1.
Rabi is a Bookman. He flits from one passion to another interest, charms people and is charmed by them, writes it all down and promptly closes his book.
Once he records your chapter, you're finished. All of a sudden, no matter how much fun he had, Rabi's happy with telling the version of the story where he's just part of the audience and doesn't have much to do with you at all.
It's so stupid. There's nothing to understand, so Kanda won't.
But it's not like that, Yuu. Rabi sounds just a little irritated but doesn't bother hiding the trembling on his hands, holding open a book. He knows that it is like that. He looks almost mad at Kanda for figuring it out.
It's not like that, he repeats.
Kanda shrugs. He hadn't said it because he cared.
2.
When they were kids and more obvious friends, Rabi used to cry when Kanda left for missions. Kanda had gotten his innocence first. He was more mature. He was more ready to cleave objects mindlessly and be deadly serious about it, although he didn't have any real liking for it. Rabi was scared when he thought of Kanda dying. He'd always said so, before he left and after he came back. He refused to be ashamed of his tears like Kanda told him to be, because sorrow over the death of a friend had nothing to do with age.
He'd made Kanda flush red with anger and embarrassment. Kanda's temper has always made Rabi the wiser one.
3.
Sometimes he doesn't feel like being Rabi's friend at all. He can't quite figure out why they were friends in the first place. They had arrived at the Order same age, same time. Two children without their parents had needed someone, and they both had happened to be there.
The akuma die. (Or die again, or are released, or are reborn.) Kanda doesn't makes mistakes and that lets him know he doesn't have to be afraid either.
As Kanda grows older, he can almost feel himself outgrowing needing someone. It pleases him somewhat, but he isn't doing it to be mean to Rabi, so he doesn't know quite what to do with the other person.
Rabi cries, we're just kids. Why are they making you do that? We're just kids.
3.
One day Rabi doesn't get to cry over Kanda leaving for a mission because he's gone himself. He's just hit puberty and is winding down on childhood. At the moment he's several inches taller than Kanda, with larger hands and feet, and a scratchier voice. Kanda's surly about this. Nothing's happened to him yet and scientists told him (without being asked) that genetics dictate that nothing will for a while yet.
Rabi growing up means that they send him out to do things once in a while. He still doesn't have his innocence, so he can't be fighting akuma, but Kanda is too proud to take the bait when Rabi drops hints, almost whiningly, trying to get him to care. Kanda's already on his last nerve that the last time he saw Rabi, his eyes still shone wet at his return.
Rabi has to go shortly afterwards and Kanda is given a new briefing the same afternoon.
4.
Yuuu! Rabi shouts as he runs towards him.
Kanda's got big splotches of red all over his Exorcist's jacket and he just wants the others to stop staring so he can eat his first meal back in peace, but he knows Rabi will start blubbering again and ruin it. Always.
My god--it's official now. Yuu, you'll never guess what happened…who I am now!
Kanda doesn't always listen to what Rabi says anymore. He snaps out of turn,
Don't bother me with your crying again.
Rabi thinks for a moment, reaches into his bag and thrusts a journal in Kanda's face. Kanda almost knocks it out his hands in pieces using the Mugen, out of sheer ill-natured surprise.
I don't need to cry about you leaving anymore. Tell me about your missions from now on, Yuu, and I'll write them down.
Kanda's speechless. It works itself out, just like that.
5.
Rabi's gone. All the time. Kanda never gets asked about what happens on his missions because Rabi is never there.
Kanda doesn't think about it too much until years later because although Rabi is always gone, he's still around. He ducks in into the library and then out the door of the Order, never staying for long. He drops by as a formality of an informal friendship each time and has a quick conversation with "Yuu" over what's happened since last time.
One day right before a visit Kanda meets an infuriatingly naïve bean sprout by the name of Allen Walker. He's a romantic, and an idiot, and a cursed freak, all of which is wrong in an Exorcist. He snarls about him to Rabi, because it's something to say, and Rabi just laughs and humors him. Yeah, he's sure Allen will be a flop and get shunted to menial tasks like getting the supervisor his coffee.
The next time he sees them, Rabi and Allen, they are together and laughing. Lenalee's to the side, looking exasperated. Rabi glimpses Kanda's sour look, which is nothing remarkable, and waves cheekily.
Rabi comes back to stay.
5.
Rabi's become a man. He's eighteen, but of course Kanda always knew that vaguely because they're the same age. Kanda's done too and he's wound up much taller and physically stronger despite Rabi's head start.
It makes him cross that he's surprised how much of an adult Rabi looks like now. The clownish colors of his eyes and hair kept him a child in those fleeting moments he came back to the Order. Now that he's back, really back, Kanda has the opportunity to understand that his body is in its final shape. No matter how idiotic Rabi acts, no matter how Kanda hates his childishness, Kanda can't take away the broad shoulders, long legs, and muscles that mean he's a man.
It makes him uneasy, and irritated, that Rabi didn't suffer the same obliviousness. He has no proof, but it feels as if Rabi'd kept a better watch on him and understood what time does.
Course, Rabi says shortly and brightly, snapping a book shut as he talks. Kanda hates that.
That's what a Bookman does.
6.
It was uncalled for.
He'd started off with, I want to know about the Noah--Rabi had been decidedly off-put, hadn't he been having a great time with Allen and Lenalee and the rest who rarely ever reminded him he was supposed to be a dry and boring Bookman?--and Rabi had replied automatically, why?--and Kanda had answered with a testy edge to his voice--weren't real libraries willing to give information without fussing about intent, only damn, a library wasn't a choice because only Bookmen knew about the Noah--Because the Noah have been active in area of my next mission and killing the stationed Exorcists, I need to know--
7.
