Warnings: Pre-slash/Yaoi, angst, fluff, possibly disturbing content towards the end
Pairings: one-sided Riku/Sora
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Owned by Squaresoft, Disney, et al.
Summary: Riku would keep Sora in a box; keep the boy tucked away where only he can find him.
A/N: Inspired by "My Last Duchess" by Robert Browning.
A/N2: Be forewarned—this is a peculiar child of a peculiar brain. Whether the reader may find anything worthy of approbation, the author cannot say—except that she hopes the reader will show enough human respect and dignity to refrain from sacrificing her upon the alter of the reader's indignation. Thank you most kindly for your time and for, if you may be so inclined, a memento of your visit in the form of a review. The author is, as always, the humble and pitiable servant of your entertainment.
:Prince of a Flower Crown:
Sora pauses at his friend's words, at that wicked, trembling question. This isn't another one of those rhetorical quips Riku is so fond of making. This is serious; he is serious. The hand remains, palm up, fingers ever so slightly curled, silently beckoning. Eyes of an electric aqua hue hold his captive with a near frightening intensity. "Do you?" they ask. A fluttery nervousness fills Sora's stomach. Do I? he wonders, nibbling the inside of his lower lip.
"I trust you," Sora says and grabs Riku's offered hand. A weight lifts from his shoulders, takes wing and soars off into the dizzyingly blue sky. Spiraling. Looping. Evanescing. Gone!
Riku pulls, grip firm and sure, hand enveloping Sora's like a father's hand would, refusing to let gravity have its way. A shower of leaves—brown and green—and bark spiral down to the sandy soil far below. Muscles strain, ripple, bunch. Sweat breaks out across twin brows. His shoes scrabbling for purchase, Sora grips Riku's hand and together they pull him up onto the branch, which is normally just out of Sora's reach. They have never climbed this high with each other before.
"You've gotten fat," Riku says as they collapse—Riku on his back and Sora on his stomach—onto the generous width of the tree limb.
"Shut up," the younger boy retorts without vitriol. He peers down through the labyrinth of branches and verdant leaves to the ground that appears so far below them now. For a moment he experiences that liminal state between adrenaline-filled terror and morbid fascination known as vertigo. What would it be like to fall from here to there? Rushing air, everything a blur, green, brown, green, brown, down down down down—
"Hey."
Sora doesn't flinch when a strong hand grasps his shoulder and dispels the peculiar trance that has enthralled his waking consciousness. Blinking slowly like a kitten awoken by a curious sound, Sora turns his eyes from the bewildering drop and smiles winsomely at his friend.
"C'mon, I want to show you something cool," Riku says.
Hands clasped with a closeness and trust that defies the barriers of gloves, they move along the limb, following its steadily narrowing girth. Riku throws anticipatory grins over his shoulder as they navigate their way between the supple young branches that jut out from the parent wood. Sora cannot help but feel his own excitement spike in response to his best friend's mysterious playfulness. The leaf-tinted sunbeams set the verdure around them aglow and entice the whispering trees to perfume the air with their spiced fragrance. Invisible but audible, the warbling, peeping songs of the island birds mix with the raucous calls of their coastal cousins. This is magic, Sora thinks, squeezing Riku's fingers as he smiles with ingenuous joy. The journey takes forever—a sun-drenched eternity of the uncomplicated exultation of young, vibrant life—or it only takes a minute. Time is capricious in the dream-dazzled gaze of simple happiness.
Their laughter, bubbling up and popping with sweet ecstasy as it hits the air, springs from jokes shared without utterance. Theirs is one mind bifurcated into two bodies, connected at the source of life, but separated in the physical realm. Joined by hands, they exchange a continuous dialogue in perfect silence, their language transcending the capacity of human speech and lodging somewhere within a realm that most can only find in their forgotten dreams.
The limb terminates with jagged suddenness; below is an expanse of air interrupted by other branches and ending at the ground. Riku lets go of Sora's hand and hurls himself off the edge, wind dragging rough fingers through his platinum hair, stealing the very life's breath from the one left behind. The younger boy suffers a moment of disorientation, of bewilderment borne from the abrupt cessation of their connection. Alone. Lost. Bereft. Riku? Riku?
Don't go where I can't follow.
"Jump, Sora," Riku says. "Don't be afraid."
The older boy stands upon a precarious looking ledge fronting a shallow, shadow-cling cave. He holds his arms out. "I'll catch you. I'll always catch you."
