Title: Unedited

Author: Pup-Ashbless

Fandom: D Gray Man

Disclaimer: I do not own the official franchise.

Summary: Lavi giving his goodbyes, in his own way, and one time he didn't.

This is Lavi being a little nicer (probably) than the one in more Wanderlust fic.

"What are you doing now." It was not phrased like a question, but like a command.

"Looking for cracks." Cracks were anything that slipped passed over of humanity's visions, despite being in plain sight, for they held hidden meaning and stories people rarely questioned. He's young and restless, he'll be ten soon, even though he's more study oriented than most children his age, he still gets bored when Bookman isn't in the position to be bothered. He touches the books that have been bound by old wood that still smells of forest and tough steel.

His fingers are damaged from previous exploits, but he still moves them along the frames searching for how many cracks that can be counted. Some are obvious, others are not, but still can be found all the same by someone as observant as him. By the end he'll have deduced how many times the book was damaged.

"…Don't let any splinters embed themselves in you…"

"Don't remind me."

"Then don't look for them."

Bookman ruffled away his current newspaper, and with swift movements latched onto his pupil's hand with cold precise accuracy and plucked a piece of wood the red head had no idea had been making his knuckle bleed.

The apprentice pulled back, more from agitation of not noticing than the actual pain, and rubbed his lips against the offensive wound, as if blaming it for not catching his attention.

"Idiot." Bookman said nothing other than that, knowing the inevitable scowl but silent submissive ness would follow the younger boy as it always did.

%

Lavi respected Komui, as much as Lavi could respect people with power.

It wasn't really the same respect as everyone else gave him (when Komui wasn't doing anything stupid, anyway), but he could also respect him for that as well.

Things were tense, tenser lately these days; with Komui staring at him like he was going to burn himself and nothing could be done about it.

But Komui smiled, not a bad smile like he was going to need a test subject or he thinks Lavi was getting to close to Lenalee. Just a smile Lavi, as always, could never read the same way others could.

Komui crossed the room with a regal air he possessed that people could easily forget and nodded to Lavi when he stood in front of him.

"You're an exorcist Lavi."

"Yeah." Lavi replied easily.

Komui put a hand to Lavi's shoulder with applied pressure in a way that spoke volumes of things he couldn't touch on.

"You are good exorcist Lavi, a fine one. Continue to do good."

Komui walks past him, joining his lady stalker (as Lavi dubbed her in same vein he dubbed two spots) and Lavi can't help but wonder how many times Komui has said this to the other exorcists and doesn't bother to correct Komui's grammar from his last sentence with a 'do well' in his head because suddenly it sounds stupid.

%

Timothy was a brat, a very scary brat that's going to become a very scary man one day if from what he's heard about his handling of Komui is true.

He's engaged in a food match with Timcanpy who's wandered away from Allen and Two spots in favor of stealing treats.

Timothy is thankfully his target and Timothy is being less picky than the usually victim is with Tim's appetite by quickly scarfing down his favorites (mostly desserts) while throwing his carrots and such into the air in useless hope that the golem would actually ignore his more meaty foods in favor of vegetable.

"It's cause I grew up with littler kids that surviving lunch like this isn't so hard." Timothy wisely said like an experienced soldier until he caught Timcanpy sneaking away with a large steak trailing juice across table.

"Looks like he got ya." Lavi smirked at the scene until Timothy poked his tongue out and said, "Looks like he got you, I only like chicken!"

Suddenly Lavi's own plate looked less filled.

"Timcanpy!" Chasing after the golem was the more prevailing action than wondering how the heck Timothy always did that with the food.

What an evil brat.

A genius brat, but still an evil brat.

%

"You don't say it as much as you used to."

"Say what?" Lavi turned to Marie, who even without his eyesight seemed to be able to look at you and not past you. It would have been unnerving coming from anyone but Marie, but Marie was like that for anyone.

"Say Yuu." Marie titled his head to the side with an easygoing smile that Lavi could never match despite years of practice.

(Marie must be checking to make sure Asian teammate was no where within hearing range. Heh.)

"I've always called him Yuu?"

"Well, no, not like you used to. Before it was… it sounded more like you. The way you say it then is different than the way you say it now, like you force yourself to do it now." Marie's face looks a little worried, not anxious, just a little worried to see a small change like this happen between two of his comrades with no one else noticing.

Oh Marie, always so genuine. Marie is perhaps the most genuine person Lavi could never look in the eyes. Ironic a blind person could be the most perceptive at things in plain sight for everyone else. Maybe it's because of how much he's changed and how sincere Marie always is that makes Lavi laugh n a way that probably confuses Marie even more.

"It's cause he's starting to accept it."

Lavi turns to leave, because he doesn't want to hear Marie's voice, a voice that soothes his ears when other voices cut in to make them bleed.

He runs into Yu –Kanda and smiles while making his lips form the name he's suppose to say with the right meaning he's suppose to give this time.

Lavi's been accepted for a lot of things, but this one is something he can't find the refund slip for.

%

His leg is hurt from a mission with Krory and Miranda. They both got away more or less unscathed, but not him. No not him. But that's fine; doctor says he'll be fine in a shorter while than the norm so he won't complain about the break from Bookman's drilling (cause even the old man is intimidated of the Matron to some effect).

