Part 2
The heartless serpent moved faster than either of them could run, but it left a deep furrow in the ground for them to follow. They found it in the center of their small town rearing up and towering over houses, its scales glittering in the sunlight. Its tail flipped and sliced a home in half as two people scrambled out of a side window.
Riku and Sora ran against the flow of screaming people trying to escape. Hearing Sora call his name, Riku turned and saw his friend leap up out of the crowd onto the nearest roof. Riku jumped after him, following Sora over the streets until they landed in the serpent's shadow. As one, they crouched and leaped, keyblades swinging towards the same point on the serpent's back.
They both struck perfectly but did little more damage than knock off a few scales. The serpent cried out in pain and twisted around, snapping its jaws. As Sora slipped back to the ground, Riku grabbed one of the spines along the serpent's back and hung on as the heartless creature coiled in on itself, trying to throw him off. When it snapped him up into the air, he let go of the spine and adjusted his flight, landing on the creature's head. With a yell, he drove his Way to Dawn into the serpent's eye.
It drew its head back so fast that there was no time to hang on. He fell to the ground, dodging a massive coil that nearly flattened him.
At this range he couldn't miss as he swung repeatedly at the serpent's underbelly, but what should have been soft scales resisted his blade like iron. Instead he found himself panting for breath every time he dodged another coil, and he wished he had some of his equipment from before, his soldier earring or an acrisius.
A startled cry from above made him look up. His breath caught. High overhead, Sora wedged his keyblade between the serpent's jaws, balacing precariously on its fangs as it tried to swallow him. Riku couldn't clearly see what Sora was doing, but a second later it didn't matter as the serpent whipped its head around and sent Sora crashing headfirst to the ground somewhere several streets away.
"Sora!"
Riku raced towards him but the serpent was faster, riding on its coils intent on destroying the keyblade master of light. Riku spotted Sora lying in rubble, pressing a hand to his head and groaning.
The serpent was almost on him. Sora's hand tensed on the keyblade as the heartless lunged, but Riku couldn't see how he could move fast enough. The teeth were so long and sharp and dripping. Fear devoured him. Sora couldn't get away--
Seized with panic, Riku brought his keyblade up over his head, giving a shout as he summoned the darkness around himself.
Long months had passed since he had used the power of darkness, but the shadows came as if no time had passed, swirling around him at his command. Pulsing with its own heartbeat, darkness coalesced over him and swallowed him whole.
The serpent sensed his sudden change but it had no time to react. Its jaws clamped down on a Sora's keyblade, confused when it didn't break, and it reared up high, shaking its head and the keyblade master hanging on tight.
Curled up and tense, Riku held himself aloft in the air, emerging from the shadows in his black outfit and white skirt, the blood red heartless emblem emblazoned on his chest. Stepping back onto the earth, he took a deep breath and raised his Way to Dawn, readying his attack.
Amidst the clouds, Sora struggled to keep out of the serpent's jaws as they tightened around him. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a black blur cut through the air, slashing along the dragon's back. Riku's keyblade drove deep into the heartless, sinking between the scales and gouging deep. Black ichor dripped from the wound as Riku withdrew.
Sora's eyes widened when he realized what Riku was wearing, recognized the dark trails behind his keyblade.
Startled as he was by Riku's change, the dragon's painfilled screams dragged Sora back to his own fight. The dragon thrashed its head, coiling its body as Riku dealt another blow somewhere out of Sora's sight. Its fangs shuddered and scraped like knives against the keyblade.
Sora twisted, finally dragging his keyblade back, cutting its vulnerable mouth as he leaped clear, and for a moment he saw the fight from the sky.
Houses lay in crumbled piles. The air was silent save for the dragon's labored breathing, like ocean waves crashing into a cave, and Riku's keyblade stabbed into the acrid blood gushing from the dragon's side.
The fight was all but over when Sora landed nearby. The dragon collapsed to the earth a moment later, shaking the ground with its weight. Riku landed on its head, raised his keyblade one last time, and plunged the point down into its throat. The dragon jerked and spasmed, tensed as its tail thrashed violently, and then relaxed in death. The body melted into a black fog that faded into light.
When Sora could see again, Riku was gone.
()()()()()
Sand crunched underfoot, and the ocean breeze turned cold with the setting sun. The island looked silver-green in the moonlight, and Sora shied away from the water whispering at the shore. The ocean didn't look as inviting at night as it did during the day. He'd come to the island without his boat, gliding on the wind until his shoes skimmed the ocean.
Sora looked around the bare island and cupped his hands over his mouth.
"Riku, where are you?"
