(D.Grayman) Teachers
Title :: Teachers
Prompt :: January 18th, “warm strangers”
Fandom :: D.Gray-man
Characters/Pairing :: Lenalee, Kanda, Lavi, mentions of Allen
A/N:: Kind of disjointed. An old piece.
Summary :: They helped her a lot, those first few years.
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When Lenalee looks back at her first few years of being an exorcist, she can't say she liked it. The torturous tests, when it felt like her feet were falling off and her lungs were collapsing (when would this pain stop? When would her death come and end it all), ensured that. Choking straps, the stale air, the all too-clean rooms--she can't stand visiting a hospital anymore. When she tries to remember those days, they blur into one timeless period, one that didn't begin or end. It was just there.
However, it was after those years, when they finally deemed her safe enough to release, that she can recall with clarity. Besides having her brother back, there were her two 'teachers'. A joker, ready to flirt with the girls and tease his friends for anything he can get on them. A cool, calm, collected boy, able to spring into action at a moment's notice and when the joker went too far.
They were strangers when they first met her, strangers because in their business death comes easily and knowing each other makes it harder to let go.
"Think you're ready?" Lavi asked, when they were about to go into battle. "They might look human but they're not."
She nodded quickly, trying to hide her fear but not doing a good job at that.
"If you're going to be a burden, stay here," Kanda told her before they attacked.
When she looks back at it now, she realizes they were warning her about her job, telling her not to get into it until she was ready. Still, they gave her that first, awkward push into it, not stopping her when she wanted to start.
They were strangers, during their first missions, but they were the kindest strangers she had ever met. People don't help each other just because any more. And they were there when she first cried over her job, when she killed her first akuma, when she tried to stand back up. In their own way, brash or teasing, they kept her afloat until she could do it on her own.
"Hello, I'm Allen Walker," the white-haired boy in front of her says and Lenalee smile to herself. Just like how Kanda and Lavi helped her take her first baby steps into their organization, she would help this boy.
Not all strangers are bad, after all.