So yeah. Hi.
I know that this chapter is ridiculously late. I feel soooooo bad about it, you guys. You don't even know. You're all such fabulous reviwers, and then I go and pull something like this. It is getting near the end of the school year, and I have a crap ton of homework and all, but this shit is just unforgiveable. So I'm sorry.
I really want to thank everyone who has reviwed the story so far. You all are wonderful. I've never gotten such positive reviews. Please, keep it up and let me know how I'm doing.
SO! Without further ado, here is chapter three! I finally remembered that I'm trying to have some sort of plot and whatnot, so there's some pretty blatant foreshadowing ahead. Yay!
Disclaimer: I do not own D Gray-man
Captain's Log—8:35 pm. Commence "Operation: Annoy the Neighbors"
"This is a terrible idea," Allen said, rubbing his arm nervously.
"What? This idea is pure genius!" Lavi insisted. He should know; he thought of it. And everyone knows that everything Lavi thinks of is bound to be pure genius. Because the redhead is, in fact, a genius.
Sometimes, Lavi even managed to astound himself with his infallible logic.
"I thought we were going to go with the route that Kanda and I decided upon," Allen countered, spitting out the long-haired boy's name and grimacing as if it left a bad taste in his mouth.
"That was before the two of you decided to act like five-year-olds and chase each other around that park for an hour," Lenalee interjected from the driver's seat.
"He kicked a rock at me," Kanda grunted, sounding exactly like the five-year-old Lenalee was accusing him of being. He rubbed the spot on his head where Lenalee kicked him when she decided she'd finally had enough of his nonsense.
"You deserved it," Allen replied, sticking out his tongue.
This was probably the most annoyed Kanda had been since that time Daisya got smashed at last year's Jersey Shore party and decided to superglue pink and green sequins to Mugen's sheath. The poor soccer player ended up in the hospital for that one. Lavi sent flowers and a balloon that read "Happy Bar Mitzvah!" because that shit was hilarious.
Daisya was not amused.
"Anywhoozle," Lavi said, grinning. "We're going to do this because it is clearly an awesome plan and Lena agrees with me and I bet you would too if you just stopped scowling at each other for, like, two seconds and really, you guys just need to chill, 'cause I got this shit under total control."
"That was a ridiculously long run-on sentence, Lavi," Allen said, raising an eyebrow. "Even for you. I'm amazed you got all of that out in one breath, really."
"Dude," Lavi said, offended. "It so wasn't. You wanna hear a real run-on sentence?"
"No," Kanda said immediately. "If you even think about it, I will kill you where you stand."
"But I'm sitting right now, Yu," Lavi replied, snickering because Kanda clearly did not understand how logic worked.
Kanda just growled and looked away. Lavi assumed that this was his way of saying "of course, Lavi. I am but a lowly imbecile and bow to your infinite wisdom" or something similar.
Lenalee pulled up in front of Allen's house and Lavi was out of the Jeep before she'd even taken the keys out of the ignition.
"He's going to be so mad," Allen whined, sliding out of the back seat and trudging after him.
"I'm staying in the car," Kanda growled. Lenalee pouted at him and Kanda gritted his teeth for a moment before unbuckling his seatbelt and kicking open the door. "Fine, fine," he finally muttered.
The four of them gathered on the front step. Lavi giggled a little to himself as he rang the doorbell.
When the door finally swung open, George stood on the threshold. His politely curious expression quickly morphed into one of angry disgust. "What do you hooligans want?" he demanded.
"Girl scouts!" Lavi said brightly. "Would you like to buy some cookies to support our troop, sir?"
"Lavi…" Lenalee groaned. But she covered her mouth a second too late to hide her grin from the green-eyed boy's observant gaze.
"Did you all come over here just to mock me? Is that it?" George looked highly unimpressed at this.
"No, of course not, sir," Allen said, smiling winningly. His ability to pull out the 'properly polite gentleman' act at the drop of a hat was as impressive as it was adorably amusing, Lavi decided.
"Then what do you want? Are you here to apologize for allowing your snow to pile up in such unsightly heaps?" George asked, pointing at Allen's yard. Two sad little piles sat at the edge of the sidewalk, covered in the sand the city scattered on the roads after particularly heavy snowfalls. "Because if that's the case, I will only accept your apology in writing, as I've stated in my numerous letters to you."
