It's still...March...I'm not...late...
Bit of a breather chapter here! Pardon the abrupt genre shift but I had to follow up the thread, didn't I?
Hope everyone survived the shortest longest month of the year. It's a new moon out tonight and it's just the thinnest of slivers. A DGM evening to be sure.
As usual, I love to hear if you have any thoughts or feelings! Take care and enjoy
It took him about two seconds to run through the questions. Had Kanda finally snapped? Was experiencing the last minutes of a bloodloss-induced hallucination? Was he possessed by the spirit of some long-dead girl trapped in the Innocence who thought Daisya was her lover? Did he actually die this time?
If he had, that wasn't Daisya's problem.
He grabbed on to Kanda violently, mashing their faces together without knowing what the hell he was doing. Maybe that was why he waited so long. Kanda could take him in his hands and give him a feeling like hot tea in the freezing snow, but all Daisya was good for was just sneaking every ounce of contact like a suckered leech.
It was just one moment. One movement. Daisya's jaw opened.
Then Kanda pulled away bright-eyed. Come on!
Daisya was about to complain when Kanda cut him off. The soaked bangs plastered to his forehead made his eyes stand out white against them.
"Sorry."
His voice sounded like he was choking on his own words. Was it that bad?
"I was wondering when you'd do that again," he said.
"What?" Kanda startled.
"You kissed me when I told you I was going back to the Order. It definitely happened. I'm sure," he said. Daisya stared hard to see whether he was being sarcastic.
Kanda stared back. They watched each other's faces in the dim light of the Innocence.
There was no getting around it this time.
When Kanda had broken the barrier between them, it was a windy day that wasn't quite cold yet.
Daisya had been shivering coming up from the cliffs, ready to let himself melt into the sea again, only Kanda was there. It had shocked him out of his trance. Kanda standing in the place that was his, and sometimes the old man's, but never somewhere he thought Kanda would ever be. As cold as the waves were he'd felt his blood simmer like good coffee on a sand stove.
That time it was Kanda who wrapped his arms around him, not like Daisya was clinging now. He'd put his mouth on Daisya's and kissed him like Daisya didn't know what. No one ever did that before.
It hadn't happened since.
Today was dark as pitch where everything then had been pale. Daisya was just as wet. Kanda had saved his life since then and held him in his sleep and never acted like it was anything different from how they'd always been. Maybe it wasn't. That's what Daisya had thought. It wasn't worth pushing Kanda. You never knew when he'd drift away.
"Yeah." Kanda broke his concentration. "What the hell else would it be?"
"A dream."
Daisya remembered way too late that Kanda wasn't that smart. He just didn't get caught saying dumb things because he kept quiet. He didn't understand what Daisya meant. Didn't even have a clue.
"Because I wanted it so bad, it could've just happened in the Noah dream!" he yelled. "Duh. Are you actually stupid? Besides, you never talked about it after."
Kanda's face creased up in…wait, was that shame? All of it was dark now except for just the edges of his bones that caught the light. His eyes had slid off to the side.
"Neither did you," he said.
It wasn't the tone Daisya was used to, but he'd heard it. The screwed-up resentment Kanda'd shown the first time he told him that it was his own blood that saved Daisya's life, all those times when they were kids. It always felt like they did this in the shadow of the trees.
Nope.
This wasn't happening again.
They weren't going to go around sniping at each other this time. He had to tell him plain.
Daisya gripped Kanda's hand in both of his.
One bloody, one clean.
"Kanda, I've been chasing you for five years just trying to get you to talk to me. I'm going to stick to you forever. It doesn't matter how." Daisya's whole body shook after that race he just ran. "If I have to shut up and keep quiet the rest of my life so I don't drive you off, I will. I would've."
Laying it all out like that made him feel like he was the one bleeding in the mud. Kanda had better appreciate it.
"What?"
Come on.
"It's not like I threw myself at you after the first time anyway," Daisya said indignantly. "I didn't know if that was, you know, actually you who wanted it. Maybe."
If he didn't know better, he'd think Kanda was laughing from the shudder that ran through him. Actually—he did know better. He knew him better than anyone else. Kanda was laughing at him. After he said all that and everything. What a jerk.
"Hey, it's not my fault! You should've told me what you wanted."
"No, you. I said what I needed to," Kanda shot back.
"Okay, well, you wait until now to bring it up again?" he groaned, moving to shake his head.
He didn't get there.
He couldn't move an inch.
Kanda had grabbed his face before he could try. He stared right out underneath those drawn brows at Daisya.
"I thought you wouldn't shut up about it. If you liked it," he said.
Well, if Daisya couldn't look away he could at least roll his eyes. "You're a real pain."
He leaned forward, putting pressure on Kanda's palms.
"So you thought I didn't like you, huh? What's so different now?"
