And now things start to get complicated. 83
NOW RATED M FOR CURSING, KISSING, AND EVENTUAL (?) SEX
Disclaimer of D'guiltiness: I do not own D.Gray-man. If I did… um… yeah… there would be touching and stuff.
WARNINGS: Um… there are some, but I'd rather just move up the rating instead of spoiling it for you. 8D
Part Six: Comprehension and Convolution
Allen watched Lavi talk animatedly to Kanda, the hood of his jacket tied firmly on top of his head to hide his ears from the public eye, and frowned. Kanda didn't seem to mind when Lavi reached out and touched the dancing ends of his hair with playful fingers, nor did the samurai respond to his words with glares of reckless uncaring. He didn't smile, but he spoke softly, occasionally moving a hand to convey the importance of his point, and paused to listen to what Lavi said back without looking at him. It was strange. Kanda had never acted so civil about anything in all of his life, at least not in front of Allen, but Lavi took the change in stride. And when Allen came closer, just enough to hear what they were talking about, neither of them seemed to mind.
"Really, I always thought you'd like the color blue, for some reason."
"Che. Red is better."
"Yeah, I get that now that you said you like it, but I always marked you as a blue guy for some reason."
"I told you that you know shit."
"It's not like you're easy to figure out, Yuu-chan."
The samurai was silent for a moment and then – regardless of the fact that the three of them were walking the street over the train station and people could see – reached out to take a gentle hold of the redhead's pinky finger. Allen watched Lavi look first at Kanda, who looked ever downward, and then at their hands, eyebrows pushed together under his hair. When the Japanese man saw the look he let go, turning his head away forcibly.
Lavi dropped his voice to a whisper and poked his face from under the cover of his hood, a small frown on his lips. "If you want to hold it you can, Yuu-chan. Friends hold hands sometimes."
Allen bit the inside of his cheek in an effort not to say how impossibly gay hand-holding was.
Kanda shook his head, glowering. I can't hold your hand if you think I'm being friendly, idiot, that's not the point. He thought in annoyance. "Che." Came out of his mouth.
The British Exorcist sighed and moved between them suddenly, pointing with his gloved left hand, and stopped the two from arguing anymore than they were. In the distance a train was passing into the blue-purple mist of the horizon, chugging along with great plums of white steam searing from its engine. "And…" Allen mumbled as he traced its path with his finger. "There goes our train."
"Why are we even taking a train? Don't we have the Ark?" Lavi piped quietly, looking to Allen for an answer. It was Allen who had told them when the train was leaving and where it was going, and the thought hadn't even struck him as odd until now, when they were watching the train go on its merry way.
"Well… I… honestly?"
"Yes?"
Allen kicked a rock with his boot. "There's a gate closer and Link thinks we're leaving by the Ark in two hours but… even though I'll get in trouble for it, I just can't stand to have him watch me this time. It's weird. He's nice but…I ditched him." He paused, glancing between his two friends, and waited for one of them to say something about how they had to go back and stay. Instead they just looked at him and he looked back at his boot, scraping his little rock against the icy stone of the bridge they were standing on. "Sorry." He grumbled. "It was selfish of me."
Lavi laughed good-naturedly and bent his arms up behind his head. Little clouds of moisture formed in the air around his mouth before blowing off in the breeze, dissipating as they went. "Travel's good for you!" He chimed with enthusiasm. "And I don't mean instantaneous warping. It's fun to go farther sometimes the old fashion way, so we don't mind, do we, Yuu?"
Kanda responded with a snort that didn't seem to have an opinion.
"I mean, it's cold, and we have to stand in it, but… if Yuu-chan hadn't beat me up we might not have been late and—eep!" The fist that hit Lavi landed rather gently on the top of his head, between his ears, and he blinked at it. The arm that connected to it was indeed Kanda's, and it stayed there even after he had noticed. The Japanese man wasn't looking at him, his eyes blinking out toward the horizon without even a hint of anger on his gentle face. Lavi pulled his lower lip into his mouth, resisting the urge to lick him from jaw line to ear lobe.
