The Cricket Revolution
In which Riku lacks sleep and Roxas has a revelation on his brother's behalf.
-
Sora was not having a good night. After Riku and Roxas successfully cleaned him up and stuffed him into what the blond deemed 'apology clothes' (which apparently consisted of an ironed button-up shirt and pants that weren't jeans), Sora trudged over to Kairi's to beg for forgiveness.
It was harder than he'd expected, and he hadn't expected much to begin with, so that was really saying something. Kairi was like a giant stone statue, cold and unmoving, looming over him with a swarm of guilt. Which was a total exaggeration, of course, because Kairi was actually lithe and petite and very sweet, and all she really did was cross her arms and frown and sigh a lot. But Sora almost would have preferred a big creepy statue slamming him over the head with something, because at least an inanimate object wouldn't have made him feel so incredibly crappy about himself.
"I can't help it," he said eventually with a defeated slump of his shoulders, and tossed the bouquet of flowers Kairi had rejected at the door onto the counter. "I like making new friends, and I like helping people, even if they're crickets."
"So," she said, jutting out her chin and gripping her arms, "crickets and someone you met two days ago—"
"Three days ago, actually," Sora interrupted, and promptly gave himself a swift mental kick in the ass, because according to Kairi's expression, that had not been the correct thing to say.
Miraculously, Kairi managed not to scream. "So, the winter population of crickets on the island and a guy you only met three days ago are more important than the commitments you've made to your girlfriend," here, she saw that Sora was opening his mouth to defend himself, but she held up her hand and pressed on, "who also happens to be your best friend, whom you've known nearly your entire life?"
"Kairi, you can't put yourself above an entire species," he attempted to joke. "I mean, you're great and all, but—"
"It's winter!" She tossed her hands in the air in sheer frustration. "I don't know if you've noticed, but there are no crickets right now. They're, I don't know, hibernating, or whatever it is crickets do until summer." Sighing, she wiped at her eyes and gave him a hurt look. "You're ditching me for a cause that isn't even in season."
After that, he tried to reason with her that it was her cause, too – look, she even had a membership card to prove it! – and maybe she wouldn't be so upset about him spending time on it if she'd just help him, but she didn't feel like listening. She didn't feel like doing anything, really, except politely kicking him out after an hour of arguing.
"I just don't have the energy to fight anymore tonight," she mumbled as she walked him to his car, the lilies he'd bought for her still on the kitchen counter. Privately, he thought that was a pretty good sign – one, she liked him enough to walk him out, and two, if she'd wanted to dump him, she would have calmly packed all the things he'd left in her apartment over the years into a box for him to take home, starting with the damn flowers.
So with that in mind, he decided not to push his luck any more that night, and kissed her gently on the cheeks, brushing his fingers through her soft hair with one last muttered apology.
"I'm really sorry, Kairi," he said sincerely. "Drop by work tomorrow if you feel like talking, okay? I'm working most of the day."
She just gave him a sad look and closed the door. Which was more than he'd expected, actually, so he didn't complain.
So now he found himself wandering around campus at what was probably close to midnight, after a quick stop at his apartment where he had unsuccessfully tried to sleep and possibly driven Tidus certifiably insane. Apparently, checking the phone every five seconds to ensure that it was working properly was pretty damn annoying. But Sora had to be sure, just in case Kairi decided to call.
On a whim (but really mostly because he was already on campus), Sora decided to see if he could find his way back to Riku's dorm without getting lost. Not to visit him, he told himself, because it was pretty late and it most likely wasn't cool to just drop over uninvited and unannounced. Kairi'd had a point there, at least – he'd only known Riku for three days, and it was probably kind of weird that he'd hung out with him almost constantly since they'd met. But he was bored, and what better things did he have to do with his time than test his memory to see if he could accurately find Riku's dorm in the middle of the night?
He entertained himself on his journey by kicking a rock, a little white one he'd picked up on the side of the road by the university's medical library. Sometimes he kicked it too far, and he had to run to catch up to it and pick it out of a patch of grass or a crack in the sidewalk. He was rather disappointed when he accidentally kicked it underneath the crappy double doors of Riku's dorm, and he promptly decided to go in after it.
It had nothing to do with dropping by Riku's room to see if he was still up. Really.
