D. Gray-man Fan Fiction ❯ Parental Issues ❯ Crush Me ( Chapter 1 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

Title: Parental Issues
Status: 1/?
Pairing(s): None for now, LavixKanda in future chapters
Rating: R for now, NC-17 for future chapters
Warnings: Yaoi, slight angst, horny teenage boys touching themselves... and later on, each other XD

Disclaimer: I do not own D.Gray-man. I have my very o Yuu-chan, though! :D

AN: This wasn’t supposed to be the first chapter, but it just kept running away with me and... too much happened for me to be able to make it the prologue ^^;

Thank you Lulu and Othela for beta-ing.


Sexual intercourse. Sex. Fucking. Mating. Copulating. Making love. Fornicating. Sleeping around. Play the field.

Whatever you called it, the word implied one thing, and one thing alone; an act performed by two people – male and female – intending to create a child.

Or so the informative books said. Lavi however, knew this to not be true; sex was an act performed for the sake of the participants’ enjoyment, nothing more; nothing less. Who you did it with or how or where didn’t matter.

He had always thought of sex as one of the best stress relievers there was. He enjoyed it, and made sure to never lose a chance to have it when it showed. He didn’t even remember when he lost his virginity.

When he was on missions alone with the old man, he never had to worry about keeping the frame of the happy and friendly but slightly tactless Bookman apprentice, and was fairly easy to find girls to sleep with; his red hair and the eye-patch came across as mysterious and exotic to many, and Lavi could be quite the charmer when he chose to.

There was one time, though, at the age of sixteen, when he made an error, which he at the time had thought would cost him his own life. It was the first time he’d ever really thought about the oh-so-obvious fact that sex had indeed been invented for the purpose of creating new life.

When he and Bookman returned to the small village a few miles outside of Cairo, and found the girl he’d gotten friendly with the last time they were there five months into her pregnancy, he’d gotten a beating by the old man which he’d never, ever forget. They’d left the village hastily, never being able to take a look at the ancient documents located inside a tomb close to it.

He sometimes thought about the girl – whose name he’d made sure to never hear, just so that he wouldn’t be able to remember it – and wondered if she’d given birth to a child. It wasn’t as if he’d like to meet his offspring, oh no, he just wondered slightly… how would his progeny really look? The girl had had dark brown hair and eyes; would the child look like her, or would it take after more of its father’s characterizes? Maybe his or her hair would take on a redder hue of brown? Perhaps they would have green eyes?

…he knew that Bookman had gone back to the village at least once during the two years which had passed, and as the old man met Lavi’s gaze and harshly said that he’d been able to allow the child to live, he knew that at least the kid hadn’t inherited any… less desirable abilities.

That was all he’d been told, though; the gender and name and everything else about that little one has remained unknown to him, for which he was grateful. He did not want a name, a name which would soon require a face, which would soon require a meeting, which might trip his resonance and determination, because he had no idea about how he’d react to seeing his own child in reality.

So after that inexcusable mistake, Lavi’d started becoming a lot more careful with how he dealt with his most favourite form of stress relief. He started out with trying to pass up sex completely in favour of other methods to calm his nerves when needed, but that didn’t work out very well. Lavi became snappy and started loosing his ability to concentrate; he made errors even on the easiest of records, and soon enough, Bookman had gotten tired of him. One evening, he’d simply showed Lavi through the door to one of Paris’ many pleasure houses, leaving him with only just enough money to pay for himself, and the words; “Just don’t forget to pull out in time, bakamono!”

Even though Lavi had become a lot more careful, he was still worried. He couldn’t enjoy his bed partner properly while having to always keep attention to how close he was, and sex just wasn’t the same anymore.

Not until he realised one simple fact.

Women got pregnant.

Men didn’t.

Lavi had never been afraid of trying out new things, his curiosity was actually something he’d always regarded as one of his biggest assets, and the prospect of being able to try something completely new was very appealing to him. It wasn’t that hard to find where he should go to find men who leaned in that direction; he was shameless enough to be able to simply ask one of the concubines he knew since earlier. She hadn’t even raised an eyebrow as she gave him the directions to a bar, hidden somewhere deep inside the red lantern districts of Berlin, where homo- and bisexual men were known to gather.

Sleeping with a man was very different from sleeping with a woman; instead that was one of the first things Lavi had realised. Firstly, it was the question of topping. Lavi had shrugged as he received the question that first time, assuring that it didn’t matter much to him. Later that night, he’d come to the conclusion that yes, damn it, it mattered, but then it was already too late to back out.

Bookman on the other hand had raised a questioning eyebrow as Lavi came limping into the kitchen of the inn where they were staying the next morning, but whatever it was that he wanted to ask him, he hadn’t.

