Push
Part 3 of 3
Woo-hoo! Last chapter! Thank you guys so much for continuing to read this and for the reviews you have left me. I am always touched that we can connect with each other via our shared love of these animes/mangas/characters!
Allen Walker, Lenalee Lee, and all characters in the DGM Universe do not belong to me. I am merely borrowing them for a while to suit my purpose. If it wasn't clear before, I will reiterate that this is an Allen Walker X Lenalee Lee story.
I was going to start continuing on with my current DGM fic but this idea injected itself into my head as I sat down to type and I had to explore it. Sigh…I'm so bad with procrastination. Ilya Shkarov is someone I made up to propel this story along. I am not sure specifically where this is set in terms of the manga's time line and I think I'm okay with that. Let's just say sometime after the move to the new HQ.
The Black Order: Main Headquarters, London – Allen Walker's Quarters
"Oi! Allen! You coming to dinner or what? This isn't like you…since when do I have to call you out more than once to eat? Are you sick or something?"
Lavi stood in front of Allen's door, having knocked on it several times now without getting a response. He let the noise settle as he strained to hear any sound of stirring from within.
Nothing.
After a few beats, Lavi's tone of voice matched his mood, which was quickly turning concerned. "Seriously, are you okay?"
"Is everyone there?" came a soft, tentative voice that Lavi knew to be Allen's.
"At dinner? Of course everyone's there, why wouldn't they be?"
Nothing.
And then, seemingly from out of the void, a sonic explosion of heaving, raucous, dissident calamity such as Lavi had never heard was assaulting his ears. It was emanating from Allen's room! Without a second thought, Lavi kicked the door down, his heart racing, as he held his hammer at the ready. He was met with the sight of Allen sitting alone on his bed, holding his stomach, and looking quite sheepish.
"What the hell was that?" demanded Lavi, still looking around for some unknown evil.
"Why'd you kick my door in?" Allen asked more calmly than Lavi thought he should.
"Whaddya mean? That noise! I thought you were being attacked…" countered Lavi.
Then it all sunk in: Allen looking as guilty as all get out, the way he was hunched over and holding his midsection, as if to stifle something, and that noise…now that he thought about it, sounded vaguely familiar…and he hadn't seen Allen at all yesterday, not even during meals…
Lavi's hammer slid back easily into his holster as it returned to normal size. Once he assured himself that headquarters hadn't been infiltrated by some new threat, he took his time and leaned his back against the wall that was next to the now splintered door which was half-hanging off its hinges.
"Good god. Was that your stomach growling?"
Before Allen could even answer, a booming and tumultuous gurgling escaped from Allen's body, making him squirm as if fighting a beast trying to get loose.
"Ehhh…" was all Allen could say in response to both Lavi's question and his own stomach's betrayal.
"You haven't eaten for two days, have you?" asked Lavi, rhetorically. He already knew the answer.
"I just haven't had an appetite," responded Allen, more truthfully than either of them knew.
"Your stomach's telling me differently."
"I'm hungry but that's not the same as feeling like eating. Nothing tastes good."
"Okay, something in the universe has just dislodged because that makes NO sense coming from you. Let's back up a bit," asserted Lavi, going into analytical mode. "Does this have something to do with when you came back to the dining hall a couple of nights ago, looking white as a sheet?"
Nothing.
Lavi continued since he didn't exactly get a negation from the boy. "Okay, let's see, so you had gone chasing after Lenalee a few nights ago…the night we all met Ilya for the first time…but when you came back, you were like a zombie, staring off into space and just grunting in reply. But then you proceeded to scarf down half of Jerry's food stock without so much as a word, and then left. I haven't seen you since then. Have you been holed up in your room for the past two days? I thought maybe I just kept missing you but the chances of your being in the kitchen are too great for me to miss you two days in a row without good reason."
Allen couldn't quite argue with that logic.
"Are you going to tell me what's going on, or what?"
"I…"
"You saw something that night. What was it?"
"It was…"
"Come on, let's hear it."
"I will if you let me!"
Lavi raised his eyebrows to let Allen know that he was all ears.
"I just wanted to ask Lenalee something so I went looking for her," began Allen, reticently.
"Sure you did," Lavi retorted on impulse, having a clear memory of that night, but this only earned him a glare from Allen. "Yeah, go on."
