Just stop drowning, please.
I'm not sure how, but I forgot that I have Japanese friends who're studying here in the UK. The tsunami hit, but it was early hours yet so the death toll was one person, and I'd got a call from my parents that everyone back home is okay. In my head it was case closed.
Then I check Facebook for the first time in quite a long time, and I got reminded that I do, have Japanese friends. And those friends are frankly terrified of what might be going on, the angry hopeless terror of someone who's too far away to do anything.
Mori's brother was on a ferry when the tsunami hit, and neither her nor her family back in Japan could get in touch with her younger brother. For hours and hours and hours.
(He's okay, but could have not been, you know? I read that and my stomach just dropped and I worryworryworry. Drowning's not a pleasant way to die.
Now oil rigs are on fire and the nuclear reactor might explode. Maybe those things should've been built to withstand quakes better, but we're only human.
So I'm going to a charity dig tomorrow, because nobody could possibly deserve this. And Malaysia's a country surrounded by a lot of ocean. Maybewe'reduesomethingnastygoodgodgoodgod.
If you're thinking of donating, and you kindof want to but you're unsure? I'll write you something for it. And if you've donated, I'll write a thank you note in song(fiC). You can auction for stuff at help_japan but if I take part I don't have anything worthy to offer. Little things are all I can do :c Cheers, anon, for the charity gift. You honestly needn't be shy.
On a lighter note, hey, venoso .
Also, stroopwaffles. If ever you go to the Netherlands, and you like sugar like a normal person, get stroopwaffles u//u My friend I haven't seen in over a year got me some, aaaaah.
I finally found my notebook again, and that notebook makes me a better student. Don't ask me how, it just does.
Don't be too glum, world :< We're good at not giving up. Here's On High. Previous chapter is heeeeere:
Lavi got confronted for his weepy behaviour; he pleaded alcohol-induced memory loss and cited severe jet lag as his excuse. Who on Earth could possibly be comfortable taking part in a conversation on the morning after about why who did what the night before?
As much as Kanda didn't feel comfortable with asking, though, Lavi was even less at ease with the thought of answering. Sure, he had the alcohol tolerance of a sock puppet, but to burst into tears because Kanda was going on a date with some random gorgeous Spanish policelady (Lavi thinks embellished thoughts in the absence of evidence) was just... Pathetic.
Kanda couldn't make himself prod the matter harder, the badge he wears in his soul protesting such un-policeman-like behaviour. Then again, this soul-badge has also been known to demand anatomically-unfortunate things to be done to belligerent suspects with thumbscrews, wax, bamboo, and on one exhausting night full of interrogation, angry hares. He's learned to ignore it. At least, the ones he couldn't get away with.
Kanda had woken up first, about half an hour past dawn, and he had gone into the trance of the exceedingly bored, waiting for the time to come when he would feel justified in waking up a gently snoring Lavi.
That time came at ten thirty, because Lavi could be as free as he liked, but Kanda had butt to kick.
Lavi was woken up by a hand gently pulling his hair (that is, they didn't come out by the roots, so there) and had sleepily batted at it.
Careful pressure exerted on a wrist just shy of causing quite the nasty break is a much better sobering agent than the hair of dog. "Wake up," said Kanda, the promise of bodily harm clear in his voice, advertising space bought with criminal intent.
Lavi had taken himself by surprise to discover Kanda glaring down at him; look 'ere, see, no way could I have slept on that lap.
Because the legs with that lap attached t' 'em, yeah, them legs, yeah?
Could behead a bull at twenty paces.
Owing to Kanda's mature (compared to that fateless flight to Hungary) age, chop it down to fifteen paces, yeah?
Yeah. How daintily scintillating, this cuddle with death.
No wonder his ear'd gone numb; sleeping on muscular legs is as comfortable as sleeping on a wooden headrest. Especially if you're a flailing sleeper, which Lavi's body occasionally sees itself fit to be. Turning to sleep on his side had his ear burning from the friction of skin on smooth, hard wood, damn you Egyptian log.
