Work Text:
*
Rukia disappears right in front of him, before he can touch her, before he can say anything else. She dissolves. She fades. She leaves him with a tremulous mouth and wide eyes as her last.
Rukia is gone, and Ichigo can’t look at the empty space where she just was.
“Kurosaki-san!” Orihime exclaims, her fingers pressed to her mouth. “Where are you going?” Tears edge her eyes as she leans into a silent Sado. She is easy to cry, easy to smile; easy. He always knows what she thinks, what she feels. He should like that more, he knows.
He doesn’t.
“Just for a walk,” he says at last, tipping his head back towards the darkening sky. There’s an unsettling chill in his fingers and bones. Words unsaid thicken on his tongue. In the past few days they had said more to each other than ever before, but now – now he wishes he had more time.
“You shouldn’t be alone, Ichigo,” Ishida says as Ichigo walks away from them, dying leaves curling at his ankles in the wind. “You’re still unwell.”
“It’s fine,” Ichigo murmurs, hands stuffed in his pockets. The smile he’d had for her as she left is gone now; he doesn’t know whether that one in particular will ever come back. “I’ll see you all at school.”
His heels against the pavement echo dully in his ears as he walks down the street and turns the corner. There’s a new heaviness to his body, as if the vanishing of his spiritual pressure sapped him of his strength. For the first time since he can remember, his ears aren’t ringing with the voices of spirits. The weight of Zangetsu, real or imagined, doesn’t lie across his back as it used to.
Empty and wanting, his sword hand flexes in his pocket.
*
Ichigo walks until night falls across Karakura Town, moonless and cloudy. The cool wind shudders through his thin coat. At the outskirts of a park where he had killed a few Hollows, he stops, mouth set into a hard line. Every part of town carries a memory of something he’ll never be again, with a girl he’ll never see again. If Rukia were here, she would be yelling at him for not having a scarf. She was always bundled up, always cold. But she is not here, and she may not ever be again.
He turns for home. It’s too much for him, now.
The house is warm, yellow-lit and familiar. He’s not particularly interested in talking to anyone, but Isshin rather pointedly waits for him in the kitchen. The girls are upstairs, chatting softly and giggling. Even the house feels different now, a lacking shadow in the corners.
“So,” his dad says as Ichigo leans hard against the doorframe. “She’s gone?”
Ichigo ducks his head, tucking his chin into his shoulder. His jaw hurts from the tension. “She told you?”
Isshin leans back against the counter, large hand curled around an open can. “Of course she told me. So?”
“Yeah. She’s gone.”
“Powers too?”
Hands fisting in his pockets, Ichigo refuses to look his father in the eye. There is a sense of shame curling over him that hadn’t registered until now, the fierce nagging that he should have been better than this, for all of them. “Yeah. Powers too.”
Isshin grunts, and takes a long swallow from his can of beer. The more things have changed for all of them, the more they have remained the same. “Kid, you’ll get them back.”
“Yeah, well. Maybe. Maybe not,” Ichigo mutters.
His father’s eyes narrow and twitch in the harshly bright kitchen lights. “I’ve taught you better than that, Ichigo,” he says, a high warning in his voice.
“And I can still beat you, old man,” Ichigo retorts, suddenly tired. He doesn’t want the fight tonight. He doesn’t want to prove himself one more time, when that’s what his life has become for the past year or more. Really, he thinks he’s been trying to prove himself to one person or another since his mother died.
Isshin sets the can down and plants his hands on his hips. He is a broad intimidating sight in the small kitchen. “She’ll come back, too.”
Scowling, Ichigo clenches his fist so hard his nails dig into his palms. Warmth curls its way up his throat towards his face. “It’s not about her,” he mutters, pushing off the frame and passing through to the staircase. For once, his father does nothing to stop him.
His bed is still rumpled from earlier. When he shuts his eyes, he can still smell her in the room. The windows are open, letting in bursts of cold breezy air. It tastes like the end of something, feels like her hand in his as she stumbles her way across the ice.
Ichigo lays down and shuts his eyes, back turned to the ajar closet door. He leaves the windows open, just in case.
