Disclaimer: Thanks for inventing beyblade, Mr. Aoki Takao. If you want this, it's yours. I claim nothing but the right to fan it up all over the place.

Grip like Vice

By Dixon Oriole

Bryan knew Tala didn't approve, and didn't want him leaving the room alone, and didn't want him getting into situations like this where there'd be a whiff of White Tiger blowing down the hall because it'd make him go absolutely berserk and Tala didn't approve of that, and Tala thought he knew how to manipulate Bryan but Bryan knew better. Bryan was as smart as Tala was, except he just had a bit of a different education, and he knew how to bide his time even if he didn't act that way, and Bryan knew how to get out of their locker room and out of Spencer's sight if he wanted to, and he'd go find the White Tigers if he wanted to, and there was nothing anybody could do about it.

Sometimes there wasn't even anything Bryan could do about it. He caught that scent, sweat, dirt, spice and open air, nothing like anything else in the world except sometimes he'd imagine it in groups of strangers, strange girls with long black hair, but really nothing just like anything in Bryan's memory except that one, except that one memory. Black hair tumbling, white clothes fraying, golden eyes bright with pain then shut tight, muscles that strained 'til aching and gave out and feet that tripped. Bodies that fell. The sound of a body falling. A throat that didn't want to scream but had to. Green electricity from a beyblade that was ripped apart. Skin that ripped apart. Then stood back up.

He caught the familiar scent and it wasn't a matter of Tala, or willpower. It wasn't a matter of Spencer's watchful eyes or even Kai, who wouldn't have approved but who gave a fuck about Kai. Who gave a fuck about Tala and Spencer. Or even Ian back home taking care of more important things, like what if Boris won, like if they didn't come back, what then. There were more important things than fail-safes. More important things than preparing to face Boris and not like he'd get any practice anyway because Kai was always in the way.

Bryan was bored and could do what he wanted and there were more important things. Maybe not logically or overall, but immediately, and overwhelmingly. Rei's laughter behind the door, namely. Bryan smiled, mouth flooding with saliva. Almost flooding with bile he was so happy.

Spencer hadn't apologized, but then feeling guilty wasn't his strength. He just said it like a fact, not even necessarily unfortunate. Leaving the assignment of meaning and emotional connotation for Tala to deal with. Even if Spencer should be sorry he probably still wouldn't apologize. That wouldn't have made Tala happy. What would have made Tala happy was perfection. Spencer wasn't necessarily perfect but he took things in stride, one stride behind Tala, waited for Tala to take a step and he'd follow or go ahead if Tala gave him a direction in which to head. Then he'd keep going that way until Tala told him to stop. "Bryan is gone," Spencer said. Just a fact, when Tala walked into the locker room.

Tala stopped in the door and stared at Spencer's face. Glanced around to make sure Kai wasn't there. "When did he leave?"

"Ten minutes ago."

Tala swore. Ten minutes was plenty of time for Bryan to figure out where Rei was. Could be he was after anyone anonymous to terrorize; he'd get a kick out of Tyson, that was for sure, but there was something of a track record, and earlier in the day they'd passed the White Tigers in the hall and Bryan had been enraptured. Particularly when he tripped Mariah and she went spilling across the floor and Rei didn't let any of his team react. Just picked them up and hurried on, snapping at them cruelly until their faces ready to pull and middle fingers ready to flash fell still and they followed their captain almost cringing.

It had been at once an awesome display of Rei's self-control and fear. And stupidity, and exactly the wrong way to act, which Tala now cursed. Honestly, if Rei just stood there and let Bryan brutalize him and made it as boring for him as possible, and, just, stayed down when he got knocked down, maybe the entire thing would blow over. It seemed like common sense in Tala's world that Rei sorely lacked. In any case now, running off like that, all tempting in a scurry, Rei was a prey animal Bryan hadn't yet caught. The kind of thing Bryan loved and couldn't stand and had been thinking of, acting out on for a long time at the expense of Tala's nerves and the male-to-female ratio in Moscow's bars. Rei really couldn't have been sexier if he'd screamed.

Tala turned around and headed back out into the pale blue corridors of the first stadium of the world championship tournament. They had a fight tomorrow and needed to be practicing. Teams were getting used to the set-up of the dishes and strategizing the lineup, if they were smart. True, not that much strategizing was necessary (or even particularly possible) with chronic truant Kai on one's team, but they might as well have gone through the motions. It'd keep Tala's mind off Boris. And there was the report from Ian to hear and— He just didn't need Bryan complicating matters.

