Hello, readers. Today is… MY BIRTHDAY. Again. Crazy, huh? And, to celebrate, I will be going on a four day trip with some friends starting tomorrow. That means I DO NOT HAVE TIME to answer all of the REVIEWS for last chapter like I NORMALLY would. I'm sorry. It came down to giving you this, or answering reviews, and I seriously doubt you want me to keep this for four days.

I'll answer them when I get back, and maybe a few before I leave tomorrow. Today, though, is packing and insanity D8.

SPECIAL THANKS to SisterWicked and Bookkybaby, for catchin' my typos!

DISCLAIMER: I continue not to know DGM. But now that I have a second job at a comic shop… DISCOUNT, BABY!

WARNINGS: Sex between men. Allen-brat. Stuff that if I warn you about it, it will actually be a spoiler…

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Chapter Eight: Live in Fire

Lavi doubted he had ever been more eager for anything – even his birthday, not that he knew when that was. He helped Tyki bandage the wound on his side with fingers that almost couldn't hold the fabric in place, grinning all the while. He didn't ask what had happened – who or what had done it, how many the Noah had killed – because it wasn't something he wanted to know just yet. If ever. He wanted to pretend that never happened.

So, he threw himself back on the bed the moment the opportunity came, grinning despite it all. Tyki's lust, his longing, wasn't really something Lavi understood completely, but that didn't mean he couldn't learn to. The thought that war and death would lead to sexual desire didn't seem altogether foreign to him – even if he didn't think he himself worked that way – so he understood that the hand that pushed him into the mattress was the same as it had been. It was a bit bloody still, maybe, but it was the same hand that had soothed his wounds and made his food for him.

And the lips that touched his, the chest that took shape under his fingertips, were just the same as they had been when the man had left.

He tried to memorize the things he felt under his palms, to feel where Tyki was and how he responded to different styles of kissing, different sounds and ways of moving. His analysis didn't last long – only until every frustration he had felt against the doorway came back with a vengeance. Lavi wrapped his arms around Tyki's neck and used his left leg to push himself up on the mattress, all too aware of the wide, cool palm dancing across the surface of his stomach. It didn't surprise him at all when the Noah leaned in close, speaking to him in that husky, half-drunk whisper, the sound of it like a soft breeze through dry leaves.

"Did you want to hear what did to the man who cut me?"

Lavi shivered at those words and buried his hands in the Noah's hair. His mind went to the dark-haired man with the scowling face for some reason – Yamada? – before a tongue on his chest took the mental image away. It didn't matter. The redhead didn't care.

He forced himself not to care.

"I realize that surviving turns you on, but…" His fingers tightened in Tyki's hair, tangling the ponytail. He hardly noticed why until teeth brushed over the left side of his chest, over his heart, before they caught a nipple and squeezed it. The sensation was just between pain and pleasure – perhaps both – and it drew a half-startled, half-needy gasp from the redhead's lips. "No. Please. I only want—Tyki…" The boy trembled at the touch of a hand on his lower back that pulled him away from the mattress. He bowed at it and the older man's mouth moved lower, open-mouthed kisses painted in its wake.

The Noah paused at the younger man's navel and kissed it, just a soft, innocent sort of contact that spread hot air around the skin beneath it.

Lavi's hands jerked a little. "Switch me places."

The mouth that had only just begun to migrate toward his right hip closed with an audible snap before falling open again. "I'm sorry?"

"I can't see, but that doesn't mean I wanna lie here and let you do whatever. And I can't reach anything worth touchin' with you down there inspectin' at my happy trail." The apprentice Bookman explained, and tugged once more on the larger man's hair. This time the Portuguese man followed it and Lavi smiled, dragging them into a kiss with his left hand while his right reached out to smooth a line from Tyki's chest downward. Lavi was glad the older man hadn't put a shirt on after dealing with his wound – it made finding the hollow of his hip that much easier.

Tyki hummed into the boy's lips before he drew back a bit, just far enough that they weren't actually touching. His breath was harsh and hot – Lavi was thankful, heading that way himself.

"We shouldn't be doing this."