*
It’s strange how everything settles back into relative normalcy. His life now is even more settled than before Rukia, before the Hollows. He goes to school, he does his homework, sometimes he will hang out with his friends; there are no spirits haunting his steps or calling his name. His sisters grow; Karin sharper and taller, Yuzu sweeter and better at baked goods. His father continues to spring surprise attacks on him as he walks through the front door, to keep him in shape, he says.
No one ever speaks of Soul Society, of Hollows, of the adventures in their past. No one ever says her name. He wonders if the three of them, Ishida and Orihime and Sado, made a pact of some sorts, and if it stretches to his sisters and his father. It feels orchestrated and unnatural. But then, he is the only one to have lost everything; the three of them still have what defines them. Maybe everything is bound to feel unnatural to him.
He thinks he’ll see her everywhere, in the face of every curious child seeing their first movie and eating their first ice cream and at the ice skating rink – but he doesn’t. It’s a relief, actually; when he spends his time looking, he doesn’t see her anywhere. They’ve done their job well, he thinks between homework and picking up his sisters from their friends’ houses and dinners with the family. It’s like she was never here at all.
He remembers her face, though. Her face, and how she would blush and get all flustered over the color rising in her cheeks; how whenever she held her sword, his would thrum in his hand with want. The rise and fall of her voice in anger, in frustration, in worry. The sight of her stretched from pole to pole, fearlessly facing a death she didn’t deserve – it still haunts his dreams. He will wake up with his arms slashing, his feet moving in a Flash Step, reaching for her – and find himself tangled in his sheets, alone in his too-quiet too-empty room.
They have taken his sword, his power, her; but she is still there, and he can’t escape the vast world of his dreams, where she now lives.
*
Spring comes softly and swiftly, cherry blossoms blooming in a blink of his eye. He wakes up one morning in a chilled sweat, the ghost of Rukia’s hand on his chest. It happens sometimes, when he is in class, or in his room studying, or in the doorway between the clinic and the house; he will feel a cold curl of air at his chest, the brush of fingers through his hair. He can’t tell whether it’s imagined or not, but he feels Rukia in it.
It’s that morning, with the imprint of her hand at his heart, when he decides to go to where he hasn’t been in months and months.
Ichigo stuff his hands into his pockets and stares at Urahara’s shuttered shop. It’s early yet, the morning sun just peeking over the roof of the shop between the taller buildings. Urahara could still be asleep. Or, this could be another door closed to him, another dead end. He toes at the dirt with his sneakers, shoulders hunched under the weight of his satchel.
There is more to him than a substitute Shinigami, a boy with powers used once for the good of all, he thinks as the light morning breeze moves through him. The only thing is he doesn’t know how to prove it to anyone, especially himself.
“Well, well, well. We haven’t seen you around here in quite a while, Ichigo Kurasaki.”
He turns his head towards the shadowy side of the building. Urahara, clogs and ugly striped hat and all, walks towards him in that slow measured way of his, every step echoing in the empty wide space. His gaze is darkened by the broad brim of the hat, his mouth an even line.
Ichigo straightens his shoulders and shrugs. “Yeah, well. Thought I’d say hi.”
“Indeed,” Urahara drawls, stopping a few feet from him. “You can’t have much use for my wares, now.”
The subtle jab hits him where it aches, at his heart and in his sword hand. His fingers twitch, his mouth pressed thin. “Not at the moment. How’s things?”
Urahara shrugs, the sleeves of his robes cutting through the air as he spreads his arms wide. “Slow. Losing you has cut down on activity and business. I’m not sure whether to be mad or thankful.”
“I’d lean towards mad,” Ichigo drawls.
“I do too. Besides, Rukia’s replacement is a little too… mild for my tastes. I much preferred you and her, to be quite honest. You were always a bit of fun,” Urahara says with a widening smile.
Running a hand through his hair, Ichigo shakes off the tremor in his hands, at the sound of her name. It’s the first time he’s heard it said out loud in a voice other than his since she left. “I was more than just fun,” he scoffs. “And so is she.”