See him answer that! Daisya blinked away the rain from his eyelashes. It ruined the interrogator's stare he had going on, but hey, at least he could keep his hands tight on Kanda's if he tried to escape. He wasn't letting him change this around on him now.
"You don't know," Kanda said.
They stayed in their standoff. Daisya counted. Seventy-seven seconds. Then Kanda's hands dropped away from him. Right now, he could get up from here and walk without a fight.
Looking up, Daisya saw almost nothing at all. The world around them was as black as a stage-curtain. The clouds swallowed up every last bit of star- and Mugen-light. He could have had his eyes closed and seen the same thing.
A darkness like that had everything in it. There were no limits he could find.
"You do love me," Daisya said.
His eyes dropped to Kanda.
Not even his lungs moved. The folds of his clothes stayed where they were. The only noise Daisya could hear was the skin knitting itself together. Kanda was still as stone.
"Hah!" he whispered. "I was right."
The world got a little more mundane when Kanda gave him a scoff.
"No wonder you get so worked up over me," he thought aloud.
"Shut up," Kanda muttered.
"You know I can't do that!"
"Do it. Don't lie to me."
It sounded like he was about to cry. But what…
…oh no.
"You—are you actually stupid?" asked Daisya.
"I don't know," hissed Kanda. "Turn me down, or leave."
"Look at me. I put up with your lousy personality!"
"Then why didn't you—?"
"Do anything?" Now Daisya was on the verge of tears. Of frustration. Maybe. He didn't know what was going on except that it was a dozen trainride daydreams mixed up in the dreams he sometimes got at night. "You're Kanda. For all I knew you were just going to tell me to shut up! And don't say you wouldn't!"
The look that Kanda gave him told him that maybe he was wrong.
"What else was I going to do?" His voice cracked. "I get out of bed just so I can fight with you. I got myself all mangled just to save your life. Twice! Even when you're being annoying. It's just…fun. When I'm gone, I want to see you. I can't stop it."
Daisya fell silent. It was like he was a kettle taken off the heat. Right up to then his mind was screaming for him to do, say something, get it all out, and now that he had his head hurt less.
He laughed.
"I love you, Kanda. You didn't figure it out?"
Apparently not. Kanda looked like a normal boy for once in his life.
"I'm not a girl," he said haltingly.
"Nope."
"Neither are you."
"Don't think so," said Daisya blithely.
Kanda was running out of options as the blood rushed his face.
"Even you know that's not normal."
"Yeah? Well, good." Daisya pushed into Kanda's space, brushing the bridge of his nose just to see what would happen. "You know me."
He stayed like that long enough for Kanda to pull away. He didn't. Daisya kissed him on the cheek.
"C'mon, let's go back. I need a bath," he said.
"You're already wet," said Kanda.
He could feel Kanda's breath on his face at such a tight angle. It was warm.
"Stand up?" he suggested.
They rose awkwardly from their tangle on the ground. It was exhilarating, the feeling Daisya got as he hauled Kanda up by the arm. Knowing that he could just do anything to him now. Talk to him. Touch him. Kanda wasn't going to ditch! Not that he'd ever doubted it, it was just…hard sometimes, to imagine that Kanda could have a fraction of the feeling that Daisya had around him. He was so flat and cold, until he wasn't.
"I want a bath. Then I want to go to bed. I'm sick and tired of wandering around out here."
"You like rain."
"You're right. You remembered. There's been too much of it tonight. It's nothing new anymore."
Kanda grumbled something under his breath.
"Has anyone told you how annoying you are?"
"Tch."
"Yeah, yeah, I know."
They staggered back without saying anything. It wasn't the first time he'd walked hand in hand with Kanda like he saw couples do on the streets. It was the first time he took it as his right. The Finders watched them go by. The people who had stayed awake to see them return got one look from Kanda and a grin from Daisya's painted face that sent them straight back to bed.
…
Kanda was right. It was too late to wash up.
Still silent, Daisya stripped off the layers and layers of uniform before he put on the same old nightshirt he'd had since he finished his first growth spurt. There wasn't any use risking hypothermia just to keep covered up for the night. His scars chased him up out of every hem. He looked like an aspen tree. Smooth-skinned up top with big rough knots, then mottled all along the trunk.
He met Kanda's eyes.
See what you did? he didn't ask.
Daisya never thought he was going to get burned. He'd just messed up. Hell, he was twelve! He didn't regret it as much anymore. The pain he'd felt in the fire's mouth was almost gone. If it marked him forever, well, then that was fine, because he changed forever when Kanda decided he was worth pulling back every time.
Yeah, Kanda didn't answer him.
He threw his own clothes in a heap in the corner. They'd be dry in the morning. This was a good room, with a hearth that was banked down for the night.
