I found out just now that today – St. Patrick's Day – is LUCKY DAY! I think it should henceforth be the start of Lucky WEEK (Yullen gets a whole freakin' week, why not Lucky?) but that's just my opinion. For that reason, here is the chapter!

I lack a beta for this story. If anyone wants to volunteer, please note that I'm sorta picky what you want me to change, and I will argue and spoil and stuff… so… BE WARNED!

Other WARNINGS: GORE. Death. Murder. Under-aged whoring. And a lil NAKED.

Disclaimer: I do not own D. Gray – Man. If I did… butterflies wouldn't be the only tease in the story.

-- -- --

A Thousand Lies

For a moment, Tyki felt his heart sink into his gut and stay there, beating with a furiousness that made him slightly nauseous. He looked down at the boy touching his arm and tired to determine what kind of question that was, and how much Lavi knew. He knelt before he could stop himself, and touched the side of the boy's face more surely, feeling the way Lavi's eyebrows pushed together under the bandage, furrowed in what might have been confusion. Tyki thought the expression was a bit pained, and the dried brown blood on the right of Lavi's face told him it likely was. Between the boy's borrowed black pants and white button up shirt, he looked as pale as death but not nearly as certain.

"I should change—"

"Tyki," Lavi said the name with an authority the Noah had never heard before. "Tell me about the Bookmen."

The older man swallowed thickly and his touch moved to the redhead's chest, playing over his heart again. Nothing. The smaller male didn't even flinch. If he knew anything, he didn't know to be frightened. That was good. Maybe there was still time.

"They're an order of individuals responsible for the recording of history – correct history, especially war. You were one of them." Tyki watched Lavi turn his face down in thought and went on, the better to kill two birds with one stone. "You had a mentor. The two of you were always together, unless something separated you for some reason." And there could have been remorse in the Noah's voice, though he tried not to show it too much, fearing he'd make the lie that much more obvious. "The day I took you… he died." He lied fluidly. "I'm sorry."

Lavi leaned into the hand on his chest. A Bookman? History? A mentor? It was too much. Tyki could see that he didn't want to be all of those things and fight a war and everything, not when he didn't remember anything.

At least the lie would keep him from running off to find the old man on top of it all.

Tyki leaned up and gathered the boy up awkwardly, folding his arms carefully to avoid touching any part of the boy that was injured, and of the many bandages that still adorned his spine. At first the redhead didn't protest – he was tired, Tyki was close – those things tended to keep him erring more toward silence than speaking.

"Tyki," Lavi said against the older man's neck. The Noah made a humming sound of question that cued him to go on. "Did he have a name?"

"Your mentor?"

"Yeah."

Tyki laid the Exorcist's head on his shoulder, stroking slow fingers through his greasy hair, smoothing it from his face. "I don't know. I only heard him called Bookman," he answered honestly. His fingers began to unwrap the bandage from Lavi's face, slowly, and the redhead remained silent until his sightless eyes came half open, dilated in the kitchen lights, hooded and unfocused.

"Bookman," Lavi whispered, and touched the fabric of Tyki's shirt with his fingers. "I'll have to remember that."

"Lavi…" Tyki turned the blind boy's face up to him, watching his bruised and reddened eyes blink weakly, not focused on anything at all, just partaking of the pastime out of habit. With a hand he wasn't sure of, he touched the right eye, skin to skin, and frowned. They were still green, almost painfully so, but the whites around them were bloodshot, and the pupils unresponsive to the light. "I'll need to get the salve, don't touch them but let them get some air. Can you… make anything out at all?" He moved his hand away and pushed himself to the side, which changed the light against the redhead's face.

Lavi settled himself more comfortably, leaning his head on the wooden back of the chair in front of him. The redhead seemed very tired, or very sick, though Tyki couldn't say which was more likely. "How come you don't want to tell me things?" Lavi questioned instead of answering.

"What?" Tyki tried to avoid honesty without slowing down to think of a half good lie.

"This… waiting thing isn't really working that well. Even the things I remember don't make sense all the time – it's driving me crazy. When you're gone, all I can do is listen and all I can hear is stuff in my head that I don't understand anymore," Lavi flinched at the touch of a finger on his right cheek, just below his right eye. The press of a palm again the back of his head held him still and he breathed hurriedly, mouth slightly open to the pain in his face. There was mild confusion in his expression, which contrasted oddly with the lack of focus, as if he were lost and unable to find the sign that would lead him home.

