D.Gray-Man 1. Admittance

**Written originally for LJ's dgm hurt/comfort exchange. This was probably the hardest thing I've ever written, and I'm still not quite satisfied with it, so I'd appreciate any critique on it- what worked and what was still sketchy. I knew what I wanted to do with it, but it required... a different writing style than my usual, and I struggled pretty badly with trying to make it fit the image in my mind. **

**Enjoy!**

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_**Lacquer**_

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It is an old castle, small enough to be overlooked as meaningless in this war of giants, large enough so that the stumbling, ravaging troops can't pass up the opportunity to despoil it. It has become a makeshift hospital and refuge, tending to the wounded and hurt, the orphaned and lost, regardless of politics and ideals. This area is mostly neutral anyway, inopportunely caught between the warring sides and thusly tossed into the whorl of destruction.

Kanda lies in the sick bay for ten days. It is where they put the newly received, the wounded, and the dying—those in need of constant care. Five of those days are spent in delirium, while broken tissues in his abdomen burn and fight off infection. His mind burns likewise, dreaming of the fire and his sister, and the charred remains of his parents he was barely able to make out. The darker dreams have her dying screams and anonymous, pale, grimy hands that violate even his mind.

Kanda changes his own bandages after the fever breaks, despite the nurse's disapproving frown. He starts with his legs, the gashes on his thighs. It is slow, painful work, and he has to be careful that he doesn't aggravate the tears inside him. More often than not he ends up on his side, fighting nausea, and has to wait until his ragged breathing slows back down to continue on to the burns and scrapes on his arms and chest. The ones on his back he can't reach, and grudgingly allows the nurses to tend.

Outside, the cannons boom.

**O.o.O**

Everything feels like it chokes him, babbling brooks of black bile bubbling in his throat. There are no words he can use to describe the feeling, the disgust, the endless torment in his dreams. At night, he wakes in soundless screams from nightmares where the hand over his mouth shoves back all the things he wants to scream—scream at his sister to run away, scream at the soldiers to die, scream at his parents to hold on, at the fire to extinguish, at his body to fight, at his mind not to break…

But he can't get out a single word, and only whimpers and drowned sobs are able to squeeze past the groping, fleshy hand bruising his lips, pushing them so hard that they tear against his teeth. Then the warm tang of blood chokes him too, joining the babbling black bile, pooling in the back of his throat against the air trying to burst out.

He wakes every night only to realize there are no hands anymore, only darkness choking him. The blankets are always damp with sweat and reeking of terror, and the ache low within his abdomen throbs.

At first, he doesn't answer to the anonymous worry of the nurses. Days later, when he tries, he finds that the thread connecting his mind and tongue seems to become tangled somewhere in his throat, becoming one pulsing, writhing knot of emotions that he can't put words to, lodged like a jack in a box that won't open.

**O.o.O**

There are new ones everyday. It doesn't take long to figure out what is wrong with this one. Kanda watches from his bed, eyes empty and disinterested like unpolished silver. He only watches because they fall directly into his line of vision. The boy looks to be around his age, with fiery red hair that doesn't bleed into bloody crimson, but into sunsets instead. Kanda is distinctly grateful for that.

"Come along," the nurse says, and leads the boy down past all the sick beds full of moaning patients straddling death or a life of incapacitation. There are no outward signs of any problems, except for an old, worn eyepatch, but his steps are awkwardly placed and out of line, and he tilts oddly to the sides when he turns his head to look around. Kanda conveniently shifts his gaze a centimeter higher when the boy happens to look his way.

"Your bed is the first on the right," the nurse says. The boy doesn't look at her when she speaks, "Can you make it by yourself?"

He doesn't respond, watching the man with no legs attempting to sit up. The nurse huffs with exasperation but tolerates the lack of response. Few behave quite normally here, and bouts of silence or hysteria are unhealthily common. She lets go of the boy's hand and goes to help the man sit up. The boy blinks and turns around at her sudden absence, teetering as if his body doesn't know what angle is perpendicular to the ground, and in his movement, the bag on his shoulder bumps a glass of water. It balances precariously at the edge of the table before finally crashing like a felled giant and shattering into tragic, glittering shards behind the boy. A few of the patients jump at the jarring noise, the nurse flinches, and Kanda himself grits his teeth in irritation.

The boy doesn't even blink, as if completely oblivious to the noise and says to the nurse, "You can tell me which one is my bed. I can get there on my own."

**O.o.O**

The noise is too much for Kanda. Like having his head surrounded by balloons that keep growing and growing, pressing against his head as the pressure swells and swells, but he'll be the first to explode, not them.

The noise is death. Moans and cries, keening whimpers and vomiting breaths, all indications of personal, climaxing pain. He can feel this black grime covering him with each breath of pain that bursts from his neighbors' mouths, and chokes on it. It never ends. There's always someone in pain here.

The floor is cold, stone that knows no heat, but Kanda doesn't notice, his mind centering on the door at the end of this row of death, pulling himself forward as quickly as he can. He hates this weakness, this sluggishness of his limbs, and this painful pressure against his head and against the tangled knot in his throat, gagging him. He needs _out_.

He opens and closes the heavy oak doors with some difficulty, leaning against the pillars in the dark hallway of the castle to catch his breath. _Almost out_, he thinks, into the gardens where he can rest and enjoy the silence, and maybe gather himself.

"What are you doing?"

A hand grabs his shoulder from out of nowhere, and he whirls around to see that it's a nurse, fair face illuminated in the weak highlights of the moonlight, "You can't be out of the wards at this time of the night! Back inside, you go," she says firmly, attempting to push him back where he'd come from, back to those moans of death. He shakes his head and resists, struggling to pull himself from her grasp. He manages to break free long enough to motion with his hands for her to wait, and she does, watching him expectantly, like a hunter might to an accidental, weak catch, to see if it might prove worthy of capture, or simply of the kill. He scrambles frantically for a way to explain himself because he _can't_ go back.

He points to his head, closes his eyes and breathes deeply, peeking to make sure she's watching his motions and understands they're deliberate. She just stares at him. He growls and points and the room and shakes his head fiercely, and still nothing. He shows her the sacred symbol of Aum with his fingers, and she recognizes that even less, glancing at him as though suspecting it's instead an insult of some sort. He _hates_ idiocy.

"Enough," she says, and begins to steer him back, regardless of his terrorized eyes.

"I think he wants to meditate," a voice says out of nowhere, and both Kanda and the nurse jump. Kanda catches sight of him first, walking towards them with a book in one hand. It's the boy from days earlier, the one with the sunset hair and the eyepatch. His steps, Kanda notes, are nearly straight now, and he isn't tipping toward the sides anymore.

He forms the symbol of Aum with his hand, and smiles reassuringly at the nurse, "It's Buddhist meditation. He just wants to go out for a while and clear his head. It's very beneficial to the mind and body," he steps closer to Kanda and makes a movement as if to sling his arm over Kanda's shoulder, but Kanda jumps backward out of reach. The boy continues, unabashed, "I'll go with him and make sure he comes back at a reasonable time."

The boy grins at Kanda, and all the hackles go up.

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**Allen will come! Next chapter will be posted as I edit and revise. Reviews appreciated. **


	2. Benevolence

**Reminder: This is an AU. The setting is vaguely 1700-1800's Europe, not Britain. Also, though it's not exactly obvious, the boys will be a couple years younger than in canon. So, maybe 15-16 for Lavi and Kanda, and 12-13 for Allen. I appreciated the support I received from you guys, thank you. About half of this chapter is new, meaning it wasn't in the original submission to the exchange, but I want to add to and expand what I originally had so as to make a more thorough fic, something which the time deadline didn't quite allow me to do.  
**

**Enjoy!**

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_**Lacquer**_

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He walks with a casualness that Kanda simultaneously disdains and admires. They don't say anything for a long time, strolling past the stone hallways lined with statues, armors, and residual ghosts of feudal times. Kanda speeds up as soon as he realizes that the other boy's steps are deliberately easy-going, regardless of the lightheadedness that brings about. He will not be coddled by _anyone_.

"I'm Lavi. No one knows your name yet. But it's okay that you can't speak, because I can't hear," the boy says out of nowhere, grinning back at Kanda, "I got caught up in some crossfire, and some cannons went off next to me. Short story, at least."

Kanda pretends he didn't hear him, though he really wants to ask why he's accompanying him in the first place, what made him think he could be his keeper for tonight. He stops at the steps leading down to a closed off courtyard garden and breathes deeply, letting the unspoiled scent of wisteria and plums fill him until the pressure inside his head stabilizes the one pressing in from the outside. His breath flows outward, as does the headache that had been plaguing him for days. The hay-fevered stiffness of his body is already easing under the teasing touch of the sibilant midnight breeze, and he marches forward to a flat bench that's he's caught sight of in the dim glow of the moonlight. The courtyard is phantom-like and in a gradient monochrome of moonlit green. The twisted shapes of the plants and vines beckon him into their mysterious world, and he follows without a second thought, relieved at the familiarity of nature, and the absence of the sounds of death.

Lavi watches him, holding his book in one hand and a swiped candlestick in the other, its weak light illuminating his face in a flickering gold mask. He sweeps away dirt and leaves from the steps with his shoe, cleaning a seat for himself.

They both sit and let Night trade places with its sister Dawn.

**O.o.O**

Kanda goes outside nearly every day after that. Though the process will take months, his body begins to shed its stiffness, and the burns on his back and arms begin to peel and heal, leaving angry pink scars. He wonders if those will fade, and isn't sure whether he wants them to or not. He still hears screams in his dreams.

The first day he arrived, Lavi stayed in bed. It wasn't that he was tired or hurt, per say, but there was a deafening ringing in his ears that came and went like the tide, sometimes so shrill he thought his head would split, sometimes ebbing away to leave nothing but a haze through which he watched the silent movie of nurses bustling about, moving their lips in front of his face. He doesn't know what they are saying, and sometimes he doesn't feel like explaining—acknowledging— that he can't hear them and simply shakes his head and skips away.

**O.o.O**

Turns are tough for Lavi. The first time he attempts one, he stumbles and finds himself looking up at the ceiling with the cold marble floor chilling his back. He has to put both hands on the floor to stabilize him enough so that he can sit up on his own, because if not, he veers to the sides and almost topples over again. A passing nurse helps him stand up, and out of the corner of his eye, he sees the black-haired boy, the one with the long dark hair and the bandages on his arms, looking thoughtfully at him. Lavi tuns his head away. He doesn't want pity—his balance will return soon enough.

But maybe it's the only way to gain his attention.

**O.o.O**

He tries that one day. The boy with the dark, slanted eyes and the equally dark hair is seated at his bench, legs crossed and arms held up, amidst a fragrant jungle of green. He would make a pretty girl, nay, a beautiful one, but Lavi thinks that the fact he's not gives him an air of enchantment, of _awe_. How is it possible that something so beautiful is simultaneously so masculine?

And, well, he doesn't have to try very hard to lose his balance. The world constantly twirls and tilts. He feels like the oil in a frying pan, at the mercy of the chef's fancy. He turns his head too fast, and down he goes in a dizzy spiral, right in front of the dark-haired boy.

He waits for a few seconds, as he regains his bearings and his head remembers that yes, the ground goes _below_ him, but there are no arms helping him up, no sign of acknowledgement from the boy in front of him. Lavi risks a glance, and at the sight of the disdain and intolerance he sees in those eyes, the reluctant hand he begins to hold out, Lavi grits his teeth and totters to a standing position all on his own, ignoring the twinge of pain from his ankle.

The heat doesn't abate from his face until he makes it to his bed.

**O.o.O**

The sun beats down on Kanda, warming his scalp as he stands looking out over the vast tree-sprinkled plain that lies behind the castle's garden. There are woods off to one side, the hunting grounds, when this castle used to be ruled by a lord.

He stands at one end of the outside gardens, not his courtyard refuge, away from the throng of nurses that have taken the blessing of sunshine to bring out the patients. Kanda grimaces as he stretches his legs, one by one, and begins his daily round of calisthenics. He can't do all of them yet, nor for very long, but he'll continue to ignore the ache inside him and the sting of his burns until they disappear.

Skinny trickles of sweat tickle his brows and back, sizzling the open wounds under the bandages, when he looks up at one of the nurses' cry. He looks to where she is pointing and sees that boy, Lavi, walking in the distance of the grassy plain, heading toward a bridge that goes over the creek that crosses the property.

Kanda realizes at once the danger, and takes off running under the futile calls of the nurse. He runs, and the wind beats at his sweat-soaked face, and mingles with the harsh sound of his breaths. His limbs flow over the terrain, weeds and tall grasses whipping his calves, tickling his thighs, and he thinks of running after the horses back home, the same rush of wind…

Lavi, of course, can't hear the trampling of his footsteps behind him, and is only a few more steps from the bridge when Kanda trips, slams into Lavi, and they both go down. The aftershock is numbed, the ringing silence after an explosion, with Kanda's chest rising and falling against Lavi's own, and Lavi's wide eyes taking in the glimmer of sweat on the crimson, heat-induced flush of Kanda's face.

"What the—" Lavi chokes, groaning and pushing off Kanda, rolling over and off the rocks digging into his back, and rubs his head and shoulders, "Why the heck did you just body-slam me?"

Kanda pushes to his feet slowly under wobbly knees, and glowers as well as he can with his breath spilling out like a waterfall. His hands rise, hesitating over his arms, itching to rub the pain away. His burns sting, and he hopes that the impact didn't aggravate them too much. He fists his hands, drops them to his side and looks around until he finds a large stone.

"And?" Lavi asks, more than a little irritated, and picks dirt and debris from his coat and dusts off his book.

Kanda rolls his eyes, and throws the stone on the bridge. The stone can be no more than a twelfth of Lavi's weight, but the seemingly solid bridge crumbles instantly underneath it, stone and wood splinters tumbling to the water below.

"Oh," Lavi says. Through the shallow water, the unforgiving rocks of the creek bed are visible. His hand runs through the unruly mop of sunset hair and he glances at Kanda to smile that happy-go-lucky smile, "Thanks. That would have been bad."

Kanda snorts at the understatement and turns smartly on his heel.

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**Aw, so they're getting to know each other. I'm not sure if Allen comes in next chapter or not. Hope you enjoyed.  
**


	3. Camaraderie

**You know, I'm starting to notice that I automatically tend to write from Kanda's POV a lot. Like, he's just my default. I wonder why that is... I mean, Lavi's more entertaining, and Allen is a generally good person... why?  
**

**Enjoy!**

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_**Lacquer**_

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They are the only two boys their age, but the hand that Lavi attempts to place on Kanda's shoulder as a sign of simple camaraderie is always brushed off with a cold shrug. There are some younger children that Lavi tells stories to when he's bored, but all the other children have somehow managed to survive with family, and so they leave, to begin their life anew, or flee to a place not ridden by war. They are in a limbo: the younger, healthy children are sometimes compassionately taken by families traveling away from the area, or even by the patients themselves once they're discharged, because they have taken a shining to the small, innocent creatures they are. But Kanda and Lavi don't inspire such measures, nor are they able-bodied, and thus, not competent in the real world.

**O.o.O**

Two months in, when it becomes clear that their presence will be more permanent than the long-term recovery ward will allow, and that it's not advisable to keep the otherwise healthy youths with those recovering patients, they are granted their own rooms in the towers. They don't want to say _forever_ but it is the word that sneaks by the nurses' minds when they look at them, and the word that haunts Kanda's thoughts when he takes a look around. The head nurse gives them mops and rags and brooms, shows them the decrepit, dusty rooms, lathered in disuse, and leaves. Lavi accepts happily, glad to be away from the moans and groans, but Kanda eyes their new 'home' with a bit more wariness.

Kanda doesn't care which room is his, nor which one is Lavi's, but he flatly refuses Lavi's suggestion of _sharing_ a room. In the end, Lavi picks the one next to Kanda, and they spend the day in and out of both rooms, trading mops for brooms and running off the dust with rags. Lavi slips on the soapy floor and falls face-first into the mop-water, which splashes all over his back as the bucket flips to land on Lavi's head. Kanda fights the impulse but can't hold back the burst of laughter at the sight. Lavi wipes his dripping bangs from his eyes to glare at Kanda once he catches sight of his laughter, grab a wet, slushy rag, and throw it so that it lands with a wet splat on the top of Kanda's head. The next fifteen minutes are spent in an ardent water fight that leaves them breathless with laughter and with their clothes clinging to them like a second skin. They settle down after that and continue cleaning their rooms, but Lavi occasionally flicks water at Kanda, and Kanda scrubs Lavi's face to 'get rid of the dirt'.

