We Sleep Forever, a kingdom hearts fanfic

We'll Sleep Forever

By: Etern

Disclaimer: I do not own Kingdom Hearts or the song "We Sleep Forever" by Aiden.

I was in a very depressed mood so this was spawned from it. It's the longest oneshot I've ever really written for this website, so enjoy. The song's lyrics are in italics and they are not in order, but are just sort of placed in there to fit the setting, mood, etc. Please enjoy, and listen to the song!

So take this sadness and close your eyes love—

Sometimes, in the dead of the night he awakens to see bright yellow eyes glaring back at him. Sometimes in the dead of the night, under those yellow eyes, he can not help but break down into sobs. He knows that they are not really there, but that does not matter—what really matters is that they are there at all.

It's been four months now, and still every night he awakens to this. There is a scream sitting in the back of his throat, but it never escapes him; he forces it down into a sob instead. Is it any better than a scream? Not really. Screaming would probably be better at letting so many of his fucked up emotions out, but he can't risk his parents, sleeping blissfully unaware just down the hall, hearing him.

He already suspects that they suspect something. He looks dead almost every morning, unable to fall back to sleep under the glare of those yellow eyes. Or are they gold? They are the eyes of his own personal devil.

He can only really sleep in class, but rarely does. He does not want to worry his friends, especially his best one. His best friend who, even after four months, continually treats him like spun glass. He hates it sometimes, he really does. Other times he is actually sort of grateful that the other rarely leaves him alone. He is so tired of being alone and frankly, he's afraid to be alone.

As soon as the sun starts to set he has fear in his chest, holding it down. Something in his heart turns over, every night. He sleeps with his light on, but sometime during the night it is turned off by his mother, or an unseen hand. And he awakens to the darkness again.

He awakens to those yellow eyes, that smug smile, and the grief hisses through him like air in a dying lung. The sobs and silent screams are only to be expected. Lying still staring at the ceiling to avoid those eyes is expected also.

Four months. No one knows. They have a clue, but they do not know it all. They can't, they never will.

Sometimes, when Riku awakens, he wishes that he simply couldn't at all.

Oh, we'll sleep forever.

The days add up; or should he say the nights? They pass in a blur of pain. It is only a matter of time now, he thinks, staring at his dull reflection. His eyes sunken in, skin ashen. And his eyes—they are haunted, the aqua depths. But all he can see is yellow within their depths, the pale skin a deep shade, like it has been burned brown. The tear fall silent into the sink below, and he grabs his head.

He is dizzy. The world spins. His heart lifts and falls, lifts and falls. Is he…dying? The man in the mirror laughs back at him, and he flees from the bathroom. He has to get back to class, to society, to life. Yellow eyes stare back at him every time he blinks, and the world tilts dangerously as he takes his seat in the back of the class.

Next to him, he does not see blue eyes watching his every more intently. He only sees the black board in front of him, the white on it—words he suddenly can not understand, can not see—falling away until there is just the black board. Black. Inside his head, he screams. He grips his pencil harder; the blue eyes watch all the while.

The board is a void, an abyss. What was the word? He wants to put his head down, but he can not move. He can not do anything anymore. The black is drawing him in. What was that word?

The pencil snaps in his hand. He feels his body suddenly give out, feels himself falling. A familiar feeling. All the while, there is just the board, just darkness. And suddenly he remembers that word…

Muted screams, blue eyes filling with tears even as the darkness eats him alive, the yellow eyes wait and smile and burn, fucking burn.

Oblivion…

Hey call the angels.

He awakens to find his mother sobbing by his bedside and the beeping of an obnoxious machine in his right ear.

"Where am I?"he asks, and his mother, eyes red with tears that would no longer fall, stares at him.

"The hospital. You fainted from exhaustion. Why didn't you tell me you haven't been sleeping?"

He looks away from her look, that look that makes guilt squirm in his gut. He does not need this, any of this. He has to act fine, and this is ruining it for him.

He tells her that he's okay, that they should release him, and she does not answer. She only keeps staring, as though she can try to understand the man her boy has become.

"What happened to you while you were away?"

The heart machine spikes sharply, a loud beep that sounds like a slap. He turns his face into the stiff hospital pillow. He has only one answer.

"Nothing mom, I'm fine. Please…leave."

He has said that so much over the past four months that it is engraved on the tip of his tongue. This time his mother tries not to obey. She needs to understand the impossible.

"God no, no I won't! Tell me, Riku…Y-You're my son damn you! Tell me what's bothering you!"

