actually not okay about these comparisons like fuck me jesus christ, so we have past!lavi, abandoning his cause for neah, seeing this bright undefeatable light in him that causes him to leave behind bookman for the third side, that past!allen also saw in neah and in past!lavi.
then we have current!lavi, also facing the same thing, meeting allen and seeing an undefeatable light that is driving him away from his clan, just like his predecessor.
like the parallels are fucking haunting like jesus christ hoshino fucking nailed it. as a laven and nealavi fan i am fucking well fed by this shit lmao.
but god, whoever past!lavi is the parallels are beautiful, like if he's cross then cross abandoned the clan for neah, grooms allen into disappearing, and allen is so resistant to this that he inspires the current bookman junior, our!lavi, to potentially abandon it all for him like cross did for neah.
if past!lavi became crowned clown then lavi's "bookmen have no need of a heart" thing becomes the funniest and most painfully ironic thing if past!lavi LITERALLY becomes a part of allen's heart to protect him from death at the hands of tyki mikk. if past! or current!lavi are the heart then this becomes even funnier.
if past!lavi becomes current!lavi through de-ageing time travel shenanigans then lavi is doomed in every timeline to abandon his clan for the sake of neah and allen over and over again.
Fandom: D.Gray-Man
Pairings: Lavi/Original Character, Original Character/Original Character, Lavi/Allen (implied), Neah/Lavi (implied)
Rating + warnings: T / no warnings
Summary: Lavi is sick, Gael takes care of him. Lavi finds himself split between different times, people he's been, people he's lost, and people he's desperately trying not to love.
Author’s note: A sickfic for my partner @nycorix based on their D.Gray-Man AU and original characters. Happy Valentine's love <3
Song the fic was written to: De Selby (Part 2) by Hozier
EXCERPT
He’s so damn hot. He wants to wipe the sweat off himself, go jump into the coldest ice bath known to man, but he simply cannot move. He’s weaker than he feels he should be. He knows he’s been worse lately - all those goddamn fucking potions aren’t doing shit any more, why aren’t they fucking working - but he can’t be doing that badly. The mission wasn’t even that bad, it was a simple retrieval job. He was barely injured, he barely pushed himself.
Lavi feels frustrated. He feels angry. His head is swimming with more than just sickness and he simply wants to close his eye and fall asleep and wake up fine, but he can’t. He feels like he’s caught between several things that make him feel fractured, in pieces. He can’t stop remembering, he just wants to stop remembering.
[Read on ff.net or AO3 or below]
Lavi has never been as sick as he is right now.
He can scarcely think. His forehead is covered in sweat, his cheeks flushed against the pallid sickness of his skin. He’s shaking under the bed sheets, fingers barely grasping them with a weakness he doesn’t usually feel.
He can’t remember when it got this bad. He remembers the train ride back to HQ, remembers the chill in his bones from the rain, remembers the bad jokes he made to Gael and Miranda, coughing into the crook of his arm between toothy grins.
At some point he must’ve fallen asleep during a lull in the conversation, but that doesn’t explain why he’s now bed ridden, feeling as close to death as he’s ever felt. His chest is so heavy with congestion that he feels a literal weight on his lungs. His breaths feel wet, clogged and raspy.
When he’s not wheezing, he’s coughing, too weak to even cover his mouth. Dim memories come forth, memories he doesn’t want. His eyelid flutters open - cover your mouth - and he can barely see into the darkened room. He can see someone sat beside him - it’s not becoming of you - but he can’t tell who it is.
He groans, trying to raise a hand to his sodden forehead, and finds he simply can’t. He coughs again and flinches - why have I been saddled with a brat such as you - trying to simply will himself better. He’s done it before, he can do it again. He knows he can. He knows what’s required of him. He can’t rest: not now, not ever.
He tries to get up, shivering so bad that his teeth are chattering. The person across from him places a firm hand on his shoulder to push him back down. Soft words drift across to him but he can’t figure out who it is, why is his head so damn fuzzy... For a split second, he thinks he sees white hair, a gentle smile, and feels his beating heart rip itself out of his chest. He can’t breathe, not just from the sickness taken root in him but something else, something he’d rather not think about at all, not now, not ever again.
The person leans forward and Lavi sighs with relief. It’s Gael. She seems... well, he can’t really tell right now. Even for a Bookman, these are not ideal recording conditions. He slumps back against the pillow, eyelid fluttering closed. He tries to ignore how he feels. He wishes he could think about anything else, but he can’t. His chest aches. His head feels like someone’s smacked it with his hammer, throbbing in time with his heartbeat. His sinuses feel like they’ve been stuffed with cotton wadding. His body is shaking so bad that he knows for damn sure that this is a lot, lot worse than a normal cold.
