niteo_logs | (no subject)

Current Mood: lethargic

Entry tags:

(no subject)

Characters: Lavi (

looseleafbook) and anyone else
When: May 30th
Where: North of the schools close to the river
Rating: PG?
Summary: Lavi sulking and hiding away from everyone.

Lavi had avoided the apartment building for the past couple of days, the past week. Instead roaming around the deserted streets full of debris and the past civilization. Sometimes he would roam across the bridge in clothing similar to the current styles over there, redhair and patch hidden from sight with a hooded sweatshirt.

But for now he was hidden way back in the most damaged streets of the city, a trolly car that had been derailed in whatever happened. Hidden from sight unless one looked as he slouched on the bench seat, feet on one end while he leaned against the wall. Several times he had come here to sleep, it was still cold out, too cold to camp like he was, but Lavi forced himself to ignore it.

Being alone and cold was preferred to being warm and bothered.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It is a party, really. They're celebrating being reunited ~~and it feels so good~ /shot~~ even though Lavi really hadn't wanted to be reunited just yet. Still, he can keep wandering after he loses Allen, after they have this talk.

"I'll only take a little bit, Allen. I still have my rations," which he does! He's just been stingy with them.

Lavi snorts, "Remembered, huh? Well, if you really wanted I could go out and make one right now?"

The rain has kicked up again while Allen was holding out his olive branch, a gentle noise on the old roof. But he...doesn't know he feels about this talk now.

Ouch, double ouch, but he supposes he deserves it. His hand lowers in gradual degrees, along with the hitched corners of his lips, until the latter are all but mired in regret.

"Sorry," he murmurs, quiet but clear (always, always clear), trying not to think about the way other apologies in his life have gone. Allen of all people should know― "It must've been hard for you, not knowing, and... It wasn't right that you had to find out that way from Rhode, when the rest of us were right here with you. I'm sorry."

It hadn't been a mean-spirited sort of snort, more like an amused scoff sort? Still, Allen did deserve it for putting it off for so long. He's a Bookman, he hates being kept in the dark of important events.

And it's too late to laugh it off, so Lavi leans back against the bench he had been sitting on earlier. Ignoring the food and drink simply because they don't interest him, Allen can always help himself to them. Ignoring acknowledging the apologies, though he does somewhat accept them. Talks are easy to forget when there's such a thing as daily survival here, but even Kanda had made time to talk. Lenalee had talked to him.

Yet Allen hadn't, so he wondered if he truly mattered in some ways.

"What happened, Allen? Why did the Order lock you up?"

Allen's had a little more than just survival on his plate, but even after taking everything else into account, two weeks is much too long for anyone to go without knowing, especially when they're aware they're missing things. And really, he should've talked to Lavi even before this. So he doesn't waste breath on more apologies, just settles with his hands cupped loosely around the bottle of juice and answers straight.

"For going against direct orders during my last mission―" His final mission, apparently. "―and also to help suppress the Fourteenth's awakening."

Turns out the Order's idea of helping includes much more than simple warding, but Allen will get to that in time.

"A lot's happened. Do you remember what Kanda was telling us about Alma?"

Lavi's about to ask what orders Allen went against and why they'd be offended at suppressing the Noah when he quickly changes the topic. "Yeah, of course."

He'll get there! It's just confusing without giving the situation some context first.

"It was a trap. I know we were all ambushed, but the Earl's plans for the Jordan mission were much more-- Specific." A breath as he leans forward slightly, earnest. "They lured us through a Gate to the North American Branch, then used Alma and Kanda to try and awake the Fourteenth."

Thus partly why he was imprisoned. Not for suppressing the Fourteenth, but to help suppress the Fourteenth through warding and, as Allen would later find out, having the Apocryphos unite with him.

"You say 'try', they weren't successful in this then?" He means, if you're still sitting there calm and collected in front of him, then Fourteenth isn't awake. Cross said you had to kill someone you loved after all, and you haven't told him anyone was dead at home.

A heartbeat to tamp down the faintest stirrings of another mind at the back of his own, followed by a firm headshake.

"It was close, but he didn't win." Lavi will be able to tell Allen isn't referring to the Earl by the way his voice loses all expression on the last three words. "There was an awful fight, though. Both Kanda and Alma were... Badly hurt by the end of it. Alma in particular was dying, and after everything they'd already gone through, it just didn't seem fair to let the Earl or the Order harrass them any longer. L'vllie wanted me to Exorcise Alma, but―"

He lifts his chin slightly, mouth set.

