Author's Note: Hello! This is something I've been pecking at when I don't feel motivated enough to write anything for my other plots (so, as you can imagine, I've been working on it a lot recently heh) It's been rotting on my hard drive for a while and I decided on a whim to post it. It's not very good, but someone out there might like it I guess. For those of you that have read other stories with my OCs, the Ammon in this story is not related to Amaimon. I'm awful at making new characters, so I reuse them a lot.

The first two chapters make up the beginning together, so I've uploaded them at the same time.

Blue Exorcist belongs to Katou Kazue and Co.

"Rin?" Shiro sighed, exasperated, and ran a hand through his short, gray hair. Where did that little rascal run off to now? It wasn't unusual for little Rin Okumura to go wandering off in the middle of the day. Sure it was annoying, especially when he was pulled away from his work to search for the little runt, but hardly unusual.

Shiro turned the corner to the hall that led to the twins' bedroom and froze. The hatch for the attic had been pulled down and he could hear faint, childish laughter coming from above him. He stared at the dark room in disbelief for a moment. Rin was certainly a special child, in more ways than one, but there was no way a six-year-old could have pulled down that ladder without help.

It was the kind of help he might have had that caused Shiro to worry.

"Rin? Are you up there?" Without waiting for a response, Shiro climbed the steps and found Rin in a dusty corner, lit by the sunlight pouring in from the small window above him. He giggled and rolled his ball—a dark blue thing with yellow stars—into the corner opposite of him. It disappeared into the seemingly impenetrable darkness that blanketed that particular spot of the attic.

Shiro crouched down beside him and smiled. "What are you doing up here all alone, Rin?"

He looked up, a confused expression on his cute face. "I'm not alone; my friend is here!" He pointed to the darkened corner.

Shiro looked, but, thankfully, didn't sense anything; not from this world or the mirror world. Rin must still have an imaginary friend—he was rather creative for his age. "What's your friend's name?"

"A Moon!" he cried, dragging out the words in a sing-song voice.

"That's a nice name." He stood and retrieved the ball from its spot in the corner. "Why don't you and A Moon go down and play with your brother?"

"Okay!" Rin scrambled to his feet and hurried down the steps, arms outstretched as he pretended he was a flying plane.

Shiro watched him go with a faint smile. Once Rin's footsteps completely faded, he turned his attention to the corner where this 'friend' was. He crouched down on one knee and gently rolled the ball into the shadows, just as Rin had a few minutes before.

He stared into the darkness that swallowed the toy, half expecting it to bounce back, pushed by some invisible hand. But that was ridiculous. Rin was still far too young to awaken to his powers, and there were no ghosts in the monastery. After a moment of silence, he laughed at himself. "I'm getting too old for this."

As he turned to leave, the ball rolled back to him quickly, bumping against his shoe before coming to a complete stop.

. . .

Rin stared down at the bruises forming on his knuckles, regret welling up inside him. What was wrong with him? On his way to the job center, he had stumbled across a group of boys attacking a flock of pigeons and had just...lost it. What kind of monster hurts innocent animals anyway?

A bird, its broken wing mended, leapt into the air and fluttered noisily into the distance. Rin watched it disappear over the buildings with a wistful expression. If only he could do the same.

"What is my problem?"

"Your problem is that you're too emotional." Rin wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand and glared at the boy picking through the corpses. "You care too much. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, but it seems to get you into trouble more often than not."

He ignored the boy's snarky response and pointed to the dead pigeon in his hands. "Should you really be doing that?"

"No one cares about a few birds." He tossed it into the air and it immediately took flight, its life suddenly restored to it. Rin watched it frantically fly away. "I guess, like you, I have a soft spot for the innocent."

Ammon, Rin's childhood friend, stood just a few inches shorter than him. He had pitch-black hair that seemed to stand up on its own in the back. His bangs were neat and always pushed to the right side of his face. (It was occasionally held back with a silver barrette, but not today.) He was incredibly pale, almost a porcelain white, and his eyes were a sparkling gold. They were like the eyes of a cat, and glinted curiously in the darkness.

He was, unlike Rin, attractive, (as far as teenage boys went.) Rin had a mess of dark hair he hardly ever combed and striking blue eyes that seemed to pierce people when he was angry. Whenever the topic was brought up, Ammon would insist that Rin had a wonderful smile; a benign, affable aura that drew people in and made them feel comfortable. Rin never believed it. If he was so friendly and approachable, why did he always find himself in fistfights? Why did everyone call him a demon?

"Because that's how you see yourself." Rin rolled his eyes. This was what Ammon did best: answer his thoughts as if he could hear him. It irritated him, but it was also the thing he liked the most about Ammon. "Stop pretending that you're some sort of worthless loser, and I guarantee you people will stop calling you a demon." He bent down and scooped up another bird, brushing the loose feathers from its corpse.

Rin watched him, though not too closely. He never understood how Ammon worked his magic and, rather than attempt to comprehend exactly what he was doing to those birds to bring them back from the brink of death, he simply accepted it. "Have you ever met a demon before, Ammon?"

The pigeon in his hands took off. "Literally or figuratively?"

"Literally."

He paused, gently stroking the chest of a bird as its broken wings snapped back into place. "…Once or twice."

"What are they like?"

A strong breeze brushed discarded feathers across the empty park. Ammon turned to it, using it as a distraction to gather his thoughts. "Well, I can say they're nothing like you."

He scoffed and sniffed, feeling a droplet of blood trickle down from his nose. "Is that supposed to make me feel better?"

Another bird flew into the air. "Does it?" Ammon stared at him, yellow eyes reflecting light from the streetlamp.

"Yeah, it does."

