(no subject)
Who: Ichigo and Rukia
What: talking and tickle-fighting! :O
When: the day after this post, I think
Where: the couch downstairs
Why: BECAUSE THEY NEEDED TO TALK AND CUDDLE
Also: ...no also :|
It was to the point now where even showers were tedious and exhausting, and even though Ichigo hadn't done any physical training in a few days now, his body was still achy from all the mental exertion he'd been putting it through. To find Rukia curled up sleeping on the side of the couch made him wonder what she'd been up to, to let herself pass out like this downstairs instead of in his room. Frowning, he draped the towel he'd been using to dry his hair over one shoulder and collapsed on the cushion next to her, reaching out with his elbow to gently nudge her ribs. "Oi, Rukia. Wake up and go upstairs if you're that tired, I'm not carrying you up there like this."
Rukia had been dozing on and off for the past hour or so, ever since she had come back from Soul Society. She had spent the morning doing paperwork and followed it up with training against Sentarou and running errands for the 13th Division. The training had been difficult, her powers faulty at best, and she couldn't help but call to mind what Ichigo's Hollow had been telling her last night. Burdened with the mental stress of the Hollow's words, both about Shirayuki and Ichigo, she had barely been able to make it through her shift at the bakery before coming and collapsing on Ichigo's couch. She had figured that if anyone needed it, they would poke her.
It was unsurprising, then, that it was Ichigo who did so.
"Mm? I'm not tired. I'm fine," she said automatically, jerking out of her doze.
Ichigo snorted softly and smirked. "Yeah right. You were just passed out." He nudged her again, just to watch her react. "What are you doing on the couch, anyway? Shouldn't you be upstairs?"
"I was not. I was just resting my eyes," Rukia replied grumbly, rubbing her eyes and sitting up straight. "No, I'm fine. You're back late."
"I was just showering," he told her, watching. She'd obviously been fast asleep. "I've been back for a while. I still have homework and stuff to do though, but I can do it down here. You should go to bed."
"Oh. When did you come in?" She was vaguely disoriented and positioning herself and what was going on was taking a bit of time. "I said I was fine. I'm not tired."
"A while ago," Ichigo said with a shrug. Not that long ago, really, but she didn't need to know that. "You know, for someone who's as Not Tired as you are, you have an awfully deep couch imprint on your cheek." He pointed at it with a grin.
"Shut up," Rukia growled, rubbing at her cheek self-consciously. "As if you can say anything. You look like you're about to collapse."
Ichigo shifted his weight on the couch. He was pretty tired, but he thought the shower at least would help wake him up. It really hadn't. "I'm fine. I just need to do some assignments for tomorrow and I'll go to bed too." And after he did a little meditating. And maybe talked to his Hollow for a while, assuming the bastard would let him for a change. But then he'd go to bed.
"Do you have a lot?" she asked, yawning and stretching. "You should go to sleep soon. You haven't been sleeping very much lately."
"I'm fine." Ichigo was finding it hard not to watch her, when she was acting so cute and relaxed. It made him want to scowl, but he was too tired right now to exert the effort, and she was so obviously wiped he doubted she'd notice anyway. "I don't have that much anyway, I can probably get it done in like an hour." Or two. "You should go to bed. You can even have my bed until I come up and kick you out." Or tried to.
"Ha, you could try," Rukia said, trying to smirk, but getting interrupted by another yawn. She scowled at herself before turning back to him. "You're so tired, you'd fall on the bed and squish me instead."
Ichigo smirked. "Like that's hard. Though if I just fell on the bed I'd probably miss you, you're so tiny in it."
"Oy! I'm petite," Rukia grumbled indignantly, poking Ichigo's shoulder. "And you would miss. You have terrible aim."
"My aim is fine," Ichigo retorted, poking her back, again in the ribs. "Small targets are just notoriously difficult to hit."
"Maybe you're just slow then," Rukia smirked, poking him in the side now. She knew how ticklish he was from experience.
Ichigo's spine stiffened automatically, and he forced himself to slouch again as he glared at her. "I'm not slow. Stop that." He proceeded to pretend that hadn't tickled.
Rukia grinned at his glare. He was so tense lately. She hadn't seen him without that scowl for at least a few weeks.
"Stop what?" she asked, poking him in the side again, this time with both index fingers.
Ichigo jumped again, this time pulling his legs up on the couch with him so he could curl up and guard himself from her, a wary scowl on his face. "That. Stop that. I'll let Yuzu take your Chappy plushie into the bathtub with her."
Rukia stopped, a look of horror on her face. "You wouldn't. Chappy hasn't done anything to anyone!"
Ichigo stuck his tongue out at her, curling up a little more just in case, hands draped defensively over his stomach. "It's not like it's the bunny I'm giving a warning to."
Rukia sniffed and let her own legs down, dangling a few inches off the ground. "You're no fun. It's like you're an old man in the body of a 17 year old."
"I can be plenty fun," Ichigo told her indignantly, letting his own feet slip from the cushion as well, "just not when small pointy fingers and my ribs are involved."
"Oh please. You haven't smiled in at least two weeks," Rukia said, frowning in turn.
Ichigo scowled. "Shut up, I have so."
"When?" Rukia said, raising an eyebrow.
Ichigo's scowl deepened when he realized he couldn't come up with something right away. "There was that one time," he said defensively. "With. Karin. No wait, with you. When you tried to be a lady." He smirked. So what if it was the only thing he could come up with; Rukia would probably be indignant about it enough not to press.
Rukia scowled in return, coloring a little. "Shut up. I proved myself didn't I?" Then she returned to the subject at hand. "So once for all of two seconds in the past two weeks? If you keep scowling like that, your face is going to stay that way and you'll never get yourself a girl."
Ichigo felt his face heat even as his arm shot out and elbowed her in the side. "Shut up, I can too! Like you would know, Miss Kuchikis Show No Emotion."
"HA. As if your history shows that," Rukia smirked before being elbowed. Then she scowled. "Oy! I have a delicate frame. Be careful with your clumsy elbows. And sure I would know. I had a boyfriend, remember?"
Ichigo scowled at the memory of that too, though he had the mind to turn away when he did it. "Yeah, a former Satanist. Nice going with that one, Rukia."
"He was perfectly nice," Rukia said, annoyed. She had never understood Ichigo and Renji's aversion to Kyouya. "And I'm a death god, so it's not as though I'm ordinary. The point being, Ichigo, that you're stiffer than a board these days."
Ichigo rolled his eyes. "I've just been busy," he grumbled, mind leafing through tonight's agenda again on it's own. "Everyone gets busy sometimes."
"Most people don't juggle school, shinigami duties, and an upset zanpakutou, Ichigo," Rukia said slowly. Now that she thought about what Ichigo had to do--what he really had to do and deal with, she wasn't sure how he'd gotten any rest at all the past few weeks.
Ichigo's scowl deepened and he slouched a little more. "So what. I'm getting along just fine. And my zanpakutou isn't upset, he's--" Untalkative? Unresponsive? Freaking scary when he just stood there staring at you until you rushed him and he yelled at you for not getting whatever point he refused to tell you? Crossing his arms, Ichigo huffed. "He's just difficult."
"Hardly. Not even you can handle all of that. And you shouldn't have to," Rukia said, sighing. She leaned against him a little before asking, "Have you...tried talking to him?"
"Can't." Ichigo shifted his arm a little so she wouldn't be pressed so uncomfortably against it. "I've tried calling just him out, but it never works. Gotta find a way to deal with the Hollow first."
Ah. The Hollow. Rukia remembered the Hollow's words clearly. What he had accused her of and what he had tried to explain to her. If she was going to be honest with herself, he hadn't seemed malicious. In fact, he had seemed as though he was trying to earnestly explain something to her and had gotten frustrated at her lack of retention. It made her...uncomfortable, to say the least. To think that there was something she was missing that the Hollow knew. Or to think that he was right and she was somehow turning her back on Ichigo.
"Have you tried....talking to it? The Hollow I mean," she mumbled after a while.
Ichigo snorted. "Have you? He doesn't want to talk, he just wants to fight so he can take control and crush me like I've been crushing him. And Zangetsu just freaking watches." It was frustrating, to say the least, but he knew there had to be a way around it, either by chaining the Hollow down so the bastard couldn't move anymore or by proving his dominance over him once and for all, so that he wouldn't dare. He just had to figure out how, and the only help he had liked to laugh at his expense and talk in riddles. He wasn't sure what else to do but try.
Rukia thought about what the Hollow had said. The one point he seemed to keep emphasizing was the fact that he, Ichigo, and Zangetsu were one. Staring at the orange-haired, scowling idiot, she couldn't see how that could possibly be. He was nothing like the pure white Hollow, that being whose very core was made up of a thirst for blood and violence and power. But then, she had never encountered anything like this before. In all of her years as a shinigami, she had never had to face something like that either. And here Ichigo was doing it all alone.
"What if he wasn't trying to crush you?" Rukia said slowly. She wasn't sure where she was going with this or why she was even listening to the Hollow, honestly. But she did know that there was more than one way to tame a beast. "What if he was just trying to get you to...see something else?"
"Like?" Ichigo asked, turning to her with a frustrated, confused frown. "He's made it clear if I don't keep control over him he'll take it, and you've seen what happens when he does. He just wants to be the stupid King so I can't stop him from killing anymore. What else would he even want to tell me."
"He could be frustrated," Rukia said, not looking at him. She honestly had no idea what she was explaining, but she was determined to keep plowing on. "He hasn't...killed anyone. And when he's fought and injured....it's because he wants to take control. But maybe he, er, wants to take control because he doesn't think you understand how to...reach your full potential."
Ichigo was staring at her like she was crazy. "You don't get it," he said, not trying to insult her, just stating what he took to be simple fact. "He hasn't killed anyone because I haven't let him, but he wants to; I can feel his bloodlust every time. He fights when he gets out because that's all he wants to do." He stopped and frowned suddenly, looking away from her again. "If letting him out is the only way to reach my full potential, then I don't want it. He'll just kill everything in sight until someone finally managed to kill him."
Rukia rubbed her eyes again, a migraine forming from thinking this over too much. It hadn't made sense last night and it didn't make sense today and she was almost inclined to believe Ichigo's "You're Insane" stare.
"He's still a part of you. And until you come to terms with him, he'll probably continue fighting against you. Wouldn't it be easier to tame him by accepting him and combining your powers? Use his powers of evil for good." Or at least she thought that's how the saying went.
Again, Ichigo snorted. "Yeah, that'd be just what the bastard wants, too," he muttered, recalling all the taunts and jeers the Hollow had thrown at him about that insatiable desire to hurt and kill being his. "Shove aside and let him in sometimes. Well, I'm not going to. I fight to protect, I don't fight to kill, and I'm not letting him convince me otherwise."
"I'm not saying to let him convince you otherwise," Rukia said irritably. "I'm saying that maybe the best way to tame him would be to use your powers together instead of always devoting half of it to restraining him and half of it to fighting. You saw what he was becoming like the more you repressed him. It didn't help."
Ichigo scrubbed his palm over his forehead in frustration. "You're asking me to want to kill people, Rukia. By letting him in, that's all that changes. And I don't want to do that."
