Title: Telling Stories
Characters: Lavi-centric, some one sided Lavi x Linalee.
Rating: PG
Squicks/Spoilers: Spoilers for the Ark Arc. Kind of. Fairly Gen otherwise. Written for as a flash fic for yarukage.
Author's Note: Title, fic and summary inspired by Tracy Chapman's - Telling Stories.
Summary: There is fiction in the space between, you and me.
I'm surrounded by crackling flames. Orange and white tongues lick at my boots. I can smell the rubber burning. Charring. Every sense screams at me to run, to save myself. But I know that I must not, for fear that the demon child that possesses my mind will escape too.
The heat is unbearable. My clothes start to singe. Sweat pours off me in rivulets. I try to control myself, but I can't stop the shaking, the terror. Each gasping breath I take burns its way down my already parched throat.
A curious warmth spreads over my chest. Then the pain arrives, searing along my nerves. I convulse uncontrollably around the knife in my chest, where the Linalee-shaped thing, stabbed me.
"They say Bookmen have no need for a heart." She, no it, whispers in my ear, "So I guess you won't need this then."
The last thing I hear is the Rhode's cackling laughter echoing around me.
…
I wake with a jolt, fighting to breathe, staring wildly around for signs of Hi-ban's raging inferno, hands fumbling at my breast, all the time expecting to feel warm sticky blood there.
There is nothing. It was only a dream after all.
The moon hangs in the heavens, a silver disc in a star-strewn sky. Moonlight drains color from the world, muting it. The world is, for the time being, available only in grayscale, a blessing for which I am eternally grateful.
The colors were altogether too bright in the self-inflicted inferno.
I take a lungful of the cool night air and wait for the pounding in my head to subside.
We made it out of the ark. We're safe. For now.
There's a suspicious cracking sound off to my left causing my heart to skip a beat. Slowly, I turn towards the noise, afraid of what I may see. I can feel the sweat prickling on my forehead already.
All I see is a guilty looking Allen trying to munch a packet of crisps as quietly as possible.
"Oi, Moyashi, don't you ever stop stuffing your face?"
"Not you too..." Allen groans. "It's ALLEN." Then, he takes a closer look. "You'd better go change. You're soaked."
"You'd better stop eating in bed, Matron will have a fit." The reply is automatic. In reality, my mind is blank. The normally glib tongue is stilled. For a brief moment, I consider trying to go back to sleep, soggy sheets be damned. Then I give in to the inevitable.
"I'm going for a walk. If Matron asks, cover for me."
…
I end up on a balcony. Watching the moon, trying not to remember. Soft footsteps pad up behind me and I turn, surprised. A bundle of clean clothes is flung at me.
"You'll catch your death of cold." Allen mutters at me. His face, a pool of shadow under a sliver fringe, expression unreadable.
Footfalls in the darkness behind us. For an instant, we hesitate, ears pricked up like thieving foxes caught in a henyard. A pause followed by a muffled oath and a clink of metal.
We both heave a sigh of relief at this.
The footsteps resume, but they sound heavier somehow.
Allen gives me a resigned shrug.
"It looks like there are more insomniacs on the way?" Then remembering the last reunion back in Edo, I smile brightly at him saying, "I'll just go change shall I?"
…
I return to find Allen and Kanda glowering at each other. Then there's Linalee, bundled against the chill in a blanket . No doubt pilfered from the infirmary. I raise an eyebrow at her, but she only points to the dour swordsman seated next to her.
"I was just going to stretch my legs. Then he came along."
Kanda groans. "You were collapsed in the corridor."
"You offered to help."
"I offered to put you back in bed."
"I couldn't sleep. And it appears that neither could you."
"I was practicing. I always practice at night anyway." A surprisingly prim reply from Kanda. For once.
"Shut up you lot. Komui will have our heads if he finds out. Miss Linalee ought to be back in bed, resting."
"And what would you know, baka-moyashi." Even in the moonlit darkness, I can see Allen's hackles rising at that.
"There's no point me sitting in bed if I can't sleep. Brother will understand. So both of you just stop it already." Then she turns towards me. Her face is pale, drained of color by the moon. There's a haunted look in her eyes.
My heart pounds as if it would beat itself to pieces in my chest. In a corner of my mind, I hear Bookman telling me to remain detached. To pull back.
