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"Okay, seriously Riku, what is going on?"
Riku starts, realizing he'd just been blankly staring into their little campfire. He blinks as he locates Sora beside him, trying to dispel the spots in his vision. "What do you mean?"
Sora's brow is furrowed, but he looks more concerned than anything.
"You!" He says. "Why are you acting so…" He makes a frustrated waving gesture when he can't find the words.
Riku just blinks again. "So…?"
"So … I dunno! Weird."
"Weird?"
"Yeah! You're like … intense and pushy and trying to get a rise out of me. Like how you used to do when we were kids."
Riku flinches. He turns his eyes away from Sora again. I wasn't exactly being subtle, he thinks. Still, Sora identifying it so easily makes him feel vulnerable. Exposed.
"Oh ... uh. Sorry. Is it bothering you? If it is, I'll stop."
In his periphery, he sees Sora's trademark exaggerated hand movements as he attempts to back peddle. "What? Oh, no! No. It's not bothering me. It's just weird since you don't act like that anymore."
Riku glances back at him to see Sora studying him, pensive.
"I just kind of figured you'd wanted to pretend that the old you never happened," he says.
Riku doesn't have much to say to that.
He simply says, "I did."
There's no follow-up. No "what changed" or demand for him to elaborate on his admittedly cryptic answer. Instead, Sora, ever the people pleaser, interlaces his hands behind his head in his go-to breezy, non-committal gesture.
Riku's never told him that he can always tell when it's forced. He figures Sora probably already knows.
"Ah man, I killed the mood, didn't I? Haha, sorry." He looks at the fire, his eyes moving as he searches himself for words. "…Honestly, it's actually been kind of fun seeing you like this again."
And there it is: confirmation.
Just like Kairi.
Riku smiles, only a little ruefully. "Yeah? Really?"
"Yeah." Sora takes down his hands, and uses the change in posture to scoot ever-so-slightly in Riku's direction. Closing the distance.
"You seem lighter, like you're not carrying the weight of every world you've ever fought for on your shoulders. Like maybe you finally figured out that you're allowed to be happy."
He turns his head, making sure Riku will meet his gaze before he speaks next. "Cuz you are, you know. You're allowed to be happy, Riku."
Riku smiles. He's grown past shrugging it away, but he's still not quite ready to acknowledge a statement so sincere.
"You'd say that for everyone."
Sora shrugs. "Well, yeah, maybe? But that's because I believe it! Just because it applies to everyone, that doesn't make it mean less when I say it to you." He scoots a little closer. "Especially when you need to hear it."
He's so good, Riku thinks. Not for the first time, and probably not the last.
This is why he's been so careful. This is why he's held himself in check, learned to adopt the calm mask as his face. Riku doesn't see Sora as glass, like Kairi thinks. What he sees is a good man, flesh and soul both bearing scars Riku has put there.
And who hurts someone this good on purpose?
"I know," Riku says after a while. He hopes, if nothing else, that all he's done since to help Sora heal will allow those scars to fade. To become just another part of Sora's inviting landscape.
"Thank you, Sora. It means a lot, knowing that the person who has seen every bad thing I've ever done thinks I'm still worth saving."
At that, Sora quite deliberately stands and plops down loudly, close enough that he can rest his hand on Riku's shoulder.
"You'll never be not worth it, Riku." So embarrassingly sincere, and not a drop of irony in those blue eyes.
Sora drops his hand from Riku's shoulder, but makes the motion to put his knuckles at brushing distance to Riku's. "And I'll never stop saving you if you need me. That's what we do, isn't it? We save each other."
Riku smiles, and Sora smiles back, satisfied to let Riku look away again. Riku feels Kairi's words, knows there were too many looks, too many touches to misinterpret. And yet …
It feels dirty to twist Sora's words to fit the narrative he wants. How was he supposed to look at that man, boyish even now, so pure and full of light, and even suggest that his actions have other motives?
Sora lets out an obnoxious breath of sound, clearly asking for attention.