"In the end you are the one who is in control, Ichigo," Rukia said, her voice hard. "Even if you two become allies, it does not mean that you will want to kill or allow it. The Vaizards are integrated with their own Hollows, aren't they? And I haven't yet heard of them going on killing sprees. Why would you be any different?"
"I don't know!" Ichigo said, exasperated. "I let him into the front seat with me before. Whenever I put on that mask, that's what it does. But it's draining, holding his power in check like that, and once I can't do it anymore, he's that much closer to the surface again, and it's that much harder to hold him back. It's just a stupid circle. Maybe the Vaizard had a century or something to build up their resistance, but I don't have the time right now to bother with all that. If there's not a shortcut, I'd rather just get rid of him and learn to fight with Zangetsu on my own."
"Then don't," Rukia snapped. Ichigo would probably get angry with her. Shirayuki would probably get angry with her. She would probably get angry with her. But Ichigo was fighting a losing battle and she just wanted him to gain back some control of his life. "Don't hold his powers in check. He's a part of you, Ichigo. He respects Zangetsu. If neither of you are the master or the horse, then the balance of power is more even. But that doesn't mean that you'll want to kill people. You won't because you're you, no matter what lives inside of you."
"That's not me," Ichigo said stubbornly, angrily. "I don't want all that stuff he wants, I just want to get rid of Aizen and fight Hollows like him. You wouldn't say he's me if you had any idea what kinds of things he tries to get me to do. I can't let that thing loose on anyone, no matter how much I hate them, and no matter how much power he's got."
"He's a part of you, just like Zangetsu is, isn't he? Would you suppress Zangetsu?" Rukia asked, just as stubbornly. "If he had a reason to fight, Ichigo--if he could help you fight and fight for a cause, then he wouldn't necessarily have that urge to just kill and maim. If you keep him and his powers locked up, then he has nothing to do but want to kill. That's why he was fighting his way out at night. Because that's the only time he could use his powers. He's restless. So give him something to do that works towards what you want."
Ichigo sat up and leaned his elbows on his knees, hands kneading through his damp hair. "And how am I supposed to do that?" he wanted to know. "All he ever says to me when I go in there is how alike we are, when we're not. Zangetsu likes to fight, yeah. So do I. But he recognizes why I do it; the Hollow just makes fun of me for making up reasons. He won't let me make him a partner like Zangetsu until I acknowledge that I'm just like him, and I won't."
Rukia stared at him, seeing the Hollow's face and then looking at his own. They looked the same. Minus colors here and there. They sounded different, true. And Ichigo had never been bloodthirsty. And the Hollow was most certainly not amicable. But the truth stood that the Hollow was a part of Ichigo. What that meant for Ichigo's desires to kill and wound and maim, she didn't know, but she couldn't deny that maybe the Hollow was right. Maybe Ichigo was holding back something he couldn't deny if he wanted to be whole.
"What is it," she said slowly, sitting up with him and bumping shoulders, "that you don't want to accept. About him? And about you?"
"It's not about me," he said forcefully. "He's just trying to twist me around, screw me up so he can take over again. And I won't let him. That's all this is about."
"Of course it's about you. You're the one who has to deal with this. You're the one restraining him. You're the one he's a part of," Rukia responded hardly. "If what you're trying hasn't worked so far, how can you say that something else might not work better?"
"Because!" Ichigo protested, turning his head to glare at her. "You don't know what it's like, what you're asking me to do. I don't want it. I'm not Kenpachi. I don't just want to fight and kill things. That thing is not who I am, and I'm not letting him be."
"I know I don't. But I also know that you're getting nowhere and all you're doing is worrying and struggling and isolating your zanpakutou," Rukia answered angrily. "You haven't rested for two weeks, Ichigo. At the least. Probably not for months. You've had to deal with your Hollow for ages and nothing you've tried has gotten you anywhere. If Zangetsu can respect him and accept him as a part of you, then why can't you? Just because you have him doesn't mean that you're going to have this sudden desire to kill everyone. You've always had him, but you've never turned that way before. And you're still you."
"How do you know what Zangetsu thinks?" Ichigo demanded suddenly, latching onto the one phrase he wouldn't have to argue again. He paused and blinked, frowning in confusion as he processed that. "How do you know? I don't even know. And you're wrong. He has not always been there, and I can make him go away again."
"You would know if you talked to him," Rukia said, ignoring his other questions. "Did you listen to him at all when you spoke last night or were you a stubborn moron like always and refuse? And you can't make him go away. Not if you want to be whole."
"What is that even supposed to mean?" Ichigo groaned, collapsing against the back of the couch again. "He wasn't there before and I was fine. I don't need him there now."
"It wasn't a hard question," Rukia said, rolling her eyes. "He probably was there before. You just didn't realize it until you were forced to gain your shinigami powers on your own. That's when your other powers emerged too."
"Maybe," Ichigo admitted in a grumble. He'd thought that before, but he didn't like hearing it aloud. "But that doesn't make any sense either. It's not like everyone has a Hollow pop up when they become shinigami. Why did I?"
"I don't know," Rukia admitted. "But not everyone is forced to become a shinigami the way you were forced to. You're living and a death god at the same time. We can't explain anything that happens to you logically, Ichigo, because it's never happened before."
Sighing heavily, Ichigo leaned his head back against the couch and closed his eyes, one hand settled in his lap while the other scrubbed at his eyes. "I don't even know," he gave in tiredly. "So I don't know. I guess I'll try talking to him, if he will. But I don't think he just comes from me. He can't have, some of the things he wants to do..." He sighed again. No one was like that, no one short of a deranged psychopathic serial killer, and he knew he was not--had never been--that.
"You should. You should try talking to him and Zangetsu," Rukia said gently. "Whether you want him to be or not, he's a part of you, Ichigo. Fighting against him is fighting against yourself. And you have more important people to fight against."
Without really thinking, Rukia pulled her legs up on the couch and pushed herself up so that she could reach over Ichigo's shoulder.
"You would never. You're hardly a psychopath, stupid. You're one of the best people I've ever met," she said, giving him a kiss on the cheek.
Ichigo stiffened as his face heated. Suddenly embarrassed, he scowled, only glancing at Rukia briefly before flicking his eyes away again. "I am not," he argued in a mumble. "If I was, we wouldn't even be having this conversation. You are, though." He paused and glanced at her again, hesitating, then lifted his head and kissed her back quickly, though it took longer to make himself pull away than it had to lean in. His blush deepened when he realized it had been nearer her mouth than her cheek, but whatever, it was done, and now he could turn away and scowl again. "Thanks."
"No. If you had a measure of intelligence, we wouldn't be having this conversation," Rukia smirked, but was cut short in her teasing by a certain orange-head nearly missing her cheek and more closely landing a kiss by her mouth.
Blushing furiously, she turned and sat back down properly on the couch, avoiding his gaze.
"No problem. Don't be so stupid next time," she grumbled.
Ichigo scowled and very carefully Didn't Look At Her, until his curiosity got the better of him and he remembered why they were both sitting on the downstairs couch in the first place. "And you?" he asked in a grumble. "Why are you so tired tonight? You look like you've been strained lately too."
Rukia blinked, not having expected the conversation to turn to her. "I--er. Nothing really. Just. Fukutaichou duties. And bakery shift. That's all," she mumbled.
"Yeah, right," Ichigo snorted, nudging her. "Come on, tell me. I just told you."
Rukia scowled. "I just told you. Fukutaichou duties take up a lot more energy than people think they do. And baking is hard work."
"But you never had problems before," Ichigo pointed out. "I mean, I know you haven't been a fukutaichou very long, but still. What's really up?"
Rukia crossed her arms. "You're annoying. You should listen to what you're told."
Ichigo leveled her with a glare. "You're annoying. You should be honest when people ask you honest questions."
"I don't answer questions that I've already answered once before," Rukia said, ignoring his glare.
"Try answering it honestly, then," Ichigo said with a scowl.
"It's nothing, like I said," Rukia mumbled resting her head against the couch. "Training was just hard today."
"How come?" Ichigo asked curiously, turning and leaning his elbow on the back of the couch to watch her, head supported by his hand. "What happened?"
"Shirayuki's been angry with me," Rukia mumbled, staring off blankly at the television set in front of them. "Harder to train when your zanpakutou doesn't want to listen to you."
Ichigo blinked in surprise, a frown deepening on his face. "Why? Did something happen? She's not mad at you very often, is she?" Was it coincidence that their zanpakutou were both testy at the same time, or had something happened when they'd let them touch? He wished he knew how that stuff worked.
"Er." Shirayuki wasn't mad at her often, no, but that wasn't the real problem. The problem was that she still had not found a way to talk with her. And to be open with her. Like she knew was necessary to fully tapping their true potential. That was what was making Shirayuki angry right now. And it wasn't something new. "Nothing happened. She's just distant lately."
"Why?" Ichigo knew she wasn't being completely straight with him, but then, she hardly ever was. At least not right away. "Come on," he pressed, growing frustrated anyway, "stop trying to be so distant all the time. It's not like I'm gonna judge you about it."
"I'm not being distant," Rukia mumbled, shaking her head. Well, that wasn't completely true. The problem was that after so many years of closing everything in, she had yet to figure out how to open herself back up. And that was the main strain put on Shirayuki. The problem wasn't why, it was how and that, perhaps, made her feel the guiltiest of all. "I don't know."
"Don't know what?" Obviously something was going on, or she wouldn't be so hesitant; she'd be glaring at him and stepping on his toes and calling him an idiot for being so concerned about nothing. "What exactly's going on between you?"
Rukia thought for a moment about how to answer that question. There was a lot that she didn't know. What to do to gain Shirayuki's trust. How to understand that Ichigo and the Hollow were one and the same. What to do to reach bankai. What the hell was even going on anymore. In the end, she decided on a surprisingly simple and yet still complicated answer. "I don't know how to speak with her."
That startled Ichigo. He'd always assumed things had been fine between Rukia and her zanpakutou; to learn that she was having the same problem he was and he hadn't even noticed made him feel like he'd been ignoring her problems in favor of his own. He sighed heavily, rolling his eyes at his own stupidity as a scowl appeared on his face. "I'm sorry, I should have at least noticed. What do you mean, you don't know how? Can you not channel her when you fight anymore? Or is it more like with me and Zangetsu?"
Rukia blinked and turned to look at him. "Why would you have noticed? It's not your problem," she said. "More....what it's like with you and Zangetsu. I think."
Ichigo snorted. "Because you're living in my closet, maybe? I should at least know if you're having trouble with something." His mouth twisting into a frown, he studied her for a moment, trying to figure out why they were both having the same stupid problem at the same freaking time. It couldn't be coincidence. "Have you been unable to speak with her since before Zangetsu started ignoring me, or since after?"
"I'm not having trouble. And that doesn't mean anything," Rukia grumbled, waving it away. Truthfully, she hadn't wanted Ichigo to know at all. She was supposed to be the experienced shinigami here. She had attended the Academy. She had had Shirayuki for centuries. Yet here she was, no wiser than a teenaged human boy who had just become a shinigami a year ago. "It's not that I can't speak to her. It's that I don't know how to."
Ichigo let a wry grin spread across his face. "Same here. Maybe we could help each other."
Rukia looked at him out of the corner of her eyes, a faint smile on her face. "What a very successful team we'd make, I'm sure."
