#'let's add some SAAADDDDD'

[ice-cream-beat]

Terqua #5 please :3c

I’m sorry this took so long! getting sick really kills my will to write, ugh. hopefully it was worth the wait! |D

#5: cuddling

Summary: Aqua, bearing a number of scars that she kept hidden these days with full-length gloves. Terra, whose lack of them was the biggest scar of all, a testament to so many idle years. [Terra + Aqua, post-KH3.]

Ao3 version here

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“Come in.” Aqua didn’t look up as she called over. When her bedroom door opened a moment later she expected to see Ven, wide awake with an apologetic smile – it wouldn’t be his first late-night visit, especially lately – but as she finally pulled her attention away from her hands and raised her head, she didn’t hide her slight surprise. “Terra. Hey.” The normal thing to ask would have been What are you still doing up? but she only smiled to let him know he was welcome.

“I noticed your light was on,” he told her, glancing at the small lamp that illuminated the bed and not much else. “Everything all right?”

“Mm.” She bobbed her head. “I just wanted to work on this.” Her gaze returned to the handkerchief she’d spread out on the bed in front of her crossed legs. On it were a thin pair of pliers, some silver pieces of various sizes and shapes, and a five-pointed charm that glinted in the low light.

“Hey, that looks good,” Terra observed. He’d stepped up beside her. “Is that new glass?”

“No, it’s the same.” Aqua’s tone was fond as she spoke. It had been painstaking, requiring a lot of patience and resulting in a number of fine cuts on her fingers, but she had procured every last piece.

“And you put it all back together?” He sounded impressed. “How’d you do that?”

Her smile turning sly, she shot him a teasing look. “Crafting secret,” she told him. He chuckled as he crossed his arms.

“All right, I won’t ask. But you know this just means me ‘n Ven will always come to you when delicate things need fixing, right?”

“That’s okay.” Aqua meant it. Gingerly, she turned the charm over to give it another once-over. There was no sign of its previous damage, no indication that the silver frame had only recently been contorted sharply out of shape, or that much of the green glass had been either cracked or shattered completely.

She’d actually finished repairing the Wayfinder a couple hours ago. Rather than announcing that it was complete, however, Aqua now hesitated, continuing to run her fingers along the smooth edges.

He touched her shoulder. “Aqua?”

She tensed a little out of reflex, but detected the concern in his voice and quickly turned another smile up at him. “Yeah. I was just thinking.”

Terra studied her face for a few heartbeats, but apparently found nothing to point out. He moved away, walking the length of the bed, around it, and then to the other side to sit down beside her on the mattress. She gave him a curious glance, but now he had taken to locking his gaze on the Wayfinder.

“Is that what’s been keeping you up?” he asked quietly.

Aqua blinked. “I… no.” Her smile turned reassuring. “It wasn’t that much work, Terra–”

“Not this.” He looked at her and Aqua felt her expression fade before she could try to catch it. “That day… when it broke.”

She opened her mouth to give the same answer, but it didn’t come. She couldn’t lie. Not to him, and not to herself despite how often she tried.

Breathing in deep, Aqua held it for several seconds, but the sigh never came. She let it out slowly and quietly. “…No,” she repeated, finally. Then she corrected, “Yes. But not – it’s not keeping me awake. I just…” Couldn’t keep herself from thinking about it when she was awake. That wasn’t the same, right?

She wasn’t even sure why that day bothered her more than any other. As terrible and grueling as the fighting had been, it was nothing she hadn’t already been through. They hadn’t lost anybody. Their injuries had healed. Hearts were mended, friends reunited, homes restored. And yet… and yet one moment in particular still stuck with her.

Maybe it was because she’d never felt a fear so sharp and cold before. Maybe it was the chilling recollection of hearing glass shatter and iron crunch in the same instant that she noticed a bright streak of scarlet painted across the dry, brown earth. Maybe it was because she never, ever wanted to see Ven like that again, lying on his side and curled weakly around what was left of his shattered chestplate, clothing and skin in tatters–

This time she did exhale heavily, sharp and loud as if to expel those memories in the same gesture. Her fingers tightened carefully around the Wayfinder.

“It was… so close, Terra. So many times.” Her left hand grasped at the Master symbol on her chest. She still hadn’t changed for bed. “Not just then. All the times I could’ve been lost to the darkness… never making it back to him… And then, even when we were together again…” She shook her head feebly. “I know dwelling on the past doesn’t do anything,” she said more firmly. “But… you know what it’s like. Your head and your heart don’t always agree. There are some things I can’t just… force myself to forget.”

Not in the middle of the night, especially, when exhaustion blurred the line between dreaming and waking. She’d awoken in a startled panic several times this week alone, wrestling with her hazy thoughts to try and remember if Terra and Ven were truly all right. They were terrible, heart-stopping moments that she dreaded even more than her nightmares.

“Yeah,” said Terra quietly. “I do know. So I won’t tell you to just forget about it.” His gaze fell away, and for a long moment they sat in silence. When next he spoke, he turned towards her again, although his eyes remained downcast towards the bed. “But… can I ask you something?”

She nodded. “Mm.”

“D’you remember when we woke Ven up?”

The question appeared so misplaced that Aqua knew what moment he was referring to. She cast him a curious sidelong look, but nodded again. “Of course.”

“That look on his face – he wasn’t surprised to see us. He wasn’t upset, either.” Terra exhaled softly, the only hint of his silent laugh. “He was happier than I ever remember seeing him. I’d bet you anything, Aqua, that he never doubted you. He always knew you’d keep your promise. And I think that–” He looked at her, his expression as sincere as she’d always known it to be. “–is a lot more important than all those close-calls and what-ifs combined.”

