The Fine Line

So, this is the longest chapter to date, sorry, but the last part wanted to go on for days (and I guess that’s good, being you don’t read the story for Sable anyways).

Disclaimer of Digression: I don’t own D.Gray-man. If I did… Kanda would have a special mission involving Allen’s pants.

WARNING: If you haven’t figured it out yet, there’s man-lovin’ in this fic. I don’t think it will give you nightmares, but if you’re phobic, stop reading. Now. Stop. NOW.


Misguided and the Folly of Self Control

He had spent two days stalking his query. Two days making sure that everything was exactly perfect. And now, it was time to make his move.

He watched the red haired young man wander the boat, talking to people, swooning at women, generally doing as he had promised Sable. He was observant, that was plane, but he didn’t seem to be looking for the right things in those he questioned. He never quiet got around to asking all of the male passengers either.

The girl’s seasickness had gone away after she had taken the ginger, but she continued to glance over her should when he came near, their old mental connection perhaps alerting her to his presence. He had not seen her since they were both young, before they had known what the odd scar was on her forehead, before they had know that he had five in the same general area, though for different reasons. Back then they had been close, they had cared, and she had called.

She was looking out over the clear black sea, her hair down for once. It was the same shade of gold that it had always been, like ripe wheat in sunshine. Her cheeks were red from exposure and her nose was a little pink bump in the center of her face.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” He asked her, taking up residence at the rail beside her.

She nodded, not looking at him. “Can you even see beauty in it anymore?”

He laughed, the same belly sort of laugh that she had, only tenor. “Of course I can. Just because I’m different doesn’t mean I’ve lost all sense of humanity.”

“Is that why you haven’t tried to kill us yet, Uri?” She looked at him then, her green eyes catching his and holding them stubbornly. Her vision flicked around his face, taking in how little he had changed. “Is it your humanity that keeps me breathing?”

His face fell, his emerald irises faded as if marred with dirt. “No.”

“Hm.” She looked away from him dismissively. “Then why are you here?”

He sighed and turned so that his back leaned against the railing. They were the same height, so he could see her face perfectly even as she looked straight into the horizon. “Because I want to talk to my long-lost, misguided, horribly adorable twin sister?”

When he talked like that, she could almost forget how different they were.

“You know,” She pulled her hands out of her pockets to blow on them. “A few weeks back I looked for you and found you in my bathroom mirror, writing one of your damn stories. I thought that maybe you’d seen the folly of your ways and gone back to being normal.” She shrugged and put her hands back, looking indifferent. “I guess I was wrong.”

“Hey, you’re the misguided one so don’t go tacking words like ‘folly’ and ‘damn’ to me or my works.”

“I’m the misguided one? Since when?”

“Uh… since you were five and swallowed a pill bug?”

“That’s not being misguided, that’s being a child.”

“When you tried to kill Lloyd with a pair of high heeled shoes and a strand of dental floss?”

“That was totally your idea.”

“Exactly. I misguided you.”

“Uri, do you even know what misguided means?”

“To be lead by a blind seeing-eye dog?”

“And you’re a writer?”

“Oh no, I’m an author. Minor difference of being published.”

“I cannot believe I’m even talking to you.”

“You’re not, you’re arguing. Now say something else so I can refute it.”

“Die in a fire, brother. Die. In. A fire.”

“Ooo, your non sequitur strikes fear into my soul.”

“Is this a hobby for you or what?”

“Mocking my younger sibling by one and half minutes? Oh yes. My favorite hobby. Next to poetry and song.”

“What the Hell, I’m second now?”

“You say Hell?”

“Since when am I second?”

“Since when do you say Hell?”

“Oi! Sable-chan, I’ve searched all of the lower decks, half the upper ones and all of the rigging and I can’t find – oh,” Lavi stopped short when he say Uri leaning on the railing beside Sable a broad smile on his face. “Hello.”

Uri shifted upright, grinning at the red head before him. How sad it was to meet someone before you had to kill them.

