UNTAMABLE SIDE STORY 1: About Mana, Allen, and someone else

A/N: Feel free not to read this if you're not interested and just wait for the next chapter. (why am I posting this? Well, I'm mostly just trying to gain some time, is what I'm doing). No spoilers for the rest of the story, I promise. Okay, only very, very minor ones. You might not even notice them, I swear.

And, yes, well, this is not so much about Allen as it is about Mana. And there's not even a mention of the hybrids stuff, since this is set waaay before the beginning of Untamable and Allen finding Kanda. This is a prequel of sorts. If you're still interested, well, go ahead.

Warning: not beta-read (thanks to Rin28, though, for pointing out a few typos I'd missed) :DD

Also, I posted a Q&A thing about Untamable details (Kanda's actual species, the development of the hybrid techology, where is Lavi, etc) on my LJ. If you'd like to take a look, you can find it here: http:/dawn-in-silence [dot] livejournal [dot] com/3897 [dot] html (just add a / after http: , delete the spaces, and replace the [dot] things with actual dots) OR you can go to my LJ (link on my profile) and look under the "Untamable" tab for the masterpost with links to all the Untamable stuff I have there.

FAMILY

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"What're you still doing here, fancy trousers man?" a tiny little thing with white hair (not a wig!) and steely, indifferent eyes said in a bored drawl, with the heavy accent characteristic of the area.

The place was the kind where showing up with fairly clean clothes, and without holes, and keeping them that way (for the most part, at least) during your stay, meant some sort of degrading nickname for the length of said stay. And "degrading", of course, according to the residents' standards (to whom having 3 dollars was being rich and having no fleas living on you was being lonely and being clean was a sacrilege and an offense to decency and good society).

A glint of interest appeared in those strange metallic eyes, or maybe of amusement, but his voice remained motonone as he added, "You cocked everything up so bad you have got no money left?"

His hands were in the front pockets of his ratty trousers, his posture a relaxed slump. He was thin (starved, since the day he'd been born, probably) and covered in filth, not to mention that he stank like he hadn't bathed in a week (which he probably hadn't), yet there was a certain gracefulness to him, to how at ease he was despite the state he was in, like living (dying slowly) in the streets without one soul to care for him was his element.

The man with the smudged clown make up looked at his new companion who so mocked him, tilted his head to the side and finally gave a blinding smile, red, red painted lips stretching for what seemed like a mile.

"I thought I needed a little time off, actually, and so I came here. Or ended up here. I do not believe there is a difference, though." the smile, if possible, turned brighter. "Do you?"

The child looked a little confused and taken aback at that, but the clown was still speaking. "Besides, now I'm here to entertain everyone, isn't that just wonderful?" another too-happy three-thousand-watt smile.

That got the kid right back on track. "We don't need no funny shit," he declared haughtily, folding his small arms over his thin chest. "You wanna help, you get us food. Or money."

The man said nothing, and resumed what he'd been doing before the child's interruption.

If the lack of response annoyed the boy, he hid it well - at least until he suddenly dropped both his arms and the petulant expression and asked softly, "...is he dead?"

The clown was gazing down at the dead dog at his feet. "Yes," he replied serenely. There were no traces of a smile on his expression now.

"Car?" the boy grunted questioningly, throwing his fisted hands into his pockets again, expression closing off into something ugly.

"I believe so."

"Bloody car drivers know shit 'bout driving." the boy said with a scowl, sounding appalled.

A solemn nod and a thoughtful head tilt were the man's only reactions to that. "I should go bury him." he said some time later.

Well, it wouldn't walk to its own grave.

The little boy frowned up at the extremely calm man then, slightly suspicious, then something like accusation badly hidden by forced indifference suddenly appeared in his strangely coloured eyes. "Aren't you sad?" the boy asked.

Wasn't he sad? When was he not sad these days, the clown wondered. His lips curved in another bright (empty) smile. "So sad I could-" he wrapped a hand around his own neck and tilted it awkwardly to the side, faking death by strangulation, or hanging. "-die." he crowed, poking his tongue out.

