First things first: I am so sorry this took this long. Finals are coming up, so I've been focusing on school more than fanfic. Plus, it turns out ending a story arc completely and bidding goodbye to these characters is really difficult.
But, uh. Yeah. Enjoy.
The first thing Riku noticed about the newcomer was the complete lucidity in her gaze. Last time he had seen her, she had regarded him with a mixture of rising panic – though oddly that had lingered in those green-turned-ochre eyes before his arrival, and he had just augmented it – and rage. Something feral had flickered there, a final vestige of her vengefulness toward Char, before vanishing entirely. Riku knew that tiny ember had simmered inside Anxclof before his arrival; in fact, he had all but anticipated it and swiped an Elixir from the treasure lying about in Twilight Town's tunnels before heading off to help Char.
This rage, though, was not the kind he had expected from Anxclof. Last time, vengeance had controlled her Keyblade, and all but blinded her to the fact that killing Char would change nothing about Roxas' current situation.
Whatever had happened to Anxclof between her disappearance from Hollow Bastion's corridors and now, she had had time to clear her mind.
Why are you so surprised? he scolded himself. Remember the Avengers keeping those Heartless and Sorcerers off you while you and Copperhead climbed the stairs? You knew she was helping.
At least the reasoning behind her actions – sending her lesser Nobodies out to distract Xemnas' lackeys, and now striding forward with a glare whose ferocity went far beyond keeping her and her friends placid in the Castle That Never Was – was obvious. She had promised Roxas she would find her Other, only to have come too late. The anger that brightened the Heartless-eye gold in her gaze came from her inability to keep that promise.
Riku watched Anxclof cross the room, creating a rapid series of tapping footfalls in her wake. The fingers on her free hand flexed, and he couldn't help his own muscles tensing in preparation for her to attack Xemnas.
Instead, though, Anxclof came to stand next to him. "Long time no see," she greeted tensely.
Copperhead quirked one eyebrow. "Friend of yours?" he asked Riku.
The question, innocuous in nature though it was, made Anxclof bare her teeth in a sardonic grin. "Something like that," she answered loftily. Riku swung his head toward her, mouth already opened to voice the objection that had sprung to his tongue, but she ignored him and continued. "And a friend of yours, too, if I remember right."
Riku's jaw closed, abruptly enough for the sound of his teeth clicking together to ring out in the silence. From the corner of his eye, Anxclof's grin widened to an almost wolf-like level; across the room, light emanating from his weapons played over Xemnas' much more subdued expression of amusement.
No sooner had Copperhead's slender eyebrows united on his forehead in confusion did Xemnas speak and make them turn back to him. "Number XIV," he said to Anxclof. "Truly a pleasure to see you again."
Almost the instant his deep voice uncoiled, Anxclof's amusement died down: lips drew back down over her bared teeth; veins along her knuckles bulged out as her fingers tightened over her Keyblade.
"Wow. So you do remember. Color me surprised," she snorted. "I wish I could say the same for me." A snarl tightened the last part and tainted her scorn with a trace of the hot rage coloring her eyes amber. She tilted her head just slightly, pupils flicking downward toward her Other's body on the ground; maybe Riku's lack of sleep was controlling his ability to gauge emotions, but he swore her face softened a bit at the sight of Falcon's body.
Then she glowered back up at Xemnas, the brief moment passed, and the only source of light in the room besides the intermittent moonshine glowed in fury again.
Xemnas' eyebrows jumped up on his forehead. "Are you upset about what I did to her?" he asked, even though the answer was obvious. In response, a low growl rolled up from within her throat's confines, audible to Riku and Copperhead from where they stood next to her. Other than a visible bulge where her jaw tapered into her ear, though, Anxclof remained still, as if restraining herself from attacking Xemnas. Only her hands trembling gave away her emotions. Copperhead's knuckles strained against the confines of their gloves, and the rage in his glare toward Xemnas could have singed the latter had it physical form.
At that moment, an all-too-familiar whoosh yanked his attention back to the man in front of him. The sound that had drawn him marked the arrival of dark tendrils undulating together into a portal to gods knew where.
Riku was aware of Anxclof snarling in disbelief and anger, and the blur of white created by her jacket as she flung herself forward; and Copperhead's grip on his scythe slackening enough for its blade to dip downward and create a drawn-out skrrk as it dragged across the reflective floor. But the boy clad in the guise of his former enemy could not truly register either of his companions' reactions, or their separate expressions of incredulity.
Xemnas kept his stare focused right in on Riku's as he stepped backward into the portal. Both arms stretched out on either side of him, an unspoken challenge in that gesture and in the downward tilt of his chin.
Come, his face seemed to say.
Shadowy tendrils enveloped the foot Xemnas had stepped back on, yet no sound rang out, even though translucent marble should have met his boot. Ironically, the silence was what snapped Riku out of his trance.
His elbow twitched in preparation to move the Soul Eater out in front of him and charge. Before his legs could follow up on that intention, though, flowing ribbons of darkness whipped over Xemnas' face and swallowed him up entirely. The amber eyes vanished last, the challenge still simmering low and dangerous there.
Anxclof skidded to a graceless halt, all but tripping over her own feet, as the portal vanished and swallowed up her target. Her arms swept out for balance, only for her Keyblade to bounce off the floor and all but unbalance her. Normally, the sight of the Nobody who had brought one of his friends to her knees exhibiting such clumsiness would have amused Riku; but that amber stare boring into his own flashed across his vision with every blink and kept that amusement beneath the surface.
Xemnas was baiting him. His expression almost promised that they would settle everything – the Organization's use of Hollow Bastion's Heartless factory to ravage the worlds; Sora's attempts to defeat said Heartless, only to inadvertently help his enemies; and above all, DiZ's damned revenge and his using Sora, Riku, and Char to implement it – in the World That Never Was. Why Xemnas wanted to wait until they were all there, Riku wasn't sure.
Probably wants to make it as dramatic as possible. The derisive thought helped calm his nerves, if only for a moment.
Copperhead spoke up then, startling Riku into glancing over at him. "Okay, so," he began, looking from dark boy to female Nobody and back again. Although his tone only gave away how much the recent encounter flabbergasted him, Riku couldn't help noticing that Copperhead avoided sweeping his gaze over Falcon's body. "Somebody want to tell me what the hell just happened?" He pivoted toward Anxclof, lifting his palms, even the one still clutching the scythe. To his credit, though, he made sure to swap hands so that his raising his weapon didn't gore Riku's eyes, which the latter appreciated.
"Anyone?" the older prompted, voice almost cracking under the strain of incredulity.
Anxclof steadied herself as calmly as she could, considering the rage that still shook visibly along her spine. When she turned, though, her eyes shone green, not gold. "Coward," she spat. "He would run away right when it seemed like the tables had turned."
"I don't think that's what he did," Riku began slowly.
When Anxclof spun toward him, the tired part of him almost channeled into his muscles and made him flinch back. However, he caught himself just before that instinctive reaction could manifest.
