[catchall] Caelus

[sixillusions]

This doesn't fit Kanda at all but I saw it while I was scrolling and I had to

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[sixillusions]

["Hot woman" for Karlach is my favorite euphemism it's so funny. The implications fly over his head so he doesn't even know why Caelus is briefly confused]

Nobody's going to ask me. [Not when Rondo and Daan and others were also around and will answer questions much better than Kanda can or would.] Do you still think I don't know your name?

[He says this a little grouchily, as if it's unreasonable, even though he literally just used four separate nicknames and has never used Caelus's to his face]

[trashprince]

[ nobody will ask him? caelus isn't sure about that. he would, until he was told outright to go elsewhere. or maybe he'd recently decided not to do that anymore. did he? the world is formless and so are his memories. sometimes he's sure he's gone in the fog again, even if it's just for the length of a step. ]

...

[ that sounds right, regardless of what caelus is being led back to his room. ]

You told me I have nothing to do with you.

[ some variation of it, anyway. ]

[sixillusions]

You don't.

[He doesn't bother squabbling semantics. They don't really matter. Kanda isn't a person who changes easily--his stance is the same as it was weeks ago.]

You have your life, and I have mine. Even if we were from the same world, you'd never see me again after this. [To say nothing of anything surpassing acquaintanceship, which is so far off the table he doesn't even feel the need to address it.] And getting attached hasn't done anything but hurt people here. You should know that.

[Didn't he suffer over Aventurine and Boothill? Over what he'd done to Marina himself? He thinks of someone else, another voice yelling You aren't a waste of my time at him--and he thinks of how he'd relented, then, just a little, only to fall to Kate's monster not two days later. If that wasn't God proving a point, what is?

Caelus accused him of being uncaring, and Kanda hadn't seen a reason to correct him. He is not a savior. It's not his job to minimize suffering. Better, in the end, for Caelus to think that his attempts at doing so were callousness. Kanda wishes they were.]

But everyone else uses names, and I'm not an idiot. I heard it often enough to know.

[trashprince]

[ caelus twists the fabric of kanda's sleeve between his thumb and forefinger. he cannot stand this man sometimes. it's that cat behavior. the ability to remain so resiliently negative through every possible set of circumstances. surely it's a defense and offense mechanism (dual-purpose) and there have been breadcrumbs aplenty to suggest why kanda has built such emotional blockades. it's for safety. his own. others, too.

when caelus has the ability to recall every conversation they've had, he doesn't consider kanda as a cruel person. not really. ]

I don't 'know that.' About getting attached. I don't 'know' it brings nothing but pain.

[ he reaches his free hand to fidget with some of that new, long hair ]

Not if I want to remain a Trailblazer.

[ caelus suffered when aventurine and boothill died. he suffered the next week, losing karma who he'd just accepted was his responsibility. he suffered the next week, losing iwatooshi after not thinking to share a final curfew. he suffered the next week, a prisoner in his own body as he hunted marina down and left her face a mashed pulp. but he was never the only one in pain and his was never the worst. ]

My choice is I don't regret caring about any of the people I've met here. I don't regret a minute of it.

[ staring into the center of nothingness ]

[sixillusions]

Then do what you want.

[That's Caelus's choice. Kanda has no interest in arguing with him or pressuring him one way or the other. Kanda isn't as judgmental over it as he might seem; he's simply pushed hard here where he felt he had to, trying, in his own way, to help people come to terms with bitter necessities. But all he can do is share his own brand of wisdom, born of lifetimes of horrific experiences; if Caelus wants to reject it and walk his own path, that's his prerogative.

But it's Kanda's, too. He's more tolerant than he used to be, more willing to extend a hand in his own clumsy, grouchy, poorly communicated ways, but he's never going to be gentle or openly caring. The chances of him becoming someone like that died over nine years ago. And his role as an exorcist still comes first, anyway. They may be potentially shielded from even the Earl, here, but that doesn't mean sentiment isn't dangerous. Kate's the prime example of that.]