A check of Riku's usual spots in town didn't yield any results. He didn't think Riku could be anywhere else. His lover always came here when he felt sad or lonely or--Sora sighed. Riku never ran from him unless he was hiding something. Riku would shoulder a mountain of lonliness if it meant hiding something shameful from Sora.
The black outfit with the angry red heart brought back awful memories--Riku claiming the keyblade and humiliating him in front of his friends, facing him in a serious fight, throwing away the "prison" of his home and losing himself in the darkness. True, he hadn't been completely possessed until the fight over Kairi, but that made it worse. It'd be easy to blame the heartless and their influence, but he knew the true reason was the darkness in Riku's heart.
Sora had his own shadows to deal with. After all, there was darkness in every heart. Riku had fought against it and ultimately triumphed, but he'd shown that he could do terrible things without being possessed. To see him again clothed in darkness felt like a warning.
Riku wasn't on the bridge or in his grove of palm trees. As Sora headed towards their secret hiding place, he heard the waterfall splashing strangely. He frowned. The pitch of the water was off. Years of playing here meant he knew what it should sound like. Something was blocking the water.
"Riku," he murmured.
Shivering under the waterfall, Riku rubbed his arms, not to get warm but trying to rinse something off. He didn't acknowledge Sora, staring at the ground when Sora jumped into the lagoon and knelt in front of him.
"What's wrong?"
"It won't come off," Riku whispered. "It won't come off. The darkness, I can't get it--"
Sora grabbed his hands and pinned them down, holding Riku still. His lover refused to face him and lowered his head, letting his wet hair cover his eyes.
Sora sat down next to him and wrapped him up in his arms, holding tight as Riku squirmed.
"Don't," Riku mumbled. "Please. I don't want you to see."
"I'm not going anywhere," Sora said, pressing a kiss to his temple. "You need me."
"I don't want you to see," Riku repeated. "Not again."
"Why? 'Cause I won't love you anymore? 'Cause you're not worthy?" Sora smiled and leaned forward, trying to glimpse Riku's face. "What happened to my confident boyfriend who's rude to emperors and doesn't bow to kings?"
No response. Riku wouldn't even face him.
"You better not run off again," Sora warned him. "We'll find a way to get that outfit off. But I don't want you disappearing when I let go, okay?"
If the darkness was back, then Riku might be able to open a door through the dimensions. Sora didn't think Riku would try, not this close to him, but if he did, Sora would have to track him down all over again.
"You think--can you really take it off?" Riku asked.
"Will you stay put if I try?"
Riku nodded, and he stayed sitting as Sora let go. Riku watched him stand and summon his Oathkeeper keyblade. Sora paused as he studied his lover. Usually Riku could face him with a wry comment and a punch on the shoulder. Now Riku looked up at him in chidlike trust, leaving himself vulnerable as Sora touched the tip to the heartless emblem on Riku's chest.
Light sparkled along the metal shaft and flowed into Riku's gear. They both heard the familiar sound of the keyblade clicking a lock open, and the dark outfit faded from sight. Riku sighed in relief as he held out his gloveless hands, flexing them to make sure the darkness was gone.
"Nice trick," Sora mused, letting the keyblade disappear. "I'll have to try that again sometime."
"Huh?"
Riku noticed Sora's crooked grin and followed his look, yelping when he saw Sora had banished not just his dark gear but his regular clothes as well. Water splashed as he curled up protectively.
"Sora!"
"Sorry," Sora said cheerfully, kneeling again. "I didn't try to do that."
With both hands, Sora pushed Riku's hair clear, then cupped his face for a kiss. As Riku held still, Sora's hands trailed down his throat and chest, coming to rest on his hips. The touch of his bare skin felt wonderful under his gloves, like a hint of forbidden delights.
"You must've been soaked to the bone if you didn't notice your clothes were gone."
Sora grinned around the kiss, but he pulled himself back when he felt a shiver under his hands. Night was coming on fast and the water felt like ice. He put one arm around Riku's waist and helped him to his feet, trying not to laugh as his boyfriend blushed bright red to his chest.
"I don't think you want to fly back like that," Sora said, earning glare from the corner of Riku's eyes. "I think we left a couple blankets down in our secret place. How about we sleep there for the night?"
"F-fine by me," Riku said as he huddled closer to Sora.
The wind blew harder across the beach, cutting over Riku's skin and stealing his breath. When he ducked through the cave entrance, however, the thick vines and leaves kept out the wind.
An orange spark from a fire spell lit a branch in Sora's hand, throwing warm light and flickering silhouettes around the walls. Sora gathered the pile of blankets in the far corner and tossed them to Riku, who wrapped one around himself before spreading the other on the sand and sitting down. He quietly watched Sora scrape together pieces of bark and dead roots into a pile that he used for a campfire.