Stupid cat hormones…
"If you weren't stupid we wouldn't be late." Kanda said rather nicely.
"We can catch the next one. There were two, but I wanted the early one because it meant I got away from Link faster." Allen was playing with his rock again.
"Fine." Kanda spoke so calmly, so gently, that the hand he had left on Lavi's head no longer seemed threatening and the redhead took a step behind Allen, subconsciously encouraging his friend to stroke at his ears despite the layer of fabric between them. Those fingers slowly fell until they came to Lavi's shoulder and dragged him closer, very close, close enough for Lavi to feel heat radiating from the man's side. He felt Kanda shift a bit and shifted to meet him, wanting to rub the side of his face in the curve of the man's lean, pale neck.
"Yuu-chan, I'm going to—"
"Shut up, Moyashi's not looking."
"No, you're neck, I'm gonna li—"
Kanda took a deep breath and turned, closing his eyes, reaching with his free right hand, praying with every litany he knew, and placed his face just in front of Lavi's. The fingertips of his right hand found cheek and curved gently around it as if to guide the apprentice Bookman down a little, and his left arm tensed enough to keep the younger man still. It seemed to take an eternity before he felt breath on his face, warm and moist and surprised, and another half again before his lips pressed against flesh. It was hotter than he remembered (in temperature), Lavi's mouth slightly open in surprise or horror (he couldn't tell which), his hands unsteady. There were fingers on the front of his jacket, not quite pulling him forward, not quite pushing away, and he moved his soft tongue forward in curiosity until he found the cushion of Lavi's lower lip, and pressed it in curiosity. A tiny sound that he didn't understand hummed from the redhead's throat into his mouth, vibrating awkwardly.
I want this.
He moved back enough to breathe for a moment before he renewed the contact. His right palm slipped behind Lavi's head and he stepped into him, because there was no stopping the feeling of near acceptance running through him.
Lavi, though, didn't know what to do. From the moment Kanda leaned at him he knew what was coming, but he couldn't stop it. He couldn't raise his hands and tell his best friend that holding hands was ok and kissing was not. Part of it, he thought logically, was the fact that he wanted to lick him. The other part – and this was slightly less logically – was that once it started, it felt really, really nice, so he didn't want it to stop.
Does that make me a whore?
It wasn't like the one he remembered, the one from their werewolf infested backward-town, but this had its own appeal to it. That kiss had been experienced. Kanda was not. He knew enough not to scrub out Lavi's tonsils with his tongue, and there was there was a genuinely sweet, hungry, curious quality to the touch, but it wasn't angelical and world shattering. It was firm and real in a way that the other kiss hadn't been. Warmth washed from his lips to his chest, like before, and his knees buckled regardless of his uncertainty, and his distant thoughts.
His hands finally decided that they didn't want to move Kanda away from him no matter what his reasons were for kissing; he liked it and there was simply no reason stop the dark haired man from doing what he was.
He pressed back lightly, and Kanda wrenched himself away with a harsh pant.
When Kanda pulled back he unleashed a slow breath and looked up at Lavi with a serious expression. He could hardly see the eye that looked fearlessly back at him, twinkling, and he couldn't make out the emotion in it at all. The fingers stayed on his jack.
"That was unexpected."
The corner of Kanda's mouth lifted over his teeth. "I told you I liked you."
Lavi crumbled with laughter. His hood fell back as he started to fall, though Kanda caught him before he could actually hit anything and lowered him behind the stone that worked as a safety railing to the bridge. No one would see him there. Allen caught sight of them but stayed relatively far away – close enough to tell them if another train came or if something interesting happened, but far enough to give them privacy. So Kanda knelt beside the cat-boy, looking at him with curious, if fearful, eyes.
