[fic] [d.gray-man] Chimera Obscurant
Title: Chimera Obscurant
Series: D.Gray-man
Words:2,965
Warnings: standard issue D.Gray-Man body horror, EVERYTHING ABOUT KANDA'S BACKSTORY, and I don't know dudes doing it. This is the most self-indulgent thing I have ever written.
Summary: He said 'live with it', so he did. Alma Karma and Kanda Yuu.
1.
In Volterra a man collapses against the crumbled wall. The smoldering remains of the AKUMA creaks and crumbles away with a relieved sigh. The man watches with a choked sound.
"Is that what she would have been?"
Kanda vaults down from the wall. He sheathes his sword with a scowl. "If you were lucky."
The man's about fifty but he drops his head into his hands and cries. "They said I would see her again."
"And you believed them." Kanda turns his back on him.
"Angelica..."
"Is somewhere else," says Kanda. "Be grateful."
He walks away. Alma watches him go, his claws still spread over the black stain the AKUMA left in the grass. He shakes the debris and the blood off and retracts them with a sheepish smile.
"Don't take it personally!" The last spike vanishes between his shoulders. "Yuu's just like that."
The man slides his hand over his wet eyes. "I wanted to see her again."
Alma can't resist. He crouches across from him and puts his arms around his shoulders. "I know," he says. "But be patient next time."
(2.)
He said, "....I hate people who don't keep their promises."
"What can I do?"
"Live with it."
So he did.
3.
They leave town fast after they kill it. They stand out in this country and they know it.
"One plague and the town's swarming with AKUMA," murmurs Kanda, tossing their bags in the cart with little regard for their contents. They're not carrying too much of importance. He pulls the hood over his face.
"Not anymore," beams Alma, "Be glad, Yuu. They're safe."
"For now, anyway." Kanda glances at him. His eyebrow quirks.
Alma puts a hand behind his head and laughs. "Actually, I hate doing exorcist's work," he admits, letting Kanda pull him up. "But I'll go wherever Yuu wants to go. And if Yuu wants to do it, I'll do it too."
"Don't be a creep."
Alma's shoulders shake as he hunches next to Kanda on the cart. He folds his hands between his knees. His hands are longer than they used to be, with dark bands at the wrists. "I can't help myself," he says, taking a breath. His shoulders still. "Anyway, it's not like these people asked for any of this. If we do it to help them, I guess it's all right."
The horse doesn't like Alma very much. It shakes its head at the sound of his voice. Kanda sighs, tosses the reins, and relates to it.
"Now you sound like the sprout."
"You mean Allen Walker?" Alma's eyes soften. "Allen. I like Allen. He's not so bad. I hope he's still around. I'd like to see him again. Do you think we will?"
"Who knows?" shrugs Kanda, and urges the horse on.
4.
They head north, toward Venice. If they can catch a boat there they'll be in pretty good shape. Kanda's Italian is terrible and Alma's is worse, but Italy's a place used to weird tourists, more so since the Order came and went. It's not that big a handicap.
They rent a room in Florence with money Kanda got from tossing a highwayman into the river. Martello had gold and they took some of it with them, but even Kanda realizes flashing too much of that would be as stupid as sticking the cross on his chest and telling everyone he was an exorcist.
It's not a bad room, anyway. It's big by church cell standards. There's one bed and that's weird. Not because they share, but because Alma insists on taking the floor; compunction he never had when they were kids. When they were young Kanda would wake up with him wrapped around him like an octopus. He'd kick him and Alma would cry about how mean he was, but he'd do it again the very next night.
Alma doesn't do this anymore. He sleeps next to the bed, and sometimes he rolls under it, and in the mornings Kanda has to deal with a hand grabbing his ankle and a dulcet, "Morning Yuuuu," until after about the third time this happens, when one night he finally grabs him by the wrist and hauls him up with him.
