Ichigo lives alone. Yet as he inserts the silver key into the tarnished brass lock on his apartment door, he can make out the warble of piano music coming from beyond. The door sticks. It always does-lodged in the doorframe. His landlord informed him of the sticky door when he'd toured the apartment. That was two years ago now. Hed informed him of the issue in the same breath which he told him of the east-facing windows and original hardwood floors. Though Ichigo later learned original hardwood floors was just another way of saying scratched and warped.
When the door refuses to give way, he slips his bag off his shoulders and into his hand. Ichigo shoulders the door open, ignoring the door's painful cry of splintering protest that warns him, one day the door might just break off the hinges.
Ichigo's apartment is nothing special. It is a rest stop between his childhood home in Karakura and the rest of his life. There is only one bedroom, the kitchen only has half the things a regular kitchen did. But the bathroom didn't have mold, unlike the first apartment Ichigo looked at, and it was close enough to campus that he could walk. In the end, it was enough. The warped floors, dull grey walls, and shower that drips between one and three in the morning didn't bother him because it was only for now. In two years he would graduate, and he would move.
That's what he told himself.
Ichigo toes off his shoes and steps into his slippers while he listens to the slow rise and fall of the music. The low notes swept through him like a breeze. Ichigo had always blown through every moment of his mortal life as if they were checkpoints in a marathon and the next would cease to exist if he ran anything slower than a sprint. In some cases, that was true. Two years ago if he had slowed down, even just to catch his breath, people might have died. From the day he'd met her, to the end of that final battle, his life flew by him at warped speed. He'd grown so fast into the person he was today that he was still recovering from the growing pains. Now, it had been years since Ichigo Kurosaki needed to save the world again. It was if he were a car that had been in sixth gear and if he tried to skip down into third, he might just explode. So he spent the last few years, those years peaceful as his life could get, learning to slow down. How to pause in a moment, and truly live in it.
So his steps are slow down the short hall, and to the area of his apartment that was neither kitchen, nor living room, but some strange hybrid with a television half blocking one of the two windows in the entire apartment. There is no door into the livingroom-kitchen, but rather a carved rectangle in the wall, and he lingers in the threshold. Shoulder leaning against the doorway (or lack thereof) as he watches her.
When he left for class that morning, she hadn't been there. The last time he had seen her was nearly two months ago. Her excuse for visiting him then had been to ensure that the officers stationed in town could keep up with the new rise in hollows that had started to appear in town. An increase that coincidentally coincided with Ichigo's moving in. They both knew, however, the only thing that the stationed shinigami representative had to keep up with was the speed at which Ichigo dispatched hollows and made it back to class. She hadn't said goodbye when she left. Never does. When he asked her why once, she told him merely that she doesn't see a point, she always comes back. There's more to it than that, he knows. Every time they've ever had to say goodbye, it always seemed to take them longer than they intended to come back to each other. As if the very word were a jinx.
Ichigo never gave Rukia a key to his apartment. She had in fact stolen his, taking it off the keyring that sits on the tiny counter of his half-kitchen on her way back to the seireitei. It took more convincing than should be necessary for her to give it back to him. Even required a trip to Karakura to convince Kisuke to open him a senkaimon (The fact he still isn't allowed to open one himself is a sore spot, and no, he doesn't want to talk about it) just so that he could hunt Rukia down and get his key back. Even if it had only been long enough for him to make himself a copy.
These days, she lets herself in and out like an outdoor cat, slipping in and out in the middle of the night and returning weeks or months later. When she is gone, which is more often than not, the apartment feels cramped and dark. But she has a division to run, and he knows well enough that he is lucky to get the time with her that he does. It should be enough. Except it isn't, and he doesn't even try to tell himself that it is.
The lights are off, for whatever reason he doesn't ask, and Rukia is standing in the middle of the room with her back to him. She has forgotten to close the curtains and amber light from the streetlamp outside the window cascades over her like a dim spotlight in the darkened room. She's wearing nothing but her underwear and one of his t-shirts which is making a good attempt at swallowing her whole. An unforeseen problem with him moving out was that suddenly Yuzu and Karin's closets were not just down the hall. Leaving her only Ichigo's clothing to steal by default. She'd tried to wear a pair of his shorts once, but they were so large on her that they just slipped off. The shirt she wears now is dark and old, with a hole in the armpit, but Rukia insists on wearing it to sleep even though he has offered to buy her pyjamas of her own. An offer which she declines every time.
