Chapter Text
The doctors said that Riku’s side would definitely heal, but they were less certain about his wrist.
It was better news than Riku was even hoping for, all things considered. He had lost so much of himself in the past year. The darkness had swallowed his emotions, his sense of self, and his light; and Ansem had robbed him of his body itself more than once. Really, Riku felt kind of lucky to walk away with one measly joint as his only casualty.
He’d mostly gone to the doctor at Sora’s insistence, which was kind of his own fault. He should’ve known Sora wouldn’t forget the image of him majestically face-planting into the beach after insisting he could walk on his own. It was the sort of embarrassing microcosm that made Riku think the universe itself was punishing him for trying to do too much on his own.
At least, that was probably what King Mickey would- not say, but strongly imply.
Riku felt strangely vulnerable like this, with Sora fretting after him, seeing how weak he truly was under the façade of hyper-competence, seeing straight through everything he tried to do. Things felt strangely calm between them both, especially after their conversation in the dark realm, setting the tenuous jealousy that separated them to rest once and for all. It was both a blessing and a curse. Knowing that Sora forgave him and still believed in him hurt in a special way. Riku was glad to have their friendship back, but certain that he didn’t deserve it, and cursed himself for being happy to have Sora back in the first place when it was just such a selfish thing to want.
Still, his and Sora’s relationship had never been so peaceful. It had always been comfortable, sure, but now the tension between them had softened. There was no more jealousy, no more competitions only barely veiling a fight. During that time in the dark realm, they’d come to an understanding.
Of course, the quiet between them only made the tension that remained all the more apparent. It wasn’t jealousy, or resentment, or the competitive edge Riku had always assumed it was. This was a different feeling, the same taut stretch in Riku’s heart as when he had watched Sora from afar, cutting through heartless and offering help to everyone he met with a selfless smile.
Riku pulled himself up onto the paopu tree’s trunk, eyes casting out into the ocean. The other kids didn’t come to the play island much anymore. Riku could see why. The paopu tree had once been a challenge to clamber up onto, but not anymore, when it barely came up to his shoulders. Still, this was where Sora liked to meet- less stifling than the interiors of either of their houses, and less crowded than the shopping center where the people their age hung out now.
Riku never knew what to say to them. He felt younger and older than them all at once. He couldn’t possibly relate to the stories about cramped desks under fluorescent lights, or the rickety clack of their flip phones, but they couldn’t ever understand what it meant to fight for their lives. Talking to the people he had once counted as close friends now felt like they were on the opposite sides of glass, so close but unable to reach out and touch.
“Riku!”
Riku didn’t even have to turn around at the familiar voice. He simply smiled to himself, looking down as Sora collided with the paopu branch, leaning back against it.
“What did the doctor say?” He demanded. Riku smirked.
“Worried?”
“Yes!” Sora answered, fists balled, painfully earnest. Riku couldn’t help but answer.
“I’ll be fine.” It wasn’t a terribly descriptive answer, but it was what Sora needed to hear. Riku could tell him about his wrist, and how it would likely bother him for the rest of his life, but that was not for now.
Sora seemed satisfied with the answer anyways, giving him a patented Sora grin. “That’s Riku! Always fine, no matter what. You’re bulletproof!”
It really was nothing short of a miracle that Riku was still fine, though Riku could say the same of Sora. Even though everything had quieted in these past few days, Sora didn’t seem quite right. It was really all in the eyes, bloodshot and heavy with black circles. Sora might not have gotten injured as badly as Riku, but Riku was almost certain that the doctor who had pronounced Sora well was missing something.
He’d been musing over it for the past couple of days, as Sora got worse and worse for wear. Maybe there was a reason doctors couldn’t see it. Was Sora cursed? There could easily be some kind of magic at play. It could be some lingering issue with Sora’s memory, or Roxas, or any number of weird problems that latched themselves onto him. Riku would have to identify the problem quickly if he wanted to stop it from getting worse.
Riku let his eyes linger on Sora- for medical reasons- as he studied the effects on Sora’s face. The bright Destiny Islands sunlight cast harsh onto his skin, which had paled slightly while Sora was away, making him look gaunt and colorless. The smile that usually tugged at his lips, the most contagious disease of all, was missing; only appearing in a weakened form when Sora’s eyes came back to Riku’s.
“What about you, Sora?” Riku asked. “Are you alright?”