Ichigo smirked. "We can do it, we just have to keep trying. Maybe you should meditate with me. I think it's helping."
"How can we try when we don't know how?" Rukia said. That was the question that was holding her back. "Have you ever meditated in an empty field surrounded by sakura blossoms?" That was the one part of the Kuchiki Estates that she would never try to let go.
Ichigo blinked, the question throwing him completely off guard. "A what? You mean like a baseball field?" That was about the biggest field they had around Karakura except in the park, but there were always people and dogs there.
"Just a big empty field. Surrounded by sakura trees," Rukia said, reminiscing. "It's the most wonderful place to sit and just...talk with your zanpakutou." Here her expression darkened. "But if you don't know how to or you just can't, I suppose it doesn't matter, does it?"
Ichigo frowned at the negativity in her voice. "Don't talk like that, you idiot. It's like you've given up before you've even started, and how are you ever gonna do anything if you think like that?"
"Started? I've had her for decades, Ichigo," Rukia looked at him, trying to keep the bitterness out of her voice. "There's nothing to start. I've never been able to. That's why it took me as long as it did to catch up with Renji. And then he surpassed me again."
Ichigo caught her eyes and held them, a serious expression on his face. "If you want to talk to her," he said slowly, deliberately, "then talk to her. She obviously trusts you if she lets you use her, and if she let you let me use her. You should go to your inner soul place and talk to her. Or will she not let you in?"
"That is easier said than done," Rukia replied. "Or are you waiting for an engraved invitation to talk to Zangetsu?"
Ichigo made a face. "That's not the same thing at all. You've obviously still got a connection with her if you can still draw her, right? I don't know crap about zanpakutou, but I know Zangetsu wouldn't let me use him if he didn't at least want me to. Isn't Shirayuki the same?"
"And you've reached bankai. Your connection with Zangetsu has grown even stronger," Rukia said, shaking her head. "How is that not the same, then?"
"Because I wanted it to," Ichigo told her simply, giving her a frown. "Jeez, Rukia, do you think it was easy? Urahara and that cat nearly killed me. I had to stay in his stupid pit thing and try to climb out for three days solid with those damn mouth monsters eating my chain thing. It hurt. Then Zangetsu did this weird sword thing where I had to pick out his from about a million other identical ones, while he was trying to kill me. Have you done any of that with Shirayuki? Have you even tried? I asked him to teach me bankai and he did, and it was hard, but I did it because I needed to. That's all. I know you can do the same."
"A zanpakutou will not allow his user to reach for bankai if he does not trust in his abilities," Rukia replied. "It doesn't matter how you reached it, Ichigo. The point is that you did and you continue to use it. If Zangetsu allows that, there is a strong bond there. You're just too dense to see it."
"You're the dense one here," Ichigo said irritably. "Zangetsu hated me at first. He said I couldn't use him and wouldn't let me, and I told him I wouldn't leave until I could. And every time I go in there he makes me fight the Hollow for control of him before he'll so much as look at me. I have to fight for his respect. You're sitting here talking to me like you think you don't deserve it or whatever. Why should Shirayuki respect your bond thing if you don't?"
"If Zangetsu hated you, he would never have told you his name, moron," Rukia said, looking at him as though he was crazy. "He makes you fight the Hollow because you refuse to find another way to deal with him. Zangetsu's in your world with the Hollow every day, Ichigo. Perhaps he wants you to realize that you can't just have one or the other."
Then she looked away, glaring at the wall, irritated with herself and Ichigo for being so utterly stupid in all things.
"I do respect our bond."
Ichigo wasn't about to argue about the stupid Hollow again. He was more concerned with her problem, even moreso with the implication that she truly believed she couldn't fix it. "You're not acting like yourself," he said slowly, watching her with a frown. "If you don't think your bond is strong enough, then just strengthen it already. I'll help if I can. Sitting here telling me you wish you had bankai isn't going to give it to you. I'll spar with you if you want. Just don't sit here thinking you can't, because that's stupid. You can do whatever you want."
"That's not what I said I wished," Rukia snapped at him, crossing her arms. "Nevermind. It's fine. Everything is just peachy."
"Well you obviously do want it, if it's important enough to mention," Ichigo snapped back, growing frustrated. "Stop pretending you don't and just talk to Shirayuki about it already. There's nothing wrong with wanting to learn more stuff with your zanpakutou, is there?"
"No," Rukia said, irritated at being lectured yet again about talking to Shirayuki. "And shut up. If you don't do it, then I don't have to either."
"I do do it, you idiot," Ichigo said with a scowl, glaring at her again. "What the hell do you think I spend all my time doing? Listening to music? If I'm not doing homework or helping Dad in the clinic I'm training, all the time, every day, because I know I don't know anything about my own freaking zanpakutou and I want to. Don't you want to too?"
"Aren't you the one who's been telling me you can't talk to Zangetsu because he hates you?" Rukia asked grumpily. "Of course I want to learn about her."
She sighed and pulled her knees up on the couch, resting her forehead on them. "What if she won't listen?" she asked quietly, voice muffled.
Ichigo was about to snap that Zangetsu didn't hate him, he'd know if the old man did, but no sooner had he opened his mouth than he snapped it shut again, blinking in surprised confusion at her sudden change in demeanor. Rukia never acted...weak, not like this, not since he'd rescued her from her own execution. She'd always been the one to drill confidence and reason back into his head, not the other way around. He scooted closer so he could bump shoulders in what he hoped to be a reassuring gesture.
"She'll listen," he told her softly. "She's your zanpakutou, you know? She's a part of you. Why would a part of you not listen to you? Everyone listens to you."
It had always been an irrational fear on her part. She knew this. There had never been a logical reason to assume that Shirayuki would not listen to her. That she would somehow laugh or scorn her. Shirayuki was a noble--everything that the Kuchikis were. And perhaps that is what frightened her so much. The thought that her zanpakutou would treat her like the Kuchikis had. That she would look down upon her and scorn her for being who she was and who she had been.
"I don't want to...burden her," Rukia said hesitatingly.
"You're not a burden," Ichigo told her softly, but firmly. "I thought I told you that when I came for you in Soul Society." He shifted a little closer before continuing; she was obviously upset, even if she was trying not to show it, and he didn't want her to be. "If you were a burden, I'd say so. You made me who I am; I have enough respect for you to be that honest, at least. Why would Shirayuki be any different?"
Rukia kept herself tucked into her knees, embarrassed that she had allowed Ichigo to see her like this.
She simply shook her head at Ichigo's question. How could she explain to him that the only thing keeping her from reaching out to Shirayuki--to him--to half the people she knew, was the irrational fear that she was expendable and that no one would be willing to stand by her? It sickened her a little, to see how weak she was. She knew that the Hollow was right. The only one keeping Shirayuki from herself was herself. And that disgusted her most of all.
"Rukia?" Ichigo watched her for a few moments, his concern growing at her silence. "Rukia...it's okay." Why? He had no idea, but he knew that he hated seeing her hurting and vulnerable like this, and for once he didn't have a niggle in the back of his mind trying to disagree. He felt like kind of an ass for not noticing how scared she was before--he couldn't think of any other emotion for her to be right now, with her zanpakutou out of reach in a time of war; he knew instinctively that zanpakutou should never be out of reach like hers was, knew it enough that even the idea of not being able to communicate with Zangetsu frightened him too, and he wanted nothing more than to help her fix it, even if he didn't have the first idea how.
He lifted his hand, then hesitated, then reached out a little, then hesitated again. Finally scowling at himself for his own cowardice--Rukia was his friend, he shouldn't hesitate over touching her any more than he did Chad or Tatsuki or Inoue--he let it slip around her shoulders, tucking her close to his chest. He just hoped she found comfort in it and didn't start hitting him and screaming he was a pervert.
"I don't know why you can't talk to her," he admitted softly, "but it can't be permanent. You've just got to find her again, maybe? Convince her you're worthy? That shouldn't be too hard. You are."
Rukia tried to calm her emotion as Ichigo scooted closer and slipped his arm around her. She leaned into him, comforted and wanting to be comforted and disgusted at needed it all at once.
She reached out and held onto his shirt to balance herself, but kept on holding on even after she had been situated. It was more to keep herself from trembling than for balance. "I know. It's my fault. I'm the one who keeps hurting her."
Ichigo rested his chin on the top of her head. He knew his heart was probably beating fast enough and loud enough for her to hear it, but he wasn't about to pull away. "How are you hurting her?" he asked, throat working against her head.
Rukia was unaware of anything but the guilt she felt inside and how pathetic she felt for making Ichigo sit through this. Yet even so, she held onto him, appreciating his gesture. She was supposed to help him. And here he was helping her. How typical.
"She's lonely. I...can feel it. But I keep distancing myself. It hurts her as much as it hurts me," she said, voice barely above a whisper. She would never admit this to anyone. It was a wonder that she was so willingly telling Ichigo.
"Why are you distancing yourself?" Ichigo asked softly, frowning. The arm around her was stroking hers gently of its own accord, but he didn't stop it once he realized. He was glad she couldn't see the blush he could feel spreading over his cheeks. "She's your zanpakutou. You're not supposed to do that, are you?"
"I don't know," came Rukia's muffled voice. It was hard to explain to herself why she acted and thought as she did, let alone to someone else. "It was always easier that way."
"Is it still easier?" Ichigo wanted to know. He knew he was prone to keeping to himself as well, but not...well, maybe to the point of ignoring others, but not intentionally. And it was usually just because he was distracted with something else at the time. He wondered if Rukia was distracted by something. He wondered if her zanpakutou was what she was distracted with.
Rukia propped her head up, resting her chin on her knees.
"I don't know." In a sense it was. It was still a way to protect herself. A way to make sure she wasn't a burden on the people she cared about, even when she couldn't do anything to help them. But on the other hand, it had seemed to cause so many more complications recently.
She sighed and rubbed her eyes, trying to get rid of the headache that was quite rapidly forming.
"I could talk to her. That's what he told me to do."
"He who?" Ichigo asked, confused. "Have you been talking to someone else about this?"
"Er." Rukia looked away, not sure how he would take the fact that she was listening to his Hollow. "Him. You know. Your. Er. Hollow."
Ichigo stiffened, surprise overtaking him before it was washed away by worry. "You talked to him again?" Of course, he realized, it must have been when he'd tried to talk to Zangetsu the day before. He hadn't paid attention to his physical body at the time. "What did he say? He didn't try to hurt anyone, did he?"
"No," Rukia said, shaking her head. "He was....different this time. Less mocking. He seemed frustrated. As though he wanted to explain something no one else was understanding. He was relatively tame to everyone he spoke with as far as I could see."
Ichigo breathed a sigh of relief, relaxing muscles he hadn't realized he'd tensed. "Good. I mean...I hope that's good." He frowned as he thought about it. The Hollow was never civil unless he was up to something, most often something incredibly unpleasant. He sighed again, his arm subconsciously tightening around Rukia. "But as long as he didn't hurt anyone, I guess it's okay for now."
Rukia unconsciously leaned into Ichigo's arm, saying nothing. If Ichigo could talk to Zangetsu and his Hollow, she could talk to Shirayuki. Well. It wasn't as though she had much of a choice. But she would make sure she wanted to. That might make all the difference.
