He's first aware of fingertips stroking lightly across his face. Then there's sunlight, washing the inside of his eyelids red.
"Kanda," he suddenly hears someone whisper, and his heart jumps backwards; beats painful, quick, against the base of his throat. Cold wind tangles in his hair, blows steadily against his back. He smells heather and gorse. Where is this?
Kanda opens his eyes.
He registers first sun, painfully high and white. Then there's cold, and wind—then falcons far above, circling. There's mortar and limestone, solid beneath his thighs. He's sitting on a parapet, turrets rising all around him. He realizes he's on top of the Order's roof.
His incredulity deepens when Kanda finds himself looking into a pair of light eyes, turning to the shape of wings as Allen smiles. His breath stops dead in his throat. Kanda's mouth forms the word inaudibly. Moyashi.
And Allen just laughs, subdued yet happy, and smoothes Kanda's hair back from his forehead. Kanda raises his hands, shaking, uncertain, and roughly traces that scar, all angles and crimson-red. Allen's face is patient under his touch; he closes one eye and gently hums. It feels smooth, raised and uneven against soft skin. Kanda feels the inside of his chest constrict into a hard knot. His vision starts to blur.
Allen opens his eyes and looks fondly at him, before gently catching Kanda's finger pads with his thumb. His arm and shoulder shift to press into Kanda's side. Warmth seeps into his skin at the touch; light is passing through Allen's irises, blue as lake-water, familiar. His scent curves all around him, impossible.
"Hello, Kanda."
And suddenly Kanda reacts; restraint shattered, spiderweb cracks in a dam that self-collapses. Kanda pulls him into a fierce hug, feels white hair fluttering chaotically against his face, brushing past his mouth. Allen's shaking with laughter, he can feel it in his shoulders. Allen slowly pulls back and smiles affectionately at him, and Kanda can't speak, can't do anything but look at that beautiful face, memorize the shape of those eyebrows, that nose, those lips, chin, throat…
He's so close.
Allen seems to sense his thoughts, because he smiles and smoothes his fingers back against Kanda's hair again, tender. Kanda feels fingers against the back of his ear as Allen leans closer, and half lowers his lashes and tilts his head forward.
"I'm home."
Kanda's eyes fly open, breath rushing out of his throat. Stone ceilings greet him. He's lying in bed, alone in his room at the Black Order. Judging from the quiet, it's either very late or very early. He can't tell. Kanda lies in the darkness for a long time without moving, aware of the empty space around himself. No one's voice interrupts the darkness a second time. Slowly, a line of light draws itself in the middle of his curtains.
When his eyes stop blurring and the nape of his neck stops collecting with warm salt-water, Kanda will tell himself to sit up and pick up Mugen. Until then, he allows it to get brighter and brighter; a swath of light that his strict training regime had never allowed him to see. Daybreak slowly creeps through the pale gray shadows along his floor and wall.
Finally, his feet touch the floor, and outside, a sparrow calls.
It's morning, but Kanda doesn't have time to mourn.
A/N:
I am just uploading like a maniac lately.
It's probably because I'm going through all my old things and seeing what's completed and presentable for posting to the public. (The answer: apparently loads of things.) I cringe and die sometimes, when I go through some of my old things though. 2009 was a bad year for writing, yes it was. Progress though, is nothing to be ashamed of. I'm proud of how far I've come.
This one was very short, very sad and very Inception-esque. I love Mal and Cobb. So much. Shamelessly was I inspired into writing this.
As always,
read and review, all you wonderful people
vivevoce