"Anyway…I knew they were headed for the lounge so I went there and well…they were already sitting down, talking…"
"Okaaaay…"
"…but it looked kind of serious. I don't think they were just chatting. Ilya's back was to me but I could see Lenalee's face pretty well from where I was…"
"…hiding?"
"…standing! Do you want to hear this or not?"
"Sorry, sorry. Go on."
After Allen muttered something under his breath about how Bookmen were supposed to be better listeners, he continued.
"So, I didn't want to interrupt whatever they were talking about since it seemed important but Lenalee looked so worried about whatever Ilya was saying to her. And he was…he was holding her hands. Anyway, I started to walk back to the dining hall but I just got this weird feeling so I went back to check on her. The next thing I saw was the two of them walking out of the lounge…together."
Lavi just looked at Allen, tilting his head as if expecting something more.
"Together. As in To-geth-er," Allen explained, emphatically.
"Oh. I see. Well, that explains things."
"What? That explains what?" demanded Allen.
"I guess it explains why they're hanging around each other so much," Lavi said, almost to himself. "It's as if they're attached at the hip."
Allen's face visibly fell.
"Do you really think they're seeing each other, in THAT way?" prodded Lavi.
Allen looked down at his feet as he sat on the edge of his bed for a long minute. His stomach had quieted down as if in deference to prioritization.
"She has a right to, don't you think, Lavi?" Allen finally said, his tone searching.
"Well, sure she does," he responded, going along with Allen's reasoning. "She's a lovely young girl. Why shouldn't she be given attention and affection? She can't just have Komui as the only guy in her life, right? That's a little unhealthy, as we all know."
"I suppose so. But I just didn't think she thought she had time for something like that," replied Allen, wishing he could take back his initial assertion now that Lavi seemed to encourage it. "I mean, we certainly don't live the same kind of life as other people our age. We can't do the same things."
"Ah, but don't you think that's more of a reason why she would like to?"Lavi posited, as he crossed his arms. "We may have these heavy responsibilities but deep down, are we that much different from other people our age? There are days when I'd like nothing more than to shove aside all my history books and just read a meaningless adventure story or sleep in or go on a date with a cute girl who has long legs. I'm sure even Yu would like something on the side instead of having to be a hothead all day. So I don't blame Lenalee for wanting to feel like any other girl sometimes and maybe have a boy tell her she's pretty or give her flowers. They are little things and it doesn't seem like a big deal until…you can't have it."
Allen considered Lavi's words carefully and found that he wouldn't want Lenalee to be robbed of those things, if he could help it. For all of her care and concern for others, didn't she deserve to be made to feel special? Shouldn't she be told how her smile brightens everyone's day, that her kindness and thoughtfulness are what keeps them afloat, that her laughter is like a sunbeam penetrating through even the darkest, densest cloud – that she was so beautiful sometimes he had to stop himself from staring…
"What about you, Allen? You're a grown young man. Don't you want something more than this?" asked Lavi, seeing the burgeoning awareness come over Allen's face, as well as a slight flush.
"I…I hadn't really thought about it. I always thought it was a waste to think about things we weren't allowed to have."
"Well, I know you're always about moving forward, Allen. But how well can you do that if you're weighed down by regrets? You gotta keep going, I agree, but I always tell myself to make sure that I do my best so that I don't have to look back and wish I could have done something differently or tried something else. You can still try having a life WHILE you move forward, you know?" reasoned Lavi. "Maybe we can't have certain things because of who we are but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try…and no one understands that better than our fellow comrades, right?"
Allen looked up at Lavi. There was a knowing look in his eyes that Allen couldn't quite figure out, as if Lavi was challenging him.
"Anyway," he continued, "I can't say that I believe you when you say that you haven't thought about wanting something more….I mean…else. You have, you just stamped it out. We all do that to some extent for our own sanity but I think you are more successful at it than others. So why don't you spend some time…unstamping. As for Lenalee, I don't know. Now that I think about it, Ilya doesn't seem like her type…"
That snapped Allen out of trying to figure Lavi's subtext. He was sure there was one.
"But you had said that they've been hanging around each other constantly," reminded Allen.
"Yeah, but I don't see it. They're together but not together. I don't know," Lavi said as he shrugged. "Why don't you just ask her, if you're so worried about it?"
"I'm not!"
"Not what?"
"Not worried."
"Yeah? Then why are you hiding out in your room and not eating?"
"I'm not hiding!"