The redhead looked up at him and brought a half-gloved hand to his lips. He was confused and amused. The thought of Kanda liking him was no more frightening than the thought of Lenalee liking him, really, but for the same token there was something bad going on in his head – something not normal. The stupid cat feelings were driving him mad. Kanda was right there in front of him, demanding to be licked and touched, and the chain on his chest was glimmering in the pre-winter light, shining like a little wiggly gem on the end of a string. He didn't know what to do. That chain needed to be attacked, killed, and eaten, but he needed to have Kanda – and have meant anything but hugging – but he also needed to rub his scent on the man, lay a claim, pee on the bridge so anyone who came here would know that it was his and the people near it were, too. It was all too much for him, too many ideas.
He reached out and covered the little glittery decoration on Kanda's coat with his palm.
"Che. What?"
Lavi looked at the pair of sapphire eyes that studied him and swallowed with difficulty. He was salivating. That wasn't good, was it? "I can't… I don't know… you should… gimme a sec." His ears flicked a few times, newly freed, before they sagged against his hair in defeat. Kanda noticed for the first time then that they really were Lavi's ears – near his hair, at the bottoms, were the dark hoop earrings that he wore so commonly, too low to be flicked around when he changed moods. Lavi spoke before he could study them more closely. "You do mean that romantically."
"Do I fucking need to punch you again?"
"No. Just making sure."
Kanda frowned. "Good."
Lavi bit his lip, his hand still on Kanda's chest, and shook his head. Even without the chain, it was still too much. "I have… instincts right now that make me want to do things. So, I don't know what's what right now. I mean, I told you that you're hot and everything and it's true, but I can't tell you if I think that or the pussy within does." His fingers bent a bit and he leaned forward, his ears perked enough to twitch sideways when Kanda grunted a little in understanding. He stopped at an awkward angle; the side of his face not quite close enough to touch Kanda's skin. "And your neck is still in danger, Yuu-chan."
"Che." Kanda turned his head to the side exposing more of his skin, and raised an eyebrow. "What?"
Cat-like reflexes made Lavi's sudden movement too fast for Kanda to follow. Kanda was suddenly flat on his back, looking up at the sky, Lavi licking from the bump of his Adam's apple to the soft skin under his jaw to the fleshy end of his earlobe, fingers pressed painfully into his shoulders, fingernails biting even through the fabric of his jack and the shirt he wore underneath. He gasped at it, goosebumps rippling up the side his throat and down his arms, and bent his knees in an effort to throw the redhead off without hurting him, because as nice as it was, they were in public. People would see. And as much as he liked the idea of the apprentice Bookman leaving kiss marks up and down his neck right now, he didn't need it. He did not need his hands on the man's hips, feeling that curve, feeling them move as he changed angles either.
"S-sorry…" The word was spoken into his ear, huskily, but the younger man didn't pause what he was doing. It confused him. "Stop me. Please. I can't—" He lowered his head enough to nibble on the edge of Kanda's jaw, liking it and hating it and praying someone would just hit him so he could stop violating someone who cared.
Kanda made a sound that wasn't a groan so much as it was a vocalization of enjoyment. Knowing that it came from his mouth horrified him and he grimaced at it. His cold hands clamped on Lavi's sides but didn't lift him, instead they held him solidly in place against his stomach, keeping him there, feeling the heat of his thighs on his stomach. He needed to say something, not just moan out his pleasure, and the half-sound of frustration Lavi made assured him of that fact. As things were, with Lavi's body acting outside of his mind's control, there were words that needed to be said, even if he didn't think they would come out properly.
"Yuu-chan, I'll—"
"I like what you are doing to me." Kanda whispered, and he turned his chin down enough to look at the emerald eye that glanced up at him for a moment. He saw surprise in it, fear, understanding and pain. It seemed to him that Lavi had lost control of himself. His mouth hung open for a long moment until he clapped it shut, his tongue hardly missing teeth as he pulled it into his mouth.
Lavi swallowed. "That's… um… wow, Yuu-chan, I never thought…"
"Che. You don't think. Ever. Now quit talking."
