A/N: Hey, guys! *wave* I know most of you understood me to be on hiatus, but that was mostly from scheduled updates - I found a little time to set aside for this. *sheepish smile* *mutter* Over the course of a day... *sigh* On another note, I only have one AP test left!
Title: Remnant of a Supernova
Author: liketolaugh
Rating: T
Pairings: Link/Allen
Genre: Romance/Angst
Warnings: Character death
Summary: Every year, on June 5th, Link makes a dinner for two and sits by Allen's gravestone. It's been sixty-six years.
Disclaimer: Like hell I own D. Gray-man.
Edinburgh was, all things considered, a rather small town. Not quite small enough that everyone knew everyone, but there were a few prominent personalities that were all but household names, stories that cropped up everywhere, families everyone knew.
One such family was the Link family.
The youngest generation of the Link family was a pair of twin sisters, Gabriella and Rose. They were as different as night and day; Gabriella was studious and responsible, while Rose was lighthearted and daring. Neither of them were in town at the moment; both of them were studying abroad, Gabriella to go into the budding computer industry and Rose to go into politics.
Their parents were Ella and Daniel Link, and it was clear which daughter took after which parent. Ella was the very picture of a responsible wife, always on top of everything and volunteering everywhere, while Daniel was a carefree man everyone knew, whether they wanted to or not. Less well known was Daniel's habit of breaking up fights, by force if necessary.
The eldest Link, and the best known, was Howard, known to most simply as Link.
Ask any man or woman over seventy in Edinburgh, and they could (and would) tell you about the day Link, then twenty-one years old, stumbled into town, bloody and bruised, carrying the body of a boy four years younger, on June 5th, sixty-six years ago.
It had been a sunny day, they would say, or maybe a cloudy one, or a rainy one - it changed with every telling. Regardless, the awestruck children were assured that the condition had been in some way awful, for as soon as Link had reached the town square, he had collapsed, still clinging to the dead body he'd brought.
The rumors, the elders would recall fondly, had been outrageous and exciting. Some said that Link had barely escaped the pursuit of a captor after attempting to rescue the boy he held, others that he was the lone survivor of a shootout and the boy a fellow victim, and more that he was one of only a few survivors of an epic battle, from which the boy had not emerged so fortunate.
This last seemed most likely; Link had been a wary man when he arrived, old lady Jones told them, and it was a very long time indeed before he learned to relax. Sometimes she swore up and down that she could see a gleam of metal in his sleeve, even now.
But regardless of how he had arrived, Link had been taken in by a man now long dead, and when he'd woken, the first thing he'd done was ask for 'Allen', his lover, the dead man he'd carried with him.
When told of Allen's fate, he had stopped, and stared, and then he had refused to speak for the rest of the day, wearing the most shell-shocked, haunted expression the town doctor had ever seen.
Many people, Grandpa Smithford recalled, had come to Allen's funeral, but it had been Link who spoke at it, at the service full of strangers, people who had never been to Edinburgh before and only occasionally would again.
But first, they vanished - even Link left without a word before eventually returning, downtrodden and dead-eyed, on June 5th of the following year, and knelt before the grave of 'Allen', and set a single uneaten sandwich down before collapsing in front of it, as though he no longer had the energy to move.
By the machinations of several concerned citizens, Link did not so much decide to settle down as he was forced into it, making a living at first doing anything that needed doing and, eventually - or, if you listened to Janie, by her grandmother's doing alone - gaining a job helping to manage the (now prosperous) local general store.
And every year, on June 5th, Link cooked a meal fit for two, took it to the graveyard, and ate it in front of Allen Walker's gravestone. If you were there at the right time, old man Kendwick swore, and he didn't notice you, you could hear him talking to his old lover as if he were still there.
Most of the children had yet to confirm this. Somehow, he always noticed them.
At first, there had been a near-constant trickle of strangers - people who visited Link, visited the grave, and then left, like clockwork. Link always warded off questions about these folk with either a tight smile and a noticeable formality of speech, or, if you were under the age of fifteen, with a cookie.
The cookies became less effective, Grandma Julie told them, when the children realized that he always had a supply ready for anyone who asked.
