White Demon, Red Scribe, Black Nightmare
A D Gray-Man and Assassin's Creed Revelations Crossover
At least the only thing that Allen did to him at that point was the one hit he let Kanda take. Maybe he'd deserved it - just a wee little bit - but damn could that guy throw a punch!
The next few days were relatively quiet, if not a little tense. Mainly for the fact that Kanda was bedridden and the assassins didn't seem very accustomed to having their leader fully out of commission. For once, Allen wasn't complaining about being stuck inside. He seemed to perhaps even enjoy being the one to dote on Kanda for once instead of the other way around, though he was quite obviously still upset about the reason of having to.
It was kind of funny, actually, being a spectator on the sidelines of it all. No matter which one was doting and which was being doted on, they were both flustered and annoyed by it in some manner, and both thought they were more right than the other. Stubbornness incarnate, the both of them!
Maybe some air and relaxation would do them all some good.
"Alright, lovebirds, what do you say to some good old fashion drink and eat out?" he proposed. "Personally I could go for some more pleasant company and relaxation, and I know that you know the perfect place," he said, offering an indicating wink towards Allen. "Maybe I can even get that one pretty gal to give me another massage over dinner."
Allen and Kanda both shared a look and Allen was the first to speak as he seized Kanda's side. "I don't think-"
"Good idea, rabbit. I'm fed up being stuck here," the older man interrupted, standing up. "Been a while since I had a proper drink, too." He looked purposely at his partner, massaging his left arm. It was still pretty painful and way too far from completely healed, but Allen was more uptight than ever and doting on him, which quickly became very annoying. "Time for you to loosen up a bit. You've been insufferable."
"Hey!"
Nevertheless, they ended up in the brothel where the white-head met Demir - Allen shrugged at the thought of the man. They took a place near the corner from where they could see the door and pretty much the whole establishment, ordered their drinks, and Lavi could finally relax under the hands of his most favorite courtesan.
Allen and Kanda had couple of their own companions but both men elected to let them only pour their drinks and bring their foods. Kanda was too sore for a massage anyway.
Lavi, however, was greatly enjoying his, stretched out over a couple of pillows that he was practically melting into like warmed butter. Having someone else serve him food was nice, of course, but this was what he had most been looking forward to, a content smile on his face. Between the massage and drink, it was almost enough to lull him, but he managed to keep himself awake.
There was an unpleasant tingle just barely itching the back of his neck and keeping him very slightly alert, but if there was anything to be worried about, he didn't see it and neither Allen nor Kanda appeared to notice anything.
Wiggling to make himself more comfortable, he glanced sideways over at Allen and Kanda. Might as well make some conversation if they were going to enjoy the evening together.
"So, I've more or less heard the 'how we first met' and 'how we got here' stories, but not really much more than that, like how you two ended up together and such," he prompted curiously, with slight extra, deliberate emphasis on the word 'together'.
Kanda arched an eyebrow at him and Allen unexpectedly blushed, looking to the side.
"It's complicated," he said and Kanda slowly turned his head to arch an eyebrow at him for the change.
"Not complicated," the swordsman said thoughtfully, murmuring something very similiar to ´little whore´ after that and smirking. He sipped his wine, trying to hide his grin, eyeing the still blushing Allen from the corner of his eye. "Not complicated at all."
"It is not a polite question to ask, Lavi!" Allen was getting a little fidgety.
Lavi's brow raised as well, a small smirk starting to blossom on his lips. He rolled onto his side, propping a palm beneath his cheek.
"Oh? But now you have me curious, and you should know better than to make me curious," he teased, that smirk steadily creeping wider. "And you know what they say, something to the effect of... 'what happens in the brothel stays in the brothel'? I can keep a secret."
Allen got even redder and stubbornly refused to look neither on Lavi, nor on Kanda.
"Well, too bad, Lavi. I can't speak with my mouth full, after all." He huffed and stuffed his mouth full of food, much to the delight of the courtesans who cooed over him. Kanda shook his head but said nothing, the smirk still present on his face.
