4334 words. lavi/14th. lavi/allen.
This is supposed to be nherizu 's and sheilaluv 's birthday gift. But I write slower than a turtle. Am posting the--rough, unfinished, crappy--beginning here and counting on you guys to beat my ass to finish it.
ETA: this is a semi-AU which deviates from canon starting at the chapter Cross goes missing and forth.
In Amsterdam, Walker led him through the narrow alley of the red light district at the heart of the city where the painted signs advertised sexual aids and live sex shows that left nothing to imaginations, down into a smaller alley until they reached an open door into a dilapidated apartment. Walking through the door and up a narrow staircase, they came to a small landing where a Chinese man sat on a wooden chair in a doorway.
The Chinese man stood up as soon as he noticed them. He talked with a heavily accented Dutch, underlying his more familiar native tongue. “What business do you have here?” he asked.
Walker slunk up to the Chinese man’s side to whisper something in his ear. The Chinese man showed immediate reaction. His feature visibly became several shades paler as he took a faltering step back. “W-wait here, I’ll inform Da Sao about your visit,” he stuttered out before scurrying off, vanishing behind a laced curtain that substituted a door.
Walker, paying no heed to the man’s word, followed him. Lavi, left alone and uncertain of what to do, decided to follow. He parted the curtain and stepped inside.
He looked past Walker’s shoulder. There were about a dozen Chinese in the small, gloomy room, most of them lying on cots and the rest sitting sprawled on the floor. The air was pungent with a strangely saccharine smell coming from the long pipes they were smoking. None of them paid any attention the new comers, lost in their own haze.
Walker turned his head a fraction to address him. “Lavi, wait here,” he said, before ambling to the back of the room, avoiding some people sprawling along the wall, and disappearing behind a door.
The Exorcist stood stupefied by the lethargic happenings around him. It was an opium den. He had heard of, read of places like this, but never would he imagine finding one under the daylight. How Walker had a contact in here would be forever a mystery to him.
As the swirling wisp of smoke began to affect him, tugging at the base of his mood, trying to pull him into the lethargic haze as well, Walker came out from the door he disappeared into earlier; behind the young man, was an old lady. They spoke softly, too quiet to carry across the room, yet somewhat distinct enough for Lavi to caught the end of each word, although it made no sense to him.
Their conversation ceased as Walker reached Lavi. Walker flicked a glance to the old lady’s direction, and began again, in perfect a Dutch (a language Lavi never associated with Allen), “He is the Bookman Junior.”
The old lady settled her glance at said man. She had a pair of disturbingly clear jet black eyes, incongruous in the sea of the wilted skin of her face. Her long hair, although in the same color as Walker who was standing beside her, was lusterless and dull; the vibrant red Chinese robe that she wore, somewhat a contrast to her aged skin.
“Oh yes,” she exclaimed. “I’ve heard of Yao taking an apprentice! Never imagined I would meet said apprentice one day.”
Lavi was more than a little disturbed at the direct reference to Panda by a name he never heard of, but nevertheless he offered the old lady a smile. “Nice to meet you,” he said.
The lady returned his smile; the wrinkles across her face furrowed deeper as she did so. “How is Yao? It’s been so long since the last time I saw him, perhaps,” she paused. “Perhaps twenty years, I’m not sure. Maybe longer.”
“My master is fine,” Lavi replied, still with a smile gracing his lips. “I’ll tell him a beautiful lady is asking after him.”
“Oh my,” the woman laughed, the humor clear in her ageless eyes. “I might be beautiful in my younger days with fair share of handsome and capable men asking for my hand. But now, as you see, time is relentless. Although it’d be nice if you could tell Yao I’ve been missing him all these years.”
All this she told him with a raspy voice that betrayed her age, but also hinting in it the vitality of a loquacious girl. Lavi could only imagine the kind of past Panda had had with her.
“I think we should go,” Walker interrupted.
“Yeah, let’s,” Lavi gave the young man a nod.
And after bidding their goodbye to the lady (Ming, she had insisted), they clambered back out and down the stairs.
“Cross will come to this city,” Walker said once they were outside, tracing back their steps within the alley, “I’m going to stay here.”
Lavi paid his companion a lingering glance that spoke far more than what he let on. “I’ll stay too,” he said.
***
It was an overcast, windy afternoon, the second month of their travel, when Lavi first set foot on the island; a long sliver of land artificially created by dumping sand and earth between dock and quays that could only be reached by crossing draw-bridges. The houses, overshadowed by tall warehouses along the quays by the main land, were badly rundown. They were made of stones and woods, cramped so close together that the occupants must share the limited space of their premises with their neighbors.
The alleys were gloomy even in the afternoon with the sun blocked by corrugated iron roofs protruding hazardously, overlaying each other. Through one of the alleys, Walker led him to a tiny shack tucked away between two larger, equally rundown buildings.
Earlier, after visiting the old lady down at the red light district, Walker had miraculously procured a key from another one of his contact; this time, an old sailor who lived by the Zuiderzee bay. Lavi tried not to think too much of these contacts of Walker’s and how they came to but made a mental note of them nonetheless. It might prove necessary for future use (save from how he noted everything even without him wanting to).