However, the soul of the lap is a damn sight more comforting than that of the headrest. Worth being half deaf, really, especially if morning service included what totally amounts to petting from Kanda.
The interrogation followed when Lavi's eye looked like it was on an upper while the rest of the body was heavily involved with a downer. You were crying what why were you crying what done it.
No what no er it 's m'body clock out of whack a ha ha ha ha ha. The questions asked and answered had the same distant, blurry quality of the night before, and Lavi supposes with time and a good night's sleep this too will be remembered with shocking clarity.
He won't even need sticky skin on his cheeks to tip off the memory.
"Why'd we have t'wake up?" Lavi is searching for a more situational answer than "We'd be dead if we never did" here.
He actually wants to ask Kanda why the hell the man had obliged a fool's request, then follow that up with how should this fool go about having his requests filled more often. Still, we deal with what we're dealt with (then under the table underhandedly cheat to get what we fancy).
"I have to get ready for work, you idiot. I don't have a hobby that anyone would pay me for." Because being a photographer is in no way a legitimate, *adult* profession. Painting, yes, it required a lot of effort, and Tiedoll seemed to require almost as much time to select a suitable frame for his works as he did painting them. Pointing and clicking, my, what a travesty.
Lavi yawns, shifting to cover his mouth with Kanda's side. When he bites down, he hits a leather belt buckle, and that can't have been very comfortable to sleep in. He gnaws on it in mild, emphatic annoyance. "You cook like th'devil, don't you? 'm sure you could open a catering business if y'fancied."
And discreetly put razor blades in the creme brulee of clients that treat the busboy rudely or the ones that feel up waitresses, goes unsaid. Vigilante Catering, "Judge Us On Our Just Desserts" is, while catchy, patently untrue. Kanda, cheerfully making his life's motto one that asks for people to be critical?
"We'll Judge You While You Eat", more like. Can't you just see it taking off? Dead bodies with their faces drowning in lobster bisque.
You can't doubt that the soup would taste nice, at least.
"I have never cooked for *crowds*," that dirty C word. The most people he's cooked for in one go could be counted on one hand.
Well, except for that one time that woman in the cafeteria, Emily or Emma or Ermine (why is Elephant ringing a bell?) had fallen sick just a couple of hours before the mess hall was due to host the arrival of a general major for lunch. Some one hundred mouths needed fancy feeding, and Kanda was the first one to answer the call of duty with a gruff "What."
He couldn't smell anything but tea-smoked duck for the next week. The kitchen staff had been sworn to secrecy, but the dishwasher knew Tiedoll (in the way that a bizarre number of wildly varied people seemed to know Tiedoll)(himself included, the trilingual copper with slanted eyes and a wonderful command of the word 'fuck') and had told him of his son's conquest.
They'd gone out on a celebratory dinner to a fancy restaurant, where Kanda had discovered that his father had applied for a job for him there as a trainee chef. Kanda's always known Tiedoll fretted over his choice of career, had fretted even more with what had happened to Daisya, but that was one of the few times Kanda had truly understood the depth of a family's concern (even *later* it came to light that Marie actually *owned* the entire restaurant).
Take every opportunity to take him away. Sometimes Kanda thinks longingly of retiring, go to the countryside (possibly Japan's) and become a farmer. Toiling in the soil is the way to go. You might get trampled getting cows drunk on rice wine, but at least you won't get shot. Somewhere within easy reach of the people who need his hand to hold.
"I have faith in y'ability. Y'fed me well enough, yeah? Nothing gets m'nose as clear as y'curry, and this is me saying it after being in India f'six months." They should package it and call it a miracle. Sinus problems no more! Hur bloody rah, he'd nearly sneezed his nose off in that one, long European summer, the most boisterous, flowery one to date.
Also worth noting. Does his mouth smell? Puff puff fucking ew. Smells like flat wine and tiredness. Good thing they aren't talking face to face, or Kanda would surely eject him from his own home on a charge of Behaviour Likely To Incite Violence (In Yuu).