"Letters?" Allen repeated, baffled. The group looked across the street at the younger boy's house and noticed that the metal mailbox, which hung a bit crookedly next to his front door, was stuffed with so many little white envelopes that the lid didn't even close properly anymore.
"That's a lot of mail," Lenalee commented.
Allen rounded on the redhead. "Lavi!" he barked. "Did I not ask you to collect my mail for me while I was gone?"
Lavi froze, wide-eyed. Now that he thought about it, Allen totally had asked him to do that. Apparently, he failed that mission. This was unprecedented, of course, because Lavi never failed missions. Especially not ones tasked to him by certain lovable bean sprouts. A calm, rational explanation was clearly in order.
Unfortunately, while Lavi was perfectly capable of being rational, he was never very good at being at being calm.
"But neighbor!" he wailed, throwing his arms around Allen dramatically. "I was just so distraught when you left that I was all 'oh no, I won't get to see my cute little buddy for almost a whole month!' but you were all 'blah blah blah, here's some boring stuff I'm going to talk about now, blah blah blah, responsibility, blah blah blah.' And I was all, 'dude, I'm not going to listen to this. I need to focus all of my attention on my heart-wrenching display of totally called-for and not at all melodramatic sobbing.' I was worried about my feelings, not shit like getting your mail or watering your plants, which I just now remembered you also asked me to do."
"You killed my plants?" Allen shrieked.
"That's not important right now," Lavi said, clinging tighter to the smaller boy and burying his nose in his soft white hair. "What's important is that I missed you."
From somewhere behind his left shoulder, Lavi heard Kanda sigh. It was less of an "aww, what a heartwarming scene" kind of sigh and more of a "you two are morons and I'm going to kill you now" kind of sigh.
This did not bode well.
"What are you doing?" George demanded. "And why is this disturbing display occurring on my front step?"
Oh yeah. George. In all of this excitement, Lavi almost forgot why they were even there.
"Mr. George," Allen said, forcefully extricating himself from Lavi's loving hug and pasting on a smile. "The reason we're actually here is that we're doing a scavenger hunt and would like to ask you if you'd be willing to lend us anything you might have that is on this list." He pulled the list out of his pocket and held it out to him.
George took the time to carefully gaze at each of their hopeful faces (well, Kanda's face wasn't as hopeful as it was annoyed, but whatever) before he took a step backward and slammed the door in their faces.
"Hmm," Lavi said, as Allen let his arm drop dejectedly. "That actually went a lot better than I expected."
Lenalee suddenly let loose such a violet burst of laughter that Lavi figured she'd held it in throughout the entire exchange.
"That was so worth it," she said breathlessly when she'd finally calmed a bit. "Just to see his face when you started hugging Allen and rambling about that stuff… ah…" she smiled at Lavi and gave him a thumbs-up. "Well played, sir. Well played."
"Thank you," Lavi said, giving a bow.
Allen whacked him on the head. "I still cannot believe you killed my plants."
"Accident, babe! It was not done with malicious intent, I swear!"
"That was a giant waste of time," Kanda broke in. "If we'd gone with my plan we'd have a ton of points by now. I want to win, dammit."
"And we will, Yu. Don't you worry," Lavi said, patting him on the back.
"Don't touch me," Kanda said. "Now get your ass in the car. We're going to do things my way now."
"Are you giving orders to the Captain?" Lavi demanded, affronted. "No one gives orders to the Captain!"
"You are not a Captain," Allen said shortly, brushing past him. He was probably still upset over the untimely demise of his plants, Lavi reasoned.
Note to self, Lavi thought as he sauntered toward the Jeep. Buy Allen new plants. Fake ones, though. Real ones are clearly overrated.
Captain's Log—11:42 pm. "Operation: Clock Tower"
After a few surprisingly productive hours of collecting items from the list—in which they only had to pull over once to physically separate Allen and Kanda, who'd gotten into a fistfight in the back seat over whether it was worth it to take the time to try to find a My Little Pony figurine (45 points)—the four of them gathered around the granite clock tower that stood in the middle of campus. The clock tower was rather famous with the students of Black Order University. Not only did it play the school song every hour on the hour, but there was a ridiculous urban legend connected to it as well. According to school lore, if a couple shared a kiss at the base of the tower, they were destined to stay together forever and live happily ever after.