“Are you worried, now?” Sora asked, looking up at him and flicking his fingers against Riku’s leg.
Riku turned his head, huffing at the teasing. “Maybe.”
Whatever Riku had been expecting, however, was not the admission he received.
“I can’t sleep.”
It was almost like a joke. Sora, unable to sleep? Riku was pretty sure he’d seen Sora fall asleep standing up, before. Half the labor for their raft had been prodding him awake from his latest nap.
That was back when Riku didn’t know why Sora’s sleeping face made his chest twist. It had been easy to assume it was part of their rivalry, a growing frustration at Sora’s unwillingness to help. Now, however…
Riku looked down at Sora with a small smirk. “Guess that’s what happens when you nap for a whole year.”
Was it too early to joke about that? Probably, a small voice argued in his head. Still, Riku hadn’t been able to help himself. There was nothing taboo between them, nothing they couldn’t speak about. In over a decade of friendship, there was only one secret Riku had to keep- alright, two, but he hadn’t kept the Ansem-face secret for very long- but the first was one he would take with him to the grave.
Sora yawned, as if to prove his exhaustion. Riku really didn’t need proof. He believed Sora already. “Hey, none of you actually told me what that was all about. I don’t even remember why I fell asleep.”
“One problem at a time,” Riku said, as much for himself as for Sora. That year wasn’t easy for him to think about, either. It was honestly kind of embarrassing, how quickly he’d fallen back to the old ways without Sora around, indulging himself in darkness and loneliness. Being around Sora now was even difficult in its own way, in ways it never had been before. Riku had to remember to be honest with him, after keeping secrets for so long.
“Maybe I got too used to sleeping in weird places.” Sora mused. “I told you about the pirate ship, right?”
“You did.” Riku never got to visit Port Royal.
“And the Pride Lands… I had to sleep on rocks, Riku! Rocks!”
“You’ll be the first one I tell when they invent a lion bed.” Riku said, leaning his head back. He couldn’t help but smile to himself.
Even if Sora’s little outbursts were entertaining, in that Sora-esque way that sent his heart fluttering, Riku couldn’t deny that he understood what Sora was talking about. After so many months of fighting and running and searching and working it was hard to wake up to sluggish amber sunlight and the rocking waves somewhere in the distance, knowing that his hardest task of the day would be doing the dishes. It made Riku wonder why he had even woken up at all.
The Destiny Islands were precisely how Sora and Riku had left them, but that just made Riku and Soras’ changes all the more apparent. None of Riku’s old clothes fit him anymore. His house felt unbearably small and rickety- comforting, compared to his room in Hollow Bastion, but so familiar he nearly didn’t recognize it. The air was hotter and stickier than he remembered, now that he was used to the chilled winds of Hollow Bastion, or the dry heat of Twilight Town. Riku felt like a stranger to the place he’d grown up. This Destiny Islands was nothing like his memories. It felt every bit as plasticky and fake as the false Twilight Town he’d visited Roxas in.
“I get what you mean,” Riku finally said. “Nothing’s changed. We have, though. It’s like we don’t belong here anymore.”
He felt Sora’s eyes on him in an instant, could picture them effortlessly. They would be wide, stretching to show all of the blue trapped in there. “This will always be our home, Riku! You’ll always be welcome here.”
Riku sighed, a little puff of air. He wasn’t insecure about that. “I know! Don’t be such a sap.”
Sora stuck out his tongue. “Maybe if you just helped me!”
Riku was avoiding the issue for a reason. There was nothing more painful than the daunting realization that was surely dawning on Sora- that Riku, despite being a full year older, did not in fact know everything, and couldn’t possibly have the answers to every question and ailment. If Riku was really interested in being honest, he would just tell Sora that he couldn’t sleep, either. Riku, however, in his selfish way, had to keep up the façade of his own maturity.
“If I remember correctly, it was you who always wanted to play pirates, and not doctor,” he said, pressing a light fist to Sora’s shoulder. “I might be terrible at this. Gimme the symptoms.”
Sora smiled at the teasing, but his eyes remained distant as he explained. “I just keep waking up, feeling like there’s something I have to do. It’s like… I’ve forgotten something important.”
Riku’s heart wrenched. He couldn’t be talking about their time in Castle Oblivion, could he? Riku didn’t know if he could describe it to Sora without unravelling Namine’s hard work. He didn’t know how memories worked, and that year without Sora had been so crushingly miserable he couldn’t bear to do a thing that might upset the tentative balance in Sora’s head. Riku didn’t trust himself not to mess it all back up.