"Spencer, don't tell Kai anything," Tala ordered, not bothering to look back and confirm the nod, because even if Spencer wasn't perfect and Kai showed up on his heels, Tala might've been able to use the backup anyhow. And if Kai beat up Bryan when they found him, well, fine then, Bryan would deserve it, the reckless ass. And if Bryan beat up Kai, he'd deserve it too for always undermining Tala's authority. And they'd both be easier to contain if they broke each other's kneecaps. And if they were too late and by the time they got there Rei was already dead or worse, fine, because Rei had been an everloving pain in Tala's ass for the past three years.

The idea of Kai and Bryan mauling one another over the twitching body of Rei Kon kept Tala sane for the next five minutes, because everyone involved in that image, as far as he was concerned, deserved what they got.

But in the end Tala knew there really wasn't justice. It was the result, after all, of a month ago when he sat on the second floor of their shabby house-turned-fort watching the security monitors for unauthorized movement and Bryan's return, and Bryan returned not alone, and Tala's blood heated and he dived into the hall, desk chair sent spinning, and flew down the stairs and crashed against the front door, eye at the peephole. Looked out at Bryan with teeth on one girl, right hand on another, left hand stabbing at the security panel, but Tala had just changed the code five minutes ago in a burst of inspiration because he'd expected this.

When the code didn't work, beeping flat denial, Bryan removed his right hand from the crotch of one girl, straightened away from the other's breasts, and regarded the door. And as though on cue Tala flung it open before him and smilingly let Bryan inside, then smilingly shut it against his company. And on cue Tala then ducked, because Bryan missed the girls and aimed a punch at the back of his head. And Tala jumped backwards and elbowed Bryan in the stomach, driving him into a wall, and Bryan coughed, wrapped his steely hands around Tala's neck, kicked his legs out from under him, and followed him onto the floor. There they punched at each other's kidneys and joints and throats.

Perfectly on cue Spencer clomped down the stairs, stuck big calloused hands into the fray and dragged them apart. Then he dug his fingers into the napes of Tala and Bryan's necks, lifted them a couple inches off the floor, ignored the blows to his sides, and waited. Tala calmed almost immediately. Bryan however had to be beat about the head until he fell still. After a pensive moment, after said beating, Spencer dropped them both back onto the floor and clomped away down the hall.

Tala leaned against the banister frowning. Bryan slumped against the opposite wall smirking a smirk of abject rage. A line of blood trailed down his temple, and Tala's teeth and fingernails had left score marks on his arms. One of Tala's sleeves had been torn. He spat blood onto the gray carpeting that had burned both of their knees. There were bruises on his neck, old and new. There were bruises on all of their limbs. They laughed together for a second and then stopped.

"Let them in," Bryan said, grinning.

"No," Tala cheerfully replied, thinking with disgust about the two raven-haired messes of rumpled silk and wobbly high heels, the mostly drunk, mostly unclothed young ladies whining a sharp pitch on his doorstep. Trapped behind his security code and whatever authority he could still exercise over Bryan.

"Let them in," Bryan repeated, grin widening. "Unless you want to replace them."

Tala knew how that went. He turned his unblushing face to the side, nose in the air that smelled like Bryan's overpowering spicy cologne and from outside the door alcohol and melting snow, fermenting dirt, fresh wet air after rain. Sweat like easy girls who thought it was cool to party with someone famous and probably didn't expect to wind up dead. Maybe thought that'd be exotic anyhow. Drunk easy girls laughing behind the door.

Bryan wasn't drunk. He had it on his breath now warm against Tala's jaw, but that was just for show, because it took hours longer to get him drunk than it took to get already slightly tipsy girls drunk enough to think it was a good idea to go home with him. That took about five minutes. Really only took Bryan leaning somewhere with gray eyes on them, a stare of intent, because they didn't know what Tala knew, that that look was the same one Bryan wore whenever the scientists brought him a new bird to pull the wings off of.

If he opened that door then tomorrow, Tala knew, the blank but calm look would be the same as Bryan's hands covered in feathers and blood.

Bryan liked to be sober and feel as much as possible for these occasions with the wildly beating hearts and shining black eyes of birds that squirmed and the creaking give of hollow ribcages. And silent fear. At the end of the night, because it reminded him of his childhood, Bryan preferred the silent fear to the screaming, or at least the moment of silence before the screaming. He always went for throats.

Tala thought about hate mail he'd have to ignore and all the red tape they'd have to cut, if he opened that door, as Bryan breathed against his neck, teeth against the purpling skin, not closing, just waiting. Just saying, I am in a position to kill you. Chest against Tala's chest in an effort to feel a wildly beating heart. Arms tight around his thinner torso, squeezing to hear the strain of a ribcage. Bryan knew how much force to exert. His grip was like a slowly winding vice. It had the practice of learning the barest movements to cause the barest breaks. Of Sparrows. Of cats and dogs. People.