This legend was a horrible let-down for Lavi when he heard it as a freshman. When he first caught wind that there was an urban legend connected with the campus, he assumed that some sort of bizarrely elaborate murder had taken place beneath the clock's softly glowing face. Or that some sort of tragic accident had occurred and the center of campus was now haunted by the restless, blank-eyed ghost of the student who'd been the hapless victim. Something interesting that could be the plot of one of the Lifetime channel's more unorthodox Original Movies.
Not that Lavi watched Lifetime or anything.
But alas! The real legend was ridiculously sappy, as well as dreadfully inaccurate. Lavi knew this first-hand, as he'd made out with seven or eight girls at that tower (they were convinced it was romantic, while Lavi was just looking for a way to cure his boredom at the time) yet he'd broken up with them shortly thereafter and never spoke to them again. Which, now that he thought about it, was kind of a dick move on his part.
He cast a sideways glance at Allen as the younger boy milled about, kicking pieces of wood-mulch back into a flowerbed. Allen was still a bit snappish over the unfortunate loss of his plants. Lavi said he was sorry again and again, but the boy refused to accept his apology. When Lavi asked why, Allen just shook his head and huffed that Lavi "just didn't understand."
Whatever that meant.
"I thought you said everyone else would be here," Lenalee said, sidling up to him and pulling her coat tighter to her body in the cold.
"I thought they would be," Lavi said, scratching the back of his head. One of the items on the scavenger hunt list was a photo of the clock tower at exactly midnight. It was worth six-hundred points and was one of the most valuable on the entire list. He sort of figured everyone else would show up to take advantage of the point-value.
"Well, well, well," an obnoxious voice said, accompanied by the jingling of bells. Lavi whirled around and saw Daisya Barry—in his ridiculous jester hat…seriously, who told him wearing that thing was a good idea?—and his team step into the circle of light provided by the clock's lighted face. "Thought we might see you here, Bookman."
"There they are," Lavi said to Lenalee, pointing at the group.
"Yes, thank you Lavi, I can see them," she replied, rolling her eyes. She waved at Miranda, who gave a tremulous smile and waved back.
"No fraternizing with the enemy," Daisya barked, and Miranda recoiled as though struck. Marie frowned at him, probably for yelling at the clearly emotionally fragile girl, and cuffed him on the back of the head. Krory shifted awkwardly and tried to remain out of sight.
"Damn, they beat us here," Fou muttered as she stalked into their midst, followed by her team. The two boys (what were their names again?) were bent over the list in serious discussion. The girl Allen called "Miss Lo Fa"—Allen called all women except Lenalee "miss," which was equal parts adorable and hilarious—immediately began looking around frantically. When she finally caught sight of Allen, who was lurking just beyond the circle of light near the student announcement board, she blushed such a brilliant crimson that Lavi could see it in the dark.
"How many points you got, Bookman?" Daisya said, stepping up to the redhead confrontationally.
"Uh," Lavi said, taking a step back.
"More than you've got, asshole," Kanda said from where he was leaning against the side of the tower.
"What?" Daisya said, whirling. "Wanna bet?"
Lavi took this opportunity to slip away from the group unnoticed. He needed to talk to his boyfriend. Allen hadn't spoken to him much since George's house, and had instead fully invested himself in planning their strategy with Kanda. The two of them actually managed to remain pretty civil with each other (save the "My Little Pony incident," as it came to be known) and while the Lavi was happy that his ultimate plan was working, he did not enjoy the fact that Allen was only getting along with Kanda because he needed something to do to avoid speaking with him.
He wandered over to Allen, who stood in front of the giant corkboard on which people could pin information and advertisements. The white-haired boy pretended to be very interested in a flyer for the University's French Club, even though Lavi knew for a fact that Allen didn't speak a word of the language.
"Hey," he said.
So his greeting wasn't very inspired. Sometimes, simpler is better, right?
"What?" Allen said shortly.
Or maybe not…
"Are you still mad?" Lavi asked quietly.
"What do you think?" Allen said, refusing to look at him.
"Aww, come on, dude!" Lavi said, putting a hand on his boyfriend's shoulder. Allen shook it off and Lavi frowned. "This can't just be about plants and mail, am I right?"
