Hello Wanderers,

This is kind of a test chapter, it's twice the length of my regular chapters. I can't decide what I want to do. This story is going to become very plot heavy in the not too distant future. Right now I'm focusing on a bit of fluff, and possibly another sex chapter if y'all want one, so that when the plot happens it will be a bit more real, you know? I'm using this time to make you care about characters, essentially.

So my dilemma is whether I should continue making my chapters my average length of 2,000 words, or go to a longer length of 3,500 to 4,000 words a chapter and update a bit slower. So far I update almost every day with 2,000 words, but longer chapters would take two to three days to come out. If you could leave a review telling me which option you'd prefer, it would help me out a ton. Even if it's just a comment that says "short" or "long", It'd be spectacular. :)

Thank you so much for all your support. You guys make this story happen!
~Eliza

I was freezing. I had managed to toss and turn so much during the night that I had kicked off all the covers. My entire body was exposed to the cold air in the bedroom. I moaned as I whipped my hand around blindly, my face buried in a pillow, trying to find the sheets so I could feel warm again. When my hand should have hit Riku it came in contact with empty bed instead. I frowned into the pillow-case and raised my head expecting light to blind me, but the curtains were still drawn, which meant it was still dark outside. Riku was nowhere to be found in the room. Where is he? I thought to myself while grabbing the comforter and wrapping up in it. I snuggled into my little cocoon and tried to doze off for some more sleep, figuring I should get what I could before Riku came back and stole the blankets.

After an eternity of rolling around and restlessly trying to fall asleep I came to terms with the fact that it just wasn't going to happen. I had spent the past two nights falling asleep without Riku, and now that he was out of the room again I experienced the same trouble with sleeping. I scowled, hating how much of an effect the Silverette had on my life, and got out of bed. I hissed at the cold and pulled on a pair of Riku's pajama pants so I wouldn't be completely exposed underneath the comforter I had wrapped around my shoulders. I opened the door and began shuffling my way toward the kitchen. A pair of voices that I recognized well stopped me before I could turn the corner into the living room, where they would be able to see me. I leaned against the wall and listened closely.

"Couldn't sleep?" Leon spoke, his feet moving across the hard floor.

"Sora snores something fierce," Riku chuckled softly, and I had to resist the urge to barge into the kitchen and smack him into space. I do not snore!

"Yeah, Aerith told me about that…" Leon trailed off. He must have sensed something from the other man, seeing as his words had been innocent enough and there was no other reason for him to stop talking that I could see from peeking my head around the corner.

"I need to talk to you." Riku was solemn. He hung his head low and stared at his hands on the table while Leon took a seat.

"I know you do." Leon seemed as if he were a hundred years old when he spoke to Riku. I thought about all the students who Leon must have helped over the years; kids that were no older than Riku and were trying to figure their lives out all the same. Sure, it wasn't during the apocalypse, and sure, none of those kids had assaulted Leon as my boyfriend had, but the similarities were too strong to ignore. Leon sat with his elbows resting on the table and his fingers laced together, his thumbs up against his closed lips as Riku spoke.

"I'm sure you know what I want to say," Riku started and Leon replied with a slow and subtle nod. "I've never been like that before. I'm an asshole sometimes, but I've never been so outright violent like that. I've never been so angry in my life. I shouldn't have treated you or your people that way, and I want to apologize for how unwelcome I must have made you feel." Riku kept his eyes on his lap almost the entire time.

I was shocked. Riku never admitted he was wrong. Ever. Never. I had to be dreaming! This was not my cocky, confident, "always walking in the light of the sun and could do no wrong" boyfriend. This was a man I rarely saw. He was defeated, and regretful, and he was human. He had flaws, and fears, and he needed to feel acceptance. Just hearing him apologize to Leon pulled at my heart-strings and made my love for him swell.

"You know, Riku, I was a really dumb kid, kind of like you." Leon smirked at the Silverette as the younger man opened his mouth to protest but closed it when he saw the knowing gleam in the older's eye. "I was always angry about something for no good reason, and I was better at letting my fists fly than anything else."

"How is this supposed to make me feel better?" Riku asked in a monotone.

