This update is sooner than expected, but it kind of makes sense to update this faster than TFL. The chapters are shorter, the story is shorter, the wait should be shorter, ne?
Disclaimer of d'smiles: I do not own D.Gray-man. If I did… the manga would be produced so quickly, the creators of Bleach would feel threatened.
WARNINGS: CURSING. SO MUCH CUSSING. Mild homosexual references. If anyone thinks the cursing is too much for a T-rated fic, tell me and I'll change it to M. Thank you.
Part Two: Puerility and Determination
It was always impossible to tell what time it was in the science department simply because no one slept on a schedule that resembled anything like that of a normal human being's. Two hours after lunch the control room was thronged with people, half of them dozing, the other half so strung out on coffee they didn't seem to comprehend the meaning of the word sleep. The faces that greeted Kanda were two-thirds familiar, those the ones that actually spoke to him were mostly people he did not recognize, those that didn't understand he glared because that was how he felt, not how he wanted his face to be stuck when he was old. Grunting usually got him an expression of confusion, nodding got him smiles, but barking a command to get out of the way got him the best reaction of all – the man dropped his paperwork and scurried aside like someone had suddenly set his hair on fire.
He kept the barking up, it was easiest. No one but Reever barked back, and even then the Australian did it from behind a Finder, and ducked out of sight as soon as Kanda turned his glare at him. No one even tried to greet him after that, they were too frightened by the aura of bloodlust he exuded at all that set eyes on him. He was thankful of it. He didn't have to stop and wait for anymore idiots to say hello to him when he was already dangling at the end of his figurative rope.
When he came into the office he did so on light feet, surreptitiously circumventing a number of discarded papers and neglected pens, a sparse few quills and a despondent looking inkwell. The supervisor's desk had a man draped across it, beret wearing head tilted over his arm, left hand curled by his torso in protection of a coffee cup. Kanda shook his head at it – Komui was going to die by the time he was fifty if he kept up the coffee and the sleep deprivation – and moved forward enough to tug the hat off of the scientist's head.
"Mhm…I told you no…" The Chinese man grumbled into his shoulder. "You can't eat that… what are you touching…?"
Kanda sighed. "Komui."
"Hot." The man mumbled gently. "Nibble it?"
"Komui!"
"Why yes, I love the color red…"
"Lenalee is seducing me."
"Not my Lenalee!" His eyes flew open and he sat up, leaving his beret on his desk, glasses smashed crookedly across his face, and he blinked at Kanda as if having never seen his face before. For once he didn't launch himself across the surface of his desk to strangle the samurai, instead he stared and thought and eventually let his face settle into a serious expression of passive neutrality. He picked up his hat and straightened it. "Hello, Kanda-kun."
He narrowed his eyes. "You needed to see me?"
Komui seemed to pretend to think for a moment while he shuffled through papers. After a time he found the one that Kanda remembered to be his mission report and brought it to his eyes, scanning the notes he had left for himself in the margins. After a few seconds the scientist turned the thin stack of papers around and slid it across the wood of his desk, a sigh easing past his lips.
"On the fourth page, I think it's the third paragraph, you said that the creature you killed was composed of flesh and blood and didn't explode like an akuma would have at the contact of Innocence." He said thoughtfully. "I would like more detail on what the creature looked like as well as what happened to the body."
"Two meters tall, thin, and it smelled like rot." Kanda said at once, not wanting to be here anymore than he wanted to be in Lavi's hospital room. "And blood. It had fangs about the length of my fingers and four-clawed hands, with something like a thumb farther down its arm. Forward jutting jaw like a muzzle, and its ears moved toward whatever sound it heard. It walked on two feet, but it ran on four. Does that cover it?" He asked, watching Komui jot down notes without looking at him. The man shook his head, so he went on. "It had fur, white fur, and its back was hunched."
"Would you say that it resembled a wolf at all?"
"Che. About as much as it resembled at mole or a rat."