-
"Sora?" the silver-haired boy asked, blinking in the sudden light of the hallway. Behind him, the room was almost completely dark, save for the lonely glow of his laptop. "What are you doing here?"
Shrugging, Sora kicked at the carpet with the tip of a yellow shoe, watching Riku's sleepy expression morph into one of concern. The taller boy reached out to brace his hand on the doorframe and leaned in to squint at the brunet's face. "Hey, are you okay?"
"M'fine," Sora responded immediately, even though he was quickly becoming aware that he was anything but fine, because Kairi had kicked him out and Tidus was starting to hate him and his best friend was some guy he barely knew who had bought him crickets. Actually, his life kind of sucked except for said guy, whom Kairi'd had the nerve to imply he'd been hanging out with too much.
Luckily for him, Riku was damn perceptive, because he took Sora's hand and pulled him inside his dark dorm room, assumedly so Sora wouldn't have to have this conversation in the very public hallway.
He let go as soon as they were inside, but did not move away, standing close enough to Sora that the brunet couldn't decide whether it was comfortable or invasive.
"No, you're not," Riku said, and his attention was focused completely on smaller boy, aqua eyes only half-open with fatigue but still somehow showing enough kindness to assuage Sora's building anxiety.
"You're right," Sora admitted after he managed to unstick his tongue from the roof of his mouth, where it had somehow glued itself in dismay as the weight of the situation began to settle on his shoulders. Kairi had never closed her door to him before. He'd really fucked up this time, and he was a bad boyfriend, he was going to lose Kairi, and he didn't know what to do, what to say, how to make it better…
Looking up into Riku's eyes, Sora decided that at that moment he didn't really care what Kairi thought of how much time he spent with Riku, because goddammit, right now he really needed a freaking hug.
Without thinking, he hooked his arms around Riku's neck, which actually turned out to be fairly awkward, because Riku was a lot taller than him and he had to stand on his tiptoes just to get his arms around the other boy. And if the strangled noises Riku made were any indication, Sora was pretty sure he was choking him, too.
"Sorry," the brunet mumbled sheepishly and pulled his hands away, but Riku surprised him by putting both of his arms around Sora's shoulders and pulling him flush against his chest, safe and warm. Sora blinked in a pleased sort of astonishment before relaxing into the considerably less awkward embrace.
"You don't have to be sorry," Riku said. "I'm guessing things didn't go so well with Kairi?"
"She didn't want the flowers," was the first thing Sora could think to say, muffled against Riku's chest, and he discovered that he was beginning to feel surprisingly numb about the whole thing. Or maybe Riku was just easy to talk to, for some reason. Either way, he managed to continue, "She's jealous that all I do is hang out with you and save crickets all day. Like crickets aren't important." He busied himself by picking at a loose thread on the sleeve of Riku's white pajama shirt. "It's like she forgot who I was while she was away. Like I haven't always done stuff like this."
"Stuff like fundraisers for the well-being of the island's cricket population?"
Sora actually managed a laugh. "Um, no. But like, when we were kids, we always did stuff like this. We ran a day spa for the neighborhood dogs and bought popsicles for random strangers in the summer and tried to open a shoe store full of sandals we sewed out of plastic grocery bags."
"Wow," was all Riku could think to say, fingering the soft hair at the nape of Sora's neck. "That's, uh. Vaguely ridiculous. Did the shoes ever melt to the pavement?"
"Don't know." Sora twisted away from Riku's hands, reaching up to touch the back of his neck lightly, and collapsed into a chair. "No one ever bought any. Where's your roommate?"
Riku shrugged, moving his own chair to face opposite Sora, and sat down in it. "Leon? He said something about blond motherfuckers and stormed off with his Calculus text. He has that class with Cloud, so I'm assuming they're studying for an exam or something."
"Together?" Sora quirked an eyebrow. "He doesn't seem like the kinda guy who would take help from anyone. Especially an RA."
The taller boy laughed a little, tilting his chair back to balance dangerously on one leg. "Yeah, I'd say that's normally the case, but I saw his last test score."
"That bad?"
"Hopeless." Riku smirked, and then slammed back down on all four legs. "But that's off topic. Are you going to tell me what's wrong?"
Sora's shoulders immediately slumped, and he looked down to fiddle with the hem of his shirt. "Just. Everything sucks."
