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The Darkness creeps in when she least expects it. Good nights turn to terror without warning, even five months after being pulled out of hell and getting her family back. She’ll be moments away from sleep, but suddenly, irrationally, the shadows in her room start to writhe, pressing in on her with unblinking yellow eyes, and she has to get out.
There’s something of a routine now, a way for her to cement the reality of being safe and not about to get torn to pieces or drowned in an ocean of cold and black. It begins with a silent sprint down the hallway, stopping first at Ven’s room to make sure the boy is sleeping soundly.
He is sprawled out across his bed, comforter half-kicked off, mouth agape with faint snores, Chirithy curled next to his head. The sight is such a far cry from the lifeless husk she would see in the Darkness, and it’s the first step back into reality. As she makes to close the door and continue her frantic passage, she catches Chirithy’s sleepy eye. The cat blinks at her slowly, sadly, before she closes the door. There’s nothing the Dream Eater can do for her; the nightmares come while she’s still awake and far from the realm of sleep.
Her next stop is at the other end of the hall. The soft glow that seeps from under Terra’s door is a lighthouse against the tenebrous clouds flooding her vision. She knows he keeps it on late just for her, for nights like these when memories are more real than the present. And she knows she never needs to knock, but she does anyway.
“Aqua?”
Hearing him say her name is another step back into the sun. She opens the door and steps into his room, the Darkness in her mind retreats, pulls itself to the corners of her eyes as her vision is consumed by him. She never stopped lighting his way back, and he’s been lighting her way forward ever since.
“Terra…”
He’s sitting up in his bed, reading by soft lamplight, but he puts his book down when she exhales just a little too harshly.
“Are the shadows bothering you again?” he asks, getting up and moving to her. She nods. His arms pull her in but it’s not the escape she needs, not yet.
“Where are you right now?” he asks. She shivers, pressing her ear against his heart.
“I’m back there—the dark shore. Waves at my ankles. Ice in my fingers. Claws on my spine.”
His hands move to cradle her jaw and she hesitates. She’s afraid to look at him right now, the false reality telling her that she’ll see silver and gold instead of sky and bronze.
“Aqua, look at me…please?”
It’s always the ‘please’ that catches her. None of her nightmares ever said ‘please’.
She looks up. His eyes are an oasis, and she’s been choking on the dust from the depths of hell for so long.
“What do you need?”
“I…”
She has to take a breath, because his eyes are telling what he’s offering, and finding the words to ask is difficult when her mind hasn’t quite aligned this as reality.
“I don’t want to be there anymore. I need…I need to be brought back. Grounded.”
There’s a glint in his eyes and a twitch in his mouth, and she knows it’s because she hasn’t said the right words, not yet. His thumb brushes her cheek with encouragement. It’s part of the process, and she’s getting better at saying it smoothly.
“I need you, Terra.”His eyes say, ‘that’s it’, and he pulls her into a kiss that’s warm enough to thaw the ice in her fingers. His palms, warm and strong, at her back push away the claws on her spine. He lifts her off the floor and out of the waves at her ankles. They fall into his bed and on some nights, the heat of his body and the softness of his covers are enough to fully banish the Darkness, so long as she stays in his arms.
This night, however, is one of those where that place still hovers close enough to the surface that she fears opening her eyes again. That his arms and his bed and his kisses aren’t enough warmth and light to push it away; she needs the burst of starlight that comes when he makes her body soar.
She’s made it a part of this ritual, a way she can inform him of what she needs, when the nightmare still threatens to choke the words in her throat. It’s in her knees tightening around his hips, it’s in her nails digging into his scalp, it’s in his name that she breathes into his mouth. He recognizes it, and pauses, drawing back to look into her eyes, even though she won’t, she can’t, open them right now.
“Are you sure?”
He always asks. It’s a small but vital step. Because sometimes, she just needs to breathe. Sometimes, she just needs the air in his room, needs him to fill her senses. Sometimes, she doesn’t need sex to get through the night.
But when she cracks her eyes open to answer, the Darkness is still there. Still wants to consume her. Still reaching like rust into the stainless place that is home. She finds his eyes, dives into the oasis.
“Yes, please.”
He starts with her eyes. Just the barest brush of his lips over her closed lids. Reminding her that when she looks up, he will be there and that he is real. Then a firm press to her forehead, to let her know that he adores her, that she is still healing and that that’s okay. The kiss to her cheek is, ‘thank you for saving me’. And the long, sweet, dizzying kiss to her lips brings tears to her eyes, because it’s a truth she’s still adjusting to.
‘I love you, and I always will.’
He eases her out of her pajamas, his lips pressing these immutable truths into every bit of her skin that is uncovered. Their fingers tangle above her head as his tongue etches apologies into her scars, all the times and places his body had been made to hurt her.
The line down her throat for Radiant Garden.
I’m sorry
Scattering across her ribs for the chains in the Keyblade Graveyard.
I’m sorry
Nuzzles at her calf and down to her ankle for the Guardian in that place that she can’t seem to escape.
I’m sorry
She loves and hates this part; it is equal parts healing and destructive memories for both of them. She gives him precisely three kisses to her ankle before she lurches, grabbing him and pulling him back up so he fits perfectly between her legs.
“Bring me back,” she pleads, eyes squeezed closed.
“You are back,” Terra responds, kisses her sweetly, rolls his hips against hers just once. He maps a path back down her body, a trail of fire to escape the illusions. She catches up with him somewhere around her waist, his lips brushing sensitive skin with every word. “You’re here, you’re home, and I’m not letting you go again, Aqua.”
Her eyes fly open. That’s her name. She looks down and catches Terra’s eyes, bottomless blue in the soft lamplight. He smiles and says her name again, “
Aqua,
” and kisses the soft skin under her belly. The Darkness never spoke her name the way Terra speaks it now, the way he etches it into her inner thighs, the way he says “
the darkness can’t have you
,” and presses his tongue against her center.
There are sparks building in her eyes, Aqua can see them dancing in the plaster and woodwork of the ceiling above her. They’re like tiny blades of light, fighting the tendrils of Darkness encroaching on her gaze. Every stroke, every push of his tongue eggs them on, the heat of pleasure building in her core feeds the fire that burns the shadows from her sight. He lightly tugs and sucks at her clit, hums against her, and it’s a battle cry that catches and breaks from her throat as a stuttering moan. She shifts and rocks with him, pulls his head in further, his teeth scrape and she’s so close. She’s going to be free again. She claims his right hand and presses it to her heart.“Aqua,” he breathes her name into her, and she looks down, finds him once again, and his eyes, his eyes, say “I’m right here…let go.”
The orgasm is an explosion of light, rolling up her body and bursting behind her eyes as fireworks. The last desperate veins of darkness are nothing in the face of Terra’s loving her, and are finally drowned in the well of tears; she closes her eyes and lets them fall. Terra catches them, brushes them gently away with his left hand; she still has his right splayed over her heart. She smiles at the feel of more kisses against her throat up her jaw until their lips meet again.
“Hey,” Terra rests his forehead against her temple, his words spoken just into her ear, “where are you right now?”
Aqua opens her eyes without fear. There’s no lingering darkness, no yellow-eyed shadows in her peripheral, only the light of the lamp and a mess of brown hair. She tucks her head down so she can brush a kiss to Terra’s forehead.
“I’m with you. I’m home.”