At the end of the day, when they lie on the sun-warmed stones of the castle's entrance courtyard, Lavi rolls over to watch Kanda wring the water from his hair, and remembers the image of his laughing face.

**O.o.O**

"You don't have a place to go to, do you?" Lavi asks one day, lying on Kanda's bed. Kanda didn't grant him permission to come in, but he didn't know how to say 'don't come in', and to that insufferable idiot, that had been as good as permission. Kanda looks around their now clean rooms, in a wing all set aside just for the two of them, but reasonably close to the nurses' wing, because the nurses often ask them for help with manual labor and other errands. Kanda thinks that is indication enough of their situation. Neither of them have a place to go back to.

**O.o.O**

Kanda learns how to make his hands speak for him. He refuses at first, but when the nurse asks him what his name is, so that they could stop calling him 'you', Kanda realizes that he can't go about searching for pen and paper all his life. He's not very good at writing anyway, having only gone to school until he was ten before he began helping out with his father's business in earnest.

Lavi watches, and depending on his mood that day, joins in the lessons as well. He catches on quicker than Kanda does, however, which Kanda will not tolerate, and it pushes him to practice, hidden in the courtyard that has become his solace, until the motions are fluid and come ever more naturally.

While Kanda practices speaking with his hands to make up for his lack of voice, Lavi practices reading lips to make up for his lack of hearing. They practice with each other, sharing uncertain glances in the summer heat.

**O.o.O**

The sky is overcast, but beads of sweat roll down their backs anyway, clinging with humidity to their skin. Kanda's eyelashes glimmer after he scrubs his face with one hand. Their hands grip the wooden axe handles tightly, ignorant of splinters and blisters. The air resonates with the echo of the scream of broken wood.

"Hey, pass me that stump over there," Lavi mutters, picking at a splinter in his palm.

Lavi looks up when Kanda's form remains stoic and immobile, a beautiful sweat-slick statue with pale skin and glossy hair. His onyx-black eyes always seem to be looking straight ahead, stone cold and with the intensity of frostbite. That gaze turns to him and Lavi almost looks away to get the wood on his own, but the thump of the ax on the ground draws his gaze back to Kanda's hands.

_K. a. n. d. a. _

Kanda turns away before Lavi realizes what that means.

"Your name… is that your name?"

Kanda does not respond, but Lavi reaches out a hovering hand and runs his fingers through that glossy dark hair.

**O.o.O**

The only problem with this language of motions is that only a handful of the nurses, and Lavi, know it. Kanda doesn't mind it terribly—those are the only people he needs to talk to anyway. In a way, and this is possibly that boyish side of him coming out, the kind that liked to hide out in a secret spot in the fields and keep his sister and her girl friends from knowing—it's actually sort of neat. Like his own secret language that he and Lavi can speak in and no one else will understand them. The other advantage to this language of hand-motions is that it allows Kanda to say things he'd never say out loud otherwise.

**O.o.O**

Kanda wakes to a shy knock on his door and blinks away the dredges of bleary sleep to replace them with a burst of adrenaline when the knock is repeated. He slips out from under the thin summer sheets and pads across the darkened room, fumbling in the dark for the doorknob. He can see a peek of light under the doorway, and the heavy oak creaks when he pulls it open.

"Um, hey," Lavi says, grinning abashedly, candlestick in one hand. The other is fisted on the hem of his sleeping shirt. Kanda knits his eyebrows together and stands there expectantly.

Lavi ducks his head, "I couldn't sleep." He doesn't offer any more than that, and several seconds pass as Kanda debates what to do. It takes him at least one of those to realize that Lavi's purpose in coming is to gain entrance, and the rest are spent debating whether Kanda truly wants to let him in. He heaves an all-suffering sigh and stomps back to his bed, leaving the door open.

Lavi chuckles uneasily, aware that Kanda is anything but happy with the intrusion. But his books had been of no distraction, and he feels restless and lonely. His conversations with the nurses and patients don't fill him, and he hates this feeling of being cooped up. But he has nowhere to go. He's never traveled alone, and in this war, it's not safe; he wouldn't try it. He wants his grandfather back, wants to go visit his "family", wherever their traveling has taken them. He's never really been alone in his life. For the first time, there is no laughter surrounding him, no tales and knowledge tossed around a campfire, no warmth.

He eyes Kanda's bed for a moment, but the milk-pale back facing him like an impassive wall is hint enough that Lavi would be refused. Instead, he sets the candle on the table and sits there, pulling his legs up to sit cross-legged on the wooden chair. Several seconds pass, silent and ghost-like as his life always is now, still save for the dancing of the shadows on the wall. Kanda shifts after a length of time, throwing a glance over his shoulder that lasts only as long as it takes Lavi to notice it.

Lavi grins despite himself, because Kanda would rather pretend he doesn't care what Lavi is doing here as long as it doesn't disturb him, but Lavi bets he's dying to know inside. But Kanda is the prideful kind—Lavi sees the way his eyes shine with something close to arrogance, but Lavi thinks it is really only a self-defense mechanism, his way of proving himself capable when he can't communicate with but a handful of people around him. It's also possibly his way of keeping people at bay while he deals with his losses. That's the way Lavi's books work for him. He supposes he could keep Kanda guessing for a while longer, but he's not really in the mood for games. He feels heavy with more than just lack of sleep, and he runs his hands through his hair restlessly.

"…I can't sleep when I feel lonely," he finally admits. He supposes it should have taken more out of him to say those words than it actually did, but for some reason… though Kanda is disdainful of weakness, he, just like Lavi, has lost someone. That's why they have no place to go to. And that's why Lavi instinctively assumes he'll understand, or at least not disdain him for it.

Lavi supposes he should feel sort of dumb, or embarrassed at having admitted that, but he almost feels as if he didn't say anything at all. He can't hear his own voice, and so sometimes he wonders what makes it out of his head and into the real world. He wonders if Kanda even _heard _it— did he speak loud enough? He never knows, and has to gage by the strength he puts behind his lungs how loud he's speaking. He's sure he spoke, he felt the vibrations of his voice, but it's like throwing a stone in a pond and hearing no splash. He has to look to make sure that he did indeed throw the stone, and it did indeed fall into the water. Sometimes he has no proof. Conversations that he used to memorize effortlessly by recalling sounds now swim in his head like illusions.

He would have missed it, and perhaps that was Kanda's intent, but the motion catches his peripheral vision and he sees Kanda's hands in the air, pale and slim, with pink scars that shine when the light hits them.

_Me too_.

Lavi makes no mention that he noticed Kanda's words, but stores the feeling of warmth that bubbles in him, and thinks that little by little, _this_ will replace warmth of campfires in the woods, and that this language of silence is maybe just as fulfilling as the language of paper and voices that his grandfather taught him.

**O.o.O**

They spend an inordinate amount of time together. It's not because of Kanda, naturally, because he would much rather sit by the creek bed by himself and meditate, or run through his calisthenics. But it's not quite because of Lavi either, even though he is the one who initiates all contact and interactions. Lavi likes spending a lot of his time in a corner reading, but somehow they end up doing all their chores together— gathering water, chopping wood, cleaning the equipment, feeding the animals, running errands to get supplies from nearby villages…

The strangest thing of it all is that Kanda minds it much less than he expected.

**O.o.O**

An odd patient is rushed in one day, after thunder and lightning of the human kind was seen in the nearest village the day before. They don't often take in soldiers, but Lavi sees at once why this one has been brought in. He's a child, just a year or two younger-looking than Kanda and himself. Lavi watches them bring him in, his face a battered mask of blood, his eyelid ripped and bleeding, and one arm hanging precariously by a thread of glistening muscle. Lavi wonders what a child is doing involved in this war.

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**Allen is here! Thank you for your wonderful and thoughtful reviews! I really enjoy the little details you guys comment on.  
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	4. Disruption

**Thank you to all who review! I'm amused at the talk about Allen. Apologies for the lateness: I got back from vacation and have been running around since then. No Backing Out is also getting worked on.**

**Enjoy! **

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**_Lacquer _**

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Kanda becomes broody when Lavi mentions they've brought a soldier boy in. Lavi does not catch on at first—it takes him several hours to realize that Kanda's lack of words is not due to his hands being busy washing basins, but because he is in fact ignoring Lavi. He has to skip back to their last conversation to see what it was that caused this not-so-spontaneous and not-so-rare bout of disregard. Ah. The soldier child.

Kanda refused to see the boy, his gaze dark and unforgiving when Lavi suggested they go see what the damage is, but Lavi let it go. After all, he's not the only one wondering why there's a soldier here—and not in a curious way. They can't tell whose side he's from because the uniform was too stained and ripped to discern, but to most, it only matters that he is a soldier for them to resent him. Not for the first time, Lavi wonders what Kanda's story is. It's rather obvious that his bitterness and unease about the soldier child is connected to his experiences with them. Lavi suspects that he—certainly his life, or family—was thrown asunder by the war, represented by the soldiers.

Lavi tries to get Kanda to talk about it. Kanda locks himself up in his room that night and refuses to open the door for Lavi.

**O.o.O**

The hospital vibrates with the strength of the rumors—there is a soldier in the castle, being tended like all the other neutral, innocent patients. It sparks furious debate that Lavi becomes dizzy trying to follow, lips flying and becoming tangled until they're meaningless lumps of skin moving in spastic flashes. He catches the drift of the kaleidoscope of opinions after a day. Most protest his stay, but little by little, concessions are made due to his age, or his condition. Lavi feels none of that sympathy, and none of that resentment. Only curiosity.

**O.o.O**

He runs into Allen for the first time late at night, just like with Kanda. This time, there are no nurses about, and Lavi has no candlestick to light his way. The hallways are ink-black, but the night is humid and warm. He tries to imagine what the cicadas must sound like, but the sound he conjures up in his head is vague and fuzzy.

There is nothing to warn him. No sound, though he later imagines Allen must have made some. No light either, just a sudden something grabbing his legs and then he falls face-down on a writhing warm _thing_ that takes him several struggling heart-stopping seconds to realize is a body.

He untangles himself after a few seconds of panic, and scoots back to catch his breath, peering into the darkness until he can vaguely discern a shape. Is it a patient, or an intruder…?

A cold finger lights on his hand, trembling and slight, and Lavi jumps but regains his composure as he realizes it is asking for help, grasping at his hand but only able to reach with that one little finger. He traces the hand, going up along a slender arm and running abruptly into hard, cold metal. One of the statues has somehow fallen on him, the leaden arm pinning the boy's arm to the floor.

"I'll help you. I'm gonna lift this thing up, and you're gonna get out of the way, okay?"

He feels for the edges of the statue, takes a breath and heaves, lifting and pushing at the same time, and feels the brush of cloth against his knees as the boy rolls over. There is an empty, unsatisfied feeling inside him as he drops the statue with a wheeze but there is no responding thud or clang, as if his effort did not reach the world, was only personal and did not exist. He cannot even hear the grunt he feels his throat make as he stands back up, holding out a hand to the body on the floor. The figure lies on the floor, and Lavi places that hand on its back, feeling the up and down motion and the quivering of the stick-thin body.

"I'll take you back," he says, reaching to sling the boy's arm over his shoulder, and that's when he realizes there is none. The left shoulder ends in a neatly bandaged stump. Lavi closes his eyes for a moment at the queasiness in his stomach at the feel of empty air where there should have been a limb, and takes the other arm instead. The boy is dead weight against him, taking small, shuffling steps, shaking with fear, or exertion, Lavi's not sure. Lavi stops when the steps do, takes a breath, and hoists the body into his arms, noting how small and light it is. It lays lifeless like a drape in his arms.

Lavi can't hear the shallow breathing, nor the groans, but he feels the feverish warmth that radiates from his slight body, and feels the frantic press-in, push-out of the ribcage pressed against his own. The baby fine hair tickles his chin and smells of alkaline blood and deeper still, clovers.

There are lips pressed against his neck, and Lavi wishes he could hear what those lips are murmuring in butterfly brushes against his pulse.

**O.o.O**

Lavi goes to see him the next day, counting the beds to make sure he's got the same one as the night before, but there is no need. There's only one patient that small with a missing arm. Allen, as the nurse tells him he's called, is fast asleep, though that implies sweet dreams and restful slumber. There appears to be neither here.

"Shit, should he even be able to walk in this condition?" Lavi tsks, and the nurse shakes her head, saying something too fast for Lavi to catch more than "not possible" and "worse today." He catches the gist.

The boy's face is grisly, sickeningly pale, that ugly translucence that reminds Lavi of raw fish. Only parts of it are pale. The majority is discolored and swollen, one eye bandaged and the other purple and green and nearly swollen shut. His whole abdomen is covered in stained, rusty gauze, as well as that hideous stump of an arm…

He looks like death warmed over, but that doesn't quite cover it. It's more like Death got called away seconds before getting his job done, and just left the body there for the world to finish it. His breathing reminds Lavi of a fish once it has stopped struggling. Just deep, desperate gasps, not even rushed, but timed. There is not much else to comment on, his body is still, thin and wasted, as his muscles atrophy from the stress to it.

"…Is— Is he going to make it?" Lavi suddenly asks, because there is a strange feeling in his gut, a strange squeezing of his lungs. He doesn't think this poor thing is going to make it. He's just so small, and so… so _dead_ looking, and even his hair agrees, pale as a ghost. He wants to touch it, and wonders how that cloud-pale straw could have been the same silk that tickled his chin the night before.

Lavi doesn't know whether the nurse responds or not, as her back is turned to him, but he doesn't need his ears to interpret the solemn shake of her head after a moment's hesitation.

**O.o.O**

Kanda kicks him and sends him a glance that clearly says something along the lines of _What the hell's up with you?_ and then flicks his hand: _Talk. _

"Didn't know you cared," Lavi says with raised eyebrows, pouring the water buckets into the tub. He wipes his face, airs his shirt, and says, "You haven't seen him yet."

Kanda frowns, following suit, and when they've fanned and nurtured the fire warming the tubs for the patients, they leave the former-ballroom, now washing room, and head down the grand, dusty carpeted stairs and into the front foyer. Kanda wants more of an explanation for Lavi's sudden distraught silence.

They stand in a five-foot-wide bubble of silence; Lavi waves to one of the nurses he's come to be friends with, and there is crying coming from a nearby room. Hurried footsteps run constantly up and down the hall, various cries, murmurs, calls. The stomp of horses and shouts signal the arrival of newly injured people outside.

_Always so noisy here,_ Kanda thinks, closing his eyes.

He jumps when Lavi takes his arm, his single emerald eye laying a firm gaze on him, "You're coming with me. I don't care if he's a soldier; he's not the one who did that stuff to you. He's just a kid."

**O.o.O**

Kanda's resentful struggles, which continue all the way to the sick bay, cease abruptly when he sees the condition the kid is in. He swallows, glancing quickly at his own arms, where bandages still cover the now mostly-healed burns, and realizes that he got off easy. Physically, at least.

He casts a quick glance at Lavi, whose gaze is strangely pained and intent on that struggling, flailing creature, pale and sickly as dirty wash-water.

"I think," Lavi chokes out, "he's going to die."

**O.o.O**

But he doesn't. His recovery is miraculous. Not in speed, but in existence. The nurses attribute it to willpower. Lavi won't quite agree, until the day Allen opens his eyes again.

**O.o.O**

Kanda doesn't know how to deal with his lack of voice yet. Lavi doesn't know how Kanda used to be before, so he doesn't know if his aloofness and gruff, curt behavior is a result of his experiences or if he'd always been like this, but he can tell that some of it is due to this helplessness of his.

Lavi's there when Kanda runs into a patient one day. Corners, tricky things, but once they both right themselves, and the other person is sputtering apologies, Kanda whirls around and storms away. Not fast enough for Lavi to miss the way Kanda had hesitated for a moment, on his face the closest thing to longing Lavi had yet seen. Longing to say something, to express his thoughts and emotions to other human beings. _Sorry_, is what Lavi's sure he'd meant to, been about to, say. Unable to say anything, what other option does Kanda really have left but to leave?

