I do not own D. Gray-man (DGM).
Full summary: The war is over and neither side has won. With no place left to go, both Noah and Exorcists find themselves settling into the ark as their new home. Slowly, tensions begin to fall apart as everyone gets used to the idea that the war that consumed them is gone. But, as everyone else becomes complacent, the ugly hurt rising between the Earl and Allen becomes worse and worse. Someone has to do something about it, and it's left to Road as the oldest Noah to finally decide enough is enough.
This is based off liketolaugh's and songoftheark's Pacifism AU off tumblr.
Identical – Pacifism AU
"Road," Allen hisses, jumping up and stumbling over his own feet in his rush to reach the door. "No, Road, don't-"
"Sorry, Allen," Road sing-songs, and Allen knows she's not sorry, not sorry one little bit. "But you two are beginning to get annoying." And it's on that last note that she slips out through her world and her door closes, and Allen slams his fists against its checkered wood uselessly, too late to stop her.
"Road!" Allen cries plaintively, stooping to begging already. "Please, Road, don't."
I'm sorry, Allen, Road whispers into his ear, her voice echoing in the large room she's locked them in. She sounds earnestly apologetic, which doesn't soothe Allen at all.
"Road," Allen begs one more time, though he knows it is a fruitless attempt. Road loves her family with all her heart and soul – to her, there is nothing before family. And Allen counts as part of that, messy as the relationship is.
Road doesn't respond, and slowly Allen feels her presence ease until it's just him and the Earl.
He hunches into the door. It's still there, but it won't open, he knows. She'll leave them locked in there until she feels they've finally settled this age long hurt hanging uselessly between them.
"Er, Allen? " The Earl asks, tentative and hesitant and sweetly behind him. Allen closes his eyes, shuddering at the sound, before firmly turning to look at the Earl. It's always worse when he hears him but doesn't look at him. It sounds too familiar, and yet all so different.
"Ma-" Allen chokes, swallowing the word. There's no danger here – aside from brute force, if needed. The Innocence and Dark Matter abandoned them as easily as it enraptured them, gone to God knows where and without a trace or even a whispery good-bye for the Noah and Exorcists left behind. Allen could call the Earl whatever he wants without the promise of a fight, but something curls, nasty and ugly, on his tongue, and he knows he can't. "Earl," he says finally, decidedly.
"Call me Millenie," the Earl says, voice tilting up at the end to make the request cute and acceptable. Allen suppresses the repulsed shiver that dances up his spine. This… this is awful.
It was one thing, for the Earl to be Mana. That had hurt. Hurt more than Allen ever cared to admit even to himself let alone to anyone else (though he knows Wisely has sensed it, and that Road knows him far too well for comfort). It would've been… okay, if the Earl had hated Allen as much as he seems to hate Mana. But no.
The Earl adores Allen just like the rest of the Noah automatically love him, except in that odd desperate urge to be close, to be 'at his side'. It makes Allen's skin crawl, because he so desperately wants to be by Mana, too. He's used to Mana not knowing him or recognizing him half the time. As long as he flashed that wonderful smile like the sun, full of warmth and hope and possibilities, so long as Mana didn't let go of his hand, Allen had been more than fine.
This Mana looks at him and recognizes him. This Mana has never forgotten Allen, has every memory from the moment since they met at the graveyard to now carved into his heart. He even has flickers of the moments from before, of holding hands as they walked down a cobbled street to teaching Allen how to balance on one hand on a rolling ball. He even acts like Mana, embarrassing and childish and full of abundant enthusiasm, but he's not Mana. He's so broken, even Timothy recognizes it, and Allen hates the way everyone looks at him with that sympathetic pitying gaze, as though of them all Allen has it the worst.
Still, this would be all okay. Allen could deal – he's learned how to, over all these years – but the Earl loves him in that convoluted messed up way of his, eager to be by the side of Red, Allen, Neah, and even of the boy under all those masks. He doesn't care which one Allen is at the moment, just so long as he looks at the Earl, and it disgusts Allen that he recognizes that desperation as his own.
