#dgmfics

So he sits and swallows his words as Lenalee watches him. For having been through a hell of a night, she still looks incredible. Her hair’s still damp from the cold shower, and the complimentary t-shirt they got with the room is two sizes too big, hanging off her shoulder, but Lavi honestly thinks she’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. 

She’s beautiful, and she’s glaring daggers at him from the edge of the tiny bed. Waiting.

“Yeah, I lied,” he whispers at length, head down, damp towel chilling the back of his neck as he scrubs at spots of black hair dye on his skin halfheartedly. Now that the adrenaline’s run its course, his body feels heavy; his face hurts, his chest hurts, his head is killing him and every look Lenalee shoots him is another painful reminder of how badly he’s fucked up.

“Was anything you told me true?” She asks, and it’s not a demand, but he can hear in her tone that she’s begging for something to have mattered.

Lavi breathes out slowly, scrubbing his face with the dingy towel. “We are the same age, I’m pretty sure...I might be a couple of years older...”

“That’s it?” She scoffs, incredulous, and Lavi chances a quick look up to see her drop her face into her hands. “Not even your name? Are you kidding me?”

“I don’t have one.” That, at least, makes her pause, peeking out at him through the slats in her fingers. He shrugs weakly. “I was born into this. I just have my designation. They figured giving us names would make it harder for us to...y’know...get into our roles.”

She drops her hands, and for a second, pity is written clearly across her face before she remembers the situation they’re in. Lenalee frowns, crossing her arms and deliberately looking away from him.

(Lavi’s been stabbed before, and shot and injured in awful ways. He can’t think of anything that hurts more than this, at the moment.)

“What happens now?”

That’s the million dollar question. He sighs again, tossing the towel onto the floor. “Do you trust me?”

“Of course not.” Lenalee raises an eyebrow at him, as if offended he would even ask that. “You just told me you were sent to kill me.”

“I haven’t.” Lavi mutters defensively, standing to pace the small room. “And I’m not gonna. I’m gonna keep you safe.” 

Lenalee watches him, unimpressed. 

“I’m…” Lavi sits on the cheap wooden dresser across from her, holding his hands up pleadingly. “I’m not… I’m compromised, alright? I can’t go back to the Organization, and if I give myself up they’ll kill us both. I know what I’d do in this situation, but…”

Here he stops, swallowing past the thick lump in his throat, wincing as his voice cracks. “I lied to you, a lot, and I don’t want to do it anymore. So… so I guess what I’m saying is, it’s your choice. Whatever you want me to do, I’ll do it. If you want me to just...leave then I’ll do it, and if you want me to stay I will. But I’m not gonna force your hand more than I already have in this shitty situation I put you in.”

“Why?” 

Lavi looks up, offering a weak smile. “You’re gonna laugh.”

“This isn’t really a laughing matter.” She waves her hand to encompass the shitty little room they’re in, then to their borrowed clothes. “So why?”

“Because…” He shrugs, running a hand through his damp hair, staring at the faint black stains left behind on his palm. “Because I’m in love with you.” 

The silence hangs thick between them, but he can’t look at her; his words sound so… inappropriate? Inconsequential? He would have said ‘I love you’ but he knows enough to know this isn’t it. If he had more time to simmer in the thought, maybe he would have said he was in love with the idea of her, with how she feels like a home he’s never had, but there’s no time for philosophizing about how much she means to him.

Lenalee lets out a shaky breath. “Let’s… we’ll come back to that.”

“That’s fine.” It’s better than outright rejection.

Lavi starts at the strangled groan Lenalee makes, patting her cheeks as if she’s bracing herself for something. Ready, she looks up at him, determination in her eyes. “Are they going to hurt my brother?”

“Probably not? They need him.” Komui’s biggest asset to the Organization has always been his brain; the idea behind getting rid of Lenalee would be to make Komui more pliable and easier to manage for members within the Organization. Even with everything up in the air, Lavi’s almost positive the elder Lee will survive the ordeal.

