Fic: Life Lessons - Chapter 5: In Which Everything Goes to Hell
Title: Life Lessons -- Chapter 5: In Which Everything Goes to Hell
Author: nehalenia
Pairing: Ichigo/Ishida (eventually).
Rating: R in this chapter (for sexual imagery and violence); NC-17 overall.
Warnings: mention of smexy stuff, fighting, blood.
COMMUNITY DISCLAIMER: All characters depicted in sexual situations in this post/fanfiction/fanart (including material in the comments) are fictional and are intended to be and considered to be by the author of said material of the legal age of consent in the United States state of California, regardless of what age these characters may be in the material they are derived from.
Disclaimer: Bleach and all its characters belong to Kubo Tite. (All the original characters are mine.) This is posted for entertainment purposes only. No profit is being made or sought.
Summary: Ichigo and Ishida are college roommates. They study, they fight Hollows, they have sex; but not with each other. Because Ishida likes guys, and Ichigo likes girls. Right?
Notes: To everyone's shock -- not least of all my own -- for once you get a timely update! (We'll have to see if I can pull that off again next week.) ;)
X-posted to all appropriate places, so sorry for the spamming.
Chapter 1 is here: http://community.livejournal.com/ishi_ichi/300274.html
Chapter 2 is here: http://community.livejournal.com/ishi_ichi/300856.html#cutid1
Chapter 3 is here: http://community.livejournal.com/ishi_ichi/302528.html#cutid1
Chapter 4 is here: http://community.livejournal.com/ishi_ichi/307474.html#cutid1
As far as Ichigo was concerned, Club Poison might as well have been ‘Club Hell’. He didn’t much care for dance clubs in the first place, and this one was the epitome of everything he hated about them. The drinks were over-priced, the bar tenders were stuck up, and the club-goers were even worse. The dance floor was so crowded he didn’t know how anyone could move without hitting another dancer, the spinning, multi-colored lights were giving him a headache, and all the dj wanted to play was bad j-pop and ‘80s disco music. This was the kind of crap old Goat Chin listened to when he wanted to ‘groove to the beat’, and Ichigo had a sudden flash of the time he, Karin and Yuzu had discovered their father gyrating spastically around the living room in his underwear to a BeeGees song. He gave an involuntary shudder at the memory and swore to himself that if the dj played ‘Stayin’ Alive’, he was leaving.
Ichigo sipped his drink - something yellow and mango-flavored with a kick - and leaned on the railing overlooking the dance floor. Everyone had deserted him the moment they’d gotten inside the club. Misa and her friends had immediately hauled Chad onto the dance floor and he hadn’t yet escaped. Ishida and his - whatever that guy was - had also disappeared into that surging sea of bodies, but only after Buff - wait, what was the guy’s name? Toro? No, Toru - had bought the rest of them a round of drinks. Ichigo hadn’t known he was going to do it. He hadn’t wanted to accept the drink when the guy handed it to him, but that would have been too rude, even for Ichigo. Besides, it was alcohol, and that was probably the only thing that was going to make the rest of this night bearable.
He’d downed that first drink in record time and gone to get another - he still didn’t know what the hell it was, whatever was on special, he guessed - and made it a double so he wouldn’t have to deal with the snotty bartender again. He swirled the too-sweet liquid around his mouth as he watched dancers below him. Chad was easy to pick out since he was the tallest person there, but Ichigo tried not to look at him. His three captors had encircled him and were bouncing and shimmying with great abandon. To anyone else, Chad probably looked like the luckiest guy on the dance floor, but to Ichigo, he looked like an exhausted, hunted animal - a stag or a bear, maybe - held at bay by three excited hounds. Hounds that Ichigo had unwittingly set up on his friend.
No, Ichigo definitely did not want to see Chad like that, but he didn’t want to see Ishida, either. He especially didn’t want to see Ishida dancing with that muscular ‘friend’ of his. The problem was, it was hard not to see it. Even at Club Poison, where the people who didn’t ‘know someone’ only got in if they looked stunning and followed the latest fashion trends, Ishida had turned heads. Ichigo guessed Buff - no, Toru, damn it - did, too, because when they got onto that packed dance floor, people actually made room for them. The closest dancers pulled away, further into the crowd, and even though they kept dancing, Ichigo noticed that most of them turned around to watch the two men. Not that he could blame them. He couldn’t stop watching, either.
Questions churned in his brain as Ichigo stared at the lithe figure in white and blue swaying down below. Ishida had been a total geek in high school. He still was a total geek. Even now, didn’t he spend every moment studying? When the hell had he learned to dance? When the hell had he learned to dance like that? When had Ishida gone from being the skinny geek in glasses to the sleek dancer with the shiny hair and the sinuous moves that no one could look away from? When-when had he gotten so….
“Fucking hot, ain’t he?” said a gravelly voice beside him, startling him so much he nearly spilled his drink.
“What?” Ichigo said, staring - probably stupidly - at the guy who seemed to have materialized beside him. He recognized the beefy, tattooed keyboard player from Chad’s band - Sanrio? No, something like that; Sanjo. The music wasn’t quite as loud up there on the viewing floor, but Ichigo still wondered if he’d missed something. “What did you say?”
“Your friend down there,” Sanjo grinned, leaning closer to Ichigo to be heard. “I said he’s fucking hot, right?”
“Who’re you talking about?” Ichigo demanded. He had a sinking feeling that Sanjo didn’t mean Chad.
“Ishida-kun,” he replied, nodding down at the dance floor. “The one you’ve been staring at all night.”
Ichigo fish-mouthed for a second, then put on his best scowl. “What the hell? I haven’t been staring at him!”
“No? Looked to me like you were,” Sanjo shrugged agreeably, scratching his bristly jaw as he diverted his attention back to Ishida. “So are you after his friend, then?”
“I’m not after anyone,” Ichigo sputtered. “Especially not that-that Toru guy! Why would I be? I’m not gay.”
“You’re not?” Sanjo gave Ichigo a frankly puzzled look then raised his eyebrows and said “Huh. My mistake, then. Still,” he added, turning back to view the dance floor, “you gotta admit, that friend of yours is pretty fine.”
“If you say so,” Ichigo muttered, feeling his face heat up with an odd sense of shame, because he knew he had been staring at Ishida, but it didn’t mean anything. At least, it didn’t mean what this Sanjo guy thought it meant.
“You and Sado-kun and him know each other from back in Karakura, right?” Sanjo asked.
“Yeah,” Ichigo grunted. “Ishida’s my roommate.”
“You must know him pretty well then.” Sanjo’s eyes lit up at that. “Any idea if he’s serious about Muscles down there?” He quirked an eyebrow and jerked his shiny head toward the dance floor. “Think a guy like me’s got any chance with Ishida-kun?”
Ichigo stared at the musician. He had three silver earrings in one ear, he was bald on the top of his head and shaved on the sides, and the thick arms braced against the railing were sleeved in colorful tattoos of fish, and demons, and half-naked women from the Edo period with their heads thrown back and their kimonos open. He wanted to tell the guy ‘Hell, no!’, that Ishida wouldn’t have anything to do with his type, but before his mouth could engage, he realized he didn’t know, that he didn’t have any idea if Ishida would give a guy like Sanjo a chance or not.
