Yay! I didn't kill anyone! This fic didn't turn nearly as dark as I intended! Sometimes I'm just a sucker for a happy ending, I guess. Speaking of which, this is it! And you know what? This fic could really use some IchiUri. Yes, it's been far too long! So to all the lovely, lovely readers that have come along on this little dramatic journey with me, I've left you all with something...er...pretty to enjoy! :)
Quick note: The title is from a song by Bonnie Raitt.
Chapter warning: In case the "pretty to enjoy" comment didn't make it clear, there's a sex warning for this chapter...
Epilogue: Love Has No Pride
Midnight. The cool breath of the night breeze fanned through the limbs of the heavy, swaying trees. Overhead, the moon shifted and shimmied, playing hide-and-go-seek in between the swiftly rolling clouds. The air was filled with the crackle of electrical heat, a sign of the storm that was soon to come. Standing on a broad branch, high above the earth in a tall tree, was Ichigo Kurosaki, his black Shinigami robes flaring around him like a murder of crows, his zanpakuto glinting in the darkness. His expression was determined, intense, as he waited for the hollow to appear below him in the woods. He waited. But no hollow came.
Ichigo sighed and leapt out of the tree. He had tracked the hollow into the forest but had lost him in all the massive, overgrown foliage. A nasty, hairy beast that looked like a cross between a boar and an ugly rabid dog, with spindly, razor sharp ridges lining its back. He'd almost had it on the soccer field, but the creature had managed to sprint away from him at the last second. After that, its spiritual aura had become almost mute, untraceable. Uryuu's right, he thought to himself. I'm terrible at tracking spirit energies; I'm never going to find it in this vast forest.
Uryuu. His sword shook in his grip as he thought about the Quincy.
It had been almost three weeks since he'd seen the other boy. He had given up on trying to talk to him; Urahara had told him to wait, so wait he did. In the meantime, Ichigo had thrown himself fully into the task of tracking and eliminating hollows. The work was a good way for him to take his mind off of things. Unfortunately, his own thoughts always seemed to find a way to betray him, to sneak around and trip him up. His brain found roundabout ways, either through random memories or vague associations, to bring the dark-haired Quincy into the forefront of his mind. Uryuu was always in his thoughts-always-and the Shinigami found it impossible to exorcise his presence.
And in truth, he did not want to be rid of him.
Ichigo raised his head to gaze forlornly up at the moon, watching as it hid its round, white face shyly behind a cloud. Come back to me...He had thought the words were his own, but in his head, it was Uryuu saying them, repeatedly, his voice sounding like a distant echo, his timbre like the touch of memory.
Come back to me...
In the back of his psyche, he could feel his hollow stirring, could hear its low, gleeful twittering, an evil laughter that was full of malicious self-satisfaction. Ichigo blocked it out. He gritted his teeth, anger scoring his features as he thought about that night. That awful, dreadful night where his inner hollow had taken control of his body and run amok on a vicious, homicidal spree, like some deviant child tearing playfully through a field of sun-lit daisies. Play and violence: they were one and the same to his hollow. It made no distinction between the two. Which was why he could never, ever let it gain control of him again.
Shiro had to remain submerged, subdued.
A quiet cackling sounded in the back of his brain, melding with the sound of swaying trees, the rustling leaves. Be gone, evil thing. Ichigo was so preoccupied with the hollow inside of him, that he almost missed the one in corporeal form that was lunging straight at his head.
There was a high shriek and a muted thud! and suddenly, the hollow was flailing, falling into pieces by his feet. Felled by a brilliant blue arrow that was left sticking in the dirt, disintegrating slowly in the night.
"That was careless of you, spacing out like that." Ichigo turned, open mouthed, to stare at the object of all of his obsessive thoughts. Uryuu Ishida was standing above him, on the limb formerly occupied by him, the mantel on his white Quincy outfit flapping lazily in the breeze. The sight of him there, backed by cloudy moonlight, was almost enough to bring tears to his eyes. Minutes of awkward silence ticked by as both boys just stood there regarding one another. Then Ichigo bowed his head and said flatly: "Thank you."
Ishida jumped down from the branch, his movements as silent and graceful as a cat's. Staring at his white outfit, Ichigo observed in a quiet voice, "You've regained your former powers."
"Obviously."
"How?"
There was a sigh of consternation, and Uryuu turned away, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. It was such a familiar gesture, it almost pained Ichigo to see it. "Does it matter?" the dark-haired boy said. Then: "Let's just say I had to promise something in return for them."
The odd tone in his voice made Ichigo's head snap up. His strawberry brows drew together. "Promise what?"
Uryuu's back was still to him. In a quiet voice he said: "I had to agree...I had to promise that I would no longer associate with any Shinigami."
Ichigo's mental denial of No! You don't mean that! was instantaneous. It took a little longer for the rest of his body to catch up. He grabbed Uryuu's shoulders and spun him around, his brown eyes imploring him. "You're...you're not serious about that, are you..."