Allen had taken to avoiding the Earl as much as possible, which was very little considering he was the sole factor on all three sides who could tie the others together. In every meeting and at every dinner he must be present, which would wear on anyone's nerves, but when you include the fact that the Noah all have stupid-big personalities whom all require Allen or another Noah to cater to – and it's more often than not that all the other Noah get aggravated with each other and shove Allen to deal with that particular annoying one, or clingy one, or bored one – then it's only reasonable that Allen has taken to disappearing into his ark.
That's the good part about all this. The ark is huge, more than big enough to accommodate the Noah and the Exorcists with room to spare, and with Allen having complete control it's easy to disappear. They don't know it (except for Road, Wisely, Tyki, and somehow Lavi), but he's enclosed them all off into the center of the ark. There, the architecture is huge and rising, so it's easy to see only that and not look past it to the scrawling city beneath them. He's even made a few rooms that, on the wish of the first person to enter, changes into whatever they want. Having all of them in one spot makes Allen's life much much easier.
So, he was dealing with all of it just fine, in his opinion (because screw Kanda's, the prick always thinks he's right regardless of whether he's wrong), but Road had seemed to have enough of the strange tension between the Earl and Allen. Without a warning she swooped in, locked them into this strange familiar room, and apparently called it a goddamn day, because even her soothing presence – always present in her dream worlds – is gone, too.
"Earl," Allen says firmly, refusing the request. The ingrained gentleman within him is all that forces him to sit at the living room set of furniture, but Allen is pathetic enough to admit that no matter how the Earl is, he just wants to be at Mana's side. "How are you?" He finally asks, interrupting the gazing session the Earl has decided to host with Allen as the main show. He does that often. Staring at Allen like he can't believe he's there or real. Allen hates that he recognizes this, too.
"I'm just fine, Allen," the Earl says brightly, smiling so gently it makes Allen's eyes sting. "How are you? Have you finally made a room to Jasdevi's liking? "
"Of course not," Allen snorts, settling into the posh furniture and looking around curiously. The room feels familiar. Too familiar for him not to recognize it, and Neah whispers into his ear, 'This is our home'. Allen's heart stutters to a stop, and he begins to look at every detail, devouring it whole. It's warm and large, lending to that whole the Earl is actually a Duke in real life thing. His mouth continues unheeded as he stares wonderingly at the grand piano in a corner. "They want an entire abandoned warehouse, complete with working machinery. I tell them to show me an actual real life warehouse like it, but then they complain I have no imagination." He can't tell if it's Neah or him that wants to play the piano so badly, but he does. "It's like they purposefully forget I can't make a room until I have a good enough handle on what it's supposed to look like."
"Go play it, if you'd like," the Earl interrupts, and Allen whips around to find him smiling. Always smiling. "I'd love to hear you play." Allen's throat dries, so that he has difficulty even smiling. "Don't tell me you're too shy to perform," the Earl teases, and Allen's heart stutters, too. He brings a smile he knows his shaky to his own lips.
"Of course not," Allen replies. He unfolds from the chaise and crosses over to the piano. The finish gleams darkly, and Allen finds it odd that he thinks the wood looks healthy. It's rich and deeply saturated, swallowing all light and bleaching the color so that the keys look almost blinding in comparison. The gold lettering above the keys is curling and languid, and the bench is soft under him.
Neah begins to play.
It's easier then everyone seems to assume to share his body. In fact, at the beginning, Neah had simply disappeared, alarming Allen into sudden tears. With the Dark Matter gone, there is no Millennium Earl, and Neah's goals seemed to shrivel up and leave him as quickly as the Dark Matter and Innocence had. He had retreated deep into the recesses of Allen's mind, and only the dreams that remained of sunlit wheat fields and afternoons spent chasing Mana reassured Allen that Neah was not entirely gone.
