Archive of Our Own

“Got one!” Sora crows, watching as another Nightmare poofs out of existence from a static-charged stun edge. Flying by, Riku’s Komory Bat Apricot high fives him with a wing and chirrups before soaring off to cast another Haste.

From across the plaza, he hears a laugh and the sound of a group of pops. “Got three,” Riku shouts smugly.

“Whatever, I’ve still got the higher total,” Sora says back even though he’s not even counting. He just knows he does. Even in the middle of a hoard of Nightmares, they always find some way to make everything a competition between them.

The sound of flapping and the crackle of magic makes him flick his eyes upwards. “Hey, keep an eye on that bird, I think it’s up to something again!” He spins off a lamppost and launches himself up to get the height advantage, spotting the Spellican Dream Eater waving its wand, a mass of dark energy swirling around its beaked head.

Sora whistles to get its attention. “Hey, birdbrain! Catch!” It turns only to catch a Balloonra straight to it’s face, screeching as it’s knocked back.

Nice! Hopefully this fight won’t take too long—the more time they spend here, the less time they’ll have to hang out around the town. And he had so many good plans for today!

It was supposed to be an easy trip. A vacation of sorts out to Traverse Town to reconnect with their Dream Eaters and explore the backstreets of the town. Not to fight Nightmares; they’d gotten rid of them, after all…or so they thought.

The second they had landed, the first thing they noticed was a strange negative energy hanging heavy in the air. Immediately, the mark on Riku’s back had flared to life, sensitive to Nightmare activity. Even Sora had felt it, every hair on his arm sticking straight up as he peered around for anything watching him from the shadows.

Something was here, and nothing good at that.

They hesitated on summoning their Dream Eaters, some feeling in them telling them that it was a bad idea. But wandering in the Sleeping World’s without their Dream Eaters felt weird without them there to watch their backs. So they settled for sharing two, one as a scout and one as a heavy-hitter, as a just in case.

The mystery was solved when they heard a caw within the Fourth District, and when they rushed over there it was to find a familiar-looking bird magician surrounded by a near-army of Nightmares.

And it just kept making more.

“I thought we got rid of this pest!” Riku calls from somewhere behind him. There’s a grunt, the whistle of a Keyblade slash, and the pomf of a Nightmare being vanquished.

“Apparently—” Sora pauses to kick a Pricklemane like a football across the street. It screeches as it flies through the air in a perfect arc. “—it came back for more!”

Their Ryu Dragon, Ku, roars as it charges in a line and crushes everything its path. Sora grins at the thinning ranks, smirking at the Spellican. “How’s that for you, feathers for brains?”

It squawks in an obviously very-frustrated manner, its wand waving rapidly and sparking with every swish. Soaring out of range, it settles on the fountain top, the spellbook on its head crinkling as it shakes its head. Sora takes the brief respite for what it is and looks around for Riku, spotting him by a cluster of lamps.

“You alright?” Sora calls. In response, Riku does a wall kick off a building, twirling his Keyblade into a Kooma Panda with a graceful spin. He ducks and rolls just as the Panda vanishes, landing on his feet as the mist rises around him like sparking dewdrops. With a thumbs up and a grin, he swipes his sweaty hair out of his eyes, winking at Sora before diving back in.

Sora watches him go, frozen in place, feeling all his blood pool in his face and his mind blank. That…holy guacamole. How does Riku always manage to look so good?

Quickly, Sora follows, but can’t stop thinking about that grin, the suave swish, the spinning, oh man—and has to dodge a few attacks from Nightmares before he gets his head back in the game. Now’s probably not the best time to be moony over Riku.

Still…wow.

He quickly shifts his focus back to the fountain, noticing the way the dark matter around the Spellican has thickened and darkened further. The matter swirls, blobbing away from the center of the mass and splitting into strands, forming into a shape not unlike the bars on a sheet of music.

“Riku, look!” Sora calls to get his attention. Riku turns. The plaza is mostly clear by this point, so the only thing left in their way is whatever the Spellican has cooking up.

“What’s it doing?” Riku asks. “Actually, never mind, I don’t think we want to find out.” His eyebrows lower and his stance falls back into his signature pose. Sora is quick to follow into his own, holding his Keyblade two-handed to fire a Firaga at the bird.

Instead of connecting and breaking the Nightmares concentration, though, the Firaga dissolves on contact, turning purple-black and smoking into steam.

Sora huffs. “Alright, new plan, then.” He queues up an Aero and is about to use it to jump his way to the fountain top before he pauses at Riku’s shout of “Wait!”

