DISCLAIMER: D. Gray-man belongs to Katsura Hoshino, TV Tokyo, Funimation and TMS, (As far as I know that's all of them) and seeing as my name is moontoga29, I do not own D. Gray-man, making this story solely for entertainment purposes.
A/N: Hello everyone! Long time no see huh? First of all I'd like to say thanks to anyone who has reviewed, favourited, alerted or given constructive criticism to any of my stories I really appreciate it. I do have an editor (of sorts) who helps quite a lot (thank you very much, you know who you are). I really appreciate any support or comments you guys give me and I try my hardest to return feedback on stories I've read as well.
Second, Crisp is coming along nicely, I've even recruited some of my friends to play road hockey with me for inspiration! (Poor suckers...) Circus, Blind and Ocean Red are getting through development, though Sitar on the Wind is proving fairly difficult. Overall my stories are coming along nicely, inside and outside of fanfiction. Writer's block averted, yay!
Thirdly, I believe that there are a few WARNINGS in this story, namely hinted, subtle, barely there SHOUNEN AI, SPOILERS and some pretty messed up VIOLENCE. On the topic of violence I would love specific commentary on the fighting as I haven't written fight scenes too often and would like to know how you guys found it. Also, I had some difficulty with keeping Allen's speechs in character so I'd like to know your comments on that.
Fourthly, I'd like to say that it took me about 3 days to find the proper quote for when Allen asks everyone to kill him should the 14th ever take over and about half an hour to remember the word frivolity. So yeah, a lot of time spent on little details. I'm really proud of how this story turned out, but I think it will need a little work on diction and characterization specifically. I wrote this story mainly because I wanted to comment on the themes in D. Gray - man with Kanda being all 'martyrdom is bad' and then sacrificing himself for everyone as well as Allen being so friendly and polite, but so isolated. Also I wanted to write a serious Kanda/Allen fight.
Lastly, thumbs up to anyone who can catch the reference to The Great Gatsby.
Without further ado, our beloved hypocrites.
It had started normally enough.
The moyashi and I were fighting again. I don't quite know what started it, though I rarely ever do.
And everything just went to shit.
"You…" His face was strained as he clenched his fists tightly with his vaulting anger.
"Spit it out Moyashi, or is that vegetable mind of yours incapable of forming a sentence?" The moyashi wasn't the only one tiring of the other.
"You're a hypocrite."
Well, that was new.
His words were plain; they drifted across the space between us with a simple finality.
His statement captivated me into silence. I merely stood there, a dark shadow facing a white silhouette against the walls of the Black Order.
"You may think we're nothing but faceless soldiers, and maybe you're right, but I can't think that. Emotions may be nothing but failings to you, but there must be something we fight for."
By the time he'd finished his monologue I'd lost my patience.
"Shut it, Moyashi. Unlike you, I don't have the softness of mind to stand by and chat idly during a war," my mood quickly deteriorating, I shot a glare at the moron.
"And you also don't have the mind to realize when you're wrong, BaKanda. You're too wrapped up in being an arrogant jackass," he matched my gaze and challenged, igniting electricity in the dank air.
I narrowed my eyes. The airborne sparks crackled. I'd had enough of this frivolity.
"Are you quite finished wasting my time?"
He didn't bat a lash.
"Not even close."
The air shifted, the temperature dropped and the hall emptied into utter silence. This was no longer a fight; it was a battle.
"I hate you're type, you think that your own supposed virtues qualify you to lecture others, when really you don't know shit."
The moyashi decided that then was a good a time as any to employ sarcasm.
"And I can't stand your type, you bastard. Emotions may be useless to you, but what's a destroyer going to do with a feeling anyways? God forbid the great BaKanda have a heart."
A sharp ring sliced the air and broke the notion of a peaceful resolution in two. I'd drawn Mugen.
"You'd better swallow your tongue, Moyashi, or this'll be the last time you'll be using it."
Heavy and suffocating, the tension hovered above out heads like the vile grin it was, enough to crawl into your skin and crush your lungs.
"Oh! What an unexpected turn of events. Right when it gets too personal, it's time for scare tactics and threats. What are you going to do, BaKanda? Shave my head?"
Mugen pressing into his jugular, I growled my assent.
A cold wind swept through and chilled the grave scene, its keen, disembodied eyes piercing the warring souls.
"You reproach me for dishonesty and selfishness and condemn me with crimes we're both guilty. So what makes you think a martyr like you can lecture me on hypocrisy?"
A thin trail of red weaved its way beneath his collar. My eyes bore into him as I pushed closer.
"What gives you the right?"
His bright face didn't darken a bit, not with the blood on his neck, the steel on his naked flesh or the malicious man before him.
He merely stood against the wall, intent clear eyes catching the dim light.
Low and serious he whispered his reply.
"What gives you the right to isolate everyone?"
Any other time I would have scoffed at the thought. But not now.
"I'm just a bastard. What's your excuse?" I intoned sarcastically.
A long silence flooded the waning air. The atmosphere was creaking under the incessant pressure. Soon it would surely shatter.
"I want to save everyone."
Determined and honest as always, the mantra once again made itself known.
Moron.
"And what kind of savior would you be six feet under?"
"Says the one with the sword at my throat."
His statement and the accompanying nervous smile amused me more than it probably should have at the moment.
"Oh don't tempt me," I hummed through a lopsided smirk and shadowed gaze.
"Oh, but you aren't the type to fall to temptation."
