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When they are younger, they sleep more in each other’s beds than their own.
Riku gets used to the sloppily pasted glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling, neon green against his eyelids as he sleeps. He gets used to Sora, snoring and shifting and stealing the blankets. He gets used to Sora’s mom’s gentle huffs of laughter, good-natured and quiet, as she replaces the sheets that Sora has ripped off of them and gently fluffs the pillow under Riku’s head.
When he tries to sleep alone, Riku feels the absence of these things so keenly that his room seems alien to him.
Sora, on the other hand, can sleep anywhere. He knows Riku’s room like the back of his hand; the book-filled, obsessively clean space with a view of the beach and the smell of salt permeating the floorboards. He knows where Riku hides his toy sword from his parents, where Riku stashes candy just for Sora, where he keeps the stuffed animals he pretends he’s too old to need.
Sora gets used to sleeping in Riku’s arms, holding a stuffed bear between them so Riku doesn’t have to.
Their parents find it cute, something sweet that the two best friends can share.
Riku and Sora find it natural, something that makes sense – like breathing, or laughing, or being together.
Kairi’s sudden arrival means that there’s three of them now, piled up together on the sand and laying in the sun, sleepy and warm and comfortable. The island is their place so no one says anything when they make their parents row them all the way out there only to spend the day lazing about in the sand, hands intertwined.
“It’s over here!” Sora laughs after one of these mornings, bouncing on his heels as he leads Kairi away from the shore. She giggles, a twinkle in her eye, and grins back at him. Riku follows a pace behind them, quiet and slow as he rubs the sleep from his eyes. Sora and Kairi can always wake up and get into the day with no fuss, but Riku is slower, a groggy riser for a while after waking.
The sun blinks out as they walk into the cave, and Kairi gasps at the open space before her. The walls are still mostly bare, but Riku and Sora had started making a dent before she arrived; drawings cover the walls, from monsters to scribbled portraits of each other - all in varying degrees of quality.
Kairi spins on her heels and holds her hands out expectantly: “I want to make some too!”
Eyes lighting up, Sora points at the pile of drawing rocks they’ve compiled and watches as Kairi runs over, ready to unleash her artistic fury on the cave.
Out of the corner of his eye, Sora sees Riku watching her, a gentle smile as she brandishes the rocks like weapons, surveying the empty spaces on the walls. Riku maneuvers himself down to sit and yawns, a small, cute sound. His head is drooping before he even hits the ground, and Sora grins as he watches his best friend fight sleep.
They had stayed up all night playing a new game, Sora’s new game, at Sora’s insistence. He feels a little responsible, but that’s not what prompts him to sit down next to Riku, back digging into a sharp rock, and lean his friend’s head on his shoulder. Riku shifts, silver hair brushing into his face and eyes drooping, and Sora hears him mutter a quiet, “Thanks, Sora,” before he huffs out a breath into sleep.
Sora smiles, watching his best friends all together in their secret place. It makes sense, it’s natural, it feels right, and he knows that this is happiness.
“It doesn’t make sense,” Tidus says, and Riku’s world spins on its axis. He turns around, fists clenched, and hates the rise of immediate anger he feels swell in his chest at the words.
“What?” He asks, and it’s a low growl of a thing, not quite threatening but not quite not.
“You and Sora, man. You’re way too old to be sleeping together like that.” Tidus is tapping his feet, watching Riku with a critical eye. He had found them napping by the paopu tree, and Riku feels like Tidus is leveling his gaze into his soul. It’s uncomfortable and unwelcome, which makes Tidus’ next words even more offensive: “Or do you love him?” Tidus mocks, and Riku feels his face flush immediately, fast and unexpected. It feels like his hair is on end, static rising at the edges of his heart.
“Shut up!” He retorts, and hates how petulant he sounds. Like a child. He’s never sounded like this, not even when he was one. “We’re best friends, it’s normal!”
“It’s not, Riku,” Tidus says, and he almost looks a little annoyed. “We’re almost teenagers. Sora and Kairi are probably gonna date soon! You can’t be sharing a bed with your best friend when he’s got a girlfriend.”
Riku feels his heart stop at the mention of Kairi and Sora. He can’t even wrap his head around most of what Tidus just said – it feels foreign, and disturbing, and wrong. Like something that could break up SoraRikuKairi, like something that could break up Sora and Riku. Like something that could break up his life.
