Stories of the Gentle Fall
Title: Stories of the Gentle Fall
Fandom: D.Gray-man
Characters/Pairings: Kanda/Alma, Kanda/Allen
Word Count: 1,976
Rating: PG
Author's Notes: This started as my attempt to fic out my Kanda/Alma feels upon reading the Alma arc for the first time; it ended as my Kanda/Allen ship manifesto, and the prequel to a longer Kanda/Allen(/Neah) fic still in the works. *hands*
Title is from the song "Gravity" by Vienna Teng, which is all of said Kanda/Alma feels summed up in 3.5 minutes.
_____________
Kanda's hate for the Order goes deeper than anything else he knows.
From his first moment of consciousness, it has been there-the one constant in his life that was otherwise so out of his control. The same hands that created him broke him down again and again, and-despite his wishes-his body never stopped healing itself. And through his confusion, through the check-ups and the tests, his hate grounded him. It gave him focus, became the very core of his being.
To this day, his memories are fluid like gas, shifting and fading in and out of focus; but he remembers his hate as sharply as he ever did, still burning brightly at the heart of him.
He remembers, too, the hate he felt for Alma in those early days, when he'd watch Alma smile and laugh and act like everything was okay, like they were free to be their own people-like they could be friends. He'd resented Alma so much in the beginning, disgusted by the very sight of Alma trailing him around the lab.
But that had changed, over so short a time Kanda wasn't sure how it had happened. Alma had become entwined with his very being, like the Innocence forced into his body: A part of himself that he had never wanted, but was powerless to deny.
Alma is there when he wakes and Alma is there when he sleeps, and he is a gentle hand against Kanda's nightmares and a warm voice against the cold, and Kanda doesn't want any of it.
He doesn't want the help of someone so silently complicit, someone so forgiving of other peoples' sins.
But whether he wants it or not, Alma is a constant force in his life, a never-wavering presence that he soon stops looking over his shoulder to scowl at. Alma is a sounding board for his fears, an outlet for his frustrations, an anchor he never knew he had, or needed.
They're laying on the floor in a pool of their own blood the first time Kanda laughs, and suddenly the weight is lifted from his shoulders-because for the first time, Kanda lets Alma take it.
Kanda shrugs into his jacket and checks that Mugen is strapped tightly to his side. Finders blunder on after him as he goes on assignment after assignment, killing Akuma with a cold-blooded intensity that comes to him far too easily, collecting Innocence with a deep-seated disgust that he is all too successful at hiding.
He talks to no one, speaks of nothing; but against his best attempts to keep everyone at a distance, some work their way past his defenses-Lavi and Lenalee and Komui, and he doesn't love them, he knows, but he cares for them, in his own way. He hates the clothes that they wear and the cause that they fight for, but he doesn't have a leg to stand on about that-he is fighting, too, after all, right by their side.
(Besides, he thinks, not one of them joined the Order because they wanted to, and their reasons for continuing to fight are none of Kanda's business. He wouldn't care about them even if they were: Alma is dead-has been for almost a decade-and Kanda's own reasons for staying are no better or worse than theirs).
Allen Walker climbs his way to headquarters not two months later, and Kanda hates him almost as much as he did Alma, with the same stupid smiles and the same stupid penchant for making friends, like the Order was some place to have a life.
Allen reminds Kanda of Alma, and that is somewhere that Kanda never wants to be again.
Months pass, though, and Allen worms his way into Kanda's life just like he did all those years ago. Unlike with Alma, though, Kanda can't bring himself to like Allen.
He can't bring himself to care for someone quite like that ever again.
"Yuu, I'm glad you're safe," Alma says, his face splattered with blood, carnage laid about his feet.
Because Alma never wanted any of this for him; he never wanted Kanda to become the spiteful and hate-filled thing that he was. He had smiled for the both of them, took the brunt of the scientists' best intentions, shielded Kanda as well as he could until he cracked under the weight of it.
"Let's die together," Alma says, and Kanda wants to say yes, to put an end to what has been his short and hellish existence, but that person stops him; she takes Alma from him, and it is with a heavy heart that he tells Alma "no," that he watches Alma's face shut down in light of such a betrayal.
Because Alma wanted them to be free, to be their own people-and he had believed that Kanda wanted that, as well.
"I'm sorry," Kanda says, but he's not sure that Alma has even heard him.
Before Alma, Kanda might have forgotten his hate for the Order. Time might have dulled it, might have made it routine and thus useless. Hating the Order and everything involved with it was easy, and would have been easy to move on from.
But Alma fought his way past the brittle shell of Kanda's hatred, burrowing deep where it could not reach him, hardening it in his wake. Loving Alma threw everything else into stark relief, and that Alma could exist in the midst of something so despicable made everything around him that much worse. Kanda loved Alma too intensely, too much: He had something to care about, and protect, and ultimately lose.