"Oh. And now you're logical?" Lavi undid the buckle of Tyki's belt one handed, frowning. "Fuck should. Fuck me, Tyki. You were fine with it when I was just lying here, what's so different now?" He pushed his hand into the waist of the older man's pants and smiled at the short intake of breath it got him, at the heat that radiated against his palm. It was satisfying somehow, to know that he warranted that reaction.

The Noah seemed to shake his head – the air was right for it. "If you're sure—"

"Lie on your back and let me ride you if you don't think I'm sure."

The older man tilted oddly up onto his elbows, just enough to bring his forehead to the younger man's. "If you are careful with your ankle that might very well be the safest way for us to do this." The words were a growl that made Lavi shiver – imagining what that meant made him bow away from the mattress in encouragement. Tyki's voice was dark somehow, like sweet red wine or cherries.

"Tyki…" Lavi moved the hand he still had in the Noah's hair to the side of his face, pushing back slightly. Between that pressure and a gentle turn of the hand he still had in Tyki's pants, the apprentice Bookman guided them in a roll that, by the time it was completed, had the older man laughing. It was graceless, his arm ended up pinned between them, bent awkwardly to avoid hurting either of them, and he shifted enough to straddle the larger man's hips, both hands on Tyki's chest. He could steady himself that way, and the fingers that tickled their way up his chest were still just as wonderfully frustrating at the new angle.

The Noah slid a bit, likely in search of a pillow. Lavi spread his palms out over the older man's chest and rocked his hips a little, grinning.

"We could start now," the apprentice Bookman whispered. "I want you and you're hard so…"

Tyki's left thumb pressed at the nipple he had yet to tease, and his right hand pulled at the small of Lavi's back bending his stomach forward. "Surely you've heard of patience, haven't you?"

"Right. And absence makes the heart grow fonder. Tease…" The redhead followed the tug of Tyki's hand until he felt the sharp contact of a fingernail on the very tip of his nipple and shivered, breathing harshly. Why that little dash of confusing sensation would make him grind his hips forward he didn't know, but the motion brought a low, appreciative sound to the older man's throat. The nail bit a little deeper. Lavi curled his fingers on Tyki's chest in an effort to stop the moan in his mouth – an effort that lost all meaning the moment the hand on his back slipped down his backside. He groaned and pulled his curved fingers down the older man's chest, just hard enough to make the press of his nails known.

The Noah's hands abandoned his back and began to yank at the redhead's pants. "Buttons… can't even phase properly when I want them too…" He grumbled in his attempt to be rid of them. His fingers were warmer than they had been before, perhaps in part from touching and in part from covering the wound in his side, and he used them to trace along the sensitive skin of Lavi's loins.

The redhead tilted his face back toward the ceiling and rocked again, harder this time. The hands on his stomach clutched at him. "Can we do this now… I… Tyki…"

"Yes…"

Lavi took that to mean he should remove himself from the older man's stomach but he found there was no need to – the Noah rolled them to the side in a maneuver that smashed the redhead's good leg and brought his hips into line with Lavi's, the redhead's back laid flat on the mattress. From there, the larger man took a firm hold of his clothes and began to pull on them, jerking them toward Lavi's feet.

The boy sought out Tyki's pants, but when the older man's hips slipped into his hands, he found them gone already, likely pushed onto the floor. For only a moment he was disappointed that he didn't get to strip the man himself – then there were fingers on his thighs and his mouth was covered with an open kiss, fast and hard. He tried to answer it, tried to reach out and pull the Noah closer, but the kiss broke and a hand closed in his hair, bending his head back to expose the length of his throat. He could only hold Tyki's head close to him and gasp up at nothing, the hand tangled in his hair too strong to fight and his mouth too far away to kiss. Lavi didn't really care. The fire of teeth on his skin was enough for the moment.

"We have—" The apprentice Bookman touched the back of the Noah's neck with his fingers and felt the teeth hovering over his pulse close in response. "Something slick?"

Tyki made a low, affirmative sound, and his remaining free hand caught the boy's hips and pinned them against the bed. "You're fine with…"

Lavi felt the little awkward stop in Tyki's voice and knew what he was thinking. "Yeah. It's fine. Won't knock it 'til I try it or remember tryin' it." He half joked, grinning. "You do whatever you have to with your fingers, then I'll get on top of ya. You feel so…" He didn't really know what word he was looking for so he let the sentence linger on the air between them, forgotten yet still meaningful.

