Sora & Riku struggle, and fail, to integrate back into a normal lifestyle on the Islands after years of war with the Heartless and each other. Sora-Riku Bromance/platonic male friendship.
Disclaimer: I own neither the Kingdom Hearts universe nor its characters.
Rating: M for gratuitous use of the F-bomb and a variety of other curse words, copious amounts of angst, and mature themes such as death. This is a smut-free fanfic.
"Bromance: Describes the complicated love and affection shared by two straight males. (or) A non-sexual relationship between two men that are unusually close. (or) A close relationship between two bros to such a point where they start to seem like a couple." –urbandictionary. com
A campfire on the mountainside crackled in the cool darkness, illuminating six sleeping figures wrapped in old blankets. The six figures, one could say, were the oddest assortment of comrades to ever trek the snowcapped mountains in the Land of Dragons. In fact, the group was so odd that two of the members were too miniscule to be seen, unless a bold observer were to rudely invade some personal space to catch a glimpse of them. These two tiny mountaineers, a cricket by the name of Jimminy and a miniature dragon called Mushu, we both comfortably nestled in the pockets of the only two humans of the group. Mushu with his charge Mulan, Jimminy with the young Keyblade Master Sora.
The last two members of this eclectic party, a duck named Donald and a dog named Goofy, were by far the strangest. Of course, who is strange and who is normal is all a matter of where you come from, where you have been, and who you have met. To the inhabitants of Disney World and the Disney Castle, Donald and Goofy were completely ordinary. To Sora, an experienced traveler of worlds, his pair of companions were fairly low on the list of weird things he'd seen since his departure from the Destiny Islands. It seemed the same could be said about the majority of the people the trio had encountered along their journey. Rarely were they given strange looks or asked questions about their appearance. Sora figured that once a person had seen a Heartless, nothing else could ever seem all that shocking.
The teenage islander rolled over in his bedding, unsuccessfully trying to find a more comfortable position without jostling Jimminy too badly. An inconveniently placed rock jabbed his ribcage, and Sora grumbled as he sat up to massage the spot where there would most definitely be a bruise in the morning. He swore it hadn't been there when he laid out his blanket at sundown. He must have kicked the rock at some point, and it had crawled under him in his sleep to seek revenge on the rock-kicking human. Well, he'd show that little bastard of a rock. In a childish, but oh-so satisfying gesture, Sora reached under the blanket, grabbed the offending rock, and chucked it into the nearby forest of bamboo.
Satisfied that the grudge-holding rock was now far away enough to not magically make its way back under his bedding, the brunette flopped back down to resume his dream. Where had he been before the rude wakeup call? Oh, right; Kairi was brandishing a florescent pink bird-putter from Wonderland while chasing Riku, who was riding on Dumbo the elepahnt as Sora, Leon, and the Beast dressed in a tuxedo watched from plastic folding lawn chairs. Sora vaguely wondered what strange food he had eaten to bring on such a bizarre dream, when a sound from the bamboo thicket made him bolt back up to a sitting position.
For a brief, groggy and exhaustion induced moment, Sora feared that the rock was coming back. Or worse even, that it was bringing friends. Oh god…what—what if it had been a baby rock? And now…now it was bringing its mama boulder to crush Sora for not only kicking her baby, but throwing it into a bunch of bamboo? However, Sora quickly realized this was ridiculous; rocks weren't born, so the baby rock definitely couldn't have a giant boulder mother. Duh.
But if the sound hadn't been made by a giant boulder coming for vengeance, what—
Thwack!
The Heartless had come out of nowhere. Well, Sora corrected himself, they had come from the Darkness, which was pretty much as good as nowhere, but for some reason he couldn't help but be as accurate as possible. Anything, anything to keep his mind off the pain that was throbbing in his now broken arm. He thrown it up to defend himself after the split second he had realized what was coming, no time to get a good swing in with his Keyblade.
The commotion, or maybe the Sora's sharp howl of pain, woke the others and a battle quickly ensued. Donald almost instantly cast a healing spell on the Keyblade wielder, and Sora felt the now all-too familiar sensation of shattered bone being rapidly healed by magic. God, Sora loved magic. How had he lived without it on the Destiny Islands? He reached into one of the large pockets on his shorts, extracted a bottle of either, and tossed it to Donald as he shouted his name. The duck caught it with ease while never taking an eye off his multiple opponents, yanked the cork stopper out with his yellow bill, and downed the magic restoring ether in one fluid motion. This well executed maneuver was an extraordinary display of the advanced level of synchronization Sora, Donald and Goofy had reached during their travels. Without their teamwork and support, the trio never would have made it past Traverse Town all those years ago.
But the teamwork didn't seem to be getting the job done in this particular fight. Sora couldn't remember the last time he had seen this many Heartless appear so fast or fight so relentlessly. Mulan and Mushu were down for the count, Sora had run out of potions and ethers, and his Disney comrades were just barely still on their feet. The Keyblade wielder didn't have enough magic or energy to enter any of his other enhanced forms. If he didn't do something fast, everything was going to end right here. Sora, the savior of worlds and hero of the Light, defeated on some nameless mountain by a hoard of mindless Heartless; it was a pitiful way to draw their epic journey to an end.
"Shit shit shit," Sora breathed as his head whirled around to take in the overwhelming number of Heartless closing in. He rarely swore in the presence of Donald and Goofy, but the situation was now dire. He wasn't going to let his friends die here. He wasn't going to let his friends on other worlds down by losing now. He was the Keyblade Master, the key to the salvation of the worlds, the one person everyone and everything was depending on. He was tool without which the job couldn't be done. Lose the key and the door will never be locked. He couldn't…he wasn't allowed…he didn't have the right to die yet.
With that realization weighing heavy on his mind, Sora readjusted his grip on the Keyblade and made to step forward toward the impossibly large mass of Heartless when something grasped his arm. It wasn't Donald's feather hand or Goofy's gloved paw, and Sora's heart jumped to his throat as he turned to attack whatever was still firmly had a hold on him. He raised Oblivion and—
"Sora!"
He was sitting upright, shirtless and drenched in sweat, chest heaving like he had just run a race. His knuckles where white with the force of his grip on Oblivion, and his legs were tangled in his sky blue bed sheets. His eyes, wild with fear, darted around what took him a moment to realize was his bedroom. From under his mess of bed-ruffled hair, Sora spotted his mother up against the opposite wall, her small hands over his mouth as if to hold back a scream.
She looked completely terrified. Horrified and petrified, even. Any of the above, Sora didn't care. Not even Ansem, the man with most sophisticated vocabulary Sora had ever met, could have described the look upon his mother's face after her own son, her baby, had nearly sliced her in two as she tried to wake him up to come eat breakfast. The most dreadful silence Sora had ever endured was finally broken when he dropped Oblivion to the floor and managed to string just a few words together in his mind to form some sort of coherent sentence.
"Mom," he gasped, still out of breath. "Mom, I'm sor—"
"It's alright," his mother replied, a little too quickly, a little too unsteady. Sora knew that no, it was not alright. It would never be alright. There was no way,not in Hell or Hades, that it could be alright. He may not have hit her and the swing may have been so sloppy it wouldn't have killed her if he did, but nevertheless, he had swung. At his own mother. Not a heartless, not a Nobody, Mom.
Not knowing what to say or do, Sora collapsed back onto the bed. A shaky hand found its way to his face, hiding it from his mother. Or from the world in general, Sora didn't really know. He didn't care, he just didn't want to be seen like this.
It had been four months since he had saved the universe for the second time and come home.
It had been a month since the last time he felt sane.
Sora, savior of worlds, was a complete wreck.
