[It's... more than he expected, honestly? Enough to catch him off-guard, a little. His gaze flicks back to Lavi, searching, a little more uncertain and vulnerable than he'd normally ever show. This is the Bookman's duty they're talking about, after all. It's not nearly as dire as Kanda failing to report Allen's awakening, but--it's still antithetical to what Lavi's devoted his life to. And Bookman is the most important person in Lavi's life, isn't he? The one he trusts above all? To go behind his back...
...
Thank you sticks in his throat. He presses his lips together tightly, then drops his gaze back to the floor.
Quietly:]
...Don't ask me about him again.
[If these voids catch them again, if they show Lavi the rest--Kanda certainly won't be happy about it, but so be it. Anything other than those last, precious moments, the ones he swore he would never, ever share with another soul, and Kanda will deal with it. But he can't bring himself to sate Lavi's curiosity on his own. Even now... it hurts too much.]
[Lavi sees the uncertainty on Kanda's face and thinks it's earned -- who is Lavi but a collection of lies, even though parts of him -- too many parts are becoming real. But as long as no one else knows how close he is to breaking -- then he can keep it secret. He can keep pretending that these small allowances won't build and build and build, and that it will eventually force him to make another decision down the line, maybe in the far off future.
he pulls his thoughts away from that future at the sound of Kanda's voice, his demand that sounds like a plea that sounds like a request.]
...
[he doesn't say anything, trusting that his silence is acquiesce enough. instead he's quiet, content not to fill the void with his usual inane chattering, waiting for his memory to appear in turn. and then it does.]
[Little does Lavi know he'll be Lavi for ten billion years..........
He'd known it was coming, but he's so caught up in their exchange--in his own grief and heartache and wary, fragile trust--that the scene shift catches him off-guard.
...Lavi wears a mask. He's known that for a long time. Partially because he's always been good at picking up on disingenuous energy (likely a product of his time in the lab), but also because Lavi has let him see beneath it. Not the public flares of temper or the shows of caring that earned sharp looks from Bookman. It's in the hints of bitterness and exhaustion, in his surprising capacity for stillness and silence. Sometimes, they'd simply needed to sit and exist, and it's those times Kanda thinks of when he tries to picture the "real" Lavi. Lavi has never shown any interest in meditating seriously with him, but in the end, these moments weren't so dissimilar: a chance to cast everything else aside until they were ready and able to resettle into their identities.
It occurs to him, as the scenes play out, that they are both human, and not, all at once.
It ends, and--Kanda doesn't reach out for him. It's not in his nature. But he looks all the same, searching Lavi's face, trying to predict whether he'll close himself off with openness, or face this with the same truth he'd so desperately wanted from Kanda.]
It's the same for Lavi -- that while some people have seen this particular memory, have realized that "Lavi" is nothing more than a construct -- they're all still strangers at the end of the day. They're not a part of the Record, not a part of their holy war, as tangentially related as the people Lavi sometimes comes across during missions. They will part ways and probably forget all about Lavi and his idiosyncrasies. Bookman won't be happy, but the clan can't be threatened by people who don't even belong to their world.
But Kanda's different. He knows him more than anyone else does here -- and maybe even back home -- others have been sharp-eyed, but Lavi's always done his best to ease their concerns. Kanda? He doesn't need to be eased. He's simply always been there, always ignoring Lavi, enough that Lavi felt like he could be himself around him and not have to constantly worry about what the other man was thinking about him.
But he's worried now. It doesn't make sense to be. He looks at Kanda who is looking back at him -- and now he's terrified. Lavi can be everyone and no one only as long as no one else notices -- the last person who did -- your eye is like glass. it reflects me, but that's all. nothing reaches inside. he'd be fine if Kanda accepted the front, he thinks. he'd be more than okay if Kanda continued as if nothing's happened between them. what he wouldn't be okay with -- is if Kanda went on thinking that even the small, real parts of him are false too.]
Sorry.
