of soap suds and broken dishes
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Timing Is Everything
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There will never be a right time for some conversations. In which Rukia has some exciting news to deliver and the timing is ... less than ideal.
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Her hands started shaking even before her mind processes the gravity of the situation.
The plus sign on the pregnancy test stick is staring right back at her and no amount of heavy breathing; thigh-pinching; fervent prayer that this is all a bad dream she's ten seconds from waking up from; is going to change that.
She gulps.
Ichigo.
Ichigo needs to know.
She needs to tell him and part of her is scared shitless of what he's going to say.
.
.
She doesn't tell him.
It's not intentional on her part- at least for the first few days after she found out.
It just slips her mind sometimes about her new condition and then there's the fact that she could never seem to find the right time to tell him. This doesn't feel like the sort of thing that is light enough to be shared over the breakfast table or when they're cuddling in bed with their bedclothes on, mind switched off, body wrapped around each other.
Outside these hours, their lives are bound to the vigorous demands of the mundane world and its limitations. Time is finite in this world. Him with his busy university classes and lab sessions, her with her odd shifts at the local coffee shop and double-life as a seated officer of Gotei 13 meant that dinner is sometimes take outs and pizzas served on cheap plastic plates, wine in everyday mugs, excuses they make to ignore the presence of the growing pile of dirty dishes in the sink.
That there are mornings when Ichigo will jump out of their bed with a curse and start throwing on wrinkly clothes from the day before, screaming about how he's late as he shuts the front door with a bang that's loud enough to rattle the whole building but not before he rouses her, barely awake and squinting from the brightness with a goodbye kiss.
That there are nights when she will come back after a week-long stint in Soul Society and the ache of separation hits her more than she would care to admit but Ichigo leaves the light on. He greets her with his pretty eyes and hungry kisses and they'll spend that morning and the next in bed, making up for the lost time in the coil of their needy bodies.
This is a snapshot of real life for the two of them living together in relative anonymity in the Human World. She loves Ichigo and he loves her. Society has come a long way since feudalistic times and what Nii-sama doesn't know won't hurt him.
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Take away the Shinigami aspect of their lives- the crazy out-of-this-realm misadventures they get swept into, wars between worlds waged and won in the span of a summer holiday, the battle scars adorning their bodies and they're literally as normal as their next door neighbours, human and barely out of their twenties, trying to find their place in this strange cruel world, somehow made warmer with Ichigo's hand in hers.
Being with Ichigo just makes her happy- happy enough to live in the now and not think ahead. She doesn't want to ruin what they have, doesn't want to upset the resemblance of a normal life she's constructed and cocooned herself in within the confines of their tiny apartment.
They haven't even talked about the future in so much as to where they would live after he graduates from college. Springing this on him just seems cruel- cruel when his life is only just beginning, about to take flight and she's gone ahead and done the unthinkable to clip his wings.
What if he's disappointed?
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What if he doesn't want the baby?
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The last thought renders her physically sick. Sud-covered hands reach instinctively for her baby bump that's barely showing.
For now, anyway.
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Give it a few more weeks and he's bound to notice something. He's not that dumb (or at least she hopes he isn't). There are only so many times she can say no to the casually-offered beer and wine or mumble something along the lines of that time of the month to disguise the however many trips to the bathroom before he catches on.
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"I'm home."
The sudden noise makes her jump and she loses her grip on the slippery half-washed dinner plate. It clatters to the floor, broken.
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Shit!
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Swearing comes entirely second nature when she cuts herself on the edges.
"Rukia?"
"In here," she calls out to him, holding the cut finger under the running water. Truth be told she's more upset about the broken plate- there were four in a set with matching bowls and now they're one short- than her injuries. The cut doesn't even look deep and the bleeding is bound to stop soon.
"Let me see."
Ichigo seems to think otherwise as he unceremoniously drops his bags and the heavy groceries by the door, eyebrows furrowing deep as he crouches down next to her, inspecting her wound.
Though calling it an inspection may have been a stretch.
He barely even glanced at it before he's hollering at her to stay put while he grabs the first aid kit.
"You're being ridiculous! It's just a cut!"
He should know better- what with his experience of violence and theoretical knowledge as a future physician. She's been through worse. They both have. Cuts that are deep enough to see gaps of bones in between, torn ligaments, broken bones, ruptured organs, a fist through the stomach- the memory makes her shudder now more than ever. He shouldn't be fussing over her for a flesh wound that barely registers on her scale of pain.
But he doesn't let go of her hand and merely grunts when she calls him a fool for making a big deal out of something as trivial as this.
"It'll heal quick. I don't s-"
She hisses, surprised by the sudden sting of antiseptic over broken skin. His gesture is uncharacteristically apologetic when he presses a kiss to her knuckle.
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It doesn't make sense.