A girl with long black hair sopping blood half a month ago who Spencer carried away from Bryan's floor over his shoulder, and into Tala's car, and with Ian's help they found a place to dump her. Prostitutes weren't much missed, particularly if they'd wandered beyond the safety of their designated street corners. They arranged what was left of her clothes so she looked like a prostitute. She probably wasn't. The girls squealing insistently on the doorstep probably weren't. Just girls from the university, wandered away from the relative safety of the bars where sometimes men could be decent.

Maybe they thought it was exotic, visiting a house where nobody was decent. Where nobody really regretted not opening their bedroom doors, or the front door, for screaming Russian girls before Bryan stopped them from screaming. Girls who resembled in bad light (and it was always bad light in Bryan's head) certain White Tigers, and almost smelled like them after Bryan's cologne rubbed off and their fear made them sweat, and his window open in all weather, that was like open air. After all it was probably cleaner that way. After all there'd be nobody to talk on the stand. And they'd all been taught about the usefulness of girls.

Tala only regretted the hate mail he had to ignore. The petulant stories and demands of townsfolk who had somehow been violated by Bryan. The brothers or friends or boyfriends of girls with long black hair, probably too scared of direct confrontation but willing to demand monetary compensation. Until Tala ignored them too long and they came knocking and Spencer with the help of Ian straightened them out. Took the car and found some way to arrange the unfortunate body parts until nobody had complaints. Until Bryan wrecked another store window or another nose or another police dog.

They didn't have the money for daily bribes. They had to use that on certain bribes to certain judges, and on Bryan's bail, and on getting Ian what he needed so that with the help of Spencer and certain judges they could make sure certain evidence went missing and Bryan was cleared. They had to spend money on Ian's education so that Ian wouldn't make the same mistakes twice and it would all get cleaner and cleaner.

There was a stipend now for Ian's education because Bryan wrecking things seemed like a never ending problem, lumped in with Tala's stipend for security measures. Next to the stipend for travel to tournaments and groceries and utility bills. Somewhat ahead of groceries and utilities. Because there was a certain urgency the day after Bryan brought girls home that Tala violently regretted.

Tala had been holding his breath for a long time, wrapped in Bryan's unaffectionate arms. This hurt. But this was an empty threat; Bryan had learned about the usefulness of Tala, but at this undrunken moment would prefer the intense stimulus out on the doorstep. Before the screaming and the screaming and when the screaming stopped. He'd learned how Tala didn't scream whether your weapon was a beyblade or a kitchen blade or just your vicing grip, and however you used them, and his eyes weren't ever afraid no matter what you did. Everyone pretty like Tala had long ago learned how to make things boring.

After all they had their self-preservation instincts. Bryan's just didn't coincide with common sense.

"You can't do this today," Tala said with the one breath. He wasn't afraid. He wasn't a girl dripping blood over Spencer's shoulder, ribcage half pulled apart because her heart wasn't wild enough or Bryan couldn't feel it enough. Tala wasn't that long train of girls stuffed into the trunk of his car. He wasn't that long train of boys dragged by their ankles out of Bryan's room in the Abbey. Stuffed into black bags and tossed over the South wall and carted away in refrigerated meat trucks. He wasn't Rei Kon hurrying away down stadium hallways, avoiding eye contact.

Tala wasn't what Bryan wanted in a victim. Other times maybe wanted as something else, but never as a victim.

Bryan knew it and let go, growling, grinding Tala's spine into the sharp edge of the banister for good measure. Leaving him on the floor with white across his vision and numbness in his appendages. Standing above him and demanding with defiance he'd never have attempted before Kai came and started setting a bad example, "Why?"

"We're having company tomorrow," Tala ground out. "They want to make sure you're psychologically fit to attend the tournament." Tala looked coldly up at Bryan. Tried to impart to him the meaning of this, that if Tala opened that door, there would be more than hate mail. They wouldn't have time to remove the blood stains, and it'd be suspicious if Spencer and Ian randomly took off in the car with the trunk bungeed shut over too big a load. It was going to be enough of an issue making sure Kai hung around long enough to show the BBA he was sane. These checks—unfortunate side effect of being from the Abbey. But they'd learned way back with Boris just to smile until the inspectors left, no big deal, then it was back to business.

