Bleach: Shades of Grey
Rating: NC17
Pairing: Orihime/Ichigo
Warnings: none, really. Just regular het porn. Hopefully good.
Summary: Ichigo's got a devil on his shoulder.
Words: 4,102
Shades of Grey
“Not again,” said Ichigo. He heaved a wary sigh at the sight of his Hollow self grinning at him across the expanse of the sideways building in his inner dreamscape. This was the tenth time in as many nights since the Arrancar had made their appearance in the living world that sleep brought him not to the usual surreal places his unconscious mind would go.
No, the past ten nights had been filled with arguments and battles between himself and his Hollow within. Each time, he tried to contain himself, but the Hollow was just so good at taunting him. Knew exactly what to say to transform Ichigo into a raging, homicidal beast.
“Yes, again,” the Hollow said now. “And again and again, until you acknowledge I’m part of you.” It leaned over the hilt of Zangetsu and smirked at Ichigo. “There’s not one thing in the world that’s purely black or white.” One arm swept out, expansively gesturing at their surroundings. “It’s all grey. Just shades of grey.”
Ichigo sighed. Every night, it was the same thing: he’d fall asleep and enter his inner world, and his Hollow self would confront him with another ugly little aspect of his psyche. His guilt over his mother’s death; frustration with his father’s bizarre behaviour; irritation at Rukia and Keigo, competitiveness with Ishida… one by one, he’d faced them. Each night, so far, he’d been able to, if not defeat the Hollow, then at least fight it to a draw.
“What’s it to be this time, then?” he asked wearily. “Anxiety over graduation, maybe? Fear of not getting into a good college?” He thought it might be nice to deal with a normal problem for a person his age, instead of the weird shinigami-related issues that overwhelmed his life.
The tilt of the Hollow’s grin veered into definitely lecherous territory. “Tonight,” it intoned, a certain note of dark glee tingeing its words, “we’re gonna deal with you wanting to fuck Orihime.”
Ichigo felt the blood drain from his face. “What?” he whispered, then repeated it, louder. “What? Are you insane? I do not.”
“Pfft.” The Hollow dismissed its protest with a rude gesture. “You’re telling me that?”
In a flash, it was across the building and in Ichigo’s face, nose to nose with him, so close Ichigo could feel its cold breath fluttering across his lips.
“You can’t lie to me, fool. I know you. I am you. And we want to wear Orihime’s thighs as a necklace.”
“That’s not true,” Ichigo said stubbornly, even as a wave of dizzy disbelief rushed over him. He hurried to repeat the obstacles he’d told himself a thousand times. “Inoue’s just a friend. I don’t want anyone that way; I’m too busy, have too much to do.”
“You’re so boring,” the Hollow complained, and punched Ichigo in the stomach. It laughed when Ichigo jackknifed over in pain, coughing. “Just once I’d like to see you own up to any of these hidden emotions.”
Its grin turned contemptuous. “But you’re just a big fucking coward.”
Then it danced easily back when Ichigo, mostly recovered, lunged for it.
“This would be so much easier on both of us if you’d just accept that you’re not perfect, that you feel this way. That you feel rage, and envy, and lust.” Its lips curled in a sensual, promise-laden smirk. “Lots of lust, in fact.” Its free hand slid down its belly to caress itself through its hakama.
Ichigo rushed at the Hollow and swept Zangetsu out in an arc that would have decapitated any other opponent.
“You jerk off, thinking of those girls in the magazines you hide in the bottom drawer of your desk.” The Hollow brought up its own Zangetsu to block Ichigo’s, and the resultant clash of blades rang off the miles of glass windows around them. “But I know the face you think of in the end, the girl that pushes you over the edge, is Orihime.”
Ichigo sucked in a breath of pure fury and shunpo’d, trying to get the drop on his adversary, but the Hollow could read him like a kindergarten primer and dodged him with equal speed.
“You think of fucking her, of pounding her into the mattress, and you come so hard your eyes cross,” the Hollow hissed.
