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i.
The first time Kanda saw Allen Walker, skinny knees and broad smiles and curses running red over his arm and eye, he'd thought, This kid is gonna fuckin' break.
It wasn't hard to see how. Allen Walker was a bit lovely, sure, but the wrong kind of lovely; he was naive. Soft-hearted, like a boy possessed by misguided faith. He would break, just as surely and irreparably as every doe-eyed thing that had come along before him.
Kanda had seen it happen before. He'd met a cursed boy like that before, one with a smile just as blindingly difficult to look away from—
The thought raised a lump in his throat.
This beansprout had no right. No right to dredge those kinds of memories up. Stir up that ancient dust.
He closed his eyes and turned his back, leaving the Walker boy to blink at his heels.
No, he decided, hefting his sword, retreating into the dark. He wouldn't shake hands with a cursed boy. The last time he'd done it, his hands had come away red.
Gonna break into a thousand fucking bits, he told himself, vicious with hurt, savage in his unhappiness.
(He'd never know how right he was.)
ii.
The first time Allen Walker kissed Kanda Yuu, he was met with a firm shove and a pair of wide, incredulous eyes. They were both filthy, black coats so heavy with gore the blood was soaking down onto their skin. Kanda wrestled himself free of Allen, breathing hard, lips drawn into an expression that was half-outrage, half-wonderment.
"You're fucking insane," Kanda said, not quite seething. He shook his head slowly. Unafraid, Allen stepped forwards to meet his retreat.
"You're one to talk," he challenged him, relieved he sounded angrier than he felt. Kanda caught him by the collar of his coat, yanking it upwards with careless force. His hands were trembling against the fabric; exertion, rage, adrenaline, or—
"Unbelievable," Kanda said, rough. "You're fucking unbelievable."
"Sure," Allen said. He could feel Kanda's breath on his face, these shallow, nervous breaths. Kanda's lips had been unexpectedly soft — but that was just Kanda, wasn't it? His whole tragic secret. Unexpectedly soft. He squirmed forwards, determined. "At least I'm not trying to run from this."
Kanda stared down at him. He was breathing hard like a beast provoked, eyes hard, mouth open. His lips were parted, as if around some scathing words he could not bring himself to say.
Allen realized then, for the first time, that he had stunned Kanda into silence.
For a wild moment, Allen thought Kanda might be at risk of hitting him — but then he was pulling Allen close, dragging him by the collar until Kanda's face was up against Allen's.
"You've always been a little shit," Kanda said, voice raw, mouth moving over Allen's lips, "but sometimes, you're really just the fucking worst, you know that?"
"You're gonna wanna brush up on your declarations of passion," Allen said, winding his arms around Kanda's back, meeting the firm line of his body. "They need work."
Kanda made a low sound, almost a growl, and they were kissing again, firm and long and full of some unspeakable, untenable longing.
They wouldn't last. How could they? They were already at risk at burning up, grasping for one another through bruises and hot-iron blood and teeth.
They wouldn't last, but goddamn, Allen didn't care.
He'd take what he could get. And for now? It would be enough.
iii.
Bracing down against the mattress, Kanda stared at Allen's arm; that bright red, crackling carapace of a thing.
The first time Kanda had seen Allen's arm, he'd thought it was uly.
Upon closer inspection, he thought it was hideous .
There was an unusually brittle quality to Allen's Innocence, like the rough red skin might flake off if Allen twisted his arm funny, and the nails were blunt and black like the talons of some impressive bird of prey. The surface of the flesh was especially mottled around Allen's joints, making jagged, awkward breaks around his elbow and knuckles.
If Kanda squinted a little, he could almost believe it was something like armour. Like a second, protective skin, one that could be shucked and removed like a gauntlet if Allen so desired. A stupid, idle fantasy, and deeply erroneous as well. Allen's left arm, after all, left him in no way exempt from pain.
This cursed thing, after all, bled just as surely as any other part of Allen's body.
"You know, it used to be that I could hardly feel a thing with this hand," Allen said. He was lying between Kanda's thighs. "It was paralyzed, or... I don't know, at least semi-paralyzed. Lifting a finger was an uphill battle. Making a fist, that was nearly impossible."
He lifted his hand, suspending it an equal distance between the both of them, and made a demonstrative fist. Allen's control over his movements were fluid, native; it was strange, trying to imagine a point where they were not. He imagined Allen's arm swinging at his side, slack and immobile as a dead thing.
"Did it hurt?" He asked.
"Hurt?" Allen echoed. He gave Kanda this look, as though Kanda had said something particularly strange and maybe even a little funny.
