Log; complete - Backdated

[to-sublimate.livejournal.com]

When; After 4th Wall curse
Rating; PG-13?
Characters; Allen Walker antiakuma and Kanda Yuu to_sublimate
Summary; Kanda hates Allen, Kanda really, really hates Allen, especially after the influx of the fangirls and some truths they were better off not knowing about. Tensions, a shift in the balance, a kiss that is not a kiss, and all round confusion.

Log;


It had been a highly uneventful day, for which Kanda found himself being grateful for, simply because of the fact that his mostly nonexistent patience had been stretched beyond breaking point by the strange arrivals the day before. It had taken all he had not to do something drastic and to swallow that temper of his. Of course, said temper was unleashed the moment the curse was over and Kanda had stalked off into the forest. Unlike the last time, Kanda had not bumped into Ophelia this time, and took a certain pleasure in killing the shit out of the creatures, trying not to think about the graphic pictures some of the new arrivals had shown him the day before.

Worse of all were the graphic pictures of him and the damn beansprout in highly compromising and lewd positions, and for the life of him, the Exorcist did not know where they had been procured him. Neither, really, did he have an urge to know. It was disturbing, and highly irritating, but at least the stint in the forest had done him some good. Splattered with the blood of the different beasts - a little of it his own, Kanda stalked back to the Firehouse, heading straight to the laundry area, feeling a little more relaxed and agreeable than before. Automatically, he shrugged off his coat and the white shirt beneath, preparing to shove them into the washing machine.

The City certainly had a habit of making Allen feel like there was never really a quiet moment. That may have been true in some cases because even when the strange and random curses ended they were often followed by a strange aftermath for the days of calm between. During the influx of guests he had been accosted more times in the space of a couple of days than in his whole life. All girls, too. Very strange. It had left him with a lot of worrying thoughts as well, mostly about the concept of other worlds and other versions of himself, and people he knew... And what they got up to together. In this case his thinking especially seemed to keep drifting over to Kanda and each time it did he found he was getting annoyed with himself.

Instead, he had taken to doing mundane chores around the Firehouse, just anything that would keep his thoughts distracted. It was a very bad habit; thinking too much. Sighing, he scooped up a pile of clothes that apparently needed shoving in the wash, padding off toward the laundry area himself before pausing in the doorway and frowning. Wonderful, the very person he was trying, through no fault of their own this time, to avoid. And it wasn't like he could just turn and wander off with all those clothes in his arms either, he was obviously there for a reason. Hanging his head for a moment, Allen steeled himself and stepped further in, pulling forward his best cover-up-smile as he did so "Hold on, can I throw these in too?"

Tch, the last person he needed to see. As if his own thoughts were not enough, the damn beansprout had to choose this time to come in. Of course, it wasn't like the laundry area was private property, but even then. He'd already sensed the other's presence when Allen had paused at the doorway, eyes narrowing mildly.

It felt almost...awkward, the ensuing tension unlike anything he'd ever felt before, and he blamed it all on the things that the damned girls from before had made him see. It had been highly disturbing, highly unsettling, and this time...highly awkward, for reasons that were still unknown to Kanda himself. What had those stupid girls been thinking, shoving those things in his face, making him look at that damn beansprout and him in such positions?

Without a word, he stepped away from the washing machine, clad only in his pants. Reaching out to grab Mugen from the counter he'd leaned it up against, he involuntarily brushed against the younger boy, but made no conscious reaction, ignoring the traitorous little voice in his head that was suggesting something that he didn't even want to remotely think about or contemplate. "It's all yours."

Tension between himself and Kanda was not a new thing - since they had first met in fact they'd never really gotten on especially well despite Allen's attempts to bridge that unexplained dislike between them. He had thus drawn up the conclusion that Kanda was just a jerk and they were just destined to spark against each other in the way they did almost every time they spoke. Or even stood in the same room.

