kh_drabble | (no subject)

Challenge: [198] Exchange
Title: (Can't Get) Something for Nothing
Word Count: 315.
Spoilers: KHII.
Characters: Riku.
Summary: Everything has a cost; nothing comes for free. (Sometimes it's okay.)

There was a price for everything, Riku knew now; he hadn’t realized when he was young (two years and a lifetime younger), had thought he could get what he wanted free, but now he knew.

He could have anything he wanted, but somewhere, somehow the universe would exact a payment, and he didn’t get to choose what it would be.

He could get away to adventure, freedom, outofhere, but he would destroy his world, everything he had never loved enough falling into darkness while he looked at the sky. He could have power to save Kairi, to replace the Keyblade he had never known was going to be his until it wasn’t, but he would watch helplessly as his body moved against his wishes and taste the medicine-sweet darkness on his tongue. He could win himself back and have someone there helping him find his feet again, but he would close the door and lock himself inside. He could save Sora, bring him back, but he would never be able to let Sora see him again, not when his body was all wrong and the darkness whispered in his blood.

Now he had it all back, his body and his friends and his world. He could race Sora across the beach and play volleyball with Kairi. He could watch the sun go down over the sea and know, not just believe, that there were other worlds out there. He had the family he’d never had, the friends he’d always had, the freedom he’d always wanted.

He wasn’t sure what the price was. The only things he’d lost, at the end of the day, were ignorance and arrogance. That couldn’t be enough, could it?

But it seemed that it was.

Maybe, Riku thought, just maybe, if you wanted the right things in the right way, the only price would be what you were better off without.