"I do not know if you have done this before, Lavi. If you haven't, it will hurt." Tyki warned almost tenderly, his voice a bit too thick with desire and hot with passion to actually manage the tone at the moment. His hands vanished from Lavi's body but his hips stayed pressed flush, the bare skin of his arousal brushing softly against the apprentice Bookman's right thigh. The drawer beside the bed opened and shut.

"I think I knew that." The redhead half-laughed, uncertain. He didn't allow his mind the moment it wanted to conjecture on who he might have slept with – he just lifted his left leg a little at Tyki's prompting and pressed his right hand to Tyki's chest while his left pulled the coils of the Noah's hair closer to him. The strands tickled where they brushed, the same as the lips that pressed to the side of his mouth.

Something made a sound like swishing. A hand pulled his leg a little higher. "But you still want it?"

Lavi nodded without pause. It was sex – and he knew sex was fun. And he liked, trusted, and understood the man he was doing it with. What reason was there not to? "If you keep asking me, I will find a way to pin you down and take you, fuck your funky powers."

The man above him chuckled softly, then kissed the apprentice Bookman one last time. "Alright. I won't ask anymore."

"Good."

"I am going to wet my fingers and then touch you with them – you can't see, so…" Tyki didn't finish. Something made a sound like a cork coming out of a bottle. The older man's voice became softer. "Would you like to help me warm it up a little?"

With a thoughtful nibble of his lower lip, Lavi reached out for whatever it was that Tyki was offering – and understood the moment he felt cold, slippery fingers touch his. He wound their hands together and pushed himself up just enough to kiss the Noah – his thumb slipped around the back of the Portuguese man's palm as if it belonged there. It was true that Lavi's hands were smaller and bonier, but that didn't make him feel weak or overpowered by Tyki's. He felt like they shared something between their palms, something besides whatever oil it was that the Noah had found beside the bed.

Something tightened in his chest.

Someone else. That feeling didn't belong to the man he was with now, but he couldn't remember who it was for.

"Tyki—"

"Ready?"

The hands they still kept together moved between then, toward the place that Lavi knew he wanted them to be. With his fingers tangled in Tyki's, it didn't surprise him at all when the other man touched the ring of muscle just outside of his anus, and circled it with tenderness that didn't make sense with the power that the Portuguese man contained. That first brush should have been hard and excruciating, it should have been empowered with all of the heat and lust that had been in the hallway – but it wasn't. The finger moved as if Lavi would break if prodded too harshly, and the lips that still rested on the redhead's teased him into a kiss that was two parts warmth to one part yearning, deep and languid.

Lavi hummed and urged Tyki's hand a bit. The Noah followed the urging.

He hissed softly. It didn't hurt, but the sensation brought to mind a million things that could have felt better.

"Relax…"

"You relax with a finger in your ass…" Lavi groused, and caught the older man's lower lip between his teeth. He bit it just a little painfully before he released it, and kissed the place he had pinched with his mouth softly open. "Can you hurry? I don't know how long I can hold—"

"Sim." Tyki breathed into Lavi's chin. "That means yes."

Lavi hooked his left leg on Tyki's hip in the hope of making things easier. "Good. Because I want you." He took his dry hand – while the one tangled in the older man's warned him what was coming – and circled the Noah's length, stroking it with just the tips of his fingers. "I wonder how it will fit when your finger—"

"Carefully." Tyki answered the unfinished question with an airy whisper, stroking his digit a little deeper. He was very delicate with his motions, even if his breath hitched at the same time that Lavi's did, cued by the entrance of his second knuckle. He shifted a little, just so his mouth pressed to the apprentice Bookman's ear, warm against the sensitive shell.

"Can we be careful and go faster?"

Tyki chuckled, and pressed inward more steadily – which caused a sensation that made Lavi want to pull the man closer. He began to pull back at some point, then pressed inward again, faster than before. "Is your leg really that easily tired?"

"Shut up." Lavi turned his face into the older man's hair, feeling the curls of it press against his cheek and forehead. "I just want to be able to enjoy this. So…"

"Then I'm adding another." The Noah warned. His tongue flicked softly against the shell of Lavi's ear, invoking a light shiver. Tyki laughed softly under his breath and did it again, the same as he pressed a second finger beyond that tight ring of muscle, still tender but now forceful, bending gently and turning in an undefined pattern, moving apart on occasion. "See? It's easier when you're relaxed."

