Disclaimer: I barely own my socks, much less -man.
Summary: He just watched everyone else live, feeling like someone at the zoo. AU, modern. Oneshot.

Note: This entire fic was inspired by a dream; I dreamed of the first section and decided that I needed to go a little further.

Little Souvenirs

Lavi doesn't know why it's so important to him that Allen go to school. Lavi himself has ditched before for less important reasons. He would do it all the time, just because he could or because he had somewhere better to be. Allen would scold him, trying not to smile at the same time, and Lenalee would….

His fingers twitch unconsciously and, with a glance at Cross, Allen's guardian, he follows the younger boy outside. He can't see Allen's face, but he knows he's crying, can hear the sniffling and Allen's hands will periodically flutter up to his face, wiping away what Lavi knows are tears. Allen's walking angrily, though, the loud smack of his sneakers on cement the very essence of angry teenager.

"Allen," Lavi calls and he thinks his own voice is weirdly calm, like he's being much more mature than he should at eighteen. Allen stops, but he doesn't face Lavi. Up close, he can see Allen shaking a little. From crying, maybe, or anger. He touches Allen's shoulder gently and presses, urging him to turn around. Allen does. His eyes are bloodshot and there are shadows under his eyes from lack of sleep.

Lavi tries the gentle approach because the entire time he's known Allen, it's the one that works. "You have to go to school," he begins. His voice still sounds weird, like he's just casually talking to Allen. Like this is just another day. "It's crappy, but Lena—"

The shaking was from anger, not just from crying. Lavi knows this now because Allen's fist colliding with his mouth told him so. Lavi half-stumbles a step back and presses absent-minded fingers against his lip. It's bleeding. He looks down at Allen. He's clutching the edge of Lavi's jacket and his breathing is weird. Like hyperventilating, but not. Weird.

"What hell is wrong with you?" Allen says, a sob working its way out halfway through. He's not looking at Lavi yet. He shakes silently before continuing, more choked this time. "She's…. All you can think about is school? All you can say is that it's crappy?" He looks at Lavi this time and Lavi's absently wondering if he's ever seen Allen this angry before. He doesn't think he has. "What the hell do you know about this?" Allen starts crying new tears now. "You didn't even cry at your parents' funeral!"

Lavi stops breathing. Every inch of him stops at those words. Lavi just stares for a second, but even then he doesn't think he's seeing Allen. Someone turned off the light to the universe and everything is silent and dark. Then it comes back on.

Allen's eyes are wide and round with shock. He lets go of Lavi's jacket and holds up his hands, like he's trying to calm his friend down. "Lavi, I—I'm so sorry. I didn't mean—"

There's guilt and regret in his voice. Fear, too, like he's afraid that with these words Lavi will just disappear. Lavi's eye turns to the ground and he takes a step back. Allen's still talking, but Lavi just turns and walks away. He heads toward the alley nearby. He hears Allen's footsteps behind him and Lavi breaks into a run. He dodges between houses and into alleyways until he knows Allen can't find him.

He's not angry. Can't be angry at Allen for just stating the facts. Lavi folds his arms around himself and leans back against someone's garage door. He looks up at the sky and judging from the sun, it's maybe 8:30 a.m. It's Monday. School's started.

Last Friday, at 7:23 p.m., Lenalee Lee died. Lavi hasn't cried.

I'm sorry, he thinks to the sun as it glows in the sky. I just can't. The sun stares back at him, unmoving. It doesn't care what his reasons are. It can't forgive him.

Instead of going to school, Lavi buys some beer. He thinks about stealing it, but it's cheap-ass American stuff and the guy at the store always sells to him even though Lavi's pretty sure that the guy knows he's only in high school, so he pays for it. He walks two blocks from the liquor store to the train tracks. There's a long fence going around it, but someone cut a hole in it with wire cutters, so high schoolers use it sometimes as a shortcut. Lavi ducks through it and wanders further down, to a place where the fence has grown over with bushes and weeds.

It's a good place to hide. No one can see you from the alley or from the other side of the train tracks. The high schoolers that do go through here won't come near enough to bother him. Lavi takes out his pocket knife and uses the bottle opener to open his first beer.