Bottoming was something he’d need some time to learn to enjoy, he decided, although he didn’t mind sex with men as long as he topped. As Lavi was a quick learner and absorbed all sorts of knowledge like a sponge, he’d soon become an excellent top, not only in his own opinion, but in the opinion of every guy he’d ever slept with as well. However, since none of them could find a reason to complain, he ended up topping a lot more than he took the role as the bottom (although he did do that as well, whenever he felt like it).

Back at the headquarters, there was of course no one who knew about all this. There, he never showed his seductive side; he just played along in the role as the goofy Bookman apprentice, happy and friendly but kind of clumsy when it came to interacting with the opposite gender. As for him fooling around with the same gender… He was even more careful not to let that secret slip. They were a catholic organization, after all, and even if Lavi didn't share those certain religious values himself, he didn't really feel like dealing with the commotion that with all certainty would rise if the wrong people found out about him sleeping with men.

There was someone in the Order who made things hard for him, though. Ill-tempered, unfriendly, deadly and maddeningly beautiful Kanda Yuu. (He’d gotten to know his first name entirely by accident, as he happened to overhear Komui speaking to one of the finders who had been part of the team which had located the new Innocence, as well as the wielder.)

The Japanese boy made it an art to shut people out. At first, Lavi had simply just been curious about this new Exorcist, who had arrived to the Black Order only a couple of weeks after himself and was the first male in his own age that he’d met since coming there. However, Kanda’s stony expressions and murderous glares had soon made it clear that he did not intend to befriend Lavi (or anyone else for that matter) or even tolerate the redhead being closer to him than ten feet.

This, of course, only served to make Lavi even more interested in the other boy. Why would he reject companionship so sternly if he didn’t have something to hide? And as Lavi loved to solve mysteries, he’d soon made it his sole purpose while staying in the headquarters to try to figure out all the questions surrounding Kanda.

After only a few weeks, he had received the promise of an extremely painful death from the other exorcist. He chose to ignore it, as it figured that would be a fitting thing for “Lavi” to do, and kept trailing after the other boy like a puppy whenever they were free of missions at the same time.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t that often. They were in the middle of a war, and Bookman made sure that they kept track of the missions that held the most potential to become really important to the storyline. Lavi spent just as much time on the field as anyone else, watching with growing uneasiness as the exorcists around him fought what seemed to be a never-ending battle.

He didn’t get many chances to oblige himself to his favourite form of stress relief during these missions; however he still tried to sneak away as often as he could. No one seemed to care where he went during the nights; most of the finders and exorcists were way too tired to even take notice of his absence, and Bookman had accepted this little habit of his a long time ago. The old man had had a talk with Lavi about it around the same time they had joined the order, and he’d given him only one directive; “Don’t commit yourself emotionally.”

And he wouldn’t risk it, of course. He never sought out the same person more than twice, and he never stayed the night. The words “I love you”, meant nothing to him no matter which language they were uttered in, after having spoken them so many times in the throes of passion.

…some might call him a slut, but he wouldn’t care if he ever heard them say it, because he probably was.

Then came the first time he was paired together with Kanda for a mission. He’d anticipated it, hoping very much to soon get a chance to see the other exorcist in action; he wanted to know everything about him, from trivial things like whether or not the other boy snored to how his Innocence worked and how he fought; did he yell while making his attacks, or was he the silent type? Would he accept backup when offered, or turn his back on Lavi to fight on his own?

He opted for the second alternative on both questions.

Many things about Kanda surprised him during their first mission together. He’d had thought the Japanese boy to be very quiet, as resolute and cold as the sword he wielded, but instead he got to know a new side of him. Kanda was very vocal during battle, all echoing battle screams and snarled curses whenever something didn’t go his way. Lavi had been right in his assumption that Yuu wouldn’t allow him to help him out, though. Every time Lavi’s hammer smashed down on an Akuma that had approached Kanda while he was busy dealing with another, he’d get an enraged “Stay the hell out of my way!” in reply.

He didn’t, of course, and soon enough, Kanda directed just as many curses towards Lavi as he did towards the Akuma they were fighting.

That evening, when they both returned to the town close by the mountain where they had fetched the newly found Innocence, Kanda cornered Lavi the moment they got out of sight from prying eyes inside the doors of their shared room at the inn.

“Why the fuck won’t you leave me alone?!” Kanda growled, glaring at Lavi, who was still the shorter one of the two at that time. He tilted his head to the side and watched the other’s face, which was flushed with anger. Kanda wasn’t just beautiful in the traditional sense, he decided then. In the heat of battle, and afterwards, he was gorgeous.

“Because we’re partners, of course,” he answered easily, tone not revealing any of the thoughts that went through his head.

“I don’t need your help!”