"I guess the portal of darkness that he just walked away with was just for show, right?" the female Nobody asked, an almost challenging edge to her voice. She cocked her head to the side at Riku, which prompted Copperhead to let out a low hiss behind him. Whether he'd made that noise out of fear at Anxclof's anger, or of surprise at just how similar she looked to Falcon right now, Riku wasn't sure. Fists clenched, emerald eyes the same shade as hers narrowed: though the amber flickering in those dark green slits was distinctly Anxclof's and not Falcon's, the similarity clawed viciously at his heart and refused to stop.
His eyes had begun to sting a bit already, but a series of carefully paced blinks kept any liquid grief in that barely tangible form. "I never said that," he answered. "The way he looked at me just now – it was a challenge. He wants me to come after him."
Copperhead swung his head toward Riku in a cascade of honey blond. Turning his own head to meet the blonde's gaze, Riku saw bewilderment on Copperhead's face. "Come after him?" Copperhead repeated. He folded his arms across his chest and leaned on one leg, placing the butt of his scythe against the floor. "I know you said you knew the guy, but you have got some seriously dangerous enemies."
Violet eyes slid across to Anxclof, and Riku heard Copperhead mutter, "And dangerous friends, too." At this point she was regarding Copperhead with an odd mixture of hatred and fascination twisting her countenance.
Both emotions he had seen from Falcon enough times.
"She and I aren't really friends," he said, of all things, and tossed over his shoulder, "No offense," without entirely knowing why. Maybe because Anxclof's arrival had spared them from a fight that, as deeply as grief had impaired both him and Copperhead at Falcon's body, they would almost certainly have lost.
And then where would Sora and Kairi and Char be?
Anxclof raised and lowered one shoulder at Riku's placating remark. "None taken." Those two words carried a light humor that, as few times as he had encountered her in the past month since Roxas' union with Sora, struck a powerful chord of incongruity within Riku's heart. He could recall hearing her sound that… friendly only within Roxas' memories, and when surrounded by her two best friends.
She's had a lot to think about since Roxas disappeared, though. Why else would she have rescued us?
Falcon dying, and her equally stubborn Nobody changing. The irony tasted so bitter Riku could have choked on it.
Almost as though the bile suddenly accumulating at the back of his throat had transferred to her own mouth, the tiny smile on Anxclof's face faded. She angled her head down toward the ground and moved closer; Riku found himself tensing, fingers tightening over the weapon he had never told to disappear, in spite of Anxclof's failure to harm either of them so far –
But she strode right between him and Copperhead, eliciting a startled grunt from the latter. He lifted confused violet eyes to Riku's; before Riku could gauge anything from that eye contact, though, the white-clad figure in his periphery dropped, and Copperhead jerked toward her.
Riku followed his gaze, and even though he knew Falcon was gone, the urge to yank Anxclof back still blazed up. Even though her aversion to strangers brazenly approaching her for anything other than a bounty had no importance now, the sight of Falcon's Nobody on one knee next to her body stoked that protectiveness nonetheless.
Her Nobody.
Something in the back of Riku's mind, some ability to reason that Falcon's death had blocked, stirred then. That obstacle's departure heralded the memory of when Sora had gone to sleep, and DiZ's rumbling voice promising that Roxas' return to his heart could wake him.
Riku quickly dismissed the hope whose light had begun to shine through his despondency – the feeling that, in spite of Xemnas' challenge, cast a shadow on whatever determination might have met that challenge. That was a special case, he argued with those rays, and besides, you can't bring back the dead.
Then again, Falcon had died once already. So had Sora, when he stabbed himself with the same Keyblade to release his heart.
Copperhead was lunging for Anxclof, snarling "Don't touch her!" with a vehemence that belied the current state of Anxclof's target; but Riku's fingers wrapped around his wrist and applied enough pressure on the flat underside of the bone to keep him there.
"What are you doing?" the blonde demanded, whirling to glare at Riku over his shoulder. "She's – Fal's body –"
He stopped abruptly when Riku shook his head and released his wrist. The dark boy looked back up at Anxclof, who was already regarding him with her head tipped to one side.
"Are you trying to bring her back?" Riku asked, wariness creeping into his voice despite knowing the answer. He asked the question mostly for Copperhead, who at this point was glancing from Nobody-disguised-as-girl to boy-disguised-as-man and back again. His jacket shifted with his movements and drew Riku's gaze down; the crimson painted there startled him until he remembered whose blood colored the white fabric.
Anxclof stared evenly back at them. She placed one gloved hand on Falcon's forehead with a tenderness Riku had never once thought she could muster. "I've got nothing to gain from leaving her dead," she answered evenly.
Although she had no way of knowing as much, the knowledge of what exactly motivated her kept Riku from questioning her. From the slight hitch in her voice, she was remembering the exact same thing: that day at the top of Twilight Town's clock tower, almost a year ago, when she and Roxas had promised they would find their Others.
Even after his disappearance, she wanted to honor the boy she loved.
Copperhead still didn't look convinced, even though a bit of the same hope – hope that bordered terror if the next moments didn't satisfy it – skittered across his face before lighting out. "Do you know what you're doing?" he demanded of Anxclof instead. When the sharpness of his question pushed her eyebrows up, he sighed and repeated himself, though not without a small snarl embedded in it. "Do you know what you're doing? Because if this doesn't work…"
He trailed off then, and Riku knew he wasn't willing to think of what might follow that "if."
If. Yet again, things had come down to chance. This time, though, Riku and Copperhead weren't the ones toeing the glow-in-the-dark line between uncertainty and probability; it was Anxclof. And gods only knew if she had any idea how to unite with her Other without complications.
Still, Riku felt himself clinging to that probability. If it means I don't lose a friend, then it's all we've got.
Anxclof gave a single, determined nod before lifting the hand on Falcon's forehead. As her fingers grazed the bloodstained fabric over her Other's heart, a tremor spread through to their tips, every quivering groove of which quickly became stained by Falcon's blood. Maybe, for the first time, Anxclof was realizing exactly what all Roxas' fate entailed: integrating with someone else's heart; losing identity at the moment she should have been gaining a heart.
Then her fingers calmed, and the palm of her hand brushed against Falcon's chest. Before anything could happen, though, Anxclof's head swung up toward Copperhead. "Hey," she said, a little aggressively. "You break her heart again, and I won't be liable for what happens to you. Got it?"
The clumsy attempt at protectiveness coaxed bemused responses out of both men watching: dual blinks from Riku, and a single narrowed eye from Copperhead. "Uh, yeah," he said, and hastened to correct himself when it sounded more like a question. "Don't worry," he amended, unexpected seriousness flowing into his words.
Anxclof nodded again, then glanced back to Riku, tilting her head back to meet his gaze properly. He blinked, confused as to why she would talk to him now; then she spoke and halted anything other than shock in its tracks.
"Tell Char to take care of him," she told him.
Riku drew back, opening his mouth to speak – to say what, though? Which "him" are you talking about, Sora or Roxas?