"Well you have to come up for air eventually," Lavi laughed, the smirk on his face growing wider and a mischievous twinkle in his green eye, as if he was waiting for just that.
Or maybe something else.
"And you!" He pointed at Kanda. "Don't you dare to say it!" Kanda shrugged and pursed his lips to keep himself from laughing.
"I think this is the closest I've ever seen Yuu to laughing," Lavi whistled, impressed. "Must be quite the tale."
"Depends on how you tell it," the swordsman commented mildly which earned him a harsh ´shush´ from Allen.
"We had a deal - never to speak of it again!" The white-head said and ate a handful of berries. "You-" He choked then and hit his chest with his fist. Kanda frowned and sat straighter.
Allen then proceeded to gasp and fan himself. "What the hell?!" He croaked, his face growing slightly purple. "You fuck!"
"What's wrong?" Kanda asked, not knowing what to do. Allen looked as if he was choking, except he wasn't.
"Hot!" The white-haired man gasped. "Hot!"
Lavi couldn't help but burst out laughing, feeling not one but two pairs of accusing eyes on him, one more dangerous than the other, but mainly only because the other was trying and failing to get rid of the burn.
"Payback~," he chimed with a voice dripping a sickening amount of sweetness. "They say revenge is best served cold, but I like to think it's served better spicy."
"You mongrel!" Allen rasped, gripping his neck. One of the courtesans handed him milk which he immediately drank. It barely helped.
Kanda shook his head as he drank his wine. "What is with you and the paybacks?" He wondered out loud. "You should watch what you put into your mouth, idiot," he commented offhandedly.
Lavi only grinned shamelessly. "It's just sort of this thing we have going," he shrugged nonchalantly, sipping his own wine and content to watch Allen struggle with combating the pepper he'd managed to have slipped in amongst everything else. "You'd think Allen would learn better than to challenge me to anything even remotely like a prank war but he never actually does." He raised a mock toast and another unapologetic smirk towards the white-haired man before swigging down another mouthful of his drink.
"Idiots. Both of you." The swordsman shook his head and finished his cup of wine too.
Allen retired somewhere where he could wash his mouth and get the pepper out of his system, while Kanda and Lavi kept drinking and enjoying the company of the courtesans. They barely registered the progressing time and the amount of wine they drank, until it got rather too late and they were slightly more drunk than they initially planned. Kanda didn't really mind - the pain from his injuries were reduced to dull throbbing.
"If you killed him, I'm going to rip your head off," Kanda slurred slightly, thrusting his finger at Lavi.
Lavi only snorted, rolling his single eye. "I could think of much more efficient plants if I'd wanted to do that." He paused to smile a little too widely. "That's Habanero, Yuu. Ever heard of it? It's hard as Hell to dull. He's alive, but he might be wishing he wasn't for a little while. That stuff is potent."
He rolled onto his back and stretched languidly, content to let the courtesan play with his hair now that he'd had a thorough back massage.
"So how is it you and him came together the way you did? I mean, after you decided he wasn't the enemy your superiors made him out to be, you could have always just returned here and never spoken to him again or something."
Kanda took a not-very-stealthy look around the room to see if Allen was anywhere around and turned back to Lavi. They were both quite intoxicated at this point and he didn't really mind telling him anyway. Alcohol did wonders to people.
"Well," he started, wiggling into a more comfortable position while a woman poured him another cup of wine. "We fought a lot. And let's say, one fight did not go the way it usually went." He shrugged. "I think he's embarrassed because we ended up doing it in an alley and, well, he was the one who initiated."
Kanda remembered they very vividly. It was the first time he actually experienced what an apprentice of the most infamous assassin man-whore that ever walked the Earth had up his sleeve. He only met Cross face to face once and that was enough for him to wish never to encounter the man again. Ever.
"We kinda had an aggressive quickie in the alley and then we ended up in his room," Kanda said and shrugged as if he was describing the weather.
