The Fine Line

Mmm… Niamh is sick today, blech.

But! That means I can update! And start the next chapter! And have eventual plot movement! YAY!! *sniff*

Disclaimer of Disability: I do not own D.Gray-man. If I did… Lavi would hug Yuu-chan just to see what would happen. Like really hug.

WARNING: Hmm… not a lot of warning this chapter. Implied man lovin’ man. One crazy awkward OC XD
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Yullen and Lable

Kanda solemnly wished that his greatcoat was clean and not holey, but wishing did not make it so. If he had had his coat no one would have seen his pants beneath them – he could be pants-less most of the time without anyone knowing – and it would not have mattered that his rather irksome lover had darned the wrong pair in the mist of a tickle-battle. His ribs still hurt from losing.

Losing. Kanda Yuu had been defeated.

And by Allen Walker no less.

He seethed.

I need practice, he says! And then he tickles me! Tickles me! He didn’t even stop when I threatened him. And then he has the courage to steal my pants. My pants. Why not just pick up his own pants? They were closer.
But noooo, Allen Baka-Moyashi Walker grabbed mine instead, and now Lavi is looking at me like that time I took him to that hot spring. I am not meat!

Kanda sighed and narrowed his gaze at the white haired boy across the room from him. Part of him wanted to strangle the younger Exorcist but most of him was just poking fun. He was not masochistic enough to say that he liked any of this – he definitely did not like walking around in Allen’s pants and having people stare at him like that – but he admitted to himself that he liked how Allen ran teasingly away. It made him smile a little, to know that his mild brand of sadism had yet to frighten his lover.

But no one would have seen that tiny smile, no matter how closely they looked.

That feather idea I had back in the inn wasn’t half-bad. He thought, stepping down the stairs slowly. I’ll just have to catch him, drag him back up there with me, and find a feather. After that, it’s a matter of finding something to hold him down.

He started for the table, cracking his fingers as we walked. I’m going to tickle him until he stops breathing. People watching be damned.

“I’m dead… I’m dead…” Allen chanted, sinking low in his chair. “He’s going to torture me until I can’t breathe anymore. And then some.”

Lavi gave him a small wink and smiled, “Not if I can help it! Yuu-chan!” Lavi called with a wave. “You think the two of you can call a temporary truce for breakfast?” The redhead cocked his head to the side, grinning at him. “And please come sit down, you’re giving everyone a rather lengthy show.”

If Allen had been drinking in the moment, the liquid would have been snorted out his nose.

Lavi’s evaluation was accurate to say the least and his loud suggestion that the Japanese man find a seat only brought more attention to it. Perhaps the second strangest thing happened then; Kanda pulled his shirt closed and took to buttoning it, a light blush on his cheeks, determination in his eyes. He wasn’t very easy to fluster, but when someone managed it he looked absolutely hilarious.

“Che.” He groaned as he came closer. But he nodded, aware that trying to eat and tickle and get back to England all at the same time would make for a horrendous day.

Sable, who had been searching the table for forgotten food, glanced from Allen to Lavi and back again, blinking a little. She had missed most of the prior exchange she had been so engrossed. “Oi, Allen-chan, aren’t those pants a little big for you?”

Allen smiled at her and picked up a dish of fruit she had missed. “Mmhmm. You see, Kanda had just er…we’d…anyways, I picked up his pants on accident but I didn’t have time to change out of them, so I kept them on. His other pants are all bloodstained and dirty still, so…”

“So he’s wearing yours and you’re wearing his?” Sable raised an eyebrow at him and stole a grape out of the fruit dish. The grin he gave her made her sigh. “The two of you are going to have a wonderful time rooming together, huh?”

“What?” Kanda was at the table at last. He pulled out the chair that was across from Allen and plopped himself down with an air of annoyance. Lavi was amazed by it. Kanda could have a tickle war, wear pants that made him look like a male stripper, have long flowing girl hair and still manage to have the same aura of loathing, death, and overall impossible masculinity. The juxtaposition was almost too much for him.

Sable stretched and yawned loudly before she turned to the Japanese man. “Just talking about how if the two of you are swapping clothes now, you’re going to be in all sorts of trouble when you’re living together.”

“Huh?” It was Lavi this time.

“You heard them last night,” She explained, waving a hand at each of the lovers. “The one screams like a girl and the other moans like a zombie. With sounds like that, they have to live together.”

“There was a reason I was coving my ears Sable-chan…”

“I’m not reenacting, you homophobe.”

“I’m not a homophobe; I’m a Yullen-o-phobe.”

“A what?” Allen and Kanda asked at once. They had been listening silently to the exchange, attempting to read the menu.

Lavi smiled at them each in turn, waving his hands defensively. “Doesn’t it sound cute? It was something Lenalee did when we were younger. Whenever someone was with someone else you splinch there names together, like Yullen, or… Kanker or…. Waluu. Basically Yullen is just the best one.”

