OMG THE THINGS THAT CHILDREN SHOULD NOT READ.

I own nothing. I don't even have a bed.

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Part Eight: Reciprocation and Discernment

The bathroom was cold. It was also, mercifully, built so that only a single person could occupy it at any given time; one toilet, a short sink, a mirror that looked like it had seen better days, and a graciously cracked window, all crammed into less than one square meter of space. Kanda was just thankful that the lock worked. The door wasn't very thick but it swung instead of slid, which guaranteed that the rusty old deadbolt would do more than just squeak when someone tried to get in. That assuaged his fears of discovery somewhat. He still made himself wait, standing on the too-worn rug someone had thrown in front of the waterless latrine until he was calm enough to just lean on the doorframe and think about what he had done to Lavi.

It had felt so right. And good. And a hundred thousand other words he didn't usually give pause to. He hadn't given a damn that the redhead was male, nor that his ears were furry, nor that the apprentice Bookman had seemed more virginal than even Allen might have in the same situation. Innocent. A tempting little creature, all wrapped in wit and feelings, blushing so his face almost matched his hair, trembling, frightened and trusting and teetering on the edge of violence. Kanda had done that to him – or at least the latter half – and thinking about it made his tongue run out and sweep his lower lip in memory, a clicking grunt in the back of his throat. He shivered.

He never did this unless he was alone and there was no chance – no chance in Hell – that someone would find him. He liked to pretend that he just didn't do it at all when people were stupid enough to ask, because somehow it struck him as too ironic that a supposed priest would do anything of the sort when there were no eyes to see.

Not that he'd taken any vows or pledged his loyalty to the Pope and his beliefs, anyway.

He didn't even feel guilty when his right hand slipped under his jacket to run up the buttons of his pants.

He closed his eyes and tried to pretend that the shuttering breath that filled the room wasn't his. It didn't work. He knew it was his. He knew it was his because of how his pelvis moved without meaning to at that subtle touch, every nerve singing with wakefulness. Never, not since he could remember joining the Order, had he made quite a compromised sound as the one that vibrated passed his lips when he started to undo his pants with just three fingers. The realization that he had made it caused his face feel hot despite his seclusion. All of that courage and bravado he had shown Lavi was gone now – it was just him and his memories and an astoundingly bothersome feeling of need; there was no purpose in pretenses, so there were none. Alone with only what light could fight its way behind his eyelids, he could be however vulnerable he wanted to be.

His mind was creative at times like these, when he had a specific instance that he wished to recall and relive with a subtle, more satisfying twist. There was no trying to imagine Lavi returning the favor, it just happened for him. In a sort of inward flash the bathroom was no longer there; it was just him and Lavi in a very close space, fingertips trailing curiously into his undergarments while he did the same all over again, watching through his blinded gaze as the younger man smiled coyly and leaned near enough to breathe hot air across the tiny hairs on his neck. He wondered what it would feel like to have the redhead's mouth other places besides his neck, and if it felt as good as it had looked to have it in that one, very important place.

He tilted his head back, wound his shaking fingers tightly around himself, and braced his left elbow against the corner of the counter sink where it met with the wall, skull pressed back against the wood of the door.

A knock made his fingers twitch unexpectedly and his knees buckled; a cry half of pain and half of something else entirely catching in his throat with a half-formed word that might have been – maybe – something like what or fuck.

"Um…" He knew that voice and he hated knowing it. There were maybe fifteen voices he had memorized well enough to tell whose they were through four centimeters of cheap plywood, and one of them had to be that damned Moyashi's raspy tenor. He hadn't meant to memorize it, but the kid talked so much it was hard not to. "Are you still in there Kanda? I saw you go in and Lavi was worried—"

"Che." He breathed out loudly, leaning more heavily on the door. "Be out in minute."

"It's been ten already."

"Thanks for counting. Go. Away."

"Are you…ok?"

"Fine."

