Lights Against the Darkness

by Raberba girl

Riku has never been the same since his descent into darkness. He won't take light for granted again. Platonic fic for Sora/Riku Day.

Lights Against the Darkness
A Kingdom Hearts fanfic by Raberba girl

For a trade with Medli45
Sora/Riku Day, 7 December 2012

Summary: Riku has never been the same since his descent into darkness. He won't take light for granted again. Platonic Sora/Riku.

A/N: ARGH, there's another (old, CatC-era) fic I really wanted to post first (it establishes my headcanon for Riku's family life), but this week was freaking busy and I was lucky to even get this fic posted in time. -.- Well, I think all you really need to know is that his mom is an extraterrestrial with "living" hair. XD (I don't think I ever mentioned her name in this fic, but you FF7 fans can probably guess if you look at Riku's brothers. *wink*)

o.o.o

He had thought he had no pride left - an idiot who'd opened up his homeworld to darkness, let an intruder corrupt his heart, and hurt his best friends was certainly not entitled to any.

...Still. Looking down at the nightlight in his hands (he'd chosen the one shaped like Mickey Mouse...), Riku realized that he had plenty of pride left, after all. Enough to be ashamed. Enough to announce, with not-quite-concealed desperation, to the salesgirl ringing up his purchase that he was buying the thing "for my little brother. He's scared of the dark. We thought it might help."

"Aw, poor thing," she'd said with a sympathetic smile. "Tell him there's nothing to be afraid of as long as you've got a light to chase the shadows away!"

"Yeah... Yeah, I'll...tell him..."

In any case, he DEFINITELY could not let Kadaj and the others find out about this. He had to sneak it in somehow and be careful, make sure his door was always locked when he was sleeping, curtains closed, the light hidden away during the daytime...

It didn't work. "You have a nightlight?!" they'd shrieked with glee when they found out.

"Mother! Riku sleeps with a nightlight!"

"Heh, you're such a baby. Well, come on, baby, we can't have a wimp like you for a brother. Time to toughen you up."

Riku could take everything else. He was a Keyblade wielder, after all. He had defeated Lexaeus, Zexion, Roxas, Xemnas. His brothers didn't always win their play-battles; Riku sometimes even enjoyed the sparring.

At night, though...when it was the dark that was his enemy...that was a different story.

Smothering, choking, pressing on his chest so he couldn't breathe, hands and feet refusing to obey him, suffocated in his own body when he couldn't even look in the direction he wanted, hands lifted, doing such terrible things until he just wanted to sleep and not have to see it, not have to be him anymore, except he already wasn't. He himself was this cruel person with the taunting smile who told his best friend, the person he loved most, "You'll not find even the smallest glimmer of light..."

Kadaj had stolen the light again. Riku stared up at the ceiling, paralyzed. He knew where he was now, knew he was just in his room, back on the Islands that had been so miraculously restored. But...Ansem wasn't gone...he could still feel him, that oily darkness, stifling and poisoning him from within so that he couldn't move, could only lie here and wait.

The light always helped. When the sun would finally come shining through the window, it didn't matter whether Mickey was glowing or not, the sunlight was always strong enough to chase the shadows away.

This morning was different, though. This morning, it was raining.

Riku lay there, listening to the rain beating the house, eyes fixed on the dark window. The sun now was just as smothered as he was. Mickey was gone.

No light...none at all...nothing to lead him out of the darkness...

"Riku!" Mother was storming in. "I've been calling you!"

He licked dry lips. "I need the light."

"That's why I've been calling you, fool," she snapped. "Get out of bed, you're late for school."

Riku's eyes flicked to the clock, even though he already knew that the display was dead. For the first time, an explanation occurred to him. "The power went out...?"

"Get up."

Her hair coiled around his wrists and arms, then tightened, pulling him upright. He hung for a moment like a puppet at the mercy of its master as she studied him, and he tried and failed to muster up enough strength to resist, to stand on his own feet.

"You can't be ill," she growled. "My children are Perfect."

"I need the light," he whispered. "Please."

"Shut up. I didn't make you to be so pathetic. Get out there and make yourself useful, you've already failed me enough."

The old argument was the least thing he was interested in right now. "T...Tell...Tell Kadaj-"

She dropped him and left.