...you can't have come all the way out here just to say good-bye to me! Forever! His panicked mind finished the thought for him inside his head. In the background, he could hear his hollow cackling wildly.
"Ichigo..." The whisper of his name on the Quincy's lips, the finality of it, was like a dagger through his heart. Uryuu reached up to remove his hands, but Ichigo grabbed both of his wrists and dropped to his knees before him. Desperation colored his words as they fell unchecked from his mouth, the sentences running together in a nearly incoherent train wreck of language:
"Don't! Don't say it! I don't want to hear it! Uryuu, I know I have no right to demand anything from you. No right at all, but...I love you. And I'm sorry. I'm sorry for everything that happened. I'm sorry that I hurt you. If you want to beat the living shit out of me right now, I'll lay my sword aside and let you do it. I don't know how to balance this out. I don't know how to make amends. Only...don't say it's over. Not for good. Don't say it!" Ichigo bowed his head, staring at the forest floor, watching the grass and leaves blur and sway through a film of unshed tears.
After a long moment, Ichigo lifted his head. He expected to see any number of things on the Quincy's face: sorrow, pity, anger, disgust. But what he saw instead was a look of outright confusion. Ichigo still held both of Uryuu's hands in his own. Uryuu didn't pull away. After a moment he said: "Is that...is that what you thought I came here to say?"
Ichigo's jaw clenched. "Isn't it? I mean, you just told me you promised you wouldn't hang around any Shinigami-"
"-but you're not really a Shinigami, are you? You're just a substitute, a representative."
Now it was Ichigo's turn to look confused. "But that's...that's a really strange way of looking at it."
"I know," said Uryuu, with a slight smile tugging at his lips. "It has all the logic of a Mobius strip. It doesn't quite appear to meet, yet it does..."
"A Mobi what?"
Uryuu just shook his head. "Doesn't matter." The dark-haired boy tugged him to his feet. There was no sorrow on his face. No disgust. No anger. Ichigo wasn't the brightest student, and it took him a moment to catch on. "Does that...does that mean you've come back to me?" he asked hesitantly.
Come back to me...
The open look of acceptance on the Quincy's face was his only answer. Impulsively, Ichigo leaned forward and kissed the other boy's lips. Then his ear. Then his neck. He slowly began to trail several worshipful kisses down the front of his uniform. "Ichigo...slow down." There was a warning tone to Uryuu's voice. Ichigo slipped to his knees again, gazing longingly up at the other boy. Despite the warning tone, there was also a look of fire, an undercurrent of desire, in the Quincy's sapphire eyes. Ichigo knew that victory was imminent. "Uryuu, please. Please. Let me..." he whispered in a husky voice, in a way he knew the other boy liked. Ichigo slipped his hand down his body: petting, stroking, rubbing.
"We should...we should wait a bit," Uryuu said, but the resolve was cracked by a voice choked with ambivalence, the logic lost in tones of shaky, thinly disguised want.
"I'll stop if you want me to..." Ichigo said diplomatically, strategically. Still stroking, petting. The Quincy didn't move away. Ichigo looked up again and said, "That pretty little waterfall that you like to practice at is nearby. If you want, we could go there..." He let the sentence trail off, waiting. Waiting for beautiful capitulation. Beneath the moonlight, Uryuu nodded his head. Then, with the quickest of flash steps, they were suddenly both standing by the stream, in the middle of a tiny glade. Uryuu said, almost disapprovingly, "I'm not going to ask you how you know about this place."
"I may have secretly followed you here once or twice before," Ichigo confessed, diving in for another sloppy kiss. He could still feel the tiniest bit of resistance from the other boy, in the way he kept stepping back each time Ichigo pushed forward. He decided that, if this hesitation couldn't be overcome with his body, then he would just have to deal with it in words. "Uryuu, just let me...let me love you for a bit. You don't have to give me anything in return. You don't have to do anything for me. Just...let me make you feel good...please?" Ichigo was already dropping to his knees in supplication as he said this, tugging boldly at the clasps on the Quincy's uniform.
"Ichigo..."
"Please..."
The Quincy wordlessly slid to his knees before him, and Ichigo knew he had won. Yes! Mine at last! His fingers fought with clasps and buttons; he was determined to get the other boy out of his priestly garments. "What is with this outfit?" he panted in open frustration between feverish kisses.
"Nevermind, just rip it."
"Rip it?"
"Yes. I'll sew it back later," the other boy said. Good point, thought Ichigo. He pulled at the high collar, the material coming apart with a loud rip! in the quiet solitude. The sound was enough to make Ichigo lose it. He pushed Uryuu to the ground, tossing broken buttons over his shoulder in haste. They plopped! and splashed! as they hit the water, blending in with the gently trickling waterfall.
Ichigo kissed and sucked at exposed collarbone, murmuring as he went, "I worship you. I love you. I need you. Stay with me..."
"You're insane," Uryuu's voice said laughingly above him.