The feeling was a little different somehow and Allen was trying to confirm in his mind that it wasn't his own paranoia making him think the awkwardness was different to normal. He found that he had to force his eyes forward though and that worried him. He'd seen Kanda shirtless before, this was nothing new, so why was he so nervous to look at him properly? The light brush past made him hold his breath, bite his lip even and turn his head quickly to the side. What the hell was going on? It was really starting to bother him even though he couldn't bring himself to blame the girls who had appeared out of the blue and thrown those crazy ideas around. It wasn't fair to just shove responsibility onto them after all... But even after thinking that the little mental flash of some of the images they'd been tossing around made him want to reconsider.

His eyes moved to the washing machine then, raising an eyebrow at the bloodied clothes there as he rested the pile of laundry down and glanced over his shoulder at the other Exorcist "Kanda. Are you wounded...?"

"I'll be fine." The response was shorter than even Kanda himself would have liked, but he had never been the type to worry about social skills. Ever so fleetingly, Kanda wondered Allen had truly taken any offense to any of the things he'd said. A derisive, inaudible snort had gotten rid of the train of thought quickly. It was unnecessary, after all, and served no use for the strangeness that lay between them now. The deep cut that spanned across the muscles of his shoulder had already slowly begun to heal, but it still ached like a bitch.

A mild grunt, and the swordsman slid his ponytail to the front over his shoulder, preventing the errant hairs from sticking into the wound and making it a little more annoying to close up. The bruises he'd sustained had already mostly healed, and it was then that he looked over his shoulder at Allen, inadvertently meeting the other's eyes; something, he realized, he'd never really done before. Kanda had always normally focused on a point just above the other's left shoulder, never making it a point to look him straight in the eye - wasn't worth the effort - but this time, had he slipped? Ah...it didn't matter. "Why do you care?"

Eye contact was something that as a rule Allen never really minded making. Sometimes it was a matter of defiance where he would not allow himself to be stared down by anyone, or other times it was just polite to look at someone when they spoke to you. When it was Kanda this time however he found himself looking away straight ahead for a time, narrowing his eyes at the wall ahead of him before drawing in a deep breath through his nose and turning around fully to face Kanda.

"It’s not unusual for me to ask about stuff like that." It almost felt like he was reassuring himself with that statement, not Kanda, but he quickly pushed that idea aside. He was also torn between the choice to look straight at the other Exorcist or to the side, he didn’t really want to hover somewhere between the two because that would imply he was nervous. Allen was more than aware that Kanda was no fool either, quite the opposite. He settled for looking at him for now "You’re being really reckless lately." Perhaps his own tone was a little sharper than he’d intended but as soon as it was past his lips there was no pulling it back.

Indeed, and the older Exorcist turned back to regard them coolly. In the time that Kanda had not seen him, the beansprout had grown. How, he didn't care to know, just that he did, and Kanda was beginning to notice. The maturity that came with loss and sacrifice, perhaps. But that really didn't mean that he was any less annoying.

In fact, Kanda found him distinctly more...grating than before, despite the mild camaraderie that they shared in exceedingly rare occasions when they weren't trying to kill each other. They worked well together, when Kanda found it in himself to not shove the other away, and those occasions came back to rankle on his nerves when it was over, leaving him to wonder what it was that irritated him so much about Allen.

"What I'm doing is none of your business." He couldn't shake off the alien feeling that there was something else that underlined their interaction, something intangible, and yet pressing. The mild confusion was immediately converted into annoyance, and an odd urge to bait him, just to see how the other would react. It was odd, unexplainable, and yet it was there. "You gonna stop me now?"

Allen had never been a pushover. It was perhaps a mistake several people made when seeing him for the first time. He was wasn't anything special to look at body wise, if you took away the hair colour, the cursed eye and left arm, of course. Otherwise though he did look like a gust of unexpected wind might send him flying. Truth be known though if he wanted to stand his ground almost nothing would shift him and that was both a literal fact and a metaphorical one. He was especially determined to stand up against Kanda no matter how much he snarled and glared at him.

