Oh em gee gaiz, this chapter is done. Just in time for everyone to hate D. Gray For. Ev. AR. I have been known to have bad luck with timing IRL, it is true.
Ah, and I fixed the idiot formatting mistakes I always forget to fix when I upload stuff here. *headdesk*
A/N: As if the sheer amount of dialogue in this chapter didn't give it away that I feel my most-developed suit is and always has been dialogue, the word count is 2/3 more than the previous chapter. Just to prove that when people start talking, my stories get longer. (Which I don't think is the way it's supposed to work.... XD)
And, to you readers, I thought this might help: My interpretation of Link is based off of this idea: If you were sending an assassin to watch Priority Number 1, you wouldn't pick a ninny. You'd pick a guy who could PLAY the ninny, and get ya in a heartbeat too. :]
Also, this chapter isn't gore-filled like the others. I hope it's still up to the same quality level, but it's got a different focus. I also haven't beta'd it for six months like the other two, so it may change a little over time still. But I think it's still passable. The second and fourth scenes, I like the best. :3
Lol, Kanda. Again.
Dance of Shadows III: The Sun and the Moon
At the intersection of two long hallways, hidden to the side of the rooms reserved for exorcists in the labyrinthine hospital wing, stood a formidable, ornate door. The way to it grew increasingly more erratic, as Lavi moved from the brightly-lit common area where the likes of he, Lenalee, Krory and Kanda were still housed with their healing wounds. There was a small, wooden plank door he had been introduced to a while back, when he had taken to restlessly wandering the halls at night looking for where Allen had been taken. The door was on the same floor as their rooms and had no illumination by it; it hung on its hinges slightly crooked. Nearby was one solitary window with an arched top, but only one, dirty and cobwebbed and several inches thick. There were no bars, surprisingly, but people certainly weren't getting out of it.
But this was just the beginning. On the other side of the suspiciously rickety door tucked into the corner, the hallway became one person wide, a tight fit even for him. The walls suddenly lost their homey, if sterile, white plaster to reveal dark, damp stone piled feet deep. The lights were few and far between, single bulbs along the wall casting shadows in the silence. When an orb was out, he had to go in the absolute dark, toward the next island of light floating promisingly ahead.
The double-backing corridor started out as a plethora of metal doors with one small, square window in each, barred. As he dove farther in, the cells had black, wrought-iron doors set deep into the rough-hewn stone, definitive scratches along their worn locks. And after that, was a barren expanse with no doors at all and nothing but the lifeless cool to keep him company. The imaginary screams even drifted away.
One night he had walked this far (with Kanda along, admittedly) until finally, finally he could see a warm light glowing from around a curve. It spilled out along the ground and made him prominently aware that there was a blind corner here. He wouldn't have been surprised to encounter a spike-pit trap, or something as docile as an office used by someone who wanted to keep secrets.
And secrets were what they found.
Lavi had wanted to go first, he really did, but before he was done squaring his shoulders, Kanda had rightly so shoved him aside and vanished into light. If there was something awful ahead, it was better first encountered by Kanda, not just for his particular healing talents--for his reflexes and size, as well. Still, Lavi felt a sudden urge to be brave, even though that was exactly why he baited him into coming along--protection. Though, Kanda didn't have broken ribs, and the Bookman part of him was already blandly and pleasantly scribing, "And here Kanda Yu disappeared into history...."
Was that bad of him? Probably Lenalee would think so, yes. But was it undenyably him? Also yes.
Kanda's shadow disappeared with absolutely no event. There was a pause, as the candlelight burning into the floor flickered without a sound, and Lavi waited. Wondering how many seconds it would be.
And then, he thought he heard a disgruntled huff in the silence.
"Yuu? You still there somewhere?"
"Yeah," he grumbled, almost disappointed. Lavi heard him heave a sigh, and then, "Come 'ere, moron."
Lavi did so. Not ten feet from where he had stood, the corridor curved and then opened onto a wide T-intersection, a spacious square room made even bigger by the polished white-tile floor reflecting the candles that hung around the place.
Kanda stood in the center of a circular design in the floor, that was mirrored on the ceiling as far as could be told in the dim light, his back tightly chorded. Beyond his shape were four Vatican guards, and the dark, menacing door Lavi would come to loath as a symbol of his deepening inadequacy.
It was as red as Lavi's hair, brightly-varnished double oak and fully engraved with all the Order's splendor. He had found out, after that nocturne adventure with his fellow exorcist, that it was said to be coated with a varnish part blood in order to cast its spell, the fluid drawn from an unlucky, unwilling few plucked from the first round of human sacrifices given to the Order's causes.