Lavi was watching him out the side of his single eye with a brow quirked upward slightly as he listening. He was silent for a few moments after Kanda finished before he snorted and shook his head, turning his gaze up towards the ceiling with a barely contained smirk.
"Yeah, sounds about along the lines of something that little devil-spawn would pull," he mused. "I think he's just damn lucky that you turned out to not be one of the many people that are repulsed by that sort of relation, otherwise things could have ended up a lot differently."
"Honestly, I have no idea how it happened," he said. "But damn, I sure as hell don't regret it. We had a couple of fights after that and we kind of avoided each other as much as possible but we always ended up arguing somewhere. One thing led to another..." He paused, sighing. "It was chaotic but not bad. We licked each other's wounds and somehow, we worked it up to where we are now." Kanda's face grew a little bit melancholic and sad. He tried to cover it by drinking again.
"Lick each others wounds?" The brow that had settled tilted straight back up.
Kanda sighed again and put the cup down. "I had a lover before him," he murmured, "she died before we could get married." There was silence after that, the only disturbance being the silent sobs of the courtesans who quietly listened. "Anyway," the swordsman shrugged, "if I remember correctly, he said something about an asshole leaving him without a word."
"Oh," Lavi silently hummed, really more like a sigh of air than a spoken word. That last bit stung him a bit more than he knew it should, but he quickly recovered, going on to speak before his silence could become too noticeable and forcing a slight smile. "I see. You said before that you didn't really know why he picked you, but actually I think you know exactly the reason."
Kanda gave him an unamused look. "Really," he said, "he could have picked anyone. Literally anyone." Maybe he didn't seem like it, but he knew how pleasant his company is. "Maybe he's a sadist?" he offered, shrugging.
"Nah! C'mon Yuu, you know what it is. You only just said something about it a moment ago," Lavi hummed coaxingly, his smirk growing and becoming more playful. "You call him naïve and act like his attention is easy to earn but it isn't. He's way more discerning and picky than you give him credit for. I'll give you a hint. He told me once that he likes you because he's into 'bad boys', but what do you think he really meant by that?"
Kanda made the most confusing face Lavi has ever seen. Damn the night out was really paying off.
"I uh - have no idea..." He trailed off, making the courtesans laugh. "Bad boys?"
"It's people who have been damaged by circumstance. Damaged, but not destroyed by it, who still have something salvageable beneath that's worth nurturing," he stated matter-of-factly, looking thoughtful for a moment. "He's a protector. It's his virtue as well as his weakness, and it's why Apollo hits him where it hurts most and kills his students and comrades instead of coming after him directly, even though he's had plenty of chances. I told you, skills and physical appearances are only enough to infatuate, but what really draws him in are the people with needs to be filled, and the ones who can't speak of it are the ones he's drawn to the most, because that's the feeling he's most intimate with himself."
The redhead smiled and shrugged nonchalance.
"Licking each other's wounds, as you called it. If you had been just another thug with a sword and a pretty face, he wouldn't have given you more than a glance."
Kanda stayed silent for a while, pondering. "Maybe you're right." He smiled as well. "He cares about people way too much. If there is one thing I regret, it is killing that student of his." He turned around then as if sensing his partner and sure enough, Allen walked out of the bathroom, eyes teary and face still red.
"I'm going to murder you in your sleep, you ginger pirate!" He cursed and collapsed next to Kanda.
"Well, at least I'll die with a smile on my face!" Lavi laughed heartily.
A frown appeared on Allen's face and he carefully looked at both men. "Something wrong?" he asked.
"No," Kanda answered him silently. "Nothing at all."
Lavi still had a strange feeling that prickled the hairs on his neck, absently rubbing it and glancing elsewhere around the room, but nothing immediately stood out to him and his attention was shorter than usual with the buzz of wine in his system.
On the plus side, it seemed like maybe he and Kanda were managing to break some bit of ice between them, and apparently the man didn't know that he and Allen had been a little more than friends in their past. Certainly not to the same seriousness that Allen and Kanda were together now, but he highly doubted that the man would overlook even the slightest potential threat to their relationship.
