Kanda didn't know what made him wake up in the middle of the night. Maybe he'd had a nightmare. Maybe he'd just wanted to give his husband another kiss on their wedding night.1 Maybe Lavi'd just rolled over and hit him by accident in his sleep like last time.

The reason he woke up wasn't important. There was something else much more important in Kanda's mind.

Something scaly was rubbing up against his leg.

Kanda let out a yelp of surprise and practically fell out of bed. "Lavi!" he hissed. "Lavi!"

The redhead in question opened his eye and looked wearily at him. "What? I was havin' a good dream..."

"Lavi, your legs!"

Lavi pulled back the covers to look at what Kanda was talking about. His legs had turned back into his shimmering green tail. He tilted his head at Kanda. "And?"

"And that sorcerer messed up! You're back to being a merman!"

Lavi yawned sleepily. "He didn't." He concentrated a moment, and the scales vanished, leaving two completely human legs behind. "Go back to bed. I'll tell ya in the morning."

Kanda stared at his husband. This was the first time he'd seen Lavi's tail up close. He'd caught a glimpse of it in a cave a long time ago, but he'd been so out of it he hadn't realized what it was at the time.

He got comfortable next to Lavi again, and just stared at the sheets where his legs and Lavi's legs were right next to each other. "But what if your tail comes back?"

"I'll try not to dream of water again," Lavi muttered before snuggling closer to Kanda. "G'night."

Kanda closed his eyes as well and soon fell asleep with Lavi in his arms.

When Kanda woke up in the morning, the same scaly thing was rubbing against his legs. Irritated, Kanda pulled back the covers to look at his lover's tail. It shimmered a lot more in the morning light, shimmering every color of the rainbow like the stone around his neck.

The irritation soon vanished and was replaced by curiosity and awe. Kanda gently ran his fingers along Lavi's scales in wonder and amazement. The scales were smooth and cool to the touch.

"Mmmm... Yuu..." A small moan escaped Lavi's lips. "Not now... I'm still sleepy..."

Kanda raised an eyebrow. What's he dreaming about? He rubbed the scales with his entire hand. It felt so strange but so nice against his palm.

"Yuu!" Lavi moaned, his face red.

Kanda withdrew his hand. Lavi stretched, then curled up a little to sleep longer. Confused, Kanda ran his fingers across Lavi's scales again experimentally. Lavi moaned. Kanda smiled evilly and continued stroking Lavi's tail with both hands this time.

"Ahhh~ Yuu!" Lavi sat up suddenly, his face a deep crimson. "Don't do that!"

Kanda smirked. "What? This?" He ran his fingers from where the scales started at Lavi's hips down to about where his knees should have been.

"Yuu!" Lavi's tail flicked, and then became legs again. He crossed his arms and grinned triumphantly. "Now you can't do that anymore."

Kanda did do it again, running his fingers down Lavi's bare leg.

Lavi bit his lip to hold back the moan in his throat. "Yuu, stop it." It was a rather weak complaint. Kanda didn't stop. "Yuu, I'm serious. We need to get up sometime."

"No we don't."

"But I'm hungry."

"I'll order something to be brought up." Kanda ran his finger down Lavi's lower leg and across Lavi's foot.

"I said stop it, Yuu!" Lavi picked up the pillow and hit him with it.

"Wow, even your feet?"

"S-shut up. I'm new to this. I'm still sensitive."

"Really?" Kanda put a hand on Lavi's hip and started tracing Lavi's body with his other.

Lavi turned bright red again, pulled away, and threw on a robe. "I'm going to the patio," he announced. He opened the door and raised an eyebrow at Roger and Toma, Kanda's two guards. They were both blushing furiously.

"W-we weren't listening in!" Toma said.

Roger grabbed Toma's arm. "W-we were just... checking to see if you two were awake and ready for breakfast."

"I am," Lavi said, smiling. He knew they were listening in on them, but unlike Kanda, who was covering himself up with the sheets, he wasn't embarrassed in the least about what they'd just been doing. "See you at breakfast!" he called back to his husband.

Lavi had finished breakfast by the time Kanda came outside, fully dressed. "So what was that last night?" Kanda asked. The nearby maid blushed, thinking it was something dirty and went inside after setting down Kanda's breakfast.

