Pairing: Ulquiorra Schiffer x Ichigo Kurosaki

Music: Hardest of Hearts, by Florence + the Machine

Word count: ~ 3100

Rating: M

A/N: I have no excuse for this one—I'm thinking vampire-like somewhat-Old West dystopian society, but you can imagine whatever scenario you'd like, I suppose. Uh…think Priest, the movie with Karl Urban. Kinda like that.

Prompt 46: Dust

By all rights, Ichigo should have long since crumbled away to dust.

The Thralls shrank away as he strode past them, one hand on the hilt of his long black sword, black overcoat flaring around him. Behind him, the heavy steel doors were just swinging shut, blocking out all traces of daylight from the caverns.

The others weren't like Ichigo. The sun would have dusted them in a moment if they had gone aboveground while day had its hold on the world.

But Ichigo wasn't like them, from the way he dressed to the sword he carried, and they couldn't make him into one of them—in any way of "making," be it human persuasion or otherwise. Yamamoto had tried. Aizen had tried. Both had failed. Ichigo was a creature of two worlds, untouchable in both. The son of a Daywalker and a Nightwalker, sworn as an Undead-hunting Son of Hecate and therefore a witch, he drifted between the human and Undead, on the fringes of each but still a part of them.

He terrified the Elders. Everyone knew that, and everyone revered and hated him for it in equal measure.

Ichigo didn't care if they feared him. But when they took one of those under his protection, he was willing to use any means necessary to get them back.

Tensa Zangetsu vibrated under his hand, eager and bloodthirsty, as he blew through the tall door to the Court like a vengeful wind. They knew he was coming—they had to know, after what they had done—but they hadn't bothered to take precautions. Ichigo wasn't sure whether that was from pride or stupidity, but either way, it was enough to kill them. He wasn't in the mood to be lenient, not when they'd been warned so many times already.

"Ichimaru," he growled, striding towards the throne with murder in mind. "Where is she?"

The Undead Lord grinned at him, unreadable as ever. "Mah, Ichi, what can we do for our favorite witch watchdog today?"

"Cut the crap." Ichigo shifted his coat back, one hand tightening on Tensa Zangetsu's hilt in preparation. "Two of your people killed a man in the town, and took his sister. I'm here to get her back. The amount of collateral damage is up to you."

Ichimaru kept smiling, but his eyes were hard. "I haven't heard anything about this. Are you sure it was a Third Court member?"

Silently, furiously, Ichigo pulled out the tattered scrap of fabric he had found in the Inoue's house, reeking of Third Court scent. It fluttered to the flagstone floor like a gauntlet tossed down between them, a declaration of hostilities. The entire room held its breath.

Slowly, Ichimaru rose from his throne and came closer, scooping up the piece of cloth and holding it to his nose. Ichigo let him, because as a half-breed, Ichimaru's sense of smell was far superior to his. He had little more than a normal witch's senses, despite his reflexes being even better than an Undead's.

But there was no need for his senses to be any more than they were, because Ichimaru was looking up with murder in his narrowed eyes, sharp and brutal. The grin was gone, and in its place was a deep, animalistic snarl as he hissed, "Loly and Menoly. Come out, come out wherever you are."

It sounded low and dangerous, with the eerie, two-tone hiss of one of the Undead, but it was still understandable. Ichigo spun to face the direction of Ichimaru's gaze, just in time to see two girls in the front pale dramatically, going even whiter than that usual Undead pallor. One, the blond, spun and darted back through the crowd. The other, her dark hair up in pigtails, was a moment too slow. Ichigo caught her up by the throat and hurled her across the room, where she slid to a stop at Ichimaru's feet, then spun to follow the other.

He was a moment too late.

The shadows in front of Menoly surged up like a geyser and then fell away like rain, leaving a thin, pale figure standing in the flickering light. Menoly tried to twist out of the way, to dodge him, but before she could, one white hand flashed out with all the force of a deadly weapon and drove straight through her chest.