She's suffered much, much worse in her line of duty. He knows she has and she has survived, grew stronger and thrived. With every cut and blow that aims to knock her down, she rises up, bloodied and valiant to meet the next challenge. Yet she doesn't think she has ever seen him quite so serious, cleaning her cut and dwarfing her hand in his like she's soft, fragile like glass and twice as likely to break. Lord knows that she has never been neither of those things.
"I'm sorry. We don't have any bunny plasters but Yuzu left some Hello Kitty plasters in the first aid kit the last time she restocked it for us and I think you'd like them- why are you crying?"
Tears.
She can't remember the last time she felt them running down her cheeks. Have they always tasted so salty?
Through the burn of them, she sees his panicked face. His fists clench tight and grip at her as he holds her- shuddering breath and all, waiting for her to still and quiet so she can tell him who to hurt and who to maim.
This idiot!
Look at what he's reduced her to- this teary-eyed walking bundle of hormones who tears up because her boyfriend/baby daddy gave her some Hello Kitty plasters when she cut her finger.
"I'm pregnant, you dolt."
Ichigo wears his heart on his sleeves and the vulnerability on his face- the sheer multitude of emotions- shock, awe, joy, love, above all, love- when he absorbs the impact of the news and embraces his new reality is enough to make even a hardened warrior like her choke on the waterworks.
His eyes widen and the grip on her tightens as he presses her deeper into his embrace.
"H-How long?"
"It's early."
She thinks she's barely passed the sixth week mark.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"I wanted to!"
Her hands fist at his clothes. She has lost count of the number of times when she wanted to reach for his hand under the covers as they spooned against each other and whisper it soft and slow into the night and put it to rest.
But every time she wants to open her mouth and speak, doubt makes her swallow those words whole because-
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What if this isn't what he wanted?
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This isn't something that they've planned for and she is too in love with the tranquillity of the moment, the peaceful look on his face, smiling at her- like she makes this life worth living for, to even consider ruining it. Is it wrong for her to think that the news can wait for another day if only to make tiny beautiful moments like these last a little while longer?
"…There just doesn't seem to be a right time to tell you."
He deadpans, "and you think now is the perfect time for us to have this conversation?"
There are soap suds in her hair, dirty dishwater stains on the front of her shirt. He has dark circles under his eyes, stinks of alcohol sanitizers, looking tired like he hasn't slept well for days. In the background is a precarious mountain pile of dishes to be washed waiting in the sink, shattered pieces of a broken dinner plate on the kitchen floor that still needs to be swept away.
Them in the comforts of their own home- the very essence of their domestic mundanity stripped down to the bones- messy, loud, less-than perfect; but at its heart, once the initial embarrassment of her housekeeping skill or the lack-there-of passes, is love.
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She sighs, resting her forehead against his chest. "This is all your fault. This would have never have happened if you listened to me when I told you it's your turn to do the dishes."
"You could have waited?" he challenges, "You know class ends early for me today."
Rukia rolls her eyes as she informs him rather drily, "We ran out of clean plates two days ago."
Laughter rumbles low and throaty from him, his heartbeat thrumming steadily from his chest- a symphony strung along with bits of heart and soul, hopes for tomorrow that sooth her.
When the laughter dies, he buries his face in her hair, soaking up the warmth of her tiny body with his. He holds her, drawing lazy circles on the skin of her bare arm, tentative as he asks.
"Rukia. Were you afraid that I'd be disappointed? Or angry?"
She squirms in his arms, ashamed almost when she tells him, "A little of both."
A snort followed by a fond exasperated "Idiot. I love you and I promise to love you and to love our child forever and always and-" his breath catches, his world whirling, and he's looking at her like she's made of starlight and moon dust and- "you're carrying our baby!"
The hard lines on his face soften, his hands clearly shaking and the disbelief from the happiness that threatens to leave him in tears as he presses kisses to her- "We're going to have a baby."
The heat of his open palm is reassuring on her still-flat stomach. She smiles, mirroring his joy, and keeps his hand there, holds it in place with her own.
"We're going to have a baby."
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There is never going to be a right time she realizes.
But that's ok.
It's ok if he's there with her, holding her hand through it all. As long as he's there with her, she thinks, she is brave enough to do anything. They can take on the world and be none the wiser for it.
He is her rock and he grounds her. Now more than ever when her soul feels light enough that she just might float away.
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"As far as your brother is concerned, this baby is conceived immaculately. Agreed?"
She snorts and kisses his forehead. As if Nii-sama is the person he should be worried about!
Clearly her absentminded idiot is forgetting about his overly enthusiastic father and the man's over-the-top antics and flair for drama during the bi-monthly Kurosaki family dinners, scheduled to happen sometime this week.
Rukia humours him anyway. He'll catch on soon enough.
"Agreed."
Prompt: us against the world
I'm not 100% in love with this. It's a cliché but it had to be done. When the plot bunnies demand IR domestic bliss, you give them IR domestic bliss.