Lavi follows Kanda, unable to follow the footsteps, and so having to run even faster to keep up with the swing of the ponytail that leads him to the garden, where Kanda sits on the ground, back pressed against the stone bench he usually meditates on, facing away from the castle, his prison, his helplessness.

Lavi sits on the bench and counts the castle windows, careful to not touch Kanda.

**O.o.O**

Sometimes Lavi feels like a ghost. His steps make no sound he can hear, as if he's floating, and his knuckles skitter soundlessly on the iron armors. He drops paper into the fireplace one day, and even though there are sparks that fly and almost sting his skin, there is no sound. It makes him feel lonely and empty. Though, he thinks wryly, if it were up to him, he'd be the best thief in the world.

He goes deep into the woods one day, and screams, screams, screams, and feels like no one can hear him. He screams until his voice is raw, but he feels empty because if it wasn't for that, he wouldn't know that he's just spent the better part of an hour screaming. It's as if his existence does not touch the world.

Kanda appears suddenly in the clearing, and Lavi's sure that there was plenty of noise—branches breaking and leaves crunching—but to him, Kanda just appeared out of nowhere.

He looks disheveled, breathing hard, with his hair strewn all over his face.

_What happened?_ Kanda demands, looking Lavi all over, as if expecting a bandit or a broken bone. When it becomes clear that there is nothing wrong, and his barely-concealed anxiety was for nothing, he scowls and turns away, but Lavi calls him back.

_What?_

"You heard me?" Lavi clenches his hands repeatedly, and maybe the coiling and uncoiling of loneliness in his stomach shows on his face, because Kanda's scowl smoothes out as he says, _You were yelling pretty damn loud_. He takes a breath and adds, _Don't do that again_.

Kanda holds his hand out, and Lavi takes it, but he ducks his head and can't hold back the few tears that manage to break through. They're of bitterness, that he can't even hear his own voice, but they're of relief too, that at least there's someone else who can.

**

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Hm. Even though I would probably say that AllenxKanda is my favorite pairing, I always seem to write more KandaxLavi. And even though I'd say Lavi is my favorite character, I'm clearly in love with Kanda. Methinks I'm fooling myself. Well, all that is solved by saying that ARK is my favorite threesome pairing. XD  
**


	5. Extinction

**I deeply apologize for the long hiatus. First year of uni, and lack of inspiration are to blame. Luckily, the rest of the story is half written, and it should progress smoother, I hope. Thank you to all those who reviewed!**

**Enjoy!**

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**_Lacquer_**

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There is a rosary pooled in the folds of Allen's collar. The priest who takes care of the last rites for all the dying and hosts mass every day comes by Allen's bed, and Lavi watches skeptically as he brushes Allen's forehead and places the sign of the trinity over him, chanting messages of hope and reverence. Allen breaks from his stupor for a few brief seconds to look up at the priest, whisper 'Amen' and smile at Lavi. Lavi's not sure how he was able to do that, given that his eye is still too swollen to look out of, and the other one is covered in bandages, but he smiles back anyway.

"God loves this child very much," the priest says as he parts. Lavi scoffs, but remembers how the nurses did not believe he would live a day longer when he first came here.

**O.o.O**

"Done, finally," Lavi sighs, scrubbing at the sweat beaded on his forehead. Kanda follows suit, blowing errant strands of hair from his eyes and tucking them back to their respective places behind his ears. He's about to turn to Lavi and ask if he wants to go to the pond in the woods and cool off when Lavi raises his hand in a farewell salute and calls "See ya at dinner!"

Kanda's eyes dart toward the sick bay area, knowing exactly where Lavi is headed.

**O.o.O**

Allen's eye is silver. Its gaze hovers in the general area of his body, but it's disconcerting because it's not Allen's eye itself that follows the muted sound of his booted feet on the stone floor, just his head. His pupils remain staring forward in whatever direction his head faces.

"Hi," Lavi says softly, and sits at his usual spot on the chair permanently pulled up at Allen's bedside, like a faithful dog to his master's. He wonders if the chair makes a creak or other noise that lets Allen know he's now sitting. He shifts awkwardly and finally asks, "How are you feeling today?"

Allen's smile is tight and strained, but honest, unlike much around here— the false smiles of the numbed nurses, the denial of the patients and the soon-to-die. Allen's finger twitches, and Lavi takes his hand, brushing his thumb over the top of it. It's one of the few places on his skin that is actually smooth and unscarred.

"I might be able to walk by next week," Allen says, his lips forming the words more clearly, opening wider and closing more decisively, which is a step up from the weak barely-there parting of his lips a couple weeks ago, where Lavi could not make out any of his words at all. He sits up nearly on his own now, the 'nearly' due mainly to awkwardness with his handicaps, both in sight and in limb.

"You might be able to…?"

"Walk," Allen repeats, moving two of his fingers back and forth to illustrate when Lavi can't read him properly, "By next week."

"Ah, that's really good. Kanda and I'll show you around. They won't let you out of this ward yet, but eventually… I mean," Lavi stops, "Never mind."

Allen is about to open his mouth, when the head nurse, who has personally seen to attend to him, comes up to check his temperature and give him his next dose of medicine. Lavi excuses himself and promises to be back by evening, after his day-chores are done.

He'd been about to say that eventually, Allen would come and live with him and Kanda, in that little wing up in the higher reaches of the castle, and they could hunt, and Allen seemed like the kind of person who had a green thumb, so they could take over the hospital gardens too, and try to find more hidden passageways in the castle… but that would have implied that Allen is like them. Someone with no place to go back to.

**O.o.O**

Allen's hand, like the rest of him, is small and pale, like a non-Oriental china doll. But when Lavi holds Allen's hand, underneath the strain and the fever-induced weakness, he feels steel and iron running in that blood.

Kanda, though pretty, looks like steel and iron on the outside, solid and beautiful like onyx. But Lavi suspects, has seen hints, that it's in fact Kanda who is the true china doll.

**O.o.O**

Summer begins to fade, but not before one last heat wave inundates them, seeping into every nook and cranny of the castle, a layer of suffocating heat lining the surface of every object. The nurses open up all the windows to coax any and all breezes, though it's sure that some patients won't make it through, no matter how many cool cloths are placed on their foreheads. Even nature seems unprepared, heading steadily toward autumn with the ever-increasing weight of their fruit sinking the apple tree branches lower and lower. This unexpected blow leaves even the flowers wilting and the faded green trees fanning themselves with the breeze.

Kanda struggles through it, feeling like he can't breathe, like each gulp of air scalds his throat, filling him with lead and making every movement slow and lethargic, as he trudges through this lukewarm gelatin of heat. It makes him lightheaded, and he's drenched with sweat by midmorning, the salty drops running one after the other down his face, tickling his nose and stinging his eyes, dropping to be soaked into the ground as he plods behind Lavi, feeding the animals. Lavi's sweating too, his bandana damp save for the very center, though by midday that too will be dark. But Lavi doesn't seem to be affected by it—his steps remain light, and he chatters animatedly at Kanda, and occasionally the animals too, when Kanda doesn't pay him any attention.

How does Lavi do it? Kanda ponders that as they lie beneath the willow to bear out the noon blast. In the shade, away from the flare of the sun's rays, the heat doesn't burn so much as bake. It feels like a damn furnace to him, but he closes his eyes, presses his back against the relatively cool gnarls of the trunk, and tries to forget it.

"Hey," Lavi pipes up from behind Kanda, startling him out of the impromptu nap he'd been meandering into. He looks at Kanda, a leaf whistle poking from between his toothy grin, "Let's play hide and seek."

Kanda shakes his head adamantly. He motions to the air, clearly saying, _In this heat?_

"Aw, come on, please?" Lavi gets on his knees, and Kanda amuses himself for a moment imagining ears and a begging tail, "I'll even be it! You can hide and fall asleep if you want, but I still have to find you! I'll give you extra time to hide, too!"

In other words, Lavi is bored out of his mind. Kanda rolls his eyes, fanning himself and settles back against the tree, fixing his gaze firmly on the castle towers.

"Kanda~," Lavi pouts, and Kanda finally gives in after a grueling minute of incessant tugging on his sleeve and pitiful puppy-like whines.

He almost reconsiders it, throwing a longing glance at the shade when he leaves it and the sun's rays sizzle his skin once more, but the appeal of an indeterminable amount of time under a cool surface without Lavi's pestering makes the effort of finding such a place worth it.

**O.o.O**

He wanders into the castle, easily dodging the nurses who will call for his help with pointless chores if they catch sight of him, and heads over to what would have been the servants' quarters in times long past. Now it is used mainly for storage of broken and discarded furniture, which provides hours of fun for Lavi and Kanda, who find the scraps ideal for carving and building toy swords and crossbows. But even they don't come here very often, and the cobwebs and skittering ghosts between the crates and barrels testifies to that.

Kanda nudges a chair all but drooping with age out of the way to reach an imposing door behind it, as devoid of vitality as everything else in the chamber, determined to make it as difficult for Lavi as possible. The handle protests with a rusty groans when he pulls it, and Kanda blinks at the burst of light that greets him, shifting uncomfortably at the return of the dreaded heat. He steps forward into the small sunbathed courtyard it leads into, the door slamming shut behind him under its own weight. Kanda ignores it and looks at the high walls creating something like an open-air prison, and is disappointed to find no other doors leading to an even harder hiding spot for Lavi to find. He sighs and turns around, pressing his palm onto the door to push it open.

It doesn't budge.

**O.o.O**

The panic doesn't set in until the broom handle breaks, and Kanda is left with no more means to make noise and call attention to his plight. His heartbeat speeds, hammering in his head and pulsing painfully through heat-swollen fingers. Kanda moves on to sticks littering the ground, but they make muffled, brittle sounds and soon break as well. He's lost track of how long he's been out here, wondering if anyone saw him come here, if Lavi will remember this place, if he'll ever get out. He collapses against the wall, scorching underneath the constant glare of the damning light in the sky, feeling the same burn across his arms stinging the back of his eyes as well. He squeezes his eyes shut and opens his mouth, taking a desperate gulp of breath, readies himself for it— but it won't come out. He tries and tries, but it gets lodged in his throat and when he grows dizzy from lack of air, it only comes out in a soundless whoosh.

_He_ _can't_ _scream_.

**O.o.O**

He feels himself wilting slowly under the sun, lying on the dusty ground spread out flat, with no more energy to flick his hair away, feeling the panic fade into lightheadedness and nausea that lifts him into a nebulous level of disregard for the world. At some point he realizes he's not even sweating anymore, his hair no longer sticking to his dehydrated skin. It burns, he can imagine his skin bubbling and boiling, being peeled off as he knows burns can make it do, but at this point the haze in his head doesn't let him do anything more than concentrate on his shallow breathing. Even that is difficult; his swollen tongue blocks the passage of air from his lungs and Kanda simmers slowly, abandoned and silent, and somehow, he thinks that is fitting for him.

His fingers lie immobile in front of his gaze, and he thinks about his sister's fingers, chubby with youth, his mother's, elegant and long, and his father's, thick and strong. Then he thinks of Lavi's fingers, spindly and clever, and remembers how they brush across his scalp.

**O.o.O**

Lavi does find him, a dried-out corpse, flies already buzzing around him in anticipation. He kneels next to him, calling his name out over and over again, and lets tears fall unabashed when Kanda doesn't respond, doesn't even stir, no matter how hard Lavi nudges him or how badly his voice breaks.

Lavi drags him back into the shade of the castle and runs in a blind frenzy for the nurses. It makes no sense— he hasn't cried since he got here, even with his grandfather's death fresh on his mind. He's been able to hold it all in and distance himself with his books and fake smiles, but with Kanda— but maybe that's it. Maybe two deaths are just too much.

He sobs uninhibitedly when he almost crashes into the head nurse, who immediately tries to get him to take deep breaths and calm down, but all Lavi can do is point and tremble and imagine Kanda's pale, pale face.

"He won't wake up. He's dead."

**

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**Next chapter should be up in a week. Thank you to those who still remember and review this story!**


	6. Fear

**Thanks again to those who are still hanging around my fic. ****Enjoy!**

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**_Lacquer_**

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Kanda is not dead. He regains consciousness after several hours in a bathtub of lukewarm water while the nurses fan him in an attempt to lower his body temperature. Lavi crouches next to Kanda, would have gotten in the bath with him if he'd thought it would help. It won't, so he remains there, crouched and tense, gulping down the painful lump in his throat and rubbing at his eyes and sniffling like the little boy he pretends he's not. When Kanda tosses his head weakly to the side and uncovers a sliver of dull onyx pupils, Lavi's face is the first thing he sees. The next thing he notices, aside from an unbearable dizziness, is the anchoring feel of Lavi's spindly fingers wrapped around a lock of his hair, gentle but with the definite firmness of desperation.

**O.o.O**

Wracked with guilt, because it _was_ all his fault, and fear, because Kanda is surely angry, even if he's pretending not to be, the first couple of days he spends completely at Kanda's side, chewing his lip and squirming in his seat anxious and dreading for Kanda to open his eyes. He entertains himself during the wait by braiding Kanda's hair and whispering secrets and stories in his ear. Sometimes, he pulls back a little, his nose brushing Kanda's cheek as he does so, and just watches Kanda sleep, and that face, even when pale and parched, reminds him of all the old cathedrals and monuments he's come across during his travels, brittle and crumbling. Despite that, there is a pool of beauty that remains untouched by age or weathering, never to be eroded, awe-inspiring and sacred.

Kanda is like those old cathedrals.

**O.o.O**

Kanda won't admit it, will hardly even look at Lavi in an attempt to hide it, but… Lavi's with him. And he's arm-scratching uncomfortable at the realization that it means something to him. Lavi chatters to him in that oddly pitched voice of his, and Kanda pretends not to listen, looking at the swallows perched on the window sill and seeing nothing but blue, blue skies that he used to gaze at from horseback, in this highest tower that they've picked to be their home, from which there is no escape because there is nothing for them out there. It's still a bitter thought, making his chest tighten and his lips press together, as he narrows his eyes and sends curses to the godforsaken horizon.

Kanda pretends he's not listening, lost in his own thoughts, but when Lavi stops talking, Kanda turns his head towards him, his slender hand nudging Lavi's to prompt the words to flow again.

**O.o.O**

He spends the first days almost exclusively by Kanda's side, but little by little, Lavi strays back to Allen. There is a voice calling him, he feels its tendrils creeping on the edge of his thoughts, hears its echoes when he closes his eyes, though it's surely not Allen's itself.

"How is Kanda?" Allen asks, rubbing the covers between his fingers as he stares straight ahead. Lavi frowns in concentration, asks him to repeat, and then shrugs, placing his interlaced fingers behind his head and leaning back, precariously balanced on the chair's hind legs.

"He's okay. He's really tired all the time—he's sleeping right now. But the nurses say it was just that the heat was too much. He won't say anything, but I think the burns on his arms are hurting again. I mean, they were almost healed, but they look pink again, and it looks like it hurts," Lavi babbles, happy to see the minute shifts of expression in Allen's face in response to the movements that Lavi makes with his mouth and throat.

"When will they take the bandage off the other eye?" Lavi asks suddenly, "Do you think you'll be able to see out of that one?" Allen purses his lips, but then it's gone as he touches the yellowed cloth and shrugs.

"I hope so," he smiles easily, and doesn't tell Lavi about the dubious hums of the nurse every time she changes the bandage.

"Me too," Lavi swings his legs back and forth on the stool and proceeds to tell Allen about the birds he saw this morning, fighting over an insect, and how one of them fell into the water basin Lavi was using to clean dirty rags.

Two ballrooms, three hallways and four bedrooms up and away, Kanda wakes up alone in his room.

**O.o.O**

"You comin' with us today, kid? Where's your partner?" the man runs his finger over the arrow tip, looking at Kanda to see him shrug and take his own bow and arrows. Considering his size, Kanda's bow is much too tall, but he wields it gracefully and accurately, and that is why the few men who are capable of hunting for food let Kanda hunt with them. At their age, they joke, they were only allowed to watch and skin the animals, carrying their fathers' supplies all the while. Lavi accompanies Kanda, but he doesn't hunt. Mainly because he can't tell where the animal is by the rustling in the underbrush, and can't be stealthy himself for the same reason. Lavi usually has the job of carrying supplies and skinning the smaller animals.