Riku goes to bed angry that night. Riku’s not sure when that started being normal.
Maybe around the time he started going to bed alone.
“Wake up, you lazy bum!” Kairi’s voice pierces through the darkness, and Sora wakes up with a start. He’s lying on the beach, hair mussed up and wild as usual, flecks of sand stuck to his cheek like stars. It glitters in the sun, and Kairi giggles above him. Hand outstretched, she offers him help as she pulls him to stand by her side.
“What were you dreaming about this time?” She wonders, and he frowns.
“It was weird…It was so real, there were monsters, and a voice, and…”
“Wow, Sora,” Kairi laughs. “You’re really letting your imagination go wild these days.” She looks impressed, but there’s a shine of mirth in her eyes. Sora slams his mouth shut, and he can feel a blush dust his cheeks as she recounts what he just said.
Still, though. It’s true. There were monsters, and it felt… so real.
His dreams have been feeling that way lately – like he can’t tell if any of it is real or not.
There are monsters, and voices, and darkness; and no Riku when he wakes up. Maybe that’s why it all feels like a nightmare to him.
Sora doesn’t sleep until he gets on the Gummiship. The night feels never-ending, and he can’t believe that it was only a few hours ago that he woke up, slumped and cold in an alley.
He can’t believe that it was only a few hours ago that he watched his island crumble around him.
He knows that Donald and Goofy are trying; they welcomed him into their space, smiled and made him laugh, told him about all the cool places – all the cool worlds! – they could visit, but. Something feels so empty as he looks around the little bedroom tucked in the back of the ship. The three bunks fight for space, all squished together to fit as best they can. He didn’t even believe Donald and Goofy when they told him there was a bedroom; from the looks of the ship, it seems like it can barely even fit the control room. But here it is, cramped and cozy. Donald and Goofy had piled him under blankets and pillows and told him to rest up before he could try to fly the ship – you’re literally a kid and you need rest, you’ve had a rough night, you need all your energy – the reasoning made sense but Sora can’t help how strange it feels to be here.
He shifts under the blankets. They’re warm, and comforting, but the weight is almost oppressive and the room feels so small. He’s used to sleeping in the open air, chilly underneath the stars but warm with Riku by his side. This tiny back-bedroom, enclosed and overheated, is the exact opposite of his comfortable nights outside. He can’t shake the feeling that everything is wrong.
Maleficent doesn’t care when Riku naps, as long as she doesn’t have to see it. He looks too small, too vulnerable, and he thinks it makes her mad to remember that he’s human. A child. He stares at the empty walls of his room and misses Sora, despite it all.
The Realm of Darkness has no time, and therefore there is no time to rest.
Riku doesn’t know how long they’ve been wandering, lost and aimless, but he’s surprised when he doesn’t feel the exhaustion he’d expect to be creeping over his eyelids.
Mickey explains when he asks: “The Realm of Darkness doesn’t have the same rules,” the mouse admits, and Riku frowns in confusion. “Stuff like eating, sleeping, resting – you don’t need to do it here!”
Mickey looks put out as he says this, like it’s a great loss. And while the fact that he won’t be able to take a long nap or eat a good meal is certainly upsetting, all Riku can think is that he wouldn’t want to without Sora, anyways.
Sometimes Naminé walks in to find Riku slumped against Sora’s pod and sleeping like it makes sense. It’s the only time she sees him sleep, really; normally he’s too driven by the mission, constantly out and working on whatever assignment DiZ gives him. She sees the exhaustion in the line of his shoulders every time he arrives back, can practically feel the tiredness coming off of him in waves, but he always seems to disappear to somewhere that is decidedly not his bedroom. And when she sees him again, the smudges under his eyes will be darker, and she will know he hasn’t slept.
It’s not often that she finds him tired enough to take refuge by Sora’s pod, but she can tell it must be the only place he truly finds rest, because he looks so…peaceful, whenever she sees him there. Naminé knows it must actually be horribly uncomfortable, because the floor isn’t padded and the pod wasn’t built to be soft, but he looks calm and safe whenever she passes by, in a way that she has never seen him look when he’s awake.
She’s not about to be the one to wake him up from that.