"I don't want to shock you. I also don't want the situation to become any more awkward than it already is." Tyki answered almost awkwardly. Awkward wasn't the word their situation warranted. "What do you want me to tell you about?"

"Anything." Lavi answered at once. His fingers curled his against Tyki's shoulder.

The Noah thought about it, trying to recall when he had seen the redhead in a situation he could turn to his favor. A little smile spread across his lips and he started run his hand through Lavi's hair, watching the boy's eyes flutter at the brush of bangs on his eyelashes. "I met you on a train. I played cards against one of your friends, took everything he had, and then another of your companions did the same to me. Imagine, sitting in the middle of a train car with nothing but a cigarette and underwear, and you wide-eyed, watching." He chuckled lowly, smiling wider. "I looked at you then, came to know your face and your voice and your mannerisms. I don't know if you studied me the same as I did you, but… I'm rambling. The next time I met you, you didn't recognize me; I looked very different."

"How so?"

"Back then I had stubble, to start. Paler, cheaper clothes, glasses."

"You're tan?"

"I prefer the term olive over tan."

"Ooh." Lavi turn his head slightly to the right, away from the Noah's hand, and blinked, a small smile spreading over his face. He looked very different with his eyes exposed and that expression, the white of his teeth, green of his eyes, and red of his hair painting him in an oddly festive light. His right iris, Tyki noted, was a bit closer to yellow than the left, but that didn't seem to have anything to do with the injury he had suffered. Perhaps it was the eye patch, or the reason it was worn, the Noah didn't know. Mayhap it had been blind to begin with. "I don't remember meeting you but… in your skivvies? Now I really wanna remember…"

"You have one thing on your mind all the time don't you?"

Lavi turned back again, still grinning. "Not really. But if could remember seeing you then, I wouldn't have to worry about what your body looks like, or your face, or your skin. It'd be in my head and I'd know what this," he reached out and touched Tyki's hair, knowing exactly where it was without seeing it. "Looks like, not just what it feels like or how it smells." Lavi finished in a whisper.

Tyki framed the sides of the boy's face, turning it away from the light, and the redhead blinked more, as if trying to discern the darker shape of Tyki's face in front of him. It was obvious that it didn't work, as the mismatched pair of emeralds before him remained unfocused, as if staring through him, or seeing something between them that the Noah didn't know was there.

A little hiss of air parted the apprentice Bookman's lips.

Tyki's breath urged Lavi slowly forward until the Noah felt skin brush the side of his cheek and hair tickle the bridge of his nose. "If you are always blind," Tyki's whispered into Lavi ear, regretful. "And you never remember my face; I will describe myself to you until you are satisfied with what you see in your mind."

Lavi shifted forward a bit, laying himself across the larger man's chest, arms draped at his sides. The redhead was very quiet for a moment and the Noah pulled him closer, dragging his finger through the back of the boy's hair. The apprentice Bookman's frown was obvious in his voice, low and frightened. "That's really sweet, Tyki," he whispered, and the Portuguese man shushed him. "But I'd rather see you for myself. I mean…I'd rather be blind forever than die. I don't… have a good reason, but I can't—"

Tyki shushed him again, more loudly, and rocked the young man, damning the chair back between them. His fingers curled in Lavi's clothes and he pulled him close enough to feel the wood biting into his ribcage. "I told you, I won't let you die," his own shirt wrinkled, clenched in the boy's hands. "But right now… I need to go out again. I forgot something."

"What did you forget?" Lavi asked, and he traced a hand down the Noah's jaw with the words.

"Meat."

-- -- --

Tyki left as soon as Lavi was set up with a small supply of carrots – which he seemed to have an affinity for – and the poultice had been reapplied to his eyes, which had been a slightly more silent process than usual. Tyki was thankful for that, and also thankful that the boy hadn't asked for details about his errand or insisted on wishing him well this time. Their farewells had been short and nearly silent. The oddity of the blind Exorcist waving at him would be forever in his mind, a contradiction that he could only react to with something of a wry smile. An Exorcist, blind, waving, from that house – there were just too many things wrong with that.