He had clung to something and it was taken from him, and he won't allow it to happen again. Kanda may have people he knows and loves, but they are not his friends: He does not need them the way he needed Alma, and they will never mean to him what Alma did.
But then Allen climbs up to headquarters, and suddenly Kanda's found someone who hates the way he does and loves the way Alma did, and maybe there is something else for him to live for, after all.
"Do you remember where we went on our first mission?" Kanda asks, strangely humbled by Walker's plan, and he is almost afraid that if he takes too much for granted, it will all shatter around him like glass.
He can't really believe that the Beansprout's actually going to do this for him, that he'd risk so much just for Kanda's sake. Kanda has never understood why Allen likes him, when Kanda would, in a heartbeat, destroy everything that Allen fights for.
But then Allen tells him that he's the only one who can save Alma, and suddenly his life has meaning again.
For the first time since he was created, he wants something other than to die.
The new uniform fits him all too well and for a moment, Kanda hates himself for coming back here, for walking right back into what he'd always wanted to leave.
But then he scoffs at himself for ever having had such desires, because he sees now how empty they really were: He doesn't have a life outside of the Order. Free of it, he has nowhere to go; he has nothing to return to. Maybe, if things had turned out differently, he could have built something for himself and been content with his freedom-a freedom that he would never consciously admit was overwhelming after knowing nothing but life as an Exorcist. But the die fell how they did and without Alma, there is only one thing that Kanda has left.
Kanda walks right back to the Order because Allen gave him the freedom to leave it. He comes back because Allen needs him, because-whether he wants to admit it or not-he needs Allen, too.
"Together, this time," Kanda says, and he knows that Alma understands, that Alma recognizes what he is finally agreeing to.
Kanda is still not ready to die, but his life still doesn't mean anything without Alma in it, and chasing a memory that's not even his isn't worth losing (betraying, Alma had said) him again: It wasn't worth it the first time and he won't make the same mistake twice.
Allen is the one who made this possible, who gave him the chance to fix his greatest regret; and it is without hesitation that Kanda takes Alma in his arms, and exiles himself to the ends of the earth.
If Kanda had ever been told that Alma was still alive without being given the opportunity Allen afforded him-if he hadn't been able to spend those last moments with Alma, to reconcile what had happened those nine years ago-he doesn't want to think about what could have happened, about what he might have done.
Even when consumed by his hate and his spite, Kanda's life revolved around that person and Alma, and he never thought that that would change, whether Alma was alive or not. But it did change, as quickly and unexpectedly as it did before.
Allen changed everything. Allen, who came into his life unwanted and unasked for, who was selfless and stupid and naïve, who didn't know how to let things be.
Who Kanda could never bring himself to hate, no matter how much he had wanted to.
Allen changed everything, and impossibly, incredulously, Kanda found his life starting to revolve around someone else entirely.
Allen is the only one who knows the truth about him and Alma, who knows just how deep all of it ran and what exactly Alma meant to him. Allen understands Kanda like no one has before, or ever will again, and Kanda can't quite bring himself to let Allen go.
Besides, the Beansprout saved him, so Kanda figures the least he can do is return the favor.
They land hard in Mater with Kanda's arms still tight around Alma's form, their bodies crumbling into dust. Alma has regained some of his humanity, but the hatred is still there-Kanda can feel it, pulsing off Alma's body in waves. Kanda knows that hatred, feels it still so strongly in himself, and he doesn't blame Alma for a second.
(Some things are unforgivable).
The tattoo on Alma's chest lightens in color and the tendrils of it shrivel: It's sheer will holding him together now. Kanda is afraid that if he let go, Alma would disappear entirely.
"Yuu," Alma whispers into the silence, "I love you."
And Kanda is surprised for a moment, but then he looks on the lotus blossoms that have erupted around them and everything shifts, settles, finally falls into place. It is like a veil has been lifted from his eyes and he can see properly for the first time. He realizes that he's known all along, and that he has felt the same.
He has loved Alma his entire life, and even longer than that.
"Yeah," he says, and pulls Alma closer, holds him tighter. She and he are one and the same, and Kanda can finally put them both to rest.
"Yeah," he thinks, and then Alma dies.
"I've got the Beansprout's memories, you know," Neah tells him, "so I know all about you, Kanda Yuu.
"What do you say we do this together, huh?"
Kanda's hand is still fisted in the front of Allen's shirt, his pulse still pounding in his ears; and Neah may be erasing Allen's memories as they speak, but Kanda refuses to accept that he has lost.
He has faced this choice before, and when he looks down at Neah's proffered hand, all he can see is the carnage laid bare at Alma's feet, the dying light in Alma's eyes. This time, Kanda can't bring himself to say no.
"Yeah," he says instead. "Yeah."
