Summertime shenanigans
So summer is a busy time for me, and there have been phone calls for interviews and family-related shenanigans and Harry Potter 7.5 wasn't horrible but it wasn't fantastic, although the cinematography was gorgeous sometimes--and I'll freely admit that the cinematography has been my favorite in both HBP and DH.
Was a little amused that I had to keep leaning over and explaining the plot to my mom, though. In the wake of the movie, self and mater and middle elder sibling went out to get some noms, and middle elder sibling managed to pick the place that is perhaps the least vegan-friendly of any restaurant I've been in since switching diets. (I ate three side dishes. It was a little bit sad.)
It is way too damn hot in my apartment, as I only have one window A/C unit and all it cools is the bedroom, marginally--which makes it a shame that I spend all of my time in the living room.
And here is what I did last weekend, full of squeeing over other people's supermarkets and Epic Mickey playing.
I also trundled over to the farmer's market on Saturday, bought too much produce (all veggies), and have been nomming my way through it ever since. And nowhere seems to sell my vitamins, which makes the lack of response from the Amazon distributor I tried to buy them from exceedingly vexing. Will be hitting up one of my not-usual vegan supply joints (i.e. not the tiny hippie store) to try and find them.
And here is a KH fic. It doesn't have a name yet, although the working title is "Sora is awkward about naked people." Plz for to remember the context of Resuming, Returning, as one of these things is related to the other.
* * *
It's just restlessness, that's all, and Sora's not even sure why he's feeling it, not really, but he smiles and bids his mother a good night and waits until the rustling in her room falls into silence before he slips his window open and shimmies down the tree as quietly as he can. It's pretty easy to sneak out, they all do it, and he spends a moment wondering which way he should go before shrugging to himself and loping down the road that leads to Kairi and Riku's neighborhood.
Riku hasn't climbed into his window, after all, so that leaves only a few places where he could be, and if he's lucky they'll both be there, and if the thought of soft slow kisses in the dark makes his cheeks heat pleasantly, that just means that everything will be better once he's with them, that just means the day's been too long and he's been away from them too much these past few days.
He thinks of the flash of Kairi's smile and the brilliance of Riku's eyes in the dark and sprints a little faster. The night air tastes warm and sweet with the heavy dampness of the summer, the promise of rain and the low rumble of thunder, and he thinks of drowsing between them in the long moments before dawn, and if he's moving a little bit too quickly now, there's no one out on the roads to see him, and if he broke into a run, the only consequence would be that he'd get there faster.
It's not quite gliding, that's still too risky, and it's not quite dashing, but it's close.
* * *
Kairi's house is dark, which is a good thing because it means that her dad is asleep, and even though the mayor doesn't seem that scary he's a little more wary than he used to be just because of Riku's dire warnings about almost getting caught in her bedroom.
Her room's dark too, but that doesn't mean anything, so he takes a minute to scout around the yard for something to throw that won't break the window, and also won't hit so softly that they don't hear him.
He's about to chuck the pebble when the window slides open and Riku sticks his head out and says "If you throw that at me I'm going to hit you," before Sora can so much as lift a hand in greeting.
It's perfectly typical and a little annoying of him, and he really should throw the rock because Riku's face is obnoxious, but instead Sora tilts his head up, exhales, and lets the pebble fall from his hand, because even though it's annoying the tightness in his chest is starting to recede, even though Riku's lazy threats aren't anything special he knows he's already starting to smile.
"I'll throw me at you," he retorts quietly, and completely ignores Riku's grumble of "That doesn't even make any sense," by dint of jumping up and grabbing onto the windowsill with his fingertips.
Then he dangles there for a bit, because Riku's still in the way, looking down at him with an annoying sort of smug superiority that got old when they were five, and it's not hot at all, especially not because he's not wearing a shirt and looking all pretty and rumpled like that.
"You gonna move or what?" Sora says, because Riku really will just leave him dangling there until it stops amusing him, which could take hours. "Or--geez, if you're stuck in the window that means you're growing out of the house way too early, slow down already."
"I'm not turning into a giant and I fit in the house just fine," Riku says with an overly-dramatic roll of his eyes, but he steps back from the window and Sora swings himself up and into the room and is very careful not to trip, because Kairi pushed him out of that window once, and it didn't hurt, but it was kind of embarrassing, mostly because Kairi's never pushed Riku out of a window even when he deserved it.
That might be because Riku's too smart to call Kairi out on her ridiculous sleeping habits, though, even if it's true that she is a slugabed.
"Says you," Sora says, straightening up, "but you can't judge your own giantness because oh hey you're naked."
Riku looks at him like he's an idiot, which Sora finds kind of annoying because he can make like a million better faces, ones that don't make him look cranky like Donald, which is a horrible thing to be thinking of when you're staring at your naked boyfriend, so Sora vows to immediately forget he ever had that thought and concentrates even harder on the nakedness to make sure the thought goes away.
...
...was he thinking about something?
"And you're wearing clothes," Riku says, and it takes a second before Sora realizes that's some kind of belated reply in Riku-speak, which is not the speech of normal people, "which makes you in the minority and you the weird one."
Sora opens his mouth to reply in kind before his brain processes that statement, but then almost against his will his gaze drags over the room, over the delicately carved furniture, the simple mirror and the pictures tacked on the wall, to the bed that dominates the room, and he swallows hard, because the curtains are open and Kairi's a notorious blanket hog but there's a spill of russet hair over the pillow and the faintest hint of the back of her--
He looks away so quickly he thinks for a minute he's given himself whiplash.
Riku takes that moment to snicker, because Riku is a giant jerk.
"Shaddup," Sora tells the floor, because he can't look at Riku because Riku's naked too and that means Riku's naked and Kairi's naked and they've been doing nakedness-requiring things and he can't figure out if he wants to crawl out the window in embarrassment and maybe die a little or pester Riku for details or kiss him to see if he tastes like Kairi or maybe all of them at once.
