Go Ask Allen, a d.gray-man fanfic

Title: Go Ask Allen

Fandom: D.Gray-man

Author: su-dama/tempusfugit3

Pairing: Allen, Cross, OCs

Rating: R for language and adult themes

Words: 13K

Disclaimer: DGM belongs to Hoshino Katsura et al.

Author's Note: Fic is based on the manga and what it is not telling us. Here I go courageously filling in the gaps. Theme is a very loose play on Alice and more on Allen finding himself.

-Go Ask Allen-

One would think that, after only a few (albeit eventful) months in India, a boy would not be noticed, especially the way this boy has been. With the stares, whispers, and dubious side-glances, he usually plants his hand over his face and runs off like the scared little mongrel he may be.

Those alien remarks, from far different alien people. And his alien arm. His flesh, his colors. At least it, he, isn't paralyzed anymore. It's not their fault, and it never was.

He's not so much scared, of this, as he is shy. But he is honest.

That's the truth.

The sad truth, however, is that he is a gora boy—white, British, and thus, he must be special. Someone important. So he is preordained to be something or someone like this; this is a lot to live up to, decidedly.

Allen doesn't think he's important. Meanwhile, he thinks he's going to shove something up his master's asshole, because that's what he's heard on the road, talk amongst smelly men, and that's what seems possible in this day and age, assuming that Allen could go through with giving Cross a swift kick without paying for it. This abhorrence, in addition to the underscore of propriety, is what consumes him. It's an occupational hazard.

Master Cross deserves as much, anyway, and like Allen's heard here, karma's a kutti.

Although he's not sure what something like karma has to do with something like a she-dog.

He will learn this, just as he's learned that the Persians call this place Hindustan, just as he's learned he may or may not be working for, what's been arranged, the British East India Trading Company during the coming months.

His presence is noticed to a fault:

A lady wrapped in a shawl offers him a basket of rotting vegetables. They are rotting, or must be, so Allen must turn them away. Why should she discriminate when his arm is not exposed? Why should he accept it?

These are rotten, he says.

She says something that sounds distasteful but may actually be beautiful, or beautifully ugly, her shawl falling to reveal markings along her neck. The markings are unnatural; they do not frighten him, but they chill, because the smell is so awful to his young nose that he must be the honest one.

That's not fair! he yells. These are rotten.

Allen turns to leave and runs headfirst into his master. Cross wears the half-face of disapproval. Instead of words, he merely lifts Allen up by the collar and just as easily tosses him to the side. Allen recovers all too quickly, and he sees Cross acquiesce to the lady, proffering his hand.

Allen will learn, once and again, that his master is wise.

He thinks about the reproaches he receives on a regular basis. He thinks about how he calls this girl or that girl becoming, and Cross might decide to agree on that observation with that arrogant nod of the head. But when Allen calls a boy, the type of working boy, becoming, Cross deflects it with the wave of his hand, tilts his head, eyes his apprentice without a hint of disparagement, without a hint, ironically, and says, How archaic. Have you had your education?

As if he's been meaning to say something else after so many times.

He will be turning fourteen tomorrow, a very important age for no particular reason except that it's frightful. To be accurate, he thinks he will be turning fourteen along the lines of I think I am, I think I'm going to be grown up, and no one can touch me.

A homeless man on the street corner is British because his voice is so familiar, and Allen wonders how he's come to be sitting on a street corner in the city with nothing but fish in his lap.

Is it rotten? Allen asks.

It's very rotten, the homeless man says.

Is rotten good?

Rotten is good when it educates the stomach.

Like school?

Like school. How old are you?

Today's my birthday, Allen lies, since tomorrow is his birthday, and he can relax from being honest for today. Later, he will reflect on this. Wonder why it's so important.

Well then, you're a birthday boy. Would you like a bite?

I don't eat rotten fish. But, sometimes, my master gives me rotten food and I have to eat it, or he'll box my ears.

That's what masters are for. I killed my own.

Do homeless people kill their masters?

And the homeless man stares into Allen's face, at the red line down the left side. He hopes to see the man again for this.

That day will never come.

He wants a friend. A real live friend. Like a boy who will say he's done a good job when sweeping a chimney, or herding sheep, or making a few beds for a few pence. He's never had a friend like that before; the chance has never arrived. He's always moving, walking, and his father used to say that's where his name came from, the Walker name. It's simple, and true, so it must be Mana's magic.

It's been instilled in Allen. Not one day goes by when he wakes and doesn't think he's walked a mile or two, and that Mana is responsible for this somehow. As if he had strung his limbs and without even trying, Allen could walk a few roads in his sleep.

Allen wants to walk a mile or two today to find a friend. He'll search for any real live friend that will say Allen is a good chap, that he's a jolly good show, and that he'll make a jolly good friend. Listen, it's nice. It's always the thought that counts.

Over breakfast in the hall, Allen bows suddenly, because this is what he's learned, imploring, Master, may I see the next village?

Cross smoothes his tomato hair over his shoulder; Allen can't see the rest of what he does, his head bowed too close to the table.

Will you run?

No.

Will you be on your own?

Yes. I will come back, too!

If you come back clean, you may go.

Yes!

Stay still. If you come back dirty, you will sleep with the animals.

But I always sleep with them.

Then I reckon it doesn't change a thing. Very well. I'll give you a day. Come back clean.

Allen goes for a day, meets many wonderments, returns with a scuffed knee and swollen lip where a short-lived real live friend clobbered him for being white-faced and white-haired, and it is all only done to face Cross in the end, with all of this in his unfortunate past already. Fucking disappointing. It's tragic, and it was supposed to be nice. His knuckles are bruised. Unbelievably, he's had better days.

Cross gives him a once-over. Smiles.

And gives Allen his own room to sleep in. Allen almost cries. He almost weeps for joy. He almost counts his blessings.

But he stops to smell those wild roses that do not only exist in his imagination, hereafter.

Apprentice, if you can spend a night in this bed without falling asleep, I will give you a friend.

Can a friend be given? It sounds like hocus pocus to him.

It would depend on your acceptance.

I can have this friend?

Idiot. You broke a sweat to find one, did you not?

I was sweating a lot, yes. And the people hurt me. One boy hit me on my lip, see? I can hardly chew, that dummy.

Stop rambling.

Yes, sir.

Remember to stay awake.

And it is like a game, after a while of contemplation on Allen's part. Everything ticks, yet everything is silent. He sits and picks at the bedding, letting the cool temperature teach him how to smile in a too-warm climate. So far, he's been set to bake, his body, his little soul, on, on, on, and off. Now he is safely stored in sheets that tickle the hairs on his legs, tossing and sighing about the tossing. When he nearly falls asleep, he snaps his eyes open to pretend there are monsters on the ceiling.

Shadows from the moon, mongrels and gypsies dancing for change. He wants to dance again.

There are no monsters to keep him awake.

He nearly falls asleep, dreaming to Mana's tales of monsters. All kinds of monsters. From the sea, from the sky, from the land, from the caves, from the trees. From inside.

He snaps his eyes open again, thinking he'll fall asleep this time and it'll all be over.

There will be no monster fantasies and then what will Allen do?

He can bite his lip until it bleeds before this gets boring. He can jump on the bed and hope it doesn't pound through the wall or floor. He can make a tent out of the cotton sheets and make a fire, like he's in the forest, breathing quickly among the leaves. He can turn in several directions before climbing back into the covers to touch himself.

Though he stops himself before it feels too good. Sighs. Wipes his hands on his pants and avoids leaving evidence.

