More SSP. Because TWS only has the epilogue and life is crazy and this just so happened to be done first. Yup. I'm that lame.
BTW, no one has noticed the titles of my chapters yet. I'm a little sad. :(
Woot! SisterWicked beta'd. If there are still typos feel free to point them out to me. :)
Disclaimer: I do not own D. Gray – man. If I did… Tyki would ~($)! Lavi and like it. Though the plotty thing is mind. No stealing.
Warnings: Um… a little gore. Little touching. Little jumpy.
-- -- --
Chapter Seven: Seeing Red Again
Lavi didn't like it when Tyki put poultice in his eyes, but he sat through it anyway, his hands on the older man's knees. Noah's Ark – the thought brought to mind a boat and a city, rain and fire. He didn't know which was true or which was right, so he listened while the Portuguese man wrapped his eyes in swaths of linen.
"The basis of the story goes that the Great Flood – you do remember the Great Flood, yes?" Tyki's voice, resonant with something distant, paused long enough for the redhead to nod. The Noah's fingers, however, were very much in the moment, working even through the movement. "It happened because of the man you met yesterday – the Earl of Millennium or, some would say, the Millennium Earl. He tried to change the world according to God's will. When he failed, the substance that stopped him – Innocence – was spread about the world in the Great Flood." The Portuguese man stopped for a moment while he tucked the bandage into place. "There are two beliefs about Innocence, which is something like rock, it isn't purity. The first is that God created it to stop someone who misunderstood His will and the Earl caused the Flood trying to destroy it. The second is that Innocence was created by a false god and was hidden in the Flood in the hope that those who can use it will not find it in time to stop what will happen without it."
The redhead frowned. "That seems uselessly complicated."
Tyki laughed softly while he ripped at the covering on Lavi's left shoulder, deft and sure. It wasn't until the wound was exposed that he went on again, in the same nostalgic tone of voice. It was almost as if he remembered. "You and yours… you are the ones that can use Innocence. My family and I can destroy it. Naturally, that means our understanding of God is different, as are our goals."
"Then it's a crusade. Kind of." Lavi remarked softly, and tried not to wince at the touch of fingers on his shoulder. "But… if the whole thing goes back to the Great Flood, then that's why people call you Noah? And how come the Earl guy is so old?"
"Magic, some would claim, keeps him alive. I don't know." Tyki's voice had a soft hint to it, a little lie mixed with truth. He knew something else, but he wasn't prepared to share it. "My family is descended from Noah. Our abilities stem from what part of him we embody." He became distracted by something, perhaps Lavi's wound, and his voice dropped in volume slightly. "It is our responsibility to kill people like you."
Lavi felt a thoughtful, completely disconnected frown come to his lips. He wasn't afraid, only slightly confused. "Then why haven't you killed me? If I remember… I'll want to hurt you, and I'll want to make you…" The redhead remembered the creature in his mind, the dark skin, the long hair, the mask. He thought of Tyki's scars. How the two of them fit together, he didn't know, but he knew the two were connected – were similar. Right-handedly, Lavi reached out and traced the line of the Portuguese man's jaw, which in turn stilled the hand on his shoulder.
"Lavi?"
"You have that in you somewhere… you're… that thing with the fern-wings." He felt himself shiver, felt his voice shake, but didn't move his hand away. "And if I remember everything else…"
"I don't want to kill you." Tyki batted the hand on his face away and continued what he was doing with the younger man's shoulder, voice somewhat annoyed. Maybe he had already thought it through and understood what remembering meant, it was hard to tell. "You were neutral before you were one of them. If you remember, I will leave what happens up to you."
"But I might want to—"
"You cannot hurt me as you are. Not physically."
The apprentice Bookman waited, hating that he didn't know the details. He didn't need to know the little parts, just the main ideas, the basics. He understood part of the why – holy war, two sides that could potentially be right, God and the world – but there were things that didn't cover. Like the identity of those Tyki killed so often.
Lavi frowned. "You said that this Innocence is a thing that some people can use? Then… there's like… a limited supply of it?"
"There are a hundred and nine pieces. Or were. Some of it has been destroyed."
"Then… if there are so few… they must be strong so… who are you going to kill so easily?" Lavi took in a sharp breath and spoke almost at once, lifting his right hand with a frantic wave. "Not to say that you made it sound easy! I mean… you just didn't sound at all concerned and I… it's not like I wanna stop you, I just worry and I'd rather know you aren't gonna be in harm's way and—" The soft press of fingers on his lips silenced him. Lavi felt oddly like the man in front of him was amused at his inability to say things even remotely how he meant them, and the feeling made him want to do something childish.
