A/N: What are timely updates? I don't know, that's a good question.

Ridiculously minor edits done 10/21/15.

Allen exhaled an exasperated breath of hot air as he trudged down the street, the mid-May chill of Portugal sending a slight chill crawling up his spine. When he'd taken Cross Marian's hand, dodging debt collectors was hardly what he expected, yet that was exactly what he'd spent the last few years doing.

Couldn't he have picked a better General to get him involved with the Exorcists?

In a split second, Allen had decided to forge an identity for his father to hide behind when he awakened and what had been part of bigger, more elaborate plan became a quiet contract of servitude. It was an apprenticeship ground in paying the master's bills and occasionally relearning something his father had taught him long ago.

Somewhere behind him, someone shouted at him. Another unpaid debt, Allen thought with a deep sigh.

He had to correct himself. This wasn't servitude; it was outright slavery. Less demanding would be going back and swearing an oath to the Earl. At least then he'd die with dignity and would no longer need to run from every other shady-looking individual because Cross opted out of paying them, too.

The latest stranger to demand payment strode up to him with a saunter full of confidence, puffing his chest out in an attempt to intimidate the much smaller, teenage boy in front of him.

"You're Cross's student, righ'?!"

No, Allen wanted to say, but denial would only make the pursuit twice as bad as usual. Allen flashed the man the brightest smile he could manage, giving him the true picture of innocence in all its forms before turning on his heel and... sprinting in the opposite direction.

"Hey!" the man screamed as Allen darted down the sidewalk. He could hear his feet pounding against the ground behind him. He wove between the droves of people on the skinny streets, vaulting over the occasional stand-up sign in his path as the slighted man continued to follow him.

Gray eyes searched the bars as he passed them, looking for the redheaded man that should've been contained within one of them. There was no trace of him and instead, the chase continued for a good ten minutes until Allen turned a corner and bumped right into someone.

Allen plowed right into him, sending them both tumbling to the ground. A groan slipped past Allen's lips, just as one did from the stranger's. As Allen moved to pick himself up, it dawned on him that he'd just slammed into a perfect stranger and knocked them down. With ease, he bounced back onto his feet. "D-desculpe!"

The foreign word slipped off his tongue and he couldn't help but feel as though he'd said it wrong, but it was one of very few words that Allen knew of Portuguese. He'd been relying on the English speakers the entire time he'd been here and unluckily for him, the debt collectors all spoke English.

Allen breathed a sigh of relief when the stranger responded in perfect English, "It's fine, Boy."

Allen looked up at the man that was nearly twice his size and nearly recoiled at the sight of his face. At a glance, the man looked strikingly similar—but visibly older—than his father. Closer inspection had Allen spotting every difference, but a familiar foreboding feeling rocked his body like a tidal wave crashing against him. Whoever this man was, he wasn't a mere human.

Noah, he growled inwardly, gray eyes settling on the man in front of him with a barely contained glare.

Tanned skin, black and wavy hair, brown eyes with a mole just beneath the one. He had a handsome face that would be easy to remember, but being in his presence chilled him to the bone. His fingers twitched and his Innocence screamed at him to invocate and attack, but Allen opted out of doing so.

"You okay, Boy? You look like you've seen a ghost."

Bringing his gloved hand up to toy with a few stray strands of white hair, Allen forced a laugh. Both a blessing and a curse was the debt collector who rounded the corner then, screaming at him in Portuguese. They were words that Allen didn't understand in the slightest and he had every intention to turn and run until he felt an arm wrap around his waist.

Allen yelped and probably would've smacked the man had he not started speaking and ultimately brought the man tailing him to a halt. The exchange was in Portuguese and Allen spent the entire conversation glancing between them. He stood stiff and lifeless, more like a mannequin than a human being.

Allen wanted to say that the man was helping him and wouldn't ask for anything in return, but that thought was cut painfully short when he felt a pair of lips pressing against his temple.

His face burned and this time, Allen actually did hit him.

He pulled his arm back and drove his elbow sharply into his ribs, knocking the wind from his lungs. The man grunted, holding where he'd hit him with his free hand before forcing out a laugh. "A little shy today, are you, Gatinho?"