[there is something ironic about him apologizing now, and not when he'd seen Yuu and Alma, their happiness and tragedy twisted together in a memory he'd had no right to see.]
...Know it doesn't mean much, but. [because he's a liar, no matter if he's bad at it] I meant what I said.
[he won't tell. even if the memory just proves that he's intrinsically a bookman through and through, and that every promise "lavi" makes is just part of his record,]
[It's unlike Lavi, he thinks, to be so subdued. Kanda wouldn't have expected him to resort to deflection at a time like this, especially not when he knows how much Kanda hates it when he does that, but there's still something unsettling about seeing him this way, right after seeing all the other pieces he's made up of. Who is he even looking at right now? And, if he chooses to believe those words, to trust that his and Alma's story is safe from the pen for now--does it even matter?
(How irritating is it, that it kind of does?)
I just don't want to see it, Allen had said once, the first time he'd been a thorn in Kanda's side. That situation was wildly different, of course, but Kanda finds himself thinking something very similar now, faced with a Lavi--or a whoever he is--who's had his secrets bared. This is, quite possibly, the most "real" the man in front of him has ever been, but ironically, Kanda doesn't like it. This wasn't something he was given, though what he would've done with it if it had been... even he doesn't know.]
Quit making that face. [Because he prefers Lavi without the masks, even when the faces he's making underneath are bitter or tired or otherwise rough and unpolished. But he doesn't want to see that fear in Lavi's eye, as if he's waiting for some awful bomb to drop. That expression that makes it seem like Kanda's opinions matter, like it would be different if Kanda pushed him away now, instead of all the other times Kanda's tried--] It's annoying.
[this is such a kanda answer that it startles a laugh out of him. it's not Lavi's usual bright and cheery laugh, it's tired instead -- there's an edge to it that feels a lot like discomfort, and something like wariness too.
but the fear from earlier vanishes from his expression,]
You think all my faces are annoying.
[another pinch of discomfort, because now the joke lands a little differently, after that memory. because lavi has so many faces that he's worn and wears now, and now Kanda knows just how many.
...he reaches up to fiddle with his scarf before he realizes he's doing it, tucking the cloth up to hide the sharp tilt of his mouth, unhappy.]
He doesn't like this either, though it's... better. It's fair that Lavi's bothered by all of this, though Kanda still strongly suspects that it's not just because of the void.
He sighs.]
What's your name?
[Right now, between them--or even here, more generally, in this village so removed from everyone else they know. Who does he want to be? Does he want Kanda to see Lavi? Junior? Something new and different, separate from everything else they know?
He isn't Bookman, equipped with clan knowledge and the ability to whip Lavi back into shape. Nor is he Lenalee, who would've been able to reach out for him with gentle hands, promising that Lavi would be dear to her no matter what. Reminding him of who he is, even if that person isn't who Lavi has been up until now: This is the only thing Kanda can think of to do for him.]
[The shock on Lavi's face is actually so funny -- the way for a single, heart-stopping moment he thinks Kanda means his original name, the one he'd discarded at the age of six, that only one other person knows -- before the realization hits him, and his face flushes out of embarrassment for being so stupid -- and then he registers the question again and turns even redder for some reason? the same reaction he'd have to Lenalee reaching out for him with her gentle hands, perhaps -- or something different? (lavi voice) NO. WHY DO I FEEL STUPID
he just yanks the scarf all the way up, feeling STUPID and frustrated and discomfited, in a way that's not discomfort anymore but something else, wrong-footed but in a way that doesn't feel lost. he's not used to feeling this way with Kanda of all people, who always acts according to his own nature and never surprises Lavi ever so why does he get to do that now -- !!!
"what's your name?"
why did kanda hit him with such a personal question that he is struggling to answer even now, especially when the answer won't matter as much to him as it would to lavi!!! MY GOD. but he has to answer, because this silence is kind of getting long and awkward, and now he's panicking like 'it's bookman junior' because that is actually his name, but
the idea of Kanda thinking of him as Junior makes his stomach twist,
it's "lavi" with the quotations inherent, that's the correct answer. but "lavi" is who pisses kanda off most, and it's not really him -- not after what he sacrificed on the ark. oh god. it's been like. three minutes already.]