Rukia was being quiet. Ichigo nudged her with his side in concern. "Are you okay?"
"Eh?" Rukia blinked, nudged out of her thoughts. "I'm fine." She nudged him back. "Are you?"
Ichigo nudged back. "Fine. Will you try speaking with Shirayuki again?"
"Will you try speaking with Zangetsu again?" Rukia poked him in the side.
Ichigo flinched away from it and scowled, working his free arm between them to poke her back. "Only if you talk to Shirayuki," he reasoned.
Rukia was quick and grabbed Ichigo's finger in triumph. "Aha! And the same applies for me. Only if you talk to Zangetsu."
"Hey!" Ichigo shifted the arm around her to poke from that side. "Fine. But you have to talk to Shirayuki," he said stubbornly.
"Oy!" Rukia said, squirming a little. She wasn't particularly ticklish, but Ichigo had found her one weak spot. "Fine. But if you don't, I won't either."
"Oh, I plan to," Ichigo said with a grin, tickling her in the spot that had made her squirm. "So you'd better too."
"Stop that!" Rukia gasped, squirming away from him.
Smirking, Ichigo kept her close to him with the arm wrapped around her shoulder and moved his other hand to attack her other side as well, ignoring the hand she'd tried using to stop him. "Make me," he said with a grin.
"I-I will kick your ass, s-so help me," Rukia tried to glare. In all actuality, it was really more of a grimace as she squirmed more and tried to keep from giggling.
That made Ichigo laugh. "You're ticklish~!" he said accusingly, taking full advantage of the fact. "Can't kick anything if you can't even move."
"I-I am not. Shut up," Rukia gasped, trying to cover her ticklish side. "You're the ticklish one!" She used her free handle to poke his side multiple times.
Ichigo jerked away from her hand, but refused to relinquish his merciless assault. "Not as ticklish as you~" he teased, laughing. "You're gonna have to try harder than that, Rukia!"
"I am not nearly as ticklish as you are!" Rukia managed to say right before collapsing into a fit of giggles. Damn gigai.
Ichigo laughed at her, his hands slowing to let her breathe again, but never stopping. "You're obviously even more ticklish, stupid, if you're acting like this!"
She managed to catch her breath eventually and crossed her arms across her chest while leaning away from Ichigo's hands. "You're ticklish all over!"
Ichigo only followed when she leaned, a smug grin on his face. "So are you, it looks like," he said threateningly, hands trailing down to try tickling her on the bottom of her ribs instead.
"H-HEY. S-STOP THAT!!" Rukia barely had time to blush as she felt Ichigo's hands trailing down her side before the tickling became too much. Laughing, she lost her balance, almost toppling forward off the couch.
Ichigo caught her and tugged her back up, laughing. He stopped tickling her, but left his hands there as a warning just in case. "That was for the festival," he told her smugly, wriggling his fingers slightly to make sure she knew he didn't have to be finished. "Are we even?"
Rukia eyed his hand suspiciously and scooted away from it, which led her right into Ichigo's side. She was surrounded. By Ichigo.
Blushing, she crossed her arms, grumbling. "Until the next time you're not looking. And then you're going down."
"Ha!" Ichigo smirked and let her go, though he didn't move away from her. "Yeah right. I can't go any lower than you are, you're so short."
"I am petite!" Rukia said, glaring at him furiously. She let her legs dangle down again and sat close to him, grumbling. Though she wouldn't admit it, he smelled quite nice. She had gotten used to his smell, sleeping in his bed, but having just come out of the shower, he smelled even nicer today. The thought made her scowl and blush a little.
Ichigo snorted, but didn't comment again on her height--though he didn't let her know he agreed with her, either. Instead he bumped her shoulder. "Do you feel better now, at least?"
Rukia said nothing for a minute. Then she smiled slightly. "Yes. I know what I have to do." Then she bumped his shoulder in return. "And you? Are you going to start smiling again?"
"What are you talking about? I always smile," Ichigo replied with a smirk. "You're the one who needs to lighten up. This isn't the Kuchiki house or whatever; you don't need to act so stoic and formal all the time."
"I do not act stoic and formal," Rukia protested. "You're the one who's always scowling. One of these days your face is going to get stuck that way. And then I'll laugh at you."
"Yeah right," Ichigo snorted, though he definitely wasn't scowling right now. "I'll be too busy laughing at you to scowl at all."
"How can you laugh when your face is stuck in a scowl?" Rukia smirked, then poked his forehead. "Way to not make any sense, stupid."
"It's not stuck," Ichigo retorted. He reached out to poke her forehead in retaliation. "Don't poke me."
"Ha! When was the last time your face didn't look angry?" Rukia said, poking his cheek this time.
"Right now." Ichigo made a face at her and poked her opposite cheek. "I said no poking."
"I'll laugh when your face gets stuck that way then." Rukia grinned mischievously and poked his nose. "But it's fun. And you're soft."
"I am not soft," Ichigo protested. He poked her nose back, then her forehead again, sticking out his tongue at her. "You are."
Rukia wrinkled her nose. "I am not. Ladies are not soft." Then, grinning, she reached up and ruffled his hair. "Little strawberries are, though."
Ichigo knocked her hands away, sputtering. "Hey! I am not a strawberry. And girls are soft. You especially." He caught both of her wrists in one of his and ruffled her hair in turn, scowl sliding into a smug grin.
"That's exactly what you are," Rukia smirked, but a second later Ichigo had caught hold of both of her wrists. "Oy! OY! STOP THAT!!"
She trying to pull her wrists away, but Ichigo was too strong. Which made her scowl even more. She shook her head furiously, letting her hair snap him in the face.
Ichigo let her go as he squeezed his eyes shut against the onslaught, leaning away from her. "Ow! Hey, watch it! That is completely unfair. FOUL."
"Ha! HA! All's fair in love and war, Ichigo," Rukia said, grinning in triumph. She wasn't sure what the saying meant, really, but it seemed appropriate enough.
Ichigo scowled, blushing when he comment affected him far more than it probably should. "Psh," he muttered, "you probably don't even know what that means."
"So? I don't have to know the meaning to know I've won." Kuchiki Rukia. Was utterly oblivious.
"Idiot! You shouldn't say things like that if you don't know what they mean. You could make yourself look stupid." It was hard for Ichigo to make his blush go away when they were still talking about it. Stupid Rukia and her stupid obliviousness.
"Why? What does it mean?" Ichigo's scowl and blush had made her curious. She poked him. "Tell me."
"Stop poking," Ichigo stalled, trying to flinch away from her finger. "It means exactly what it says it means. Everything's fair in love and in war."
"What's so bad about that?" Rukia asked, looking confused.
Ichigo scowled at her, his blush deepening. "Nothing's wrong with it," he tried explaining. "it's just...It means everything's fair game when you're in love and when you're fighting in a war." He was aware of the way his face was radiating heat now, but he decided to Pointedly Ignore It. "That's all."
Something about the way Ichigo worded the explanation along with his distinctly pink cheeks made something click in Rukia's head.
Her mouth formed a small "Oh" as her face caught up to her brain and flushed red.
"I-- Well-- I didn't mean-- I mean we're not-- Not love-- I mean--" she spluttered.
"Well obviously," Ichigo agreed. It felt like his face was on fire. "I mean, we're definitely not--Yeah. We're just--So yeah. Don't say stuff like that. When. You don't know what it means."
"Shut up. I can say whatever I want," she said, hitting him on the head. "W-why are you blushing. Stupid. It's not like-- I mean. We agreed-- Just because-- It-- Closet-- Sleeping together-- It doesn't mean that. Stop acting weird."
Ichigo wanted to hide behind something. Since he didn't hide, and since this was Rukia he was dealing with, though, he elbowed her instead, scowling at the way his blush was refusing to disappear. "Idiot. Don't say stuff like that. The bed thing is just--It's more comfortable there, and just--The comfort, and--People shouldn't sleep in closets anyway," he finished quickly.
"I-I'm not saying anything. You're the one acting all weird." Rukia glowered and elbowed him back. "I-- Of course it shouldn't. And sometimes it's-- Just cold-- And you're warm-- I-- That's all. Nobody should sleep in a closet."
"Right," Ichigo agreed, nodding. He elbowed her back just because he didn't like her getting the last physical word in. "And you're small anyway, so it's not like it really matters. So. Yeah. Closets aren't for sleeping."
"Exactly. Glad we have that settled," Rukia nodded matter-of-factly. Then, stretching slightly, she hopped off the couch. She reached out a hand to him. "Come on. You're going to fall asleep any second. And I don't feel like carrying you back all the way upstairs." Smirk.
Ichigo snorted and took it, though he had to push himself up more than pull, since he didn't want to tug her over. "You'd probably collapse trying," he teased, releasing her hand to stretch as well. "You go up. I still have homework."
"Oh shut up." Rukia stared at him. There were stress lines on his face and he was still tense, although perhaps a bit more relaxed than he had been before. Shaking her head, she positioned herself behind him and began pushing with both of her hands. "No. You're coming to sleep. If you collapse from overexhaustion, I'll have to take you to see Urahara and that's something I always want to avoid."
Ichigo set his feet against the floor and resisted, protesting her actions loudly. "Oi, knock it off! I can sleep later, I just have some things to do first." He was tired, and the thought of just collapsing in bed was enticing, but he had stuff to do...
Rukia pushed with all of her strength, which was surprisingly a lot for a small shinigami like herself. But then again, she had grown up in Rukongai.
"You can do that stuff tomorrow when you're not dying of sleep deprivation."
Ichigo huffed in indignation when his toe hit the first step and he was forced to climb them or stub it. "But it's due tomorrow! Rukia come on, this is dumb. I'm fine."
"So skip school. Your dad's a doctor, moron. Get a note from him or something." She continued pushing him up the stairs and right up to his bedroom door.
Ichigo scowled as he stumbled across his dark room. His bed looked inviting without any light on it though, and he could feel his own resistance weakening. "Dammit, Rukia..."
"Never fight against a lady, Kurosaki," Rukia teased, dogging his footsteps until he was right in front of the bed.
Ichigo crossed his arms and huffed, stopping her there. "I can get in it on my own, thank you very much."
"Are you sure? Or do you need me to dress you as well?" Rukia said, smirking.
"I'm dressed," Ichigo scoffed. He leaned over to pull the blankets off, then climbed into them, holding the side open for Rukia as well. "Do you need help?"
"Hardly," Rukia scoffed, rolling her eyes and climbing in after him.
Ichigo waited until she was all the way under them before letting go again, sliding down into them himself and shifting until he was comfortable. "Could've fooled me," he mumbled, yawning.
"I don't even know what that's supposed to mean," she grumbled, scooting in closer to him.
"It means...shut up," Ichigo retorted. He was too tired to keep up with the conversation, and he sighed as he scooted closer and let his eyes droop shut. "You're so annoying," he gumbled sleepily.
His warmth and sleepiness cast a similar spell over her.
"And you said-- you weren't tired," she mumbled back yawning. She scooted until she was right against him, her head tucked under his chin. Just the way she liked it.
"'M not," Ichigo mumbled, lifting his head a little for her automatically. It was more comfortable for him to drape an arm over her waist than hold it back over his own, so he did, sighing as her nearness and scent tugged sleepily at his consciousness. "'Night."