"Yuu-chan… this is awkward, though. If I don't talk I might rip off your shirt at this rate. I don't want to rip off your clothes but I still want to and… I don't want you to get the wrong id—"
"Train!" The call made them both look at Allen who – for the first time since there little exchange had begun – was looking at them with round eyes, his jaw slightly slack in its hinge. Lavi smiled at him, though his left ear stayed aimed at Kanda and his right flattened itself out in annoyance, in an attempt to appear as calm and normal as he could while pinning Kanda to the cobblestones. The British boy's face flushed a bit and he looked at Kanda, who somehow managed to glare and blush at once, before he pulled his eyes away only to look again, his mouth slightly open in a smile.
"Che. You should get off of me." Kanda growled, turning an eye at the redhead still perched on his ribcage. After a short moment Lavi looked back at him, both ears pressed a bit toward his hair, almost sad looking, and blinked his now purpling eye thoughtfully. His hands pulled back from Kanda's shoulders and settled on the little tassel in the center on his jacket, the palms on his sides dropped to the cobblestones beside them. The Japanese Exorcist was keenly aware that Lavi was now sitting on him of his own will, not that he was going to complain about it.
Lavi sighed after a long moment and let his eye fall closed. "I'm sorry." He said at length, fingers tangled in that little chain he was toying with. "You're always so cold that I never thought you would like me. It's… stupid cat hormones! I just don't—" The man beneath him shifted and he found himself kissed again, fearlessly, head tilted downward so his mouth could fit against the older Exorcist's. It struck him then that this was Kanda Yuu kissing him, really, not just anyone, not Allen or Lenalee or a stranger in an alleyway. It was Yuu-chan. And knowing that, thinking about his hair and his face, his body and warmth, filled him with a sudden feeling of fear that he had never felt before.
Because if these weren't cat feelings and it was just his own body reacting to the slow, wonderful touch on his mouth and the hand pressed into the small of his back, he was having serious issues.
He leaned away and Kanda followed him. Every physical fiber of his being told him to go with it.
But… there was that kiss in the alley…
And Kanda was getting really into it.
And his heart was going to leap out of his chest if Kanda touched his ears at all.
He pushed his friend away with a small sound of discontent – it was more at the loss of contact than it was having it in the first place – and Kanda frowned from beneath him, one arm curving around the back of his hips. For a moment Lavi teetered between kissing him back and hitting him, clawing out his eyes and burying his fingers in all of that beautiful hair, but he couldn't decide. Which action was it that he wanted to commit and which was it that he felt feline desires for? He didn't know. He figured that he would never know. So he just sat there, with his hands on Kanda's chest, and stared at him.
The bridge started to shake as the train came closer to passing under them.
"Look, Yuu-chan…" He started, but he had to be sure that that was right. It didn't feel wrong, but it wasn't the best way to go about this and live, really. "Do you care if I… think about… this for a while?"
"Che. You mean think about out how to kiss me back? You just lean forward and—"
"No. Not that."
"What else is there?"
Lavi looked down and started kneading at Kanda's jacket because it soothed him. It was a cat thing but he didn't really care, not when it made him feel so much better than he did. His fingernails made funny sounds when they touched the metallic buttons and he liked it – he would have fun with his own later, if he was feeling catty. "Like I said before, I have instincts. I need to figure out… if I like you or if… if it's just 'Rawr! Yuu-chan, meow! Naked! Mine! Hiss!' in my head, you know?"
Kanda's expression said that he did not know.
Lavi sighed. "Just… it's a lot. Finding out you care, and like me, and having these urges to do things that I don't understand. So, until I'm normal, I don't know what I want to do about how you feel. Ok?" He could actually see the wave of realization as it came over Kanda's face, darkening his features, making him frown, making the fire in his gaze burn a little more brightly. The train chugged bellow them and Lavi flattened his ears against his head at the sound of it – much louder than he was used to – and crouched downward, which brought him closer to the Japanese man. "We need to go! Talk later!" He called over the sound of it, pulling his shoulders higher.
