There shall be an epilogue. I couldn't fit the end in here AND tie together all of the knots, so you get sweet-touching stuff and a sort of… epilogue/cover chapter to take the question out of everything that remains. Sorry this took so long, I had a hell of a time trying to make it ONE chapter with everything until I gave up. Oh well. One more to go!
SORRY IT TOOK SO LONG! I hope the wait was worth it!
Disclaimer: I do not own D. Gray-man. If I did… the Kanda-half-akuma thing would NOT have been left as a cliffhanger! D8
Warnings: SMEX. Yaoi. Lavi being VERY thoughtful. Conjecture on his right eye.
-- -- --
Twenty-Five: Veracity and Fairness
The walk from his room to Yuu's had never been so long. The hallways, cluttered with people looking at him and murmuring, had never seemed quite as dark or cold. The stone of the floor was polished to a lacquered shine, but the rafters above were coated in a layer of dust so thick the redhead had to wonder if they had ever been touched with a rag, or if the Order just let them be, perhaps uncaring for the spiders that inhabited them in their undisturbed state. The walls were much the same as the floor up to a height, where the smoke of old gaslights had streaked them with near permanent black stains. The electric lights that now served as sconces left no such marks, but highlighted the ones left previously all the same.
The disk of the moon, waning through the Gothic arched windows, made him smile. It was quite large, the face on it perfectly distinguishable, and yet, it set everything into prospective for him. It had been more than a month since their first mission to Ursa's town, and so much had changed since then. He sighed and closed his right eye as he turned away from the window and down another dark hall, worried that he might see something unintentionally. It was difficult to tell when a person would be around the corner, and the last thing he wanted was to see the faults of a Finder's personality just by looking at him, not when it would already be shock enough for everyone to realize how much he had changed in the last twenty-some days of his life.
The redhead smiled. His life, though very different than he had expected it to be, was truly his now. He was an Exorcist with a large interest in history – he had to wonder if Bookman would still let him see things, things that no one else got to see, or if the old man would tell Komui right off that Lavi wasn't to be involved in any other secrets of the Order. He disliked the thought. What he could do with that sort of information he didn't know, but not knowing was somehow worse than the alternative.
His thoughts changed the moment Yuu's door came into sight, just as normal as the rest around it, marked with nothing but a number plate to the left of the wood and a quarter inch of light seeping from beneath the bottom. Moonlight, mostly, and maybe a lamp. Mood lighting – he almost chuckled.
It occurred to him as he raised his fist to knock that this was very different than before, but different in a good way. Not only was it him, it was also their reasons. He didn't want Yuu, he needed Yuu, and he had the strangest feeling that the swordsman felt exactly the same, though he went about expressing it differently. The more Lavi thought about it, the more he wondered what he would say. It took him only a short moment to decide that it didn't matter, words weren't important at this point anyway. He was perfectly fine with the thought of not being able to explain it, not being able to show what exactly it was that willed him to want the other boy so close he might forget where his own body started, so he knocked three times with that thought. Yuu would understand what he meant, would understand that it wasn't just sex and cursing and teasing – it was something that had shattered his mind only to let him rebuild it again, better than it had been before.
A groan cued him to open the door and peek his head inside, fiery eyebrows pushed together over his mismatched eyes, both squished to the point of closing with his grin. "Sorry I'm late, I had to—"
"Where the fuck is your eye patch?" The question, most likely quite a bit angrier than intended, made him bring his left eye open to look at the man who had barked it. Kanda sat with his sword over his knees on the edge of his bed, the folds of his soft blue yukata falling around his ankles and pooling a bit around his waist, as if he had shifted and retied it to make it more comfortable. Lavi watched the scene take on more color, more light, as his right eye opened a moment later, drinking in every detail down to the weave of the fabric his lover wore. He could see the worry behind Yuu's annoyance, the love behind his anger, the fear that showed in the harsh angles of his eyebrows – the redhead could see it all without thought or further examination, down to the slight, inviting tilt to Kanda's head. For a moment Lavi was lost in his lover's face and body language, taken aback by how much there was to see, to know just by looking. He could have said a thousand things about the man in front of him that he had never known, and understood less than half of them.
He forced himself to stop before he saw something, some fatal flaw, that would let him understand things he shouldn't, squeezing his eyes shut. It was one thing to spot the telltale signs of a lie; it was another to find the truth behind a candid expression – almost making the mistake made him tremble.
The hand that took him by the fabric of his shirt and pulled him inside brought his eyes open again, and this time he did not search for the underlying cause of his lover's distress. Instead, he allowed himself to be guided forward, instinctually reaching out to take the smaller man by the shoulders.
"Where's your eye patch?" The repeated inquiry was quieter, coupled with the shifting of his lover's eyes from one side to the other, studying his gaze. Yuu's eyes really were deep blue gray, like charcoal dusted sapphire. "Lavi?"
