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Kanda stormed into his home with a vice-grip on Allen’s wrist, ignoring the sniffling behind him as he pulled them through the beginnings of a terrible storm and under his porch.
Allen’s jacket hung open and sopping wet. The zipper had broken, and under it all Allen wore was a black thermal, for once his size. He could hear the drops of water land on his porch, the thunderous drum as the skies opened up, and the consistent, soft, tears.
Late November snow had turned into sludge and rain, freezing and disgusting. Kanda himself was soaked, and he tore off his jacket in frustration even as the chill bit at him, wrestling with his keys to jam into the lock.
The porch light was off, and inside was dark. Kanda reached back without looking, wrapping chilled fingertips around Allen’s warm wrist to haul him inside.
Tiedoll wasn’t home and Chaoji was off on a week-long trip for a wrestling competition, and though Marie had offered to stay with Kanda he had rejected it, miffed at the idea he couldn’t house-sit on his own.
Kanda went through the first floor turning lights on, unnerved by the total silence even with all the rain. No Tiedoll asking how his day was, or Daisya teasing him about one thing or another. Nothing cooked in the kitchen or a television quietly playing in the living room. Just Kanda and, as he returned to the front of the house, Allen, who stood dripping in his foyer.
At last, Kanda lifted his eyes to look at Allen’s face.
His nose and eyes were red from crying, cheeks too, either from chill or shame, and he stared determinedly at Kanda’s hardwood floor where water puddled. His too-big jacket hung off him in clumps, awkward and uncomfortable and soaking, and his white hair clung to his skin, drops sliding down his cheek and neck in a poor mimicry of his tears.
He looked, plain and simple, pathetic.
Allen sniffed, moving to rub at his nose, the sound of his jacket shifting obscene in the silence.
“Just fucking take it off!” Kanda said, irritated at the very sight of Allen.
Allen looked up with red-rimmed eyes filled with what Kanda abruptly realized was anger. Guilt and nerves gripped his stomach so tightly he felt nauseous, and he canted his gaze away, recognizing bitterly how often Allen made him feel ashamed.
He listened as Allen slipped the sopping mess off and held it awkwardly, unsure of what to do with it. Not one to be cowed, Kanda snatched it from his hands to deposit by the front door, kicking off his own soaking shoes and socks to add to the pile. He’d have to mop the floor later where he had tracked wet footsteps. Hesitantly, Allen followed his lead, until he stood in just the somehow still dry thermal and his pants, soaked at the cuff. His skin looked horribly pale, and Kanda couldn’t tell if the cold or the fear had sapped all the color from him.
“I’ll dry them,” Kanda said into the silence, words that felt like taking a cleaver to wood, ugly and harsh and useless. He gathered everything except his own shoes and left Allen to stand there as he headed further into his home, valuing the moment of privacy. Allen’s stare was twisting Kanda’s stomach, a cluster of emotions of which the only one Kanda could identify was anger.
Anger at what? At who? For… himself? Or even worse, for someone else?
He shoved the wet articles into the dryer with more force than necessary, hesitating over the dials. The boys took turns doing chores, but Kanda had never dried shoes in a dryer before. Scowling, he pressed a few buttons and hoped it’d do the job right.
Years of living in the same home had taught Kanda all the spots that creaked and where stepping lightly would keep things quiet, and he walked back now in silence from habit. Allen didn’t notice his return, and for once Kanda saw his expression unguarded.
Anger, shame, a long seeking stare that nearly hurt to look at. He wasn’t staring anywhere in particular but he seemed lost and alone, and Kanda’s home, with the family photographs and the art and every knick-knack that filled its space, seemed to swallow Allen whole.
For the first time, Kanda looked at him and saw how young he was.
He opened his mouth to say — what? That he was sorry? That he regretted it? That everything would be okay?
None of those were true. He snapped his mouth closed and finally forced his stare off Allen and at a photograph nearby. It was of Kanda and Daisya, when they were young enough that Tiedoll thought theme parks were a good idea. Daisya had a ridiculous pair of animal ears on, and Tiedoll had corralled Kanda into getting his face painted. He could distinctly remember how pissed he’d been.