“That you are,” Urahara says, suddenly serious. There is the knowledge of Ichigo’s final confrontation with Aizen between them, the words he said out loud only to Urahara. Perhaps that’s why Ichigo came here; if anyone could do something for him, it would be –
“I don’t know how to help you, Ichigo,” Urahara says at last, raising the brim of his hat. His eyes are narrow, but kind.
Ichigo breathes out slowly, dragging the toe of his sneaker through the dirt. “Figured as much,” he mutters.
“In this much, I am lost. It’s one thing to help you strengthen weakened powers. It’s another entirely to find them whole and new again. If I could, I would,” Urahara continues evenly.
“I don’t think they mind me not having them,” Ichigo says, bitterness edging his words and tasting raw on his tongue.
“I think you would be wrong,” Urahara says with a shrug. “Are you going to ask about her?”
Wetting his lips, Ichigo hesitates, his fingers curling hard against his palms. His nails cut into the callused flesh. The words bubble at the tip of his tongue, but he can’t open his mouth, can’t let them spill out. He keeps her to himself now, almost as his father keeps the memory of his mother. Sometimes, Ichigo wonders what his yearly cigarette will be.
“No?” Urahara says with a short mocking laugh. “Perhaps I should tell you of her anyway.”
The back of Ichigo’s neck burns with a hot flush. He narrows his gaze and looks off to the side. Sunlight slants into his eyes. “She’s good,” he mutters, knuckling at his uniform pant legs. “She’s always good.”
“Yes, yes. She is always good, as you so succinctly put it. But she watches you, Ichigo Kurasaki,” Urahara says, voice low and quiet near the end. “And sometimes –“
He trails off, and Ichigo swallows hard. He turns his gaze back to Urahara, to the somber little smile curling his face. “Sometimes?”
“Sometimes, she is not where she is supposed to be,” is all Urahara says before he turns away and begins his slow walk back to the shadows of his shuttered store. “Sometimes, she is here.”
*
The sun is overwarm, the air thick with summer heat, as he stands in front of his mother’s grave. The picnic is over; his sisters have dragged their father elsewhere, leaving Ichigo alone. There is no breeze today. It’s a sticky sluggish day, and he can’t help but think back to a year and more before, to a breezy day that turned dark and stormy. Irresistibly he thinks of Rukia, of his head in her lap and the rain cutting across her face as she could do nothing but watch him nearly kill himself in pursuit of his mother’s killer.
He still carries those marks from Grand Fisher, can distinguish them from all the others. He doesn’t mind.
“I hope I did enough, Mom,” he says at last, hands fisted at his sides. “I hope you’re proud.”
“You did more than enough.”
Ichigo bites his tongue, shutting his eyes. He doesn’t need to turn around. “If this is a trick –“
Behind him, Rukia laughs, soft and quiet. It’s too familiar, striking him right in the stomach. An ache, low and hard and lingering, spreads through him. “Idiot. Why would it be a trick?”
“Because people take great joy in fucking with me,” he retorts, every muscle in his body tense.
“I don’t, you moron,” she retorts.
“Everyone else, then,” he mutters.
She sighs; the sound ripples through him, raising the hair on the back of his neck. He can almost see the expression on her face, mouth curled downwards and eyes narrow on his. “Are you going to turn around?”
“No,” he says rather definitively, gritting his teeth.
“Why not?”
He chokes out a harsh laugh. “Because I don’t want to not be able to see you, Rukia.”
There’s a slight touch at his back, cool through his t-shirt. Small fingers curl into the fabric and into the muscles of his back. He swallows hard, tucking his chin to his chest. “What are you doing here?” he asks at last, the words ripping from his chest sharp as knives. His sword hand aches for the weight of Zangetsu, and her.
“I told you. I’m always here,” she says quietly. Her forehead skims his shoulder blade, her mouth moving against his shirt as it grazes his arm. She is a cool line along his body, a shock against the heat of the day.
“Do they know what you’re doing?” he asks heavily.
She hesitates, her fingers pressing into his skin. That’s all he needs.
Wetting his lips, he turns from the gravestone to face her. She is still slight and slim, but there is a new sort of strength radiating from her hands and gaze. Her hair is longer than he’s ever seen it, the edges curling past her shoulders. She tilts her head up towards his and watches him with the same cautious care he remembers from before, eyes too bright in the sunlight.