DW post here. Comment there? |
Fandom: D.Gray-man
Characters/Pairings: Kanda/Alma, Kanda/Allen
Word Count: 1,976
Rating: PG
Author's Notes: This started as my attempt to fic out my Kanda/Alma feels upon reading the Alma arc for the first time; it ended as my Kanda/Allen ship manifesto, and the prequel to a longer Kanda/Allen(/Neah) fic still in the works. *hands*
Title is from the song "Gravity" by Vienna Teng, which is all of said Kanda/Alma feels summed up in 3.5 minutes.
_____________
Kanda's hate for the Order goes deeper than anything else he knows.
From his first moment of consciousness, it has been there-the one constant in his life that was otherwise so out of his control. The same hands that created him broke him down again and again, and-despite his wishes-his body never stopped healing itself. And through his confusion, through the check-ups and the tests, his hate grounded him. It gave him focus, became the very core of his being.
To this day, his memories are fluid like gas, shifting and fading in and out of focus; but he remembers his hate as sharply as he ever did, still burning brightly at the heart of him.
He remembers, too, the hate he felt for Alma in those early days, when he'd watch Alma smile and laugh and act like everything was okay, like they were free to be their own people-like they could be friends. He'd resented Alma so much in the beginning, disgusted by the very sight of Alma trailing him around the lab.
But that had changed, over so short a time Kanda wasn't sure how it had happened. Alma had become entwined with his very being, like the Innocence forced into his body: A part of himself that he had never wanted, but was powerless to deny.
Alma is there when he wakes and Alma is there when he sleeps, and he is a gentle hand against Kanda's nightmares and a warm voice against the cold, and Kanda doesn't want any of it.
He doesn't want the help of someone so silently complicit, someone so forgiving of other peoples' sins.
But whether he wants it or not, Alma is a constant force in his life, a never-wavering presence that he soon stops looking over his shoulder to scowl at. Alma is a sounding board for his fears, an outlet for his frustrations, an anchor he never knew he had, or needed.
They're laying on the floor in a pool of their own blood the first time Kanda laughs, and suddenly the weight is lifted from his shoulders-because for the first time, Kanda lets Alma take it.
Kanda shrugs into his jacket and checks that Mugen is strapped tightly to his side. Finders blunder on after him as he goes on assignment after assignment, killing Akuma with a cold-blooded intensity that comes to him far too easily, collecting Innocence with a deep-seated disgust that he is all too successful at hiding.
He talks to no one, speaks of nothing; but against his best attempts to keep everyone at a distance, some work their way past his defenses-Lavi and Lenalee and Komui, and he doesn't love them, he knows, but he cares for them, in his own way. He hates the clothes that they wear and the cause that they fight for, but he doesn't have a leg to stand on about that-he is fighting, too, after all, right by their side.
(Besides, he thinks, not one of them joined the Order because they wanted to, and their reasons for continuing to fight are none of Kanda's business. He wouldn't care about them even if they were: Alma is dead-has been for almost a decade-and Kanda's own reasons for staying are no better or worse than theirs).
Allen Walker climbs his way to headquarters not two months later, and Kanda hates him almost as much as he did Alma, with the same stupid smiles and the same stupid penchant for making friends, like the Order was some place to have a life.
Allen reminds Kanda of Alma, and that is somewhere that Kanda never wants to be again.
Months pass, though, and Allen worms his way into Kanda's life just like he did all those years ago. Unlike with Alma, though, Kanda can't bring himself to like Allen.
He can't bring himself to care for someone quite like that ever again.
"Yuu, I'm glad you're safe," Alma says, his face splattered with blood, carnage laid about his feet.
Because Alma never wanted any of this for him; he never wanted Kanda to become the spiteful and hate-filled thing that he was. He had smiled for the both of them, took the brunt of the scientists' best intentions, shielded Kanda as well as he could until he cracked under the weight of it.
"Let's die together," Alma says, and Kanda wants to say yes, to put an end to what has been his short and hellish existence, but that person stops him; she takes Alma from him, and it is with a heavy heart that he tells Alma "no," that he watches Alma's face shut down in light of such a betrayal.
Because Alma wanted them to be free, to be their own people-and he had believed that Kanda wanted that, as well.
"I'm sorry," Kanda says, but he's not sure that Alma has even heard him.
Before Alma, Kanda might have forgotten his hate for the Order. Time might have dulled it, might have made it routine and thus useless. Hating the Order and everything involved with it was easy, and would have been easy to move on from.
But Alma fought his way past the brittle shell of Kanda's hatred, burrowing deep where it could not reach him, hardening it in his wake. Loving Alma threw everything else into stark relief, and that Alma could exist in the midst of something so despicable made everything around him that much worse. Kanda loved Alma too intensely, too much: He had something to care about, and protect, and ultimately lose.