He smiled warmly. "Then mission accomplished." Rin sniffed again, and this time Ammon came to his aid. "Don't wipe that on your sleeve," he scolded, "Yukio will notice." He pressed a black, silk handkerchief to his face, wiping away the blood.

"What are you, my mom?" Rin accepted it regardless, and pressed it hard to his nose to stem the bleeding.

"I think I'd make a pretty good parent, all things considered." Rin rolled his eyes again. He didn't say anything, but he thought Ammon would make a good father—seeing as how he was always cleaning up his messes and fixing his mistakes. "Why don't you go home, Rin? I can finish up here." With a flick of his wrist, a nearby bird sprang to life and fluttered away noisily, leaving behind a cluster of broken, gray feathers.

. . .

Rin reluctantly and quietly eased the back door to the kitchen open, hoping he could slip in without being noticed by anyone important. Unfortunately, his twin brother, Yukio, was there waiting for him.

And so was Father Fujimoto.

He cursed under his breath and slowly began to close the door, but Yukio had seen him attempting to hide and pulled it wide open. "Rin! There you are. You missed dinner."

"Urp!"

"Where have you been?"

"Um, I, uh…"

"He was at the job center. Right, Rin?" Father Fujimoto eyed him dangerously from his spot at the table. "So, did you get a job?"

"Uh, yeah, a-about that…"

"You were in another fight, weren't you?" Yukio grabbed his brother's hand and turned it over. "Look at you; you're hurt." He pointed to the blood staining the hem of his sleeve.

Rin snatched his hand back and shoved it into his pocket. "I-it's none of your business where I've been!"

"Shame on you, Rin!" He flinched and turned to Father Fujimoto. "Why don't you ever think before you resort to violence?"

"You're one to talk!" he snapped, remembering all the times he had been scolded by having kitchen utensils thrown in his face.

Father Fujimoto stood abruptly, and for a moment Rin was worried he might do something drastic, but all he did was hold a folded scrap of paper out to him. "Here."

An address was written on it. "What's this?"

"An acquaintance of mine runs a restaurant. He needs an apprentice. If you're interested, he'll interview you."

"A-an interview?" He stared down at the small note and suddenly became angry. Not at Father Fujimoto for suggesting the occupation, but at himself. He tightened his grip on the scrap, crumpling it slightly. "…I can't."

He narrowed his eyes. "Why not?"

Yukio chimed in, trying to diffuse the tension hanging between the two like always. "You're a great cook—I think it's perfect for you, Rin."

"You know I can't hold a job," he muttered bitterly. "I'll just mess it up." He tore the note into small pieces and shoved them into his pocket. "I mess everything up." He'd only gotten this far in life thanks to Ammon's uncanny ability to fix his mistakes; but he wasn't supposed to say that out loud.

Father Fujimoto clenched his fists and frowned deeply. "You little brat!" he yelled, but this time Rin didn't care. "You can't be picky without an academic record!" He sighed, blowing the anger out of his voice. "One day you're going to have to leave this place, and I'll be damned if you end up living on the streets."

"I know that!"

"No, I don't think you do. You don't understand anything about what it will be like for you out there."

"You're the one who doesn't understand!"

"Rin…" Yukio reached out to console him, but he shoved his brother away and stormed down the hall to his room.

. . .

Ammon never made noise when he entered a room, nor had Rin ever seen him use a door properly. One second you were alone, and then the next thing you knew he was standing beside you. His sudden appearance and disappearance didn't bother Rin, at least, not anymore. But he did have other…'abilities'…that bordered on unnerving—like bringing dead animals back to life, or manipulating heavy objects telepathically, or effortlessly convincing people to forget they had seen him, (that last one was particularly annoying.)

Rin had tried for years to figure out what Ammon was, but he could never come up with an answer that satisfied him. He wasn't imaginary—like everyone had originally thought—or a ghost, or a demon, or an alien, (though that would be pretty cool), or anything remotely malevolent, so, out of desperation, he had turned to his family for help. But, naturally, that proved to be a fruitless endeavor. Any mention of Ammon, even subtly, threw Father Fujimoto into an uncharacteristic rage. The other priests didn't know what to make of him, and Yukio…

Well, Yukio was undecided, as far as Rin could tell. On one hand, he seemed to believe Rin, and had never called him insane or childish when he spoke about him. But, on the other, he insisted that Ammon was merely a phase, something that he would eventually grow out of.

It had been ten years, and Ammon was just as present in Rin's daily life as ever. In fact, it had only gotten worse. Ammon was like a shadow, hanging over Rin and answering his every call. That the boy always wore black only compounded this.

But thinking about it now only frustrated him. Rin no longer cared what he was or where he came from; he was just happy to have someone to listen to him—to both the things he said aloud and to the things he didn't.

Ammon walked over to where he sat hunched at his desk and placed a tray of hot food beside him. "Yukio dropped this off outside your door."

Rin didn't look up from the tiny shreds of paper he was struggling to put back together. "What is it?"

"Ramen. Pork, I think." He stepped back and leaned against his closet door.

"Nice."

"What are you doing?" Ammon tilted his head.

He discarded the piece in his hand and picked up a different one. "Trying to put this back together…" His brow knitted in concentration as he compared the torn edges of the scrap to the other pieces of the barely completed note. Finally, he tossed it down and let out a frustrated sigh. "I hate jigsaw puzzles. Can you fix this?"

Without any further questions, Ammon scooped the mess into his hands and held them firmly together for a moment. When he pulled them apart, the note was back to its original folded state. Rin accepted it with an excited smile and opened it. Ammon read over his shoulder. "An address? Where to?"

Rin looked up at him with a smug grin. "I have an interview tomorrow. I'm gonna teach that old man not to look down on me anymore."