The dream can be so beautiful
But even sweet dreams shatter
Under the weight of reality
Miranda was in charge of serving Lavi and Allen their breakfast in their bedroom today, wondering why nobody had volunteered to do the chore. As soon as Komui mentioned the words "wake the two idiots up", everybody but her ran off in the speed of light. She didn't know what had gotten with her family; surely waking Allen and Lavi up wasn't such a difficult chore to do. Granted, her Demon Lord had issues about waking up in the mornings. But with the help of Allen, waking up Lavi wouldn't be so hard. So without expecting much drama, Miranda politely knocked the door before entering the gloomy bedroom.
The curtains were closed, darkening the room with light shadows. So, she placed the breakfast tray onto the writing table and pulled open the silk curtains to unveil the sleeping people. Allen had his top half lying right above the sleeping demon while his lower half lay sprawled on the bed. Lavi's two arms were next to his head as they slept, exhaustion written all over their faces. Both Allen and Lavi's wings were holding each other as if they were giant feathery hands, making the obvious contrast of black-and-white colour stand out on the violet-sheeted bed. The sunbeams hit them just beautifully, and Miranda swore she could see roses and sparkling stars behind the dozing duo.
"No wonder they didn't want to come in here," Miranda sighed tiredly to herself, already feeling her energy half drained even though it was only mere hours in the morning. She calmed herself down by arranging the utensils, but the clanging sound had jerked Allen awake. The bleary angel looked at Miranda with squinting eyes and saw that the breakfast tray was already here.
Allen plopped right back down onto Lavi's awfully warm chest, mumbling darkly as he poked Lavi's sides, "Lavi…. Breakfast,"
Lavi growled lowly as he tried to ignore the insistent poking. Irritated, he pulled Allen entirely on top of him and covered the struggling angel with his still softened black wings.
"Lavi," Allen growled right back, slapping the annoying demon on the cheek since he was that close to his face.
The grouchy Demon Lord finally graced his angel with a peek of a glaring eye, before settling the both of them to lie on their sides. But Lavi's arms didn't release their tight hold as Lavi nuzzled Allen's bed hair, "little angels should sleep more to grow taller,"
Allen's growl raised a ton higher before using his angelic strength to forcefully push Lavi down from the bed. With a triumphant smile, Allen got up and sat for breakfast without caring about his rudely-cursing best friend.
Miranda just smiled awkwardly when she saw the entire exchange, a comical sweat-drop showing her exasperation.
The main activity of the day was the church's annual clean-up; armed with mops, brooms, pails of water and the like, everyone wanted to pinch in with the cleaning. The church was in dire need of a clean-up anyways, since Allen kept sneezing every time he entered one of the more dusty rooms. Apparently, the laity believed that if an angel sneezed or coughed, someone from somewhere on earth will fall ill. Lavi snubbed at such nonsense, but he allowed the religious believe their beliefs.
The Black Order clan pulled their weight by cleaning out the stables. The church reared sheep and horses at the back. Since Allen's entire territory was standing on a mountain with dozens of green hills around them, the church had decided to rear sheep and other animals because they had the ample space for them. Allen and the animals had a mutual understanding among each other, since the angel was one of the limited few who could handle them easily. With the help of the demons, the stables were on their way to a much cleaner and better look.
"Lavi! Watch out!" A ram charged at Lavi with full speed, knocking the unaware Demon Lord off his feet and into the mud below. A young lamb with black fleece jumped and played over the growling demon in the mud, not in the least bit worried of his dark fur getting dirtied. The Black Order clan just laughed as the black lamb licked Lavi's dirty cheek, taunting at Lavi's incapability of handling mere animals. For some strange reason, only Lavi had problems with the animals, the four-legged creatures kept running away from him as if he was a dark spirit. The other demons had no such difficulty as the animals obeyed them effortlessly, making Lavi irritated beyond comprehension.
Knowing hands reached out to carry the mischievous lamb smoothly. The lamb bleated in shock, but quietened down when it saw who was handling him. Allen walked through the thick mud with his boots on, patting the black lamb as he pointed out to Lavi, "you know; this lamb reminds me of you, Lavi,"
"What?" Lavi snarled, looking down immediately on the stupid black lamb.
"This black sheep's parents died a long time ago, but he's still jumpy and naughty as if their deaths didn't bring him down. He's definitely the bravest of the lot, even though he was born black instead of the usual white. He's special,"
There was a quiet moment until Lavi rolled his one good eye and splashed Allen with the bucket of dirty water he had beside him. Allen shouted in surprise, dropping the lamb and looking to find the hose to hit Lavi with. Lavi threw wet sponges as Allen returned fire with the old cloths and pails of soapy water. The black lamb continued to run around the two like it was also part of the water war, the trio uncaring of the mess that they were making in their heat of the fun.