"Though I always thought you showed off so hard to impress Kairi back then," he says, voice casual. Too casual.
"So I guess that shows how much I know. Ha!"
Riku gives Sora his undivided attention then. He looks at Sora's posture, the calm lounge belied by subtly tensed muscles like he's prepared to do something if he has to. Like run. Or fight.
He looks at the gently smiling profile, eyes a little too alert, face a little too pink to purely be the work of the heat of the fire.
He looks down at the hand so close to his. It's a little too stiff to be a hand at rest. More like it's a hand mid-movement, paused in the act of either reaching out or pulling back.
Oh.
Oh.
Riku tries to think quickly, tries to ignore the overpowering sound of blood rushing through his ears. He has to respond, but with what? He's not Sora. He can't just say it. He's trying to lower his walls, but it's taking time, and the masonry is old and weather-hardened.
He leans toward Sora, and Sora's calm is slipping. He lifts the hand that isn't achingly close to Sora's and playfully pushes a finger into Sora's chest. His tone is mock offense, and it's one Sora should recognize, so long as Sora's own nerves don't get in his way.
"I'm sorry, I must not have heard right. Are you implying that I tried that hard to impress you? "
Sora's caught off-guard. "U-uh, well …"
Riku sees the moment where Sora looks to him for a cue. He intentionally lets the mask slip and smirks, as if he just can't keep the charade going.
When Sora catches it, he scrambles for a second as he realizes he's been given an opening. "Heheh, I-I mean, what else am I supposed to think?"
He lifts a hand to his mouth, conspicuously also not using the hand that Riku's now seeing as a lowered drawbridge. An invitation waiting for a response.
Sora does a silly little pantomime, swaying and waving his raised hand, like a lovesick school girl. "After watching you today, kinda seems like a lot of times back then you were just screaming, 'Sooora! Notice me, Sora!'"
Sora laughs, looking away, and Riku can sense the drawbridge raising again. This was it. If he had ever had any intention of letting his heart be seen today, it'd better damn well be in response to Sora very pointedly doing the same.
You're always lighting my way.
Riku covers Sora's hand with his own, deliberately tightening his grip. He's staring at their joined hands, so he feels more than sees when Sora stills and turns to look where Riku's eyes are stubbornly fixed.
"And?" He says. He can't look at Sora's eyes. Not yet. Despite all the evidence, despite Kairi's assurance, it was taking more than he'd expected to finally open the one door he had so carefully kept closed for most of his life. Because there was no going back once it was open. And on the other side, there was either paradise or ruin.
Be brave, Oceanheart.
"Huh?" Sora's voice is bright, fragile, like he doesn't have his footing anymore.
Sora's a good swimmer.
"Did it work?" Riku asks, raising his head, locking green eyes to blue. "Did you notice me?"
For a moment, Riku can't process whatever expressions are migrating their way across Sora's face. He's too focused on Sora's eyes, the firelight dancing in its reflection. So blue, like the depths of the ocean Kairi believes Sora will follow him into.
And then Sora relaxes, truly relaxes, and the transformation is so stark Riku can't believe he's ever called Sora a bad liar. Sora's shoulders slump in relief, the weight sliding away. He closes his eyes and exhales this small, tired laugh, like he's been running for ages and has finally reached his destination.
Maybe he has.
He looks sideways at Riku. Open, willing to answer, but still bashful.
"I mean, it's kind of obvious, isn't it?"
It strikes Riku that thinking this moment doesn't feel real is a huge cliché. He tries to center himself, to map the moment in his memory. He wants to remember the way the ground feels beneath him. The chill in the air that the fire is keeping at bay, the smell of salt and smoke. The heat radiating from him holding the hand of the man he loves. Especially that.
Riku interlocks Sora's fingers with his. He lifts their joined hands and comes to sit properly next to Sora, pretense of space abandoned. Sora doesn't flinch away or lean in. He doesn't make a sound.
Riku settles their hands at the place where the edges of their thighs touch. Sora's leg and arm erupt in a wave of goosebumps.