“Whoa,” Lavi said to the grinning man before him. “The two of you could be… just maybe…”

“Twins?” Uri offered. Sable glared at him like death, he somehow managed to look even happier. “Yeah, it’s because we are. I’m Uri Adair.”

“Lavi.”

Lavi wasn’t sure if he should laugh or scream. He had spent two long days hunting high and low for someone who Sable would know, someone would have been watching them and her twin brother had been on board the whole time, most likely lurking in the shadows, waiting for the right time to approach his sister who he had not seen since she had become an Exorcist. He settled for a sigh.

“I guess your stalker has been found, Sable-chan!” Lavi said.

Sable did what she could to smile back but found herself failing. What was she supposed to do now? If Uri went all Noah she’d have some serious trouble back at the tower.

“Hey Lavi, would you mind giving us a moment?” She asked, nicely – for once.

“Sure, just one question.”

“What?” There was no enthusiasm in her asking.

“How many siblings do you have?”

“Half or whole?”

His eyes grew wide. “Both.”

“Hmm…” She started counting on her fingers. “Just the three of us are full siblings, but we had eight half siblings last I remember. So ten. Why?”

“Just something to log away for the records…” And with that he left them to speak freely, even though he wanted nothing more than to stay an listen.

Uri leaned against the railing again when the red head was gone, wondering vaguely why he had reminded him of a rabbit. “So, what did you want to say that you had to send Mr. Observant away for?”

Sable looked at him darkly, narrowing her eyes seriously. “When will you attack us?”

Uri blinked at her, sudden fear running through him. She had always been ruthless and brutal as a child, but he had never expected to be on the receiving end of her brutality. “I’m… not planning on it.”

She shook her head when she turned back to the sea. “Sure you aren’t.” She swept her hair over her shoulder, frowning deeper. “You never did plan on it.”

When her eyes turned to see him again, he was gone.
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She’ll never know now, He thought when he was moving to his next target. She’ll think it was someone else. I just have to be quick about it. It’ll be alright. She’ll never know. She’ll never know. There will be no one left to tell her.

Just keep telling yourself that, Uri. One day, you might believe it.
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After two days, they had moved on to casual touching. A brush here, a poke there, but nothing as extravagant as that first time they had shared the chair together. Allen did not want to pressure Kanda to continue with their new pastime, so he waited for Kanda to make the next move. What he did not realize however, was that Kanda was trying not to leap on him at every opportunity – unless he was provided with some sort of sign to alert him that he had the right idea. Which, for two long horrible days he had not.

The two had sat on the bed together while they ate lunch, exchanging personal facts, though Kanda was still Kanda about everything and Allen still did not understand half of his logic.

“Well, what do you do in your free time?” Allen asked, trying a different cheese on his bread. Vaguely he wondered where Lloyd kept so much food, and how he could afford it in such a run down inn with no fair.

“Che, exercise, train, read…”

Allen gave him a horribly disinterested look. “You’re… boring aren’t you?”

Kanda frowned at him. “I don’t try to be interesting.” He thought about it for a few minutes. “Lavi spends time with me.”

Allen laughed, really laughed. Kanda wasn’t sure what exactly was so funny. “Sorry…just, not usually how you hear friends talk about each other.” Allen grinned at Kanda from around a rather large piece of sandwich, trying to look like he was not fighting a horrible fit of the giggles.

But Kanda was still looking at him with his stony face, raising an eyebrow as if to call him an idiot. Kanda wasn’t spilling his guts when Allen asked him to, but he wasn’t shutting down coldly either. It was as if at any moment he could revert into indifferent Kanda or turn into touchy-feely Kanda, though which he was closer to was well beyond Allen’s understanding. So he kept asking questions and getting half answers, hoping that he might stumble upon whatever substance it was that made the older boy tick. Until he knew, Kanda’s mind would remain more or less a mystery.

“What are you thinking of right now?” Allen’s voice interrupted Kanda’s thoughts.