Usually the shirt goes almost to her knees, except Rukia's arms are stretched out wide at her sides, as if she were pretending to be an aeroplane, and the tension caused the hem to run up her thigh. Revealing slender legs the colour of daisy petals and the edge of her red underwear.
It takes him a moment to figure out that she is dancing.
Ichigo hides his smile behind his hand as he watches her sway in place to the soft piano music, arms floating at her sides. She spins slowly, careful not to bump into his second hand coffee table and the sofa of questionable origins (it had been a gift from his father) and he realizes her eyes are closed. As if she were absorbing the music with her whole body. A warmth spreads inside his chest as he watches her.
Ichigo stays silent until he feels as though he is intruding, and coughs softly.
Rukia does not open her eyes, she only says, "Are you just going to stand there like an idiot, or are you going to join me?"
If Ichigo had to choose which of them he thought looked like an idiot, he wouldn't have said him. Wisely, he keeps that to himself. He steps into the room, sliding into her personal space as though he belongs there.
"I don't know how to dance," he whispers, even though they are the only two there.
Rukia turns to look up at him, the whites of her eyes gleaming in the dark. Before meeting her, Ichigo had never met another person with eyes like hers. The colour of the night sky right before it has began to lighten. A colour undecided between indigo and navy. In the seventeen months Ichigo spent powerless, Ichigo often found himself fighting off sleep just to watch the sky outside his bedroom window. Just to see that very colour.
"Neither do I," whispers back Rukia, as if it were a secret.
Ichigo sighs, but the edge of his mouth catches on the barest of smiles like cloth snagging on an exposed nail. "Fine."
Rukia offers her hand to him. It's warm, delicate in his, and so very small. Not for the first time, Ichigo wonders where she keeps her strength. He's seen her ruin monsters and men with those tiny fists. Been on the receiving end of her punches enough times to know the damage they're capable of. Once, he'd thought she looked like a porcelain doll. Now, he thought that she was more likely made out of marble.
Ichigo pulls her close by the hand she offered, so fast she lets out a breathless noise that morphs into a low chuckle. Her chest flattens against his own, and he snakes his free arm around her waist. His grip on her is strong and steady. Those delicate hands of hers cord around his shoulders, fingertips brushing at the back of his neck like the touch of a ghost. He begins to move them both in exaggerated, too quick movements that vaguely resemble dancing but are far too fast for the slow music.
Ichigo is fully aware just how foolish he must look at that moment. Only he can't bring himself to care as Rukia grins up at him, her head thrown back with silent laughter as he spins them both in ever quickening circles. At one point he attempts to let her go, and reel her back in the way they do in the movies. Except Rukia has never seen those movies and she sputtered indignantly what are you doing, idiot? But that smile never leaves her face. When he pulls her in again her back is to him, he is bent so that his arms encircle her waist, and he presses his chin onto her shoulder.
In the glass pane of the window looking onto the street below, he catches a glimpse of them in the reflection. His movements stutter as he realizes just how well they seem to fit together, her smaller body encircled by his larger one. They look...like a picture out of a movie. It's the only way he can think to describe it. The kind of picture that a character would be seen holding, sadly reminiscing about happier days. The kind of picture that looks too perfect, too staged to be real life. Except it was. It was odd to be living in a moment, where he was happy, but at the same time aware that then the moment was over it would leave some kind of vacancy. How was it even possible, to be happy and sad, at the same time?
Rukia spins away from him, ducking under the arm he arches over her head, hand holding hers. Her eyes don't shy away from his as they dance. He can feel them sliding over him. There was something in them, that had been there more often than not recently. There is a line between them that has always been there. A line that throughout the years has grown dangerously blurry and warped, but these days it is as if they both stand with a foot on either side.
He knows this is why she never stays.
Their dancing is slow now. More of a swaying embrace than anything. Her head is tucked beneath his chin, arms curled around him. He can smell the cherry blossom shampoo he bought her as a joke as he pressed his cheek into her hair. In the half darkness it feels nearly as if they are a world of their own.
But he is not good at letting good things be. It is a horrible trait for a person to have. This is something he knows well. It is cynicism in him born of not asking enough questions, trusting blindly, and having others pay the price. So he can't stop himself from asking, "How long are you staying this time?"