It tastes like crap and stings his cut lip, but he's gotta get drunk somehow.

It's a while later that Lavi hears footsteps as he stares blankly at his next beer. He's definitely drunk. Not insanely drunk, but drunk. He wonders if he should try for another or if that would be a terrible idea. The footsteps stop.

"Baka usagi." It's Japanese. Yuu likes to insult people like that, but Lavi has no idea what it means. He picks at the label on his beer. Lavi can feel Yuu's scowl as he says, "What are you doing?"

Normally, Lavi would have said, Being drunk, obviously. Wanna join me? but today he just shrugs. He looks up.

The sun's a little bit behind Yuu, but Lavi can still see his face. It's faint, but he swears there's a bit of redness in Yuu's eyes. It seems like everyone's crying except him. He drops his head again and snorts. He starts feeling around for his bottle opener, but Yuu steps on his hand, gently pressing it against the ground. Lavi stops, sighing in defeat.

"What are you doing here, Yuu?"

Yuu's voice is annoyed and clipped. "I walked Alma to school. Then I figured you would be doing something stupid." For good measure, he adds, "Moron."

Lavi wants to cry right then. It's nothing that Yuu said. He just hates that no matter how much he tries he can't cry for Lenalee. It seems like the least he could do.

Instead of crying, Lavi presses a hand against his forehead.

"I think I'm drunk," he says. "Can I follow you home?"

Yuu huffs and says, "Do what you want." Then he turns and leaves, careful not to step too hard on the hand beneath his toe. Lavi stands, grabbing at the prickly bushes to help him wait out the vertigo. He trails behind Yuu. He tries not to stumble too much, but Yuu never walks too fast.

When they reach Yuu's apartment complex, the Japanese boy lets Lavi lean on him as they climb the stairs. He makes a point to huff discontentedly.

Yuu opens the door to his apartment and turns on a sole lamp to light it (Lavi's eye is grateful) and gestures for the redhead to come in.

"Sleep on the couch," Yuu instructs. "And don't throw up anywhere."

Lavi's busy trying not to fall over as he unties his shoes but he manages to say, "Yeah, I don't think I'm gonna puke." He gets his shoes off without incident and collapses on Yuu's couch. It's lumpy as hell, but Lavi thinks it'll be nice to sleep off the alcohol. He closes his eye and says, teasing, "Alma won't get jealous?"

Yuu snorts. "Alma has nothing to worry about." And he drops a blanket on Lavi's head.

Lavi sorts through the comforter and manages to curl up in it. He closes his eye, then opens it again. He stares through the floor.

"Yuu. I think there's something wrong with me."

Yuu's silent. Then, "Baka. Don't call me Yuu."

Lavi goes to sleep.

When Lavi's parents died and he lost his right eye, he ran away. He changed his name to Deke and stole stuff for about a week. Everyone ignored him and he lived with no attachments to anything at all. He just watched everyone else live, feeling like someone at the zoo, watching the animals through bars. It was heaven.

Then, when he was in a park eating some bread he had stolen, Lenalee saw him. At the time, they didn't really know each other. She was a second grader and he was a fourth grader; they didn't need to know each other.

But when she saw him, her face broke into a smile and she looked like she wanted to cry. "Lavi!" she said and ran over to him. She gave him an awkward hug and Lavi couldn't even bring himself to move.

A man with shopping bags in one hand walked up to them and Lavi recognized him as Lenalee's brother. There was another boy with them, Lavi's age. Kanda, Lavi knew. He always told people to call him by his last name.

Komui, Lenalee's brother, knelt to get a better look at Lavi. Lenalee finally let him go and stood at her brother's side. "You're Lavi Bookman, right?" the man said. "Your grandfather has been looking for you."

Lavi didn't answer. He just looked down.

Komui didn't give up. "I can take you home. Your grandfather is worried." He glanced at the bandages on Lavi's face. "We should probably get your eye looked at too."

