This is an edited version of HtSaL. If you want the MA material go to our LJ or Adult fanfiction. Sorry for the inconvenience, we're just too dark for a M only site.

How to Save a Life

Chapter 1—Hey There, Yuu

August 27

Bookman hadn't wanted him to go to college. It all led back to the fact that he would be away from the old man's tutelage, learning less and, in the geezer's words, "acting like a hooligan." Lavi was studying to be a Bookman. But he also knew that he could benefit from some type of real schooling, and he'd eventually worn his Master down. Somehow.

Bookman hadn't wanted him to go to college. Lavi had worn him in, on the condition he go Ivy League. And so he had. Harvard was a fine, picturesque place, full of history and, well, history. Which was why Bookman was letting him go at all.

It wasn't that Lavi didn't enjoy the prospect—there were some experiences that everyone needed to have, and college life hadn't been put into the logs yet—but despite his too-old age (he was twenty-one), he found himself nervous.

The sweeping, overly green lawns ruffled about in the light breeze, and Lavi breathed in as he walked into his new dormitory. He took that moment to let himself fall completely into his new persona. Fun and frivolous. He'd have to remember that. Not that he would have trouble. He hadn't had trouble in years, not since he'd had that slip at the airport when he was supposed to have been allergic to dogs and had gone up and spent nearly fifteen minutes fawning and petting over a seeing-eye dog. He still had the scars.

It wasn't that Bookman was abusive—he was simply harsh on Lavi. He had every right to be. Lavi didn't remember his past, but he did remember Bookman taking him in off the streets and giving him food and clothes and water. He had been nursed back into some form of health—Bookman had told him once that he'd been sick. Lavi was lucky, really, that Bookman had decided to take him as an apprentice, give him a sense of belonging. It was good to belong; it was good to have someone to take care of him. Obviously, Bookman didn't give a damn about him, but Lavi couldn't bring himself to care.

He felt a cuff on his head. "Don't slip," came Bookman's gravelly voice from several feet beneath him. Lavi smiled too-brightly down at his Master.

"Not slippin', Panda," he sing-songed as he let his uncovered eye sweep around the entryway and the main lobby. There were several people behind two head-to-head tables and a long queue of young'uns and their parents waiting for the harried-looking workers to tell them where to go. Almost reluctantly, Lavi stepped in line, schooling his features into a bright look despite his inner turmoil.

"Do your logs every night," Bookman muttered as they stepped forward. Lavi rolled his eye and smacked his Master on the head.

"Don'tcha worry, Bookman, I'll be fine. You said you'd come once a week to pick 'em up and give me new notebooks. I'll do all the readin', too, so stop actin' like I'm gonna slack off. I want to become a Bookman. You know I can be serious while not being serious."

Bookman punched him hard in the shoulder, probably to repay him for the strike on the head. Lavi laughed and ruffled his Master's stiff hair. As usual, his hand came away sticky with the sheer amount of gel the old man used. Trying not to look disgusted, Lavi wiped it on Bookman's shoulder. This persona was already loads of fun. Bookman shot him a dirty look, but they stepped forward in line without another comment. Lavi's smile grew brighter. He was already getting away with more than the Old Geezer would have tolerated normally.

A large, frizzy-haired man walked by, half bawling and making pitiful little noises as tears ran down his face from behind his thick glasses. He drew a number of looks, and Lavi immediately memorized the man's features, just in case Bookman wanted him to repeat it later. He would need to know it anyway, just like the faces of all the other parents here. But he'd already committed those people to his excellent memory.

They stepped up to the front of the line, and Lavi looked over at the busy worker.

"Name?" The young girl, probably somewhere around his age, asked.

"Lavi Davidson." He really didn't like the last name Bookman had tacked on to him. It sounded… wrong, somehow. He hadn't had a last name for as long as he could remember. Which started at age six.

"Ah, you're room 117," the girl said, her tone a bit too nasally for Lavi's liking. Not that he had a liking.

"Thanks," Lavi said cheerily, grabbing the key and court-marshaling Bookman down the hall with him. He'd memorized the building's floor plan weeks ago, and he knew exactly where to go. It was on the left side of the building.

The door was closed, but Lavi slammed it open, enough for it to rebound and nearly hit him. Reaching his hand out to stop the door's movement, Lavi stepped in, grinning at his new roommate.

