“she’s california and you’re an earthquake”, a birthday massacre playlist
“you want me to love you in moderation
do i look moderate to you”
On the stand at his murder trial, Beyond Birthday blows Naomi Misora kisses. She pretends not to notice, but once he’s broken out of prison the very next day, she hugs him a few seconds longer and a little tighter than necessary.
Oh boy. I’m not particularly fond of either ship but if I had to pick one, it would be LxB. Please keep Naomi far away from B (and L), thank you.
Honestly, I just love all the dynamics between L, Naomi and B exactly as they are in canon and I absolutely can’t see how they could ever get along with each other. Which is hilarious to me. I find the thought of B being obsessed with L in more than just one way, including romantically, mildly amusing as well, but only if it’s one-sided. And it’s not how I personally interpret B’s feelings for him.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
ive been so busy at work lately... but here’s the latest chapter!
Fire Fight
Chapter 6: Raw
Chapter Summary: The magic of restaurants is that they bring you food, piping hot, and you don't have to do a thing. Beyond is learning that with all the excitement of a puppy, and Naomi, the poor woman, has to deal with him. Halle just hopes they didn't go to one of her favorite places, though...
Beyond doesn’t know why Naomi chose to ‘steal’ him, but she did and now they’re on the run together. However, daredevil that he is, he refuses to wear his helmet and that’s strictly against Naomi’s motorcycle rules.
When he rides on the back of the motorcycle, he doesn’t wear a helmet. This is very stupid because 1) he could fall off and saturate the concrete with his brains and 2) because after the fire, he’s even more recognizable than usual, with all those red lines of melted skin crisscrossing his cheeks like a map of LA highways. But if he doesn’t wear a helmet, he can wrap his arms tight around Naomi’s middle and press his face up against the back of her shoulder and get cozy in the crook of her neck and that kind of closeness is worth the risk.
So even when she tries to insist that he wear his helmet, he refuses and he thinks way too longingly about the warmth of her body under her leather jacket and how nice it feels to sit there, cuddled against her as they rocket down roads.
“Once we circle back to LA,” Naomi is saying. She’s got a forkful of scrambled eggs in her hand and she’s kind of waving it around a little as she talks. “You have to wear the helmet then, okay? Out here in the country, no one will recognize us as easy, but once we’re in a city, we’ll be in tough territory.” They’re at a little roadside diner. The sun’s coming up and he’s more exhausted than he’s letting on. A breakfast burrito sits on his plate, untouched.
“Ah, Misora,” he says. He grins flirtingly. He doesn’t know if he can still turn on the ole’ charm like he used to before the fire. Charm is an equation with some parts overconfidence and some parts a pretty face and he’s not sure of the proportions. He’s gonna have to add extra confidence in lieu of a pretty face melted off. “You talk like you were born to be on the run with me.”
She rolls her eyes and sticks her fork in her mouth.
“I wasn’t born for any of this,” she says. “Don’t flatter yourself.”
“Should I flatter you then?” He says. “You’re clever. You’re way cleverer than anyone gives you credit for.”
“Eat your breakfast,” Naomi reprimands, gesturing with her fork towards his untouched plate. She’s started ignoring his constant compliments. He supposes after hearing so many that it starts to all sound like static. He’ll have to switch his tactics.
Instead of going for his breakfast burrito, he picks one of the little plastic containers of jam out of the condiment holder in the corner of the table and peels it open and licks out the contents with his tongue. He adds the container to a small pile of other empty containers. She ignores it.
When he escaped prison a month ago, Naomi was one of the agents sent to find him. And of course, she did, of course. Who else could. He remembered standing there, his hands in the air, her frame in the doorway of his shitty motel, and realizing he’d been missing her like a tourist in Hollywood misses a map. Some vain part of him (which to be fair was a pretty big part-most people are 70% water but he’s decided he’s 70% vanity) didn’t want her to see his face and how it healed after the fire.
But see she did and to everyone’s shock, including hers, especially his, she put her gun away and took his hand and led him out to her motorcycle and put him on it and ran away with him, like he was a trinket she was stealing. He’s been on the run for months now and only with her for a few weeks, but he’s shifted gears since that night. He feels like something she’s scooped up and walked away with-he’s lost all control of his own prison break-but it’s a nice feeling. He’s happy to be something she deemed worth stealing.
When she finishes her breakfast and gets up, he gets up too and follows her out the parking lot where she picks up the helmet that’s supposed to be his and holds it out to him pleadingly.
