Muse, oh my muse, where has thou fled? I'm serious. I have nothing left in my noggin but scientific jargon thanks to school D: I don't even know what to do with myself anymore. So when, for the first time in months a little idea niggled at my brain, I thought Great! My inspiration is back! I can write again, bitches!

Alas, not quite. This fought me every step of the way, and I'm still no closer to writing anything else. At all. Ever.

So, enjoy this. It may be the last thing I manage before my brain buggers off and commits suicide via overdose of revision.

I own neither D. Gray-man, nor No.6, although if I could get my hands on Nezumi I would be the happiest girl on the planet.

Warnings for boys kissing and incomprehensible ramblings.

At first it was nothing – a murmur in the back of his mind, only half-heard and easily forgotten. It occurred to him as he thumbed through page after dog-eared page that Shion was a little like the hundreds upon hundreds of books stacked on his shelves – treasured by those that knew him, ignored by those that didn't and one in an endless crowd yet still his own person. Something about that – the books, Shion's uniqueness – tickled at the back of his mind in the far-off place he never dared venture. Instead, he watched the mice, falling over one another in their haste to reach Shion's shoulder that he might murmur tales of love or tragedy or revenge so sweetly in their ears.

But it was only a murmur – something dimly recalled and immediately dismissed. Despite the sick feeling that started somewhere low in his stomach when he dwelled too long or hard on it, there were more important things to worry about in the West District. Things that would kill him if he didn't pay close enough attention.

Things like the manhunt were hard to worry about, though, in the middle of the night with Shion sleeping soundly in his arms and strands of white hair threaded between Nezumi's calloused fingers. It was fine enough to be compared to silk, and even in the near pitch-black of their shared room, Nezumi could see the soft white of Shion's skin; if he stared hard enough, he could just make out where Shion ended and the sheets began.

Shion slept deeply, with only the slightest changes in expression to give hints as to what he may be dreaming of. So expressive when he was awake, Nezumi couldn't help but find it funny that Shion was at his most guarded when asleep.

Nezumi couldn't even begin to guess what Shion dreamed of – his mother or the pretty girl Safu back in No. 6? Of Inukashi and Rikiga and the day to day life of the West District? Or was it a world far from here, full of stories that lulled him to sleep from between the pages of Nezumi's books; that whispered in his ears and dreams? He would speak nonsense in a slurred voice and sometimes there were no words at all, just grumbles and moans. Shion never told him and Nezumi didn't ask – because that would be one more detail about Shion that he didn't need to know and would take them further and further from the 'strangers' he prayed they still were.

Already he thought that seeing Shion die would cause more pain than any physical wound he'd ever received – he couldn't risk the chance that he may not be able to kill Shion himself when the time came.

That's bullshit – you couldn't kill him now if he gave you a gun and asked you to pull the trigger.

-A weak breath and blood, so much of it, but still that God-awful smile and whispered reassurances that it is okay, that everything is okay-

Nezumi ignored it. It was just a murmur, after all.

The murmur grew to a whisper; warm and seductive it trailed in shivers down his spine when he met Shion's eyes. Clear and free of shadows, more and more Nezumi found himself wishing that they might always be so – Shion was the one thing in this pathetic existence that he didn't want to change. Those red eyes that should have been so sinister were softened by something that wasn't quite kindness or compassion but something else that Nezumi, for all of his eloquence, could not name. He wasn't entirely sure that a word for it even existed; it was Shion through and through and there was nothing more to it. Those eyes, he knew them as well as he knew himself, or better perhaps. They spoke of promises yet to be fulfilled but that would, without a shadow of a doubt, one day be realised.

And Nezumi knew those eyes. He saw reflected in them a distant memory that he pushed aside whenever it tried to surface, because memories were useless unless there was something to be learned from them. Memories meant ties to the past, and they could do nothing but slow him down, weaken him and make him care.

-You do care though, you care about him, you can't let go of him, you never could, not even-

He had to stop there. Stop before the thought took root and spread, spread to his rapidly weakening arguments and insistences that he was repaying a debt and nothing more.

Yet still the whisper wouldn't leave him. It came to him more often, and he would start to hear it even when alone; it crept through his dreams and wove its way into his voice as he read his lines aloud. When Shion was nearby it was worse, but if he ever noticed that Nezumi was behaving strangely he refrained from asking.

Nezumi appreciated that.

He could be chopping carrots by the small stove, waiting almost impatiently for Shion to return only to have a sudden flash of red across his vision, the harshly cloying scent of decay and oil and tears replacing the musty smell of his hundreds of books. Or he could be wandering through the market – if it even deserved to be called such – with Shion trailing at his heels when he would catch his hand straying to his hip, searching out something that wasn't there as soon as someone looked at him in the wrong way.