Kanda pushed him back, helped him rise, but held onto his jacket when he tried to step away. He looked back and his friend caught the shoulders of his jacket and spun him completely, making them face each other. A protest died on his lips when Kanda jerked his hood up and secured it with a hasty, delicate bow under his chin, hiding his ears from sight. He looked down at the slightly shorter Exorcist and smiled, the expression a wordless thank you to the man. He had thought that a kiss would be waiting, or something equally awkward. It had never occurred to him that Kanda might show that he cared so subtly.
"Lavi, I—" Kanda was cut off by the blast of the train whistle; Lavi threw himself forward, clamping both hands on the sides of his head to cover his ears, eye shocked wide. The samurai didn't finish his thought, too surprised by the redhead trying to crawl into his chest and hide from a noise. He did not have time to think about it, however, because there was no way for them to miss two trains and expect to find a third at a later departure time. So he gathered Lavi as best he could, turning him toward the railing wear Allen stood with his left leg propped on the stone and walked, aware that the redhead stumbled with every step until he got there.
When the whistle stopped, the apprentice Bookman didn't move his hands from his ears. The sound was so high and loud that it seemed to resonate in his skull, messed up his equilibrium, and that wasn't something he could stand to loose when he lacked real depth perception. He wanted to run away and hide but he couldn't see to, and even if he could have seen he would have fallen from his lack of balance. He hated to admit to how fast his heart was pounding from it, so much so that lifting his foot to leap onto the train seemed impossible, and he gave up trying to help when he missed the stone edifice twice. It wasn't worth it. He would rather turn into a cat person and lose his mind than get on a train that made his skull want to split down the middle.
Thus Kanda shoved him off.
Allen took Lavi's rather sudden decent as his signal to let gravity run its course, and leapt down beside him, Kanda following shortly after. The redhead stayed with his chin pressed to the top of train, unhurt, hands on his ears, unmoving. The whistle blasted again and Lavi made a distinctly catlike protest at it, bending his back as if looking bigger would frighten it away. Allen's right boot slipped as he moved up beside him, and he hit Lavi's shoulder with a little more force than he meant to; his left hand was suddenly jerked forward and he fell into the redhead, the curve of his neck came perfectly parallel with Lavi's teeth.
For the few seconds that the train continued to make that god-awful noise, Lavi lost his mind. He didn't know if Allen had touched him or Kanda or any person, he just knew that they were distracting him from covering his ears with his hands. So he sank his teeth into boy's throat and dug his nails into the fabric of his jacket, holding him still. It didn't matter what happened to the person struggling against him, nor did it matter that his eye patch was a bit crooked – all that mattered was stopping the pain and finding silence. When the sound died, he became aware that his mouth had filled with blood. Shock went through him and he pushed the unmoving body away from him, spitting, feeling sick and revolted with himself even as he licked gore from the back of his hand. Allen fell. He looked down at the boy then, terrified of what might have come of him, and paled at the small pool of blood he had caused. Guilt sank his stomach like a rock.
The British boy was on his knees, choking, holding both hands to his wind pipe. Relief followed the guilt before fear washed through him.
"Gods, Moyashi-cha—ugh!" The connection of Mugen's pommel to the back of his skull stopped his words and he tumbled forward, dead weight on the roof of the train. The sputtering white haired boy looked up at the man who had struck the redhead, hair blowing in the smoke clogged air, and raised an eyebrow in question. He wouldn't have a voice, he didn't think, even if he had an airway.
"Che." Kanda intoned loudly enough to be heard over the roar of the engine. "I might love him, but this is safer."
Allen blinked at him, head to the side. "Love?" It came out broken and raspy, but Kanda paled considerably at the sound of it all the same.
"Like. A lot. Same thing." He pointed at the ladder that led down to the train car door and jerked his head at Lavi. Allen understood what he meant without further instruction and stood, one hand still on his bleeding throat, and moved toward the ladder. They were very lucky to have two trains going to the same place right in a row and he just hoped that the conductor would understand that they had missed the train they were supposed to be on and so took this one – regardless of the cat-eared boy and the blood staining both of his gloves.