Almost having his head taken off a few days before was testament enough to that.
Another few drinks and a dessert later, he was quite thoroughly sloshed, more than he normally allowed himself, but he figured one time couldn't possibly hurt.
"Oh man this was nice!" he half-purred, half-slurred as he stretched out again and sat up, feeling content. He would definitely sleep well tonight, and have a lovely pulsing hangover in the morning, but that was far from his mind at the moment. He grasped the hand of the courtesan that had been patiently tending him all night and placed a peck on her knuckles as well as forking over a generous amount of coin. "And you have been wonderful company."
She smiled and flushed slightly, seeming happy to please someone that didn't care at all for more than what she'd already provided.
"You guys ready to head back or what?" His attention turned to Allen and Kanda now.
"You guys..." Allen lamented as he nudged Kanda who was dozing off on his shoulder. "Alcoholics..." he muttered. Kanda grumbled but stood up and wobbled to the bar to pay for everything while Allen tried to help Lavi to his feet.
"I hope your head splits in the morning from the hangover," he said to Lavi and looked towards the bar where Kanda was having a little difficulty with counting the money. "How much did you drink?!"
" 'thought you said you were going to kill me while I sleep though?" Lavi teased unsteadily. "An' you're one to talk, after all th' trouble you put me through that one night I told you to take it easy on the drinks. You're not allowed to claim innocence when it comes to drinking."
Allen rolled his eyes as he put Lavi's arm over his shoulders and dragged him to his feet, wincing slightly. The sudden stabs of pain he was getting were more frequent lately. He brushed it off and walked the redhead towards the exit.
Kanda followed after them, swaying slightly but when Allen asked if he needed help, he only nodded mutely and walked ahead.
"What have you two been talking about?" the white-haired man tried, betting his luck of finding out on Lavi's drunkness. "He didn't tell you... how we ended up `together`, right?"
"Oh yeah, he told me all about it... Allen, you sly dog, you!" Lavi waggled his brow suggestively and laughed at the face the other gave him, enough that he almost fell over, if not for Allen keeping him steady. His mentor had always scolded him about being a loudmouth. Being drunk certainly didn't help with that. "But hey, I guess you've gotta win 'em over somehow when you like what you see, right?" He snickered at how Allen's face started to go red again after he'd finally managed to recover from the pepper.
Allen almost dropped him.
"Kanda, you liar! You promised!" But Kanda was too drunk to take his dear sweetheart seriously and he started singing and marched ahead. Something along the lines of 'I dont remember, I don't mind'?
Allen shook his head. Kanda could be the biggest prick in the world if he woke up on a bad side. He had the temper of a hungry snake, but when he's drunk, he's as calm as the morning sea. That was something Allen would always wonder about. Only if he stayed like that after the morning - hangovers make him even more temperamental and not even Allen can talk him into calming down.
"Stupid," Allen murmured and slammed his heel on Lavi's foot. "That's for immature talk, you ass," he grumbled, ignoring the pain in his chest and adjusting the redhead so he could drag him more comfortably.
Lavi yelped and withdrew his leg, hopping forward on the other one which almost ended in them both on the pavement, before he found his footing again and laughing. Alcohol did a very good job of masking the pain.
"Hey, I can't help that you're fun to tease, 'sprout!"
The rest of the way was more pleasant for the drunk redhead than it was for Allen, and when they reached the den and the library, where Allen tried to deposit the damn troublemaker onto the pillows there that the bookman had compiled the night before, he wasn't quite so lucky to escape without being dragged down with the drunk-silly older man, who proceeded to snuggle against him as if Allen was his own personal teddy bear.
"C'mon 'sprout, don't leave yet! We were jus' havin' so much fun!"
"Lavi!" Allen whined, struggling to free himself. "You're drunk, let me go! You're going to regret this in the morning!"
"Hey!" came another drunk voice from the entrance. "Let go of my-my-spause!" Kanda slurred, catching himself on the table to keep himself upright.
