Here's chapter two! Saya hopes to finish this story quickly, as a start-of-summer treat of sorts. She's working on it exclusively at the moment, to get her mind off her usual stories because she's not doing her best with those. So, hopefully this little break and writing exercise will get Saya back into shape! And quickly, this is key.
Disclaimer: Saya doesn't own DGM or "Boys Next Door". They belong to Katsura Hoshino and Kaori Yuki, respectively.
Rating: M for pedophilia, prostitution, nondescript sex, killing, violence, etc.
2. Their Circumstances
"Hey Allen, did you hear? Even though it's been three days since Yuu was killed, the Earl has only just been made aware of it. He'd damned furious about it too. It pisses me off to know that the first this he said when he heard the news was that he was angry he'd lost such a best seller," Lavi said, as he ranted on indignantly, and Allen listened patiently as he covered up a few marks he'd gotten the night before. He was down, much less hopeful than the day before. Allen was still wondering what the hell he'd been thinking when he said he would give the collar back. He wanted something, didn't he? So why was he giving up his only advantage, his only hope to get it?
"Hey, Allen, are you even listening?" Lavi asked, giving the boy a questioning and strangely concerned glance.
"Of course I am. You know how much it burns me up, knowing that man thinks of us as nothing but tools he can use to make a profit," Allen replied, with as much enthusiasm for the subject as he could muster at the moment. They'd had this conversation before, but usually there was a third party who liked to comment about the subject with an exasperated voice. Unlike Lavi and himself, Kanda had been resigned to his fate before he'd even reached the brothel, and just thought of it as a pointless subject to dwell on. That didn't stop him from joining in with them when they made plans to escape though. The memories of times spent with his now-deceased friend only served to make his pain worsen.
"But isn't he your uncle?" Lavi asked, he had always wondered about that. What unfeeling creature would employ their own nephew in this sort of place? He'd never asked though, because it was undoubtably a sore topic. Now though, he wanted to know about everything, before he lost the chance to ask questions. Yuu's death had put so much in perspective for him.
"Yeah, but what difference does it make? I'm here because my parents wracked up a debt with him, and since they off and died, I've got to pay it off," Allen said bitterly, snarling at the memory of his first day in this hellish place. "I'd always known something was off with him, from the first day I'd met him," he continued to mutter, thinking of how his parents had actually trusted this man, and how the Earl had smiled right to their faces and told them they would never have to repay a single cent they had borrowed.
"Um...anyway, besides that... Lavi, I need the collar back," Allen said, waiting for the worst. He hardly expected Lavi to just hand it back without an explanation.
"Why? Aren't you going to see that damned murderer again today? Shouldn't I keep a hold of it to make sure you aren't killed?" Lavi asked, worry in his voice. Just what was Allen going to do now?
The snowy-haired boy lowered his head, seemingly ashamed of himself. "I was being nothing but foolish the other day... No one, not that man nor anyone else, could get us out of here... No one wants us out of here. It's better to just keep the scum in its pond."
"Allen!" Lavi stood up from where he'd been seated on the bathroom sink and promptly slapped Allen. The boy blinked owlishly at him for a moment, before looking away, covering the side of his face that he could feel was getting hot with pain. "Since when have you ever believed we were just scum? What the hell did that asshole say to you to make you believe we were?! The Allen I've always known would never think to call himself or his friends that!" Lavi took a shaky breath before continuing. "I...I've lost one important person to that guy's twisted ideology, I'm not about to lose you to it too."
Allen kept his gaze averted, ashamed for having thought that for even a second. What was he doing? What was he thinking? Why, why was he giving up? The more Lavi said, the more ashamed of himself he felt.
"You thought of this idea, all the cards are in your favor Allen, and you, the infamous card shark of the Millennium Earl's gambling ring, are afraid to take a gamble on this guy just 'cause he's warped and refused you the first time?"
"I-I get it, ok Lavi? I get it! I just...I don't know what I'm doing any more...don't think I knew from the very start. I was just getting my hopes up." Lavi scowled at this behavior, and forced Allen's chin up, making his young friend look up at him.
"You knew what you were doing, you've just lost your resolve. So until you find it again, I'm keeping this little piece of scrap metal right on my ear." Lavi motioned to the tag that had once been on the collar, he'd taken it off and placed it on the little loop earing he always wore. The actual chain it had been on had been attached to the copy and broke when Allen had tugged it off. "I'm going to stick to your original plan, so you go to that guy, and tell him we're not giving up until we're out of this city."
