Binary - Epilogue
For some reason, formatting on LJ is not my friend today.
Anyway, here it is, the end. It's been a pretty awesome time writing this, and I'd like to thank everyone who encouraged, commented, lurked, and read. For my first big fic, I'm pretty proud of it. I don't know yet if there will be timestamps in this verse, but I have a few loose ideas floating around.
Short and sweet, but I didn't feel that too many words were necessary.
Title: Binary
Author: Lost Forevermore or Woebegone121
Rating: R for swearing, themes, and violence. (as of now. Rating is subject to change.)
Pairings: Sora/Riku, Axel/Roxas, Demyx/Kairi and various other random scatterings
Genre: Mystery/Romance
Disclaimer: If I owned it, Kingdom Hearts would be a musical.
Warnings: Slash, language, possible adult content, eighties metal music, Motley Crüe, Guns 'n Roses, Savage Garden, fat cats, Roxas' mouth, Axel's lighter, Sora with a motorcycle license, crappy apartments, and excessive amounts of randomly named bands that may or may not have anything to do with each other.
Summary: Detective AU. It all started with a motorcycle accident, a missing blond, and a stolen computer disc. Now Riku's tracking his so-not-boyfriend and a hotheaded blond down with the help of his rock-obsessed, pyromaniac, partner-in-fighting-crime and his secretary who still hasn't figured out that she works for him, not the other way around. Not to mention the gang that's trying to kill them. And poor Riku's mop still isn't magical.
Epilogue: Paradise by the Dashboard Lights
If his life were the movies, the credits would have rolled while Riku stood there in the middle of the parking lot, kissing Sora like his life depended on it, with the sunset fading in the background. There would have been a slow zoom out, taking in the landscape around them and the various characters nearby - Kairi and Demyx, Axel and Roxas - and then, presumably, they would have all lived happily ever after. The lights would have come up and the ending theme would have played, and then teenagers with zits and butter on their uniforms would have come in to half-heartedly sweep the theater floor and pick up the candy boxes and popcorn containers shoved underneath chairs instead of the conveniently located trash receptacles. Riku was no actor, though, and his life was nothing like the movies. Instead of the credits rolling and the sunset and all that jazz, Riku really only got one good kiss in before he and Sora were swept away from each other and into a flurry of reports, questions, and paramedics.
When the commotion finally subsided, it was past midnight. Riku opened the door to his apartment, finally, and nearly stepped right back out, because this neat and tidy living room simply couldn’t be his. Nonetheless, that was his crappy green plaid couch and his multicolored carpet, his peeling wallpaper and his DVD collection. More importantly, perched on the arm of the couch was his cat, Chubchub, sleeping soundly. The cat looked up when Riku stepped in, gave a greeting by way of meow, and promptly rolled off the arm and onto the cushion to go back to sleep.
“Yeah, I missed you too.” Riku walked over and gave Chubchub a good scratching on the side of his neck, smiling a little at the way the cat pushed into his hand, purring. He had missed his cat and his little apartment.
From looking at the calendar on his wall, Riku found that it was Thursday, and this whole misadventure had begun only two weeks ago. It seemed like a lifetime, at least, like Riku had died somewhere along the way and been reborn as a completely different person. It felt a little like he was trying to step back into a pair of shoes that just didn’t fit anymore, no matter how hard he tried to squeeze into them. He glanced around the room, banishing the deep thoughts in favor of just being able to relax and not worry about gangs or hits or anything at all. His floors looked like they had been vacuumed, which Riku hadn’t done in a few months, maybe a year or so.
“I’ll admit, I liked the free petsitting and housekeeping service,” Riku said to the cat, who had decided he had missed Riku after all.
“Yeah, Aerith likes to clean.”
Riku turned. Chubchub protested his lack of petting by nipping at his hand, but Riku barely noticed and pulled his hand out of the cat’s reach absently. Sora was standing in the doorway, hands in his pockets and motorcycle helmet tucked under his arm. He looked nervous, like he wasn’t sure of his welcome, gazing around the apartment instead of at Riku.
