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Sodden Rabbits
It all started because Lavi just couldn't keep his damned hands to himself. A nap. That was all Yuu had wanted, but the idiot just didn't seem to understand that. He'd just gotten back from an extremely long, extremely irritating mission with the Moyashi, and all he wanted was a nice shower, some soba, and a nap. The first two tasks accomplished, he settled into his bed, pulling the sheets high over his head to block out the light. He was clad only in a pair of his drawers, having decided that he was too tired to put anything else on. He had wanted to shower first, but Tiedoll had kidnapped him and forced him to the cafeteria first instead. His hair was still very wet-and normally he'd be bothered by this-but the second his head hit the pillow, he ceased to care about anything, because sleep-dear, blessed sleep-was finally upon him.
He dreamt of many things. He dreamt of Akuma raining acid down on little puppies, eventually clearing into a jagged, gray scale rainbow, of little dancing Lenalees abruptly losing their smiles as they began to understand the horrors of war, of tarnished waterfalls, forever draining the blood of both humans and monsters alike into the lake below. He also dreamt of calm fingers working their way through his hair, releasing him from the garish images and reminding him that sometimes he could just fucking relax already. He wanted to heed them. They were so soft, so kind as they feathered through his hair...
It was many hours later when Yuu woke up. The air smelled a bit off, maybe a bit on the sweet side, but he couldn't be bothered with that right now. He knew his hair was probably a mess, so as soon as he'd pulled on a pair of the breathable navy blue pants he usually wore around Headquarters, he put his hands to his head, trying to assess the damage.
His fingers came back sticky. Curious and already angry, Yuu brought the digits to his nose and sniffed gingerly.
Strawberry.
Oh, that fucker was going to get it.
"LAVI!" He screamed. It was his battle cry, and the moment he got his loose-fitting shirt on and had Mugen in his hands, he was going to go skin some idiot.
He stormed down the still empty hallways looking for the object of his fury. He knew the redhead would be around; the only question was where. He passed the distinct form of Reever. The Australian gave him a cursory glance, pointed to the left, and said, "He's in the library. Don't get blood on the books."
"Doomo," Yuu murmured darkly as he set off to the last place in which the apprentice Bookman would be seen alive.
After passing a mortified-looking Lenalee, a paler-than-usual-Moyashi, and a hysterically laughing Link, he arrived at the destination in which the execution would occur. He pushed open the heavy wooden door, without so much as a thought and entered the large, open room.
It was quiet-too quiet. Someone must have tipped the condemned rabbit off. That was okay, though, because that just meant the murder itself would be all the more satisfying after a long, arduous hunt.
Ah, but wait, there was a slight movement in the corner of the room. Shifting his gaze toward it, he recognized the telltale red that marked a soul condemned. Stalking over stealthily, he loomed up behind the apprentice Bookman, who for all the world, seemed to be asleep.
"Did you think you'd be escaping my wrath?" He whispered menacingly into the criminal's ear.
A visible shiver ran up the offender's spine. It was kind of comical, and it made the kill all that more satisfactory.
He was going to enjoy this.
"H-h-hi t-t-there, Yuu-chan. D-didn't hear you c-come in," Lavi stuttered, standing up abruptly, sidiling slowly to the right.
Unsheathing Mugen, he placed the tip at the base of Lavi's neck.
"Didn't you?" The dark-haired man breathed, his face only inches from the redhead's.
"Nope, but hey, listen, I gotta go, 'cause, you see, Bookman's gonna come lookin' for me, and I kinda... need to be... not here. Bye!" The rabbit made a bid for the door. But Yuu stopped him, Mugen pinning him by the pant leg to the wall. And hey, if he had gotten a bit of the leg, what did he care? The idiot was going to die anyway.
The redhead pressed himself against the wall, eye searching for any and all available means of escape as the Japanese man walked closer, savoring the smell of fear in the air.
"Choose your words carefully, Rabbit, they'll be your last," Yuu said, pressing a hand to Lavi's chest to hold him in place as he extracted his blade from the stone.
"Now, now, Yuu, let's not be hasty here. Listen, how about we go to the cafeteria, get you some soba, and talk about why you want to kill me, ne?" The redhead tried to negotiate, but Yuu wasn't having any of that.
"Like fuck you don't know what you did. There is strawberry jam braided into my hair, and the only person stupid enough to do that is you. So excuse me while I kill you and give myself some peace," Yuu growled as Mugen's edge returned to Lavi's carotid, pressing down enough to make the threat apparent.
