Duty – An Allen x Lenalee One-Shot
Warnings: I dropped the f-bomb a couple of times so if that offends you, don't read further.
She woke up cold. Bedding had been tucked around her carefully to prevent this, but it was a different kind of warmth that was missing. She held her breath for a moment, counting out angry beats in an attempt to calm down before she went looking.
A pale blur in amongst the trees caught her eye. It wasn't unusual to find him up there. He barely noticed her approach, concentrating on something beyond her mind. His eye was active, scanning the area around them like a hawk searching for a mouse.
"Can I come up?" She wandered over to underneath the branch.
"It's okay, I was just coming down." He did so, climbing a little way before dropping the last few feet. "You should really be asleep. I was just..."
"Being paranoid."
He grinned. "I'm that obvious?" She let go of the anger a little at his rueful smile.
"You should have woken me up if you thought you heard something."
"I didn't really, I was just... better safe than sorry." Something snapped a little inside.
"So you left me there all alone? What if a Noah had come whilst you'd been gone?"
"I trust you enough to take care of yourself! You're strong, I know you can." This was exactly what Lenalee didn't want to hear.
"That's not the point. I don't want to be left alone!" She was aware of how whiny and childish she sounded and hated herself for it.
"You can protect yourself. Others can't. I was just restless that's all. Stop making this more than it is."
"More than it is? What it is is a huge fucking problem! This... this obsession..." She took a breath and let the anger boil up in her throat. "This obsession will be the end of us."
His mouth gaped open, eyes wide and stunned. She relished his hurt for a moment, took it in and used it as a platform for her rage.
"You give everything to them! To the souls of the Akuma, to your dead heroes, to the people you must save. You give yourself to everyone but me! You're so damned selfless." She found herself almost laughing as she spoke. "Always thinking of everyone else, even our enemies get more attention from you than I do."
"All I get is this shadow." Her gesturing hand caught the side of his face. He barely flinched, didn't move, just watched her with those hurt eyes. They infuriated her.
"You're always distant, you're never there. We can't waste our time together like this, get it? We don't have the option of staying innocent in all this. We're the walking dead here. So how's it going to be? You'd rather crawl into my casket and fuck my corpse than spend one whole night in our bed?"
"Or maybe you'd rather screw an Akuma. Is that it?" She taunted, leaning right into his face. "Do you get off on it? Killing those monsters makes you feel better than I do? Maybe I just have to be more of a monster to get your attention." She let her hands roam over him, trying to tease a response from his flesh if not his brain. She could hear his breathing get quicker, although he didn't move. She dropped her hands in disgust.
"Krory loved a monster but at least he cried when he killed her."
For a moment she thought he was going to walk away and her voice caught in her throat. But he stayed, staring at her resolutely like a parent waiting for a child to finish a tantrum. Her shoulders heaved as she tried to get her breath back, regain some composure under the stare that made her feel so ashamed.
She knew it was pathetic, trying to provoke him, trying to get any reaction out of him that wasn't an apology. Right now, she'd take anything rather than an apology. A fight, a screaming match, anything but an apology and that stupid smile, the one he wears when he's hurting her the most because he's got it into his head that he has to bear everything alone. Anything but this infuriating and terrifying silence as he lets her scream it out.
"We could die any day, any moment and yet you'd rather patrol than spend time with me." She bit out the accusation bitterly, sending with it all her memories of waking up alone, of meetings missed in favour of training, of being put on hold until the missions were over. "I can't wait for the war to be over. I can't. I don't even know if we'll get to see the end of it and I'm tired of putting this off. Maybe it would just be easier if I thought of you as dead already."
An explosion shook her stance and rumbled through the earth around them. She turned to see the violet glow of Akuma fire across the valley, lighting the clouds from underneath and silhouetting a dozen flying shapes against them. She suddenly became aware of the tears streaming down her face and tried to brush them away as she activated her Innocence with a choked whisper. Allen hadn't moved at all, completely stationary bar the roving of his eye. She wasn't sure what she wanted at this point. Some gesture of affection? Some reassurance that everything would be alright? She knew when she turned around again he wouldn't really be there anyway. There'd be a man in a mask who looked like him, and smelled like him and talked like him, but smiled like somebody else. Steeling herself she turned to the man she hated to love.
She allowed herself one mocking smile to seal away the tears.
"Duty calls."
A/N: Wow, so this one took a long time. I'm not sure how I feel about it at the moment, it's got some flaws that are biting at me but it's good to see it finished. I mostly used it as an exercise to write a Lenalee who isn't a personality-less pair of legs but I'm not sure she could ever be as... this... as this... I don't want to call her selfish but I guess it kinda is. Thanks to Kuro666 for the prompt.