The house they were situated in was not far from anything in town, which he found appealing, and had been paid for by none other than the Akuma that had previously inhabited it. It was more or less his now, or maybe the Earl's, being the Akuma had been destroyed in the line of duty. It didn't really matter who the house belonged to – it was still pretty from the outside, white with lattice on either side of the door, a short wooden porch, and three shallow steps to the sidewalk. The accents were done in pale blue, which wasn't his favorite color but would suffice, while the flower beds sported what he thought of as his lazy spring garden – composed mostly of pleasantly budding weeds and spring flowers. The house was still only a quarter mile from the open market and another half from the train station, the steeple of the local church visible between the two. Tyki turned away from the train station and the church and the market, and headed in the direction of the local pub.

The street was a steamy, damp, cool, half empty strip of town, but Tyki didn't see it. His thoughts were a confused uproar of violent demands and irritated inquires, all of which – even the light – would die away if he did something to distract himself from the weak, gentle Exorcist in his house, waiting for death and soothing. Soothing. How many times had he soothed the redhead? How many stupid, human things had he said? Tyki didn't know. With the afternoon sun on his back, and the fire of anger and hate and fear in his chest, he turned his golden eyes to the alleyways, searching for a loiterer, or a drunk. Anyone would do, he didn't feel picky at the moment. Someone he could pick into pieces. Something he could crush. A human like Lavi, maybe with his same red hair, and vital organs for him to wrap his fingers around.

Maybe the Noah wouldn't go that route though. It was sometimes interesting to pull a person apart from the outside, starting with their skin.

He came to the pub and walked passed it, nearing the slightly more seedy part of town now. His fingers were twitching in his pockets when he turned into a shadow and spotted a person crouched low, a scraggly dark coat hanging over their too-thin shoulders.

"Excuse me?" His voice came out silky and saccharine as he turned his eyes around them. Brick buildings dominated this part of town, so he was a bit surprised to see the leaning lumber of the wall to his right, the crumbling thatch above it.

The body in front of him turned and showed a face that was too young and too small – a boy of perhaps thirteen, with bright blue eyes and dirty brown hair. The flat quality to his nose and the hollows under his eyes put a halt in Tyki's step, which was lucky – a rat skittered just where he was going to lay his foot.

He couldn't kill a child, he didn't think. Not one that he didn't have a reason to kill.

The boy stood up and his too large coat gathered on the muddy ground around his feet. "Sir?" The blue eyed child's teeth were crooked behind his lips, but he still had manners. "I'm not working now, but I'll still do it for pay n'a half."

The Noah's stomach dropped and he felt the stigmata start to spread across his forehead. A smile lifted his lips, inhumanly large, but it didn't seem like the boy could see, being the Noah was lit from behind by the sun. "Who is it that takes a margin of your pay to feed and house you?" Tyki breathed lowly, trying to keep the smile from his voice.

"Bernadette. She's in the big brown house up the street. She doesn't suck though, if that's what you—"

A growl sounded in Tyki's throat at the idea and he acted without mercy. The sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a groan, and he pinned the brown haired boy against the wooden wall he stood beside, holding his boney shoulders with bruising fingers. The coat was no obstacle – corduroy, now that Tyki looked at it, and in good condition if not for the dirt – and it the shirt beneath it was even thinner. By the time his right hand had pushed through skin the boy was taking in air, fear obvious on his features, eyes round with perfect fright. The little whore had thought him that low and now he looked frightened. Those eyes that had no more innocence in them, no more fear for anything – Tyki had made them look like that.

The child was a beautiful child with that expression, his soft round face made round by the opening of his mouth, the color of his crystalline eyes contrasted with the red of his kiss-bruised lips.

It was as if everything was forgiven, except that he couldn't stop now.

His right hand found the soft, wet, papery tissue of a lung and he crushed it, which brought a horrible, bloody and strangled cry to the boy's lips. Tyki didn't let him fall. Instead he pulled the destroyed organ out, sticky blood oozing into his sleeve, into his glove, up the side of his jacket. He didn't care for once. Instead he plunged his hand in again, intent on ripping as much out of the stupid prostitute as he could before the light faded from those dazzling, endless blue eyes.

The Noah laughed softly as he pulled the stomach, enjoying the soft wet sound it made seeping through the boy's flesh. The scream that sounded was half hearted – burbled through a mouthful of blood – and another, harsher laugh seeped from the Noah's lips.

"Did you really think I wanted you to service me, boya?" Tyki whispered, and let the blood filled bag of flesh roll from his bloody fingertips. He plunged his hand inside again, feeling about for something else. "Did you think me as low as the rest of your Johns?"

