Disclaimer: Sora owns Riku, and Riku owns Sora. Jaffa is still as single as ever... and broke.
a/n: Personally, I blame Derwants, but then, the pictures stuck all over my walls say its my own fault... Dayam, maybe this is an outward reflection of 'god i wish i could draw like an artist...'
Its amusing, perhaps, that my art dictates my writing, and my writing dictates my art, and yet I can do this far more fluantly and less self-critically then the other...
Shonen ai (boy love) obsession (can you lay blame?) fluff (cause it's unavoidable, like chocolate on a bad day) and AU-ity, cause I love it, I really do.
Muse
Riku bowed his head, hiding his eyes behind his long silver fringe.
He was waiting, watching the crowded cafeteria with his hooded gaze, his sketchbook held almost possessively on his legs. His fingers tightened slightly on his peice of charcoal, an unintentional display of his impatience.
What was taking so long? Usually Riku had to race here just to arrive a little to late for the beginning of his drawing, arriving somewhere still bright, but never complete.
Then suddenly there was a shout of recognition across the asphalt (spell), and Riku's emerald gaze swung with a knowing purpose.
The day seemed to brighten instantly with the only the strength of the boys smile, the bouncy steps that lead him forward rivaled only by the bold halo of spikes adorning the boys skull. The boy paused, waving out a hello to the person who had noticed him first, before being pulled away by someone else.
Roxas, brother.
Riku knew him, Riku watched as the boy was half dragged to a table of his closest friends, a laugh already escaping his soft pink lips.
Riku's fingers were on fire then, moving with an unnoticed speed, racing across his pad with precise strokes and lines and smears. Capturing all he was seeing on paper and charcoal.
Riku's fingers halted mid-stroke, held still as the boy was abruptly pulled into a far to familiar hug, breasts push-push-pushed into his side.
But he sighed in relief at the awkward retraction from the hug, and the blur of amber-red hair.
Kairi, stalker.
Riku knew she couldn't love the boy enough to make up for all the nothing he felt for her.
His fingers resumed their dance.
The brunet was laughing again, louder this time, and even across the overfull cafeteria, Riku could hear the soft music it created.
Riku watched through a thin veil of silver as the boy blushed fiercely, when turning to the brother and noticing the lip-lock his twin was sharing with a red-head Riku was sure didn't even go to this school.
His fingers almost missed a stroke as the blush spread across the slightly tanned skin of the younger boy, caught in the moment he almost forgot to catch it back, to etch it into a place not even his mind could take from him.
Riku watched as the boy ate his lunch, chatted energetically, and groaned about the amount of homework he would never do.
He sketched as the boy bounced in his seat, speaking with huge gestures and loosing his precarious balance more then once.
Sora, perfect.
Riku knew more about the boy then anyone, knew all his gestures, all his tones.
He knew without hearing when the boy was stressed, when the boy was distracted, and he knew without talking to him that he would never deserve what was etched so demanding on the white of his pages.
The bell trilled, loud and aggrivated through the place of gathering, and the students disperched, some hurring and some dragging there feet.
Riku watched as Roxas hugged his brother goodbye and was snuck away by his red-haired boyfriend, he watched as Kairi was ran away from, with a friendly wave to fight back the bite of rejection.
Then, with an almost silent sigh, Riku turned the page to his sketchbook and held it to his chest as he rose for his next class.
He blinked in surprise when he reached it, his art class had almost doubled in size. The chairs filled with unrecognisable students.
The merge of classes was not his imagination, a sick teacher and a lack of funds had brought it about, and he sighed at the crowded atmosphere before trailing his way to his usual seat.
He froze, not three steps from it, eyes widening in surprise at the glint of a giddy-bright smile aimed on him. The sight of a friendly wave offered to him.
"You're Riku, right?" the music was entrancingly close, ensnaringly warm and enticingly Sora.
Riku could only nod, determined at the very least not to appear the incapable fool he knew he currently would be.
"I've seen you around the cafeteria before, but you always looked to busy to talk to," he chuckled, beautiful, and then slid to the next seat, silently offering Riku his own.
Riku claimed it relishing in the closeness of the boy greedily, "you noticed me?"
Again Riku managed to catch the pretty shade of pink as the boy blushed, this time up close.
The silverets fingers itched against his sketchpad, begging to be allowed to draw the moment, to steal it away so he could never forget it.