“Like what?” Riku asked instead.
“Like fighting heartless, or finding the Organization’s world, or any of the stuff I have to do!” Sora said, leaning his head back against the trunk of the tree. “Had to do, I guess. It still doesn’t feel like it’s over.”
Riku exhaled. That was a familiar feeling, too. He knew now more than ever how much of a blessing it was to have Sora by his side, to see him conscious and smiling and moving, no longer trapped in a cocoon- unreachable, untouchable. With the Organization defeated, the heartless and nobody invasions stopped, and Riku back in his own body, everything felt all the more like a pleasant dream.
He should’ve been happy, but he wasn’t. He felt too distant from it all.
“Seems like you need to relax,” Riku said, instead of thinking more about all that. It was the best advice he could manage without raising questions about amnesia-inducing castles and egg-shaped stasis devices.
“Like you’d know anything about that.” Sora said, cracking an eye open with a smile. Riku couldn’t help the bashful look on his face, or the red creeping onto his cheeks.
They hadn’t properly talked about what Riku had done during that year Sora had slept through. Sora knew that Riku had been watching and helping, and he was undoubtedly curious- he had made moves to ask, a couple of times, but Riku didn’t really want to talk about it. It was embarrassing.
Sora had guessed most of it so quickly in that succinct way of his, where he cut through all of Riku’s defenses like they were nothing, like he couldn’t even tell there was anything in his way. Why did you try to do so much on your own?
It was different for them two. Sora deserved to relax. He’d done nothing but help in all this time, keeping the worlds safe. Riku, however, had to atone, and atoning was hard work.
A hand waved in front of his face. On carefully honed instinct, Riku jerked backwards.
“See?” Sora crowed at his panicked movement. “You still can’t relax!”
He leapt up onto the paopu branch, seated by Riku’s side. The proximity sent Riku’s heart beating into overdrive. Their thighs were close enough to brush.
“I’m not the one with sleeping problems,” Riku grumbled. It was a lie. He did have sleeping problems. He just couldn’t burden Sora with them.
“You’re still doing everything by yourself up there.” Sora reached over, slapping his hand onto Riku’s head. It was a clumsy gesture, but Riku found it difficult to mind, even as he made a noise of protest and pushed Sora’s arm away.
His words were poignant as ever. It was like he could read Riku’s mind.
“Aren’t you supposed to be tired?” Riku asked, a little jab to get back at Sora. Sora crumpled at the reminder, shoulders hiking up.
“I am, Riku, I am! I’m exhausted! My eyes hurt.”
That didn’t help much. It just sent worry tumbling through Riku’s chest, twisting and clenching at him.
“Sora,” he said without thinking, the name falling from his lips too raw and too tender. Sora looked up at him with eyes black-rimmed, yes, but shiny and bright and that perfect shade of blue. They really were close like this, sitting side-by-side. Riku wanted nothing more than to continue his mission, his life’s work, wrapping his arms around Sora and shielding him from the shining sun overhead, protecting him from exhaustion and loneliness and every threat that might come his way.
Riku couldn’t do it. He flinched back as soon as he realized why Sora seemed so close, that he was pushing into Sora’s personal space. Sora trusted him now, for the first time since Riku had opened that stupid door. Riku couldn’t break their friendship now, not when he had spent so much time rebuilding it. Even if he looked like himself now, he remembered the darkness he had harbored in his heart. Sora deserved better.
He'd been silent too long. Sora was opening his mouth, ready to ask what was wrong, and Riku didn’t know if he would have the strength to lie.
“Maybe I’ll tire you out,” Riku said, punching Sora’s shoulder, but gently. “Make sure you actually sleep well tonight.”
With that he left, leaping off the paopu trunk. “First one to the boats wins!”
“Riku! You got a head start! That’s cheating!”
“Less whining, more running!”
“Riku!”
Nighttime on the Destiny Islands was only marginally cooler than daytime, and just as muggy. Riku was back to sleeping without his shirt on, with a window cracked open and begging for cool air. Two years was enough to almost completely override the well-developed instinct not to track sand, so there were loose grains everywhere in Riku’s sheets. He was glad it was too warm to even think about pulling them up.
The moon was full that night, an eerie echo of Kingdom Hearts. Riku couldn’t look up at it, silvery and glowing, without remembering the dread that had seized him when he saw Xemnas opening it, the panic of searching for some way to stop him.