Alma is all elbows and knees and confusion as Kanda tosses him onto the mattress.
"Don't get any ideas," snaps Kanda. "I just want you where I can see you."
To which Alma breathes in sharply but doesn't say another word. That morning Kanda wakes up to a face that's been hovering over his for God knows how long. Kanda shoves his palm into his nose and shoves him off. Alma doesn't cry the way he used to, but babbles something about breakfast and the view and either way it's closer to a remembered normality they had, once upon a time.
5.
They find another AKUMA in the north. It used to be a little kid. It screams and screams while Kanda pins it with the junk sword he got in the city, while Alma finishes it with his teeth. The sword breaks. The AKUMA dies gulping like a child at the end of a tantrum. Kanda inspects his empty hilt and kicks the remains of the blade into the ditch once the dark matter curls away. It handled longer than the others, but none of them handle like Mugen.
"Yuu?" Alma looks up with blood on his face and in his eyes. It's enough to make Kanda tense, ready for an attack. Alma moves fast, one twisted arm reaching, not for Kanda, but for the man in white trying to make a dash for the road.
Alma knocks him down, two claws poised on either side of his neck. He smiles.
"You saw all that, right? That's too bad. I don't want to kill people anymore, but if you told the Order-"
"Hold on," says Kanda. He's almost surprised the order gets through. Alma eases back on his calves with nearly equal surprise. Kanda leans over to have a look at the Finder, and the belligerent eyes that glare back at him.
"Touma, right?" Kanda asks.
Those eyes go wide. "Kanda Yu-"
"I'm not wasting time. You remember me, don't you? The Level 2, and the old man and the doll?" The finder scoffs, as though he could forget. "Good. Find the exorcist who was with me and tell him I'm still alive. But don't tell anyone else. If HQ asks, the AKUMA's moved on. If HQ even still notices things like this anymore."
The finder says nothing.
Kanda's lips twist. "No, you don't owe me anything. Do it for that beansprout."
"Master Walker..." That gets him. "Very well."
"Alma, release him."
Alma does. The finder makes the quick escape that's the best asset for one of their profession. Alma sits back down. He's mostly human again, but crumbling slightly at his fingertips and toes, the way he always does when he uses what strength he has. He folds his cracked hands around his knees and looks wistful.
"Was he your friend, Yuu?"
"No."
6.
Alma wears men's clothes. It's weirder than it should be. Alma's worn boy's clothes as long as Kanda's known him. It's only the set of memories that aren't expressly Kanda's that disagree. Alma wears a vest, and a blazer, and trousers. Alma wears a cap to cover his more distinctive features. Alma leans over the front of the gondola they've waited four hours to catch. He stares out across the water and Kanda tries his best not to see the second silhouette, the one with hair falling over her shoulders and the elegant hands curved over the rough edge of the bow.
It helps that Alma won't shut up.
"This place is so big! Look at that bridge! Look at those tiles. Look it’s a baby."
Kanda ignores this and keeps his eye on the gondolier. Rinali was better at this, damn it all.
"We want a boat." This is the fourth time he's had to say this.
"How lucky it is that you are on one," says the gondolier, all smiles.
Kanda tries not to grab his oar and beat him with it. "I want one out of the country."
"That's a bit more difficult. These are bad times, Sir. Many trade restrictions. Many ships being borrowed by the state. You would nearly think we were at war. It's not so easy to simply catch a boat to the Orient."
This time, Kanda catches it. Officially, there's no war at all. "And what if you had papal sanction."
The gondolier pauses in his strokes. The boat coasts for a moment unguided. They pass under a bridge, and out of the corner of his eye Kanda sees the way Alma's lips tighten into something that's not quite a grimace.
"For a Mission."
"Ah, sir," says the gondolier, "If it is for God, that would be a different story indeed."
7.
