Niamh apologizes for taking so long to update! Life is crazy. And I went to yaoi con. And now I have the flu. I believe that I answered almost every review last chapter (I did it by using the review list, not the ones in my inbox). And thank you ALL for your thoughts on what you think should (or might) happen in this story. Though I can't say that the majority rules, your thoughts did give me a VAGUE idea on how this fic will end. MAYBE. I think.
God willing, you won't ALL kill me for it. :)
I want to make ONE THING CLEAR before you guys read the rest of this story: This story isn't written for the sake of shipping a pairing or being sexy. If something changes – if it turns into TyKan or LaviYuu or Laven or ALLENxLENALEE and you quit reading, I have failed. IF IT ISN'T GOOD ENOUGH TO READ ON ITS OWN AND YOU ONLY READ IT BECAUSE OF THE PAIRING, I HAVE FAILED!
Thank you.
Disclaimer: I no own D. Gray – man.
WARNINGS: I HAVE NO PAIRING LOYALTY. SEX. TIME SKIP MID CHAPTER. STUFF.
-- -- --
Chapter Thirteen – Scars in the Making
Lavi decided quickly that he did not care if Tyki was evil or not – indeed, before the moon had reached its highest point in the night sky, he had made it his goal to rethink his opinion on the importance of such trivial things as the 'sides' of a war. It was stupid to think that either side was sinless, he knew that already, but the sins that he knew of were not the kind he wanted to think about. He wouldn't. It didn't matter anyways, not to him. He loved the man he had come to know, every part of him, even the dark parts, and if that meant accepting the death of innocents, the fate of the fallen, the evil of humanity, then he would try. Lavi was not a saint himself.
They were terrible things to try to accept, but he would try. It hurt knowing that they would continue to happen and that it was the dark and not the light he loved, but he would try.
It was easier than it should have been. At only the touch of his fingertips on Tyki's chest – his scars – Lavi could feel himself falling. It should have made him sick. Instead, it made him feel warm.
They sat together, his left leg woven between the older man's knees, leaning on opposing sides of the sofa. A badly abused copy of some cheap novel or other rested gently between his hands. Lavi could read faster than he could talk, he discovered, and none of Tyki's books were terribly long, so he kept a small stack of them next to the table, organized by his level of interest. At the moment, his interested had changed to Tyki.
The older man had fallen asleep after about seventeen pages of Wuthering Heights, the book laid perfectly over his eyes. There was still trust between them, and honesty, and a kind of comfort that Lavi couldn't really understand, a trust that went deeper than sides. Good and evil – it didn't mean anything to that feeling. Lavi wanted, more than anything, to hold on to it forever. He wanted the smooth, handsome lines of Tyki's face to always be like that, gentle and innocent as if in sleep, meaningless and yet perfect in the dying firelight. The world had gone soft around the edges in the darkness, and Lavi could only imagine that his heart felt the same way.
Murderers, traitors, demons – they we all loved by someone, weren't they? And this man, this human who was more than human, was too, wasn't he? Lavi didn't like thinking about it. He didn't like to think about the fact that someone evil had saved him and taken him in, held him, soothed him, fed him, and clothed him.
Tyki, who was prepared to love him. Tyki, who had opened his arms knowing exactly what might come of their relationship and yet still seemed inclined to try.
Tyki wasn't good, but he was better than Lavi. And it hurt to think about it.
The Portuguese man shifted a little in his sleep, though not enough to dislodge the book on his face; Lavi could still make out the line of his jaw and the turn of his lips in the darkness. Tyki shuddered subtly, just enough to be seen, and the expression of his mouth turned suddenly sad. He didn't speak, but his expression was enough to make Lavi reach down and place a hand on the Noah's knee.
"Hey… hey, Tyki?" Lavi's voice sounded loud and strange even to his own ears. "Tyki?"
The Noah turned his head just enough to send his book toppling to the floor, his expression slightly uncomfortable. The smile lines around his eyes and mouth had never looked so deep.
Lavi struggled to maneuver himself into a position that would be better for the older man to wake up in, tugging himself up by the fabric of the older man's pants. He found himself somewhat uncomfortably teetering on his backside, left leg still between Tyki's knees, right almost hanging off of the couch. It was good enough, he decided, and leaned enough to place a hand on Tyki's stomach.
"Wake up, sleepy-head. We can't both sleep on the couch." The redhead said the words at a conversational volume and watched the man he was rousing blink up at him with slow, tired looking eyelids. The irises beneath were soft gold-brown, though the exact color was hard to make out in the sputtering firelight. "If you're tired, you should go to bed. I can make it in there on my own." Lavi added with a small, half-forced smile.
Tyki matched his expression, somehow a little pained. "Lavi."
"Hm?"