-- Lavi...?
[WHY DID THAT SOUND LIKE A QUESTION. it's his name but it sounds so awkward on his tongue, and he kind of wants to curl up and die about it.]
[UghhHHHHH YOU'RE SO ANNOYING (<- man who did nothing helpful here)]
Pull yourself together and figure it out, Stupid Rabbit. You can have a crisis about it once we're out of here.
[And in the meantime--it won't be hard for Kanda to keep treating him the way he always does. Kanda doesn't change himself for others, after all, and... regardless of the rest of it, he knows "Lavi." The glimpses under the mask: As far as he's concerned, they're still Lavi too. Unless Lavi tells him otherwise, that doesn't need to change.]
at that Lavi just starts -- laughing? THIS IS SO STUPID IT'S SOOOO STUPID but he can't stop, and it's neither his usual false levity or the humorless kind from earlier, it's just bright and honest, probably prompted by how DUMB they are and maybe by the fact that Kanda will always call him by the name he wants to call him, inner crises be damned. he just gasps and snickers until his stomach hurts, and luckily for him he isn't injured in this thread YET.
the shadows finally part, releasing them from the void, and Lavi's laughter eventually subsides, wiping a tear from his only eye so he can grin at Kanda,]
[This is not at all the reaction he expected, not that he expected anything in particular because he really is an idiot--but it also means that all he can do is just :man_standing: while Lavi loses his shit and also probably his mind, if he had any of that left. God.
(It doesn't escape him that he hasn't heard Lavi, or anyone, laugh like this in a long, long time--but if he follows that line of thought for too long it'll only lead to extremely depressing places, so he opts for annoyance instead.)]
If you don't quit calling me that, there's not gonna be any name at all on your damn tombstone. [(voice of a guy who has had several years to follow through on his threats, hasn't done so)]
[TRULY KANDA HAS HAD SO MANY YEARS TO KILL LAVI and probably did genuinely try to kill him that first year damn, which Lavi now has more context for beyond 'kanda was an angry feral child', now he knows the actual reason why.
a part of him wants to wince at the way he's apparently tread on Kanda's TRAUMATIC PAST, even with the excuse of ignorance -- which really makes it worse when Lavi thinks about it. and a bigger part of him thinks he should turn the question back on Kanda, a "what do you want me to call you?" and give him a choice that sixteen year old Lavi had never given him. he thinks and thinks and thinks and... feels reluctant.
maybe this is how normal people feel when they get used to a name, why it's so strange that Lavi has so many and so little attachment to them all. Now he can see it from their point of view -- that one can't simply stop calling a person they know by the name they know them as,]
...Guess I got used to calling you that too.
[and anyway, lavi reasons, kanda has plenty of time in the future to stab him and roast him over an open fire for continuing to call him 'yuu', so... he'll stop when that day comes, probably.]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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...
Thank you sticks in his throat. He presses his lips together tightly, then drops his gaze back to the floor.
Quietly:]
...Don't ask me about him again.
[If these voids catch them again, if they show Lavi the rest--Kanda certainly won't be happy about it, but so be it. Anything other than those last, precious moments, the ones he swore he would never, ever share with another soul, and Kanda will deal with it. But he can't bring himself to sate Lavi's curiosity on his own. Even now... it hurts too much.]
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he pulls his thoughts away from that future at the sound of Kanda's voice, his demand that sounds like a plea that sounds like a request.]
...
[he doesn't say anything, trusting that his silence is acquiesce enough. instead he's quiet, content not to fill the void with his usual inane chattering, waiting for his memory to appear in turn. and then it does.]
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He'd known it was coming, but he's so caught up in their exchange--in his own grief and heartache and wary, fragile trust--that the scene shift catches him off-guard.
