Disclaimers: I don't own D. Gray-man. I'm just using the characters for my entertainment! Enjoy!
Notes: This fic is AU. Lavi has both eyes and Allen has no scar and a normal arm. I also made up birthdays for them even though they official ones, as it was appropriate to the story. :D
Chapter 4
Mondays…Yes, that most heinous of days had rolled around yet again, rearing its ugly head as Lavi resisted the urge to smash his alarm clock to pieces with his fist when it began blaring at 11 a.m. He was entirely too comfortable to even have the slightest urge to uncover himself and sit up. But as he did begin his initial ascent into a sitting position, he noticed his left hand was sunk deeper into the mattress and against something pleasantly warm.
Glancing to that side of his bed, he couldn't help but let a small smile grace his lips as he hesitantly ran a hand through the silver locks that were peeking from beneath the covers.
After another look to his clock, he reluctantly decided that he should begin his routine. And so he gently climbed out from his covers and off his bed before heading to the bathroom with his school clothes in hand.
Some fifteen minutes later, he quietly emerged from the bathroom, toweling his hair dry and walking to Allen's side of the bed, noting that the kitten was now curled against Allen's stomach.
"Allen," the redhead gently called as he shook the teen by his shoulder. "Allen…"
The teen groaned and tried to roll over, but the small nails of the kitten dug threateningly through the blanket as he started to lean his weight sideways, his grey eyes barely peeking through his lids during this process until his sleep muddled mind registered the red hair above him.
"Lavi!" he breathed, eyes now wide as he sat up completely against the headboard, the kitten scampering off and away from him. "I'm sorry! I just couldn't…"
"Its fine," Lavi grinned, ruffling Allen's hair as he fought for words to explain himself that weren't forming on his lips. "If I didn't want you in my bed, I'd have pushed you off it when I woke up."
Closing his mouth, seeing as he didn't need to argue his case, he covered his face with his hands to hide his embarrassed blush. "Don't you think it's weird for me to be climbing into your bed like this?"
"Well, yeah, it is a little weird, but like I said, its fine. And if you think it's so weird, why'd you do it in the first place?"
Again at a loss for words, Allen shook his head and lowered his hands. "I have no clue."
Not wanting to embarrass the poor teen any more, he opted to change the subject. "I'm heading off to class in a few minutes, so keep a good eye on her," Lavi said as he ran a finger over her head, the kitten arching her neck into it to get a better rub while she again nestled on Allen's blanket. "I should be home no later than five tonight, so pull something out for dinner for us."
Allen simply nodded, subconsciously sliding back down to a lying position.
With another smile, Lavi again ruffled Allen's hair before heading out.
Some odd hours later, thanks to the sun beaming through the slits in the blinds and directly into his eyes, Allen awoke in a slightly familiar bedroom with a kitten curled on his chest, her head resting on his hand that also lay there, and at a rather comfortable temperature to boot.
'Did I really end up in Lavi's bed again?' he mused as he drowsily blinked, lazily bringing his free hand to his eyes, yawning and rubbing the sleep from his eyelashes.
He sat there in a comfortable daze for a few minutes before the kitten mewled cutely up at him and began to give him kitty hugs on her 'pillow' of Allen's hand.
"I suppose you're hungry," he smiled as he scooped her up against his chest and clambered out of the bed, heading towards the kitchen.
Once at his destination, Allen opened a small can of food and set it down in front of the kitten before he sat himself down at the kitchen table, watching her idly with his cheek in the palm of his hand. All the while he watched her eat, he pondered on the idea of what sounded good for dinner, mentally rummaging the cabinets and fridge that had just been stocked the night before.
Even after the kitten had finished eating and wandered off somewhere into the living room, Allen still sat and thought, but he couldn't think of a single thing other than how boring it was without his new friend home.
"Oh, no," the teen finally groaned as a not so pleasant smell wafted to his nose. With a sigh, he stood from the table, nearly tripping over it as he set off to find the present the little one had just left for him.
He sighed yet again moments after he had gathered his cleaning supplies (i.e. paper towels and some carpet cleaner) and found his way to his knees, picking and scrubbing the mess away. All the while he was doing this the kitten rubbed against his ankles lovingly without the slightest hint of fear or acknowledgement of the anger directed at her.
"It's my fault though…I didn't get you a litter box yet," he grunted as he stood, heading to the nearest trash can.
After that ordeal, and not yet awake enough to leave to get her the rest of her things, like the litter box, Allen decided to curl up on the couch with his kitten and watch some TV.
And no sooner than the TV had been turned on did Lavi pass the window the door.
'What time is it?' the teen mentally yelped as he looked around frantically for a clock as he heard the door handle begin to turn. But to no avail; he found no clock in the living room, save for the VCR/DVD player blinking 12:00.