A boy, naturally, though his age was debatable. He looked too old for eighteen or nineteen, but he couldn't have been much older than twenty-one or –two. He had long, black hair that was currently fanning out over his bed, some strands trickling down over the edges and hanging toward the ground. His skin had the soft, golden color of people of Asian descent, and though Lavi couldn't see his eyes—the boy's arm was over his face—he was sure they'd be a dark brown or black. The boy was no slouch, obviously, judging by the large calluses on his palms and fingers and the sheathed sword on the bed next to him. Defined curves and lines of muscle could be discerned from places where the boy's clothes were hanging just slightly too tight due to his posture. He obviously worked out. Vaguely, Lavi supposed the boy could be visually stimulating.

His side of the room was immaculate; as if the boy was a neat freak—Lavi could work with that, though he didn't really care either way—and it was nearly empty. On the shelves above the boy's head, there were a few books, some of them looking like texts, and several ringed notebooks. An alarm clock emitted red numbers—2:16. It was one minute off—above the boy's head. On the topmost shelf sat an hourglass with a delicate-looking flower in it. A lotus, Lavi noted. The boy's mother had probably brought it to make the dorm smell better.

Lavi's eye swept over to his side of the room. It was equally empty, though he would soon unpack all his shit. The boxes that he'd sent a week earlier as part of a new move-in program were already sitting in the corner by his desk. He recognized them all at once. The five large boxes closest to him held all his books, the one behind them held his clothes and sheets, and the other two had miscellaneous junk that he supposed he should probably bring.

Turning back to his Master, Lavi gave a half-assed salute. The old man shot a quick glance at his apprentice's new roommate.

"Don't fail." He said his tone gravelly as always. With that, he turned and left, his ridiculous hair bobbing slightly with each step. Lavi was slightly curious about the cursory glance Bookman had given the long-haired boy, but decided to shrug it off as just the old man checking the silent boy's location.

Lavi felt it was a good time to introduce himself to his new roomie. Plastering on a too-big smile, Lavi approached and unceremoniously hugged the smaller boy.

"Hiya, Roomie!" Lavi exclaimed as he collided with the boy.

The silent boy froze, and almost as fast as Lavi had pounced, he was on the floor, clutching his stomach, and looking up into the point of a very sharp, very deadly blade. The black-haired boy was standing above him with a scowl that even managed to send shivers down Lavi's spine. Lavi moved his hands from his stomach into the universal sign of surrender, and the blade was withdrawn.

Lavi stood up and dusted himself off, the boy had returned to his reclined position, arm over his eyes once again.

"Well, I was jus' tryin' to say 'hi'. You don't hav'ta be such an asshole about it. Anyway, my name's Lavi. Can you tell me yours since we are going to be living together," Lavi asked, trying to sound annoyed even though he really didn't give a shit.

"Kanda," came the muffled, quiet response.

"That sounds like a surname, give me your real name, goddammit." It was essential that Lavi find out his roommate's name, and 'fun and frivolous' didn't necessarily mean 'fun and polite.' And if this 'Kanda' person didn't want to tell him, he'd get 'fun and annoying-as-hell' instead.

There was a sigh and then, "Yuu." Lavi took the inflection to mean that the boy was referring to his first name. So, how could he annoy his already rude roommate? Well, the boy was almost blatantly Japanese, sooo….

"Nice ta meetcha, Yuu-chan!" Lavi said loudly, and giggled as the boy flinched, but then Lavi was taking a step back as he was faced once again with the frightening glare from just a moment ago.

"Don't. Call me. That," the boy hissed, and if Lavi had been anyone else, or in any other persona, he would have apologized and backed down immediately, but that was not who 'Lavi' was.

"No can do, Yuu-chan!" Lavi grinned at the angry Japanese boy.

The boy just stared at him, and Lavi took the lack of immediate violence as a sign that there would be none impending and turned to his stack of boxes. He heard shuffling and blankets being moved, and when he turned to look, his new roommate was walking from the room, clutching something in his hand, but it was obscured by the boy's leg and Lavi could not see what it was. He cursed his lack of response time and at his failure to choose a proper angle in which he could see any corner of the room at a moment's notice. He made a mental note never to do it again.

A rattling noise came from somewhere in the room. Lavi immediately pinpointed the sound to be originating from the hourglass on Kanda's—because first names were for personas—topmost shelf. The shaking ceased a few moments after it had begun, with no obvious damage to the hourglass. Earthquake perhaps? But that was impossible, Lavi had not felt the ground under his feet shake. He would ponder this later. After he unpacked all his shit.

