IchiRuki 100 Themes: 27, dancing in the rain, pt. 2
Title: Eyes Open (pt. 2)
Author: Ninx
Warning: This part? NC-17, yo.
Notes: Happy 2006, have some smut! Featuring angst, chatting, Ichigo's lack of vocabulary, Rukia's education, and the cheesiest Ichigo line EVAH allowed by two amazing betas. (Seriously. Year's worth of cheese, right there.)
Day Three
Ichigo skips school the next day. The thought of sitting in the same place for so many hours, listening to lectures, is extremely unappealing. Not to mention the fact that he knows he’s in deep shit for yesterday; he’s just lucky he got home without running into Tatsuki.
The boredom of a normal school day along with the prospect of getting chewed out and bruised? On top of the Rukia issue? Entirely not worth it.
Besides, after breakfast that morning, he really could use some time by himself.
He leaves in the morning as if nothing is wrong, then doubles back to his room once he’s sure that Karin and Yuzu are gone. He leaves the house again as shinigami, and attempts to lose himself in the mindless, predictable, invisible work that form affords him. There’s something comforting about it, which entirely has nothing to do with getting to beat things up. Absolutely not.
He slips back into the house just as school gets out, and manages to sneak back out with a minimum of fuss. He “arrives” home just as the twins do, and goes through the rest of his day as if it were normal. He eats with his family, does some homework, takes a bath. The only difference is that after his bath, he doesn’t go to bed. Instead, he waits up, listening as the house slowly goes quiet.
When it has been that way for awhile, he sneaks downstairs.
Now, he sits by Rukia’s bed, hunched forward in the chair. He listens as she breathes in and out, shallow and rapid. He can’t really look at her anymore, since her entire neck is stained red and purple.
He can’t really look at her anymore, because he doesn’t know what to do.
Rukia said that all Hollows did was lie. Yet the Hollow had said three days, and Yoruichi had confirmed it. Three days of life left to her. Three days for him to work up the courage to take the coward’s choice. Three days for him to watch her suffer.
She doesn’t appear to be suffering, really. Her face is a little tense, and there’s a desperate note to her breathing. But she hasn’t cried out, or shown any overt signs of pain. So she’s not...suffering.
He lowers his head. Liar, he thinks. Liar. She’s been in pain this whole time. She just hid it from you. She hid it from you, because she knew you couldn’t handle it.
When he thinks back on those little things he noticed--the baths and her friendship with Karin and the tea--he realizes how stupid he was. He’d thought he’d seen the entirety of her injury then, in the tiny things that had changed. He hadn’t realized that those tiny things had actually been the only outward signs of a much, much greater distress. That for Rukia to even change that much, the pain within her must have been immense.
But this was Rukia.
She’d been awake this morning, briefly, when he’d come down to breakfast. Karin had just been in to see her, and sent in Pop and Yuzu. She’d sat down at the breakfast table, and reached for a piece of toast. He nearly had asked how Rukia was, until he saw her hand shake ever so slightly.
Then, she’d looked at him, and said, “Ichi-nii...Rukia said to tell you...”
He’d stared at her, watched as she tensed. It looked like she was fighting against the words.
“She said...she said...” Karin had paused, shut her eyes for a moment, then opened them again. “She said that it’s not going to kill her. That it CAN’T kill her.”
Ichigo looked down at his toast. He suddenly felt not all that hungry.
“Ichi-nii...” Karin’s voice had been pained. “Why does she keep saying that? Why does she keep...” Her voice dropped. “...lying?”
She’d looked at him then. “I don’t care what it is you have to do,” she’d said. “Do it.”
“Karin, I...”
“NO, Ichi-nii, listen!” He looked at her, forced to by the sound in her voice. The look in her eyes was more anger than pain. “Listen...just do it, okay? I don’t care what Rukia-nee says, just...” Her voice had hitched for a second, and she paused. “Do it. PLEASE.”
Then she pushed back from the table and ran upstairs.
Rukia, he thinks now, looking down at her. You told me this was your problem. That you wanted to solve it by yourself. And you almost did, Rukia. You almost solved it for both of us.
But Rukia...you’re an idiot. This was never your problem to begin with. It was mine.
He brushes her face with his hand. Her skin is hot to the touch.
Time’s up.
He leans over and kisses her forehead first. He knows it’s not what the Hollow was aiming for, but he can’t not try it. Besides, he, uh, needs to work up to it.
He pulls back, looks at her neck. The crimson-purple still vibrates to his eyes.
His last thought is, I shouldn’t have read so many fucking fairy tales as a kid.
He kisses her. Her lips are dry, and almost warmer than her skin. He keeps his eyes open for a moment, to make sure he’s hit the right spot, but that doesn’t last. Once he feels how warm she is, his eyes fall shut automatically. He’d intended to keep it a light, short touch, but that doesn’t seem to work either. Oh, it IS light, but once he touches her lips once, he feels the urge to just...keep touching them. He’ll pull back a little, then find himself kissing her again. Which, he thinks, could be what the Hollow wants, since he doesn’t feel entirely in control of himself right now...
He’s so caught up in his thoughts of kissing that he doesn’t notice when Rukia wakes up. Until she shoves him off her.
“What are you doing, idiot?” she snarls, then collapses back into bed, coughing.
His eyes go wide. “Rukia?” he asks. “Did it work?” He tries to check her neck.
She rubs feverishly at her mouth. “NO, it did not.” She lifts her hand, which has splotches of purple on it. “See?”
“Oh.” He slumps.
“What were you doing, anyways? Were you...” she pauses, “kissing me?”
His first urge is to deny it. He doesn’t. “Yes,” he replies, voice weary.
“WHY? Didn’t Karin give you my message?” she asks, glaring daggers at him. Her voice is weak, but her glare is as healthy as ever.
“She did.”
“Then WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU DOING?”
He looks away sourly. “What it said to,” he mutters.
“What it SAID...” She makes an exasperated noise. “Ichigo, didn’t you listen? It LIED. It won’t kill me, I know it...”
“And how do you know that, Rukia?” he says, voice angry. He looks at her. “HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT?”
She stops, then turns away a little. “I...” she starts.
“Pop thinks you have the flu,” he says. “But we both know you don’t. We both know that YOU’RE DYING.”
She doesn’t look at him.
“Urahara said he couldn’t do anything.”
“Urahara...?”
“Yoruichi said she couldn’t do anything,” he continues, ignoring her. “She said you had a day. A DAY. That time’s almost up, Rukia, and I am not going to let you die.” His voice drops. “I’m just not.”
“But, Ichigo...”
“SHUT UP!” he yells. “SHUT UP.”
She stares at him, a stunned look on her face.
He stands suddenly. “You did this in Soul Society, too. You kept telling me to leave you there to die.” He leans over, putting his hands on her shoulders. “What did I tell you then?”
She stares up at him, and softly replies, “That my objections didn’t matter.”
“RIGHT,” he says, then leans in a hair closer. “Rukia...I’m here to save you.”
He kisses her again.
She freezes at first, then fights him. Her hands grip his arms, jerk at them, but he holds steady above her. She tries to turn her head away, but he follows. For a minute or so, there’s a frenzy of activity, as she tries her hardest to not let him continue to kiss her.
She can’t keep it up, though. Whether because she’s too weak, or because of...other things...she stops fighting him. Her lips soften slightly against his, and part a little. That’s when Ichigo discovers that kissing an awake Rukia is a helluva lot nicer than kissing a sleeping one.
He pulls back after a time, just to breathe. She looks up at him, eyes wide and bewildered for a moment, then turns her head to the side, blushing. He pushes up and away from her, feeling his own blush, and looks down at her neck. The red-purple layer has stopped wriggling, but it’s still there. A second later she says, as if to confirm his thoughts, “It’s not gone.”
He looks at her. She doesn’t quite meet his eyes. “It’s stopped moving,” she says quietly. “But it’s not gone.”
He takes a breath. So does she. They don’t look at each other for a long moment.
Then, Rukia sits up a little. “Ichigo,” she says, voice quiet. “Come here.”
He looks over at her. She’s sliding across the bed, leaving a space for him. His eyes widen, and he says, “Rukia?”
Her eyes narrow. “Don’t be stupid,” she says. “Just sit down.”
He stands for a second, indecisive, then gingerly sits down on the bed, as close to the edge as possible. It’s warm, where she lay.
They don’t speak for a moment. Ichigo shifts uneasily on the bed, but he waits. He really wants to bolt for the door, but he waits. Besides...she’s not better yet. And there’s not gonna be a second chance, this time.
“I didn’t want to do this,” she finally says.
You think I did? he thinks, but doesn’t say it.
“I...it...” She stops, takes a breath. “It’s not right, that you have to do this!”
He doesn’t look at her.
“It’s so...manipulative,” she says. “And I thought it...I really thought it...” She stops, and he hears the rustle of the top sheet.
“You thought it wouldn’t kill you,” he says, voice low.
“Yes,” she says softly. “But that’s not...all of it.”
He turns a little, looks at her. She’s staring at the sheet.
“When I first met it, it said, ‘He thinks the most interesting things about you.’ I knew it was just trying to get to me.” She takes another deep breath. “Then, when we met it, what it said...” She lowers her head even more. “It was just trying to get to you, and embarrass me. I know...it lied.”
He can feel himself getting redder and redder, and he wants to look away, but he doesn’t. Nor does she look at him.
“And I don’t want to give into its lies,” she says. “So...I thought, ‘I’d rather die,’ than make you do something like this.” She hunches over more. “But to die like this...”
She turns to him and bows quickly, head nearly touching the sheet. “If you can stand it...this...for just a little longer, then I ask, most humbly...”
He stares down at her, eyes wide, face on fire. Then, he says, in a hard voice, “Stop it, Rukia.”
She tenses for a second, then leans back up. She still doesn’t look at him, and it’s starting to piss him off. She turns back, and lowers her head over her hands. “Then, Ichigo...” she starts.
“RUKIA,” he says, cutting her off. She jumps a little, as if she’s not expecting it. “Look at me.”
She shakes her head.
“RUKIA, DAMNIT.”
She shakes her head again, a little quicker.
He makes a face at her, then looks away. “I really hate it when you won’t look at me,” he mutters.
Now, of course, she looks at him. He ignores it for a moment, making a show of shifting up on the bed, so that he doesn’t have to look at the expression on her face just yet. When he finally does look at her, her look of shock has softened a bit, but it’s still there.
“You keep saying the Hollow lies, the Hollow lied,” he says. “I don’t think it has, Rukia.”
“But...”
“Did it lie to us about you getting sick?” he asks.
“No...”
He looks away. “Did it lie to me, about your old vice-captain?”
Her voice is quieter now. “No.”
He looks back at her. “Then why are you so STUPID to think it lied about me, too?”
She stares at him, mouth dropping open a little. He faces forward, not quite looking at her but not quite looking away, either.
