It's burning.
He can feel it; red orange and yellow igniting under his veins; hellfire for blood; sparks and embers rebirthing like a phoenix anew. All that's left is to clear the smoke and see that life.
He is alive.
That, he struggles to remember.
Ichigo takes another sip. It tastes like sh*t; capital S. The bitterness grounds him, plus it's better than the sickly, honey sweet of the air. Black splotches encompass his vision till he's swaying to the beat of the song. God, Urahara’s music taste is sh*tty.
Maybe he can pass for dancing with everyone else. Closing his eyes does nothing to cool his headache, rather push the memories of battle further forward.
Everyone else is more alive than he is; dancing in drunken stupor; inhibitions left behind; mingling breaths and tongues tainted with vice and barley; breathing in, out, in, out.
One thing Ichigo notes, even with clouded eyes, is that they're smiling.
How can they he wonders. The war was won – yes – but, that doesn't excuse their faces. Comrades have fallen, bodies broken merely empty husks of who they once were. And they're smiling.
God, even Hitsuguya and Hinamori have relaxed joy spread across their faces.
He almost wants to laugh.
Is it the comfort that they'll see each other again, in another life, or because they're soldiers? Balancers second, an army of the dead first.
Is death a passive, underlying entity they all acknowledge but never address? Is that pile of corpses they stand upon so large they're numb to the crack of bones and squelch of the eyes they tramble on?
Is that strength in the face of adversity?
Or maybe they're just as numb as Ichigo and hide it.
Ichigo peers into his cup, his reflection echoing within the ripples of red wine. He looks older. It looks like blood.
He extinguishes that final flame of hell, drinking the liquid evil and downing it to the last drop.
He's tired enough to let a helpless fool run his body and mouth. His instincts are in charge now.
When he looks back into the cup, white echoes back to him.
He'd rather the red.
Rangiku’s shock of hair and Izuru’s elbow brush into him and he realises he's standing deadly still amongst the partying soul reapers– pun intended.
The music does nothing to numb the throbbing in his ear, the sound of his heart pumping nor his nerves tingling. Never again, he says.
Don't get him wrong, Ichigo’s no saint, the infamous karakura ‘delinquent’ (he doesn't claim that title, his name means protector for f*cks sake) has been dragged to his fair share of parties – Mizuro’s doing of course – but he never drinks, the fumes of red wine and tonic dance on his nose instead. He'd prefer to give the locals less reason to sneer at him, it's also funny as sh*t seeing how pathetic Keigo looks drunk.
This however, is different. It's painfully real and not at all like Keigo described. Lying f*cker. All he wants to do is claw at his throat till it's red raw.
The man –the boy– merely watches on. Ichigo's bones feel like cotton and even the slightest twitch of his fingers takes too much effort. He's sinking amongst the masses, drowning wide awake.
Most people are still insultingly dressed in their shihakusho. Though he can still see some dressed in human clothing. All being residents of Karakura.
Even Orihime, poor Orihime involved in the horrors of Hueco Mundo, is smiling wearing some stupidly beautiful dress, hair done and eyes glowing with the warmth of a fire on a cold evening.
He'll admit, she looks gorgeous tonight.
A type of human beauty; a flower in bloom.
The jovial laughter encompassing the room is too thick, the smell of alcohol too pungent. He can't breathe.
His body, now feeling like moving, darts through the crowd. Every step feels like falling into an abyss of cotton, tingling his senses so much the ground looks like a pillow. He's the walking dead.
Unconscious mentally, but body half functioning, moving forward till he's slamming open the door to the patio and panting, practically ravishing the cool air in an embarrassingly erotic manner.
The nauseating smell of booze still lingers in the air, although by that point it's his own tainted breath.
“Wow, you look like sh*t,”
A black butterfly flutters past his eyes and in a blink it's gone.
Ichigo was so busy breathing he didn't even notice her.