Half an hour later, Kanda returned. Lavi pretended to ignore the boy's presence and finished stacking all of his books onto the shelves above his bed. The wooden boards creaked under the weight of the heavy tomes, and Lavi grimaced as one began to bend in a very unsafe way. The board didn't seem to want to break, though, so Lavi continued unpacking. He pushed a very heavy box under his bed; it was the box that he kept his log books in. He turned to Kanda, who had produced an artist's pad from somewhere-much to Lavi's displeasure, he hadn't seen-and had been sketching in it since his return, the redhead said simply, sporting his too-wide smile, "Touch my stuff, and I'll kill you, ne?"

The Japanese boy just looked up at him from his sketch for a moment and then returned his gaze to its previous focus, not even offering a noise to tell Lavi he understood. For some reason, it was infuriating, and before Lavi could stop himself, he'd crossed the room and had his hands in front of either of Kanda's crossed legs. Staring deeply into the other boy's eyes, the words came out before he could stop them. "I'm serious, Kanda."

Immediately recognizing his slip, Lavi pushed himself from the other boy's bed and went back to his boxes. All he had left was the picture of the atomic bomb going off in Hiroshima, the miscellaneous dates and article clippings for his corkboard, a picture of a sixteen-year-old Jack—that was four records before Lavi—and Bookman, and an ornate sketch he'd done. The Sanskrit character for 'objective' stood out as he sticky-tacked it to the wall, and Lavi let everything flow out of him, all personas, all worries, all cares. But just for a moment. One true, pure moment of objectivity. And then actions and knowledge were back, and Lavi was pinning up his picture of Hiroshima.

There was an interested grunt from the other side of the room. Lavi turned to stare at his roommate. He hadn't been quite annoying enough yet. "That's a pretty flower, Yuu-chan!" Lavi exclaimed, returning to Kanda's side of the room. It wasn't that pretty, actually, more… menacing. It had a threatening, eerie air that hovered about it like a rain cloud in Saturday morning cartoons. But for the sake of annoyance, Lavi could pretend. He reached up to touch the ominous flower, but Kanda was already removing it from the shelf, placing it in a desk drawer. Turning to face Lavi, his expression a complete mask of rage, Kanda said very simply and slowly, as if he didn't want Lavi to miss a single syllable, "Touch anything and I will kill you."

"I see we've come to an agreement!" Lavi said cheerfully. The Japanese boy raised his arm as if to shake hands and then as Lavi was reaching for it, punched him square in the jaw. Lavi reeled back, slightly dazed, and tripped over something on the floor, landing heavily. Cracking his jaw a moment later, he stood up.

"Yuu-chan, that was mean!" Lavi pouted, and walking over to the mini-fridge he asked, "Do you have any ice in here?" Opening the door the answer was evident, and grabbing the nearest tray of ice, Lavi moved to his bed. Looking at the clock, it was now nine hours post meridian, he decided it was time to do his logs. Reaching into his box, he retrieved the topmost notebook. Lavi always enjoyed starting a new notebook; there was something... clean about it. The fresh, crisp papery scent wafted up to his nose, and he breathed in deeply. As he went to put his first marring stroke on the paper, there was a knock on the door.

"Yeah?" Lavi called out, annoyed but not letting it show in his voice.

"Er, it's the RA—there's a corridor meeting now," a deep bass voice called, slightly muffled from the thick door.

By the time they returned from the meeting, Lavi was ninety-nine point nine percent sure that Kanda hated his persona with a flaming passion. Perhaps it was because the entire floor was now calling him "Yuu-chan," but the boy had yet to return. He'd grabbed something—Lavi had again failed to see what—from under his blanket and had gone to the bathroom.

Lavi had started his logs directly after the meeting at around 9:30. It was past midnight. The door opened, and the Japanese boy walked in, blood soaking the sleeves of his shirt, his pants, and the tips of his long hair. The smell was nearly overpowering. The scent was different than Lavi's own, and he guessed that it was AB, though he couldn't decide if it was negative or positive. Not that it mattered, but it was still good to know. Deep down inside himself, he felt something stir, something akin to disgust, though he didn't know what it was aimed toward. Lavi drowned the feeling out with a quick glance at his sketch on the wall at the head of his bed. Sanskrit. Objective. Always.