"―I opened a Gate and sent them away to have a moment together. Alone. That's why they locked me up for questioning later."

Lavi's first expression is relief, followed by a startled look, a knowing one seeing that Allen wouldn't want to hurt Alma, and then...briefly. Worry, sadness. All gone within a second and covered up by his mask so that Lavi could deal with these conflicting emotions on his own.

"So Yu isn't home anymore...?"

Isn't home. Isn't home anymore, and it's that second word that wrenches at Allen, even as he keeps his eyes wide open and fixed bone-dry on the other's when he answers, very simply but with a telling heaviness, "No, Lavi. He isn't."

Lavi closes his eye, keeping quiet on his own concerns about Kanda and Alma's whereabouts. He wondered too at what Alma was like all grown up, he certainly hadn't stopped growing, so was he like that other version currently wandering around or was he different? Lavi let out a sigh and slowly opens his eye again, just a little, "What about Chaoji? Lenalee...didn't say much aside that they didn't think he'd make it."

There's guilt buried in his words that he's feeling so heavily, Chaoji had been his responsibility and he had let the new Exorcist down.

"Chaoji? What do you mean, they didn't think..."

Oh God, it was his first mission too, wasn't it? A memory brushes his mind then, distant only because of how much has happened since then. Kanda's voice saying he would remember his name, but only if he lasted longer than a month―

"I don't know much either, only heard in passing that he's hurt. They locked me up as soon as we got back and wouldn't let anyone see me."

Except Link, but then again, Link is part of Central. Allen didn't exactly get to ask after anybody. Mostly, the Vatican did all of the asking while Allen strove to keep his silence. He turns a worried look on Lavi then, having caught the note of guilt in his tone, though it's quickly replaced by one of warm reassurance.

"I know the other teams came home around the same time, though, and that's several days before Lenalee was brought here, so... He must've held out for about a week already."

A smile, the same one he had worn in a crumbling, blank canvass of a city with all of their comrades scattered or worse, and nothing left to do but to believe.

"Chaoji's tough, remember? He stuck with us through the Ark ― barehanded. Matron and the Science Division will help him get better."

"That's good at least..." He had been worried, still was worried. "Hopefully they can do something for him, wouldn't want Anita-san to be mad at us for sending him back to her early..." Lavi knew that Allen hadn't gotten to meet the lively young woman that had helped them get to Japan, but he wished he had. The redhead had a feeling they would have gotten along well.

Lavi got to his feet and went to one of the benches, sitting on it again. "What else is happening that I don't know about yet?"

He did! If only briefly before the whole Suman debacle ended in the rest of the team setting sail without him. Allen will forever remember Anita as the woman who believed, despite all evidence pointing to the contrary, that his Master still lived, just because Allen did as well.

"I'm sure they'll do their very best. Besides, you know Chaoji will fight too." He lowers his voice slightly, almost conspiratorially, a bit of normalcy amidst all the unpleasantness. "It's either that or face Miss Mahoja's wrath."

When Lavi rises, Allen follows his example and takes a seat opposite him. The rations lie between them, all but forgotten. Tim flutters down to land atop one of the tins, doing what little he can to help by standing guard over them, while his mulls over Lavi's question. Trying to arrange his answers in an order that will make them easier to swallow, tailoring some of them, all with marginal success.

"...The Order isn't what we think it is; what they let us think it is. They've been hiding things for us. Have you heard of the Apocryphos?"

Edited 2011-06-17 15:06 (UTC)

Oh, yes. Stupid forgetful memory. But even briefly couldn't cover everything they learned about her and her crew.

"He's done his best since coming with us..."

Lavi had always known there was something in the dark about the Order, there always was with organizations saying they wanted to save the world. They also had their own agendas that - with the support they had been given - could accomplish as well as work toward the publicized goal. Apparently this one was worse than what Lenalee had witnessed as a child, the forcing of compatibility that reduced in Falling.

"No, not even Gramps has mentioned something like that," but he was sure the old man knew. He knew a lot more than he ever let on to his young apprentice.

The distinction in Lavi's reply, that it's entirely possible that Bookman may know and has simply never mentioned it before, troubles Allen more than it rightly should. Rationally, he does know the Bookmen are supposed to be historians before all else, but that's just something he's been told, back when Lavi's name was still the only thing Allen knew about him. And it's easy to forget what he's told when he's been fighting and maturing and living alongside the Bookmen as comrades for so long. For the first time in ages, Allen finds himself quietly wondering what else a Bookman's job entails, and whether it will ever be the right time for him to ask.