Tala didn't have time for Bryan to be complicating matters. Spencer and Ian had other things to worry about. Spencer training, Ian planning a resistance front in the event that in the weeks to come Boris kicked their asses and took over the world. Boris, they should have been concentrating on. Also they'd just paid the bills and bribe/bail money was running low. Bryan, Tala forcefully thought, kneading blood flow back into his hands, Have a little common sense for once in your miserable life. Listen to me. "You know, Bry," Tala said to Bryan now at the door rummaging in the security settings, "Rei is going to be at the tournament. Won't it be nice to see him again?"

Bryan stopped.

Tala knew he'd regret that later, but there were more important things than the future. Something you learned fast in the Abbey.

When Tala pile-drove Bryan and they started fist fighting on the floor outside of the White Tigers' locker room, Bryan thought Tala was getting predictable in his old age. And he thought Tala was a poor excuse for what he wanted just then, and Tala didn't know this time what he was getting himself into, and if by chance Tala did know then Tala was going to regret it very much. He thought that if Rei opened the door to see what the commotion was about, he wouldn't move his head out of the way. He thought maybe he'd let the door smack into his head which seemed to be Tala's intention because Tala had him pinned on the floor with his temple in exactly that path, fingers all up in Bryan's pressure points.

The pain was bracing and if he got hit by the door that'd be bracing and get him thinking about things other than a nerve-wracking scent, and writhing there, pounding on Tala with his fists and knees, Bryan thought about what a White Tiger might look like from this angle. He'd never imagined a White Tiger from this angle, where he was on the floor and they were standing by his head and they were inflicting pain and he was in pain, and he'd never wondered whether all this time he'd had it backwards and it was too comforting to get hurt because by virtue of hitting the floor you deserved what happened there and he'd been doing kindness in perpetutating justice where he meant to do… not kindness.

The wondering made Bryan's eyes go intent and a growl form on his vocal chords, but the noise got knocked out of his mouth when the door opened and hit him soundly in the head. His vision disappeared for a second and when he got it back he'd managed to turn his face up again and there was Tala firmly across his stomach and the pale line of Tala's jaw tight but more importantly there were a pair of black shoes, if he looked up, and up and up and up there was Rei Kon looking wide-eyed down at them, frozen in the concerned expression of half a second before when there'd just been an anonymous fight outside of his door.

When the people terrorizing him had been anonymous.

"Rei, why don't you go back inside and shut the door?" Tala said with his hands on Bryan's throat.

"No! Why don't you break this up!" Bryan said, entire body spasming mostly out of defiance for the idea of Rei back behind the door, and he grinned something ghastly up at the teammates peering out in rage and confusion all around him, at the black shoes and tail of the black hair. Chomping up at the air that smelled like them and what was he supposed to do, control himself? Please, he was on the floor getting hurt. Please, this was out of his hands. Out of Tala's hands.

So... in Rei's hands..?

Bryan flailed again, almost upsetting Tala, who swore and hit him so hard Bryan felt one of his teeth loosen. The pain made sense but he didn't like that idea that Rei had things in his hands and he no longer cared to wonder about this angle because if he couldn't— Bryan swiped at one of Rei's ankles, but the 'Tiger backed up in time and his eyebrows knit and Mariah told him to shut the door and told Tala to keep 'that psycho' away from them, and tugged at Rei's arm, and Bryan could have killed her, and Lee looked so red and so ready to get involved but Tala was saying it again, suggesting it but it wasn't a suggestion, "Shut the door and lock it. Put something heavy in front of it."

Bryan threw Tala off, probably howling disagreement at the idea of Rei back behind the door but he couldn't hear around the scream in his ears, a scream he mistook as somebody else's and it was elating but the shining round golden eyes were better, and he flopped over onto hands and knees and was half inside the door when Lee pulled back on Rei and Mariah shrieked and kicked Bryan in the face and slammed the door so fast that it almost cut off his nose.

Bryan leaned there, forehead cool against there, grey eyes searching the linoleum that light changed across as inside some heavy piece of furniture made its way between him and the ribcage he wanted to dig around inside.

There were always too many things between him and Rei's wildly beating heart. There was Tala and Spencer and Kai and even Ian far away doing more important things and Boris on whom he should have concentrated, and there was his forehead, and a door, and a desk, and clothes, and skin, and bones, and the confusion of angles and maybe in the future a restraining order like the one he could hear Mariah yelling about but fuck them all. They'd get out of his way. Who had a choice but get out of the way. It wasn't a matter of choice, or willpower. Bryan spat out a couple pieces of tooth.

"You can't do this today," Tala said, slumped over behind Bryan. Still breathless around the boot print Bryan had left on his stomach.

"Why?"

"Too much hate mail. Too much red tape. This is a tournament and those are his teammates. They know kung fu. Kai is over there staring at us right now."