He remembers that doing this makes him sleepy, and the sleepier he is, the worse off he'll be by morning.

He manages to survive the night, exhausted, strained, red-eyed, as Cross ushers a girl into his door after checking to see if Allen has held up his end of the bargain.

It really can't be a bargain to begin with.

Allen's never been so conscientious of what he's been doing with his hands.

The tanned girl is sweet stuff by sight, and she carries a scent on the air.

Like someone snuffing a candle: She is for you.

My real live friend? I was hoping—

What?

I was hoping for a boy.

A boy doesn't need a boy. A boy needs a girl.

I need a boy.

Your tongue will earn you a lashing.

I need a boy.

You also need common sense. This is a girl. She is for you. Go on, girl, this is your new master from now on.

Allen watches as she hesitates, looking like she's thinking fast. She curtsies like a true British girl. Her lips are what capture most of his attention; they are bright red. Illegal, in his opinion. She should grow up and be Cross' woman. She probably will, if all assumptions prove correct.

She is left with Allen, alone, and he regrets staying awake. He thinks about how he should have touched himself and then maybe reflected on his origins, for remembrance, but he is disrupted by this Indian girl. By her slippers on stone.

Are you a Hindu? he asks quietly.

A little, she says. Her almond-shaped eyes are brilliant, a brilliant blue that seems off-color.

Are you gonna stay with me?

As you wish. But her almond-shaped eyes are also cursing.

I'm not royalty. I am Allen.

Allen.

Yes?

May I sit with you?

Maybe. I dunno. Is this another test?

What is a test? It's just sitting.

But I sit a lot, and I walk a lot, and my master still hates me.

Is he so horrid?

Very. Please don't tell him that.

I will never tell him a thing.

Although she has said she will only sit with him, she is not. She is doing more.

She is nameless and topless, her sheer top collapsing, placing his human hand on her small breast. His fingers balk at her nipple, as if they can react, gentlemanly-gently, on their own accord. She is blushing, she is hardened there. Is she scared of his claws on the other hand? Is he scared of her letting him touch?

Did he buy you, like the other women?

Yes.

She has the decency to continue with the truth. His hand starts to pull away, after the first few shocks. Her hair is a light brown, knotted into braids, stone earrings on each side of her head. They look gaudy and, by association, reminiscent of everything he hates about his master. Hate.

He doesn't even know why he calls him that, everyday. What will he ever call this one?

She brings his hand back to her chest, where it doesn't quite get a grip and falls into her lap, against her belly. This time he springs away, learning more and more by the second and wishing for it to vanish on sight. Let her go. Disappear, girl, disappear.

Go away, please. Go away.

I've just arrived.

I don't need you. I need a boy to be my friend.

But I've just arrived.

Tell my master to send you back to your parents.

I don't have any parents, boy.

He has been aroused and sweating in the cool room. He is now.

It is killed, as it should be, when she tells him about how being with him will keep her from destitution; he refuses to answer her quiet pleadings.

Cross hears of his refusal (by way of instinct?), knocks down his door, and crosses his arms.

Allen, picking at the tapestry on the wall, whispers without turning to face him that the girl is of no use.

Whatever do you mean? Cross will never understand.

Do you know her? Allen asks.

You've got a bad head on your shoulders, you little idiot.

Allen sits on the bed with his head lowered. He sees that his hands are clammy and sallow. The girl has made this possible.

Cross approaches. You will probably grow up to be a monk, won't you?

I…don't. I don't know, sir.

Wrong. You will be an Exorcist.

But!

Don't interrupt me. You will be an Exorcist. Tell yourself this till the day you die, say it, repeat after me. Say it everyday, when you look at your hand and see others staring at the same.

Allen's to stay in the room, as it was a test after all, though he is to work even harder, establish connections with the natives, and experience his first public lashing.

Ironically, he will forget the last and always remember the work to be the epitome of earthly frustration, topping that of his ventures over hill and dale, omitting the rest, of course.

At this point in time, Allen is too overwhelmed by that provincial road to care anymore.

So he buys some rotten fish off a peddler, eats it, and pukes his stomach out on top of the pelt in the foyer.

It is not rotten fish; it is just fish he's never had before.

He should feel relieved, and lucky for not being poisoned.

And then he realizes that one of the many observant maids has seen him, which is an unbearable thing, even in his overwhelmed, uncaring state.

He is then forced to pay the damages, because the stains will not come out of the white fur that could have come from his own head.

Being noticed so often renders him minute, tiny, disfigured. He's been disfigured since birth, but this is an additive he cannot digest to his discretion. Bloody lament.

It is the same as the fish, only Allen must hide it more, play in the mud, return muddy just to be beaten into such a tiny disfigurement. He doesn't ask why or how a man can beat a child with mathematical words, or how Cross can ask someone, a subordinate, to do it for him. He doesn't ask what those noises are that originate from Cross' chambers, or wherever they may be originating at the different hours of the day or night. And not the false quiet.

That is the sex Cross wants Allen to get, to get it good. Allen will not. Not because it is unreasonable for a child. Not because Allen doesn't quite know how. Maybe it's because Allen wants to know why it's so much apart of Cross, his agenda of sacrilege.

Allen entertains the idea of monkhood and sex, deciding one may be for him while the other is awfully unfathomable. One of them is for him.

It is this he dwells on as he makes a real live friend. It is a boy. They meet on the riverbank, accidentally splashing each other, judging each other's presence, like I've-been-waiting-for-you-come-come-come-here.

Allen reaches out a hand to where the boy falls on his arm, and the boy is laughing so hard and bringing Allen down into the depths.

It must take people some time to learn a new form of communication. The dialect the boy teaches him is strange yet welcome in his throat. Productive. He learns that he probably should have taken in that girl. He learns that he won't regret it, just feel uncomfortable. The silken feel of her breast in his hand is still there; he fears it will never go away. He wills it away, making an ugly face.

He wonders if there are crocodiles around.

Perhaps.

You really don't understand, Allen says in English. I really don't like them.

They make Allen piss his pants.

Not one person does.

I really, really, awfully don't like them.

Really, really, awfully?

Utterly and, erm, disastrously.

Dis-as-trous-ly?

My master likes their skin.

I see.

Am I a good chap, for listening to my master, following orders? Like that?

I don't understand.

It's all right. I know.

After the Big Halt to their conversation, Allen watches as the boy wrings out his shoulder-silken hair and shakes out his limbs. Part of him is a domestic animal. His real live friend will be going now for food at the market and then home. His family needs him.

The Family is just what Allen hopes to avoid.

He doesn't do families. The most he can do is pardon the concept. (They are lovingly suffocating. They are pigments of an imagination that never fully reconstructs itself.)

The trauma from before has forced him to forget the rocky details of the incident, and as a result, Mana's dead body steeps further into the ground, begone, goodbye, away into the darkness and out of Allen's mind.

Really, really, awfully, utterly and disastrously out of his mind.

It is really, really because he only thinks it must be a really, really bad thing.

It is awfully because it must be an awfully bad thing to forget.

It is utterly and disastrously because what other conclusion can be reached except for the one where it must be an utterly and disastrously bad thing to forget one's only real live foster parent.

Cross knows things about his father—and is not willing to share them. Cross will not share them over supper; Cross will not dish out hints, does not spare Allen the wait. Cross has even gone a week without gambling just to prove the something he denies an explanation to:

That Allen is unhealthily dependent upon Mana's memory, and when these memories fade, so will Allen's existence.

