[fic] La Soupe à l'Oignon (kanda/lavi)

[su_dama]

Title: What Is Commonly Referred To As La Soupe à l'Oignon  
Pairing: Kanda/Lavi, Theodore, Daisya, Marie
Rating: R for language and sexuality
Disclaimer: DGM belongs to Hoshino Katsura et al
A/N: High School AU Flashback!; Theodore lets something damaging slip, and Kanda throws a damaging tizzy.

&

Kanda had been chopping the onions and being quite the spectacular son when Theodore had to wrestle him into this menial task of continuing to chop the onions.  So Kanda was then obligated to chop onions and do something with the cheese.  Whatever the cookbook says, you know the story.  It's been done a million times before:  make a soup, fuck it up, then eat it up, and spit it out -

But Kanda is a very good cook, overall.  He is also the piece de resistance (how's that for practique, eh?) at kitchen duties.  (As well as convincing others of his greatness, but that only has little to do with this.)

He just didn't know at the time exactly why in the effing hellfire his adoptive father would come out and say just like your mother over supper assemblage.

Caramelize caramelize sauté sauté steep steep etcetera etcetera.

Frankly, at the time, Kanda had fixed his mind at a higher level of awareness (because this makes cooking with your father much less distasteful), so he wasn't quite, how you say, aware of the fact that his father was being quite obvious.  Captain Obvious, really. How about Marshal The Obvious Has A-Spoken?  That really rings a bell.  But not a nice bell.  Think of a bell in a Satan-worshiping chapel (?) and you'll understand.

Or not.

Moreover, they have just started eating their meal, enjoying it (or not) in their many individual ways.  Namely, Theodore is giving Kanda the benefit of the doubt (even though Theodore had supervised Kanda over most of the fickle cooking process); Daisya (with perpetual jock girlfriend in tow, but hardly lockjaw) acting as if he will lock his jaw any second now from a fit; Marie, big and bulky and being somewhat generous with his blind yet unconvincing smile . . .  They are all lumpy prats!

In the meantime Kanda forms a rhyme in his head about these prats.  He would die before sharing it, so no, you may not hear it.

He's not a liar, but he's not a ritzy glutton either. He would hate for word to get out about his rhyme and then - bam!  There are pappapwhatsitmongrels at his doorstep, begging for an interview and another taste of his sheer brilliance.  They will say, however did you come up with a rhyme for liars?  Isn't that a bit Princess Di?  However did you manage to make liars rhyme with prats, for instance?  That is the true challenge.  It is a true leap of faith!

Then something fragile inside snaps, goes - in a word - kablooey, and Kanda must pause very starkly to think about this challenge. Tender it.  Make it mush in his brain.

So.

What the fuck does he mean by JUST LIKE YOUR MOTHER.

*

Kanda stands up abruptly, unceremoniously snagging the tablecloth and nearly tearing the entire table right down into his lap. He points at his imbecilic father with every spazzy nerve and indiscretion he has ever had to muster.  He is full of spit and hot wires.  Make that split wires.  He wants to set ruin.  To some idiot.  Fire and ruination!

"You liar!" Kanda shouts, pointing and pointing.  He brings his hand down to rest for a moment, then starts again.  "You liar!"

"Now, Yuu.  What is this . . . ?"

"How could you hide it?!"

"Yuu?  What is this, you are being . . . ?  Oh.  Oh no."

That's right.  Oh no.  Oh no I don't think so.

"You liar!"  Kanda might have to change it up a bit more.  He fears he is being too lenient on the subject.  "Did you, or did you not.  Say.  That you are my father."  Of my blood is what he means to add but never does because it is lodged somewhere in his voice box, like an infestation.

There is a slight popping potsticker movement and Kanda remembers the other idiots who are pretending that this is a family meal of all that is beautiful and set upon a pedestal, posh harmonious daisies, etcetera.  Tch!  Daisya is saying blah blah blah this happens at times blah blah don't worry too much about it blah Kanda is having one of those bleeding periods again blah. His girlfriend - who is so on Kanda's hitlist that it pains him to let her go on unhit (never mind that one should never hit a girl) - sits there huddled against him as if she couldn't kick Daisya's ass even if she tried.

But she could.  Kanda has seen it.

Which gives him pause about her being on his hitlist to begin with.

That - that so-called father figure before him bows his head over his soup, putting his spoon down.  He presses his lips together and adjusts the spectacles that he has cracked from clumsiness again.  His eyes fucking shine a fucking crime.  Yes, a crime.  Do not think this is simply due to a simple syndrome of simple loose cannonry, the latter being the opposite.  You know.  Whatever!  As if Kanda should care about his feelings.  Lies!  Every last one!  Loose cannon is looser than anyone could ever fathom, let alone Kanda himselfffff!

"I can understand your sentiment.  But Yuu, please, s'il vous plaît, that is very rude," that father figure murmurs sickishly, cheeks flushing.

Senti.  Ment?

Mentmentment - bah.

Kanda lifts his bowl and tips the (large) remainder of his soup over onto the tablecloth.  It is a very vindicated waterfall that is more than just water that does him at least a facsimile of justice.  The Girlfriend makes a gutted sound.  Daisya says some line to disassociate the occasion, like this happens all the time, let's boogie.  Oh he will get it later, he will.

Kanda continues to glare his stupid bastard father to death as if his eyes are stuck this way.  Actually, they are getting there.  Actually, it's getting quite painful, really.  "You lied to me."  YOU LIED TO ME.  "You were always lying to me."   WHAT WAS IT ALL?  WHAT EVEN?  WHAT?

He just doesn't even.

"Yuu, we have the guest," the Bastard says.

Kanda looks at the Girlfriend again.   "I thought she was part of the upholstery."

The Girlfriend drops her jaw and stands up.  Daisya shakes his head and gives Kanda his goofiest look yet.  "Let's get out of here, girl.  It'll be finished by dessert.  Then we can have Da's tarts.  Yippee, a bit of footie."

"That might be better than - um, Mister Theo, thanks for sup'," she amends, waving dramatically to cause Kanda some major short-circuiting of the brain and shortness of breath of the . . . breath.  Though he probably has the Bastard to thank for that.

HE WILL NEVER THANK HIM AGAIN.  FOR ANYTHING.  ANYTHING!

