kinkfest | Kingdom Hearts 2 (Sora/Riku/Kairi)

Title: May You Find
Author/Artist:

syvia
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Spoilers for all the KH games
Word Count: 1515
Summary: A week after the events of KH2, everything finally sinks in, but Riku doesn’t want to let himself feel it. Sora and Kairi help him.
Prompt: 41. Kingdom Hearts 2, Sora/Kairi/Riku: Rescue - "Spend all your time waiting for that second chance, for a break that would make it okay."

His mother had cooked.

She never cooked.

Not because she was bad at it, but because she never had the time.

She'd cooked something- she said- she remembered he liked as a child. Throughout dinner she'd watched him. She ate slowly, but mostly watched him.

Long past the stage of getting annoyed with her for embarrassing him- especially when no one else was around- he said nothing.

He smiled, she smiled. They were carefully normal. Dad was putting in overtime, so it was just the two of them.

They ate in silence, cleaned up afterward- he did the dishes as she put away the leftovers. She was taking longer than needed- deliberately, to have an excuse to be around him.

They went into the family room. He opened a book and she made a grocery list before pulling out the monthly bills and beginning the seemingly endless progress of tabulation and figuring.

Eventually- "I'm going to turn in, mom."

He kissed her cheek.

"Good night."

" 'night."

"Riku?"

"Yeah?"

"I love you."

He knew that.

He knew that, but she wasn't the type of mom who just came out and said it. He paused, then smiled at her- to reassure her.

"I love you too."

And then it was too much. Riku turned and fled up the stairs, although it didn't look like fleeing. He walked very calmly, squashing down all the feelings that wouldn't help him- as he had so many times before, to get through... everything. He walked up the stairs and somehow his feet knew the way to his room- as if he hadn't been back for a mere week, after a two year absence. He closed the door and sat heavily upon the chair at his desk.

How could he have done it?

How could he have sent the islands- everyone- his parents, his mother... into Darkness?

He stared blindly at a stack of comic books on one shelf- untouched for so long, except by a feather duster, and hands that arranged them to wait patiently for the day their owner would return.

A voice inside him protested that he hadn't known what would happen when he opened the door. Another answered that he hadn't given a damn.

Everyone was fine. They were back- they couldn't remember torment or trauma, other than losing their children/friends/students for a time. That was true, and good, but things were hardly 'fine'. They would never be 'fine'. Forgiveness from all the people of all the worlds couldn't erase what he'd done.

He flinched- swiped his thumb and forefinger beneath his eyes. Crying didn't do anything. It made you vulnerable- showed weakness. He hadn't done it in front of Maleficent's coalition and he hadn't done it in Castle Oblivion. Tears didn't work with an enemy and he didn't deserve comfort as if that would take away his guilt- relieve it somehow.

His voice was steady when he scoffed lightly and said, "So are you two gonna come in or what?"

Riku turned and met the two solemn faces staring in through his window.

Their expressions made his heart pound, but he didn't want sympathy. He smirked.

"I'm not even going to ask how you got up here."

The outside wall wasn't exactly climbable, but Sora had his ways- and nothing stopped Kairi from doing what she wanted.

They simply looked at him. Sora was supposed to laugh, smile, and say something confident and cheezy. Kairi, in turn, was supposed to smile and shake her head, and tease Sora about it.

Since they did neither of those things, Riku filled the silence with- "You can use the front door, ya' know? Maybe I put out the lights when Sora's heading up the walk, but mom would kick me if I did that to Kairi." Shit... his voice hitched briefly, mentioning his mother. Riku covered it with a sly look and, "Or did you come to serenade me? I've heard about Sora's work in Atlantica," he paused for a breath. He shouldn't have.

"We felt you hurting," Kairi murmured.

Another wince, but Sora was climbing in and giving Kairi a hand to help her balance as she followed him.

