I'm sorry it took so long. I had to go through the process of being hired (YAY!) and I had to work my first and second day and a lot of other stuff. But, the good news is that I have this for you guys! And Bookkbaby beta'd for me out of the kindness of her heart. :3

Also, for those of you who read tws, I should just got it back, so once I fix all of the booboos, you shall see it. That means Monday or so. Patience is another form of love~

Warnings: More touching, some plot, men lovin each other, etc…

Disclaimer: I do not own – man. But now I might be able to afford to buy it!

-- -- --

Chapter Six: For Whom the Prey Weeps

It made Tyki's skin crawl. He knew that Sheryl wouldn't hurt Lavi, the man had a wife he cared for and a daughter he loved more than life itself. Road would though. Given a moment alone with the Exorcist she would likely make a pin cushion out of him and not feel the slightest bit of regret afterward. The Earl, Tyki didn't know. The aura of bloodlust was palpable, but if the man would act on it, no one could say. Sometimes the most obvious course of action was the one that the Thousand Year Phantom didn't take just for the sake of being surprising.

At least, Tyki noted, the redhead looked tired and weak and broken, half wrapped in the maroon duvet, his hair falling unnoticed into his line of sight. The rumpled state of his clothes and the wrapped ankle he hung off the mattress – those made the picture even more perfect, completed by the purpling teeth marks on his neck. There wouldn't be a doubt what they were about; not when the person looking knew all the sins pleasure was capable of. The only mystery that would remain was why and how, and Tyki doubted he would have those answers demanded of him while in his captive's presence. Everyone, even the Earl himself, understood the loss such secrets might bring if they instilled even a sliver of askance in the boy's mind.

Yet, as the Portuguese man responded to his hated nickname and introduced Lavi to his benefactor, he couldn't help but think that something awful was bound to happen. He watched the Earl take the Exorcist's hand almost politely, and watched the redhead smile wanly in response. It was almost as if Lavi knew something was wrong. The apprentice Bookman had intuition that refused to stop functioning, so it wasn't that far fetched of an idea that he might understand that the older, fatter man was out for blood.

The apprentice redhead seemed thankful when the larger man let go of his hand. He turned back to Tyki and, without reserve or care or even question, pressed himself as close as they could be while there was fabric between them. His hands were white knuckled on Tyki's shirt, his sightless eyes aimed somewhere along the far wall. The way he breathed was almost frightened, fast and shallow, but there was something else to it, something like yearning, that made the Noah gather him close and stroked at the boy's spine while his family members watched and cocked their eyebrows at him. It didn't matter.

Sheryl had a wife. Tyki could have Lavi.

"Tyki," Lavi whispered against his neck, just breaking the silence. "I'm tired." It was what he had said before, only now there was a note of desperation to it, a note of fear.

"We've already had dinner," Tyki addressed his family softly, "but you're welcome to join me in the kitchen for coffee if there is something we need to discuss." At the nod from his brother, he attempted to coax Lavi from his shirt, which turned out to be more of a problem than he anticipated. The boy would not, for some reason, let go. With a soft smile and even softer hands, the Noah drew the Exorcist into a hug that would be slightly painful for both old scars and healing wounds alike. It didn't work to get the boy any farther away than he was but it did assure the redhead that he wasn't alone, no matter how much he felt that he was.

The apprentice Bookman spoke in a breath against Tyki's ear, too quiet for the others to hear. "He doesn't like me. Why doesn't he like me?"

The Noah couldn't answer for the moment. Instead, he forced Lavi's face up to him, smiling softly at the boy's blind eyes and worried features. "Because of what you were. He just doesn't know you yet."

The redhead nodded against Tyki's palm, but his expression didn't change. "Will you kiss me?" It was just loud enough to carry to everyone, just loud enough to be heard by the Earl and Road and Sheryl, not that the latter two had watched before. It made the Portuguese man smile to think Lavi cared that they knew. It made the casual way Lavi leaned forward and the white wrinkled fabric of his shirt fell away from his throat all the more obvious to Tyki. All the more alluring.

He obliged tenderly, and closed his eyes to it, tongue playing at the boy's lips with strokes that promised more, if only Lavi could wait. It surprised the Noah a little, how the Exorcist tried for a short instant to be closer, then withdrew with a soft whimper of displeasure.

"If you need me, do not hesitate to call," Tyki whispered into Lavi's lips and pecked him one more time for good measure.