They stood before a door with two windows flanking it by the sides, so grimy that no one could see through the glass pane from the outside.
It went without saying; this was where they would stay.
***
It had scared the hell out of him, the first time it happened.
It had been a quiet night at the beginning of winter. The recreation room was almost empty, save the last three who were sleeping soundly in one corner of the room while the fire was dimming down to the last ember in the fireplace.
Link was in deep slumber, sprawled across a sofa, too tired to even maintain his usual light sleep after a long mission. Adjacent to him, separated by a low coffee table, was another sofa with the two occupants snoring lightly. On the table was a deck of cards scattered across in poker game; three set of hands laid open, one indicating a royal flush.
In the course of the night, after receiving news of Lenalee’s condition, who had been pummeled by a level three in the mission with the three of them, Allen had lolled his head to the side, washed by relieve and immediately falling asleep on the spot. The rest of the three too, fell asleep soon after.
It was Lavi who stirred first as the temperature began to drop lower; the load on his shoulder a reminder, and an anchor that slowly chained him back into the world of consciousness. It took him several minutes to clear the web of sleep from his mind, the last of his dream still hovering behind his eyes. It had not been a pleasant dream at all, although he couldn’t really recall what it had been about.
And then, Allen stirred. He lifted his head from Lavi’s shoulder, slowly, it seemed, unraveling his own web of sleep.
“Hey, Allen,” Lavi had mumbled groggily. He shifted a little to the side, rolled his shoulder to work the circulation back. “You should go back to your room.”
He threw a glance to the white haired boy. The light from a chandelier at the middle of the room, the last one that had not been turned off, cast dim illumination over them.
Allen turned his face deliberately. A sudden chill ran down his spine as the boy locked eyes with him.
The person who faced him was not Allen at all.
***
Lavi had a hard time imagining how he would pass his days here, in the small room, with Walker. It had been a mere whim that prompted him to follow the Noah. He was chasing a pipe dream, and it would later get back to him, abandoning his future, his responsibility, and Panda (from whom he owed all his knowledge, his life).
But it was not a mere Noah he was following, it was Allen.
Sometimes, Lavi wondered, and waited the question. Why are you following me? Why are you so persistent? He imagined Walker would ask.
He had stocked an answer (answers, really, as transient as the question itself). Because you are using Allen’s body, he would say.
Would that be an answer enough, Lavi didn’t know… Just like he never quite grasp why he was here in the first place. (And all this time, he thought he knew better than the young fools who obsessed over each other and died for love).
He looked over to the Noah from his perch at the window.
Walker was sitting on his own bed, his shoulder slumped with Timcanpy resting on his lap, his eyes closed. The Noah was not sleeping, Lavi could tell, and he seemed to do that a lot. Sitting with his eyes closed, for a long time, as if trying to meditate, or mulling over something, or maybe, and this sounded the most plausible for Lavi, remembering. The Noah often got a far off look in his eyes in their travel, stopping his track over something trivial: a gable stone depicting an obscure image in someone’s door, a fruit stand at the road side market, two children playing tags. The look, pensive and deep set, left a strong imprint in his perfect memory.
Perhaps, the reason why he followed him, Lavi tested, was the undercurrent within him that wished strongly for Allen to show up, however small the chance was. Because in normal occasion like this, he almost forgot the one before him was not Allen. And there were times when he felt, the Noah was… terribly human.
The grey eyes opened to fix right to his eye. The simple movement took him off guard. Lavi was caught staring at the Noah openly. The Exorcist quickly flickered his eye to the open sea beyond the window. There was this constant disturbing feeling every time he saw Walker’s eyes. The grey eyes were the same shape, the same color as Allen’s. But there was the coldness sometimes, dead and out of place.
“What are we going to do from here on?” Lavi asked, simply just to break the silence before it got unbearable.
The Noah’s eyes were still on him. “We wait.”
The wind lapped against his face, playing with his red locks. “Huh. That’s boring.”
“You can take a look around the town.”
“I guess I will,” Lavi licked his lips. They were dry and salty.
***
There was a small window at one side of the wall in the one room shack that opened to the ocean, the beautiful blue sea stretching far into the horizon, dotted by the swells of boats and ships. If there was something that could lift the curse off this woebegone old shack, it was the vast sky over the water all around, the palpable wind, the salty air, the tang of rust hinting it.
It was by this window Lavi spent his time the most inside. He would draw a chair (rotten wood, same with the rest of the furniture) and sat beside the window. He read by daylight, recorded his travel and random event (an old habit that he couldn’t quite get rid of, even though he knew Panda would most likely beat him to a bloody pulp and leave him to rot on the road side if he ever met him again), and sometimes he simply stared out into the ocean, watching as the dock workers loaded barrels of coffee, chocolate, butter, sugar, and various things into multiple-masted ships, as a seagull dove down to snatch a fish, as the cloud gathered into a big mass of rain cloud.
By the day, Walker was rarely there. The Noah would leave with Timcanpy as soon as the sun was up, and would be back right before the twilight set in. Lavi had no idea where the man had gone during the day, and he never asked.