He takes a half-step backward, still staring at his shoes, and then another one, and then there's the brush of a hand against the side of his arm, light and quick, and he goes utterly still, because it's not like he wants to leave, it's just that he doesn't know what he's supposed to do now, and this at least is familiar, caught between eagerness and uncertainty and feeling the slow inevitable creep of heat across his face--and other places too--and he might be biting his tongue just a little because there's a faint, pleasant tingle on his skin where Riku touched him, and if he lets his tongue go he might make a sound, and then Riku will make fun of him. Again.
"If you're staying the night the clothes come off," Riku says, low and warm and still standing close, but not touching any more, because he's a horrible, horrible tease that way. "You've got two million buckles too many for us to be comfortable otherwise."
"I don't have that many belts," Sora retorts instinctively, and then he remembers how long it took to piece his things back together that one time on the beach when the tide had risen while they were busy doing other things. "Just some," he corrects.
"Some too many," Riku says agreeably, apparently taking this as a cue that Sora's not going anywhere, and ambles back in the direction of the bed, bending down to start gathering up his own clothes, probably because Riku remembers that night on the beach too, even though his pants had never washed out onto the sandbar because Riku might complain that the universe is out to get him but he still somehow always manages to be just a little bit cooler than Sora will ever be.
Not that he'll ever actually admit that out loud, because Riku's pretty when he's preening, but he's also really obnoxious.
"Sometime before the sun rises would be good," Riku says in that mock-helpful way, and Sora makes a face at him and then bites his lip, because okay, Kairi's asleep and it's not like Riku hasn't seen him naked before--hasn't made him naked before--but he's really not sure where the clothes are supposed to go or even what he's supposed to do once the clothes come off, although there's kind of a desperate hope that's starting to burn low in his chest the longer he looks at Riku and the rumpled bed and the soft sleek hints of Kairi's bare skin in the starlight flooding through the window.
"Yeah," he agrees softly, and drops his fingers to the first of the belts.
He swallows once, hard, when Riku glances back over his shoulder and offers him a slow, appreciative smile, the kind that Kairi once admitted made her shiver all over, and he can feel his fingers biting into the metal even as his toes curl, and okay, maybe Riku does have a point about all the buckles. They'll just... have to come off. So Riku can be comfortable. So Kairi can be. So they can all be comfortable together.
When Riku brushes past him again, arms full of clothes and eyes full of mischief, Sora swallows again and starts undoing buckles with fingers that aren't at all trembling.
If he stares at the floor it's not even all that scary, and if he focuses on folding up the clothes as he goes, it means he doesn't have to look at all, because there are a lot of belts to keep track of and layers and then he has to sit down to work his socks off because they might be fairy-made but there's no dignified way to take socks off unless Riku or Kairi does it but even then it's not dignified, it's just pretty to look at.
And he's not being a coward for leaving the boxers on. He's not no matter what Riku's snickering about under his breath. It's just a little cold in here and he's not a child, he's not, he just doesn't want to startle Kairi when she wakes up, is all--and he resolutely squashes the little voice in the back of his head that says she doesn't seem to have any problems with Riku being naked since duh, anybody who likes looking at things isn't going to have a problem with Riku being naked.
And none of that matters anyway since he needs to pile everything up and set it underneath the window next to all of Riku's clothes and there's nothing at all embarrassing about it even though Riku's underwear is right there on top of everything else, and hey, isn't Riku the one who's afraid that Kairi's dad is going to kill them?
"Are you ever planning on actually coming to bed?" Riku asks in that voice that pretends that it's polite but is actually just another version of his I am being deliberately annoying voice. "You've been staring at my underwear for way too long. It's getting creepy."
"You're creepy," Sora retorts, and then thinks I am an idiot in a voice that might or might not actually belong to Roxas instead, except that Roxas always runs and hides and plugs his ears whenever there's the slightest hint that Riku might be around and not wearing clothes (that time on the beach still makes everything awkward) so that must mean it's his own voice.
He manages to cast a quick glance over at the bed, and Kairi's still an unidentifiable knot underneath the covers and Riku is--glaring at him. Crap.
The only space on the bed is on top of Riku. Which would be one thing if Riku were in the mood to be used as a pillow, which he usually is, except now he's glaring, which doesn't make him any less appealing as potential places to sit go, it just means that if Sora does decide to sit he runs the very real risk of getting thrown out the window.
"--you know I didn't mean it like that, shut up," Sora says, because he's not going to apologize, and anyway Riku's way too prickly, and he's not a liar either, because Riku really is creepy, at least according to what other people say.
Sora doesn't quite see it himself, but enough people have told him so that he guesses they're probably not all lying about it.
Doesn't stop him from wanting to punch them, though.
"I know you don't mean it that way because you're not smart enough to understand why it's an insult," Riku says, and Sora sighs out between his teeth and steps over to the bed, because that means he's been forgiven, and it's so hard sometimes to tell what's going to set him off, because for all that Kairi reminds him, scolds him and nudges him and drops hints here and there, it's so hard to think of Riku as delicate when he's not, not in any ways that Sora can see, and then every once in a while Riku will say something, always idly, always in passing, always like it's nothing, and Sora has to swallow hard and fight the urge to challenge everyone in every world just so they'll stop hurting him.
"I'm not that dumb," Sora retorts, and deliberately digs his knees in as he clambers onto the bed and sits down a little too hard onto Riku's outstretched legs. "And you're a jerk."
"Jerk king," Riku corrects, like he always does, because he's sort of irrationally proud of the title even though he doesn't even have a crown or any real lands or anything, but that's clearly just a delusion since Sora's crown and kingdom is way better even if those don't actually exist either.
"Whatever, jerk," Sora says, and Riku smiles quick and sharp like a knife, slides his hands lightly along Sora's waist, and says "Our girlfriend is naked," and then hangs on tight as Sora reflexively tries to hurl himself off of the bed.