"Thanks," he spits out, throwing his cloth napkin at their stupid retreating backsides.  It is beyond his brain why in the blazing hellfire he would say such a thing.  What he really should say is thanks for allowing me the opportunity to kick your ass.  Daisya turns around briefly to gesture wildly about the widest gulf between the Bastard and Kanda.

"I'm sorry!  Please come back when everything turns for the better!" the Bastard calls out, blotting at his mouth with his napkin.  "Remember to call me Froi when you come back!"

Then Daisya leaves, just leaves, without another word.  Nothing to comfort Kanda with, nothing to show that he cares about the total sham and crap and utter nutjob Kanda's life has been until now.  Now what is the use of an older brother if he will just leave you to the dogs of destiny?

Useless piece of -

This might be karma, in fact.  Matter of fact, it just might be.  Though Kanda is wondering if this might also have anything to do with the girl he very nearly duffed up the other day for making whore eyes at Lavi.  (She had been literally asking for it, with her hand on his arm . . . )

Hmmm.  "I hate you.  Get out of my life ," he tells the Bastard, who has also stood up, hands clasped awkwardly as if in prayer.  Like a fallen priest.

Which he is.  It has been confirmed!

Marie starts.  "Yuu."  He stands as well.  "Yuu, he's our father.  He still remains your father.  Have some patience."  He feels around for things to tuck away lest Kanda decides to off their 'faaaather' with something like a soup spoon.

And Kanda wants to say, no, no Yuuing allowed.  It has never been allowed.  Kanda is not sure why it should start.  After all, he is in control of this spectacularly shitty situation.  He -

Fathering is not allowed, either.

*

Hooold the slippery sword.

What is this about coming back when it is better . . . ?

Right, that's it.

*

Kanda has charged upstairs and locked himself into his room.  He is Not Very Happy.

Because the lying Bastard had said, to a perfectly complete stranger, to come back.

Well, she is not perfect, nor complete, nor a stranger.  She tends to come round often, in fact.

It is very well damn annoying and definitely more annoying than Walker has ever been and ever will be.

Even Lavi.

*

"Yuu?" the lying Bastard says through the door.

"Oh yeah!" Kanda says, nodding to himself through the shitstorm.  He vaults onto his bed with a power plug in hand.  "Tell a perfectly complete stranger that!  But to your own son, oh noooo.  You wait eighteen bloody useless years - "

"Yuu, what are you going on?  Please come out so we can talk about this."  There is quiet.  "To be fair, it has been seventeen years, since you were made."

Yeah.  Seventeen -

Hundred.

He takes a breath.  "Maybe it's been nineteen!  Have you been lying about my age, too?!"  He vaults off the bed and almost strangles himself with the plug.  It is very difficult, but also very easy, to do this.  Having an incident with the plug does wonders on Kanda's self-esteem.  He balks at the door.  "And I hate.  Onion.  Soup.  You never listen to me!"  Hate you hate you hate you!

Kanda hates youuuu!!!!!!  Oh this is a very sad day.  Bad, mostly.  Crap, even.  Hell, his life has been rendered a steaming pile of horse manure.

"My son.  Please listen to me.  I had my reasons to [blahblahblahfuckingFrenchblah]."

"Y-you were never a father to me!  You.  French.  Bastard."  He looks around, and then studies his plaid slippers.  He takes another self-propelling breath.  "Who eats French Onion Soup!"  Yeah.  That!

(Then there is talk on the other side about not being raised like vulgar vitriols and such.)

So far, Kanda has successfully depressed himself much further than intended.  His life is crap, his esteem is crap, and everything is only but a lie, rearing its ugly head out of the lardy egg of life!

He crosses his arms at the door and then remembers that his ex-father should not be able to see through it.

Ex.  That is right.  But not x-ray vision.

He gets right to work.

*

Packing packing.  Packing crappy packing.  Oh he is lacking the necessary skills for the occasion.  His brain has gone off on holiday to, say, the Netherlands.  Where crack has been made necessarily legal.  Is it really?  Necessary, that is.  Well, Kanda hardly cares, for he is packing to relieve himself of the crap that is his ex-father. That is right.  Ex.

"Kanda?  Have you . . . ?  May I come in?" Marie says.

No!  No one in this godforsaken crap heap may enter ever!  Again!

"Yeah," Kanda says, quickly unlocking it for him, pulling Marie in by the elbow, and then quickly locking it again just in case that French nut tries to come back.  It is the French nut's house, after all.  He might use the reasoning that it is his house and thus his bedroom.  Which does not bode well with Kanda.  So.

There is only one way to properly eschew a French nut.

(Cashew hahahahaha - )

Kanda absentmindedly smiles - and laughs darkly to himself.  He also absentmindedly stashes some biscuit rubbish into his luggage.  There is no time to be choosey, you see.

"Why are you laughing?  I thought you were upset?" Marie says heavily from his position on Kanda's bed.  His hair is wavy and wavily annoying.  But he is less annoying than that Bastard with the French nuts.  Erg.  Nuts that have apparently begotten Kanda.

"I am.  I will peg him to a damn peg board before I leave this hellhole.  Then, I will leave."

"All right."

"He will hang there for ages after I leave.  All the land will come to witness his ex-ness and liar's nose."

"All right.  Can laughing be a normal reaction to a revelation such as this?"  Marie pauses, too heavily.  "Is that rubbish you're tossing about?"

"Marie, focus.  That has hardly anything to do with - "  What the bleeding onion dip are his biscuit crumbs doing in his cleanest of luggages?!

All right, he only has one.  But still.  He cannot even keep himself together on account of all the crapness and lies his life is based on!  What is a Kanda to do?

He flicks the crumbs away across his floor.  Some find their way onto Marie and Marie swipes at them, amused.

"Stop that."

Marie stops swiping.  He leans back onto the bed.

"I meant that expression on your face."

"How else am I supposed to let you know that you are being a lousy crud about this?  I have never seen you act this way before - in a long time."

Kanda snorts at the lame joke, taking a biro and flinging it at Marie's face.  (Yes, one should dare you to do this at home.  Think of all the bloody possibilities.)  Marie deftly catches it and flings it back at Kanda's ass.  Kanda cleverly moves out of the way. The biro gets lodged into a wall poster of, well, wouldn't you die to know?