Before Kanda put on his own gown, Daisya saw him too. There were patches of skin all along his stomach still swollen from the healing. It'd be gone by the morning. For now he looked just like Daisya. For his sake, too.
Daisya's hands curled at his sides, then froze. Wait a second.
What was he doing, holding back?
As soon as the thought occurred he closed the distance between him and Kanda, taking him in a hug meant to crush lungs, just like the ones they learned in the dojo. He could feel Kanda's chest swelling and sinking against him.
He let go.
"Man, I wanted to do that," he breathed. "Let's go. I'm bagged."
Asked to describe what Kanda did, he wouldn't be able to say exactly. He tripped Daisya up as he turned and caught his wrist, then with a flick that should've hurt more than it did, and threw him down on the mattress as gently as he could lay himself down.
"Get some sleep," said Kanda.
"Don't need to tell me twice."
He made himself comfortable in the covers while Kanda combed his hair out in his fingers.
Just when he'd started to warm the sheets up, eyes leaden heavy, something forced his limbs apart and fitted into the spaces between. Kanda curled into him like a cat.
"You're cold."
"Tch. You're warm."
"It's not fair."
He felt Kanda take his hands and cross them over his chest, fitting his freezing-cold palms into the soft spot above his collarbones.
"There," said Kanda.
"Mm. Better."
…
Daisya drifted off in the night and thrashed as usual, but when he woke up, he didn't need to pretend to lie still for Kanda to stay next to him. He held on for dear life.
…
"I'm not going to marry you," Kanda groaned first thing.
Daisya unstuck his head from the pillow. The hair growing out in patches around his skull was stuck up all over the place, and Kanda couldn't ignore the damp patch left on the pillowcase from where he was drooling. Gross.
"Who's talking about marrying anyone?" Daisya grumbled. "I'm not quitting being an exorcist. If I even put up with you that long. Who knows."
"I have someone else I need to find. I'm not going to stop looking just because you're here," Kanda grit out. It would hurt less if it happened now.
"Gee, thanks. Should I tell you I'm still important enough that you got your stomach ripped to shreds for me?"
He rolled his eyes as slowly as he could. "Tch."
"Told you so," Daisya chuckled. "You keep doing whatever you want. I'll keep doing whatever I want. That's worked out for me so far."
It still didn't make any sense why Daisya seemed to like this. From the start, when Kanda tried to get rid of him he held on tighter. He was just happy he did.
"You don't care?" he asked.
"It never got in the way before," said Daisya.
Kanda was about to say something else when his heart stopped.
For a second everything he could see blacked out into the spots of bad circulation. His chest hurt. Right around the symbol. It sometimes did this when he was healing up.
Forcing his eyes wide, he tried to focus again. He could see the body next to him and the sun sloping down across the room. The glint of it off of golden hair.
"Kanda? You good?"
He grabbed out at the form. If his eyes weren't working, touch would. That's what he learned in the Noah's dream. He just needed to touch something with this body.
As his hand closed around a thick wrist, he came to.
It was just the same small room they fell asleep in with the same boy he fell asleep with. Kanda eased off his grip.
"You know that no one else feels like this."
Daisya's almost eyes squinted at him.
"What are you talking about?"
Kanda finally pushed himself up to sitting. He felt like he was going to get lost in another memory if he waited a second longer. What was it trying to tell him? Daisya wasn't her. He couldn't be her. Only Alma was ever trapped in the same space as him, and he died before Kanda could ever ask him about it.
"I'm not…" he couldn't stop himself. The brand on his chest burned, "…human. I don't know what's wrong with you."
"C'mon, you're the worst, but you're not that bad," said Daisya. He was trying to cheer him up.
Feeling Daisya this close by felt like he was inching over the edge of a long drop. Kissing him in the first place hadn't felt good exactly. It was like the ground he was walking on had stopped existing and the only thing he could grab on to was the boy in front of him. If he could do anything else he would've stopped.
"The Order won't let you go if they think you know something about me."
A shadow fell over Daisya's face. Kanda was hoping to scare him off, sure, but that wasn't what he looked like. He was sneering like it was second nature. This didn't happen a lot. Daisya spent most of his time annoyed with him. Kanda knew that. This was contempt.
"D'you think they can beat me?"
Birdsong came through the chinks in the building's plaster.
"No," Kanda lied.
"Then why're you being such a jerk? Shut up already."
The dread unfurling in Kanda like a bloom was at its fullest now. The first petal dropped.
He was so tired of being scared.
Stretching out one hand, he set it down on top of Daisya's chest. The heart that he'd seen. It was still there even when the body around it broke down.
He counted. It sped up. He couldn't meditate with that rhythm.
He lay back down.
It was slow trying to move without making much noise. He could still do it better than Daisya. Sliding the other hand under his waist, Kanda leaned his head into the space above Daisya's shoulder. He held on to him.