“You’ll probably find food in the fridge too,” Sora said, shrugging and smiling awkwardly. “Just don’t drink anything she left. She’s freakin’ amazing with food, but she likes to experiment with drinks…” He scrubbed the back of his neck. “Uh. We found Naminé,” he said after a moment. “She, um. She wound up in, like, protective custody, and we never got the memo. She’s flying back in a couple of days.”
“I thought you’d be gone by now.” Perhaps Riku should have started with something like ‘hello’ or ‘how are you?’ but those were the words that slipped out of his mouth. “I mean, not that I want you gone. I don’t want you gone, I just thought…”
“That I’d be off saving the world?” Soragrinned, more of his sunshine peeking through. “Even superheroes like yours truly get the night off every now and again.”
“Oh,” Riku said, and immediately tried to think of something more intelligent than that.
Sora beat him to it, though, glancing down the hall, then down at the floor, and finally back to Riku’s face. “Sometimes superheroes even get to retire,” he said, voice a little softer. “They get sworn to secrecy and go on with normal, civilian lives. Some could even become history teachers, you know? Like… Like me.” He scratched his neck again, looking down at the ugly carpet and back up at Riku. “And Roxas, too, I mean, but… Anyway, the point of this is, I was thinking about this whole thing. And maybe you don’t love me, ‘cause it could have been adrenaline or something, but… This is gonna sound creepy as hell.” He glanced up at Riku again before looking down the hall like he was contemplating running away. “I want… I know more about you than I know about me… I’ve spent a year watching you, and… Whether it’s actually love or not, I want to… Damn it, I’m babbling, why are you letting me babble?”
Riku was across the room in an instant. The door closed as Sora stepped forward, and his helmet hit the floor. The wood of the door was cold under Riku’s palms, and Sora clung to him like he never wanted to let go, and Riku returned the sentiment wholeheartedly. The first kiss was sweet and slow, relief and prayer all in one. The second wasn’t so gentle and sweet, and neither was the third, or the fourth, or the fifteenth. It was fire under Riku’s skin, like Sora’s light was trying to burn its way through him. He couldn’t get enough of it.
“I wanna do strange things to your ear,” Riku said, breathless, which was not what he’d meant to say at all. He was sure that it couldn’t be classified as sexy in the least, but Sora looked very much attracted to the idea, and so incredibly happy. “Love or not, creepy stalker thing aside.”
“Can we not do them against the door?” Sora asked, his smile tempting Riku to kiss him again. “Saving the world kind of leaves bruises.”
While Riku’s brain was trying to catch up to the moment, to the fact that Sora was right there, in his arms, safe and sound and smiling and staying, Sora took him by the hand and led him down the hall.
Friday morning was both the same as and completely unlike any other morning in Riku’s life. He wandered into the kitchen sometime around nine, determined to find something edible or filled with caffeine. He’d lain for an hour just watching Sora sleep in Riku’s bed before finding a pair of boxers and going to wander the house. He set the coffee maker to start and stood for a moment, admiring his godawful seventies kitchen and smiling about it, before he inexplicably grabbed his phone to sit on the bathroom counter while he took a shower.
After a moment of staring at the phone in his hand, Riku realized that this whole time, he’d been the one setting himself up to be called in the shower. After another moment, he finally noticed the blinking light that indicated he had a message. He vaguely remembered hearing the phone ring the night before, but he’d been much too wrapped up in Sora to even think about getting up to answer it. He held the phone to his ear, entered the passcode, and waited.
“Riku?!” Axel’s voice was loud and ecstatic. “I have to share this with you, dude. This is the start of a brand new era, Riku, this is, like, bigger than anything. As we speak, I am losing my virginity!”
“Get off the fucking phone, Axel,” Roxas’ voice cut in, and then there was nothing but silence and the automated voice asking if he wanted to save it, delete it, or replay it. Riku certainly didn’t want to replay it. Ever. He never wanted to hear that again. Hell, he wasn’t sure he could ever look either one of them in the eye again.
