Dare You to Live
By ElveNDestiNy
February 17, 2007
April 30, 2007
- Resist -
She woke up all at once, but it was still too late to stop the scream that had built in her throat, and the best she could do was clap a hand over her mouth in a futile attempt to stifle it. The fast breaths of air didn't seem to be enough to calm her racing heart, even as Riku held herself as motionless as possible, riding out the wave of fear. She forced her eyes open to look around her in the dimness of the room, seeking the reassurance of the familiar things in her room, although they were only faint outlines in the dark.
Usually the trick worked well, because the furniture was never arranged the same way as it was in her nightmare. But this time…this time everything looked exactly the same. Riku felt the bubble of panic rise in her chest again, her rational mind battling against her instinctive fear. Even as she tried so hard to remain calm, dreamscape began to merge with reality.
One of the French doors to the balcony opened suddenly. Riku sat up straight in bed, all of the feeling gone from her body, but curiously unafraid. It felt like she had been transported back to the past—back to her eighth grader self. Risa had always stayed out late on the balcony, looking up at the stars that she so believed in, and hoping always to catch a glimpse of dark wings. No matter how much Riku scolded her and told her that she would get sick from the cold, she never gave up.
For a moment, the belief that her twin had come back was so strong that Riku opened her mouth and breathed out a name. "Risa…?"
But the silhouette was all the wrong size and shape, and of course it wasn't. It was only then that she truly woke up, not just the flight-or-fight response that had jolted her awake. Everything looked as it was because she was in their old house, and the person who strode so swiftly to her now was not her twin, because her twin was dead.
"Are you all right?"
She was glad he hadn't flicked on the lights, because her eyes stung with tears at the suddenness of the realization of loss, like they always did. This was why she was always so tired, because she couldn't sleep, so then the constant fatigue made her emotional and made it far too easy to cry.
Dark stood by her bedside, looking at her concernedly, and she realized that she had waited too long to reply. Without asking for permission, he took a seat at the edge of the bed and reached out. His hand closed over hers and she self-consciously let go of the tightly clenched sheets in her grasp.
"Do you want some water? I can get you some," he offered neutrally.
She shook her head negatively, aware that although he had good intentions, his presence was not exactly calming. "It's all right. It…happens often."
"Wasn't anyone concerned?"
"They gave me sleeping pills, but I don't like to take them," she admitted. She was bothered by the questions, by the feeling that his concern might be genuine.
His hand warmed her cold fingers and his thumb lightly skated in soothing circles over the smooth skin on the back of her hand. "Why don't you tell me about it?" he suggested.
Riku bit back the retort that first came to mind, that it was none of his business and he was the last person she wanted to talk to. Whether she liked it or not, he had somehow inserted himself in her mind, whatever the reasons. She had no idea how easily he read the confusion, pain, and wariness in her eyes, or the tension in her shoulders.
"Maybe if I explain, you'll understand why I don't need you to stand guard over me," she finally said. "I probably didn't see anyone outside of the house at all. After—after she died, I began to have these dreams of when we used to be younger, closer. Well, we were always close, but the older we got, the more different our interests became. I guess it wasn't that unexpected."
"Not unexpected," Dark echoed in agreement. "People always fear death, not understanding that it's time that they fear, the one force that can never be overcome. It's time that takes things away…time, and memory."
Catching the slightly odd inflection of his voice, Riku wondered who, or what, it was that he had lost. Or was it the generations upon generations that he'd seen come and go, which gave his words such a melancholy air? Dark didn't seem to want to share, so she continued, fumbling for the explanations, the justifications, that she couldn't bear not to give. "Maybe it was a little because we didn't want to always been seen as a pair. Even if we both liked the same color, Risa always said her favorite was pink, and I always chose blue, just to be different."
"Sometimes it's hard not to fight each other just to show you're not the same," murmured Dark. Riku glanced at him in surprise, about to ask him how he knew, before she remembered. He probably did think of Krad often, maybe even missed him, however strange it was to miss an archenemy.
"I suppose. It's always the same variations of the dream, anyway. We'd become too distant, and then when I finally look at her again, there's someone there, and she's gone, separated from me forever. Sometimes she dies. Sometimes we're walking and I turn to her, and she's vanished."
She felt numb and warm at the same time, but it was a relief to tell someone. She looked down at the hand covering hers, and wanted that comfort. As if sensing her compliance, Dark put an arm around her shoulders. The very real touch grounded her.
"Sometimes I think there are two people, a shadow farther away and someone else, and both of them are facing us. The shadow looks like what I think the driver looked like, and the other person is standing with his back to the man but still looking at us, and it's usually…" Riku didn't know whether to go on.
"Why did you stop?" he asked after a moment, when she didn't continue.