Ichigo had never imagined he’d see Ishida with another guy anyway, especially not a guy like Buff/Toru. For all he knew, Ishida liked burly, tattooed guys who looked like gangster goons as much as he liked muscle-bound dumbasses. Unbidden, Ichigo’s brain summoned up the images he’d seen the night before of Ishida’s pale body moving beneath the tanned one and replaced Buff/Toru with Sanjo. He imagined Ishida writhing under the musician’s inked-up bulk as Sanjo fucked him, dripping sweat and panting as he pinned Ishida’s knees to his shoulders and pounded away. He saw Ishida tossing his head around, his hair flying across his face, his pale fingers digging into those broad, fleshy shoulders and gouging the eyes of golden carp and geishas, and then he couldn’t see anything but red.
“Hey, dude, what’s wrong?” Sanjo asked, peering at him with concern. “You just got real flushed all of a sudden. And your eye is twitching. You okay?”
“I’ve got no fucking idea,” Ichigo said as he turned away, unsure of which question he was answering: whether Sanjo had a chance with Ishida, or whether he was okay. Hell, maybe it was the answer to both. “I gotta get out of here,” he muttered, pushing away from the railing and wondering what excuse he could use to leave. He didn’t have to wonder long. As if on cue, the Shinigami badge in his pocket burst to life, wailing its alarm of HOLLOW! HOLLOW! HOLLOW! HOLLOW! so loudly it completely drowned the dance music.
Ichigo froze then pulled the badge out of his back pocket. All around him, people were dancing and drinking and carrying on as if nothing was happening. None of them could hear the alarm, of course, but for a few it was a different story. Clutching the badge, Ichigo scanned the dance floor and saw Chad looking back at him. He’d heard the badge go off as well, and when their eyes met, Chad gave a firm nod and started to disentangle himself from the mass of dancers.
Ichigo looked around for the one other person who should have heard the alert. Hell, the Quincy should have known about the Hollow even before the alarm went off, what with his reiatsu-detecting ability, but Ishida wasn’t even looking up at him. Instead, he was tangled in Buff/Toru’s strong, brown arms, the two of them dancing in a close embrace.
“So that’s the way it is, huh?” Ichigo growled, immediately snapping his gaze away because he didn’t want to see anymore. No time for fighting Hollows now that you’ve got a boyfriend, right? Ichigo sprinted for the stairs to the main floor and took them two at a time, shouldering through packs of girls swaying on too-high heels and making one guy spill his drink and start cursing him. The front entrance was blocked by people still coming in, so he headed for an emergency exit he’d noticed at the other end of the club. Ichigo ignored the bright orange words ‘Do Not Open Except In Emergency’ and shoved his way through. The siren that went off when he did was almost as loud as his wailing badge, but probably had a lot more effect on the club goers. Ichigo didn’t particularly care, though. He wasn’t going to wait around to see.
The door opened into an unlit alley; dank and dirty as it was, to Ichigo it was a relief from the lights, colors and noise of the dance club. A quick survey showed that one end of the alley opened onto the heavily populated street in front of the club. The other end offered a much less crowded sidewalk, so he headed that way.
“Ichigo, hold on!”
He turned back to see Chad pushing through the door only a few paces behind him. The emergency alarm was still going off inside the club and a red light was flashing into the alleyway.
“Chad! This way!” Ichigo shouted, but instead of heading toward him, Chad hesitated and glanced back through the doorway.
“What about Ishida?” he countered.
“He’s got better things to do, obviously,” Ichigo snapped. “C’mon, we don’t need him for this anyway.” Chad frowned and threw a worried look over his shoulder, then shook his head and followed Ichigo.
“Do we know where we’re going?” Chad asked as they emerged from the alley.
“Hang on.” Ichigo pulled up and fished around for his Shinigami communicator. It lit up when he flipped it open, and Chad leaned over his shoulder to squint at the map detailed on the small screen. Three red triangles were hovering in a cluster about five blocks from their current location.
“Three of them,” Ichigo grunted. Red triangles meant stronger than average Hollows; nothing Ichigo couldn’t handle on his own, but tougher than the usual run. “Shit, what are they doing, traveling in packs now?” He knew they needed to get there fast; there were still people out at this hour, and Hollows like that didn’t just hunt lost souls, they went for human prey as well. “C’mon,” he said. “Let’s move.”
Chad gave him a look before they started running again, but Ichigo ignored it, staring at the screen and calling out directions as they dashed down sidewalks and around corners, getting further away from the well-lit and crowded club district. Ichigo knew what Chad wanted to say: that they should have waited for Ishida, that he could have used that Quincy crazy-leg thing that he did to get all of them where they needed to be. But Chad hadn’t seen the way Ishida and Toru were stuck together on the dance floor, and Ichigo didn’t feel like explaining it, so he said nothing and they kept running until they almost stumbled into a locked park gate.
“They’re in there,” Chad said, staring into the shadows between the tall bars. “Even I can feel them.” Gritting his teeth, Ichigo rattled the gate to see if it was secured, but the chained lock held.
“Nothing for it then,” he said, slapping his chest with his Shinigami badge. He didn’t even have to ask Chad to catch his body as it fell away from his spirit form. They’d fought together so often in the past few years that these things had become automatic.
“Yeah, that’s the stuff,” Ichigo exhaled, feeling his energy more keenly as he reached over his shoulder for Zangetsu. When he grasped the hilt, a surge of his own reiatsu washed through him, blowing away all the human confusion that always messed up his brain and his senses. He felt like an open current, glowing with power, and he yelled as he swung his sword, slicing through the wrought iron like it was made of bean paste and blowing the gate open with a wave of pure reiatsu.
Ichigo knew Ishida would have bitched him out for that. He could practically hear the Quincy saying It’s just like you’re ringing a dinner bell for them when you do that! in that prissy, know-it-all tone of his. But that was the whole point, wasn’t it? He didn’t want to go poking around looking for them. He wanted the ugly suckers to come out swinging.
“Come and get it, you bastards,” he growled as he charged into the park, and the Hollows obliged.
The empty park was illuminated by one tall street lamp that gave an eerie glow to the white gravel paths and pulled the benches and playground equipment into elastic shadows. One of those shadows detached itself and came galloping to meet Ichigo’s headlong rush: a bulky, slavering creature with both claws and hooves, like something part bear and part horse. Its huge eyes bulged out of its mask as it attacked with both teeth and claws, rearing up on its hind hooves and trying to grapple Ichigo into a crushing hug. Ichigo took it out in two swings - one forehand and one back cut - and its dying shriek vanished as quickly as it did.
“That was too fucking easy,” Ichigo grumbled, swinging his head around to find the next target. His blood was up, his reiatsu was singing, and Zangetsu was thirsting for more. It was the best - the clearest and sharpest - Ichigo had felt in a long time, and he didn’t want it to end.
“Ichigo!” Chad yelled from beside the bench where he’d propped his limp body. “Up there, above you!”
Sure enough, when Ichigo whipped his head up there was a black shadow against the stars, plummeting down at him with long wings folded back. For a second, he flashed back to Hueco Mundo, remembering the shock of Ulquiorra’s leathery wings slapping him through the sky, and he instinctively lashed a Getsuga at it. It blasted the winged Hollow out of its dive and sent it off into a screaming circle. When it righted itself, flapping wildly, Ichigo could sense Chad just behind him and to the right. He knew it wouldn’t take both of them to finish off this Hollow, but it felt good to have Chad at his back. It made things feel right. Almost like they were supposed to be.
Almost.
