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way2dawnTitle: Sometimes
Author:way2dawn
Characters/Pairings: Riku-centric. Sora/Riku, OT5ish (w/mentions of past Akuroku).
Rating: PG-13ish. Mentions of mature situations and/or implications, including sexual ones.
Summary: Post-KH2. Everyone is safe and everyone is home, and yet there are things still unsaid.
A/N: Many thanks to my beta,myth. Part of the Awakenings verse. Required reading this time around is probably Said the Spider to the Fly (or if it's not your thing, at least be aware that it exists), Riku, Home, Flowers and Chocolate, and Dream.
Part 1 - Sometimes
Last Night
Today is a day for thinking, Riku’s decided, as he sits on the Paopu tree and watches the waves. He had breakfast and tea this morning in a different house than the house he ate dinner in last night. Riku thinks his mother’s probably given up for a while on asking him the awkward questions outright, and has instead started buying every different flavor of tea she comes across, like one of them will magically get him to talk. Sora’s mom still buys only two kinds of tea, regular and chamomile, and she’s the only one that ever drinks the chamomile. There must not be much going on right now, if all he’s thinking about is tea.
But that’s not really true, is it? Last night, there were different sorts of thoughts running through his mind. Last night, he woke up at least three different times. It all blurs together a bit, after a while, but last night was probably one of the harder nights. He’s had a good number of bad nights since they’ve gotten back, of course, but last night was one of the hard ones. He knows it’s a hard one when his mouth feels like a ticking time bomb, and he doesn’t know how long he has left before everything just explodes. Sometimes, he thinks he might want it to explode, but last night, it was the last thing he wanted.
Riku’s not exactly sure what set it off, but last night, he thinks he practically ranover to Sora’s; it’s a slightly embarrassing thought, but it’s not like running away from his problems is anything particularly new. When he got there, though, he could barely do anything besides rasp out Sora’s name once, and even though he couldn’t stop himself from constantly touching Sora, Riku still felt hazy and stiff and too far away from it all. He remembers Sora pulling at him to get under the covers and lie down, frowning and concerned, holding him close when Riku buried his face in the crook of Sora’s neck because he wasn’t sure he could stand Sora seeing his expression. Still, it was only that constant tactile presence that allowed Riku to cautiously drift back off to sleep again.
Riku figures he probably woke up again less than an hour after that. His dream was about… the usual, though it’s something that he has never, ever been able to get used to, no matter how many times it replays itself in his sleep. But he remembers waking up suddenly, gasping for breath and holding onto Sora as tightly as he could, only realizing after a minute or so that he was still shaking. At first, he had his eyes squeezed tightly shut, but that only flashed the same images he’d just seen, so instead, he just stared at Sora’s bedsheets. Sora’d been murmuring something to him softly, rubbing his back in slow motions, but the words didn’t make sense just then, so Riku focused on the sound of his voice until the shaking stopped and he could breathe normally.
Sora looked more serious last night, Riku thinks, than he should have to, now that we’re back home. I suppose that’s my fault. He didn’t want to be a burden, but… he just didn’t know what else to do. Sora being there really made him feel better about things; it made everything that’d happened not seem quite so heavy. Or if it was still just as heavy, the heaviness didn’t seem to matter as much, and he let Sora coax him back to sleep again with something that tried to be a smile.
Of course, once he was back to sleep, the nightmare picked back up again, right where it left off, the threads of it acting as if he hadn’t woken up at all in the first place. The colors, the sounds, the way things twisted together until he forgot how to breathe, like he… Stop it, just stop thinking about it. At this rate, Riku’ll just end up going over it all again. He lets himself remember, though, how when he woke up again, spine stiff and breathing ragged once more, eyes focused on Sora’s face and not daring to look away, Sora didn’t even have to ask him about it out loud, just gazed back at him in a silent question.
Again, the only thing Riku was really capable of saying just then was Sora’s name, but this time, it was unsure, almost silent, and threaded with something Riku could barely recognize. This time, Riku went back to not being able to keep his hands off of Sora, almost like he’d be able to reassure himself that Sora was still there and wouldn’t just vanish inexplicably into thin air. He remembers just touching a hand to Sora’s cheek , nothing more than the lightest of caresses to the brunet’s face, but his hand was trembling and his head felt like it was underwater. They were just inches apart and Sora still had an arm wrapped around Riku’s back, but it still felt somehow like there was some sort of incredible divide between them, made up of words Riku couldn’t bring himself to utter and wouldn’t let himself think about.
Sora, though, either didn’t see that divide or didn’t care about it, and just pulled Riku closer, kissing him. If Riku’d felt underwater before, this was like finally coming up for air. As long as it just stayed like this for a little, as long as they didn’t lose that contact, then the rest of everything didn’t matter and couldn’t ruin any of it. And Riku kept pressing closer, kept Sora from vanishing, and Sora kept Riku in the here and now. It was all so very quiet, everything about that night, but Riku thinks Sora knew – still knows now – that the communication wasn’t really about words. Even if Sora didn’t understand all the overlapping layers of meaning behind the hitches in Riku’s breath as he slowly moved his hands down Riku’s bare sides, when everything was close and now and warm, he understood enough to stay as close as he could for as long as he could, which was the important part.
Then, Sora was just Sora and he was just Riku, so really, it was the same as it’d always been.
Riku hears the sound of the door to the seaside shack opening, pulling him out of his thoughts temporarily, the steps toward him belonging to Sora, from the sounds of them. He takes a breath. Those other things can wait until tomorrow to bother him, Riku decides; he’s got better things going on today.