The little brat.
He was altogether far too cocky for a boy with a blade against his pulse.
My face spilt into an all out grin. I could fix that.
"Try me."
The next moment Mugen still sung lazily from his new home, driven deeply into the wall where the moyashi's head had been recently evicted.
Grinning in a sense of morbid conviction, I turned, preparing to slice a certain moyashi.
And was swiftly brought to the ground by the full weight of a human body mass.
Well that just wouldn't do.
Ripping the moyashi off me, I hurled him roughly into the opposite wall of the corridor. His back collided with the black brick with a sickening thud. As he slid to the ground I lunged at his prone body and lifted by his esophagus until he was hanging precariously above the tile floor.
Suspended for a moment, I caught his eyes. They seemed smothered in smoke and heaving with soot.
Distantly I heard a clock strike as his knee rammed into my stomach and my sight went blank. When it returned I was lying on my back with the moyashi holding me firmly in place.
He faltered an instant before his fist smashed into my jaw. For a lurching minute I felt it dislocate, then reset. Blood trickled down my chin from where my lip had split. Through dim eyes I watched him shake violently in a rush of adrenaline and suppressed rage. The fist that'd punched me trembled weakly then clenched around my shoulder. He looked disheveled and plagued, his eyes no less troubled than before.
"Why do you have to be such a…bastard?" His voice was strained and croaked, little more than a pathetic whisper.
And then it erupted in a shriek that clawed out his throat and obliterated the silence. He threw up his hands and desperately clutched at his head. He rocked and convulsed and curled in on himself. His head snapped back and his eyes rolled grotesquely.
What was happening?
Rough and dry, my mouth hung open in awe, my palms thick with sweat from the stifling heat of my racing heart.
Dazed by the sight I sat up and reached out to grab his arms. I felt the distressing urge to see his face. I needed to see his face.
The nails of his disfigured arm dug into the skin and the pressure crushed the bone. I steadily withdrew his arms from his head.
The golden eyes that gaped back at me vacantly set a weight of bile in the bottom of my gut.
Amidst the chaos that broke out in that moment I heard an eerie call that threatened to make the bile rise.
'We're all a little hypocritical.'
In a second he was forcing my wrists back and grinning spitefully at me, like he knew just why it caused the bile to rise and my throat to constrict.
And those eyes, those blank eyes that stared so deeply and saw nothing.
Retreating from his smouldering presence, I managed to land a hit to his nose with my elbow. He let go immediately, but I had the disturbing hunch that he hadn't felt the pain.
He just kept smiling.
The edge of my vision caught the glint of the abandoned Mugen's blade.
'If that should happen, please kill me.'
Why did my consent seem so empty now?
The oppressive heat bore down on my lungs, the walls seemed to compress in on us.
Why were my breaths so unsteady?
The floor fell away beneath me and sweat trailed sweetly down my bruising cheek.
Cold.
How could my sweat be cold when I was burning up at the mercy of his blistering gaze?
How did I force the scream out to the dark through my scalded throat?
"Moyashi! Stop being a coward and come out and fight me!"
The echo of my roar soon faded down and out the silent corridor.
A sinister pause and that's all it took.
All it should have taken.
Why did I hesitate?
And then he collapsed, leaving a final, lingering image of a haunting grin and dull, unfeeling eyes.
I waited, unmoving, with the moyashi's head on my stifled chest until I heard him gasp back into the waking world.
He panted thickly for a moment and was polite enough to swallow when he shuddered violently and heaved. He looked around faintly and our eyes met.
When was the last time I'd seen those bright silver eyes?
He smiled up at me weakly and exhaled.
"Thanks, Kanda…"
It was little more than a murmur, but I heard it before his shoulders gave and he lost consciousness on top of me again.
The world was dark and cold all around us with only the light of the corridor lamps to reveal us to the dwindling night. My heartbeat slowed and my eyes so wanted to just close and rest in the dreary hall.
We distantly fell into the foreboding pit of companionable silence.
A silence I felt strongly compelled not to shatter.
And so I did.
Pulling my limbs away from his jaggedly, I rose to my feet.
I was so heavy all of the sudden. I'd had enough of all this hypocrisy.
I looked down at him, hoping, I suppose, to find a shred of honesty in that white.
All I found was a cracked mask of innocence in the place of an unassuming smile.
Should that have disturbed me?
"I'm not the only one convicted of false pretenses. They're a necessity for those of us living on borrowed time," I drearily whipped the blood from my split lip with the back of my hand.
The crisp, unfeeling breeze whisked through the halls of the Black Order as I left his unconscious form in the few hours of the morning.
A moment's hesitation and that's all I left.
A/N: Hope you all enjoyed that little oneshot, though I am considering some continuation depending on time and space. (Haha).
Before I forgot, how does everyone like this version of the 14th? He's quite different from how I portray him in Circus, so again, feedback would be greatly appreciated.
Something I forgot in the top blurb was the tension in this story, I tried to built up as much as I could without piling it on or being too obvious so I'd like to know if I need some work on that.
A little off topic, I neglected to mention that I currently have a cold, so I'm going to go now and get some sleep.
Thank you all very much, your time and attention is appreciated and I'd be happy to hear from you. Reviews make moontoga's mucus go away! (Lovely, I know).
A nasally unhello to you all ~ moontoga29
P.S. Have you noticed my tendency to never outright state any Yullen (aside from Kanda Yu: Blocked)? I think it's due to the shock caused by recent chapters.