"But... I thought I'd gotten it all off. It was because your hair was wet! I just wanted to braid your hair, don't stigmatize a guy for that!" The redhead laughed, but Yuu cut him off mid-chuckle with a firm press of metal underneath the Adam's Apple, drawing the finest amount of blood.
"Don't fuck with me, Lavi," Yuu threatened, his voice darkening as his patience grew thinner. The rabbit seemed to get the picture.
"Hey, how 'bout I wash it out for ya? That'll make up for it, right?"
Like hell Yuu'd let the idiot touch his hair more than he (somehow) already got away with.
"Fuck. No."
Which apparently in Rabbit meant, "hell yes, of course I'll forgive you, Lavi, if only you would wash my hair for me."
How the idiot managed to grab his wrist and keep himself at the exact distance needed to drag the dark-haired man down the hall without once coming into contact with Mugen was beyond Yuu's capacity for thought as he was shoved, quite roughly, into the Order's baths.
"Oi!" He tried to protest, but the idiot was the larger of the two, and it was at times like these that Yuu came to regret that fact the most.
"Nope. Your hair needs washin', Yuu-chan, and I'm just the rabbit to do it," Lavi said, a gigantic smile marring his face. The dark-haired man tried to flail, tried to get away, but the more he moved, the easier his clothes seemed to come off. He was not pleased with this situation. "Besides, you never use enough conditioner-"
"-That's because it takes too long-" Yuu interrupted, but Lavi kept plowing on.
"-And since the Order went through all those painstaking methods to invent the stuff, you may as well take advantage of it." The chattering idiot pushed him down on the bench to his right, clawing his sword from his hand. Taking a length of rope-where the fuck had that come from, and more importantly, why did the redhead have it?-from his back pocket, Lavi then proceeded to tie him down. The harsh cord cut a little bit into Yuu's skin, but he ignored it, feeling the Lotus healing it just a moment later anyway. Ha, beat that, baka, you think you can hurt me, but oh, you're going to get it good once I get out of this mess.
The sound of water running precluded a wooden bucket being dumped over Yuu's head. He spluttered a bit, coughing a little at the liquid he had inadvertently inhaled. Above him, Lavi seemed to be getting far too much enjoyment from the situation. Yes, burn, die, roast, you fucking rabbit, roast! I'll eat you when this is all over!
Gentle fingers laced into the hair at his scalp and tenderly lathered the soap-or that nasty, smelly new "shampoo" stuff that Komui claimed was better for the hair-through each strand, working their way down until they had reached the small of his back.
"So long..." Lavi muttered, probably to himself. Yuu scoffed, unable to articulate anything else because he knew that if he did, he would say something stupid. And he didn't really want to hurt Lavi, not when those hands were so calm and relaxing, not when he remembered that this was exactly how Lavi touched him when they were-no, no, no, he was still angry at the idiot rabbit. Strawberry jam in his goddamn hair, for crying out loud!
Another bucket abruptly went over his head, and he found himself coughing again. Oh, that imbecilic rabbit was going down for sure.
"Calm down, Yuu, I really didn't meanta do that," the redhead practically cooed. Annoyingly enough, Yuu found that it worked. Those soft, soothing hands were working the suds out of his hair. "There's another bucket coming," the idiot warned. Warm water ran down his body again, and then another time after that, and then again, the process repeating until all the suds had finally been washed away. Yuu struggled against the ropes briefly, but Lavi was already rubbing back at his scalp again, this time with that putrid, awful stuff that Komui had insisted moisturized the hair. "Conditioner." It smelled bad.
Lavender.
It was girly. But the hushed tone that Lavi spoke in as he determinedly finished his self-proclaimed work made it seem less so. His mind started to drift after a while, even when the buckets came back over his head, and once he was let free of the ropes, he was willingly dragged into the warm waters.
"Know ya bathed earlier, so it's okay if we forgo that, 'kay?"
What about you? Yuu wanted to ask, but his eyes were closing as the water came up to his waist and then his chest as he sat down on the ledge inside the public bath. Those same, traitorously good hands reached toward his shoulders, pulling him back and into the redhead. He couldn't help but meld himself into the other's back. They'd done this so often-wash and then soak in the bathtub, holding each other-that it felt so very comfortable. Even when Lavi started working at his sore, overtaxed muscles, the sense of familiarity stayed with Yuu. It was always the same, and in a moment, he'd hit that spot in the middle of his back that was so-
Damn sensitive. Oh, dear lord, he'd meant to kill Lavi earlier, but if the man stopped doing what he was doing right now, it would definitely end in murder. Unintentionally, his lips parted, and he accidentally let a moan slip between them.