"Whatever. Just get off, I need to leave." Kanda swats insistently at Lavi's temple, not entirely certain that Lavi isn't drunk. If he isn't, he wouldn't be going at Kanda's belt with teeth and tongue like the leather is really beef. Maybe he should make breakfast, for fear of Lavi going at the elephants on his wall with a fork and spoon (he is a little flattered that his food's been flattered).
Grudgingly Lavi throws himself into sitting upright, feeling nauseous and a little bit obnoxious. He brushes hair back from his face, blinking and blinking and coming to terms with this night well-spent. Thanks, it's been illuminating, he's just been reminded he's not right in the head.
He's also just been reminded why it always was worth the effort to send highly suspicious, oddly-shaped parcels of gifts to Kanda from countries intent on being difficult. A few have him on a watchlist as a suspected arms dealer or drug baron; to them he wishes good luck in trying to find any evidence. The most dangerous thing he's sent Kanda was the English-translation of the Kama Sutra with a cover embroidered with gold thread and the terribly misleading title of Physiological Anomalies. The needlewoman had swindled him for that, he had no doubt, and according to Kanda it never reached him. The sentiment was worth it, though.
(Kanda lies like he's bald-faced. After needing a sit-down five pages in, he'd gone on quickly to finish the book with morbid curiousity, wonderment and sheer horror. It's been locked in the small box made of cinnamon bark, and the smell of it in Kanda's room taunts him).
Lavi stretches, reaches for his toes, reaches them. There's a burn in his back, and it wakes him up right and proper where blazing sunlight coming in through unclosed curtains could not. The plan for the day unravels itself in his mind; get in touch with his contacts around town, and see what job opportunities abound. He's heard (as he would) that the river needs cleaning; he's a man who looks sexy in galoshes (as he would). Something to do. He could promise to protect the peace, even. He looks good as a boy in blue, what a suggestion.
Lavi smiles in a hopelessly pleased way, and Kanda spots the telltale dimple in his cheek. If Kanda fills it with cement, he wonders if it will dampen his feeling of foreboding.
"All's well then, Yuu. Get y'ass downstairs 'nd get ready t'protect the world from devastation. I'll meet you in a bit, yeah?"
Kanda wants to impose a ban of the Thou Shalt Not Pass variety, but knows it's pointless. He'd extended what amounted to an open invitation years ago, plus Lavi probably still had keys to Kanda's locks. There was no point in complaining, though he wouldn't go without a token grumble.
"Do whatever you want." He gets up and stumbles a little bit. His legs are asleep still, numb and prickly, and about as mobile as a porcupine under heavy sedation.
He falls back onto the sofa like the falling of a Giant Sequoia.
His head thunks against the back. "Fuck ow."
Lavi grins and jumps to his feet in a flurry of activity Kanda hates him for. "Hey ya. Not a morning person, huh?"
What the hell gave it away. It's like Lavi didn't remember nearly being bludgeoned to death for trying to break into Kanda's apartment at some ungodly hour in the morning. His hair has tangled into an unfathomable mess, despite him not having done anything less innocent than sleeping on a chair.
With someone's head on his lap.
If this is divine retribution, Kanda tips his head in acknowledgement and will respectfully say fucking fuck you. He understands the need to save yourself, not quite the need to save yourself for marriage.
"I'm not." Which is nowhere near as vehement a response as he would've liked. He wanted to complain a lot, about how three hours of staring at Lavi's ceiling lamp started making him feel a bit like an owl with a sudden urgent need to perch on the metal branches, how betrayed he felt by his legs, and by how fucked up Lavi had to be to ask for them to live together and then start crying in relatively quick succession. This is not how things happen in real life. Kanda would know. He's a realist. Lavi, though, simply must be a hallucinogen.
Hoot.
"Tell y'what. Have a go at m'bath tub, wake up all right 'nd proper, 'nd we'll go out f'breakfast. Then I'll send y'off at th'station 'nd get some chores done. Is th'super still the one that was here when I was?"
