Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts or Bleach, nor am I making any money from writing this fic.

Warning(s): More shounen ai than yaoi, but the piece will still be rated M. A strange crossover pairing (Riku/Hitsugaya). Severe AU-ness. And a heavy dose of angst. Not your cup of tea? Might want to skedaddle.

Please see Author's Notes at the end.

"The Gulfs between Us, The Music that Binds Us"
by Yodai Hiro-Ainohimitsu

Completed on October 9th, 2010

Approx WC is 850.

Photophobia

His long, silver locks shake back and forth whipping against his cheeks and his neck. He tosses his head from side to side, his hands grasping his temples, his eyes—the jade of the ocean—clenched tight. He aches for darkness.

The sunlight dapples through the open window, its warmth gently hitting his back. He longs for that damp coolness ghosting across his skin like some far off memory he can't quite define...

Riku jerks still, ceasing to draw breath. His eyes now wide open, he stares onward, unblinking, unseeing. The room's a blinding white, the black piano he sits at, a stark contrast to those walls caging him.

He suddenly feels the black cloth burning over his heart, in his breast pocket. Riku breathes again, relief washing over him. He takes out the blindfold from his darkest hours, wrapping the silk around his eyes, tying the ends—almost lovingly—at the back of his head.

The darkness comes, a soothing balm to his spirit.

He can feel those small, cold hands against his bare chest again. The snowflakes brushing his lips.

His mind pulsates with memory, with the phantom angel who found him in the Greatest Dark of his life. So clearly he sees now...now that his eyes are covered. That his sight his bound.

He can finally play their song.

Phantom in the Dark

In waking dreams, it snows on the shore where they meet. The moon shines silver-blue beams against the black sand, the inky water ebbing slowly. The stars are silent, dim. They can barely see them.

Riku lays back, the sand soft, gazing up at the smaller man above him. His wrists are caught in the man's hands. White sharp, spikes of hair grace the man's head. Sea green eyes stare intensely down at him. The man wears white robes, wings of jagged ice protruding from his back.

Riku groans, the man's legs astride his hips, their most intimate places meeting at that juncture, where the world seems to both begin and end...

"Who are you?" Riku dares to break the silence.

"A ghost." A low, quiet alto voice answers him, a voice filled with something refined, something prideful, something that leaves Riku with tingles dancing along his spine.

"Are you real?" Riku asks.

"Only in the dark places of this world." The man answers, situating their bodies flush against each other, grinding slowly, wrenching a gusty moan from Riku.

"You saved me then. You save me now. I wonder why..."

"Who knows." The man releases one of Riku's wrists, placing a delicate finger to his lips, quieting him.

"Won't you go with me?" The "ghost" whispers in Riku's ear, licking the tender flesh, bringing gasps from both of their lips and star bursts to their minds...

Pale fire consumes them whole.

Riku doesn't know where he's gone, but, somewhere deep inside his heart, he hopes he never has to return from there.

He barely registers the man's wings breaking, transforming into little crystalline shards of dust and joining the snowflakes falling against them. Riku's eyes close, just as he feels the man's lips connecting with his own.

Paltry Time and the Dying Sound of Piano Keys

Hitsugaya wipes a stray tear from his eye as he watches and listens to the silver haired youth. How those fingers flow so slow across the piano keys. The boy's song is both sad and joyful. Smooth and sacred in Hitsugaya's heart.

The Captain leans his back to the wall, next to the open window, his form beginning to fade and shimmer in the sun's light.

The boy's song would shortly die, and Hitsugaya would have to return to Soul Society.

How can you play across Time and Worlds with such a broken heart?

That's what he wanted to ask the boy then—when he had first heard the child's cry lance the dark years ago. That's what Hitsugaya wanted to ask the child now.

But he wouldn't.

If he showed himself in anything more than "dreams," he would never be able to see the boy again. In any form.

What are the dead to the living?

Nothing but fading memories.

"Can I go with you?"

Hitsugaya startles at that beautiful sound. It completely jars him from his thoughts.

"I have to believe you're here with me now. I have to believe you're more than a ghost. I don't want to face the light without knowing you're there...or at least a promise that you'll come back..." Hitsugaya notes the boy still wears the blindfold when his whisper reaches the Captain.

I wonder when he stopped playing...

Hitsugaya knows better than to answer with words. He knows the rules, and he's already broken them just by being there for a little while in the boy's world.

He turns his back to the child. His form almost fully gone now.

Hitsugaya leaves one of Hell's butterflies in his wake. She lands on the boy's neck just as the Captain disappears.

The boy has the answer he seeks.

Owari

Author's Notes:

Erm...I was requested to write a Riku/Hitsugaya drabble by my LiveJournal friend hopelesslover23. It was supposed to make her "die of nosebleed." I do believe I failed...miserably.

It's a string of three interconnecting drabbles. It's AU-ish and a crossover between Kingdom Hearts and Bleach. Somehow Hitsugaya's sword and dragon didn't make an appearance. I really have no friggin' idea where this thing came from. I'm sorry if it's confusing... I'm quite rusty. My apologies. I guess it was because I've been excessively listening to classical music during the last several hours?