A/N: Alright, you don't know how flippin' long it took me to get this up here. I had to re-upload it like, twenty times. TWENTY! But hey, it's here and amazing~ Sorry for the long wait, I think I preching a month here, but I'm just getting back into the funk for fanfic writing (damn school...) so everything should be updated soon and sooner. This chapter is something. I really like it~! It has a lot of characters in it and I think i let my poet-side in here too cause I went of on discibing stuff in some scene all cooly... Any ways, back to the story~!
Thanks to Junoan, Arid-Existence, Tsukiko Yamshita, addenza, Moonlit Yume, ElementalFoxGoddess, and feel the wind on your face for reviewing. It means alot to me!
Reading Legend
normal
"talking"
thinking
SHOUTING
Expressing/Exaggerating
Scaring the Dark
Chapter 4: Cold Midnight Child
Dark blue eye's shot open as harsh breaths filled the silent room. Kanda Yuu laid in his plain bed, a cold sweat covering his tanned body. His hair curtained his face as he sat up, bringing a hand to his face. As his breathing evened, Kanda left his bed and stared outside his window. Night was still present with the lingering moon and stars that decorated it so often. Turning around, the young adult let out a barely audible sigh. Grabbing his ivory ribbon that he always wore, Kanda left his cold room.
Allen sat on the cold stairs that led into the church. His feet had gone numb and he was no longer shivering under his white hospital gown. Confusion made it clear in his mind as he struggled to remember how both Mana and Cross had told him that that was never a good sign.
Letting out a shaking breath, Allen allowed his eyes to fall too the heavens in all their glory. Little burning flames called stars filled the sky forming shapes and constellations. Allen gazed at them as he looked for the patterns that he and Mana had made so long ago. They were all childish and simple to make, but the boy still held great pride when he found them. They reminded him of Mana after all...
"Bean sprout?" The new voice that so easily broke silence's web startled Allen. Looking up, the silver-eyed boy meet blue as he watched Kanda walk towards him. "What the hell are you doing?" His voice cut through the air once more and Allen slowly felt himself look to the ground like a guilty child.
This is stupid! I shouldn't feel guilty. I haven't even done anything! "Nothing." Kanda glared hard at the white mess that was Allen's hair. He had come out here wanting to train and now the stupid brat just had to be here. "What about you, Kanda? What are you doing?" Allen's face slowly turned towards his silver meeting blue once more.
"Nothing." Kanda sneered as he clutched Mugen angrily, passing the boy as he headed towards the woods.
"You're training?" The soft voice halted Kanda's angry foot steps as he turned back to Allen, who was now looking at the moon. "At this late at night?" Kanda couldn't help but feeling uneasy. Allen's frail, pale body seemed to steal the moon's light like it had the sun. His flimsy wear seemed to blend in with his body. In all aspects that boy looked like a ghost that had wandered the church for a little bit too long. Through his quick observations, Kanda noted one important fact.
"You're not shivering..." In something that light he should have been shaking like mad.
"Answer my question, Kanda."
"Answer mine first Bean sprout!"
"I asked fist."
"Ch!" Kanda glared at the dark ground as he tried to calm his anger down. "Yes I'm fucking training, alright?!" The once quite voice seemed to explode in the clearing as Kanda shouted his last words.
"Oh, okay then."
"Now answer my question, Bean Sprout."
"What question." Kanda had to try very hard not to punch that confused face that Allen wore.
"Why the FUCK aren't you shivering?!" Another explosion slammed against silence's web. It was getting harder and harder to stay in place.
"Why do you want to know?"
"Cause I FUCKING WANT TO KNOW!" Allen's eye's suddenly widened as the web that was the night shattered. Wild animals awoke from their slumbers and dashed away quickly. Birds flew away half haphazardly and the insects quite chirps increased in volume as the scrambled away. However the moon still hung in the sky, the stars still twinkling. He tore his eye's away from the moon that was beginning to flash red to meet Kanda's irritated eyes with his own.
"I stopped a while ago." Kanda's eyes widened. He hadn't noticed it earlier but Allen looked remarkably paler than normal. He couldn't tell if there was any blue on the white boy. At least none he could see.
Allen's eyes seemed to be duller than normal and he began to press his body up against the black rails that decorated the stairs. His blinks would speed up and slow down and sometimes it looked like he was trying to put a name to Kanda's face.
"How long have you been out here?"
