The Oath.

Chapter One.

Look at the stars.

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"Don't give me that shit!" Riku hissed furiously, "you went free! Unscathed! I died that day!" spitting the hurried heated words like a rancid flavour across the mere, square foot of sand that separated him from Sora.

"SO! DID! I!" Sora's voice cracked and broke in the summer nights air, the cold words unable to withstand the sheer force behind the brutal screech that pushed them forth into the hot debate. The younger boy panted, desperately trying to recover spent breath. "… So did I, Riku." He gulped and once again attempted to regain control of his ragged breathing, his body rebelling against his every effort. "If you think- if for one SECOND you think the thought of what happened to you didn't haunt me every day!" eyes were dry and dead in his skull, behind the watery glaze that stung them. Ferrell rage and frustration was graven into his soft and delicate features. "Shadow my every STEP! Then you could never have really known me at ALL! IT KILLED ME RIKU! YOU KILLED ME! "

Conversation sat and rotted in the thick, empty humidity of the night.

Riku's angelic face was pinched, angry and red, his lips parted as if to retort or question… but his voice died in his throat, and he could not speak a word. The day the darkness swallowed him. The day it smothered him, he was standing just a little way from here… by the lazy moonlight much like this nights… He remembered, in nauseating detail, the look of absolute horror in Sora's eyes as the tendrils bound around their outstretched hands and searching fingers… He could see the distress he caused the hope he began to crush the trust he butchered… it was true. Of course it had hurt Sora too… He tried to speak again, perhaps to comfort or reassure? He wasn't entirely sure, but what did it matter, when sweet intentions could only sit in his mouth and rot on his tongue.

Riku pointed his chin towards his own chest and fumbled with the blindfold bound tight to his eyes and tossed it into the sand. Bone dry grains clung to the dark, clammy wet fabric, before the gentle sea breeze led it dancing into the night that camouflaged it so perfectly. Riku sucked deep the salt air that poisoned his lonely heart with home, and dries his eyes on a leather clad wrist to gaze upon his friend. His… friend…? He wanted to believe their friendship could survive anything. Now… he was unsure…

The only sound that could be heard was jagged, urgent breathing and the gentle whisper of the rolling tide.

"hah- hah-" Sora's face was slowly draining of the furious red that rushed to it as he had bellowed at Riku as he wheezed and gasped to catch the breath that escaped him. He had grown so sickly weak and exhausted. "We didn't rea- hah- hah! Didn't really have that different a deal, you know? I was fucking rotting in the light while you- ahh- while you festered- hn- in the darkness." He hissed a breath through parted lips and gritted pearly, butter tinted teeth. He would not show weakness now, not after coming so far and working so hard, he would not. But he felt so tired, so dizzy, his head was swimming and thoughts swiftly drowning. Was he even managing to maintain any kind of balance? "I. I can't breathe, Riku…" Shit.

Sora's darkening eyes watched Riku form behind the fog that settled in them as they expelled harsh hot tears that grated when they slip down his cold cheeks. He bore his snarling wildcat teeth and they rattled as he gasped breath after ragged breath through them. His nostrils flared madly, and he was numb to it, he was numb to the pain in his body, as if it were someone else's ache that he was dully aware of. He allowed his eyelids to drop closed and his tensed forehead and furrowed brow to relax. He swayed where he stood and uttered something ineligible as his chest tightened, his breathing became choked, he stumbled foreword, sand slid from beneath his trembling feet and he fell.

Directly into Riku's chest, his cheek presses weightily against the throbbing of the older boy's heart.

Sora was snatched up, and his rescuer, with a trembling sigh of resignation, hugged him close relishing the scent that swam from the boy cradled in his arms to sweeten the air around him. What was it…? Fruit, friendship, fresh bread, home, sugar… No. It could only be described as 'Sora'. The bare skin of Sora's sweat jewelled cheek squeaked against the supple black leather of Riku's Unknown robes as he lifted him into the safe circle of his strong, toned arms. Carefully he teetered across the beach and up the rickety stairs of the old seaside shack, Sora draped across his arms and slung around his broad shoulders. He had neither the strength nor the wit about him to clamber up the desecrated, crumbling old ladder with his friend slug over his shoulder to make it to the comfort of the tree house, so on reaching the top floor Riku gently lay Sora down in the shallow pool of sand that had collected in the room. He went about arranging crates and sandbags and created a nest to lay the brunet in, so that he could safely, soundly and in some form of comfort. The silver haired boy padded across the room and stooped to tentatively lift his friend from the sand, brushing the grains from the cinnamon coloured hair, his own tousled, dusty coloured locks glowing blue with the rare rays of moonlight that clawed their way through clouds and the narrow cracks in the wall. He crept through the thickening velvet blue of the night and set Sora's legs, then torso, then head, gently onto his improvised bed.