It's the first time Kanda's gone without Lavi with him, and the silence, punctuated by the rough, guttural grunts and jokes of the limping men dethroned from their prime by war, is awkward. But they pat his head and ruffle his hair, and their large hands and gruff voices do something to remind him of his father that Lavi's spindly fingers and curious voice cannot. And maybe that is truly why he feels awkward.

It is not long before Kanda spots a rabbit, and he veers from the group, intent on making it his kill. He tells himself that it's because any game goes, it's all food in the end, after all, but the first thought that dashes through his mind when the arrow lodges itself through the small, soft bulge of a belly, the momentum of the arrow dragging the animal a few feet back, is that Lavi will be happy. Rabbit is his favorite.

**O.o.O**

Kanda excuses himself from the hunting group after he's gathered a couple rabbits and quail, leaving those and the deer he'd also killed for the men to gather on the way back. He takes back only a rabbit, holding it by the ears as he stumbles back. There are rivulets of sweat gliding down his back, prickling, and he feels slightly dizzy. He stays under the shadows of the trees, avoiding the sunlight like the plague, and scrubs his arm against his forehead to wipe away the sweat threatening to spike his eyes.

"Hey!"

Kanda jumps around just in time to feel a splash of water burst against his face and coat a layer of cool, cool relief all over his body. He blinks a few times to clear the water from his face, feeling the heat-induced lightheadedness recede as the faint autumn-beckoning breeze blows fleetingly against his body and further relieves the heat.

It is Lavi, sitting on the gardening shed's roof, legs swinging and empty bucket still poised in the air, grinning at him, "Thought you might like that," he says, scrambling off the roof with an 'oof' as he lands, turning to pout at Kanda, "It's too hot for you to be out here, you shouldn't—oh, you got rabbit!" his eyes widen gleefully, "I've been dying to eat some, you're so good at hunting, Kanda!"

Kanda ducks his head, busying himself with dragging his wet bangs from his suddenly raspberry-tinged cheeks as he holds out the rabbit for Lavi to take and gush over.

**O.o.O**

The bandage falls, revealing a crimson half-healed wound running from a mangled mound above his left eye all the way across his sightless, tremulous pupil, and ending jagged on his cheek.

Allen's smile is lopsided when Lavi tries to stutter out something appropriate to say.

**O.o.O**

Lavi sits motionless that afternoon. Kanda abandons his paper cranes and sits with him.

"It's too much. An arm, both his eyes, that scar…" his voice is twisted like his lips, painfully, trying to compose himself. Kanda agrees.

**O.o.O**

His scarred eye is irrevocably damaged—Allen drags careful fingers along the healing wound, still rough and red and sensitive to pressure. He remembers what his face looked like in front of a mirror, and tries to correlate that image with the gullies and crevices of skin his fingers glide across. His fingertips are cold, but he can feel the warmth of his cheeks, runs his index finger over the chapped flecks of his dried lips, feels with a hiss of pain the bump of the scar on his pupil, traces it down his left cheek and sighs.

The swelling has been down from his right eye for some weeks now, but the sight has not returned. Also irrevocable damage, but Allen is not completely blind. Through that eye, he can tell whether it is night or day, can sometimes tell where the window in the room is by the pinpoint of red that he assumes signals the sun. It may not be much, but Allen is grateful for those breaks in the monotony of the black ink pooled in his eye sockets.

He doesn't know how to feel about it yet. Each day is an exhausting struggle to ignore the ever-present pain of his non-existent left arm, or the headaches that cloud his mind in a pulsing fog of pain. The rest of his body has long since been cleared of bruises and scratches, but that is not as good a thing as it sounds because the pain distracts him from the devastation he supposes he should be feeling.

Thus, weeks after, with his body ambling slowly toward the coveted haven of health, he feels restless, useless, lost. Restless because he's been in bed much too long, immobile and with nothing to distract him from the pain and the blindness when Lavi's not around. Useless, because he is, quite literally, a soldier who has lost his ability to fight. He will never go back to the battlefield now, and he's not sure how he feels about that either.

Relief is first. Guilt follows swiftly. Fear becomes the all-encompassing third. Fear of the unknown—he was raised on the battlefield, with gunshots as his lullaby and amputated limbs as his bogeyman, sergeants and generals as his uncles and cousins. It wasn't pleasant—playing hide-and-seek with Death and hoping that your hiding spot was good enough for him to miss you, even as you heard the scream of comrades, family, who weren't so lucky. But he'd made the best of it; war is both his home and his purpose.

This is the first time he's ever been away from home.

**O.o.O**

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**You didn't think Kanda was _really _dead, did you? The setup wasn't right! He hadn't even met Allen! Lol, but I didn't want to give it away either, so sorry for the jerking around. Thanks for the reviews! **

**And... Kanda and Allen meet next chapter! Finally... **


	7. Gemstones

**Man it's hard to get back into the swing of writing -_- But, enjoy this chapter! **

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**_Lacquer - 7_**

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"You smell funny," Allen remarks, scrunching up his nose, pointed delicately away from Lavi's direction. Tangerine sunlight washes over the sheets he fingers, continuing upwards to tint his pale skin with a surreal glow.

"…Fanny?" Lavi repeats, distracted by the golden sheen of his normally silver hair.

Allen shakes his head, "Funny. As in strange," Lavi wrinkles up his face in concentration, leaning forward to read his lips better and asking him to repeat, and after a few more tries, Lavi gets it.

"It's Kanda's fault, because I was helping him with the horses," He pouts, making sure to make a sound accompanying his facial expression. He kneels on the chair to rest his elbows on Allen's bed and wiggles cheerfully, making Allen giggle as the bed shakes on its rattly legs, "I know how to ride horses, just like everyone else, but Kanda rides 'em _pretty_. He can do jumps and takes care of the horses all by himself. They listen to him, but they just buck me off when _I_ try to make 'em do stuff," Allen laughs, and Lavi smiles, satisfied. He imagines the sound to be small copper bells, pleasant and full-throated, tumbling out of his wide lips and past the front teeth that show when he laughs. He's certainly more used to laughing than Kanda is, who laughs rarely and with his head turned away, unaccustomed muscles letting the motion fall quickly, unlike Allen, whose laugh lingers at the corner of his mouth in a smile that is slow to fade.

"I want to meet him," Allen murmurs at length. Lavi wiggles again, this time in discomfiture.

"He doesn't like soldiers," he blurts out, "I don't know why, but probably for the same reason everyone else does," at Allen's crestfallen expression, he adds, "But he'll come around. Kanda's really nice, you'll see," he scratches the back of his head, "Well, he's really mean, but only because he's _embarrassed_ to be nice. He's nice inside," Lavi says with a firm nod.

**O.o.O**

"What time is it?" Allen asks, collapsing on a seat at the end of the sick bay, legs trembling in the aftermath of strain and effort they have been denied for weeks. He gets his breathing under control as he feels the seat underneath him, the cushion soft with use and the wood sporting scratches his fingernail gets caught on.

"Six in the afternoon," the nurse says kindly. Allen takes that information in, and tries to reconcile the particular shade of darkness through his right eye as belonging to twilight, "And when you feel up to it, we'll go right back to bed."

"Yeah," Allen says. He can't tell if her noncommittal kind voice is honest or not, unsure of how to read tones without the faces accompanying them for clues. It was only a short walk from his bed to the end of the sick bay, but even so, his muscles twitch and jump underneath his skin, and there is a vague lightheadedness shrouding his head.

It had been his first foray into the world without his sight. And even though he was sure that the path was clear for him, heard the nurse tell people to move out of the way and to just walk straight ahead, he still inched each step forward one by one, vacillating and scared of what the next step would bring. Logic told him that she would stop him when they reached the end, but he was still putting a step forward into thin air, unknowing of how far it was to the end, what the floor looked like, whether there was anything spilled on it, broken on it. It was a step into the unknown, into a black abyss, and despite his smiles and reassurances that he was alright, he was—is— terrified.

"You ready to go back, child?" and there's a hand suddenly grabbing hold of his own. He jumps, startled at the sudden touch, and then nods.

He is walking forward, and that is all that matters.

**O.o.O**

"Will you stay with him?" Lavi pleads, casting a glance at the impatient throng of children in the doorway, "Please," he adds, when Kanda's face darkens and he looks about to shake his head.

Kanda huffs and whacks Lavi's head, but replaces Lavi nonetheless at the chair next to Allen's sleeping form.

_You owe me one,_ he glares.

Lavi rolls his eyes and clutches the children's storybook closer, "Fine, how about I do one of your chores?"

Kanda shrugs and turns his face away, lifting it only after he's sure Lavi's left. He turns to look at the boy with the snowy hair, and thinks _This is the person that Lavi…_

He wonders what's so special about him that Lavi visits him every day, and wonders angrily which army he was from, fingers curling into stony fists all of their own accord. And yet, he can't seem to direct the anger at that pale, scarred face, much as he wants to.

**O.o.O**

Allen wakes up before Lavi comes back. Kanda doesn't know what to do, watching those eyes flutter sightlessly. It takes a moment, but Allen suddenly frowns, hand reaching out blindly toward Kanda, even though his eyes stays fixed on the ceiling, "Is someone there? Lavi?"

Kanda takes that hand before he thinks twice about it. Both of them jump at the contact, and Kanda drops it again, but Allen leaves it hanging in midair.

"You're not Lavi…"

Kanda almost shakes his head, but then remembers and is at a loss. He finally gets an idea and takes that pale, small hand, and traces with his other hand, clearly and carefully, _N-o_ on Allen's palm. Allen looks confused for a moment, and then understanding dawns on his face. Kanda is mesmerized by the expressiveness of his face.

"Oh. Are you his friend then? He's always talking about you. Kanda, right?"

He feels sort of foolish doing this, but he would feel even more so if he just squeezed his hand or did something equally vague as that, so he traces _Y-e-s. _Belatedly, he thinks _Lavi talks about me?_

Allen squirms a little and says, "It tickles."

Kanda lets go of his hand, perplexed as to whether that means he doesn't want him to do it or what.

"Here's your food, Allen," the nurse maneuvers her tray of food for the patients, her efforts saved when Kanda reaches and takes one of the bowls from the tray and lays it on the bedside table, "Thank you, Kanda. Have you and Lavi eaten?"

Kanda nods, and the nurse cocks her head, "Where's Lavi? This is the first time I've seen you here."

Kanda pretends he's holding a book and turning the page, and the nurse's face brightens in comprehension, "Oh, with the children. It's so good of him to do that. You boys help us out so much here."

Kanda shrugs uncomfortably, and the nurse heads on to the next bed, leaving them in silence. Allen reaches out carefully, feeling the table-edge gingerly and sliding his fingertips until he touches the bowl. Kanda wonders if he'll need any help, but he's not going to offer it, and the boy has a mouth he can use to ask if he really does need to, so Kanda remains still and watches.

Allen finds the spoon, and he twists in his bed to reach easier. Everything takes longer— dipping the spoon, lifting it up carefully, bringing it with that same painstaking care over to his mouth, little by little to avoid spilling whatever is inside, and he sticks his tongue out slightly like a feeler, as if to make sure he doesn't aim wrong and tries to feed his cheek instead.

Slow as the process may be, it is steady, and Allen has clearly had some practice with it, because it is not as chaotic as Kanda would have imagined it to be. There are still some spills, and near-misses with his mouth, but Allen's expression is determined, his lips pressed together as he struggles with bringing the precariously-balanced spoon through the air. When he reaches the bottom, trying to get the soft vegetables left there, his bowl slips with the push of the spoon against its side.

Kanda debates it, but that only makes him feel even more reluctant, so he stops thinking about it and just reaches out to steady the bowl. The ceramic is warm to the touch.

Allen stops and blinks at him, and finally smiles, beaming and much too bright, "Thanks!"

Kanda watches, remembering his own frustrations with his voice, with feeling helpless and useless. He thinks this might just be worse.

**O.o.O**

It's queer how abrupt the transition between sight and darkness is. Within a few days of consciousness, he realizes that he no longer faces people with his eyes when he listens to them, but with his ears.

It's like looking at a picture upside-down. It's awkward, and details obvious when in its correct position are missed with this new twist. But the knowledge of what it looks like right-side-up is helpful. Blindness is like that.

He knows that what he has in his hands is a glass, and that helps him—he realizes what a circle feels like when he runs his finger along the rim, and the difference in hardness between a glass cup and a wooden one when he digs his fingernail in, the contrast between the _cling_ of glass and the _tok_ of wood. He comes to distinguish the different blankets they use—whether they're made of yarn, or cotton, sown with an expert hand in fine stitches or with an apprentice's hands in larger loopholes. He runs his hands over his face and compares the bumps his fingers glide along to the mental image he has of his face.

**O.o.O**

Kanda stands at the doorway of the once grandiose ballroom, feet poised just behind the threshold into hell as he watches Lavi and Allen. The moans and groans of the dying, of the ones being called into a place beyond human understanding, chokes him and makes his stomach curl unpleasantly. He still can't stand the low, bass rumblings of death playing eenie-meenie-minie-mo with the patients. He still can't stand coming back here.

Lavi can't hear it, so it's understandable that he has no problem waltzing in and making himself at home within this market of putrefying flesh, its vendor a product of their very own: war. But Allen… Allen can hear it, and Kanda doesn't understand how he can stay a second longer in this place.

**O.o.O**

Sound is the most important indication people give him of their existence, and he finds himself straining his eardrums to pick up any and every vibration out there informing him of his new world. He lies there one day and tries to distinguish all the ranges of sound, becoming attuned to them little by little, all the white noise of quotidian life being filtered layer by layer until he can easily focus on each one at whim. First are voices. Then bird calls outside, and he sorts through those one by one as well. Then he catches the splash of water, heavy and deep, and assumes it must be a patient washing. He hears the _swish_ of the nurses hurrying footsteps, and the familiar groans of wounds and infections that lull him to sleep, a comforting, if morbid reminder of his life before. He can't do much more than discern and identify the noises, however—deciphering what they _mean_ is a vague travel mark far off in the road.

**O.o.O**

Now that he's met him once, Allen begins to think about Kanda. All he has is the reminder of Kanda's hands, barely bigger than his own, warm and holding his despite the hesitance and unease with which they did so. He wonders if he'll ever be able to see how beautiful Lavi says he is. He hopes Kanda will come back so he can find out for himself.

**O.o.O**

The times without Lavi are boring and reminders of the ache in his body, lessening steadily as it may be. Lavi tells him all sorts of interesting stories—about cities Allen's never heard of, forests with witches living in them, strange villages where they wear tall, fluffy hats to protect themselves from the cold, about Kanda, and how he tried to feed a baby bird in secret until Lavi found him and together they built a house for it. Allen doesn't talk back much because Lavi can't read his lips very well, but that's alright because Allen would rather listen to Lavi than talk about himself. Lavi is the sunlight in Allen's newly night-shrouded life.

* * *

**I had to do stuff with Allen-- I realized most of the story is from Kanda and Lavi's point of view, and we needed more Allen ^_^ **


	8. Hostility

**Story of my life, trying to get back on track with writing. But I'm seeking help! (thanks sowingpoppies!) So that there will be more regular updates and this will actually get finished! **

**In today's episode, Lavi and Kanda get some issues resolved...**

**Enjoy! **

* * *

**_Lacquer - 8_**

* * *

Lavi leads Allen carefully, painstakingly slowly, throughout the castle, a doting older brother— 'Watch out for the step here, and there's a person coming by, so come this way.' He holds Allen's hand like without that responding pressure, something would be lost, the thing that makes him opens his eyes and look towards the blinding sun in the mornings. He tells Allen jokes, and even though his chest squeezes when Allen opens his mouth and the laughter that tumbles out is silent to Lavi, he tries to imagine that it would be the most beautiful sound in the world, and contents himself with the gleam of silver in Allen's eyes and the sight of his beaming face.