"Oh, come on." Riku nudged Sora's foot with a socked toe. "It can't be that—"
"Everything sucks," Sora's breath exploded from his lungs in a rush. "I'm gonna lose my job, and my girlfriend, and everyone hates me, and my cause isn't—it isn't even in season."
"Well, that shirt looks very nice on you, at least," Riku offered up after a long silence.
"Thank you," Sora said, smoothing out the wrinkles self-consciously. "It's actually my brother's."
"I know. I was there when he made you try it on."
The brunet coughed into his fist in embarrassment. "Oh, right. Sorry."
With an amused look, the silver-haired boy murmured, "Don't worry about it," and turned slightly to the side to tap a few keys on his laptop.
"What'cha working on?" Sora asked, leaning forward to peek over the other boy's shoulder.
"English essay," he explained. "My teacher's a bit of a sadist, I think. She assigned me Virginia Woolf, like I have any understanding of feminism."
"Um." Sora fumbled for a reply. "Yeah. That sucks, I guess."
Glancing at him over his shoulder, Riku took in the still somewhat pinched expression and nervous posture and ventured out with, "Is it going to bother you if I work on this?"
"No," Sora blurted, then winced. "Well, I mean. No. But is it going to bother you if I stay?"
"Not at all," said the taller boy with a soft, kind smile. "Stay as long as you like. Just get out of Leon's chair when he comes back."
"Okay," the brunet laughed, dragging his chair next to Riku's, and scooted so close their thighs were nearly touching. "Thanks for letting me stay, Riku."
"Not a problem," he said.
-
"Riku."
Leon awoke the silver-haired the next day, shaking his shoulder with one hand. He looked concerned, eyes narrowed and red-rimmed, hair tangled into messy clumps. He was still wearing the same girly fur-lined jacket and leather pants that he had been wearing the night before, so he'd obviously been up with Cloud all night. Riku squinted through blurry eyes and decided on second thought that he was probably angry. Leon had exactly two facial expressions, and it was difficult to tell exactly what he was feeling at any given time.
"Mrrrr, what is it?" he mumbled, still half-asleep, and rubbed at his face with both hands.
"There's a kid passed out on my desk," Leon informed him stonily.
Oh. Definitely angry, then. Riku sat up a little straighter to peer across the room where Sora had fallen asleep on his roommate's desk, his cheek pillowed adorably in the crook of his arm, brown hair mussed every which way. Riku himself had apparently nodded off in his desk chair with his face mashed up against his laptop's keyboard, if the solid block of g's on the Word document open on the screen was anything to go by. He scrolled up past what appeared to be eight hours of sleeping on the same key in something akin to disbelief, relieved to discover that he'd at least finished a decent portion of his essay before falling asleep.
"Riku," Leon's flinty voice broke into his thoughts. "Kid. Passed out. Explain?"
"That's Sora," he said once he remembered how to work his vocal chords. "He fell asleep."
Leon's eyelid twitched. "I can see that. But what's he doing on my desk?"
"I was using mine," Riku pointed out, jabbing his thumb at the desk on which his laptop was resting. "You could've woken him up, you know."
"I tried that," the tall brunet scoffed.
What Riku wanted to say was something along the lines of, Well, you obviously didn't try hard enough, but what he actually said was, "I'll take care of it," while he slowly wiped his face with his hand.
"Good," Leon muttered, storming around the room, picking up a book here and there and stripping off his girly jacket. "When you wake him up, get him out, because I'm going to sleep."
"Going to sleep?" Riku repeated blearily as he slowly unfolded himself from his chair, popping his aching back as he went. He was never sleeping in that chair ever again, that was for sure. He glanced down at his watch, but it wasn't there, so he asked, "What time is it?"
"Almost noon," Leon replied gruffly, then, sensing Riku's follow-up question, continued in an almost exasperated voice, "I just finished my exam, and I stayed up all night studying, so now I am tired." He drew the blinds shut with a jerk.
"Noon?" Riku looked pale and on the verge of freaking out. "Oh, shit, I have like two hours left to finish this essay."
"Noon?" a smaller, squeakier voice echoed from the fuzzy brunet pile on Leon's desk as Sora finally resurfaced, looking tired and frazzled. "Are you serious?"
"Welcome to the world of the living," Leon said. "It's 12:02. Get off my desk."
"Crap," Sora hissed, flinging himself from Leon's chair, and threw the silver-haired boy across the room a frantic, wild-eyed look. "I'm late for work."