"It's usually you," she blurted out, almost at the same time.
Riku didn't see the surprise even though she was looking straight at him, and if not for the sudden tensing of the muscles in the arm around her shoulders for a moment, she wouldn't have known how deliberately he relaxed. She marveled at his control and wished that he could lend her some of that strength. It'd been so long since someone had touched her, held her, and it was hard to reject that comfort, even if it came from him.
"This is why it's part of my imagination, you know?" she said suddenly after the awkward pause. "These dreams, they don't mean anything." Riku did her best to laugh.
"Dreams always mean something," Dark said somberly, "even if you think you'll never understand them."
"What do you think it means, then?" Riku challenged, carelessly. She looked away, trying not to be so aware of the intimacy of his arm around her, his warmth. She should have been uncomfortable, but she wasn't—just the opposite. It was dark in the room, unlit by anything other than moonlight, and she wasn't sure if she should fear the shadows.
He hesitated. "You won't like this."
As always, any change from his usual confident to the point of arrogant attitude sparked her curiosity. "Why don't you try me?"
"Maybe it means that I can protect you," he said gently, surprising her. When she didn't respond, he added, "If you will let me."
A small laugh escaped her, genuine but also sardonic. "Why would you want to?"
She hated the note of wistfulness in her question, the way her words sounded sad instead of defiant. "Never mind," she said before he could answer, if he intended to.
"Riku," he said, trying to get her to look at him. She stubbornly kept her head turned away from him, and his hand came to cup her chin to guide her gaze to his. "You mean something to me."
"Don't fool yourself, Dark," she replied. "Just…don't."
"I wish I could," he said wonderingly. He searched her with his eyes, as if trying to read something in her expression to help him figure out a mystery.
She shrugged out of his embrace, ill at ease with the way the conversation was going. "It's the middle of the night; we shouldn't be talking like this. You should sleep, too. Do you want anything else?"
He took his arm away but he was still close, and he was looking at her in a way that caused strange thrills to run through her. He leaned close as if to brush his lips against her cheek and she turned away, causing him to pause.
"Tell me why," Dark said. "Why do you resist?"
"You could destroy what's left of me," she whispered, knowing it was useless to deny that she found him fascinating. "I'm not stupid. I know how much you can hurt me. Every time I look at you, I think of how moths fly to the light, even though it kills them. The closer they are to the brightness and warmth, the closer to death they are, but they don't even know."
"And yet, some would rather die in a blaze of light than alone in the dark," he said, and she could not think of a reply. He so cleverly took her words and made them his own.
"And some prefer not to risk death at all," she said at last.
"Not you," Dark said in a low voice. "You were always brave."
"How do you know I haven't changed?"
Those violet eyes studied her as if they could see into her soul and she looked down to avoid them. "I know," he said simply. "I just wish that you did too."
He had the effect he desired; Riku accidentally looked at him, suddenly unsure. Possibilities ran through her mind before she could stop them.
"Riku…I'm here. Please let me be here for you." He kept his gaze locked with hers, patiently waiting for her to speak.
She told herself that he'd had plenty of experience whispering these sweet nothings. He was only amusing himself with her because he was bored and she was here—there was no one else because Risa was gone, forever, or else her twin would be the one with these feelings when Dark held her and acted as if he cared for her.
It was only the truth, so why did it hurt so much to admit it?
"Don't play games," she said at last, her heart beating too hard, too fast. "Don't give me pretty, empty words."
"Then tell me what you want," Dark replied, the only warning she got before he leaned closer and took away the last distance between them. Suddenly, he was kissing her. Suddenly, Riku couldn't think, as if every thought in her mind had fragmented. Had she expected anything, she would have expected something hard, a forceful meeting of the lips, like that first stolen kiss between them.
Instead, what she got was soft, gentle. He kissed her as if she were something delicate but infinitely sweet. Somehow the impression was both lasting and ephemeral, and he drew away almost before she was able to register it. It was only when there was just the lingering sense of his mouth on hers that she realized they had kissed.
He was looking at her with a curious expression in his eyes, his head slightly tilted as if in a questioning way, and she was suddenly dissatisfied. She opened her mouth to vocalize the strange discontent but he seemed to read her mind.
"Riku," he said, voice low and slightly hoarse. Riku closed her eyes, not sure if she was willing him closer or away. He pulled her to his side, into his body, and then his breath brushed across the sensitive skin of her neck. Dark placed hot lips against her throat, over her pulse, as if tasting the life that fluttered so madly beneath.
She was the one who kissed him. There was nothing hesitant about that exploration, but it wasn't a battle for control. It was a battle of wills, and he broke through her defenses. There was no other thought in her head but him. Her hands cupped his head, her fingers threading through the dark strands of his hair, and she didn't care about anything but the sensations coursing through her. When one of his hands cupped her breast, his thumb brushing over the hardened nipple through the sheer fabric of her nightgown, she made a sound low in her throat with the sudden revelation. He made her feel alive.