Bookmen didn't feel.

The smell of peroxide filled the room, overpowering the coppery blood, and a second later, ethyl alcohol joined it in a sharp, clean scent that Lavi couldn't help but enjoy. It made his head a little dizzy, but he just stared harder at his notebook and continued to write. After a while, Lavi noted the soft, distinct noise of pencil scratching over paper. Kanda was drawing again.

It was nearly three when he finished his logs, and as he lay down to sleep, he noted the sketching sound was still there, as constant as it had been when the boy at the other end of the room had begun. Lavi fell into dreams, trying not to scream out as he found himself back in Africa…

Whimpering. Yuu fell immediately from his creative concentration, his calm that he had developed to push away all other thoughts and put the images in his head on paper, the moment sound pervaded the room. Why was there whimpering? He was awake, wasn't he? Why was the sound coming from his stupid fucktard of a roommate? And most importantly, why did he care, anyway? It vaguely surprised him that Bookmen could feel at all, let alone fear. He already hated the redhead across the room. The stupid, pretend idiot had hugged him. Yuu didn't do hugging, or touching… or contact.

Contact hurt. Yuu had a feeling the idiot had done it on purpose, had deduced that touching Yuu would annoy him the most, and had done it, probably to create distance between them. It prevented all possible bonds from forming. Not that Yuu wanted to bond with the Bookman. Bonds were easily broken. It was better to have none at all.

God, the whimpering was annoying, though. It almost hurt to listen to. Almost. Almost, because if it hurt to listen to, that meant he was caring, and he didn't care, so it couldn't hurt. The redhead began moaning. Abruptly, Yuu couldn't stand the noise anymore; he needed quiet. Noise was bad, reminded him of things that happened in the dark, things that he didn't need to remember. He needed to get out. Throwing his covers back, Yuu left the room, not even bothering to grab his knife.

It was cold and dark outside, but everything was cold and dark, so Yuu was used to it. The roof was empty, as was to be expected at four in the morning. Ignoring the faces he saw in the dark, Yuu sat and let his head hang down to his chest. Sometimes it was all just too much. Tiedoll with his hugs, Daisya with his ridiculous antics, even Lenalee with her sweet, unpressuring friendship... all pleasantness canceled itself out when he couldn't trust anything.

Tiedoll had forced him to get a roommate, something about how it would be good for him. But it wasn't. It couldn't be, because how was Yuu supposed to sleep when he couldn't trust the other boy not to come up and start touching him as the chains holding him to the wall rattled and rattled and rattled.

The faces in the trees kept watching him, shifting in the breeze, like the phantoms they were. They taunted him—he could never touch them, but they still found a way, after all these years, to touch him. It was like before, only now, there was light and noise, which was good, because the dark and quiet was when the nightmare people came. They weren't always clear, and sometimes he could only hear voices, but that was worse. He wanted to know the faces. At least then he wouldn't be so afraid of sound. He wanted his knife. Pain meant he was alive, could keep the voices and the faces at bay. Pain was hot and burning, alive, not cold, unmoving, dead.

He felt the invisible chains hold his arms and legs down, and he collapsed against the stone wall, letting the breeze whip his face as he had so many times on Tiedoll's roof. He wanted his knife. He needed his knife. He had to feel something, because he was starting to feel colder, frostbitten from the ice in his heart.

The faces loomed in front of him as he dug nails into flesh, breaking it. Blood seeped out, clearing his senses just as it muddled those of others. Yes, there was the pain. It felt so good he felt like laughing out, smiling even. But he couldn't, because all of a sudden, he was much colder, and he needed pain. He needed more pain. He wanted to hit something, break something, but the chains held him in place until the sun began to peer over the horizon, tantalizing him with the warmth that would never reach him. There were lotuses everywhere. Tickling him with their icy petals, stealing the warmth he so desperately wanted, robbing it from his very bones.

As the light hit him, the chains melted away as if they had been crafted from blocks of ice and the sun was now returning them to their liquid state. He sat up, stood on shaky limbs, and walked back to the room, knowing the Bookman would see his bloody fingers and gory nails and not giving a damn.

In the room, Lavi was still asleep, still whimpering, though the second the door closed, the boy opened his one eye—the other was still covered in that strange eye patch—and looked up, seeming grateful that he had finally awoken. Yuu ignored him and waited as the boy dressed himself and left. Finally, finally, he sunk into his mattress and fell into a scarred, light sleep that was not restful in the least.

