Chapter 4 (Tears in the Gift)
Blood is painting half of his face a deep red and the sky is dark. The coldness of the grave stone behind his back seeps into his bones just like the snow surrounding him. His left arm twitches violently and everything around him feels empty.
Utterly void of life as he blankly stares at the white of untarnished snow.
It´s unfair, that it looks so pretty when nothing should. Mana was gone, dead—I killed him, I am a monster like they always said –never to return and nothing had the right to look beautiful. Allen was all alone again, sitting in a lonely graveyard where the last person to care about him—the only person, was buried six feet under.
Allen felt hollow, crushed in a pile of grief, never to see the surface again. His vision was blurry, from tears, blood and he´s waiting for death to take him. He has nothing left, nobody to care anymore.
"—wake. Allen."
The voice who calls out to him is deep, but soothing. It makes his heart ache in melancholy and nostalgia before it coaxes him to raise his hung head from his chest. It takes effort, but he felt compelled to glance upwards for reasons unknown.
He just wants to die.
"You are not alone."
His right eye widens, as much as the swelling allows anyway, and Allen is stuck breathless at the sight in front of him. His mind works slower now, from blood loss or shock, so the words don´t sink in right away. All he can stare at is the head of unruly messy hair that sticks up weirdly in some places—it´s one of the darkest colors he´s seen and amber-golden eyes—they look so much like Mana´s it hurts—stare right back at him through wavy bangs.
The man kneels in front of him, cream-colored overcoat worn over a dress shirt and a dark vest and Allen promptly bursts back into tears even though he was sure, they had all dried up now.
"You…you are…"
"Always keep walking, never stop. You promised."
"He´s gone…"
His voice cracks pitifully and the man´s eyes—it hurts to look at them, but he can´t tear his eyes away –soften before they iced over. He moves as if to touch Allen´s bloody mess of an eye, but his hand hovers and falls back to his side.
"Not completely. He would not want you to waste away in this pathetic way."
The man smiles, but it´s sharp and deadly looking and even more cold than the numbness and cold of winter put together.
"I should know. I have always been here by your side after all and that won´t change. Until the day I die, I will stay by your side."
Allen has no answer to the words and when he blinks, the man is gone and in his place is a vibrant picture of black and fiery scarlet. Gold catches his vision and the man speaks, offering him a place, a purpose, to become an Exorcist.
If he refuses, it´d be over. He´d die here on this lonely, cold night with nobody to mourn his death. The Earl would not show up because there is no person to grief enough to force him to make an appearance. Maybe he´d even see Mana again.
A flash of amber eyes, two smiles, one promise and the cruel laugh of the person who dared to play with his pure love for his Father appear in his fuzzy mind and he doesn´t reach out to grab the hand of the strange man because of what he offered.
He just wanted to live another day. To hold his promise and to see if reality is just another delusion.
As soon as his fingers touch the hand, he blacks out.
Allen Walker is the embodiment of a child of war. Broken, traumatized and insane, not to mention creepy.
The first three were a given, the last one was a surprise. Though, most broken children appeared to creep people out and Cross was not an exception, not with those silvery purple eyes so void of a will of life that it made him swear off to eat dead fish ever again.
Nothing he tried with the kid seemed to work, he was an empty shell and Cross had finally exploded and told him it was war, people died all the time, he had to get over it or else, he´d only drag down anyone else.
Mother had not been pleased.
But to everyone´s surprise, the words had effect. Even if Allen spoke like Mana, even if his smiles came up emptily and full of nothingness like those creepy dolls in china with their porcelain skin, it was more progress than Cross had ever hoped for.
Seeing as the brat was living and not dead, a job that had not been easy, Cross took him to travel and to train him. The first month went well, until he caught the brat talking to thin air like it was the most normal thing in the world.
"Brat, who the fuck are you talking to?"
Forget a glass of wine, he´d need a full bottle per day if this was going to be a thing. At first, Cross had his suspicion that it was the Fourteenth, but that made no sense. His charge talked randomly at times, and actually looked like he stared at the person he addressed.
If the Fourteenth was awake, he´d waste no time in possessing the kid.
"It´s nothing, Master."
"Bullshit. I asked you a question, brat, so give me an answer because I don´t ask nicely twice nor do I repeat myself."
Allen´s eyes darted to the corner of the room, Timcampy sitting contently on his head, chewing on a piece of hair, as he played with his hands. Just as Cross was ready to take out Judgement—patience was not his forte, he was the adult here and while the kid had a death wish, it wouldn´t kill him, so Cross was free to shot him and end the part of his deal, when the kid spoke.
"He´s a …friend."
"Does this invisible friend of yours have a name?"
The eyes glance once again towards the same spot and Cross frowns.
"No. But he gives good advice and comforted me about the death of…of Mana. He made me realize that I need to keep my promise and that I can´t give up just yet."
Fantastic, the brat created an imaginary friend who gave him hugs and words of encouragement. Because that´s what he needed. And here Cross thought he´d actually motivated the kid back from depression.