The Noah didn't speak for a moment, instead, he waved his arms out at the redhead, nonverbally seeking physical reciprocation. Lavi gave it to him without much thought, and Tyki's face grew brighter. "You look… soft." Tyki observed in a tired whisper. His fingers pressed against Lavi's palm, squeezing softly, human and tender, just like much of what the older man did. "It might be the light."
"Or maybe I'm just lucky," Lavi answered, and returned the pressure against his hand. It was easy to smile when he didn't think about what that hand had done or how terribly weak Tyki seemed at the moment. Perfectly trusting. "You gonna get up, or do I have to carry you?" He ran his thumb over the back of Tyki's hand, distracting himself from the gold of his lover's eyes.
"Oh, I think I can manage to drag myself down the hallway, given I have a little time to try and persuade you to join me. I believe that you have something that you wanted to do to me, when you have the chance…" Tyki raised his eyebrows suggestively and Lavi felt a rush of heat in his cheeks.
"Not tonight." The redhead said softly. "I have too many things to think about."
Tyki nodded gravely, but didn't let his smile change. "Once you're over the fact that I'm old and evil, you know what to do."
Lavi shook his head amusedly. "You aren't old. And… the more I think about it, the more I want to justify what you've done. She was a bad person, wasn't she? I mean… I don't know the details and I don't want to know them, but there was a reason that you did that, right. A reason you—" Lavi could see the woman's severed head when he closed his eyes, could imagine her hair, soaked crimson in her own blood, the harsh white contrast of splintered bone protruding from her neck. He wanted to be sick, but he pushed the feeling away, locking it up in the back of his mind with his fear. "A reason you killed her?" He finished with a steady voice, devoid of any of the things going on in his mind. He was good at that, perhaps too good to be comfortable with it.
Tyki closed his eyes and pressed his lips into a thin line. "Sometimes there aren't reasons, Lavi. I do as I am ordered, usually. Nothing less. When I do things of my own will it can be for the sake of killing a whore or for my own satisfaction – it changes nothing of what I am or what I do."
"But you don't give me the creeps like you should." Lavi protested lamely, hating that it was the only excuse he had. He reached down with his free hand and pressed it to the middle of Tyki's chest – the flesh beneath it warm and solid, human, perfect. It hurt, a little. "I don't care." It was hard to say it. "I don't care what you are or who you kill – you saved me, didn't you? You might have pushed me down that well, but you saved me afterward." The redhead didn't allow himself to laugh humorlessly at the thought. "There's good in you, even if you've killed for no reason. There are things you could do to change what you—"
"That's naïve of you, Bookman." Tyki's voice lacked any malice at all, soft and low, laced with dark things that Lavi didn't know the meaning of. It reminded him of the darker shadow cast by street lamps, deeper than the tone the older man usually spoke in. "Preaching to me like you know that I think about killing you despite myself. The boy's hair was the perfect shade of red once there was enough blood in it. Just like yours." Regardless of the emphasis, Tyki's expression had not changed, nor had he moved from his place on the couch. There was no threat to him, no fire, only fact. Cold, horrible, inhuman fact.
Lavi drew his lower lip between his teeth, bit it, then let it go. The pain did not clear his head in the slightest. "I love you." He breathed, and tilted forward far enough to lay his head on the Noah's scarred and beaten chest. "It's hard, but I love you. If it's still war, then I…"
Forgive wasn't the right word.
Tyki's hands drew up and rested them gently on the rounds of Lavi's shoulders, pulling him closer, kind and soft, just like they had always been. "We should still go to bed."
-- -- --
"Why are you calling me?"
"I wanted to know how you slept. Anyone who's slept in the same room with you more than twice knows that you have nightmares."
"Shut up." Kanda's voice was small and strained, groggy, filled with contempt. But the sound of it, the knowledge that Kanda hadn't died sometime during the night, was enough to make Allen smile. "I don't like you. I know you still have your golem and you're still at the hospital – goodbye."
"But Kanda!" Allen interjected, unable to stop himself. He fumbled. He had nothing to say, really, but he wanted to prolong the conversation somehow, drag it out for reasons he couldn't understand. Perhaps it was the fact that he had spent the night in the room he shared with Link allowing his thoughts to do what they pleased, to go where they willed, to linger where he least expected them. On Kanda. He didn't like Kanda, not as anything like a friend at least, and the fact that they hadn't been in a physical altercation in days was getting to him. As was being cooped up in a hospital, waiting for his bruises to heal. "You have to come back tonight; they're kicking me out of here tomorrow morning."
The swordsman made a snort of disapproval. "I should have broken your face – I'd have more time then."
Allen scowled a little. "As if you could."
The British Exorcist was standing in front of the same phone he had used last time, running the fingers of his left hand over the numbers as he spoke, aware that Link wouldn't be able to see him if the assistant inspector picked that moment to wake up and look for him. It didn't matter. Tim could show the blond what had happened if it came down to it, not that Allen much enjoyed the prospect of watching himself struggle with his emotions over an ass like Kanda. The lighting in the hall, however, was soft silver, reflecting the clouds outside that had still not yet emptied their burden of rain onto the city, and he liked the look of it playing off the different nurses' hair.