By the night, they slept separately on the two beds, each at one side of the wall, his window in between them. He had been having a hard time sleeping at night, not because the bed was creaky and the wood supporting it threatened to collapse every time he moved, not because the grain in the ceiling looked like an eye, and not because the sound of the waves crashing each other in the backdrop, nor the wind rattling the shack. It was because of his dreams. Ever since he arrived here, he had dreamt of many things, none of them pleasant, none of them he could remember.
He stayed awake, mostly; recalling in his mind Mark Twain’s description of the children of Western America lying in bed and counting the whistle of transcontinental train going by the night. He counted the crash of waves, one by one as they hit the shores, until he could not count anymore and sleep washed over him, too tired to dream, feeling like a child all over again.
***
Walker seemed to know his way very well in the city. It was always with determined and knowing steps he led Lavi around, to visit his contacts and find the shack on the first day they arrived, explaining to him the rough outline of the city, where to find what, what area he should not visit for fear of Black Order’s contacts.
Once, as he walked around the city, too bored to stay inside all day, Lavi nearly bumped into Toma, the Finder. It was fortunate the Black Order member always had distinctly eye catching attire on. Otherwise, he would not have found Toma before the man found him.
He quickly rounded a corner, darting out of the other man’s line of sight, and disappeared into a door of a nearby café.
“Hey! You, eyepatch over there,” someone called him from one corner of the café.
Looking up for the source he could see a bald middle aged man waved him over to his table. The tiny place was packed full of patron, with every table occupied by three or four men, pursuing card games, or simply enjoying their midday meal.
Lavi pointed to himself.
The man grunted an affirmation. “Needin’ a seat, yeah? Come ‘ere before someone nabs it.”
He walked down the aisle and slid to the indicated chair beside the man, thanking the man in the process. There were two others sitting at the table, making him the fourth man.
“Nice number for a nice game, don’t you say?” a younger man at the end of the table said, his hair was the color of rust brown, his chin unshaved.
Lavi eyed the table in front of him. Above the carpetry that covered the table-many here seemed to do this a lot, a carpet over the table, instead of cloth-was a deck of card, untouched in the middle of the flat surface. He hitched an eyebrow in minimal doubt, taking care to show the expression.
The first man that had invited him over to their table laughed. His large hand, bulky and hairy which somewhat reminded Lavi of a gorilla’s, patted Lavi hard on the back; he said: “Don’t scare the young un’, you hooligans.”
“No joke? I think you are the one who scares him Jan,” said another young man adjacent to Lavi that was preoccupied with polishing a pocket watch. He gave Lavi a once over. “I’m Alvin. The brute over there is Jan. This one is Walter,” -the one dubbed Walter, the man with unshaved chin, flashed a lopsided grin- “Never seen you around before. Are you new here?”
“I’m Doug,” Lavi replied offhandedly. “Yeah, you could put it that way.”
Jan slammed his hand against the table, rattling it all around. “Good! That beckons for even greater calls of conviviality. Are ya’ Americain coming here to work too young un’? There seems to be increasin’ of them in number.”
“Nah, I’m a traveler,” he paused. And added in a moment of inspiration, “A circus traveler.”
“A traveler?” echoed Walter. “Circus traveler?” He eyed Lavi’s eyepatch. “A freak show?”
“Walter!” Jan chastised his companion.
He, outside of his Excorcist coat, had nearly forgotten the anonymity a casual attire could give. He snaked a hand to touch his covered eye. “Close. But this eye is not ugly enough to fit a freak show,” he grinned ruefully. “I’m a clown’s assistant.”
“Now that’s interestin’,” said Jan. “Ya’ come ‘ere to work after all! Where and when is the show? We’ll close our shops and move our bums to see.”
“Nah, we don’t come here to work. We’re on vacation, you see,” Lavi waved his hand.
The bulky Jan looked a bit crestfallen. It’s a funny look. Like someone just told a big papa bear his toy was not up for grasp.
“So, what it’ll be Doug?” Alvin spoke up again. He had finished polishing the watch. The kit now, back on its tin box, lay under the table. His watch was nowhere to be seen.
“Pardon?” Lavi questioned.
“Card game,” Walter supplied with a grin.
Lavi shook his head.
“Geez, you guys are insistent huh? I don’t really play card games.”
“Bullshit,” Alvin contradicted. “Clowns are card sharks.”
“I’m only an assistant,” Lavi said.
“That’s as good for me. We can teach ya’. Ya’ don’t look like havin’ anythin’ to do.” Jan nudged him by the elbow.
He could see no way out of the situation. It was perhaps by a persuasion like this too, Crowley had been caught up by the card sharks in the train.
“Alright,” said Lavi. The least he could do was humor them. “Bring it on.”
***
By the end of the day, as the sun started to spread red and orange over the sky, tainting the cityscape in the color of rust, Lavi walked out of the café.
He had learned later, that Jan owned the place. It had once been a dilapidated old tavern, given a new chance of life after he bought the place. The establishment had come to be known simply by the name of its proprietor over the years, becoming somewhat a neighborhood gathering place.
He checked the road for the sign of the Finder before lopping back the way he came, to the dock worker’s island where he stayed.
Seeing Toma earlier, he was suddenly reminded again by how riskily stupid his decision had been. There were many things waiting for him back at the Black Order: his duties, his status, Panda, his comrades. It had felt like such a long time since he joined the Black Order, where in fact, it was only three years ago.
