DGM - Look Right Through Me.
Title: Look Right Through Me.
Fandom: D.Gray-man.
Warnings: Sort of spoilers up to chapter 129 and for 'The 49th name'.
Characters/couples: Rabi centric, mentions of pretty much everyone. (Rabi->Doug, Rabi->Kanda, Rabi->Linali, Rabi->Allen.)
Summary: Thirty facts about Rabi that he would rather no-one find out about him.
Rating: PG13.
Look Right Through Me.
1. First and foremost, Rabi doesn't have a Death Wish. It might seem like it, but he seriously doesn't. He is - and he knows it - selfish and a brat, and he really doesn't see the point about sacrificing himself for others who will, sooner rather than later, die. Believing that is, actually, what got him and Kanda into being friends (besides being jaded, cynical sons-of-a-bitch, of course).
2. Kanda knows far too much about him for his liking. It's not much comfort the fact that he knows probably just as much about Kanda, but at the same time it kinda is.
3. Rabi knows the names, age and stats of everyone in the Order. It's something he started doing out of boredom when he and Panda just got in, and then... who knows. Out of use, perhaps. Morbid curiosity. He's glad no-one ever thinks of asking that, 'cause over the time, thinking of the people who constantly died has left the taste of dried out pages in his mouth.
4. He wasn't supposed to be an Exorcist. Panda was the one who suddenly got his needles back when he was a little younger than fifteen, and then they had to go to the Order, lest Panda fall unto Fault. Originally, Rabi was just joining as Bookman's apprentice, and the chances for him to be an Exorcist too were slim to none. No-one was more surprised than him when suddenly he had a hammer in his hand and he was hitting over an akuma level 1 unto the sky.
5. The persona of Rabi is weird and quirky at first, because he's not used to the idea of keeping a personality for such an extended time: without really noticing, some of his real self starts bleeding into the bright, cheerful and frivolous guy he's pretending to be until he can't quite tell where one starts, when the other ends.
6. Rabi never knew his parents, but that is not to say that they absolutely have to be dead: things withing the Bookman Clan don't really work like that. Children - when there's a need for them - are taken care among the whole clan, but to lack identities as they should, there can't be that kind of bond.
7. He started traveling with Panda when he was a little older than five years old: Bookman is, really, the one person that Rabi has known practically his whole life, which does make him the person Rabi respects the most, for all that he would rather swallow his hammer than to say that out loud. The whole calling him 'gramps' started when he was seven and it kinda stuck.
8. Rabi's very good at mechanics and mathematics and science things: things with numbers and concrete reasoning. Things like literature and music? Not so much. He can, of course, tell you what are the requirements for a sonet, and he can read the solfege fairly well. He still sucks at writing a sonet himself, or at really trying to understand why a Mi goes where it goes rather than a Sol, and he would be hard pressed to say he actually knows why.
9. Water is actually one of the only things he doesn't burn. He's a shit cook, mainly because he gets distracted. In theory, he can cook, since he has memorized several cooking books, and sometimes when they were traveling, he and Bookman did have to look upon themselves. Still, most of the times, you shouldn't trust Rabi in the kitchen.
10. His way of coping is by avoiding. Not getting attached is the thing that makes the most sense so that doesn't really count, but when Rabi doesn't have a choice, he avoids whatever it is that would make him worry, quite literally vanishes the thought, so that even if he kind of still remembers it, it's away.
11. Rabi will and does read anything and everything that falls upon his hands. He has a thing for trashy, badly written romance stories, since they make him laugh.
12. His thing for older women started, again, as a quirk of one of his persona. 'Jace' was fourteen when he and Bookman were upon South America, taking notice of one of the revolutions leading there. Jace had been quickly included by some of the children, and he got dragged by them all the way to a brothel to get a peek and, well...
Bookman hit his head so hard after that that Jace-soon-to-be-Sol decided that, next town, he deserved another peek since getting Panda'd for something that hadn't even been his idea was unfair.