Lavi leaned back in his chair. "Well, I think how it works is if you think hard enough about wanting your fins, you get them. Last night I was dreaming of going back home for a bit, so that's probably why my legs transformed. According to Tyki, you should be able to do it too," he said while grinning, "and you'll be just as sensitive as I am."

"I don't think so." Kanda sipped his tea to hide his blush with the cup.

"Wanna bet?" Lavi looked out at the ocean. "We should try it later and check up on Lenalee and Allen."

"I'm sure they're busy with their own honeymoon."

"Honeymoons are definitely a human concept. We don't go on vacations after we trade apples. We go home, start a family, and life goes on."

"Wow, that's pretty boring."

Lavi smiled and leaned across the table to kiss Kanda. "That's what makes this so much cooler. Come on, the sooner you get used to your tail, the sooner we can go bother Allen and Lenalee." He took Kanda by the arm and tried to pull him down to the beach.

"What if someone sees us?" Kanda growled.

"It's a private beach!"

"Private doesn't mean privacy. Do you know how many people want to catch a glimpse of their king?"

"Tell them they're drunk, then!" Lavi tugged on Kanda's arm again. "Please? I wanna show you my world."

Kanda couldn't say no. "Fine, but you have to explain to everyone if they see."

"No problem!" Lavi led Kanda down to the beach, where he pulled off his robe and went deep into the water. "Cold!" he laughed. He dived below the waves.

"Lavi?" Kanda called when the redhead didn't resurface. "Lavi!"

Lavi broke the surface and shook his head. "Yuu! Hurry up!" He dived back down, showing off his sparkling tail.

Kanda breathed a sigh of relief when he knew Lavi was okay. Then he glanced around to make sure no one was watching and pulled off his own clothing to join Lavi in the ocean. He felt stupid standing in the waves naked.

"Yuu, you have to think about being a merperson! You've gotta feel the waves! Think like a fish!"

"You're not helping."

"If you come here in your merform, I promise we'll spend all night together."

Kanda's eyes widened at the thought. "That's definitely not helping." Now he couldn't think of anything except him and Lavi together in bed doing all sorts of miscellaneous things.

"Yuu... It's not that tough. Think fish!"

Kanda rolled his eyes. "I'm a fish." Nothing happened. "I have... a tail?" What would I even look like with a—? SPLASH! He lost his balance and toppled beneath the waves.

Lavi swam up close and held Kanda under so he couldn't resurface. "Yuu, you're not drowning. Look!"

Kanda opened his eyes, but the realization that he was at least three feet from the surface didn't help. He tried to pull away from Lavi, tried to reach the surface. He was holding his breath and wouldn't last much longer.

Lavi rolled his eye and kissed Kanda hard on the lips. "See? You can breathe," he said once the kiss was broken.

Kanda hadn't realized he'd been breathing during the kiss. "What if I couldn't?" Kanda replied defensively. "I would've drowned!"

"I would've saved ya, Yuu."

"But what if I hadn't changed and I had breathed in all that sea water? I'd be dead! You'd be all alone with a guilty conscience and—" He flinched away from Lavi's hand.

"Sensitive, huh?" Lavi said with an evil grin.2

"S-stop it," Kanda said, trying to escape Lavi's stroking hand.

Lavi stroked Kanda's tail again. "You didn't stop this morning." He ran his fingers opposite the scales.

"Shit," Kanda gasped. "L-Lavi, stop. Please. I swear, I'll never touch your tail again."

"But I want you to," Lavi said with a smile. He stopped touching Kanda's tail with his hand and wrapped his arms around Kanda's neck. "You know, you're tail looks like the midnight sky..."3

Kanda glanced down. His tail was a dark blue, almost black, with the same shimmering scales as Lavi. He didn't have much time to admire it, though. Lavi had just brushed his tail against Kanda's.

Kanda gasped and buried his face in the crook of Lavi's neck. "L-Lavi, what are you doing?"

Lavi brushed his tail against Kanda's again. "What do you think I'm doing?"

Kanda could only moan in response.

Lavi chuckled and wrapped his tail around Kanda's.

"That was great!" Lavi said, tying up his robe properly and sitting on the beach. "You should've seen your face, Yuu!"