Rukia f*cking Kuchiki is there in it's place, perched on the roof looking down on Ichigo with that snarky look on her face like whenever she opens a juice box without Ichigo's help. Annoying, familiar and comforting. The look is there, lips tilted ever so slightly, written all over face, it just doesn't meet her eyes. Her eyes are solemn with a synthetic sparkle from the party lights. It's not the same.
She looks normal. Not like the other shinigami, lenient with their strict uniform policy, adding their own personal touches in attempts to be festive, makeup adoring already deathly beautiful features.
They're all wearing that god forsaken uniform, but on Rukia Kuchiki it's an insult. Like she's twisting her blade deep into his heart. His scar hums with the memory.
It's a reminder of what he was and not what he is. Ichigo Kurosaki, the human boy, and Rukia Kuchiki, the soul reaper. Gone are the days of the substitute soul reaper. Gone is her.
Will be, he corrects. Ichigo still has time– just not a lot.
She's the same as every other day. Hair short, blue-purple eyes. Looking at her now, Rukia looks worse.
Her skin isn't the porcelain pale it usually is —it's ghost white. Pun not intended: she's way too light. Purple bags rest under her eyes and even with blurry vision he can tell them apart from her eyes.
Is it bad that Ichigo likes this? Some sick twisted part enjoys it. He wants to blame the hollow, the alcohol, anything. Ichigo knows it's himself.
She doesn't even look like she wanted to come to the party. She's not dressed up beautifully like Orihime.
He should go and find her, dance with a beautiful lady and have fun. Drown in her smile. She's a flower after all.
Jasmine to be specific: something you want, desire. Enticed by its smell till you're choking on it. Drowning in it.
Dandelions are what Ichigo loved anyways; a transient love leaving as quickly as you found it.
They remind him of Masaki. Rukia too, in a way.
“You don't look any better.” Ichigo remarks. They both look like crap, admittedly.
Rukia's stare is harsh and cold. She's looking at Ichigo pitifully. Like his state is her fault.
He looks so old now: a face tainted with the scars of war, a pained look in eyes. That is the look of a veteran. A Soul Reaper.
Rukia hands move instinctively, gently caressing thin white scars on his jaw. He lens into her touch, drunk on the attention.
Love like this has been hard to find since Mas—
She looks so sad, eyes struck wide open, mouth slightly parted, it's everything Ichigo wants. Tan, calloused hands grab dainty equally rough ones to make sure they don't move from his face. Time should stop now, Ichigo thinks. He doesn't want this moment to end. It'll pass like it never happened.
Will he forget her, some disgustingly vulnerable part of him asks.
Ichigo already knows the answer.
He doesn't want these memories to go away. He doesn't want memories at all. It's the present he needs. Rukia frowns at the glassy eyed open mouthed panting look on his face.
“Let go of me, Ichigo.”
She says his name like a prayer; pleading and needy, yet not desperate enough to satisfy the burning pain in his heart.
“If I let go of your hand you'll leave.”
The ‘me’ goes unsaid. Drunk words are sober thoughts after all.
“I will.” She stands firm, of course, looking directly in his eyes, unwavering. Rukia's wrist is probably bruised now: it'll certainly leave a mark. He wants it to last forever, in a stupid act of revenge for the scars she put on his heart– quite literally. The clash of blue and brown ends with Ichigo winning.
Roughly, Ichigo pins her arm against the wall, limbs slamming into a dull brick, Ichigo's built body encompassing Rukia's whole. They both know she could pin Ichigo to the ground in a heartbeat, but she doesn't. Rather, she looks at him with pity and guilty righteousness.
“Promise you won't,” This time, he says it in her ear, toxic breaths mingling.
“You're still acting like a child.”
The “child” feels incriminating. Children don't fight in wars. Children don't watch their friends, their loved ones brutally attacked in front of them. Children don't risk their lives time and time again and children certainly don't have front row seats to their mothers dyin– no being killed because of their stupid f*cking mistakes.
