The Fine Line

Niamh strikes again! Mwahahahaha! Sorry this is late… I’ve had school and whatnot, and I was distracted by Fruits Basket last night, so I got hardly anything done. But it’s just too good! I couldn’t stop reading the cuteness!!

Ehem, and now on to a less-than-splendid chapter.

Disclaimer of Dubiousness: I don’t own D.Gray-man. If I did… the anime fight with Lenalee and the level three wouldn’t have involved Lenalee-po-go-sticking.

WARNING: Man-on-man, older themes, bad jokes, and a little plot movement.
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Five Days with a Ribbon


“A week, I tell you!”

“Che, you’ll have to tie me to this bed to make that happen.”

“I kind of like that idea…”

“This is no time for games! You are to stay in bed for a week.”

“I don’t need a week!”

“Allen,” Sable glared at the smaller boy with eyes like death, glazed by the gleaming lamplight.

“Yes, Ma’am?” Scary, scary…she has that look like Cross gets when he’s angry…

“He is not to leave that bed but to do things that are absolutely necessary to his survival. If he does, you will have to buy all of our meals for a week – and I don’t intend to have you use the Order’s money.”

Allen looked at her with an expression of muted shock in his eyes, his angelic features betrayed by obvious fear and silent yearning. “You mean… I’d have to…”

“Play cards.” Sable grinned evilly, rubbing her pale hands together mischievously. “And you’ll have no one to blame for it but Kanda-san.”

Kanda cursed under his breath. He wanted Mugen so he could impale that Sable before she came up with anymore twisted ideas. She was a girl, she was generally nice, but there were moments when he did not care – he wanted her dead more than he had ever wanted the same for Allen. It was a horrible thing for her to do, punishing Allen because Kanda wasn’t good at resting. Yet he understood her reasons.

Lavi, who had remained silent for most of the debate over Kanda’s healthcare, pushed himself from his chair at the window. They had rented the room from a local inn – one bigger than the previous – along with two others. Lavi found the room they were currently using (Allen and Kanda’s) to be the best of the three, though it had two beds, too low a roof for his liking, and the colorful wall hangings gave him the distinct feeling that the maids were hiding something behind them. The beds were just a hair too close together, the lamp shade refused to sit straight, and the chairs were too far from the beds to use them as proper bedside furniture. But he never mentioned any of his complaints.

“I guess,” He crossed the floor to one of the empty chairs at the foot of Kanda’s bed. Under other circumstances he would have avoided being so close to him so soon after being given order he didn’t like, but he felt safe so long as Kanda’s I-will-kill-you-momentarily-glare wasn’t directed at him. “That we should explain what happened after Yuu-chan was nearly crushed by that akuma-not-akuma thing.”

“Akuma-not-akuma?” Kanda furrowed his brow at him.

Allen, who had claimed the left side of Kanda’s bed as his property, spoke up. “The dragon-thing. It was like an akuma, but it didn’t have a soul.” The way he said it made him sound worried, but his expression was placid. “I had never seen anything like it before.”

“Had?” Kanda prodded.

Allen nodded slowly, but it was Lavi who explained. “I managed to knock the thing’s head off with my hammer, but that wasn’t the strange thing,” He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a black handkerchief. With slow movements he laid the fabric out on the edge of the bed, but even with his feather-light touch the cloth crumbled under his fingertips, flaking apart like a rice pastry. “This was what made it strange.”

Sitting on the edge of the bed, resting on what little remained of the black fabric, was a shard of Innocence like none before it. The shape was the same, the gentle curve, the loop that resembled a gear or an atom, but the color was wrong. A deep red brown like dried blood, shot through with lines of impossible crimson, and in the center a point that was so black it made Kanda’s eyes hurt just to look into it. There was something basically wrong with it. Something that had nothing to do with its corrupted coloration.

“What’s wrong with it?” Kanda questioned with a frown that made his graceful mouth turn down only slightly. “Why is it that color?”

Lavi shrugged, so Sable offered her opinion from where should stood. “I think that…this is what happened when my brother found the Innocence. I think that –”

Kanda didn’t hear her anymore. He was thinking, remembering, feeling that hand that touched his back for a moment without harming him.

“Get away from me or I’m going to kill you.”

“Please do, you’d save me the effort. Oh, drat, he’s seen me. Do me a favor and survive this. So I can help you.”