Allen still isn't sure what had brought Neah back. He can't recall a single moment nor incident that explains the Fourteenth's sudden reappearance, aside from the vague suspicion that Neah had taken over his body entirely and done something. He thinks Road knows. But Road is awfully good at keeping things hidden, and Wisely is even better.
It was a tune oddly familiar, scratching at his nostalgia so that Allen knew it was Neah who recognized the song and not Allen. There are lots of odd moments like that, and it drives Allen up the wall to know something but not actually know it.
The Earl claps enthusiastically at the end, standing up and bouncing over to Allen with tears in his eyes. "Wonderful! That was absolutely wonderful! Of course, you could never play anything less, my amazing, talented, endlessly wonderful Allen!"
Allen can't deny the flush of pleasure that strikes across his cheeks, and he lowers his head in equal parts of shame and embarrassment. Oh, how he craves that praise, but not like this.
The Earl goes on, singing Allen's praises as if he rose the sun into the sky and called the moon at night, but Allen can't bring himself to stop him. It soothes old hurts that are buried deep, and hearing Mana's warm voice extoling Allen's endless virtues is a balm to his burned soul. He wants this, so so badly. It almost brings him to tears as the more the Earl fills the gaping chasm left within him, the more aware he becomes that it ever existed in the first place. He wants Mana, like he wants the sun on his cheeks and the wind in his hair and fullness in his belly and heart. He so desperately wants to go back to being a child curled within Mana's strong arms and resting against his warm chest, hearing the steady thud of a heart well and alive.
"Oh, oh, Allen, whats wrong?" the Earl asks, hands frantically fluttering around Allen's hunched shoulders. Allen brings his clenched fists to his eyes, wiping away the tears so heavy and sudden that they don't roll off his cheeks but just fall straight to splatter against the keys. He breathes a shuddering aching gasp, and Mana sweeps him into his arms like Allen is nine years old again, murmuring nonsense into Allen's hair and rubbing bare hands down Allen's back. "Oh, no, Allen, don't cry," Mana begs, and Allen tries to stop, simply by virtue that Mana is asking him to. "Allen, dearest, tell me what's wrong," Mana says, and Allen tries to through his useless sore throat.
"Come here," Mana coaxes, and Allen stumbles after him, following him easily to the sofas once more and sinking into the cushion next to him. "Come here," he says, and Allen's breath hitches at how simple it is to fall into Mana's arms and rest his head at his shoulder. "Oh, you've been carrying so much on your shoulders, haven't you?"
It's a comfort Cross had offered, before, and Allen had accepted. It had relieved him then, as it does now, but there's something different between Cross and Mana. Both of them are integral to his life, and he thinks perhaps it's not wrong of him to want both of them to be there. He would never replace Mana, just as Cross is equally irreplaceable.
It's this comfort that leads Allen to make his mistake. He cries into the man's shoulder, and says, "Mana." The Earl stiffens beneath him, trembling. Allen rears back, tears still spilling but no longer his first concern.
"Don't call me that," the Earl insists. His eyes are wide and full of hurt, and all Allen can see is that he wounded Mana. He knows, logically, that this is not Mana, but it is in the way his hair never stays smoothed back and his eyes crease in laughter. This is why Allen doesn't stay near the Earl. He can never get his heart to recognize the difference between the two.
"I'm not Mana!" The Earl hisses, and Allen cringes back. Neah handles this side of the Earl better than Allen can, but that doesn't mean Allen can't at all. So he smiles, and shifts even further back.
"Of course not," Allen says, wiping away the remains of the tears that have finally stopped. "I was just upset and made a mistake."
"I'm not Mana," the Earl says again, brokenly, and Allen nods, still smiling.
"You're the Earl," Allen assures. He leans forward to grab Mana's hand, then redirects it to fold his over in his lap. "It was my mistake. Oh," he huffs a laugh, scrubbing at his face further. "I wonder if I can find something to drink in this room. All that crying made me thirsty."
