for Missa.
because she deserves that happy ending more than anyone else.

disclaimer: not mine.

resistance

i.

"Is this edible?" Allen asks doubtfully, prodding at the glop of brown substance sitting on his plate, which, admittedly, looks entirely revolting. He suspects that at some point it was probably a man-eating slug that became tragically captured, boiled, and mixed with cow intestines, and then sold to innocent customers who bought it believing that it was fit for human consumption.

"Yes, now shut up," Lenalee grinds out, viciously spooning a ladleful onto Lavi's plate. It makes a distinct plop-ing noise. Lavi looks as totally repulsed as Allen feels.

Kanda fixes them all with a glare of utmost loathing, upends his plate's contents onto the floor, and calmly stalks out of the room with an air of complete unconcern.

"Do something," Lavi mutters to Allen, who has just realized that Lenalee looks like she's about to murder something.

"Lenalee," Allen begins tentatively, wondering what would be the kindest way to tell her that she is totally incapable as a cook and should never be let near a stove unmonitored ever again, but then he catches the look in her eyes, the slight hurt behind the irritation on her face.

Lavi observes as Allen's expression goes from determined to cautious to doubtful to slightly guilty.

"You're such a pushover," Lavi informs him morosely, contemplating sneaking out when Lenalee's back is turned.

It's so typical of Allen's life that his girlfriend would be the worst cook in the history of all existence. Desolately, he reckons that Lenalee is a lot more trouble than she's worth.

He eats dinner anyways, and eats Lavi's too when Lenalee isn't looking so she won't feel bad. Lavi flashes him a grin and slides off to the kitchens, where there is food in abundance that isn't potentially poisonous. Allen nearly follows, but instead he finds himself asking for seconds.

Lenalee beams at him, and Allen wishes that her smile weren't quite as gorgeous as it is.

ii.

Allen's never realized how terrifying Komui can be until Lenalee sings out one morning "Onii-chan- Allen and I are going out today."

"Out?" he inquires absentmindedly. Allen can tell when the sudden burst of comprehension comes, because that's when Komui spits out a mouthful of hot coffee all over the mess of papers lying haphazardly across his desk. Resignedly, Reever sets to work on straightening out the mess, and gives Lenalee a look that begs her not to further agitate Komui until he has at least finished drinking his coffee.

There is a heavy silence, during which Komui levels Allen with a Glare that promises much pain and agony.

Allen tries to resist the urge to flee from the room.

Lenalee's tight grip on his arm may or may not have prevented him from disposing of his dignity and running for his life, but he chooses to ignore this.

"A date?" Komui quavers, simultaneously fixing Allen with a glower that only seems to intensify as the seconds pass.

Mercifully, Lenalee intervenes after a full five minutes have passed of Komui shooting lightning-bolt-heavy-glares at Allen. "A date," Lenalee clarifies, still holding on to Allen with her fingers grasped tightly around his arm.

Komui's gaze darts from Allen to Lenalee and back, visibly deciding on the best course of action. Allen eyes him warily, and also keeps an eye out for the army of crazy robots that are probably concealed at random places in the room.

"You can't go!" Komui wails, flinging his arms messily around Lenalee's neck and nearly poking out Allen's eye. "Nii-san won't allow it – "

Lenalee heaves a sigh of much suffering and offers Allen an apologetic look. Allen is too busy coming up with a list of ways that Lenalee can pay for this torture.

"Komurin X!" Komui bawls out, diving under the desk, and emerges wielding a remote control.

Allen and Lenalee are both excessively alarmed.

"Komui-san," Allen starts nervously, and then stops abruptly. Because there is a ten-meter-tall robot less than an inch away from him, which proceeds to pull out a metal fist and launch aforementioned fist in Allen's general direction.

Allen pauses only long enough to let out a dismayed squeak, and dives out of the way.