They wait four days for the boat due to point them East. India seems like a good place to get lost for awhile. It was good enough for General Cross, anyway. The wait is long and boring. Kanda sits on the floor of their run down converted storage room, stares into a cracked mirror, and tears at his hair. He hates the wet Venetian air as much as the stench. The old Order HQ was nearly as bad in the lower levels, but he regenerates slower than he used to and that means he has to work harder on things like tangles.
Alma watches him from a comfortable distance of Crouched Two Inches Away. Kanda knows he's there before he looks. He ignores him for awhile. The only sound in the room is his breath and the ugly tearing noises from his ragged comb.
"It's gotten so long," says Alma.
"You've just noticed?"
"Can I help?"
Kanda's jaw tightens, but he doesn't say no.
8.
Clumsy, awkward tugs with the brush. "How did it get so long?"
"Time." A flat answer.
"...ah that's right. It's been awhile hasn't it? Ten years. It only sort of feels like that for me. You must have seen so much. You must have met so many people. Hey, Yuu. Did you make a lot of friends?" There's no hate in the question now.
"No."
The comb falls. Fingers, now, working the tangles better. "There's Allen. Ah, but did you know a lot of girls?"
"Why are you asking?"
"I bet a lot of girls knew you. Your hair's so long, Yuu. It makes you look so handsome. I bet they knew you. I bet they liked you. Did you like any of them?"
"I don't like anyone."
"...that's right. You hate everyone equally. You were so good like that. I liked it." Fingers slow, close to his jaw.
"That's..."
"It's okay though, if you did. I'm not angry about that anymore." It's true. It's completely, awkwardly true.
"I didn't."
"It's not like I... it would be okay. It would be good, if you did. You should. You should. You've had a whole other life! With...the Exorcists but still, some of it must have been good. Some of it was good before. And that was kind of like Hell..."
"You're rambling."
"Sorry..." Hands slide into the hair behind his head. The apologies all go dim against his shoulder. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I guess I'm pretty bad at this." Its laughter, but it's not. The way it always works with him.
9.
Alma's head stays bent against his chest. Alma's arms are wound around his neck, tight to keep them from shaking too hard. Alma's hands are bunched in his shirt. Alma's legs are bent at either side of his hips. Alma's body's pressed close and desperate and Alma's hard against his stomach and that's when it clicks for Kanda that the apologies he's still mumbling are not for what he said. Alma doesn't apologize for saying weird things. That's just not who Alma Karma is.
So Kanda holds an arm around his waist to keep them both from pitching over. He twists, sliding his back up against the mirror. Dust comes off it in sheets lit by their sputtering oil lamp. Alma starts to pull away with a sound like a wounded animal but Kanda keeps his arm locked and pushes his free hand between them and around the arousal he's trying so hard now to hide. He wraps his fingers around the shape of it through his trousers and he presses with his palm so there's no question about moving.
Alma's eyes are wide and frightened. The secret's out, the secret's been out for awhile now, but here he is facing it again and his round stupid face goes blotchy and red embarrassment and probably more than a little want. The muscles in his back twitch with it. He presses back before he thinks about it, once maybe twice, before stopping himself with a wretched noise. It's just too pathetic and Kanda ends it by shoving his mouth against his, with a clatter of teeth and enough tongue that Alma gags and bites his lip in reflex.
Kanda pulls back with a snarl. "You've got fangs."
Alma's lips are damp and swollen and he doesn't seem able to formulate any sort of response.
So Kanda shoves their foreheads together and tries again, his hand sliding over Alma's thigh. He's got wide hips, too wide for a guy. It makes a lot of sense. It makes it harder to keep a hold of him, when he starts to squirm in uneven, uncertain little jerks, like he doesn't know whether he should stay or go.