Tension easing from his lean frame, Ichigo straightened from his prepared crouch and nodded to his partner. "Your timing's getting better, Ulquiorra."

Absinthe-green eyes flickered to the witch, flat and seemingly entirely not amused, though Ichigo could see the faint traces of humor in the lines of his face. "And your requests are getting more diplomatic, Ichigo. It seems we are both improving."

Casually, he wrenched his hand back through the Undead's chest, lifting it to eye level. Glimmers of silver followed the motion, coalescing into a bright sphere the size of a marble. Ulquiorra surveyed it with something like dissatisfaction. "Souls of quality are growing scarcer. This trash will not last me more than a week." Nevertheless, he raised his bloody hand to his lips and inhaled the orb, swallowing it down.

Ichimaru stared down at the Undead girl at his feet for a moment, then looked back at Ichigo. All traces of humor had vanished from his face, and his narrowed eyes were coldly furious. "Kurosaki, you may as well just feed her to your pet Soul-Stealer. She knew our laws when she broke them." He nodded to the witch, then to Ulquiorra, and walked away. He paused for a moment by the doors, and then called back over his shoulder, "I'll free the girl personally, and see that she's returned tonight."

Ichigo nodded, knowing that Ichimaru would do almost anything at this point to make amends for the two rogue Undead. The Courts only existed through the benevolence of the Order of Hecate, under laws that forbid the taking of unwilling humans. Inoue would be safe until she returned, as a matter of honor. Ichimaru might have been a snake and an Undead, but he would always do what was best for his people.

Looking down, his eyes landed on the cowing Undead who had started all of this. She looked young, little older than his sister Yuzu, but she wasn't an innocent. This wasn't a time when he could spare anyone, and even if he could have, he knew what she and Menoly had planned for Orihime. She would have been slowly bled out, terrified out of her wits. Knowing that, mercy was a long way from his mind as he murmured, "Ulquiorra, she's yours."

He turned and stepped away as the Soul-Stealer moved forward, but his eyes never left the Undead. Loly didn't even have time to scream.

The sun was high over the desert when they stepped out into the wasteland that surrounded the Third Court. Far in the distance, almost out of sight, rose the thick walls of the fortified town, sandblasted to a dull metallic gleam. Smoke from the factories of another settlement miles away drifted on the wind, but the air was still clear.

Ulquiorra narrowed his eyes against the brilliance, watching as Ichigo turned to stare at the closing doors that guarded the Court's entrance. The swung into place with a muffled boom, and the witch scowled at them absently. The Soul-Stealer waited, knowing that if something was troubling his partner that could concern them both, he would eventually share it.

And, at length, he did. With a soft sigh, he turned towards their cycles, stowed off to the side and out of the way of the wind. "Are we ever going to be able to enforce the laws enough that they'll stop breaking them?" he asked quietly, a doubt he wouldn't have expressed in front of anyone else. "Will they ever stop killing?"

Ulquiorra joined him, reaching out and taking hold of his wrist just as he was about to start prepping his cycle. "No," he said flatly. "It is in their nature to kill, as it is in mine to eat souls, and yours to protect. Many can control their urges, but the trash that we see cannot. Trash is all they are. We will kill them, if we find them. It will help."

Twisting his hand in Ulquiorra's grasp, Ichigo returned the loose clasp and offered his partner a crooked half-smile. "Right. Thanks, Ulquiorra. How are you feeling?"

Knowing that the witch was referring to the aftereffects of swallowing two souls in a relatively short period of time, Ulquiorra allowed his grasp to tighten slightly, and maneuvered Ichigo back until he was pressed against the concrete bunker that housed the Court's entrance. He pressed himself against the taller man's form until their bodies were all but flush, letting Ichigo feel what the sudden influx of power had caused.

"I'm very well," he said softly. "What will you do about it?"