Komui looked up at him and tapped his pen on the edge of his chin as if the act would conjure some sort of thought from him. After a moment he frowned down at the paper he was making notes on and set his writing utensil aside. "Did it look like any sort of creature you've seen before? If you really think on it."
Kanda frowned back at him, thinking hard, recalling the creature's features in the dark. "Like a dog."
"But not a wolf?"
"No." He shook his head vigorously; a bit disgruntled by the look Komui was giving him, like he was out of his mind to distinguish between the two. Wolves and dogs, at least in Kanda's mind, were entirely different creatures that shared a common, if completely removed, ancestor. "A wolf would have had a longer face, and the ears were round. Looking back, it might have seemed like a bear rather than a dog." He shrugged, showing his indifference. "I buried it in the churchyard where I killed it."
"You… buried…it?"
"Che. I wasn't going to just leave it there."
"In a churchyard."
"I wasn't going to drag it to some fucking stranger's house, either. What do you want from me? Miracles?"
Komui dropped his head in his hands. He looked entirely too stressed to be normal. "Why?! Why did you bury it in a churchyard?!"
"Body. Dirt. Bury. Idiot."
"Did a part of the churchyard have a graveyard in it by chance?"
Kanda, who was growing irritated, slammed his hands on the desk in front of him, his relatively calm features smashed up to show his annoyance, his shoulders tense, feet at shoulder width. Komui felt a flutter of fear in his chest. Kanda had never hit him, but he had never seemed this close either. "Che. What are you getting at, Komui? This hasn't been my day and I don't need you nitpicking what I did on my mission to make it worse. Just tell me what I did that you don't like so I won't do it next time!" He said hurriedly, and as soon as the words were out of his mouth, he half regretted them. Komui just looked up at him and slowly, understandingly, nodded.
"If you killed that thing in the churchyard and buried it in the graveyard, and it was something evil or tainted, you have succeeding in corrupting the hollowed ground around that graveyard and most likely the churchyard as well. That means," He pulled his glasses down his nose and pushed the back up more comfortably, not looking at Kanda. The Japanese man furrowed his brow at this new information. "The infestation of zombies, vampires, and were-creatures that the town is now complaining about might be your fault."
"Zombies." The was a disbelieving note in his voice.
"Yes. And were-beasts and vampires."
"Zombies?" It was beginning to sound like amusement.
"Kanda?"
"Zom…bies?" The samurai pressed a hand to his mouth and proceeded to make a strange, barking, choking sound into it, eyebrows pushed together, eyes pressed shut. His expression behind his fingers twisted into an odd look that might have been a smile or a snarl, too well hidden to be readable. He had to lift his other hand and cover his mouth yet more to keep the sound muffled.
"This is no laughing matter, Kanda."
The Japanese man unleashed a wheeze that dyed his cheeks a color between maroon and crimson. After a moment he cleared his throat and straightened his lips, looking serious. "Zombies are more your field than mine, Supervisor."
"If that is a reference to a drug I made and a ghost found…"
"Ergha!" Kanda turned away and clamped his hands over his mouth again. Komui seethed behind him.
"Just go. There's more investigating that has to be done anyway. Do you really find it to be that amusing? I don't think I've seen you laugh since you were eleven…" He shook his head and sighed, eyeing his papers. He wasn't lying either. Kanda laughed about as often as Lavi cried, and that wasn't very often at all as far as he was aware. The samurai stiffened, eyes suddenly narrowed, and turned a glare at him. Komui smirked.
"I was not laughing. I'm choking at your failure."
"Right. When you go, please ask Lavi if he remembers anything more specific than you do." Komui said plainly, and picked up a stack of papers which he proceeded to shuffle through. Kanda stood in front of him as still as a statue, staring, and the scientist cocked an eyebrow at his expression, not understanding. After a moment the Japanese man looked slowly down at the desk and heaved a sigh, his expression oddly pained, before he turned toward the door without even a word more. The reaction confused Komui, not understanding what was or was not going on between the two, and he scratched at his forehead when Kanda opened the door despondently and walked through it like a man traveling in the direction of his grave. He pressed his lips together when the door closed soundlessly, the minute click of the knob the only thing that reached his ears.
