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There’s something about Alma Karma that hits deep into Kanda’s very core; something about the way he talks or acts, maybe about the way he looks. He’s not sure, but he feels it.
It surpasses familiarity, exceeds friendship – it’s the feeling of knowing someone for years, decades, a life. He’s known Alma since infancy, yes, but this surpasses even that, goes far beyond the scope of their lifetimes, transcends all he’s known to the point where his chest feels heavy with how much it fills his being. It makes it hard to breathe, hard to think, and when he looks upon Alma, takes in the details of his face, hears the soft baritone of his voice, feels his touch on his skin it– it feels like being overcharged, overloaded in a way that’s not entirely negative.
Being around Alma feels like a privilege he’s not often granted, which is bizarre given the fact that they have hardly spent a day apart since meeting.
With the way his heart speeds up and his skin seeks the warmth of Alma’s whenever they reunite after any given time spent apart, though, one would think they were starved of each other’s presences for eons.
It’s not a feeling he can put a name to, he thinks. Or maybe he can, but he just refuses to, it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that it’s real and it’s a fucking pain in his ass.
He’s not dependent, but he is bound by Alma’s well-being, centered around his existence. It interferes with his judgment from time to time, it distracts him when distractions are a matter of life or death. And it’s completely irrational because Alma– Alma’s perfectly capable of taking care of himself, even more than he is perhaps. He’s just as powerful and just as impervious to permanent damage.
The fact that during a fight, part of his mind is always with Alma, the fact that he worries in the first place, when he shouldn’t at all is dangerous. It’s a secret he keeps hidden in the depths of his being, never to breach the surface. He yells for Alma if he’s been struck too hard, but doesn’t let the amount of concern he truly feels leak through.
It’s a weakness, he’s been told.
Not by their master, who spent years trying to dismantle the indoctrination that was forced upon them, trying to rid them of ideas such as this. Their master is good, he’s gentle, he’s shown them the oceans and the skies, he’s the one Alma deserves to have.
The Order, however, doesn’t value emotions in its weapons.
Because that’s what they are, he thinks as he looks at Alma’s sleeping profile, as he remembers all the blood they’ve shed – and he says 'they' because he would’ve have done the same had Alma not beaten him to it –, all the pain they’ve suffered.
The program that made them might have failed, but they are still the Order’s weapons, their property, not allowed a life of their own, expected to be emotionless and compliant.
Whatever feelings he has, whatever emotion stirs up in his chest when he looks at Alma has to be buried, killed and dismembered before it festers too much for him to hide it. It was always intense, has been there since he can remember, growing inside him from the very start, nameless but alive.
Now, however, it’s getting out of hand, out of his grasp. He feels the longing in his soul, pulling and twisting, desperate to make itself known.
There are a thousand cautionary tales that precede this and them. They are not to be ignored; how many people, after all, had to die before the rest were taught the lesson?
He’s not willing to risk this. He’s not willing to risk Alma; they were almost separated once and he still feels the cold dread wash over him, still remembers how Alma screamed, thrashed when they were pulled away from one another. He remembers the cold days he spent alone in a locked room, staring at a wall like it could melt from his glare.
When Tiedoll came, concerned softness on his face as he unlocked the door and pushed it open, it was as if the world had finally shifted back into its axis. The moment the way was clear, Alma rushed inside, throwing himself onto him with the full might of his small body – that was when he truly learned relief.
To have that taken away is not even in the realm of acceptable possibilities.
Next to him, Alma stirs in his sleep, restlessness clear in the furrow of his brow. In spite his love of the outside, he always had trouble with actually sleeping there. It’s a problem Kanda understands, even sympathises with, but doesn’t share. He’s a light enough sleeper that any foreign noises have him up and alert in a second, ready to deal with whatever threat comes.
Alma, though, is a heavy sleeper, and falling unconscious in a place with his many openings, this many liabilities is not something that he’s even remotely comfortable with. All the sleep he gets tends to be fitful and loaded with nightmares, hardly restful at all.
“Yuu.” He calls out softly, still deep in slumber, frown even more pronounced than before.
It makes Kanda’s heart bleed, and he can’t fathom how is it possible for someone like him to feel something so vast, so encompassing of his existence.
He shakes his head, hoping to shake the thoughts out of it as well. It’s his cue, and he focuses on that.
Carefully, with slow and deliberate movements, he slides closer next to Alma, until he’s sitting right beside Alma’s head, leaning against the tree behind him.
As if on command, Alma moves even closer, half-curling into Kanda’s lap until his head is pressed against his stomach as he plays with his hair. It can’t be much more comfortable than before, but the frown on his face vanishes instantly and it sends a wave of pointless satisfaction over Kanda.
It’d be so easy, he thinks. It’d be so, so easy to have this.
All he’d have to do is reach out and take it, let himself go. Because Alma– he knows the looks he’s sent when Alma thinks he’s not looking, knows the soft tone of voice filled with adoration with which he speaks his name. All his actions are familiar because they mirror each other.
Alma’s already there as well.