The Earl eagerly begins to look around, and Allen's glad the distraction hides how bitter his smile really is. "I'm sure there is some," the Earl says. Road must be listening, becomes a side-door Allen had assumed was simply there for appearances sake opens, and a cart rolls in bearing a tea set and snacks. "Oh, Road! Thank you!" The Earl says profusely, and though Road doesn't verbally respond the room feels warmer and brighter. The cart rolls to a stop by their sofa, and Allen muses how odd it feels to have the Millennium Earl make him tea. It reminds him disconcertingly of the dinner he had with Tyki and Road so long ago, and he laughs.
The Earl glances at him, smiling widely simply at the fact of Allen's laughter. "Is there something funny?" the Earl demands, as though Allen is laughing at him.
"No, no," Allen reassures him. "It just reminded me of when… of when I was in the ark with Tyki and Road. They made me sit down to a dinner party! It was just so odd."
The Earl laughs, too, delighted. "We should do that!" He enthuses, handing Allen a prepared cup. Allen murmurs his thanks and a takes a sip, surprised and unnerved that the Earl knows how Allen likes his tea. "In fact, I think we should have dinner tonight! Tyki has gone off once more to who knows where, and he must return! I don't know why Tyki always disappears like this," the Earl sighs, as though the weight of the world is on his shoulders at the thought of Tyki.
Allen smiles down into his cup. "You Noah are quite the handful. I can't blame him for wanting to have some time alone." Never mind that Tyki finds himself in Allen's rooms more often than not. Something about being in the one place people expect you to be in working just as well as being in the last place. Allen just shakes his head and tells Tyki to stop stinking his rooms up with the smell of cigarettes.
"Allen," the Earl wheedles, just as Jasdevi tend to when Allen distances himself from the Noah. They claim he is Noah so why the hell does he insist he's not? Allen is of the mind that Jasdevi understand far more than they let on that they do, and are difficult simply for the pleasure of being difficult to others.
"Yes, yes," Allen allows, unwilling to have the same old argument. "I know, just drink your own tea." The Earl pouts beside him, and Allen ignores this in favor of trying one of the cakes on the tiered set prepared. He no longer has to eat as if there's no tomorrow, but it's hard to shake old habits. Kanda warns him that he was definitely going to get fat at this rate, but he and Allen still train every day, so Allen chooses to continue his tendencies. "Oh, this is delicious," Allen moans after a bite of some kind of confectionery he doesn't know the name of but decided to try anyways. After three more thoughtful bites that finishes the dessert, he remarks, "Link made this."
"You can tell?" the Earl asks curiously, daintily picking off a tart to nibble on contemplatively. There is still a strain around his eyes that tells Allen he's pretending as much as Allen is to be normal.
Allen hums, taking a cupcake with frosting designed to look like Timcanpy. He wonders where the golem is. "He bakes so much for me, and I don't know, but I just know." He has never told anyone what he thinks of Link's tendency – no, compulsion – to bake. By the time he'd wrapped his head around the thought, Leverrier was gone, and mentioning it would have done no one – least of all Link – any good.
"Link is back?" the Earl asks politely. This, too, unnerves Allen. The Earl is always polite; the picture of a perfect gentleman.
"Yes," Allen says, distracted by the confections. "He just came back a few days ago. Master finally let him go." The wanderlust is buried deep into Cross' bones, and he had kidnapped Link on the basis that if travel helped Allen of all people, then it'll do Link just as well. Allen likes to think he understands what Cross was trying to do. "Ever since though he refuses to leave my rooms. Honestly, what is the point of everyone getting their own house if they all insist on staying at mine?"