“It’s coming back,” Chad pointed out. “It’s going to dive again!”
“I see it,” Ichigo confirmed, readying Zangetsu. “It looks like it’s got claws, so watch out. I’m gonna let it get close!” Chad gave an affirmative grunt, and Ichigo wet his lips in anticipation. He could hear the way the air whistled through the Hollow’s feathers as it fell toward them, so close he could taste the kill.
Something seared over the top of his head and sent an electric shock through his hair, so powerful that his vision went fuzzy for a split-second. When his eyes cleared, the winged Hollow was writhing in mid-air, struggling as blue-white lightning crackled over it and gurgling a scream around the shining arrow in its throat. It exploded only a meter or so above Chad and Ichigo, and bone-white feathers fluttered momentarily before evaporating into the air.
Ichigo blinked at the place in the sky where the Hollow had been, then wheeled around, cursing, and shoved Zangetsu point-first into the ground. He knew exactly what he was going to see.
“Why the fuck did you do that?” Ichigo raged. “I hate it when you do that! You know I hate it!”
Standing just inside the open gate, Ishida lowered his spirit bow and pushed his glasses up with one finger. It was such a typical thing for him to do that for a moment, Ichigo felt like they were back in high school, caught up in the old frustrations, the old rivalry that had never really been put to rest. Only now, Ichigo recognized that his anger was charged with something different, something deeper and more troubling, and he tried to tell himself it had nothing to do with the way Ishida was standing there with his hair tousled, and his shirt open, and his pale stomach rising and falling with each quick breath.
“Idiot!” Ishida snapped by way of greeting. “What did you mean by leaving me behind like that?” he demanded. “Why didn’t you wait for me?”
“You looked pretty damn busy the last time I checked,” Ichigo snorted, folding his arms and standing his ground. He was still looking for something to hit, something to fight, and since Ishida had stolen that last battle right out of his grasp, the Quincy would do fine as a substitute. “Were we supposed to just stand there and wait around while you finished sucking face with your new dance partner?”
“Sucking face?” Ishida repeated, looking appalled. “I never did that!”
“Oh, I guess that was just a goodbye kiss, huh?” Ichigo countered, quickly warming to the argument. Warming? Hell, he was already hot.
“What on earth are you talking about, Kurosaki?” Ishida demanded. “There was no-I wasn’t kissing anybody! I was trying to get out of there.”
“Yeah? Well, you must have been trying to take that Toru guy with you because the two of you were wrapped up awfully tight.”
“You misinterpret everything,” Ishida yelled, his face livid. “I told Toru-kun I had to go, it was an emergency, but he couldn’t hear me over the music. When I tried to leave the dance floor, he thought I was angry so he grabbed me and held on.”
“Didn’t look to me like you were trying real hard to get away,” Ichigo shot back. When the expected retort didn’t come, he narrowed his eyes at Ishida. He was just standing there, staring at Ichigo with an expression of disbelief.
“You’re jealous!” Ishida said, sounding like he’d just stumbled onto the answer to some question that had long plagued scientists and philosophers. “That’s why you’re acting like more of an idiot than usual. You’re jealous, aren’t you?”
The word hit Ichigo like a bomb. Fear - fear like the kind he hadn’t felt since those long ago days of Urahara’s training - exploded in his chest, sending its shrapnel into every part of his body.
“Jealous?” Ichigo snorted the word like it was the most ridiculous idea in the universe, but inside his nerves were sputtering with shock and his brain was spinning like a typhoon. Jealous. Fuck, he couldn’t be jealous. Ishida was crazy. Jealous people were obsessed, unhappy stalkers, and that wasn’t him, no, it wasn’t. “What the fuck are you talking about, Ishida?” he yelled. “Why the hell would I be jealous?”
“I don’t know,” Ishida said in an arch voice. “Maybe because the people I date don’t go storming out of the apartment in the middle of the night because I’ve done something stupid.”
Whatever Ichigo had planned to say flew right out of his head, because all he could think of was He knows! Oh fuck, he knows! He heard everything! Did he hear me, too? Does he know I was there? That I saw him? That I saw him-
“Ichigo!” Chad yelled, at the same moment Ishida screamed “Kurosaki!” and disappeared from where he was standing at the gate. Ichigo grabbed for Zangetsu, his instincts finally surfacing through the spinning storm of panic and denial, telling him that the third Hollow - the one he knew about, the one he shouldn’t have forgotten - was right behind him. That same instant, something struck his chest and he went down hard, slamming into the ground and rolling, the wind knocked out of him.
For a crazy moment he wondered if Ishida had shot him with his bow, then realized, no, he’d done that Quincy flash-step thing of his and tackled him. Struggling to get his breath back, all Ichigo could feel was the gravel crunching into his back, Zangetsu’s hilt cutting into his hand, and Ishida’s body pressing into his; Ishida’s silky hair blinding him, Ishida’s panting breath on his cheek, and Ishida’s long legs tangled with his own.
“Fuck!” he gasped when he caught his breath, stunned as much by the sensation of Ishida’s body against his as by the flying tackle and the oppressive reiatsu just above him. Ishida’s hair was still in his eyes, but he heard Chad roaring, felt the crackle of energy, the heat of one of his power blasts, and the ugly sound of Hollow laughter.
“Let me up!” Ichigo panted, grabbing Ishida by the shoulder. “Damn it, Ishida, let me up!”
“Kurosaki-,” Ishida coughed. It sounded like he wanted to say more, but then he rolled aside and Ichigo sprang to his feet. Chad was already fighting the Hollow, firing power bursts and trying to slam the thing with his fists, but the creature kept twisting and dodging. This Hollow was different from the first two: vaguely humanoid in shape, all snake below the waist but with skeletal hands that ended in sword-like claws. The other two had only screamed unintelligibly, but this one could talk.
“Nice,” the Hollow giggled, coiling its tail and licking something off one of its long talons with a prehensile tongue. “So much power. A real feast tonight,” it hissed, clicking the stained tips of its claws together. “And all for me!”
“I don’t think so,” Ichigo snarled, leaping into the air and swinging Zangetsu up. “Sorry, but you’re going to die hungry tonight!” Ichigo and his sword both came down at once, and the Hollow shrieked and thrashed as Zangetsu’s edge connected with its back. As Ichigo pulled back for a second strike, he heard Ishida yell his name and looked around in time to see the Hollow’s tail about to slap him aside.
“Oh no, you don’t!” he growled, twisting around and sweeping Zangetsu across. The blade connected with the tail in a flare of reiatsu, and Ichigo felt the creature’s flesh start to give way just before its body bucked and twisted, flinging him aside. The Hollow screeched, its lower half coiling and thrashing in apparent agony as it bled, then whipped around faster than Ichigo had reckoned. It lunged at him with a wail, each claw extended like a blade. Ichigo met the attack with a yell, Zangetsu shooting sparks as it caught the honed claws, but he couldn’t push past them.
“What-the-hell?” Ichigo hissed through gritted teeth, both his muscles and spiritual pressure straining against the Hollow’s talons. The creature’s mask gaped as it laughed at him, snaking out its long tongue to lick at him, but the sound became a howl when Chad hit it with blasts from both his fists.
“No fair!” it shrieked as it flailed around, trying to strike Chad with its tail while attacking Ichigo with its claws. “Two against one is no fair!”