August 31

Lavi could say with confidence that carrying a fifty-nine credit hour load in one semester was fairly simple, despite what others thought. It was slightly annoying to have to run to some of his classes, as they were quite far apart, but he rather thought he was doing well so far. His alarm had gone off at precisely seven in the morning, and Lavi had immediately roused himself, ready to begin the day. He was used to earlier mornings under Bookman, despite his dislike of waking early. The first thing he noticed was Kanda still scribbling away at his sketch pad, just as he had the previous night. Vaguely, Lavi wondered if the strange boy had gone to sleep at all, but the thought was quickly passed over for more important, objective thoughts. Like how the springs of Lavi's bed squeaked under his weight, how there was a divot in the linoleum next to his closet that reminded Lavi of a deformed Cocker Spaniel, or how there was banging coming from the room above them, with the distinct sounds of moaning seeping through the ceiling. The banging was immediately followed by the rapid, metronomic squeaking of bed springs.

Looking back at Kanda, Lavi saw the boy had frozen up and was shivering slightly. With wide, terrified eyes, the Japanese boy set down his sketch pad and reached under his blanket, producing a worn-looking, silver utility knife. A second later, he pulled out a large bottle of hydrogen peroxide and a bag of cotton balls. Quickly, the boy left the room, probably headed toward the bathroom.

Lavi left soon after, heading toward his first class, which, unfortunately, was all the way across campus. Most of his classes were. He arrived nearly twenty minutes early, having not eaten breakfast-a choice he later regretted in his objective-Bookman way. The classroom was dark and empty, and it had the unfortunate coincidence of being locked. Sighing, Lavi reached down into his messenger bag and produced a hairpin. Thrusting it into the lock, he jimmied it back and forth until he heard a click. Entering the room, he sat, wondering what to do next. He decided to take in the view but was bored a moment later. Sighing once more, he decided to wait until the professor arrived.

His classes were boring. Half of them hadn't even begun lecturing, as the professors apparently enjoyed reading slowly through the syllabi and "getting to know" their students. The rest started on topics Lavi already knew with the intimate, forbidden knowledge of a Bookman. Perhaps he shouldn't have taken such easy courses. Returning to the room hours later, Lavi hit his bed with the exhaustion of a million men. After a moment that he used to catch his breath, he sat up and reached over to his overlarge pile of textbooks. His goal was to finish them all before the night was out. But first...

"Howdy, Yuu-chan!" He exclaimed, getting up from his bed to throw his arms around his favorite new toy. The toy in question stiffened, and Lavi grinned. Annoying Kanda seemed to be very, very easy.

A second later, however, he was on the ground, his superior weight and height used against him as he was flipped over the Japanese boy's bed. Lavi tried to get up, but there was a very sharp point poking dangerously into the flesh of his throat. Judging from his lessons on anatomy, Lavi decided the blade would cut through his carotid. Should the sword make its threatened slice, Lavi would be dead in minutes. Lavi couldn't die. Dying was bad, and he needed to think of a way out of this, because the Japanese boy standing above him looked intent on carrying out his silent threat.

"Hey, Yuu-chan, whatcha doin' with your sword? You won't kill me. You'd haveta clean it up! And I know deep down inside yourself, you love me. Now, let's stop this joking and let me up!" Lavi pleaded, lifting his hands up in a gesture of surrender. The Japanese boy drew the sword away by the tiniest hair and glared down at Lavi.

"Stop. Touching. Me. And no, I don't love you. I hate your stupid, fake personality. Leave. Me. Alone. Or next time, I will have to clean up," the Japanese boy hissed, moving his sword farther from Lavi's neck. The redhead breathed in a small, almost imperceptible breath and stood on shaking limbs. He shouldn't have been shaking, but he was, and he needed to stay in persona. Shaking, quivering like a little boy when he was supposed to be fun and frivolous... Well, it didn't quite work. Lavi attempted another smile, and he found it easier this time. 'Lavi' was still there. He backed up from Kanda a little bit, but he didn't move away completely.

"I ain't fake, Yuu-chan-"

"Don't call me that!" The boy shouted, raising his voice to something akin to a bark.

