Chapter eight – Sparing
Despite Allen's firm suggestion they stick to regular poker and not of the strip variety, nearly an hour into the game – an hour which strongly resembled war – a pile of garments consisting of two pairs of boots, a green headband, a hair tie – which had sparked a fiery debate over whether a hair tie counted as an item of clothing or not – and a black coat belonging to the self proclaimed 'champ' had accumulated neatly before the real ruler of the game.
Lenalee lay sprawled across Allen's bed; having lost out of the game shortly before stripping became paramount, watching her male companions do battle on the floor.
Lavi glanced cautiously up from his hand to look at the cards that lay spread on the floor between them before glancing over at his white haired friend who cocked a snowy eyebrow at him but other whys he held a perfect poker face – of course if you disincluded the flames that could practically be seen dancing chaotically behind him.
"What'll it be Baka Usagi?" Kanda asked, irritably flicking a lock of his blue black hair from his face.
"I think I'm gonna fold…" Lavi mumbled setting his cards face down on the ground. "You know, I'd rather not sacrifice my dignity unnecessarily."
"Pity that." Allen said smoothly, shaking his head in what kind pass for sorrow. Lavi grumbled and stretched out his arm as if riding it of cramps.
"What about you BaKanda?"
"Shut up. Dealer shows first Moyashi."
"Oh, so you're staying in after all?"
"Shut the fuck up you cheater."
"You understand you'll lose your shirt if this hand falls through for you?"
"I said shut up and show your cards."
Allen gave a dramatic sigh and spread his card before him. "Full house."
Kanda swore and threw his three of a kind at the dealer in a characteristic show of good sport man ship.
Allen cackled evilly – demonically, even – and a dark shadows passed over his face as he swept the cards back up to shuffle again. Lavi leant uneasily to the side and whispered to Lenalee.
"Does Allen seem a little… I dunno…"
"Crazy? Psychotic? Deranged? Demonically possessed?" Lenalee suggested in hushed tones.
"Well, I was going to say off but that works too."
Kanda still grumbling had unbuttoned his shirt and slid it off to toss into the heap by Allen's folded legs.
Allen raised an eyebrow at his well developed torso, clearly he was as strong as their confrontations suggested. His skin was pale, although not quiet as pale as Allen's own creamy complexion.
But what caught Allen's eye was the elaborate tattoo just below Kanda's left shoulder. Ragged lines roughly in the shape of a circle twisted out from around it and on a guess Allen would have to say the main focus of the tattoo was a Japanese kanji or something.
"If you're done staring," Kanda asked irritably, "Could you deal?"
Ignoring the accompanying snigger and wolf whistle from Lavi, Allen asked "What does the tattoo mean?"
"It means 'shut up and deal' ."
"Odd thing to tattoo on ones chest." Allen observed but none the less dealt out the cards.
The next two hands strongly favored Allen and before you knew it Lavi was down to his boxers.
"You know," Lenalee mused as Allen smoothly shuffled the cards. "I could take a picture right now and sell it for a fortune to the female populace of the school."
"The schools 'greatest anti-social hottie'." Kanda scowled at her.
"The schools biggest player." Lavi gave a proud mock bow.
"And the elusive transfer student." Allen gave a wry smile.
"If you lost your shirt anytime soon Allen, I could get nearly a thousand dollars for the picture."
Kanda raised an eyebrow as he noticed the boys fingers tighten on his cards at the suggestion – albeit, jokingly made – that he remove his shirt.
The others didn't seem to notice and Allen gave one of those smiles. The ones that to Kanda seemed much too bright, much too radiant.
"Oh, who knows? One of them might win a hand yet."
Kanda whacked him around the head for that one.
OoO_oOo
The card game ended only a few hands later when Lavi and Kanda decided to withdraw to preserve their shattered remains of dignity.
"Last time I challenge you to a game of poker." Lavi muttered as he pulled on his boots. Allen didn't bat and eye but continued to shuffle the cards.
"We could play go fish next time." He offered.
"Last time I play any card game with you." He amended and Kanda smirked. Lenalee stood up and stretched, waiting by the door for Lavi who was playful quarreling with Kanda.
"See you at dinner?" She asked as Lavi staggered over holding a bruised nose from teasing gone to far.
"Sure." Allen smiled and Lenalee rolled her eyes and muttered something about should have been obvious.
The door swung shut behind his leaving friends and Allen was alone in the room with Kanda. For lack of anything better to do Allen tossed the deck of cards on to his desk and sat down and stared as Kanda buttoned up his shirt.
The raven head himself shot Allen a dirty look and snorted "Done gawking yet?"
"No, I was thinking of staring like this for another few minutes just to see how long it took you to snap." Allen said in a light conversational tone.