“Saa, Yuu, don’t get mad. I’m just looking out for ya, s’all! That’s what friends do, y’know?”

“You are not my friend.”

“Aaaw, that’s cold–“

“Shut the fuck up.”

As Kanda’s breathing evened out that night, Lavi stayed awake to lay and listen to it. He couldn’t determine exactly what it was about the other boy that fascinated him so. He’d met plenty of people who shut themselves off in the same way as him, who hadn’t awakened the same curiosity in him, and he couldn’t exactly blame it on physical attraction either, because he’d already hade several bed partners who were at least as pretty as Yuu – among his female bed partners, at least. Although… now, after having seen how Kanda’s usual cold surface cracked to reveal core of smouldering heat hidden somewhere deep down…

Lavi realized that what he really longed for was to be touched by that heat. During or not during sex didn’t really matter, but only the thought of how Kanda’s face would look as Lavi plunged into him, the sounds he’d make, how he’d thrash and writhe underneath him, his strong hands grasping Lavi’s arms; how he’d growl out for him to move faster, harder, give him more…

Oh man. Bad train of thoughts. Especially when the object of his fantasy was sleeping in a bed only a few metres away.

Grimacing slightly to himself, he slipped out of bed, and pulled on his jacket as he did his best not to groan from discomfort as his hardness strained against his pants. He had to go find someone to entertain himself with for a while, lest he’d do something really stupid like attempting to jack off with Kanda sleeping in the same room.

He couldn’t help but throw one last regretful look at the form of his sleeping partner before shutting the door behind him. However fun it’d be, he knew that sleeping with the other boy would prove impossible. Not only because the fact that he barely let anyone into his life even with the objective of being friends, but also because they were co-workers. The stress of having someone potentially falling in love with him wasn’t worth it, no matter how good the fuck was.

(Yeah, so he was an arrogant asshole, so what? Lavi knew he looked good, and even at his young age he’d gotten quite a few problems during the times with girls – both younger and older – swooning over him when he took on a more charming personality. Why wouldn’t he be confident?)

The next morning, Kanda was already awake and dressed by the time Lavi woke up. The redhead chattered happily as usual as he pulled on his uniform, while the Japanese boy did his best to ignore him… nothing new there.

Just before they stepped on the train, Lavi happened to catch a glimpse of the young girl he’d happened to meet out in the stable the night before – he hadn’t even had the intention to pick anyone up, he’d meant to just go somewhere secluded to take care of his problem on his own, but then she’d been there looking after a small little foal. She almost cried her eyes out for the baby horse as she told him that the thing was dying, and who was he to refuse her the sweet distraction that sex could offer?

He shot a wide grin in her direction, waving happily. The instant their gazes met, her face turned deep red, and she stared at him as he boarded the train. Obviously, she hadn’t expected to have to face him – not even shortly – after what in her eyes probably either was the biggest mistake in her life, or the most wonderful thing that ever happened to her.

“So that’s where you went last night,” Kanda muttered as he sat down in their reserved compartment, folding his arms over his chest, looking sour.

Lavi blinked, pretending not to understand what he meant. “Huh?”

Kanda didn’t answer, he just glared.

“Oh!” He put on a surprised expression. “So you were awake?”

“…”

“Ahahaha… ” A nervous laughter, accompanied with a sheepish expression as he scratched his head. Fortunately, he was so very used to the Lavi-behaviour that he didn’t even need time to think before he came up with an answer. “Could you please do me a favour and not tell panda-jiijii ‘bout that? He’d have my head for sure.”

“If you don’t want him to punish you, then why risk it by doing something so idiotic?”

Lavi couldn’t help it. He knew that flirting with Yuu would be dangerous; he might tell someone in the Order about it and then hell would break loose. …or he might just kill Lavi himself. But even knowing this he still couldn’t help it. At least he was relaxed enough now so that he wouldn’t risk getting ahead of himself and do something… stupid.

“Heh. You totally wouldn’t say that if you’d had sex yourself, ya know.”

Kanda almost stuttered out of shock as he stared at Lavi. “Excuse me?”

“Y’heard me, Yuu.” He smirked. Well, that was a reaction he’d never seen before…

Kanda stared at him in silence for another moment, and Lavi cursed inwardly. Obviously, he’d acted too out of character. Then slowly, oh so slowly, Kanda’s face started to turn faintly pink. He opened and closed his mouth a couple of times, but no words came out. Lavi blinked. What, had he actually managed to make the other boy embarrassed?

Of all the things he’d thought Yuu to be, a prude hadn’t been one of them, really. Pissy and unfriendly, yeah, but not shy.

Finally, Kanda snapped his mouth shut and turned away to glare angrily at the landscape rushing past them outside of the window.

“Don’t call me Yuu.”

“Friends don’t call each other by their last names, silly!”