"I wonder what's eating him…"
-- -- --
"Fuck!"
Allen inhaled his mouthful of dango at the word and proceeded to gag on it, perfectly incapable of drawing in air around the large lump of sweetened dough. He was thankful when someone punched him hard between the shoulder blades, thus dislodging the wad of partially digested food and clearing his airway, it also made him smile when the hunk of sustenance left his mouth and landed squarely in the middle of Howard Link's plate.
He had come here rather than going to see Lavi right away. Food always came first.
"Sorry." He chimed with a smile, though his voice came out a bit less than sincere. The blond man looked down at his ruined pineapple upside down cake and raised a lip at it, his expression saying that Allen Walker's saliva was about as disgusting to him as an ill preserved ten day old corpse. "Really. I am." He added, proving that he was indeed not sorry and instead quite amused by Link's reaction. He didn't even ask what the man was doing when he stood up and stalked back toward Jerry's window.
"Do you think he's ever even tasted a vegetable?" Lenalee asked from behind him, making him turn. He saw then that she was sitting across from Kanda, whom was fiddling with his soba as if he expected to grow eyes and tear ducts and cry at him if he brought it near his mouth. Allen frowned at them. He wasn't particularly bothered by the fact that they seemed to be spending so much time together, he was more bothered by how Kanda acted about it. Almost shy, or unsure. Like maybe…
"No!" He said at once, more to his own thoughts than to her question. There was just no way Kanda liked Lenalee, it was disgusting. Kanda didn't even have sexual thoughts; he was sure, Kanda was too angry at the world to think with anything but his sword.
Lenalee hummed, bringing her ceramic spoon to her lips thoughtfully. "Maybe he's had carrot cake?"
"Che. That is a sin against vegetables."
Allen scoffed. "How would you know? It's not like you eat carrots either."
"What the fuck do you think tempura is, Moyashi? Fried fingers?"
"It's carrots?"
"Vegetables. And fish."
Allen blinked at Kanda, who was not looking at him, and then at Lenalee. Taking his fullest plate he turned completely around and moved tables as stealthily as he could, hoping that Link wouldn't notice when he was missing from behind the mound of food he had spat over. His tray clicked on the table and a pair of sapphire eyes flicked up at him before they went down again, looking at Kanda's buckwheat noodles as if he couldn't possibly be hungry. The Japanese Exorcist didn't say a word, only twirled his chopsticks a little less enthusiastically, and then, melodiously, sighed.
"What's going on?" Allen questioned hurriedly. Lenalee looked at him and spooned soup into her mouth with her eyebrows perched high on her forehead. It was obvious by how she kept filling and refilling her mouth that she wasn't going to say anything unless he stuck around until she was out of soup, but he pretended not to notice. Instead he turned his eyes to Kanda, eyebrows furrowed. "Something is going on." He insisted softly.
Kanda picked up a noodle and threaded it through the loop of another before pulling it back around. He was making a square knot.
Allen's eyes dashed between the two of them as he stuffed a lump of fried chicken between his teeth, followed by a gob of mashed potatoes. "Whosh gonna tell meh wash goin' on?" He said through his food. He knew that Kanda hated bad manners, he was counting on a violent act that would end with someone awkwardly screaming through the cafeteria what was wrong, but it didn't happen. The samurai sighed again and dropped his chopsticks in the middle of his plate, not bothering to set them like he normally did, and pushed his dinner away. Allen blinked at him, no longer chewing.
"Fuck." It was quieter this time, but that was the voice that had made Allen choke on his dango. Kanda sank down on the table as he said it, ponytail spreading over the top of his head until it rested on the tabletop next to his cheek. Lenalee lowered her soup and let out a soft chuckle.