For just a moment he wants to. He can hear the tears in her voice, and they drown him. He wants to tell her, but he knows he can't. He wants to tell her, but it is too much. He closes his eyes and replies into the darkness behind the lids the same damn reply.

"Nothing. I'm fine. Just leave."

Somewhere far off he hears laughter. He tastes blood and bile as he bites down on his tongue. The pain is a distraction as she obeys him, unable to resist her broken son's pleas. Too many people have told her to give him time, and so she will. She will give him all the time he needs until he ends up in his grave. Sometimes she can not help but think of that, like now, as she quietly closes the door and leans against it, sobbing. Through it, the thin walls, he can hear her, and closes his eyes tighter.

He wishes he were nothing again and the heart machine begins to slow.

He doesn't want tears, or sympathy, or pity. He wants…a life. He wants…

His door opens again. He does not open his eyes. There are soft footsteps, and he is reminded of Namine, approaching him in all those white rooms, telling him it is okay. But that can never be again, he knows, and the knife twists in his chest.

The footsteps stop, and he flinches. He can not open his eyes now, even if he tries. He wants them to think that he is asleep, like a child hiding under his blankets from a monster, but he knows they won't believe that. He is too tense, he is breathing ragged. He nearly jumps at the feeling of a delicate hand sliding over his own, and it is so warm that he feels his eyelids flicker, the heart monitor speeding up once again.

In a whisper he hears his voice, and all the air gets caught in his chest.

"Riku…"

Sora…

He is here, with him, hand over his own. Against his own wishes his eyes, haunted, tainted in ways only he can see, open and immediately meet electrifying blue ones again. The same eyes he had seen when he was falling; the same eyes he saw lifeless in his nightmares that awoke him every night. He shudders violently, and only notices when the little hand latched on top of his tightens until he can actually feel it.

Its warmth burns him, and in the back of his eyes something starts to burn. He can not bear that sight of him, this pure hearted boy, this hero, his best friend. He can not bear the sight of him, because so many tender feelings are threatening to kill him. He can not afford to be soft, not now, not anymore.

With the greatest difficulty, he tears his eyes away from those bright, sad blue ones to stare off to the side, at the white walls, at the red line that is his heartbeat. Proof of existence he thinks, and blinks back the start of the tears.

"Sora, I want to be alone."

It's the truth, for the most part. He does not have to look at Sora to know that the younger boy, in all his innocence, in all the wisdom he has too much of for his age, is studying him, staring at him. Worrying for him. At his side his hand clutches the white hospital sheet convulsively as he tries to move his other hand out from underneath Sora's warm one. The other boy will not let it go, only holds it tighter until it almost hurts. Riku says nothing at all.

"No, you don't. You need someone, Riku. You need someone, you aren't that strong."

Months ago, years ago, Riku would have been offended by this. He had always thought he was strong enough, had always thought that there was only him, and he was invincible when he wanted to be. Experience however, was quick to prove him wrong. When he had been fighting for so long in the darkness he had lost, and he had lost himself with that fight. From that, he had learned simply that he was so painfully mortal and that, above everything else, he really did need someone, anyone. Or more importantly, he needed his best friend, the person he fought so hard for in the first place, and the person who had with a shining key reminded him that he really wasn't invincible, only mortal.

He'd be lying if he said that he didn't hate him for that a little.

And he really did need him now, perhaps the only person who understands, who had the capacity to actually see, because he was the first one to know all along.

He wanted to tell him, wanted to cry on his shoulder, wanted to hold that warm hand again and gaze into those blue eyes until he forgot everything, but he couldn't.

Fear held him back. Yellow eyes pinned him down. What would he think? He thinks desperately to himself, and his breathing grows shallow. He would never look at him the same way again, would he? Things would never be the same between them…

And already too many things were different for him. He could not stand to lose Sora, he could not stand to watch his face curl in disgust, or fear, or pity, all for him.

He…loved him too much for that. He's too selfish when it comes to Sora, his only light. He needs him, but he does not need him to be afraid of him.

So he forces on a smile and looks back to him, eyes blank, soul crying, and those blue eyes are shining just for him, unshed tears, hidden emotions. He tastes blood again as he opens his mouth.

"You're right, Sora, I'm not that strong but…I can handle this on my own. It's not like you can really help me anyway. I have to get over this myself, ok? Just…worry about yourself. I just have nightmares, that's all. I just have nightmares, it's nothing."

