[ It doesn't take him by surprise as much because Riku watches the gesture unfold; the memory of the times they've fought, the worst of those moments in the Invincible or at what became the ruins of the boathouse, they rise behind the pressure of his fingers encircling his throat. Riku doesn't flinch. It's not because he's too tired to fight, even if he was, he would - promises to keep.
Vanitas presses his Darkness into him. Behind the veil of his longer hair, Riku's eyes round.
He just senses something different, there's no bloodlust. Riku could tell himself he allows it out of curiosity, even as something like instinct kicks his heart into a battle rhythm until he hears the rush of his own blood roaring in his ears.
They aren't fighting, so... there's no need for the buzzy sweep of warm adrenaline and he thinks that's because Riku hasn't really had a moment in the last two weeks that wasn't on high alert or just unconscious, so it's almost like his body has to remember what it's like to cool back down.
It's temporary, he knows it from experience, but the billowing dark that pours down into him cleaves all the jagged edges of pain off the whole host of his healing injuries, cuts and bruises and knitted ribs, the cauterized rip a claw put right up by an old scar in his side, the cut across his chest.
Perhaps he's been tired and hurt for too long. The abrupt relief makes his head spin and to steady himself, his palm falls heavily on him - his shoulder, maybe his arm.
His eyelids drop shut and the exhale he makes isn't really a sound but it's a sigh at the relief, the erasure of discomfort and Darkness's temporary euphoria, the way it sloughs off fatigue and makes him feel... impervious. He recognizes that high.
Dark wisps curl around his nape and out of the corners of his mouth, slip up the hollows behind his ears and at the sudden deep itch in his throat, it convulses as he coughs. He thinks it... hurts, but it's blunted beneath that dark power, the itch intensifies and with it, the urge to cough.
His fingers tighten. They might even leave bruises where the tips have dug into wherever they grasp. He tastes copper at the back of his throat, it tastes fresh, there's a burning tickle that makes him think it might actually be mending, slow and reluctant. ]
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Vanitas presses his Darkness into him. Behind the veil of his longer hair, Riku's eyes round.
He just senses something different, there's no bloodlust. Riku could tell himself he allows it out of curiosity, even as something like instinct kicks his heart into a battle rhythm until he hears the rush of his own blood roaring in his ears.
They aren't fighting, so... there's no need for the buzzy sweep of warm adrenaline and he thinks that's because Riku hasn't really had a moment in the last two weeks that wasn't on high alert or just unconscious, so it's almost like his body has to remember what it's like to cool back down.
It's temporary, he knows it from experience, but the billowing dark that pours down into him cleaves all the jagged edges of pain off the whole host of his healing injuries, cuts and bruises and knitted ribs, the cauterized rip a claw put right up by an old scar in his side, the cut across his chest.
Perhaps he's been tired and hurt for too long. The abrupt relief makes his head spin and to steady himself, his palm falls heavily on him - his shoulder, maybe his arm.
His eyelids drop shut and the exhale he makes isn't really a sound but it's a sigh at the relief, the erasure of discomfort and Darkness's temporary euphoria, the way it sloughs off fatigue and makes him feel... impervious. He recognizes that high.
Dark wisps curl around his nape and out of the corners of his mouth, slip up the hollows behind his ears and at the sudden deep itch in his throat, it convulses as he coughs. He thinks it... hurts, but it's blunted beneath that dark power, the itch intensifies and with it, the urge to cough.
His fingers tighten. They might even leave bruises where the tips have dug into wherever they grasp. He tastes copper at the back of his throat, it tastes fresh, there's a burning tickle that makes him think it might actually be mending, slow and reluctant. ]