Author's Notes: AU. Warnings for language, drug use, and suggested sex. Mature. Cloud/Riku, brief Leon/Sora and Kairi/random girls. It's set at a college university on Destiny Islands. Through a small scope. Forgive my fumbling. This is the most self-indulgent piece of shit. Hope you enjoy anyway. Thank you for reading.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

Hey Girl, Is He Everything You Wanted In Me

One

Riku glances down at the white line of cocaine in front of him. There's a dollar bill rolled up into a thin column next to it. He hasn't used the glass coffee table since he bought it – stuffed it into a back room of his apartment that's shaped like an overly large closet with no beam to hold clothes, but a door that locks from the outside. He wonders if he should have locked himself in.

There's hardly enough room for him and the table. He had to stack three cushions from his couch to sit on because he couldn't fit a chair. He wanted the right height for the table, and made two trips to the couch after testing out two cushions and realizing they weren't tall enough.

Across the glass table, he leans closer to smell the cocaine. All he catches is the faint scent of gasoline, like he'd just filled up his tank but drove off with the cap open, gasoline sloshing all over inside and splattering out if he makes a sharp stop at a red light.

Riku picks up the dollar bill. He aligns it with his nose, bends down, and inhales the line. First, his hands begin to feel numb, and then his vision sharpens, dilating, expanding his pupils into something whole, becoming focused on the way the colors slur out from their objects. He can't see anything in the dark closet. The overhead fan has two blubs attached and the left one's been smashed. The light touches on the tops of everything. It illuminates the back of the walls, the three storage boxes he has in the corner adjacent from the door, the short bookshelf across from him, empty except for a collection of dust on the top row – but it never sinks in; he can't make out anything past that, the tops, just a magnified darkness.

Riku imagines he can. The yellow light is crisp. The exact lines of the shelf stand out at sharp angles.

He stands up and reaches to pull the chain chord hanging from the fan. The light switches off.

An hour later, Riku lays face down on his kitchen floor. The large pieces of brown tile blink back at him, too close to do much except for stare. He watches them. He thinks he can see their pores – the way the color separates into grains, the individual pigments collecting to form one, long brush stroke.

He can feel his pulse thudding at quick intervals against his ribcage, pace too fast for him to count to, to measure in any concrete way. The noise sends shock-waves through his ears. Riku tells the tiles, "This is disappointing."

When he rolls over to face the ceiling, his mouth arches into a frown. His pulse is now centered somewhere between his bellybutton and the back of his spinal cord, at the end, by his lower back. The tiles haven't said anything, so Riku tells the ceiling, "You guys suck."

The ceiling doesn't say anything, either.

Riku wakes up with his fist stuffed all the way into his mouth on his couch without the three cushions. His knuckles rub raw against the roof of his mouth, wet with his teeth, from sinking in all night. The back of his throat's dry. He tries to cough around his fist before he pulls it out, but it catches at his lungs, the oxygen stuck, and he ends up spitting. When his hand's out, there are red marks itched into the veins behind his knuckles, tiny indents of his teeth. He stretches his hand out, flattening his palm, lengthening his fingers as he spreads them apart. Saliva drips down to his wrist.

He wipes his hand on his shirt, pushing his palm against his stomach, before blinking at the ceiling. The sun's coming through the window behind him. Riku can feel the heat against his back.

He rolls over, his t-shirt sticking with hot sweat to his chest, tangling around his middle. He shifts his face into the pocket between the arm rest and back cushion, pushing his face as far into the corner as it will go, and closes his eyes again.

Riku makes it to class an hour after it starts. When he'd woken up again, he fumbled for the clock on his iPhone shoved under the mattress in his bedroom. He'd cleared the screen on his iPhone, said, "Fuck," when he realized he had twenty minutes to get to campus, threw his iPhone at the wall in his living room, was unable to hear the crack as it fell several inches short from the wall, skidding over in its plastic cover across his hard wood floor, and went to his bathroom to start a shower. The hot water did nothing to wake Riku up, his eyelids clinging together, refusing to open fully, and when he switched it to cold, it wasn't any better. He'd changed his shirt and applied Degree to his underarms. He had to double back to his front door after realizing he was touching his Jeep's pedals with bare feet, his toes curling around the brake, and locked his front door for the last time with two pairs of sandals, mismatched, in both hands.

He'd spent a handful of time in the bathroom on campus upstairs from his classroom brushing his bangs out with his fingers.

His hair is still wet. He glances at the room number, B56, and puts his hands up to push both doors of the lecture hall open.

When the lecture ends, he falters through the lecture hall's double doors, snagging his shirt on the handle before pulling it hard until it comes loose. The handle tears the bottom of his shirt into a hole large enough for him to fit his pinky finger through. He looks at it, mouth flat lining, wondering if he has the same shirt in another color at his apartment.

It's bright outside the lecture hall. The sun's set in the corner of the sky so that it hits Riku directly between the eyes, at the center of his forehead, while he walks south from the building towards the parking lot. He squints and digs around in the smaller compartment of his backpack for his car keys. He'd left his iPhone at home on his living room floor. He had kicked it once and heard it smack into the wall, half of a satisfied smile lurking around his mouth, when he'd headed out of his apartment for the second time.