The world is shattered, sense of self shattered, to which his eye makes this sound that's called waking, oh everyone in the world must hear it and celebrate Allen's initiation into manhood.

Is this a test? asks Allen, wiping crust from the corners of his mouth.

Cross assembles him into a submissive position. It is like praying, however not, and most likely far from it. Allen has healed from the momentary touch. He is handed a jug of river water. There is that soil smell, tickling the hairs in his nostrils.

Drink that, all of it, and tell me if your bladder can hold it.

Stomach may be big, but water will pass right through. Right through it.

Allen drinks and drinks, spills it down his chin, closes his eyes, and drinks some more. He doesn't chug. At the bottom of the jug, there are only a few drops left, tasting of earth, river water. He hears them splatter onto the wall of the jug, rolling to the spout. They tell his tongue that his bladder is going to burst.

The jug is large. His bladder is not.

Is this a test? he asks again, once Cross puts down his reading material.

Can your bladder hold out long enough?

No.

There you have it, idiot apprentice. I am not responsible for your own actions.

Which is another horror he learns in the years spent with Master Cross.

Master Cross, after all this time, has not and does not control him. Cross is telling him this, through baited words, they are baited with not worms but peppers, through another test, when it's really just a minor test and nothing to cry his little head over. Between master and apprentice, Allen knows he's the sole proprietor of this Walker's body and mind, where his temperature is constantly in flux, from which he cannot escape, but he can forthwith escape to, and will, and always find some solace in this great escape.

With this great escape, he bites the skin of his lip right off, peeling until it is raw pink and then gossamer blood streams down, just barely, just there.

Then Cross excuses him, and Allen runs like mad to the nearest lavatory.

He nearly forgets to unhook his trousers, trying not to vocalize exactly how much he despises Cross, how much he would pay off someone to do Cross in, in the head.

Hell, he wonders if he could do it himself.

Cross also teaches Allen about law and politics:

It's hotter than a summer's day in Paraguay, Allen says while he caters to Cross and his female entourage during a picnic.

Eh?

I said it's hotter—

I know what you said, you simply have no right to. Have you ever been to Paraguay? Have you ever experienced its awful hotness?

Um, no. But I was only repeating—

What I said? Well, my apprentice, if you haven't been there, you have no evidence to support your claim, do you?

It is hardly a claim. Cross is a sleaze-bucket filled with something Allen doesn't know how to put into words.

But master, I was only—

Unlawfully taking the words right out of my mouth?

Wait. What? Allen says, in the middle of handing a bowl of pickled fruits to one of the women.

Unlawfully, when you do something against the law. When you do it, it's so obvious, it's humiliating.

I never!

Mind your tongue, Cross says pleasantly, lifting a finger and using his other hand to wave at all other ears.

I just—I meant—

You have just, and you did mean. I don't think I need remind you.

Allen turns his scowl into a straight line with much difficulty. Allen needs to punch something. Be it Cross' law or Cross' face.

Allen watches him instead, under the canopy of the tree, and says, No doubt everyone steals words from each other everyday.

Cross looks at him from below, when really he seems so lofty and invincible.

Apprentice. Pass the wine. Thank you. Now, the reason I say this is for your own good—oh, my lovely, would you like some? Yes, just a little more. Can you hold your wine, m'dear? If you cannot, I'll bring you to my quarters for a—

Master.

Oh, yes, where was I?

On the express train to hell.

Nowhere, Allen says, thinking to get Cross good and drunk and thusly, preoccupied.

Cross taps his glasses for a moment before grinning sardonically. Ah. As I was saying, the more you repeat others, the more unlike yourself you become.

Is that…so?

And the more you repeat things you have no idea about, the more of a black lie you yourself become. Like a black hole, black inside, understand?

What's the difference between a white lie and a black one, then?

Cross gives him a look of why-don't-you-ask-yourself-that?

Why, it is the difference between telling a young lady you're cut, and then having the brass to show her.

C-cut?

Cross keeps smiling and letting his women fawn over him, like he needs the attention. One must wonder why he would need it, with that puffed up head of his. Stupid beard, stupid mask, stupid glasses, stupid smirk on his stupid face. Allen would love to spit in that stupid face, but alas.

Allen.

Allen cannot.

Yes?

Fetch me the olives.

But they're—they're in the kitchen. Out there, in the kitchen.

So?

But. But it's too far!

Again, so? What's stopping you, boy?

Allen sighs heavily to himself. Yes. Sir.

And just as he's about to step out of their bubble of drunken love and back down the manicured path to their mansion that's definitely a mile away, he hears Cross frown, and Allen knows Cross is frowning at him.

Where the hell are you going? Are you my apprentice, or are you my slave?

Allen wants to say he thought Cross was a slave-driver; case of mistaken identity?

Allen. You. Are my apprentice, says Cross after a moment of girly humdrum filling the space around them. You are not my slave. Got that?

And there is a look on that stupid face that makes it not as stupid. Actually, Allen sees caustic seriousness, tapping, knocking, banging into him.

I—

Do you understand that?

Yes.

Yes. Cross purses his lips and flicks his wrist at Allen. Let that be your second lesson for the day. Now go relax before I give you another one.

And the smile is back, a smile that may involve a lesson having to do with so-called Cut Men.

Allen feels as if he's being whisked away on holiday with nothing to stop him, with only his shirt sticking to his back and the afterthought of olives making his mouth water in the midday heat.

He hears Cross again, this time laughing as Allen hears a woman giggling in accompaniment. Oh yes, milady. I adore children. I think I'll have twenty someday. Or I can go all out and have a hundred, a whole diversity of young things up and down the continent. Here, take a sip. Yes, it's a rich wine. I'm rather partial to rich wines. If you dab it on your lips, like that, you'll get a fine color. Mm, wine color. Your lips now match mine, my darling.

Allen thinks that, truly, Cross is a bastard who has fathered many bastard children already, and that maybe, hypothetically of course, Cross has a point: Allen must read between the lines.

Cross has been prolonging the inevitable, as Allen reads the smallest of gestures.

The day the girl is randomly sent back up to his room is the same day Cross invites, orders Allen, to follow him into the city, past the slums, the tanned bodies in massive, encompassing crowds, and into an opening. Can't breathe, can breathe. There are trees here, surrounding them like a cult. The clearing is silent and (oh God, the terror he feels) terribly inviting.

Cross is silent as well, with the hat missing, Timcanpy perched atop his crown. He has been smoking for the better part of the walk.

Allen stands there awkwardly in wait. I'm ready, sir. He is far from ready, in spite of his mind steeling for the final blow. Breathes in deeply without Cross noticing.

What are you ready for, apprentice? Cross asks wickedly, his smile cut in half.

Whatever there is to do, in a clearing, outside the city.

Too good to be true. Here, Allen, take this.

A weapon is thrust into his shaking arms. He is nervous. He fights and fights to stay calm. The weapon also has one of those bay—bayo—

Cross continues to smile in that bloodcurdling way, at least from Allen's point of view, and Allen is to understand that there is more to it than that.

Net! Bayonet for God's sake. His fingers slip upon the muzzle, toward the trigger. His fingers go rigid.

There is a flock of birds to the south. They squawk and talk amongst themselves, none the wiser. No cloud in the sky. No day for death. Nothing.

Kill them.

But I can't comes out faster than a scream would have.

Cross leers, almost drunkenly. Allen wants to call him on it, to say Cross must be drunk and out of sorts. He cannot expect this from Allen.

Please.

Do it. Use the gun.

I've never used this kind of gun before. I've never used any gun before.

