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Contrary to popular belief, Howard Link is not made up of as many sharp angles as one would originally think him to be.
He definitely looks like he would, with his proper demeanor and formal speak, an air around him that’s intimidating to those beneath him and often times pitiable to those above. But get closer and he comes into focus; softer lines and few creases, he is a little boy raised to be this way, to have a front of blunt sharpness, to keep his words in check with a tongue bloody from biting it.
--
Allen thinks, at first, that the word sharp is maybe the perfect adjective for Link—along with proper, stiff, and occasionally mechanical if the time is right. He’s not one Allen thinks he would voluntarily spend time with outside of the situation, not one that particularly fits well into Allen’s makeshift group of friends. Link is awkward. For all he speaks to his superiors, he’s not very good with people, and the act of socializing seems to stunt him.
(On the other hand, Allen isn’t someone Link thinks he would’ve chosen to spend his time with outside of the situation either. They’re different, very different. It isn’t easy to forget that.)
--
Accusations of heresy are, perhaps, not the most ideal way to meet someone, because they’re both wary of each other first, Link tiptoeing around Allen like he honestly believes he’s going to snap and try something against the Order, Allen tiptoeing around Link because he’s not sure how much he can trust someone from Central. Link doesn’t like the idea of being around Allen twenty-four-seven, Allen knows, and the sentiment is mutual.
But as time passes, the tiptoeing falls to padding falls to walking—falls to comfort, an odd routine that is the reality of Allen being connected to the Fourteenth. Waking up and being with Link, having breakfast and being with Link, going on missions and being with Link—it’s the constant observation that follows them with less of a strained air than originally.
And that’s where Allen sees the sharpness fall, starts seeing the line of his hand as less inauspicious and more calming, the awkward way he speaks as more endearing than off-putting. When Allen laughs at something he says, Link doesn’t smile, but he stops frowning anyway.
--
Once, Allen manages to get him to smile, gets the harsh, permanent line to twitch into something more soft and welcoming, flickering on and off once he realizes what’s involuntarily happened. The damage is done, though, and Allen points his success it out triumphantly.
Link doesn’t say anything to deny it, because he’s probably never once been childish in his entire life, but he doesn’t quite relent or admit to it either.
--
Link’s voice is strong when he has to give reports to Lvellie: confident without being arrogant; sober and reserved, just as it should be; formal, a perfect example for a subordinate.
And the moment he leaves the meeting room, he doesn’t quite lose that confidence, but it wavers; Allen sees the way it shakes when they’re in the dining hall with Lenalee and Lavi and Kanda, sees the way he falters in his words like he wouldn’t speaking in front of a crowd of Generals. He isn’t nervous, Allen doesn’t think; he’s just trying to come up with the best way to go about the situation, and it takes him longer than it would during a professional setting.
Allen notices, after a while, that Link has stopped doing that with him; when it’s the two of them, he doesn’t falter, and he doesn’t waver, nor is he sober and reserved. Instead, he just seems…relaxed. Casual. Allen has seen him like that with few other people besides himself.
He doesn’t comment on the development, because it sees like a minute detail, but it leaves a weird sense of satisfaction in his chest the rest of the day anyway.
--
Link doesn’t say anything about the way that he finds Allen crouched on the bathroom floor, knees digging into the tile, forehead pressed to the glass of the mirror in front of him. He doesn’t say anything about the blood that trickles down Allen’s forehead, nor does he say anything about the black and blue of his knuckles. When he just barely makes it in time to heave into the toilet, Link doesn’t say anything. When his eyes flicker silver-gold, silver-gold, silver-gold, Link doesn’t say anything, but Allen thinks he maybe knows what he wants to say, even if they words aren’t voiced. He can’t find it in him to ask.
Get out, he thinks, staring at the basin. Leave me alone.
Allen doesn’t look at the mirror when he finally pulls himself off the floor, and Link doesn’t say anything.
--
Allen doesn’t understand the appeal in having long hair, and he never has. Even when Lenalee had long hair, he thought she looked cute, but he didn’t understand the point in it if you were fighting, because it would just end up getting in the way anyhow.
Outside of hindering you during battle, it just seems like such a hassle, to have to maintain it all the time, keep it out of your face and spend so much time washing and braiding and brushing it. It seems like too much work for little reward.
That being said, he does think some people look good with their hair grown out, and he has to admit it can be fun playing with other people’s hair. Miranda had taught him how to braid, and he often braids hers if they aren’t busy, because it’s just something to do, tedious and easy, and running his fingers through brunette locks is surprisingly nice.
She doesn’t ask him to do it very often, probably because of how timid she is in nature, but if he can tell that she wants him too, he’ll go ahead and ask himself. When Lenalee’s hair starts growing out, he plays with hers too, when he knows Komui isn’t around to skin him for it.
Link is, decidedly, one of those people that looks good with his hair grown out, which is why, one night as they’re getting ready for bed, he asks if he can braid it for him.
“Excuse me?”
“I asked if I could braid your hair,” he repeats, nonchalant. “You always wear it like that anyway, right? I swear I’ve gotten better at it, so it won’t look bad.”
He frowns, submerging himself in sharp lines again. “Why would you want to...?”
Allen blinks. “I just want to,” he says, because it’s the most obvious answer, and he doesn’t feel he needs to explain any more than that.
For some reason, Link relents to the request, and Allen gestures for him to come over to where he’s sitting on his bed, propped against the wall, and sit in front of him. The blond does, looking like he might already regret his decision to say yes, but Allen just smiles in what he hopes is an encouraging way and reaches for the brush.
As it turns out, Allen has gotten better at it. Link acts like he’s only humoring the younger, but in the morning, Allen sees that he still has the braid in.
--
The curve of his spine is no longer sharp. His clothes are rigid and unflawed, always so sober and always so stoic, but when he’s getting out of the communal baths and Allen sees him stretch to slip a shirt on, his shoulder-blades look maybe a little smoother.
--
Link finds him wading in a river with a mouth full of ores, eyes silver-gold-silver-gold-silver-gold, trying to wash the invisible gore and blood and bone away, dirt coating under his fingernails, pressing into the soles of his feet under glass water. There is no man in the moon tonight.
Allen doesn’t quite float but he doesn’t quite drown either, and that bothers him, because he’d rather it be one or the other instead of indecisive flickering between both and neither. There’s a pin pressing into the back of his eyelid causing a headache that makes him nauseous, but he doesn’t puke in the glass like he thinks he will.
It is snowing tonight. Link doesn’t say anything to Allen, but Allen is saying lots of things, most of which he doesn’t remember later, all of which he barely recognizes as his own thoughts, let alone his own voice. He doesn’t see the way his eyes flash silver-gold-silver-gold, but he can feel it happening anyway.
He pulls himself out of the water and collapses on the riverbank.
--
Allen wakes up in his room with a cold rag pressed against his forehead and more than one blanket wrapped around him. He sneezes, once, twice, three times, and feels how bad it hurts to swallow.
He’s sick.
Link would’ve been with him all day anyway, so it’s no surprise that he’s the one assigned to take care of the sickly exorcist. Neither of them mentions the river. Allen feels guilt in his stomach, then his rib-cage, then up in his throat, threatening saying something that might just make things worse.
He only gets out a thank you before he closes his mouth and swallows the guilt. He passes off the gratitude as being for Link taking care of him while he’s bedridden, but he thinks Link might know what it’s really meant for anyway.
--