Author:
way2dawnCharacters/Pairings: Riku-centric. Sora/Riku, OT5ish (w/mentions of past Akuroku).
Rating: PG-13ish. Mentions of mature situations and/or implications, including sexual ones.
Summary: Post-KH2. Everyone is safe and everyone is home, and yet there are things still unsaid.
A/N: Many thanks to my beta,
myth. Part of the Awakenings verse. Required reading this time around is probably Said the Spider to the Fly (or if it's not your thing, at least be aware that it exists), Riku, Home, Flowers and Chocolate, and Dream.Part 1 - Sometimes
Last Night
Today is a day for thinking, Riku’s decided, as he sits on the Paopu tree and watches the waves. He had breakfast and tea this morning in a different house than the house he ate dinner in last night. Riku thinks his mother’s probably given up for a while on asking him the awkward questions outright, and has instead started buying every different flavor of tea she comes across, like one of them will magically get him to talk. Sora’s mom still buys only two kinds of tea, regular and chamomile, and she’s the only one that ever drinks the chamomile. There must not be much going on right now, if all he’s thinking about is tea.
But that’s not really true, is it? Last night, there were different sorts of thoughts running through his mind. Last night, he woke up at least three different times. It all blurs together a bit, after a while, but last night was probably one of the harder nights. He’s had a good number of bad nights since they’ve gotten back, of course, but last night was one of the hard ones. He knows it’s a hard one when his mouth feels like a ticking time bomb, and he doesn’t know how long he has left before everything just explodes. Sometimes, he thinks he might want it to explode, but last night, it was the last thing he wanted.
Riku’s not exactly sure what set it off, but last night, he thinks he practically ranover to Sora’s; it’s a slightly embarrassing thought, but it’s not like running away from his problems is anything particularly new. When he got there, though, he could barely do anything besides rasp out Sora’s name once, and even though he couldn’t stop himself from constantly touching Sora, Riku still felt hazy and stiff and too far away from it all. He remembers Sora pulling at him to get under the covers and lie down, frowning and concerned, holding him close when Riku buried his face in the crook of Sora’s neck because he wasn’t sure he could stand Sora seeing his expression. Still, it was only that constant tactile presence that allowed Riku to cautiously drift back off to sleep again.
Riku figures he probably woke up again less than an hour after that. His dream was about… the usual, though it’s something that he has never, ever been able to get used to, no matter how many times it replays itself in his sleep. But he remembers waking up suddenly, gasping for breath and holding onto Sora as tightly as he could, only realizing after a minute or so that he was still shaking. At first, he had his eyes squeezed tightly shut, but that only flashed the same images he’d just seen, so instead, he just stared at Sora’s bedsheets. Sora’d been murmuring something to him softly, rubbing his back in slow motions, but the words didn’t make sense just then, so Riku focused on the sound of his voice until the shaking stopped and he could breathe normally.
Sora looked more serious last night, Riku thinks, than he should have to, now that we’re back home. I suppose that’s my fault. He didn’t want to be a burden, but… he just didn’t know what else to do. Sora being there really made him feel better about things; it made everything that’d happened not seem quite so heavy. Or if it was still just as heavy, the heaviness didn’t seem to matter as much, and he let Sora coax him back to sleep again with something that tried to be a smile.
Of course, once he was back to sleep, the nightmare picked back up again, right where it left off, the threads of it acting as if he hadn’t woken up at all in the first place. The colors, the sounds, the way things twisted together until he forgot how to breathe, like he… Stop it, just stop thinking about it. At this rate, Riku’ll just end up going over it all again. He lets himself remember, though, how when he woke up again, spine stiff and breathing ragged once more, eyes focused on Sora’s face and not daring to look away, Sora didn’t even have to ask him about it out loud, just gazed back at him in a silent question.
Again, the only thing Riku was really capable of saying just then was Sora’s name, but this time, it was unsure, almost silent, and threaded with something Riku could barely recognize. This time, Riku went back to not being able to keep his hands off of Sora, almost like he’d be able to reassure himself that Sora was still there and wouldn’t just vanish inexplicably into thin air. He remembers just touching a hand to Sora’s cheek , nothing more than the lightest of caresses to the brunet’s face, but his hand was trembling and his head felt like it was underwater. They were just inches apart and Sora still had an arm wrapped around Riku’s back, but it still felt somehow like there was some sort of incredible divide between them, made up of words Riku couldn’t bring himself to utter and wouldn’t let himself think about.
Sora, though, either didn’t see that divide or didn’t care about it, and just pulled Riku closer, kissing him. If Riku’d felt underwater before, this was like finally coming up for air. As long as it just stayed like this for a little, as long as they didn’t lose that contact, then the rest of everything didn’t matter and couldn’t ruin any of it. And Riku kept pressing closer, kept Sora from vanishing, and Sora kept Riku in the here and now. It was all so very quiet, everything about that night, but Riku thinks Sora knew – still knows now – that the communication wasn’t really about words. Even if Sora didn’t understand all the overlapping layers of meaning behind the hitches in Riku’s breath as he slowly moved his hands down Riku’s bare sides, when everything was close and now and warm, he understood enough to stay as close as he could for as long as he could, which was the important part.
Then, Sora was just Sora and he was just Riku, so really, it was the same as it’d always been.
Riku hears the sound of the door to the seaside shack opening, pulling him out of his thoughts temporarily, the steps toward him belonging to Sora, from the sounds of them. He takes a breath. Those other things can wait until tomorrow to bother him, Riku decides; he’s got better things going on today.