Lavi wanted to say that he didn't have an eye to get looked at, really. But he lifted his gaze and saw Kanda looking straight at him. Kanda was an orphan too. He was being raised by the state. Komui was raising his sister.

He thinks he might have cried then. He spent a week named Deke, not having to feel anything, reveling in being alone. He didn't want to go back home where he'd have to look at everything he didn't have.

Komui patted his head. "Let's get going, okay?" And Lavi nodded his head. He got off the bench and Lenalee hugged him again.

"I'm glad you're okay, Lavi," she whispered. Lavi didn't respond. He wished she wouldn't call him that. Didn't she know that he needed to be Deke right now? He kept looking ahead and Kanda met his gaze again.

Komui picked up his sister, sliding the handles of the bags to the crook of his elbow. He offered Lavi his free hand. Slowly, Lavi took it. Komui led him away. Kanda followed a few paces behind.

Lavi glanced back at Kanda. He's spent a lot of time watching people, this last week. Most of them were lonely.

He thought Kanda looked lonely too.

Lavi wakes up to the throbbing of his head. Each pulse starts with a sharp pain behind his eyepatch and ends with a prickling at the base of his skull. He groans.

"Yuu," he calls, but not very loudly. "Can you get me some water?"

There's no answer. Lavi opens his eye, squinting against the light, and lazily lifts an arm to glance at his watch. It's 4:48 p.m. Yuu's already left for work. He's eighteen years old, after all. The state doesn't take care of him anymore and rent has to be paid somehow.

Lavi slowly sits up and closes his eye to fight a well of nausea. Yeah, he's hung over.

He shuffles to Yuu's kitchenette, frowning at the vertigo, and goes through the cabinets until he finds a glass. He fills it with lukewarm tap water and downs it. He lets it clatter into the sink and rests his throbbing head on the counter.

He could run away again. He would be better at it this time. He could go farther. And really, it would hardly be running away. He's eighteen and he can do whatever he wants. But more people would care, this time. If Lenalee was still alive, she would cry when he left. But if she was alive, he wouldn't need to run.

He wishes he could just be Deke again. He wouldn't care that his friend died. He wouldn't have to feel guilt.

Lavi doesn't really remember the last time he saw Lenalee. He knows it was Friday afternoon, just after school let out. He was walking home and she was taking the bus. He told her to call him. The only reason he knows this is because it's what they always did. Lavi always walked home and Lenalee always took the bus. He always asked her to call him so they could do something on the weekends, usually with Kanda or Allen. He doesn't remember anything about that Friday because he hadn't cared. He didn't care what Lenalee was wearing or if she had told him anything significant. He doesn't remember what they talked about at lunch at all, or what she had eaten.

Lavi killed her. He hadn't been paying attention to her, hadn't thought her important enough to remember and he had killed her in that moment. It doesn't matter that he hadn't been the one to do it, that he had been reading a book at the time she had died. If he had cared more about her, she would be alive.

Maybe he's still Deke after all.

"I'm sorry I fucked up," he tells Yuu's apartment. It doesn't answer. An apology can't erase sin.

Lavi's apartment is far enough from Yuu's to warrant a quick bus ride. It takes about five minutes and Lavi has to cut through an alley, but it's so routine to him that it's muscle memory. His apartment is on the third floor and looks exactly like all the others. He opens the door.

"Gramps?" he calls, but the lights are out and there's no answer. He flicks on the light and glances into the kitchen to see if there are any notes, but the table is clear, even of the dishes Lavi had left that morning. He walks past the kitchen to his room.

Compared to the tidy apartment (the insistence of his grandfather), Lavi's room is a mess. His schoolbag and textbooks are in a cluster near his closet, pieces of homework scattered about. His bed is unmade and the clothes in his hamper occasionally overflow onto the floor.

From under his pillow, Lavi pulls out the newspaper clipping of Lenalee's obituary. He doesn't look at it. He just tucks it into his pocket. Then he reaches under his bed and pulls out his duffel bag, laying it on the bed and smoothing it open. He'd always thought of running away again.