Always.
Best friends forever.
I trust you.
Wind rushing past, stinging his eyes, a moment of suspension, of rude, glorious defiance of physics, hovering over infinite space, eyes locked with those of the other, arms stretching, reaching—Don't let me go. Don't let me fall—fingers spread wide to split the air, feet kicking out for a solid safety that is no longer there, voice winging out with delighted terror…
"I got you. I got you."
Strong arms snap closed about him in a crushing embrace. Breathless and exhilarated, adrenaline singing through his veins, Sora returns the embrace with matching intensity. Effervescent laughter pours from his smiling mouth and lights up his eyes until they seem to posses their own luminous lapis lazuli suns. Riku joins in, holding onto the younger boy as if he might dissolve into sunshine and rainbows and stream from his hold in an explosion of innocent rapture. Sora accepts the chaste, sexless kiss to the corner of his mouth without thought.
"That was wicked," the younger boy says, gazing up at his companion, face glowing, flushed. "I thought I was going to die."
"Never. I would never let you."
Another kiss glances off Sora's forehead, but his mind has already turned to the mysterious secret his best friend wants to show him. Sparkling with excitement, Sora wiggles out of Riku's embrace like an imprudent, inquisitive kitten.
"So, where is it, huh?"
Riku's hand slides under his elbow and gently tugs him into the shallow opening. Hidden within a deep shadow caused by a ridged outcropping in the cave wall, there is a crack that runs from roof to floor and widens enough towards the bottom to allow even someone of average height and build to crawl through. Sora looks at his best friend with eager curiosity, eyes lambent with half-formed thoughts of what's at the end. Riku makes a little shooing motion; the younger boy doesn't have to be urged twice. He's on his knees in a moment and crawling between the damp stone walls of the fissure.
Small pebbles prick his palms and the rough, uneven stone floor scrapes the skin from his knees, but these are no deterrent to a young boy bursting with excitement. Through the gloom he moves, eyes fixed upon the gilt slit of the opening at the other end of the passage. The smell of damp rock embraces him; its course texture rubs against exposed flesh and lifts him into a resplendent ecstasy of senses. Secrets and mysteries cling to walls and enkindle the young boy's soul with the spirit of adventure. Then fresh air breathes across his sweat-damp face as he emerges from the umbral womb of stone. Here is the secret!
Thickly gnarled roots weave in and out of the walls, squeezed forth from fissures and breaks in the otherwise impregnable walls of this… green-splashed Eden. Where the effulgent face of the sun pours down through the opened roof of this cavern, fragrant beds of island starflowers vie with fleshy greenswords and the more ethereal silverswords for the fecund territory. Rising up from amid this eternal vegetative battle are a few full-leafed trees, glowing in tints of green, gold and silver. The light passes in bars through their stretching, woody arms and dapples the smaller plants below. Where little light reaches, the rich brown of the sandy soil is visible between colonies of shade-loving, red-stemmed ground crawlers, and upon the frothy lichens spread in a rich palette of ethereal colors upon the uneven walls.
Small, colorful birds chatter blithely as they fly here and there, hopping across branches and fluttering up to small cracks in the cavern's walls. And if color can become scent, Sora would describe this organic fragrance as green.
The breath hitches within Sora's breast; his mouth falls open as his eyes absorb the wondrous display of nature. There is too much to take in at once! Too much sun-drizzled beauty for this young mind to divide into categories of attraction as an adult can—and because he can only passively receive the experience, feel it within the compass of his five senses, he finds himself floating beyond himself into a moment of wonder that adults can only dimly regret the absence of.
"What do you think?" A soft puff of breath passes Sora's ear and strong fingers rub the nape of his neck. He can feel the warm glow of Riku's comforting presence along his spine and tips his head back, smiling with a child's ignorance of sorrow.
"It's beautiful," says Sora, and, really, what other description could be more apt?
Carelessly, the young boy walks across the verdant spread, each footfall releasing the refreshingly sharp scent of crushed vegetation. "We should tell Kairi."
"No."
A sudden gust of wind moans across the hole in the cavern's roof and swirls down to play amongst the tree boughs and to ruffle the flowers' heads. Sora casts a questioning look over his shoulder at Riku, pink mouth forming a moue of confusion. The other boy watches him with a gentle smile.
"This is just for us."
"But she'd like it, I'm sure."
"It's just for us."