"I gave it back." Lavi blinked a little, focusing his gaze on his lover's lips as he leaned to shut the door and fumbled for the lock. He did not speak until his fingers caught it. "I told Bookman that I quit and I gave it back," he reached out to run his fingers across the material of his lover's clothes. He frowned. Lavi had only seen Kanda in traditional clothes on occasion, and seeing them now brought strange ideas to mind. "You look nice." The words were little more than a whisper.
Kanda seemed momentarily relieved before his face hardened in an expression of slight confusion. "Quit? Quit what?"
The redhead felt himself smile. "Being a Bookman." He rocked forward on his feet, bringing his left hand up beside his right and dragged both down the V-shaped line of his lover's garment. Saying it now made it hurt less, because he had the man he wanted directly in front of him. "I said that I can't do both – I can't be with you and be a Bookman, so I quit."
"You just…"
He couldn't help but laugh at the disbelief in his lover's expression. "I don't want to talk about it. Not right now. Right now…" Lavi lifted his hands to the sides of Kanda's face and pulled it gently upward, aware of the fingers that danced against his cheeks with timid gentleness. The Japanese man was studying his features anew, he realized, submitting to memory the lines of his eyes and face. Lavi ignored that fact just long enough to go on. "Right now I want you like before, only I want you to lean down enough for me to tell you how much I love you the whole time you're inside of me, Yuu. Because it's really, really important that I tell you that." He whispered, and leaned forward at once, bringing their foreheads together in a half embrace.
"But you quit—"
"Please not right now. We can talk about that when we talk about why you hit Komui."
The long haired man's eyes dropped to the redhead's lips, and his voice cracked oddly when he spoke, hardly even managing to stir the air with his words. "Fine. But I want to… I want to give you something." The way he paused was a hint that Lavi didn't understand, a release of something that he couldn't name. Yuu's hands felt cold to Lavi's skin.
"Yuu-chan got me something? Hell must be cold tonight."
"Che. Shut up."
"You wanna save it for afterward? I don't mean to rush, but I'll be thinking up sweet nothings to whisper the entire time I'm not doing it."
Kanda shook his head a little, which only succeeded in rocking their skulls together with the motion. His braid bounced. "I want you to…" He wet his lip and his eyes fell shut, his head tilted back enough for Lavi to see determination written across his beautiful features so surely the redhead doubted the expression would ever leave. "Have… I want you to have…" Kanda's eyes, filled with inward pointed anger, opened in a rush, deceptively-long eyelashes fluttering against his upper lids. What he wanted was in every shadow and line of his face, and yet, when Kanda's mouth opened, no words came. He simply floundered, unable to make even the simplest of noises to convey his thoughts.
"It's ok," Lavi whispered, and tried to pull the Japanese man close again. "You don't have to give me anything you don't want to, or anything you're unsure of. We've got… vacation time, and then some more after the next mission if you want to wait—"
The swordsman's fingers fell to Lavi's shoulders and fisted in his shirt. "It's not fair to leave things like this."
"That's an odd thing coming for you, Yuu."
Kanda shook his head so the cord of his hair nearly slapped him in the face. "No, I mean…" His eyebrows furrowed a little and his fingers tightened, drawing the redhead into him. He seemed so very unsure of himself, so very weak and shy, that Lavi nearly stopped him from going on. But the once apprentice Bookman couldn't stop him yet. "If you will have… if you want… you can have…" He resolved himself with a harsh swallow, building up courage that cued Lavi to wait – he would be patient being he wasn't much good at saying what he felt most of the time either – while Yuu met his eyes determinedly. "Me." Yuu finished at last, eyes turned away from Lavi's almost at once. Once the word was out it unleashed a flood of others, toppling over each other in a nearly indiscernible torrent. "Just one time. Maybe. I'm fucking annoyed that you lied about your eye so much, and I want to talk to you about all sorts of things, like our mission, my life, how much I love you, but I honestly can't do that. When I close my eyes and think of it, think about what you gave to me and the things I said…"
Lavi tugged him a bit toward the mattress, which in turn let their hands slip down to touch waists and chests, rather than clinging to shoulders. The redhead sank down onto the bed and his lover did the same beside him, only inches apart.
He wasn't sure what to think, but he was sure he was blushing.
"Yuu," he started in a whisper, feeling more than a little awkward. "Are you saying that… you want me to…" He wanted to mime, but that would mean letting go of Yuu, so Lavi shifted his left eyebrow toward his right in a suggestive expression. "Do what you did last time?" He finally managed, suddenly understanding why his lover would have such trouble conveying his thoughts. Instead of waiting for the slow, shaky affirmative he knew he would get, Lavi leaned forward and bought his lips to the dark haired man's, kissing him with such passion he doubted the message would be lost on the swordsman no matter what he was thinking. Lavi pressed against his lover so that the force between them matched perfectly, fingertips roaming into the base of Kanda's braid while a palm smoothed the skin of his stomach, pilfering a touch while he was too occupied to protest.