“Shit, Rukia, I didn’t want to do this, either,” he says. “I thought it’d piss you off, badly, again.” He lowers his head, lets out a breath. He can feel the blush start flaming up his face again. “But that doesn’t mean I didn’t want to do it, period.”
He turns and glares at her. “So if anyone should apologize or beg or what have you, it should be me. It’s my Hollow that got you into this...”
“Ichigo,” she says, cutting him off.
“What?” he replies, annoyed. Couldn’t she see how fucking hard this was?
She looks up at him, and there’s a tiny glimmer of a smile on her face. Then, she slides close to him, and before he can stop her, straddles him.
“Rukia!” he protests. “What are you...”
“Shut up,” she says, then leans in and kisses him.
Ichigo decides that kissing a Rukia who actually kissed back beats the hell out of kissing one that was trying to claw his eyes out.
It starts slow, soft, just mouth against mouth. His hands rest at his sides, hers are on his shoulders. His eyes are closed; he thinks hers are, but he’s not gonna check. It’s an almost restful feeling, to nip and peck at each other like this.
Then, her mouth opens under his.
He has exactly one second to be shocked. Then, instinctively, automatically, he responds, and the kiss...broadens. He tentatively touches her tongue with his, and for a second she pulls back a hair. It only lasts a second, though.
Her hands tighten on his shoulders, then relax, slipping onto his back. His hands move up to her waist, and sit there for a moment before sliding up her back. She shivers, but in an oddly pleasant way.
Kissing, it seems, is like fighting. First, there’s the initial round of figuring each other out. Then, it gets a little more serious, and there’s the clash and retreat of fighting, just to test your opponent. Then, it gets to the point where your blades cross more than they don’t, and you’re trying to...to...
His metaphor fails him at that point, because Rukia has just shifted closer to him, in the process making a noise that fries his brain entirely.
It’s the only reason he can think of for why he suddenly pulls her in tight, then rolls the two of them over so he’s splayed on top of her. He pauses to situate himself, and notes that her eyes have opened, gone wide. As he moves in to kiss her again, she moves her head, and his mouth skates down her neck.
She tenses, and he pulls back. They look at each other.
Then, softly, “Ichigo...do that again.”
He nods, then leans in and gives her neck a quick kiss. He pulls back, and looks at her.
Her eyes open again, and she gives him a look. “Not like that,” she says.
His brow furrows. “Like what, then?”
“Like...you did before that,” she says. When he looks puzzled, her eyes narrow and she says, “Just try it, all right?”
He rolls his eyes a little, but complies. It takes a minute or so to get it right, but Ichigo thinks he’s got it figured out when Rukia suddenly squeaks.
“What?” he asks, pulling back.
She opens her eyes much more slowly this time, and her breathing is fast. “It felt...good,” she says, sounding almost dazed.
He frowns at her, then looks at her neck. His eyes widen, and he brushes his thumb over it. “It’s gone.”
“What?”
“The mark, where I...” He trails off, brushes the skin again. “It’s gone.”
He looks at her. She looks at him.
“Kiss her,” she says, voice quiet. “It meant, kiss the mark.”
“I guess so.” He starts to lean down again, but her hands grab his shoulders and push him back. “What?!”
“Ichigo,” she says. “It’s not just on my neck.”
“So?” he replies.
“It’s NOT just on MY NECK,” she says. “I can feel them in other places, too.” She colors then, and her voice drops. “All over.”
“...All over?”
She nods.
He feels himself turn bright, bright red. Her blush could probably compete with his.
They don’t look at each other for a moment, then she says, “Ichigo, sit up.”
He looks at her. “Rukia, if you’re going to say...”
“No, idiot,” she says. “SIT UP.”
He pushes off of her, slides away. She sits up slowly, not looking at him. Then, she reaches down, grabs the bottom of her shirt, and starts to pull it over her head.
“Rukia!”
She pauses, and glares at him. “What?”
“What are you DOING?”
She looks down, and a slip of a smile appears on her face. “Never seen a naked woman before, Ichigo?” she asks.
He glares at her. “That’s not the point.”
She gives him a sideways look. “You have?” There’s a definite note of curiosity in her voice.
He looks away, and hmphs. “Still not the point,” he says.
He expects a biting reply. What he gets is the sound of fabric rustling, and then her shirt lands on his head.
He’d thought he couldn’t blush more. He’s wrong.
“Ichigo,” she says after a moment.
He pulls the shirt off his head, and looks at it. It’s white, covered in small colored flowers. One of Yuzu’s, he thinks.
“Ichigo, look at me.”
He shakes his head a little.
She sighs. “You know,” she says. “I really hate it when you won’t look at me.”
He pauses for a moment, then slowly, slowly, turns back towards her.
He keeps his eyes on her face for a second. She’s blushing a little, but other than that, looks awfully smug. Carefully, he lets his eyes drop to her neck, then her collar. The purple-red color has seeped over her collarbone, he notes. Then, he swallows, and lets his eyes drop further.
He looks away, flushing even more.
“What?” she says, an odd note in her voice.
“You’re not...” He swallows again. “You’re not wearing a bra.”
“Why would I?” she asks. “I don’t wear one to bed, and I’ve been in this bed for three days.” She puts a slight accent on the last two words.
He turns a little. “I thought...”
“You were wrong.”
He stops, steels himself, then turns to face her again. He starts at her neck, and drops his eyes slowly, following the path of that red-purple color. It doesn’t stay a solid mass, but splits into bars past her collarbone. Two run along either side of her...breasts...and there’s a great splash on her stomach as well. He halts at her waist, then slowly tracks back up. He can’t quite look at her face, though.
“Is that it?” he manages to get out, eyes focused on her neck.
“No.”
He swallows again. His mouth seems awfully dry. “Where...where else?” he asks.
She grins a little, then points down.
His head drops, and he grits out, “Anywhere else?”
She doesn’t say anything for a bit, then he hears her push the covers back, and slide to the edge of the bed.
He gingerly looks up, but she’s still sitting there, only with her back to him. She looks over her shoulder for a moment, then looks away.
Her back is a mess.
The red-purple of her neck bends around to her back, almost touching her spine. The shape of it reminds him a little of fingers, curled around her neck. The rest of her back seems to be smeared haphazardly, until he blinks, and his eyes refocus. Then, he sees them.
His eyes narrow, and for the first time that night, anger overrides his other emotions.
He turns a little, and slides across the bed. Rukia looks back over her shoulder, but he doesn’t look at her. Instead, he places a hand on the center of her back, and twists it to the right.
“Ichigo...” Rukia says quietly, but he doesn’t reply. He stares at his hand on her back, then moves it up to her shoulder blade. He twists his hand the other way, until the edge of his palm rests on her spine.
He does this twice more, in various places on her back. Rukia says nothing, though she crosses her arms over her chest, as if patiently waiting it out. When he finishes, he pulls his hand back from her, and stares at it for a moment.
“Handprints,” he growls. “They’re fucking HANDPRINTS.”
And they’re the size of my hand, he adds to himself. Exactly.
She doesn’t say anything, then lowers her head.
“Did you know?” he asks.
She turns her head a little. “Idiot, how would I?” she says. “I can’t see my own back.”
His face tightens even more. “You can feel them, can’t you?” he says.
She hesitates, then looks down. She says nothing for a minute, then, “Maybe. I knew...I knew something was there.” Her voice hardens. “I didn’t exactly try analyzing the shapes.”
Ichigo pulls back, hand clenching in front of him. He has this image in his head now, of Rukia sleeping, curled on her side as he’d seen her before. There’s a faint sound of laughter, and she stirs a little as the Hollow slides into bed next to her. It brushes the hair away from her neck, then places its hand there. When it pulls it away, its hand is covered in red, a viscous blood color. It pushes up her shirt, smears its hand over her back...
Ichigo’s never been possessive of Rukia. Whatever he’d thought of her in secret, jealousy had never been a part of it. That was just dumb. But now, for the first time, he feels something like jealousy stir in his soul.
FUCK THIS. Suddenly he doesn’t care if he has to get her completely naked, those marks are coming OFF.
He swings his legs onto the bed and moves up behind her, enveloping her from behind. She freezes as he presses his face to the back of her neck, his hands shifting to cover her arms. “Ichigo!”
“I’m done with this, Rukia,” he growls into her skin, and she shivers. “DONE.”
He pulls back a little, and places a kiss right over the original mark.
She tenses completely, going rigid in his arms, but he doesn’t move. After a moment, she starts to relax, and he stays put. When she’s mostly relaxed, he kisses it again, open mouthed this time. She lets out a hiss of air, but doesn’t tense up, and he responds by running his tongue over the mark.
Pop was right; the scar is small. But Rukia reacts as if he’d just plugged her into an electric socket. She lets out a gasp, and her back bows, head pushing back into him.
He almost stops and asks her what’s wrong. But if he stops, he’ll start thinking again. If he starts thinking again, he’s going to bolt from this room. He can’t do that. So he continues.
That is, until Rukia lets out something like a shout, drawing him back into the real world. He tightens his grip on her arms and hisses in her ear, “What the hell are you doing, moron? You wanna wake the entire house?”
Rukia pants and sags against him. “You have...no clue...” she whispers.
“No,” he says, voice sour. “I don’t.”
She leans her head back against his shoulder, still breathing hard. He leans back a little to look at her neck, and is surprised to see much of it has faded away. On this side, at least.
He’s about to ask her to move a little, so he can reach the other side of her neck, when she says, “Take off your shirt.”
He gives her a look like she’s crazed. “Why?”
“Because...” She raises her arm, his hand still loosely wrapped around it. “Contact helps.” She rolls her wrist in his loose grip, and he sees a fading splotch on her outer arm.
He gives her a suspicious look. She glares at him. “I took off mine,” she taunts. “Can’t handle it, hm?”
He glares back, then pushes her roughly off him. “Fine,” he says, reaching down and yanking his shirt over his head. He tosses it to the side, and gives her a dark look. “Better?”
Her eyes flick from neck to waist, and the look she gives him is unimpressed. “Yes.”
He scowls, then grabs her arm and pulls her back against him. She slides there easily, back brushing against his chest as he tries to figure out where to place his hands. He finally settles on her waist--that seems safe enough--and tugs her back just a little more, so he can reach the other side of her neck.
Her back touches his chest in full, and Rukia sucks in a long breath. He can almost feel it this time, like a deep, radiating heat spreading out from the marks. Instinctively, he slaps his hand over her mouth, right before she lets out a loud yelp.
He pushes her away from him, watches her sag. “What the hell was that?” he asks.
She turns, and gives him a dazed, blinking look. “I don’t know,” she says, voice quiet, then blushes, full and red.
“Pain?”
She shakes her head slowly, still blushing.
He gives her a disgruntled look. “That was a lot of noise, for something that’s not painful.”