Tyki's fingers moved from the boy's lips to his chin and tugged his face a little forward, where he could feel warm breath on them instead. "That's enough questions for now. I'll tell you when I get back."
"But we've got—"
The older man kissed him, hard and fast, then pulled back just enough to speak against his lips, letting the words form between them. "To make food for you and find something for you to lean on if you really must move around the house, because hopping – however cute – is not a good way to travel. You might break your other ankle and be left completely immobile."
"I'm not that klutzy."
"But you are blind. And there are things you can trip on. So don't argue."
Lavi leaned forward enough to kiss the man in front of him, questions and complaints at once ignored for the contact. It would be enough for now, to know what he knew, to understand that little bit of feeling that divided them, that had divided them, but didn't matter now. The people Tyki had killed, the people he would kill, they couldn't matter now – if they ever had to him before. And Lavi couldn't feel pain about thinking that way.
He felt bare, scarred flesh under his right hand and pushed himself to his knees, leaning over Tyki, only vaguely aware that there were still fingers on his left shoulder, finishing the bandage. It surprised him a little when the Portuguese man leaned away and pulled him down. His right hand stayed on Tyki's chest while his left floundered awkwardly until it was caught and his fingers woven between the Noah's. He liked that. He liked the closeness and the feeling of his knees parted around the older man's hips, of his weight settled on someone else's chest. He felt welcome and sure.
He felt like the memories of Armando or whoever didn't matter. He felt that the long-haired scowling Asian boy he had known once didn't hold a candle to the friend he had in his enemy. He felt fine.
Like he was missing something dark and important, that the strange, masked version of Tyki might have something to do with it, but he still felt fine.
Alphonse and Yoichi? And a girl named Rina?
Tyki touched Lavi's hips and pushed him back a bit, just enough to make their faces line up better, the redhead's thighs spread over the larger man's hips.
It was all right there. All he had to do was remember.
But he didn't know how.
With a growl, the redhead pulled away from the man beneath him and touched his own hair, pulling at it until his scalp protested and a hand touched the back of his, just as soft as always. His brain was too muddled with names that weren't right and faces he should have felt for – faces he should have known. The voices were all mismatched and wrong, and he wanted it to just stop for a moment – wanted to forget and remember it all at once.
"Lavi, what's wrong? If you pull your hair any harder, it's going to come out."
It was right – there.
"Lavi stop!"
"Allen! His name is Allen!" Lavi yelled at the man who was suddenly sitting half under him and half in front of him, his wrists pulled away from his hair. "The white-haired kid with the claw – Allen, right? Not Alphonse or Armando?" Saying it made it fit better, as did the tightening of Tyki's hands on his arms. "I don't… know… I don't… I don't know…" He felt sick for some reason – nauseous – and he tried to cover his mouth with his captured hands, but he couldn't, Tyki wasn't letting go. He didn't know why he felt sick, or why he remembered that that boy was Allen, or why it hurt to remember it – but he knew he couldn't sit on Tyki's lap and feel that way.
Tyki had him leaning over the side of the bed in only a moment, clutching the side of the mattress between numb fingers. He didn't retch like he thought he might, but he shook uncontrollably while his mind did things without him, searching the names and faces he knew and trying to match them, trying to build a past. It needed to stop. It was too much at once – too many wrong guesses and illogical conclusions, enough to make him growl and want to hit something. It was enough to make him want to scream.
"Wrong… it's all wrong…" He said to himself, and a woman with dark hair flashed from smiling to dust behind his eyelids. Anna? "Stop—"
The older man, perhaps not understanding, did something Lavi would not have expected from such a nice, if strange, individual – he slapped the boy hard, across his right cheek. The place his hand hit stung something awful and Lavi shook his head in an attempt to clear it. The thoughts halted for the moment, and the names and faces slowly slipped out of his mental grasp – all but the one he had matched the way they were supposed to be.
"Lavi…"
The redhead reached out for Tyki, fumbled, and nearly fell off the edge of the bed when he found a shoulder and arm where he hadn't expected them. Not that it mattered. It was Tyki's arm and he knew it, even if he didn't really know.
"Thank you for… hitting me," Lavi managed, one hand on the mattress and the other shaking on Tyki's shoulder. How Tyki had gotten on the floor in front of him was a complete mystery to the redhead. He hadn't even felt the bed shift. "I think… I should lie down…"
"You're as pale as death, Lavi. What happened?"
