Warning: Your heart may ache.
Title: cicada
Rating: PG
Character Focus: Renji x Rukia
Setting: you pick
Description: The flickering of the black-and-white on the screen cast them in stark shadows much the same, and for a moment, they are the silent film, and the empty theater their audience…
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It was the constant ticking of the movie reel that lent the silent movie a signature sound all its own. Hazily, Renji thinks of chirping cicada, and wonders how their childhood might have been different had this been their own backdrop, instead of shouting men, screaming women, and bitter, bitter weeping...
He feels more than sees Rukia shift in the seat beside him; the smile that tugs at his thin lips is as wistful as it is sad. "But I s'pose we didn't turn out so bad," he muses quietly - more to himself than anything, but the all-encompassing quiet of the theater begs for him to speak aloud. Begs for her to reply. Something inside him twists (deliciously? painfully?) when the tiny shinigami shushes him instead of taking the conversation bait.
"It's a quiet-movie, Rukia," he rumbles, petulant, and once again even he doesn't know which way the twisting of his lips is meant. But he knows the mahogany of his eyes can show only softness when they turn on her, so he imagines she sees it as a friendly smile.
"Silent-movie," she corrects primly. She doesn't even bother to look up at him, so engaged is she in her diligent note-taking. Leave it to Rukia, to see an opportunity for 'modern-studies improvement' even in this, the oddest human partaking. "The father Kurosaki insists that these are a vital part of human entertainment history! A centripetal stepping stone in the fine-arts -"
She probably doesn't even realize the authoritative tone her dictating has taken, and wouldn't even have realized her voice had raised taken that smug 'I know more about this, and therefore I am your superior!' tone that only Rukia could ever use without annoying or infuriating him. Instead of feeling that familiar sensation of being left behind - of being less, of being... something - instead, he is filled with a familiar warmth, and this time, he knows his smile for what it is.
The urge to kiss her burns, but he shoves it down just the same. And it's just as well, because a moment later a few of the stragglers in the back of the theater send a rather loud "SHHH!" in their direction, and then Rukia's smug mood is ruined and replaced with a dour pout. He can't blame her for forgetting they weren't alone. It's just a tiny corner-theater playing a dead-of-the-night showing of an ages-past movie. It was a slow night, the theater owner admitted - but only because a bonefied 'Hollywood blockbuster' was opening on the same night. The other couple was squirreled away somewhere in the back, and even now, having just reminded them of their pretense, Renji found it hard to think of them as people so much as a disembodied hiss in the dark.
"It's a silent-movie," he parrots back at her, all whispers and tooth and crooked mocking. She scowls just for him now, and he tries not to feel a glowing sense of accomplishment for it. She snorts and tears back into her notebook, and he settles back against the plush theater seating - but for the life of him, cannot summon any sense of enthusiasm for watching as the strange black and white people doing strange things intermediated by strange captions.
Unable to let him have the last word on that account, she har-umphs a sullen, "Vital part of human entertainment history!" and sticks her nose a little more solidly into her note taking. Absently, Renji worries that she might strain her gigai's eyes, doing that in such poor lighting...
Realizing she feels knocked from her 'sensei' pedestal, he smirks and squirms and assumes the hen-pecked role he always has. He will play the student to her teacher, if only to bask in her self-righteous glow. "It's still boooring," he whines. "And how is this even relevant? People don't look like that - and they don't do stuff like that - and we aren't even getting familiar with the language when it's a silent movie!"
The stragglers in the back send another irritated "shush" in their direction. Renji, however, cares far less for their concern than Rukia. It's always been as such. She acts tough around him, but secretly quivers under their judgment; he quivers under hers, and could care less about the rest. They're a strange pair like that.
They fit, like that.
"Can't we just go?" he pries again. "I mean, I have other stuff to do -"
There's a sudden shift in her reiatsu, and from the corner of his eye, he sees he spine stiffen. Immediately, he realizes he must have said something wrong - but just as much, he knows she would sooner bite off her tongue than just admit it, and so, Renji rolls his eyes and sighs dramatically.
"Fine. Whatever. If you think it's important..." He trails off, waiting for her to snap, but she doesn't. Instead, she sulks a little more into that damned book, and he feels a surge of annoyance that she always is able to learn so much better than him - always has, probably always will. On a whim, he stretches an arm behind her head, along the back of her chair... so she won't see it coming, when he swoops in and yanks the notebook from her unsuspecting hands.
