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He dreams of her.
He dreams of the others, too, when they visit; though his body lies there in his little bed in his little room, his soul still feels the frequency of their reiatsu. His own reiatsu is slowly fading, the price paid for the final Getsuga Tensho, the one you taught him with the other part of yourself, of him. One day, it will be gone (but perhaps not forever. Though he is you and you are him, there are parts of himself that you know, and that he does not.)
He dreams of the Inoue girl when she comes to see him, when she tries not to cry, not to be afraid of what’s happening to him. She was afraid of you, too, still is, though you’d never let him die. Not the King. She tells him about school and her nonsensical food choices, and sometimes, real quietly, she’ll tell him about the things she wishes she could say to him when he’s awake. You think it’s for the best that she’s not yet brave enough: not that you care, but he would. He’s afraid of hurting her. In these dreams, she’s safe and secure and her food tastes how he imagines she thinks it does, and though it’s not the life that she dreams about with him, it’s sappy all the same.
The Quincy, Ishida, stops by on occasion, with his glasses and terrible fashion sense and aloofness that he maintains even when he has no reason to because Shinigami and Quincy can never get along. (Once again, there are parts of the King that he himself does not know. How funny his ignorance is.) When he dreams of Ishida, it’s mostly juvenile: there’s an awful lot of beating him at sports, at tests, at fights, and an equally awful lot of gloating about it. There’s other dreams, too, dreams where the King, where you (for you and he are one) kill the Quincy, where you stab yourself through his heart and paint his white clothes the same red as the bloody sky. He hopes a time never comes when he must face Ishida as an enemy.
Sado and Tatsuki arrive in tandem. Sado doesn’t say much. You don’t think he needs to. Tatsuki more than makes up for it. She seems to be of the belief that yelling is the best medicine, and in multiple instances Sado has to keep her from smacking the King upside the head in an attempt to wake him up. It wouldn’t work even if she did it, of course; his body is preparing for the great changes that have been and are yet to be and nothing can interrupt it. That said, you would have liked to see it happen at least once. When he dreams of them, it’s of simpler times, times before he knew anything of Shinigami and Hollows and Quincies and you.
Rukia visits most often of all. When she arrives, it’s quiet and faltering. She stays just farther away than everybody else normally does, as if being here is wrong somehow, as if she doesn’t deserve to be beside him. For as much as she calls the King an idiot, she seems to be an even bigger fool. Nobody else deserves to be beside him as much as her. She doesn’t sleep in his closet anymore, though if she only asked, the Kurosakis would let her stay with them forever. You’ve heard Isshin’s insufferable crowing about his precious “third daughter,” felt the King’s cheeks heat even as he scolds his father for being embarrassing more than enough times to know that. You can feel her furtive glances towards the closet door.You can feel every movement she makes. Though the embers of the King’s reiatsu are steadily fading, her presence is never diminished.
She doesn’t say much. You really think she should. There’s only so many “sorrys” she can give, only so much she can blame herself for the decisions he made. Always so self-sacrificing, both her and the King. If she knew how he dreams of her, how the feelings that stir within her soul stir within his as well, would she be so tentative? Would she stop staying just out of reach?
He dreams of her.
He dreams of leaping between the rooftops of Karakura, Rukia perched on his back, Hollow alerts beeping away on her denreishinki. He’s headstrong and stupid and unrefined, waving around a massive hunk of power that both is and isn’t his own, to protect what little fraction of the world that he can. After he almost takes out the storefront of a konbini with an errant swing of his sword, she kicks him in the face and lets him know just how headstrong and stupid and unrefined he is, and he snaps back at her but he apologizes, too. When the konbini opens in the morning, she makes him buy her onigiri to prove he’s sorry.
He dreams of that day in the cemetery, when he was face to face with the monster that devoured his mother’s soul and he couldn’t avenge her, wasn’t strong enough to. The last thing he remembers before unconsciousness pulls him under is Rukia gently taking him into her lap, as the warm June rain pours down around them and the gaping hole in his chest gushes warm June blood. The next Hollow to put a hole in his chest will be you.
He dreams of sitting on his bedroom floor with her, homework haphazardly strewn around them as he corrects her on an improper verb conjugation for her English assignment. Rukia lets him gloat a little before pointing out the fact that he spelled “believe” wrong. He throws a pencil at her and she sticks her tongue out at him in smug satisfaction and all he can think about is that he wishes this could last forever, fighting Hollows and going to school and arguing over assignments and sneaking food to and falling asleep in the same room and sharing a life with Rukia, until the end of time.
He dreams of those lonely, horrible nights without her, when he wasn’t strong enough to stop the Shinigami from stealing her away from him, from taking her back to Soul Society to be sentenced to oblivion. She’s forgiven them for it, and so has he, and you accept this about them. It was for her that the King awakened himself to you, after all, and bashing in the faces of half of Soul Society to save her is consolation enough. You’d have preferred to bash in the other half, too, but he actually likes some of those guys. He dreams of her face, ashen on the bridge to the Senzaikyu, brilliant in the heat and the light of the Kiko-o high above Sokyoku Hill. Not Lieutenants, not Captains, not the strength of a million zanpakuto could keep her from him. Never again would he lack the power to keep her safe.
He dreams of all of the times she’s entered his life, the way she makes his whole world stop and realign itself with each one. He dreams of when he bared his face of bone in front of her, for her. Even when others have recoiled in fear of him, even when the King has recoiled in fear of himself, of you , in her heart there is none. Never has been.
He dreams of that fateful night, when her blade pierced his chest and her power flowed into him and his first thought was that this feels right, like the hole in his universe had been filled.
He dreams of other places, of other worlds, of other lives, always with her. He dreams of standing out in the Norwegian wilderness with her as the aurora dances over their heads and paints the night sky in coruscating hues of green and pink, the only sounds being the faint whistle of the wind and the crunch of snow under their feet as he pulls her into the circle of his arms. The stars are different in Soul Society, he learns, and even though he hates astrological bullshit the smile on her face when he points out Capricornus is worth a thousand lifetimes of reading horoscopes. He dreams of a life hundreds of years past, of he as a blacksmith and her as a potter, making their way from their cottage in the woods down to the village market to sell their wares. It’s a simple life, and a humble one, but it’s peaceful. She decorates their home with pretty rocks she finds by the river, and he picks her flowers that remind him of her. They take in wounded animals and nurse them back to health by the fire, the same fire he forges their wedding rings in. He dreams of her reaching the rank of Captain, and of him moving to the Soul Society to serve beside her. Her hands tremble a bit as she ties the Lieutenant’s badge, the one that once belonged to her, to Kaien, around his arm, and when she glances tentatively up at him the pride she sees pouring out of every pore on his face steadies them once more. When they get married, a single tear escapes and runs down Byakuya’s cheek as he announces the joining of the Shiba and Kuchiki houses, and Isshin nearly crushes the man in a bear hug. It takes the combined effort of Karin, Renji, and Ukitake to free him.
He dreams of how she would feel against him: her lips, the graceful curve of her neck, the parts of her that he’s too young, too bashful, too afraid to admit he wants (especially not now, not when losing her is an inevitability.) She’s given everything to him once before, shared the very essence of her soul with him. To give her everything in return is only natural. He dreams of his name, whispered breathlessly against his lips like a prayer, as he holds her in his arms, as he commits every part of her to memory with his touch. He dreams of a world in which he doesn’t have to let go.
Soon, the King will wake up, and she will disappear from him, and you will disappear alongside her. But for now, he dreams.
He dreams of her, and the rain in his heart stops.