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Riku woke up. He'd expected the fire to have gone out, but there it was still burning. The cave was silent, nothing but the popping of embers and the distant patter of raindrops outside. He blinked away the sleep, staring for a moment at the girl in the black cloak on the other side of the fire, poking at the logs with a stick. "You didn't sleep?"
Xion paused, as if starting from a trance, and shook her head. Her hood was up, he couldn't see her face even with the flame's glow. "Couldn't," she said, simply. "Decided to keep the fire going instead."
Riku sat up, rolling his neck. He reached up to brush his hair out of his eyes, and flinched. It wasn't his hand. It wasn't his hair. He glanced down, feeling around his sleeping bag for the blindfold – it must have slipped off in his sleep. He could feel Xion's eyes on him, watching his frantic search.
"It's there," she said, pointing the burnt end of the stick towards where he'd been resting his head. Right, yeah, of course.
"Thank you," he replied, and grabbed the blindfold. Riku placed it over his eyes and tied it with shaking hands, shudders from sleep, from the cold, from disgust. He pulled it tight, then let his arms drop.
The world was dark again. No vision, but he'd trained his heart for this. To reach out, to feel. It'd taken him more than a month of bruised shins and stubbed toes to get a handle for it, but he could walk around blindfolded now without injuring himself. But feel-seeing living things was second nature. Even as the cave was blurry, faint to him, he could see Xion clearly out of the corner of his eye – or his heart's eye, whatever. None of this made much sense to him, but it worked. That's all that mattered.
"Nobodies still need rest," he said, picking up their conversation as if nothing had happened.
"I'm not a Nobody," Xion shot back. "Besides, I couldn't sleep."
Riku rolled his eyes, not that the gesture would travel. "Why couldn't you sleep?"
"Your dreams were too loud," Xion said.
Riku raised an eyebrow, glancing towards Xion, right at the face beneath that mess of spiky...Riku looked away. "You look like him." He couldn't help the shiver that crept into his voice.
"Yeah, I do. Wonder why." Spite behind her words.
"Because of me," he concluded. "Because I was dreaming about him."
Xion didn't answer, but she didn't need to.
"I'm sorry."
"It's not your fault." She sighed. "Probably sucks for you as much as me."
He wouldn't argue that. So he didn't say anything.
Xion let go of the stick and stood up. Riku didn't watch her, kept his focus on the far wall as she walked around the fire, sat next to him. "Look at me?" she said.
He did.
Xion was tense. Or, Sora was tense. Was it her, or just him, just Riku seeing what he wanted to see?
His heart was playing tricks on him. Maybe on both of them. Words leapt into his throat, everything he'd wanted to say to him, but desperation caught them like a sieve. When Sora reached his hand out, Riku took it.
Sora leaned in. Forehead against forehead. Each movement like a nervous dance. Riku could feel his breath on his lips, could feel him so close, so unbearably near. He was here, and he was holding Riku's hand, and he–
"No," he said. Maybe a whisper, but the sound deafened everything.
"What?" she asked. Her voice, her voice, it wasn't him, it wasn't Sora.
Riku let go of her hand, pulled away, swallowing hard. His throat felt tight. His eyes blurring with tears beneath the blindfold, but it didn't block out the sight, so he focused on the far wall. "Don't. I can't."
Xion didn't say a word. The embers popped. The raindrops pattered. "You keep looking at me," she said, her voice wavering. Furious, on the verge of tears. That heart-shaped thing in her chest flaring brighter than the flames. "You keep looking at me like you love me. You make my face look like his and you think about kissing me and now..." She threw her arms up, a laugh and sob bubbling into the same angry exhalation. "What the fuck do you want from me!?"
"I don't want anything from you," he said. He was angry too. Stupid and petty and it was more at himself than her, but he couldn't help but reply in kind. "You're just a way for me to get back to him."
"Oh, so I don't even get to be a person to you? I'm not good enough for that?"
Riku whirled towards her, swallowing his pride, swallowing the hurt. It was her, not him. He forced his heart to focus, focus on the girl and not the visage of the boy. "I'm not in love with you, Xion."
This time, she was the one who looked away. "What does it matter?" she said, no less bitter. "I don't care if you love me, I don't even care if you like me. I'm here, he's not, and you're in love with him, and if I have to play his part then I might as well–" A glint. Some flicker of truth, like a pearl buried in sand.
"You're not in love with me."
She froze. A shudder tore through her, he watched it shove the fog away. "What does it matter?" she repeated. Meek, quiet. "I'm here. He's not."
Riku couldn't find the words to say. He wanted to, to refuse this silence, but nothing came for the longest time. "If I could love you," he said, slowly, finally, "then I probably would. If you loved me, maybe. I don't know. But you don't, and I can't."
"It's fine," she said. She settled next to him, knees in to her chest. "I'm not good enough, I get it."
"I didn't say you're not good enough," he protested.
Xion shrugged. "You're too nice to say it. But you don't have to keep lying to make me feel better."
Riku wanted to get angry. It made sense to, maybe it would be appropriate. He was too tired to be angry. It hurt too much. So he just sat and stared at the fire, watched it splutter. "It'd be easy to kiss you," he said, "but we don't get easy things."
"That's not fair," she mumbled. "It's not fucking fair."
"I know." Riku pulled the blindfold up for just a moment, just long enough to wipe away his tears.