Kanda continues to pack with the speed of a revolution!  A velvet revolution!  He thinks he might have screwed up somewhere when he checks his work to discover that it is packed tight but not with the proper supplements.  Oh what a hardship, he must start over.  Oh fuck his life.  FML FML etcetera.

"You can use my flat, I don't need it," Marie says during the gaping silence.  Because Kanda is gaping at his work, he is.

"I don't need your help."

"All right."

It is in his natural nature to get huffy about it.  "I'll move into it right away."  Very huffy.

"Do you have any sense of what you're doing?"

"Yes, I am repacking."

"Yuu."

"I am even folding."  But you can't see that I am or that I'm not hahahaha -

"Good."  Marie gets up and moves over to where Kanda is on the floor.  He nudges him away.  "Go talk to our father.  I'll pack for you."

"Ludwig.  How can you pack when you can't see what I want packed?"

Marie frowns, practically tossing Kanda out of his own room.  The nerve!

"I'm going," Kanda claims, standing stock-still by the lock.

Marie chucks a random sheath at him.

"All right, I'm going!"  You see he is goiiiinnnggggggggguh.

"Then why isn't the door creaking open?"

"That is twisted, Noise."  Though he knows that his brother is blind, which means his brother has a better grasp of the senses than Kanda will ever achieve.  It is almost disheartening.  Kanda should throw the handle at him just to make his point clear.

He sneers and slams the door behind him instead.  So that he is stuck in the corridor.  A crap corridor.  With unframed paintings all over the damn crappy place.  How exactly has he survived?!  Tell him, because he would very much like to know, and then take out his frustrations on your poor sodding body.

He sneaks off to the lavatory for his toothbrush.

He walks in, not minding the open door or bright light, and then his soul nearly crawls up into his skull.  "What happened to the utility sink?"

The Bastard shrugs glumly.  "I seem to have stoppered it."

"Again?"

"Mais oui."

Kanda remembers that the ex-father in front of him had begotten him a very long time ago.  "Tch.  Gros menteur."  He's only come for his toothbrush, not a Deep Discussion About Possible Paint Thinners.

The Bastard says, "Non.  Il est triste, vraiment."

And Kanda (a hint of a bastard by association?!) says, "Est-ce vrai?"

And the Bastard stupidly says, "Aw oui, oui."

"Father!" Kanda spits out, finally reaching the end of his tether.  "How many times must I repeat myself?  I don't.  Speak French!"  He pauses, shuddering like a cat.  "You are insufferable!  No wonder my poor mother had to be rid of you!  She would have suffered like an idiot!  [BlahblahwhyishespeakingFrenchblahcouldhebeonautopilotblah?!]"

Kanda is quite sure - certain, even - that he has covered all points and bullets, even in a different so-not-native language.  He turns the light off at the end of his dither attack, making quite sure that he will never speak la langue française again!

He puts his head in his hands.  Fuck!

Oh fuck his life.  Fuck his life right off a fucking cliff right fucking now.  Hopefully he will not live through it.

"Yuudachi!" the Bastard is saying.  "Yuudachi, listen to me at this moment."

"Non!"  Er.  "No!"  No bloody way is Kanda about to listen to his biological - oh cruddy karma he cannot bear to think it.

The Bastard dares to follow him.  How stupidly brave he is.  Courageous and brave and awfully stupid.

"You know nothing of your mother, Yuudachi."

Kanda tries to block him from entering his room.  He does this by threatening to put a body-sized hole through one of the canvases on the wall.  He is very well-prepared to do this.  He has done it before, so he is well-practiced.

"Reposa," the Bastard says carefully.  He puts his hands up, as if to calm (?) Kanda (???).  (Ah hahahahaha.)  "That is fine.  No more French.  I will not speak another word.  Just please put it away, my art?"  He does sound genuinely repentant.

Kanda peels a bit of landscape away from the canvas.

"Noooon!"

"Ah, you are a liar."  Kanda feels quite proud of himself.  And also very depressed, has he said?  Make that ultrabloodylutely depressed.  With spasms in his forehead, for example.  His eyeballs seem to be springing from his face, they're twitching so much.

Marie opens the bedroom door, popping his head out.  Kanda almost slams the canvas into him by reflex.  Marie rubs his forehead.  "Did you just hit me?  Never mind.  What is the fuss?"

"Yuudachi has become disagreeable to me," the Bastard blubbers, arms still open wide for his art.  His spectacles are askew.

"Kanda, come off your highchair," Marie says, annoyingly.  "Nothing will be solved by your - whatever you're doing.  Just drop it.  Father, don't pull me into another one of your debacles.  Please."

"Noooon!" the Bastard whines.

"Or don't drop it?" Marie adds.

"Ludwig, hold your brother down till I secure my painting," the Bastard whines even more.

Kanda's eyes will surely twitch out of his eye sockets.  Where they would normally come from, yeah.

"Father, Kanda will kill me before I do so.  You know that."

"Yes, that exact thing will happen," Kanda adds to clear the air.  Just in case they've been misunderstanding him at all in the past half hour.  Then he makes a very unclear sound.  "You're a bloody traitor!  Why do you have to be so unflinchingly loyal to him?  What next?  You're to tell me you've known all along?"

Marie blinks in his direction.  His expression sort of . . . devolves . . .

Kanda points at him, losing contact with the canvas until it slams against the floor.  All hell breaks loose!  Oh well.  "Now that is twisted."

Marie shakes his head.  "I have nothing to do with this.  You're making a fuss over - "

"I don't need your flat!" Kanda yells at him, kicking the canvas out of the way and nearly breaking his big toe.  He shoves past Marie and returns from the bowels of his room a minute later.  "I'm never coming back!"  There is much whining and cranky conniption from his ex-father.  It is rather over the top, in Kanda's modest opinion.

"Yuudachi," the Bastard tries again, but Kanda eschews him with more than a firm hand.  He gives him the cold shoulder with so much coldness that Kanda grows ill with it.

"I don't know what you expect from me when you say that name.  As if I would know what you're raving mad about."

*

Kanda really hates his name.  Especially fictional names that old French nuts make up.

It's a disgrace that it's not fictional.  Quite.

It's a disgrace that Kanda is named Yuudachi.

His mother was also quite clearly a raving madman.

Woman.

*

Lunatic.

*

Lunatic in French is lunatic, by the way.