"Riku…"
"It'll be our secret, Sora. Ours alone. Somewhere we can just be together."
"A secret?" Confusion gives way to a brilliant smile. Renewed excitement lights up the younger boy's eyes and flushes his cheeks with damask roses. "Oh, wow!"
"Just for us."
Sora giggles and bounces lightly on his toes. He loves secrets, all kinds of secrets, especially the shared ones—and Riku always has the best ones and he always shares them with Sora; and this might be the best one of all!
"We could build a fort here," Sora says, gaze swinging wildly about the place as his brainpan fills up with a rolling jumble of half-plans and fantasies. Youthful vitality spurs him on until he is dizzy with possibilities and close to collapse. A secret. A secret. Just for the two of them, best friends. So much they can do! How to decide? "Or… Or… yeah."
"Want to see something else?" Riku asks around a fit of indulgent chuckles.
"There's more?" The unaffected anticipation and incredulity that shape Sora's countenance is enough to send the older boy into another laughing jag that has the younger hurrying over to his side, concern writ across his expressive features.
"There is," Riku says, grinning wickedly up at his anxious best friend.
Sora emits a soft squeal when Riku grabs him in a hug that is over before the young boy has even registered the sensation of hard arms crushing him to a firm chest. Then an implacable hand has his, and he finds himself stumbling along and laughing—feeling as if he is weightless and caught in the pull of his best friend's magnetism, soaring and falling, free—as Riku drags him to the largest tree in this enchanting, enchanted place. The older boy tells him to look and he obeys, lapis lazuli eyes running over the ink-dark inscriptions carved deeply into the tree's body.
Names and dates, the most recent from thirty-two years ago, rudely interrupt the pale wood of the trunk. "BK, Best friends 4ever '--.," "Y luvs A ----." "GY MH '--," and many more have been etched into the wood. Sora traces these forgotten memories of other people's existences with a hesitant finger, eyes wide and wondering as he assimilates this silent history into his own life. To whom do these initials belong? Did B and K remain best friends forever? Did Y love A after they dictated their emotions to this silent witness? Who were GY and MH? And the others? Did all their tiny, mute prayers for immortal sentiment come true?
Or did they grow up and grow apart? Forgetting this hidden, sun-bathed grotto, and forgetting each other? The steady, unwavering steps of time continuing on and leaving the memories here the only testament to what once was? Do vernal promises last until the cold sleep of one's winter?
"Let's carve our names."
Sora looks over at Riku; the platinum-haired boy has locked his gaze upon the trunk with a singular attention, as if something infinitely fascinating has taken root in the scarred wood. The younger boy idly trails his fingers across the rough, papery surface as he watches his best friend's face, noticing the small furrow between the older boy's brows and the tightness of his jaw. This is serious, important. The meaning here is not contingent. It is universal. It is truth.
Do you trust me?
I trust you.
Best friends forever.
"Okay."
Riku has a small, sharp pocket knife. The dance of light across its metal surface, the flash across the honed edge, mesmerizes the younger boy.
"I'll cut your name and you cut mine," Riku tells him as he sets the tip against the bark and jams it in, parting the tough, fibrous membranes with a determined plunge. Sora shudders gently and watches the methodical act with rapt attention, watches his name slowly bloom in rent tissue and sticky sap. S-O-R-A.
"Your turn." They share a smile as the blade passes between them. Sora nods enthusiastically, more than willing to add his mark to this testament of time's course, to join those that have come before, join with Riku, entwine their destinies—if only for this singular moment.
"So, how'd you find this place?" he asks, wielding the small blade with less precision than the other boy.
"I was trying to avoid the gang," Riku answers, clasping Sora's working hand within his own warm one and guiding the motions.
"I thought you liked them," Sora murmurs, biting his lower lip as he digs out the dot for the 'i' with the tip of the knife.
"In small doses."
Sora slices slivers of wood out to form a crude 'k' with the aid his best friend's firm hold. One flesh, one intent. Even as words pass from lip to ear, deeper meaning flows between their joining. Sora can tell Riku is in one of his mercurial moods again. The younger boy grins, pearly teeth pinching the reddened flesh of his bottom lip. Riku is fun to be around because he always keeps Sora guessing, challenging him, pushing him to new levels.
"Could've fooled me. You hang out with them all the time."
An awkward 'u' follows in the wake of the blade, gold sap welling up from the wound, smearing across the metal as it slices in again. Fresh scent. Green.
