Principle of Accountability, a d.gray-man fanfic

Title: Principle of Accountability

Fandom: D.Gray-man

Author: su-dama/tempusfugit3

Pairings: Miranda/Lavi, MirandaxCrowley

Rating: R for implicit sexuality and adult themes/pessimism

Words: 4600

Disclaimer: DGM belongs to Hoshino et al.

Author's Note: It probably would have helped to have posted this a while back. Fic takes place sometime after current chapters.

Principle of Accountability

What does not matter is Miranda's detail of nunnery; what matters here are the words exchanged in heat, the refuted yells—then, the quiet. She eavesdrops because she cannot move, her initial reaction, and she hears a not-in-agreement-Allen. Miranda has heard the refuted yells and then that godless silence; and she cannot explain why she feels disconcerted enough to warrant eavesdropping. It is not peace. Peace is not on Allen's face as he runs from the office, sparkling in the eyes like some tragic player.

How stunting.

He does not notice her as he takes the stairs two at a time, clumsy and yet so sure of himself.

She is flattened against the wall.

Miranda blends in.

No one else leaves or enters. Nor does this matter. It doesn't, not when her unsaid words are long gone and papers are fluttering in the office.

It is in the minutes before midnight that she has deluged herself in the moth-eaten and earth-smelling books of the Order's research library, hoping to stay longer than intended. She is excused by the librarian, for she's currently using the excuse of a tummy ache. It is more than that; she simply cannot sleep, having that foreboding sense of white lies, wearing a dressing robe to obscure the already obscured. She is like irrelevant text on the highest shelf.

Miranda used to think of herself as such, putting aside German tales, manic and depressive—

Until Allen rescued her; and now she thinks of his yells and quiet, those motions that mean so much after the fact.

As she rests against the window, a breath frosts it. It is not hers.

"Hullo," he says.

"Oh Allen." She feels startled, nevertheless.

"I didn't know you were in here."

"Of course not."

"I didn't mean to offend—"

"There's been no offense."

He saddles up next to her along the window sill, bumping into her arm. She thinks of grey tears, suppressing it all over again.

"Miranda? How is it?"

"You have elegant toes for such a short boy," she says, resisting a smile and the fact feet weird her out.

(But he is barefoot, walking about the castle. That can't be good.) Those toes must be lonely; and he wiggles them, grinning and scrunching his face.

What Miranda is tempted to share with Lavi are the questions. Why. Why. Why.

That hypertensive question that has become her universe.

The pounding in the back is always there, in her head, so she blames a headache, begs the nurse to kill it; the nurse is understanding and softly stern. The headache can be killed. Nothing else, the nurse adds.

She finally gathers her wits, nods to no one, and turns to Lavi during supper one night. "Is it true we cannot leave?"

"Who can't leave?" Lavi says, cocking his head over steak. "You? Are you glum again?"

Her fists could break the bench. "No. I overheard some…screaming in Komui's office. It was—it was—"

"What a face. What's happened?"

"It was…"

Many things have happened. Marvelous and equally barbarous things.

The way he chews his food hits her in the gut and wrenches it. She cannot throw up here. Miranda will not share anything further than her relationship with these cold walls. Unlikely, she tells herself.

The Finders are fewer in abundance, the Exorcists have grown bit by bit.

A good thing after that massacre long ago, the one that mostly preceded her induction to the Order.

She hears their voices, singular. Their army, their parallels. Jerry's voice filters past, and he is taking Allen's laundry-list order.

She runs out like there is no time left in that record of hers; her pity-party takes place in the loo.

After she returns from a mission in Ireland with Chaoji, she does not say a thing apart from her acceptance of greetings. Welcome back, welcome home, welcome to a fortress away from a fortress. Thank you, sir, thank you, madam, thank you for the hospitable deception.

(Not that she disagrees. There is a deception to everything.)

She is not speaking to Komui, although she should for principled reasons. (It's all right, he can't be lax. Komui won't sit Allen in the corner. This child has a purpose.) She has not asked about Allen, she has not stuck her nose in their business—the business that should be also her own.

Her nails have come back bitten off. She has most likely broken her tail bone from slipping off that ancient thatched roof during the gales of rain. Her hair is in knots and why beloved does she think her skin smells like basil sauce?

Alistair walks toward her to, apparently, pick up her travelling bag. It is unnecessary, but she can possibly appreciate his weakness for chivalry.

