Chapter 10! I'm 1/5 of the way there!

… Now I'm depressed. This is going to take for ever! Why on earth did I have to choose to do 50 of these things?! This is ridiculous.

Whatever. I hope you all won't get tired of me ('cause I am).

As I said, here's chapter 10 of the terribly titled LaviKan series. Have fun.

Disclaimer: I do not own D. Gray-Man

Rise

"Yuu?"

"Hn."

"I'm cold."

The samurai sighed and sat up to take off his jacket, but the redhead beside him made an irritated noise of protest and yanked him back down. "I don't want your jacket, dummy. I want to cuddle."

Kanda snorted. Baka. Lavi liked to use words like cuddle, mostly because they made Kanda feel a little bit awkward. Kanda Yuu did not cuddle. He was a heartless swordfighter and did not do things like snuggle or cuddle. Unfortunately, Lavi was not Kanda, and therefore did do things like snuggle and cuddle. And because he was Lavi, he was able to get Kanda to do it too. He sighed and leaned back down beside the Bookman, who promptly tried to burrow his way through Kanda's shoulder.

They were pretending. Lavi and Kanda both were pretending that there was nothing wrong, nothing different about today. This wasn't terribly unusual, their going up onto the roof of the Black Order's Europe Branch to watch the sun rise. They were both pretending that this was a dawn of a normal day.

But it wasn't. Today was different. Today was the official beginning of the war against the Earl. The Order was going to war.

Now, though, it was just barely dawn, and no one was up yet. Everyone was trying to savor the last few moments of what couldn't really be called peace but that they all pretended was.

And Lavi and Kanda were on the roof. They'd spent the night there, at Lavi's insistence. They looked at the stars and each other, and talked about everything and nothing. They, too, were trying to pretend that it would all be okay. They were both strong and smart and experienced, and there was no reason to think that they might die in the coming war. But there was also no reason to think that they might survive. There were thousands of akuma, and many level threes and fours. There had always been a chance that they might miss, or not see an attack from behind. There had always been the possibility of death; the Order had been fighting a war against the Earl for centuries. But now it was official. It was War.

It's not war yet, Lavi thought firmly, inhaling Kanda's comforting scent. For now, it's just me and Yuu, and nothing else. We're just two people watching the sun rise on the rooftop.

It's not war yet, Kanda thought, turning away from the beautiful sunrise to look at the boy beside him. For just a little while longer, let us stay like this. We don't need anything else.

And then there was the thought of dying. Of the other dying. If one died, would the other survive, regardless of their physical state of health?

Lavi tried to forget these thoughts. He could hear Kanda's heart beating against his ear, strong and steady. A heartbeat that powerful couldn't be stopped so suddenly, right?

Kanda tried to forget these thoughts. He could feel Lavi's weight leaning against him, feel his chest expand and contract with each breath. Lavi wasn't weak. Lavi would be fine, right?

We will survive. We always have, and there's no reason to think that we won't this time around. We have each other, and that's enough.

.

"Yuu?"

"Hn."

"I'm cold."

Kanda sighed, his breath a white cloud in the air. "No duh, baka. It's the middle of winter."

Lavi laughed, then winced. His hand went to his side, moving carefully over the bandages that hid under his shirt. "I know. But I needed this." Looking at Kanda, he added, "We both needed this."

It was dark, dark enough that Kanda had to move carefully to make sure he didn't slip and break his neck. Likely, he wouldn't heal from that.

The samurai's mouth quirked up just a little. The war had taken many things from the Order. One of those was yet more of his ever-dwindling life force.

The war was over. It was still hard for Kanda to understand what those words meant. It was done. Finished. The end.

Except it wasn't. Officially, the Black Order had won. But that was a lot easier to believe on paper. As Lavi said, no one really wins a war. Too many had died for Kanda to feel like it had really been a victory. He had always acted like he hated everyone, but now that they were dead, there were some that he realized he didn't really hate so much. It was hard to say, but he missed them. None of them had deserved to die.

But still. The Order had won. The war was over, and the Earl was defeated.

And Lavi was still alive. Kanda knew that if the Bookman had been killed, he would have had no wish to live. But both had survived, and now they were back in the same place they had been at the start of the war, both still mostly intact, to watch the sun rise on the first day of peace.

They sat down after brushing the snow away from the space. It was the same spot that they had sat in the last time. So much had changed since then, it was hard to comprehend. Small things, big things. Kanda had to sit carefully, trying not to jar his leg, which was stubbornly healing slowly, rather than at the rate Kanda was used to. Lavi sat beside him and cuddled against him. Both were careful of his side, which was healing at the normal speed (which was ridiculously slow, in Kanda's eyes), but was still not completely healed. Kanda accepted the cuddle, and maybe even cuddled back. Just a little. He had learned to value Lavi, far more than before, because he had survived, when he could have just as easily died. Like so many had. Mortality had always been a weird thing to Kanda, being practically immortal, though just for a limited period of time. He had always kept a distance from people, but in the few years before the war, he had started to make friends and care about people, although he didn't show it the way Lavi and Lenalee and Allen did. And then the war started, and so many people died, human and exorcist and akuma.

But Kanda had survived, and so had Lavi. They were both alive and mostly well, and that was all that Kanda really cared about.

Who was it that said, "From the instant they enter a war, both sides are evil."? Maybe they're right. Maybe we are all monsters. I know I'm one. But when I'm with him, it doesn't really seem to matter. I have him, and that's all that matters.

Two figures sit on a rooftop. They are surrounded by snow, but they are curled against each other and don't feel the cold. One has long, dark hair, let down and loose, making a veil over his and the other's faces. The other's mess of red hair stands out against the stone and snow, a small fire restrained by a green scale-patterned headband. The right eye, covered by an eye patch, is not visible. That side of his face is pressed against the blue-hair's chest, listening to his heartbeat, just as strong as all those days and nights ago, before the war that took so many lives, but brought the peace they had been fighting for all along. Two blue eyes and one green eye are closed, and both are sleeping peacefully for the first time in many nights as the sun rises, casting a soft golden light over them.

They are alive, peace has come, and the sun has risen. All is well.

Toldja it would be long.

I like this one a bit more than the last two or so. I guess that's a good thing.

I really didn't want to try to predict anything about the end of the war, because I would probably get it wrong and then feel like a fool. I really hope that Lavi and Kanda don't die, though.

And now, with this week's chapter done, I'm off to see the Hunger Games! See y'all next week! Love you all!

- Ruyax