And then, let's not forget that amazing belly-dancer that thought he was adorable in Cairo, a few weeks after he turned fifteen. Good times.
13. He ows a lot of being Rabi to Doug and Kanda. Kanda because he was an asshole and Rabi knew very well he could be a bigger asshole if he wanted, and then it was hard to play the idiot part after they introduced each other to their fists, even in the whole thing that it had been too telling. And Doug because he refused to fall down to the easy grin he had perfected, the easy chatter that would make the older Exorcist and Finders grin and laugh and say he was friendly. No, Doug treated him with cold respect, never falling for his jokes, and for some reason that Rabi didn't understand, that bothered him, so he pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed. He's good at that.
14. It takes him a hell of a lot of time to admit to himself the crush he has on Doug: it's months and months after Doug quit the Order to go and take care of Colette that Rabi tells himself a 'well, damn'.
15. Rabi doesn't know how to deal with people crying, which is why Linali shocked him so much when they met. Not just because that tiny girl with the huge sad eyes was actually a good Exorcist, but because he had never before met anyone who could feel so damn much. While he was good at making himself look happy - and actually be happy wasn't that hard, either - he couldn't understand how she could break down like that and then... then go back to being okay enough to work. It seemed exhausting and futile and Rabi really didn't know why it confused him so much.
16. Even if Rabi doesn't quite think he has a type, Allen? So completely not his type (yes, Doug was kinda an exception, because apparently Rabi has a thing for stubborn, self-sacrificing idiots, go figure).
17.... no, seriously. Experience tells Rabi that long, straight dark hair makes him go GAH in both men and women. Now, focusing on men? He falls to the cliché of tall, dark and handsome (Kanda). Focusing on women, besides the already mentioned thing for older women? Cute and with nice legs (Linali). But please go back to the aftermentioned part of Not Having a Death Wish and you'll understand why he has been very happy to keep those two as innocent and very much harmless secret crushes.
Allen? Good friend, good to fight with, even better to tease and joke with. That's about it.
17.1 .... except for the part where apparently Rabi likes to contradict even himself. Go figure.
18. Rabi is a huge huge huge HUGE gossip. The people at the kitchen share the best gossip and rumors in Head Quarters. Whenever he needs to cheer himself up, Rabi knows that it's a great idea to go there and hear their version of who's dating who.
19. Sometimes, he wishes that Panda and him could get the hell out and that he could get a new name. Push everything that's not important (Linali's pretty smile, the way Allen glares after he's been teased a little too much or he has run out of comebacks, running away after pissing of Kanda enough, laughing after Komui's newest plan to make sure Linali never marries, joking with the Science Division or pulling the cow eyes on Jerry until he agrees to give him an extra taste of dessert) away.
And yet when he tries to picture being someone else, someone other than Rabi, he draws a huge, wide blank that scares him the way few things do.
20. He wishes he could forget what the soul of an akuma looks like. Now, every time he looks at an akuma he remembers - the pain and the fear and how bound the soul was, how terrified it was. Whenever Rabi remembers, he feels nauseus again and it makes it harder than it should be, trying to go back to thinking that the akuma are just weapons.
He seriously doesn't know how Allen hasn't completley lost his mind. It kinda makes him respect him more than he'd ever say (once again, an eating his own hammer kind of thing).
21. For as long as he knew, the few times that Rabi thought about the future he thought of himself as the future Bookman: traveling and recording history impartially. Somehow, however, that started to change and that scares him a little. He doesn't think he can just simply hang up his Exorcist coat and walk away.
22. He did go all splutter-heart-eyed over Miranda, reaction at first sight. And then Bookman kicked him out of her room and told him to go and help Komui.
23. He won't EVER admit that he got kinda jealous in a very toddlerish way about how fast Panda and Crowley got to be friends, even when he knows that Crowley is old-fashioned enough to be able to talk with Panda with little to no problems, even though he also knows that that's what Panda does to fit in and not get weird looks: he asks a few questions and then he talks about the topics at hand.