He’s so damn hot. He wants to wipe the sweat off himself, go jump into the coldest ice bath known to man, but he simply cannot move. He’s weaker than he feels he should be. He knows he’s been worse lately - all those goddamn fucking potions aren’t doing shit any more, why aren’t they fucking working - but he can’t be doing that badly. The mission wasn’t even that bad, it was a simple retrieval job. He was barely injured, he barely pushed himself.
Lavi feels frustrated. He feels angry. His head is swimming with more than just sickness and he simply wants to close his eye and fall asleep and wake up fine, but he can’t. He feels like he’s caught between several things that make him feel fractured, in pieces. He can’t stop remembering, he just wants to stop remembering.
He tries to move, Gael stops him. He forgets it’s her, seeing that man instead and feeling guilt settle in his messed up insides. He loses track of time - the burning pain of his fingers inside his - he coughs until his throat hurts as much as his chest does. His head is burning. The bed feels damp beneath him.
He feels something cool against his forehead and he sighs. He regains clarity. He opens his eye, catches the concern in Gael’s eyes, and manages an incredibly wobbly smile.
“S-sorry you’re havin’ to take care of me.”
Gael scoffs at him immediately. “Don’t be stupid. Amadán.”
The gaelic is added almost like an afterthought. Lavi wants to joke about it, but a cough steals his words from him. He tries to turn his head, not wanting to get his friend sick on top of her caring for him - those piercing eyes and the distinct knowledge that he’s a disappointment - but finds he simply cannot move.
He groans. His eye flutters closed when Gael reapplies the compress to his forehead. He sighs. The room is quiet. He can only just about hear the creak of Gael’s chair over his own laboured breathing. He tries to find something to focus on, but his mind is swimming again. He barely catches Gael’s words, unable to pin down the emotions in her voice.
“You push yourself too hard, Lavi.”
Lavi scoffs and immediately regrets it, coughing so hard he can scarcely breathe. He lets out a whine and wishes he could move his goddamn hands. He tries to ignore the deep, pivotal sense of shame he feels when Gael offers him a drink. He barely swallows it down - this will make you better soon enough - throat raw and clogged-feeling.
His sense of time shifts again. He’s in pieces again. He forgets where he is. He feels the fingers against his face and shudders. He wants to turn his head. He can’t. He wishes he wasn’t this vulnerable. He hates feeling this vulnerable. He wants to say sorry. He wants to say so many things. He can’t get it out of him, it’s too much, a weight in his chest that pulls him down into darkness.
He mumbles between pants. “I-I’ll be fine, Gael.”
Yes, Gael. It’s Gael. His words feel automated. He tries to feel relief but he can’t. She says something to him but he can’t hear her over his own coughing. He hates that he can’t turn his head away from her. She doesn’t seem to care but he cares. He cared enough to - no, he’s not here, he doesn’t care, he’s gone, he left him - he needs to ground himself better than this, but he’s drifting.
He coughs again, feeling himself get worse. He groans and slumps against the bed, fingers shaking against the sheets. Gael sighs, brushes damp hair out of his face, and tries to focus on the measure of her own voice instead of the feeling inside her heart.
“This almost feels like last time, don’t you think?”
Lavi’s eye flutters closed. He has no idea what she’s talking about.
“You were sick as a dog, just like now, except that time you weren’t called -”
He’s looking at the shine of her hair in the lamplight. Her face is softer than it is now, less hard, less rough, less compounded by grief.
“I remember -”
She’s laughing. He’s arguing with her. He’s watching himself argue with her.
“- you always hated being taken care of.”
Lavi wishes he could turn his brain off. He feels like someone’s smashed his brain into shards of glass. He’s forgetting again.
“You just don’t get on with -”
He groans. Her words fade out. His head is pounding. He loses himself a little. He feels his lips move but he can’t figure out what he’s saying. Why is his head hurting this bad?! He feels something cold against his forehead again and he sighs, his trembling body relaxing for a second.
The world comes back into focus. His body simply hates him at this point. Lavi feels a pressure in his sinuses and hopes to God he doesn’t have to... Nope, he’s fucked. He groans, tries to move his head but he can’t. He sneezes and hates every fibre of his being. Gael simply laughs. Why is she laughing? This stupid -
“You’re almost cute like this.”
Lavi manages to throw a glare at her, cheeks more flushed than normal. There must be something else in his eye - shame, it’s shame, it’s rage, it’s grief, it’s - because Gael reaches out to touch his cheek. He doesn’t want to flinch but he does. She retracts her hand. Lavi’s not with it enough to deal with this right now. His sigh comes out more like a groan.
“Sorry, it’s not -”
“It’s fine, I shouldn’t -”
“Gael.”
His voice is raspy. He can barely keep his eye open. He can barely make her out among the fuzziness of his vision. He wants to keep talking but his head hurts so bad he can barely think.