He has, but he hasn't.

Use it.

Please, master.

He's not like Cross; it's not like Allen carries around a Pistol of Judgment everyday, it's not like he dreams to wield something so deadly around. (It's not like that at all.) But he does, and it's attached to him.

Cross flicks the still burning cigarette, sizzling, into the grass. Allen stomps it out with his heel.

Did I tell you to do that?

N-no.

Did I not tell you to shoot?

The word yes drags on his bottom lip, the warm air drying his gums. He is stuck on that word, and it won't come out for the life of him.

They are just birds. With wings. That can fly. And go places Allen's never been.

Cross repeats himself, unwavering as he starts to remove his jacket. Allen's nape chills; his skin blisters in the sun.

Yes. I'll do it.

They breathe, listening to the flock coming ever closer to its demise.

Maybe it'll be just one bird, the rest free to go, to see the places Allen's never seen.

I'll do it. Allen nods to Cross, then to himself. Mostly to himself.

It is one of those long guns, for hunting, something Cross might have picked up for foxhunts or goose-chases. The hilt of it is wood and metal and nasty.

Or it could have been used for war; Allen doesn't know where to begin.

I'll do it. Allen takes aim. An eye squeezes shut, so tight it might strangle an eyeball. Temporary blackness. He clears his head, his brow like brick.

Use both eyes. Cross lifts a gloved finger toward the sky, directly ahead, nearly directly above. Hurry. They're here. They're coming.

Allen is in the midst of convincing himself that they are just birds meant to die, to fly and die, and that he'll sleep fitfully tonight without the sound of a bird or birds pitting the ground.

He aims again, stops breathing, both eyes open and fixed on any bird that first pops into the crosshairs. He ignores the sweat dribbling down his nape now.

Ready. Aim.

If you're on the mark, I'll send the girl away for good.

Fire.

Allen is distracted, throwing off his body's angle. His finger twitches. The bullet misses.

He lies in bed that night with the girl mollycoddling his ailment.

In hindsight, he knows he could have turned on his master, but that he is too good of a person to do just that.

He misses his real live friend, the boy at the river. Allen accepts the girl's ministrations, her aid doing him some good in all honesty, for Allen is an honest boy with a careful naïveté about him, this is right.

The girl is older than him. Her naïveté is very little, like her Hinduism.

However, she has a name that's so hard to pronounce that he rests on calling her Lily.

Why this name?

I dunno. Your eyes are a different color, but I like flowers. Sometimes.

How can a person sometimes like flowers, and not others?

Lily is a nice name, though, isn't it?

Hmm.

Is it…bad?

Am I to call you my master from now on?

Please don't call me that, I would die.

Allen?

Yes?

I'll call you Allen, if you wish it.

She rubs a poultice into his neck where it is strangely sore and purple. Something must have bitten him.

He blushes, squinting at the ceiling where there is blackness foreshadowing the end of days. His calling, it's back, it's returned to keep him. His mind derails and falls off a precipice, into daydreams.

I can have babies now.

He agrees, dreaming, closing his eyes to dream while she's busy—

W-what? He jerks away from her hand, scowling at the dot above her nose. Her sacral bindi: a lie.

She stares into his neck where it is getting rather itchy.

I can have babies, the men say. And your master says I can. I can have your baby when you desire it, that's what I'm made for—

You must be fooling.

Fooling?

That fuckshit, he says too hastily, forgetting his manners and thus earning himself a very startled servant. He gapes at her, at himself. Gathers his wits, sitting up. Oh miss. He apologizes profusely.

Lily does not blink. Her startled face is so beautiful, he cannot face it or attempt at a cover.

Stay here, he orders for the first time with a tone firm enough to reassure her of his unparalleled hatred that can go for miles even in a windstorm.

He doesn't bother to dress and stomps through the halls in his breeches. His eyes are glassy, unseeing. Allen is unparalleled. He calls out. He calls for Master Cross. Where the fuck are you, where the fuck are you, you conniving bastard!

The tenants of the mansion glance his way, glaring, not really seeing him either. His hair is but a white flash, his provincial road narrowing even further till it will either plaster him to and through a wall or turn him topsy-turvy on his ass, where a maid must have mopped the tiles.

He finally comes upon Cross in his study.

I could hear you a border away, Allen.

Shut up!

What is it this time?

Shut up! What are you doing?

Cross gestures to the book with his bearded chin. It is agonizing to see him so, so prepared for this outcome.

Why? Why did you tell her such a thing?

Whatever do you mean, Allen?

Allen bares his teeth and tries to look menacing. What are you fucking doing to me?

Ah. The girl, your lovely dasi.

Don't say it like that. I hate hearing it from you. You, you kutta! H-haramzada!

Oh? I see.

You don't. How could you tell her something like. Like. Like—

Cross holds out a hand. English, boy.

I hate you! I hate you!

I do like your passion.

Shut up! Just—! Just shut your trap, kutta bastard.

Then Cross stands so suddenly, it throws Allen off. He's further sidetracked by the steps taken, creeping toward a familiar scene. There have been so many times when Allen stopped breathing altogether. Where there is a vacuum, and he can't even bite his own tongue. He is the only one feeling it.

Cross is on him, bare hand on his neck, digging into the sores.

This, Cross indicates, is my own doing. Would you like it like that?

Allen doesn't breathe. He'll beat Cross to the punch.

Would you like me to strangle you, your life in my hands? I very much doubt it, but I'll leave it up to you. Now, my dear, dear apprentice, what would you have me do?

Cross' hand begins to lynch him, finger by finger, until Allen remembers to shake his head. He believes Cross will kill him. He believes with all his heart that his doom is right in front of him, strangling him, sucking him in, contrary to what Cross had taught him not too long ago, with the water-jug. Or was it a pitcher sunk in a river and contaminated with its riverbed grime, diseased and now coursing through his veins?

And his sense of smell still works; he senses cologne, not alcohol. He senses man, not woman. Could it ever be this heavy?

What do you think? Cross is not smiling.

Allen must be giving him a look, for Cross releases his grip without a finale. He stays like stone for a moment, like a watch tower, and then caresses Allen's bruises as if to, mistakably, apologize.

Allen wants to spit on that magic mask, on the cross of it. He doesn't have the willpower. Nor can he turn a blind eye on his own curse.

My neck, he coughs, because there is nothing left to say.

But he is surprised: Cross is caressing his neck and saying, Mana would never forgive me.

As if this acknowledgement doesn't change a thing. Far off, without testimony; so close, though, that Allen fears him, respects him out of fear.

Things are remedied in a way that makes Allen wonder if parents around the world do it to their kids: Allen has been sitting on his knees all night. He has whined inside about the pain of his joints, how they suffer but not to where he'll need a wheelchair. This suffering is nothing compared to—

It's nothing to complain about. No one is suffering.

Allen is punished, and by this he means to tell Lily why this has come to pass in a less explosive way.

More like—

It's because of my language, Allen tells her

She tilts her head, maybe thinking back. Was it foul?

Yes, it was. It was foul of me. Never repeat that sort of language.

Which language?

The words?

Which words are so foul as to not repeat them?

Please forget it, then.

She is plain as she scours his body in the tub that's been brought into his room. But she is very pretty when the late light from the high window hits her just right, dousing the both of them in warmth, of there-is-hope-after-all emotion.

Allen is barred from the luxury baths, one of his punishments for such foul language and disregard for authority. He misses the baths only slightly, because he's deduced that they are not the best. The best part of his life is this water, in this copper tub, oval and smelling of a steam tank and wet rust on a ship. Lily is the girl who bathes him; this is her new chore. May it be that she is tied to him?