"No," Riku said calmly. He was still trying to evade this- knew damn well it was an evasion- "I'm fine. What you're feeling is probably the after-effects of too much home-cooking. I told Sora to go easy on the pot-stickers."

"Except I had baked clams tonight," Sora pointed out with none of his usual indignation. He sat on the bed, grinning softly. Kairi walked over without hesitation and plunked herself onto his legs. Riku knew he'd flinched that time.

"Kairi, I'm okay. I don't need a hug."

She slipped her arms beneath his and tightened them about his chest, settling herself neatly into his lap. She fit so well- head tucked beneath his chin, hands pressed to his back, holding just hard enough to say she wasn't going anywhere- wasn't letting go. But it still hurt.

"Maybe I need a hug," she said impishly.

There was only one response to that. He sighed and put his arms around her- one across her shoulders, one on her shoulder blades, accepting the closeness.

"You know," she began, "all those times you needed to be strong... I'm sorry."

He opened his mouth, but she was still going.

"We needed you to be strong, and you needed you to be strong, or who knows what might have happened?" Kairi's voice was soft, tender, a hum against his chest that bypassed cloth, flesh, and dropped like pebbles into water. His heart rippled. The King had done that as well. Over and over again- giving his wisdom and compassion so freely, an offer to let him break down as he'd wanted to so many times. Mickey would have understood, comforted him.

Riku had never done it. The more he let himself break- he’d known even then- the more he would want to. As it grew harder and harder for him to go on, to endure, it would have grown harder to put himself back together. Then one day he wouldn't be able to do it at all.

"It wasn't very fair to you," Kairi said, another pebble in the silence. The ripples were growing, lapping at the edges of the pond. "Fifteen is bad enough without having to save the worlds, without having to do things that make you question your own heart."

Riku felt himself shaking- loosened his arms when he realized he'd been clutching Kairi to him- he'd probably hurt her-

She hugged him back even harder. His shirt was wet with her tears.

"It's okay, Riku."

He cleared his throat, shook his head a little. "There's no reason. We're back- we won."

Then Sora was leaning against his back, warm, heavy and solid. They kept him anchored, kept him here, trapped in their freely given comfort- which he didn't want. Sora wrapped his arms around both of them, his chin curved over Riku's shoulder.

"There's every reason," Sora muttered. Pebble after pebble and they were relentless.

"You're not going to be satisfied until I cry, are you?" and he was angry. He didn't have to do this- he could hold together just fine. He-

"You need it," Kairi whispered. "Your heart is more powerful than both of ours. Yes-" she interrupted, instantly, when he protested, "it is. You worked for Darkness to save me, and you lived in it to help Sora. When your heart is strong, you can do anything. When it hurts-"

"Let go," Sora murmured. "We're here. We're not leaving."

He wouldn't. He hated crying- it meant he wasn't in control- vulnerable. He'd spent so much time holding in his feelings- stomping down on anything he couldn't use- anger stayed, desperation, fear- they all helped motivate him.

He'd been afraid for Kairi's heart- afraid he'd never get it back and she'd sleep forever. He'd made himself angry at Xehanort, capable of destroying the consciousness that poisoned his heart. He'd taken that loathed form upon himself out of desperation and the sheer panicked need to get Sora back, no matter what the cost.

Underneath it all was guilt- sadness, that all of this had happened. Disgust that his selfishness had been the cause of it.

His fault.

God- he was so sorry.

Kairi tilted her face up and kissed the tears from his cheeks. Sora murmured something mindless and comforting, and Riku shook in their arms.

"You're strong for us all the time," Kairi said.

Sora's nose poked against his cheekbone- lips brushed his face. "Let us be strong for you."

Ripples overflowed, and he couldn't see through his tears. He stopped trying, stopped listening to the hitch and shudder of his breath as it turned into sounds that were quiet at first, then louder, shaking him as they tore from his throat- he was going to... he couldn't stop himself now and he would-

But Sora and Kairi held him, and they weren't leaving. It was okay to let himself break.

They would help him pick up the pieces.