Chapter 2

Riku wakes to Sora peering at him from his position crouched beside his bed. Needless to say, he's not happy. "…What the hell are you doing?"

"I was waiting for you to wake up. You're really pretty, you know that?"

Riku sits up, "How long have you been there?"

"I don't know, I didn't keep count."

Riku sighs and gets out of bed, "Don't do that anymore, it's weird. Are you that excited?"

"Yes! I told you exploring is the whole reason I came here!" Riku follows after Sora into the kitchen as he continues chattering about everything he's heard about the human world. Riku frowns as he opens the fridge, its almost empty. Good thing they're going out today, might as well pick up some groceries. Pop tarts it is, Riku decides, shutting the fridge and moving to the pantry.

"Sora, if you don't stop talking, you're going to make my head explode," Riku says when Sora pauses to take a breath from his endless stream of chatter. He holds up the boxes, "Chocolate chip or strawberry?"

Sora's eyes widen again, "Umm…chocolate! I hear it's really tasty."

Riku gives a hum of assent before dropping them in the toaster. He stands back as he waits for them to toast and watches Sora get as close as possible to the toaster in curiosity. Wait for it…
"Hey, this thing is warm!" Sora exclaims face leaning over the toaster to get a better view. He's focused right until the pastries shoot up from the toaster smacking him in the face. He jumps back from the toaster, bumping into Riku in shock.

Sora hears Riku laughing and turns to look at him accusingly, "You knew that was going to happen!"

"Of course I did," Riku says reaching around him to place them on a plate.

"You could've warned me."

"Where's the fun in that? Consider it another lesson learned from the human world," Riku takes a seat at the table still chuckling.
~~~~~

After breakfast, Sora is once again following after him and Riku can't help but think that Sora is far too trusting and carefree. Here he is, in a stranger's house with still healing wings practically defenseless, and he doesn't seem to have a single worry. Is the Seraph world really that nice? From what Axel told him it's not, but then again Axel could be biased.

He glances over at Sora who gives him a smile in return, no, he doesn't see how a place as cruel as Axel claims could produce someone as cheerful as Sora.

He appraises Sora's shirtless state and considers it good that his shorts weren't ruined from the attack because none of Riku's would fit his smaller stature. Riku tosses him a shirt to wear and finishes getting dressed himself.

"Your shirt smells good," Sora says inhaling. Riku gives him a weird look, but doesn't comment on it, figuring it's more of Sora speaking without a filter. Sora tugs on the shirt and looks at Riku expectantly.

"….What?"

"I'm waiting for you, let's go!"

"Alright, come on," Riku leads him outside and to the car, "Whatever to control that enthusiasm of yours."

As they drive into the city, Sora can barely contain his excitement. He's buzzing with energy and Riku is surprised he can even stay seated. They pull into the parking lot of the outdoor mall and Sora is out of the car in a flash. Riku has to run to catch up with him.

"Sora! Don't run off, I won't be able to find you."

"Sorry, I got carried away." He reaches out to grab Riku's hand, "Stay with me."

Riku looks down at their joined hands, "I should be the one saying that." Sora laughs and drags him away.

~~~~~
They've been here hours and Sora has dragged him into every shop possible and tried every snack there. Unsurprisingly, his favorites were sweets. They have gotten plenty of curious looks the entire time. Mainly because Sora is unable to stay still and his enthusiasm about everything shines through.

Riku has had to apologize so many times for Sora hugging random children. However, many of the kids seem to gravitate towards him, as if something about his presence attracts them and he's only too happy to reciprocate the attention.

He's calmed down somewhat and for the moment doesn't seem likely to take off. Still, Riku is keeping a wary eye on him as Sora eats his second ice cream cone of the day. "Hey Riku, what are those people doing?"

Riku follows his gaze towards a family placing a child no older than 8 in a wheelchair. "The child is probably sick and this is the best way to get him around."

Sora looked at him in confusion, "He's so sick that he can't walk? I thought humans had tools of healing?"

"We do, but we're not magic, somethings can't be healed with science."

Sora frowned, "He has so much sadness though. He's not happy."

"You can tell? He's smiling."

"When I focus on someone, I can sense emotions and his are dark."

"Everyone can't be happy all the time."

Sora hums and hands Riku his ice cream cone, "I'm gonna go talk to him."

"What? No, you're not," Riku reaches for him, but he's already darted across the lawn.

Sora approaches the boy whose family is looking at him warily, bending down and placing a hand on his leg while smiling. "What's your name?"

The boy smiles back, "Denzel." Sora can already feel the boy's emotions changing, this is definitely right.

"I'm Sora," he says pushing more magic into Denzel, humans may not have magic to stop their hurting, but fortunately Sora does. Sora stands up and grabs both of Denzel's hands pulling him from the seat to the shocked gasps of the people around him, "Come run with me!"

"He can't-," someone starts, but Sora has already dragged him away with a bit of help from the wind.

"I feel great," Denzel laughs.

"You should," Sora smiles back at him, "you're not sick anymore."

"I'm not sick? How's that?"

"Magic!" They've slowed down because it seems that even though Denzel is no longer sick, he's still not used to so much physical movement. Denzel is staring up at him in awe when Riku arrives at Sora's side and begins pulling him away. "Bye Denzel!"