Allen looked up at Lavi, not sure whether he should be grateful to have such a determined friend, or if he should worry that Lavi was going to get him killed. Finally, he decided to think positively for once and smiled up at his friend.
"Thank you Lavi, really. Well then, I have an appointment to make, now don't I?" Allen asked rhetorically, as he moved away from the sink's mirror and to the door.
"Yup, show that guy who's in charge here!" Lavi cheered as his friend left. The moment the door closed, Lavi silently prayed that he hadn't just sent Allen to his death.
000
"Oh wow, just look at that new candy store! Bring me there, please Mikkie!" Rhode pulled Tyki along the street, pointing ahead of her to a rather colorful store that had just recently opened. He sighed as he was dragged into the sweets shop after her, for he didn't like candy all that much himself and his pockets felt horribly empty today.
'I definitely gave all of my money to that boy yesterday...God, I just hopes that today is the last time I'll have to deal with him.'
Tyki felt his teeth ache as he watched Rhode pick more and more candy off of the walls, he felt bad for her dentist. As they walked through the store, he wondered if it would be strange for him to pay for a pile of candy with a check. Well, it depended on just how much she bought, he supposed, she seemed to be taking one of everything from the store. Most would consider the assumption that he would just pay for all of this a bit rude on Rhode's part, but she was used to Tyki spoiling her as though she were his favorite niece or something like that.
As they neared the counter, Tyki knew that it would not seem at all strange to anyone if he didn't use cash for such a purchase, as it seemed to him that Rhode intended to buy half of the store. He sighed yet again and fished around in his pockets for his wallet, which held his checkbook. Before he could pull it out of his pocket though, a tattooed hand placed a rather large wad of money on the counter before him.
"Just use this, it's your money after all," came the clear, familiar voice that he hadn't expected to hear so early in the day. Tyki turned to see Allen looking at him with the same blank expression he always seemed to see on the kid when he first looked at him. Allen quickly turned to smile at the grand-fatherly man behind the counter. "Do you think this will be enough for a mountain that high, though?" He asked, quickly retracting his hand from the counter before anyone besides Tyki had the chance to see his brand. The man picked up the bills and counted through them, saying that there would probably be extra. Tyki thanked God that this place seemed to have relatively low prices, and waited patiently for the goods to be rung up.
Once out of the shop, Rhode turned to Tyki, while putting a lollipop in her mouth. "So, who's the albino kid?" She asked, pointing to Allen. Allen flushed a bit, muttering something about just being pale.
"I'm Allen, Tyki's brother," the boy answered in a much kinder tone once he had stopped mumbling. She raised an eyebrow at him, before looking to Tyki, and then back at him.
"You look nothing alike," she observed, giving him a face that said she obviously didn't buy it.
"I'm his foster brother. When my parents died and I got sent to my foster home, he was the only one who was kind to me, and helped me get used to living there. He was just like a real big brother to me, but then he left for bigger and better things and just never came back. It took me a while, but I found him, didn't I?" Allen seemed to be staring off into space as he said all of this, as though he were remembering a story from long ago and reciting it for the girl.
'Is this story true? Maybe he really has a brother, and he's just improvising here with that story?' Tyki shrugged off the thought, it wasn't his place to care. He was going to kill the boy the moment he had the collar back in his hands, he needn't concern himself with his life, he had no reason to feel sympathy for the marked boy.
Allen and Tyki walked with Rhode until they reached her house, where she pushed all of the candy onto Tyki, saying: "You hold onto it for me Mikkie, my parents might get annoyed if they see all of that candy; they're dentists." Tyki thought it was a bit ironic that this girl's foster parents had a daughter with such a sweet tooth.
Tyki gave Rhode an indulging smile as he took the bags of candy from her. "Just come on by whenever you want a bit of it, then," he said, thinking that Wolfie would enjoy seeing her more often. After he had seen Rhode safely enter her house, he left for his own with Allen walking silently at his side. They entered his house in silence too, which was finally broken when Wolfie came to greet them at the door.
"Er...is that...?" Allen gave Tyki a questioning look, to which he nodded.
"That's Wolfie, yes. Got a problem with my pet?"
