I wrote this story as a gift for Valentine's Day, as organised by dgmsecretvalentine on tumblr.
I don't own in any way Man.
That one time Lavi said...
"Do you know how a bookman is made?"
That's the question which came to Tyki's ears as he entered.
The red haired boy was alone. If he wasn't, he would've probably been as mute as when his master was still in the room, with him.
Something had changed.
Somewhere along the way, Sheryl had decided that Bookman had to be separated from his apprentice, with the belief that not knowing about the younger's state would make him talk, sooner than later. Other ways of torture had by then failed. They'd been so hard headed.
Came out Junior, some days later, spoke more.
Road would have said Sheryl had done it "for the giggles", all in all. Knowing him and his way with things, she would be mostly right. Sheryl did many things just for the sheer pleasure of it.
Tyki did too, but it was different.
So there he stood, plate in hand full of sunday's fish, lovingly made by him.
Considering how the reincarnated members of the clan had all decided to have a nice family reunion - and by doing so had made him cook a ridiculous amount of fish and abused his willingness to ever do so again -, it was a feat there was any left.
He wasn't in the mood for one those talks.
A smoke would probably fix that, if only he could smoke indoors.
Figures that Junior would get all existential on him, as soon as he came in. He'd always been the most talkative of the bunch. One would think that a bookman would keep his mouth tightly shut, even more so if they were on the other side of the conflict and imprisoned by their supposed enemy.
One would expect many things from them, but Lavi was probably the little exception which proved the rule.
Road had told him all about it.
But he was always in for a nice talk, with someone so interesting no less.
"I have no idea, so enlighten me, boy."
It had been days, since they'd been taken. He, the old panda and Chaoji couldn't have predicted such an outcome… or perhaps it was just Lavi whom couldn't.
Would death have been preferable? Maybe, but something inside of him kept repeating he had to live.
So he did, but that didn't mean he liked being a hostage any less.
On top of it all, it was absolutely boring but his sense of self-preservation kept him alert.
He was getting really tired ridiculously fast.
He'd been plotting how to escape from there for their whole "stay", but the sad reality was that Lavi didn't know where he exactly was, nor if the place wasn't another pocket dimension made by the Noah of Dreams.
His backside was starting to hurt, but he couldn't exactly do anything about that and the whole situation.
So he waited and observed, as he had learnt.
Yet, days had passed and he was still there.
Alone.
It was in the moments when he was left by himself by his jailers, that his headaches remembered him why being alone with his thoughts wasn't fun.
He dragged a chair to sit in front on Junior, just far enough that he wouldn't have a problem while feeding him like a newborn babe. He'd been literally chained to his sitting place for days, but never lamented in any way, all things considered. But, as he'd mentioned, the kid was chained and couldn't move anything aside his head and the upper half of his torso. What a sadistic bastard his brother was.
At times, he outdid himself in his simple ways, which usually were the most annoying for anyone.
Definitely for the giggles.
"Say 'aaaaaah'."
Only then, with his not so concealed making fun of the apprentice, Lavi raised his head and looked at Tyki.
It'd been hanging since he'd come in.
At the incoming fork, he only smirked. That attitude was the reason for which the noah kept coming to feed him. He was so amusing.
As he chewed on his fish, Lavi didn't for once look away, looking Tyki straight in the eyes. Because, you know, he only had one. Or maybe he didn't, but he hadn't thought about checking under that patch until then.
Maybe another time.
At first, he'd looked like he'd been surprised that it was actually good, considering what gruel he'd been given the last days – lovingly appointed by Sheryl -, but then, unsurprisingly, he made a very pleased sound, which one could confuse for something else.
If he hadn't known better, he would've thought Junior wanted some action, by the intensity of his stare and the fact he just licked his lips just so… and opened his mouth again. Tyki only raised brow and gave more fish.
Finally, he spoke.
"Actually, the process per sé isn't that bad. I mean, an apprentice has to have all kinds of qualities to become one: good memory, analyzing skills and all the yada yada. It's rough, all things considered –mostly because the teachers act like shits -, but to become a Bookman, one needs to do one little thing."
Sometimes, during his wait for another meal (it was either that or waiting for some kind of torture, which had become extremely annoying, by then), Lavi mused about the noahs. Some he knew, some he didn't, like the guy with eyes on his tongue, which creeped the hell out of him.
Of those he knew, only Tyki was at times present. Which was strange in itself, in some way.
He never spoke, never gave any input about which place to stab that time. Sheryl was the main entertainer of the show, always so eager to stick a nail in your eyes. And when he got particularly in the mood… he showed a great resemblance to Tyki's inner noah, Joido, when he had gone berserk in the ark.
He'd never forget that smirk.
Still, differently from who Lavi supposed was his brother, Tyki simply stared, and brought him food.