Kanda glared at his husband, trying to catch his breath. He'd crawled up onto the sand after their little experience and rolled onto his back as soon as he'd gotten his pants back on. "What the hell was that?"

"The real way to Shine."

"Shit," Kanda cursed under his breath. It wasn't that he disliked it, but it had been so strange to do that under the water.

"So? You wanna do it again?"

Kanda's head snapped up. "Hell no."

Lavi smiled, knowing exactly what Kanda was thinking. "Don't worry, there's not really a top or bottom to it if it's underwater. As soon as you figure out how to move your tail right, I'll probably be the one lookin' for somethin' to hold on to." He reached over and pulled yet more seaweed from Kanda's hair. "Was I this outta breath when we did it with the sticks?"

It took Kanda a few minutes to realize what Lavi was talking about. "Yes, you were this out of breath, and stop calling them sticks."

"But I think stick is a better word for it than—"

"Shut up." Kanda turned his head back to the beach house they were staying at. Miranda was walking towards them with the maid-in-training from earlier.

"Your Highness, are you all right?" Miranda asked once they reached the two. "You look a little flushed."

"I'm fine," Kanda said from the sand. He sent an accusing glance at Lavi. "Just a little tired."

"A little?" Lavi repeated with a smirk.

Miranda sighed and turned to the maid-in-training. "I think His Majesty's been in the sun too long. Bring some drinks out to the patio, would you? I'll help His Majesty back to the house."

Once the other maid was gone, Miranda rounded on the two of them. "The beach? Really! That has to be the worst place to do that!"

"We didn't do it on the beach," Lavi said with an innocent smile. "We did it in the water."

"That's even worse!" Miranda shouted at them. "Do you know how many infections you can get and—" She stopped when Lavi made a wave-swimming motion with his hand. "What? But how? I mean... Oh, nevermind. I don't want to know." She helped Kanda up from the sand and led them both back to the beach house.

The next couple days went pretty much the same as the first. Lavi continued to give Kanda swimming lessons that would always end up with them Shining and Kanda out of breath and Lavi as fresh as a daisy. Kanda would later get his revenge in the bedroom, not that Lavi minded, of course.

Once Lavi was confident enough in Kanda's swimming, he told Miranda not to worry about them for the next day or two.

"And where, pray tell, are you going?" she asked when Lavi told her this.

"Visiting Lenalee and Allen," Lavi replied with a shrug. "Kanda's a good enough swimmer for that. We'll stay with them a couple days and come back."

"What about sharks?" Miranda asked.

Lavi shrugged. "I think we could outrun it. All ya gotta do is find a seaweed bed."

"No. Absolutely not. You both aren't going."

"Who's your boss?"

Miranda blinked. "What?"

"I married Kanda. Kanda's your boss. Doesn't that make me your boss too?"

That left Miranda speechless.

"See you in a couple days!" He waved and went to go find Kanda.

It didn't take long to reach Atlantica from the island Kanda and Lavi were honeymooning at. Kanda couldn't figure out how Lavi knew which way he was headed, but they made it all the same without any trouble or getting lost.

Kanda was impressed with the castle they were swimming towards. The entire building was made of coral of every color and size. He couldn't believe Lavi had lived there so long, especially after the redhead had been impressed with his castle.

"Hurry up!" Lavi said, swimming a little faster. They'd reached a rather large underwater city at this point, and for once, Lavi was a little embarrassed. A bunch of merpeople waved and said hello, but Lavi swam past without saying a word. A couple people whispered to each other as they passed, making Lavi even more self-conscious. He knew what they were talking about. They were talking about how Lavi had suddenly returned with a mate.

Kanda had trouble keeping up with Lavi. The redhead was a better swimmer and in a rush for some reason. Kanda didn't notice the people whispering around them, or maybe he didn't care. He reached out and took Lavi's hand.

"What?" Lavi asked harshly when he spun around.

"Are you okay? You're acting strange."

"I-it's just..." Lavi glanced around at the people, "these are the people I grew up with... My friends and neighbors... It's... kind of... embarrassing..."

"And you didn't think the cheesecake incident was embarrassing for me?"

"That's different."

"Tell me how it's different."