When Kanda broke the kiss they were both flushed, but he seemed better off for it, courage evident in his features. "I know what I said, and I know that you're fine with not… pushing me, but…" He blushed more deeply than Lavi had ever seen, mouth a flat line of concentration. The Japanese man was sure of himself; it was just getting the words out of his mouth that seemed to be the impossible issue. "Will you take… this? If you don't, I won't be angry. Not any more than normal. If you want me in—"
"Yuu-chan," Lavi broke in softly. He ran his hands down Kanda's chest to the line of his obi and then back up again, only to pause over his lover's heart. "You did this for me, didn't you? Wore something traditional and made your hair look nicer than normal… it's still wet, isn't it?" He let a soft smile take his lips and slid forward until his knees touched Kanda, which evoked a strange sort of shudder from both of them.
Yuu didn't respond verbally, but his expression marked the words as true.
Lavi reached out and cupped the side of his lover's face with his right hand. "What reason would I have to say no?"
"Che." It was out of the long-haired boy's mouth like a curse. He did not, however, pull away. Instead, he tilted his face into the hand on his cheek and smirked mirthlessly, fear dancing behind his half-hooded eyes. He lips parted, but it was a long quiet moment before he spoke. "I don't know, but you seemed pretty set in what you wanted in the hall. It's not fair though, or even, or… I don't know the word for it, but the point is that, even if it's just once… I want you to…"
Lavi knew that was wrong. There was no fairness in love, because then it wouldn't hurt so much. The more he thought about it though, the more he mulled that thought over, the less he thought he was right, but now was not the time to philosophically examine his feelings. He was too new to love to say that he knew anymore than Yuu did.
The redhead silenced Yuu with a kiss, running his thumb over the flushed flesh of his lover's cheek. Without a word Lavi slipped an arm around the samurai and moved himself forward until his knees parted, allowing him to perch on the dark haired man's lap a little awkwardly. From there he could look down at Kanda's expectant eyes and kiss him again, more deeply, painting lines of contact down his lover's neck and chest with his fingers. To his surprise there were hands on his lower back and then their bodies were leaning, his weight pushing the smaller man down against the covers. Almost at once he shifted back a bit, which broke the kiss and left Kanda under him, looking up with sultry dark eyes, leaning on his elbows.
Lavi swallowed thickly and paused, watching his lover's face for a moment. He watched the fear and the expectancy, the love and the comfort, the uncertainty and determination. For a brief moment he saw every vulnerable thing about Yuu, and every thing he could say to make him break like a glass in his hands.
It wasn't a talent, though Bookman had thought it might be one. It was more terrifying than anything he had every known.
"Hey, Yuu-chan," Lavi whispered, and let himself ease against the samurai's chest until he was laying rather lopsidedly across him, painfully aware of just how close he was to touching skin. Fingers trailed up his back but he ignored them, shivering. "I love you. Lots. I love you." He felt a goofy smile spread across his face and tilted his head to the side in something of a mock shrug. "I loooove Yuu." He chimed with a childish giggle.
They were safe words, words that would bring Yuu back to what they were and not whatever he was worried they might be.
Kanda's palm connected to his forehead in a silent slap of irritation. "Moron."
"Yours. All yours."
"Fucking shut up and kiss me."
That was what Lavi wanted. Not a weak, breakable Yuu, but a fierce, angry, loving Yuu. They were the same person, the same thing, but he did not want to make this any more emotional than it already was. He kissed Kanda again and again, harder and more desperately until his left hand hooked in the Japanese man's braid and fingers slipped up his shirt, nails catching his stomach. Even if he wanted it to be romantic, he realized a bit too late, there were physical things that threatened make him forget the feeling behind his actions. There was so much want – so much need – that the source of the fuel was forgotten in the heat of the flame between them.
And then Kanda said it, in a whisper against the side of his neck, between love bites. "I love you too, Moron."
Lavi stopped worrying.
He slipped his hand across Kanda's stomach, loosening the fabric around the Japanese man's chest. The yukata didn't come off, or open completely, but the soft fabric moved with his fingers until it exposed a goodly portion of Kanda's chest. Lavi hunched down to it, kissing the smaller man's collar bones, moving on in a steady downward line.
Kanda growled softly at him, encouragingly, and pulled him up again for what he thought was a kiss. Instead the samurai bit into the soft flush on the underside of Lavi's throat. It wasn't too harsh, but the contrast of pain and pleasure made everything more sensitive from the bottoms of his bare feet to the top of his head. Kanda took advantage of his stopped breath to speak against his right earlobe, husky already.
"Let's aim to go twice," he whispered, fingers on Lavi's back dragging his shirt toward the redhead's shoulders. "Because I fucking want you and I don't think sweet and slow is going to do it for me." His right hand fisted in the redhead's hair, driving Lavi's head back a bit before he yanked it down, hard, the better to suck at the bruise he had left with his teeth.
Lavi would have nodded, but the soothing tongue on his skin dictated otherwise. Instead he spread his palms against Kanda's flesh to give himself leverage, and rocked his hips forward. The bump beneath his lover's yukata pressed hard and sure against the one at the crotch of his pants and he moaned softly at it before he reached down to stroke any skin he could find. In the process he met Kanda's narrowed eyes and shivered, a tiny trace of fear running up the back of his spine.
