A/N: I need to break my habit of uploading things, deleting them, and reuploading them. Note to self: GET IT RIGHT THE FIRST TIME.
"What do you want?"
The voice is quiet and not entirely unfamiliar. Riku feels a strange electric shiver work its way down his spine, but for the moment he says nothing. He simply goes to stand next to the shorter boy, shoving his hands in his pockets.
"It's been a while," he murmurs, turning the name about in his mouth before he speaks it aloud, "Roxas."
The faint smirk he sees Roxas shoot him out of the corner of his eye might just have the tiniest hint of appreciation in it.
"Bastard," he whispers.
Riku shoves a hand through his hair, sighing forcefully. It's been a long few weeks in the time they've been home. Kairi was ecstatic, naturally, wouldn't leave Riku or Sora's sides for more than five seconds unless forced or very convincingly coaxed. They didn't mind, of course, only all three of them sensed an underlying tension. And the very brief moments when Kairi's eyes would blank out into something too fragile made Riku shiver, because he'd seen that look in Sora, too.
Sora, tired Sora, so damn effervescent. Tireless. What brought him out to the beach tonight, Riku didn't know. He'd only followed, and when he got there, the form he'd seen standing by the waves, shoulders tight and arms folded, looking a little too pale in the moonlight, had been unmistakable. And not Sora. He'd known, but couldn't quite believe it until he heard that voice.
"What the hell, Roxas?" Riku's voice rasps at the edges like it's fraying. "How are you even pulling this off?"
Roxas doesn't reply, still staring out over the ocean. His voice is oddly quiet when he asks Riku what day it is.
And that makes Riku start. Whatever he's doing here right now, Roxas obviously hasn't been too aware before.
So Riku tells him, and doesn't look away from the crushingly bitter smile that spreads over his face. "It's still summer, huh?" He folds his arms even tighter over his chest, but Riku knows Sora well enough to catch the tell-tale tremble in his arms. "Figures."
"You didn't answer my question." Riku steps partially in front of the boy, tilting his head to the side to look at him out of the corner of his eye. Roxas regards him narrowly, with Sora's face and Sora's hair and Sora's too kind eyes, and scoffs.
"You're lucky, Riku."
He freezes.
"You're still whole. Me and Sora will always be torn in two parts. Naminé and Kairi, too. You can't put something like that back together again so easily." Again, that bitter smile. Riku wants nothing more than to wipe it off his face. "It's not like what I thought it would be. I thought it would mean completion. I thought that would be it."
His voice cracks on the next words, so faint that it's almost indistinguishable from the hiss of the waves. "I had to watch him die." He finally, finally looks at Riku, and the rawness in his eyes actually makes Riku flinch in sympathy.
"If it was Sora - if it was you, trapped in a body not yours, watching Sora fade into darkness, what would you do? What would you say?" His eyes are misting over, and Riku only stands there helpless, unable to act on the pangs tearing at his chest.
But then Roxas laughs, a wretched sound, and breaks the spell. Roughly he rubs the back of his hand across his eyes. "Still not used to it. Getting all emotional," he says, with a trace of wry humor, "is weird."
"What can I do?"
It's an honest question, a question Riku honestly means. He's facing away again, looking at the ocean, but his hands are clenched into fists at his side. Much as he hates to admit it ..
Roxas just looks at him evenly, tilting his head slightly to the side, and it's so Sora-like for a second Riku is uncertain just who he's looking at when he glances back over his shoulder.
"Remember us."
Roxas is actually smiling now, a quiet thing, and almost reflexively Riku finds himself responding.
"Both of us. Don't you dare forget, or I swear I'll come back and kick your ass."
"I'd like to see you try."
And then it's just two boys, grinning at each other in the moonlight, the unlikeliest pairing of all.
Then Sora blinks, and tilts his head again, making Riku chuckle. "Riku? What is it? .. why are you laughing?" Riku only laughs harder at the note of suspicion that sneaks into Sora's tone, and only holds his hands up in surrender when Sora shoves him playfully.
Riku didn't promise. But when Sora asks him what that stick buried in the dirt is doing out there on the island, with those two strange keychains dangling off it (a little circle, white, red, with points - and a rough facsimile of Kairi's good luck charm but with colors blue and white and yellow), Riku merely shrugs and smiles and says "I felt like it."