Everyday Magic
Author: liketolaugh Summary: Kanda thinks of Tiedoll more than he lets on, Allen has always wanted a family, and Link is worried. Or: three idiots raise some kids together.
The war ends when Allen is seventeen, by which time it’s been winding down for half a year already.
It ends not at a battlefield, but at a table. Allen, Komui, and Link are on one side, and the Earl, Sheryl, and Road are on the other. Inside Allen’s mind, Neah is watching everything, suspicious and wary, and just as hesitantly hopeful as any of the exorcists.
Lavi is at the end of the table, watching them with eyes that never forget.
It isn’t easy; it never was. They trade the unbound Innocences for all the akuma in the world – the Earl tries to ask for all Innocences, but one glance at Allen’s arm and he changes his mind. They agree to burn all the research on dark matter and Innocence, and the Earl will destroy the egg.
Step by step, they try to erase the war from the world, because if there’s one thing both sides can agree on, it’s that family is more important than anything.
Komui leads negotiations and Allen plays diplomat, and Link, tracking everything, makes sure nothing gets forgotten.
Allen watches the other side, mostly. The Earl – not Mana, never Mana, but a fatherly and loving man in his own right – looked tired, dispirited but not unhappy. Sheryl was focused, but disinterested in the proceedings, and Allen thought he was only on board because of Road, who looked more genuinely, quietly pleased than Allen had ever seen her before.
She met his eyes and gave him a wink, a soft smile on her face, and he gave her a small, happy one in return, reaching up to run his fingers through his hair.
When they finally finish, all in writing – Sheryl and Link both insisted – the Earl and Komui shake hands, and they both look tired but satisfied. The Earl, in fact, has tears in his eyes, and knowing Komui he wasn’t far off either.
The Earl looks at Road and asks, “Are you happy now, sweetheart?” in a voice that makes Allen’s heart ache.
Road’s mouth stretches into her usual bright and mischievous grin and she chirps, “I don’t know, is Allen going to start a family now?”
Link chokes. Allen suspects that was what Road was hoping for.
Allen doesn’t start a family right away. His own still needs time to recover.
The transition out of Headquarters is abrupt; the exorcists never were much for taking things slow. Most of them relocate to the same area, different parts of a town in England, not too far apart and not too close together.
Allen, Link, and Kanda choose to live together. The relationship is still new, because none of them dared step forward until the war started to draw to a close, and there are good days and bad days, often set to the rhythm of nightmares and memories.
(“I was never loyal enough,” Link says once, and Allen doesn’t know whether he’s talking about Leverrier or Neah, but Kanda snaps, “You’re the most loyal fucking person I know,” and Link almost laughs even though he’s nearly crying.)
(Another time, Allen brings himself to tears trying to sort through Mana and Neah and father and friend and Red, and Kanda and Link make excuses to stay around him the whole night long without demanding his attention.)
A few months after the ceasefire becomes official, Allen’s cycle turns regular for the first time in his memory, and when he tells Kanda, Kanda makes an irritated noise at him and rolls his eyes when he laughs. When he tells Link, Link considers dragging him to a doctor even though it’s a good thing.
It takes a while, but all of them find jobs they like. Link, almost as used to paperwork as to fighting, hesitates over becoming a clergyman but quickly takes to working as a clerk. Kanda works in a factory at first, but grows fed up with it and switches to construction work.
(“I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing here,” Kanda says once, and he sounds so bitter. Link says, “Neither do I,” and Allen laughs so hard he nearly falls. When he catches his breath, he gasps out, “We’re such idiots,” and he’s maybe crying but he isn’t sure.)
For a while, Allen thinks wistfully of becoming an entertainer again, but barring those few months on the run, it’s been years, and he’s not the same person anymore. Eventually, he makes friends with a market owner and ends up working for him.
The Noah visit – tentatively, at first, as unsure as they get, but eventually they become regulars. At the Kanda-Link-Walker household, they mostly see Tyki and Road and the Earl, but Allen knows Jasdevi visits Lenalee, Sheryl fawns over Timothy, and Lulubell has become good friends with Miranda.