Nonetheless, he carried the phone into the bathroom with him, setting it on the counter. Riku’s towel rack had been taped back up on the wall and his curtain had been hung again. Aerith, if he remembered her name correctly, had taped up the hole with duct tape and drawn a smiley face on it in marker, and he stared at it in amusement before starting the shower.
It was only a minute or two before the bathroom door opened and closed. Sora’s head came around the curtain. “Morning,” he said, and stepped in to join Riku, wrapping his arms around Riku’s waist.
“Morning,” Riku replied, smiling and leaning into the embrace.
“So,” Sora said after a moment. “What’s first on the to-do list for a busy private investigator like yourself?”
Riku turned, pressing himself against Sora with a grin. “I’ll give you a hint,” he replied, and leaned in to give Sora a proper good morning kiss.
As it turned out, despite all of the shitty stuff he’d already been through, Riku wasn’t done repaying his karmic debt. It was at that moment that the phone on his counter rang. Riku and Sora both jumped, but it was Sora who went sideways, slipping on the bathtub floor, grabbing at Riku. Riku grabbed, instinctively, at the towel rack, and in a spectacular crash, they both wound up tangled in the curtain with the curtain rod lying across their backs and the towel rack in Riku’s hand. The phone was still ringing, so with a sigh, Riku reached up and picked it up.
“Kairi,” Riku said before she could say anything. “I’m declaring today a holiday. It’s officially Go Get Laid Day. Axel’s already celebrating, I was getting ready to celebrate, you need to celebrate. No, it’s not a real holiday, I made it up, but I’m not going into the office today. It’s a day off.”
There was silence for another moment before Kairi laughed, music to Riku’s ears. “Alright,” she said. “You’re the boss, after all. It’s your name on the door. I’ll let you get back to celebrating, then.” There was a click as she hung up, the ghost of her laughter still ringing in his ears.
“Fuck yes, I’m the boss!” Riku exclaimed, practically throwing the phone. Sora stared at him, bewildered amusement on his face before the towel rack went the way of the phone and Riku took advantage of the fact that they were on a horizontal surface and they were naked.
When Riku walked into his office two months later, it was as though nothing and everything had changed. Kairi sat at her desk, French tips on her nails and her hair curled. She smiled when he strode in, and the music that filtered through the speaker system was one of the local stations. Kairi was dating the DJ, after all, they had to be supportive and all that. Demyx’s voice came on as the song faded away, and Riku tuned it out. He turned to wave goodbye at Sora, parked on the street on his motorcycle with his backpack over one shoulder. Sora gave a wave back before heading off to class.
“I recommend knocking before going in,” Kairi said with a nod to Riku’s office door.
Riku sighed and rolled his eyes, hoping Axel and Roxas had at least stayed off of his desk this time. He gave his own door a good hard knock, and listened to the sounds of scrambling and hasty dressing before carefully opening the door. Luckily, no one was naked, though they were a bit disheveled and flushed.
“Seriously,” Riku said, “you can come in later. I don’t need this in my life.”
Roxas blushed even darker while Axel grinned. “We stayed off your desk…” Roxas muttered, glaring at the wall.
“I appreciate that,” Riku said. “But you have an apartment and a car. Office sex can’t be that great.”
“Dude, have you ever tried contorting into the backseat of a Firebird?” Axel asked. “Because the newer models are even smaller, I swear. My other one was bigger.”
Riku covered his eyes. “I really did not need that mental image, please stop talking.”
There was a gentle knock. Riku turned to find Kairi standing the doorway, and just past her, a pair of blonds that Riku recognized, just barely. One was giving Roxas a little wave, a forced smile on his face, while the other looked like he’d have rather eaten his socks before sitting in the chairs in the lobby.
“Seifer Almasy and Hayner Elliott are here to see you,” she said, a little glint in her eye. “They’ve got a case for you.”
“Wonderful,” Riku said, pasting on a little smile.
“Send ‘em in,” Axel said, adjusting his tie. “Let’s get this show on the road.”
