million_points_of_light | reality won't hurt for longer than it should

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reality won't hurt for longer than it should

Who: Riku and Lea
When: January 4th
Where: Casa de Bro
What: Some awkward misunderstandings.
Warnings: Cavities.

There was a reason Riku didn't like making anything with onions.

They made his eyes water like nothing else ever could. No matter what type of onion--white, red, pearl, even shallots--would make him start crying and he would always get frustrated, ending up with a few wads of paper towel next to him as he tried to get through the five onions the soup he was making needed. He coughed into his elbow, putting the knife down and blindly reaching for a new paper towel, turning away from his cutting board and pressing the paper to his eyes beneath his glasses. He knew his eyes were probably red and slightly puffy by now.

At least Sora wasn't here. His best friend would probably laugh at him, and he was only two onions down.

With a sigh, he slid the onions into the pot and took a breather, thankful there were no pups around to distract him. He might cut off a finger at this rate.

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"Maybe you could let me get some rest and make those sometime," he teased. "Or at least try to replicate it."

--he had to remember not to shake his head or nod it while Lea was at this proximity. After a moment, he went back to the topic at hand, raising the blade and talking, then pausing to follow his own instructions. "You take off the top and the bottom, like this--and cut it in half. On an onion, there're these grooves. They're in a circular pattern, so you can use that to cut them into slices."

With one quick slice, he set down the knife and showed the thin strips of onion up to Lea, though his eyes were already starting to water.

"Oh! That's way easier than I thought it'd be," he admitted, and then stepped back so Riku could move away from the onions. He had to laugh a little--Riku was already blinking back more onion tears. He shooed him away from the cutting board and picked up the knife to give it a try. "I guess I always thought cooking was more complicated," he said. "I mean I know some of it can be, but... Ma used to make some really fancy stuff sometimes; it was kind of intimidating." He sliced through another layer of the onions, comparing his slices to the ones Riku had made.

Eh. Passable.

Another slice, and he sniffed sharply, squeezing his eyes closed.

"Eugh, yeah I forgot how much onions sting, wow." He shook his head sharply and continued, pausing in thought for a moment. "They never seemed to bother my ma though, funnily enough. Guess she lucked out there, at least.

"You want these in the pot?"

"Yeah, welcome to my world," he chuckled as Lea squeezed his eyes closed, shaking his head now as he moved away from the counter. "In the pot, yeah. They've gotta cook for a little while."

Hearing about Lea's mother made him smile; he sighs fondly. Other people's families always seemed so sweet, especially compared to his. He had to wonder if she was still around, or--... well, he hoped she was. It'd be a relief to finally come back to her, with how Lea sung her praises.

"What else did she used to cook?"

"Mm? Mm... she cooked a lot, but usually fairly simple things," he said, concentrating on the onion to make sure the slices were as even as possible. "She, ah..." He hesitated, frowning at the onion and then glancing at Riku briefly before returning to his task. "She was sick a lot," he said, his voice quieter now. "Not... not like terminal or anything, she just got sick a lot." His eyes flicked to Riku again, then back. "Kinda like you do."

He cleared his throat awkwardly, then swept the rest of the onion into the pot before reaching for the next one and pulling at the flaky outer layers.

"My old man worked a lot, so it was mostly just ma and me," he went on, slicing through the middle of the onion and grimacing as his eyes stung again. Somehow this made the whole conversation more awkward. He chuckled lightly then, pausing in his chopping efforts, a wistful sort of smile on his face. "Her favorite thing to cook was ah... pancakes, actually. She would make 'em from scratch." He shook his head, chopping again. "I never figured out how to do that--I could only make 'em from the mix."

Blinking at first, Riku swore he heard him wrong. His mother, sick a lot? Somehow, he felt his cheeks get a little red, especially at Lea's quick glances. It was comforting to hear someone else was like that--but at the same time, having it be Lea's mom made him feel self-conscious. So he must've seen that a lot... no wonder he seemed to freak out a lot, despite knowing what to do.

"Maybe--" he started to venture, wondering if this was the right thing to say. "... that's something else you can do, when we go back. You can learn her recipe and make all of us pancakes." There was a teasing quirk to his smile, but also some hope--hope that Lea hadn't lost everyone.

There was a lot to be said about parents; almost everything was hideously varied, but if Lea could smile like that at just the memory, he had to wonder how he'd smile if he had his mother around.

He paused again, pressing his lips together, that crinkle returning to the space between his eyebrows. He swallowed, then rested the knife on the cutting board.

"I... actually haven't been back," he said. "I mean, aside from when we all first woke up in the basement of the castle, I didn't... I mean I haven't really spent..." He exhaled, then busied himself with the onion again. "I don't even know if they're..."

How could he go back? How could he face his parents, with all this blood on his hands? How could he face Isa's parents, knowing he'd let their son slip through his fingers? He set the knife down and sort of wrung his hands, pressing his thumb into his opposite palm in fidget. Then he looked at his hands before glancing at Riku.