**O.o.O**

If Allen allowed himself weakness of any kind, allowed room for self-pity or morbid reflection to weigh him down—and God knows he has the capacity to, with the atrocities he's borne witness to— he would be realize that he's terrified every time he fulfills his promise to Mana and walks forward.

It was one thing to walk forward when he could look up and lose himself in the all-encompassing blue and the light burning his retinas and leaving flashing red imprints when he blinked, crouch down and mesmerize himself with the vibrant tint of a tulip, and catch from the corner of his eyes the graceful dive of a swallowtail. It was different when he could smile and in return, see the grimy weariness life painted on people's faces smudge and clear as if the clouds themselves had blotted them away.

It's another thing entirely when he's stepping into nothingness.

**O.o.O**

There is a clenching tension all along him whenever Lavi takes his hand and proposes a trip out of the sick bay. It's there, firmly unacknowledged, when Allen himself asks to be shown around, restless and sick of immobility. He's been thrown into a pool of dark ink and told to find the exit, with no more means of doing so than flailing his arms about.

**O.o.O**

There is something relaxing about the soft snorts and muted stomps of the horses, and Kanda lowers his forehead on the velvety nose of the one currently sniffing his clothing in search of an elusive treat. He thinks of snow and fire, how one melts the other, how they seem to be made for one another, and wonders where he fits in.

_What does he have that I don't?_ Kanda thinks vaguely, sinking his fingers into well-combed threads of mane willing them to anchor him to happier times and happier memories, even as the tangled knot in his throat pokes at the feeble wisps of that delusion.

What does Allen have that he doesn't? He ponders that question, as much as he is able to, and in the end he remembers Allen's smile and it gives him the cruel answer.

**O.o.O**

The air is hot and dry, beating remorselessly on his skin, but Allen much prefers it to the smothering air in the ward, which to Kanda is laden with the weight of blood and coughs, but to Allen is simply stuffy and dark. His restlessness gets the better of him now, a body unused to remaining still for so long now fighting against weariness and injury to function as before.

He feels the smoothness of the wooden bench he's sitting on, his fingertip stumbling momentarily against a small splinter. The wind rustles through the tress, producing a soft sigh from the leaves, and he waits for it to reach him. When it does, it brings the smell of almonds into his nose, and he breathes deeply of the scent of hope.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to leave you for so long!"

Allen turns his head toward the breathless call. He can't yet judge distances by voices, but it sounds far, possibly at the edge of the gardens where the stone floor breaks into a million pieces that Lavi calls 'stairs'.

"It's alright, it feels really nice out here. I was listening to the bird calls," Allen smiles when Lavi finally approaches, handing him the bread and cheese for Allen to wrap his fingers around.

Lavi sighs, the cool air brushing Allen's forehead, "I can't read your lips. I'm sure you didn't just say something about old wet piss, but that's what it looked like to me."

Allen almost chokes on his bread, managing to down it before he bursts out laughing, "That's definitely not what I said."

"Where are you from?" Lavi's voice is yellow, tinged with an orange flare of curiosity, and it's the first burst of color Allen sees.

**O.o.O**

Allen's body is slim and fits perfectly on Kanda's back, his head resting wearily against Kanda's shoulder. Kanda mentally damns Lavi for running errands and leaving him to take Allen back to the sick bay, but then Allen thanks him.

His dulcet voice, even when dulled by sleep, holds a strange sort of light to it. Kanda isn't sure how anyone's voice is able to inspire this little flame of warmth fluttering in his belly, but it does. It makes him giddy and uncomfortable at the same time, and he doesn't like that at all, so he quickens his steps, wishing he could put Allen down, wishing he could wipe his hands and back free of that _warmth_. The warmth for which Lavi will surely abandon him.

Kanda lays Allen in bed and pulls the covers tight about him, his hand hovering over the snow-white hair, never touching.

**O.o.O**

"It's a bit messy, but if you don't mind…"

Kanda watches the fiddled thumbs, and hesitates. Allen can't see Kanda's disgruntled frown, and there is no voice with which to make scathing, resentful replies, but _still_ Allen has somehow felt Kanda's reluctance to do this. It makes Kanda feel guilty, because it's not exactly skin off his back, nor does he truly mind it, and thus, Kanda realizes with shame rising in his cheeks that his reluctance is due to something else.

For some reason, he doesn't want to translate between Allen and Lavi.

**O.o.O**

"Done!" Lavi announces, stretching his arms up as far as he can reach to loosen shoulders stiffened by the weight of the axe. Kanda sinks, graceful as usual, to the ground, fussily arranging the last logs into order. He throws a sharp glance at Lavi, shadowed and much too bitter—like all of Kanda's expressions, but Lavi probably wasn't meant to see this one.

"Kanda?"

Kanda turns his attention back to the logs, pausing just enough to sign _Go on. Go to the soldier boy._

Lavi hesitates, and several things click into place at once, fitting into place like the wheel and axle of the carriage his grandfather used to cart around, and Lavi wonders how he didn't see it before, his stomach tensing painfully for a moment and his heart beginning to beat all too loudly. He drops to the ground next to Kanda, and picks up a stick, poking Kanda's thin arm with it. The muscles shift and tense under his pale skin.

"Hey, Kanda."

Kanda doesn't respond, but Lavi's used enough to that to not let it bother him, "Did… you know you're my friend?"

Kanda bites his lip and closes his eyes, and Lavi continues.

"I'm not going anywhere. I…" he doesn't know why he's having so much trouble with this. Maybe because he feels guilty, that Kanda's been thinking that suddenly Lavi likes Allen better, or maybe because he's never needed anyone other than his grandfather— in fact, he's not even sure he _needed_ his grandfather, he'd always taken that presence for granted— maybe because he's trying to imagine this castle and its silent, echoing, all-encompassing emptiness without the flicker of dark ebony hair and slanted, onyx eyes standing next to him.

He has so many words ready at his arsenal, thousands of books' worth, but none of them volunteer, none of them think themselves brave enough to convey Lavi's feelings to this boy with the silent, bitter eyes that now needs reassurance. He sucks in his breath and his body moves on its own, closing his hand tightly around Kanda's. Kanda remains immobile for several moth-fluttering seconds, and then his hand squeezes Lavi's, slowly, cautiously, but steadily.

**O.o.O**

The man two beds away is having his bandages changed, and when he screams at the painful process, Kanda's back stiffens and his hands stumble over his phrase. Lavi can't hear it, and Allen seems completely unaffected, but to Kanda, it's nails scratching on a blackboard, rusty metal hinges screeching in agony, the dying screams of his sister.

"What, Kanda?" Lavi says, nudging him, emerald eye blinking in complete unawareness.

Kanda shakes his head and continues signing Allen's last statement, but his eyes flicker nervously toward the beds next to them. Understanding seeps into Lavi like smoke filling a room, as Allen patiently waits for the conversation to include him again.

"Allen," Lavi says, taking both Allen and Kanda's hand, "Let's go outside."

**O.o.O**

_Aren't you sick of it? Don't you hate it? Don't you feel useless?_ Kanda thinks, watching from afar as Allen wraps his hands carefully around the baby chick Lavi's brought him, running a finger along the fur and under the wings, tracing the beak and scratching the head softly.

Something must show on his face, because Lavi glances at him, then at Allen, and asks, "What's it like? Doesn't it suck to not be able to see?"

Allen freezes, his face conflicted for a moment, and then he smiles, the lie stretching his cheeks into a well-practiced rictus, "It's hard to get used to, but it's not that bad," he laughs a little, like glass breaking, Kanda thinks, "It could have been worse, right? And my right eye could get better."

**O.o.O**

What's left of his shoulder, a puckered stump with a drying, giant scab, still twinges and is tender, but the rest of him is healed. He still can't, most likely never will, see out of his left eye, mauled by the scar that paints an angry reddened thunderbolt down his forehead, across his eyelid and spreading along his cheek. He's getting better at deciphering the various shades of black that he can discern with his right eye, enough to at least tell what time of the day it is. He drinks sounds in like water, never appeased, always in need.

Lavi's not with him. He's become much too used to his presence than is probably good. Without it, he lets his thoughts get ahead of themselves, finds his ears straining to hear distant cannons boom, his hands clenching and unclenching around an imaginary bow and arrow, his feet shuffling in eagerness to run. His adrenaline wallows as lethargy in a puddle under the soles of his feet, weighing him down like a bag of apples threatening to tear with the strain.

Who is fighting out there? If Allen isn't fighting, who is protecting his village? Who is making sure there are no bystander casualties? Who is throwing a last benediction to those falling in action, closing their eyes and sending them, hopefully, to a better and more peaceful place?

_Little girls, teething infants, the cat lapping up milk from the old lady's lap in that dilapidated house_— Allen wants to be out there, fighting this war, making sure with his own hands that it'll end, and all those people, all those bubbles of happiness he's encountered, remain safe.

He clutches his shoulder and stares into nothingness, discerning no hope from this darkness.

**O.o.O**

They watch in horror, paralyzed for a second that hangs in the air like a raindrop about to slip from the tip of a leaf, as the cane rises in the air and falls to hit Allen from the back. Allen, who is unprepared, unable to defend himself, unable see the hatred in those despair-deceived eyes that see only one thing: a murderer.

They break into a run as Allen falls to the ground, Kanda slamming into the old man and shoving him away with a furious glare, Lavi going to Allen's side immediately.

"Don't hurt him! He hasn't done anything to you!" Lavi screams, gathering Allen to him. Kanda spares a second to notice that Allen looks winded, reaching to touch his back with a grimace painted on his face, but is moving and seems otherwise fine. He doesn't think anything of the relief that flushes the alarm out of his system.

"That boy is a killer! A killer! He deserves to rot in hell and may God…" the wheezing voice fades as Lavi rises, cradling Allen within the circle of his arms, and the old man sees the silver eyes, sightless mirrors, the missing arm and the pink-fresh scars, all on a boy who has not even reached adolescence.

It's not the first time they've heard those comments, nor the first time they are followed by pity-inspired shame.

"May God punish me justly," Allen declares, looking down.

* * *

**Well, thanks for reading! I'm really enjoying the feedback you guys are giving me-- and be proactive if you want! If you can think of a particular scene/problem/characteristic that would be cool, or that you're curious about or on which you would like elaboration, don't hesitate! Comments = inspiration, and I'm having a bit of trouble figuring out what to do between here and the end, so you guys would be of great help! **


	9. Instability

**Mmm, long wait time = failure. Sorry D: But the fic continues... and continues... because I have way too many ideas for what I want to do with these boys.  
**

**Enjoy!  
**

* * *

_**Lacquer - 9   
**_

* * *

He sweeps his hand blindly along the lacquered wood of the tabletop, his fingers skimming side to side along the surface, meeting no resistance until they clumsily bump into the mug he seeks.

Lavi watches, eyes raised from the book splayed out across from Allen. Not for the first time, he wonders what it's like to be blind, and he wonders if there's anything else he can do for him, other than simply lead him by the hand. Allen goes willingly enough, with a smile and that laughing face for which he has to invent sound, but he's sure it's frustrating, and Lavi wouldn't like having to be led by the hand like an infant either, after all.

Kanda, sensing the shift in energy, looks up from the toy horse he's carving, and watches Lavi watch Allen.

o.0.o

It's that image that flashes suddenly into Lavi's mind as he watches Allen making his way around Lavi's room, hand held out straight in front of him and feet shuffling forward one at a time, testing the ground in front before throwing his weight forward.

"Guys!" he says, jumping off his bed and waving his hands about, as he dashes across the room, "I have an _awesome_ idea!" he says gleefully before opening the door and disappearing down the hall, the thud of his footsteps here and gone like thunder.

Kanda stares at the empty doorway and Allen cocks his head to the side, "…Is that normal for him?"

Kanda figures the question is rhetorical, because Allen wouldn't be able to see him nod, so he goes back to scribbling on spare parchment paper he's found in the library while Allen continues to turn the phantom touches materializing beneath his hand and feet into a map.

o.0.o

_This will help him?_ Kanda asks, not bothering to mask the doubt present in the crease of his eyebrows and the set of his lips.

Lavi is undeterred, "Yeah, I bet! You should carve something cool on top," Lavi says, giving him the stick, long and thin and as straight as he could find. He's whittled it down to a fairly smooth, splinter-less finish, but the top is plain and jagged.

Kanda blinks, _Me?_

Lavi wriggles with barely-contained excitement, and rolls his eyes like it's obvious, which Kanda supposes it might be, but only to Lavi, "Of course! You're better at carving than I am, I bet you could make something cool! And Allen would like that."

Kanda has to admit that the flush of excitement on Lavi's face is worth watching, even if there's a prickly, ugly caterpillar wriggling in his stomach at the thought of whom it's for. But then Lavi winks at him, swearing him to confidentiality with pantomimed hand gestures and exaggerated mouthing and Kanda feels included again.

o.0.o

In the end, he ends up carving something he saw in one of Lavi's books. A little figure, round, with a cross in its center, and two wings spreading up and out and a little tail that Kanda works on diligently all day, finally being forced to stop when his candle burns out and there's no more spare ones in his room.

_What is it called?_

"I don't know, it was an alchemy book, so it's probably a mythical creature, but it suits Allen, doesn't it?" Lavi answers absently, turning it over and over in his hands.

o.0.o

And it's worth watching Allen's eyebrows nudged together in confusion until Lavi explains, and then the way they rise little by little on his white, scarred skin as Allen sweeps the cane across the floor, finally bumping it into the leg of a chair, and then his mouth counters, chin dropping nearly comically as he taps the chair of the leg experimentally.

o.0.o

Allen is not one that generally doubts the capabilities of human empathy, but he doubts they can understand. He can barely comprehend it himself, this overwhelming blast of information. Allen's world has exploded into being. He realizes, of course, that this is a vast exaggeration—this cane, with the ornate top that he will later spend hours fingering, dragging the pads of his fingers over each groove— only reaches a few paces in front, but to him, _to him_, the world has gone from ground zero, nothing but what lies under the soles of his weary feet, to everything he can reach with this cane. Surfaces materialize under the touch, obstacles have warning now and the world now has a shape he can visualize.

Suddenly, walking forward doesn't seem like such a daunting task anymore, and this weight, this pressure that he hadn't even realized had been lodged somewhere in the cavity between his lungs and his heart and his stomach, drops like a stone to his feet and then dissolves, and the relief is so large, so overwhelming, he almost thinks he's going to cry.

He doesn't, of course. He smiles, wide and large and not hiding the awe, and waits until later that night when it's dark and no one is watching him to break down.

o.0.o

Kanda has a million different faces. There are certain limitations to what their language of motions can do, though they're constantly expanding it, creating new words and new meanings, but it's often a guessing game, trying to figure out what Kanda is saying.

Kanda's hands are as reluctant as his voice, spitting out insults and brief dismissals. But his face is another matter. Guarded as it strives to be, Lavi can always tell what feelings lie behind Kanda's words, even when his hands attempt to say otherwise. Things as minimal as the intensity of his glare or the wrnkling of his brow or the way his lips press together when he's concentrating. His jaw muscles clench when he's attempting to keep it cool, and his eyes avert, corner of his lips twitching, when he's secretly pleased by something. People make the mistake of assuming Lavi is the emotional one, and Kanda is impassive and impartial, but they don't watch hard enough. Kanda feels so much more, a typhoon inside irons walls coated in cold porcelain while Lavi is like a cage, letting everything weave in and out like air through the bars, seemingly transparent, while at the bottom lies a locked box, hidden amidst the rubbish.