Blind eyes looked up at the Portuguese man, both mismatched shades of impossible green, and Lavi nodded. "Then… tell them I'm sorry."

-- -- --

Lavi couldn't hear a great deal from the bedroom, not unless he tried. He didn't. There were names exchanged, and locations, and lists made and arguments held in nearly hushed silence. Some things he heard were familiar – Innocence, Bookman, Order, Exorcist – and others that he didn't recognize as well – Akuma, dark matter, Ark, a word that sounded like cell but had something on the end. It was at the mention of that that Tyki's voice became louder than the redhead had ever heard it, and the other man's – the Earl's – rose with it. The fight lasted until something thumped and rattled and someone made a soft sound of understanding. After that, Sheryl dominated the conversation.

And mostly, he only talked about Road.

It was another hour before anyone came back into the room with Lavi, and by the sound of their bare feet and the sweet scent of tobacco, it was Tyki. The older man eased himself down on the bed beside the redhead and gently, as if he thought the boy sleeping, wound an arm around Lavi's hips. The sigh he unleashed, loud and deep and rib-cracking, made the entire bed shift a little.

Without asking what had transpired, or even if their guests were staying the night, Lavi flopped onto his side – wincing at the jarring of his right ankle – and laid his head on the older man's chest. He remembered the scars that marred the skin there, but he knew that even if he looked he wouldn't see them. He couldn't even tell where the other man's eyes were in the current light, and trying made his own hurt terribly.

So he didn't try. He closed his eyes and held on to Tyki, wanting to reassure and be reassured all at once.

The silence did not last long.

"Tyki," Lavi whispered, running his hand down the other man's chest, "will you let me sleep late tomorrow?"

The Noah shifted enough to lay a hand in the middle of the smaller man's back and stroke it before he slipped his fingers beneath the line of Lavi's pants, touching skin. It was a little dash of further intimacy, and it made his whisper all the more meaningful. "Only if you let me do the same, Lavi." There was something worn out in Tyki's voice – perhaps from raising it in an irritated and angry yell – and a sprinkle of something like exhaustion. "We will have to clean and check your eyes as soon as possible. And you mustn't rub them while you're sleeping—"

"They don't hurt." Lavi ran his hand up and down once more, eyes hooded. He knew where the scars underneath the fabric were, and listened for a change in the older man's breathing in case his touch caused pain. "And even if I'm tired, I can't sleep yet."

"Oh?"

Lavi stretched his sore left shoulder when he pulled the larger man into an embrace. "Not until I'm not scared anymore."

Tyki shifted again, this time more slowly, and the hand on Lavi's lower back moved up between his shoulder blades. The caress was quite strong. The pressure it caused might have left a bruise if it was left too long, but it went sliding downward in something of an unconscious massage.

"Do you… remember them?" The question was little more than a whisper.

"No." Lavi answered just as softly. "But they're part of our war. It's the only thing that makes sense."

"You never cease to amaze me."

"You should feel the things I think I can do with my mouth."

"Lavi…"

The redhead smiled lopsidedly into the Portuguese man's chest and curled his fingers a little, feeling the press of a rib against the tips. "I know. Just lightening the mood. You gonna be ok?" Even as the words left his lips he felt the older man's demeanor change a bit, become relaxed, and so couldn't keep the smile from his face.

"Sleep, Lavi." Tyki chuckled, and moved enough to place his face in the curve of Lavi's throat, nearly reversing their positions. His skin was cool on the flesh of the redhead's neck. "And I swear that tomorrow, if you're in the mood to, we can finish what we started earlier. Though, I have an errand to run in the afternoon and won't be home until late… can you… if I leave things here for you to eat and so forth, can you be alone for that long?"

The note of fear in the Portuguese man's voice was not lost on Lavi. There was always something more than what there seemed to be, and this was no exception.

"Are you going to kill people?"

Tyki stiffened. "Lavi—"

"It's ok." It really wasn't, but the words came easy when they were wrapped together with little more than the fabric of their clothes between them. "I can't miss them if I don't remember." Whispering it brought to mind the voices that still lingered in his thoughts when he came to the edge of sleep, the ones that he could remember calling him by his name and laughing. That was all he had now, his name and laughter. If that was all he ever remembered, and the people laughing were killed by Tyki's hands, he couldn't say that he would miss them. He couldn't say that he cared. "God, that makes me sound heartless."

Heartless. That was a word he knew from somewhere, but he didn't know it now.