With a harsh breath and the images of those people – other people, people he had known before – burning in his minds eye, the apprentice Bookman sank against the bed and rested his head on the edge of it. The blankets were comfortably cool against his forehead, as if he were feverish, and a sharp pain started in the very back of his skull, almost in his neck. He swallowed thickly, trying to ignore it. "I thought… for just a minute… that my brain was either gonna put everything together, or it was gonna explode." He felt a hand on his forehead and relaxed further, concentrating on the smooth way it moved through his hair and then back to his skin, making bangs hair tickle at his forehead. "It couldn't match any of the names with the faces, but it was gonna try until it figured it out."
"That must be something you learned being a Bookman."
"Why would I do that? It sucks."
Tyki laughed at him, that same, soft, unserious laugh that made Lavi want to smile a little. "Well, Bookmen are supposed to have amazing memories, perhaps that means you remember things differently after you forget them." The hand stopped and the man it belonged to shifted, then migrated across the room to the dresser. The redhead stayed as he was while the sound of shifting fabric filled the small room.
"Will you tell me about Allen when you get back?"
The shifting stopped. For a moment, Lavi thought that Tyki had quit breathing entirely, and then the bed dipped by his hips and a hand touched his stomach, tracing over his ribs. The older man sighed. "I will tell you what I know."
Lavi nodded. "You can go get ready now. Sorry to keep you naked so long."
"It's fine." Tyki hardly whispered the words while his hand traced nonsense patterns on the apprentice Bookman's chest. It was soothing and slow. That hand, which could have passed through absolutely anything, flattened itself out and started to move in tantalizing strokes, slow and purposeful. "Lavi… if I told you that I was going to kill people on your side who are entirely unable to help themselves," his hand paused low on Lavi's stomach, following the curve of his muscles downward. "What would you say?"
The apprentice Bookman lifted a hand and placed it on Tyki's. "Don't assume they can't hurt you. And don't… I mean, if you can help it…"
Tyki's hand squeezed as if to make him go on.
"Make them suffer. I don't know why I remember that war is awful, and I don't know why I remember men without hands, wearing bullet burned shirts, gasping for breath, but I do. And I don't want you to have a part in something like that." The redhead finished, and turned his face against the bed a little. "Knife wounds, sword wounds, bullet wounds, infections – I don't remember who or why, but I know…"
The older man leaned down over him, very close, and Lavi felt the brush of fabric against his chest where the line of the man's pants started. They were both still shirtless. "I aim for their hearts, Lavi. Sometimes I get something else, and death comes a bit slower." His hand hovered over the Exorcist's chest, twitching softly against the slightly sore skin there, almost teasing at the life-giving muscle underneath. "I can make no promises."
There was a lie in his voice.
"Then be safe."
But Lavi didn't care.
"I always am."
-- -- --
Tyki didn't think about what Lavi said, didn't bother about just how much better it would be not to procrastinate. Instead, he pulled on his coat, sat his hat on his head, and left the redhead with an ample supply of food and water, and a cane if he needed to leave his place for any reason. The Noah wanted, despite everything, to kill quite a bit. For every memory that returned, he wanted to sink his hand into the boy's chest and yank out a handful of whatever he touched – heart, lung, stomach, it didn't matter. It had never mattered.
He didn't speak to the akuma that followed him through the Ark.
With his gloves pulled snuggly over his fingers and a lie in his heart, Tyki pushed all thoughts and feelings about the redheaded boy in his house out of his mind and focused on what he needed – no, wanted – to do.
He would kill them all. Every Finder, every civilian, everyone. And then he would leave the scrap of Lavi's headband in the middle of it.
Part of him wanted an Exorcist to be there, so he could feel one of them die, feel the power in their Innocence vanish the way it would if he killed Lavi. But another part of him, the part that didn't like the thought of hurting the boy in any way, hoped the Finders would be alone.
Walking down the black streets of the Ark, a sinister smile spread across his lips and showed his teeth – too wide, inhuman. A shiver of anticipation took his spine. He didn't have a double life so much anymore, most likely wouldn't until most of the Innocence in the world was gone, as it was too dangerous to go out with his friends when someone on a street corner could recognize him and catch them up in the fray. This was a half-good replacement. Maybe even more than that. All he had to do was follow his spur of the moment plan and pray that Lavi didn't remember too soon, if ever.
