1.
•raven•
Do you know about how raven made the world?
It's conversational. It's the act of speaking, the boy rolls the words between his lips like a cigarette and blows sulfur through the air. Lancia thinks he might be a demon, the way he is sprawled across the wall head tilted back. Lancia wants to get up and kill him. He thinks of it -- wills his body to stand, to get his knees out of the pool of blood and pounded skull. The boy's eyes, no just the blue one, drops down to him, cajols, condescends: Senpai. I'm trying to tell you something important. And then he laughs, and Lancia wishes he were deaf, or blind. He wishes he were dead, and as if the boy could read his mind (and maybe he could) he peeled himself off of the wall and knelt before Lancia.
You look so unhappy, senpai. What's wrong?
Mukuro's fingers trail in the blood, absently, as if he has forgotten what touch is like. He lifts his fingers, exams the way the red colors his palm, continues speaking: the world was darkness, before the raven -- nothingness. The word is emphasized, flicked between teeth. There is some sort of pleasure in the way it tastes, Mukuro likes the word. Nothingness. It's sharp, like a lemon sorbet with a drop of poison, he decides.
Do you know the funny part, Lancia?
The name burns, cuts through his head and leaves behind the smell of lemons. Lancia breathes, but he is willing his lungs to stop.
Ravens are black.
Mukuro snaps, but even as his voice sounds close to rage (but does not, ever, cross the line) he is folding his arms around Lancia in a hug. He is childlike in his embrace, clumsy, his elbows and knees knock all the wrong places. Lancia (and of his own free will because he has been given it back, a boon, a gift, a taunt) feels himself return the embrace.
The boy has always been moody, Lancia thinks, vaguely.
Mukuro presses a kiss to his forehead, a blessing.
Come on, senpai. Ah, no. Come on, Mukuro Rokudou, we have a lot to do.
The boy grabs his hand and pulls insistently. The smile is round and pleasant. The man could almost (because he wants to) (because he wants to think this never happened) forgive him.