"It wouldn't have taken longer then a minute. That's for sure." Kanda grumbled under his breath as he passed by Allen to head for his trusty katana leaning against the wall.
"Heading out for some training?"
"No, Moyashi. I'm going to massacre the school."
"Can I come along. There's nothing to do here." Allen said completely ignoring Kanda's sarcasm. Said roommate frowned as he hefted his sword over his shoulder, grunting non commitimaly as he did so.
Allen was quick to duck out the door after his friend and when Kanda glanced over his shoulder to seem Allen following him he gave an agitated sigh but did not protest.
It was rather late in the afternoon by then and the grounds were devoid of people – most students had had enough exercise after being forced to clean up Komui's mess made by the robot earlier.
"Isn't this a school building?" Allen asked uneasily as they paused in front of Kanda's training haunt. Kanda shot him a superior look and fished the key out of his pocket.
"You stole the key?" Allen asked incredulously. Kanda glared at him.
"Cut me some slack, Moyashi. The headmaster gave it to me."
"Oh."
Kanda rolled his eyes and Allen watched as Kanda fit the key in the lock and went to turn it only to have it fall from his hands.
Swearing loudly while Allen chuckled in the background Kanda dropped to his knees and riffled through the dirt to try and find it.
"Got it yet?"
"Shut up Moyashi, these things take time."
Allen let out an exasperated sigh and pushed past Kanda to the door where a flick of his wrist produced a piece of wire.
"What are you –?" Kanda started but cut himself off when Allen slid the wire into the padlock. There was a minute of rustling and then a soft click sounded that the hefty padlock had been undone by that skinny strand of wire.
Without waiting to see if Kanda had found the keys – he had – Allen stuck the wire in the keyhole of the door and after a moment there was an accompanying click and with a nudge of his toe the door swung open.
Kanda stared silently at Allen for a moment, still crouched down in the dirt before he got to his feet and dusted himself off. Kanda seemed to debate saying something for a moment but seemed to decide against it. He pushed past Allen and into the building muttering under his breath as he did so.
Allen was surprised when he saw the large, empty – and admittedly, slightly dusty – room. There were several decaying desks stacked to the side of the room and a large, shuttered window to the right provided the only light to the room.
"You train here?" Allen asked in surprise, settling down on one of the desks in the corner as Kanda rolled his shoulders to stretch the muscles. Allen received a patronizing glare for opening his mouth.
"Shut up Moyashi. I came here to train not listen to you talk. If you want to stay then shut the fuck up."
Allen opened his mouth to retort but the sound of a blade whistling through the air cut him off as Kanda started to practice.
It started of simple. Just hard swings of the blade through the empty air, nothing really interesting. Allen watched none the less, there wasn't really much else to do.
The practice swings went on for a good ten minutes or so before Kanda started to move.
It began with simple steps but as Allen watched the katana slice through the air he noticed that the tempo of the steps had increased, and that there seemed to be a vague pattern forming.
Before he knew it the simple steps had become – in Allen's eyes – a dance.
Small bronze rays of the setting sun streamed in through the crooked shafts of the blinds, causing the dark strands of Kanda's hair to seemingly shimmer as they twisted past, streaks of gold danced across his pale skin.
The breeze created by his darting movements made his white shirt flitter in his wake and Allen could see light drops of sweat sliding down his bare arms and his face was hard, completely focused on what he was doing.
He was a blur of movement, never staying in one place for more then the bare minimum of seconds needed to sustain footing and then move again, twisting and turning to face imaginary attackers, his Mugen cutting a deadly arc through the air.
All though his movements looked chaotic, there was method in madness. Allen watched, mesmerized and before long he could tell when Kanda was going to feint, he could see when he was going to slice.
It was terrifying to watch Kanda in all his violent glory, long hair streaming like a cape behind him.
It was horrifying. It was breath taking. And as Allen watched his war dance by the window, steely blue eyes full of fire, jaw set firmly in defiance, he found himself thinking it was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
Allen sat; content for the longest time just to watch Kanda's seemingly limitless energy. It was only when he noticed that the light of the setting sun had turned to a soft white of a newly risen moon did it occur to him just how long they had been there.
A quick glance at the watch on his right hand caused Allen to swear and jump off the desk.
"Kanda!"
He received no response, the elder teen obviously still far gone in his world of phantom prey.
"Kanda!" Louder this time, Allen crossed the room and only just managed to avoid the flashing silver of the blade as it skimmed past him. He roughly shook Kanda's shoulder and darted back just in time to avoid being cleaved in half.
"What?" Kanda glared, holding his sword tightly in one hand as he glowered at Allen.
So much for beautiful.
"It's nearly midnight! I promised Lenalee we'd meet them for tea! They're probably worried sick!"
Kanda snorted. "So? Let them. I didn't ask them to care. But if you wanna be a whiny little baby about it, you can go back and apologize on your own."
