A/N: Hi, guys! Anyone who read my other recently posted fanfiction might remember when I said that I was at least partially rewriting a few of my old fanfiction. In celebration of WIP week on Tumblr, here is the first rewritten chapter of one of my old stories that still remains on my account under the same name.

Skin dyed a dark gray would tip anyone off to the individual being abnormal, but hair the same color as the falling snow didn't exactly help him with pleading his case. Nobody with a pair of half-decent eyes would've believed him to be a normal boy, especially not when his clothes were splashed bright red with blood, though whether it was his own or the enemy that had escaped, he had already forgotten.

None of this was supposed to happen, though they don't care about his reasons or intentions when they tackle him to the ground, still exhausted from a battle against his kinsmen. Time and time again, he had combated the Noah, but he had never come face to face with Exorcists or the Black Order and it hadn't taken him long to form an opinion.

They were exactly as his master had told him.

They saw the ashen gray of his skin and did more than demand his name, though he didn't give them that, either. It started with demands disguised as passive aggressive suggestions and escalated to torture in an effort to jog Allen Walker's memory, though the feeling of an Innocence-laced blade against his skin did little to facilitate that.

It didn't matter what he said, what he knew or didn't, they would keep poking and prodding at him, denouncing him as a liar and an ally to the Earl until he told them something—anything—that would prove who they thought he was. The Black Order wasn't built on trust; they would never believe he was hunted with the same fervor as the Innocence was.

Even the miniscule amount of knowledge that he did have was kept behind sealed lips that wouldn't sing for them. If he spilled even one secret, it would bring him an inch closer to outliving his use and he was young, but he was no fool. He knew what that meant.

Minutes bled into hours and time blurred until he had lost track of it. Whether one day had passed or one week was a mystery to him, although his parched throat and rumbling stomach suggested it was the former.

With his lips sealed tight, he never spoke nor cried out, greeting pain with silence as they returned time and time again to try and draw information out of him. Their interrogation technique was pitiful and weak compared to the tolerance he'd built up in training.

He lost count of how many times the same group of people came and went, leaving with no more than the time they'd lost trying to convince him to speak. But when next the door opened, just as Allen was dozing off, two new and unfamiliar faces entered with his usual company.

"This is the Noah?"

The voice belonged to a red headed young man not much older than himself whose accent was fake and his attempt to hide that was poor. The way he moved, the fake smile that he wore, it was obvious that he was little more than con-artist.

"Yes, this is him."

A lone green eye caught his own, but its owner didn't dare approach him. Whether his captors had warned him ahead of time, Allen couldn't say, but he's keeping his distance for the moment.

Rather than keeping his face obscured the long bangs, Allen lifts his head to meet his gaze with fire-filled gray eyes. He watches the subtle widening of his opponent's eye before he turns away to address the devil of a man standing next to him.

"What the hell?! He's just a kid!"

"Lavi!"

The scolding comes from the other newcomer that had yet to catch Allen's eye. Instead, he was fixated on the enigma named "Lavi" who seemed displeased by the treatment of the aforementioned "kid", though age mattered little in a war like this one. He'd heard from his master that the Black Order had been recruiting children for years, well before even his own training began.

"Does he really know something?" Lavi asks, doubt evident in his voice and tone rocking uneasily between anger and uncertainty. Most people who hadn't seen the row of stigmata drawn across his forehead would likely see what his appearance told them he was: A helpless child being tortured by a cruel, soulless organization that had no heart left in them.

And there was only one thing wrong with that statement—and whoever wholly agreed with it would be either disappointed or dead.

"Come on, he looks pretty clueless."

Though this "Lavi" has only spoken a few sentences, it's clear that he plays the part of a fool and he doesn't know if it's a part of the act or an honest mistake that he chooses to approach him. The quickest way to die on the battlefield is to underestimate your opponent and Lavi has already forgotten his earlier caution, thanks to his youthful face and the chains anchoring him to the wall.

But like they're as thin and fragile as glass, Allen flicks his wrist and his bindings snap in two like a twig. Lavi's eye widens just before Allen's left hand wraps around his throat, meeting his gaze with gray eyes speckled with the familiar gold of a Noah's.

