The Same, but No, Not quite
Notes: Usual disclaimers apply, not for profit, for fun.
For Ascended_Sleepers - on AO3 - because she's wonderful with ideas when I'm stuck for inspiration. Thank you so much dear!
"You remember that scene in which Sheryl interrogates the Bookman about Road's relationship with the 14th? Well, let's say after that a curious Tyki sneaks in and asks the same question. A conversation ensues. Lavi and Bookman are both present. You do not have to answer the question itself, but but but I'd LOVE to read your interpretation of it, if you choose to share any. Doesn't have to be canon, of course, just your thoughts on the matter ^^" - what she said
..
..
The rude interruption probably saves him from Fiidora's parasites, albeit briefly. Any respite at all and he counts that as a blessing. Unfortunately pain is visited upon him anyway. He feels his mind tearing into a million different directions, and he feels that his body might just want to crawl away from his skin, leaving his innards for the parasites to feed on, the joy.
"My ROad, My Road, My Road!", "BOOKMAN!" "WHAT IS THE NATURE OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE 14th AND MY ROAD!"
The questions prior to the angry shouting are actually, controlled and coherent, the new onslaught indicates someone quite unhinged.
In the midst of the tirade he hears - feels - Bookman's excitement? His encouragement to hang on? Lavi! This is IT. The history we are supposed to record. It starts now. It's beginning to move. Hang ON! He's not sure what he's supposed to make from that, and with him having spent the better part of …
..
... and he becomes slightly hysterical … because he cannot tell. For the life of him, he has lost count, he CANNOT REMEMBER. He panics because not remembering is not something that happens to him. The loss of recall. Losing count. He's beginning to feel the tendrils of dread, feels the bile rise up when even Fiidora's parasites couldn't make him. He's the one coming unhinged now.
..
"LAVI!" - hears the voice - again? - and hangs on to that and holds on to sanity, only hanging by a thread. Bookman's voice, loud and clear in his head, calling him. He's not sure anymore if it's to admonish, to give him strength or to confirm the first stirrings of betrayal. He really isn't sure of anything anymore, more than likely he imagined it. Has he said. Sanity only by the finest skein.
"Yo! Eyepatch! You look like death!" If he had the energy, he'd drum up some sass he is sure that there must be some left inside of him, where the parasites are and the torture. He really, just, only needs Tyki Mikk to turn up now and take something from inside of him just to complete the picture.
..
There is one thing … and it tickles his mind, he wonders about it … then he remembers and another tide of terror surges, the ocean breaking hard on a shore. His hammer, his innocence. Where is it? Is it destroyed, for that matter, Bookman's too? He doesn't want to show them his fear, even if it is present in spades. He's hoping that at least they'll see a Bookman and maybe guess-think that it does not matter a whit.
..
When he's conscious again, he realises that he's in that godawful chair, bound. Still. Bookman is also bound, still, in the armchair next to his. He snorts, no expense spared on comfort here. In the shadows and half-light Lavi feels the presence of another. His licks at the corner of his mouth, and his tongue tastes blood. His? The right side of his face feels sore and bruised and his top lip is split. He finds he can just about move his head a little, so he lifts it, gingerly, he is curious to see who has come. To continue the torture?
..
Even that small movement causes his vision to swim, he stops till the moment passes, then tries a little more. It's just enough and through his bangs he can see that it IS Tyki. A hysterical rasp escapes him. He supposes outright laughter is out of the question when all his vocal chords have indulged in recently are screams upon screams upon screams.
..
"You come to pull something out of me?" He manages to scrape out of his voice. He's on the receiving end of a long stare, a level look. It's quiet and uncharacteristically so. Even in a fight, except that last fight on the ark - but that hadn't been Tyki, not truly. More dark matter than even Noah, just hate, distilled down to absolute purity. On the other hand Tyki always struck him as eloquent, even when he was with his miner friends cheating Krory of his clothes. The soft way of speaking, clear and undulating tones. Debonair.
..
The silence stretches out before them. "Yes but not in the way you think." Is what Tyki says when at last he speaks. "I have the same questions as Sheril really."
"Although I suspect you're not the one who can give me the answer." Tyki tilts his head in Bookman's direction. "I think this might be under your master's jurisdiction, don't you?"
Tyki moves to sit down, on a chair identical to the ones that Lavi and Bookman are on - which seemed to have materialised out of nowhere. Except of course Tyki isn't the one who is bound.
Lavi has not felt anything from his elder in a while actually and again he quells another rising panic. "Gramps!" The stillness from beside him yawns deep.
..