Kanda's face – the line of his mouth, the furrowed eyebrows, the anger in his gaze – the Japanese man wanted him, loved him, didn't like being on his back, hated the thought of being nervous, felt sick with himself over his thoughts, wanted to push that away, wanted to be naked, and didn't like the way Lavi was looking at him.
The redhead shut his eyes and fought to keep his hands steady, breathing with a force of will. He didn't want to know what Kanda was feeling, what he was thinking. He didn't want to know what he could say to shatter that hard external shell. It wasn't his place. It was anything but his place to bend the person he loved like a tool, to open him up with his own internal mechanisms. Deak would have done it without a blink of an eye, but that didn't mean Lavi would.
"Lavi?" His name was soft on the older boy's lips.
He cracked his eyes and immediately regretted it. The signs of concern, worry, feigned anger – he felt sick. "Sorry, Yuu. I'm not… I'm not used to having two eyes yet."
"Motion sickness?"
"No." Lavi shook his head and screwed his eyes shut. "I can see… Bookman wanted me to join him because of the things I can see with my right eye – you know, stuff people shouldn't… see. You…" His eyes shocked open, Kanda's left knee pushed up into his crotch, and he dragged them shut again with a groan. "Please don't make me look."
"What the fuck is there to see, baka? Nothing. There's me."
Lavi shook his head again, emphatically. "There's you and everything you think and feel and how I can…" He really felt sick, so sick, even knowing what he could do. The eye patch had been much more use than he had known. "When I look, I can see that you're nervous, that you love me, that you don't like being on your back, that it reminds you of something, that your mind is contradicting itself and it's driving you a little bonkers, but you're still ok." He looked, very timidly at Kanda then, gauging his reaction. "A long time ago…" Lavi whispered without meaning to. The frown of Kanda's lips told him the story. "Someone did something to you in order to let you live. And it's worrying you. You think… you're thinking that even though you've got me, you might die before I know that this means more than sex and words. That's why… that's why…"
Kanda shoved him just hard enough to change their positions. His hands, suddenly cold, fisted in Lavi's shirt and he growled, low and guttural. "Shut up," his fingernails were biting skin but he didn't seem to notice. The strands of hair that had escaped his braid dangled around both of their faces, heavy with the lingering scent of soap, soft where they brushed skin. "Shut up. I'm doing this because I love you. Don't fucking pretend you understand me." He hissed with uncharacteristic venom.
"You asked me what I saw," Lavi closed his eyes again as he reached out for the man above him. He was unsurprised when Kanda allowed the embrace, but was slightly stunned by how tightly it was returned. "That's why Bookman wanted me as his apprentice, because I see what people hide. Just… I can't control it. I didn't think it would be a big deal so I—"
"Use your hands." Kanda growled from his throat, nipping at the skin at the redhead's right collar bone.
Lavi stiffened. "Huh?"
"Che." Kanda's hips rolled in a reminder of what the night was supposed to contain. "You know what I look like. You know how to do it. So keep your fucking eyes closed and stop complaining." As if to prove his point, the samurai moved his hips again with an ill suppressed groan. "I want to do this. Now."
There was something about the force of the last word that made Lavi's hands cup the sides of Kanda's face and draw him down again for one more romantic brush of lips. When it was finished, after his tongue had explored the smooth surface of Kanda's and his mind was satisfied with the flavor of his lover's skin, he fought with his lover's clothing. It was difficult to follow the silk obi around his lover's back, harder still to undo it, but he managed. All the while he moved his hips in a slowly building rhythm and ignored the press of the Japanese man's nails to the back of his neck and base of his spine until they tore his shirt off. After that, the touches became harder to ignore.
Kanda's fingers worked at the fasteners of Lavi's pants until his erection bobbed free, which tempted the younger man to open his eyes. He didn't. He reached out and found Kanda's hand so he could bring it to his length and guide it in the first, amazing stroke, fire dancing down his spine with it. He moaned softly while his left hand fumbled for Kanda's hips and down, down into the folds of his yukata.
"Rabi…" It was a desperate sound, like a final plea. But what Kanda wanted Lavi could only guess.
Beneath yukata and boxers, his fingers found his lover's arousal and he knew what they both wanted at once. To make love. With that thought in his mind and his hand moving in a gradual rhythm against Kanda's heated skin, Lavi opened his eyes a little, both at once. He saw it, under everything else, the strange, confused, gentle creature that his lover really was, and the love behind his extensive front. The want of the samurai – his desires – were as obvious to Lavi as they would have been if they had been his own. The redhead made it his goal to give Kanda everything he wanted.
With nervous hands he pushed the Japanese man away and shucked off his pants, casting them aside without a mind to where they landed. It didn't matter at the moment if he'd ever find them again. What mattered was Kanda's bound hair against his lips and the catch in the other man's throat, the mysterious, confused expression on his lover's face when he took all of Yuu's weight on his hips, leaning on the pillows. His shaking fingers moved to push down the Japanese man's underwear and expose the parts of him that his rumpled yukata no longer covered. The lines of Kanda's hips shivered under Lavi's fingertips and the length of him twitched against Lavi's palm.