As quickly as Allen grabbed him, Lavi's hands curl around his wrist, trying to prevent him from choking the life from him. Allen wants to laugh. It's a such a weak, feeble attempt—pointless when Allen knows just how easily necks can break in his grasp.

In a lone green eye, Allen sees a complex swirl of emotions, fear flickering at the forefront. That much he had expected; it's the pity that takes him by surprise.

His grip doesn't slacken, however, as he watches his torturers fan out to surround them, unsheathing Innocence-imbued blades that had his wounds aching at the mere sight of them. The eerie, green glow made his stomach churn, but he refuses to release his captive. Whether he was violent or not, pain would be used as a weapon to coax information out of him.

Besides, he's being nice, not cutting off his air supply. He's just making it as obvious as possible that he was capable of doing so without killing anyone—yet.

What he's not expecting is for the redhead to scream when his saviors begin to approach. Everyone jumped, eyes going wide at the new and bizarre experience that they were all present to bare witness to.

"Woah, woah! Hey!" Lavi yells, outstretching his hands as they moved to surround and possibly force Allen to remove his offending limb. He was smart; he knew what the result of that would be.

Panicked gestures give Allen's torturers pause and the sick, sadistic man that commands them wears an ugly frown that's subtly prettier than his smile, though that's saying little. Allen's lip twitches at his displeasure, feeling a sick satisfaction in knowing this isn't going according to his plans that he likely crafted in hell with the devil himself.

"C'mon guys, anyone would strangle me given the chance," Lavi says with a laugh, though Allen isn't blind to the bead of sweat rolling down his cheek. Gray eyes scour the forms of his would-be assailants and he licks his lips, though he succeeds in little other than slathering blood from an earlier wound across them.

Allen barely listened to Lavi's blathering as he tried to talk down the torturers, minutes bleeding into an hour as he talked them down more than the person that had their hand wrapped around his throat.

"Come on, jus' put the knives down, alright? Yer not gettin' anywhere with 'em, anyways."

What Lavi said wasn't wrong and they all knew it. The more pain they served him, the more his lips tightened. Though they might return time and time again to coax the information out of him, there were no successes to be seen. Everything thus far had been a failure.

Looking on, Allen felt compelled to do something he hadn't dared to since he'd been drug in, too dazed to combat them. His lips part and he speaks: "Your name is Lavi?"

His voice is hoarse from disuse—rough from dehydration. The minute he croaks out the words, gray eyes fixated on the aforementioned man, no one cares about Lavi any longer. Everyone in the room turns their attention to Allen, though only one holds his attention.

At last, the dreaded and dangerous Noah had dared to speak and it was to their rambunctious guest instead of the ones he was meant to speak to.

"Yeah, tha's me," he says, voice steady despite the hand grasping at his throat. Allen got the distinct impression that this was far from the first time he'd been threatened. "What's your name, Shortstack?"

A slender, white brow twitched at the insinuation that he was anything other than average-sized. Where he'd pulled that abhorrent idea from, Allen was pleased to say that he would never need to know.

In response to the question, gray eyes gloss over ther company with ill intentions made evident by the fingers still clutching at Innocent-laced blades. This didn't go unnoticed.

"Uh, hey, Inspector Leavener."

"Lvellie," the inspector corrected him, something that might have elicited more than a twitch of Allen's lips if he'd been in a situation where anything more wasn't a condemnation.

"Ya know, it's not funny ta make fun of other people's accents."

Allen hears one of the others suck in a breath, trying hard to contain their laughter.

"Look, I just got farther in minutes than you guys have in days," Lavi said, an exasperated grin on his face that Allen could see with ease was fake. Inspector Lvellie's frown tightened and only deepened further when Lavi continued. "Oh, and bring me some water?"

"You—"

Even the old man that had come in with Lavi looks peeved, but that doesn't stop him from taking control of the situation. Every honeyed word he spoke made him less trustworthy to the traitor of the Noah.

But assuming that water was for him and not meant as another form of torture, he would gladly play along, if only to wetten his parched throat.

