Into Perspective

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Summary: Because there were seven deadly Sins, and he was guilty of every single one of them.

Disclaimer: Hoshino Katsura owns the rights to D. Grayman; I just elaborate on it.

ALSO IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: I did not discover this until it was too late, but unforgive me by Empatheia has a plot summary
and theme almost identical to mine-and hers has been up longer. If she is reading this right now, I am terribly sorry,
the similarity was completely unintentional. I deeply apologize if I caused any inconvenience or angrily raised eyebrows.

Aside from that, give hers a look as soon as you can if you're a KandaxLenalee fan; it was a very good read.

A/N: Looks best when shown 1/2 and in Verdana.

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Pride

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He knew he was proud. There was no way getting around that.

But that was fine. It was a characteristic that suited him, easily as the coat that he wore; black and form-fitting. Natural as the color of his hair, of his eyes when he fought.

He was proud, and proud of it.

Even if it confined him—Kanda didn't like being confined.

But might as well have told him to get rid of the color of his eyes, of that damnable coat that he was forced to wear.

It was a part of him. A part of him as dark as the coat, or his eyes. It embraced him. It protected him. It came as easy as breathing, as strong as steel. It was a barrier.

It cut him off.

Just like Mugen. Just like his Innocence. Just like his damned profession.

It kept him and the rest of the world at a distance, and for that he was normally grateful.

This wasn't normal for him.

Pride didn't bend easily. It was more than just wearing a jacket, a jacketed molded and threaded in steel. It was more than impenetrable, except at the most microscopic level. You couldn't hold anything to it. It didn't break, because if it did, it didn't end up bending, or quietly snapping in half.

It ended up shattering.

Brittle…

Cutting.

It wasn't normal for him to resent his Pride. But circumstances, goddamn circumstances, kept interfering. Suddenly it felt imprisoning, restricting. Suddenly it felt like a barrier.

Because Allen Walker, Allen. Freaking. Walker, with his artic-colored hair and his summer-tinted smile, was anything but a normal occurrence.

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Wrath

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He was aggressive, abrasive, both in his words and in his actions.

He fought down anyone and anything that dared to cross in his way, because goddamn it, they needed to learn to move. Most people would be surprised to learn that he didn't actually mean to get angry all the time. It was simply a default, ingrained reaction. His childhood at the hands of the Second Exorcist project had seen to that.

Now, when he saw a hand extended his way, or a twitch of a head turned toward his, he had to force himself not (repeat, not) to tense up and lash out against it.

To snarl, or tell them to get the hell away, get away, NOW because he was too damn irrational for his own good.

He took up meditation.

It helped, a little, but it didn't do much for him in the long run because he couldn't just sit down, close his eyes, and ignore things when the majority of the time, they were trying to kill him.

War really had fucked him up.

That was why, when he found himself stupidly (or masochistically) arguing with the beansprout, he knew he couldn't blame himself for the cutting words, or the cold sneers, or the wounds and remarks he inflicts on the idiot's pride.

He couldn't tell the hand of peace from the clenched fist of violence now, and he was really starting to hate his screwed judgment and temper for that.

Especially when it did nothing to help him get closer to the enigma.

(Because for some unfathomable reason, he really wanted to figure out what went on behind those polite, heavy silences and those sad, sad eyes).

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Envy

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He was going mad.

He didn't know what was happening to him, but it could not be anything good, because against all reason and logic, he was starting to care.

He hated that the boy could do this to him; that he held this kind of stupid, irrational power over his actions.

That Allen, and Allen alone, could make him lay awake at nights, staring blindly at his ceiling, drowned in the raging currents of his thoughts and emotions and memories (memories of earlier that day, of every conversation he had of him, of the delicate arch of his back when it faced away from him).

At night, his thoughts were a tempest, dangerous and uncontainable.

At night, he could remember every strand of white hair that had caught the light, and refracted, like the sun bouncing off white snow. At night, every. single. glance (from the rabbit or anyone else) aimed anywhere near him was burned into his head for-freaking-ever and would replay itself, over and over.

Endless.

Thoughts like those stung irrationally, like thousands of bees, because they stung, and then they stung some more, and what the hell weren't they supposed to die after the first time around?

He hated how it set his teeth on edge and fisted his fingers.

Because at night, he could hate everyone (everyone, even Lenalee!) for going anywhere near him.

Because, for reasons unknown, he hated how almost everyone—every fucking stranger—was able to touch the beansprout, knew how to get close to him, without recoiling and flinching back.

Everybody but him.

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Indolence

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Kanda did not think of himself as a lazy man.

The calluses on his palms, the scars on his form that never quite healed; those all attested to his case.

But in his habits, he could be considered a bit lethargic. When faced with a decision, he picked the same choices that he previously forged for himself. It required little to no thinking.

There's an Akuma in the way!

Cut it down.

What would you like for breakfast?

Soba.

Aren't you going to say anything, Kanda?

Shut up.

Clean-cut, simplistic, that was his style.

If he'd already done it before, and it worked, Kanda wasn't about to question his methods. He found that wasting time and energy going through and making different choices for the same damn problems was redundant. He wasn't taking the easy way out, per se. He was saving time.