Tyki's grip on the redhead's chest tightened a bit but he remained silent for a moment, breathing gently against Lavi's collar bone. When he broke the stillness, his voice carried down the apprentice Bookman's chest, seeming to vibrate in his bones. "Ironically," Tyki whispered, leaning a bit more on Lavi's ribcage, "you are anything but heartless, Lavi."

The redhead smiled and buried a hand in the older man's hair so the curls of it hooked on his fingers like silky rings. "I guess. Don't you dare get hurt, whatever you do. If you don't come back—"

"Oh, I'll come back." This time there was not even a hint of fear in the Noah's voice. "But we shouldn't talk about this, we should sleep. The day has been very…" The man paused long enough to sigh against Lavi's skin. "Eventful." The word was heavier than it should have been. His fingers tickled a bit on the redhead's side, like a hint of what might be on his mind.

Lavi swallowed hard and pulled a bit with the fingers he had anchored in Tyki's hair, dragging his head upward a bit. The light wasn't sufficient for him to make anything out; not features or hair, not clothes or skin, but he could see the change in the shadows when a hand shifted up to brush the fringe from his eyes.

"Can I help?" The redhead tilted his face to the side and lifted his eyebrows. "Can I… can I…" The hair in his fingers slipped a bit when the older man moved, but it didn't matter when warm, open lips touched his. The kiss was languid, gentle, and willed Lavi to move his free hand into the larger man's hair as well. To his slight surprise, the Portuguese man shuddered at the touch and moved closer, slipping his right knee between the Exorcist's, making Lavi tremble. It was like before, only different. Now there was a fire in it, and desperation, and a gentle knowledge that whatever happiness lay between them had the potential to last far less than forever.

It made Lavi moan.

"Would you—"

"Yes." Even if he could hardly breathe the word, the redhead still produced it. He shut his useless eyes and reached for any part of the older man that he could grab, any part that he could kiss or caress or show affection toward. It was only a moment before his palms found the bare flesh of Tyki's chest, under the Noah's shirt. There was but one more before he found himself ducking down to kiss at the scars there with softly trembling lips. There were hands on his back like claws, dragging him into the very thing he aimed to touch.

Tyki's grip was painful, bruising, but that didn't stop Lavi from hooking his good leg around one of the larger man's, and bringing his pelvis into Tyki's thigh.

"Merda," Tyki's curse hardly stirred the air between them, but it was enough to make Lavi smile.

"I must be something if you're crossin' the language barrier."

The Portuguese man laughed and his hands moved a bit. His chest was suddenly bare the shirt he had worn warm and crumpled next to Lavi's face on the mattress. "Shush. I'll have you speaking Latin as recompense."

"Oh. Please, punish me with linguistic confusion, you evil li'l thing, you."

Tyki slipped downward while he laughed and the slightly awkward position they had ended up in turned into something of a strange, horizontal embrace. "Little? Evil? Interesting adjectives, Eye-patch." His tongue pressed for a very short moment against the redhead's right ear and then he was pulling back again, chuckling low in his throat. "Did I ever tell you that I called you that? I did. When I saw you the second time." His mouth returned to Lavi's neck this time and moved at the same instant that the apprentice Bookman rocked his hips. "But that isn't important…"

Lavi shook his head and moved his hips again, eyes tightly shut. It didn't matter what he had been called before, it mattered how good the body against him felt, how his fingers touched the marks his comrade – he supposed – had left on his would-be lover's flesh. "No," he agreed softly, "the only thing important is how I want to make you forget whatever wore you out today. And how great you are with that tongue of yours." The redhead half-growled, lifting his pelvis again. The touch was exquisite. His blood was moving too quickly in his veins.

"Would you like me to do that, Lavi?"

"I'd rather do it to you, honestly."

There was a strange sound in the older man's throat, low and almost angry. "Your hand I am comfortable with, your mouth…"

"We can work our way up. Or down. Whatever." Lavi fisted a hand in the Portuguese man's hair and pulled him downward, kissing at the nearest thing he could reach. When he found lips he let out a soft, triumphant sound and threw his hips forward, his hand clenched a bit against Tyki's scalp. "Just let me touch you while you touch me so it's not like anyone is left hangin'." He chortled softly at his own wording and lifted his face enough to nuzzle at the larger man's throat.

