Dislcaimer: Wait up! Dont sue, dont sue!!! I own only this plot and the fingers that took forever to write it!
Warnings: Angst, Boy Love, though why I would need to warn anyone that read this far is beyond me... oh, and some Kiari bashing - I just cant help myself x3
Summary: When everything became to much he seemed to forget how good it felt to stop, pause, and just damn breathe [boy love, light angst, some sap
Breathe
It wasn't a pretty place, but neither was it unpleasant. It was blank, empty and a perfect place to just stop.
Sora took his place beside Riku, sitting in the dark sand and idly digging his heels in until they were comfortably lodged in the soft surface beneath him.
They were silent - each still wrapped in their own thoughts and still unsure whether things were completely okay between them so easily. It was almost a silence full of question and hesitation, but Sora couldnt find enough insecurity in his friendship with the older boy for it to make the question a voiced one. In fact, if the words ever made it out there, Sora knew without a doubt that he could say 'of course I forgive you' and completely mean it.
Riku looked utterly lost in his thoughts, but truthfully he was more concerned about the boy next to him. He didn't really doubt Sora would forgive him eventually, if he didn't already, what had him 'doubting' was the reasoning behind the boy's complete trust. Friendship meant alot, there was no questioning that, but if it was Kiari who went off the deep end like that and tried to kill him Riku had no doubt he would never be able to trust her again.
Eventual possesion or no, Riku had fallen for the lies Malifecent had told him. And, even if it was only for the breifest of moments, Riku had hated Sora for finding new friends and completely abandoning him... He didn't concider himself worthy of a trust so complete that attempted murder was forgiven as if it were nothing.
He chanced a glance sideways, just as Sora sighed softly, sounding strangely content as he reclined back on his elbows.
"It nice here," Sora commented quietly.
Riku raised an unseen eyebrow. "Here?" he questioned, almost in disbeleif.
The brunet let out a small noise of agreement, "quiet."
Leaning back himself, Riku concidered what was meant in that comment. "Without the Heartless?" he asked almost cautiously.
Sora laughed, though it sounded stifled as though the younger boy was trying to keep his voice down. "Without everything."
The silence regained the space between them again, and soon Sora found his eyes drifting closed and his mind focusing on the sound of his own breath, completely at ease, and relaxed for the first time since he set out on his journey so long ago.
Riku watched curiously as all Sora's defencive barriors slipped down and he just sat there, looking half asleep and completely okay with everything. The older boy's heart constricted at the sight, knowing that so much of what Sora had to go through was helped along by him. That so much of the worry the brunet had been carrying was directly his fault.
So much worry... enough to make Sora completely collapse at the sight of him after so much searching, collapse with tears in his eyes and Riku's sleeve caught in his hand.
Sora shifted slightly, eyes parting just enough for him to take in the moon. "I missed having you to talk to," he confessed quietly, tone saying somuch more then that simple statement had.
And with that, the words practically bled from Riku, the words that had been caught in his throat and his head so many times before now seemed to waterfall from his mouth. "God Sora, im so sorry for everything, so sorry I put you through so much hell," he had moved too, leaning forward and clenching both hands tightly in Sora's shirt-sleeve as though he could squeeze the apolagy into the boy. His eyes searched Sora's desperatly, sudden fear seizing him, because really he didnt know with absolute certainty that Sora could forgive him again. "Please, please dont hate me."
Sora looked beyond startled, his eyes wide and his body tence at the sudden 'attack' from his older friend. "Riku?" he asked in question before his brain seemed to cottton onto what Riku was asking for as though his entire world waited on the answer.
"I could never hate you, baka," he informed Riku, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. As if to prove the fact Sora relaxed again, even though Riku's hands were still twisted tightly in his shirt and his searching eyes remained locked with his own. A lazy smile spread over his face, "you know you just completely destroyed your tough-guy image, dont you?"
Slowly Riku released the younger boy. He sat back, now facing Sora and that beautiful smile that he had been afraid he would never get to see again. "Any image is better then how I looked when I was looking like Xehanort," he replied offhandedly, keeping with the light change of subject.
Sora shuddered, and it was only slightly joking, "good point."
They laughed together then, and it was so easy for the moment Riku completely forgot that he shouldn't be able to laugh like this with Sora anymore, not after all he'd put the boy through. It was so perfect and relaxed that it felt just like old times, before Sora's voice had sounded so mature and before Riku's eyes had looked so haunted.