--
By the time Kanda had convinced the staff of the train (using only non-violent means) that the three of them should not be kicked off of a moving locomotive, the blood oozing from Allen's neck had slowed to a crawl. Lavi had missed any major arteries, but the boy's airway was still badly bruised, so he borrowed a pillow, tugged his coat tight, and rested crossways in the seat Kanda wasn't in.
Which forced Kanda too keep the still unconscious Lavi near him.
Their compartment was small, second class, lacking carpet and cushioning, but the seats weren't too rigid and the color scheme was a pleasing combination of blue and yellow. It soothed him a little, after the insanity of the morning, and he found himself content to let sleeping cats lie for the time being.
Lie curled in his lap, in Lavi's case.
The redhead couldn't protest when he was unconscious, so Kanda tugged his hood down and laid him across the seat. He knew it was almost creepy of him to place the younger man's face on his knee, so he stole the pillow when Allen threw it on the floor in his sleep and then propped Lavi's face on his knee, because three inches of padding was much less intimate. When they were settled, his fingers moved at once to touch those little fuzzy ears. He had it bad. The moment he began to stroke his best friend's hair he knew that there was no refuting it, but he didn't really want to. With Lavi's hair moving under his palm he couldn't find a damn thing wrong with anything – it was like the world had found balance and peace.
He sighed and leaned his head back on the seat, left hand on Mugen, right on the top of Lavi's head. Allen was snoring but he couldn't say he cared. He closed his eyes and let a quiet, wonderful sense of calm run through him. If this was love – or like or being passive – he liked it. He didn't care if he had never felt it or if he didn't like people, this was worth having his heart stepped on a few times. He felt light, fuzzy, warm, like he could smile, but it wasn't bad, even if he didn't understand it.
"Mmmm…" The sound from the redhead prompted him to stroke a little more fiercely, scratching a bit behind each ear before he settled in the middle again, soothing. Lavi blinked his eye open but didn't move, bleary-eyed as he turned his head around the compartment. "My… head hurts…" He reached up and touched the back of his neck before seeming to notice the hand on his ears, which he stilled with his own. Vaguely he heard Kanda's breath catch at the touch, but held on all the same. "Did you knock me out?" He asked softly, seeing as Allen was snoring loud enough to wake the dead and was sleeping through it.
"Che. It seemed the right thing to do after you attacked Moyashi."
"I didn't attack him. There was that noise and he touched me and I – I dunno – freaked out. I didn't mean to bite him." Lavi was aware that the fingers in his wound their hands together so they rested together on the pillow beside his head. He didn't mind it, physical contact was always good to him, sexual or not, but it made him a little nervous all the same. If Kanda really liked him was more the question. "Is he ok?"
Kanda shifted a little but he didn't dare look at him. The Japanese Exorcist was holding his hand, which had to be enough for now. "I think so. He patched up fine."
"Oh. Good."
Silence settled between them. Kanda's hand started to sweat. He couldn't stand it. "I'm… holding your hand, Lavi."
"I noticed."
"You don't… mind?"
"Nope."
Kanda was quiet again, heart pitter-pattering away like a humming birds. He swallowed audibly. "If you do mind—"
"I don't mind, Yuu."
"Oh… ok."
Lavi smiled. He had dropped the -chan and Kanda didn't say a word, bat an eyelash, or brandish Mugen, which was nice. A lot of the things happening recently had been nice, now that he thought about it. Being kissed was nice, having his hand held was nice, having his ears rubbed was nice, being close to a warm, solid body was nice, and it was wonderful to know that he wasn't going to be killed for saying something wrong. Hit or punched maybe, but he wouldn't be flat out murdered, he didn't think. Kanda wouldn't kill someone he cared about. He hoped.
Silence settled again and he heard Kanda's breathing even out. The hand in Lavi's loosened a bit, though it didn't uncurl, as if Kanda had become more comfortable than he had been. It was reassuring to the redhead, what with the things he had to say.
