Written for a tumblr prompt + pairing meme. The prompt was 'I think you missed your calling'.
Indelible
by hashtagartistlife
The green light of healing kido washes over him feebly, and Ichigo hacks out a laugh as his bones refuse to knit.
"I think you missed your calling," he breathes, raising a hand to touch her face. He can't tell if the moisture on her cheeks are raindrops or tears. "Fourth squad, clearly. Forget Captain Kotetsu, they need you in their hospitals, stat." He smiles at her softly, ignoring her ragged breathing, the desperate set to her chin. He curls his fingers round the strands of her hair, and Rukia swats him away.
"Shut up," she gasps, white gloves drenched up to the elbows in his blood, fingers desperately scrabbling over the gaping wound in his stomach. "Shut up, shut up, shut up, invalids shouldn't be mouthing off to their healers, oh god, Ichigo, it won't close up—"
"Rukia," he murmurs, and makes to tuck her hair behind her ear, but she ignores him, angrily swiping a hand over her eyes.
"Shut up, shut up, all your opinions are goddamn rejected, I don't want to hear what you have to say, you're not going to die, you're not going to—"
"Rukia," he tries again, but she only takes her hands away from him; not a second later, they're back, this time pressing something long and white against the ruined flesh. She winds and winds it around his torso, hands trembling all the while, as crimson seeps through the pristine fabric.
"Kido wasn't working, so you decided to go for manual options?" he tries to joke, but then he realises just where exactly she's got the makeshift bandage from. Sode no Shirayuki's hilt clinks against him as Rukia reaches the end of the ribbon and ties it back on itself. "Rukia—"
"Shut up, don't fucking talk, it's only going to make it worse—" she sobs, and they both know it's no use anyway; his blood is soaking through the ribbon of her zanpakutou and it won't be enough to keep death at bay. Rukia tries the kido again through her tears, hands shaking, and Ichigo catches them in his.
He brings them higher up, and stills them against his chest; directly over his heart. There's no blame in his soft eyes, only understanding and acceptance, and somehow that makes everything worse. And yet, there's nothing Rukia can do, nothing either of them can do, but wait now for his slowing heartbeats to cease.
"I'd do it again," he breathes, her hand against his heart— "I'd do it again, a hundred million times over. I'd do it again."
An eternity later, Rukia looks up to a world that is too silent, and a crimson stain on her zanpakutou that does not wash out.