Exception

By: Aviantei

31. Drunks, Dresses, and Demons

Saturday could have easily been a peaceful morning if Allen hadn't been woken up by Timcanpy's chirping. Allen groaned and rolled around in bed. Was some rest so much to ask for? Now that he had gone on one date a piece with both Lenalee and Ari, Lavi had insisted on having a TRIangular meeting Sunday. Allen had at least been hoping to have the day off to himself to think about things.

Tim let out a few more high pitched chirps, and Allen reluctantly sat up. "Yeah, yeah, I hear you…" he mumbled, tottering over the Timcanpy's perch. Since the bird was so well trained, Allen never bothered with a cage. Both the water and food bowls were relatively full, meaning that Tim wasn't actually missing anything. "Come on, that's not even funny, Tim…"

Timcanpy chirped again, then lifted his wings to flutter to the door. He pecked it once, then stared at his owner expectantly.

"You want out?" Well, Allen didn't plan on complaining. Timcanpy had always done as he pleased. The Brit headed for the door, breakfast on the mind. While the school's food wasn't half bad, there was nothing like a breakfast at home. He always thought better on a full stomach anyways.

All happy thoughts of breakfast were dashed as Allen headed down the stairs, the sharp scent of alcohol assaulting his nose. Timcanpy landed on his shoulder, almost giving him a look that screamed I told you so, if that was possible for a bird. Tim didn't just go and make rackets for nothing.

"Maybe I'm dreaming," Allen mumbled to himself, not really buying it. Well, there wasn't any sense in trying to avoid it. If Cross were back, Allen was bound to run into his guardian eventually. That meant fowl mouth, booze, and all.

Allen found the priest in one go, shuffling through the refrigerator, glass clanking together. It was dealing with Cross or no food, and Allen couldn't just give eating up. The teenager waited for Cross to back out of the door before clearing his throat.

"Good, you're up," Cross grunted, not even turning back. "You can make breakfast then." He turned to the table, several bottles of beer in hand, leaving the fridge wide open. Allen stifled a sigh and took his guardian's former position, digging out the eggs from behind Cross's new alcohol collection.

"Welcome back to you, too," Allen said, sounding just as enthusiastic as he felt. Cross was a pretty minimal guardian at best, but having him around wasn't enjoyable. If the man caught wind of Allen's love life at the moment, there would be a lot of taunting better left unsaid. "I didn't hear you come in last night. You're unusually quiet."

Cross snorted, taking a large portion of his drink down in one gulp. "Doesn't matter," he dismissed.

As far as Allen was concerned, it did matter. Hearing Cross was an imperative part of surviving him. "What about Elizabeth?" Allen asked. "Don't tell me you decided to ditch her in Malaysia or wherever the hell you were."

"Bangladesh," Cross clarified. "She wanted to stay a bit longer. Made friends or some shit." Allen cracked open an egg into a bowl, deciding to make them scrambled. "I'll go back and get her at some point. Not that big a deal."

Allen could have easily argued that it was a big deal, but Elizabeth probably wouldn't take his side anyway. Acceptance was easier anyways. "And how long are you planning on staying for…?" That was the big question anyway. Nothing else mattered as long as Cross wasn't planning on staying forever. The man lit up a cigarette, adding another awful habit to his ever growing repertoire.

"Who knows," Cross said dismissively.

"Who knows?! Shouldn't you know?!"

Taking flight from Allen's shoulder, Timcanpy let out a chirp of warning and perched on top of the refrigerator.

Ivy had offered up her apartment for residence Saturday, seeing as the snow was pretty much inescapable. They had paused for lunch, even if Ivy was really only capable of pulling together a few simple dishes from the freezer. Kanda didn't complain much, so Ivy considered the operation a success, clearing up dishes in the aftermath.

"So was yesterday as stupid as I think it was?" Kanda asked, rinsing off dishes in the sink. "Any trouble from the Rabbit I should know about?"

Ivy shook her head. "Lavi was well behaved, I promise." She couldn't say the same for the Lolita girl with the scissors, but that was a different matter. All things considered, Ivy thought she had handled the situation well. "No crazy games of hide and seek or anything. Just a nice relaxing afternoon between Allen and Lenalee." Yeah, a nice relaxing date. She deserved one of those, if Ivy thought so herself.