"You're psychotic," Allen informs Komui with utmost conviction. Komui cackles and presses a few more buttons on the remote, and that's when Allen realizes that not only is his girlfriend inhumanly strong and the most stubborn person in the world, but her brother is also completely unhinged.

Nothing can be worth this, Allen reflects.

He still doesn't really know why he didn't just turn around and leave right there and then.

He does, however, know that Lenalee's smile somehow makes everything tolerable, but that only serves to make him more confused than he's ever been in his life.

iii.

Somehow, they end up actually going on their date. (No one is more surprised than Allen.)

Somehow, Allen has also forgotten that in addition to being inhumanly strong and extremely stubborn, Lenalee has an unnatural fondness for baby animals, particularly cats. His lack of recollection is probably because he never really thought it would be a problem until now. Actually, he never thought it would be a problem at all, but it turns out that this is not the case.

Somehow, Allen ends up carrying around an armful of stray kittens, with claws and not at all opposed to using said claws.

Overlooking the fact that it's the only date that Allen's ever been on, it's simultaneously the most unconventional date as well. He's never heard of a date where the boy was forced to carry around a bundle of at least ten animals, but then again, he's never really heard anything about Exorcists going on dates either, so he supposes that it all works out somehow.

Then again, he feels that he has to draw the line somewhere, and that thirty-five and a half scratches on his left arm is a pretty good place to start.

"About the cats," Allen starts, fully intending to sound firm and unyielding and everything it is so difficult to be in Lenalee's presence.

It comes out sounding more unintelligible than anything else, and Lenalee, oblivious, moves a little closer to Allen and presses herself against his arm, and doesn't seem to realize that by doing so she has almost caused an aneurysm.

"What were you saying?" she asks, taking a few of the kittens and nuzzling them against her cheek. Allen opens his mouth, already feeling slightly guilty, and then one of the kittens purrs and settles down in Lenalee's lap, and he can already feel his resolve crumbling into a pile of dust.

It's not so bad, he tells himself. Not if Lenalee's leaning against his chest and making little noises of enjoyment that aren't entirely dissimilar from the kittens' purrs.

At least it manages to make him forget about the scratches.

iv.

It's exactly eight-thirty in the evening when the infernal shrieking starts.

"What – " Allen begins, and then winces when his ears start throbbing. "What's that?" he finally manages to get out, massaging his ears.

Lavi looks glum, and starts digging through his bag for some earplugs. "Right, you haven't been here long enough to know," he says miserably, giving up on his bag and pawing through Allen's bag in desperation.

Allen snatches his bag back. "What is that?" he asks again, and wonders if it would be considered undignified to burrow under his covers.

"Lenalee," Lavi informs him gloomily.

Allen gapes at him unattractively, temporarily forgetting about his search for peace and quiet. "What?"

"That's Lenalee," Lavi repeats, blinking at Allen hopelessly and pressing his palms against his ears.

Still open-mouthed, Allen pauses to let this soak in, and then comes to the only logical conclusion.

"Is she being tortured?" he yelps in utter horror. "Oh my God, have I joined a cult? Is the Black Order – "

"Singing," Lavi interrupts loudly, hands still squashed against his ears.

The singing increases in volume. Timcanpy starts circling the room in agitation.

Completely dismayed, Allen sinks to the floor and tries to tell himself that the singing isn't so bad. Maybe he can put up with it.

Then Lenalee hits a particularly high note, and Timcanpy explodes into a hundred tiny pieces.

"There is no god," Allen says hollowly, picks up Timcanpy's remains, and sets them on the table just as Lenalee enters the room, beaming.

"What timing," Lavi says brightly, and exits the room hastily. Timcanpy's tail twitches.

Lenalee peers at the pile of dust that used to be Timcanpy. "What's that?" she asks curiously, bending down and looking at it.

Allen laughs loudly and heartily, and then stops abruptly when he realizes that he sounds completely deranged. "Nothing," he says quickly, covering it with a nearby piece of paper.