Lavi watches him from afar sometimes, whispering to Allen what he observes.

o.0.o

There is a particularly deep furrow to Lavi's brow that Kanda has been watching all day, noting the absentmindedness accompanying it and the way Lavi presses his fingertips to his temple as he trails off in the middle of sentence. Lavi is prone to headaches, but when Kanda finds him back in bed in the middle of the day, with his arms pressed uselessly against his head and his teeth gritting together so tightly Kanda can hear the enamel crunch, Kanda realizes it's not one of his normal headaches.

o.0.o

It's like none of the other headaches he's ever had before. The pain is excruciating, like there is a white-hot knife trying to perform a lobotomy on him, and it's accompanied by a high pitched ringing that he can't block out no matter how hard he presses his palms against his ears. He would almost be glad for the fact that he can _hear_ something, it if weren't for the fact that the high-pitched whining is like a smaller knife smoothing out the rough hacks the larger knife has already made. He can't think straight, can't get past taking breaths that won't make him heave and trying to keep himself as still as possible with his eyes shut tight against the thin rays leaking through the curtains, even as the pain makes him want to writhe. He feels hands grabbing him, shaking him, which almost makes him throw up but thankfully makes the shaking stop. And then they're gone, and he misses terribly the distraction they had offered.

o.0.o

The nurse shoos Kanda out sometime after Lavi passes out, as if the thought of Kanda sitting there waiting for Lavi to wake up depresses her, and weak autumn sunshine and catastrophic emergencies storming through the hallways will surely wipe the distressed expression from Kanda's face. Kanda stands in front of the door for several minutes, resentful and clutching the hem of his tunic before he remembers that Allen has been waiting for them. He casts a look at Lavi's door, presses his ear against it but hears nothing more than the puttering of the nurse with her many bottles of gag-inducing herbs, so he heads down the tower. He can imagine Allen sitting in his bed, waiting patiently for them because he has nothing else to do.

o.0.o

"Where's Lavi?" Allen asks of the silent nothing in front of him, and at the continued lack of response—and Allen has a brief image of a faceless, shapeless person shrugging and looking uncomfortable— he presses, "Is he coming?"

They must make a funny pair. Allen asking questions to one who cannot answer back, and Kanda making gestures to one who cannot see them.

Kanda sits on the bed, awkward like a newborn foal meeting the rest of the herd, and he shifts slightly before taking Allen's hand. _N.o_.

Allen frowns slightly and a hint of white peeks through as he chews his lip, "Why? …He's okay, right?"

Kanda stares at him, fights down the urge to say _Yes, of course_, because he doesn't know and will not lie just to make someone else feel better. Though the fact that he almost wants to is alien and unsettling. Instead, he shrugs again, not caring whether Allen feels it or not. His silence is enough.

o.0.o

They sneak back into Lavi's room after the nurse leaves, and wait for him to wake up from whatever she gave him. Allen curls up in the bed next to Lavi, back to back, feeling the bumps of their spines digging against each other. Allen doesn't mind, enjoying the warmth and the contact more than he minds the mild discomfort. Kanda sits on the floor against the bed, amidst the soft sound of wood being methodically scraped away.

"They're really detailed," Allen says softly, brushing his fingers carefully over every ridge and bump of the horse Kanda's carved. He digs his fingernails into the ridges of the mane, and runs his fingertips over the minuscule bumps of the nostrils and the eyes. He's always amazed at what Kanda can make with his hands. It's like everything that Kanda cannot express with his voice he channels into his hands.

"How do you do it?" he wonders. Kanda eyes him and gives him a chunk of wood and his knife, meaning to say _Try it_.

o.0.o

Allen comes to live with them. Allen supposes it's more of a formality, since he's been spending the majority of his days with Kanda and Lavi anyway instead of the sick bay, and more often than not, they fall asleep in Lavi's bed together. Unless Kanda's feeling moody, in which case he'll catch himself before falling asleep and trudge towards his own room.

But it is a formality he appreciates, in a morbid way. He has nowhere else to go, and nothing drives that point home like being assigned a room for himself in this middle-of-nowhere castle. They spend the day cleaning the room next to Kanda's, wiping away the grime of disuse and playing games with Allen. Lavi takes to tracing things on Allen's arm and making him guess what they are, and when they get bored of that, Lavi walks around Allen and makes him guess where he is. Kanda watches and trips Lavi to give him away, which makes a grappling fight ensue that Allen eventually shrugs and joins in as well.

He wonders how he's supposed to keep on walking if he's stuck in this castle, but Lavi calls him and Allen steps forward, and maybe that's enough for now.

o.0.o

They discuss it in hushed voices by candlelight in Lavi's room.

Allen doesn't have anywhere else to go either. His father had been drafted into the army, and Allen, with no mother or sisters or anyone to stay with, had gone with him. His father had died in combat, but Allen, accustomed to the soldier's life— somehow fitting well into it— had remained in service for lack of anything else to go back to. For his father's sake.

Kanda's family had owned a horse ranch. Though on neutral territory, a band of ravaging soldiers had come by and set fire to their home. His parents had burned in the fire, his sister and been killed and raped, in that order. Kanda had lasted at their mercy until a band of neighbors had finally come, called by the smoke, and the soldiers had fled.

Lavi and his grandfather had taken leave of their gypsy tribe to travel on their own. His grandfather was a history fanatic, teaching him many things and avidly following the progress of the war, and in observing one of the battles, had become inextricably involved. That had been the battle that had killed Lavi's grandfather and deafened Lavi's ears. Lavi says that he wants to continue traveling once the war is over, and invites them both to come with him.

Only the candle-nascent shadows are privy to their conversations.

o.0.o

_Allen says we should go into town to try those plum tarts you keep going on about_, Kanda picks up his stick of carbon again and continues sketching. Lavi's arm brushes against Kanda's shoulder in a hot rush of skin.

"Yeah, let's do that! Kanda and I go into town twice a month to get supplies, and maybe we can convince the nurse to let you come too," Allen can't see the brilliance of Lavi's smile, so Lavi ruffles his hair to display his affection. Kanda doesn't realize he's been staring at the olive-skinned hand lying on the snow-top of Allen's head until Lavi calls his name. Kanda jumps and returns his attention to his sketches, turning his face away to hide the heat on his cheeks, but Lavi hums teasingly, and the next second, there is a hand ruffling his head.

Kanda huffs and bats Lavi's hand away, but the heat on his face increases at the lingering pull of Lavi's fingers through the tips of Kanda's hair.

o.0.o

Lavi leans back on the heels of his hands, squints at the washed-out autumn sun and then returns his attention to the horse and rider circling the pasture at varying speeds, walk and trot and up and down like a carousel. Kanda does not play favorites with the horses, but this one has taken a particular liking to Kanda, and sometimes the only way to get him to calm down is to take him out for a ride. Lavi coos and makes fun of Kanda for it by pretending to speak for the horse— Neigh, I'm missing my daily dose of Kanda. I want you to rub my nose, pretty please, and can I have some sugar now?— and Kanda glares and makes as if to push him head-first into a pile of manure. But he does that thing with his eyes, the one where they flicker down and away to hide the glimmer of happiness he feels.

"I wish you could see him," Lavi whispers, fervent and earnest. Allen turns his head slightly towards him in acknowledgement, though his attention is entirely focused on the insect that is crawling up his arm, leaving a trail of itchy sensation along his skin as it weaves through the fine hairs of his forearm. He's trying to see if he can tell how many legs it has, but all he can discern is that it's small. He wonders if it's an ant.

"Lavi?" he asks, reaching out until his fingers bump into Lavi's side. He feels Lavi move, turning towards him, and he mouths very carefully, "What is it?" as he holds up his arm and its passenger.

"You're okay, it's just a ladybug," he leans forward to look close, Allen knows because he can feel Lavi's breath moving the hairs on his arm and warming his skin, "Cute. Ten spots."

Allen smiles, imagining it ambling towards his elbow, and settles further into the grass, feeling every blade glance against his skin as the wind pulls a shiver from him and the soothing gallops of the horse coat the distant air. He thinks briefly of the majestic cavalry, lighthouses in the violent storm of battle, and the impatient hoofed stomp as they stood awaiting orders. Sometimes the soldiers would let him ride their horses, especially when he was little and could not take the constant marching. Closing his eyes offers no distraction, like closing a curtain at night, so he digs his fingers into the grass and dirt, pushing away the nostalgia and despair and ignoring the voice that urges him to go back, to finish this war.

o.0.o

Kanda rides them without a saddle, knobby knees digging tightly and securely into the horse's flank as he hangs on to the mane and lets the wind whip both horse and human hair into a flurry of onyx. Sometimes, Lavi think that Kanda is melting into the horse, his milk white legs blending with the flour white coat of the stallion, his hair an extension of the horse's mane. When his face disappears between the coarse dark hairs of that mane, giving the illusion that they are one creature, Lavi can't help but feel that in another life, Kanda had been a horse, free and roaming and silent save for the stomp of his foot and the snort from his mouth. Lavi will one day be able to flawlessly read the tossing of his hair and the curl of his lips.

o.0.o

Allen wonders what color Kanda's voice would be. He somehow imagines it would be delicate and soft like his hands, the only part that Allen has yet touched of Kanda. Lavi seems to understand the importance of touch to Allen's budding senses, void of sight, but Kanda clearly does not want to be a participant in this exploration of Allen's new world-perception. While Lavi allows Allen to run his fingers through his hair, shorter than Allen's, but much thicker, Kanda skitters away, refusing to be touched yet. Allen knows that Lavi touches Kanda—he hears the rustle of cloth and skin. But he doesn't say anything—what does Allen know of their relationship?

He imagines Kanda's voice would be indigo, cold and aloof like him.

* * *

**Thank you to all those who keep encouraging me with the reviews! It's sad, but otherwise I would turn my attention to the myriad of other fics I still haven't finished. Oh, and some of the ideas you guys came up with? :) Those were good, and I'm trying to fit them in right now. **

**And little!Kanda? Hoshino, man, it was about time you gave us something about Kanda's past.  
**


	10. Jargon

**Finally the next chapter! Thank you much for your support guys, it's really neat to see how much this fic is being enjoyed! Some of you guys have given awesome suggestions and brought up really interesting points for me about what it's like really being blind/deaf/mute, so it's a learning experience for me as well. Thank you!  
**

* * *

_**Lacquer - 10**_

* * *

There are days when his body still rebels against him. He lies sequestered in bed, like his skin has been coated with metal, dripping mercury instead of sweat, adding so many pounds that make it impossible to push himself out of bed. But even if his body is incapable of it, his mind is not convinced of it, hissing _worthless, useless. Is this how you're going to spend the rest of your life?_ _What good are you if you're not fighting?_ The thought makes him panic, but for all that he struggles, he ends up on his side, wheezing and seeing colorful black-translucent patterns across his vision.

o.0.o

"Woa, Allen, take it easy. Just stay in bed or else Kanda will… well, I won't tell you what he said, it's a little violent," Allen thinks he laughs at that— _if you knew what I've seen_. But maybe not, because he hears himself mumble something in agreement, and Lavi's hands suddenly appear on his shoulders to roll him on his back and pull the covers back up. _You're taking the easy way out, lying in bed all day—where's your will power, made hard by the blood of others?_ He feels the weakness in his limbs and hates it.

_Stop_, he tells the voice in his head, _stop_.

o.0.o

They don't think about their families very often. The change from a fully functional human being to this strange imitation with frustrating limitations hacks their lives into a Before and After. Amidst this After, this _now_ that stretches out into a blurry and gray horizon that they have to squint to see, Before takes on a surreal quality, to the point where sometimes they wonder if they're mourning a dream as opposed to past years.

o.0.o

They have their squabbles, mostly due to miscommunication, and Kanda still has nightmares sometimes. The combination of both in a day leaves him with a taut, dark look about his face and a gravelly taste in his mouth that tastes like seclusion and incomprehension when he swallows. He notes with disappointment that it's just sand and dirt from his fight with Lavi.

The figure he carves that day is faceless—he couldn't bear to make it smile when he himself couldn't, but the idea of letting something like his _emotions_ affect his work repulsed him.

o.0.o

"Aren't you tired?"

Allen runs his hand along the surface of the dough for tomorrow's bread, feeling out the bumps and flattening them with his palm. He takes the mallet and pounds evenly, his lack of sight aided by sheer repetition. His muscles tremble, and he likes it.

"No, why?"

"You look tired," and Allen cannot tell, has never seen Lavi's face, but his mind supplies images desperately—a tilted head and slight wrinkle to his eyebrows, "You can take a break, you know."

"No, thank you," Allen says thinly, pounding away and locking his knees. He keeps his gaze firmly focused on nothing in front of him, which he can only keep track of by how still he keeps his eyes.

And then Kanda has had enough. A chair scrapes the floor harshly, and then the mallet is wrenched from his hand before Kanda's fingers close over his wrist and drag him stumbling and tripping towards a chair, where he is set roughly down. Kanda's hands are surprisingly strong on his shoulders, keeping him down even as he struggles. The hands disappear for a moment.

"I don't—"

"Uh," Lavi interrupts, "Kanda says you better stay there or he's going to punch you," the statement is followed by one of Kanda's hands falling back on his shoulder in a warning grip. Warm but sharp. Allen can't help but notice that it's the only part other than Allen's hand that Kanda's willingly touched.

_Don't do this_, Allen thinks. _I'm not delicate. I'm not innocent. I don't want to be taken care of. Don't make me useless_.

He doesn't belong here, and it's beginning to kill him.

o.0.o

Just like that, he realizes how dark it is around him. If before his life was steered by currents he had no control over, at least he was at the helm, with the wheel firm and groaning under the strength of his arms. Now he has relinquished his position.

He is no more than a passenger.

o.0.o

At dinnertime, the nurses and patients chatter around him, but he can't tell when they're addressing him if not by the use of his name. He misses the quiet, private smiles of people as they're going about their daily business. He misses the expressivity of faces, the twitch of lips in amusement, the awkward scratching of the back of someone's head, the back and forth rocking of restless feet. He tries to make up for it, he realizes, with his own face, but something is missing. He used to be so good at reading people, it was one of the reasons he was so good at card games. But he'd never truly realized how many of his social cues were visual, when the tilt of an eyebrow suggested that they were only joking, the shy-away of eyes suggested lies, or the nervous rubbing of a shoulder indicated that the conversation was drawing much too long and it was his time to leave. He fumbles awkwardly in interactions now, wading through a swamp of words with only a candle to discern the path to their meaning.

o.0.o

Visitors to the castle are not rare. This one has enraptured Kanda and Allen with the retelling of his travels throughout the land. Lavi at first works hard to read his lips, but something in his chest grows heavy and dull at the tales of sightseeing and the esoteric historical tidbits the man drops here and there, all facts that Lavi has known since he was young. Mention of a particular region he and his grandfather had visited just months before _that battle_ stops him short, and he loses the meaning behind the movements of those lips and doesn't bother to try making sense of it again. He sneaks away up to the library and buries himself in words and crumbly pages.

o.0.o

Allen skims his fingers over the pages of the book, dusty and dry, making a sliding noise under his fingertips. They don't ache anymore, like they used to the first few weeks after he'd begun dragging them across every available surface like a second pair of eyes, receiving nicks and cuts and odd painful bumps. They are more resistant now, and yet somehow have become more sensitive than ever, "You really like books. I've always thought it seemed boring to read," he stifles and yawn and pulls up the covers over his shoulders, pressing his face into Lavi's side.

Lavi laughs a bit, "That tickles," he says, swatting at Allen's bangs and pinching his nose as Allen huffs at him, "And on the contrary, it's fun to read," He doesn't add that it's the only way he can hear things anymore.

o.0.o

The smell of blood haunts the air around him, heavy and tugging on his clothes and conjuring up images behind his eyelids, which cannot find any other distraction. Allen closes his eyes, opens them wide, turns around and covers his face, but the black ink permeates his whole being, and the images frolic in that playground of darkness, mocking him.

He sees horses, and hears stomping. There is meat on the ground and blood that coats the rocks and the crumpled grass. There is a cacophony of uneven gunshots and the ring of sabers and the twang of bows followed by the whistle of arrows and the dull thud of hitting flesh. There are screams of triumph and pain and sorrow.

It sounds like home and purpose and the ache he feels for it is unbearable.

o.0.o

Kanda keeps to himself mostly. It is surprisingly easy for him to get by with just Lavi or the head nurse's help, and so the opportunities for communication with others are limited. Of course, this is something that he's made sure of, because while Lavi could _get by_— and that is not thrive, does not mean _live_, but Kanda doesn't see the difference yet, doesn't know the other's possible quite yet— Lavi reaches out, refuses to be contained in this soundless cotton ball. He plays with the toddlers, scuffles with the older men and reads out loud to whoever is willing to listen – people who can read are rare, and everyone is always eager to listen to the tales within the castle's library, as good as any folk tale and sometimes even more unbelievable.