The bastard who had nearly given Kanda's keys to Lavi *voluntarily*? "No." The man had been called by the government of Papua New Guinea to be a research diver (the man had hidden depths!) just a couple of years after Lavi left, and the reason Kanda knows and remembers is because the super sends New Year's cards that always arrived some time in August of the no-longer-so-new-year.
Lavi could see a lot of information deemed unworthy was being ommitted, but hold your peace, he has a lot of time to do a lot of things. He extends a hand in invitation. "C'mon, bills must bother you 's much as ever, yeah? Have a bath on me," please "'nd we'll have a nice day."
Kanda considers this offer. "My clothes are downstairs. I'm not climbing down the emergency escape after I've bathed." Because a bath it will be. It would give him time to sort out his hair and get into a more humane set of mind. Workday today comprises of serious business, and disorientating though it is to suddenly have Lavi at home again, Kanda has a stranglehold on his wits; he keeps them about.
That being said... No amount of mustered courage would make it okay to climb down old iron stairs in just a towel. Paint flecks and rust would come off on his skin, and that is about as vile as vile gets.
"I'll grab something f'you. This going t'be a plainclothes day? Or your uniform?"
Policemen's uniforms are somewhat notorious for making the wearers look a little bit like wankers. Something about the cut of the sleeves, the hitch of the trousers, the colour of the cloth, offsets one another to create quite the dicking ensemble.
But something about Kanda's jet-black hair (now shorter but no less marvelous), the width of his shoulders, the length of his legs, they all work in tandem to make Kanda in uniform one of the best looking things on Earth.
If, say, he were to join a Mister Universe section. When time comes for the talent portion of the paegeant, all he would need to do is go on stage in full uniform and stand there looking deadly. The ability to look that good in uniform, that's a Universe-winning talent right there.
(There's a thread on 4chan about people you'd like to be arrested by. Some anonymous posted a picture of Kanda, who shot up ratings and was at a rock-steady fifth position despite no one knowing who the hell this Asian guy was. Well, except Lavi, obviously. It was one of his rare full-body shots of his boy in blue.)
In short, Lavi is a little shuddery with anticipation.
Kanda has no such care. "My uniform." He tries to remember where his bullet-proof vest is, and concludes it's in his locker at the station. Absently he rubs at his arm, the scar from the bullet wound faded but still there. It wasn't a serious wound, didn't hit bone or anything, but on cold nights it seems to forget its humble origins and ache like a, like a...
Polaroid picture (stop saying Hey Ya you red-headed asshole).
(Even if Lavi's only said it once, and said it aaaaaaaages ago)
Lavi sees Kanda looking at him with intense loathing, and brushes it off like a duck feels loving disdain for water. "There're towels in th'cabinet next t'the tub, so knock y'self out."
In the bathroom? Literally? Perfectly doable. All he needed were a few bottles of assorted toiletries, arrange them in a bundle and wrap them up with the towel, then swing it at himself ala a painfully unfunny scene in a tasteless comedy involving, inevitably, nunchuks. A make-shift blackjack, a subject Kanda is hopelessly familiar with.
A matter of great personal hygiene bothers him. "Teeth brushing. You must have an extra toothbrush, or I'm going to hit you."
This is, you see, Lavi sneakily implementing his plan to get Kanda to move in with him, or vice versa. First, Kanda has his own toothbrush in Lavi's bathroom.
Next thing you know they'll be knocking through Lavi's floor to install a staircase in their new, possibly fantastically homoerotic, duplex.
"Got extra ones in th'cupboard under the sink. Just pick whichever one y'want." He doesn't bother to mention that all the new toothbrushes had designs of the Power Rangers. The shot of nostalgia he had been wounded with when he saw them in the pharmacy had proved too strong to withstand.
And that's domestic, possibly fantastically homoerotic bliss in the morning.
*
Oh, but Kanda does look brilliant in uniform.
