I loved writing this chapter. ;-p Although I've found I don't like previous chapters, and I'm aiming for revision...but whatever.

I'm still on vacation and really, everything's wonderful here in Japan – I even love the earthquakes, how do you like that. But anyway. The computer I'm using now is Japanese-oriented, so I'm sorry if some of the text comes off a bit warped. And big thank-yous to all the people who reviewed, because honestly, I'm flattered by all your praise and demands to keep the story going. So cheers to another chapter!

This fic is rated R because of language, violence, and sensuality. If any of the aforementioned offends you, please do not read.

Review if you like. No flames, please.

kaerichi
Chapter 14

Her heart leapt into her throat just at the mere sight of him. He had to do nothing more than just sit there, looking as memorable as the depiction of a Greek god in statue, but could still make her feel like a schoolgirl under the spell of a first crush.

But she steeled her will, and headed in.

The look of admiration that briefly flitted across his eyes made her think, for one second, that all the time she had spent fretting and fussing over her clothes had been worth it – that she needed to wear something amazing to make up for all the time he had seen her in her vampire robe only.

Ichigo himself looked so cool and casual in his clothes that she nearly swelled with self-indulgent pride.

"Rukia…" he said, standing up as she came to the table. The small little café was quaint and bright, selling French bread and other types of American pastries. Ichigo looked out of place among the dainty floral prints, but it had been the only place Rukia had thought of when she had mentioned it during their last meeting, and anyway none of that mattered.

"Hello, Ichigo…" she replied. To his credit, Ichigo pulled out her chair before seating himself again. She noticed a few empty bread wrappers.

"Got here early?"

"Yeah…a little. Ate a few things already, if you don't mind."

"No, I don't."

"So, everything okay on your end?"

"Yeah, just about."

"Hectic over on my side…everyone's uptight."

"Oh…I would've suspected that."

Somehow, this setting was too perfect, too formal for what she really wanted to ask him. Their conversation resembled such, boring and meaningless.

Ordering some tea, Rukia thought of some way to present her words, but they never came. The direct approach always worked best, after all. "Ichigo…"

"…?"

"…you know…" she paused, "…all those times you stayed with me…all those times you…defended me from the others," she added the last part with hesitation, "…was that all real?"

"…what?"

"It just occurred to me the other day, that…it was strange the hunters weren't…studying me, to say. But I just found out that they did take things from me, like blood, and wouldn't they have wanted information too?" This was slowly getting easier; she was saying everything pointedly without looking at Ichigo's face. "If you have something you don't know, then of course you want information, right? Then of course you would want the test subject to explain things, right? Then of course the information would be–" She stopped. Her voice had cracked.

Ichigo was many things, but naive would never be one of them. His sharp intake of breath told her that he realized what she was talking about. And when he hadn't immediately offered a comforting or reassuring reply, Rukia despaired.

Her tea arrived; she stood up and drank down the scalding liquid, burning her tongue and throat and already feeling it heal. Without another word, she left the table.

She ignored the footsteps that she heard pursuing; even when a hand grabbed her wrist, she tore it out of his grasp and continued on walking.

"Rukia! Rukia, wait!"

Her wrist was in a vice grip so tight that she would cause a scene in fighting her way out of it. And she couldn't afford to draw a vampire's attention to her with a hunter. So, resignedly, she turned to him.

"Rukia, you…you're wrong, you…"

"How am I wrong?" she asked him in a voice that was supposed to come out icy, but instead switched to upset. "You can't tell me it isn't true! You can deny that what I said was the truth, because I know it, and you know it!" she said in a furious whisper, so that none of the passing bystanders knew anything was out of the ordinary. "All that time, Ichigo, all that time you were just…just being such a hunter." Her eyes drew into shadow. "I should have known, really, it was so–"

"Rukia, shut up," Ichigo cut in harshly. "What the fuck do you think I – we – were doing back in the hunters' base? I tell you one thing, Kuchiki Rukia, I may have started out with those intentions but I don't kiss and tell, acting like I care just for information! Not any more!" This entire conversation was being carried out in whispers, and he was glaring at her; his hands came up to the sides of her face to hold her gaze to his.

"So you admit it. You were…it was the information that you…" The old wounds of the heart were bleeding afresh…

"Rukia, for fuck's sake, stop acting so goddamn wounded. I tell you it happened that way, but things changed! Can you hold something against a person for the rest of their life if you know that one instance will change them forever?"