Honestly he had been thinking about something very, very far from the topic – but not to far from the subject. Something like… how nice it would be to fall asleep holding Allen – really holding him, not like before – or how fun it might be to trace a feather over Allen’s limbs without allowing him to fight back, or how different it might be to just give himself up completely to Allen’s hands, without regard to ironclad persona he usual held up so well…

“Hallo? Kanda? Allen here, calling from the planet Earth…”

The planet Earth… that sounded important. Why was that again?

“Stop looking at me like that, you’re making me blush!” Allen’s exclamation finally pulled him from the dreamy state he had taken on. What’s wrong with me? Kanda thought, shaking his head. I care…and now I can’t think of anything else? That hardly seems right. “In order for this to work out you’re going to have to stop looking at me like I’m food. I’m not some…piece of Innocence that you’ve rescued and can now tote around indefinitely…”

“What?”

“Never mind. It was a bad example.”

“No, not that. Innocence. You’re better aren’t you?”

Allen wasn’t following his train of thought. “Yeah, but what does that matter.”

“And the weather has cleared somewhat.”

“Yes…”

“Pack your things, we’re going to Ange.”

“What?!”

“The reason we came to Sweden, baka. Now pack. We’re going to where the Nora Stambanan connects with the Mittbanan.”

The younger Exorcist was not exactly done with his lunch, but he wasn’t sure what Kanda’s reaction would be if he told him that. So he grudgingly lowered his food to his plate and started to look for his things.
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Allen wanted his coat. He wanted his coat, a cup of hot tea, and a snuggly Kanda to make him feel warm. Sadly, his jacket was in his suitcase, bloodied and torn beyond use, the second on his list required that he find someone to sell him tea while simultaneously matching Kanda’s ridiculous pace, and Kanda just didn’t seem in the snuggly mood. If he even had a snuggly mood.

“Che.” Kanda intoned when they boarded their train. He had been a mood of the last few days – which had nothing to do with Allen’s lack of obvious enthusiasm (or so he told himself) – and finding that their first class window was stuck open a half inch at the top was not making his disposition any better. When Allen took up residence on the left of their compartment he took the seat across from him, attempting not to be assuming.

“We should have called before we left,” Allen muttered, flipping through his packet of information in an effort to remind him what they were looking for. It wasn’t working. He would read a sentence, glance at Kanda, forget the sentence and have to read it again. The cycle was unending. “What if someone shows up there expecting to find me wounded? They won’t have any idea what happened.”

“The innkeeper will tell them.”

“If they find the inn.”

“It’s not as if this train goes straight to Ange, we can call from Goteborg if you’re really that worried.”

Allen – who had his ticket in his hand – frowned deeply. “Then why does it say ‘non-stop express’?”

Kanda paled. Slowly he fished his own ticket from his pocket and read it over three times, proceeded to erupt into a string of expletives to foul they made Allen blush. He had bought the tickets requesting ‘the line that goes from Verberg to Ange’ not ‘the express from Verberg to Ange’ …Unless they was only one line between the two and Goteborg required a completely separate ticket entirely. I am seriously an idiot, He thought finally. How could he not have looked at a guide to tell him this sort of thing?

After a long moment Kanda’s dark eyes came up to look at Allen, realization spreading across his face. He swallowed hard before he spoke, his voice hardly more than a whisper. “S-sorry.”

Kanda just apologized to me. Kanda just apologized to me. KANDA just APOLOGIZED to ME. Why has the world not ended? Allen blinked in confusion for a moment before his mouth began to work again. “No big deal. We’ll just have to sleep on the train.”

No big deal, Kanda thought sarcastically. It’s not like we have blankets in our suitcases to keep warm with.
Body heat!
Not unless he wants it.

They settled into silence, Allen looking out the window, Kanda closing his eyes and hugging his sword. The shadows that painted themselves across Allen’s face were just too much too look at, his soft, distant stare too tempting to watch. Kanda had self-control. He would not do anything unless invited. Even if he had to gouge out his eyes to stop himself.