"He's going to figure it out if you keep this up." She scolded gently.
He looked up at her and narrowed his eyes to slits. "Che. If you say a word I'll cut off what little hair you have."
"My clipboard will defend me. Can you keep a secret, Allen-kun?"
"Hell no he can't keep a secret!" Kanda was sitting straight in an instant. "I will kill him if you tell him."
"Kanda-kun, can't you tell that Allen is genuinely worried?"
He gave Allen a sweep with his eyes and saw nothing but the desire to dig up dirt on a social enemy.
"We shall not be telling anyone anything."
"Right. I'll tell him."
"No!"
"You're being immature."
"I am being safe."
"Only the three of us will know…"
"Three can keep a secret if the other two are dead."
"Is that something Lavi told you, Kanda-kun?"
The Japanese Exorcist stopped breathing and the blood drained from his face before it rushed back and he growled. His ruffled bangs shaded his eyes dangerously and he took the chopsticks back into his right hand so he could squeeze them. The slight glimmer of white was the only thing that alerted Allen to the fact that he was glaring as hard as he could at the girl across from him, and the guttural sound he made warned that he was on the edge of losing it. Kanda stood suddenly then sat back down, grumbling under his breath all the while, and narrowed his eyes at Lenalee as if she had done something foul. Allen began to chew again.
"Now you have to tell me." Allen said when he swallowed.
"Che. You wouldn't get it anyway. You're not old enough."
"So you do like someone."
"Fuck!"
"If you keep cursing, calling Allen too young will be pointless."
"Wait, you really like someone?" Allen was incredulous enough to drop his fork on his plate and lean forward, too interested, too close, and too surprised. He widened his eyes to a point that made Lenalee's want to water in sympathy and lowered his voice to a secretive whisper, as if the lucky girl might overhear. "I didn't even know you were capable of that kind of emotion! Who's the victim?"
"I am going to stab you."
"Kanda-kun! Just tell him."
"Fuck. You. Both."
"Please, please, please can I tell him? He might be able to help."
"Che. I'll never hear the end of it."
"Is that a ye—"
"No."
Allen made a face at Kanda and picked up his chopsticks, pulling them out of reach even before the Japanese man could notice they were missing from his hand. Before he could round on the British boy with Mugen, Allen took them one in each hand and pressed the ends together, looking over the top of them with an expression of sinister intentions. Lenalee watched in horror as he pulled them apart and pressed them together again, changing angles a bit so they slid up together before the came down again. A confused expression came over Kanda's face, curiosity winning out over the desire to get back eating utensils he hadn't even been intending to use.
"What are you doing?"
"It's a guy."
"What?"
"You like a guy."
"You're out of your mind, Moyashi."
"Then why are you staring ever so interestedly at the chopsticks? You know you want it."
"Allen-kun!"
"Because they're my Goddamn chopsticks, brat!"
"Too bad you don't have a Y in your name. I could call you Gaynda instead of BaKanda. I'll have to take what I can get, I guess…"
"Give me back my chopsticks."
"See? You're gay…"
"Allen…kun…?"
"Give. Me. My. Chopsticks."
"If the short one is Kanda, the long one is…"
"Do you want to die, Moyashi?"
"Lavi."
"Fuck!"
Lenalee clapped her hands over her mouth, frozen between shock, horror, and an emotion not unlike glee. She forgot all about her soup, her spoon, her food, and simply stared at Kanda and Allen, the first lying with one arm stretched out across the top of the table as if to get his chopsticks back, the second grinning like a madman at his fallen comrade. She half expected one of them to simply kill the other in that instant, but neither moved to, nor did they act as if to make peace between each other. Allen simply held his stolen goods in one hand and leaned closer to Kanda's ear, whispering lowly.
