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Downfall

Wonder how you sleep, I wonder what you think of meIchigo's closet is empty now, and he's not quite sure that he likes it.

Yuzu keeps asking him if he's looking for anything because he gets up at least three times everyhour to open the closet door and my goodness ichi-nii the door is really loud. Ichigo doesn't have

an answer for her because if he says one thing there's a painful jerk in him that reminds him that

he's lying, and if he says the other he's not sure he can continue and give an explanation; Ichigo'snot sure which is which anymore. Instead, he just mutters in accordance until Yuzu leaves and

minutes later there are grating noises from his room again.

Swish, it whispers as it opens, and moments later it closes again.

Swish.

He's not quite sure why he does this. He's not sure of much anymore except for the feeling inside

of his chest that tells him he's empty, empty, empty and he wonders if anything would rattle if heshakes it.

Ichigo always closes the closet door again after he opens it. It's much more conveniently leftopen, because then he wouldn't have to open it again; he knows this. He's tried too, really, he did,

but the gaping darkness nags at him, reminding him that he is empty, empty, empty, and then he

feels something clench in his chest and then it hurts and hurts and hurts.

Hey, he tells his chest that he was so sure was empty, hey that's not fair.

Usually he just walks over and peers in, fooling himself again and again that the next time it'll bedifferent. The next time he'll find her, the next time he'll feel her presence, the next time the

makeshift bed won't be quite so discomfortingly cool and unoccupied.

Hell, he'll like it even if the next time he opens the door, she gives him a swift and nose-crushing

kick to the face.

But instead, there's the door. The closet door, you know, the white pane of wood right therebeing white and mocking him.

Open me, Ichigo, it says,she'll be there next time.

Ichigo ignores it and tries to study his English terms. Doors are liars.

I promise, it breathes and beckons to him with invisible tendrils of hope. They grab onto Ichigo

and like a puppet he walks over and places his hands on the edges of the wood.Please, he thinks,

please.

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I f I could go back, would you have ever been wi th me?When he closes his eyes he can see Rukia, the gleaming tip of her Zanpaktou pointed at him. The

blade wobbles in her outstretched arm, wobbles, wobbles, and steadies, amazingly still as sheendures the pain. He had thought that she was insane, what with the crazy Hollow stomping its

way up to them.

"Do it," she had said, "if you want to save your family."

He replays that moment in his mind over and over again.

It's not shinigami.

Was she crying?

It's Kuchiki Rukia.

He remembers something else and realizes that he was near tears as well, for reasons that evennow he cannot understand.

I'm Kurosaki Ichigo.

He takes the blade of her sword and plunges it into his heart.I'm Kurosaki Ichigo. Again andagain. It hurts, but there's something about that pain that makes a lot of things well up in him. It

hits somewhere foreign in him, and he lets it because she's there, in that pain, and it feels like

home. He's endured worse wounds than this, and it takes him a while to realize that the side of

his pillowcase is damp and his nose feels funny.

He must be coming down with something.

I want you to remember, I want you on my sideKeigo laughs at him when they walk home.

"God, Ichigo," he coughs, dusting himself off after doubling over on the ground, "butterfliesdon't come out at night."

The sky is already dark with splatters of stars and Ichigo searches upward, trying to catch dark

little flutters of wings in the moonlight.

"You shut the hell up." He tells Keigo, and walks the rest of the way with his head upturned.

I want you to trouble me, I want so much so badOne day, Ichigo stops looking.

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He doesn't know why he does this, just like how he didn't know why he started it. It's abrupt, and

Yuzu asks him over breakfast if he'd found what he'd been looking for.

"No." He says as he shoves rice in his mouth, "but it doesn't matter anymore."

He shoves more rice and chews little before he swallows. It clogs in his larynx and hurts likehell. He grimaces and waits for the pain to settle.

That's all it is, he tells himself, that's all it is.

Come on and l ay it down, I 've always been with youAnd that is why he doesn't know how to react when she walks back into his room.

