[Kingdom Hearts] Drabble Meme
You know that meme that’s been floating around forever? The one where you put your ipod on shuffle and then use the first ten songs to write ten drabbles? Yeah-I’m working on doing that. The set I am posting now is for Kingdom Hearts. Various pairings-check the tags. Rated PG-13 for sensuality and some language. :) Also, thar be angst ahead.
Made in Heaven - Hyde
Put your trust in me, baby
I’m not telling lies
Let me show you a secret
Come here
She doesn’t trust him in the slightest, though the deceptively sweet words that fall from his lips make her want to trust him. Marluxia has a silver tongue, Naminé knows, and he knows that she knows it, too. His words are honey-coated but they fall like anvils-she knows better than to believe anything that he says, but part of her (that empty part that she can’t change) wants to believe that somehow, it’ll be different the next go-around.
It never is, though: she’s learned by trial-and-error (or maybe just error) that this leopard (leopard, because he’s sleek and graceful) will never change its spots, no matter how badly she hopes that he will.
She’s learned, but for all of her knowledge of his ways, it means nothing. She hovers close to him like a moth to flame, and she knows it’s dangerous, but she lacks the ability to change her own spots, as well.
And so, when Marluxia beckons her with an outstretched hand, she takes it, because she knows what will happen if - when - she goes to him (she will get burned).
She doesn’t know what would happen if she didn’t go to him, and it’s the unknown that makes her tremble more than anything else.
Dead Lover’s Lane - HIM
Despair has a face
And all these wounds remain unhealed
Cid gets this vacant look in his eyes sometimes, he knows. He’s remembering, then, and even though they (that girl with the big mouth, that other one with a heart of gold, and that boy that never talks about his own past) ask him from time to time why he looks so glum, he can never give them a proper answer. Instead, he tells them to mind their own damn business.
He thinks that fighting - helping to save the world that they occupy now - will make things better, somehow-not heal anything, because this is damage beyond repair, but maybe it will help.
In reality, all it does is remind him of how he’d fought against something he couldn’t beat in an effort to save her. It makes all of the old wounds fresh again, makes them bleed freely, and it hurts more than he’d ever let on.
If she were still with him - she is, in a sense - she would say, Fight for what you can save.
So, broken and bruised and bleeding, he fights, because he knows that she would want him to.
Somebody has to save those damned kids’ asses, anyway.
Kimi ga Inai Mirai - Do as Infinity
A future without you
Is a future without meaning
I’ll never let go of you again
“You’re not going anywhere again-not without me,” Kairi tells them, and she means for it to sound stern, but it’s rather difficult to sound stern when one of them (Sora) is trailing sweet kisses down her neck and the other (Riku) is combing fingers through her hair, his other hand resting on one of her hips. He’s not applying any pressure yet, but she knows that he will the moment she starts squirming, and given the way Sora is kissing and suckling and gently nipping at her skin, said squirming will start very shortly.
They always make her cloudy-headed when she’s trying to make a friggin’ point.
Worries are temporarily cast aside, scattered like their clothing on the floor, and she lets herself get lost in this moment-get lost in now, instead of the past or the future.
The worry begins to settle in again when they are quiet - save for their ragged breathing and pounding hearts - and unmoving, and she remembers what it had felt like to be without them, to be essentially incomplete, and she knows she never wants to feel that way again.
Promise me you won’t go without me, she wants to say, but doesn’t think she can push the words past the lump in her throat.
It’s only after they press close to her and whisper, “We promise,” that she realizes she’s actually spoken the words out loud.
The Cape of Storms - Hyde
The ghost ship wanders far
For there is no guiding star
And this treasure has no meaning anymore
She’s always had a weakness for materialistic things-namely gold, silver, and jewels. She had been the best treasure-hunter in the land (perhaps the fact that she was also a fairly decent ninja dissuaded anyone from challenging her for that title).
Yuffie no longer has the comfort of familiarity. She has gold in her pocket and it means nothing, because what really meant everything to her is now gone: her family, her home… all of it. It’s gone, and she is here, wandering alone in the darkness and wishing that she could take it all back.