"Like that?" Lavi muttered, digging harder into the dark-haired man's overly tense muscles. Yuu gasped, because even though this felt good, there were times when it was still goddamn painful. But he breathed through it until the circular motions of Lavi's hands once again became soothing. Slowly, arousal drifted into his system, like a fog rolling over a city at night, just as it always did when Lavi insisted on bathing with him.
"Die," Yuu hissed. He would not give Lavi the satisfaction of knowing that he was half hard already and was definitely, positively, liking what the other man was doing.
"Aww, such kind words," the redhead replied, leaning in so that he could flutter his eyelashes against the back of Yuu's neck, an action that, despite the Japanese man's best efforts, reminded him of just how painfully close-how painfully naked-the eventually-to-be-dead rabbit was. "Ne, Yuu," Lavi continued, "I'm really sorry 'bout the jam. Really. Please let me make it up to you?"
The phrase, as always, was questioning, insecure, as if the idiot was still thinking that Yuu would run away if given the chance. Which was really stupid, because if the Japanese man didn't want to be doing this, he'd have been out the door before Lavi had even tried to drag him in.
He was still going to kill the idiot, though.
Just not right now. Maybe later. Like afterward.
"Fine." He said it with a tone of ever-suffering surrender. Which in Yuu Language was pretty much as close to saying "I really want to do this already, you great dumb fuck" as he was ever going to get.
"You're still mad?" The redhead pouted, bringing his hands back into Yuu's hair and starting to give him a proper scalp massage. The dark-haired man let his eyes fall closed as his lips parted once more, and he wasn't surprised when he felt the water move while Lavi shifted to face him. He let the strong digits move from his hair to his face and then down his neck, shoulders, and chest, and he didn't mind at all when the slightly pruned fingers tweaked at his nipples. But Lavi didn't need to know that.
Of course, he was pretty sure the idiot was at least smart enough to pick up on that, and a moment later, he was proven right as Lavi's breath danced little intricate patterns over his mouth. He wanted the rabbit to come closer, to close the gap, but he wouldn't give the strawberry jam-laden idiot the satisfaction. He never did. It wasn't that it hurt his pride, it was just that he was still angry over the entire sticky hair debacle. And then their lips touched, and everything stopped standing still.
Deciding it was about time he gave back, Yuu let his arms rise from the relative safety and extreme warmth of the water to wrap around Lavi's back. He frowned a little against the redhead's mouth; once again, the man's back was littered with scratches, many layering on top of those from past missions. He pulled back and held the definitely-going-to-be-dead-later rabbit at an arm's width away.
"You got hurt?" And no, that was not a note of worry in his voice. That didn't fool the other man, though. And Yuu's searching hands found another, longer discrepancy. A thick scar now ran diagonally down Lavi's back. To his surprise, the redhead flushed a little bit.
"Didn't step out of the way in time," the man mumbled.
Yuu just stared.
"I... got thrown. Matron says I pinched a nerve somewhere, and so it's kinda tingly every time I step with my right foot. But Bookman says 'e can fix it, if he's given time."
He pulled the man closer. There was something in that single green eye that made Yuu feel very uneasy and perhaps a little sad, like he was reacting to what the redhead was really feeling when Lavi could not. Feeling by proxy, the rabbit sometimes called it. He didn't like it. And he was pretty sure that wasn't an actual technological term anyway. But there was no way in hell he'd ask Komui or anyone else who might know.
"I see." There wasn't really anything else to say, but he would give what little comfort he could, so he let his breath pool around the younger man's ear. He knew Lavi liked it when he did that, especially when he got close enough-like he was doing now-to just barely brush his lips against it. "When did you get it?"
The hair at the back of Lavi's neck was standing up, and the man was breathing a little harder. Yuu let his hands move from Lavi's shoulders down, down, down... and yes, Lavi's breath hitched in a half-moan as his hand fell into place.
Can't fool me, you death row rabbit, I know you like I once knew Alma, like I know Mugen, even like I know myself. I know you in and out, soul deep, so don't you go trying to hide how inconceivably turned on you are right now.
"Back in the Ottoman Empire a few weeks ago. It's only just started to stay closed. I popped the stitches out twice because Bookman was making me pore over books."
Yuu whapped him over the head. "Baka!"
"Ow, what was that for!"