This door, he had discovered, existed for one purpose and one alone: to seal the rooms that lay beyond. And everything that occurred within the hallowed chambers beyond occurred for one reason: to further the cause of the Order. But for all any of them knew, he thought as he was again before its massive presence, under the stares of the guards and minus his Japanese shadow, that there was more blood yet being spilled beyond the maze of carved crimson roses blocking his path.
"C'mon, Yuu, let's go," he had said, after both of them determined there was no way to force open the barrier and he had kept the man from dispatching the guards with his bare hands.
"Fuck it all," Kanda swore with a thickening accent. He spun on his heel and strode forward into the blackness, itching to sheathe a sword he didn't have. "He's as good as dead. Leave him behind."
"But Yuu, don't you want to save the Princess?" Lavi whispered, tipping his head slightly as he mirrored the guards' stare at him.
By the time Kanda had spoken again, all Lavi had seen was a world of breathing darkness speaking back to him.
"He doesn't want anyone's help, Lavi. I was hoping we'd find him dead."
"They're probably thinking I'm torturing you horribly in here," Link said, moving a pawn.
"Chess can be a torture, that is true," Allen returned amicably, considering the board.
The soft morning light spilled into the white room from its single but many-pained window, off to the right of Allen's bed. As he had been for many days now, he rested with his back against a stash of pillows, bound to the bone in patches, gauze, stitches, and salves. There wasn't much time in which he was awake, but when he was, all he had was a white room and Inspector Link, both of which were punctuated only infrequently by a few hours of excruciating pain brought on by the head nurse coming to change his dressings and check his wounds. Needless to say, he had a lot of time to think, and it was getting old.
Today, his dear living shadow the Dutchman had brought in a chess set from somewhere before Allen had awoken, and currently he sat opposite Allen's loosely-folded legs. Between them, Link had set out the chess board on an empty in-bed meal-serving tray, and the blond man perched with crossed legs on the far end of the bed, his coat draped over the baseboard.
"If you say so." Link shrugged, unconvinced.
"Why aren't you letting anyone in to see me," Allen said, finally deciding on a knight.
"It's not that I'm not letting anyone," Link persisted, stepping out a pawn. "No one has come."
"Should I really believe that?" A white pawn directed foward.
"You haven't seen me step out when there is a knock, and then come back with a scowl, have you?" He smiled, a bit deviously, and drew forth another pawn from the line. "No, I haven't hardly moved from this room, these many weeks."
Allen sighed, and stared at the board with a sad frown. "The Supervisor hasn't even come to see me.... I thought at least he would come. You've even had that scary frenchman of a boss come see you, several times. Er, no offense."
"Just to tell me what I'm doing wrong," Link commented, putting his head in his palm. Then he flicked his eyes up to the boy and smiled wickedly. "I'll tell him you said that."
Allen's eyes went comically wide. Link shook his head in amusement, and fiddled with the top of the black bishop's crown, which was by his hand to begin with. "But no, the Supervisor came by while you were unconscious."
"And how was he?" the boy asked hopefully.
Link motioned at the board, and Allen quickly swooped out a piece to placate him. Link sat back and nodded. "Do you mean physcially? Or in regards to you?"
"Um...." Allen bit his lip, and then had a change of heart. "Both!--Ow...."
His cheer disappeared into a groan as he grabbed at his chest.
"Careful, Walker," Link muttered. "I spent a lot of time stitching you together."
Allen sighed, as he watched Link move another chess piece. "Right, right....'Not just you, either...'," he recited by rote.
"Correct. But that's my blood that kept you alive. Repay me by not sheding any of it through burst stitches."
'Repay'....
Allen dropped his head and shivered, and Link watched the whole spectacle with raised eyebrows. Until, of course, Allen looked back up with a determined stare.
"Right, I can do this...," Allen whispered to himself, as though Link weren't even there.
Note, Link thought: General Cross destroyed Allen Walker's sense of security.
"But in regards to the Supervisor," Link continued, picking up the bishop and holding it in the air, "He was a little battered but better than most. He was upset that you had to get so hurt during the battle, but through the whole time he kept professing a great worry over his sister, Lenalee Lee. He hadn't seen her yet, I guess."
"Oh...." Allen's face took on a downcast tint. "Well, that sounds like him...."
Link descended his bishop onto the board, clinking aside one of Allen's pieces. His fingers curled around the little white pawn, dancing it around his piece, and then spiriting it away completely.
Allen frowned at the missing pawn, but quickly moved to replace it in the defense line.
"Well, at least he came at all, and quickly, too. He must really have been worried about me...."