Bemusedly, Lenalee gives him an odd look. Allen tries to smile reassuringly, though it feels more like a grimace.

Giving up on the smile, he asks, "Did you need something?"

"Yeah, I think I left my golem in here," Lenalee says, still looking at Allen with a peculiar expression. "Are you feeling okay? You've been acting strangely."

Allen opens his mouth to say something along the lines of actually, you need voice lessons, so please refrain from singing unless you are out of a fifty-mile radius and the words are halfway out when Lenalee steps forward and presses the back of her hand against his forehead.

"You don't have a fever," she says finally, now holding her hand against Allen's cheek and looking at him worriedly, and also thankfully ignorant of the fact that Allen's chest feels about five times tighter. He kind of wishes she didn't have such an enormous effect on him, especially when all she's doing is touching his face.

"Wait, sorry, did I interrupt you?" She gives him an apologetic smile and removes her hand.

"Not really," he says faintly, and tries to remember what he was going to say before. He thinks it might have been something about an inability to sing but he's not really sure because Lenalee's in close proximity and already moving up and leaning her head against his shoulder and in his defense, it's difficult to think properly when there's a bundle of pretty dark-haired girl nestled up against his side.

He slips an arm easily around her waist, presses a kiss to her hair, and decides that it probably wasn't of much consequence anyways.

He regrets it the next morning, when he wakes up to a mug of cold tea and an off-tune song being hummed from a room a few doors down the hallway.

v.

It's incredible how Lenalee is somehow always the one who lands herself in the most dangerous situations. Allen would marvel at it, except that most of the time he's too busy trying to get Lenalee out of aforementioned dangerous situations to stop and ponder it over.

If given the choice, Allen wouldn't have chosen for Lenalee to become an Exorcist.

It's a pointless wish, but he wishes that she didn't have to constantly face death every day, and that he didn't have to worry so much about her when they went on separate missions. He knows she's strong, and he knows she's smart enough to stay out of trouble where she can avoid it.

He's still scared she's going to do something stupid, because one small mistake could be fatal. Even with all her flaws, her total inability to sing or cook or remain dignified at the prospect of kittens, even with her stubbornness and what might well be classified as pigheadedness, Allen still worries about her.

"You should be more careful," is what he tells her when she comes back from her latest mission with a gash running all the way from her wrist to her shoulder, and she just looks back at him with soft dark eyes while he tries to put his apprehension into words and just ends up sputtering incoherently.

"I'll be fine," she says with a slight laugh in her voice, which really only unsettles Allen more, the fact that she can take life and death so lightly.

"You won't," he whispers, not even sure if he intends for her to hear or not, but she hears anyways.

"I will," she insists vehemently, dropping a light kiss on his nose, and then repeats more gently – "I will, because I have you, don't I?"

It's a clear sign of Allen's anxiety when even her kisses don't make his stomach turn over the way they normally do.

"I can't go on every mission with you to make sure you're okay," Allen says, but slightly more mollified, and tilts his face upwards in Lenalee's direction for better kissing access.

Her next kiss lands on his lips, and she lingers longer than she usually does. "Believe me, I won't be going anywhere anytime soon – " she murmurs in his ear, and kisses his neck next, until his breath comes out in low gasps and he bends down to properly kiss her on the mouth.

"How can I possibly die and leave you here to fend for yourself?" Lenalee hums, sliding a hand into his hair.

Allen is about to say what are you talking about when you can't even go on a mission by yourself without getting injured, but then she nips on that spot right beneath his throat, so he ends up just shortening the question to a "what?"

"Well," she muses, allowing Allen to pull her more tightly against him, "It would be sort of unfair to leave you by yourself when you can't even cook anything edible, wouldn't it?"

Irony has an extremely nasty sense of humor, Allen thinks.

He decides that he doesn't really care as long as Lenalee's still around.

A/N: So, um. First D.Gray-man fic. Let me know what you think of it :3