"Christ, kid, let me finish, will you? And people wonder why I'm so quiet…" Leon huffed and puffed until Riku convinced him to continue. "Basically I was just like you. I had no idea where my life was headed, I had no control over anything that happened to me, and I was just so pissed that nobody was handing me the perfect life I was entitled to. I worked a dead-end job, I was flunking out of school, and I had no friends because I was such a piss miserable person to be around." Leon laughed at his past self.

"I met Aerith at the diner. I was a busboy who broke more dishes than he washed and she was a hostess who was trying to make some money while she was in school. I used to sneak out of the kitchen during my shifts just to take a look at her when she wouldn't notice. I knew she'd never talk to a guy like me, though, so I gave up and let myself have one more thing to be angry about."

"How quaint." Riku raised an eyebrow at the end of Leon's tale.

"Not in the least. I was a nineteen year old headed straight to the gutter. But I caught a lucky break one night."

"And…?" Riku prodded, seemingly interested in what Leon had to say. Even if Leon's story seemed odd for the man (How could someone so reserved and sure of himself have been such a screw up?) his voice was the best part, so low and easy to listen to. It flowed in and out of your ears melodically.

"It was the night-shift and I was dog tired while scrubbing in the large industrial sink. That thing was nearly three feet deep, so when I reached in to grab a pot, the idiot who had worked the shift before mine had left a knife in the bottom of the dishes. Sliced my hand open pretty badly, and I was swearing up a storm, of course, so Aerith came storming in to tell me to shut up before the customers complained." Leon held up his hand and showed Riku the deep gash. I had seen it a million times; the scar was just part of Leon, much like the one across his face. I didn't know how he got that one though.

"Her hair was flying about in her braid and her eyes were wide with shock when she saw me standing there, clutching my hand and thrashing about in pain. She grabbed a towel and threw it on my hand before calling to one of the other girls up front to cover her for a bit. Everyone loved Aerith, so the girl let us be in the back."

"I had never seen someone so gentle before. She washed out my cut and cleaned it up, wrapping my hand with gauze and tape and all this stuff I would have had no clue how to use. I plucked up the courage to ask what her name was, and she just laughed and pointed to her name-tag. No one in the world can make me feel like an idiot quite like Aerith can." Riku smiled softly in response to Leon's playful description of his wife. I smiled too, knowing exactly how true the statement was.

"She would wink at me whenever I came into the diner after that day. I'd make any excuse possible just to talk to her at her hostess corner near the front of the restaurant. She was a speck of good in all the shit I found myself getting into all the time. We had known each other for a year or so, occasionally talking at her hostess booth, before I even had the guts to ask her out. She declined, of course, and told me I had to focus on school first. I don't know how she knew I was flunking out, but I guess I kind of looked like it, you know? That shady kid who worked in the back of the greasy diner who did whatever he could to be around the pretty girl."

"Does this ever become a happy story?" Riku mused while repositioning himself in his chair.

"Shut your mouth and it just might." Leon glared half-heartedly.

"Okay-okay. I get it," Riku tried to hide his bored expression.

"Good. Where was I? Oh, right… So Aerith had turned my broke ass down and told me to shape up so I had something to offer other people before I went around looking for something from them. So, naturally, I completely ignored her and began to hate everything she represented. Goodness, you know? She was the beautiful, happy, wealthy, loving, gentle, and sophisticated uptown girl who was everything I wasn't and had everything I didn't. I shunned her out of my life and let myself get furious instead of angry. I'd stay up all night at the university gym just slamming away at a punching bag, which is to this day why I'm actually in somewhat decent shape, and I'd fume my way to all my classes and just sit through them staring at the board."

"But you're a professor." Riku interjected. Leon gave him a look that said shut the fuck up and let me tell my story I'm trying to bond with you why are you so terrible to deal with you little shit. I was 100% positive I had received that look from him nearly five-hundred times. I chuckled to myself while I sat with my back against the wall, curled up in my comforter in the hall-way. I knew it was wrong of me to listen in, but it was just so intriguing.

"Yes, and a damn good one at that. But that doesn't mean I was a good student. The only thing that made me pass my freshman year of college was the fact that Aerith was in my general education economics class. I'll let you in one a secret, if you promise not to tell. Aerith is a brilliant doctor, but she is just shit terrible at economics." Leon curled his lips into a mischievous grin.

