I feel your hands wrap around my heart. They squeeze, and all I can do is smile.

It's rather intimate, I muse, but there's no one else I would trust to do the same but you.

You, I think dazedly, and not for the first time. You're beautiful. A sharp intake of breath as your gloved hand cups my cheek, and my exposed eye blinks up at you and leans in in response.

"Lavi," You murmur, your molten gold irises burning intensely to my lone verdant, as you had once described.

Verdant, I snort, the memory brought to mind. You told me, in that garden of yours that you pulled me into, away from the fighting and them, that the garden reminded you of my eyes. "Your eyes are always so bright. So full of life, like those that bloom in this enclosure." You had said, and not long after, we slipped back into the roles we played and stood against each other once more.

I didn't have to read your mind to know you were thinking the same, right now, at this very moment.

I know, that to those who didn't know better (and no one knew apart from us, my teacher, and your niece), it looked as if you were about to kill me. The fearsome Noah of Pleasure had an intangible hand in the chest of the mighty Bookman apprentice, whose life appeared that it would slip away at any moment.

It would not have been the last, considering this was the final battle, after all.

Someone screamed my name amidst the sound of all the fighting—Lenalee?—and you lean forward. I feel your breath in my ear, then a joking whisper, "Your place or mine?" I couldn't stop my shoulders from shaking in mirth (though perhaps, to a bystander, of fear) because we're actually doing this, aren't we?

Catching my breath, I hum, my head tilting as if considering.

"Mine," I eventually manage, keeping my tone even. "I don't think I could stand being near another akuma for so long without trying to kill them at this point. Besides," I add brightly. "I had a bet with Yuu on whether or not I could actually find someone stupid enough put up with this," I gesture to my amazing self with my free hand, the other on your shoulder to keep myself from falling over. "I've got some collecting to do."

You chuckle good-naturedly, and pretences are dropped for a brief moment as your gaze turns serious. "Once the Earl is gone," You start, and I finish in my thoughts.

Once the Earl is gone, I close my eye, the future will be within our reach. The future, where lies humanity's hopes and dreams. A future for Arystar and Miranda's unborn child. A future where Yuu and Allen no longer have to worry about their next reunion beginning with the other in a coffin. Where Lenalee can finally have to chance to live, to fall in love even, and Komui can walk her down the aisle without remembering all the funerals, all the death certificates he sent out to all those families, and all the regrets that weigh him down.

A future where I could be just Lavi, and you, just Tykki, and our relationship no longer had be hidden for fear of the threat of this thrice damned war.

It's been so long. It's been too long since the fighting had started and we were all so tired of this. Tired of everything.

How odd it is, I think, to have fallen in love with my enemy. And all the better for it, determination surging through my veins because we were going to change things. In fact, we already have.

(And it all started when a single night ended up paving way for love, of all things.

I was a man who had no heart, and you were a man that did and wasn't supposed to.

But now, things are different.

Everything has changed, will change, and it all just needs now is a little push.)

You remove your arm and hook it around my waist, and teleport us in front of Komui in the middle of central command. The shit-eating grins that were on our faces did nothing to abate the reactions of shock, terror, and anger at having a powerful Noah in the middle of camp.

From Komui, the bewilderment quickly shifts to understanding and exasperation, and the older man pinches the bridge of his nose. "So, I presume this is the informant that's been supplying us with information for the past year and a half?"

"There's more where that came from," You drawl, and it puts a razor sharp grin on Komui's face because now we could finally turn back the tides.

Distrust fades as this realisation dawns on everyone in the immediate area. The exhausted and desperate aura of the camp collectively brightened at the thought of their renewed fighting chance, the newfound knowledge quickly spreading.

It was the chance to end things, once and for all.

So when you and I finally rejoin the battle, I couldn't help but laugh.

Laugh at the Earl, whose face twists into a deep setting fury at the betrayal.

Rhode, who takes one look away from her opponent (It couldn't even be called an actual fight. She barely harmed Lenalee at all, much to the Chinese girl's confusion.) and at you and I standing side by side. She grins, twirling over to us to cheerfully declare herself the flower girl, before skipping off to aid the more helpless exorcists (no doubt probably traumatising them in the process).

With Lenalee, who stares in hope and disbelief and demands that we talk later as her perceptive eyes lingering on the ring on my finger.

Then Allen, wiping the sweat off his brow, who blinks and beams wholeheartedly at us, at having one less enemy to slay, and Yuu, who is leaning against Allen and despite the wounds that plague him, looks as if he were about to wring my neck.

"Hey, Yuu!" I cheerfully dodge a barrage of bullets. "I won!"

I won. You won. We won. And the future won, too.

I smile contentedly and lean on your shoulder as a triumphant cheer rises up and joyful weeping begins.

The Earl is dead, long live humanity!

I turn my head and look up at you. You, with your dark skin and exotic eyes and that cool smirk, painted on pretty lips that I lean up to meet with my own. And if we left the scene maybe a little too hurriedly, no one said a thing.

We now had more than tomorrow to look forward to.

With our luck, we can do anything.

We have all the time in the world.

A/N: It's been a very, very long time since I have last read the D. Gray-man manga. All the details in the series are incredibly hazy to me now, which is why I wrote it pretty vague about, well, a lot of things, so if there are any inaccuracies (and there probably are a lot), don't be afraid to point it out to me considering I wrote this on a whim, with absolutely no research at all. I probably made up several things here. :'D

I think I've been reading too many of black. kat's incredible Naruto fix-it fics and Bookkbaby's Lucky fics, like 'Game of Poker' as well as her Lucky drabbles, which is where I most likely drew inspiration from, should you see any parallels. (To be more specific, drabble #17 and drabble #42 of 20 Lucky Drabbles and 50 Lovely Lucky Drabbles respectively.) Go check them out, they're fantastic authors! (Bookkbaby is only here on ff. net, but black. kat posts here and as blackkat on ao3 :3)