What: talking and tickle-fighting! :O
When: the day after this post, I think
Where: the couch downstairs
Why: BECAUSE THEY NEEDED TO TALK AND CUDDLE
Also: ...no also :|
It was to the point now where even showers were tedious and exhausting, and even though Ichigo hadn't done any physical training in a few days now, his body was still achy from all the mental exertion he'd been putting it through. To find Rukia curled up sleeping on the side of the couch made him wonder what she'd been up to, to let herself pass out like this downstairs instead of in his room. Frowning, he draped the towel he'd been using to dry his hair over one shoulder and collapsed on the cushion next to her, reaching out with his elbow to gently nudge her ribs. "Oi, Rukia. Wake up and go upstairs if you're that tired, I'm not carrying you up there like this."
Rukia had been dozing on and off for the past hour or so, ever since she had come back from Soul Society. She had spent the morning doing paperwork and followed it up with training against Sentarou and running errands for the 13th Division. The training had been difficult, her powers faulty at best, and she couldn't help but call to mind what Ichigo's Hollow had been telling her last night. Burdened with the mental stress of the Hollow's words, both about Shirayuki and Ichigo, she had barely been able to make it through her shift at the bakery before coming and collapsing on Ichigo's couch. She had figured that if anyone needed it, they would poke her.
It was unsurprising, then, that it was Ichigo who did so.
"Mm? I'm not tired. I'm fine," she said automatically, jerking out of her doze.
Ichigo snorted softly and smirked. "Yeah right. You were just passed out." He nudged her again, just to watch her react. "What are you doing on the couch, anyway? Shouldn't you be upstairs?"
"I was not. I was just resting my eyes," Rukia replied grumbly, rubbing her eyes and sitting up straight. "No, I'm fine. You're back late."
"I was just showering," he told her, watching. She'd obviously been fast asleep. "I've been back for a while. I still have homework and stuff to do though, but I can do it down here. You should go to bed."
"Oh. When did you come in?" She was vaguely disoriented and positioning herself and what was going on was taking a bit of time. "I said I was fine. I'm not tired."
"A while ago," Ichigo said with a shrug. Not that long ago, really, but she didn't need to know that. "You know, for someone who's as Not Tired as you are, you have an awfully deep couch imprint on your cheek." He pointed at it with a grin.
"Shut up," Rukia growled, rubbing at her cheek self-consciously. "As if you can say anything. You look like you're about to collapse."
Ichigo shifted his weight on the couch. He was pretty tired, but he thought the shower at least would help wake him up. It really hadn't. "I'm fine. I just need to do some assignments for tomorrow and I'll go to bed too." And after he did a little meditating. And maybe talked to his Hollow for a while, assuming the bastard would let him for a change. But then he'd go to bed.
"Do you have a lot?" she asked, yawning and stretching. "You should go to sleep soon. You haven't been sleeping very much lately."
"I'm fine." Ichigo was finding it hard not to watch her, when she was acting so cute and relaxed. It made him want to scowl, but he was too tired right now to exert the effort, and she was so obviously wiped he doubted she'd notice anyway. "I don't have that much anyway, I can probably get it done in like an hour." Or two. "You should go to bed. You can even have my bed until I come up and kick you out." Or tried to.
"Ha, you could try," Rukia said, trying to smirk, but getting interrupted by another yawn. She scowled at herself before turning back to him. "You're so tired, you'd fall on the bed and squish me instead."
Ichigo smirked. "Like that's hard. Though if I just fell on the bed I'd probably miss you, you're so tiny in it."
"Oy! I'm petite," Rukia grumbled indignantly, poking Ichigo's shoulder. "And you would miss. You have terrible aim."
"My aim is fine," Ichigo retorted, poking her back, again in the ribs. "Small targets are just notoriously difficult to hit."
"Maybe you're just slow then," Rukia smirked, poking him in the side now. She knew how ticklish he was from experience.
Ichigo's spine stiffened automatically, and he forced himself to slouch again as he glared at her. "I'm not slow. Stop that." He proceeded to pretend that hadn't tickled.
Rukia grinned at his glare. He was so tense lately. She hadn't seen him without that scowl for at least a few weeks.
"Stop what?" she asked, poking him in the side again, this time with both index fingers.
Ichigo jumped again, this time pulling his legs up on the couch with him so he could curl up and guard himself from her, a wary scowl on his face. "That. Stop that. I'll let Yuzu take your Chappy plushie into the bathtub with her."
Rukia stopped, a look of horror on her face. "You wouldn't. Chappy hasn't done anything to anyone!"
Ichigo stuck his tongue out at her, curling up a little more just in case, hands draped defensively over his stomach. "It's not like it's the bunny I'm giving a warning to."
Rukia sniffed and let her own legs down, dangling a few inches off the ground. "You're no fun. It's like you're an old man in the body of a 17 year old."
"I can be plenty fun," Ichigo told her indignantly, letting his own feet slip from the cushion as well, "just not when small pointy fingers and my ribs are involved."
"Oh please. You haven't smiled in at least two weeks," Rukia said, frowning in turn.
Ichigo scowled. "Shut up, I have so."
"When?" Rukia said, raising an eyebrow.
Ichigo's scowl deepened when he realized he couldn't come up with something right away. "There was that one time," he said defensively. "With. Karin. No wait, with you. When you tried to be a lady." He smirked. So what if it was the only thing he could come up with; Rukia would probably be indignant about it enough not to press.
Rukia scowled in return, coloring a little. "Shut up. I proved myself didn't I?" Then she returned to the subject at hand. "So once for all of two seconds in the past two weeks? If you keep scowling like that, your face is going to stay that way and you'll never get yourself a girl."
Ichigo felt his face heat even as his arm shot out and elbowed her in the side. "Shut up, I can too! Like you would know, Miss Kuchikis Show No Emotion."
"HA. As if your history shows that," Rukia smirked before being elbowed. Then she scowled. "Oy! I have a delicate frame. Be careful with your clumsy elbows. And sure I would know. I had a boyfriend, remember?"
Ichigo scowled at the memory of that too, though he had the mind to turn away when he did it. "Yeah, a former Satanist. Nice going with that one, Rukia."
"He was perfectly nice," Rukia said, annoyed. She had never understood Ichigo and Renji's aversion to Kyouya. "And I'm a death god, so it's not as though I'm ordinary. The point being, Ichigo, that you're stiffer than a board these days."
Ichigo rolled his eyes. "I've just been busy," he grumbled, mind leafing through tonight's agenda again on it's own. "Everyone gets busy sometimes."
"Most people don't juggle school, shinigami duties, and an upset zanpakutou, Ichigo," Rukia said slowly. Now that she thought about what Ichigo had to do--what he really had to do and deal with, she wasn't sure how he'd gotten any rest at all the past few weeks.
Ichigo's scowl deepened and he slouched a little more. "So what. I'm getting along just fine. And my zanpakutou isn't upset, he's--" Untalkative? Unresponsive? Freaking scary when he just stood there staring at you until you rushed him and he yelled at you for not getting whatever point he refused to tell you? Crossing his arms, Ichigo huffed. "He's just difficult."
"Hardly. Not even you can handle all of that. And you shouldn't have to," Rukia said, sighing. She leaned against him a little before asking, "Have you...tried talking to him?"
"Can't." Ichigo shifted his arm a little so she wouldn't be pressed so uncomfortably against it. "I've tried calling just him out, but it never works. Gotta find a way to deal with the Hollow first."
Ah. The Hollow. Rukia remembered the Hollow's words clearly. What he had accused her of and what he had tried to explain to her. If she was going to be honest with herself, he hadn't seemed malicious. In fact, he had seemed as though he was trying to earnestly explain something to her and had gotten frustrated at her lack of retention. It made her...uncomfortable, to say the least. To think that there was something she was missing that the Hollow knew. Or to think that he was right and she was somehow turning her back on Ichigo.
"Have you tried....talking to it? The Hollow I mean," she mumbled after a while.
Ichigo snorted. "Have you? He doesn't want to talk, he just wants to fight so he can take control and crush me like I've been crushing him. And Zangetsu just freaking watches." It was frustrating, to say the least, but he knew there had to be a way around it, either by chaining the Hollow down so the bastard couldn't move anymore or by proving his dominance over him once and for all, so that he wouldn't dare. He just had to figure out how, and the only help he had liked to laugh at his expense and talk in riddles. He wasn't sure what else to do but try.
Rukia thought about what the Hollow had said. The one point he seemed to keep emphasizing was the fact that he, Ichigo, and Zangetsu were one. Staring at the orange-haired, scowling idiot, she couldn't see how that could possibly be. He was nothing like the pure white Hollow, that being whose very core was made up of a thirst for blood and violence and power. But then, she had never encountered anything like this before. In all of her years as a shinigami, she had never had to face something like that either. And here Ichigo was doing it all alone.
"What if he wasn't trying to crush you?" Rukia said slowly. She wasn't sure where she was going with this or why she was even listening to the Hollow, honestly. But she did know that there was more than one way to tame a beast. "What if he was just trying to get you to...see something else?"
"Like?" Ichigo asked, turning to her with a frustrated, confused frown. "He's made it clear if I don't keep control over him he'll take it, and you've seen what happens when he does. He just wants to be the stupid King so I can't stop him from killing anymore. What else would he even want to tell me."
"He could be frustrated," Rukia said, not looking at him. She honestly had no idea what she was explaining, but she was determined to keep plowing on. "He hasn't...killed anyone. And when he's fought and injured....it's because he wants to take control. But maybe he, er, wants to take control because he doesn't think you understand how to...reach your full potential."
Ichigo was staring at her like she was crazy. "You don't get it," he said, not trying to insult her, just stating what he took to be simple fact. "He hasn't killed anyone because I haven't let him, but he wants to; I can feel his bloodlust every time. He fights when he gets out because that's all he wants to do." He stopped and frowned suddenly, looking away from her again. "If letting him out is the only way to reach my full potential, then I don't want it. He'll just kill everything in sight until someone finally managed to kill him."
Rukia rubbed her eyes again, a migraine forming from thinking this over too much. It hadn't made sense last night and it didn't make sense today and she was almost inclined to believe Ichigo's "You're Insane" stare.
"He's still a part of you. And until you come to terms with him, he'll probably continue fighting against you. Wouldn't it be easier to tame him by accepting him and combining your powers? Use his powers of evil for good." Or at least she thought that's how the saying went.
Again, Ichigo snorted. "Yeah, that'd be just what the bastard wants, too," he muttered, recalling all the taunts and jeers the Hollow had thrown at him about that insatiable desire to hurt and kill being his. "Shove aside and let him in sometimes. Well, I'm not going to. I fight to protect, I don't fight to kill, and I'm not letting him convince me otherwise."
"I'm not saying to let him convince you otherwise," Rukia said irritably. "I'm saying that maybe the best way to tame him would be to use your powers together instead of always devoting half of it to restraining him and half of it to fighting. You saw what he was becoming like the more you repressed him. It didn't help."
Ichigo scrubbed his palm over his forehead in frustration. "You're asking me to want to kill people, Rukia. By letting him in, that's all that changes. And I don't want to do that."