He remembers again why it’s stupid to refuse and pictures his burn victim face busting open on the pavement. But he also remembers the feeling of that same stupid face on her shoulder-a luxury he can’t exactly give up so easily.
“Miiisora,” he cooes with a grin, drawing out the ‘i’ in her name like he does sometimes, tasting the sound. “Come on! I can’t deprive the good people of LA my gorgeous face-it’d be a downright crime against humanity!”
Naomi studies his eyes for a second and sees he’s determined and, frowning, she puts the helmet away again in their backpack of supplies that he wears while they ride.
“Alright,” she says. “Fine.”
Then, she sits down on the motorcycle. No helmet, either.
He sits down almost gingerly, his arms lacing around her cautiously. Everytime, he thinks she’ll flinch and she doesn’t.
“Well, you’re going to wear your helmet, right?”
“Nope.”
“I-But. Naomi.”
Naomi starts up the motorcycle and he squeezes her gently.
“It’s dangerous.”
“Oh and it must be less dangerous for you just because of your thick skull, right?”
“That’s very funny, you’re a comedy genius, but really.”
“Nope. This is a helmet strike.”
She pulls out of the parking lot and onto the road and he’s getting nervous.
“Naomi!” He shouts over the roar of the engine.
Now it’s not his face he’s seeing break over the concrete and every time the picture plays in his head, he feels increasingly nauseous.
They’re coming up on the ramp for the freeway.
In his head, he sees her beautiful face. Cars on the freeway roar.
He squeezes her tighter and then shouts, “OKAY! OKAY, FINE!”
Naomi pulls over onto the shoulder before they reach the ramp and when she turns around, she’s smiling triumphantly. He’s frowning.
They get off the motorcycle and she takes the backpack off of him and pulls out the helmets and puts his over his head. He’s still frowning.
She’s holding hers in her hand and she smiles at him and pulls up his visor.
“There,” she says comfortingly. “Was that so hard?” Then, she leans in and presses a kiss to his cheek, where skin is warped and raised and red. LA highway maps.
“You’re too clever,” he says quietly.
Beyond Birthday gets back on the motorcycle and he puts his arms around Naomi Misora and neither of them split their heads open and when they reach LA, neither of them are recognized on the highway. On the spot Naomi’s lips touched his skin, Beyond feels invincible.
Bugs and Lakes and Oars and Things: a Kayaking Story
a birthday massacre (bxnaomi) fic
2250 words
prompt from @violetskylight !!! :DD
Summer camp has been ruined for Naomi due to her camping ineptitude. And now, to top it all off, she’s stranded on an oar-less kayak with B, who just seems to want to talk about cockroaches.
Naomi clung to the side of the kayak, scrambling. She was elbow-deep in the lake, reaching after the last oar. Under the dark water it was sinking fast and after a few seconds, she couldn’t even see it. She stared down dejectedly at the reflection of her own sweaty, red face in the lake water. Across the lake surface just under her, a little water bug skirted past, his little legs making circles where they connected with the water, walking on it like magic. She frowned at it desperately and thought about how that oar was gone now and if she tried to swim back to the dock, she wouldn’t walk on water like this little bug-she’d sink, like an oar disappearing into the darkness.
“Why didn’t they make oars that would float,” she breathed out in disbelief and then, a heavy breeze came and the kayak rocked and she was pinwheeling until the boy in front of her (his name started with a B, right? She thought so…) whirled around as best he could from the front seat and grabbed her arms to steady her.
“Careful!” He said.
The kayak rocked and the lake water settled and birds were trilling in the trees and Naomi and boy-with-the-b-name were stuck in a kayak all alone at summer camp, in the middle of the lake, without any oars.
Now that Naomi had turned sixteen, she was too old to go to summer camp, but she loved it so much she’d come back to work as a counselor and she was sort of blowing it. Turns out camping and being a camp counselor are two different skills. So far she’d burned campfire dinners and got poison ivy and made at least one kid cry. The rest of the counselors weren’t interested in being friends, either. And now, she’d stranded herself and B, another counselor, out on the lake with no way to get back.
B was trying to face her, but the kayak seats made it difficult. He twisted around at the waist, his palms on the kayak front, pulling up his knees to turn better. The kayak rocked hard and Naomi threw out her hands.
“No!” She cried. “I don’t want to flip!!”
“We won’t flip!” B said.
“You don’t know that! With my luck, we will!”
“Then I’ll flip us back.”
“Just-don’t rock the boat. Please.”
B looked like he might continue to argue, but instead he gave up and stopped trying to turn completely around. He was halfway around now so he could look at her head-on, but his shoulders were kind of twisted and one knee was up on his seat. It was precarious at best.