"Then why are you so tense?" Drying his hands off on a nearby dishtowel, Kanda shut off the sink. Ivy smiled a bit. He had always been good at picking up on her moods before, but he usually didn't take the time to voice his observations. "I'm serious, if Lavi did any—"

"Lavi was fine." Ivy placed her palm on Kanda's chest, hoping to calm him. "I'm just getting a bit tired of spending all my free time taking care of this nonsense, that's all." She paused, not quite able to make eye contact. While she was bothered, it seemed like a silly thing to say out loud. "Um, Kanda…do you think I need a dress?"

"Huh?"

Kanda's expression twisted into confusion, and Ivy would have found it cute if she hadn't been so frazzled.

"No, it's actually just—I thought maybe—Never mind!"

Ivy attempted to retreat back to her calculus notes, but Kanda easily snagged onto her arm, moving so they faced each other. He even placed his hands on her shoulders, preventing an easy escape. "Slow down there," he said, voice surprisingly calm. "Would you run that by me again?"

Ivy gave herself a moment. Facing down goth kids ready to fuck up shit with scissors, sure, but talking about ordinary teenage stuff seemed to be far more difficult. "A dress," she repeated, not even liking the sound of the word. "The Valentine's dance is coming up, and I just know I'm gonna get dragged along with this whole TRIangular nonsense. So I wasn't sure…if you thought I would look good in a dress or not."

Kanda may have kept his expression stoic, but he cycled through surprise, interest, and irritation pretty quickly. Ivy lamented not being a mind-reader in situations like these. "Let's start over from the beginning," he suggested. Since Ivy didn't seem inclined to run away, he released one of her arms but kept a hand on the other. "First up, this depends. Were you planning on scouting things out by yourself, or is this your way of asking me to come with you?"

"Well I wouldn't ask anyone else!" Kanda smirked as Ivy huffed and regained control over her voice. What a dumb thing to get worked up over. "But I didn't know if you'd want to come. Dances don't really seem like your thing…" Not that they were hers, either. But playing referee for Allen didn't seem like an option.

And maybe she was a bit curious about what it would be like. Maybe.

Kanda considered the options. Had he ever gone to a school dance in his life? Once, in middle school. At a certain rabbit's suggestion. It had been carnage, and so the incident had never been repeated. Ivy was right that dances weren't his thing, at fucking all.

"Are you going?" he asked. That was the cincher. He didn't want a repeat of the Millennial incident, but the alternative was missing out on a couples holiday with his girlfriend. Even if Valentine's Day was another corporate nightmare, he could appreciate the sentiment a little bit. Ah, the wonders of a committed relationship…

"Most likely," Ivy answered, picking up her pencil and twirling it between her fingers. "I'm willing to bet that's what we'll talk about at the meeting tomorrow, our plan for the dance. I'd rather not leave Allen alone with Lavi as his only backup." Ugh, the more she thought about it, the more of a pain in the ass it sounded like. After this whole mess was over, she needed to focus on ordinary life for a bit.

If that's even possible with our company.

Kanda nodded, wondering just how many ways he could dismantle Lavi and which would be the best form of payback for this whole mess. "Alright," he decided, "then I'll come with you."

Ivy dropped the pencil clattering to the table and leaving scuffs of lead across her open notebook. "You will?"

Her expectant expression was enough to give Kanda pause. No backing out of it now, not that he had been planning to. "I'm not gonna let you deal with that shit alone." Ivy knew him well enough to recognize his way of being romantic. She scooted her chair a bit closer to his in appreciation. Plus seeing the faint brush of blush on his cheeks was a bonus. "Now about the dress…"

"Yeah?"

"Do you want to wear one?" Kanda asked. "Or do you think you need to wear one? 'Cause there's a difference."

Ivy wouldn't admit Lavi as the cause for her dilemma. Even if it had just been a passing comment, it still bothered her. And while her tomboyish attitude had served her well in the past ten years or so, it didn't have to be her sole philosophy in life. "I think…I've never tried it," she admitted, settling for tapping her nails against her thigh. "And I guess I wouldn't mind? I don't know if I want to wear one. But I guess I wanna know if you'd think I'd look good in one?" She cast a glance to her boyfriend, ignoring the uncharacteristic urge in her stomach to avoid eye contact. To hell with hormones.

"I think you'd look damn good in anything you chose to wear." No hesitation. She had to give him props for that one.

"While that's sweet, Yu-kun, I'd rather you be honest. I don't mind."