“That’s a different kind of darkness…I don’t think it’s a good idea to hit it. What if it—” the next part of Riku’s words suddenly cut off as the thick, blobby mass of darkness suddenly starts spilling, dripping into the fountain water like a leaky pipe and staining the clear water tarnished black.

The fountain quickly overflows, the darkness filling the cracks of the pavement, and from the bubbling substance Dreams Eaters start rising, first washed out and featureless and next whole, red-eyed and snarling.

The two of them hesitate for only a moment before readying to attack again. “Well, that answers that question,” Sora says. They can handle a few more Nightmares, no sweat. After all, it probably can’t keep up a spell this strong for very long.

But there’s so many forming at one time it’s hard to decide where to strike first. The Nightmares make the decision for them, though, when the first wave starts to charge. And then they’re back in the thick of battle.

He realizes that’s not the only trick up this Spellican’s sleeve, though. From across the street, Ku is fighting a pair of Toximanders and Apricot is drain diving a few Nightmares surrounding Riku. Sora feels the hairs on his arm stand up again, the way it had when he first dived into Traverse Town. The feeling drags his eyes back upwards.

The cloud of darkness condensed into music bars strike a discordant note, one that makes Sora wince and turn his head, and they suddenly dive, down and down straight on to the top of his Dream Eaters.

It drenches them in the same purple-black stain, bubbling with a horrifying hissing noise. Sora shouts and starts running towards the closest one, Ku, but freezes when the stain washes off as quickly as it had poured.

Because staring back at him is not his cuddly, overly affectionate Ryu Dragon spirit. This Ryu Dragon has flat red eyes and purple markings, dark-rough scales and red-tipped wings. This spirit snarls at him, staring at him unblinkingly with a hostile gaze.

It turned Ku into a Nightmare.

“No!” Sora tries to run up to him, wants to help, but instead backs up a step as the dragon prowls closer. Involuntarily, his Keyblade slackens, and vanishes with a hurt cry of his heart. “No…” A few tears jump to his eyes. It turned his Dream Eaters. Sora can’t fight his friends, he can’t, that’s not what he does.

But—if he doesn’t…

Ku—no, not Ku anymore, god, why is this happening—snaps his jaw as if to remind Sora of his presence. But he’s too distracted by the mindless gazes of the other Nightmares scattered around the fountain, too many to count. How did this get out of hand so fast? What changed? Why…

“Sora, look out!”

Sora hears the warning too late, re-summons his Keyblade too slow. It’s as if time slows for the barest breath of a moment—the dragon Dream Eater’s tail swishing mid-air as it dashes, fangs sharp and claws outstretched. A wash of cold rushes over his skin.

Oh.

This is going to hurt.

Just before Ku pounces, their features twisted into a cruel snarl, ready to dig and slash and tear his skin into strips, a glow emanates from its form just before its teeth pry his skin from his bones. The Keyblade finally jumps into his hands, shaking, but it’s pointless as Ku’s form is—pulled, suddenly, as if tied to a tether.

A tether leading back to Riku.

The bottom drops out of Sora’s stomach for a different reason now. Sora watches mutely as his Komory Bat jerks back as well, on the cusp of biting a hefty chunk out of the meat of Riku’s arm, glowing bright. He can’t see Riku amidst the glow, before he realizes that Riku is the glow, his form outlined by blinding white.

In an instant, Sora unfreezes, and with a desperate shout of “Riku!” he kicks his back foot off the pavement and starts a dead sprint towards the steadily growing light.

Though he’s only seen this once before, he recognizes Riku’s link move when he sees it. The last time, Riku had spun and danced with flames surrounding his Keyblade, every strike hurdling blazing strikes of fire towards the scattered Nightmares around La Cite de Cloches. It was cool and badass and kinda crazy hot—literally—but that was when Riku had linked with one of his spirits not possessed with Nightmare energy.

If Riku was linking with his crazed Dream Eaters now, who knows what the effects will have on him. Nothing good, probably. Either way, Sora needs to be there because Riku needs him, and Sora needs him to be okay more than anything else in the world.

Before he even reaches halfway, though, a gaggle of Nightmares suddenly block his way, and there’s a split-second think-back of oh, right, I forgot about them before he has to narrowly avoid a swipe from a Hebby Repp.

“Just can’t catch a break, huh?” he mutters under his breath in frustration, shaking his head before launching at the first Nightmare with quick strikes. There’s no time for this!

