softer or thinner than sutlers Anger is a welcome emotion; it had settled in Kanda's chest like an old friend on that second morning and stays, heavy. Kanda likes anger because it gets things done: it moves people, warms their tepid blood, pushes them past indifference into usefulness. Kanda had run on anger for years, before—before, and it's not so different now. It's what he's managed to accomplish, the things he's fixed. "Fuck," Kanda says. The stall door has broken under his fingers. He drops the rotting wood on the ground and wipes the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve. The hay in the stall rustles. His shirt sticks to his skin. It's easy to be angry at Allen. It's always been easy to be angry at Allen, because Allen is always doing something wrong. Allen infuriates Kanda, now more than usual, his tentative movements and the way he flinches when Kanda opens his mouth. The air inside the house is cooler, but only marginally. Allen is in his office when Kanda finds him, sitting at his desk. Droplets of condensation form on the glass of water next to him. "Walker," Kanda says. Allen twitches. "Do you have a moment?" Allen follows Kanda back down to the stalls obediently and mm-hmms in all the right places when Kanda outlines the repairs that are going to be necessary, peering up at the weak wood without any real glimmer of understanding. His eyes are bright, glazed with the heat, and there are two bright spots of color in his otherwise pale face. Kanda sighs. "Oh," Allen says, "look." Kanda looks at the corner of the stall where Allen is pointing and sees one of the hounds and her pups, dam splayed out on her side with her tongue in the air. "They're so small," Allen says. "They were only born three weeks ago," Kanda says. "The support beams over here will also need—" "Oh," Allen says, and then Kanda shuts his mouth. Allen isn't listening to him anyway; he's crawled into the stall and folded his legs up underneath himself, reaching for a puppy. A few others wobble over curiously. Kanda grimaces and sits down on his haunches. In more introspective moments—which, granted, there aren't very many of—Kanda wonders if there's not something he's overlooked. He doesn't like this, this growing sense of impotence, the creeping suspicion that he's come to the end of his options and nothing is working. That Allen is . . . not sick, but. Allen is refusing to respond properly, this ridiculous farce of his former self. Allen's hair, Kanda remembers, smelled like that infernal imported shampoo that Kanda refuses to use, the bottles that sit in Allen's white bathrooms. The scent threads through the air now and Kanda flushes, the thickness of it weighing on his chest like the memory of the press of Allen's back. He wonders, a little desperately, if he could possibly blame the whole ill-advised riding incident on some kind of temperature related dementia. Next to him, Allen makes a quiet, pleased noise; the puppies are licking his fingers. He's smiling. He has, Kanda thinks triumphantly, finally, a nice smile—a startling gleam of white, even teeth. Most creatures, a voice like molasses says in his memory, slow sweet American drawl, respond better to kindness. I'm glad, says his mother's, that you are not like your father. He doesn't know what it is about this place that makes him remember these things, revenants of an irrelevant time. Lavi would probably have a theory; Kanda can see the curve of Lavi's hands in his mind, the shaping of a history, written in the jagged green of Lavi's eye. Things were simpler then. The heat is getting to him. Crouched down in this enclosed space, even the weak movement of air Kanda's own mobility gave him is gone. His breath comes slow and shallow and his head is muddy with it, with Allen's smile. A droplet of sweat slides down Allen's temple and it hits Kanda then, all at once: the clarity in confusion; a sensation not unlike diving into the pond on the property; the sharp, cool suddenness of new love. "Allen," Kanda says, and leans forward. His lips catch the corner of Allen's and he feels Allen's surprised intake of breath. He shifts his weight and slides his tongue over Allen's parted mouth, which is damp and soft. One last kiss and Kanda sits back, incredulity welling up as his rational brain reasserts itself. Allen's eyes are closed. In the next moment they snap open wide. "Um," Allen says. Carefully, with shaking hands, he hands the puppies back to their mother and stands. "I have to. Excuse me please." comment on this section |