“Two against one?” Ichigo heard Ishida say. There was something odd about his voice, and Ichigo spared a glance away from his opponent. Ishida was where Ichigo had left him, standing with his spirit bow drawn. “It isn’t two against one,” Ishida told the Hollow, his low voice strained. “It’s three against one.” With that, he loosed his arrow, striking the creature where its humanoid torso and snake tail joined together. The Hollow screeched and faltered, and as Chad struck it again, cracking its mask, Zangetsu cut past the brandished claws, the long blade carrying through to cleave the Hollow down the middle. It broke apart with a high-pitched squeal and its two halves shimmered and vanished.
With the last Hollow gone, no sounds stirred the air except for the hard breathing of the three men and the buzzing of the single mercury lamp. Ichigo leaned against Zangetsu to catch his breath, then checked on the other two. Ishida was still standing, one hand pressed against a tree, head down as he panted for breath. Chad’s Hawaiian shirt was torn, and his hair looked like he’d been through a storm, but Ichigo thought he looked as steady as he always did.
“You okay, Chad?” he asked, just to make sure, but he didn’t get an answer. Chad was looking straight at Ishida, the one eye Ichigo could see widening with what was clearly alarm.
“Ishida!” Chad gasped, and when Ichigo looked back, Ishida had sunk to his knees and was falling forward onto his hands. Ichigo felt his mouth go dry, and his own pulse became a drumbeat in his ears. He saw the way Ishida’s shirt was hanging around his body, saw the dark stain spreading on one leg of his white jeans, and remembered something dripping from the Hollow’s claws, something its long tongue had lapped off and declared nice.
“Oh fuck,” Ichigo breathed, his heart and stomach clenching. “Oh fuck, Ishida!” He dropped Zangetsu and scrambled over to Ishida just as Chad was kneeling beside him, gripping one shoulder to help support him. The back of his shirt was in shreds, and through the rents in the fabric, Ichigo could see pale skin welling with black blood.
“When-when did this-,” Ichigo stammered.
“I think-when he pushed you down,” Chad offered, drawing Ishida’s tattered shirt up to his shoulders. “The Hollow was about to hit you with both claws. I thought-I wondered if he’d gotten hurt, but he didn’t say anything.”
“I didn’t say anything,” Ishida intoned, “because-sss!” He hissed as a piece of the fabric pulled free from the highest claw mark across his back, then went quiet, snapping his lips shut on that single sound of pain. “Because,” he exhaled a moment later, “it’s not-that bad.”
Liar, Ichigo wanted to say to him, because he could see the long wounds carved across his back, could see the way his arms were shaking as he tried to hold himself up. Instead, he bit back his fear and gave in to an emotion with which he was far more comfortable: anger.
“Why,” he growled, trying to keep his own muscles from trembling, “why did you do such a dumbass thing?”
“Call me sentimental,” Ishida managed to snap, turning his head enough to glare at Ichigo, “ but I didn’t feel like watching you get your head sliced off. Which is what would have happened if I hadn’t used hirenkyaku to tackle you.”
“Lie down,” Chad instructed Ishida softly, reaching under him to support his chest as he eased him flat onto the ground. Ishida obeyed Chad without any protest, and this fact alone frightened Ichigo more than the wounds themselves. Ishida lay with his head turned to the side, eyes closed and lips slightly apart. He seemed to be breathing very carefully, and when Ichigo noticed the gravel cutting into his cheek, he found himself pulling off the top of his shihakusho and sliding the wadded cloth under Ishida’s head. Ishida opened his eyes enough to quirk an eyebrow at Ichigo’s action, but again, he didn’t argue.
“Shit,” Ichigo murmured when he saw the full extent of Ishida’s injuries. He’d thought the wounds were only on his back, but there were two separate sets of claw marks: three deep slashes across his back from right shoulder to left hip, and another three across the backs of his thighs from the opposite angle. “That fucker hit with both sets.”
“This isn’t good,” Chad said quietly, looking at Ishida’s legs. “There could be tendon damage.”
“There isn’t,” Ishida said, trying to keep his voice steady. “If there was, I wouldn’t have been able to stand.”
“Stop acting like you’re not hurt!” Ichigo barked, gripping his knees with both hands to keep from grabbing Ishida and shaking him. “Those wounds are deep! You need stitches, and there’s probably muscle damage, and you’re losing blood, you idiot! We need to get you to a doctor now!”
“We can’t!” Ishida lifted his head to glare at Ichigo. His eyes were deadly serious. “If we go to a clinic, they’ll want to know how I got these wounds. What do you propose we tell them, Kurosaki? That I was attacked by a wild bear? That a giant eagle tried to carry me off? They’ll have to file an attack report. They’ll call the police. They’ll-.”
“Ishida, hush,” Chad told him, carefully pushing his head back down and resting his brown fingers briefly over Ishida’s eyes. If Ichigo hadn’t known better, he’d have sworn Chad used some kind of magic on Ishida, because the stupid, stubborn Quincy never obeyed anyone like that. Chad looked down at the mess of bleeding wounds and torn fabric that was their friend, then turned to Ichigo, his dark eyes clearly asking What do we do?
Ichigo was asking himself that same question. Every avenue of treatment they could trust - the Urahara Shouten, his father’s clinic, even the hospital Ishida’s father ran - was back in Karakura, and even using shunpou, it would take far too long to get Ishida there.
“Urahara,” Ishida said quietly, echoing Ichigo’s own thoughts. He was about to tell Ishida to shut up, it was too far, when the blue eyes blinked open and fastened on him. “Urahara-gave me a kit. For emergencies. There’s stuff to heal wounds and stop bleeding.” Ishida stopped, closed his eyes and took a breath. “Please,” he said. “Just take me home.”
Please. That was a word Ichigo had never imagined he’d hear from Ishida’s lips. Not directed toward him, at least.
“Fuck,” Ichigo muttered, bowing his head in resignation, then looking up to meet Chad’s eyes. There was no question of Ishida being able to use his Quincy shunpou to get them all back to the apartment. That left only Ichigo’s more limited flash-steps and normal human transport.
“Use your shunpou to get him home,” Chad told him. “I’ll follow with your body.”
Ichigo knew damn well that after everything he’d put Chad through that evening, he probably deserved to have his body stripped naked, painted purple and tied spread-eagle to one of the large marble dedication plaques on campus. Keigo and Miziuro would have done it without a second thought. Rukia and Renji would have figured out something even worse. Chad, he knew, wouldn’t even think of doing it. He also knew there was no way he could express his gratitude for that, so he didn’t even try.
“There’s money and a credit card in my wallet,” Ichigo said, getting to his feet and picking up Zangetsu. “The address is in there, too. Use whatever you need to get to the apartment, okay?”
Chad nodded and reached down to pick Ishida up, but that, apparently, was where the Quincy drew the line, even with Chad.
“I can do it, Sado, I’m not an invalid,” Ishida frowned, but Ichigo noticed that he grabbed onto Chad’s arm to lever himself up, then allowed Chad to pull him to his feet.
“C’mon,” Ichigo told him, and knowing there was no other way to go about this, he leaned down, shoved his shoulder against Ishida’s pelvis, grabbed him around the backs of his knees, and slung the Quincy over his shoulder as he straightened up.
“Kurosaki!” Ishida gasped in surprise. He was apparently too injured to kick or thrash around, but he seized the back of Ichigo’s yukata in a hard grip. “What-what do you think you’re doing!” he demanded.
