Notes: THIS HAS NOT BEEN BETA'D. I wrote the first two-thirds of this a while ago, rediscovered it, actually liked it (which is really weird for me), and added to it. The ending may or may not have the same tone as the beginning. This also just covers the first game (and as such is GEN, MEANING NO PAIRINGS, like the games), and considering I have a vague sort of access to most of the rest of them, I may or may not write something similar for the other ones. THIS IS JUST A ONE SHOT, at least for right now. If enough people like it to make me write more, I will do so, but I'm still not sure about continuing otherwise. It is also very strange in terms of sentence structure. If you don't care for run ons, this is really not the story for you. If you don't care for weird language use and timeline bizarrity, this is not the story for you. If, however, you want to be disoriented, go right ahead. You have been warned.
I must also note that I'm mostly asleep while writing this. But there's a big difference between mostly asleep, and all asleep. Because mostly asleep is slightly awake... (And now I know I've gone off the deep end. But hey, Princess Bride for the win, right?)
Read on, yo.
It was normal to sleep in one bed, all together, for them.
They were used to being squished together, Kairi in the middle because she had nightmares, Sora on the outside because he always got thirsty, and Riku on the inside because he'd fall off the bed otherwise, on one mattress, in Sora's bunk bed or Riku's narrow cot or on their bed of driftwood and leaves on their island. It was normal, to feel Kairi's elbow or Riku's knee or Sora's shoulder, or wake with hands in odd places. They didn't apologize, because they didn't need to, because they were SoraandRikuandKairi.
Their parents, of course, overreacted the first time, said no more sleepovers, ever, but when Riku got bruises from falling off his too-high bed and Kairi woke screaming one too many times they decided it was best, for them, to let at least Sora and Riku sleep in the same bed, but by this time Riku was thirteen and Kairi was a girl, so she had to sleep on the bottom bunk while Sora and Riku took the top. Sora sulked for days and Riku got more quiet, more angry.
It stayed like that for almost a year, Sora and Riku getting closer and Kairi trying so hard to keep that closeness when she could no longer feel when Sora got up at 1:43 to get a glass of water or Riku didn't kick her at least once in the middle of a dream. They built a raft, got tired and restless, planned for a trip to other worlds, to shake this trapped feeling.
And then the darkness came storming, summoned by Riku, and Sora could almost feel his heart breaking to pieces.
The first time Sora tried to sleep, after, he had nightmares for the first time. He was alone, in the cabin Donald and Goofy had given him, without another familiar warm body next to him, without someone else's limbs to wriggle out of when he woke up to get water. The darkness clawed at him, Heartless in mobs dragging him under the surface, while all the while Riku was with him, not struggling, not fighting, just saying it was okay, Sora, to stop struggling, because the darkness felt much better than warmth and light and Sora and Kairi sleeping beside him. He woke with a gasp, no longer thirsty.
As Sora searched for Riku and Kairi, the nightmares grew worse, each new Heartless encountered lending another monster to scream and scrabble at his heart or Kairi's or Riku's in his dreams. Donald and Goofy comforted him in their own ways, Donald finding new things to scold him for and new worlds to go to and Goofy giving him a pat on the back or awkward, hesitant Do you want to talk about its that always seemed a little relieved when Sora shook his head, no. Riku continued to taunt him, send Heartless after him, and Sora only broke down once.
He made it to Hollow Bastion almost a year later, climbing up the odd, floating rocks — or ice, Sora wasn't sure — until he saw Riku. And Riku took whatever was left of his heart and crushed it into dust, taking his friends and his Keyblade, giving him instead a mocking of remembrance, when they were SoraandRikuandKairi not Sora searching for Kairi who'd been found by Riku who'd turned to the darkness. At least he had one ally, even if it was temporary and balanced on a fragile promise.
Sora fought to unlock a puzzle, sleeping fitfully or not at all when they made camp. The underground waterway was dark and only lent to his nightmares, of being alone in darkness, surrounded by enemies, hearing Riku's ridicule and Kairi's screams. He found a way inside the castle, through the front doors, once he unlocked them, and finally got his friends back. The Keyblade returned to him too, but Riku still attacked him, and it made his chest ache to hurt his friend. More puzzles, of books and pieces, and a maze of a castle that didn't make any sense. Sora thought it must have been beautiful, even radiant, once.
A room, dark with pipes over windows, but glorious glass all the same, and a witch to fight, green and purple. He defeated her, finally, and slept, exhausted, but woke too early again. Sora followed her, eventually, and Riku was there again, acting smug and all wrong. That wasn't Riku, he thought, but was too busy fighting a dragon to think. When Maleficent was gone, finally, and when notRiku was walking over her stain on the floor, smirking and arrogant and notRiku in a way that couldn't be described, Sora was tired, so tired, wished it would all just stop and go back to the way it used to be.
They slept in the Chapel, Gummi ship called, and it was almost beginning to feel like home.
Seeing notRiku, putting a name to the darkness lurking behind his familiar eyes — ohso broken and ohso dark, but familiar — was painful, a sharp, throbbing pain in his chest. Kairi's heart beat next to his, and he was tempted just to pull it out of his chest and shove it back in hers, as if that would work.
And then there as a clash of Keyblades and darkness and light, and notRiku laughing horribly, then gone, vanished after Riku — the real one this time, pained and shaking — had protected him. An open portal, a simple choice, and the feeling of a Keyblade pressed into his chest and reaching for the light behind his eyes.
Bizarre angles, a strange lumbering walk — feeling almost helpless in darkness. Kairi, knowing him, setting him free, pure and light and real, finally. They slept together that night for the first time in years, breathing in their togetherness and making it real, trying to catch hold of the empty space where Riku should be. They woke in pleading, and it wasn't just Kairi who had nightmares now.
They returned to Traverse Town, Kairi vanishing, for a short stop, then left again, travelling across the whole universe for a world of purple water and stone, getting ambushed by Heartless and going through yet another portal.
So tired, of all of this, wishing that the portal was just the dark passageway from the beach to the secret place.
But it couldn't be.
Odd shapes and platforms, falling so far he thought his bones would fly apart at the joints. Revisiting each world, in brief, remembering with aches of his difficulty and trouble, to solve each puzzle and fight each giant that came for his heart, or Kairi's. For the Keyblade Master. And then a gargoyle, and a final rest, sleeping alone again in a bed that seemed too empty and too full of fear, the darkness swarming and clutching at his chest, tearing off the flesh and pulling his ribs until they snapped out of the way of clawed hands grabbing at the beating muscle, stealing the light from his thoughts.
And then a place so familiar it hurt, twisted with darkness. NotRiku, again, shifting and changing form and speaking words that meant nothing to him. Fighting a floating creature of darkness, then fighting again, and then a voice in the falling darkness, teasing and sarcastic, that he thought he'd never hear again, and he flew upwards with a strength he'd forgotten, though it seemed so long ago that he'd told Riku that his heart was more powerful with friends.
And fighting again, and again, feeling as though he should fall over from exhaustion but couldn't, disconnected from each strike that connected and only feeling the handle of the Keyblade in his hands, numb and past worrying whether he would win or lose. All that mattered was Riku, getting him back safe, without so many scars to be nothing but them.
And then he succeeded, only to lose at the last instant. Riku was trapped in that world beyond the door, only with the king for help — a king he'd never met. The eyes had lit up, so many, hundreds, and more hiding in the darkness. SoraandKairi. Missing something.
Riku was still trapped.