This, however, was just a moon, the very same one Riku had seen every night of his life.
Riku exhaled. He knew what Sora meant. It was hard to settle down enough to sleep after so much had happened. His head was burning with thoughts, questions and worries and plans. His Majesty had already warned them that this wasn’t over, and he would need them back to save the worlds again.
Maybe Riku should’ve been training. He certainly had the time for it, and it’d feel better than sitting around. His and Sora’s race (and impromptu wrestling match to settle the cheating allegations) had managed to quell some of the electricity rocketing around inside of him.
Riku threw an arm over his face, sighing. He had to sleep. He had to remain alert and prepared. He had to be ready.
It was lucky he decided to sleep, because the next thing Riku knew he was under attack.
The thumping noise was soft, yet insistent, and more than enough to jolt Riku back into consciousness. He’d scrambled out of his bed in seconds, heart pounding, summoning his blade to his hand and raising it defensively.
Who could have found him here? Why were they attacking? Were the heartless back on the island? If Riku had somehow doomed them again-
In the midst of his questions, however, the sleep wore off from Riku’s eyes. Now he could properly make out what had tapped at his window- namely, a gangly little teenager with unmistakable messy brown hair, looking most of all like a fish come face-to-face with a scuba diver.
Riku exhaled. He felt like he’d been flattened into a pancake. He let his arm go limp, sword disappearing. “Sora.”
The man himself was frozen in place, hands held up in surrender and eyes wide. Riku sighed. Making Sora afraid was the last thing he wanted to do.
Still. Sora should know better than to sneak up on him like that.
Riku wrenched the rest of the window open with a grunt. It was a little old, and stuck a bit near the top, but he was more than strong enough to wrench it up. Moonlight and sea breeze poured into the room.
“What’s wrong?” Riku asked.
“I should be asking you!” Sora said, still perched on Riku’s windowsill, hovering, unable to enter. “Are you okay?!”
“You startled me.” Riku said, though not bitterly. He could never be angry with Sora.
“Sorry… I couldn’t think of a better way to get in here.” There was genuine remorse in Sora’s eyes. Riku motioned him forwards and into his bedroom. He wasn’t going to kick Sora out.
“Let me guess. Can’t sleep?” Riku asked as Sora clambered in, perching on the windowsill to undo his shoes and toss them into the middle of the room. At least he had the foresight not to step with them onto Riku’s bed. There was already enough sand in it to build a castle.
Sora shook his head, a glib smile appearing on his lips. “Looks like you didn’t tire me out enough.”
“What time is it?”
“Three.”
“Oh, great.” Riku grumbled, though good-naturedly. “So you’re gonna make sure I can’t sleep, either?”
It was irritating, sure, but nowhere near as bad as Riku was putting on. He loved spending time with Sora. He’d missed Sora more than anything. There was nothing that wrong about sitting here with Sora and helping him pass the time. Riku was content to lie and the floor and read with him, or sit and talk. Whatever Sora needed.
Sora had slumped down onto the bed, back pressed against the wall where Riku’s window had let him in.
“I couldn’t take it anymore…” he said. “Just lying there and waiting…”
Riku winced. He knew the feeling. Sleep had been near impossible while Sora was in stasis. His thoughts had been consumed by worry, an ever-present anxiety whispering to him that resting was a waste of time, and he was losing chances to save Sora.
“We can do something else, then.” Riku said, indulgent. “I’ll stay up with you, Sora.”
He let himself reach out, then, and give Sora’s shoulder a squeeze. Sora, for his part, looked up with something like panic in his eyes.
Riku took his arm back hastily. “Or… not?”
“Actually…” Sora laughed a little, clearly nervous. “I was wondering if I could sleep over.”
Riku must have looked particularly blindsided, because Sora clarified immediately.
“Like back when we were kids. Like nothing’s changed.” He said, as though that wasn’t deliriously impossible, as though the very idea didn’t set every part of Riku on fire.
It wasn’t that it didn’t sound good to Riku. Quite the opposite.
Sora didn’t seem to have noticed that in-between the keyblades and heartless and worlds that never were that they had both gone through puberty, and that meant that sleeping side-by-side was no longer as innocent as it once was. They were too old to pretend otherwise.