Anyway, here it is, the end. It's been a pretty awesome time writing this, and I'd like to thank everyone who encouraged, commented, lurked, and read. For my first big fic, I'm pretty proud of it. I don't know yet if there will be timestamps in this verse, but I have a few loose ideas floating around.
Short and sweet, but I didn't feel that too many words were necessary.
Title: Binary
Author: Lost Forevermore or Woebegone121
Rating: R for swearing, themes, and violence. (as of now. Rating is subject to change.)
Pairings: Sora/Riku, Axel/Roxas, Demyx/Kairi and various other random scatterings
Genre: Mystery/Romance
Disclaimer: If I owned it, Kingdom Hearts would be a musical.
Warnings: Slash, language, possible adult content, eighties metal music, Motley Crüe, Guns 'n Roses, Savage Garden, fat cats, Roxas' mouth, Axel's lighter, Sora with a motorcycle license, crappy apartments, and excessive amounts of randomly named bands that may or may not have anything to do with each other.
Summary: Detective AU. It all started with a motorcycle accident, a missing blond, and a stolen computer disc. Now Riku's tracking his so-not-boyfriend and a hotheaded blond down with the help of his rock-obsessed, pyromaniac, partner-in-fighting-crime and his secretary who still hasn't figured out that she works for him, not the other way around. Not to mention the gang that's trying to kill them. And poor Riku's mop still isn't magical.
Epilogue: Paradise by the Dashboard Lights
If his life were the movies, the credits would have rolled while Riku stood there in the middle of the parking lot, kissing Sora like his life depended on it, with the sunset fading in the background. There would have been a slow zoom out, taking in the landscape around them and the various characters nearby - Kairi and Demyx, Axel and Roxas - and then, presumably, they would have all lived happily ever after. The lights would have come up and the ending theme would have played, and then teenagers with zits and butter on their uniforms would have come in to half-heartedly sweep the theater floor and pick up the candy boxes and popcorn containers shoved underneath chairs instead of the conveniently located trash receptacles. Riku was no actor, though, and his life was nothing like the movies. Instead of the credits rolling and the sunset and all that jazz, Riku really only got one good kiss in before he and Sora were swept away from each other and into a flurry of reports, questions, and paramedics.
When the commotion finally subsided, it was past midnight. Riku opened the door to his apartment, finally, and nearly stepped right back out, because this neat and tidy living room simply couldn’t be his. Nonetheless, that was his crappy green plaid couch and his multicolored carpet, his peeling wallpaper and his DVD collection. More importantly, perched on the arm of the couch was his cat, Chubchub, sleeping soundly. The cat looked up when Riku stepped in, gave a greeting by way of meow, and promptly rolled off the arm and onto the cushion to go back to sleep.
“Yeah, I missed you too.” Riku walked over and gave Chubchub a good scratching on the side of his neck, smiling a little at the way the cat pushed into his hand, purring. He had missed his cat and his little apartment.
From looking at the calendar on his wall, Riku found that it was Thursday, and this whole misadventure had begun only two weeks ago. It seemed like a lifetime, at least, like Riku had died somewhere along the way and been reborn as a completely different person. It felt a little like he was trying to step back into a pair of shoes that just didn’t fit anymore, no matter how hard he tried to squeeze into them. He glanced around the room, banishing the deep thoughts in favor of just being able to relax and not worry about gangs or hits or anything at all. His floors looked like they had been vacuumed, which Riku hadn’t done in a few months, maybe a year or so.
“I’ll admit, I liked the free petsitting and housekeeping service,” Riku said to the cat, who had decided he had missed Riku after all.
“Yeah, Aerith likes to clean.”
Riku turned. Chubchub protested his lack of petting by nipping at his hand, but Riku barely noticed and pulled his hand out of the cat’s reach absently. Sora was standing in the doorway, hands in his pockets and motorcycle helmet tucked under his arm. He looked nervous, like he wasn’t sure of his welcome, gazing around the apartment instead of at Riku.