"Look, if there's something you need to talk about—"

"I don't fucking need to talk about it! I need to—" The words in his head bled together into a twisted idea where he somehow managed to satisfy the aching muscle in his hand and beat Allen to death at the same time, but that didn't seem to be the response the situation warranted, so he fell silent. What did he need to do in this place to get some kind of relief?

Allen managed to sigh exasperatedly enough for Kanda to actually hear it. "You sound kind of winded though. Are you sure that you're ok?"

No! His mind snapped. I'm not ok! You're fucking me over with your Goddamn unnecessary concern you brainless excuse for an Exorcist! But saying that that, and at the volume with which his mind produced it, was the best idea to be thrown off of the train for being obnoxious and vulgar. He forced himself to breathe, picking a better line of persuasion. "Leave me alone…" That wasn't going to get him much, he knew, so he had to do something kind and uncalled for to convey just how badly he needed solitude. "Please…" He squinted his eyes shut and forced his mouth to move no matter how much he didn't want it to, "Allen."

There was a sort of catch in the air at the boy's name and he knew he had done it. The silver haired teen would just walk away indifferently and he would be left to finish what was left of his task in peaceful silence.

A fist hit the door he was leaning on, hard, and it bounced into the back of his head. "Now I know there's something wrong with you! Look Kanda, I know that stuff happened between you two but I think you're going about this the wrong way." Allen was oozing caring like a badly infected wound oozed pus and Kanda almost retched at it. With the way things were going it would have all been pointless – but that he had shown Lavi what he wanted. He felt fire churning in his gut. "If you really like him that much you should let him touch you back. Give and take. He didn't give me too many details but I don't want you to sit in there alone, feeling bad because he doesn't—" Kanda stopped listening and tucked his now deplorably flaccid self back into his undergarments and hiked up his pants to button them and buckle his belt. He tugged down his jacket, scowled at himself in the mirror, and threw open the door.

"Because that's what friends – and lovers—" Allen stopped the moment Kanda took him by the throat and slammed him into the opposing wall, feet dangling from the height of the samurai's calves. His left hand closed at once on the wrist of the hand that held him, eyes rolling with a kind of panic that only came from knowing that death was a possibility in the near future, and kicked his feet at Kanda. The Japanese man took note of the fact that the boy couldn't breathe and moved his hand a little – just enough allow the passage of air. There was a started gasp of his name that was nearly unrecognizable and he sneered at it.

"Shut up, Moyashi." He growled, and gave a little shake with his arm. Allen was heavier than he looked. "Why couldn't you just leave me alone?" He demanded in a voice not so much a whisper as a restrained hiss of a yell. The British Exorcist bit his lip and pushed his eyebrows together.

"You're hurting me."

Kanda dropped him. He couldn't explain why he did it – he would have snickered at the futile words in the past, but it somehow fit to just let the boy go. He wasn't going to stop blaming him for his idiocy, but he wasn't going to beat him to death either, no matter how much he wanted to. Having been interrupted seemed to take the bite out of his temper somehow; he didn't have the drive to do what he wanted to by means of violence, it took too much effort. "Just… leave me alone when I tell you to." He grumbled, and hit (swatted, slapped, patted in a slightly too violently manner to be friendly) the surface of Allen's heaving back in something of a pseudo-apology. Allen looked up at him with his gasping mouth open and blinked as if he had seen an astoundingly bright light, dazed and in pain and speechless.

"You aren't," He coughed and rubbed his now twice abused throat. "Going to try and off me?"

The samurai let himself smirk. "I wouldn't try. I'd just do it."

Allen managed somehow to look breathless and miffed at the same time.

Kanda didn't so much as wait for Allen to recover as he occupied the same space in the hall as him while he found his breath, a fact that Allen made a mental note of. The Japanese man didn't look at him, just crossed his arms and leaned on the bathroom door with a slightly harder glare than normal, the straight line of his bangs shading his downturned eyes, feet even and balanced so both of his shoulders were flush with the wall. He seemed uncomfortable, standoffish, like the pretty girl at a party who didn't know the steps to the dance and was too ashamed to admit it to anyone who asked her to join them. Allen smiled at the thought a little. Somehow, Kanda being a shy girl was like some bizarre sort of divine revenge in his mind, not to mention laughable considering the state he had left Lavi in.