"In the end you are the one who is in control, Ichigo," Rukia said, her voice hard. "Even if you two become allies, it does not mean that you will want to kill or allow it. The Vaizards are integrated with their own Hollows, aren't they? And I haven't yet heard of them going on killing sprees. Why would you be any different?"
"I don't know!" Ichigo said, exasperated. "I let him into the front seat with me before. Whenever I put on that mask, that's what it does. But it's draining, holding his power in check like that, and once I can't do it anymore, he's that much closer to the surface again, and it's that much harder to hold him back. It's just a stupid circle. Maybe the Vaizard had a century or something to build up their resistance, but I don't have the time right now to bother with all that. If there's not a shortcut, I'd rather just get rid of him and learn to fight with Zangetsu on my own."
"Then don't," Rukia snapped. Ichigo would probably get angry with her. Shirayuki would probably get angry with her. She would probably get angry with her. But Ichigo was fighting a losing battle and she just wanted him to gain back some control of his life. "Don't hold his powers in check. He's a part of you, Ichigo. He respects Zangetsu. If neither of you are the master or the horse, then the balance of power is more even. But that doesn't mean that you'll want to kill people. You won't because you're you, no matter what lives inside of you."
"That's not me," Ichigo said stubbornly, angrily. "I don't want all that stuff he wants, I just want to get rid of Aizen and fight Hollows like him. You wouldn't say he's me if you had any idea what kinds of things he tries to get me to do. I can't let that thing loose on anyone, no matter how much I hate them, and no matter how much power he's got."
"He's a part of you, just like Zangetsu is, isn't he? Would you suppress Zangetsu?" Rukia asked, just as stubbornly. "If he had a reason to fight, Ichigo--if he could help you fight and fight for a cause, then he wouldn't necessarily have that urge to just kill and maim. If you keep him and his powers locked up, then he has nothing to do but want to kill. That's why he was fighting his way out at night. Because that's the only time he could use his powers. He's restless. So give him something to do that works towards what you want."
Ichigo sat up and leaned his elbows on his knees, hands kneading through his damp hair. "And how am I supposed to do that?" he wanted to know. "All he ever says to me when I go in there is how alike we are, when we're not. Zangetsu likes to fight, yeah. So do I. But he recognizes why I do it; the Hollow just makes fun of me for making up reasons. He won't let me make him a partner like Zangetsu until I acknowledge that I'm just like him, and I won't."
Rukia stared at him, seeing the Hollow's face and then looking at his own. They looked the same. Minus colors here and there. They sounded different, true. And Ichigo had never been bloodthirsty. And the Hollow was most certainly not amicable. But the truth stood that the Hollow was a part of Ichigo. What that meant for Ichigo's desires to kill and wound and maim, she didn't know, but she couldn't deny that maybe the Hollow was right. Maybe Ichigo was holding back something he couldn't deny if he wanted to be whole.
"What is it," she said slowly, sitting up with him and bumping shoulders, "that you don't want to accept. About him? And about you?"
"It's not about me," he said forcefully. "He's just trying to twist me around, screw me up so he can take over again. And I won't let him. That's all this is about."
"Of course it's about you. You're the one who has to deal with this. You're the one restraining him. You're the one he's a part of," Rukia responded hardly. "If what you're trying hasn't worked so far, how can you say that something else might not work better?"
"Because!" Ichigo protested, turning his head to glare at her. "You don't know what it's like, what you're asking me to do. I don't want it. I'm not Kenpachi. I don't just want to fight and kill things. That thing is not who I am, and I'm not letting him be."
"I know I don't. But I also know that you're getting nowhere and all you're doing is worrying and struggling and isolating your zanpakutou," Rukia answered angrily. "You haven't rested for two weeks, Ichigo. At the least. Probably not for months. You've had to deal with your Hollow for ages and nothing you've tried has gotten you anywhere. If Zangetsu can respect him and accept him as a part of you, then why can't you? Just because you have him doesn't mean that you're going to have this sudden desire to kill everyone. You've always had him, but you've never turned that way before. And you're still you."
"How do you know what Zangetsu thinks?" Ichigo demanded suddenly, latching onto the one phrase he wouldn't have to argue again. He paused and blinked, frowning in confusion as he processed that. "How do you know? I don't even know. And you're wrong. He has not always been there, and I can make him go away again."
"You would know if you talked to him," Rukia said, ignoring his other questions. "Did you listen to him at all when you spoke last night or were you a stubborn moron like always and refuse? And you can't make him go away. Not if you want to be whole."
"What is that even supposed to mean?" Ichigo groaned, collapsing against the back of the couch again. "He wasn't there before and I was fine. I don't need him there now."
"It wasn't a hard question," Rukia said, rolling her eyes. "He probably was there before. You just didn't realize it until you were forced to gain your shinigami powers on your own. That's when your other powers emerged too."
"Maybe," Ichigo admitted in a grumble. He'd thought that before, but he didn't like hearing it aloud. "But that doesn't make any sense either. It's not like everyone has a Hollow pop up when they become shinigami. Why did I?"
"I don't know," Rukia admitted. "But not everyone is forced to become a shinigami the way you were forced to. You're living and a death god at the same time. We can't explain anything that happens to you logically, Ichigo, because it's never happened before."
Sighing heavily, Ichigo leaned his head back against the couch and closed his eyes, one hand settled in his lap while the other scrubbed at his eyes. "I don't even know," he gave in tiredly. "So I don't know. I guess I'll try talking to him, if he will. But I don't think he just comes from me. He can't have, some of the things he wants to do..." He sighed again. No one was like that, no one short of a deranged psychopathic serial killer, and he knew he was not--had never been--that.
"You should. You should try talking to him and Zangetsu," Rukia said gently. "Whether you want him to be or not, he's a part of you, Ichigo. Fighting against him is fighting against yourself. And you have more important people to fight against."
Without really thinking, Rukia pulled her legs up on the couch and pushed herself up so that she could reach over Ichigo's shoulder.
"You would never. You're hardly a psychopath, stupid. You're one of the best people I've ever met," she said, giving him a kiss on the cheek.
Ichigo stiffened as his face heated. Suddenly embarrassed, he scowled, only glancing at Rukia briefly before flicking his eyes away again. "I am not," he argued in a mumble. "If I was, we wouldn't even be having this conversation. You are, though." He paused and glanced at her again, hesitating, then lifted his head and kissed her back quickly, though it took longer to make himself pull away than it had to lean in. His blush deepened when he realized it had been nearer her mouth than her cheek, but whatever, it was done, and now he could turn away and scowl again. "Thanks."
"No. If you had a measure of intelligence, we wouldn't be having this conversation," Rukia smirked, but was cut short in her teasing by a certain orange-head nearly missing her cheek and more closely landing a kiss by her mouth.
Blushing furiously, she turned and sat back down properly on the couch, avoiding his gaze.
"No problem. Don't be so stupid next time," she grumbled.
Ichigo scowled and very carefully Didn't Look At Her, until his curiosity got the better of him and he remembered why they were both sitting on the downstairs couch in the first place. "And you?" he asked in a grumble. "Why are you so tired tonight? You look like you've been strained lately too."
Rukia blinked, not having expected the conversation to turn to her. "I--er. Nothing really. Just. Fukutaichou duties. And bakery shift. That's all," she mumbled.
"Yeah, right," Ichigo snorted, nudging her. "Come on, tell me. I just told you."
Rukia scowled. "I just told you. Fukutaichou duties take up a lot more energy than people think they do. And baking is hard work."
"But you never had problems before," Ichigo pointed out. "I mean, I know you haven't been a fukutaichou very long, but still. What's really up?"
Rukia crossed her arms. "You're annoying. You should listen to what you're told."
Ichigo leveled her with a glare. "You're annoying. You should be honest when people ask you honest questions."
"I don't answer questions that I've already answered once before," Rukia said, ignoring his glare.
"Try answering it honestly, then," Ichigo said with a scowl.
"It's nothing, like I said," Rukia mumbled resting her head against the couch. "Training was just hard today."
"How come?" Ichigo asked curiously, turning and leaning his elbow on the back of the couch to watch her, head supported by his hand. "What happened?"
"Shirayuki's been angry with me," Rukia mumbled, staring off blankly at the television set in front of them. "Harder to train when your zanpakutou doesn't want to listen to you."
Ichigo blinked in surprise, a frown deepening on his face. "Why? Did something happen? She's not mad at you very often, is she?" Was it coincidence that their zanpakutou were both testy at the same time, or had something happened when they'd let them touch? He wished he knew how that stuff worked.
"Er." Shirayuki wasn't mad at her often, no, but that wasn't the real problem. The problem was that she still had not found a way to talk with her. And to be open with her. Like she knew was necessary to fully tapping their true potential. That was what was making Shirayuki angry right now. And it wasn't something new. "Nothing happened. She's just distant lately."
"Why?" Ichigo knew she wasn't being completely straight with him, but then, she hardly ever was. At least not right away. "Come on," he pressed, growing frustrated anyway, "stop trying to be so distant all the time. It's not like I'm gonna judge you about it."
"I'm not being distant," Rukia mumbled, shaking her head. Well, that wasn't completely true. The problem was that after so many years of closing everything in, she had yet to figure out how to open herself back up. And that was the main strain put on Shirayuki. The problem wasn't why, it was how and that, perhaps, made her feel the guiltiest of all. "I don't know."
"Don't know what?" Obviously something was going on, or she wouldn't be so hesitant; she'd be glaring at him and stepping on his toes and calling him an idiot for being so concerned about nothing. "What exactly's going on between you?"
Rukia thought for a moment about how to answer that question. There was a lot that she didn't know. What to do to gain Shirayuki's trust. How to understand that Ichigo and the Hollow were one and the same. What to do to reach bankai. What the hell was even going on anymore. In the end, she decided on a surprisingly simple and yet still complicated answer. "I don't know how to speak with her."
That startled Ichigo. He'd always assumed things had been fine between Rukia and her zanpakutou; to learn that she was having the same problem he was and he hadn't even noticed made him feel like he'd been ignoring her problems in favor of his own. He sighed heavily, rolling his eyes at his own stupidity as a scowl appeared on his face. "I'm sorry, I should have at least noticed. What do you mean, you don't know how? Can you not channel her when you fight anymore? Or is it more like with me and Zangetsu?"
Rukia blinked and turned to look at him. "Why would you have noticed? It's not your problem," she said. "More....what it's like with you and Zangetsu. I think."
Ichigo snorted. "Because you're living in my closet, maybe? I should at least know if you're having trouble with something." His mouth twisting into a frown, he studied her for a moment, trying to figure out why they were both having the same stupid problem at the same freaking time. It couldn't be coincidence. "Have you been unable to speak with her since before Zangetsu started ignoring me, or since after?"
"I'm not having trouble. And that doesn't mean anything," Rukia grumbled, waving it away. Truthfully, she hadn't wanted Ichigo to know at all. She was supposed to be the experienced shinigami here. She had attended the Academy. She had had Shirayuki for centuries. Yet here she was, no wiser than a teenaged human boy who had just become a shinigami a year ago. "It's not that I can't speak to her. It's that I don't know how to."
Ichigo let a wry grin spread across his face. "Same here. Maybe we could help each other."
Rukia looked at him out of the corner of her eyes, a faint smile on her face. "What a very successful team we'd make, I'm sure."