But, Riku thought with a sigh, Sora didn’t think about things like that. He was almost immune. He’d certainly grown, but not like Riku had- still a few heads below the height Riku had shot up to, with arms and legs like sea-salt popsicle sticks.
Sora’s stature was certainly more endearing than Riku’s bulk. It meant that even if Riku didn’t know Sora, wasn’t accustomed to translating his mannerisms and gently pulling apart what he meant to say, he would know this wasn’t an innuendo of any kind. All Sora wanted was company.
“Why did you come here?” Riku asked, in lieu of answering. “Shouldn’t you have gone to Kairi, or something?”
It was a measly defense, a holdover of jealousy that hadn’t quite entirely dissipated. Sora’s eyes widened like he truly hadn’t considered it.
“It’s different with her.” He said, and Riku understood. He liked Kairi. This was a purely platonic request after all. Sora thought of him completely and utterly as a friend. “I just… feel safe around you, y’know?”
“Sap,” Riku said weakly. He was being too obvious. His admonishment had no bite to it at all. He couldn’t help himself, though. It felt good, knowing Sora could rely on him. It also felt like poison, knowing Sora would forgive and trust someone who had nearly killed him.
He didn’t know what to do or say. A good person would probably turn Sora away, but Riku had done that for so long Sora might genuinely scream if he tried it again. Riku wanted to help him more than anything. If this would help Sora sleep it had to be good, right?
“Is this really what you want, Sora?” Riku asked. He realized he hadn’t put up enough of a fight. He was just tired. He didn’t like seeing Sora in pain. Most of all, he really couldn’t say no to anything Sora asked of him.
Sora nodded, and Riku would just have to accept that.
“Okay,” Riku said, cursing himself, cursing the circumstances, cursing everyone who had done harm to Sora and taken a good night’s sleep from him. “Here’s what we’ll do.”
A pillow wedged between them was a small, pathetic barrier for all it had to hold back, but it was the best Riku could conceivably do. At the very least, it would probably stop them from brushing against one another, and prevent any consequences that might arise from that. Riku couldn’t let Sora know he had feelings for him- not when Sora just needed someone strong and trustworthy by his side. Tonight, Riku would be his sentinel.
“Riku?” A small voice asked on the other side. Riku lifted his head, peering over the obstruction.
Sora looked more content than he ever had in the past couple of days, curled up in the too-small space between Riku’s pillow and his wall. “Thanks.”
“Yeah,” Riku said. “Goodnight, Sora.”
“Night, Riku!”
Riku would have assumed he would be even more awake with Sora so close. It was yet another thing to worry about, something else he needed to conceal and shove down where nobody could see it. Sora’s presence, however, had the opposite effect.
Maybe it was just knowing that he was close, that Riku could reach out and save him if anything were to happen. Maybe it was the intoxication of having him close, of smelling the faint seawater lingering in Sora’s hair from when he had dragged them both into the ocean (which, in wrestling, was definitely cheating), of hearing his shallow, even breaths. Riku couldn’t see him, but he could feel that Sora was near, safe, and alive.
It unfurled a tight ball Riku hadn’t even known was in his chest. The thoughts that ran through his mind, a jumbled train schedule of rushing worries and realizations and theories, all came to a quiet stop.
Next to Sora, Riku quickly fell asleep.
This was the strongest Riku had ever felt.
He towered over everyone he knew effortlessly, and power came rushing to his fingertips at his lightest behest- physical, magical, anything Riku desired. It was just so easy to take what was his. No one could defeat him.
He was cold, but he didn’t shiver. The darkness had embraced him as once of its own. He could hardly be harmed by something he had become, an extension of his very being.
Riku could swat people aside effortlessly, like brushing smoke from his vision. Everything was so clear, suddenly: the dark emotions that had been tearing him apart were correct, but he had no cause to indulge in them any longer. He would simply destroy everyone who had wronged him. He would take his power from the world and leave it barren, even if Riku couldn’t remember why he had wanted power in the first place.
He could remember that the boy flitting around him was Sora, but nothing else about him. He was an irritation, tugging at him, swinging his blade at him, begging for Riku, looking up at him with pathetic, pleading eyes.
And Riku knew him, suddenly, when sky-blue eyes met his, and he remembered years, of sparring and chatting and promises of protection- promises that lay shattered and broken as soon as his arm raised to bat Sora away.
Riku didn’t want to. He fought the urge, fought as his arm swept in a powerful blow, tried to scream as Sora fell hard to the ground. None of it worked. It was like he was watching from afar, but he could feel every bit of it, the sting of Sora’s skin on his palm.