He says as much, in the interest of not lying, and isn’t too surprised when Lenalee kicks out at him. “Ow!”

“Don’t just say it like that?” She sputters back at him, crossing her arms. 

“You asked!” 

They lapse into silence again, and Lavi lets his head drop back against the wall. Dimly he can hear the TV in the next room, and hopes their conversation isn’t loud enough to carry across. “So... like I said… your call.”

“That’s such bullshit.” Lenalee says, and though she’s livid her tone is exhausted. “I didn’t ask for this.”

“I know.” Lavi swallows past the lump in his throat and ignores the pain in his chest. It’s just guilt. “I’m sorry.”

“How would you get out of this?” Lenalee shifts on the bed, the springs creaking in protest. “What super secret assassin tricks can get us out of this?”

“Well…” Lavi shrugs. “If it was just me, I’d disappear. I don’t have any real documents, and I know enough people that I could just get new ones made. Just lay low until things die down.”

“So you’d just run? What about my brother? There are still people after him!” Lenalee sits up, and looks just about ready to throttle him, which would be justified on her part, considering everything. 

“You asked what I would do!” If the situation wasn’t so dire, this would almost be like the nights they would spend watching movies, arguing the pros and cons of ridiculous scenarios, instead of the very real possibility they might just die.

“Okay, then, what would you do if you had to fix things? Save my brother from assassins?” Lenalee presses, fisting her hands into the hem of her shirt. 

Lavi slides off the dresser to the floor, looking up at her helplessly. “I don’t know! I don’t even know what I’m doing here! I don’t know how to help, that’s not what we do!”

The groan of frustration from Lenalee gets them a thump from next door, and they fall into silence again. 

“What if we just expose them all? The Organization, all of it? It’ll be a media storm, and if anything happens to Komui then everyone will know who’s behind it.” Lenalee says slowly, drumming her fingers against her thighs, her eyes distant. 

The idea is so ludicrous that it makes Lavi choke on a laugh. “Are you kidding me? There’s hundreds of thousands of people involved, there’s no way!”

Lenalee waves her hand like that’s the least of their worries, the distant look fading into something brighter. Plotting. “If they wanted to get Komui under their thumb, that means he has to know something, right? Otherwise why bother? I can get into my brother’s files, and you can help me blow everything open.”

“You’ll be putting yourself in more danger if you do!” Every second that ticks by, he can see the idea coalescing in her head, and he knows her enough to know that look on her face means business. He’d have better luck trying to stop a moving train with his bare hands. “Lenalee, please…”

She raises an eyebrow at him, sharp and unamused. “You’re going to fix this one way or another. You said it was my choice. This is my choice.”

He remembers his home, and the tree that used to grow in the yard, gnarled branches just the right height to climb up, past the fork in the branches where the swallows nested. He remembers climbing it with friends, hiding away from their chores while his mother called for them, scurrying down it on skinned knees and palms, remembers the soft sound of her disapproval, the sight of the pleats of her apron, always neat, always presentable.

(He does not remember his mother’s face, or the color of her eyes and her hair.)

He knows the names of colors, knows the sky is blue and the grass is green and that the apples his brother used to steal from the market were red, red like blood on the battlefield and red like the sting of injuries on his hands. He remembers the ethereal green of Innocence, when he was chosen the first time, when the rings first slid, too warm, into place.

Marie knows the one color he will never forget is green. That sickly glow, the innocence casting shadows on the faces of the dead, the last thing he saw before his vision was taken away.

No one could forget that.

-

Master Tiedoll means well, Marie knows this, but sometimes it feels like the old man teases Kanda just to see him fume. It’s funny, he’s been told, but he can hear the beat of Kanda’s heart whenever Tiedoll’s playful words go too far.

It’s strange; he’s gotten so used to the young man’s heartbeat that Marie could easily pick it out in a crowd of hundreds, if not thousands. He’s aware, of course, of Kanda’s history, and he remembers enough of their first encounter – the sounds deafening and the smell of blood and sick and the stagnant water and the stink of death tying it all together – but it’s more than that.