At least, that was his excuse for why he kept finding himself unconsciously looking after Allen on all their missions; annihilating entire buildings the second he caught wind of Noahs, or staying up until almost dawn to make sure a fever safely broke.

It was the way he couldn't keep himself away from the boy.

It was why he hasn't been able to look after a single other attractive person, after finally learning the name Allen Walker (not beansprout, not Moyashi).

Time and time again.

Like clockwork. It wasn't going to change.

And in a way, he hated himself for these clock-like inclinations.

Because he knew that he was going to be stuck, making the same goddamn rotations, until he finally breaks.

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Lust

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Things were getting dire.

In his defense, Kanda blamed the Moyashi for all this, because then, it wouldn't have to be his fault for getting a freaking hard-on every time he so much as thinks of those quicksilver eyes, of those legs that defied physics and went on forever and ever and FUCK YOU FREUD, because that's about the point when his pants will start feeling uncomfortably tight and his breathing gets all funny.

It all started innocently enough.

(…actually, he wasn't sure when it started, or how.)

All that he remembered was that one day, Allen bent over to pick something up, and his shirt rode up his back a little, and then the world imploded because that was when Kanda realized that Kanda had hormones because apparently Kanda was turned on by beansprouts which automatically meant that Kanda was hot for the only one around (ie. ALLEN) which validates the conclusion that Mankind Was Fucked—because the best damn genes around were never getting passed on, since the two hottest bastards in history just HAD to be dicks and turn out gay.

For each other.

Their children would've been beautiful, too freaking bad WE WILL NEVER FIND THAT OUT.

(Fuck you, Freud.)

At any rate, Kanda (being just slightly more subtle than the average rampaging badger) decided to let his hormones get the better of him one day by testing his theory out.

And, being the subtle lady killer that he was, he did this by kissing (read: assaulting) said love interest while walking past him down an abandoned hallway (yes, he was a regular romantic, got a problem with that?) Regardless, he made a note NOT TO BLAME HIMSELF for his utter lunacy at the time, because he was getting fairly dazed and more than desperate by that point. After all, why should he feel the tug of hormones now, when years of watching Lenalee's little flying mini-skirt and Lavi's abs bared on full display via sudden, jacket-ripping akuma attack had absolutely no effect on him?

Fuck, he was RIGHT to be confused.

The most erotic thing the beansprout had done to him since they met was go nose to nose and call him a pansy-ass hermaphrodite with girly hair and a sword fetish.

…That, and that one time he caught him in the baths.

But he will disregard that for now, because that defeated his argument.

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Greed

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It took precisely two seconds, and then he realized that he would never get enough.

Kanda was very, very aware of Allen after that first encounter, since to his dumbfounded astonishment, Allen had tensed into a statue for all of ten seconds before actually responding back.

Even more perplexing, he started responding in ways that made Kanda's libido swell in unmentionable leaps and bounds; until he was high off his taste, of the feel of his skin under his fingertips, of the smooth slope where his neck, back and spine flowed—fluid and supple and eager—before twisting and molding to get even closer.

So Kanda devoured him, and felt himself being devoured, broken up, absorbed into this new phenomenon that had cared when he was lost in dark thoughts, that made him watch, and worry, and feel simultaneously horny and enraged and apprehensive and… and…

Human.

He felt human, for the first time since he entered this damned failing funeral pyre, since humans were allowed to want things for themselves, and not just for the greater good.

After years of denying and being denied the most basic human goods, he was actually starting to turn into a greedy bastard.

Kanda just pressed himself tighter, and inhaled that warm, poignant scent and told himself.

He was totally fucking okay with that.

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Gluttony

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After that, he was everywhere.

It wasn't enough for Kanda to just see Allen's face in the clouds, and the dregs of his tea, and behind his eyelids whenever he dreamed. Oh no, he took it upon himself to actually seek out the moyashi after that. On missions, Komui was calmly threatened (at swordpoint) to assign them to the same places. When eating, Lavi was picked up (indifferently) by the scruff of the neck and deposited (who-knows-where) to make room. At night, the normally empty space where air used to reside on his bed was taken up with tousled hair, tangled limbs and slow (almost-synchronized) breathing.

And if he fought, and started losing…

Kanda stopped thinking about his lotus with its dying petals, and instead, he would remember warm lips, and open arms at night, and long stares and hard stares and talking, and firm promises.

To keep walking forward. To never give up. To never lose hope.

To come back alive, don't you dare die on me Kanda.

And then he would wipe away the blood from his mouth and laugh a bit and remember…

…that he had something worth coming back for.

Kanda couldn't tear himself away from Allen, couldn't ever, ever get enough of him; and it both confused him, and terrified him, and made him want to hold on even tighter, to keep him in sight at all times and to keep everything else away. Because there were only a few things he had ever held sure in his entire pointless existence, and this was one of the only ones he was willing to protect.

War and Fate and lotus be damned.

Kanda wasn't ever going to let him go.

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End

Final A/N: No elaborate or cheerful updates on the author.
Alot's going on, and it's a living nightmare right now,
to be completely honest, and to understate.
But I had this finished before the crisis struck
and I figured it was only fair to put it up.
All in all, I do hope you enjoyed it.

Thanks.