Lavi lifted his hips at the sensation, driving the fingers just inside of him a little deeper. He moaned softly, and turned his face enough to lay his lips on the side of Tyki's jaw, the sharp turn of it pleasant under his lips, the warmth of the skin smooth and reassuring. He moved his fingers on the older man's length in the hope of showing his appreciation more than he could with his mouth. "God, you feel good…" His fingers curled a little more tightly and stroked downward, then squeezed again on the way up, hard and steady, because it was currently the best Lavi could offer. "I don't know how long I can stay relaxed, you know. If you take too long I might just get annoyed and do it mysel—"

"If I rush this, I might hurt you."

"Did I ever say I didn't like that idea? Because it's kind of hot."

Tyki's made a low, needy sound at that and the organ in Lavi's hand jerked in response. The redhead would have smiled at it – at the fact that he now knew that though normal sex was good for Tyki, he did have a darker secret he would be willing to share – and moved his hips again.

"Lavi—"

"Fuck me."

Tyki's two fingers pressed together and then curved into him until Lavi bowed away from the bed, a wave of pleasure washing through his lower half. He gasped against the older man's throat, rolling his pelvis at the sensation. He lost his hold on the other man and grappled for the nearest thing he could cling to. It was new, but he had known it would come. It was good and familiar, even if he hadn't known he knew of it until it had happened. Lavi groaned for more of it. The words he meant to say bled into each other, yet the fingers repeated the motion as if they could read his mind.

"Tyki!"

Their combined hands were pulled away from his body and pressed into the covers for a moment before Tyki's left his. There was a sound like liquid, something wet rubbing, and a heated mouth against his, quick and hungry and desperate for a taste of him. Lavi gave all he could and took the hand that came back to his. It pulled him upward while another arm curved around the small of his back – it was awkward but he threw himself into the motion until the two of them had nearly switched places, the larger man laid out on the bed beneath him, his own thighs braced around Tyki's hips.

The Portuguese man tried to coax him upward, but Lavi couldn't think of a way of doing that without using his broken ankle, so he reached down to find the length of the other man's arousal pull it into a position that he might slide it into him, rather than rely on gravity.

"Lavi…" Tyki's voice was lower than usual, the hand he had on Lavi's hip slid to his thigh. "You should let me…" The words dwindled with little more than a tilt of the redhead's hip.

Lavi could feel the head of the Noah's erection pressed against him and knew that he needed only to ease himself forward to take it in. "Didn't I tell you?" He lowered his grip to the very base of the older man's arousal and squeezed the hand in his, hoping to use it as something of a lever. The muscles in his left leg quivered a bit when he tensed them, which was the only warning he intended to give. "Fuck should." Lavi jerked his pelvis forward with as much force as his left leg would give him, a harsh sound of pain and surprise in his throat.

Tyki matched the sound and the motion. His hips lifted from the mattress and his hand pulled on Lavi's, tangling it in the (maroon) duvet. That one motion was enough to keep the apprentice Bookman from bending away from the Noah, his breathing hard and shallow.

"Shit…" Lavi whispered, half biting at his lower lip. The feeling was strange – painful, yet not to the point of ruining the pleasure – and the feeling that it was Tyki in that place made him shiver. He used his right hand to feel the body under his and slowly, with fingers that shook, trace his way to the scars that marred the Noah's chest. He didn't think about them – instead he curled his fingers on the older man's ribs and heaved himself forward again, just to be sure that he had everything Tyki had to offer, and to know that this was all the hurting there would be.

"Did you hurt… yourself?" The question, however soft and strained, held a note of genuine worry that made Lavi smile.

He nodded slowly. "I think I might have." Lavi felt the body beneath him move until the hand on his thigh slithered to the small of his back, and the chest under his hand lifted away from the mattress. The change of angle shifted the length inside of him just enough to send a bolt of pain and a spiral of pleasure dancing up his spine.

