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Entry tags:	fiction

Tainted Affection [Fic]
Title: Tainted Affection

Pairing: Ansem x Riku x Heartless Kairi

Author: coldsilence

Rating: R

Comments: This fic was inspired by Tainted Affection, a picture drawn by our very own oathkeeper. I hope you all enjoy! (And this will be crossposted in khshipping. Sorry if you have to see it twice!)

Tainted Affection

“Haaah…. Haaah...”

It was always so hard to breathe after traveling through the darkness. However, it was nothing compared to the constricting feeling he got in his chest when his so-called best friend tried to steal Kairi away. Even now, he could feel Sora battling with the doppelgangers he had left behind. The keyblade was vanquishing them one by one, but it was too little, too late. Riku had the prize right here.

An empty win.

“Nobody asked you!” Why was it that every time he started to feel good about himself, HE had to interrupt him? Riku fought the aches and pains in his muscles to push himself to his feet. Kairi hung loosely from his arms, completely motionless as she had been since he found her.

An empty shell.

“Not for long. I’ll find her heart.” Riku carefully lay his friend on the stone dais that Maleficent had prepared especially for this princess of heart. He was no fool, he knew that they had big plans for her once they found her missing heart, but he was confident that he could snatch her away before things got too dire. Then he would be the one who got the last laugh.

An empty love.

“I said shut up!” He wheeled around with fury in his eyes, but there was no physical presence there to take his anger out on. Instead, there was only a whisper of wind in a windowless room, and something intangible that was pooling in the shadows.

The darkness was always waiting to break free of his control. Heartless obeyed him, but they still gave him hungry looks or occasionally moved in a way he did not direct them to. It only proved what he knew was true, he still had his own heart and it was strong enough to warrant the interest of those without.

An empty heart.

“Not as empty as yours.” Riku was starting to seethe with anger. Ansem knew nothing; he was only taunting him like always. Everything would be fine when he got Kairi’s heart back. Sora would come to his senses and leave everything to Riku like always, and Kairi would so grateful and remember that Riku had been the brother she never had as they grew up together.

Their adventures may have torn them apart, but he was going to put everything back together, even if it meant beating Sora to his senses or allying with shady characters for a while.

Together, we will return her heart to the darkness.

“Isn’t my heart enough?” Not that he would ever succumb to the darkness. His heart was too strong. If anything, the darkness would bow to him.

Deep laughter echoed in Riku’s mind. Darkness is the heart’s natural state. We are merely bringing her home. Just as I have brought you home.

Something slithered against Riku’s spine, and he clenched his teeth with the effort not to react to it. He was just playing along. None of this was true. Even if sometimes it felt so good. Even if it made him feel powerful. Even if it made him scream.

“Touch her,” murmured a baritone voice into Riku’s ear. Ansem’s gloved hand on Riku’s back urged him to take action.

It gave Riku a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature of the room. “She’s just a doll like this. It would be meaningless.”

“Meaningless,” echoed the older man in a smooth voice.

“Meaningless –“ Riku’s conviction died when he realized that they were surrounded by Heartless. They were intangible hidden in their shadows, but their gold eyes gave away their positions within the walls of the room. They watched from the ceiling and peered through the window like the spectators of a game; the only thing preventing them from swarming was a command from Ansem.

Riku’s eyes then snapped to Kairi, and grew hard with anger and horror at the shadows crawling all over her pale skin. “GET OFF HER!” He grappled uselessly with intangible heartless creeping along her legs and curiously prodding the dip of her throat and the sides of her body. Riku’s fingers curled around skin and scrunched the fabric she wore, desperately trying to touch so they couldn’t touch, feel so that they couldn’t feel. “Stop it!!”

“It’s meaningless,” said an amused Ansem.

“It’s wrong!”

“If you open your heart,” and this was whispered close enough to stir strands of silver from Riku’s earlobe, “no heartless will touch her again.”

Riku’s teeth clenched hard enough to make them creak.

“Only a sliver, as you have done for me so many times before.”

Riku hunched over to cover Kairi’s body with his own to protect it from shadows. There was no relent from the horde. They came at her anyway, curling claws around her toes and prodding her face with antennae. A sound of utter frustration wrenched its way from Riku’s throat. “Alright!!”

Immediately, all movement ceased in the room. The heartless returned to the walls, but the intensity of their staring increased exponentially. Riku craned his head to look over his shoulder, but Ansem was nowhere to be seen. Cautiously, he scanned the room, then returned his gaze to the lifeless girl beneath him.

She belongs to us.

“To do as we please,” finished Riku in a voice that was not his. Yes, possession. Kairi was his, Sora was his, they were both his property. Why had he not seen it before? The ice in his heart was sharp and made everything crystal clear. The worlds were his for the taking and so were the people in it. Soon, they would all kneel to him and the true darkness.

He lifted himself from Kairi’s body so that he could pull it into a sitting position. Her blank eyes rolled with the movement and eventually settled on some vague point over the crest of Riku’s shoulder. She was unresponsive when Riku leaned in and mashed his lips to hers in a first kiss she was never going to remember. There were no goosebumps when he unabashedly felt her breasts with greedy squeezes, nor an answering hug when he eventually laced his arms around her thin body.

Riku was wholly unaware of the ring of gold painting the edges of his eyes. All he knew was that he was finally getting a reward for all his efforts. A reward he deserved. With utmost focus, he undid the clasp to her choker and threw it uncaringly across the room. Then he kissed her exposed neck; sucked it hard and made it bruise to purple. He grasped the straps of her shirt and tasted the flesh at her collarbone, soft yet as cold as a corpse with rigor mortis.

The heartless were quiet as a tomb as they watched. Their eyes never blinked, for there was no light there to irritate them. Riku’s shadow stretched into the black mass they made, taller and older, and bearing a mane of hair and clothing that did not belong to him.

Sora defeated the last shadow.

It came to Riku like a jolt. He felt the last of the shadows he commanded disperse from the power of the keyblade. Doubtless Sora would be coming to Hollow Bastion soon, here, and claim Kairi for himself. However, if Riku found Kairi’s heart first, she would love him. He would win. Right?

Right?

The glow vanished from Riku’s eyes, leaving behind a wateriness that he was unaware of. He stared at Kairi as if he expected her to say something, and then his grip on one of her shoulders tightened until finger-shaped bruises began to imprint the skin.

“Well?” He demanded to her slack face. “Why won’t you move? You moved for HIM!” Her body was given a shake hard enough to make her eyes dip and bob. “Kairi! Kairi!!! KAIRI!!!!”

Nothing.

Riku’s expression was wild and dangerous. What did Sora have that he did not? Why did she move for him and totally ignore his needs? WHY?

The heart is weak.

Sneering, Riku lowered Kairi’s body to the dais. He arranged her limbs neat and pretty, but no care was shown to rearrange the disarray her clothes had become. For a few moments, he stood over her like a lord inspecting his peasants.

“There’s only one hero you’ll ever need.”

When Riku turned to leave the room, the Heartless parted from his path, as they would have done for Ansem.