The Fine Line

Doo-doo-doo! Chapter 24 is here at last! Yay!!
Ehem. Niamh’s house is slowly blowing away in a horrible storm. This is odd, being she lives in California.

Disclaimer of D-superlongness: I don’t own D.Gray-man. If I did… episodes would come out hecka faster.

WARNING: YAOI! Shounen-ai! Man on Man. Gayness. Homosexual behavior.

Now on to the fic! (Sorry that I’m long winded.)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Presents

Lavi was quiet for much of the way to Varberg, just mulling things over in his mind, chewing on what Sable had done. He didn’t understand her at all. She was like a big ball of hilarity, wrapped in weapons, dipped in void, and covered with nice sprinkle of bravery. And her complete disregard for his desires and others feelings made her even more of an enigma. She seemed to care about Allen and Kanda being happy, about keeping him from being murdered, but she didn’t mind stepping on anyone’s ego or making them feel awkward. Every expression she made seemed either horribly faked or completely honest. It was like she never lied with her features and always spoke her mind – even when she wasn’t being honest.

He sighed to himself and leaned his head on the cold glass of the window. They would stay in the old Sow Side Log for one night and catch their ship the next morning. And then it was goodbye Sweden. Until then though, he had a nice cool window to press his forehead against so he could think.

But why am I thinking?

“They’re cute, aren’t they?” The girl he had been trying to understand for a good twenty minutes said from where she sat on the bed, not looking up from her book.

“Hm?”

“Kanda and Allen.” She sighed and closed her read material. “They’re all cute and happy and adorable and…gah.”

“Gah?”

Lavi frowned at her as she threw herself back on the bed, dropping her novel on her face. He didn’t say anything though. She needed to speak her mind, which was obvious.

“I mean, I know that I helped put them together and everything. And I know that they really do love each other. And I understand that I should be happy for them. But part of me just wants to kick them, you know? Kind of… ‘Take your happiness and shove it,’ not that that would really work… they’d enjoy shoving it.” She said all of this to the book on her face, completely ignoring how awkward it was to have Lavi’s own recent thoughts thrown in his face. “That doesn’t make me a horrible person does it?”

Lavi chuckled lightly and the sound made her slide the novel off enough to look at him past its cover, her left eye was the only visible part of her face. “No, it doesn’t, Sable-chan. It makes you human.”

She just smiled and went back to her book.

“By the way,” Lavi said turned so that his back was to the window, she look at him with just the one eye again and did not up down her reading material. “I wanted to ask you… why you kissed me.”

Sable folded the page in her book and closed it ever so gently. She tilted her head at him and gave a small smile, the kind that was not faked even though it was not happy. “Why not?”

“C’mon, I mean really.” Lavi’s shoulders slumped slightly, his orange scarf covered his mouth as he hunched. “You read people’s minds all the time, but I can’t read yours, you know? I don’t know what you mean when you just do things like that, or when you say things like Yuu-chan. I just… can’t figure you out.”

She folded her hands in her lap as her eyes fell to the floor. How could she explain something she didn’t entirely understand herself? “I kissed you because you wouldn’t be quiet. I talk like Kanda because I think the same things as Kanda. I don’t mean to be like I am, it just kind of happens.” She furrowed her brow at him. “Am I making any sense at all?”

He nodded slowly. “I think so.”

Is she… sorry for being who she is?

“Good. The truth is that… when I kissed you, I guess I wanted to kiss you. But it’s not like I really like you.” She shrugged that off, her face brightening somewhat as she did. “And you don’t have to worry about that guy, he’s mildly attracted to you too, even if neither of you know it.”

Lavi blanched. “What?” What-who-why-where-how…

Sable giggled. “It’s cute. I’m sure that you’ll really get to see each other soon, too.”

“Sable-chan,” He closed his eyes and let his head fall into his hands. “You just said that you don’t like me, you wanted to kiss me, and that I like a man all in one short span of time.”

“And?”

“I don’t understand!”

“Sorry, Lavi.” She was really smiling now, her previous melancholy forgotten. “I don’t either.”

He glared at her, seriously glared. He knew that, given time, he wouldn’t like someone else, he would like her – but she seemed incapable of reading that part of his mind. Was it because he knew? Or was it because she didn’t want to know? He couldn’t say. He could say, however, that she had admitted to not liking him. That hurt, a little.

“It’s alright,” He said more to himself than anyone else, looking away. Because I’m a Bookman.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Kanda sneezed quietly into his suitcase, showering his once cleanish clothes with a microscopic layer of saliva and snot. Inwardly he cursed; outwardly he groaned. By the time he got back to the Order he was going to smell like a very bloody, very sweaty bottle of flowery Swedish massage oil, and the only person he had to blame for it was himself.