----
I hadn't realised the last time this was updated was so long ago ._. Hopefully nothing else utterly heart-breaking happens while I'm asleep.
Then I check Facebook for the first time in quite a long time, and I got reminded that I do, have Japanese friends. And those friends are frankly terrified of what might be going on, the angry hopeless terror of someone who's too far away to do anything.
Mori's brother was on a ferry when the tsunami hit, and neither her nor her family back in Japan could get in touch with her younger brother. For hours and hours and hours.
(He's okay, but could have not been, you know? I read that and my stomach just dropped and I worryworryworry. Drowning's not a pleasant way to die.
Now oil rigs are on fire and the nuclear reactor might explode. Maybe those things should've been built to withstand quakes better, but we're only human.
So I'm going to a charity dig tomorrow, because nobody could possibly deserve this. And Malaysia's a country surrounded by a lot of ocean. Maybewe'reduesomethingnastygoodgodgoodgod.
If you're thinking of donating, and you kindof want to but you're unsure? I'll write you something for it. And if you've donated, I'll write a thank you note in song(fiC). You can auction for stuff at help_japan but if I take part I don't have anything worthy to offer. Little things are all I can do :c Cheers, anon, for the charity gift. You honestly needn't be shy.
On a lighter note, hey, venoso .
Also, stroopwaffles. If ever you go to the Netherlands, and you like sugar like a normal person, get stroopwaffles u//u My friend I haven't seen in over a year got me some, aaaaah.
I finally found my notebook again, and that notebook makes me a better student. Don't ask me how, it just does.
Don't be too glum, world :< We're good at not giving up. Here's On High. Previous chapter is heeeeere:
Lavi got confronted for his weepy behaviour; he pleaded alcohol-induced memory loss and cited severe jet lag as his excuse. Who on Earth could possibly be comfortable taking part in a conversation on the morning after about why who did what the night before?
As much as Kanda didn't feel comfortable with asking, though, Lavi was even less at ease with the thought of answering. Sure, he had the alcohol tolerance of a sock puppet, but to burst into tears because Kanda was going on a date with some random gorgeous Spanish policelady (Lavi thinks embellished thoughts in the absence of evidence) was just... Pathetic.
Kanda couldn't make himself prod the matter harder, the badge he wears in his soul protesting such un-policeman-like behaviour. Then again, this soul-badge has also been known to demand anatomically-unfortunate things to be done to belligerent suspects with thumbscrews, wax, bamboo, and on one exhausting night full of interrogation, angry hares. He's learned to ignore it. At least, the ones he couldn't get away with.
Kanda had woken up first, about half an hour past dawn, and he had gone into the trance of the exceedingly bored, waiting for the time to come when he would feel justified in waking up a gently snoring Lavi.
That time came at ten thirty, because Lavi could be as free as he liked, but Kanda had butt to kick.
Lavi was woken up by a hand gently pulling his hair (that is, they didn't come out by the roots, so there) and had sleepily batted at it.
Careful pressure exerted on a wrist just shy of causing quite the nasty break is a much better sobering agent than the hair of dog. "Wake up," said Kanda, the promise of bodily harm clear in his voice, advertising space bought with criminal intent.
Lavi had taken himself by surprise to discover Kanda glaring down at him; look 'ere, see, no way could I have slept on that lap.
Because the legs with that lap attached t' 'em, yeah, them legs, yeah?
Could behead a bull at twenty paces.
Owing to Kanda's mature (compared to that fateless flight to Hungary) age, chop it down to fifteen paces, yeah?
Yeah. How daintily scintillating, this cuddle with death.
No wonder his ear'd gone numb; sleeping on muscular legs is as comfortable as sleeping on a wooden headrest. Especially if you're a flailing sleeper, which Lavi's body occasionally sees itself fit to be. Turning to sleep on his side had his ear burning from the friction of skin on smooth, hard wood, damn you Egyptian log.
However, the soul of the lap is a damn sight more comforting than that of the headrest. Worth being half deaf, really, especially if morning service included what totally amounts to petting from Kanda.