"I can't believe it took you this long to figure it out," Allen said, snorting. "Oh wait, yes I can."
Ouch. Okay, maybe he deserved that.
But what could Allen still hold a grudge about? Lavi was a genius, so figuring this shit out should be a cinch. However, things with Allen always ended up being far more complicated than they should be. Lavi still remembered the whole post-Halloween debacle they'd both lived through and how Allen decided to avoid him without explaining why. That whole situation was messed up and awful; Lavi didn't think he'd ever felt so hurt in his entire life.
From that experience, Lavi learned that Allen liked to be passive aggressive and cryptic. He dropped vague hints here and there, and Lavi was left to put the pieces together to figure out what was wrong. And he hated puzzles.
Oh man, puzzles were so stupid. Who wants to spend fourteen hours fitting together ten thousand little pieces of cardboard just to get a poorly drawn picture of a fish or some shit like that? That was not Lavi's idea of a good time. Moral of the story: puzzles were not fun. Puzzles were, like, anti-fun.
"Aren't you going to say anything?" Allen said crossly.
Lavi gave a start, shaking his head to clear it. He was still trying to figure out what Allen's problem was. He actually hadn't gotten very far in his analysis before he got distracted by his mental tangent about puzzles. Regrettably, this sort of thing happened to him often.
"Um," Lavi said, just to buy himself some time. He thought hard, mentally sifting through all of the information he had on Allen that could potentially be relevant. If most other people tried to do this their brains would explode, but Lavi's brain was tough and manly and sexy (brains can be sexy, right?) and could therefore totally handle it. What did Allen think was important? What was the one thing Allen prided himself on above all others?
"Cooking!" Lavi blurted.
"What?" Allen said, frowning.
Oh, shit, that wasn't the right word. "Responsibility," Lavi amended. "Responsibility, right? That's why you're mad. Because you asked me to take care of something for you and I didn't. I shirked my responsibility. Right?"
"Right," Allen said softly.
Lavi bit his lip. He'd been told his entire life that he was horribly irresponsible—usually by his grandfather right before the old man kicked him into the nearest hard surface. He never really thought much about it, though, because he'd also been told that his carefree attitude toward rules and obligations added to his charm—usually by some breathless girl right before he dragged her into some situation of questionable legality.
But he was with Allen now. And if responsibility was a quality that was important to the gray-eyed boy, then Lavi would just have to be more responsible from now on.
He grinned and pulled Allen into a hug. "I'm sorry," he whispered in his ear.
Allen wrapped his arms around Lavi and hugged back. "I forgive you."
Lavi whooped and pumped a fist in the air. "Yes! I am awesome!"
"But!" Allen said, holding up a warning finger and dampening the redhead's spirits a little. "You have to promise me you'll work on being more responsible, okay?"
"I promise," Lavi said sincerely.
"Great!" Allen said, giving him a brilliant grin.
Lavi melted a little inside at that, pleased that their first major spat as a couple was resolved quickly and peaceably. "Come on, we should get back to the team," he said, looping his arm with Allen's.
"Hang on," Allen said, turning back to the announcement board. "Do you know what this is all about?" he asked, indicating a bright-pink flyer that was tacked to the very center of the board.
"Huh?" Lavi asked, leaning closer in order to read it in the dim light. "Emergency meeting of the LBFC," he read aloud. "This Sunday at eight o'clock in room 123 of the student union. Hey, that's tomorrow!"
"What's the LBFC?" Allen wondered.
"Dunno," Lavi said, scrutinizing the flyer again. In the bottom left corner were the letters "AW," surrounded by a red circle with a line drawn through them—the international sign for "no." The whole thing was surrounded by a disturbing skull-and-crossbones motif.
"Must be important," Allen said. "Look."
Lavi looked around, following Allen's pointing finger. Now that he was looking for them, he realized that the pink flyers were everywhere. They were taped to light poles, stapled to trees, even attached to wooden stakes that were driven into the ground next to the sidewalks.
"Weird," Lavi said. Then he shrugged. "Not really our problem, though, is it?"
"I suppose not," Allen said, seemingly unconvinced.
"Probably something boring," Lavi said, grabbing Allen's hand again. "Let's go! It's almost time to take the picture."