Nearly throwing the kitten from his lap, he dashed to the kitchen and opened the fridge just as the door creaked open, and Lavi couldn't suppress a rather lecherous grin at the view of Allen's bottom sticking out from behind the door.
"Lavi!" he feigned surprise as he stood upright, a stalk of celery in his hand. "You're home early!" Thankfully the clock next to the fridge on the microwave proved useful.
"Yeah, the teacher was sick, so everyone decided to ditch class since a sub never showed," he replied as he sat his backpack down on one of the chairs. "Decided on dinner yet?"
"No…I've not been hungry today, so nothing sounds good yet," Allen admitted as he placed the celery back in its place and shut the fridge.
"How'd she do today?" the redhead asked idly as he pulled a couple books from his bag.
"Just one big mess today that I know of. I'm going to the pet shop again in a bit to get her a litter box and some toys."
Lavi then set himself down, thumbing through one of the books with a slight frown in place. "I hate school."
"Tell me about it," the silver haired teen agreed as he then began to randomly open and close cabinets in hope that some idea of dinner would come to him as he eyed the various boxes and cans. "Oh, and I've decided on a name."
"And what's that?"
"Miya," he said simply as he closed the last cabinet, still empty handed.
Lavi let the name run through his head a few times and nodded in approval. "I like it."
"You're not going to like this though; I still can't think of anything for dinner. So it's up to you I guess."
"Sounds like a plan," Lavi grunted as he shut the book, set it aside, and picked up the other.
"I'm going to go home and change then go to the pet store now," he said as he walked past Lavi's chair, grabbing his bag from beside the couch, and vanished out the front door.
Some minutes later, Lavi having set to work on his essay, Miya began to rub against his legs under the table, annoying the concentrating youth to no end. "Go on, would ya?"
Indignantly, she stuck her tail in the air, gave him what appeared to be a dirty look, and scampered out of the kitchen and down the hall.
With an irritated sigh, he dropped his pencil to his notebook and stood. This morning he had, in fact, felt like cooking, but now with the two essays and his algebra homework to do, he didn't feel like doing much of anything other than maybe sleeping, and if Allen wanted to join him…
"Stop it, Lavi," he scolded himself as his mind settled on frozen pizza for dinner.
After preheating the oven and tossing the pre-packaged goodness onto a pizza pan and into the oven, he turned back to his backpack. He had a week to work on the essays, but the algebra homework was due in two days…And he was terrible at it.
Tossing the book hatefully onto the table, he turned the page in his notebook and found the chapter the set of problems he needed to do. And he stared…and stared…and glared at the random numbers and letters with the eraser end of the pencil in his mouth. Why couldn't math be like the old days, you know 2 plus 2 equals fish? (Fairly Odd Parents reference :P)
"Damnit!" he spat as he again let the pencil fall to the table. "I hate this shit!"
"Like you have room to talk!" came a venomous voice from the front door.
"Allen?" Lavi called, confused seeing as he surely hadn't had enough time to get there and back at a leisurely pace. "Did you run there and back?" he asked as he stood leaning against his kitchen archway.
To this, Allen glared darkly at him, raising a dripping wet arm to point out the window.
It took Lavi some odd seconds, maybe even minutes, for Lavi to look from Allen, to the window, back to Allen's wet hair and clothes, back to the window where water was falling heavily from the sky, back to the puddle now forming at Allen's feet, back to the lightning flashing through the sky, and finally back to Allen before his overloaded mind finally comprehended that it was, in fact, storming outside and the teen had got caught in the downpour.
"You know," the redhead began as he stood upright and ventured back into his kitchen to his little washer/dryer closet, where he pulled a couple of fluffy towels from the dryer before returning to the living room. "If you would've just told me it was raining rather than pointing and glaring at me like I knew what was going on, I would've understood a little bit faster."
Lavi then tossed one of the towels over Allen's silver hair and proceeded to gently dry the water away while Allen fought to remove the plastered and slightly too small two-tone blue shirt from his body, and failed miserably as the material was too small and wet to move higher than his shoulder blades by himself, unless he wanted to dislocate a shoulder to get it off.
Noticing the futile struggle the shorter one was having, he stopped mopping at the teen's hair, tossing the towel over his shoulder before he grabbed the bunched up material at the other's lower shoulder blades and tugged it over Allen's head, his fingers grazing Allen's cold and damp skin as he did so.
Once the article of clothing in question was removed and set aside, he noted than the silver haired teen looked slightly flushed, his eyes cast down and his arms wrapped gently over his naked chest. Though whether it was caused by the cold of the rain or from Lavi's gentle, unintentional caress, he wasn't sure.
"You're cold," Lavi mumbled as he draped the second, dry towel over Allen's shoulders.
"Well, the rain is kinda cold and you just left me standing here to catch pneumonia while your tiny little brain tried to process the weather," the teen then teased, still not look into Lavi's face, as he took hold of the towel around him.