"Lord Mikk," the akuma just behind him had a voice like a normal human – a range oriented three, if Tyki remembered properly, and a personality that was quietly sadistic. He was rather fond of it. "Lord Kamelot would like to know if you would be interested in tea after your assignment is completed."
The Noah of Pleasure didn't let himself frown. His brother knew he preferred coffee to tea, but it sounded so much more formal when it was presented to him as the former beverage. Really, Sheryl was an awful sap. "I can't."
"Oh?"
"I promised a guest I would be home in time for dinner." Tyki explained – at it wasn't a lie this time, if Sheryl insisted.
The akuma made a little affirmative sound and fell silent. It would relate the information to Sheryl and likely have to deal with the man's disappointment, not that that amounted to much when it was something this simple. A decidedly loud protest or an irritatingly whiney sort of plea. And the man was bad at both.
"He hopes to see you both later in the week."
Tyki couldn't help but smile.
-- -- --
"Brat, if you do not get up right now, I will forcibly remove you from the train car."
Allen shook himself a little, and blinked at the man across from him, standing his painfully slim left hand was perched on the bony protrusion of his left hip. Kanda needed to eat more, in Allen's opinion, and cut back on carbohydrates – with his trim stomach and flowing hair he kind of looked like a wide-shouldered, flat-chested woman. With lots of upper arm muscle. And an Adam's apple.
The British boy frowned. "Thank you for waking me, Kanda, though you could have been a little nicer about it."
"Che."
Poor Kanda was always adverse to criticism.
Then again, they had all been a little worse for wear the last two weeks. Lavi was missing – even if his recovered Innocence still loyal to him – and the news that the apprentice Bookman was alive had only been spread three days ago. No one was used to it. They had thought he was dead – he should have been dead. The fact that he was alive, however good; brought with it a thousand questions that none of them knew how to answer – happiness with a very large grain of salt.
Was Lavi dying in a ditch somewhere? Had he abandoned the Order to its fate against Bookman's wishes?
Not even the old man knew. And Kanda was taking it very hard.
With a groan and a quick rub of his eyes, the British Exorcist stood up and glanced out the window at the bright afternoon light, the steamy spring air. It was nice to be here, where everything was green and fresh and new, where the sunlight flaked like golden leafing off the tops of puddles and warmed even the coldest of idiotic hearts. Lavi would have liked it, as long as it snowed. Lavi would like it after they found him and Allen told him about it.
And they would find him, even if they couldn't spare the people currently to search.
With a loud yawn and a groan, Allen reached out for his luggage and pulled it to his side, then turned to the compartment door, expecting to see either Kanda or Link or both waiting for him with scowls. Instead, there was a smiling Finder who Kanda was scowling at, while Link stood behind the taller – younger – man and worried at his gloves with a frown. They were a lot alike, Link and the swordsman, though the former was keener on following orders than the getting the job done. In another world, the two of them might have managed to be something like friends.
The Finder just smiled at him, completely oblivious to the holes Kanda was boring into the back of his darkly colored head. "Thank you for your work, Master Walker, the gate you will be creating today will help us a great deal in searching this section of the country—"
The white-haired boy tried to plaster a smile on his face, tried to pretend that he was just as happy to help as he had always been, but he couldn't. The expression came out fake and painful, and he felt how Kanda's eyes moved to his face to glare at him. He let the lie fall – and his expression with it. He didn't have the energy and, though he would have if he had known where the boy that had come to be his redheaded-step-brother was, there was no reason to waste what he did have on something so trivial.
"You're very welcome."
The four of them, only one smiling, left the train in a swift, well organized line. It was Allen's only hope that they might return exactly the same way.
-- --
There were two of them – that was more than he had dreaded or hoped. Tyki watched as the more dangerous of the two turned in his direction and activated his Innocence, the white, glittery cowl that fluttered over his shoulders painfully bright in the sunlight. The Noah doubted he had been seen, what with how he was standing in the shadows of a very large, dark building, but the Akuma with him were as obvious as painted billboards to Allen walker.
"Engage him," Tyki said to the three he had become fond of. "And lead him away from the other – make him think you're going to kill the Finders."
"Do you have a plan, Lord Noah?" The question wasn't insubordinate or dangerous; it was laced with curiosity and hope, genuine intelligence. That was why he liked it, really.