He wondered if Allen had an experience like that of his own.
Between the rain and thunder he could hear the dryer going, Allen’s shoes smacking occasionally into the side of the tumbler. It could’ve been funny, maybe, if everything didn’t feel like shit.
Exhaling sharply, Kanda decided standing cold and damp wasn’t going to accomplish anything. Allen was shivering by then, a light clatter to his teeth he was valiantly trying to hide. He’d brought his hands up to cup his elbows, as if containing what little warmth he had. It made his shoulders jut up, and everything about him seemed all angles and hard lines, hair still wet, clinging to his face.
A towel, at the very least, Kanda thought.
He turned on his heel to hunt two down, bringing them back and hesitating in front Allen.
Allen turned moon gray eyes to the towels. He looked up and met Kanda’s gaze again, and he was still angry and Kanda’s stomach was still doubling up and sinking, but now that he had seen Allen’s youth he couldn’t help but see everything else, too.
The black of his thermal leeched what little color he had, and the red was fast fading into a numb sort of chill. He looked strained, washed out. White wet hair, pale face, moon eyes. Kanda turned away and held a towel out. With trembling fingers, Allen took it.
The storm was impossibly loud, but Kanda could still somehow hear Allen rub his skin dry, and he busied himself with briskly toweling off, until all that remained damp was his hair. Wrapping it around his neck, Kanda left to the kitchen, gratified when Allen followed after a brief hesitation.
At the very least he could offer something warm. He set a pot to boil, painfully aware that Allen stood at the edge of the kitchen, watching him with wary eyes. Gone was the act, the faux friendliness — Allen just didn’t seem to have the energy to keep it up anymore.
Kanda pulled down two cups and waited for the water to boil, biting his lip as he tried and failed to fill the silence on his own. Talking had never come easily to him. Lavi, Lenalee, hell even Allen always filled the gaps where needed. Now that Allen wasn’t playing along anymore, it left Kanda floundering.
So he resorted to what he usually did. Anger and silence, a routine he was beginning to become sick of.
For once, he was grateful for the rain. There was at least something to break the tension building between them.
He didn’t bother asking Allen was kind of tea he preferred because he doubted it made a difference either way. He picked the one he normally drank and steeped the tea when the water finished boiling. He finished preparing it, grabbed them, and walked past Allen without glance, knowing that if he saw his face Kanda wouldn’t be able to hold back from the litany building in his head.
He crossed to the living room and set the cups on the coffee table, sitting on the long sofa and allowing Allen the choice of the same seat or in the armchair to his left.
Allen followed slowly, reluctantly, still holding himself together as if he was glass already shattered. A stupid sentiment, Kanda thought afterwards, sipping at tea that scalded his tongue. Allen was made of steel and iron, refusing to bow even to a world that had done its worst.
At the reminder, Kanda scowled, glancing away from Allen to the empty fireplace. “You’re so fucking stupid.”
Allen was just approaching the chair when he stopped short, staring at Kanda. “Seriously? Are you serious?”
“Yeah, I’m serious!” Kanda snapped, looking up to meet the fire in Allen’s gaze with his own. “I practically had to drag you in here because you wanted to stay the night at a fucking park in the pouring rain in November.”
“I didn’t ask you to do this,” Allen hissed, furious.
“No, you fucking didn’t,” Kanda said, undaunted. “You never ask for anything, you never do anything. Maybe if you did I wouldn’t have to.”
Something in Kanda’s words must have struck a nerve because all the fight in Allen abruptly left him, and his hands came back to his elbows and once again he looked like glass, translucent and filled with cracks like spun thread.
He laughed humorlessly and sat at last in the armchair, uncomfortable. This abrupt change unnerved Kanda, and he sipped at his tea for lack of anything else to do.
