(no subject)

[gilgrado.livejournal.com]

Title: Dream On, 2/2
Fandom: D Grayman
Pair/s: Lavi/Yu
Word count: 4990 words
Rating: NSFW for language and the usual.
A/N: This second part ended up being more of a study on how these two interact than anything. …I’m not so sure it works, though, haha. And beta-reading hates me.


Seven
Lavi boarded the train with a rucksack slung over his shoulder and a cherry-sucker tucked nicely between his teeth. Their destination was India in the Asian Continent, of which the temperature might prove his companion’s temper a touch more testy than usual – and that was saying something. He hummed a marching tune as he made his way to their compartment, which was easy enough – there was a finder stationed by the sliding door, fidgeting as he ushered Lavi in. And Lavi had an idea why he was so.

Kanda was already seated on the far side of the compartment, neatly by the window. He also now occupied the seat Lavi would have preferred – Kanda had clear view of who were coming and going by their compartment through the glass panels on the door, and also had choice views of the scenery outside without the slanting glare of the sun in his eyes.

Lavi tsked.

“If you’re taking lead on this mission, you could at least let me have a look-see around,” he muttered, popping the cherry-sucker out of his mouth to use as a pointer as he sat opposite to the Asian man. “That should be my seat, yeah?”

“I’ll sit where I want to,” Kanda replied, a look of annoyance on his face. “What took you so long with boarding?”

“The train doesn’t leave for another ten minutes, Yu.” Lavi tucked he candy back into his mouth, then settled the rucksack down on the floor. “You’re too eager to leave without me, I’m hurt.”

“How I wish.”

The doors slid open again, this time with the finder coming in and closing the panels behind him, and nervously he took his seat close to the door, on Lavi’s side of the compartment. Lavi engaged the man in conversation, and soon enough, as the train rumbled on to movement, the two were deep in discussion about the geography of Greece, from where the finder was native. Kanda had tuned the conversation out as soon as the train began to move, but then he was suddenly bothered by all three of their radio golems, their batty wings flittering within Kanda’s vision.

“What in—“

“Told them to check if you’ve fallen asleep yet,” Lavi drawled, as he twisted the paper stick handle of his just-consumed candy, a lazy smile scrawled on the redhead’s face. The finder had quietly left, apparently, as his seat was vacated.

“Have you gone mental completely,” Kanda answered, now completely annoyed. “Try to shut up and let me save my energy, Lavi, will you? I don’t sleep during train rides.”

“I beg to differ.”

“What exactly are you trying to – fuck off, you stupid tennis balls – do by being annoying as all hell?” Kanda swatted one golem particularly hard, sending it flying to thump dully against the wood walls. “Call them off, Lavi!”

The redhead whistled, and the golems ceased immediately. Then Lavi started to fiddle with them with a few tools, a few taps, and they soon were small handfuls of sleek black rested on the pool of Lavi’s coat, inactive.

“What did you do?” Kanda asked.

“Well, they’re still machines, deep down,” he answered, playing with one golem like he would an ordinary ball. “I unscrewed a few lugs, shook them a little so they’d listen to me, and I only. They’re normal now.”

The Japanese sat back, arms folded as he glared at the redhead with renewed passion. “Where’s the damned finder?”

“Talking to the train conductor about our tickets,” Lavi drawled. He had just begun to fiddle with his coat sleeve when a thought took hold in Lavi’s head. “You didn’t know you could reprogram a golem, did you?”

“I could what?” Kanda snapped back, affronted. “Like I care for such things—“

“Yeah, you do,” Lavi returned. “I think it eats you that I’m better than you at something.”

“Shut your mouth.”

“Someone’s touchy!”

“Someone’s going to lose their arm.”

“Ugh, where’s that damned finder?” Lavi grunted. “You’re no fun to talk to.”

“I’m not supposed to be, moron.”

They spent the rest of the train ride in silence, Lavi perusing his maps and journals while the finder sat stiff for whatever reason he had, and Kanda, contrary to his earlier statement, nodded off quietly. When they finally reached the station, from where they would board a carriage to the nearest seaport, and then a trading ship headed for the East Indias, Lavi’s neck was woefully cricked and Kanda’s back a little stiff, and the finder’s spirit hanging on threads.

