Kingdom Hearts (Sora/Riku)

[havelocke.livejournal.com]

Title: Transfiguration (1/2)
Author: havelocke
Prompt: Kingdom Hearts, Sora/Riku: Genderswitch - Riku drinks the wrong kind of Potion.
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Oral.
Word Count: 6,092
Note: All I can say is that I had fun with this prompt. It was very interesting to do. I hope it pleases who ever requested it.

They rested at the dark beach after their final battle with Xemnas.

Sora watches the clouds above, moving slowly and freely amongst the starry fields and patches of ink in the sky. He can feel Riku slide down beside him and the brief touch of fabric against his skin makes him fully alert. And his heart races, breath hitches, and his eyes are made aware. He looks down and sees the chest of his friend gently rising and falling. He relaxes. False alarm, everything is going to be okay.

Sora leans his head back against the gruff surface of rock and wonders why he can never pinpoint the right emotion when he thought about Riku. Why it felt so great and scary all at the same time.

During their year apart, his mind became plagued with worrisome questions. Would Riku be aright? Would Riku ever come back? Would Riku ever need him?

As Sora searched for these answers, he never stopped to think that maybe, just maybe, Riku didn’t want to be found. He ignored this intuition, keeping it at bay as if it were his own darkness, as if it threatened to consume him, and he made himself believe that when he found his best friend, he would beat him up and then tell him how much he missed him afterwards.

The time finally came after his long search and all Sora could do was cry. The feeling of happiness and the sense of relief flushed through his entire body as he shook, hands tightly grasping a gloved hand, eyes drowning in a stream of tears. He could picture Riku in his mind. He could picture his silver hair being a little bit longer, his green eyes glowing a bit brighter, but his lips, those lips that never failed to curve at the ends into a bumptious smirk, managed to stay the same.

And that made Sora buckle, knees hitting the floor, and head down, embarrassed that he couldn’t stop the tears from flowing.

He thinks that he was a bit over dramatic at that moment and wonders if Riku rolled his eyes while he balled like a baby.

Still, Sora is happy now and he doesn’t care that he made a fool of himself before, because now he had his best friend back.

Sora sits up and winces at how the muscles in his lower back tense, tightly squeezing when they sense the absence of the rock he was resting upon. But he quickly forgets the feeling of twitchy muscles when his eyes land on Riku, whose head still rested against the rock, neck arched, silver hair fanned out around him.

“Is everything going to be different now?” he starts and is hypnotized by how the moon light kisses a trail down Riku’s neck. The skin there is pale, vulnerable, and very much exposed. Sora licks his lips nervously and wonders why this simple observation makes his heart skip a beat.

He sees Riku’s eyes open, bright green against pale bangs, and swallows thickly when they focus on him.

“I-I mean, once we get home. Is everything going to be different once we get home?” Sora recovers and thinks he shouldn’t have asked that in the first place because the answer was an obvious yes. He barrettes himself for being so stupid and for wanting to hear the sound of Riku’s voice.

“I guess so. People change, Sora, they grow up.” Riku’s jaw tightens and Sora’s eyes skim along the soft line towards the chin. “But no matter how different life’s going to be, we’ll still have each other,” Riku says and Sora feels his lips curl into a smile and his chest swells with a gust of relief. As along as Sora has Riku, then everything will be okay.

“You’re right,” Sora starts, “As long as I have you and Kairi by my side, then everything will be fine.”

Riku smirks. 

“You’re turning me into a total sap, you know.”

And Sora laughs and it feels so good to genuinely laugh because it bubbles up from deep inside and erupts into an explosion of jovial spurts that leave him feeling breathless.

“Just remember that I’m the sap that carried you here,” he retorts and finds his hand making its way towards Riku’s face, fingers ready to brush away some of the silver strands that covered his eyes. Sora stops himself before Riku can notice and wonders where the urge to touch him came from.

“So you got a bit stronger?” Riku says flippantly.

“—and taller than you.”

“In your dreams.”