“You look upset,” he said plainly.
Naomi wanted to burst. Of course she was upset, what did he expect!! She was having a terrible summer camp, she was ruining everything, and now she’d dropped two whole oars in the lake-two!! Two oars!!
“I’m not-” she tried to say, but a lump in her throat choked her and she stopped. B looked concerned.
She felt bad for not knowing his name. New kids came to the camp every week and she had to try to remember as many of those names as she could and she barely managed that. Not to mention the fact that most of the other counselors didn’t talk to her anyway. They’d all introduced themselves once, but never again.
She recognized B, though. It was hard not to. If anyone in the whole camp was a bigger hot mess than she was, she knew it was him. He was constantly in trouble with their boss, constantly talking too loud, constantly in places he shouldn’t be. She heard rumors once that he went skinny dipping in the lake at night and that someone had seen him drink straight from the slushy machine tap and that he once filled another counselor’s bed with dirt for calling him stupid. He was a whirlwind of bad choices, wild and untamable-just a whirlwind she hadn’t collided with yet. In fact, she wouldn’t even be here in this kayak with him if their boss-a stern old dude with a black mustache-hadn’t asked them both to double check that the camp sign on the other side of the lake hadn’t been damaged in a recent storm.
“Don’t be upset,” B said. “I’m not angry, Naomi, it’s okay.” Oh, great!! He knew her name and she didn’t know his? Now she could never ask! “We’ll just wait until someone walks along and sees us and then we can get them to bring extra oars.”
The lump was still in her throat. She stared down at the water and blinked hard and then looked back up and tried to laugh it off.
“I thought I’d be better at this,” she said awkwardly.
“At kayaking?”
“At being a counselor.”
“What do you mean, you’re great!” B cried. He sounded desperate to cheer her up. “Everyone loves you!”
“I dunno if I’d phrase it that way,” Naomi said, still trying to laugh enough to sound like she wasn’t on the verge of tears.
B was kind of pretty. Handsome wasn’t exactly the right word for it. Something about him was delicate. This wasn’t the first time Naomi had noticed this. He was tan from the sun and had big, expressive brown eyes and long, curly hair he kept in a bun at the back of his neck and his wrists and hands were bony, his limbs long. Against the backdrop of the glittery lake, he was even prettier. Around them, bugs hummed and skittered against the mossy lake surface and the sun was just barely beginning to set, turning the sky orange behind the treeline, all warm and peaceful.
Naomi looked back down quick to avoid staring and started wiping lake water off her arms and onto her blue camp t-shirt.
“Well,” B said awkwardly after a moment. “I think you’re great.”
Naomi stared down at the bottom of the kayak, watching herself smear lake water all over her clothes. She forced a laugh.
“How could you say that, you don’t even know me.”
“You help a lot to clean up after dinner. Everyone knows that. You’re nice to all the kids, even when they’re annoying. You saved a cockroach-do you remember that?”
“Remember what?”
“When you saved that roach.”
“Uh, I dunno. I see a lot of bugs.”
She glanced back up at him now, her arms dry, a frown on her face. He was smiling, his eyes distant.
“Well,” he said. “It was the one in the mess hall. And a bunch of kids were screaming and someone was gonna step on it, but you came through with a paper cup and scooped it up and took it outside. It was very nice of you. I always think, you know, it’s easy for people to save cute bugs, like butterflies and ladybugs and stuff, but cockroaches or spiders or whatever? No one cares. So I figure if someone is nice enough to save a cockroach, then they must be really nice.”
Now that he mentioned it, Naomi did remember that. Roaches made her stomach turn, but she was already in the habit of saving bugs and taking them outside, so she’d had the cup in her hands before she even knew what she was doing. She kind of went red (more red than before) that this event had struck him so much, that he’d remembered it so purposefully, that it made him notice her.
“Well, I dunno,” Naomi mumbled, but she was kind of flattered.
“Oh, a person!” B cried, interrupting Naomi’s thoughts. He spun around in his seat more and jumped, waving his hands. “HEY!! HEY! LOOK OVER HERE!” The kayak rocked and Naomi went green and grabbed the edges. She pictured the oar sinking again, but this time, it was her going under.
“Stop!” She exclaimed.
“Oh, shit,” B cursed. “It’s L Lawliet. I hate that guy. HEY! HELP US!” He kept waving. The water around them sloshed. Naomi watched with growing anxiety.
On the other side of the bank, L took his phone out of his pocket and zoomed in and took a picture of B stranded on the lake, and then turned around and kept walking.