The last part died out. Link moved in a rook, beginning a flanking maneuver around a large group of pawns.
"I think he was."
"And he didn't ask about me once since then?"
"Not to me."
"Hm." Allen frowned, moving out his right bishop to protect the queen. Then he smiled, quite softly, but not serenely. Link instantly memorized the feature, catalogued it in memory, along with whatever would come after it.
"No, I understand," Allen admitted gently. "They have families, people who are important to them. They have to come first; I get that."
"...Do you really believe that?"
Allen looked at him then, sad; grey eyes reflecting the milky room with its milky light. Then he smiled, mockingly, while his gaze descended to the hands laid in his lap. "Of course I do. I'm just a waif, an orphan. From the moment I was abandoned by my parents, I was destined to be considered second and second-class." He rubbed his head, gingerly, slowly working his arm up to cause the least amount of sharp gasps along the way. But he did it, pressing through with his insecure gesture no matter what pains it took.
"No, I completely understand: they have family, obligations, people to look after. I'm on nobody's list, and I'm second if I am; I get that. But it'd be nice if they came to visit me, if just once. . . ." He smiled hopefully, and it died when he made eye contact with his captor. Maybe because he remembered who he was talking to, or maybe because Link had a particularly unforgiving look on his face--he wasn't quite sure.
Link, for his part, shook his head. It was just sad, but . . .
He took his rook and smashed through a line of pawns. "I'm glad you know your place, Walker. Nothing can cause more problems than mistaking that."
For a while, Allen did nothing but stare at the sheets. It had been quite a few weeks since he had bled on them and they'd gone through the riggors of changing them with him so battered, but pretty soon, he might be well enough to actually stand while they did it, facilitating the work to occur more often. It would be nice to have clean sheets, a clean home, again, and honestly, to see the matron while she and the nurses did it. They wouldn't have to worry over him anymore, and he wouldn't have to be helpless. It would be nice. It would be his goal, if only he could get his Innocence to cooperate and do it, too.
After a while, Link was still studying him and he roused himself into moving his less-injured arm in order to continuing the game. "Where's Timcampy? He's been gone for a few days....Hope he didn't get eaten by something...."
"He's been with General Cross, as far as I can tell." Link knicked over another pawn, much to Allen's displeasure. "Your friend ran off with another man, I'm sorry."
"Oh, shut up." But there was doubt in that voice. Behind fingers that obscured it, a dark smile curled across Link's cheek.
"What about Lenalee?" Allen asked.
"No news."
"Lavi?"
"Watching over Bookman."
"Bookman?"
"Indisposed."
"Miranda?"
"Being kept close watch by Marie."
"Marie, then."
"Bothering Kanda."
"Not that I care about Kanda coming to see me, but I assume he's being a right prick as always?"
"Of course." Link ticked a smile that Allen could see. "Actually, he's been hiding out. He appears to be shaken, poor Orient thing."
Kanda? 'Poor thing'? Allen shook his head, wrinkling his nose. "Whatever you say. Sure, mate."
"Indeed. I do say." Link moved another rook, and suddenly, only one pawn of Allen's was left in the cluster.
The white-haired youth groaned in frustration. "Can't we just play poker?"
"If you play sleeveless."
Allen scowled at him, hard.
"Cheating is a sin, Walker, and so is gambling."
"So is lying," Allen grumbled, catching Link's forgotten left bishop.
"And so is suicide, but you don't see me complaining."
That would throw him for a loop. While Allen's mouth fell open, Link's knight, moved for the first time, took out the last white pawn upon the starkly checkered plain. Link swept out his gloved hand with a smile, and Allen groaned.
"Ah, man...."
"Might I ask you something, Walker?" Link asked, sitting back while Allen eyed the board in distress.
"Yeah fine, what?"
"Why did the generals leave you up there to die?"
"Huh?" Allen's browline stitched together, and even though it had been a while, there were still bruisings and scabs that colored the skin around them, and conspicuously missing patches of hair.
"Up above the shutters: You were left against a wall. Lenalee Lee had to find someone to help you. Two of the generals should have been there, but instead, they left you behind. Why."
"Did they?" Allen looked rather horrified. "I..." His eyes swept across his sheets, and then to each wall of the room in turn, until he fixed on the grey-blue sky beyond the window. "I don't really remember that, I'm sorry."
Link tipped his head, considering. "You remember that pipe that was about to kill you?" He decidedly left off "in the lab," because he didn't really feel like stealing information out of crying suspects today."Pipe...." Allen stated.
"Yes. Big. Big. Nearly crushed you. Fire everywhere. Remember that?"