He manages to catch himself on a knee and a hand, so at least he didn't make too much noise, but it's more than a little awkward since his other leg is kind of caught in Riku's and his hand is sort of clenched in a deathgrip around Riku's thigh. Riku's laughing at him again, but his hands are still curved around Sora's hips, and he's sort of halfway leaning off of the bed, and Sora has the sudden and deathly embarrassing thought that this is exactly what's going to happen whenever they actually manage to do the stuff that involves what Kairi bought. He's going to fall off the bed and probably break it and then they're never going to want to sleep with him again, and all of their children will wind up with girly silver hair.
--actually that would be kind of cute, tiny little Riku-lets with Kairi's eyes and some weird mishmash of their powers, tumbling all over the house that Riku's gonna build them, and Sora kind of has to wonder where they're gonna find enough keyblades for all of them and what age they're supposed to start learning at anyway--
"You are so dumb," Riku says through his laughter, and he's not in a position that should really let him tug Sora back up onto the bed, but keybearers aren't made out of the same stuff that makes up regular people, so with some squirming and shoving Sora clambers back on top of him without accidentally shoving too many elbows where they don't belong. Purposefully, however, is another matter, so they have another quiet scuffle before Sora decides that discretion is the better part of actually being able to sit down comfortably and leans over for a conciliatory kiss.
This attempt is interrupted by a very unladylike snicker from somewhere very very close by and Sora makes the split second decision that running away won't work, so he has to hide instead.
Riku says "Gnaagh!" when Sora closes his eyes very very tight and then slams his face against his chest.
Kairi takes that moment to laugh in a way that really isn't cute at all. "You look so dumb!" she cackles, and then there's some shifting and sliding around and Sora is resolutely not looking even though that is definitely her leg sliding against his thigh.
"Same as always," Riku agrees cheerfully, and Sora scowls and bites down in retaliation without thinking about it. Riku tastes a little like sweat and a little like nothing but a lot more like the memory of heat and saltwater and laughter, and fighting with him is pretty much the best thing ever but it's gotten really confusing lately since sometimes they wind up making out instead and now Kairi is cackling even harder and he's going to die of embarrassment before they even get to have any kids at all.
"Keep it down," Riku's saying through his own laughter, "your dad really will kill us if we wake him up," and now he's not even going to live long enough to die of embarrassment, Hiromasu's going to murder both of them, and that will piss off Riku's mom, who'll declare war on the mayor and then conquer all of Destiny Islands in bloody revenge, and Sora hopes his own mom can negotiate with Riku's dad to feed all of Riku's mom's troops since Hiromasu's a good mayor but Chihoko is Riku's mom.
"But his face!" Kairi snorts, and Sora briefly considers hitting her with a pillow before he remembers that the whole reason he's stuck like this is because she's naked.
It's really stupid that he can feel himself turning red from his hairline down because he never used to blush like this or feel this stupid before he started dating them and--
"I think his chest is blushing too," Riku says in that tone that means he's highly amused but too dignified to start laughing and Sora does hit him because he deserves it even though Kairi's the one practically wheezing on her giggles.
"Shaddup!" Sora snarls, and hits Riku again for good measure. He flails out a free arm to try thwapping Kairi too but he can't see her with his eyes still shut and he's not really trying that hard either since if he makes contact he doesn't know where his hand might land.
It lands anyway. Somewhere soft and warm and a little bit damp and Kairi goes "Meep!" and Riku starts laughing again because he is kind of a horrible person sometimes.
"Guh!" Sora says, and yanks his arm back so quickly he smacks Riku upside the head and he's not sorry about it at all and he kind of wants to just melt through the floor right now.
Kairi's moving now, shifting the bed around and Sora is not thinking of anything at all, even when she clearly moves closer and does something that definitely kind of feels like pulling Riku's hair.
"Oh shut up," she growls, and Sora isn't at all surprised to discover that it's a pretty sound and he'd actually like to hear a lot more of it, "I was surprised, you don't get to make fun of me for being surprised--and where are my panties, anyway?"
Panties. Which Kairi is having to ask about because Riku is the one who took them off and probably threw them across the room because he just kind of does that and it's too hard to protest whenever he does because he's always smiling that smile and touching so softly that it feels like dreaming and he was doing that to Kairi earlier, he was doing all of that to Kairi earlier and that's why she's so soft and damp and naked now, because Riku was doing those things to her and wow, it kind of feels like he's going to pass out now.
"Pffhaha--both of your faces--ow..."
"Panties, Riku," she says, and she's definitely yanking his hair again because that's the only thing Riku will ever complain about because Riku is kind of vain sometimes.
"I put them in the pile," Riku says, still laughing a bit because Sora can feel it thrumming in his chest, "under the windowsill, with our stuff."
"Better," she says, and then there's this confused impression of soft skin and movement, and then he can hear his own breath catch way too loudly.
Sora's eyes are shut tight-tight-tight and there's no way to breathe like this, no way at all, because it's way too hot and his heart's pounding so loud that it's almost deafening, in this moment trapped between them in a too-small bed, her lips against the back of his neck, the softest parts of her pressed up against his back, crushed against him like he's crushed against Riku, and there's nothing to do, nothing to say, no way to move at all, and he doesn't--he can't--
The way they sigh in tandem makes him shiver.
And then she's moving again, scrambling off the bed, and Riku shoves at his shoulder and mutters "You are seriously kind of terrible at this," and that makes Sora open his eyes enough to glare at him.
"It's not like I have a lot of practice yet!" he hisses, and then makes kind of a choking noise once he realizes what he's said. Riku's lips are twitching in the way that means he really wants to laugh but is afraid of getting punched in the kidney for it.
"We can fix that!" Kairi laughs from somewhere near the window, but he's resolutely not looking, he's glaring at Riku, except it's not working since Riku's not looking at him any more, he's looking at Kairi, because it's taken him a bit but Sora's finally figured out that the reason Riku only touches the place over his heart when they're making out is probably because he doesn't know what to do with a chest if there aren't breasts there, which is incredibly aggravating because Sora kind of wants to try out some ideas he's had but he doesn't know how you're supposed to ask about that sort of thing and is pretty sure that even if he made an attempt he'd choke on the words so hard it would startle Riku out of being in the mood to even try.
