The Fine Line

Ehem… well, not much of an author’s note this time, but to apologize for not starting off with the people you care about. And for the unoriginal title – I could find no inspiration for something more descriptive.

Disclaimer of Duh: AH! I’m running out of D-words! I don’t own D.Gray-man. If I did, all of the anime openings would be Abingdon Boy’s School, because they rock.

WARNING: There’s Violence! There’s Man-lovin’! There’s a Frog! (…Yeah, yeah, I know… no one get’s Underdog references… Niamh feels old…)
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Noah

Sable had been standing in the cabin, flipping through the book she had just finished disappointedly when her face went suddenly pale. Lavi watched in fear as she ran her fingers slowly across her face, her expression unreadable as the book tumbled out of her other hand to the floor.

“Sable-chan, are you alright?” He asked when she turned away from him as if to hide her face by the wall.

“Leave me alone for a moment, Lavi.” She said in a quiet voice.

He didn’t think that I’d know if he came to see me. She thought sadly. You’re a fool, Uri. A damned fool. Even if we’re not the same person, we are still the same things.

He frowned at the back of her head his one eye worried enough for two. “Is something wrong?”

The same heart.

She shook her head and pressed her face with bother her hands, desperately, desperately trying to hide the blood. “It’s nothing to be concerned with, just please, please, go.” Uri was using his powers, she knew, because this never happened unless he did. Beneath her fingers on the right side of her forehead, three cross shaped wounds had formed, lines etched on her skin that would continue to cut themselves deeper and deeper into her flesh until he stopped using his power.

Their power.

A drop of blood slid passed her fingers and splattered on the cabin floor.

The same soul.

“Sable-chan?” There was nothing but concern in Lavi’s voice, but she couldn’t show him. She could never let anyone know what she was – what she wasn’t. God had bestowed her with her Innocence even before her birth and she had decided not long after that she would not be evil. Even if Uri was. The Black Order would not understand.

The same Noah.

“Go, Lavi.” She closed her eyes and prayed he would leave her. “It’s nothing.”

“It’s not nothing…” He said quietly. What was a Bookman to do? Interfere? Make her show him? It took him only a moment to think about it. He took her by the shoulders and turned her around; his eyes went wide at the sight of so much blood. “It’s alright,” He tried to sound reassuring. “Let me see.”
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How could I have lost him? I didn’t even really lose him either, he just vanished. And it’s my fault. It’s all my fault. If I hadn’t of insisted on calling, he wouldn’t have wandered off somewhere and had something happen to him. Allen’s thoughts were long lines of consciousness, unending streams of growing chaos. Every so often he would find a footprint, a broken spider’s web, but such things did not help his slowly disorganizing mind. Where could he be?

Will I ever find him?

He pulled Kanda’s jacket tighter around him and turned his tear stained face into the wind. Another dent in the snow encouraged him to walk on.

And then he heard someone scream.
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“I’ve never heard of someone having two worst fears before, Kanda-san,” The Noah chimed at him, smiling ghoulishly. The guy really was a sadist. “But, as they say, there is a first time for everything.”

My God, if I knew where Mugen was…

“So, which shall I treat you too first, my dear Exorcist? Though I’m not sure my talent at fulfilling nightmares is up to either task. Shall I try, Kanda-san? Would you be livelier if I did?”

I’d cut this man’s head off without even thinking about it.
Che, not that I can move my arms.
Or much else.

Kanda had not thought of his worst fear when the Noah had asked him, instead he had thought of other things, things that made him want to smile. That had not made the Noah happy at all. He had hit him, over and over again, demanding that he think of his worse fear, all the while breaking his ribs and bruising his cheeks and cutting his lips on his teeth. He has asked the question one last time after Kanda had fallen unconscious, and his waking mind had not been able to refuse the answer.

Now he sagged against his bonds, bleeding from his mouth, eyes half-lidded. He did not even bother making snide remarks anymore. He did not really care if the Noah tortured him, hurt him, took away his Innocence. Those usual threats were wasted on him.

He did, however, care if he died.

And, of course, he cared if Allen was hurt.

If the Noah tried the latter of the two, he’d find himself with a very ill-mannered mute, immovable Exorcist on his hands. Which Kanda aimed to make far more unpleasant than it sounded.

A loud cracking sound pulled him back to the moment at hand, where the Noah had broken off the leg of the desk jaggedly, so that it was pointed like a stake at the end.

Great, He thought sarcastically. What does he think I am a vampire?

Uri did the best he could to smile but not to smile too much. He had to repeat to himself that this man was an enemy, not a man, and that letting him go would only lead to his own suffering. A test, Tyki had called this, a test of his loyalty. He would have to do this with enthusiasm and cunning if he wanted to seem that way.