Riku allows himself to smile and looks at Sora, trying to say in his gaze everything that he won't say out loud. It's okay. You're okay. You might not know what a gift you've just given me, but I do. And I'll make sure you never regret it.
Sorry I took so long.
What Riku does say out loud is: "Maybe. Maybe not. Didn't you just say I have a history of not letting myself believe some things?"
"Okay, okay." Sora inhales deeply, and the exhale's clearly a little shakier than he'd prefer.
"...Yeah, I noticed. I always noticed. Maybe I didn't realize how, or what it meant yet, but I did." He smiles wryly, scratching at the back of his neck with his free hand. "Heh, sometimes I'm a bit slow on the uptake."
The reality is starting to sink in, and Riku's body is buzzing with happy, nervous energy. He wants to run away, or maybe to engulf Sora into an embrace so crushing that neither of them can breathe.
He does neither. He just chuckles, affectionately squeezing Sora's hand before experimentally letting go and putting that hand on Sora's leg. The skin there twitches but Sora makes no move to adjust.
"That's okay," Riku says. "Just means we match."
Sora grins. "Sometimes Kairi calls us the dummy twins."
At the mention of the name, the electricity between them noticeably ebbs, and it takes everything Riku has not to panic.
Please, not yet. She wants this for you. I may not get to have you forever, but I'll take whatever she lets me have.
It's a torturously long time before Sora speaks again. His voice is quiet, sad. Riku is willing himself not to assume, not to brace for pain.
"… Kairi … I still don't fully get what she's thinking. Or, well, no, maybe I do now. But I don't know if she's thinking about how this will work, or what happens if it doesn't. And you're the two people most special to me, Riku. I don't know what I'd do if trying for more meant losing one of you. But I want to try, and that makes me feel selfish and greedy and I – "
Riku kisses him, hoping that if the words are interrupted, the fear will be too. He wants only hope here tonight. Only possibilities.
It's a simple press of soft skin to soft skin, positioning just slightly off, Riku acutely aware of the fact that, for all of his hours of fantasies, Sora is the one with actual experience here.
Riku tilts his head slightly, opens his lips to reposition, right as Sora lifts his chin just so. Suddenly, there is a distinct sensation of reality slotting into place – a bright, deafening confirmation – and now Riku's nerves are resonating like a struck gong. The kiss breaks, and Riku searches for Sora's eyes. Sora's expression betrays little at first, but then Riku sees that Sora's eyes are fraught . There is a pause, no longer than a sleeping heartbeat, and then Sora's making a strained, desperate little noise. He cups Riku's face in his hands and they're kissing again. Riku's left hand cradles the back of Sora's head as his right spreads against the small of Sora's back. Technique has been replaced by instinct and meaning.
Riku's lowering Sora onto his back, but the movement isn't conscious, because his senses are currently overwhelmed with Sora, all around him. His head is a void, endlessly echoing phrases like "obviously him" and "always him". Some deep, lucid part of Riku realizes that the only way he could have possibly imagined living without this is because this is a paradigm shift, and Riku had simply existed in before . After is all there is now.
Their mouths move together, tongues brushing in dance, breaking occasionally for beats of nibbling and gasping for air. Eventually, energy returns to matter, and they slow before gently relenting as Riku lifts his head away. Sora's beautifully disheveled, his haunting blue eyes glassy and dull until Riku comes into focus. He looks at Riku, and his mouth breaks into a small, crooked smile.
"Woah," he says.
Thank you, Kairi.
Riku laughs, heart unbearably full. "Agreed."
Sora nibbles his reddening bottom lip. "I was talking about … something?"
"You were worrying about the future," Riku says, and plants a kiss briefly against Sora's lips, as lingering might lead to too much.
"Don't. One step at a time, yeah?"
"Y…yeah."
Sora tilts his head, scrutinizing Riku's face, and he's so adorable. Riku expects the familiar rush of protectiveness. What he does not expect is a primal, reptilian response, whispering to him that what he has below him is a prey animal.