"Yeah, when we're fifty," Riku's saying, and Riku is a jerk king but Sora is kind of a little bit afraid that maybe he's got a point, because Kairi's so so so pretty and what kind of boyfriend is he if he can't even look at her when she's happy and laughing and probably standing in the moonlight and only wearing her underwear?
"Don't be mean," Kairi says, voice still lilting with a giggle, "and tell me what you did with my bra."
"Burned it," Riku says immediately, with an utterly straight face, and if Sora weren't looking straight at him he might have believed him.
"Must be getting very subtle with those dark firagas, then," Kairi responds archly, and then lets out a brief "A-ha!" of triumph that probably means she's found it.
"He drowned my clothes once," Sora finds himself saying while the little noises indicate that she's fussing with her bra, and he's resolutely not thinking about anything or looking at anything or--anything. "Don't let him tell you it's accidental, Kairi, 'cause it's not."
"The tide came in," Riku replies, rolling his eyes, and Sora and Kairi both pointedly ignore him because it's more fun that way.
"Nothing Riku does is accidental," Kairi says brightly, padding softly across the floor, "especially when it comes to taking our clothes off."
Sora's very proud of not shutting his eyes, because it's kind of amazing to watch Riku turn his head and stick his tongue out at Kairi, who looks--wow.
She meets his eyes with a shy kind of smile, pretty white teeth biting down on a lower lip that's a little more swollen than usual--from Riku he thinks abstractly, a pleasant shiver slipping down his spine--and her flush is a soft seashell-pink in the moonlight, and her hair's sort of a tangled mess and he's seen her in bathing suits before, but this isn't a bathing suit, it's her actual underwear, and Riku's said so before but girls' underwear is so different, it looks so soft and delicate, and there's really no place that's safe to look at, not even her eyes, since they look so dark and pretty and nervous, like she's almost as scared as he is, but that's ridiculous because she's Kairi, who bought them condoms and kissed him first and already made out with Riku once tonight, and--
"Breathe," Riku says gently, chucking him on the chin, "both of you," and somehow that breaks the spell, makes Kairi giggle and his tongue come unglued from where it got stuck to the roof of his mouth somehow, and then Riku's rolling his eyes and sighing about hormonally imbalanced fiancees, and it's easy, it's so easy to reach out and smack him upside the head at the same time that Kairi does, that it feels a little bit like magic.
When Kairi climbs back on the bed, it almost feels like it usually does, since she doesn't try to squish in, just stretches out beside the two of them, and if Sora weren't kind of gaping at her he could almost pretend everything was like usual and they were all wearing normal clothes or bathing suits or something, not just underwear.
Or nothing, since he's still sitting on Riku.
"Honestly," Riku grumbles, reaching out a hand to tangle in Kairi's hair, "You guys."
"It's still too soon," Kairi says patiently, like they've had this conversation before, and they probably have. Sora knows he's too slow for them, always has been, the last to realize what it meant to feel that way, the last to be kissed and the last to be touched, the last to realize what it had meant, what it had all meant.
And then Kairi turns those brilliant eyes on him and says, "But we're not waiting forever, you know."
Sora swallows hard, curling a fist into the bedsheets, feeling the heat rise to his face again, but he manages to choke out an "I know" that doesn't even sound strangled.
Riku shifts under him, just slightly, a warm ripple of movement that whispers years and he ducks his head just a bit in shame, for never realizing, for never understanding before, but then Riku's sliding a gentle hand through his hair and Kairi's moving again, sitting up to press a soft kiss against his cheek, and Sora slides an arm around her and tugs Riku up into the embrace too, and it's so easy to lean over and kiss him, to turn from his lips to hers, to practice that perfect three-way kiss that they're still terrible at.
Kairi's laughing and swatting at his bangs and Riku's mumbling something against his cheek about people needing to brush their teeth more often and Sora closes his eyes and squeezes them both tight-tight-tight and thinks soon.
And then Sora licks his lips and opens his eyes and stares at the boy-who-will-be-his-husband and the girl-who-will-be-his-wife and says it out loud, and then again, more loudly, because they've been waiting for him for much too long.
"...can you get more specific about that timeline?" Riku asks, and Sora chokes on a laugh as Kairi adds, "There are some considerations to keep in mind, date-wise," and suddenly he's stuck between his beautiful boyfriend and girlfriend as they start trying to figure out the exact date of when Kairi's next due to--um, stuff, and Sora kind of wants to die a little bit but that's actually kind of a good thing to be planning for, really, since they were running low on supplies the last time it started and he wound up having to make a quick run to the store that was kind of hard to justify to his mother when she wound up finding the receipt in his room.
--but that won't be a problem anymore, not now that their parents know, and Sora feels the whole world brighten at that, the reminder that Hiromasu will be murderous if they get caught but he won't be surprised, that if his mother finds his room empty she'll glare when he shows up on the boat and scold him but she won't have been worried, that Chihoko and Yasuhiro are crushingly disappointed in Riku but they never deserved him in the first place, and they'll never get to have him again, because Riku is theirs for now and for always, even if none of their parents want to believe it.
Soon, Sora thinks again, and it's not scary at all, it's not in the least bit terrifying, and he squeezes Kairi around her sleek smooth middle and tangles his fingers back in Riku's hair and offers to buy her the really fancy chocolate for this time around.
* * *
"Hey, Sora?"
"Mmph?"
"It's almost dawn."
"Hrrm?"
"Rikuuuuu, it's too early to be making fun of Sora, be quiet."
"But doesn't your mom's boat go out at, like, early?"
"...Kairi, what time is it?"
"Mmph? Eh, hang on, my watch is over here--uh, it's a quarter to five."
"Oh, I've got time, mom doesn't get up until four-thirty."