So he stayed where he was, even though Link wouldn't be able to see him, and turned away from the wall. He could hardly follow Kanda's voice calling him names at the moment. Allen had been still too long.
Was it alright to move forward in time without moving forward in progress?
"Kanda?" Allen interrupted, and waved at the woman they had met upon arrival only to wince when that extended his ribcage. The other end of the phone line was silent but for the sound of slow, soft breathing. "If you do find them – if it's Tyki Mikk and Lavi and something's happened between them… what will you do?" He wanted to tell the Japanese boy to come back and get him, to not face that sort of adversary on his own, to not put Lavi or his own life on the line—
"Che." The syllable had all the anger of a thousand curses. "The circumstances… I don't…" There was a pause in which Allen worried the swordsman would take hold of his anger and direct it at the British boy instead. "Nothing dangerous. I'll just bring Lavi home."
The white haired Exorcist felt himself relax at that, like a tight knot of cold iron had melted out of his chest. "Good."
"Now stop calling me!"
"I know, Kanda."
-- -- --
Morning, to Lavi, was sharp and painful and full of far too much light, even filtered through the rain clouds and the curtains. He curled himself around the warm-and-yet-cool body beside him and buried his face in Tyki's shirt, praying that it was only the light and not something more serious. He could smell sweet tobacco smoke and soap and the lingering scent of sweat on the older man, all of which soothed him almost enough to send him back into the shadows of sleep.
But the Noah drew him up and in, pulling his face away from the material and into a slow, deep kiss, sweeping like nothing Lavi could remember before. It was tender and good, and the pain from the light, from the brightness pouring in the window, only made Lavi close his eyes to the intimate contact. And it was intimate. It was simple and revitalizing, a testament to every feeling that Tyki had, and it didn't matter that the lips against Lavi's belonged to anyone but the man he thought he might love.
They tangled together, limbs around bodies, fingers around palms, and the redhead pulled the older man into him, wordlessly acknowledging what they both knew already. They were from opposite sides of a war, yes, but it didn't matter unless they wanted it to.
Sins, ideas, broken rules and promises – none of that held any weight. Murder didn't. Only the electricity between their two bodies did.
Lavi just had to ignore every silent alarm screaming in the back of his head. And really, that wasn't difficult. He focused on the smooth texture of Tyki's skin and the slow, deep rhythm to the older man's breathing, the soft curtain of his wavy hair on skin. They were human things, that was true, but they weren't lies. They should have been. Because as human as Tyki was, as gentle and tender and loving, he couldn't be human and kill like Lavi knew he had. It didn't work. His lips, smooth and gently parted, pressed to the line of Lavi's collar bone with absolute care, the teeth behind them so distant they almost weren't felt. It was a feathery touch, just enough to raise gooseflesh on the redhead's throat and draw his breath shaking from his lungs. Too sweet. Everything about the older man, about his hands sliding up Lavi's thighs and his tongue pressing into Lavi's mouth was too sweet to be true.
Still, Lavi returned the touches with as much enthusiasm as his still sore body would allow.
"We can pretend." Tyki said to him, and pressed Lavi's shoulders against the mattress. "I'm good at pretending."
Lavi knew at once what that meant and didn't like the thought of it, not with his fingers tangled in the loose curls of the older man's hair and his hips tilted invitingly against the pressure of Tyki's arousal. It wouldn't be the same if they pretended none of the dark was or had ever been. "No. I want you to tell me everything – everyone you kill, everything you break. Because they don't have anything to do with how I feel about you and I want to—" He cut himself off with a strangled sound of desire; Tyki's mouth was sliding down his neck.
"There have been so many…" Tyki mumbled, and his right hand began to drag down the redhead's pants and undergarments as one. "So many Exorcists over the years, so many people. Are you sure you want me to tell you about them?"
The apprentice Bookman swallowed with difficulty, nodding. "Because if I remember – when I remember – I want to know already. I want to be with you afterward. And I won't want to if I feel…loss…" His fingers fumbled their way to the buttons of Tyki's shirt and he began to pick at them, one at a time, thinking of the scars underneath. Lavi forgot what he was saying. Loss? It wasn't as if Tyki didn't know loss, was it? There were scars and empty seats at the dinner table, weren't there?
"Then I will, Lavi. All of them."
Tyki finished tugging down the redhead's garments while Lavi opened the Noah's shirt and pushed it off. Lavi traced his fingers along the older man's chest and then up to his shoulders, down to the line of his pants, into them. His fingers, warm and confident, pressed at the inside of Tyki's thighs before they came back up again, working at the fasteners on the brown haired mans pants. "Enough." Lavi breathed, pulling at the material when it wouldn't come open fast enough. "Right now it's not important. You're a horny old man and I'm a horny young man and we love each other – the details can wait until we're done."