They make small talk, how all is well and how everyone's departing for separate missions. It is sad, but what can you do? Yes, everyone comes and goes. Could it be different, any different? There is nothing to be done. She's heard…

And she tells herself to stop talking. But no one would be jealous to know she is speaking with Alistair. Well.

Food for thought.

She relegates his name formally, touching his gloved hand, and he blushes like the petals in her flowerpot. He is sweet to blush like that. It at least raises her ego by a point. She feels a fever coming on from the nearness, promises, invitations, but boundaries. There is something about his smile, an aging nostalgia, and she's sorry again for running off.

She's made plans with him, though. It'll be good to get out. To breathe in the air the others cannot suck down like gluttons. They may be losing their breath, but she wants hers back.

When had it come down to her thinking this way? Hiding and clutching her hair once again, getting ready to decide her fate.

When? Because she's owing part of it to her induction. Without the Order, she is useless to humanity.

Miranda gets another chance to step on toes, or so it seems, with tension in her shoulders as she stands erect. (Earlier it had snowed, melted, and then snowed some more. A bad omen in the spring.) She thinks of grey tears.

She is a statue by a pillar; she is a dark statue based on association, because she wants to know. She wants the honors. Why, it should be said, why.

Allen walks by, staring into space, fingers tucking hair behind his ear. Kanda's new wound may be on his mind; Allen's curse is on hers.

"Allen."

"Oh don't frighten me like that, Miranda. I was going to visit Kanda. He's back from a mission. He's hurt."

He is. Like the wad permanently wedged in her throat?

"I thought you would."

"Well, I wanted to pick at him for…for leaving his Finder. He did it a-gain. Um, what is it?"

"It's nothing. Never mind me," she lies.

"I think I should mind."

Why does he have this right, this hold over what comes out of her mouth? Should it be so?

She looks at the scars on the back of her hands. They are bony, but she has put weight on her ass. It is the same weight moving toward her chest.

"I sometimes think I should mind myself. That is, I don't know. I don't know anymore."

"Miranda, you're going in circles. You don't make sense. Would you like to visit Kanda with me?"

She lets him persuade her into the darkened room. She's never been inside before, has never banked on ever entering. Kanda is an untouchable subject who does not like her in appearance, and she returns the tacit impersonality. Or, that's how it has been. Until she sees his body in bed, half covered by the sheet. She's heard (and slightly seen) about his remarkable recoveries. There's the rumor with the spear through the side. And the ingestion of acid. Kanda is a superhero, a superhuman.

Maybe she has it all wrong.

"I didn't say you could barge in here."

"We'll be quiet. I wanted to tell you to stop being a prat. You almost got your Finder killed," Allen chides, clicking the door shut.

"There is no truth to that." Kanda is alive and kicking and in one piece. On his back. Miranda wonders what the case may be.

"Pardon me for barging in, but are you healed?" she asks squeamishly.

"I am."

Allen laughs. "Jerry fed him bad peppers in his noodles."

"Shut it. It can't be helped I'm allergic."

"Can you really be allergic to peppers?" She has never heard of such a thing.

"Lady, you can be allergic to the cleanest of bastards. I know some people who are allergic to God."

"How now? Aren't you an Exorcist?"

Miranda catches Allen's glare toward the bedridden fellow, and she realizes that she can feel for him, the precisions. She has the capacity to feel for the meanest of beings.

But he is not mean, he is not meaning it.

Thoughts of mistaken identity arise as she lets the one on her legs massage and blow and repeat on her waist, naked. Miranda doesn't like the moisture that collects there. She doesn't think it is affordable, and definitely against her better judgment. If she were allergic to God, it might've been a comfort. She never forgets that she is an apostle. What is that exactly?

She used to be a nun in her own terms. But she will lie these days and say she is a nun in everyone's eyes. Except those. She ignores those eyes and blinks at the far wall, at a French painting. She wants to return to France, possibly Germany.

For crying out loud about fortresses.

Breathing in his sweat and mutterings, Miranda relaxes as much as any sane person can on any of the Science Division's potions. It is hard to do this, with Lavi on top of her, but she is amazing to him. She, on the other hand, will never believe it. Not even when he is calling her name. Not even then.

"Miranda?"

"Yes."

"Did you know what I was going to…?" He snaps his patch back on as usual. She can't forget to notice.

"Yes. You can stay." She doesn't want him to. Or does she?

"What's on your mind?"

Not Lavi. Not completely.

Bookman won't be back till the weekend; Lavi can stay till then. There shouldn't be a hassle as long as they keep it in the dark. She'll keep him in the dark, and then she won't ever have to witness his face crumple in pain. This is a pitfall of having a lover. The truth of the matter is that while younger lovers are hard to come by, they are harder to hide.