“You are not my friend, and therefore you have no right to use my first name, usa-gaki.”

“Oooh so we’re already on the nickname basis?! Okay, okay, then I’ll call you… Yuu-cha–“

Kanda’s hand was on Mugen’s hilt before Lavi even had the time to blink. “Finish that sentence and you’re a dead man, exorcist or not,” he growled.

“–okay no. Hummm…” He tapped his finger against his chin. “How ‘bout Kitty~?”

“…do you even know how to not be a complete retard?”

“But it’d totally suit you! You’re just like an angry cat; always ready to scratch people’s eyes out.”

Kanda just tightened the hand on the sword’s hilt in response.

“…boring… Eh, okay… how about Pretty Boy?”

“What?”

“Babe~?”

“How about Kanda?”

“…effin’ boring. And stop looking at me as if I’m an asylum escapee or something.”

“Don’t tell me what to do or not to do.”

“Okay, got it, you wanna be the one who gives the orders. …hah! Now I know: boss!”

Kanda rolled his eyes.

“Is that an agreement then? Is it, is it?”

“…just shut up.”

“Yes, boss!”

Obviously, Komui had decided that Lavi and Kanda were a good team, because after that first mission, he begun to pair the two of them up pretty often. Lavi didn’t complain; he had loads of fun teasing the Japanese boy while knowing that as long as he was needed by the order, the other couldn’t do anything else but threaten and glare at him.

He had to be careful, though. Once or twice during mission, he’d found himself unable from keeping that slightly hungry expression from taking over his features, especially when he watched Kanda change. Without his clothes on, there was no mistaking the fact that Yuu was indeed very much a male, no matter how slender his build was. Not that Lavi complained, he really did prefer a partner with who he wouldn’t have to contain himself… but having the object of his desires so very close to him so often was beginning to wear him out – not even sneaking out during the night to find some random woman to fool around with helped as a distraction anymore; if Kanda as much as stretched when getting up the next morning, the frustration was back as if he hadn’t gotten any at all.

He was worried that sooner or later, all this would have him make an error during a battle, and he couldn’t afford that risk.

So finally, on their sixth mission together, Lavi didn’t even wait for Kanda to fall asleep before he headed for the door, intent set on finding one of those “special” hang outs, and order the first decent looking guy he saw to fuck him until he wouldn’t even be able to think about sex for at least two weeks without feeling sick.

Kanda raised an eyebrow as he pulled on his dusty jacket, but he didn’t comment. Lavi walked past him without sparing him a single glance – a very un-smart, very un-Lavi thing to do, but at this point, he was way too frustrated to give a damn.

He didn’t return to the inn until the first rays of sunlight graced the city’s roofs. He was limping noticeably, too tired to even bother with trying to hide it, but for the first time in months he also felt like he would be able to face Kanda without risking jumping him.

The Japanese Exorcist was sitting at the exact same spot he’d been when Lavi left. His jacket was even more rumpled than it has been when Lavi left and his hair was in disarray. The redhead stopped in the doorway to their room, surprised.

“Where have you been?” Kanda asked.

“Around~” Lavi said, as he made an effort not to stagger on the way to his bed.

Kanda raised an eyebrow. “Meaning?”

“Why do you wanna know~?”

“I don’t.”

Lavi smiled as he slowly and carefully lowered himself to the bed, a wince threatening to slip through as he despite his efforts sat down too quickly for his sore backside to handle.

“’Kay then!”

There was a moment of silence, during which Lavi fought to find a comfortable position on the bed. It didn’t work out too well.

“So, you slept well, boss?” he asked when he’d inevitable given up.

“…no.”

“Huuuh, why not?”

“There was an Akuma attack. Just an hour after you left. A little girl got killed.”

Lavi flinched.

Shit.

…shit, shit, shit. And for the first time since he’d started feeling these stupid desires, he wondered for real what the hell he was doing.

“…shit. Gods, I’m so sorry, Yuu. I…”

“Where the hell were you?!”

“…”

He couldn’t tell him. It wasn’t that he didn’t think that Kanda already knew; he just couldn’t tell him himself and see his face as he realized what kind of scum Lavi really was.

“Fuck, Lavi, if you can’t fucking take anything seriously, I’m going to have to report you and make them take you off duty until you get over whatever the fuck your problem is!” Kanda stood up and walked over to stand right by Lavi’s bedside, glaring down at him.

Lavi met his gaze hesitantly. He didn’t think that he’d ever seen the other boy – man? – this angry ever before, not even when he’d teased him beyond the limit of what he could handle. Slowly, he rose – and noticed at the same time that he’d somehow managed not only to catch up with Yuu length-wise, but he’d actually even grown to be a little bit taller than him.

“I’ll just ask them to not pair the two of us up anymore,” he said.