Slowly, Allen's head went from side to side, a smoothly-oiled axis in which his wide eyes did not waver. It was something he was strangely good at, and it still made Link shiver every time.... Not that he would let him see it.
"Why?" Allen asked. "Were you there or something?"
"Not at all," Link said, pulling up another piece from the board. "I heard about it and thought it might have hurt."
"Bloody sadist," Allen swore.
"Just worried about you."
The boy stared.
"We weren't sure you were going to make it. There is a sizable gap in your memory, and it's worrisome." He put down the piece he had been toying with, but left his finger on the top of it. "...So the doctor says."
"'The doctor'?" Allen exclaimed. "You've been talking to people about me? With what I tell you? It might not all be right, you know, I don't tell you everything--!"
"Do you not?" Link asked, faking facescious with the best affronted air he could pull on short notice. "Gee, I would never have guessed."
Allen's mouth fell open further.
"And now, I believe it is your move, Allen Walker," Link said with a cheerful smile he had quite forgotten he was capable of.
"Don't ever do that again, mate, if you could; that was wicked strange," Allen said, shaking out his head and only after the wince remembering that he shouldn't have moved.
"Dear me, and the Briton slang comes out."
"Go thump your bible or something."
"You know, if you learned to read, we wouldn't have these delightful games to play."
"I can read! A ... little!"
Link sighed, and it was genuine. "Have you ever even picked up a Bible in your life, Walker?"
"Sure I did--When I was trying to beat the debauchery out of Master with it. Or when he was hitting me with it."
Link raised an eyebrow. Well, at least the man did something right.
"No belts?" Link asked.
Allen's face fell. But then he recovered, tossing his head with clever eyes--as much as he could in his limited range of movement. "Oh, I suppose you're a whip-from-a-nun and a board-from-a-priest type of kid, huh? What kind of parochial schools do they have up there, in a place that uses flowers as currency?"
Allen laughed, and Link held up his hand. "We used the bulbs, not the flowers, and they hurt when people throw them at you, I'll have you know."
"Oh?" Allen asked, smiling brightly. "Who threw them at you, Link? The little girl next door, perhaps?"
"Ha, you wish." But then, he rested his chin on his folded fingers, and his look softened. He stared off into space, and said simply, "My parents, actually."
"Your parents? They threw things...?"
Link scoffed and shook his head slightly, though his eyes did not waver. "No...in the spring, we'd plant them. Big baskets of them.... And in the fall--you have to break off the new buds, you know?--there'd be a lot of throwing of those involved." He closed his eyes and shrugged, and Allen wondered at the place Link's mind was remembering. Sunny fields and a sharp sea breeze---
"That must have been the last summer I saw them, actually."
"...What?"
Link glanced back at him, lower jaw moving his hand as he spoke. "I haven't been back in . . . fourteen years." He arched his eyebrows at the thought, and then shrugged.
"But you're only...18? 19?"
Link nodded. "Yes."
"But--why? Why would you do that? You had a family, why would you leave them?"
He shrugged again, turning his head to crack his neck. "When one is given a cause, one must follow it." He sighed and unfolded from the bed, standing up to stretch. "Going back's not something a person does in the Order, you know that."
He threaded his fingers together and then pushed his palms up toward the ceiling. Allen's muscles itched in jealousy, and he sighed. In the interim, he got a good look at the back of Link's vest, and just how long his hair was. He'd always wondered about that.
"Or do you?" Link asked, but when Allen checked, he was still turned away from him. The blond had folded his arm behind his neck from above, and was pulling his elbow back behind his head, farther than it actually should go normally. Allen's eyebrow twitched. Guy was in good shape, for a stuffy type.
"I wonder how many more siblings I have than when I left," Link continued softly, pulling his arm back further. "Or less. . . ?"
Allen mirrored his thoughtful hum, and turned back to the board. Tentatively, he reached out, and made a quiet but steady move with his king.
"I wonder who my mother is, sometimes."
Link turned to watch him from under his arms. "Not the father?"
The boy shook his head. "I don't care who my father is. I have Mana."
Allen took his finger from the pointed crown, and slowly, Link unfolded his arms. He bent down over the board, took his remaining bishop, and placed it at the very last white square it could claim.
"And that, my friend, is check and checkmate."
***
"Ah! No!" Allen wailed, flopping back into the pillows. "I'm so bad at this game. I'm better at bloody Majongg!"
"That, last I checked, is a game you can also cheat at, albeit it is hard to." Link considered it for a second, mildly impressed by the possibility. One had to use the talents one was given, after all.
"Shall I take this back to General Tiedoll, then?" Link asked amicably, smiling down at him.