Despite his sardonic tone, Sora can still see Riku failing miserably to hide his smile. Sora knows he’s one of the few people in the universe that could make Riku do that and this revelation makes his stomach flip.  

Ignoring the fluttery sensation at the pit of his stomach, Sora stands up, hands on his hips, and nose held high.

“Let’s see who’s the tallest. Who ever wins gets to be the other’s slave for a week.”

Riku looks up.

“You’re on.”

Riku moves to stand and instantly hisses in pain. Sora bends down quickly, competition forgotten, heart hammering, and eyes darting in worry.

“You okay?” he asks.

Riku moves again and doubles over in pain.

“I’m fine.”

Sora doesn’t understand why Riku would rather preserve his pride than be a man and speak up when something is wrong. It was these instances that Sora wished he could knock some sense into him and tell him that it’s okay to show a bit of weakness because that meant he was human.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were still hurt?” Sora asks, fingers rummaging through pockets in search of a potion.

“I didn’t want you to waste your magic or potions on me.”

“I wouldn’t call healing you a waste,” he says sternly and hopes that the glare he’s giving Riku is enough to communicate how worried he is rather than how angry he’s supposed to be.

Panic forms an uncomfortable lump in Sora’s throat and he’s having trouble with both swallowing and accepting the fact that he’s running out of pockets and is low on magic.

“Sora, really I’m fine,” he hears Riku say, but his mind is currently reaching overdrive as he curses the number of zippers and pockets he has and wishes he had an equal amount of potions instead. His mind repeats a mantra to keep him calm, despite the sweat forming at the top of his brow.

got to help Riku, got to help Riku, got to help Riku, got to help Riku, got to help Riku.

He has to help Riku now or risk losing him again. No. Not again. Sora thinks it’s too soon to think that way and keeps his search going.

“Found one!” Sora all but shouts and holds up the dark blue bottle towards the moon’s light.

Riku frowns in displeasure and Sora pulls the small cork out of the bottle’s blue lips.

“Sora, you can’t use that. It’s the last one. Why don’t you—”

“I’m fine,” Sora assures him and brings the bottle to his friend’s lips. “You’re the one who’s hurt.”

Riku’s lips tighten into a straight line and it takes every ounce of Sora’s being to not shove the bottle’s mouth past those stubborn lips.

“Come on, just a sip?”

“No.”

Sora raises an eyebrow and thinks that dealing with a stubborn Riku is like dealing with a difficult child.

“Look, how about I buy you some ice cream when we get home, hmmm? You like ice cream, right buddy?”

“I’m not going to drink that and I’m not five,” Riku hisses and Sora finds that Riku is not as light hearted as he used to be and thinks he’s too young to be acting this old and crabby.

“Please?” and he pouts to show that he’s sorry for insulting him.

Riku only seems to know how to glare now and Sora sighs, realizing that Riku doesn’t want to play nice. He tries to think of another alternative and the idea of straddling the boy in front of him, in order to force the liquid past his lips, comes to mind. He quickly fights the image away, as well as the blush forming on his cheeks. He wonders why his heart is beating as fast as his thoughts are racing and why he can’t just go ahead with the idea since Riku was now weak.

Sora clears his throat, bracing himself on what he’s about to ask and hopes to never do because he doesn’t want Riku to think he’s weird.

“Do you need me to feed it to you from my mouth?”

And Riku looks at him and his eyes have lost their arrogance. As soon as Riku opens his mouth to speak, Sora pushes the rim of the bottle in. Riku is surprised and his hands immediately latch onto Sora’s wrist, fingers digging into tanned skin, fingers that are now red at the tips and white at the knuckle. Sora tilts the bottle forward, thick liquid gushing, and Riku is forced to swallow. He can feel the older boy’s strength weakening and sees that Riku’s arms are now shaking. The last of the liquid escapes and Sora pulls back, throwing the bottle over his shoulders.

Riku is coughing and Sora rubs a soothing hand on his back. He sees his friend glow an unusual purple color and frowns when he remembers that drinking a potion usually makes one glow a healthy green. He bites his lip when Riku doesn’t stop and soon he feels the panic from before flush right in.