He had clung to something and it was taken from him, and he won't allow it to happen again. Kanda may have people he knows and loves, but they are not his friends: He does not need them the way he needed Alma, and they will never mean to him what Alma did.
But then Allen climbs up to headquarters, and suddenly Kanda's found someone who hates the way he does and loves the way Alma did, and maybe there is something else for him to live for, after all.
"Do you remember where we went on our first mission?" Kanda asks, strangely humbled by Walker's plan, and he is almost afraid that if he takes too much for granted, it will all shatter around him like glass.
He can't really believe that the Beansprout's actually going to do this for him, that he'd risk so much just for Kanda's sake. Kanda has never understood why Allen likes him, when Kanda would, in a heartbeat, destroy everything that Allen fights for.
But then Allen tells him that he's the only one who can save Alma, and suddenly his life has meaning again.
For the first time since he was created, he wants something other than to die.
The new uniform fits him all too well and for a moment, Kanda hates himself for coming back here, for walking right back into what he'd always wanted to leave.
But then he scoffs at himself for ever having had such desires, because he sees now how empty they really were: He doesn't have a life outside of the Order. Free of it, he has nowhere to go; he has nothing to return to. Maybe, if things had turned out differently, he could have built something for himself and been content with his freedom-a freedom that he would never consciously admit was overwhelming after knowing nothing but life as an Exorcist. But the die fell how they did and without Alma, there is only one thing that Kanda has left.
Kanda walks right back to the Order because Allen gave him the freedom to leave it. He comes back because Allen needs him, because-whether he wants to admit it or not-he needs Allen, too.
"Together, this time," Kanda says, and he knows that Alma understands, that Alma recognizes what he is finally agreeing to.
Kanda is still not ready to die, but his life still doesn't mean anything without Alma in it, and chasing a memory that's not even his isn't worth losing (betraying, Alma had said) him again: It wasn't worth it the first time and he won't make the same mistake twice.
Allen is the one who made this possible, who gave him the chance to fix his greatest regret; and it is without hesitation that Kanda takes Alma in his arms, and exiles himself to the ends of the earth.
If Kanda had ever been told that Alma was still alive without being given the opportunity Allen afforded him-if he hadn't been able to spend those last moments with Alma, to reconcile what had happened those nine years ago-he doesn't want to think about what could have happened, about what he might have done.
Even when consumed by his hate and his spite, Kanda's life revolved around that person and Alma, and he never thought that that would change, whether Alma was alive or not. But it did change, as quickly and unexpectedly as it did before.
Allen changed everything. Allen, who came into his life unwanted and unasked for, who was selfless and stupid and naïve, who didn't know how to let things be.
Who Kanda could never bring himself to hate, no matter how much he had wanted to.
Allen changed everything, and impossibly, incredulously, Kanda found his life starting to revolve around someone else entirely.
Allen is the only one who knows the truth about him and Alma, who knows just how deep all of it ran and what exactly Alma meant to him. Allen understands Kanda like no one has before, or ever will again, and Kanda can't quite bring himself to let Allen go.
Besides, the Beansprout saved him, so Kanda figures the least he can do is return the favor.
They land hard in Mater with Kanda's arms still tight around Alma's form, their bodies crumbling into dust. Alma has regained some of his humanity, but the hatred is still there-Kanda can feel it, pulsing off Alma's body in waves. Kanda knows that hatred, feels it still so strongly in himself, and he doesn't blame Alma for a second.
(Some things are unforgivable).
The tattoo on Alma's chest lightens in color and the tendrils of it shrivel: It's sheer will holding him together now. Kanda is afraid that if he let go, Alma would disappear entirely.
"Yuu," Alma whispers into the silence, "I love you."
And Kanda is surprised for a moment, but then he looks on the lotus blossoms that have erupted around them and everything shifts, settles, finally falls into place. It is like a veil has been lifted from his eyes and he can see properly for the first time. He realizes that he's known all along, and that he has felt the same.
He has loved Alma his entire life, and even longer than that.
"Yeah," he says, and pulls Alma closer, holds him tighter. She and he are one and the same, and Kanda can finally put them both to rest.
"Yeah," he thinks, and then Alma dies.
"I've got the Beansprout's memories, you know," Neah tells him, "so I know all about you, Kanda Yuu.
"What do you say we do this together, huh?"
Kanda's hand is still fisted in the front of Allen's shirt, his pulse still pounding in his ears; and Neah may be erasing Allen's memories as they speak, but Kanda refuses to accept that he has lost.
He has faced this choice before, and when he looks down at Neah's proffered hand, all he can see is the carnage laid bare at Alma's feet, the dying light in Alma's eyes. This time, Kanda can't bring himself to say no.
"Yeah," he says instead. "Yeah."
DW post here. Comment there? |