Another chapter. It nearly killed me to write it; I had three different versions, all with three different expositions, and I chose this one. Thanks to all your support! Please, do enjoy. (To "Jade"––consider this the two-year anniversary present. You cleaned me out of money for buying you clothes last week . . .)
Disclaimer: D. Gray-Man isn't mine. Nor is "Hadestown," the inspiration for the titles.
Three: Way Down, Hadestown
Upon arriving his home, he glanced over his shoulder to his three guests. The tension built up a silence, suffocating any attempts for conversation. Kanda, through gritted teeth, demanded that the three of them meet up at Allen's place. He never had guests before; visitations amongst other soldiers were frowned on, because it was an indicator of possible anarchy, and any who betrayed the war's cause were cast into the government's hands. While walking, each guest kept a distance of at least two hundred feet until they reached the outskirts of town, where few people mingled outdoors. Then they gathered in smaller distance, though the silence remained.
The keys jangled in his quivering hands, feeling their stares fixed on him. The door opened slowly, and he realized that his house was a disaster-zone. The last time he cleaned anything––he couldn't remember, but it was a while: trash bags, filled to the brim with remains of food, lined up near the back door; old newspapers covered the table with coffee stains on them; the rug looked as if it had never been vacuumed since he first started to live there; the kitchen was cluttered with stacked, unwashed dishes. He closed the door to a crack and looked back at his guests. "Do we have to discuss this here?"
With Kanda's impatient glare, he allowed them in.
As they settled around the kitchen table, he tried his best to clean up, though the results didn't look any different. He filled the tea kettle with water while moving the used dishes out of the way, letting the clamor together in the sink, overflowing with glass. He glanced over his shoulder as he prepared three mugs. Kanda's arms folded over his chest, glaring out the window. Lenalee twirled one of her ponytails, looking between him and Lavi. The redhead, as if bored, fiddled with one of his earrings. He poured the water in each of the mugs.
"I hope green tea is all right," he said, placing them before each acquaintance. "I have not had the time to obtain more, so I apologize for any inconvenience this may bring to you all. Next time, I will try harder."
"Green tea's fine," Lenalee reassured. He didn't feel assured.
Timcanpy, his golden retriever attack dog assigned to him, came over to the table as Allen sat down. His dog wagged his tail before resting his head on Allen's shoe, oblivious to the nervous ticks and the uncomfortable, yet still dragging out, silence. Lenalee sipped at her green tea, eyebrows furrowed. Lavi stared at his drink, forefinger tapping against the wood. Kanda huffed, as if suddenly annoyed, then snapped his head in Allen's direction, who jumped. "You," he said, hand outstretched, "give me the stupid packet."
"Wh-what? Oh!" He rummaged through his pocket and pulled out the LVE, handing it to Kanda. The man stared at it, upper lip twitching, then slammed it in the middle of the table. Everyone jumped that time.
"Che." He opened the packet and placed one pill in front of each guest. "Look at these stupid things, would you? See how damn small they are? You're letting something like this pick at your curiosity––" he looked to Lavi, who cringed, "––and your paranoia––" he looked to Lenalee, who cast her stare to the suddenly interesting floor, "––and your stupidity––" he looked to Allen, who wanted to make a retort, "––and it's smaller than a damn pebble. Are you all idiots? You call yourself soldiers? This is nothing compared to the demons out on the battlefield. This could ruin your mind at its worst, but those things, the Earl's true creations, can destroy you entirely, then make you into one of their own. Get your damn acts together."
"Jeez, Yuu," Lavi laughed sheepishly, "you sure know how to make us feel bad, huh?"
He frowned. "That's not my intent, but you should. Worrying about a creation of the Earl means he's winning. It's emotional warfare. It affects your ability to fight, your ability to think clearly. I think that was his intent from the start, and you're all falling for it."
"Ugh." Allen rose from his seat, clutching his head. "If you excuse me for a moment."
