Written for Riyo, who is going through hard times. As always, you are in my thoughts.

It's weird, being back here after all this time. Sora sometimes still wakes up in the morning with a vague sense of panic, wondering for a moment where he is. One morning when he was shaken awake by his mother, he called the Keyblade to his hand before he had opened his eyes.

He had been dreaming of the Heartless. That happens a lot, these days – he can't quite wrap his mind around the fact that maybe they really are gone – or even just temporarily absent. He's always expecting a Shadow to appear, slithering under his floor and dragging him down to the darkness again, twisting fingers slippery-cold, glassy-smooth on his ankle. That's what happens in most of the dreams.

He's not unhappy. He's far from it, actually. He's home – with his mother and father and his four best friends in the whole world. Now, his biggest worries are studying for finals, and finding a part-time job. It's… a nice change, he decides. Nice is the only word he can really use to describe it.

But that doesn't stop the nightmares.

When Sora wakes up in the middle of the night, sweaty and panting with terror, he always goes down to the shore. He doesn't go out to the island – he just watches it, a dark lump on the horizon. He sits and watches until he feels himself falling asleep again, and then he stumbles back to bed.

This night, though, as he tiptoes past Riku's house towards the shoreline, he sees the light is on in Riku's room. It's not all that late, he supposes, but most people are in bed by now. He tries to be extra-careful as he passes.

But Riku has trained himself like Sora, to be aware of everything that goes on around him. Fighting for one's life does that to a person. Barely two minutes pass before Sora can hear footsteps following him down the road. Riku isn't even trying to be quiet or sneaky. Sora ignores him – hoping against hope that maybe he'll just give up.

Because Riku is way to observant and just plain smart for Sora's comfort. Kairi is happy to accept the smiling face he wears during the daytime, because she knows it's sincere. It doesn't seem to have occurred to her – to anyone – that maybe there is more to him than the cheerful hero and the boy she used to play with.

Sora plops down into the pale, cool sand, wriggling his fingers under the surface until he finds sand that is so cold it feels like ice. He doesn't sit near enough to the water that the lapping waves would touch him – the ocean is nearly freezing at this time of night – but he watches them slide up the shore and scurry back, and he hears the footsteps stop.

"Something bothering you?" Riku says. Sora shrugs, looking back to see Riku with a hand on his hip, watching Sora thoughtfully as though he was a puzzle to be solved.

"I'm fine," Sora says with a quick smile, and tries to ignore the way the moonlight makes Riku's skin look so soft, like it's got its own glow. "Just couldn't sleep, that's all."

Riku sits down next to him. "You look… bad."

"Gee, thanks." Sora gives him a mock-offended look.

"No, I mean-" Riku sighs and looks out at the island, leaning back on his hands. "You look pale. And kinda shaky."

"I'm fine," Sora says again, with a nervous little laugh this time.

"Bad dream?"

Obviously, Riku's not going to give up so easily. "Yeah," he admits. "I failed my chemistry final. Stupid, huh?"

Riku shoots him a look that says he doesn't believe a word of it. "A dream about failing a test shook you up this bad? Do you actually think I'm that stupid?" With a little grin, he leans over and shoves Sora's shoulder a bit with his own.

Sora laughs, mostly because however anxious this conversation is making him, Riku is so much more like himself these days. Of course there are always shadows in his eyes, and sometimes he goes all dreamy and Sora knows he's wracked with guilt. But life has returned to something strangely close to normal.

"C'mon," Riku says, and Sora has to look away from his sharp gaze. It's far too difficult to hide things from this boy he's known for so many years. "You can tell me."

And before Sora knows it, the whole thing is pouring out. His nightmares, his fears, those little dark thoughts that maybe this isn't the last they've seen of Organization XIII. That maybe Heartless will come back, stronger than ever.

He could never tell Kairi, or his parents, or even Donald and Goofy. He loves them all dearly but there is no one who knows quite what it's like to drown to completely in darkness – to have the black filling your nose and mouth, trickling down your throat and into your lungs, soaking through your skin and lacing your blood. Darkness, pumping through his whole body, closing a cold cruel hand around his heart.

No one except Riku.