"Yuu…" He squeezed softly and turned his face enough to kiss the smooth skin of Kanda's right cheek. "Please…"
The swordsman shook his head and jerked his chin to the side. "Che. Do it. Under the bed."
"Do it under the bed? That's kinky…"
Kanda would have rolled his eyes and glared at the same time, but that it didn't seem to be physically possible. "The oil, retard."
Lavi shook his head, a lewd little twitch crossing his lips. "Twice, remember?" He shifted until he was flush with Yuu, groins aligned, and opened his hand a bit in order to cue Kanda to do the same. Shivering, Lavi wound his fingers around both of them, flesh to flesh in a way that was new to both of them. It was a bit awkward, with Yuu more or less sitting on his lap facing him, but the position would work for what he wanted. "You don't wanna be limpin' right?" Lavi cocked his head to the side and shot an all too casual and disarming smile, one that would undoubtedly make Kanda hit him.
"Che. Whatever." One hand joined Lavi's while the other twined in the redhead's mussed and tangled locks. "Oi, Usagi."
"You can go back to koneko if you like, I felt cuter."
The Japanese man's eyes narrowed. "Fuck you."
"Technically I think you mean 'fuck me,' Yuu-chan." Lavi smirked and emphasized with an extra bit of pressure from his fingers, to prove his point.
"I love you, too. And care. And fuck you."
Lavi grinned at him. "Aw, you're only like, seven times behind me now, or something."
"Che." Kanda moved his hand and his hips at once, which in turn cued Lavi to return the motion. It wasn't bad like that, both of their hands and all of that sensitive flesh in a single area, and it was enough to make the Japanese man pause before he went on. "Whatever. I've got—" He had to stop to gasp. "A good month on your ass. Doesn't matter how often I say it." His palm and his thrusting had established a rhythm that he began to breathe to, which made verbal conversation difficult. Instead, he leaned up enough to catch Lavi's mouth in a kiss, which said enough for both of them.
Lavi found that closing his eyes to it blocked out many things that he wanted to see, but he did it anyway. He was too tempted to read the fingerprints of Kanda's soul. Instead he lost himself in their motions, in their rhythm, and fought to match Kanda stroke for stroke, thrust for thrust, kissing and moaning between harsh, panting breaths. It was not until the samurai arched from the mattress and bit him that he realized how long it had gone on, how fast and hard they were moving. With a low cry he changed angle, ignoring the little protest that got him, as well as the growing tightness in his loins.
Kanda's left hand squeezed at his shoulder in warning and the pressure, the heat, built too much for Lavi. His hand clamped a bit more tightly and his hips rolled furiously. A word bubbled up out of his mouth as he came, wetting both of their hands before Kanda, with little more than a low grunt of completion, joined him.
Opening his eyes, Lavi beheld this lover's teary-eyed face and tried to look reassuring. He kissed both of the Japanese boy's eyes before he leaned back enough to grab the oil, smearing their mixed seed on the bottle and the sheets. Maybe that was disrespectful to sword oil, but Lavi couldn't say he cared at the moment.
"Hey, Yuu," Lavi mumbled, paying attention to his fingers on the lid of the oil rather than how his lover was wiping his eyes and arranging himself over the wrinkled bedding. "If we do go tomorrow, we can have sex on the train if we kick out the Finder. Or in the Ark, if we're stealthy." It was so much easier to talk about stupid things than it was to look his lover in the eyes. "But if we stay, we can cuddle all fucking day if we want to."
Kanda made a sound between che and a chuckle, and his fingers moved out to touch Lavi's face and turn it toward him. His hands were gentle, though a little more forceful than was absolutely necessary. They pulled Lavi closer until the redhead found himself leaning between Yuu's knees. "I don't care," he breathed, and the sheer honesty in his face nearly made Lavi drop the bottle in his hands. "I really, really don't want to talk right now." Kanda kissed the redhead deeply, his right leg hooked around Lavi's hips, his left hand tugging at the larger boy's right earring. When the kiss broke he held their foreheads together, still holding Lavi's eyes with his own. "You can't see that?"
Lavi moved the dripping fingers of his left hand down between them, trailing a wet line down the inside of Kanda's right thigh. The caress wasn't needed – he could very well sense the heat coming from the Japanese man's body that warned of renewed arousal – but it guided his fingers where they need to be. He brushed gently up what he could reach of the cleft of his lover's buttocks, the better to introduce them both to the new, terribly intimate contact. That heat, coupled with their closes, the places and things he could see and feel, left Lavi aware of his own returning hardness and warned him that they were going to be in for a very long night if his body was anything to go by.
"See?" Kanda's voice was nearly a breath of wind and little more, pitched so Lavi found himself inclined to watch his lips form the words rather than pay attention to the sphincter of muscle against his fingers. "Che. Idiot, I told you it was just me."
A bitter sort of smile crossed Lavi's lips. He pressed gently inward until his ring finger was buried to the first knuckle. "Sorry, Yuu." He wiggled it a bit, waiting for some kind of reaction.