"I was better than her at something. I was smarter than her in that class. I would answer every single question just because I loved seeing how red in the face she got because I'd kick back and gloat when I was right. Oh, man, I could push Aerith's buttons all day long. She gets so fussy and huffy and her ears turn red, and she crinkles her nose too."

"Sora does that." Riku, his thoughts somewhere else, said in a dream-like way.

"And it's great, right? You just love pissing him off because he gets like that. It runs in their family, they get in from their mother."

"I guess I never realized that I did it all that often."

"Just little fights, right? Barely ever big ones? Only fights that have you smirking because you know you won, and he gets so fussy that he pouts?" Leon told his experience and I was shocked at how perfectly it matched with mine and Riku's.

"Yeah… you're right…" Riku furrowed his brow, thinking.

"They're practically the same person, Sora and Aerith. Vanitas was the odd one out, but he was a real good kid. I'll miss him. We'll all miss him."

"Yeah…" Riku was off somewhere else, half-listening to Leon's voice as he continued his story.

"Having something over Aerith was great. Pretty soon economics became my passion and I declared my major. She broke down and let me tutor her. I got a promotion. I stopped sleeping through my other classes. She let me take her on a date, and another, and another, and on our two hundredth date I asked her to marry me, and she stupidly agreed." Riku smiled at Leon, who had so much love in his voice it practically materialized and bubbled down his front.

"We waited a year before getting married. She wanted to make sure she got into medical school before doing anything crazy like marrying someone. She got in, we got hitched, and I got a job at a high-school where the literacy rate was abysmal. I hated it but it paid our bills. She graduated and we moved so I could begin work at the University. It was short-lived bliss." Leon explained.

"I don't understand why you told me all this. I'm not flunking out of school and I don't have a dead end job." Riku crossed his arms, as if he were trying to defend himself physically and emotionally.

"No, but you think have a lot of anger, and you do have an Aerith." Leon raised an eyebrow, trying to tell Riku something he couldn't quite grasp.

"But…" Riku scrunched up his face, thinking.

"I almost walked out of the church because I was so terrified of giving my life to someone. What if I wasn't good enough? What if she didn't really love me? It was so much for a twenty-five year old guy, let alone anyone. I don't recommend wedding days. They're the worst."

"I'll keep that in mind." Riku's lips twinged with the hint of a smile.

"It's been three years and sometimes I'm still scared. I wake up and I think it's not real. But Aerith has a way of always reminding me that we're in reality, and I love her more than anything in this world, myself included. I'd give up my life just so she could have one day more. I don't know if I could make it through any of this without her…"

"I know you feel the same about Sora. I saw it in your eyes when you attacked me. Riku, what you did to us wasn't because you were angry, not like I used to be. You did it because you were terrified. Your actions came from fear, because losing Sora would mean losing everything that is good in this world for you. I only let myself fight back because I was scared too. I was frightened that you'd hurt Aerith. I couldn't care less if you'd have shot me dead out there. But you were pointing that gun at my wife… I haven't been angry in a long time Riku, and you made me so angry that I was ready to kill you."

"I would have killed you if Sora had been hurt any worse." Riku confessed with his face a blank state now that Leon was working through his confusion and telling him exactly what his stories meant.

"I know, and I don't want you to apologize. Everything is so messy now that we're struggling to survive. There is no black or white, right and wrong, good or bad. There is pain, and death, and confusion, and occasionally you catch a break and you're allowed to feel joy again. You should never feel you did something wrong for trying to protect that small amount of joy... When we were out there I thought about just ending it every day. It'd be so easy, you know? Just a quick shot to Aerith's head when she's sleeping, she'd never have to know. She'd never shake with cold again, or cry from hunger, or dream about those things tearing her family to shreds. We'd be safe, finally safe."

"You can't think that way." Riku cut him off sternly.

"In the comfort of this cabin, we have the luxury of never thinking of that option. You go out there and it's a whole different world kid. A shitty one, at that. I'll never be able to repay you for letting us stay here. Not in my lifetime, anyways. But we'll pull our own weight, do what we can. Cloud and I are used to doing most of the grunt work since Aerith and Yuffie can't, so we're all muscle for you guys. Yuffie's deadly accurate with a knife, and she can help protect you on runs. Aerith's a doctor, and I don't think I need to explain just how valuable that is these days."

