Falls the Shadow

Title: Falls the Shadow
Author: Sintari
Rating/Warnings: NC-17, Dark, Psychological, Lemon, Anal
Disclaimer/Fandom: Bleach, which I regretfully do not own.
Summary: A Hollow may wear a mask, but he'll never wear a veil. HollowIchigo/Rukia, Ichigo/Rukia.

Falls the Shadow

Sometimes Rukia wakes up in the middle of the night and finds that Ichigo is awake, too. On nights like these the sex is lazy and half a dream. Often, she doesn't even open her eyes, just moans sleepily, content there with him. But tonight, his grip on her waist is rough and he pulls her on to her knees, yanking her from her warm nest. Urgently, he strips her of her panties and pajama shirt. Buttons go flying and one ends up under her knee, a cold point of discomfort.

"Ichi-?"

"Shhh!" The admonition is barely more than a whisper, but it's oddly harsh in the still room. She's suddenly wide awake and her body is very, very aware. Ichigo has never taken initiative like this. Usually their sex is sweet, gentle and slow. He starts with kissing -- lots and lots of kissing -- and always makes sure she is pleased. He's gentle with her, for as long as he can be. She understands why he holds back. After all, he's much bigger than she is, and worlds more powerful.

But tonight, she quickly realizes, he's abandoned his usual caution. His fingers gouge into her thighs hard enough to hurt, and there had been no question of kissing first. Tonight, his power, the part of him that he always keeps so tightly controlled, hidden somewhere in a place where she can never touch, is palpable and so thick she can almost taste it, like a drink too strong or a candy too sweet. Her nerve endings alight, she feels her body responding to Ichigo in a way it never has before. Tonight, it may not be so gentle and slow.

Without interrupting their rhythm, he lifts her so that she's straddling his knees, her back to his chest. He's always been so incredibly strong. He can whisper in her ear this way, but she finds herself hoping that he doesn't. That, just for once, he could resist the compulsion to reassure her that he loves her. Even when he's saying it, she knows in the back of her mind, that she doesn't deserve it. It's something she's learned to live with.

But when he speaks it's in an eerie sing-song, scratching against her senses.

"Even the lowliest horse can play with the king's fine things when the king is away."

Rukia experiences a second of frozen panic. The creature's hand is around her throat now, caressing but not squeezing.

"It's about time," he hisses, this Hollow with Ichigo's body.

He's stopped moving now, inside her, but she's still exposed, naked in front of him. The hand that isn't on her throat reaches down and toys with the curls of hair at her pubis, coming away wet.

"You must wonder why I'm here?" he continues. "The truth is, I came for you."

"You-"

The hand on her throat clenches. "Don't speak when I'm speaking!" He's breathing harshly -- they both are -- and he takes a moment to rein in both his breath and his tone of voice. More controlled, he continues, "I'm doing this for you, Rukia."

She feels chill bumps prickle all over her body when he says her name.

"You don't want this. You don't want all this sweetness, this softness, this love making."

He says the last with a sneer and Rukia swallows against his fingers.

"When he's with you, I'm always there, just a little bit, just barely. And I can see the things he doesn't want to see. I..." He moves once, inside her, and to her shame, she gasps. "...I realize that you're worthless." He moves again and Rukia feels the tingle in her limbs of blood rushing too fast. "I would have let them kill you." He's moving again, fucking her again. "I wouldn't have looked back."

One of his hands -- Ichigo's hands -- is rubbing her clit and she tells herself it's despite his words, his touch, despite him, that she climaxes.

Sated, she's lying on her stomach, face down on the pillow, when she hears Ichigo's voice again.

"R...Rukia? What happened? That was weird..." The bed springs give a groan as his weight shifts abruptly on the bed. "Did I hurt you?" He's turning her over, searching her face with his eyes while gingerly searching her body with his hands. Even in the dark she can see his eyes are wide with concern.

"No!" She's up quickly, reassuring him, promising him it was a nightmare even though she isn't quite sure why. "I'm fine. Nothing happened. Nothing at all." But even as she soothes him into believing it was all a bad dream, she can't shake the feeling that this is one lie he'd never forgive her for.

Still, with one hand, she surreptitiously brushes the buttons from her pajama top out of the bed and onto the carpet. In the morning, she gets up and sews them back on before he wakes, but only after carefully tracing the one perfectly circular indentation on her right knee.

()()()()()

He comes to her again the next month, on a night when Ichigo had quickly fallen asleep, exhausted from battle with a group of Huge Hollows. Rukia had been lying awake, restless and strangely hot for autumn. Not that she ever once thought about it, or waited for it, but Ichigo had been similarly exhausted the last time it happened.

This time she actually sees him, and she finds she can't peel her eyes away from the mask.

"You were waiting for me," he cackles. And he's right.

He crawls on top of her, a looming shadow in the dark, and the mask touches her face. It's freezing, a cold more harsh and raw than anything she's ever felt, even homeless and ragged in the dead of an Inuzuri winter. As she comes, with him growling harsh nothings at her, she realizes for the first time in all her years as a shinigami that Hell's not hot, it's cold.

"Leave us alone," she finds the nerve to demand, the third time he appears. She'd sat up in wait this time, with her back to the wall and her zanpaktou at hand, even though she knew she'd never willingly hurt Ichigo's body.

He stares at her for a minute, one-eyed, giving her just enough time to think he's considering her words. But then the visible half of his lips twist into a wide smile.

"You're confusing me with Ichigo," his voice is almost a purr. But then he has her by the ankles, is turning her over roughly. "If you looked at him, all fierce like that, Ichigo would go away like a good boy. But I'm not Ichigo. I don't give you what you say you want.”

The Hollow stretches her arms behind her back, and they find out that one of Ichigo's big hands can easily encircle her two tiny wrists, even crossed.

She's wet, she's forced to admit to herself. She's been wet since he appeared.

"You think of me when you're with him," he says. Her eyes fly open when she feels one of his fingers ease into her ass.

"You wonder what I'm going to do to you next," he continues. His cock is bobbing against her thigh, and he reaches between their bodies and takes it in hand. Groaning, he rubs it against her wet pussy, then farther up.

This will hurt her, she thinks. This will hurt her and, oh god, she will like it.

"You're not happy with him. I see your face when you're together. I may wear this mask, but I sure as hell don't wear a veil. He'll never do this to you." He's pushing against her, he's going to do it. "He'll never make you beg for crumbs you don't deserve." Then he stops moving. For a long moment the only sounds there in the dark are their hitching breaths and her anticipation stretching until it's so brittle she's sure she'll shatter into a million pieces if he doesn't just do it.

His voice slithers up her spine. "Ichigo would never make you beg. But I will."

She barely recognizes her own voice, it's so thick and hoarse with need. "Do it. God, do it."

He fucks her then, and it feels full and awful and wrong and like what dying should feel like. He fucks her and it feels perfect and right and like she's finally taken a breath again after years of suffocating.

"I'll be back," he says, after he's finished. "You'll be waiting for me," he promises.

And she will.

END