It had been Uri. But why would he approach Kanda? Why not his sister? Why not Allen? Why not someone who wanted to save those that wanted to be saved, even if it meant prolonging the war? It made no sense. Did he come to me… because he wanted me to kill him?

“Kanda-san, you’ve gone pale, is everything alright?” Sable broke off from whatever she had been saying to blink at him questioningly. It took him a short moment to find the words in his mind – because as cold as he was, he did not want it to sound too horrible.

“Uri-san, he spoke to me before I was hurt. He seemed to want nothing to do with the Noah anymore.” He was amazed how nice he sounded, almost like he cared. “He was willing to die if that was all he could do to help us.”

So I can help you.

Kanda watched Sable’s face slowly brighten into a lopsided smile. “He really is a fool.”

Kanda couldn’t argue. What did he mean by what he had said? So he can help me or so he can help all of us? But he knew such thoughts were useless to think on too long. The point was not what had been said or how it had been said, it was simply that something had been said, and no one had died because of it. Yet.

“I don’t understand, why though.” Sable frowned thoughtfully, her finger played with the edge of her braid as he eyes grew distant. “I wasn’t under the impression that he wanted to come be a good boy any time soon. Yet, he’s never really wanted to be a Noah either. I just… I don’t understand.”

“It’s alright, Sable-chan,” Lavi tried to smile at her. “I’m sure that he doesn’t either. It’s the only way he would do whatever he did to this Innocence and then offer to help Yuu-chan. But whatever the case is, don’t give up on him.”

“I don’t plan on it.”
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Two of the gathered Exorcists left the largest of their rented rooms after a while. Both were thoughtful, but none as thoughtful as the Japanese man who had been ordered to bed rest. Sable snickered quietly to herself about that – Komui had said that he was to stay in bed and rest, but the punishment for not following that order was entirely her idea, and she was just sadistic enough to want nothing more than to see him try and escape.

Kanda lay back in his pillows, sighing. He never thought this much about a situation, it wasn’t his personality. And yet he found his mind lingering on the Noah who had tortured him with his own thoughts, threatened his life, his Allen, and then offered to assist in the fight against his own kind. What would make a man change sides? What would make him risk everything? Did Uri really care that much for his sister?

“Love?” Allen’s voice pulled open his eyes even though he had not known he had closed them. He looked up without responding verbally. Allen sat on the bed across from him, flipping through the notes he had compiled for his report. “We have some things to take about for a moment, if you don’t mind.” He flipped the papers to the front page and looked at him with piercing eyes. “First, you need to stop getting hurt. I’m never going to be able to touch you if doing so will break you into pieces.”

Kanda smiled lopsidedly at him. “I’m…sorry.” He paused dramatically. Even if it was easy to think the words it was still hard to say them. “I’ll try to…be more careful.”

The British boy smiled has his fingers came up and took hold of the red ribbon at his neck, almost absentmindedly toying with it. “Secondly, you need to get better. If we’re going to share a cabin on the way back to England I don’t want to be the only one with a warm place to sleep.” He was so serious, so very, very concerned that the older Exorcist had to fight off a harsh laugh. The younger man seemed to be growing more and more worried about him everyday, and less worried about himself.

“Listen Moyashi, I’m not going to die from something like this yet. So you don’t have to worry so much.”

Allen frowned at him sadly, his silver eyes framed by lashes that seemed to want to hold his eyes closed. “Yet? Well, what happens when it’s too much for your curse to handle? You’ll just keel over and leave me?”

“Che, no.” Kanda didn’t quite understand his fear. “I can’t make any promises about dying but I can say this: so long as I have life in me, I won’t leave you.”

Allen blinked at him in disbelief. Surely Kanda didn’t realize what that meant? He couldn’t. Love was one thing, but a life long pledge of togetherness was another. Yet Kanda’s face was so sure, so straight, Allen just couldn’t bring himself to not believe him. His dark sapphire eyes seemed to slowly comprehend what he had said, but he did not try to refute it; his face slowly changed from one of complete seriousness to a look of mild amusement, his eyebrows lifted delicately over his shining eyes.

“You look horrified.”

“I just…didn’t expect you to say that.”

“Che, learn to expect it.”

Allen stood and came to sit on the edge of Kanda’s bed. “It’s hard, you know, to get used to it. Being loved, I mean.” He took hold of Kanda’s left hand – the one he favored due to his still sore shoulder – and turned it palm up between his hands. “But I think I can. I mean… if we’re…together.”

