((A/N: This is my first -man fanfiction. It is based loosely on clips from roleplays that I am involved in that I have found some commonality in. Main pairing is Lavi x Allen, but I may toss in some slight one-sided Tyki x Allen (one-sided love from Tyki) or Allen x Lenalee (one-sided love from Lenalee). Please be gentle when reviewing…

Disclaimer: I do not own -man or any of the characters, Katsura Hoshino is the genius behind all that stuff.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, I give you Whiteface Spades' newest circus act: Breaking Black.))

Chapter One: Regarding Red

"When you look at me, what do you see?"

The question had been a simple one, yet the redheaded exorcist could not find an intelligent answer. He had done nothing but stare blankly at the very flustered-looking Allen Walker in front of him. He had done nothing but turn and walk away, shutting the younger exorcist out of his mind. He had done nothing but try to piece together the floating pieces of Allen's question.

But nothing in the world, nothing he had witnessed in his forty-eight previous aliases had hurt him as much as the silence that hung in the air between them. Allen had done nothing, just like he had done earlier, but watch him walk away and listen to the echo of his footsteps in the abandoned hallway.

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'What do I see?' Lavi sighed heavily and pushed the headband up on his forehead, his tired green eye looking lazily up at the dark sky. A few scattered clouds broke the deep navy abyss into little puzzle pieces which hung over his head like the pieces of Allen's awkward question. The stars that remained above him were now fading back into the endless sky, receding like the tides of the ocean that Lavi longed to visit. The dawn was coming, tinting the clouds with a warm sunrise that greeted the Bookman-to-be happily, as though God was trying to make him smile.

That day, that question, seemed so far away now. It had been weeks since Lavi had seen the white-haired exorcist, who had been called away on a long mission to Canada, but that darned question still clung to the redhead's exhausted mind.

What did he see? He hadn't ever thought about that. He always saw Allen as just…Allen, nothing more and nothing less. Lavi furrowed his brows as he thought hard about this. Why would Allen feel compelled to ask a question like that? Was he struggling with his identity? No, that couldn't be right; if everyone in the Black Order knew the name 'Allen Walker,' then he must know it as well. Lavi's brows furrowed even further, and his lips twisted down in a frustrated frown. Why indeed was the silver-eyed critical asking him questions like "When you look at me, what do you see?", and why was he thinking so hard about the matter? As a Bookman, little things like this should not matter; he was taught to look at things in an unbiased manner, but try as he may, this was one thing that he waffled on ever since it had been posed to him.

So now…did it matter to him?

Lavi grimaced. He had no one to talk to about the silver-eyed exorcist, no one to visit to get advice about the issue, and no one to help him put together the pieces of Allen's question. If Bookman knew he was out here thinking so hard about something so pointless, he would almost certainly be hanged. Not only was it stupid of him to be concentrating on Allen Walker at the moment, but it was roughly four-thirty in the morning on a Sunday and Lavi hadn't gotten any sleep. This would set him back on his reading and translating, to be certain…

Footfalls on the grass snapped the redhead out of his fearful stupor. Worried that Bookman had found him, he tried to quiet his breathing and stay as still as possible to avoid being seen. This presence had to be Bookman, right? No one else in the Order got up this early…well, Kanda did, but he would just sit somewhere and meditate without a care about the activities around him. Lavi's single eye narrowed; was there a chance that he was wrong?

As if God was answering his prayers, Lavi found himself looking up at a familiar face. Like karma coming back to bite him, the person who had found him was none other than the one he had been thinking about for the past month. Allen Walker's silver eyes stared intently down at him as though they were looking into his very core, trying to look into his soul and read his encrypted emotions. His lips were parted slightly in a childish manner, and his white hair framed his pale face like the halo of light glows around the moon. He seemed so fake, so otherworldly that the redhead had to reach up and touch him to know that he was real. His calloused fingers brushed through a strand of the young exorcist's hair, and he shivered at the softness that enveloped his shot senses. This action must not have been so alien to Allen, who just stared down at him with his tired eyes. To Lavi, it was like staring up at the moon on a midsummer's night, and he relished the feeling for a moment or two.

"Allen-kun!" Lavi finally breathed, releasing all of his pent-up breath in a sigh of relief. Startled as he was to see the younger exorcist, he was very thankful that he wasn't looking up into the livid face of his mentor. His hand continued absentmindedly toying with the smooth strands of Allen's white hair, the calm feeling they brought washing over him like soft ocean waves that lapped against sandy shores.

"Hi," Allen spoke softly, a small smile pulling up the corners of his pale lips. "It's early. Why are you out here?"

"Couldn't sleep," Lavi groaned, placing his free hand under his head and sighing again. "You just got back, eh? How did the mission go?"