“Why are you so strung, hey,” Lavi finally asked the finder, tapping the man on the shoulder. “You’re not new to this, I’m guessing.”

“No, sir, not really,” the finder answered. “Just my first time to ride with… with…”

“Him?” Lavi indicated Kanda, who was steps ahead and out of earshot. “Hmm.”

“Yes, sir.” A pause. “He’s very intimidating, and the stories—“

“Rid your head of it, man.” Playfully Lavi shoved the finder forward, smiling as he did so. “He’s not half-bad when you stay out of his way, and he’ll be too busy getting mad at me to bother you, don’t worry.”

“Sir—“

“And cut the “sir” crap, yeah? Name’s Lavi, pleasure to speak to you.”

“…Yes, si- Lavi.”

The finder then shook his head, hefted the radio strapped to his back, and moved forward to take lead of their company. Kanda let the man pass – while rolling his eyes – but did not wait for Lavi to step in level with him. The younger man jogged to catch up.

“Be nice to the guy, he’s scared stiff of you,” Lavi murmured to Kanda. “You’ll get more leeway by him if you don’t antagonize the poor man.”

“I don’t anta—I don’t need his permission…!” The Asian whirled to look Lavi squarely, daring the redhead to speak again.

“He’ll be calling back to HQ a lot – he’s the eager but nervous type, I can tell – and you don’t want Komui calling in the middle of a fight because he’d heard you were taking off on your own.”

“What— what gives you the right to coach me?” Kanda hushed his voice at the start of his sentence to keep their conversation private from the passersby. Lavi just shrugged.

“Better me than him, I say, to look out for you.”

Kanda just narrowed his eyes and hissed at everyone for the rest of the day.


Eight
“I think I’m getting seasick,” Kanda blurted to Lavi on their second week on the ship, though for all that Kanda was supposedly ill at sea the redhead thought he was only more sour-looking than usual.

“The sea’s right in front of you?” Lavi indicated with a wary wave of hand. “Please, by all means, don’t hold it in for my sake.”

“You’ll watch.”

“Actually, I’ll scamper off to the other end of the deck and retch at the thought of watching.”

Moments later Lavi was upending a spittoon’s contents into the sea – Kanda decided to relieve himself somewhere else. The redhead made a face, then commented on not being paid enough to nanny the Japanese, for which he earned a hard whack at the shins.

At least Kanda looked less blotched, now.

“I didn’t think you were seasick much, Yu,” Lavi commented as he walked his companion to their cabin. “I mean, I heard you were difficult to be with at sea—“

“I can’t swim, alright?” Kanda gritted out, wincing as the ship lurched sideways, and again, before returning to its gentle sway. “And the sea smells awful.”

“…You’ll be fine?”

“Soon.” Kanda gracelessly sat on the solitary bed in the room, stilling himself as though he’d make himself better by sheer will – and, furthermore, this thinking often worked.

“I’ll get the finder and have him—“

“No, leave him alone.” He palmed his fringes out of his eyes, and for a second Lavi thought Kanda would vomit once more. “There was something in the food.”

“I did hear that some of the apples had gone bad early,” Lavi added, puttering around to look for a drinking glass. “Saw some of the cabin boys throwing fruit overboard. Water?”

Lavi offered the one glass he found, which Kanda accepted, and poured the man water from a pitcher sitting on top of a drawer. He then took seat next to Kanda, and waited for him to finish his drink.

“You’re a lot more subdued than usual,” Kanda commented. “You’re not as loud as you usually are.”

“What makes you say that?”

“You’re not making fun of me yet,” he answered. “If you think being less annoying will keep me from cutting you—“

“I like traveling,” Lavi cut in. “A lot. Always traveled as a kid, I’m sure you know. The road’s as best a home as any for me.”

“…Why are you telling me?”

“Why are you asking?”

The silence that followed quickly became awkward for both, and soon Lavi excused himself from Kanda’s audience and left, quietly shutting the door as he went. He joined Louis up on deck, who was singing along to a fellow Greek, a sailor the finder met on board the day before.

Soon, he too was singing.


Ten
August Tenth.

Lavi refused to get out of bed, or move, or so much as make a sign of consciousness when the tenth of August rose dawn. Kanda had berated him, and Louis had asked him of his health, but after an hour’s worth of urging the finder simply left the man breakfast and Kanda just left. By ten in the morning by Lavi’s time-keeping Kanda had barged in twice since the sun rose to complain about his refusal to leave the bed, or to eat.