Sora hummed slightly, fidgeted with the pencil held loosely in his fingers, "you always sit in the same seat, it's real easy to see you from the table I sit at."
A wash of panic suddenly rose in Riku, had he seen him watching? Had he seen him sketching and stealing every second of Sora he saw to keep it always nearby.
"I hope you don't think i'm a stalker or anything, I mean, I was just saying that you always seemed so distant from everyone. Different, " the blush darkened slightly, "Interesting."
All the wondering in the world, and Riku hadn't even dreamt Sora could think the same thoughts as he did.
"I don't mind," Riku dared to understate. The panic was gone, replaced by an unsure kind of peace. Shared thoughts, similarities, it would keep him sketching through the night.
Sora's smile brightened, though he kept his sight his own sketchbook slanted slightly before him.
When the silence stretched comfortably between them, Sora's hand shifted, blurring lines across his paper swiftly, though not as smoothly as Riku, his movements were well practiced, and Riku had to stop himself leaning over for a better look.
He released his own sketchbook from the deathhold against his chest, turning it to the back where the blank pages would hold no condemnation from the boy beside him. He stretched his fingers out, along the grain of his charcoal and his fingers began a dance.
Shifing the picure just enough to hold no determined features, nothing that could show his obsession, his fanatical adherence to his muse, his inspiration.
The teachers voice whisted through the room, as they sketched, and it spoke up as the pace slowed, the finishing touches placed.
"Swap pictures," she decreed.
Room alighting with light hearted chatter, it took Riku a moment to notice that Sora was a little stiff at his side, his blush still present across his cheeks, as his bright, beautiful prussian blue eyes found Riku's.
He smiled, a little shyly, and handed Riku his sketchbook.
Heart thumping, knowing the contents of his own could diminish him in any ones eyes, Riku slid his own before the brunet.
Riku's eyes settled on the silver and grey picture presented, fingers tracing the soft indents of a hooded cloak, a shining blade, a smooth face hidden in shadow and secrecy. Familiar, so familiar...
His eyes slid to watch Sora from the corner of one eye, seeing the enraptured gaze. Those eyes swung, from the soft smile, the gentle swell of baby cheeks and insubstantial hair. The shadowed form, that no matter the alter, still would not sway to far from Sora.
Riku hoped only that it had swayed far enough away.
"I think it's curious..." Sora whispered, shy and endearing as he pressed the two books closer together, "that though I was so determined to keep you from noticing, I still drew that picture with you beside me."
He traced his own picure soft as a feather, along the smooth chin of the figure, then he shifted and did the same to the charcoal sketch of Riku's.
"And I think it's wonderful..." he barely breathed, "that you drew one so similar."
Riku's breath caught, panic and insecurity still battling, "similar?"
Again fidgeting, Sora toyed with the corner of Riku's sketchbook. "Turn back a page," he advised.
Slowly, Riku oblidged, eyes widening slightly as he saw the same figure, the same black cloak, only this time the hood was drawn back, and the only thing shadowing the face from view was the thin veil of hair lying lengthy and mysterious against the face.
He let out the breath. Familiar, of course, it was the body that looked back at him when faced with a mirror. Similar... "Turn mine to the front," he whispered, voice like a wraith.
Sora slowly did as he was told, flipping Riku's sketchbook with clumsy motions. His own breath caught at the charcoal impressions pressed against the page.
"It's..." Sora whispered, trailing off.
"Beautiful..." Riku murmured.
"It's me," Sora reinterated, eyeing the unmistakable spikes and dips of his hair, the curve of his body, the smile on his lips.
"Precisely..." Riku confessed, he glanced back down to the page set before him, "I never thought you were drawing me back."
Sora again hummed softly, hand falling to rest between the pair of books.
Riku hesitated, but slowly slid his own hand above it, "what does this mean?"
Sora's free hand wrapped around the pencil, that same endearing blush across his cheeks, his hand decended to a free corner of Riku's sketchbook, swiftly marking the paper. His other hand twisted under Riku's, curling to lightly intertine their fingers.
"I think it means you have to stop being so distant," he chuckled faintly, shifting to press a chaste kiss on Riku's cheek as the bell trilled its warning overhead and the boy smoothly merged with the crowd and disapeared, pulling his sketchbook with him.
Riku blinked in surprise before glancing down at his own pages, and to the top right corner Sora had marked.
'Think I love you Riku-muse.'
And Riku's fingers itched, but it was his cheeks that really burnt.
xXx