Though she does not stop moving, he can feel the tension return to her bones, like watching water freeze to ice. One moment she is just a girl that dances in her underwear with her eyes closed, the next she is Kuchiki Rukia, Lieutenant of the Thirteenth Division, and last but certainly not least-Shinigami. Her voice breaks through the music like a misplaced sharp note, "My duties are in the Seireitei."
It is not an answer, and it is all at once. The words she says are that her duties are in the Seireitei, but what she really means is not long. It is not the answer that he wants, but it is the one he expects. It hurts the same nonetheless. As always, he is transparent to her, or at least he thinks he must be because the moment shatters between them like broken glass, irreparable.
Regret fills him instantaneously at ruining it. Even as he had asked the question it was like watching a car accident happen before his very eyes, unable to do anything to stop it.
She glides across the room to shut off the CD player. Bare feet near silent as she walks. A screaming reminder that she is a ghost, and he is still but a boy. There is a click as she punches open the compartment where the disk still whirrs with a soft whoosh, and the sounds of her replacing it into its sleeve is deafening in his ears. They exchange no other words before she pads down to the hallway to his bedroom, leaving him standing alone in the wake of her.
Though she is only a room away it is as if she has left completely. The warm beige walls of his half kitchen, half living room sway and move to close in on him the way they always do when she is gone. He lasts only a minute before the anger sets in, a writhing vicious and alive thing inside of him. This anger is not directed at her, or even himself. It is a certain kind of anger one can only feel directed at the world, a feeling so large that it spills out of the cracks inside of him faster than he can patch them. It is the kind of anger made from being so close to the one thing a person has wanted most in their entire life, only to realize they cannot have it.
In his head he has gone over how the conversation would go; There are rules about things such as these, she would tell him. You are human, and I am Shinigami. You are alive and I am dead. As if that has ever mattered to him. As if he didn't threaten to burn down the world just to keep her in his life. There is more to it than that, he knows. He has not forgotten the thousand year war ended by his blade, and the promise made by a man who, in a way, was part of him his entire life. Those words had been a vow. One he cannot risk coming true. It is all a joke. A sick, cruel joke. Because in the end here they are, with only walls and lines drawn in the sand separating them, and yet the distance grows larger every time he sees her. All the scars that still hurt some nights don't mean much when in the end they are still apart.
Before he follows her into the bedroom, he crosses the room to close the curtains, gripping the fabric with white knuckled fists. That last eb of evening light leaves as the curtains close him off from the glow of the street lamps, letting the darkness swallow him whole. He finds his way to the bedroom mostly by memory, and outstretched fingers, wary of walls and doorways. Between his slow, careful steps, he makes one last attempt to let go of that wave of bitterness, so as not to bring it to her. Even in the dark, unable to see his expression, she will feel it. Even though he knows that feeling claws at her inside as well. If he cannot make it go away, the best he can do is at least attempt to not make it worse.
Ichigo Kurosaki is not a material man. Clutter makes him feel disorganized, and he has never been the kind of person that needs an object to remember something by. There is nothing more to his bedroom than the same metal bed frame he's had since he was a child, though his desk now lives in the living room, and a lamp without a shade that never gets used. Above his bed is the second of only two windows in his apartment. This window has blinds, rather than curtains, as if someone changed one window then forgot to do the other. They are the kind of blinds made of plastic designed to look like wood that never shut out all of the light. Even now moonlight leaks into the room in blue parallel beams.
He finds Rukia coiled between the still cool sheets of his bed and the comforter, face pressed into the pillow reserved for her. Slowly, he lets himself down onto the mattress beside her, not daring to cross the invisible divide that is between them. Only he wants to. Desperately, with every fiber of his being he wants to erase the space between them so that it no longer exists, until he forgets that it ever did. It takes so much effort not to, that he thinks he might break.
When he first moved in she had slept in the closet, just as she had in his family home. Then one night he had come home from studying in the school library until close, only to find her asleep on his side of the bed. Pressed into the indentation that his weight had worn into the old mattress, her hair spilling over his pillow like ink. When he had climbed in beside her, she had merely shifted and mumbled, half asleep still, "What took you so long, fool?"
From that night on he studied at home most of the time when he could, and Rukia didn't sleep in the closet anymore. It became just another thing on the list of things that they did not talk about. His sheets would smell like her for days after she leaves, like cherryblossoms and cold night air.