There’s a lot of them, though. Like, an actually worrying amount of them all vying to take a chunk out of him. But that doesn’t really matter because while tossing his Keyblade for a strike raid, a Kooma Panda blocks his view of Riku and suddenly his vision tunnels out. The Panda dissolves instantly when he spears it through the middle with a dash of a sonic blade, but he still can’t see Riku because two more Nightmares have taken the original one’s place.

This situation has gone from okay to bad to horrible and Sora doesn’t know what’s going to happen to Riku and he’s so fucking worried and why is everything in his WAY.

He fights with a single-minded purpose, just enough to carve a path, barely bothers guarding and focuses on getting in as many hits as he needs to worm his way though. But there’s so many, too many, and in his driven state he keeps slipping up, so when a few Pricklemanes start stabbing at his ankles he accidentally trips into the crowd with a painful crack to his skull.

The Keyblade stays in his hand by sheer force of will, but the blunt damage on his head throbs painfully as if it were a cracked egg and his brains had slithered out to his feet for all the good that they’re doing. He has just enough time to prop himself up on his hand before parrying back a bite from the mangy Nightmares. God, even that slight movement makes his head spin.

But he’s not done. And Riku’s still out there. His mind jumps to the worst conclusions, the Nightmares eating him up from the inside out or Riku’s mind bending under the strain of holding back the tide.

The adrenaline still coursing through his veins gives him enough energy to stand back up even though he wants nothing more than to curl up and groan. But now that he’s stopped for a second, he feels the wounds on his body from his rush before, the unhealed bruises and grating slashes starting to sting now that he can actually feel them.

Sora pants, feeling the ache starting to settle in his bones, but manages to knock back a few Nightmares with a well-placed Thundaga, A good chunk of the crowd dissolve into mist, their ranks filling back in the empty space at half the strength. Ha! He has a faint thought of pride before he realizes that that spell drained most of his magic and that he’s still left in the middle of a dangerous Nightmare crowd with no exit in sight.

Horrible slowly transitions to oh, shit, I’m really in trouble now, aren’t I?

He watches the waves of Nightmare close in on his crouched spot and he was wrong, so wrong before, watching as the Panda’s prepare to charge and the Meow Wow’s snap.

This is what’s really going to hurt.

Just before the nearest Tatsu Blaze launches a scorching fireball at his face, it suddenly—explodes in a burst of dark matter. Sora feels the whatever that thing was made of goo fly in chunks over his skin, and he quickly eases his eyes open from the bracing-for-attack position he was just in.

And stares.

Because something is flying through the hoard of Nightmares at lightning speed, a dark smear along Traverse Town’s dimly lit streets. It latches on to a Kooma Panda and Sora barely manages to catch a glimpse of neon-tipped claws slashing deep gashes in the Dream Eater’s body. Instead of dissolving, though, the way it does whenever Sora destroys them, these claws tear. The Kooma Panda splits open like the pop of a water balloon, falling apart at the seams into the same Nightmare substance splattered on Sora’s skin.

It’s horrifying. He’s never seen anything like this, not in any of the worlds he’s visited. But Sora is too stricken to process what’s happening and can only watch numbly as the thing leaps from Nightmare to Nightmare with frightening, twitchy moves.

The blur is too fast to be recognizable, too strange and otherworldly to be known, but Sora manages to catch glimpses of electric blue and inky tendrils of black, flashes of striped pink. Slams of Nightmares into the pavement when it launches them in the air and strikes them down, once, twice, till they smear into the rocky crater left behind. Cleaves a few clean in half, the spiked tail of it the only glimpse of it he catches as it swipes. At one point, he watches it sink psychedelic pink fangs into the neck of a few, yanking up with horrible, wet tearing sounds.

It’s a good thing him and Riku were sharing only two Dream Eaters before this, because this creature seems intent on attacking anything shaped vaguely like a Nightmare without mercy. If Bumpis had to face up against this…there’s no way he’d survive.

And—no, oh no, where is Riku anyways?

The pavement is covered in Nightmare sludge, thick as jelly but glittering like oil. A few scattered Nightmares still remain, but the creature is steadily working its way through them which gives Sora enough time to get away and hunt down his lost friend who’s possibly in life-threatening danger.

Standing on jittery legs, Sora inches his way out of the warpath, carefully stepping over the larger piles of goo so as to not slip. The splattered ooze still sinks into his shoes and stains them iridescent black as much as he tries to avoid it.