When Marie visits Tiedoll for advice, the old man chuckles and slides a cup of coffee closer to Marie’s hands.

“Dear boy,” he murmurs, and Marie can hear the way the fondness colors his tone. He imagines the man’s face, worn but not without life. “Yuu is your family, as you are his. You’re brothers, that’s all.”

The words make sense, and Tiedoll wouldn’t be purposefully mean to any of them, but Marie mulls over it just the same.

He had a brother once. He was older, broader than Marie was then, making it easier for him to hide from the elder’s wrath. Marie remembers the reassuring squeezes on his shoulder, and the quick swats he would give him on the back of the head for no reason except for the fact that they were brothers.

Marie sits and meditates with Kanda, letting the sounds of his heartbeat, steady and strong and true, march their way through the scant memories he’s starting to lose.

He doesn’t know what happened to his older brother, but he remembers the security his presence gave him when he was young. He hopes then, that Kanda will see him as a source of security in these trying times.

-

Daisya was an older brother. He had mentioned it to Marie in passing several times, as he curled up against Kanda and Marie and Tiedoll on long missions. He was a tactile sort, and Marie could appreciate that.

Often, Daisya would describe things for Marie in detail, not because he thought Marie was lacking in vision, but because it’s what he would do for his siblings, when experiencing something new. He would hold onto Marie’s arm, or his sleeve, because the touch was a comfort.

Marie never had the heart to tell Daisya he didn’t need to do any of that, because it was as obvious as the beat of his heart that Daisya needed Marie, and needed a reason to be needed.

In his darker moments, Marie wonders still if that isn’t what got Daisya killed.

But Daisya was a good man, and he cared for others, cared for Master Tiedoll and Kanda and for Marie himself the same way he cared about his siblings and his family. That much Marie is sure of.

He meditates, and his mind wanders idly to Daisya’s siblings, whom he’s never met, but has heard enough to form a picture in his head. He wonders if the youngest still remember their eldest brother, or if they’ve forgotten Daisya’s face the same way Marie’s forgotten his brother’s.

They’ll never know what happened to Daisya, and it’s for the best. They cannot be allowed to mourn, not in the war they’re facing. Better he fade into obscurity, than drag the souls of those he loved into hell.

He hopes that, even as he’s forgotten his family, they too have forgotten him. He can’t begin to imagine what it would be like, fighting akuma in their grotesque, inhuman forms while the souls of his loved ones linger within, crying out to him.

Allen Walker explained once, the inner workings of an akuma’s soul. Since then, Marie has made it a point not to listen to their screams as they handle their task.

From his file, Froi Tiedoll gathers that the boy is strong and in superb health, and that his synchronization has potential. He is aware that the boy comes to the Order after a traumatic experience, though the chief’s files refuse to elaborate on what that may have been, and that he has the potential to be volatile.

What the file neglected to mention was that Froi Tiedoll’s new charge was more than just volatile. He was explosive, responding in anger to any sleight, perceived or not. He spends more time than he expects in the infirmary, watching young Yuu glower at the nurses as they checked on wounds that rarely lasted more than a few hours.

A difficult case indeed. Froi understands why he was assigned the boy, though he’s well aware that the upper echelon of the Order doesn’t believe he’ll succeed in rehabilitating him. He’s a lost cause, only valuable because he synchronized. If Froi can’t make him cooperate, they’ll just harvest the innocence and move on to more suitable accommodators.

Their dismissal suits Froi just fine. He’s a patient man, and he’s worked plenty on projects that have seemed more trouble than they’re worth. He’s learned that those are the projects he’s become most fond of over the years, if only because of the effort he’s put into them.

No work goes to waste. Not even the boy everyone is so willing to discard.

It takes weeks of sitting and sketching, watching over Yuu as he sulks in his room. He comes out for dinner, but only after much insisting, and eats mechanically, for fuel instead of enjoyment. He lets Froi stay as long as he’s quiet, and only swears at him in English, which is an improvement according to the notes left by Bak Chan.