"Che. Are you going to keep staring at me or go back to the compartment?"

"Do you care what I do?"

Kanda sort of changed the weight on his feet without being obvious about it and kept his eyes averted. "I won't go back there alone." He confessed it as if it was something to be proud of.

"You could… go back in the bathroom if you want…" Allen suggested offhandedly, he didn't expect the look of round-eyed surprise that Kanda gave him anymore than he had expected the man to lift his upper lip in an undignified expression of amusement. Now that Kanda made those face – smiles, he figured – he kind of wished that he wouldn't. He was prettier (and therefore more feminine) with his face in its relaxed state, not smiling or glaring at all. He cleared his throat. "What?"

The older Exorcist shrugged his right shoulder, repressed hilarity still dancing in his eyes. "You killed the mood, Moyashi."

Allen's expression was suddenly very confused. His first erroneous thought was that Kanda had to be in a specific kind of mental state to put down his guard enough to relieve himself in a public restroom, but he dismissed the idea at once. He couldn't imagine for a very, very long moment what there was to do in a bathroom besides what the bathroom had been designed for, and what would require some sort of personal setting or mood lighting in order to work was beyond him. And then it occurred to him – just as the train lurched away from the station – what he could have interrupted.

The blood drained from Allen's face in order to rush back to it all at once.

He felt his heart fall into his stomach and his tongue tried to migrate down his throat, fear and regret twisting through him. "Oh! Kanda! I didn't… mean to… I mean… I didn't even know… and… oh… you really are a guy, aren't you?" He blurted so suddenly he immediately bowed his head in horror, squinting his eyes shut for the blow he knew was going to come any moment. He deserved it this time, so he didn't bother blocking. "I always knew you were but I never imagined that you had human needs because you're so hard – I mean stoic – all the time!" He finished in a rush. He stayed with his head down, eyes shut, and continued to pray to the heavens above that Kanda killed him swiftly.

The samurai was about to do just that when the train's whistle sounded and a howl too loud and too catlike to be anyone but Lavi flooded down the middle of the train. He stopped with his hand raised in a fist and looked down the train car with an angry scowl. On pounding feet that seemed to run despite his desire to do otherwise, he moved away from Allen, who continued to cower for a short moment before he saw Kanda running away in Lavi's direction, hair slipping in its makeshift ponytail as he went. The British boy recalled how helpless the redhead had been the first time the sound had deafened him and suddenly understood Kanda's urgency – or at least half of it – and started down the hall as well, moving at a much more normal speed than his long haired companion.

Kanda threw open the compartment door a little more violently than necessary, taking in the scene all at once. The seat, which would always hold a special place in the hollow left side of his chest, was bare but for the rumpled mess of Lavi's jacket, abandoned in an obvious fit of fear and pain. The redhead himself huddled under the seat, both hands pressed to his ears even as the sound faded, eye screwed shut and teary. Without further thought about the repercussions of being so close so soon, Kanda threw himself onto the wooden floor beside the apprentice Bookman, reaching for him, wanting him safe, wanting him to stop making that horrible expression. Lavi leaned into him without seeming to understanding what or who he was, just glad of something warm to smash his face into.

Lavi smashed the left side of his face on Kanda's chest and hooked an arm around the samurai's waist, drawing him closer. He breathed deeply, but didn't open his eye to the soft touch of hands on the sides of his neck.

"Why do trains have to be so loud?"

"Che. So idiots like you will get out of the way of them."

Allen saw Lavi bury his fingers in the back of Kanda's coat and drag himself between the Japanese man's parted knees, pressing them closer, hiding. Kanda did the one thing that Allen would assume right off he wouldn't – he leaned down closer, forming a sort of protective shell around the redhead with his body. He didn't hear what the dark haired man was saying but he did see Lavi move as if he were laughing, which seemed odd with it being the two of them. He moved forward slowly out of curiosity, trying not to interrupt.