The liver. That organ was bigger than most people gave it credit for, and had a pleasant texture against his skin. With a snigger Tyki dragged it away from the membrane on the inside of the boy's ribcage. It was just so amusing to watch the boy still try to look up at him and breathe. Humans really were stupid, really were weak, really were nothing in the great scheme of things. And when he pulled out the heart – the ever important heart – it reminded him just how irritatingly fragile they were. Even if the heart refused to stop pumping in his hand until after the young man whom it belonged to was already dead, it didn't matter. Separate the heart from the body and it was just a living, beating lump of useless flesh, the same as the rest.

With the muscle in his right palm and his left hand fisted in the dead boy's hair, he drew in a deep, satisfyingly blood scented breath, and closed his eyes.

Killing really was so much fun.

He felt better already.

With a smile he dropped half of his spoils and looked down at himself, frowning at his soiled clothes. It had only been since the Walker boy's case that he had taken to ripping out the organs of all of his victims by hand, gloves be damned, and only since the Ark that he had really grown to appreciate the smell and taste of blood, the feel of it on his skin. Sticky, and salty, and warm. It made him shiver. He would have to soak his jacket to get the smell out and throw away the white shirt beneath it – it wasn't worth the artful process of rejecting the blood from the fabric at the moment. Not when he had others.

With a sigh he looked back at the poor human that had assumed him as low as the rest of them and frowned, dropping the child's small, twitching red heart next to his corpse. It hadn't been the boy's fault, but it was too late to regret it now. And the brown hair the boy had was almost the perfect shade now, soaking in a puddle of his own lifeblood.

"If I see Bernadette…" Tyki whispered to the body, looking at his bloodied right hand with a soft smile. He licked a finger and grinned wider, satisfied with the flavor. "I'll make her death more painful than yours was. I promise."

-- -- --

Lavi got through two and a half carrots before he quit and took a nap, because he didn't have much else to do and it sounded better than listening to the disembodied voices in his head. His dreams were confusing, featuring none of the people those voices belonged to. This time though, he had something to combat those faces he didn't know and the concepts he didn't understand – he had Tyki's abandoned shirt tucked under his pillow, radiating the man's scent for when he needed to hide his face in it.

He was just starting to drift into a Tyki scented dream – based around his ideas of what the man looked like – when he heard water running in the kitchen and a low, muffled curls. A smile lifted his lips.

"Tyki?" He said the name a little more loudly than he would have in conversation and pushed himself up to sitting. The water stopped running and footsteps thumped their way down the hall, almost lumbering compared to Tyki's usually silent gait. Lavi closed his fingers on the soft maroon fabric of his comforter – he had asked what color it was and now thought maroon whenever he touched it – and waited for the older man to come in.

"Yes, it's me," Tyki's voice sounded light but thick somehow, as if he had come back from a refreshing run. "I should have told you I was back as soon as I came in, I was distracted." The footfalls approached the bed, and with them came an eerily familiar scent, heavy and metallic in the air around the holder man, enough so to make Lavi's tongue want to stick to the roof of his mouth.

"Hey, are you ok?" He pushed back the blankets, intent on finding out what it was that smelt so much like blood. "How come you smell like… death, Tyki. My God, you reek of…" He stumbled onto his left foot only to have a wet, warm hand push him back onto the plush of the mattress, another pressed to his right shoulder. They held firm when he tried to get up again, and only grew tighter when he gripped his hands in the older man's shirt, which felt wet and warm against his hands. "Tyki, what happened? This is blood isn't it?" He was asking questions – had been asking questions – but the larger man didn't answer, or even try to calm him, no matter what came out of his mouth. Worry began to fill the redhead's gut.

Tyki's weight shifted and Lavi let himself ease back until he was more or less horizontal on the mattress again, though perpendicular to how he was supposed to lie. There was still pressure on his shoulders, though most of it now came from the other man's palms rather than his fingers.

"Please, just tell me if it's yours, Tyki! Don't be so qui—" Lavi was more than shocked to find himself silenced by a blood flavored mouth against his own, open, hot, soft, and demanding. He gasped at it and tensed at the brush of a tongue against his own, fingers on his collarbone, fisting in his shirt. It took a moment for him to respond, slipping his tongue against Tyki's while his hands roamed over the Noah's chest, checking for wounds.

The older man, though his shirt was soaked, did not flinch beneath the redhead's touch.