Ichigo titled his head just enough to ghost a kiss over Ulquiorra's lips, huffing out an almost inaudible laugh. "I can think of a few things, but it's your turn to top, and what I want…" He lowered his voice even more, until it was nothing but a low hiss in Ulquiorra's ear, as he reached down to press his palm against Ulquiorra's cock. "What I want is for you to put that to good use and fuck me hard enough that I feel it the whole way back."

A shiver rippled through Ulquiorra's lean frame, and he dragged his lips down across Ichigo's jugular, over the very spot where he had once put his hand through Ichigo's chest. There was still a faint scar, something that no witch magic could do away with, and he pressed a soft kiss there. It was his mark, and Ichigo would never wear another. Not from anyone else so long as Ulquiorra breathed.

Deft fingers undid the button of Ichigo's pants and let them drop, then gently spun him around and directed his hands against the rough stone. "Hold on," Ulquiorra whispered, and then his fingers were dipping into Ichigo's body, slick with the lube that Ichigo usually carried in his pocket. Ichigo groaned at the stretch, the fullness that was too much and at the same time not enough, and pressed back.

"Hard," he reminded Ulquiorra breathlessly, and the Soul-Stealer responded with a brief kiss to the back of his neck before the fingers were replaced with something much better.

The slick slide of Ulquiorra's cock tore another moan from Ichigo's throat and he shoved his hips back, taking the entire shaft in one swift, nearly painful movement. It was good, just this side of pain, pleasure with an added bite, and just the feel of Ulquiorra so deep inside of him was enough to wring sharp gasps from his throat as he tried to keep still.

Ulquiorra wasn't nearly as restrained, taking Ichigo at his word and immediately moving, driving forward hard enough to make Ichigo cry out. He wrapped his arms around the redhead, savoring the warmth of his body, the feel of him here, belonging to Ulquiorra even as Ulquiorra belonged to him. They were both singular, both outsiders in a world that only valued identifiable members, but together they had made their own place to belong. Emotionless soul thief and hotheaded half-Undead witch, they had nevertheless carved out their own niche, even where they weren't wanted.

Ichigo gasped and shifted slightly, bracing himself on the wall with one arm as he reached back with the other, wrapping it around Ulquiorra's hip and urging him to a faster pace. "Come on," he gritted out, in a tone that might have been intimidating had it not been broken by wrecked moans and soft gasps. "I won't break. Come on."

With a growl, Ulquiorra snapped his hips forward, increasing his pace even as he crowded Ichigo up against the building, one hand rising from his hips to wrap around his still-covered chest, the other sliding forward to grip Ichigo's dripping cock and jack it once, twice, three times before the witch dropped his head back, tensed his muscles, and came with a low groan. Ulquiorra followed only moments later, sinking his teeth into Ichigo's cloth-covered shoulder to muffle any noise.

They stayed as they were for the length of several heartbeats, half-naked and thoroughly debauched in the middle of the desert, under the bright morning sun. Then Ichigo sighed and moved away, letting Ulquiorra slip out of his body as he turned in his arms for a kiss. It was soft despite the rough sex, gentle and sweet in a way their words would never be, and they both relaxed into it. When they had to breathe, Ulquiorra drew back and ran his fingers through Ichigo's bright hair. To most, it would have seemed as though his expression never changed, but Ichigo knew him well enough to see the faint smugness, the satisfaction and tenderness that were equally mingled in his dark eyes.

"Another hunt?" he asked.

Ichigo nodded, resting their foreheads together and twining their fingers. "Another hunt," he confirmed.

There was always another hunt, another day. And that was enough.

Neither of them was dust quite yet.

Coda: First Meeting

The whole world had turned to dust.

Ichigo stood in the middle of the field, head tilted back to stare at the dark sky. There were no stars up there, not anymore, the air choked as it was a soot from the factories and the burning wastes and the mines out in the Barren. There was a wind, though, even if all it carried was the smell of debris and burnt flesh and singed blood from the Nest he had just destroyed. Fifth Court, if he wasn't mistaken—the traitorous Sosuke Aizen and his Nightwalkers, who had come to the Kurosaki homestead three nights ago and killed everyone they found there.