"Well... Uh... You see..." Lavi couldn't come up with anything except that he hadn't known any of those people. "Let's just go!"

"You can either explain or kiss me," Kanda said seriously.

Lavi swallowed hard. He swam closer to Kanda and for a quick peck, but Kanda pulled him closer and deepened the kiss. Lavi would've forgotten that they were being watched except for one thing: the crowd around them burst into cheers and applause.

Now thoroughly embarrassed, Lavi grabbed Kanda's arm and swam off as fast as he could toward the castle. By the time they reached there, Lavi was panting while Kanda tugged him along, since he hadn't had to swim most of the way.

"Lavi, do you need me to carry you?" Kanda asked when Lavi started drifting behind again.

"I'm fine," Lavi replied, flicking his tail to keep up.

The guards at the castle weren't much better than the townsfolk. As soon as they saw Lavi being pulled along by another Shimmer, they jumped to the same correct conclusion as the people in the city and knowingly smiled as they swam inside.

"I hate this place, I hate this place, I hate this place," Lavi kept repeating to himself over and over again as they swam through the hallways of the castle.

"Then why did you suggest coming?" Kanda asked, still helping Lavi along.

"I wanted to see Allen and Lenalee again," Lavi muttered. "Everything else I could do without."

They reached the throne room, where Lavi knew his father would be. He had to introduce Kanda to Cross eventually, even if he didn't want to. It wasn't like he could just stop speaking to his father, after all.

"Lavi! Where have you been?" Cross shouted, but stopped when he saw Kanda. He drew his gun just as Kanda drew his sword. Cross raised an eyebrow. "I like this guy. Who the hell are you?"

"Um... Father?" Lavi shifted protectively in front of Kanda. "He's... my mate."

Cross cocked his gun. "Really now?" he growled. "And when did this happen?"

"Um... about three weeks ago?" Lavi squeezed Kanda's hand for comfort. Kanda squeezed back.

"Father, stop it!" Allen swam out of another corridor. His face was a little flushed and he seemed to be a little too out of breath for just swimming from some room in the castle.

Cross rounded on Allen. "Why should I?"

Lavi interrupted the budding argument with, "Where's Lenalee?"

Allen blushed even more. "She's... uh... situating the... er... eggs..."

Lavi zipped past Allen just as Cross said, "Finally? I always wanted grandkids. Too bad my one son was a Shimmer, or else I'd already have them."

"Will you stop ragging on him?" Kanda shouted. "His mother loved him the way he was, didn't she? Why do you have to keep being a jerk to him?!"

Cross sighed and set down his gun. "Yes... Maria did love him, and that's why she and Suman died."

Now I can see why Lavi's never forgiven himself for it, Kanda thought angrily. His father never let him. "You should forgive him for that already. It was his mother's choice to save Lavi, and I seem to recall that you saved him too."

Cross frowned. "I just killed the beast that killed my wife and heir," he growled, but Kanda could see a small pearl on the edge of his eye.

"If you didn't care about Lavi, why'd you send Tyki to find him and Allen?"

"Allen's my only heir. If he were to die, then this kingdom would be in trouble. I figured those two were together, since Lavi's such a useless son."

Kanda glared coldly. "No wonder Lavi's so miserable. You won't let him forget that he was responsible for his mother and brother's deaths."

Cross flinched at the words. Empowered by the reaction, Kanda continued. "Where were you? Why didn't you save your mate and sons?"

"I was here... drunk..." Cross muttered.

"Then it's just as much your fault as it is Lavi's!" Kanda shouted. "You could've been there, but you decided to stay here and get drunk! If you'd been there, you could have saved them!"

Allen shook his head. "Kanda, you don't seem to realize... If Father doesn't drink, he becomes drunk... He was trying to stop drinking, and... well... it's pretty obvious what happened because of it."

"He shouldn't have started to drink, then," Kanda growled.

"Kanda, just stop it. You've gone far enough. We've lived long enough to know that if Father doesn't want to change, he won't."

Cross closed his eyes and sighed. "I don't need my own son defending me."

"Fine," Allen snapped at his Father. "There are twenty people outside the gate wanting to yell at you about what you do in your spare time. Why don't you go say hi to them once in a while?"

"I think I'll go see my grandkids now," Cross said, getting up.