He left the kitchen, entering his bedroom. Timcanpy followed him, plopping himself onto the mattress and started dozing off. Kanda made him feel like a fool, for once, despite him hating the man. Kanda was right; he was letting something like that get to him, and it was throwing everything off track. He pulled two pills to relieve his forming headache out of their bottle and began returning to the kitchen.
". . . then we should destroy it," he heard Lenalee say. "We can't let it torment us further."
"And how do you suggest that?" Lavi replied. "Shooting it? You know these tablets can only be destroyed by ingesting them, right? The old man and I, the day before the presentation, tried everything––setting it on fire, stabbing it, shooting, putting it in water, melting it, everything––and nothing worked. It's like the only thing that can destroy them is a property only found in human beings. And there's no way in hell we can discard them in this city, now that everyone is looking for them. Our fingerprints are all over them! We'd be caught within an hour."
"Are you saying to eat them?" She sounded afraid. Allen hesitated to return to the kitchen.
"Do you see any other option? I mean, yeah, I'm curious as hell to see what they do, and what happens to someone who swallows them down, but this is the only known way to destroy them."
"How do I know you're not lying?"
"If you don't believe me, go right ahead. Shoot it."
A moment later, a gunshot went off. Startled, Allen stepped back, ears ringing loudly, pills falling out of his hand. He quickly recovered them and hurried into the kitchen, where Lenalee's gun smoldered. The table had a newfound hole in it, burn marks still hissing. She bent down and picked up a red tablet. It looked a little burned, but other than that, it remained completely intact.
"Holy shit!" Lavi was several feet away from the table, chair toppled over from his surprise. "I didn't mean in here! Do you have any idea how much hearing damage you can cause by shooting a gun indoors? Damn, my ears are still ringing! You're dangerous with that thing! How did you get permission to take that off school grounds, anyway?"
"What?" She asked loudly, putting the pill back on the table. "It was a fluke. Let me shoot it again."
"Ah, please do not!" Allen grabbed her wrist, shaking his head. "I do not want another hole in my table, thank you! If you are going to shoot it, shoot it outside, please!"
"Are you all done squabbling?" Kanda moved his hands away from his ears with an irritated sigh, picking up his own pill. "A gunshot that close of range should've obliterated it beyond recognition. There's no need to waste another bullet. What baka usagi said is true, so stand your gun down, Lenalee."
"What?" She turned to Kanda. "Did you say something?"
He sighed. "I said, put your stupid gun down!"
"Oh!" She placed her gun back in its holster. "I know I hit it. Nothing can survive a pointblank shot like that. So I guess you're right, Lavi. I'm sorry I doubted you."
"It's fine." He cautiously brought his chair back to the table, eying her gun wearily. "So, we can't destroy them. The only way to is by ingesting them. But there's no way anyone can ingest more than one pill at once, because it really will mess with your mind. Which means, if we really want it gone today, we all have to take one, though I doubt Lenalee would do that, and Kanda would be caught dead displaying the side-effects. Being clingy and whatnot? Not his style. And I doubt you would want any, either, Allen. And I'm not really sure how I feel anymore."
Allen returned to his seat, blowing on his still-hot tea. "I do not know. Having it in my possession is bad enough, but willingly taking some? It is like I want to be subjected to experimentation." He picked up his two headache pills off the table and popped each one in separately, swallowing them down with his tea. "I do not want to do that, so is there any other sugges . . .?"
He blinked when he realized his guests were staring at him. Lenalee had her hand up to her mouth, eyes wide. Lavi had his hand outstretched, as if ready to warn him, with his jaw agape. Kanda had a raised eyebrow, arms still folded across his chest, though the slight narrowing of his eyes told Allen something was wrong. "What?" he asked, looking at them. "What is the matter? Is something on my face?" No one answered. "I am really worried now, what is it?"
"Uh," Lavi started, biting his lower lip, "Allen?"
He was looking at the table space in front of Allen. He followed Lavi's stare, noticing a headache pill still sitting there. He tilted his head, confused, and picked it up. He knew he swallowed down two pills to kill his headache. Did he pick up a third? No, that was impossible, he only took two out of the bottle. So what did he swallow? He glanced at the three guests again, searching for answers, then back to the unused pill, ready to relieve headaches of all intensity. He only had the one bottle of medicine like that, and the only other drug in the house, right now, was the . . .