Kanda complains and Link is free with his reservations, but Allen is reaching back as soon as it becomes clear the Noah really won’t hurt anyone, and in the end they don’t try too hard to resist.
(“Your father would have been proud,” the Earl says once, and Allen scrubs at his eyes but it doesn’t keep him from crying. His relationship with the Earl is odd, but it isn’t awkward, anymore. It’s even… good.)
(Cross shows up six months late and tells Allen he fucked everything up, and Allen yells at him for half an hour. He thinks it says something that Cross stood there and took it instead of leaving, but he still doesn’t speak to the man again for a week.)
(They don’t see Lavi for eight months after the negotiations end, and then he shows up at Lenalee’s house at three in the morning with a different style and a different haircut, but he still tells her to call him Lavi. He disappears again a week later, but it’s [almost] enough of a reassurance.)
When Allen is twenty, awake in the middle of the night between Kanda and Link, he thinks again about Road said.
“I’d like to have kids,” Allen said abruptly, a ring of wistfulness in his voice and apropos of absolutely nothing.
Across the room, Link dropped the book he was holding, and it tumbled to the ground and closed. Oops. Maybe Allen should have given him a little more warning.
Nah.
A few feet away from Allen, on the opposite end of the couch, Kanda tilted his head and studied Allen for a few moments, and then nodded. “Alright.”
Allen gave him a bright smile and then turned hopeful eyes on Link, who, once he’d retrieved his book and set it aside, looked a lot more worried. When Allen caught his eye, Link asked, on the wrong side of high-pitched, “Now?”
Kanda turned a frown on Link, picking up on the stress in his voice, and Allen tilted his head, smile vanishing.
“I mean…” Allen hesitated, trying to put his thoughts together, gave up, and said, “Soon.”
Link stared at him, eyes still a little overbright with anxiety, and Allen frowned. Kanda was frowning, too, just as confused, and after a few moments, he accused, eyes intent on Link’s,
“You think it’s a bad idea.”
Link’s eyes flashed, and he half-glared back, crossing his arms.
“Can you blame me?” he returned, only just keeping his tone polite. “We’re barely three years out of a war, Kanda. A war in which all of us fought from the time we were children. You and I still keep our weapons with us! What would we know about being parents? Where would we even start?”
Allen flinched, startled and guilty. Link wasn’t wrong, he admitted to himself, but-
“Don’t fucking pretend like none of us learned anything,” Kanda hissed, looking surprisingly outraged for how noncommittal his initial response had been. Allen looked up, startled but, maybe, just a little bit hopeful. “Do you think either of us believes for a goddamn moment that you picked up baking on one of your missions? Or that all of your loyalty to Leverrier came just from gratitude? Fuck off!”
Link was noticeably taken aback, but his eyes were still burning with anger – and it certainly wasn’t helped by the mention of Leverrier – and he might have interrupted if Kanda wasn’t barreling right over him.
“And you’ve heard the goddamn beansprout talk about Mana! Everything before and everything after might’ve been shit, but to hear Allen tell it, Mana was a fucking saint, and if anyone’s gonna pick that up and pass it on it’s fucking Allen, okay?”
Allen elbowed Kanda sharply, and the man jolted and turned a dark scowl on Allen, who gave him a small, grateful grin, more relaxed now, and then turned his attention to Link, who was still hesitating.
“And Kanda had Tiedoll,” Allen finished for Kanda, a lot more gentle, but firm and insistent, unwavering gaze focused on Link. “You know what Tiedoll was like – raising children was practically his entire life.”
Link held his defensive look for a few long moments, but then he exhaled, relaxing just a little. “You both want children, don’t you,” he murmured, not quite a question.
Kanda crossed his arms, scowled, and refused to answer. Link reached up and tugged at the end of his braid, brow still wrinkled; he looked defeated. Allen’s brow creased with concern, and he shifted to Kanda’s other side to be closer to Link.