When Noise Marie, the other student he’s been assigned, arrives, something crumbles in Yuu. He launches himself at Marie in a half-hug, half-attack that leaves them both on the ground. When Froi stands to intervene, Marie waves him off, and offers him a lopsided smile as he rubs at Yuu’s back.

“You’re alive,” Yuu croaks, and something clicks.

Loss.

It’s difficult to overcome for adults, but for a child of Yuu’s age, it might seem impossible. Froi fights tears as the two exorcists – boys, really, they’re just boys – reunite, and something settles in his heart. He’s going to help these boys, no matter the cost.

With Marie’s help, Yuu begins to progress, and it’s not long after that Froi is cleared to take Yuu out to missions.

On the field, he’s methodical, clearing akuma with an effectiveness that belies his age. He tends to push himself too hard, and errs on the side of recklessness, but he’s an incredible exorcist, his Yuu. Froi is sure that in a few years, the boy will be in line to become a general.

Klaud is the one to remind him of the short life expectancy of young exorcists, but there’s something about Yuu that’s different. It isn’t just Froi’s blind belief in the boy; he’s different at a base level, and it gives him an edge over the other children the Order has forcibly recruited.

If that weren’t enough, something has lit a spark of determination in the boy. He hasn’t mentioned it to Froi, but whenever they venture away, he seems to be searching for something. Either way, Froi will be ready if Yuu ever decides to confide in him.

In the meantime, between assignments Froi teaches the boy. He’s perhaps not as good a teacher as General Yeagar, but he manages to explain things in an easy enough way for the boy to understand. It helps that he’s sharp as a whip; he picks up French quickly, though to Froi’s dismay he understands the swears much faster. His writing needs some work, and in the times they sit and wait for their train Froi helps Yuu work on his letters.

The more time they spend together, the more curious Yuu seems to be, but he begrudges asking questions unless absolutely necessary. It makes Froi learn to read the boy better, to understand what the tense of his shoulders might mean versus the clench of his jaw, or a certain look he might give an object. It’s a learning experience for both, and Froi is sure he’ll treasure it for years.

-

They are sitting on a bench at the Palazzo, watching the people meandering in the early morning sun. Yuu is eating, grudgingly, picking at pieces of fruit that Froi cut in smaller shapes. He’s adept with his sword for a boy so young, but sometimes his movements are stiff and foreign, like he’s not quite sure what to do with his hands when he’s not attacking. He was built to destroy, and has yet to get the hang of creating.

“Did you want to see anything while we’re here, Yuu?” Froi asks, and ignores the way the boy bristles at his given name. He’s getting used to it, the reaction almost a formality at this point.

Yuu shakes his head and huffs, eating pieces of an apple that is starting to turn brown. He does eye the area around them thoughtfully, though, as if trying to see if anything seems worth investigating.

It’s while Yuu’s deliberating that Froi spots something  moving towards them in his peripheral, and turns ever so slightly to check.

The dog is a short little thing, some sort of terrier that trots to their bench and sniffs at their shoes eagerly. He’s well fed, if the slight paunch is anything to go by, and is friendly when Tiedoll reaches down to pet its head.

Yuu stills, watching the dog with wide eyes before turning to Tiedoll for an explanation.

“He’s a friendly little dog, isn’t he, Yuu?” Tiedoll smiles, scratching the dog’s chin lightly. The dog’s back leg starts thumping at the action, clearly pleased.

“Dog,” Yuu murmurs, holding a hand out hesitantly to the dog. He perks up, tail wagging eagerly as it investigates Yuu’s fingers, licking away what Tiedoll assumes is the sticky juice left from his breakfast.

Yuu looks up, eyebrows comically disappearing into his fringe, and his expression is so perplexed Tiedoll has to laugh. “He won’t hurt you. You can pet him.”