The blood in Ichigo’s head was pounding so fast he could hear it. It was from anger, he told himself, from outrage, from anything except the knowledge that the Hollow’s words were the truth. Inoue was his friend, a nice and brave girl who’d risked herself repeatedly to help him. She was kind and innocent, and it was wrong to think of her in any way besides a platonic respect.
I don’t want her, he insisted to himself, battering at the Hollow with Zangetsu, even as a mental image of her flashed into his head. It was shamefully familiar; the Hollow had been- as usual- correct. Ichigo’s most powerful fantasy was the imagery of Orihime, nude and spread out for him. Usually he only indulged for the length of time it took to finish himself off, and he speedily put it out of mind, his only sentiments a faint but lingering guilt at using his schoolmate for such a thing.
“I don’t understand you,” the Hollow sighed, ducking a swing by Ichigo before slashing back, very nearly taking the other’s arm off. “You want her. She wants you. What’s the problem?”
“She doesn’t want me,” Ichigo said automatically. He knew that Inoue was a little sweet on him; even he wasn’t so stupid he couldn’t tell the way she looked at him. “She just likes the person she thinks I am. The shinigami. The hero.”
“Pfft.” The Hollow dismissed all of Ichigo’s exuses. “You’re an idiot. She liked you long before she knew you were anything but a regular boy.”
“It’s only because Tatsuki told her a sob story about me,” Ichigo insisted, mentally searching for anything to bolster his denial.
This time, the Hollow laughed outright at him. “The girl loves you, fool. Loves you and wants you.” Its eyes lit up, dancing orange flames bright against the deep, surrounding black. “Wants you to rip her clothes off and shove your cock into her and fuck her inside-out.”
Ichigo sliced viciously at it, wanting nothing more in all his lifetime to make it shut up. “It’s because I stayed with her, kept her company when Dad was trying to save her brother.” It was a desperate, last-ditch effort, a scraping-together of some- any- way to deny it.
The Hollow, about to lash out, stopped. Just stopped, abruptly and totally, then slowly lowered Zangetsu until it hung, forgotten, to the ground. It stared blankly at Ichigo a long moment, and then its lip curled in disgust.
“You’re hopeless,” it said at last. “I don’t know why I bother with you.”
And then it disappeared, simply vanishing in the blink of an eye, leaving Ichigo alone on the building, the heavy blue sky pressing down upon him.
Ichigo woke up, and remembered it all. He sat up and buried his face in his hands, struggling to control his breathing. A drop of sweat rolled down his temple from his hair. No matter how he tried, the calm would not come, and his mind was racing too much to go back to sleep.
Not right away, that is.
He lay back, staring blankly at the ceiling and fighting to clear his mind or at least think of something less volatile than what the Hollow had hinted at.
But the image of Inoue, flushed and reaching for him, her sweet voice saying his name… he couldn’t stop himself from wondering how she might sound, crying out for him… would she still call him “Kurosaki-kun”? Or would he be able to make her lose herself so much she would actually say “Ichigo”?
“Ichigo,” she’d moan. “More, please, Ichigo.” The imagined sound of it echoed in his traitorous mind, and he despaired to feel himself harden. Her hair would spread out around her, a glorious chestnut starburst framing her pretty face, and her breasts would rise and fall with each laboured breath she took.
He wondered, not for the first- or even hundredth- time what colour her nipples were. How they would react to his touch. He groaned in surrender when his hands crept downward, slipping under the waistband of his sweatpants. One hand curled around his erection, the other reached to cup his balls, and swiftly he was biting his tongue to stifle his shout as he came and came.
“Orihime,” he thought as his flesh leapt in his hands. Liquid salt spilled from him, and guilt rose up to suffocate and strangle. “Orihime.”
~*~
Ichigo swiped an arm across his forehead to keep at least some of the blood from flowing into his eyes. He groped at his left side to assess the damage; it felt spongy, and the pain stole his breath. Broken ribs, at least two, maybe three. And there was something wrong with his right leg.
He’d expected an Arrancar attack, but not by three at once. He and Chad had managed to take out two with Orihime’s shield providing cover when they needed a few seconds to breathe. The last one had injured Chad, though, started peeling his armour right off his arm. Ichigo had sent him away with Orihime to tend him.