He thought.
Daisya barely seemed like he existed half the time. From the start he was always running out of Kanda's reach. He could stay one step ahead of him. Then, he started blending into Kanda's memories. It wouldn't be this bad if it was the first. It wasn't.
Alma was there first. He was a part of Kanda. No, he was Kanda. Then he was somebody else. Some days it never seemed like he existed at all. One face turned into another, in his nightmares, and waking.
Now Kanda couldn't look at Daisya and know whether it was him he was seeing, or him, or her. The world was falling away from him in pieces.
The only thing that kept him here was this body.
If he could feel Daisya, then he was there. He was heavy, rough-skinned from all the scarring, with bones that weren't set right before they healed. Kanda could feel everything he did that already hurt Daisya.
There was nobody else who could be there. It was Daisya because it had to be. No other body was that broken and still moving.
And he still saw her.
Right now he didn't want to. He didn't…want to. He'd never stop looking for her, just like Daisya wasn't ever going to go back home. He couldn't. The day he found her he'd leave the Order and disappear with her back into the life that was already over.
He just knew that if he forgot her…
Kanda focused. He could feel Daisya breathing. She didn't have lungs like that and she definitely didn't rasp or wheeze like some kind of barn animal. Daisya was never pretty for a second in his life.
He tried not to laugh. It was fun talking to Daisya. Everything was a game with him.
The person that existed in Kanda's body right now was almost asleep. He didn't want to move until tomorrow. He was tired as hell and sore. His body was still close to feverish from getting rid of the akuma virus in his bloodstream. His chest was close to bursting with every twitch he felt beside him while Daisya got comfortable. Having him alive against him, breathing, that tied him here.
Kanda let himself forget about anyone else for now. The old him could fuck off.
"Wow," said Daisya. "You actually did shut up."
"Yeah."
That was enough of an answer for Daisya for five seconds. He was already bored.
"Was I your first kiss? Lena told me that's special."
He sounded nervous by his standards. Kanda didn't know if Daisya ever been worried about anything.
Except him, he remembered.
He bit his lip.
"…no," he said. "I was yours. You don't remember."
"Oh?"
"When that bell tried to kill us. You pushed me out of the way."
"I don't remember that."
"I had to push the blood down your throat. Didn't know if it was going to work."
Kanda felt his hand move without him thinking about it. It lifted off of Daisya's chest and over his face. His fingers touched his lips, then traced a path firmly down his gullet as Daisya opened his eyes again.
"I thought you were just too stupid to dodge. You're not," he realized. "You knew what would happen."
"I didn't think that far. I knew I'd get hurt. Didn't know how bad."
"Why do you keep trying to save me?" It slipped out of Kanda without permission. "I'm not changing."
Daisya rolled his eyes. "Not this again. Say what you mean."
Wishing he'd just shut up for once, Kanda tried to think and stay awake enough that he didn't say something like that again. Stop was all he wanted to say. Stop getting hurt. Stop following me around. Stop caring about me, when I'm going to leave you to die for somebody I never even told you about. Shut up and go back home and find a real boy who loves you. You're just going to die if you stay here. You will want to die. Like Alma did. Get out of here. If somebody tries to take you away from me, I'll kill them. Thinking you were going to stay home hurt worse than getting shot. Save yourself. I can't.
I want you more than I want you alive.
All of that would go by Daisya without him listening to any of it. This was what he never understood. Kanda had tried. Hard. This wasn't what he wanted to happen. He couldn't stop.
Shifting, he leaned up over Daisya. Kanda kept focused on every part of his face. The marks under his eyes weren't black. His skin was brown and marked along the sides of his face.
Kanda wanted to know it was him.
"What?" asked Daisya.
Kanda answered.
He took Daisya's head in his hands and kissed him. Not first, second, or even third time. Muscle memory took over from the moment he touched him.
He pressed his lips against him once softly, then again, working Daisya's mouth open. One hand eased a thumb across Daisya's throat. That finally earned him a gasp.
Kanda kissed him the way he remembered being opened.
Time went by. Nobody counted. Daisya got over his surprise and struck back, at first, before Kanda overwhelmed him. Now he'd pressed him down under him, eyes closed. His arms were barely tensed. Neither body there belonged to Kanda, which meant they both did.
Then, the last resistance went out. Kanda left him there. Sitting up silently, he crossed his arms and waited for him to say something.
Daisya did look at him.
He said nothing.
Kanda felt a burning pride at that. For once in his life, Daisya was still. He only moved where he pushed him, breathed when he let him.
He wasn't bored.
Argh! I had to reread some of the Alma arc to capture Kanda's voice, but the man's impossible! Even when faced with the love of his life all he can manage is [grunt] [mumble] [stab].