And Riku is a predator.
Riku's eyes drag down Sora's body and his awareness zooms in on the feeling of hot, hard length pressing against him. He swallows, wryly wondering why making contact with something pure always makes him go twisted.
He settles for playfulness, because it's safe, and this thing is new and precious and he needs to keep it safe. He smiles a familiar smile, one that Sora immediately recognizes with slight alarm.
"Besides, you talk like I've already committed to you for life. Bit full of yourself, aren't you?"
As if it wasn't obvious to everyone that Riku had done just that, a long, long time ago.
Sora blinks, then snorts as his face scrunches, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes. "God, okay, no. You can't just tease me when I'm in the middle of pouring my heart out like that."
Don't, Riku says to the thought moving from his brain to his arm. It might be too far.
But of the many unfortunate realizations Riku's had in the past 36 hours, perhaps the most unfortunate is that a lot of their friendship is predicated on Riku pushing Sora too far.
Too far is kind of the point.
With a precision Riku isn't sure if he should be proud or ashamed of, he presses the tips of his fingers against Sora's erection, pushing them up his length just once. Sora makes a sound like something inside him is being twisted until it cracks.
"So this is from you pouring your heart out, hmm? Nothing else?"
Sora's staring at him, and his expression telegraphs to Riku that, if he weren't currently pinned, he would bolt.
But Riku isn't the boy from years ago who kept poking things until they bruised. He's been humbled. And if he's going to reclaim parts of his past, then he's going to wield them with the control he's so painfully won.
His smile quirks, but his eyes change, and he knows no one reads him better than Sora. Sora will see when the look of "you're a target" melts away and is replaced with "you're safe" and "you're cherished".
"That's disappointing. I'll have to try harder."
Sora's bewildered, but only briefly. He studies Riku, seemingly searching for the intent to hurt. When he doesn't find it, he makes a face that is new to Riku.
An eye less trained than Riku's might not see the way Sora's pupils dilate, or the new shade his blush takes. But no one would be able to miss the small, sharp smile that Riku can't help thinking belongs on his face, not Sora's.
The message is clear: Sora likes this exchange. He likes it quite a bit, in fact.
Oh no, Riku thinks. I should not have learned that. Me knowing that is dangerous.
"Don't even joke," Sora says, a bit breathlessly. "I've never kissed like that. Pretty sure I'm the hardest I've ever been in my entire life."
Now it's Riku's turn to be bewildered, because he's known the man below him for as long as he can remember, and he's never heard him say anything so blunt, so embarrassing.
So lewd.
Dangerous.
Riku leans down, heart fluttering like a bird taking flight. This exchange needs to end, fast, because it's been nothing less than perfect, and Riku still doesn't trust himself to not ruin it. Not yet.
He locks eyes with Sora, his face too close to be meaningless, too far for them to pick up where they left off.
"You sure you can keep up with me, Hero?" It's nonsense, but it's a challenge, and he knows it's the oldest language of love the two of them speak. He also knows it's something Sora can't resist.
Sora's eyes light with heat. Not from their campfire, but from his own never-ending personal reserves. Riku's eyes sweep over the scene, desperately cataloging everything. No matter what the future holds, he knows that this Sora, in this moment, is his and his alone.
Sora's brow furrows, but his lips curve upward, and Riku drinks in the white flash of teeth when Sora responds.
"Hell yeah."
"Good," Riku says. "Cuz you'll have to catch me first."
And before Sora even has time to absorb what he said, Riku stands, grabs the bucket of water he'd put there hours before, and flings it with purpose at the fire.
With the scene suddenly plunged into darkness, Riku drops the bucket and launches himself to the sand below, habit telling him where to go as his eyes still adjust.
Behind and above him, he hears a wild "Wha- Hey!!" and scrambling as Sora gets to his feet. Riku takes off, laughing like he's 15 years younger, no destination in mind. He's just a boy running nowhere, begging to be chased, vaguely terrified of how happy he'll be when he's found.