Yuu was perfectly relaxed at the intrusion, perfectly focused. "Let's stay tomorrow," it might have been the first time Lavi had heard him even suggest not taking a mission. "And why the hell are you being so slow? I'm not a doll, moron. Just stick your—" The finger slipped and he shuddered befittingly, a gasp in his throat. Kanda's eyes widened before they returned to normal, and his hands curled a bit into the back of Lavi's neck, not warning so much as holding him decidedly still. "Better." His voice came out husky and he hiked his leg a little higher on his lover's back.
Lavi pushed a second finger next to the first, a bit mystified by how the flesh around them seemed to both cling and shift to accommodate him. When Yuu did not protest, he watched the swordsman's mouth for any signs of discomfort and pressed on, curling his fingers gently in an effort to find the back of the older boy's prostrate. It wasn't overly moist the farther he went, but Yuu didn't complain, so he didn't stop. Not until Yuu's mouth fell open in a little gasp of sensation, a startled little whimper on the Japanese man's lips.
The redhead smiled.
"You knew that was coming, huh?" Lavi curled his fingers again, a little harder, and watched Yuu's lips part a little more, hardly soundless, his hips jerking in response. The redhead wondered if it was pride that kept his lover silent. If it was, it was stupid. "Is it good, Yuu?"
"Yes." Yuu's back bowed away from the mattress as Lavi spread his fingers in an effort to stretch the muscles more, faster now. Yuu leaned up to kiss along the redhead's jaw and down the side of his neck, nibbling at the sensitive flesh, breathing across the shell of his ear. They both moaned at once when Lavi's third finger snaked beside the other two and Kanda's teeth found the once apprentice Bookman's left earlobe. It was a moment of infinite balance between them, with Kanda's right hand buried in Lavi's hair, his teeth on that delicate nub of flesh, Lavi's left hand thrust nearly into him, left clutched desperately at his waist. There were no roles or obstacles, it was only need and love and desire, together and separated by their skin.
Lavi felt suddenly as if that was much too intimate – that they were far too close to just melting into one another somehow. He pulled his left hand away and fumbled for the oil he had nearly spilled on the mattress, smearing it over his length half desperately. Yuu's hand joined him – not the one in his hair – and together they smeared mineral oil down his arousal, wordlessly. It was cold and wet, but Lavi didn't care, and Yuu didn't seem to either. They were eager for one another, more so than they had been the first time.
When the long-haired Exorcist rolled Lavi against his pillow and jerked him to sitting, the redhead did not ask questions. Instead, he kissed the samurai and pulled his hips down, aligning them so they might kiss and touch more easily than they had before, than they had when the very man he was with had insisted that this was not what he wanted.
It made him smile so hard, he thought his face would crack.
"Good," Yuu repeated the word belatedly, then met Lavi's gaze, a strange sort of pain dancing behind the sapphires of his eyes. Perhaps it was his pride rebelling a final time. "I should have known." What he meant, Lavi couldn't have guessed without relying on his right eye, and he didn't want to do that at the moment, not now. He didn't have the chance to. Without further warning, Yuu started to move himself down on the redhead's length, mouth open in an expression that wasn't quiet one of hurting. He didn't stop, and Lavi knew he wouldn't, so there were no protests. There was only Lavi's right hand suddenly flailing up behind him for the bed frame and Kanda's thighs quivering when he was half way there, a strangled mewl in the back of the Japanese man's throat.
With an awkward lurch, Lavi leaned himself against the iron frame and returned his hands to Yuu, stroking at his sides. He ignored the damned ache in his erection. It wasn't important. It was important that this man was straddling his hips, breathing like he'd hurt himself something awful but was too stubborn to admit it. Lavi didn't like the thought. He reached out and curled his arms around the swordsman's waist and supported his lower back in an effort to ease him down more slowly; answering fingernails bit into the flesh of his shoulders, leaving half-moon scratches that he didn't feel at the moment.
It might have taken five minutes for him to realize Kanda's tight, rippling body was all around him, engulfing him, and Yuu looked at him with eyes like soulful blue gemstones. They were both panting, though for decidedly different reasons. The moonlight streaming in Kanda's window painted them both in faded shades of pink and periwinkle, contrasted by the soft oranges and yellows cast by the lamp on the other side of the room. The glimmer of gold in Yuu's eyes was the fault of a light source, but the red of his cheeks had nothing to do with the light.
"Yuu?" Lavi's voice shook to the point that he sounded near tears. He rubbed at the base of his lover's spine and tried to smile. "Relax, it makes it easier, okay? I can—" The slightest shift of the other man's weight left him gasping, "I can wait."
Kanda leaned forward and kissed him, fingers to his cheeks as though Lavi might break if handled too strongly, his eyes half hooded. In the mixed metallic light Lavi saw something strange and foreign in his lover, Yuu, the ice cube of a man he had fallen in love with. Something neither of them had an overabundance of in their lives – tenderness. It was evident in the slow way the samurai pushed his hair out of the way, the gentle play of his hands against the bare expanse of Lavi's chest. Kanda's hands, however strong, ghosted down over his lover's stomach, and trembled their way back into his hair.