Ichigo smirked. "We can do it, we just have to keep trying. Maybe you should meditate with me. I think it's helping."
"How can we try when we don't know how?" Rukia said. That was the question that was holding her back. "Have you ever meditated in an empty field surrounded by sakura blossoms?" That was the one part of the Kuchiki Estates that she would never try to let go.
Ichigo blinked, the question throwing him completely off guard. "A what? You mean like a baseball field?" That was about the biggest field they had around Karakura except in the park, but there were always people and dogs there.
"Just a big empty field. Surrounded by sakura trees," Rukia said, reminiscing. "It's the most wonderful place to sit and just...talk with your zanpakutou." Here her expression darkened. "But if you don't know how to or you just can't, I suppose it doesn't matter, does it?"
Ichigo frowned at the negativity in her voice. "Don't talk like that, you idiot. It's like you've given up before you've even started, and how are you ever gonna do anything if you think like that?"
"Started? I've had her for decades, Ichigo," Rukia looked at him, trying to keep the bitterness out of her voice. "There's nothing to start. I've never been able to. That's why it took me as long as it did to catch up with Renji. And then he surpassed me again."
Ichigo caught her eyes and held them, a serious expression on his face. "If you want to talk to her," he said slowly, deliberately, "then talk to her. She obviously trusts you if she lets you use her, and if she let you let me use her. You should go to your inner soul place and talk to her. Or will she not let you in?"
"That is easier said than done," Rukia replied. "Or are you waiting for an engraved invitation to talk to Zangetsu?"
Ichigo made a face. "That's not the same thing at all. You've obviously still got a connection with her if you can still draw her, right? I don't know crap about zanpakutou, but I know Zangetsu wouldn't let me use him if he didn't at least want me to. Isn't Shirayuki the same?"
"And you've reached bankai. Your connection with Zangetsu has grown even stronger," Rukia said, shaking her head. "How is that not the same, then?"
"Because I wanted it to," Ichigo told her simply, giving her a frown. "Jeez, Rukia, do you think it was easy? Urahara and that cat nearly killed me. I had to stay in his stupid pit thing and try to climb out for three days solid with those damn mouth monsters eating my chain thing. It hurt. Then Zangetsu did this weird sword thing where I had to pick out his from about a million other identical ones, while he was trying to kill me. Have you done any of that with Shirayuki? Have you even tried? I asked him to teach me bankai and he did, and it was hard, but I did it because I needed to. That's all. I know you can do the same."
"A zanpakutou will not allow his user to reach for bankai if he does not trust in his abilities," Rukia replied. "It doesn't matter how you reached it, Ichigo. The point is that you did and you continue to use it. If Zangetsu allows that, there is a strong bond there. You're just too dense to see it."
"You're the dense one here," Ichigo said irritably. "Zangetsu hated me at first. He said I couldn't use him and wouldn't let me, and I told him I wouldn't leave until I could. And every time I go in there he makes me fight the Hollow for control of him before he'll so much as look at me. I have to fight for his respect. You're sitting here talking to me like you think you don't deserve it or whatever. Why should Shirayuki respect your bond thing if you don't?"
"If Zangetsu hated you, he would never have told you his name, moron," Rukia said, looking at him as though he was crazy. "He makes you fight the Hollow because you refuse to find another way to deal with him. Zangetsu's in your world with the Hollow every day, Ichigo. Perhaps he wants you to realize that you can't just have one or the other."
Then she looked away, glaring at the wall, irritated with herself and Ichigo for being so utterly stupid in all things.
"I do respect our bond."
Ichigo wasn't about to argue about the stupid Hollow again. He was more concerned with her problem, even moreso with the implication that she truly believed she couldn't fix it. "You're not acting like yourself," he said slowly, watching her with a frown. "If you don't think your bond is strong enough, then just strengthen it already. I'll help if I can. Sitting here telling me you wish you had bankai isn't going to give it to you. I'll spar with you if you want. Just don't sit here thinking you can't, because that's stupid. You can do whatever you want."
"That's not what I said I wished," Rukia snapped at him, crossing her arms. "Nevermind. It's fine. Everything is just peachy."
"Well you obviously do want it, if it's important enough to mention," Ichigo snapped back, growing frustrated. "Stop pretending you don't and just talk to Shirayuki about it already. There's nothing wrong with wanting to learn more stuff with your zanpakutou, is there?"
"No," Rukia said, irritated at being lectured yet again about talking to Shirayuki. "And shut up. If you don't do it, then I don't have to either."
"I do do it, you idiot," Ichigo said with a scowl, glaring at her again. "What the hell do you think I spend all my time doing? Listening to music? If I'm not doing homework or helping Dad in the clinic I'm training, all the time, every day, because I know I don't know anything about my own freaking zanpakutou and I want to. Don't you want to too?"
"Aren't you the one who's been telling me you can't talk to Zangetsu because he hates you?" Rukia asked grumpily. "Of course I want to learn about her."
She sighed and pulled her knees up on the couch, resting her forehead on them. "What if she won't listen?" she asked quietly, voice muffled.
Ichigo was about to snap that Zangetsu didn't hate him, he'd know if the old man did, but no sooner had he opened his mouth than he snapped it shut again, blinking in surprised confusion at her sudden change in demeanor. Rukia never acted...weak, not like this, not since he'd rescued her from her own execution. She'd always been the one to drill confidence and reason back into his head, not the other way around. He scooted closer so he could bump shoulders in what he hoped to be a reassuring gesture.
"She'll listen," he told her softly. "She's your zanpakutou, you know? She's a part of you. Why would a part of you not listen to you? Everyone listens to you."
It had always been an irrational fear on her part. She knew this. There had never been a logical reason to assume that Shirayuki would not listen to her. That she would somehow laugh or scorn her. Shirayuki was a noble--everything that the Kuchikis were. And perhaps that is what frightened her so much. The thought that her zanpakutou would treat her like the Kuchikis had. That she would look down upon her and scorn her for being who she was and who she had been.
"I don't want to...burden her," Rukia said hesitatingly.
"You're not a burden," Ichigo told her softly, but firmly. "I thought I told you that when I came for you in Soul Society." He shifted a little closer before continuing; she was obviously upset, even if she was trying not to show it, and he didn't want her to be. "If you were a burden, I'd say so. You made me who I am; I have enough respect for you to be that honest, at least. Why would Shirayuki be any different?"
Rukia kept herself tucked into her knees, embarrassed that she had allowed Ichigo to see her like this.
She simply shook her head at Ichigo's question. How could she explain to him that the only thing keeping her from reaching out to Shirayuki--to him--to half the people she knew, was the irrational fear that she was expendable and that no one would be willing to stand by her? It sickened her a little, to see how weak she was. She knew that the Hollow was right. The only one keeping Shirayuki from herself was herself. And that disgusted her most of all.
"Rukia?" Ichigo watched her for a few moments, his concern growing at her silence. "Rukia...it's okay." Why? He had no idea, but he knew that he hated seeing her hurting and vulnerable like this, and for once he didn't have a niggle in the back of his mind trying to disagree. He felt like kind of an ass for not noticing how scared she was before--he couldn't think of any other emotion for her to be right now, with her zanpakutou out of reach in a time of war; he knew instinctively that zanpakutou should never be out of reach like hers was, knew it enough that even the idea of not being able to communicate with Zangetsu frightened him too, and he wanted nothing more than to help her fix it, even if he didn't have the first idea how.
He lifted his hand, then hesitated, then reached out a little, then hesitated again. Finally scowling at himself for his own cowardice--Rukia was his friend, he shouldn't hesitate over touching her any more than he did Chad or Tatsuki or Inoue--he let it slip around her shoulders, tucking her close to his chest. He just hoped she found comfort in it and didn't start hitting him and screaming he was a pervert.
"I don't know why you can't talk to her," he admitted softly, "but it can't be permanent. You've just got to find her again, maybe? Convince her you're worthy? That shouldn't be too hard. You are."
Rukia tried to calm her emotion as Ichigo scooted closer and slipped his arm around her. She leaned into him, comforted and wanting to be comforted and disgusted at needed it all at once.
She reached out and held onto his shirt to balance herself, but kept on holding on even after she had been situated. It was more to keep herself from trembling than for balance. "I know. It's my fault. I'm the one who keeps hurting her."
Ichigo rested his chin on the top of her head. He knew his heart was probably beating fast enough and loud enough for her to hear it, but he wasn't about to pull away. "How are you hurting her?" he asked, throat working against her head.
Rukia was unaware of anything but the guilt she felt inside and how pathetic she felt for making Ichigo sit through this. Yet even so, she held onto him, appreciating his gesture. She was supposed to help him. And here he was helping her. How typical.
"She's lonely. I...can feel it. But I keep distancing myself. It hurts her as much as it hurts me," she said, voice barely above a whisper. She would never admit this to anyone. It was a wonder that she was so willingly telling Ichigo.
"Why are you distancing yourself?" Ichigo asked softly, frowning. The arm around her was stroking hers gently of its own accord, but he didn't stop it once he realized. He was glad she couldn't see the blush he could feel spreading over his cheeks. "She's your zanpakutou. You're not supposed to do that, are you?"
"I don't know," came Rukia's muffled voice. It was hard to explain to herself why she acted and thought as she did, let alone to someone else. "It was always easier that way."
"Is it still easier?" Ichigo wanted to know. He knew he was prone to keeping to himself as well, but not...well, maybe to the point of ignoring others, but not intentionally. And it was usually just because he was distracted with something else at the time. He wondered if Rukia was distracted by something. He wondered if her zanpakutou was what she was distracted with.
Rukia propped her head up, resting her chin on her knees.
"I don't know." In a sense it was. It was still a way to protect herself. A way to make sure she wasn't a burden on the people she cared about, even when she couldn't do anything to help them. But on the other hand, it had seemed to cause so many more complications recently.
She sighed and rubbed her eyes, trying to get rid of the headache that was quite rapidly forming.
"I could talk to her. That's what he told me to do."
"He who?" Ichigo asked, confused. "Have you been talking to someone else about this?"
"Er." Rukia looked away, not sure how he would take the fact that she was listening to his Hollow. "Him. You know. Your. Er. Hollow."
Ichigo stiffened, surprise overtaking him before it was washed away by worry. "You talked to him again?" Of course, he realized, it must have been when he'd tried to talk to Zangetsu the day before. He hadn't paid attention to his physical body at the time. "What did he say? He didn't try to hurt anyone, did he?"
"No," Rukia said, shaking her head. "He was....different this time. Less mocking. He seemed frustrated. As though he wanted to explain something no one else was understanding. He was relatively tame to everyone he spoke with as far as I could see."
Ichigo breathed a sigh of relief, relaxing muscles he hadn't realized he'd tensed. "Good. I mean...I hope that's good." He frowned as he thought about it. The Hollow was never civil unless he was up to something, most often something incredibly unpleasant. He sighed again, his arm subconsciously tightening around Rukia. "But as long as he didn't hurt anyone, I guess it's okay for now."
Rukia unconsciously leaned into Ichigo's arm, saying nothing. If Ichigo could talk to Zangetsu and his Hollow, she could talk to Shirayuki. Well. It wasn't as though she had much of a choice. But she would make sure she wanted to. That might make all the difference.