"Uh..."
"Er, Sora?"
"What?"
"That was fifteen minutes ago."
"...CRAP."
* * *
Was a little amused that I had to keep leaning over and explaining the plot to my mom, though. In the wake of the movie, self and mater and middle elder sibling went out to get some noms, and middle elder sibling managed to pick the place that is perhaps the least vegan-friendly of any restaurant I've been in since switching diets. (I ate three side dishes. It was a little bit sad.)
It is way too damn hot in my apartment, as I only have one window A/C unit and all it cools is the bedroom, marginally--which makes it a shame that I spend all of my time in the living room.
And here is what I did last weekend, full of squeeing over other people's supermarkets and Epic Mickey playing.
I also trundled over to the farmer's market on Saturday, bought too much produce (all veggies), and have been nomming my way through it ever since. And nowhere seems to sell my vitamins, which makes the lack of response from the Amazon distributor I tried to buy them from exceedingly vexing. Will be hitting up one of my not-usual vegan supply joints (i.e. not the tiny hippie store) to try and find them.
And here is a KH fic. It doesn't have a name yet, although the working title is "Sora is awkward about naked people." Plz for to remember the context of Resuming, Returning, as one of these things is related to the other.
* * *
It's just restlessness, that's all, and Sora's not even sure why he's feeling it, not really, but he smiles and bids his mother a good night and waits until the rustling in her room falls into silence before he slips his window open and shimmies down the tree as quietly as he can. It's pretty easy to sneak out, they all do it, and he spends a moment wondering which way he should go before shrugging to himself and loping down the road that leads to Kairi and Riku's neighborhood.
Riku hasn't climbed into his window, after all, so that leaves only a few places where he could be, and if he's lucky they'll both be there, and if the thought of soft slow kisses in the dark makes his cheeks heat pleasantly, that just means that everything will be better once he's with them, that just means the day's been too long and he's been away from them too much these past few days.
He thinks of the flash of Kairi's smile and the brilliance of Riku's eyes in the dark and sprints a little faster. The night air tastes warm and sweet with the heavy dampness of the summer, the promise of rain and the low rumble of thunder, and he thinks of drowsing between them in the long moments before dawn, and if he's moving a little bit too quickly now, there's no one out on the roads to see him, and if he broke into a run, the only consequence would be that he'd get there faster.
It's not quite gliding, that's still too risky, and it's not quite dashing, but it's close.
* * *
Kairi's house is dark, which is a good thing because it means that her dad is asleep, and even though the mayor doesn't seem that scary he's a little more wary than he used to be just because of Riku's dire warnings about almost getting caught in her bedroom.
Her room's dark too, but that doesn't mean anything, so he takes a minute to scout around the yard for something to throw that won't break the window, and also won't hit so softly that they don't hear him.
He's about to chuck the pebble when the window slides open and Riku sticks his head out and says "If you throw that at me I'm going to hit you," before Sora can so much as lift a hand in greeting.
It's perfectly typical and a little annoying of him, and he really should throw the rock because Riku's face is obnoxious, but instead Sora tilts his head up, exhales, and lets the pebble fall from his hand, because even though it's annoying the tightness in his chest is starting to recede, even though Riku's lazy threats aren't anything special he knows he's already starting to smile.
"I'll throw me at you," he retorts quietly, and completely ignores Riku's grumble of "That doesn't even make any sense," by dint of jumping up and grabbing onto the windowsill with his fingertips.
Then he dangles there for a bit, because Riku's still in the way, looking down at him with an annoying sort of smug superiority that got old when they were five, and it's not hot at all, especially not because he's not wearing a shirt and looking all pretty and rumpled like that.
"You gonna move or what?" Sora says, because Riku really will just leave him dangling there until it stops amusing him, which could take hours. "Or--geez, if you're stuck in the window that means you're growing out of the house way too early, slow down already."
"I'm not turning into a giant and I fit in the house just fine," Riku says with an overly-dramatic roll of his eyes, but he steps back from the window and Sora swings himself up and into the room and is very careful not to trip, because Kairi pushed him out of that window once, and it didn't hurt, but it was kind of embarrassing, mostly because Kairi's never pushed Riku out of a window even when he deserved it.
That might be because Riku's too smart to call Kairi out on her ridiculous sleeping habits, though, even if it's true that she is a slugabed.
"Says you," Sora says, straightening up, "but you can't judge your own giantness because oh hey you're naked."
Riku looks at him like he's an idiot, which Sora finds kind of annoying because he can make like a million better faces, ones that don't make him look cranky like Donald, which is a horrible thing to be thinking of when you're staring at your naked boyfriend, so Sora vows to immediately forget he ever had that thought and concentrates even harder on the nakedness to make sure the thought goes away.
...
...was he thinking about something?
"And you're wearing clothes," Riku says, and it takes a second before Sora realizes that's some kind of belated reply in Riku-speak, which is not the speech of normal people, "which makes you in the minority and you the weird one."
Sora opens his mouth to reply in kind before his brain processes that statement, but then almost against his will his gaze drags over the room, over the delicately carved furniture, the simple mirror and the pictures tacked on the wall, to the bed that dominates the room, and he swallows hard, because the curtains are open and Kairi's a notorious blanket hog but there's a spill of russet hair over the pillow and the faintest hint of the back of her--
He looks away so quickly he thinks for a minute he's given himself whiplash.
Riku takes that moment to snicker, because Riku is a giant jerk.
"Shaddup," Sora tells the floor, because he can't look at Riku because Riku's naked too and that means Riku's naked and Kairi's naked and they've been doing nakedness-requiring things and he can't figure out if he wants to crawl out the window in embarrassment and maybe die a little or pester Riku for details or kiss him to see if he tastes like Kairi or maybe all of them at once.