She shoots him a dark look. “I couldn’t help it,” she says, voice almost childish.
He gives her a look that suggests she probably could have, she just didn’t want to. Her blush abruptly fades, and she gives him a look that says he’s an idiot.
He lets out an exasperated breath. “If it wasn’t pain, then no need to waste time.” He scoots a little closer and hooks his arms around her waist, pulling her towards him again. As she slides close, he asks in her ear, “Do I need to cover your mouth again?”
“Don’t be a moron,” she replies, then pushes back into him. It takes a moment to adjust, to fit her body against him, so that he can reach her neck easily enough.
Her body jerks, tenses, like a trail of lightning had ripped up her spine, and her head automatically goes back. She clamps her jaws shut, and what comes out is somewhere between a squeak and a moan. It’s not loud, which is all he cares about.
Besides, he’s got other things on his mind. For one, he can feel the heat between them now, a layer of rippling warmth sandwiched between her back and his chest. The sensation isn’t constant; bands of heat flex and fade across his chest, his stomach, as if someone was applying a warm iron at random points. The skin of Rukia’s neck is hot when he presses his mouth to it, and it seems to heat even more under his lips. The moment he touches her there, she makes another sound, almost like pain, and presses further back into him. As his mouth trails across her neck, tongue flicking out here and there, she trembles faintly beneath him, making the softest of sounds. Those noises aren’t anything like screams, and they have the exact opposite effect on him: he wants to hear her make more of them, rather than less.
His head is turned sideways, pressed against her shoulder, when she grabs his hand. Her hand is moist, her grip tight, and he pulls back a little, as if he’d touched a nerve. She whimpers something that sounds like, “No.”
“No?” he breathes into her skin.
“Don’t...move...” The words are staccato, short and clipped as possible, barely more than puffs of air.
She knows better than I do, he thinks, and he resumes his path across her throat.
She tightens her grip on his hand, and pulls it away from the other. She holds it in her own for a second, then pushes it roughly between her legs, and presses down.
He freezes behind her, eyes popping wide open. She doesn’t seem to notice; if anything, she’s too busy adjusting his hand, making a little sound here or there. She finally finds the right position with his hand on her thigh, the tips of his fingers edged right over her...her...he knows the word, he’s sure he does, but it’s certainly not on his mind right now.
What is on his mind is that when she finds that position, and presses her fingers down on his, her back explodes into flames.
Or at least, that’s what it feels like on his end.
He can’t back away from it, though, because Rukia’s moving against him so much that if he doesn’t keep a tight grip on her waist, he knows she’s going to tumble over and crack her head open on the floor. Which, he thinks, may not stop her at this point. She squirms and writhes against him, all the while keeping his hand firmly in place. He hunches over a little, to put some space between them, and she immediately barks out, “DON’T MOVE!”
He straightens, putting himself in direct contact with the flames again. It’s not so bad this time, more like hot water than the heart of a furnace. He not entirely sure where to place his mouth without getting his teeth knocked out, so he settles for kissing her shoulder. There’s a mark there too, isn’t there?
She seems to like that, too; when his mouth touches her skin, she lets out a soft sigh, then pushes even more against him. He continues to kiss along the slope of her shoulder, the edge of her collarbone, open mouthed kisses against the heat of her skin, more out of the need to keep doing something like this than anything else. She bucks against his fingers, flexes her own on top of his hand, forming almost a rhythm. Whatever it is, though, it’s not enough, if her sounds of frustration are any indication.
He’s right, as it turns out. A moment later, she whispers, “Ichigo...move...”
“What?” he asks, voice soft.
“MOVE, damnit,” she growls back. “MOVE.”
Move WHAT? he thinks. Not like I can...
The edge of her nail catches on the back of his hand.
Oh. That.
He starts to move his whole hand, but she makes a dark noise, and he freezes it in place. He flexes his fingers then, lightly, so that glide over her...self, back and forth. She makes a sound a half-pitch higher than before, then one that’s still got that edge of frustration. She presses back into him, then gently touches the back of his fingers with hers. Instinctively, he stops, and she applies a touch more pressure to his fingers, then moves them. He lets her guide him into another motion, a little broader, a little harder. She bows forward against it, and his arm tightens around her waist. He presses his mouth to her neck again, and runs it along the curve to her shoulder, then back again. He pulls back a little, aims higher up her neck, fastens his mouth here and there along the length of it. She whimpers again, presses harder into him, but keeps her fingers on top of his, keeps their hands moving in that same methodical stroke
The heat of her back against his chest has stilled and dissolved, becoming a heat defused across the front of his body. He finds himself kissing her with no method to it, no place in mind, just to keep his mouth on her frame and her body tight against his. His fingers press into her, and she lets out a high sigh, then bites her lip, presses her hand into his. They continue this way for a minute or so, until Rukia lets out a descending sound, pants for breath.
He’s oddly frustrated with her, now that he has a clue what she’s trying for. Maybe, he thinks, it’s time to get...closer?
He pulls his hand back, and, as she makes that angry noise, slides it under her waistband.
Both her waistbands, as it turns out.
While that was in no way his intention, he’s not pulling his hand back now. She’d tensed up a little, right as he touched her, then let out this sort of fluting sigh, as if yes, this was the right answer. He’d rested his fingers for a moment on her...lips, then pressed on the inner edge. It’s a clumsy sort of movement, with neither of them looking at each other and him definitely not watching where his hand has gone, but it works; her lips part, and his two fingers sorta fall in between. It’s wet. Warm, blood warm. Kind of...sticky, too, it seems.
He’s sure there’s some other comparison to be made, except that if he even dares to think about what he’s doing, his head will explode.
He stops moving, and very quietly says, “Rukia.”
She breathes, fast and steady, for a minute. Then, her fingers move beneath her first waistband, and touch down softly on his. She brushes them lightly up, over slightly, then taps against them, so his fingers slide over her...self and come to rest on it. She breathes some more, for a minute, and his breathing echoes hers, harsh and quick.
She presses in against him, and together, they move.
It’s not quite as easy as before; his fingers keep slipping away, and she keeps making noises that destroy his concentration completely. But somehow, they manage.
In the end, he’s bent over one shoulder, her head mashed firmly into the other one, her fingers pressed hard on his as he slides his fingers over her, as her hips push upwards. She makes a sound in his ear that sounds like a scream, but isn’t quite.
They fall backwards and breathe. Really, really breathe, in harsh gasps that make it sound like they’ve just run a couple of miles. They do this together for, oh, maybe a minute.
Then Rukia rolls up and looks at him. Her eyes are glossy, her mouth is open just a little, and her neck holds no traces of purple or red.
“It’s gone,” he says, voice low.
“It is,” she replies, voice just as low.
They stare at each other for a moment.
Then her hand slides up his thigh, runs across his groin. “What’s this?” she asks, fingers brushing him lightly.
His eyes squeeze shut, and he grits his teeth. He’s been aware of that for some time now, though he couldn’t say when it, well, popped up. “That,” he says, in a strained voice, “is something you should stop touching.”
She brushes her fingers back across it. “Why?”
“Because...it’s...” His hands fist in the sheets as she ghosts her fingers across him again. “Going to make it very hard for me to...walk out...of here,” he gasps out.
She skims her whole hand across him, still with that ungodly light touch. “An erection,” she says.
He’d really like to ask how she knows that word, except her fingers are moving on him again and that’s way too many words. “Yes,” he gets out, and is kinda proud of even managing that.
She starts to move her hand over him again, and he reaches out and catches her wrist. “Stop,” he says, putting as much weight into the word as he can.
She gives him an odd look. “Why?”
“JUST STOP.”
“Isn’t it human custom to reciprocate?” she asks.
Oh, god, that’s the last mental image he needs right now. He looks away from her, up at the ceiling, and tries to think of really, really cold things. Ice. Snow. Popsicles...
On second thought, popsicles are right out.
“Ichigo,” she says, and he glances back at her. She’s giving him a confused sort of look.
“WHAT?”
“Isn’t reciprocation customary?”
Oh, why, why can’t she just go away? He musters up a glare in response, and says, “Yes. Maybe. How the hell would I know?” He takes a breath, and adds, “Besides, it’s not gonna happen now.”
“Why not?”
“ARGH...Rukia, just don’t ask.”
She tilts her head, gives him a quizzical look. “That doesn’t make any sense at all,” she says.
He looks back at the ceiling. “Probably not,” he sighs. “But I’m not going to take advantage of you.”
The moment those words are out of his mouth, he realizes that was exactly the wrong thing to say. He’s not sure why, but he knows it is.
“I mean,” he says, looking at her again, “that since you’re better, there’s no reason to...”
Her lips press together, and her eyes narrow. He shuts up. Better to be in a narrow grave than a deep one.
“Is that,” she says, breaking his grip on her wrist, “what you think I meant?”
He starts to shake his head, but then her fingers are back on him, with that light, oh-so-infuriating touch. He grimaces, eyes closing, until she stops.
He cracks his eyes open, looking cautiously at her. She’s glaring at him, fingers still but bent, as if threatening to rake down across him.
“You,” she says, “are an idiot.”
She rolls away from him and stands up, still glaring. She’s also still naked from the waist up, though he seems to have gotten used to that part.
“A really, really big idiot,” she says, a hint of snarl to her voice.
Then, she reaches down, and pushes her pajama pants and underwear down, over her hips. His eyes go wide, and he watches in stunned silence as she strips the rest of the way, then crawls back onto the bed, back over him. She stops when she’s crouched above him, still glaring at him. He’s glad he has her eyes to focus on; he’s red enough already.
“An absolute moron,” she says, then kisses him. There’s very little gentleness to it.
“The biggest idiot,” she kisses him again, “I’ve ever known.” Another kiss, her mouth raking across his.
When she pulls back, he says, “I get it. I’m an idiot.”
“Do you?” she asks, kissing him again.
This time his arms come up, and he kisses her back, mouth slanting hotly against hers. When she pulls back, she can’t go quite as far. “Yes,” he replies
“Then shut up,” she says, and leans back into him.
When they did this before, there was a sense of tentativeness, exploration, the assumption of new knowledge. There is nothing like that in these kisses. There is only heat, edged in roughness. Rukia kisses him like she might, in the next moment, try to eat him. He finds himself responding to it, slowly at first, then just as fierce. His hands skim along her back, a light touch at first; that soon gives way to a rough slide, fingers swiping across new skin in a way that suggests that she’s not naked, no, not at all. And if she was, heh, why would he care?
Not like he can feel her breasts, nipples hard, pressed into his bare chest.
Or the velvet warmth of the skin along her lower back, her ass.
Nuh-uh. None of that.
Sometime later, she pulls back from him and raises up, straddling his stomach. She’s breathing hard again, and so’s he, and there’s a look of triumph on her face. She pulls back, starts to kiss down the side of his neck, using the same motions he’d used before. He shivers as her tongue flicks out, tiny and hot, to lance against the skin there. Then she presses in close, and bites him softly.
