White Demon, Red Scribe, Black Nightmare
A D Gray-Man and Assassin's Creed Revelations Crossover
The following days weren't any better, and neither did they make Allen improve. The man barely woke, and the times that he did were fleeting and delirious at best. He wasn't getting better. Chances were he wasn't going to, and everyone was painfully aware of it, especially Kanda.
Lavi spent what time he could get away with near Allen without edging too much into appearing as if he cared, but it was difficult. Especially on account that he felt as if he was at least partially responsible somehow.
If only he'd been quicker to keep Allen from using the Apple that way that day they'd faced Apollo and Kanda had shown up... if only he'd been more insistent on seeing the wounds himself when Allen shooed him away and pretended to be just fine... if only he'd been in a position to really be there as a friend should and not instead add to the man's stress.
If only, if only. So many damn regrets, and he couldn't even tell Allen that he cared even though it was forbidden to him. Even though he wasn't supposed to.
And he'd had the nerve to lecture Allen about not dwelling on things that couldn't be changed? Ha! Add 'hypocrisy' to that growing list of reasons why his being a "good Bookman" made him a loathsome person.
The only small bit of comfort he had at the moment was a hookah and some tobacco, which he knew was really just a spurious distraction at best, but it helped somewhat. A crutch he could use to hold up his emotions from crumbling and spewing everywhere.
It wasn't as though it'd have a drastic affect on anything. Most activity had crawled to a stand-still aside from regular patrols from the men. Allen could die any day, and Kanda didn't want to be far if or more likely when it happened. Lavi wanted to be close enough to at least know as soon as it happened, even if he couldn't be directly at Allen's side, where he wasn't wanted anyway.
The soft whoosh of a pillow being smashed under someone's weight drew him out of his thoughts, glancing his single eye open to stare across the table at Kanda. His own chin was propped in one hand with one of the tobacco pipes dangling between his fingers.
"You look like Hell," Lavi muttered, cracking a dry-humored smile that didn't reach to his eye. Sitting up properly, he idly offered the pipe across the table, just in case Kanda wanted it, but otherwise he didn't say anything.
Kanda didn't even bother replying before grabbing the pipe and taking a drag. He did look like Hell - he hadn't shaved for a week and the scrubby stubble that covered his chin was getting rather annoying, not to mention it made him look at least two decades older. He rubbed his forehead and sighed, offering the pipe back.
"Same to you," he grumbled, but it wasn't really true. Lavi did look worse than usual but it wasn't as bad as in Kanda's case. Maybe it was because of the Bookman routine of staying up late, buried in books or whatever they were doing during their training. "Came up with anything groundbreaking yet?"
For a moment the redhead looked puzzled, trying to piece together what Kanda meant, before it seemed to dawn on him and he rested his cheek back against his palm as he took the pipe back.
"Groundbreaking?" he mused. "You make it sound like you expect me to pull a miracle outta my ass. I'm a strategist but I certainly ain't Jesus, y'know?"
"You read a lot," Kanda clarified, sounding much milder than usual. "I just thought... never mind." He stared at the swirling smoke above the water that filled the hookah before he shivered and composed himself. "Speaking of strategies," he began anew, his voice gaining his usual strength. "I am leaving for a mission tomorrow. I won't come back for at least two days." Kanda didn't know where he wanted to go with that. Why was he even telling the redhead? "A caravan with goods is arriving this evening and I sent some men to pick up what we ordered. I wanted someone to oversee the trading process - someone who isn't as senile as our librarian," he added quickly.
Nice save, he commented mentally. It was a half-truth, but whatever. They really needed someone to correct the old man's notes and none of his men were really into arguing with him. Kanda didn't want to say he came to talk to the redhead just because he hoped he had found a way to technically raise Allen from the dead.
Lavi merely hummed acknowledgment, watching Kanda out of the corner of his eye for several moments. It wasn't difficult to guess the man's real intent. Kanda was far from a fearful person, but the redhead had no doubts that he was afraid, even if he didn't show it.
Really though, who else could he go to at this point? The doctors were damn useless for something like this, and Bookmen held knowledge that no one else knew. Perhaps he did have the know-how to do something that could save Allen, but the problem came in maintaining the role he was supposed to fulfill. Allen's life should have meant nothing to him, but the truth was that it was tearing him up inside.
If he thought hard and long enough, he probably would have the means, but being able to use it without showing he cared about the result was another matter entirely. He could choose to do so, but it would be a risk to him he wasn't keen on taking all the same.
It brought something else back to memory and he couldn't help but crack a bitter smirk, staring into space elsewhere.
"Is it terrible? That I almost empathize with what that scrawny kid said?" he mused somberly. " 'Why should people be allowed life and a free will if they only use it to create suffering' ? It's not such a far-fetched assessment of the human condition, really. And the fact that a child has to be the one to say it…" He paused and sighed wearily, for a moment looking far too old for a man of his age. "The world sure does enjoy proving time and again just how beyond fucked up it can get, doesn't it?"