As all that thought ran in his mind, walking along the bay where many shop fronts and stalls lined the street, unexpectedly his eyes caught a familiar back among the people milling about the market. He quickened his pace, stepping right and left through the crowd, trying to catch up with Walker.
“Walker,” he called out.
“Hey, watch it young man,” a lady bumped into him.
“Sorry mam,”-he slunk off the lady without looking back-“Walker!”
The Noah’s back sank further and further away.
“Walker!” he shouted.
Walker didn’t appear to hear him. The noise level was nearly deafening with conversations buzzing all around them. It almost looked like half the people of the neighborhood had poured forth from their homes for an evening on the market place.
He was about to give up, and kept back to his initial pace, when he saw something reflecting golden light drifted over the sea of heads. It was the golden Golem, Timcanpy, wafting over to him happily under the lengthening shadows. Its tiny wings beat the air fervently, catching some people’s attention, evoking minor ruckus at its wake.
There was a chance Toma-and God knew who else-was among the bustling crowd. It would do no good for their laying low state, attracting curiosities like this. He shoved the people aside, wading his way to Tim as fast as he can.
He caught the golem between his hands and nearly fell face first against the gravel when he was suddenly out of the crowd. He caught himself right before he lost his balance, grasping Tim hard in his hands.
“Aw, that’s close,” Lavi uttered. He shifted his attention to the Golem, opening his hold. “Hey, Tim you okay? Sorry.”
Tim wiggled his wings, a bit wretched by the ends where he had grabbed a bit too tight, looking, as much as its nonexistent face could convey, very much angry. It bit Lavi’s thumb vengefully.
“Ouch, Tim, I’m sorry!”
The teeth that sank into his skin were razor sharp. And it would have bitten off a small chunk if not for Walker’s timely interruption.
“Tim, he didn’t mean it.”
Hearing its master words, the Golem let his thumb off dejectedly. It bared its ugly small teeth, glittering in the color of his blood, before flying off of his hand.
“You alright?” the Noah asked.
Lavi tilted his head and he almost lost his balance again as he saw the amused smile in the other man’s face, the glow of nearby street lamps illuminating th distinct lines of his cursed mark.
“I-I’m fine,” he replied.
“We’ll see to that once we’re home. Come on.”
Lavi held his breath and wondered at the other’s choice of word --home?. Walker had turned around, starting a leisure pace with his both his hands disappearing into his pocket.
Lavi blink once and shook his head. His shadow cut across the cobbles between them as he flanked the man, strolling away into the last glimmer of the sunset.
***
“I know you,” the Noah said the fourth time the same thing happened.
Lavi, supposedly calmer now after the repeat of the same incident several times, although not without qualms, responded with a hitched breath, suddenly not calm at all, because this time, instead of staring off at nothing and emitting ominous aura before subsiding back into Allen, the ‘creature’ had spoken.
The Noah smiled -a cordial smile that’s perfectly, wrongly Allen. Fuck, his mind supplied.
Lavi wondered, really, really wondered that time. Whywhywhy the Noah chose to appear before him? Never when Link was around (the inspector was, in fact, twenty feet down in the chasm, probably suffering from concussion and fracture and lost of consciousness after a long fall and quite a sack from the akuma). Not when Lenalee, and Kanda, and others were with them.
“You are Lavi.”
“What of it?” a hint of derrisive challenge in his question, but it was mostly for show; his mind was screaming fuckfuckfuck and a short distance from hyperventilating. His hand snaked to the holster at his hip, seeking the cold and sleek black metal that for once, fail to give him comfort.
The Noah-he could not bear to call the thing Allen, Walker maybe, not Allen, never Allen-flickered his eyes to follow the movement of Lavi’s hand. “I won’t kill you.”
“Like I’ll believe you.”
“I won’t kill an exorcist.”
Lavi grasped the handle of his hammer a bit tighter. “Speak for yourself. Leave Allen alone.”
“Ah well, unless they are being unecesserally... stubborn,” Walker amended sweetly. “Although, Lavi, really I betrayed the Earl, remember? You, Junior Bookman, of all people should know that.”
How could he remember when his mind was reeling along the lines of fuck will Allen ever come back again? Can he take down the Fourteenth by his own? But he’s using Allen’s body?! “…Fuck you. Give Allen back.”
“That’s terribly vulgar,” the Noah paused. A frown troubled his face. “I’m Allen Walker, you know. The original one who gave your Allen life.”
He was tongue-tied. He had been rehearsing in his mind of this kind of possibility. Of what ifs, and what nots. But none of them seemed to work now.
And fuck, his side hurt like hell. Blood had started to pool under the sole of his feet, seeping into the snow. It bled from when at some point the battle that took place just scant fifteen minutes ago, one of the level fours had flung him over, crashing him hard against protruding rocks, breaking several ribs at once, tearing his skin where it had met sharper surfaces.
Allen was in no better shape, but he got his cape to protect him at least.
Walker closed the distance between them in four easy steps, the King Clown, remnant of the last fight, still materialized. Lavi freed his hammer from its holster.