Even when you try to lie to yourself about your supposed nunnery.

Miranda has been learning how to read and write in English, although she understands it mostly, more to have something to do than simply master it. Mister Reever is her tutor when Komui will stop abusing his schedule. The supervisor has a story, but a story she cannot be too intimidated by. (She thinks he may have something for the chief, a guilty thought.) She anticipates his accent each time. Oh Mister Reever.

She notices how her particular address of him goes over his head. He blinks, frowns, and says she can call him Reever, just Reever.

Miranda is touched by his sincerity, albeit a tad sheepish. She cannot keep herself from the allure of it. Mister Reever sounds…

He tugs off his lab coat, and she pays close—closer—attention to his thighs. Those hard objects.

She pines. Shame on her.

To supplement her lessons, Lavi usually gives her a book to read. This time it is—

"Shakespeare's comedies," he says.

She blinks.

"It's some of his plays written out. I don't care for him myself, but he's entertaining when he wants to be. You know, girls dressing as guys. All that good conventional humor."

"Conventional? It's…" Sarcasm.

"It's gonna be hectic for you since you don't quite understand. Cheer up, I'll help you. Look."

She suddenly wants to cry so hard her eyes might dissolve at the mere thought. She can't understand it. Miranda can't do this, something that's so trivial it hurts.

"Erm, yeah, Shakespeare can make any girl cry," he adds too late. "Mostly from needless banter. Which d'you prefer? Unrequited romance or needless banter? 'Cause I reckon they're the same. Wha—? Did I say somethin' wrong?"

Miranda prefers that he not meddle in her affairs, except for the affair where he is directly involved. She will continue to bite her nails over it until they bleed.

She is not sure if she loves him, or if she is in love with him. She is not sure of the difference and had never learned of it at home. Being seven years his senior does not mean she is automatically entitled to superiority, or wisdom with age. She feels safe enough to assume she's got the smarts to know when to end things. Ending them over Shakespeare might upset them, however.

She honestly does not know how he reacts to every single thing. Affairs are called affairs for a reason.

She's lost her train of thought and can't figure out how to stop.

Lying.

There's a resounding ring to it when you find out you are, in his eyes, superior. To him, mostly.

Miranda remembers the bounce in his step from when they first met. How he yelled with that dark cloud above him as Lenalee wept when they met again.

She listens to how he mentions Yuu like Kanda is the bestest friend; how Allen is his little object of affection—in more ways than one; how Lenalee is a train-wreck-turned-warrior; how everyone's growing up; how Marie could have gotten his kit off with Miranda when he wanted to, lucky Lavi got the girl; and oh yeah, Miranda should tell him more about her past life.

Miranda's been gotten, it seems. (And won't he leave her in the end for his life's work?)

Whenever there is question about a past life, he corrects his meaning. Not past-past life, past life as in her life before the Order.

Well—pregnant pause—Miranda's told him before. She tells him often; she hates looking back with a passion.

She's beginning to hate looking forward. Allen's words in her head are becoming distant, but they are still whole and terrible. They are simple, not neat. They are ominous.

She wants something good to happen. It sounds like nothing good will happen.

Miranda had taken an oath, a vow to the Black Order. It includes her unending, unwavering loyalty, her will to do good in this world, her courage to do good and fight evil. An oath that is foul when it is your life.

It includes all these things now, along with her side remark on obedience. Of course the original contract states that she is to obey under all command, to sacrifice her life for humanity.

The Christ had done it, why couldn't she?

She had thought this not too long ago when she had scribbled in her name at the bottom. She had been so nervous that her signature was unreadable.

Her signature is doing better these days; though her fingertips shake when pointing in this or that direction to go, or invoking her Innocence. It is a sixth sense to her. Miranda takes pride in it, and then there's a limit to how far her pride can reach. It is like ensnarement. Her pride is cut in half, half here, the rest of it based in a home that is no longer hers. She wants to call on it, but it will not answer.

It is because she does not know how to call on it.

Therefore, as is common, and maybe commonly accepted, one is forced to assume defeat. You are defeated.

And she wonders if her Innocence, as it serves to protect—not necessarily save—everyone else, is a guardian angel—not a gallant knight—to her damsel in distress. How can it be, if it may reverse her years or age her into insanity? How can it be when she thinks of how Allen said his words, how panicked he'd been?

It could have been a phase. Passing phases happen.

(But not when the Church is involved.)

