down the length of his bruised and throbbing throat from the very curve of his collar bone, upwards to the base where his jaw protruded, which was above his adams-apple, in a very careful but deep slash. A surgery scar.

Feeling the urge to change the subject, the counsellor uncomfortably shifted positions, resting her hands on her lap as she folded one leg over the other and leaned backwards into the thin-padded seat. She left her notebook and pen on the table beside her, and looked straight into the boy's dark brown eyes.

"So, this is your first-of-many counselling sessions and it will do you good to feel comfortable in your surroundings." She slowly leaned forward, extending a hand to him. "My name is Willa. Yours?"

A glanced at her hand; noticing the carefully manicured fingers and bright red nail polish which matched her bright red lipstick, realising that it was exactly the same shade. Next, his eyes travelled up the length of her thin, sleeved arm to her shoulders and then to her eyes. The woman wasn't too old, but she wasn't exactly young, either. She must have been in her thirties, he decided, before gingerly reaching to meet her hand and they shared a soft shake.

"Um… I'm Alternative… People generally call me A, or…" He trailed off, catching himself at the last moment. He wasn't supposed to share his real name with anybody. It could pose as a threat not only to him, but to the whole organisation racing to be L's successor… The teen felt a sickening chill cascade through his body. He didn't want to be a part of it any longer but he had no choice and his suicide attempt to get out of it hadn't exactly gone as planned. "Just A, will be fine." He muttered.

"So, tell me about yourself, A." The counsellor began, a tight smile stretching across her lips. He knew she'd just be nitpicking information out of his words if he didn't choose them carefully and then perhaps she'd know far too much about him than what he'd deign to like.

"What's to tell? I live in an orphanage. I come from Canada. I like sport." Liked. He corrected himself, mentally.

The woman raised a thinly plucked eyebrow. "What kind of sports did you like most?"

A shrugged. "I don't know… I liked lots… Like football, basketball, hockey…"

The teen noticed her lips thin into a dark red line and he felt a tremble rivet down his spine. "You said 'liked'." She noted. "Does that mean you don't like playing sport, anymore?" She didn't sound nasty about it, at all. She sounded calm but firm. A didn't understand why he could feel sweat form on his forehead just because he was caught out on something so stupid, like that, and she wasn't even mad.

"Oh, no, I.. I still like playing sport. Just not as much as I… used to…"

Memories of Kay flashed through his mind at that instant. Only last year, in the middle of the night, they both sneaked out to play football in the snow. He remembered exactly how the chill had bitten through his thick layers of clothing and the excitement that pulsed through his veins. The adrenaline burned through him when he knew there was quite a high chance that he could get caught climbing out the window by Wammy or Roger, but neither of them had seen or heard a thing.
He remembered how tough she was, for a girl. The pigskin ball flew over in his direction, he caught it, and before he knew it, he was on the ground from the sudden impact which Kay had thrown at him with her body weight. (After that night, his back was aching for days.) But most of all, he remembered how she smiled at him. Her lips were curled upward in a cheeky grin, her skin was glowing silver from the moonlight and he could see his reflection in her large, dark green eyes. He could see himself smiling back at her; he was happy. She was his best friend. She loved him. He… didn't. He was so stupid. It was his own fault that he felt empty. If he never even looked in Beyond Birthday's direction the moment he layed eyes on him, then Kay would probably still have been there, and they could have been an item, and he would be happy… They both would be. But who was he kidding? Even if she was still at Wammy's, they'd never be anything other than friends; Even if he wanted it that way. It wasn't possible to be anything more. It really wasn't.

The counsellor nodded, oblivious to A's inner struggles as she checked the time on her watch. A rested his head on the palm of his hand, squeezing his eyes shut. He could feel his heart throbbing violently and his stomach churning at the same pace. Tears were already rolling down his cheeks, but he quickly wiped at them with the sleeve of his jacket.

"I used to like sport more, before my best friend ran away from the orphanage." He admitted, blind to any thought as his voice cracked in the slightest, revealing to the counsellor how it pained him to even think of her, let alone mention. "We did everything together; played every sport, every game. We got in trouble a lot, together, too."