If staining his shoes was the worst thing to come out of this whole encounter, though, Sora would be the happiest person alive. Because focusing on that instead of anything else is doing wonders for his sanity right now so he can avoid plunging head-first into a nervous breakdown.

This is—crazy. Way, way too crazy.

A few Nightmares seem to actually start running, not even bothering to swipe at Sora anymore, which is something that’s never happened before. Nightmares don’t ever retreat. He guesses they’ll try to get away when there’s a bigger Nightmare on the block now.

They don’t make it very far. Sora tries very hard not to listen to the carnage behind him and focuses on moving quickly and quietly, keeping a sharp eye out for any glowing Riku-shaped figures.

So distracted by that, though, he nearly misses the way the sounds stop behind him. There’s nothing but silence for a moment—no raging Nightmares, no ripping noises, nothing. Slowly, very slowly, Sora turns his head, frozen in dread.

A pair of flat red eyes stare back at him. Webbed cracks of blinding blue interlace its face as it cocks its head, neon wings outspread. It still has one claw dug into what remains of a Nightmare, but it’s undoubtedly clocked the spiky-haired brunet and his hasty retreat.

Not good. Really, really not good.

In a rush, Sora quickly decides that he doesn’t even want to face that thing, most definitely not in the condition he’s in. He’s injured, exhausted, down two Dream Eaters and one silver-haired friend, and absolutely goddamn terrified.

He doesn’t chance breaking eye contact, the two of them locked in a standstill. But now that the creature has stopped, Sora notices more. Like, the mane of blue hair tangled and dripping down its head. Like, the eerily familiar shape of it, the black marks over its body that almost resemble clothes.

But Sora can’t process that for long, because next to him he hears the caw of the Spellican flutter up his only escape route, the faint sound of bells and pages fluttering, and could there be any worse timing?! He can’t deal with some insane Dream Eater (spirit? Nightmare?) and a powerful Nightmare at the same time.

Right now, he can only watch as the creature’s eyes narrow faintly, the tendrils of darkness all along its arms spiking as if it were hit with a lightning bolt. Sora has half a moment to think this is the end for the third time that day as the creature’s wings twitch before it crouches low and ready.

At the same time, Sora feels the air electrify as the Spellican queues up a spell. There’s no other escape, no other way, so Sora just crouches into a battle-ready stance in the other half of the moment, sparing one last thought:

I just hope Riku is going to be okay—

The thing’s clawed feet dig divots into the concrete as it launches at Sora, and Sora prepares to bash his Keyblade as hard as he can into its skull as a last desperate move before the spell catches him—

—a hint of teal green iris flashing behind the red, fanged mouth gnashing sharply but crying a distinct plea, claws outstretched but not to slash, a hand reaching for him from the waves on an island beach—

—he hesitates, and the creature sweeps him up in a tight grip before launching the two of them into the sky just as a fireball’s heat swipes the bottoms of their feet.

The Spellican caws indignantly, but it’s cry is quickly cut off when the fireball rebounds off the nearby wall—showing him that spell would have done serious damage to him if hit, they only bounce when it’s really freaking strong—and finally burns it out of existence. Sora clutches the creature’s shoulders and screams a bit—okay maybe a lot a bit, holy shit—as they’re suddenly way, way too high off the ground and moving way too fast.

“ACKWHATWASITWHAT!” is his eloquent cry as he hooks his ankles and holds on for dear life.

But even though the creature’s grip is tight, it feels safe instead of dangerous, even though he had just watched that same grip pull a Yoggy Ram’s head off like a bobblehead not even five minutes prior. Sora can’t begin thinking about that though because he’s still fuzzy with lingering adrenaline and anxiety from being near death so many times today.

This high up, he can’t hear any Nightmares cawing or roaring or chirping. He just hears the wing beats cutting through the air and the breeze billowing past his ears.

It’s so peaceful after living in chaos for so long.

He squeezes his eyes shut and buries his face in the creature’s warm chest, feeling tears starting to well up at the corner of his eyes. God. What the hell is happening?

Before he breaks down completely, though, he hears it. The ear he has pressed against the chest catches the faint echo of a beat. A solid, strong heartbeat, one that catches his attention immediately.

It’s not just any heartbeat. In his own chest, he feels his own heartbeat match to the tune, thrumming in time to the rhythm, and oh.

The pieces click into place.

“Riku?” Sora whispers, barely able to be heard over the rushing of wind. But the creature—Riku—hears it, because Riku always does.

The clawed hands tighten behind his back, and the heartbeat seems to answer in time with a resounding yes, yes!