Alma's lips are moving against his, in small ragged words that punctuate the way his body moves: Sorry, Can't help it, Want you, Hate me, Hate me all you want kill me again if it makes it all right just let me--
"Shut up," hisses Kanda. The mirror creaks with their weight. "Shut up. Shut up." In the end he presses him to the floor and he shoves his hand down his trousers to show him how little he cares about the technicalities right now. Alma's been waiting a long time for this. It doesn't take much more than a few of Kanda's clumsy, unpracticed strokes before he's twitching all up and down, flushed except in the places where his skin runs dark and the outlines of the old stitches show in the places where they put him back together. Kanda can feel the suture welts when he wraps his legs around him. He can see them on his neck as he shoves his head back and tries to cover his face behind his marked hand.
Kanda grabs his wrist and drags it away. That's enough permission that Alma comes shaking in his arms, sobbing in a way that has less to do with guilt and more with the sort of pain that comes after a long fever, or after a particularly rough regeneration, when they were in their beds and just happy to wake up whole again.
10.
"Yuu..."
"Mm?"
"I think I've got splinters in my butt."
"No you don't. The floor's polished."
"Yuu..."
"Mm?"
".... how much do you remember?"
Kanda remembers blonde hair falling over his face and warm lips on his jaw. He puts his face against Alma's neck. Everything smells like flowers. "Not much."
He doesn't ask, but Alma answers anyway: "I remember a lot. I wish I didn't. It hurts. But it's supposed to. Maybe that's why they killed us when we did."
"Who knows? I went back anyway," says Kanda. He's not saying it to be sentimental. He's pointing out the obvious. "For you. Back then."
"Oh," says Alma. He might be crying, but if he is, he keeps it to himself.
(1.)
In Martello, before they left the city, they stopped over in the Villa close to the old city's entrance. Alma's legs hadn't regenerated fully yet. He hobbled on crutches, stumping down the stairs himself, since Kanda had flat out refused his cries for a piggyback ride.
The villa had left the doll on a stand at the base of the steps. It looked like it'd become something of a local relic, or a guardian of some kind. People had left flowers in its hair and around its base. It'd been set sitting up, empty eyes looking towards a heaven that may or may not have had a place for her. Kanda had never been interested in the answer to that.
Facing her now, he wasn't about to ask again.
"Exorcists are destroyers," he repeated. It didn't sound the same anymore. "It's someone else who saves."
Alma clattered down the last of the steps. "Ohh. Is that Lala?" Somewhere when they'd both been delirious and regenerating Kanda had told him a bumbled account of that mission. It must have been more muddled than he'd realized, if he'd used the dolls name.
Alma hopped over to the stand, dropping level with her face. His knees had grown back by then, so he could kneel well enough. "She's really pretty. Hello, Lala! I'm Alma! Will you sing for me?"
"Don't be an idiot," said Kanda. "The Innocence is gone, and she wouldn't sing for you anyway." The man she sang for was gone with her.
Alma bowed his head, brushing a hand carefully through her glass spun hair. He found a loose flower and tucked it back behind her ear. "No. I guess I've done too much for that." His smile faltered on one end. "Yuu... is it okay to go with you?"
He was asking for someone's permission, but it wasn't Kanda. Kanda knew this, but he answered anyway: "When have you ever asked?"
*
It figures I would return from an impromptu hiatus with with a fic for a fandom I haven't written for in years, but then D.Gray-man had the nerve to get interesting for the first time in years. D.Gray-man is a series I will always have a confused affection for. When it is good, it is very good, but all the other times it can be so so uneven and bears all the trademarks of a first-time series for its poor stressed out mangaka. Basically I read it for Allen. I love Allen Walker. I love him in the confusing martyred face. Dear Hoshino, please don't screw him over! (she will)
So clearly that means I have write a Kanda fic.
What even? I... never even found him THAT INTERESTING.
Until these last few chapters.
Damnit Hoshino.
Anyway consider this story an AU as of chapter 199, because while I was unsurprised by the conclusion of this arc (it was the most expected conclusion) I was disappointed (it really would've been so cool if...) so, a what-if. Because once, just once, I actually want Allen to get to totally not fail at saving someone.
