A/N- Important for comprehension of theme: I am using today's theme of companion as a play on words for the French word "compagnon." A compagnon is a person who is like a spouse but without marriage. Compagnons will live their lives as if they are married, such as having children and sharing a home, but without any type of formal union.
7/5 companion.
Allen Walker couldn't sleep. He had gone to bed tired; sure he would drift off almost immediately. First, his pillow seemed too soft and thin. He tried sleeping without it so his head would be on the firmer mattress, but that didn't work either; his head was too low. Next the blankets grew too hot, but it was too cold without them. He curled up into a ball to preserve body heat, and managed to get somewhat comfortable, but the sleep still wouldn't come. He had just hit the point where he didn't feel sleepy anymore when he opened his eyes to check the clock. The moonlight streaming through the window seemed as bright as day to his dark-accustomed eyes.
Allen gave up at this point and sprawled out on his back on the bed. He stared at the ceiling and absently watched Timcampy flit back and forth across the room, casting strangely shaped shadows on the walls. Only the night before he had no trouble falling asleep he thought, even with the news he had received. He thought back to the conversation:
He was lying together with Kanda in his lover's bed. He was tired, but not quite enough to want to fall asleep yet. He wanted to savor the calm, quiet moment where they could relax and just enjoy each other's presence. He lay on his stomach with his head on one arm and traced light patterns across Kanda's bare chest with a fingertip. His lover's slow breath ghosted over the top of his head, and one calloused swordsman's hand rested at the small of his back.
Allen had just begun to get sleepy when Kanda, who he had thought was already asleep, reached his other arm out to pull the white-haired boy close. "Aren," he whispered, his voice fogged with tiredness. Kanda only called him by his name when they were alone, and typically just as Allen was about to fall into dreams, but it made his heart swell every time.
"Yes?" Allen murmured, leaning his head forward until their foreheads were touching and closing his eyes.
"I'm leaving on a short mission tomorrow," Kanda told him. "It's nothing difficult, just some level ones and maybe a level two."
"Hm, why are they sending you if it's so easy?" Allen asked, the information barely making it to his tired brain.
"I've been on a mission near there before. Komui thinks I can get in and out faster since I know the area. With travel time, it should only take a day and a night. I doubt you'll notice I'm gone"
"Mhm, okay," Allen mumbled. Moments later his breathing slowed and evened out into sleep.
Kanda had left very early that morning, before Allen woke up. During the day, he almost didn't notice, just as his samurai had predicted. They typically had so much to do that they only saw in passing anyway. However, at night Allen returned to his room to find the bed perfectly made. Kanda never made his bed, and lately he had begun to pick up on the bad habit as well. It made him wonder just when the last time he slept alone in his own bed was. The two of them had slept there a few weeks ago, but alone? It had to be a month at least, probably more.
As a preemptive strike, Allen decided to do a particularly hard workout routine before even thinking about climbing into that undisturbed bed. In the end he had fallen onto it, completely exhausted and expecting sleep to overtake him right away. And here he was what felt like hours later, still awake with no relief in sight.
He admitted to himself with a sigh that he was missing Kanda after all. He missed the way his lover would always sleep with his arms around him, the sound of his soft breathing, his heat, even his smell. Without it, Allen just couldn't sleep. It didn't help that even though he knew Kanda was more than capable of taking care of himself and probably already finished the mission, a tiny bit of anxiety still crept into his mind. He wanted to go crawl into Kanda's bed, but he felt even still that it was an invasion of privacy.
Eventually he drifted off into a light and restless sleep just out of pure exhaustion. When he woke, he felt more tired than the night before. He dressed in a haze and stumbled his way down to the dining hall. He barely remembered ordering breakfast, much less what he was actually eating. It was lonely sitting there with only his mountain of food for company. Breakfast was the meal Allen and Kanda consistently shared, and he had gotten accustomed to sitting side by side, even the teasing remarks about the size of his appetite.
Lavi, noticing Allen was alone without his raven-haired partner, took pity and came to sit with him. "Whoa, you look like an Akuma chewed you up and spat you back out," the redhead commented, noticing the bags under the boy's eyes and the lethargy with which he ate rather than devoured his food.
"Thanks," Allen grunted but didn't offer any more details. It would be too hard to string multiple words together into a coherent thought.
"So what happened?" Lavi prompted as Allen would have known he would if he was more awake.
It took him a moment to make sure his answer wouldn't come out as a garbled mess. "Kanda's on a mission."
"Then shouldn't you be getting more sleep little buddy?" Lavi teased suggestively.