“So it’s me who is the problem now, huh?” Kanda’s eyes narrowed as he stepped closer.

“That’s not what I said,” Lavi protested, although it was pretty much the truth. But it wouldn’t be fair to blame the other man for this; he didn’t even do anything to try and provoke these reactions in the redhead. It was entirely Lavi’s own fault.

“Then stop it with the bullshit for once in your life and explain yourself.”

Screw it all. What the hell did he have to lose anyway? Yuu was furious with him, which he definitely had the right to be, so Lavi was still going to lose him.

(…lose him? That implied that Kanda would mean something more to Lavi than just a desirable fuck, didn’t it?)

Kanda was already standing so close to him that he only had to take one single step before he could encircle the other man in his arms, and he made sure he had both of his arms trapped – even if he felt really hopeless right now, he still wasn’t eager to be murdered by the other Exorcist – before he leaned down to press his mouth hard against Kanda’s.

The other man went rigid against him at first, before he started to fight back, squirming violently to try and free himself from Lavi’s embrace. When that didn’t work, he opened his mouth, but before Lavi even got the chance to wonder if he could take it as an invitation to deepen the kiss, he had clamped his teeth hard around the redhead’s lower lip – hard enough to break skin.

Lavi gasped and snatched his head back, as his grasp on the Japanese man loosened enough for him to wriggle his arm free and punch him in the stomach.

The bookman apprentice bent over, wheezing as he fought against both the pain shooting up his spine and the new, even more intense one in his stomach. Tears obscured his vision as he raised his head, just in time to see the door to the room slam shut behind Kanda.

Well, that was one way to royally screw up his chances.

When he returned to the headquarters, he soon learned that Kanda had requested to be sent off on a new mission the very moment he set his foot inside Komui’s office. He’d refused to answer any questions, neither about how the mission went nor about why Lavi hadn’t returned with him. Which meant that it was up to Lavi to explain what the hell was going on. The story he gave Komui left out quite a few details, such as the real reason why he hadn’t been there the night of the attack.

The old man, on the other hand, didn’t even need an explanation. He already knew, and while the punishment he’d received from his master wasn’t as bad as the one he’d received when they found out about the Egyptian girl bearing his child, it came pretty damn close. It went beyond the amount of beating that was necessary to keep up the façade of the grumpy old panda-man and his idiotic apprentice who was too eager for his own best, that much was certain.

As he was lying in a heap on the floor before Bookman’s feet, the Chinese man spoke to him in a cold voice:

“I hope you realise what it is you’ve done wrong?”

Lavi’s arms shook as he forced himself up on them to meet his mentor’s gaze.

“I’ve allowed myself to get side-tracked,” he answered without hesitation. Yes, he knew exactly what he’d done wrong, he’d known it all along, and yet he hadn’t done anything to try and stop it. “To lose view of my real objective, and to become involved in another human emotionally.”

“Correct. What do you plan on doing to repent?”

“…everything I can.”

That was enough of an answer, between the two of them. Bookman nodded in approval; he trusted Lavi to keep his word, but only because he knew that Lavi had too much respect for his mentor to betray his trust. Even though he knew that Bookman would never want to hear about it, they both knew that he loved the old man, no matter how much “Lavi” complained; he was the only family he had.

They left together on a mission the next morning. It seemed Bookman had asked the headquarters to keep constant track of theirs as well as Kanda’s missions, because from that day on, it seemed that the two of them always had missions at different times; Lavi was away when Yuu happened to have a day off, and the same thing went for the Japanese man. He knew that the old man only did this to help Lavi keep his word, and he wished that he could feel grateful… but he just couldn’t. Not when everything inside him ached with longing for the other young Exorcist, not when the distance between them seemed to only increase his incapability to keep his thoughts focused on anything else but Kanda for a longer amount of time.

He realized that the desire had become something else, something else entirely. Something a lot more dangerous, which could threaten to ruin everything he’d fought his entire life to obtain.

After two months, Bookman must have thought that Lavi was ready to face the other man again. The first time, it was like receiving another hit to the stomach when he entered the dining hall, and spotted a slender back and high ponytail somewhere between the finders and occasional Exorcists in the room. He stood still for a moment, unable to move as he relished in the knowledge that yes, Yuu was still alive, something he’d only been able to confirm by reading the Japanese man’s mission reports during the last months.

He didn’t find it too hard to not go over there and sit down by Kanda, though. Lenalee had already spotted him, and she was waving for Lavi to come and sit down by her. Lavi obliged, although his stomach felt cold as he turned away from Kanda, and he’d lost his appetite. He hid it by flirting shamelessly with the Chinese girl, and soon enough he had to flee head over heels from the cafeteria with an enraged robot of some sort chasing him, as Komui somehow had found out about him “threatening” to “steal his precious little sister’s purity away.”