He starts opening drawers, rolling each article of clothing into as small a bundle as possible, trying to conserve room. He lines up everything neatly, determined to have room for clothes and necessities. He won't have the opportunity to come back for anything.

It's 6:53 when he has everything packed. Lavi leaves the apartment at exactly 7:00. He shuts off all the lights and locks the door behind him.

He can take the bus to the city limits.

Lavi misses the first bus by a few minutes. It's already rumbling off into the distance by the time he reaches the bus stop. He sits on the bench and pulls his jacket around him.

He doesn't know where he'll go. Maybe just a town or two over, get a job at some… restaurant or whatever. Rent a crappy apartment. He'll change his name back to Deke and pull away from life like he did before. He could watch these human animals lumber through their days, baring their teeth and crying for sympathy. 'Lavi' will fade away, and the memory of Lenalee and the others along with him.

Lavi twists the fabric of his jacket between his fists and bangs his head back against the wall of the bus shelter. If Deke kills Lavi, then he won't need to worry about forgetting. The dead can't forget things.

With a huff, Lavi tugs at his hair and runs his hand over his face, brushing his eyepatch. His fingers linger there, then he drops his hand to his side. He doesn't want to leave. He wants to stay with the old man and laugh with Allen and tease Kanda. But he can't bear to never hear Lenalee's voice again. He can't stand the way Kanda tolerates him now or how Allen glares at him.

It's like they know. It's his fault Lenalee died. He should have paid more attention to her. He should have called her for once, instead of waiting for her to call him. He could have changed something, could have changed one, miniscule thing that would have left her alive today. He pulls his knees up to his chest. She left him all alone.

A new bus bumbles to a stop in front of him. Lavi doesn't look up, but he knows soon he'll have to grab his bag and walk forward. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. He listens to a few people leave the bus. He lets his breath out. He looks up.

The doors to the bus squeak shut and Lavi stares at Allen standing in front of him. He's wearing his favorite black and white jacket. He has his school bag over his shoulder.

"Lavi," he says. He doesn't say anything after that because after taking a couple tiny, awkward steps, he throws his arms around Lavi. It's uncomfortable. Lavi ends up leaning too far forward and his knee bumps against Allen's hips. His nose is buried in Allen's hair. He's warm. His hands soak heat through Lavi's jacket and they're so warm.

Lavi sobs and pulls Allen closer, their limbs tangling together as Lavi trembles and his tears start burning their way down Allen's neck. Allen strokes his hair and Lavi's pretty sure he's crying too.

Everything aches. His eye, his throat, his arms and legs. Allen's heavy on top of him and so warm. He smells good. Lavi can't stop crying. He's glad that Allen is there with him.

After what must be minutes gone to hours, they pull away. Allen's face is streaked with tears and his eyes are red. Lavi supposes he must be the same. Lavi wipes at his face, hands still trembling. Allen stares for a long moment at the duffel bag next to Lavi. Lavi knows he's figuring it out because tragedy plays out across Allen's face all over again. Allen says nothing. He sits down at Lavi's other side.

He speaks finally. "Alma got our assignments. I told him I'd bring you yours." His backpack is resting on the ground between his knees. Lavi glances over, but stays silent. Allen continues. "I'm sorry, Lavi. For what I said."

Lavi feels like crying again. He doesn't, because he's worried he won't be able to later. Lavi wants to touch Allen again, but he doesn't.

"It's okay," he says. "Let's go home."

They make tea when they get back to Lavi's apartment. They sit at the little kitchen table and Allen sips tentatively at his drink while Lavi forgets all about his and lets it go stone cold. They don't really talk and as tired as they are, they can't bring themselves to get up or go to sleep.

Lavi's grandfather returns at around 10 p.m. He doesn't bat an eye at the sight of two tear-stained faces. He politely greets Allen (who returns the favor) and pats Lavi on the shoulder, hand lingering for a moment or two longer than it usually would before going to bed.

They stay up hours later, even as Lavi desperately tries to keep his eye open. There's some primitive logic in his brain that says so long as he doesn't sleep, tomorrow will never come. He clings to this until his head nods forward, off the hand that props it up, and crashes against the kitchen table.