Haunted... the perfect word for it. Haunted by memories and regrets and as soon as the word clicked in Sora's head he stopped laughing and just paused everything, letting his mind work its way around the strange feeling the thought had envoked. It took him a moment to identify it as hate, and when he did it grew until he felt such a sudden surge of that hatred for Kiari that it flickered across his face and left a scowl in its wake. Because wasn't it Kiari who started Riku on his obsession to leave the islands in the first place? And wasnt it Kiari loosing her heart that made Riku turn to Malifecent for help?
Riku's laughter died the moment Sora's did, and again he felt the welling of fear as a scowl crossed Sora's face and his twisting of features seemed aimed at Riku, because no one else was here were they? He tenced violently, heart stopping, but his voice called out Sora's name in question before he could even think to hold it back.
"She was always the reason we fought, wasnt she? Even when it was only those almost-fights, it was because of her."
Sora's voice was almost unrecognisable, hate so rare a thing on his tongue that it sounded as though he was trying to speak a forgein language.
"If it wasn't for her... I would never have to fight you for real... and you would never doubt that I would forgive you anything."
It wasn't clear who moved first then, but it didn't really matter, because a moment later they were embracing one another tightly and Sora just knew he was crying again, but he kinda suspected Riku was too.
And for some reason the 'hug' felt even easier and even more perfect then the laughter. Despite the fact they'de hugged only once before, when Riku's mother had died and Sora had found him in the treehouse after he'd run off to cry alone.
Ha, he should have known Sora wouldn't let him cry alone without him.
They held on with a kind of desperation, and there was again the silence of earlier, though it had lost so much of its almost-tension and the warmth they got from each other warded off any of the thoughts that could change that. And that warmth was soft, comforting, and Riku suddenly felt like he never wanted to pull away. The faint feel of Sora's heartbeat against his chest was feeling like heaven to him, and when Sora held him so tightly it felt like he never wanted to let go either, it was a feeling even better then heaven.
And it didn't matter that tears were sliding down his face, 'cause he kinda knew there were tears running down Sora's too. It just made the whole thing more real, amazingly so because it was clear and so perfect that it was to good to be a dream and that was just what they both needed, certainty in the mix of so much uncertainty.
They breathed together, softly and sweetly, as though they had all the time in the world. And really they did, didnt they? For once there was no heartless creeping out of every crevece and no nobodies confusing Sora up until he hated every time his keyblade cut off the unnatural life of either enemy. For once there was no ever-present worry that he was going to have to kill everything in his path to survive, and for once there was no one to save but himself, and maybe Riku... probably the one person he would never get sick of saving anyway.
The silence was beautiful, untouchable, because they were here, in the most perfect moment since they found each other once again.
The hatred was gone, leaving as abruptly as it had came, but it left a distaste in Sora's mouth. A distaste that made him kind of glad he wouldn't have to see Kiari again, because he didn't really like the idea of hitting a girl.
Riku's breath was warm and moist against his ear and it tickled, but not enough to make him stop it, it was just another layer added to the sensation and suddenly his mind hiccuped again. There was a slight pause in his breath as he concidered the thought, worrried at it, until he tenced in surprise as the bubble of emotion he'd never had the time to wonder at before, when all his time was dedicated to helping and saving and healing until his only thoughts were of others which left no time for his own, burst open.
Riku felt Sora tence and he began to pull back, but that made Sora panic, mind still processing what he had discovered in himself, and he yelped and latched on tighter. "Wait," he asked without thinking.
"Whats wrong?" Riku asked, sounding worried.
The brunet turned his head, looking into the bright and concerned eyes of his best friend and then everything fell into place, clear and undeniable place. He saw the tears on Riku's cheek and twisted the arm curled around his friend's neck to wipe them.
"Nothing," he said, and it was true. Nothing was wrong, not at this moment. Everything was clear and obvious and God above did he hope it was perfect. "I just realised that i'm in love with you."
Riku froze in surprise, staring at Sora as if he was trying to figure out if his words were a joke or something. But he didn't let go. He felt Sora brush the damp tears from his cheeks and leave his hand there, his other still clenched in his shirt from their spontanious embrace.
