Lavi manages to wrench himself away from his books only when dinner is announced. Allen's tentative smile when he sits down across from Lavi seems rather hollow. Allen's gaze tracks Kanda into the room, his lips parted as if he wants to say something, but he busies himself with straightening his silverware, frowning, when Kanda seats himself without giving Allen so much as a cursory glance. The events of this morning are clearly unresolved.

Silver clinking on porcelain is the only sound, murmured comments about the food are the only conversation, and Lavi concludes after the second course that he has quite enough of the silence that hangs over the table like an indignant exclamation mark.

"I'm sorry, Allen," Lavi starts. Allen looks at him, surprised. "I haven't been very sociable today. These books—I can't help but want to drink them all in, you know? I'm a little afraid that if I blink they'll disappear again."

"I—I knew you'd be busy with them," Allen says, and looks back at his plate. It looks as if he is doing more rearranging of the food there than eating it.

"Tonight, however, I'm going to take a break. We should sit, talk, have a drink." He pauses. "Maybe after dinner we could break into Cross's absinthe stash."

Allen struggles with something that looks suspiciously like an eye-roll. "There's no absinthe, Lavi."

"You must be joking. You mean to tell me Cross Marian didn't have at least a bottle of the stuff?" Encouraged by the wry smile that is tugging at the corner of Allen's mouth, Lavi continues. "I'm surprised there wasn't any in the library. But no." Lavi fakes a mournful sigh. "There was only brandy in the library. It's an apple brandy, and a very good one at that."

"You've been drinking in more than the books, it sounds like," Kanda mutters around his napkin before smoothing it back in his lap.

Lavi grins at him. "Well, no," he admits. "I had a tiny taste of it, but I was concentrating on my reading. But now that I'm not reading anymore, I believe that I'd like to enjoy a bit of a digestif." He leans across the table a little bit. "Absinthe," he whispers urgently at Allen.

Allen leans forward himself, raising his eyebrows. "There is none," he whispers back, just as insistently. He straightens up and primly slides a hand down his vest.

"I'd wager Kanda would like to give it a try," Lavi adds.

Kanda snorts. "No thank you."

Allen sighs. "Lavi, I'm telling you, there is no absinthe. There is an entire wine cellar downstairs; we are in France, you know—"

Kanda groans.

"Well, why on earth didn't you say so?" Lavi asks. "Hmmm. A claret, I think."

The butler is an unobtrusive man, hovering by the carving table, and Lavi thinks that he is entirely too stuffy, rather like something out of a terrible novel, but Lavi has always made an attempt to disprove his own first impressions of people. "Capitaine," he says sweetly, "Bring me a bottle of your finest Bordeaux, please and thank you."

The butler, after a brief pause in which Lavi speculates he is not closing his eyes and sighing, nods. Lavi grins again. "And I think we should have wine with dinner every night, don't you, Allen? As you say, we are in France."

"His name is Thierry," Allen says wearily as the butler leaves the room.

"Not anymore," Lavi singsongs. "Take notice, from here on out he is Capitaine to me. I encourage you to follow my lead."

Kanda refuses the wine, and Allen reluctantly accepts one glass but turns down anything further, despite Lavi's observation that drinking by himself is a lonely proposition. It doesn't stop him from having two glasses with dinner and holding his glass out for a refill the moment they enter the drawing room.

The chaise longue that was charming at first glance is less than conducive to sitting upright, Lavi finds. Kanda appropriates the most inviting of the armchairs, and Allen sits on a straight-backed chair out of what appears to be habit and nervously plucks at the crease in his trousers.

After his fourth glass of wine, Lavi is feeling rather kingly and benevolent, surrounded by the material comforts of life—despite the fact that he is doing most of the talking and Allen and Kanda seem to be making a competitive sport out of not talking to one another. He opts for sprawling along the length of his own chair rather than trying to keep himself from sliding over the slippery fabric. "So," he says at last. "Allen. Tell us some things."

Allen looks up. "Like what?" he asks.

Lavi makes a vague gesture with his free hand. "You know, things. What you've been doing with yourself, besides settling Cross's affairs. You must have some entertaining stories." He looks at Kanda, who is eyeing Lavi warily as if he is afraid he might be the next subject of interrogation.

"Well," Allen starts, and then stops, piecing his fingertips together carefully in his lap.

Lavi knows, perhaps too well, what it is to be different people at different times. He understands how hard it can be to find oneself, buried beneath the myriad incarnations of what one is expected to be, how an appearance can seem to be everything, and how one can lose oneself entirely in the struggle to maintain it. Meaning can be lost under the weight of words, and these tiny things, unimportant alone, must count for something when they are put together. Each small event in one's life is a sentence, each paragraph builds upon the one before, and each one ended comprises the entirety of who one is up to that moment.

Lavi has always lived under the impression that each new set of circumstances begins a new paragraph in one's life, and how closely each paragraph is related to the ones before and after it depends upon the person living it. It is up to each person to make these paragraphs flow together in a way that makes sense.

And then there are the stark sentences that stand alone.

Allen clears his throat and a curious flush creeps up his cheeks into his forehead. "Well," he repeats. "I'm going to be married."

Lavi nearly spits a mouthful of wine back into his glass, but manages to compose himself before he lowers it, setting it carefully on the side table next to him. "What?" He darts a glance at Kanda and can see his own gut reaction echoed in Kanda's expression.

"Her name is Lisette," Allen presses on, seemingly without hearing as he studies the rug, "and you'll get to meet her in a few days when she returns from Paris." He looks at Kanda. "She's really very lovely." He turns his gaze at last to Lavi and seems to be on the verge of saying something else, but closes his mouth instead.

There is something intrinsically wrong here, but Lavi can't seem to focus long enough to put his finger on it. He sits up and shrugs off the feeling, finally remembering his manners. "I, um. Wow. Then I suppose you've been busy, haven't you? Allen Walker courting a fine French mademoiselle, then. Congratulations," he says in his most cheerful tone.