Instead, Naminé brings a blanket and her sketchbook, making idle drawings to pass the time and smiling at his sleepy shifts. Her sketchbook is filled with it; she wants something happy to remember Riku by, and this is perhaps the happiest she knows him to be.
Sora used to drape himself everywhere and anywhere to take long, random naps whenever he got tired. Once he got used to the Gummiship, to Donald and Goofy, to his new life, he would take comfort in being able to fall asleep literally anywhere when the moment felt right. Donald and Goofy would be exasperated to find him asleep on their chairs in the control room, or sprawled across the floor of the bedroom instead of in the bed, but it was with amusement that they would berate him for napping so much.
Maybe it’s because he just woke up from a year-long nap, but Sora doesn’t do that at all anymore.
There’s something harder about him, less prone to soft moments of rest, and Donald and Goofy aren’t sure where it went or why it disappeared. Maybe it was just the puberty that happened while they were asleep, or the fact that they were all asleep at all, but though Sora himself hasn’t changed, his habits have.
Or maybe, they realize, watching Sora pilot the Gummiship with furrowed brows and more focus than they had ever seen, it’s because of someone who’s missing.
Sora and Riku take a nap on the beach.
It’s not Destiny Islands, far from it, but when they close their eyes and listen to the waves, feel the callouses on each other’s palms and the cold breeze against their skin, they can almost pretend it is.
Riku tilts his head to stare at Sora, who looks almost peaceful, despite everything.
“I’m tired,” he admits. Sora looks surprised, but then settles into something more knowing.
“Yeah,” Sora agrees. “Me too.”
Riku grabs Sora’s hand, and busies himself with holding it. He tries not to think about his heart in his throat, or Tidus’ words from so long ago; instead, he focuses on the feeling of having Sora here, of being with him, of days long past. “Mickey said we couldn’t get tired here,” he says. “So I don’t know how I’m so exhausted right now, but…”
“I could go for a nap,” Sora finishes for him, and flashes a bright grin that has no place in the Realm of Darkness. His dimples should be too sunny to exist here, and Sora is so blinding that Riku almost feels the need to find his blindfold again. But instead Riku just smiles, and revels in the fact that Sora hasn’t detached their hands yet.
Sora was always light, always happiness and comfort and home for him, but he’s struck just how beautiful Sora looks. Even here, in the dim light of the moon, he shines brightly and smiles contentedly. Sora is an impossibility, and Riku has never loved the impossible more than he does now.
He’s stuck in the Realm of Darkness, injured, and unlikely to ever get back home.
Yet when he looks at their fingers, intertwined and together, despite everything, Riku lets himself hope.
Sora and Riku take a nap on the beach.
This time it really is Destiny Islands, and the differences are obvious. The sun (and there is one here, a difference in of itself) is warmer, the sand soft and white and the waves that lap at their feet comforting instead of ominous.
Everyone has left them alone by now, trading knowing looks and running off to some other part of the play island to rest and recuperate after all that’s happened. Sora can see how tired Riku is in the way he hadn’t bothered trying to move from the shore after they washed up, too utterly exhausted and clearly feeling the aches of his injury to move. Which meant Sora was too tired to move, too; they were still holding hands, and Sora was not going to be the one to let go first.
He glances down at their intertwined fingers, something warm and unexpected bubbling in his chest. Sora’s not sure when this started, when his thoughts about Riku shifted to this, a feeling of safety and comfort and love, but all he knows is that it makes sense.
“Riku,” he hums, squeezing his friends’ hand. Riku shifts next to him, groaning a little under his breath as he turns to face Sora.
Sora is struck dumb for a moment, seeing Riku’s face like this – up close, the sand stuck to his cheek glitters like stardust, and there are particles glinting in his very long eyelashes. His hair absolutely glows in the sun, pale skin warm and tinted by the red light of sunset. Riku always seems so sure that he belongs in darkness, but Sora knows that Riku is perfect for the light.
And Sora’s always known that Riku is beautiful, but really – Riku is beautiful.
Maybe it’s because he hasn’t seen his face in so long, maybe it’s because Riku is suddenly older and leaner and more mature, but Sora blurts, “I love you,” before he can even think to filter the words coming out of his mouth.
Riku, who had been burrowing sleepily into the sand, comfortable and warm, shoots up. His eyes are wide, panic and confusion warring in his stare.
