Warnings: OOCness, English is not my first language, not beta'd, i wrote this in ~three hours so please don't expect much, sexual situations

Disclaimer: No copyright infringement intended.

A/N: The title is a line from the song Cosmic Love by Florence + The Machine.
First posted on my AO3 on December 23, 2018

Kanda dragged his battered body towards Allen by his arms and hands, his unbound hair trailing behind him. Each crawl sent a sharp pain through his spine, but with his regeneration seal broken beyond repair, he could no longer heal the shattered bones in his legs or close the wounds on his skin. He would have used Mugen for help, but a good chunk of it disintegrated from the battle and only its only remains were its hilt, a chipped blade protruding from it, and a sheath cut in half. He looked around for Timcanpy for assistance, but the golden golem was nowhere in sight.

Shrapnel, stone debris, splinters of wood, and other shards and fragments from the aftermath of the war dug onto his bloody palms, but Kanda persisted. There was only one thought on his mind, and that was to be by Allen's side.

As he finally came close enough to Allen, Kanda could see that the other exorcist didn't fare better than him. Crown Clown was no longer manifesting and his left hand was paralysed, and Kanda didn't know about the condition of his cursed eye unless he opened it. Allen's chest was rising and falling ever so slowly, but it was moving, and Kanda allowed himself to sigh in relief.

The real damage to Allen, however, was the vertical gash across his torso, thanks to the Sword of Exorcism. It sat parallel across the scar that the selfsame sword gave him years ago, only this time, it was a visible hole on his body, and Kanda wondered how he could still be breathing with that damage.

Kanda stroked the horizontal line of Allen's scar with his thumb, and Allen's eyes fluttered open.

His left eye looked undamaged, though Kanda couldn't know for sure. There were hordes upon hordes of akuma, and it may have overworked itself to the point of uselessness.

"Kan... da..." Allen mumbled, giving the other a weak smile. "You're... okay..."

Kanda shushed him and scooted as close as his injured body would allow him. He didn't mind the blood steadily pooling out of Allen or his life force snuffing out any second now; all he wanted was to be with him in his—their—final moment together.

He locked eyes with him and gave him one last kiss—split lip against split lip—and rested their foreheads together.

Because Allen was lying on his right side, he had difficulty moving his good arm, and so he said, "Just... hold me... please..."

Kanda obliged and wrapped his arm around his lover's shoulder. He would have pulled him closer by the waist, but the wound on Allen's torso made that impossible, so he let his arm hang limply as he looked at Allen in the eyes.

"This isn't... goodbye," Allen whispered. He managed to give a weak chuckle that turned into a cough.

Kanda wiped the blood away from corner of Allen's mouth. Alma, through some unholy process, came back to him. He thought that Allen ought to return to him too, though once—when? If?—that happened, he would never, ever let him go again. His tortured soul has been through enough, and if he had it his way, he'd twine his soul to Allen's so that they wouldn't get separated if they returned to this godforsaken world. And with the Order being the Order, that wasn't out of the question. His only wish was to avoid any needless suffering, and the only way to do that was to have Allen by his side.

"I'll see you eventually," Kanda replied. He didn't know where. The afterlife? Some years from now, if the Order decided that reviving the Second Exorcist project was a good idea? Or maybe the distant future, where the Holy War was nothing but a debated part of history?

"I… lo—" Whatever Allen was supposed to say was cut off by a finger to his lips.

"Say that when we see each other again," Kanda said, a faint smile on his lips, "and I'll say it back to you."

A tear slid down Allen's cheek. "BaKanda," he breathed, a term of endearment uttered as both a goodbye and a promise to reunite.

"Bean sprout," Kanda answered, echoing the same sentiment.

He was grateful to the God he loathed that his and Allen's eyes closed at the same time.

He just hoped that it was the same darkness that enveloped them.

Allen woke up to intense dark eyes boring into him, and still being groggy, he blinked a few times before asking, "What's the matter?"

Beside him, Kanda frowned. "I had a dream," he said. "The same setting as in my other dreams, only this time, we were dying."

Kanda often told him about those dreams, of them being soldiers in times gone by. A lot of them were more nightmares than dreams, but some of them were good ones, like those wherein they made love beside a crumbling fireplace in a dilapidated house, or of them doing something as mundane as bickering about mission details.

"Did we die together?" Allen said.

Kanda nodded.

"Then that's nice, I suppose." Allen smiled and rested his head on Kanda's chest, and the other's arms automatically wound around him. "And don't think too much about it. It doesn't matter. We're here now, and we're together."

Kanda kissed the top of Allen's head. They laid in silence for a while, Allen listening to Kanda's heartbeat and Kanda running his hand through Allen's hair, until Kanda spoke.

"What do you want to do today?"

"Same thing we always do on this day," Allen said. "Heavy breakfast, a hearty lunch, nice dinner, and sumptuous snacks in between."

Kanda cluck his tongue. "Figures that food is the only thing on your mind."

"Not really," Allen said, looking up at Kanda with heavy-lidded eyes. "I'm also looking forward to something at the end of the day."

"Hmm," Kanda replied, his hands slipping under Allen's shirt and moving across his back with a purpose that Allen knew all too well. "Think we can move that something from the end of the day to the start?"

Allen chuckled and straddled his lover. He didn't need words to answer; he simply removed Kanda's shirt and kissed him.

"How do you want me?" Allen asked with a nip to Kanda's earlobe.

"It's your special day," Kanda answered, tilting his neck to give more access to Allen's exploring mouth. "You decide."

Allen was very tempted at the prospect of topping Kanda, but he just woke up some minutes earlier and didn't want to do all the work. Maybe he would later that day, but at that moment, he just wanted to sit back and enjoy the ride.

Quite literally, it turned out.

He did some of the work, though.

Half an hour later, when their heartbeats were back to normal and they lay side by side, Kanda was stroking Allen's cheek when his eyes widened.

"Hm? What's wrong?" Allen asked.

Kanda's hand stopped. "My dream earlier… It was like this, us laying side by side, me stroking your cheek. My legs were not moving and you had this vertical cut on your torso."

"It's just a dream," Allen said, leaning in to the hand that was still resting on his cheek. "We're not dying. We're both alive and well, and we have the future to look forward to. We have this day to look forward to."

Kanda snorted. Had he been not Kanda, it would surely be a chuckle, but he was Kanda, and it came out as a snort. But Allen wouldn't have him any other way. Good, bad, and everything in between, those were what made Kanda, and he wouldn't be the same person without those qualities.

"I love you," Allen said, and something crossed Kanda's eyes so fast that Allen wasn't sure if his eyes were tricking him or not.

"I love you too," Kanda said. He rarely said those three words, rarely said them back, not even on special occasions, so Allen melted into his touch, and then into his mouth, and then into his body.

"Happy birthday, bean sprout," Kanda said after their second round that morning.

"My name is Allen, BaKanda," he replied sleepily.

Kanda kissed his forehead pulled him close. "You sleepy again?"

Allen yawned. "You wore me out."

Kanda pulled the duvet up to their chins. "Then sleep."

As Allen's eyes closed, he saw Kanda's eyes do the same, and he was certain that it was the same comfortable darkness that lulled them to sleep.

.fin