And Riku watched. He watched cloud filtered Moonlight's fingertips stretch though the crevices in the timbre, flutter with the movement of Sora's lashes and the love-in-mist glow it set upon his bronzed angel face. He watched beads form on his forehead and watched him begin to slowly writhe and squeak anxiety in his sleep.

"Noh… no…" Soft pleads were uttered from the brunets lips. Riku snorted and folded his arms tight against his stomach as he observed him curl around himself and shiver to defend himself from the night terrors.

"So we do still have soothing in common." Riku voiced his bitter thoughts to the night. He hesitated before extending a shaking hand to soothe Sora's contorted face and mutter awkward comforts into his ear. "Hush, you're safe, Sora, I'm watching over you. You're safe." Sora stilled, and his eyes lifted leisurely open long enough to search out a knot in the weather worn woodwork large enough to peer through at the sky. A gentle breeze gently nudged away the curtain of clouds, and for a moment starlight lifted the vial of darkness over Sora's face.

"Look at the stars…" He breathed. Riku's breath hitched in his painfully dry throat as the stars danced and were captured in the azure ocean residing in his innocent younger friend's eyes, before the lids closed once again, obscuring sky and sea from view. It was safe to breathe again. Sora sank into sleep once again, easily, as Riku continued to watch him throughout that lonely night.

Later, Sora awoke to find himself blinking stupidly into Riku's cyan eyes. He smiled for a second, before his expression darkened and he sprung to his feet, wavering where he stood, still attempting to shrug off the veil of misty sleep still clinging to his bones and obscuring his vision. When he had yawned and stretched, lifting it sufficiently, he tilted his head lazily to his side to face his old friend.

oOoOoOo

Who was nowhere to be seen.

"…Riku…?" His soft voice fell and caught in the powdery sand. The little room began to make Sora uneasy and claustrophobic. He had to get out. He had to find Riku. … Did he imagine Riku being there at all this morning? …But then how did he get into the shack? And he thought- no, he was positive, it was Riku's voice that called him from the horror of the darkness last night. But then wasn't it always? Whenever he was so lucky to dream of a friendly face, it had always, always been Riku-

Shouting, spitting, furious glowing green, broken smiles of greeting, falling…

"Oh, nonono…" The memories of the night before hit him hard. He sat up and swayed in his bed. Why had he collapsed? Did someone throw a punch? Or had he just lost control and slipped under? He hadn't eaten much over the last couple of days, he had hardly slept, either. But insomnia wasn't something he was a stranger to, all those nights he couldn't sleep for fear of the sandman snatching his heart away while he was unaware. So why, why-

-I died that day-

Oh. That. Sora winced at the bite of his own black chortle as he remembered his bought of hysteria that followed Riku's scathing. Neither of them deserved it… at east it was over now. At least he had found his friend. It was unreal. After so much time spent fighting through the darkness to find him, so very very long. To just bump into him one night while he strolled along the beach. Be felt giddy and numb. He wanted to smack the older boy square in the nose and then hug him within an inch of death.

But first, to find him.

Sora hadn't even heard him get up to leave, nor the creak that should have issued from the rusty hinges of the old door, let alone trudge across the golden sands, to… to...? Sora pushed the weather warn, salt stained door open and surveyed the area, spinning on his heel, looking for a flash of silver or splash of jade anywhere amidst the gold of the morning. Correction. Realised Sora, as he glanced at the suns position I the sky. Afternoon. He found both silver and green on paupu island. Riku was perched on the trunk of the tree, looking over his shoulder at Sora. An odd sort of half smile, no, a forlorn smile, on his delicate lips. It did not reach his eyes.

Sora cringed as he broke the silence, his feet crunching the sand as he made his way towards the bridge, then delicate -clunk- -clunk- -clunks- accompanied his hurried steps across the planks. He ignored the growing awkward tension as he approached his old friend, and focused his attention on admiring the horizon he had been. Noting that it was nice to know, for once, that they were both looking at the same sky, instead of wondering. Instead of hoping against hope.