"Hiding, standing, whatever. I get it. Now are you gonna come have dinner or what?"
Allen slowly stood. In one thing Lavi was right: he was a grown young man. He couldn't just stay in his room all day hoping to avoid something that made him feel uncomfortable or awkward or whatever it was he was feeling now. He needed to stop acting like a child.
"Let's go. I'm starving."
"That's what I wanna hear," said Lavi, as he clasped Allen around the shoulders and stepped over the rubble that used to be the doorway. "I'll, uh, have that fixed."
The Black Order: Main Headquarters, London – Dining Hall
"Are you all right? You're not ill, are you, Allen-kun?" Lenalee asked with much distress as he and Lavi approached. It was clear by the look on her face just how worried she was about him. Seemingly, in that way, things hadn't changed all that much but, in other ways, for him, it had changed a great deal.
Allen and Lavi sat down at the table where Lenalee and Ilya were also seated. Even though there were plenty of other open tables, Allen decided he didn't want to be anywhere else.
"Where's Yu?" inquired Lavi.
"He already finished his dinner and left, as did most of the staff," replied Lenalee gesturing to the half-empty dining hall. "Dinner ended about 20 minutes ago."
"Did you guys not eat yet, Lenalee?" asked Allen.
"Oh no, we already finished our dinner."
"Then...?" wondered Allen.
"Lenalee thought maybe you would come here so we waited a little," replied Ilya, smiling.
"Oh." Allen wasn't quite sure how to take that coming from Ilya but he couldn't help but feel the man's sincerity either.
"So, are you feeling all right? We didn't see you all day yesterday and today," inquired Lenalee, obviously intent on getting an answer from him.
"Yeah, I'm fine. I just needed to take care of some things on my own. I'm so hungry, though!"
"I bet," said Lenalee, giggling. "But you're going to have to explain yourself to Jerry. He made your usual last night and I'm not sure if he'd be happier re-heating it all up or just making you dinner from scratch again."
"Do you think he'd let me eat last night's and tonight's dinner?" asked Allen, in earnest. That elicited a laugh from everyone.
"I'm glad you're okay, Allen-kun," Lenalee said in a low tone after the laughter died down. She gave Allen's hand a quick, soft squeeze before beaming at him.
"Thank you for worrying about me, Lenalee," Allen said, finding himself disarmed by her again.
As they sat and chatted together while he and Lavi had their dinner, he found that Ilya was as genuine a person as there ever was. Whatever he thought, he would say. Whatever he said was what he thought. There was no pretense or equivocating on his part. The openness with which he communicated his feelings was refreshing and, to Allen, charming. It was hard to begrudge him anything. And it was clear that Lenalee enjoyed his company. Allen chastised himself for failing to support Lenalee in something that she wanted to experience. He wouldn't fail her again.
"Hey Ilya…" started Allen.
Ilya turned to look at him over Lenalee's head. "Yes?"
"I just wanted to say…that I'm happy for you."
Lavi bemusedly facepalmed but recovered quickly.
"You are? Oh you must mean….well, I thank you. I will have to get used to the distance and being so far away from the friends I made here, and especially this one…" Ilya said as he placed his large hand on Lenalee's head, tousling her hair slightly.
Allen felt a stab in his chest but he stifled any reaction to it.
"Ilya! I told you…we have to be very careful in case of nii-san! He could be anywhere," cried Lenalee, straightening her now disheveled strands.
"Do not worry, princess. I am leaving tonight anyway. What can he do but send me a few hours sooner?" replied Ilya, smiling, though his eyes showed a trace of sadness at the corners.
"You're leaving tonight?" interjected Allen, not sure if he heard correctly.
"Yes, after all, I was only here to find out where I would permanently be placed. But if you are happy for me about being stationed in the Eastern European Branch, then it must be a nice place to work, yes?"
"Uh…yeah…" stammered Allen, not sure how to answer since he'd never been to that Branch before himself.
"Well, I also wanted to say it was good to meet you. I hope we can keep in contact even though I will be across the continent. I will have to ask the princess here to keep me updated on all of you, especially you, Allen."
"Ah, okay…" replied Allen, baffled.
"We better get you ready, Ilya," interrupted Lenalee, practically pulling him up. "Nii-san will want to see you again before you depart. I want to make sure I have your travel papers all ready, too," Lenalee said.
