A/N: Takes place throughout canon and is mostly lore-complaint. Has some sexual themes but nothing explicit, and the cursing is relatively contained. Wrote this while listening to Alice in Chains Unplugged, so, take that as a cue to the tone of the piece.
Let's Call This A Love Story
Kanda had met the real Lavi exactly once. They were both seventeen, dispatched to a village of less than 100 in the middle of the Russian tundra. Bookman had been injured and stayed behind, leaving his apprentice to roam at large with the Order's most ill-tempered Exorcist in the frost-covered nowhere. They fought waves of level 1 akuma and combed the anorexic soil for Innocence. When it was apparent the former had all been killed and the latter was simply erroneous info Kanda got angry. He started sending Hell's Insects into the arctic moss, letting them wreak havoc on the already sparse vegetation. Lavi watched, calm, quiet, Iron Hammer a comfortable size resting beside him. It was the first time Kanda realized the redheaded boy, man, was more than what he seemed. Was nothing like what he seemed. That explained a lot of things, and Kanda, after thoroughly wrecking the landscape, was too wound up to reflect more on what he deemed a welcoming change.
It was also the only time Lavi stopped calling him "Yu" and used his surname instead. They returned to the cabin they were staying at, away from the village to save it from potential akuma attacks. Perhaps it was the complete isolation and the distinct lack of his master's presence that spurred the revelation. Kanda didn't care to guess. When evening came and Kanda began to stoke the fire in their pitiful stove it suddenly occurred to him just how quiet Lavi had been. He made a jab of possibly using Iron Hammer's Fire Seal to save them some time, and the only response he got was a half-hearted chuckle and absolutely zero retort.
He got suspicious and tried other known tactics. A few badly chosen starters later Lavi stopped what he was doing, looked at him straight in the eye, and said: "Kanda, there's no one else here. Let's just take it as it is, hmm?"
Kanda didn't understand. He said so, and Lavi smiled, a soft and genuine one that reached his eye. "Aren't you tired?" the redhead asked, the question a statement. "Because I certainly am."
"Tired of what?" Kanda frowned.
The resulting look Lavi gave him was deeper than the still waters of an abyss.
"Me."
Later that night they lay in their respective beds, backs to each other but both wide awake. Lavi said less than a dozen words after that last exchange, and Kanda found it strangely unsettling. It seemed that a new person had taken over who he had thought was a perpetual leech, loud and annoying and a constant thorn in his side. He didn't know what to think of this Lavi, this familiar stranger that oddly fitted with his temperament much better than anyone else currently in the Order. He didn't react to Kanda, or rather, his reaction was a lack there of that surprisingly took all the fire and fight out of the swordsman. As they lay there Kanda found himself turning around, eyes scrutinizing the shock of red hair as he listened to Lavi's breathing, and realized that it wasn't just his mind that was intrigued.
When dawn broke and Kanda was slowly drifting into semi-consciousness he heard Lavi get up. He half-opened his eyes, watch the face devoid of any embellishment loom closer. It was the first time he had seen Lavi's right side – an eye filmed over with white with a small scar on the socket. In the weak morning light Kanda saw the redhead approach, and then he was on top of him, pushing him down and grinding him into the creaking bed. Their lips clashed and tongues entwined and the shared puffs of breath formed a mist in the cold morning air.
Their kiss grew from heated to passionate to frantic and deep. Soon Kanda's hands were inside Lavi's shirt and the redhead was sucking on the pulse of his neck. It was way too cold to get completely naked, even under the covers, so they didn't, and just worked around the cumbersome clothes. No villager would voluntarily go within ten miles of the cabin, and the Finders weren't due to arrive for another two days. So they didn't hold back on the noises they were making, there in the small echoing cabin. Kanda found Lavi's moans entirely too arousing so he tried to shut him up with his own hand, which only worked against his intent as Lavi's biting of his fingers was infinitely worse.
The two days passed in a whirl of sex and afterglow and utter lack of conversation. Kanda had never experienced something like it before. All of his relationships – real or imagined – had always consisted of people never letting him be, dragging his metaphorical self out of his nonexistent shell to parse out what they judged as his true emotions. It was exasperating as Kanda had never hidden his intentions, was horrendously bad at it, in fact. But obviously his delivery was flawed, wrongly put together somehow, for so many to misunderstand. Alma had come close, very close, except their story was dead before it could even begin.