“Rukia!” he nearly shouts.
She pulls back, grinning slightly. “Are you trying to wake the house?” she asks, eyes glittering.
He glares at her. “Damnit, woman, that hurt,” he replies.
She raises her eyebrows. “Did it?” she asks, then leans in and bites him again, right about the same place, a little harder. He sucks in a breath; it hurts, yes, but somehow feels good under that.
She nips at the flesh one last time, then pulls back, looks at it critically. She gives a little nod, then slides down his body a little more, mouth coming down on his collarbone.
“Rukia...” he says, voice hesitant.
She flicks an irritated glance at him. “You know, Ichigo,” she says, fingers lazily sliding down his chest, “I can fully use kidou again.”
His brow wrinkles. “So?”
“Sooo...I can do a Way of Binding, or you can shut up.” She tilts her head a little. “Hmm?”
His eyes narrow. “Bitch,” he says.
“Moron,” she replies, and slowly, begins to trace her way down his chest.
He knows she has no idea what she’s doing. Neither of them do. But why, oh why, does she have to be so DAMN good at this...slow torture...that she’s currently putting him through?
She traces patterns on his skin with tongue, mouth, fingers, in light touches that just make him that much more aware of her. She is fascinated by his nipples, and spends an inordinate amount of time messing with those, until he’s sure he’s going to grind his teeth into dust and rip the sheets clenched in his fist. Then she moves down lower, across his stomach and the defined plain of his abdomen, and it just gets worse. He’s sure that when--if, oh god if--she eventually stops, he’s going to have no jaw left.
He whispers a silent prayer of thanks that he came down here in sweats. In jeans, this would’ve been even worse. He’s feeling rather light-headed as it is.
She places one last kiss on the shivering skin of his stomach, then looks up at him. There’s that smug half-grin again. He glares back at her, but there’s not a lot of force to it. She moves off to the side, kneeling easily, and makes a face at his pants. She looks at him, and he makes a little “Hmph” sound.
She places a hand on his thigh, and starts, “By the red fire and silver moon...”
He hooks his thumbs into his waistband, arches his hips, and pushes them down carefully. When they’re past certain things, he bends back and slides them down farther, then kicks them off the rest of the way. He turns his head and glares at her again.
She’s not looking at him. Well, she’s not looking at his face. The expression she wears is one of a little puzzlement, a little hesitation, and a helluva lot of confusion.
She drops her head on his thigh, cocks it a little to the side, and stares. After a minute, she says, “This is...it?”
He groans. She gives him a puzzled look. “IT?” he asks.
“Well...yes,” she says, voice a little breathy. She moves her hand towards him, fingers close but not touching. “It’s...”
“I dunno if I want to hear this,” he mutters.
“...kinda ridiculous,” she says, fingers inching closer.
He rolls his eyes. “It’s what guys got,” he replies.
“Humans are so strange,” she says, leaning a little closer. He can feel her breath on him now, and it makes him twitch.
“I don’t think it’s just a human thing,” he says. “Unless...” he grins suddenly, “every guy in Soul Society is a eunuch.”
She gives him an odd look. “How would I know?” she asks.
“You never seen Renji naked?”
She gives him an almost horrified look. “Are you JOKING?”
“Shhh,” he says automatically, and she clamps her mouth shut. After a moment, she glares at him.
“When would I do that?” she hisses.
“You grew up together.”
“That does not mean we, we went around naked in front of each other!” she replies in a loud whisper. She pinches his thigh. “What gave you such a crazy idea?”
What indeed, he thinks, but says nothing. She gives him one last dark look, then returns to staring at...oh hell, his cock. She does that for a long moment, then runs her finger up the back side of it.
It twitches. He twitches. Her eyes go wide. “It lives,” she says softly.
“How do you know the word ‘erection’ but know nothing about...how they work?” he asks, voice dark and strained.
“I was top of my class,” she replies, voice prim.
“Your class...YOU HAD A CLASS?”
“Well, basic human anatomy,” she says, face inching a little closer to it. She strokes the back of it with her finger again, up and across the head, down the shaft again. “You know, on the vulnerable spots. It’s not like there was a practical.” She repeats the motion, and stops at the head. “It’s wet,” she says softly.
“If you keep doing that, it’s gonna be a lot wetter,” he grits out.
“Mm?” she says.
“I said, if you keep doing that...oh, never mind,” he says, hands fisting in the sheets.
“Hmm,” she says, then raises up a little. She blows softly on the head.
“Oh hell,” he groans.
“What?” she asks.
“Do whatever you will, but don’t tease, damnit! Don’t tease,” he says, just a hint of pleading in his voice.
She shrugs, then straddles his legs again. She moves up until she sits just a little behind it. “This...goes in this, right?” she asks, pointing at herself.
He colors again. “Uh, you don’t have to do that,” he says, voice low.
Her mouth twists. “Why not?”
“It’ll hurt,” he warns.
“Are you saying I can’t take a little pain?” she asks, pushing up against it. He can feel, right along the back, just a hint of wetness.
“Rukia...” he gets out. “Look, I’m telling you...”
“Just shut up, Ichigo,” she says, raising up on her knees. She grasps just below the head, and spends a few uncomfortable moments apparently aiming.
“Gently, Rukia,” he grits out.
“Oh,” she says, hand loosening.
He props himself up a little, touches her thigh. “You don’t have to,” he says again, voice quiet.
She meets his eyes, and there’s that slight hint of a smile again. “Yes,” she says, “I do.”
Then, hand holding him gingerly, she slides him inside.
His eyes roll back in his head, and he drops back onto the bed, head pushed back. He thought his fingers between her...he’d thought that was bad enough, but this is just about indescribable. She’s warmer than blood, she’s hot, scaldingly hot. She’s wet enough that beads of it slide, fat and wax-like, down the sides of his cock, slick enough for her to inch but not slide him inside. She works at it, and he works at not yelling and/or grabbing her by the hips and slamming the rest of the way in. In both cases, it seems to be very hard work.
It takes her only a few eons to work him all the way in, and when she does she lets out a pained breath, hands resting on either side of his chest. He looks up at her, trying to concentrate on anything but the pressure that surrounds him, searching for signs that she’s really okay.
She gives him a weak grin. “Nothing to it,” she says.
“Last time you said that, you tripped and fell on me,” he replies, voice sour.
The grin widens a little. “So I did,” she says quietly, then eases back on him. He bites the inside of his lip, hands clenching at his sides so he doesn’t touch her.
She sits there for a few moments, then gets an odd look on her face. “So this is sex,” she says, a little surprise in her voice. “Huh.”
He finds himself chuckling, a rough sound. “Sort of,” he says.
She gives him a look. “You have to move,” he points out.
“Ah. Move,” she replies, then slides up on him.
When he can breathe again, he opens his eyes to find her giving him a curious look. “On second thought,” he breathes out, “don’t move, Rukia.”
A hint of that grin. “Don’t move?” she asks, then deliberately eases up, down again.
I am such a moron, he thinks.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, a voice replies, Isn’t it grand, though?
After a few moments, he thinks, She’s really not gonna stop moving, is she?
Rukia-chan? No way. A soft giggle. You should distract her.
Distract...how?
The giggle again. Like you did before, the voice whispers, then fades away.
Like I did...? he thinks, then, oh.
He slides his hands up her thighs, to her hips, and pulls forward a little. She leans in automatically, eyes closed, still easing slowly along him, no set rhythm to it, just movement. He slides his hands down a little, until his thumbs meet. He presses lightly, parting her lips, and rubs his thumb along her.
She makes a soft sound, and her eyes come open. “Ichigo,” she says, as if just realizing he was there.
“Aa,” he says. It’s pretty much the only sound he can make at that point.
“Ichigo,” she says again, then leans back. She raises herself up, comes down quicker, then back up again.
“Ichigo,” she whispers. “Move.”
One hand slides back to her hip, tightens there. He does.
It lasts, perhaps, another minute and a half.
But it’s a glorious, glorious minute and a half, one that he’ll never forget.
Or, at least, he’ll never forget the way that Rukia had looked, leaned back above him, rocking against him, whispering his name softly, continuously, until the end.
She slides against his chest in a boneless heap when it’s over, panting in his ear. He pants back in hers, hands coming to rest lightly on her back.
After a few moments, she says softly, “That was quick.”
He chokes on his next breath, then reddens, glares at her. “Excuse me,” he spits out, “for never having done this before.”
She laughs softly. “Is that so?” she whispers, breath tickling his ear. She raises a little, looks at him. “I couldn’t tell.”
He glares. “That’s because you’ve never done this before, either.”
“Exactly,” she says, moving back to rest her head on his shoulder.
They’re quiet for a moment, then she lets out a soft sigh. “You were right, Ichigo,” she says.
“Mm?”
“That hurt.”
He feels himself color, and looks to the side. “Sorry,” he says, voice low.
“Better be.”
He grimaces, and gives the top of her head a scathing look. “You did it, dumbass,” he replies.
“You didn’t try that hard to stop me,” she replies.
“Yes I did!”
“Shh, Ichigo,” she says.
He tries to say something, but it comes out as more of a growl. She laughs, quietly, against him.
They lay together in silence for a bit longer, and he has a sudden thought. “Rukia,” he asks.
“Mm?”
“Gigai can’t get pregnant...can they?”
She raises up to look at him, a cross expression on her face. “Moron,” she says, “what would the purpose in THAT be? A gigai is the temporary home of a wounded shinigami; the last thing they would need is the ability to reproduce.” She makes a face. “Yeagh. Bad enough that gigai are always underpowered.”
“Ah,” he says. “Good.”
She tilts her head a little. “Besides,” she says, “I am of a noble house. Our children are conceived only by agreement.”
He groans. “Rukia,” he says, “you’re adopted.”
“So?” she replies, settling back down against him. “There’d still need to be agreement.” She pauses. “And permission from my brother.”
He rolls his eyes. “Be quiet.”
“And possibly Captain Ukitake, since I’d need the time off.”
“Rukia,” he says, “be quiet.”
She is still for a moment or two, then adds, “And then I’d have to ask...”
“RUKIA.”
She goes quiet, and stays that way for awhile.
He’s starting to wonder how he’s gonna get back upstairs--if he’s gonna go back upstairs, tantalizing thought--when she says quietly, “Ichigo.”
“Hm?”
She raises up a little, looks at him. “You know, this isn’t going to happen a lot.”
“What?”
She wriggles a little against him.
“Oh,” he says, then adds to himself, SHIT.
She nods. “So, I was thinking...” She pauses, then colors a little. “Maybe...we could...again?”
His eyes widen a touch. “Now?”
She nods, a little shyly.
He looks at her face, with its hopeful expression, and almost laughs. Instead, he raises his head, and softly, touches his mouth to hers.