The next morning, he and Bookman left again. From the looks he received, he realised that his master had found out about his reaction to seeing the other Exorcist, and decided that he was, in fact, not ready to face him again.

He was very grateful of his mentor’s help, he really was. He knew that he was a failure in the old man’s eyes, and yet he didn’t give up on him.

Another month passed, and this time, Lavi worked harder than ever on his records. It wasn’t because he wanted to please his master, but because he hoped that if he just focused hard enough, he’d be able to remember his true purpose in life, to look past this… desire… crush… whatever it was that he had going here. He didn’t like the feeling of being a victim to his own hormones, and he cursed his seventeen year old body to hell every time it betrayed him, most often after dreaming vivid and feverish dreams about long, silky black hair and dark sad eyes which his perfect memory would not allow him to forget, soft scarred skin would slide over his own, and underneath it he could feel that strong, muscled body, which he longed so much for, which he couldn’t wait to sink deep into and claim for himself…

And then he’d wake up, just as painfully hard as he’d been that day he had had to practically run away to find some company, with one little girl’s death as a result.

Now, though, he’d stay still, refusing to even make a move to touch himself, waiting in the dusk of the room until his erection faded, and then he’d go out and take a long run. Refusing himself release in that manner was beyond frustrating, even agonising at times, but he knew that if he gave in even to this little part of his obsession with the Japanese man, he’d probably never be able to stop thinking about him, wondering…

He didn’t look forward to spending the rest of his life wondering about what he could have had if he’d chosen differently, especially since it was already obvious that Kanda would never want to have anything to do with Lavi, in the romantic – or sexual, whatever – way, at least. Therefore, he did his very best to get rid of those thoughts.

Another month passed, and winter had begun to sneak upon the northern parts of the world, including the high mountains in which the Black Order’s headquarters’ were located. Lavi liked winter; white, glistering snow, pure and untouched; it reminded him of everything that he liked in this world. Like blank paper, not yet ruined by dark words that told stories of horrible wars, death and blood.

Yes, Lavi liked winter best.

He spent all his time back at the Order outside during the winter. Sometimes he brought a stack of books with him, and curled up somewhere in the forest to sit and read, and sometimes he just took a walk. A few times, when they were home from missions at the same time, he challenged Lenalee or some finder or occasional other Exorcist to a snowball fight, which were always bound to turn out a lot more deadly than such a fight should have been able to, due to someone getting offended and starting using their powers to take the offender – mostly Lavi – out.

Once or twice, he managed to get almost half of the science department to join them. And another time, he’d forced the fight on the poor workers, by stacking a huge load of snowballs into a sack and bringing it into the headquarters with him. It had been one of the most hilarious things he’d ever done, to sneak around in the tower and hide around corners, throwing snowballs at innocent by passers.

He didn’t see Kanda much these days. Barely at all, actually. The reason was simple; he avoided the other man almost as much as he seemed to avoid Lavi. It hurt still, to think about how he’d never be able to give into those stormy feelings, never be able to let the bud that was his desire for the Japanese Exorcist bloom. But he was proud of himself all the same; he could tell that Bookman was as well. To be able to get over his teenage crush had been one of the hardest trials in his apprenticeship so far, but he though that he’d passed the test with fairly good grades.

But denying your feelings wasn’t the same as forgetting them, he’d soon be forced to notice.

It had been storming for days, hindering Lavi or anyone else to spend any of their time at home outside of headquarters. At such a high location, it could be right out dangerous to hang about outside in such windy weather.

Lavi’d gotten back from his last mission almost one week ago, and since then he’d had nothing new to do, since Bookman wanted to follow the development in the science department’s research on an Innocence which had proved to be harder than usual to return to its elemental form.

There was only so many pranks he could pull on the Finders and Exorcists in the Order before it got boring. It wouldn’t be long before they started to expect it and begun to avoid his water buckets and tripping strings and no longer ran after the coins he’d attached to strings and pulled out of reach when someone bent down to pick them up. Soon enough, Lavi got really bored, being stuck in the tower like that.

When the snowstorm faltered, just in time for Christmas, he practically ran outside, only spending about half an hour of doing silly things like building snowmen, like he knew people would have expected “Lavi” to, before he headed into the small forest surrounding the Order. It was very early still, and the world was quiet as he walked all the way to the cliff, sitting in the snow for a moment and looking out over the clouded sky, which currently surrounded the mountain on all sides, hindering him from getting a clear view. Still, he sat there for quite some time, until the cold had numbed his feet to the point where he couldn’t tell he had them anymore. Then he got up and brushed himself off, heading back towards the tower with a smile on his face.