***
He had been on the road with Walker for almost two months. And during the time, he saw, and learned many aspects of the Noah whether he wanted it or not. Walker was not as bad as what he had first assumed
ETA: this is a semi-AU which deviates from canon starting at the chapter Cross goes missing and forth.
In Amsterdam, Walker led him through the narrow alley of the red light district at the heart of the city where the painted signs advertised sexual aids and live sex shows that left nothing to imaginations, down into a smaller alley until they reached an open door into a dilapidated apartment. Walking through the door and up a narrow staircase, they came to a small landing where a Chinese man sat on a wooden chair in a doorway.
The Chinese man stood up as soon as he noticed them. He talked with a heavily accented Dutch, underlying his more familiar native tongue. “What business do you have here?” he asked.
Walker slunk up to the Chinese man’s side to whisper something in his ear. The Chinese man showed immediate reaction. His feature visibly became several shades paler as he took a faltering step back. “W-wait here, I’ll inform Da Sao about your visit,” he stuttered out before scurrying off, vanishing behind a laced curtain that substituted a door.
Walker, paying no heed to the man’s word, followed him. Lavi, left alone and uncertain of what to do, decided to follow. He parted the curtain and stepped inside.
He looked past Walker’s shoulder. There were about a dozen Chinese in the small, gloomy room, most of them lying on cots and the rest sitting sprawled on the floor. The air was pungent with a strangely saccharine smell coming from the long pipes they were smoking. None of them paid any attention the new comers, lost in their own haze.
Walker turned his head a fraction to address him. “Lavi, wait here,” he said, before ambling to the back of the room, avoiding some people sprawling along the wall, and disappearing behind a door.
The Exorcist stood stupefied by the lethargic happenings around him. It was an opium den. He had heard of, read of places like this, but never would he imagine finding one under the daylight. How Walker had a contact in here would be forever a mystery to him.
As the swirling wisp of smoke began to affect him, tugging at the base of his mood, trying to pull him into the lethargic haze as well, Walker came out from the door he disappeared into earlier; behind the young man, was an old lady. They spoke softly, too quiet to carry across the room, yet somewhat distinct enough for Lavi to caught the end of each word, although it made no sense to him.
Their conversation ceased as Walker reached Lavi. Walker flicked a glance to the old lady’s direction, and began again, in perfect a Dutch (a language Lavi never associated with Allen), “He is the Bookman Junior.”
The old lady settled her glance at said man. She had a pair of disturbingly clear jet black eyes, incongruous in the sea of the wilted skin of her face. Her long hair, although in the same color as Walker who was standing beside her, was lusterless and dull; the vibrant red Chinese robe that she wore, somewhat a contrast to her aged skin.
“Oh yes,” she exclaimed. “I’ve heard of Yao taking an apprentice! Never imagined I would meet said apprentice one day.”
Lavi was more than a little disturbed at the direct reference to Panda by a name he never heard of, but nevertheless he offered the old lady a smile. “Nice to meet you,” he said.
The lady returned his smile; the wrinkles across her face furrowed deeper as she did so. “How is Yao? It’s been so long since the last time I saw him, perhaps,” she paused. “Perhaps twenty years, I’m not sure. Maybe longer.”
“My master is fine,” Lavi replied, still with a smile gracing his lips. “I’ll tell him a beautiful lady is asking after him.”
“Oh my,” the woman laughed, the humor clear in her ageless eyes. “I might be beautiful in my younger days with fair share of handsome and capable men asking for my hand. But now, as you see, time is relentless. Although it’d be nice if you could tell Yao I’ve been missing him all these years.”
All this she told him with a raspy voice that betrayed her age, but also hinting in it the vitality of a loquacious girl. Lavi could only imagine the kind of past Panda had had with her.
“I think we should go,” Walker interrupted.
“Yeah, let’s,” Lavi gave the young man a nod.
And after bidding their goodbye to the lady (Ming, she had insisted), they clambered back out and down the stairs.
“Cross will come to this city,” Walker said once they were outside, tracing back their steps within the alley, “I’m going to stay here.”
Lavi paid his companion a lingering glance that spoke far more than what he let on. “I’ll stay too,” he said.
***
It was an overcast, windy afternoon, the second month of their travel, when Lavi first set foot on the island; a long sliver of land artificially created by dumping sand and earth between dock and quays that could only be reached by crossing draw-bridges. The houses, overshadowed by tall warehouses along the quays by the main land, were badly rundown. They were made of stones and woods, cramped so close together that the occupants must share the limited space of their premises with their neighbors.
The alleys were gloomy even in the afternoon with the sun blocked by corrugated iron roofs protruding hazardously, overlaying each other. Through one of the alleys, Walker led him to a tiny shack tucked away between two larger, equally rundown buildings.
Earlier, after visiting the old lady down at the red light district, Walker had miraculously procured a key from another one of his contact; this time, an old sailor who lived by the Zuiderzee bay. Lavi tried not to think too much of these contacts of Walker’s and how they came to but made a mental note of them nonetheless. It might prove necessary for future use (save from how he noted everything even without him wanting to).
They stood before a door with two windows flanking it by the sides, so grimy that no one could see through the glass pane from the outside.
It went without saying; this was where they would stay.