I-I can wash my front, thank you, Miss Lily.

I would like to ask you a thing.

Something?

Y-yes.

I would like to hear it.

Do you like sweets?

I…don't. He washes between his toes with a cloth, dirty toes poised above the water.

Like sweets?

From girls.

From a boy?

Boys don't give sweets to each other. Boys don't, Allen adds, lying to himself.

Oh. I see. She mirrors Cross so well in speech that it takes Allen a moment to absorb the repercussions, the percussions of an after-silence. Her voice and his master's voice dance together, fuck together.

And this is why he shouldn't mingle with the common folk.

He finds himself speaking to her, through their minds, saying, You don't have to wash my front, and to him, If you wish it. Back and forth; and then finally he takes the sponge from her and squashes the remaining water out of it. Splotch, splotch. He'll wash his front under the water and she won't see. Though there are hardly any bubbles. Though he must look like a drowned rat. Though his mind keeps referring to how ungainly he is.

If Lily—the girl whose breast he had touched—and her nipple weren't here, he'd be touching himself. He'd like the water as it pressed against him, thinking he has himself and his ungainly worries.

It presses against him still. Lily sticks a finger into the water and announces that it's a good feel.

It's warm, Allen thanks her.

What a trip he takes himself on, down into what he would call a valley, which is impossible, but whatever he dreams up is possible as long as he promises himself. The air is damp, sticking to his lashes. He is sore from the day prior's labor; he has a pulled muscle to prove it. Cross rewarded him with a glass of wine yesterday. The wine itself was a test, as it is always, and it's a relief Allen chose to turn it down at the table.

For God's sake, Allen is only fourteen-years-old. Those two numbers within that age add up to five. Five. Five is just one small hand of fingers, like a helpless baby's. Isn't he helpless?

It would have been pointless to present this concept to Cross, so he didn't.

Cross already knows.

Here, Allen carries a branch nearly the size of a log, for digging. He wasn't able to steal a shovel. Should he improve his technique? He could sharpen it.

For the sake of argument, what would happen if he became a monk?

Because Cross is against it. Cross has stated his position on the subject, calling it treason and very much laughable. Allen must think of the rules for being a monk. He must think that sex is unnecessary, that physicality is frivolous.

Allen doesn't know what frivolous is until that point, and sex is a concept he could fight with his own concept of the baby's five fingers. Moreover, babies do not have sex. Ergo, Allen does not.

He'll have to remember to tell someone this in the future. It'll mean he thinks, therefore he is. And he's not just some street-rat trying to eat holes through people's pockets.

The branch puts too much weight on his shoulder. Once the digging is over within the next hour, he lays the makeshift shovel aside, lying along it. A bug is on him.

Hullo. What do you want to know? I wish you were a squirrel. I could feed you masses of bread. And you wouldn't leave me. And. Poo. You would leave me, wouldn't you, 'cause you'd just be a squirrel.

The cricket chirps.

I know, you have me there. My master is a real piece of shit. Honest. He is a bastard, though he tells me not to say that 'cause I'll grow up to be a hating thing. He also knows a lot about me, it's unfair how little I know of him. All of it, hanging over my head here, ya know? Wait! Where're you…?

The cricket leaves. Allen is left alone.

Maybe I talk too much. I talk too much, therefore I am.

He snorts at himself and drops the wrap of old clothes into the hole. He stands there. He deliberates for a long time. The dirt is piled back in, on top, burying the remnants of a baby Allen, about to be abandoned forever. It's a philosophical idea that he's proud of.

(Someone used to love him.)

But he's not proud enough, for he finds himself making a dash to the site, to unbury the remnants of his old self. Part of his progress is spent debating if he's too proud as well, or if he's like that foolish child Cross has imagined him to be, or if, surely, he's a spoiled brat after all these years? What if this is his undoing? Too much of a good thing to have someone like Cross lead the way.

The clothes are just how he left them, now soiled by the burial. The dirt had crept into the creases of the wrap. He is able to save all of it, mitt and skirt and tiny jacket. The boots he had given away one day to another street-rat, and the actual shirt, torn, had already been disposed of. He has these remnants, in his hands, once again, and he thinks without stopping. The wrap is bundled in between his arms as he walks from here to there, into the village, where there is water nearby to wash up and erase his misadventure.

When he comes back to the mansion, Lily is there to welcome him. He doesn't have to tell her where his old clothes go. She nods and opens the bureau. Under the newest clothes, that is where they go, safe and sound and meaningful.

I was being philosophical today, he tells her. He feels better now.

Allen's been waiting, patiently, for that moment.

That moment when Cross delivers what Allen wishes on heartstrings and inner melodies.

Allen doesn't get that real live friend back until he gets his ass out of the yard and into the water. He's never been able to swim like an expert, but he's trying. Albeit, he's learned how to be patient, and that's his destiny.

They look at each other over weeds and grass, and the boy calls, Gora!

Not that the boy would remember Allen's true name in the first place. It's not vital to their friendship. They can play side by side without ever knowing each others' names.

I play today, the boy says.

My master says I can play. I have to be dry by the time I go.

That is kind.

Allen ventures into a form of communication, pointing at the environment as if to name them by the mere gesture. That? And that? This over here? Pray serenity.

They graduate from organic objects to the organic objects of the male body. The boy is darker than Allen, but Allen has an identifiable tan now. He had to work during the most dangerous hours, in the afternoon, to get this tan. He had to sacrifice his first layer of skin. It reminds him of the safari, of the greatest rides of his life.

He smiles. This?

The boy smiles with him. Gora!

No, no. This here, this.

Ah. You gora, me chai?

No!

No?

Allen laughs. You're funny.

Mm.

It is in this moment that the air in the whole universe stops flowing, and they're left with their naked bodies in dirty river water, this too stopped, clinging to the tall grass, staring and staring.

So far Allen has it in his head that the boy is his age, maybe older by a hair. He believes this boy to be friendly, someone he can confide in and get a nice compliment in return—not that he expects this. No, he tries to be humble. Like a monk. To make Cross hate.

But even more than that, it doesn't matter as the older-by-a-hair boy blinks somberly at him from the surface of the water. He skims it with a prominent nose. Allen finds himself attracted to the rest of that nose, to the legs paddling under the water. He wants to let go of the grass and the dirt, to push off and tangle his legs with the boy's.

He's so caught up in this visionary escapade that he misses the important part: the boy's hands.

What? What are you…?

It's fine, yes?

Allen stiffens at the boy's touch on his chest. His nipple is hard and being touched. The same way he had touched Lily's. However, the boy is intending to touch, and Allen had only been half-curious, half-intimidated by the girl's breast. He had only done it because she had her hand on his hand, guiding him, like he's sure how many couples and non-couples do this precise act, and more, mating. The things Cross has an odd persistence about for Allen.

The boy has laugh lines; he can't be too young. He must have done this before. Is there such a thing as a fifteen-year-old boy who knows anything and everything about sex?

What are you doing? Allen manages to grit out, leaning away from him.

No more play, the boy says.

Then that's the end of it.

What's your name?

Mo. Mohana.

Your age? How many, how many years?

Allen swallows at the pinch on his nipple. The boy named Mohana is suddenly this forward boy who likes boys, who may like Allen, who may be like Allen, in a number of inexplicable ways, and for certain, Mohana is beautiful for a boy, with these high cheekbones.

