Belated springkink repost tiemz. It was very difficult to get into channelling Lavi's ramblings. Yes, verrrrry difficult.
Title: Night Train
Characters: Kanda/Lavi
Rating: a mild NC-17
Warnings: naughty boys, frotting, silliness, borscht
Word count: 3307
Summary: The best way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Who said that, again?
Notes: Written for
springkink, for the prompt D.Gray-man, Kanda/Lavi: bodyguard - "Idiots need protection from their own idiocy more than anything else." Lavi's Russian sucks ass. Coincidentally, so does mine.
***
Lavi dodged again. He tried to control his rapid breathing, to stay focused. Following those akuma into the monastery had been a terrible idea, it really had. And now it turned out there were five of them! It had been a bad enough idea when he'd thought there were three. He vaulted round a corner and pelted off down a narrow passageway between two buildings. This was not running away, it was regrouping. Sound strategy. Right, he needed to get into a more enclosed space, so he could take them on one or two at a time. Of course, his Innocence worked best as a weapon in wide open spaces, but - well, this is why he didn't usually go five-to-one.
Aha, a courtyard. Not quite ideal, but it would do. Now he just had to wait a minute or two for the akuma to come find him. Hopefully they had split up to do so. That was the plan. Lavi sucked in a few slow breaths and used his headband to rub off some of the sweat that was trickling into his eye. Opposite him, a faded fresco of the Virgin Mary stared at him, sober and unsmiling, from the wall. You're an idiot, her look seemed to say. Don't come crying to me when they pull your head off and use it for soccer practice.
From behind the building, a huge, painted face slowly lifted like a hot air balloon. Awesome, it was that akuma shaped like a matrushka doll. It seemed so pleased with itself about the shape it had, geographically appropriate, do you see what I did there? The effect was kind of undercut by the fact it didn't speak any Russian.
"There you are, you little tinker! Stop running about and fight me proper, you're really starting to do my head in." It spun its head all the way around to illustrate its point. Female, speaking English. Was that a Liverpool accent? It sounded kind of crazy with the Russian doll outfit.
The doll's painted mouth dropped predictably open to reveal a substantial gun barrel. Lavi was ready for it. He planted his hammer, vaulted straight upwards into the air, and then brought it around to strike the akuma squarely on the top of the head. It exploded.
Lavi dropped to the ground, shielding his face from flying fragments. That had been a spectacular one, hadn't it? The other akuma would have seen that for sure. They'd be headed this way now. All at once. Ah. The courtyard started looking less like a go-to solution for picking off demons one by one, and more like a nice little holding pen to keep him in place while the four of them minced him. Oh look, and there they all were now, floating up from the same direction the first had come from. Ah. Shit.
Best to meet them head-on, then? Lavi vaulted all the way up to the domed roof on one side of the courtyard, and registered the fact that his biceps had started to shake with effort as he did so. He was getting tired, too. There was so much gold leaf up here that in the sunlight it was blinding him. He squinted, and quickly ran a list of unused seals in his head. The fire seal had just annoyed them before, that was what got him. Maybe if he -
A blur of motion knocked him straight off the roof. He fell headlong. He managed to get his hammer out to break his fall and to narrowly avoid a small tree, and then landed on his back on the patchy grass in the middle of the courtyard. The remaining force of the fall slammed the back of his head into the dirt.
After a dazed moment, he came back to himself and instantly knew that he'd lost. They'd have him covered by now. Was this it, then? He struggled up onto his elbows, determined that he was, at least, going to go out on a really good line -
A few yards above him in the air, two of the akuma cracked neatly apart. The cuts were so clean that he could see the line of the single blow that had bisected them both.
Oh, good. Where the hell had Kanda been up until now anyway, flossing his ass?
***
When they first met, for a fraction of a second, Lavi had thought that he was going to be working, goodgoodgood, with a very cute, very leggy Japanese girl. It was all that shiny hair that had thrown him, you see, and the coat, it covered up a lot. In another moment, he'd taken in the strong, fine jawline, the set of his new partner's shoulders, the complete lack of bosom, and realised that no, he'd got the girl part wrong - but on the other hand, wow.