"Um...no," Allen said, sounding a bit awkward. "It's just that with a name like that, I'd expected a dog, like a German Shepard or an excessively aggressive Chihuahua or something more...canine." Allen gestured vaguely with his hands, as if to help convey his message. Tyki just rolled his eyes and walked into his kitchen, placing the candy up on a high, out-of-the-way shelf. Allen followed, and stood near the doorway of the room.
Allen looked at the bags that were still on the table, and mused aloud: "You seem like you must really love kids, I guess that's why you're a pediatrician, huh? I used to think you just worked afternoons at the daycare, you were always so nice to the kids there." Allen turned his face from the kitchen when Tyki turned to get the last bag, and consequently turned it from view. His cheeks were tinted with a bit of pink.
'So...he's seen me before? What the hell am I supposed to say to something like that, anyway?'
"You always looked sad though, like even though you cared for the children you could never really open up to them... Like you had a secret you couldn't share. I couldn't forget that sad smile and I always wanted to know what was troubling you... Guess I know now, huh?" Allen gave a sad smile of his own, tinged with irony. Now that he knew, he probably wish he didn't, Tyki thought, because he certainly wouldn't want to know that someone he'd been watching murdered people of his own profession. And Tyki decided that the boy had to have been watching him, to know so much about him. It was a rather frightening thought, really.
Allen moved away from the doorframe, and headed back into the sitting room, taking a seat on the sofa without being invited to. Tyki raised an eyebrow, but followed suit and sat on a nearby recliner.
"I said a lot earlier, guess I don't really need to say it but...well, that story was sort of true. The "brother" I talked about was actually my best friend, and it wasn't just one person, it was two. They were both a bit older than I and had been around that house longer. One was really kind to me, and when everyone else was cold toward me, or indifferent, he was kind and comforted me. The other was his close friend, who was at first very mean and abrasive, but I learned that really he was just kind in a rather unconventional way. They helped me get used to everything..."
"And so your "foster home" was...?" Tyki couldn't help but ask. He felt drawn into the melancholy boy's story, for reasons he couldn't explain. He was supposed to be killing this boy, not listening to his life story, but at the same time he just couldn't pretend not to hear.
"Yes, it was that whorehouse... My uncle runs the place, and has been using me to pay off my parents' debt ever since they died and left me to him. They weren't bad people, and they cared about me very much, but they just didn't know that he was the king of the underground, they were too decent to know about that world and who's in charge of it. Still, I've been paying for their ignorance for years and am starting to resent them for it. Oh, right, speaking of pay, here's what's left of the money you left behind yesterday, the store clerk gave it back to me instead of you," Allen said, and held the money out to Tyki. Realizing that the older man seemed too stunned by either the story or the action itself, he decided to leave it on the coffee table between them.
Tyki could not seem to find the murderer in him, at this point. He was supposed to murder this child but now... Goodness, how young had Allen been when he was forced into that dirty line of work? He hadn't chosen it himself, he hadn't known it would happen to him at all! And worse yet, this had all been forced on him just after the shock of his parents' deaths? Could he really kill this boy with a clear conscience? Was it really ok to kill Allen?
Was it ok if maybe...he didn't?
The attack was quite sudden. Allen was, for reasons currently unknown to Tyki, upon him and kissing him. Tyki was stunned and felt rather witless at the moment. What was going on? Something like fear churned his stomach as he was forced onto his back and the boy crawled over him.
"This is revenge! Revenge for what you said yesterday, and for my poor 'brother' whom you killed three days ago, while working under the impression that he'd chosen his life!" Well, Tyki understood now and that made the attack seem a little less random, which lessened the fear. He was still stunned though, and that didn't change even as Allen started working his belt out of its buckle.
"I hate the way you acted yesterday, the way you're still acting today! Like you're shocked to find that I have the capacity to care about anything other than money! You call me disgusting and you want nothing more than to get me out of your clean little life, and I hate that! I've heard worse before but it hurts to hear you say that!" Tyki only grew more shocked as the boy went on, and hardly registered that Allen was hastily unbuttoning his shirt. He felt trapped, pinned like a butterfly to a wall. Allen's eyes were so determined, angry, the gray and blue tones seemed to swirl around chaotically like a sea storm.
