Pairing: Neah/Kanda/Allen
Spoilers: Potential up to ch. 208

This Game We Play

Those words of venom spill through your teeth. Your brows are furrowed and accompanied by a slight upturning of your lip, curled in a state of distaste. Your teeth seem to accentuate this expression; like glistening fangs with every word taking a deep piercing bite.

But it's not the vicious snarl people think it is.

It's a love bite.

Your scowl seems to be etched into your very being. You acknowledge how people think this and you have no problem letting them continue to do so. Those black eyes of yours—that actually shine blue in the light—aren't filled with the anger that your posture gives off. The way your fingers grip the hilt of Mugen is just another hallow expression that people don't understand. You wouldn't hurt me without a reason. Actually, you wouldn't hurt me with a reason.

At least not inflicting pain I wouldn't want. We're both masochists, aren't we? Screaming hateful, cutting words. Throwing heavier punches and breaking each other down with every seed of rage we could conjure up in us. We're two hurricanes going in opposite directions into each other.

"Fucking beansprout," you spit, and I return with a heated glare.

"My name is Allen, BaKanda! If you'd stop being so slow you might remember!"

You're not slow, though. You're actually quite intelligent for being only nine in actual spent years. You know my name. You know it quite well. I've heard it spill off your lips a fair share of times….When looking down over you, or looking up at you, as we tangled messily in our moments of passion when no one else was aware. People say we're so similar. They're right. You are a certain reflection; the taller, graceful yet vulgar, foreign version of me. You don't care about my flaws, but embrace them and push me to fix them. You don't care that a Noah rests deep in my soul, waiting to become me.

In fact, you love that too, don't you?

When he would awaken in the dead of night and do to you what I had done to you…you were just as accepting to that as you were to me. I should feel upset. I should have felt jealousy. That he has this thing with you. Yet… The 14th doesn't hurt me over you. He doesn't invade my being and tear apart my conscience in order to get to you. He does it when we're once spent, waking up in my body to have a go at you.

I used to hear faint whispers of you telling him no. I used to hear you pushing him away and telling me to come back.

He would always ask… "Who do you love more?"

And my name always fell from your lips. Nothing changed, ultimately.

Your words still broke like cold glass in a quiet room. Disruptive yet tantalizing. The sound so shattering, yet glorious in its own right. We were back to our game. We play, yet leave the impression that we're not just dancing around each other. We're feasting on the turmoil in each other. We're broken people with pasts that no one could even imagine. I'm harboring a monster and you…you're an artificial human.

But we both bleed. We both scream. Hate. Love. Even cry. We both have people we've lost that have broken our worlds and sent us on paths of emotional destruction.

You almost became that for me. I watched your body being torn apart; in part by your own insanity. Your heart clashing with your senses and I felt a tinge of jealousy that I should have been feeling toward the Noah every time he took you through my physical being. The monsters that made you took your everything and turned it against you.

Your blade awakened him to the point where I could see him clearly. I could see what you saw. I've been baffled since then. Because he was there. He was free. He was able to dominate and push me down…but he stepped back. He stepped back to resolve your turmoil. He let me see the soul of Alma. He let me find closure for you.

He—Neah—was jealous too. As long as you didn't know about Alma, about her, you would never truly belong to either of us. Your heart would pine deeply for that. Our game would forever remain a game.

We don't want a game anymore, do we?

We want you to ourselves, with no interruptions.

I want you to myself.

Seeing you standing before me, I almost cry in relief. You had been declared dead, along with Alma, and I had truly thought the same. I never shed a tear for others to see; but inside, all of me had been crying. All of me wanted nothing but your salvation, even if it cost me you. Yet, I didn't actually want to give you up. Neither did he. Neah's reflection haunted me in a strange way it hadn't before. It wasn't him causing me grief by threatening to overcome me.

It was that expression that I knew I also wore. It was the feeling of loss that was crushing us both. It left me almost catatonic. If I hadn't had to leave in a sudden hurry after being attacked, I probably would have submitted to the execution they probably planned for me.

But seeing you here, looking every bit as glorious as I always remembered you…I am thankful for that creature that caused me to flee the Black Order. The other Noah don't understand the attachment. Noahs aren't supposed to truly love. Noahs aren't supposed to sacrifice themselves on the whim of another.

I did both.

We did both.

You were in the middle holding both of our hands. You made it okay. This game made this self torture acceptable. Your first words upon seeing me…fucking beansprout…

I missed those words. I spoke charring words back, but it was out of joy. It was seeing your face, flawless and full of desire that made every cutting word into a delicious candy.

"You are pretty hard to kill, huh?"

"Clearly."

"…I missed you."

A smirk breaks the corner of that perfect face, "Also, clearly."

My eyes scan over you, and you watch me appraising you, stuck on the sword in your possession. It's Mugen. "You went back to the Order."

"Only to get what belongs to me, beansprout. Mugen is mine, Order or no. I don't care what happens to the Order. I only give my loyalty to one person."

"Is that so?" I say, the smile reaching my eyes and making my world seem less dark, less miserable. Your eyes are still sharp, bruising mine with their intensity; but yet, it's just part of the masochistic game.

"Yes, really."

"Who do you love more, Kanda…no, Yuu?"

"Both. No rather…You."

A felt myself smiling deeply into myself, shedding the layers of complexity that made me confused, trapped and dangerously afraid of myself. I'd grown to hate the 14th without even the slightest understanding of what it all meant. Where did Allen Walker end, where did Neah begin?

The answer was in your eyes. Both of us began and ended with you, holding each one of our hands in front of you. Holding our hands…holding my hands.

As the tanned color flushed into my body, marks like stigmata appearing, I realized that I had never been two people to begin with.

"I guess you get to keep your white hair," you say, running your fingers through the messy strands around my face.

"It could be worse."

"Yes, white hair could look awful with dark skin. Lucky for you, it's not too bad." You have a feral grin, leaning close and teasing my lips with your pointed canines.

You're conspiring with the enemy. You know this. I know this. You're dangerous and so am I. If being the third party, and prime target in the middle of a holy war is the price for this moment here—your lips on mine—then I'll be glad to take on the world.

"I'm ready to fight the whole fuckin world for you," you say, as if you read my mind.

"BaKanda," I chuckle.

You lean your head against my shoulder. It's been months and months. Your teeth graze skin. I've longed for this touch. I can feel the marks you leave. I want more.

There will be more.

This game we play is far from finished.

A/N: I hope you enjoyed!