Exactly at two-seventeen in the afternoon Kanda rolled the redhead off the mattress.

“For fuck’s sake, what the hell is your problem, Lavi?”

“Leave me alone, will you?” Lavi nursed his head where he’d hit the leg of a chair, and his elbow, which he’d crashed on as he tumbled off the bed. “I want to laze off today.”

“Then let us know,” Kanda said, irritated. “Say so, so we don’t think you’ve taken to colds or fevers.”

“Since when did you care?”

“When the finder finds it in himself to bother me about you.”

Lavi opened his mouth to respond, then snapped it shut. Then, quietly, he said, “Just leave me alone.”

“For crying out, already, get up!” The older man practically pulled Lavi up on his feet. “Wash down and change and go the fuck outside.”

“Leave the hell off, will you? Just—“ Lavi yanked his arm back to his side, rubbing where Kanda’s grip had nearly bruised, then dumping himself onto the mattress once more. “I’ve got a right to lounge today, so mind your business.”

“A right.” Kanda stood firm, with arms folded in front of him, glaring down the redhead who had locked his eyes onto the floorboards. “What, it’s your birthday?”

And then there was silence – and more of it as it stretched on, Lavi tucking into himself and Kanda slowly coming to understand that it was, indeed, as he’d said.

“Well, why didn’t you say so?”

“You told me to shut up.”

“Like that ever stopped y—fuck it,” Kanda breathed. “Clean up, show up, then drown yourself down here for all I care. That damn finder’s getting on my nerves asking if you’re okay.”

“Why won’t he come down here himself?” Lavi asked as he reached for the wash basin.

“We share quarters.”

“Huh,” Lavi nodded in agreement, then stilled. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

The look Kanda threw over his shoulders at Lavi was enough for the redhead to break into full grin. The finder was simply not agreeable to the idea of invading the quarters of someone so horrid a person as Kanda, and if he knew a different reason he wasn’t any the wiser.

When Kanda had left Lavi tucked himself back to bed. He’d no intention to clean up, had every intention of staying put and idling the rest of the day away within the comfort of the sheets. Then he hummed a birthday song for “Lavi”, and in his whimsy he wished for himself a single kiss.


Eleven
Gunfire had erupted near Lavi’s side almost too soon for him to duck, and the next thing he and Kanda knew, they were under attack.

What had begun as a simple patrolling around the border of a town turned quickly into an unfair fight between a Level Two akuma and the exorcists. Lavi was knocked back several meters into a line of trees, smashing cleanly through the youngest tree and knocking it clear off the ground in force. Kanda had fared much better – he had seen the attack, registered the akuma for what it was moments before it changed form, but had not the sufficient time to warn Lavi. He could only block the gunfire as it shot down on him in full force.

If only Lavi hadn’t chatted the thing first, Kanda grimly thought.

The man was previously a shopkeeper, of a meat-shop especially, and Lavi had inquired on the kinds of meat being sold. The man was enthusiastic; this was horse meat, he said, indicating the rich, dark lean meat on one side of his chopping table; and this was pork, pink and red and with a faintly grainy scent; and over here, was rabbit meat, and here was deer, and cow and other assortments.

“All kinds of meat, indeed,” Lavi commented, feigning surprise. “Though I’m surprised you even have cow meat at all, here being India and all.”

“Oh, no sir, no problems there,” the butcher said. “I cater to Englishmen, mostly, and they often miss home. They ask for cow, and I provide. In secret, of course.”

“You’re not so secretive with me,” was Lavi’s reply.

“But you’re clearly an Englishman, good sir,” said the butcher’s.

“So you do have everything, then,” Lavi repeated – and had Kanda not heard what came next clearly – had he not heard the tone used, so sincere and honestly curious - he would have dismissed what he heard right away.

“Have you anything human, then?”

The shopkeeper stood shocked, alarmed even – and relaxed. “I have a few cuts, sir, taken from a young boy attacked by wolves near my home in the outskirts. They’ll cost you, if you’ll have them.”

“I’m more interested on whether you consumed them or not,” Lavi responded. “But then again, I should be off.”