"I hate it too! I think it's just as disgusting! But what can I do? Nothing! I can't run or refuse it, I've just got to live with it! Who would want to live this way? Night after night, a different face every time! Just putting on a false smile and making someone's dream come true for one night because they've given up on finding the real thing. I hate it! I want to get away from it! But what can I do?" And suddenly, rage gave way to despair, and Tyki was no longer being pinned to the spot by those confused eyes, because they were hidden from view. His forehead rested on Tyki's now bare chest, as though he couldn't find the strength to look forward just yet. Then, just as he felt something warm and wet fall onto him, Allen licked it away, refusing to leave anything behind that would show he'd let a tear slip down his cheek.
"What can I do? If you know then please tell me, because I'm fresh out of ideas." Tyki came back to himself more and more as he felt lips fall on his bare skin over and over. He grabbed the boy's shoulders and pushed him away, not wanting to be so close to him. He looked to the side, not feeling capable of looking the boy in the face.
"Look boy, I'm just going to kill you one of these days, so there's no point in asking me for answers." Allen looked down at him, and his sadness evaporated. Once again, his eyes were just emotionless wells of silver, and Tyki wished he would just choose an emotion and stick to it, he wished the boy would just be angry or upset or anything but blank like that!
"Fine then, kill me. Maybe that's the only answer anyway, maybe none of us can really escape as long as we exist in this world..." Allen pondered aloud as he stared into Tyki's eyes, once again trapping him with that piercing gaze. "Be the last person to see me alive, and keep my memory buried in your subconscious for the rest of your life. Keep me all to yourself and never tell a soul." Allen kissed him once again, with much less force than he had the first time. Tyki felt a silent call to connect, and without thinking, responded to it.
000
"Mother, who was that man?" He asked once the strange man had left their house. Even after he had repeated the question to her, she did not answer. Instead, she counted through a roll of bills the man had given her. Tyki wished that man hadn't given it to her, and he wished she wouldn't take it. It seemed so wrong. He had seen what she did with men once, but he didn't understand that either. He figured that when he grew up he would know, and at the moment, it all felt sick and wrong. It gave him the worst feeling.
"We're going to see your mother Tyki, we're going to the carnival," she suddenly announced after she had finished counting. He didn't understand that either. She was his mother, he was seeing here right now. How could a carnival be his mother? She looked at him and smiled. She looked at him! She looked at him! He should've been happier, but instead a knot of uneasiness twisted his stomach. She'd never looked at him before, no matter how hard he tried to get her attention. He did his best to get her to love him, he did his worst to get her to hate him, to feelsomething for him! She never had before though, so why was she looking at him now?
The carnival that she had talked about was very far away, or at least it seemed that way to Tyki, who had rarely been out of his own house. Even so, he had fun there. He rode on the Ferris wheel and ate cotton candy, played games and even managed to forget that this wasn't normal, not for him anyway.
His mother didn't watch. She didn't even look at him as he ran around, having as much fun as he could. Then, she saw, or perhaps heard, something and alerted Tyki to it.
"Do you hear it? The music playing? Shall we go listen to it? They're playing near the jester, see? Go on, look," She said, pointing to the jester, who was surrounded by happy children who were listening to his jokes and laughing. Tyki joined them, and though he couldn't get all the way to the front, he got close. The jester sang cheery little songs to the music that was played, he sang a song for everyone who asked him to. Tyki raised his hand and hoped to be included, but even as the crowd thinned out, he was never chosen. He was starting to wonder if maybe he was invisible, maybe that was why his mother never looked at him, and no one seemed to realize he existed.
He left the jester as the rest of the crowd did, and looked for his mother. Where was she? He couldn't find her! He ran through the carnival, hoping to see his mother, but found no one familiar. It soon got dark, and while the carnival looked splendid with all of its colorful lights, he couldn't enjoy it while he felt so alone like this. Finally, he gave up on finding her there, and left the carnival, hoping he could at least find his way home.
It took days, and on more than one occasion the police almost took him. But he kept running and escaping them, hoping beyond hope that when he reached home his mother would worry over him and tell him not to scare her like that ever again. He hoped that went he returned she would love him.
He was hoping for the impossible, it seemed. When he finally made it back home, he didn't even get through the door before he heard a crash, and yelling. Deciding it would be safer to stay outside, Tyki took to one of the windows, and watched as his mother's death unfolded before his very eyes.
