Archive of Our Own ^beta

The dark passage led them to a dead beach. The sand was black, cold, and fine, as though a volcano had destroyed everything and left only ash. There were no stars. They were alone.

They only made it a few steps before collapsing, clinging to each other like castaways. Sora could feel Riku’s heart pounding beneath his hands–frantic, but strong. Alive. They were alive. They were together.

The storm had passed. The danger had not. Blood sluiced from Riku’s side, black in the moonlight, invisible in the sand. The final blow had broken something inside him – hurt him deeper than magic could reach. The wounds knitted over but the scars would not fade. Sora whispered over them with growing desperation.

“Heal… Heal… Come on, you have to–”

He couldn’t remember when he had started to cry.

But somewhere between then and now, Riku’s grimace of pain had relaxed into a tired smile. He took Sora’s hand away from the wound and held it loosely, as though he wasn’t sure he was allowed to hold it at all.

“W-We have to get home,” Sora went on. “We have to get you to…Yen Sid, or…”

He trailed off, scrubbing his eyes.

The sound Riku made was something between a laugh and a cough. “Slow down, half pint – I’m okay. Promise. Just…stay with me, for a while.”

He shut his eyes. He was close enough to smell: blood and ozone, the sweat of battle. His hair fanned out around his head in the sand like a halo.

There had been no time to look at him in the World That Never Was. There had been too many battles that needed fighting, and too many people who needed saving, to study the cut of his jaw, or the new inches of height between them.

Now Sora found himself unable to look away. Now he noticed things he’d missed before – like the fine hairs that started at Riku’s navel and disappeared below his belt.

“Your lip is bleeding.”

Riku was looking at him, too.

Sora licked the corner of his mouth. “Barely.”

“Your chin, too. And your – chest.”

Typical. Two steps from death’s door and Mister One Year Older had somehow found the energy to mind someone else’s business.

“It’s nothing,” Sora insisted, hurrying to help when Riku struggled upright. “And stop trying to act cool. You took way more hits than me. You –”

The words would not come. The moment Riku had crumpled beneath the laser was all he could see.

Riku’s laugh was striated with pain. “You calling me rusty? This, from the guy who’s been napping for the last year? I’ve got moves you could only dream of.”

He was probably right. (The rules of engagement dictated that admission would come only under duress.) At first they had been in perfect sync, finally equal, fighting on the same side.

Then Sora had slipped up – stumbled, lagged, took his eye off the big bad – and found himself blinking up at a shield of sparkling panels. He realized, then, that he had been fighting only one battle. Riku had been fighting two: one to keep Sora alive, and one to put Xemnas down.

“Sora.” Riku was watching him again. Thank god for the hair falling over his eyes; that brilliant blue-green would be lethal after a barber visit. “I wanted to tell you – to apologize for –”

“Don’t.”

Sora shook his head. He wanted to shake off what Riku’s voice was doing to his already well-cooked nervous system. It was low and steady, familiar and strange, making his name sound more important than it had any right to be.

“None of that stuff matters,” he went on, when he was sure his voice would come out normally. “You’re back. Don’t you ever leave me again.”

Or else what? Riku’s eyebrow seemed to say, but his flushed face said a lot of other things over it. Loudly.

Their hands were still folded on the sand between them: Sora’s left, Riku’s right. Here, again, Riku had raced ahead; his fingers had grown long and pretty, while Sora’s had stayed short and bitten.

But the telltale scrape of callus against callus, where their palms met, told Sora that some things had not changed at all.

Riku’s other hand, the left hand, was folded carefully in his lap. Now that Sora was close enough to get a good look, he realized the covering he’d mistaken for a fashion statement was actually a makeshift bandage.

He looked askance at Riku. “What happened to your wrist?”

Riku lifted one shoulder and dropped it with a grimace. “Ran into your Nobody. He got one good hit off. To your credit,” he added wryly, and then it was Sora’s turn to flush.

“Why didn’t you heal it?”

“I did. Eventually. A lot of stuff happened back then, and I kept forgetting, and now…”

“It still hurts?”

Riku shrugged again.

Unbelievable. Sora started to elbow him, then remembered how near death they already were. “Well, I’ll take a whack at it – not like that, you doof, don’t give me that look – but I’m out of magic for now.”

He would have to eat and sleep a little to get it back. And here on this desolate coast, food and rest seemed very far away.

“Oh!” he said suddenly, making Riku jump and look around for danger. “Sorry. I might have one left…”

He did, at the very bottom of his deepest pocket: a potion with only a sip remaining.

Sora let go of Riku’s hand to uncork it. “Here. I don’t think it’ll fix whatever’s going on there, but it won’t hurt so much.”

The look Riku gave him was right out of their play island days. “You want me to drink this when you’ve got blood all over your chin? You must have hit your head back there.”

“Thanks, Mom.” Sora rolled his eyes. (He also turned and wiped his chin on his shoulder. “Like I’ve never had a busted lip.”

But Riku lifted his chin and closed his eyes. “I’m not fighting with you.”

As though that settled it.

What he didn’t know was this: Sora had not traveled billions of lightyears and dozens of worlds to be put off by the stubborn streak that had started this entire mess.

Potions always tickled a little. They reminded Sora of popping candy. Head crackling, he stood on his knees and took Riku firmly by the shoulders.