"Pleeeease, take it away!"
Link nodded, rematerializing the pieces he had stashed away and carefully plucking the others into their place within the set. "I'll get you something to eat while I'm at it."
"Would you really?!" Allen beamed, radiating like the moon as the ray of white sunlight from the window was making a halo of light around his head. Link stared at the view for just a second, and then shook his head out. Maybe just like a good cream pie, perhaps, rather than the moon. . . .
Allen considered the momentary lapse in demeanor on Link's part and the rather practiced wrist flicks with which he handled the game pieces. Maybe he fenced, or something?
As Link straightened to his full height, which wasn't much admittedly, Allen blurted: "I'm not a traitor, you know."
"That's nice," Link said, without missing a beat. The way he was prone to whenever Allen brought it up.
"No, I'm serious. What the hell would I be doing, letting myself get this messed up? Be suspicious if I were fine, like ... Kanda, or ..." His head twisted up to Link, with a growing look of horror. "...You...."
If Link was in any way surprised, he didn't show it. Instead, a grin stretched across his face, white and toothy. "Starting to understand the game now, are you?" He hefted the folded board and tipped his nonexistent hat with it. "All the more reason to suspect you, my dear Walker."
And with that, he disappeared from the room, Allen sputtering behind him.
Link closed the looming double-oak doors to the second antechamber, the last room to travel through to get out of the suite that was Walker's "accommodations." And when he slipped through the massive doors of the Seal, just as he suspected the dear rouge-headed Bookman Junior was waiting for him with a dark scowl plastered across his features, like he had been almost every day this week.
Link clicked the door shut behind him softly, feeling the magic lace up his fingers to reset the binding as he did so. When it was done tingling up his arms, he pushed his shoulders back in challenge. The several sets of Central guards on either side helped the effect greatly. "Yes?"
"You can't keep him locked in there forever, you know. What are you doing with him?"
"Making friends, in the abscence of all of you."
The rogue's bright green eyes narrowed. "Don't lie to me."
Link shrugged.
"I could force my way in there, claiming the Bookman rite, and you couldn't do anything about it, you know that."
"That's true. And that's exactly what I'd tell him--that that's why you wanted to see him, and only why. And I would hold you to it, rest assured. I could also get you thrown out of the Order for what you just said, and then what would the old man say?"
He smiled pleasantly, if just a little smarmy, and Lavi nearly growled.
"Come, walk with me, if you have something more to impart. I've got a General to see. I'm sure you could benefit from some time with one."
"Oh shut the hell up," Lavi snarled, as Link walked away. "I could break down that door, you know! I could!"
"No you couldn't," Link called over his shoulder, swinging a key around his index finger. He quickly snapped it back up into his palm, and felt the warm energy radiate. There were barriers activated by the absence of the crest on this key, so numerous and ancient not even the likes of Cross Marian could open them in less than a week.
He could hear Lavi fume behind him, and it was far more satisfying than he probably should have let it been.
"You're making Lenalee cry, you know that?! She's worried about Allen, you pony-tailed freak, and she can't even come see him! Even Komui's worried sick from all of your damned red tape. You can't be that horrible of a man, can you? You haven't fallen to L'Vallier's level yet, have you, you goddamned prick!" He growled in frustration, and then chased after Link's retreating back. He caught him around the dark corner, clutching his shoulder in the single-file shadows. "What could be so important that you'd be willing to make a little girl cry!"
"Because it's more important that you are alive tomorrow--All of you, and the rest of the people we have here--than to have you see him!" Link snapped back, whirling on his heel and smacking his hand off. "Do you get that, Lavi?"
He flinched at the name. Link had never spoken it.
"It's not about that, it's about the world we've got to save!" Link continued. "I don't know what you care, but the rest of us have too much riding on this organization to stop and think about one life! Even if I wanted to, I wouldn't! Know your damn place and stay in it, you lousy American!"
Lavi frowned and straightened. The both of them huffed at each other for a second, and then Link shook his head, like a bristling animal. "Yes, I know your secrets, Lavi," he grumbled, smoothing down the side of his jacket. "Besides, if you really cared about him you would realize I'm just doing the job I'm here to do. You would go around me to someone who could do something about it." He guestured upward flippantly with his hand, all the while shaking his head, but gears in Lavi's head were starting to turn.
"Here, come 'ere." Link ushered him over, a little further back and toward the stone. They were out of range of the guards, both sight and sound, and it piqued Lavi's curiosity. The redhead came within a few inches of him when they reached it, but the blond moved back further into the shadows, continuing to motion him. "Here, closer. Closer."
"Yeah? What is it? What?"