"…" Sora didn't speak a word, but his stony eyes bore into Riku's when he turned to face him. He bit his lip, fighting the pout it was evident, at least to Riku, was begging to be set upon his petal pink lips.

So it was left up to the older of the two to kill the painful silence.

"You've changed so much." He stated. Where were the honest, giving eyes he had loved so much? Riku couldn't help but wonder, had he had a hand in killing those beautiful blue pools? Had he polluted them? Was it really his fault that nothing beyond the surface could be seen for the murky shield beneath? He slowly drew a laboured breath and turned his gaze down to study the bark of the paupu tree.

"So have you." Sora commented, observing through guarded gaze as Riku shied away from him and pretended to be so captivated by the patterns in the tree bark. He was broken.

"I'm sorry Sora…" He whispered. "It could have been so different, couldn't it…?"

So broken. And it broke Sora's heart to see it.

"So am I." Sora lay a hand on Riku's shoulder and squeezed it reassuringly, before sitting down beside him, slightly higher up the horizontally bowing tree trunk. The brunette pressed his lips together firmly in a thin line.

Riku thumbed the tattered leather of his black coats sleeve and eyed the shifting sun. Although the tension lingered, all seemed forgiven. Or at least, temporarily forgotten. "Is everyone home?"

"… Probably." Sora made the effort to chirp. Anticipating his friends next question "Not many people know I'm here yet. Only Kairi, actually. Maybe Tidus, but I don't think he was awake… unless… if she told him? I-"

"Tidus?" Riku raised an eyebrow to query his friend's contemplative tone.

"Well… I had to return Kairi's charm. Like I promised her I would… I went to find her." he stated dutifully. "Heh, as soon as I got over the initial shock of just finding myself at 'home' all of a sudden of course. Yeah. So I went. It was the middle of the day... I let myself into her house. Didn't wanna make a big scene outside. Couldn't find her, figured I'd wait, but I was exaaausted, so I went to see if I could crash upstairs, b-but. But Tidus, Tidus was … is…" he corrected "Tidus is with Kairi. Or so I gather, from the sight of him sleeping, tangled up in her bed sheets. Eheh…"

Riku shot Sora a look of genuine concern, as if he were almost expecting his friend to break down again.

"I'm sorry. Losing your…" Riku bitterly admitted "first love… hurts. I know it does." Sora gave him a reassuring smile, but it didn't begin to touch his blue granite eyes. Was that disappointment at Riku's reaction that lurked there?

"Don't be sorry. It's okay. I'm glad… I'm glad she had someone to take care of her. I hated to think she was all alone. Just waiting." He looked pensively up towards the crown of the paupu tree, where the sun danced on the leaves swaying in the gentle salty breeze. He shrugged casually and bit the inside of his lip. Riku frowned. "Hm. Riku?" Sora tested the old nickname like he would a raft new born to the open water "Are you going to go see everyone today?"

"No. I'm not ready yet. Not yet."

"I can understand that. I feel the same, I can't face the fuss. Bumped into Kairi on my way out. Hmm Didn't stay long though. Even told her not to tell a soul, though I doubt she's sure I was really there at all. I've been living here a few days since. I don't wanna deal with the people yet Wouldn't quite know how." He gestured around the island, vaguely.

"The fanfare you mean…" Sora blushed but ignored Riku's bitter dark humoured quip and accompanying, despondent though it might have been, smirk. "You saved the world, Sora. Worlds, plural, even. Each and every one of them. You saved us all, don't expect that to go unnoticed."

"No, no, don't be silly, Riku." Riku sneered at Sora's dismissal. "Not a soul on Destiny Isle has the ghost or inkling of an idea that I was responsible for 'saving the worlds'… why would they? We're just two of the tragically lost when the darkness took the land, is all. No one would believe us if we told 'em."

"… Simple as that?" Although begrudged to admit it, Riku was more convinced than not.

"Simple as that." Sora confirmed with a grim smile and a nod.

"Hm. Perhaps."

"Huh. Really though. How are either of us gonna get by, here? Two 'missing persons', likely presumed dead, appear form nowhere with no explanation besides a fantastic fantasy of struggle and strife. They'll just think we've gotten lost, caught too much sun and drunk far too much sea water. Gone round the bend. We have no qualifications and no real life skills besides fighting… hah, the great hero of Destiny Islands! Hahah… Of all the worlds! A bum! Ha!" And Riku laughed along with him. Though wondered is his friend might be a little hysterical. His laugh not just bitter, but almost sinister.