It's everything. His voice does not tell Sora that, but his eyes do, little flecks of pain among the dead aqua. Sora trembles with rage and his own pain, and his normally jovial face is twisted in a frightening scowl.

"Don't you dare lie to me Riku! Dammit, I have nightmares too, I know how you feel! But…you're haunted, I can tell. There are more than just nightmares plaguing you, I can see that. I can see you Riku; you're no longer hidden by the darkness."

He suddenly wants to hit Sora for that, irrational anger pulling on him as though trying to dismember him. He has not felt this angry in so long, that it almost feels good. He has not felt this much feeling in so long that for a moment he can understand the heart machine at his bedside, and actually hear his heartbeats in his chest instead of through some artificial beep. He does not even know why he's so angry, but those blue eyes taunt him, that scowling face reminds him so much of the past, when they were on opposite sides of the door. The betrayal, the mixed emotions, the agony of separation, the insisting, the nagging, the kind looks, the understanding—

The understanding…

"I fucking know that Sora! I can fucking see that! I'm not hidden by the darkness, but that doesn't mean that it's gone, now does it? Get a clue Sora, get fucking real! The darkness does not just fade away with time; it doesn't just stop when you tell it to! It spills over, overflows, consumes you! You can't know that though, can you Sora? You've never had to suffer in it, feel it! You've always had that god forsaken light, and your holier than goddamn art thou attitude! You can't…understand damn you! You can't! You can't! You can't!"

The heart monitor is going wild, Sora is backing away. Those blue eyes are wide, swimming, and Riku howls in his face, body taunt as he sits up in bed full of the energy of anger, the energy of pain.

Riku does not listen to his words, only says them. Even when he is done and there is a deadly silence the words echo infinitely, severing the ties that were already loosened between them one by fucking one. Blue eyes are burning, aqua eyes are flashing. This was the real final battle, wasn't it?

The hand on top of his was slowly sliding away, and he is so cold again. But he says nothing, he does nothing. There is a burning in his chest, a pain that is nearly unbearable as he stares into Sora's stormy eyes, and he wants to apologize, god he wants to, he wants to take him into his arms and never let him go. But he no longer can, not now, and, he suspects, not ever again.

He has to look away from those eyes and stare back at that white wall, at that machine that speaks for him in sounds that are not his own. He is heartless, especially now. Sora's ragged breathing fills up the space between them and it is worse than screams.

A part of Riku wants Sora to yell back at him. No one yells at him anymore. They all pity him too much, he knows, and believe that yelling at him will set him back. Yelling is really all he needs. Vivid emotions, to make him feel real again. He thought that Sora, perfect Sora, could give him that. The silence is proving otherwise.

He can not say that the silence lasted endlessly, he knew better by now, but it lasted too long to be comfortable, and to long for anything at all to be taken back. Not that Riku could take them back, even if he wanted to. What had been building for too long had been said, and it's Sora's turn to relax.

Riku is not surprised when without a word he leaves. He knows Sora, he knows that he is still young, he is still innocent. After all, he has always been in the light; he can not possibly understand what Riku means. He leaves it at that.

Vaguely, as the nurses come in to check on him, his only other visitors, he wonders if he has just lost his best friend.

But he knows that that is impossible since he had already lost Sora, what seems like years ago. He had already lost him, and there is no way, he thinks as he is sedated, as his heart monitor is checked, that he can ever get him back.

He falls into a dreamless, drug induced sleep with the image of Kairi holding Sora in his eyes, and feels nothing.

He is past that now.

That clairvoyant stare and grin,

God won't forgive me for this I know

He is at home, in his bed once again. It is the night again, like always. They had asked him to stay at the hospital for observation, but he had vehemently declined even as his parents agreed. They had argued. He had not raised his voice. They gave in. they did not understand, but in a way he knew that they didn't want to.

He wouldn't want to know either.

The clock is red in the dark, numbers ticking away. The countdown to his greatest fears. He watches it with blank eyes, waiting to them to start burning until he has to close them, until he slips into a faint that would not last.

Time is slowing. Two hours into the morning is as far as he makes it tonight as he starts to slip away. It is a shame, really. Before he could make it till almost sunrise, and then he'd be safe. But that felt like long ago.

Of course everything is waiting behind his eyes.

They're all just nightmares…

But they weren't, they simply weren't.

They were visions of what could have been.