The third moment, Kanda had muttered "What the hell are you looking at?", and then whacked Lavi hard in the belly with the hilt of his sword.
Lavi had later learnt that this was Kanda's idea of a little love-tap. That was Kanda Yuu for you: frighteningly good duellist, so stunning he seemed like an optical illusion, personality of a wounded alley cat. Very good news to have him on your side in a fight, very bad news if you happened to annoy him.
Lavi quickly discovered that the upside of Kanda being so easily irritated was that - well, he was easy to irritate. There was something particularly tempting about treading that line and risking a smack in the eye. It was possibly the fact that Yuu - Lavi liked to use his first name, it really got him going - lacked any kind of observable sense of humour. A little of it might have been because he looked cute when he scowled, which was a good thing, because he scowled pretty much constantly. Much of it, however, was probably just that Kanda was such a ridiculously easy mark.
***
Lavi was ravenous by the time they were walking through Nikolayevsky Station. Near-death experiences always did that to him. Kanda stalked behind him, as usual, silently alert for danger, listening to Lavi chatter. Lavi relaxed in the knowledge that he had the best bodyguard in town, and talked freely and aimlessly to the point that he failed to follow the thread of his own solo conversation. It didn't matter really, it was good just to talk. If they were at headquarters, he could have burst annoyingly into song, that could have been fun. But here they were, on Order business, trying to be discreet. Well, as discreet as they could be when one of them had a ponytail halfway down his back and a great big sword.
Ooh, and look, there was a food joint. Lavi pulled his coat off and flung it over a stool to mark his table claim, then headed up to the little kiosk to order. Kanda shadowed him as he did so. Lavi looked around and saw his lip curling suspiciously. Why was it that Kanda always reacted like this to new things?
That soup smelled delicious, like sour cream and dill. Damn, but he loved Russian food.
"Pazhalista, vot eta bulichka, y toja - what do you want, Yuu?"
Kanda looked sceptically at the assortment of stodgy-looking Russian pastries behind the kiosk counter. "What's in that one?"
"Meat."
"What kind?"
"I don't know, it just says 'meat'. That one's cheese, that one's cabbage, and that one's sweet with poppy seeds."
Kanda looked vastly sceptical about it all, so Lavi went ahead and ordered him chicken soup with dumplings. Not too challenging, and hey, he might even like it. He liked those Japanese noodles, and dumplings were a bit like noodles, right?
"Na 'sdrovia!" said the sixtysomething waitress emphatically, as she set down Kanda's soup and Lavi's borscht and meat pastry at their little bar table.
"It means, 'cheers, to your good health'", said Lavi, on the offchance that Kanda actually cared.
Kanda tutted, and poked a solid-looking dumpling listlessly with a fork. It bobbed below the surface of the soup, then back up again. "Anyone who eats this will need the luck."
Yuu really did need to be a little more open-minded about the world outside headquarters. If he'd just try - wait, had he just made a joke? Lavi's good influence must really be rubbing off on him.
***
The trouble had started as no trouble at all. It was just a joke Lavi had with himself (because when he travelled with Kanda, he was his own best audience, joke-wise) that the ultimate way to prank Kanda, to rile him up, would be - well, to rile him up. It was, of course, completely undoable. If you so much put a friendly hand on Kanda's shoulder you'd have a sword pointed at your nose. There was something so intensely virginal about him, not just that he'd never done the deed, but he'd never so much as glanced at an attractive butt, never got a boner. He acted like a monk or something, like he didn't even touch his own junk to pee. The impossibility of the thing made it both safe and highly amusing to think about, especially when bored on long journeys.
Lavi and Kanda, by virtue of their profession, went on a lot of long journeys. And at some point, unfortunately for Lavi, the idea started taking on a life of its own.
***
"Dibs on the top bunk!" Lavi slung his bags up into the upper berth of the narrow sleeper bunk, while the train provodnik who'd shown them in watched, bemused.
Kanda said nothing. Lavi got the feeling that he didn't really understand what 'dibs' was, but obviously asking would indicate that he cared about the answer, so he didn't.
