Out of character? Phfffibib. It's FANfiction. If I was SOOO good at getting people IC, I would have a job working in manga. I don't, therefore I aren't. Plus, the whole situation is TOTALLY out of character anyway. So there, you've been told. You know who you are…

Chapter nineteen- Months of missions.

Allen sighed, rubbing the back of his head in a way that made his hair stick up at odd angles. "Lanel…" he said wearily. "What exactly are you doing?"

The green haired angel-turned-exorcist stopped his tuneless whistling and stared at Allen with wide innocent purple eyes. "Whistling?" he ventured cautiously, not really sure what Allen wanted him to say. The white haired general was quick to anger and easy to irritate lately, though the Aviran had no idea what could be winding the human up so much.

Allen's eye twitched at Lanel's answer, feeling the almost uncontrollable urge to throttle the other exorcist. For the first time he felt himself admiring Kanda's patience. If Lavi was only half as annoying as Allen's current companion then it truly was a miracle the redhead was still alive. He dropped his hands to his sides and clenched them into fists, taking a deep, steadying breath. "Yes, Lanel, whistling. We're trying to be stealthy. We are in hiding." He fixed the angel with a steely glare, which didn't seem to affect the Aviran at all. Lanel just cocked his head to one side and looked back blandly.

Allen rolled his eyes and threw his hands into the air. "I give up!" He turned away and scowled at a distant tree, cursing Komui for pairing him with Lanel of all people. Anyone would have been better! Anyone!

Lanel wisely kept his mouth shut, sensing the general was in a foul mood. Not hat this was any different from his mood at any other time since they had set out three weeks ago. Unfortunately, for all his research into the subject, the angel was still a little clueless when it came to human emotions, and had no way of telling what was going on in the other exorcist's head.

Allen was mentally kicking himself. Here he was, in the middle of nowhere with possibly the most annoying entity currently inhabiting Earth, going through the motions of a completely useless mission , and he hadn't once tried to fight the orders, Token protestations, yes, and they had obviously been expected, for they had been neatly countered, skilfully avoided and easily ignored, but he hadn't tried hard enough he now realised- hadn't truly put his foot down and refused point blank, to be turned from his home on the whims of a few bigoted old men. He wondered whose sick sense of humour he had to blame for pairing him with Lanel. Was it the council themselves? Komui? No- the Chinese supervisor felt bad enough, he wouldn't try to add to Allen's misery. Maybe it was God himself- some giant cosmic payback for something Allen had done. The thought made him laugh out loud, momentarily forgetting they were in hiding. Cosmic payback? He must be losing his mind!

Lanel looked up in surprise when Allen suddenly laughed. It was a sound usually associated with good feelings, but the oddly out of place noise of mirth was distinctly anything but good, the angel decided. Whatever stray thought had just struck the general, it wasn't anything truly funny, he understood that much despite his otherwise limited knowledge. He hovered on asking Allen what was bothering him, but was cut off before he had even opened his mouth by Allen standing abruptly and pushing his way out of their hiding place. Lanel followed meekly in silence, tactfully keeping his concerned eyes fixed firmly anywhere but on the other exorcist.

The possible conformer they had been watching turned in shock as she was grabbed roughly by the shoulders by a black and gold clad man with a foul facial expression on his face. There was another similarly dressed- man? She couldn't really tell- standing worriedly behind the first, wringing their hands together and biting his (her?) lower lip anxiously.

"Can I help you gentlemen?" she asked, taking a guess at the green-haired person's gender and hoping they wouldn't be too insulted if she was wrong.

Neither man answered, but the shorter white-haired one, who, she realised, was actually younger than she was despite the misleading colour of his hair, narrowed his grey eyes at her and tightened his gloved grip on her shoulder. He flicked his eyes briefly at his companion before returning his scrutinizing gaze to her face. Strangely she didn't feel threatened, whatever these people wanted, it did not seem like they would cause her harm, but instead rather ticked off as the silence stretched on. She opened her mouth to give this strange man a piece of her mind when something green glowing in the corner of her eye caught her attention.

"It's reactive, as you thought General" the green haired one spoke, breaking the tense silence.

The other man nodded shortly. "Call it in" he said, his cold English accent catching her attention straight away. He didn't release his deceptively strong grip on her shoulder, looking down at her with something like pity in his cold grey eyes. "Congratulations, you've just become an exorcist."

A little while later Allen managed to escape from Lanel, who was keeping an eye on the newest exorcist until her escort back to headquarters arrived. The angel had been giving him some very worried looks lately and to be frank he was sick of it.

The new girl, Kathleen ("call me Kat, everyone does"), had stayed well away from him, casting dubious glances in his direction every now and then. He supposed he had come across a bit cold and unapproachable, something in the past he'd hate to be perceived as, but he couldn't find it in himself to care about that right now. He had a job to do, whether he liked it or not.

He scrubbed a hand over his face. Was he no better than those at Central Administration? He'd not even given that girl (girl? Hah! She was at least five years older than he was! Why did they all seem so young and naive to him now? When did he become so cynical?) a chance to refuse. Now the innocence had claimed its user, and she would become an exorcist or die.

He choked suddenly, though whether it was to hold back a bark of laughter or a sob he didn't know. He felt he was losing himself to a cause he only half believed in, out of his depth, in way over his head, and suddenly, inexplicably very tired, very young and very homesick.