Now Allen learns his age. Thank God it is the same.

Mohana pokes him in the sternum, deliberately causing the frustration to ease out of Allen like sweat through gaping pores. He breathes; Mohana breathes in his breath. He's so close now that Allen can see his pupils dilating, under the cloudy sky, where the birds he missed with a bullet fly. He almost stops thinking.

He does stop, in fact, when the hand reaches lower to inspect his body for signs of growth.

Pennis.

P-pe…

This is what that is, Mohana says.

You mean penis?

Mohana nods once and cocks his head to the side, to address Allen's arm and scarring. They have never talked about it in detail. There was no reason to, and no reason now except that if they don't, Mohana will be asking later on, lying on the bank, drying under the clouds.

They'd make a picnic out of it.

So red. What burning.

It wasn't burnt. I told you, it-it was… It hurt a lot.

How?

Allen shifted his arm, lowering his eyes to the ripples in the water. I couldn't move it. Before.

Better, is it? And your face?

My scar? Everyone notices, always notices. They turn away when they stare just like this. Mohana is different, because he never turns away.

What a cut.

It was cut.

What a cut, how sad.

It…

They kiss so slowly and sloppily that Allen considers it by far the most exalting moment of his life.

No one nearby. No one.

Until they both realize that Lily has been sent to fetch him, or to merely follow him, and this exalting moment of his life, these kisses and admiration, hits the fan and splatters the rest of Allen's week.

He could think up worse punishments; he could very well kiss Cross' ass for not giving him another public lashing. (Those welts had taken a century to go away.)

Allen's learned that Lily is not one he can trust with abandon, nor has she ever been.

It is like he had believed on the streets, long ago: stick 'em before they stick you. It's amazing how he'd forgotten that part of himself.

She knew what she had seen, still knows, and was willing to tattle to Cross about the dirty goings-on his apprentice gets himself into. To defend himself in this argument with her, Allen had to go so far as to get down on his knees and beg. He had to grab her hand and plead with the known kindness within her to forget what she'd seen in the river. Forget that Allen is a boy who likes boys, or maybe just that one boy in that special way, this was why he couldn't tell her anything, and that he'll never do it again if she crosses her heart and hopes to die, stick a needle in her eye, and doesn't tell his master. Please, the girl must have mercy.

Needless to say, she said something. Her name might as well have been Lilith. Oh God Allen wanted to die.

He's dying right now as he sits in the foyer, on the bench, watched by the very person who gave his dirty goings-on away. This is a slow death.

Cross had neglected to tie him up, but Allen knows better. He cannot leave this spot, where people go to and fro on occasion, gaping and shielding their eyes from the pitiful sight.

He cannot leave without sitting here for at least half the day, naked as the day he was born, with absolutely nothing to distract the tenants and maids and various persons from his nudity. He cannot believe he's sitting here with her supervising this punishment.

I cannot believe you, he groans, slouching over.

What is it? That I would let my master court a boy?

There's a blush of shame down his front. I'm not your master if you don't even bother to listen to me!

Pray to the gods, I know what's good for my master.

Me? I don't think so.

I do. I know it.

I'm not giving you babies—if that's what you're thinking. D-do you even know what that means?

Because he can take a not-so-wild guess.

Yes. She nods as if his systematic refusals will be refuted in the near future and will end in her favor anyway.

He has a slithering thought that she's a jealous tramp, with that clever red dot in mind.

Allen then asks her, naked and resilient, if she is fucking his master. Who cares about his gentlemanliness; she's not exactly a gentlewoman herself.

They do not speak for the duration of this particular punishment, and when it is over and done with and, damn it, in the past, she opts to serve the killing blow by running to Cross and grabbing his hand, too friendly to be just business.

Not that it's much of a surprise.

Clearly he should have called her Eve.

So he calls her that, in undertones, when he is forced to accept her innocent services. He pulls faces at her and takes pleasure out of how he'll do what there is to do to other boys the next time he is on his own. He'll give her the slip, she won't know, she sure as hell will have a hard time finding him. His fists tighten at this.

Because he'll be with Mohana. Does that not sound appealing at the very least? He doesn't know what else.

And Allen rolls into a ball while bathing, imagining Mohana, Mohana, his Mohana.

They can go to a chor bazaar, where they will start an adventure that might include a chase by foot, then carriages; they'll dodge the authority—perhaps just the regular desi—like rabid wolves, and they'll learn how to fuck each other to mostly, indirectly, make Cross mad, and to do it because it might feel good. Perhaps behind the local pubs, or in quiet, rich gardens. They'll become a devdas for each other, because that's what lovers do, right? Mohana will wear his hair in braids so long he'll need Allen to carry them; Allen will be in love, so deep he'll be, that he'll be transformed and his arm will magically shed its raw redness and be normal; everything will be normal-but-not-really-let's-not-forget-the-boy-love-thing; and Allen will faithfully atone for his Big Mistake, the one. He'll—

Allen sinks into the water to his chin.

He'll—

Allen sobs dry sobs into his fist.

He'll become an Exorcist and leave all this behind.

He'll swallow his bile and continue on in hopes of making something of himself. He'll be a good boy; he won't stray. He won't touch other boys. He'll be the best goddamn apprentice ever, in the history of the world! And he'll love every minute of that ecstasy, showing Cross up, showing him and everyone he meets that he's good for something, as good as good food for the weak and the wounded. Good medicine, rather. Good herbs. Good fucking show. He'll improve his wing-span; he'll fight like no other, like a god on magic medicine. He'll shine of white and maybe look like a heathen doing it, but he'll do it, either way.

He'll—

He's—

He really can't stop crying.

It is something that follows him.

He has this recurring dream that, well, reoccurs every so often. He dreams it more oft than not than he would like as it passes between daydreams and nightmares, murdering the dreams made of starlight. He wouldn't call it a nightmare if somebody asked him. No, if somebody asked, he'd call it something-like-a-ghost. Maybe he's seeing himself through these dreams. Maybe, when the earth is tilted just right or when the sun is at a Godforsaken angle, he dreams these things. This thing.

For instance, after he is relieved of the punishments he's tried to avoid from the beginning, he will close his eyes and see this vision playing out:

He is a performer, once again, with Mana. It's not so magical, no. Because of this—this thing that he cannot describe. It hurts to think about it. So, he doesn't think about it, and focuses on the other things in the dream. Like Mana, oh Mana, after a performance, who lets Allen run into his arms and hug his round belly. He lifts Allen into his arms, his fuzzy coat, and they sing rhymes together, that Allen had refused to learn at first out of mortified pride, and this is one of a few of Allen's childish sentiments, the only few. He likes the smell and warmth and nearness of his father, like his father would die for him.

And when he wakes, he doesn't cry. He must be getting too old for this. Dreaming is dreaming; dreams are for those who dare to dream. Allen can't have any of that. He mortifies himself with the possibility of forgetting further and knowing that his father had died, is dead, never again shall he save him.

He will never, ever, in a million years, cross his heart, hope to die, ask Cross about this. Cross would not care enough, sneering.

And he would, too, because he's doing it now, though smugly, if that's possible, while manhandling Allen to the local pub, and next door, the—

No, no, no, no! Allen shouts wildly, feeling Cross' arm choking his body in half. His ass is partially in the air, tips of his boots scuffing the ground, struggling in the air.

Anyone with eyes is watching them; amused eyes, confused eyes, strange eyes.

I should have done this on your fourteenth. You are fourteen, are you not?

What do you think? Divide that by two, surely I'm seven! If Allen's not mistaken, he knows his basic maths that he'd also been forced into.