But then specks of light were spiraling up and around Anxclof from Falcon's chest. They accumulated around her body, and Copperhead all but scrambled away in his confusion; still, though, Anxclof didn't take her eyes off Riku until he nodded.
She turned back to Falcon and closed her eyes.
Light blazed throughout the room then, forcing Riku to throw his arm over his eyes. It screamed in protest at the movement and reminded him that he had just moved the arm the Heartless had crushed, but he kept that swath of darkness over his eyes until the light failed to offset the black of his sleeve anymore.
He opened his eyes, which had somehow squeezed shut against the physical evidence of Anxclof's disappearance. Next to him, Copperhead was doing the same; he had squinted to avoid the pain that the flash's sudden contrast to the darkness would have inflicted on his eyes, but now that said light had disappeared, his eyes flew wide again.
Both pairs of eyes fell on the maybe-live girl splayed on the floor, and the sight severed the thin, gauzy trance that Anxclof's departure had draped over them. Next thing Riku knew, Copperhead's scythe was falling to the ground with a loud clatter and he was falling to his knees next to her body again, just like he had moments before.
Riku followed at a more sedate pace, suddenly terrified of what would result if he got too close. The notion was childish and something he chided himself for feeling at once. Despite all the misdeeds Xehanort's Heartless had committed and the worlds his darkness had swallowed, Riku knew that the dark being held sway only over his appearance, not his heart.
Yet now, of all times, his self-doubts chose to return, suffocating his ability to think clearly just as Falcon's maybe-death had. The fear throttled his breath in his lungs and clamped his feet to the floor. Only when he had to force his fingers to remain still did he realize just how badly they had been quivering.
Falcon's head lolled limply to one side when Copperhead propped his knees beneath it, and Riku felt himself wince at the sight. For a moment, the two men watched her for any sign of life – any indication that they and Anxclof had performed this final gambit in time to snatch her spirit back from Kingdom Hearts' unforgiving grasp.
Then that blood-soaked chest heaved and Falcon coughed, closed eyes crinkling with the effort of that action. Copperhead nearly scrambled back, but thankfully caught himself before her head's support could slip out from beneath her. As it was, his shock manifested itself in the wideness of his eyes. "Unbelievable," he breathed, resting one quaking hand against the ground – probably to keep himself up.
Riku's jaw dropped. From where he stood next to them, he could see red dribbling down her chin, though not near to the extent of the wound that had –
Gods, he couldn't even bring himself to think the word. Killed, Xemnas had definitely killed her; no one could survive that blood loss, could look that pale unless death had swept that life and complexion away.
Anxclof. Her Nobody had saved her, just like Roxas had saved Sora.
Riku felt himself drop to his knees next to Falcon and Copperhead: not so much because the miracle had pulled his balance out from under him, but because he needed to see Falcon alive again. All of a sudden, despite her apparent return to the world of the living, disbelief was choosing now to rise up inside him and wreath itself about his chest and stomach.
Falcon was breathing a little more steadily now, though her eyes remained closed and her chest lifted and fell sheathed in ruddy red dried blood. If Riku didn't know any better, he might have drawn his blade on this reanimated corpse.
But he did know better, even though what Anxclof had done batted the rational part of his mind about in a maelstrom. Confusion careened into shock, shock tumbled headlong into latent anger toward Xemnas' unspoken challenge, anger dissipated in the face of its much stronger fellows – above all, though, the storm cleared just enough for relief to shine through its turbulence.
She's alive. She died twice and made it back both times. The Keybearers he knew were resilient that way, he supposed. The dry thought sufficed to break through his trance, and abruptly everything skidded into a harsh clarity comparable to the sun rising after a long night: Falcon trying to lift herself up, only to stop with a ragged gasp as her head tilted down enough to glimpse just how much blood covered her; Copperhead immediately grabbing her arm and gently pushing her back down; her visibly tensing, before deciding that she couldn't muster any real animosity and resting her head against his knees.
"How…?" she rasped out. She pressed one hand against her ruined stomach, only to gasp again, the sound rattling across Riku's senses. When she placed her hand back on the ground, it came away clean and pale, not with fresh coat of scarlet like the patterns along Copperhead's coat.
"How am I not…?" she began again, trailed off again, then shook her head and looked at Riku.
Somehow, their last encounter drifted back into his mind, borne on the expression in her still-dazed eyes: the spaghetti sauce's fresh tang on his tongue; her coldness when he had mentioned following Copperhead out; Riku's grasping at the pity her feelings for him allowed her to easily muster and facilitate his escape; his guilt all but pushing him out the door.
Do what you have to do, she had mumbled just before he had left.
Riku found himself unable to meet her gaze, though this time for a different, less petty reason entirely. Before now, the thought of another love entirely had propelled him to break that eye contact – violet eyes and maroon hair and skin that remained pale despite the sun continuously beating down and wrapping her boys in bronzed tan. Knowing he could never truly reciprocate Falcon's feelings had fueled his guilt.
Now, though, that emotion surfaced because he knew he could have stopped her from doing this.
Why, he wondered, hadn't he paid more attention to her behavior after he'd returned from his talk with Copperhead? She had acted a little odd, but he had dismissed it as exhaustion both from fighting through the Shadowed Desert and from being around Copperhead. Not once had it crossed his mind that maybe she had overheard him mention Xemnas' presence in the Shadowed Desert, and any consequences that might arise from her eavesdropping.
In Riku's peripheral vision, he saw that dark head remain angled in his direction before tilting back in Copperhead's direction. The relieved breath issued out of him in a way that ended up only pumping more contrition into his veins at knowing she wasn't looking at him anymore.
"Well?" Falcon prompted Copperhead.
Copperhead straightened from where he'd been leaning over her. "Uh," he said.
He cast a helpless look at Riku. The unspoken question from Copperhead lay bundled in the set of his jaw: which, while remaining closed in its owner's speechlessness, might as well have asked for how loud the desire for explanation tumbled about Riku's thoughts. What the hell just happened?
Really, Riku wasn't sure himself.
Some of Riku's emotions must have squeezed past the tight lock he had shoved between tangibility and visibility, for Copperhead's quiet desperation dissolved into bemused concern. Falcon, too – the girl who had just come back from the dead and had no right whatsoever to be worried about him – was hefting herself off Copperhead's lap and balancing herself on her elbows, not once taking her eyes off Riku.
Suddenly filled with the need to focus anywhere than on the two world natives, Riku turned away. The moon had descended a bit in the pitch-black sky since he and Copperhead had rushed out of Falcon's house to rescue her, and so its silvery taint didn't sweep as thoroughly across the citadel's reflective floor as it once had.
As a result, it was probably inevitable that his eyes honed in on the one splash of color besides the stained glass and their reflections.