Four people.

Isshin.

Misaki.

Karin.

Yuzu.

All dead.

The only reason Ichigo had been spared was because they'd sent him on a supply run three days earlier, back to the nearest city for the necessities. He'd come home to find the house in ruins and still smoldering, his mother and father laid out with their heads half-severed and his little sisters drained entirely of blood. It hadn't been a feeding—they would have drained everyone in that case. No, this had been sport, a thrill, Nightwalkers looking for the sweetest and most vulnerable prey. Children, who just happened to be Ichigo's sisters.

It was a coincidence, and there was nothing targeted about it, but Ichigo had hunted down the bastard who initiated it anyway.

Isshin should have been able to defend them—he was a Nightwalker himself, and hardly inconsequential—but he'd been outnumbered, overwhelmed. Misaki, a Daywalker with only the ability to heal, had never stood a chance. And Yuzu and Karin, still coming into their powers, had been utterly defenseless. It made Ichigo sick to think about it, to wonder if his presence would have made a difference, would have changed anything. There was no way to be sure—Nightwalker and Daywalker blood never mixed well, and were often volatile, especially in him—but there was just enough doubt in Ichigo's mind to make his every waking moment agony.

Out here in the Barrens, there was no burying. The predators that came at night would make short work of any graves, so Ichigo had burned the bodies of his family. It was a simple spell, the first he'd ever learned from his mother, and he hated how easy it had been for the black flames to take them. It had been just as easy to open the Fifth Court doors and send his fire through the halls, routing out every last Undead within the complex.

Far away, bells were chiming, alarms to let the people in the nearest settlement know that the Nest's doors had been opened on a night when they weren't supposed to. Ichigo wondered if they had rung last night, when he'd been mourning the aftermath of the Undead attack, and felt fury harden in a knot underneath his breastbone. Soon, an Heir of Hecate would be sent out, a Son or Daughter with powers like Ichigo's coming to ensure that nothing was out of the ordinary with the Nest, as per the contract humans and Undead had signed. But Ichigo wasn't Zero Court like his Nightwalker father, or a Witch like his Daughter of Hecate mother—he was both, and neither all at once, and not bound by their rules. He'd kill all the Undead he could, and the world would be better for it.

Ichigo's cycle was parked in the dust a few meters away, and he swung a leg over the seat and fitted the attached oxygen mask over his face. At the high speeds the cycle could reach, there were too many pockets of toxic or debris-filled air to easily avoid, and the mask also hid his face. He'd wear it, no matter how uncomfortable it got.

The kickstand snapped up with a flick of his foot, and he started the engine. It hummed to life beneath him, the solar cells working perfectly—because no matter how Isshin acted, he was a good mechanic, and this bike had been his gift to Ichigo—as he jerked his goggles down and roared away from the burning Nest, opening the throttle.

Life couldn't end here.

He had a job to do.

Three years later:

Four hours after being sworn in as a Son of Hecate—because that was what his mother had wanted him to do, to become—Ichigo cast off the veil that all Heirs wore and left it lying in the filthy street. The vows meant something to him, but he was still half-Undead, still halfway to being an enemy of the Order, and he wouldn't keep all of their laws. They couldn't stop him, either, couldn't hold him in line with threats or bribes. He'd made no secret of his purpose in joining the Order—all he wanted was to hunt, take down the Undead who refused to follow the laws as laid out in the Treaty. Glorified bounty hunter or not, that was his only purpose.

When he walked into the bar off the dusty main road, there was a Soul-Stealer at one of the back tables.

Later that night, Ulquiorra Schiffer helped him take down a rogue Undead, and somewhere along the way their lives ended up inexorably entwined.

Ichigo would probably call it fate, but then again, there was no such thing.