White Demon, Red Scribe, Black Nightmare
A D Gray-Man and Assassin's Creed Revelations Crossover
Lavi left Kanda and Allen alone until morning. Seeing him stumble in had been enough to tell him that the older assassin was likely too drunk to be much use until the alcohol worked out of his system anyway, and he hadn't been bluffing about chances of survival being slim.
He wouldn't make a move until Kanda bid it, and were he entirely open and honest to anyone else, he was anxious about the attempt.
He understood what he would have to do, the problem was in actually doing it. Know-how was only half of the problem, but being equipped for it was another problem to tackle entirely.
Once morning was in full swing, he went to the shared room, not bothering to knock since he highly doubted he'd have to worry about walking in on anything. Allen was still fully unconscious and Kanda was likewise passed out for a wholly different reason.
Lavi idly nudged the swordsman with the toe of his boot, staring down at him inquisitively.
"Oi, Yuu. You're not dying on me now too, are ya?" he kidded lightly. "I can only attempt pullin' off so many miracles at once."
"Shut up," Kanda groaned without even bothering to open his eyes. It was evident that he was awake for some time already. "Work your miracles," he said with a hoarse voice, struggling to his feet. "What do you need?"
Lavi blew out a breath.
"Well... it might not be the hardest, but the first step is the trickiest," Lavi informed. "Especially since no one in this era knows how to do it. The First Civilization knew how to make surgeries more effective by having blood transferred from one person to another. Thing is, not all blood types are compatible. Matching up the right types is the trick."
"How do we do that?" Kanda was already starting to regret his decision, but he was sure Allen would do the same for him if the roles were reversed.
He was ready to try just about anything.
"Well, to be honest, its going to take some educated guess-work and no small amount of luck," Lavi stated honestly. "Basically we get just a little bit of blood from a few people and I'll have to try and see if I can test it for a match. Those that fit, we draw some more blood from to use and hope it really does work. Once we get past that part, it'll come down to skill and how much damage his body has taken. That's where the real difficulty is likely to come in."
"Alright, let's start in here," Kanda said, rolling up his sleeve and taking out a dagger. "Where do I bleed?"
As it turned out - or at least as Lavi hoped it turned out, seeing as he only sort of half-knew what he was doing - Kanda's blood would work just fine. He got the blood that he needed and gave it a couple of hours for the man to bounce back from the dizziness before he decided on beginning.
He tied back his red mane of hair away from his face even as Kanda stood by with Teidol for him to give instruction, since both had shown they at least had moderate knowledge of treating wounds, which was as good as the Bookman could hope for at the moment.
That done, he set up the makeshift IV of blood he'd put together and hollowed needle, mentally crossing his fingers that he was right about Kanda's and Allen's blood types being compatible.
The redhead sighed audibly. This was something he was going to need both eyes for, especially his right.
Peeling off his eye patch, he fluttered his right eye open, wincing slightly as he blinked several times and let it adjust.
He immediately winced and covered it again with the back of his hand, frowning. It wasn't just for appearances sake or hiding that he had this eye that he wore a patch over it. It was the bombardment of information that came with using it to view the world. Short-term, it was fine, but extended use caused a strain that only grew worse the longer he used it.
After a few moments, he lowered his hand from it. While his left eye was a natural mossy green, his right was a metallic, tawny gold, almost seeming to glow faintly and ripple, exact to the flowing liquid light that traveled through the lines in the Apple.
"You ready to do this?" he prompted, gaze flicking to Kanda and Teidol.
"Ready as we can be," Kanda said, staring the man right in the eyes. He ignored Tiedoll's hand on his shoulder and nodded.
Lavi nodded, a little more apprehensive than he was letting on, but there was little to be done for it except to simply try and hope for the best.
No use in prolonging it, Lavi began immediately, indicating for one of the other two to help with dabbing or washing away the blood that rose to the surface so he could see properly past his incisions.
The lower half of his body - his intestines, stomach, kidneys, liver, et cetera - were all okay. They looked like they might have been damaged at one point, but healed over on their own. That, however, made things much more complicated.
Some of the ribs and sternum had to be broken to access the chest properly, and as Lavi dared not even fear before confirming it, what took the worst damage had been Allen's heart.
The tissue looked scarred in places, and in more than one there were small pinprick holes or hairline thin tears steadily pushing out blood where they shouldn't.