Cross would know it's a lucky number.

Manners, apprentice. We're in a whorehouse. And if you believe so, seven's a magic number, it's your lucky day.

Good Lord, bleeding sheep. Absolutely not!

You disagree? I see unarguably the most beautiful creatures in the country here at our leisure, at our beck and call. Go on, call one of them.

N-no, I refuse!

Well, Allen, it's time you learned to agree with me.

No, you fu—

Cross pries Allen's clawing fingers from the big door handle and then the door itself, on the brink of snapping Allen's arms at the elbows. The collective strength of Allen's fingers is amazing, and five of his fingertips are bone white from the lack of blood.

Why, I wonder what all the fuss is about. Were you that friendly with that boy? You know, I really should have done this on your birthday. Let's pretend this is your fifteenth, eh? A celebration merits good company.

Never! You cannot make—! And Allen is set down as dead weight. Me.

Change your mind already? he says, Satan in disguise, although not too adequately with all that red hair. The whores are one thing, but envisioning what Allen would guess to be Satan is another. He can see it now: Boy Ravaged by Whores on Account of Mad Fake Scientist Who Is Revealed To Be Satan Himself.

Moreover, Allen is scared shitless with the various lovely and some not-so-lovely faces looking at him, tilting their heads the way women do so sympathetically. He has the urge to squeeze his legs together and somehow run out of there at the same time. He is allowed a minute to plan this.

Then he overhears: Hmm, I'll take that one.

Like Cross is picking fresh produce at the market. Because in reality, Satan is picking him whores.

Allen's inner voice channels out, flickering in volume, and Cross' swarthy voice channels in, panic setting in, seeking to control.

Memories of a cult flood back in, stalling him. He remembers the men and women and bodies and shameless display of lust and acts fueled by arrangement, like flowers for the Queen. Do this person and do that person; exchange them and let them fuck. He remembers reading lips and sweating a fountain under his coat. The jellied movements, the parts he saw. Mind, he hadn't interacted at the time. He might have reacted, which was something altogether his own doing. He might have screamed and been sick and nearly hidden within his master's coat. He might have heard his master say, when Allen was twelve, There, there. Don't dirty my coat. This is a kinder reality, is it not?

And Allen might have said, in an unbroken voice, What is wrong—?For he had to stop there; he couldn't ask the Question.

You are not choosing a bloody whore for me, he wants to say, now. Allen, unfortunately, cannot even dreg up his inner voice to say it. Instead he thinks to do the only thing that's quite understandable, or should be.

He squeezes his legs together, stalls, and then pushes off from the ball of his foot toward the door.

His short-lived career as an escape artist is swiftly felled, leaving him with a disturbing sense of panic, or loss, of a different multitude. He sniffs the room's thick air and turns his eyes up slowly toward Cross', where there is the predictable glint of mischief.

Don't do this, Allen mouths, too panicked to run and too panicked to stay.

Cross appears to almost consider Allen's mouthing, but this is wishful thinking.

I harbor no ill will toward your fellow youth, Allen. Really. As it is, I am a worshipper of women, and I would enjoy your involvement tonight. Never turn down the biggest chance. Ah, what woman will take him? You there? No, you, over there, yes, you're the one. You should be fitting. Don't you agree, Allen?

No! Allen shrieks, making an X with his forearms.

My, you scream like a girl.

I'm going now! Don't you dare stop me!

Allen, again, is met with Cross' grip on his collar. A kind of godless, hellish energy passes between them, sending the ever-increasing panic into Allen's throat, bearing down on his Adam's apple. There must be a clock somewhere killing time or killing him with the far-away bongs of the hands, like the hands of some cosmic entity, God or other, pulling him by the thing that hangs in the back of his throat; but mostly by his balls that are totally rebelling against him.

But it's all the same.

He is presently wishing exponential harm on Cross' penis. Harm that will make many types of execution preferable by comparison.

Cross has steered him around to face the crowd. The girl-sort-of-woman in question is already standing at attention in front of him, looking him up and down for any flaws that might need adjusting. He protects his unseen deformity with his other arm, then remembers that his scar is a tiny give-away of his own mischief.

He thinks he would like to keep his privates to himself, Thank you very much with a cherry on top.

She says, All right.

It's not all right, it's not all dandelions and daisies; but Cross is still shoving him up the stairs with her, where Allen trips along the way, thinking that tripping up every step will turn the whore off, and maybe she'll show him her bitchy side, and then proceed to kick him down the stairs, where he'll break a leg at the bottom, concluding his almost-lost-virginity-venture-that-was-really-involuntary-but-Allen-has-a-skank-for-a-master.

He thinks one cannot have sex when one's leg is broken, surely.

Wrong.

Bye-bye, Allen! Send me post if you're too long. Tell me when you change your mind about that monk nonsense.

Cross is a fucking bastard and should rot in the very alleys Allen has been and lived.

Stomps echothroughout the building. The click of a door.

As she has dragged him into the first available lions den of sorts, not counting the den downstairs, she inhales and he exhales at the affront he has just added to his list. Allen tells her outright, entreating her as madam, that he has no intention whatsoever of letting her touch him like that. He tells her that he is very, very, (not that much but still) very sorry, and that he's only fourteen and cannot imagine getting himself into this, he's already experienced it (a little)—it's enough what he's been through, it's no good, he'll grow up to be a monk, he just—

His words tumble around his tongue and soon become mush.

It is to his consternation that she's actually listening to him. She shakes her head, and then stops midway to, what seems, nod. You're a good boy, she says, you're a good boy.

Allen cannot believe his ears.

In addition, the lovely haircut she gives him suits him, and for no charge, too.

It takes him about a month to recover from this episode. Mostly to recover from the words issued from the whore's mouth. And here was Allen, longing to hear them from a real live friend.

Sometimes life has a way of loving him, one whore at a time. This deeply engrained personal theory will carry on into his next life as a man-whore or something, or it will meanwhile fall short as he becomes an Exorcist in this life, always having that odd aura of defiant sex about him. Some bloke named Jerry will suspect through great psychic powers and shower Allen in as much sympathy as any sympathetic woman or she-man would do.

Well. Shower Allen in excessive quantities of food, more like. We are not there yet.

There is a calendar in Cross' study. It is probably something from the next era of technological advances. It has the numbered blocks checked off, a few upcoming days encircled with ink from Cross' expensive fountain pen that currently resides on an enormous desk made out of half the forest. There is a pile of nondescript papers, some of which will end up in the pristine trash receptor, or whatever Cross invents.

He is a mad scientist, after all. And magician. And bona fide asshole.

Allen knows about Cross' debts. Hell, he's solved many a debt in the span of three years just by the delicate handling of cards, underbelly deals, and Allen's acquired love of chamber music. Allen may not be a pro in the water, but he sure as hell can play a mean wind instrument. Although he's horrid at singing, and will never again attempt to sing a room full of howling hound dogs to sleep.

(In his defense, he had only the choice of voice or getting pulverized. He had to choose something. The men had merely laughed at him, scoring him a drink on the house, and Allen had never been so pleased about the outcome. He actually did drink that drink at the age of eleven.)

In the present, Allen is fourteen, not seven or even five. He notices that everything in the study is immaculate. Perhaps he should trash it. Perhaps he will, as if he could, since there is no one here to stop him, and Cross left his door unlocked, and Cross must be traveling with the patron.