He was too caught up in his own easiness – unforgivable – but it wasn’t as if he expected any Akuma attacks this close to the headquarters, that’d just be a foolish act for an Akuma to try, to notice Kanda before he spotted the man between the trees ahead. To his relief, his heart only stirred slightly, giving no sign of planning to start that painful twisting that it used to commit itself to when Lavi was around the Japanese man.

Happy to have found that his self-control was once again restored, he started to walk towards the other Exorcist, a broad smile on his face. He’d missed being able to tease Yuu like he used to, and now he felt like it would be safe to go back to that practiced behaviour of his.

When he came within hearing range from the man, however, he realized that he’d made a mistake.

A big mistake.

Kanda stood slumped against a tree, his head thrown back against the hard bark and eyes closed. At this distance, Lavi could only faintly make out what expression the other man was wearing, but he could tell that it was not one of pain, even if could have been interpreted that way; he’d seen Yuu hurt in battle tow know he didn’t make faced like that when wounded.

No, this expression was something else, and as his gaze trailed lower over the other’s body and the redhead noticed how Kanda’s coat were unbuttoned and in a disarray, with one hand already in his pants, moving in a way that left no doubt of what the Japanese man was doing.

Lavi stood as if struck by lightning. His mind was spinning, and in one single moment, he could feel all of his renewed resolve crack and break to pieces around him. His mouth went dry as his heart started beating wildly, suddenly his body felt anything but cold. When Yuu raised his free hand to press the back of it against his mouth, obviously to keep himself from making any noise, Lavi too had to muffle a breathless gasp against his own gloved hand.

He couldn’t move. Time stood still around them as he just could not tear his eyes away from Kanda, following every shift and change in the man’s expressions and posture as he worked himself towards completion. He must have been close already, because it didn’t take long before he shuddered, doubling over slightly and removed his hand from his mouth as he no longer seemed to be able to hold back a long, deep moan, his lips hesitantly forming a word, a name…

“L… La… vi…”

Even at that distance, it was no mistaking whose name it was. Lavi’s eye widened impossibly, and he had to actually bite down on his own finger to keep himself from making a startled sound. The heat that rushed through his body at hearing Yuu utter his name – his alias, whatever – when reaching the peak of his pleasure… it was almost more than the redhead could stand.

But these months of practices in self-control had paid off. He was certain that if this had happened before, he would have stalked over to Kanda, pressed him against that tree and claimed him there and then. Now, he simply just stood there for a moment, silently willing his body to stop betraying him and forcing the rapidly formed erection to go away, before he turned around to find another path back to the tower. Bookman would have been proud of him, he was sure, if he ever found out how Lavi had been able to ignore his bleeding heart as he turned his back on Yuu.

But when he dumped himself in his bed that night to try and go to sleep without having had a decent meal for hours (he didn’t want to risk having to face Kanda when going to the cafeteria to fetch his dinner) he could not stop the memories from that afternoon to resurface. The images were as clear in his mind as they had been back then, and within minutes, he was whimpering into his pillow and jerking violently as he reached his orgasm embarrassingly fast, coming hard all over the sheets.

As he lay panting in the mess he’d made of his bed, he almost got angry with the other man for being able to do this to him. He knew that he was being unfair; there was no way that Kanda could be held responsible for the reactions he provoked in the redhead, but at that moment, Lavi was too frustrated to care.

He’d already given the man up once, and fought with his entire being to be able to stay focused on his duty, and all it took was one word from Kanda for him to lose all the resolve he’d gained during the passed months.

Damn him. Damn his long, silky hair and his frown and his strong hands and black, bottomless eyes. Damn him to hell.

Lavi didn’t tell Bookman about the encounter in the forest. Why, he wasn’t certain; it wasn’t because he was ashamed; it wasn’t because he feared being punished. He just… felt like he wanted to keep this for himself. Just for a little while. The triumphant feeling of knowing that Kanda thought of him in the same way… it would feel like he was betraying them both by discussing this with his mentor.

And he’d rather die than hurt Yuu.

Strangely enough, knowing that Kanda held similar feelings for him made it a lot easier to deal with his own aching heart, when he’d gotten over the initial shock of seeing the other man jerk off while thinking of Lavi. The hope was a new sensation to him, and he liked it a lot more than the having to walk around knowing that no matter what he tried to win the Japanese Exorcist over, he was doomed to fail.

Not that he didn’t think that he still was; the only thing he ever got from Kanda was icy glares and snarled death threats, even though he never even brought that afternoon up, never even hinted that he’d spotted the other man in his moment of weakness. But he did take pleasure in seeing the oh-so-faint blushes his sometimes slightly perverted teasing brought to the other’s cheeks. He’d fling an arm around Kanda’s shoulders, and ask him things like “Heeeey hot stuff you new here–ohwait no, it’s Yuu! Sorry, I didn’t recognise you there, boss, thought you were a new girl…” before he threw himself out of the way of Mugen and ran for his life.