But Lavi – could he still be called that? – this Lavi, listened. Truly listened and responded and let it be. Let them be. He took Kanda in and gave himself back, and they became just that, halves bursting from the pretense and loneliness and hate and love. It was a fine, brittle, ephemeral thing, out here on the frozen Russian tundra. Afterwards Kanda would lie on the rumpled sheets, Mugen in hand, and watch Lavi perch in the chair opposite him and stare out the lone window for hours on end. He couldn't tell anything from the redhead's expression, not a single damn sentiment, and he was perfectly alright with it. If something was important Lavi would tell him, and vice versa, because they had no lies or barriers between them now, just a calmness enveloping their individual hearts and a growing, shared understanding that neither could express when there were other people in the way.
The Finders came to pick them up at the designated time. Kanda knew it was over the minute Lavi put back on his eyepatch and that cheesy, trademark grin. His movements became exaggerated and his mouth started running again, and Kanda responded accordingly. Everything had reverted back except Kanda now had a secret to protect, one that wasn't his and weighed on him like the final nail of a coffin. So he lashed out more than usual and Mugen came down every time the redhead spoke his given name. When they'd returned to Headquarters their relationship morphed into something more casual but less congruent, which Kanda was ok with, because it meant Lavi still get to touch him and he still get to have Lavi in a pale imitation, and that was the best they could do.
Kanda never saw the Lavi from the cabin again. Not even when they were together, because this Lavi was the fiery passionate one who tried to kiss him in a friendly, happy manner. The days blended into one another as they separated, regrouped, separated again. Kanda reunited with his past and the Bookman apprentice started to become the real Bookman. The loss was inevitable. Kanda understood.
But he wanted. He wanted so badly it was messing with his ability to be curt and cold and temperamental. Sooner or later, he knew, it would be too transparent for others not to notice. Yet the Bookman credo was rigid and absolute, as immutable as Kanda's own demise. There was nothing Kanda could do to break the momentum. He watched Lavi drift further from his loudmouthed persona as his training approached its conclusion, donning the mantel of Bookman Junior and sealing his heart into the self-imposed box he had constructed. Bookman was as stoic as always but Kanda could see the quiet jubilation the old man felt. He now had a successful heir, and the clan could carry on their burden for history. Joy of all joys for the great invisible hand, yes?
Kanda was pissed. Beyond pissed. He was livid and resentful but time continued on without his input. A date was set for the ceremony. It was supposed to be a very closely guarded secret but Kanda found out anyway. (He now owed both Noise Marie and Miranda Lotto huge favors but not asking was not an option.) The Bookmen were going to one of their clan's few meeting spots under the guise of a mission. It was his last chance.
He stalked down Lavi that night and the redhead followed him without protest. If he had suspected Kanda he didn't show it. Soon they were in Kanda's room and Lavi moved to embrace him but the swordsman just put Mugen on his slender throat and said, "Come with me."
"Yu! Wha -?"
"Don't say my name like that."
The redhead clammed up at his choice of words. Kanda knew the man was starting to realize, but didn't give him time to think or react as they marched down the hall back toward the room Bookman and Junior shared. Some people gave them weird looks but most were too used to their antics to question. He saw Lavi visibly blanch when they approached his destination. Kanda smirked, then pushed past the imposing door, to the adjacent one further down the hall. It was supposed to house two Finders but he had managed to convince them to vacate for the night with some nicely delivered threats.
It also shared a very thin wall with Bookman's quarters, something Kanda was counting on and Lavi undoubtedly knew. It was why the minute the door opened Lavi started to panic, and Kanda had to actually use some force with Mugen's edge to push him into the room.
He kept the sword on the redhead's throat and began to calmly undress himself. Lavi looked away, too stunned to retort and too shrewd to react with his fake persona. He didn't look even when Kanda had shed his last piece of clothing, not until the swordsman lowered Mugen from his neck and quickly closed the distance between them. He grabbed the redhead's arms and half-pushed, half-dragged him into the bed next to the wall, and began to kiss him like they had on that day, when their position was reversed and they were stupid and brave and still wanted with abandon, much more than what they could afford to be now.
Kanda kept his pace slow and deliberate until Lavi began to respond back. Then he abruptly stopped and with a quick, forceful yank ripped the eyepatch away from the redhead's face. He had not seen the dead eye ever since Lavi willingly took it off in the cabin, and was not surprised when the man beneath him gasped and immediately tried to push him off, to run away. Kanda nearly laughed – don't think so, love – and with a few strategically placed limbs and some brute strength he had Lavi under him again.