The Noah smiled at him so that the white line of his teeth and the smooth, angular line of his jaw looked perfectly eerie in the morning light. But his hair, cascading down his shoulders in wild tendrils of brown-black tangles, made the expression comical and soft, just like the twilight had the night before. "We will be fine after this, won't we? Even if you remember, I doubt you'll have it in you not to forgive me." He pulled Lavi to him then, his large hands fitting to the boy's hips, and leaned down so that his hair fell in an awkward, tickling sort of curtain, blocking out the light.
"I'd like to think so." Lavi admitted, and pulled Tyki down with as much sincerity as he had ever felt. With jerking, quick, encouraging movements, Lavi pressed himself up against the pillow and coaxed Tyki's hips back, rather irked that they were still clothed. "Naked."
"Not entirely." Tyki remarked, but moved away enough to drag them down regardless. It was only when they were gone and Lavi was pulled into the naked Portuguese man, that the redhead noticed the fact that he had yet to remove his own shirt. But it was negligible for some reason – unimportant and rather ridiculous. The shirt didn't cover anything they hadn't seen before, and Lavi trusted that Tyki had a good enough memory not to demand its removal, so he left it. Instead, he traced the curves and lines of the older man's stomach, a wide grin taking his lips.
Forcefully, knowing what he was doing, Lavi wound his fingers around Tyki's length, eyebrows quirked. "Let me…?"
"Yes."
The redhead smiled. With movements that were only half-careful of his ankle, Lavi moved himself from his place against the pillows to the middle of the bed, leaving the space he had been in for the Noah to lie in. With their positions switched, younger man quickly sank between the older man's knees and – without preamble – took the length of the older man's arousal into his mouth. It was a little amusing to him how Tyki moaned almost at once, low and surprised, but Lavi didn't give the sound much thought. Instead, he lapped from the base of the Noah's erection to the top of it, curving his lips around his teeth to avoid unpleasantness for either of them, pressing with his tongue like he remembered. The length wasn't the same, but the texture was. The taste was different, but he couldn't recall what it had been like before, or who, or when.
Lavi wouldn't try to remember. He tried to focus on what his mouth was doing, how much pressure he was sucking with, how tight he could pull in his cheeks, how far he could pull the older man into him. This was an act of trust and love – it didn't need a shadow of the past darkening it in his mind. His right hand was still bandaged, so he used that to cup Tyki's backside and lift him a little, encourage him to perhaps move with Lavi's slow swallow. The redhead just hardly held in a little retch of discomfort, then repeated the action, proud of himself for going on. He moved his mouth slowly up and then down again, pulled his left hand up to help. At his horribly slow place, Lavi stroked and sucked and swallowed, then hummed at the sight of Tyki's trembling thighs.
"Lavi…" The Noah's voice was hoarse with longing and heavy with feelings that shouldn't have been there. His fingers were warm and tender in the apprentice Bookman's hair. "Lavi…" He repeated; eyes hooded so their color was lost in the dimness.
Lavi knew what he meant. With a wet, almost awkward sound, he pulled away and smiled up at the older man, face tilted to the side. "Should I finish?"
Tyki dragged him upward and pulled him down, flushed, breathing deeply, his gold and chocolate eyes burning with things that Lavi understood the meaning of. The redhead reached for the nightstand with his left hand and fumbled haphazardly into the kiss Tyki offered, his knees pressed to the mattress on either side of the Noah's hips. There was no question in Lavi's mind how this was going to happen, and he doubted that if he asked Tyki would tell him otherwise. His warm hands found the drawer and from there he found the little jar that Tyki often used. Hurriedly, he pressed it into the older man's hand, then sank down to kiss the Noah firmly on the mouth.
Breaking away saw the container opened. There was no questioning or attempts at changing angles, there was only a little shifting so Tyki could reach up with his slicked fingers and stroke at the bud of Lavi's anus, gentle and yet quick, the way the boy had wanted before. There didn't need to be a request for more or a question of readiness – they both already knew.
"You're wonderful, Lavi." Tyki whispered, and just the sound of his voice made a pleasant little shiver tickle up Lavi's spine. "Every part of you, even the parts that I don't understand."
The redhead would have leaned down to kiss the older man, but he couldn't, not at that angle, so he nodded instead. "We'll get through this, won't we? So that tomorrow…" He shivered at how fast Tyki's finger went into him, but didn't tighten his muscles at it. They hadn't gone too quickly before, but Lavi knew what it was like to. He knew what it was like to fuck in uncomfortable places, to hold on for dear life while he drove into someone, while they drove up at him, while pain and fear and anger all bled out of him in panting thrusts. There were harsh, hard things that could go with sex and he could face them. "Tomorrow," Lavi repeated, and shook his head to rid himself of the nostalgia. "I can do what I said I would. With you taking me in…"
"We can try." Tyki agreed. But there was something in his voice and in the movement of his fingers that told Lavi what he knew already – that 'tomorrow' would never come.