"Nothing has changed," she insisted, "and moreover–"

"Rukia, you idiot…everything has changed," Ichigo whispered, and they were so close together she could have counted every eyelash over his russet eyes. "And when I say everything, I mean fucking everything. I never thought I would become friends with a vampire, I never thought I would ever owe one my life, I never…" he stopped, visibly battling his own will, before continuing: "I never thought I could care about another person, really care…especially someone like you." His hard thumb stroked her cheek. "So don't you fucking dare say that nothing has changed, Kuchiki Rukia, or I will hunt you to the ends of the earth to make you see just how fucked up things have really become."

She drew in a breath. "Ichigo…I…you…"

The worst part about all this, she knew, was that she wanted to believe him. She truly wanted to believe that he was speaking as Kurosaki Ichigo, the person, and not Kurosaki Ichigo, the hunter. And because she wanted this so badly, her once ironclad assumption was beginning to waver.

And then, as if to purposefully drive his conviction home, Ichigo leaned down to kiss her. A soft, tender kiss that, with its gentleness, so starkly contrasted their previous argument that there was a physical twinge in her chest. Rukia surrendered to the feeling, the euphoric contentment she had only felt when in his presence, responding to the kiss even as his tongue pushed past her mouth and she let him dominate her in the way only Ichigo would ever know…afterward, he embraced her close.

"I have no idea what's going on," Ichigo said quietly after they broke apart from the kiss, she with her nose in the crook of his shoulder. "Things are just happening and I can't stop them. I don't know what to do. I have no idea what's right any more."

"…"

"Do you believe me, Rukia?" He paused, and his voice was strained. "Do you trust me?"

It was impossible for her to explain how touched she was in that moment, the level of trust Ichigo placing in her rusting away at the chains that were holding back her emotions. Yes, she did trust him…trusted him almost more than herself.

"Yes…" she said quietly. "I do."

"Then we agree to never speak of this again?"

She nodded. "As long as I never have to wonder."

"In the future?"

"Yes…" she said softly. "…in the future."

At the moment, Rukia was too afraid to think further into the future, to where the sure conflict of both worlds would begin, with an endless expanse following. It was so much safer to live in the present, to live in the moment where only a single matter counted. This – whatever "this" was, between her and Ichigo – would never last.

The most beautiful things in life are oft that which die the earliest.

Shibuya was so much more fun when spending it with someone close to you, Rukia decided, as she and Ichigo walked around the shopping district hand-in-hand. Whenever she could sense a vampiric or highly sharpened aura – the latter being a hunter's – she and Ichigo would have to quickly move out of sight. Aside from that, the rest of the day they spent together was uneventful.

But all the same, she loved it.

They went shopping; Ichigo bought himself a new shirt and they ate out. They talked amiably, like old friends, but there was always a moving undercurrent underneath their words, like buoyant pressure, like the pressure was moving their conversation to its ultimate point. Rukia wanted something from him, and felt that he probably wanted something from her – and, as various as their wants were, the longing was always there in the touch, the caress, the lingering hands.

All through the day they were fine. Neither of them lost it.

However, near the end of their "date," Rukia noticed a movie advertisement about a monster slayer that interested her; the outfit of the hunter, with all its leather and buckles and with his weapon hefted on his back, was slightly comparable to what Ichigo wore when he hunted. Rukia pointed this out to him, he shrugged, seeming highly disinterested, but then (to her surprise) paid for the movie immediately.

But the movie theater was a bad idea.

Rukia's hand ended up between them, resting at her side; Ichigo's hand moved over it, stroking the back of her palm gently with his thumb. The movie hadn't even playing twenty minutes. She looked at him, her eyes clear despite the darkness.

It was a moment of painful and breathtaking clarity that hung between them, slowing time into naught more than mere memory, and, then, it was only broken by the forward movement of Ichigo's head. In such a moment when the world was not watching, Rukia could not hide her real emotions.

Their lips met, softly at first, and then the greater reality of a darkened room overcame them and this time it was her tongue to seek out his, to push against his mouth until they met in a gasp of breath.

The kiss was no longer gentle; it was hard and desperate, and Rukia was acutely aware of when Ichigo shifted sideways and pressed her into the chairs. The chairs were too small to hold him over her; his right leg was on the floor, the left pressed against her thigh, as Ichigo shifted himself to cover her body.