"Why not, Yuu-chan? We're best buddies now 'cause we're-"

"We are not 'best... buddies.' I have no friends, and I certainly don't want to start with you. Get the fuck back to your side of the room, and stay there, you miserable-animal!" The boy spat the last word with an animosity that surprised Lavi. For once, neither his Bookman self nor his persona knew what to say.

"Well, we've got that roomie thing we gotta do, so if you'll bear with me for a minute, we can-" This time, it was Lavi who cut himself off. Kanda's sword was again at his throat, this time aiming at his jugular. Vaguely, Lavi supposed that was an improvement. But the thought was gone in an instant.

"You can fill it out with whatever shit you want to put. I don't want to hear your fucking voice tonight, or I may kill you in your sleep," Kanda growled, jabbing his sword forward enough to draw the tiniest pearl of blood from Lavi's neck. The redhead gasped and stepped backward again, retreating to his bed, grabbing the roommate contract the two of them were supposed to fill out. Picking up his favorite pen-the one he used to write logs-Lavi began to fill it out. Occasionally, he tried to ask the Japanese boy questions, but the irritated grunts from the other side of the room made him turn back and scrawl down the first thing that came to mind. Thus began Kanda, male, straight, Shinto. A boy who enjoyed drawing and swords, a boy who enjoyed drawing swords. And, apparently, flowers. And threatening his roommate-the last bit went unwritten, though. Lavi put down similar answers for himself, substituting his interests with things any other teenage boy might enjoy. Fun and frivolous would probably like video games, so he put it in the "record." When he'd finished, he walked over to the RA's room and dropped it under the door. Returning to the room, he began his next assault on his roommate.

But his roommate was gone.

"Yuu-chan?" Lavi called, looking down the hallway. The dim but sharp smell of blood wafted down the hallway, and Lavi grimaced. Rolling his eye, he walked back into the room, sitting on his bed and beginning his logs for the day. The Lotus above Kanda's bed began to tremble. Shaking his head, the apprentice Bookman added the observation to the end of his logs before turning in for the night.

September 3

There was a knock at the door. Warily, Yuu stood up, it had barely been a week, and the old man was bothering him. Tiedoll would probably greet him as usual, with his annoyingly weepy eyes, and a large, too-tight hug that made Yuu shrink away. But it was not Tiedoll that stood outside his door. It was the short, old man with strange hair that was his annoying roommate's guardian. He stepped back, allowing the minuscule geezer to step inside. The man's eyes swept the room, much like Yuu had seen Lavi's do. The gaze flickered back to his Lotus, which he had replaced on the shelf, but a fraction of a second later, it was focused solely on Lavi, who was on his bed, being annoying. Currently, he was twittering about some stupid-ass bullshit he'd learned in his Russian Literature class.

"Lavi," the old man intoned, speaking in a gravelly voice that sent shivers up Yuu's spine. It reminded him of how desperately cold it was in the room. Freezing, like a block of ice underneath his very skin.

The old man's apprentice snapped to attention, his perpetual smile still in place though his eyes showed something Yuu could recognize as fear. The response intrigued him, despite his attempts not to care about his roommate.

"Yeah, Panda?" Lavi asked, his brief emotion turning itself off as he spoke. Yuu found himself disgusted by the fakeness, and it made him all the colder. He wanted to be warm, but with the ratty-haired man over there, he couldn't reach for his knife and steal away from the room. The Panda would notice, and for some reason, that scared Yuu.

"Your logs are coming nicely, I assume?" The Bookman questioned. Yuu shivered. There was even less emotion in that voice than there was in Lavi's, even at its most fake. Lavi nodded, still smiling down at the tiny man. Yuu watched him gesture to the box eloquently labeled Bookman Shit. The tiny old man opened it up and pulled out the notebook that Yuu often saw Lavi scrawling in. The man's face turned contemplative before schooling itself again.

"Very detailed-though you've missed a bit in your description of the room. You haven't slipped, I assume?" The Bookman's eyes flitted back over to Yuu.

"Not at all, Bookman!" Lavi insisted, though Yuu repressed a snort. Lavi was very interesting, albeit annoying, to live with. The boy was constantly shifting from real to fake, and each time the Japanese boy woke Lavi up when he was moaning, he'd give Yuu a grateful look that could not be feigned. He'd gotten far faker in the past few days, though, and Yuu thought it might have had something to do with the length of time he spent acting annoying and retarded. Yuu's hand twitched toward his blanket, underneath which his knife lay, but he stopped himself before he actually made to grab for it. He knew Lavi knew about his... escapades, but he couldn't bring himself to give a damn.