The counsellor nodded. "Tell me about your friend…" She trailed off, carefully testing his waters.

A's eyes slid over to hers for a few seconds before they settled back on his lap. "She was… amazing." He mumbled. He felt like an idiot talking this way about Kay, but it was what this counsellor wanted to hear and what would get him out of there, if he kept on stringing words together. "The only person I really only knew. And she knew me, too. She was already at the orphanage before I got there, but she'd only been there a month. She was born the same year I was, too. 1983"

The counsellor drew a slight smile across her ruby-red lips. "That's nice." She spoke sweetly. "What kind of trouble did you two get into?"

A's lips curled in the edges into the smallest smile he'd allowed himself in a very long time. "Normally, it was for climbing onto the roof and throwing sticks or rocks off the edge. I remember when we stole a heap of pots from the pottery class we had in art and threw them off the edge of our roof and watched them crumble to pieces when they finally hit the concrete and grass beneath." The teen felt his eyes sting again. "We got in a lot of trouble that day."
I miss her. He thought, fighting hard to hide his fresh tears.

"Apart from her, have you any other friends? Chums? Acquaintances?" She continued.

A shrugged. He noticed the overcast weather, shooting dark grey streams of light through the slits of the blinds leaving zebra stripes over the floor and features of the counsellor; reflecting off her thick-lensed glasses, leaving squares of light floating around the room wherever she moved in the direction, of.

"Kinda." He answered. "Zero…He did kind of… save my life and he did stand up for me, to prevent me from a mental beating, once or twice.. so I guess you could consider him a friend."
Zero was nice and all, but he knew far too much to be considered trustworthy. Zero knew about his and Beyond's several flings and he even knew part of the reason why A had tried to hang himself in the bathroom. Zero may not have been in the very top rankings, but he sure wasn't stupid. He knew what was what, and that was what A didn't like about him. Zero was always right about a lot of things, and it frustrated him to no end.

The counsellor went silent for a few long, stringent moments and A felt the tension rise and boil at sickening temperatures as he stared right back at her. "What do you mean by 'mental beatings'?"

A felt his stomach lurch and crawl inside of his throat. His fists clenched tightly and he could even feel the rapidity of his breath begin to rise. "I didn't mean anything by it." He lied, picking the worst words to say, he realised soon afterwards.

The woman, obviously, knew he was lying. "I'm beginning to think there is somebody else in your story." She stated.

A felt the temperature of his forehead pick up. "No, there isn't." Again, with the terrible lying. He scolded himself. "Nobody else." He spoke almost too briskly and he witnessed her eyes narrow. She grabbed her notebook from the table, and flicked through the pages.

"I've got a list of all of the orphans that came, went, and still are, at Wammy's."
The woman glanced at the sheets of paper and a heavy feeling began to settle in the centre of the teen's stomach; twisting and pulling at his nerves to jump up from his seat, and leave the room. But he knew he'd never have the guts to do that. He wasn't a badass like Kay was, and he wasn't tough like Zero.
"I'm going to read out the names and I want you to tell me something you know, like, and dislike about the person. It doesn't matter if you are friends with them, or not."

He knew the sweat drops on his forehead were visible and that his cheeks and ears were beginning to burn red. His hands felt clammy and damp, but he kept them clenched together. She was going to read them out alphabetically, which meant that B was first.

He watched as her eyes slithered back down to the sheet in her grasp, her tongue came out to lick her lips and her mouth widening to read out the first name written in black, cursive lettering. A's eyes were bulging, he soon realised. If she read out that name, then she would already know too much. He knew his reaction would betray his words and that would only open up more questions.

.-.

"Quillish, I think you need to take a look at this."

"What is it, Roger?" Asked Quillish Wammy, adjusting his tie as he stepped into his friend's office. He pulled back the sleeve of his suit jacket to check the time on his large, silver wristwatch. "I should be expecting a call from L in a few moments so I don't have much time." He told him.

Roger's eyes were zipping through thick bundles of sheets, comparing and writing notes before he finally placed them down against his desk, folding his arms. "Just come here a moment. There is something awfully wrong with the marks this child has."