Xemnas, cackling wildly as from Sora's chest blood bloomed, sickly red, staining his shirt, his outfit, Riku's eyes. Blue eyes full of pain and love as they train on him, mouth moving in a voiceless whisper as blood slides out from his parted lips. It is the end of Riku's own life as Sora's body hits the floor, lifeless and oh so angelic in death, face turned up to the light. He is still screaming as the scene shifts.

He stands facing him, that demon who had started it all. Xehanort stares down at him, and the blood goes cold in his veins. He wants to run, but he knows he can't; just with his eyes this twisted madman has him right where he wants him. And he's not letting him go anytime soon. Not so long as Riku still has a heartbeat, he's sure.

They do little more than stare at one another, but it's enough. It's enough to be reminded of all he has done, and how he can no longer change it. It's the perfect reminder to just how close he is to the edge.

There are no words said between them, ever, just thoughts, just memories. Just thoughts of dark power, and how easily seducible it can be. How easily he had fallen into that trap.

And how now, it felt like he could never escape it.

You can't, the creator of the darkness always whispers, even as in his mind he struggles. You can't, so don't fight it. Give in to it. What is there to give you light anyway?

Images of Sora asleep in a castle of white, hidden from him, of Kairi, nearly lifeless as she waits on a heart that will never come. The Destiny Islands, nothing but a void in the distance, trying to swallow him up, trap him. A prison surrounded by water. The heart seeking freedom, adventure, something more, something less.

The light is constant, the light never changes. Is that really what you want? The voice laughed. Somewhere far off, he can hear Sora screaming his name. But he can not look away from the burning eyes that are slowly, casually, so damn casually, lighting him on fire. More and more the flames awaken with his words.

But the darkness… the darkness has so much more to offer you. I have so much more to offer you… Look at your friends, look at Sora—they all see the darkness as a curse but you…you can be different, Riku. You're like me, you know…

An outfit of darkness; standing a top a towering building, waiting to jump, the ground so far away. Can he make it, he thinks. Can he even try? He is trembling, the gold eyes are laughing. There are so many things trying to push him over the edge, but he can't move. He can't move, because he's paralyzed by memories in the sun, of laughter and races and sword fights that never really mattered. How long as it been? He can not seem to remember. Does he want to?

The memories of laughter or what chase him over the edge. Or actually, they push him. He does not move at all. He barely even blinks as the ground rushes up to meet him.

The end, he thinks, and sees the bodies of everyone he has ever known, ever loved. Sora is all he ever sees, Way to the Dawn shutting his great blue eyes. Murdering the sky. He is bringing the world down with him.

He screams and moves for the first time only after he has hit the ground.

They're all just nightmares…

He expects to see the darkness of his room. It presses in all around him as he flies up on his bed, gasping for the breath it feels he has been deprived of. He feels as though he has not breathed in years. And perhaps, he thinks, as his eyes flutter open, he really hasn't. Maybe he is still breathing in only darkness.

At the end of his bed there should have been golden eyes peering back at him, paired with a sinister smile. It is an image he has grown used to, a reminder that it was always more than a nightmare that no one understood.

But there is only blue peering back at him. The same blue who had made him always jump from that building, from every damn thing, in the first place. Blue eyes that were unblinking, undeterred, and oh so damn beautiful when they met his.

Even in his shock, a whisper managed to escape Riku's lips.

"S-Sora…? What…?"

It was inconceivable that he is there, right here, in his room, at the foot of his bed. Riku thinks that he is still dreaming. Sora…couldn't be here, not after what he had said to him earlier, all those things he could not will himself to regret. He just…couldn't be…

But he was. He was there, at the foot of his bed sitting there, casually, as though he had been there for awhile. And his unblinking eyes, swirling with so many things that in the dark Riku can not understand, tells him that he had been. That Sora had, in fact, seen it all.

He is suddenly sick to his stomach.

"Sora," he gasps, like a man dying for air, "what the hell are you doing here?"

He does not mean to sound rude, or angry. He just wants to understand. Sora is not offended. If anything, he seemed to have expected Riku's tone, Riku's question. Unblinking, nearly smoldering eyes of blue still latched on to his best friend's as he merely slips off the end of Riku's bed and walks, so silently that it seems like a dream, to Riku's side, so that he towers over him, stares down at him.

Riku can not repress his shivers.

"What do you think I'm doing here?"