If she could, she’d be less selfish. She’d be a better daughter. She’d train harder and learn more about protecting instead of just attacking.
It’s the glint of silver that catches her eye: a blade. She wonders if he is going to attack her, and she knows that she’s in a great deal of trouble if that is his intention. She is an open target, kneeling on the ground in the darkness, like some human sacrifice.
She lowers her head and hears - rather than sees - the newcomer sheath the blade, and hears footsteps as she is approached.
“I wish I could go back and change everything,” she blurts before she can stop herself. “I’d do it all differently.” She scrubs at the tears as they spill over, but even more take their place.
“You can’t,” he tells her as he grabs her hand, pulling her to a standing position. “You can only move forward from here; there’s no going back.”
Ironically, she’ll always think of Leon - Squall - as her beacon in the storm.
New World - L’Arc~en~Ciel
I embrace the voice you have given me, flying higher and higher
Our endless future flowing so brightly
I’m awakening in the new world
It’s a strange thing to wake up and feel like everything you’ve known (in this life and in the previous one) is disjointed-broken and not-right and unable to be put back together (and the sharp, jagged edges are lethal but you can’t care and so you don’t-you’re not worried right now about consequences, even though you will worry later).
You’re dancing on the razor’s edge and you know it; the twisted little game the Organization is playing can only have one outcome, and it’s not one that you’re going to like, because you’re going to have to see the lights in their blue eyes dim and then go away entirely, and if it were possible for you to truly die (death - real death - isn’t possible for those such as yourself; it’s reserved for those with hearts and real feelings and such), part of you would die with the fading of those lights.
Maybe part of you will… or maybe you’re just being stupidly philosophical.
If you were smart, you’d push them away. You’d stop eating ice cream and watching the sun set with them every day. You’d stop taking them to the beach on your days off. You’d stop smiling at her. You’d stop ruffling his hair. You’d stop pulling the both of them closer to yourself, and you’d stop this stupid allusion of longing that you don’t feel whenever you’re anywhere near them (and whenever you’re anywhere away from them, too). If you were smart, you’d swallow the damn lump in your throat and tell them the fucking truth of it all.
But you never claimed to be a genius in this life or in any other one, and so you hold them as close as you can while they’ll still let you and you cover up the truth with sweet lies, which they lap up like a cat laps up cream, because they trust you and look up to you even though they shouldn’t.
You hold on to this new world of yours - the one they’ve built for you - for as long as you can, because even though the broken, jagged edges cut you and make you bleed, you don’t want to let go.
You can’t. Not yet.
How to Save a Life - The Fray
Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life
Axel thinks of how things could have, should have, and would have been between them-he thinks of how he should have told them both the truth from the very beginning. Maybe it would have all been different then, or maybe it would have only just spiraled into the mess that it currently is. Maybe a ‘do-over’ would only become a ‘repeat’.
He wishes with all of his might against it, defies fate even though he knows it’s futile. He has her cornered and she is convinced that what she’s doing is right and that it’ll all be okay in the end, and her broken smile makes him ache in ways he didn’t think was even possible (before them… before Roxas’ accusing glare, before Xion’s whole spiel of how they would always be together).
He doesn’t even know where Roxas is now, but he knows that he doesn’t expect to be forgiven.
The worst part about all of this, he thinks, is remembering how things were (how real and fragile it all had been), and knowing that they’ll never be that way again.
1000 Words - Jade
“Save your tears cos I’ll come back”
I could hear that you whispered as you walked out that door
But still I swore, to hide the pain
When I turn back the pages, shouting might’ve been the answer
What if I cried my eyes out and begged you not to depart?
Aerith doesn’t expect him to write to her every day. She doesn’t expect him to think about her every moment that he’s awake. She doesn’t expect him to come back without finishing what he’s set out to do. She doesn’t expect him to magically feel completely whole the moment that he returns.