*

Oh fuck it all!  He can make it on his own.  Even if he has to scrape for scraps and eat pigeon poo.  And the pigeons with the poo.

If you bump into someone who looks like he may be Kanda (no first name in existence), then he is probably Kanda.  And he probably needs no help from you.

*

"Lavi!  Open up!"

Lavi opens his front door, half-dressed with his hip bones sticking out -

"I need your help.  Mind if I?  All right."  And this is how Kanda moves in for the time being.

"What're ya?  I just phoned your place.  Your da says you went out on a lam?  I almost phoned Allen."

Non.  Er.  "The hell.  Listen.  My father is a fucking lying lunatic."

"What did he do this time?  And why are you missing?"

"I'm not.  I am right here, you idiot."

Idiot is idiot in French, too, by the way.

"Point taken.  Don't be a hot cross bun."

Kanda seethes over this, but this is also going to take a while, so he flings his luggage down and settles onto the kitchen counter.  "Tea," he says simply.  He holds his hand aloft.

"Wanna talk about it?"

"No."

Lavi prepares the tea.  It smells like English Breakfast.  This is hardly the time for any E.B.  Kanda snaps his fingers and Lavi grimaces.  He grumbles something highly unnecessary and probably stupider than what is, rifling through the jar of teabags.  He pulls out another and Kanda nods.  Yes, Your Highness Shall Take That.  Lavi sighs and prepares it like a page-in-waiting.  Because that is what he is.

Kanda realizes that he might have pulled a muscle in his race to outrun the Lunatic Bastard.  It had felt like a marathon to end all marathons.  He feels as if he is dying.

*

Slowly.

*

He sips his tea.  Lavi stares at him.

"Is there something on my face?  No?  Then stop staring."

"Have you been - ?"

"No."

"You were."

"Was not."

"What is that?"

"Dirt."

"You were."

"I don't want to talk about it."

*

"So.  What he said.  Was it that bad?"

"Shut it, rabbit-rouser."

*

"Yuu.  We all do it."

"I am not afraid to hit my host, I remind you."  And no, we all do not rouse rabbits.

"It's okay.  Really.  I cried when you conked me on the noggin the last time.  There's still a sore."

Kanda tries very hard to properly eschew him with his tea cup.

All he ends up with is a clingy crud slash chatty lunatic who is married to the word.  Because people like Lavi put the luna in tic. Or whatever.

*

"Lavi.  My father.  Is now my ex-father.  I have henceforth disowned him.  He is dead to me."

"So ya wanna talk about it, then?"

"Not really."

*

Kanda has tucked himself into a pan of portly pie.  It does not matter what it is, it only matters that it be in front of him with his fork scooping out its insides.  He scoops and scoops.  Of course it must all go into his mouth and then down his food pipe.

"Er, Yuu, you'll get fat that way.  Stuffin' away your miseries."

Kanda ignores him.  "Bookman is a decent cook."

Lavi ignores him.  "You'll get fat and roly-poly like Allen.  Like a big fat sprout of bean.  Bean curd, too."

Kanda cannot ignore this.  He pushes the not-so-portly-anymore pie away.  He puts his hands together to brood and to keep away the Ugly Urges.

*

He chews his lip to keep himself from chewing on the pie.

He really hates pie.  He's not sure why he must love it so much.

*

Do you know?  He might be in bumfuck denial.  This phase takes a really long time, doesn't it?  Don't answer that.  Kanda apparently cannot handle the truth.

"I saw Allen cry over a pie once.  It was e-mazing," Lavi says, as if hoping to provide assistance.

"Thank you, Lavi, for your useless input.  Pass the sugar now."

*

They have run out of sugar and Kanda is about to break Lavi's head and the neck attached to it.

"Yuu!  Resist!  Resist!"

"Resist what, exactly?  You are barely dressed and I am armed with health food.  What now?"

Lavi swallows at Kanda's Ugly Urges.  He puts the empty jar in a cupboard far, far(thest) away.

"It gives me time to think," Kanda says convincingly.

"So ya wanna talk about it, eh?"

"I said already, I have no intention of talking about it."  Kanda scratches his ear and sighs, rubbing his stomach due to the Ache.  "Don't mistake this.  I am not gutted over it."

"A'righty."

"Unlike my ex-bastard-father, I am not a . . . "

"Not a what?"

"Keep up!  A liar."

"Riiight.  Gotcha!"

Kanda grumbles and slumps off to Lavi's room.  Lavi follows him.  Kanda ignores him.  Lavi ignores the ignoring sensation, most possibly.  And what is this?

Yes, it is highly annoying.

But it is an accident when Kanda swats Lavi in the groin.

*

"You didn't even give me time to gird them!  Ooowww."

"That's your fault.  You were petting me."

"Er, yeah?  Ow.  You looked like you needed iiit ooowww."

"Quit your bitching.  Be grateful to your sorry gods that you're not a bastard of a bastard."

Lavi has the nerve to give him the cold shoulder, hulking over his broken loins.  Huff!  Kanda has bigger problems, keep up, keep up, don't fall behind into the pit of despair as Kanda has almost done.

"To top it off," Kanda continues, "my brothers are on his side.  They are also dead to me."

"Ouch.  Really?"

"Yes.  I will let them have it in their next life because I do not care to see them in this one ever again."

"Tha's cool."

"Furthermore, they are insufferable idiots."

"Insufferable, huh?"

"My mother had a right head on her neck to leave him."  Sort of.  Just there.  Wait.  Did she have a head?  Kanda can't quite remember a thing about her.

"So," Lavi says casually, beating around the bush.  "Did she leave him, or did he leave her?"

Kanda opens his mouth to answer.  But he has no answer.

Well, this is strange.

*

He usually has a straightforward, no-nonsense, biting (unbelievably, you might believe) answer to everything.

Usually.

Except when he had a bit of a fit earlier, crying (not) like that.

In his defense, it was more like the cousin of crying.  It was dying, really.

Because dying is naturally associated with crying, and vice versa.  And.  Well.  That's all there is, isn't there?

*

"They are all dead to me."

"You said that already."

Kanda paces the room.  He rubs his knuckles together.  "What do you mean by HE LEFT HER."

"Whoa, boss, whoa, I have two ears, not one."

"THAT'S WHAT IT SOUNDED LIKE.  WHEN YOU SAID IT."