He takes a half-step backward, still staring at his shoes, and then another one, and then there's the brush of a hand against the side of his arm, light and quick, and he goes utterly still, because it's not like he wants to leave, it's just that he doesn't know what he's supposed to do now, and this at least is familiar, caught between eagerness and uncertainty and feeling the slow inevitable creep of heat across his face--and other places too--and he might be biting his tongue just a little because there's a faint, pleasant tingle on his skin where Riku touched him, and if he lets his tongue go he might make a sound, and then Riku will make fun of him. Again.
"If you're staying the night the clothes come off," Riku says, low and warm and still standing close, but not touching any more, because he's a horrible, horrible tease that way. "You've got two million buckles too many for us to be comfortable otherwise."
"I don't have that many belts," Sora retorts instinctively, and then he remembers how long it took to piece his things back together that one time on the beach when the tide had risen while they were busy doing other things. "Just some," he corrects.
"Some too many," Riku says agreeably, apparently taking this as a cue that Sora's not going anywhere, and ambles back in the direction of the bed, bending down to start gathering up his own clothes, probably because Riku remembers that night on the beach too, even though his pants had never washed out onto the sandbar because Riku might complain that the universe is out to get him but he still somehow always manages to be just a little bit cooler than Sora will ever be.
Not that he'll ever actually admit that out loud, because Riku's pretty when he's preening, but he's also really obnoxious.
"Sometime before the sun rises would be good," Riku says in that mock-helpful way, and Sora makes a face at him and then bites his lip, because okay, Kairi's asleep and it's not like Riku hasn't seen him naked before--hasn't made him naked before--but he's really not sure where the clothes are supposed to go or even what he's supposed to do once the clothes come off, although there's kind of a desperate hope that's starting to burn low in his chest the longer he looks at Riku and the rumpled bed and the soft sleek hints of Kairi's bare skin in the starlight flooding through the window.
"Yeah," he agrees softly, and drops his fingers to the first of the belts.
He swallows once, hard, when Riku glances back over his shoulder and offers him a slow, appreciative smile, the kind that Kairi once admitted made her shiver all over, and he can feel his fingers biting into the metal even as his toes curl, and okay, maybe Riku does have a point about all the buckles. They'll just... have to come off. So Riku can be comfortable. So Kairi can be. So they can all be comfortable together.
When Riku brushes past him again, arms full of clothes and eyes full of mischief, Sora swallows again and starts undoing buckles with fingers that aren't at all trembling.
If he stares at the floor it's not even all that scary, and if he focuses on folding up the clothes as he goes, it means he doesn't have to look at all, because there are a lot of belts to keep track of and layers and then he has to sit down to work his socks off because they might be fairy-made but there's no dignified way to take socks off unless Riku or Kairi does it but even then it's not dignified, it's just pretty to look at.
And he's not being a coward for leaving the boxers on. He's not no matter what Riku's snickering about under his breath. It's just a little cold in here and he's not a child, he's not, he just doesn't want to startle Kairi when she wakes up, is all--and he resolutely squashes the little voice in the back of his head that says she doesn't seem to have any problems with Riku being naked since duh, anybody who likes looking at things isn't going to have a problem with Riku being naked.
And none of that matters anyway since he needs to pile everything up and set it underneath the window next to all of Riku's clothes and there's nothing at all embarrassing about it even though Riku's underwear is right there on top of everything else, and hey, isn't Riku the one who's afraid that Kairi's dad is going to kill them?
"Are you ever planning on actually coming to bed?" Riku asks in that voice that pretends that it's polite but is actually just another version of his I am being deliberately annoying voice. "You've been staring at my underwear for way too long. It's getting creepy."
"You're creepy," Sora retorts, and then thinks I am an idiot in a voice that might or might not actually belong to Roxas instead, except that Roxas always runs and hides and plugs his ears whenever there's the slightest hint that Riku might be around and not wearing clothes (that time on the beach still makes everything awkward) so that must mean it's his own voice.
He manages to cast a quick glance over at the bed, and Kairi's still an unidentifiable knot underneath the covers and Riku is--glaring at him. Crap.
The only space on the bed is on top of Riku. Which would be one thing if Riku were in the mood to be used as a pillow, which he usually is, except now he's glaring, which doesn't make him any less appealing as potential places to sit go, it just means that if Sora does decide to sit he runs the very real risk of getting thrown out the window.
"--you know I didn't mean it like that, shut up," Sora says, because he's not going to apologize, and anyway Riku's way too prickly, and he's not a liar either, because Riku really is creepy, at least according to what other people say.
Sora doesn't quite see it himself, but enough people have told him so that he guesses they're probably not all lying about it.
Doesn't stop him from wanting to punch them, though.
"I know you don't mean it that way because you're not smart enough to understand why it's an insult," Riku says, and Sora sighs out between his teeth and steps over to the bed, because that means he's been forgiven, and it's so hard sometimes to tell what's going to set him off, because for all that Kairi reminds him, scolds him and nudges him and drops hints here and there, it's so hard to think of Riku as delicate when he's not, not in any ways that Sora can see, and then every once in a while Riku will say something, always idly, always in passing, always like it's nothing, and Sora has to swallow hard and fight the urge to challenge everyone in every world just so they'll stop hurting him.
"I'm not that dumb," Sora retorts, and deliberately digs his knees in as he clambers onto the bed and sits down a little too hard onto Riku's outstretched legs. "And you're a jerk."
"Jerk king," Riku corrects, like he always does, because he's sort of irrationally proud of the title even though he doesn't even have a crown or any real lands or anything, but that's clearly just a delusion since Sora's crown and kingdom is way better even if those don't actually exist either.
"Whatever, jerk," Sora says, and Riku smiles quick and sharp like a knife, slides his hands lightly along Sora's waist, and says "Our girlfriend is naked," and then hangs on tight as Sora reflexively tries to hurl himself off of the bed.