"You're lying to me, Lavi," Bookman stated. Yuu flinched. Lavi had been completely convincing.

"Of course I'm no-"

"How many times?" The old man's raspy voice was stern and hard as titanium steel.

"I-not more than once or twice. This-well, nothing major, just little things. I don't think anyone's noticed," Lavi defended himself, still talking with his annoying, cheerful tone, even though his green eye was starting to panic. Yuu almost felt a little bad for him, but then he remembered that Lavi had hugged him. Fourteen times.

The slap to Lavi's forehead resounded throughout the small room, reminding Yuu of the reverberating sound of flesh meeting flesh in a deadly dance of pain, and suddenly, he needed to leave. Screw Bookman, screw Lavi. Quickly, he retrieved his knife and ran out the door, not even bothering to grab his bottle of peroxide. He heard Bookman berating his apprentice as he ran down the hall to the bathroom, but he didn't-couldn't-stop. He just sprinted wildly into the tiled room and plowed into the first stall. Locking the door, he sat on the toilet seat and rolled up his sleeve. He needed to get rid of the sounds that were still echoing in his mind, needed to drown out the cries and screams and pleas that he remembered. They needed to be gone. One slice and they muted. A second and they dulled further. A third and they were gone. But there were other things. Blood. He remembered that. It needed to be gone, but there also needed to be more, so he cut again and again and again, not caring that his arm was taking longer to heal as he cut deeper, deeper, deeper. Heat, sweet heat, made him feel alive. Made him feel like the cold could disappear from his bones. Blood, pain, heat, they all meant the same thing-life and sensation, like he wasn't just a statue, like he was human and could feel-even though as the pain died away, the cold returned, even stronger than it was before.

But still he cut, because then there would be more pain, and then he could feel warm again. Blood splattered the floor, all over the bright white tiles, all over the small squares of toilet paper that had fallen, all over that tiny little pee stain that had been there for nearly three days. His blood flowed, and he cut, going deeper. He knew he was smiling, knew he was probably laughing, but it all felt so good that he didn't care. Tears and screams and horrors were gone, chains holding him and making him cold were gone. He was alone, and it was quiet. He was alone, and it was warm.

The door opened, and familiar steps entered. He heard a small gagging sound, but still Yuu wanted pain. He looked up as the lock to his stall door slid to the unlocked position and the door swung slowly inward. Green. He saw green. And then there was red. Not the red of the blood-no, nothing like that. It was orange, almost, like a carrot. But not quite. There was some kind of fiery color there, too, one Yuu could not discern but suddenly needed to know. Orange and red were both warm colors. They made the cold-the blue and the black and the pink-recede until it was nothing. Then he saw an eye, followed by an eye patch. Lavi.

"He's gone, you can come back to the room," Lavi said, his voice emotionless as his eye did that horrible Bookman-sweeping thing. It paused on the growing pool of blood on the floor. "You may wanna clean that up."

He walked out, and Yuu noticed a slight limp. If he looked closely, he could see blood in the back of the fiery carrot the annoying twit called hair. The back of Lavi's neck had strange pockmarks, but Yuu ignored him, instead grabbing at the roll of toilet paper and covering his deep, already healing wounds.

That night, Lavi slept worse than usual. His whimpers and moans were louder, loud enough to put Yuu on edge again. He'd gotten used to Lavi's noises, but these-these were different than before. Just like on the first night, they reminded him of how bad the sounds were, how chained and cold everything was.

And then the screaming began. It was little things at first, wordless things, but they reminded Yuu so much of what he was trying to forget that he closed his sketchbook and went to turn on the light. He broke his silent, unthought vow not to cross the room to shake Lavi awake. Whimpers, groans, squeaks, screams, they were tearing at his skull, pulling at him like panic did.

"NO!" Lavi's voice was horrified, and for a second, Yuu thought the other boy was awake, but when he looked over, he saw that Lavi's eye was clasped shut and his movements were still the thrashings of nightmares. "NO, NOT-BOOKMAN, NO! I HAVEN'T SLIPPED! PLEASE, PLEASE, ANYTHING BUT THE NEEDLES! THEY HURT, BOOKMAN, HURT, HURT, HURT! DON'T-AAAH!"