Tyki shook his head a little, amused. "Any other requests? Nakedness? Shall I sit up so you can straddle me while we do this?" The rhetorical questions faded into kisses and the gentle movement of fingertips on skin under Lavi's shirt, teasing along his ribcage and over his nipples. There was enough contact between Tyki's hands and Lavi's chest to make both of them shudder at it – at the largeness of the older man's hands, the fragility of the smaller man's bones. Silence settled between them.

Lavi broke it with a groan.

"How long'er we gonna grope for?" He hardly managed to gasp the words before Tyki was rocking into him, driving a very warm, very solid something into the inside of Lavi's hip. The redhead figured that meant a short amount of time.

He was proved right when the man above him arched a bit and then pulled himself back so he could fumble with the button of Lavi's pants. The Noah's fingers trembled slightly, and his breath came in quick, deep waves, but he didn't seem panicked or angry or unsure. His teeth were half-gentle on Lavi's throat, while his right hand looped almost lazily around the boy's freed manhood and stroked it slowly. Tyki growled over any sound that Lavi produced, and pressed his mouth into the turn of the redhead's neck.

"Does this count as groping?"

Lavi choked out something that could have been a negative. "Lemme—"

Tyki caught the boy's right hand and guided it inside of his pants, completely steady. The flesh there was hot to the touch and perfectly smooth under Lavi's fingers. "There?"

The redhead tried to say yes, but the palm wrapped around his length moved in a strong, twisting stroke and he moaned, head tilted back on the mattress. It was different this time. They were desperate. His own hand moved in a similar motion, only he brushed the pad of his thumb over the slit at the top of Tyki's arousal before he moved his hand downward, increasing pressure as he went. It was almost second nature – he didn't feel awkward at all touching another man from the angle at which he was forced to caress Tyki.

Maybe he had been indifferent to gender before, he didn't know, but now he didn't care if the body above him was male or female, as long as he could feel it so close.

The Noah took the younger man's mouth in a breath-stealing kiss before he pulled back and pressed his lips to Lavi's hair, spreading gooseflesh down the back of the redhead's neck. "I'm sorry." The words moved a subtle vibration down the apprentice Bookman's face and behind his eyes – but he didn't let them open. "I sent a message to my family two days ago to inform them that you are—"

A well placed finger trailing along the vein at the front of the Portuguese man's erection brought a started half-gasp to his lips. It made Lavi smile.

"Don't talk about them," the redhead's voice was husky with sleep and need; he moved his hips in time with the hand on his length in encouragement. It felt a bit strange to him, but the leg between his thighs made up for it, the open mouth on his throat helped a little. But he wanted more. He wanted to hook his ankles around the larger man's back and touch with the sort of abandon that would leave them both worn out and speechless until midmorning, but he knew it could not happen. Not until he healed.

"But Lavi—"

"Not while we're like this. You can tell me what their God-given powers are tomorrow. Right now…" He lifted his left leg so he could hook it on Tyki's right, "I wanna finish this and lay naked with you. Because I still like you, no matter how creepy your relatives are."

The Noah made a sound that was between a laugh and a hiss of disbelief. His grip changed so his long fingers brushed the very lowest part of the muscle in his palm before gliding to the tip, then slipping down again. The difference was angle and concentration – his open mouth pressed uselessly to the skin of Lavi's temple, puffing warm air toward his ear. "I should have told you." Tyki finished softly.

Lavi couldn't help but tilt his face up toward the other man's and laugh. "I've only been telling you that since I woke up."

After that, conversation was more or less nonexistent, consisting only of short requests for more or hurried inquiries of possible other options. The redhead used his other hand to trace patterns on Tyki's chest, bisecting the scars there, following them. He didn't think the older man had been with anyone since whatever wounds had caused them, otherwise he wouldn't have been so shocked by the question of their origins, but Lavi did not let that thought stay in his mind for more than a moment; he kissed the turn of Tyki's bare shoulder and shuddered at the press of teeth to his right ear. He whispered the older man's name like a prayer and arched his back; he tightened his fingers and moaned at the shivers in Tyki's spine.

Virgin or not, in love or not, he liked it. He seriously doubted that this would be the only time he wanted to touch the older man, or the only time he thought about how good it would feel to be even closer than they were now.

Occupying the same space. He whimpered at the thought.