"I hang out with you."
The woody-bite of the tree's lifeblood fills Sora's nose as he gazes upon the crude rendition—even with Riku's help—of his best friend's name. Riku still has hold of his hand, elegant fingers curling about his, squeezing. Sora can feel the rounded edges of the plastic handle press into his palm, into the joints of his fingers, lightly pinching the skin.
There is something freighted in Riku's words. Something that Sora has yet to learn the emotional language for. The vocabulary is not there for him to dissect the contingent meaning of intonation and syllabic stresses. The words Riku has uttered are simple, easy to understand in their parts and when stitched together; it's the embroidery of subtext and implication that leaves him behind, feeling an amorphous sense of disquiet. Their connection cannot give him knowledge that his innocence is not ready to assimilate into itself.
"Do you think I'm neglecting you?"
"Of course not. You treat us all equally."
There it is again. Sora has missed something vital. Why does it seem like treating everyone "equally" is wrong, at least in Riku's opinion?
"Riku…"
Best friends forever.
The petals—palest pink in tint—describe a path of lazy curlicues as they slip between Riku's gloved fingers and land upon the dark head resting against his chest. Here and there a petal has caught some stray wisp of a zephyr and drifted away from the younger boy's burnt-caramel brown hair to delicately alight upon a downy cheek or the thin chest that rises and falls with somnolence's gentle respiration.
Today has been too much for the younger boy, too full of excitement, and now they repose, nestled together beneath the tree bearing their interchanged sigils, Sora's slim fingers tangled in the fabric of Riku's shirt, gentle breaths dampening the cloth. Riku spreads his fingers and allows the rest of the crushed blossoms to tumble down upon his slumbering companion, his most precious treasure. The younger boy does not stir as the fairy-light rain of blooms touches down upon his sleep-flushed cheeks, translucent lids and cherry-pink mouth with the most ethereal of kisses. Sora remains blissfully snuggled against his best friend, lost in sinless dreams, and embraced in strong arms. About them the stone-enshrined grove exhales its rich, organic fragrance and exults with the westering sun and birds.
Yes, this is a place just for the two of them: the place where he can keep Sora as his—if only for a small span of time.
Sora is still too young to understand, Riku thinks as he strokes his fingers lightly across the silky ribbon of flesh exposed by Sora's up-rucked shirt, tenderly guiding his friend from the precipice of wakefulness. The younger boy remains curled and untouched inside the cocoon of his own naiveté, forever nourished by some ever-flowing font of innocence. Riku cannot imagine a force in the world that will ever tear through the protective membrane to expose Sora's tender, red heart to the light of cynicism. Appetite is a foreign affliction to him; his desires remain un-budded.
So Riku must suffer from his own insatiable rapacity, must feel the dissonant drum of his heart beat out a molten tattoo in the glowing presence of his sweetest companion—but he will not shatter that luminous shell, will not drag Sora—trembling, naked and wet—into this shoddy compromise of a world, just for the sake of his own carnal greed, the desire to wholly own, take, posses, have.
Never.
Riku will destroy the very world before he lets it penetrate the softness and warmth of his Sora and wrench his friend's sweetness open—vulnerable, sobbing, crying out with the mute voice of every child too rudely cut from the womb of purity. Yes, Riku will break everyone and everything before he lets that happen.
His fingers press too deeply into pliant, silken flesh as the strife-ridden anxiety of his thoughts translates into a physical response. He has clutched the younger boy to him as if he can bodily keep the world and everything in it at bay if he only holds on tight enough. Sora mumbles an incoherent string of consonants and curls closer against the older boy. The warm, musky cardamom scent of his dark hair rises up with the gentle motion, and Riku breathes deep, basking in this sensory gift, allowing his body to become flushed with delicious—but impotent—awareness. His vital sap surges within every plump vein, throbbing and never to be fulfilled.
"But that's okay," he whispers into the gently enfolding darkness, eyes trained upon the lengthening, crawling, creeping shadows.
Someday Riku will find a way to inextricably bind Sora to him, keep him safe, keep the boy's unaffected smiles and devotion for himself. He will carve a beautiful box of adoration and lay his friend within, safe and his, where only his gaze and his love will fall upon Sora, where only his attention will nourish this precious young bud of a boy. And Sora will allow him to—no, Sora will want him to.
Riku leans back against the scarred trunk and smiles up at darkening sky.
Soon.
Best friends.
Forever.
End