Summary: These quiet in-between moments never last long enough for them. But it's enough for now that they don't have to say goodbye.
Theme: Confession.
A/N: Writing is HARD. I didn't like this one too much, but oh well. Happy White day! For Deathberry's IRFC! Enjoy~!
Thanks to Vera_Rozalsky and sallythedestroyerofworlds23 for the beta!
Timeline: Off-panel imaginings!
Warnings: Again, this is an M! You have been warned.
Standard Disclaimer: Bleach is solely the property of Kubo Tite, and I am merely borrowing his playground.
"Yo." Ichigo sits up from her futon mattress and greets her casually as she walks into her barracks. His hair is carelessly disheveled and the collar of his kosode drapes down to his navel. Everything about him speaks of relaxed casual ease. Rukia knows better than to be fooled.
"That was fast," she says crossing the room as she pulls Shirayuki out of her sash. Ichigo has made himself at home. Zangetsu leans against the door of her closet, a broad sharp line of power, and Rukia tucks Shirayuki beside him. Her sword hums approvingly and there's a flash in her mind of snow flurries whirling upon the ragged wings of a storm.
"Did you do everything you came here to do?" she asks scrutinizing him carefully. Afternoon light slants in through the paper of the windows, fills the room with a wash of golden color, lights up his bright hair, and softens the edges and angles of his face. There's tension though, in the corner of his eyes, and the tight set of his shoulders.
"Not everything," Ichigo says, smiling at her slowly.
Rukia rolls her eyes. "You're awful," she declares, smacking him on the shoulder. He grabs her hand before she has a chance to retract her arm, fingers curling around her wrist as he pulls her close, to the edge of the bed, between his legs.
Ichigo leans up against the crook her neck. "I settled it," he breathes into her ear. His hands slide down to her waist.
Rukia feels his reiatsu against hers, rough edged and agitated, feels the weight of everything he doesn't say. Her hands curl into his shoulders. This lull between battles makes her nervous and wary. There's always something lurking around the corner. For one quiet moment, they just breathe together. "Did they give you a hard time?"
"Not really," he says, jaw muscles tightening under his skin as he looks away. One hand spans the lower curve of her back, spreading warmth up and down her spine.
"It was a difficult decision," Rukia replies, skimming her hand across the angle of his jaw.
"I know," he says lowly. His hands skim the curve of her waist, down the outside edge of her thigh until they find the half inch gap of bare skin at the bottom V of her hakama.
She aches for him, for the heavy burdens placed on his shoulders, the difficult choices, and the sacrifices he has had to make. But there is also pride in her heart because throughout it all, he has remained unchanged. He has walked through depths of despair without it defining him.
More than power, Ichigo has undiluted will and resolve, an honest desire to protect, and the stubbornness to hold to his ideals, even if it means walking a difficult path. His kindness, loyalty and devotion to his family and friends, his innate sense of justice, and the strength of his unwavering heart is what Rukia cherishes the most about him.
As she searches his gaze, and sees the flicker of something painfully familiar. Though he takes responsibility for the outcome of his actions, he's reaching for answers and understanding, even as he is reaching out for her.
"Sometimes, being the one to walk away from a battle is not the same as winning," she says hesitantly as she skims her hand over the tan skin of his sharp cheekbones, thumb gently smoothing along the tight ridge of his brows. Both of them know all too well that the winner pays just as heavy a price as the loser.
Ichigo leans against her chest, hands fisted in her robes. "I did what I had to do to protect everyone. He wouldn't have stopped."
"We death gods are not exempt from doubt and guilt," Rukia says, speaking from the pain of experience hard-earned. She hears everything he doesn't say. "It is what makes us more human and less gods."
"It's just..." His mouth moves over her skin, hand on the sash at her waist. "If our places had been reversed..." he murmurs, fingers curling at her thigh. He kisses her lightly on the lips, lingering for just one moment. "They did the same thing to him that they did to me."
"I know," she whispers against his skin, hand sliding down plane of his chest, his stomach, over thick ropy scars long healed, yet lingering. Sorry doesn't begin to cover it. It isn't fair, and it isn't right that he must clean up after the messes Soul Society leaves behind.
"But the difference is," he pauses, lips at the curve of her shoulder, "No one saved him, you know."
Rukia can say nothing around the constriction in her throat.
Ichigo looks up through his bright bangs, gaze dark, intense, and heavy-lidded. "I'm glad it was you."
oOoOoOo
Outside, the azaleas are blooming in the eternal summer of Seireitei. Their sweet heavy scent drifts into the room.
In the diffuse afternoon light, Ichigo's eyes are awash with golden warmth as he curls over her, hand slipping through her hair to linger at the shorter length.
He kisses her, full of fierce heart and warm intensity, teeth pressing into her bottom lip. "I missed you," he murmurs, fingers walking bits of warmth across her skin.
"Fool," she replies tilting her head back, strange heat coursing through her cheeks, "you don't need to say that."
"Wanted to. You embarrassed?" he says, leaning toward her, smirking. "That's cute," he drawls.
"Embarrassed for you!" Rukia retorts, pushing his chest away.
"Am I that obvious?" he asks with a grin.
"You were always easy to read." She says with an answering grin.
"Did you miss me too?" He cocks his head, smiling lightly, watching her expression as his hand dips lower, fingers brushing the juncture where her hip meets her thigh, and then lower still.
