comments: This is my first Ichigo/Rukia fic (centered on the pairing, not just hints, I guess), so be nice. :D
Pride and Passion
Pride meant little to Ichigo.
In a world where there was so much it sucked the life out of his body, where he felt and couldn't feel no more the pain, anger, defeat, the hollowness, the barrenness of the world, the utter complexity of injustice -- in which the roots of it all he could no more shake a finger at -- he still believed in the ability of his being able to penetrate the pride of a Kuchiki.
Rukia didn't -- no, couldn't feel so little! and he believed with the fullness of his capacity to understand one who has graced and lived the full length of time. He could no more grasp this capacity than he could the hardened and masked eyes of Kuchiki Byakuya.
But Kuchiki Rukia he thought he knew; she, the girl who stood stock-still in courage, who would die for her fellow companions, severed his thoughts with a glance every time he tried to speak to her. This day, she had failed to live up to her own capacity for strength, for understanding. "Rukia!" he called out to her but in vain, for now she was a Kuchiki. Now Byakuya's sister, now a shinigami in reverence to the laws of Soul Society, not the Rukia he knew.
"Damn," muttered Ichigo under his breath. "Rukia! Why don't you answer me, eh, Rukia?"
"You fool," she said, facing him, wanting to tear herself quickly from this moment in time; think, think, she thought to herself, Rukia, you fool.
But hands held her face, touched her face, and she was lost, lost, lost. Where am I? she thought, yet inexplicable actions that couldn't happen were happening and oh, it felt so right, this; his hand pushed back her hair slowly away from her face; his lips gently kissed her cheek; it was so soft, this; his expression was so beautiful; -- and skin on skin, back arched, his hand with the strength of a shinigami to wield Zangetsu was caressing her body, and he was kissing her.
Pride meant little to Ichigo. He, being one to embrace the throes of life, to jump into every fight without thought to its effects on the whole, touched Rukia's heart just so.
Shocking almost, at first, and maddening, that she could almost kill him, but she couldn't, not really, because the truth was that it was the first time in her life she ever felt so right.