Kanda muttered an extra explicative under his breath. Ivy didn't mind, though they both wished the situation was over with by now. Dating for a month and a half, and our resident couple were still out of their element. Poor things.

"I guess I would like to see it," Kanda said, his voice quieter than usual. It added a slight rumble to his voice that Ivy couldn't appreciate for her own frazzled state. Kanda held up a palm to stop her response. "That's only if it's what you want. I want you to be comfortable, okay? You're not a dress-up doll, and you don't need to wear a shitty dress if it's not what you want to do alright?"

"Alright," Ivy mumbled with a smile. She scooted her chair over again, bumping into Kanda's side. He stiffened a bit when she rested her head on her chest, but relaxed soon enough. "Thank you, Yu-kun. I feel better now."

"Good."

They sat still for a few moments until Ivy pulled back. At this point they were just making up excuses to stay around each other with all their homework done. There was only so much review and work ahead you could do before you remembered how boring schoolwork was. Ivy cleared her throat. "If you don't just wanna hang around here all weekend, I'd get it," she said. "Especially since everyone's coming over for TRIangular tomorrow. I'm glad you're gonna come to the dance with me, but you don't have to put up with that."

"Hm. Why not? I'll join in."

This time Ivy was too stunned to even have a physical reaction. Kanda Yu participating in one of Lavi's schemes. Willingly at that. Dear god, could we stop having harbingers of the end of the world and get to it already?

"I already lost one day hanging around with you because of them. Damn if I'm going to lose another." And if Kanda was going to go to the dance, he should at least have an idea of what he was getting into. At this point, getting operation TRI-what-the-fuck-ever done and over with took the top of his "annoying shit to get out of the way" list.

Which was all a convenient justification to himself about being a bit protective. But, hey, baby steps, people. Baby steps.

Ivy wasn't going to argue if he insisted. "Okay, but how do you plan on killing time until then? I think I've had enough crossing into the cold for one weekend…"

"Not sure." Kanda flipped Ivy's notebook closed. "But it sure as hell doesn't involve pretending to do homework all day."

Ivy could get behind that, one-hundred percent.

While most high schoolers would see Sunday morning as a time to sleep in, there were those that had other plans and responsibilities, and Road Kamelot was one of the latter. As was tradition, Sunday morning marked the weekly breakfast gathering of Millennium Private High School's top echelon of students, also known as the Chairman's favorites. Formal dress was required, but Road had gone the extra mile in selecting her dress and styling her hair in preparation for the battle to come.

Tyki on the other hand had gone the bare minimum, even being so bold as to avoid a tie. At least he had slicked back his hair, fixing that haphazard mop it could be otherwise. Road needed the Chairman to be in a good mood for this to work, and Tyki being a slob wasn't helping.

"Can't you even put a little effort into this for once?" she scolded as they crossed paths in the hallway. Immaculate and over the top—that described the dorms to a T. Neither early-riser seemed impressed, but pure exposure could do that to you. "I swear, sometimes I think you're just blowing these things off because you think it's funny."

Tyki huffed a little, wishing he could get away with smoking inside. Even hitting the legal age for that didn't change the school rules, though. It was a shame, really. "You're in a good mood today." He chose not to rise to the bait. It said something that Road's good moods involved being spiteful as all hell, but you took what you could get with the girl. "I thought you'd be more upset after you lost out to the Black Order girl the other day."

Road scowled, jabbing Tyki in the side with her elbow. He took it with a grunt. "Are you trying to start shit? You went off and left me. I would've had much better luck if you'd given me some backup for once!" She had not lost. There just wasn't a point in fight with someone who had half-hearted convictions anyway!

Tyki was unfazed by his cousin's outburst. "You better not let Sheril hear you talk like that. He'll get on me for letting you use such words."

Road stuck out her tongue. "Sucks to be the one left with babysitting duty, huh?"

"With a hellion like you? Absolutely."

Road shrugged and made sure her petticoats were doing their job as they approached the Chairman's private dining area. Based on the chatter, a number of their fellow guests were already there. Opening the door only increased the bustle, Davis and Jasdero having a meaningless argument to the side, a few others watching. Several, such as Lulu and Wisely, were already in their seats at the long table, stretched out and seated for thirteen. As always, the end of the table across from the Chairman's place remained empty of a chair.

Tyki slinked off to an empty corner in an attempt to avoid conversation. Road would have followed on a normal basis, but she didn't have time for that today. She'd just have to pester him later. For the moment, she took up sentry next to the door, waiting for her chance.

