Darkness Rising (KH, Riku/Sora, PG-13?)
Title: Darkness Rising Author: dogmatix Rating: PG-13 for some blood, swearing, and kisses Warnings: xeno-ish? Wordcount: ~1500 Prompt:October 25th: Kingdom Hearts, Riku/antiform!Sora: soothing with a touch - familiarity in his cool skin and the glow of his eyes Summary: The Darkness isn't done with them yet. A/N: Ending feels kinda abrupt, but it was getting rambly on me. Also, much thanks to joisbishmyoga. (I didn't manage to claim this in time, but the plunnie kinda insisted on being written, so, uhm, bonus fic? *sweatdrop* )
Darkness Rising
There’s no warning when the Darkness surges, and Riku swears in a strangled voice as he topples gracelessly onto his knees. Warm sand cushions his descent, makes little bumps between spread fingers. Vaguely he hears screaming.
Ebbing slowly, the Darkness drags at Riku’s heart like velvet, smooth and tempting. He shudders, looks up.
It’s a lazy summer afternoon, but the sapping heat is barely a memory with cool Darkness radiating from inside his bones. Down the gentle curve of the beach from him and Sora he can see a group of people curled tight and jerking like they’re being electrocuted. He thinks he can identify Selphie’s yellow sundress.
To his right, Sora is barely holding himself upright against the gently leaning paopu tree, blinking and shaking his head. Sora’s cellphone chirps brightly from their lunch basket and Riku fumbles it open.
“Riku! Are you okay? Everyone started fallingdownand-“
“Kai-kairi,” Riku coughs, voice rough and deep. “Calm down, we’re okay. You weren’t affected?”
“No, I’m fine, just freaked out, what was it?”
“Darkness. And I don’t think it’s done. Meet us at the cave.”
Clicking the cellphone closed, Riku struggles upright, accepting Sora’s shoulder even as Sora leans into him.
Riku had a split second to sense the rising swell of Darkness before it slams into him, into them, rolling him under like he's nothing.
It was power and pleasure and the cool safety of night, whispering of dreams even as it plunged him into a nightmare. When it withdraws this time, it doesn’t leave all the way.
They’re still upright, barely, clinging to each other hard enough to bruise. “Cave,” Riku gasps out when he can talk again, and damnit to hell, he’s not imagining it – his voice is definitely deeper than it should be. He keeps his eyes down, not wanting to find out from Sora’s flinch if they’ve changed to burning orange yet.
“Yeah, I heard ya. Kairi okay?”
Riku can hear Sora trying to grin. “Yeah. Probably the only one.”
“Huh?”
“No Darkness in her – makes sense she’s not affected.”
“I guess.” From Sora’s tone, he’s not reassured and Riku knows they’re thinking the same thing; that Heartless are attracted to a Princess of Heart as much as they are to Keyblade Masters.
“We don’t have a Gummi ship,” Sora points out with a wry ‘here we go again’ tone.
Riku shakes his head, already falling back into survival mode as if it hasn’t been nearly two years since they came home. “Worry about that later.”
They make it all the way to their refuge without incidence, but they’re not inside more than two steps before it mounts like a storm surge and Riku’s drowning, falling, feeling it flood into him until there’s nothing except the Darkness and then, not even that.
The world comes back slowly, but even half-aware, Riku can tell that something is very wrong. He feels heavier, larger. It’s an alien feeling, but familiar at the same time, and Riku’s stomach bottoms out as he blinks his eyes open. Even with dim light and feeling as if he’d gone twelve rounds with Cerebrus, he can tell that his hand is too broad, too dark to be his own. Long silver hair is too smooth, and his bangs are gone, swept back into Ansem’s sickeningly familiar style.
His hands start to shake as his breathing speeds up, and he doesn’t understand why. He didn’t ask for this, didn’t seek it out, and panic rises as part of him braces for the insidious pull of Ansem’s control taking him over, turning him into nothing but a voiceless puppet that-
Movement blurs thought the cave’s opening and he jerks around, uncoordinated and clumsy, to track the Heartless as it skitters closer to him. Too large for a shadow, too small for a neo-shadow, but the lambent yellow eyes are unmistakable. Riku pushes himself back against the cold cave wall, struggling to his feet as he calls Way to Dawn to him.
He’s belatedly surprised when it appears, but the Heartless stops, falls back a step, and then crouches down and tilts it head. Skitters left, and Riku turns to follow it. Skitters right, and again Riku follows. It’s not normal behaviour for a Heartless, almost like it’s thinking, considering, aware of the danger the keyblade represents.
Riku’s stomach sinks further. If these new Heartless are intelligent, they’re screwed.