"RENJI!" she screeches, dignity affronted. "GIVE IT BACK!"
"Would you please?" the woman in the back snaps.
"Don't worry, it's a silent-movie. You aren't missing anything," Renji offers cheekily over his shoulder, and tries not to grin when he hears her groan and slam her feet onto the ground. He hears her stomping out, and imagines she is going to get the movie-guard, or bouncer, or usher, or whatever they're called. Her boy-friend (or boyfriend, or lover, or whatever) rushes after her, and Renji laughs out loud once they're gone.
"Hurry, Rukia - we only have a few minutes alone! Tell me what's so important that has you squirreling away knowledge in your little book -"
She launched to her feet after the book, and Renji, finding that strange, also launches to his feet, turns his back to her, and begins leafing through the pages. Doodles, doodles... more doodles...
It's only when he has been leafing through blank pages for some time that he realizes she hasn't been taking notes at all.
He frowns, puzzled. She opens her mouth to speak, but hesitates - the words choke off within her, though her mouth moves and she is making a good approximate of the silent movie rolling away before them. The wild ticking of mechanical-cicada's filled the gap between. The flickering of the black-and-white on the screen cast them in stark shadows much the same, and for a moment, they are the silent film, and the empty theater their audience.
All at once, the words seem to find her. In a rush, she fills the silence. "I'm sorry, Renji. I didn't mean to - waste your time. I just - I know - Nii-sama probably wouldn't let you dally here in the real world, if it weren't for some sort of 'research' - but - if we go to a real movie, with lots of other people - it's so loud, with so many clashing reiatsu - and - it's sometimes easy to forget you're there - and I'm here - and it's easy to forget - we - it's easy -"
Somewhere in the middle, he felt his insides tumble and somersault. His heart squeezes and spasms wildly, and for the second time that night, the urge is almost unbearable.
His hand is on the back of her head, and he finds himself leaning in. But perhaps more surprisingly - he finds her leaning up...
It's unfortunate that he comes back to himself in a bit of a surprise; the guiding hand on the back of her head redirects it's motion, and instead, he presses her to his chest. He tries to tell himself the somersault is from satisfied affection rather than disappointment... but her warmth against him is nice. Her, against him - is nice.
They fit like that.
Sometimes Renji is a little slow, but he isn't dumb (or at least, he likes to think he isn't). So, he smiles amiably and compromises with some centripetal part of his soul, and presses his lips into her raven hair instead. "It's easy to forget us," he supplies where she fails - tenses, for a moment, terrified that he might have misinterpreted -
But relaxes again when she sighs and sidles further into him. "I just want... to be together sometimes, y'know?"
"I know," he whispers, and does, more than she could ever, ever imagine. They're quiet again then, but this time, neither feels the urge to rush and fill the silence. Sometimes... words only got in the way. Sometimes... their movie was silent. But so long as it was theirs -
" - and they won't be quiet! -" he makes out, as the other irritated movie-goers apparently made their case to the usher. Renji arches a tattooed brow and regards Rukia.
"I think we're about to be asked to leave," he offers, chagrined and oddly regretful as he pulls back from her.
"That's ok," she replies succinctly - shifting so abruptly into brusque-business-like Rukia that he can almost wonder if they had their tender moment at all. "There are other things to observe in this human world." He doesn't have time to feel disappointment creep into him, however, as the next moment she is grasping his hand firmly and tugging him towards the red glow of the 'EXIT' sign. "I think I got what I wanted from this excursion. Or... closer to it, perhaps."
He thinks he hears a hint of uncertainty at the end, and so, he smiles cheekily and needles at her to bolster that irksome-borne confidence that is so typical-Rukia. "And what is 'it', pray tell?"
She only smiles when she turns and looks over her shoulder. Her face is cast in white from the light of the flickering-screen, and the mad ticking lends the backdrop, and though they are both silent, Renji knows that this rewritten movie is one he won't mind watching play out for the rest of his life.
fin
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Author's Note – Reposting outside of the one-shot collection so this gem can be tagged appropriately, so Rukia x Renji fans can find it more easily!