"Lavi, por—"

"Mmhmm." Lavi didn't know if the Noah meant to warn him, but the hand wrapped around his cock moved with a swiftness and pressure that he could hardly hope to match. He had to fall back on the bed a bit, the better to breathe and concentrate, while the older man jerked and thrust into his palm and he answered with quick, harsh movements of his own. There was fire in his veins and it wanted out. There was a twisted rubber band in his stomach and it wanted to snap. He heard himself plead a little, softly, and turned his face into the older man's throat. The dark world shrank into just him and Tyki, the long, cascading line of pleasure that filled him momentarily rendering him unable to hear anything but the breathy cry of his name on the older man's lips. His hand must have clenched and jerked but he wasn't all that aware of it – he was aware of teeth on his neck, bruising his skin. He was aware of fire in his veins. He was aware of the pattern of the stitching in the duvet brushing into his skin.

His right hand was wet with the Noah's release, left still clawed in the length of his hair, skin damp with sweat pressed to Lavi's jaw. The sound of breathing seemed to fill the room for the moment, permeating it with terrifying calm and painful gentleness, as well as startling intimacy. Lavi shifted only enough to feel Tyki's mouth come away from his throat and then settled again under the larger man's weight, blind right eye fluttering against Tyki's cheek.

"Thank you," Lavi heard himself mumble, but he couldn't honestly understand what he was thankful for. It made him blush.

The older man nuzzled into the redhead's neck and sighed almost deep enough to empty his chest of air. He kissed the very place he had bit, caressing it with slow, gentle touches that eventually tapered off into little more than a constant brush of contact. His breathing became even.

"No…" Tyki hardly whispered. "You shouldn't."

-- -- --

Tyki was dozing when Lavi accidentally smeared his mess across the back of his pants. The Noah didn't care enough to do anything but take them off and pull the Exorcist against him, even if the boy was mostly clothed and the blankets were tangled and he was bound to get cold. It didn't make sense to him – the ideas and emotions in his head – so he didn't think about them, didn't dwell on the fact that he would likely oversleep and wake smelling of sex, unable to shower. Finders didn't tend to notice that sort of thing, anyway, so it didn't matter. The young man curled against his bare chest mattered.

Exorcist, Noah, Bookmen. The Earl sitting at the kitchen table with that look on his face. He knew that it would a mercy to pull out the boy's heart while there were no memories, while their relationship was still friendship rather than something more substantial, but he really wasn't in the mood. A cigarette would have been nice, but really, that was too much work, too. Sleep was in order. Sleep and his arms around Lavi's frame.

He couldn't recall when it was that he had begun to want to hold the younger man, nor did he think it needful to remember. It made it easier to pretend that the two of them had just landed in the house together the way Lavi remembered – easier to forget what they were. It was just an urge much like breathing. Though he did want to be close to Lavi, he had no recollection of starting to.

The redhead shifted a little and Tyki matched him. Though their height difference wasn't all that grand, he still felt protective with the smaller body pressed against his chest. It was never like that with women. They tended to cloy. Lavi could cling, but it lacked the saccharine air of a woman's love affair.

And he really did want a cigarette.

Tyki's fingers wandered up into the redhead's hair and began to stroke it, moving in a slow rhythm that would undoubtedly keep the apprentice Bookman calm and make them both sleep better. The texture was almost silky, though thick, and the longer he let his hand play in it, the less he could think of it as anything but something pretty.

Lavi gave a soft, sleep-talk mumble of encouragement. It really wasn't necessary.

The truth was, no matter how Tyki looked at it, that as much as he liked the Exorcist, as much as he didn't mind sharing his bed, the future was going to be a lot of work.

The kind of work he didn't particularly enjoy.

Yet, the Earl had not demanded that the apprentice Bookman die. Road wanted him to – almost got her way – but it was unfair and far too sudden and it was obvious that Lavi was no longer a threat to any of them. The request had been denied. Tyki was sure that it was in no small part due to the fact that he had yelled in the kitchen about it, slammed his hands down on the surface of the table and simply said that he would not let the redhead go for reasons of his own, ones that Road had no part in complicating. He had never done anything like that for anyone. Not even himself. He would rather laze about a family discussion, take his assignment, and leave than argue a point with anyone. It was his nature to go with whatever happened.

But he couldn't do it if it meant killing Lavi. Letting Road have him was worse than doing it himself, really. Without the memories of what he had done, the apprentice Bookman couldn't be forced to pay for his crimes or – in the end – be tortured with the sort of images his niece would want to show him. He would be confused and she would murder him out of boredom and frustration rather than vengeance.

But that was all so distant. At the moment, Tyki closed his eyes and tried not to think about how much he wanted tobacco.

The Noah decided at length that now was not the time to contemplate the future, if there ever was a time to. He took a deep breath and sighed. It was indeed a bit chilly to be lying outside of the covers naked.