"Huh?" His voice was definitely softer than before.
"How long have you been out here Bean Sprout?" Kanda's voice was deathly even and through the haze that began to build around Allen's mind, he knew it wasn't good. He tried asking out what was wrong but the words suddenly escaped him. It was as if someone was plucking away his English piece by piece, only leaving his older, more twisted language.
"Что λανθασμένος?" The words made little to no sense to Kanda, but he could hear the questioning undertone.
"I asked how the fucking long you've been out here!" The man retraced his steps, grabbing the boy's hand. A feeling of dread filled him with the cold his warm body encountered with. "Allen..."
Kanda was using his real name. Definitely not a good sign. When he went to ask what was wrong again, all that came out was a messed up slur. His words no longer formed as that damn hand began plucking back more words. Allen suddenly screamed out against Kanda, his mind recognizing the feeling of contact. Night's web was truly broken.
Link bolted up right, falling off of his neat and tidy bed. His green eyes glared at the small clock. Why the hell did he suddenly wake at 4:46 in the morning escaped him. However, another scream, laced with pain, filled the air reminding him of his shock earlier. Looking of at his companions bed, dread and fear filled him as he noticed the empty sheets.
Lenalee's black hair flashed behind her as she rushed to the front where she had heard Allen scream. She hadn't been able to sleep that night, Allen's face tormenting her every thought. The short truffles shook against her head and she could help but think that perhaps shorter hair wasn't too bad.
"Lenalee!" A distraught looking Lavi called as he ran behind her. "What's going on?!" His voice was filled with worry and his one eye displayed it strongly. Slowing her pace, she conversed with the red-head quickly.
"I don't know Lavi. I just heard Allen scream." The boy shook his head sadly.
"So it wasn't a dream..." He mumbled. "Lenalee, could you carry me there with your dark boots?" The girl nodded as she came behind him and lifted him up from under the arm bits, blasting off once more.
If there was one thing that Kanda knew was that Allen had fallen into a stupor. He only reacted when the man would touch him and that seemed to be very painful to him. Kanda cursed as he now noted the blue lips, toes, ears, and fingers. The milky skin was now like the moons cousin, even gaining the light blue tint in just the right places. It was like the orb of midnight light had fallen from the sky and had become human.
The doors bust open as Lenalee and Lavi arrived, the girl stopping too fast for the red-head who almost lost the remainder of his late night snack.
"Allen!" Lenalee cried as she approached only to be stopped by Kanda.
"Unless you want a repeat of what happened in the infirmary, I suggest you think a little bit clearer." The girl's lips trembled slightly as she gazed her violet eyes on the pale angel.
"Yuu, what going on?" Lavi asked as he watched Allen press himself closer to the bars.
"I don't know." No hint was made towards the use of his real name. Something very bad was going on. "All I know is that he's in some sorta stupor, and that he's stopped shivering." It was Lavi's turn to pale as he wide knowledge zoomed in on one detailed fact. The only thing that seemed to show no shivering as the worst of signs.
"Yuu! He's suffering from hypothermia!" The red-head cried out as he raced towards the boy only to be met with the same shrill scream that Kanda had received.
"Damn it Lavi! I told you not to touch him!" The samurai's voice was unbelievably low, dark, and threatening. He hadn't even bothered to call the moron by his nickname.
Quickly letting go, the trio watched as Allen slipped off into a world of his own. One filled with snow a tombstones.
"What the hell is going on here?" Link's stern voice seemed to echo off of night's dark walls.
"Lenalee? Why are you here?" Koumi's concerned voice asked her as he took in the situation quickly, noting Allen's sickly skinned form. "Link, get a medical group together quickly. Make sure they know that's Allen has been out for a very long time." The blond looked like he was going to argue, but he knew that it would be best too leave a man with more medical knowledge than himself in charge. Link quickly dashed off.
Koumi turned towards the three, worry filling his face. "Does anyone know whats going on?" His voice was calm, even, as if anything else would shatter the remainders of the web. Lavi and Lenalee slowly let their eyes fall onto Kanda. The dark-haired man sighed.
As he explained his encounter with Allen, said boy was able to take back some of his lost words.