He has to stop mid-way to the parking lot in-between a row of tall palm trees and the Business building that was remodeled last month to look like a corporate skyscraper, built with thick sheets of mirrored glass, because he can't find his keys. He pulls his backpack up to his face, peering inside, shoving his pens, Orbit gum, stack of rubber-banded index cards, and Bic lighter around. He looks for the clink of his keys and the green peace sign key-chain he has attached. He can't find it anywhere, so he squats down into a crouch, his right knee coming down to hit the cement, and turns his backpack upside down until he's dumped everything out.

Riku finds his keys hooked around a pencil and loose pink eraser underneath the Orbit gum.

As he pulls it out, extracting it in a slow, careful motion, he hears Sora call from his left, shouting, "Riku! Hey, wait up."

Riku doesn't glance up, but he does tell his key-chain, "Fuck off. You can't be serious with this shit." His cheeks feel warmed and his voice comes out hoarse. It itches the base of his throat as he pronounces each syllable. He stares at the key-chain like it'll have his answer. When it doesn't, he shoves his keys into his front pocket, grabs his stuff in handfuls and pushes it back into the small compartment.

He's bending to stand up when Sora catches up to him. Sora breathes out deeply after short inhales, like he'd jogged because he was worried Riku would leave before Sora made it over. Riku wonders how loud Sora had to yell if he was that far away.

Sora's dressed in a pull-over gray sweatshirt with the strings tied together in a bow and jeans. He smiles when Riku looks at him, and says, "Jesus, you look like you didn't sleep a wink last night." He still smiles while he speaks, and Riku finds his mouth forming a sneer, rolling his eyes, in return. He says, "Tell me something I don't know."

Sora laughs like he's startled into it, unsure if he shouldn't, and shrugs his shoulder to hitch his backpack up higher. "Well," He doesn't frown. " I figured you'd want to know."

Riku watches Sora until Sora shifts, squirming with the ends of his sleeves, pulling them out over his fingers, fidgeting, and finally says, "Wanna grab a bite?" He commits to the smile once more, but his lips are closed over his teeth.

Riku says, "Actually I was heading out." He tries not to look when Sora bites his bottom lip, nodding like he understands even though Riku knows he doesn't.

Riku convinces himself to reach out and squeeze half of Sora's shoulder into his palm. He says, "I owe you one, okay? Text me sometime."

In his apartment, Riku lays on his bedroom floor, holding his iPhone an inch from his face, and breathes out loud enough that it shocks his lungs for a moment before they exhale into submission. He scrolls through his contact list, his thumb playing with the touch screen, before tapping "Reno," and composing a text message. He types, "I want my money back. That shit you gave me was a waste."

He watches the text message send, and lays the iPhone on his chest. He folds his arms behind him into a pillow. He knows Reno won't reply.

His bedroom walls are off-white and bare. He has one poster of Destiny Island's landscape, a bright shot of the beach. The poster curls over at the top left where the tape has come loose from the adhesive wearing dry. It sits across the room from his bed in the corner. He has a set of faded green sheets that he bought from Goodwill with a crumpled ten dollar bill. The fitted sheet is meant for a queen and too big for his twin mattress. It's baggy all the way across his mattress, but it never comes off, too much material tucked too far underneath. His top sheet's a twin, though. It's usually under the box spring when he wakes up, half-tangled around one foot. He'll lean over to tug it out and toss it over his torso, hugging his pillow over his head, falling back into his dream before he realizes he woke up.

There's one sliding closet next to his poster where he keeps his clothes organized in neat piles of long-sleeves, t-shirts, jeans, pajamas, boxer-briefs, and paired socks on the blue carpet floor. It started taking too long to get his dresser moved in; he already had placed his clothes in the closet by the time he could afford a weekend off to get the dresser moved. He figured it was easier to leave it with his parents anyway, with the majority of his clothes, at home.

Now, Riku sighs at his ceiling. He pulls his phone back up to his face, separating his lips from his teeth, and opens a new text message. He types, "Can you come over," doesn't bother with hitting the symbol button to make a question mark, and enters "Cloud" in the address field. His thumb hesitates over the send button. He watches it shaking minutely – he's only able to see it if he squints. His thumb presses send.

He sets the phone on the carpet beside him, keeps watching the ceiling, and wonders if he has any cocaine left.

His phone vibrates before he can get up to go look for the answer. Cloud's texted back to say, "In class. Out at four."

Riku raises his eyebrow, reading the text twice, before he types, "Come then," and presses send all in one motion.

He has a cigarette on the patio attached off the side of his living room that stretches out over a parking lot with fresh gravel and looks across from another brick apartment building. It's not a view, but he thinks it's better than looking at the inside of his house.