Ilya chuckled to himself and, as they stood to leave, they bid Ilya a good journey and good luck. Then Allen tugged on Lenalee's sleeve, catching her attention.
"Lenalee...can I talk with you later on? Whenever you have time is fine."
"Of course, Allen-kun. I'm going to see Ilya off since he has a few final documents to sign, but I should be free after that. How about….ten o'clock?"
"Sure, sounds good. Uh, in the lounge?"
"Okay, I'll see you then," replied Lenalee as she waved, thinking to herself that the lounge was getting more guests this week than it ever used to.
The Black Order: Main Headquarters, London – Lounge
Allen sat, waiting for Lenalee. It was a few minutes past ten o'clock and he started to feel inexplicably anxious. Would she come? Of course, she would… Since dinner, he had tried to think of what to say when Lenalee finally got there but found he couldn't formulate anything cohesive. Where should he begin? What exactly should he say? Was this a good idea at all? What if it made her feel uncomfortable? What if it changed their relationship…?
Allen broke out in to a cold sweat at the thought.
"Hi, Allen-kun! Sorry to keep you waiting. Ilya took a while to get into his carriage. I guess he was really reluctant to leave," said Lenalee as she smiled, running toward him.
"That's understandable. I wouldn't want to leave either, especially when, you know…"
"Hmm?" remarked Lenalee, as she tilted her head and clasped her hands in front of her.
"Uh, nothing…want to sit down?"
They maneuvered to the nearest couch. Lenalee inadvertently smiled as she sat and Allen realized that this was where they had fallen asleep, leaning on each other that one fateful night. He warmed at the memory, recalling the comforting weight of Lenalee's body against his as they supported each other. He had entered the room in a daze after talking with his Master when he noticed Lenalee and Johnny on the couch, asleep upright, and he knew they had been waiting for him. Having accidentally roused Lenalee while trying to cover her with a blanket, they shared a quiet moment, though both were too exhausted to go much further than exchanging a few words before sidling against each other under the blanket he had provided. It had just happened without words and without supposition. Before he knew it, his cheek was gently resting atop Lenalee's head and the faint smell of lilacs and the warmth she provided had lulled him to sleep. It was one of the most peaceful, undisturbed night's repose he ever remembered having but one he never dared dream of having again. It made him sad and it showed visibly on his face.
"Allen-kun, what's wrong?" asked Lenalee, catching his expression immediately.
"I'm sorry, I was just thinking about something."
"Is it what you wanted to talk about?"
"I'm not sure. I was hoping I'd have something better to say than that once you got here."
Lenalee had always found Allen's shyness endearing. It was a jarring but interesting juxtaposition to the side of him that was also daring, risky, and confident; the side that he unabashedly showed during the heat of battle. But when it came to talking with her alone, he had always approached it with such care and timidity, almost as if he was afraid to break the porcelain vase of propriety if he ran headlong into it too fast. Lenalee didn't mind holding the vase steady long enough for him to say whatever he needed.
"I'm not in any rush, Allen-kun. And you know you can tell me anything, right?" she assured him.
"I know," sighed Allen. "I guess I should start off by saying I'm sorry."
"Sorry? Whatever for?"
"For being selfish."
"Allen-kun, there was only ever one time I thought you were selfish and I think we resolved that a long time ago. I have never thought you selfish again."
"This one wasn't as obvious to you or to me. I just realized it myself recently."
"I don't understand."
"I…I want you to be happy, Lenalee."
"I am happy, Allen-kun."
"I can see that he makes you happy…but I want to make sure that you know I am glad you're pursuing the things that you want, no matter what anyone says. I think you're very brave and I want to support you. Even though we can't live like normal people, you deserve to have these moments with someone."
Allen looked at Lenalee, unwaveringly. He wanted her to know that he meant every word he said no matter how conflicted he felt that he wasn't the one able to tell her the words she deserved to hear or give her the gifts she deserved to receive.
"Allen-kun…I have no idea what you're talking about," she finally said, looking perplexed.
"You and Ilya. I never got to tell you how happy I am that you found someone to…to be with."
"Me and Ilya…?"
"I should tell you I saw you both that night we first met him after your talk with him here. I didn't mean to, but I did. I've known since then that you two were…involved," he explained, wondering to himself if he would ever be comfortable admitting to their relationship to say it without hesitation.