***
It had scared the hell out of him, the first time it happened.
It had been a quiet night at the beginning of winter. The recreation room was almost empty, save the last three who were sleeping soundly in one corner of the room while the fire was dimming down to the last ember in the fireplace.
Link was in deep slumber, sprawled across a sofa, too tired to even maintain his usual light sleep after a long mission. Adjacent to him, separated by a low coffee table, was another sofa with the two occupants snoring lightly. On the table was a deck of cards scattered across in poker game; three set of hands laid open, one indicating a royal flush.
In the course of the night, after receiving news of Lenalee’s condition, who had been pummeled by a level three in the mission with the three of them, Allen had lolled his head to the side, washed by relieve and immediately falling asleep on the spot. The rest of the three too, fell asleep soon after.
It was Lavi who stirred first as the temperature began to drop lower; the load on his shoulder a reminder, and an anchor that slowly chained him back into the world of consciousness. It took him several minutes to clear the web of sleep from his mind, the last of his dream still hovering behind his eyes. It had not been a pleasant dream at all, although he couldn’t really recall what it had been about.
And then, Allen stirred. He lifted his head from Lavi’s shoulder, slowly, it seemed, unraveling his own web of sleep.
“Hey, Allen,” Lavi had mumbled groggily. He shifted a little to the side, rolled his shoulder to work the circulation back. “You should go back to your room.”
He threw a glance to the white haired boy. The light from a chandelier at the middle of the room, the last one that had not been turned off, cast dim illumination over them.
Allen turned his face deliberately. A sudden chill ran down his spine as the boy locked eyes with him.
The person who faced him was not Allen at all.
***
Lavi had a hard time imagining how he would pass his days here, in the small room, with Walker. It had been a mere whim that prompted him to follow the Noah. He was chasing a pipe dream, and it would later get back to him, abandoning his future, his responsibility, and Panda (from whom he owed all his knowledge, his life).
But it was not a mere Noah he was following, it was Allen.
Sometimes, Lavi wondered, and waited the question. Why are you following me? Why are you so persistent? He imagined Walker would ask.
He had stocked an answer (answers, really, as transient as the question itself). Because you are using Allen’s body, he would say.
Would that be an answer enough, Lavi didn’t know… Just like he never quite grasp why he was here in the first place. (And all this time, he thought he knew better than the young fools who obsessed over each other and died for love).
He looked over to the Noah from his perch at the window.
Walker was sitting on his own bed, his shoulder slumped with Timcanpy resting on his lap, his eyes closed. The Noah was not sleeping, Lavi could tell, and he seemed to do that a lot. Sitting with his eyes closed, for a long time, as if trying to meditate, or mulling over something, or maybe, and this sounded the most plausible for Lavi, remembering. The Noah often got a far off look in his eyes in their travel, stopping his track over something trivial: a gable stone depicting an obscure image in someone’s door, a fruit stand at the road side market, two children playing tags. The look, pensive and deep set, left a strong imprint in his perfect memory.
Perhaps, the reason why he followed him, Lavi tested, was the undercurrent within him that wished strongly for Allen to show up, however small the chance was. Because in normal occasion like this, he almost forgot the one before him was not Allen. And there were times when he felt, the Noah was… terribly human.
The grey eyes opened to fix right to his eye. The simple movement took him off guard. Lavi was caught staring at the Noah openly. The Exorcist quickly flickered his eye to the open sea beyond the window. There was this constant disturbing feeling every time he saw Walker’s eyes. The grey eyes were the same shape, the same color as Allen’s. But there was the coldness sometimes, dead and out of place.
“What are we going to do from here on?” Lavi asked, simply just to break the silence before it got unbearable.
The Noah’s eyes were still on him. “We wait.”
The wind lapped against his face, playing with his red locks. “Huh. That’s boring.”
“You can take a look around the town.”
“I guess I will,” Lavi licked his lips. They were dry and salty.
***
There was a small window at one side of the wall in the one room shack that opened to the ocean, the beautiful blue sea stretching far into the horizon, dotted by the swells of boats and ships. If there was something that could lift the curse off this woebegone old shack, it was the vast sky over the water all around, the palpable wind, the salty air, the tang of rust hinting it.
It was by this window Lavi spent his time the most inside. He would draw a chair (rotten wood, same with the rest of the furniture) and sat beside the window. He read by daylight, recorded his travel and random event (an old habit that he couldn’t quite get rid of, even though he knew Panda would most likely beat him to a bloody pulp and leave him to rot on the road side if he ever met him again), and sometimes he simply stared out into the ocean, watching as the dock workers loaded barrels of coffee, chocolate, butter, sugar, and various things into multiple-masted ships, as a seagull dove down to snatch a fish, as the cloud gathered into a big mass of rain cloud.
By the day, Walker was rarely there. The Noah would leave with Timcanpy as soon as the sun was up, and would be back right before the twilight set in. Lavi had no idea where the man had gone during the day, and he never asked.
By the night, they slept separately on the two beds, each at one side of the wall, his window in between them. He had been having a hard time sleeping at night, not because the bed was creaky and the wood supporting it threatened to collapse every time he moved, not because the grain in the ceiling looked like an eye, and not because the sound of the waves crashing each other in the backdrop, nor the wind rattling the shack. It was because of his dreams. Ever since he arrived here, he had dreamt of many things, none of them pleasant, none of them he could remember.