...Lavi wears a mask. He's known that for a long time. Partially because he's always been good at picking up on disingenuous energy (likely a product of his time in the lab), but also because Lavi has let him see beneath it. Not the public flares of temper or the shows of caring that earned sharp looks from Bookman. It's in the hints of bitterness and exhaustion, in his surprising capacity for stillness and silence. Sometimes, they'd simply needed to sit and exist, and it's those times Kanda thinks of when he tries to picture the "real" Lavi. Lavi has never shown any interest in meditating seriously with him, but in the end, these moments weren't so dissimilar: a chance to cast everything else aside until they were ready and able to resettle into their identities.
It occurs to him, as the scenes play out, that they are both human, and not, all at once.
It ends, and--Kanda doesn't reach out for him. It's not in his nature. But he looks all the same, searching Lavi's face, trying to predict whether he'll close himself off with openness, or face this with the same truth he'd so desperately wanted from Kanda.]
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It's the same for Lavi -- that while some people have seen this particular memory, have realized that "Lavi" is nothing more than a construct -- they're all still strangers at the end of the day. They're not a part of the Record, not a part of their holy war, as tangentially related as the people Lavi sometimes comes across during missions. They will part ways and probably forget all about Lavi and his idiosyncrasies. Bookman won't be happy, but the clan can't be threatened by people who don't even belong to their world.
But Kanda's different. He knows him more than anyone else does here -- and maybe even back home -- others have been sharp-eyed, but Lavi's always done his best to ease their concerns. Kanda? He doesn't need to be eased. He's simply always been there, always ignoring Lavi, enough that Lavi felt like he could be himself around him and not have to constantly worry about what the other man was thinking about him.
But he's worried now. It doesn't make sense to be. He looks at Kanda who is looking back at him -- and now he's terrified. Lavi can be everyone and no one only as long as no one else notices -- the last person who did -- your eye is like glass. it reflects me, but that's all. nothing reaches inside. he'd be fine if Kanda accepted the front, he thinks. he'd be more than okay if Kanda continued as if nothing's happened between them. what he wouldn't be okay with -- is if Kanda went on thinking that even the small, real parts of him are false too.]
Sorry.
[there is something ironic about him apologizing now, and not when he'd seen Yuu and Alma, their happiness and tragedy twisted together in a memory he'd had no right to see.]
...Know it doesn't mean much, but. [because he's a liar, no matter if he's bad at it] I meant what I said.
[he won't tell. even if the memory just proves that he's intrinsically a bookman through and through, and that every promise "lavi" makes is just part of his record,]
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(How irritating is it, that it kind of does?)
I just don't want to see it, Allen had said once, the first time he'd been a thorn in Kanda's side. That situation was wildly different, of course, but Kanda finds himself thinking something very similar now, faced with a Lavi--or a whoever he is--who's had his secrets bared. This is, quite possibly, the most "real" the man in front of him has ever been, but ironically, Kanda doesn't like it. This wasn't something he was given, though what he would've done with it if it had been... even he doesn't know.]
Quit making that face. [Because he prefers Lavi without the masks, even when the faces he's making underneath are bitter or tired or otherwise rough and unpolished. But he doesn't want to see that fear in Lavi's eye, as if he's waiting for some awful bomb to drop. That expression that makes it seem like Kanda's opinions matter, like it would be different if Kanda pushed him away now, instead of all the other times Kanda's tried--] It's annoying.
[He didn't have to say it like that though]
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but the fear from earlier vanishes from his expression,]
You think all my faces are annoying.
[another pinch of discomfort, because now the joke lands a little differently, after that memory. because lavi has so many faces that he's worn and wears now, and now Kanda knows just how many.
...he reaches up to fiddle with his scarf before he realizes he's doing it, tucking the cloth up to hide the sharp tilt of his mouth, unhappy.]
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He doesn't like this either, though it's... better. It's fair that Lavi's bothered by all of this, though Kanda still strongly suspects that it's not just because of the void.
He sighs.]
What's your name?
[Right now, between them--or even here, more generally, in this village so removed from everyone else they know. Who does he want to be? Does he want Kanda to see Lavi? Junior? Something new and different, separate from everything else they know?