“Yes?”
“Yes.”
Author: Ninx
Warning: This part? NC-17, yo.
Notes: Happy 2006, have some smut! Featuring angst, chatting, Ichigo's lack of vocabulary, Rukia's education, and the cheesiest Ichigo line EVAH allowed by two amazing betas. (Seriously. Year's worth of cheese, right there.)
Day Three
Ichigo skips school the next day. The thought of sitting in the same place for so many hours, listening to lectures, is extremely unappealing. Not to mention the fact that he knows he’s in deep shit for yesterday; he’s just lucky he got home without running into Tatsuki.
The boredom of a normal school day along with the prospect of getting chewed out and bruised? On top of the Rukia issue? Entirely not worth it.
Besides, after breakfast that morning, he really could use some time by himself.
He leaves in the morning as if nothing is wrong, then doubles back to his room once he’s sure that Karin and Yuzu are gone. He leaves the house again as shinigami, and attempts to lose himself in the mindless, predictable, invisible work that form affords him. There’s something comforting about it, which entirely has nothing to do with getting to beat things up. Absolutely not.
He slips back into the house just as school gets out, and manages to sneak back out with a minimum of fuss. He “arrives” home just as the twins do, and goes through the rest of his day as if it were normal. He eats with his family, does some homework, takes a bath. The only difference is that after his bath, he doesn’t go to bed. Instead, he waits up, listening as the house slowly goes quiet.
When it has been that way for awhile, he sneaks downstairs.
Now, he sits by Rukia’s bed, hunched forward in the chair. He listens as she breathes in and out, shallow and rapid. He can’t really look at her anymore, since her entire neck is stained red and purple.
He can’t really look at her anymore, because he doesn’t know what to do.
Rukia said that all Hollows did was lie. Yet the Hollow had said three days, and Yoruichi had confirmed it. Three days of life left to her. Three days for him to work up the courage to take the coward’s choice. Three days for him to watch her suffer.
She doesn’t appear to be suffering, really. Her face is a little tense, and there’s a desperate note to her breathing. But she hasn’t cried out, or shown any overt signs of pain. So she’s not...suffering.
He lowers his head. Liar, he thinks. Liar. She’s been in pain this whole time. She just hid it from you. She hid it from you, because she knew you couldn’t handle it.
When he thinks back on those little things he noticed--the baths and her friendship with Karin and the tea--he realizes how stupid he was. He’d thought he’d seen the entirety of her injury then, in the tiny things that had changed. He hadn’t realized that those tiny things had actually been the only outward signs of a much, much greater distress. That for Rukia to even change that much, the pain within her must have been immense.
But this was Rukia.
She’d been awake this morning, briefly, when he’d come down to breakfast. Karin had just been in to see her, and sent in Pop and Yuzu. She’d sat down at the breakfast table, and reached for a piece of toast. He nearly had asked how Rukia was, until he saw her hand shake ever so slightly.
Then, she’d looked at him, and said, “Ichi-nii...Rukia said to tell you...”
He’d stared at her, watched as she tensed. It looked like she was fighting against the words.
“She said...she said...” Karin had paused, shut her eyes for a moment, then opened them again. “She said that it’s not going to kill her. That it CAN’T kill her.”
Ichigo looked down at his toast. He suddenly felt not all that hungry.
“Ichi-nii...” Karin’s voice had been pained. “Why does she keep saying that? Why does she keep...” Her voice dropped. “...lying?”
She’d looked at him then. “I don’t care what it is you have to do,” she’d said. “Do it.”
“Karin, I...”
“NO, Ichi-nii, listen!” He looked at her, forced to by the sound in her voice. The look in her eyes was more anger than pain. “Listen...just do it, okay? I don’t care what Rukia-nee says, just...” Her voice had hitched for a second, and she paused. “Do it. PLEASE.”
Then she pushed back from the table and ran upstairs.
Rukia, he thinks now, looking down at her. You told me this was your problem. That you wanted to solve it by yourself. And you almost did, Rukia. You almost solved it for both of us.
But Rukia...you’re an idiot. This was never your problem to begin with. It was mine.
He brushes her face with his hand. Her skin is hot to the touch.
Time’s up.
He leans over and kisses her forehead first. He knows it’s not what the Hollow was aiming for, but he can’t not try it. Besides, he, uh, needs to work up to it.
He pulls back, looks at her neck. The crimson-purple still vibrates to his eyes.
His last thought is, I shouldn’t have read so many fucking fairy tales as a kid.
He kisses her. Her lips are dry, and almost warmer than her skin. He keeps his eyes open for a moment, to make sure he’s hit the right spot, but that doesn’t last. Once he feels how warm she is, his eyes fall shut automatically. He’d intended to keep it a light, short touch, but that doesn’t seem to work either. Oh, it IS light, but once he touches her lips once, he feels the urge to just...keep touching them. He’ll pull back a little, then find himself kissing her again. Which, he thinks, could be what the Hollow wants, since he doesn’t feel entirely in control of himself right now...
He’s so caught up in his thoughts of kissing that he doesn’t notice when Rukia wakes up. Until she shoves him off her.
“What are you doing, idiot?” she snarls, then collapses back into bed, coughing.
His eyes go wide. “Rukia?” he asks. “Did it work?” He tries to check her neck.
She rubs feverishly at her mouth. “NO, it did not.” She lifts her hand, which has splotches of purple on it. “See?”
“Oh.” He slumps.
“What were you doing, anyways? Were you...” she pauses, “kissing me?”
His first urge is to deny it. He doesn’t. “Yes,” he replies, voice weary.
“WHY? Didn’t Karin give you my message?” she asks, glaring daggers at him. Her voice is weak, but her glare is as healthy as ever.
“She did.”
“Then WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU DOING?”
He looks away sourly. “What it said to,” he mutters.
“What it SAID...” She makes an exasperated noise. “Ichigo, didn’t you listen? It LIED. It won’t kill me, I know it...”
“And how do you know that, Rukia?” he says, voice angry. He looks at her. “HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT?”
She stops, then turns away a little. “I...” she starts.
“Pop thinks you have the flu,” he says. “But we both know you don’t. We both know that YOU’RE DYING.”
She doesn’t look at him.
“Urahara said he couldn’t do anything.”
“Urahara...?”
“Yoruichi said she couldn’t do anything,” he continues, ignoring her. “She said you had a day. A DAY. That time’s almost up, Rukia, and I am not going to let you die.” His voice drops. “I’m just not.”
“But, Ichigo...”
“SHUT UP!” he yells. “SHUT UP.”
She stares at him, a stunned look on her face.
He stands suddenly. “You did this in Soul Society, too. You kept telling me to leave you there to die.” He leans over, putting his hands on her shoulders. “What did I tell you then?”
She stares up at him, and softly replies, “That my objections didn’t matter.”
“RIGHT,” he says, then leans in a hair closer. “Rukia...I’m here to save you.”
He kisses her again.
She freezes at first, then fights him. Her hands grip his arms, jerk at them, but he holds steady above her. She tries to turn her head away, but he follows. For a minute or so, there’s a frenzy of activity, as she tries her hardest to not let him continue to kiss her.
She can’t keep it up, though. Whether because she’s too weak, or because of...other things...she stops fighting him. Her lips soften slightly against his, and part a little. That’s when Ichigo discovers that kissing an awake Rukia is a helluva lot nicer than kissing a sleeping one.
He pulls back after a time, just to breathe. She looks up at him, eyes wide and bewildered for a moment, then turns her head to the side, blushing. He pushes up and away from her, feeling his own blush, and looks down at her neck. The red-purple layer has stopped wriggling, but it’s still there. A second later she says, as if to confirm his thoughts, “It’s not gone.”
He looks at her. She doesn’t quite meet his eyes. “It’s stopped moving,” she says quietly. “But it’s not gone.”
He takes a breath. So does she. They don’t look at each other for a long moment.
Then, Rukia sits up a little. “Ichigo,” she says, voice quiet. “Come here.”
He looks over at her. She’s sliding across the bed, leaving a space for him. His eyes widen, and he says, “Rukia?”
Her eyes narrow. “Don’t be stupid,” she says. “Just sit down.”
He stands for a second, indecisive, then gingerly sits down on the bed, as close to the edge as possible. It’s warm, where she lay.
They don’t speak for a moment. Ichigo shifts uneasily on the bed, but he waits. He really wants to bolt for the door, but he waits. Besides...she’s not better yet. And there’s not gonna be a second chance, this time.
“I didn’t want to do this,” she finally says.
You think I did? he thinks, but doesn’t say it.
“I...it...” She stops, takes a breath. “It’s not right, that you have to do this!”
He doesn’t look at her.
“It’s so...manipulative,” she says. “And I thought it...I really thought it...” She stops, and he hears the rustle of the top sheet.
“You thought it wouldn’t kill you,” he says, voice low.
“Yes,” she says softly. “But that’s not...all of it.”
He turns a little, looks at her. She’s staring at the sheet.
“When I first met it, it said, ‘He thinks the most interesting things about you.’ I knew it was just trying to get to me.” She takes another deep breath. “Then, when we met it, what it said...” She lowers her head even more. “It was just trying to get to you, and embarrass me. I know...it lied.”
He can feel himself getting redder and redder, and he wants to look away, but he doesn’t. Nor does she look at him.
“And I don’t want to give into its lies,” she says. “So...I thought, ‘I’d rather die,’ than make you do something like this.” She hunches over more. “But to die like this...”
She turns to him and bows quickly, head nearly touching the sheet. “If you can stand it...this...for just a little longer, then I ask, most humbly...”
He stares down at her, eyes wide, face on fire. Then, he says, in a hard voice, “Stop it, Rukia.”
She tenses for a second, then leans back up. She still doesn’t look at him, and it’s starting to piss him off. She turns back, and lowers her head over her hands. “Then, Ichigo...” she starts.
“RUKIA,” he says, cutting her off. She jumps a little, as if she’s not expecting it. “Look at me.”
She shakes her head.
“RUKIA, DAMNIT.”
She shakes her head again, a little quicker.
He makes a face at her, then looks away. “I really hate it when you won’t look at me,” he mutters.
Now, of course, she looks at him. He ignores it for a moment, making a show of shifting up on the bed, so that he doesn’t have to look at the expression on her face just yet. When he finally does look at her, her look of shock has softened a bit, but it’s still there.
“You keep saying the Hollow lies, the Hollow lied,” he says. “I don’t think it has, Rukia.”
“But...”
“Did it lie to us about you getting sick?” he asks.
“No...”
He looks away. “Did it lie to me, about your old vice-captain?”
Her voice is quieter now. “No.”
He looks back at her. “Then why are you so STUPID to think it lied about me, too?”
She stares at him, mouth dropping open a little. He faces forward, not quite looking at her but not quite looking away, either.