Sora's not even embarrassed when Riku tugs him into his arms, somewhat awkwardly. But it's stupid, Sora thinks, that after all Riku's gone through, he's the one comforting Sora. Sora feels almost guilty about that.

"You heroes can be really stupid, sometimes," Riku laughs, pulling away a little but still keeping an arm slung casually around Sora's shoulders. "You think you've gotta be all solitary. Don't you get it? The hero always has friends to help him." Riku pauses, and Sora can hear something catch in his voice when he continues. "It's the villains that have to be alone. You have friends, Sora. Don't forget that."

There's something wrong with this, Sora realizes. Something is wrong in the way Riku says that. "You have friends, too," he says, frowning up into Riku's face as if trying to see into his mind.

Riku smiles. "Yeah," he says. "I know. You could be right, Sora – for all we know, Maleficent could be cooking up a new scheme as we speak. Xemnas might not really be gone. The Heartless might be just waiting to pounce. But you know, you sound like me when you talk about that stuff, all doom and destruction. So, I guess I'll try and sound like you. If you spend all your time worrying about what could happen, you're just gonna miss what does happen. You could miss the good stuff. You have to enjoy the good stuff, as little or as much of it as there is."

"The good stuff?" Sora leans in closer, studying him carefully, because there's a bit of a pink tinge to Riku's cheeks and those vivid eyes won't meet his.

"Sure." Riku scoots back, his arm falling back to the sand, and Sora pretends not to miss it. Riku laughs, then, a little too loudly, as if he's trying to break the tension. "Like, no girl's gonna want to go out with you if you mope around all the time."

"Oh. Right." And then they are both staring down at their feet. Sora traces idle patterns in the sand while Riku toys with his shoelaces.

Sora's not sure what just happened, but he does know the tension in the air is almost palpable, now. "I-" He clears his throat, flushing red when he hears his voice crack with nervousness. "I'm gonna go to bed, then. After all, we do have school tomorrow."

"Yeah." Riku nods and rises to his feet, and Sora follows, brushing sand off the seat of his pants.

"Hey, um, Riku?"

Riku looks back, one eyebrow raised. His hair slips over his shoulder like quicksilver with the turn of his head. He looks every bit as cool and collected as he usually does. It makes Sora feels clumsy and childish by comparison, but he goes on anyway. "I, you know. Thanks." He leans in on tip-toes, then, wondering what he's doing and if he is actually in control of his body or if in fact it is simply acting of its own will, because he feels sort of dazed right now and Riku smells like shampoo and salt water and his cheek where Sora kisses it is very soft.

But Riku jumps at the contact, which jerks his head just far enough to the side to replace his cheek with his lips. Part of Sora wonders if maybe that was intentional, even if it was one some subconscious level. Because Riku certainly doesn't seem to mind the change one bit, though when Sora falls back to stand normally he looks mortified.

"Riku?" Sora says, knowing he sounds hesitant but feeling pretty sure of himself. "Is it really girls, for you?"

Riku looks like a rabbit in the path of a chocobo stampede. "H-huh?"

"Because…" He swallows and makes himself breathe, because this is embarrassing, darn it, and even if Riku weren't a boy he's still his friend and, okay, maybe he's not so sure of himself. "Because, you know, it's not really, for me."

"Not what?" Riku's voice is almost squeaky. Sora wonders if he's ever seen Riku so very much in pieces.

"Girls." Sora risks a quick glance at Riku's face, which is still nothing but shock. And maybe, Sora realizes, he was wrong. Feeling fear flare up inside him, he rushes to defuse the situation. "I mean, if you're not, that's cool, I wasn't – I just –" The rest of his words are lost in a little shout of surprise as he finds himself pushed down to the cool white sand. In an instant, the Riku Sora knows is back. In fact, he looks more than just collected – he looks smug.

"Should've known," he says with a cocky grin. "Not many people can resist me."

Sora laughs then, but Riku doesn't allow that for long. Sora doesn't complain, of course. Riku's lips are warm and taste like toothpaste, and his hair is soft where it brushes Sora's cheeks, hanging around their faces like a silver curtain.

If he thought about it logically, he supposed that kissing Riku should make him feel the darkness stronger than ever.

Instead, he feels nothing but soft skin and clever hands, and the ethereal glow of quicksilver moonlight.