Then everything was ok. It was just someone else's blood or some other thing's blood – and though that wasn't a good thing, it was better than Tyki's. There were questions that weren't answered, but they didn't matter. Not while they were kissing. Not while a hand was pressed to the smooth skin of Lavi's stomach, teasing at his hips bone. It occurred to him what was happening when he felt the press of a knee between his and he pushed back, prying Tyki's lips away from his mouth. "Careful, you might not be hurt, but I'm sore all over…" Lavi protested in a whisper, and the mouth that pressed into his neck only smiled.

"Well, if kissing hurts I can—"

"It doesn't hurt. Not at all."

Tyki chuckled, breath playing delicately across Lavi's skin. "Then please stop talking, it's rather difficult to continue when you are."

Lavi shook his head and buried a hand in the base of Tyki's braid, holding his head back. "But you're covered in blood, Tyki. What ha—mph…" He almost chortled into the kiss that Tyki planted firmly on his lips though not because he found the situation amusing. What amazed him was the change that had come over Tyki, his sudden willingness to kiss and not just brush, to touch the flesh of his stomach with hungry hands. It was as if he had left one person and come back another, this one interested in him physically regardless of what they knew of one another.

The Noah's hand tickled along the ridge of his ribcage and teeth pressed to the flesh of his lower lip. A low, appreciative moan left Lavi's throat. His fingers worked at the slick buttons of Tyki's shirt, feeling the gritty, gross feeling he recognized as drying blood. Before long the mouth on his lips moved lowers, nipping at his Adam's apple, and his palms were sliding over naked, wet skin, fisting in tangled, wet hair.

Tyki's mouth moved against his right collar bone, growling huskily. "I've got blood on your clothes…" He smiled a little crookedly against the redhead's skin. "You'll have to take them off."

Lavi tilted his head back and laughed softly, a grin on his lips. "As great as that sounds, I think we both need a shower. And you need to tell me why you're soaked in blood. Among other things." He let Tyki lean on him, let the Noah press his face into the turn of his neck, even if it tickled no small amount, making him shiver. The heat Tyki gave off, coupled with the play of his fingertips against Lavi's skin – it was almost enough to distract him from the problems at hand. "Where'd the blood come from?" He tried to make the question conversational despite the worry growing with every moment that the question remained unanswered. A tremble took his shoulders. "Is it human?"

The mouth on his throat moved up a bit, vibrating against his skin with hardly spoken words. "When I was walking… a boy… he made his side of the war known to me…" Tyki's voice faltered, as if he did not want to give details. "I killed him."

Lavi felt himself shift as Tyki's weight settled and a pair of strong arms twined around his hips, perfectly human, perfectly, sincere. The sudden closeness made sense to him then, as well as the press of Tyki's hands to his skin. The redhead pulled the Noah closer, damning the pain in his left shoulder. "How old was he?" The question hardly disturbed the air between them, hardly made any sound at all, hardly made the Noah's shoulders relax – but it was something.

Tyki's voice was cracked a bit with strain. "Maybe thirteen."

"How?"

"I tore out his insides." Tyki answered without further prompting, voice devoid of emotion. "I put my hand inside of his chest and ripped out whatever I could find."

"Oh God, Tyki…" The redhead gritted his teeth in an effort to ignore the pain in his shoulder. The embrace was returned. "What kind of war has soldiers that young? I don't… you shouldn't be mad at yourself for it, I mean… it's not your fault." Lavi pressed his face into the Noah's hair, bloody and sticky with gore, and found himself not caring where it had come from. "Let's both take a bath, to get the blood off, ok? You can… you can even get in with me, if you want… just… it's ok, ok?" He realized too late that his voice was wavering as if he were uncertain.

Tyki's hands, the same hands he had used to kill, moved up to frame Lavi's face. "You think…" He didn't finish. Instead he leaned down and kissed the Exorcist, just as deeply as before and pulled away with a sound that Lavi didn't know the meaning of. The Noah left Lavi on the mattress, bereft, and moved to the far side of the room – a place that the redhead had never been and so didn't know the layout of. "You think I want you to forgive me? You don't know the half of it."

Lavi recoiled at the bitter quality to Tyki's voice. "I won't know shit unless you tell me. Or are you having amnesia by osmosis?"

For a moment there was silence between them, and Lavi used the moment to pull himself up higher on the bed, wincing. Before he was halfway to the headboard there were silent, warm hands helping him, gathering him up, pulling him against a warm, solid, painfully real chest. Lavi touched the older man, knowing exactly what was sticking to his skin when he did.