He stayed awake, mostly; recalling in his mind Mark Twain’s description of the children of Western America lying in bed and counting the whistle of transcontinental train going by the night. He counted the crash of waves, one by one as they hit the shores, until he could not count anymore and sleep washed over him, too tired to dream, feeling like a child all over again.
***
Walker seemed to know his way very well in the city. It was always with determined and knowing steps he led Lavi around, to visit his contacts and find the shack on the first day they arrived, explaining to him the rough outline of the city, where to find what, what area he should not visit for fear of Black Order’s contacts.
Once, as he walked around the city, too bored to stay inside all day, Lavi nearly bumped into Toma, the Finder. It was fortunate the Black Order member always had distinctly eye catching attire on. Otherwise, he would not have found Toma before the man found him.
He quickly rounded a corner, darting out of the other man’s line of sight, and disappeared into a door of a nearby café.
“Hey! You, eyepatch over there,” someone called him from one corner of the café.
Looking up for the source he could see a bald middle aged man waved him over to his table. The tiny place was packed full of patron, with every table occupied by three or four men, pursuing card games, or simply enjoying their midday meal.
Lavi pointed to himself.
The man grunted an affirmation. “Needin’ a seat, yeah? Come ‘ere before someone nabs it.”
He walked down the aisle and slid to the indicated chair beside the man, thanking the man in the process. There were two others sitting at the table, making him the fourth man.
“Nice number for a nice game, don’t you say?” a younger man at the end of the table said, his hair was the color of rust brown, his chin unshaved.
Lavi eyed the table in front of him. Above the carpetry that covered the table-many here seemed to do this a lot, a carpet over the table, instead of cloth-was a deck of card, untouched in the middle of the flat surface. He hitched an eyebrow in minimal doubt, taking care to show the expression.
The first man that had invited him over to their table laughed. His large hand, bulky and hairy which somewhat reminded Lavi of a gorilla’s, patted Lavi hard on the back; he said: “Don’t scare the young un’, you hooligans.”
“No joke? I think you are the one who scares him Jan,” said another young man adjacent to Lavi that was preoccupied with polishing a pocket watch. He gave Lavi a once over. “I’m Alvin. The brute over there is Jan. This one is Walter,” -the one dubbed Walter, the man with unshaved chin, flashed a lopsided grin- “Never seen you around before. Are you new here?”
“I’m Doug,” Lavi replied offhandedly. “Yeah, you could put it that way.”
Jan slammed his hand against the table, rattling it all around. “Good! That beckons for even greater calls of conviviality. Are ya’ Americain coming here to work too young un’? There seems to be increasin’ of them in number.”
“Nah, I’m a traveler,” he paused. And added in a moment of inspiration, “A circus traveler.”
“A traveler?” echoed Walter. “Circus traveler?” He eyed Lavi’s eyepatch. “A freak show?”
“Walter!” Jan chastised his companion.
He, outside of his Excorcist coat, had nearly forgotten the anonymity a casual attire could give. He snaked a hand to touch his covered eye. “Close. But this eye is not ugly enough to fit a freak show,” he grinned ruefully. “I’m a clown’s assistant.”
“Now that’s interestin’,” said Jan. “Ya’ come ‘ere to work after all! Where and when is the show? We’ll close our shops and move our bums to see.”
“Nah, we don’t come here to work. We’re on vacation, you see,” Lavi waved his hand.
The bulky Jan looked a bit crestfallen. It’s a funny look. Like someone just told a big papa bear his toy was not up for grasp.
“So, what it’ll be Doug?” Alvin spoke up again. He had finished polishing the watch. The kit now, back on its tin box, lay under the table. His watch was nowhere to be seen.
“Pardon?” Lavi questioned.
“Card game,” Walter supplied with a grin.
Lavi shook his head.
“Geez, you guys are insistent huh? I don’t really play card games.”
“Bullshit,” Alvin contradicted. “Clowns are card sharks.”
“I’m only an assistant,” Lavi said.
“That’s as good for me. We can teach ya’. Ya’ don’t look like havin’ anythin’ to do.” Jan nudged him by the elbow.
He could see no way out of the situation. It was perhaps by a persuasion like this too, Crowley had been caught up by the card sharks in the train.
“Alright,” said Lavi. The least he could do was humor them. “Bring it on.”
***
By the end of the day, as the sun started to spread red and orange over the sky, tainting the cityscape in the color of rust, Lavi walked out of the café.
He had learned later, that Jan owned the place. It had once been a dilapidated old tavern, given a new chance of life after he bought the place. The establishment had come to be known simply by the name of its proprietor over the years, becoming somewhat a neighborhood gathering place.
He checked the road for the sign of the Finder before lopping back the way he came, to the dock worker’s island where he stayed.
Seeing Toma earlier, he was suddenly reminded again by how riskily stupid his decision had been. There were many things waiting for him back at the Black Order: his duties, his status, Panda, his comrades. It had felt like such a long time since he joined the Black Order, where in fact, it was only three years ago.