She does except him to write everything down later - the things he’s seen, the places he’s been - when it’s all said and done. She does expect him to think about her from time to time and to know that she is worried. She does expect him to come back at some point, and to one day be able to say that he is home and to be able to mean it with all sincerity (and perhaps that last bit is more of a hope, but….).
There’s no harm in hoping-not when she knows that he’ll be back.
Not when she knows that he’s promised her.
The Kiss of Dawn - HIM
I’m tired of the games I’m playing with you
When you’re not here
He can remember a time when a feisty redheaded boy with emerald eyes used to throw rocks at his window until he finally climbed out of bed to see what the idiot wanted.
Everything was different, then-they’d had different names and they’d had hearts beating within their chests (instead of nothing). They’d been young and carefree and careless, and they wouldn’t have had it any other way. They were happy, he thinks, and Isa really had enjoyed Lea’s company more than he’d ever allowed himself to let on.
Everything is different now, of course-when Axel allows himself to smile, Saïx knows that it’s not for him but for them, and he wonders what it is about those two that makes Axel seem more like the person he used to be instead of the Nobody that he is now.
He isn’t jealous, though perhaps he would be if he were capable of feeling anything at all. “You’ve changed,” he’s told Axel before, but Axel has insisted that he hasn’t changed at all (and that’s not true; Saïx knows it isn’t).
He thinks about it a lot-about how things were, and he gets tired of running himself in circles; he gets tired of letting Axel run him in circles. He’s particularly adept at playing mind-games, but so is Axel, and he gets tired of playing the same old broken record over and over again.
“You’ve got to figure out where your loyalty lies, Lea.”
“I already know, Saïx. Don’t think that calling me by that name is going to have me running to you like a dog with its tail stuck between its legs. I’m not like the others. You know it, and Xemnas knew it too when he recruited me.”
He used to be able to rely on Axel… on Lea. But those days are long gone, now.
He realizes he’s faced yet another sleepless night when dawn’s first rays can be seen through his window.
At least there’s something that he can still rely on in this new life of his: sunrise and sunset. All other things like old alliances, old friends have been scattered like ashes in the wind.
Even drawing comparisons leads him right back to Axel, and that fact makes him almost smile.
His almost-smile is just as bitter as the taste of what-could-be betrayal on his tongue.
Under Your Waves - Olivia
Touch me under your waves
Breathing under your waves
You come closer to me
When I push you away
“I don’t like you,” she hisses, temper flaring, and she wonders if he can smell ozone-wonders if he knows what the air feels like just before lighting strikes.
“You don’t have to like me,” he retorts quickly, steadily moving forward, and he is as fluid as his element: The others really don’t give him enough credit, she thinks, but he plays them all for fools on purpose; perhaps she’s the only one who can see what lies just beneath the water’s surface.
“I could strike you down right here,” she says, and there is a tone of warning in her voice; electricity crackles through the air briefly, but he is totally unfazed by it. He is likewise unfazed by her (admittedly weak) attempts at shoving him away once he’s got her literally backed into a corner.
“I could flood this place in an instant,” he tells her, as if she needs the reminder. “You’d drown before you even knew what hit you.”
An empty threat, she knows, just like her own (they’ve gotten good at this, at pretending).
His mouth is on hers in the next moment, and it’s sink or swim… This is an entirely different form of ‘drowning’, she knows.
And maybe - just maybe - she doesn’t dislike it quite as much as she pretends to.
Nothing Left to Lose - Mat Kearney
I’m off the floor one more time to find you
And here we go, there’s nothing left to choose
And here we go, there’s nothing left to lose
Riku’s lost them both before; he’s learned that playing a hero doesn’t always make you a hero; he’s learned that it’s not always the damsel that’s in distress. He’s realized what it feels like to have all that’s ever mattered in your whole life taken away from you.
He’s young still; when he was younger, he had silly ideas of sailing off on a raft with Sora and Kairi and finding new worlds… maybe even finding a new home, just for the three of them.
And then came the darkness and jealousy and pride, and that was how he lost them; when he found them again, they welcomed him back with open arms and tears trekking down their cheeks, even though he felt like he didn’t deserve any of it. He considered himself to truly be a monster, back then.