He nodded a little, slowly. "Compromise him long enough and there will only be him left at the end of all of this – I would rather not fight him until I have the chance to leave him something. Go." He tucked his left hand into his jacket pocket and waited for the machines to follow orders. The rush of air that went with them – seventeen in all – hardly ruffled his hair and shifted his top hat, making it rest awkwardly against the one long forelock of his bangs so the edges of his hair nearly pressed into his eyes. It miffed him a little.
The emotion faded as he watched the cluster of Akuma, following what he had said, spread out and fired at the train station – plowing through wood and Finder and rider alike. The three moved in quick, short movements, never in the same place for more than even a fraction of a second, and sprayed the entirety of the locomotive with small, ball shaped pieces of dark mater that glowed like strange purple snowflakes in the spring light. Given even a moment to charge, the dark matter dissolved whatever it landed on, or exploded, depending upon the likelihood of either destructive force.
The small, innocent looking dust that landed on Allen's Walker's right shoulder knocked him away down the street.
Tyki smiled.
The avenue was in utter chaos. People running in confusion, blood and debris, bodies and ashes, and the hiss of things as the melted – there was utter panic everywhere the Noah looked. In the middle of the mud and the madness was a solitary figure of calm, dark hair cascading down his back in a long, fluttering ribbon of ebony, his black eyes hollow and pointed in Tyki's direction. Even as the swordsman cut down an Akuma he did not change his line of sight, watching the shadows.
This one, the Noah knew, was more observant than he looked.
They did not clash at once, not even when Tyki moved from the place he was hiding. They both waited until the Akuma thought better of approaching the Japanese boy, then they studied each other, the boy's katana pointed directly at Tyki's face.
Another thrill of excitement went up the Portuguese man's spine and he pulled his hand out of his pocket, a too-wide smile on his lips.
The black, blood stained fabric of Lavi's headband fluttered on the breeze a little, showing the silver design in a dancing pattern of dots and lines. Recognition lit the swordsman's eyes and he wavered, jaw and hand clenched so tight they both looked painful.
Tyki smiled. "Lavi is an interesting boy, isn't he? Interesting enough for you to know this is his, hm?" His voice, however quiet in the tumult of shrieks and moans and explosions, was heard like a thunder clap between them. Tyki watched the Exorcist in front of him draw his lips into a snarl that remained silent, white teeth contrasting with the black of his hair. "You can have this if you want it. He doesn't need it anymore."
"What the fuck do you want?" The words weren't a scream like he had expected, but instead a low, conversational sort of growl, completely contradictory to the soft face that said them.
The Noah felt his expression split wider. "To kill you, among other things. But mostly to tell you not to waste your time looking for him – things will not be as fun if you are distracted by one missing Exorcist in the middle of a war, hm?" He waved the cloth between to fingers and chuckled when the other man's eyes followed it. "Now, being that's done…" The headband fluttered out of his grasp, "would you like to tango, Princess?"
-- --
The room was too cool, but the covers were like a prison, weighing down on Lavi's impossibly sensitive skin. He could no more sleep than he could walk without assistance in that state, so he cast them aside and lay with a sheet and one of Tyki's shirts, restless and buzzing from the inside out. Though his brain was not trying to make him remember every ten seconds, there were things behind his eyes that he couldn't understand or hide from, dark eyes and an angry old man, old wounds and smoldering earth. He wanted to forget. He wanted to ignore everything in his mind and start all over again with where he was now.
There was one image that would not leave him, no matter how he shook his head or clutched at Tyki's shirt. That same white-haired boy, Allen, and a dark haired man who might have been Tyki, face obstructed by how the smaller male was standing. The length of a sword, white and black and marked with a cross, stabbed through the man's chest. Maybe it was because he thought it was the man he lived with and cared for him. Maybe it was because he knew he must have cared for Allen at one point. He didn't know.
His chest ached in sympathy.
With a growl, the redhead pushed aside the covers and yanked the shirt he had stolen against him. The more he thought about it, the more he wanted to think about something else.
He thought about dinner. And the weather. Going out. He thought about the scent of cigarettes and the soft texture of the older man's hair in his fingers. The curve of the other man's jaw was present in his mind – just the shape of it – and he used it to paint a mental picture of what Tyki might look like, keeping his mind from wandering off to something less amusing or good. In the end, he couldn't decide on a proper nose for the face and made a note to touch it more, otherwise the thing he came up with looked very odd.
But it didn't matter how it looked or what scars there were. He knew every inch of the older man's body, every turn and curve of him, but he couldn't imagine that being the body he had a visual memory of.
Not unless he touched the hollow of his own hip and thought of it as the line of Tyki's.