"You're dodging the subject again."

"I don't care."

Allen sighed and watched his father go down the corridor. Then he turned and nodded to Timcanpy the blowfish who'd been floating above his head. Tim grinned and slurped up Cross's ray gun. They'd been unarming Cross this way for months.

"Should I ask why that's eating that gun?" Kanda asked, eyeing the blowfish.

"You'll thank me later," Allen replied.

Timcanpy nodded, then hiccuped. He blew up to the size of a balloon, then slowly deflated before hiccuping again and repeating the cycle.

Both mermen stared at Timcanpy. "Wow, I didn't you could get hiccups, Tim," Allen commented. Timcanpy nodded, then blew up again. "If its wasn't so funny, it'd be really annoying."

"Hey, is that a cat over there?" Kanda asked blankly.

Timcanpy blew up three times his size (bigger than his hiccups made him) and stared around wildly for the threat. When he didn't see the cat, he slowly deflated, still wary.

"That was mean," Allen whispered to Kanda. Timcanpy tried to snuggle close to Allen for protection, which didn't work too well since he was still a little inflated. "Ack! Tim, stop! You're not a fluffball anymore!"

Kanda laughed. "It got rid of his hiccups, didn't it?"

Allen and Tim stared at each other a moment. When the golden blowfish didn't inflate from hiccuping again, Allen breathed a sigh of relief. "All right, Tim, there's one more gun left. Go get it." Timcanpy nodded and swam away. Allen then turned to Kanda. "Well? Shall we?"

Allen led Kanda through yet another maze of hallways to the nursery. Lenalee and Lavi were sitting together on what almost resembled a nest made of seaweed. Lenalee was holding two blue-green eggs in her lap and Lavi was looking at them with all the admiration in the world. Cross was nowhere to be seen.

Lenalee smiled sweetly at Allen, but her attention soon returned to her eggs. "Allen? Did you—?"

"Yes, I told him," Allen replied before she could finish.

"And did you—?"

"Tim's getting the last one now."

"Thank you Allen. I love you."

Kanda and Lavi hadn't heard the exchange, though for different reasons. Lavi was too busy wistfully looking at the eggs still, while Kanda was looking at Lenalee.

"Lenalee, where are your clothes?" he asked, still staring at her breasts.

"It would be weird for me to wear anything," Lenalee replied simply. "It's actually quite nice not to wear a corset."

"B-but you're... naked."

"So are you when you think about it," Lenalee replied.

Kanda looked down at himself. "I'm a guy. That's different."

"Sexist."

Kanda was about to reply, but a maid came in with a plate of food for Lenalee. She, like Lenalee, wasn't wearing anything either, leaving Kanda speechless.

Allen leaned close to Kanda's ear. "Mermaids don't wear clothes. We're a little more open about things here under the sea."

"I can see that."

The maid bowed before leaving, but she paused in the doorway and bowed again when Cross came in. The king came closer, hands held out like he wanted to hold one. Lenalee's response was to hold her eggs closer to her body. Cross stopped when he realized Lenalee wasn't going to let him touch the eggs and coughed in minor embarrassment.

"So... how many?" he asked once his initial embarrassment wore off.

"Two," Lenalee replied with a big, proud smile.

"Only two?"

"Hey, humans only have one kid at a time!" Lenalee pointed out.

"And how do you know that?"

"Because—"

Allen interrupted Lenalee. "Um, Father, I need to talk to you out in the hall." He grabbed his father by the arm and dragged him out.

The other three sat in the nursery, trying to catch what little drifted through the curtain separating the room from the hall. They only caught one: "WHAT?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!"

"F-Father, calm down!" they heard Allen say. "Y-you kept saying you wanted grandkids and—"

"I meant with a nice mermaid, not a human!"

"But Lenalee is a nice mermaid! You said so yourself!"

"That was before I knew she was a human! That's probably why she only has two eggs!"

The shouting died down, and Lenalee took the chance to ask Lavi, "How many eggs is normal?"

Lavi blinked. He'd been completely fixated on the eggs and hadn't heard the shouting match outside. "Um... Three to five, usually, but first litters can be two sometimes."

"Then why is he making such a fuss about it?"

Lavi shrugged. "Because you're human?"