(Sometimes, he thinks he still is).
He’s greedy and selfish and he wants them both, and no matter how many times they reassure him that it’s okay, and no matter how many times they display how badly they want him and each other, too (they hold onto each other just as tightly as they hold onto him), he still feels shaken-unsteady. He worries too much… or so they’ve told him.
“What are you so afraid of?” Sora asks, curled close to his side, silly hair sticking out at equally-silly angles, but Riku can’t say he minds. He breathes in the scent of him and drags him as close as he possibly can.
“Losing you,” Riku admits quietly after a long moment of silence-after Sora has started drawing little nonsensical, invisible patterns on Riku’s bare chest (it tickles a little). Belatedly, he adds, “again.”
“And if we said that you won’t lose us,” Kairi begins, leaning over Sora and brushing her fingers through Riku’s hair (he leans into it unconsciously), “what would you say that you had left to lose, then?”
“Nothing,” Riku responds, not exactly understanding where this conversation is going.
“Exactly.” Sora says that one word like it settles everything, and Riku gives him a look of genuine confusion, much to the younger boy’s obvious displeasure.
Kairi sighs as if they’ve already given him enough of an explanation. “You’re not going to lose us, Riku. Not to this. So what if one of us screws up? We’ll work through it; you know we will.”
“I--”
“Why won’t you believe us?” Sora demands to know, and maybe there’s just the slightest hint of anger in his blue eyes.
He wants to say that the future can’t be predicted. He wants to say that there are no guarantees and he wants to say that things might not always be this way, even though he fervently hopes that they will be.
But they’re just as stubborn as he is and he relents, holding onto them as tightly as he dares, and they cling to him just as tightly even though they would have him believe that they have the whole of forever to do this-to be together like this.
He wants to believe it.
He surrenders, just like he’s done time and time again for them, because their optimism and surety outweigh his uncertainty, and above all else, he wants to know that they are his and he is theirs, and that that fact won’t change; he wants to know that they’ll be by his side, always.
Besides, ‘I have nothing left to lose’ sounds a hell of a lot better than ‘I have everything to lose’.
Made in Heaven - Hyde
Put your trust in me, baby
I’m not telling lies
Let me show you a secret
Come here
She doesn’t trust him in the slightest, though the deceptively sweet words that fall from his lips make her want to trust him. Marluxia has a silver tongue, Naminé knows, and he knows that she knows it, too. His words are honey-coated but they fall like anvils-she knows better than to believe anything that he says, but part of her (that empty part that she can’t change) wants to believe that somehow, it’ll be different the next go-around.
It never is, though: she’s learned by trial-and-error (or maybe just error) that this leopard (leopard, because he’s sleek and graceful) will never change its spots, no matter how badly she hopes that he will.
She’s learned, but for all of her knowledge of his ways, it means nothing. She hovers close to him like a moth to flame, and she knows it’s dangerous, but she lacks the ability to change her own spots, as well.
And so, when Marluxia beckons her with an outstretched hand, she takes it, because she knows what will happen if - when - she goes to him (she will get burned).
She doesn’t know what would happen if she didn’t go to him, and it’s the unknown that makes her tremble more than anything else.
Dead Lover’s Lane - HIM
Despair has a face
And all these wounds remain unhealed
Cid gets this vacant look in his eyes sometimes, he knows. He’s remembering, then, and even though they (that girl with the big mouth, that other one with a heart of gold, and that boy that never talks about his own past) ask him from time to time why he looks so glum, he can never give them a proper answer. Instead, he tells them to mind their own damn business.
He thinks that fighting - helping to save the world that they occupy now - will make things better, somehow-not heal anything, because this is damage beyond repair, but maybe it will help.
In reality, all it does is remind him of how he’d fought against something he couldn’t beat in an effort to save her. It makes all of the old wounds fresh again, makes them bleed freely, and it hurts more than he’d ever let on.