Breakfast all but forgotten, Yuu slips off his seat and crouches down in front of the dog, taking his time to pet its muzzle and gently brush back his ears, making a startled sound when the dog decides to knock him down and climb in his lap.

The dog turns in circles for a moment and settles down to rest in Yuu’s lap, content to be pet. Yuu obliges, scratching the dog’s back and ears until it rolls over to present its his belly.

“Can we take it?” Yuu asks, and it’s the first question he’s made to Froi that sounds like it belongs to a child his age. It breaks his heart having to shake his head, but he’s very tempted.

“He probably has a family, Yuu,” Froi says, and pats the dog’s head. “He’s just out exploring, but he’ll go home soon.”

Yuu’s face twists, disappointed and he gives the dog a hug. “Alma would like him.”

Froi stills, watching Yuu pluck the dog from his lap and point his finger sternly. “Go home. It’s not safe to wander around alone.”

The dog wags his tail at Yuu and licks his fingers, perking up when a group of pigeons wander too closes. Barking joyously, the dog takes off, chasing after the birds across the plaza.

“How lovely,” Froi hums, and gathers his things. “Come on, Yuu. It’s time for us to go home too.”

It was fine; Lavi was pretty freaked out too, honestly. He’d slipped away once Allen and Lenalee had taken Tim away, back into the woods, sulking there until he was sure things had settled in the house. 

Lenalee continued the way she normally did after the initial shock wore off. Kanda took one look at him and scattered. 

It was about a week until Kanda tolerated him enough to be in the same room, though any conversation they had was stilted and cold. So it was safe to say they were both in pretty bad shape.

They lingered in limbo for weeks, until Lenalee came home one day in a flurry. With Allen in tow, she began clearing things off her floor to make an open space. “Come on, before Komui comes home and sees this.”

“I feel like I have to give a token protest,” Allen said, setting the box he carried under his arms on the floor. “If only for the sake of appearances.”

“Why do you have a ouija board if you don’t use it?” Lenale countered, lifting the lid off the box to reveal the board underneath. Lavi peered over her shoulder and felt a chill run down his spine.

“You know as well as I do it’s for the aesthetic,” Allen sniffed, and held out the planchette with the air of someone holding a dirty sock. “I also didn’t expect ghosts to be real, for the record.”

Lavi reached out to bat the planchette out of his hands, watching it clatter to the ground smugly.

Allen rolled his eyes, holding his hands out toward the fallen planchette in agitation. “See?”

“You know that you would love this if it wasn’t happening to you,” Lenalee pointed out, and set up the board, picking the planchette up from where it had landed.

Allen shrugged and sprawled out on the floor, all spindly limbs as he worked to spread himself out further, clearly stalling. “You know something?”

“Hmm?” 

“What if we use the board and get something other than the ghosts?” He mused, tapping a rhythm on his stomach. “If ghosts are real, then demons and shit like that probably are too, right? So if that’s true, what if you end up ripping a hole in the veil or whatever in your bedroom?”

Lenalee raised an eyebrow, sitting cross-legged in front of the board. “Are you serious?”

“We’re in uncharted territory, Lena. I don’t know what to brace myself for.” Allen rolled over and groaned, sitting up across from her. “I’m just saying we should be careful.”

“What do you suggest?” Lenalee set the planchette down on the board, watching Allen dig through his coat pockets. 

“Salt? Iron? Holy water? Yew and prayer beads? I don’t know.” He held out a salt shaker at her, wiggling it in her face until she took it. “I’d ask Cross, but I’m genuinely afraid of the answer he’d give me.”

Kanda wandered over, lured in by the absurdity of it all, and eyed Lavi warily. “You’re not actually a demon, are you?”

“I don’t think I am.” Lavi shrugged and took a seat. He isn’t sure how he would figure that out; if he didn’t remember anything about his life before death, did that mean he was a demon masquerading as a human? Is that how that worked?

Kanda huffed and sat across from him, watching Lenalee unscrew the salt shaker to begin pouring it out around them. “This is a mistake.”