It burned like nothing ever had before. Riku’s vision swam with tears. He couldn’t hurt Sora. Seeing him collapsed on the ground like that was already agony, but knowing that it was his hand which had struck him was the most pain Riku had ever felt.
Riku couldn’t move his body. He could only watch, helpless, and feel the pit in his stomach grow, the cloying feeling of guilt attempting to pry him apart from the inside.
Sora looked up at him with fear in his eyes. Riku was no protector now.
“You’re not Riku,” he said, words quivering and breaking. He scrambled away, backwards, frantic, head shaking.
Riku wanted to protest. He wanted to explain that it was him, and he was sorry, that he would never hurt Sora, to beg for Sora to come back, but his body was frozen in place.
Then it stepped forwards, dragging Riku with it. Sora was terrified.
“Stop! Get away from me!” He held up trembling hands in defense. “You’re a monster!”
Riku wanted to protest. When his hand lifted, however, it wasn’t his- too large, calloused, with skin too tanned. He couldn’t argue, after all. Sora was right, and he was Ansem.
Riku thrashed against his own body, trying to free himself. He kicked and struggled, fighting with every inch of his being, but he couldn’t force the automaton to move. Ansem raised his blade- Riku’s blade- leveling it at Sora’s neck, and Sora just wouldn’t run, staring up with wide eyes, and in the next second all Riku could see was darkness.
“Riku!”
He’d been consumed. It was familiar. It was what he deserved.
“Riku!”
Why was Sora’s voice with him? Had he managed to drag Sora down with him too, this time? Riku really was contaminating him. He was so selfish.
Hands clutched at his shoulder. Everything Riku had been longing to say came tumbling out as he struggled.
“Get back! You’re not safe!” He hoped Sora could hear him.
“Riku-“
“I’m not Riku anymore!” Riku confessed, his head spinning. Sora had to know. He had to defend himself.
“What are you talking about? Of course you’re Riku!”
No, Riku wanted to protest again, of course he wasn’t, but when his eyes adjusted and his head cleared he saw a more familiar hand laid in his lap.
Riku’s mouth felt unbearably dry as his surroundings came back to him. He wasn’t in the darkness. He wasn’t Ansem. He was in his old room, back on the Destiny Islands, and the hand on his shoulder was Sora.
It had all been a nightmare.
Sora’s grip loosened slightly, now that it seemed like Riku was no longer in danger of falling off the bed. Riku’s legs were tangled hopelessly in sheets he had desperately tried to kick off, and his back was damp with sweat, even without a shirt to trap in the heat.
“Riku…?” Sora asked, tentative. He was closer than ever now, with the barrier pillow thrown aside so he could hover near. It certainly hadn’t lasted very long.
“Yeah?” Riku managed to croak. He heard the exhale of breath that meant Sora was relieved.
“Are you okay? You just started talking and kicking out of nowhere!” Sora said, confirming Riku’s fears- that he’d woken Sora up. “Did you have a nightmare?”
Riku nodded. His words were failing him. He couldn’t imagine anything worse than having to describe the nightmare to Sora, than admitting he easily could’ve killed him if he was just a little weaker, just a little less lucky. “I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not.” Sora insisted. “But that’s fine. I’m here.”
He didn’t ask, didn’t pry, even though Riku knew him, and knew he was curious. His arms looped around Riku- without asking, but that was alright, because Riku’s attempts to re-edify boundaries that had never really existed between them were all failing very quickly- and Sora pressed himself against Riku’s back.
“I’ve got your back,” Sora murmured.
It shouldn’t have made Riku feel better. It was, however, proof that Sora was alive and well, and that he still trusted Riku. His breaths came warm against Riku’s back, and the cheek pressed there was soft.
Riku let his eyes drift closed. The king always told him to take deep breaths in times like these.
Through it all, Sora just stayed in place. One of his hands slipped away from Riku’s middle, leaving to rub comforting circles into his back. Riku didn’t deserve him, not after putting him through so much danger.
Maybe that was why everything felt so strange, after all. The island hadn’t changed, but Riku had. Sora had only changed because Riku had forced him to. Riku had failed to protect him.
“Sora?” Riku finally asked. He hoped Sora hadn’t drifted off.
“Mmm?” The voice was sleepy. Riku cursed himself for interrupting Sora’s rest. Sora, however, was unbothered.