“So. Hey,” he says at last, sweat beading at the nape of his neck.
Her hands fall away from him, smoothing down the thin fabric of her dress across her stomach and skirt. It’s a pale pink, a color he never pictures on her. He likes it, though. “That’s all you can say?” she asks.
Frustration rises in his chest, fighting with the urge to grab onto her and not let go this time. “What else do you want?” he asks, throwing up his hands. “You left! We said – said things, and you left!”
“You didn’t seem too bothered by it!” she snaps back, hair falling across her cheek as she shakes her head.
He rubs a hand across his face, slamming his eyes shut for a moment. “You disappeared right in front of me. Of course I was fucking bothered by it,” he grits out through his teeth.
“Do you have to turn every nice thing into a fight?” she asks with a sigh, rubbing the lines from her forehead. Her fingertips shift through her bangs, pale against her dark hair.
Instinct takes over; he reaches out and takes her hand in his, her fingers slim and cool against his. There’s a muscle memory to it, of ice skating ponds and life-and-death moments. They have never been simple, black-and-white; he bleeds for her and she defends him against family friend and foe, but this is the easiest it’s ever been and might ever be. She is hiding from the eyes of Soul Society, and he is talking to his mother’s grave, and this is the time they have.
“We’re not all that good at much else other than fighting,” he says at last, smirking slightly.
“I don’t know about that,” she retorts, eyes darkening.
He reaches up with his free hand to touch the ends of her hair, the backs of his fingers settling against her jaw. It’s always like this, when she’s gone for too long; he always needs a moment to get used to her, the bright light in the center of any room and sky. Her skin flushes under his touch, throat coloring pink.
“Your hair is longer,” he says after a moment.
“You’re incredibly observant,” she mutters as her free hand falls to his chest. Her fingertips curl into the cotton, shifting against muscle and the hard bone of his sternum.
“Shut up,” he snaps, bowing over her. His hair falls across his brow, brushing hers.
“So is yours,” she says quietly, tilting her face up towards his. He remembers the tremulous widening of her eyes, the sad curve to her mouth from before. He wants her to leave with a smile, a real one this time.
He slides his fingers against her throat, catching at the nape of her neck. “Is this all we get?” he asks at last.
She smiles slightly. “Stupid fool,” she says, fondness curling through every word.
“That’s not even remotely an answer,” he mutters. “I so haven’t missed this.”
Leaning up on her toes, she glances her mouth across his, dry and soft. The contact is unsettling and achingly familiar. He tightens his fingers at her throat and keeps her to his mouth. He licks at her mouth, trying to map the familiar before it’s taken from him once more. She sighs, opening her lips to his. Their teeth clack together, his nose hard against her cheek. They are both out of practice, jarring together; he could care less.
“Rukia,” he murmurs against her mouth, her name heavy on his tongue. “You didn’t come all the way here just for this.”
She bites at his bottom lip. “Maybe I forgot my favorite pajamas in the closet.”
The pad of his thumb catches at her cheekbone, fingers sliding in her hair. Their hands are still joined, pressed between their chests. “You didn’t,” he says, voice rough. “You took everything.”
Her mouth stills near his, her eyes widening. He thinks she might yell at him, or punch him in the gut. This look has preceded that kind of violence before.
Instead, she shuts her eyes for a moment and tilts her face up to his, her mouth soft on his. He can’t close his eyes this time, now when he’s so certain she’ll fade away at any moment.
“Leave your window open,” is all she says before she’s gone, and he’s left shaking and bereft in the summer sun.
*
“It looks the same.”
At the sound of her voice, Ichigo doesn’t look up from his math homework, head and shoulders bent over his desk. The rest of the house is silent and quiet; his sisters have gone to bed, and his father is outside, having his yearly cigarette. The tang of the thin smoke rises through the air to his open bedroom window.
“Did you think it wouldn’t?” he asks dryly, scribbling hard across the white lined paper.
She lands from the windowsill to the floor with soft footfalls. “I don’t know.”
“Everything’s the same,” he murmurs, setting his pencil down and looking up.
Rukia slips across the room towards the closed closet door. “Everything?”