Nudging the redhead beside him rewarded him with a dazed expression and, eventually, Lavi's bare back pressed to his chest, both of them under the blankets. It was very comfortable that way, very natural. He pushed the thoughts of everything else aside and just pressed his face into the redhead's hair and closed his eyes, breathing in the soft scent that was, for lack of a better term for it, Lavi. It was a bit less like fire now, closer to the smell of the house coupled with the lingering sting of what might have been fear.

"…hm…" The sound was almost too quiet to break the stillness, but Tyki still heard it.

Rather than respond with a hum of his own, the Noah laid an open palm in the middle of the boy's chest and matched the rhythm he had started in Lavi's hair. Almost at once the muscles against him began to relax and unwind, trusting him explicitly.

It made him smile. It made him tired. It made him want blood.

None of it mattered anyway. Thinking about it wasn't going to help.

With that final thought on the subject, Tyki settled himself a bit and allowed his mind to idle itself to sleep.

-- -- --

The kid – the one with the eye patch – was waiting for him in a boat this time, with another boy about the age of sixteen, with the same eye patch. They were both lounging somewhat, or the younger one was while the older tried to amuse him with what looked like a finger puzzle. The younger seemed completely disinterested. It might have been a strange picture, considering how much they looked alike, but Lavi didn't let that take away from his amusement when the child turned his head away to study the water over the edge of the boat.

"You're stupid." The boy muttered as if he hadn't noticed another person in the boat besides the two of them.

"Hey… that's not nice, y'know? I'm older and wiser."

"And you play stupid games."

"Was I always this bratty?"

"And you fail."

The older boy pouted.

Lavi shifted a little, looking between them, and the younger looked in his direction for a moment before he smiled. The kid was damn cute with his little green poncho and insufferably affectionate expression, and the one large eye that seemed to want to drink in anything that was set in front of it. At once, Lavi stuck out a hand and ruffled the child's hair, grinning.

"Who's your friend?" He asked with a head tilt toward the older of the two redheads. Unlike the child, his double was in what appeared to be a green, long sleeved shirt that stayed mostly hidden under his larger, tan poncho, and he sported a large swath of black cloth on his forehead. He seemed almost rebellious.

"Him? He's stupid. And really, really dumb. And totally not what I wanted to be when I wanted to see the world." The kid answered, frowning. "He's seen more than me, but he's lost sight of what was important to me."

"He's you?"

"Us." The older answered.

Lavi frowned. "You're the same person?" That seemed a little ridiculous.

For a moment, the boat just moved, the water lapping at the sides. The two other redheads just stared at him with matching left eyes and frowned, blinking slowly. He had said something stupid. They were spitting images of one another – of course they were the same person, someone he had known for a painfully long time. It was a memory.

"We're you." The older one blurted suddenly, his face cracked with a too-wide smile. "You can call me…er… I dunno, That One, being you took my alias. The li'l one's Connor."

"I'm not little."

Lavi blinked again, frowning at them. He wanted to ask questions and feel awkward, but he didn't have time to. The older one – the one who he must have looked like, assuming this wasn't the kind of nightmare it seemed to be – stood up and touched his shoulders, grinning at him in a crooked sort of way.

"It's ok, me," he said cheerfully, "All you have to do is remember."

The boat was gone. The water was gone. The two people that claimed to be him were gone. He was standing on a ledge with a pole in his right hand – black – and a red door in front of him, a boy clad from head to toe in white was there also. A man who might have been Asian, short-haired, strong-nosed, and a bit pudgy, was scowling and screaming at the boy, calling him names, clenching his fists and widening his eyes so the veins on the sides of his temples stuck out visibly. The boy's face was very soft and young, sweet, and kind, but bruised and scarred on the left side, scrapped on the right. He didn't argue with the same fierceness as the other man, but he had a point of his own.

Lavi said something and took a step forward, the silver-eyed boy looked at him.

He knew that face. He knew it. And yet he couldn't say that he knew who it was.

Ryan? No… that wasn't it. Haldor? No, also wrong. Robin? No, that wasn't right…

Before he could think of it, everything went to Hell.

What happened first, what broke, who was hurt, he didn't know. The ground crumbled and the door shattered, the nameless boy was pulled into a hole in the floor. There was a sound like dripping. Blood. There was something dark – he hit his head – he couldn't breathe – he was frightened. Everything was too blurred and hurried for him to follow, the name on his lips too loud and desperate for him to know the shape his mouth made. The dream, the memory, had turned into a nightmare.