She looked so uncharacteristically grave when she was fighting. The skin drew taught around her eyes and her soft mouth pulled tight and tense. It felt unnatural to him, seeing her that way. Ichigo hadn’t wanted her there. It was far too dangerous, and he acknowledged a guilty little bit of relief that at least Chad’s injury had gotten her out of the way.
The Arrancar materialized before Ichigo with blinding speed, raking his sword across Ichigo’s arm before he could dance out of range. Pain blazed through him, and red sprayed across the Arrancar’s white tunic. Ichigo growled, becoming angry as he felt himself weaken further with the blood loss.
Let me out, whispered a dark voice in his head. You need me.
The Hollow. It had been nagging him for release ever since he’d felt the Arrancars’ reiatsu, a relentless presence, hungry and pawing at the iron barriers Ichigo had erected to keep him hidden.
I don’t need you, Ichigo told it flatly, and prepared for yet another attack. The last Arrancar was the biggest and strongest, with massive shoulders and huge hands. One of those hands now batted away Ichigo’s latest attack as easily as swatting a fly, then reached for Ichigo before he could get away and regroup.
His hands were so big they could actually reach around Ichigo’s waist, and soon they were squeezing. They constricted his injured ribs and aching lungs until each breath was a torment to drag into his chest. Desperately, Ichigo hacked at him with Zangetsu but the Arrancar’s toughness rendered Ichigo’s blows worthless, and the lack of oxygen was making him weaker.
Let me out! screamed the Hollow within, beating on the confines of Ichigo’s mind.
Silvery spots floated before his eyes and his hands were tingling, numb. The Arrancar’s face was pale, waxen, the only sign of triumph a dull glint in the flat black eyes. Ichigo felt life slipping away, and with a sigh, surrendered to the devil inside.
It never failed to amaze Ichigo. The feeling of relinquishing control to the Hollow was both a terror and a relief. A flood of energy and strength, like a bursting dam finally, finally giving up on holding back. His wounds healed: searing pain for a split second, and then there was only the power.
“Hah!” the Hollow shouted, its power bursting itself free of the Arrancar’s grip and flying it to the opposite side of the playground. Its feet dug into the gravel, braking to a stop. When the dust settled, it grinned, red irises blazing in its half-masked face.
“I have been waiting so long for this,” it informed the Arrancar soberly. “You’d better put up a good fight, or I’ll be angry.”
Shunpo, and it was at the Arrancar’s side and taking off his left arm and a goodly portion of his shoulder with a single blow of Zangetsu. Its laugh of delight was drowned by the Arrancar’s howl of pain, and it swung around for a second pass. This time, Zangetsu was plunged clear through its opponent, right to the hilt, so that the white hilt binding was soaked with dark blood.
The Arrancar, furious, tried an offensive tack; he charged the Hollow out of the playground, into the soccer field, but it zipped left and right, evading every attempt. It nipped under the Arrancar’s remaining arm and spun in mid-air, slicing through that one as well.
It had found a rhythm. It rocked back, swung Zangetsu around, and began hacking. Legs, shoulders, and with a final, almost balletic twist, head. It alighted on the ground at the same time as the head, which rolled to a stop by its feet, eyes staring blindly to the fading sun in the distance.
It was unable to suppress a grin. It pulled back one foot and aimed for the Arrancar’s head. It sent the head flying across the entire length of the field, slamming so forcefully into the net that it almost shook free of its moorings.
“Goal!” it shouted, exhilarated.
It thought about retrieving the head and playing a bit of footy, just to blow off more steam, but then it heard a voice from the edge of the soccer field, behind it.
“Kurosaki-kun,” Orihime was calling. “Are you alright?”
Ichigo had been sitting, quiescent, in the back of their shared consciousness but at the sound, he sent a flash of blinding panic through their body and struggled to be free once again.
Let go! he exclaimed. Pull back, let me come out again!
The Hollow considered it. Hm, it thought. Maybe just a little. It released its control of their body just enough for Ichigo to surge forward, then wrapped itself around Ichigo.
It’s time you learned to share, the Hollow informed him before melting into him.