“Don’t be salty, Yuu.” Lavi grinned, leaning back to avoid the swipe Kanda threw his way out of habit. He was surprised then to find he hit something solid against his back. Twisting in his seat, Lavi frowned at the thin stream of salt behind him. “Oh.”

Kanda frowned, pressing back against his side of the circle, looking uneasy as he seemed unable to move out. “Well, fuck.”

Lenalee brushed salt from her hands and placed her fingers on the planchette, staring Allen down until he did the same. “You ready?”

“No, but we’re already here.” Allen sighed and placed his hands on the board, scrunching his face. “Do you know how to do this properly, at least?”

“No idea.” Lenalee beamed, sliding the planchette closer. “But I trust you.”

It hurt, the heavy weight of a foreign object knocking against his teeth hard enough to smart, followed by the blinding moment of panic as it slid across his tongue and knocked back, sharp against his throat.

For a moment, Timothy wondered if he would be meeting his mother on the other side like the grannies in the street whispered after his father.

The pain in his throat ebbed, but his head pounded fiercely, agony to the point of tears. The officers tasked with getting him under control seemed to pass him from one person to the next, a tangle of arms and badges digging into his arms, and still the pain wouldn’t stop.

“What’s your name?” One finally asked, and Timothy squinted through the throbbing to stare into the face of a blonde man. He settled Timothy in his arms with practiced ease, and tugged the sleeve of his coat down to wipe at Timothy’s face.

“Timothy,” he whispered, flames licking at his throat.

The man nodded, and walked out of the house with Timothy, past the officers marching inside. “Do you have more family, Timothy?”

Timothy shook his head, and fought back sobs as the man rubbed his back, and changed his life forever.

-

Emilia was twelve when she decided Timothy was going to join their family. She held him in her arms, a warm weight, as she needled her father to adopt him already.

Timothy was a fussy child, though she was sure it had more to do with the gem on his forehead than any issue in temperament. He seemed to settle whenever she held him, though, despite her mother scolding her to stop.

“He’s a growing boy, you can’t carry him everywhere you go,” she would say, and still Emilia would hike him up to her shoulder, and trail after her father on his way to the police department, then all the way back home.

She was too young, or too naïve, to spot the way her father would avoid looking Timothy in the eye, how he would avoid touching his head if he could help it. He would only give her a tired smile, and send her home, and bid her to leave Timothy at the orphanage, where he would surely be missed if she kept stealing him away.

She would return him only after dark, when Timothy was asleep on her shoulder, taking care to hand him only to the Mother Superior who would smile fondly at Emilia and give her a blessing before sending her home. After a night’s sleep, she would return, and do it all over again.

It carried on for almost a year, before the Inspector put his foot down. He was notoriously weak in regards to his daughter, but he couldn’t give her this.

His conscience, his guilt wouldn’t allow it.

Emilia sobbed for hours and hours in her room, the sniffles interrupting the otherwise silent dinner as Emilia’s mother glared daggers into her husband.

“We can afford to keep him,” she sniffed, and the underlying barb at his work hours was not missed.

“The money isn’t the issue,” the Inspector had ground out, and it had taken all of their dinner and a nightcap before he confessed his true reluctance.

The next day, Emilia’s mother explained the situation. And if Emilia’s visits to the orphanage began to wane, the sisters could understand. A young lady needed to focus on her duties, after all.

-

It was fitting that Timothy become a thief.

It was what his father had done, and all the old biddies insisted that the apple didn’t fall far from the tree. So if he snapped at them and pulled faces and made rude gestures, then that was just his nature. He couldn’t be faulted for that.

It was slow, at first, following men on their way to and from work, easier to hop out of an alley unseen and take over.  The very first few times, that first week, he was a mess, struggling to coordinate on limbs his brain felt were too long for a young boy.

He was determined, though, taking people for practice runs, getting used to a body that wasn’t his own, learning to jump and climb and leap from rooftop to rooftop. It was like a game, and Timothy loved to win.