It occurred to him, as his fingers moved from his hip to his stomach to his chest and finally to his face, that he hadn't given much thought about his own appearance. He had redhead and green eyes. He had a wide smile and well-shaped eyebrows. That was all he knew. Maybe, if he imagined the boys he had dreamed of he could kind of come up with a face for himself – kind of.
It was much easier to imagine Allen.
Lavi didn't want to.
So he buried his face in Tyki's shirt again and tried to block out the past with memories of the last two weeks of his life. His favorite foods so far had been mostly vegetables, and he didn't like spicy things that much – at least not the kind that made his sinuses burn like someone had shoved a matchstick up his nose. He had a good idea of what kind of food went with different seasonings, but that wasn't too hard to learn. How Tyki didn't understand that, Lavi didn't know.
He wished he could read. He wished he could do something – anything – that would help him pass the time. He wished he had a way to know what time it was.
With a groan, Lavi rolled onto his back and threw off Tyki's shirt – he was being ridiculous. There had to be something he could do when the older man wasn't around, even if it was something as trivial and momentary as killing a housefly.
But that he couldn't do that if he didn't know what he could hit.
With a curse, Lavi rolled onto his side again and fingered the bandage around his eyes. They didn't hurt, but they felt odd. He wanted to take off the bandage and try to see himself in the mirror, or try to find a color he could recognize. With his eyes open he could just make out shadows and lights – everything else was a mystery. Maybe time would heal his sight the rest of the way but he did not want to wait to find out.
A rush of air like that of a door opening somewhere in the house made the redhead turn in that direction, groping about for Tyki's shirt half in fear, half in the desire to have something to throw. Floorboards squeaked and something crashed – but it hadn't even been an hour since the Portuguese man had left. With a frown and his hand clenched on the pathetic weapon of his caretaker's clothes, the apprentice Bookman sat up on the duvet and wet his lower lip, apprehensive and expectant at the same time.
"Tyki?"
-- -- --
Allen felt sore and sick and tired, but that didn't stop him from limping back to where the train station had once been. He moved slowly because his body ached from the explosions – the third level Akuma had brought friends he hadn't noticed, not until they were shooting him the back with bullets bigger than his left hand.
Now he needed to find Kanda, see if Link had made it out of the train's wreckage, and access the damages.
The air was still thick with sounds of pain and fear, heavy with smoke and ash. The light that he had liked so much on arrival was dyed a dirty red by the debris. Buildings burned in small fires, most of them small and content not to spread. He frowned at the lack of enemies. Trust Kanda to demolish more than ten Akuma while Allen only managed to get his hands on five. The swordsman was nearly unstoppable, but it still surprised the British boy a little when he found himself out-fought by a man with a lower sync rate. Not that he really cared.
Such were his thoughts when he caught sight of something he hadn't expected – something too short to be Kanda but with a flowing banner of hair just like the Japanese man's – and increased his pace to get to it faster. He felt fear bubble up in his chest, followed swiftly by horror, and ran to what had to be Kanda, booted feet pounding hard on the dust and blood covered cobblestones. He could see that the swordsman was on his knees, head tilted toward the sky. Something was wrong. Kanda was just sitting there with his jacket tangled around his arms behind him.
There was blood pooling around the swordsman's feet.
In a flurry of torn jacket and snowy hair, the British Exorcist made it to his comrade's side and immediately covered his mouth with his right hand, too shocked to express his terror in words. A length of dark cloth was tied over Kanda's bleeding eyes so the gore that marred his face seemed to seep from it, while Mugen – still in tact – protruded from the ground behind him, shoved through the pale backs of the Japanese man's hands. His breathing was fast and shallow so the note left on his chest moved with the billow of his lungs. It didn't matter what it said. His broken fingers twitched against the blade of his Innocence and he swallowed without speaking, and his shoulders trembled with strain, quick and jerking. The pallor of his skin and blood on his lips told of other less obvious injuries.
Without warning or pause or taking the time to feel the icy, deadly emotion in his gut, Allen gripped Mugen's hilt with his right hand and stilled the swordsman's fingers with his left. He pulled. The katana slid from the ground and the Japanese man's hands with a sick, wet sort of sound before Allen dropped it at Kanda's side, his attention turned to the blood on his friend's face.