-Slice them to pieces, all of them, why should they still be alive when he isn't, never will be again, what is the point anymore? You have no purpose, shouldn't be alive, should never have been-

Nezumi didn't understand what was happening to him – he wanted to understand, because once something was understood, he could fight against it, do something about it. He wanted to get rid of this cursed whispering.

But most of all, he wanted to know what could possibly have possessed Shion when he thought it was a good idea to buy a set of juggling balls.

The problem with a whisper is that it can echo; as time went on, Nezumi's ears began to ring with the sounds that weren't even really sounds at all, but dim memories and half-formed thoughts. There were times when he'd be swept away by his own musings, trying so very hard to pretend that these memories weren't real, and hours would pass without his realising. Shion had noticed, had asked him again and again what was wrong, but what could he say? What explanation could possibly be given that could make Shion understand?

The room that they called home suddenly seemed stifling, the air too close for comfort, though he'd lived there for most of his life, and had always thrived in small spaces that others couldn't wriggle into. He found himself feeling trapped, longing to get outside and run, run as far and as fast as he could just to prove that there was nothing stopping him.

Yet at other times, he wanted to hide – hide away from the world, even away from Shion who ignited in him such confusion that he wanted to scream and rip out his hair, claw at his skin until his memories bled away. Perhaps the worst times were late at night – while he had once distracted himself from sleepless night with classic literature, and later with observing a sleeping Shion, he now found that nothing did any good. Shion's sleep grew more restless by the day; often he'd lash out, striking Nezumi with shrieks, groans, grumbles, but never real words, as though even he couldn't name the things he saw in his dreams.

Even that, though, was better than sleeping. Watching Shion, soothing away nightmares with fingers woven into sleep-knotted hair or gentle whispers against that remarkable scar – it was all better than facing his own mind in dreams. Whatever Shion saw, whatever he was imagining, it couldn't be any worse that the sight of silver hair matted with blood, of dim grey eyes, a lifeless body in his arms and the goddamn flowers...

The manhunt, once so distant even in his imaginings, was drawing terrifyingly close until he could taste the threat lingering in the air. He could see it – the possibility that they both might die, curling at the corners of his vision, at times almost strong enough to hide the lotuses from him, to make him forget all of the murmurs and the whispers and the echoes.

-You're losing him, can't you see him fading day by day? Soon he won't be there anymore and it'll be that instead, that creeping shadowy thing. What's left now, what more can you do? Nothing, nothing, you're useless when it matters and you're going to lose him because of it, you're going to lose them all-

It hurt so much more than any physical wound ever could, because at least a wound could be understood, even if it couldn't be treated, but Nezumi had no clue what was happening to him. He worried he fretted and he caught himself sighing more times that he cared to count, and for what? All he really knew was that this madness hadn't started until Shion had tumbled head-over-heels back into his life. Did that make it Shion's fault? Should he blame Shion for what was happening?

Maybe he should, but Nezumi couldn't bring himself to do so. Shion; so alive, so warm, so utterly trusting of his every word and so sincere in all that he did. Whether it was his fault or not, Nezumi quickly realised that he didn't care.

That conviction fell apart the day he woke to the sound of Shion playing the piano.

As far as he was aware, music was all but banned in No. 6. Creativity of any sort was heavily frowned upon and certainly not something to be proud of. Where Shion could possibly have learned to play Nezumi couldn't fathom – not until the melody truly registered in his mind, and he felt his heart still as fingers of ice trailed over his skin. He knew that song. It sang him to sleep somewhere far off in the back of his mind, in the dark forbidden place he had never dared to enter.

And Shion's voice, so sweet, so familiar, was all at once like nothing he had ever heard and everything he had ever known. The song, too, filled him with both the deepest loathing and the most sincere peace he had ever felt. It was the beginning of the end for them both, but it had saved their lives more times than he dared count.

This, though, this was terrifying, because it meant that everything – the dreams, the whispers, the visions – they were all real, and he could no longer pretend otherwise.

Suddenly things were starting to slot into place, piece by jagged piece. Nezumi felt his rationality slipping away from him as his mind wrapped around itself, sorting past memories from the present, trying so desperately to separate Kanda and Nezumi – which was he, really? He'd been Kanda first, but did that mean that that was still who he was? He didn't think so – he'd changed since then, had become someone almost completely different.

