Scribosaurus Recs! - Kingdom Hearts (Cloud/Riku)
Thaw by Coyo
Baby, it's cold outside.
(Cloud/Riku)
Rec!view: It’s rich as royalty, it’s deep without being purple, it’s multifaceted and poignant, it’s beautifully characterised - words are not enough to communicate just how much I got out of this fic on so many levels, even though I didn’t like the pairing. The fact that it’s only hinted at in the vaguest of ways at the very end makes this practically gen, in my eyes, so don’t go in expecting racy yaoi because it ain’t there. This is a character piece focussing on a Winter day in Radiant Garden, following Cloud about as he moves through his daily routine, only to find it interrupted by Sora, Riku and Kairi playing in what their paradisiacal (yes, that is a real word, for once I’m not making stuff up) Destiny Islands can never provide - snow. Since there are such gaps in canon about KH Cloud a lot of his character and history can be left up to conjecture, but his thoughts here never once struck me as anomalous or out of place. His dynamic with the rest of his ‘team’, his observations of the new heroes who have risen to take his place, the descriptions of how he lives from day to day outside of battles - everything just sounds right for him. An eye-opener and one you should definitely read.
Excerpt:
Yuffie fell asleep on the computer three nights in a row, and Leon got brought back one day on a stretcher and still glaring murder, and by the time their fearless leader's body managed to whip up enough blood to let him sit up without passing out--when he didn't need to be watched so he wouldn't sit up--they'd all practically moved in anyway. Cloud wasn't sure if the others remembered or had ever known, but this little wing used to belong to a group of knights that lived together, fought together, forswore everything but sacred duty and each other. Those knights were all gone now, dead, but the long hall of doors, the huge, friendly room at the bottom of the stairs, was still being shared, the oath still kept.