A prompt for Anon
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Hear you me
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"Wake up, you idiot!"
Consciousness feels nebulous, but Ichigo knows that voice anywhere.
His mouth twitches, and with a squint through heavy lids, he gripes, "You're so bossy."
Ichigo opens his eyes properly to blinks of light in the silhouette of Rukia's face before a sudden, prolonged flash of white puts her in sharp relief, highlights the worry pinching her brows, the fear around her eyes as distant booms rumble, and a clap tears open the sky. It's still raining. But.
But Ichigo feels like he's going to be okay.
"You let me fight him," he murmurs next, closing his eyes against the shadows of the storm, the pelt of rainwater; safe in the knowledge that she's watching over him, and only opening his eyes again to see hers: more purple in the dark, tinged a little in red. There are tears at her waterline, and with a quick, hard blink, she pushes them away; sniffs discretely, and tries to frown. "You asked me to."
Ichigo exhales and it leaves him in a cloud of condensed air, cloudy like smoke. As if his body and nature both need him to see the heaviness in his chest released.
His lips twitch, unfamiliar with the sudden urge, but he lets it happen anyway, and above him, it's Rukia turn to sigh. At this angle, he could count her lashes; he could figure out the exact shade of impossible colors that make up her irises. He repeats, breathless, "You let me…"
She hums, runs her fingers through his hair, and her smile a little; a flower spreading its arms a little wider at the hint of the sun. It still looks a little wobbly, a little fragile, but. She's got a shadow of a dimple, a half crescent moon at her cheek, and she let him try. Rukia had believed he would be able to do it. She tells him so, "I knew you could."
He exhales another breath, shaky; disbelieving.
He did it. He did it.
His mother. He'd avenged his mother. He'd killed what killed her.
He did it.
Ichigo doesn't notice the tears until Rukia is pressing them into his cheeks, rubbing them slowly away with soft, cool hands. Murmuring comforting noises over his stuttered breathing; gentling the harsh squeeze of his lungs with her fingers soothing through his hair; they stay together in that field until the waves of a renewed grief tumble through him. When next he speaks, his voice is strained, his gaze cloudy where Rukia isn't, "You didn't even ask me why."
She shakes her head, and the rain that clings to it trembles against its precarious clutch of the inky strands. "It mattered to you, that much I know. And if you want to tell me, you can. And if you never do, I'll never make you."
He closes his eyes on a hum, the same twitch of his lips.
He doesn't tell her then, and true to her word, Rukia doesn't ask.
But he does tell her, eventually.
With her head in his lap in the aftermath of a fight, he asks Inoue, "Can she hear me?"
Her gaze flickers, her hands still glowing. She worries her lip. Nods.
And that's when Ichigo tells Rukia about his mother, how he couldn't protect her, how he watched her die.
Chad and Ishida stand like barricades against the world, silent and comforting in their stillness and quiet, their presence. The sidewalk begins to darken with raindrops.
Ichigo runs his fingers through Rukia's hair. "I can't lose you, you hear me? I can't. You can't leave me. I'm. I'm a wreck without you. So. Don't go. You know how bad I am at goodbyes so don't make me say 'em. You hear me, Rukia? Wake up!"
There's movement beneath her lids, a flutter of her lashes. Through the rain she squints up at him, and her lips twitch into a smile as she teases, "You're so bossy."