"I can't. Not until I set a lot of things right."

Of all things he could've possibly said, Riku understood that the best. He slowly nodded. There were things Lea had done wrong as Axel--he wasn't going to gloss over them. There were, doubtless, things he felt he needed to make up for. That was Lea's choice to do them.

"Okay." was all he said, quietly putting a hand on his forearm. "I get it."

Lea looked at Riku's hand on his arm, then looked back at the onion on the cutting board. He'd done a lot of things he wasn't proud of, made a lot of mistakes... The most important thing, though, was to get Isa back. He and Isa had grown up together--how could he go home without him?

He nodded silently at Riku's words, then returned to slicing the onion. Sweeping it into the pot, he made a noise of discomfort and spun away from the counter.

"Okay, I gotta stop for a minute," he said, swiping one arm across his eyes. "Ugh." Sniff. "Vindictive things, onions, sheesh. Whaddaya need so many of 'em for?"

He moved to the other side of the counter, folding his arms and leaning near the sink.

"What about you?" he asked then, quietly, tentatively. "Have... did you go home?"

"Soup," Riku added quick, grimacing at the display. He wasn't sure if it was from onions or the subject at hand--he wanted to believe it really was the onions. Either way, he reached over the counter for paper towels and had them in hand, ready to give them over when Lea queried about his family.

Riku found his mouth a little dry, and he turns slightly paler than normal. He--he hadn't really told anyone much of anything, regarding visiting his parents, and... leaving.

"I... kind of had to, I had to get Kairi," he admitted quietly, offering the paper towels to Lea.

It was definitely the onions, okay? Definitely the onions.

Lea turned on the water in the sink and ran his hands under it, scrubbing at them to try and get the onion smell off. Then he smeared his hands down his face and shook his head. He glanced at Riku then, frowning at how he suddenly blanched, and muttered a 'thanks' as he took the paper towel. Patting his face with it and then drying his hands he looked a little uncertain.

"Anybody ever tell you you got a glass face?" he asked benignly, and chuckled a little when Riku looked expectedly puzzled by the term. "Ah... that is, you show all your emotions through it. Like looking through glass." He waved a hand. "Maybe a mood ring is more applicable, in your case. You turn colors a lot." Red when he was embarrassed, and apparently white as a sheet when he was caught off guard.

"A glass--?" One of his hands came up, a few fingers touching his jawline. He'd heard of a glass jaw, but a glass face--?

Eyebrows pushed together, Riku stopped to let Lea explain, for his cheeks to, expectedly, color a little. His shoulders hunched. "Doesn't everyone do that?" He muttered, crossing his arms over his chest defensively.

He was, at least, glad that they had steered away from the subject of families for the moment.

Lea laughed helplessly into one hand. "And there you go hunching your shoulders," he said, and then shrugged. "I dunno, do I do that?" He rubbed the back of his neck. "I'm told my ears go red sometimes."

As soon as Lea pointed it out, he tried to relax them all of a sudden, hissing as the muscle in his shoulder tensed up and sent a shock through his back. Ugh.

"You--" do, he wanted to say, but his accusatory glare melted away. ... he didn't, not really. Riku hadn't really seen him turn very red. Straightening, his brows furrowed, a bent finger at his lips, he mumbled. "I guess you don't. You get a little red, but..." He shrugged it off. "I--I don't notice that kind of stuff, not really. I think you're the only person who does that I know."

He watched the grimace tug at Riku's face, then reached one arm out, waggling his fingers. When Riku stepped forward he closed his hand around the soft hollow of his shoulder and squeezed it experimentally.

"Yeah, you're more a Bigger Picture kind of person, I've noticed," he admitted, finding the offending overtaut muscle and pressing his thumb against it. "I guess I just prefer the details. Like how I can tell you carry all your stress in your shoulders because when you shift them too fast they pull and you hiss."

He knew better than to address Riku's back--that had already gotten him into a world of hurt--but he could empathize with this one, at least.

He breathed in slow, the squeeze in his shoulder making him tense up a little before relaxing. A quiet sound escaped from his throat and he shut one eye, the taut muscle still firm and throbbing underneath his skin.

"Yeah," he mumbled idly, trying to roll his shoulder back and wincing when it just increased the pain. "That's exactly what just happened. Ugh, maybe I should sit down."

Lea snorted a laugh.

"How many times a day do I tell you to sit your butt down for ten minutes?" he asked, and then waved him out of the kitchen. "Go sit on the floor in front of the couch and I'll work on that shoulder'a yours if you want. I keep thinking I could bounce bottlecaps off your back." And then he lifted both hands--don't shoot! "I know, I know, I won't touch the middle part."

"You know," Riku started, as he walked into the living room. He turned, still talking while walking backwards. "I'm actually starting to believe you when you said you noticed little things. I'm surprised you still listen to me."

As surprised as Lea was that people listened to him, Riku was surprised that anyone heeded his warnings.