“Wa-ter.” Riku chokes and Sora is up so fast he’s almost dizzy. He looks around them, for the blue bottle he thought was a potion, but all he can see is sand and pieces of rock. His fingers burrow into the soft ground and he digs around hoping to find glass instead of all these rocks.

He feels someone tug at the hair by his ears and he stops briefly to see that it’s Jiminy. The cricket hops down from Sora’s shoulder and sees Riku coughing and holding his chest.

“What’s going on?” Jiminy asks and Sora doesn’t look up because he already feels the tears forming in his eyes.

“He won’t stop coughing. I forced him to drink what I thought was a potion and now he’s chocking.”

Sora doesn’t hear Jiminy say “oh dear” as his hands continue to excavate the area of sand and rock. He doesn’t hear the sound of waves crashing violently against the pointed rocks, nor the sound of his own ragged breathing as panic starts to grow with every breath he takes in. He only hears the sound of Riku coughing and the sound of his own pounding heart.

Sora’s vision blurs and he blinks back tears in order to see. His hands finally hit their mark and he quickly dusts off the bottle. He gets up and nearly trips in his run towards the foaming waves.

“Fresh water!” Jiminy shouts and it takes a second for it to register that salt water will only make matters worse.

Sora skids and turns around. He can see Jiminy pointing to the other side, where a dark jungle lay ahead. He runs in that direction, in search of a fresh water spring.

 

~*~*~*~

Sora runs back, lungs burning, muscles aching, and collapses with the bottle of fresh water in hand. Jiminy quickly hops towards the gasping boy and makes sure he’s okay.

“Whe-re’s Ri-ku?”

And Sora sees Jiminy wince at the mention of the name.

“He’s fine.”

“Where is he?” Sora sits up and cradles the bottle in one hand.

Jiminy looks down at the ground ashamed and Sora wonders what happened while he was gone. Why is Riku gone? Where is he? He’s tempted to search on his own, but he needed to know what was wrong first, before jumping the gun.

“He’s over there,” Jiminy finally says, pointing towards a large family of rocks in the distance. Sora stands and tries to see if he can spot his friend. He moves, in hopes to get a closer look, but Jiminy hops in his way.

“I don’t think you should go over there just yet.”

“Why? Is he hurt?”

Jiminy tries his best to give an optimistic smile. “Not exactly.”

Sora furrows his eyebrows, confusion apparent. “He’s not unconscious is he?” And he looks towards the family of rocks again and shouts for his friend to come out.

“Sora, let’s calm down a bit.”

Sora is taken aback by this command. How can he calm down when his heart’s racing and he doesn’t know what’s going on? He looks at Jiminy, frowning, and bends so that the cricket can hop onto his hand.

“There seems to be something wrong with the potion you gave him.”

“What happened?”

“Let’s just say there were some very interesting side effects.”

Sora’s body tenses and his eyes slowly drag their way towards the family of rocks. Merlin has shown him the effects of certain potions when abused and he hopes that Riku is okay.

“Can he talk?”

“Sora—”

“Does he need me?”

“I don’t know, he—”

“Will he be okay?”

“Sora, I’m fine,” a voice much like Riku says, only it’s higher in pitch with a softer tone.

Sora looks towards the rocks and sees Riku peer out from a corner. The moonlight’s rays make the silver hair look sharp and it makes Sora’s eyes squint. Riku comes out, walking slowly towards them, and Sora notices that something is off. Despite the closing distant between them, Riku’s figure remains small. In fact, Riku looks shorter now and his clothes look as though they’re trying hard to stay on. Riku almost trips and eventually pulls up on the waist band of his pants in order to avoid tripping over his feet again.

He stops in front of them and Sora can only hope that his mouth isn’t catching flies because he can’t bring himself to close it.

“As you can see,” Jiminy starts, “Riku is now…

Sora drops the potion bottle in his other hand.

“…a girl.”

Part Two