Lavi lolls out his tongue and massages his eardrums.  When he is done, he pats his chest and seems to be offering something of most unimportance.  A flaming nancy gesture?

"Is that your lame call to the wild?" Kanda ventures.

"No?  Come to papa, Yuu," Lavi laughs.

Kanda gives him his best nauseated look.  Ad nauseum as well.

Lavi sighs, stretching his arms behind him.  He looks up at Kanda.  "It wouldn't be so bad, would it?"

"What?  You as my pa - my father?  I would rather slit my own throat.  Then my wrists."

"Unavoidable, I suppooose, slitting your wrists after you've lopped your head clean off.  It wouldn't be so bad if your da had left your mums."

Kanda glaressss as if this is the very reason he was conceived.  (Erg.)

"Uh.  Not that it would change anything.  Either way you cut it - ah don't cut me! - your dad took you with him.  That's gotta mean somethin'.  He didn't leave you to the wolves."

"Like Dumbass Daisya," Kanda asserts.

"He obviously meant well.  In whatever way he meant it.  Unless he wasn't meaning a thing by it?  Yeah?"

"No."

"Well all right.  It was worth a try."

Kanda stands there, scrunching his toes.  He flares his nostrils, hopefully unattractively to scare off the lust-filled gazes.  He stares at the wall above the bed.  "Marie has always known about it.  My father has always known about it.  Dumbass Daisya probably does not know about it."

"Well, there ya go, mate!  Problem solved, on with the skins show!"

"But I would like to kill him anyway."  Very slooowly.

Lavi snorts and lies back, head cradled by his arms.  He bends his knees and crosses them.  Very compromising, that.

Kanda would like to kind of cause him much pain.  He would like to drill him straight through with one of Komui's Things and then leave Lavi there to bleed to death.  If he'd even have any blood left.

It is all in the name of loveless lorn.  Something like that.

"Oy," he says, narrowing his gaze on him.

Lavi raises his brow.  "Had another epiphany?  May it be thar bumrushes?  I really got the mojo."

"Stop raving, Lavi."

Would that be an ironic look that Lavi may be giving him?

*

Kanda goes to urinate.

In Lavi's toilet, of course.  Though he should take the urine to the tub, he should.  For payback.

Which is a bitch.

*

Bitch bitch bitch.

Kanda finishes and then thinks to say to Lavi, I am going to douse myself, and then drown myself.

But he doesn't say it, which is tiresome.  All that thinking for nothing.

Don't think Kanda was hurt by the events of earlier.  Oh no, that would be beneath him.  And he was so not crying.

*

He was.  A bit.  Like Lavi had the ungrace to point out.  (Why must he not lie at a time like this?  That is the golden question.  Bronze, too.)

Sitting here in the bath (of water) really does wonders to his self-esteem.  Raises it to such great heights, and the like.

Mmm bronze metals bronze swords bronze sword points zzzzzz.

*

JUST LIKE YOUR MOTHER JUST LIKE YOUR MOTHER JUST LIKE YOUR MOTHER and then [they whisper] she died.

*

Kanda spits up water and sits up in his . . . bathwater.  He seems to have fallen into an evangelical version of twilight (zone) sleep, raving on inside his head about, uh, uhhhhhhh.  What, exactly?  Er, that is, he has a lot to rave on about; for example, stupid people.

And stupider people with nature eyes.  Eyes of nature.  You know.

He comes face to face with Lavi at the edge of the tub.

"Evenin', matey," Lavi says.  Stupidly.  Like a lurking lurker.

"Did you say something?" Kanda asks in an accidental falsetto.  He clears his throat and bristles in his cold bathwater.  "How did you get in?"  What time what place ah did you rape me in my sleep?

"Your sud's are all gone."

"I didn't have any suds."

"That might explain a few things, then."

Lavi plays with the water, splashing Kanda as a refresher.  Kanda rubs the grief out of his eyes.  He is in mourning, you cannot hold that against him, nor may you disturb it.

"You are disturbing my mourning period."

"Ah, ye spoilt brat raiseth on spoilt turnips," Lavi begins, flicking Kanda in the face.  "And parsnips."

"I don't like parsnips," Kanda lies.  Then he tries to lift his foot to kick Lavi away from the water.  "Where do you get off calling me a brat?  Not a brat, you prat and idiot pratface."

"Yuu?  The water's eaten away your flesh.  You're all pruney.  Like a cute prune."

That Damned Cat mewls from the outside of the tub.

"I am in mourning, idiot.  I do not need to hear about how cute I am right now, fuck you very much."

*

Though he might later.

It'll raise his spirits higher and higher.  Lift me up, lift me up, oh la la la la la -

Out, Moby, out of Kanda's poor temporal lobes.

*

Lavi is going through Kanda's clothes and saying that there are no clothes.  Wearable, that is.

"What do you mean there are no wearable clothes?"

"Looks like you've packed for an excursion on the Tube."

That can't be.  Kanda is a brilliant packer.  (Obviously Marie is not.  Obviously Marie did a miserable job on purpose!!!)  He's had to do it before, you know, in similar situations such as this.  As a matter of fact, Lavi's been witness to a handful of those situations.

Conclusively, Lavi is a constant factor, possibly, which is a comfort, all in all.  Kanda is comforted that he is not a lackluster packer.  But he is particularly lacking lust at this given moment in time . . .

"I've got to wear something," Kanda says, tossing Lavi out of the way.  He rummages through his luggage and comes up short with, well, no wearable clothes.

"I have no wearable clothes," he huffs.

"That's what I've been tellin' ya!"

"No need to blow the roof, Lavi, I can manage."  Not.

"Yeah, I'd like that.  I love me a nudey Kanda every day of the week, every chance I get, life ain't complete otherwise, unless I lose an eye, or worse, my knob - imagine a girl losing her knobs, but they would be knockers ahahahaha - "  Etcetera.

Kanda pulls out a necktie, mourning over its tired state.  Perhaps it is languishing for him.  Or anguishing.  Whichever is better for the proper purposes of grief.

"I know what we can do with that," says Lavi, bravely.

"I do, too.  I will tie it around your neck and pull very hard," says Kanda, bitterly.

"Yeah, toward your scrumptilicious lips.  Why you mopin'?  C'mon, I'll put some Lavi salve on the sore for ya."