"You're such a prick!" Allen cried, exasperated.
Kanda snorted in annoyance and the next thing Allen knew was there was a blade whistling through the air to him. It was only his quick reflexes that allowed him to drop down in time.
"You could have –."
Allen was cut off as the blade plunged into the floor bored a bare centimeter from his face. It was with that that he felt his last bit of self restraint snap.
"That's it." He growled and swept Kanda's legs out from underneath him.
A quick roll to the side saved Allen from being the mattress to comfort Kanda's fall and the room was full of cursing as the pair struggled to their feet.
Allen threw a punch which Kanda managed to bat away effectively before swinging at him with Mugen.
"Guh!" Allen sprang back just in time to be a spared a cut across his chest – his shirt wasn't so lucky. There was the sound of ripping fabric and Kanda arched one eyebrow with a smirk.
"Oops."
Allen's counter was a fist to the face.
Somewhere along the line the fighting changed. Allen noticed Mugen had been dropped on the floor and had not been picked up for quiet a while, and that fist and limbs had stopped making especially painful contact a long time ago. The fight has somehow become an all out spar.
Gasping for breath Allen caught Kanda's fist in his own and flipped the elder boy over his shoulder and received an elbow in his gut as Kanda landed solidly on his feet. The two circled each other for a moment before Allen held up placating hands.
"Stop." He breathed out heavily. "Stop. I can't breath."
Kanda smirked but lowered his position. "Tired already, Moyashi?" He taunted.
Allen's head was throbbing. He hadn't faced physical exertion this intense for some time and he could feel his arm aching respectively. The pounding headache wasn't helping matters either.
Maybe I should take that medication… Allen though vacantly. He could almost hear Master Cross in his head.
Idiot apprentice. Never doing what he's told. Are you afraid of taking it? Or are you afraid of the pain and nightmares? Which is it?
Allen grimaced. It was bad enough hearing Cross's sneering voice while he was really there. Hearing it as that patronizing little voice at the back of your head was rock bottom.
"Moyashi?" Kanda's voice was light and airy but Allen thought maybe, just maybe he heard the faint traces of worry hidden in it.
He straightened up wheezing a bit. "I'm okay… Just out of breath."
Silence followed by a decisive snort. "Baby."
None the less Kanda strode over to Mugen and sheathed it, sliding it over his back he walked to the door and waited patiently for Allen to join him.
"You're being awfully nice." Allen observed dryly as he slipped past Kanda to wait outside for him to lock it.
"I did briefly consider locking you in but you'd find a way out." Allen gave him a wry smile.
The two began their journey back to the dorm, aided only by the light of the moon. It was silent all the way back and it was only when they slipped into the comfort of their Dorm room that Kanda finally spoke.
"How did you learn to pick locks?"
Allen kept his back turned to Kanda as he gathered some clothes to change into from his wardrobe.
"I just did."
Kanda frowned at the evasive answer and leant against his desk watching as Allen made his way to their bathroom.
"You're not going to tell me are you?"
"Tell you what?"
Snort. "Didn't think so." Kanda pushed himself off the doorframe and slipped past Allen who was paused in the middle of the room to his own wardrobe.
Allen cringed at his obvious annoyance and fled to change. When he emerged Kanda was running his hands through his hair while studying a book balanced on his knee, his foot perched on his desk chair.
Allen watched quietly as Kanda unknotted his hair expertly, paying no attention to the task. Finally he bundled it all back up into its usual pony tail and took the textbook off his knee to throw on the desk.
He turned to see Allen standing hesitantly by the door and turned his back to him – a clear sign that he didn't care if he came in or not.
Sighing, Allen rolled his eyes and went to his desk and took advantage of Kanda's back being turned to open his drawer. The pills he'd swept earlier were slipped up one sleeve and a yellow tinted bottle up the other and he shut it quietly before retreating back to the bathroom and locking the door.
He tipped the old pills down the drain before wearily looking up into the mirror. He could see a light sheen of sweat on his brow and his face seemed paler then usual.
Taking a deep breath he twisted the cap off the bottle and shook three bland white pills into his hand, swallowing them with a mouthful of tap water.
He still felt dizzy and it felt like something was tugging painfully on the corner of his mind. It felt to hot in the bathroom so Allen stowed the bottle of pills behind the first aid kit in the back of the bathroom cupboard before exiting back into the room.
The lights were out and Kanda was in bed.
Without sparing much of look anywhere Allen climbed into his own bed and worked at falling asleep.
A/N: Sorry, sorry. I'm tired so I'm sure there will be a few errors in here, hopefully nothing major.
Now, on a better note I'm on the prowl for a side pairing :3
LaviLena or Lucky? Please vote on my profile. It'll be open for a week or so.
Thank you again for reading and please leave me a review.