Terra had always been a man of action over words – but sometimes, like now, he surprised Aqua with knowing just what to say. She broke into a small smile, comforted but also touched. He wasn’t just trying to reassure her; he believed what he said. That honesty meant just as much to her as the gesture. Maybe more.

“Both of us,” she corrected.

“Hm?”

Scooting closer, Aqua set her head on his shoulder and pulled her knees up to her chest. “He knew we’d both come back. He trusted both of us to keep our promises.” She turned the Wayfinder over once more, watching flecks of green dance across the far wall. “…I knew it, too,” she murmured after a moment. “I always thought… even if I never found a way out of the darkness, that you would. You would keep fighting. And you did.”

“Aqua–” There was a frown in his voice.

She shook her head. “It’s okay. We’re all here now.” Facing her fears – her old fears – wasn’t so hard anymore. “And it’s thanks to you two just as much as anyone else. You gave me the strength to keep going. You reminded me why giving in was never an option.” There was no pain in her voice, only contentment. Relief. Never during those thirteen years would Aqua have imagined she could speak fondly of that time, but in hindsight even the bitter cold of that other realm couldn’t hold a candle to the comforting, welcoming warmth that she lived in now.

She felt Terra’s hand on her back, the heel of his palm making small, gentle circles between her shoulders. The same hand that had brandished his Keyblade with thinly bridled fury that fateful day, keeping their enemies at bay and buying her time to heal Ven. “It was the same for me,” he told her. “Always. And I know Ven would say so, too.”

Aqua smiled. One last time, she turned the Wayfinder over and under, her tired eyes searching for any imperfection that she already knew wasn’t there. Terra leaned in close to her ear. “It’s fine,” he told her in a loud whisper. It worked as probably intended: she laughed.

“All right,” she agreed, “it’s done. I’ll give it back in the morning.” She pulled away to set it on the bedside table, but then immediately resumed her snug place against Terra’s side. He surprised her by catching her hand and turning it over with care, observing the pink welts on her fingertips.

“Working hard,” he commented. Aqua closed her hand, but didn’t pull it away.

“Like you can talk. How many blisters of yours did I have to heal when we were kids?”

“Don’t complain. You got a lot of practice.”

She turned to playfully bump his shoulder with her forehead, but then chose to linger there, and after a moment let her eyes slide closed. It was dark with her back to the lamp like this, dark enough that she would quickly lift her head again were she alone, but with Terra here there was no need. Like every night, her hearing sharpened and she listened to the faint creaks of the castle, the passing of the summer wind outside her window, the distant hum of the surrounding waterfalls.

She listened to her heartbeat in her ears, slower than on the nights she spent alone. She listened to Terra’s quiet breathing, to the soft sound of skin sliding over skin as he continued to rub her back.

It was pleasant. She wasn’t sure how long she stayed there.

“No more plans for the night?”

Aqua was pretty sure she hadn’t fallen asleep, but his voice broke her concentration just as abruptly. She withdrew a little, just enough to blink up at him. “No.” No more distractions to keep herself up now. She felt a small chill when Terra’s touch pulled away, and she couldn’t help feeling disappointed when he appeared to rise, surely to leave – but instead he only leaned forward to retrieve the quilt she kept folded at the bottom of her bed. He also reached behind her, straightening out the pillows she’d previously propped against the headboard.

“Come on,” he prompted with a gentle tilt of his head.

She kept to the left side of the bed; he took the right. But as he pulled the quilt up over them both, Aqua inched closer until she could rest her head against the inside of his shoulder again, until their knees had no choice but to overlap and it was more natural to just slide her arm over his side. She was so used to having Ven between them that for a moment it was almost strange, being so intently focused on nothing but one another. It hadn’t been the two of them like this in a long time.

Only for a moment. She felt him brush her hair back from her face – with the same hand that had pulled her out of the darkness that day, refusing to let her fall even if the cost was himself. (But unlike a similar day years ago, they hadn’t been alone. No cost had to be paid this time. The darkness claimed nobody else.) The gesture made her smile, though he couldn’t see it.

She stayed awake for a while. Judging by the sound of his breathing, he did, too. Aqua was tired, but she was in need of simple relaxation, of comfort and quiet and calm, more than sleep. Terra gave her that, even though neither of them spoke again for the rest of the night.

Only when she felt her thoughts begin to slow and drop off did she finally move again, finding Terra’s hands and holding them between her own, down between their chests. There had been a time when she thought she would never have such simple gestures again, when she wished she hadn’t taken so much for granted. Now she wouldn’t.

His hands were worn from wielding, calloused with effort, unchanged from years and years ago. (Having no body for over a decade did wonders for preservation.) The same hands that had held her life in them numerous times and still held her heart now.

In contrast, hers were marked by time and aged by trials, scarred in desperation and attesting to the worst kind of survival. Lines thick and thin, long and short, deep and shallow crossed over her palms, the insides of her fingers, and wrapped up around her knuckles in a few places.

Aqua, bearing a number of scars that she kept hidden these days with full-length gloves. Terra, whose lack of them was the biggest scar of all, a testament to so many idle years. At least, she knew that was how he thought; she knew better, well aware of how long and hard he had fought in his heart. In the end, she wondered who had truly had the more difficult struggle.

She leaned down, touching her forehead to their joined fingers and breathing out, slow and heavy. He responded by setting his chin in her hair, effectively tucking her in against his chest as he turned his hands over and gripped her fingers gently in return, never questioning her movements – or maybe he already understood them.

Tangled and warm and peaceful, they stayed like that until they fell asleep, and then after.