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Never had Riku given himself to one person so completely as he had Xion. She'd become his daily routine, his favorite song, a poem whose words he knew by heart. Her pages were worn where his thumb had caressed them, memorizing both sides completely before he succumbed to sleep at night. If ever there were a word for such feelings as those he had come to feel for her, it was surely the one he'd feared his whole life through: Love.
To him, love was the same wave that had pulled him into the darkness, pulled him down so far that even thrashing his limbs wildly couldn't carry him out of the riptide to shore. Love was the one weakness he could never unbind himself from. Sora had been his first love, that infectious smile teaching him to do the same, no matter what; best friends kill lovers, though, so Riku had come to understand.
This love, though, was soldered to his very soul, each gentle kiss in the dark binding them together.
He ran a hand through her mussed hair, splayed across the pillow in such a beautiful mess that his lips could not resist demanding to grace her forehead with a kiss, just one.
Just one more.
Just her neck.
Just the silken skin of her bare shoulder, sweetened by the moonlight splashing in through slatted blinds.
Just that palm of her hand, one last kiss.
Once he begun, he could not find the will to stop; it had taken him so long to finally have her here, with him, completely. For once in his life, Riku had discovered what it was to need someone so much that it caused him pain.
That same pain now radiated from the center of his chest, the very ache urging him to wake her, just to hear her strained, tired voice once more before sleep.
"Xion," he whispered, kissing each eyelid, her nose, before taking her lips in such an embrace that her eyes slowly fluttered open.
"RiRi," she pulled the sheet up around her, groaning.
"Silly Girl," his gaze held nothing but the raw emotions he only allowed himself to experience in the dark of night, "tell me you love me."
His eyes followed her hands as she reached out for him, a slender hand resting upon his forearm. The muscles there tightened slightly at her touch, as though there were something inexplicably electric coursing from the very palm he had touched with his lips only moments before, as if her consciousness had somehow caused a spark to light a fire within him.
"Riri, you know I do."
A moment was all it took for him to regain control of his mouth, to speak, "I know but.I just want to hear it..... I......I need to hear it, then you can go back to sleep, I promise."
Ocean eyes gently fluttered shut as she whispered, "I love you, Riku. I promise."
Strong arms gathered her closer to his chest as he drank deeply of the scent of her hair, all jasmine and the gentle bite of saltwater; that smell was all it took to lull him to the cusp of falling into a slumber.
"Silly Girl, never let me go."
A small hand slid up to his face, "RiRi, I couldn't if I tried."
In a tangle of bed sheets and tangled hair, there, they fell not only asleep, but into a love even deeper than they had before.
It was an ocean, one whose rough and trying waters they would learn to navigate together.