It's not an exaggeration. Every day finds more than one person that is not Allen meandering into his home as if the unlocked door is a beacon welcoming everyone in. Timothy points out that it is, and Allen doesn't understand the logic of it. Still, every day there is someone. Rather than any other place, if the Noah and Exorcists are to get along with each other outside the dining rooms and meeting halls, then it's in Allen's living room. He can't really tell if they do it to annoy him or because of the whole having a part in all three sides of the war thing. Either way, he's ended up renovating his home to accommodate the frequent visitors. As he looks over the lounge he and the Earl are in, he wonders suddenly if the similarities between this room and the one in his home is the reason Neah had gone so quiet at the finished product.
The Earl laughs heartily at Allen's whining, and Allen flushes to the roots of his hair. "Oh, Allen, it's because they all love you so!" And that statement might have been nice, but only if he hadn't continued. "I don't blame them, since you are so lovable and wonderful. No one couldn't love you!"
"I have my doubts," Allen says dryly, hiding the initial groan of annoyance at the Earl's doting ways. The more time he spends with the Earl, the more he understands the Noah's – and specifically Road's, Tyki's, and Wisely's – need to have their own space. The Earl's abundant love is almost suffocating. Before the Earl can try to convince Allen that the whole world is bursting full of love for him, Allen continues hurriedly. "Cross is staying too, which is horrible."
"Oh?" The Earl encourages, taking a sip of his tea.
Allen nods, eyes going distant as he recalls the last few days. "He's horrid. He only stays with me because he's too lazy take care of himself in his own place. Thank God Link is with us. He's so capable that Master has nothing to complain about, so then he has to look for things to find fault with, and that's just funny. And annoying. But mostly funny." The Earl frowns, but Allen talks over whatever issue the Earl might have. "Honestly, Master is a good person, but I don't think he was ever meant to settle in one place." He stops then to ponder the statement. It had gone straight to his mouth without prior thought – something he rarely does, but it seemed true. Cross couldn't seem to find a place to rest, as though he was urgently looking for something but never finding it.
The Earl seems to understand this, carefully setting his empty cup back onto its saucer and pouring himself more tea. It reminds Allen to drink his before it gets even colder. "He was a busy man for many years," the Earl starts. "It makes sense that now that he has no more business, he doesn't quite know what to do with himself."
Allen blinks at this knowledge, and allows the Earl to pour more tea for him with a thanks. He thinks of the way Winter Sokkalo had refused the offer of staying in the ark and left. When Lavi had traveled through with Bookman he had told Allen that Sokkalo has made a niche for himself as a mercenary, but that he seemed tired. Allen wonders what keeps Cross tied down to the ark.
"It is perhaps why Sheryl also has decided to not stay," the Earl continues, smiling at Allen's frown. Allen still doesn't particularly care for that Noah, but without his abilities it's harder for him to sew chaos. "Sheryl loves being in control, and staying in a world where he is not is unbearable for him."
It doesn't often escape Allen's notice how observant the Earl is beneath all his clowning around, but when it does it startles him, as it does now. It makes sense in hindsight that Sheryl loves to be in control. It suddenly occurs to him that maybe all of the Noah's abilities manifested as a result of their desires and personalities.
"Honestly, Sheryl is so jealous of you," the Earl says, throwing Allen off track and distracting him.
"What?" Allen cries, dismayed at the thought of Sheryl feeling anything in concern to Allen.
"Mmhm," the Earl says, amused, and taking another sip if only to delay answering Allen. When Allen is sufficiently squirming, the Earl continues. "You see, Road likes you," and though the Earl loves Allen deeply and unconditionally, there is a note of displeasure in his tone. Allen can't tell if it's at the thought that Road likes Allen, or that anyone likes Allen. "And Road is Sheryl's daughter, yes? He can't help but to have fatherly jealousy over it!" The Earl laughs heartily, and for the first time Allen feels something like pity for Sheryl.
"Road loves all the Noah," Allen finally says.
"How diplomatic," the Earl replies, and Allen hates the feeling of the Earl laughing at him like this.
"It's not funny," Allen insists, taking another cupcake.