“Just what you asked me to do,” Ichigo told him as he stepped up into the air and flashed back toward the university. “Taking you home.”
Author: nehalenia
Pairing: Ichigo/Ishida (eventually).
Rating: R in this chapter (for sexual imagery and violence); NC-17 overall.
Warnings: mention of smexy stuff, fighting, blood.
COMMUNITY DISCLAIMER: All characters depicted in sexual situations in this post/fanfiction/fanart (including material in the comments) are fictional and are intended to be and considered to be by the author of said material of the legal age of consent in the United States state of California, regardless of what age these characters may be in the material they are derived from.
Disclaimer: Bleach and all its characters belong to Kubo Tite. (All the original characters are mine.) This is posted for entertainment purposes only. No profit is being made or sought.
Summary: Ichigo and Ishida are college roommates. They study, they fight Hollows, they have sex; but not with each other. Because Ishida likes guys, and Ichigo likes girls. Right?
Notes: To everyone's shock -- not least of all my own -- for once you get a timely update! (We'll have to see if I can pull that off again next week.) ;)
X-posted to all appropriate places, so sorry for the spamming.
Chapter 1 is here: http://community.livejournal.com/ishi_ichi/300274.html
Chapter 2 is here: http://community.livejournal.com/ishi_ichi/300856.html#cutid1
Chapter 3 is here: http://community.livejournal.com/ishi_ichi/302528.html#cutid1
Chapter 4 is here: http://community.livejournal.com/ishi_ichi/307474.html#cutid1
As far as Ichigo was concerned, Club Poison might as well have been ‘Club Hell’. He didn’t much care for dance clubs in the first place, and this one was the epitome of everything he hated about them. The drinks were over-priced, the bar tenders were stuck up, and the club-goers were even worse. The dance floor was so crowded he didn’t know how anyone could move without hitting another dancer, the spinning, multi-colored lights were giving him a headache, and all the dj wanted to play was bad j-pop and ‘80s disco music. This was the kind of crap old Goat Chin listened to when he wanted to ‘groove to the beat’, and Ichigo had a sudden flash of the time he, Karin and Yuzu had discovered their father gyrating spastically around the living room in his underwear to a BeeGees song. He gave an involuntary shudder at the memory and swore to himself that if the dj played ‘Stayin’ Alive’, he was leaving.
Ichigo sipped his drink - something yellow and mango-flavored with a kick - and leaned on the railing overlooking the dance floor. Everyone had deserted him the moment they’d gotten inside the club. Misa and her friends had immediately hauled Chad onto the dance floor and he hadn’t yet escaped. Ishida and his - whatever that guy was - had also disappeared into that surging sea of bodies, but only after Buff - wait, what was the guy’s name? Toro? No, Toru - had bought the rest of them a round of drinks. Ichigo hadn’t known he was going to do it. He hadn’t wanted to accept the drink when the guy handed it to him, but that would have been too rude, even for Ichigo. Besides, it was alcohol, and that was probably the only thing that was going to make the rest of this night bearable.
He’d downed that first drink in record time and gone to get another - he still didn’t know what the hell it was, whatever was on special, he guessed - and made it a double so he wouldn’t have to deal with the snotty bartender again. He swirled the too-sweet liquid around his mouth as he watched dancers below him. Chad was easy to pick out since he was the tallest person there, but Ichigo tried not to look at him. His three captors had encircled him and were bouncing and shimmying with great abandon. To anyone else, Chad probably looked like the luckiest guy on the dance floor, but to Ichigo, he looked like an exhausted, hunted animal - a stag or a bear, maybe - held at bay by three excited hounds. Hounds that Ichigo had unwittingly set up on his friend.
No, Ichigo definitely did not want to see Chad like that, but he didn’t want to see Ishida, either. He especially didn’t want to see Ishida dancing with that muscular ‘friend’ of his. The problem was, it was hard not to see it. Even at Club Poison, where the people who didn’t ‘know someone’ only got in if they looked stunning and followed the latest fashion trends, Ishida had turned heads. Ichigo guessed Buff - no, Toru, damn it - did, too, because when they got onto that packed dance floor, people actually made room for them. The closest dancers pulled away, further into the crowd, and even though they kept dancing, Ichigo noticed that most of them turned around to watch the two men. Not that he could blame them. He couldn’t stop watching, either.
Questions churned in his brain as Ichigo stared at the lithe figure in white and blue swaying down below. Ishida had been a total geek in high school. He still was a total geek. Even now, didn’t he spend every moment studying? When the hell had he learned to dance? When the hell had he learned to dance like that? When had Ishida gone from being the skinny geek in glasses to the sleek dancer with the shiny hair and the sinuous moves that no one could look away from? When-when had he gotten so….
“Fucking hot, ain’t he?” said a gravelly voice beside him, startling him so much he nearly spilled his drink.
“What?” Ichigo said, staring - probably stupidly - at the guy who seemed to have materialized beside him. He recognized the beefy, tattooed keyboard player from Chad’s band - Sanrio? No, something like that; Sanjo. The music wasn’t quite as loud up there on the viewing floor, but Ichigo still wondered if he’d missed something. “What did you say?”
“Your friend down there,” Sanjo grinned, leaning closer to Ichigo to be heard. “I said he’s fucking hot, right?”
“Who’re you talking about?” Ichigo demanded. He had a sinking feeling that Sanjo didn’t mean Chad.
“Ishida-kun,” he replied, nodding down at the dance floor. “The one you’ve been staring at all night.”
Ichigo fish-mouthed for a second, then put on his best scowl. “What the hell? I haven’t been staring at him!”
“No? Looked to me like you were,” Sanjo shrugged agreeably, scratching his bristly jaw as he diverted his attention back to Ishida. “So are you after his friend, then?”
“I’m not after anyone,” Ichigo sputtered. “Especially not that-that Toru guy! Why would I be? I’m not gay.”
“You’re not?” Sanjo gave Ichigo a frankly puzzled look then raised his eyebrows and said “Huh. My mistake, then. Still,” he added, turning back to view the dance floor, “you gotta admit, that friend of yours is pretty fine.”
“If you say so,” Ichigo muttered, feeling his face heat up with an odd sense of shame, because he knew he had been staring at Ishida, but it didn’t mean anything. At least, it didn’t mean what this Sanjo guy thought it meant.
“You and Sado-kun and him know each other from back in Karakura, right?” Sanjo asked.
“Yeah,” Ichigo grunted. “Ishida’s my roommate.”
“You must know him pretty well then.” Sanjo’s eyes lit up at that. “Any idea if he’s serious about Muscles down there?” He quirked an eyebrow and jerked his shiny head toward the dance floor. “Think a guy like me’s got any chance with Ishida-kun?”
Ichigo stared at the musician. He had three silver earrings in one ear, he was bald on the top of his head and shaved on the sides, and the thick arms braced against the railing were sleeved in colorful tattoos of fish, and demons, and half-naked women from the Edo period with their heads thrown back and their kimonos open. He wanted to tell the guy ‘Hell, no!’, that Ishida wouldn’t have anything to do with his type, but before his mouth could engage, he realized he didn’t know, that he didn’t have any idea if Ishida would give a guy like Sanjo a chance or not.