He kept his expression as firm as he could muster considering that odd air around them, folding his arms over his chest and shrugging a little "You really like claiming it's no-one else's business, but the way you're acting is going to get you really badly hurt or worse, I can just see it coming, and then it is going to be other people's business.” Sure, that had been floating around his head lately, but the fact he was feeling so edgey, and in a way he wasn't used to, was making him express himself a littler differently than he was planning "And if I have to, yeah, I'll stop you. Your pride is not worth getting yourself killed over here. He have to go back together and to that you need to be alive, get it?"

And Allen's words, as well meaning as they were, immediately grated on his nerves. Kanda had never taken orders well from those who weren't generals, and gray eyes flashed dangerously. Did the beansprout just dare to lecture him and give him orders as to his own conduct within the City? Of course he knew he had to stay alive, but the days of staying dormant frayed on his nerves, and Kanda had to find a way to get it all out somehow. Kojiro had been a good target to practice against, for all his unnerving insanity, and the samurai was no Skin Boric.

"Are you ordering me around?" His voice was low, almost deadly, a signal that Kanda was truly angry, his general temperament in the wake of those new arrivals not helping at all. So much that the beansprout didn't understand, so much he dared to assume, and why did this piss him off so much more than usual? His jaw set, Kanda took a step forward, almost menacing. "Didn't you think that I took all that into account? How exactly, are you gong to stop me?"

Allen blinked a little as he felt that shift, a kind of warning that he was walking on very thin ice however he quickly readopted his rigid expression once more, while his glare would most likely never really get the intensity that Kanda had he certainly wasn’t going to just shrink back from it. Rather, his back straightened a little and he drove a look back at the other Exorcist.

"It’s simple. I’m telling you what I think and that’s all there is to it. You’ll either do it or you won’t and if you don’t that just shows what an idiot you’re really being." His fists clenched at his sides, feeling his jaw tighten a little. The strange uncomfortable feeling was perhaps clouding him a little, making him a little snappier than usual with Kanda though he was sharp-tongued with the swordsman from time to time. He didn’t even step back as the older boy drew forward, even though something cold crept down his spine and the hair at the back of his neck prickled "How? Heh, maybe I’ll grab you by the hair and drag you back, what does that matter right now? I’m just telling don’t be a moron, okay? You’re worrying people!"

Kanda didn't move forward even as he surveyed Allen for a few moments, despising everything that he saw, that worthless hope, and naïveté. He hated everything about this Exorcist, and yet...

While a glare from Kanda Yuu would get almost anyone to back down, Allen displayed no such tendency - and he could sense the snappishness in the other boy's tone. His own fists were relaxed, but his shoulders were uncharacteristically tense, and he wondered...had he been expecting something? His glare became a glower at Allen's answer, which eventually became a scowl at the mention of being dragged back by his hair. A snort, then he remarked acidly. "If you're gonna be a fucking caveman, beansprout, do it to someone else." A beat, then he continued. "Worrying people? I never asked them to do that for me."

Allen was ready to snap back when Kanda continued on, closing his mouth again and glaring at him. He was so damn selfish. That was what was pissing him off, or rather that was what he could place his annoyance on for the time being. It was an excuse and while usually he wouldn’t hide behind excuses he could most likely be forgiven, or not because if he had anything to do with it Kanda wouldn’t get to know any of those thoughts. "...you’re so selfish sometimes..." Except that one, apparently.

He couldn’t help a small growl vibrating in his throat, the fists at his sides shaking a little. It pissed him off how little Kanda seemed to think of others, comrades from the Order or people he’d apparently met in the City alike. The idea that his warrior pride or whatever got in the way of other people’s feelings... it made him so angry "You don’t have to ask people to worry, they just do! Especially if, for whatever reason, they care about you and don’t want to see you getting hurt. Sometimes they just can’t help it, again for whatever reason. The least you could do was show a bit of respect for them when they take the time to actively tell you something like that since it’s not like they do it that often!"

Pausing for a moment, Kanda was frankly surprised by the fact that Allen had guts enough to tell him off like this. Normally, most - if not everyone he'd met - generally left him alone, which was an arrangement that Kanda was all too happy to preserve. He had no use for people who fussed on and on about him, and frankly, with all the years that he had learned to depend on himself, he had not been too used to it.

