What ensued was a night of seemingly endless partying. Allen had followed Lavi to an area of the beach mostly inhabited by spring breakers. College students went on break earlier than the high school kids did and his mind was occupied with all the trouble at his school and having to go to the prison to make amends. In all honesty, he hadn't remembered that people on spring break would be coming around even though it's an important annual thing for the community.
Even though they weren't part of their group, Lavi just walked up and joined them like it was no big deal. Allen looked rather dull in comparison and nervous as hell. Apparently, Lavi saw this and decided to help him loosen up.
"I'll be taking this." Lavi said to one of the more drunk students, taking a bottle of alcohol right from his hand. Lavi quickly made his way back to Allen while the guy he pretty much stole the drink from looked at his hand in shock.
"You can't just take someone else's stuff!" Allen said when Lavi stood next to him. "He's had enough anyway." Lavi stated as though it were obvious.
Then, so as not to give Allen enough time to react or brace himself, Lavi grabbed and tilted his chin up and forced the bottle into his mouth. Lavi tilted the bottle up sharply though not enough to drown the poor boy. At this point, the element of surprise was gone and Allen began to make muffled protests from around the bottle and wave his arms around in a clumsy attempt to free himself from the redheads grip.
After almost the whole bottle had been forced down the whitette's throat, Lavi pulled back and let the boy go. Allen threw his head forward and started coughing into his hand, his body seemingly trying to dispel the threatening substance. Watching his disinterestedly, Lavi quickly drank the last sip of alcohol remaining.
Once Allen was finished, he straightened himself back up and presented Lavi with his best glare. Lavi decided that it was adorable and the alcohol- induced blush steadily rising in Allen's cheeks only made it more so. The night was filled with dancing, partying and more drinking with Lavi never once leaving Allen's side for more ways than one.
At some point late in the night, the boys broke away from the rest and went further up the beach where there were fewer people. They found an area where they were alone, save for one or two people lingering here and there, and climbed up on a tall and stable sand dune parallel to the boardwalk. The boys sat and moved individually until they were comfortable.
They sat quietly for a while, Lavi calming down from his hours of partying and Allen more-or-less sobering up. The silence was awkward, but necessary for them to focus on recuperating from all the alcohol and loud music which they could still hear quietly across the beach. Neither of the boys knew what to say. Finally, Allen unexpectedly broke the silence.
"Your life has been pretty eventful, huh?" The white haired boy muttered almost inaudibly. Still, Lavi heard it.
"What about it?" Lavi inquired, wondering why Allen would be thinking about that and at such a tranquil time.
"I was just thinking bout how you had such a fucked up life." Allen stated nonchalantly, staring off at the sky above the ocean. Lavi sighed lightly, attributing the comments to Allen's less than soberness.
"Did, still do, always will." Lavi said by way of an answer. "Your life must've been all roses, huh?" Allen started at this before sharpening his gaze at the area he was still staring at. "Al?" Lavi asked, unnerved by the reaction and lack of response.
"You think so?" Allen asked, quietly without looking at him.
"...Eh?" Lavi made a sound in question.
"You think my life was easy?" Allen turned to him now, a steely look in his eyes that Lavi had never seen before. He was uneasy with this abnormal behavior from the boy and a little turned on by it (not that he dwelled on that thought for very long).
Lavi didn't answer his question. Even though he could tell the boy was expecting one, he just didn't know what to say anymore.
After some more silence, Allen continued. "Do you know what I've gone through?"
Lavi was silent for a moment before he opened his mouth. "Tell me about it." He didn't know why he said it, but he wanted to know.
"Okay." Allen said hesitantly, sounding so much like a child. "My parents never wanted to be parents. It was unlikely they would have raised me had nothing been wrong. And then with my hair, they were spooked and decided to give me up as soon as they could."
Lavi wasn't sure he wanted to hear this, but he didn't interrupt. He felt like this was too important to do otherwise.
"When they left their house a year after I was born, they were going to take me to the police station and leave me there. But they ran into a man on the way. He said how remarkable my hair was and how special it made me. Taking in his interest, they told him of their predicament and that he could either take me or I'd be abandoned.
His name was Mana and he took me and raised me like a son. He taught me everything he knew. I used to be such a bratty kid and didn't really care about anyone but myself. He changed that. About four years ago, he went on a trip overseas and went missing. It was then taken in by my current caretaker, Cross Marian, if you can call him that.
He basically foists his many debts onto me and otherwise leaves me alone. He only let me into his home because he and Mana were really close friends. He brings women around all the time. He treats them way better than me, too! It's like they're princesses and I'm the whipping boy. I have to clean up after his alcohol binges and do odd jobs and gamble, yes, gamble, to pay off HIS debts.