As all that thought ran in his mind, walking along the bay where many shop fronts and stalls lined the street, unexpectedly his eyes caught a familiar back among the people milling about the market. He quickened his pace, stepping right and left through the crowd, trying to catch up with Walker.
“Walker,” he called out.
“Hey, watch it young man,” a lady bumped into him.
“Sorry mam,”-he slunk off the lady without looking back-“Walker!”
The Noah’s back sank further and further away.
“Walker!” he shouted.
Walker didn’t appear to hear him. The noise level was nearly deafening with conversations buzzing all around them. It almost looked like half the people of the neighborhood had poured forth from their homes for an evening on the market place.
He was about to give up, and kept back to his initial pace, when he saw something reflecting golden light drifted over the sea of heads. It was the golden Golem, Timcanpy, wafting over to him happily under the lengthening shadows. Its tiny wings beat the air fervently, catching some people’s attention, evoking minor ruckus at its wake.
There was a chance Toma-and God knew who else-was among the bustling crowd. It would do no good for their laying low state, attracting curiosities like this. He shoved the people aside, wading his way to Tim as fast as he can.
He caught the golem between his hands and nearly fell face first against the gravel when he was suddenly out of the crowd. He caught himself right before he lost his balance, grasping Tim hard in his hands.
“Aw, that’s close,” Lavi uttered. He shifted his attention to the Golem, opening his hold. “Hey, Tim you okay? Sorry.”
Tim wiggled his wings, a bit wretched by the ends where he had grabbed a bit too tight, looking, as much as its nonexistent face could convey, very much angry. It bit Lavi’s thumb vengefully.
“Ouch, Tim, I’m sorry!”
The teeth that sank into his skin were razor sharp. And it would have bitten off a small chunk if not for Walker’s timely interruption.
“Tim, he didn’t mean it.”
Hearing its master words, the Golem let his thumb off dejectedly. It bared its ugly small teeth, glittering in the color of his blood, before flying off of his hand.
“You alright?” the Noah asked.
Lavi tilted his head and he almost lost his balance again as he saw the amused smile in the other man’s face, the glow of nearby street lamps illuminating th distinct lines of his cursed mark.
“I-I’m fine,” he replied.
“We’ll see to that once we’re home. Come on.”
Lavi held his breath and wondered at the other’s choice of word --home?. Walker had turned around, starting a leisure pace with his both his hands disappearing into his pocket.
Lavi blink once and shook his head. His shadow cut across the cobbles between them as he flanked the man, strolling away into the last glimmer of the sunset.
***
“I know you,” the Noah said the fourth time the same thing happened.
Lavi, supposedly calmer now after the repeat of the same incident several times, although not without qualms, responded with a hitched breath, suddenly not calm at all, because this time, instead of staring off at nothing and emitting ominous aura before subsiding back into Allen, the ‘creature’ had spoken.
The Noah smiled -a cordial smile that’s perfectly, wrongly Allen. Fuck, his mind supplied.
Lavi wondered, really, really wondered that time. Whywhywhy the Noah chose to appear before him? Never when Link was around (the inspector was, in fact, twenty feet down in the chasm, probably suffering from concussion and fracture and lost of consciousness after a long fall and quite a sack from the akuma). Not when Lenalee, and Kanda, and others were with them.
“You are Lavi.”
“What of it?” a hint of derrisive challenge in his question, but it was mostly for show; his mind was screaming fuckfuckfuck and a short distance from hyperventilating. His hand snaked to the holster at his hip, seeking the cold and sleek black metal that for once, fail to give him comfort.
The Noah-he could not bear to call the thing Allen, Walker maybe, not Allen, never Allen-flickered his eyes to follow the movement of Lavi’s hand. “I won’t kill you.”
“Like I’ll believe you.”
“I won’t kill an exorcist.”
Lavi grasped the handle of his hammer a bit tighter. “Speak for yourself. Leave Allen alone.”
“Ah well, unless they are being unecesserally... stubborn,” Walker amended sweetly. “Although, Lavi, really I betrayed the Earl, remember? You, Junior Bookman, of all people should know that.”
How could he remember when his mind was reeling along the lines of fuck will Allen ever come back again? Can he take down the Fourteenth by his own? But he’s using Allen’s body?! “…Fuck you. Give Allen back.”
“That’s terribly vulgar,” the Noah paused. A frown troubled his face. “I’m Allen Walker, you know. The original one who gave your Allen life.”
He was tongue-tied. He had been rehearsing in his mind of this kind of possibility. Of what ifs, and what nots. But none of them seemed to work now.
And fuck, his side hurt like hell. Blood had started to pool under the sole of his feet, seeping into the snow. It bled from when at some point the battle that took place just scant fifteen minutes ago, one of the level fours had flung him over, crashing him hard against protruding rocks, breaking several ribs at once, tearing his skin where it had met sharper surfaces.
Allen was in no better shape, but he got his cape to protect him at least.
Walker closed the distance between them in four easy steps, the King Clown, remnant of the last fight, still materialized. Lavi freed his hammer from its holster.
***
He had been on the road with Walker for almost two months. And during the time, he saw, and learned many aspects of the Noah whether he wanted it or not. Walker was not as bad as what he had first assumed