“Everything,” he repeats, rubbing a hand at the nape of his neck.
She slides the door open and stops, her hands falling to her skirt. Her fingers pluck into the folds of the fabric. “Oh, Ichigo,” she murmurs, her back to him.
He stands from his desk and walks to the middle of the room, hands stuffed in his pockets. “Haven’t put my clothes in there for years. Why start now?”
She looks back at him over her shoulder, hair falling against her cheek. “I’d almost think that was sweet, if it wasn’t you,” she teases.
His hands curl into fists in his pockets. “It is me.”
“Then I just call it lazy.”
“You do know how to flatter a guy,” he mutters, toeing at the scuffed floor with his bare feet.
Her footsteps are soft on the floor, feet bare and slim in the warm yellow light from his desk. He looks up at her as she lets her hand fall to his chest, right over his heart. It reminds him of his dreams, of the cold press he sometimes feels in the middle of the day. The scent of trees and sweet clean air, what he thinks of when he thinks of Soul Society, lingers between them.
“Do you want to argue?” she asks evenly.
“We both know you’d just punch me in the face to win, so no,” he drawls. Now more than ever, he feels every inch of difference between his old self and this new fully human body, the heaviness of his limbs and the blood pounding at his wrists and throat.
Her mouth curves into a half-smile, amusement brightening her gaze. “Okay, then.”
His eyes follow the line of her dress, the curve of her throat. He can see the rise of color at her collarbones. “Hey,” he says after a moment, wetting his lips.
She tilts her head, gaze bright in a way he’s missed day in and day out. “Hey.”
He smoothes a hand through her hair, fingers lingering at her cheek. Karakura Town is quiet for them, the silence light and lingering in his room. The heat of the day remains in the air, thick and in every breath. “Where’ve you been?” he asks as he tugs her closer, his other hand spanning the curve of her waist.
“Here and there,” she says, her fingers twining in the thin fabric of his t-shirt.
His fingers slide and catch against the smooth cotton of her dress. “Kill anything good lately?”
She shrugs, her bare feet tucking themselves over his as she rises towards him. “It’s been quiet.”
“Eh, good. Guess I took care of most of them for you guys, huh?” he cracks, breathing through the low warm ache bubbling in his middle.
“Yeah, Ichigo. You did,” she says dryly.
“Thought so,” he murmurs before his mouth opens over hers. She is cool and smooth under his lips, a cool line along his mouth and body. Her tongue presses into his mouth as he tightens his grip on her waist and pulls her close.
He’s not sure she’s ever been close enough.
*
They never had enough practice at all this, he thinks.
His fingers still stutter on her bare skin and between her thighs, and she is – well, Rukia, and they are almost too sharp with their grips and the press of their hips. It’s another layer to their language of fights and quick tongues. She is too loud sometimes, and he has to cover her mouth with his fingers or his lips. He is still too slow and she rolls him onto his back and pins him down, the moonlight reflecting in her eyes. She is too tight and wet, and he can’t catch his breath, can’t keep his hands from the line of her body and the curve of her face. He sits up and curls his mouth over hers as he comes, his arms a hard anchor at the small of her back; he’s afraid of the words rising at the back of his throat.
It’s later, with the moonlight traveling over the floor, he can’t stop his stupid mouth.
“I miss you,” he whispers against her sternum, his mouth lingering at the scars from Aizen’s handiwork. It is something he’s never said to anyone, except his mother’s spirit in the darkest nights when he was young and still soft.
Rukia sits back against the pillows, a pale line of bare skin and loose limbs, as he moves down the length of her body. Sweat beads at the line of his spine and his brow. He’s grateful for the open window, for the breeze curling through the room, no matter how warm it is. Beneath him she shifts and arches against him, her mouth catching at the line of his brow. She is slight and lean under him. “Don’t say it,” she murmurs.
“When else will I have the time?” he asks darkly, biting at the curve of her breast. His fingers settle between her thighs.
“Some other time,” she says, her breath hitching in her chest. The color rises on her pale skin as his mouth moves over her ribs and stomach.
“It’s always some other time,” he mutters bitterly, two fingers curling within her with ease. She is soft and all wet heat under his touch, and it leaves an ache throughout his entire body.