“Riku, what is it?”
“Nothing.”
“Riku.”
“Don’t you feel strange, here?” Riku finally asked. “You always want to sit and talk with me on the island… as if it isn’t where I almost killed us all.”
It was all Riku could think about every time he crossed the wooden bridge, remembering the way dark tendrils had swept around him as he offered his hand to Sora. What would have happened if Sora had taken it, if he’d trusted Riku like Riku so desperately wanted him to? He would be ruined. It would be Riku’s fault.
“That doesn’t matter at all.” Sora said with such enviable confidence. “You’ve been working so hard to fix your mistakes, Riku.”
He was so full of faith and forgiveness. It was baffling. “You act like nothing even happened.”
Sora pulled back with a frustrated huff. “I’m acting like you’re good now! That’s what matters. We can’t get hung up on the past.”
“Darkness never leaves completely.” Riku said. His mouth felt numb, like the words were coming from somewhere else. “It’s impossible to get rid of.”
No matter how many times they defeated Ansem, he just kept coming back. Riku had even become him. There was a mark on his soul, a shadow that he couldn’t ever cut through no matter how good he was and how hard he worked.
Sora didn’t argue. He brought his hand to Riku’s back, however, and started his comforting strokes yet again. Riku’s exhale was shuddering, almost as loud as the shaky hum of the air-conditioning unit in the other corner of the room.
When Riku looked up again, Sora was watching him closely with concern clear in his eyes. There was something about him that made Riku want to lay his very soul bare. It was so hard to keep things from him, even if it made Riku feel ashamed enough to stare down at his crumpled sheets.
“I feel weird sometimes.” Riku said. “Like this isn’t really me.”
He held up a hand to demonstrate. It was his, and not Ansem’s, and that was strange. Riku’s own body felt like a memory.
“Riku!” Sora said, admonishing. “Of course it’s you! This will always be you.”
The words echoed in a familiar way. Sora had offered unyielding support for Riku, even when Riku wanted nothing more than to disappear. He’d hated the thought of Sora seeing him so low, but Sora didn’t seem to care.
“Riku, look at me.”
Riku couldn’t force himself to ignore the order. He turned his face, coming to look at Sora. He’d only ever seen that determined expression before battles.
“I don’t know everything you’ve gone through.” Sora said. “But I do know who you are, Riku. I know you’re a good person, and you’re strong, and I couldn’t do anything without you. We defeated Xemnas together.”
“Sora…” Riku said. He couldn’t deny what Sora was saying, even if it didn’t fully quell the anxieties knocking at his chest. But still, if Sora saw something in him, something whole… maybe that was enough.
“I like this Riku,” Sora confirmed, strong with certainty. "I like who you are, and I trust you."
Riku didn’t have it in him to argue anymore. Sora had pronounced his judgement. That was that.
When Sora leaned back, he tugged Riku with him, until they both hit the pillows. Riku copied Sora’s position, laying on his back, eyes cast up at the ceiling.
“Oh.” Sora said. “Should I get the great wall back?”
Riku was hopelessly weak. “It’s fine.”
“Did you see the real great wall?” Sora asked, obscured in a yawn. “Mulan took me there once.”
“Not yet.” All Riku remembered of China was panicking, because Sora had seen him, and his cover was definitely blown.
“We should go then, one day.” Sora said definitively. “Just the two of us. I keep seeing places in all these worlds and thinking that you’d really like them. Next time we go on an adventure, we should go together.”
It made Riku’s heart twist. “Yeah. I’d like that.”
“I kept asking everyone if they’d seen you, you know. I’m sure they all want to meet you, now. They should see why I wanted to find you so bad.”
Riku pinched the bridge of his nose. “Sora… you incurable sap.”
Sora sounded scandalized. “You didn’t say that back when we were ten, and I convinced every kid on the island that you were the coolest!”
“Goodnight, Sora.”
“You only act embarrassed when I brag about you now. I know better.”
“Good night.”
The rest of Riku’s sleep was far more peaceful. It was the best he’d slept in over a year; with no nightmares, no jolts like he was falling, no random periods of waking in the dull times where the sun was thinking about rising. It was probably too much to hope that it had nothing to do with Sora, whose gentle breathing Riku had matched his to, whose soft warmth had driven the darkness away, and whose very presence reminded Riku that he was good and himself.
Riku was doomed.