Now certainly isn't the time though, so he elbows it to the back of his mind and says, quiet even under the cover of the rain outside, "It's a form― The only form of sentient Innocence meant to protect the Heart. It looks just like a normal person when deactivated and even holds the title of Cardinal."

Meaning it's been with Central all along.

"It broke into my cell―" There really is no better way to describe it, the way all those guards had been knocked out. "―right as the Fourteenth was fighting for control and tried to fix me by combining with Crown Clown."

Allen wouldn't like it, the current Lavi doesn't like it but he lives by it anyway since it's all he knows. While he knows he could flounder about with finding a new way to live he owes too much to do that.

"...The Cardinal?!" His eyes are wide with a bit of shock, having seen the man in past records with other dealings with the church (pure headcanon since the church was so powerful a force back then), "You mean he's really just Innocence?"

But wait, something more Allen is adding to this, "H-he's what?!" Immediately his eye goes to Allen's left arm, it looks fine to him but who knew if the Cardinal - Apocryphos - had damaged Allen's Innocence in some way. But it also explained the truce in a way, if it was damaged then their fighting strength would be severely dampened. "Did they authorize it? Or is it just doing it because it wants to?"

"Pure, sentient Innocence. He had this aura―"

Allen doesn't finish his sentence, there's no need to. Any Exorcist who's been in the presence of a Critical will be familiar with that tingling, hair-raising feeling, and if the Cardinal's made of pure Innocence, one can only imagine how much stronger it must've felt. He tugs off his left glove as he speaks and rolls his sleeve up, a silent answer to Lavi's unvoiced question. No, Crown Clown isn't damaged. The threat runs deeper than that.

"He didn't say, but I'm guessing the Vatican sent him. Some branch of the Vatican that even Link knew nothing about."

He pauses then, because this is the first time he's realising that if Link had no idea, L'vllie probably had nothing to do with it, and isn't that a disturbing thought.

"...And Lavi, I think the Vatican's known where the Heart is all along. The Apocryphos was talking about the Heart as if he knew them personally."

Lavi hadn't noticed it being that at the time, he had simply thought it was because the man was so close to the god that he worshiped. The similar presence - but not quite alike - around such highly ranked men of religion that he had indifferently shrugged off now made sense.

He glances at Allen's hand, feeling reassured by its normal appearance that the Innocence was still alright. "Religious organizations do that, hide things from their 'sheep' that need not know what they're doing for the 'betterment of the flock' and all of that..."

The redhead lets out a sigh and rubs at his head, it's possible that L'ville knew briefly about it but to him it had just been words. Nothing that he personally knew about like Hevlaska and everything else, he might have not been ranked high enough to know or to have his questions answered. Everyone had someone else to answer to, even him, and they kept secrets too.

"So if none of us know the Apocryphos while it's masquerading as the Cardinal it can't be any of us. Or anyone we know... It couldn't be the Vatican, could it?"

Allen shakes his head, but in agreement.

"Afraid I don't know any better than you do. Assuming the Heart is with the Vatican, they would have kept it hidden so the Earl can't find it. Rhode and Tyki did say the Apocryphos is a clue to the Heart, one they've been searching for for seven thousand years... Ah, they broke into the Order to get me. That's how they saw the Apocryphos for themselves."

He pauses and blinks, "They broke into the Order to rescue you?" Wait is that-- "That why we have a truce with them at the moment?"

A matching pause and blink.

"Ah, no. I set that up before any of us knew what was going on back home―" His voice gets a little firmer. "―because there's no point in fighting here, and there're people from other worlds to think of. It's just better for everyone this way."

"We don't want to drag them into our fights kind of thing?" He's trying with the truce, Lavi really is. But he and Rhode simply do not get along, Tyki...there's banter but is mostly harmless and the lazy man generally leaves Lavi alone. Maybe it's a grudge against her messing with his head back in the Ark.

"It wouldn't be fair to them, having to put up with our world's problems when they've already been torn from theirs. Rhode and Tyki didn't ask to be brought here either. The war doesn't even exist here. Fighting here isn't going to change anything back home, just give us more to deal with on top of everything else. If the truce's a way for us to work on finding a way back together, or at least not have to constantly watch our backs here, I'd rather give it a shot."

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1/2

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resulted in Falling* I don't know how head got reduced instead of resulted

XD <3

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