“It doesn’t have to be now,” he said anxiously, starting to reach for Link’s hand and then stopping himself. Without missing a beat, Link completed the motion for him, grasping his hand gently, and Allen gave him a hesitant, worried smile. “We don’t even have to have babies, Link. There are lots of orphans that want parents. You know there are.”
Link nodded slightly, though the uncertainty remained, his head tilted slightly. “But would they want us?” he asked pointedly.
Allen laughed quietly, bringing Link’s hand up to press against his cheek and giving him a wry smile. “That’s a silly question,” he murmured, knowing full well that both of them would have taken anyone who would have taken them.
Link huffed a little, not disagreeing, and hesitated for a moment before he continued, “That doesn’t mean we’d be good for them.”
It wasn’t harsh, but Allen’s smile faded anyway. Years later, he was able to see and acknowledge the negative effects of his upbringing with Mana had left, though his love hadn’t diminished in the least. And Leverrier- Well, he had no warmth for that man, even if Link did.
Kanda snorted, turning away again. He laced his fingers, frowning at the ground, and set his body rocking back and forth slightly. After a moment, he said, “Whatever. I’m hanging up my sword.”
Kanda had continued to carry his sword everywhere for the three years since the war had ended. Allen let a smile cross his face, and in lieu of a hug, reached over and grabbed one of Kanda’s hands and squeezed. Kanda let him, and relaxed slightly where he sat.
Link sighed, long and soft now, not quite put-upon but still stressed.
“Give me time to think about it,” he said at last.
“Of course,” Allen promised earnestly.
Link smiled wearily and tugged Allen’s hand back with his, turned it over, and pressed a light, chaste kiss to the palm. “I love you.”
Allen beamed. “I love you too.”
The next day, Link went to the library and borrowed a book about raising children. The day after that, taking care of babies. After that, pregnancy.
Meal prep times were filled with bits and scraps of knowledge, dropped absently from Link’s mouth as his mind worked over whatever he’d read that day; most of his free time was spent intently reading, with that little furrow of concentration in his brow.
Allen did his best to spend his time with Kanda and let Link read, which meant that he got to see the effort that Kanda, too, was spending. The very next day, he picked up some supplies from a store and hung his sword on the wall, head-height so it would be hard, Allen reflected, for little arms to reach.
Not only that, but after a while, Allen realized that Kanda had picked up a few books of his own – blueprints for a crib, for a mobile, for a little rocking horse. He looked at them occasionally and scowled at them and lingered, and the few times they went together Kanda glanced at the children’s books and picked them up and glanced over them before he put them back, and he watched children as they passed by, frowning.
Allen was so, so grateful, and God he loved the two of them.
In the meantime, Allen made calls. He hadn’t built as good a relationship with Tiedoll as Link had, but he reached out now, asking for advice. He asked Marie, who had recently celebrated his child’s first birthday with Miranda, and talked to Komui, once upon a time partially responsible for caring for a very young Lenalee. He didn’t tell anyone that they were thinking about having children, but they’d probably guessed anyway.
None of these things, of course, were lost on Link, and Allen knew long before Link told him what his eventual answer would be.
A month later, on a rainy day, Link’s gaze lingered on the window, watching children splash around in the puddles and their parents shake their heads and roll their eyes and wait on the side of the street.
“I used to do this,” he said aloud, absentminded and quiet, “and wish I had a parent like that.”
Allen half-smiled, wry and distant, and hummed. He’d done the same thing, once, but now-
“I think we should try,” Link added, almost as wistful as Allen when he’d first suggested it.
Kanda sighed, and Allen’s eyes went straight to him, startled. But Kanda’s eyes were soft, and a slight smirk quirked his lips.
“Finally,” he murmured. “You oblivious idiot.”
Allen smiled, blinding-bright, and his attention flashed back to Link just to throw his arms around him and kiss him, hard.
“Thank you,” he sighed against Link’s mouth, a laugh at the back of his throat, and even as Link kissed back, he was smiling, too.
“Thank you,” Link countered, when they parted again.
A few months later, at the height of summer, Allen missed his period.