Lenalee watched with mild contentment at the domestic scene, her broom left on the cleaned stable floor. Under the bright sunlight, every toss of water and loud laughter that the duos made heightened their picture of glitter and childish banter. They didn't care about their drenched clothes or how other humans were also watching them with amusing eyes. Their own little world was centred on the other, like the other person was their point of gravity or something solid to lean on. She saw Allen slipped on one of the cloths, but Lavi reacted quickly and stopped the angel from falling face first onto the ground by slinging an arm around Allen's stomach. Allen was apologising to Lavi, but the Demon Lord only shrugged his shoulders and wordlessly gave Allen a clean and dry towel, "go dry yourself. You look like a bloody mess, Allen,"
That right there made Lenalee think. She led the wet Allen away from the laughing Lavi, bringing him to one of the wooden benches in the courtyard garden. Taking the towel and drying Allen's dripping hair, she said soberly, "I'm sorry about Lavi. He's always playing around,"
"It's alright, Lenalee. It's my fault that I slipped anyways. It's not his sin,"
Lenalee wiped Allen's face before moving to dry his hair again, "You never blame him for anything, even though he constantly teases you in front of others. He doesn't care about your feelings when he taunts you with mean words and his mood swings are crazier than Miranda and mine combined," Lenalee complained as she complained in vexation, "And every time someone tries to cheer him up, he'll go off his rocker. Lavi's mouth is worse than Kanda on his best days!... Seriously, dealing with that damn demon is really troublesome,"
Allen was quiet for the next few minutes. Too quiet. Lenalee stopped her drying to look at a crestfallen expression on Allen's face. Oh shit! Did I go too far?!
"Yeah…" Allen showed her such a defeated look with his white wings drooped to the ground below, "It certainly is…"
The statement left Lenalee stunned.
Allen excused himself curtly because he was late for mass, leaving Lenalee still rooted on the spot at Allen's confession. Shaking her head, she marched with a determined face till she met Lavi talking to Kanda, "How could you?!" she screeched, causing the two male demons to jump.
She pointed at Lavi with rage, "How could you throw away someone as precious as him?! I expected him to jump up and defend the shit out of you against me, but he didn't. Do you know what he did? Nothing! I could just kill you, Lavi!"
Lavi furrowed his eyebrows in displeasure, already knowing who Lenalee was referring to, and "What the hell are you talking about, Lenalee? What did he say?"
Lenalee visibly deflated, clenching her fists at her sides as she stared solidly at her unappreciative Demon Lord, "Allen said that he was tired of you,"
"Hey, Lenalee, that's enough," Kanda growled, sensing his Demon Lord's bubbling anger.
Everything in Lavi's mind stopped working. Until he saw red.
Meanwhile, Allen was participating in the small mass with an expressionless look on his usually angelic face.
"Allen…" Father Bak whispered gently, snapping then angel out of his musing. The Father pointed out in a placate tone, "You're pouring too much Holy Water on that man's head,"
Allen stuttered as he pulled his arm back, stopping the steady stream of Holy Water from its bowl, "A-Ah! Sorry, I'm so sorry!"
The thoroughly drenched man only shook his head in slight embarrassment, making the angel blush even more shamefully. When the man left, Father Bak leaned to whisper into Allen's ear, "you don't act like yourself nowadays... Are you okay?"
"I'm fine, Father Bak.. Just have a lot of stuff in my mind right now, I'm sorry. Please don't worry about me,"
Father Bak wanted to insist further, but a woman's scream pierced the silent church atmosphere. The Head Priest was thrown back with a furious heat wave that overtook the serene aura around Allen, his legs giving way as his breath came out in short gasps.
"Stop it, Lavi!" Allen shouted in fear as he saw the Demon Lord in his full form walking towards the altar. Allen came down to meet him halfway, "Stop! You're hurting the people!"
"So now you care about them more than me?" Lavi hissed, his demonic voice made the entire church rumble along with the vibrations, "you think I'm easily replaced, is it? Since you're so tired of me,"
"What? What's going on, Lavi? I don't know what you're saying," Allen declared truthfully, trying to quickly think of a way out, "Look, why don't we bring this elsewhere? The humans can't breathe when they're around you like this,"
"I don't care! What the shit, Allen! I thought we were having fun, before I knew you were actually fed up of me and talking shit behind my back!" Lavi's wings sharpened themselves fully, aiming straight at Allen for the first time ever.
"Stop putting words in my mouth, Lavi! I really don't know what's gotten into you! Can you at least stop talking and listen for once in your whole entire life?!" Allen's wings hardened and curled in retaliation, agitation overcoming his instincts to stay silent.
"Oh, I don't know, Allen. I don't think I can trust someone that doesn't backstab me at the first sign of trouble!"
Allen reeled back as if he was physically slapped. He gritted his teeth and his musical tone took a dive down into resentfulness, "If you don't trust me, then why still stay here? After all, you don't trust me, right?"
"FINE!" boomed Lavi as he stared at the impudent angel, "I'm leaving!"
Well.. Damn, that didn't go well!
I do hope you're enjoying this story as much as I love writing it. It's been a spinning new year for me and I'm going to go back to my studies in a few days *gulp* But no worries, I'll still be updating my darling story every now and then! Your reviews/opinions/chats are deeply appreciated; they warm my heart and motivate my procrastinating ass into work haha Have a wonderful day! :)