"We're going to let you stay no matter what. You're Sora's family; I could never make you leave."

"I know. But we're going to do everything in our power to deserve this place." Leon's voice was full of steel and promise. I knew him well enough to understand that when he said he was going to do something, he did it. No matter how long it took and no matter how hard it was, he got it done.

"Thank you… thank you for everything, actually. I don't quite know what you did, but it made me feel better somehow." Riku admitted while he stood from the table and pushed in his chair. Leon's face held a ghost of a smile.

"I let you know that you're not a monster for what you did to us. It shows you're a man who loves Sora and the people he's protecting. You're not angry Riku. You should never think that there is something wrong with you, or that you did something to deserve this. But if you ever do feel that way, I want you to remember that sometimes it just takes a really good economics class, or a zombie apocalypse, and a really pretty girl, or her enthusiastic brother, to show you the right path. So if I were you, I'd do my best to stick close to the things that keep you on that path." Leon clasped his shoulder, signaling that the conversation was over and to reassure the Silverette that if he didn't think he was worth the effort, he wouldn't have tried to talk to him. Riku's expression mirrored deep thought as Leon left the dining room and headed into the old bedroom I used to sleep in. Roxas, Hayner, Axel, and Olette got to keep their old rooms, but Selphie, Kairi, Larx, and Dem all shared now to make room for the four adults. Well, the four older adults, since all of us were technically over the age of eighteen, though sometimes we still felt like scared children.

Riku stood with his hands wrapped around the top of the chair. He furrowed his brow, trying to figure something out. Leon had given him a lot to think about, even if he did reassure the Silverette that he wasn't mad that Riku had assaulted him the day I was shot. I let my fingers travel over the bandage I had around my arm. It had been changed several times, but since my wound was stitched up it barely bled anymore. I got off lucky, if I hadn't have climbed over the fence I would have been shot straight through the eyes. But my impatience proved to be a life-saver; since I was tumbling over the top of the gate it only hit my flailing arm.

Upon seeing Riku's face change from thought to a small smile, I couldn't help but inspect his features. His nose was perfectly sculpted, not too masculine and not too feminine, like mine. It didn't truly point up at the end; it stayed straighter throughout than my nose. His lips were the exact opposite of mine. Mine were round and plump and they were always red because I would bite them when I was nervous, or pouting, or thinking. Riku's were thinner and normally were kept slightly parted so that his sparkling teeth could be seen at all times, and they always had a small ghost of a smile on them, as if he were constantly wryly amused at whatever was taking place. When he was Alpha wolf or angry, though, his lips could turn into the most menacing scowl.

His eyes were a completely different story. The lashes we short but black and outlined his eyes so that they looked even more dramatic than they were. His sea-green orbs practically pierced your soul they were so bright, and I used to stare at them just wondering how they could be such an intense color. When he laughed his eyes crinkled so that you could only see the green in them and it made my knees weak just thinking about it. When he was angry they could turn into furious slits that might as well shoot laser beams they were so deadly. When he cried they were unimaginably glossy and sweet, almost as if he were shedding tears for the world and not just you. Riku had a way of always displaying his feelings through his eyes, even if he couldn't voice them. They were the passage to his soul, in a sense, and I wanted to investigate every single part of that soul because it belonged to him and I loved him.

My peep show was cut short, though, when Riku came barreling toward the bedroom. I let out a small squeak and scampered my way to the door, closing it behind me before Riku could get into the hallway. I jumped on the bed and settled into a pretend sleep right as the Silverette burst into the room and ran to the bed, scooping me up effortlessly. I mocked sleepy confusion as Riku held me bridal style in my blanket cocoon. He smashed his lips against mine and then set me down so that I was standing in his arms. I raised an eyebrow at him.

"What was that for?" I asked in a slurred and curious voice, trying to pretend like I hadn't just heard Leon's entire "Sora's the best!" speech.

"I just love you, that's all." Riku kissed me again, softly, and ran a hand through my hair, massaging my scalp. I leaned into his embrace and let him hold me and touch me, admiring how gentle his fingers were in my hair.

"I love you too. Always will." I murmured against his chest, wrapping my arms around his waist. We stayed that way for some time before opening the curtains and showering the room with winter light.