If she were still with him - she is, in a sense - she would say, Fight for what you can save.
So, broken and bruised and bleeding, he fights, because he knows that she would want him to.
Somebody has to save those damned kids’ asses, anyway.
Kimi ga Inai Mirai - Do as Infinity
A future without you
Is a future without meaning
I’ll never let go of you again
“You’re not going anywhere again-not without me,” Kairi tells them, and she means for it to sound stern, but it’s rather difficult to sound stern when one of them (Sora) is trailing sweet kisses down her neck and the other (Riku) is combing fingers through her hair, his other hand resting on one of her hips. He’s not applying any pressure yet, but she knows that he will the moment she starts squirming, and given the way Sora is kissing and suckling and gently nipping at her skin, said squirming will start very shortly.
They always make her cloudy-headed when she’s trying to make a friggin’ point.
Worries are temporarily cast aside, scattered like their clothing on the floor, and she lets herself get lost in this moment-get lost in now, instead of the past or the future.
The worry begins to settle in again when they are quiet - save for their ragged breathing and pounding hearts - and unmoving, and she remembers what it had felt like to be without them, to be essentially incomplete, and she knows she never wants to feel that way again.
Promise me you won’t go without me, she wants to say, but doesn’t think she can push the words past the lump in her throat.
It’s only after they press close to her and whisper, “We promise,” that she realizes she’s actually spoken the words out loud.
The Cape of Storms - Hyde
The ghost ship wanders far
For there is no guiding star
And this treasure has no meaning anymore
She’s always had a weakness for materialistic things-namely gold, silver, and jewels. She had been the best treasure-hunter in the land (perhaps the fact that she was also a fairly decent ninja dissuaded anyone from challenging her for that title).
Yuffie no longer has the comfort of familiarity. She has gold in her pocket and it means nothing, because what really meant everything to her is now gone: her family, her home… all of it. It’s gone, and she is here, wandering alone in the darkness and wishing that she could take it all back.
If she could, she’d be less selfish. She’d be a better daughter. She’d train harder and learn more about protecting instead of just attacking.
It’s the glint of silver that catches her eye: a blade. She wonders if he is going to attack her, and she knows that she’s in a great deal of trouble if that is his intention. She is an open target, kneeling on the ground in the darkness, like some human sacrifice.
She lowers her head and hears - rather than sees - the newcomer sheath the blade, and hears footsteps as she is approached.
“I wish I could go back and change everything,” she blurts before she can stop herself. “I’d do it all differently.” She scrubs at the tears as they spill over, but even more take their place.
“You can’t,” he tells her as he grabs her hand, pulling her to a standing position. “You can only move forward from here; there’s no going back.”
Ironically, she’ll always think of Leon - Squall - as her beacon in the storm.
New World - L’Arc~en~Ciel
I embrace the voice you have given me, flying higher and higher
Our endless future flowing so brightly
I’m awakening in the new world
It’s a strange thing to wake up and feel like everything you’ve known (in this life and in the previous one) is disjointed-broken and not-right and unable to be put back together (and the sharp, jagged edges are lethal but you can’t care and so you don’t-you’re not worried right now about consequences, even though you will worry later).
You’re dancing on the razor’s edge and you know it; the twisted little game the Organization is playing can only have one outcome, and it’s not one that you’re going to like, because you’re going to have to see the lights in their blue eyes dim and then go away entirely, and if it were possible for you to truly die (death - real death - isn’t possible for those such as yourself; it’s reserved for those with hearts and real feelings and such), part of you would die with the fading of those lights.
Maybe part of you will… or maybe you’re just being stupidly philosophical.
If you were smart, you’d push them away. You’d stop eating ice cream and watching the sun set with them every day. You’d stop taking them to the beach on your days off. You’d stop smiling at her. You’d stop ruffling his hair. You’d stop pulling the both of them closer to yourself, and you’d stop this stupid allusion of longing that you don’t feel whenever you’re anywhere near them (and whenever you’re anywhere away from them, too). If you were smart, you’d swallow the damn lump in your throat and tell them the fucking truth of it all.