Then Riku looked at him. His mouth opened a little, maybe in surprise, maybe to protest, and either way made it easier to pass the potion between their lips.

“...You make a compelling argument,” he mumbled when Sora let him go.

“You’re not the only one who picked up some new moves. Now let me take care of you, okay?”

The split in his lip was gone. So was the cut on his chin. Gently Sora took Riku’s wrist, pushed the covering back, and pressed his tingling mouth to the wound.

Not much happened. (Not that he was expecting much from a near-expiration potion.) The wound faded a little, and Riku's fingers curled in surprise.

But it felt like the right thing to do. All the feelings Sora couldn’t name, and all the thoughts he couldn’t put to words, seemed to gather around his lips. The potion left an iridescent sheen on Riku’s skin.

He straightened up. “Um,” he began, but then Riku was kissing him, licking the last drops of potion back into his mouth, and there was no need to try and explain with words.

Maybe it was because they had narrowly escaped death. Maybe the rush of adrenaline from the fight was still working its way out of their systems. Maybe the potion was off and they were suffering the side effects. It was impossible to know what drove Sora into Riku's lap, but it was probably the same thing that made Riku lie back and let their bodies touch without the pretext of violence for the first time in living memory.

Sora paused to kiss the thumb stroking near the corner of his mouth and said, sternly as he could manage: “You better tell me if this hurts.”

Beneath him, Riku shifted contemplatively. “If I tell you, can we do it anyway?”

“Depends.”

The front of Sora's shirt yawned open as negotiated his seat on Riku's hips. Riku gazed into it with an expression better suited to hungry canids. He had certainly pawed enough these past few minutes to earn a binomial name. Maybe he could bite, too, under the right circumstances.

“Depends on what?” he wanted to know.

“What you want, I guess.”

“To get you off,” Riku said immediately, blushing after instead of before.

Sora snorted and settled down to kiss him again. “Is that all?”

“What else is there?”

Riku's right hand was as good with belts as it was with swords. One moment he was fiddling with the buckle, and the next he was dipping reverent fingers into the hot, sticky cleft of Sora's legs.

“You're hard,” he said hoarsely, wonderingly, eyes fixed on Sora's face, watching for his reaction.

“Takes one to know one.”

It took Sora longer to figure out Riku's belt. Not because it was more complicated, but because his knuckles kept rubbing the taut little triangle of belly above it, and because Riku was grinding the firmest part of his palm against Sora's clit, and because Riku looked pretty damn smug about it despite Sora's hips doing at least half the work.

But that expression melted quickly away when Sora's hand found his dick. He almost seemed – surprised.

Sora froze. “Is that a no?”

“No. I mean, no, it's a yes. Yes. Please.”

For someone who tried so hard to be complicated, like this, Riku was easy. Beautifully, wonderfully easy, asking nicely when he wanted more pressure here, less speed there, and at last a kiss to catch his breath, which had started to come in hard little gasps.

“Are you…always like this?” Sora said aloud – not really meaning to, but his thoughts were overflowing so pleasantly, and it seemed important to tell Riku how much he was appreciated.

Riku looked at him from the corner of his eye. “Like what?”

“I dunno. Sweet.”

“Sweet?”

“Yeah. Honest,” Sora decided, not really knowing what he meant himself, but it sounded right. It made Riku wetter, at the very least.

He himself wasn't faring much better. He was too slick to get any meaningful traction. He needed rhythm to get there, he knew from experience – and a little discomfort.

Riku read his movements and pushed back, squeezing when Sora slipped between his fingers. But it was too clumsy to bring him any closer to the finish line.

“Easy. Easy, I've got you,” Riku murmured in that low voice that seemed to go right through him. “Just a little more. I've got you. I'll do it for you. Sora, I'll take care of you, please, just – let me –”

He flipped suddenly – palm down, knuckles up. Sora caught them on the downstroke and gasped aloud. He also lost his grip on Riku but found him again after a moment of clumsy groping.

It was like the first time he had held a keyblade – solid but alive in his hand, beating like a heart. He, too, was pulsing between two of Riku's knuckles, harder than he could recall ever having been before. They were both alive –

Still alive.

“Riku,” he managed with his last breath, before his climax stole the rest away in a flash-bang of noiseless sensation. Blindly he pushed their mouths together. It seemed important to have something to occupy his tongue. (Usually, during solo sessions, it was his necklace.)

Riku hastened to obey, even as he spilled over Sora's fingers in soft, shuddering waves. There was something polite about the way he came. He might have even asked permission if his mouth hadn't been occupied. Maybe he would, in the future, if they ever found their way out of this place.

The thought occurred to Sora as if from very far away. It didn't seem half as important as sweeping the hair from Riku's eyes and thumbing away the tears he found there.

“Hey. You alright?”

Riku laughed. “Better than that. You?”

“Can't complain. Learned some new moves ”

“Like I said.”

Sora shifted so that he was lying beside Riku, with an arm and leg flung over him. “We should do this more often.”

“Gotta get out of here first, half pint. But if I die like this,” Riku added impulsively, “I won't complain.”

“Well, I will.” Sora cupped Riku's face and turned it toward him, mustering all his sternness. “You aren't allowed to die. I said you couldn't leave me again, remember?”

Riku smiled. He straightened Sora's necklace, holding the charm between his finger and thumb for a moment before letting it fall back against Sora's heart.

“I remember,” he said.