Lavi pulled off his coat, shut the door and luxuriated in a good stretch. He was stuffed with food and still buzzing with the adrenaline high of his own survival. Kanda, meanwhile, was sitting on his bunk, cleaning his sword with a clean cloth and an air of meticulous concentration. Typical Yuu: Mugen got the royal treatment while Kanda's own hair was still a matted mess on one side from the fight. What was that goo stuck in it - mud? It had to be uncomfortable. But then Kanda didn't seem to acknowledge bodily discomfort, in the same way he didn't acknowledge bodily anything. He'd hardly touched his soup.
"I'm saving you from your own idiocy," Kanda had said, back at the monastery, as he turned to slice the other two akuma. "I'm not sure why." Lavi thought he might know why. It was a good working relationship, really. Kanda pulled Lavi's ass out of the fire on a regular basis, Lavi poked and prodded him to get out in the world.
"You have stuff in your hair, Yuu."
"Don't call me that. Stuff?"
"It's either mud or it's demon gunk, I don't know." Lavi gestured to the spot, which involved the risky step of putting a hand inside Kanda's personal bubble. He seemed to take it okay.
Kanda tutted in irritation and pulled his hair tie out. On one side, it fanned over his shoulders, shiny, inky and appallingly tempting. On the other side it was plastered back against his head.
The best way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Who had said that, again? Some guy who wound up in a bunch of trouble, probably.
Lavi reached out a hand, and very casually plucked a small bit of goo out of Kanda's hair. He pressed his fingers together for a moment, then sniffed them. "Urrgh. This smells sort of demon-y to me. You need to get this out of your hair." Actually, it smelled like regular mud.
Kanda didn't question the story. Better yet, he swiped at his hair with increasing frustration. Lavi leaned in again, and picked another piece of crap out. He thought of offering a little excuse - tough to do that on your own with no mirror, Yuu - but then decided to err on the side of keeping his idiot mouth shut.
He watched Kanda for a moment. He didn't even acknowledge that he'd been touched. Lavi tried the same move again, with the same result. This was good. He perched on the edge of the bunk, moved both hands to the side of Kanda's head, and started picking the drying mud away from his scalp with careful fingers. Kanda quietly let him, eyes half-closed - of course not completely closed, because Kanda never stopped watching - to signal that he was comfortable, for now, with the marginal contact, hands threading in his hair. The next few moves were the risky ones. Lavi's heart sped up a little. He could keep his hands there a tiny moment too long, a stroke at the nape of the neck, something tiny to prolong the contact, get past another little layer of defences. Balance Kanda's hair-trigger temper against his impressive naivety. What could he get away with next? And damn, why did these moves all seem so sleazy with Yuu? The hyper-virginal thing, probably. The plan was to incrementally encroach on Kanda's territory to the point where he might put up with a come-on for long enough to realise he liked it. If it could all be done in one evening, all to the good, but Lavi seriously doubted it. An actual seduction could take months of these little baby steps.
Lavi repeated to himself one more time that he was absolutely doing Kanda a favour here. Sex was an important part of the tapestry of human experience! He shouldn't miss out! This definitely wasn't taking advantage! He reached to search out another piece of non-existent mud, then - time to get his pieces out on the board - he stroked a little line with his index finger along Kanda's scalp, at the roots of his hair, so quick and light that you'd have to be really paying attention to realise it wasn't accidental ... And then Kanda's head turned sharply. An angry, sullen face was staring intensely at Lavi. Thumbs hooked behind his jaw, cool fingers holding his skull very firmly. Shit. Miscalculated. Shit.
So, was Kanda going to hold him down now and cut him up, or just skip the fancy moves and wring his neck like he was a chicken?
The answer, apparently was neither. Instead Lavi found himself hauled forward by the head and kissed violently. Of course, violently.