Allen didn't even acknowledge the jibe. He just shook his head and said, "Couldn't sleep." Lavi gave him a significant look, which he was too out of it to decipher, but thankfully left him alone after that.
When Kanda returned mid-afternoon, Allen was sitting in the lounge, head in hand, in a stupor. He hadn't gotten anything accomplished all day, and he had been so underfoot that he had been ordered to go find somewhere he wouldn't get in the way.
Kanda had dropped his luggage first thing and then gone pacing the halls on the lookout for his Moyashi. He needed a pick-me-up after his obnoxious mission, made even more annoying by the fact that it was somehow draining even though it was easy. When he finally found him in the lounge, he was amused by the sight of his lover sitting perfectly still and staring into space with a glazed look in his eyes. It was cute enough that he had to go gather his white-haired boy up for a slow, sweet kiss.
Allen was startled because he hadn't even noticed Kanda come in, but happy he was home. When Kanda released his mouth, he immediately lay his head on the man's shoulder, overcome by a wave of tiredness that was dragging him down into sleep on his feet.
"Moyashi, what are you doing?" Kanda inquired.
"Tired," Allen replied, punctuated by yawn, "didn't sleep well last night."
Kanda chuckled and dragged him back to his room before he collapsed in the middle of the hallway. He helped his Moyashi into the still-unmade bed and crawled in next to him. A nap wouldn't be a bad thing. He wouldn't say it but he hadn't slept well either.
Allen immediately curled up around his lover and said, "Welcome home, Kanda." He fell asleep to the feeling of a strong hand stroking his hair.
Allen woke to find night had crept into the room, and a pair of dark eyes was watching him. "Morning sleeping beauty," a quiet voice teased. He pouted but let Kanda give him a peck on the lips anyway.
"You were so out of it when I found you. Were you like that all day?" Allen nodded and Kanda laughed. "Too bad I didn't see that."
"You were the cause," Allen shot back. "I couldn't sleep because you weren't there." His lover gave him a smug look in response, and he smacked him lightly on the arm.
They lay together in silence for a few moments, simply enjoying each other's company before Allen broached the question that had been bouncing around his mind all day. He still thought it was a valid one even though it was his sleep deprived mind that first wondered it. "Why do we have two rooms?"
Kanda looked confused. "They each gave us one when we joined the Order."
Allen rolled his eyes at how dense he could be sometimes. "No, I mean, we never sleep in my room, and it seems sleeping alone is out, so why should I keep a room I never use? C...couldn't I just move in here?" He stuttered a bit on the last part. The rational part of him said it wouldn't make sense since he let him sleep there every night, but he was suddenly worried Kanda might say no.
"Living fully together? Doesn't that seem a little weird?"
His heart sank. He almost didn't want to ask the question, just leave it be and take what he had, but his mouth still opened and asked, "Why?"
"I don't know. It just seems like something that only people who are really serious do."
"I thought we were serious. This doesn't seem like a fling, at least not to me," Allen said, trying to keep the tremble out of his voice. He blinked several times, telling himself it was just the strain on his eyes from trying to see in the dark too long.
"Oh shit, that didn't come out right," Kanda tried to recover when he saw the tears threatening in those silver-grey orbs. "I meant people who are married, or fiancées, that type of relationship."
Allen turned his head away. "I'm sorry, I assumed too much." He hoped the small hitch in his voice wasn't really as loud as it sounded in his ears.
Kanda cursed his stupidity, and took Allen's face in his hands so he couldn't hide. He used his thumbs to wipe away the tears that had begun to trickle down. "Hey, Aren, look at me. This isn't some stupid fling to me either. I love you. It's just the idea of marriage or something like that, it never crossed my mind since men aren't allowed to marry.* I never thought to define us in those terms."
Allen's eyes widened, causing the rest of the tears he had been trying to hold to spill down his cheeks. "Do you mean it?"
He could hear the sincerity when he replied with an emphatic "Yes."
Allen flung his arms around Kanda's neck and buried his face in his shoulder, holding his lover as tight as he could and just breathing him in. "I love you too," he replied.
"Are you still crying?" Kanda asked, trying to sooth his emotional lover by rubbing slow circles on his back.
"Yes, but only because I'm very happy."
Allen gradually relaxed into Kanda's touch, and he was starting to think he might end up falling asleep again when he heard, "Let's wait until the morning to bring your things over though."
*Remember -Man is set in an earlier time period.
A/N: Leave it to Kanda to put his foot in his mouth. Again, things tend to get away from me and turn out sappier than intended. This was a super fun one to write... I had maybe four hours total to work on this today because I'm starting a new job, and maybe two and a half at most actually went into writing and not being distracted -.- I apologize for any quality problems that result from that.