Lenalee considered his words carefully and ruminated on her actions with Ilya during the past few days. As discreet as she tried to be, there was bound to be someone who saw them and began to speculate. She was hoping the short time with him would quell any suspicions once he left but she had not counted on Allen seeing them that first night. Once the realization dawned on her, she covered her face with her hands.
"Oh, Allen-kun, no. That's not it at all! Ilya and I are not together. Not like that."
"Huh?"
"When you saw us that night, he was telling me about his parents and how he had lost them the same time he lost his grandmother. His sister was also killed by Akuma that day and he was closest to her. They were inseparable and they doted on each other. I guess I look and act a lot like she used to and Ilya asked if he could sort of adopt me; that it would do his heart good to have a sister again so that he felt like he could still fulfill his role as an older brother to her in some way."
Allen stared wide-eyed at her as she spoke.
"I couldn't say no. He seemed so heart-broken. And I knew where he was going to be stationed so I figured, with the little time he had here, I would do everything I could to make him feel better. We spent most of the time walking around and talking about his family, especially his sister. He couldn't stop talking about her, he loved her so much. I felt really lucky, actually. I mean, there will never be anyone other than nii-san for me but I often found myself thinking it would be nice to have a brother like Ilya also, you know? He didn't even flip out when I told him I liked someone…"
Lenalee stopped short abruptly, her face frozen.
"You like someone, Lenalee?" Allen asked, afraid he had heard her incorrectly.
"Oh…goodness…" she stammered, feeling the heat rise up to her face as it spread across her nose and cheeks.
Allen wondered to himself if there would ever be a day when Lenalee would cease to be as adorable as she was now, blushing like a little girl, trying hard to look down so he couldn't see. Her shoulder length hair was doing a good job of curtaining her face, but her furiously rosy complexion was hard to miss even so.
"I'm sorry; I don't want you to feel uncomfortable. You don't have to tell me," comforted Allen.
"It's not that, Allen-kun, I just didn't mean to say it so carelessly."
Finding out that Lenalee was not with Ilya not only made Allen feel incredibly relieved, but it buttressed his courage more than anything. No matter who she happened to like, it didn't matter to him as long as she knew he how strongly he felt. He wanted to tell her everything then; he wanted to say how much she meant to him, that she made him weak-kneed and short of breath in the best ways possible, that he felt things he couldn't even recognize in his naïveté but never wanted to stop feeling, that he wanted to be the one tell her how lovely and incomparable she was and be with her always until there were no more days left. These things he had pent up inside of him because he felt they couldn't or shouldn't be said to anyone, he now wanted to tell the very person they were directed towards. It was imperative to do so and he didn't want to waste any more time NOT thinking about them.
Lenalee felt like it was out of the bag now. How could she have been so reckless? She always felt comfortable talking with Allen but this admission was on another scale. Could she tell him without making things awkward between them? She didn't want to drive a wedge into their friendship because she couldn't keep a long-hidden secret under wraps. But perhaps she wasn't meant to. Maybe this slip-up meant she should finally tell him; tell him how she would lose herself in his soft grey eyes and his beautifully sad smile, tell him how his care for her made her feel like the only woman in the world, tell him that she would live and die by his side if he would let her.
"Would you really have been glad if I was together with Ilya?" ventured Lenalee, looking for a way to tell him gently.
"To be honest….no, Lenalee. I didn't want it to be Ilya."
"Allen-kun…?
"There's something I want to tell you, Lenalee," he said, as he took her hands in his.
"There's something I want to tell you too, Allen-kun."
Just outside of the lounge, in the shadows, Lavi moved away surreptitiously. Bookmen were merely supposed to observe and document the world as events naturally happened and not be any kind of causal agent. But he couldn't help himself in this case. How those two lived every day with something so heavy locked away inside of them, he didn't know. As he left them in privacy for what was so long in coming, Lavi knew it might have happened eventually. But he also knew that that all it would take to move things along was a little push.
THE END
A/N – Phew! I thought I might have had to split this up into two more chapters but I figured I'd just post this as a longer chapter and be done with it, as promised. I wanted to leave their actual convo to your imagination since I am sure it would lead in various directions based on how you see this pairing, lol. Maybe it would end with them hugging….maybe something more…I know how some of you think, hehehe. Anyway, you know what they were gonna say to each other and then some. I hope you enjoyed this little diversion. Thanks again for coming along with me and putting up with my style of writing, whatever that is. Till next time….