Fic: Meeting Ansem (and Riku)

[splinteredstar]

Last piece. Didn't feel right without having Riku.

Yay, familial awkwardness.

previous chapter at  http://splinteredstar.dreamwidth.org/109986.html

She awoke suddenly, at some hour past midnight, to footsteps in the hall. Her son kept strange hours now, but was it him? She never heard Riku now, even when she tried. The step was uneven, stride changing at random intervals. She thought she heard speech, but couldn’t make it out. She glanced at her sleeping husband, and gently pushed the covers off. If it were a stranger, she would wake him. If it were her son… She’d never caught him unawares since he returned.

She opened her bedroom slowly, willing the door not to creak. In her life she’d never had much practice at silence. Her son leant with his elbows on the banister, his hands tangled in silver hair, not looking up. She inched closer, but his words weren’t any clearer – no language she knew, syllables sliding over each other. The tone sounded angry; an argument.

She was surprised to get this close – she would get no closer. Something in his posture, the tension in his shoulders was suddenly deeply alarming.

She swallowed. “Riku?”

He jerked up at his name, his eyes gleaming gold. Just for a moment, her strange son was completely unfamiliar to her.

Then the – trick of the light, illusion, nightmare – was gone in an instant and his eyes shone green again. “…mom.” He muttered, and his voice was familiar enough too, if a little rough.

“I heard noise. Are you all right?” He never made noise now unless he wanted to, and his parents knew it. How quickly they had adjusted to their new shadow of a son.

One blink and he straightened, his hair covering his eyes again. “…I’m fine.” A lie, one of a dozen lies of the same words. He didn’t offer anything more, and showed every sign of leaving. She had no intention of letting him.

“Nightmares?” She pressed. Riku snorted, once.

“Something like that.”

Her husband might know what to say– her son’s friends would have already bounded over, pestering him with questions – or, she thought, a little angry, they would already know and no questions would be necessary. To her, her son had always been a mystery; a part of her estate and as dearly loved as any other part of her holdings, but a distant one, a black box whose logic she had never derived.

Her husband had understood him better, but then he was lost and then he returned, returned a stranger to all but those two children.

Riku turned to go, but his shoulders had tensed again and he was muttering, or hissing – in pain? Had the boy injured himself sneaking out?

When she blinked it looked like the shadows were deeper, ash clouds wrapped around his hands and shoulders – but the next instant that was gone and it was her mystery of a boy, hissing louder and shaking his head at nothing, as if to clear it.

“Are you hurt?” She asked to his back. “You sound like you’re in pain.” He turned back to her, blinking. His eyes were the same bright green they’d always been. She wasn’t sure why they wouldn’t be.

“….I’m fine.” He repeated, and the phrase was no less of a lie now. She held his gaze, as difficult as it was – something about it was too bright, too clear, like staring into the sun. But she’d never backed down from anyone, and wasn’t going to start with her own son. “….Just a bit of a headache,” he finally added, “I must have slept wrong.”

It was a cheap excuse but cheaper for her – she jumped on it anyway. She’d done more with less. “Join me in the kitchen for tea?” He blinked at her again. “Since we’re both awake.”

He was silent for a long moment. Then, without another word, he turned and walked down the stairs rather than to his bedroom down the hall. She hoped that was an agreement, but noticed that he hadn’t turned on any of the lights. She followed him down, only hesitating occasionally to check her position in the moonlight. She’d grown up in this house, just as he did.

By the time she’d reached the kitchen, he’d set the kettle on the stove and was staring into one of the cabinets with confusion etched lightly on his face – into the cabinet, she remembered, where the cups used to be kept. She flipped a light on and walked past him to the right cabinet, pulling it open, and then the tea, next to it. “The tea is away from the window now, to keep it out of the moisture.”

He shrugged, like the information didn’t matter at all. He’d never cared much for their station, but had stopped even feigning attention. Instead he walked over and reached past her, over her shoulder –

-for a moment she was stuck between the rudeness – she’d raised him better – and the sudden visceral awareness of how tall he was now.

He tugged out one of the older sets from behind the better sets. Then he stepped back and caught her look. “Oh. Sorry.” She blinked at him but he just turned away to set the battered plain china down. She frowned – but there were times for lessons on manners, and the middle of the night was not one of them.

So instead she picked a canister of tea out, mostly at random. Riku was setting up something like an appropriate tea setting – the sight of him with that set made her remember, all of a sudden, teaching him how to serve tea to a guest with that same set, old and a bit battered even then. It had gained a few more chips when he’d dropped the tray.

He looked up at her staring, the same slight confusion on his face that he had then – and she couldn’t help but think, well, maybe things haven’t changed so much.

She glanced at the tea she grabbed – suitable enough – and opened to start measuring. It was a strange blend, not one she was sure she liked. Riku looked up from his slightly awkward arrangement of the cups. “…that tea.” She raised her eyebrows at him expectantly. “I don’t recognize it.”

Did he catch the label? She’d never thought he cared. “It’s imported. From the mainland.”

Riku nodded, absently, and said no more. She measured and fixed the tea in silence. As it steeped, she asked into the quiet, “How often do you have nightmares?” If that was why he kept such odd hours…. It would be a foolish reason, but at least it would be a reason.

He blinked at her, as if not expecting the question. “…sometimes.” He responded, which wasn’t really an answer at all.

“Do you ever remember them?” There was another question there, and she knew he had heard it when he shot her a sour look.

“No.” He picked up his teacup sullenly. He shook his head again, once, and in the dim light his eyes reflected gold. She blinked away from it and he noticed it –

-for one moment his expression was just as shocked, just as horrified as hers – then it shut down again, his eyes hidden.

“…I don’t remember….anything specific.” He finally said, surprising her. “Just…fighting someone. And if he wins…” He trailed off, shaking his head. It was still the most information he’d offered in months – since he came back – so she sipped her tea once and said,

“That’s a foolish fear.” He looked up at her, his expression unreadable, so many emotions twisted in his green eyes. “You’ve never let anyone beat you in your life.”

It was one of the ways he took after her, after all.

He blinked at her, and then his head tilted forward, his bangs hiding his eyes. He didn’t respond, but the line of his shoulders relaxed just a little as he sipped his tea.

She smiled into her tea cup. It was progress.