I'm late for not failing English, Riku thought, but instead he said, "Do you need a ride?"
"No, but something to wear would be nice." The little brunet looked down at his outfit from the night before. "Roxas would kill me if I spilled fruit juice on his stuff."
"True," Riku said, and, smiling, went to pick out the smallest-fitting clothes he had. When he handed them to Sora, their fingers brushed, lingering, and Riku pulled his hand away quickly. "Just give them back to me later, okay?"
"Absolutely," Sora gushed, pausing just long enough to hug Riku tightly, the same warm embrace from last night that was quickly becoming familiar, and flashed him a megawatt smile. "Good luck on your essay."
"Thanks," the silver-haired boy murmured, a little surprised Sora had remembered, and waved at the retreating brunet figure as he dashed out of the room and into the hallway. "Have a good day at work."
-
Roxas alternated between blowing on his fingertips and flexing his fingers around the handlebars of his bicycle to keep them warm as he slowly pedaled his way over to the snack shack. He spotted Sora inside, chatting with a slim blonde girl who was staring down at an index card in her hand with a small, amused smile.
"Namine!" Roxas rocketed himself off of the bike, which clattered noisily on the cement, and ran the last few feet to the shack in excitement. "What are you doing here?"
Her head jerked up, and she just managed to dodge Roxas's high five of greeting, which undoubtedly would have been forceful enough to knock her to the ground. "I'm just picking on Sora for screwing things up with Kairi again," she said in a soft yet mischievous voice.
"Hey," Sora objected, but wilted under Roxas and Namine's combined scowls. "…I guess I did screw things up a little."
"Whatever, Sora." Roxas leaned over the counter, snapping his fingers impatiently and holding out his hand. "You said you had something for me? This had better be good, because I was kind of content to not leave the house today."
The brunet nodded, a grin breaking across his face, and crouched to pull something from under the counter while Namine subtly slid her CCA card into the trash. His sleeves were a little too big and they flopped over his wrists, dangerously close to some mustard on the counter, and he pushed the material up to his elbows as he rose to brandish a plain white note, folded neatly in two. "Yuffie found this taped to the door when she got to work today. She was also sort of pissed about some cheese spill, which she originally blamed me for, thank you very much, and she wanted me to tell you that she's going to report you to Wakka if you don't pay her off."
Roxas quirked an eyebrow and grabbed the piece of folded notebook paper that Sora was offering. Rocksis was scribbled across the front, and when he flipped it open, he was surprised to find a phone number written inside. "What's this?"
"It looks like a phone number," Namine murmured, peering over his shoulder. "Do you have an admirer, Roxas?"
"Whoever it is can't even spell my name right," he snorted, but carefully tucked the paper into his pocket anyway. Sora privately noted that he looked a little pink around the ears and decided not to comment.
"Do you want a shake while you're here?" he asked instead, grinning at his brother and gesturing grandly to the blender. "We just got in a new shipment of fruit."
"And I so enjoyed the week-old frozen stuff," Roxas said with a matching sarcastic smirk. "But no thanks, I'm not really hungry. What time do you get off today?"
Whipping around to look at the clock, the brunet hummed thoughtfully. "I dunno, in about an hour and a half? Why?" He tilted his head curiously.
"Nothing big," Roxas said, unconsciously sticking his hand in his pocket and clutching the notebook paper. It was undoubtedly from Axel, and Axel made him think of the night before, and the night before made him think of a certain talk he needed to have with a few certain people. "I just wanted to talk. Is it cool if I hang around and walk with you back to your apartment later?"
Looking mildly befuddled, Sora nodded, then broke into an unexpected grin. "Sure, but you have to be my guinea pig today. I'm working on a recipe for a brand new shake!"
"Great," the blond groaned, and reluctantly resigned himself to his fate.
-
"So, Sora," Roxas grandly began approximately two hours later, plopping himself down on the brunet's couch as he attempted to shovel an entire bag of Lays chips into his mouth at once. "What's with that guy you're always with now?"
"You mean Riku?" he asked, blinking as he took off his snack shack hat and tossed it vaguely toward his room.
Roxas watched it bounce off Tidus's door and idly brushed a few crumbs from where they'd fallen on his shirt. "Yeah, whatever his name is. What's his deal?"