Three days ago, or even when DiZ had announced the Organization had wormed their way past the virtual Twilight Town's defenses and snatched the machine from beneath his red-wrapped, upturned nose, Riku had looked forward to finding that machine again more than anything else. The fervency of his desire to run the old man's errand as quickly as possible – and the irritability-tinged dread that had pooled in his stomach when DiZ had commanded him to enlist Char's help in the search – made a half-hearted effort at permeating his chest and belly again as he remembered those emotions. Three days ago, he had only anticipated a difficult search in the sense that the Organization knew every nook and shadow of the worlds in which to hide themselves: and, by extension, the tool to their demise that they had stolen.
Now, though, running his eyes from pipe-shaped tip to pin-shaped bottom, noting its conical form and splashes of dull yellow and turquoise, all Riku could feel was a hollow, tired sense of muted triumph.
He could almost feel Char at his side, then, oddly enough. Maybe that sense came from DiZ's original desire for her to help him, or maybe the fact that Char's master had created this tool for the Organization's demise in the first place.
Still, Riku could almost hear her saying congrats, it only took you forever but you finally found it.
Almost immediately after her dry comment crossed his mind, Riku nearly shook his head at it. The Char of a month ago might have said that, with quite a bit more causticity twisted about just how long it had taken him to find the machine, but Sora had diluted that acid and rendered its jab a light sting. Something about we actually did it would escape her lips, perhaps, or she might not even speak at all.
Somehow, he thought the latter would fit better, from what he had glimpsed of her changed self.
He strode forward, almost forgetting about the length of his coat in the process and tripping over the hem, and crouched down to properly survey the machine. It definitely looked like something DiZ would build – right down to the unnecessary bell-shaped bridge between its body and the test tube-shaped tip. Riku held back a sigh; the old man did have a tendency toward the extravagant.
He brushed one gloved finger over the machine's surface. The leather-clad fingertip came away covered with a translucent pinpoint of dust, making Riku wonder if Xemnas had stashed the machine up here immediately after stealing it over a week ago.
Knowing him, he probably had. Sneaky bastard.
"I guess that's it, then?" Copperhead's voice cut sharply enough into Riku's thoughts to startle him. He quickly stifled the surprise that skittered across his consciousness and rose to his feet, carefully pressing one hand against the machine to balance himself. The partially-crushed arm screamed in protest, but that silent sound manifested itself only in a muffled grunt on Riku's part.
Turning around, he saw that both Falcon and Copperhead had stood up. Somehow, Copperhead had wound his arm about Falcon's waist and fit her flush against his side with the only traces of blood on him belonging to her. Her fingers curled tightly against that bloodstained jacket, though, and the way the veins there threatened to bulge out betrayed just how much her injuries had sapped her sense of balance. Even as Riku watched, Falcon's arm, bent so she could dig her fingers into him as a steady point, straightened a bit, only for her to stumble. The movement was so minute that not even Copperhead, whose contact with her should have alerted him first, noticed.
An instant later, before Riku could ask whether or not she needed his own help to stand, she righted herself, determinedly avoiding his gaze. Riku stopped the confused frown before it could manifest on his face, knowing the hypocrisy in his indignation. He couldn't meet her eyes; she could hardly be expected to extend the same courtesy to him.
While her eyes clung just as fiercely to the red streaks marring his coat, Copperhead's attention was still on the machine. He adjusted his arm about Falcon's waist to keep her upright, but the brightness in his eyes, which the moonlight dragged out from beneath a façade of curiosity, suggested he was reassuring himself of her return from the brink more than anything else.
"Is that what we've been looking for all this time?" he repeated himself, eyes on the machine. It was funny, Riku thought, how they were all avoiding looking at each other.
Defiance surged inside him at the shame that dared keep him from such a simple gesture. Even when he had betrayed Sora – a memory whose presence in his mind scored fiery claws of guilt across his heart, but he did not quell that heat as he should have and let it mercilessly continue – he had been able to look his best friend in the eye. Had needed to do that much, to see whether his well-buried envy for the spiky-haired hero had finally pierced its way through Sora's thick skull.
If anyone here now had to break the tense cycle, it might as well have been Riku.
"Yeah, this is it," he said, pressing one hand against it for emphasis. In the back of his mind he registered that his palm would come away with the same layer of debris that coated the tip of his finger, but then his arm was twinging again and he couldn't repress the pained grunt in time.
Immediately Falcon lifted her hand from Copperhead, presumably to cast a healing spell on Riku. Then the vertigo caught up to her and pinned her hand back to her side, at the same time pushing the opposite one up to her forehead and pumping a groan out of her.
"We need to stop somewhere and get some rest," Copperhead said. His eyes flicked from shaken girl to successful boy, lingering on the latter almost nervously. Riku could understand why.
Up until now, with the exception of maybe Char on that revealing morning he had gone to meet DiZ, Riku had taken control of matters within their little group. Falcon and Copperhead had led them around since they knew the Shadowed Desert's every shadow and secret, and Char had served as the final light to eliminate the darkness about their pasts; but Riku had decided they would stay at Falcon's house. He had finished off the Behemoth. He had exposed the ability to feel that Falcon had laid to rest over a year ago. He had persuaded Copperhead out of his desire to let Falcon confront Xemnas.
Riku tried to take his mind off the mounting sense of a weight on his shoulders – the weight of these two people's faith and trust and broken beings – by reflecting that Copperhead taking charge now must be part of his little speech earlier. About not wanting to sit back and watch anymore.
At some point in time, Riku had made that vow as well. The two of them were similar even to the end.
"You're right," he admitted to Copperhead, who blinked and straightened drastically enough to near lift Falcon off her feet. Falcon hissed in protest, but he quickly touched her back down to the floor. Riku went on, "We do need to get somewhere and rest." In more ways than one, he added mentally, as the final word he spoke brought the fog of sleepiness back.
"My house would be the best bet," Falcon piped up. "I know it's not very close, but I have healing items."
She paused, then shook her head, mumbling "somewhere" under her breath. Riku remembered the mess scattered about her living room floor, from which he'd seen gauze poke up pale white amidst the detritus, and held back a smile.
Copperhead cocked his head to the side at the machine and reached out with one dark-gloved hand to touch it; before he could, though, Riku's own hand – thankfully the non-injured one – shot out and lightly batted the machine's would-be assailant away.
"I'll take it back to her place," he told Copperhead, placing the same palm atop the machine's bell. He had to lean down in order to do so, and irritability flashed across his conscience at just how much he loathed such an increase in height.
"Are you going to meet us there, then?" Falcon's question was innocent enough, yet Riku still had to hold back a flinch as he turned to her. He had been darting in and out of her world often enough over the last month for her to have grown familiar with his disappearances, he told himself; therefore, it only made sense that she had anticipated his splitting off from them.
The expression on her face did not fit the sense of weary resignation he had come to associate with his untimely departures, though. If anything, panic brightened her eyes more than anything else.
He thought he understood why. She didn't want him to leave her alone with Copperhead. After how the blond had just allowed her to pass him and face her death at Xemnas' blades, Riku couldn't blame her.
For a moment, he seriously considered coaxing forth every ounce of strength he had left and lugging the machine back with the two of them. Then his ruined arm twinged, and he realized that for the first time since he had become aware of Falcon and Copperhead's shared past, he had to be the selfish one.