Bookman seemed to be pleased with him returning to his normal “frivolous and friendly” behaviour. He didn’t keep track of Lavi’s every move anymore, and it seemed he’d stopped asking the headquarters to not put Lavi and Kanda on the same team for missions. At the end of January, they were ordered to go to England on a double assignment, and Lavi didn’t even have the time to worry about being on a mission with only the Japanese man as company, because the task would probably be hard enough without him being distracted by his chaotic feelings. So he chose to ignore them, which he actually could do now.

It proved to be a completely problem-free mission, to their surprise. The area around Rothbury was indeed swarming with Akuma, but they were low-level ones, and he and Kanda cut them down pretty easily, obtaining the Innocence, located in a church in the abandoned village within a day after their arrival. The Finder in charge of that area was practically squirming at their feet when thanking them; Lavi had done his best to comfort the poor man, while Kanda had snorted and turned his face away, obviously disgusted by his spinelessness.

On the way back to the Order, they were asked to meet up with Bookman in Newcastle for a new mission. They reached the town early in the morning; hours before Bookman’s train was scheduled to arrive. Lavi was happy to get a chance to look around a little; it had been a long time since he’d been to this place, and the town had changed a lot. Since Kanda couldn’t find his way around, he was forced to follow the whistling redhead, looking irritable as usual.

And he only seemed to get grouchier as the hours passed and Lavi found more and more girls to entertain with his light flirting. Most of them were young, barely above fourteen, and although he held no hopes of being able to charm any of them into meeting up with him somewhere after dawn, since Bookman probably would want to talk to him about the mission’s records anyways, he still enjoyed himself greatly as they giggled around him, competing for his attention. It wasn’t always that he was lucky enough to get a whole herd of girls wrapped around his finger, after all.

Suddenly, a startled gasp from somewhere outside the group of young girls made him lift his head.

Afterwards, he wished that he’d taken whatever chance he’d had to run and fled the moment his gaze fell on her. Of course he recognized her; he did have a flawless memory after all. She’d changed during the three years that had passed, though, her long blonde hair and no longer shiny and skilfully curled around her shoulders, her cheeks no longer rosy and full. She looked… sick.

From the astonished look she gave him, and the gasp, he figured she remembered him too. He wasn’t surprised; his looks were all but unchanged, and really, how many redheaded, one-eyed men did you find around the globe?

“Hey, if it isn’t Adelie!” he said, a broad smile spreading over his face, while he winced inside and hoped that this meeting would go smoothly. It had proved problematic to deal with old not-girlfriends in the past, and he knew Bookman wouldn’t appreciate the delay.

Trying to remember which alias he’d used during the time of his and Adelie’s first meeting, years ago, he made himself a path through the herd of girls, who’d all started whispering poisonous words about the blonde woman amongst themselves. Things like “disgrace” and “hussy” reached his ears, but he paid no attention to them, as he simply just figured that they were angry about him abandoning them.

As he broke out of his group of fangirls, he realised at once that he’d have done better in ignoring the woman from his past, because at her side, there was a child. A child around the age of two with fiery red hair, who clung to his mother’s skirt and stared up at the man approaching them with startlingly green eyes.

Lavi stopped dead in his tracks, staring at the child, his whole core gone cold. Somewhere behind him, Kanda had made his way through the bunch of girls, and he could almost feel the heated stare the Japanese man directed at his back as he made himself ready to yell at Lavi for wasting their time on flirting, but before the other Exorcist could begin telling him off, he too came to a halt.

They both stared at the woman and the boy for a moment, and then Kanda turned around without a sound, and made a move to start walking down the street in the opposite direction. Lavi made a move to try and stop him, but Kanda snatched his arm out of reach.

“Yuu, don’t…” He didn’t even know what he was trying to say. Don’t leave? Don’t misunderstand? Don’t hate me?

Kanda glared at him over his shoulder. His black eyes were so full of spite that Lavi couldn’t help but to flinch. He heart clenched painfully.

“Don’t touch me,” the Japanese Exorcist said. “Don’t talk to me. I don’t want to have anything to do with you. Ever.”

And then he walked away, leaving a confused and agonised Bookman apprentice standing in the middle of the street, soon to be dealing with what would most likely prove to be the biggest mistake he’d ever made in his entire life.

The child tugged at Adelie’s skirt, trying to get her attention.

“Mama, is that?” he asked in a child’s broken English.

She looked down on him as Lavi turned towards them again, clinging for dear life to the hope that her next words wouldn’t be the ones he feared.

“That… is your father,” she answered slowly, her voice weak.

Lavi hated everything.