Maybe later.  "Do you not understand?"  Remind Kanda why he must even bother with people who don't know sympathy from a hole in their ass.  "Do you not grasp the full fail that is my life?  I have been consum . . .  Consummately.  Disenfranchised.  Do you not get this?  No?  Well, thanks for nothing."

"Like a consummate consumer?"

"Yes, completely."

"Have you been disgruntled, Yuu?"

"That's what I said."

"And disenfranchised?  What is that in, say, French?"

"Privés de leurs droits, I think.  Wait.  Shut up!  I.  Do not.  Speak.  French.  It is dead to me!  It is practically Latin!  How many times must I repeat and repeat?!"

Lavi is ignoring him.  "And, say, if I cannot pronounce that wahness, can I just say the priv-ay like priv-ee, and be on with it?"

Kanda takes a moment to sort this out.  "You cur, are you calling my native tongue a toilet?"  He chokes Lavi a bit until they are both exhausted and in need of a refreshment.

*

Bookman comes home the minute Kanda is getting his refreshment via Lavi's faculties.  There is a large store of faculties via Lavi.  Much more vis-à-vis.  But anyway, there is no such thing as French.  Bookman knocks on Lavi's bedroom door; it is understandable that the door must be partly responsible for Lavi's unceremonious and onerously rude action of unaffection.

Kanda somehow ends up being used as a mattress.  A very crude one at that.

"Lavi, are you home?"

"Yeah, Gramps, I'm.  Sorta.  In bed."  He wriggles to flatten Kanda out.

The door opens but Kanda cannot see it opening for the lack of the eyesight.  And eyeful of Lavi chest.

"I'll need the record by tomorrow.  We can't hold anything like that for long, brat."

"Alrighty!"

"Must I ask why you are talking to your mattress?"

"Er.  [BlahblahblahRussiansnakelanguageblah.]"

"[Blahblahblahblah?]"  If that is indeed a question, according to Kanda's precious resources.

"Net?" Lavi says.  Kanda nibbles Lavi's nipple in a very grievous manner.  "C-criiipes!"

"Shto?  You cannot accompany me this time."

"N-no!  Uh.  Nothin'.  Uvidimsya okay?!"

Kanda must be mistaken, for Bookman is leaving, grumbling something about hěn fán and hóuzǐ and possibly something with the English cheeky in there.  No, this sounds right on target.

Kkkrrr clicku.

"What was that?  A woman in your bed?" Kanda growls, trying to nudge his knee up into Lavi's balls.  He fails horribly by his own standards.

Lavi looks down at him.  He gives a horrified expression, then a tendering (?) one.  Too tendering.  Too alarming.

Kanda begins to shove him away when the door opens again.  He dives backward and Lavi covers -

"And Lavi, that Kanda is not to eat all my sweets again."  Click!

There is an Abominable Silence To Rival All Abominable Silences.

*

"Vy ponimaete?" Lavi asks nervously.

"Ya ne govoryu po russki," Kanda says quickly.

They want to forget about this as soon as humanly possible.

*

Lavi begins again, all antsy.  "Reckon he's gonna kick m'butt when he gets back?"

"Or mine.  I will kick his before he kicks mine, you know it."  WHAT IS THIS ABOUT A WOMAN IN YOUR BED.

"That's one helluva brawl.  Now where were we?"

They untangle themselves instead and Kanda shoves Lavi away from his dick.  He looks at his luggage strewn across the floor, i.e. evidence of Kanda invasion.  It's good to know Bookman needs a little help with noticing these things nowadays.  He sees the usual addenda, like biscuit foils and hair product that he should not have packed in place of essentials like -

Erase this from your memory.  Go on, delete it.

"Where's he going?" Kanda says, to distract and furthermore erase the sight from Lavi's cumulative memory.  Cumulative is harrowing.  Which is bad.  It's always been a nuisance in cases of extreme panic.

Lavi shrugs, sitting against the wall.  Kanda looks him over thoroughly.  Lavi raises his brow but squints.  Kanda squints back.  "I wasn't in the mood anyway," Kanda says.  His word is law.

Or not.

"Kanda."

Kanda's abdomen squeezes as if coming from an extra bout of coitus.  He hates it when Lavi says his preferred name like that.  He hates it he hates it.

He loves it.

But he loathes it.

"Kanda, you listening?"

"No."

"Good, good.  Now I'm gonna be the observer.  You can listen all you want."

Kanda pulls a pair of Lavi trousers on.  They fall right back down.  It is so very interesting how they tug on his erection, until his erection deflates, and the trousers just fall down to the floor.  He hides his embarrassment.

This doesn't seem to stop Lavi from rambling on about arts (?) and detachment (?!).  "You've got a fam" is the gist after that deluge of useless information.

Albeit, Kanda fails to comprehend the fullest onset of this gist.  "I already told you.  They are dead to me."

"Kanda, maybe you better wake up."

Kanda wonders if flipping Lavi something attached to his hand will get him thrown out of his only refuge.  He tightens the trousers with a belt - jerkishly - to withstand it.

"You always go on about people not appreciating their shit, but when you get down to it, you shit on yours and that's just.  Not cool."  Lavi yawns.  "I hate people like that."

*

Well!

Wasn't that a little harsh?

*

"He lied to me.  I hate liars!"

Lavi is doing a bit of reading at this time, licking his finger to turn the page to his - guitar manual.  He practices the chords with his elbow indenting the bed, lying on this stomach like that.  With no pants on.

Kanda's posture slumps at the disregard.  There is no (detached) disdain anywhere in this room.  Just disregard, wholesome and heartless.  Kanda might as well be slapped in the face.  "I," he nearly whines. Actually, he does, and he will have to remonstrate himself for it later when Lavi is not lurking like a lurker.  "I'm still staying here?"

"Sure," Lavi says, not missing a bar with his reading.

Errr, because Kanda was beginning to think Lavi was hating on him?

Kanda was beginning to think being hated on didn't feel right.  Nor particularly pleasant.  Especially by someone so obviously full of hostility himself.

Hmmm, putting aside the family drama for a moment . . .

"Who died and pissed the masked man off?" Kanda says, crossing his arms for a challenge.  He may regain his ego yet.

Lavi lets out a sound close to - a scoff?  A filed grievance?  Perhaps it is merely a complaint, that of which Kanda will pummel him for.  "Gramps tells me my fam's dead."  Lavi turns his face to him.  "So I guess that part's been taken care of."

