A/N: For Tomoeish. Prompt: Ichigo x Karin, pajamas.
Windowsill Tears
It was simple, really. Yuzu had the flu and couldn't get up. None of the others had any talent with laundry whatsoever. So it was natural that Karin would run out of clean pajamas, and natural that she would come to Ichigo's door to beg some off of him.
It wasn't natural that she would find him crying silently, kneeling on his bed with his head resting on the windowsill. He never cried, and the wind from the open window had to be freezing.
"Ichi-nii?" she asked uneasily. "What's wrong?"
He didn't answer her, only continued to shake soundlessly and murder the blankets with his fingers.
She crossed the room hesitantly to put a hand on his shoulder. "Ichi-nii?"
Suddenly, he whirled to catch her wrist and yank her into his painfully hard chest, then crushed her to him. She gasped but didn't pull away, sensing something deeper than she knew about going on inside him.
He caressed her hair desperately, pressing his damp face into her neck and trembling fit to fall apart.
She held him, not sure what was wrong but fine with being there for him.
"Karin," he croaked, "she's never coming back, is she."
Oh, Mom, she thought wisely and completely incorrectly. "No," she said gently, and didn't understand when Ichigo nearly broke her back the next moment with the force of his embrace.
She didn't understand any of it, but it felt good to be the comforter rather than comforted for once in her life.
Karin let her brother cry.
XoxoxoxoxoxoX
A/N: Meh. Can't write them. Oh well. :)