It has been...what? A year? Since I've written any fanfiction. I blame this on grad school, LJ RP, and other factors. It is very weird to be back here again. In any event, I hope you guys enjoy.

And it Snowed

1. Allen remembered the first time Mana painted his face for him. The old clown sat him down on a three-legged wooden stool that he seemed to produce from thin air, and had seen more years, perhaps, than Mana himself. It was rickety and uncomfortable, too small even for his tiny body. Allen muttered acerbic insults under his breath, directed at both the stool and Mana, but Mana acted as though he hadn't heard.

"The trick is to hold completely still, and smile when I tell you. You can do that, I know you can."

Allen rolled his eyes, while Mana waited patiently, whistling a tune that Allen would recognize later when it evolved into something different. After a silent battle that didn't last long, Allen adjusted his posture so his back was ramrod straight, his expression equally statuesque.

"Magnificent." Mana chuckled as he dipped his fingers into a pot of white paint only half full. Mana always used his fingers rather than a brush—except for when he added small details around the eyes. "Now go on, then. Smile."

"What was the point of sitting still?" Allen protested irritably. "There's gonna be creases all over my face from—"

But Mana had already started to work. The paint was cold against Allen's skin.

"Clowns smile, little Walker. Even the sad ones. The paint is a tool. An extension, if you will. You want the audience to believe you, right?"

For a long moment, Allen said nothing. Then, slowly, the corners of his lips turned up.

"I'm not little, old clown."

Mana winked.

"Walkers never are."

2. "Mana, why did you take me with you?" Allen kept his gaze on the five brightly colored balls moving faster and faster through the air, until they were no more than five brightly colored blurs. Three changed direction suddenly. He caught them all, balanced one on the tip of his nose, and juggled the other two for a minute or so. He then gave his chin a sharp flick upward, and the third ball joined the rest.

Mana laughed approvingly.

"We both needed a teacher, I think."

3. For a reason he couldn't explain, the fact that Mana never talked about his family bothered Allen more than he cared to admit. He'd been abandoned young, forced to fend for himself in an unforgiving world that had no regard for cripples. Not that he was crippled, exactly—aside from his deformed left hand he was fully functional.

He knew nothing about families because he grew up without one. The idea that Mana was the same felt wrong.

"You don't have a wife stashed somewhere, do you? Kids? Brothers? Sisters? You weren't born a vagabond."

"Such big words you're learning," Mana remarked to the sky. He was on his back beside a stream near his own personal tent at the latest circus they'd happened upon, his hands behind his head. Allen sat beside him, his bare feet immersed as far into the shallow water as they would go.

"I'm not a bumpkin," Allen said. He scowled and twisted a piece of grass between his fingers.

"No, you certainly aren't." Mana's tone was pacifying, and he turned his head to look fondly at Allen. "Don't worry so much. My family is right here."

Sometimes, when Allen dreamed, he dreamed of that afternoon by the stream, and the words Mana said, and the way he had to stare at the sun to dry the tears that welled up in his eyes.

4. "You were sick, Allen. Very, very sick."

Allen stared at the unfamiliar walls, the unfamiliar lamp on the unfamiliar table beside the bed he couldn't remember falling asleep in. He was disoriented and weak, an intruder within his own body. The only thing he knew, the only force that grounded him, was the hand that engulfed his left one.

Mana wasn't afraid to touch it.

"Mana…"

"It's all right. You're going to be all right. I promise."

Before unconsciousness took him again, Allen imagined that Mana wasn't talking to him at all.

When he awoke the next day, he'd forgotten the thought entirely.

5. "You have so many things to accomplish, still. So many things…"

Allen screamed, his newly cursed eye throbbing painfully- but it hurt worse to breathe. It hurt worse to be reminded of his beating heart, his living body-

His left hand had enlarged and elongated. Separate from him, and yet connected. Just as Mana was separate, yet connected.

"Destroy me, Allen. Destroy me."

His hand responded violently, as if it were created to do what his father, the akuma, beseeched him to do.

Allen did not know himself. He could not hold on.

He gave in.

And it snowed.