Selfish? Perhaps. And Kanda was comfortable with it, left alone in his own, because he'd learned that everyone was always alone in the end. It wasn't a bitter truth, it was a simple fact. But this...this white-haired Exorcist brat who wasn't a damn brat anymore still didn't fucking get it. Registering the words for another few moments, letting the silence hang heavy between them, Kanda responded acidly, anger seeping into his steely tone at the realization that Allen cared. He wasn't used to this, he didn't need this confusing him even further, or questioning why, exactly, Kanda utterly loathed him on sight. "You naive little bastard. You think these things matter when you're in the battlefield?"

Allen stared at Kanda for a long moment, as though he couldn’t quite believe the other Exorcist had said that and that wasn’t too far from the truth. The look he had was a mixture between shock and something unreadable. It wasn’t quite as far as disgust but it was the kind of look someone might have if they’d have been slapped perhaps.

He wanted to grab that idiot by the collar and honestly shout at him, but it would be very difficult to do while the older Exorcist lacked a shirt. However, he took a step forward suddenly, angry eyes narrowed into a furious kind of glare "That’s exactly what I’m talking about! Things off the battlefield should matter! It’s for your time off that battlefield that you should be fighting for!" He could feel himself trembling with a kind of rage. Surely this kind of disagreement with Kanda wouldn’t normally cause him this much annoyance? What was stroking his fur the wrong way worse than usual? Normally they just snapped at each other, acting like kids then stomped off in different directions. This was not one of those times and Allen was surprised to find that because they weren’t just bickering it bothered him.

"How the hell can you just stand there and effectively claim that nothing outside battle matters?!" It felt like it was taking all his restraint not to punch the other boy right then "That can’t have been why you became an Exorcist, especially not when you effectively preached to me the value of our roles and how it should be respected." He took a moment then, breathing out heavily as his voice suddenly became very quiet compared to his previous words "Don’t you dare lie to me like that."

They were fighting over something so fucking minor, Kanda knew they were, but that didn't stop his anger from rising. It was so damn ridiculous, but Kanda couldn't help but feel his tamper flare. How dare Allen stand here like this and say that kind of thing to him when he didn't even know him? Things outside the battlefield mattered only when there was something there for one to worry, to care about. Kanda had no such attachments, and he'd long given up on the idea that he should acquire some, at least. He'd long been accustomed to the fact that Exorcists like him lived for the battle, for the purpose; anything else made him weak. That was why he had been given up to the Order, hadn't he? How dare Allen assume? How dare he--

Fingers grabbed the collar of Allen's shirt, gripping tight and shoving, slamming the shorter boy unceremoniously against the wall. How dare Allen look at him like that, as if he knew everything? Allen didn't, Allen fucking didn't, and he had no right to tell him this, just as he had no right to keep intruding on Kanda's thoughts in the most inconvenient, distracting way. His lip curled in a snarl, Kanda growled, so close to him that he could see the other's cursed eye in exquisite detail. "Lie to you? You don't even know what the fuck you're getting into, what you're doing, and you dare to talk to me like this."

Leaning a little closer, finding himself unable to pull away, he continued, the anger and something more humming in his veins even as his breath fanned against the other boy's cheek. "I despise you, Allen Walker. You never. Fucking. Shut. Up."

A kiss, harsh and punishing, to shut him up because Kanda didn't want to hear anymore. He had no need for Allen's righteous prattle, especially not when he was right - because damn it Kanda hated the fucking way he was always right.

He felt the rush of anger before it was too late to really do anything; the movement on Kanda’s part was too swift he hadn’t even had chance to think about it and at the same time it felt like some kind of odd slow motion. It was one of strangest sensations Allen had ever experienced - he watched it all but found he couldn’t move himself to stop it. He knew it was all moving like lightening really. He heard himself draw in a sharp intake of breath as that firm grip came to the material just under his throat, but it was very shortly forced out once more as his back roughly hit the wall. His eyes went wide as he didn’t even dare blink away from that glare burning into him. It was a very odd kind of fear that was beating away inside his chest, he couldn’t place it at all and the closer Kanda got to his face the more intense it got.

