This was originally written for an old deathberryprompts, 'electric', but then I didn't finish on time so it was going to be for the first day of irmonth, 'missing scene/episode tag', but then I didn't finish it on time for that either, and now I don't really know what it is, now. But it's been a while since i've posted anything new and i just, need to stop tinkering with this and just get it OUT of my WIP folder. so, here it is.
The Body Electric
by hashtagartistlife
Rukia's good with kido. Ichigo hadn't managed to appreciate it on that first night, when he broke through her bakudo with sheer force of will, but it soon becomes evident just how fine her control over this nebulous subject is. Even with most of her powers gone and only dregs remaining, she manages to hold her own against lower-class hollows, hurling blue fire and binding them with nets of light. Ichigo loses count of how many times she saves him from his own incompetence by way of a cleverly placed chant or two, how many times she spares him from the pain of a rake across his shoulder or a broken bone.
She's good at both attacking and restraining, but to his surprise, she's most proficient at healing; her bedside manner leaves a little to be desired, but the touch of her fingertips on broken skin is always gentle, and the pure focus she directs at the wounds leaves him tingling, like he's got electric currents running through his veins. If he is a little less vigilant than he should be, knowing that any injuries he sustains will be subject to her lithe fingers sweeping over them, well— he doesn't like to admit it, not even to himself.
It doesn't take long for that kind of carelessness to backfire, though, and one night he's sitting on a random rooftop, Rukia hissing with worry. The front of his shihakushou is drenched with blood, and her face is tight as she peels the wet cloth off his torso. He winces as shreds of skin come away with his clothes, and Rukia snaps at him.
"I told you to be more careful, fool, you almost got yourself killed—"
"But I didn't, so would you quit nagging— SHIT, Rukia, that hurt—"
"You deserved it," she says, but there's a distinct lack of bite in her tone; Ichigo rubs the back of his head, still throbbing where Rukia'd whacked him, and stays silent as she sucks in a breath at the extent of the damage. He's rather impressed himself; his entire front felt like it was on fire, sure, but he hadn't expected it to look like it'd been put through a shredder. He grits his teeth as Rukia lays her hands over the wound and gets to work.
The first spark of her power into him is always startling; fresh and cool, like a winter morning. Then, a low, continuous stream, fluctuating occasionally, like the comforting hum of the refrigerator in the middle of the night. Ichigo loves watching her like this; it's the only other time, apart from when she's asleep, that he can stare at her freely and not expect an elbow into the softer parts of his body. She's all sharp concentration—fierce eyes and precise hands—and Ichigo lets a long, shallow breath go as the kido starts knitting him back together.
It takes longer than it usually does for him to heal to an acceptable extent, but then again, he'd taken more damage than usual, too. By the time she's done, Rukia looks pale and wan. Ichigo grabs her arm before she can stumble off the roof and she jerks away from him with a cry of pain.
"You fool, what do you think you're—"
He lets go of her hastily. "Are you— are you hurt—"
"Don't be ridiculous," she says, but her words don't match her actions; she's cradling her arm into her chest, keepings its weight off the shoulder joint. He thinks, exasperated, how it is just like her to tell him not to be ridiculous when she is the one being a moron. His mouth takes on a grim set and he gestures to the roof tiles.
"Sit. You can't go to school tomorrow in that state. You should heal it before we go back."
She glares at him a moment before responding. "I don't have any power left. Some fool got more injured than usual so there's nothing I can do about this," she indicates her shoulder with her chin, "Until tomorrow afternoon, at the very least."
That takes him aback for a second or two; surprise then guilt washes over him, thick and acute. He hadn't anticipated this as a consequence for his lack of vigilance. That Rukia will be in pain because of him—
A thought stops him. "If— if it's power that you're lacking, can't you take some of mine?"
The look she throws him is scornful. "If that were possible, don't you think I would have already taken them back from you and left a long time ago—"
OK, that one hurts in places he didn't know he had. He tries not to think of why that might be (it comes from the same place that his carelessness does) and presses on. "No, I mean, not take them back completely. Can't I just— channel some of my reiatsu into you, and you can direct it or something?"
She's waving him off before the sentence is finished, but he persists. "Why not? Doesn't look hard. Isn't healing kido just you putting your hands on me and pouring reiatsu in anyway?"
"Ichigo, you can hardly control your reiatsu enough to mask it, let alone pour it into somebody else. I'm not about to let you anywhere near a medical procedure—"
"—But you're in pain."
He doesn't know why that slips out; it's hardly an argument likely to sway her. Rukia's face takes on an odd expression that he can't quite interpret.
"...I mean, it's just— you could not be, you know, and it's my fault anyway—"
In response, Rukia sits back down on the roof, and starts unbuttoning her shirt.
"RUKIA— WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOI—"
"Hush, you fool. Skin-on-skin contact is the first requirement for basic healing kido. Shut up and sit down next to me, if you want to help." She slips the shirt off her injured shoulder, halfway down her arm, and Ichigo is kind of mesmerised by the sharp line her scapula makes against the skin of her back. Staring, he kneels awkwardly at an arm's length from her side.
She sighs in annoyance. "Closer, idiot."
He shuffles nearer sheepishly.
"Put your palm against the shoulder," she instructs, and Ichigo tries to refocus; now that the moon is out in full, there's more light around, and he can see the joint looks swollen and bruised. He winces in sympathy and wraps his palm around the area, fingers curving over the collarbone, almost touching her spine.
"And now your other hand on top," she tells him, and he complies; she burns beneath his touch, and he can't tell whether it's from the inflammation or if she always runs this hot. He should know, shouldn't he? It isn't his first time touching her skin. At least, he thinks so. It's strangely difficult to concentrate.