Ichigo had never imagined he’d see Ishida with another guy anyway, especially not a guy like Buff/Toru. For all he knew, Ishida liked burly, tattooed guys who looked like gangster goons as much as he liked muscle-bound dumbasses. Unbidden, Ichigo’s brain summoned up the images he’d seen the night before of Ishida’s pale body moving beneath the tanned one and replaced Buff/Toru with Sanjo. He imagined Ishida writhing under the musician’s inked-up bulk as Sanjo fucked him, dripping sweat and panting as he pinned Ishida’s knees to his shoulders and pounded away. He saw Ishida tossing his head around, his hair flying across his face, his pale fingers digging into those broad, fleshy shoulders and gouging the eyes of golden carp and geishas, and then he couldn’t see anything but red.
“Hey, dude, what’s wrong?” Sanjo asked, peering at him with concern. “You just got real flushed all of a sudden. And your eye is twitching. You okay?”
“I’ve got no fucking idea,” Ichigo said as he turned away, unsure of which question he was answering: whether Sanjo had a chance with Ishida, or whether he was okay. Hell, maybe it was the answer to both. “I gotta get out of here,” he muttered, pushing away from the railing and wondering what excuse he could use to leave. He didn’t have to wonder long. As if on cue, the Shinigami badge in his pocket burst to life, wailing its alarm of HOLLOW! HOLLOW! HOLLOW! HOLLOW! so loudly it completely drowned the dance music.
Ichigo froze then pulled the badge out of his back pocket. All around him, people were dancing and drinking and carrying on as if nothing was happening. None of them could hear the alarm, of course, but for a few it was a different story. Clutching the badge, Ichigo scanned the dance floor and saw Chad looking back at him. He’d heard the badge go off as well, and when their eyes met, Chad gave a firm nod and started to disentangle himself from the mass of dancers.
Ichigo looked around for the one other person who should have heard the alert. Hell, the Quincy should have known about the Hollow even before the alarm went off, what with his reiatsu-detecting ability, but Ishida wasn’t even looking up at him. Instead, he was tangled in Buff/Toru’s strong, brown arms, the two of them dancing in a close embrace.
“So that’s the way it is, huh?” Ichigo growled, immediately snapping his gaze away because he didn’t want to see anymore. No time for fighting Hollows now that you’ve got a boyfriend, right? Ichigo sprinted for the stairs to the main floor and took them two at a time, shouldering through packs of girls swaying on too-high heels and making one guy spill his drink and start cursing him. The front entrance was blocked by people still coming in, so he headed for an emergency exit he’d noticed at the other end of the club. Ichigo ignored the bright orange words ‘Do Not Open Except In Emergency’ and shoved his way through. The siren that went off when he did was almost as loud as his wailing badge, but probably had a lot more effect on the club goers. Ichigo didn’t particularly care, though. He wasn’t going to wait around to see.
The door opened into an unlit alley; dank and dirty as it was, to Ichigo it was a relief from the lights, colors and noise of the dance club. A quick survey showed that one end of the alley opened onto the heavily populated street in front of the club. The other end offered a much less crowded sidewalk, so he headed that way.
“Ichigo, hold on!”
He turned back to see Chad pushing through the door only a few paces behind him. The emergency alarm was still going off inside the club and a red light was flashing into the alleyway.
“Chad! This way!” Ichigo shouted, but instead of heading toward him, Chad hesitated and glanced back through the doorway.
“What about Ishida?” he countered.
“He’s got better things to do, obviously,” Ichigo snapped. “C’mon, we don’t need him for this anyway.” Chad frowned and threw a worried look over his shoulder, then shook his head and followed Ichigo.
“Do we know where we’re going?” Chad asked as they emerged from the alley.
“Hang on.” Ichigo pulled up and fished around for his Shinigami communicator. It lit up when he flipped it open, and Chad leaned over his shoulder to squint at the map detailed on the small screen. Three red triangles were hovering in a cluster about five blocks from their current location.
“Three of them,” Ichigo grunted. Red triangles meant stronger than average Hollows; nothing Ichigo couldn’t handle on his own, but tougher than the usual run. “Shit, what are they doing, traveling in packs now?” He knew they needed to get there fast; there were still people out at this hour, and Hollows like that didn’t just hunt lost souls, they went for human prey as well. “C’mon,” he said. “Let’s move.”
Chad gave him a look before they started running again, but Ichigo ignored it, staring at the screen and calling out directions as they dashed down sidewalks and around corners, getting further away from the well-lit and crowded club district. Ichigo knew what Chad wanted to say: that they should have waited for Ishida, that he could have used that Quincy crazy-leg thing that he did to get all of them where they needed to be. But Chad hadn’t seen the way Ishida and Toru were stuck together on the dance floor, and Ichigo didn’t feel like explaining it, so he said nothing and they kept running until they almost stumbled into a locked park gate.
“They’re in there,” Chad said, staring into the shadows between the tall bars. “Even I can feel them.” Gritting his teeth, Ichigo rattled the gate to see if it was secured, but the chained lock held.
“Nothing for it then,” he said, slapping his chest with his Shinigami badge. He didn’t even have to ask Chad to catch his body as it fell away from his spirit form. They’d fought together so often in the past few years that these things had become automatic.
“Yeah, that’s the stuff,” Ichigo exhaled, feeling his energy more keenly as he reached over his shoulder for Zangetsu. When he grasped the hilt, a surge of his own reiatsu washed through him, blowing away all the human confusion that always messed up his brain and his senses. He felt like an open current, glowing with power, and he yelled as he swung his sword, slicing through the wrought iron like it was made of bean paste and blowing the gate open with a wave of pure reiatsu.
Ichigo knew Ishida would have bitched him out for that. He could practically hear the Quincy saying It’s just like you’re ringing a dinner bell for them when you do that! in that prissy, know-it-all tone of his. But that was the whole point, wasn’t it? He didn’t want to go poking around looking for them. He wanted the ugly suckers to come out swinging.
“Come and get it, you bastards,” he growled as he charged into the park, and the Hollows obliged.
The empty park was illuminated by one tall street lamp that gave an eerie glow to the white gravel paths and pulled the benches and playground equipment into elastic shadows. One of those shadows detached itself and came galloping to meet Ichigo’s headlong rush: a bulky, slavering creature with both claws and hooves, like something part bear and part horse. Its huge eyes bulged out of its mask as it attacked with both teeth and claws, rearing up on its hind hooves and trying to grapple Ichigo into a crushing hug. Ichigo took it out in two swings - one forehand and one back cut - and its dying shriek vanished as quickly as it did.
“That was too fucking easy,” Ichigo grumbled, swinging his head around to find the next target. His blood was up, his reiatsu was singing, and Zangetsu was thirsting for more. It was the best - the clearest and sharpest - Ichigo had felt in a long time, and he didn’t want it to end.
“Ichigo!” Chad yelled from beside the bench where he’d propped his limp body. “Up there, above you!”
Sure enough, when Ichigo whipped his head up there was a black shadow against the stars, plummeting down at him with long wings folded back. For a second, he flashed back to Hueco Mundo, remembering the shock of Ulquiorra’s leathery wings slapping him through the sky, and he instinctively lashed a Getsuga at it. It blasted the winged Hollow out of its dive and sent it off into a screaming circle. When it righted itself, flapping wildly, Ichigo could sense Chad just behind him and to the right. He knew it wouldn’t take both of them to finish off this Hollow, but it felt good to have Chad at his back. It made things feel right. Almost like they were supposed to be.
Almost.
“It’s coming back,” Chad pointed out. “It’s going to dive again!”