As Kanda spoke his pupils contracted into almost pinpricks, his breathing hitching in his throat as he tried to make sure his feet weren’t about to slip out from under him. It was no secret Kanda hated him, it really wasn’t. It was one of the first things stated in one of their early exchanges after all. But in that position, with anger pretty much saturating the air and making it feel humid, those words stung. No-one else in the Order, or perhaps anywhere in fact, had the same frustrating effect on him that Kanda did, really though he wasn’t even given that much time to think as suddenly his mind completely shut down.

It wasn’t a kind or tender kiss, no where near that in fact. It made him make a noise of pure shock that was completely muffled then by the other Exorcist’s mouth over his own. Just when he thought his eyes couldn’t possibly go any wider, too, they apparently could. His heart felt like it turned over in his chest before slamming impossibly hard against the inside of his ribs and while on one hand it scared the hell out of him that Kanda was doing something like that he didn’t dare move at all. The blood rushed to his cheeks and on such pale skin as his it was blindingly clear to see as unthinkingly his right hand moved to grab hold of Kanda’s wrist gripping to him... But he didn’t know what to do then, to shove him away or make sure he stayed there...

Kanda didn't pull away. He couldn't. The tension had been boiling between them, and he was all too willing to blame it on the things that had been shoved onto him by the girls earlier, because here he was, half naked and wounded and kissing a male, for fuck's sake. Something this wrong, this...unnatural should not have felt this gratifying, or this intense.

He could feel Allen's hand gripping his own wrist, but Kanda did not let go, he would not, even as lips crushed against lips and his tongue slid up against the other's. He shouldn't be doing this, but his better senses had taken leave of him for now. He would regret this later, blame it on Allen and his unbearably annoying mannerisms and words and that damned attitude, but for now, he was absurdly glad that at least this had shut the damn beansprout up.

Had Allen gotten the message, the point? No matter. Allen was warm, not as pliant as a girl would be, but perhaps close, and these things were all Kanda noted with a detached sort of interest even as his grip on the other's collar loosened.

Somewhere along the lines his eyes had slipped closed, he didn’t even recall when for that matter. Kanda’s tongue against his own made him shudder deeply before he could catch himself, his free hand moving to the wall to lay his palm flat against it to steady himself before finding his fingers were slightly scraping against the hard surface. It wasn’t even a reaction to it being unpleasant, worryingly it was quite the opposite even with the swordsman’s kiss bordering on rough as it was. That was going to add more to the headache he was sure to get later while thinking...

Something in his head though was screaming this was a bad idea, that so many parts of it were bad ideas in fact, so many he couldn’t untangle them. For a start though he was questioning why the hell he was actually returning that damn kiss now, why he felt like he had to push back against it even in this situation. He was surely going to blame Kanda for this later as well; they could have just shouted at each other for a while, maybe given or received a punch even before storming off and ignoring that strange tension in the aftermath of that curse. It would have most likely have been completely forgotten in a couple of days too. Damn him.

Of course he kissed back, and just as hard as Kanda was, even though it was leaving him completely breathless, it was just another kind of challenge... Wasn’t it? He was returning it because he couldn’t afford to let himself seem like a push over in Kanda’s eyes, right? Too many questions, too many thoughts. Yes, thinking too much was sometimes a real problem for him.

Allen was returning the kiss, this much Kanda was sure of, and he even felt him shudder. With a strange sort of sadistic satisfaction from that reaction, Kanda pinned the other against the wall a little harder, the kiss becoming demanding. He was beyond thinking about how wrong it was now, especially when Allen didn't seem to want to concede this one to him. It was an open challenge, and Kanda had never truly been able to resist challenges, not even in something like this.

His own heart pounding in his chest - it's probably just the lack of oxygen, yeah, that's definitely it - he felt as if his own brain was trudging in molasses. Tongues sliding against each other, the first kiss they shared was far from romantic.