"Slip forward a little," Tyki pulled softly on Lavi's back, just enough to press their chests flush, and then allowed his fingers to wander down the cleft of the redhead's backside. His fingers, however warm, moved in ways that made the redhead shudder, his palms pressed to the scars on the Noah's back. It was far too arousing to be that close to the other man – to be around him and yet enclosed himself – the length of Tyki's hair brushing against his right cheek. It was soothing, despite it all, and tantalizing, a change in texture that he hadn't been expecting, scented with smoke and sweat and other pleasant things, none of them unfamiliar.

There was blood in it, too.

Lavi didn't care. He buried his face in it anyway, breathing too quickly against the side of the older man's jaw. "It's not as bad as it was." He admitted softly, and nuzzled more deeply into the Portuguese man's hair. "You feel so good…"

"I think you've bruised yourself, but it should be alright," Tyki responded softly, and his hands moved to Lavi's hips, smoothing gently over his skin. "You're very… very tight. It might be a good idea to give yourself a moment before we—" He cut himself off with a gasp, fingernails turning on Lavi's skin. "Just what are you doing with your mouth, Lavi?"

The redhead smiled against the older man's jaw and breathed out his nose, shivering. "Licking you," he said matter-of-factly, and pulled back enough to blow cool air on the place he had wet with his tongue. "Can you keep yourself up like this? I'd like it if you'd be able to hold me. And I can feel your chest this way… God…" Lavi shivered, following the line of a scar with his fingertips. "You taste good, you feel good, you smell a little off, but I want…"

"Put your arms…" Tyki didn't have to finished when Lavi wrapped his forearms around the larger man's neck, giving himself a bit of something to hold on to. The Noah's hands settled low on the redhead's backside, just far enough to elicit a small moan from the boy's lips. "Good."

"Can I—"

"Try—"

"Tyki…" Lavi tightened his arms and pushed with his left leg at the same time that Tyki pulled him gently upward. The feeling was strange and yet pleasant, even more so when he eased back down again, and the chest against his unleashed a shaking breath. It was enough to send him moving up at a faster pace – the sound was intoxicating, the feel addictive, and the brush that length inside of him made it all too wonderful not to go on with enthusiasm. The press of Tyki's fingers curling on his backside sent him up again, his own breath catching on the way down.

The Noah leaned his face into Lavi's collar. "You're a natural," he hardly breathed, lifting the boy's frame again.

With a growl, Lavi followed the sound of the older man's voice to his mouth and laid an open, impassioned kiss on the plush surface of the other's lips, wordlessly. There were no words, really, no memories. There was only his flesh sliding around Tyki's and a pair of strong hands on his hips; everything else was trivial. The kiss, and how the Noah moved into it with little prompting, proved to him that the enjoyment – the intimacy – was mutual to the point that Lavi doubted for a moment that he could finish and remain little more than forced friends.

It wasn't that he loved the older man, or that he cared more than he had before. It was simply that the act meant something to him, something more than just touching and fumbling in the dark.

He wanted to explain it. Tyki's grip on him dragged him up faster.

The words never made it from his mouth. The older man's arousal hit something within him, arching his back and tensing his muscles at the surprisingly good sensation it caused. Lavi had expected it from before, but the feeling and the thought were entirely different. He moaned softly into Tyki's jaw, and tried to thrust his hips in encouragement.

The Noah whispered his name and lifted him again with more speed. The strength in those hands was more than it should have been, moving him with ease. Lavi didn't think about it. He thought about the sound of his name – bittersweet like an ill begotten confession of love.

It repeated again and again, while fingernails bit into his skin. His urging brought one hand away from his body only to come back on his neglected erection in a brush that curled his hands against the Noah's shoulders. His name almost muffled the word of encouragement in his throat.

"Can you – like this?" The redhead's question, though vague, was rewarded at first with only a grunt.

"On your back…."

Lavi nodded. Even if he wouldn't be able to do what he wanted, the leverage, the angle – it would all be better placed, he understood. It still shocked him a little that the two of them tilted until his back was pressed against the cool blankets, Tyki still pressed inside of him – now sliding out and slamming in without warning. The change freed the redhead's hands, but he didn't move them. He turned his face back into Tyki's neck and inhaled, breath catching in his throat.

A well-timed stroke of Tyki's fingers and a well-aimed thrust of his hips left Lavi feeling two waves of pleasure at once, a combination that curled his arms more tightly and sent him straining into the next motion with an encouraging groan.