"I'm sorry."
Her back is to him and without turning, she huffs. "For what?"
"Bringing up things I'm not supposed to. It wasn't fair."
She says nothing long enough for Ichigo's eyes to wander across the curve of her shoulder to her throat. To trail up and across the shell of her ear to the sliver of jaw visible from where he lies beside her. Her shoulders shift, and she turns so that she is facing him. A blade of light cuts across her smooth features, carving the angle of her cheek out of the darkness.
He thinks this is how Rukia is meant to be looked at-under the gentle touch of the moonlight. She has always been beautiful in a way that was otherworldly. If he could choose how to remember her for the rest of his life, it would be like this. In that moment, with her midnight eyes, and raven coloured hair, she looks a part of the night itself
Her voice is a whisper, barely audible through the heavy silence that rests between them. "I just want one night to forget about the world, and think only of us."
Ichigo nearly tells her-we can't-but the press of her cold palm against his cheeks stops his words from forming. Beneath her touch, he is nothing. It is all he can to savour the feel of her skin touching his own, as he knows that soon it will be gone and all he will have is the memory.
"Just one night," she breathes, "and tomorrow we will move on, and forget."
He closes his eyes, bringing his own hand up to cover hers. "Just one night?"
He knows he should tell her no. That there are no half measures between them, that for him to know her would mean he would never be able to forget her. Except he has never been able to deny her anything, so the words die, unspoken.
To answer his question she pulls his face to hers, and covers his lips with her own.
The world goes oddly quiet the moment her mouth touches his. No longer can he hear the swoosh of tires spinning over pavement from the street below. Even the noise in his own head, the ever present stream of worries and concerns are mollified. There is a split second where it all falls away and nothing seems to exist besides her, and him.
He knows he should stop her. He knows he should pull away. He knows, but he cannot bring himself to do so, when this is all he has ever wanted. Whatever strength he had used to stop himself from doing so until now evaporates under her touch, and immediately he is lost to the world except the small pocket in which they exist together.
Letting go of her hand, he reaches out to thread his fingers through her hair, pulling her harder against him, slanting his mouth violently against hers. He can feel it, as she loses her breath. Exasperatingly slow, she presses the length of her body against him. One of her legs coming up to hook around his waist and pull his hips against hers. Beneath the oversized shirt that she is wearing he can feel the soft cotton fabric of her underwear drag up the front of his jeans.
The taste of her mouth against his is bittersweet. He doesn't know how he will possibly limit himself to one night now that he knows what it is like to kiss her. How it feels to have her against him. To be allowed to touch her in all the ways he has imagined. It is nearly painful every time her lips leave his, even if it is only long enough for her to catch her breath. Everytime he knows that she might realize that what they're doing is a mistake, and tell him to stop. Because that is what this is; a mistake. He knows it just as well, yet he is powerless to stop himself.
Gingerly, he shifts. Rolling them so he is on top of her, removing his hand from her hair so that he can use both his elbows to brace himself, mindful of how much of his weight presses down on her.
There is a moment where they both separate, panting softly. In the dark their eyes meet. Hers gleam, glassy and full of such emotion that all at once he has the desire to look away, and feels drawn into her gaze, unable to do so. Without words her eyes tell him-I want all of you. There is a sadness in her eyes, also. A sadness he knows he would see reflected in his own if he were to look.
He doesn't have the heart to tell her she has had every piece of him since the moment they met.
Without looking away he sits back on his knees, reaching behind his neck to peel off his shirt. The sadness in her eyes dissipates to a degree as she takes in his bare chest, replaced by something he can only describe as hunger. Achingly slow she runs a finger across his skin, the tip of her nail dragging from one scar to another. As if she is following the lines of a map. Looking for something.
His entire being aches for her in a way he knows he will never ache for anyone else. Every one of her feather-light touches elicits a blaze of fire beneath his skin, and he can't help but wonder if she knows what she does to him. She must, because he can see a reflection of that very fire looking back at him in her gaze. For a brief moment her wandering touches pause, stuttering over the raised scar at the center of his sternum. Slowly, she leans up to press a kiss to it.