Kanda prefers his shell, truth be told.

o.0.o

"Here," Lavi tosses him a hazelnut as he crunches on one of his own, pilfered as they scurry past the kitchens. Kanda catches it, and upon noticing what it is, drops it and rubs his hands briskly on his tunic.

"It's just a hazelnut," Lavi says, pouting, and places it back on the pile on the counter next to the nurse who stands there, crushing them with flour-stained hands. The air is ripe with their bittersweet scent and the curdling smell of yeast, all stewing together in the warmth of dough rising in the ovens. It's always busy here, with the multitude of people to be fed every day, and there's always something to swipe from under the nurses' noses.

"What do you want, boys?" she asks, blowing hair out of her eyes, and Kanda turns to Lavi, hands twittering. Lavi blinks.

"Ah, Kanda wants to know if that's today's dinner."

"Aye, we got a good harvest of hazelnuts yesterday, so we're making bread and adding some in the stew as well."

Kanda frowns and makes a few more gestures.

"Oh, I see now," he turns back to the nurse, "Can you please not put them in the bread? Kanda says they make him throw up."

The nurse raises her eyebrows and spares them a glance, "Hmm. Alright, be off now."

o.0.o

Miscommunications are usually nothing more than a frustration. A hurtful, isolating frustration, but nothing more. The reminder that they can be so much more dangerous than that is frightening.

o.0.o

The first sign that something is wrong is the tingling along his lips and the tip of his tongue, and Kanda stops and puts the half-eaten bread down as the prickling begins to spread down his throat, making it hard to swallow. It doesn't take long for the other symptoms to appear, and Lavi panics, calling the nurses, while Allen stays with Kanda outside as his skin breaks out, furiously red welts hot to the touch that he grits his teeth to keep from scratching. When the vomiting starts, all Kanda's aware of is a his skin being on fire, along with a babble of voices around him through which he catches the nurse from earlier saying, "I didn't know he was _allergic_, I thought he was exaggerating when he said they made him throw up—"

A misfortune, that Kanda does not have a word for _allergic_ in his vocabulary.

Lavi stands to the side, wringing his shirt in his hands and lets Allen take over. Maybe it's that Allen can't see how pale Kanda's face is, streaked in red like a massacre, and can't remember that time during the summer when Lavi was sure Kanda was gone, forever, desiccated by the sun. But Allen does what Lavi is not particularly apt at doing—he strokes Kanda's back and hold his hair out of the way and just murmurs softly, and even Lavi's panic settles at the silk-smooth voice. When the heaving subsides, Allen pulls Kanda to lean back on him, where Kanda soon falls asleep and Allen is able for the first time to feel the whole of Kanda's slim weight against him.

* * *

**Thanks for the reviews, guys! Hope you enjoyed this chapter. **

**OH, so there is fanart for this now at deviantart (there is a space inserted before the com):**

deviantart. com/deviation/145613456/

deviantart. com/deviation/140490015/

**Very awesome, they're lovely! **


	11. Kinship

**See, I told you I'm working on the slowness! This might be the soonest update I've made in a long time. Oh, someone nominated this for the UFO awards, and I want to thank that person! That was very unexpected, and made me very happy :)  
**

**Enjoy!  
**

* * *

_**Lacquer - 11   
**_

* * *

Allen clutches the rosary tighter to his chest, the one he asked the priest to bring him when it wasn't all that certain his miraculous recovery would be permanent. Its beads are worn and smooth, smelling faintly of rosewood, and he rubs them under his nose to catch the coy scent.

"Can… can we go to the chapel?" he asks. There is no response, but the scraping of wood to his right stops, and then there is the slithering sound of clothing rubbing against stone floors and—

"Mm? What, Kanda?" a pause, "Oh, he said that?" another pause, where Allen hears the slap-thud of Lavi's book closing, and then the creak and fire-cracker pop of Lavi's joints as he stretches, "Well… I guess we can do that."

The tone of Lavi's voice makes Allen frown. He yearns ardently for his sight, which would rid him of this dust and grime of uncertainty like a splash of water.

"Follow me," Lavi says, letting Allen stand and pick up his walking stick before he leads, with Allen following the sound of his footsteps and Kanda bringing up the rear, watchful as ever.

o.0.o

The chapel is a well-tended little refuge that like everything else that inhabits this castle, speaks of grander origins that have been humbled by the crumbling and ambling of time. The intricate arches now house a milieu of cobwebs and layers of dust that have hugged the stone with so much fervor that they have fused and become one, bound together for all eternity. The light that shines through the stained-glass windows paints the pews in forgiveness, though the glass has begun to warp at the bottom and has skittering cracks near the top. The ceiling parades its broken chandelier fixtures like a woman unaware of the passing of her prime.

But the nurses, some of which are nuns, have done their best to restore the place to a humbler glory, carrying away the rotted pews and broken chairs. The altar has been scrubbed clean, sparsely furnished with the basics—the chalice, the bowls and a book with gold-leaf flaking off the covers. The priest holds daily masses in the castle, comforting the believers and praying for the end of this senseless conflict that brings more and more wounded each day. Allen often talks to him, confiding things that Lavi's not sure he's yet told Kanda or him.

Lavi scoffs when they enter, eye hard and sneering. Kanda is surprised, but does not comment, instead agreeing privately.

o.0.o

Allen kneels, and though his hands cannot be clasped, the bowing of his head is enough to convey his fervor, and the whispered cadence of words Kanda recognizes from his childhood is pained and sincere, awakening an ache in Kanda's chest that he cannot pinpoint. Allen sits in the front of the chapel, while Kanda and Lavi stand at the back, left largely to their own devices. But though Kanda has brought his slab of wood and carving knife, and Lavi has not relinquished the book he has been unusually absorbed in, neither can tear their gaze off Allen.

o.0.o

When Allen approaches them, the somberness of his face clearing away into a smile when his cane bumps into Lavi's shoes, Lavi begins with a clipped tone, "You—"

His tongue freezes abruptly and his mouth clicks closed. Because:

Allen has seen people die, has caused people to die. Ruthlessly. But because he believed their cause. Kanda never involved himself with politics, so he does not know whether Allen's beliefs are right or wrong. Lavi, on the other hand, knows exactly what this war is about, and though he thinks Allen's side is the one causing the strife, the one that began it, and the one that in the end, if righteousness will prevail, will fall. But he can see in Allen's eyes that he believed his truth to be the right one, that he gave up so much of himself for that cause. Lavi does not feel he has the right to destroy Allen's only claim to innocence and forgiveness.

And so, Lavi does not voice his protest and logically sound-proof arguments against Allen's faith-based ideology, impassive as it might be. He does not want to destroy Allen's justification for the lives he's had to take and the violence he's had to bear witness to.

o.0.o

Lavi is angry. Angry and hurt and sad, and he doesn't know what to do about it. Kanda and Allen are once again listening to the man with the stories that reminds Lavi so much of his grandfather, and he wants to say _No, that's not right, no one can be like him. He's gone and there's nothing I can do about it so don't remind me!_

His books are offering no distractions today, unable to hold his attention for more than a few phrases, and the disappointment he feels in them morphs into anger, that they too are not letting him forget. He hefts the volume in his arms and flings it with both hands, as far as he can into the open wind of the castle turrets. The book lands near the edge with a heavy thud and the crackle of pages and binding that will never be repairable, and Lavi immediately regrets it, feels like a terrible person because his grandfather always taught him to _respect_ books, and here he's taking out his own inability to cope on it.

He picks it up carefully, cradling it in his arms and uselessly trying to fit the pages back in and salvage the broken spine, but it bends and twists under the pressure until the glue gives out and all the remaining pages collapse in a heap around him. He thinks that's maybe when he starts crying.

o.0.o

He comes to the chapel every day now.

Allen prays for forgiveness for the lives he's taken. He squeezes his eyes shut, even though that makes no difference anymore, and prays for peace of mind. He needs direction, guidance out of this black pool he's drowning in. Something that makes him feel useful. He's filled with this self-loathing that he knows on some level isn't healthy, but he can't help feeding it. He prays for God to help him find self-worth and strength, because as of now, the only place he can think of finding it is back on the battlefield, and God help him, that's the one place he cannot return to, ever.

"God," he whispers, "I'm walking forward— but where?"

o.0.o

Kanda can't put his finger on it, but something is wrong with Lavi. He's not sure what kind of wrong, if it's serious or just an odd mood. But Kanda recognizes the signs of frustration in the anger of his stare, the gripped knuckles around his books. There is also the distinct lack of idle chatter that he is known for. That could very well be attributed, as he suspects Allen does, to the fact that he's been immersed in his books as of late. But it is done with a single-mindedness that bothers Kanda, with a sort of desperation and a disregard for everything else that makes Kanda uneasy.

Kanda does not know what to do about it. He is far from even competent at addressing a matter that seems to require a certain amount of tact. He thinks of white— snow and flour and clouds, and makes his decision.

o.0.o

Allen is surprised when Kanda grabs his arm one night after dinner. His fingers are tense, not exactly hesitant, but maybe confused. Allen refuses to let himself dwell on the unnecessary seconds that those fingers stay streaking warmth into his skin. There is a time and place for things like mourning and wanting and yearning, and he tries to keep that to himself.

"Yes?" his tongue curls sweetly around the word in a semblance of politeness.

The fingers run down to his palm, and there is the careful tickle of a fingertip etching onto his skin. _L.a.v.i_.

Allen only raises a snow-frosted eyebrow, "What about him?"

Kanda hesitates, as if not sure how to continue. _W.a.t.c.h.h.i.m._ Allen frowns now; Kanda's hand is back on his wrist, gripping tightly and warningly, and Allen's stomach clenches.

"Why? What's wrong? Is it—" he stops. They can play twenty questions if they want, but Allen doesn't even know where to start. Kanda sighs, and Allen hears that little tap that he's finally deciphered as Kanda scuffing the heel of his shoe against the ground in agitation.

Then Kanda's shoes patter against the floor as he turns heel and disappears, apparently satisfied, or uncomfortable, at having done his good deed for the day.

o.0.o

Allen thinks about Lavi at night. But in the end, he comes up against the wall of his limitations, and just wishes he could _see_. He does not know what he is not seeing, but he has all the missing pieces of the jigsaw puzzle laid out in colorless holes before him and _knows_ that if only he were able to see, he'd able to figure it out.

o.0.o

It smells like rain, the open window allowing a cold gust of wind to invade Allen's nose, and he breathes in deeply to catch the taste of rain on his tongue.

"What color is the sky today?" he asks. Kanda's hands flutter, nothing more than imagined butterfly motions in Allen's mind, and the burst of honeyed warmth of Lavi's voice soon speaks up, the crutch that allows Allen to paint his world of black in colors and shapes that he used to know so well.

Lavi falls silent after only a handful of sentences, and Kanda nudges Allen's foot meaningfully.

o.0.o

The castle gets cold at night. With all the work required to run it during the day, no one is willing to get up throughout the night and change the coals, so the castle leaks its warmth to the gardens and the sky, and they have no choice but to be well-bundled before they go to bed, lest the cold seep into their bones and give them the breathing diseases and pneumonia and the like. More and more old those stranded in the sick wing are coming down with breathing diseases. Allen listens to their rasping, wandering the stone-cold hallways in the night, walking cane scraping the ground in front of him.

He cannot sleep. The voice in his head won't stop mocking him, threatening him, and he thinks he is going insane, maybe already is. Do insane people know they're insane? He doesn't know. Maybe Lavi does.

He walks, only through common sense knowing that he is stepping forward, because for him, all steps are the same, all scenery is the same, everything is—

He swallows, and tries to think of something other than the darkness. He tries to think of happier times, but all that comes up are the marches between battle, riding on his father's shoulders, holding onto the horse's manes and listening to the cheerful riff-raff of the soldier talk, and looking up at the endlessly blue sky. He remembers the awe of watching gargantuan flocks of birds take off from their hiding spots in the tall grasses of the fields they would cut through, blocking out the sun in the thousands and casting a flapping, crackling shadow over them. Allen would laugh in delight, and in response, some of the soldiers would smile and laugh with him.

He misses the sky, he misses the stars and his arm and his eyes and the twitch of the corner of someone's lips or the seemingly impossible contortions of a lazing cat. His cane rattles over the unsteady stones of the floor, clattering suddenly against an obstacle, and Allen is suddenly filled with anger, unwilling to bend down and run his hands over yet another obstacle, to exhaust his mind in figuring out what the strange contours under his fingers represent, to feel lost in a world that he used to fit in so well.

He flings away his cane, standing defiantly. Then he tries to take a step forward, and the dark seeps in, and he realizes what a foolish move that had been.

o.0.o

He ends up on hands and knees, lost somewhere in the castle, wondering where he took a wrong turn. The walls offer no clues, no hints of where he could be, and he crawls forward, shins sore from an earlier fall over a bench that appeared out of nowhere.

_Look at what you are now, look at where you are._

He leans against a marble wall that leeches off the little daytime warmth left in his body, and shivers, inching his foot forward and testing his ground. He estimates he's gone no further than a few yards in the past hour, each step a gargantuan test of willpower and mental exercise, made heavy by uncertainty.

He makes an error in judgment. Slides his foot too far forward, places too much of his precarious balance on that foot.

It's a staircase. He's lucky it's only a few steps, he thinks, instead of a full flight. His shoulder throbs and his head rings, and there is nothing inside him except scorn and derision, and a sense of hopelessness that threatens to strip him of all color, skin the peach off his skin and pluck the white of his hair and leave him an utter _nothing_, just like his sight. He lies on the floor, battered by exhaustion and frustration, and finally falls unconscious.

o.0.o

"You should have told us. You could have gotten really hurt," Lavi says quietly, attempting to mask the hurt, but Allen hears it all too clear. Kanda is a shimmer of tense, barely contained anger to his right. To realize he's not there in the morning and run down to find the nurses tense and worried and questioning them as to Allen's escapade— Allen feels the guilt creep up on him, but at the same time, he can't tell them. They, who have lost so much to the war, who have been so maltreated and beaten by the soldiers. How can Allen tell them how much he misses that life? How can he tell them that he is having trouble finding another reason for existing?

"I'm sorry. I just felt like getting some fresh air," he smiles sweetly, apologetically, even as Lavi strokes his scraped, mottled-green knees and runs fluttering fingers down the bruise on his temple. Kanda scuffs his heel repeatedly, like the angry twisting and twitching of a cat's tail, and Allen adds, "I'll be more careful next time."

Kanda slams one hand down on the table, the other one fisting around Allen's shirt, trembling, before he catches himself and lets go abruptly, slamming the door behind him. Lavi sighs and stays pressed against his side, and traces a particularly nasty scrape on his thigh, so very lightly, as if afraid he'll hurt him if he presses too hard.

"That's not really fair to us, Allen," Lavi whispers.

_The world isn't fair, Lavi_, Allen thinks in response, but all the same, wishes he could make it so for Lavi and Kanda.

* * *

**Thanks for all the support you've given me in writing this, guys ^_^ And yes, Allen is coming close to a revelation, so I'll take him out of his depression pretty soon.  
**


	12. Liberation

**Thanks again for your patience, guys! Enjoy the new chapter ^_^**

* * *

_**Lacquer - 12**_

* * *

At first, it is only Kanda who sees the signs, but soon they become obvious enough that Allen picks up on them as well, and they both go through the days tensely, holding their metaphorical breaths as if awaiting the guillotine's fall.

"Lavi, what are you upset about?" Allen asks one time, when they're huddled in Lavi's bed for warmth, the embers in the fireplace dying down and no one willing to venture onto the cold stone floor to stir them. He thinks to himself that it would be so much easier if he could see Lavi's face, read the clues he is sure are there on his face.

"Nothing. I'm not upset, what are you talking about?"

But his voice is too flat, a sun-scorched field where there used to be valleys and hills of intonation and melody.

o.0.o

Allen pays attention to Kanda's meaningful touches, tuning in to Lavi's words more carefully when Kanda signals for him to do so. Lavi seems to be avoiding them lately. But it is not in physical presence—though granted, he seems to spend a good deal of time lately in the many libraries about the castle. But even when he is with them, there is something missing, and his absence is as keen as if his physical body were not there. He seems to speak mostly when he is spoken to, and otherwise absorbs himself in his books and in whatever tasks they are set out to do, and it is all done with a single-mindedness that frightens them. It becomes painfully clear that Lavi is running away from something.

