One

Bright and early, when no other was awake yet, Allen awoke, drowsy and groggy. Another virtually sleepless night, he thought bitterly, rolling out of bed and standing up. He stretched and stared out the window. The sun was just barely rising. Figures. Slipping on his clothes, he quietly opened the door and left the room. Maybe they were still working downstairs….

"Allen, what are you doing up so early?" He stopped and turned around.

"I could ask you the same thing," he replied, staring at Lavi.

"Hey, I asked first!" He zipped up to Allen's side, and he started walking again.

"I couldn't sleep."
"Ditto. It's these damn dreams that I've been having."

"What kind of dreams?" Sounds oddly familiar…, Allen thought.

"They're just…weird…"
"Weird how?"

"Just--Yuu!" He stopped, staring into Kanda's room. The door was wide open, and Kanda was sitting on his bed.

"What do you want Lavi?" Kanda asked. He appeared to be twice as irritable then normal. "And what are you and bean sprout doing out this late anyways?"
"Wouldn't that be what are we doing out this early?"

"What the hell do you want?"
"Are you having trouble sleeping too?"
"What's it to you?"

"I take that as a yes."
"Join the club," Allen muttered.

"Too weird!" Lavi seemed, as it appeared to Allen, to be enjoying the fact that all three of them weren't sleeping. "You think this is just coincidence? Or is something up?"

"I think something's up," Allen said. "And I think we should go tell Komui about it."
"Whatever," Kanda muttered, standing up. Translation: he was agreeing with Allen. The tree slowly trudged down to see Komui, who was asleep at his desk.

"Damn…," Allen said. "Shall I do the honors?"

"No! Let me do it!" Lavi said quickly. He zipped to the snoring Komui's side, brushed his hair aside, and whispered "Lenalee's getting Married."

"LENALEE!!" Komui shouted, snapping awake in an instant. "What!? Whats going on!? More importantly, what time is it?"
"Two thirty seven," Kanda growled. "A.M."

"Why are you waking me up at this hour?"

"We think something's up," Allen said. "None of us has been able to sleep lately."
"Oh really?"
"Yeah. And, I'm not so sure about Kanda, but me and Lavi have been having strange dreams, which is why we're unable to sleep."
"So you automatically assume something's up?"
"Well we weren't sure if something was up, or if it was just coincidence. What do you think?"
"I don't know. What do these 'weird dreams' consist of?"
"Well in mine…everyone dies. I know, it's not too weird, but they all die. Kanda, Lavi, Mana, General Cross, you, Lenalee-"
"WHAT?!"
"Exactly."

"What…what about you Lavi?"

"I'm not telling," Lavi muttered, crossing his arms stubbornly.

"Well…Kanda?"
"Fuck off Komui," Kanda spat.

"Alrighty then. It must be something weird. In fact…" He began to dig through one of the monstrous piles of paper on his desk, searching for something. After minutes of searching and papers flying every which way, he pulled out a file. "Something like this has happened before."
"What!?"

"In that case, the Millennium Earl was actually infiltrating the people's dreams. The reason is still to this day unknown, as is to how he got into their minds as well. The victims were all innocence wielders who had yet to join us."

"What happened to them?"

"They died." Two of the three exorcists paled--Kanda didn't look worried. But then again, he never looked anything other then angry.

"They…died?" Allen asked, his voice quivering slightly.

"Yes."

"How?"
"One quite literally died from terror, one was killed inside their dream, and the last…never woke up."

"He never woke up?" Lavi questioned. "What'd you do with the body? I mean, there's still a chance they might wake up, right?"

"Possibly, but its not likely. But the body…well…I believe the Earl has it."
"Oh really?"
"Yes." Komui opened the file and pulled out a few pictures. "This was the first victim: the one who died from terror." He put the picture down in front of him. "This is the second victim: the one who was killed in her dreams." He added that picture. "And this…this is the victim who hasn't woken up yet." The three exorcists stared at the pictures.

"When exactly did this happen?" Allen asked.

"Several years ago."
"How many years exactly."
"Four and a half."
"D'you…d'you think we're going to die?" Lavi whispered, picking up the picture of the third victim.

"I can't say for sure. But I'm almost certain that Reever knows where we keep the technology to stop this."

"What?"
"We've been working on something relating to his file. It's still in the experimental stage, but you three are the perfect guinea pigs to test it on!"

"WHAT?!"
"We'll knock you out and put this little chip in your head--well, maybe not in that order--but once the chip is in your head, we'll be able to see your dreams on a screen. I've lost the chips and the screen so many times that Reever had to take it and put it into safe keeping. If we can use you three as guinea pigs, we can perfect and bugs in the system, and we can stop the earl from killing you. What do you say?"
"How the hell could that possibly help us?" Kanda asked, his voice rising uncharacteristically. "You can watch what's going on in our dreams and wake us up before anything bad happens. Big! Fucking! Deal! How the hell is that supposed to let us sleep in peace again and get the god damned Earl out of our friggen minds, huh?!"

"Good lord! You're going first!"
"No! I vote that bean sprout goes first! That way you can screw his head up, and I can finally rest easy!" Allen paled, and Lavi patted him on the shoulder sympathetically.

"How about this," Lavi said. "I'll go first and-"
"SO THEN IT'S SETTLED!" Komui said, beaming brightly and standing up. He threw his arm around Allen's shoulders. "Allen goes first!"

"B-but…Lavi said he would…," Allen pleaded.

"Now to find Reever and get the technology. We want to get this done with as quickly as possible, eh? We don't want poor Allen here to go insane from lack of sleep!"
"Lack of sleep is the least of my worries…"
"Oh shush. You three stay here, and I'll go find Reever." Komui skipped out of the room, happy to finally be able to test his experiment.

"My god…I'm not going to make it out of this, am I?"
"Probably not, since this thing is 'still in the experimental stage'," Lavi said.

"Ooooohhh…."

"Whatever," Kanda said, pushing a stack of papers off of Komui's desk and sitting on it. "Doesn't matter to me. We can always find another one of you. No big deal." Allen frowned and sat down on the floor, leaning against Komui's desk and hugging his knees against his chest.

"I should've just stayed in my room…"