Tyki did not slow, nor did he speak. His newly freed hand slipped to the mattress and held his weight next to Lavi's ribs, the contact of his wrist like a feather on the redhead's skin.

Lavi slipped his left hand into Tyki's hair and pulled him closer, lifting himself into every quick snap of the older man's hips. "Close." The warning didn't quite do the tight feeling in his abdomen justice, but it was only a word – only a breath – then they were kissing again, warm, soft lips pressed over his own. There were so many places he wanted to touch, so many sensations, so many thoughts that had nothing to do with heat in his chest and the fire in his gut, that Lavi could only hold on to the Noah and gasp. The world was drawing in again, into the duvet and Tyki's hair, their bodies and the sound of their breathing, and the sudden, arrhythmic pleasure inside of him.

The man above him, panting and shaking with exertion, made a sound like a whine. His mouth pressed into Lavi's throat.

With a shudder, the sensations became too much for the apprentice Bookman. The fingers on the length of him and the soft teeth on his throat drove him into a heated, dark oblivion, fire and pleasure burning through him at once. The Noah's name danced on his tongue for a moment, then the teeth on his neck were clamped on his skin and the pain was far, far too much and his muscles were vices that held him to the man that made him feel that way. It was more than it had been. There was something like feeling in him, even if what he felt was something Lavi didn't understand. It was that that made him hold on with all of his strength while his arms shook, riding out wave after wave of white-hot enjoyment while Tyki milked him for all he was worth.

The nearly silent breath between them – it sounded vaguely like his name – was the only warning he had before the larger man spent himself in a rush of wet heat. The resulting sensation was somewhat uncomfortable, but Lavi decided he didn't care. The weight that collapsed onto him – the weakness that brought them together with all the force of gravity – was too good to fight.

For a moment, Lavi simply lay there, breathing in tandem with the body pressed against him. His backside ached, but he didn't think about that at the moment. He thought about the sweaty hair curling against his cheek and the fading shivers in Tyki's back, which he caressed with his fingertips, ignoring the scars.

"Lavi?"

"Do you feel better now?"

The Noah didn't respond for a moment. He took in a deep breath and let it out softly. "Yes."

Lavi nodded and wished, burying a hand so far into Tyki's hair that he could feel the man's scalp, that he could see the effects of what he had done on the older man's features. "Good."

-- -- --

"Damn it, Kanda! Just let me do it!"

"Fuck you!"

Allen found it quite irritating that even more than half-blind, the Japanese man could still hit him. The swordsman had admitted, some hour after losing his eyes and minutes after mysteriously growing new ones, that he could make out light and dark and color, but no shapes or definitions. Still, Kanda hooked his golem to the phone line by feeling alone and attempted to squint and touch his way through the numbers needed to make a direct call to Komui. He had failed numerous times at it, but that didn't encourage him to let Allen dial the numbers for some reason. Instead, he gritted his teeth and continued to fumble his way around the rotary-dial, scowling even harder than before.

The British boy was a bit irked, but he understood a little. He understood that Kanda had Lavi's headband tucked in his breast pocket and the note crinkled in his right hand. For Kanda, Lavi wasn't just a friend really – he was the only friend, the only trustworthy individual in all the world, and it hurt to lose him. Or something like that.

Still, he really didn't have to be such an ass about it.

"Please just let me turn the numbers?" Allen tried again, and this time he didn't try to grab the phone like he had before. His jaw still hurt and he wasn't that stupid. "Kanda…"

The Japanese man narrowed his eyes and raised his lower lip.

Allen sighed. "You aren't going to scare it into calling him. It'll be faster if—"

"Shut up. Go sit with your inspector."

"He's unconscious. He won't know that I'm there."

Kanda turned at those words and narrowed his strange, unfocused eyes at the boy beside him. His irises, normally a color between gray and black, were colorless, just a shade darker than Allen's. It made the Japanese man's glare that much more eerie. "I do not need your help. You are distracting me." It was obvious that he was fighting with his temper, fighting a losing war, considering how he bared his teeth and laced his voice with undertones of frustration. The black phone in his hand – belonging to the inn he had wandered into – was trembling slightly in his fist.