At some point, he had started feeding him when he was chained in place, to the great amusement of Sheryl, who had only cackled in a cheap villain voice at the time.
When the noah stayed to feed him, he could see scars Allen's innocence had left on his body.
Road had some kind of respect for Bookman's apprentice.
He'd known her for some years, and no matter how complicated of a being she was (on par of Adam, he found himself often thinking), some things he'd learned.
The one time she stopped her sometimes incessant babble about this or that, it had been because of the red head. Tyki hadn't been in his best shape, sitting with her in some half destroyed house, as the scars wouldn't cease to hurt.
Maybe it'd been to distract him.
"That 'Lavi', there's something in him which is boiling with such ardor. He's brewing under the order's nose… you should have seen him. A lion waiting to be unchained, to bring all kind of disorder. He beat me, at my own game, Tyki, and in the last way imaginable." She had said, with that twinkle in her eyes.
And there he was, munching smugly on Tyki's fish, spilling beans about something that Wisely probably knew.
"And what may it be?"
"He killed himself."
"You have to kill yourself, Tyki Mikk. Kill everything that makes you a human being. That's the trick."
At some point during his confinement, Lavi had remembered the noahs' last words, before everything had gone black.
"Kanda Yuu has awakened the 14th!"
Those words awoke a deep fear within him. He hadn't known when, but along the way with the Order, he'd started caring for the exorcist. Lenalee had been the first chip in his armor, when she, so strong, had been brought down by the horror that the holy war was.
So fragile, yet unwilling to let go of her feelings, of the suffering…
Kanda had been a tough nut to crack, still probably was, with his ways and his past…
Miranda, sweet and misunderstood woman, who fought against herself on daily basis, for them.
Krory, like a child in some aspects, but a man and a warrior in others. Ready to lay his life down, in name of friendship.
All of them, the whole order, who fought for those they loved.
Even Allen, who was soaked so deep in darkness but still shone like a star, kept going on, no matter what…
Somewhere along the way, they'd all become more than ink on parchment.
More than a series of bad choices, which led to death, but bruises, tears, laughter… happiness.
It was there, among those who could kill him with a mere thought and only kept him for leverage, that Lavi knew that he didn't want to let go of them.
Doing so would be impossible.
"Bit by bit, tears, sweat, blood… you have to burn your soul out so you can become a machine which will record everything. And then, one day, pass it all to someone else, so that the recording will never end."
He had tried. To become what the old panda expected of him.
He really had.
And he'd almost succeeded.
"We burn ourselves out, so that we can see the world as black and white. Only the facts are truth. Only what we see and record is truth. Nothing else matters."
So many tears.
They'd be enough to make an ocean, where one could drown.
Emotions never made it in the books.
No one ever told how the wives of the kings wept at night, because they were queens in everything but not in their consort's heart.
No one told what the crusaders, which had ended far away from home against their will, felt when they came home - if they did - and their children already had their own.
No one would ever know the sorrow of the people whose home was destroyed, in name of some regent they'd never seen.
No one would know that Bookman's apprentice had shed tears of sorrow when he held Lenalee Lee on the ship for Japan.
Emotions never made it in the books, and he then knew that humanity had lost good part of its history. Because emotions and feelings weren't worth enough to record them for the future generations.
"And how's that coming along, boy?"
The trill of a secret had always rubbed him in all the wrong places. Places usually reserved for other kinds of pleasures. As Lavi leant on the armchair, head resting on his left arm, he didn't look away, but kept his gaze straight on golden.
The question was kind of ridiculous, considering what Road had told him.
He had killed himself, so it should've been obvious.
And still…
"Napoleon's-stroll-to-Russia-in-1812 kind of bad."
… he hadn't figured Lavi Bookman as much as he'd hoped.
But where would be the fun, if he'd already had?
Real trills came from the unexpected.
But for Lavi that wasn't enough anymore.
He had lied to himself all along, because becoming a pair of eyes to see and hands to write wasn't what he wanted.
He'd gone the opposite direction from the start.
He hadn't been shedding his humanity through blood and bruises, to become a monster. No, Lavi had been crawling the opposite way for 48 lifes, 48 names, which had become finally him.
The 49th.
"You know, even for someone like me, you're pretty fucked up, kid. But I can't say I can't see where you're coming from."
Tyki hadn't tried to rebind him again, simply passing plate and fork as the other had sat cross legged on the armchair.
He liked him and had seen the same as Road had, when she'd told him about Bookman's apprentice. There was something which reminded Tyki of himself, something he was starting to lose.
He wouldn't pass the trill of seeing the red head going in reverse from his supposed way…
Maybe Bookman would finally spill, all things considered?
"And by the way, the name's Lavi."
And he'd do it all again, if he could start form the beginning. For them and for himself.
Because emotions were worth it.
All of it was.