Allen stared at him with mouth gaping and eyes wide open. "How much did you two drink?!" He screeched in horror. He has never seen Kanda so drunk in his life. He could barely stand, his eyes were glassy and the way he spoke... that was just too much.
"You rabbit!" The swordsman spat the word as a curse, "Let him go or I'll-" He didn't get to finish his sentence and doubled over, tripping over his own long legs and fell on top of them. Allen gasped for air as he felt the sudden weight on him and tried to maneuver Kanda down on the floor without hitting his burnt side, which would have been easier if Lavi wasn't still holding him.
"Oi! Get off!" Lavi grumbled, not really appreciating getting fallen on any more than Allen.
He pushed Kanda off to the other side of the white-haired man with a foot against Kanda's hip, arms still wrapped around Allen's side, who was still making it a point to curse and demand he let go, trying to pry the redhead's arms off.
Suffice to say, he only snugged up closer to his side with a whine of protest, burying his face against Allen's shoulder, the younger male yelling something about drunkness and perversion and what Kanda was going to do to him come morning.
"Does he also kill cats every time one innocently brushes against your ankle?" he couldn't help but snark a little bit bitingly, before it melted in a slurred, somewhat pitiful tone, more like he was seeking permission now and afraid of what the answer might be. "Jus' want t' keep yer company a while longer... 'never spend time like this, like we used to... izz that not okay?"
Allen screamed in frustration and slapped Lavi's cheeks but that didn't help him either. He was locked in an iron grip and there was no way out. Kanda sadly fell asleep the moment he hit the floor and no amount of threats or yelling seemed to wake him up.
"Lavi, please!" Allen whined, giving up the stuggle. "Let me go, I can't let Kanda sleep on the floor in this condition!"
Lavi looked hurt and reluctantly held on for a few moments more before huffing softly and retracted his hold, shimmying a few inches off to the side and looking dejected and too drunk to bother hiding it. Injured or not, Allen would always defer back to Kanda over him, but especially now of all times, he couldn't expect the man to turn a blind eye to his partner for someone like him.
He shifted to try and get comfortable again, turning his head to stare off elsewhere in rejected silence and murmuring, "Go take care o' him..."
Allen huffed and scrambled to his legs to stand over Kanda. Problem was, he couldn't move the man. At all. His chest was still hurting and his partner was a dead weight passed out on the floor. He tried heaving him up by his armpits but he wouldn't budge. Allen grumbled under his breath, noticing that Lavi, in his sulky little fit, pointedly looked elswhere like a little child.
When Allen tried pulling Kanda by his uninjured arm, the man just turned over in his sleep and dragged him down onto the ground.
"I hate you two so damn much," Allen cursed, sitting between the two men. He looked between his snoring partner and the sulking redhead and sighed. Might as well get comfortable.
"Move, you ginger cuddlewhore!" the white-haired man snapped as he wiggled against Lavi's side. Lying on Kanda was out of question due to his injuries so why not use the next best pillow? He pinched Lavi's cheek playfully. "Let me get a little bit more comfortable."
Lavi looked somewhat startled at first then brightened, not so much looking smug as he did pleasantly surprised, like a dog or cat previously kicked out into the yard now being let back inside from the rain.
"Yeah but I'm your cuddlewhore," he hummed amusement, shifting so Allen could get comfortable against him. He almost purred contentment at the closeness and already felt himself drifting, just barely, stubbornly clinging on to some vague level of awareness to savor the warmth and contact for as long as he could before his consciousness could slip fully. That same watched feeling pricked at the back of his mind, but it fled with his awareness as deep sleep finally crashed down on him in its entirety.
A/N: Lavi isn't a horny drunk, just an overly cuddly one XD They say drinking just brings out traits that are already there and people just suppress while they're sober :P And for those worried about it - no, don't worry, this isn't turning into a three-way pairing or anything lol It actually has a purpose outside of shipping shenanigans(*whispers* You'll find out soon!)