Lavi hoped that was the case. Whoever he had been with had nothing here. The press of Tyki's fingers inside of him and the warmth of the thighs under his – those had meaning and purpose. So he pushed all other thoughts out of his mind and pressed his hips into Tyki's hand, willing the slight stinging away, fighting with his own urge to immediately thrust once again. The width of the fingers inside of him could have been two by now – he couldn't tell.
He could tell that he was flushed and warm, and that Tyki had begun to sweat along his hairline. It made Lavi shiver to watch a drop slither down the side of the Portuguese man's face, yearning to follow the same path with his tongue.
"Tyki, I want…" Lavi let the sentence go unfinished, completely aware of how he would have liked to end it.
Tyki's fingers slipped deeper, curved, but didn't touch the place that Lavi knew they were nearing. They pulled just slightly back, promising pleasure, yet denying it all the same. There was dull light in the Noah's eyes. "Eager, aren't we?" He whispered rhetorically, and pulled what proved to be three digits from within Lavi, his eyes hooded and hungry. The jar was in his grasp again, but the redhead wasn't paying too much attention to it any more. Lavi was looking instead at the angle he was going to sit. It was erotic and scintillating, tender, yet undoubtedly kinky, and Lavi honestly wasn't sure which part he should be gladder of. In any case, he gripped the older man's arousal and slipped his fingers up to the top of it before he pressed down again, all too aware of how Tyki's wet palm paused on its way to slick the length with him. With the heated skin coated, Lavi lifted his weight and focused, almost painfully sure that he was going to somehow make one of them uncomfortable.
He could only let gravity do the work for him. The feeling – which he didn't think he would ever be properly used to – wasn't so much like hurting as it was like stretching, and even then, he knew what would come next. The apprentice Bookman knew that the shiver that went down his spine and resonated in Tyki's hips was only the beginning.
'Fuck, try not to hurt yourself, — .'
"I'm alright." Lavi answered in a whisper, though it was only half true. He straddled the older man's hips, trembling slightly with need and exertion, and leaned back with one hand on Tyki's leg, the other fisted around his own erection. His fingers were a warm, pleasant little distraction from how worried he was that everything was about to fall apart. "I'm…oh…"
Tyki's hands wrapped around Lavi's hips and gently pulled him as close as they could be, shifting him so the shaft of his length fit securely inside of the boy resting on his pelvis. They were both shivering, breathing heavily, but it was Tyki who moaned out his enjoyment, fingers anything but tender on the redhead's flesh. "Will you say when you can move, Lavi?" Tyki's voice carried with it more than just a note of urgency, made more prominent by a restrained arching of his back from the bed. "Already?" He questioned a little more loudly.
The redhead took in a slow, deep breath, and tilted his head forward, forcing himself to relax. It was easier than it had been. "Keep me steady…okay?" It was the only real warning he gave before tilting his hips in a slow, gradual little movement that sent shivers up his spine and coiled heat in the base of his abdomen. There was so much heat in that one little movement that he almost groaned at it, his fingers twisting in the long, twirling cascade of Tyki's hair. It made him tremble ever so slightly.
'Ah…'
'You never say please do you?'
'If I did you would just wait longer.'
"Look at me." Tyki's voice pulled Lavi's eyes open – not that he had knowingly closed them. The Portuguese man's face seemed off somehow, but the sight of it, the familiar lay of the older man's hair, was enough to reassure the redhead of his position and his feelings. Tyki's expression was almost painfully sincere. "Don't think of anything right now."
Lavi tried to force a laugh and tilted his hips again, pressed his chest into the Noah's. "How could I?" He wondered vaguely if the lie was obvious on his face.
Tyki's eyes almost seemed to dim in the amber light, his eyelids falling to half-mast. There was something truthful beneath that look that made Lavi feel horribly transparent. "I don't know, but you shouldn't." He whispered, and this time he met the motion of Lavi's hips. "Are you…"
"Fine." The apprentice Bookman answered in a whisper. "It doesn't hurt. You're so…" He searched for the right word, but he was suddenly breathless, captured by the feel of a palm sliding encouragingly against the small of his back. It made swallowing difficult. He pulled Tyki's face closer as a means of description and felt his eyes close again, this time because he wanted them to.
"You were right," Tyki shifted again, a little harder, a little faster, pressing his fingers to Lavi's spine and hip. There was no chance the younger man would fall, not with their limbs wrapped so surely around each other, but the contact wasn't for that purpose anymore. Now, with the Noah's mouth pressed against the boy's lower jaw, it meant something intimate. "I do love you, Lavi."