"Stop that!" the boy yelled, indignation and fury breaking through his fake nonachallance unexpectedly. He froze up for a second and then schooled his expression, hiding it all again. But it looked like there was quite the temper under that tough looking shell.

The boy glared filthily at the clown and continued, in a more moderate tone, "He's always been with you since you got here! I bet he was with you before that too!" And now you're insulting him like that, went unsaid, but loudly implied. "Why aren't you sad?"

There was silence for a few moments, and the strange little boy calmed down a little, until the clown said at last, "I think all my tears have dried already." He showed his palms and raised his shoulders in a universal gesture of helplessness, eyes fixed on the body of the dead dog and avoiding the child's own eyes. There was a small sad smile on the old man's face now.

With his dirty white clothes and white face, that hopelessly sad expression and the black tear painted under his right eye, in that moment the man truly was the incarnation of the sad pierrot he was portraying.

At those words, the child deflated like a pierced balloon, shoulders sagging down and hands no longer balled into fists. He looked down, and his oily white hair shifted forward and hid his expression.

Together, the boy and the man stared down unhappily for a long time at the old dog's body. A quiet, almost silent sniffle broke it some time later. And then the little strange boy spoke again.

"I only saw him once or twice, with you. And then yesterday-" he paused, and a louder, wetter sniffle came from under the white bangs. "Yesterday he licked my hand, like it wasn't- and no one, I mean, no dog had ever- well, he licked my hand... so fucking sticky afterwards... and it was just that once, I didn't know him or anything and... So why am I-" he let out a few weak, wobbly laughs. "Why am I...?" and broke down sobbing, loudly and messily and ugly, crouching down and hugging his knees with one arm while furiously rubbing at his face with the other, as if to fisically put a stop to the onslaught of tears and agonized sobs.

The sad clown looked from the crying boy to his old dog and back again, and his eyes softened.

With one last respectful nod to his old companion, the clown turned to the boy and whipped out a polka dotted black and white kerchief out of the ragged puffy sleeve of his outfit. "Let us smile because we met him, not cry because he's gone!" the clown cried, startling the still-sobbing child into falling on his arse and looking up, surprised.

And then the man threw the polka-dotted cloth into the boy's face and started rubbing, getting it in an even worse state than before rather than cleaning it.

"Oh, dear boy, wipe your tears! Wipe your tears, my child!" he declared loudly and with barely hidden glee as he enthusiastically got snot and tears all over the boy's cheeks. "If you cry too much, you'll drown! Drown in your own tears, I say! And we can't have that, can we?"

"Fucking stop that- AAAGH-"

.

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Mana Walker's life had never quite been a normal boring one. No one could have such a life while having the 14th as a brother. And for a life like that, one needed to be either a saint or a mad man (either of which guaranteed a not-quite-normal life). Mana liked to think he had a healthy dose of the latter and as much as anyone else of the former, which made for quite a good combination and he managed like that.

The 14th had, after all, oozed charisma since he'd been a teething babe, rendering most people helpless before his beseeching pouty lip (Mana not excluded) and since then he'd only gained practice. His approach changed as he got older, of course, but its effectiveness remained the same. The full force of the 14th's pout could make a strong man weep and hand over the password of all his bank accounts, and that meant more trouble than one could think possible. The 14th was one very easy to get to love.

The problem was, of course, to maintain that love. As Mana knew from experience, from living on the next room over, from endless fights at the dinner table and problems at school and several petty squabbles throughout their lives.

The 14th had too much imagination, too big an ego, too little self-control and too generous a soul. An explosive combination, that meant he was constantly in some mess or other, either because of some crazy idea he'd thought up on his own or because he'd wanted to help someone. He constantly got himself (and Mana, of course) into trouble due to one (or more) of his schemes.

The 14th fancied himself a "free thinker", "one not bound by the society's stifling rules" (the description changed constantly over time, this is the latest one) and had several strange tastes and opinions, resulting in him being what some called "extravagant", "weird" or, put more bluntly, "bloody fucking creepy and insane, that's what".

Take the whole nickname business, for instance. 14th was, of course, not his real name. But sometime in his early teens he'd gotten into History, or at least certain interesting aspects of it. He chose some misterious alchemist as one of his heroes and decided he wanted to get a nickname in his honour. And so he used his charm to get everyone to agree to using the ridiculous "14th" nickname. And as usual, Mana's little brother got his way.