Lavi wet his lips and whispered into the compartment, eye focused all the way across the compartment from Kanda in an effort to avoid having his emotions read. "Oi… Yuu-chan…" He mumbled the name, then cursed himself for using the honorific. The man whose hand was in his didn't seem to notice the difference. "You've been all flustered and stuff for a while and I was just wondering… how much you like me. You're not the best at conveying your emotions, so I'm kind of unclear if you're… you're… in – love – with – me or not. If you are that's… flattering and… you should argue if you're not, you kn—" He looked up at Kanda to see his neck tilted at and awkward angle against the seat, eyes closed, face perfectly calm. He wasn't just sleeping; he was sleeping like a log.
A very pretty, quiet, gentle one, but still a log.
Lavi sighed at Kanda and shook his head a little at himself. He felt terrible, though he figured things could be worse. He didn't know how he felt but he knew what he wanted – that was a step, at least.
With a little flick of his ears he pushed himself up and untangled his fingers from Kanda's, wincing when he bent his neck wrong, and stretched his arms out over his head with a yawn. Even when they weren't touching, Kanda went right on looking gloriously soft in his sleep, like a dark haired angel with a permanent frown on his lips that filled Lavi with strange sensations. He denied them though, knowing it was the same sort of feeling as the urge to open the window and stick his head out in the freezing winter wind so he could smell things. And how he wanted to scratch his fingernails on the back of the seat. And how he still wanted to attack the tassel on Kanda's chest.
He shook his head before he stood up, his boots were a little louder than he thought they would be on the wooden floor. He stepped hurriedly to Allen's side of the compartment. When he had the British boy close enough he touched his shoulder, rousing him from a snore filled dream.
Allen blinked at him. "Lavi?"
"We're not there yet, scoot over."
"Wha-why?" Allen questioned even as he rolled enough to make room for another person in his seat. His hand went to his throat and gave it a slow, painful looking rub before he seemed to remember what had caused it. "Are you sane now?" He inquired a bit more loudly.
Lavi chuckled as he sat on the seat by Allen's hips but didn't lean over. "Yeah. Sorry about biting you, it was just… a defense mechanism I guess." He smiled with all of his teeth, a normal expression, and Allen returned the face with a tiny lift of his lips, relieved. Lavi reached out and ruffled his hair amiably, just because it felt like the thing to do.
Allen's smile widened to show his teeth. "It's ok. I didn't mean to hit you that hard either. Now why did you wake me up?" His hand pushed Lavi's away from his hair and the redhead sighed at it – even if it wasn't Kanda he still wanted to touch someone, the only difference was he didn't feel like ripping off Allen's clothes while he did it. He shrugged off the difference as Kanda being a friend and Allen being like his brother – Allen was a different kind of safe than Kanda was.
"Yuu-chan fell asleep."
"Ok…"
"I'm worried… I might… do something so… can I share your seat?"
"Eh?" Allen furrowed his eyebrows at the blush on Lavi's face. He hadn't even known Lavi could blush outside of looking at women.
Lavi turned his left foot against the wood of the floor as if he was shy. "Every time I look at him I… sorta want to get close and… he said he likes me but I dunno what that means really. And I don't wanna wake up in a pile of clothes, sore, and sticky, and you lookin' at us like we just ripped out your virgin eyes with forced voyeurism." With a gradualness that showed his uncertainty more than his quiet mumble, Lavi turned his face to Allen, green eye cast downward, ears turned in Kanda's direction. He seemed perfectly inexperienced and innocent in that moment, timid, confused. It was a bit unlike him to let all of that show on his face, but it was still there, the same as the little twinkle of yearning in the depth of his rouged cheeks.
"You like him?" Allen whispered with a grin.
Lavi shrugged. "I dunno. I can't tell what I like when I have sex mechanisms the same as I have defense mechanisms."
"You always have sex mechanisms."
"You're not supposed to be honest about this sort of thing, Moyashi-chan."
"The truth hurts but it's better than lying."
"Doesn't mean you should talk about my sex drive like it's some sort of—"
"Super powered monster the likes of which the world has never known?"
"Thank you. You can stop being a brat now."