Physical pain aside, he knew Falcon and Copperhead had a lot to discuss. And it was about time they swallowed their pride and did it.
"Yeah," he answered Falcon's question. "Yeah, I think so."
He glimpsed true fear beginning to stir on her face – the widening of her eyes, the tightening of her fingers in Copperhead's bloody coat, the way she opened her mouth a little to suck in more air – before guilt veered him around toward the machine.
For some reason, Falcon couldn't bring herself to muster up the energy for anger at Riku. Maybe her return from death still lingered in her consciousness, a bog in which her instinctive rage at Copperhead's presence found itself immobilized but for the tiniest, half-hearted twitches. And, much like a swamp lapping at the feet of its victims, the memory of what had just happened was winning out against her emotions.
The top of the citadel had seen this happen before: her own willing death at Xemnas' hands, caused by his words or by his blade; and Copperhead's horrified response as he watched her fall to the floor. Both times, she had succumbed to her fate's inevitability and let the darkness take her.
This time, though, Copperhead was leading her back with the support of his shoulder. Not chasing after her, cheek still stinging from the slap she had delivered to it moments before, begging her to please wait, please listen –
"This isn't gonna work," Copperhead's voice rumbled low in her ear. Surprise twitched along her arms at the abrupt shift from remembrance to reality, causing weakened support in her current pillar of balance. When she nearly stumbled, though, the arm about her waist tightened.
That was another difference between her last return from that darkness and now: his presence not letting her fall. Sixteen months ago, she couldn't count how many times her desire to sustain her fury had had to keep her face from meeting the stairs.
And this time, heat came not from the steady blaze licking along the inside of her ribcage; it came from his body flush against her side.
Hating just how warm and familiar his contact felt, she tilted her head back to try and figure out what had prompted his remark. Her cheekbone nearly brushed his jaw with the movement, and the scarf still wound about her neck threatened to choke her; but she still saw the contemplation that creased his brow.
"What?" she asked, in lieu of anything else.
"Stairs," he answered simply, pointing with his free hand.
She followed his gaze and realized he was right. The very same stairwell she had ascended earlier, Keyblade flashing and bits of ichor flying all the way, stretched out before them.
"It'll be a pain to drag you all the way down these stairs," he mused, though at the same time a shadow passed over his eyes. Falcon guessed he was remembering sixteen months ago, when she had managed to run down the stairs in just about the same half-inebriated state as now.
The thought crossed her mind, briefly, to offer to walk down by herself and spare him the effort. A movement from next to him caught her eye, and she glanced up at it just in time to both see his arm moving up to his face and nearly hit her head against his chin.
"Can you walk by yourself?" he asked at last, dropping his arm and turning his head toward hers. Dulled as death and its retreat had made her emotions, her breath caught at how damned familiar his eyes looked at this close range.
She quickly nodded, before he could notice her jaw's slight drop. Fortunately, the exaggerated sigh of relief that billowed from his way assisted her scorn's return, and she couldn't help rolling her eyes at him.
"Good," Copperhead said, carefully releasing her. Once he had pulled back enough, he clapped his hands together. "Just let me know if you need me to catch you, and I'll be there in a flash," he added with a wink.
Falcon thought her eyes would hit the back of her head.
He seemed to notice and offered a grin, then moved forward to descend the stairs. As he did so, the moonlight filtered in from the stained glass window behind him and bounced off the curved blade of his scythe, forcing Falcon's eyes into a squint.
Really, she was glad for the justification to look away.
Why did Riku have to go another way? she wondered, more than a bit of self-deprecation attached to the mental query. She followed after Copperhead, eyes trained steadily on the white coattails swinging with every step he took. However, her thoughts grasped at another boy entirely. I know he had to take the machine, but… She fought back a flinch at the wistfulness that stung at her heart. It feels too much like when he has to go.
Not for the first time, Falcon reminded herself that Riku had a mission to accomplish. His friendship with her – the very thing she held in such high regard because she had cast off her closest friend months before meeting him – could not change Riku's obligations. Meeting Char had only increased Falcon's knowledge of that. Now that his enemies included Xemnas, one of her greatest, that sense of pained acknowledgment strengthened even further in her chest.
But now that Riku had found the reason he had recruited her and sent Copperhead crashing back into her life's carefully-resettled porcelain, he would probably have to leave and go find his oldest friends again.
Just like Char had, right when Falcon had grown used to her abrasive comments and steady camaraderie expanding to include her.
When Falcon let out a pained gasp, Copperhead spun around, one foot positioned on the step below. "What?" he demanded, flinging his arms forward as if to catch her. "Is your wound hurting you?"
Falcon forced herself to shake her head, even though it was a blatant lie: her grievous wound had stopped bleeding, but the ache in her chest throbbed powerfully enough to make up for it. So much for the "emotions being slowed down" theory. "I'm just… wondering where Riku will go after this." In spite of herself, her chest tightened further when she thought of the boy for whom she had summoned all the light remaining in her heart to conjure some shadow of – that l-word.
Would it really be so bad to think it, though? You know it's true, even though you can't even say it.
Copperhead blinked. "Oh." He turned back around and began walking down the stairs again. "He'll probably go meet up with Char," he tossed over his shoulder at her. The fact that he actually used Char's name was not lost on Falcon, and she spent a second hesitating before trailing after Copperhead again.
"They'll go take down Xemnas and his cronies," the blond went on. He kicked at the floor, more than a little viciousness contained in his foot. "And then he's going to go home."
Home. Falcon wondered how Riku could be so sure of that word's definition anymore. Darkness had held his island for over a year now, he had seen so much, gone through so much – yet he clung to that, and the friends that envy had spurred his heart into betraying.
If I had clung to you and how you had changed, even after Dyme's death, she thought, staring at the scythe slung across Copperhead's broad back, where would you and I be now?
She didn't even realize she had spoken aloud until Copperhead stopped in his tracks and she all but stepped on his foot. Annoyance flickered inside her, until her actions caught up with her and she all but clapped her hands over her mouth. "Copperhead?" she managed. Suddenly, her heart was pounding so hard in her chest it almost hurt.
Why had she said that? Why. Had. She. Said. That.
Slowly, Copperhead turned to face her. The air felt so heavy Falcon could barely breathe, so quiet her blood roared in her ears. His expression was odd: like he had anticipated something like this for ages, but didn't know how to feel about its advent.
"I don't know where we'd be," he finally admitted. "But…" He suddenly sighed and pressed one hand to his forehead. "Are we really having this conversation now?"
Falcon blinked. "Sorry," she replied, more coldly than she had intended. "I didn't know the reason why you killed my parents was a bad topic."
Copperhead shook his head, brow furrowing. "That's not what I meant," he amended. "I just mean that… with everything we've been through in the last few days, it just seems like an odd time to talk about it. That's all."
Falcon narrowed her eyes. While a very large part of her yearned to spit acid back in his face – to tear him apart as she always had – a tiny voice in the back of her mind piped up and agreed with him. The notion swirled nausea into her already-unbalanced gut, and she had to reach up and tug at the scarf, which suddenly felt uncomfortable hot along her throat.