It was a long time of breathing and forced relaxing, touching and nuzzling, before either spoke again.
"If anyone ever asks, I never told you this," Yuu whispered against Lavi's lips, very still on the redhead's hips. His voice was husky and low with what they had done already, and his hands fisted in Lavi's hair, drawing his head forward. "But…yappari… Why didn't you tell me it's so…" He tapered off with a quick shake of his head, the words that he meant to say dying on his lips.
Lavi couldn't help but grin regardless of how much his face was starting to ache with the expression. He tried to run his dry right hand through the dark haired boy's tresses but instead tangled his fingers in the base of the braid. He used his hold to pull Yuu's face closer. "You wanna try movin' then? You're like a vice in there."
A strange, twisted smile took Kanda's mouth. "Lavi." It was if he hadn't been sure about what he was doing before, but now he was. He rocked back and started forward, and Lavi met him halfway, slow and steady, both of them suddenly breathless. "Moron…" Kanda hardly breathed the insult.
"I know." Lavi mumbled back, leaning into Yuu's weight. It was strange like this, buried in Kanda's body so surely, fire dancing up his spine – because the urge to talk almost outweighed the urge to satisfy his own needs. It could wait though, until afterward.
He pushed forward until Yuu had to teeter back against the mattress, a mild look of amusement on his normally hard features. At that angle, with the smaller man's legs clamped up around Lavi's back, the redhead found himself free to move if he wished to, no longer constrained by the other man's weight. The view was spectacular. The coils of Kanda's hair stretched out around him in an ebony fan of tangles and mussed braid, almost blue between the lamp and starlight, thick and still slightly damp. The urge to bury his face in it almost undid Lavi but he stopped himself, and instead gazed imploringly at the Japanese boy, curious if they could go on.
Kanda rolled his hips and Lavi answered with equal force, and pressed his face in the curve of the dark haired man's neck. The redhead's stomach grazed Kanda's arousal with the movement, the hands that clutched at him felt like they might be bruising, but Lavi didn't pay attention. He did pay attention to Yuu's mouth crashing into his though, as well as the low, demanding sound in Kanda's throat. He understood both. He understood what Kanda meant.
Pulling away, the samurai caught the redhead's lower lip between his teeth, drawing a gasp from him. It was nearly too much – just that little touch of pain with pleasure – and Lavi unleashed a low, needy moan at it, driving his hips with more speed.
His lover tilted back his head and cursed.
"I'm not hurtin' you, am I?"
"Che," there might have been a hint of a smile in the sound, "not really. I can't believe you cried."
"You have smaller fingers."
"And a bigger—"
Lavi laid his teeth on the smaller man's jaw and bit a warning, because that was not pillow talk – or true – no matter how funny Yuu thought it was. The teasing though, made him more comfortable. "Can you get your legs a little higher so we can do this right? Because I think this is the end of my stamina for the night unless you wanna pretty much wring me out to dry, so…" This time when he shifted into the back of the other man's prostate it was by accident, and the muscles around him squeezed to the point that he choked on his next words, groaning into Kanda's skin. There was a matching sound over his head and Kanda's hips strained forward as if out of his control. The legs on Lavi's ribcage reached higher and the fingers on his shoulders moved to his hair, dragging him into a kiss he could not concentrate on long enough to return with any form of grace or feeling.
"Motto…" Kanda bucked while he said the word against Lavi's mouth, which proved it was anything but a lie. His arms betrayed him however, when they curved up to hold Lavi closer, his fingers still wound at the back of Lavi's head, showing that there was more to his request than physical desire. "Rabi."
The redhead smiled again, this time against Kanda's lips. "I love you." It was the only answer he could think of.
"I know," the Japanese man whispered, and kissed him again, holding him at that angle that made moving difficult but so very worth it. Lavi could feel every twitch and response of Kanda's muscles that his movements incited, and found himself responding to them almost subconsciously, like a dance with no lead. It occurred him that they fit well together physically, but he couldn't think about it more than a little, too focused on the press of his lover's knees to his upper chest, stronger now, and the pain of teeth to his lower lip, hard and tantalizing. There were so many things he could have said, but none of them worked as well as the lack of words for the moment.
Kanda made a sound that might have been a cough or a laugh and rolled his hips a little harder, cuing Lavi to return the favor. "Aim bet—fuck!" His hands curled in the hairs on the back of Lavi's neck and he arched a bit, driving himself down and back, slamming into the redhead's hips. He did it again, hard and fast, and growled into Lavi's throat, breathily. "There. Just like that. Give me your—" He cut himself off with a fierce blush, mouth open soundlessly.
Lavi almost had to stop to laugh. He was too breathless to form a proper sentence, but he tried. "Keep sayin' things… like that, Yuu… an' I might…"
The long haired man tilted his head away, hiding his reddened cheeks, and, to Lavi's slight horror, obliged in a soft whisper. Lavi felt a matching blush run through his whole body, face stretched in a smile so wide his face was bound to be sorer than Kanda's ass when they were finished. He cursed softly, damning the fact that this moment couldn't last forever.
