Title: 100 Steps to Somewhere
Fandom: Kingdom Hearts
Theme: 04. Love
Claim: Riku/Cloud
Word Count: 3,119
Rating: M
Summary: Cloud and Riku get to know each other, Sora and Sephiroth are nowhere to be found, and Cloud isn't any good at comforting distraught teenagers he wants to kiss.
Musical Inspiration: AFI : Rabbits are Roadkill on Route 37
Disclaimer: No. I still don't own Kingdom Hearts. At all. I still am not affiliated with Square Enix or Disney. I am still broke. Riku will never be mine. sob Ah, at least he's got Cloud to take care of him…
Author's Note: The prompt for this little section is love. The most obvious, of course, now that Cloud and Riku are all snuggled in the Gummi Ship exactly where I want them, is romantic love, but I think it's a little soon for that. Budding love, however, is an entirely different story, but I think the theme of love permeates throughout this little piece in only a few of its many different forms. Enjoy.
Step Four: Ambiance
Autopilot on Gummi Ships, Cloud discovered, was his favorite invention Cid had ever developed.
After all, autopilot gave him the luxury to not have to actually steer the damn thing, but instead, sit back in his seat, and observe that they wouldn't fly into any unsuspecting worlds. By default, that meant a lot more time to talk with Riku.
Riku, Cloud found, was oddly interesting once you got him started.
When they boarded the Gummi for Olympus Coliseum, his ship proudly announced (in that annoying simulated voice Cid had installed just to annoy him) that the trip was estimated to take three days, seven hours, and thirty-three minutes. He set the control to autopilot, leaned back in his seat, and waited for Riku to start conversation. It wasn't an unnatural assumption; Riku was the one running his mouth back at Maleficent's, and it was his idea to travel together. Riku, however, sat silently in his seat, observing the insides of the ship, glancing out the window, and taking everything in.
Early on, Cloud learned that Riku was somewhat distant, with a quiet reserve easily broken, but hardly wavered entirely. Unless prompted into banter or lengthy conversation requiring thought, Riku's eyes looked elsewhere; his demeanor suggested that he might be listening, but not hearing. Small talk got Cloud nowhere. Riku needed witty or interesting subject material that grabbed his attention. It also helped if the conversation made Riku slightly embarrassed.
Having not yet figured out how to provoke such conversation, the first nine hours were excruciating.
"You wouldn't happen to smoke, would you?" said Riku, suddenly.
"Um, no. Why?"
"Do you mind if I do?"
Cloud stared for a bit.
"I know; it's a nasty, filthy habit. I've heard the lecture. From everyone. My mom, Ayumi—that's my sister, Sora, Kairi, hell . . .I even heard it from Maleficent, but it's been nine hours, and I think I might bite off my tongue if I don't smoke soon."
Cloud assumed Riku wouldn't actually bite off his own tongue, but he wasn't about to take any chances. Riku had been picking at his lips for a few hours now, and if it had anything to do with a lack of nicotine, Cloud would rather him smoke than mutilate himself farther.
"Go ahead." Riku sighed one of the deepest sighs of relief Cloud had ever heard, pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, and lit one. "Aren't you a little young to be smoking?"
"I caved to peer pressure," said Riku. Cloud laughed. "No, really. I was going through this horrible, my life sucks, phase because I was obsessed with Sora, but he was obsessed with Kairi, so I went and made some friends in the year ahead of me at school. They smoke. A lot. I wanted to be a cool kid, too. So now I'm addicted. I don't really mind, though. I enjoy it."
"To each their own."
"I appreciate your leniency."
Cloud sat back in his chair again, staring through the window at the cosmos and worlds beyond. He didn't know what to say to Riku. His thoughts wandered to Aerith and Traverse Town. He'd just been there a few days ago, he knew, but he missed her and the rest of his friends already. It hurt sometimes, to be away from them so often, but if he didn't finish this thing with Sephiroth . . .