He hit the wood against his hand a few times as if to test its strength before his grin grew wider. Kanda just glared at him indifferently.

“Now, my dear Kanda-san, there is only one last favor that I can ask before we end it.” The stake stopped mid motion; he ran a finger slowly over the longest pointed piece of wood until he seemed satisfied with it. “Scream for me, Kanda-san. Scream until you lover comes running.”
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Lavi’s breathing was ragged, his hands unsure, but his eye did not lie to him. There, on an Exorcist’s forehead, were the scars of the Noah clan. They were bleeding down her face, tears were welling in her eyes, yet her Innocence – and the thought that it had not be betrayed was encouraging – glowed faintly green in the cabin light.

“Don’t,” She said soft. “Don’t look at me. Please, don’t look at me.” She repeated it several times while he held her, until there was too much gore and she had to close eyes to avoid being blinded by it.

She’s as scared as I am, He realized slowly. How could she have the marks of a Noah? Why?

“It’s alright,” The calmness of his voice surprised her but she could find no lie in it. “I won’t…I won’t hurt you.” He hands stopped trying to cover the wounds so stubbornly and he was able to lower them to her sides. “Come on, I’ll get something to clean you up with and if you want to, you can tell me what’s going on. Alright?”

Sable did not want to, but she knew she should. Some family secrets just couldn’t be kept.
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He knew it was Kanda’s voice because he had heard it before, yet the tambour was slightly different – made course by the wind perhaps. Whatever the case was, the sound encouraged him to go forward as the same time that it made his heart sink into his stomach.

How many times have I wished death on him? He wondered vaguely. And how many times did I mean it?

When he walked passed a rather decrepit looking stand of trees a small, disintegrating cottage came into view, looking like a pockmark of gray stone on the pristine white hillside. The roof was gone, the walls a disaster, and in the snow outside of what was once the front door there was a footprint.

Allen was not one to let himself get carried away – at least he didn’t think he was – so when his feet carried him nearly to that footprint, he was surprised. He crouched low to the ground, getting Kanda’s nice coat wet, and accidentally jabbing Mugen’s sheath into the snow. He had slung the blade over his shoulder in much the same manner that Kanda did, though the strap was a little big, just like the jacket. He was unused to the weight there just as he was unused to having it hang behind him when he bent low.

“He’s never going to hear you if you don’t put some effort into it,” A voice was saying disappointedly. It was oddly familiar, like something he had heard once in a dream, but it was not the time for thinking such things.

It was time to get his Kanda back. His Kanda. For good.

He heard the distinct sound of blood splashing onto the floor and heard a low groan. Well, he was still alive. Relief washed through him. In absolute silence he glanced in the broken doorway to get an idea of what awaited him within.

Kanda’s hair had come undone and hung over his face like a drape masking his features, cords of thick brown rope crossed his chest and arms, wound about his legs to hold him still. His chest was drenched in crimson though his chest still rose and fell with each passing moment, and the fingers of his left hand shook as if enraged. The sight made Allen made beyond reason. The man standing in front of Kanda’s chair had a twisted smile on his face, a blooded wooden utensil in his hand. He thrust forward with it, aiming for Kanda’s face.

Allen did not know what came over him. It was if someone else were moving his body for him, telling him what he had to do. His left arm changed without him thinking about it as he charged the Noah.

Uri did not even know what hit him.

Allen’s metallic fist hit the Noah with a tremendous force, sending him off of his feet and through the far wall. Bits of stone rained down around them as the other walls began falling in. A battle cry like none he had ever uttered tore from Allen’s throat, primal in a way that he was not used to. He had always wanted to have the world, always wanted to save those in front of him, always wanted to make a difference in the greater scheme of things; but he had not once felt that not doing so would betray his very existence.

His feet caught on the wooden flooring and he staggered to a halt in front of Kanda’s chair, breath burning through his lungs as adrenaline pounded through his veins. He could not explain it, but he was angry. This Noah, this human, had been hurting Kanda. Kanda. The one man who, in the instant he had leapt to defend him, had meant more than anything before in his life.

“Kanda!” He took hold of ropes with his giant fingers and ripped them apart, shredding them like threads. He placed a hand on the Japanese man’s shoulder to better access his wounds, his left arm deactivated of it’s own accord.

That amazing pair of sapphire eyes came up and looked at him unwaveringly, bright with life though yet dimmed by obvious pain. “Che, about time you got here, Moyashi-kun.” His words came out slowly, hindered by the slowly swelling right side of his face. He was pretty well beaten, with uneven looking stab wounds in each shoulder, blood from them staining his shirt. His coat was hung neatly over the back of his chair, looking perfectly clean.