The redhead felt himself smile a little more genuinely. "Good."
Their conversation dwindled into almost nothing after that, mostly small words of endearment and Lavi's suggestion that Tyki not bite his collar bone to the point that there might be unwarranted stains on the bed sheets. It drew soft laughs from both of them, mostly because they both knew the Noah would have gone on without the words to stop him.
Lavi arched against the older man at an increasing tempo, matching every lift of Tyki's hips, every brush of his mouth on skin. The warmth and tenderness of it all made even the slightest shift of the redhead's pelvis seem like a cue that was answered tenfold, whether with a quite word of appreciation or with a breathtaking movement of Tyki's whole frame. It made Lavi want more. It made him want to pull the Noah so close there would be something left when they tried to part again. But he couldn't. There wouldn't be anything but a mess afterward. And Lavi couldn't push away the thought that this was all nothing more than a play based on the concept of love, and it wouldn't matter at all once the curtains were closed.
He threw himself into the older man, aware that his fingernails couldn't have been comfortable on Tyki's neck, aware that he really didn't care about the ones scratching up his lower back as long as they kept up with the palm circling his erection. It made him gasp out the Portuguese man's name, and brought his spine into something of a bow, half-straining, half-following the flow of their rhythm. It was difficult, what with how quick their pace had become, but the redhead balanced as he was. The urgency and heat was enough to drive his desire to simply breathe out of his mind with his memories.
Most of his memories.
'Ouch.'
'I told you not to touch that.'
'So you bit me? That's really mature…'
Lavi shook his head. No, that didn't belong here. There was too much fire and too much wanting to have anything but the moment. The scent of Tyki's skin, the texture of his hair – those things were what the moment demanded and exactly what it was, even if it had dwindled into little more than the space between them.
That for an instant, for an endlessly finite moment, when their bodies were moving purely on instinct and there could be no thought about what belonged or what didn't, some small, purposeful thing happened. Somewhere between knowing that what they were doing and not caring how confusing it was, there was a place filled with nothing but fearlessness and desire, honest disregard for good or evil or anything in between. It was there, in that sacred place, that the fire between them turned into a roaring blaze. It was twisted and dark and so irrefutably wrong, that it was a wonder that there could be so much pleasure and closeness in it. And the wrongness of it, the emotions that had been corrupted by misunderstanding and hope alike, felt like a heavy, protective shroud around the two of them.
Lavi would have prayed that he never lost that feeling. He would have begged God Himself if he could have thought the words to do so. Instead, he leaned down and pressed his open mouth to the ridge of Tyki's ear and struggled to keep his breathing steady.
'Itadake yo.'
"Tyki—I'm…oh…" Lavi squinted his eyes shut and moaned. When had he gotten so close? He didn't know. He only knew that there was nothing in the room but the two of them and a thousand pounds of pressure in his abdomen. There couldn't be any warnings – he was too close and they were moving too fast and Tyki didn't seem too inclined to take anything he said into account anyway – so he simply bared down on the older man, his spine arched like a bow, his parted lips pressed hot and moist to the Noah's ear. The sound of their skin was the last thing to register in Lavi's mind before there was only fire and pleasure, Tyki's hands, and the feeling of every confusing thing he had thought in the last few days leaving him in a rush. It was perfect. It was so strange and wrong, and yet it was perfect.
His name seeped through Tyki's lips like a sigh or a breath of evening wind. The redhead felt his lover falter before he came, felt the always awkward flood of warmth, but didn't let it bother him. Instead, he sighed out his nose, almost gasping, and allowed them to both fall back onto the bed, completely wound up together, completely as one. He didn't open his eyes, not even when he felt his face touch the mattress.
"Good morning to you too," Tyki mumbled into Lavi's hair, light and honest, just like it should have been.
"Very good morning."
-- -- --
The weather was getting almost warm. The city had taken to smelling more like plant life and flowers, the streets like mud, the people like sweat and old soggy linen. The best and worst thing about the weather, however, was that the light made every flicker of red dance to life against the drabness of the buildings, made it come to life like the flame it so resembled. It was true that only the one man had claimed that he might have seen a person of Lavi's description – including the eye patch – in the area, but after that, the trail became less obvious. There were a handful of redhead's with brown haired friends. Geoffrey, Amos, and Cecil were the easiest to find. After that, it became a hunting game.
Kanda liked hunting. He didn't like hunting people.
There were too many memories.
He had taken too much time searching for Lavi and not enough time searching for Innocence in the last three months of his life. The last three months that he had spent darting from backstreet to alleyway to building, dodging despair and betrayal and Bean Sprout at every opportunity. The Brit was still holed up in that hospital, spoon feeding Link, and Kanda didn't see the point in going back to get him. There was no reason to drag the brat around like baggage and leave the half-invalid there to make up stories to tell the Order. Not when there was work that could be done. Not while their only chance to get back to Headquarters was an unapproved use of the Ark.