Series: D.Gray-man
Words:2,965
Warnings: standard issue D.Gray-Man body horror, EVERYTHING ABOUT KANDA'S BACKSTORY, and I don't know dudes doing it. This is the most self-indulgent thing I have ever written.
Summary: He said 'live with it', so he did. Alma Karma and Kanda Yuu.
1.
In Volterra a man collapses against the crumbled wall. The smoldering remains of the AKUMA creaks and crumbles away with a relieved sigh. The man watches with a choked sound.
"Is that what she would have been?"
Kanda vaults down from the wall. He sheathes his sword with a scowl. "If you were lucky."
The man's about fifty but he drops his head into his hands and cries. "They said I would see her again."
"And you believed them." Kanda turns his back on him.
"Angelica..."
"Is somewhere else," says Kanda. "Be grateful."
He walks away. Alma watches him go, his claws still spread over the black stain the AKUMA left in the grass. He shakes the debris and the blood off and retracts them with a sheepish smile.
"Don't take it personally!" The last spike vanishes between his shoulders. "Yuu's just like that."
The man slides his hand over his wet eyes. "I wanted to see her again."
Alma can't resist. He crouches across from him and puts his arms around his shoulders. "I know," he says. "But be patient next time."
(2.)
He said, "....I hate people who don't keep their promises."
"What can I do?"
"Live with it."
So he did.
3.
They leave town fast after they kill it. They stand out in this country and they know it.
"One plague and the town's swarming with AKUMA," murmurs Kanda, tossing their bags in the cart with little regard for their contents. They're not carrying too much of importance. He pulls the hood over his face.
"Not anymore," beams Alma, "Be glad, Yuu. They're safe."
"For now, anyway." Kanda glances at him. His eyebrow quirks.
Alma puts a hand behind his head and laughs. "Actually, I hate doing exorcist's work," he admits, letting Kanda pull him up. "But I'll go wherever Yuu wants to go. And if Yuu wants to do it, I'll do it too."
"Don't be a creep."
Alma's shoulders shake as he hunches next to Kanda on the cart. He folds his hands between his knees. His hands are longer than they used to be, with dark bands at the wrists. "I can't help myself," he says, taking a breath. His shoulders still. "Anyway, it's not like these people asked for any of this. If we do it to help them, I guess it's all right."
The horse doesn't like Alma very much. It shakes its head at the sound of his voice. Kanda sighs, tosses the reins, and relates to it.
"Now you sound like the sprout."
"You mean Allen Walker?" Alma's eyes soften. "Allen. I like Allen. He's not so bad. I hope he's still around. I'd like to see him again. Do you think we will?"
"Who knows?" shrugs Kanda, and urges the horse on.
4.
They head north, toward Venice. If they can catch a boat there they'll be in pretty good shape. Kanda's Italian is terrible and Alma's is worse, but Italy's a place used to weird tourists, more so since the Order came and went. It's not that big a handicap.
They rent a room in Florence with money Kanda got from tossing a highwayman into the river. Martello had gold and they took some of it with them, but even Kanda realizes flashing too much of that would be as stupid as sticking the cross on his chest and telling everyone he was an exorcist.
It's not a bad room, anyway. It's big by church cell standards. There's one bed and that's weird. Not because they share, but because Alma insists on taking the floor; compunction he never had when they were kids. When they were young Kanda would wake up with him wrapped around him like an octopus. He'd kick him and Alma would cry about how mean he was, but he'd do it again the very next night.
Alma doesn't do this anymore. He sleeps next to the bed, and sometimes he rolls under it, and in the mornings Kanda has to deal with a hand grabbing his ankle and a dulcet, "Morning Yuuuu," until after about the third time this happens, when one night he finally grabs him by the wrist and hauls him up with him.
Alma is all elbows and knees and confusion as Kanda tosses him onto the mattress.