"I'm sorry, Lavi." Tyki's mouth brushed the younger man's ear so that his breathed teased the hair that hung over the shell. "You don't need to tell me it's fine. There is a part of me that… is pleased by tearing the hearts from the chests of boy-whores." His tongue edged along the side of Lavi's ear, tickling it far more than his breath had, until a smile cracked his face and stopped him from going on. "But let's leave this unpleasant business until a later time, shall we? A bath will do us both more than a little good."

The redhead nodded. "Please don't… touch me when you say things like that," he breathed, but still let his face fall to the older man's shoulder. "Even if it's true, I don't… I don't want to think about that sort of existence. Not when I don't even know the good in you yet." And it wasn't a lie. The thought that Tyki, the man who nurtured him and kept him safe, might have a part of him that enjoyed hurting others was not unacceptable – but being kissed while talking about it was. Lavi found himself aware of the evils of people, of humanity, and was surprised a bit by the easiness with which he accepted and remembered them: not the events themselves but their existence. He didn't hold it against Tyki to be a bit sadistic, didn't blame him for having that part of himself.

Tyki made a sound as if to speak, but Lavi didn't want to hear it yet.

"Will you really take a bath with me? Because that's a huge step up from kissing."

The Noah laughed, and shifted so his mouth pressed to the side of Lavi's temple, so the sound vibrated through the smaller boy. "No, no, I'd rather not undo whatever healing your leg has done. Besides… I didn't even know I wanted to kiss you until… well… I suppose that's a lie."

"A lie?"

"I didn't know I could kiss you and feel like I haven't known you long enough to."

"Oh." Lavi turned his head up, the shirt against his face felt wet and warm and smelled of salt and gore, heavy with someone else's lifeblood. He shivered. "Well, you can just hug me. If you like that more." He smiled a little, though how he could smile at the moment he didn't understand. "I'll take whatever I can get. I like you." He admitted, and to his slight surprise the man that held him did not respond with a withdrawal of contact, nor did he argue.

Tyki just touched the skin over Lavi's heart and pressed his face downward, sliding it down into the redhead's throat. "Thank you," his voice was little more than a whisper. "For telling me that."

-- -- --

The bathtub, once in it, was bigger than Lavi remembered. Tyki had bathed first, being the dirtier of the two, while the blind boy sat on the toilet, trying his damnedest to move the toes of his right foot. His ankle wasn't healed but it was healing, he could tell by the restlessness of his muscles around the break. It felt tight, and a bit awkward to hold in the air for more than a few minutes, but he tried not to mind the strangeness of it, the pain that blossomed warningly every time he brushed the toes against the ceramic side of the tub. Tyki left the limb wrapped, though he took the wood off, which gave the bone enough support to survive the warm water without ruining what the Portuguese man had made to protect it.

It was just one of many things done to protect the redhead.

Lavi almost had a heart attack when he realized that he could not, given the circumstances, wash his own hair. The panic was only momentary, what with Tyki saying soft, soothing things about anything but how naked he was, and those tender, killing hands pulling his wet hair away from his sore eyes before the strands could irritate them. The Noah spoke in a soft voice all the while, cupping the suds away from the redhead's forehead like he might have done with a child.

It was then, with Tyki's hands pressed one to the underside of his chin and the other holding his wet bangs from his eyes, that Lavi leaned back so that his face was directed at his caretakers, exposing the line of his throat. Like that, gentle fingers sliding on his Adam's apple, he felt a much undignified shiver take his shoulders, the left still sore at it. "Tyki," his voice was strange sounding from the steam, lower than normal, and he felt the older man draw his hand away at the sound of his name. The palm came back on the boy's chest, a layer of wash cloth between them. "What… why are you so quiet?" He changed his question midway, thinking it might be a better way to go about it. The hand on his chest brushed down to his stomach but he didn't respond, intent on sitting there without word while the hand that was on his skin remained there.

It slipped to the curve of his right hip. "I'm… thinking…" The older man answered vaguely.

Lavi shifted enough to take the hand that scrubbed the blood from his skin in his palm. He blinked at nothing, just because the reflex seemed to want to happen at the moment, and squeezed the hand that wandered his naked body. From what he had felt and what Tyki had told him, he doubted the Portuguese man was too mesmerized by his wounds to respond. "About what?" He cast the question low, though why he did that the redhead honestly couldn't say. It just seemed right. Seemed like what he wanted.