Ichigo didn't have any certain feelings about his scars. They were what they were; a small price to pay for the lives of his friends, and proof of what he had endured. Every one of them was a reminder of battles won, and enemies defeated-except for that sliver of a scar, the exact width of her blade, which Rukia kissed. That scar was the only physical evidence he would have of her in the end.
Losing his patience, Ichigo pulls away from her to remove himself of his jeans. Rukia watches him with a half-lidded stare, tugging her bottom lip between her teeth. She reaches down for the hem of her own shirt.
He grabs her hand, stopping her. "No." he whispers, "Let me."
She nods and lifts her arms above her head.
Though she still wears her underwear and despite the fact that Ichigo has seen her naked before it is different now. This is not the glimpse of a bare shoulder in his peripheral, or the briefness of changing in front of one another. There is a vulnerability to her now that she seldom lets anyone see, as if along with his old shirt he has peeled away a layer of invisible armour from her skin.
In the soft blue light of the moon there is an opalescent quality to her ivory skin, and his eyes rove over every inch of her. From the hollow of her throat, to the ridge of her collarbone, all the way to the curve of her breast. She is the most beautiful woman he has ever seen-will ever see. He thinks, perhaps he is ruined by her, and if he is, he would have it no other way.
Her back arches up from the mattress when he fits his palm against the swell of her small breast, mouth parting breathlessly. She does not make a sound until he dips down to close his mouth around the other, swirling his deft tongue around her nipple. The groan that he elicits from her is low, half restrained, and instantly he wants to hear it again.
She is getting impatient. He can tell by the way she squirms beneath him as he pays equal attention to each nipple, switching between using his hands and his mouth. When she reaches between them, her hand groping for the waistband of his underwear, he stops her with an iron grip around her wrist.
"If I only get one night with you, then I plan to use the entire night." He tells her as he kisses a trail down to her navel. "I want to taste every inch of you, Rukia. There is no rush."
He wants to know what every inch of her tastes like. To know where to touch to make her scream.
The noise that she makes seems to imply she disagrees, but it dies in her throat as his hand comes under her knee. Gently he spreads her legs, kissing further, and further down her body. As he reaches the dip between her hip bones he can feel the strong muscles of her thighs tense in anticipation. When he does not proceed where she needs him the most-opting instead to pull the skin of the inside of her thigh into his mouth in a kiss that will surely bruise-she reaches down to grab a handful of his hair. Hard.
"Ichigo, you fool. I swear if you do not-" her words break off in a gasp as he bites at the skin of her thigh again, much closer this time.
He looks up, taking in the flushed tint to her cheeks and the way her chest is rising and falling so much faster now. "If I don't what?" He is so close to her that she must feel the breath of his words against her. "Tell me what you want me to do to you, Rukia."
The frustrated sound that reverberates from her throat is nearly a growl. "You know what I want."
He runs a single finger over the red cloth of her underwear that still covers her so lightly that his touch is barely a taunt that gives no satisfaction. Then he pulls the fabric aside with his thumb, so that there is nothing separating her and his mouth except air. "Say it."
When she speaks, her voice is barely more than air, "I want your mouth. I want your tongue. I want all of you, Ichigo."
Finally he gives her what she wants and kisses her, open mouthed, between her legs. Just as he had pulled her nipple into his mouth, swirling his tongue, he repeats the motion to the bundle of nerves he found there. The hand in his hair pulls firmly, as if she is attempting to ground herself and she presses herself down against his mouth. The sounds she makes are lewd enough to fuel his dreams for the rest of his life; low, throaty moans that escape through clenched teeth.
He loses himself there, knowing that he is the one making her feel so good that she can barely breathe. Against the mattress he is harder than he has ever been in his entire life, straining and throbbing against the tight fabric of his underwear. There is one point where he has to stop himself from grinding himself against the bed, desperate for some kind of friction.
"Ichigo…"
His name tumbles from her lips the way others would speak a prayer as he presses a single finger into her, curling it inside of her without stopping his tongue. When he adds a second her chest stutters, and he can feel her clench around his hand. Unrelenting, he can feel it as she steps closer and closer to the edge. Then she is falling, back arching off the mattress, her groans suddenly an octave higher.
Only when she is writhing beneath him, her thighs trembling against his shoulders does he pull away. At the loss of contact she curses him half-heartedly but her words come with less bite when she is panting so hard that she can barely speak.