"Don't get any ideas," snaps Kanda. "I just want you where I can see you."
To which Alma breathes in sharply but doesn't say another word. That morning Kanda wakes up to a face that's been hovering over his for God knows how long. Kanda shoves his palm into his nose and shoves him off. Alma doesn't cry the way he used to, but babbles something about breakfast and the view and either way it's closer to a remembered normality they had, once upon a time.
5.
They find another AKUMA in the north. It used to be a little kid. It screams and screams while Kanda pins it with the junk sword he got in the city, while Alma finishes it with his teeth. The sword breaks. The AKUMA dies gulping like a child at the end of a tantrum. Kanda inspects his empty hilt and kicks the remains of the blade into the ditch once the dark matter curls away. It handled longer than the others, but none of them handle like Mugen.
"Yuu?" Alma looks up with blood on his face and in his eyes. It's enough to make Kanda tense, ready for an attack. Alma moves fast, one twisted arm reaching, not for Kanda, but for the man in white trying to make a dash for the road.
Alma knocks him down, two claws poised on either side of his neck. He smiles.
"You saw all that, right? That's too bad. I don't want to kill people anymore, but if you told the Order-"
"Hold on," says Kanda. He's almost surprised the order gets through. Alma eases back on his calves with nearly equal surprise. Kanda leans over to have a look at the Finder, and the belligerent eyes that glare back at him.
"Touma, right?" Kanda asks.
Those eyes go wide. "Kanda Yu-"
"I'm not wasting time. You remember me, don't you? The Level 2, and the old man and the doll?" The finder scoffs, as though he could forget. "Good. Find the exorcist who was with me and tell him I'm still alive. But don't tell anyone else. If HQ asks, the AKUMA's moved on. If HQ even still notices things like this anymore."
The finder says nothing.
Kanda's lips twist. "No, you don't owe me anything. Do it for that beansprout."
"Master Walker..." That gets him. "Very well."
"Alma, release him."
Alma does. The finder makes the quick escape that's the best asset for one of their profession. Alma sits back down. He's mostly human again, but crumbling slightly at his fingertips and toes, the way he always does when he uses what strength he has. He folds his cracked hands around his knees and looks wistful.
"Was he your friend, Yuu?"
"No."
6.
Alma wears men's clothes. It's weirder than it should be. Alma's worn boy's clothes as long as Kanda's known him. It's only the set of memories that aren't expressly Kanda's that disagree. Alma wears a vest, and a blazer, and trousers. Alma wears a cap to cover his more distinctive features. Alma leans over the front of the gondola they've waited four hours to catch. He stares out across the water and Kanda tries his best not to see the second silhouette, the one with hair falling over her shoulders and the elegant hands curved over the rough edge of the bow.
It helps that Alma won't shut up.
"This place is so big! Look at that bridge! Look at those tiles. Look it’s a baby."
Kanda ignores this and keeps his eye on the gondolier. Rinali was better at this, damn it all.
"We want a boat." This is the fourth time he's had to say this.
"How lucky it is that you are on one," says the gondolier, all smiles.
Kanda tries not to grab his oar and beat him with it. "I want one out of the country."
"That's a bit more difficult. These are bad times, Sir. Many trade restrictions. Many ships being borrowed by the state. You would nearly think we were at war. It's not so easy to simply catch a boat to the Orient."
This time, Kanda catches it. Officially, there's no war at all. "And what if you had papal sanction."
The gondolier pauses in his strokes. The boat coasts for a moment unguided. They pass under a bridge, and out of the corner of his eye Kanda sees the way Alma's lips tighten into something that's not quite a grimace.
"For a Mission."
"Ah, sir," says the gondolier, "If it is for God, that would be a different story indeed."
7.