Not while he could still find rumors about a guy named Lavi running around with a sleek looking rich guy with a too-wide smile.
It was nearing late morning when he stopped at a bakery for food. While he was there, methodically chewing on a lump of sourdough, sitting outside because the inside smelled too much like cake, that he made the most spontaneous of discoveries. Not two hundred feet away, leaning a little on a cane and waving at a woman selling chicken eggs, was a redheaded boy that looked so much like Lavi, it made Kanda forget to swallow. There was no eye patch, but that was the only difference. The smile was the same. The posture was the same. Everything. Even the way he put his arm down and stuffed his hand into his pocket.
Whatever emotion it was that Kanda felt in that moment, it died in the cold fire of anger. He abandoned his food when he stood, ignored the fact that there were people on the street, that there could be Akuma, that he didn't yet understand the situation, and moved. If he waited, if he thought, if he paused – there was no telling what stupid thing he would do.
Mugen was in his hand before he could even think about drawing it. He didn't hear the voices that rose up around him, didn't even pay attention to the man who went running for a policeman. He simply went for the boy that had to be Lavi. Kanda went unnoticed for too long. Indeed, the redhead looked at him with a mismatched pair of perfectly circular eyes when he wasn't more than six feet away, and the apprentice Bookman's feet stopped moving. There wasn't a flicker of recognition or a smile or a flash of fear – there was only confusion and distant concern under a furrowed brow.
"You fucking idiot." Kanda hissed under his breath. It was the only thing to say, the only thing to feel. Mugen stayed at his side while he took the redhead by the arm and started to drag him toward an alley. It wasn't a good idea to fight in open spaces.
Only Lavi shook him off and stepped away – limped away. There was something missing in his expression. "Sorry… but… who…" Lavi looked down at the sword and took another step back; shot a look over his shoulder.
That pissed Kanda off for some reason. What kind of idiot did the rabbit take him for anyway? "Don't you fucking pretend that you don't know what's going on, Rabbit. You've been missing for months. You either explain while we walk or I take you back there and you tell Mugen, understand?" The Japanese Exorcist fought down a little twinge of worry when Lavi didn't seem to follow what he meant. "What's wrong with you?"
The redhead took another step away. "I don't… remember you." He mumbled, and then he was turning away, moving away, going as fast as his limping gait could carry him.
The swordsman caught him by the arm and managed to propel them both in the direction of two brick buildings. "Where the Hell have you been, Lavi?!" This time, the apprentice Bookman tensed but didn't fight him, but Kanda didn't let the boy have his arm back. In fact, he slammed the idiot against the wall of the alley the moment they were close enough and pressed the sharp edge of Mugen's length to the silent boy's throat. He'd had enough of this. The way Lavi gasped and tried to scamper away, the fear in the idiot's eyes, his silence – the lying was going to stop before it went too far and someone died.
"Look, Miss." Lavi said in a rushed, high whisper, trying to push Kanda away without touching him much. "I've only got money for eggs and bread on me, but if that's what you want—"
"Why are you pretending you don't know who I am?!"
"Because I don't!"
Kanda reeled back and then forward, holding Lavi by the expensive scruff of his overlarge jacket so that he couldn't pull away. "You're a Bookman, idiot. Bookman don't forget!"
"Then maybe you've got the wrong guy!"
No. Kanda couldn't have the wrong guy. He'd hated that face for way too long to mistake it for someone else's. He'd watched it make all sorts of annoying expressions in all manner of situations – even if it had only ever been with one eye. "Che. If you don't remember, what the fuck made you forget? The things you said… the things you did…"
Lavi's mouth, yes, it was Lavi's mouth now that Kanda could see it that close, started to move almost too rapidly to follow. But there wasn't any sound. There was just the movement. The swordsman fingers on his blade felt weak and cold; he couldn't hold Mugen up or straight for some reason. Something was wrong. The wrongness soon blossomed into pain in the back of Kanda's neck and there, on Lavi's face, an expression of genuine relief.
"Wait!" Kanda made out the word on the redhead's lips. "Don't kill him!"
The Japanese boy would have clenched his hand on Mugen's hilt and turned on the person behind him, whoever or whatever it was, but he couldn't. He couldn't even breathe. There were more questions than there were answers, there always had been, only now not even the questions mattered. Even if Lavi didn't remember, even if Lavi didn't come home there were other, more important things that should have come out of Kanda's mouth at the moment of their reunion.
You idiot, he thought, damning his numb hands and unfocused vision. I didn't forget you…
-- -- --
Since the morning the two of them had shared completely – the morning Tyki had taken Lavi and then laid with him afterward, telling him every name and face and button that he remembered – almost three months had gone by. They hadn't fought or bickered, they hadn't had the trouble they had before with anger and fear and bloodstained shirts. When Tyki came home covered in the gory spoils of war, Lavi sat with him and memorized the names before helping him to wash away the ash and blood splattered clothes.