She puts a hand on top of his interlaced ones and breathes out. "Ok. Now try pushing your reiatsu into me. A— a little at a time, if you can, so I can control it…."
Trying to channel his reiatsu out instead of restraining it in is a new experience; it takes him a few tries and a couple of singed hairs, but eventually he refines his energy into something acceptably similar to Rukia's steady stream. He can feel it dissipating under her skin, being directed by Rukia to wherever they need to go. Somehow, this exchange seems much more… intimate than their usual closeness, and the thought is dangerously distracting; he tries to ignore the way that he's hyper-aware of everything, the softness of her skin, the fragrance of her hair.
(And wasn't she using his shampoo? Why does it smell different on her compared to him? He's smelled this shampoo on Yuzu before and he could swear it smells nothing like the scent coming off Rukia right now— and oh, god, focus, Ichigo.)
After too long (and not long enough), Rukia heaves an unsteady sigh and takes her hand away from his. Ichigo takes a minute or two to react, blinking sluggishly and stretching the fingers that he now realises are cramping. How long had they been on the rooftop, curved together—? He looks back at her to ask the question, just as she looks towards him, and all of a sudden, they're way, way too close; enough for him to see the reflection of the streetlights in her eyes, enough for his each of his breaths to stir her eyelashes. He's seized by a reckless and foreign impulse, to lean in just a little bit more, and—
She hits him with her newly-healed arm.
"OW— what was that for?!"
"For getting injured like a moron in the first place," she sniffs, rotating her shoulders to check that they are in working order (they are. The rapidly-forming bruise on Ichigo's midsection can attest to that). "What do I keep telling you? You have to hit them from the back, one clean slice—"
"Look, my way of fighting works just fine—"
"Which is clearly why we dropped onto this rooftop, tracking blood everywhere."
"But did I die?"
The look she gives him could wither entire trees in summer. Ichigo has to fight to keep the blush down.
"... Forget I said that. Let's just get off this fucking roof," he mutters, strapping his sword to his back and dusting his knees off. Rukia just snorts, her shirt already buttoned up and tucked neatly into her skirt. She makes an imperious gesture, and Ichigo kneels in front of her rather grudgingly; she hops onto his back, and he leaps off the rooftop, her arms snug around his neck.
"You didn't die," she says, after a few minutes of silence and the night rushing by them. "You didn't die, but you could have."
"Nah," he tells her, easy now that they're back on familiar ground. He can't see her face, but her arms tighten around him.
"Yes," she insists, a well-worn edge of guilt in her tone. "Ichigo, you don't understand, tonight, you really could have died—"
"Nah," he repeats, stronger. He glances back at her, takes in a flash of milk-white skin, black hair tossed to disarray in the wind. "You were there. That's what you do, right? Save my dumb ass from getting killed. That's what you've always done."
She's silent for so long after that that he thinks she's fallen asleep; he alights on his windowsill, preparing to change his grip on her so he can carry her to the closet, but before he can do so she hops off his back, landing with a muted thud on his bed.
"I won't always be, though," she says, softer than his feather duvet, and it takes him a while to remember what they'd been talking about.
"Oh, yeah? Only one thing to do, then," he says, deliberately flippant; desperately trying to ignore the way that her last sentence sets his insides twisting. He won't examine why that is, just as he won't examine too closely the strange urge he had to lean in closer and the secret, reckless part of him that thinks it's worth it to get injured just for the feel of her hands on his skin.
She looks at him skeptically. "And what might that be?"
The smile he wears for her then is rueful in the dark.
"Teach me kido."
(...And this, folks, is a fic that epitomises why I shouldn't write unless I have a very clear point to make. Some people are good at writing the everyday and mundane; finding the special meanings in a small ordinary gesture and making a simple, quiet scene between two people into something worth writing and reading about. I am not one of those people. I require a grand sweep of a narrative, a thematic anchor, some sort of common thread or point or feeling or /whatever/ that I'm trying to convey through the fic. I just, I can't DO mindless fluff and I can't DO simple domestic if simple domestic is all there IS to the fic. make no mistake, i'm not insulting the simple domestic fics and small cutscene fics and what have you. In fact, I really respect people who can write stuff like that, because I'm /just so darn bad at it./
anyway, at first i was trying to shape this fic so i could end it with a sentence about how rukia's smile was far more electric than any kido running through his body (because the theme was electric, har har), but the fic wasn't cooperating, then i thought 'well hell if im gonna write about rukia's smile i should tie it back in with his 'i remember now why i wanted to save you so much' spiel because i wanted to explore that ANYWAY, but then i felt like I didn't want to '''''waste''''' a fic topic like that on what's basically a throwaway drabble, and THEN I was just trying to finish the fic and there was that WEIRD bit of sexual tension that came out of nowhere so i was like 'well i mean sexual tension is sort of electric and like ichigo is in that age range maybe i should make this fic explore that' but idk? it just didn't happen that way, and THEN there was that weird bit of introspection on rukia's part when ichigo says 'that's what you do, save my dumb ass from dying' and i was like, 'this is Deep nd Meaningful bc in rukia's view that's the exact opposite of what she does bc kaien, right, oh i should expand upon that too' but like. by this stage i was just tired so i just ended it so abruptly. can you believe the original fic was just 'hey i think a lot about rukia using kido in early karakura and i wanna know how ichigo felt about this kido and was he ever curious about it and maybe he wanted to learn it?' except this fic managed to do NONE of the things i wanted it to do and. haha. hahahaha. but i didnt want to discard it because there are! good phrases in here! and god, kids, never get into writing as a hobby, it's a shitty shitty idea, don't do it. anyway. whatever. i hope u guys enjoy regardless, this was just my little behind-the-scenes rant :'))