But usually it wasn't with someone that was just a few years older than him, and it was never with one of his friends.
24. Rabi could and does drink, but he doesn't see much point on doing it, other than to get the warm buzz as the booze runs through his body. He already has little to no respect over personal space, he already speaks his mind - or what seems his mind - and he isn't afraid of looking like a clown.
He also knows that even when drunk he still gets to remember everything he hears and sees, so really, no point on getting a hangover over that.
25. Rabi IS honestly afraid of the idea of vampires, werewolves and supernatural beings that don't seem to have a reasonable explanation. It's silly, it's stupid; he still knows every single way how to deal with them, just in case.
26. Rabi is quite good at cheating in poker. Or so he thought until he saw Allen doing it and right then and there Rabi decided that he was NEVER EVER playing against Allen seriously. He is also quite glad that they're friends rather than not.
27. Rabi didn't notice at all how deep had his supposedly fake friendship with Allen had come to mean to him until he and Linali only find blood and a card, after Bookman asked him in a hiss if he really thought himself an Exorcist because, five seconds before? His answer would have been 'hell, yeah'.
28. He had prided himself on having lived eighteen years without mourning anyone whatsoever. In the lapse of less than two weeks he ends up mourning so much that he's not sure how people do this all the fucking time and not go mad. The fact that it almost makes him understand why some people are stupid enough to actually trust the Earl isn't any comfort at all.
29. Likewise, Rabi had never EVER hated anyone in his life. Disliked? Hell yeah. Hate? NNot really, since no one was worthy that much amount of care.
Now that goes completely to the Noah family.
30. He still DOESN'T have a Death Wish. There are but few of the Bookman clan, and he's the only one who has the eyes needed for the job so far.
... but he can't just step aside and let the others die, especially since he realized that what he fears the most?
It's to be the last one standing, because there'd be no time for him that would make it easier. He would always remember his friends' voices and faces, and he would miss them until he was driven mad by that.
Fandom: D.Gray-man.
Warnings: Sort of spoilers up to chapter 129 and for 'The 49th name'.
Characters/couples: Rabi centric, mentions of pretty much everyone. (Rabi->Doug, Rabi->Kanda, Rabi->Linali, Rabi->Allen.)
Summary: Thirty facts about Rabi that he would rather no-one find out about him.
Rating: PG13.
Look Right Through Me.
1. First and foremost, Rabi doesn't have a Death Wish. It might seem like it, but he seriously doesn't. He is - and he knows it - selfish and a brat, and he really doesn't see the point about sacrificing himself for others who will, sooner rather than later, die. Believing that is, actually, what got him and Kanda into being friends (besides being jaded, cynical sons-of-a-bitch, of course).
2. Kanda knows far too much about him for his liking. It's not much comfort the fact that he knows probably just as much about Kanda, but at the same time it kinda is.
3. Rabi knows the names, age and stats of everyone in the Order. It's something he started doing out of boredom when he and Panda just got in, and then... who knows. Out of use, perhaps. Morbid curiosity. He's glad no-one ever thinks of asking that, 'cause over the time, thinking of the people who constantly died has left the taste of dried out pages in his mouth.
4. He wasn't supposed to be an Exorcist. Panda was the one who suddenly got his needles back when he was a little younger than fifteen, and then they had to go to the Order, lest Panda fall unto Fault. Originally, Rabi was just joining as Bookman's apprentice, and the chances for him to be an Exorcist too were slim to none. No-one was more surprised than him when suddenly he had a hammer in his hand and he was hitting over an akuma level 1 unto the sky.
5. The persona of Rabi is weird and quirky at first, because he's not used to the idea of keeping a personality for such an extended time: without really noticing, some of his real self starts bleeding into the bright, cheerful and frivolous guy he's pretending to be until he can't quite tell where one starts, when the other ends.
