-1Yay! Sequel to Abscond! Probably not the last of whatever un named arc I'm doing, but getting close to the end. This one's LR.

WARNINGS: Yaoi, slight language, and people getting completely drunk.

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Kingdom Hearts.

Purple Rose

It's dancing in a crowded place like no one can see you, and singing like no one can hear you.

It's being a purple rose in a field of yellow daisies.

Leon eyes followed Riku as the boy walked ahead of him, slinking through the crowd.

"Hurry up Squall," the boy complained, reaching back and tugging on the older man's arm. Leon glared at him, but he didn't do anything. He could never do anything with Riku. No matter how grown up the teenager seemed, he was still like a little kid, lunging at any new experience like a little boy lunged at candy.

Leon had never regretted coming after Riku when he heard the boys following him. He hated small towns like this, where people couldn't accept anything. Riku had once told him that he was the only gay guy in the town, now that Sora had moved.

Leon had snorted and told him that many people must still be in denial then. And no, denial wasn't just a river in Egypt.

Leon's eyes followed Riku's hips as he moved through the crowd. Last week had been Riku's eighteenth birthday. That meant that he could now drink, smoke, buy a gun, join the military, or, more importantly, legally have sex.

If Leon were a person with less control over his emotions, he might have wept in joy, but as it was, he settled for watching Riku every opportunity he got. He didn't want to rush his boyfriend, but god, it had been so long since he'd gotten any.

Boyfriend. Leon disliked the word. It sounded very, well, for lack of a better word, gay. Leon was never one who went for titles anyways. To him, he was still Leon, and Riku was still Riku. They were just together.

"We're almost there," Riku smiled at him, his eyes sparkling with hidden delight. Riku's birthday fell right before finals started, and Leon really shouldn't have taken an entire day out of his schedule to keep the kid comfortable, but he couldn't help it.

Flunking finals was something he could do twice a year, but Riku's eighteenth birthday only came once.

Then Riku pulled Leon into Destiny Island's first and only night club, The Secret Place. Supposedly, it was built over a system of caves that had 'mystical properties.' Yeah, and the smelly, disgusting Paopu fruit really bound people together.

"A club?" Leon asked, and Riku nodded, tilting his head up to look at Squall.

"You're not complaining, are you? You said that since it's my birthday we could go where I wanted." Riku had a point there. Every time they went out somewhere, Leon chose the place. Riku thought that it was some sort of alpha male thing, and that Leon was laying down his dominance by choosing for Riku. Leon then decided that Riku should stop taking Psychology at that odd school of his.

After the bouncer checked their ID's, Leon and Riku headed into the club. Leon smelled the alcohol and smoke immediately, and cringed. This was like any other bar, where people went to get drunk and high and have meaningless on night stands. It was a place of fake dreams and lost hopes.

Suddenly, he felt a familiar hand slip through his, interlocking their fingers. Riku was tense from what Leon figured could only be repressed excitement. After all, this was Riku's first time here. To him, this smelly, dingy old bar was like Disney World, and the alcohol would be like getting King Mickey's signature, or something you couldn't leave without.

Leon sincerely hoped that Riku wasn't as addicted to alcohol as he was to Mickey Mouse.

A few people gave them odd looks, but for the most part, everyone was just too drunk too care, or, at least, too drunk to notice. Either way, it benefited him and his younger counterpart.

"Leon, dance with me?" Riku asked. Leon looked at him like he was crazy. They were on Destiny Islands. Most of the people here had never heard of gay people, much less watched them bump and grind on the dance floor. To Leon, it seemed as if Riku was walking up to a giant Grizzly bear covered in steak sauce. He might as well just say, 'hey, kill me now.'

Before Leon could open his mouth to say no, Riku had pulled him out onto the dance floor. The lights flashed every which way, casting Riku's hair in a myriad of colors, like an ever changing rainbow. Smirking as a faster song picked up, Riku positioned Leon's hands at his hips, pressing his the back of his body into Leon and wrapped his arms around the older man's neck, grabbing his hair gently.

Confidently, he started moving against Leon, ignoring the stares people shot him, and the disgusted snorts as people walked off the dance floor. Leon looked around, worried that some drunken idiot might have a shotgun or something, but suddenly, Riku pressed further against him, pinking up his pace and drawing Leon's attention to the wonderful friction between them.

Riku was eighteen now…

Gripping his hair, Riku leaned up to Leon and smirked at him. "Close your eyes and pretend like no one's watching," he told his boyfriend. Leon looked at him skeptically, but a sharp tug reminded him of just who he was dealing with.

Allowing his eyes to flutter close, Leon focused only on Riku. He could smell Riku's shampoo, a rich vanilla, and Riku's own personal scent, like the ocean. He could hear Riku's shallow breathing in his ears, fast and erratic, much like the boy himself. He could feel his hands on Riku's hips, the friction between them making him hot, burning him up like a raging inferno of emotion, all catalogued in stored in one convenient package called Riku. And then he could taste Riku's lips on his own, and after all, wasn't that all that mattered?

Opening his eyes slowly, gray blue met green, and Leon smiled.

"Squall," Riku began, and even though the music was pumping through the room, almost bursting his eardrums, and Riku was whispering, he could still hear him.

"I love you," Riku smiled, and Leon paused for a second. Maybe it was the lighting, or the after affects of whatever drugs were going around this place, but Leon felt, for once in his life, completely happy.

"I love you too," he replied, planting a sloppy kiss on Riku's cheek.

This was life. It wasn't perfect, and it wasn't miserable. It was getting by in a world where not everyone's your friend, and never having the opportunities you wanted but making due anyways. It was missing the sunset just to stay up and watch the sunrise, and getting drunk just to feel the hangover in the morning.

It was falling in love, and getting your heart broken, but falling in love again anyways, because it's better to have loved and lost is better than never loving at all.

It was listening to the Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears on your iPod, and denying it all the way.

It was taking the path less traveled, if only because you were the one that chose it, and not the next guy in line, and it was eating vanilla choco mocha sundaes with blueberries and pecans on top just to say you did it and survived, because what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

It was failing tests and not caring, and Acing your calculus test and rising up on cloud nine. It was eating dark chocolate ice cream in the middle of the night during January, and wishing you could fly, but never doing so, because the view from down here was so much more beautiful once you took off your rose colored glasses.

Life is dancing as if no one could see you, singing as if no one could here you.

Life is having the courage to be that odd purple rose in the middle of a field of yellow daisies.

And that night, Leon watched as Riku got dead drunk, and he carried him home humming some pop star song he had never really paid attention to. And then when Riku threw up into his toilet seat in the morning, giving it more love than he ever gave Leon and swearing never to drink again, Leon just smirked and turned up the music.

I Love You.

Three simple words, because sometimes life is just that simple.