Kanda could tell there was more to it. He'd gotten good at telling when Lavi was keeping something. "What aren't you telling us, Lavi?"

The redhead glared at Kanda. "It's... none of your business. It doesn't matter anyway."

"Lavi..."

"Our mother had trouble having eggs, okay?" Lavi said. "She had me and Suman the first time, and then her second litter she had three eggs and none of them hatched. Her third litter she had three again and only Allen barely survived. The others didn't hatch."

"That's horrible," Lenalee whispered. "So he thinks I'm the same?"

"Probably. Father jumps to conclusions all the time."

The shouts in the hall started up again. "BUT SHE'S HUMAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

"So? Lavi married a human!"

Lavi slapped his forehead. "Oh, thanks for passing the shark, Allen," he muttered.

Cross burst into the room. "What's this about you marrying a human?!"

Lenalee glared at her father-in-law. "No shouting in the nursery. If you want to yell at each other, go somewhere else."

"Throne room," Cross growled, "now."

Lavi took Kanda's hand just to spite his father. "We'll be there in a few."

"Now!" Cross turned and left.

Lavi shuddered. "I'm dead. He's gonna kill me."

Kanda squeezed Lavi's hand reassuringly and they swam to the throne room with Allen. Cross was there, tearing the room apart. "WHERE ARE MY GUNS?!"

"So that's why you had Tim eat them," Kanda whispered to Allen.

"Yeah," Allen said with a quick nod.

Cross rounded on the three mermen. "Why humans? Why did you mate with humans?"

"Because we love them," Lavi managed to say quietly.

"They eat fish!" Cross shouted.

"We eat fish," Allen said.

"If they catch you, they'll sell you or rape you or—"

It clicked in Kanda's mind. "Someone you knew was caught by humans."

Cross stopped mid-rant. "My best friend. He was stupid enough to go up to look at a boat. He got caught in one of their nets. I've never seen him since."

"So that's where the story came from," Kanda muttered.

"What story?" Lavi turned to Kanda.

"My... father... came across a merman before he met my mom. He told the merman that if he found him a wife, he'd set him free. My father found a wife, and I never heard what happened to the merman."

"It because you humans are murderers!" Cross shouted. "You probably killed him and ate him!"

"I wasn't born yet," Kanda replied. "Who knows, maybe a shark got your friend when he was trying to get back here. My father said he had pretty scales."

Cross sighed and sat in his throne, his anger spent. "That stupid tail of his always got him into trouble," he said at last. He sat, silent again, as if thinking. Then he knocked over his seat and retrieved a hammer.

"Damn it, I missed one," Allen muttered. He backed away from his father and his hammer. "Don't do something stupid..."

"It's not stupid, it's punishment." Cross inspected the hammer from every angle. He then looked at Kanda.

Lavi darted in front of Kanda. "Father, stop. Just because you're homophobic—"

"What's homophobic?" Cross asked.

"I-it means you're against Shimmers," Allen explained quickly.

Cross dropped his hammer. "How can I be against Shimmers if my own son is one?" He looked down when he heard a burp and saw Timcanpy had eaten his gun. "You. You're the one!" Timcanpy grinned up at him before darting over to Allen. "You get back here!" Tim shook his head. "I'm your master! Get back here!" Again, Tim shook his head. "When did you start listening to him instead of me?"

Cross's assistant cleared his throat behind Cross. "What do you want?" he growled dangerously.

"Some people want to hear about whether Allen's wife has had children yet..." the assistant said.

"Tell them they haven't Shined yet."

Kanda glanced sideways at Allen. The white-haired merman shook his head slightly.

"I don't think that's the best idea, sire," the assistant said.

"Then tell them she's had five eggs! We'll say a few didn't hatch. That's normal."

Again, Allen shook his head.

"No... That's not a good idea. We should tell them she's given birth, but not give a number." He glanced quickly at Allen, who gave a small nod.

"Fine." Cross turned back to Lavi and Kanda. "I'll speak to you two later when I get my stuff back." He glared at Timcanpy, before swimming away into his private chambers.

The assistant bowed low to Allen, then turned to Lavi and Kanda. "We've prepared your room, Master Lavi."

"Wait a minute," Kanda said, "what was that whole exchange between you and Allen?"