They were happy. The two of them, despite everything, were happy when it was only them and as much honesty as there could be between two people. If Lavi remembered anything, he didn't speak of it but for in his dreams, clinging to the man he had beside him every night and every morning – the man he claimed to love.
The days went by in a steady stream of kisses and assignments, confessions and nightmares, until life felt as normal and unchanging as it had ever been. As long as Tyki stayed at Lavi's side and explained where he went in the daylight hours and didn't bring the redhead with him to family dinners, everything could always remain at peace.
It took those months for Tyki to become comfortable with the idea of Lavi going off for groceries on his own again, even without Bernadette around, even with his Akuma focused on the Exorcists that had all but disappeared in the area. It had become something of waiting game between the Noah and his enemies, a game that Tyki did not want to end unless absolutely necessary, a game in which he couldn't even guess the motive of the other players. There was no Innocence here – not for miles and miles and oceans – and even if it would be a strategic point at which to keep soldiers, there wasn't much more than a handful of townspeople and the occasional city. When it came to creating weapons or having resources, almost the entire island was useless to the Black Order.
So when Tyki finally sent Lavi on his merry way, he followed the redhead at a block's distance, praying that there weren't black coats running around looking for the two of them.
It wasn't until they were just across the street from the local bakery – a building composed mostly of yellow pine and windows – that he let the apprentice Bookman take the lead by more than that, and he swiftly came to regret it. While the Noah was losing himself in his lover's habitually limping gait – the ankle didn't hurt anymore, but it was still weak – a man that Tyki should have been able to place from a mile away in a storm approached the younger man. The drape of restrained ebony hair, the cool onyx eyes, there was no mistaking any of it. Especially not the sword that hung in the boy's right hand, a blatant threat to them all.
For a brief moment, Tyki hesitated. He had followed Lavi without asking. There was always a chance that the redhead would take offense. The thought held him in place for only a few moments.
And then the swordsman – who should have been blind by all rights – was dragging the redhead into an alley. Tyki didn't think about it then. He simply followed.
"Why are you pretending you don't know who I am?!"
"Because I don't!"
"You're a Bookman, idiot. Bookman don't forget!"
"Then maybe you've got the wrong guy!"
"Che. If you don't remember, what the fuck made you forget? The things you said… the things you did…"
By then, just as Lavi was beginning to take on the look of a hapless victim, his mouth forming words that had no meaning, Tyki threw himself out of the darkness and sank his fingers into the Asian boy's skull. He didn't pay much attention to what he touched, nor did he pull anything out but blood with his fingers – but enough damage was done to bring the Exorcist to his knees, his breath choked, blood oozing from his left nostril. Humans were fragile – even the kind that could grow their eyes back, it seemed.
Even as the long haired boy slumped against the pavement in a useless heap, Lavi was left staring up at Tyki, fear and uncertainty evident in his features for the first time in more than two months. The redhead didn't go to the Noah, however, nor did he burst into tears. He went to his knees; instead, pulling the other boy's Innocence into his hands with shaking fingers. "He knows me…" Lavi whispered, and he wound his fingers around the sleeping sword's hilt with unpracticed grace. "And now he'll never wake up. Even though… there are so many things that I could ask him."
Tyki watched the apprentice Bookman sheath the weapon, watched him gather it against his chest. Why was Tyki waiting? Why wasn't he reaching out to destroy it immediately?
Because Lavi made it look so sentimental.
"Lavi—"
"I know."
The Noah never would have anticipated that Lavi would turn away, the shadows of the buildings around them obscuring his features only enough to make his smile seem less than confident. But the smile wasn't a lie. Even if it was a little strained and crooked, the boy wanted to smile at him. The light in his mismatched green eyes and the way his lips lifted just a little more on the right than on the left – Tyki wanted to reach out and pull Lavi against him. The boy was so understanding, had grown so good at ignoring the Portuguese man's sins, that Tyki wasn't sure he deserved that kind of devotion.
"I'll see you at home, alright?" Lavi chimed almost pleasantly. "I'll keep a hold of this. I don't even know his name but… if I remember…" He shook his head almost wistfully. "I'll go shopping. Don't follow me anymore!" And this time he waved, genuinely, the shock of his hair burning like a flick of ember in the shadowy light.
Tyki waved back and waited for him to go, the sounds of the boy's uneven footfalls echoing down the walk.
At his feet, the swordsman took in a shuddering breath and twitched inward, unsteady fingers coming up to rest on the back of his neck.
"Well…" Tyki mused aloud. "Just what am I going to do with you, Princess?"
-- -- --
Yes, it ends there. And yes, this chapter was rather eventful again. The pace is rather fast to me. Is it to you? Is that bad?
Thanks for reading and reviewing! I hope to see you all in the next chapter!