"You mean… I got it right?" Allen continued, his expression showing that he could not, for any reason, believe that Kanda Yuu liked Lavi the apprentice Bookman. Lenalee was too busy struggling with denial, so Kanda had to look up with one eye and frown.
"You honestly think I'm going to tell you after that stunt you just pulled?"
"Well, yeah…" Allen tilted his head in a Lenalee-like fashion, only his hair actually flipped the way he wanted it when he spontaneously tugged his head back. Kanda tried not to notice and failed at it. "Otherwise I'll just assume that it's Lavi, being you cursed when I suggested him. Though… you've been cursing a lot so I could be wrong, but I can just assume that was a fluke before, if I want."
"And what the hell are you going to do if I just let you assume that you're right?"
"Nothing."
"Good." Kanda turned his face away from Allen and sighed, leaving the silver eyed boy drowning in a sea of questions. He laid his palm on the tabletop next to his face and simply looked at it, remembering, until his eyes fell shut and he sighed again, slowly. "Shit." He mumbled before he pressed the palm over his own face in an effort to remove himself from the room without actually leaving. After a moment, timid fingers started running though his hair, slowly, and he made a little negative sound at it that was pointedly ignored.
Allen masticated very, very slowly as he watched Lenalee tame the murderous beast.
"You see Allen," Lenalee said gently, not exactly whispering, just in a voice that was two-thirds soothing and one third excited. Her fingers were perfectly steady though, and the looks she was getting for touching the Untouchable Asshole Kanda Yuu didn't seem to bother her. Her gray eyes just smiled at the people who saw and they didn't give a damn about what came out of her mouth from the shock. "Kanda… isn't a people person like you are. So the fact that he likes someone enough to want to be in the same room with them, let alone have physical contact, is about as scary to him as… you suddenly having the urge to fast might be to you. And, because he doesn't know how to act, he doesn't have the slightest idea what to do with himself so…"
"He ends up acting like a child?"
"Shut up." Kanda half grumbled. He wouldn't admit to losing sleep over what had happened, but it was hard to hide it when he was teetering on the edge of dreams just because of a hand in his hair and a quiet atmosphere, which usually didn't happen in the cafeteria.
"Don't provoke him; he's had a hard two weeks." Lenalee chided. "And don't tease him, either. He has to go see the person he likes today. In fact, he should have two hours ago, but he's procrastinating."
"Are you trying to lecture him without him noticing?"
"Kind of. Why?"
Allen pointed to the side of Kanda's face, whose eyes had shut entirely, his breathing even and slow, fingers curled restfully against his ear. For a moment Lenalee didn't believe that he had actually fallen asleep here while talking about this, but the more she thought about it, the more sense it made. If Kanda really had been thinking about it for two weeks, he hadn't had a good night's sleep in that time, and the presence of people he knew, as well as people who understood, had calmed him enough to allow him a gentle respite for it all. She pulled her hand back and he stayed there, his expression serene in the electric lights.
"He's kind of pretty when he's sleeping." Allen commented more than half sarcastically, though there was still a note of truth in the words. He reached out and brushed his fingers through the soft hair of Kanda's bangs, and smiled. "And friendly." He said with a small laugh. Lenalee made a face at him that might have been disappointed and stood, doing her nonexistent hair flip with a frown. "What?"
"Let's get him to his room and then go see Lavi."
"So it is Lavi?"
"I am not at liberty to say."
"Poor, poor Lavi…"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
Allen scratched his head awkwardly, averting his gaze. "Well, wouldn't you be a little worried about tough love if Kanda liked you? I mean… he's mean to people he's friends with so…"
Lenalee sighed. "Well… I think he'll be ok."
"Kanda? Or… Lavi?"
She narrowed her eyes at him. "I'm not going to tell you."
"Fine, fine." He shoveled food into his mouth as hurriedly as he could, intent on finishing at least a plate before they went. He was no longer at the table when Link came to join him.