His neck hurt. Kanda's mouth was sealed over his with bruising firmness and a good amount of actual suction, and his tongue was thrashing against Lavi's like he was trying to beat it into submission or something. It was a terrible kiss. Awful. Yuu really had a lot to learn, although Lavi wasn't entirely sure how well he'd take to instruction. He also wasn't entirely sure why this incompetent mauling was getting him so hot. He supposed this was another example of the fact that you can get away with a hell of a lot when you're that pretty.
After a little more of this, Kanda's hands slid to his shoulders, and then he pulled back, held Lavi at arms' length, and silently looked him up and down.
Lavi squirmed, and tried to catch his breath. His pulse was throbbing through his lips, he was sure they were going to swell up, he must look like he was having an allergic reaction. Yuu was clearly waiting for him to say something - to talk him into it? Talk him out of it? Give him a performance assessment and a grade (D minus, see me after class)? As usual, Lavi's brain was full of words, but right now he couldn't pick out a single one of them that wouldn't jeopardise this thing they precariously had going here - and indeed his junk, now he thought about it. So he said nothing.
Instead, he tried to mirror Kanda's expression and movements. He stared back, he frowned a little, he licked his lips. That worked. In a moment, the hard kiss had resumed. Then there was a blur of action and he found himself pinned flat to the narrow bunk, with Kanda hovering over him, expression all business.
His hair tickled Lavi's neck. Lavi choked on an involuntary giggle. Kanda tutted at him, and nudged his legs apart brusquely with one knee.
***
The de-clothing process was, well - interesting. Lavi had never done it quite like this. Kanda ground into him hard, and periodically punctuated this by grabbing at an item of clothing and yanking at it meaningfully, which Lavi was taking to mean that he should take that item off. Easier said than done in a narrow sleeper train bunk. He'd already bashed his funny bone against the wall while taking his shirt off. Soon he was lying nearly naked, immobilised by Kanda's weight and by his own pants bunched around his ankles. He found himself wishing he'd worn boxers with slightly less of a dumb pattern on them.
Kanda himself was still fully clothed. Really, this whole seduction thing wasn't going quite the way Lavi had pictured it in his head. Right, he needed to take charge again here - after all, Yuu couldn't possibly have done this before. Lavi got a hand free and tugged on Kanda's shirt collar. Kanda narrowed his eyes, pulled Lavi's headband off and threw it into the corner. Then he shoved a hand into Lavi's hair. It pulled pleasantly at the roots. Damn. Okay, he was on this now. He reached out and - what's one more little risk in a day of them? - palmed Kanda's crotch. He was hard. For a moment, Lavi felt triumphant - here was Kanda Yuu, the guy who didn't seem to know where his own dick was located, and he was hard for Lavi, how much of an ego-boost was that? He rubbed his hand and Kanda rocked down into it. With his other hand, Lavi fumbled with shirt buttons until Kanda tutted, climbed off him and pulled his own clothes off, swiftly and efficiently. The underpants were the weirdest, some kind of knotted strip of cloth thing. Lavi was tempted to grab an end and pull, but managed to restrain himself. And, oh, wow, hey, there was Yuu, stark fucking naked, and pretty much as magnificent as Lavi had always thought he would be.
Right, thought Lavi vaguely as he stared, time to step up to the plate. Tempting as it is to just suck him off right now, I think he'd just come in five seconds and go to sleep, the little virgin. We could -
And then he found he'd miscalculated again. Kanda yanked Lavi's underpants down to his ankles, slid in on top of him again and started the bump and grind again. Damn. Lavi rocked up and rubbed himself against Kanda's stomach and then - he was being held down again. Well, this wasn't entirely good, hot as it was, Yuu didn't have a clue what he - ah.
Kanda had reached a hand between their bodies and wrapped it around the base of both their cocks. Really? Really. And oh. Lavi finally put a lot of little signals from the last half hour together and realised that Kanda - no way! - had almost certainly done this before. Then Kanda started pumping firmly, and Lavi - started losing the thread of his internal conversation, again.
I'm not going to be able to walk tomorrow morning, thought Lavi, biting his lower lip. We'll get in at St. Petersburg, and Panda will be all, "what the hell happened to you, idiot, you look like someone rolled you down a hill in a beer barrel."
Oh, well.