“Come on, I’ll kiss you when we get back to town.” Allen smiled at him, glad that Kanda was not in any danger of death at the moment. Maybe, eventually, from blood loss, but he doubted it.

“Che, my legs are broken.” Kanda explained coldly.

“What?”

“The bones in my legs are broken. Not working. Kaput. Time to come up with a plan, Moyashi-kun, because I can’t walk.” Why, of all the times, did he have to sound condescending now? Allen knew what he had to do. It was doing it that was going to be difficult. “Before that Noah comes back, preferably.” Kanda continued, shifting in his chair and grimacing.

Allen hooked both of Kanda’s legs over his right arm – ignoring his protests, and looped his broken right arm around his neck, supporting him the same as Kanda had him when he was wounded. Kanda wasn’t that heavy, but he knew that carrying him for more than a few miles would be trouble.

“Going somewhere, Allen-kun?” The voice stopped him in his tracks. A cold voice, one that did not seem to hide its loathing. Could the Noah really have recovered from that strong of a hit so quickly?

Run, run, run. His mind chanted. But he knew he couldn’t. He would just have to talk his way out of it – or hurt the Noah.

“Home.” He said quietly. Kanda was as stiff as a board in his arms. “I know that I can’t fight you, Noah-san, so I’m not going to turn around and face you. If you will go so lows as to attack someone who is walking away from you, there will be no forgiveness for you when you meet your end.” Kanda blinked up at the boy who spoke those words so surely, his face perfectly calm. He had to give him some credit – saying something like that took guts.

The Noah laughed lightly behind them, though it was not an amused sound. “You’re a brave boy, I’ll give you that Allen Walker. And for that reason, I do not want to kill you so quickly. So tell me this before I let you go,” He could hear that the man had shifted behind him, but he was not about to turn around and find out how. “The man you are holding in your arms, does he mean so much to you?”

That’s an odd question to ask an enemy.

“I would die for him,” He whispered back. “And he would die for me.”

Kanda’s felt his heart give a flutter when he heard those words. It was true. He would die for Allen without a second thought, but why, when Allen said it, did it sound like it meant more than anything else? Why did it sound like they were more important than the world? Any why did it make him smile to hear it?

“You’re both fools then.” Uri said flatly. “And you are never going to save the world.” He left them there on that unhappy note, facing away from him, ready to walk forward. He hated it. Why did they all have to be good people? Why couldn’t they have been horrible, evil, corrupted?

Because that’s what you are, Uri. You’re the evil here.
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“I don’t care how much it doesn’t hurt; you are going to the hospital.”

“Listen to me Moyashi-kun, if you take me there, they are going to want to study me like a lab rat when I walk out perfectly healthy in three days.”

“I don’t care. Until you are perfectly healthy, you need professional attention.”

“Dammit, you’re still not listening, Moyashi-kun.”

“I very well am. God, you could stand to lose some weight, Kanda.”

“Please, don’t call me God, Mo-ya-shi-kun.”

Allen couldn’t take it anymore. At every corner Kanda was calling him by his pet name, almost as if he wanted to be molested in an ally while most of his bones were broken. So instead he just leaned his neck down and pulled Kanda’s shoulders closer, the better to lay a soft kiss on those bruised lips.

He wasn’t expecting it to be much of anything, just a casual kiss to make Kanda agree to treatment, nothing more. What he got was a kiss like none before it, a kiss that drew him in and made him thirst for more, hunger for the Kanda’s warmth. He lost track of where his tongue was, whether he was being kissed or if he was kissing, if he was standing on a street corner or just falling into Kanda, melting like the winter snow in spring. His knees buckled. Kanda’s left hand touched the back of his neck gently, caressing the baby fine hairs there, sending shivers down his spine.

When they parted, Allen would have given his right arm to be somewhere besides an empty street in Ange. Somewhere he could do that again without fear of being seen.

“Che,” Kanda groaned. “Still taking me to the hospital, Moyashi?”

Allen frowned down at him, the gears in his mind turning behind his face. “But… I can’t… we can’t… you’re hurt.”

So many protests, so few words to express them.

“I’ll be fine unless you throw a dresser on me.”

Allen laughed. “Alright then,” He smiled crookedly. “We’ll go to the inn I found, call the Order, and have some time to ourselves.”

Kanda rolled his eyes as if disappointed. Calling the Order can wait. He thought in annoyance, but he grinned to himself anyways. After all, he could wait. Even if his bones were not done healing, even if every movement he made and every kiss he gave caused him agony, he would still have the opportunity to do so, and that thought made him glad. And the words of one damned Noah weren’t going to change that. Ever.
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So… if you can’t guess from the ending… there shall be more fluff soon! Amusing fluff, confused Uri, sad Sable, and dramadramadrama! But hey! It’s still happy…ish…