“Sir—“

“I won’t tell any civil guards, man,” Lavi said as he left. “I’ve no proof and neither have you, I’m sure.”

And that was when Kanda’s senses prickled, and Lavi got thrown.

“Where the fuck did that finder go?!” Kanda yelled over to Lavi, who had just gotten, shakily, onto his feet.

“He’s makin’ a call, I think,” Lavi answered, wobbly in his stand as though shaking off a headache. “I think my ear’s bleeding…”

“Get your fucking head right and invocate, you st—LAVI, USE YOUR FUCKING INNOCENCE—“

The akuma was a towering ten meters in height and narrow in its reptilian form, and a humanlike grin on its small, upside-down head. It had spikes along its back, protruding along the spine, and it had human digits – seven on each hand. It was bowed, a sort of canon in a hole on its breastcage, and its great, apelike arms swung madly and agile for a thing its size.

“Well, that’s the thi—“ Lavi started, when the akuma swatted him with one great swing of its arm, dragging him at high speed along the ground, and Kanda heard Lavi’s arm almost snap off as it caught on a rock.

He wouldn’t wait.

“—Ichigen!” It was all the akuma heard as insects cut through its arm, and again, and again, until its arm had come off and the akuma shrieked, a loud inhuman sound that reverberated against Kanda’s chest. And then he was flying, sword held high and purposeful and he swung down on the akuma, cutting into it, but not through it as he’d have liked.

Then he too was swatted, and pinned, and he felt his ribs break, one at a time, from the pressure, as the akuma hovered above him and set itself to fire at Kanda at point blank. He couldn’t command his sword, not yet when his head is still swimming from the initial impact of slamming so hard by so great a force onto the uneven ground.

The next thing he knew there was an eruption of strong fire above him, not touching him but nonetheless engulfing the akuma in flames. And they weren’t just flames, they were snakes of flame, that it looked like one overgrown lizard consuming another of its kind. Then just as suddenly he saw a flash of light to his side, an array of circles flashing rapidly before receding, then a large seal appearing overhead, and by instinct Kanda invocated Mugen, had it cut through the arm holding him down and he had just barely cleared the shadow of the akuma when shots of strong lightning came down where the akuma stood.

Yet it was still alive, and he – they – were still alive, so Kanda decided to finish the thing off, having it disintegrate into dark ash in front of him.

He then found Lavi, wheezing as he leaned against what was left of a tree, his nutcracker considerably larger than Kanda had ever seen it before.

“The next time you decide to chat up the fucking enemy—“

“Save it,’m dying here,” the redhead retorted, grinning jauntily as he held his bloody side, ignoring his beaten arms and back in favor of holding the tear on his side.

“You’re bleeding a lot.”

“Yep, I am… You gonna save me yet?”

“I’m still waiting to save myself, shut up.”


Twelve
“You broke half your ribs, dislocated your arm, cracked your head a little—“

“I’m not discussing that with you—“

“—And you heal up a good two weeks before I do when all I got was a cut on my side and a concussion—“

“That ‘concussion’ almost killed you—“

“And so did your injuries!” Lavi yanked off the last of the bandages on his arm furiously. “Moreso than mine were fatal were yours!”

“I’m not telling you,” Kanda gritted out in frustration at Lavi’s persistence.

“I’m not asking you to tell me how the hell you keep saving yourself from dying,” Lavi responded heatedly, wincing from the sting of ripping the bandages off as savagely as he did. “But you can’t expect me to witness you heal up in four days enough damage to knock anyone off for months and not ask about it!”

“You were out of it for three days, I almost had you called in comatose,” Kanda replied, no less acidic as he’d have been if he were replying to an akuma. “If I told you when you woke that you’ve been resting for four weeks instead of three days you wouldn’t have doubted it any until someone told you otherwise—“

“But you didn’t and you wouldn’t lie to someone injured, would you?” Lavi said. “Because you have to be right all the fucking time.”

“I’m. Not. Telling. You,” Kanda said, punctuating every word by jabbing his finger at Lavi’s chest. “Deal with it.”

“And the lotus?”

Lavi watched as Kanda turned heel so quickly it seemed painful, going so pale like his blood had been drained of him completely, before shoving Lavi back so hard that he tumbled over a wayward chair, and Kanda was on him again, fist cocked back and ready to pummel him back to serious injury.