Riku curled up with his back pressed to the wall and was miserable. 'You're not going to be trapped here forever...you're not even trapped...you're fine, Riku, so just get up, get up, get up and act normal, come on, it's not hard, just pull yourself up and put one foot on the floor and stand up because there's nothing there, this darkness can't hurt you, come ON Riku, ugh why am I so pathetic I hate this I hate this I hate this I wish I could be strong like I used to be...'

He woke from his doze when the door flew open again, he wasn't sure how long later. "Morning, Riku!"

Not Kadaj or the others. Sora...?

"Aw, Riku." Sora came and actually bounced onto the bed like a little kid, peering at Riku's face intently (not that he could see anything through the thick shield of bangs). "You never showed up at the bus stop. Is the weather getting you down?"

"You could say that..."

"Well, it's okay, Riku!" Bounce, bounce, bounce. Seriously, how old was he, four? "I found a raincoat and an umbrella and some galoshes for you! Heh, 'galoshes' is a fun word, isn't it? Say it three times fast."

"I don't have a problem with the rain..." Just the clouds.

"Aw, you're not sick, are you?"

"Not really..."

"How come you're talking like that?"

"Huh?"

"All sleepy and depressed. Are you sleepy and depressed?"

Riku couldn't help a smile then. Just a small one. "I'll be fine in a little while." When the rain stopped, and the clouds cleared.

"How long is 'a little while'?"

"I don't know..."

"Are you gonna skip school?"

"...Mother won't like that."

Sora chuckled a little. "She doesn't like a lot of things."

'Including me.' "Including you. How'd you get in, anyway?"

"Gave Loz a cookie and told Yazoo he missed a spot and promised Kadaj a boss battle later," Sora said airily. "Your mom didn't care I was here when I said I was taking you to school."

"So you came to pick me up?" Riku said in mild amusement.

Sora laughed sheepishly. "That makes you sound like a little kid, doesn't it."

"You're one to talk." That smile...it was captivating. Sora could be a clueless, childish idiot, yet he was kind and loyal and innocent and had always seemed to shine far brighter than any nightlight. Riku sat up. "Just give me a minute, I need to get dressed and find my homework."

"Got you covered for breakfast, too." Sora plopped a bag of cinnamon rolls on the bedside table.

"Heh. So healthy and filling. You're such a responsible nanny."

"Hey, cinnamon rolls are good!"

"They taste good. There's a difference."

"You don't want any?" Sora pouted.

Riku had to smile again. "I never said that."

"So I did do good!"

"Sora."

"Yeah?"

"...Thanks for coming after me."

That brilliant smile again. "Of course, Riku. I'll always come for you."

'You really mean it, don't you.' "Yeah." It occurred to him that he ought to say it out loud. "Same here, you know. I'll always be there when you need me."

Sora laughed. "Well, duh."

What? "Oh, you're so certain of that, after...after that whole mess?" The one that had left him with this tormenting darkness. Riku made his voice teasing, but he was anxious to know.

"You've always been my best friend, Riku." Sora laughed a little. "Even when you were being mean and stupid, I knew I couldn't give up on you. And you came through in the end, right?" That smile would never get old. "When I needed you most. The first time, and then all the times after that. You came through for us. Of course we'll always do the same!"

'It's true, isn't it...I'm not always a failure...at least, not to Sora...' "Man, how'd we get from cinnamon rolls to pledges of eternal loyalty?"

"What? I dunno!" Sora picked up a roll, grinning. "How about we pledge eternal loyalty with cinnamon rolls?"

"You're so ridiculous..." Just the kind of thing he needed, though. Riku made it to school that day only a little bit late, and it didn't feel so dark under the clouds when he was walking beside someone so full of light.

o.o.o

Author's Notes: I love Sora/Riku in canon, but the yaoi fans turn me off from it and I'm not really interested in SoRiku in fandom, even platonic. Still, I wanted to write something for Sora/Riku Day, and now that I'm combining that with Medli45's fic (sorry, Medli!), I also want to eventually write a SoRiku for the This Kind of Love series. It's difficult to come up with SoRiku plot bunnies, though. *sweatdrop*

Medli helped by recommending some fics and stuff for inspiration; the one that directly inspired this story was "The white side of Black" by deeJuusan on DevArt. (It's like a little side-comic for the series "Grey is...", which is available on deeJuusan's DevArt profile.) For you people on MMO and DA, the URL is here: art/The-white-side-of-Black-170132118 :)