It was hate, anger, lust, desire; it was something more, something less, and something very much undefined. It was something that Kanda was all too willing to leave undefined once he regained his senses. For now, he drew a breath through his nose, inadvertently inhaling the other's scent even as he nipped hard at the other's bottom lip, most unwilling to back down from Allen's own retaliation - if it, really, could be called that. His fingers were already tangled in short silver hair, threading through the strands and firmly gripping, fixing him at an angle.

He was going to regret this. He really was going to fucking regret this.

Kanda’s weight against him made him squirm a little, he hadn’t been in a good position to have control over his own standing point from the beginning and the other boy trapping him that way certainly wasn’t helping matters any. But then logically Allen knew it wasn’t supposed to be for his benefit.

Definitely, this was not like the images the girls who had invaded the city had shoved in his face. It wasn’t cute or sweet or romantic. Perhaps that was the idea that had troubled him the most about those pictures being flashed around - it was Kanda. Of all the people in the world he was most likely the least tender of all of them and the fact the kiss was anything but that was almost a relief he found and yet with that relief came another feeling. The bite made him jump slightly and give a stifled yelp of a noise and the hand moving forcibly in his hair like that brought forward a second noise. A vibration in his throat, though it was hard for him to even distinguish the nature of it given how it was lost somewhere between his lips and Kanda’s, but was Allen actually--no, that thought was being shoved away before it even fully formed. That was just not an option.

He was starting to feel dizzy, though he didn’t want to be the one to break it off he mentally cursed himself and yanked his head away to the side with a loud gasp, panting heavily with his chest heaving before he shot Kanda a glare through his cursed eye. He hadn’t moved far enough to have pulled himself fully from Kanda’s hold or too far away from his lips even, just enough to get some air but somehow even then it felt too warm to be considered refreshing. Oh god, what had they gotten themselves into.

What had they gotten themselves into, indeed. Kanda had sensed the reaction he'd drawn out from the other boy, savoured it, for it seemed like he had a one-up on him in some way. It was Allen that broke the moment - whatever kind it was - and when he pulled away slightly to take in air, Kanda's fingers slipped from the other's hair and he pulled away abruptly. No, he was not going to think about this now. It felt...almost pleasurable, but this was the damn beansprout they were talking about, and Kanda simply glared back at him, deliberately not looking at the way Allen's lips were mildly swollen, kiss-bruised, and he had been the one responsible for that pleasing s--

No, it was not pleasing, and it was all Allen's fucking fault, and that was all there was to it. That was all he could accept it as being. There was nothing he could say now, no jibe, no harsh words - hell, he didn't trust his voice to not be different when he decided to speak. Slate gray eyes narrowing back at Allen, jaw set stubbornly, Kanda effectively tamped down the sinful, forbidden twinge deep down inside him, disgusted with himself for being such an idiot.

Turning on his heel, eager to put as much distance between them until he could sort things out properly, he began to leave.

Allen kept his back pressed against the wall, propped up there as he tried to steady his breathing again. He was angry at himself, for letting himself get that snappy with Kanda in the first place, for letting that kiss to occur and for being the one to fold. It grated on him in the same discomforting way tinfoil might upon making contact with teeth. A while on the matter of teeth he found his own were gritted as he glared at the other Exorcist. Unlike Kanda he couldn’t find make himself really hate anyone, just things they did or said, never the person. Despite that though, he could feel infuriated and that was bang on the mark this time.

He wanted to grab onto Kanda, yank him back and ask why he’d done that, demand an answer from him to settle the confusion. But even as he opened his mouth he paused, slowly closed it again and hung his head. Words wouldn’t come, it was like he’d completely forgotten how to speak in the frustration and that just added to his annoyance as he let Kanda walk out. Perhaps he regret that. No, of course not. He was a jerk, even now. Especially now in fact. His shoulders shook as he balled his hand into a fist, jerking it back to slam in painfully into the wall he was resting against. He couldn’t do a damn thing and no-one else had ever made him feel so pathetically hopeless in a situation before. Whatever twisted little game they’d got themselves mixed up in it was Kanda’s point for now.

Damn him.