“You’ll probably find food in the fridge too,” Sora said, shrugging and smiling awkwardly. “Just don’t drink anything she left. She’s freakin’ amazing with food, but she likes to experiment with drinks…” He scrubbed the back of his neck. “Uh. We found Naminé,” he said after a moment. “She, um. She wound up in, like, protective custody, and we never got the memo. She’s flying back in a couple of days.”
“I thought you’d be gone by now.” Perhaps Riku should have started with something like ‘hello’ or ‘how are you?’ but those were the words that slipped out of his mouth. “I mean, not that I want you gone. I don’t want you gone, I just thought…”
“That I’d be off saving the world?” Soragrinned, more of his sunshine peeking through. “Even superheroes like yours truly get the night off every now and again.”
“Oh,” Riku said, and immediately tried to think of something more intelligent than that.
Sora beat him to it, though, glancing down the hall, then down at the floor, and finally back to Riku’s face. “Sometimes superheroes even get to retire,” he said, voice a little softer. “They get sworn to secrecy and go on with normal, civilian lives. Some could even become history teachers, you know? Like… Like me.” He scratched his neck again, looking down at the ugly carpet and back up at Riku. “And Roxas, too, I mean, but… Anyway, the point of this is, I was thinking about this whole thing. And maybe you don’t love me, ‘cause it could have been adrenaline or something, but… This is gonna sound creepy as hell.” He glanced up at Riku again before looking down the hall like he was contemplating running away. “I want… I know more about you than I know about me… I’ve spent a year watching you, and… Whether it’s actually love or not, I want to… Damn it, I’m babbling, why are you letting me babble?”
Riku was across the room in an instant. The door closed as Sora stepped forward, and his helmet hit the floor. The wood of the door was cold under Riku’s palms, and Sora clung to him like he never wanted to let go, and Riku returned the sentiment wholeheartedly. The first kiss was sweet and slow, relief and prayer all in one. The second wasn’t so gentle and sweet, and neither was the third, or the fourth, or the fifteenth. It was fire under Riku’s skin, like Sora’s light was trying to burn its way through him. He couldn’t get enough of it.
“I wanna do strange things to your ear,” Riku said, breathless, which was not what he’d meant to say at all. He was sure that it couldn’t be classified as sexy in the least, but Sora looked very much attracted to the idea, and so incredibly happy. “Love or not, creepy stalker thing aside.”
“Can we not do them against the door?” Sora asked, his smile tempting Riku to kiss him again. “Saving the world kind of leaves bruises.”
While Riku’s brain was trying to catch up to the moment, to the fact that Sora was right there, in his arms, safe and sound and smiling and staying, Sora took him by the hand and led him down the hall.
Friday morning was both the same as and completely unlike any other morning in Riku’s life. He wandered into the kitchen sometime around nine, determined to find something edible or filled with caffeine. He’d lain for an hour just watching Sora sleep in Riku’s bed before finding a pair of boxers and going to wander the house. He set the coffee maker to start and stood for a moment, admiring his godawful seventies kitchen and smiling about it, before he inexplicably grabbed his phone to sit on the bathroom counter while he took a shower.
After a moment of staring at the phone in his hand, Riku realized that this whole time, he’d been the one setting himself up to be called in the shower. After another moment, he finally noticed the blinking light that indicated he had a message. He vaguely remembered hearing the phone ring the night before, but he’d been much too wrapped up in Sora to even think about getting up to answer it. He held the phone to his ear, entered the passcode, and waited.
“Riku?!” Axel’s voice was loud and ecstatic. “I have to share this with you, dude. This is the start of a brand new era, Riku, this is, like, bigger than anything. As we speak, I am losing my virginity!”
“Get off the fucking phone, Axel,” Roxas’ voice cut in, and then there was nothing but silence and the automated voice asking if he wanted to save it, delete it, or replay it. Riku certainly didn’t want to replay it. Ever. He never wanted to hear that again. Hell, he wasn’t sure he could ever look either one of them in the eye again.