They stayed like so for some time, Kanda's muscles tense on top and Lavi's demeanor tense below him. Kanda watched the redhead's expression go from fear to hope to plea and finally, to acceptance. The green eye closed and Lavi relaxed under his grip. Kanda waited a moment to see if it was a trick, and when the redhead only moved to wrap his arms around his neck he let go. He removed the rest of Lavi's clothes and resumed the pace he had set before, slow and tender and deep enough to touch where they had adamantly avoided all this time. Especially when they were alone, especially when Lavi was running his mouth with idiotic, fake, sappy confessions that Kanda had to take in stride because, once again, that was all was offered, and that was all they had.
Lavi the persona disappeared completely when they started their third round that night. Kanda could tell because even in bed Lavi had so much control of his self it was alarming. The movements were always just a tad too excessive, the hands stretched too far, the limbs twitched too much. The green eye was always closed when he came not because of rapture but to hide the utter lack of it. It drove Kanda crazy, so much that he had tried to get the redhead drunk and, once, hallucinogenic. He'd give anything to break through that armor, into the soul and the man and that impenetrable fortress Bookman Junior had carefully, obsessively armed. Now he had his chance, and he certainly wasn't going to waste it.
It took effort – much, much more than Kanda had prepared for – but when he finally got Lavi tired enough, his body roused enough, he felt the control slip away like a fish in water. The movements became subdued and languid. From the oil lamp he had left burning Kanda saw the pupil of the green eye dilate, heard the breaths stutter and hitch, felt the sweat drip off the curve of the spine as Lavi arched under him. And the legs and arms and everything that was enveloping Kanda was withdrawn and collected but oh, did they fit again. Puzzle pieces locking in and their voices flowing out, through the paper thin wall that Kanda was indignant toward. The bed knocked against the night table in a lazy rhythm as Lavi moaned, and panted, and the bars of his self-constructed cage vanishing with each of Kanda's measured, slow thrust. Love me, love me, please, stop all of this and just, let, it, be.
When they finished Kanda was so exhausted he nearly passed out straight, would have, had not Lavi whispered something so soft his brain picked up only from trained habit. But the syllables were jarring, and Kanda, struggling to keep his eyes open, squeezed out a slurred "What?"
"…mn you."
"What?" he asked again, sobering.
"…damn you. Damn you, I said."
Lavi covered his eyes with the back of his hand, teeth clenching and lips trembling from rising fury. "You – I was well on my way – I am to be sworn in tomorrow, Kanda. I am the next Bookman. It should've been over, the end is right in front but you just have to – damn you! Goddamn you, Kanda Yu!"
Bookman Junior left the Order before sunrise. Just upped and went, not even taking his Innocence or his uniform with him. Bookman practically kicked down Kanda's door later that morning, Heavenly Compass already flying toward the swordsman's chest. Kanda just deflected the errant needles with Mugen and laughed. Laughed in that ridiculously haughty way that he knew got on everyone's nerves (even Lavi's) when used. Although this time he might've sounded slightly hysterical, which wasn't too unexpected, considering.
"Where has he gone?" the old man demanded.
"I don't know." He lied. Gladly.
It took three Finders and a very strained Noise Marie to keep Bookman from stabbing his needles into Kanda's throat. When the old man was finally mollified Kanda pushed past the throng of onlookers blocking his doorway and walked toward Komui's office. There was still a war to fight, and he was sure the next mission was already lined up for him somewhere among the piles of papers on the Director's desk. Along the way he passed Lenalee, who gave him an accusatory look but said nothing. Kanda walked by as if he didn't care. It wasn't like the redhead was dead, although whether Lavi would return was very, very doubtful.
He'd probably go on a few missions, wait a couple of weeks, before heading east toward Russia to retrieve the redhead from the tundra. It might take a bit, considering how easily one could lose oneself in the vastness of the land, but Kanda was sure he'd find him eventually. And then he'd have to coax him back in the Order's graces because the fate of humanity was still in limbo, for fuck's sake. He had no doubt the redhead would return though. After all, Kanda was the only thing he had. There was no way he'd refuse.
But for now Kanda was content with wherever they decided to assign him. He definitely had ruffled up more feathers and probably made a mortal enemy of Bookman but he was Kanda Yu, when was the last time he gave a damn about trivial shit like politics and relations? He trusted Komui to know better than to put him within the same country as Bookman, but really, what could the old man do? Kill him? So many had tried and failed. Good luck with that.
He realized he was perhaps being selfish and unfair but he was sick of it all. He had loved and lost and loved and lost again and this time he wasn't going to just sit and take it like a fucking puppet. Sure, the war still might kill him – kill both of them – but at the end of the day there was someone waiting for him, waiting because of him. And that, he realized, made him felt like he had the entire world on the palm of his hand.
Fin