The thing about being shinigami is that their stamina is incomparable to that of a humans and Rukia takes no time to recover from her orgasm-she does not need rest. The moment he pulls up, dropping down on his back to rest beside her before they continue, she is pulling off her underwear and reaching for his next.
Whatever part of him that was bent on taking his time loses the battle the second her small hand wraps around him as if his cock is the hilt of her sword, her grip tight and unyielding. Just knowing that it is her touching him, the sight of her hand around him, is nearly enough to finish him right then and there. It is by will alone that he does not. Even as she climbs on top of him, she does not let go. Using her hand to guide him, she presses him against her entrance, a promise.
Her mouth against the shell of his ear whispers, "No more teasing."
Then he is inside of her.
The world goes white. It all falls away the instant he is seated completely inside of her. Everything ceases to exist-the bed beneath them, the rumble of cars outside the closed window, the fact that they can neve truly be together all slips away into nothingness. All that there is, is her and him. The feeling of her wrapped around him, hot and wet. She is so tight around him that he cannot breathe.
Neither of them move. Paralyzed by the pleasure that wrecks their bones. For the first time in his entire life, he feels whole. When he comes back to himself his eyes seek out hers in the dark and he finds her watching him with barely open eyes. She shifts, leaning down to kiss him. Even that movement sends him reeling, the change in angle lighting him on fire from the inside out. Torturously slow, she rolls her hips as she kisses him, taking his bottom lip into her mouth with her teeth.
Then she is pulling away, throwing her head back to the ceiling, and she begins to move with earnest. At first he lets her set the pace, opting to lay back and watch. The way she lifts herself off him until he nearly slips out of her, only to bear down hard, her breasts moving in time with her momentum. He takes that first moment for himself, committing it to memory. Committing her to memory.
Then he reaches up to grip her small hips and begins to meet her movements in tandem. Pushing their rhythm faster, and faster until she can no longer keep up. Without stopping he curls an arm around her back, pulling her chest to his, and flips them so he is above her once more. He kisses the junction where her neck turns into her shoulder, thrusting into her hard and deep. With every snap of his hips he can feel that she is growing closer, clenching down on him as it becomes nearly too much to bear.
Rukia's moans turn into sobs of pleasure as she loses herself in her orgasm, and he fucks her through it until his movements begin to stutter as his own release rears up on him. With one final vicious thrust he shatters, gasping her name into the curtain of her hair. Stars explode behind his eyelids, and every inch of his body shudders violently.
In the aftermath they lay tangled together, still naked. The sheets were long kicked off and forgotten. Her head is tucked beneath his chin, and she is shaking in his arms, her back trembling. Every time he has ever seen her cry, it has been because of him one way or another. This time is no different.
"I wish things were different." is all he can bring himself to say, because he has never been the kind of man that can find the right words at the right time. Ten years from then he might know what would have been the correct response, but in that moment useless sentiment is all he has to offer her.
He does not tell her that he loves her, even though he does. Even though he desperately wants to. It will only make things harder he knows. For her, and for him as well. He is not foolish enough to think that she does not know, so in the end it doesn't matter.
She was there, when Ywach promised to come back at the very moment he found true happiness. Instantly, he had thought of her. How when every new battle began he'd told himself he could wait, that they had all the time in the world. When it was all over he would tell her, and she would smirk at him that insufferable, all-knowing smirk, and whisper I know, fool.
That was how it was supposed to be.
Still, he remembers her face as he had looked over his shoulder to find her standing there, understanding dawning on her face. Ichigo had watched as a wall had slammed down behind her violet eyes, and he'd known then that she had made up her mind, just as he had.
They could not be together.
He'd tried to tell himself there was noble reasoning behind his decision but the truth was Ichigo would not risk Yhwach coming back and hurting her, just as she would not risk the same for him.
Rukia presses her cool, wet cheek against his bare chest. "I know."
In a different life, they would be together. He would leave the living world behind for her. There was nothing here for him, really. Nothing that compared to her. In a different life he would hold her every night, and not just one. In a different life he would beg Byakuya Kuchiki for the right to marry her, and even if it took years he would not take no for an answer. In a different life, they would be together.
Rain drops sound against the window above them, drumming softly through the silence. In the light that spills through the blinds he can see the shadow of each drop against the far wall of the room as if lit by a projector. They run down the glass like tears.
He falls asleep like that, with her in his arms, dreaming of what could have been.
When he wakes she is gone.