Whenever he was having sex with a woman or women they brought home, he kicks me out and locks the door for who knows how long. One time, he threw me out for privacy at 10 at night and I had to wander around outside until 5 in the morning before I was let in. It was just after winter and I was freezing, but was there any sympathy? No!"
"Meanwhile, I have to deal with his debt collectors and suck up to the top guys at my school to avoid getting bullied about my height and appearance."
"Appearance?" Lavi's eyes drifted to the boy's scar. He mumbled this to himself, but Allen apparently heard it.
"One of Cross's debt collectors didn't like my attitude so he decided to have one of the other guys hold me down while he forced my arm into boiling water. After he'd held my hand there for several minutes, he released me, leaving me alone and clawing frantically at my hand. The skin was already damage or "fried", as the doctors so bluntly stated."
"By the time I was done, it was scabbed over. I lost all feeling in this hand until one day I was in the kitchen and I fell asleep while cooking. My hand caught fire, but since I couldn't feel it, I didn't know until my entire arm was burned horribly and the flames began to reach my chest and shoulder blade where I still had feeling."
Allen dug his black arm far into the sand as he spoke, but continued like he had no issue with it. "I've got a lot of scars on my body and the one on my eye because of bar fights with Cross. He would piss someone off then run and I'd get caught up in it. I look so strange, I'm an easy target for people to attack, inside and outside of school. But I stay good, I never turn back to who I was before.
I don't want all of Mana's work to be for nothing. He always told me to "keep walking" no matter how bad things got. I always remember that when things get tough and I can't help but smile. In honor of Mana, I'll keep walking until the end."
"I could fight them off, but it would be an endless cycle and I doubt I'd get out of it unscathed so I turned to brown nosing to avoid confrontation. Doing whatever the tough guys at school wanted me to in order to keep the peace. That's actually how I ended up in the prison on that damnable tour.
One of the guys got me to pick the lock on the janitor's closet in the school. He insisted that the janitor took his backpack when he left it in a classroom after school and he just wanted to retrieve it. Instead, he wanted access to the chemical cleaners in the closet so he could make a sort of chemical bomb out of it."
"It was really bad, Lavi." Allen said, his voice having a slight whining undertone. He planted his face in his open palms and began vigorously wiping his face with them as if he were washing his face with a towel.
Lavi could feel the stress emanating from the poor boy. He was still silent, both out of shock as well as interest. It looked like he and Allen both had horrible guardians.
"It's alright, Al." Lavi put his hand on Allen's shoulder in a comforting gesture. Allen breathed in calmly and drew the strength from Lavi that he needed to continue.
"He put one in his math class so the exam in that period would be cancelled and one in the teachers lounge. The one in the math class went off ten minutes after the start. He was late so he'd be sure to miss the explosion. The students closest to it passed out and many got sick and even puked. The chemicals used weren't deadly, but they could definitely cause damage when too much was inhaled. A few hours later, he set the next one in the teachers lounge during lunch with a similar outcome."
Allen got real quiet just then. "Quite a few people went to the hospital because they inhaled noxious fumes; teachers and students. Compared to the guy that made the bombs, I got off easy. I had to take part in that program while he went to juvy.
I'm sure when...if I go back to school," Allen corrected, sneaking a glance at Lavi. "everybody will look at me like I'm a criminal and I'll be even more unpopular than before." Allen heaved a weary sigh and slumped his shoulders in defeat.
Why do I even try? That thought was written all over the albino boy's face and Lavi felt his heart clench.
"You're tough, so you'll be alright." Lavi declared, laying his hand on Allen's back to comfort. Lavi wasn't really used to that sort of thing and could actually be quite sadistic so he wasn't sure if he was doing it right. All he knew was that he loved the feeling he got when he was touching Allen and he didn't want it to go away.
Meanwhile, Allen wasn't drawing away from his touch. Lavi didn't know, but the hand that lay on the younger boy's back was producing a comfortable heat that was slowly spreading throughout his body. It took everything in the small boy not to lean into his touch.
"It's time to go to sleep." Lavi stated, leaving no room for argument, not that Allen was going to give one.
Lavi took Allen's arms and pulled him to his feet. Allen, still being quite drunk and unused to being so, leaned against him for support. Lavi didn't understand why he liked Allen needing him, but...he was beginning to. He shepherded the boy back to their cabin and into the bedroom.
By this point, Allen was dazed and tired to the point where he could barely stand on his own anymore. Lavi sat on the edge of the bed and began to pull his shoes off while Allen just flopped face first into the sheets. Lavi soon followed his example by laying back and curling up under the blankets. The bed from that morning seemed so long ago; so foreign.
As the two boys huddled up under the sheets, neither could keep their eyes open for very long. Neither noticed when they came together underneath the blankets. Lavi was only aware of a warm being pressing against him, assisting in sleeps taking of him. Allen followed suit, relaxing into sleep as a pair of arms tightened around him.