"You—"

Allen didn't get to finish his sentence. Like he didn't exist, they continued their conversation. There was laughter thrown in both directions and Allen was surprised when the debt collector left without a fuss. Gray eyes blinked owlishly, shocked by the display, though he didn't understand a lick of what had gone on.

"Look, I took care of your problem. Don't you feel bad for hitting me now?"

The words broke Allen out of his stupor and instead of expressing his undying gratitude for freeing him of the greedy goon Cross left him with, he turned and punched him right in the jaw. "What the hell was that?!"

His usual polite mask forgotten in that moment, he couldn't help but glare at the lecher who finally uncoiled his arm from his waist to nurse what would be a bruised cheek in a few hours—or that would be the case, if he were human.

"Careful," he said with a half-hearted laugh. "I did just save you from a debt collector, Boy."

There was no threat in his tone, yet Allen couldn't help but go on the defensive. He couldn't tell if this was some random act of kindness or some trick, no matter how much he tried to convince himself that there was no way the Noah—the Earl—knew about him.

"I didn't ask you to do that," Allen countered as the man pulled out a cigarette and lit it. Allen's nose wrinkled up at the mere sight of it, but the smell was twice as bad. He took a several steps away from the man, getting out of the range of the smoke only for him to lean over and blow it right in his face like the complete asshole he had to be. Allen erupted into a fit of coughing.

"As bad as your Portuguese is, I'd hope not," he said with a carnal smile. Allen had half a mind to sprint in the opposite direction, go back to finding his bastard master who'd abandoned him in the droves of people. Certainly it was better than whatever this man was thinking while wearing a smile like that. Nothing could convince Allen that his thoughts were innocent ones. "What's your name, Boy?"

Allen thought about lying. The way his hair on the back of his neck rose in the presence of this man made the idea twice as tantalizing. The aura that flowed off the Portuguese man in waves was dark and familiar; it was the same one he'd felt when he'd met his father and when his father met that girl.

Honestly, he'd be more surprised if this man wasn't a Noah and if he was, he'd inevitably run into him again. Hiding his name would just prove to be a wasted effort.

"Allen," he said simply, holding his hand out for the other man to shake. "And you?"

When he took his hand, the urge to flee intensified. His face flushed a deep red when the man brought his hand up to his lips and laid a kiss upon his knuckles.

"Tyki," he said, mimicking Allen and omitting his surname.

As if he'd been burned by the contact, Allen wrenched his hand away. Gray eyes darted in every direction, in search of an escape of some kind. For once in his life, the flash of red he saw behind the taller man was a relief.

"I-I'm sorry," Allen yelled as he rounded the man, careful to keep his left arm out of his sight. "I have to go!"

He fled from the man, leaving him standing there without offering so much as a goodbye. Not once did he look back as he put distance between the two of them, even as his arm screamed at him to turn and strike him down. Now that he was far behind him, Allen found himself almost wishing he had an excuse not to go to Cross, but the man had already slowed to allow him time to catch up.

"Who was that?"

"He's a Noah," Allen said, a deep frown present on his usually stoic features. From the corner of his eye, he cast a glare at the man. Even after all this time, the memory of Mana falling, bleeding, dying hadn't faded. Cross had aimed at him and hit Mana instead. He blamed him for that, as well as himself.

"Which one?"

"Pleasure, Lust or Desire, judging by how he was acting."

"You narrowed that down..." Cross muttered irritably, making Allen's glare intensify.

"I'm sorry," Allen bit out venomously. "Did you want to try? Maybe if he grinds up against you a little, you might get a better idea."

Cross blanched at the mere idea of having another man touch him and said, "I'll pass."

"Yeah, I thought so," Allen said, setting his sight on the street before him. He focused his attention on their next destination and saved energy by removing himself from any conversation Cross might've attempted to strike up. It wasn't until the train station was in view that Allen asked, "Did you find out anything?"

"The Prime Minister is a Noah, too."

Allen nodded without responding. There was nothing to say, after all. Their job here was done; they'd located not one, but two individual Noah, one of whom likely fell into one of three vices.

If they could identify everyone who was a Noah, it would make things easier later for later, whether it proved advantageous once Allen became an Exorcist or his father needed to know when he awakened.

Whether Allen would still live to see the information's use or not didn't matter.