Errrr.

*

Leftfield is farther south than anything else; Kanda gets kind of achy.

Lavi ignores him during his study period.

*

"What is that.  Dead?"  (Kanda really doesn't mean to pry.  Really.)  "Did they have anything to do with you?"

*

(But he does.  You can't open a can of blood-sucking worms without first a reasonable explanation.)

*

Like dead and buried?  Or dead-dead, as in you are dead to me?  "I still think."  Uh.  "That my father's a liar."

Lavi says, "Oh tee el."  He gives a dry guffaw.  "You're missing the point!"

"What point!"

"You can't see the point?!"

"STOP TALKING IN RIDDLES, THEN MAYBE I'LL STOP TO THINK ABOUT IT."

"I'VE BEEN PULLED INTO YOUR MENTAL FAMILY SCENE ALL OVER AGAIN."

"MENTAL?!"

"Yeah."

"MENTAL?!"

"Yeah?"

"YOU'RE THE ONE WHO TALKS IN RIDDLES ONLY A MENTAL PATIENT COULD EVER UNDERSTAND."

"APPARENTLY YOU'RE UNDERSTANDING THAT I'M TALKING IN RIDDLES, SO THERE YA GO, O GENIUS INMATE.'

"SHUT.  UP."

"NO YOU."

"I CAN'T BECAUSE I'M TELLING YOU THAT you're deliberately . . . "

Lavi leans on his hand quite deliberately.

"You're deliberately withholding the pie," Kanda finishes, watching as the cat comes waddling to his feet.  It rolls over on them.  He doesn't move.  Both he and the cat don't move.

"Kanda?"

"What."

"Do you want me to get out the pie?"

Does Lavi carry a pen in his back pocket?  Does Dumbass Daisya sleep with his football more than his girlfriend?

*

Kanda has the pie in the bed.  It is a very good pie.  And almost gone.

God he will have to thank his father for the extra pound of fat.  Bastard father.

Lavi is draping himself over Kanda's legs, busily not answering any of Kanda's prying questions.  So Kanda has dropped the issue.  For now.

But if you're curious, so far Kanda has gleaned that Lavi was an orphan at quite the young age, then possibly rescued, or put in the hands of one Mister Bookman (who is essentially like a walking ghost who can also kick experienced butt).  Like the transaction between a sinking boat and a life boat.  Something being passed in between.  Or thrown.  Take the baby.  Or something.

Kanda eats another bite.  This is a good distraction from all the disenfranchisement.

If you're curiouser, Kanda has learned in the past that Bookman is like a distant, distant relative.  So distant in fact that he could be unrelated to Lavi.  Or he could be related.  You just never know with these people; their stories change all the damn time.

Kanda eats another bite, staring blankly at the cat's paw as it kneads Lavi's thigh.

"You're bound to have scary dreams from all that sugar," Lavi warns, eyes closed.

Kanda ignores him.  Except to tell Lavi that the secret ends with him.  In the grave.

*

"Yuu!  I was only jokin'!  I would never tell Allen all about your cookie adventures!  Owowow!  Why are you kneading my ass?!  When was the last time you clawed yourself straight outta hell, eh?!"

*

Lavi makes it very clear that the reason Kanda is kneading his ass in that brutish manner is all due to the fact Kanda is going through the Ides of Deprivation.

Right.  Hullooo.  "I told you.  Disenfranchisement."

"I thought you said you don't speak French no more."

"Tch."  He struggles slightly beneath Lavi's weight.

"At least you have a father.  And a biological one at that."

Kanda pauses at Lavi's seriousness, for what seriousness is there if Kanda can't even take it into full consideration?  "So you hate me and I hate you."  See, Kanda can be serious, too.

"That sounds about equal, I'd say."

Oh fucking alskdfjadsafj!  "STOP ALTERNATING.  IT'S DISENFRANCHISING."  STUPID UGLY (RATHER NICE) STRAIGHT FACE.

Lavi smiles, placing a chaste kiss to Kanda's forehead.  "You're giving the word a bad name.  Kanda."

Egaaadsssss.  "I said I hate you."

Kiss kiss.

"I meant it."

Kissy kiss.

"You didn't mean it?"  Because Kanda always means what he says.

Kiss, interrupted.

"Take off your pants," Lavi whispers.

"They're yours."

"Take off my pants, then."

"But you have no pants on."

Lavi giggles and Kanda smirks at him.  They find a way of getting Kanda's (technically Lavi's) trousers off in a flash!  Kanda does this unwillingly, mind.  His mind is kind of up on the ceiling somewhere.  Especially when Lavi starts groping him in certain places and nibbling on his ear like -

Piece de resistaaance.  Or is it le coup de maître?

God there is something seriously wrong with the crap English language mmmmm -

Lavi is nibbling his lip now.  Kanda's legs are well-adjusted and furthermore on either side of Lavi's hips.  Even higher.  Like near his ribs, or on them.  You would think this feels less comfortable than it appears.  Because it is.  Because Kanda can't seem to get it up, cock-wise.

"I know your point," he tells Lavi seriously.  Lavi, on the other hand, does not want to take him seriously anymore.  He is having his way with Kanda, unfortunately.

Lavi runs his hand underneath Kanda's thigh, pushing against it.  "Mhmmm?"

"But I'd like to make mine clear."

"Mhmmmmmm?"  He kisses the inside of Kanda's knee.

"My father has made all these years a lie.  Not by not admitting to my point of origin, but by not making an effort to be my point of origin.  Like a father.  When he said he would be a true father to me, but to find out he is actually my true point of origin, thus my father . . .  You see what I have to put up with."

"Mhmm - what?"  Lavi struggles to get a balance on top of Kanda.  "Say what?  Why d'you always do this when we're just gettin' going?"

"Eh?  I am saying - well, what I said.  Did you get any of it?"

Lavi rolls his eyes.  "Not getting anywhere, really."

"Off, then."

"Haste makes waste 'n all that," Lavi amends, waving at Kanda to continue to bottom for the sake of the UK.

Should Kanda, erm, admit to having manly issues?

Too late.  "Yuu?  Ha ha, this is awfully like the first time . . . "

"That's it, we won't do it."

