filler chapter, I just wanted to get something out mid-month. thanks any and all who read!

Daisya scrabbled up the scree face of a mountain that dropped sharply over the trail below. It was a short cut! Just get over the shoulder and then they were home free. Besides, he wanted to see an entire country in one go.

He turned back to see Kanda stubbornly keeping five metres behind him.

"Hurry up!" he shouted.

"Keep going," Kanda shouted back. "Watch your feet."

As if Daisya didn't bet his life on his footwork fighting akuma. Nobody had a better sense of balance or placement than him, kicking the ball forward in the dark at lightning speeds.

"You take that back!"

Kanda glowered as he turned his attention back to the slope. South from Toulouse, they'd taken the straight-line route to Barcelona. It was Daisya's bet that the old man couldn't pass up another opportunity to see the twisted architecture he couldn't stop talking about after his last visit. Going by ship might get them in a pickle if anyone got a hold of ship manifests. You could never be sure where the akuma had spies. Since Daisya was the Black Order's last, best hope of getting in contact with Tiedoll, he was under strict orders from Lee to stick to the shadows.

That's why he and Kanda were climbing up the Pyrenees under a late September blue sky. It definitely wasn't because Daisya had wanted to do some climbing after so long in the swamps of northern Germany.

He hopped from one flat-ish secure-ish seeming rock to the next. It was fun to wait until they started to waver under his feet. Kanda must be in a snit, watching them tumble down the twenty-metre slope after Daisya kicked them out of place. He could practically hear him grumbling about what would happen if a human body fell that far. There wasn't any thrill without some kind of danger.

Daisya grinned because of it all. His legs were burning after the climb all the way up the peak from France. He would have lit them on fire himself if it would make him go any faster. Just over the next rise, and they'd have all those billion tons of rock underneath them. The whole mountain range. He only figured that if he saw it, so should Kanda. He shouldn't have to wait.

"Fine. I'll slow down if that's what you want," he called.

He kicked a bigger piece of rock to see that it wasn't going anywhere, then swivelled down into sitting cross-legged on it. He was pretty proud of that move. You just twisted around like a corkscrew and—presto, you were already all tucked up and seated.

Daisya rested his chin on a hand. Kanda had stopped again, the dumb bastard. What did he even want? He was tailing Kanda like an investigator, only it was too obvious he was behind him. It's not like anyone else was taking this route high up over the one goat trail around here!

"You're so annoying," he said.

"I'm trying to cover you," Kanda spat back.

"Yeah, well, I can't talk to you back there! I'm out of breath."

Without being able to make out his eyes, Daisya knew that Kanda was rolling them. He grinned contentedly as Kanda moved, closed the gap and walked right on past him. Ignoring him completely. You barely even had to tease him.

Daisya let Kanda track up almost to the top of the rise before he ran after him. His metal boots pinged over the background skitter of the rockfall as he dislodged load after patch of flaked stones.

He kept his eyes on Kanda's hands while he chased after him. Right when he got close enough to feel Kanda's ponytail blowing in his face, he yelped.

"Oh shi—"

Kanda moved in the same second as Daisya stopped still and safe on one unmoving chunk of stone. It was a good vantage point because it was near the top of the ridge, giving him a view of everything on the northeast side of the mountain's shoulder. It also let him see Kanda's eyes snap open as he tried to grab him. The whites opened fully around his black pupils to make a neat ring of terror as smooth as the grip Kanda placed over Daisya's wrist.

Daisya cackled. "Gotcha!"

He could feel the muscles tensing under Kanda's skin as he tried not to throw Daisya down the mountain. Wasn't he cute, controlling himself like that.

"Tch," said Kanda. Not the most creative thing he'd ever told him.

Before he could let go, Daisya switched the grip and marched happily forward into the climb. Kanda dragged behind him like a kid whose parents forced him to come on the market run.

"I'm fine. You're going to get bored if you keep glaring at me."

"There's nothing else here," Kanda grumbled.

"Mountains. Trees. Water. Geez, and I thought Marie was the blind one. Just have a look around!"

They got to the top of the rise as Daisya flung his arm out. The scree fell back over the mountain's haunch to a plateau where a lake like a round blue brooch sat between the slopes, then trickled down to a wide valley. A few buildings nestled on the river in the distance.

"See? There's a country here that I didn't even know about. Did you?" he asked automatically. He wasn't paying attention to Kanda anymore. You really could see the green twisting between the mountain ridges like one of those horrible spiny starfish.

"Yeah," he said when Kanda didn't answer "I figured. The old man told me about it. You wanna go down?"

When all he got was silence again, Daisya whipped his head to where Kanda was blocking part of his sight. He was about to complain when he really, actually looked. Kanda was paying attention.

He almost felt like he should step back and enjoy that view. It felt like Kanda was always thinking about something else that he couldn't even guess. If what Kanda said about his memories was true, he couldn't tell whether what he was thinking or seeing was real, or whether it was just something else that showed up in his brain without explanation. Even sleeping, Kanda was always seeing somewhere else.

For once, it looked like he was here.

Daisya watched him. His face was crumpled up into a frown like it always should be, only this time there was a bewilderment that was a thousand times better than the melancholy smile that he wore when things were bad.

The length of time he spent watching Kanda, there was always something more he could find to wonder about. Kanda had to be angry, sad, happy the same way everyone else was. Hell, he'd seen it!

There just always was something that he was hiding.

The whole green valley paled into grey as Daisya focused on him, the sun cutting a shadow over his eyes where his bangs hung down.

Yeah. This was nice.

Daisya had thrown up when he was a kid. He'd actually thrown up a few months ago when he had some 'fresh shellfish' a hundred miles inland. It started by making you feel like someone had just hit you in the head. Then you felt sleepy, then you got a horrible focus on the feeling that things weren't like they usually were. In the end you could feel your lunch rising up. There was always one moment where you focused totally on what you were feeling, and the moment right after that one, you realized that the whole afternoon was going to be nothing but shaking, shivering, and waiting for the world to slide back into focus.

This was a bit like that. There'd been something building in Daisya. Just then, he'd been dizzy with some kind of feeling that was taking over his body. He could put a name to it now.

Kanda looked at him. The confusion that was painted all over his face wound down into something more defensive.

"What."

"Nothing! Geez, give me a break, I'm just standing here."

"You were going to say something," said Kanda darkly.

"So what if I was? I decided not to. You should thank me. I wanna hear it: 'thank you, Daisya.'"

Tossing his head to the side like a horse, Kanda scoffed.

"Just say it."

Looking back to the trail ahead of them, Daisya hiked his back up on his shoulders.

"Fine. I love you. Let's get a move on, I want to be in some kind of town before it's dinner time."

"Sure," said Kanda.

That was almost its own confession. Daisya grinned as he started sliding down the rocky mound.

also, you have to queue the fluff up right before the end