He felt… odd. Disconnected, somehow, and at the same time so aligned with himself- the himself he kept barricaded in the tightest corner of his mind. It was like taking the first breath after being choked of air, all over again.
He pulled the mask from his face and dropped it casually to the grass. “Inoue,” he acknowledged, and started toward her.
“Kurosaki-kun, you’re hurt!” she exclaimed, peering at the smears of blood over his face and down his arm. “Let me heal you!”
“Nah, I’m fine now,” he replied, but allowed her to lead him to one of the park benches and push him to sit down. Above them, the sky had gone completely dark. The park was long deserted, and they were alone.
She stepped close to him and began to run her fingers through his hair, searching for the wound that had caused all the bleeding. Her hands were soft and gentle, and her breasts were on a level with his face, lifting with each breath she took.
Ichigo felt a stirring in his blood, a recklessness. He loved the feel of her hands on him, and wanted to bury his face against her chest.
“Why did you come back?” he asked. “Why didn’t you stay with Chad?”
Her hands stilled on his head, cupping it like a benediction. “I stayed with him as long as I could,” she replied after a while. “But I got too worried about Kurosaki-kun… I had to come back.”
Ichigo looked up at Orihime. She’d given up looking for cuts on his head and started rummaging through the shreds of his haori for injuries on his arm and shoulder. Her face was close to his, her lips parted, eyes intent on her search.
The import of her words set in, then. Orihime- kind, caring, conscientious Orihime- had deserted a critically injured friend for fear that Ichigo needed her.
“You left him? To return to me?”
She glanced nervously at him before returning to her task. “I just… I had to come back to you. What if you were hurt? What if you needed help?” she whispered, blinking rapidly a few times. “Please don’t be angry with me.”
He remembered the Hollow’s words, so clearly and vividly it was almost as if it were whispering to him once more in the depths of his own mind.
The girl loves you, fool. Loves you and wants you.
Her hands were trembling, and he realized she’d been far more worried for him than she was letting on. Also, she was standing between his legs as he sat on the bench, had been unconsciously swaying ever closer to him as they spoke. It occurred to Ichigo that she’d never before touched him for so long, that she smelled of warm, sweat-damp girl, and that her skirt was very short.
“I’m not angry,” he told her, and slid his left hand up her thigh. “Orihime.”
She jerked in surprise, turning from his arm to stare at him. Their eyes met for a long, electric moment, and in hers Ichigo saw what he’d been denying for years.
“Kurosaki-kun?” she asked in a tiny, shaky voice. His right hand grasped her other thigh, and he lowered his face to rest smack in the middle of her bountiful chest.
Oh, this was heaven. The salt tang of her skin was more evident here, and he knew she’d run as hard as she could to come back to him after leaving Chad. It made him want her even more.
She was positively quaking now, and he wondered if he were scaring her that badly. He lifted his head and looked up at her.
Orihime’s arms were flailing wildly, her eyes open wide with alarm, and she started to babble.
“I don’t know where to put my hands!” she exclaimed. “I don’t want to do anything you won’t like, and scare you off, but if I just stand still you might think I don’t like it when I do like it, I like it a lot, Kurosaki-kun, and-“
He kissed her. He had no idea what he was doing, but figured that going by his instincts couldn’t hurt. Orihime kissed him right back, a little whimper of relief against his lips before opening her mouth to him. The slickness of her tongue rubbing against his had waves of desire rolling through him, right down to his groin.
His fingers curled round her thighs, drawing her closer, and she slithered onto his lap, sighing in relief, as if she’d finally come home. She parted her legs to kneel over him on the bench, slid her arms round his neck, and pressed herself against him like a warm, soft, aroused, human barnacle.
When his erection came in contact with the damp little strip of cotton that was her panties, she jerked in surprise.
“Oh, you’re-“ she murmured against his mouth.
“Yes,” he muttered back, and kissed her again, more deeply, until they were practically consuming each other. His hands grasped her ass and pulled her tightly against him until he was grinding up into her and she was rubbing her breasts against his chest.
“Kurosaki-kun, this feels so good,” she panted into their kiss, little mewling sounds coming from the back of her throat. “This is incredible!”