He was so warm over her, and he broke off their kiss to trail his lips down her neck. His left hand was smoothing the skin of her thigh, pulling it up to bend at the knee to fit his angle better. The hem of her already short skirt was dangerously close to being pulled up to her waist, but Ichigo's hand left her leg.

Rukia nearly started from the feel of his hand, so warm and hard against her stomach. Her soft, breathy moan, the only evidence of her pleasure, was swallowed into a whimper as Ichigo reached up to kiss her again, his hand moving further and further up…

As his hand swept over her top rib, that triggered a memory.

"No…stop it…stop it, Shiba-sama! Please, stop!"

"Shut up, bitch…you'll like it…if you keep struggling I'll fucking kill you!" And he said this as his hand reached up her shirt, and she was too weak against the force of his will…

"No…no, stop it!" she said, pushing at Ichigo's chest as she suddenly snapped back to reality. His weight, his hand, all of this…it was too similar to that time. And even though Ichigo stopped immediately, Rukia's heart nearly froze as she pictured herself trying to fight out of his weighty, passionate, yet innocent embrace.

"Rukia? What's wrong?" Ichigo asked, a real trace of concern in his voice, inlaid with its husky overtones. His hand drew down her torso, making her acutely aware of how close he still was. Suddenly she was afraid again, like all the other times she had been in this situation…only now she had the power to stop it if she wished.

"I – I…I'm sorry, Ichigo, I can't…I'm not…I…" she gestured about herself helplessly, even as Ichigo drew away and helped her sit up. "Ichigo, I can't...it's…"

"It's all right," he said quietly, at once understanding. He pulled her to him. And while Rukia had felt the need to fight her way out of his first embrace, now she only wanted to hold him to her for as long as she could. This embrace was different. It was…comforting.

"It's all right…it's all right," he said.

"I'm sorry…" she whispered back, and even as she did so, wondered what she was apologizing for. She didn't owe him anything.

But somewhere deep in her heart, she knew that her last thought was untrue.

"It's all right," he said. "Really…besides, a movie theater really ain't the best place."

She laughed unconvincingly. There weren't many people in the theater, and thankfully no one near them, but she still kept her voice quiet. "Really, huh?"

And he smiled, a little. All the while, Rukia fixed her shirt, keeping the tremble of her fingers to a congratulatory minimum.

After the movie, some coffee at a busy shop provided a solution to their silence – a silence not entirely uncomfortable but encroaching upon it. Ichigo sat with a distant look on his face. Rukia sipped her hot mocha quietly, not knowing what to say.

She was being so stupid. Hadn't she decided that she would try to overcome her fear of Kaien? And yet every time something came to challenge that declaration, she would always crumble, the memories overcoming her until she would get a grip and steel herself again for the next challenge. And irrevocably, the same process was put on automatic repeat, even til that day! In all the time she'd had, with all the help and encouragement from friends, with Kaien's name fading from the memories of those around her even as she could not make herself forget, Rukia still hadn't taken even a single step ahead.

Getting over Kaien had to start somewhere. And she'd started somewhere, hadn't she? By seeing Ichigo as Ichigo, and managing to erase almost all of Kaien in his shadow. That was a start…shouldn't she take another step?

"Ichigo…"

He turned to her.

And she wanted to wipe the doubt from his face, the hurt and worry that danced behind his cool exterior. Honestly, she loved his touch. His words. His face. She adored these emotions, showcased time and time again when he would treat her like she was made of glass, so different from the handling she'd been used to.

Was it the man or the action herself that she was afraid of? Was it so possible to want a man so badly but still being unable to grant him the most complete sign of trust? Since Kaien's death, Rukia herself had never taken a partner, in leadership or intimacy, avoiding it to hide her greatest fear – that fear being afraid of her own self-confidence, and afraid that she could never give enough trust to a person she might share a bed with.

But she was past that stage. Hesitation, awkwardness, insecurity didn't count for shit now. She knew what she wanted and that was enough, wasn't it? Everyone wants to know what they want, and the goal was so clear that a telescope could not have sharpened it any. All that remained was the resolve. And, Rukia realized, it was the same resolve that, bizarrely, Ichigo had helped her to find.

Even if she still didn't know what was going on between her and the hunter, whether it be love or lust or turn out to be just a one-time thing…Rukia instinctively knew that she would only allow Ichigo to touch her this way.

Only Ichigo.