Rukia was being quiet. Ichigo nudged her with his side in concern. "Are you okay?"
"Eh?" Rukia blinked, nudged out of her thoughts. "I'm fine." She nudged him back. "Are you?"
Ichigo nudged back. "Fine. Will you try speaking with Shirayuki again?"
"Will you try speaking with Zangetsu again?" Rukia poked him in the side.
Ichigo flinched away from it and scowled, working his free arm between them to poke her back. "Only if you talk to Shirayuki," he reasoned.
Rukia was quick and grabbed Ichigo's finger in triumph. "Aha! And the same applies for me. Only if you talk to Zangetsu."
"Hey!" Ichigo shifted the arm around her to poke from that side. "Fine. But you have to talk to Shirayuki," he said stubbornly.
"Oy!" Rukia said, squirming a little. She wasn't particularly ticklish, but Ichigo had found her one weak spot. "Fine. But if you don't, I won't either."
"Oh, I plan to," Ichigo said with a grin, tickling her in the spot that had made her squirm. "So you'd better too."
"Stop that!" Rukia gasped, squirming away from him.
Smirking, Ichigo kept her close to him with the arm wrapped around her shoulder and moved his other hand to attack her other side as well, ignoring the hand she'd tried using to stop him. "Make me," he said with a grin.
"I-I will kick your ass, s-so help me," Rukia tried to glare. In all actuality, it was really more of a grimace as she squirmed more and tried to keep from giggling.
That made Ichigo laugh. "You're ticklish~!" he said accusingly, taking full advantage of the fact. "Can't kick anything if you can't even move."
"I-I am not. Shut up," Rukia gasped, trying to cover her ticklish side. "You're the ticklish one!" She used her free handle to poke his side multiple times.
Ichigo jerked away from her hand, but refused to relinquish his merciless assault. "Not as ticklish as you~" he teased, laughing. "You're gonna have to try harder than that, Rukia!"
"I am not nearly as ticklish as you are!" Rukia managed to say right before collapsing into a fit of giggles. Damn gigai.
Ichigo laughed at her, his hands slowing to let her breathe again, but never stopping. "You're obviously even more ticklish, stupid, if you're acting like this!"
She managed to catch her breath eventually and crossed her arms across her chest while leaning away from Ichigo's hands. "You're ticklish all over!"
Ichigo only followed when she leaned, a smug grin on his face. "So are you, it looks like," he said threateningly, hands trailing down to try tickling her on the bottom of her ribs instead.
"H-HEY. S-STOP THAT!!" Rukia barely had time to blush as she felt Ichigo's hands trailing down her side before the tickling became too much. Laughing, she lost her balance, almost toppling forward off the couch.
Ichigo caught her and tugged her back up, laughing. He stopped tickling her, but left his hands there as a warning just in case. "That was for the festival," he told her smugly, wriggling his fingers slightly to make sure she knew he didn't have to be finished. "Are we even?"
Rukia eyed his hand suspiciously and scooted away from it, which led her right into Ichigo's side. She was surrounded. By Ichigo.
Blushing, she crossed her arms, grumbling. "Until the next time you're not looking. And then you're going down."
"Ha!" Ichigo smirked and let her go, though he didn't move away from her. "Yeah right. I can't go any lower than you are, you're so short."
"I am petite!" Rukia said, glaring at him furiously. She let her legs dangle down again and sat close to him, grumbling. Though she wouldn't admit it, he smelled quite nice. She had gotten used to his smell, sleeping in his bed, but having just come out of the shower, he smelled even nicer today. The thought made her scowl and blush a little.
Ichigo snorted, but didn't comment again on her height--though he didn't let her know he agreed with her, either. Instead he bumped her shoulder. "Do you feel better now, at least?"
Rukia said nothing for a minute. Then she smiled slightly. "Yes. I know what I have to do." Then she bumped his shoulder in return. "And you? Are you going to start smiling again?"
"What are you talking about? I always smile," Ichigo replied with a smirk. "You're the one who needs to lighten up. This isn't the Kuchiki house or whatever; you don't need to act so stoic and formal all the time."
"I do not act stoic and formal," Rukia protested. "You're the one who's always scowling. One of these days your face is going to get stuck that way. And then I'll laugh at you."
"Yeah right," Ichigo snorted, though he definitely wasn't scowling right now. "I'll be too busy laughing at you to scowl at all."
"How can you laugh when your face is stuck in a scowl?" Rukia smirked, then poked his forehead. "Way to not make any sense, stupid."
"It's not stuck," Ichigo retorted. He reached out to poke her forehead in retaliation. "Don't poke me."
"Ha! When was the last time your face didn't look angry?" Rukia said, poking his cheek this time.
"Right now." Ichigo made a face at her and poked her opposite cheek. "I said no poking."
"I'll laugh when your face gets stuck that way then." Rukia grinned mischievously and poked his nose. "But it's fun. And you're soft."
"I am not soft," Ichigo protested. He poked her nose back, then her forehead again, sticking out his tongue at her. "You are."
Rukia wrinkled her nose. "I am not. Ladies are not soft." Then, grinning, she reached up and ruffled his hair. "Little strawberries are, though."
Ichigo knocked her hands away, sputtering. "Hey! I am not a strawberry. And girls are soft. You especially." He caught both of her wrists in one of his and ruffled her hair in turn, scowl sliding into a smug grin.
"That's exactly what you are," Rukia smirked, but a second later Ichigo had caught hold of both of her wrists. "Oy! OY! STOP THAT!!"
She trying to pull her wrists away, but Ichigo was too strong. Which made her scowl even more. She shook her head furiously, letting her hair snap him in the face.
Ichigo let her go as he squeezed his eyes shut against the onslaught, leaning away from her. "Ow! Hey, watch it! That is completely unfair. FOUL."
"Ha! HA! All's fair in love and war, Ichigo," Rukia said, grinning in triumph. She wasn't sure what the saying meant, really, but it seemed appropriate enough.
Ichigo scowled, blushing when he comment affected him far more than it probably should. "Psh," he muttered, "you probably don't even know what that means."
"So? I don't have to know the meaning to know I've won." Kuchiki Rukia. Was utterly oblivious.
"Idiot! You shouldn't say things like that if you don't know what they mean. You could make yourself look stupid." It was hard for Ichigo to make his blush go away when they were still talking about it. Stupid Rukia and her stupid obliviousness.
"Why? What does it mean?" Ichigo's scowl and blush had made her curious. She poked him. "Tell me."
"Stop poking," Ichigo stalled, trying to flinch away from her finger. "It means exactly what it says it means. Everything's fair in love and in war."
"What's so bad about that?" Rukia asked, looking confused.
Ichigo scowled at her, his blush deepening. "Nothing's wrong with it," he tried explaining. "it's just...It means everything's fair game when you're in love and when you're fighting in a war." He was aware of the way his face was radiating heat now, but he decided to Pointedly Ignore It. "That's all."
Something about the way Ichigo worded the explanation along with his distinctly pink cheeks made something click in Rukia's head.
Her mouth formed a small "Oh" as her face caught up to her brain and flushed red.
"I-- Well-- I didn't mean-- I mean we're not-- Not love-- I mean--" she spluttered.
"Well obviously," Ichigo agreed. It felt like his face was on fire. "I mean, we're definitely not--Yeah. We're just--So yeah. Don't say stuff like that. When. You don't know what it means."
"Shut up. I can say whatever I want," she said, hitting him on the head. "W-why are you blushing. Stupid. It's not like-- I mean. We agreed-- Just because-- It-- Closet-- Sleeping together-- It doesn't mean that. Stop acting weird."
Ichigo wanted to hide behind something. Since he didn't hide, and since this was Rukia he was dealing with, though, he elbowed her instead, scowling at the way his blush was refusing to disappear. "Idiot. Don't say stuff like that. The bed thing is just--It's more comfortable there, and just--The comfort, and--People shouldn't sleep in closets anyway," he finished quickly.
"I-I'm not saying anything. You're the one acting all weird." Rukia glowered and elbowed him back. "I-- Of course it shouldn't. And sometimes it's-- Just cold-- And you're warm-- I-- That's all. Nobody should sleep in a closet."
"Right," Ichigo agreed, nodding. He elbowed her back just because he didn't like her getting the last physical word in. "And you're small anyway, so it's not like it really matters. So. Yeah. Closets aren't for sleeping."
"Exactly. Glad we have that settled," Rukia nodded matter-of-factly. Then, stretching slightly, she hopped off the couch. She reached out a hand to him. "Come on. You're going to fall asleep any second. And I don't feel like carrying you back all the way upstairs." Smirk.
Ichigo snorted and took it, though he had to push himself up more than pull, since he didn't want to tug her over. "You'd probably collapse trying," he teased, releasing her hand to stretch as well. "You go up. I still have homework."
"Oh shut up." Rukia stared at him. There were stress lines on his face and he was still tense, although perhaps a bit more relaxed than he had been before. Shaking her head, she positioned herself behind him and began pushing with both of her hands. "No. You're coming to sleep. If you collapse from overexhaustion, I'll have to take you to see Urahara and that's something I always want to avoid."
Ichigo set his feet against the floor and resisted, protesting her actions loudly. "Oi, knock it off! I can sleep later, I just have some things to do first." He was tired, and the thought of just collapsing in bed was enticing, but he had stuff to do...
Rukia pushed with all of her strength, which was surprisingly a lot for a small shinigami like herself. But then again, she had grown up in Rukongai.
"You can do that stuff tomorrow when you're not dying of sleep deprivation."
Ichigo huffed in indignation when his toe hit the first step and he was forced to climb them or stub it. "But it's due tomorrow! Rukia come on, this is dumb. I'm fine."
"So skip school. Your dad's a doctor, moron. Get a note from him or something." She continued pushing him up the stairs and right up to his bedroom door.
Ichigo scowled as he stumbled across his dark room. His bed looked inviting without any light on it though, and he could feel his own resistance weakening. "Dammit, Rukia..."
"Never fight against a lady, Kurosaki," Rukia teased, dogging his footsteps until he was right in front of the bed.
Ichigo crossed his arms and huffed, stopping her there. "I can get in it on my own, thank you very much."
"Are you sure? Or do you need me to dress you as well?" Rukia said, smirking.
"I'm dressed," Ichigo scoffed. He leaned over to pull the blankets off, then climbed into them, holding the side open for Rukia as well. "Do you need help?"
"Hardly," Rukia scoffed, rolling her eyes and climbing in after him.
Ichigo waited until she was all the way under them before letting go again, sliding down into them himself and shifting until he was comfortable. "Could've fooled me," he mumbled, yawning.
"I don't even know what that's supposed to mean," she grumbled, scooting in closer to him.
"It means...shut up," Ichigo retorted. He was too tired to keep up with the conversation, and he sighed as he scooted closer and let his eyes droop shut. "You're so annoying," he gumbled sleepily.
His warmth and sleepiness cast a similar spell over her.
"And you said-- you weren't tired," she mumbled back yawning. She scooted until she was right against him, her head tucked under his chin. Just the way she liked it.
"'M not," Ichigo mumbled, lifting his head a little for her automatically. It was more comfortable for him to drape an arm over her waist than hold it back over his own, so he did, sighing as her nearness and scent tugged sleepily at his consciousness. "'Night."