Characters: Rangiku, Gin
Summary: Those shadows swallow her but lead her straight to him.
Pairings: GinRan
Warnings/Spoilers: No spoilers
Timeline: Pre-Soul Society arc
Author's Note: If you find this surreal, then I will have achieved what I wanted to achieve.
Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach.
To navigate the avenues of shadowed alleyways and dilapidated housing takes a certain finesse. Don't knock over the crates in the alleys, don't disturb the dwellers, don't lose your footing and don't lose sight of where you're going. Gin has mastered the art of sweeping through the shadows; Rangiku is still learning.
The shadows still twist at her feet, nipping at her ankles when she treads over them, but she's learned not to mind and even enjoys the coppery flavor of excitement on her tongue at points, as exotic and bizarrely sensual as it is.
Long ago, she's not sure when, she and Gin resolved, without words ever passing between them, to follow each other. Maybe it was in the crisp autumn streets of ramshackle Rukongai, when they realized that they would have to protect each other if they wanted to survive long enough to see adulthood. Maybe it was in the halls of the Academy, when divergence threatened to tear them apart. Maybe it was when thy became Shinigami and were exposed to a new danger on the edges of all awareness, encompassing and fighting for control of everything. The corruption she can sense but never quite see.
The shadows have enveloped Gin, welcomed him as one of their own. By her own association with him Rangiku has learned darkness and tasted it, can't quite understand it, and is only starting to dip her feet in the dark water herself.
But all things change.
A vast expanse arises before her, the surface of the water black and smooth, and Rangiku sees nothing else possible but to draw a deep breath before she takes the plunge, knowing she may never breathe again. She dives in, never looking back.
Nothing else to do is she wants to keep following him, to make sure he's face.
Because what else can be done for someone she loves, someone she feels responsible for?
Final breaths are taken quickly and efficiently; keep enough air that the lungs won't start to starve for a while yet. Rangiku knows that this new world will drown her eventually, but for now she can live on the curiosity of a cat and the concern of a lover. She needs to know where Gin walks, how he dances so she can dance around him, bodies twisting in darkness so impenetrable that not even the whites of their eyes can be seen.
It is beyond imagining, once the shadows swallow her, and envelop her with gray not-light the way he is. Rangiku can't step back into daylight and be unchanged, not anymore, but the stain mostly stays off her. She will never be the same, not after this.
There is some beauty to be found in the night's transforming shroud, dark and foreboding and eerie. Few can hear the song shadows sing from dark alleyways and gloomy, wet tunnels, but Gin hears it with clarity and Rangiku starts to listen, hearing it imperfect and wavering, but still hearing it the way he does.
When his hands are on her she knows where they come from, even if she does not fully understand what the stain on his skin is.
Rangiku fears no darkness, especially not from him.
She will never be a creature of the shadows, the way Gin is. But she knows that strange, arcane dance he steps to, and Rangiku starts to hear the words, begins to understand that crooning notes of darkness's lullaby.