kalloway: Lady Gaga from her Just Dance video (GaGa Just Dance)
Kalloway ([personal profile] kalloway) wrote in [community profile] 31_days2021-01-16 08:55 pm

[January 16] Kingdom Hearts - Windows

Title: Windows
Day/Prompt: January 16/Insomniacs know better than anyone how it would be to haunt a house
Fandom: Kingdom Hearts
Character/Pairing: Riku
Rating/Warning(s): AA
Word Count: 300
Summary: Late at night.
--


The night was calm and warm and Riku, yet again, couldn't sleep. The house was dark and quiet and he knew how to walk the halls without making the floorboards creak beneath his weight. That, he'd learned years before, with as much patience as he'd been able to muster and reminding himself that he couldn't always come and go through his window.

Often, he still came and went through his window.

Riku sighed, soft and long, as much an exhausted exhale as anything else. He wanted to sleep, but when he crawled into bed and stared at his ceiling, all he could do was think. His thoughts kept wandering back weeks and months and years, tinted with the clarity of the present and painful in ways he wasn't sure anyone could understand. It was everything he didn't think about during the day, because that's when he felt okay.

The window was there, and an option, but there was nowhere to go.

That wasn't entirely true. He could go places, talk to people, and try to sort himself out, but he was fairly sure that a good night's sleep would do the same thing if he could manage to get it. Nice, peaceful sleep. No dreams, no nightmares. Riku wanted to fall asleep sure in himself, wake up as himself, and that just felt so odd and yet like it was the only way he'd ever felt.

He walked back soundlessly, and crossed his room to the window, already open.

The night was calm and warm and sleep seemed distant and imaginary. Riku knew he'd always have nights like these. More than once, he'd been caught wandering and then admitted as much. Grasping at the frame, he could hear his heartbeat. And then he slowly turned back, suddenly sure he'd sleep.