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Rukia gave him a feral grin, closing the distance between them with intent. Ichigo automatically stepped back; the sight of an unhinged Rukia broke through the thick layer of numbness that had kept him up and running, pushing through everything.
“Do you think you’re a hero, Ichigo? Do you think you can save everyone? Do you think there is anyone who cares that you are a self-sacrificing idiot?” Rukia’s eyes caught light, but they were blown wide, two endlessly dark pits of pure rage. “Do you, Ichigo? Do you care more about the people who are going to cheat and lie and steal and die, more than those who care about you?”
Laughing mirthlessly, Rukia stopped in front of him, the captain haori she was wearing making her look older, more mature. Ichigo shook his head. She was older, a sword tempered by loss, sharp and unforgiving. And he had just made a mistake.
“Tell me, Ichigo, is that what it takes to care about my opinion? To stop giving a fuck about you?”
His name sounded like a curse in her mouth as she spit it out, a snake propelling its venom. Ichigo. The one who protects.
The one who failed to protect Rukia.
The one who failed to protect her heart.
“Rukia, I-”
“No, Ichigo. There is no I, the world doesn’t revolve around you and your saviour complex. Go and let Orihime swoon in your arms, or go to fucking therapy. Whatever gods there are, they should know that I’ve tried.”
Finally, her shoulders slumped forward, and Rukia looked small. A Gotei 13 captain feeling powerless as she hugged her own torso, turning her back to Ichigo.
“And if they don’t know?” Ichigo asked, stepping closer to where she was, but not daring to touch her. Instead, he stopped next to her, watching the sun rising in the afterlife.
“Then they are assholes who should have paid more attention,” Rukia huffed with finality.
It was not the end of the discussion though – far from it. But the small smile fighting its way against the stubbornness of Rukia’s lips made Ichigo think that there was still a chance to redeem himself, yet another lifeline to clutch and try not to let go this time.
“Let’s go home?” Ichigo whispered gently. A request? No, softer than that. A plea, and one that he had made plenty of times before. Time seemed to slow in time with Ichigo’s heartbeat as he held his breath.
“You’re sleeping on the floor, Kurosaki, mind my words.”
Ichigo grinned. “It’s not a no.”
Rukia rolled her eyes, both annoyed and amused. “As if I could ever tell you no, Mr. World Saviour.”
She could; she told him no that morning when she refused to shower with him because they took too long together, or last week, when she told him that no, Ichigo, you can’t buy another collector’s edition, you already have one at home. In truth, though, every no of hers was a veiled response that spoke of something else; a feeling. A feeling that clawed its way in Ichigo’s very soul and had never left. Love, but also respect, and knowledge and all the other good things Ichigo did not fully deserve.
“I haven’t been a very good” Boyfriend? Son? Brother? Friend? “to you. All of you. But, especially to you, Rukia.” It was not a question.
She just shook her head, making her dark locks fan around her head like an upside-down crown. “You had decades to experience survivor’s guilt and barely one year to become the ideal boyfriend I keep finding articles about in those chick-flick magazines you think you are so sneakily hiding under the mattress.” Rukia exhaled and looked at him, truly looked at him. Ichigo was still amazed, and a bit freaked out by how he felt like Rukia could, with a single look, undress him until all that was left of him were useless bones and a shy heart. “Ichigo, I am not blaming you for your trauma, or for your need to please. I am blaming you for refusing help when everyone is tripping over themselves to give it to you. Why do you think you are so hard to love, that you feel like you have to be useful to matter?”
The air was knocked out of Ichigo’s lungs, and a muted pain bloomed in his chest. Shock. Rukia made no move to comfort him though, her sharp eyes observing his every move. Somehow, it didn’t feel invasive, like the other were.
She was giving him space, he realized belatedly.
“When did you become so wise in the matters of the heart, midget?” he tried to joke, but his voice sounded rough and foreign even to his own ears.
Rukia just shrugged. “You are not the only one who needed help and refused to get it.”
Visions with her, a white yukata in a dark tower, popped in his mind with such clarity that Ichigo was taken aback by it. Rukia had felt worthless when she had been alone, save for an adoptive brother she didn’t even know and a clan that despised her existence. Ichigo was feeling worthless when there were so many people who loved him and.
“Ichigo, stop.” Rukia’s face was open, in that kind-but-not-permissive manner of hers. “I did not open that can of worms to guilt-trip you. Your issues are important on their own, you don’t have to compare yourself to others. You can drown in a pool in the same way you can drown in an ocean.”
But once the feeling settled, there weren’t a lot of things to make it go away. Rukia took his hand in hers. “Hey?” she asked quietly.
“Yes?”
“Do you trust me?”
That was a loaded question, and both of them knew it. It wasn’t a matter of whether Ichigo trusted Rukia or not – he would slit his own throat open if she asked him to. It was the fear that came with opening up, with admitting that he was vulnerable. Thing is, Ichigo was tired of always running away, running to help everyone, running from those who got too close to figuring him out.
Ichigo rubbed his eyes. So tired.
“I do.”
Rukia smiled, and he noticed how stark the contrast was between the paleness of her skin and the bags under her eyes. Just a little bit of sun. She took his hand in hers, not breaking the eye contact as she brought it to her lips with slow, deliberate movements. Her breath ghosted over the scarred skin of his knuckles right before the press of skin on skin, reverent and gentle.
“Come on, let’s go home.”