Aerith had said the first time before he left, it was okay to love your friends and to miss them, but you had to love yourself as well. Settling things, she said, was his way of doing something for himself for a change. Guilt remained, however, no matter how hard he tried to shake it. Showing up, and then leaving again. Aerith would probably say, he surmised, those short visits were just his way of showing he cared.
Cloud snuck a peek at Riku, who seemed to be in another reverie, still puffing on his cigarette and fiddling with his lighter. He seemed to be using his bottle of water as an ashtray.
"See something you like?" said Riku.
Now he'd been caught staring. If this could get any more awkward, Cloud hoped he wouldn't discover how.
"Well," said Cloud, "it is just the two of us, and it's awfully quiet. What have you been thinking about? You seem lost in thought a lot."
Riku sighed, dropped his cigarette into the water bottle, and lit another.
"A lot of stuff, actually. Is this the part where we get to know each other?"
"We ought to get to know each other, don't you think? I mean, since you like me and all, and we're traveling together."
Riku smiled. "Getting me on that card, huh? Okay . . . thinking about Sora. And Kairi. My other friends. Destiny Islands. My family. How I didn't expect anything to go this way or feel like this. Those kind of depressing things."
"Okay. Well, I know about Sora. Tell me about Kairi."
"She moved to the Islands when I was nine or ten. Don't know where she came from—another world, probably. Kind of a spitfire. Giggles. Has a lot of energy. Big mouth. She's a really sweet girl, though."
"And Sora's in love with her."
Riku raised his eyebrows at that and nodded. "Right. It used to be just me and Sora, but then Kairi showed up, and we kind of became a trio. It was even like an adventure at first," said Riku, laughing. "Getting to meet the mysterious new girl. It was fun, though."
"And your other friends?"
"There're six of us that hung out together. Sora, Kairi, me, Selphie, Tidus, and Wakka. Wakka and I are in the same year at school. Sora, Kairi, Selphie, and Tidus were a year behind us. There's this little island back home away from the main island where we'd go to play. Mostly we pretended we were great adventures battling evil. Sora and I used to kick the crap out of each other all the time with the new stuff we'd come up with. Guess it's a good thing now. I'd be shit out of luck if I knew nothing about fighting."
"What about your cool, chain-smoking friends?"
"Honestly, I couldn't give a damn. I feel bad, though. About the Islands. I mean . . . I wanted to leave really bad, yeah. I couldn't wait to get off that damn rock, but . . .in retrospect, I think it may have been a bad idea to let the Heartless in to devour the thing. Just because I felt like I was imprisoned there didn't mean I had to take the place out, you know?"
Take the place out? What . . .?
"I'm sorry," said Cloud. "I'm not following you."
Riku sighed again.
"I may as well tell you, since we're getting to know each other and all." He fidgeted and looked down at his knees, bopping them up and down as he rocked his heels. "I . . . I kind of opened the door to the heart of Destiny Islands. There was this voice . . . damn asshole told me it was for research. Thought I might be going crazy even, but the door—it's in this little cave Sora, Kairi, and I used to call our Secret Place.
"I was in there the night before we were supposed to leave on that stupid raft—"
"Raft?"
"Yeah. We built this crappy raft that we were going to cross the oceans with to see the rest of the world. Note how I say world, in the singular form. But there was this voice talking about other worlds and research on hearts and you could never open the door before, but I did, and the next thing I know there's Heartless swarming all over Destiny Islands, I've accepted darkness into my heart, and I woke up in Hollow Bastion. That was about . . . three months ago? I've been with Maleficent ever since."
"Damn."
"You're telling me. So, you know, I'm not just pretending to be a great adventurer fighting evil anymore. Seems I turned out to be on the other side."
"You're not alone. I'm stuck in the darkness, too. A good friend of mine told me that even in darkness, though, there's always still a little light, and if you don't forget the things that make you happy, you'll be okay."