"And I'm not laughing," the Earl says, and Allen huffs in frustration. He waves his hand to try and explain that he knows the Earl is laughing at him on the inside, but he can't find the words to sufficiently get it across. He settles for biting viciously into the pastry.
"Oh, Allen," the Earl murmurs affectionately, and it suddenly strikes Allen what this is.
Somehow, in the span of their conversation, Allen has forgotten again how observant the Earl is, and though Allen isn't looking at him he can feel his gaze on him, heavy and tender and sad. "Oh, Allen," he murmurs again, and Allen can hear the resignation in it.
"I can't do this," Allen announces, setting his cup on the cart before his trembling hands can knock it over. "I just can't." He can't sit there and talk with the Earl like he's his father. Like he's Mana, listening to all his complaints and asking about his day and how he's been and teasing him like this. He wishes it hadn't occurred to him, if only so that they could continue this charade a little longer in Road's dream world.
The Earl is quiet, and the silence lasts long enough that it becomes unbearable. It's the Earl who speaks first. "I know… I know who you want me to be." And Allen winces, because it suddenly strikes too close to home that Allen is treating the Earl like how Mana treated Allen. "But I just can't be that person."
Allen wants to say you're already him, and you act just like him, and please, just let me call you Mana, but he bites his tongue and inhales deeply though his nose, trying and failing to settle his nerves.
"And I can't sit here and talk to you like a father when you won't be him!" Allen shouts, and he regrets it the moment it's out. Somehow, over all the years, he has forgotten how to cater to Mana's needs first and foremost, and deal with his own feelings later, in the quiet of the night. It's all spilling out of him, irrational and absurd, like tear drops falling on piano keys he can't play by himself. "It's just not fair," Allen cries, fingers twitching with the urge to hit something. He doesn't want to sit here and take out all his frustration and hurt on the Earl.
"I miss you," the Earl says plaintively, and Allen is always amazed at how easy it seems to be for the Earl to shred his pride in favor of begging to Allen. "I want to be by you."
It is this disturbing mix of father and brother that confuses Allen, and he doesn't know what to say.
Perhaps Road sees or senses the way everything is building in Allen, because the moment before he'll break and lash out he can hear the door to this world unlock. He shoots up, stumbling towards the door in his haste to get away from the Earl in fear he'll say something he'll regret. Or worse, say something he actually means.
"Allen!" The Earl cries, standing up after him but not moving forward.
Allen stops right before the checkered door, hand curved over the doorknob.
Encouraged, the Earl continues. "Allen… I'd love to do this again. Please."
Allen hesitates, staring at the black and white pattern as all he hears is Mana's voice, before stiffly nodding and passing through. He can't even lie to himself that he does not crave to be by the Earl's side, too. Because even as he stumbles out into Road's waiting arms, the darkness of his room enclosing them from prying eyes, he feels better than he did entering the strange lounge.
He's not quite there. He can't quite look at Mana without all the old aches and hurts and anger, but it's more bearable than before. He'd rather sit beside the Earl and listen to the gentle cadences of his voice and feel the warmth next to him, then to stay away out of some childish anger and resentment.
Perhaps, one day, things will settle. That day is not today, but with Road's soothing murmurs in his ear, he thinks that maybe that day will come.
A/N: As I scrolled through the pacifism AU tag, it struck me that I really wanted to write this. I have a strange fascination for the way the Earl loves Neah/Allen. It's a disturbing mix between 'brother', 'father', and 'me' that is just messy and screwed up and lovely. I would've included more of Neah, but that just got way too complicated haha
Most of their conversation dips through extremes simply because they can't hide their own strong feelings when it's just the two of them. They play and pretend, but both of them know exactly what's going on. A stupid complexity, but one they can't just do away with.
Also, I am highly disturbed that as I wrote the tags for this, "Sennen Hakushaku | Millennium Earl/Allen Walker" popped up. What. I didn't even realize there was a ship for them.
Cross-posted on my tumblr [nea-writes], as well as on AO3.