But you never claimed to be a genius in this life or in any other one, and so you hold them as close as you can while they’ll still let you and you cover up the truth with sweet lies, which they lap up like a cat laps up cream, because they trust you and look up to you even though they shouldn’t.
You hold on to this new world of yours - the one they’ve built for you - for as long as you can, because even though the broken, jagged edges cut you and make you bleed, you don’t want to let go.
You can’t. Not yet.
How to Save a Life - The Fray
Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life
Axel thinks of how things could have, should have, and would have been between them-he thinks of how he should have told them both the truth from the very beginning. Maybe it would have all been different then, or maybe it would have only just spiraled into the mess that it currently is. Maybe a ‘do-over’ would only become a ‘repeat’.
He wishes with all of his might against it, defies fate even though he knows it’s futile. He has her cornered and she is convinced that what she’s doing is right and that it’ll all be okay in the end, and her broken smile makes him ache in ways he didn’t think was even possible (before them… before Roxas’ accusing glare, before Xion’s whole spiel of how they would always be together).
He doesn’t even know where Roxas is now, but he knows that he doesn’t expect to be forgiven.
The worst part about all of this, he thinks, is remembering how things were (how real and fragile it all had been), and knowing that they’ll never be that way again.
1000 Words - Jade
“Save your tears cos I’ll come back”
I could hear that you whispered as you walked out that door
But still I swore, to hide the pain
When I turn back the pages, shouting might’ve been the answer
What if I cried my eyes out and begged you not to depart?
Aerith doesn’t expect him to write to her every day. She doesn’t expect him to think about her every moment that he’s awake. She doesn’t expect him to come back without finishing what he’s set out to do. She doesn’t expect him to magically feel completely whole the moment that he returns.
She does except him to write everything down later - the things he’s seen, the places he’s been - when it’s all said and done. She does expect him to think about her from time to time and to know that she is worried. She does expect him to come back at some point, and to one day be able to say that he is home and to be able to mean it with all sincerity (and perhaps that last bit is more of a hope, but….).
There’s no harm in hoping-not when she knows that he’ll be back.
Not when she knows that he’s promised her.
The Kiss of Dawn - HIM
I’m tired of the games I’m playing with you
When you’re not here
He can remember a time when a feisty redheaded boy with emerald eyes used to throw rocks at his window until he finally climbed out of bed to see what the idiot wanted.
Everything was different, then-they’d had different names and they’d had hearts beating within their chests (instead of nothing). They’d been young and carefree and careless, and they wouldn’t have had it any other way. They were happy, he thinks, and Isa really had enjoyed Lea’s company more than he’d ever allowed himself to let on.
Everything is different now, of course-when Axel allows himself to smile, Saïx knows that it’s not for him but for them, and he wonders what it is about those two that makes Axel seem more like the person he used to be instead of the Nobody that he is now.
He isn’t jealous, though perhaps he would be if he were capable of feeling anything at all. “You’ve changed,” he’s told Axel before, but Axel has insisted that he hasn’t changed at all (and that’s not true; Saïx knows it isn’t).
He thinks about it a lot-about how things were, and he gets tired of running himself in circles; he gets tired of letting Axel run him in circles. He’s particularly adept at playing mind-games, but so is Axel, and he gets tired of playing the same old broken record over and over again.
“You’ve got to figure out where your loyalty lies, Lea.”
“I already know, Saïx. Don’t think that calling me by that name is going to have me running to you like a dog with its tail stuck between its legs. I’m not like the others. You know it, and Xemnas knew it too when he recruited me.”
He used to be able to rely on Axel… on Lea. But those days are long gone, now.
He realizes he’s faced yet another sleepless night when dawn’s first rays can be seen through his window.
At least there’s something that he can still rely on in this new life of his: sunrise and sunset. All other things like old alliances, old friends have been scattered like ashes in the wind.
Even drawing comparisons leads him right back to Axel, and that fact makes him almost smile.
His almost-smile is just as bitter as the taste of what-could-be betrayal on his tongue.
