Disclaimer: D. Gray-Man characters belong to Katsura Hoshino; Carreau is not my own creation
Claimer: I own the plot and OCs
Warnings: AU
Pairings: Lavi X OC
"Don't you think you should take your job more seriously?"
The female-looking demon turns her head to the male redhead that seems to have seemingly come from nowhere. Hazel eyes look over the angel for a moment, taking in his casual clothing. He wears a loose green long-sleeve with a V-neck, and the sleeves rolled up. White paints disappear into dark brown boots reaching just below his knees, a black headband around his head with green scale designs, and the usual eye patch over his right eye.
Navi is taking her time, looking down at her own style of clothing. She loves the feeling of inadequacy that brings itself up into her head as she takes in her black skinny jeans with countless rips, a band t-shirt for some British band with the sleeves torn up and the collar pulled into being loose, and then large dark brown boots with no laces. Navi runs a hand through her dark red hair currently in a restrained wild mess.
Currently the demon is sitting under a bridge for the trains in town. She sits on a concrete edge, watching a homeless camp where there's plenty of dirty men and women wandering around doing random things such as trying to make a fire to make food, eating, counting money, and talking quietly with others. No one sees her, and she doesn't want anyone to see her either. Lavi takes a seat beside her, perhaps five feet away from a woman wrapped in the rags of an old and smelly blanket covered in brown dirt and black marks.
The two supernatural beings are quiet, although the sound of a train passes over them and over the bridge rings out through the echoing tunnel with graffiti covering most of the dark gray stone walls.
The musky smell of bodies unwashed can't be smelled; reason being because Navi is currently chain smoking. She's got an almost empty packet of cigarettes sitting to her left right beside an ashtray. The scent of nicotine is heavy in the air as she and Lavi watch the smoke drift and dance up from the grayed embers at the end of the cigarette.
She smokes just for the idea of it. No demon can get addicted, really. It depends on what kind of demon they are.
"Want a smoke?" she offers, holding out the small box out toward the angel. He shakes his head, raising a hand to further reject the cancer stick. Navi shrugs and puts it back beside her as she mutters, "Suit yourself."
Navi lightly taps the cigarette to get rid of the gray ashes into the ashtray. She doesn't yet put the cigarette to her mouth, though, lightly narrowing her eyes as she watches the homeless. The silence between the two continues for a couple minutes.
"I don't feel comfortable doing my job with a goody-two-shoes hovering over my shoulder," Navi pipes up. "Don't you have a job to be doing, angel?"
"Who says I'm not doing my job?" Lavi asks with a light laugh. He earns a sidelong glance from hazel eyes because of this change in personality. The redheaded male is acting casual and friendly. It's odd, to say the least.
Navi turns her glance from Lavi, putting the cigarette to her mouth to take in some smoke. Spending a minute to hold in the smoke, and slowly letting it out, she asks, "You sayin' I'm part of your job?"
"You might be part of it," Lavi answers. "I don't see any of your kind of demons around here. Why are you somewhere that has so few of you?"
"The homeless help each other out. It's sometimes hard to get them to ignore each other. When I'm at a stand-still I like to stick around here and wait for a chance to get them to be mean to each other. Besides, I don't like hanging around other demons all the time. We can be some pretty crummy company, you know." That's right. Let him know all the useless work you do.
"That sounds like unnecessary grunt work for the top apprentice to Carreau."
A brief momentary pause follows the prodding from Lavi before Navi laughs with a shake of the head. She puts out her cigarette by smashing it with her hands and rubbing them together with not a single flinch in pain as the burning of the embers make contact with her skin. She acts as if Lavi just pulled a joke, although he might as well have.
"So you've been watching like a creepy stalker. If you like to watch, then how's about we have some fun right here with all the hobos around? They can't see us, but they might as well be looking right us if that's how you like it~"
"Mmm, I just heard it from a source of mine."
Navi turns her head to look at Lavi, who in turns looks right back at her with his pine-tree-green-colored eye. The stare down lasts a minute before Navi turns away to grab the box and get a new cigarette. She takes her time to bring out the lighter and light the white end of the cancer stick. She puts out the small flame by snapping the metal lid back over the rectangular beat up metal lighter, putting it into her pocket.
"Would you believe me if I told you Hitler's lover gave me that lighter? She was good at ignoring what he was doin'. That was one classy blonde lady—my sort of woman. I bet a few demons had a ball with her committing suicide with him. We had a ball during the rise and times of the concentration camps," Navi says with a shrug. "There were a lot of homicidal demons hanging around the Germans, too. Had to push and shove for some space. It got too crowded for my tastes. At the end of the war, when Germans were bein' caught and sometimes killing themselves, business was boomin'."
"Because all that wasn't triggering at all," Lavi muses to himself. He sets his hands on the concrete floor behind him, leaning his weight onto his wrists and looking at the plain gray ceiling of the tunnel.
"You've been following me around a few times, just hanging around. That must mean you record things, don't you? I bet you were there for the rise and fall of the concentration camps and the like."
"Just when you start to think humans are predictable, they come right back and teach ya a lesson for thinking that."