"Right," Allen said. He started to turn, but at the last minute he reached out and tugged the pink flyer off of the bulletin board. It tore a bit at the top as it broke free of the tack holding it in place. Allen folded it into fourths and stuck it in his back pocket. Lavi raised an eyebrow and the white-haired boy shrugged. "You never know."
"Fair enough," Lavi said. "Come on, come on!" He tugged Allen along behind him.
"You really need to stop dragging me everywhere, Lavi," Allen said. But he didn't twist out of Lavi's grip.
"The hell took you idiots so long?" Kanda grumped when they returned to the group. Daisya was sitting on a bench, rubbing his chest with a pained expression. Lavi raised an eyebrow and Lenalee gave an exasperated sigh.
"Kanda punched him," she said, crossing her arms.
"Again?" Allen said.
"He deserved it," Kanda said matter-of-factly. "He stepped to me. You don't step to me if you can't handle it."
"Oh, Yu, you're so manly," Lavi simpered, pretending to swoon.
"I will kill you," Kanda said calmly.
"Kid's got a pretty impressive right hook," Fou said, nodding appreciatively. The tall boy behind her (seriously, what the hell was his name?) snickered and the shorter one rolled his eyes. Lo Fa's eyes lit up when she saw Allen and was at his side so quickly it was like she teleported there.
The clock tower chose that moment to chime, proclaiming to the world that it was midnight and nearly scaring the life out Lavi.
"Oooh, quick!" Lenalee squealed, holding up her camera. Lavi dragged Allen over to where Kanda was once again leaning against the side of the tower and flashed a smile. Lenalee snapped the picture just in time. Not a second later Daisya's team shouldered them out of the way in order to take their own picture. They had a brief war with Fou's team that ended with both teams ending up in both pictures.
"All right!" Daisya crowed. "Let's move out, team!" He held up a fist and ran off without saying goodbye, his stupid hat jingling stupidly.
"We'd better be off, too," Fou said, snatching the list from one of the boys' hands and scrutinizing it. "Seeya, Lenalee," she called, not looking up as she hurried away. Her team followed.
"Bye Fou!" Lenalee called. "We'd better go too. I was secretly listening in on Daisya's team's discussion, and I think that they have almost as many points as we do. We should go get some more stuff."
"I refuse to lose to Barry," Kanda snarled, striding toward the lot where they'd parked the Jeep. "Let's go."
"We probably should try to win," Lenalee said, giving Lavi a Look. "As we don't really have anything to give the other teams for a prize if they do win."
"Right, right," Lavi said. Lenalee trotted after Kanda and the redhead made to follow, but Allen grabbed his hand and held him back.
"What's up?" Lavi asked, looking down at him in confusion.
"Well," Allen said, ducking his head. "I don't know if you know about the urban legend surrounding the clock tower, but I thought that…you know…" he trailed off shyly.
Well, if that wasn't the cutest thing in the history of ever. Lavi grinned brightly and dragged Allen right to the foot of the tower. He cupped the smaller boy's face in his hands and kissed him gently. Allen shuddered a bit and sighed, which made Lavi chuckle.
"Shut up," Allen whined, whacking him on the shoulder.
"Sorry, sprout. You're just so cute!"
"My name is Allen!" But the proclamation lacked its usual vehemence. Lavi kissed him again and Allen wrapped his arms around the taller boy's neck.
When they broke apart, Allen buried his face in Lavi's chest and sighed again. Lavi smiled and raised his head, catching sight of Lo Fa, who was standing stock-still on the sidewalk and staring at them with her hand over her mouth. He was unsure what she was doing there, because he was certain her team had already left. Perhaps she stayed to say goodbye to Allen? And although he'd previously found her obvious crush on his boyfriend to be amusing in its futility, Lavi felt a surge of sympathy rise in his chest at the devastated expression on her face. When he caught her eye, she turned and walked away quickly. She was almost completely out of sight when she stopped, read one of the pink flyers taped to a light-post, and then pulled it down and took it with her.
Lavi wondered at that. What about that information could have Lo Fa so interested? Perhaps this "LBFC" required further investigation…
"We should probably go," Allen said, pulling away and grinning up at him. He was completely ignorant of the Lo Fa incident, and Lavi couldn't bring himself to mention it. Allen would feel terrible, and Lavi didn't want that. For now, he'd keep it to himself.