He manages to catch himself on a knee and a hand, so at least he didn't make too much noise, but it's more than a little awkward since his other leg is kind of caught in Riku's and his hand is sort of clenched in a deathgrip around Riku's thigh. Riku's laughing at him again, but his hands are still curved around Sora's hips, and he's sort of halfway leaning off of the bed, and Sora has the sudden and deathly embarrassing thought that this is exactly what's going to happen whenever they actually manage to do the stuff that involves what Kairi bought. He's going to fall off the bed and probably break it and then they're never going to want to sleep with him again, and all of their children will wind up with girly silver hair.
--actually that would be kind of cute, tiny little Riku-lets with Kairi's eyes and some weird mishmash of their powers, tumbling all over the house that Riku's gonna build them, and Sora kind of has to wonder where they're gonna find enough keyblades for all of them and what age they're supposed to start learning at anyway--
"You are so dumb," Riku says through his laughter, and he's not in a position that should really let him tug Sora back up onto the bed, but keybearers aren't made out of the same stuff that makes up regular people, so with some squirming and shoving Sora clambers back on top of him without accidentally shoving too many elbows where they don't belong. Purposefully, however, is another matter, so they have another quiet scuffle before Sora decides that discretion is the better part of actually being able to sit down comfortably and leans over for a conciliatory kiss.
This attempt is interrupted by a very unladylike snicker from somewhere very very close by and Sora makes the split second decision that running away won't work, so he has to hide instead.
Riku says "Gnaagh!" when Sora closes his eyes very very tight and then slams his face against his chest.
Kairi takes that moment to laugh in a way that really isn't cute at all. "You look so dumb!" she cackles, and then there's some shifting and sliding around and Sora is resolutely not looking even though that is definitely her leg sliding against his thigh.
"Same as always," Riku agrees cheerfully, and Sora scowls and bites down in retaliation without thinking about it. Riku tastes a little like sweat and a little like nothing but a lot more like the memory of heat and saltwater and laughter, and fighting with him is pretty much the best thing ever but it's gotten really confusing lately since sometimes they wind up making out instead and now Kairi is cackling even harder and he's going to die of embarrassment before they even get to have any kids at all.
"Keep it down," Riku's saying through his own laughter, "your dad really will kill us if we wake him up," and now he's not even going to live long enough to die of embarrassment, Hiromasu's going to murder both of them, and that will piss off Riku's mom, who'll declare war on the mayor and then conquer all of Destiny Islands in bloody revenge, and Sora hopes his own mom can negotiate with Riku's dad to feed all of Riku's mom's troops since Hiromasu's a good mayor but Chihoko is Riku's mom.
"But his face!" Kairi snorts, and Sora briefly considers hitting her with a pillow before he remembers that the whole reason he's stuck like this is because she's naked.
It's really stupid that he can feel himself turning red from his hairline down because he never used to blush like this or feel this stupid before he started dating them and--
"I think his chest is blushing too," Riku says in that tone that means he's highly amused but too dignified to start laughing and Sora does hit him because he deserves it even though Kairi's the one practically wheezing on her giggles.
"Shaddup!" Sora snarls, and hits Riku again for good measure. He flails out a free arm to try thwapping Kairi too but he can't see her with his eyes still shut and he's not really trying that hard either since if he makes contact he doesn't know where his hand might land.
It lands anyway. Somewhere soft and warm and a little bit damp and Kairi goes "Meep!" and Riku starts laughing again because he is kind of a horrible person sometimes.
"Guh!" Sora says, and yanks his arm back so quickly he smacks Riku upside the head and he's not sorry about it at all and he kind of wants to just melt through the floor right now.
Kairi's moving now, shifting the bed around and Sora is not thinking of anything at all, even when she clearly moves closer and does something that definitely kind of feels like pulling Riku's hair.
"Oh shut up," she growls, and Sora isn't at all surprised to discover that it's a pretty sound and he'd actually like to hear a lot more of it, "I was surprised, you don't get to make fun of me for being surprised--and where are my panties, anyway?"
Panties. Which Kairi is having to ask about because Riku is the one who took them off and probably threw them across the room because he just kind of does that and it's too hard to protest whenever he does because he's always smiling that smile and touching so softly that it feels like dreaming and he was doing that to Kairi earlier, he was doing all of that to Kairi earlier and that's why she's so soft and damp and naked now, because Riku was doing those things to her and wow, it kind of feels like he's going to pass out now.
"Pffhaha--both of your faces--ow..."
"Panties, Riku," she says, and she's definitely yanking his hair again because that's the only thing Riku will ever complain about because Riku is kind of vain sometimes.
"I put them in the pile," Riku says, still laughing a bit because Sora can feel it thrumming in his chest, "under the windowsill, with our stuff."
"Better," she says, and then there's this confused impression of soft skin and movement, and then he can hear his own breath catch way too loudly.
Sora's eyes are shut tight-tight-tight and there's no way to breathe like this, no way at all, because it's way too hot and his heart's pounding so loud that it's almost deafening, in this moment trapped between them in a too-small bed, her lips against the back of his neck, the softest parts of her pressed up against his back, crushed against him like he's crushed against Riku, and there's nothing to do, nothing to say, no way to move at all, and he doesn't--he can't--
The way they sigh in tandem makes him shiver.
And then she's moving again, scrambling off the bed, and Riku shoves at his shoulder and mutters "You are seriously kind of terrible at this," and that makes Sora open his eyes enough to glare at him.
"It's not like I have a lot of practice yet!" he hisses, and then makes kind of a choking noise once he realizes what he's said. Riku's lips are twitching in the way that means he really wants to laugh but is afraid of getting punched in the kidney for it.
"We can fix that!" Kairi laughs from somewhere near the window, but he's resolutely not looking, he's glaring at Riku, except it's not working since Riku's not looking at him any more, he's looking at Kairi, because it's taken him a bit but Sora's finally figured out that the reason Riku only touches the place over his heart when they're making out is probably because he doesn't know what to do with a chest if there aren't breasts there, which is incredibly aggravating because Sora kind of wants to try out some ideas he's had but he doesn't know how you're supposed to ask about that sort of thing and is pretty sure that even if he made an attempt he'd choke on the words so hard it would startle Riku out of being in the mood to even try.