It starts with a butterfly, and up close, the delicate black powder seems to be lifting languidlyinto the still summer air as it flutters its wings. He doesn't see it, not because he couldn't, but

because he doesn't want to. So he ignores it and turns away from the window.

Windows lie too.

And he stays there, grappling at the resolve that seems to have settled into him lately. It doesn't

hurt.

He thinks there's the smell of her in the air, the faint smell of violet moonflowers mixed with

cloth and skin, and he ignores that too. It doesn't matter.

Even when he feels the small hand on his shoulder and the dip of his bed, he remains motionless.

Ichigo, he hears, and there's no twisting in his chest. His breathing does not quicken and no, there

is of course not the strange pressure of warmth around his eyes. No.

It doesn't matter.

Here and now, give all that' s with in you"Ichigo." He hears her whisper again.

"Ichigo." And again.

On the third time he still says nothing, but his hand darts out to cover hers. It's done quickly, as if

to slap an insect, but she knows he only does so that he wouldn't have a chance to regret. His

hand closes around hers tightly on instinct and holds it, hard.

It's real. The thought hits him a full minute later, after the suppressed intake of breath Rukia

takes from the pain, and it's too much, too much for him and he doesn't know what to think and

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he can't think. He freezes and everything seems to freeze with him and then all he can do is turn

around.

She looks older, which is absurd to think so because she is shinigami and shinigamis age very,

very slowly, but there is something about her face that makes her look weary and old. Her eyes

are still blue, a little clearer than he had imagined and there's something in them that makes himhurt all over again.

That's okay though, he thinks, that's okay because the pain is starting to ebb away, dissipatingthrough the tension between their hands.

Be my savior, and I ' ll be your downfal lThere's the feel of her skin under his and the warmth that seems to pulsate softly from her lips;

he covers her mouth with his, wanting all of it, and she gasps as he drag his teeth down herbottom lip. He thinks this is how it feels like to be intoxicated, because now his mind cannot

form coherent thought and his senses are all blurred into one. He doesn't understand how this ispossible, but he's drowning in the scent of her, the feel of her, the warmth of her.

Ichigo she says as he trails his fingers across her waist, tugging at her clothes and nuzzling the

opening of her robes near her neck until they fall away, loosely. He can feel her hands clench thecotton of his shirt when she says his name again and he hopes that she can feel his skin burningbeneath them. Because, hell, they sure are, and he doesn't think anything other than her touch can

cool them. She does, and soothes the skin beneath her fingers as she pushes her arms up his back

and into his shirt. There's a different kind of burning when she drags her hands down hard, nailand all, and he arches slightly into it as he dives for the soft skin of her neck. He can hear his

name on her lips, departing in frantic and shallow puffs. Ichigo, she pants, grasping erratically at

the sheets,Ichigo as he kisses his way down her body, resting his cheeks momentarily on the flatof the stomach. He breathes in the scent of her skin and continues lower until his lips are thereand her throat constricts momentarily, gagging the moan.

He presses his face between her legs and then his world is muted to everything except the

strained gasps coming from her throat. It makes him hurt, but he thinks that maybe this is the

good kind of pain and increases the frequency of his mouth. Her gasps make her sound like she'scrying and in the back of the mind he thinksgood, because that's exactly what he feels like

doing. But there'll be time for that later, when things aren't quite as overwhelming as they are

now.

She is still trembling when he lifts himself up to face her.I'm sorry, she mouths tiredly and he

kisses her because he doesn't want to hear it.Ichigo, she mutters against his lips before sinking

again. He grips her hands as if they are lifelines and loses himself in her eyes.Don't let me go, hepleads in his mind and then he surrenders everything as he thrusts into her until everything is

bright and unfocused and all he can think of is home.

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Well hell , you, can I take you home?He doesn't expect to see her in the morning but he forces himself to get up anyway. The closet

door is closed and he doesn't think he has the energy to open it. Instead, he pulls on his shirt andheads downstairs.

End.