"Bean—"
"What the Hell happened?" The white-haired boy untied the black fabric from around Kanda's head and threw it aside at once – which he immediately regretted. His heart sank to his stomach at the sight of the older man's eyeless sockets; even if Kanda's legendary healing ability seemed to have stopped the blood flow already. It was gross and scary, and he could tell by how the swordsman shook that he was in pain. Allen felt somehow glad that Kanda could reach out to him with his broken hands, and touch the fabric of his coat – something that never would have happened and they would never speak of now that it had. It made Kanda seem human though, and trusting, which was more than usual.
"Noah." The word was a harsh, angry curse on the Japanese man's lips. "That cloth – it's Lavi's headband."
Allen felt his throat grow tight. Missing his eyes, the Innocence left untouched – it could only be Tyki Mikk. He tugged the note from Kanda's chest and turned his gaze away from the headband he had torn from the swordsman's face; if it was true he didn't want to think about it. He couldn't think about it until he knew what it meant. "What did he say?"
Kanda's hollow eyes drifted shut. "He knew… Lavi likes carrots."
The white-haired boy bit his lip and looked down at the not in his hand. It was folded softly in half, written in either red ink or blood – he couldn't say in the hazy light.
He read it.
He does not want to come back to you. Do not look for him.
I will kill anyone that tries.
He read it again. A third time. It didn't make sense. If Tyki Mikk had Lavi, and he had wounded Kanda so badly, why was the last line so very much like an offer for peace? And why did Kanda have his left hand wrapped around Mugen's pommel instead of groping at a handful of dust? It was illogical. Part of it had to be a lie.
"Oi." Kanda's voice snapped Allen from his thoughts and he looked up at the other boy to find himself staring into a pair of blind, foggy eyes – still sightless but much better than they had been even a moment ago. It astounded the British Exorcist how quickly Kanda recovered from wounds. Still, they never talked about how it was that he did it.
"Sorry. He left a note."
"Tch. And?"
Allen felt like scowling at the swordsman's demand. Instead, he smoothed the yellow piece of parchment against his leg and read it in a ghost of a whisper, worried what Kanda would do when it was finished. He was surprised when Kanda didn't react with violence or anger, and instead fell into a thoughtful silence, his right palm still pinching the edge of the smaller boy's coat.
"Find Link." Kanda ordered, and snatched the paper of Allen's fingers with a hand that now sported a sore looking scar. "I'm calling Headquarters."
-- -- --
Tyki wanted to cackle at the sound of his name said in such a desperate sort of whisper. He didn't. He stumbled and knocked over a kitchen chair, a hiss in his throat, anger and yearning burning in his gut, fire and pain dancing across his palms. He could still feel the imprint of the Japanese man's katana on his fingers. He did laugh then – at his own stupidity, and caught himself on the kitchen counter, left hand clenched to his side.
It burned. Innocence always burned when it hurt him, and this little nick was no exception.
It wasn't a deep wound, just a cut in his side that made breathing a little painful, a slash that oozed darkly colored blood through his fingers and down his pant leg. It made him want to do violent, painful things. It made the thought of feeling someone die in his hands that much better. He hadn't done that. He hadn't killed the man he'd found, even if he'd crushed the boy's hands and torn out his eyes. He snickered again under his breath.
"Tyki?" Lavi's voice sounded closer than before, and this time it sent a ripple of something like desire dancing up his spine. Blood, death, revenge – now he could push the redhead against a wall and have him, kiss him and nibble at his lips, make him squirm and beg and scream – it all went hand in hand. So many pleasures in a single day made the wound seem so much less important. It was trivial. The coppery scent of blood made him want to smile, but that was all his wound did for the moment. He could ignore the pain and the sensation of lingering Innocence if he thought about Lavi, about what they had done and what his friends now thought of him and how very twisted the whole situation had become.
The Noah turned away from the brown countertop toward the hall, left hand still clenched to his side. He walked until he spotted the blind boy standing in the doorway, leaning on the frame and his cane, pale and yet healthier than he had looked in days. It made Tyki shiver.
The redhead opened his mouth to say something, maybe his name, but the Portuguese man caught him by the chin and kissed him hard, only vaguely aware that he smeared blood on the younger man's face in the process. It didn't matter. What mattered was the hand on his chest that slid down to the cut in his side and the way the apprentice Bookman tried to pull away when he found blood. Tyki didn't let him do that, too prepared for more. He stepped into the smaller man with his fingers too tight on Lavi's jaw and his right hand too quick to reach down into the apprentice Bookman's clothing and clench at his backside. There was a moan between them that might have been of pain, but the hips in front of him tilted as if in invitation.