“I see it,” Ichigo confirmed, readying Zangetsu. “It looks like it’s got claws, so watch out. I’m gonna let it get close!” Chad gave an affirmative grunt, and Ichigo wet his lips in anticipation. He could hear the way the air whistled through the Hollow’s feathers as it fell toward them, so close he could taste the kill.
Something seared over the top of his head and sent an electric shock through his hair, so powerful that his vision went fuzzy for a split-second. When his eyes cleared, the winged Hollow was writhing in mid-air, struggling as blue-white lightning crackled over it and gurgling a scream around the shining arrow in its throat. It exploded only a meter or so above Chad and Ichigo, and bone-white feathers fluttered momentarily before evaporating into the air.
Ichigo blinked at the place in the sky where the Hollow had been, then wheeled around, cursing, and shoved Zangetsu point-first into the ground. He knew exactly what he was going to see.
“Why the fuck did you do that?” Ichigo raged. “I hate it when you do that! You know I hate it!”
Standing just inside the open gate, Ishida lowered his spirit bow and pushed his glasses up with one finger. It was such a typical thing for him to do that for a moment, Ichigo felt like they were back in high school, caught up in the old frustrations, the old rivalry that had never really been put to rest. Only now, Ichigo recognized that his anger was charged with something different, something deeper and more troubling, and he tried to tell himself it had nothing to do with the way Ishida was standing there with his hair tousled, and his shirt open, and his pale stomach rising and falling with each quick breath.
“Idiot!” Ishida snapped by way of greeting. “What did you mean by leaving me behind like that?” he demanded. “Why didn’t you wait for me?”
“You looked pretty damn busy the last time I checked,” Ichigo snorted, folding his arms and standing his ground. He was still looking for something to hit, something to fight, and since Ishida had stolen that last battle right out of his grasp, the Quincy would do fine as a substitute. “Were we supposed to just stand there and wait around while you finished sucking face with your new dance partner?”
“Sucking face?” Ishida repeated, looking appalled. “I never did that!”
“Oh, I guess that was just a goodbye kiss, huh?” Ichigo countered, quickly warming to the argument. Warming? Hell, he was already hot.
“What on earth are you talking about, Kurosaki?” Ishida demanded. “There was no-I wasn’t kissing anybody! I was trying to get out of there.”
“Yeah? Well, you must have been trying to take that Toru guy with you because the two of you were wrapped up awfully tight.”
“You misinterpret everything,” Ishida yelled, his face livid. “I told Toru-kun I had to go, it was an emergency, but he couldn’t hear me over the music. When I tried to leave the dance floor, he thought I was angry so he grabbed me and held on.”
“Didn’t look to me like you were trying real hard to get away,” Ichigo shot back. When the expected retort didn’t come, he narrowed his eyes at Ishida. He was just standing there, staring at Ichigo with an expression of disbelief.
“You’re jealous!” Ishida said, sounding like he’d just stumbled onto the answer to some question that had long plagued scientists and philosophers. “That’s why you’re acting like more of an idiot than usual. You’re jealous, aren’t you?”
The word hit Ichigo like a bomb. Fear - fear like the kind he hadn’t felt since those long ago days of Urahara’s training - exploded in his chest, sending its shrapnel into every part of his body.
“Jealous?” Ichigo snorted the word like it was the most ridiculous idea in the universe, but inside his nerves were sputtering with shock and his brain was spinning like a typhoon. Jealous. Fuck, he couldn’t be jealous. Ishida was crazy. Jealous people were obsessed, unhappy stalkers, and that wasn’t him, no, it wasn’t. “What the fuck are you talking about, Ishida?” he yelled. “Why the hell would I be jealous?”
“I don’t know,” Ishida said in an arch voice. “Maybe because the people I date don’t go storming out of the apartment in the middle of the night because I’ve done something stupid.”
Whatever Ichigo had planned to say flew right out of his head, because all he could think of was He knows! Oh fuck, he knows! He heard everything! Did he hear me, too? Does he know I was there? That I saw him? That I saw him-
“Ichigo!” Chad yelled, at the same moment Ishida screamed “Kurosaki!” and disappeared from where he was standing at the gate. Ichigo grabbed for Zangetsu, his instincts finally surfacing through the spinning storm of panic and denial, telling him that the third Hollow - the one he knew about, the one he shouldn’t have forgotten - was right behind him. That same instant, something struck his chest and he went down hard, slamming into the ground and rolling, the wind knocked out of him.
For a crazy moment he wondered if Ishida had shot him with his bow, then realized, no, he’d done that Quincy flash-step thing of his and tackled him. Struggling to get his breath back, all Ichigo could feel was the gravel crunching into his back, Zangetsu’s hilt cutting into his hand, and Ishida’s body pressing into his; Ishida’s silky hair blinding him, Ishida’s panting breath on his cheek, and Ishida’s long legs tangled with his own.
“Fuck!” he gasped when he caught his breath, stunned as much by the sensation of Ishida’s body against his as by the flying tackle and the oppressive reiatsu just above him. Ishida’s hair was still in his eyes, but he heard Chad roaring, felt the crackle of energy, the heat of one of his power blasts, and the ugly sound of Hollow laughter.
“Let me up!” Ichigo panted, grabbing Ishida by the shoulder. “Damn it, Ishida, let me up!”
“Kurosaki-,” Ishida coughed. It sounded like he wanted to say more, but then he rolled aside and Ichigo sprang to his feet. Chad was already fighting the Hollow, firing power bursts and trying to slam the thing with his fists, but the creature kept twisting and dodging. This Hollow was different from the first two: vaguely humanoid in shape, all snake below the waist but with skeletal hands that ended in sword-like claws. The other two had only screamed unintelligibly, but this one could talk.
“Nice,” the Hollow giggled, coiling its tail and licking something off one of its long talons with a prehensile tongue. “So much power. A real feast tonight,” it hissed, clicking the stained tips of its claws together. “And all for me!”
“I don’t think so,” Ichigo snarled, leaping into the air and swinging Zangetsu up. “Sorry, but you’re going to die hungry tonight!” Ichigo and his sword both came down at once, and the Hollow shrieked and thrashed as Zangetsu’s edge connected with its back. As Ichigo pulled back for a second strike, he heard Ishida yell his name and looked around in time to see the Hollow’s tail about to slap him aside.
“Oh no, you don’t!” he growled, twisting around and sweeping Zangetsu across. The blade connected with the tail in a flare of reiatsu, and Ichigo felt the creature’s flesh start to give way just before its body bucked and twisted, flinging him aside. The Hollow screeched, its lower half coiling and thrashing in apparent agony as it bled, then whipped around faster than Ichigo had reckoned. It lunged at him with a wail, each claw extended like a blade. Ichigo met the attack with a yell, Zangetsu shooting sparks as it caught the honed claws, but he couldn’t push past them.
“What-the-hell?” Ichigo hissed through gritted teeth, both his muscles and spiritual pressure straining against the Hollow’s talons. The creature’s mask gaped as it laughed at him, snaking out its long tongue to lick at him, but the sound became a howl when Chad hit it with blasts from both his fists.
“No fair!” it shrieked as it flailed around, trying to strike Chad with its tail while attacking Ichigo with its claws. “Two against one is no fair!”