With a choked, garbled laugh, Sora pulls himself into the body tighter. No way. This is insane. God, Riku’s been trying to call out for him the whole time, but Sora missed all the signs. He’s okay. Riku’s okay and Sora’s alive and they’re flying hundreds of feet above Traverse Town and today has been the craziest day he’s had in a while and oh, the tears of relief and fear and exhaustion finally hit him like a truck.

Riku’s chest rumbles under his cheek, the two of them suddenly dipping through the air and slowing down until they’ve near stopped. Slowly, the wings lower them down until their feet touch the ground. Sora doesn’t stop clutching the silver-haired man, still convinced he’s soaring through the tops of the town.

Eventually, Riku’s hands start pulling him away, and Sora reluctantly lets go. Now that he’s looking, he can see Riku, but it looks nothing like how he usually does. The eyes are still flat-red, but they’re steadily turning more pinkish than dark. The fanged mouth curves into a strange frown as he stares at Sora, and in this form Sora can’t read his thoughts as well as he normally can.

He gets an idea when the claws brush at the tears still leaking from his eyes. Sora laughs a little. Worrywart. Even in his monster form, he’s still Riku.

When Sora’s hand reach to grab at Riku’s wrists, inky-soft darkness brushing his fingertips, Riku’s eyes lock down to his arms and narrow.

And then Sora’s being manhandled again. “Hey—Riku, hey, it’s okay!” Sora says as Riku starts tracing the slashes and pricks on his arms, the tears in his outfit, the bruises. “It’s okay, I’m okay.”

He’s not, really. He’s kinda freaking out because he’s still covered in weird dead Nightmare goo and his best friend’s a technicolor bat with claws and he’s still running on the last dregs of adrenaline and emotions.

A sound like broken glass crunches from monster-Riku’s lips, a distinct krr. He looks frustrated, staring down at the injuries as if they personally offended him, and makes a louder KRR as if he expects something to happen. Nothing does.

His claws accidentally tighten too hard, digging into a particularly sensitive wound and oof, yikes. “Ow, ow, Riku quit it! That hurts!”

Immediately, the hands vanish as if they were never there, and Sora sways in place as he’s suddenly left standing on his own, cold and alone. Without his vision blocked by Riku, he can see now that they were dropped on to a roof, the stars glittering brightly above their little alcove.

On the other side of the roof, as far as he can stand without falling, Riku flickers like a static television set. The dark-soft tendrils covering his form jitter as Riku crouches, wings sagging. He watches Sora hesitantly, eyes yellow-red and cautious.

Oh, I get it. It’s getting easier to read monster-Riku, because he’s starting to understand that it’s basically just like reading a jumpier Riku with more claws and wings. “I just meant to be careful, not that you had to run away,” Sora huffs. “See, you didn’t even hurt me.”

Sora holds out his arm to show. When Riku leans forward to get a better look, curious despite his fear, Sora pulls it a little aways to keep his attention. “C’mon, come back, please? I’m—kinda freaking out here and I really think you should be here.”

Riku twitches forward two steps, but hesitates further. A gooey ooze of Nightmare slides off one of his clawed feet from his earlier rampage

“I’m not scared,” Sora assures, because he isn’t. He was, at first, when he didn’t know who it was, when that frightening blur stared back unblinkingly in the middle of a carnage of its own creation. But he knows now it’s Riku and Riku would never hurt him intentionally.

And, yeah, the tearing-up-Nightmares thing was super weird but that’s a discussion for another time. Now that he knows it was Riku, though, protecting him the only way he knew how, the way he’s always done…

Well, it wasn’t that scary anymore. If he had to put a name to it, it was actually…kinda attractive? But that’s a lot to unpack right now so he’s gonna toss that suitcase off a cliff and maybe into a volcano so he doesn’t have to deal with it.

“I know you didn’t mean it. I know you just wanted to protect me back there. You absorbed our Dream Eaters to save me, right? And then you saved me again. I-I was so worried about you, Riku. It was all I could think about. I didn’t even see you at first because I was going so crazy looking for you! Riku, I’m so happy you’re okay.”

He can see that his words are getting through to the other man (…bat?) as he takes another step forward, but he’s still so hesitant. At any other time, Sora would just barrel up to him and crush him in a hug, but in this form Riku is scared and worried and too fast for his own good. If Sora scares him off, it’ll take forever to track him down in this maze of a city.

Sora goes for his trump card. “Please. I need you here.”