-- -- --
"Lena-love you saved me from starvation!" Lavi cheered from his bed at the sight of the Chinese girl. He had eaten the hamburger and large dish of brownies she had sent and the empty tray sat next to his bed virtually sparkling, and he sat with a hand placed on his stomach, as if satisfied. His expression brightened ten times over at the sight of Allen behind her, looking slightly thoughtful. He threw his arms out in greeting, and regretted the motion almost as soon as he had done it. "Ow…" He dropped his arms a little. "Moyashi-chan!"
"It's Allen." The British boy mumbled, but moved to embrace him regardless.
Lavi grunted at his hold, a crooked smile splitting his lips. "Shit, don't squeeze me too hard, you'll mess up the stitches." He half joked, slipping back against the pillows as Allen pulled back enough to sit on the bed beside his knees. He smiled as if he knew something and Lenalee pulled up her chair, the three of them sitting in a strange sort of triangle. Lavi tried not to look awkward around her – because things were awkward now that he thought about it – and simply leaned a little further into the bed. "You both came and still no Yuu-chan. I was stupid to hope."
"Yeah. He should be up if he gets horn— " Allen was cut off abruptly by Lenalee's fist colliding violently with his lower jaw. He flew back across the mattress and landed in a heap on the far side of the bed, a low groan sounding from his throat in a way that made Lavi worry for his spinal chord. He blinked for a moment at the white haired Exorcist before he turned to look at the quiet, petite Chinese girl whom had just one handedly manhandled him over a four foot wide mattress, and gasped at her bloodthirsty expression. Her eyes were slatted, lip pulled back into a sneer, and her teeth glittered with a sort of evil aura somehow created by the sheer violence with which she had acted. She looked up at him and blinked before her face melted into a mask of femininity.
"My hand slipped." She cocked her head to the side.
"No shit!" Lavi said with a laugh. He leaned a bit to the right so he could see how Allen was recovering and smiled when the British boy sat up, holding a swiftly reddening glove to his nose. "Gods, Moyashi! Did she break it?"
"Ich Allen." He grumbled and pushed himself a little higher. "She 'it meh jaw, th'floor got muh nose." He explained, and lifted his hand to show that the inside of his mouth was bleeding as well, a swift line running down the side of his face. Allen looked at Lenalee, who made a face that said this was only the beginning if he continued to spill secrets, before he forced himself to smile. It was Lavi; he knew that for sure now, even if it had come at a slightly higher cost than he had anticipated. "Kin' I git a tissue…"
Lavi shook his head at it. "You don't need a tissue, you need a nurse. Call button… call button…" He reached back and pressed the switch on the wall. As he watched, Allen narrowed his eyes at Lenalee, but when he looked at her she was smiling apologetically at him. He felt ignored and lied to. He sighed. "What were you trying to say before Lenalee's hand slipped in an upward direction?"
"Oh. I wus jus sayin' tat Kan'a might come shee you if 'e gets hor—"
"Ded." Lenalee finished. "If we horde him up here with everyone else. Haha. Ha. Hahaha. Ha. Haaa…" The laugh was perhaps the sickest most faked thing he had ever heard come out of her mouth. She bent an arm behind her head and smiled so her eyes were nearly shut, then stood up enthusiastically. Lavi blinked at her in question until she took Allen firmly by an elbow and gave a tug. "Well, that nurse is taking forever, we'll just go find one!" She gave a pull that yanked Allen to his feet and started for the door, her expression as false as her laugh.
"Wait. No. Lenalee—" Allen was pulling back, looking at Lavi as if he wanted to speak.
"No, you'll be much better off with some treatment, Allen-kun."
"But I was gonna tell Lavi—"
Lenalee opened the door and chucked the younger Exorcist out of it, her eyes flashing murder. She smiled over her shoulder at Lavi, just as bright as always. "We'll be back when he isn't bleeding! Take a nap or something! Seeya! Feel better!"