Gods, why had she spoken her thoughts aloud?
Copperhead noticed the expression on her face – though her slitted eyes belied the uncertainty churning away inside her chest and belly – and turned away, the action so hasty that it all but toppled him off the steps. That untimely demise's failure didn't induce the sadistic disappointment it always had, to Falcon's chagrin.
"Then again," he mused to himself, "you did just almost die. I still have no clue what happened back there, but I guess… now is as good a time as any."
He glanced back to her, fingers twitching at his sides as he did so: like he was suppressing the urge to reach up and graze her cheeks. The intensity in his eyes only enforced that theory.
Some long-dormant part of her that still held feelings for him – feelings not curdled with the icy flame of bitterness, but blazing with the emotion that had swung decidedly toward Riku – seized control of her heartbeat, then. Drove its rhythm into overdrive, made her wonder with a surge of panic if she was really ready for this discussion.
Her jaw snapped shut with an audible click at his next words, which didn't surprise her in the slightest.
"I'm sorry for what I did," he blurted.
So many enraged responses jostled for release at the tip of her tongue – that's incredibly pathetic even for you, don't even bother, I thought you weren't going to apologize, tell my parents that – yet she forced them back. Their weight and volume almost choked her.
"I've never stopped being sorry," he went on, voice shaking in a way she hadn't heard in years. The last time he had expressed this much nervousness, the same idiotic scarf had trembled with every throb of her heartbeat in the veins in her neck, and white snowflakes had speckled their clothes and hair.
He hesitated before continuing. "Dead is dead," he said, and then repeated himself. "Dead is dead. I knew that the minute… the minute those Heartless ripped my brother apart in front of me." The same hand that he had once used to stroke her hair and face raked back through his own locks, then fell, quaking, back to his side. Falcon found herself staring at the way his hair had rumpled as a result; then he spoke up again and drew her gaze back to his face.
It occurred to her that his posture, normally straight and strong, had faltered.
"So yeah, when somebody came by telling me I could bring Dyme back? I went for it." He took a deep breath. "But I shouldn't have had to hurt you to make myself happy. Friends don't do that."
Friends. They were friends once, Falcon remembered. Once, in a time preceding Keyblades and secrets and Heartless and feelings. Just that realization heralded the rush of so many bittersweet memories that she nearly gasped aloud again. Thankfully, though, she kept it sealed inside her, behind the half-corroded fence about her emotions.
"And then I went and let Xemnas kill you today." Copperhead sighed, eyes slipping shut. For a moment, he almost looked like he never wanted to open them again.
But the moment passed, and he did.
"I know you can't forgive me," he said. "But… we screwed over Char and Riku so much over the last few days. All because we couldn't face up to what I'd done. I couldn't face up to it, fine," he added, a little irritably, at Falcon's raised eyebrow. "I'm pouring my heart out to you here, give me a break. Okay, dumb request.
"I'm just gonna stop talking," he groaned loudly, palming his forehead again. "I just… wanted to say that us not working together slowed down this search a lot more than it needed to. I can't count how many death glares Blaze tossed me when she brought up the citadel and I tried to change the subject." A wry grin twisted his countenance.
Falcon could only stare at him. Somewhere in her mind, the dry reflection as to how he was still trying to deflect the seriousness of the matter stirred, but in the rush of her heartbeat in her ears any attempt at scorn toward him soundly evaporated.
He was still smiling to himself, though not without slight bewilderment permeating the smile, as though just Char's glower tracing along his face manipulated it into that expression. Quickly, Falcon tore her gaze away from him, so he wouldn't be watching her once he finished reminiscing about their brief but meaningful companion. For some reason, if those violet eyes were trained on her while she mulled over his words...
Her pride tamped down that thought before it could finish, but she knew it lay along the lines of it would hurt too much.
Copperhead jerked his head toward her when she failed to respond. "Aren't you going to say anything?" he asked, pleading obvious in his voice.
She looked over at him instinctively and regretted it the instant she did.
"You're saying you want us to work together from now on." It wasn't a question.
His head bobbed up and down. "Well, yeah, basically. I'm not asking you to forgive me," he added unnecessarily. "Just… you always looked tired when you got done with bounties. And if this encounter's proved anything, it's that you can never do anything alone."
Falcon's eyebrows jumped up. "Excuse me?" Even as the offended phrase ripped from her lips, though, she couldn't help but graze her fingers against her once-ruined side.
"Not you specifically!" Copperhead said, raising his palms in a placating gesture. "I'm just saying that fighting was easier with the two of us working together. Everything was easier. Everything is easier, when you've got friends stepping up to help."
Falcon almost succumbed to the past's squeezing grip about her perception of him and spat back a rebuttal. She should have spat back a rebuttal. But he was looking at her again, so accursedly serious that she found herself considering what he had said.
She thought of when Copperhead had jumped in and rescued her, Char, and Riku from the strange, white-bodied enemies. Of when Char had assured her that she wasn't vying for Riku's heart, and relief had twined a rhythm in every rapid beat in Falcon's chest. Of when she and Copperhead had worked together, however temporarily, to distract the Behemoth while Riku and Char battered its back. Of when Copperhead had run his fingers through her hair and told her that her insecurities about Char were unfounded. Of when she had been so ready to die at the mysterious, black-cloaked not-Xemnas' hands, and Char and Copperhead had thrown her out of the cave. Of when she had barked out what Copperhead had done to her, and then heard Char screaming at him through the trees.
Of when she had scraped together her ability to focus, fog of death already painting hazy shadows across her eyes, and spotted Copperhead and Riku charging into the room, weapons drawn, so determined to save her even when she knew she didn't deserve saving.
Gods, she hated it when Copperhead was right.
During the few moments she spent thinking back on everything the four of them had done together, Copperhead did not take his eyes off her. Only when a small hum of laughter escaped him did their situation crash down on her, and with that wave came reality: their accomplished mission; her standing here, one foot on the step below, in the place where her life had tumbled into a downward spiral; the source of that spiral standing before her, blood that wasn't his smeared all over his front, just waiting for her to speak.
The place where Xemnas had gored her began to ache again. She honed in on splaying her fingers over it instead of speaking. In response, Copperhead's pupils flicked down to that hand, before roving up her body back to her face again. He offered her a tentative smile, one so completely different from the wry reminiscence that had coated it minutes earlier, and offered one hand.
"Will you let me help you, in the future?"
And there it was – the question he had avoided directly voicing until now.
"You know…" Falcon began, then stopped, suddenly not knowing why she had spoken aloud. Again. Even in the last few minutes, voicing her emotions had only led to emotional conflict and her heart tangling up the present and past.
Maybe it's for the better, though. Maybe you've kept quiet for too long.
Maybe it's finally time for you to move on. Not forgive him for what he did. But move on.