“You’re – what?” Riku coughs, a hoarse, disbelieving sound.
Sora bites his lip. He had not meant to say that, not now, but seeing Riku so calm, letting his guard down for the first time in forever, had wrecked his speech-to-brain filter, apparently.
Oh well. Guess it’s time to die on this hill, he thinks.
Bracing himself up on his elbow, Sora looks down at his best friend, who gapes up at him from beneath his bangs.
“I love you,” he says again, and revels in the way that Riku’s eyes fill with hope.
Riku doesn’t say anything, but he pulls Sora down beside him, head on his chest and hair digging into his neck. Riku doesn’t say anything, but Sora glances up beneath his eyelashes and sees a small smile gracing Riku’s features, and he knows what Riku is trying to say.
Sora laughs, happy and short, and settles himself in for a nap under the sun.
Kairi finds them there after twilight has hit, cuddled together for warmth under the cool chill of the moonlight. She grins at the sight of their hands, still wrapped together, and gently drapes a blanket over the two of them. As she goes to leave, Sora’s hand snakes out and grabs her ankle.
“Stay,” he mumbles, half-asleep but still insistent and sure.
“Alright,” she acquiesces, smiling as she maneuvers herself down beside the two of them. Sora’s other hand finds hers after moments of pawing around in the sand, and he intertwines their fingers.
It’s Sora and Riku, SoraRikuKairi, in their place, on their island. It makes sense, despite everything else.
Their Mark of Mastery test is really just one big nap, but neither of them feel rested as they trudge up the endless stairs after the fact. Riku is still reeling from it all: the whiplash of being a Dream Eater and then a Master, of seeing Sora beaten so low and then back to his joyful self.
Sora, on the other hand, is just sleepy.
Riku wants to laugh, wants to tease him for being exhausted after he just slept through their entire test, but he can’t bring himself to when he sees Sora’s face droop against his shoulder.
“C’mon, sleepyhead,” Riku says, grabbing Sora’s shoulder to help him stay upright and maneuvering them up the stairs. He glances around aimlessly, searching for some kind of bedroom to wander into, when the Tower gracefully creates one before his eyes. “Thanks,” he says, feeling a bit foolish for thanking a building. But his thanks are rewarded when the door swings open, revealing a big room full of pillows and blankets and moonlight streaming in.
He helps Sora lay down, shifting the soft materials around for comfort. He hasn’t even started to leave yet when Sora’s hand grabs his arm, violently pulling him down into the veritable pillow fort the tower had created.
Riku huffs out a laugh, and Sora whines, still half-asleep. “Riku, stay…”
“Okay, you knucklehead,” he flicks Sora’s forehead good-naturedly, and the boy’s features twist into a pout despite his eyes still being closed.
Riku feels his heart melt as Sora wraps his legs around Riku’s, shuffling into his side and draping his arms all over the place like an octopus. Riku shifts himself into a more comfortable position, and drops a quick kiss onto Sora’s forehead.
“Sweet dreams,” he mumbles, feeling his own eyes droop.
Riku never naps after Sora disappears. Kairi’s not sure he even sleeps at all.
She’ll walk out of her house at midnight and look down the road, only to see the kitchen lights still shining brightly in his parent’s home. Or she’ll row to the island whenever they’re off, sure to find him sitting there on the tree and watching the distance like it has answers.
She doesn’t say anything n those nights, just wanders over quietly with gentle steps, offering a shoulder or a hand to hold.
He doesn’t say anything either, and they simply sit. Waiting.
No one ever comes, but they still wait.
Riku wakes up.
This in itself is almost surprising, because he can’t remember the last time he truly slept – every night has been filled with sleepless anxiety or vigilant wandering, waiting alone or with Kairi for Sora to reappear.
He blinks into awareness and doesn’t recognize his surroundings, doesn’t understand the tall skyscrapers and bright lights that flood his vision.
What he does recognize is the pull, the tug in his heart that means this is about Sora, that he’s somewhere nearby. It’s the same feeling he had when he searched for Sora in his nightmares, or when he helped Naminé piece together Sora’s memories.
It means there’s no time for naps, Riku reasons, and pushes himself off the sidewalk with a groan. He glances at the city surrounding him in awe, and squares his shoulders.
After all, Riku thinks, naps only make sense if they’re with him.