The door slammed.
"What the hell is going on?"
-- -- --
"What the fu—"
"Kanda-kun—"
"Do you mean go see him if I'm horny?! You're what?! Twelve?! How the hell do you even know the meaning of the word?!"
"I'm fifteen, maybe sixteen. Trust me, I know what horny means."
The Japanese Exorcist was pacing back and forth in his room, eyes rolling like those of a frightened stallion. Lenalee sat on the end of his bed while Allen occupied the floor beside it, both of them looking various levels of distraught mixed with amusement. Of course, it was harder to read Allen's face with his nose splinted, but his eyes still danced with glee, metallic irises shining like silver orbs of happiness, lips drawn up in a half circle of amusement. Kanda found it annoying that the boy was even involved in any of this, but he wasn't about to kill him at this moment, he was too busy worrying about himself. And about Lavi. Lavi, really, was more important than any of it.
"Che. I don't give a damn how old you are, I just want to know what the hell you were thinking! Horny… cockshit motherfu—" He was vaguely aware that Lenalee had stealthily covered Allen's ears with her hands. "I should maim you for even trying to say it. How stupid are you? I'm going to kill you if you ever—"
"I can still hear him." Allen said to Lenalee as if Kanda were not raving mad two feet in front of him. The samurai turned on him like an enraged cat about to pounce or hiss or mutilate. Allen smiled up at him pleasantly, or as pleasantly as he could with his nose how it was. "Sorry, GAYNDA, what were you saying?"
"DIE!"
"Stop it both of you!" Lenalee screamed, her clipboard placed between Allen's face and Mugen's tip. She watched Kanda tremble with the desire to kill the young man in front of him, anger and hatred built up behind his eyes in a look of sheer, unadulterated malice, unstoppable force. The sword point, went throw the metal before she could understand that such a thing was a possibility, and Allen gasped when the cool steal of Kanda's blade brushed the side of his neck. Lenalee swallowed thickly while Allen looked up at the older man, unblinking.
"You missed." The words weren't as daring as Allen had hoped they would be.
"Che. If I kill you I'll get blood on my bedding."
"Both of you please stop fighting. We'll never get anything done if you're killing each other."
"Kanda – excuse me – Gaynda will never get done if he keeps trying to kill people who point out his flaws."
"Che!"
Mugen slid away from Allen and into its sheath, Kanda pulling away with it. He plodded across the room to the wall and leaned against it, tilting his head against the stone, thinking. Lenalee and Allen watched him sigh, watched him reach up and slowly, shyly, yank the cord from his hair. His tresses spilled down his shoulders and across his back, tangling against the wall, but he didn't seem to care about them, he ignored their very existence.
"Kanda…kun?" Lenalee questioned from the mattress. A flurry of fear ran through her at the way he held his shoulders and the gradual way he drew in a breath and let it out again.
He enjoyed the cold bite of rock on his scalp. "I almost hit your brother today."
"That's happened before…" She offered in an attempt to help.
One sapphire eye cracked at her and she saw no light in it. "Not two minutes later, I laughed at him."
"No way!" Allen cursed lightly at the thump of a clipboard on his forehead.
"What are you saying?" Lenalee asked instead of making assumptions, but she pretty much knew the answer when Kanda went sliding down the wall with his eyes closed again. He placed a hand over his heart, the cord from his hair held between his clenched fingers, and he swallowed, his expression seeming to fight itself chaotically. After a long, quiet moment, Lenalee stood up from the bed and placed a hand on Allen's head, holding him in place while Kanda picked the face he wanted to present the world.
It was a strange, mirthless smile. "Che. I'm losing my mind." He lifted both hands to his face and let his head fall, a sigh shaking his shoulders. He knew he had to look like a pouting child, but he honestly couldn't say that he cared. "Even when I'm not thinking about…" A more violent shutter at certain memories, "What happened, I'm still on the edge of losing it. And I know that I'm on the edge of losing it, and I don't want to." He looked up at Lenalee and his eyes moved hastily to Allen, then back to her, and he threw his head back against the stone hard enough to send a pleasant bit of pain through his skull.