Link leaned against the wall with one shoulder, and Lavi, checking back once and then leaning in conspiratorily, leaned his shoulder next to him against the damp earth, arms crossed with a knowing raise of the eyebrow.
Like he was being smooth.... Link reshuffled the chessboard into his left hand, sighed, and then rammed his free fist into Lavi's gut.
No sound other than a soft whoop of breath even escaped him, and it was immediately drowned out in the silence of the tunnel. Lavi curled around Link's arm, and Link dropped him into the shadow from the escarpment in the wall. "That's for giving me holy hell in public," he said, shaking out his hand.
Through gritted teeth, Lavi looked like he was trying to curse something at him, but it wouldn't materialize. Just as it should have been; Link was satisfied enough with his fist's performance; he wasn't getting rusty afterall, all those weeks with Walker.
He placed the chessboard to the back of Lavi's head, forcing him to bend forward slightly. "Since it seems I'll be with Walker for at least a week more, say "Thank you" to that Kanda for me, and give my deepest apologies to Miss Lenalee. This work wasn't made for women, but we all do what we have to."
The redhead gasped, clutching at his stomach, and then coughed something that was probably supposed to be "Fuck you."
Link sighed, rolling his eyes and throwing up his hands. "I guess I'll try again next week." He swooped down the hand with the chess set and impacted the exorcist's head with it. Lavi sprawled against the crook in wall, gasping sharply. He blinked heavily while the world spun, clawing at the wood for purchase.
Link dusted off his jacket and spun on his heel, determined to acheive Tiedoll's chambers within the hour. Curses disappeared behind him, and he strode rapidly down the ancient hallway, going for the secret exit. "Holy Mother in Heaven, how obvious do I have to be around here?"
Allen stared at the ceiling, that white expanse that he would often find himself staring at when he would come to realize that he had lost consciousness for a while. It was familiar and calm by now; he had memorized every dip in the plaster, the way the sunlight streaked across the room at different times of day when he awoke. The light was moving, now, slowly drawing down onto him. The little shadows in the uneven plaster were starting to sparkle, dancing across his view as he waited, listened, tried to breathe.
"Timcampy...?"
He could feel his arms, legs, everything tingling with hypersensitivity before he started swimming. He suddenly felt very light, the only sensation the very edge of his fingers and toes tickling, the sensation into his brain grainy like the picture was full of swarming dots.
When he blinked, it was hard to open his eyes again, and the movement of his lids took time. And it was sweet, that feeling when his eyes closed.
His ears started to ring, a soft sound just at the edge of consciousness, growing in time like ocean waves. The white was no longer so white, it was growing blue like the sky, with waves of clouds in between the sunbeams.
"Tim, where are you . . . don't leave me. . . ?"
The waves were rolling, like the endless bodies of water he had seen. He was going to drown one of these days, slipping under the cold roiling sea of the jet black, as if he had never been there at all.
He wanted the cold, the blanket of ice to slip around him and cool his limbs, he wanted to float but he just kept sinking, farther and farther and hotter and hotter.
If she hadn't been there....We would've died. Innocence, I would have died....And she would have had to cry again.
He remembered Lenalee's concerned face, suddenly, bending over him with a shadowy backdrop, but he couldn't remember where it had come from. It was sad for a while, concerned, until it transformed into something much, much worse.
That soul. Allen closed his eyes, but couldn't chase the feeling, of the darkness and the warped color pounding against the insides of his head.
He turned into the pillow, as much as he could; the stitches moving as he moved his head and scraped his legs against the sheets.
This was all he could move. And he had been here for weeks now. Was still struggling to breathe.
We need to get stronger, Innocence. Stronger....
The image of Lenalee and the trapped souls crying came to him together, at once, an amalgamated mass distorting and screaming and it threatened to split his head, unbalance his stomach and carry him away completely. He reached up to press at his head, and had the distinct feeling some part of him was bleeding.
His left arm was lying wrapped in white, just like the rest of him, the fingers slightly curled and unresponsive. He forced his eyes shut and breathed through his nose, trying not to feel the stitches stretch as he did so; tried not to think about how his heart might bleed again if his grasp on the Innocence failed.
I can't do anything lying here. I never want to see that again; I want to make sure they're okay. Have to stop the akuma from evolving....
The Innocence resonated, faintly. Like it was hiding underneath many layers of flesh, rather than being at the surface like it was. It was soft, though, a feeling of purity, a white glow that made him feel normal again in that one small section of his hand. If it could only get to his stomach, he wouldn't feel like he was dying, and he may get to see some of his friends before they forgot about him.
