A/N: Hello! Have a very-very-very late Christmas story! *cheerful smile* *twitch*
Title: Pine Trees and Fairy Lights
Author: liketolaugh
Rating: K+
Pairings: None
Genre: Friendship
Warnings: None
Summary: Years after the end of the Holy War, Allen, Lenalee, Lavi, and Kanda decorate their house for Christmas.
Disclaimer: Like hell I own D. Gray-man.
"How the fuck?!"
"For once, I agree with you," Allen mumbled.
Kanda and Allen knelt across from each other, a massive tangle of christmas lights set between them, staring at it as if it held the secrets of the universe, having been tasked with lighting the ten foot Christmas tree that dominated the living room. At the coffee table, Lavi was wrapping presents (as he was the only one with the patience for it) and Lenalee, with her Boots activated, was covering the interior of the two-story house with gratuitous garlands, wreaths, and bells.
It wasn't entirely clear to any of them how they'd started living together. After the war, everyone had scattered - the exorcists, the finders, the scientists went all over the world, and the four of them were no exception.
Komui and Lenalee had gone briefly back to China before moving on to help the restoration in Japan when Lenalee was nineteen, and then finally moving to London when she was twenty, where they'd stayed for the next two years.
Lavi had travelled with Bookman for two more years, visiting the other exorcists with increasing frequency, before finally leaving - something he'd never explicitly explained to them - to stay suspiciously close to the Lees' until Komui finally invited him to stay, under threat of death if he ever touched Lenalee.
Kanda had dropped completely off the map for the first year, nearly driving everyone into a collective panic attack, before reappearing abruptly to help out in Japan until he heard something and moved to London, where he visited Komui and Lenalee every month, every week, every day, and eventually never left.
Allen, like Kanda, travelled, and unlike Kanda, never lost contact with anyone ever. Like Lavi, he dropped by the other exorcists' homes suspiciously often, and unlike Lavi, never stayed for more than a few days. It wasn't until he turned twenty that Lenalee put her foot down and told him flat-out that he was staying with them or she would stalk him until he settled down.
He'd given in unexpectedly easily.
For a while, they'd stayed like that, just the five of them in that one two-story house. Kanda and Allen shared a bedroom - that was a disaster sometimes, albeit a hilarious one, and even the arguments slowed after a while as they ran out of new things to say. Komui and Lavi shared one, too, and Lavi would make dramatic faces whenever anyone mentioned it. (Lenalee, of course got her own.)
And then one day, Komui moved out, and it was just the four of them.
"Lavi, it doesn't need that much tape!" Lenalee scolded, hovering by the top of the staircase, looking over her shoulder to glare halfheartedly at Lavi.
Lavi quickly removed his hands from the present he was wrapping and laced them behind his head to give her an innocent smile. Since his fingers were covered in tape, that left him with tape in his hair and all tangled up over his hands. "Hey, I'm not doing nothing," he declared, grinning at her, and then noticed his predicament. "Dammit!"
"Shut up!" Kanda ordered them both. "How the fuck do you light a tree?"
"What, are you telling me you can't figure it out, Yuu?" Lavi returned, grinning even as he struggled to extract his fingers from the tape and his hair.
"Shut up!" Kanda repeated, crossing his arms and huffing like a child.
"Neither of you?" Lavi continued, more gleeful by the moment. Lenalee sighed at all of them and turned away to consider the bells hung around a high-up window.
"I never said we couldn't figure it out," Allen said resentfully, frowning at the tangle of lights. Finally, he reached for one of the strings and started to untangle it, slow and careful. With a sigh, Kanda followed suit, though it was clear he'd rather cut the knotted pile open with Mugen.
"This is your fault," he accused Lavi, who waved his arms in vigorous protest.
"Hey, hey! Lenalee wanted to decorate the house! Not me!"
"And we will," Lenalee said severely without looking at them. Satisfied with the uppermost parts of the house, she landed on the wooden floor with a clatter and deactivated her Boots, then whirled on them with a slightly tired grin. "Come on, it's Christmas. You know what Christmas means."
Because it was a religious holiday, the Order had been allowed by Central to celebrate it. The restrictions had been pretty strict - decorations, for instance, were kept to a bare minimum because they were 'wasteful' - but the exorcists had had fun anyway. It was Lenalee's favorite holiday.