Allen gasped before he spoke, worried a bit that he was too much in the habit of teasing the older Exorcist to be perfectly innocent with his words. "So… do you have a suggestion on what we might do to… make the emotional upheaval easier on you?"
"Che." Kanda repeated the motion with his head and Lenalee's fingers curled in Allen's hair. She didn't like that he was hurting himself even if it wasn't more than a light bruise to dull the confusion. "Yeah. Shoot me."
"Gladly!"
"Don't be so enthusiastic about it!" Lenalee scolded Allen with a deep, sincere frown, but when she looked back at Kanda he was smiling. It shocked her a little, that he could produce the expression without cracking a line down the center of his face, but it surprised her more that he held it for longer than two seconds. His thin lips were pulled back from his teeth a little more than they were in most smiles, leaning slightly to the left, and his eyes narrowed a bit with the rising of his cheekbones, forehead smooth and unwrinkled by violent intentions. She couldn't even begin to express how strange it was.
"Holy crap, you are going insane." She whispered into the air.
Allen attempted to snort and failed, Kanda's expression fell.
She cleared her throat and stepped into the middle of the room and turned slowly around between her two charges, pacing as Kanda had before. Her bare feet made hardly any sound at all on the floor as she moved; a harsh change from the clacking of her dark boots. She tried not to think about it as a plan slowly, but surely, began to take shape in her mind. "We don't need to shoot you and we don't need to stop you from feeling, if we do either those plans, you'll never have a chance to make things right between you. What you need to do, even if it sucks, is go up there and do what Komui told you to. After that, we need to formulate a plan that enables you to suddenly, unexpectedly, kiss him without him figuring out that it was planned."
"Now you're the crazy one."
"Quiet, hear me out." She went on, not looking at either of them. "If you can just kiss him how you did before, without him stopping you… maybe it will all click. And if it doesn't click – if he doesn't put two and two together and get that you kissed him – you can either confess your lustiness and see how he takes it, or threaten to cut him to ribbons if he ever gets his mouth in a position to fall into yours ever again." She said with a cheery little smile that he didn't feel at all like returning. She held the clipboard to her chest as if somehow, someway, doing so would make everything brighter. "You just have to act normal until we actually carry out the plan, Kanda-kun. Otherwise… I'm afraid he might corner you over it." She tried to look slightly afraid of that idea but didn't manage. She knew it was potentially the best thing for him to be cornered, because his nature would act rather than his emotions. Lavi would find himself pinned and kissed without even a thought of Mugen in his mind.
"No." Kanda growled, but made no move to stand. He just looked up at Lenalee from his little corner of the room and scowled expertly. He still had the look, if he really tried to make it. "First things first. I'll go see him. After that, we're making a real plan."
Lenalee nodded, grateful for his sudden determination, and fought down a smile when he crossed to the door on feet that landed a bit too loudly to be normal. There were little things, like how he left his hair down, that wouldn't be noticed by the people who hardly knew him, but would set off fireworks for anyone with an observant bone in their body. Like Lavi. If he figured it out, Lenalee could only guess, but he would sure as well know that something was wrong. Kanda, for the life in him, wouldn't be able to bury the truth.
The samurai stopped at the door and turned back to the two of them. His dark eyes went from one to the other, noting Lenalee's suppressed look of enthusiasm, Allen's seeming indifference to everything. He settled himself on his feet and squared his shoulders, the perfect picture of resolve. He placed his left hand on his sword's hilt and let the other hang beside him, casual, relaxed. He ground his teeth for a moment before he spoke into the silence.
"Che. Who's coming with me?"
TBC? Thank you all for the wonderful reviews! I hope you continue to enjoy it. 8D