“Shit, Rukia, I didn’t want to do this, either,” he says. “I thought it’d piss you off, badly, again.” He lowers his head, lets out a breath. He can feel the blush start flaming up his face again. “But that doesn’t mean I didn’t want to do it, period.”
He turns and glares at her. “So if anyone should apologize or beg or what have you, it should be me. It’s my Hollow that got you into this...”
“Ichigo,” she says, cutting him off.
“What?” he replies, annoyed. Couldn’t she see how fucking hard this was?
She looks up at him, and there’s a tiny glimmer of a smile on her face. Then, she slides close to him, and before he can stop her, straddles him.
“Rukia!” he protests. “What are you...”
“Shut up,” she says, then leans in and kisses him.
Ichigo decides that kissing a Rukia who actually kissed back beats the hell out of kissing one that was trying to claw his eyes out.
It starts slow, soft, just mouth against mouth. His hands rest at his sides, hers are on his shoulders. His eyes are closed; he thinks hers are, but he’s not gonna check. It’s an almost restful feeling, to nip and peck at each other like this.
Then, her mouth opens under his.
He has exactly one second to be shocked. Then, instinctively, automatically, he responds, and the kiss...broadens. He tentatively touches her tongue with his, and for a second she pulls back a hair. It only lasts a second, though.
Her hands tighten on his shoulders, then relax, slipping onto his back. His hands move up to her waist, and sit there for a moment before sliding up her back. She shivers, but in an oddly pleasant way.
Kissing, it seems, is like fighting. First, there’s the initial round of figuring each other out. Then, it gets a little more serious, and there’s the clash and retreat of fighting, just to test your opponent. Then, it gets to the point where your blades cross more than they don’t, and you’re trying to...to...
His metaphor fails him at that point, because Rukia has just shifted closer to him, in the process making a noise that fries his brain entirely.
It’s the only reason he can think of for why he suddenly pulls her in tight, then rolls the two of them over so he’s splayed on top of her. He pauses to situate himself, and notes that her eyes have opened, gone wide. As he moves in to kiss her again, she moves her head, and his mouth skates down her neck.
She tenses, and he pulls back. They look at each other.
Then, softly, “Ichigo...do that again.”
He nods, then leans in and gives her neck a quick kiss. He pulls back, and looks at her.
Her eyes open again, and she gives him a look. “Not like that,” she says.
His brow furrows. “Like what, then?”
“Like...you did before that,” she says. When he looks puzzled, her eyes narrow and she says, “Just try it, all right?”
He rolls his eyes a little, but complies. It takes a minute or so to get it right, but Ichigo thinks he’s got it figured out when Rukia suddenly squeaks.
“What?” he asks, pulling back.
She opens her eyes much more slowly this time, and her breathing is fast. “It felt...good,” she says, sounding almost dazed.
He frowns at her, then looks at her neck. His eyes widen, and he brushes his thumb over it. “It’s gone.”
“What?”
“The mark, where I...” He trails off, brushes the skin again. “It’s gone.”
He looks at her. She looks at him.
“Kiss her,” she says, voice quiet. “It meant, kiss the mark.”
“I guess so.” He starts to lean down again, but her hands grab his shoulders and push him back. “What?!”
“Ichigo,” she says. “It’s not just on my neck.”
“So?” he replies.
“It’s NOT just on MY NECK,” she says. “I can feel them in other places, too.” She colors then, and her voice drops. “All over.”
“...All over?”
She nods.
He feels himself turn bright, bright red. Her blush could probably compete with his.
They don’t look at each other for a moment, then she says, “Ichigo, sit up.”
He looks at her. “Rukia, if you’re going to say...”
“No, idiot,” she says. “SIT UP.”
He pushes off of her, slides away. She sits up slowly, not looking at him. Then, she reaches down, grabs the bottom of her shirt, and starts to pull it over her head.
“Rukia!”
She pauses, and glares at him. “What?”
“What are you DOING?”
She looks down, and a slip of a smile appears on her face. “Never seen a naked woman before, Ichigo?” she asks.
He glares at her. “That’s not the point.”
She gives him a sideways look. “You have?” There’s a definite note of curiosity in her voice.
He looks away, and hmphs. “Still not the point,” he says.
He expects a biting reply. What he gets is the sound of fabric rustling, and then her shirt lands on his head.
He’d thought he couldn’t blush more. He’s wrong.
“Ichigo,” she says after a moment.
He pulls the shirt off his head, and looks at it. It’s white, covered in small colored flowers. One of Yuzu’s, he thinks.
“Ichigo, look at me.”
He shakes his head a little.
She sighs. “You know,” she says. “I really hate it when you won’t look at me.”
He pauses for a moment, then slowly, slowly, turns back towards her.
He keeps his eyes on her face for a second. She’s blushing a little, but other than that, looks awfully smug. Carefully, he lets his eyes drop to her neck, then her collar. The purple-red color has seeped over her collarbone, he notes. Then, he swallows, and lets his eyes drop further.
He looks away, flushing even more.
“What?” she says, an odd note in her voice.
“You’re not...” He swallows again. “You’re not wearing a bra.”
“Why would I?” she asks. “I don’t wear one to bed, and I’ve been in this bed for three days.” She puts a slight accent on the last two words.
He turns a little. “I thought...”
“You were wrong.”
He stops, steels himself, then turns to face her again. He starts at her neck, and drops his eyes slowly, following the path of that red-purple color. It doesn’t stay a solid mass, but splits into bars past her collarbone. Two run along either side of her...breasts...and there’s a great splash on her stomach as well. He halts at her waist, then slowly tracks back up. He can’t quite look at her face, though.
“Is that it?” he manages to get out, eyes focused on her neck.
“No.”
He swallows again. His mouth seems awfully dry. “Where...where else?” he asks.
She grins a little, then points down.
His head drops, and he grits out, “Anywhere else?”
She doesn’t say anything for a bit, then he hears her push the covers back, and slide to the edge of the bed.
He gingerly looks up, but she’s still sitting there, only with her back to him. She looks over her shoulder for a moment, then looks away.
Her back is a mess.
The red-purple of her neck bends around to her back, almost touching her spine. The shape of it reminds him a little of fingers, curled around her neck. The rest of her back seems to be smeared haphazardly, until he blinks, and his eyes refocus. Then, he sees them.
His eyes narrow, and for the first time that night, anger overrides his other emotions.
He turns a little, and slides across the bed. Rukia looks back over her shoulder, but he doesn’t look at her. Instead, he places a hand on the center of her back, and twists it to the right.
“Ichigo...” Rukia says quietly, but he doesn’t reply. He stares at his hand on her back, then moves it up to her shoulder blade. He twists his hand the other way, until the edge of his palm rests on her spine.
He does this twice more, in various places on her back. Rukia says nothing, though she crosses her arms over her chest, as if patiently waiting it out. When he finishes, he pulls his hand back from her, and stares at it for a moment.
“Handprints,” he growls. “They’re fucking HANDPRINTS.”
And they’re the size of my hand, he adds to himself. Exactly.
She doesn’t say anything, then lowers her head.
“Did you know?” he asks.
She turns her head a little. “Idiot, how would I?” she says. “I can’t see my own back.”
His face tightens even more. “You can feel them, can’t you?” he says.
She hesitates, then looks down. She says nothing for a minute, then, “Maybe. I knew...I knew something was there.” Her voice hardens. “I didn’t exactly try analyzing the shapes.”
Ichigo pulls back, hand clenching in front of him. He has this image in his head now, of Rukia sleeping, curled on her side as he’d seen her before. There’s a faint sound of laughter, and she stirs a little as the Hollow slides into bed next to her. It brushes the hair away from her neck, then places its hand there. When it pulls it away, its hand is covered in red, a viscous blood color. It pushes up her shirt, smears its hand over her back...
Ichigo’s never been possessive of Rukia. Whatever he’d thought of her in secret, jealousy had never been a part of it. That was just dumb. But now, for the first time, he feels something like jealousy stir in his soul.
FUCK THIS. Suddenly he doesn’t care if he has to get her completely naked, those marks are coming OFF.
He swings his legs onto the bed and moves up behind her, enveloping her from behind. She freezes as he presses his face to the back of her neck, his hands shifting to cover her arms. “Ichigo!”
“I’m done with this, Rukia,” he growls into her skin, and she shivers. “DONE.”
He pulls back a little, and places a kiss right over the original mark.
She tenses completely, going rigid in his arms, but he doesn’t move. After a moment, she starts to relax, and he stays put. When she’s mostly relaxed, he kisses it again, open mouthed this time. She lets out a hiss of air, but doesn’t tense up, and he responds by running his tongue over the mark.
Pop was right; the scar is small. But Rukia reacts as if he’d just plugged her into an electric socket. She lets out a gasp, and her back bows, head pushing back into him.
He almost stops and asks her what’s wrong. But if he stops, he’ll start thinking again. If he starts thinking again, he’s going to bolt from this room. He can’t do that. So he continues.
That is, until Rukia lets out something like a shout, drawing him back into the real world. He tightens his grip on her arms and hisses in her ear, “What the hell are you doing, moron? You wanna wake the entire house?”
Rukia pants and sags against him. “You have...no clue...” she whispers.
“No,” he says, voice sour. “I don’t.”
She leans her head back against his shoulder, still breathing hard. He leans back a little to look at her neck, and is surprised to see much of it has faded away. On this side, at least.
He’s about to ask her to move a little, so he can reach the other side of her neck, when she says, “Take off your shirt.”
He gives her a look like she’s crazed. “Why?”
“Because...” She raises her arm, his hand still loosely wrapped around it. “Contact helps.” She rolls her wrist in his loose grip, and he sees a fading splotch on her outer arm.
He gives her a suspicious look. She glares at him. “I took off mine,” she taunts. “Can’t handle it, hm?”
He glares back, then pushes her roughly off him. “Fine,” he says, reaching down and yanking his shirt over his head. He tosses it to the side, and gives her a dark look. “Better?”
Her eyes flick from neck to waist, and the look she gives him is unimpressed. “Yes.”
He scowls, then grabs her arm and pulls her back against him. She slides there easily, back brushing against his chest as he tries to figure out where to place his hands. He finally settles on her waist--that seems safe enough--and tugs her back just a little more, so he can reach the other side of her neck.
Her back touches his chest in full, and Rukia sucks in a long breath. He can almost feel it this time, like a deep, radiating heat spreading out from the marks. Instinctively, he slaps his hand over her mouth, right before she lets out a loud yelp.
He pushes her away from him, watches her sag. “What the hell was that?” he asks.
She turns, and gives him a dazed, blinking look. “I don’t know,” she says, voice quiet, then blushes, full and red.
“Pain?”
She shakes her head slowly, still blushing.
He gives her a disgruntled look. “That was a lot of noise, for something that’s not painful.”
She shoots him a dark look. “I couldn’t help it,” she says, voice almost childish.
