A new one, kind of, but it might seem somewhat familiar. Similar theme but with a different twist. Comments welcome. Ichigo's POV, present tense (rare for me).

Miss Her

"You're glad I'm back aren't you?"

He finds he can't answer. Not when her lips are sucking his ears like that, the tips of her fingers brushing the edge of his pants. He can feel her smiling against his throat, hot breath on his skin when she answers for him, "You must be."

She shifts and lifts herself off him. He hears the rustle of fabric as it drops to the floor and feels when she presses herself back to her original position, flesh against flesh. "I don't think you can live without me."

At this, he responds. First with a soft chuckle, and then with the words, "I think I can. It's just that," he lifts his hips, takes off his pants and everything underneath, "I don't want to."

He feels her smiling again.

"Ichigo."

"Hmm?" Her hands on his side, creeping lower.

"Do you want BREAKFAST?"

He jerks at her words. "What?"

"I said, do you want BREAKFAST, ICHIIIIGOOOOOO!"

Eyes snap open to reveal a blurry figure zooming towards him. Without thinking Ichigo blocks and hits back, before sitting up and rubbing his eyes. "What? Wuzzgoinon?"

He watches as his father bounces up from the floor as if nothing has happened, brushing his coat off and flashing him a stupid grin.

"I said, my one and only son, that it's time for breakfast! Now…" Isshin steps a little closer, until his bearded face is right in front of Ichigo, "What made today's reaction slower than usual? Having a sexy dream? Eh? Thinking of some girl from school?"

Ichigo can only stare, before becoming irritated enough to push his father away with an aggravated 'geroffme!'.

He glances at the clock.

6:15am.

He really does need to get ready for school.

He watches as Isshin prances out of the room, still stupidly grinning, leaving him with the threat, "If you don't hurry up I'll eat your eggs!"

Ichigo grunts and his hands go to his eyes again. He rubs his face and sighs. Again. How many times was this going to happen?

He can't remember when it started. And he believes it must have been a gradual process, because he can't even remember how long it's been going on. Ichigo only notices that, some mornings, he wakes up unusually bothered. That when his father wakes him up with the typical energetic attacks, Ichigo isn't only annoyed with the old man; he's annoyed with himself too. He can't figure out why it disturbs him, yet he knows that part of the irritation lies with the fact that he has woken up at all.

Ichigo wants to keep sleeping. And it's only until now that his mind offers a reason for the odd, grumpy mornings, and even this, is accepted by Ichigo only subconsciously.

He explains his dreams away as something weird and totally wrong, that he shouldn't be thinking about her this way –it's not right on too many levels. And besides, she not with him anyways. She's where she's supposed to be.

But he doesn't realize that the nights are his only comfort, that his dreams are the only times he can be with her. He doesn't realize that his dreams are the only way he can ever admit to himself that he misses her and wishes that he had her back.

He's home.

But he can't help feeling a little lost.

Eh, so this is me exploring the whole post-Soul Society arc and the area between where Ichigo feels OK being home and then finding out that he still has a hollow problem. This is one side of him that I've been wanting to poke at lately….