At least he was sure that it wasn´t the Fourteenth now. Why comfort the host you would later on kill to get the body from?
"And your …friend is currently inside this room?"
"Yes, he´s standing over there."
Allen answers, pointing dutifully at the empty corner of the room and Cross let out a long-suffering groan as he sunk into the couch, longing for a bottle of expensive, high-alcohol percent wine and a cigarette.
He rubbed his forehead, cursing Mana for rubbing of his craziness on the brat he was forced to raise now. This wasn´t how he thought his life would turn out. At least the war can´t damage the kid more than it already has. It doesn´t get any worse than being insane and cursed with a fate like that. He takes small comfort in the fact that few people remained completely sane in this war and it might come as an advantage for the kid.
"Master? Are you all right?"
"Yes." No. "If you have time to ask useless question go out and make yourself useful in getting me alcohol and a bit of money. We´re leaving in the morning. And take your friend with you." I can´t deal with this right now.
"Fine."
When the door closes, it´s a short-lived relief and if he tries to repress the last ten minutes, nobody has to know, because Timcampy isn´t cable of recording him in his misery since he´s making sure the brat gets back without getting lost.
If he had any luck, he´d die of alcohol poisoning.
The next few weeks are an utter disaster. The kid talks randomly, ignoring the fact that people give them weird looks and when Cross asks him to stop in public, the kid gets oddly defensive. It would be cute if it wasn´t so messed up. He decidedly blames the older twin for this problem, because if the kid wasn´t so used to being labeled as crazy and talking to invisible people, then they wouldn´t have this problem right now.
It only gets worse when they face an Akuma for the first time.
Allen loses his shit one minute into the fight and is a screaming mess on the floor. Cross easily kills the Level 1 before he puts Judgement away and walks over to the bawling child, who´s busy trying to keep his breakfast inside it seems.
Before Cross has any time to form words, the kid starts talking to thin air, mumbling and the terror in his eyes is unmistakably. He picks out a few words as the invisible help for parenting apparently calms the brat down enough to breath between his sobs. It´s a small victory that Allen hasn´t worked himself into hyperventilation.
It should be impossible for someone to have this bad luck and to be screwed over by indirectly the same person in so many different ways, but he world was a cruel place.
"Kid…you´re the unluckiest person alive."
Is what Cross eventually says and Allen doesn´t look comforted by his words one bit, so Cross does something he´s never thought he´d do. He gets down on one knee and pulls the kid close into an uncomfortable one-armed hug.
It´s the pity he feels, mixed with a small part of empathy for the blotched, sniveling child cowering at the ground with big glassy eyes and torn up hands from his fall and the fresh scar a stark contrast against ashen skin that makes him act like that.
Cross not good with kids or words, he´s a bitter man who´s seen too much, carries too much around with himself and has a walk-in closet filled to the brim with skeletons better left alone, but he´s also an impulsive man whose actions speak louder than any words of science or bluntness ever could.
Allen beings to shake again and by the time he´s finished he´s cried himself to sleep and Cross carries him home without complaint, because this is his life now. Timcampy curls up next to the kid, tail warped around his waist and the sight brings a small smile to his face.
The next few months are easier to deal with. Allen trains, he earns money, rarely complains and talks to his hallucination. Timcampy is the one who reminds him if he forgets to feed the brat enough food instead of the human being who could tell him that verbally. Still, it´s almost peaceful if Cross wasn´t as competitive.
It´s the honest reactions Allen shows glimpses of that interests the man. Occasionally, Allen´s lips would quirk up unwillingly or he´d smile without noticing it while speaking with his hallucination and while Cross was glad there was a personality hidden underneath the fake politeness after all, it bothered him in equal measurement.
He was not losing to an imaginary friend that the insane mind of his stupid apprentice managed to conjure in terms of getting a possible reaction out of the kid.
Cross did anything he could think of that would piss his student off. Shove his debts onto the kid, be rough on him with training and trivial tasks, exasperating his behavior to the point he knew his apprentice would explode and he got rewarded.
Allen started to get mouthier with time, cheeks flushing with anger and his reactions were…fun. Cross almost dared to call them cute after spending two years and ten months together. So, while the ghost managed to bring out the smiles from the kid, Cross managed to get the exciting heat back into the passive shell of the once bottled Volcano of a child.
He took great pride in that and it became his new favorite past time hobby.
"Idiot apprentice, go and get me more wine and meet up with that Indian kid while you are at it. You need more real friends, who people can actually see instead of talking to the nameless ghost who follows you around. You might also want to avoid telling people you can see the souls of dead people and for god´s sake, don´t get into more trouble this week."
"Yes, master."
While it had been fun to shot at his apprentice to improve his speed and dodging skills, it hadn´t been a pleasant surprise to see his idiot stumble in through the door with black stars all over his body because he´d been too slow—"I was caught by surprise!" –to avoid getting shot by Akuma.
The door was shut and Cross relaxed, eyeing a few of the more curvier dancers near him. This might get him some time off to burn off some steam.
Knowing Allen, he´d have two hours at most.