He isn't Bookman, equipped with clan knowledge and the ability to whip Lavi back into shape. Nor is he Lenalee, who would've been able to reach out for him with gentle hands, promising that Lavi would be dear to her no matter what. Reminding him of who he is, even if that person isn't who Lavi has been up until now: This is the only thing Kanda can think of to do for him.]
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he just yanks the scarf all the way up, feeling STUPID and frustrated and discomfited, in a way that's not discomfort anymore but something else, wrong-footed but in a way that doesn't feel lost. he's not used to feeling this way with Kanda of all people, who always acts according to his own nature and never surprises Lavi ever so why does he get to do that now -- !!!
"what's your name?"
why did kanda hit him with such a personal question that he is struggling to answer even now, especially when the answer won't matter as much to him as it would to lavi!!! MY GOD. but he has to answer, because this silence is kind of getting long and awkward, and now he's panicking like 'it's bookman junior' because that is actually his name, but
the idea of Kanda thinking of him as Junior makes his stomach twist,
it's "lavi" with the quotations inherent, that's the correct answer. but "lavi" is who pisses kanda off most, and it's not really him -- not after what he sacrificed on the ark. oh god. it's been like. three minutes already.]
-- Lavi...?
[WHY DID THAT SOUND LIKE A QUESTION. it's his name but it sounds so awkward on his tongue, and he kind of wants to curl up and die about it.]
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Why did it take you that long?!
[AT LEAST SOUND CONFIDENT ABOUT IT]
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[SHUT UPPPPP]
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Pull yourself together and figure it out, Stupid Rabbit. You can have a crisis about it once we're out of here.
[And in the meantime--it won't be hard for Kanda to keep treating him the way he always does. Kanda doesn't change himself for others, after all, and... regardless of the rest of it, he knows "Lavi." The glimpses under the mask: As far as he's concerned, they're still Lavi too. Unless Lavi tells him otherwise, that doesn't need to change.]
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M'not having a crisis.
[YES HE IS... his face is still red. he peeps at Kanda over his scarf,]
And anyway, you're just gonna keep calling me rabbit even if I tell you...
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[THIS THREAD STARTED SO EMOTIONAL AND GOT SO STUPID]
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at that Lavi just starts -- laughing? THIS IS SO STUPID IT'S SOOOO STUPID but he can't stop, and it's neither his usual false levity or the humorless kind from earlier, it's just bright and honest, probably prompted by how DUMB they are and maybe by the fact that Kanda will always call him by the name he wants to call him, inner crises be damned. he just gasps and snickers until his stomach hurts, and luckily for him he isn't injured in this thread YET.
the shadows finally part, releasing them from the void, and Lavi's laughter eventually subsides, wiping a tear from his only eye so he can grin at Kanda,]
Thanks, Yuu.
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(It doesn't escape him that he hasn't heard Lavi, or anyone, laugh like this in a long, long time--but if he follows that line of thought for too long it'll only lead to extremely depressing places, so he opts for annoyance instead.)]
If you don't quit calling me that, there's not gonna be any name at all on your damn tombstone. [(voice of a guy who has had several years to follow through on his threats, hasn't done so)]
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a part of him wants to wince at the way he's apparently tread on Kanda's TRAUMATIC PAST, even with the excuse of ignorance -- which really makes it worse when Lavi thinks about it. and a bigger part of him thinks he should turn the question back on Kanda, a "what do you want me to call you?" and give him a choice that sixteen year old Lavi had never given him. he thinks and thinks and thinks and... feels reluctant.
maybe this is how normal people feel when they get used to a name, why it's so strange that Lavi has so many and so little attachment to them all. Now he can see it from their point of view -- that one can't simply stop calling a person they know by the name they know them as,]
...Guess I got used to calling you that too.
[and anyway, lavi reasons, kanda has plenty of time in the future to stab him and roast him over an open fire for continuing to call him 'yuu', so... he'll stop when that day comes, probably.]