Under Your Waves - Olivia
Touch me under your waves
Breathing under your waves
You come closer to me
When I push you away
“I don’t like you,” she hisses, temper flaring, and she wonders if he can smell ozone-wonders if he knows what the air feels like just before lighting strikes.
“You don’t have to like me,” he retorts quickly, steadily moving forward, and he is as fluid as his element: The others really don’t give him enough credit, she thinks, but he plays them all for fools on purpose; perhaps she’s the only one who can see what lies just beneath the water’s surface.
“I could strike you down right here,” she says, and there is a tone of warning in her voice; electricity crackles through the air briefly, but he is totally unfazed by it. He is likewise unfazed by her (admittedly weak) attempts at shoving him away once he’s got her literally backed into a corner.
“I could flood this place in an instant,” he tells her, as if she needs the reminder. “You’d drown before you even knew what hit you.”
An empty threat, she knows, just like her own (they’ve gotten good at this, at pretending).
His mouth is on hers in the next moment, and it’s sink or swim… This is an entirely different form of ‘drowning’, she knows.
And maybe - just maybe - she doesn’t dislike it quite as much as she pretends to.
Nothing Left to Lose - Mat Kearney
I’m off the floor one more time to find you
And here we go, there’s nothing left to choose
And here we go, there’s nothing left to lose
Riku’s lost them both before; he’s learned that playing a hero doesn’t always make you a hero; he’s learned that it’s not always the damsel that’s in distress. He’s realized what it feels like to have all that’s ever mattered in your whole life taken away from you.
He’s young still; when he was younger, he had silly ideas of sailing off on a raft with Sora and Kairi and finding new worlds… maybe even finding a new home, just for the three of them.
And then came the darkness and jealousy and pride, and that was how he lost them; when he found them again, they welcomed him back with open arms and tears trekking down their cheeks, even though he felt like he didn’t deserve any of it. He considered himself to truly be a monster, back then.
(Sometimes, he thinks he still is).
He’s greedy and selfish and he wants them both, and no matter how many times they reassure him that it’s okay, and no matter how many times they display how badly they want him and each other, too (they hold onto each other just as tightly as they hold onto him), he still feels shaken-unsteady. He worries too much… or so they’ve told him.
“What are you so afraid of?” Sora asks, curled close to his side, silly hair sticking out at equally-silly angles, but Riku can’t say he minds. He breathes in the scent of him and drags him as close as he possibly can.
“Losing you,” Riku admits quietly after a long moment of silence-after Sora has started drawing little nonsensical, invisible patterns on Riku’s bare chest (it tickles a little). Belatedly, he adds, “again.”
“And if we said that you won’t lose us,” Kairi begins, leaning over Sora and brushing her fingers through Riku’s hair (he leans into it unconsciously), “what would you say that you had left to lose, then?”
“Nothing,” Riku responds, not exactly understanding where this conversation is going.
“Exactly.” Sora says that one word like it settles everything, and Riku gives him a look of genuine confusion, much to the younger boy’s obvious displeasure.
Kairi sighs as if they’ve already given him enough of an explanation. “You’re not going to lose us, Riku. Not to this. So what if one of us screws up? We’ll work through it; you know we will.”
“I--”
“Why won’t you believe us?” Sora demands to know, and maybe there’s just the slightest hint of anger in his blue eyes.
He wants to say that the future can’t be predicted. He wants to say that there are no guarantees and he wants to say that things might not always be this way, even though he fervently hopes that they will be.
But they’re just as stubborn as he is and he relents, holding onto them as tightly as he dares, and they cling to him just as tightly even though they would have him believe that they have the whole of forever to do this-to be together like this.
He wants to believe it.
He surrenders, just like he’s done time and time again for them, because their optimism and surety outweigh his uncertainty, and above all else, he wants to know that they are his and he is theirs, and that that fact won’t change; he wants to know that they’ll be by his side, always.
Besides, ‘I have nothing left to lose’ sounds a hell of a lot better than ‘I have everything to lose’.