The tail faintly swishes behind Riku as he slinks back over in one smooth motion, and Sora smiles as his hand gently grasps his shoulder. In response, Sora falls back into his chest, and they collapse to the roof of the building as the last of Sora’s energy gives out.

The claws run through his hair, softly petting, and Sora is more in his lap than he is on floor, which is a million times better than the cold concrete because Riku is warm and comforting and everything good in the world, even in this form. Sora surreptitiously tries to wipe the remaining tear tracks off on Riku’s shirt hidden under the dark splotches. His head still aches, his wounds starting to itch, but that can wait until his magic restores. It’s nothing immediate.

No, he’s most definitely not scared anymore. Here, in his friend’s arms under the night sky, he’s never felt more safe.

But, also never more interested. Because he’s always had a fascination with Riku, crush notwithstanding, and this new, crazy Dream Eater monster part of him that tore up Nightmares with ease with sharp fangs and sharper claws without hesitation, all for him…

Like he mentioned…kinda hot. Probably nearly as hot as that spinning fire-Keyblade thing. Though not in the literal sense this time.

Sora reaches up, brushing a hand through his silver-blue hair. It almost fizzles under his touch, tingling strangely as it tangles around his fingers. Weird, but neat. “Are you okay, Riku?”

With a click, Riku’s mouth opens and starts to form a syllable, but all that comes out is a garbled zzzorrr. The fangs bite into Riku’s lip as he looks away, the blue cracks on his face glowing brighter on his cheeks. Instead, he nods, the movement seeming to skip a few frames.

“Aww, you’re blushing!” Sora exclaims. The electric blue somehow glows even brighter. “Okay, I’m gonna count that as a sign you’re hanging in there. No like, bad side-effects of the link?”

Riku gives him a flat look, even with his pupil-less pink gaze. Sora scratches his nose sheepishly. “Well, besides the…y’know. You know what I mean.”

Clawed feet curl under his legs as Riku crisscrosses and pulls Sora in tighter as a result. With a sigh, Sora leans back, letting his head fall between the juncture of his shoulder and neck. The stars are especially beautiful this high up. The gentle yellow light from the town isn’t nearly enough to drown out the brightness of stars

Comforting, Sora runs a hand up and down Riku’s arm curled around his middle to calm him down and just to feel that weird dark-soft material brush over his hands. “It’ll wear off soon, don’t worry. You’ll be fine. Trust me, I know what it’s like to not have full control of yourself when your drive or link wigs out…”

He does. The memory of being a Heartless is fuzzy at best, but he distinctly remembers the moments afterwards, when his drive forms almost malfunction in a way that leaves a backwash of pure darkness to slide down his throat and sink into his bones. Faint flashes of dark claws, of a yellow-red haze, of kill attack bad wrong kill kill stop STOP as he tore apart Heartless after Heartless, of waking up to Donald and Goofy’s shocked, worried expressions, the slightest hint of fear that he put there…

So, he gets it. And maybe Riku understands that because he makes a strange chirrup noise in his throat and cuddles his cheek closer like a snuggly cat might do. Which is a super adorable image he’s going to be thinking about for the rest of his life.

Still, in his heart, Sora feels a little ache of something self-loathing leaking through Riku’s tightly wound walls, and he huffs. “And I know you won’t hurt me, because I trust you and love you and—”

Oh, whoops. That wasn’t supposed to slip out.  Immediately, he feels a blush burn so bright on his cheeks he’s sure that Riku can feel it where he’s pressed to his face.

It’s true that he loves all his friends, and he usually has no qualms in saying it out loud but, uh, he’s very much in love with Riku specifically and is trying very hard not to ruin their friendship by being too obvious about it.

Quickly, he steamrolls over that. “—a-and even when you were all crazy fighting those Nightmares, you still protected me above all else, right? So it’s still you. I know it is. And I’m here now, so we’ll keep each other safe, got it?”

They probably aren’t up for any more major fights right now, not until a hefty few Cura’s and a trip to the local shops for supplies, but with this brief respite he at least feels more able to ward off any stray Nightmares that come their way.

The way Riku twitches behind him and possessively holds him, though, means that Sora likely doesn’t have to worry about that. If even one Nightmare even looks funny at him, Riku will likely squash it into mush before it can take a step.

His personal Dream Eater slash best friend is the world’s biggest, scariest doofus, Sora fondly decides. And Sora loves him so much.

So much so that now he’s starting to get a little curious, so Sora wriggles just enough so he can snag one of Riku’s claws. They’re still so soft in his hands—seriously, how can they feel both electrifying and fuzzy at the same time?—and he admires the curve of them, the way they tip into neon pinks and blues at the sharp point.