That was the first example of her resolve, wasn't it?

Rukia put her coffee down, and immediately missed the warmth of the cup.

"Maybe…"

"Hn?" Ichigo turned to her.

"Maybe…you want to come to my place?"

She didn't look at him as she said this, but could sense his shock as apparently as if he'd said something to indicate it.

His hand came to hers, like her coffee: warm and soothing.

"…Rukia?"

And she met his eyes then. And Ichigo seemed to read her expression for a while before his hand tightened on hers.

"All right."

It started to rain as they stepped off the train entering Akasaka, just a light drizzle that they had no problem hurrying home through. However, just as the alcove of her lobby drew over her head, the sky let loose a colossal crack of blue thunder before really starting to pour.

"Come on…this way."

They entered the elevator.

"Floor?"

"15."

And it was in silence that they entered her apartment, Ichigo glancing around at the decorated furnishings while she stood and let him.

"…nice."

"Thank you."

He looked at her. Suddenly feeling very self-conscious under his gaze, Rukia brushed past him silently, lighting her many candles and then escaping out to the balcony. Ichigo followed after a while. Soon, he brought her closer, the action caring and hesitant; Rukia welcomed the gentle predecessor to what was to soon follow.

They stared out at the rain for quite a while, watching as it poured gray gloom over the nearby buildings, drenching streets and settling collectively over the city. And Ichigo and Rukia just watched in silence, his arms around her waist and she leaning back onto his chest.

It was comfortable.

And safe.

They were not going to avoid the inevitable; it was just a slight delay, perhaps to balance the implication of such a serious act that both so desperately wanted.

Finally Rukia pulled away and turned to Ichigo, catching his eye for a second before heading indoors without as much as a single word. He followed her, finding her already seated on the bed. She arose as he came closer.

"Rukia..." he whispered, as he bent his head.

"Yes?"

"Is this...really all right?" he asked, as his lips sought out hers. It was a gentle kiss, barely skimming the surface of deeper emotions.

"Why?" she whispered back. "Are you doubting this?"

"No."

"Then don't worry about it."

She kissed him then, rising to the balls of her feet, as his deliberations fell away and he returned the kiss with equal fervor. Rukia's head broke back, breath escaping in a soft moan as Ichigo's lips continued down the line of her jaw and to her neck, licking, pressing his tongue to her bared skin. His warm hand caressed under her shirt, and before she knew it, it was unbuttoned and off, and he was pushing her back onto the bed. She fell, taking him with her, the sheer closeness of him rising the need in her until she thought she would burst. All of it, all of him – his soul's strength, his hard body, his rough eyes, his hot skin...all of it was enough to make her just go insane in want of him.

Her hands were trembling, more noticeably by the second, he saw.

"Rukia…"

"No…don't mind it…it's just…you know." She took a breath. "It's all right…I'm fine." And she reached up to kiss him again, perhaps to wipe away his doubts, and at her memories. "Trust me, Ichigo, it's all right…"

"All right, all right…" Ichigo kept his body straight over hers as he kissed her again, a hard kiss with too much passion to be gentle, and had just broken away when he stopped. "Oh...shit."

"What is it now?" Rukia asked. The thought to be annoyed never crossed her mind; the frustration was greater.

"It's...just...I don't...I don't have..."

Realization dawning, Rukia laughed in spite of herself. "What? You don't have a condom?"

"Yeah."

She laughed again. "Ichigo, Ichigo. Forget the human trivialities! Vampires are dead; do you really think that they can create life?"

Her hands reached up to his face, pulling it back to hers. "...all vampires are sterile..." she whispered against his lips in a final sort of way.

"Oh...I didn't–" The rest of his sentence was abruptly cut off in another kiss, lips, tongue, and all. Hands that had previously been used only for killing now moved down her body, teasing her with lightly traced patterns on flawless skin, smothering her whimpers at the touch of his hand under her skirt…feeling spirals from her gut that were so incredibly wonderful and new and unexplainable and just so good and – and Ichigo just wouldn't stop –

His lips pressed against the curve of her shoulder, the swell of her breast, and down to the navel of her stomach...as Rukia moaned underneath him, hands pulling off his shirt with a ferocity that surprised even her. In the desperation of passion, reason simply did not exist.

He let himself fall into her, losing himself, as if she had pulled her aura over him again, while the candles flickered in the darkness like so many paths to insanity.

tsuzuku