Ohmygod. I know, I know. It's Thursday, and there was no update last weekend. My excuse is that I went to Beaufort (wild horses and dolphins and sand dollars oh my!), but I know that you don't care. It's frickin' spring break, and I can't even get one chapter done, much less the two or three I was hoping for. And tomorrow I'm going to Triad Anime Con, so I won't be able to write then, either. Bad, bad me.

Disclaimer: I do not own D. Gray-Man

Linger

Lavi yawned. He was trying to stay awake, but he was so comfortable…

He glanced down and smiled. Kanda was asleep on his lap, his hair unbound, his lips slightly parted. He'd been like that for nearly half an hour, and Lavi was certainly not going to move him.

Kanda had just gotten back from a mission, which had very nearly failed. The finder and the other exorcist on the team had both been killed, and Kanda had just barely made it out alive and with the Innocence, even with his Second Exorcist abilities.

Knowing how much Kanda hated hospitals and attention and people in general, Lavi had stolen him from the infirmary as soon as he could and snuck him out. They managed to get out to the gardens without being found, and that was where they had been for the past while.

At first they had just sat, neither one talking, Lavi gently combing Kanda's long, silky blue hair. And then Kanda had fallen asleep, and Lavi wouldn't have woken him up for a thousand dollars. This was a side of Kanda that no one else got to see, the soft, gentle, even – dare he say it – vulnerable side. He smiled, knowing that Kanda would kill him if he knew what Lavi was thinking. But he didn't, and Lavi could think what he wanted. And he thought that he would like to stay there for a while. Just him and Yuu, sitting in the shade beneath an ancient oak tree, neither one speaking, no sound except for the wind in the grass and the birds in the trees.

Let the rest of the world move on, rushing and running, shouting and crying, bleeding and dying. Time could stop here, freeze them in this moment. Lavi had no wish to go back to the world. For now, he wanted to stay.

I just want to linger a little bit longer here with you.

Short, I know. This one was harder to write than I thought it would be.

If you're still reading all these, then I love you. I feel like they're not as good as the first couple. Maybe they'll get better…

Review, if it was worth it.

And now I'm off to the con. Yay anime!

- Ruyax