“What about Savi?”

Lavi looked at Allen in wonder. What the hell was he talking about? ‘Savvy’ (as he had heard it) had nothing to do with either of their names.

“You know, for you two. Sable and Lavi makes Savi.”

“And Lavi and Sable makes Lable.” Kanda informed them all. The two fakers looked across the table at each other with wide eyes, fear in the one pair, and mischief in the other. Why did it have to be words? Lavi thought in despair. And what the hell was he going to do when they got back to the Order? Word that he and Sable were Lable would spread like wildfire, and then someone would here it… and that someone would tell someone else… and Lavi would end up confined to the library for the rest of his natural life.

Sable spoke before he could open his mouth and ruin their lies. “Actually, if you guys don’t mind, could you keep us a secret? We’re not sure what Panda would do if he found out.”

It took only a moment for Allen to nod solemnly. It was then that the waitress came back again, remarking that the number of table occupants had multiplied. She had a notepad with her this time.
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“Nii-san,” Lenalee opened the door to her brother’s office to find him frowning at papers – managing to work for once in his life. He glanced up at her and grinned, happy to see a coffee tray in her hands. “I wanted to ask how long it was going to be before the others came back.” She asked, coming forward so he could take his favorite mug from the tray.

Komui put the papers into the pile he had designated as ‘Read and to be Filed’, sighing. “Assuming they catch both trains and the boat on time and they have fine weather, perhaps twelve days, why?”

“Good.” Lenalee smiled at him. “They’ll get back on Christmas then.”

Her brother’s eyebrows went together slowly as he realized that she was right. Christmas. He’d have to get everyone presents – and two for Allen, being it was his birthday as well.

“Was there anything else you needed?” He asked when she stopped on the way out, leaning on his doorway.

“Have you seen my camera?”
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“Yullen! Hurry up!”

“You know they’re both going to kill you if you keep that up.”

“But it’s so worth it.”

“Willing to die but not willing to lose your purity? Are you sure you’re a man?”

Sable sighed at the boy next to her, looking at him from under the brim of her hat. The hat wasn’t new, just something she had forgotten about in the very, very bottom of her suitcase, next to the autobiographies and science books. It had started snowing again, though only lightly, and the two of them had packed much faster than their warring companions. Kanda and Allen had both eaten without as much as a rib poke, but the truce seemed to have ended with the meal. Sable and Lavi stood outside of the inn, looking up at the open window that belonged to the two other boys, calling out to it. Sable doubted that it would make them pack faster, but it was a fun way to pass the time anyways.

“Yull-en!” Lavi said in a sing-song voice. “We’re a-gonna leave ya here in Sweeeeden! Here in Sweeeden! Where the air is soo co-co-co-cooooold.”

“For the love of God, Lavi.”

“Hm?”

“Do not sing.”

“Why not?”

“Because when you sing like you’re talking you sound like a pre-pubescent boy.”

“Maybe I’m a tenor.”

“No, no. This isn’t boy-soprano, this is ‘Oh God, make it stop, my ears are bleeding.’”

“Sable-chan you’re so mean to me… I swear that you and Yuu-chan are long lost relatives.”

“We’re not; you just make us both feel like we need to cut our wrists.”

“Sable-chan, you make me sad inside…”

Just as he finished a rather large, rather dirty snowball smashed into the side of his face, the force knocked him square on his behind in the snow. With a loud curse he scrapped the cold mush from his eye and looked up to see Kanda standing in the door way, a suitcase in one hand, a snowball in the other. Behind him, holding his shirt sleeve was a cowering Allen, his eyes looking guilty.

“Moyashi-ch—” Kanda’s projectile cut him off abruptly, pushing him back to the ground again. He gagged a few times as he fingers dove between his teeth to pull the snow out of his mouth, his one green eye tearing in disgust. He glared at the Japanese man, expecting to see him smirk at him or just roll his eyes indifferently.

He froze when Kanda managed to laugh at him.

He’s Yuu-chan. Lavi thought as he spit one more time before pushing himself to his hands and knees in an attempt to get up. Yuu-chan has laughed maybe four times since I’ve met him – and that’s not counting what Sable claims she heard. He doesn’t like to laugh in front of people. He doesn’t like to get close to people, and laughing makes people closer. He said once, ‘Laughter makes love, baka. No one should love me.’ And he never would explain it. So what did Allen do? Why is he laughing like that?

“Oi, Lavi-chan, you could have thrown seven snowballs in the time it’s taken you to recover from that hit.” Sable chimed, taking his collar roughly in her hand and yanking him to his feet. “But it’s too late now; you don’t get a chance for revenge.”

