Work Text:
.
.
“What were we before we were we? We must’ve been standing by the shoulder of a dirt road while the city burned. We must’ve been disappearing, like we are now. Maybe in the next life we’ll meet each other for the first time—believing in everything but the harm we’re capable of.”
-ocean vuong
on earth we’re briefly gorgeous
.
.
On the eve of Ichigo and Orihime’s wedding, Rukia comes to Ishida with a bottle of sake in tow and enough heartbreak to rival his own.
“Shinigami” Ishida greets with a cracked smile
“Ishida” She nods back, “Sorry for not knocking, I thought you’d appreciate the theatrics of me walking through your walls”
“It’s noted” Ishida said, leaning back in his chair, then, “Why are you here Kuchiki-san?”
She doesn’t correct him on her changed last name. Instead she lifts the bottle, “A gift”
“You don’t seem the type”
“I’m not, but there are some occasions that I deem it appropriate”
“Like...?”
“Birthdays, festivals, funerals...weddings”
“I see” Ishida slides his glasses up
“So...?”
Ishida considers his tea, corner of his mouth pulled tight and with a defeated exhale, he takes the sake and leads her to the rooftop.
They share the bottle, watching the moon hang fat and white in the starlight sky.
Words are scarce, there is nothing but Rukia, Ishida, and the quite swell of sadness.
Ishida looks up, takes inventory of the stars, names constellations, and tries to quell the hurt that thrums steady and low in his chest.
He brings the bottle to his lips, mouthing the edge and “I always thought she’d outgrow it”
Rukia stares, open but not unkindly.
“She loved... loves ...him so loudly, it was like she was constantly screaming for him to love her too” His brows knit, “But I didn’t think—never knew that he could hear her”
Ishida stares back at her, looks at the delicate point of her chin and the way her black hair curls gently around her jaw. Rukia blinks those big, violet (violet, violet) eyes at him and, “I thought it was you. It had to be you. He never even heard her when you were here”
“Ishida...
“All I can think is that time when we came back after Ichigo saved you. Those little stolen moments of peace before the Winter War”
“Ichigo was good. He was fine. But he kept waiting for something, for you. I’d catch him staring at telephone lines and shadows in the corners. He looked for you everywhere”
“I think she saw it too. Saw the way he...felt...about you. I guess she wanted someone to feel that way about her. But she couldn’t see...”
(Me.)
“Couldn’t see anything else. We had just come back from the afterlife and somehow her world became smaller. It was just her and Ichigo”
Ishida finishes the bottle with a rough swig and rises uneasily to his feet. Rukia grabs his shoulders to steady him, she holds fast as he begins to shake.
“Ishida” Rukia takes him in her arms, little hands wrapping around him and holding him tight. She doesn’t know him that well, doesn’t know how to make it better. Ichigo never required her softness, he always wanted her strong and unwavering.
But Ishida is different, and he looks like someone who just needs to be held.
And Rukia can’t give him peace, can’t mend the hurt in his heart, but she can hold him.
The bottle clangs to their feet, it’s loud and sharp against the quite of the night
but it doesn’t break.
.
Rukia comes to him again, right after Kazu is born.
She keeps a steady eye on the baby, monitors his spiritual pressure and keeps her senses sharp for a darker, more smothering reiastu that never comes.
She brings a bottle again and they go to the rooftop together.
Ishida looks well if not a little tired with faint shadows underneath his eyes.
“How’s the kid?” Ishida asks, voice strained with pleasantries
“Strong” Rukia swirls the bottle, “He looks like Orihime”
Ishida hums, “And your’s?”
Rukia instinctually lays a palm against her middle, still a little soft from childbirth and, “She has Renji’s hair”
That startles a laugh from Ishida. It sounds like he forgot how, “I’m sure Kuchiki-Taicho is thrilled”
Rukia smiles, “He loves her, despite the hair”
There is a moment of quiet as they pass the bottle amongst themselves, Rukia closes her eyes against the cool flutter of the night breeze.
She breathes in the reiastu of friends and finds some sort of peace knowing they are close and safe.
“How is she?”
Rukia allows a smile, “She’s good. She’s healthy. I think she’s happy”
“And Ichigo?”
She opens her eyes, reaching for the steady vibrations of his reiastu and “Ichigo won’t let himself be happy”
Bitterness pulls his mouth down, “I deducted that by now Kuchiki-san”
Rukia feels herself grow tight, bracing for whatever Ishida is going to say next.