"Weeell! We could… we could write said story down. And threaten a publisher, with our acquired fighting skills, into publishing us. And make a mint!" The silver haired boy forced a giggle, aware of the harsh truth disguised in the gentle, playful words of his friend. He knew a similar pathetic fate awaited him, too. Though his fall was from a considerably smaller height. He was creeping from the shadows into the island sunlight, but Sora was slipping from where he belonged amongst the angels to skulk around this water walled prison for the rest of his life. Hell, he deserved so much better.

"Hah, ya know, all I really have are the clothes on my back. My home isn't my home. My life isn't my life. My family and friends have already mourned for me. I have nothing and no one."

"No. Wrong again Sora. You have nothing, and me." Riku interjected, firmly. "You still have me. Always." Sora's eyes grew wide at this declaration and his cheeks blushed strawberry.

"Well then. We can be The Destiny Island Hobo's together. Heh, live in the secret place and only come out to beg small children for change! Or perhaps the mushroom cave? The shack would be too obvious…" Sora joked.

Conversation came with increasing ease as silliness ensued and irony and sarcasm dripped from many a word. Niether boy noticed the sun move across the sky or the shades of rose that began to bleed from the horizon. Frustration built up and burst free at last.

"Ugh! Isn't it horrible? All the uncertainty, Riku? I don't even know if everyone made it over the very first hurdle. My own mother could be dead for all I know… heh" He chortled and shook his head at his own black humour. "I don't suppose it matters anymore, does it?" Riku sat up at this. Doesn't matter!

"Of course it matters!" Riku gasped, gazing, slack jawed at his friends observation. "They're your family! Your friends! Don't try to act all 'lassie faire', now, Sora. I know you better than that! No one." Chuckling, he poked Sora directly in the belly before snatching his hand back and arranging it squarely at his side. "Hm. You big softie."

Sora accepted the gentle jab good naturedly. With that brand new, wise, pitying, smile of his and shook his head once more. "Nah, I'm not trying to be dismissive or cool or anything Riku, I- uh… I just…" He took an epic breath and a chasm of a pause "I'm just being realistic. I'm dead to them, and they are to me." Riku looked at Sora's carefully crafted expression with a puzzled wonderment in his bright teal eyes. Of course, he understood exactly what Sora meant; he felt very much the same way himself, lost and alone in the darkest parts of all the worlds. But he had never once considered that this enigmatic angel could possibly feel so dull and bleak inside his sunny shell. "Ah! No one knew I was still alive or even if I was ever coming back and neither did I!" He gushed, hardly pausing for breath "I was fourteen. Just fourteen when they died. I saw my world ripped apart right in front of me, you know? I was there till the last. I tried to stay optimistic but… I didn't know if anyone else made it. So… in my heart, I let them all go. They may as well have been dead, because I'd never see them again. Everyone… everyone has… mourned for their losses already." Sora paused to consider his next line in this pantomime, and carefully, he changed the tone once again, and chose- "You know…" Sora began, but trailed off immediately. Riku shifted to face him, but Sora was still gazing towards the trees bounty.

"Hm?" No, Riku didn't know. Riku had no idea, though he wished he did.

"You know that I'll…" the sentence died.

"Sora, you're killing me here." Riku chuckled nervously.

"Hn." He turned round to face the silver haired boy, swinging one leg over the other side of the tree to sit astride it, hands on the trunk, he leant forwards. Giving Riku a pleading look, the battlements guarding his true eyes came rolling to the ground in quiet tears.

There they where.

Riku smiled. There were his eyes.

The honest, giving, loving, caring eyes that Riku had always adored and admired. The gorgeous ocean blue eyes that conveyed every emotion so very blatantly. The corners of Sora's petal pink lips twitched upwards uneasily, and his brows anxiously arched. He was straining just to force the words to come. Terrified.

"You know that I'll always love you, uuh…" He clenched his teeth and clawed a breath back through them "…right?" His pouting lips, gnawed red, begged for an answer.

"Oh…"

It wasn't the most terribly romantic deceleration that ever was. The desperation and hunger in Sora's eyes confirming the truth to his friend. This love he held. It was not platonic and not brotherly. It was awkward and scared and starved.