The assistant smoothed his hair. "I don't know what you're talking about, sir. Please, follow me."

They followed the assistant to Lavi's room. Once they got there, the assistant moved aside for them to enter. "King Walk—" he coughed, catching his mistake. "Master Allen said you would like to stay in the same room." He bowed quickly to Lavi, not quite as deeply as he had to Allen, and left.

"What's going on here?" Kanda asked when they went into the room.

"Allen's... been running the kingdom for a while, but I'm not quite sure how long. I caught on a couple years ago." Lavi flopped onto his old bed and sighed happily. "It's nice to be home..."

"I thought you hated it here."

"Yeah, but my bed still smells like me." Lavi rolled around on it a bit. "And they didn't move any of my stuff."

Kanda lay down beside Lavi. He swept his tail across Lavi's, making the other Shimmer shiver.

"Yuu, not now."

"It was an accident."

"Yeah, as accidental as it ever is."

Kanda smiled and kissed Lavi's forehead. "Take a nap. You look like hell."

Lavi snuggled against Kanda's chest. "Thanks. I love you too."

Cross was sitting in his chambers, talking to his assistant. "We'll have to alert the kingdom that Lavi's found a mate," he muttered.

"Already taken care of," the assistant replied.

"Then we have to get things in order for when Lenalee's eggs hatch."

"Already taken care of."

"By who?"

"By your son."

Cross shrugged. "Okay, we need to set up a celebration for their hatching."

"Already taken care of."

"Who keeps taking care of all these things?!"

"King Walker." The assistant slapped a hand over his mouth. "I mean... your son."

"King? King Walker?" Cross growled. He'd remembered Allen mentioning that last name once or twice as an idea. "When did he become king?"

"Six years ago, if my count is right... He's been making decisions for you ever since."

"What? Impossible! That Stimulus Package was my idea!"

"King Walker suggested that to you."

"Damn..." Cross cast around his mind. "He did... What about that Sea Cucumber act? I was against it the whole time!"

"You're the one who suggested it, sir..."

"But I decided that it was a stupid idea and didn't pass it!"

"King Walker convinced you not to..."

"What about the decision with Lenalee's eggs?"

"Um... I was watching him," the assistant admitted. "If he shook his head to something, I'd suggest something else that he agreed with."

"He can't have been controlling everything!"

"Didn't you notice that the economy tanked when Allen disappeared?"

Cross sighed. His assistant was right, of course. "I should just retire then, shouldn't I?"

"I would talk to King Walker first," the assistant.

"Damn it! I'm still king! Don't address my son as king until I retire!"

"Yes, sire."

1 Pretty obvious what they were doing earlier...

2 (rubs hands together with an evil laugh)

3 Can you see Kanda in a tail? Yes, and he's very smexy. Hellz yeah.

(yawn)

It's early in the morning, but we finished it. :)

The first chapter... I think this story's going to be at least nine chapters. Maybe more.

Well, whatever it is, we'll keep writing it. Thank you for reading! Hope you enjoyed it!

It's too early for this...

See you next time!

Good night... I meant morning... Bye.

Omake Theater I: Cross's Treasure Hunt

Cross forced Timcanpy's mouth open and shoved his hand into the small blowfish's other dimension. He felt around for anything, then pulled something scaly out. "What the hell's this?"

"That's a lizard," Allen said, watching with amusement as Cross looked.

"A what now?"

"A sea serpent with legs that lives on land."

"Ew." Cross tossed the shriveled creature away and returned to his search. He found something smooth and pulled out a red, hard thing. "This?"

"An apple."

Cross looked at the thing again. "This is so not an apple."

"That's what humans call them. Our apples are called sparkly rocks."

Cross tossed the fruit over his shoulder, but paused in his search to watch it float to the ceiling. "I'll get that down later." He said before turning back to Timcanpy. He dug around again, and found a small green gemstone. "Oooo... Pretty color." He glanced around, set it on his throne, and returned to his search.

This time, he found the mer-to-human dictionary. Allen stared at it a moment. "So that's where it went," he said.

Cross opened it up, read through a few definitions, and then said, "What's sex?" He shrugged and set the book down next to the emerald to look at later.

He found his hammer, but he never did find his guns.