"Yeah, Kanda will be pissed if we don't hurry," Lavi said, forcing his usual cheer into his voice. If Allen noticed that his tone was falsely bright, he didn't mention it.
Captain's Log—5:27 am. At this point, the Captain is far too tired to think of a clever codename for this particular mission.
"Coffee!" Lavi moaned, shuffling into the all-night diner like some sort of caffeine-addicted zombie. The other three members of his team slouched in after him. They threw themselves into a booth and Lenalee immediately let her head sink onto the tabletop.
A waitress bustled over, sporting a sympathetic smile. "A bit tired, are we?"
"Nothing a large cup of coffee can't handle," Lavi said, yawning. Allen's head slumped onto his shoulder and the redhead blinked owlishly. "Maybe you should just bring us a whole pot."
"Will do," the waitress said. She poked Lenalee's shoulder with her pencil, frowning in concern. "Is she going to be all right?"
"'m 'kay," Lenalee mumbled without raising her head, her voice muffled by the Formica pressed to her lips.
"Don't forget the cream," Lavi reminded the waitress as she walked toward the kitchen.
"Che," Kanda scoffed, trying to subtly rub his clearly tired eyes. "You're all weak. You can't even stay awake? Pathetic."
"You're tired too, Kanda," Lenalee grumbled, tilting her head to the side to glare at him.
"Whoever thought that an all-night scavenger hunt was a good idea is a moron," Allen said sleepily, still leaning against Lavi's shoulder.
"Hey!" Lavi said, affronted.
"The rabbit is a moron," Kanda agreed, nodding.
"Mmmhmm," Allen breathed.
Hold up. Agreed? Allen and Kanda were actually…agreeing on something? Lavi took a moment to be thrilled, even though technically what they were agreeing on was an insult to his (considerable) intelligence and he should be offended. He let it slide, instead looking excitedly at Lenalee as if to say "see? Told you it would work!"
Lenalee, however, was fast asleep where she sat and had missed the entire exchange.
Lavi sighed and leaned his chin in his hand. This coffee outing was a much-needed break. The past few hours were spent driving all over town, trying to track down some of the more elusive items on the list. They were rather successful, actually, and the back of Allen's Jeep was so full of random junk the white-haired boy said he was afraid someone would see it and call one of those Hoarding shows to come clean it out.
"Here you are," the waitress said, setting down a silver coffee pot and a carafe of cream. "And here, you poor dears," she added, placing an entire apple pie in the middle of the table. "On the house."
"Thank you very much," Lavi said, flashing his signature grin and reaching for the pot. He filled his white china mug and added a generous dose of cream.
"Food?" Allen said hopefully, lifting his head off of Lavi's shoulder to pull the pie tin toward him.
"Hey," Kanda growled, grabbing the other edge of the tin. "Don't go hogging this whole thing to yourself, beansprout."
"My name is Allen," Allen spat, more awake now that he was in an epic battle for control of the pie.
"No one cares," Kanda said, giving the tin a vicious tug. "Give me the pie."
"Never!" Allen hissed, tugging himself.
"Uh, guys…" Lavi said, watching as the tin bent out of shape and caused the pie-filling within to slowly seep out of the crust and onto the table.
"You're wrecking it!" Allen accused.
"I'm wrecking it?" Kanda repeated incredulously. "You're the one who's squishing it!"
"Whass happen?" Lenalee hummed, lifting her head to stare with confused eyes at the pie war going on in front of her. "Who ordered pie?"
"No one," Lavi said, pouring her a cup of coffee. "The nice waitress gave it to us for free. But at this rate, I don't think any of us are actually going to get to eat any of it." He passed her the mug, which she took with a murmur of thanks.
"Did you hear that, jerk?" Allen said, glaring. "Lavi and Lenalee want some pie, too. So stop wrecking it."
"A likely story," Kanda sniffed. "You just want to eat it all yourself, you bottomless pit."
"This is kind of hilarious," Lenalee said, grinning at Lavi over the rim of her mug.
Lavi had to agree. As much as he wanted them to get along, he had to admit that he got an enormous kick out of watching them argue. He wished he was more awake so he could fully enjoy it.