“Wha-why not?” He asked, shaking off his previous thoughts in favor of something brighter. So what if Kanda was in love with Allen? So what if he had finally let down that wall around his heart? Lavi wasn’t the jealous type. He had always hoped that one day Yuu would see the folly of his ways and start to really care about someone and let them care back – and that that someone would be his best friend – but he wasn’t about to get butt hurt about it. Besides, he hadn’t been in love with the samurai, and even if he had been it wasn’t in his character to let it bring him down. He would sigh and move on like he always did, with is left hand on his mallet and his right holding the hole his heart had become.

Besides, there was a certain other member of the Order he had had his eye on for a long time. A perhaps-some-day loving eye. Not that that would ever happen in one hundred billion zillion years.

“Because we’ll miss the train and then we’ll miss our other train and then we’ll miss the boat.” Sable hissed at him, tugging on his jacket. “Now stop thinking. Let’s go.”
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“Yullen-chan!”

“You say that one more time I’ll cut you into so many pieces, the Order will have to identify you with dental records.”

“Is it so hard to say All-en and Kan-da?”

Allen sat next to Kanda with his left hand in his lover’s right, looking out the train window with something of a sad expression on his face. He hoped to be alone with Kanda, to be able to talk about things that they had yet to talk about, but that was not what had happened. The week they had spent eating in the inn had diminished their funding more than planned, so the four had elected to have one compartment on the train instead of one cabin on the boat – because there would be murder or suicide after long periods of confinement at sea.

“Neither of you lift a finger,” Sable smiled at them. “I’ll make him stop.”

Kanda lifted an eyebrow at the young woman sitting across from him. Her face was hard, arms folded across her chest, her right leg crossed over her left. When he looked at her sometimes he wondered if she really was a woman, she held herself like she was the epitome of masculinity half the time and acted the cynical bastard the rest. It was odd, seeing as she was so close to the ever colorful, ever flamboyant Lavi.

“Che, if you figure out a way to get him to shut up, please tell me.”

Sable smiled crookedly at him. “It’s not that difficult. I’m sure Allen’s done it to you before.”

“Done what?”

Lavi blinked at both of them, feeling abandoned. “Why are you talking about me like I’m not here?”

Sable dropped her hands from her arms and straightened in her seat, leaning forward as if she were instructing the older Exorcist in something amazingly important. “You know, done something… shall we say blatant? Yes, I think that’s a good euphemism.”

Kanda’s face went from curious to near concerned in a moments notice. “Like what?”

“Oh, when you’re saying something and he doesn’t want to hear it, so he just covers your lips.”

“Hm,” Kanda frowned deeply. “No, I can’t really think of anything like that…”

“Moyashi-chan, why are they acting like I can’t hear them?” Lavi asked quietly. His great green eye looked as if it would start welling with tears at any moment.

Allen looked at the redhead and the other two with a puzzled expression – he hadn’t been paying attention at all. “I’m sorry, what we were talking about? I was just watching the snow and wondering if it was actually safe to ride a train in it. Not that you really needed to know that.”

“Oh, it’s safe,” Sable flipped her braid over her shoulder and waved him off. “Every time I lived in Sweden it snowed on the rails at least a little. No one died.”

“But what exactly do you mean, blatant?” Kanda broke in. “Could you give me an example.”

“Oh no!” Lavi exclaimed with a complete lack of pessimism. “I’ve been completely ignored! It’s not Yullen any more! It’s… it’s Sayullen!”

“Like this!” Sable pounced. Without regard for purity or patience or the red head’s wishes she took him by the shoulders and kissed him. Inwardly she giggled at his dead mouth, the hands that went out to the sides and stayed there, incapable of pushing her away or pulling her close because of surprise. Lavi, the Lavi, the prankster and joker of all the Order, had never expected to have someone do that him in half a billion zillion years. The two Exorcists on the opposing seat blinked at Sable in dumbfounded awe, able to see that while Sable had closed her eyes to the kiss Lavi still looked at her with something like terror on his pale face.

When she stopped, Lavi was twelve shades too red, but she looked unflustered. “And there you have it, Kanda-chan,” She clapped a hand on Lavi’s back and leaned on him – he did not seem to feel either action. His eye was void of light. “All you have to do is kiss him.”

Allen stifled a giggle. Kanda grinned, the expression just as bright as it had been when he had smiled at Allen the first time in The Sow Side Log.

“I think I’ll pass on that,” He inclined his head so that it rested gently on his lover’s, “I never did like the taste of rabbit.”
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That’s it. More updates to come soon, depending upon how healthy I am the rest of today and tomorrow. I always spend more time with my comp when I’m not feeling well. I wonder why that is.

Also, the name thing is totally something my friends and I do. We came up with such names as Brylene, Megach, Zacan, Annathew, Matisa, and Pagan.

Reviews. Are. Love.

Thanks for reading! Sorry if you were expecting more plot and less fluff… I couldn’t resist the pull of the happiness! More actual adventure and character growth is to come!