It was disconcerting, really, just how pretty Allen really was, especially in contrast to the tough, vaguely chitinous red mess sewn over his left hand. Allen's erotic presence, alarmingly precocious, was as visible as a heat haze. He reminded Kanda of a marble Apollo, an aesthetic icon only familiar to Kanda through Tiedoll's insistent attempts in art education. His marble pale skin and extraordinary blue-grey eyes certainly gave him the playfully, boyishly lovely looks of a young god — but the seductive glint of those eyes, framed through gray clockspring lashes, was decidedly human.
Allen have the face of an angel an the hand of a demon, but Kanda found his humanity most compelling of all.
"Sometimes," Allen said in a tone that managed to be both casual and cryptic. Allen's breeziness was maddening in how often it seemed to suggest some hidden sadness.
Allen turned his head against the pillow, not in shame, but in contemplation. Kanda leaned down, lips pursing into a minute frown.
"Does it still hurt?" Kanda asked, eyes tracking between Allen's face, the beautiful Greek ideal, and his Innocence arm, misshapen and garish and truly uncomfortable to behold. Allen smiled. It was a brief, closed smile, one tight with some emotion Kanda didn't know how to decipher.
"No," Allen said. His hand fell back down against the bed with a muted thump. He sighed and stretched out languorously, as if perfectly at ease beneath the weight of Kanda's body. "Not really." His eyes fluttered shut, and he nuzzled against Kanda's chest. For a moment, Kanda thought Allen might be at risk of falling asleep, but then his eyes were breaking open once more and he was regarding Kanda with a renewed wariness. "Does it bother you?"
"What?"
"This," Allen said, voice a little hoarse. He lifted his hand and let out a breathy, unconvincing little laugh. "It's not very pretty, is it?"
"You think I give a shit about looks?" Kanda murmured against the corner of Allen's mouth. Allen let out a hum of a sigh, and Kanda tilted Allen's head back, carefully, so he could kiss down his throat. Allen relaxed beneath Kanda's mouth, which made Kanda relax too, languid and almost dreamy.
Kanda wasn't the type to fantasize, but just then, he had a beautiful one in the works. In this fantasy, there was no Holy War. There was no Order, no Innocence, no Akuma or Noah to struggle against. He and Allen would leave this place, like Kanda had promised he would too long ago, and they would be free and whole. They would live long lives. They would sleep, dark and dreamless.
Kanda took a deep breath in at the junction of Allen's throat, taking in the subtle sweetness of his skin. He thought nothing of the indolic, cardamom tang of blood, or wet steel, or lotus blooms.
"I think anyone with eyes gives a shit about looks," Allen said, speaking with every inch of hauteur left in his body. "It's only natural."
Kanda rolled his eyes.
"Okay, fine. It's not very pretty," Kanda said. "But it's a part of you. So." He huffed a breath, blowing a loose strand of black hair out of his eyes. "It's whatever."
Allen curved one hand over his mouth. This time, he was laughing for real.
"Is this... my God," he said, speaking around the slow bloom of a smile. "Is this your way of being romantic ?"
"Shut the fuck up," Kanda said, and he kissed Allen full on the mouth.
In a sense, there was a shocking simplicity to Kanda's feelings for Allen. All of Kanda's feelings, of course, tended to render themselves simply. That was how he preferred them to be. Hate was hate, want was want, rage was rage, and love—
Well.
iv.
The whole sex thing was... okay, pretty fucking alien to Kanda. At first, anyways. That wouldn't stop him from keeping up as best he could, though.
They got the whole rubbing off thing down pretty damn quickly. This was the sort of thing that had come up organically, without much prior discussion or, you know, thought. They'd start off kissing, a harmless enough thing unto itself, and then Allen would be in Kanda's lap, ass grinding down against Kanda's cock, Kanda's hands fisting into Allen's hair.
Last week, they'd done it with just thin pajama pants between them, Allen riding his cock desperately against the hard muscle of Kanda's thigh while Kanda moaned beneath him, one hand cupping and groping his own dick while Allen sucked two fingers of his other hand. The heat of Allen's mouth, the way he'd sucked on Kanda's fingertips — that was what did Kanda in. Kanda had come so hard he'd felt like he'd been hit by a fucking train.
They'd lain together afterwards, bright and sated and kind of gross, Allen's head nestled against Kanda's shoulder. When they were curled up like that, Allen was always talking, talking just to fill silence. He'd murmur this or that about something interesting he'd noticed while watching Kanda in training, or something strange Lavi had told him, or how much he was or was not enjoying the day's weather.