The interrogation followed when Lavi's eye looked like it was on an upper while the rest of the body was heavily involved with a downer. You were crying what why were you crying what done it.
No what no er it 's m'body clock out of whack a ha ha ha ha ha. The questions asked and answered had the same distant, blurry quality of the night before, and Lavi supposes with time and a good night's sleep this too will be remembered with shocking clarity.
He won't even need sticky skin on his cheeks to tip off the memory.
"Why'd we have t'wake up?" Lavi is searching for a more situational answer than "We'd be dead if we never did" here.
He actually wants to ask Kanda why the hell the man had obliged a fool's request, then follow that up with how should this fool go about having his requests filled more often. Still, we deal with what we're dealt with (then under the table underhandedly cheat to get what we fancy).
"I have to get ready for work, you idiot. I don't have a hobby that anyone would pay me for." Because being a photographer is in no way a legitimate, *adult* profession. Painting, yes, it required a lot of effort, and Tiedoll seemed to require almost as much time to select a suitable frame for his works as he did painting them. Pointing and clicking, my, what a travesty.
Lavi yawns, shifting to cover his mouth with Kanda's side. When he bites down, he hits a leather belt buckle, and that can't have been very comfortable to sleep in. He gnaws on it in mild, emphatic annoyance. "You cook like th'devil, don't you? 'm sure you could open a catering business if y'fancied."
And discreetly put razor blades in the creme brulee of clients that treat the busboy rudely or the ones that feel up waitresses, goes unsaid. Vigilante Catering, "Judge Us On Our Just Desserts" is, while catchy, patently untrue. Kanda, cheerfully making his life's motto one that asks for people to be critical?
"We'll Judge You While You Eat", more like. Can't you just see it taking off? Dead bodies with their faces drowning in lobster bisque.
You can't doubt that the soup would taste nice, at least.
"I have never cooked for *crowds*," that dirty C word. The most people he's cooked for in one go could be counted on one hand.
Well, except for that one time that woman in the cafeteria, Emily or Emma or Ermine (why is Elephant ringing a bell?) had fallen sick just a couple of hours before the mess hall was due to host the arrival of a general major for lunch. Some one hundred mouths needed fancy feeding, and Kanda was the first one to answer the call of duty with a gruff "What."
He couldn't smell anything but tea-smoked duck for the next week. The kitchen staff had been sworn to secrecy, but the dishwasher knew Tiedoll (in the way that a bizarre number of wildly varied people seemed to know Tiedoll)(himself included, the trilingual copper with slanted eyes and a wonderful command of the word 'fuck') and had told him of his son's conquest.
They'd gone out on a celebratory dinner to a fancy restaurant, where Kanda had discovered that his father had applied for a job for him there as a trainee chef. Kanda's always known Tiedoll fretted over his choice of career, had fretted even more with what had happened to Daisya, but that was one of the few times Kanda had truly understood the depth of a family's concern (even *later* it came to light that Marie actually *owned* the entire restaurant).
Take every opportunity to take him away. Sometimes Kanda thinks longingly of retiring, go to the countryside (possibly Japan's) and become a farmer. Toiling in the soil is the way to go. You might get trampled getting cows drunk on rice wine, but at least you won't get shot. Somewhere within easy reach of the people who need his hand to hold.
"I have faith in y'ability. Y'fed me well enough, yeah? Nothing gets m'nose as clear as y'curry, and this is me saying it after being in India f'six months." They should package it and call it a miracle. Sinus problems no more! Hur bloody rah, he'd nearly sneezed his nose off in that one, long European summer, the most boisterous, flowery one to date.
Also worth noting. Does his mouth smell? Puff puff fucking ew. Smells like flat wine and tiredness. Good thing they aren't talking face to face, or Kanda would surely eject him from his own home on a charge of Behaviour Likely To Incite Violence (In Yuu).