"Nah, it's okay.  What's your rush?  I'm hard enough for the both of us."

Apparently Kanda is an unwilling participant.  Apparently.

"Fine.  Fuck me hard and then we'll discuss it."

*

"Er, like discuss the, uh, fucking?"

*

Yes, this is why Kanda wants Lavi to fuck him, yes.  Because Lavi is a brilliant, brilliant man.

Which is a LIE.

*

They have found a way to fuck without it seeming sheer desperate or graceless.

By not fucking.

*

By midnight Lavi is busy moping over it during which Kanda keeps himself busy with a stomachache.

"I toldjoo that would happen," Lavi says.

"Shuddup, Lavi."

*

"I guess I'll just have my own way with my own self.  A lil' self-shag . . . "

"Good.  While you're at it, you should polish the knobs round your flat."  They are looking a bit worn.

*

"Yuuuuuu."

"I hope you're talking to your devil cat."  And speak of the devil, the devil cat shall appear.  In the form of a damp kitten that's probably just gotten out of the tub.

"Can't we just tryyy takin' your mind off it?  Help me help you, yeah?" Lavi begs.

"No."

"Rather, help you help me?"

"Yes.  Not."

*

"And another thing.  This is what cuts the bloody cheese.  That Bastard had said I wasn't his child.  He had said this!"  Kanda is back to pacing again.  Why was he such a bastard?  Why withhold need-to-know information that must be known?!  Whywhywhy?!  Why totally and completely CHEAT Kanda out of years of knowing the truth????!!!!!!!

Not that it would have made much of a difference.

"It would kinda suck the big one if you're blowin' air over nothin'."  Lavi is back to being an ass on the bed again.

"I cannot believe he's tried to keep this from me, all these years!  He did what he did with my mother (ag!) and left her!  I know he did!  Then he came back to the orphanage, took me, and it was all downhill from there!"  He huffs.  "Blowing air?"

"Now when you say took you, it sounds like he really did take you.  Yes, blowing it hard."

"But he did.  And no, no blowing.  Whatsoever ffff."

"But how?  Like a thief into the night?"

"Are you being funny?  Because it is hilarious."  Ha ha fucking ha.

Lavi shrugs.  "So you're sayin' he went to Jay-pan, adopted you, and brought you to live with him and to lead a better life."

"Yeah that is what I'm.  Wait."

Lavi hums, "That was my point earlier.  Ya know, when I was hinting increasingly heavily at it?"

Kanda stares at him.

*

"A'right a'right!  You can take a hint!  I bow to your hint-taking!  Ow stop pinching my arse ow!"

*

Thirty-minutes have passed.

There is a taste of an ultimatum in the air.  Like a nice long shanking.

Lavi groans.  "Just phone 'im."

"No, it is midnight, no."

"You've phoned him at midnight before."

"That was different."

"How so?"

"I'd wanted to get back into my house for . . . "  Snacks.  "My blanket."  Um.

"For want of a blankie, Yuu?"

"Er, shuddup now."

"Just phone 'im."

"Stop saying that."

"Phone hoooome, Kanda Yuuuuu."

"I knew you were mental."

"What's stopping you, answer me that."

Lavi really must stop demanding answers to such fantastically annoying questions.  Especially when Kanda doesn't exactly have the answer anywhere on or around his person.  Would Lavi happen to be hiding this elusive answer anywhere on his person?

*

Kanda doesn't know why he continues to listen to people like him.  He joggles the house phone in between his hands until Lavi says that they haven't paid their belated phone bill yet.

*

Kanda joggles Lavi's mobile phone in between his hands until Lavi says that if Kanda should call from that phone, it will prompt Theodore to call back.  On that phone.  Except, you know, it's also out of minutes?

*

Why the bloody hell would Lavi suggest he use the damned phones if none of them are capable of connecting Kanda to his evermore needy father?!

"Answer me, Bookman!" Kanda growls, chucking the mobile into the air.  Lavi dives for it.

"I'm savin' you the embarrassment of me!  Hell, spaz much?" Lavi grumbles on the floor.

Kanda steps on his backside as if to conquer him once and for all.  "You're right."

"Yeah!"

"You do embarrass me."

"Er, I was sorta . . . not saying that."

Kanda taps his foot on that backside.  "I would have grown up knowing about him.  Being my real father."

Lavi sighs.  "Kanda, Kanda, Kanda."  Oh yes oh godsss yes.  "Here's to more unsolicited advice."  He pauses.  "Ready?  Here goes, no backin' out now."  Pause.  "Okay, your father made you.  Then he left you for whatever reasons he had, right?  Then he came back - for you.  The point of it all is that your mother wasn't around.  She'd left you at the orphanage, I s'pose, because she couldn't cop it.  Your da came round to be your artsy-fartsy daddy as he is today, right?  So.  There ya go.  What a beautiful love story.  Now let's fuck."

Kanda chews the inside of his cheek.  Not so hasty not so hasty, o conquered soul . . .  "All right."

*

WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY LET'S FUCK?!

*

It is what seems like a century later when they are finally able to let go of their petty differences, Lavi slipping his way into Kanda's ass.  He shoves suddenly to the hilt and Kanda gasps (!) out, automatically clenching, gums hot and erection constricting from so much prior reluctance.  He breathes and breathes until his muscles relax.  RelaaaxxxintoZzzen.

"Oy, don't fall asleep now!" Lavi wails.

Kanda nearly smacks him during this Most Intimate Moment.  "Shuddup!  I was enjoying it."  Lavi seems pleased with this admission.  Kanda wants to retract it right away, but then realizes that he is just too knackered to do even that.  "Get on with it."

They stare at each other very, er, intimately.  For lack of a precisely appropriate word.  Then Kanda nods.

"Hey.  Hey, Kanda?" Lavi begins, thrusting a little.

"What - ungh - now."

The thrusting fades away, leaving Kanda's toes curling over Lavi's back.  "You should be thrilled to have a real father.  Your roots.  Know what I mean?"

Yes.  Kanda, for the first time tonight, knows what he means.  Write it down in your journal.  Eljay, even.  Now please just fuck him so that he can have a nice come and then an equally nice(r) sleep -

As an afterthought, Kanda smiles his rare smile.  It is a slight smile.  A hint of one.  Like the hint of a bastard.  But not really.  He smiles, and Lavi kisses it from his lips.