"There's nothing wrong, guys," he says with a smile that if Allen could see, would recognize as hollow as his own. Kanda is on the verge of making that connection.

o.0.o

Kanda had never been much of a talker, even before his mind decided to disconnect his tongue from his mind, but he's learned to appreciate how far the ability to say even a few words can take him. He's learned to cope, and the combination of his hands and Lavi do an admirable job for most everyday situations. But when things stray past the normal… that's when Kanda wishes most, closes his eyes and grits his teeth and _wishes_, God, he wishes that he could say just a few words. Just a handful, that's all he asks.

_He's sad, he's depressed, there's something wrong_, he wants to tell Allen. He wants to say _look at his face, how it becomes completely closed-off, look at his eye, the way it stares everything down, and how he doesn't see anything else except whatever he's involved in_.

o.0.o

Allen has begun to smile more. They are not honest smiles, however. His smiles serve a double purpose: to lift Lavi's spirits, and to conceal his own dampened ones from him and Kanda. But it is in that deceit that he discovers a truth that astounds him with its strength and simplicity.

He sits on the stone fence in the gardens, wrapped in a cowl to ward off the ever-increasing chills of autumn, and he feels the wind on his face and thinks of mounting a horse, and running through fields among gunshots and the whistle of swords and thinks _I'll never go home._

"Allen?"

Allen jumps, and his widest, falsest rictus spreads across his face in immediate response to being caught in the middle of his despaired longing. And maybe Allen is too good a liar, or Lavi has been far too distracted lately, because Lavi does not seem to notice. But it is because he does not notice how artificial Allen's smile is that he responds to it as if it were real. And Allen hears his reaction to his smile in the sudden softening of Lavi's voice, and a certain warmth, glowing yellow and rich, that resonates through his voice when he says, "You're out here alone? Come inside."

Allen gapes, and this time, his suspicions are confirmed when the real smile that blooms across his face results in a quiet, but honest laugh from Lavi, golden yellow and warm like butter.

o.0.o

The ironic thing is that in wishing that he could see so that he can once again connect to people, Allen misses the way he can touch Lavi and feel the tension in his body, and the way he can feel the air ripple when Kanda is furious and barely holding it. He can tell so many minute things from just listening to people's voices— the pauses, the intonation, the cadence itself would tell him so much if he only listened. He misses the way he can sift through the sounds that people take for granted and know if it's sunny by how many birds sing outside, or how he can hear the faint rumbling of coming carriages long before the nurses spot them on the roads outside, or get the porridge before it burns by catching the faint smoky smell while the nurses have to peek inside and check.

It's not an easy transition to make, but Allen has yet to see how much easier it could become were he to stop fighting it.

o.0.o

Allen yelps, and when he raises his hand automatically to suckle his finger, Kanda slaps it quickly away, sending him a sharp glare.

"Oh, right," Allen cringes, and Kanda heaves a long-suffering sigh and turns his attention back to his own bushel of thorn apples. The plants are leafy, with a prickly apple-like fruit that cuts sharply if one is not careful in stripping it away. They are also highly poisonous, and the three of them have been set to remove the fruits, which will be diluted into painkilling potions while the leaves are used for decoration.

"Though I don't think just licking my finger would do anything," Allen mutters after another minute, carefully feeling the plant with his fingers and awkwardly prying the fruit away with his single hand. His pile of fruit is rather pitiful, and Kanda rolls his eyes at him and scoffs. Better safe than sorry is his motto.

Kanda glances to his right and blinks when he sees the surprising mound of fruits that Lavi has already picked. He turns to Lavi and suddenly stills, hands freezing, stomach clenching at the sight of Lavi's single eye focused intensely on his hands, so much so that he doesn't seem to even be aware of them, or of the bloody scrapes across his palms, a myriad of crisscrossed scratches, swollen and unsightly and oozing blood.

He stands up so fast he almost threatens to overturn the bench the three of them are sitting on, and he grabs Lavi's collar and would rip the thorn apple from his hands without regard for his own skin if that weren't counterproductive and slightly hypocritical. Allen stills to listen, ears tilted towards them.

Kanda lets go of Lavi's shirt roughly, letting him stagger off-balance for a moment, taking advantage of the utter bewilderment on Lavi's face to sign _Enough! What are you doing? _

Kanda has been watching Lavi disappear little by little in front of them, his mind flying to a place that seems much too distant for them to reach. This is enough, and Kanda may not know how to stop it, but he knows he will not sit idly by and let it continue to wear away their Lavi little by little.

"I… I wasn't," Lavi begins, voice dropping almost helplessly as he stares from Kanda to his own hands.

"What's going on?" Allen asks nervously, and Kanda whirls around and takes his hand, pulling him forward despite his yelp of surprise, and presses his hand against Lavi's palms. And Kanda, despite his abruptness, can be gentle, his touch normally akin to the lapping of lukewarm waves, so this rough handling is alarming.

Allen's eyebrows furrow deeply as he pieces together the sensations of his skin and he runs his fingers along Lavi's palm, jerking his hand back when Lavi hisses in pain. His hand comes back streaked in red, the vestiges of a masochist's artwork. Allen doesn't need sight to tell it's blood - the smell is as natural to him as that of baked bread and smoke.

"Lavi … you have to be more careful," he says slowly, rubbing his sticky fingers together as a troubled frown sinks into his face, but he still doesn't grasp the larger picture. Kanda slams his hands on the table and wishes he could communicate with Allen somehow.

"It was an accident, alright? I just got really into it and didn't notice," Lavi snaps, finally standing up and glaring back at Kanda, "They're just scratches, no big deal."

_Tell him. Tell him right now that I want him to speak with you_.

Lavi's gaze turns from angry and defensive to confused and disbelieving. Kanda pushes him, sending Lavi almost sprawling backward. _Do it now!_

Lavi relents under the fury of the onyx eyes boring into him, mumbling, "Kanda wants you to talk to me," he seems to want to put up a fight, but everything about him is tired, too tired to keep it up. This is not the same Lavi they know, and Allen cannot see it in his eye, but he can hear it in his weary voice.

_Do what I can't, Allen,_ Kanda thinks, hands fisting until his arms tremble.

o.0.o

The wind ruffles Allen's hair as he climbs out of the trapdoor of the tower. The castle grounds are all visible from here—the untamable forest grounds, the creek that runs across the field surrounding the castle, the overgrown gardens in the back and the center courtyard. The parapet stones are growing dark with age, little tufts of twigs visible in the various pockets meant to be air holes for those walking inside, but which have now become bird nests. Allen can't see any of this, but he can hear the whistle of the wind through those holes when he climbs the tower, and he can feel the chilly wind and the weak sunlight on his cheek and smell the coming rain from afar. He tucks the strands back behind his ear and stands at the center of the tower, unsure of where Lavi is. He opens his mouth, but remembers almost belatedly that it makes no difference. He almost backs down— he can't gather any courage from glancing down at Kanda's face, climbing up to meet him, and so is left in the dark with his own insecurities. Like always.

But then small, tight fingers grip his shoulder, encouraging, and Allen remembers Lavi's fingers and the course feel of the bandages around them.

o.0.o

Kanda pushes him forward, and Allen lets him do so, until he hears a surprised, "What – what are you guys doing here?"

Allen shrugs, both shoulders rising even though only one hand follows the motion. Kanda will never be able to get used to Allen's body and its missing appendages. The effect is macabre and disconcerting, akin to looking at a hand missing a finger. "You always come here when you're… thinking about things."

Kanda almost rolls his eyes at the euphemism, but controls himself. He will let Allen do this in his own way, because Kanda has no idea how to do it.

Lavi seems to realize that there is something going on, and his eye nervously lowers back down to his book, and he mutters, turning a page, "I'm not thinking about anything. I'm just reading."

Allen approaches, and Lavi reaches his hand out automatically to guide him down to kneel next to him, and Kanda follows suit and sits behind Allen, wrapping his arms around his knees and trying to be as unobtrusive as possible. "We know, and there's nothing wrong with that, but… Lavi," and here Allen's voice suddenly becomes serious—soft and concerned, and not about to back down. Kanda is always surprised at the mettle hidden behind Allen's sweet smile and weaved inconspicuously within his gentle aura, "You've been reading a lot lately."

Lavi shifts uneasily, and Allen, sensing the urge to bolt, places his hand on Lavi's, holding it carefully and feeling the gauze rub against his palm, "There's nothing wrong with that," he says quickly. "But I get the feeling you're doing that because there's something bothering you, Lavi," his hand slides along Lavi's arm until he find his fingers, and he wraps his hand around Lavi's, leaning forward, and even though his eyes are nothing but blank silver slates, Lavi doesn't understand how they're able to transmit so much feeling. Kanda is similarly in awe— he has only ever been able to be soothing to animals. He has no idea how to handle people. And yet it seems to come so effortlessly to Allen that Kanda is nearly envious.

Lavi wants to tell, but he's scared of reaching into that one part of his mind that holds all the truth. He wants to run away and keep ignoring his problems, because surely, after enough time they'll become insignificant and dwindle into nothing, right? It's already been six months. If he waits one, two, three years, it won't really matter at that point, right? But there's another part that wants to cry so badly, and not by himself like he did before, in this very same place. That part is so tired of running.

"I—" he chokes a little, unsure of where to start, unsure of how to turn on that light that will reveal everything he has been trying to hide from. "It's nothing," he tries again, but Allen frowns and shushes him, thumb brushing the roughness of the gauze as he scoots closer and leans his face forward so his forehead bumps into Lavi's.

"'Nothing' doesn't leave you with bandages on your fingers, Lavi."

Lavi swallows, looks past Allen as if he could really see him and Lavi can't take the look, even though Allen's eyes never meet theirs, and sees that Kanda is watching him, quiet and waiting, and not about to offer him any sort of escape. He's surprised at the way Kanda's fingers are gripping the edges of his sleeves, stretching the material thin.

Lavi bows his head, fingers tracing the words on his book as he lowers his legs to lie flat on the ground. And he breathes in and turns on the light, and it reveals an onslaught of thoughts clamoring for attention, lying there neatly for him to pick up and rifle through. So he does. "I think… it's just. I think I was fooling myself. I was pretending that my grandfather didn't die, and I didn't get separated from my family. I— I knew he was dead, and I didn't deny it, but I ignored it. I didn't let myself think about it, even though I knew it was a fact," despite the rational monologue, his voice is breaking so badly it's hard to understand, and he would be horrified if he could hear it. "And… I think I've been pretending this is just a weird, endless dream, and that someday I'll see him again and go off traveling, but then—"

Allen rubs his shoulder in a steady, unfaltering pattern, ears tilted toward him, and Kanda watches, eyes wide. Lavi, despite being the chatterbox of their group, rarely is forthcoming about personal information, and glimpses into his mind are rare and sobering.

Lavi wipes his sleeve across his face, watches it come away damp and continues, "S-Sometimes I realize it though. That I'm not fully there," he stares at the book in his lap. It makes it easier to say these things that have been flitting around in his head like frantic caged birds looking for escape. Now he only has to guide them to the exit, "I don't think about it most days, but then sometimes it hits me, especially lately," he takes a gulping gasp of air, as if his thoughts are too much to allow him to breathe properly. A wave of helplessness rises through him, threatening to drown him, and his voice rises as if scrambling away from it, and the birds flee, "And I keep thinking - He should have known better! We shouldn't have gone to observe that battle, and now he's dead! He wasn't done teaching me yet. He —he knew everything, he would have known how to fix me, and you, and he would have known what to do now," He grips his book and stares at it, unseeing, "But he left me alone. I don't know what to do anymore. There's nothing out there, not like this! I can't go traveling again without him, and I don't know where my family is anymore, and— and, I can't ever hear his stories again…" Allen's fingers rubbing his shoulder press down with more sympathy and worry, but Lavi only barely feels it. His mind is whirling, and he realizes what the most disappointing part of it is, what makes him the most angry, "He… he told me he was preparing me. And he taught me so much— about books, and people and history and science and philosophy and politics. But he didn't teach me the most important thing. He didn't teach me how to live alone!"

The first true sob breaks out at that point, and a part of him sees himself as he must look from afar, nose red and hands pressed against his eyes because he can't bear to look at Kanda and Allen with the ugly grimace he must have, his mouth twitching downward without his consent. Where is his self-control? He folds his legs up to curl up into himself and the book closes and slips to the ground between his legs, but he doesn't care. Tears slip out from underneath his scarred eye, soaking the eyepatch and making it chafe his cheek.

Allen's hand has ceased its movement, frozen there, and Lavi wonders what he's thinking. There's not much that can be said that isn't a lie or false comfort.

"You're not alone, Lavi," Allen's lips mouth, and Lavi wishes he could hear his voice, wonders if it's as comforting and soft as his eyes and hands. Allen slowly eases his arm around Lavi and despite the incompleteness of Allen's one-armed hug, the warmth of his body is something that can't be taken away, and it is so real and so strong and Lavi buries his face in Allen's neck and sobs harder. Allen holds him, rubbing the same soothing pattern as before onto his back in wide strokes, and Lavi feels his Adam's apple vibrating against his cheek, but he can't hear what Allen is saying, and can only hope they're empty nothings. He thinks about trying to control his crying, but it feels so good to let go and not care about what he looks like. Allen pushes him away after a long time, when the spasms of Lavi's back have been reduced to mere tremors, and bends his head down so that his lips are visible to Lavi.

"I'm sorry," he says, gripping Lavi's shoulder.

Lavi shakes his head, raising one hand to put on Allen's hand on his own shoulder and squeeze it, thanking him as well as he can for the sympathy he sees in Allen's face. And pity is one thing, but with Allen, it's not pity, it's heartfelt understanding. Allen's face relaxes.

"I'm glad you're not ignoring this anymore."

"But it's so much easier to do that," Lavi hiccups, shaking his face to dislodge his hair, now sticking to his wet face uncomfortably. The wind blows, cold and biting, but the chill is refreshing to Lavi's overheated skin. Above them, the pure and cloudless azure sky has gained mauve and gray shades towards the horizon, and the sun has been dipped in gold paint, warmer and richer as it settles over the mountain peaks than its blinding midday counterpart.

"Lavi… you could ignore this forever, if you want. But what you don't realize is that you're ignoring other things too in the process. You're ignoring us, and you're ignoring the good parts of life. Things are hard, but we're getting used to it, aren't we? Not every day is that terrible – we still laugh and have fun, don't we?" Allen smiles at him, sweet and sharing his belief and his faith, and Lavi stares, transfixed at the brilliancy of his expression, "There's still things out there for us, Lavi. We just have to find them. The sun still shines, and we've found each other, and we're alive. I'm sure your grandfather would say that's the most important thing as well."

Allen places his hand on Lavi's chest, looking at it as he says, "Promise me you'll tell us things, instead of ignoring them?"

Lavi gives him a shaky smile, rimmed in salty tears, "I'll try," he says, and at Allen's pout, adds, "I really will." And he will, but he doesn't know if he can guarantee that his mind won't just follow the established escape mechanism without Lavi's consent. Still, now that he has faced it once, and now that he sees how much the two of them care, he thinks he might be able to keep himself from shoving things to the back of his mind without facing them.

Lavi breathes in deeply, leaning back and pushing his eyepatch out of the way to rub his eyes and dry them. Finished, he curls up against Allen again and replaces his head on his shoulder, nosing the soft skin of his neck and closing his eyes. Everything about Allen is comfort and warmth, and even though Lavi has only been able to see how out-of-place and useless they would be in society if they tried to approach it, when Allen says that there's still something out there for them, Lavi wants to believe it.

o.0.o

Lavi ends up asleep in Allen's lap, curled against his chest with his face nestled on Allen's collarbone, and at Kanda's shaky exhale, Allen reaches out, searching until he finds Kanda's hand, and pulls until Kanda relinquishes his spot and crawls next to him, hesitantly running a hand through Lavi's hair. Finally, he takes Allen's hand.

_T.h.a.n.k.y.o.u_.

* * *

**We're working through their issues little by little! Though I still have some important ones I haven't touched one. Thanks again for all the support and the loving and amazing and detailed reviews I've gotten. It's very touching, and I'm glad I can give you something nice in your day. **


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