I don't care. I'm in over my head as it is.
"Surely, Lavi can think of something?" she says, flashing me a sweet smile. For an instant, my world pauses while I flog my brain for ideas.
"We could go round telling stories? They help people sleep."
Kanda gives me a strangely blank look which just means that there'll be some seriously bad internal struggle going on right about now. Allen makes as if to object, but is silenced by a look from Linalee.
"Fine with me. Why don't I start then? The boys can join in when they think of something."
…
"So to appease the dragon king and to save his people, Ne Zha committed suicide on his father's sword. But his master brought him back to life by infusing his spirit with a body constructed from a lotus." Her mellifluous lilt weaves a spell around us all and an ancient Chinese myth is brought to life.
I take a look around the most unlikely group ever assembled for a story-telling session. Allen makes no small display of his love for stories. Particularly when Linalee is telling them.
What a very deprived life that kid must have had.
Even the usually dour Kanda is caught up, albeit unwillingly, in the tale. He's cross-legged and leaning against the wall, practice blade on his lap. His eyes are hidden under a thick fringe. What can be seen of his face is uninformative. He's hiding it well, but the side of me that's trained to recognize subtle details did noted his little intake of breath at the child's death and subsequent resurrection.
He's interested alright. Just emotionally constipated.
What of the Bookman Jr.? Well. It's kind of hard to tell. It's not like I haven't heard, or for that matter, memorized this story before. Bookman used to quiz me on myths, just to test my memory.
It's just that, well, its different the way she tells it. Her eyes light up, as if recollecting a happier, if more distant, childhood.
I wish I could give it to you, but, I'm just a Bookman. I only record history. I can't rewrite it to make the war go away.
…
It's my turn. Allen recounted something of his life in India with his master. We would have pressed Kanda for one, except that, Kanda isn't really the sort of person to submit to pressure. Or we the sort of people likely to produce the kind of pressure Kanda might submit to.
I've decided to tell them something of Ragnarok, the final battle. More for it's ending than for what happens along the way. There's also an opportunity when I introduce Freya, Goddess of Love and Beauty, who nevertheless rides to war on a golden chariot. I catch Linalee's eye at this and am graced with a smile.
The fire unleashed by Sutur and the Sons of Muspell makes me shudder inside, but I somehow manage to go on.
"Without his sword of sharpness, Frey, falls to Sutur." The only response to this is a grunt from Kanda. He looks pained, his knuckles white around the hilt of the practice blade.
There's a lot of blood and a lot of killing, before darkness descends. Through it all, Kanda sits like a statue, leaning against the wall. The moon is shrouded in cloud, I cannot see Allen and Linalee's expressions. My mind fills them in. After all, for all their youth, they have witnessed, first-hand, war. The destruction of Edo was but one in a long list of hometowns, wrecked by the Earl.
When darkness falls, despite all that you do, there's sometimes nothing for it but to go on.
But, at the end of this story, there's rebirth. "A new earth will rise up from the sea, green and fair. A pair of humans have somehow survived. They repopulate the world. The sons of the Gods return to Asgard to reopen its halls."
"There is peace again. As there was at the dawn of time. When the world was young." On this hopeful note, my story draws to a close. A good time too, for in the East, the sky has turned a paler shade of blue. Dawn is nigh.
…
The swordsman is the first to stretch and yawn. He says nothing, perhaps unwilling to break the spell we'd all been under. Then Allen picks himself up and offers to escort Linalee back to bed. She staggers to her feet, gritting her teeth, refusing all offers to help, looks down in poorly disguised dismay at her display of weakness before gladly accepting Allen's shoulder.
Kanda looks at the unlikely pair lurching off down the corridor and sighs gustily before strolling nonchalantly after them. Then, just out of sight in the hallway, a brief whispered argument. There's a lot of bickering, but the conclusion is rather surprising.
"Guys, it's dawn. I'm tired. Why don't you both carry me then?"
There's a sigh, a clink of metal and a soft grunt. Then the footsteps continue, albeit faster heading off towards the infirmary.
I'm left watching the dawn, alone. The horizon gradually shades from pale blue to blushing rose. Regret leaves a bitter, metallic taste in my mouth.
If the Bookmen throughout the ages have had no need of a heart, they shouldn't have made them men in the first place.