"Not too big," Riku murmured, scooting closer to dry off. "Don't want to smoke ourselves out."
Sora nodded, leaving half of the pile in arm's reach so he could toss bits and pieces in to keep the fire going. Once he was satisfied, he sat down next to Riku and stretched and yawned. Months had passed since fighting a heartless, especially one so powerful. With the added worry of watching over his lover, he found the adrenalin rush catching up to him.
"We haven't done this in ages," Sora said as he took off his gloves and jacket, folding them into a pillow. "It makes me feel sorta like a kid again."
"Yeah, 'cause you're so old," Riku said. His smile was shaky, but Sora was glad to see it at all.
As usual, Riku lay down first, using Sora's jacket for a pillow. Sora burrowed under the blanket and lay his head on Riku's shoulder, nestling closer and putting his hand on Riku's stomach. His eyes narrowed and his smile turned into a grin as he ran his fingertips over his lover's body, luxuriating in the firm expanse of skin. Riku was still cool and damp but slowly warmed against him. The fire crackling close by and the distant waves made the cave feel cozy.
"Sora?"
"Yes?"
"Do you know where that snake heartless came from?"
His hand stilled as he frowned. He was about to go to sleep and he didn't want to think about that until the morning, but he knew Riku could fixate on a problem and toss and turn all night with the question in his head.
"Not really," he said. "I thought they all disappeared with the shadow world we fought Xemnas in. Do you think maybe a few got away?"
"I don't know," Riku mused. "There were heartless in every world, but without Organization XIII using them, I didn't think there would be any big ones anymore. And then with how I couldn't get rid of my darkness after I summoned it..."
Riku fell silent. As the pause stretched, Sora rose up on his elbow and met his eyes, pushing his hair from his face.
"You think it was like before?" he asked. "When you looked like Ansem?"
A moment passed, and Sora worried that Riku would brood again. But Riku slowly shook his head.
"No. It's still darkness, but it doesn't have his scent anymore. Ansem isn't in me. If there was anything left of him, I would have looked like him. This was something else. The darkness didn't hurt me, it felt natural, but I couldn't get rid of it."
If it felt natural, Sora thought, then why did you start to panic? He didn't ask out loud. Maybe Riku panicked because it felt natural. Sora knew from experience that being covered in darkness made him animalistic and frantic, scratching and kicking at everything around him. He remembered when he'd been turned into a heartless. It had only been for a few minutes, but he remembered the hollow sense of confusion down to the last detail of his feet sliding clumsily on the floor.
"Sora," Riku suddenly said. "Tomorrow will you come with me to Hollow Bastion?"
"Huh?" Sora blinked with wide eyes. "How? We don't have a gummi ship--wait, do you think you can open a door?"
"I know I can," Riku said, staring at the blanket. "That's how I came here after the fight. I didn't fly."
Sora's skin prickled as he realized how close he'd come to Riku vanishing again. Maybe Riku had known Sora would come find him here. And maybe he'd been too panicked to think of any other world but the island where he felt safest. He put his arm over Riku and held him close.
"Sure," he said. "I'll come with you. What do you need to do there?"
"I need to visit Ansem's library," Riku explained. "I used to read there when...um...I had a room. Kind of." He cut himself off before he stumbled further into his time spent with Maleficent. "He had lots of books on heartless and keyblades. I want to find a book that I saw before."
"How come?"
"It was a book on darkness. On the dark keyblade masters before me."
A whisper floated through Sora's memory, an echo of the keyblade master of darkness that would bring chaos and destruction to the worlds. His expression tightened. Not Riku. It wasn't Riku. Riku used darkness, true, but he had his heart.
"So we'll go tomorrow," Sora said, reminding himself to stay cheerful. "I'll get to see Leon and Yuffie and everyone. And we can bring Kairi with us. It'll be fun."
The more Sora thought about it, the more he thought it was true. He wanted to see his friends, catch up with them, maybe find new places to skateboard. Maybe he'd get Riku to skateboard with him. And there was nothing quite like hurling himself off of a parapet in Hollow Bastion and falling hundreds of feet, only to float the last few inches and land safely.
"Sora?"
"Hm?"
"Thanks." Riku turned slightly and held him, breathing in the scent of his hair. "Tomorrow morning I'll get some clothes, and then we can go."
Sounded fine to Sora. His eyes were closing when another thought struck him.
"Hey, if you can create doors, how come we're sleeping out here?"
Riku hesitated before he answered, but not out of shame or fear. It was embarrassment. Sora could feel the difference. His shy look was fun to watch.
"Well...if we each went home, we wouldn't be spending the night together. And I--I need you next to me right now."
A grin broke over Sora's face and all of his worries faded.
tbc...