"I told you he was twelve. A normal fifteen year old would have figured out what guys do in the bathroom when they obviously do not need to use the facilities." Lavi said very softly, tangling his fingers in the dangling tips of Kanda's hair.

The samurai might have made a sound of amusement. "Che. It took him nearly ten minutes to even think of it."

"And then what?"

"And then he told me he had thought I was a girl."

Lavi laughed and snorted at once, his hand now moving in a slow, even pattern in Kanda's hair. He pushed himself up but didn't move away from the older Exorcist, he just tilted at a slightly better angle, as if the two of them were cuddling on the floor. "I can testify to how untrue that is if you need me to." He smiled too widely and Kanda hit him roughly on the top of his head with an open fist.

"Shut up and get off of me."

"But it was just getting less awkward!" Lavi's voice was too happy.

"Awkward is being mistaken for a woman six times in two years. We have never been awkward."

"What are we then? Freaky?"

"Che. Gawk."

"I think you mean gauche."

"Hn."

"Which means awkward."

"Would you fucking get off of me?!"

"I'd much rather get you off."

"I told you no."

"Don't be obstinate."

"I said no. You touch me and it becomes harassment."

Lavi rolled his eyes. "You know what I think?"

Kanda continued to glare at the redhead as far as Allen could see, but it was hard to tell with him facing the wrong way. "Che. I don't give a damn what you think."

The redhead flattened his ears and launched himself at the dark haired man, using the hand he already had fisted in the back of Kanda's coat to keep his smaller frame from retreating. Allen watched as the Japanese man's shoulders hit the far seat – his seat – the same as Lavi's mouth hit his lips; hard and bruising. The apprentice Bookman placed his free hand on the back of the samurai's head and buried his fingers to the third knuckle in hair, obviously oblivious to the wide quality to his best friend's eyes as he kissed him. Kanda's gaze, being his face was turned a bit more toward the door now, fell on Allen and grew suddenly terrified.

He opened his mouth as if to gasp and Lavi took it as an invitation, slipping it tongue between his lips gently but hurriedly, everything he thought he felt in the touch. After a short second of continuing to stare at Allen, Kanda let his eyes slowly fall shut and returned the movement of Lavi's mouth against his. His hands wandered one to the side of Lavi's face and the other to his hair, caressing rather than pushing the younger man away. The redhead moaned a little as he pulled away to breathe and bent his head downward, pressing his forehead into the shoulder of Kanda's jacket to avoid doing it again. He heard the ragged quality to his airflow echoed in his best friend's breathing and felt the man thump his head back on the seat with a growl – warring with something internally. Lavi shivered a little, aware that a great deal of him wanted to do the exact same thing again, only naked.

"This is bad Yuu-chan… I just… I know I wanted that but now…" He looked up and found himself focusing on Kanda's chin, being his eyes were so avidly averted as to find something interesting in the roof above them. Lavi made a strange sound halfway between a meow and a groan and pressed his face into the side of the samurai's neck. "Why are you so hot all of a sudden?" Lavi whined loudly. "For a minute you were just Yuu but now that I've kissed you're like… Yuu plus super erotic waves. Yuu 3000. Yuu the indescribable sex god. Yuu the—"

"Get the fuck off of me. Now." Kanda seethed from behind his teeth, eyes squeezed tightly shut.

Lavi flinched at his anger but didn't move away, his ears sagging against his hair as his face fell into a pout. "Why, Yuu-chan? Why can't I just…" Lavi started to lean in enough to press his lips to the side of Kanda's neck and thought better of it; he simply embraced the man instead. Kanda didn't return the gesture. "Fuck… I'm sorry. If you don't push me off right now I'll end up exactly how I was before you decided your hand could go into my pants without burning off." He warned, face turned up enough for him to nibble lightly on Kanda's throat. The samurai made a loud sound of negation and suddenly, faster than Lavi could follow, moved.

