Touch
Character/Pairings: Rukia/Ichigo
Genre: Angst/Hurt/Comfort
Rating: K
Summary: If he concentrated hard enough he could feel her fingers running across his skin.
There's nothing like the bitter, scalding taste of eating your own words.
It is all-encompassing torment at its zenith.
For as far back as he could recall, he could only dredge up memories of telling her to go away, to do not sit on his bed (it was off limits; he wanted at least something to himself she couldn't have), to let him fight his own battles, and to stop drawing those god-awful mishappen cartoons of hers. Never when she was with him was he honest; never did he tell her just how much she meant to him...or how much solace those simplest of actions brought.
At the end...all he could tell her was to stop making faces, that he wasn't upset. He didn't want her to see what was happening to him on the inside.
He said good-bye. He said thank you...as if what she'd done...after all they'd been through together...had been a mere a token of the debt he owed her and a thank-you-very-much-but-this-is-it was all she was worth.
He spent every waking moment after that regretting every single word.
For the first few months he began to apprehend that he was...waiting. After the remainder of his reiatsu diminished and he started to settle back into the humdrum routine he'd been accustomed to previous when he met Rukia, the recognition slammed into him like a ton of bricks. He was awaiting her return.
He figured this was just a break from the War and she was simply hiding out of sight, lingering until the right moment came along that she'd pop up and kick him in the shins.
There were times that he'd find himself glancing back over his shoulder, thinking that she was there when she wasn't.
He preferred to assume he wasn't as powerless as he really was. Everybody but him knew it was denial.
He pretended...but pretending wasn't enough.
When he closed his eyes, sometimes he could hear her voice and its underlining antagonism, albeit these occurences were only when he was feeling particularly sorry for himself.
He always compulsively ducked or assumed a defensive stance for fear that he was going to get hit.
When it never came and he began to get odd looks from everyone, he took up after-school activities and applied for a job to divert his line of focus to something more productive.
But at the Kurosaki residence, once everyone had settled down for the evening and he was by himself...he felt a different kind of sensation.
It was the simplest touch.
If he concentrated hard enough, if he relied on the notion she was there...he could feel her slender fingers skimming across his skin.
He couldn't see her, but he knew she was there.
I'm still here, Ichigo.