Copperhead perked up instantly when she spoke, though. Light just pooled into his eyes as easily as the moonshine could pierce the stained glass and spill onto the floor untainted. Quickly, before it could blind her, she continued, words fumbling for purchase at the tip of her tongue.
"I… I was ready to die today. Last night," she amended. Midnight had passed by long ago; her body could feel that much. "But when you guys came to save me, I realized –"
"Yeah?" Copperhead prompted breathlessly, and laughed – a relieved sound that shook as he freed it from its restraints – when she cast him a glare that demanded silence.
"I realized I had someone to count on after all." Suddenly, every link in her meticulously-wrought fences trembled in her chest, weakening through every rattling thrum of her stuttering heartbeat. All her restraint threatened to crumble then, as easily as the Heartless had dissipated under her Keyblade and its ice spells, and her voice all but broke on the last part. Because it was true, even if her own loneliness had kept her from seeing it.
"So I…" Falcon paused, pulled in a deep inhalation of the cool air. The citadel's eroding walls did little to insulate the main hall from outdoor temperatures, so the breeze wove its way inside with little effort. As a result, it combed along her spine and stirred within her gratefulness for the warm scarf around her neck.
"I'd like for us to work together," she managed at last. There, she thought, that wasn't so hard, was it, at least you're trying to move on.
Baby steps, that's all you need.
Copperhead still had his hand held out; it hung in the air, fingers outstretched, so asinine that she had to do something about it. So she obliged him and took that hand. His grip felt warm and firm under her palm, and only when she realized just how glad she was that they were both wearing gloves did she yank her hand back.
Keeping back her instinctive desire to retch at even that small contact proved almost unnervingly easy, now that she had resolved herself to fight that desire.
The way he was watching her still unnerved her, though, so she quickly faced forward again and asked, "Don't we need to meet Riku?"
As Copperhead jerked out of his trance and nodded, she followed after him with tremors not entirely born of blood loss marring her every step. She couldn't decide whether those shakes arose due to regret or anxiety at taking that proverbial step forward.
At the very least, though, she had made the effort to reach beyond her mistrust and its fences. That, she knew, would be the beginning of finally repairing herself.
Riku had dozed off stretched out on Falcon's couch. His arms screamed in protest when he lifted the machine – as it turned out, he nearly dropped the thing at just how much strain it put on him – but once he had stepped through the portal of darkness into Falcon's living room, he could set it down and collapse onto his surrogate bed. Once his cheek touched the inside of the armrest, sleep had sucked him in so easily it should have chafed his pride. Frankly, how he had managed that much with the amount of thoughts tumbling about his head confused him, at least until fatigue closed his eyes.
As it turned out, a combination of two things roused him from his slumber: the rising sun stretching its bright tentacles between the slats in the blinds; and the door's friction against its hinges creaking as it opened.
Amber eyes flickered open, albeit with no small amount of reluctance. Once sleepiness loosened its hold on his cognitive abilities enough, he realized that other than the door opening, complete silence reigned throughout the room. He didn't know what that meant for Falcon and Copperhead's conversation.
Almost against his will, Riku lifted his head and twisted his body to lie on his back, rather than his side, so he could see the answer to his curiosity. Well, he reflected, other than the blood stains on his jacket, Copperhead looks fine. I guess things went well.
"Hi," Falcon greeted, quietly. She stepped back from Copperhead, who had been holding her up with one arm around her waist: a sight that sent belated surprise shuddering through Riku's body. She was letting Copperhead touch her?
Rather than voice that incredulous question, though, Riku slid his palms on either side of his body and pushed himself into a sitting position. He ignored the pain that howled along his crushed arm in lieu of answering her. "Morning," he said, and cast a glance over his shoulder at the window. After a moment of squinting at it, he looked back to Falcon and Copperhead. "What time is it?"
Copperhead blinked. "Uh. Well, the sun's coming up!" he said, raising one finger to the ceiling.
Falcon rolled her eyes, though not near as much causticity accompanied the words that came with the action. "So informative. As always."
When she hobbled across the room to him, Riku's eyes widened and he swung one leg off the couch, fully ready to catch her if needed; but she only ended up stopping, casting one withering stare down at his other leg stretched across the couch, then leaning on the opposite armrest. Her gaze flicked over to something on the other side of the room, then she spoke. "That's the machine, huh?" Only the tiniest trace of bitterness tainted her words: surprising, considering the machine had caused everything that had happened to her tonight.
You didn't let her go to die, he reminded himself. She chose to go up there and get killed by Xemnas.
But it was only because of Anxclof that we got her back at all. If she hadn't been there, then…
I would have lost a friend for real.
Dwelling on the past wouldn't keep him moving forward. Riku knew that, had known it from the moment Roxas had first pressed the Oathkeeper's icy, rain-drenched tip to his throat and Riku had realized he couldn't win by himself. Forcing himself to remain in darkness only kept him anchored in it and away from the light.
Yet just thinking back to the moment he had strung the name Falcon to the small, bloodied thing on the citadel's floor made his chest tight.
"Yeah," he answered Falcon's question. His eyes flicked over to the colorful contraption sitting on the floor. Sunlight spilled in and lifted the thin layer of dust into visibility. "Yeah, it is."
In his periphery, he saw Copperhead quirk an eyebrow at him. Whether bemusement or concern fueled the movement, Riku didn't know. All he did know was that guilt was suddenly washing so heavily over his heart the tide buoyed words up to his tongue.
"Falcon," he said, whipping his head back toward her, "I'm sorry we didn't show up in time –"
Her shoulders twitched when he said her name, but when his apology spilled forth, her entire body went rigid. However, it didn't hinder her ability to cut him off. "Don't be sorry," she said.
"But you died because we didn't show up," Riku pointed out. The effort it took to keep trembling out of his voice sent hot shame flaring along his spine. "If Anxclof hadn't shown up –"
"That's her name?" Falcon suddenly interrupted.
Riku's eyes widened, and Copperhead revoked his choice to stay silent to let a tiny gasp release.
Seeming not to notice either of their reactions – understandable, as her back faced them – Falcon continued. "I remember… a weird floating sensation. Just like the last time this happened."
Somewhere behind Riku, he imagined Copperhead was wincing.
"But someone reached out and touched me. She said something like 'you have to go back. I forbid you to stay here.'" Falcon let out a shaky chuckle. "I don't know why, but something about that voice and presence compelled me enough to listen."
She turned around and stared at Riku. "Anyway," she said, "it's not your fault." A bitter laugh clawed its way out of her, so starkly bleak in comparison to her last chuckle that Riku actually recoiled a little.
Falcon sounded so self-deprecating in that one bark of laughter, so much less vulnerable than before, and it stung Riku to know that even now, she was repressing how she really felt.
"It was my stupid fault for wanting to die at all," she said.
Almost against his will, Riku found himself glancing down at the machine, at the dust along its bulky frame. With the sight of that dust came the memory of barely hours before, when he had rolled his fingertips over the machine in the cool, silver moonlight of the citadel. Along with that telltale silver, hooded amber flashed in his mind to remind him of Xemnas' unspoken challenge.