The older Exorcist took a firm hold of Lavi's face and turned it toward the compartment door, which Allen was sliding closed even as the redhead's eye found his smile to focus on. Allen mumbled something about feeling woozy and then he was gone, most likely to tear his eyes from his skull in horror. Lavi sighed at it, every muscle in his body seeming to sag with depression at the sight of the boy running from his display of affection.

Unknown to the other two, Allen simply slid the door shut and leaned against it, intending to hear anything that transpired between them. Lenalee had told him not to interfere, but she had not told him not to take note and understand. He wasn't disgusted, but nothing would happen with him occupying their space, so would simply remove himself and let them have at it – and listen, if that wasn't kinky.

Kanda let Lavi gingerly fall against his chest. The redhead didn't try to kiss him anymore, he just sat there, his lower body slightly to this side, the rest pressed flush with Kanda's torso. The samurai could feel how much he wanted to be closer as well as how horrified he was to try, warmth spreading across his chest with every touch of Lavi's shirt against his coat. He wanted so much just to run his hands down the redhead's back, feel his spine, touch the parts of his body that were less intimate but carried the same level of trust as what he had already experienced. It made him nervous and hopeful to think about it. He ran his lower lip between his teeth and sighed quietly, hearing a tiny clicking sound in the back of Lavi's throat.

"Che. What?" He groaned faintly.

"Nothin'." Lavi mumbled into the seat behind him. "'Cept that I told Allen a little about us, so I don't think he's scarred beyond healing. And if you let me stay here I won't rape you, but I might start purring." His warning made Kanda pull his head up and crack his neck loudly, not even a grunt of pain escaping his throat despite the fact that Lavi winced at it. Somehow the Japanese man reminded Lavi of a very old man when he did things like that – an old crotchety man with better ways to spend his time than with cuddling. He knew he was about to be cast into the opposing seat and glared at.

"Get up, if you're going to be this close then be this close in a seat, damn it." Kanda produced the words rather gently despite the fact that he was growling, annoyed, and next to Lavi. When the redhead pulled back with his ears pointed straight up in alarm he pushed him backward at the same time that he lifted himself up enough to slide back on the seat, which left Lavi looking up at the dark haired Exorcist with one round, expectant eye. Kanda cocked an eyebrow at him. "What?" He asked with a tightening of his features.

With a slow, shaky breath Lavi moved up beside him, his back to the window as he slipped himself once again against the samurai's body, his legs curled up beneath him. The apprentice Bookman felt a rush of something under his skin the moment they touched, warm, though not a blush no matter how he felt like it might be. In the back of his throat something moved, a part of him that he hadn't really felt before, and then he did purr, and doing it sent a vibration all the way down into his chest bone and through his ribcage. He felt Kanda stiffen and looked up at him apologetically, not really knowing what he was expected to do besides be there. The sound was relatively quiet, but the older man's expression still spoke volumes of uncertainty.

Kanda nervously lifted a hand to touch the side of Lavi's face, his fingers oddly cold now that he wasn't making Lavi see what he wanted. He cleared his throat at the way the redhead tilted his face into the touch.

"Che. How long until you actually turn into a werecat, Baka Koneko?"

Lavi stopped the sound in his throat and opened his eye, unaware that it had even fallen shut. "I dunno… this is the thirteenth day since I was bitten and that was a full moon so… I guess sixteen days, if it goes by the lunar phases." He settled his head against Kanda's painfully tense shoulder and closed his eye, ignoring a sudden desire to lick the side of the man's face. Just a moment before he would have fallen asleep without a hitch and before that he had wanted nothing more than to divest the samurai for his own pleasure, and now the cycle was continuing, another wave of lust breaking over him. He couldn't help but lean closer. "Why?" His voice was a husky whisper.

The Japanese man shifted and screwed his courage again before he turned to Lavi's throat and whispered to it. "Because I intend to fuck you before that happens incase we can't change you back."