He knew because God did not make creatures like the one that greeted him when the word came to a lurching halt.

Skin like the endless night sky, shot through with wisps of something darker, and wings composed of dark, hinged tendrils, limbs that whipped and bent as if they lacked bones inside of them. The monster was as frightening as it was beautiful, its face covered in a mask of what might have been blackened steel fashioned into the shape of roses and a horn, its legs covered in what could have been half of a robe. He knew it, too. It shrieked and came at him. The air seemed to part around it so easily that Lavi didn't react as he would have had he known what it was – he looked down at the weapon in his hand and then back at the creature, and decided there was no way to stop it.

He shouldn't have done that. He knew there was supposed to be smoke and flame and his own stupid desire to stay alive. That was what made it different from a memory.

There was a jolt in his chest and shoulder and he fell to his knees on sandstone. There was blood around his fingers, coming from his chest. He didn't feel it.

A darkly colored hand spread across the fabric of his black and silver jacket, and blood scented air moved over his ear, stiffening his spine. Something hot and wet, slick and all too familiar moved across the shell of his ear almost teasingly. A second hand pressed on his left hip.

"If you want a bath before I leave, you have to get up Lavi."

-- -- --

Tyki had the distinct feeling that his voice had ripped the boy from his dreams – there was no other way to explain how Lavi jerked awake, hunching in on himself as if frightened. The Noah frowned at it and pulled the redhead a little tighter, and his right hand brushed across the warm expanse of Lavi's torso. "Did I frighten you?" A hand touched the one he kept on the redhead's chest, shaking slightly, the fingers cold.

There were some bits of contact that carried with them more meaning than just a brush of reassurance or uncertainty. That touch carried all of the fear and sureness of a hand clinging to a lifeline that might be yanked away at any moment. Lavi's palm was warm despite the icy quality to his fingers, both of which pressed almost hard enough to bruise the older man's flesh, not that Tyki minded. Nightmares, he supposed, would be nearly impossible to shake off without eyes to show the room and the light, the familiar things, the truth. It would all remain, burned on the blackness on the inside of the boy's mind, unable to be forgotten or chased away.

"Lavi?"

"I don't know." Lavi's voice was a broken whisper. "I saw…"

Tyki moved his thumb in a slow, soothing line across the boy's stomach. "Yes?"

"Will you be honest with me, Tyki?" The boy didn't turn to talk to him and didn't squeeze his hand; he spoke in his nearly silent voice, very seriously. "Are there people in the world… with unnaturally dark skin and extra limbs like vines and hands that can cut you?"

The Noah swallowed. There were things that, no matter the state of ones mind or the pain in ones chest, could not be easily forgotten. He fought down the urge to react violently to the Exorcist in his arms who remembered something of their past and instead rolled enough to look the boy in the face. It didn't surprise him to find Lavi's eyes steadfastly shut and his face turned a bit into the white cotton fabric of the pillow case, as if the position could hide him from the older man. Tyki couldn't smile at it.

"Lavi?"

"Yes or no?"

It was one of those moments when honesty and dishonesty didn't seem to be the question – it was reveal or hide. There were too many truths. There were too many lies. This one, this story, was one that Lavi could potentially remember.

Softly, Tyki laid his lips on the Exorcist's and touched the underside of the boy's jaw, turning his face up a little. "There is one such person in the world. Did you dream of him?"

The boy touched his left shoulder around the place that Tyki might have hit him – the memory was vague at best, but it looked right. There was no mark now, but the redhead's fingers shook while he traced it.

"Tyki…" Lavi's voice was painfully unsteady. "I'm…" Like broken winged birds his hands fought their way up to the Noah's chest, trembling even as Tyki gripped them with his own. They were cold and bloodless, thin, and so terribly fragile that the Noah wanted at once to squeeze them without cause or measure, press their shape into his palms. "God, I swear I'm acting like a ten year old, but I'm…"

Scared, that was the word that wouldn't come. Frightened out of his wits.

"There's nothing to be afraid of, Lavi." Tyki said softly, and pulled the redhead a little closer. "He can be a very gentle creature when he isn't woken suddenly and painfully. Trust me, I know him very well." That was a half-lie, maybe a little less. Not that it mattered; the Exorcist would likely figure him out if his intuition continued to be as good as it had. Leaning forward, Tyki used his right hand to brush the hair from the smaller man's forehead, which sent it tumbling in a waterfall of soft red and copper, metallic strands falling on ivory skin. "In this house, you are very safe. You would be, even if he wasn't."