“I was there” Ishida reminds her tersely, “I know what Yhwach said. What he promised”
Stilted silence strains between them, shoulders drawn tight with the bottle of sake forgotten.
Finally, Ishida gives a quite exhale and, “I want to be so angry at him. And her.”
“Him, because he’s supposed to be stronger than a dying man’s desperate lies”
“...And her, her for allowing herself to be second best. For selling herself so short. She wanted to be so many things, y’know? I just never thought she’d end up being Kurosaki’s goddamn cop out”
Unexpected hot tears sting Rukia’s eyes, and she wants to blame it on the lingering hormones from the pregnancy but Rukia’s never been a liar.
“Ishida...”
“What happened Kuchiki?” Ishida turns, face pale and mournful, “What happened to us, all of us?”
Rukia thinks of Chad, who swore his strength for protection and how he’s now fighting professionally.
She thinks of Orihime and of all the dreams she had, and all the things she’s thrown away.
She thinks of the man beside her, and how he once refused to mirror his father’s path—how he was trying to unlearn being alone. She thinks of how he’s on his second year of medical school, and his isolation from those he cares for the most.
She thinks of herself. Thinks of how she wanted to change things, to better and be better. She thinks of how the Sōkyoku has just been approved to be rebuilt, and how she’s been complicit to all the things she hated about Soul Society.
She thinks of Ichigo. Painful and hot and all consuming. And she doesn’t want to think about Ichigo anymore.
.
Rukia finds herself on Karakura bridge, making one last stop before she returns to the Seireitei.
She goes towards the railings, eyes following the steady current of water and she feels her knees go weak as she thinks of the last time she was here.
If she closes her eyes, and focuses hard, she can hear him.
“Rukia, please...”
It’s a hot day. Karakura hasn’t had this kind of heat for a while now.
It’s hot and the sun is razor sharp and bright and it feels wrong.
She’s never wished for rain before. But the moment calls for it, she wants to sky to open up and reflect the hurt that storms rages wild and heavy in her soul.
“I have to do this” Ichigo says. For us, he doesn’t say, but Rukia can hear it loud and clear.
For you.
It hangs in the air, buries itself deep in Rukia’s skin but really there’s no helping it now.
Ichigo is absolute in his resolve.
Rukia had always known how to find the right words to make it better. She had a talent of stringing words into beautiful sentences that could heal any gaping wound Ichigo carried.
This time, her words didn’t reach him.
(“There’s nothing we cannot face Ichigo!” She had yelled, trying so valiantly time keep the tears from breaking her voice. “Remember all we’ve been through—all you’ve been through. Think of all the adversaries and challenges you have faced. This is no different, so we can’t just allow ourselves to cower because of a dead man’s promise!”)
“Rukia please look at me” Ichigo urges desperately
(“He’ll come back” Ichigo doesn’t look at her, Rukia’s glad for it. She doesn’t want to see him like this, “He’ll come for you. I know he will. He knows better than anyone want you mean to me. I can’t...I won’t watch you die Rukia. I won’t”
Rukia shakes her head, throat thick with tears that she can’t swallow.
“But, if I let you go then he can’t hurt you. He won’t be able to hurt you or anyone ever again. And I can live with that, I’ll have to”)
Rukia keeps her back to him, shoulders drawn in and she looks small—feels so small and useless.
(“Ichigo” Rukia bows her head into his back, little hands fisting in his shirt, “Please, don’t do this”)
“I’ll always love you” Ichigo says, with wet eyes and his heart falling to pieces, “And you’ll always be my friend. Yhwach will never take that away from me”
Finally, finally Rukia turns to him with tears so thick that she can barely make out the heartbroken expression that Ichigo wears so sadly.
Behind her the gates appear and open, a white light beckoning her away.
Ichigo looks at her, memorizes this moment (the sad turn of her plump lips, her inky lashes wet with tears, the way her bang hangs between those eyes of hers) and tucks it away in his mind. He thinks she’s never looked so beautiful, or so sad.
(“Rukia, please don’t make me beg”)
“I love you” Rukia whispers, palm laid flat against her chest. Against her heart. She’ll carry him there, she’ll always carry him with her.
Ichigo watches her disappear through the Senkaimon and oh god , what has he done.
What has he done?
Rukia opens her eyes, and she’s alone on the bridge.
She squats down, holding her knees close to her chest and she heaves in a shuddering breath.
What have we’ve become?
What have we allowed ourselves to be?
.
.
.