Hearing the words, the back of Kanda's neck started to tingle unpleasantly. He turned to frown at the redhead, not quite sure what to make of the words he just uttered.
"We make mistakes, so that we can learn from them. The world may be fucked up, but it always was, and there is nothing we can do to change the fact, only wait." He paused. "Could you call a life life if it wasn't your own?"
Lavi cracked a hollow smile, resting his head on the table with one arm as a cushion, almost appearing to sulk for a moment.
"You're asking the wrong person on that one, Yuu. Bookmen only live for the history in the record books." He wasn't even sure he knew how to really 'live'. Just about every moment of his own life since he was old enough to remember had been spent playing one temporary persona after another, with people he was meant to remember in his head and forget in his heart.
Kanda looked him straight in his eye and shook his head.
"It is your choice to live like that," he said. "You choose to live like a Bookman, just as I choose to live like an assassin. There is nothing forcing you to live your life like that, no chains holding you down. Your life is your own and you can do whatever you want with it. You could cut your ties with the clan anytime if you wished it. That is what it means to be free."
There was silence after that and Kanda closely watched the other man's face, looking for a crack in that carefully neutral mask. He didn't like where the conversation was going.
"Doesn't really work like that this late in the game," Lavi hummed. Sitting up, he took another drag of tobacco before he could start blabbering too much, slowly exhaling a cloud. "Never mind... I'm just overthinking too loudly. So what do you plan to do from here on out?"
Suspicion nagged at the back of Kanda's mind but he let it go. Lavi's question, however, surprised him.
He didn't really think about doing anything besides waiting to see if Allen would...
Kanda bit his tongue and lowered his eyes on the carpet. "I... don't know."
God, he sounded pathetic.
Lavi fell silent for a time, mulling over his own thoughts to himself before deeming it a good enough time to speak.
"The trouble that Allen's in now began with that Apple... so maybe they key to undoing the damage lies in that as well," he proposed carefully.
Kanda straightened up, his frown deepening. The nagging suspicious feeling was getting worse. "What do you mean?"
"Yuu, tell me something," Lavi prompted, looking at the man seriously. "How much do you know about the First Civilization? Do you know what the Apple is, exactly?"
"I know there is more of them and that they are called the Pieces of Eden." He ran a hand through his ebony hair, searching in his mind for all the information Allen shared with him. "They are weapons, keys maybe," he shook his head. "Each has a different power and it is said that they contain the `truth`. The sprout mentioned something about infinite knowledge and all that but as far as I know, they are supposed to be the devices that are able to make the whole world bow to a single man. I never saw one until he showed me."
"There are a lot of Pieces of Eden that are weapons, but even though the Apple has been used that way, it isn't one. Not really," Lavi stated. "It's more like... a complex library, overflowing with lost knowledge, so vast that it would make the entirety of the Musaeum and Library of Alexandria look like a pauper's bookshelf. It's seeming simplicity is a rather bold testament to the sophistication and technology that the First Civilization had, well beyond any technology we have now or will probably have for a long time to come. A few times when I had the chance, I looked through some of the information it had to offer on my own," he admitted. "No small surprise, it contains medical knowledge too, well advanced beyond anything any doctors in this day and age know how to do. Likely it would have information on how to treat something like whatever's ailing Allen."
Kanda squinted, trying to rub the unpleasant tingling from his neck. "And you want to see if it really is there," he said slowly, not even blinking. He was right to feel edgy about the conversation earlier. He knew exactly what Lavi wanted to do. Problem was, he didn't trust the redhead that much. He felt and tasted blood in his mouth from biting his tongue too hard.
"I don't want to do anything, but you obviously wanted to hear about a possible solution to Allen's current condition, so I supplied such a possibility. It makes no difference to me either way, but I'm sure it makes a difference to you."
"You know, you say it a lot these days," Kanda pointed out sharply, his jaw set stubbornly. "Makes one think the exact opposite." It was really getting annoying. The words sounded so false, he was sure his ears would start bleeding anytime now. "Are you saying that because of me? Or because you believe that repeating them would make them true?" Kanda stood up, looking down on the bookman. "If they were true, you wouldn't have sounded so panicked when he had collapsed."
And with that, he stalked away.
Lavi retained his silence up until Kanda left. Once Kanda was gone, he sighed to himself and fixed his stare on nothing at all, frowning unpleasantly. Funny, how Allen was so easily made to believe after just a few words that their relationship had always merely been a ruse, while Kanda appeared the last to believe it.
Especially considering how paranoid Kanda had been about he and Allen being too close for his comfort.
"Weren't you the one that wanted me at a distance from him in the first place?" he mused, more to himself now since the other man as gone.
Just as Kanda said, the man was gone for the following two days. On the plus side, it gave Lavi a little bit of breathing room he didn't have under the other's usual scrutiny. He was slightly more free to visit Allen and keep an eye on his condition without worrying about his friend's temperamental lover keeping guard.
When he wasn't at Allen's bedside, he was searching the town for leads and trying to wriggle his way into connections and informant channels. Even if they didn't have immediate information on Apollo or any other important things going on in the city that would be of the Assassin's interest, it didn't hurt to have allies.