“You and I both know that's a f*cking lie.”
Rukia's still caressing his scars and dragging her thumb across his lips. How can one look 16 and 25 at the same time she wonders. Ichigo looks older, undeniably: faint worry lines dragging into tight skin, the hardened look of a soul reaper, walking over a sea of blood, hollow masks cracking under his weight. A man. Yet, so boyish and youthful. Expressions full of life and eyes so alike the sun death runs in fear of being burned.
Ichigo Kurosaki is a walking juxtaposition.
Teeth drag across Rukia's neck and it's already too late to stop him biting her and leaving proof of his being on her body. On her skin he mumbles, “Y’know there's gonna be a solar eclipse later. In like a few weeks.”
Rukia firmly ignores Ichigo, rather tilting her head up and gazing down at the panting boy man with such sad lust and desperation in each intoxicated breath.
“We're gonna go together. You and me,”
He's delusional. It's either the alcohol or how badly he wants her to stay. Rukia's always loved the moon. Each word Ichigo says comes out with the slightest tremble she can feel on her now red skin littered with love bites.
Grinding his body into hers, Rukia lets out light gasps at Ichigo ministrations, a guilty pleasure lighting up her body. He's everything and everywhere, all over her, thick hands grasping at her body through all the layers and his tongue writing sonnets into her skin.
Rukia doesn't reciprocate though. She doesn't want to give Ichigo false hope. That kind of pain is already etched into her skin. So she lets him have his way, enjoying, pushing his knee between swan like legs till Rukia's crying out in the little ‘ah ah ah’ he loves, taking what he pleases, what she'll let him have because they'll never have a moment like this again.
She can't love him, nor convince Ichigo that she'll be there when it rains because she'll never be there now. They both know, but one of them is continuing to profusely ignore that, rather drunk on the loving look in the others eyes.
After having made a red mess of her neck, Ichigo moves up to her jaw, pressing his lips everywhere whilst whispering sweet nothings into pale flesh. “Once I get my licence, we'll drive up to t–his, field, and we'll watch it.”
Ichigo notes, talking through kissing is pretty difficult. Well, he's always liked a challenge.
Ichigo's pressing into Rukia's body till his jeans feel too tight and the world isn't big enough for his love. A particularly loud moan leaves her mouth, when his large hands cup at her breasts and he digs his knee into her core.
“Y-You're acting as if I'll be there to see it.”
He firmly ignores Rukia this time.
“And you're gonna stay with me. You'll stay.” Ichigo takes a big breath this time.
“Promise me.”
Ichigo's a sad sad drunk. Pathetic in the way he begs. A sad life for an even sadder man.
“I said promise me.”
He's also quite demanding, Rukia notes.
Rather than respond, the soul reaper wraps her arms round his neck, pulling him down to her height, foreheads and noses touching but lips worlds apart. All Rukia can smell is desperation and red wine.
A stray tear falls onto her cheek. Rukia wants to cry too, but that isn't befitting of a soul reaper, no less a Kuchiki. Good thing she's from the Rukongai. Abandoning all the human emotions and bonds with Ichigo pains her more than she can admit.
“Say you love me,” it comes out as a choke, a sob, a prayer. Something that tugs at the Kuchiki girl's heartstrings.
Finally, Ichigo goes to close that gap between their lips, his own just about to touch Rukia's pink. A glimpse into a future he'll create for them.
Rukia's stray finger separates them. Pushing that dream into the depths of his mind and bringing Ichigo back to reality.
Rukia whips her head around, unable to face him before promptly saying.
“I wish you were sober.”
God f*cking dammit. Rukia vanishes, alongside that black butterfly leaving Ichigo. Again. The black spots once more encompass his vision and this time it's his entire field of view.
The next morning he has no recollection of what happened, only a killer headache.
The words ‘sober’ ring out in his mind.
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