"It's the truth! Tyki is not your son! That year when I went to the carnival I was raped by a man dressed as a jester! I had the damned child, and then I left him back where he belongs!"
"You lying whore! All this time..! I bet that man who just called was someone you've taken money from before, wasn't he?"
"OF COURSE! Are you fool enough to think you're the only one? Of course I have others, and they're all much more of a help than you are!"
"Filthy slut..!" The man that Tyki had seen most often around the house, whom he'd come to know as father, took up a dagger and stabbed his mother with it, before throwing the blade to the floor and running from the scene. Tyki then entered the house through the open door, terrified. At first, his mother was shocked, but soon started glaring at him and telling him to call for help.
"Call the hospital...I'll take you back to the carnival once I'm better again, ok? Tyki..." The carnival...that twisted carnival... He didn't want to go back there ever again, not with her! He took up the blade and walked over to his mother. Her face was horror-stricken as she watched him lift the blade.
"I won't let you leave me there again," he said, before plunging the dagger through her heart.
And then it hit him, he had just killed his mother. He felt sick and wasn't sure what to do with himself. So, he slipped into automatic mode and took care of himself. Still, even as he ate and tidied up, he couldn't get the feeling of his mother's eyes off of him. They were still open, locked in a perpetual glare.
'Don't look at me... you never looked at me before, so why should you start now?' Tyki thought, and he scavenged the house for something he could use to cover her eyes. He found some masking tape and wrapped it around her head carefully, making sure that every piece covered her eyes. But it wasn't enough, there were pictures all over the walls and the ground, things he'd drawn and little photos were everywhere. He took the tape and covered all the eyes in every photo, until he ran out and had to get out his markers to finish off the pictures he'd drawn.
It took five days for anyone to find him in that house. As a small child who had just witnessed his mother's death, no one suspected him of any wrong-doing, and he was shipped off to a foster home, with everyone's sympathy and well-wishes.
000
"I decided to become a pediatrician so that I could help take care of children, and that's also why I spend my afternoons volunteering at the day care center, so that I know none of those children feel invisible," Tyki finished his story with a little sigh, wondering why he'd even bothered to tell it in the first place. Allen, who was laying on top of him on the narrow couch, had lent a very sympathetic ear. Hell the kid was almost crying over his story, and Tyki wondered if the boy was really all right in the head. Crying over a murderer's story, feeling sympathy and pity for the one who'd killed his friend, his surrogate brother, before his eyes! What on earth was this boy? Was he a saint, or just insane?
"I see, because of the way your mother was, and how much you hated it... you've kind of taken up a vendetta against people who sell themselves the way she did. But...she was a woman, why have you only killed men?" Allen asked in a quiet murmur against the older man's chest. Tyki looked surprised by the question. He'd never wondered that, but now that he thought about it, he really had no idea why it was always boys he killed.
"I...I'm not sure...I just know that night comes and I change. I go out, seek their company and then kill them... They suddenly just repulse me so much... I don't know why. They're dirty, like she was, and they look at me with those filthy eyes and I just have to shut them for good! I can't stop killing them because I'll go crazy if I know I haven't taken those filthy eyes off of me!" Tyki felt his control slipping, he felt himself going into that dangerous state of his. "People like that...people who just sell themselves and will do anything for the sake of money...such a pathetic existence is better off just being erased! The world doesn't need people who would just throw away their pride and morals, they're better off that way!"
Allen's eyes were suddenly on Tyki's face again, breaking through to his soul. Tyki was brought back to his senses quickly, as Allen's hand moved toward him. He was half-expecting the boy to slap him, now that he realized what he'd been saying. Instead though, the approaching hand rested on his cheek, cupping it gently.
"You poor thing, this entire time you haven't been killing your mother, and you haven't been killing prostitutes at all, have you?" Tyki gave Allen a questioning look, because he was pretty sure that those were the exact victims that he had indeed killed. Allen continued on, with an expression that made it clear he seemed to understand something Tyki didn't.
"You've been your own biggest victim," Allen said, clearing up Tyki's own misunderstanding. The boy pulled himself up, wrapped his arms around Tyki's shoulders and kissed him lightly, before pulling away just a little, and letting his forehead rest against Tyki's. They were eye-to-eye now, and Tyki was too mesmerized to look away. "It's ok," he murmured against Tyki's lips, quietly, as though nothing else that existed in the world had any right to hear him but the man in his arms. "It's all right now. I'll forgive you, so you never have to kill yourself or anyone else again...I'll forgive you, so please forgive yourself."