"Weird huh?" Sora commented, as though the whole conversation was something simple and it didn't have his stomach doing weird flip-flops or his heart clenching painfully in his chest.
The older boy licked his lips, finding them to dry to try to force words through. He spoke slowly, though his mind still racing even as he let the words out into the open, "yeah, weird," he admitted, "'cause I think i'm in love with you too," he realised, and it was true.
There was a breath, an exhale breathed in unison before the mere second between their lips was gone and Sora's first kiss met.
It was like a rush of electricity through him, and it made his stomach flip-flop harder and it had his heart exploding, only in a good way.
The steady heart beat against Riku's chest wasn't so steady anymore, but that just made it all the better and when they parted it wasn't for long. Riku's hands tightened in the material on Sora's back, and he kissed Sora properly this time, his tongue sliding across his friend's bottom lip softly before slipping passed as he gently claimed the brunet's mouth.
Sora sighed in contentment, though it was muffled and died off before the end to twist into a surprised sort of gasp at the feel of Riku's tongue against his own as it sought to explore his mouth.
As there tongues twined together, there was the inaudiable click as a perfect memory was created, a perfect feeling invoked. Sora quickly redifined what he had concidered love would feel like. Pleasure too, he realised as the older boy's warm and teasing tongue traced his teeth and ran along his gums.
It was beautiful, but as drawn out as it was it was eventually over, and all Riku did after that was press his lips softly against Sora's still wet cheek. "Yup, i'm in love," he commented.
Sora's eyelids lowered as he smiled and rested his head against Riku's shoulder.
Once again there was silence, and it was amazingly loud, filled with the sound of each others heart beat and breath and the steady hum of contentment and love that Riku wasn't sure he should be allowed to hear and Sora was defenantly sure he wanted to have heard sooner.
"So you know, if my arms were just that little bit longer nothing would have stopped me from following you into the darkness at the island," Sora commented almost lazily, "I reached Riku, but I just couldn't make it before you were swallowed."
The older boy wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not, but he knew it was true and he was somewhat sadly elated by the fact that even back then Sora would have never really abandoned him.
To show he had heard the words he tightened his hold for a moment, a light squeeze, before he began running a hand through Sora's spiky and surprisingly soft hair. He didn't comment aloud though, unsure still if he would have wanted Sora to be as weighed down by darkness as he found himself now.
Sora's lips tugged upwards slightly in a sad smile as though he heard the thoughts. He decided to stay silent too though, choosing not to say that he was weighed down by darkness anyway, he was stuck fighting and fighting because he had the Keyblade and whether he was unsure whether it was right to kill Nobody's just because they didn't technically have hearts or not didn't matter, because screw the fact they wanted to feel what Sora was feeling now with Riku, they lost their hearts so they could only look forward to the sharp and metallic tang of Sora's blade ending their forbidden lives.
He instead gave one last sigh of contentment at the feeling of complete completement and slowly shifted his eyes to the lazy break of waves against the shore.
When a small bottle jerkily washed onto the sand and he saw the look on Riku's face as he reat the note inside it, it was with the grudging thought that 'yeah, it was his destiny to fight, but at least now he had someone worth fighting for' that he read the softly scrawled handwriting on the note written by a girl he now felt a great 'distaste' for. And even then, he probably would have stayed on that blank and empty beach if Riku hadn't held his hand out, as if expecting Sora's reluctance, and said so beautifully the one thing that had Sora forgetting any qualms he held about returning to the world that asked so so much of him;
"Remember before? We stood on opposite sides of that door, now we stand side-by-side. Lets go through together this time," he all but smirked, a promise in every breath of his speech.
Sora didn't hesitate to take the offered hand, and before they stepped into the door that would lead them away, he pressed soft lips to Riku's. "Every time," he swore, "even if the road leads to darkness."
x.o.x.o
Authors Notes: sighs whistfully While this ended up quite a bit more sappy then I meant it too, i was none the less happy with the result. Yay for RikuxSora fangirl moments, even if they dont entirely fit into the time sequence... hehe. (And for all you poor dears that dont know [just like I didn't once baka means idiot in Japanese.) And I know Riku didn't say it then, he said it before the final fight, haha, it just seemed to work better here :p
Hope you liked, but if you don't at least I did! Leave a reveiw please, they always make me smile happily :D - Just like that.
Love,
Jaffa
xoxoxo