When the note arrives just days after Lisette and her grandmother leave, Allen lets it sit on his desk for a long while. He knew it was coming; whispers of the dance the Laroches were planning have been circulating for weeks and he's already expecting an invitation, but this one contains a not-so-subtle request for him to bring along his new house guests. If Allen had done this strictly correctly, he would have been planning his own dance to present Kanda and Lavi, but part of him balks at putting them on display, like—

"Hello," says Lavi, picking it up. "What's this? Oh, can we go, papa?"

Allen sighs. "We have to go to Paris first, to get you both fitted for suits."

"I am insulted that you think the ladies present would be in a coherent enough state to disapprove of my dress after glimpsing my manly arms." Lavi strikes a pose, note held high in one hand.

"Lisette thought you were the gardener," Allen points out. Cross's servants thought Allen had been the new kitchen boy, initially. Sometimes he doesn't think some of them ever moved past that initial assessment. He grimaces. "And Kanda—"

"Looks like he's been rolling around in the dirt with a horse all day?" Lavi suggests.

Allen studies Lavi's arms, still as strong as ever, and thinks of the grass stains on Kanda's knees, and then decides that line of thought isn't worth pursuing. He closes his eyes, wishing the tips of his ears wouldn't flush so easily.

"Claude isn't going to be happy, on such short notice," he tells Lavi, and stands to find Thierry to plan for the trip.

Claude is ecstatic. Claude is Cross's tailor, a tiny man with disproportionately large hands and probably half the world's supply of wax on his mustache, which curls delicately at the ends and is shiny enough to serve as a beacon for ships in a storm.

"Allen," Claude whispers, "oh, Allen. You're dreadful. Horrible. I can't possibly." But even his mustache can't hide his wide smile as he cinches the tape measure around Lavi's waist. Kanda watches this with a pinched expression before turning around in his chair to face Allen. His gaze drops from Allen's hairline to Allen's mouth, and he frowns at it. He'd been frowning at Allen's mouth for the entire trip up to Paris and it's been making Allen a little self-conscious.

"Um," Allen says when Claude bustles by again, "the only things we need by the end of the month are the suits for the ball; the rest of it can wait. I can have someone come up—"

"Allen," Claude moans, "you must stop being so terribly English." Lavi sniggers from where he is flipping through fabrics. Kanda merely scowls harder. One of Claude's assistants takes his measurements, on Claude's orders; he looks terrified. Allen doesn't blame him, given the look on Kanda's face. Claude sits down next to Allen in Kanda's vacated chair.

Kanda's tattoo is gone, Allen notices: nothing there but a raised welt. He doesn't remember Lavi's back having quite so many scars, either.

"Savage," Claude murmurs, looking at Kanda and crossing his legs. "Positively thrilling. Where did you find them?"

"We went to um, boarding school together."

Allen gets an inscrutable look; somehow, he doesn't think Claude believes him. "Well, you know what they say about the English and their boarding schools." Claude glances over. "No!" he shouts in English, standing up. "You cannot have black trousers and black coat, it is une gaffe."

"How the hell does black not go with black?" Kanda demands.

Lavi sniggers again. "What are you talking about, Yuu, of course black doesn't go with black."

Claude whirls on him. "Put those silks down. They went out of style a decade ago."

"This is ridiculous," Kanda grouses. Lavi elbows him and whatever they say to each other next doesn't reach Allen's ears, spoken softly while a wide grin flickers over Lavi's features. Kanda answers sporadically, distracted, fingers running gently over imported silks. It is a little ridiculous, Allen thinks, watching them through his eyelashes and fiddling with his cufflinks. Easy together, uncouth. Allen smiles wryly: savage. Relics of something Allen had thought he was finished missing.

They end up getting the silks anyway.