Eventually, Link did settle in. He'd found a child, the now-Daniel Link, abandoned on the street, with no one the wiser as to where he'd come from, and taken him in and raised him. Still, every year on June 5th, he cooked a dinner and took it to the graveyard. Sometimes Daniel came with him; sometimes he stayed with a friend.
Now matter how much he was asked, Daniel never said a word about those visits, or anything else, really, about Link that was not common knowledge.
And then Daniel grew up, he got married, had children of his own, and Link, slowly, began to age.
Once, old man George would tell them with a derisive snort, Link's hair had been long, always tied back in a braid. But old age had made it thin and brittle, just as it had stooped his once-straight back and caused his steady hands to shake. Now it was cut short, so light a gray that it was nearly white.
Though Link would have, given the choice, lived alone, he'd been ensconced into the Daniel/Ella household soon after their children had left, simply because his body was beginning to break down, subtly but distinctly.
Despite that, the year after he turned eighty-seven, he still bustled around the kitchen, making a dinner for two.
"Dad, are you sure you're up to it this year?"
Daniel's voice was cautious, and he was nearly hovering over Link, who let his lips quirk into a smile, focused on packing the last of the dinner away with badly shaking hands.
"Danny, have you ever known me to miss it?"
Daniel huffed out a short laugh. "Nope. Not even that one year it was a hundred degrees out, or that one when you had a broken leg, or that one you came back sick as a dog-"
"I ate something that had gone bad," Link said adamantly. "I would have been sick whether I went or not."
"That doesn't make it better." Daniel threw his hands up, and then shook his head ruefully. "Never mind. Ready to go?"
Link closed the lid of the basket, let out a soft sigh, and gave him a small smile and a nod. "Yes, I believe I am."
"Right." Daniel considered him for a moment, and then held out his hand. "I'm taking the basket."
Link sighed, but Daniel had carried the basket for the past five years, so he surrendered it without much argument. Daniel didn't even grunt at the weight that took Link's breath away now, and took Link's elbow, steadying him.
"I am not going to fall," Link muttered crankily, shuffling forward.
"Of course not, Dad," Daniel demurred.
It took longer than Link might have liked to get them both out the door, and then they were moving down the road at a slow, careful pace. The graveyard wasn't far away, Link recalled, but it wasn't close, either.
"I'm not as fast as I used to be," Link noted, with a hint of wistfulness.
"You're eighty-seven," Daniel replied with a hint of exasperation. Link chuckled quietly.
"So I am."
"You're also senile," Daniel muttered.
Link smirked up at him and waggled a finger playfully. "Now, Danny, my health is failing me in many ways, but my mind hasn't gone yet."
"Says you," Daniel countered, but he was smiling. "Are you sure you don't need your pills?"
Link 'hm'ed. "I'll take them when I return."
It took quite some time to reach the graveyard, and longer to reach Allen's gravestone - one of the most well taken care of in the area - but Link didn't mind.
Daniel let him down gently and carefully, so that he was sitting on the ground in a way Link always, always paid for later. He set the basket in front of him a moment later, and, finally, straightened up.
"Are you sure you'll be alright?" Daniel asked, a hint of worry showing in his eyes. Link smiled up at him, faintly amused.
"Quite sure."
"Alright…" Still doubtful, Daniel started to turn away. "I'll be back here at sunset, alright?"
Link waved dismissively. "Of course, of course. I will see you then, Danny."
"You are the only one who still calls me Danny," Daniel muttered, and then he was gone.
Link sighed again, quiet and fond, and hesitated for a long moment. Then he reached forward and, with slow, laborious movements, started to pull the food out again, setting it up as if for two, though he knew he'd be the one eating it all.
He still made Allen's favorites.
When everything was set out, the fork in Link's wrinkled hand resting on his plate, he set his eyes on the gravestone - worn and old, now, not fresh and crisply carved as it had been the first time he'd visited. The name, however, was still just as legible, set darkly into the faint grey of the stocky rectangular marker.
Allen Walker
"Good evening, Allen," Link murmured softly, too quiet for his voice to carry on the wind. "One more year has passed. I am eighty-seven now, and I still wake up expecting to see you beside me." He hesitated, a shadow falling over his eyes, and he sighed again. When he spoke again, his voice wavered and shook like an autumn leaf. "I miss you every day."
He stopped talking to eat for a while, hoping that the delay would steady him and knowing it wouldn't, and the evening air began to chill. He ignored it, even as his bones ached warningly.