6. Rabi never knew his parents, but that is not to say that they absolutely have to be dead: things withing the Bookman Clan don't really work like that. Children - when there's a need for them - are taken care among the whole clan, but to lack identities as they should, there can't be that kind of bond.
7. He started traveling with Panda when he was a little older than five years old: Bookman is, really, the one person that Rabi has known practically his whole life, which does make him the person Rabi respects the most, for all that he would rather swallow his hammer than to say that out loud. The whole calling him 'gramps' started when he was seven and it kinda stuck.
8. Rabi's very good at mechanics and mathematics and science things: things with numbers and concrete reasoning. Things like literature and music? Not so much. He can, of course, tell you what are the requirements for a sonet, and he can read the solfege fairly well. He still sucks at writing a sonet himself, or at really trying to understand why a Mi goes where it goes rather than a Sol, and he would be hard pressed to say he actually knows why.
9. Water is actually one of the only things he doesn't burn. He's a shit cook, mainly because he gets distracted. In theory, he can cook, since he has memorized several cooking books, and sometimes when they were traveling, he and Bookman did have to look upon themselves. Still, most of the times, you shouldn't trust Rabi in the kitchen.
10. His way of coping is by avoiding. Not getting attached is the thing that makes the most sense so that doesn't really count, but when Rabi doesn't have a choice, he avoids whatever it is that would make him worry, quite literally vanishes the thought, so that even if he kind of still remembers it, it's away.
11. Rabi will and does read anything and everything that falls upon his hands. He has a thing for trashy, badly written romance stories, since they make him laugh.
12. His thing for older women started, again, as a quirk of one of his persona. 'Jace' was fourteen when he and Bookman were upon South America, taking notice of one of the revolutions leading there. Jace had been quickly included by some of the children, and he got dragged by them all the way to a brothel to get a peek and, well...
Bookman hit his head so hard after that that Jace-soon-to-be-Sol decided that, next town, he deserved another peek since getting Panda'd for something that hadn't even been his idea was unfair.
And then, let's not forget that amazing belly-dancer that thought he was adorable in Cairo, a few weeks after he turned fifteen. Good times.
13. He ows a lot of being Rabi to Doug and Kanda. Kanda because he was an asshole and Rabi knew very well he could be a bigger asshole if he wanted, and then it was hard to play the idiot part after they introduced each other to their fists, even in the whole thing that it had been too telling. And Doug because he refused to fall down to the easy grin he had perfected, the easy chatter that would make the older Exorcist and Finders grin and laugh and say he was friendly. No, Doug treated him with cold respect, never falling for his jokes, and for some reason that Rabi didn't understand, that bothered him, so he pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed. He's good at that.
14. It takes him a hell of a lot of time to admit to himself the crush he has on Doug: it's months and months after Doug quit the Order to go and take care of Colette that Rabi tells himself a 'well, damn'.
15. Rabi doesn't know how to deal with people crying, which is why Linali shocked him so much when they met. Not just because that tiny girl with the huge sad eyes was actually a good Exorcist, but because he had never before met anyone who could feel so damn much. While he was good at making himself look happy - and actually be happy wasn't that hard, either - he couldn't understand how she could break down like that and then... then go back to being okay enough to work. It seemed exhausting and futile and Rabi really didn't know why it confused him so much.
16. Even if Rabi doesn't quite think he has a type, Allen? So completely not his type (yes, Doug was kinda an exception, because apparently Rabi has a thing for stubborn, self-sacrificing idiots, go figure).
17.... no, seriously. Experience tells Rabi that long, straight dark hair makes him go GAH in both men and women. Now, focusing on men? He falls to the cliché of tall, dark and handsome (Kanda). Focusing on women, besides the already mentioned thing for older women? Cute and with nice legs (Linali). But please go back to the aftermentioned part of Not Having a Death Wish and you'll understand why he has been very happy to keep those two as innocent and very much harmless secret crushes.
Allen? Good friend, good to fight with, even better to tease and joke with. That's about it.