“How did you know? How the fuck did you know—”

“I saw it out, when I spent the night,” Lavi responded, winded as he lay and when Kanda stilled himself, he continued on. “You were looking at it that night, weren’t you?”

And Kanda pulled back, stopped – just stood and left him, and went out, so quietly that Lavi almost considered the thought that he might’ve hurt the man’s feelings – and that he felt obliged for having done so. He banged his head softly on the wood floor.

“Stupid,” he murmured bitterly. “Stupid, stupid, stupid.”


Thirteen
“Leave me alone.”

Lavi parked himself against the door jamb, carefully though as he could with his arm still injured. Kanda sat at the top step of the staircase with Mugen leaning against his hip, and his back to Lavi. The redhead clucked his tongue. “Come back inside, it’s going to rain and the balcony isn’t shaded over.”

“Leave. Me. Alone.”

“Yu. Inside. Now.”

“Could you just fuck off and leave me alone, please,” Kanda replied, in a quiet and unassuming voice. “I’m going to get sick.”

“I know that.”

“Why bothe—“

“I will, though.”

Kanda turned, finally, to face Lavi, daring the other to say one more word than he should have said. Lavi just shrugged.

“I crossed a line back there, didn’t I?”

“You’re always crossing lines,” Kanda answered, looking as if he swallowed something sour. “My lines, mostly. I hate that about you.”

“You hate everything about me.”

“I know that you know it’s not quite true.” Kanda leaned back onto his hands, stretching his legs over the steps beneath them. Then he tipped his head back, glancing over at Lavi’s direction with a thoughtful expression. “Why do you… do this.”

“Do what?” He asked, earnest. “You? Because for all that I profess myself as a flirt of women you’re still the first person I’d take to bed. If you mean all the questions, it’s what I do, it’s my life. If you’re talking about something else, I’ve no fucking idea what you mean and I don’t think I’ll have one soon.”

Lavi paused, shoulders tucked in and timid, then continued, “What did you mean?”

“I trust you,” Kanda replied. “I trust you and I don’t know why, because I realize that if it came down to it you’d leave me in the middle of a fight to save yourself. And I wouldn’t blame you.”

“I don’t get the implications of that, Yu.”

“…Of course you don’t.” The older teen stood, dusted his clothes as the wind picked up and blew his hair to various directions. When he made his way to the open door of their room he stopped level with Lavi, shoulder to shoulder with him, and turned his head slightly to the other’s ear. “Don’t ask about me, and I won’t ask about you.”

Lavi sighed. “Fair enough.”


Fourteen
Sunday evening the following week had found the exorcists in an English-owned inn at the outskirts of the town, the lonely building one of the few visible within a number of miles in the vast flatlands surrounding them. Insects buzzed alive as soon as the sun had set, and random chirps from distant birds echoed faintly in the air.

They left the finder in the previous town, having broken his leg in another akuma attack and thus being indisposed for traveling over unfriendly earth on foot. The innkeeper was glad for the company, Lavi for the food and Kanda for the bathing water, and the weather had turned cool and crisp, which was the best kind of weather to breathe in. They took the smallest room at the farthest corner of the inn, the one farthest from the rest of the guests in the inn, and when the night came cold Lavi had set himself by the window with a teacupful of sugar cubes, arranging the notes in his head to streamline for when he writes his record down.

Kanda walked in, smelling like warm water and towels, his hair combed and held up by a pencil. “I can’t find my hair-tie—are you eating sugar?”

“…Yeah?” Lavi swung one leg over the ledge of the window. “How can you even see it from over there? I turned the lights off.”

“I can smell it, it stinks.” He walked over to the redhead, taking the cup from his hands and putting it aside. “They’ve got normal food downstairs if you want to eat.”

“You’re worried about my diet?” Lavi answered, playful in his tone, before putting on a more thoughtful expression. “I don’t really want to move, Yu.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Kanda said, as he pressed his knuckles against Lavi’s side. “Come to bed with me.”

“Is that an invitation?”

“Is it?”

And so Lavi moved – put his feet firmly on the cold floor and put his mouth against Kanda’s own, kissing the corners of his mouth gently as Kanda twined his arms around and over his shoulders, pulling him close. They moved on light feet, padding over quietly to the bed as if in a dance, and when the back of Lavi’s knees hit the edge of the bed Kanda slipped off him, his thin fingers working on his shirt front as Lavi pulled the pencil off his hair.