"Lavi…" Tyki's voice had a strange smile in it, and he felt cool, damp hair brush the side of his face as the wash cloth moved across to his belly button, washing away sweat and blood at once. "I know I kissed you quite deeply in the heat of the moment, but you really could lay off a little."

"Why? Is it working?" Lavi smiled with all of his teeth, but did not join Tyki in his soft chuckle.

"No, it just worries me. What will happen if you remember everything and find yourself disinterested in me? What if you hate me, Lavi? What then?"

The redhead turned his face toward the hair that tickled his cheek until he brought his mouth into soft contact with the older man's skin. Against it, smelling cigarettes and cheap soap, the sharp scent of blood somewhere beneath, Lavi spoke softly under his breath. "I'm not too worried." To his slight surprise the Portuguese man didn't lean away from him, only slipped a hand into his hair while the one on his stomach slipped lower. "And you're warm… close… maybe… maybe I was lonely before I forgot everything. Or I liked you or something. But…" He turned his face down, pressing his sore eyes against the side of Tyki's neck. "Until I remember, I'm just gonna do what comes naturally. Make sense?"

Tyki's head turned until his were lips just barely brushed Lavi's skin. "Do your feeble attempts at seduction come naturally?" His asked in a breathy whisper.

Lavi nodded. "Helps that I don't mind it. You're nice, even if you're in a war that seems unfair."

The Noah's lips were soft and sure as they kissed him, the wash cloth forgotten for the sake of cupping the side of his face. It was a strange angle, even stranger still to feel the older man's hands on him without seeing them, without knowing where they would be next. The kiss made him shift. The water swished. Before long he found himself bundled against the Portuguese man's chest, no longer kissing, the cold ceramic pressing to his right shoulder and arm, chill and yet calming. A shiver took his arms and Tyki's breath seeped down the side of his face, warm and rushed, the meaning behind it lost to him.

"Lavi," Tyki whispered, a cool palm pressed to the redhead's chest. "If you continue to do this, I do not know will what happen between us."

"Well, usually one guy gets naked and another guy gets naked and, once they're both comfortable, one of them—"

"That's not what I meant," Tyki chuckled, and the reverberation made Lavi's eyelashes dance against his bangs almost painfully. "What do you know about me? What do you remember?" He asked almost rhetorically, before his questions faded into a very quiet whisper. "I remember. The things I remember…" He laughed again. "If you were able to recall what I have done, you would not be so eager to leap into my open arms, Lavi."

"Tell me, then." To the redhead it seemed like the most logical response.

Tyki made a soft sound of amusement and kiss him again on the cheek, warm lips on clammy skin, his rough hands on the subtle flesh of Lavi's neck. "Which part? Which story? Would you like to hear how I tried to kill your friend by making a hole in his heart? Would you like to hear how it was my hand that hurt your eyes? How I laughed when I did it? How you aren't on my side of the war?" The Noah's mouth moved to the boy's ear, hardly moving the air he breathed into it. "The one I killed today, he tried to sell himself to me – would have sucked my cock if I had let him – and I tore out his insides one at a time, slowly, for it. Is that the kind of thing you want me to tell you, little Exorcist?" There was a motley assortment of emotions in the word, from anger and malice to sadness and what might have been heartache.

Lavi reached up, ignoring his dripping hands and exceedingly sore left shoulder, to wind his arms around the back of Tyki's neck. He didn't understand what an Exorcist was, but he didn't care. He pulled the older man into an embrace, blind eyes closed to the light brush of hair over his eyelashes.

"I don't believe you," he whispered, and pushed a hand into the Noah's hair, holding him firmly. "Chosen of God, Exorcist, descendent of Noah – I don't care. If I'm a demon or if you're a demon, or if I don't belong at your side…" He swallowed, unable to think of what the case would be if what the older man said was true, unable to even fathom it. The one person he knew was not allowed to be evil or bad – it would hurt too much. "I want to. Isn't that reason enough to just let forgotten things stay forgotten? If it's true… if you did those things… maybe I can forgive you for them. For the pain you might have caused me. I don't mind being blind except that I can't see you, so if you did that it's fine. I don't care." Lavi heard his voice shaking and ignored it, ignored the slight rise in volume as he went on, arms tightened on Tyki's shoulders. "I like you as a person, and you're nice to me. Whatever we were before now doesn't matter, we started over when I forgot who you are. Understand?"

