Work Text:
Ichigo thinks the water on Rukia's cheeks are tears. Hers, or his, he can't tell. There's no difference when it's between the two of them because the distinction hardly matters. What effects one will inevitably effect the other. It always does. They couldn't leave each other alone if they tried.
And she has -- she has, and he wants her to stop.
"Idiot," he quietly scolds, "why'd you go without me?" Look, he wants to say, at the blood on your skin, at the rain on your lashes. Look what happens when we're apart.
But that's not fair, is it?
"Stop it," he adds, knowing the argument even before her lips shape them. "Stop trying to protect me, I know what I signed up for." He's got a hand over the gaping wound on her side left by the Hollow she'd been hunting. He flexes his fingers, almost feels the way her blood pulses between them, and demands, "Tell me how to heal it."
Though her breath is laboured, she scoffs.
Her hand is shaky and cold beneath his. He grits his teeth against her pained grimace, and repeats the kido incantation.
The light it creates is momentarily blinding, it makes up for the fact that he didn't switch any lights on when they'd been making their way through the apartment to the shower room, ostensibly to limit the clean-up. Eventually the light from the kido spell dims, dying out entirely, and for a moment there's nothing but shadows between them.
Outside, there's a flicker of lightning, and in stark relief, Rukia's skin is white, her eyes feverishly bright. She looks like a ghost.
She could've been, if he was even a second too late. She'd had the Hollow in her grasp, but --
He snaps his teeth against the what-ifs, the maybes. It had only started raining after the Hollow fell, and taken her with it. Almost. It hadn't succeeded. Rukia is right here. It's something he has to remind himself when all he can recall of those scant moments was her blood being washed out on the pavement.
Her touch is still cool against his cheek, it barely startles him as much as the glare she shoots his way. "I had it." Then, softening as she does when she knows he doesn't quite believe her, "Ichigo, I'm alright."
He huffs out a breath through his nose, and roughly pulls her to him, smothering her protests with the crush of their lips. It's a closed mouthed kiss for all of a moment before he tilts her head to slide his tongue in, shuddering at the metallic tinge of iron and salt still clinging to her skin.
Rukia is soft in his arms, pliant even as he pushes her against the wall, crowding her in. Slotting hips and thighs together, he sips from her lips, and chases the soft noises she makes until they're all he can hear over the roar of his own heartbeat.
It's not enough, is the distant conclusion. Not when they're not nearly close enough to not be separated; that possibility makes his teeth ache, sharpens her nails into his skin as if she knows it too.
But she does. She knows.
They've been conjoined since the day they met. Neither of them have survived being apart, have only grudgingly accepted the necessity of being separated as a mistake to be amended.
But Rukia, she thinks she knows better. Rukia thinks he can. Because she believes he deserves more.
Isn't that why she took this hunt without him? Isn't that why she's always trying to save him?
Between nips, he says, "Don't fucking do that again." Half scolding, half pleading, "Take me with you. Always take me with you."
In return, almost grudging, she mutters, "I had it. I had it."
Foreheads pressed together, breaths mingling and echoing louder than the thunder outside, Ichigo tells her, "You have me." He swipes his tongue across his lips, distantly pleased to find her eyes darker for it. Ichigo tilts her chin up to meet her gaze, and repeats, "Don't go without me."
"I've done this without you before," she says, and there's a furrow in her brow, a curl to her mouth.
With her powers returned, she's loathed to rely on him. He almost wishes he'd kept her in his closet forever. Clearly, her returning to Soul Society was a mistake for more than just her solitary confinement and almost-execution.
It was a mistake all around for Ichigo to discover how she'd lived before they met -- how sad she must have been, how alone -- and for how long. Rukia doesn't need to know how the thought alone needles him, how the suggestion of a moment, never mind entire life times, has driven his sword through everyone that's stood in the way of his reaching her.
There's a chance she wouldn't believe it anyway. That was the only song she's ever known. Until she learns this new melody by heart, he'll keep repeating it:
"Just because you were alone before doesn't mean you are now. You've done this without me, I know that, but it doesn't mean you still need to, it doesn't mean you still have to." And he could soften too, if he tried hard enough, but the thought of her thinking she has something to prove makes him so terrified he can't breathe.
Because the rain was washing her blood away. Because he almost lost her out there if he hadn't -- Because it's still fucking raining, and he can't lose her, especially not like that.
"But it's our song," his hollow muses. "Aren't we always meant to lose someone to the storm?"
Not her. Not her. Ichigo thinks, vicious and desperate with it, he pleads, "You have me Rukia, don't go without me."