“HEY!!” B was screaming. “FUCK YOU, GET BACK HERE!” B stood up in his seat now to wave and point and the kayak positively rolled and Naomi screamed and B stopped, surprised to see how terrified she looked, but the damage had been done. The water was rolling around them and the kayak was rocking hard and the weight was unbalanced and suddenly, B was pitched out of the kayak. As he came down, screaming and flailing, the kayak rolled over and suddenly-SPLASH-Naomi was underwater.
She was upside down, still clutching the kayak, and then she let go. Everything was black and freezing, she couldn’t open her eyes, she couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t swim!! She kicked and flailed frantically and tried to scream and got a mouthful of cold, bitter lake. Her foot hit something. She tried to scream again. She was starting to see spots. Beneath her, she pictured the lost oar, sinking in the blackness, not finding a lake bed, just a void.
Then, hand tightened on her arm and she was hauled upwards. Her arm was pressed to the cold, wet side of the overturned kayak and she used it to drag herself up, screaming and coughing and spitting and crying.
B’s hands were on her shoulders and arms and he was saying something. He was telling her to kick her legs and hold on. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” He was crying.
Naomi gripped the side of the kayak and pictured the oar beneath her. She was shivering so hard, her teeth chattered. Who knew water could be so freezing on such a sweltering day?! She coughed up more water. Her mouth tasted bitter and disgusting. Bile rose in her throat.
“I’m so sorry, Naomi!” B was pleading. He was swimming fine, one of his hands on her back and the other on her arm, keeping her steady. His bun had come undone and loose curls ran down his neck and cheeks like rivulets of water. The water bugs buzzed around them, walking on the lake, and in the chaos, Naomi caught sight of a dragonfly-just as natural on the water as B was and almost as pretty. “Look, I’ll fix this, I’ll fix it!”
Naomi sobbed and clung to the kayak.
B let Naomi hold onto his neck and kick her legs as he tried to flip the kayak. It took one or two tries and they both nearly went down a few times, but finally, the kayak was back around, sloshing with water and moss. Naomi managed to climb back in with B’s help, shivering and crying.
A few minutes later, someone found them and came out to help,
On land in the mess hall, Naomi sat bundled in blankets. She was a veritable blanket mountain, but she still trembled. B was currently being shoved out of the kitchen and he crossed the room and joined her. He was his own blanket mountain as he plopped down next to her.
“I tried to say they should give us extra smores because we nearly died, but they said no,” he said.
“It’s okay,” Naomi said. They sat in blanket mountain silence for a few minutes, both shivering hard. “I’m sorry I got us stranded,” she finally added. B looked down.
“No, I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry I rocked the boat. I, actually-I’m sorry that you had to come with me at all.” He shrunk a little. She followed his pretty brown eyes down to the floor. Was it cheesy to say his eyes were deeper than the lake to her? She was an oar getting lost in them.
Yeah, that was cheesy to say.
“The truth is,” B said. “I asked the boss to send us out there together. So I’m the reason you got dunked.”
“What?” Naomi said. “Why??”
B shrugged. He made a circle in the dirt on the cement floors with his bare foot.
“You saved that cockroach.” He shrugged again weakly, like this was an explanation in itself. “I wanted to talk to you without, I dunno, weirding you out.”
“You like cockroaches that much?”
He laughed a little and finally looked back up at her. His mouth formed an impishly shaped smile. In her mind's eye, she could still see the lake behind him, the dragonflies and water bugs, wild. Walking on water like they were magic, like nothing could control them.
“I guess so,” he said. “Are you mad at me for making you go out there and get dunked?”
Naomi thought about this for a moment and then shook her head.
“No,” she said. “Not as long as you’re not mad at me for losing both our oars.” He laughed. “I am glad you saved me, though.”
“Aw, Naomi,” B said. His smile grew. “Saving you is easy!” Naomi smiled back a little, tickled.
“Beyond!” Someone called out across the mess hall and B’s head snapped up. Ah, Beyond, that was his name. She’d been right about the B. What a pretty, if not unusual name.
A group of kids yelled to him, chatting, and he yelled back, and Naomi thought about the bugs she'd seen skimming the water at the lake. She thought about how they didn't sink. They didn't need to be saved.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
i’m going to be too busy and dead inside to post next week, i’m sorry y’al!!!
Fire Fight
Chapter 4: One Missed Call
Chapter Summary: Human technology is quite the marvel. He remembers when it could barely do anything, could barely even talk to one another if they lived too far away, and now they could talk in an instant. Cell phones are exciting, and fascinating, and cameras...!