Wammy's eyebrows scrunched together as he collected the sheet holding the overall details from Roger. His lips thinned as he read through. "This is… odd. The marks of this child has considerably dropped since we've brought him or her here…" There was no name on the sheet to tell him who this orphan was, but knew who it was. It had to be the only one who'd began on the lowest ranking and has stayed there throughout the year with little or no progress. If it weren't for Mello arriving, then this orphan in question would never have made it up one ranking, but how long would that child last there until she is surpassed by somebody five years younger?

"What do you think it means? I believe it was a mistake to place her here if she has not the capability to deal with the amount of work."

'I don't think it has to do with the amount of work.' Wammy began to think. "This is… that one named Hood, isn't it?" The elderly man shook his head. "We must keep an eye on her. I've heard reports that she's quite mentally unstable at the moment so it could be that affecting her work." He supplied, trying to see things on a brighter scale.

"Or she's not a genius." Roger deadpanned. "Alternative is extremely unstable; He tried to kill himself just last week – but despite all this, his scores are still at the top and he is indeed the heir to L's name. If he can keep up with the work despite his mental instabilities, than Hood can too… if she belongs here, that is."

Wammy skimmed through the sheet in his hand again. "I think before we do anything drastic- like transferring her to another orphanage, per-se – we need to dig to the bottom of this. It doesn't make sense that before she was here, her scores were suspiciously above average yet as soon as she is here and left to her own demise to get the work completed, she struggles to do so."

"Then that could mean –"

"- Her teacher, perhaps –"

"- Had something to do with this." Roger finished and just as he had, Wammy's mobile rang.

.-.

Zero was sitting in the corner of A's bedroom, head in-between his knees, half asleep. He'd been sitting in there for half an hour, waiting for his friend to come back from wherever he went at four o'clock every afternoon this week. It'd become an unfaltering ritual, but he was so worried. A was an idiot and he didn't want to risk him hurting himself like that, again.

Zero wondered why he was so… breakable, if that was the right word to use. Everything seemed to upset him, even if the slightest of tones was misjudged through his or anybody else's words, he'd grow unhappy and mull it over and over and over again in his mind, when really, it was simply misheard, leading to confusion.

After A had tried to hang himself, Zero noticed how different he was acting. He was much quieter than usual, always seeming to mope. He loved being by himself at all times, compared to before, where he'd normally sit and talk with at least one person.

After A was found, it'd been declared that he had major tracheobronchial damage. In other words, his windpipe was crushed and it's only in rare cases that people who suffer these injuries last as long as he had. He had to get surgery on his throat; getting sturdy metal rings placed around his windpipe to hold it open until it healed, then he'd have to go back into surgery to get them removed. He wasn't allowed to do sport anymore, he wasn't allowed to be outside in the heat for too long, either, not that it was actually hot or anything. He needed to take a handful of antibiotics every day and always having a few teaspoons of cough suppressant medicine. He'd already lost a heap of weight, Zero had noticed. He was almost as skinny as a rake; Most of his muscles were disappearing. A had to live through this for four months. Zero was afraid of how thin and unwell A would become during this time.

Right on cue, the sound of the door clicked as it swung wide open, followed by footsteps that echoed against the wooden floorboards. This was the first time Zero had actually waited in A's bedroom for him; normally he was standing outside by the door. He was waiting for him to suddenly say in a startled voice; 'Zero? What are you doing here?' but nothing happened. Had he even been noticed? He was sitting right next to his bed in clear view of the door.

Sighing, Zero lifted his head from his knees and his heart stopped in place with a sudden jolt of surprise. "Xanthus? What the hell are you doing here?" He asked, clutching his chest and feeling his heart hammering through to his hand.

Xanthus stood out from the shadows of the room like a ghost because of how pallid her skin tone was and because of the pale shade of blonde her hair was. She was looking more gaunt than usual, Zero noted.

"The question is, what are you doing in here? This is Alternative's room." She pressed back, tone flat.

"A is my friend, I don't think he'd mind that I'm in here. Besides, it's not like I'm doing anything I shouldn't be. I'm just waiting for him to return."