And when he was back at the den, he had the library and Apple more available to him. With Kanda gone and Allen borderline comatose, no one noticed anything different anyway.
Two days went by at a crawl, very little happening to take notice of. Kanda should be back any moment however, so Lavi decided it best to be easy to find, settling down to a book in the meantime after he'd assured himself Allen was still alive and breathing.
Kanda dragged himself up the stairs and into his room where Allen was resting when he finally returned, naively holding onto the thin thread of hope that his condition has gotten better.
"Hey, idiot," he murmured. "Still asleep?" When exactly had he started talking to himself? "How long do you intend to keep loitering like this?" There was no answer and he gave up on talking. Even if Allen heard him, he evidently didn't feel like waking up anytime soon anyway. Kanda dragged a palm down his face. "You've become weak," he said, barely keeping his voice from cracking. He left the room quietly, deciding to search for the redhead instead.
Kanda didn't greet him when he entered the library and Lavi didn't say anything either, only pretended not to notice him. Kanda walked to the closest bookshelf and leaned against it, almost making it fall, and slid down on to sit on the floor, waiting for the bookman to say something.
Anything.
"I'm just going to go out on a limb here, and guess the defeatism doesn't have anything to do with your mission," Lavi hummed when it became evident Kanda was expecting him to be the first to speak. He didn't bother waiting for Kanda to respond, or continue beating around the bush himself, carefully neutral in demeanor. "So have you come to any conclusions, on what you want to do about it?"
Kanda took a deep breath, not taking his eyes of the opposite shelf.
"Take the Apple," he said, specifically not mentioning from where because he was pretty sure Lavi already knew. "-and find a cure." He didn't have to say he was ready to try about anything - even giving the Apple to someone he didn't trust. "Allen trusted you," he said, hoping that the message was clear.
Even after what happened, the whitehead still allowed to keep him around, even though he tried to avoid Lavi as much as possible. He trusted the Bookman enough to let him fight on his side.
Kanda stood up, moving towards the door. "Let me know if you find something."
"Perhaps I already have," Lavi hummed, pointedly not looking at Kanda, and offering up as explanation, "You were gone two days. Not much else to occupy my time with in the meantime, and I figured you'd probably ask eventually, so..." It was at this point he trailed off.
Kanda nodded mutely, already having considered that. "Have you found anything then?"
"Yes and no," Lavi said, smacking his book shut and swiveling in his chair to look at Kanda properly. "There are some methods that might work, but they aren't methods that are in practice right now. The matter isn't only one of method, though, its also a thing of technology. It's going to take some improvisation that may or may not be successful."
He paused for a moment, knowing that his words were somewhat cryptic, but he had to be sure of something first.
"I'm going to level with you, Yuu. The chances of anything working are slim. He could bounce back on his own, but its unlikely with how his health has been degrading going that route. The other route could save him, or the attempt itself could kill him. No waking up for him, no goodbyes, none o' that. I can try my best, but the odds aren't in his favor no matter which way you look at it, and I don't know that even with the knowledge from the Apple that I can do anything except speed along his death."
The last words rang in Kanda's head like a funeral bell.
But what else was there to do? What would Allen do?
Kanda knew the answer and he cursed himself from becoming so attached to the white-haired man. He turned around to look at the redhead, not able to say anything. He left the den shortly after, only stopping to peek at Allen, heading to the nearest tavern.
He ordered the strongest liquor they had, sat in the darkest corner of the room, and drank while trying to forget that stupid white face that looked so pathetically powerless and weak at the moment.
Curse him and his fucking feelings. It made things so damn complicated.
Lavi, for his part, merely watched Kanda go.
It was a big decision to make, but he knew already what Kanda's answer would likely be when he returned. Might as well not waste any time on preparing for when the man came and gave his decision.
He went about making preparations, mainly with supplies and tools he would need more than anything else, making sure they were adequate and sterile. When he was sure he had everything he would need that was possibly attainable, he situated himself at one of the tables in the main room. When Kanda was ready, he'd show up and indicate it. Nothing for him to do except wait until then.
Kanda could barely walk straight after he was done. His head was surprisingly clear, though. He stumbled through the den's door when the stars started to disappear from the sky and dragged himself upstairs, ignoring the looks the other assassins gave him.
He stumbled through the threshold of his room and sat - or more like fell - on the ground next to the bed there Allen laid. He was glad for the alcohol in his veins that dulled the pain. He leaned his head against the edge of the bed and breathed deeply.
"Fuck you," Kanda said, mentally laughing at himself. "Look what you do to me!" he accused the comatose man, stretching his legs in front of him. "The rabbit said he can help you, so I'm gonna let him try." He paused. "If you die, I'm gonna live long just to spite you."
He felt his eyelids dropping mercilessly and shifted into a better position. He's going to regret sleeping on the floor in the morning, that's for sure.
"Don't die, though. I'd be bored without your bitching." And that was the last thing he remembered from that night.