Allen stared at the steaming mug of tea as if Kanda had poisoned it. Tenderly he grasped the sides of the cup with his fingertips, and Kanda wondered if maybe he should offer Allen a coat. He still seemed so cold.
“So?” Kanda asked. At his voice, Allen flinched, causing ripples on the surface of the tea. “Are you going to talk?”
“Talk?” Allen asked, tone bland. He skimmed the edge of his cup with a fingertip, staring at his reflection. “Do you even care?”
Of all the stupid fucking things he could ask— “I’m not doing this out of some perverted self-serving bullshit,” Kanda spat.
“You could just say you do care,” Allen whispered, small but wry. He was pulling himself back together, though cracked and frayed at the edges, enough to be cruel. “Do you have a single thing you care about?”
Did he?
He did.
Allen sat in front of him, hair slowly drying and eyes far away, and all Kanda could think was he did, he did. Pathetically so.
“Don’t you?” Kanda asked.
“I don’t,” Allen said easily. “I don’t anymore.”
Anymore.
Brusquely, Kanda stood, moving under Allen’s constant gaze to fiddle with the fireplace, sick of seeing Allen shiver and hide his clattering teeth. He grasped a few logs set ready at the side and carefully lit the edges, replacing the protective screen before stepping back to watch.
As the fire grew the wood cracked and spoke, sparking and loud. The flames grew steadily and, knowing it wouldn’t go out now, Kanda turned to look at Allen.
In the firelight his gray eyes lost their color, turning liquid yellow, but the flames cast a semblance of warmth on his cheeks, and so Kanda finally returned to his seat.
“You know,” Allen said, soft and lilting. “I don’t remember the last time I’ve had a lit fireplace.”
Tiedoll lit theirs as often as he could, especially around Christmas. When Marie still lived with them, they’d sit in the living room, Marie reading his braille books, or practicing his instruments, and Kanda meditating or listening. Tiedoll would draw and Daisya, more active than the rest of them, would play games on one handheld device or another. Now Kanda resisted this more often, but the quiet yearning in Allen’s words brought back the familiar shame.
“My adoptive father likes to do all sorts of cheesy shit. He’s real big about holidays,” Kanda muttered.
“That sounds nice,” Allen said, eyes curving with his smile. “My father used to be, too. We couldn’t afford a lot of decorations so we’d make them ourselves. I always ate the popcorn for the tinsel though, but he’d just keep making more. One time he dusted them in gold glitter glue and I still ate them. That was really awful though,” Allen laughed, bringing the heel of his palm up to press against his eyes. “Mana laughed for weeks about it.”
Kanda realized then that he wanted Allen to stay this way. Soft and smiling, not tense or afraid or angry or unhappy, but at ease. He wanted to protect this fragile bit of Allen’s heart that somehow still remained, and he was desperately afraid of losing it.
“Stay the night,” Kanda said, words that shattered whatever game they were playing at. Allen’s mask fell in pieces as he faced Kanda, expression falling open and apart. There, laid bare for Kanda to pick and carefully examine, were all of Allen’s feelings. Disbelief, anger, want, and, above all, sorrow.
Kanda’s hand jerked up, grasping at Allen’s where it hung limply at his side. His hands were so cold that Kanda didn’t think twice before interlacing his fingers, desperate to convey what he meant, what he couldn’t say. “Please.”
Allen opened his and closed his mouth, eyes darting away, trembling. He felt like a bird. As if one wrong move from Kanda would send him fleeing, gone to God knows where, a prospect that so thoroughly terrified Kanda that he held still, beseeching Allen with his stare alone.
Allen closed his eyes and took a shuddering breath, and though he didn’t grasp Kanda’s hand back, he also didn’t pull away. He exhaled slowly, and said, quietly, word escaping him in one desperate breath, “Why?”
Why?
Because Allen had found his way into Kanda’s chest. He was ruining him. He was invading everything. He was important, now, in ways that condemned Kanda. He could see it now, the beginning, the precipice, the edge of it all. There was something there, something nameless and overwhelming. The moment Kanda allowed it, he’d be gone.