LVE.
"No," he said, face paling, "no, I did not just . . . tell me I did not just . . . oh, goodness, no, I did not just take . . . did I . . ." He slowly looked back to Lavi, who now stared at his mug. Lenalee began biting her forefinger, eyes stretched as wide as they could go. Kanda, with a sigh, shook his head. "No, no, no! No, Lavi, how do I get it out of me? Stop being silent and tell me already! I have to get it out of me before it starts affecting me and––!"
"It already has."
He blinked. " . . . What?"
Lavi shook his head. "The old guy told me, once it gets past your lips, and once you swallow it down, the drug takes less than thirty-five seconds to enter your bloodstream, making it one of the most-effective drugs out there. In a minute or so, it pumps into your heart, then your brain. In three minutes, it rearranges your chemical make-up, releasing more endorphins and things that feel good, but, as the old man said, really isn't good. The side-effects start showing up around then, and you become clingy, get an elevated heart rate . . . it varies from person to person, but the overall idea remains the same. You view people more than acquaintances and comrades. You view them as friends," the foreign word, one that got Lavi in trouble last time, rolled easily off his tongue, "and, perhaps, as lovers. I say you have a minute and a half left before the real insanity kicks in."
"Lovers?" Lenalee repeated. "Wait, that sounds like that word from the other day. Is that another word the Millennium Earl created? Why are you saying it? Don't ever say it again, Lavi! You never know who might be listening!"
"Does it really matter right now?" Lavi jabbed a finger towards Allen. "He's about to go all lovey-dovey on us and all you can think about is that I said friends and lovers?"
"Stop it, stop it!"
"Shut up and listen to me!" He grabbed her by the shoulders, making her look at him. "I don't care if they are words that belong to the Earl! I'm just trying to accurately describe what's going to happen to Allen now! Are you really so conceited to ignore the needs of a fellow comrade? Are you really going to close your eyes when he needs us? What does rule number six say of the soldier's code? I know you know it by heart, damn it, and I know you can't ignore that!"
She gritted her teeth. "Rule number six," she murmured, "is 'do not let a fellow comrade go into battle alone.' But this isn't a battle, Lavi, this is––" she stopped when Allen saw Lavi's nails dig harder in her shoulders. "Is it a battle? Kanda?" Desperate, she cast a glance over him. "Kanda, what do you think?"
He snorted, frown deepening. "Rule number six isn't just applied for battles. You don't let a comrade suffer alone, you don't let a comrade fail alone. What baka usagi means is, you don't abandon a comrade, no matter the situation. If we let him be the only one who takes the drug," he plucked the drug up off the table, "then we fail the soldier's code, and lose honor as a soldier. And he's right. Moyashi didn't want this to happen, and accidentally picked up the wrong stupid pill. He fell for an enemy's trap. So," he pushed the pill into his mouth with a disgusted grimace, "we have to back him up."
"Kanda!" She gasped when he swallowed the drug down with his tea.
"It's not like I want to go down with the damned bean sprout, Lenalee." He glared at Allen. "Anything but that. But this is war. You can't pick your battles. You can't abandon the code."
Lavi released her from his grip and sat back down. Wordlessly, he picked up his own pill and swallowed, eyes fixed on her. She shook her head, looking away, but she ended up staring at her own pill. The burn marks from when she shot it still remained, but it wasn't damaged. She looked to Allen, who's eyes squeezed shut while a bead of sweat rolled down the side of his face. He heard a small groan of refusal, followed by a slamming of a mug. "I hate you," she muttered, probably directed at Lavi. "I hate you almost as much as the Earl right now."