"For being an idiot! You shouldn't even be in here. Do you know how many diseases and such hot water can carry? You're going to get infected."
"Relax, Yuu, it's closed now, and Matron's trusted me enough to let me out, so I think it's okay now," Lavi tried to reason. His face turned a little purple all of a sudden, and Yuu remembered just where he'd put his hand, which he was now clenching, trying to make it into a fist.
Relaxing his hand muscles and breathing deeply, he looked away from Lavi and muttered an apology. The apprentice Bookman shook his head, waving off his accidental attempt to castrate his...
His...
Lover.
There. He'd said it. That wasn't so hard, now, was it? That would be what Lenalee would have told him, had she even had the slightest clue about this most peculiar relationship, which she didn't. Komui would kill both him and Lavi if he ever caught wind of Lenalee discovering them to be what they were. Because somehow, the insane Head of the Main Branch had found them out, but only because he'd walked in on them (in Yuu's room, of all places, the prying little prick) while they had been in a rather... compromised position. One mention of his questionable behavior with one Howard Link, however, had quickly dispelled any teasing on the scientist's part.
"I was just... worried about you is all..." Yuu said in a hushed voice, and no, the coloring in his cheeks was definitely just from the heat.
"You... you were worried about me?" Lavi sounded completely shocked, and his eye had gone wide. The Japanese man could see it out of the corner of his eye. Abruptly, arms came crashing around his shoulders and a mouth was melded to his. He fell below the surface of the bath, but as long as he didn't need to breathe quite yet, this was okay.
Still, he clawed at the ledge of the bath until he could hook his fingers around and pull both of them up. As they broke the surface, he spat the water and hair out of his mouth and face.
"Yes. I was worried about you." As a confirmation, he returned his hand-which had gone about flailing a few moments ago-back to where it had been. The man gasped, and his eyes fell shut.
"Ah, don't do that to me," Lavi breathed.
"Fine," Yuu said, and he removed his hand. Immediately, Lavi's arm shot out and put it back in place.
"That didn't mean stop, you great plonker."
So he didn't. Pushing the redhead against the edge of the bath, their lips met again. It deepened quickly, neither of them having the patience for anything slower. Yuu could still taste the sickly sweet of the strawberry jam on Lavi's tongue. Hands went everywhere, purposeful in their pursuits of making the other sigh or moan just a little bit louder. The dark-haired man left Lavi's mouth in favor of more delicate fair, kissing along the strong line of the redhead's jaw-ignoring the fact that Lavi had neglected to shave that morning-and up to his ear, where a series of nips and licks along the shell soon had the apprentice Bookman's fingers digging into the sensitive flesh of the Japanese man's back.
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Yuu's entire being shook as he pulled the bigger man ever closer, gathering him into his arms until they were so close that they were nearly one person.
"You love me," Lavi said, wiggling himself closer. He opened his mouth to say more, but Yuu put his hand to Lavi's lips.
No, don't keep talking. Please, Lavi, no. If I love you, you'll disappear.
Lavi wrangled a hand out from between them and removed Yuu's hand from its position on his face.
"Yuu," he said. "Don't deny it."
He couldn't. But he also could not affirm it. So he compromised with himself.
"Only if you don't," he whispered in Lavi's ear. The man only nodded and then nuzzled into Yuu's chest like he was attempting to fall asleep. "Oi, Baka," he added in a louder tone, "if you fall asleep in here, I'm not fishing you out."
"You would." The redhead sounded sleepy.
"Che." He couldn't say anything else.
It was because he would.
"Here's your towel," Lavi said dazedly, reaching out and so that he could hand it to Yuu.
"Don't think that just because we had sex, I won't murder you." He would do that, too, of course.
Lavi looked disappointed. "Didn't change your mind?" He pressed himself so close that Yuu blushed. It wasn't that they were both naked, just that he was still unused to such intimate contact.
"Why would I?"
"Would it change if I told you I love you?"
"No."
"Aw, Yuu, you're so mean."
"Did it ever occur to you that it's because you're just an idiot?"
"Whatever, you love me too."
Yuu didn't disagree with that statement, and that would have to be enough for both of them right now.
"Doesn't mean I won't still kill you." Or at least get Lavi to clean out the baths as recompense. Yes, that sounded like a good idea. But first... bed. And maybe this time he'd let Lavi join him.
A/N: The reason we said that the Order invented shampoo and conditioner is because they weren't invented until the 20th century. Or so says wiki. ^^ Sorry for the crack at the beginning. Merry Christmas all! Ho ho ho...