"Whatever. Just get off, I need to leave." Kanda swats insistently at Lavi's temple, not entirely certain that Lavi isn't drunk. If he isn't, he wouldn't be going at Kanda's belt with teeth and tongue like the leather is really beef. Maybe he should make breakfast, for fear of Lavi going at the elephants on his wall with a fork and spoon (he is a little flattered that his food's been flattered).
Grudgingly Lavi throws himself into sitting upright, feeling nauseous and a little bit obnoxious. He brushes hair back from his face, blinking and blinking and coming to terms with this night well-spent. Thanks, it's been illuminating, he's just been reminded he's not right in the head.
He's also just been reminded why it always was worth the effort to send highly suspicious, oddly-shaped parcels of gifts to Kanda from countries intent on being difficult. A few have him on a watchlist as a suspected arms dealer or drug baron; to them he wishes good luck in trying to find any evidence. The most dangerous thing he's sent Kanda was the English-translation of the Kama Sutra with a cover embroidered with gold thread and the terribly misleading title of Physiological Anomalies. The needlewoman had swindled him for that, he had no doubt, and according to Kanda it never reached him. The sentiment was worth it, though.
(Kanda lies like he's bald-faced. After needing a sit-down five pages in, he'd gone on quickly to finish the book with morbid curiousity, wonderment and sheer horror. It's been locked in the small box made of cinnamon bark, and the smell of it in Kanda's room taunts him).
Lavi stretches, reaches for his toes, reaches them. There's a burn in his back, and it wakes him up right and proper where blazing sunlight coming in through unclosed curtains could not. The plan for the day unravels itself in his mind; get in touch with his contacts around town, and see what job opportunities abound. He's heard (as he would) that the river needs cleaning; he's a man who looks sexy in galoshes (as he would). Something to do. He could promise to protect the peace, even. He looks good as a boy in blue, what a suggestion.
Lavi smiles in a hopelessly pleased way, and Kanda spots the telltale dimple in his cheek. If Kanda fills it with cement, he wonders if it will dampen his feeling of foreboding.
"All's well then, Yuu. Get y'ass downstairs 'nd get ready t'protect the world from devastation. I'll meet you in a bit, yeah?"
Kanda wants to impose a ban of the Thou Shalt Not Pass variety, but knows it's pointless. He'd extended what amounted to an open invitation years ago, plus Lavi probably still had keys to Kanda's locks. There was no point in complaining, though he wouldn't go without a token grumble.
"Do whatever you want." He gets up and stumbles a little bit. His legs are asleep still, numb and prickly, and about as mobile as a porcupine under heavy sedation.
He falls back onto the sofa like the falling of a Giant Sequoia.
His head thunks against the back. "Fuck ow."
Lavi grins and jumps to his feet in a flurry of activity Kanda hates him for. "Hey ya. Not a morning person, huh?"
What the hell gave it away. It's like Lavi didn't remember nearly being bludgeoned to death for trying to break into Kanda's apartment at some ungodly hour in the morning. His hair has tangled into an unfathomable mess, despite him not having done anything less innocent than sleeping on a chair.
With someone's head on his lap.
If this is divine retribution, Kanda tips his head in acknowledgement and will respectfully say fucking fuck you. He understands the need to save yourself, not quite the need to save yourself for marriage.
"I'm not." Which is nowhere near as vehement a response as he would've liked. He wanted to complain a lot, about how three hours of staring at Lavi's ceiling lamp started making him feel a bit like an owl with a sudden urgent need to perch on the metal branches, how betrayed he felt by his legs, and by how fucked up Lavi had to be to ask for them to live together and then start crying in relatively quick succession. This is not how things happen in real life. Kanda would know. He's a realist. Lavi, though, simply must be a hallucinogen.
Hoot.
"Tell y'what. Have a go at m'bath tub, wake up all right 'nd proper, 'nd we'll go out f'breakfast. Then I'll send y'off at th'station 'nd get some chores done. Is th'super still the one that was here when I was?"