He’s definitely getting worse. He tunes out again. He must’ve managed to say something because Gael seems... different. When he coughs so bad he’s wheezing, she has a hand in his hair when she offers him a drink. When he sneezes again - shame, he feels so much shame - she’s giving him a look he feels like he recognises. His mind shifts, he’s elsewhere - laughing at the cute glare on his face when he - he’s forgetting again.
He sneezes a third time and wishes he could blow his own head off. He tries to ignore the burn to his cheeks and the way his insides are twisted inside himself when Gael offers him a handkerchief and holds it in place for him to blow his clogged sinuses out. Why can’t he goddamn move? He groans, feels relief amongst the shame, the frustration, the fear that he doesn’t understand.
His head is burning. Gael’s hand stays in his hair the next time she gives him water. He remembers - the way his hair shines in the light, the way he looks when he turns to him and says - and he wants to - she’s crying and he’s just stood there - he can’t move, he wants to move - he’s disappointed, he must be disappointed, why else would he have - why can’t he move - and his chest is heavy with the weight of his own blood and -
Gael’s speaking. Lavi’s forgetting. He feels something cold against his forehead but it’s not the compress. His voice is shaking with his wheezed out breaths.
“Your hands were... always cold.”
He doesn’t like how his voice sounds. He watches himself look at her. She’s smiling, but there’s pain there too. He’s forgetting. He feels like he’s in pieces again. His eye closes. His chest hurts. He rasps for breath, head pounding.
“I wish we -”
He’s gone for a second. He opens his eye and Gael is crying.
“It’s not fair.”
He’s crying now. Why is he crying? He can’t process the words tumbling out of him.
“I wish he was still -”
He doesn’t know who he’s talking about. Gael’s cold fingers are - she’s done this before, he remembers that she’s done this before, when did she do this before - and he’s losing his grip on reality. Everything swims the same way his mind feels. Gael feels far away. He feels far away.
“I don’t -”
He’s coughing. Something’s building inside of him. Gael’s cold fingers against the palm of his hand. For a second, he’s somewhere else. His head hurts. Gael’s cold fingers against his fingertips. He groans, eye fluttering open. He sees the crown of her head and feels as if he’s split in two. She looks up and for a second he’s being given that radiant smile that he’s always had, just for him, for anyone but him.
Lavi doesn’t understand what’s happening any more. Gael’s cold fingers interlace with his. He blinks and sees lofty ceilings. His chest hurts, it hurts so fucking much. Gael’s face is cold, her tears are cold. She’s cold like Lusk rain. Lavi doesn’t remember, he’s never been, he doesn’t -
He feels something cold against his forehead. He sighs. Gael is speaking but he can’t hear her. Her hands are entwined with his. He hears a voice he’d recognise more than his own name. How is Gael...? He feels like he’s being pulled out from the darkness. He coughs and something black stains the sheets. He feels something against his cheek, the rough scale of his left hand and -
“I... love you.”
He’s not even aware he’s said it. His mind is melted goop inside his skull. Gael is staring at him. He feels tears fall on his face but they’re not her tears. Lavi’s eye flutters closed, feeling split in pieces. When he opens his eye again, he sees Allen’s pained, wobbly smile and the joy in his eyes as he - no, no, no, that’s not right, that’s not right.
Lavi groans. He feels Gael let go of his hand. He stifles a sob.
“N-no, don’t.”
He manages to look at her. He feels like he’s shattered. He’s hearing his own words come out of his mouth.
“I... I’m sorry, Gael, I -”
She’s laughing. She’s just like the day they met. Lavi wants to remember the day they met. She’s smiling and he’s remembering the way he smiled at him and wants to stop feeling like this.
“You’re just like -”
There are lips against his forehead. Gael is still smiling at him. Lavi blinks and for a second he sees a smile - not a smile, a smirk, it’s not him, no, no, no - before the room fades to black. He sinks into a darkness he feels he cannot leave. His shattered pieces recede into the darkness. He catches a flash of someone looking at him - the same disapproving eyes, except this guy isn’t - before he falls into a deep, all encompassing sleep.
(lukas) i decided to make an audiobook of ro's (a.k.a. @the49thname) dgm fic, the chosen path, cause it's insanely good and i thought it'd be fun! i'll be posting the episodes semi regularly, feel free to let me know what you think! it's not professionally done by any means, just for fun, but yeah.
if you haven't read it, now you don't have to! you can listen to me read it to you instead /jk
edit: made a podfic of it up on ao3! feel free to check it out / listen to it there instead.
(lukas) aaaand chapter 6, which'll do me for now. audiobook for ro's fanfic, the chosen path. as always lemme know what you think! ao3 link here. cheers.