Tyki held the boy as though he were the only thing keeping him connected to this world. "You're crazy, you know?" Tyki said, shaking his head in the crook of Allen's neck. "Crazy as all hell. Who in their right mind would look at me like that, and say it was perfectly fine?"
'Who would look at me the way you do, so differently from everyone else?'
"Maybe I am a bit crazy...but I think I'd like that. We can both be crazy together, how does that sound?" Tyki nodded, and Allen gently ran a hand over his tangled hair, soothing him. He felt like a child, being held like this by Allen, and holding onto the other so tightly. Eventually Allen moved back down again, once again resting his head on Tyki's chest. They fell asleep in the quiet comfort of each other's embraces.
000
The next morning Allen awoke to the feeling of something dry and smooth, and slightly cold sliding past his fingers. He rubbed his head as he used one arm to prop himself up on the comfortable sofa. What his hand had been touching earlier had been the lizard, Wolfie, it had been walking past his hand and had brushed by him.
As if walking past Allen had alerted it to his presence, the lizard turned to stare at his still sleepy form. Allen didn't realize that he had the creature's attention, as he was too busy trying to find Tyki. Eventually, his eyes fell to the coffee table, where a note with the words "Went to work" was left, along with a plate of waffles that were still a bit warm, which made Allen deduce that Tyki had only left rather recently, and it was therefore very early. Allen looked down from the table to find that Wolfie was still looking at him.
"So he went to work, huh...?" Allen asked, deciding that the pet would be good enough company for now. "Hm...that reminds me, I never did tell Tyki that I couldn't get his collar back. Well Mr. Wolfgang, though I still think a proper name for you would've been Lizzie, I do apologize for giving your name tag to a stubborn redhead who will probably kill me for all of this later." Allen leaned over and picked up Wolfie, feeling quite foolish and more than a bit childish for talking to a lizard as though it were a person.
"I had meant to give it back, really...But well, sometimes it seems like Lavi knows what's best for me better than I do, I'll say, and leave it at that." Allen sighed happily at the thought of his friend, thinking that if he hadn't been so adamant about Allen sticking to his plan, he never would've gotten this chance. He debated whether or not he should say more to Wolfie, before deciding that he could probably be relied on not to spill his secrets. "You're really lucky, you know? He keeps you around like this, you're connected to him because he wants you. I want a connection with him too... I used to watch him at the daycare center, because I had nothing better to do really, and it was peaceful...watching children who were loved grow up...I saw his smile and I think I fell in love with it..."
000
It had been maybe a week or two since Lavi had seen Allen leave the bathroom with the plan to go confront the murderer. Since then, Kanda's room had been given to some new boy whom Lavi could not find it in himself to accept as his lover's replacement in this place. Still, he tried to be kind only because he knew no one besides he and Allen would be. Lavi had set himself at peace with Yuu's death, deciding that in the end even dying like that had to be better than living like this.
Lavi discovered though, that while he may have been at peace with the fact that Yuu was no longer with him, he hadn't forgiven the person who had taken him away.
"Please tell me you're shitting me Allen, this is one joke I'd really rather you not pull," Lavi said, with a serious tone and a wide eye. Allen shook his head no, which sparked anger in the redhead. He stomped around his room, gathering everything he could think of that could be used to perform a bloody murder. "I don't know what that guy said to you to get you to friggin' fall for him, but need I remind you that he killed Yuu? My lover and one of your closest friends, Allen! It's only been a little over a week since you first talked to him, when did you have time to form feelings for him?!"
To this, Allen did not answer. He just kept his head low and waited for Lavi to say everything he wanted to say. His friend had every right to his anger, after all. Allen felt like he was betraying Lavi just as much as Lavi felt he was being betrayed.
"You know, when you said you were planning to get us out of here, I thought that was what you were doing! I didn't think it was just a convenient excuse you could use to get close to the guy and then get in his pants!" Ow. That one hurt. His increased pain must've shown on his face because the moment the redhead looked at him again, guilt consumed him and he was swooping down off his high horse to comfort the friend who had wronged him.
