Disclaimer: If I owned Kingdom Hearts, trust me, you would know about it.
Authors Notes: This fic contains light boy lovin' in the form of SoRiku. Also light mentions of Cleon. Nothing to drastic, hope you enjoy!
-=Radiant . Wings=-
Riku can see it, clear as writing, the wings that stretched from Sora's back and managed to curl protectively around all the people he meets in all the worlds they visit.
Riku can hear it, loud as thunder, the boys ever-giving heart as it beats with selfless abandon, straining to reach out and trust everyone with a needful soul.
Riku can see all that Sora is, all that Sora seems and all that Sora pretends.
The boy is an angel, no if's or but's or maybe's.
But Sora isn't only the good little boy with a blade of legends.
He's also human, he's also real, he's also the one and only person Riku could ever trust to be more honest with him then himself.
"I think you need help," Sora had stated, maybe a few days ago, maybe a week.
"I'm fine," Riku had grunted, smoothly pulling his blade from the head of some enemy he'd been fighting.
Sora had hummed thoughtfully, watched a moment, then went back to his own battles.
"You need help," Sora had stated maybe two days ago, perhaps three. He was watching the silveret train, sweat glistening, eyes hard with anti-emotion.
Riku blinked at the rather random subject, before pulling out of his battle trance and frowning, "help with what?"
Sora cocked his head to one side, taken his friends presence in, then sighed, "everything I need help with."
Riku halted abruptly, blade shining away to some netherworld place, "whats wrong?" he asked, stepping closer until he could check his friend for injury or distress.
"What's right?" the brunet countered, looking away to where the worlds pale moon sat fat and almost full in the sky, "everything that's wrong with you, is wrong with me."
And Riku frowned deeper, wondering, but Sora swiftly stepped away, moving to the haven of Merlin's abode.
Riku watched him go, a pang in his chest, and wondered. Everything that's wrong...
'Maybe the Darkness has gotten to me too,' Sora whispered.
Riku remembered, almost every night as he sought and failed to find sleep.
Every scream in the night, and heart he saw floating, he remembered the whisper.
Everything that's wrong with Riku was wrong with Sora, and so Sora felt the hollow pang in his chest, right alongside the heart so so much brighter and richer and beautiful then Riku's own.
Riku's frown grew more pronounced. It wasn't right, that Sora could be as broken as he, yet Riku could not see it. That something so close to himself, and he hadn't recognized it.
"You need help," Sora told him, arms shaking with exertion as he swung his keyblade against Riku's, his breathing was quick and scattered, his voice husky.
Riku blocked the attack, swinging sideways to deliver one of his own, "you need help," he countered with a voice as horse as Sora's.
"We need help," Sora obliged, ducking under Riku's blade to pull himself close to the other boy, his keyblade pressing against a pale neck to claim victory, "how do we go about it?"
Riku looked thoughtful, apparently unmindful of the weapon against his neck, "this pang in our hearts, it couldn't be darkness, at least, not the same darkness that pulled me under."
Sora flinched a little, eye's falling to watch the movements of Riku's heaving chest against his own, "how can you tell?"
The silver haired teen let his keyblade fade from his weary hands, "the heartless make my heart shiver, tempting me to join them," he confessed softly, confident that only Sora could hear him, "this darkness only hurts when you go away."
Sora shifted his weight, his press of keyblade so light it was almost pointless, "and if I stay?"
"It's just warm," Riku confessed, mind whirling with reason's why that could be.
Sora finally let the keyblade fade from his own hands, "I think we're sick," he whispered.
"How?" Riku demanded, hands shifting to clasp Sora's shoulders, as though ready to push the boy down and protect him from the unseen enemy.
Sora inhaled sharply before looking up, his baby blue eyes shining in the light from the castle, "love sick."
Riku's mouth dropped open, "love-sick?"
Sora pulled away from his best friend, walking backwards until he was out of reach. The pangs started up immediately, like something was lodged in his heart and tightened around it with ever beat.
"That's..." Sora whispered, shaking his head slightly, "one possibility," he cocked his head to one side, giving his friend a once-over, "I can't think of another that would have me searching for you with all I had, and would have you fighting to protect me, even if you didn't know why."
Riku watched, speechless, as Sora turned and bolted away, heading for the castle steps and ascending them two and three at a time.
It was maybe two weeks later, hopefully not as many as three, when Riku finally got the courage to corner Sora alone next.
Sora offered him a look that clearly stated he had to make his point quick or leave.
"You need help," Riku whispered, "that's why I protect you, even when I didn't know why. I need help, which is why you searched for me with everything you had."
He stepped forward, eyes locked on the baby blue ones before him, "we need help, that's why this love-sickness is here, to help us find what we're missing."
Sora exhaled a low shaky breath, "I-Riku, I-"
"I love you too," Riku promised, pulling the boy close.
If Sora understood how hard those words were for Riku to say was uncertain. Not as uncertain, however, was the desperation in the grip the little brunet had on Riku's shirt collar.
Nor was the tilt to his face, the hopeful glint in his eye, and the fact he was raised - just slightly - on his tiptoes difficult to decipher.
When Riku took him up on his offer, not two moments passing, Sora seemed to taste like a savior to the pang in his chest. Riku held him closer, kissed him softer and they found the sweetest antidote to their sickness.
It was a month after their kisses, their promises, that something else happened in the training grounds just outside Radiant Garden's now restored courtyard.
A month of tenderness and desperation and love, when Riku and Sora trained together in the sunlight, when Sora suddenly frowned, pausing his attacks for a moment to regard Cloud and Leon, who were sparring beside them.
Cloud seemed to feel the gaze on him, and Riku's advance faltered, knowing the worried look to his best friend-boyfriend's eyes.
"You need help," Sora told Cloud, his frown deepening just a little.
Riku's heart faltered a moment, the pang threatening to return, but Sora stepped towards Cloud, and before Riku could wonder at his boyfriend's commitment to him, pushed the blond into the arms of his training partner, "and so do you."
Then he spun on his heels, ignoring the two baffled men and claiming Riku's hand to pull him along.
"You're not going to tell them what's wrong with them?" Riku asked quietly, allowing himself to be pulled along.
Sora winked, "I think they can work it out for themselves," he confessed, pulling Riku into a dark corner of the building.
Riku chuckled softly, leaning down for a kiss.
It was okay to feel this way, if everything right with him, was right with Sora too.
It was more then okay, for Sora's radiant wings to retract a little - encircling them and them alone for a while.
It was positively brilliant, the thrum like thunder in his heart where the pang used to be - the thrum that chased the darkness far far away.
(end)