Allen would have it all — his care, his thoughts, his heart, his home, his love.
Kanda opened his mouth and then, Allen looked up.
Heart-wrenching and all at once terribly beautiful.
Kanda hesitated too long and everything bared in Allen’s eyes disappeared. He shut down, and then he was trying to pull away, standing curtly and already turning to leave.
“No!” Kanda said, desperate now, “let me. Just.” He closed his eyes and focused on getting his next few words out. “You can’t go out there.”
“I can’t?” Allen asked incredulously, that anger coming back fire-hot.
Kanda ignored it, barreling on. “You can’t,” he insisted. “Just… stay. Just for the night.”
The tension in Allen’s shoulders bled way, down his arm, his hand, into the fingers that finally wrapped around Kanda’s. Allen bowed his head, and in the tiniest voice Kanda had ever heard from him, asked, “…why?”
Afraid that if waited too long Allen would attempt to flee again, Kanda blurted, “Because—“ he looked all around the room before finally settling on the fireplace he’d lit, staring at the flames. “Because it’s cold outside, and you’re… you’re such an idiot you haven’t even gotten your jacket or shoes. And… you’d… be safe here.”
Allen grew still, and finally, at last, he turned to face Kanda. His eyes, to Kanda’s relief, were filled with tears, and he laughed, watery and amused. “You idiot. Can’t you just admit you’d be worried?”
Kanda scowled, tugging on Allen’s hand more insistently now that the danger had passed. “Shut the hell up. Are you staying or not?”
“Stupid,” Allen said affectionately, rolling his eyes and allowing Kanda to pull him to the couch. “Isn’t this an answer?”
“If I had to talk, so do you,” Kanda said, just a bit vengeful, earning a laugh from Allen. It was still tinged in tears, but it was light and airy, the beginning of something else.
“Shouldn’t I get a reward for that? Making serious Kanda Yuu talk about what he’s actually thinking?”
“You little shit,” Kanda hissed, using more force than necessary to pull Allen down on the seat next to him. Allen bounced back on the cushions with more laughter, now, grinning. “If you were messing with me I’m gonna kick your ass out right into that rain.”
“No you won’t,” Allen said, eyes glittering. “Because you’re worried.”
“Oh, fuck you!” Kanda spat.
Ignoring Kanda, Allen pulled his feet up onto the seat, wrapping his free hand around his knees as he settled firmly against Kanda’s side. Grumbling but relieved that Allen was beside him, Kanda reached back for the throw on the top of the couch, making sure to drag it over Allen’s head as he pulled it towards them. Allen spluttered and cursed and Kanda smirked, rearranging the blanket to cover Allen thoroughly.
Despite the brusque action, Allen was still smiling, gaze soft and hand still carefully holding Kanda’s. Without asking, Allen relaxed fully against Kanda’s side, a sudden weight that Kanda nearly grumbled about.
His hand was slowly warming up, but the rest of Allen was nearly unbearably hot, with the added blanket, fireplace, and heater. Still, occasionally Allen would shiver, as if working out the remains of his emotional turbulence. Kanda shifted, just enough that Allen’s head rested more on his chest then on his shoulder, and, with only a brief hesitation, reached up to touch Allen’s hair, fluffy now that it was dry.
It really was that white, all the way through. Kanda was curious now more than ever about the nature of the color and even more, the story behind the scar on his face, a terrible disfigurement they had never mentioned. Now, though, Kanda just ran his hand through Allen’s hair, ignoring both the way Allen rested heavier and heavier against his side and the fluttering in his chest, the bird in place of his heart madly beating its wings.
Sure that Allen was asleep, and that the night had grown late enough, Kanda rested his cheek on Allen’s head, watching his breath disturb the white strands. Occasionally Allen would hum, or murmured something in his sleep, but Kanda could never quite catch what he said, but he listened nonetheless, wondering how it all felt so temporary.
Allen never said he was going to stay, and by now Kanda knew what that meant, too.
Kanda fell asleep knowing he’d wake up to an empty home again.