Their parents hadn't even posed much of a problem, long resigned to their younger son's excentricities. Their mother had always called him "my dear little boy" anyway, and there wasn't much of a change there.

Their father frowned at him, looked him up and down, glanced at Mana as if for confirmation that this new foolishness was for real, and went back to reading his newspaper with a low grumble about idiot boys and their idiotic antics. He did start calling him 'boy' rather than use his name, though, so it was pratically a win for the 14th on that side too. In a rough, manly, I'm-not-really-going-to-say-anything-out-right-or-even-hint-that-I-actually-care-but-you'll-get-my-meaning-or-else talk (the kind that began with "You're almost a grown man, Mana" and ended with "Do that and you'll become a fine good man one day, son.") their father later told Mana to look after his brother and make sure he didn't do anything too loony and didn't get himself offed in some terrible and/or stupid way. With a long suffering sigh that spoke of the infinite patience he'd needed himself to face his many trials and just how much he could simpathise with his oldest son, he also told Mana to be strong in the face of hardship, and then retreated back behind the wall of his beer-and-newspaper (which seemed to last hours, even entire days on weekends).

Mana had, long before that manly, manly talk with his father, always been by his little brother's side (and so he remained ever since then, even during their greatest fight, in seventh grade) ever since their mother had sat Mana in her lap and put the newborn in his arms for the first time and he'd threwn up all over Mana's shirt. It was a matter of principle; as the oldest brother, he got to play with and protect his baby brother, and also to bully him if he got too annoying. Through the good and the bad, Mana would be there.

And Mana was there all along, all through the prank phase in grade 1 that got his little brother in detention nearly every day, to what he couldn't help but refer to as the Name War in grade 6 or 7 - the name students in their school had given to the battle initiated by Mana's wayward brother for the right to sign his official school paperwork with his nickname, 14th, and to be called by that name by teachers and school employees alike. In this, as in everything else (or, well, a lot of things), Mana supported his brother and did his best to help him get what he wanted, through endless discussions with teachers and parents and classmates and even the school's Head, and putting up posters and almost going on strike and making signs and being ready to march in circles at the school gates with those same signs if it ever came down to that.

(eventually, a compromise was reached - the teachers would call him 14th, and he'd be allowed to sign papers and reports and exams with it, but not other stuff, and could he please stop giving speeches and bringing in firefighter brigades in the middle of classes now, please? It was really disrupting the school's working hours).

Nowadays, few people but Mana know his brother as anything else other than "14th". His victory has been so complete Mana himself refers to him by that nickname even in his thoughts. It's somehow infuriating, really. Or mildly annoying, at least.

And perhaps it was this (quite bureaucratic at times) battle so early on in his life that got into Mana the seeds of his desire to become a lawyer that he felt a few years later.

With great marks and an even better memory, coupled with a knack for cracking puzzles and a strange ability to unsettle people if he so chose (a by-product of being the 14th's brother and one that got a lot of practice in living with such a sibling - startling and confusing the 14th was usually the only way to win an argument), Mana did have the job cut out for him. Their parents were more than happy to help when he announced his plans at the end of high school.

However, in his long career as the 14th's brother, Mana never realized until some time later just how much influence he had over his brother. Certainly, he was aware that his little brother deferred to and admired him somewhat, and that he loved Mana (even if sometimes that was hard to believe, and even if the 14th was quite insensitive and selfish and oblivious sometimes) as much as Mana loved him (which was quite a lot, or he wouldn't have put up with all the... hmm, bad stuff he did put up with because of his little brother), and yes, Mana was even aware of his reputation (or rather, status?) as the only one who could calm / reason with / argue AND win / convince / cheer up / understand / support / NOT support / properly scold / overall HANDLE the 14th. There might even have been something like a "14th's keeper" nickname involved at one point.

Yet, despite knowing all this, it still came as a surprise when, after graduating from high school, the 14th followed in Mana's footsteps and enrolled university with the goal to become a lawyer as well.

