D. Gray-man, "Sparking" (Lavi/Allen)

[sincere]

Making the train fare back to London (plus a little extra for their troubles) is easy work when they have a perfect memory and a perfect poker face between them. The perfect pair, maybe.

Contains Lavi/Allen for realz. For the Lavi/Allen prompt "Joker". Cheating at cards, creative truths, distracting impulses, and other unscrupulous behavior. Suggestion of sexuality. Part of the Phoenix chronology.



.sparking.
They'd been in the casino for about an hour before Lavi asked mildly, "Doesn't the Black Order still have that credit account?"

"Of course," Allen said, collecting his chips. "But we don't have the finances we used to, now that we're mostly a legacy organization. There's no need to charge it to Komui's account and strain his funds."

That rationalization was flimsy -- of course Komui wouldn't really begrudge them the pittance of train fare if it meant not wasting his translator's time in gaining the money and then spending the night and then traveling through the next day. But Allen couldn't bring himself to regret it a single moment as he lovingly considered the stack of chips he had gathered.

It was just more satisfying to do it this way. And anyway it benefited everyone involved (except Komui) (and he was partially to blame for their being in this situation, so forget him) because Allen made a tidy profit, and Lavi made a tidy profit, and everyone was happy except for the pitiful fools who didn't know any better than to play poker with Allen Walker.

Allen smiled sunnily for Lavi and then slid some of his chips back into the pot, anteing up for the next round.

He was very rapidly starting to be in an excellent mood.

They weren't cheating, in the sense that Allen didn't have cards up his sleeve and wasn't palming them when it was convenient for him. (Never wise in a proper casino.) He was just exploiting a tiny advantage that he had: after watching a single round, Lavi knew what every card in the deck looked like backwards and forwards, and consequently he knew what hand every other player at the table had.

Of course Allen didn't capitalize completely on this tiny advantage. That would be wrong, and also obvious. He employed his poker savvy and lost a few hands, made a few poor judgment calls, occasionally even got something genuinely wrong, but he was very careful and very calculating and won an unsuspicious amount of games and was slowly but steadily amassing a very respectable amount of money.

Really, an excellent mood.

Allen hummed to himself as they checked into the hotel above, carefully holding his new suitcase full of his new money in his left hand. It was too late to get a train, but it didn't matter.

"I can't even imagine how much hurt I'd be in if the old man were still alive," Lavi said, bemused.

"Surely he wouldn't object to you having a little extra spending money," Allen misunderstood deliberately. The suite was really very nice, an obvious attempt by the hotel to recoup some of the money that they'd lost to him. Allen appreciated their efforts.

Lavi eyed him dourly, unfooled. "Hey, money is a corrosive influence. Like, it might corrode someone's professional respectability until he was willing to use his God-given talent for total recall in order to gain more of it."

"Do you want to get back to your dead language this month or not?" he asked the redhead sweetly.

Lavi dropped onto the sofa, giving up. "Tim has video of the scrolls, right?" he asked, a trifle wistful.

Timcanpy slipped out of Allen's hood and fluttered over to Lavi, who brightened visibly. "Tim!" he said eagerly, and the little golem flew over to be embraced.

Geek, Allen thought, but he would have indulged much more pathetic habits after tonight's wonderful haul. He considered what to do while Lavi buried himself in his research, like... going into his room and just counting his money over and over. He was still wired, though, and that was more of a soothing bedtime activity, he decided.

After a quick shower he returned to the outer room to find Lavi more or less motionless on the couch, gazing intently at the projection Tim cast on the wall. He had a little notepad and pen. Allen drew up behind him, folding his arms over his robes and leaning in to look at his notes. There weren't any, to his surprise -- the page was just nonsense, scribbly circles and dark clouds of ink and the occasional not half-bad sketch of something pointless, like a snowman.

"That looks like a bored primary schooler's notebook," Allen observed when Lavi didn't turn to look at him.

"'m just keeping my hands busy. Helps me think," Lavi said, a little rueful grin on his lips. He still didn't glance aside.

"You? Having difficulty thinking?" Allen pressed. He didn't know what devilish impulse made him keep pestering Lavi when the man was obviously busy. Something about his rapt focus was kind of entertaining. Maybe even a little tempting. "But that's all you do."

"Is not~"

Childish taunting was proving mildly amusing, but Lavi's attention remained fixed on Timcanpy's projection.

I'll have to try harder to be distracting, Allen thought, lips quirking up. Hmm...

After a few beats, he asked mildly, "Does it bother you, that I still call you Lavi? I didn't ask."

There, that got a reaction. Lavi blinked, once, and glanced at Allen from the corner of his eyes. "Why would it?"

"Because everyone has told me it's not your name anymore. Including you." Allen smiled ruefully. "And it's not like it was your real name to begin with."