"I've always noticed little things," he said, following Riku into the living room and vaulting over the back of the couch to sit down. "I guess maybe I've always had an eye for recon or something; even when I was a kid I tended to notice things other people didn't. I could tell when ma was worried about something 'cuz she would compulsively tuck her hair behind her ears. I knew when Isa was stressed about something at school 'cuz he used to press his lips together 'til they turned white."

He waited for Riku to plunk down onto the floor and then leaned forward, dropping his chin on top of Riku's head as he pressed the pads of his fingertips into the knotted muscle in his shoulder.

"You're kind of orally fixated," he said then, grinning a bit and figuring Riku would probably blush at the unintentional insinuation. "You like to put your glasses arm in your mouth, and you touch your lips a lot when you're thinking."

He exhaled loudly, taking a staccato inhale afterwards. Riku wasn't always willing to be touched--especially not around this area. He could trust Lea--he knew that implicitly. He touched his back before, and he knew the consequences. He had to remind himself of that.

At his words, however, his ears and the apple of his cheeks started to tinge red again.

"I'm--" His jaw worked soundlessly, fingers fiddling with his glasses as he spoke.

(Honestly, it was a good thing they didn't sell chocolate lollipops. Riku's oral fixation would be all the more obvious.)

Lea smiled a bit at the audible exhale; he wasn't terribly tactile, himself, but there were some things you just needed an angle you couldn't get yourself. Riku's shoulders were strong and proud and always thrown back when he was doing something important, but he knew they had to ache just as fiercely as his own did when the day was over and the drive of a mission didn't keep them aloft. They both wore heavy mantles, weighted by chains of old sins, and Lea wasn't afraid to call him out on how painful that could be, even physically. He wasn't afraid to touch him, either, despite knowing just how capable Riku was of injuring him. There was still a gap, a void that needed closing, before either of them would really be able to completely relax around anyone, even the other, but Riku and Roxas were probably the only people Lea was fully prepared to expose his back to.

It seemed that was something mutual between them, at least.

He pressed and held the knotted muscle, then released it and drummed his fingers across his skin a moment.

"You don't gotta be embarrassed about it," he chuckled, "I'm kinda the same way. I'd be surprised if you never noticed me with a popsicle stick or a toothpick or a straw in my mouth." He snorted. "Xigbar used to ask me if I used to smoke."

Riku sucked in another breath, holding it until he released the muscle and hissing it out through his teeth.

He held onto his legs for a good while before straightening, looking back at Lea. Honestly, had he noticed? Probably not. Did Lea do that? Probably. He felt stupid--he always liked saying he had a good memory, but he couldn't remember details as well as he remembered events in and out.

"You don't, do you?" A moment; "I'm embarrassed because my mom used to say the same thing all the time."

"Smoke? Hell no," he said with a firm shake of his head. "I inhale enough smoke in a fight, I don't need to add a bunch of poison to it." He pressed his lips together. "I mean, don't get me wrong, I thought about it a few times..." He rubbed the back of his neck. "Go through a lot of stress, doing... doing what I did, you know?"

He exhaled, and then made a face.

"Your ma asked you if you smoked?" He shook his head. Maybe details didn't run in their family--his mother would have known in an instant if he'd picked up smoking. "I can't see you with a cigarette in your mouth, I won't lie." He chortled then, kneading at the other shoulder this time. "Maybe a bubble pipe."

"Ugh, that wasn't--oh, whatever."

Riku rolled his eyes, exasperatedly sighing. It was longer than the others and his shoulders, thankfully, started to really relax as Lea started to knead against his muscle.

He just laughed, clapping both hands down on Riku's shoulders and squeezing them fondly before releasing them and leaning back against the couch.

"You know, I'm never gonna stop teasing you so long as you keep giving me these great reactions," he guffawed, and then reached out to scrunch one hand against Riku's scalp before shifting to flop sideways on the couch.

He held his breath a moment, then exhaled and threaded both hands behind his head.

"I feel like... like I should be thanking you more than I do," he said without segue, his eyes on the ceiling. "Not... not just 'cuz you're entertaining. I mean 'cuz you..." He paused, like he was searching for the right word. "I don't have to wear all those masks with you," he said finally. "The assassin, the mentor, the dutiful soldier, the gofer..." He shook his head, then cast his eyes to Riku. "You said you don't feel like you have to live up to something you're not yet with me. I guess... I don't feel like I have to be anybody other than me with you."

He'd spent so long being somebody else, someone he was supposed to be, the person he was expected to be. He'd almost forgotten how to just... be.

Turning as Lea pulled away, Riku propped himself up with one hand, the other hanging at his side.

There was something in his eyes that made him stiffen a little when he made eye contact, but for once, Riku didn't want to look away. This kinship they shared--it'd been there before they were like this. It hadn't started out of hand-holding and kissing. Maybe that was why they were working so well.

"Good," he finally admitted, quiet and earnest. "I like you. The true you."

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reality won't hurt for longer than it should

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