The knowledge that she was enjoying this, enjoying him, made Ichigo feel like he’d been electrocuted. Grabbing her round the waist, he shunpo’d them to the center of the soccer field, then tipped her over so she was flat on her back.
“Oh!” she said, surprised, and then laughed. Her face was free of any strain or worry, simply animated and happy. It was so disarming, so unaffected, that Ichigo was unprepared for the almost violent surge of arousal he felt for her.
Quickly, he reached under her skirt and pulled off her panties. They were pink with purple flowers and a little lavender bow at the front, and wet in the center panel. The fresh, hot scent of her arousal hit his nose and he barely restrained himself from burying his nose in the panties and sniffing deeply.
“Hurry, Kurosaki-kun,” she urged him breathlessly. “Please.”
Oh, god, it was just like his fantasies. “Call me Ichigo,” he said hoarsely.
“Ichigo,” she said, eyes shining as she reached up to him. Ichigo closed his eyes and tried not to come just at the sight and sound of her. He reached to unbutton her blouse, then pulled the cups of her bra down to expose her breasts. He heaved himself up so he could reach them, and latched his mouth onto one pink, succulent nipple. His hand slid busily down to her cleft, slipping a finger into her and stroking steadily.
“Harder,” she whispered. “Use your teeth.”
Ichigo’s libido, already enflamed, threatened to escape his control. He applied his teeth to her nipples, gently at first, and then harder at her urging. Her hands became busy with the ties to his hakama, wrenching them free and shoving the material aside until she could fill her hands with his cock and balls.
“You’re bigger than I imagined,” she said, sounding happy.
“You imagined how big I was?” Ichigo panted, withdrawing his fingers so he could shift, moving his hips between her thighs.
“Of course,” she replied, and Ichigo felt like a bit of a dolt; of course she had fantasies, just as he had.
Ichigo started rubbing the head of his cock up and down her drenched slit. He was amazed at how receptive she was. He’d always expected Orihime would be innocent, even inhibited, but her eagerness was beyond even his masturbatory dreams.
“Please,” she said, gazing up at him with moist, pleading eyes. “Don’t take any longer. What if lightning strikes us? Then we’ll be dead, and never got to finish-“
He slid inside her, easing in until there was nowhere else to go. Her sleek muscles quivered around him, clasping snugly, and his eyes almost crossed at the sensation of losing himself so utterly. She surrounded him, he was drowning in her…
He allowed himself to lay his full weight on her, just for a moment, to feel the soft breasts and strong skeleton and air moving in her lungs, to drink in all the life of her.
Then he propped himself up on his elbows, and began to thrust. She whimpered and wrapped her arms and legs around him, holding on as if keeping him from fleeing.
“I’m not going anywhere, Orihime,” he informed her.
“I know…I- Ichigo,” she said, stumbling at her daring. “This is for just in case.”
He buried his smile against her throat and concentrated on making his strokes inside her long and smooth. Their flesh, damp with sweat, slid against each other, and the smell was raw and primal, stoking Ichigo until he was rutting against her, completely focused.
Orihime clutched at him for dear life, his thrusts scooting them across the grass, and a sound began in her throat. It started as a sort of purr, and built in pitch and volume until she was keening, writhing and bucking, coming around him so forcefully that Ichigo saw stars.
He slammed into his own climax, the world going white. For a moment, he was back on the building with the Hollow. The damned thing grinned at him. There was no time to do more than give it the finger, because Ichigo lurched back into the real world, gasping as the haze of desire receded in little pulses.
Orihime was still clutching him, but now her hands were tracing over the muscles and scars in his back, and she was babbling.
“I know you probably don’t believe me, or don’t want to hear it, so I’m sorry but I just have to tell you.” She sucked in a deep breath. “I’ve loved you for a really long time. I love you more than gundams, or bean paste cake with jalapeno frosting. You’re more important to me than anyone. Well, maybe not Tatsuki-chan. She’s my best friend. But-“
He kissed her again. When he pulled back, she all but had birds tweeting around her head, so dazed was she.
Mine, thought Ichigo, and pressed his cheek against hers.
No, corrected the Hollow within, and spurred Ichigo to burrow deeper into Orihime’s embrace. Ours.