Allen lets out a weak laugh. Lavi gives him a wobbly grin. Then, without saying a word, they both get up and clumsily travel to Lavi's room. Lavi just sinks to his bed without bothering to get under the covers or even changing. Allen pushes him closer to the wall rather feebly and lies down next to him. Lavi sighs and gives him a look.

"I'm not going back home," Allen says, stifling a yawn. "And I'm not sleeping on the floor." Then he tugs at the blanket until he manages to pull it over them both properly. They fall asleep, their awkward teenage limbs poking and prodding one another. They forget to turn out the light and Allen shifts in his sleep and by the next morning he's stolen all the covers and rolls off the bed. The thump of impact wakes them both.

Lavi peers over the edge of the bed. Allen looks up at him. Normally they would have laughed, but instead Allen sighs and looks away. Lavi can feel Lenalee's obituary, still tucked in his pocket.

"I guess we should get ready," he says. The funeral is today.

Lavi doesn't look good in a suit. Neither does Allen or Yuu. They look like they're trying to be much older than they are, their faces drawn into frowns and heads titled downward. Yuu's long hair is tied at the nape of his neck and Alma stands close to him. Alma looks desperately out of place next to the people who knew Lenalee so well. His eyes shine with tears, though, and Lavi thinks he sees Alma murmuring a quiet prayer. Yuu seems to be listening, eyes closed.

The cemetery is empty and quiet. The sun is half-covered by clouds. The sky's a pretty blue, but it doesn't fit Lenalee. He thinks it should be lighter, maybe, and filled with lots of wispy clouds. She kind of liked those, as far as clouds go.

Maybe it's a stupid thing to think about. She never spent a whole lot of time looking at the sky or cloud-gazing. She preferred to keep her mind on reality. She probably wouldn't care what the sky looked like.

They're early. There's almost no one here except for Komui and some of his friends. Lavi takes one look at Komui's broken face and he wavers, every bit of him aching again. He lowers his eye to gaze at the ground.

A hand touches his elbow and Lavi glances to the side. Allen's trying to smile at him, but it's not really working. Behind Allen, Lavi can see Alma and Yuu watching them. Allen drops his hand. Allen lowers his gaze and bites his lip. He turns away a little.

Lavi blinks and turns away too. He feels dizzy for a second, like the entire world is going to topple over and take Lavi with it. He breathes shakily and weakly clenches his hand.

This is like waking up from a bad dream. There's no relief, just a feeling that something worse is yet to happen, that when Lavi finally opens his eye, he'll find that the nightmare was real all along.

He remembers this feeling. He wants to just keep his eye closed and stop moving and hope that these last few moments, hours, days will dissolve away. That when he opens his eye again, he'll be back at school on that Friday, talking to Lenalee. He could change just one little thing and by the time they reached Tuesday, Lavi would be rushing to finish his calculus homework before the bell rang and she'd be laughing at him. He could live in that moment for forever and never have to think of….

There's a crunch of gravel as cars arrive at the cemetery. Doors click open and slam shut and people file out, dressed in black. They're like one unified mind, all wearing the exact same expression of grief. They all kind of look the same to him, really. They push past him and Allen and Kanda and Alma and Lavi wants to scream because he doesn't recognize a single one of them.

It's childish, but he doesn't want them anywhere near his Lenalee. They're all nobody. They're just… a bunch of voyeurs, watching the spectacle of grief. Little souvenirs from the life of Lenalee Lee. They didn't know her like he did.

Or he doesn't know her like they did.

Lavi feels dizzy again. Like taking another breath will send him tumbling down. Like taking another step will make the world tilt forward. His hand his shaking. His whole body is.

Lavi reaches out grabs Allen's hand, lacing their fingers together. He squeezes so hard that it must hurt. He chokes on a small sob. Allen is trembling with tears.

I'm sorry, he thinks to Lenalee, casting his eye to the clouds and sun. I'm sorry.

He gets no response. It's just like Lenalee, he supposes, to feel as if there's nothing to apologize for.

Allen's fingers wrap around his. He squeezes back.

fin