You have to go, Riku told himself. You promised DiZ, and Char. And Sora.
Still, reluctance tugged at his heart. It was paltry and weak in comparison to the pull toward Kairi and Sora and the sea's own ebb and flow at his island's sands, but the hesitation was there nonetheless.
Gods knew Riku didn't want to leave here with any regrets.
"What are you guys gonna do after I leave?" he asked, abruptly. Although his question addressed both Falcon and Copperhead, the latter turned his face away, leaving it to Falcon to answer. In response to Copperhead's reticence, she blinked, confused, before looking back at Riku.
"Copperhead and I are going to work together to protect the town," she announced.
Riku almost choked on his own spit. As it was, he barely tamped down the strength of his reaction before it could cross the barrier between tangibility and reality: calmed the instinctive quake of his spine and the visceral closing of his throat. "Working together?" he echoed, a bit incredulously.
Falcon sighed, curling her fingers around her ribs and rubbing her arm with the opposite hand. "We discussed it," she explained, heaviness weighing down every word. Riku expected a rumbling voice to chime in then, but Copperhead continued to stay silent, taking up the shadowy presence that Riku himself normally would with Sora and Kairi. "Nothing got done in your mission because… because he and I were always at odds. So we're going to change that."
Nothing got done because of us. Finally, someone had said it. Riku felt like a weight had lifted off his chest and let him breathe easily again for the amount of tension that her admission released.
As Falcon spoke, something odd flashed in her eyes. At her promise to change the lack of progress around town, a flicker of movement drew Riku's gaze down. She had drawn the hand on her arm down and tucked it into a fist.
It was at that moment that a low laugh resonated from behind Riku. Copperhead was grinning at Falcon, the widest Riku had ever seen from him. The blithe, carefree mask had distorted that smile, Riku realized; as it turned out, Falcon's unfamiliar expression brought out something there that feigned happiness couldn't.
He looked back to Falcon again. Maybe it was because Falcon's heart had absorbed Anxclof's being, but the sharpness in her eyes brought him back to watching Roxas' memories in the Twilight Town mansion's basement. Anxclof's eyes had flashed the exact same way every time Xemnas condescended to her, or every time Axel threw his arm around her shoulder and laughed at some goal she was trying to accomplish.
Of course. Determination. That was Falcon's expression now.
Riku thought he rather liked the way she wore it.
They'll be fine, he knew. They have to be.
Raising himself to his feet, he stared down at Falcon, then pivoted to face Copperhead, albeit raising his head considerably to accommodate the latter's greater height than the former. "I have to go," he said.
"We know," Copperhead said, breaking his silence for the second time in as many minutes. He folded his arms and leaned on one leg, smugness stretching at the corners of his lips. "Y'know, I never pegged you as a guy for the dramatic goodbyes."
Riku rolled his eyes. "This is different," he told him. I might not see you guys again if we stop the Organization. If they took down Xemnas, then they would close the corridors between worlds as well. Even with Riku's affinity for darkness, hopefully, closing the pathways would purge Xehanort's Heartless and his powers from his heart.
Hopefully.
Copperhead laughed. "I know, man. I'm just messing with you." He stepped forward and reached up to clap a hand on Riku's shoulder. "As pushy and broody as you can be sometimes, I'll definitely miss you. You're…" A wry smile twisted his lips. "Well, you and Char were the best friends I've had after Falcon."
His confession should have seemed odd. After all, his relationship with Char had revolved around playful flirting from him and fervent rebuffing from her; Riku's feelings toward him had answered to tolerance, at best. Yet Riku could understand what he meant. Falcon wasn't the only one who had shut herself off after what Copperhead had done to her.
He nodded to Copperhead, not knowing what else to say or do, then turned to Falcon. For some reason, anything he tried to say suddenly found itself barricaded by a wall of thorns in his throat. I'll miss you. Don't tear Copperhead apart. You don't need to heal me before you go. Sentimentality, teasing, anticipation of the concern that widened her eyes as she observed the battered nature of his arm – none of those things could encapsulate what he wanted to say.
"Falcon…" he began, then shook his head and practically blurted it out. "Try – try to be happy, okay?"
A moment later, when she failed to respond, he felt himself shifting forward, stretching his arms downward, and wrapping them around her. Just like he had for Char, a little over a month ago. But Char and Falcon were different women entirely, and so unlike Char, Falcon went stiff in his arms for a moment.
Unlike Char, after that moment, Falcon decided that she had resisted for far too long and fairly dissolved into him.
He only realized that his arms were pressing in on each side of her neck when a distinctively powerful throb began to push against the inside of his wrists: her heartbeat straining against her carotid artery. So he slid his arms downward, being very careful not to graze over the still-raw injury from earlier tonight, until he felt her shoulder blades bump against his palms. Riku had never realized just how tiny Falcon was compared to his current form until now. Somehow, that epiphany injected a fresh surge of protectiveness into his veins.
Once he had gotten accommodated, he tightened his grip on her: an action that he was glad he had performed the moment he became aware something damp glistening on his leather coat. Falcon's face only met the broad part of his sternum, but he still tilted his head down to rest his chin atop her head as best he could.
Honestly, he was grateful she didn't follow the crying on his shoulder cliché, her height notwithstanding.
Suddenly he wondered why he was dwelling on the logistics of this. It was a hug, something meant to comfort her until – well, in all likelihood they would never meet again. That notion further quickened the pace of his heart; he had considered never seeing her again after she had died, yet for some reason this felt more final. More painful. Saying goodbye to Char had hurt, too, but at least he knew they would meet up again in the World That Never Was.
Sora was used to this, he thought fleetingly. Sora said goodbye to people all the time. Friends he had met and helped throughout the worlds. Riku remembered just how damned jealous he had felt while watching his dorky, Keyblade-toting best friend bid farewell to sadly smiling world natives.
Now that Riku was experiencing it for himself, though, it hit him that he would never wish these feelings on anyone.
Sometime in the past minute or so, the rustling of clothes behind Riku told him Copperhead was approaching; then something dark flashed in Riku's blurry periphery – blurry, when had that happened? – and squeezed his shoulder. The pressure there shifted as the white-clad form bent to kneel next to them – when had Riku and Falcon fallen to their knees, anyway?
Probably about the same time you started crying.
Eventually, gold light slanted against the inside of Riku's eyelids, and he forced himself to open his eyes and step back. Crimson veins stretched out from Falcon's green irises, and Copperhead's face looked blotchy despite his dry eyes; but Riku chose to ignore that and stood to retrieve the machine.
Once he had it safely in his grasp, he nodded to both of them, not knowing what else to say or do. All he knew, though, was that as much as they depended on him, he had two – no, three – more people depending on his return to them.
The door to Falcon's house creaked as he eased it shut behind him.
Melodramatic cheesy ending is cheesy and melodramatic. Eh. Whatever. At least we can finally, finally move into the last arc of the fic. I'm going to miss my emo OC babies, though.
Review please, and hopefully 84 will come soon enough that people won't forget about this fic.