"Yeah, when we're fifty," Riku's saying, and Riku is a jerk king but Sora is kind of a little bit afraid that maybe he's got a point, because Kairi's so so so pretty and what kind of boyfriend is he if he can't even look at her when she's happy and laughing and probably standing in the moonlight and only wearing her underwear?
"Don't be mean," Kairi says, voice still lilting with a giggle, "and tell me what you did with my bra."
"Burned it," Riku says immediately, with an utterly straight face, and if Sora weren't looking straight at him he might have believed him.
"Must be getting very subtle with those dark firagas, then," Kairi responds archly, and then lets out a brief "A-ha!" of triumph that probably means she's found it.
"He drowned my clothes once," Sora finds himself saying while the little noises indicate that she's fussing with her bra, and he's resolutely not thinking about anything or looking at anything or--anything. "Don't let him tell you it's accidental, Kairi, 'cause it's not."
"The tide came in," Riku replies, rolling his eyes, and Sora and Kairi both pointedly ignore him because it's more fun that way.
"Nothing Riku does is accidental," Kairi says brightly, padding softly across the floor, "especially when it comes to taking our clothes off."
Sora's very proud of not shutting his eyes, because it's kind of amazing to watch Riku turn his head and stick his tongue out at Kairi, who looks--wow.
She meets his eyes with a shy kind of smile, pretty white teeth biting down on a lower lip that's a little more swollen than usual--from Riku he thinks abstractly, a pleasant shiver slipping down his spine--and her flush is a soft seashell-pink in the moonlight, and her hair's sort of a tangled mess and he's seen her in bathing suits before, but this isn't a bathing suit, it's her actual underwear, and Riku's said so before but girls' underwear is so different, it looks so soft and delicate, and there's really no place that's safe to look at, not even her eyes, since they look so dark and pretty and nervous, like she's almost as scared as he is, but that's ridiculous because she's Kairi, who bought them condoms and kissed him first and already made out with Riku once tonight, and--
"Breathe," Riku says gently, chucking him on the chin, "both of you," and somehow that breaks the spell, makes Kairi giggle and his tongue come unglued from where it got stuck to the roof of his mouth somehow, and then Riku's rolling his eyes and sighing about hormonally imbalanced fiancees, and it's easy, it's so easy to reach out and smack him upside the head at the same time that Kairi does, that it feels a little bit like magic.
When Kairi climbs back on the bed, it almost feels like it usually does, since she doesn't try to squish in, just stretches out beside the two of them, and if Sora weren't kind of gaping at her he could almost pretend everything was like usual and they were all wearing normal clothes or bathing suits or something, not just underwear.
Or nothing, since he's still sitting on Riku.
"Honestly," Riku grumbles, reaching out a hand to tangle in Kairi's hair, "You guys."
"It's still too soon," Kairi says patiently, like they've had this conversation before, and they probably have. Sora knows he's too slow for them, always has been, the last to realize what it meant to feel that way, the last to be kissed and the last to be touched, the last to realize what it had meant, what it had all meant.
And then Kairi turns those brilliant eyes on him and says, "But we're not waiting forever, you know."
Sora swallows hard, curling a fist into the bedsheets, feeling the heat rise to his face again, but he manages to choke out an "I know" that doesn't even sound strangled.
Riku shifts under him, just slightly, a warm ripple of movement that whispers years and he ducks his head just a bit in shame, for never realizing, for never understanding before, but then Riku's sliding a gentle hand through his hair and Kairi's moving again, sitting up to press a soft kiss against his cheek, and Sora slides an arm around her and tugs Riku up into the embrace too, and it's so easy to lean over and kiss him, to turn from his lips to hers, to practice that perfect three-way kiss that they're still terrible at.
Kairi's laughing and swatting at his bangs and Riku's mumbling something against his cheek about people needing to brush their teeth more often and Sora closes his eyes and squeezes them both tight-tight-tight and thinks soon.
And then Sora licks his lips and opens his eyes and stares at the boy-who-will-be-his-husband and the girl-who-will-be-his-wife and says it out loud, and then again, more loudly, because they've been waiting for him for much too long.
"...can you get more specific about that timeline?" Riku asks, and Sora chokes on a laugh as Kairi adds, "There are some considerations to keep in mind, date-wise," and suddenly he's stuck between his beautiful boyfriend and girlfriend as they start trying to figure out the exact date of when Kairi's next due to--um, stuff, and Sora kind of wants to die a little bit but that's actually kind of a good thing to be planning for, really, since they were running low on supplies the last time it started and he wound up having to make a quick run to the store that was kind of hard to justify to his mother when she wound up finding the receipt in his room.
--but that won't be a problem anymore, not now that their parents know, and Sora feels the whole world brighten at that, the reminder that Hiromasu will be murderous if they get caught but he won't be surprised, that if his mother finds his room empty she'll glare when he shows up on the boat and scold him but she won't have been worried, that Chihoko and Yasuhiro are crushingly disappointed in Riku but they never deserved him in the first place, and they'll never get to have him again, because Riku is theirs for now and for always, even if none of their parents want to believe it.
Soon, Sora thinks again, and it's not scary at all, it's not in the least bit terrifying, and he squeezes Kairi around her sleek smooth middle and tangles his fingers back in Riku's hair and offers to buy her the really fancy chocolate for this time around.
* * *
"Hey, Sora?"
"Mmph?"
"It's almost dawn."
"Hrrm?"
"Rikuuuuu, it's too early to be making fun of Sora, be quiet."
"But doesn't your mom's boat go out at, like, early?"
"...Kairi, what time is it?"
"Mmph? Eh, hang on, my watch is over here--uh, it's a quarter to five."
"Oh, I've got time, mom doesn't get up until four-thirty."
"Uh..."
"Er, Sora?"
"What?"
"That was fifteen minutes ago."
"...CRAP."
* * *