Potentially, before they or he died. If he wasn't there to protect them, what then? Without him, they'd die, just like Mana. They'd be cold, like everyone he'd seen put into the ground.
The Innocence pulsed, and he twitched his fingers in response. Crown was sad. It felt for him, but, in the same way that it couldn't really feel guilt, it couldn't completely understand making him feel better via human sympathy. But it knew "normalcy;" it knew "rightness" and "health" as its benchmark, and so it tried to give him that. He appreciated it; he could use more of it. But he had overtaxed it or it had overcooked him or both, because It had yet to come from its shell and explore the rest of his body like it tended to when he was this broken.
For now, he was on his own, even though he was surrounded by entities of one kind or another.
The shadow was still in the window, and trying to ignore it was harder than anything else. Allen sighed, breathless and half aware, and turned to the brilliant blue beyond the glass. The Shadow was looking at him from slightly above, head tipped as if considering him. Perhaps it was; it made him feel a little better to think it worried about him.
As it was, though, he had become acutely aware of how it would be his sentinal if he died in this room.
Allen blinked, slowly, at it, and it was possible it did just as if it were an akuma's soul, but diesmbodied--as if an akuma's soul were following him around, instead of the usual way.
It hadn't spoken since the Ark though, and even if it did now, with the course dots creating a screen over his vision, he wasn't sure he could trust it to be real if it did now. If it was real.
Allen sighed, sinking further into the pillows. Regardless, it'd be nice if it would tell him what it wanted, why it was watching him, what the hell it was, so that it could go away pretty soon and he could get back to the akuma....
He was staring at it, he realized suddenly, and it was staring back.
It had talked before. He could make this work.
"You won't tell me what you want? Are you lost?"
The smile crooked up, just a little, but the eyes--or lack of them--did not change.
It was just . . . waiting?
"What are you here for?"
Simply, it tipped its head the other way.
"Is it ... me?"
The Shadow blinked, and then it walked out of the frame.
Allen sighed, and turned back to his sparkling cieling.
I'm not getting enough air....
Come to think of it, he was gasping, wasn't he?
So much air, sucking it in. His chest was heaving, he could see it at the bottom of his vision, but he could also feel things ripping. Muted, always muted in the haze of morphine and aching all over his body.
He was passing out, for the umpteenth time. The Innocence . . . that warmth in his hand had been the first time he'd felt it in days. This was probably some reaction to the Innocence, draining too much from him.
And then suddenly, there was an all-too-familiar voice in his head, as if it was next to his ear. And his right arm was moving on its own.
"My...Allen."
The hand ghosted down the raised line of stitches to his bellybutton, not particularly gracefully, to the music of slight chuckling echoing around his brain. Then his fingers slid back up the mountain chain, repeating the movement across the other line of puckered flesh, the ridge embedded in his left pectoral.
He wasn't sure if it was the sparkles in his eyes or something else, but he couldn't feel the sensation at all.
"...Is sick."
His hand came to rest on his abdomen, and across his wounds, something blossomed, warm, and dark. It was nothing but darkness, but it was a pretty darkness, soft flecks of shadowy color in silken depths smoothing around him. It was warm and familiar, that darkness, pooling all together and floating around within him. After a while, Allen bonded with it, lost in a cradle he didn't realize he had known before.
There were no thoughts, no memories in the primordial sea, but a whispering male voice, whose syllables he could not recognize, floated around his mind and lifted just as the weight of the water receeded. The gentle colors disappeared completely, and Allen was left floating in a place of not quite awake, not quite asleep. And it was white. So very, very white, in a way that made him hum in happiness.
This was his Inncocence, and he understood now.
"How's the heartbeat?"
"Strong. And more so even than it's been in weeks." There was a pause, soft and far-away, in which Allen smiled at the winking lights behind his eyelids.
"It would seem," the woman's voice said eventually, "that he's actually better." Her mouth tipped down.
With a happy little warble, Allen opened his eyes, and found a white coat to greet him.
After a moment, a dark-haired head came into view as well, and a hand smoothed over his head.
"How are you feeling, Allen?" Komui whispered. For the first time in a long time, hairs didn't slip away.
"Mm, Ko'mmm'i," Allen smiled, dreamily.
The warm hand stroking over his hair patted him, after a time. "Good news, Allen. Your Innocence healed you again. You're going to be all right...."
"...'n wasn' my Inn'sence," Allen muttered. "But it helped." He reached out with his left hand, and grasped the folds of Komui's coat.
"I found out. Ih' was waiting, Clown was waiting, 'til i was bedder." He smiled. "It wasn' run'n 'way from me...."