She pushes and pulls at his shoulders, her fingers sliding up and digging into his hair, his scalp. A low moan shivers through her and out her throat, reverberating into his bones. “You’re the one that disappeared all the time without a word.”
“You want to go all the way back now?” he asks incredulously, his mouth stilling near her hipbone. The smell of her, of him, of summer; it lies thick and heavy in his nose, and he likes it.
“No,” she half-says half-moans, her thighs pressing hard at his shoulders. Her heel knocks at his ribs lightly. “Ichigo, just –“
“I miss you,” he says again into the soft skin of her inner thigh.
Her nails bite into his scalp. “Please, don’t,” she breathes out.
His tongue finds her clit, unsteady and hesitant as his fingers move inside her. Her thighs tremble, her toes curling near his hips as she arches into him. He shuts his eyes when she comes, the taste of her sweet and heavy on his tongue and her voice choked and low in his ears. He presses his cheek to her thigh and breathes as she trembles, her fingers tight in his thick hair.
I miss you, he thinks again, his every heartbeat heavier than the last as the moments pass.
*
Exhaustion lines their faces. The moonlight has shifted completely, and dawn is too close to them for comfort. On his side, he strokes his fingers through her mussed hair, touching the soft line of her jaw.
“School’s good?” she asks after a spell of silence, eyes soft. Her bangs settle across the line of her brow.
He snorts, shaking his head. “You’re not seriously asking about fucking school right now.”
“I hate you,” she retorts, pushing at his face.
“School’s fine, everything’s fine, my life is useless,” he says sharply.
“Don’t. Don’t say that,” she says, her grip tightening on his hair. “I mean it. I’ll beat you up right here and right now.”
Sighing, he drums his fingers along the soft flesh over his ribs. “How are you here?” he asks, his mouth brushing hers with every word. The question has beat in his veins for hours now; it is not until now that he can say it, with her skin sticky against his and the warm breeze sifting through their hair.
Her smile curves against his mouth. “Renji is covering for me.”
He narrows his gaze at her. “What? Why?”
“Because he likes you for whatever reason, and I can still beat him up.”
He hums thoughtfully, something of a scoff rising in his throat. “Well. Tell him hello.”
She slides her fingers through his hair and down the length of his throat towards his chest. She too can find the scars from particular battles. Her touch lingers at the remains from the Grand Fisher battle, the first one. “I will,” she murmurs, voice catching.
He shuts his eyes and turns onto his back. “I can’t watch you disappear again, Rukia,” he says at last, voice low in the quiet warm air.
She smoothes the flat of her hand down his chest. “I promise you won’t have to,” she says sadly and softly.
“Okay,” he murmurs, his fingers rising to where he feels the thick knotted scar tissue, from the hole in her chest. His eyes open to find her hovering over him, face set into serious lines. “Thank you.”
Her fingertips press into his chest, right over his heart. “You are happy, aren’t you, Ichigo?” she asks after a moment.
He shrugs, touch skating up the line of her throat to her cheek. “Happy enough. I think that’s all I can get, for now.”
She is too quiet, teeth biting into her bottom lip. The ends of her hair stick to her throat and shoulders. He sifts his fingers through it, his knuckles catching at her jaw. “How about you?”
Tilting her head, she shrugs as well. “Happy enough, yeah.”
He makes a low sound in his throat, shaking his head. “Why today?”
At that, her mouth curves into a small smile, a flush rising on her cheeks. “Just worked out this way,” she says softly before she leans over and kisses him, mouth open and cool on his. He shuts his eyes and breathes into her; it’s all he can do, now.
“I miss you too,” he hears just as he falls asleep, a low murmur in his ear. His fingers flex against smooth skin, her fingers twined in his.
*
When Ichigo wakes up, the house is alive beneath him, the smell of breakfast rising from the kitchen, and he is alone. He sits up in bed, glancing out the open window. The sun is already strong in the sky, the air thick and humid. There is a cool touch lingering at his chest, over his heart. His sword hand flexes on instinct.
He rakes a hand through his hair, and rises from bed.
The room still feels too large for just one.
*