Allen made a soft sound of amusement and pushed himself to sitting. He reached up and clapped Lavi across the back in a show of understanding, even if he didn't really get it completely. "You can share my seat, Lavi." He said with a small smile, rubbing his open palm against the apprentice Bookman's shoulders. "If it's really that much of a problem, I don't mind. Just… don't try to do dirty, Shishou-like things to me, ok?"
"Can I curl up with you?" Lavi blurted at once. "It's platonic, I swear. People calm me but… I curl up with you and sleep through the train ride. I curl up with Yuu-chan, I fuck him into the seat with my fingers tangled in all of the beautiful, ebony hair, smelling his soap and that musky, heady odo—"
"I get it." Allen drawled with a slightly sickened expression. "No pranks though."
"Cross my heart and hope to die if I do."
Allen sighed softly and let himself sink once more against the seat, pillowing his head on his right arm. When he was finished settling himself Lavi flopped down beside him, facing him, and bundled his arms under his head, not quite touching, but close enough to feel his heat there. Their knees bumped Allen shifted back enough for Lavi to shyly lean into his chest, ears tucked next to the white haired boy's chin, left arm over his neck. It was a tight squeeze and Lavi let out a soft purr and sighed deeply, enjoying the feel of non-threatening, non-sexual nearness. He reached out and kneaded gently at Allen's chest.
Allen giggled at him, but didn't pull back scandalized like he thought he might. "You know that cats do that when they remember nursing, right?"
"I do it when I feel warm and happy and content." Lavi muttered up at him, continuing with his touches. "I'm not turning you on, am I?" He inquired with a snicker. Allen blew in Lavi's right ear, hard, and it twitched repeatedly; Lavi shivered and a sound of discontent bubbled out of his mouth, his right hand came up and clamped on it, eyes narrowed at Allen's chin. "Meany."
"Teach you to tease me…"
"I could lick you. That might do it."
"Ew. Lavi that's like… eight hundred kinds of wrong."
"Yeah, well, we're two guys sharing a seat like a bed. Some people would say that's wrong."
"Licking is an entirely different field than sharing a bed."
"Really?"
"Exchange of bodily fluids."
"Wow, Allen. That's some impressive jargon from an inexperienced fifteen year old."
Kanda blinked his eyes open at bodily fluids and let his neck crack itself into an upright position, his sapphire eyes unfocused for a moment as he blinked first toward the window and then toward the floor, his head far too fuzzy for having caught maybe a half an hour nap. He never slept that hard on missions – especially in trains on missions – for fear that something would creep up on him and kill him in some stupid, pointless ambush by an enemy too weak to face him head on. He felt surprisingly groggy, enough so that when his eyes fell on a certain redhead and his neighboring inexperienced fifteen year old, he felt a strange, unfamiliar sense of anger fill his gut.
He was mildly annoyed at Lavi, for some reason, but Allen was different. He felt a sudden irrepressible urge to make the younger Exorcist cry out in agony and bleed to death slowly. His jaw clamped and his lip curled, his heart turned from a pulsing muscle to a pounding war drum filled with fire. Mugen was in his hand in a moment (not that he knew what he was doing with it) and he growled defensively (not that he knew exactly what he was defending) before he pushed himself out of his seat in Allen's general direction (not that Lavi, a seat, and half of the train was also in Allen's direction as well). He brandished the blade without threatening verbally for a moment, looking down at the pair cuddling across from him.
Allen had his arms around Lavi. Lavi who he knew Kanda liked. Lavi who Kanda had kissed. The two of them! Cuddling and talking about fluid exchange right before his eyes.
A pair of silver eyes turned to him and the metallic eyebrows above them knitted so hard that he thought they were trying to make a new pair of socks. "Um… is something wrong Kanda?"
"Yes, Walker. Your existence is suddenly more annoying than usual."
Garsh, if I had Kanda beside me at this moment, I'd hug him for saying that…
I hope you liked it. Your reviews are wonderful! I hope the kiss was to your liking. :D Now Lavi just needs to get over the cat-thing and… well… yeah…
TBC?