Nonetheless, he carried the phone into the bathroom with him, setting it on the counter. Riku’s towel rack had been taped back up on the wall and his curtain had been hung again. Aerith, if he remembered her name correctly, had taped up the hole with duct tape and drawn a smiley face on it in marker, and he stared at it in amusement before starting the shower.
It was only a minute or two before the bathroom door opened and closed. Sora’s head came around the curtain. “Morning,” he said, and stepped in to join Riku, wrapping his arms around Riku’s waist.
“Morning,” Riku replied, smiling and leaning into the embrace.
“So,” Sora said after a moment. “What’s first on the to-do list for a busy private investigator like yourself?”
Riku turned, pressing himself against Sora with a grin. “I’ll give you a hint,” he replied, and leaned in to give Sora a proper good morning kiss.
As it turned out, despite all of the shitty stuff he’d already been through, Riku wasn’t done repaying his karmic debt. It was at that moment that the phone on his counter rang. Riku and Sora both jumped, but it was Sora who went sideways, slipping on the bathtub floor, grabbing at Riku. Riku grabbed, instinctively, at the towel rack, and in a spectacular crash, they both wound up tangled in the curtain with the curtain rod lying across their backs and the towel rack in Riku’s hand. The phone was still ringing, so with a sigh, Riku reached up and picked it up.
“Kairi,” Riku said before she could say anything. “I’m declaring today a holiday. It’s officially Go Get Laid Day. Axel’s already celebrating, I was getting ready to celebrate, you need to celebrate. No, it’s not a real holiday, I made it up, but I’m not going into the office today. It’s a day off.”
There was silence for another moment before Kairi laughed, music to Riku’s ears. “Alright,” she said. “You’re the boss, after all. It’s your name on the door. I’ll let you get back to celebrating, then.” There was a click as she hung up, the ghost of her laughter still ringing in his ears.
“Fuck yes, I’m the boss!” Riku exclaimed, practically throwing the phone. Sora stared at him, bewildered amusement on his face before the towel rack went the way of the phone and Riku took advantage of the fact that they were on a horizontal surface and they were naked.
When Riku walked into his office two months later, it was as though nothing and everything had changed. Kairi sat at her desk, French tips on her nails and her hair curled. She smiled when he strode in, and the music that filtered through the speaker system was one of the local stations. Kairi was dating the DJ, after all, they had to be supportive and all that. Demyx’s voice came on as the song faded away, and Riku tuned it out. He turned to wave goodbye at Sora, parked on the street on his motorcycle with his backpack over one shoulder. Sora gave a wave back before heading off to class.
“I recommend knocking before going in,” Kairi said with a nod to Riku’s office door.
Riku sighed and rolled his eyes, hoping Axel and Roxas had at least stayed off of his desk this time. He gave his own door a good hard knock, and listened to the sounds of scrambling and hasty dressing before carefully opening the door. Luckily, no one was naked, though they were a bit disheveled and flushed.
“Seriously,” Riku said, “you can come in later. I don’t need this in my life.”
Roxas blushed even darker while Axel grinned. “We stayed off your desk…” Roxas muttered, glaring at the wall.
“I appreciate that,” Riku said. “But you have an apartment and a car. Office sex can’t be that great.”
“Dude, have you ever tried contorting into the backseat of a Firebird?” Axel asked. “Because the newer models are even smaller, I swear. My other one was bigger.”
Riku covered his eyes. “I really did not need that mental image, please stop talking.”
There was a gentle knock. Riku turned to find Kairi standing the doorway, and just past her, a pair of blonds that Riku recognized, just barely. One was giving Roxas a little wave, a forced smile on his face, while the other looked like he’d have rather eaten his socks before sitting in the chairs in the lobby.
“Seifer Almasy and Hayner Elliott are here to see you,” she said, a little glint in her eye. “They’ve got a case for you.”
“Wonderful,” Riku said, pasting on a little smile.
“Send ‘em in,” Axel said, adjusting his tie. “Let’s get this show on the road.”