With a sigh he knew would sound condescending, Allen placed a gloved hand on the back of Kanda's, on the whitish-scar that hadn't been there until Mugen had been shoved through the backs of his hands. This time, the Japanese man didn't pull away. "I understand that you're upset, Kanda." Allen whispered, and prayed that being slow and gentle would win him ground where being forceful and demanding had not. "He destroyed my Innocence once. He punched a hole in my heart. I needed help to gain back what I had lost." He tried to hold Kanda's eyes, but it was difficult when they didn't seem able to focus on him. "Just until you can see again… let me do little things. Like dial the phone. I'll even use your finger if you want me to."

"Bean… Sprout—"

"Besides, it's more efficient if you actually talk to Komui in the next six days, right?"

With a growl, the swordsman brandished the phone at the younger boy. "It will not take me six days!"

"It's an exaggeration! Do you want me to do it or not?!"

Kanda's face fell slightly, fell in a way that Allen had never seen it fall before. He was suddenly empty, or perhaps it was eyes, devoid of light and color, as they lost their anger. His left hand moved once more to the rotary, but he didn't turn it. Instead, he spoke very softly, as if he didn't remember that Allen was there. "It's not like that." His glare returned just as suddenly as it had disappeared and he turned back to the object of his frustrations, eyes narrowed. "What number is this?" He hissed, and placed a long, pale finger next to the five.

Allen told him.

They got through the number in less than a minute.

While the line rang, Kanda bashed the British Exorcist on the top of the head with slightly more strength than was necessary to be friendly, pulling a small yelp from his throat.

"What was that for?!"

The swordsman made a face at the wall, holding the receiver to his ear. "You called me slow."

It wasn't much, but that glimmer of how Kanda was before, angry, not empty and rude. It reassured Allen a little, as did the steadiness of the Japanese man's hand while he counted the seconds it took for the line to be answered. Kanda could be impatient, that wasn't so strange, it was seeing him grief ridden, with the light of fear in his eyes that didn't fit at all.

"Komui, Kanda." That was the lamest way to greet someone, ever. "No. We were attacked at the train station. Our Finder is dead, we—"

There was a sound like shrieking, the voice painfully high and fast and sudden. When Komui talked like that, it was pretty obvious that he and Lenalee were of the same family, even if she never quite made it to that octave.

"Stop talking about stupid things and listen to me!" Kanda didn't exactly roar the words, but a woman – the establishment was small and wooden, with thin walls and small doors and a staff that looked at them with eyes that were half-worshipful, half-scathing – dropped a plate in the kitchen to Allen's right. Without thinking, he shot her a rueful smile. "Tyki Mikk has Lavi."

That wasn't how Allen would have worded it. And his voice wouldn't have sounded that grave.

"He had the idiot's headband." The words were strange somehow, perhaps because they were soft even if they were angry. Kanda didn't say things in that tone unless he was talking to someone on business – which this didn't qualify as. The swordsman ran his fingers through the fringe of his hair and tilted his face up, half-blind eyes partially shut to the overhead light. "He left a note. It says he'll kill whoever tries to take him back."

There was a pause, then a very soft question from Komui. Kanda's face became somewhat bland again.

"No. The inspector is unconscious."

Allen felt that he might want to sneeze.

"Yes, I—" It was that tone again, but Kanda was cut off before he could go on. He growled, low in his throat. "Che. You think I'm that stupid?"

Allen wished he could magically know what on Earth they were talking about. Instead, just as he was beginning to think that Komui was going on a rant that rivaled most that he dedicated to Lenalee, the Japanese man hung up, his eyes still on the brownish wall in front of him. Without looking, Kanda disconnected his golem before he turned his face down at it, almost thoughtful – except that Kanda didn't actually think.

"You're with me until your inspector is awake." Kanda still didn't look or raise his voice, instead he released the golem and let his eyes flutter shut, his annoyingly long eyelashes playing against his cheeks like ebony feathers. He almost – if it was even possible – looked like he might need a hug. "We're going—"

"To have your eyes looked at," Allen whispered, "before you get us both killed looking for Lavi."