And what, then, did this make Shion to him? Was all of this – the guilt, the gratitude, the damned feelings – because of their past life together? He'd loved Allen, had watched the Noah eat away at the boy he'd come to hold so dear, had held him in the middle of a crimson battleground as he drew his last breath. Shion, Allen, were they the same person? And if so, who was it that he saw now when he looked at him; who was it that Shion (Allen, Shion, AllenShionAllen) wanted him to see?

This was all too much. Never, in either of his lives, had he even considered the possibility that he may be headed for some sort of afterlife. Reincarnation of the non-artificial sort, lovely concept though it was, had never been considered, and he had always known that there would be no Heaven for someone like him. Nothingness was what he had hoped for – at least in nothingness he wouldn't have to face the memories day after tired day. Alma, Allen, everyone he had lost along the way – in nothingness he wouldn't exist, and their smiling faces wouldn't hover tauntingly, always just out of his reach.

"Kiss the joined hands..."

Nezumi squeezed his eyes shut and tried to stop thinking, focusing on the sweet melody. It didn't work, precisely, but the song drifted to a close, and Shion slipped back into the bed that they shared, his warm presence one that Nezumi thought he would always be able to recognise no matter how many years and lifetimes passed.

For the first time since Allen died, Nezumi fell asleep crying.

Shion woke screaming.

Nezumi – a light sleeper even at the best of times – was willingly dragged from a dream of lotuses and blood by the piercing sound. In seconds, a thrashing Shion was in his arms, red eyes wide and panicked. Nezumi didn't know what to do – there'd never been anyone to comfort him when he had nightmares as a child, and now often slept too lightly to dream at all. But he could remember, through a haze of sickness and fever, Shion holding him close through the night – he could remember how, for that night, the nightmares had been chased away by gentle hands and warm breath against his face.

Brushing his free hand through Shion's fine hair, Nezumi tried not to imagine what he'd been dreaming of – nothing the boy had seen so far in the West District would muster such a violent response.

"It was just a dream," he whispered as soothingly as he knew how, his tone warm and rich from years of teaching himself to lie. Of course it had been more than just a dream; what simple dream could reduce a person to this? "It wasn't real, Shion – it was only a nightmare." It was almost amusing to reflect that when those nightmares had been reality he – Kanda, as he was then, may still be now – could never have held Shion – Allen, maybe? – like this. He'd been afraid, always so afraid, though he doubted anyone but Noise and Alma had ever known it. He didn't know how to get close to anyone without hurting them, though in the end it didn't matter. It wasn't him that had killed Allen, although it may as well have been.

Tears still rolled down Shion's cheeks and Nezumi kissed them away as they fell, holding his own at bay. There was a time he'd have scoffed and turned away. There was a time tears had been a sign of weakness.

Having watched Allen Walker cry for the pathetic souls of the Akuma – cry for his friends, cry for the Noah, cry for everyone and everything that had ever conspired against him and yet never once shed a tear for himself, Nezumi didn't think he could equate tears with weakness any longer. Allen had lived and died for everything he'd believed in, but not for himself – he'd made himself into a martyr, and for what? To save the humanity that was so bent on destroying itself? So that he could be forgotten by history, when in truth he was the only reason that the world still existed as it did?

Did that make him weak? Logic said yes – those that survived were the winners, and Allen had died so very young. But Kanda had been one of the survivors; he'd watched as his comrades were lowered into the ground one by one, had been left behind by everyone he'd dared to care about. Perhaps those with no ties were the winners – they had nothing to lose, but Nezumi couldn't live like that, not now.

Gradually, Shion quieted in his arms, though Nezumi held him close anyway. The reassuring rise and fall of Shion's chest was interrupted only by the occasional broken sob, but he seemed calmer now, his hands earnestly pressing over Nezumi's heart to reassure himself that it was still steadily beating. Outside there was a distant clap of thunder, but the two boys (men) ignored it. It was surprising to Nezumi that he could be so comfortable with being so close to another human – one that he had once claimed to detest at that – but having lost AllenShionAllenShion once, he knew that he wouldn't be able to do it again. Maybe that made him idealistic, or foolish, or sentimental, though he'd never admit to being any of those things. He found that he didn't much care.

And, when both he and Shion were teetering on the brink of sleep, eyelids too heavy to lift, limbs tangled and deliciously warm, Nezumi thought he heard Shion sigh. His hot breath stirred Nezumi's hair for a brief moment and woke him just enough to hear what the boy had to say.

"Love you, Kanda."

I should probably have tried to create a better ending for this. Maybe I'll get around to it one day. Maybe not.

Reviews are always nice.