Continuing to stare at the ceiling, Lavi shifts his weight onto one arm and holds out his hand toward Navi. She looks at his outstretched palm for a few moments before grabbing a cigarette and her lighter and placing them into his hand. Slender fingers close around the items and the demon watches the angel as he manages to light the white and tan stick and put it to his mouth. He leans forward, placing an elbow on his knee as he hands Navi her lighter back as she grins at him.
He has to amuse her. If he wants any information from her, he has to gain some of her approval. There are other ways to get demons to talk. Angels shouldn't have to resort to torture or anything like that. Some of them used to be humans, too.
"Were ya always a demon?"
"Of course I've always been a demon," Navi answers as if the thought of her being anything other than a sinful demon during her existence makes no sense whatsoever.
"Naw, I mean have ya ever been a human?" he asks before taking a puff from the cigarette.
"A long time ago I was human. I'm almost halfway to being nine hundred years old. That makes me a youngster compared to you, doesn't it?"
"When'd ya die?"
"1169. Can't say I remember the month or anything; all's I remember is the year and a few other things."
"Like what?"
"I remember it was in battle near Dublin… or in Dublin? It's hazy. I was eighteen years old. I'm pretty sure I was murdered and the guy who did it must have snubbed something 'cause I ended up a demon. I don't know how it happens in the past. I guess my name was Abigail Gallagher, and I was a sister. It's hard for me to comprehend I used to be a meat bag."
There's absolutely no harm in letting Lavi know this. Navi wants him to know that demons can be made from human souls, and can increase their army. She wants him to know that they've always been competing for the soul and to rip them from the grip of God and his heavenly angels. It signals they still do it very often, but doesn't tip him off as to just how many times demons win.
"I'm sorry to hear that… maybe I'll put flowers on your grave or somethin'. You look like you could use a little kindness in your life."
"Well, aren't you a funny angel?" Navi scoffs. "Save it for an old holocaust survivor who dies. They're starting to drop off like flies."
"I think you died in the Norman Invasion of Ireland."
"Random, but thanks for lettin' me know of a better reason for me dying," Navi scoffs again.
"You're sometimes attracted back to your burial site, aren't you?" Lavi asks. Without waiting for an answer he suggests, "Next time you go I can come with an' bring some flowers."
Navi stares at Lavi, wanting to believe he's just joking around what with that teasing smile on his face. Yet there's something sincere underlying that playful timbre in which he speaks. She leans her elbows onto her knees, leaning her body to the right and closer to Lavi as hazel eyes look up at him with suspicion.
"Why would you go and do that, angel?"
"Don't you know?"
He's left with the answer of reserved quiet. Navi doesn't break her staring at him, though. She doesn't move away, and continues to stare at him with no signs of wavering. Lavi ignores it as he takes a smoke, taking his time with it. It burns his throat, not at all used to the strong scent and how it coats his lungs. He would be coughing later when he's flying through the air.
"Have you ever ended up going there… without meaning to?" Lavi inquires with an almost careful tone. The both of them know he's basically interviewing the demon for some information, but he doesn't want it to be so dreadfully obvious. What he doesn't know, as well, is that this is common knowledge that isn't at all useful.
"Yes, I have. It seems to happen when certain people pass by or walk directly over my grave."
"What do you mean by certain people?"
"Sometimes when I suddenly find myself back at my grave, I see someone nearby with a few demons over their shoulders. That tends to mean that they're not exactly right in the head like normal people, you know?" Navi explains. "Who knows? Maybe any remains of a soul I have left are just trying to preserve the last of my remains that might hold shreds of my soul or something. It's not like I care since it's just annoying."
"That can't happen often, though."
"Maybe not, but it happens more than I want it to." The demon takes a minute to smoke her cigarette that's gone neglected for a few minutes now. She and the redhead sit in silence, letting their lungs fill with the scent of nicotine leaving a feeling of light burning down their nasal passages. Navi throws a side-glance at Lavi and says, "We should do this more often, angel. I enjoy making a goody-two-shoes step over the boundaries… even if it is just a baby step like the lame-o you are."
"I'm not as uptight as you think I am," Lavi says with a laugh and shake of the head. "I indulge myself sometimes, too. Sometimes even I can be a glutton—especially when it comes to this Japanese dish, yakiniku."
"What in the world is a yakiniku?"
"If I give you an address, you'll be eating the best yakiniku this earth has to offer! We should go right now so I can prove it to you and I can make another yakiniku-glutton."
"Jesus Christ you're a nerd for that food," Navi says with a derisive snort. "So what's the address then?"
Once the redheaded angel gives the redheaded demon the address, she ends up looking past him as if seeing some familiar person approaching. When Lavi turns around he sees a simple old homeless lady shuffling into the shelter the tunnel provides. He turns back to Navi to ask what she was looking at, but she's no longer there.
"Cheater," Lavi exclaims. He quickly puts out the cigarette and with the blink of an eye he's gone to Japan to see if he beat the demon there.
Sorry that this update was quite short. I have more planned out for the plot, though, and hopefully it means longer upcoming chapters for when I manage to bring this series to a close. Let's hope I pull off a longer chapter next time!
Please leave reviews so I know how I'm doing-constructive criticism is ALWAYS welcome because I want to improve my writing!