"Give it to me!" Kanda demanded.
"Fine!" Allen snapped, letting go of the tin just as Kanda gave a vicious yank. It flew into Kanda's face and slid off slowly, like some sort of bizarre comedy routine from an old Three Stooges movie. Kanda sat stiffly, marinated in apple pie and rage.
"Oh shit," Lavi said quietly. Lenalee smacked her hand over her mouth to try to stifle her giggles, but it was too late.
"Beansprout!" Kanda bellowed. Allen sat up straight, completely awake, and bolted out of the booth and through the door. Kanda scrambled over Lenalee, who was incapacitated with mirth, and charged after him.
"Ooh, well, I'm certainly awake now!" Lenalee said, breathless from laughter.
"My plan isn't going to work, is it?" Lavi said, feeling very defeated. He looked dejectedly out the window and watched the furious Japanese boy chase Allen all over the parking lot.
"What was your fist clue?" Lenalee said, giving his arm a friendly pat.
Lavi hung his head and sighed.
Captain's Log—3:39 pm. "Operation: Sleepytime."
They were done.
There were still a few hours left in the scavenger hunt, but Lavi's team decided that they'd just make do with the items they'd collected. They were having a difficult time caring about anything at this point, much less winning this arbitrary contest.
When the team trooped back into the house, they all pretty much fell asleep where they dropped. Kanda managed to make it into his own bedroom, slamming the door behind him, but the rest of the team decided that the living room was looking pretty damn comfortable. Lavi and Allen curled up on the couch while Lenalee just flopped onto the floor.
Lavi wasn't sure how long he slept, but he awoke to the sound of hushed voices. He kept his eyes closed and breathed evenly, pretending to be asleep so he could eavesdrop like the sneaky ninja he was.
"—the reason for all of this, right?" a voice was murmuring close to his ear. That must be Allen.
"Che." Kanda. What was he doing in the living room?
"I mean, you know why he put us both in the backseat and tried to get us to work together, don't you?"
"Do I care?"
Allen made an impatient noise in his throat, and Lavi felt the vibration on his cheek where he was leaning against the smaller boy. "He wants us to get along, of course."
Lavi's breathing hitched a bit at that. So Allen had figured out his masterful plan? And here he thought he was being discreet. Aww, his BF was so smart!
Of course, Lavi was never very good at being discreet. That was another thing he'd have to work on, he decided. Responsibility and discretion. Ugh, that sounded like way too much work.
"Why should I care what that dumbass wants?"
Oh yeah, he was eavesdropping. He almost forgot about that. This seemed like a very serious conversation, too. And even though Kanda's words indicated that he was apathetic, Lavi knew the long-haired boy well enough to recognize the tone that said he really did care. If only a little.
"I just think that we should, you know. Try." Allen said this last word as though it physically pained him. "For Lavi's sake."
Lavi wanted to sit up and hug the younger boy for all he was worth, but he figured that both of them would be annoyed he'd been pretending to sleep. And he did not feel like getting smacked right then.
"Che." Kanda said. But Lavi thought he heard a note of grudging agreement in his voice.
"Thanks, Kanda," Allen said softly.
"I'm going to go get my soba now," Kanda said, in what was probably his attempt at a non-hostile tone.
Of course. Only Kanda would forego sleep in favor of soba.
"All right," Allen said, and Lavi could hear the grin in his voice. The white-haired boy snuggled back down onto his shoulder and Lavi felt himself begin to tear up. Then he remembered that he was far too manly to cry and settled for a triumphant smirk before drifting back to sleep.
He was shocked awake by the front door banging open at 6:23. He toppled off the couch, pulling Allen down with him.
"Ready to lose, Bookman?" Daisya Barry crowed, bounding into the house. "Our team didn't sleep at all, so we had way more time to collect shit than you losers. Helps that Krory's a vampire. They don't need to sleep."
"I'm not a vampire," Krory said, as though he'd repeatedly established this fact and was getting tired of repeating himself.
"You keep tellin' yourself that, Dracula," Daisya said, waving a hand.
Krory's shoulders slumped and Marie gave him a comforting pat on the back. Only then did Lavi notice Miranda standing at the back of the group. There were bags under her eyes and she was shaking slightly, clearly sleep deprived. She looked positively deranged.