Something of a year later, Allen found himself traversing the dark corridors of an old, decrepit church, wanting to do nothing more than scream.

"Stupid cat," he muttered, glaring at the shadows as if they were at fault for Timcanpy getting eaten. Allen had tried to tell him not to shrink to the size of a golf ball or venture off on his own, but did he listen? No. They had the same father, so of course he wouldn't listen. Allen sighed, wondering for a minute why he chose to blame the cat for it. "Stupid Tim."

Whether Timcanpy was the issue or the cat, Allen's problem remained the same: He couldn't find the cat.

"Father will be angry if I lose him," Allen muttered, glancing around again before allowing himself to sink into the shadows. His blackening form disappeared against the brick as he slunk along the walls in search of the culprit that had swallowed his father's precious, golden golem.

"Aha!" he yelled, garbled voice echoing from the black abyss as he caught sight of the animal. The shout startled a swarm of bats and he joined them as they took flight and breezed past the cat in a swarm. "Got you!"

He picked up the cat, pushed him with a shadowed hand into the farthest room until the cat's back touched the back of a chair with an unexpected gentleness. His silhouette bled back into the pale-skinned, white-haired and gray-eyed Exorcist hopeful as he blinked incredulously at what he'd grabbed. It wasn't just a cat. "A-a woman?"

The inhuman quality disappeared from his voice, replaced by a younger, rhythmic one. Before he could even register that his capture of the cat had been successful, something clicked around his wrist. Handcuffs.

"A cop?!"

She switched positions with him, forcing him to sit where she'd once been, and started a game of twenty questions that Allen was doomed to lose from the very start. It was typical. One little mishap and every human turned to question them. One little misunderstanding and he was in handcuffs, even though a place like this had to be used by more travelers than just him.

Okay, so maybe he'd thrown her down a hall and onto a chair, but he still hadn't hurt her.

Anyone else would've said it was hilarious, both the situation and his streak of bad luck. To him, it was infuriating.

Bad enough was that Cross had abandoned him, run off overnight in spite of the fact that he was his key to getting into the Order. When he needed him the most, all he did was send a letter of recommendation ahead of him.

If I knew that was going to be his solution, I would've forged one years ago and saved myself the agony, he thought, trying to hold the nervous smile on his face as the woman went down her long list of questions.

"I-I was just looking for the cat!"

"The cat?" she asked curiously, glancing down at the cat lounging lazily at her feet. He nodded desperately, tugging at his bindings. He could easily slip his hand out if he wanted to, but opted to wait patiently for the moment.

"He swallowed something of my master's! It's very important that I get it back!" he said, wanting to slap himself silly for even considering that Timcanpy could ever belong to Cross Marian of all people, even if he did take credit for creating him. She continued to look at him, trying to gauge whether his words were truth or lie and as if triggered by the standstill they'd come to, shots rang out.

They shook the whole building, dirt shaking loose from the crumbling ceiling and covering them in a layer of dust that went largely ignored in favor of the sound of gunshots.

She muttered a single word—a name, he realized—that he couldn't quite hear. Like she gave him much of a choice, she shouted, "Stay here!"

Allen didn't respond. Instead, he watched her back retreat down the hallway to what would certainly be her death if he didn't intervene. It was a question of whether he should follow or go ahead and escape with the cat before back-up showed up to accuse him of additional charges.

If he left now, her blood wouldn't be on his hands. It was her own fault for charging off like that with nothing more than a pistol in hand to face the creature that fired several bullets in quick succession. On a good day, what she'd done was stupid.

In one ear, he could hear his father encouraging him to leave and live another day, but in the opposite one, he could hear his Uncle's voice bidding him to save the woman from her own heroism.

He could live with himself if she died, but he shrunk at the idea of his Uncle disapproving of his every action. His mind conjured up an image of Mana staring down at him, disappointment and dismay brimming in his dark brown eyes. That was what did him in.

It made him slip out of his bindings, hands and wrists shrinking before reverting to their usual size when he was freed.

"Sorry, Father," Allen said as he started after the woman. "It looks like I need to greet someone else first."

A/N: I don't know if anything is going to come as a result of Tyki and Allen's meeting. It was a spur-of-the-moment thing and I haven't decided if I want to go forward with a romance sub-plot or not. Might be interesting, all things considered.