"I've been driven mad these last three weeks." Ichigo paused to look at the other boy's face. The Quincy lifted a hand to his cheek, his fingers gently caressing as he spoke. "I'm yours. Don't you know that? I've always been yours; always have been, always will be." Ichigo went back to planting kisses down the boy's exposed chest, partly out of physical desire and partly out of the need to hide the fresh veil of tears that those simple words brought to his eyes. Tears of happiness. His lips continued their journey southward, his hands trailing sparks of wanton fire behind them as they went. He could hear Uryuu's breath hitch in his throat as his fingers petted and pinched and probed at his most sensitive parts.
"Ichigo..."
"Mmm...that sounds wonderful. Say it again."
"Ichigo." The flame-haired Shinigami yanked at the clasp on the other boy's pants: tugging, wrenching, swearing. He dipped his head, and his lips sucked greedily at the notch of muscle above the Quincy's hip. He could hear the boy moaning, could feel him twisting his body beneath him in order to nudge him toward hotter, more prominent areas. Ichigo ignored the obvious hardness brushing against the side of his head. Finally, Uryuu pleaded in a strangled voice: "Ichigo, please..." Soft laughter issued from Ichigo's lips. "And here I thought you wanted to wait," he murmured against pale skin.
"Oh, for God's sake! Shut up, and go down already!"
"Tch. Bossy as usual," Ichigo chided softly, as he moved to take the other boy's erection into his mouth. He moved at a leisurely pace, unhurried. Uryuu was gasping and writhing appreciatively beneath him. Above him, he heard the Quincy mutter to no one in particular: "God, the moon is beautiful tonight."
"You're beautiful," said Ichigo, stopping to stare at his lover. Silky black hair and azure eyes and milky, perfect skin, his body half-exposed beneath the wavering moonlight. "Beautiful," Ichigo repeated, before bending back to his task, taking the other boy with quicker, more virile strokes of tongue and lips.
"That's it! Oh, Ichigo. That's the stuff," Uryuu murmured above him. By this time, Ichigo's erection was rubbing painfully against the earth. The sight of the half-naked Quincy combined with too much back-and-forth stimulation was driving him mad. He was going to finish, with or without Uryuu's help. Mess or no mess. He was going to-
"Ah, Ichigo!" Uryuu arched off the ground, his cock pulsating in Ichigo's mouth as he orgasmed. That was enough to send Ichigo tumbling over the edge after him. The Shinigami groaned, his mouth still clamped around the Quincy's softening member as he came in his robes. He lay there, shivering between his lover's legs as he rode out all the residual tremors, his limbs turning into useless, quaking jelly.
Uryuu's eyes glinted at him in the semi-darkness. "Did you...did you just come?"
Ichigo plopped his head down on the Quincy's stomach. "Yes," he all but groaned. Wordlessly, Uryuu handed him the white mantel from his uniform. In understanding, Ichigo took it and began cleaning off his soiled kimono. "You know," said Uryuu, "We could go skinny-dipping in the waterfall. That would take care of the mess." Ichigo's head snapped up. "Wow, you're bold tonight," he observed, marveling.
"You make me bold," Uryuu whispered. Then: "You know, I've been thinking about you. Constantly. And I wanted so badly to see you these last few weeks, but-"
"-but what?"
"I couldn't come back to you until we were both on equal footing again," the Quincy said, ever the voice of practicality. "And as for your...inner hollow problem, Urahara assured me that it wouldn't be a problem forever." Ichigo nodded solemnly and wrapped his arms around the other boy's waist, using his stomach as an impromptu pillow. He silently thanked the shopkeeper for his sly interference. Then he thought of something else, and his head snapped back up again:
"Wait...you've seen Urahara? But I thought you weren't supposed to be around any Shinigami?"
"Semantics, Ichigo. Urahara's an ex-Shinigami," Uryuu observed reasonably. "They banished him from Soul Society years ago, remember?"
"Ah...there's that Mobi-logic thing again."
"Do you care? So long as we can be together?" The archer's long fingers stroked through his spiky red hair; sapphires glittered at him beneath an indigo sky.
"No. You're right. Urahara's right. I'm the one that's always wrong." Ichigo swallowed. "I don't care about any of that. I only care that you...that you can forgive me. For all the terrible things I've done."
Silence. Then, finally: "I forgive you." It came out in a quiet whisper above him.
Urahara's words sailed through Ichigo's mind: He will forgive you. The flame-haired Shinigami let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. He wrapped his arms tighter around the other boy, holding him secure beneath the blanketing darkness. He was grateful that the shopkeeper had been right about this. Ichigo couldn't believe he had ever doubted him.
I'll never doubt Urahara again, he thought. Or Uryuu. Why-I'm the luckiest idiot alive. I didn't think a Quincy would ever forgive me for this. Quincys don't forgive anyone anything. Their pride-it's insurmountable. But then, I guess it's true, what they say; it's just like the song goes...
Love has no pride.
End/Fin.
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