Lavi seemed amused. "So what you should really be asking yourself is, did it always bother me when you called me that." His attention drifted back to the scrolls, smiling fondly. "I'm sure Gramps would've minded. Bookman isn't a name -- it's the absence of one. Old names would probably get his hackles up."

Which wasn't an answer to the question, but Lavi seemed content to leave it at that. Allen watched him for a few moments longer, and then just said softly, "It bothers me. That's why I ask."

"What?" Lavi turned completely to look at him, blank.

He smiled a little. It was a victory, even if it was a victory won with an awkward confession. "It bothers me. Kanda and Komui, even Lenalee and Crowley... They say 'Bookman' when they mean 'Lavi', and I don't like it."

The redhead seemed totally at a loss for words; for a moment he just opened and closed his mouth, and then managed, "Well." He frowned.

"Because -- you're still our friend Lavi." Allen leaned in over the arm of the couch, finding some of that shaggy red hair and brushing it away from his right eye, so that he could see both of them. Both eyes... "The one who would use his observational skills to help me cheat at poker."

"You said it wasn't cheating."

"And who called Kanda by his first name just because it annoyed him." Allen smiled a little, studying him. "Am I -- wrong?"

Lavi grinned, faint to match Allen's smile. "I guess I am still him... as much as I ever was in the first place."

Allen shoved at his head slightly, and then ignored him. "So, tell me."

"...no, it doesn't bother me." Lavi tilted his head back. "Not from you, anyway. It's actually kind of nice. Bookman doesn't have a past, or a future. It's part of the job. But Lavi -- that has some good memories attached to it."

Slow, Allen unwound, offering him more of a smile. In a way he'd been afraid of being wrong, that Lavi actually did want to sever the past that Allen kept seeing in him. That one simple answer was more of a reassurance than it had any right to be. "I don't think I can think of you as just being 'Bookman', so..."

You'll always be Lavi, to me.

"One little piece of the past," Lavi said. "I can deal with that."

He glanced at Allen, and then, maybe self-conscious, turned back to the scrolls Timcanpy was still patiently projecting, but it was visibly not the same intense focus of before.

Allen settled on the arm of the couch, feeling wired again, like he'd won something. It was a ridiculous idea -- it wasn't like the conversation was something that could be 'won' -- but he was in such a wonderful mood, and he'd won a lot so far tonight. "What's the matter?" he asked sweetly. "You seem to have lost steam."

He was forced to concede, at least privately, that he was a terrible person when Lavi turned to him with a frown. "What's the matter with you? You sound happy about it."

"I might have a bad habit like that," Allen admitted, smiling brightly.

"I thought you wanted me to do the translations!" Lavi accused.

Allen said, "Oh, I do. But I'm complicated. I can have multiple interests in mind."

He did have a bad habit like that, he'd noticed. The first time he'd noticed it had been when he was friends with Nalei, and he had observed the older boy's fascination with books and medicine with great admiration, but also -- with an itchy urge to interfere. So curious as to how Nalei would react if he interrupted, or if he took the book away, or otherwise made it so that the studious youth would have to turn that intensity on him... and flushing, hot, when he thought of it.

He knew why, of course; he wasn't made of stone. But it had seemed a cruel thing to want, somehow.

Then, the people that he had been with in the last few years -- Gabrielle, Shifu -- had both been intellectuals who had been very pleasingly distracted from their research with just a little coercion.

Allen recognized his bad habit at work.

Lavi must have recognized something in him too, because his expression shifted, thoughtful. "Oh yeah? What else do you want?"

"I'm interested in..." He hesitated, just for a moment longer, but he was in a very good mood, and a little rejection of a little offer wouldn't sting for very long in that kind of mood.

It didn't have to be a big deal.

Allen put a hand on Lavi's shoulder for balance and then leaned in enough to slide their lips together, a light, sweet kiss. No pressure. Lavi went still and didn't move, not for several seconds.

Rejected, then, Allen thought, drawing back and smiling. Fortunately, there was still room for a graceful recovery. "That's one idea," he said mildly. "There's room for negotiation."

Maybe they could play a little game of cards instead -- defuse the tension. He would cheat but Lavi would know all the cards, so they might be evenly-matched. It would be an interesting game.

He was getting into the idea when Lavi's lips quirked up, and he slowly began to -- react again. "Oh yeah? Are the other ideas even better? Now I'm really intrigued."

Allen froze, and then laughed a little. ...apparently I judged too soon. He let his hand slide back, curling slightly at the base of Lavi's neck instead of leaning modestly on his shoulder. "If you liked that one, there's some related ideas."

"Really..." Lavi leaned in a little, as if listening raptly.

Allen lowered his head, hovering just beyond Lavi's lips. "But it'll be easier if we indulge them -- in the bedroom."

Lavi's breath hitched a bit, and he said just, "Tim's staying out here."

"Done."