His head throbbed worse than before. He clenched his forehead with his deformed hand, feeling the air almost come too short for his liking. It was like he ran around the school track for two hours nonstop, and he just took a break for water. His ribs felt like they were starting to poke out of his chest, lungs desperately trying to make up for the sudden shortfall of breath. Sweat dripped from his brow, pattering onto his pants. Someone was saying something, but the voice sounded washed out, like he was wearing Lenalee's shooting earmuffs. He gripped the fabric of his pants as he tried to remain in control of his actions. His ears started ringing, even worse than when Lenalee fired a round off in his house. Everything throbbed in pain; his fingers ached from clenching his legs too hard, his shoulders felt as if something heavy was resting on them, and his chest continued to have his ribs threaten to poke through.
Words.
He heard words. Faint words, words he had to strain to catch. They dripped into a deep well in his head, echoing softly. He didn't understand the language, but he knew the words. He knew what it was saying, almost like he wrote them down himself. The voice whispered, hummed, into the well, letting the letters cascade in rainfall. He began to hum alongside it, but when he opened his eyes, the words vanished, and he couldn't recall them. The well in his mind vanished into darkness as he blinked, trying to remember where he was.
Timcanpy barked. Ah, he realized, he was home. Something was wrong, though, as he tried to move to see what Timcanpy wanted. Everything felt heavy. His body wanted to stay where it was, in the warmth of his bed, underneath the covers. Moonlight peered from behind the clouds, light pouring through the window. He didn't remember moving the curtains aside. His mind felt murky, unable to register what the moved curtains meant. He couldn't remember much of anything, except his name, his dog, his home.
Something moved. Beside him, something moved slightly, trying to get more comfortable. He froze, mind suddenly too aware of everything. When did it become night? Wasn't the sun up just a few moments ago? He tried moving his arm, but it was pinned, snugged warmly underneath something. Even with the moonlight's help, he couldn't see anything. What happened? Where were the others? His body itched to be touched, yearned to be touched, but he suppressed the urge as best as he could. They took the drug, that much he recalled, and . . . and then what?
Timcanpy barked again, but gave up trying to hop onto the bed. He heard the dog leave the room, taking position to guard the house. He wished Timcanpy would come back so that he could make sense of his situation. He wished he could move, but his body, it felt so heavy, too heavy for the word "heavy" to cover. He wished he could remember what happened.
Something moved behind him, dragging what felt like an arm across his chest. Breath tickled his neck, sending a shiver down his back. Not something, but someone. Someone was touching him, holding him. It was so warm, so relaxing, that he wanted to melt back into the person behind him, but he wanted his mind focused. He needed to remember what happened. Someone in front of him (he was surrounded?) sighed, then rested a head––or a hand, he couldn't tell––against his chest. It took him a moment or two, as he wiggled a little to see how ensnared he was, that people were touching him.
"What?" he whispered, eyes starting to adjust to the dark, seeing outlines of a person, maybe two, in front of him. Touching, for the most part, was fine, but from his anatomy class, he learned such touching ("snuggling," is that was his teacher called it?) should only occur if you were selected to procreate with another soldier. If you willingly chose to do such an act with another person, you were committing treason. He swallowed hard, thought preoccupying his mind. Treason. He shuddered.
"Hmm?" a voice said lazily, coming from behind him. The person yawned. "What's the matter, Allen? You cold?"
Lavi. Lavi was holding him. He squeaked in response, shocked that his guests were still in his home, more shocked at what they were doing, as if it were the most natural thing in the world to do. The redhead pulled him closer, wrapping a leg around one of Allen's. It felt good, which terrified him. "You know," he murmured into Allen's ear, "the word 'friend,' it means 'a person whom one knows and with whom one has a bond of mutual affection, typically exclusive of sexual or family relations.' And 'lover' means 'a person having a sexual or romantic relationship with someone, often outside marriage.' I barely know the words in those definitions, but what makes me more curious is what this––" he squeezed him "––falls under. 'Friend' or 'lover.'"
"Ah, Lavi," he felt blood creep up into his cheeks, though he didn't know why, "you really should not say such things. Why are you holding me? Do you even realize what you are doing right now?"