They wait four days for the boat due to point them East. India seems like a good place to get lost for awhile. It was good enough for General Cross, anyway. The wait is long and boring. Kanda sits on the floor of their run down converted storage room, stares into a cracked mirror, and tears at his hair. He hates the wet Venetian air as much as the stench. The old Order HQ was nearly as bad in the lower levels, but he regenerates slower than he used to and that means he has to work harder on things like tangles.
Alma watches him from a comfortable distance of Crouched Two Inches Away. Kanda knows he's there before he looks. He ignores him for awhile. The only sound in the room is his breath and the ugly tearing noises from his ragged comb.
"It's gotten so long," says Alma.
"You've just noticed?"
"Can I help?"
Kanda's jaw tightens, but he doesn't say no.
8.
Clumsy, awkward tugs with the brush. "How did it get so long?"
"Time." A flat answer.
"...ah that's right. It's been awhile hasn't it? Ten years. It only sort of feels like that for me. You must have seen so much. You must have met so many people. Hey, Yuu. Did you make a lot of friends?" There's no hate in the question now.
"No."
The comb falls. Fingers, now, working the tangles better. "There's Allen. Ah, but did you know a lot of girls?"
"Why are you asking?"
"I bet a lot of girls knew you. Your hair's so long, Yuu. It makes you look so handsome. I bet they knew you. I bet they liked you. Did you like any of them?"
"I don't like anyone."
"...that's right. You hate everyone equally. You were so good like that. I liked it." Fingers slow, close to his jaw.
"That's..."
"It's okay though, if you did. I'm not angry about that anymore." It's true. It's completely, awkwardly true.
"I didn't."
"It's not like I... it would be okay. It would be good, if you did. You should. You should. You've had a whole other life! With...the Exorcists but still, some of it must have been good. Some of it was good before. And that was kind of like Hell..."
"You're rambling."
"Sorry..." Hands slide into the hair behind his head. The apologies all go dim against his shoulder. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I guess I'm pretty bad at this." Its laughter, but it's not. The way it always works with him.
9.
Alma's head stays bent against his chest. Alma's arms are wound around his neck, tight to keep them from shaking too hard. Alma's hands are bunched in his shirt. Alma's legs are bent at either side of his hips. Alma's body's pressed close and desperate and Alma's hard against his stomach and that's when it clicks for Kanda that the apologies he's still mumbling are not for what he said. Alma doesn't apologize for saying weird things. That's just not who Alma Karma is.
So Kanda holds an arm around his waist to keep them both from pitching over. He twists, sliding his back up against the mirror. Dust comes off it in sheets lit by their sputtering oil lamp. Alma starts to pull away with a sound like a wounded animal but Kanda keeps his arm locked and pushes his free hand between them and around the arousal he's trying so hard now to hide. He wraps his fingers around the shape of it through his trousers and he presses with his palm so there's no question about moving.
Alma's eyes are wide and frightened. The secret's out, the secret's been out for awhile now, but here he is facing it again and his round stupid face goes blotchy and red embarrassment and probably more than a little want. The muscles in his back twitch with it. He presses back before he thinks about it, once maybe twice, before stopping himself with a wretched noise. It's just too pathetic and Kanda ends it by shoving his mouth against his, with a clatter of teeth and enough tongue that Alma gags and bites his lip in reflex.
Kanda pulls back with a snarl. "You've got fangs."
Alma's lips are damp and swollen and he doesn't seem able to formulate any sort of response.
So Kanda shoves their foreheads together and tries again, his hand sliding over Alma's thigh. He's got wide hips, too wide for a guy. It makes a lot of sense. It makes it harder to keep a hold of him, when he starts to squirm in uneven, uncertain little jerks, like he doesn't know whether he should stay or go.