Then Lavi remembers something from his Bookman training, and this nugget of remembrance somewhat assures him that he might be able to regain the gaps that his brain has refused to recall because of the pain, pain, pain. When it is all done with, he is certain he'll be able to pull it out somehow. Remember that which is all about the torment, because there might be something in the tortured haze that could be an important part of the history which needed to be recorded. He cannot resist a chuckle, there, Bookman will be so proud of him.
..
But he reckons Bookman has gone into a trance. It's a trick, he's sure that it's not specific to just Bookmen. It is a last-resort technique, Bookmen can - apparently will their minds to shut down. A kind of open-eyed sleep, but not quite. He remembers it being mentioned to him, but one of those things that Bookman never got round to teaching him how to do yet. According to the training, it takes skill to carry out, but the skill is in bringing yourself back.
..
"Maybe he passed out," he provides Tyki.
"Well then since I 'AM' here, we might as well have a chat."
Lavi remembers the last time they 'sat down together for a chat' in the Ark above what was left of Edo. But Road is missing and so is Allen.
..
"I don't really have anything useful for you." Then suddenly it hits him, the reason that Bookman was so aloof and off hand about talking to him about such things as 'the Third side', 'Allen being the Fourteenth' and a whole host of other things is self preservation, but not Bookman's, his. Lavi is safeguarded perhaps only because he does not know anything, and any half truths he might be able to give up are useless, or information that anyone can deduce already.
..
He feels the admonishment, as if the Old Man had hit him with one of his 'Panda Slams', and he smiles. He can only hope that this is part of the reason anyway, because anything else could be construed as a deep lack of trust in the abilities and strengths of his own apprentice.
..
He waggles his bound hands, "and as you can see, I'm in no condition to be fighting you."
"Even I don't feel like fighting, so you're safe for the moment" Lavi cannot resist a snort of derision when Tyki mentions 'safe'. Relative to what? Lavi would love to know.
"Allen was right, you ARE as conflicted as anyone of us that wears more than one face," Lavi cannot resist a rueful smile, "and believe you me, I know about masks." Lavi thinks that Tyki must have tried quite hard to tread that fine line, just so he could go back to his friends, that little boy that he remembers from the train. Lavi thinks of his own struggles with his identities.
Tyki does not say anything, but clutches at his chest, where Allen wounded him before.
"Well, since your master seems to have gone off somewhere," the dark man sighs softly, " and if I didn't know better I'd actually say that he's using one of Road's tricks, but," he shrugs. "Who can say?" - "We can still talk."
"So you really don't know what the connection or ties Road might have had with Allen or the Fourteenth?"
"You're the Noah," Lavi's voice is still rough. "Shouldn't you lot be the ones to know? If Allen was-is the Fourteenth, in effect," Lavi pauses, "he's one of you."
"BUT… I. Don't. Remember." Tyki grinds out word by word. "I don't remember anything at all," and there is a touch of frustration. "Nothing from that time. No inkling of why, or what." This time it is Tyki with the rueful smile, "and my DARLING family, refuse to tell me anything."
Lavi is fond of seeing irony, because life is wicked and cruel that way and realises, that again Allen was right, under different circumstances, Tyki wouldn't have been too bad a friend. But he is a Noah and Lavi an exorcist - even if he is one with a perpetual existential crisis. So there's really nothing to discuss, except for mutual self-pitying analysis on their respective duality of natures. Which might make for interesting subject matter for his Bookman accounts, but Lavi doesn't have the wherewithal for interviews just at the moment.
..
Then, it is like a switch has been pulled and Tyki grins, amber eyes all aglow. Feral, deadly and deadly serious, all elegance. "Please try to remember that if I do anything, hmmm shall we say, untoward," he's floated up close to Lavi now, "it's nothing personal."
..
Lavi thinks that maybe, maybe THIS is IT. Tyki is going to go for the kill. After all that was what it sounded like before, an apology. So nice of him just before he kills me. Pulls out one of my lungs, because hearts are so been-there-done-that now, this is it now. He stares back at Tyki with as much aplomb as his weak body can muster.
..
Then Tyki just phases out of the room, leaving Lavi on his own with his thoughts swirling and Bookman beside him, with mind gone only Bookman knows where. He's left there waiting, for whoever comes next for him, whatever is next for him.
..
Fin
..
Notes:
Posting date for the 17 Aug, So if it was your birthday then, the Happiest of birthdays to you. ^_^
... but ack! I'm still behind ;_; ... I will do my best to catch up! Yes!
More getting on the 'Lavi torture' bandwagon. Please someone, anyone rescue him already. But don't make him Bookman yet.
I hope someone somewhere likes this. Ascended_Sleepers ... I hope I've done him (Tyki of course) justice!
Once again, thank you all for reading, you are all so loved. - Zan
Part 18 of the 49 Days series