Rukia frowns. They never say these things to each other. Between the all the separations and absences, and the goodbyes that still ache months and months later, there was no time for small talk. Now things are different and new; they're redefining boundaries.
"You know the answer to that," she says breathlessly, hands fisted in the sheets as she arches her hips into the broad palm of his hand.
"Do I?" There's something boyish and brightly nervous that flickers through his gaze, as dusky red suffuses across the angled planes of his cheekbones. His fingers curl and press against the slick center of her. With a gentle insistent rhythm, and unrelenting tenderness, he steals her breath, her voice, until the hot, tight knot of desire unfurls into warmth and her body arches off the futon mattress like a tense bow.
oOoOoOo
Ichigo moves across the line of her shoulders, the outside curve of her breast, down her body, mapping and memorizing, and breathing her in as he drags his mouth across her flushed skin down to the crest of her hip.
He brushes the sharp angled profile of his nose against her inner knee, hot breath sending prickles of heat over her skin, soft bright hair tickling her inner thigh.
"Ichigo..." she says, breath catching in her throat.
Ichigo pauses, looks at her from under his bright bangs, mouth barely hovering over the slick, heated skin between her thighs, long nimble fingers lingering, stroking pensively. "It's ok, you don't have to say anything. I can guess."
"I wasn't going to," Rukia returns, heart fluttering, pressing against her lungs.
"Tch, you never give, do you?" he murmurs, eyes gleaming darkly. "That's fine," he says lowering his mouth with a wicked grin. "I get it."
The warm broad swath of his tongue stutters over her heated skin, and they've never done this, but he's fiercely attentive and eager, gauges her reactions by her face, the grip and of her hand in his, and that more than makes up for the gaps in experience. The combination of the unrelenting pressure of his mouth, and the slide and curl of his fingers inside her makes the tight coil of tension in her belly unfurl and crest in hot waves of pleasure that leaves her shaking, wrecked and wanting in the aftermath.
oOoOoOo
Kneeling, Ichigo drapes her thighs over his, hand curling at her waist. He holds her tight, cups his hand at the back of her head, over hair that clings to the sweat dampened nape of her neck.
"I...I never used to believe in anything that I couldn't see," he says, shifting his body against her, mouth soft and warm on the pulse of her throat.
Rukia curls a hand into his hair, skims a hand across his stubborn jawline. He can see her now and they can feel each other. Their reiatsu mingles in the sweet heavy air of the room, red ley lines of power, impossible to separate or sever.
Even when he couldn't see her, he believed in her, and she in him. Theirs is a silent strength of unbreakable trust and unwavering hearts. Rukia thinks that if there is a thing called fate, if there is a thing called destiny...
"You and I," Ichigo murmurs echoing her thoughts, "you and I..."
She can feel him all around her, the press and slide of him against her. Rukia takes a sharp breath, and a low groan rises out of Ichigo's throat as his reiatsu flares, buzzes wild dark edges against hers, and it feels as though her skin is on fire, as if there's raw lightning under her tongue, at the ends of her nerves.
"Rukia...," he whispers hoarsely against her ear, stills his hips against hers, though his fingers between them don't stop their gentle, insistent movement. There's an undercurrent of pleading underneath his voice.
She hears him, the words he won't say. His heart and his sword they call to her. "Yes," she whispers back, voice rising in a low moan as he deftly flexes his fingers and pushes her over the precipice into a white oblivion.
When she cries out, he swallows it on his lips, along with everything else.
oOoOoOo
Just before they turn the corridor leading to the training quad, Ichigo pulls her into a corner.
"I hate saying goodbyes," he says, eyes gleaming dark and warm behind half-shuttered lids. "Hope you don't mind if I stick around." There's a gravity behind words that are deceptively nonchalant, and in his eyes there's intent, and there's affection, there's a promise of things to come, things they will not speak of, just yet.
Ichigo isn't for grand sweeping gestures, or embellished words. He's boyishly awkward, but always genuine, always sincere. There is something serious hovering in lines of his brows and the corners of his lips as he gazes at her from under his bright bangs.
"How long should I expect you to stay?" Rukia asks carefully. She has duties to attend to, and he has a life to return to in the living world. It is something that becomes increasingly easy to forget.
There is something soft and somber on Ichigo's face as he pulls her flush against him. "As long as you want," he murmurs quietly, brushing his lips against her brow, one hand on her hip near Shirayuki's hilt.
"Stupid sap," she mutters in his chest, "don't make promises you can't keep."
"I'd never," he replies. "You know me." And she does.
"You and I both know that's not how things work around here," she says, curling her fingers into the fabric of his shihakusho. Rukia willingly lets herself linger with him just a moment more in this quiet corner of the 13th division.
"Really. When have I ever cared about how things should work?" he scoffs.
"Because you can make things work the way you want? Don't get so cocky," she warns.
"I will if I have to." In his voice, she hears the quiet edge of confidence. There's power in him, more than anyone can guess. Shirayuki knows, but she won't tell, not yet. Ichigo's power flows out of him and mingles with her own, licks across her skin in a reassuring wash of tingling warmth. He doesn't advertise it, but it shows all the same, just as it shows when he only needs to whisper bankai. Soul Society still watches, still keeps an eye on him for very specific reasons.
"Play nice," Rukia says, elbowing him in the ribs.
"For now," Ichigo agrees, pulling away reluctantly. They'll revisit this conversation somewhere down the road. These quiet in-between moments never last long enough for them. But it's enough for now that they don't have to say goodbye.