And so it was. Through the whirlwind that university (and Mana's life in general) became once his younger brother joined him, Mana studied hard and somehow managed to keep both their necks intact despite all the ugly (and sometimes rather funny, even if the 14th had firmly informed him they were never again speaking of the Rentboy Incident ever again) messes the two of them found themselves in.

Eventually, he became the laywer he'd set out to be, specializing in real estates, and a few years later the 14th was becoming a criminal laywer himself.

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The new job was the thing that somehow managed to contain all of the 14th's energy at long last. He focused on every client's case like it was the last and only one, spending all that energy and intent in his clients' best interests. In that aspect, Mana was extremely proud of his little brother, even if he gained a reputation of recklessness and effectiveness, as opposed to Mana's own of reliability and sometimes even brilliance.

Mana's life became something a little calmer, more stable, now that the 14th had finally found something that kept him grounded enough that Mana felt he didn't really need to worry too much. Even if the 14th's preferred line of work tended to involve flagrant cases of corruption and injustice involving underground alpha dogs or anything along those lines. The 14th was terribly smart, after all, and so charming (and partially utterly insane) that he could simply talk himself out of the trickiest situations most of the time. And in case that wasn't enough, he'd decided to take up martial arts during university. He may not be very experienced, but he wasn't completely defenceless either.

They talked on the phone very often, and saw each other at least once every other week - they remained as close as they'd ever been. Only now they didn't have to elbow each other for enough room at the table, and if they had a fight they could go to their respective houses rather than sulk in neighbouring rooms. Not to mention that Mana even acquired a dog at some point, which neither of them had ever experienced because their father had been allergic. He'd named it Excalibur.

Their parents' deaths on a car accident a few years later came as a sudden blow that nearly blew Mana's nice life to smitherens; the violent and completely unexpected way it all happened was almost too much. For both of them. The stern but fond presence of their father would no longer be there for them, or their mother's gentleness and easy affection. There one minute, gone the next. Mana mourned, and coped as well he could, and tried to move on.

It had a more visible and lasting effect on the 14th, and on a positive side. The maturity he'd always been lacking before, despite his age, somehow made itself apparent. He remained the same, of course, still raw power and charm and slight insanity, but more prone to seriousness every now and then, more subdued. His pace went from lightspeed to merely abysmally fast, and he began reflecting a little more on his decisions. He was still reckless and chased after people he shouldn't, hanging out with old friends from university that ran shady businesses and knew shadier people, but there was a heaviness to the 14th's presence that hadn't been there before.

This period of time was the only one in Mana's life up to that point that ever made him consider labelling his own life as a calm, boring one. Everything was normal, safe and expected (occasional idiotic behaviour and consequent sulk included) and if Mana wasn't exactly happy he was, at least, content.

Until that afternoon, and that phone call.

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Mr. Mana Walker? This is about your... brother, I believe..."

Even before the soft-spoken woman on the phone had finished explaining how they'd found his number, Mana let the phone fall from his lax fingers and fell to his knees on the cold tiled floor of his kitchen, thinking, he can't be dead.

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Mana's life had never been dull, or sad, or normal. A great part of it was owed to his parents and their support of his own mild quirks. Having them taken from him had been excruciating.

The biggest part of it, however, had been all because of his genius, insane little brother of the irresistible charm and infectious smiles, all he had had left, the only one he still had to protect. And he was gone. The day before, he'd phoned Mana, laughing and eager, telling him how he was just about to nail this one guy he'd been after for ages, how he'd carefully planned everything to catch the guy with the hand in the cookie jar. How that mess he'd been up to his neck in earlier? With this, he'd be totally free to walk away, it was brilliant. Mana had lifted an amused eyebrow his brother couldn't see but guessed and scowled at anyway, and told him to be careful.

And now, messed with the wrong person, they said. Entire warehouse went up in flames in a matter of seconds, they said. Seen inside just before the explosion, they said.

Well, no one could blame Mana for going a teensy little bit mad.

Yet it wasn't the drinking, the not sleeping, or the not eating that eventually made it all go to Hell. It was the robber.