"Well I've been waiting for you to return! I haven't spoken to you in so long, it feels like I don't even know you anymore, Zero, and I hate it!" She snapped. "You – I miss you, Zero!"

This is not what he needed. Zero's fingers curled into the thick black locks of his hair. He could already feel stress begin to pull through him. "Xanthus, now is not a good time, ok? A is mentally unstable and I've been worried as hell about him! I'm sorry if I haven't spent as much time with you as you'd like, but I need to deal with more important things, here!"

"A is not the only person in the orphanage, Zero. Yes, it's horrible that he's tried to kill himself, but there are other orphans here who are suffering through worse than him!"

"Like you? Are you suggesting that you're on the verge of either massacring every single fucking person here and turning this godforsaken orphanage into more of a bloodbath then what it already is, or killing yourself because you 'just can't take it anymore'?"

Xanthus's jaw dropped. It wasn't just the fact that he swore at her for the first time in his life, but it was the fact that he yelled, was what got to her. A stab of pain whisped through her chest and she closed her hands into fists. "What about… Hood? Or maybe even Mello? They- they've both been and are under the influence of-"

"Jesus Christ." Zero cursed, leaning his head back in between his knees. "Jesus fucking Christ. Will this never end?" He muttered. "Backup. Beyond fucking Birthday! I get it! I know there are more people here suffering by the hands of him. I know I can't do anything about it, I fucking get it, Xanthus!"

"Take a look at yourself!" She screamed. "You're not acting yourself! It's Alternative's fault! Stop getting involved with him and his affairs! It's finished now, you've helped him out as much as you can! He's in therapy, he will survive! You're running yourself into the ground and pretty soon, you're going to burn out and just break down. Zero… you're not yourself." Her voice lowered into nothing but a hush, right by the edge of the barrier that held back her emotions.

Zero's expression softened. He raised his head from his knees to see her. She was on the floor in front of him; hands shaking, face completely flushed. She wasn't used to outbursting at people, he knew. He must have deserved it if she finally opened the lid to her bottle, and he tried not to have a hard time believing that.

"Xanthus…." He trailed off. Xathus looked up at him. Crystal like tears were spilling down her cheeks. He felt a tug inside of his chest; constricting it and causing him to bite his lip. "Xanthus, don't cry." As Zero reached a hand out to wipe the tears away from his closest friend's cheeks, with sudden impact, she caught his hand midway so fast he didn't even see it coming. Despite her shaking hands, she held a firm grip.

"Don't." She said. "Zero.." She pushed his arm back towards his body, pulling herself towards him as she did so. Zero's mind remained blank of anything to say to her, but his hand found her left shoulder and he softly made a grab for it as her lips fell upon his. His eyes flew wide open out of alarm and right out of the corner of his eye, he saw someone standing in the room, watching. He paid no mind to it as his hand nervously made its way from her shoulder to her jaw before he kissed her back almost hesitantly. It was Xanthus who pulled away immediately, as if she had not been expecting Zero to return the favour. She climbed to her feet before leaving the room, glancing to her side before descending out the door.

"Xanthus, wait!" Zero jumped to his feet, prepared to go after her before another voice ribboned through the air. He turned around and froze on spot when he saw Alternative sitting on the end of his bed. 'Oh no.' "A." He greeted, voice wavering. "I was waiting for you."

Alternative managed a weak smile. "Yeah." He said, voice thick. "I know."

.-.

I thought I might leave the chapter there… Everyone enjoy my crappy kiss scene with Xanthus and Zero? Meh, I'm terrible at writing romance. Better at writing horror and butchering every character XD

I know that this chapter was terrible though, so don't chase me with hammers and pitchforks because it won't work.

Also, shameless self-advertising:

I've written a new fanfiction and it is purely for comic relief because Ghost is becoming really angsty and harder to write. It's called Haters Make Me Famous. It's got lots of L and Beyond in it, if that will help you swerve yourself onto my profile to find it! It's got a lot of music references in it because… well, I'm obsessed. Read it or I will kill you in your sleep!

More shameless self-advertising:

teB360 facebook group. Like it so I can give you more excuses for my laziness! The link is on my profile!

Also, reviews please! :D