"What's wrong with you? How could you do that?" Riku demands.

"What do you mean? I was helping him."

"You can't just walk around healing people. Didn't they teach you anything back in your world?"

"Not about the human world, he was sad. I only helped him."

Riku does know how Sora feels. When he first discovered he had the ability to heal, he helped plenty of people and inevitably word spread. There was no keeping it a secret and soon Riku was gaining some very undesirable attention. Without Axel and his stronger manipulative abilities around to help him, things would have gotten really bad, he's been careful to stay low ever since. But, unfortunately for Sora, if he was found out, Riku doesn't have the ability to make it go away.

"Things like that aren't supposed to be possible here, doing them only brings unwanted attention which we want to avoid."

Sora looks despondent, "I was only helping…"

"I know," Riku sighs, "let's just get out of here."

~~~~~
It doesn't take Sora long to get back to his cheerful disposition, being in the grocery store shopping for food probably has a lot to do with it. Fortunately, he can't sample everything here, but he's content to toss anything that looks interesting in the basket.

Honestly, Riku is too tired to care, Sora's a bit of handful with his excitement and Riku has given up trying to reign him in. He simply follows behind pushing the basket.

"Hey Riku, do you like these," Sora asks holding up a package of oreos.

"Hmm, they're okay, I don't really have much of a sweet tooth."

"But, do they taste good?"

"Nah, they're kind of bland."

Sora looks over at the full basket, "I guess we can skip these.

"You think," Riku chuckles. "Come on, let's pay for this." Sora ducks under to lean against the basket between Riku's arms. "…You wanna push?"

"Nah, you can."

"Then what are you doing?"

"I thought we were going to pay."

Riku sighs and continues pushing the basket, "Do seraphs have no sense of personal space?"

"What's that?"

"…"

"I'm joking, we do. But, there's nothing wrong with being close to each other either."

"Uh huh," Riku removes a hand from the cart and pushes Sora to the side, "let's save that for when you're home."

After they've paid, loaded the car, and are heading home, Sora speaks again. "Thanks for letting me stay."

"Well, I couldn't throw you out with nowhere to go."

"Thanks for showing me around too."

"I think I'd go crazy stuck in a house with you all day."

"Just say you're welcome," Sora huffs.

"You're welcome," Riku smirks in response. "Before you go to sleep, we should check how your wings are healing."

Sora frowns, "They're not going to heal that fast."

"Relax," Riku chuckles, "I'm not kicking you out, I just want to make sure they're okay."

"Oh okay," he smiles in relief.

~~~~~
After dinner Riku pulls Sora to his feet and begins slowly unwinding the bandages from his back. He peers close and sees the silver threading hasn't faded at all, but his wings are still dirty, he'll need a bath. However, they look fully healed, which probably has to do with Riku's healing magic and Sora's body naturally healing itself working together. He stands back, "Can you stretch them?"

"Should I? Won't it hurt?"

"I think they've healed a lot, it shouldn't hurt at all."

"Okay." Sora timidly stretches his wings out, then all the way when he feels no pain. Riku steps back in surprise and looks at Sora, this is his first time really seeing a seraph. He knew Sora was one, but now it's just hitting him, seeing Sora standing there with his wings fully extended slowly testing them.

"What's wrong? You seem surprised."

"I don't know, I mean I knew you were a seraph, but I guess without seeing your wings, I didn't have to think too much about it."

"Oh. Does it make you uncomfortable," Sora questions seeming a bit smaller.

"Nah, it's fine," Riku smiles, "I just didn't expect it."

"I think that's the first time you've smiled at me."

"Don't get used to it. Come on, I'll run you a bath."

Sora idly sits on the edge of the wide tub and watches Riku adjust the temperature. He's fascinated by the color of Riku's hair, well really it's fascinated by everything about him, his sharp emerald eyes, the paleness of his skin, but his hair is so unusual and Sora's been dying to touch it, but something tells him Riku won't take kindly to that. He seems to like his personal space.

"Sora," Riku calls pulling him from his thoughts.

"Hmm?"

"The bath is ready, towels are in the closet, twist the knob to drain the water when you're done." Riku yawns, "I'm going to bed, see you in the morning."

Sora nods and watches as Riku exits shutting the door behind him before stripping and climbing into the tub. Riku's tub is so wide, he and his wings can fit with ease. Sora squeezes water over his wings and makes a face at how dirty they are, maybe save them for last. Eventually he's clean even the hard to reach places on his wings, next time he'll have to ask if Riku has a shower.

Sora dresses and enters the room he's been sleeping in the past two nights, it looks so empty. It's furnished, but doesn't look lived in at all, not exactly warm and welcoming. He steps back out, shutting the door and walking quietly to Riku's room.

He opens the door and peers in, taking note of Riku's sleeping form. Riku's room seems much warmer, likely because it's lived in and someone's actually in there. Sora slips stealthily into the room and makes his way to the bed. Riku's probably going to hate this when he wakes up, but Sora would much rather deal with his annoyance and sleep here than go back to the other impersonal room.

Sora climbs into Riku's bed, easing himself under the covers slowly in an attempt not to disturb the other. He grabs one of Riku's giant pillows, burying his face in it and squeezing tight. His last thought before falling asleep is that Riku really does smell nice.