Komui smoothed over Allen's hair again and plucked off the smaller hand, curling his fingers around the boy's. Weakly, the black digits squeezed back, and Allen gave him another drunken smile.
"Why would your Innocence do that? You work so hard for us. God loves you, Allen."
Allen frowned. "Tha's nah tru, Komwi. 'S why 'm still here. Don lye...."
Allen trilled off unhappily and Komui just nodded, patting Allen's head like he would a small child. He did, however, cast a worried look toward the far wall of the room, where a particular blond was leaning, glaring profusely.
"Can see th' otherss ssoon?" came the little voice, as the arm came again to tug at his coat.
The matron, who was on Allen's other side, leaned over her patient and tucked him in to the sheets once more. "If you're good, and do what I tell you, you might soon be well enough to be moved in with everyone else. No one's been formally released yet, especially not to go bother the other patients. You have to promise me you won't wander around."
Allen frowned, his clouded eyes working hard on something as they flickered. He turned to Komui again, voice hoarse and cracking. He probably wouldn't last much longer in this segment of wakefulness, the man realized. Allen's mouth worked for a second, but finally he asked, "Still? Af' all this time, no one's k?"
Komui nodded, giving Allen's a friendly pat on the hand that was still attached to him. "Even Lavi broke a few ribs, not to mention his head." he grinned. "We don't want him going anywhere, and he's too restless to let loose. You know how he is."
"Hmmm." Allen smiled a sleepy grin, nestling down into the pillows. "Howz evv'one else?"
"They're all doing much better. Recovering even faster than you, little Allen!"
Allen smirked, but there was a pained look stretching over his eyebrows. "'M glad. 'm glad."
They worked for a while, in silence, until Allen's voice piped up again, his eyelids working open again. "Lenalee?"
"She wants to see you," Komui smiled, sitting on the side of Allen's bed and taking up his black hand. "She's been worried sick about you."
"m sorry."
"Don't be sorry. She'll be so happy that you're finally getting better. I am too, you know."
Allen smiled pleasantly at that, and for a while, was contented with watching Komui work over Allen's Innocence-covered hand.
Komui had a way with Innocence, when he wasn't being insane, that was just the right amount of reverence and business sense. Allen let him work, ignoring the lack of his hand in exchange for the comforting sensations he had recieved ever other time he'd come back from a mission and half-passed out in a chair in the science department.
Allen sighed happily and let it be. This was the way things worked. He went out and fought, the science department came in and dealt with him with kindness he had rarely known in life.
Certainly not what he had known from Cross most days.
Slowly, Allen felt a look boring into his head. He opened his eyes the direction from which he felt it, and his gaze fell upon his dear Inspector Link, glaring daggers at him.
The matron had gone around by Komui and, in the open spot, Link stormed over and placed a deck of cards on bedside table.
"I take your bet, and raise you," he said, clipped.
Allen's snowy lashes danced downward, and one side of his mouth couldn't help but pull up, unnaturally far. When he spoke, his voice was decidedly stronger than it had been, and he didn't think that was showing his cards at all.
"But I thought you liked our games together, Inspector."
omake:
Tiedoll: Why is there blood on my chessboard?
*awkward pause*
T: You aren't doing anything to poor Allen you shouldn't be, are you?
L: No, just that devil-haired Lavi character.
T: Ah, very good. carry on then.
L: Thank you. I will.
A/N: Blatant chess parable is blatant. XD
The stuff with Lavi at the beginning I think is a bit long, so it's okay to tell me if that's true. It just came out and I dunno what to do with it now. I managed to tie it in, at least? D:
I think the ending is a bit cheap but oddly striking because you didn't see it coming. I think it sums things up in a way you don't realize at first. But then again, I've never been good with endings. :/
Special thanks again to everyone who has read and left such nice reviews. 3 Thank you for pandering to the type of reviews that I find useful. It's not that I'm not tough, oh not at all, it's that I value happy people more.... ^^;;;;; ?
These are the three parts that were originally meant to be Dance of Shadows. There might be two more parts, one with more gore and one that's much later in the future. But who can say. It's hard not to be hax when Komui + OMG DISASTER + omg Allen's losing hair. But you strangely feel a great drive to see that, don't you? XD It's just hard not to be hax. XD;;; I'll try though. Tell me if you want to see it. XD;
As always: I love reviews where people squee at me and go, "Oh, I really felt that part, and this one really stuck out." It's also fair game to say, "I didn't quite understand this" or "that didn't ring quite right with me." So long as you play nice, pretty pleeease. x3
Hearts to you guys! :D Enjoy it summore.
Thanks, Gani~
last update: 10/09