The Heartless stops in front of the cave entrance, which gives Riku an idea of its silhouette. Definitely not a neo-shadow, although the outline of spiky hair is all too familiar and Riku lowers Way to Dawn.
“Sora?” he croaks out in Ansem’s deep baritone. And yes, he’s seen this happen to Sora once or twice, but they’ve never discussed it and it had never lasted very long. With everything else going on, it had just kind of turned into an odd footnote about Sora’s clothes.
Shadow-Sora cautiously skitters closer, and after a moment of internal debate, Riku dismisses Way to Dawn and kneels down so that he’s at the Heartless’ eye-level and hopes that it is like with the clothes and that Sora’s still in there somewhere.
“Can you talk?” Riku asks softly. They’re only about a foot or so apart, and Sora shakes his head after a second. Slowly, a wickedly clawed ebony hand comes up, hovers over Riku’s forehead, draws down over Riku’s face and he can’t help the flicker of alarm as multiple knife-like claws pass within an inch of his eyes. Further down the claws go, until they brush over the breast of the long black coat that Riku’s dressed in. Not leaving so much as a scratch, the claws withdraw.
“Yeah, it’s me. No, I don’t know why I’m dressed like this.” Although he supposes it’s better than being Ansem – sorry, Xehanort – dressed only in his yellow-and-purple-surfboards swimming trunks.
He chokes back a bark of laughter as it hits him all over again.
Sora leans in the rest of the way, skin and hair so black they pick up light as dark blue, and Riku’s pulse is still pounding an instinctive heartless-danger-enemy-kill between aching temples but this is Sora. So Riku keeps himself still, iron will forcing his hateful form into trembling obedience.
Sora ghosts where his lips would be over Riku’s panting mouth, yellow eyes drifted half-lidded and inviting, a gesture so familiar that Riku’s breath catches in his throat as Sora presses lightly against Riku’s lips.
And it turns out that Sora does, against all evidence, have a mouth in this form. Nothing human; like something took a straight-razor to Sora’s face and slashed a clean line from one cheek through to the other. Riku feels something darting against his lips, thin and sinewy. Sora’s tongue has dipped into his mouth and is stroking over teeth and along Riku’s tongue before he recognizes it for what it is.
Responding to the delicate invitation, Riku’s eyes close as he gives his attention over to the strange feel of a lean, almost dry muscle against his tongue, moves to explore the lipless mouth and feels the rows of shark-like fangs behind them, needle sharp tips easily, almost painlessly, drawing small runnels of blood into soft skin as his tongue drifts over them.
Riku has to come up for air eventually, drawing reluctantly away with blood smeared over his lips and collecting in the corners of his mouth.
Sora eyes his bloodied lips, reaches out a hand tipped with wicked claws to wipe gently at the red, smearing it like lipstick. Bringing his hand to his face, Sora licks at the blood, tongue winding around clawed fingers fastidiously.
Riku shivers. Blood on claws shouldn’t be that damn hot, especially when the blood is his.
Cure trips off his tongue almost without thought.
The green shimmer draws Sora’s attention back to him, draws Sora closer, and Riku finds himself leaning forward when rapid footfalls intrude, echoing down the passage and into the cave. Instinctively they spring apart, not out of embarrassment but out of practicality, and Way to Dawn is in Riku’s hand as he settles into a defensive stance.
Kairi bursts into the cave out of breath and wide-eyed, jerking to a sudden stop as her eyes adjust enough to let her see Riku. She squeaks and calls her keyblade so at least the training’s doing some good.
“Kairi, it’s okay it’s me,” and then, belatedly, “Uh. Riku.” Again he dismisses Way to Dawn with a silent apology, feeling weirdly like he was cheating his keyblade by calling it and then not using it.
“Riku?” confused, but not disbelieving, and Riku reflects for a second that he has the best friends ever.
“Yeah, um, Kairi don’t freak out, but Sora’s a Heartless.”
Kairi follows his gaze over to the right, where Sora crouches in the dark, one shadow among many. Kairi tightens her hands on the hilt of her weapon for a second before she dismisses the delicate looking keyblade. She looks conflicted for a moment, stuck somewhere between exasperation and concern. “Okay.”
Sora’s yellow eyes drift in the darkness, coming closer. Kairi’s approaching him too, and Riku feels like he’s on stilts, with Kairi over a head shorter than him and Sora crouched on his haunches. He fights the urge to sit down.
“How do we contact King Mickey? Can we even reach Radiant Garden?” Kairi worries.
“Actually, that’s one thing I think we can do,” Riku realizes with a grin, and opens a dark portal with a flick of his hand.