It came soon enough, Lero opening the door and signaling the arrival of just the man Road had been waiting for.

"Chairman!" she exclaimed, launching herself at him. The Chairman took her affections in stride, letting Road hang off his shoulders. The others said their greetings as he entered the room and started the way to their seats, though David and Jasdero's bickering didn't subside. "I've been waiting to see you."

"I missed you, too, Road," the Chairman greeted. "And to all of my Noah. I trust you've been well."

Responses bounded across the room. Road dropped into her own seat as they passed it, and even Tyki dragged himself into his place across from his cousin. Finally, Millennium Private High School's Noah were assembled. Road kicked her feet back and forth, waiting for the right moment while Lero led the rest of the serving staff in bringing out the dishes. It wasn't long before breakfast was served and a noisy consumption began.

"You've been super busy this week. I haven't seen you at all," Road complained, picking at her food as she went. It was the sort of fare one would expect from even Millennial, but she had eaten food of that quality all her life. Besides, the real objective was in sight. "You should stop by and see us more often."

"Sorry, Road dear, but I had a lot to take care of this week," the Chairman apologized, more watching than eating. He held these meetings to get the chance to check in with his favorite students. Sometimes he went a whole Sunday morning without even taking a single bite. "I heard you had an interesting time yourself."

Road didn't even look ashamed. The incident at the restaurant could be used as leverage after all. Manipulation came to her second-hand. "I did and I met someone super interesting." Even just thinking of Allen brightened her mood. She couldn't waste the chance to get closer now. "He's a Black Order student, but I think he'd make a good candidate for us. Noah material, even."

The Chairman raised an eyebrow over his monocle. The rivalry between Black Order High and Millennium Private High School wasn't unknown, and cross-contamination between the students was unheard of.

"So I think it'd be good if there was a way to show him how great our school is, you know?" Road continued, adding a sweet lilt to her voice.

Even out of the collected Noah, Road was high up on the Chairman's list. He took her words in stride. "I take it you have a plan for this, then?" If this proposed student had the potential of a Noah, then he couldn't just let the opportunity slide.

"I do." Road spoke with clarity and conviction. That was more than enough to pique the Chairman's interest.

"And what's this student's name?"

"Allen Walker."

And both of them smiled. Because for Road her plan had worked. And for the Chairman, because some things just happened to line up perfectly.

[Avi's Somehow Still Making this Story Exist Notes]

Been sometime since the last update, huh? Sorry about that. I've been working on getting all my stories back into a more regular update schedule. I'm sure that once I stop having a conniption about finishing my Master's thesis, things will go even smoother. Until then, do accept this chapter.

Thanks to L0stWannab1tch, Jhendoe, suga-kookie, Yerin, drewnianytoster, Eric Reed (Guest), Makayla Servamp, and MusicianWish for the respective favorites, follows, and reviews since the last chapter! I'm glad you're enjoying the story (as long and as drawn out as I'm making it, it seems)! Every time I work on it, I get back in touch with the things I love about -man and think up more fun things to do with this AU. There are some really fun things on the way-once I get this TRIangular arc under control, that is.

And a quick Guest review reply:

Eric Reed: Thanks for your kind compliments! Since this was the first fanfiction I ever started writing, I'm glad to hear your high praise for it. I know it's been some time, but I do hope that bookmark brings you back here once again to see what's in store next.

Now, this chapter. I dragged Cross into the picture, had some Ivy and Kanda fluff, and poked at bit more at what the Noah are like in this universe. There's some set up, I think, so we're almost ready to send this arc into overdrive in a few chapters (if my outline holds up)!

And with that, we get onto the topic of updates. I've been working on content for all of my unfinished stories in the past year, and I've been trying to line things up into a semi-regular updating basis for all of them. I'm not quite at that stage yet, but I can say one thing for sure: Chapter 32 is complete and will be posted next Saturday. So do look forward to that.

If you have some free reading time, do go check out the [Twelve Shots of Summer] forum, which has just completed it's fourth year run! I'm honored to be part of the community, and lots of my fellow writers have put out some great material this summer. If you just wanna creep on what the hell I'm writing, Plot_K_Bunny a la Twitter is the answer to your prayers! I do try to mumble something about what I'm writing once a day, so there's no shortage of updates.

Well, I think I've exhausted everything I wanted to say for this note. I'll see you all next week. Please look forward to it!

-Avi

[08.14.2017]