"I-I didn't mean it that way Allen...I know you're not like that. God I'm sorry, I don't even know what I'm saying anymore... It's just... I can't forgive people the way you've always been able to. I can't forget and just call it water under the bridge. I'll try though, ok? I'll try, so just please...don't make that face..." Allen looked up to Lavi questioning, not even realizing he was indeed making a face that begged for forgiveness and sympathy.
"I'm sorry... You have every right to be angry with me, but this isn't really anything recent, at least not for me." Lavi did his best to understand what Allen was thinking and feeling but found he did not have the information needed in order to recreate the emotions that were undoubtably swirling through his friend.
There was a moment of silence, as their minds wandered off to their own places. This led Allen back to his original purpose for being there; They really were getting out of here. Allen had felt the need to explain the whole thing from the beginning, hence why they had just gone through that last scene, but now that it was over Allen felt he could get to the point.
"Um...anyway, Lavi, there was something a bit more pressing I had been leading up to here so...May I continue?" Allen asked, though he really didn't need to, as it seemed Lavi was quite ready to do just about anything to keep Allen from looking depressed.
"Right, ah...what I was planning to say was that we've done it, Lavi, we've set up a way to get you out of the city, out of the state, actually. You can't bring anything from here with you that you can't fit in your pockets, and I'll do my best to get anything more you want to you later, but you will be leaving." Allen looked very accomplished, and Lavi looked very astonished. What did Allen mean, he was getting out of the city? And why did it seem that Allen was not included in this escape plot?
"What are you talking about Allen? If I get out of here, of course you're coming with me," Lavi said, trying to sound light-hearted about it, as if he thought Allen had just made a little mistake while speaking. Really though, he was worried, worried about leaving Allen behind here. What if the boy had resigned himself to fate, or was planning to take the punishment for helping Lavi leave? Maybe Allen just thought it would be harder to get them both out at the same time? Either way Lavi wouldn't tolerate it.
"Lavi...I wouldn't blame you for not realizing this, I mean I know you've kind of been grieving still, but um...I haven't come to work this entire week. This is the first time I've come back to the house too. I'd love to go and quit officially, but you know how people don't tend to do too well here after trying that. I'm as good as out of here myself, but you know that sooner or later the Earl is going to catch onto the fact that I haven't come back, and he's going to go looking for me. You'll be the first one they try to torture the information out of, so I figured I'd have to get you out of town and fast, before they start looking for you."
Oh. Well, yeah, Lavi hadn't noticed that. He'd been running on automatic for a while now, it seems that was all he could do when Allen wasn't around to keep him in his right mind. He'd been so stuck on just going through the motions of day-by-day living that he'd just never realized that Allen wasn't there. He felt like an asshole and a moron for not realizing that, because the two of them usually saw each other at least once a day.
"I see...but are you sure you'll be safe where you are?" Lavi asked, wondering if there was any way Allen could possibly be safe while inside the city limits. He wondered if Allen was living with the murderer now, and if that was really such a wise choice on Allen's part.
"For now I am, and we'll probably be meeting you out in Washington within a month or so." By "we", Lavi assumed Allen meant he and Tyki. Lavi hoped he would be able to get over his anger towards the man by then.
"Wait...where are you sending me, exactly? Please tell me you're not sending me to some suburban town, I don't think I can live without smog in my lungs anymore, and how do you think all the rain would affect my hair color? It's hard to maintain this shade of orangey-red, you know!"
"Lavi...that's your natural hair color. And I think that fresh air would be a nice change for you. Besides, it'd be a lot safer for you there than in the middle of some city." Allen's statement seemed true enough, but Lavi was still wondering if he'd be able to handle seeing houses with lawns all over the place. It would be too...outlandish... for him, like he was suddenly on another planet.
"...I grudgingly see your point. So go on, tell me about my great escape Allen."
"I will, and pay attention because your plane leaves tomorrow."
"Tomorrow?!"
"Tomorrow," Allen said with a note of finality about the whole deal. He then launched into an explanation about his plan to get Lavi out of the state. It seemed long, and a little more complicated that it needed to be, but Lavi figured it would cover his tracks well. At the end of it all, Lavi and Allen went to work making the final preparations for the next day, and Lavi made sure to thank Allen at every chance he got.
Ah...a happy little note to end this on. It all goes downhill from here, sadly. Well, good luck with that. The last update will probably be a bit longer than this chapter, and should be up sometime around Saturday or Sunday...wait patiently until then?