"Yeah . . .I don't know. I guess I'm just a little—I wouldn't say homesick—but I miss my friends. And my family. I miss my mom so much I can't even express it." Riku paused. Cloud didn't know whether he should press the matter or not, so he waited for Riku to continue. "She . . .she was always so understanding and supportive. My dad wasn't around a whole lot, but I knew he cared. We just weren't very close. My mom, though . . .she probably would have sold her soul for me. Always told me I'd be great, and I could do anything I really set my mind to. She'd be so disappointed if she could see me now.
"And as far as my sister . . .I mean, after Sora and Kairi, Ayumi was probably my best friend. I told her everything."
"So why did you want to leave if everything was so great?"
"Great? No, not great. I love my family. I love my friends. I even loved Destiny Islands in a way. I just wanted to go see what else was out there. I felt so . . . trapped. Everyone knew me. I didn't feel like I could be me for me. I wanted freedom. I wanted to know why out of all the places I could've ended up I ended up there. I still want to, and it is great to be free. Doesn't mean I can't miss my family."
"I see what you're saying."
"What about you? Don't you have a family?"
Cloud laughed.
"Nope. Never have. Not as far as I can remember, anyway."
Riku extinguished his cigarette and stared into the ashy bottle. It looked kind of gross, but then Cloud diverted his attention to Riku's face. Perhaps he shouldn't have been so flippant about it. Riku looked as if Cloud just told him that his family had been brutally murdered in front of him and the memories haunted his every breathing second.
"It's not a big deal. I just don't. It's always been that way, and I'm fine with that."
Riku nodded, a half-smile returning to his lips.
"Tell me about Sephiroth."
"Sephiroth?"
"Yeah. You're looking for him. I want to know who he is. He's not an ex-boyfriend, is he?"
Ex-boyfriend? Cloud almost laughed, but Riku seemed honestly worried, so he did his best to bite it back. He shook his head.
"Hardly. Sephiroth is . . ." How did one explain Sephiroth? Really evil always worked, but not quite what Riku was probably looking for. "Sephiroth is the manifestation of the darkness in my heart. He's been taunting me, trying to get me to join the darkness since he was created and I decided that the darkness wasn't for me, and though I've killed him probably six or seven times now, he just . . . keeps coming back. I need to settle things once and for all—get rid of him for good. I figure the way to do that is to find the light within me, really cling to it, and give him a good beating once and for all."
"Sounds like a plan."
"You really thought he'd be an ex-boyfriend?"
"I hoped not, but you never know."
"Riku, I know it may seem like I've had a thousand lovers, but there really haven't been many, so you can relax. I'm single, and right now, I'm only interested in you. Happy now?"
Happy probably wasn't the word Cloud should have used. Riku still wore the half-smile, but those eyes couldn't lie if Riku wanted them to. They seemed brighter now, some of the worry gone. The corner of Riku's mouth twitched.
"Yeah," he said.
----------0----------
Two days later, they were nearing Olympus Coliseum, and Cloud found himself falling dangerously in love with this boy. Riku could talk for hours about anything once his interest was perked. Cloud liked to sit back and watch Riku as he talked. He never got hyper or over-animated like Yuffie tended to do. He lacked the calm, sweet, and gentle demeanor Aerith possessed and the feisty, brutal yet caring way Tifa said things. Unlike Leon, he tended to smile when he spoke, in that half-grin Riku way that Cloud had come to know well. He wasn't even loud and brash like Cid. Riku was, plainly, Riku—calm, collected, swore almost as much as Cid, and had an ease about him that was very open and comfortable. Riku was warm without being smothering, objective without being hurtful, and proud without being arrogant.
Cloud assumed that he was all-together fucked.
"We're almost there," said Cloud, checking the coordinates and taking the ship off autopilot. "What're you going to do if Sora isn't here?"
"We can hang out for a few days, right? When are the next games?"
"I don't really know."
"Doesn't matter. I'll find him."
But he hadn't found him in Olympus Coliseum. In fact, there was more damage to the arena than Cloud thought from The Cerberus Incident (though Phil invited him back any time to participate in the games), and when he boarded the Gummi Ship to tell Riku so, his eyes darkened a little.
"That's okay. We can go somewhere else."
