A/N: Request/giftfic for my friend Bex. I might write an explicit version of this later, to be posted elsewhere. Title inspired by Closer by Nine Inch Nails because I lacked inspiration.

fangs 2 mah gurl Raven for profreding dis

(Musetta beta'd this for me because I wrote this at like 2 am I think, and just wanted to make sure everything was cool. She suggested that line first, then gave me the actual screen name she wanted, so I give her both. She's gonna hate me for this one.)

It had been harder to keep up that facade lately. He wasn't sure if it was just stress, or frustration, but the corners of his mouth felt tight when he smiled. He scanned the cafeteria, eyes settling on the same table they always did.

He knew that Kanda could feel his gaze on him. He always could, that was just Kanda. There was something smug about the way he kept his eyes stubbornly on his meal.

(A while ago, he would have thought it was his imagination, but no, it was Kanda.)

Allen decided it was about that time again.

The tension in his shoulders had been getting worse again, Kanda noted one afternoon during his daily meditation. He couldn't relax, couldn't breathe and focus as he usually could. Based on the look he'd received in the cafeteria earlier that week, he wasn't the only one.

"How long are you going to sit there and pretend to meditate, idiot?"

He cursed under his breath – all for show at this point – but didn't move. "Who said it was pretending, beansprout?" There was a derisive snort behind him and a shift of fabric and then Allen was sitting beside him, full of nervous energy with nowhere to go, right hand out behind him and left running through his hair. (The red against white never failed to catch his attention. It was a combination one never got used to seeing.) "What do you want anyway?"

"Do I have to spell it out for you?" Same as always, why else would I be here.

"Do you always have to be so cagey?" That's what I thought.

Allen scowled, a glint to his eye as he all but glared at the wall ahead of them.

"I'm busy right now."

"Doing what?" Kanda's lips pulled downward (not that most would notice the difference) and his eyebrows knit together.

"What I was doing before you showed up, what do you think?"

With a quiet groan of frustration, Allen pulled himself to his feet and started towards the door, arms stretching over his head. "Idiot... You're useless," he grumbled, the words quiet as he walked away.

"I'll be there."

Allen paused, almost looked over his shoulder. The expression on his face was less a smile and more a feral grin. "Can't wait."

The door closed quietly and with no further warning, there was a dip on the feather mattress and a rough hand gripping his short hair, pulling him up and into a bruising kiss that was all teeth. Without a thought, Allen reached up and hooked an arm around the swordsman's neck, dragging him suddenly down onto the mattress, biting hard into Kanda's bottom lip and growling as he rolled on top of him, thighs straddling his hips, pressing against hard muscle.

For the next fifteen minutes, the world disappeared, contracted around the small bedroom, centered its axis on the bed. For fifteen minutes, the two (enemies in all but name) knew nothing but teeth and nails digging, gripping, drawing quiet hisses and muffled groans, reluctant admissions that needed no words. Hair was pulled, hips and thighs bruised, maybe bleeding, every second of fifteen minutes excruciating tension building, building until-

When the dam finally broke, Allen was left panting on his back, the sweat on his chest sticking and mixing with Kanda's as the dark hair tickled his sides. (He had pulled the hair tie out at some point, just out of spite.) He could hear his breath in his ear, feel it across his neck, feel the slowing heartbeat in the older Exorcist's chest. Heaving one breath as deep as he could manage with someone laying on his ribcage, he positioned his hand to push him off just as Kanda pulled himself up and rolled to the side. "I know, I know..." he grumbled, his voice no less irritated-sounding than earlier.

Allen couldn't help but give a slight smile, more genuine and easy than he had in weeks, as he glanced tiredly at him. His face seemed younger, softer than before, though there was still a wrinkle of tension holding his eyebrows too close together. Without really thinking, Allen reached across and smoothed his thumb across the skin, starting in the center and moving slowly out. Kanda's eyes snapped open, and though he would think the look there was still guarded, the thoughts behind those dark eyes were plain as day – confusion, almost-exasperation, anxiety. Allen smiled serenely, sleepily as he let his hand relax against Kanda's cheek for a short moment before he pulled it away. "Thanks," he murmured, relaxing into the pillow. A quiet "Hmph" and a shift beside him was enough to know he wasn't the only grateful one as the pair drifted to sleep, backs barely pressed together.

Allen knew Kanda would wake up first, long before dawn.

He knew he would be long gone by the time he even began stirring from sleep.

He knew this would never be talked about, never discussed or analyzed.

And really, it was all better that way.