warning; some kind of attempt at shounen-ai… ish. angst, of course! unbeta'd.
pairing; allen/kanda.
a/n; not much to say about this piece, other then it was spur of the moment with long sentences and attempted portrayal, but enjoy it and leave a review on your way out?
–no flames please–

broken.

because they think they have no one but themselves, with their burdens and the darkness they carry. salvation isn't always easy to find.

i.

Please tell me I'm okay.

He sits and waits for something – anything – to happen, but no one will say anything, they're all silent and wondering and assessing and it's driving him mad. He doesn't know where his salvation is, but he's cursed, so maybe he doesn't have any – after all, don't they say there's no salvation for the damned? And cursed is just another way of being damned, so maybe he was waiting for something that would never happen. It always seemed to happen to him, and he was tired of it, he just wanted sleep and maybe have a normal life, but he knew he wasn't going to get one –

Smile, and pretend it's all right.

"I'm okay," he says, since no one else will. Link, his shadow, his shadow that had grown from being silent and impassive to almost, possibly, human, but now he was silent again, at loss for words. There's Lenalee, her short hair pulled back into a loose ponytail with her pink and red outfit short and startling as her face is contorted into one of false hope, and he hates it, because Lenalee doesn't have false hope, she has real hope – doesn't she? Yes, she does, he fixes, assures. Then there's Lavi, his red hair loose but his face tight as he watches him with that Bookman look, the one that he doesn't like because it makes him feel as if Lavi is trying to figure out the depths of his soul, and his soul was damned, cursed, unsalvageable – and oh God he was falling so fast, someone save him.

Then they left, and he was left alone to his own mind, his twisted mind that was becoming corroded and taken over.

Was there really no one left to save him?

Everyone assumed he could save him from himself, but he couldn't, because he didn't know how. Had he always been alone? Maybe he should have given in from the start, speed up the inevitable so they could lock him away and destroy the Destroyer of Time, because that was what they were planning anyways, wasn't it? The mistrust, he could barely handle it, but he did handle it by smiling and smiling, and laughing, and – it was all pretend, it was always pretend, always forced. There was Kanda who noticed, but Kanda acted like he didn't care, and eventually he had believed that Kanda really did hate him and that there was no hope that there could be any kind of friendship in between the two, and that hurt worse then perhaps anything.

"Does it hurt?" Kanda asks, no emotion, no care.

"No."

Lies, lies, smiles and lies – they blurred together, and soon, he couldn't tell what were real and what were fake, or maybe he was the fake, not what he did, but maybe it didn't matter either.

He was falling anyways.

ii.

"Maybe you should talk to him."

"Maybe you should be quiet."

Back and forth, back and forth, because that was what General to Student did, was it not? That was all he'd known with Tiedoll, and though he respected, he didn't always act like it. He didn't want to talk about the current topic, because the current topic wouldn't leave his thoughts alone, and he was tired of thinking of the breaking kid that walked around with those stupid smiles, always the smiles.

"He's right," shut up, Marie, he thinks, because he's tired of being ganged up on, the kid's not his responsibility, he was never his responsibility, so why were they forcing this on him? Why not Lenalee, since she was like a sister, mother, whatever, she could handle it, could she not? Or was she so afraid? Like the stupid rabbit who should have – could have – been able to see what was going on behind closed doors but he didn't know what to do. Still, it shouldn't have left him to deal with the problem – there wasn't a problem, there shouldn't have been a problem, but fucking Central intervened and now all was going to hell, and he didn't even know anymore, and he hated it because his thoughts didn't make sense anymore.

"I don't care."

Lies, truth. It didn't matter anymore. They had blurred together, and maybe he was more like the moyashi then he thought, but what did it matter when it didn't change anything?

He denied it anyways.

iii.

It was always the looming shadow, the reflection, the reason why he had come close to completely breaking so many times, and he hated the black and white and white and black and the grey it failed to make. Yelling did nothing, crying left him weak, and so he pushed it down and when did I become like this? Unanswered questions, maybe, but he didn't care because nothing made sense anymore and he was tired, so tired, why was it so wrong to want to rest? His master had taken a rest, hadn't he? Went missing, dead probably, and he was left to wonder just how much he had kept from him.