"Yeah," he replied, nestling his head on Allen's shoulder. "It's treason, all right, big time, 'specially since we ate the LVE. I know all this, but I can't seem to bring myself to care. It feels too good to care about the law, or the war. I just want to stay like this forever, with all you guys, you, Lenalee, Yuu . . ." He sighed, moving his head and burying it in Allen's hair. "You should get some sleep. It's almost midnight."
"How can you sleep, knowing all of that?" he asked, but Lavi didn't reply. He was already sleeping, face buried in his hair.
x~X~x
He didn't remember sleeping. The warmth succumbed him into it, perhaps, but he awoke to soft murmurs. Lenalee lay in front of him, her arms wrapped around his, though she was looking at Kanda, who lay behind her. He was chuckling. Kanda was chuckling. Something was very wrong with that, even if it did sound like an army of undead creatures cackling while slaughtering small children and feasting upon their corpses. Lenalee tittered, one of her hands leaving Allen to touch Kanda's face. He said something, and she smiled. He forced his eyelids to open more widely so he could see better.
"Oh," she blinked and smiled at him, "good morning, Allen."
Lenalee was smiling? Surely she had to know she did something illegal. She didn't like doing anything illegal, anything that would cause them to lose the war. LVE was the Earl's weapon, after all, and she wanted nothing to do with it, right? Then why was she smiling? And why was she letting Kanda touch her like that? "Good morning," he replied, leaving the many questions unanswered. She nodded, poking Kanda.
"Che. You don't expect me to say 'good morning' to him, right?" Kanda's upper lip twitched. At least something was as it should be. She nodded again, prompting him. His face turned to disgust, though it looked less intense than normal. "Fine. Good morning. That's all I'm going to do, no more." He turned his head away, repulsed by his own actions. Allen felt his heart constrict, threatening to bring him to cardiac arrest.
"That did not just happen," he said, not hiding his terrified expression. "Kanda did not just say that to me. Lenalee, tell me this is a dream. Everything is so wrong right now."
"Wrong?" She tilted her head. "How so?"
He lurched from his bed, backpedaling towards the bedroom door. Lavi remained unfazed, though Lenalee stared at him with a confused look. "What is going on?" he demanded, hand reaching for the doorknob. "You have to remember that you took the LVE, and it is messing with your head! Snap out of it already, okay? I am this close to losing my mind right now. Kanda is chuckling? You do not find your own actions appalling? What we did, it was illegal! And now you are just okay with that?"
She gripped one of her ponytails and shook her head. "Allen," she said, voice low, "I remember everything. I remember taking the drug, and I know how illegal it is. Part of me, the part that's a soldier, is screaming inside me, telling me to report to the authorities. But now there's another part of me." She moved closer to Lavi, who kept snoozing. "Now, I . . . I don't know what to do, because I know the drug's infiltrating my head. I betrayed myself to ensure you didn't go alone, Allen. You have to understand I don't even know what I'm doing anymore."
He saw her eyes shimmering, as if they were submerged in water. Some of the water escaped, leaking out of the tear duct and down the side of her cheek. "I betrayed the war's cause for you, you know," she whispered, rubbing a hand at her eyes, "all for you. At first it was for the code, but sitting here now, I want to help you. Illegal or not, I want to. What a fool I am. Such a fool. I wish I never met you, Allen, but now, I can't ever have you, or Kanda or Lavi, leave me. And the worst part is, I can't tell if that's the drug or me talking."
"Lenalee . . ."
"It's fine," she said, taking out her hair ties, "I'm fine. I made a choice. I didn't have to take the drug with you three, but I did. And now I'm here. There's no going back to fix it, and there's no time to regret anything." She pushed the covers aside, shaking Lavi. "Wake up. We have to get ready for school, and if all four of us show up late, they'll be suspicious."
"Nn . . . five more minutes," he replied, rolling over. She swatted the back of his head, and he sat up with a jolt. "Ow! What was that for? Huh?" He looked between her, Kanda, and Allen, eyebrows furrowed. "Oh, right. We took the LVE, didn't we? Uh, Allen, why're you all the way over there?" He opened his arms with a grin. "C'mere, lemme wish you a good morning."