"Koi…" Kanda fell into Japanese after a moment, mumbling things that Lavi couldn't understand and likely was better off not knowing. The samurai moved against the redhead almost desperately, and growled low and harsh in his throat.
Lavi met Kanda's desperateness with an equal amount of his own. Between the constraining pressure on the length of him, and the heat gathered inside of Kanda, how could he not? He tried not to think about the trust between them, and focused on the sensations: the sound of their skin touching, the press of Kanda's left hand on his back, the pull of fingers on his shoulder, the wet, open mouth on his. His whole body shivered. They were so close to each other, so damnably close, and yet he didn't care how close they were, he wanted more. He heard himself gasp, heard Kanda mumble out some kind of mixed language warning, and shut his eyes, toeing the edge of panic and orgasm at the same terrifying time.
He didn't know if he could concentrate on not seeing every flaw and truth in Kanda when he came.
One of them whined, but he couldn't say who.
"Rabi… miru…rook-u—" Kanda's voice drew his eyes open the same time that Yuu's fingers tugged his head down. He met the other man's gaze unwaveringly, took note of the moisture in Kanda's eyes, the love in them, and felt it reflected in his own face. But he couldn't catch the details at the moment. He couldn't do anything but hold on for dear life. He watched the samurai's mouth open at a slightly downward angle, watched his eyes widen with sensation, his head tilted back in a way that looked almost as painful as it did beautiful. Lavi felt every muscle clamp in the smaller man's body and groaned at the combined feeling. The heat, the press of Kanda's flesh on his, Kanda's hands on him, Kanda's scent around him – it was so much at once, and yet it was the broken sound of his name that sent him spiraling over the edge and into oblivion. He felt his lover stiffen and a wave of pleasure intense enough to shut his eyes and close his hands on Kanda's frame washed through him, shaking him from the top of his head to the tips of his toes. It was different than before with that intense pressure around his length, different with his heart in it, different with Kanda moaning and moving for both of them. Yet Lavi couldn't think to try and understand what it meant. He could only feel.
His right hand was tangled almost painfully in Japanese man's hair, pulling the his lover's face up, while his left was clenched on the pale skin of Yuu's hip, likely bruising. They were both breathing heavily, sticky with sweat and other things, but Lavi really couldn't find it in himself to care.
The once apprentice Bookman didn't speak for a long moment. He watched his lover's closed eyes come open first, and felt his chest tighten at the two glimmering tears he found there. Before he hadn't see them, only felt them dribble onto his chest. Now though, he could watch them fall, first the left, then the right. Lavi closed his eyes to the burning behind his own and brushed his bruised lips against Kanda's parted ones. "You ok?" He hardly whispered the words, worried they might distress the man beneath him.
The samurai didn't wipe the tears away. Instead, he gave a wordless nod, his sweaty hair tangling on the blankets he laid on. His expression was somewhere between a smile and a grimace, perhaps made that way by the reaction his eyes had to intimacy. "Will be." Kanda admitted softly. "You?" His fingers, which were somewhat unsteady, roamed their way to the redhead's face and touched it, pushing sweat soaked hair out of Lavi's eyes. They were warmer than normal.
"Yeah," Lavi swallowed hard and tilted his head into those fingers. "So what do you think, Cupcake? Shower and sleep so we can get up and go tomorrow? Or snuggling naked until we both fall asleep around dawn?"
Kanda managed a glare that didn't quite hide the amusement in his voice. "If you call me that again you can snuggle with the floor."
"You're no fun at all, Dear."
"I will push you off and kick you if you keep at it." Kanda's voice regained some of it's usual harshness. "How about you shut up and we go for round three?" But, there was a note of enjoyment in it, as if he were telling a joke that Lavi didn't get, and his hands tangling in Lavi's hair while he used it. With a slightly forceful tug the Japanese man brought their lips together again.
The redhead pulled away early, groaning. "I told you that you'll be sore. And I'll sleep until noon. Besides," he cocked his head toward Kanda's left hand, "if we take the mission—"
Kanda made a strange face at him and lifted an eyebrow, his expression oddly like that of a feline toying with its prey. "Che. You don't listen, do you?"
"Sorry?"
Kanda pressed his hands to Lavi's shoulders and shifted so that the redhead rolled under him, Kanda's hands still clamped in Lavi's mop of tousled red hair. He slipped upward, which was awkward and wet and cold for a moment before their bodies were touching again, his mouth on Lavi's throat. He painted a line of goosebumps down Lavi's chest with his breath, which followed back up again with his open mouth, licking and nipping and speaking between brushes of his lips. "I said shut up. If you're receiving, I won't be sore." His teeth found the center of Lavi's chest and he paused, looking up at the redhead with that same, predatory expression, eager and hungry and demanding all at once.
Lavi smirked. "I thought I was the sex fiend."
Kanda scowled at him, teeth bared for emphasis. "Doesn't mean I can't try, baka Usagi. Are we going to do this or not?"
"Do we have enough oil?"
-- -- --
You like? Worth the wait? Gonna maim me?