His first heist was the sloppiest; a jeweler several blocks from the orphanage that had chased Timothy away from his stoop for stopping to rest on a hot day. He would be lying if he said he didn’t feel a sense of satisfaction, picking the lock to the man’s shop and stepping in to revel in his accomplishment.

He hadn’t counted on the man having a dog in the shop to watch over in case of intruders. He managed to escape with a handful of necklaces, but the dog’s bite had slowed him down enough for the police to catch up. His borrowed body and the jewels he had stolen were confiscated by Inspector Galmar, all while Timothy watched from the alley where he had left himself behind.

Timothy went home empty-handed and sulking, having learned his lesson.

Be faster, be sneakier.

It was hard voicing his doubts in the Order, Krory decided. Not that there weren’t people who would understand--there were more than enough kindred spirits to share the pain, the loss, the stress --but when most of his compatriots were children, well. It just didn’t sit well with him.

It was lucky then, that Miranda and Marie were both able and willing to listen, and share. 

Since The Incident they refused to name, they had spent more time together when missions allowed. Lenalee joined them occasionally, and Krory knew she was hurting far more than they, but sometimes they needed the time to sit in silence and drink to the dead. Whatever hope Lenalee held deserved to stay alight, even if they had cut their losses.

It was evening, then, when Miranda joined Marie and Krory in a quiet corner room, the windows open to let in the cool night air. She took the glass of wine with a soft acknowledgement, sitting on the windowsill beside Marie.

Krory stared into his wine, swilling it in the glass absently to watch the tears along the side drip back down into the red. “I miss Allen.”

That was their main topic of conversation, usually.

Marie sighed, tapping his glass against Miranda’s with impeccable aim. “He’ll be back.”

“Not safely,” Miranda said morosely, leaning her head against Marie’s shoulder. Before their meetings such an action would have been scandalous. Now, Marie settled himself to accommodate more comfortably. It spoke to their distress.

“I should have done something.” This too, was normal. Krory wallowing, Miranda wallowing. Marie saving face. It was a terrible habit, but if they didn’t air their grievances somehow, surely it would fester. 

“Allen would have fought for us.” The silence was broken only by a few black birds out in the forest, but within the small room in the Black Order, there was a heaviness, an acknowledgement that they had all failed as friends, and more importantly, as adults. 

Marie drank his wine slowly, tapping a soft rhythm against his knee with his free hand. “I don’t know why he did this, or why Kanda followed him after he came back, but I trust them.”

“They’re just children,” Miranda said, and Krory watched as she rubbed the backs of her hands. He hadn’t seen them often, but it was obvious she was tracing the pattern of the scars beneath her gloves. “They shouldn’t have to do this.”

“There are no children in war,” Krory said into his glass. His reflection stared back dully. “I read that somewhere, in one of my grandfather’s books.”

Marie scoffed into his drink, tilting his head towards the open window. A small golem flew in, settling into his collar after a few moments, the silence building again.

“We should have gone with him,” Miranda said, swirling the dregs of her drink with a sigh. “It’s the right thing to do.”

“It wouldn’t have worked. We tried, Kanda and I, once.” Marie poured his drink into Miranda’s glass, and Krory moved to open another bottle. “It didn’t work very well. They can’t afford to lose exorcists.”

“You mean they sent those CROW after you.” That was another topic they tended to circle. The CROW, their jobs, and the man who died for Allen Walker.

Krory popped the cork off the next bottle and held it out to refill the other glasses. “Was it worth it? Trying to escape?”

“I’m still here.” Marie didn’t scowl, and he wasn’t one to hold on to rage like some of the younger exorcists, but they’d have to be naive to not see it in the clench of his fist in his coat.

“We all are.” Miranda took another sip of her glass, slumping into herself. 

“We are. That has to be enough for now.” Krory sat closer to the others, and let the sounds of the night fill their silence.

“We’ll bring them home soon.” It was a promise they drank to often, and one they had yet to realize, but it was their one shred of hope in the darkness.