Sorry for the delay! I got excited about a new (DGM) story that I started writing and for a while I was doing nothing but that. However! I will not abandon this story! Here comes the next chapter.

Enjoy and review ;)


Your tears are not mine

Kanda was heavily wounded. He had a hole through his chest, literally, and Lavi was at loss, panicking over the spilling blood and wheezing, shallow breathing. How did one dress a freaking hole? He moved to rip his shirt apart, to make bandages. Everything they had, they had already used to dress other, more minor injuries, what a stupid waste that had been!

'Don't,' Kanda gasped, the weak voice making Lavi freeze. A trickle of blood appeared in the corner of Kanda's mouth and cold fear seized Lavi's heart. Why was he experiencing a heart? 'Even if I die, I'll just come back,' Kanda added, his tone filled with the agonising pain he must have been feeling. Lavi watched him do just that. The dark eyes glazed over as more blood trickled out the corner of his mouth and the shallow, pained breathing stilled. Lavi almost screamed, almost. Instead a pathetic whimper left his lips. This couldn't be happening, his mind rebelled. It took all of his Bookman training to remain somewhat composed, even though his heart raced and he was almost choking on his own breaths.

The silence that engulfed them was deafening and Lavi spared a brief thought, thanking Kanda for taking out the last demon even in that state, so that they didn't need to worry anymore. Not that Lavi thought he didn't need to worry, the rational, cold part of his brain amended, while the other part was trying to prevent a full scale panic attack, faced with the actual death of his friend, however brief it might be. His heart told him that when people died it was forever.

Then, before Lavi had time to truly gather himself, even though exactly five hundred forty seconds had passed, Kanda gasped, his back arching off the ground. His face twisted in a pain-filled grimace. As his back landed back on the ground, his shallow breathing restarted, small moans of pain escaping the slightly parted lips. Seconds later, the first wave of pain seemed to have passed, because Kanda's face smoothed out somewhat and the dark eyes opened, alive but filled with agony still.

Lavi found it difficult to watch, but he owed the other exorcist at least that much, so he didn't look away when Kanda's gaze found his, blinking rapidly as inexplicable tears welled up in his only functioning eye. After all, Kanda had taken the shot for him. He had spent years, literally years, studying the other teenager like a specimen while pretending to be a friend and now the other had saved his life. He felt horrible, rotten to the core, but there was nothing he could do to change the past.

'We need-' Kanda started but a loud gasp of pain interrupted whatever he wanted to say. Lavi saw the perfect face twist in another grimace of pain and his heart, which he was not supposed to have, bled. He held the other back when Kanda tried to sit up, when he shouldn't even be conscious. Damned be those regeneration capabilities, keeping the swordsman conscious through such pain.

'Shh, let me do the talking, Yu,' Lavi whispered in what he hoped was a comforting tone. When had he even started caring about the Second? When had he started calling the, the thing in front of him "Yu" or "Kanda", rather than "the Second"? It didn't matter at that moment, because Yu was in pain and Lavi needed something to calm him down, to let him pass out and spare him the pain.

'No time,' Kanda gasped, biting back a scream of pain as his back arched off the ground. Lavi screwed his eyes shut and waited till he heard Kanda fall back onto the floor. He felt sick, but he made sure that it wasn't audible in his voice when he spoke up again.

'We've got all the time in the world, Yu, while your body's trying to close that hole in your chest,' he said, laying down on his side, next to the other teenager. He propped his head on one hand, resting the other across Kanda's chest. It was a statement of Kanda's state when the mere weight of Lavi's hand was enough to keep the swordsman on the ground. 'And I've been thinking. I've read your file, so it's only fair that I tell you something about myself, don't you think?' he added, inventing the topic on the spot. He mentally kicked himself but it was too late.

His only answer were pain filled, wheezing breathes, but as he looked down, he saw Kanda looking at him. The dark eyes of the Japanese exorcist were clouded with pain and not exactly focused, but he could still see the unspoken question in them.

'That's right, I read Kanda's fake file, but I also read that of "Yu",' Lavi admitted, finding himself unable to lie to the other in the way he was right then. Kanda's eyes screwed shut when his face twisted with pain, gasps escaping those perfect lips. When those amazing eyes opened again, there was a different kind of pain in them and Lavi felt horrible for invading the other's privacy like that.

Since when did he even care? He had read the files of the Second Exorcist Project as though they had been a fascinating novel and now, faced with the only Second alive, he was having a guilty conscience? What kind of Bookman was he?

'So I thought,' he continued, ignoring his thoughts and realising that he honestly wanted Kanda to know something about him. 'I could tell you about my parents, about home, even though I don't know where it was.'

'How,' Kanda gasped, the rest of the question cut off by a pained groan. Lavi was impressed that the man seemed to want to listen, but maybe he was just using Lavi's voice as distraction from the pain. Yeah, that had to be it, he thought, because any other explanation was too scary. The idea that Yu wanted to know about him provoked a tingle of warmth inside, even in those horrible circumstances.

'How come I don't know where home was?' Lavi asked, guessing what the question would be, again ignoring his thoughts. Kanda nodded almost imperceptibly and Lavi looked away, smiling slightly and well aware that it was a real smile, rather than his usually fake, cheery grin. 'I was very small, too small to call it anything else than "home" and that is how it stayed. In a way it's better, because I have this place that doesn't exist, so it cannot be destroyed in any of the wars I am recording.'

He glanced down to see that Kanda had closed his eyes. He didn't look any more peaceful though, face still twisted into an expression of pain. However, Lavi thought that his breathing sounded a bit better, so maybe he was really healing alright.

That thought firmly in his head, he recalled the peaceful memories of home and dressed them in words to the best of his abilities. Even though he was sure there were no words to describe the warmth of a mother's embrace and the feeling of security that came with a caring father, it seemed to work. Kanda's breathing and heartbeat calmed somewhat.

Watching the perfect face, still bearing the signs of pain, Lavi continued talking about the memories he remembered, about the emotions that accompanied meals he had shared with his parents and about the joy of playing with other kids. Those simple moments, he thought, were his most precious treasure in the world where nothing could belong to him, because the Bookmen were not supposed to get attached to anything.

Sometime during his story, Kanda's breathing and heartbeat returned to normal and Lavi allowed himself a satisfied smile that died, however, when a single tear trailed down from Kanda's closed eye. The Bookman's apprentice chocked on the word he was saying, but the swordsman's muscles relaxed, signalling that he had either fallen asleep or unconscious.

Moving as carefully as he could, Lavi lifted his hand from Kanda's chest and sat up to check on the wound. As he had expected, the skin over it was regenerated, protecting the insides as the body repaired itself. Still careful to not wake Kanda, even though he didn't think it would be possible, Lavi checked for fever and other possible injuries of both of them, all the while trying not to think about his childhood memories.

Finally, he carefully wiped the tear from Kanda's face, thinking that Yu had never known those feelings. He had never experienced family and warmth, not in the way any child should at least. Would he miss it now that Lavi had told him about it? Had Lavi been cruel in his choice of topic? Poor thing, he thought, resting back on the ground, close to Kanda. Lavi wouldn't have given those memories up for anything, even from his current perspective, even with the pain they brought.

Because he had, in the end, lied to Kanda. The nameless village where he had lived as a child had been razed to the ground years ago and he was the only survivor, lucky or cursed enough to be in the basement at the moment of the attack. That was how he had met the Bookman.

He didn't try to stop the tears falling from his eyes. It was alright, because there were no witnesses and he could let Kanda's breathing lull him to sleep, reminding him that he had found new reasons to live since those horrible moments of his childhood.