"And you could've just as easily opened your own door and gotten a towel and dry clothes," Lavi pointed out with a smug smile.
To this he received a blank look.
"What?" he inquired as noncommittally as he could, knowing what the other was most likely going to say.
"What about Mana the polar bear and cold rain do you not comprehend?" Allen smirked in return. If it had in fact been so simple, Allen would have gone home first and taken care of this situation himself, but considering the fact that it was likely in the lower 40s next door, he would've frozen into an Allen statue of ice before he even reached his room.
Somewhat pitying the teen shivering slightly before him, he thought about offering to run next door and get him some dry clothes himself, but the wind was blowing towards his door and window, and the rain was still none too light. "Let me see what I have that might fit you."
The redhead the disappeared down the hall with his own creeping blush as Allen began to unzip and pull down his drenched jeans. Thankfully, when Lavi had returned to his side, he had the towel wrapped around his waist. "I know they'll be a little big on you," Lavi pointed out as Allen took them, holding them to his chest as he scampered down the hall, mumbling a thank you.
Now that that little dilemma was out of the way, Lavi returned to the kitchen to check on the pizza, which wasn't quite done yet, and then turned to his most hated rival lying innocently on the table where he had left it. As he began to scribble down a problem from the book, Miya again returned to love on his ankles.
"You're not getting any food yet, pig. You can wait until we eat."
"That's not very nice," Allen mocked him as he stood at the end of the table, having somehow managed to sneak in, with his hands, or rather where his hands should have been seeing as the hoodie he was now wearing was too long in the sleeves, on his hips. "Are you actually this big or do you get clothes that are just baggy on you?"
The pajama bottoms Lavi had given him had a drawstring so he could at least keep them on his hips while he had to roll up the bottom of them to keep from tripping.
"Oh, okay. So you want to indiscreetly call me fat," Lavi nodded with a smirk of his own as he looked over the teen, the pencil's eraser again in his mouth, though he bit a little hard than he would have normally…If only those loose clothes would just slip off…
"If the shoe fits," Allen shrugged as he plopped down at the table across from Lavi.
"I don't understand how someone can look so cute and innocent sleeping in my bed and prancing around in my clothes looking adorable could have such a vulgar mouth. See if you get any more of that pie tonight…"
Right on cue, Allen's silver eyes looked pathetically sad and a pout formed on his lips in retaliation. "But Lavi…"
And it didn't take long for either of them to break into laughter before Lavi checked the oven again, deeming dinner to be ready.
"I thought you said pizza was cheating."
"I felt like cheating since you didn't pick anything out," was the response as the older male began to cut the pizza into slices.
"Okay, so you win that round," the teen dramatically sighed as he reached across the table and turned Lavi's book towards him. "You're taking algebra? Shouldn't you be taking something a little more advanced?"
"So now you're calling me stupid," Lavi snapped back sarcastically as he put the pizza on two plates. "Yeah, I probably should be, but I've never really gotten the hang of math."
"You want some help?" Allen asked as Lavi set their dinner down on the table.
"Could you?" Lavi almost pleaded as he sat back down. "I'll give you some more pie if you do! I'll even feed it to you!"
Though his eyes already told his answer, he glanced around the room as though in thought before nodding. "I'll accept."
Once dinner was eaten and Miya fed, the pair sat side by side at the table as Allen walked Lavi through each step for each problem until he could do simple ones on his own. "How in the world do you pass your tests?"
"Beats me," Lavi sighed, stifling a yawn.
With only a few problems to go, and his eyes growing increasingly heavier with each pencil stroke, he finally closed his book, noting the extra weight on his shoulder and the silence that surrounded him. "Allen!" he whined pathetically; he was too tired to even think about carrying the teen anywhere, but if he moved and did nothing, Allen would surely fall to the floor. He then glanced to his clock which read 11:34. "You should be at home in bed…"
"I don wannagohome…" he mumble almost unintelligibly as he sat up. "Don wanna move."
"Well, I don't think your dad will approve of you staying the night, let alone being over here this late."
"He doesn't care. He knows I'm safe with you," he yawned and stretched, still fighting off the sleep.
It was still raining outside, but the lightning had since stopped. So with a sigh, he scooped Allen up into his arms, who curled up tightly against him, wrapping his arms about Lavi's neck. The red head then managed to turn off the kitchen light and find his way to his room in the darkened apartment without bumping Allen into anything.
'He's going to end up here anyway,' Lavi mused as he laid the teen down on the bed before stripping down to his boxers before crawling into the bed, tossing the blanket over them both. While he set his alarm for the next day, he felt Allen roll towards him, and as he lay down and adjusted his pillows, he felt an arm lazily snake across his stomach. Watching the teen sleep, he let his mind wander as he subconsciously rested his hand on Allen's arm, thinking of how much he missed human interaction.