There’s a sound almost like a purr as Sora messes with his hands. “These are pretty cool!” He pokes the inside of his palm to watch the claws involuntarily flex. The pads are soft and flexible like skin, but the dark stain covering them curls around his fingertips in the slightest, barely-there touch. “It feels like a plasma ball made of bread.”

Riku makes that zzorr sound again followed by a rumbling, jittering half-laugh. It sounds a little strained, though, so Sora quits messing with them. Maybe he’s still feeling too weird about this whole situation. Sora doesn’t want to add to that stress.

But Riku bumps his head and rumbles again, tugging at his arm, and when Sora goes back to poking at him he huffs happily and sinks into a happy monster-Riku-pile.

Idly, he messes with the wings curled over him, the pink-blue velvet-soft texture of them like leather and thin like paper that flexes strongly under his hands. The tail swishes on the ground the more Sora strokes at the wings, so Sora switches gears and stars tapping at the spikes tacked on the end of it. Sharp and definitely pointy. He laughs when it flicks around happily whenever Sora messes with the right spots.

Frankly, Sora is having the time of his life right now. Riku seems content to just lie there, face buried in Sora’s shoulder and limbs completely boneless in relaxation. Eventually, though, Sora lets himself fall and be caught by Riku’s hands and wings, stroking the dark-soft matter over them as he smiles at the sky.

This is too adorable for him to handle, and if this keeps up he’s going to start saying more sappy things that will definitely give him away, so instead he does the next best thing and just starts chatting about nothing.

“Do you think those stars look more like a Meow Wow or a Tama Sheep? I hope Bumpis is okay…I would summon him, but I don’t want to risk another repeat of that whole incident. I hope Ku and Apricot are okay too…does the spell wear off? It better, or else those Nightmares are in for it—“

The more Sora talks, the more the dark spots start melting off Riku like water as the link starts to wear off. The wings flicker in and out of existence from the corner of his eye and then all of a sudden it pops like a bubble, a quick flash and an electric shock down his back, and when Sora spins around he sees Riku—normal boy Riku—blinking confusedly as the other two Dream Eaters sit up beside him, whole and normal.

Yes! They’re all okay! Sora’s just about to crow in joy and wrap his arms around him in a tight hug, but then Riku just—leans in and kisses him right then and there completely out of the blue.

That whole monster form must still have some effect on him because his lips still feel electrified like that dark-soft fuzz, except this is smooth and warm and oh-so-gentle, just enough for a taste and a feeling Sora knows he’s gonna get hooked on. His eyes fall half-lidded, melting into the warmth, and he’s just about to start moving in time before Riku jerks away.

Sora groans in disappointment and blurts before he can stop himself. “Noo, keep going! That was so nice.”

“Zz—Sora, I’m sorry, sorry, I can’t believe I—” Riku’s eyes are wide and panicked, blessedly teal but still speckled pink in spots. Focused on the dancing colors, Sora catches the exact moment Sora’s own words sink in. “—wait, y-you, liked that?”

“Yes,” Sora breathes out without hesitation. How could he not like being kissed by his best friend and the guy that Sora has more recently realized that he’s been in love with? He’s not afraid of saying it now that he knows that Riku feels the same way! “I did say I loved you, you know! Don’t you remember?”

Riku stares as if those words short-circuited his brain. “Um. Uh. I—thought I imagined that. Everything was really weird for a while there.”

Tapping his forehead, Sora laughs. “Yeah, you were pretty out of it. I’ll say it again, then: I love you, I really want to kiss you because I love you, and also your monster form was kinda hot but don’t quote me on that because then everyone is going to mock me about that forever if they find out.”

Yeah, he most definitely fried Riku’s brain. Sora has to wave his hands a few times in front of his eyes to get him to start blinking again. It’s then Riku processes the position they’re in, the way Sora is now more straddling the silver-haired man for optimal kissing than sitting, and the words that he just spoke.

“Uh—I—um, UH—” Riku garbles, and it’s unfair how pretty he is when he’s flushed head to toe in embarrassment. “You, I, us, we, um. I-I can’t believe this is happening. I’ve—” He takes a deep, shaky breath in, closing his eyes. “God, I’ve been in love with you our whole lives, Sora.”

Now it’s Sora’s turn to have his brain fried. He suspected it, of course, if that amazing kiss was any indication, but hearing it out loud is something else entirely and he feels a shy giggle build in his chest. “Way to one up me,” Sora says. “Doof.”