It was wrong.

It was all wrong.

He was wrong. Maybe they were all wrong, and wrong was becoming right, and soon he'd have to leave. After all, there was no salvation for the damned, no salvation for the cursed and the broken, and sometimes, he just wanted to completely breakdown and destroy something, everything, curse the curse that had been placed upon him and in him. Perhaps there was no chance for love, either – not the kind of love that he had for his friends, because despite everything, he still loved his friends, his family, he couldn't deny that, he didn't want to deny that. But there was always another kind of love, another kind of love he knew he'd never get to experience because he was cursed, and good things don't happen to cursed people.

"Always cursed."

Especially not fifteen year old fighters that were caught up in a war that they were supposed to end.

iv.

It was always the flower, the lotus, the one thing he hated yet protected because it was his, his burden alone to bear. Was it a burden? It was his life, literally, mentally and physically because as the petals fell, so did the time he had left to wander the God forsaken earth. Yes, God forsaken, because he had long since believed that the earth was just a battlefield for the damned, and perhaps he was damned, but in a different way then moyashi. He was tired, but he wasn't broken, or maybe he had been created broken. Yes, created, because he wasn't born, he didn't have real parents, then again, few people in the Order did – it was depressing, but so was everything else. Even his master, his General, couldn't pull him out of this, because he was to far in the darkness to be able to see the light, and he was fine with that – he had no choice but to be fine with that.

Marie wanted to pull him out as well, but he couldn't.

The darkness had long since plagued his heart and eroded the very muscle that made him live – and maybe he wasn't living, maybe he was already dead. The thought would be enough to drive anyone mad, but for him, it was his companion, maybe his only companion because he was cold, always cold.

"Tch, ridiculous."

He was a child of the deranged experiments, and he had nothing to give, no way to save anyone.

v.

They always passed each other; it seemed as if it was becoming something of a ritual.

One would go to meditate, to lose himself in thoughts and emptiness as he tried desperately to relax, while the other would lose himself in editable items in the cafeteria that was always filled with noise and finders. Neither would acknowledge the other, but they were beginning to think they were more alike then they'd care to admit. Lenalee saw it, and she struggled to push them together as they drifted apart. Lavi helped, tried to help, but it was hard to do the impossible. But they persevered because they didn't want to lose Allen or Kanda, and Allen was already breaking and they were finally realizing.

Tiedoll and Marie had teamed up and considered it a project; they didn't want to lose another from their unit, because Daisya was already gone, but Kanda was still there, just not completely.

"It's not working."

A unison thought, but a wrong one too.

vi.

"Can I join you?"

"…Tch, be quiet if you do."

Grateful nod, a quick sit with legs folded neatly without practice. Hands folded carefully with eyes closed and thoughts already beginning to swim. Allen wasn't sure what had driven him to join Kanda, but it was already done, and neither seemed to disagree with the idea as the silence settled over and echoed in the room. The Japanese man and the British kid, was that what they were? Allen didn't like thinking of himself as a kid, but he seemed to have taken a few steps back, or maybe they had been forward – he just didn't know anymore.

"…Why are you here?"

Quick laugh, quick, pretend it's meaningful. Hadn't he just asked himself the same question, or something along those lines? Maybe great minds do think alike – or broken minds, whichever they were. It's not like it mattered.

"Why shouldn't I be?"

"You're usually with Lenalee or the rabbit," accusing, curious, a bit of emotion, but it made Allen's heart skip a beat to get some kind of reaction, even though the words were lies, because they both knew Allen was by himself most of the time now – but he was never really alone, because he had two shadows, the Fourteenth and Link.

"And today I'm not."

And silence reigned upon them once more, and suddenly, they both knew that they were beside each other, Allen beside Kanda and Kanda beside Allen. But that didn't make them together, because they were still alone, still battling themselves as they tried to break out of the darkness that had taken over them. But were they trying anymore? Maybe not…

But they were still beside each other, and maybe, not, completely, totally alone.

vii.

It happened quick and without effort from either party.