"Allen's birthday?" Lavi wondered, playing dumb. Allen smiled.
"That too," he agreed. "Look, BaKanda, let's just weave the lights around the branches. That should work, right?"
"Whatever," Kanda muttered, and, working together in surprisingly natural tandem (considering how much they fought), the two of them started to weave the Christmas lights into the branches of the tall, proud fir tree.
"See, is that so hard?" Lenalee asked. "Allen, should the cider be ready now?"
"Sure," Allen said distractedly, taking the string from Kanda and passing it back around. He took a breath, considered for a moment, and then nodded more decisively. "Yes, definitely."
"Then I'll bring some out," Lenalee smiled, turning and heading to the cupboards. She took a few mugs out, set them on the counter, and then, carefully, ladled a generous measure into each one.
"You're the greatest, most amazing, most wonderful-" Lavi started, beaming at her as she brought them out, and Lenalee kicked him the shin. "Ow! I take it back, you're almost as bad as Kanda!"
"Only to you," Lenalee said serenely, a mischievous glint in her eyes as she watched him clutch dramatically at his shin and whine. "Allen, Kanda, I know you want to finish, but the cider'll be cold before you're done at this rate."
"Well, we can't have that," Allen smiled, and Kanda was left to curse as Allen dropped his end of the string of lights.
"Can't you finish anything, beansprout?" Kanda demanded, but he dropped the lights as well and stormed over to the table, slumping into a wooden, straight-backed chair and ungraciously taking a mug of apple cider from Lenalee. He swung it back and choked. "Goddamn that's hot!"
"You don't gulp cider, Kanda," Lenalee chided, smiling despite herself. He grumbled before taking a much calmer sip, which still sort of resembled a gulp, and then wrinkled his nose and scowled.
"I told you it was too sweet, beansprout!"
"Only to you, because you have the taste of a termite nest," Allen sniped, and Lavi grinned and slapped Allen on the shoulder.
"Don't listen to him, sprout! It's good." He took a big gulp himself and cursed as he burned his tongue and his throat, and then cursed again as he managed to splash a good measure of hot cider over his hand and chest. "Ow!"
Lenalee sighed.
Kanda started to yell at Lavi about being a clumsy oaf, and Allen opted to ignore both of them and asked Lenalee, "Did Angelina make it to class yesterday?"
"No," Lenalee sighed, swirling her cider in her mug. "Poor girl's been sick for a week, but you know how she is. She'll catch up just fine."
"She's a very smart girl," Allen smiled. "I'm glad you can do something for them."
Lenalee smiled and nodded in agreement; she hadn't gotten much education from the Order, but it was more than the average girl received, and it was nice to be able to pass that along to others.
"I need to borrow some books for them," Lenalee remembered suddenly, and then, to Lavi, "Lavi, I need to borrow some books for the girls."
"Anytime, Lenalady," Lavi said automatically, still licking at the cider on his hand. Then he paused and looked over, faintly startled. "Wait, you're finished with the last ones already?"
"Not quite," Lenalee admitted. "Supplemental materials. We can talk about it tomorrow, it's just that I remembered just now."
"Alright," Lavi said agreeably. "How about you, Yuu? Need some books about metalworking? Fire? The history of the profession?"
"Fuck you," Kanda said automatically, scowling. Lavi hadn't stopped teasing him about being apprenticed to the local blacksmith since he'd gotten the position. "Not all of us got training that was actually useful for jobs besides killing things."
A short, awkward silence fell over the room, and all of them paused in place, suddenly uncomfortable. Then Allen finished his cider and stood up.
"Kanda, let's finish lighting the tree, shall we?" he asked politely, with a dangerous, irked smile. "I think we should finish lighting the tree."
With uncharacteristic silence, Kanda stood up and moved to the proud fir, and within ten minutes, the uncomfortable quiet had cleared away, and they were laughing again. By the time half an hour had passed, the tree was lit, and Lenalee was beside it with the first box of ornaments.
"Time for the next step," she smiled, and Lavi came with the second, grinning broadly.
"And we won't smash anything this time!"
"Dream the fuck on," Kanda muttered.
So it was a little rough, but... *dismissive wave* I think it's alright. Thanks for reading, and please review!