With each world they landed on, however, there was no sign of Sora or Sephiroth. No one had seen either, most had never heard of them, and their journey was turning into a month-long charade before Riku was ready to throw in the towel.
"Look," said Cloud, "how about we go back to Hollow Bastion and check in with Maleficent. I can ask around and see if anyone's heard about Sephiroth, and you can see if she's heard anything. For all you know, the second you get back she'll have great news for you."
"I'm starting to think I'm never going to see him again."
Cloud wasn't sure how to handle emotional situations. He internalized everything, and Aerith was much better at these things than he. With more than a bit of hesitation, Cloud reached his arms around Riku and pulled him into a hug.
"If Maleficent hasn't heard anything, how about you and I set out to Traverse Town. I can introduce you to some of my friends, and maybe they'll know something about Sora, okay?"
Shivers ran down Cloud's spine as Riku nodded against his neck. Riku wrapped his arms around Cloud in a return hug, and dropped his forehead to Cloud's shoulder.
He really had no idea what he was doing as he ran his fingers through Riku's hair, trying to give him some sort of assurance. If he were in Riku's position and it was Aerith missing, he'd be a mess, especially if he blamed himself for the separation as he supposed Riku did for allowing the Heartless into their world in the first place. Unfortunately for Riku, Cloud wasn't the comforting type, and he wondered if maybe this hug was actually as awkward as it felt, or even appropriate.
How was he to know how to assuage a distraught teenager?
Much less a distraught teenager that he'd been thinking about kissing a lot lately?
Furthermore, how was he supposed to initiate kissing with said distraught teenager when said teenager was distraught?
Regardless of the outcome, he was going to have to head to Traverse Town soon. There were some things rolling around in his head that Aerith needed to clear up while he pretended he didn't want to hear it. Not that he ever wanted to hear it when she was saying it to him because it hurt his heart, but he always needed to hear it.
Before Cloud really knew what he was doing, he'd placed a kiss on Riku's temple, and once he had realized what he'd done, he hoped Riku hadn't noticed.
"I was wondering when you were going to get the guts to kiss me," said Riku, turning his head, smile back in place. It didn't fully reach his eyes; he was still worried about Sora. However, for that moment, Cloud imagined that it was okay to push aside for the time being. "Would have been better if you'd have aimed for my lips, though."
"They were buried in my shoulder."
It was a weak, but true, protest.
Riku straightened up a bit, and pulled back.
"They aren't now." Cloud stared at Riku, unsure, uncomfortable, and did it suddenly get hot in there? Riku smirked. "Fine. Make me do all the work by myself."
It was awkward and clumsy as Riku stepped forward, tilted his head to the side, and his eyes fluttered closed as he pressed his lips against Cloud's. It didn't matter, though. It was as if his heart had swelled in his chest and a bucket full of cold water had been dumped on him at the same time. Chills and electricity seemed to be shooting up and down his spine, and Cloud found that he rather liked the feeling. A lot.
"I didn't make you do all the work by yourself," Cloud said against Riku's lips. "I kissed you first."
"You kissed my forehead."
"Doesn't matter."
Cloud pressed his lips against Riku's again, and the electricity/chills were back. Riku was a clumsy kisser, obviously inexperienced, but it couldn't have been more perfect. It was nice, Cloud thought later, to find something still so innocent when so much seemed steeped in darkness, he and Riku included.
Cloud thought back to Aerith's words the last time he'd seen her, and this time, it really made sense. Not in the way it had before—in that metaphorical, theory way—but in that first person, personal experience way. He smiled.
There was always a little light left in the darkness, and Cloud vowed he wouldn't forget the things that brought him joy. He'd keep his friends close to his heart no matter where his fight against darkness took him. He'd keep looking for Sephiroth without forgetting that this wasn't about Sephiroth alone, but about what he needed to do for himself. As for Riku, Cloud hoped he'd be there every step of the journey, and if there was more kissing involved . . . well . . . that'd be just fine by him.
Thanks so much for reading and please feel free to leave a review. They're a great source of inspiration.