Then they tumbled, losing clothes and physical privacy, and soon—

“Oh God, move, Lavi,“ Kanda bit out, caught face-down with one arm beneath him and the other held down, Lavi’s full weight flush over him. The redhead just hummed, instead nibbled along the line of his nape, and he keened softly, fingers curling as his nerves were flooded with heat. The other’s fingers danced over his skin, fingertips tracing over the lines of his muscles, pushing his hair gently out of the way.

Then Lavi rolled off him, just lay there, his hand still on Kanda’s wrist, and Kanda took his cue and leaned over, moved over, straddled him as he put his mouth to Lavi’s neck and bit down hard. Lavi whimpered, from the pain of it, tensed up then relaxed, then again as Kanda bit down hard and suckled softly in turns, until there was a livid mark on Lavi’s neck and a distinct feeling between Kanda’s legs.

“I want your weight,” he demanded, “I want you on me.”

Lavi lay back and closed his eyes. “I told you I don’t want to move.”

“It doesn’t matter much at this point, don’t you think?” Kanda breathed against the fringes of Lavi’s hair, as his hands dipped down to cup between Lavi’s thighs, and trace lines against the skin of his own. “Just do me so I can go to sleep.”

“I’m not your cure,” Lavi murmured wryly, even as he ran the subtle meanings of Kanda’s statement through his head. It didn’t matter, that was true; because no one decided for them to sleep together, but no one told them not to, either. Because, when Lavi is with Kanda, when he fits himself perfectly between his legs and over his body while the other twists beneath him, at these moments they’re both lying with a certain truth. It didn’t matter, the little nuances of semantics and dependence, and independence, because when they’re fucking each other like this they’re feeling up a warped reflection of each other.

Like a distorted, perverted kind of self-love, where one side of the coin is broken and the other torn.

“You’re needy tonight,” the redhead said, as he buries himself deep into the other, all the way down to his balls. He watched as Kanda’s breathing hitched several times, as tears began to well at the corners of his eyes from the lack of lubrication, and when Kanda finally exhaled in one fluid sigh Lavi moved slow, deliberate. Intent. “What got to you?”

“Stop with the damn questions—nnnghfuck, do that again,” Kanda replied, nails biting the sheets deep. He tossed, this way and that, until something hit that thing inside him, and pardon the censorship but yes, that, keep doing that, come on do that again Lavi—and Kanda takes hold of the headboard, scraping against the worn surface of the wood as he writhes, writhes because he can and never wants to but does so anyway when given the chance.

Just once in every while. Not a habit, just a pastime. Under control.

And when Lavi takes hold of his face to abuse his mouth Kanda doesn’t resist, doesn’t fight the white noise engulfing all his senses in a single burst, and he drags Lavi along with him until they have to stop moving for the sake of morning bruises and aches.

They lay as they were, a couple hours later, sticky and hot and wind-chilled by the open window, and Kanda elbows Lavi’s shoulder before he pushes him off. Lavi just grumbles, lethargic, awkward in his position with an arm still caught in Kanda’s limbs, hand still on Kanda’s face with fingertips quietly making peace with the Asian’s skin. Then Lavi broke the silence.

“We should quit while we can,” he said, thoughtful though satiated beyond belief. “It’s not like we see each other a lot, anyway.”

“What, I’m no good?” Kanda turned, to have his back to Lavi, though he didn’t try to dislodge the other’s arm.

“No, you’re plenty,” he replied, “you’re a lot.” He moved closer, to bury his face against the skin of Kanda’s back, inhaling the scent of the other as he rewrote his memories of how Kanda tasted in the late evening. “This just feels like kindness.”

“Some kindness,” Kanda snorted, undignified a sound as it should be. “Just go to sleep, we have a long way to walk tomorrow.”

And so he did.


Fifteen
-- dated 01 June 18??
Dark Order Headquarters
Entry; Lavi


You have to show a part of yourself to others for you to be able to see through them.

What if someone saw right through you, more than you allowed him to, and invited you to do the same? What if you just thought he did, because you know you can never know the truth? And what if it scared you?

Would you dream on?


{end}