During this whole ordeal it's Miranda and Krory who stay with him.

Lavi tells them not to bother, it's not their fault, cause he really really does not want to deal with Miranda's insecurities after proving how bad he is at it from various past experiences or Krory's over exaggerated sentimentalities on the basis he's, at least, not very good at being the sentimental type.

But surprisingly to Lavi, after Miranda's done with her sob exercises she just sits there fussing over him with vigor she usually saves for the battle field while Krory replies "We know it's not our fault, but it is our responsibility."

Lavi sleeps with awkward knowledge he's being tended to by two people he considers incompetent in this field but is letting them get away with it regardless of the fact he could always fetch the nurses on them. Though in the morning after when he awakens with Krory's and Miranda's head on him, the latter's on his bad leg, Lavi just sighs.

He's feeling less awkward and more like the exasperated adult despite being the youngest in the room.

Sometimes friendship just has to be endured.

…It's not a totally bad lesson to tuck away in the back of his mind.

%

Lenalee always knew something, even when she didn't. He never cared to look further into it. She had a sense to know, always did in that unnatural, supernatural way, which disturbed him more than he cared. She was odd; he would think back on from way into the future, in that she would almost carry a heavenly quality to her if it wasn't plain she belonged to the ruin old earth, buried.

Lavi feigned deep sleep when in reality he was half awake. His closed eyelids felt dry against his eyes. He wondered if the ink written on the pages against his cheek was sticking to him. When he felt a light touch of small delicate fingers pressing sharp, unusually uncut nails (for Lenalee always kept her nails cut short) against the back of his neck. A cold shiver traveled from them down his spine and nestled in a cool pit of his stomach. Lavi did not move an inch, nor did he still himself. His breathing stayed even and his eyes stayed closed.

It seemed like an eternity, but in reality it was fifty seconds point five, before Lavi felt the light weight lose contact with his skin. But in its place a pressure settled like a ton of brocks building a wall in his throat as though it were trying to cut off the flow of oxygen.

Lavi stayed in his half dream like state even when the swift footsteps left him behind for an hour. A lofty ghost had been chained to him through that spark of touch and so long as he stayed there Lavi would not willingly fall into deep slumber as he had learned to do in this state of existence, surrounded by others inside a wall that contained a puzzle of its own world.

That puzzle was coming undone as the world was winding up, scattering the new pieces to new worlds that were not limited by physical walls.

Something was going to happen wasn't it?

Lavi sighed - unevenly with a little shake to his elbow as he lifted himself up - wondering if it had been a dream? He swallowed the sour ness with a resigned sigh and thought he always preferred bitterness staining his logic any day.

He wishes Lenalee's worries would stay her own.

%

China seems to be an ill place for him, a thought Lavi entertains more than once.

He's being held by the arm, gently or painfully he can't tell, by a Noah he can not recognize.

The world is swirling but his eyesight remains straightforward creating a jarring effect he could do without, thanks. Bookman by contrast is calm and despite the circumstances looks as if he's on equal grounds with their captor even with his needles placed securely back in his coat.

Lavi doesn't know if the makes him feel better or worse.

All he knows is that he does not want to know something for once.

That something being Chaoji, Lavi can tell the other's screaming is so loud it's like thunder shaking the world but no one can hear the full storm of it to come.

Lavi and Bookman are going, that's obvious.

Chaoji, well Chaoji is now an unknown variable, why not kill him, why do the same but worse than Lavi only to leave him behind to be found?

Chaoji's an unknown variable.

That's scarier than anything to Lavi.

The first was Allen.

The second was Lenalee.

Now the third was Chaoji, only this time Lavi was sure things would be different from before, because Chaoji's not like Lenalee or Allen.

(Neither was he.)

This time, Lavi was the one leaving someone behind.

(It dawned on him maybe he was like Allen and Lenalee, God help him.)

China was an ill place for him.

(He's not sure he can rescue himself, he's never been able to before.)

A very ill place.

%

Lavi's sitting in a chair with no restraints because his own body acting against him. He's hearing things he knows he's not suppose to and Bookman only looks a little perturbed as he bounces words back and forth with a Noah who could kill them as easily as a little kid with ants on the sidewalk.

They get to the part about the 14th and Lavi realizes he never had his good bye.

Allen was pretty much everyone's rock. Allen didn't have a rock. Well, no he did, but his rock was six feet under in a place no one knew of so no one could touch it. In that way Allen was luckier since he clung to the dead while the poor living thought they had no choice but to cling to the dying, which was Allen, or people like him.

But nothing would help his situation because Bookman has always said knowledge is power and who could be more powerful than a master bookman and beings that treat history as a passing occurrence rather than a force to submit to. So where would that leave him and everyone without him cause Allen's the only real thing in this world that Lavi thinks is completely right even when he's wrong.

In the mess that follows Lavi can only think he of his goodbyes and how Allen's face is not showing up anywhere as his stomach forces the thick liquid out of his throat leaving him a little sicker and empty.

He hopes he vomited on Fiddler's shoes and manages a smile when he hears an, "eww!" from the side.

%

His current name is Lavi, he doesn't have a last name or any name that exists everywhere.

He's a bookman. He's a person, but always human.

He never says goodbye.

But he does give them.

He'll even leave them unedited.