Still, Allen doesn't remove his offending hand from Lavi's throat, preferring to have his bargaining chip as close as possible in case this was a trick to lull him into a false sense of security. Lavi doesn't seem to feel any more threatened than the observers on the other side of the wall.

"Come on, what's that saying? You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar?"

Lavi remains unmoving and Allen watches, gray eyes widening a fraction as he watches everyone—save for the Noah and his captive—file out of the room. The broken chain remained on the floor, no one attempting to retrieve or repair it before departing, leaving Lavi to his whims.

What confidence.

Though this does little to instill Allen with anything akin to trust in him. If anything, it serves to further Allen's suspicions that this man is not the clumsy idiot he's clearly trying to make himself out to be.

This plan—if it could be called as much—was idiotic at best. He could've torn his throat out when he was chained up. Having his hand wrapped around his throat just made it easier, so what were they playing at, leaving them here like this?

A solid minute of silence crawls by before the door cracks open once more and a single person scurries in and delivers a fresh glass of water to Lavi before retreating just as quickly.

Gray eyes stare at the glass, filled to the brim with cool water that threatens to spill over when Lavi reaches towards him and gives it a brief shake in his direction. It's a gesture that Allen understands, but it doesn't make him any more comfortable with releasing him, taking the glass with his hand still bound by the metal cuff around his wrist.

He takes an experimental whiff of the water, though he smells nothing out of the ordinary—not that that means it's not drugged or poisoned. It just narrows down what substance they might be using to get their desired result. What game was he playing? Was he really trying to "lead a fly with honey" as he had said previously?

It's too bad for him that Allen wasn't a fly and water wasn't honey. There was no sticky trap to find himself in, only the refreshing beverage sweating in his open palm. Even a Noah is only human and he downs the glass's content without further hesitation, sucking down every last drop.

When he finished as Lavi motions to have the glass returned, Allen obeys for the first time since arriving at the Exorcists' headquarters, but he doesn't thank him. He refuses to when his organization is at fault for his dehydration in the first place. He owes him no gratitude.

"What do you want?" he asks, words still rough as the water repairs his throat, though it's a remedy that won't last long. This was an achievement, Allen wanted to tell him. No other had even gotten him to say one word; he'd spoken more in ten minutes than he had in the days he'd been here before Lavi walked into the room.

"Ya know, a 'thank you' might be nice," Lavi said, earning a glare from Allen, though the fear he exudes seems less like terror and more like a comical display meant to make him laugh. A bead of sweat rolls down his face, but Allen doubts every display this man has to offer.

He's fake and that's easy to see, but why? Who is he?

"Er, maybe not?" he mumbles, reaching to rub the back of his neck, but the subtle tightening of the hand around his throat puts a stop to the movement. It's evident without words that Allen doesn't trust him and both of them are aware that the feelings are mutual.

"No need to get so defensive, Niblet! I was jus' jokin'!"

Eyebrows knit together at the word—was that a nickname?—that he had chosen. Where he had gotten it or why he associated him with a small piece of food, Allen could claim to know, but he did know that he was irritated by both his behavior and the realization that it actually made this place seem a touch less gloomy than it had before.

Lavi was like a ray of sunshine that had waltzed into the darkest corner of the Black Order, arriving both to irritate him and brighten his day, though Allen could say with ease that this was intentional. It was meant to lull him into a false sense of security and he refused to fall for such an obvious trick.

He was both a Noah and an enemy to the family; he had grown up too guarded to fall prey to a scheme a child could put together.

All of this was intentional on Lavi's part, deliberately crafted to warm Allen up to him and he wouldn't become a victim to it.

"That's not my name," Allen says, taking a chance with a trap of his own. Two could play at this game, but Allen was confident he was better at it. His life was based on being two people at once, on having a light side and a dark side, both hidden away from each other.

"So what is?"

He's baiting him, trying to rile him up with half-hearted insults—could they be called that?—so he would do something stupid, like share information he held too close to his heart to ever speak of.

Lavi might've been placed here to coax what they wanted to know out of him and play him for a fool, but Allen was just as adept at this game of charades and he intended to play it with the same hidden hand that he did in poker.

And he was going to win.

A/N: I hope you guys enjoyed this first chapter back into No Home & No Heart! Thank you for reading!