Chapter Two: Love
Summary: Lavi finally realizes what love really is. Ficlet.
Genre: Romance
Rating: PG-13
Content: Mentions of bisexual relations and homosexual relations. Sexual situations and dialogue. Allen and Lavi naked in the same bed :D
Author's Note: Part of the 100 Themes challenge on DeviantArt. 100 chapters about Lavi and Allen as a couple. Don't like it, don't read it.
Thank You To:Akichan323, ShinigamixGirl, Akwon, Kelly, Sephant, ClaymoreDarkAlicia, Ashe Seraphim, Nella-from-the-batcave, light within the shadows, xplacebo, shadows.salvation, Laven Walker, Bluefox of the Moon, Ishikawa Yui, Saimilli, Feathery Fear, Lala to the power of 2, SharinganJ, Bitchmuffin, and sweetpotato1992. Also thank you to everyone who alerted/favorited this story. I appreciate all your support :D
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Lavi's POV
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As a Bookman, I am not allowed to have any emotions. Emotions lead to biases, which lead to inaccuracies when recording history. Therefore, I was trained to never let the emotional side of me rule over my conscious self. Feelings were to remain dormant and untouched, never to be used and only to be released during the brief moments in which a Bookman was allowed to relieve himself from his duties and partake in joining with a woman. But even during this joining, it was to be distant. Not for love, but for pleasure and the physical needs that the body has. Once these physical needs were sated, then it was easier to keep the emotions locked away.
That is the theory. I won't lie and say that I never partook in the action of joining. I did so with many men and many women during my travels. I am an impartial historian, and also an impartial lover. Whether my bed partner was male or female, it didn't matter to me, and I reaped in the pleasurable benefits that both sexes had to offer me.
But there was nothing there. I felt nothing for these people I had relations with. I just went and relieved my cravings and then moved on. It was easy to record after that. It was easy to not have emotions-to bring oneself to the level of almost being superhuman because of the ways that our brains can organize the most passionate of human existence.
But we are not superhuman, or Gods, or deities. We are men. I am a man. And I fell in love, for the first time in my life, while wearing the name "Lavi".
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"Mn, Lavi…" Allen breathed from next to me, a small sigh of content.
The both of us were coming down from our euphoria, tangled in the damp sheets of Allen's bed. My arm was around Allen's waist, and I kissed the back of his neck and shoulder, pulling my lover against my chest.
"Enjoy it, Allen?" I asked, a little teasing tone in my voice as I gently scraped my teeth over his ear.
A shudder of desire went through Allen's still recovering body. He rolled over next to me and pressed his chest to mine, tilting my chin down for a kiss.
"Of course," he answered, his fingers trailing down over my chest, making me shiver with want.
We kissed again and it got a little too hot for us to just lie back after that, so we went at it again, this one somehow better than the first. Panting, we laid still together afterwards, exhaustion finally coming to take its toll on us.
"Hey, Lavi," Allen said sleepily, his eyes beginning to flutter closed, like butterflies against my shoulder.
"Hmmm?" My left eye was already shut, but my hand was gently rubbing Allen's back in small, lethargic circles.
"I—never mind," Allen sighed, curling up against my chest.
I could sense it, that Allen wanted to say something, something he wasn't sure how to say or how it would be received. I had a feeling I knew what it was. We had been together for a long time now. It ran deeper than just sex, that was for sure, both of us protecting each other in battle, holding hands when the brief moments of privacy came, the way we'd so chastely kiss hello and goodbye and how we would curl up in the biggest chair in the library to read together. This wasn't just physical. We both knew that.
And that's why I knew Allen would be thinking about it. He'd be thinking about saying that word: the L-O-V-E word. After all, weren't people supposed to say that afterwards when they felt that way? We had never said it to each other. I could tell by the lonely aura practically radiating off my lover that he felt incomplete without knowing if I loved him as much as I did.
"Allen…"
My voice was tired and it had that sort of slur people get when they're completely exhausted, but fighting sleep, much like I was at that moment. This always happened, my body getting tired before my brain. It was something that had always annoyed me, but now…now being tired meant just laying in bed with Allen all night next to the person who meant more than the world to me. It made me happy and so complete. And it wasn't only after sex that I felt this way. Just being with him everyday and seeing his beautiful smile and hearing his voice saying my name—the name I've come to love so much—was something I knew I never wanted to live without.
I knew the consequences of my actions. I knew what vocalizing my feelings meant. I knew what would happen if it were to ever leak out that Lavi—Bookman Junior—had a heart. A heart I wasn't supposed to have. But how was I to know any better, when love was just a word written in ink on paper? And how was I supposed to react, when this heart I wasn't supposed to have was stolen by the boy that now lay in my arms?
I knew that I should say it. Those three little words "I love you" and I felt so terrible that I never said it before now. I couldn't help it. Love was something new to me. These wonderful feelings that had completely taken over my conscious self were so foreign. I knew what the words meant in theory, but I did not know what they truly meant in practice. I felt bad that it was my fault that Allen was feeling so sad because I never said it. He deserved it and I knew it. And that wasn't the only reason I thought about saying it. It was the concept that the heart I did possess wanted to tell him.
And for Allen's sake, I prayed that what I felt for him really was this so-called love and that the phrase I was about to say was not an empty promise.
"Hmmm?" was his answer.
I knew Allen too well and I knew right then that he was only trying to pretend that he was asleep. But his shoulders were too tense and his breathing not even enough for him to be succumbing to tiredness, so I continued with what I was about to do.
My arms were around him already, but I pulled him closer to me in a true embrace, breathing in the scent of his hair that was becoming so familiar and comforting to me.
"I love you, Allen," I murmured, holding my breath for the reply.
The words were said and I looked down to find Allen staring up at me, his beautiful blue-gray eyes shocked and somewhat glassy. But he smiled despite the tear that rolled down his cheek and he kissed me.
"I love you too, Lavi."
And in that moment, I finally understood the true meaning of "love", not as a theory, but as an emotion that rang true inside of me. I smiled and all of the people I had been before breathed a sigh of happiness from within the hidden parts of my psyche.
So I kissed him back.
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Sorry for the shortness, the next few are going to be longer, I promise :)
Thanks for reading.
Dhampir72