The bastard who had nearly given Kanda's keys to Lavi *voluntarily*? "No." The man had been called by the government of Papua New Guinea to be a research diver (the man had hidden depths!) just a couple of years after Lavi left, and the reason Kanda knows and remembers is because the super sends New Year's cards that always arrived some time in August of the no-longer-so-new-year.
Lavi could see a lot of information deemed unworthy was being ommitted, but hold your peace, he has a lot of time to do a lot of things. He extends a hand in invitation. "C'mon, bills must bother you 's much as ever, yeah? Have a bath on me," please "'nd we'll have a nice day."
Kanda considers this offer. "My clothes are downstairs. I'm not climbing down the emergency escape after I've bathed." Because a bath it will be. It would give him time to sort out his hair and get into a more humane set of mind. Workday today comprises of serious business, and disorientating though it is to suddenly have Lavi at home again, Kanda has a stranglehold on his wits; he keeps them about.
That being said... No amount of mustered courage would make it okay to climb down old iron stairs in just a towel. Paint flecks and rust would come off on his skin, and that is about as vile as vile gets.
"I'll grab something f'you. This going t'be a plainclothes day? Or your uniform?"
Policemen's uniforms are somewhat notorious for making the wearers look a little bit like wankers. Something about the cut of the sleeves, the hitch of the trousers, the colour of the cloth, offsets one another to create quite the dicking ensemble.
But something about Kanda's jet-black hair (now shorter but no less marvelous), the width of his shoulders, the length of his legs, they all work in tandem to make Kanda in uniform one of the best looking things on Earth.
If, say, he were to join a Mister Universe section. When time comes for the talent portion of the paegeant, all he would need to do is go on stage in full uniform and stand there looking deadly. The ability to look that good in uniform, that's a Universe-winning talent right there.
(There's a thread on 4chan about people you'd like to be arrested by. Some anonymous posted a picture of Kanda, who shot up ratings and was at a rock-steady fifth position despite no one knowing who the hell this Asian guy was. Well, except Lavi, obviously. It was one of his rare full-body shots of his boy in blue.)
In short, Lavi is a little shuddery with anticipation.
Kanda has no such care. "My uniform." He tries to remember where his bullet-proof vest is, and concludes it's in his locker at the station. Absently he rubs at his arm, the scar from the bullet wound faded but still there. It wasn't a serious wound, didn't hit bone or anything, but on cold nights it seems to forget its humble origins and ache like a, like a...
Polaroid picture (stop saying Hey Ya you red-headed asshole).
(Even if Lavi's only said it once, and said it aaaaaaaages ago)
Lavi sees Kanda looking at him with intense loathing, and brushes it off like a duck feels loving disdain for water. "There're towels in th'cabinet next t'the tub, so knock y'self out."
In the bathroom? Literally? Perfectly doable. All he needed were a few bottles of assorted toiletries, arrange them in a bundle and wrap them up with the towel, then swing it at himself ala a painfully unfunny scene in a tasteless comedy involving, inevitably, nunchuks. A make-shift blackjack, a subject Kanda is hopelessly familiar with.
A matter of great personal hygiene bothers him. "Teeth brushing. You must have an extra toothbrush, or I'm going to hit you."
This is, you see, Lavi sneakily implementing his plan to get Kanda to move in with him, or vice versa. First, Kanda has his own toothbrush in Lavi's bathroom.
Next thing you know they'll be knocking through Lavi's floor to install a staircase in their new, possibly fantastically homoerotic, duplex.
"Got extra ones in th'cupboard under the sink. Just pick whichever one y'want." He doesn't bother to mention that all the new toothbrushes had designs of the Power Rangers. The shot of nostalgia he had been wounded with when he saw them in the pharmacy had proved too strong to withstand.
And that's domestic, possibly fantastically homoerotic bliss in the morning.
*
Oh, but Kanda does look brilliant in uniform.
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I hadn't realised the last time this was updated was so long ago ._. Hopefully nothing else utterly heart-breaking happens while I'm asleep.