Miranda knows she signed a contract. She, however, did not know in all its capacity that she'd be signing her life away. She's so sorry for this; she's sorry that Allen was outraged.

He cries when he is outraged.

Good Lord, whatever will become of them?

But so far as children go, this is not surprising. Miranda shouldn't think anymore on it, or dwell on these walls. If she is to be incarcerated, better to be with the few who empathize.

Does that make her a bad person?

Here live hundreds of people, toy soldiers. How dare she reduce her pain to only a few? There must be more.

When she confides in Lavi about this, hiding her underlying outrage, he looks at her over the sheets, writing a log, whatever he calls it. His pen stops scribbling, he makes that huh sound, he loses his concentration. It reminds her of other sounds.

"A mistake?" he repeats.

"Yes."

"Bookmen don't make mistakes. My grandfather and I had made the right decision. Unless we absolutely have to leave, y'know, but, we're not Crystal-types. Yet."

She wraps her bare hands in the sheet, bandaging them, resting against the wall.

"Miranda. You can never stop being an Exorcist. You know this, don't you? If… No one else can pull a Cross. He's got no leash on him whatsoever."

"It scares me." Ending or never ending, she's undecided.

"Sure, it scares me, too. It scares everyone. What scares me more is having the choice. To leave. It kills me."

"Leaving behind your friends, yeah?"

"That, and to leave behind my loved ones. I don't…I don't wanna have to face that choice. I have to stay. Stay with me, 'right?"

That is the first time he says I love you in a less veiled way, if that's fathomable, and it is the first time he implies forever.

Forever cannot be fathomable.

The striking thought makes her feel like a fallen woman to the core, more so.

Miranda wants to see it—everything—through his eyes; she lusts for his power, although she shouldn't, and it ultimately reduces her to a gulping mess. It is not the time to be stepping into his shoes. She has to break into her own, make them running shoes, pummeling the ground.

He's made an oath to the Bookman lineage. Maybe this Order business is nothing to fear, compared to the former. It is like serving an ego.

It is not your own. In essence, you are a cog, blazing your fire at the tail-end of the biggest religious organization in history. It can begin all things, it can end all things.

Lavi starts to tell her a lewd joke in order to turn her frown upside down, or at least prompt another expression that's not of woe, but he's wasting his breath. He digresses into his travels, about his past that is forbidden knowledge to anyone other than Miranda. She's an exception, isn't she? She is loved, isn't she?

Miranda is finally loved.

He'll tell her his original name—nicely put—if she will just brighten up, or he will get into a mood.

He is not one to divulge so easily, not with that face that says he wouldn't mind even if the world dropped on his shoulders, even if the world pried his bones apart. Lavi compels Miranda this way; it scares her how honest he is being, how he can be. To compensate, she crawls toward him, her open sweater clinging to the friction of the bed.

Then, she is ready to be honest to herself. To him.

It is about to come out, but it, too, becomes friction on her tongue, and she ends his talk by kissing him. They will skip supper; Kanda will come looking for Lavi—not because Kanda is worried or curious, but because he is suspicious. She knows that tone.

Lavi's squeezes her breast. She will love him in secret.

He's a child of the Order. For now.

But how is he of both? He can be related to both, and go on as if he can turn away at a moment's notice—except he cannot. Not from being Bookman. Ever?

It does not occur to her until days later how she should feel, which should be old, Lavi says. (It's the wrong word for it.)

He is lucky she does not believe in domestic violence.

She goes to Alistair behind his back, nearly stabbing it with a (chaste) kiss to Alistair's lips. Unfortunately, Miranda hadn't thought through what this action might do, and he is so virginal and yet deceptive at the same time. She does not know what to think of him sexually until she realizes she mustn't go there. Where is there to go?

Their date is short-lived, modest and uncomfortable, akin to children pretending to court each other, swinging their arms. She now thinks she is a floundering half-wit and should probably call it quits. (She is too used to Lavi and his adolescent hormones.) That is what they do—quit together, and they return to the castle from the city, prematurely exhausted from wasted efforts.

Honestly? Fancy dining with oh-thank-you-kindly-Alistair will last her the next five years.

Besides. She kept imagining his teeth on her skin—teasing her beautifully, feeling like a whore.

Lavi, having been told the arrangement at the last minute, asks her about their fun in town, did she paint it red with Crowley-kins? She says it was the wine, it was the cherries, it was okay, what exactly does he mean by with Crowley-kins?

(But oh-thank-you-kindly-Alistair has the blackest eyes and blackest, bleakest outlook on love.) She misses him already.