No! Don't go! Yuu, don't go!
Shut up, Rabi, I got my innocence months ago, I have to go on my first mission sometime--
Yuu, I don't want you to die! Those are monsters, real monsters. Why are they doing this to us?
What the hell are they doing to you? Don't say "us".
8.
That's what you think, he says, and kisses Yuu.
9.
Kanda lies on his back and looks upward, his head resting on piles of dust. He was a late casualty. The towers had been turned into a fine debris before he was finished and now he has a pillow made of the Order's wreckage.
He thinks about the only time he's had sex. Rabi's look during most of it had said it wasn't right. Most of it. There was the time when what Kanda was doing to him tore involuntary 'I love you' s from his throat.
I love you. Yuu. I love you.
Yuu.
Yuu.
Allen.
Lenalee.
They had said it to him firmly right before they had all gone out for the fleet of airborne akuma coming their way. Noahs' sat astride some of them like discolored fairies on ugly butterflies.
They had said it to him and squeezed his hand, each of them taking one, oddly foiled twins, one boy, one girl, one dark, one pale.
Rabi, we love you.
Rabi had said it back. He said it to everyone, everyone said it to him, everyone said it to everyone. There's a long chorus of it in different languages and they run out of time.
Komui ge ge, wo ai ni Lenalee finishes, and launches out the closet window.
Love you all, Allen says softly and heads for the front gate.
Rabi'd looks like he doesn't know whose back to watch get smaller.
Everyone runs to their places. Komui tells Rabi where to go and he hurries to it without pausing.
Aishiteru, Kanda mumbles to no one and not meaning it. A reflex to the voices fading in his head.
Yuu. Yuu. I love you. Yuu. His breathing fast and pained, his cheek flushed on Kanda's neck, his grown-up legs straddling Kanda's hips. Yuu, I love you. Yuu.Yuu.
Allen, I love you. Lenalee, I love you. Komui, Miranda, Krory, Jerry, Bookman, I love you.
He turns his head in Kanda's direction. Lenalee and Allen are watching.
Kanda, you too, he says.
Kanda, he says now.
Rabi is pulling him up, trying to get him to keep trying.
Shut up, Kanda groans.
It's over. Everything is destroyed and Kanda has seen all the dead. He was one of the last, and now he can't even stand.
Rabi's voice is calm. No, he says. There's still Allen. There's Lenalee. Destroyer of Time, Heart of Innocence. They're winning. Did you know? They're winning.
Kanda just growls. He notices Rabi doesn't even seem hurt.
Rabi moves forward and forces Kanda to take an agonizing step with him.
They found the Earl and his family right away. Didn't waste time, we blasted everything in their path. They knew. Where to go.
Rabi pauses.
We're so lucky they love us.
His glances around at the ruins.
They are so sorry, he whispers, about the ones that couldn't come with them.
Kanda feels that it is acutely unfair and maddening that this time around he's not strong enough to yell at Rabi for his tears or throw off the touch on his face that could be lips or fingers.
Yuu, you didn't die. You came back. Okaeri nasai.
Kanda wants to yell at him for his shitty pronunciation too. It hasn't improved since they were kids.
10.
A Bookman's heart always has to be a whore. He has to know everyone, gain their trust so they will let him come close and offer their histories to be recorded. Feelings and kindness and attraction go out to all but in the end it's a profession and a transaction always finishes.
Rabi is no different and is busy still, much more than any of them now that it's over, because he's writing down their stories. Allen, Destroyer of Time, Lenaleee, Heart of Innocence. They take up pages and pages and bury him in his own work. Laughter and sobs can be heard floating out of the library during interviews.
Kanda comes in at the appointed time to talk about his time at the Order and the final battle--he'll be leaving for Japan soon. He wears civilian clothes. Only a nominal few will remain at Order, which is now just piles of stone that won't need pair. Among them are Komui, who's tying up loose ends and flooding his office with his crying bouts because Lenalee is going on without him. Before she goes back to China, she'll be playing in Europe with Allen and the rest. Jerry stays to feed people as they straggle home.
Rabi stays.
All the resources for his writing are still here. He won't be able to go for a long time, but he doesn't seem to mind. He sits atop a bookcase and lets the scroll flow to the floor as he scribbles.
Kanda looks up at him. Rabi senses it and smiles back wanly. He hasn't been getting much sleep.
He hops down.
Hey, Yuu.
Don't--Kanda begins grumpily.
Yuuuu Rabi drawls emphatically. He sticks out his tongue.
You fucked me. I earned it.
Mugen is not there because the war is over and innocence don't have to be on hand all the time. Kanda puts Rabi on a choker-hold instead.
What does a Bookman DO after all this? Kanda asks conversationally and dangerously as Rabi gags
Sit around forever in a library until the entire war is written down? Run around like an idiot having to know everything?
He dies.
Kanda lets go of him at that word. Rabi straightens and smiles.
He dies, Yuu. There's no more secret history to record. It'll take a long time for it to be done right, but he will be the last person to die in this war.
Kanda doesn't say anything. Rabi leans over and gently presses their lips together. Kanda keeps still, but parts his lips a little. Only a little. As little as he can manage.
When Rabi is done, he pulls back with a grin.
This time, Yuu…you be the one to welcome me home.
Kanda hits him for being so stupid and for following him.
A/N For people who read "Hard Kisser," that story occurs between 9 and 10. BTW, lilla-bis's stuff is hilarious and heart-wrenching. Go read her stories!