Kanda found his hand squeezing Allen’s back, even though he wasn’t trying. There were no words for him. No way for him to say what he meant. In his heart he knew that his sudden pledge was nothing less than the truth, yet Allen’s reaction to it was more than he had expected. Much more. It made him nearly as happy as that first time Allen had said that he loved him. Perhaps a different kind of happy, though, from what he had felt before. So instead of speaking he shook off Allen’s fingers so he could take hold of the ribbon at his neck, and pull him into a kiss.

Allen let Kanda slip his tongue across his, enjoying the feel of the man’s lips on him, his hands on Kanda’s free one. He knew what the older man meant by the action. So long as Allen wanted him Kanda would be there, always willing to save him and love him, but those words were still too finite to explain it all. Allen wanted to touch him more, be closer to him, never leave him. Their passion rose as their kiss deepened, his heart took to pounding in his chest. His right hand left Kanda’s so he could touch the skin of his neck, run his fingertips through Kanda’s ponytail. It wasn’t enough. It would never be enough. He wanted more, and he could feel it in places other than his heart.

“Kanda we shouldn—” He whispered, pulled away from the man he was starting to desire more than anything else. The hand at his neck pulled him forward again and he gave himself up to the kiss.

I shouldn’t do this, Kanda thought as he pulled Allen down onto his wounded chest. This makes Allen into a serious health concern for me…

He’s starting it. Allen thought with a shiver. I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to hurt him. I don’t want to hurt him. I know I’ll end up hurting him if we do this. He’s too wounded, too broken, it’s not good.

But it is good.

He brought his hands up and took hold of Kanda’s shoulders and pushed him away, gently, until he was half-reclining on his chest, no longer kissing. “If… you keep doing that…” Why was he out of breath? Why did he hate himself for not letting Kanda continue? “You might… get seriously hurt.”

Kanda looked at him with half-hooded eyes and gave a crooked smile. “You want to stop then?”

Allen shook his head. “I don’t want to stop, but I don’t want to hurt you either.”

The Japanese man gave a shuttering sigh. “Che, an entire week,” He frowned, but there was a sparkle in his eyes. “You don’t think I’m supposed to spend a whole week in this bed alone, do you?”

“Heehee,” Allen took hold of the hand at his collar and pulled it down, the red ribbon going with it. “No, but five days might be good.”

Kanda reached for him again but he was too late, that damn Moyashi was out of reach and he was left with nothing but a ribbon in his hand. “As much as I love you, Moyashi, sometimes I still manage to hate what you do.”

Allen just laughed from the foot of the bed. “I’ll be back in a few, I have something to do.”

“Che, what?”

Allen’s face slowly took on a strangled shade of scarlet. “Myself.”
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Lavi was nearly plowed over by Allen in the hallway – the silver haired boy hardly even managed a muffled apology before he disappeared into Lavi’s room. The redhead blinked questioningly at his door for a moment before he decided that he’d rather not ask. Whatever Allen was in such a hurry to find, he would not find it there – the apprentice Bookman’s room was always too messy to navigate, even the rented ones.

“I don’t care what you do in there, just don’t make it messier!” Lavi yelled as footsteps approached from the direction of Kanda and Allen’s room. It was Sable. She looked at him hesitantly, her golden eyebrows pushed together in thought.

“Is Allen in there?” She pointed at his door, eyebrows still furrowed.

“Yeah, why?”

She scratched her head pensively for a moment before shrugging. “I don’t know what it was that made him run, but Kanda sure seemed to think it was funny.”

Lavi blinked at her. “Did Yuu-chan… laugh?”

Sable nodded. “Really hard.”

“Is he still going?”

“Yes.”

“I have to see this so I can put it in the records!”
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“No, I wasn’t.”

“Sable-chan said you were.”

“Che, she’s wrong. I don’t laugh like that. Now get out before I kill you.”

Lavi frowned at the Japanese man on the bed. “Yuu-chan is mean to me…”

“Che, say that when Mugen is sticking out of your head. Now go.”

“I’m going, I’m going… so cold…”
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The end of yet another horrid chapter! Yay!! It’s kind of sad that I say things like that, isn’t it? I mean, I should have pride in my work, right? I don’t really though… I feel like this could have ended 50 times better. //sigh

Aw well. More updates to come soon! Weekends are good writing times for me, being I don’t have classes Friday to Sunday :D

Reviews are love, but you already know that...