Alma's lips are moving against his, in small ragged words that punctuate the way his body moves: Sorry, Can't help it, Want you, Hate me, Hate me all you want kill me again if it makes it all right just let me--
"Shut up," hisses Kanda. The mirror creaks with their weight. "Shut up. Shut up." In the end he presses him to the floor and he shoves his hand down his trousers to show him how little he cares about the technicalities right now. Alma's been waiting a long time for this. It doesn't take much more than a few of Kanda's clumsy, unpracticed strokes before he's twitching all up and down, flushed except in the places where his skin runs dark and the outlines of the old stitches show in the places where they put him back together. Kanda can feel the suture welts when he wraps his legs around him. He can see them on his neck as he shoves his head back and tries to cover his face behind his marked hand.
Kanda grabs his wrist and drags it away. That's enough permission that Alma comes shaking in his arms, sobbing in a way that has less to do with guilt and more with the sort of pain that comes after a long fever, or after a particularly rough regeneration, when they were in their beds and just happy to wake up whole again.
10.
"Yuu..."
"Mm?"
"I think I've got splinters in my butt."
"No you don't. The floor's polished."
"Yuu..."
"Mm?"
".... how much do you remember?"
Kanda remembers blonde hair falling over his face and warm lips on his jaw. He puts his face against Alma's neck. Everything smells like flowers. "Not much."
He doesn't ask, but Alma answers anyway: "I remember a lot. I wish I didn't. It hurts. But it's supposed to. Maybe that's why they killed us when we did."
"Who knows? I went back anyway," says Kanda. He's not saying it to be sentimental. He's pointing out the obvious. "For you. Back then."
"Oh," says Alma. He might be crying, but if he is, he keeps it to himself.
(1.)
In Martello, before they left the city, they stopped over in the Villa close to the old city's entrance. Alma's legs hadn't regenerated fully yet. He hobbled on crutches, stumping down the stairs himself, since Kanda had flat out refused his cries for a piggyback ride.
The villa had left the doll on a stand at the base of the steps. It looked like it'd become something of a local relic, or a guardian of some kind. People had left flowers in its hair and around its base. It'd been set sitting up, empty eyes looking towards a heaven that may or may not have had a place for her. Kanda had never been interested in the answer to that.
Facing her now, he wasn't about to ask again.
"Exorcists are destroyers," he repeated. It didn't sound the same anymore. "It's someone else who saves."
Alma clattered down the last of the steps. "Ohh. Is that Lala?" Somewhere when they'd both been delirious and regenerating Kanda had told him a bumbled account of that mission. It must have been more muddled than he'd realized, if he'd used the dolls name.
Alma hopped over to the stand, dropping level with her face. His knees had grown back by then, so he could kneel well enough. "She's really pretty. Hello, Lala! I'm Alma! Will you sing for me?"
"Don't be an idiot," said Kanda. "The Innocence is gone, and she wouldn't sing for you anyway." The man she sang for was gone with her.
Alma bowed his head, brushing a hand carefully through her glass spun hair. He found a loose flower and tucked it back behind her ear. "No. I guess I've done too much for that." His smile faltered on one end. "Yuu... is it okay to go with you?"
He was asking for someone's permission, but it wasn't Kanda. Kanda knew this, but he answered anyway: "When have you ever asked?"
*
It figures I would return from an impromptu hiatus with with a fic for a fandom I haven't written for in years, but then D.Gray-man had the nerve to get interesting for the first time in years. D.Gray-man is a series I will always have a confused affection for. When it is good, it is very good, but all the other times it can be so so uneven and bears all the trademarks of a first-time series for its poor stressed out mangaka. Basically I read it for Allen. I love Allen Walker. I love him in the confusing martyred face. Dear Hoshino, please don't screw him over! (she will)
So clearly that means I have write a Kanda fic.
What even? I... never even found him THAT INTERESTING.
Until these last few chapters.
Damnit Hoshino.
Anyway consider this story an AU as of chapter 199, because while I was unsurprised by the conclusion of this arc (it was the most expected conclusion) I was disappointed (it really would've been so cool if...) so, a what-if. Because once, just once, I actually want Allen to get to totally not fail at saving someone.