Prompt: Exploring Beyond Birthday’s relationship with A
Author’s Notes: It was so much fun to write a fic from B’s perspective! Hope you enjoy him being a rambunctious little scamp <3
On his eighth birthday, Beyond meets an angel.
What a pointless occasion, birthdays. As far as Beyond is concerned, they’re just an excuse for Mrs. Everett to cluck and fuss over him like a chicken with its head cut off while she tames his hair with noxious sprays and stuffs him into an ill-fitted suit. She won’t call him by the right name, either; whenever she addresses him it’s always “look at the mess you’ve made, Balor” and “stop pulling on Cassidy’s braids, Balor,” never the name he sees in the mirror. Everyone has them: names, first, middle, and last, scribbled in a sickly orange glow, floating above their heads; but no one else seems to notice. The names are almost always accompanied by numbers. Beyond isn’t sure what the numbers mean. They might be days, months, years, or even some bizarre fibonacci sequence. But although he sees his true name–Beyond Birthday–hovering above his reflection, there are no crooked numbers glowing beneath it.
The presents are halfway decent, but hardly memorable. An assortment of various marbles and a letter from Quillish Wammy himself sit on the shelf over his bed, collecting dust. At least Timothy Jenkins had the decency to give him something interesting–the chipped molar he lost in a rugby match with one of the older boys.
Sometimes Beyond regrets pushing his old roommate down the stairs. But then again, Timothy shouldn’t have stolen his most precious keepsake. It’s a shame, really, they had gotten along so well. Perhaps nursing a broken arm will teach the fool some much needed discipline.
Now that he’s been reassigned to the attic, Beyond hardly gets any opportunity to spy on the others. What is he supposed to do all day if he can’t continue his reign of terror as king of mean-spirited pranks? Lessons are a bore and mealtime is a chore. He could always pester L with a torrent of questions about the latest case he’s solved, it’s certainly a tempting idea. But the deafening thunder of footsteps pacing back and forth from the next room over tells him that the detective is in a particularly foul mood, and Beyond isn’t eager to take the brunt of his wrath. Narrowly avoiding the creaky wooden plank just to the right of the door, he crawls along the hallway to the base of a vent, unable to care less as his sleeves collect dust and dirt.
Through the grate, he can see two of the older kids snogging. They’re slobbering all over themselves and it looks like they’re biting each other’s faces off, so it’s hard to tell for sure if it’s anyone he knows. A bright green ponytail swinging furiously from side to side–maybe Ramona?–a flash of teeth and tongues trying in vain to devour one another, it’s enough to make Beyond taste bile.
What is it about puberty that rots away one’s brain? When it comes for him, all done up in scrubs and carrying a skyscraper-sized needle filled with teenage hormones and the side effect of stupidity, Beyond won’t go quietly.
That being said, he has a morbid fascination with love. It’s never made sense to him, not once in his admittedly short life. What is it about love that strips people down so completely that they become unrecognizable? He never was much for birthday wishes, although he might indulge if it’d get him the answer to that question. It’s an interesting thought, but Beyond doesn’t believe in magic. He doesn’t believe in God, either. And on the worst days? He doesn’t believe in humans.
He’s about to slink down the stairs and sneak into the kitchen–if he’s lucky, there will be plenty of lonely leftover cream puffs in the pantry begging to be eaten–when the sound of a car door opening snags his ear. Peeking out front through the boarded up window, Beyond catches a shock of red curls before the head they belong to moves out of sight.
Beyond makes it to the grand hall before the resident maid grabs him by the scruff and drags him to Roger’s office for the fifth time this week. But the usual threat of discipline isn’t enough to cow him into submission, so Roger tasks him with babysitting the new boy.
“Show him to his room, then report back here. I’ll have Miss Ritter–” interesting, he’d never bothered to learn the maid’s name– “escort you to your living quarters where you will stay for the rest of the day. And if I hear about any more detours to the kitchen or basement, rest assured the consequences will be far worse than you can imagine.”
So he suppresses a scowl and heads to the great hall in order to collect Wammy House’s latest conquest. A familiar shock of red hair greets him at the foot of the stairs, this time attached to big eyes only made bigger by a pair of brown glasses. Over the newbie’s head, written in phantom blood, is the name Allistair Graves, accompanied by the number 090502. Beyond greets the newbie with a Cheshire smile and delights in the way those eyes–brilliant emeralds absorbing all light from the room–grow to the size of saucers at the sight of him.
Oh, this one will be so much fun.
“Hey, Al,” he drawls, brushing his matted bangs away from his face, hand still greasy from icing. “Can I call you Al? ‘Allistair’ is kind of a mouthful.”
Allistair opens and clothes his mouth, but no words come out.
“Right then.” Beyond leans forward, clasping the boy’s bony hand in his own. The boy’s grip is limp, a dead fish slipping through his fingers.
“Love to stick around and chat, but I’m here to take you to your room, so follow me. And make sure to keep up, won’t you?”
Beyond might be stuck in his room for the rest of the day, but Roger never said anything about night.
When he crawls through the vents to Allistair’s room, he finds the boy huddled in the farthest corner, knees pressed to his chest, hands covering his eyes as if that will make the world disappear into thin air. He chuckles, a low sound walking the edge of a knife, and closes the gap between them.
“Man, you’re tricky to find. D’you know how many fuckin’ air filters I had to tear through?” Pointedly, Beyond jerks his head violently, shaking off a coat of grimy lint.
But his vice grip on his conscience starts to waver when the boy opens his mouth and a chorus of sunbeams flutters out, each heavenly syllable punctuated by the dip and sway of a persistent stutter.
“Please d-d-don’t h-hurt me!”
Beyond tilts his head and crouches down to eye level, studying Allistair up close. He’s trembling hard enough that his hands slip off of his sweaty face.
“Now why would I wanna do that?”
The boy’s pupils dilate and contract rapidly as he searches the room for a way out. Beyond clicks his tongue and places a steadying hand on his shoulder, eyes narrowing when the boy groans, pain breaking through his frantic expression.
“Who did this to you?”
It comes out sharper than Beyond intends, and he winces at his own lack of tact. He tries to lather his next words in honey.
“Promise I’m not gonna get you in trouble or nothin.’ But I guess you don’t have to tell me. Can you lemme see?” When he gets a look of suspicion in return, it takes every ounce of willpower in his body not to roll his eyes. “Can’t help you out if I don’t know how bad it is.”
Beyond pulls the first aid kit out from under the bed and gets to work. It’s not too long before the kid starts talking. Sure, he stumbles over his h’s, b’s, and d’s, but they get there eventually. Al loves bugs. He has a particular fondness for those with wings: crickets, butterflies, moths, you name it. But his favorites are fireflies.
“They look so pretty wh-when they dance in the grass,” Al twitters, air whistling through the gap in his two front teeth. “I can sh-sh-show you the b-best place to find them if you want, B-Bee.”
Beyond smiles. “I’d like that.”
…
On his twentieth birthday, Beyond learns what the numbers mean. As they rove over Al’s broken body, the cursed eyes he was born with rip away the last piece of his humanity.
It’s almost summer, but there’s not a firefly in sight.