"Is Fou's group back yet?" Lenalee asked, sitting up from where she'd been sprawled on the rug and rubbing her eyes.
"They forfeited," Daisya said, smiling smugly. "Apparently one of their team members had a nervous breakdown and had to go home."
"What?" Allen said, frowning in concern. "Who was it?"
"The girl with the glasses. Fafa or whatever."
Lavi tugged guiltily at his collar, but luckily Allen didn't notice. "Miss Lo Fa? Goodness, I do hope she's all right."
"Eh, less competition for me," Daisya said, shrugging. The rest of his team looked disgruntled at his use of 'me' instead of 'us.' "Not that I'm worried or anything. You guys're going down."
"We'll see about that," Kanda said, stalking into the room from wherever it was he'd been lurking. "Beanspr—er… yeah," he said, wrinkling his nose.
"Yes, Kanda?" Allen said, smiling beatifically.
"Help me get the stuff out of the car."
"I'll help too!" Lavi exclaimed, jumping up with a wide smile. He pretended not to notice Kanda's attempt not to use the hated "beansprout" moniker, but Lenalee stared at him in blatant amazement.
When both remaining teams had all of their items laid out in the living room, Lavi and Lenalee, with some help from Marie and Krory, added up both teams' total points. Daisya bounced on his heels in impatience while Miranda passed out on the loveseat. Kanda leaned against the wall, acting coolly disinterested. No one was fooled.
When all the points were totaled, Lavi and Lenalee shared a worried glance.
"What?" Allen said.
"Well…" Lavi started.
"It would seem our team is the victor," Marie said in his deep voice.
"Ha!" Daisya said, pointing a taunting finger in Kanda's face. "We won, douche! Suck on that!"
"What? No way," Kanda said, storming over to the tally sheets to check the numbers himself.
"Sorry Kanda," Lenalee said sheepishly. "They've got us by thirty points."
"I knew we should have stopped for that My Little Pony figure," Allen sighed, shaking his head.
"What?" Kanda demanded, rounding on him. "You saying this is somehow my fault, beansprout?"
"Wha—? No, I…" Allen spluttered.
Kanda cracked his knuckles. "If you hadn't wasted our time doing whatever stupid shit it was you wanted to do, we could have collected more stuff!"
"What?" Allen said, perplexed. "What did I do?"
"You know what you did," Kanda said threateningly. "It's your fault we lost."
"Now hold on a minute, Yu," Lavi said, trying to step in between them.
"I hardly think it's fair that you're blaming this on me," Allen said hotly. "Especially when it was most likely your fault!"
"Um, guys," Lenalee said weakly. In the background, Daisya Barry was roaring with laughter.
"Come over here and say that, beansprout," Kanda said, taking an ominous step forward.
"No, wait, we shouldn't be fighting," Allen said, shooting a furtive glance at Lavi. "Remember what we, er, talked about? Our agreement?"
"Screw that!" Kanda said. "It's your fault we lost. And now I have to kick your ass."
"I think he's upset we didn't win and needs to vent his anger," Lenalee stage-whispered.
"On me?" Allen whined, edging away from him.
This was clearly the wrong thing to do.
With a frankly terrifying snarl, Kanda leaped forward. Allen shrieked and fled, shooting out the kitchen door and presumably running back to his own house. Kanda followed in hot pursuit.
Lavi laced his fingers together and rested his chin on top of them. "Well, 'Operation: Allen/Kanda Friendship' is clearly a failure. Next steps, Lieutenant Lee?" he asked, leveling Lenalee with a serious look.
She shrugged.
"My sentiments exactly," Lavi said, leaning against the back of the couch with a defeated sigh.
The jingling of bells announced the arrival of Daisya Barry. Lavi cracked his eye open and looked up at him blearily.
"So, what do we win?"
Reviews, yes? Oh, and also, I just have a tiny little request. If you don't feel like it, that's totally cool, but I'd just like to ask those of you who favorite/alert this story to also drop me a little review to let me know why you like it. Sound cool?
Oh, and also! I'm going to London this summer! I'll be there for about a month. Yeah, its gonna be so rad. So if any of you amazing readers are Londoners (Londonites? Londonians?) and have any ideas about cool places for me to visit and be an annoying tourist, let me know!