I'm suffering from the dreaded writer's block, which means getting this chapter out (despite nagging from a certain person- you know who you are!!) was really difficult. Especially since I was attacked by the plot bunnies and wrote 'Lavi's 21st' as well. GO READ IT!! It's a side story one shot telling the happenings at Lavi's 21st birthday party…the one mentioned in 34 with Cross and the strippers….it needed to be told.
So basically (don't hurt me) this chapter is about what happened in the order while Allen was away, and answers the question everyone's been bugging me with. What happened to Gregory?
And no, I don't own!!
Chapter 38- Answers
"It's worse than I expected." Lavi dropped his face into his hands and sighed noisily.
Jim let his head hit the table with a dull thud. The sound was muffled in the crowded dining hall, but it drew Lenalee's attention from where she sat studying her knees thoughtfully. A frown marred her pale features. "What are we going to do?"
Her question was greeted by silence. Nobody knew the answer to that.
Kanda scowled. First at the wall, then the floor, before directing his gaze at the ceiling. It didn't give him any satisfaction however, so he turned over, burying his face into the pillow with a soft growl.
He was having a hard time connecting the lost and disconsolate image of Allen hugging his knees in the hospital wing with the strong, self assured young man he once knew.
No, that was wrong. He knew better than anyone that anything, big or small, affected Allen in some way. He might have toughened a little over the years, but beneath it all, he was till the soft hearted, naïve boy that had entered the Order nearly four years ago. It seemed so much had happened in that time.
Kanda's hands curled into fists as he pounded the mattress. God! He was so stupid, letting Allen walk away like that. He knew Allen would run, he'd done it himself after all, but still he hadn't tried to stop him. And he'd had nine long months to wonder why. To this day he hadn't found the answer. It had just taken him 'til now to realise that it was going to be something he would regret forever if he didn't do something about it.
Nine months ago (cue whirling flashing lights- IT'S FLASHBACK TIME!)
"Why can't I go?" Kanda crossed his arms and if it wasn't Kanda speaking, one would perhaps say he was sulking. But of course, Kanda doesn't sulk.
Komui pushed his glasses up his nose, preparing to trot out the well prepared speech informing Kanda just why he couldn't go off on a wild goose chance following his lover around the globe. Again. He was saved from repeating the argument, however, as Kanda stood abruptly, all traces of sullenness gone. He gave the slightly stunned supervisor a curt nod. "I understand" and then he swept from the room.
Looking back, perhaps Komui should have realised nothing good could come of such a quite, controlled exit made from the usually violent exorcist.
Kanda slammed his fist into the stone wall outside Komui's office, splitting the skin on his knuckles. The pain helped to clear his head, allowing his to think properly again. He was furious. Well beyond the normal anger and irritation he felt day to day when confronted with the usual annoying occurrences within the order. Kanda was livid. There was, in his mind, only one thing that would help him feel better.
And the ironic thing was, it was going to be the very thing he stopped Allen from doing.
He slammed the door to the Noah's cell room open with more force than necessary, effectively warning the prisoner just how pissed he was.
The Noah looked up expectantly, his face perfectly healed and not showing a sign of the damage that Allen had inflicted on him just a day before. Kanda's arm was similarly healed. Something he was glad of because of what he was about to do. He closed the door behind him with a sharp snap.
"Didn't take you long to come running back to me." The Noah was sneering cruelly. "Your boy-toy only left yesterday and already you've come crawling back to my room. What can I do for you Kanda?"
Kanda crossed his arms to stop him from simply grabbing his sword and slicing the Noah in two right there and then and be done with it.
"I would like to see your real face for once. Or are you too ashamed to show me?"
Gregory cocked his head on one side, weighing his options carefully. If Allen was gone, then there was nothing to be gained by imitating him any longer. And Kanda had come back to him…
"Alright, if that's what you really want, darling. I'd do anything to please you, you know that."
Kanda flinched at the pet name but otherwise did not answer, jus standing silently, leaning against the door frame. Waiting.
Gradually the Noah began to transform. The white hair faded to a dark brown, the scar on his face that Kanda was so familiar with faded as the pale skin of the face darkened to a much more tanned pigment. The well-known silvery eyes turning a liquid amber gold that was so similar to the Noah's usual colouring that Kanda knew even in his 'light' form, this man would be shouting 'Noah' with those eyes. The false innocence arm returned to a normal flesh one. "Is this enough for you Kanda, or do you want more? Do you want to see the real me?" Without waiting for an answer the Noah continued his transformation, his tanned skin losing all pigment and turning a dull slate grey, and those already golden eyes becoming more pronounced. Gregory's soft brown locks turned the darkest of blacks a barely-visible line of crosses marking his forehead, covered by the inky hair, and suddenly, he looked a whole lot more threatening.
The Noah stood and stalked towards Kanda, swinging his hips in a most effeminate manner. "So, you like what you see?"
"I think I do." Kanda unstrapped the sword and lay Mugen down on a table, but he didn't release his hold on it just yet. Instead he leant back against the edge of the table, crossing his ankles and running his eyes suggestively up and down the mincing Noah's form.
Gregory gave a low chuckle. "Does Allen really mean so little to you?"
"You seem so intent on putting me off!" snapped Kanda viciously. "If you are so against this, I'll leave!" He snatched Mugen off the table and made for the door. A grey hand on his shoulder stopped him and he turned back to those deep golden eyes. "No, I'm sorry. Stay, please."