He gives her a look that suggests she probably could have, she just didn’t want to. Her blush abruptly fades, and she gives him a look that says he’s an idiot.
He lets out an exasperated breath. “If it wasn’t pain, then no need to waste time.” He scoots a little closer and hooks his arms around her waist, pulling her towards him again. As she slides close, he asks in her ear, “Do I need to cover your mouth again?”
“Don’t be a moron,” she replies, then pushes back into him. It takes a moment to adjust, to fit her body against him, so that he can reach her neck easily enough.
Her body jerks, tenses, like a trail of lightning had ripped up her spine, and her head automatically goes back. She clamps her jaws shut, and what comes out is somewhere between a squeak and a moan. It’s not loud, which is all he cares about.
Besides, he’s got other things on his mind. For one, he can feel the heat between them now, a layer of rippling warmth sandwiched between her back and his chest. The sensation isn’t constant; bands of heat flex and fade across his chest, his stomach, as if someone was applying a warm iron at random points. The skin of Rukia’s neck is hot when he presses his mouth to it, and it seems to heat even more under his lips. The moment he touches her there, she makes another sound, almost like pain, and presses further back into him. As his mouth trails across her neck, tongue flicking out here and there, she trembles faintly beneath him, making the softest of sounds. Those noises aren’t anything like screams, and they have the exact opposite effect on him: he wants to hear her make more of them, rather than less.
His head is turned sideways, pressed against her shoulder, when she grabs his hand. Her hand is moist, her grip tight, and he pulls back a little, as if he’d touched a nerve. She whimpers something that sounds like, “No.”
“No?” he breathes into her skin.
“Don’t...move...” The words are staccato, short and clipped as possible, barely more than puffs of air.
She knows better than I do, he thinks, and he resumes his path across her throat.
She tightens her grip on his hand, and pulls it away from the other. She holds it in her own for a second, then pushes it roughly between her legs, and presses down.
He freezes behind her, eyes popping wide open. She doesn’t seem to notice; if anything, she’s too busy adjusting his hand, making a little sound here or there. She finally finds the right position with his hand on her thigh, the tips of his fingers edged right over her...her...he knows the word, he’s sure he does, but it’s certainly not on his mind right now.
What is on his mind is that when she finds that position, and presses her fingers down on his, her back explodes into flames.
Or at least, that’s what it feels like on his end.
He can’t back away from it, though, because Rukia’s moving against him so much that if he doesn’t keep a tight grip on her waist, he knows she’s going to tumble over and crack her head open on the floor. Which, he thinks, may not stop her at this point. She squirms and writhes against him, all the while keeping his hand firmly in place. He hunches over a little, to put some space between them, and she immediately barks out, “DON’T MOVE!”
He straightens, putting himself in direct contact with the flames again. It’s not so bad this time, more like hot water than the heart of a furnace. He not entirely sure where to place his mouth without getting his teeth knocked out, so he settles for kissing her shoulder. There’s a mark there too, isn’t there?
She seems to like that, too; when his mouth touches her skin, she lets out a soft sigh, then pushes even more against him. He continues to kiss along the slope of her shoulder, the edge of her collarbone, open mouthed kisses against the heat of her skin, more out of the need to keep doing something like this than anything else. She bucks against his fingers, flexes her own on top of his hand, forming almost a rhythm. Whatever it is, though, it’s not enough, if her sounds of frustration are any indication.
He’s right, as it turns out. A moment later, she whispers, “Ichigo...move...”
“What?” he asks, voice soft.
“MOVE, damnit,” she growls back. “MOVE.”
Move WHAT? he thinks. Not like I can...
The edge of her nail catches on the back of his hand.
Oh. That.
He starts to move his whole hand, but she makes a dark noise, and he freezes it in place. He flexes his fingers then, lightly, so that glide over her...self, back and forth. She makes a sound a half-pitch higher than before, then one that’s still got that edge of frustration. She presses back into him, then gently touches the back of his fingers with hers. Instinctively, he stops, and she applies a touch more pressure to his fingers, then moves them. He lets her guide him into another motion, a little broader, a little harder. She bows forward against it, and his arm tightens around her waist. He presses his mouth to her neck again, and runs it along the curve to her shoulder, then back again. He pulls back a little, aims higher up her neck, fastens his mouth here and there along the length of it. She whimpers again, presses harder into him, but keeps her fingers on top of his, keeps their hands moving in that same methodical stroke
The heat of her back against his chest has stilled and dissolved, becoming a heat defused across the front of his body. He finds himself kissing her with no method to it, no place in mind, just to keep his mouth on her frame and her body tight against his. His fingers press into her, and she lets out a high sigh, then bites her lip, presses her hand into his. They continue this way for a minute or so, until Rukia lets out a descending sound, pants for breath.
He’s oddly frustrated with her, now that he has a clue what she’s trying for. Maybe, he thinks, it’s time to get...closer?
He pulls his hand back, and, as she makes that angry noise, slides it under her waistband.
Both her waistbands, as it turns out.
While that was in no way his intention, he’s not pulling his hand back now. She’d tensed up a little, right as he touched her, then let out this sort of fluting sigh, as if yes, this was the right answer. He’d rested his fingers for a moment on her...lips, then pressed on the inner edge. It’s a clumsy sort of movement, with neither of them looking at each other and him definitely not watching where his hand has gone, but it works; her lips part, and his two fingers sorta fall in between. It’s wet. Warm, blood warm. Kind of...sticky, too, it seems.
He’s sure there’s some other comparison to be made, except that if he even dares to think about what he’s doing, his head will explode.
He stops moving, and very quietly says, “Rukia.”
She breathes, fast and steady, for a minute. Then, her fingers move beneath her first waistband, and touch down softly on his. She brushes them lightly up, over slightly, then taps against them, so his fingers slide over her...self and come to rest on it. She breathes some more, for a minute, and his breathing echoes hers, harsh and quick.
She presses in against him, and together, they move.
It’s not quite as easy as before; his fingers keep slipping away, and she keeps making noises that destroy his concentration completely. But somehow, they manage.
In the end, he’s bent over one shoulder, her head mashed firmly into the other one, her fingers pressed hard on his as he slides his fingers over her, as her hips push upwards. She makes a sound in his ear that sounds like a scream, but isn’t quite.
They fall backwards and breathe. Really, really breathe, in harsh gasps that make it sound like they’ve just run a couple of miles. They do this together for, oh, maybe a minute.
Then Rukia rolls up and looks at him. Her eyes are glossy, her mouth is open just a little, and her neck holds no traces of purple or red.
“It’s gone,” he says, voice low.
“It is,” she replies, voice just as low.
They stare at each other for a moment.
Then her hand slides up his thigh, runs across his groin. “What’s this?” she asks, fingers brushing him lightly.
His eyes squeeze shut, and he grits his teeth. He’s been aware of that for some time now, though he couldn’t say when it, well, popped up. “That,” he says, in a strained voice, “is something you should stop touching.”
She brushes her fingers back across it. “Why?”
“Because...it’s...” His hands fist in the sheets as she ghosts her fingers across him again. “Going to make it very hard for me to...walk out...of here,” he gasps out.
She skims her whole hand across him, still with that ungodly light touch. “An erection,” she says.
He’d really like to ask how she knows that word, except her fingers are moving on him again and that’s way too many words. “Yes,” he gets out, and is kinda proud of even managing that.
She starts to move her hand over him again, and he reaches out and catches her wrist. “Stop,” he says, putting as much weight into the word as he can.
She gives him an odd look. “Why?”
“JUST STOP.”
“Isn’t it human custom to reciprocate?” she asks.
Oh, god, that’s the last mental image he needs right now. He looks away from her, up at the ceiling, and tries to think of really, really cold things. Ice. Snow. Popsicles...
On second thought, popsicles are right out.
“Ichigo,” she says, and he glances back at her. She’s giving him a confused sort of look.
“WHAT?”
“Isn’t reciprocation customary?”
Oh, why, why can’t she just go away? He musters up a glare in response, and says, “Yes. Maybe. How the hell would I know?” He takes a breath, and adds, “Besides, it’s not gonna happen now.”
“Why not?”
“ARGH...Rukia, just don’t ask.”
She tilts her head, gives him a quizzical look. “That doesn’t make any sense at all,” she says.
He looks back at the ceiling. “Probably not,” he sighs. “But I’m not going to take advantage of you.”
The moment those words are out of his mouth, he realizes that was exactly the wrong thing to say. He’s not sure why, but he knows it is.
“I mean,” he says, looking at her again, “that since you’re better, there’s no reason to...”
Her lips press together, and her eyes narrow. He shuts up. Better to be in a narrow grave than a deep one.
“Is that,” she says, breaking his grip on her wrist, “what you think I meant?”
He starts to shake his head, but then her fingers are back on him, with that light, oh-so-infuriating touch. He grimaces, eyes closing, until she stops.
He cracks his eyes open, looking cautiously at her. She’s glaring at him, fingers still but bent, as if threatening to rake down across him.
“You,” she says, “are an idiot.”
She rolls away from him and stands up, still glaring. She’s also still naked from the waist up, though he seems to have gotten used to that part.
“A really, really big idiot,” she says, a hint of snarl to her voice.
Then, she reaches down, and pushes her pajama pants and underwear down, over her hips. His eyes go wide, and he watches in stunned silence as she strips the rest of the way, then crawls back onto the bed, back over him. She stops when she’s crouched above him, still glaring at him. He’s glad he has her eyes to focus on; he’s red enough already.
“An absolute moron,” she says, then kisses him. There’s very little gentleness to it.
“The biggest idiot,” she kisses him again, “I’ve ever known.” Another kiss, her mouth raking across his.
When she pulls back, he says, “I get it. I’m an idiot.”
“Do you?” she asks, kissing him again.
This time his arms come up, and he kisses her back, mouth slanting hotly against hers. When she pulls back, she can’t go quite as far. “Yes,” he replies
“Then shut up,” she says, and leans back into him.
When they did this before, there was a sense of tentativeness, exploration, the assumption of new knowledge. There is nothing like that in these kisses. There is only heat, edged in roughness. Rukia kisses him like she might, in the next moment, try to eat him. He finds himself responding to it, slowly at first, then just as fierce. His hands skim along her back, a light touch at first; that soon gives way to a rough slide, fingers swiping across new skin in a way that suggests that she’s not naked, no, not at all. And if she was, heh, why would he care?
Not like he can feel her breasts, nipples hard, pressed into his bare chest.
Or the velvet warmth of the skin along her lower back, her ass.
Nuh-uh. None of that.
Sometime later, she pulls back from him and raises up, straddling his stomach. She’s breathing hard again, and so’s he, and there’s a look of triumph on her face. She pulls back, starts to kiss down the side of his neck, using the same motions he’d used before. He shivers as her tongue flicks out, tiny and hot, to lance against the skin there. Then she presses in close, and bites him softly.