It took many long, meticulous hours of delicate work, pinning other things out of the way, using fine tools to move frayed edges where they needed to be, and to carefully stitch and even cauterize some parts closed, all of which was made more difficult by the fact that it was a constantly moving, vital organ and he could not afford to make any mistakes.
Every so often he would squint his eyes or give his head a flick to the side, his eye bothering him more than he would have liked, but he already knew what he was in for in trying to use it, much less for an extended period of time. He didn't speak at all except for when he needed either Kanda or Teidol to do something to aid in the surgery, otherwise entirely focused on his task and seeing to it that everything was done as best as was possible.
More than once, he had feared he might have screwed something up, or managed to make things worse, when Allen's heartbeats faltered slightly or something sent up a squirt of more blood than before, but he crushed his worry before it could get beyond his control.
Losing his cool at such a critical time was an absolute must-not. Even when his head started to pound from the strain of his eye, he refused to give in until he was finished, even if his pace slowed somewhat. He'd be damned if he didn't try his hardest to pull this off.
When he finally decided that he'd done all that could be, at no small amount of effort, he double-checked what he'd done, even bothering to ask Kanda and Teidol what they thought of his handiwork if only to be sure that he wasn't overlooking anything out of fatigue.
Moving things back into place, both organs, tissue walls, and bone, he sewed everything up neatly and bandaged Allen up snugly. At the very least, he could say that his attempt to improve the man's condition hadn't killed him outright. The blood transfusion worked as well as he had hoped and given him a longer window of time to work properly.
"I think that's as good as he's going to get," Lavi told them, washing the blood and other things from his hands, squinting his right eye shut. He felt as if it had taken twice as long as it had in actuality, feeling more drained than he was willing to admit. "The rest is up to him from here on out, though I can't guarantee he'll really get better. All I can say is, I tried."
Kanda watched the redhead after the surgery, ignoring how his heart was about to burst in his chest.
He watched the whole procedure with morbid fascination, he just couldn't tear his eyes off it. Seeing a man with his chest open and his heart still beating was just...indescribable.
Tiedoll murmured something next to him - most probably telling Lavi to rest. The bookman looked worn and several years older. Most of the blood that had gotten on him has long since dried up and blackened and made him look even worse.
Kanda carefully wiped the remains of blood that had gotten on him and threw another linen sheet at Lavi who caught it with ease. He knew he should probably say something, but what was there to say?
He bit his tongue instead and leaned aganst the wall, slowly sliding down. Resisting the urge to punish himself for the cruel thoughts that invaded his mind just minutes ago. Some irrational - or maybe the sane - part of his mind whispered to him to save his lover from all the suffering, that he surely must have felt how Lavi's knife dove into his flesh and how his hands broke his ribs.
If it wasn't for his old man's steady, rough hand on his shoulder he would have done it.
"Get some rest," he said, mentally laughing at himself. There was no point trying to forget it. He would remember the sinful whispers everytime he'll look at Allen's face. IF he's going to survive it. "Good job," he said, not able to control the upturned corners of his mouth. He just hoped he didn't seem as mad as he felt.
It was on the tip of Lavi's tongue to tell the man not to thank him too early, that there was still the chance that something could go wrong - that there were a lot of chances something would go wrong - and that he may not be able to do anything about it when or if it did, but he resisted saying it, instead only offering up a neutral smile as he wiped his hands clean and picked the grit from beneath his nails with it.
"Don't mention it," he hummed, more than willing to take up the invitation to go catch some rest for himself. He lingered in the door for a moment, debating whether or not to clean up the supplies stationed at the side of Allen's bed, but decided he could deal with those later.
Excusing himself back downstairs once he'd re-secured his eye patch to his face, he plucked up a large, single pillow, flung it against one of the many bookshelves in the corner of the library, and buried his face into the cushion. He didn't bother with anything else, too tired to care about getting more than the one to bury his face in, and was out like a light minutes later, entirely bushed.
Kanda couldn't fall asleep no matter how hard he tried. He spent the night staring at the unmoving body of the man that occupied his bed, feeling a cold knot in his gut.
He silently wondered how long it would take for Allen to recover... or die.
He stood up, re-did his hair and straightened his back. Untying his half of the silver pendant that hung from his neck, he pressed it into Allen's palm and closed his hand around it.
There were missions to be done and he was sure he stood still for long enough.