Rating: T
Word count: ~ 1,700
Warnings: ANGST! (Really, lots of angst. Closer to tragedy, really.) Major character death(s).
Disclaimer: All recognizable characters are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the creators, and no copyright infringement is intended.
A/N: As of 24/5/12, basic edits have been made. The story title comes from the text on an absolutely gorgeous Lavi/Kanda wallpaper. Even though it's not my favorite pairing, the words got stuck in my head. This is the result.
Love In a Glass Coffin
When Kanda saw him for the first time, he thought he was like a bird, all pale skin stretched too tightly over thin bones. He offered his hand, and Kanda thought that if he took it, it might break in his grasp, shatter like the hand of some delicate porcelain doll.
He didn't take it.
He wondered, sometimes, how it might have been different if he had, but Kanda didn't associate himself with people who were only going to die.
And the bird-like boy, with his bones that could snap so easily under his skin that could bruise at the slightest brush, was going to die. Kanda could see it from the start of their first mission. His eyes were bright and empty and his smiles were nothing, and where others might have thought his recklessness was selflessness, Kanda recognized it for what it was.
Allen Walker wanted to die.
It wasn't overwhelmingly apparent, but those eyes gave it away. They were too bright, too blank, too full of emptiness. He offered kind words like offering beggars coins, and they meant just as much and just as little. Everyone thought he was sweet and gentle and a good, kind child, but Kanda saw him as he was—empty, blank, and fading.
Allen moved differently than the other exorcists. Kanda watched, unable to stop himself despite the boy's reckless, suicidal actions, as Allen walked with a casual grace, as though he was in no hurry. The other exorcists, even Lenalee, walked with purpose and drive and moved forward as though they could not bear to stop. But Allen was nothing like them. He walked just quickly enough that it was not a stroll, but too slow for it to be a hurry, and laughed too casually, and held everyone at arm's length as though he was heading off to his funeral the very next day and did not want to get too attached. Kanda watched the big silver eyes shine brighter, and grow emptier, and the laughter echo more hollowly, and knew why he did it. The curse scar got darker, and the darkness in his gaze brighter, and Kanda knew it was only a matter of time before it actually happened, and there was another cross-draped coffin at the front of the great hall.
He knocked away the offered hand. Kanda Yuu did not grow attached to those who were already dead.
Anger was far easier to feel than loss.
Day by day, and inch by inch, Allen Walker was dying. With his bird-bones, and sharp features under skin that seemed too tight, too pale, too thin, he was dying and fading and wasting away. Kanda heard about his promise—keep walking; don't stop—and nearly laughed.
When Allen smiled, it was full of broken hearts and broken promises, the complete absences that was death and the strange fullness that was in Kanda's chest every time he saw that the too-small boy was still breathing. And too small he was; if Kanda stood in front of him, Allen could have hidden completely behind the samurai's non-bulk. He was too thin, too slight. When he used his sword, Kanda thought that it was very much another clown trick, pulling out a weapon far too large and waving it around as though threatening to cause damage, but really causing more self-harm than anything else.
That thought should have made him want to laugh.
He didn't.
Instead, Kanda picked fights. Only when Allen was angry did that damnable emptiness leave his eyes, and only then did his overly pale skin gain some flush, and only then did he look alive. So Kanda prodded and pushed and taunted, and Allen fought back, and it was all right. Kanda assured himself that it was not because he cared, but because he enjoyed picking on the white-haired brat.
"I hate you, moyashi," he told him, and he couldn't have said which of them he was trying to convince.
But it still wasn't enough. Kanda could practically see the walls of a glass coffin closing around Allen, shutting him in and everyone else out. No one else could tell it was there, but Kanda felt it like an icy breeze against his skin, constantly drawing his attention and then pushing him away. It infuriated him, though he couldn't have said why.
"Are you all right, Kanda?" Allen asked with that awful, empty smile that grated at his last nerve like the scream of metal grinding against glass. Kanda wanted to scream at him, wanted to rail and throw things and press the stupid, white-haired brat up against the wall and kiss him until he couldn't breathe and had to change that damnable expression.
And so he did.
Kanda had never been much of one for self-restraint.
The kiss was everything that had never existed between them, a connection and binding and apology and promise and hope and warning. Kanda kissed him as though to say every word that he could never let himself utter—and Allen returned it, word for word, his lips hot and his mouth tasting like grief or joy or desperation, or maybe just Allen.
As they drew apart, the only thought Kanda could grasp was, I will never love like this again. But he didn't say it, and the words were lost to the darkness of nonexistence.
Allen was the one to whisper it, several nights later.
I love you, Kanda.
Kanda was asleep when he finished on a breath, And I'm sorry, Kanda, so, so sorry.
They spent four months together, fighting and kissing and touching, making love and war in equal parts. The rest of the Order overlooked their relationship, despite the fact that it was, in the eyes of the Church, a sin—they were in the midst of battle, and any form of comfort was acceptable. Lavi and Lenalee teased them, and Miranda dared to smile at them, and Marie grinned and clapped Kanda on the back with enough force to break something.
Their four months were not truly happy—there was too much other for that to be true—but they were wonderfully content and fresh and new.
And then Allen went out on a mission and a coffin came back.
The Millennium Earl was dead.
Allen was, too.
Kanda had known it was coming, even while they were together. Destiny, or God, or karma, or something was against them. Romeo and Juliet had had it easy, in comparison. And because he had known, he didn't cry, even when the coffin—glass, because everyone wanted to see the face of their hero, since he was still young and beautiful and Allen—was filled with crimson roses, and Komui carefully closed the lid, placing the gold-and-jewel half-mask on top of it with a respectful bow. He didn't cry when all the mourners and lamenters—none of them, Kanda thought scathingly, feeling real grief, since they were celebrating, at the same time, the death of the Earl—filed past. Nor did he cry when the Lavi paused at the entrance of the tomb and looked back, as though saying goodbye to both of them, and then gently closed the door.
Silence fell, the absolute stillness that held no beating hearts or near-silent breaths.
Kanda ran his fingers lightly over the cold glass, then closed his eyes for a moment, blocking out that perfect, pale face, with the skin still stretched too tightly over too-thin bones, like some delicate, exotic bird.
"I'm not going to join you," he said abruptly, and his voice echoed in the chamber. "You chose to leave, so you'll have to wait, baka moyashi. But…" He trailed off, staring at the bloody-crimson roses that filled the coffin. Broken hearts, broken roses. After a moment, he cleared his throat. "But I'll see you someday. We've both sinned, so we're both going to the same place in the end. But I'm going to stay here until I die, and live a long life, just to spite you." His fingers clenched on the edge of glass, and it bit into his palm, leaving behind a streak of crimson to match the roses. His eyes lingered for another moment on that porcelain-doll face, so perfect in repose, and for a moment, he hated that beauty, that perfection, with everything he was.
"Baka moyashi," he whispered. "I never said it back to you." He turned and left without another word, long coat snapping around his ankles.
The unspoken I love you echoed deafeningly around the tomb as the door swung shut.
Within the perfect glass coffin, marred only by a single streak of blood, the body of a hero rested, untouched by passing time.
Many, many years later, a glass coffin filled with lotuses joined the one filled with roses, though no one knew who placed it there, and together, they waited for eternity.