Sora's voice is like a slap to the face, that fatal dose of reality that Riku has needed for so long now, but now no longer wants. Not if it is Sora bringing reality back. Anyone but Sora…

"You need me, Riku, admit it… You need me…"

Shivering. He is shivering now. Sora is leaning down, closer. Those blue eyes are eating him, ripping him to shreds. And he can not look away. This is a different kind of power. It is not against his will. Or is it? He can no longer tell. He can only let Sora trap him with those blue eyes, with the power the opposite of everything he held…

"You need the light, Ri-ku…"

Opposites…attracted. When lips fell on his, when those bright blue eyes slid closed right in front of his own eyes, he all but lost it. It felt as though somehow, as those lips moved against his, that he was alive again, even as he didn't move. Even as he was shocked immobile, even as Sora pressed closer to him, small warm hands wrapping around his neck in an unbreakable embrace, he felt so…alive.

Beneath layers of pain, beneath so much inner torture, Riku felt his heart, under Sora's soft, urgent lips, beat again. Alive. He is breathing.

As Sora pulls away, as Riku watches those long lashes flutter over those eyes of the sky, he is breathing, his chest is twisting, and blue is all he can see. Suddenly, the nightmares, the exhaustion, the pain, Xehanort, the darkness, the light—none of it mattered. In Sora's arms he was breathing, alive, there, just there, and it is all he can do to lean in again, with a muffled sob, and take those lips that are offered to him again and again.

He loses himself in the taste, the feel, everything that is Sora. And he is falling in an entirely different way. The lines of the dark, the light, no longer clearly defined as Sora opens his mouth for Riku to take possession of, all lost in the battle between their tongues, all forgotten in the hands that roamed frantically over one another's body.

It is all either has ever needed.

As Riku begins to plant furious kisses along Sora's throat, his shoulders, everywhere he can reach, he forgets everything. He forgets nothing, oblivion, the sinister smiles, the heavy weight at the back of his heart.

All he can recall now is hearing Sora mumble his name with his voice heavy with lust.

All he can recall now is Sora's hands, raking up his back, all but ripping his shirt off of him to feel his flesh. So very pale, so very cold.

All he can recall is Sora's lips on his, Sora under him, Sora touching him, Sora with him in his shadowed room, pressed against his racing heart—

Sora…Your best friend… The boy you betr—

It is amazing how susceptible the heart is to change; it is almost amazing how quickly the mind changes, processes, ruins.

One moment he is kissing the young boy for all that he is worth, pressing closer, h god closer, and the next he is all but pushing himself across the room, stumbling back into his dresser where his arm hits a few items, and they fall to the ground with a faint clatter.

Sora, from his bed simply lays there for a moment, trying to understand why Riku is no longer on top of him, why Riku's lips are no longer on his.

Their pants for breath fill up the silence and create a resonance in the darkness.

Slowly, Sora sits up, still fighting for breath, lips kiss swollen. Riku does not look at him. He can't. He wonders if he ever can again.

He had just kissed his beat friend—he had just tried to…

He swallows and fights back so many feelings of shame and guilt. He is struggling yet again to breathe. It feels as though his ribs have all cracked open.

From the bed, Sora whimpers.

"Riku…? R-Riku what…is it?"

What is it? The laughter is unstoppable. It is wild laughter, the laughter of the dark side, the laughter of who still resided deep within him. The laughter of who he felt like he was now.

"What is it, Sora?"He replies, voice raspy, body hunched. It is as though he is caving in on himself. "It is too much, that's what. Too…much."

He hears Sora get up, hears hose quiet footsteps again, just like back at the hospital. He does not look up from the floor.

"Riku…Look at me. Please, tell me what's wrong. I have to help you!"Sora's cry seems to startle them both. Riku feels his body grow warm as Sora grabs his arm, making his body tingle. He hates him for it. He hates himself even more for refusing to pull away.

"Sora, don't get involved with me."It is as simple as he can say it. Sora should know this by now and yet in a whisper, so faintly, he says it anyway. "I'll hurt you."

He has done it before, so many times. Intentionally and unintentionally. They both know this, and the air around them grows tighter and tighter. He hears Sora inhale sharply, feels the hand on his arm tighten to an almost bruising grip. He says nothing, knowing that Sora will speak. Knowing what Sora will say.

"Riku", his voice is low, "if you're worried about hurting me, don't be. I think I've fucking proved that I can handle myself. And if this is for before you know damn well that I've already forgiven you, repeatedly. Stop this now. What's really wrong? I can understand if you don't…like me as more than friends…"

He could only shake his head once, sharply, as he wrenched himself from Sora's grasp, stumbling back into his dresser again. He hardly even notices; his eyes are welded shut as his face contorts. There are so many feelings…

There is something rising. Something boiling over.

