Disclaimer: Dark and Riku are not mine. You can bet I want 'em though. Because you know how I'd rearrange the love polyhedron thingy.

Sakura-Angel: Inspired by Constellations by Jack Johnson. I listened to it once, and this idea popped into my head. Written in a night and a morning. I hope you'll enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. Feedback is, as always, appreciated.

Moonrise

Dark walked through the cottage with equal parts pity and disgust. He stirred up clouds of dust and made the boards creak. He made himself sneeze, covered his mouth with his hand, and made himself sneeze again because his hand would have dust on it.

"I know it's not much," she told him the moment they walked in, hauling luggage. "But it really means a lot to me."

"It better," he replied, sniffling already. He was utterly unimpressed. "Because I wouldn't come in here for anything else."

She punched him and scowled. "Only you could insult me and make a small proclaimation of love at the small time."

He ran a finger delicately over the inside of a window. "Yeah, well... that's me. How long has this place gone without being cleaned?"

She dumped the luggage just inside the door. "I'd say about ten years." She looked around, hands on her hips. Why did girls always survey things with that pose?

"No kidding," he said under his breath.

Another punch.

"Hey!"

"I heard that, you know," she told him, a playful look on her face. She leaned him against a kitchen counter, planted a kiss on his lips with ease.

"Don't think you can fix the crap condition of this place with a kiss." He took her face in calmly, so close to his own. "But it makes a nice start."

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Hair back in an elastic, Dark ran a cloth over the inside of a window. (He had bent down to dust a lamp when his hair got in the way, and ended up dusting the lamp with tresses instead. Riku would be teasing for a week.) His eyes glazed over while he rubbed the window mechanically. He couldn't believe Riku roped him into this. He hated the dust and everything, but she was working him to the bone...

The place had two bedrooms, and they were sharing one, so why clean out the other? But Riku insisted. And the fireplace was just bad for the environment, he told her, and why muck up the air out in the countryside? But Riku insisted.

That was it. No self-respecting guy cleaned out his girlfriend's cabin thingy for an entire evening and afternoon. Well, she cleaned too, but it was the principle of the thing!

He moved to the next window. He was going to take a stand. He was going to find her and tell her he couldn't air out sheets anymore or wipe grime from windows...

Wait a second. Wait a second. He scrubbed the bird crap (inside the cottage? He didn't want to know) a little harder, willing this apparition to materialize.

It was Riku! She was sitting outside on the porch swing doing no work! What was this? What injustice!

He washed his hands, yanked the stupid hairtie from his hair and was out the door in a second.

His footsteps were loud in the evening air. "What are you doing?" He hadn't planned on sounding not-so-accusatory.

She turned to look at him, and in that second he felt something was different. Wrong, maybe. He was instantly protective of her.

"Hi."

"Hey. What's up?" He sat next to her, leaning forward so he could see her face.

"Nothing. Watching the stars appear."

He leaned back into the beat-up cushioning. "Is that all? I thought something was wrong with you."

She physically turned so she could face him. She propped her elbow up on the railing that ran behind them. "Did something look wrong with me?"

He got a sly look on his face. "Well, you weren't cleaning... so I thought that maybe something of yours was broken..."

"Oh, come off it, Dark. I gave you the easy stuff."

"That doesn't explain why you weren't cleaning. Something of yours is broken, isn't it? A rib maybe?" He reached over to her side and nudged it, knowing it would tickle. "It's hurt, isn't it? I'll test it for ya."

"No, no," she jumped at his touch, much like when they first started going out. "No! You know I hate being tickled!" she shrieked, scared and delighted. She fell back on the swing, exposing her bare stomach.

"Oh, this stomach! I love this stomach..." His fingers flicked over her skin, and she tensed, laughing harder and harder.

"Stop... s-stoooop!" she said between laughs, trying not to kick him anywhere deadly.

He stopped, knowing that if she laughed any harder she'd probably have trouble breathing. He collapsed back against the padding of the swing, and was glad when Riku collapsed against him.

She hiccuped, an unwelcome consequence of his tickle fits. "I hate you," she told him, her head in his lap. She shifted a little, getting comfortable.

He ran his fingers through her hair reflexively. "And I... love you."

"Oh, Dark..." she said softly. She looked up at him, so he stole another kiss.

"I know, I'm the sweetest thing to hit the planet." He grinned down at her grinning up at him. "You want to stay and watch more stars appear?"

"Mmm," she agreed. The low hum of her voice warmed him somewhere in the chest. "And the moonrise."

He smiled at her, glad she could still surprise him. "I didn't know you loved the night so much."

"What's not to love?" She rose from her position to lean on his shoulder. "The night is calm, peaceful. It's beautiful and simple. It gives you room to think. And if you don't want to think, there's plenty you can do with the sky to distract you." She lifted her hand to the approaching dark, like a girl in a movie.

"Distractions," he repeated. He tipped his head to the right a bit, leaning on Riku's head for support. "Distractions like what?"

"Like," she sighed happily, "Drawing your own constellations."

His smiled more at this. "You're a creative one," he chided. (His stick figurines whooped hers. They really did.)

She chose to ignore this, and stuck her finger out. "Like this one." Her finger traced the outline of a flower on the sky. "Risa made that one."

There were so many stars out by now that he could hardly follow which stars she meant to connect, but they gleamed a bit brighter than the others. He picked them out, slowly. "Show me something you made."

She turned to face a familiar part of the sky, so part of her back was against him. He lifted his arm, draping it over her collarbone, and turned his head the slightest bit so he could watch her.

"There," she said, and found her guiding star. "Look." She lifted her other hand to turn Dark's head, touching the soft skin of his jaw.

His eyes followed her finger, tracing a crude outline of an instrument.

"A violin?"

She laughed a short laugh. "Even Risa didn't get that one."

"Most people wouldn't. Only weird people draw violins in the sky," he teased. He hugged her harder, and loved her more for this quirk.

"I was a weird kid," she conceded, smiling up at the sky.

"Lucky for me," he bent over to align his mouth with her ear. "Because I love the weird ones."

Something about the way he said it gave her chills along her spine. She shifted her hands from his jaw to his shoulder, silently telling him to stay bent over.

So he did. He stayed bent over her while her hand rose to grip his arm, still over her collarbone. They drew more of their own constellations, each more impossible than the last. They added and subtracted stars, perfecting sailboats and birds and more violins.

"'Ku. The moon." He nodded its way.

It glowed brightly against the fabric of the sky, a tiny curve missing from its side. It was all she said, beautiful and simple. It illuminated the night just the right amount - so that he could make out the tips of the blades of grass blowing in the breeze, and the familiar profile of her face.

Her grip on his arm tightened, then loosened. "Isn't it beautiful?"

He swayed them a little. "Yes."

Silence followed. He thought of nothing, and traced his patterns on the sky, connecting the stars. She had migrated so her legs were in his lap, her arms looped around his neck. He managed to put the swing to good use, and rocked them gently back and forth.

A whine came from her throat, and she buried her face in his chest. "I don't want to go back inside and clean."

He laughed, the sound echoing out to the horizon. "Then don't."

"It has to get clean sometime..." her protest was weak.

His eyes moved from the sky back to her. "Let's watch the sunrise."

She breathed out and looked up at him. A grin came to her face. "I'd like that."

So they stayed up until dawn, laughing and kissing and falling asleep by mistake until the morning chorus sung.