Lavi slumped into the larger man, half-open eyes aimed at the Noah's chest. "Are all of the things I've seen like that? Are they real? Because I don't—"

Tyki knew that he was going to say something stupid, but he couldn't stop himself anymore, not while the boy looked so very breakable. Not while Lavi was trying to get closer. "I will tell you what I know of the worst parts, if you want to hear them before you see them. It might… even if they make you remember everything… it might make it better." He touched the apprentice Bookman's hair again. "Would you like me to do that?"

"No." Lavi responded softly. "I don't want to know. Or see. Just…" He shook his head against the mattress with a growl. "I need to wake up. If I'm going to remember, I'll remember. It doesn't matter if I don't want to." He didn't move from his place – instead he pressed his forehead to Tyki's shoulder and closed his eyes, sighing.

"But not right now?"

"You're naked and I just had a nightmare."

"Does that mean you want me to soothe you?"

The boy made a sound like a chuckle and a crooked smile moved across his lips. "It means you can help me get in the tub when you get back. I want to stay in bed with you for as long as I can. If you get hurt or something… I don't know. Just… lemme go back to sleep holdin' you, ok?" Lavi's voice dropped in volume at the end, though more out shyness than uncertainty.

Tyki didn't know if it was what remained of his humanity or something darker that willed him to do exactly that. He only knew that he gathered Lavi against him without thinking. They fit together almost too well. "Would you mind if…" He let his voice fall to a whisper, "I looked on your eyes for a moment? They may not hurt, but that could be a bad thing if we do not take care of them." Gently, fearing the redhead would jerk away from his touch, he took the boy's chin between his fingers and pulled his face up so the circles of his irises caught the light.

Lavi's eyes flicked upward, but didn't seem to focus. They were still irritated looking, though less than they had been, and they blinked with forced slowness. A dark spark of fear burned a little behind the left while the right remained dull and apparently sightless, the pupil overly large even for the dim light.

"I'll need to wrap them in case you encounter bright light. They aren't reacting properly."

The redhead's eyes shut again. "How long before you leave?" He pushed himself up a little, which in turn slid the blankets down his bare chest and exposed the crooked wrapping on his left shoulder, the faded scars where his ribs had been cut and scrapped and, most recently, he had fallen. They were soft pink and white against his skin, shiny and smooth. Though they did not protrude like Tyki's did, they were still marks, blemishes that the boy wasn't even aware of. It appeared as though they might fade further, but it was rather difficult to tell yet, the marks too new.

"A few hours," Tyki said softly, fighting with the frown on his lips. "Did you want to do something else before I go?" At the touch of Lavi's lips to his, slow and gentle and anything but expectant, the frown won.

Pulling away, the apprentice Bookman forced a smile. "I'm… having a little trouble imagining you a coldhearted killer, that's all. I was gonna ask you if you'd explain the premise. Why is there a man in my head who tries to strangle me with vine things? How come stars frighten me? What does the kid who looks like an old guy have to do with any of it? I understand that it's war, and I don't feel anything about the things I do remember, I'm detached, but I still want to know why." He shifted uneasily, fingers suddenly buried in duvet, and his expression fell. It was as if the lie of his smile had dissolved, the thoughtful frown underneath burning through it. "I want to know who you're killing. Maybe I want to know so I can justify still liking you, I don't really know." He admitted at last, and a deep blush fought its way across his features. Making such demands and then turning red like an innocent – the boy was a seriously adorable contradiction.

Tyki took in a slow, deep breath before he kissed Lavi back tenderly, because it was a pleasant thing in a conversation that would not be overly enjoyable. Withdrawing, a smile began to play on his lips. "There is always a little Bookman in you, isn't there? Even when you don't need to be one."

Lavi didn't answer. He waited withed his hands fisted on the maroon fabric covering his knees.

"It's a long story," Tyki warned softly, "it might take longer than we have to tell it."

"You can finish when you get back." Lavi mumbled logically.

The Noah sighed. There was no way to get out of it, really, and no harm in telling the truth. He leaned to the side, stretching until he could get to the nightstand drawer that contained enough medical supplies to care for Lavi's eyes and shoulder. It would be better to kill two birds with one stone. "It all started a very, very long time ago. Are you familiar with story of Noah's Ark?"

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Tbc?