Genesis
Ichiruki. Not-Angst. Canon divergent.
Weekly fic prompt for @deathberryprompts - ‘Zeal’.
395 words
____________________________________________________________________
“It doesn’t take much.”
“Doesn’t it?”
“Mm-mm.”
No. He decides it fairly quickly after the question passes. He supposes it’s more like several questions jumbled into one. How do you love me? As if he could say. As if anyone can say. That’s what makes it so beautiful.
It’s the greatness of the silence that gives the thing so much weight. It’s breathing like you couldn’t without the other half of you. It’s the realisation that the laws you seek had always been there in the first place, acting out some intrinsic mechanism.
Love.
“No.” He says finally, aloud, shifting them both. His bed strains under their combined weight. Sinking into the old thing he could do forever. It reminds him of nights best spent chasing Hollows, obscenely rich on oxygen. Pretty girl, pretty night, pretty blood.
“It’s easy, I figure, else it would’ve gone by now.”
“What does that mean?” She laughs at him. Says he’s gone all philosophical, or academic, or something since their last passing in June.
Even if he wants every single moment of his to be shared with hers, there is something that much sweeter about reconciliation after months of drought.
“Dunno.” He says earnestly, feeling her laugh warm his scalp. “God, you’re more lithe than Yoruichi. They got you training hard up there?”
He loves her voice. It makes a good show of his insides - hot and wiry, bubbling with warmth. “I don’t know if it’s upwards.”
“Don’t you?”
“No.” She pauses. Her hands find his shoulders. They play delicately, though he knows she could bite.
“…Suppose it doesn’t matter if you can open gates midair.”
She grins at him, a brand uniquely Rukia. He can see how her eyes glimmer even with his gaze on the pale length of her neck. The strays of her hair settle on his nose. He sneezes not ten seconds later. Gets a knee to his ribs.
“Fuck you!” He grunts.
“Still sting the same?”
“Worse!”
“You’re out of practise, then.”
He supposes he is. With fighting, anyway. There’s certain feelings he can never put down. You don’t just tell the universe your wants and expect it reciprocate. You don’t just tell your feelings to button down and expect to wake up with a clean slate. He wouldn’t have it any other way. He burns for her, and knows she feels the same.