"Crepa, barst, unter las vides. Brechen Sie nicht nacht tijden fotoricettore. Não quebre o silêncio!" The words were jumbled, slurred, and silent. Allen could tell that his lips had begun to swell but that mattered little to him. He could hear other voices mesh together as they discussed something in his already stolen language. "Crepa, barst, unter las vides. Brechen Sie nicht nacht tijden fotoricettore. Não quebre o silêncio!" Repeat, breath, think and start again. Thats what poured in his head, pausing each time to remember what he was doing. Breath, think, repeat. Breath, think, repeat. The voices were barely there now and he allowed a laugh to escape him as his now malevolent eyes met blurry blue. "Препятствуйте безмолвию μας φέρτε το θάνατο!" And then he himself was swallowed by the night.
The group stood dead silent as the pale body leaned forward. It was an awkward, slumped position. Most likely not comfortable in the least, however the others still held their breaths. The way Allen had spoke, how his eyes seemed to tear between contrasting colors of silver and gold. How white flashed black and black flashed white. And how red seemed to decorated both the royal colors like it had done in the imperial courts across the world.
As the nurses took Allen away in a warm blanket, the group followed like hawks. Link had joined them in the infirmary as the Matron set off to work on her freezing patient, Koumi filling her in on what Kanda had told him. Feeling his body and checking his snail-like pulse the women turned her death glare onto the group.
"He is well past the third stage of hypothermia. Blankets will do little to nothing and his lips are too puffy to drink any warm liquids." Her eyes landed on Kanda. "And sense this buffoon was too stupid he will be the one to use his body heat to revive Mr. Allen. Unless one of-"
"WHAT THE HELL DID YOU JUST CALL ME!" Kanda shouted out at her. Sure, hypothermia was, dare he say, obvious, but at four something in the morning your minds not all there just yet!
"I called you a buffoon, Mr. Kanda. And unless you wasn't to be injected with a sedative you will behave in my infirmary." Matron truly knew how to deal with Kanda as he fell silent. "Now, as I was saying. Unless someone else will volunteer their time, and is a male" she added, noting Koumi's stare and Lenalee's willingness "than Mr. Kanda will provide heat for the boy." Lavi raised his hand lazily. "Mr. Lavi?"
"Well, I doubt Yuu-"
"Don't call me that!"
"Will do any good if Allen woke up in this state. Any ways, I am the boys big brother! I have to do everything I can to ensure both his purity and safety." Laughter danced with worry in Lavi's eye. "It's not like I haven't slept with him before any ways." The red-head noticed that vulgar sentence that he had just uttered, and jugging by the glares/jaw drops, he had to quickly cover this up. "H-hey! It's not what you think okay! Bean Sprout was sick before when me and him were on a mission and we were to far from town and it was very cold and, and... Your not even listening any more are you?" he was met with distance looks from everyone. "Well, whatever." He waved of sitting on the side of the bed.
"Alright, well sense that is settled, I want the rest of you out of here. Now." Like an army Sergent, Matron's words hit home as the rest of the group phialled out. "Good-night, Mr. Lavi. Allen." The usual strict nurse soften as she mentioned the white-haired child's name. She would never admit it, but she had a soft spot for the angel-like child. Both his good and bad qualities were pure and filled with concern. Matron felt that she should teach him some medical techniques. A little reason on why he seemed to fair when caring for others. Though he always forgets about himself. And with that after though, she turned off the lights and closed the door.
Lavi crawled into the cold bed, layers of blankets on top of him. Wrapping his arms around his small companion like he did so many months ago in that blizzard, Lavi rested his chin on Allen's silk-like hair. The still boy turned and buried his face softly in Lavi's soft uniform as he breathed out a shutter of cold air. Little, but large, hands gripped his chest and Lavi gave a reassuring squeeze to his younger brother figure.
"Heh, just like last time Allen. Acting like a frightened child in your sleep." He sighed. "Sometimes, I forget that that's just what you are. A child with a weapon to strong to be human." His hand began to pet his mop of hair softly. "I guess this stupid war has changed you. Made you more mature. But deep down, you're still suffering and your big brother keeps locking himself away from you." Lavi remembered how Allen had tried to talk to him several times but he had always had work with Bookman or errands of some kind or another to pay the kid any need. He was the one who started that "I'm your big brother" thing, and now he was just pushing Allen aside.
"Well, when you wake up, I promise, I'll listen to whatever you have to say. Even if it's nothing at all.
Well, that sure had a hell-a lot more character action in it. I hope I did them all well, this is my first real time using them and I'm worried I made them OOC... Also, can any of you guess what langauge I used with Allen? Let's see if ya got sharp eyes!