Better to be alive than in a coma.

Right?

Miranda and a team of two others will be dispatched to Greece as soon as possible. Komui considers Lavi, but then he flirts with Miranda over his desk, negating the idea. He flirts with his eyes under his lashes, and Miranda almost balks because…

After all, he may not be flirting. She cannot decide. Be a love machine, a baby machine, and decide. She tells herself he is mocking her.

"Miranda, accompany Allen and Lenalee. There are a group of Finders already awaiting your arrival. Please stay on your feet."

When the other two Exorcists appear at the open office, murmuring to each other, Miranda sits up on the couch. It has been brought to her attention.

"Komui."

"Miranda?"

"Nothing. Sorry, sir. It's nothing." She turns her head away in despair, assumed defeat, all her lies fighting to spill from her throat. She won't look at Allen or Lenalee. She feels Allen's gaze on her back as she breezes past silently, Timcanpy darting out of the way.

"We don't have much time," warns Allen. They don't have much time.

So be it.

Miranda busts a lung running for the infirmary, in search of the nurse. She takes a moment to soothe the stitch in her side. She takes longer. She begins to slump against the door of the infirmary, practicing what she will say, what will soften the nurse up enough to give Miranda what she wants. Heat washes out of the room, washing over Miranda's hunched shape, and the nurse is there, mask of suspicion. Gloriously arched eyebrows.

"Miranda. Do you need something?"

"I'm sorry. I have to ask you this time. It—I have to ask you it."

"Am I going to regret it?" the nurse says sternly.

Miranda thinks so. She can feel her hands growing numb from the pressure.

Nurse.

Miranda whispers that no matter her strength of will, she cannot, her voice catching on the back of her tongue. She swallows her shame and is told that God knows all. He the Almighty will see fit that Miranda is taken care of. He is all around her and in her.

Inside.

It must all be lies to the world. The nurse is telling lies, and they are busy bouncing off Miranda now.

Miranda breathes loudly; her breath hitches and she begs until her heart aches for the devil. Miranda knows she is being selfish, unworthy. For the life of her, she cannot have—

The nurse is God, because she takes Miranda into her office and clicks the door shut behind them.

The compartment is as clean as it can get. Lenalee plays with Timcanpy's wings in her lap beside Allen. Miranda sees this upon awakening from a restless sleep, her cheek pressed up against the frozen window, her lips feeling blue. It must be morning, maybe around noon. Miranda wipes the dry tears from her eyes.

The two of them look at her, tilting their heads in tandem. She maintains eye contact.

"G'morning," Allen says, smiling again as if he's never smiled before.

"Mm. I hope." She can feel the wad in her throat.

Lenalee averts her eyes to the landscape. "The Earl is still out there. Do you think this'll be another slaughter? It's hard to think of something like that. Will it become a constant?"

"That's depressing," Allen says lightly, yet he flicks an oppressive smile at Lenalee. "Right?"

She colors, an apology dying on her lips. She makes up an excuse to leave the compartment and does, a girl abandoning her infatuation. Miranda wants to tell her that she is still a child, and that Miranda can see suddenly…

See right through her.

Miranda and Allen are left alone with the locomotion. They hug themselves. She feels her eyelids dropping again; she's not sure if it's due to oversleep or her shady affairs. For she is thinking some pretty shady things that aren't so pretty at all. Lenalee will interrupt them soon.

"I'm sorry," she blurts out.

"No, I'm sorry."

"No, I'm sorry."

"Miranda, I don't think this is going to work."

"I know."

"Erm, I mean. As to say—sorry for having you come with us. It's just, you're needed—just in case. It's chaos. And that," Allen looks at her knees, "I'm sorry you have to leave Lavi behind."

She reddens and starts to stammer like the old days, her mind working faster than her mouth.

He nods disjointedly. "I…knew." And he blushes slightly, as if to say he's somewhat touched by her love-life.

Miranda is beside herself, frankly, but she is able to mend her words and come up with something decent. Which is honesty. Finally. She may have the nurse to thank for that, to thank for the godly recitation and then—

Renouncement.

"Children are not a part of the Order. They are gifts that are not meant to be gifted here. It is in the code that they remain out of harm's way. So, I must wonder, Allen… Are you not a child?"

A child who has chosen his path, imprisoned and breathing false optimism.

It is a funny thing Miranda has never liked children.

It is in the home that the child learns the basic principle of accountability for actions: first to those around him, and ultimately to God.—Maxine Hancock