"No thanks," Allen replied, taking out his school clothes from his closet and resisting the urge to accept Lavi's offer. "Unlike you, I do not think I am still affected by the drug. In fact, I cannot remember anything that transpired after taking it. I do not think I want to remember. I am sure it will come back to me later. But, until then, I have to get to school."
"Wait, you don't remember?" Lavi frowned and his arms dropped. "But I remember everything, like it just happened a few seconds ago." Lenalee nodded in agreement, and Kanda snorted, indicating he remembered everything, too.
"It is not important right now," he said, forcing his feet to move away from them, not towards them. "Could you three please leave my house? I do not want to get in trouble, or, at least, more trouble than I already am in." He closed the closet door and turned towards them. "This is never happening again, ever. I do not want to see another LVE tablet, and I never want to see you three in my house again. I am going to take a shower, and when I come out, you three better not be here."
He left them, shocked by his own words, and went into the shower room. He peeled off the clothes, still sticking to his skin from sweat, and stared at himself in the mirror. The deformed arm, if it had a face, would be laughing at him. "It's me you don't want them to see, isn't it?" It said, making him grimace. "You know as well as I do, because I am you, that the drug is still in your system. It doesn't fade overnight, and yet you told them to leave, despite how badly you wanted to accept that redheaded boy's offer to 'wish you a good morning.' Pathetic."
"Shut up," he said, stripping off the last remains of his clothes. "Shut up, it is best that this happens now. I cannot remember anything. All I know is that I want to touch them, and that is a bad thing for the war's cause."
"The war's cause?" the arm sneered. "You actually care about that? Bullshit. Are you so afraid of being rejected because of me that you keep deluding yourself with lies? Once they leave, they'll never come back, you know. And then," it cackled, "you'll be all alone with me. How wonderful that would be, hmm?"
Allen shook his head, then looked back to his arm. The veins bulged, and it looked more ugly and warped than normal. The blackened nails gripped the edge of the sink, shaking with how much pressure was applied to grasping it. "Shut up," he said again, then tried to leave, but the arm continued to hold onto the sink. "What do you want from me?" He yanked at it, but the arm remained still.
"I'm the reason you won't fight in the war. I'm the reason you're gonna be a science tech, and you keep hiding it from your fellow comrades. I'm the reason you'll never defeat the Earl, ever, not in this lifetime. When little Lenalee is blown to smithereens by the enemy, you'll be meticulously absorbed in creating a new weapon for the next soldier to use. When that redhead gives up in the middle of battle, no longer wanting to fight, you'll be busy taking commands from a guy with glasses, unable to rally him. And," the cross embedded on the hand almost formed a grin, "when Kanda, the guy you detest, becomes a war hero, all you'll be recognized for is being useless and a freak. Oh, Allen, what do I want from you, you ask? I want you to be as miserable as me. But you already are. You just keep denying it. After all, now you're all alone."
"Stop talking," he said with a glare. The arm laughed.
"Make me."
He grasped the handle of the knife he left behind in the bathroom once before, pressing the blade against the shoulder joint. The fingers quavered, making the blade slip from its target and clatter into the sink. He stared at the knife, watching the sink drip water onto the blade, then pushed himself away from the mirror. He gripped his forehead, teeth chattering and body quaking. He heard the front door open and close, regret setting in as he forced himself into the shower.
It was for the better. They would no longer get in trouble because of the LVE, since there was no more, and the side-effects would vanish eventually. A year from then, and they will all be disgusted with themselves. He stood still beneath the scolding water, unable to turn the dial to make it colder. A year from then, it wouldn't matter. They would all forget the feeling, and everything would return to normal. He slumped against the shower's wall.
For the better, he told himself, the better.
The arm cackled.
x~X~x
Hm. I keep getting this feeling that this chapter could've been better. Hn. Anyhow, thank you to those for their continued support! If you feel inclined, please, leave a review, but if not, that's fine, too. I hope to see you in chapter four! {Nobody Odd}