"What?!" Lavi shrieked and threw himself toward the far wall just as the train came to a screaming near-halt on the rails, the sound of his contact with the opposite side of the compartment drowning out Allen's squeak of horror from the other side of the door. He floundered for a moment, struggling to breathe, and looked back at Kanda with his ears pressed back against his head. "You cannot be serious! You kissed me, fondled my junk, and now you're telling me you wanna – wanna – gonna—" He suddenly imagined that very thing and turned a color that was just a shade lighter than his hair. The thought of Yuu naked and himself naked, together, touching, doing what they had before only different, sent a searing bolt of excitement through him that he wanted nothing more than to ignore. He couldn't though, not with Kanda looking at him like serious incarnate.

Lavi could, however, imagine all of Kanda hoisted above him, or pressed below him, sweat slicked and panting, his hands gliding over subtly golden skin.

He cleared his throat. "Yuu-chan… you're not… pullin' my leg, are you?"

"Che. If I was pulling your leg you would feel it."

"No, it's a figure of speech. I meant you're not—"

"I know what it means, idiot. How long do you think I've spoken English for?"

"You mistook gawk for gauche."

"You were laying on me."

"So?"

"So I was distracted."

"But you still just said I would feel it if you were pulling my leg."

"I meant notice, smartass. Figure of speech."

"So you're not kidding?"

"I do not kid."

"Yuu-chan, I'm a little frightened that you might not be kidding."

Kanda looked away from Lavi, choosing instead to look out the window at the town they were stopped in. "Che." He intoned softly, drawing his hand up to run it through his mused bangs, then pull the bracelet from his hair. He slipped it back over his wrist rather than putting his pony back up, not when he knew it would just fall again or Lavi would touch it or someone would tug on it or braid it out of boredom. The band always broke during hard fights anyway, and he didn't want to lose his beads. "What's wrong with honesty?" He whispered at the glass, not really looking through it. He heard Lavi sink down on the opposing seat and blinked his eyes shut. It didn't matter if the sky was turning gray with winter, it only mattered that he didn't look at the redhead's reflection. "Baka Koneko."

Lavi sighed and leaned down on the seat he had landed on, ears sagging. "What does that eve—" The train blared its whistle as if to cut him off and he threw himself at Kanda, changed his mind, pivoted, and buried his face in the seat corner. He watched from the corner of his eye as Kanda watched him cover his ears, a painfully worried expression on his face – a look that was almost as awkward and face splitting as his smile. The samurai didn't move however, and just watched him suffer in teary-eyed silence until the sound stopped. Lavi twitched a little, but still handled the ordeal better than he had before.

He pushed himself away from the seat with shaking arms and sat cross-legged on the seat cushion. "Thanks for comforting me. Totally appreciate it."

"Che. You weren't hissing, no point."

The apprentice Bookman continued to rub at his left ear with his thumb as he looked at his best friend and frowned, eye narrowed into a line of irritation. "Anyway, what does Baka Koneko mean?" He asked finally, pulling his hand down only to lick the back of it, which he pretended he hadn't done by wiping his saliva swiftly away on his pants. He wasn't that catty – he didn't need to wash his ears with his spit.

Kanda sighed and looked back out the window as he unbuckled his sword to give himself something to lean on while he watched the town they had just gotten to be left behind. At this rate they would be there before nightfall – maybe before lunch if it didn't snow – and the thought contented him a bit. The sooner they got there, the sooner they fixed Lavi the sooner he could have him naked and panting and—

"Yuu. Boko Kanego. What's it mean?" Lavi said again, dragging his attention away from what he was doing. "You do not let your mind wander, Yuu-chan… unless you were thinking about—"

The Japanese Exorcist narrowed his eyes with a grunt. "It means stupid kitten."

"Oh." Lavi nodded, letting his hand move back to his ear to scratch at it. "Better than rabbit I guess…" He mumbled as he dropped his hand again and sat on it in an effort to keep from touching his ears again. They felt normal now, like he had gotten used to them, so having the left one itch was the same as having his left eye itch – instinct told him to scratch it whereas the first few days he had only tried for the side of his head. After a moment of stillness in which Kanda just continued to look out the window leaning on Mugen he started at it again. "It's not like… a pet name right? 'Cause I didn't think you ga—"

The look Kanda gave him could have might have molded cheese it was so foul, a sneer with his lips curled back, but there was surprise glimmering in his owlishly wide blue eyes. "Che! I don't give pet names." He barked as menacingly as he could.