“Rukia!” he nearly shouts.
She pulls back, grinning slightly. “Are you trying to wake the house?” she asks, eyes glittering.
He glares at her. “Damnit, woman, that hurt,” he replies.
She raises her eyebrows. “Did it?” she asks, then leans in and bites him again, right about the same place, a little harder. He sucks in a breath; it hurts, yes, but somehow feels good under that.
She nips at the flesh one last time, then pulls back, looks at it critically. She gives a little nod, then slides down his body a little more, mouth coming down on his collarbone.
“Rukia...” he says, voice hesitant.
She flicks an irritated glance at him. “You know, Ichigo,” she says, fingers lazily sliding down his chest, “I can fully use kidou again.”
His brow wrinkles. “So?”
“Sooo...I can do a Way of Binding, or you can shut up.” She tilts her head a little. “Hmm?”
His eyes narrow. “Bitch,” he says.
“Moron,” she replies, and slowly, begins to trace her way down his chest.
He knows she has no idea what she’s doing. Neither of them do. But why, oh why, does she have to be so DAMN good at this...slow torture...that she’s currently putting him through?
She traces patterns on his skin with tongue, mouth, fingers, in light touches that just make him that much more aware of her. She is fascinated by his nipples, and spends an inordinate amount of time messing with those, until he’s sure he’s going to grind his teeth into dust and rip the sheets clenched in his fist. Then she moves down lower, across his stomach and the defined plain of his abdomen, and it just gets worse. He’s sure that when--if, oh god if--she eventually stops, he’s going to have no jaw left.
He whispers a silent prayer of thanks that he came down here in sweats. In jeans, this would’ve been even worse. He’s feeling rather light-headed as it is.
She places one last kiss on the shivering skin of his stomach, then looks up at him. There’s that smug half-grin again. He glares back at her, but there’s not a lot of force to it. She moves off to the side, kneeling easily, and makes a face at his pants. She looks at him, and he makes a little “Hmph” sound.
She places a hand on his thigh, and starts, “By the red fire and silver moon...”
He hooks his thumbs into his waistband, arches his hips, and pushes them down carefully. When they’re past certain things, he bends back and slides them down farther, then kicks them off the rest of the way. He turns his head and glares at her again.
She’s not looking at him. Well, she’s not looking at his face. The expression she wears is one of a little puzzlement, a little hesitation, and a helluva lot of confusion.
She drops her head on his thigh, cocks it a little to the side, and stares. After a minute, she says, “This is...it?”
He groans. She gives him a puzzled look. “IT?” he asks.
“Well...yes,” she says, voice a little breathy. She moves her hand towards him, fingers close but not touching. “It’s...”
“I dunno if I want to hear this,” he mutters.
“...kinda ridiculous,” she says, fingers inching closer.
He rolls his eyes. “It’s what guys got,” he replies.
“Humans are so strange,” she says, leaning a little closer. He can feel her breath on him now, and it makes him twitch.
“I don’t think it’s just a human thing,” he says. “Unless...” he grins suddenly, “every guy in Soul Society is a eunuch.”
She gives him an odd look. “How would I know?” she asks.
“You never seen Renji naked?”
She gives him an almost horrified look. “Are you JOKING?”
“Shhh,” he says automatically, and she clamps her mouth shut. After a moment, she glares at him.
“When would I do that?” she hisses.
“You grew up together.”
“That does not mean we, we went around naked in front of each other!” she replies in a loud whisper. She pinches his thigh. “What gave you such a crazy idea?”
What indeed, he thinks, but says nothing. She gives him one last dark look, then returns to staring at...oh hell, his cock. She does that for a long moment, then runs her finger up the back side of it.
It twitches. He twitches. Her eyes go wide. “It lives,” she says softly.
“How do you know the word ‘erection’ but know nothing about...how they work?” he asks, voice dark and strained.
“I was top of my class,” she replies, voice prim.
“Your class...YOU HAD A CLASS?”
“Well, basic human anatomy,” she says, face inching a little closer to it. She strokes the back of it with her finger again, up and across the head, down the shaft again. “You know, on the vulnerable spots. It’s not like there was a practical.” She repeats the motion, and stops at the head. “It’s wet,” she says softly.
“If you keep doing that, it’s gonna be a lot wetter,” he grits out.
“Mm?” she says.
“I said, if you keep doing that...oh, never mind,” he says, hands fisting in the sheets.
“Hmm,” she says, then raises up a little. She blows softly on the head.
“Oh hell,” he groans.
“What?” she asks.
“Do whatever you will, but don’t tease, damnit! Don’t tease,” he says, just a hint of pleading in his voice.
She shrugs, then straddles his legs again. She moves up until she sits just a little behind it. “This...goes in this, right?” she asks, pointing at herself.
He colors again. “Uh, you don’t have to do that,” he says, voice low.
Her mouth twists. “Why not?”
“It’ll hurt,” he warns.
“Are you saying I can’t take a little pain?” she asks, pushing up against it. He can feel, right along the back, just a hint of wetness.
“Rukia...” he gets out. “Look, I’m telling you...”
“Just shut up, Ichigo,” she says, raising up on her knees. She grasps just below the head, and spends a few uncomfortable moments apparently aiming.
“Gently, Rukia,” he grits out.
“Oh,” she says, hand loosening.
He props himself up a little, touches her thigh. “You don’t have to,” he says again, voice quiet.
She meets his eyes, and there’s that slight hint of a smile again. “Yes,” she says, “I do.”
Then, hand holding him gingerly, she slides him inside.
His eyes roll back in his head, and he drops back onto the bed, head pushed back. He thought his fingers between her...he’d thought that was bad enough, but this is just about indescribable. She’s warmer than blood, she’s hot, scaldingly hot. She’s wet enough that beads of it slide, fat and wax-like, down the sides of his cock, slick enough for her to inch but not slide him inside. She works at it, and he works at not yelling and/or grabbing her by the hips and slamming the rest of the way in. In both cases, it seems to be very hard work.
It takes her only a few eons to work him all the way in, and when she does she lets out a pained breath, hands resting on either side of his chest. He looks up at her, trying to concentrate on anything but the pressure that surrounds him, searching for signs that she’s really okay.
She gives him a weak grin. “Nothing to it,” she says.
“Last time you said that, you tripped and fell on me,” he replies, voice sour.
The grin widens a little. “So I did,” she says quietly, then eases back on him. He bites the inside of his lip, hands clenching at his sides so he doesn’t touch her.
She sits there for a few moments, then gets an odd look on her face. “So this is sex,” she says, a little surprise in her voice. “Huh.”
He finds himself chuckling, a rough sound. “Sort of,” he says.
She gives him a look. “You have to move,” he points out.
“Ah. Move,” she replies, then slides up on him.
When he can breathe again, he opens his eyes to find her giving him a curious look. “On second thought,” he breathes out, “don’t move, Rukia.”
A hint of that grin. “Don’t move?” she asks, then deliberately eases up, down again.
I am such a moron, he thinks.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, a voice replies, Isn’t it grand, though?
After a few moments, he thinks, She’s really not gonna stop moving, is she?
Rukia-chan? No way. A soft giggle. You should distract her.
Distract...how?
The giggle again. Like you did before, the voice whispers, then fades away.
Like I did...? he thinks, then, oh.
He slides his hands up her thighs, to her hips, and pulls forward a little. She leans in automatically, eyes closed, still easing slowly along him, no set rhythm to it, just movement. He slides his hands down a little, until his thumbs meet. He presses lightly, parting her lips, and rubs his thumb along her.
She makes a soft sound, and her eyes come open. “Ichigo,” she says, as if just realizing he was there.
“Aa,” he says. It’s pretty much the only sound he can make at that point.
“Ichigo,” she says again, then leans back. She raises herself up, comes down quicker, then back up again.
“Ichigo,” she whispers. “Move.”
One hand slides back to her hip, tightens there. He does.
It lasts, perhaps, another minute and a half.
But it’s a glorious, glorious minute and a half, one that he’ll never forget.
Or, at least, he’ll never forget the way that Rukia had looked, leaned back above him, rocking against him, whispering his name softly, continuously, until the end.
She slides against his chest in a boneless heap when it’s over, panting in his ear. He pants back in hers, hands coming to rest lightly on her back.
After a few moments, she says softly, “That was quick.”
He chokes on his next breath, then reddens, glares at her. “Excuse me,” he spits out, “for never having done this before.”
She laughs softly. “Is that so?” she whispers, breath tickling his ear. She raises a little, looks at him. “I couldn’t tell.”
He glares. “That’s because you’ve never done this before, either.”
“Exactly,” she says, moving back to rest her head on his shoulder.
They’re quiet for a moment, then she lets out a soft sigh. “You were right, Ichigo,” she says.
“Mm?”
“That hurt.”
He feels himself color, and looks to the side. “Sorry,” he says, voice low.
“Better be.”
He grimaces, and gives the top of her head a scathing look. “You did it, dumbass,” he replies.
“You didn’t try that hard to stop me,” she replies.
“Yes I did!”
“Shh, Ichigo,” she says.
He tries to say something, but it comes out as more of a growl. She laughs, quietly, against him.
They lay together in silence for a bit longer, and he has a sudden thought. “Rukia,” he asks.
“Mm?”
“Gigai can’t get pregnant...can they?”
She raises up to look at him, a cross expression on her face. “Moron,” she says, “what would the purpose in THAT be? A gigai is the temporary home of a wounded shinigami; the last thing they would need is the ability to reproduce.” She makes a face. “Yeagh. Bad enough that gigai are always underpowered.”
“Ah,” he says. “Good.”
She tilts her head a little. “Besides,” she says, “I am of a noble house. Our children are conceived only by agreement.”
He groans. “Rukia,” he says, “you’re adopted.”
“So?” she replies, settling back down against him. “There’d still need to be agreement.” She pauses. “And permission from my brother.”
He rolls his eyes. “Be quiet.”
“And possibly Captain Ukitake, since I’d need the time off.”
“Rukia,” he says, “be quiet.”
She is still for a moment or two, then adds, “And then I’d have to ask...”
“RUKIA.”
She goes quiet, and stays that way for awhile.
He’s starting to wonder how he’s gonna get back upstairs--if he’s gonna go back upstairs, tantalizing thought--when she says quietly, “Ichigo.”
“Hm?”
She raises up a little, looks at him. “You know, this isn’t going to happen a lot.”
“What?”
She wriggles a little against him.
“Oh,” he says, then adds to himself, SHIT.
She nods. “So, I was thinking...” She pauses, then colors a little. “Maybe...we could...again?”
His eyes widen a touch. “Now?”
She nods, a little shyly.
He looks at her face, with its hopeful expression, and almost laughs. Instead, he raises his head, and softly, touches his mouth to hers.
“Yes?”
“Yes.”