"Umm, nothing?" Sora said, kicking his shoes off in two completely different directions while simultaneously stooping in front of the open pantry to rummage around for something decent to eat. "Why?"
"Well," the blond wiped some salt from the potato chips on his black slacks and turned to watch his brother over the back of the couch, "I don't trust him, is all."
Sora didn't seem to care much about what Roxas thought of Riku, because he was busy unscrewing a jar of peanut butter and sniffing it tentatively. "Can this go bad?" he asked instead of responding to Roxas's statement.
"No," Roxas snapped, even though he had no idea whether or not peanut butter actually went bad, annoyed that Sora wasn't taking him seriously. "Did you hear what I said?"
"Yep," his brother chirped, grabbing a spoon from a drawer, and walked over to claim the couch cushion next to Roxas, still holding the peanut butter.
"Don't you care?" Roxas pressed.
"Not really," the brunet said cheerfully, and spooned a bite of peanut butter into his mouth. He instantly made a face. "Um. Are you sure this can't go bad? It tastes kinda…crunchy."
Rolling his eyes, Roxas pointed at the label on the jar. "That's because it's supposed to be. It's crunchy style, genius. And what do you mean, you don't care? Riku is creepy! You should totally care about what I have to say."
Rolling his eyes, Sora spooned more peanut butter into his mouth and swallowed. "Roxas, really. I appreciate your concern, but you're totally crazy. Riku is awesome, and I'm not going to ditch him just because you unfairly think he's creepy."
"It's not unfair," Roxas insisted, dramatically tossing the bag of potato chips onto the coffee table. "He's always perving on you."
Sora nearly choked on his peanut butter and instantly began coughing, eyes watering, and thumped himself on the chest. Once he had recovered, he looked at Roxas with almost impossibly blue eyes and gaped. "He's what?"
"Um," Roxas said, staring in disbelief. "You mean you never noticed before?"
"No," Sora squeaked, dropping the spoon and peanut butter to pull at his hair. "Holy crap. Are you serious?"
"Yeah. Why do you think Kairi's so freaky jealous all the time?"
At the mention of Kairi, Sora visibly wilted and sank into the couch. "She's mad because I suck."
"Oh, for the love of god," Roxas mumbled, scooting over to put his arm around Sora's shoulders. "Look, I'm sorry I brought it up. You don't suck, okay? You're awesome, and Kairi knows that, and she'll come around eventually." He patted Sora's elbow and grinned. "How'd things go last night, by the way? You were in a pretty good mood when I saw you."
"It was awful," Sora groaned, slumping even deeper into the couch, and frowned at the floor. "She yelled at me and told me I was a bad boyfriend and kicked me out."
Roxas stared. "Wow, that's pretty harsh. What'd you do after that? You were so cheerful this morning."
Sora shrugged. "I went over to Riku's and spent the night and—Roxas, what are you doing?"
"I'm gonna kill him," the blond hissed as he jumped to his feet, rolling up his sleeves. "He didn't touch you, did he? I swear, if he took advantage of you, I'll—"
"Roxas, no!" Grabbing his brother by the collar of his shirt, he yanked him back onto the couch and held him down. "Stop it. You're wrong about him, okay? Even if Riku liked me, he wouldn't be a creepy pervert about it. He's a good person."
"You hardly know him," Roxas growled, "You trust him more than me, and you met him barely four days ago."
"Not you too," Sora groaned, falling forward to bang his head repeatedly on the coffee table. "Why is everybody acting like I like Riku better than them?"
"Because you do," Roxas pointed out and folded his arms across his chest. "You hang out with him every day, and he's all you talk about, and you care more about him than your own…" And then he trailed off, eyes widening, and began to look distinctly uncomfortable.
"My own what?" Sora grumbled, hitting his head one more time before sitting up to rub the growing red spot on his forehead.
"Um, nothing," Roxas said as he abruptly climbed to his feet. "Hey, listen. I've gotta go, okay?"
"What? Why?" Sora rose with him, blinking.
"I just have to talk to someone," Roxas promised, and blew out of the room like a storm.
-
A/N: Wow. If we'd known all we had to do to get reviews was ask for them, we would have been begging shamelessly from the start. …Nah, we're just kidding. But thanks a lot for that incredible response! We appreciate it more than you'll ever know, and we sincerely hope this was worth the wait. :3