On the other side of the door, unheard by the two Exorcists inside, Allen Walker choked on a cackle at the thought of his two homosexual friends calling each other Cupcake and Teddy Bear.

Lavi managed to smile back flirtatiously, doing his one-eyed wink as he spoke. "If it was…I was just gonna tell you that it's adorable, and I don't mind it."

Kanda turned away suddenly, cheeks glowing a frosty sort of rose in the suddenly unbroken sunlight. The blue black sheet of his hair seemed even darker to Lavi with real light on it, and the downward turn of his mouth seemed to be some kind of mystery, parted in an expression of fear despite their lack of trembling. It wasn't lust that moved him slowly across the compartment to touch them either, it was an internal desire to do nothing but appreciate the samurai's unconscious beauty. When his thumb brushed skin and that pair of endlessly deep sapphires turned up at him, no lines of anger around them, only darkened underneath with sleep circles, and fhe found himself speaking illogically, like a Bookman never should.

"Will you say it again, Yuu-chan? Lookin' at me while you do, I mean."

"Lavi…" Kanda's expression was too soft to be real. "Lavi, I…" Need to tell you something, but that means I have to make my fucking mouth form words that it never has before. "Baka Koneko." He whispered instead, and the thumb on his lips swept across them in a swift line, leaving them slightly wider than they had been before its passing. His head tilted back, answering an unspoken cue in the fingers gliding toward the back of his neck. With a clumsiness that sent Mugen spiraling onto the floor, Lavi pressed a knee between his legs then moved to straddle him, curling his right hand against the back of Kanda's neck while his left went sailing down his jacket buttons.

The lust that he had lacked had taken root again.

Kanda let his fingers count the bumps of Lavi's vertebrae and turned his face up to accept the open brush of lips on his own. He trembled slightly, fear and desire running through him at once; he leaned into the seat at a second touch of a mouth, hungrier, less shy, and slipped his hands unthinkingly up the back of Lavi's shirt.

The redhead pushed his jacket over his shoulders.

"Yuu-chan…do you…" The apprentice Bookman rocked forward gently and the Japanese man shook his arms out of his sleeves, only vaguely aware of fingers tugging at his shirt again. He became suddenly thankful he hadn't managed to finish what he started in the bathroom. "Nya, if you keep this up, I won't last sixteen days." Lavi purred softly and pulled the now blushing face beneath him up to lick the turn of its jaw, looking down at it with a sort of feeling that most of him wanted this. Most of him wanted more.

He moved his arms upward and cast his shirt aside, which distracted him from his best friend's face and neck; though only long enough for a mouth to find the surface of his left nipple. He choked out a moan at it, back arching on its own volition even as he pushed at Kanda's garment, wanting skin.

After a long, wet lap at that little russet nub and a nibble on its neighbor, Kanda pulled away to look up at Lavi's face. He wanted this, every part of it, but taking advantage of the redhead wasn't his plan – he didn't want to push things. Seeing the lusty haze in the apprentice Bookman's left eye reassured him a little, though not enough to stop the slight shaking of his fingers as he moved them in slow, curious circles across the younger man's flesh. As much as he wanted it though, there would be no sex today beyond what had already been done – the feelings were too new for both of them for him to be comfortable with no words between them.

Kanda knew that they needed more than anything to talk.

"Fuck, Yuu…"

"Che. Don't call me that."

Lavi rocked his hips forward again and pulled open the front of Kanda's shirt, aware that every time he moved Kanda narrowed his eyes at the friction. "You said you didn't mind…"

"You weren't saying fuck before it then."

The redhead frowned a little, not understanding. "What difference does that make?"

"All the difference in the world, retard. You going to move or should I pin you?"