The older man's arms guided the redhead upward, dragging him to his left foot without further argument. "If that is how you intend to see me, then so be it." Tyki said, and it made everything he had said, every word of truth and lie, equally believable, equally impossible. Before Lavi could draw a more conclusive idea from everything, there were hands on his face, tilting it up as if the older man was trying to meet his eyes. "I will let you come to your own deductions about me, based upon what it is that I say and do, not upon what I have done." The Portuguese man's mouth pressed closed lipped on Lavi's forehead for a moment before he let go with one hand and brought back a well worn cotton towel, which felt rough on Lavi's chest.

The redhead unfolded it and wrapped it around his waist for the moment, blinking at nothing when the older man pulled away. He could only guess where Tyki's face was. It was difficult to judge when he did not pay attention to angles and touches and the swish of air on skin. "Then let's have dinner at the table tonight," he whispered, and felt the air to his right shift before another towel touched his head, rubbing his wet hair away from his face. A smirk took his lips at it, crookedly. "Together. Not on your bed."

"My bed?"

"The one I'm sleeping in that's yours."

"Oh…" Tyki's tone was a bit incredulous. "Why would you say that it's mine?"

Lavi managed to roll his eyes regardless of the fact that he could not see with them. The hands on his head stilled and he tilted his face up, aiming for the place that Tyki's voce had come from. "Because there's no way you'd sleep in that walk-in closet you made into a room at the end of the hall unless you had to. It's smaller than the bathroom."

Tyki didn't respond at once, and his voice was a bit quieter when he did. "How you figure these things out without being able to see…"

The redhead laughed softly and pointed toward the cabinet, or where he knew it to be from memory. It just made sense to him, to remember the little things, the details, the distances between on thing and another, the shape of anything he had touched. If he put his mind to it, Lavi was willing to bet that he could draw anything he had learned the shape of, even if he could remember what it looked like. "So the cabinet and sink are over there, and judging from the feel of the tile, I'd say there's a square mirror above it framed in wood, a light on the right, that way it shines down on the toilet as well. From the inside of the tub, how it's away from the wall, I'd say it's a claw-foot bath that didn't come with the house." He turned his face to the Noah then, still smiling. "You haven't lived here long, less than a year. Otherwise you'd have got a cat or something – or a bird." He finished, satisfied at the moment with his observations.

The older man made a soft sound of surprise before his hands came to Lavi's, pulling them up to his smooth, shirt-covered shoulders. "What color am I wearing?" He teased, and firmed his grip on Lavi's waist in preparation of lifting him out of the tub.

"White." Lavi answered softly, pinching the material between his fingers. "Cotton – it's starchy from the bleaching, you've never washed it. Not tailored, but close enough."

"Lavi."

"Hm?"

"You're almost uncanny." Tyki first lifted and then turned, steering the boy in the direction of the toilet with just enough pressure and speed that Lavi did not need wonder when to sit on the lid. His fingers, oddly dry, moved up the redhead's chest to his shoulders, trailing a pair line of warm parallel lines in their wake.

Lavi was terribly tempted to lean forward and press himself against the man he knew those hands belonged to, but fought off the urge. He was clinging enough without trying. "I don't know how I know these things," he said honestly, and let his eyes fall closed at the touch of hands in his hair, pulling out the worse tangles. "But the more I talk to you, the less I want them to be related to my memories. If I never remember… if I don't see… then maybe I can just be happy here with you – assuming you don't mind, I mean." The redhead reached up with his right hand and pulled the towel that still rested on his hair down to his chin. "Sometimes I wonder if I can go an hour without saying something stupid," he fumblingly put his fingers on the towel around his hips, squeezing it like a lifeline in a squall.

Tyki pulled the material away from Lavi's face and pulled it up by the turn of his jaw, fingers as slow and gentle as any human's. "Even if you remember," his words spread warm air into Lavi's hairline, "I will not throw you from my house for it. In fact…"

Lavi waited, but no more words came. "In fact?"

"Never mind, Lavi." The Noah answered almost bitterly. "I will get the things we need, alright?"

The redhead nodded. "I'll be here."

Waiting.

-- -- --

TBC?

-Giggles- I typoed that TBS. Lohl~

I will get the rest of the reviews, just wanted to be sure this was up on the right day. ^^;