And Allen.

The Moyashi had gone off down stairs to talk to Lloyd about all that had happened and how he wasn’t exactly sure if it was going Allen Walker and Kanda Yuu or Allen Walker and Walker Yuu or Allen Kanda and Kanda Yuu – but Kanda only knew that because he had eavesdropped a little. The topic made him smile silently as he pulled a fresh shirt from his things and turned toward the bathroom. The fact that Allen was playing with their names like a girl experimenting with her married signature made it pretty clear who would take whose name whenever they decided to start calling each other hubby.

Just as Kanda disappeared like a ghost into the bathroom, Allen came in, a smile on his face and a free pastry in his hand. Lloyd had been the nicest person about everything – he had congratulated him and even given him a little snack as a memento. He was so happy, he could just sing.

Well, Kanda’s not here… He thought and he what remained his treat. So I guess I can indulge little while I unpack.

Allen liked singing, though he didn’t think he was any good at it. Cross would yell at him when he so much as hummed as a child – unless he was standing on a street corner gathering coins, then Cross was all for it. Ever since then he had made a serious habit of singing only alone, where no one would overhear. As far as he knew, he hadn’t sung at all since he’d arrived at the Order. Because he feared that when someone heard him they would either yell at him or tell him to go get a top hat.

He started softly, just humming like a little breath of wind. He didn’t remember hearing the song anywhere before, it was just something that he knew like he knew the piano – something from within his soul. The words played along in his head as he hummed, his mouth yet unwilling to say anything out loud.

“Black, black, black is the color of my true love’s hair…”

No words. Just melody.

Kanda, who had yet to find a light in the bathroom, stopped searching for a moment when a quiet voice sneaked in from the main room. He knew that voice, even if he had never heard it hum before. Somehow he had never imagined Allen humming, but then again he had never imagined a number of things that had happened recently. He grew very still, standing next to the open door to listen to the oddly morbid tune the British boy followed as he rummaged through his things.

“His lips are something rosy fair. The purest face and the strongest hands, I love the grass whereon he stands.”

He knew the song. Where had he heard it though? Kanda couldn’t remember. Someplace far, far away or very close, he wasn’t sure. But he knew the words in the back of his mind and they made him smile a little. Whether the little Moyashi knew it or not, they fit perfectly.

“I love my love and this well he knows. I love the ground on whereon he goes. If him no more on Earth shall be, my life will quickly leave me…”

Allen had at last located what he was looking for in his things. A pair of pants that, though previously worn, would pass as being cleaner than the ones he wore currently. With those in hand and the tune still going strong in his throat he made for the bathroom. When he came into the bathroom a hand caught his shoulder and pulled him close, lips pressed into his so suddenly that he dropped his garments, his eyes wide in the darkness. The callused fingertips that touched his neck were gentle but demanding; he felt his knees suddenly go to putty as an arm circled around his waist.

When the kiss broke he looked up at a very hungry looking Kanda, his face shadowed in the darkness.

“Th-that was unexpected,” He panted into the shadows.

“Che,” Kanda intoned before rocking into his lover, leaning low to press his lips at the hollow his throat. Allen’s head tilted away from the contact as if it burned him, his mind began to grow fuzzy. He had been so happy, so very happy, and now Kanda was here to make him even happier. It might have been the best day of his life.

“I… didn’t know you were here.” He said, breathlessly. The hand did not move and the arm around his waist did not falter. He felt lust radiating from the samurai in almost a tangible wave and felt his own desires rise to meet it. His hands ran up Kanda’s back to trace the length of his spine.

“Am I your true love, Moyashi-kun?” Kanda asked, smiling at the intense blush that covered the younger boy’s features. Allen had thought that he was alone, but he had been wrong. Kanda had heard him humming. And now Kanda wanted him. How did that work?

“Mmhmm,” He half moaned as Kanda pulled their hips together. “You know that song?”

Kanda nodded, leaned down so that his mouth was just an inch from Allen’s, his breath spread warmly across his lover’s face, cueing Allen to lean up and kiss him again. It was a short kiss, but the warmth they had caused did not abate. “You aren’t sore, are you Moyashi?”

Allen smirked at him, twining his arms up onto the older man’s shoulders. “Nope. And if I was… there is a bathtub. And a shower.” He traced the fingers of his right hand down Kanda’s neck and watched him shiver at the contact. Damn shirt, he thought with a mild frown, If it weren’t for shirts I could touch even more of him.