On it went. Needles, spiders, ants, back to needles, fires, needles again, another bout of spiders, waterfalls-Yuu didn't know how that one connected-needles once more. Lavi's pleas grew increasingly hysterical and so loud that Yuu no longer feared them. He tried to shake the boy awake, but the redhead shrunk from the contact and screamed ever louder. A knock came at the door, quiet at first, just like Lavi's screams. But it came again, and Yuu couldn't ignore it, so he walked over, wearily answering the bleary-eyed RA.

"What the fuck is goin' on in here?" The man asked, blinking rapidly as his eyes watered, probably from the bright lights. The hallway was still dark.

"Che." There was really nothing else to describe it.

"The neighbors complained, thought you were killin' him or somethin'. Can you shut 'im up?"

Yuu shook his head gravely. "I've tried," he grunted, already annoyed at the man's presence.

"Well, make him shut up or... I'll think of something later, just make him shut the fuck up. We can hear him all the way down the hall."

Yuu nodded and closed the door in the RA's face. Walking back over to Lavi, he did the first thing that came to mind. After all, he'd slapped the boy before. Lavi could take another blow.

Apparently, he couldn't. With a final, ear-splitting yelp, Lavi's eye snapped open, and he flailed out, smacking Yuu in the eye with an impromptu fist. Yuu reeled back, unprepared for the blow. He hit the floor hard and blinked, bewildered. Lavi was curled up and pressed into the junction between his bed and the wall, shaking heavily and hyperventilating. Cautiously, Yuu stood back up and leaned forward, climbing onto the bed. The redhead flinched further into himself, and Yuu noticed a bead of sweat fall from the other boy's temple. The boy's green eye shone with a dark, terrified light as Yuu outstretched his right hand, aiming for the boy's face. He knew he shouldn't, that it was probably a bad idea, that he shouldn't be caring about the fake little bastard anyway, but all signs of falseness were gone, replaced with horror and something that looked a million times worse than fear. Lavi's eye was jumping back and forth between multiple targets, never landing on one for longer than a split second. It was as if the boy was still dreaming, still seeing whatever had scared him so.

"Lavi...?" Yuu asked hesitantly, reaching his hand closer to the other boy's face and stroking it down the redhead's cheek. He didn't have time to think about why he had done that, as Lavi pulled himself ever closer to the wall and huddled there.

His eye-the other one was still covered with the eye patch-held no ounce of recognition, but suddenly, Lavi threw himself at Yuu, grabbing him around the shoulders and holding him there with vice-like arms. The Japanese boy tensed, frozen in place. He didn't like Lavi's proximity, nor did he enjoy the faces he saw in the boy's red hair, haunting him even though the light was blaring overhead. The redhead was quivering like a leaf, though, hard enough for the bed springs to protest, eliciting tiny squeaking sounds. It took Yuu a moment to realize that the keening sound coming from Lavi's throat was sobbing, but once he did, he noticed his thin shirt was soaked through by the redhead's tears.

"N-no more n-n-needles, Bookman," Lavi said quietly, his voice somewhere between a whimper and a moan. Unable to do anything else, Yuu pulled him closer, wrapping the other boy in his arms even though every instinct was telling him to let go. Lavi simply shook into him, alternately whimpering and breathing in short, sharp gasps until he quieted enough to fall back into a stupor-like sleep. The Japanese boy tried to let him go, but Lavi clung to him almost desperately, pulling Yuu down onto the pillow with him and holding him there securely.

Yuu didn't know who this Lavi was, but he already knew he wasn't fake, wasn't going to hurt him like the faces-so many faces-did. And suddenly, that was enough for him, and with the lights still blaring comfortingly down on him and his clinging bed partner, Yuu fell into a light, albeit peaceful, sleep.

A/N: Wheee, first chappie! You can already see how the writing style is different. Sorry for the angst, but it gets worse, so if you had trouble with this chapter, stop reading. Seriously. We won't bitch you out. We have more Kanda torture in this one, simply because we're exercising our minds... and stuff. But it wasn't his parents! :D Aaaanyway, um, we probably won't post more of this for a while, since we're only four chapters in and we're kinda stuck, but we will definitely finish it, simply because we've wasted so much time plotting the damn thing :P Oh, and sorry, but Lavi is going to be kinda uke for a bit, and we mean that as more than just bottoming. We mean full-out, whiny bitch uke. But that's the way he ended up... not so much breaking as building himself up in this one. He has good reasons for his actions.