The swordsman didn't sneer at the British boy. He didn't say anything about how he didn't need to be looked at, or how it was a waste of time. He turned in Allen's direction and cracked his eyes into two silvery slits, though the expression wasn't quite a glare. "I can see, Bean Sprout. It's fine." Even as he said it, he didn't meet the boy's gaze – most likely because he couldn't distinguish it from Allen's hair. "You aren't… going to stop me." It wasn't a question, but it was painfully close to one. Like Kanda was afraid of the response he would get to it.

With a sigh, Allen held up three fingers on his right hand, the second two very close together. It was a simple test – if Kanda could distinguish fingers, he would be able to distinguish Akuma, and the two of them could dig up as much information on Tyki and phenomena in the area right off. If not…

"How many fingers am I holding up?"

"Bean—"

"It's Allen."

The Japanese man scowled, but turned his impaired vision to the smaller boy's hand. "Che… two… no… it's…"

"Kanda…"

"Damn it, I'll cut them off if you try to stop me!"

"You can't see them to do it!"

"You're whole hand, then!"

Allen tried to huff, but trying and doing were different when it was Kanda he was huffing at. The breath came out sounding like a muffled 'bloody idiot' rather than the formless sigh he had been aiming for, and that rewarded him with a glare at the wall behind him. "If you refuse to wait until your eyesight comes back, I will drag you to the inn we are supposed to be in, take you upstairs, tie you up, and go find a doctor – and by the time I've done that, don't you think your healing ability will have handled the problem?" Allen made a sweeping motion with his right arm, one that Kanda couldn't really follow. "If you go out the way you are, you'll just be easier to kill!"

"And if I don't, it might be him who dies instead!" The words shouldn't have come out like that, they shouldn't have been Kanda's. It didn't make any sense at all for him to say something like that for a friend or for anyone – especially not someone he seemed to tolerate the existence of like Lavi. The motion he made, the movement of his right hand to Mugen's hilt, didn't seem as threatening as it should have been. "We can't lose another Exorcist. We can't lose—"

Allen shook his head – because Kanda was far too dense for his own good. "If you die, we still lose an Exorcist!"

Maybe, if Allen thought about it, Kanda looked like a turtle – but only when one said something to him that made him stretch his neck out away from his shoulders and widen his eyes in surprise. It was a strange expression, one that usually appeared on the battlefield just as the tide had turned against the swordsman. This time, it was because he seemed to have glazed over something important that Allen the Idiot of the Order Walker was about to point out to him.

"Listen, you fucking Noah of Stupidity—"

"If that's really what the Musician is, I should pass him to you when I die, shouldn't I?

"That rabbit doesn't have a way to fight. Even blind and deaf, I'd have better chances than he does." Kanda ignored the insult and went right on, winding his fingers around Mugen's handle. "I'm waiting one hour. If it's not perfect by then…"

Allen wanted to reach out and touch the man in front of him, wanted to figure a way to sooth him. If it had been Lenalee, it would have been easy. If it had been Crowley, it would have been simple. But this was Kanda. Lavi seemed to mean so very much more to Kanda than he let on, more than anyone else had, otherwise the swordsman would have known how to deal with what was going on. It surprised the British Exorcist. He had always known that the Japanese man cared, had always understood that the time they had spent together was slowly guiding them toward friendship, but he had never known just how far that bond already went between Lavi and Kanda. It frightened him a little.

He closed his eyes and held out his hands, because Kanda would kill him if actually tried to hug the Japanese man. "We'll just have to wait until then and decide what to do. One day won't make that much of a difference, Kanda. If Tyki wanted Lavi dead, I'm sure he already would be."

"We don't know that."

"You're right. For all we know, he's dead already and this is all a way to make us dash in without thinking. Wasn't it you who told me not to do that?"

Kanda did sneer at him then, but didn't argue. Instead, he turned away toward the door, moving with all of the obvious anger and frustration that he felt. It would have been good for him to go from his place by Allen and out into the afternoon light, for him to do that one thing without help or trouble, but he didn't see a chair in his path and thus tripped over it. The curses and the sound of his hands on the wooden floor were enough to make no small number of guests turn to look at the strange half-blind priest and whisper to each other, frowning at his plight.

"I suppose…" Allen mumbled to himself. "That is one way to move forward."

-- -- --

TCB! When I return from Marine World! If any of you are there… I'll be the girl with the blond hair and black glasses who doesn't look her age at all. :3

Thanks for reading! Sorry once again about the reviews!