When he was very, very sleepy, he verged dangerously close to the territory of sweet nothings. In his embarrassment, Kanda would shut him up with pinches, bites, tickles, and sometimes, kisses. Allen was all too pleased to submit to these. He would roll onto his back, showing his belly like a dog does, spreading his legs coyly as if to say, What now? Fingers running up Kanda's chest. Should I suck you off? Licking deep into Kanda's mouth, as if to taste him. Do you wanna come between my thighs? Messy, lovely, teasing. Do you wanna come inside me? Do you want to put your cock inside me? Do you wanna fuck me? A-ha, there. I got you to blush. I win.
This was all dizzyingly new to Kanda — he'd barely thought about sex before meeting Allen— but he wasn't intimidated, either. Allen had a curious way of igniting his imagination, and reservations and inhibitions quickly dissolved beneath the glide of his hands, his hips, his tongue.
Allen smiled, smiled that terrible, warm, secretive smile that filled Kanda with such sick and delusional hope. Feeling vindictive, Kanda wrestled Allen down against the bed, pinning Allen's wrists with his hands.
Kanda punished him then, quite thoroughly, with his lips.
v.
Passing Place de la Madeleine's Romanesque temple, Allen took Kanda by the hand. He guided Kanda's own index towards the church, murmuring a stream of bright-eyed admiration at the magnificence of the towering stone church.
"It looks so beautiful," he said, silver eyes tracking over the softly colored marble, rich murals, and gilt Corinthian columns. Kanda held his eyes over the part of Allen's lips, thinking, Yeah. Yeah, it is.
That was the first time they'd ever held hands in front of Link. The Inspector, trailing from several steps behind, lifted his eyebrows. He continued to thumb through his journal and added nothing, though, appearing to neither approve nor disapprove — a cool response Kanda might have actually respected, had it come from anyone he didn't absolutely despise.
With Central's watchdog prowling from the sidelines, it had become harder and harder to steal time alone with Allen. Of course, that didn't mean they didn't find a way. Allen was adept at slipping away whenever possible, and Link, to some small credit, was occasionally wont to turn a blind eye.
Surprisingly so.
Allen was given the most amount of leash on missions abroad. Almost every night, he'd sneak out from the room he shared with Link to find Kanda's room across the room, a misdemeanor Link excused with little more than a whack across the knuckles.
These nights, far and in between, were as frantic as the days apart were long. They were motored by the fear they'd be wrenched apart at any second.
Kanda shoved Allen up against the wall hard, lifting him by the hips until Allen could wrap his legs around Kanda's waist. This wasn't going to last— he could feel Allen starting to slip already— but it didn't have to. Allen's fingers were biting into Kanda's back, moaning and gasping into Kanda's mouth at the friction between them, his cock hard against his even through the layers of clothes. Kanda crushed his mouth against Allen's, biting more than kissing.
"You're fucking mine," Kanda said, drawing a gem of blood from Allen's lower lip as he tilted back to breathe.
Allen looked up at him in a hot daze, eyes glittering, but for once didn't say anything. Kanda almost wanted to take a moment to commemorate that, but then Allen's nails scratched down Kanda's neck. Kanda cursed, "Fuck, Allen."
They fucked twice that night. The first time, he kept Allen pinned against the wall, legs spread, gorgeous and helplessly crowded against Kanda's taller, stronger body. Allen led him into bed the second time, riding Kanda's cock with slow, measured thrusts downwards, moans spilling from him as languorously as honey.
Afterwards, Kanda struggled with the window latch, Allen smirking from the bed. They would cool off together for some time, lying side-by-side. To the sound of Allen's whisperings, Kanda closed his eyes.
He did all he could not to think about love. He failed, more often than not.
Love was the tiger that would eat him alive. This beast, this thing of darkness, it demanded recognition.
vi.
Kanda was still sitting at Allen's bedside when the flower vase fell, crashing against the floor with an uproarious sound and splintering into a thousand pieces. Allen registered all this dimly, the flowers scattering against the tiles, the water parting around the bed frame — and in another life, he might've been very concerned with this development, had he not been occupied by Kanda's furious eyes.
"You think — you think I'm suppose to be fucking proud?" He seethed. He drew his hand back to gesture at Allen's injuries: a bandage wound around his forehead, another around one shoulder, and then a neat line of stitches decorating his left calf. "Proud of this?"