No, it wasn't awfully romantic. Hero and anti hero both being as sleep tousled, battle beaten and un-groomed as they were. It wasn't sung by the garnet glow of the setting sun or conveyed by moonlit serenade. There was no music, nor candlelight to be had. Just an obviously strained sentence uttered as the high summer sun began to drop in the sky to shatter the crisp late afternoon air, drawing prickly sweat to the surface the boys skin as they perched on paupu island. Like dew on morning grass.

Was the rushed and desperate gasp of the brunet enough in itself that the silver haired boy could be swooned?

Should his confession have to be an epic and momentous occasion? Sora panicked, waiting tense for the blow that surely came after 'Oh…"

Already he regretted saying anything at all. Stupid Sora, stupid! He scolded himself, crushing his eyes closed and nestling his chin down to his chest, he opened his mouth to apologise.

Still, Riku didn't reply, but stood, before his friend could speak and sharply turning from him smiled a secret, feral, smile. Sora's eyes flew open and grew impossibly wide, unbelieving, soul already stinging with the slap of rejection he gasped and clung to the tree to support himself.

Riku sprung, catlike, into the uppermost branches of the tree and landed shakily. There he balanced for a moment, clamping pearly enamel teeth around the second skin of each of his supple leather glowed in turn and tugging them free. Sora did not acknowledge the gentle -thunk- -thunk- of the worn leather hitting the ground beside his feet or the small clouds of sand that rose around them. Relishing the open air weave between his naked fingers, Riku turned his avid attention to the next, a far greater task. He steadied his uneasy legs and agilely ambled into the crown of the tree, from which he plucked the lushest of jewels, the plumpest fruit of the perfect blushing yellow. He landed with impossible grace, determined he would not wobble, at Sora's feet. Yes. He said silently. God, yes.

Sora looked down at the paupu that Riku carefully cradled and proffered, bruising under his heated and urgent grasp of one hand and the ripe fruit yielding under the firm touch between his thumb and forefinger around one of the five points. Both boys watched in ardent fascination as the skin split, revealing the glowing flesh parting and it crying honeyed tears of happiness beneath. He leant forward, carfuly placing the paupu, with an unsteady anticipating hand, onto the trunk of the tree.

Riku raised the morsel of fruit to Sora's parted lips and offered it for him to take. The younger boy looked up, slowly, struggling to meet the elder's gaze, afraid of what he might find there. He gasped back a sob and bit his tongue as he felt his cheeks reddening once more. Looking from the hand Riku held to him, to his beautiful, beautiful porcelain face, cheek bones highlighted pink, he gathered his courage. His tongue darted out to taste the juice running down Riku's fingers, and he smiled, and he ate. Lips closed around the tips of Riku's thumb and forefinger, and he melted. Leaning foreword to run his unoccupied slender fingers through spiky spiced cinnamon hair, gently easing the boy's head up, he stole a kiss.

It was returned with bashful passion.

Clumsy lips cried gasped and bumped together, Riku's eager tongue lapping the trickles of juice that spilled from Sora's mouth between mewls and furious attempts to capture the older boy's with his own. A hand tangled in his hair tamed the wild cat in him, and his submitted to Riku's guidance. His testing, tender, tongue that teased the paupu from the brunet's mouth and brought it to rest between their mouths.

Both opened their eyes, hearts beating fast and rhythmically.

Sora drowned in cream jade green, Riku was smothered by crystalline ink blue.

And so they shared their first bite of paupu.

A silent oath.

They ate, and they held each other close, sitting snug in the sand, touching shy touches, kisses sweet kisses, until Sora noted that night had come and cloaked them.

"Look at the stars…"

"…I'm looking… I'm looking." Riku sighed against Sora's lips, not tilting his head up to gaze at the night sky. He preferred to see the sequinned velvet indigo night… reflected on the waters of the azure ocean in his Love's eyes.

oOoOoOo

To be continued…

oOoOoOo

Obligatory Authors Crap:

And they lived happily ever after :sarcasm:

Ahem. A couple of notes on this chapter. OUCH that was short. EEK that was a rather fast… erm… revelation. BUT there was a purpose for that :o This is not about the build up. This is about the… aftermath. Making a new life, together. There are plot bunnies lurking in the wings. MYA ha. MYAHAHA. HA. HA. :Cough: Haha…

Cloud:Groan: No one likes a ranter.


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