“Shall we try them out, Moyashi-kun?” Kanda pulled at the buttons of Allen’s jacket – well, his jacket really, but Allen was wearing it. Allen took a step back, yanking his lover with him; Kanda stepped forward so that he moved just slightly too far, pressed his groin against Allen’s.

“Yes, please.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Oi, Sable-chan.”

“Reading.”

“Yes, but have you thought about what you’re getting everyone for Christmas?”

She didn’t even look at him. “Yup. I’m giving everyone my love.”

“That’s cheap.”

“Hardly,” She looked up at him with a glimmer in her green eyes. “If I gave you my love in any way, shape, or form that you wanted it, would that be so bad?”

Lavi thought he was going to blush but fought it. “I’m not sure Allen will like this idea…”

She laughed. “Why not? If anyone needs more love it’s him.”

He glowered at her. “Christmas is his birthday. So if you just give him twice the love you give everyone else, that’s pretty lame.”

She narrowed her eyes at him, trying (for once) to read his mind. She got nothing. Not a hint of what was behind that eye patch. For all she knew he was nothing but an odd looking rock with brightly colored hair. “What are you saying?”

“It’s our last chance to go buy something. So let’s go.” He said standing. Sable blinked up at him from where she had thrown herself when she had started reading, not moving an inch. Her eyes were rather unbelieving for a long moment as she just stared at the redhead, the book draped across her nose and mouth like a half-mask. Her left hand – the one that did not hold the side of her book – stopped twisting the end of her braid for a moment.

“Oh…okay…”

“Why are you looking at me like I have something on my face?” Lavi asked her, picking up Sable’s coat from where she had hung it on the side of the chair and throwing it at her. She didn’t catch it.

“Because sometimes, I don’t get you either.”
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“What the Hell does Allen like?” Sable asked as they wandered into yet another store. She felt rather odd about going from street to street in the snow with Lavi, looking at chocolates and glancing at different kinds of clothes. If she could have her way she would have grabbed a book and been done with it, but the apprentice Bookman seemed to think that that was the easy way out and would have none of it.

Lavi tapped his chin as he looked around their current store, coming quickly to the conclusion that they would find nothing here. “Not lacy undergarments, I don’t think.” He glanced from one row of women’s underwear to another, slowly becoming aware that almost every piece in the store was effeminate and scary. “Not lacy girl undergarments, I’m sure.”

Sable was wandering away from him though, leaving him in a sea of garters and pin-on animal ears. He went to follow her but an idea struck him, then. A horrible, twisted, semi-sadistic idea, but an idea nonetheless. He caught Sable by the wrist and pointed at a chest that was brimming with ear-decorated headbands – all kinds of them, from bunnies to kittens to bears to hippos. It was perfect. It was disgusting, but it was perfect.

“Let’s get those for Yuu-chan!” He half squealed at the girl as she froze.

“What?”

He cackled for a moment before he spoke. “We give Yuu-chan something for Moyashi-chan to wear! It’s brilliant!”

“Lavi… I think you’ve lost it…”

“I have not! Stop being pessimistic and think about it. You know that Allen would look adorable with animal ears.”

She put her hand gently on his and looked at him with a tilted head, her expression incredulous. “This is worse than my idea to get them a shared Kama Sutra.”

Lavi sighed, pulling out of her grasp and picking up a pair of black cat ears. “C’mon! Yuu-chan will die!”

“And you think this is a good idea?”

“Yes. I think it’s a splendid idea.”

“I think we’d better check someplace else…”

“But look! A matching tail!”

“Lavi…this is getting ridiculous.”

“No it isn’t. Everyone knows that pretty much every dominate male wants to see their submissive partner with some kind of animal ear or tail.”

“In that case we should get the ears for Kanda and give them to Allen.”

“Haha, you’re funny Sable. The ears are for Allen to wear.”

She wasn’t going to argue. “Then what do we get Kanda? Handcuffs?”

“Ew… don’t say things like that.”

“A whip? Or maybe…” She reached out to pick up something that Lavi never would have thought of, something perhaps more fitting than ears. “This?”
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For those of you who are wondering the song is Black is the Color of my True Love’s Hair, and there are about 92 billion zillion versions of it. I used the words from my old voice book, so they may be a tad different than the accepted one. I forget who actually wrote it, but I can tell you that it wasn’t me!

Thank you readers and reviewers! I say that every chapter but I feel like I can never say it enough! And I must apologize for the long author’s notes…not that apologizing makes them longer… //cries