A few minutes passed in silence, and then he let the fork fall, set the plate aside, and focused his gaze on the gravestone again, hands settling in his lap. His short silver hair ruffled in the faint wind. The lines of his face were even deeper than normal, and far more solemn. His voice, when he at last continued, matched it line for line, tired and strained.
"I feel older and weaker every day, Allen. When I joined the CROW, I never dreamed of living long enough to feel the consequences of a life of battle, but I feel them nonetheless." He sighed heavily, a long and weary sound. "I wake up aching, and it never leaves. Of course... that is not purely a physical feeling."
He reached forward to brush his hand across the side of the gravestone, and then drew it away again, settling it in the grass.
"I don't know what to do with myself anymore, Allen. Danny doesn't need me. No one has visited in years. Without you here…" He trailed off and sighed. "I'm lost, Allen, and I'm lonely." He shook his head without lifting it. Slowly, he curled his hand into a weak fist. "You would have found something for us to do with ourselves - some new cause to throw ourselves into." His lips twitched into a weak smile. "But I can't even do that now. My body is too weak."
He shifted, winced, and shook his head again.
"Or maybe you would've been even more lost than I am." He smiled ruefully. "I suppose that would have been reason enough for me to find something." Sigh. "Idle thoughts, of course."
Halfheartedly, he ate a few more bites off his plate, and then set his fork down again.
"I miss you," he said again, this time around a lump in his throat and a dry, empty burn in his eyes. He swallowed. "Allen, I miss you more than I thought possible. I miss your laugh. I miss your smile. I miss the way you teased me, how you curled up to me when you slept, the look in your eyes when you had your heart set on something. I miss everything." He smiled painfully. "My hair is almost as white as yours was, Allen. I am reminded of you now every time I look in the mirror." His smile softened a little, turning ironic but honest. "I can only imagine what you'd have to say about that. Between the two of us, Allen, I'm not sure who was more sentimental."
Link closed his eyes for a long moment. His chest felt heavy, and he was dreading the walk back.
"It's wonder," he managed, "that either of us found room in our hearts for sentiment, when everything seemed to stand against us. When it was discouraged at every turn, when-"
He stopped, and then opened his eyes again, and felt tears prick at them angrily, threatening to spill. He made no move to stop them, and they ran hot and silent. "We were so young then, Allen," he whispered hoarsely. "You were so young. God, Allen… You didn't deserve that. Neither of us deserved that."
The gravestone, of course, did not reply. Link shut his eyes again.
"It doesn't matter anymore, I suppose," he murmured tiredly. "It was a long time ago, and try as you might- you cannot take back the past." Pause. "Do you mind if I sleep for a while? I promise I'll be up soon."
He started to list forward, letting the bone-deep exhaustion take him, and then-
"Don't be silly, Link."
Link's eyes opened wide, and his head snapped up.
Clearer than anything he'd seen in quite a long time, he saw Allen crouched before him, smiling kindly and holding out one hand.
"It's not far to go," Allen told him earnestly, a glow dancing around his skin that had nothing and everything to do with his smile. "I'll show you the way."
Link's mouth felt dry. "Allen…"
Allen's smile softened, becoming the genuine one he wore just for Link. "It's good to see you again, Link."
"I missed you," Link managed, voice hoarse.
And then he reached out and took Allen's hand, and Allen stood up, pulling Link with him effortlessly.
Link stepped forward, all aches gone, lighter than he'd felt in years, and felt his hair, long and golden again, settle around his shoulders as he left his body behind.
Allen didn't hesitate; before even Link had regained his feet, he'd pulled the other man to his chest, hugging him tightly. Without hesitation, Link hugged him back, revelling in his familiar, too-long-unfelt warmth.
"I missed you too," Allen murmured in his ear, and then pushed him back, smiling. "Now come on. Everyone's waiting on you."
Link barely hesitated for a moment before he smiled. "Alright. Let's go."
They stepped into the light together, hand in hand.
I literally cannot repress the urge to angst everywhere. *snort* This is somewhat edited from the version I put on Tumblr, but of course, most of you won't have seen that. *laugh* I also have a multichapter, also Linkllen, coming up, but it's short compared to most of my multi-chapter fics. Still. *smile* Thanks for reading, and please review!