"Because it'd inconvenience you."

Tala crawled over and leaned against Bryan's back who leaned against the door, and he whispered through the hum in Bryan's ears so approaching-Kai couldn't hear, "You should try and leave a better impression. Maybe then you can get him back home and then you can do whatever you want; I won't care. I'll even make sure Kai isn't around because… fuck Rei, he deserves it. I'll make sure Spencer and Ian leave you alone and then keep it clean later. You can fight and then you can kill him. Whatever; I won't open my door the entire time he's screaming."

Bryan looked askance at Tala, who looked askance back. No fear, but nothing else either; boring impenetrable silence eyes supposing they could manipulate Bryan but Bryan knew better. He knew if he wanted to, he could get in there. Get into that ribcage. It was his education and what he was taught to do. Tala's education was saying words low and toneless and nonchalant as though certain, until other people believed things about themselves and their situation that they hadn't before, going on, "I know you don't want to be interrupted."

Tala's education was lowering his eyelashes and remaining in control. "I don't want you to be inconvenienced. All these people, all this security, one big barrier. This door, it's nothing, but you should let Rei stay on that side of it for now, otherwise he'll never let you in. I know you're patient even though you don't act like it, and I know you want in, and you want it to be right." At once alluring and imperious and exactly the right thing to say, because Tala was no kind of victim when he didn't say no and when he pretended to be in control, and that was better because he wasn't necessary to Bryan as a victim. He was necessary for other reasons. He didn't want to be anyone's replacement and his silent eyes were no kind of bird's.

So no whining about not enough bail money. No weakness, or at least fake it 'til you make it.

Something learned fast in the Abbey.

"You've practiced for so long," Tala said, lifting Bryan's right hand and stabbing at the pressure point between his thumb and pointer, sending waves of illuminating, shushing pain into the usual noisy hazy mind. Clearing all the cobwebs out of the way of his words. Poor man's shock therapy. "Don't waste it all now. You deserve to be perfect."

Bryan leaned back into the crook of Tala's arm. Tongued the shattered remnants of a lower molar, loosening a couple more shards. Spitting them and some blood onto the floor where Rei might find it and know he was being thought of. Bryan felt momentarily appeased. Not quite as blank or calm as he'd have been with blood and feathers on his hands, but what could you do. There wasn't always the necessary pool of black-haired girls to draw on.

Kai reached them and Tala lifted Bryan to his feet and laughing together, only this time in their heads, they walked away down the hall with their teeth and hands on each other, not closing anywhere, just waiting over purpling flesh. In position to kill or carry one another. Kai stood there longer regarding the door and blood in steady suspicion. Tala knew he'd regret it later, but who cared about the future. Fuck Kai and himself and everybody regretting shit in the future. In the future they could all very well be dead and Boris could own the world.

If they weren't killed, then Rei would regret what Tala had done there, in telling him not to stand up and be brutalized so everything could blow over. Rei would regret listening and running away and Rei would regret what he'd done to them for three years by virtue of existing. But fuck everything. Fuck Rei. What mattered was now, and right now keeping Bryan out of jail.

He'd deserve it anyhow. And who knew, maybe your ribcage open and a hand on your heart felt pretty exotic.

END

A/N: Seeing as everybody does survive, this does not bode well for poor Rei.

It originally started with the third section and had no mention of tigers, but, being who I am, I had to contaminate everything with effing BladeBreakers. Because they butt right in. Bryan bringing chicks home then killing them is an old idea in my head; making them resemble Rei was just convenient. But I hope it worked out and still kind of kept its focus. If it ever... had one. Um. So, because feather-duster, I adore you, and I heard a rumor that you like Bryan and Tala and implications that they're doing it, so this is for you. Sorry I had to complicate such a simple (and delicious) idea with the effing BladeBreakers, but it is my way, and maybe in retrospect I was using your bouncing. Don't have much practice with Bryan. Am just of the fundamentalist school of thought wherein Bryan is batshit crazy, particularly when he smiles, and Tala does not have a heart, particularly when he acts as though he has. Hopefully the spotlight stayed where it was meant to anyhow. And no worries, the next one coming up for you will be pure BEGA, mrar! 333

Me going back in time like this is rare; I don't like having to juggle what's happened in the past and the future when I could more easily only juggle the past (would that even be juggling? Don't you need at least two things?). But doing what's uncomfortable... nehh, it's worth it. I hear challenging yoself is the quickest way to learn. Even if you do come up with disturbing stuff like this! And man, yeesh, sometimes I scare myself. If there's spelling errors let me know.

Thanks for reading, guys! Love and cupcakes!