Allen tripped – courtesy of Lavi – and Kanda tumbled with him, and suddenly they were both on the ground with a large bruise on Allen's cursed head and a cut on Kanda's timed body. Yelling, embarrassment, and they were both at a loss for who participated in what. Kanda offered a hand, surprisingly enough, and as Allen reached for it, something inside him snapped; he wasn't sure what, and he didn't care, but all he realized was that suddenly the world was to much and the burden was to heavy and he was so tired, and thankfully Lavi had already disappeared and it was just him and Kanda, but that didn't make it much better because hot tears were still trying to escape his eyes as he hid his face from view with white hair. The dark haired man didn't know what to say, because the kid in front of him was breaking openly, his pieces snapping and his heart skewered.

"Let's go," quick, now, before someone comes, and suddenly, Kanda was helping Allen into the isolated area, which happened to be the training area outside with a nice stone fixture around it as trees and flowers decorated the garden with the moonlight shining brilliantly as it tried to calm the hysterical exorcist.

"You're…"

He didn't know what to say because he wasn't good at this kind of thing, it was always Marie or Tiedoll that was in his position, or Lenalee or Lavi, and Kanda didn't how to handle a crying kid –

No, not kid, he mended, because he realized Allen had been holding this longer then was healthy, which was saying a lot because Kanda thought the longest time to be holding it in was healthy because it didn't matter to him, nothing mattered to him. But Allen suddenly wasn't a kid, suddenly wasn't a burden that he thought he was.

"I'm fine."

Through sniffles, because he couldn't stop the tears from pouring out, but he still tried to lie, because lies were the truth and his smiles were real, and he wasn't living in a backwards world where his comrades actually bought that.

Smile, attempt to mean it, but knowing he couldn't not now, not when he was at his most vulnerable, and Kanda realized this too as he placed a gentle – almost – hand on the broken boy's shoulder, not knowing what else to do, and maybe I should get Lenalee –

"Don't go."

And he cried a bit more as he wrapped his arms around Kanda's waist, not really caring that it was Kanda, because in all honesty – yes, let's try honesty – he just needed someone, he needed someone to save him, even though there was no salvation for the damned or the cursed, but he just didn't care, not when Kanda gently wrapped his arms around Allen attempted to soothe him, because he wasn't completely heartless and he knew this was out of character, but he just didn't care.

"I won't."

And Allen cried some more, and if anyone were to pay close enough attention, they would have seen Kanda shedding a tear or two as well, because Allen was being weighed down by the world and it's shadows while Kanda was being pushed on by a flower that counted his life, and suddenly, they were one in the same with the same burdens and the same feelings and the same darkness that they dared to share. It was ironic that the two strongest members of the Order were currently breaking down under the moonlight, surrounded by gardens and grass and trees and the cool wind that caused a shiver to run down Allen's spine and his body. And then there were those who were watching, which consisted of Lenalee, with a large smile and a slight blush creeping her cheeks, Lavi, who had his arms folded across his chest as he watched the scene unfold with genuine happiness and relief, and Marie and Tiedoll, who were finally able to see that the member of their unit maybe was being fixed. And as they felt like they were intruding, they retired to their own rooms, their own sanctuary's with lighter hearts and lifted spirits, leaving the two alone.

But maybe they weren't so alone.

Because Allen hugged tighter and the world was becoming less heavy, but he didn't want Kanda to disappear, because this moment didn't seem real. Kanda still wasn't sure what to do, what to say, because he wasn't one to open up, to let people in. And although Allen was still falling, perhaps there was someone to save him, no matter how un-saving Kanda may be.

"I'm still cursed."

He can't deny it.

"Tch, but you're alive."

He feels the need to argue.

The two of them continued to stand, underneath the moonlight with the trees, the garden, the grass, neither speaking, the only sound was the light breathing that's suddenly a lot lighter; but they both know that it won't last, that despite what just happened, he was still cursed and he was still timed. Yet even as his mind continued to be corroded, and his life was still measured by a flower, they still hoped maybe, just maybe, hope, pray they weren't alone, that they shared the darkness. The lies and the truth and the smiles and the tears could all blur together, but right then, Allen just didn't care and Kanda just didn't want too, and suddenly, so suddenly, they realized that maybe they couldn't fix themselves on their own, that maybe they needed someone else, someone to save them, but Kanda couldn't save and Allen was always pretending, but maybe that was perfect –

Because saving someone sometimes means saving yourself.