And if he trashes it, what will he receive? A lashing may be too much of old news to Cross these days. Shoving breasts into Allen's face is also a bit old; Lily has no affect on him anymore. Forcing Allen to sit on his knees, or sit naked in the foyer? Been there, done that.

Oh sigh. Has Cross run out of ideas?

Specifically, Allen has been stripped of his dignity way too often.

Not that he holds a grudge, but anybody would get the point.

Because of this, and because he's got a bad feeling about the circled days, he smiles to himself, feeling his own grin become clown-like.

The maid did it, sir, the maid did it all, he could say.

He takes his time invading Cross' privacy, leaning back in the huge padded chair, kicking up his slippers—he wishes he'd worn his muddy boots—and surmising that this is what happens to a man who becomes an asshole. He thinks about wiping snot on Cross' chair, but restrains himself.

Allen has allergies, equaling to the likeliest person to sneeze on Cross' expensive chair. Cross, being philosophical at the worst of times, would know right away who the culprit was.

In lieu of destroying the study, he licks the expensive pen, and laughs.

La la la, whatever you do, I'll do to you, he sings under his breath.

Although not really. He can't do much to Cross except lick his fucking pen.

When he's done doing that, he sniffs his shirt. He hasn't washed in three days. And that was after working at the mill, where there is lumber and dirt and shavings and tons of dust.

Take that, Master Cross. Allen feels vindicated by the jewels hanging around, relieved.

He fans himself with the pile of papers, not being able to read them without getting a headache. Nonetheless, Mana had taught him well, or at least the basics.

See? Even poor performers and artisans can read and have children they can read to. Not that Mana and Allen had been living in squalid.

Allen jumps on the desk, clown-on-a-mattress, doing a little dance that Cross would surely bust a lung for, and not in a good way. He feels like he's seven or five years old, exactly what he was aiming for.

He ambles down, accidentally stumping a glass globe on a claw. Thump! It rolls heavily across the carpet and into the door inside the room. It bumps against it, rocks back and forth, and stills. Allen watches, thoughtful.

This ought to be interesting.

He picks it up for examination. He says in his most uppity voice that the globe is an embarrassment to science and should, in deserved practice, be confiscated. He'll take the globe out for a walk later as is predetermined by Fate.

After all, it's a witch's tool. Maybe he'll summon the darkest secrets of his future with Mohana as his accomplice. They'll pretend to, of course, because Allen has no idea how to invoke the spirits or anything.

Then, suddenly, he smells a smell that is beyond reckoning, though recognizable.

He opens the door to the lab, otherwise known as the Dodgy Closet, and in doing this he undoes the temporary alliance he has with his master.

Something like a countdown starts, ringing around the dimmed room. He smells chemicals and mold, hints of liquor and stringent potions. The odd ticking continues as he thinks about this, if it's just in his head. Or. Well. The faint smoke curls are a sign.

He smells manure. Horseshit.

Before he can gather his wits to make another great escape, he does not wind up in a spectacular close call with gross consequences. More accurately, Allen winds up covered from head to toe in dung, from a bomb, known as a dung-bomb, which he learns not too long afterward when leaving Cross' apparently booby-trapped office.

He is coughing and sputtering and thanking God he has no shit in his mouth as Cross approaches with a shit-eating grin. Perfect.

I would have told you about that, but it's all for the best, Cross says.

How. So. Allen glares at him through heavy-lidded eyes. He believes he's reached his limit. This shit is, literally, ridiculous. And it's been getting ridiculous since the day Allen was salvaged from the graveyard.

Cross keeps his distance, hand on his French beard. You're not a very smart apprentice. Why would I ever leave my laboratory unguarded?

But you left it unlocked.

Of course. Today, that is.

Why today?

I assumed this would happen. Exorcists must assume these things.

I am not a thing. Allen holds his inner demons down by the throat; this is not worth attacking over. This is not the last straw. This is not, not, not.

No, I suppose you're not.

Why today?

Because tomorrow will be your punishment. Well, to be exact, an overdue on-the-job training session. Only, you will be doing this job and I will be watching as you fail me, again, as always.

I do not fail.

Oh?

Allen looks at the floor guiltily.

And look at you, Cross says. You're covered in elephant shit. I must admit I'm rather pleased about the dung-bomb. I was worried it wouldn't work.

So it's not horseshit then. They are in India.

I'm sorry for disturbing your lab, Allen says, though spitefully through his teeth.

What was that?

I apologize.

Good. You'll be sure to clean my lab and desk—yes, I know about my desk—when you return.

Return from where?

From the yard, you idiot. Don't use the baths, you'll ruin them. Have your girl help wash you, though you probably shouldn't put her through the trouble. If you know what's good for you, Cross adds.

Yes. Sir, Allen adds.

Cross moves closer to the wall as Allen passes him, barely scrunching his nose in disgust. His brow twitches slightly, as if he wants to banish Allen permanently from his sight. He is armed with a glass of undoubtedly expensive wine. (Go away.) Maybe just rum. (Go away.) Most undoubtedly to drink ahead to Allen's failure before it can happen, again, tomorrow.

Allen is about to make a dash for it; he stops dead in his tracks.

Was that a test? he asks. His stomach is prickling.

Cross stares down at him. Is everything a test with you?

But it was, Allen says.

Quite. Hurry along now before that shit hardens.

Mohana expects me, Allen tells him the next night, during blue hour. Allen is getting his training, and he cannot expect to leave, even for the boy who might distract him.

He has to accept it: it's come down to needing a distraction.

And Mohana is?

Mohana, my—friend.

Eh? Ah. Your…fellow.

Cross lights a reed-like cigarette, doesn't appear satisfied, and tosses it away. He likes doing this, to see if Allen will do what he thinks Allen will do. He is right. Allen will always stomp out his cigarettes. Born for putting out fires. Allen spreads fires more than he himself realizes.

How archaic, Allen mimics, fingering the knuckle glove on his left hand.

You're not only dumb, but unoriginal. Didn't I teach you that before?

How long will we wait? You assumed there would be Akuma here?

Stop talking.

Allen stops talking. Like the whore said, he's a good boy with a good haircut now.

A sound to his left, a voice, pains his ear, then both, screeching and taking him back: standing, staring, looking beyond a point of death, past the rows of faces that look on petrified, up into the ash-grey clouds raining down scarlet crystals that are like fantasies, these fantasies curdle him, never touching the skin. Cutting badly, cutting him so badly he could cry right now cry cry cry very very hard he wants to cry. Let him. His mind is a maze, and he's lunging through it as if this is what he's supposed to do. He stares past it all, stock-still, not breathing and heart pounding too fast and there's an attack it's attacking it's here it's—gone. A hand, a hand lies there, beckoning, summoning, filling him. Gone gone it's all gone.

Allen.

He's done, and failed, his training time and again, before this. Why should this be so different? Something must have happened.

He blinks, all falling away to be replaced by a woman hollering for help. Just a woman.

It's time.

Yes, master.

Die now, live later. Do you understand? Go!

There is something wrong with that, but Allen will learn that he has always understood. Always. In a way no one else would, apart from their tiny pair and tiny pair alone.

People will ask him this, and he will answer through the ugly-brilliant cross of his hand. Life is death, and death, life. Some are incapable of learning this.

He's one of the lucky ones.

More than a year later, Allen stands before the doors of Truth, led by the robed figures. He knows who awaits him, he does not know what awaits him, and he is thinking, This might be my final test, I can save myself.

The doors open, and this may very well be his final test.

He's never been this sad to hear the Truth.

To be the Truth is a whole other story: he is happening, go ahead and ask him.