Of Starlight and Dawn [completed]

[madsciencemaou.livejournal.com]

Character(s): Mao and Riku
Content: Two people who have faced similar circumstances meet
Setting: Destiny Islands Treehouse
Time: 2 PM
Warnings: Possible angst?

Mao hoped this was worth it. This Destiny Islands placed was way brighter than he thought it was going to be--both in sun and in colors--and he already had sand in his shoes. It was uncomfortable all around. At least they weren't going to go meet by the water. If that had been the case, Mao would have called this stupid meeting off immediately.

Although... he guessed it wasn't completely stupid. Completely.

Mao didn't understand this guy... whoever he was (now that he thought about it, he never asked that guy his name, did he?). Talking about that kind of thing so easily... Or... Maybe not "easily," but easier than Mao thought he ever could. Why did their circumstances have to be so similar? Why did this guy have to have some idea what Mao was talking about?

And why did he have to tell him about that whole heart eroding thing in the first place?

He almost wished he'd never been told. Mao had been fine before. As far as he'd known, his evil mind had been connected to feelings toward the Super Hero. That was when it would try to take over, anyway. Even when that guy had talked about the Heartless, even when that octopus-woman had said he had more Darkness than one of his kind should... He was still fine. As long as he kept it far away, it couldn't do anything to him. That was what he had thought. But if the heart could be eroded by that darkness... What if that had happened? Over two-hundred years of erosion... It would be so easy to push those thoughts out of his head if that guy hadn't mentioned something like that happening to him too, damn him.

Mao wasn't afraid of course. He couldn't be afraid. Something like that was in his heart, wasn't it? That meant he had control. There was no reason for him to keep thinking about it beyond this meeting. And yet... What was with this strange uneasiness? Why wouldn't it go away?

Mao climbed the ladder to the treehouse that guy had told him about and looked around. He had better not have come all this way for nothing.

Comments

[halfdarkened.livejournal.com]

For an antihero. Riku raised a brow before the smirk returned. "For a demon."

"Don't think so. But don't think I'll never come to you." He started to follow, but he intended to linger a little longer in this facsimile of his childhood. "I'm probably not out of the fire either."

The light outside caused him to squint, but his eyes slowly adjusted.

[madsciencemaou.livejournal.com]

Riku was going to come to him, huh? Maybe someday the guy would be vassal material. If he was lucky. Until then he was stuck with Antihero. Mao nodded and smirked. "You better make sure you do. After all the trouble I spent coming here, it'll be time for you to make the effort."

He put a foot up on the ledge of the window, turning back to Riku with a last, fanged grin, before launching himself out the window and onto the beach below. It was an action Mao would come to regret later on the way back to his lab, as he would be cleaning sand out of his shoes and socks and just about every other article he was wearing for several days afterward.

But Mao had left a single--what one might have considered inconsequential--thing in the treehouse. Glinting golden in the light that shone through the window, a button rolled to a stop. It had been loose before, and barely caught on the edge of the window when Mao had left. The demon probably didn't even know it was gone.

[halfdarkened.livejournal.com]

It was for the best Riku would never know what crossed Mao's mind. "That was a lot of trouble for you?" he teased a little. "I always though demons were supposed to have superhuman strength."

The moment Riku realized what Mao was about to do, he wondered why he hadn't tried it before. The instant reply to his internal monologue was that back then he wasn't as skilled and would have hurt himself. He heard a small clatter as he went to the window to watch after, only to see sand fly. Riku dared to smirk at that.

He turned to exit the treehouse himself in a significantly-less-spectacular manner when he noticed the spark of gold on the ground. Riku paused a moment to consider it before picking up what he'd probably consider the angriest-looking button he'd ever seen. He turned it over a few times, mulling something over before dropping it into a jeans pocket and making his way to the beach.

There really was something gorgeous about how the illusion of the sun's light glinted upon the waves of the false ocean. Not a bit of it was real, but Riku found himself increasingly homesick since his resolve to finally return home again.

For but a brief moment, Riku allowed himself to be lost to memory.