Standard disclaimer applies.
Dedicated to: StormBlazer and Pipp-ORK, who despite not speaking Spanish, read that version of this drabble and reviewed as well. Thanks a lot!
Author's notes: Set just before Soul Society arc starts. Again, reposted this drabble as part of "Death Butterflies" (collection of Bleach drabbles by yours truly).
Night Watching
24.01.2005
Every night he looks at her. He engraves in his mind every little detail of her sleeping face, the small curve of her lips, the dark, curled locks of hair that fall over her closed eyes, and her pale skin that glows under the moonlight filtering through the window.
Death had never been so beautiful and tangible like it is now.
And she is there, so near that he could touch her if he wanted to. But his ever-timid fingers never get close enough; they never even grasp a single hair. He is contented with looking at her like this, when she sleeps soundly and her features are relaxed. She's there, but she's also in the distant place that dreams take her to. So close, yet so far away… it fits the cliché so well that it is almost too absurd.
Sometimes he hears her whispering in her dreams, murmuring words that occasionally he can't understand or doesn't find any sense in. She murmurs the names of people he doesn't recall of meeting and speaks sentences about places he doesn't know. But sometimes, he even believes that in between her whispers he hears his name being called out, although he later concludes that surely it is only his mind is playing tricks on him. Why would Rukia dream of him?
When she has nightmares, he looks at her worriedly and not knowing what to do for her. Then he tells her one or two words of relief and he softly speaks her name, which slips off his tongue so naturally that it even scares him. It's enough for her to calm down and return to sleeping placidly, perhaps only gripping the bed sheets a little bit tighter against her chest.
He doesn't know how much time they have left together. Her staying here had been something neither of them had predicted and how long she'll dwell here isn't something he can control. Because of this, there isn't a night when he doesn't follow his routine. When night comes, he pretends falling asleep, waits for her fall into her own slumber, and it is only then that he silently stands up from bed.
He is always careful to be quiet as he makes his way to the closet, but there is always more than one thing left in the floor or a slightly ajar window that is willing to make a strange noise and cause his heart to stop from time to time. And so, at last, he reaches the closet, he opens the closet's door very carefully, and merely stands there, watching her for hours until sleep claims him as well.
He doesn't know how much time she has left here.
He knows she'll go away, to a place far, far from here, to a place out of his reach; and every day that moment approaches inevitably. Just thinking about it makes his heart twist in his chest. It is a pain he never thought he'd feel for someone and much less for her. But it's the truth; somehow, the sleeping girl has become an essential part of his life.
She changed his life…
He doesn't know how much time they have left.
That's why he looks at her every night.