"Badly," Allen knelt in the grass at the redhead's side, his cheek brushing against Lavi's fingertips when he moved. The redhead mentally jumped at the unexpected contact, light though it was. "We retrieved the Innocence, but my finders were badly wounded. They had to stay back at the North America branch for medical help." Allen continued on and on, explaining the tall and short of his mission. Lavi gave the occasional soft hum of acknowledgment, but found himself unable to speak because he was so enraptured by the exorcist looking down at him. His mind was practically swimming in the soothing feeling surrounding him, this feeling that was totally Allen. He drank in the sight of the silver-eyed exorcist, watching his lips move but not hearing what they were saying. He loved the way the rising sun faintly touched Allen's pale skin and white hair, tinting them a warm red color that made him look more alive than ever. His gaze strayed up to Allen's expressive eyes; they were the only windows into his tormented soul, mirrors that reflected his every feeling. There was nothing in them now…Allen must have figured out how to mask his feelings after he became a critical. Or was it that he wasn't feeling anything right now? This was another one of those moments in life when Lavi wished he could use both eyes rather than just one; Allen was so…so…so what? What was the word for it, the word that would encapsulate all that was racing around Lavi's mind?

The white-haired exorcist cocked his head to one side in a curious manner, silver eyes blinking down at him with a deliberate slowness that Lavi found to be incredibly sexy ('There it is!' Lavi mentally high-fived himself). "Hey…are you even listening to me?"

"Huh?" Lavi gave himself an inward shake, trying to pull some response out of his dizzied mind. "Yeah, Allen. I'm just thinking." Allen's head tilted further to the left, exposing the dark pentacle etched into his forehead.

"What about?"

"You asked me something a few weeks ago," Lavi murmured hesitantly. "You asked me what I see when I look at you." Allen flinched and averted his gaze to Lavi's right, his intense eyes narrowing in a hurt manner.

"…oh. That."

"Yeah," Lavi scratched the back of his head with the had he was laying on before continuing, "Well…I've finally come up with an answer." Allen did not look him in the eye. The Bookman-to-be narrowed his single eye before cupping the white-haired exorcist's cheek and forcing their eyes to meet. "Will ya at least hear me out, Allen?"

It was Allen's turn to feel strange. He nodded weakly, and the redhead smiled before he began explaining that he had been thinking about the question every day since they had parted. But what he was saying had little impact on Allen; he had shut out all of Lavi's words, only catching the occasional string that had some meaning to him, because his gaze was focused on his partner's beautiful eye. The silvery exorcist was paralyzed by the stern honesty in Lavi's single green eye, the raw emotion of it stopping all time moving forward around them. The care that was attached to Lavi's words was not lost on him, and it tugged at his fraying heartstrings like he used to tug on Mana's hand. He trembled as the comforting feeling of Lavi's words wrapped around his aching heart, evicting a bit of the pain that lived there. The aura around them was so…relaxing. It actually felt like Lavi cared. Shamefultears came to Allen's eyes, and he leaned into Lavi's touch in an attempt to heal more of his damaged soul. His trembling hands rested upon Lavi's as he tried to reassure himself of the reality of the Bookman's heart.

"…so, to sum it up, I've always seen you as you, Allen-kun." Lavi concluded, beaming as a small laugh slipped past his lips. "You are who you are, who the history books will rant about: the one Hevlaska prophesied as the--" he was cut off by the sound of sobbing. He blinked, confused. "Allen?" the Bookman-to-be slowly lifted his head to look at the other exorcist. Allen was crying softly into the hand upon his cheek, and his slim body was being wracked by stifled sobs of relief. Seeing this made Lavi immediately pull himself into a sitting position and rest his other hand on the side of Allen's neck. "Allen-kun? You gonna be okay? Did I say something wrong?" Allen shook his head weakly, clutching onto Lavi's hand more tightly. The redhead hesitantly scooted closer to the distressed exorcist and rested his forehead against his left shoulder comfortingly, like a dog would do to its master.

"I'm here, Allen. Whatever it is, it's gonna be okay."

Those words, so softly spoken, so honest and clear, only made Allen's tears flow more quickly and his sobs reach an almost hysterical level. He relocated his shaking grip onto the redhead's shoulders, clutching the fabric of Lavi's jacket in his trembling hands as though Lavi would fade away into nothing if he didn't. His face came to rest against the redhead's right shoulder as Lavi curled his arms around his middle, holding him close in a warm hug. Lavi blinked, feeling extremely confused. He was about to open his mouth to say something when Allen spoke, his soft voice, breaking with sobs, muffled by the fabric of his jacket.

"Th-thank you…" he mumbled, giving a pitiful sniff as he nuzzled his way further into the redhead's uniform. "I d-did not mean t-to frighten you by…letting this out all of the s-sudden…it's just that…" He pulled away and looked up into Lavi's eye, searching him for forgiveness, "…I'm r-really relieved to h-hear that from you…that you s-see me for who I am. But it isn't just that…" He smiled weakly and wiped his face on the back of his sleeve, "…I feel lonely…no one really treats me the same as they used to because I'm a critical now…" Lavi gave a lopsided grin and ruffled Allen's hair.

"It doesn't matter to me if you're a critical or not, Allen-kun~" he laughed. Allen's smile grew slightly, and he lowered his face back to Lavi's shoulder.

So Lavi could care.

"There's something else, Lavi…" Lavi blinked down at him, his smile turning down at the corners a bit. "I'm…I feel like I'm falling…all the time," tears sprang back into Allen's eyes as he spoke, but he tried hard not to show them. "I think I'm becoming the Musician…"

((A/N: Sorry about the stupid ending. I don't like it at all, but I couldn't figure out any other way to end it. :x Please review. I can revise this as many times as I need to. If I get enough reviews, I should have another chapter up within the week. :D Many thanks for reading!))