0o0o0o0

Jim kept a tactful silence. In fact, he didn't think he said more than five words at a time since they'd first set out. At first he'd just assumed that it was Kanda's natural surliness that led the older man to maintain that silence between them, but the longer it went on, the more Jim realised that Kanda was actually thinking. Deeply it seemed, no matter how strange an occurrence that was Jim had always regarded Kanda as, well, not stupid per se (though he wouldn't call him the sharpest sword in the armoury), but as someone who spent little time engaged in thought, and who considered time spent thinking wasted at best, preferring to use his body rather than his brain in most situations.

But here he was, contrary to popular belief, thinking hard about something, so much so that he was paying little attention to his surroundings.

Not that that mattered really, thought Jim with a mental eye roll. Their train had broken down halfway across Russia, and Kanda had decided that waiting for the train to be repaired would take too long and so had set off in the direction of the closest town, a very unhappy Jim trailing after him.

That was why they were here, tramping through huge snow drifts, in the middle of nowhere, added Jim with an angry scowl.

They were still a couple of miles away from the town that the confused train driver had pointed them in the direction of earlier, frowning and scratching his head at the insistence of the Japanese exorcist that no, it would not be better waiting for the repair, yes, he was sure and if the stupid little man didn't shut up, this very big pointy shiny sword would become very friendly with his little moustached face.

Needless to say, the driver had not pushed the issue.

Anyone trying to sneak up on the two exorcists would have a hard time doing it- they were bordered by flat empty white ground, the closest cover was the distant dark shadow of a forest several miles to the west, so perhaps Kanda's blatant disregard of their surroundings was understandable, but it was still so unexpected- so…un-Kanda-like. Jim couldn't remember anytime in the near five years that he'd know the other man that Kanda had been anything but completely attentive and aware of his surroundings while on a mission.

Not that Kanda wasn't being his usual self in other ways. Any of Jim's offers to ease the journey with his innocence had been vetoed immediately by the other man, who obviously thought that accepting any help was a sign of weakness.

Jim couldn't believe Kanda's stubbornness- all the New Zealander wanted was to get somewhere warm and dry. Quickly. He growled quietly under his breath. He knew better than to question Kanda, but he couldn't help but wonder what the older man was thinking about so hard.

It was true that Kanda was thinking hard, but it was not deep and meaningfuls that held his attention in an iron grip. In fact, Kanda was working hard at not thinking, but his traitorous mind kept insisting on recalling the events of the morning after the leaving party.

XxXxXxXxX

"Good morning" a voice far too joyful for this time of day (whatever it was), greeted him cheerfully.

Kanda groaned and tried to roll over, away from that infernally happy voice. Unfortunately, moving his head didn't agree with him and he felt decidedly sick. "Ugh. Kill me now, I don't think I can do it myself" he said by was of acknowledgment.

"Told you that you were drunk" said the voice smugly, the edge of the bed dipping down as Allen took a seat.

"Shut up" growled Kanda, his head still spinning and his eyes prickling a warning that opening them would be a very ad idea. "I blame you Moyashi" he grumbled childishly, all the while wondering why his curse was doing nothing to ease his pounding head.

Allen said nothing, instead nudging Kanda's shoulder and pressing a glass into his hand.

"What the hell's this?"

"Hangover cure. Something I used to make for Cross al the time when I was younger. Works like a charm."

Kanda cracked open an eye and looked at the concoction dubiously. "It looks like something someone threw up. What's in..?"

Allen grinned. "You don't want to know, but trust me, it'll sort you out in no time."

"Moyashi, I'm not drinking this… stuff, without knowing what's in it."

Allen rolled his eyes, the grin never leaving his face. "Alright, if you must know, there's a banana, a carrot, a tomato, a shot of vodka, some Tabasco sauce and a dash of milk in there."

Kanda had turned green by the end of the list. "Hell no!" He tried to put the glass down (as far away from him as possible), but Allen caught his wrist, tightening threateningly.

"Are you scared of a little drink?" he teased, moving the wrist he was holding (and so the hand attached and the glass the hand was holding) back towards Kanda. The older man glared at him and downed the drink in one go, though he couldn't disguise the expression of sheer disgust that crossed his face. Allen smile and handed him another glass, this one filled with water. "Here, gets rid of the taste and makes sure you get rehydrated."

Kanda quickly threw the water down his throat, glaring at Allen the whole time.

"You'll be back to normal in no time" grinned Allen, completely unaffected by the death-glare. "Now you're awake, Komui wants to see us in his office as soon as you're back to normal. Or as normal as you ever are." And Allen danced out of reach as Kanda lunged forward, seemingly intent on causing his lover some actual bodily harm. "See you later!"

XxXxXxXxX

Of course, the meeting with Komui was the one that informed them that they had to leave on the mission sooner than planned. That very afternoon in fact.

Which is why Kanda was currently thinking very hard. He'd not got to say a proper goodbye to the younger general, and the thought of holding him to his promise from the night before had been all but chased from his mind. Until now.

0o0o0o0o0

Another couple of weeks passed without much incident. The newest exorcist had been sent back to headquarters, three new innocence cubes had been located and Kanda had reached Japan, although there didn't seem to be any further leads to help him on his mission.

Which was why, when, a week after he'd arrived in Japan, he was contacted by Komui via golem that there was a serious Akuma infestation in Africa that needed taking care of and Allen and Lanel, Jim and Kanda and Lavi and Lenalee were all required to go and deal with it, the Japanese exorcist was not impressed.