“Two against one?” Ichigo heard Ishida say. There was something odd about his voice, and Ichigo spared a glance away from his opponent. Ishida was where Ichigo had left him, standing with his spirit bow drawn. “It isn’t two against one,” Ishida told the Hollow, his low voice strained. “It’s three against one.” With that, he loosed his arrow, striking the creature where its humanoid torso and snake tail joined together. The Hollow screeched and faltered, and as Chad struck it again, cracking its mask, Zangetsu cut past the brandished claws, the long blade carrying through to cleave the Hollow down the middle. It broke apart with a high-pitched squeal and its two halves shimmered and vanished.
With the last Hollow gone, no sounds stirred the air except for the hard breathing of the three men and the buzzing of the single mercury lamp. Ichigo leaned against Zangetsu to catch his breath, then checked on the other two. Ishida was still standing, one hand pressed against a tree, head down as he panted for breath. Chad’s Hawaiian shirt was torn, and his hair looked like he’d been through a storm, but Ichigo thought he looked as steady as he always did.
“You okay, Chad?” he asked, just to make sure, but he didn’t get an answer. Chad was looking straight at Ishida, the one eye Ichigo could see widening with what was clearly alarm.
“Ishida!” Chad gasped, and when Ichigo looked back, Ishida had sunk to his knees and was falling forward onto his hands. Ichigo felt his mouth go dry, and his own pulse became a drumbeat in his ears. He saw the way Ishida’s shirt was hanging around his body, saw the dark stain spreading on one leg of his white jeans, and remembered something dripping from the Hollow’s claws, something its long tongue had lapped off and declared nice.
“Oh fuck,” Ichigo breathed, his heart and stomach clenching. “Oh fuck, Ishida!” He dropped Zangetsu and scrambled over to Ishida just as Chad was kneeling beside him, gripping one shoulder to help support him. The back of his shirt was in shreds, and through the rents in the fabric, Ichigo could see pale skin welling with black blood.
“When-when did this-,” Ichigo stammered.
“I think-when he pushed you down,” Chad offered, drawing Ishida’s tattered shirt up to his shoulders. “The Hollow was about to hit you with both claws. I thought-I wondered if he’d gotten hurt, but he didn’t say anything.”
“I didn’t say anything,” Ishida intoned, “because-sss!” He hissed as a piece of the fabric pulled free from the highest claw mark across his back, then went quiet, snapping his lips shut on that single sound of pain. “Because,” he exhaled a moment later, “it’s not-that bad.”
Liar, Ichigo wanted to say to him, because he could see the long wounds carved across his back, could see the way his arms were shaking as he tried to hold himself up. Instead, he bit back his fear and gave in to an emotion with which he was far more comfortable: anger.
“Why,” he growled, trying to keep his own muscles from trembling, “why did you do such a dumbass thing?”
“Call me sentimental,” Ishida managed to snap, turning his head enough to glare at Ichigo, “ but I didn’t feel like watching you get your head sliced off. Which is what would have happened if I hadn’t used hirenkyaku to tackle you.”
“Lie down,” Chad instructed Ishida softly, reaching under him to support his chest as he eased him flat onto the ground. Ishida obeyed Chad without any protest, and this fact alone frightened Ichigo more than the wounds themselves. Ishida lay with his head turned to the side, eyes closed and lips slightly apart. He seemed to be breathing very carefully, and when Ichigo noticed the gravel cutting into his cheek, he found himself pulling off the top of his shihakusho and sliding the wadded cloth under Ishida’s head. Ishida opened his eyes enough to quirk an eyebrow at Ichigo’s action, but again, he didn’t argue.
“Shit,” Ichigo murmured when he saw the full extent of Ishida’s injuries. He’d thought the wounds were only on his back, but there were two separate sets of claw marks: three deep slashes across his back from right shoulder to left hip, and another three across the backs of his thighs from the opposite angle. “That fucker hit with both sets.”
“This isn’t good,” Chad said quietly, looking at Ishida’s legs. “There could be tendon damage.”
“There isn’t,” Ishida said, trying to keep his voice steady. “If there was, I wouldn’t have been able to stand.”
“Stop acting like you’re not hurt!” Ichigo barked, gripping his knees with both hands to keep from grabbing Ishida and shaking him. “Those wounds are deep! You need stitches, and there’s probably muscle damage, and you’re losing blood, you idiot! We need to get you to a doctor now!”
“We can’t!” Ishida lifted his head to glare at Ichigo. His eyes were deadly serious. “If we go to a clinic, they’ll want to know how I got these wounds. What do you propose we tell them, Kurosaki? That I was attacked by a wild bear? That a giant eagle tried to carry me off? They’ll have to file an attack report. They’ll call the police. They’ll-.”
“Ishida, hush,” Chad told him, carefully pushing his head back down and resting his brown fingers briefly over Ishida’s eyes. If Ichigo hadn’t known better, he’d have sworn Chad used some kind of magic on Ishida, because the stupid, stubborn Quincy never obeyed anyone like that. Chad looked down at the mess of bleeding wounds and torn fabric that was their friend, then turned to Ichigo, his dark eyes clearly asking What do we do?
Ichigo was asking himself that same question. Every avenue of treatment they could trust - the Urahara Shouten, his father’s clinic, even the hospital Ishida’s father ran - was back in Karakura, and even using shunpou, it would take far too long to get Ishida there.
“Urahara,” Ishida said quietly, echoing Ichigo’s own thoughts. He was about to tell Ishida to shut up, it was too far, when the blue eyes blinked open and fastened on him. “Urahara-gave me a kit. For emergencies. There’s stuff to heal wounds and stop bleeding.” Ishida stopped, closed his eyes and took a breath. “Please,” he said. “Just take me home.”
Please. That was a word Ichigo had never imagined he’d hear from Ishida’s lips. Not directed toward him, at least.
“Fuck,” Ichigo muttered, bowing his head in resignation, then looking up to meet Chad’s eyes. There was no question of Ishida being able to use his Quincy shunpou to get them all back to the apartment. That left only Ichigo’s more limited flash-steps and normal human transport.
“Use your shunpou to get him home,” Chad told him. “I’ll follow with your body.”
Ichigo knew damn well that after everything he’d put Chad through that evening, he probably deserved to have his body stripped naked, painted purple and tied spread-eagle to one of the large marble dedication plaques on campus. Keigo and Miziuro would have done it without a second thought. Rukia and Renji would have figured out something even worse. Chad, he knew, wouldn’t even think of doing it. He also knew there was no way he could express his gratitude for that, so he didn’t even try.
“There’s money and a credit card in my wallet,” Ichigo said, getting to his feet and picking up Zangetsu. “The address is in there, too. Use whatever you need to get to the apartment, okay?”
Chad nodded and reached down to pick Ishida up, but that, apparently, was where the Quincy drew the line, even with Chad.
“I can do it, Sado, I’m not an invalid,” Ishida frowned, but Ichigo noticed that he grabbed onto Chad’s arm to lever himself up, then allowed Chad to pull him to his feet.
“C’mon,” Ichigo told him, and knowing there was no other way to go about this, he leaned down, shoved his shoulder against Ishida’s pelvis, grabbed him around the backs of his knees, and slung the Quincy over his shoulder as he straightened up.
“Kurosaki!” Ishida gasped in surprise. He was apparently too injured to kick or thrash around, but he seized the back of Ichigo’s yukata in a hard grip. “What-what do you think you’re doing!” he demanded.
“Just what you asked me to do,” Ichigo told him as he stepped up into the air and flashed back toward the university. “Taking you home.”