He has to spark his Bic lighter twice before the fluid takes and a flame catches. He presses the flame up against the end of his Parliament Light, and inhales. He keeps one pack of cigarettes stored in his short desk, adjacent from his bed in his room, tucked in a black drawer underneath the desk's surface. The drawer swings out fast enough to fall out if you pull hard. His seventeen-inch Hewlett-Packard laptop sits on top of the desk. It's too thick and too wide to carry around the house with ease or bring to class, but it's the reason he didn't put a television in his living room. He keeps his other pack of cigarettes in his Jeep, crammed underneath the driver's seat with empty fast-food burger wrappers and Starbucks coffee cup lids. There's a back-up orange Bic lighter in the cup holder of the passenger door on the driver's side.

He pulls the cigarette up to his mouth, inhales again, and blows out a stream of smoke. The nicotine isn't satisfying, but it feels better than the oxygen.

Riku stands at his kitchen stove with bare feet and his jeans rolled up three times into a cuff that cuts off under his calves. The tile's cold against the soles of his feet, so he rocks forwards onto the balls of his feet and backwards onto his heels continuously. He has an open-faced grilled cheese sandwich and butter melting in a medium sized pan that has most of the Teflon scrapped off, long rust streaks running down the pan like veins, on top of the stove.

When the sandwich's finished, he eats it in Bounty paper towel over his wide, white sink. His mouth still tastes like smoke, curling around his tongue, heavy in his gums, and caving down as his teeth bite. The texture of the bread feels light, hardly an impact, and by the time he swallows, he can't remember what it felt like.

He eats less than half of the sandwich before tossing it until his trashcan.

Later, there's a knock on his apartment door. Riku rubs his fingers through his hair, pulls at his shirt, and walks to the door. When he opens it, Cloud's standing there in jeans and a black v-neck, mouth working around a frown, flip phone grasped between two of his fingers and his other hand pulled up into a small wave. He says, "I tried to call, but you didn't pick up." He talks like he has to think about it, slow, half a question stuck somewhere in the middle of each word. His eyebrows begin to furrow together towards the center of his forehead.

Riku says, "I left my phone in the other room." He reaches out and circles Cloud's wrist between his fingers. "Come on, you're late."

Cloud stumbles forward with Riku's insistence, but keeps almost laughing, saying, "Hey, wait, what are you doing," like he's not sure if it's supposed to be funny, all the way until Riku's pulled him inside, hand still around Cloud's wrist, and shut the door behind them. Riku doesn't let go of Cloud while he turns the lock on his door.

Cloud stares at Riku for a moment, lips shut around a silent huff, before he tugs lightly with his wrist. Riku looks at his hand and forces his fingers to become slack, a dead weight. Cloud pulls his wrist away in an easy slide; he turns to walk further into the living room, setting his backpack down in-between two steps. It makes a loud noise as it hits the hard wood floor. Riku watches Cloud walk to the couch, where he stops and looks at it. Cloud glances at Riku, confusion heavy in the creases around his eyes and mouth, as he says, "What happened to your cushions?"

Riku shrugs, "Long story." He shrugs again when Cloud keeps looking at him like he'll come up with another answer, and doesn't hesitate to take three long steps up to Cloud, near enough to grab his shoulders with his palms, and pull his face closer. Riku presses his mouth to Cloud's. He kisses Cloud until Cloud starts to respond, bringing his hands to cup behind Riku's head, fingers smoothing across his hair, titling his mouth for a better angle, so that their lips can slide against each other. Riku opens his mouth, pressing harder, more fully to Cloud's, and tightens his fingers on Cloud's shoulder. He feels Cloud's shirt scrunch beneath his fingernails, the fabric bundling into his hand, and he tugs at it, tugs until Cloud's even closer, until Cloud's hands respond to slide from Riku's head down his spine, pressing flat against his back, and circle to the sides of his hips where they squeeze.

Cloud turns his face to the side, breath coming out as a sharp exhale, and Riku reaches up to kiss him again, tugging once more at his shoulders. But Cloud tightens his hands on Riku's hips to hold him in place, saying, "Hang on, just, wait a minute." Cloud pulls his head back to look at Riku.

Riku can feel the weight of Cloud's gaze, heavy against his cheeks, which are warmed, against his eyes and neck. He looks at the floor. The wood is cold against the soles of his feet here, too. He feels Cloud's hands restraining him, the hot, weighted pressure above his hip bone. He can feel each one of Cloud's fingers, long and slim, pressing through his shirt into his skin. Riku says, "What? Why'd you stop." He doesn't look at Cloud, instead lifting his gaze to somewhere over Cloud's left shoulder.

He hears Cloud breathe out again before Cloud says, "Are you okay?" Riku can't see his expression but he imagines Cloud's eyebrows are furrowed together again.

Riku says, "Yeah, I'm fine." He shrugs, and looks at Cloud briefly before kissing him, open-mouthed. He says, "I just missed you." Riku kisses him again, and then kisses below his jaw, clenching his teeth into a small bite, releasing the skin and leaving his lips there. He says to Cloud's jaw, "Are you gonna fuck me or not?"

Cloud laughs. It rumbles beneath Riku's hand, his mouth, rubs against his chest from where he's pressed against Cloud. It's a low, deep laugh, as if Cloud's honestly amused. Cloud says, "Yeah." He shifts his chin down to meet Riku's mouth. "Yeah, don't worry. I'm gonna fuck you."

Riku can't catch his breath.