“Who’re you calling a doof, doof?” Riku fires back, and they both dissolve into soft, bubbly laughter at the banter, still curled up tight together on the starlit rooftop.

Riku moves to brush a lock of Sora’s hair away from his eyes before he stops to stare at the stains of mostly-dried muck on his hands. “Ugh, what is this stuff, anyways?”

“Uh, you sorta went turbo on the Nightmares we were fighting. They melted instead of poofing, isn’t that crazy?” It’s still a little frightening, the memory of Riku tearing apart Nightmares like tissue paper and watching them scatter, but those monsters nearly killed the two of them cold so he’s not feeling very kindhearted towards them.

Riku blanches. “Oh, no, I don’t—I didn’t hurt you, did I—ow!” he cries as Sora bops him upside the head.

“What did I just say? No, you didn’t hurt me, you oaf! You’re like, literally incapable of hurting me. Quit jumping to conclusions!”

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry!” Riku finally relents with a laugh, a little shaky and breathy but still warm and deep. Progress. “Still…” his hands gently clasp Sora’s arms, still tender and sore from the beatdown earlier, and says a quick Cura spell. It heals the cuts he nearly forgot were there, leaving him feeling better than he was before but not at 100% just yet.

Slipping off his lap, Sora stands and stretches with a relieved groan even if he also wants to keep making out under the stars. They’ll have time for that later, he thinks with glee. There’s going to be a later and it’s going to involve Riku and kissing because it turns out they both like each other. What a concept. A wonderful, mind-blowing concept.

As soon as he stands, there’s a screech before Ku snuggles into his side, the tall dragon poking their head under Sora’s arm to ask for pats.

Sora laughs and obliges, scratching under his ears over the smooth scales. “Ku! I’m so glad you’re okay! Did you and Riku fight off all those mean monsters? Huh? Yes you did! Yes, you did so well!”

From behind the Dream Eater, he can see Riku laughing at his kissy faces, but the man is sitting on the ground cuddling Apricot and pressing his own kisses to his fuzzy head, so he has no right to judge.

“We should probably find where that Nightmare came from before any more problems like that show up,” Sora says. He doesn’t want a repeat of that situation. Watching his Dream Eaters fall to darkness, not knowing if Riku was hurt or in danger…

Riku frowns and stands up as well, absently petting Ku when the Dream Eater leans in close. “Are you sure you’re feeling up for that? That was a pretty rough fight…”

Sora hums contemplatively. “Hm, maybe we should rest for a moment, then…I mean, you took a few bad hits too. Let’s find some really good potions in the safer part of town before anything else.”

Seemingly satisfied with that plan, Riku reaches out to take Sora’s hand in a warm, comforting grip, squeezing softly when Sora smiles at him.

“Um, I think I need new shoes, too,” Riku sheepishly says, and Sora glances down. One of his shoes is still half attached by a thread around his ankles, while the other one is just plain gone, shredded into smithereens.

Sora can’t help but snort at the image of half-shoed Riku blushing up to his ears on the rooftop, completely barefoot. “I think you could pull it off as a look. I mean, remember the crop top? You totally rocked that!”

“That was not a crop top, that was an actual style!” Riku protests. “It was just a slightly-open zipper.”

“If I can see your bellybutton, it’s a crop top, Riku,” Sora singsongs, bumping his shoulder with the other man’s. The Nightmare ooze squishes on his skin where they touch. “Ugh, I think we both just need a total wardrobe change actually. This stuff is starting to stain.”

Riku adjusts themselves so instead of interlocking at the elbow, their hands are now intertwined together. This time it’s Sora’s turn to blush. “You just want to get me into a crop top, don’t you?”

With a devious glimmer in his eyes, Sora bounces ahead, dragging Riku behind him eagerly. “Well, I wasn’t before, but now that you mention it…”

“Sora, no!” Riku laughs and lets himself be pulled along. “Still, I think I’ll love anything you pick out, even if it’s some gaudy half-shirt.”

Behind the words, Sora hears the real meaning behind it. He thinks of soft things like love and protection, imagining how they can be both wonderful and wonderfully frightening. But with Riku there, always by his side, monster bat or Keyblade master—Sora feels like the luckiest, strongest guy alive.

Now all he has to do is convince Riku about the battle benefits of a crop top and then his life will be absolutely perfect.

Sora laughs again and pulls Riku toward him for another kiss, which Riku happily obliges with a grin.

Yeah, they’re gonna be just fine.