He knows the only thing that truly stands between them is him; Alma’s waiting for him, has been since the start. All he has to do is accept him, take this into his own hands and do all the things he’s been wanting for so long.
Everything he dreams of– kissing the tender smile Alma sends him in the mornings, burying his head on the curve of his neck and nuzzling, touching him in all the ways he’s never allowed himself to before.
He wants so desperately, so thoroughly.
Kanda takes a deep breath.
“Yuu?” Alma’s voice is sleep-heavy, and Kanda startles, looking down at him as he rubs his eyes in an attempt to free his body from the weight of exhaustion.
“Go back to sleep. First shift isn’t over yet.” He says in a way that would sound uncharacteristic of him to anyone but Alma.
“Hm. You feel concerned.” Kanda has no way of understanding how can someone be so attuned to his feelings, but he doesn’t question it anymore. It’s always been like this, after all.
“It’s nothing.” His answer has a pout forming on Alma’s face, and it’s so reminiscent of him as a child that Kanda can’t help but snort in amusement.
“Tell me!” Alma tries poking at his stomach, but Kanda swats his hand away every time. His face shines with mirth and it’s so evident, so honest that it’s visible even with the bad lighting coming from the firepit. He’s carefree out here in a way that he’s not allowed to be back in the Order, is relaxed and happy in a way Kanda has never seen him be inside the headquarters. He makes a decision.
Alma deserves better than to be denied a chance at real happiness just because of his cowardice.
Kanda knows what the feeling’s called, now.
“Sit up.” His voice doesn’t waver like he feared it would, and Alma, who trusts him unconditionally, sits up without question.
Their shoulders touch as Alma turns to look at him, big eyes shining so bright Kanda might as well put off the fire and light up the woods with him and the silver light of the moon.
He manages to contain the trembling of his hand as he lifts it up to cup Alma’s jaw with the most care he has ever handled anything in his life up until this point. Alma’s eyes widen further in response, and he sucks in a breath that turns shaky at the end.
Kanda’s not usually one to wax poetics, but he’s seen a thousand sights, met a thousand people, viewed a thousand artworks, and still none of them even compare to the sight of Alma right now, face flushed bathed in the orange glow of the fire and the silver light of the moon, eyes wide and lips parted.
Stroking his cheekbone with his thumb, Kanda moves closer and closer, until the distance between them is infinitesimal. He looks up from Alma’s lips to his eyes, and there’s so much hope, so much fear in them– Kanda closes the distance.
His lips are soft and warm when Kanda’s meet his, and when they move it feels like the most natural thing in the world, like kissing Alma is something that he’s always done, something he always loved doing. At the same time, it feels like a need finally being quenched, like a wrong has finally been righted, like all his fears and frustrations have been destroyed.
He can’t remember his reasoning for not doing this before anymore, but he knows now that it was mindless to think that anything would ever be able to stand against them, to stand between them. There will come a day the Order will try and fail, and there will come a day where they’ll regret this attempt deeply.
They run out of breath soon, and when they separate, it feels like the weight of two worlds have been removed from Kanda’s shoulders, and he laughs.
Alma is crying next to him, silent tears dripping down his face, but Kanda understands enough of what he’s feeling to not freak out. Instead, he wipes the tears away with his thumbs, leaving a kiss above his cheekbones on either side.
“This is real right?” Alma asks, voice small and broken and Kanda sucks in a breath at the sound of it. Alma cries a lot, oft for no great reason in particular, but from time to time something serious stirs up his tears, and it always cuts through Kanda’s soul to hear it, even when he’s expecting it. “You’re not just messing with me?”
“It’s real.” He leans in again, until their foreheads are touching, and closes his eyes. He’s never been a man of many words, never been good at expressing himself, especially when it comes to things he’s been conditioned not to talk about. There’ll never come a time where he’ll say heartwarming things or write elegant summarizations of his feelings, and there’s a foolish second where he’s afraid Alma won’t understand but–
Alma pulls back, and he opens his eyes.
If there was ever a purer expression of happiness than the one on his face, Kanda’s yet to see it, and he smiles in relief. Of course Alma understands, when has he not? Even with eyes brimming with tears, with his heart clenched in unfounded terror, Alma understands.
“Yuu.” He says, and Kanda meets his gaze again. There are words Alma wants to speak, words he’s not sure he’s allowed to utter, if they’ll break something that has barely begun.
Kanda takes the first step again – he’s the one that kept them waiting, after all. It’s only fair.
He surges forward, hugging Alma like he’s been privy of it for years, burying his face in the crook of his neck like he fantasised about, arms tight around him. Then, he says in a voice almost inaudible against the skin of Alma’s throat:
“I love you.”
He feels the gasp as much as he hears it, feels the way Alma’s entire body reacts to these words, trembling and freeing itself from a tension that Kanda hadn’t noticed. He hears a sob as well, but it carries no negative connotations.
Alma tightens his arms around him, face on his shoulder, and when he whispers back–
His body sags in relief, and his heart feels like it finally started beating, after years.
“I love you, too.” Alma says, and Kanda feels reborn.