[drabble] Kanda and Karma
He sits up late at night and watches Alma struggle to breath--no, that's not right. Alma is breathing fine. He's just sleeping, as peaceful as ever.
Blue eyes study the other shapeshifter's form, still watching for that illness to return. Fear clenched in his century-old heart as he searches for it--that weakness that took Alma from him. But the rise and fall of Alma's chest is a constant reminder that this isn't the past. They're not in Spain, it isn't 1957, and he's not struggling to save a slowly dying Alma.
When you spend more than half your life with someone--especially when your life is possibly centuries long--and then they die in such a slow, horrible way... it's hard to move on.
But Kanda had managed to live exist through it--if only for the fact he would have had to kill himself several times over to get that pesky death-thing to stick. He had wandered aimlessly for a few long years. Broken and unable to really live without that annoying, loving, constant presence that had become like his other half, the light to his shadow. Alma had been everything to him, and then.. he was gone. Kanda had found and accidentally befriended Gozu and later, Lala, and after Gozu died, Lala had been in his care. The merry living doll stayed by his side, and although he tried, he was never able to make her into the real living girl she deserved to be.
And then she had a bit of bad luck and was torn to pieces. Kanda thought, maybe if he could find all of her, he could bring her back--so he searched. And searched.
There had been others. Others that loved him, or he loved from afar, and sometimes they lived and sometimes they died. But mostly they died.
And it should have been clear to him then that the people he cared for would suffer and die in horrible ways while he was helpless to stop it.
He had told Lavi as much one day. A warning to stay away. But the damned rabbit was always too curious for his own good. Lavi wanted to know who it was that had made him believe that--who had been the people Kanda had known before. The Bookman in training had always been fascinated by Kanda's stories, badgering endlessly for just one drop.
He had never told Lenalee or Allen. The former reminded him too much of Lala's attachment to people over ideals, it ached too much to compare them and see all the similarities. The latter he thought could use the warning most of all, but somehow he felt that Allen already knew.
Alma stirs slightly and Kanda refocuses on the impossible sleeping form. It was strange to see Alma in this modern apartment. It messed with his memories, and made him think that surely this was all a dream.
This whole place was impossible, utterly and completely. He could hear the late-night sounds of the city beyond his walls--but they weren't in the city. Trying to fit out the window had just landed him right back in the hallway outside his apartment.
Impossible. He watched Alma breath deep in his sleep and waited for his own sleep to come.
Blue eyes study the other shapeshifter's form, still watching for that illness to return. Fear clenched in his century-old heart as he searches for it--that weakness that took Alma from him. But the rise and fall of Alma's chest is a constant reminder that this isn't the past. They're not in Spain, it isn't 1957, and he's not struggling to save a slowly dying Alma.
When you spend more than half your life with someone--especially when your life is possibly centuries long--and then they die in such a slow, horrible way... it's hard to move on.
But Kanda had managed to live exist through it--if only for the fact he would have had to kill himself several times over to get that pesky death-thing to stick. He had wandered aimlessly for a few long years. Broken and unable to really live without that annoying, loving, constant presence that had become like his other half, the light to his shadow. Alma had been everything to him, and then.. he was gone. Kanda had found and accidentally befriended Gozu and later, Lala, and after Gozu died, Lala had been in his care. The merry living doll stayed by his side, and although he tried, he was never able to make her into the real living girl she deserved to be.
And then she had a bit of bad luck and was torn to pieces. Kanda thought, maybe if he could find all of her, he could bring her back--so he searched. And searched.
There had been others. Others that loved him, or he loved from afar, and sometimes they lived and sometimes they died. But mostly they died.
And it should have been clear to him then that the people he cared for would suffer and die in horrible ways while he was helpless to stop it.
He had told Lavi as much one day. A warning to stay away. But the damned rabbit was always too curious for his own good. Lavi wanted to know who it was that had made him believe that--who had been the people Kanda had known before. The Bookman in training had always been fascinated by Kanda's stories, badgering endlessly for just one drop.
He had never told Lenalee or Allen. The former reminded him too much of Lala's attachment to people over ideals, it ached too much to compare them and see all the similarities. The latter he thought could use the warning most of all, but somehow he felt that Allen already knew.
Alma stirs slightly and Kanda refocuses on the impossible sleeping form. It was strange to see Alma in this modern apartment. It messed with his memories, and made him think that surely this was all a dream.
This whole place was impossible, utterly and completely. He could hear the late-night sounds of the city beyond his walls--but they weren't in the city. Trying to fit out the window had just landed him right back in the hallway outside his apartment.
Impossible. He watched Alma breath deep in his sleep and waited for his own sleep to come.