17.1 .... except for the part where apparently Rabi likes to contradict even himself. Go figure.
18. Rabi is a huge huge huge HUGE gossip. The people at the kitchen share the best gossip and rumors in Head Quarters. Whenever he needs to cheer himself up, Rabi knows that it's a great idea to go there and hear their version of who's dating who.
19. Sometimes, he wishes that Panda and him could get the hell out and that he could get a new name. Push everything that's not important (Linali's pretty smile, the way Allen glares after he's been teased a little too much or he has run out of comebacks, running away after pissing of Kanda enough, laughing after Komui's newest plan to make sure Linali never marries, joking with the Science Division or pulling the cow eyes on Jerry until he agrees to give him an extra taste of dessert) away.
And yet when he tries to picture being someone else, someone other than Rabi, he draws a huge, wide blank that scares him the way few things do.
20. He wishes he could forget what the soul of an akuma looks like. Now, every time he looks at an akuma he remembers - the pain and the fear and how bound the soul was, how terrified it was. Whenever Rabi remembers, he feels nauseus again and it makes it harder than it should be, trying to go back to thinking that the akuma are just weapons.
He seriously doesn't know how Allen hasn't completley lost his mind. It kinda makes him respect him more than he'd ever say (once again, an eating his own hammer kind of thing).
21. For as long as he knew, the few times that Rabi thought about the future he thought of himself as the future Bookman: traveling and recording history impartially. Somehow, however, that started to change and that scares him a little. He doesn't think he can just simply hang up his Exorcist coat and walk away.
22. He did go all splutter-heart-eyed over Miranda, reaction at first sight. And then Bookman kicked him out of her room and told him to go and help Komui.
23. He won't EVER admit that he got kinda jealous in a very toddlerish way about how fast Panda and Crowley got to be friends, even when he knows that Crowley is old-fashioned enough to be able to talk with Panda with little to no problems, even though he also knows that that's what Panda does to fit in and not get weird looks: he asks a few questions and then he talks about the topics at hand.
But usually it wasn't with someone that was just a few years older than him, and it was never with one of his friends.
24. Rabi could and does drink, but he doesn't see much point on doing it, other than to get the warm buzz as the booze runs through his body. He already has little to no respect over personal space, he already speaks his mind - or what seems his mind - and he isn't afraid of looking like a clown.
He also knows that even when drunk he still gets to remember everything he hears and sees, so really, no point on getting a hangover over that.
25. Rabi IS honestly afraid of the idea of vampires, werewolves and supernatural beings that don't seem to have a reasonable explanation. It's silly, it's stupid; he still knows every single way how to deal with them, just in case.
26. Rabi is quite good at cheating in poker. Or so he thought until he saw Allen doing it and right then and there Rabi decided that he was NEVER EVER playing against Allen seriously. He is also quite glad that they're friends rather than not.
27. Rabi didn't notice at all how deep had his supposedly fake friendship with Allen had come to mean to him until he and Linali only find blood and a card, after Bookman asked him in a hiss if he really thought himself an Exorcist because, five seconds before? His answer would have been 'hell, yeah'.
28. He had prided himself on having lived eighteen years without mourning anyone whatsoever. In the lapse of less than two weeks he ends up mourning so much that he's not sure how people do this all the fucking time and not go mad. The fact that it almost makes him understand why some people are stupid enough to actually trust the Earl isn't any comfort at all.
29. Likewise, Rabi had never EVER hated anyone in his life. Disliked? Hell yeah. Hate? NNot really, since no one was worthy that much amount of care.
Now that goes completely to the Noah family.
30. He still DOESN'T have a Death Wish. There are but few of the Bookman clan, and he's the only one who has the eyes needed for the job so far.
... but he can't just step aside and let the others die, especially since he realized that what he fears the most?
It's to be the last one standing, because there'd be no time for him that would make it easier. He would always remember his friends' voices and faces, and he would miss them until he was driven mad by that.