"Wait you're—"
Tyki delved into Lavi's mouth. He flexed his fingers and pressed forward, distantly hearing the sound of the cane tumbling out of the redhead's hand and clacking against the floor. He didn't care. He was drunk with yearning and blood, frustrated at the fact that he hadn't killed the Japanese fellow he'd beaten, angry at the Innocence that still burned on his hands and in his side. And he wanted – wanted so much to hear Lavi beg, to feel him shiver and whimper and have no idea that the very hands that tormented him had done the same to so many others for completely different reasons. He tore the shirt from the apprentice Bookman's frame and pressed his bloodied hand to the crotch of the smaller man's pants, to the heat there, to the sensitive jumble of nerves. It didn't take much effort to stroke it, and it satisfied him how the organ beneath the cloth of Lavi's pants responded without the redhead's approval, quick to stir under such a simple, delicate caress of fingertips.
"No…" Lavi hissed, even as he rocked into the older man's touch. "You're hurt. I—"
"It's nothing."
"You're bleeding."
"It's nothing," Tyki repeated, and flatted the redhead's hand against the thin gash as if to prove it. The pressure there hurt, but it also opened Lavi up to an assault of teeth to his throat. "You shouldn't concern yourself with me."
The redhead gasped so his lips seemed to pout with the sound, the half-hidden rogue on his cheeks grew darker. "Tyki…"
The Noah felt himself tremble. "You have no idea how much I wanted to hear you say that…" He growled, then closed his lips on the underside of the redhead's jaw, completely too taken with the heated hardness growing against his palm. He couldn't explain why it was so addictive – why he suddenly wanted the Exorcist's legs wrapped around him, why he might like to see every inch of that body naked and wanting him, seducing him, asking him for more. "Would you forget that I'm wounded if I offered to have you for lunch, Lavi? With a little dish of olive oil?"
"Oh…" Lavi breathed, and tried to steady himself on Tyki's shoulder. "I would but… I mean, I'd really like to, but my hand is sticking to your side, which means it's bleeding a lot, and I'd rather you not bleed—chea-cheater!" Lavi rolled his hips into the Noah's squeezing hand and his fingers clamped on Tyki's shoulder. "Just bandage it you – stop that – tease! Then we can – Tyki!"
The Portuguese man chuckled as he captured the boy's mouth again, slower this time, and pulled his hand away from the boy's manhood, all too aware of the little whimper on Lavi's lips. He could wait that long. He could clean and cover the wound, then satisfy himself with the Exorcist who wouldn't understand the irony of his actions – the humiliation that others would feel in his place.
Tyki frowned a little, withdrawing. He didn't want to humiliate this one, even if he was an Exorcist. He didn't want to cause him pain. He wanted to kill him, a little, but also wanted to be close and gentle, to reach into him without using his powers and touch something that no one else could. The Noah kissed the boy more softly, shallowly, and moved his right hand tenderly against the young man's backside, following the curve of it down to his thigh with a sigh. He pulled back again, but remained close enough to speak against the boy's lips. "Alright, Lavi. I'll cover the wound, then we can see if I am still mad with wanting you, hm?" The Noah shifted away and changed his grip to the young man's hips, holding him steady. It didn't surprise him at all when the apprentice Bookman made a face like he was marginally disappointed. He smiled despite the boy's wrapped eyes and flushed features. "I didn't kiss you too hard, did I? Or make you stand on your bad ankle?"
The redhead swallowed and shook his head, obviously flustered. "No…" He reached up until his hand bumped into Tyki's top hat, which nearly knocked it off. The boy caught it, a little frown pulling at the edges of his lips. "I'm fine. You gonna be ok? I mean… it doesn't feel like much more than a shallow knife wound, but your hands are cold."
"Well…" The Noah smirked and nestled his face against the shorter man's throat, grinning. "I would be better if you weren't responsible and concerned for my health, but..."
"Stop that, you might change my mind."
Tyki laughed. "I apologize," he mumbled against the apprentice Bookman's neck, "for making you want me. Now, if you'll take my arm, we can see to my side and then, perhaps…"
Lavi smiled then, for the first time since Tyki had walked in the door. The expression, however genuine, was softer than most of his smiles, small and warm. Tyki did not even need to see the apprentice Bookman's eyes to know that it would reach them. "You can give me a bath?"
"Maybe. Afterward."
-- -- --
This shall be continued! And reviews are love even when I forget to respond to some of them. D: I'm sorry.