Kanda can just fall asleep on the train, indifferent to my existence, and I have to sit here and try not to stare… Allen flipped a page that he had not read a single word on, damning the cold around him and the burning heat inside him. Why hasn’t he done anything!? I swear he’s a sadist, enjoying how I react to not touching him, not smelling him, not sitting next to him. Sicko. I kissed you, now it’s your turn!

A light snore escaped one of the Japanese Exorcist’s nostrils.

Allen growled low in his throat and threw himself down on his seat, lying lengthways across the soft red fabric, his back to that damn, good for nothing, horribly sexy, horribly oblivious, horribly Kanda, man who was with him. Well, if Kanda wasn’t going to make a move he’d just have to make another one, get the idea through his head that if things kept up, this was going to be a two way deal, not some one time all you can eat buffet.

And, to make matters worse, his analogies were crappier than usual.

Kanda had only dozed for a moment before his own snore woke him again. Stealthily he opened his eyes to take in what had become of his white hair…friend. The sun was sinking below the horizon, dying the sky all manors of pink and blue, streaking the clouds above them with bruises of purple and yellow. It looked like snow again, though none of it was falling yet. The drifts on either side of the road glittered with ice, shone like crushed gems next to firelight.

“Che,” He complained when Allen caught his eye, determinedly faced away from him, shivering. Kanda shrugged off his greatcoat – because he’d been warm long enough and he could sleep fine in the cold and because he cared – and walked the two steps it took to put him next to the Moyashi, who was failing at faking sleep. When he put the jacket over the younger boy’s shoulders he pretended not to notice that Allen’s eyes were half open.

Kanda moved back to his own seat silently, turned in a position very similar to the one Allen had taken up. He was just starting to have thoughts of rejection when a cold, thin arm wrapped around his waist and a jacket came down on his side. He turned around on the small seat to see Allen attempting to squeeze on with him, his face hopeful.

Kanda smiled at him. It was the same, sparkling grin from before. Allen could hardly control his happiness when Kanda turned so that he was half on the seat half on his chest, Allen’s head resting gently on Kanda’s shoulder. The arms that entwined him made him never want to let go.

“Body heat,” He explained innocently. The chest beneath him rumbled with laughter. Allen thought that was the most beautiful sound he had ever heard.

“If that were true, Moyashi-kun,” Kanda lifted his head to place a gentle kiss on Allen’s forehead. “You would have been inside my jacket while we walked to the train station.”

Allen frowned at him. “It’s not my fault that you’ve been withdrawn for two days!”

“Withdrawn?” Kanda kissed the side of his mouth. “Withdrawn?” He kissed the other side. “Do you have any idea how hard it is to tell what you’re thinking? How impossible it is to see if you’re reading or trying to seduce me.”

Allen made a face that was completely unreadable, but the slight pant in his voice was apparent. “No.”

Kanda sighed. Oh, screw it. He pulled him very close, pressing his lips down with bruising force, willing the younger Exorcist to see how withdrawn he was not. He was met with an equal amount of force and will, the warmth and vigor of Allen’s lips in the cold air surprised him, made him want more – but this was not the time, here was not the place, and like hell he was going to do anything extreme before he asked Lavi what the hell he was supposed to do. Lavi would know of course, because he was a Bookman.

“Now go to sleep, Moyashi.”

“Bu-but Kanda—”

“Sleep.”

“You’ve got me all—”

“That means no talking. Ah! No touching either! Baka Moyashi.”

Allen giggled even while he felt sad. “Fine.” He pulled his hand from under Kanda’s shirt and instead wrapped his arm around his back. “Night Asagi.”

“What?” Kanda glared the boy, who had closed his eyes, a smirk on his face. “What the Hell did you just call me, Moyashi?”

But Allen was feigning sleep again and there was no way he was going to stop. Just call me ‘moyashi’ in the morning, Kanda. You’ll never know what hit you.
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