Inwardly, Kanda smirked. The Noah did seem rather desperate. Outwardly he just relaxed the frown a little and laid his innocence on the table once more, still not removing his hand from it, but Gregory didn't seem to notice.
The Noah pressed himself flush against the exorcist. "I shouldn't be doing this" he muttered under his breath, but Kanda still heard him.
"No, you shouldn't. But neither should I, so it's ok, isn't it? We both heal so quickly, no one will realise a thing."
"Mmm." The Noah agreed softly, rubbing himself against Kanda like a happy kitten. Kanda smirked again, this time letting it onto his face since the shorter man couldn't see it. He pressed himself closer to the Noah, feeling utterly disgusted with himself. But needs must and he needed to get close to the Noah without him suspecting anything. Raising Gregory's chin with one hand, with the other he groped for a firmer hold on the sword behind his back, and as he slid it silently from the scabbard, he kissed the Noah firmly, drawing his attention away from what the other hand was doing.
When he was sure the blade was free, he broke the kiss, looking down into the lust filled, half-lidded gaze of the Noah. He leant in again, as though to give Gregory another kiss, but instead turned his head to one side, towards the Noah's ear. "You were right. You shouldn't be doing this." And he drove the blade through his own back, activating it as it pushed through his body, and sent it straight into the Noah
Gregory reeled back in horror and shock, clutching the bleeding wound in his stomach. "You'll pay for that, you bastard!"
Kanda scoffed, pulling the blade free from his own body. The wound began to heal instantly. The Noah's seemed to be taking longer. "Innocence is your weakness, it is not mine" he said as he saw the confused face the Noah was making as he studied the twin wounds.
"I'll kill you for that, exorcist!" Gregory snarled, dropping his hands from his wound and extending both his hands into identical blades. "Now we finish this. Maybe once you're dead, I'll take your image instead!" And he charged forward.
Kanda didn't laugh, but if he had been someone else, he might have done. He stood gloatingly over the fallen Noah. While it was true they were both injured, it was the Noah who was much worse off. It had become apparent very early into the battle that fighting was not Gregory's forte. As it was, the battle had only lasted fifteen minutes. Kanda sighed minutely, allowing his sword to drop fractionally, but still keeping his guard up and his eyes fixed firmly on the fallen Noah.
He was interrupted from applying the finishing blow by an insistent pounding on the door.
"Yuu-chan! Open this door now! I don't know what you're doing in there, but get out, now!"
He ignored the voice, Lavi's voice and raised Mugen once more to finish what he'd started.
"Kanda! Please! The Grand General's are coming, and if they catch you in there with the prisoner, you'll be in big trouble!" Greta, the supervisor was there too. Kanda tried to block out the voices, still gripping the sword tightly.
"Oh, he's not going to open the door! Let me!" Lenalee. She was going to knock the door down. Wonderful. Abso-fucking-lutely wonderful. He'd have to get this over with quickly He turned the blade sideways, not bothering to use an innocence attack and swung the blade, severing the Noah's head just as the door broke and three people piled into the room.
There was stunned silence, until finally Kanda spoke.
"Heal that."
Later that day.
"I'm sorry Kanda. It was all I could do without them sending you off on some suicide mission. And…" he interrupted what Kanda was about to say, "I know you'd say it wouldn't be one for you, and normally I agree, but when they want someone gone, they have ways of making it happen."
Kanda nodded slowly. "Fine. For how long?"
"A couple of weeks, maybe more. They won't want to lose you, you're one of the best, but they need to make it look like you're being punished for it. You have to understand. They considered the Noah an important prisoner."
Kanda scowled and huffed a little, but didn't say anything.
"So, it's house arrest for an indeterminate amount of time. All meals will be provided and consumed in the room, and bathroom visits will be supervised. I think that covers everything. Dismissed."
Kanda stood silently, not really wanting to go, knowing there was a guard waiting outside the office to escort him to his room and make sure he stayed there.
Komui saw his slight hesitation. "If it helps at all, Kanda. We all would have done the same thing, given the opportunity. I don't think you've done anything wrong, and I know most of the order agree, if not all."
Kanda responded with a tight-lipped, almost smile before leaving the room.
Aaaaand back to present…
Those few weeks as a prisoner in his own bedroom had been tough, but it had shown him just how much of what Komui had told him was true. He had received so much support from the rest of the order, he had felt, dare he say, vaguely warm and fuzzy every time he had received a pat on the shoulder as he was passed in the corridor on the way to the bathroom, from random people he had never spoken to before. Apparently their support overcame their fear for him. And for once he found he didn't mind.
He stood outside Allen's hospital room, slightly hesitant. Well, if the damn Moyashi has given up on his old relationships, it was time to built new ones. And with that he pushed through the door.
"We can't do this with just us three! We need to recruit new members!"
"Lavi, just who is going to want to help us get Allen and Kanda back together?"
"We do."
"Apart from us."
"I'm sure loads of people will. We all know how nice Yuu-chan was when he had Allen to…um…"
Jim rolled his eyes. "You can say it Lavi, I'm not THAT innocent!"
"I was actually saving Lenalee's sensibilities!"
"Fuck, Lavi. We all know how nice Kanda was when he Allen to fuck. Geez!"
"Lenalee!" Lavi exclaimed, thoroughly horrified
"Um… I've only known Kanda really after he was with Allen. How bad was he before?!"
"Birdy-chan, you really do not want to know."
A/N and there we go. goes away and emos writing is getting harder!! Now go and read Lavi's 21