"I saved lives," Allen bit back fiercely, feeling himself colour hotly despite the exhaustion seeping deep into his bones. "Do— don't you understand how important it is, what we, we—"
"I don't fucking care!" Kanda exploded, body arcing forwards to grip the metal frame of Allen's cot. "Jesus fucking—"
He was yelling now, yelling proper, and Allen was yelling back, lungs straining beneath the effort.
"God, how can you be so selfish?"
"Yeah, sure, I'm real fucking selfish, asking you not to— to martyr yourself like a goddamn idiot—"
"You have no right, no right to say—"
"— Losing my mind trying not to fucking lose you!"
And then Allen went perfectly still, body taut, mouth parting around great panting breaths. He felt something inside him break, as surely and as irreparably as the ceramic vase. He was being filled, filled with warm water and jagged glass, easing him down just to gutting him whole.
Kanda— Kanda looked stricken. His eyes were terribly, frighteningly wide. There was a wound, here; a wound torn open.
"Sorry," Allen said, voice as dry as the desert. His mouth moved without his consent, and here were the flowers falling, "I know, I'm sorry, I didn't — it's okay, come here, just— " and Kanda wouldn't move, he wasn't fucking moving, so Allen moved instead. He shoved himself up on one elbow, reaching out blindly for Kanda's warmth. Allen's human hand, pale and soft, found the back of Kanda's neck, drew him close and kissed him, hard and solid and sure until Kanda surrendered, relaxing into it. "I'm right here," he whispered against Kanda's mouth, and it was the truth — he hadn't been expecting it to be, but here they were. "I. I love you. Okay? I'm sorry."
There was a tempest gathering over Kanda's blue eyes.
"You don't know—"
"I do fucking know," Allen said. He found his way into Kanda's lap, his hands on Kanda's back, fingers stroking along the muscles in his arms, desperate to keep him from pulling away any further, from growing any colder. God, for all the heat of his rage, Kanda could be a fucking tundra.
Allen kissed Kanda, catching his lower lip with his teeth, hands all over. His body ached with every movement, but he was manic, sure that as long as he could just keep his fucking hands on him, Kanda would stay. "I know perfectly well what that means, I'm the only one who does, could you maybe stop fighting it for one fucking second and just be here, be here for fucking once—"
"Allen," Kanda said, and it came out rough and angry, "Fucking Allen," ragged, the sound of Allen's name sounding wrenched from his body. "You... have no idea what you're fucking..."
And then his face was against Allen's shoulder, teeth glinting against the skin of Allen's throat. Allen wraps his arms tight around Kanda's back, kissed his ear, his hair, every bit of him he could reach.
Allen saw it then — the plan, the way forward, the only one he could stand to entertain now — stay.
He wanted to whisper it right into Kanda's ear, again and again, to bring him in on the secret. Just stay with me. Stay. Stay. Kanda, I know you hate yourself for... for being happy, for having something to lose, but please. Alright?
vii.
Night came. It wrapped itself around them like a great, dark curtain.`It muffled itself over Kanda's mouth. It silenced him.
Alone in his room, leaning against the gray slab windowsill. He gripped the shadowed stones with battered, bandaged hands.
Kanda hated. He hated truly, deeply, with horrific simplicity and heart-wrenching passion. He hated the Order, he hated the Noah, he hated Innocence, and faceless women of the past, and God. He hated all sides of the war, he hated the circumstances of his birth. He hated Allen, who was surely asleep in his own room, watched over by Central's watchdog — a man Kanda was learning to despise.
He hated Allen with the same force he loved him, which was to say, powerfully.
He thought back to the way Allen's eyes had glinted gold. The way he'd smiled and swayed, possessed by — something. Something other than himself, something that could tear this war to pieces.
Kanda hated, hated hated his own vicious satisfaction.
"Stay," he said to himself. Hollow. Dead.
(He had always, always been a dead man walking. Why should that change now?)
"Stay," he repeated. He bowed forwards, forehead pressing against the cool glass. His hair fell around him, tickling his shoulders.
It had been a long time since he'd had any reason to stay.
viii.
Kanda brought new flowers. Link skirted the room. Allen kissed Kanda again and again, the desperation burning on his lips a smoking gun. You won't forget me, will you?
Kanda wouldn't forget. He'd have to be dead to forget; and fuck, maybe not even then. Perhaps the next time the Order dragged him back to life, he'd spend his days wandering in search of Allen's echo.
What a fucking thought. What a fucking tragedy, that Kanda would die again and again for love, gaining nothing, losing everything.
All the same, when Allen was sleeping against his side, he found he didn't have the strength to curse his fate — this fatality to live.