Riku breathed hard when they finally broke apart, more than slightly dazed. She almost put a hand up to her mouth; it felt bruised with the force of their kiss, and she could taste him on her tongue still. But without his immediate overwhelming touch, some cool logic returned to her, and it was a jolt to her, almost as much as their sudden kisses had been. Propriety whispered in her ear that he was in her bedroom at night, it was dark, and he was on her bed kissing her like a lover. It wouldn't have mattered—she could have cared less about social decorum—but it was still wrong, just for different reasons.
Suddenly Riku wanted to wipe her mouth, to take away the moment, still so fresh in her mind, which was already becoming a part of her permanent memory. Dark seemed to sense the sudden shift in her mood and he reached out to hold her hand. She withdrew it from his grasp, moving away from him.
They had almost been lying side to side, and it was too close. The desire was suffocating, and it didn't matter whether it was his or hers. She drew on the one thing that she could always remember, and took angry strength from it to push back her fears and wants. Riku threw the questions at him, unable to explain the horror and self-disgust she felt, to know that she wanted him so much. To know that in just a few moments she would throw away her loyalty to her twin, her grief, in exchange for some kisses with him. "Doesn't it matter at all to you that Risa died for you? Do you want me to die for you, too?"
He sucked in a slight breath at her harsh words but she didn't let herself feel anything, not even knowing he didn't deserve this from her. She read the combined hurt and pride in his eyes, making them an intense, dark violet that the moonlight bleached to something nearly indigo. "Why do you always say it—that I killed Risa?"
"Didn't you?" she asked coldly, pushing back her own thoughts and focusing on the memory of her twin. "Didn't you lead her on; encourage her feelings toward you, until it was too late? You were the reason why she stepped off that curb, Dark. We were walking, but she thought she saw you, just like she always did, and she stepped off before I could stop her. So the car came and hit her."
All the bitter words poured out of her and she was glad that the tears in her eyes blurred her vision enough so that she didn't have to see how much she hurt him, but it wasn't enough. Wasn't it ridiculous how even now her body was hyperaware of his presence, as if wondering when it would experience his touch again?
Betrayal. That was what it was. She had somehow put her trust in Dark, letting Risa fall for him more and more—not that she could have necessarily controlled her twin, but she could have been there for Risa more. Instead, when it was over, Riku had wanted to forget about everything related to Dark. She had brushed Risa off every time the subject came up, too desperate in trying to ignore her own feelings, as she always had. Dark was connected with Daisuke, Daisuke with Dark.
It hurt to think of either, but Risa would only think of Dark, no matter who she was with. She was always comparing, reminiscing; she didn't understand the guilt Riku felt, the slight jealousy that she buried so deep within herself when she finally recognized it for what it was, because Dark had always been Risa's. Never mind that he had kissed her first. Never mind that Risa had no more claim to him than she did, but it had somehow worked out that way, by the sheer fact that Riku would always put her twin before herself.
So she hadn't been there for Risa, and Risa had never lost her obsession, not even thousands of miles away. She had never stopped feeling Dark—in the middle of a lesson, while listening to music, she would turn to Riku and even without words, Riku knew who she was thinking of again. A bird's shadow would pass over them and Risa would tilt her face skyward, eyes searching, and it didn't matter that she never saw what she wanted to see.
Riku blamed Dark for Risa's death, or at least she wanted to, because in truth she blamed herself more. She wanted to take back all the things she said to him, and she wanted to let them stand, too, as if they would convince her that she truly felt that way.
"Why are you like this?" The way he asked it—in the darkness she could not see his expression, especially because he had turned half away from her, but his tone was calm. It held none of the anger that she had expected, or any defense. She thought almost that he believed her, that he honestly thought that he was responsible for Risa's death, when it was really her own fault most of all.
Riku hadn't expected his acceptance. She hadn't wanted to push the blame onto someone else's shoulders, not when she was only trying to escape her own sense of guilt, magnified by whatever it was between her and Dark. Risa was gone now, so Dark could focus his attention on the twin that was left, right? She tortured herself with the question, trying to catch the gladness that must come with that betrayal that was worse than all the others, but she didn't feel any.
"I'm sorry," Riku said, voice breaking. She wanted to laugh and cry at the same time, and ended up doing neither. "Don't listen to me. I'm being unreasonable. Sometimes I think I'm half mad myself."
"I'm sorry, Dark," she said again, only to realize that she was alone in the room.
A/N: Please review. If anyone's interested in an NC17 DarkxDai piece, search for ElveNDestiNy on AFFN.