Lavi stopped, sitting as still as he physically could, one hand on the bandage that swathed Kanda's chest, the other fisted in his hair. He slid forward a bit, until his knees came into contact with the back of the seat, his legs clamped around Kanda hips, the evidence of his desire pressed flush against the older man's arousal. Panting heavily and only vaguely aware of a palm on the curve of his backside, Lavi bent downward, another hand guiding him toward Kanda's expectant mouth, sure and fearless and delicious against his tongue. With his fingers trailing up and down the length of the Japanese man's torso he found a number of things he had never noticed before, like the fact that the fabric wrapping now went all the way up he side of Kanda's left shoulder, which was quite a bit farther than he had any specific memory of it going. Neither did he specifically remember when Kanda's shirt had come off behind him.

"Can I—"

"Nhn." No sooner had Kanda given the muffled affirmative that there were fingers touching parts of him that were touched less than even than his supposedly more intimate places. A shudder ripped from the heels of his boots to the back of his neck and he let out a wantonly obnoxious moan, the sensations clamped his right hand on the far side Lavi's pants and the younger man bucked in answer, filling the room with a sound too much like a gasping plea for more of him.

The redhead knew then that if his instinct had anything to do with this at all, they only served to make him needier than he would have been otherwise. The feelings, the emotions, the slight nervousness he felt when Kanda breathed out his name in a near voiceless whisper, it was all his own. Without the feline desires adding fuel to his fire he would have tried to push away his unfaltering want of Kanda with thoughts of Bookman and not interfering, but he couldn't listen to his own thoughts now. He only had Kanda, only needed Kanda, and feeling his suddenly enflamed desires returned by the touch of a mouth on his chest brought a loud, keening sound of desperation from his lips.

Ok, Yuu-chan. I don't know about fucking, but I'll totally let you lick me whenever the Hell you think it sounds like a good idea.

"Lavi…" Kanda huskily breathed the redhead's name against his first rib on the left side and tried not to groan at the touch of teeth on his right ear. He did groan, trying not to only made it a less clear sound, and his tongue slipped out of his mouth against all too tender flesh; Lavi whimpered at the caress, a tiny rush of blood warming the place Kanda touched. "We can't… do this here…" He managed through a breath that caught in the back of his throat, the redhead had moved on to the sensitive turn of his jaw, sucking and nibbling so he thought he'd be bitten the same as Allen. The apprentice Bookman gently move his hips forward and Kanda found himself all too willing to return the movement. "Damn it, Lavi! We can't—"

"Shit, Yuu-chan… I want you so bad right now…" Lavi grumbled into his neck, fully aware of the goosebumps his heavy breathing incited. "Right now." He repeated. "It's not a cat thing either. I mean… I wouldn't act on wanting you if I didn't have that… rawr thing in the back of my head, but it's still me. But there are moments – like right now – that you're way so freakin' attractive I can't even think about whether or not I'm emotionally in this or if you're a bottom or what the Hell I'm gonna do whe—"

Allen threw open the compartment door with a flourish, his face a perfectly bright expression of understanding and friendship, not a hair out of place. The expression, coupled with the casual way he leaned in the door and gave his jacket a resolute tug, made both of the shirtless Exorcist's he looked on feel perhaps more naked and awkward than they would subjected to only a single silver eye through a crack in the door. He looked at them both in a long sweeping motion, taking it all in at once; a naked back, a bare chest, reddened lips and bruised collar bones, the connection of Kanda's mouth to the flesh of Lavi's right pectoral muscle – it was all absorbed without a pause. With his teeth fully visible and an all too enthusiastic cock of his head, he spoke.

"Ours is the next stop, so you guys might want to start putting your clothes back on."

Lavi had the heart to bat Kanda away from his chest and cover his nipples.

"Uh, er…ah… ugh – ah…."

"I am going to kill—"

"However did our shirts get off, Yuu-chan?!"

With a slow, sad shake of his head, Allen pulled away and closed the door.

--

8D

I love awkwardness.
And readers.
And reviews.
And CHOCOLATE.

Seeya next chapter! :)