Go deeper, I feel it

Oh god oh god oh god, his heart weeps. His heart breaks… Oh god, what has he—what have—

"Goddammit Sora! Can't you see?! Can't you tell?!"

It is simply too much. Exhaustion, nightmares, best friends, lovers, kisses, betrayals, the island, a home that never was, what could have been, what should have been—

Sora barely flinches when Riku grabs his arms. Those blue eyes only continue to stare into eyes that seem to now glow yellow.

"Don't you see yet?" Riku shouts into his face, into the sky that is Sora's eyes. "I'm not the same person you know! I'm a fucking stranger! I'm tainted, possessed, haunted! He's still inside of me, it isn't over! There's still so much darkness, so much darkness I can't see myself! I can't see anything! I can't—"

Fighting for redemption

I know little pain a little lust

Lips slam together roughly, Sora gasping into the abrupt kiss before Riku pulls back just as quickly, eyes dark, eyes dark with tears—

"I can't feel anything, ever! I'm barely here! I'm barely even a person anymore! I just…"

Those perfect blue eyes stare up at him, that face that has haunted his dreams for so long now, asleep and awake, on his side and against it, turned to him, so innocent, so lovely—

"You're too…light for me. You're too good…"

He does not know he is sobbing, actually sobbing, until he is done. He is gasping for breath, clutching at his chest with one hand and holding onto Sora's with the other. All the strength has abandoned him and shaking he falls in to a pitiful heap on the ground.

Sora catches him in his arms, those slim but strong arms, arms that have saved so many lives, so many worlds, and falls down with him.

Sora does not let Riku go, even as he struggles before the exhaustion kicks in and he goes limp, the tears fall freely. The sobs are the only things that move his body steadily, rocking it, wracking through him and splintering him apart. Sora's arms are his only reality as he falls into the despair that for weeks, months, he has been fighting.

They are both silent.

Hold on, hold on tonight love

Sora's arms are tight around him as Riku, mind blurred, heart already ripped wide open, leans against him. As he relies on Sora for strength, like always. Why had he never noticed that before? Sora was strong, Sora could take his weight.

But what about his pain?

There are reassurances in his ear, and once in awhile he feels warm lips coast over his bent head, his slumped, defeated shoulder. He clings to all of it.

"Riku, it's…it's alright now. I won't let the darkness take you, ever again. Believe me, ok? It won't. It fucking won't. I promise."

Sora says it all in a tone that is laced like poison with determination, with such ferocity that Riku almost believed him. God did he want to believe him.

"S-Sora…"

"I promised I'd give you the light, and I swear I will. We'll go together, ok? Just like before, always together Ri-ku…"

He feels a hand on his chin, tilting his head up. He can no longer find it within himself to resist, even if it hurts them both in the end. Even if the dark laughter wants to spill from his lips again. He can not find it within himself.

Sora's eyes are swimming with tears as Riku gazes back into them, and when he blinks those tears slide down his cheek. They are perfect crystals; perfectly pure. Riku feels his tears fall faster as lips meet his, over and over and over again, muffling his broken sobs.

"I'll give you all the light I can Riku…" Sora mutters against his lips, holding Riku's face up. His other hand snakes in between them, trembling, to find the other boy's heaving chest. Beneath his hand, there is an erratic heartbeat. Erratic, but still strong.

"I'll give my heart to you, and hope that it will be enough."

Now take this sadness and close your eyes love

The dawn is breaking outside the window. The night hours are a blur. In Sora's arms, so warm, so secure, Riku has let himself drift off. The tears have dried on his face.

His heartbeat is a slow rhythm in his chest, matching that of the boy who was supporting him, loving him, giving him all that for too long he has been depriving himself. The shadows have receded beneath his eyes; there are no wicked light eyes, only soft blue ones offering him more than he has ever dreamt. Not that he even dreamt of such things at all.

Close your eyes

Sora stays with him all day, watching him sleep, protecting him. Every time his eye so much as twitches, every time he begins to frown or his face creases, he leans down and kisses all his doubt away. He kisses him, and even in his sleep Riku responds. Even in his sleep Riku clings to him and the light he is guiding him with. It may not be enough light actually; it may not even be light at all.

And yet still it was Sora, and that was enough for Riku. That is enough for selfish Riku. That is enough for lost Riku.

Sometimes, in the dead of night now he awakens to find blue eyes smiling back at him, and all fears and lies melt away. He knows that he has found strength again.

We'll sleep forever

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