The next day, Mana was so stressed he ended up taking it all out on his boss at work, in a shouting match worthy of the annals of History and by far the most aggressive he'd ever been in all his life to anyone. And so Mana got fired.

With no money, no job, and no family, Mana didn't see any point in hope or in moving on, and added 'no house' and 'no memories' to the list. And because Mana couldn't quite leave him behind, he brought the dog with him.

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That was how he came to be out in the snow a few days before Christmas, at a shelter for homeless people, playing a part as a clown to cheer everyone in exchange for a bit more meat on his soup, and finally met the strange little boy with white hair he'd seen once or twice before.

Allen, as he came to find was the boy's name, was a complicated little person. Living in the streets, he'd built up a thick wall between himself and the world, an armor with the shape of the "tough guy" he really wasn't. Or, well, it wasn't all of him. The child was very strong indeed - he just didn't quite know how to use his strengths to his advantage, and instead tried to project an image of what strength was to him.

Mana wasn't at all surprised when a few days after their talk over Excalibur's dead body, he caught the boy harrassing some old woman for some change, scowling like he'd hit her and run if she didn't do it quickly. That may have been the first time Mana had felt a pang of, of something a little possessive towards Allen, when he'd stepped up and lowered a hand to his thin shoulder, and told him he'd get farther in life if he wore a smile instead of a scowl.

It had inadvertedly turned into a life lesson for Allen, who seemed to quickly understand the meaning and take shameless advantage of it. In that way, he reminded Mana of his deceased brother, and the enthusiasm with which he'd speak to whomever he'd be trying to con into doing something for him, and how with a certain smile at the right moment anyone would always give in.

Allen was like that, a little - a force of nature, charismatic and captivating, and capable of lighting up an entire room with a smile when he was truly happy (and he was quickly learning how to do it even when he wasn't so the cooks would sneak in a little more into his plate), possessing a determination quite unlike any Mana had ever seen.

They talked, nearly every day, because in all his complexity and yet pure simplicity mixed in there, Allen was so very interesting, and so like... Mana wouldn't think about him.

Allen kept coming to him, with a broken toy, or a book he wanted read or some bizarre tale about another of his days on the streets.

It was really no wonder when, slowly, Mana began to feel more like himself, and less like the Earth had been ripped from under his feet and he'd lost his center. Allen became the one he could look after, and help, and protect. He became someone dear to Mana, and for him Mana felt the resolve to take back his old life and give Allen the opportunity to have one as well taking shape and strengthening in his mind.

After he found out about Allen's arm and how it was the reason he'd been abandoned at the orphanage he'd ran away from and, despite how wrong it looked, how it must be awful to have something like that for an arm, he still couldn't make himself abandon that idea.

Mouth hanging open in shock at having someone freely and unconcernedly accept his defect, Allen could only let out a choked 'yes' when Mana asked him if he'd be interested in having Mana adopt him.

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A YEAR LATER

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Dear Mana, I hope this note finds you well. It is splendid here in Hawaii! The women are gorgeous! Tell Marian hi for me, yes?

14th

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Mana's eyebrow twitched.

This... this was...

He'd lost his job.

His money. His house.

Even his dog.

In the terrible grief that had enshrouded him, Mana had been barely able to see any reason to live anymore. Because his little brother had been hideously murdered and taken from him. Because he'd failed his brother, and let someone hurt him. Mana had, admittedly, gone mad for a while there, missing his brother and his voice and all the stupid things he said.

And now...

Now Mana got a... a postcard. With a dried flower attached. With a pretty topless woman smiling in her straw skirt. From freakin' Hawaii.

For the second time in his life, Mana Walker threw his arms up in the air and let out a wordless scream of unbridled rage, wishing he could just take his anger out on the entire world.

"Mana?" came Allen's uncertain and slightly worried voice from the kitchen.

"It's nothing, little one." Mana bit out with some difficulty through clenched teeth and a forced smile. "Just some... very good news." The man ignored Allen's disbelieving expression when he poked his head through the door to look at him.

Oh yes. Very good news. Now he'd have the pleasure of killing his brother himself. Because Mana was going to kill him. He was going to kill him and this time he was bloody going to dance on the grave.

.End