A/N: Okay guys, a couple of things. First off, thanks for the reviews. It means a lot. Secondly, I know I said that there would be two more chapters including this one, but If I had of kept with my original plan, then not only would this chapter had been twice the size it is now, but you guys would of had to wait much longer for this chapter and thats no good. :) So there will be two more chapters after this one. I mean it this time.

Lastly, you may be saying, 'Hey, Ashes, did you give us a whole chapter of porn?' And my response to that is an unabashed 'Yes I did.' Porn with plot though.

With that, I hope you enjoy. :)

xXx

"You're so beautiful when you're like this. It makes me want keep my fingers in you all night."

Ichigo watched in rapt longing as he moved his fingers in and out of Byakuya. He was on his haunches spreading Byakuya's legs as to absorb every part of him, salivating at the way his lover gripped the sheets and arched into his penetrations.

Slowly, patiently, Ichigo rotated his curved fingers inside of Byakuya's puckered, blushed, hole, loving that slippery pliant tightness and the lustful symphony of lubed squelches he pulled from his wrecked and imploring lover.

Byakuya tugged at his hair, as if using the pain to keep attached to his own skin. He was glistening, letting out choppy groveling breaths as his body twisted for more contact. Ichigo could feel each movement shoot through his jutting fingers and ripple up his arm.

"Ichigo, please, I am burning up."

This desire, it was crushing, working at his muscles and tendons. It started with a prickeling heat in his mouth, making his jaw feel heavy. It sank deep into him, crept down his neck and sat insistently at the base of his spine. After an hour of coaxing out Byakuya's pleasure with his fingers, he couldn't hold back like this for much longer.

Ichigo lifted one of Byakuya's legs to brace against his shoulder. He pressed wet kisses onto the trembling thigh. "Breathe," he whispered into the leg, slowing his fingers and caressing the spongy, aroused flesh.

Byakuya closed his eyes, managing a wispy inhale and exhale. His chest expanded, that glowing paleness rising and falling like the moon, lighting up Ichigo's dark world.

Ichigo ingested Byakuya with a vain exploration. He watched his body's every retaliation with an obsessive scrutiny. He watched how the hollow between Byakuya's collarbones depressed whenever he swallowed hard. He licked his lips at the way droplets of sweat would trickle from his chest and pooled in all the pits of his body. He hovered from above, studied his every quirk and reflex, wanting never to forget, but he knew that was impossible. Making love to Byakuya was like trying to count craters on the moon from so far away. He could do it every night and still not see all the indents that made him unique.

"There you go. Just relax. Let me take care of you."

When he felt Byakuya's body settle into an anticipatory calm, he lathered on more lube, prudently pushed in a fourth finger, and shifted them to new and unseen depths, watching as that wanton hole greedily took him in past the knuckles.

Byakuya let out a desperate, tear scorched scream that Ichigo could feel in his belly.

"Fuck," Ichigo muttered under his breath.

He continued to rub and kiss up Byakuya's thigh, working some of the elasticity out of his hole. He added more lube, gradually pushing for more and more, wanting to take every part of Byakuya.

"You're taking almost my whole hand," Ichigo said with a whispered fascination. "Take more for me. I want to see how deep you go."

Byakuya looked to him with dripping eyes and rose tinted skin. "Ichigo… it is so hot inside. I want you in me."

"I'll give you what you want for as long as you want it," Ichigo assured with a sultry affectionate. "But I'm going to take my time with you. Just lay back and let me get you there."

Byakuya let out a gritty moan and whispered, barely sensible, "Take me where ever you want."

Ichigo responded by flexing his probing hand, sending jolts through his lover. The sight made his member ache and throb. He continued in his steady whirling, finding a coiled sensation inside of Byakuya, one that grew tighter and tighter the more he prodded, urging a pressure that was moments from snapping. All the while he murmured lusty encouragements, telling him how good he was doing, telling him how much better it would feel after being wound up like this, saying that he looked otherworldly wiggling around on Ichigo's hand.

"You're so close, Byakuya," he muttered, mouth clouded by a mouthful of his lovers thigh, suckling and licking at the creamy skin.

Byakuya's leaking cock, rudy and pulsating, was beating against his pelvic. His whole body was thrumming into a frenzy, a fever working at his brain, whisking him into a welcomed lunacy.

"Ichigo!" Byakuya implored, "bite me. Hard!"

Ichigo bit to bruise, sinking into Byakuya's leg with a savage possession, making something pop within him. With a meticulous twist of his submerged hand, Ichigo said, "Okay, Kuyaiki, you can come now."

Byakuya released thick torrents of ecstasy across his stomach and chest, and Ichigo thought he had never seen anything so beautiful. Body bowed and chest high, he practically levitated off the bed. His neck bent and eyes closed, hands mindlessly slung above his head and mouth blabbering soft insanities that only the divine could understand, Byakuya looked as if he was crying in worship, so filled with the power of something bigger than himself that he was speaking in tongues.

This love, it was bigger than them, vaster. The air crackled in light of it, and Ichigo could feel it against his skin. He wanted to take this slowly, because like anything you worshiped, it needed not just your thoughts but your attention. It needed to grow, to breathe, to expand. It needed you on your knees. After five years, they had finally dug their way back to it. This was a revival.

With the pads of two fingers, Ichigo stroked that agitated bundle of nerves. "Ride it out. Focus on how I feel inside of you," he guided, lulling Byakuya from his climax until there was an easiness to his breathing.

Ichigo removed his fingers one by one, almost as slowly as he put them in, until they came out with a plop, and when he moved to kiss Byakuya, he kissed him like it meant something, kissed him like it meant everything, because it did.

His lips trailed downwards towards Byakuya's neck, and he made sure to give credence to every patch of skin, drenching it in piety.

"Thank you," Byakuya sighed, eyes fluttering.

"For what?" Ichigo asked in the middle of his gradual descent. "I haven't even gotten started with you yet."

Ichigo slurped up the cooling trails of come before licking his lover clean, making Byakuya squirm and wind his fingers in Ichigo's hair. He could see that Byakuya's body was piqued, over stimulated to the point of torture, but that only encouraged him in his erotic trek. He moved over Byakuya with a pitless enthusiasm, sweeping the gamut of lean muscles with his tongue, gorging on his velvety skin and drinking in its tangy flavor, leaving behind paths of saliva and fingerprints.

Settled between Byakuya's legs, he took his cock fully into his mouth, giving none of that slow-building pleasure, but instead, a ceaseless assault that kept the lawyer suspended in this hysterical bliss.

Byakuya's tremoring thighs wrapped around him, squeezing at the ears. He was near convulsions, frothing with breathy screams and whimpers for mercy as his heels dug into the gear of muscles shifting and contracting in Ichigo's back, helping him brace against the intensity.

"Too...too much. It feels too good," Byakuya moaned out, but Ichigo just slipped his hands underneath, grasping the swell of his bottom and forcing his pelvis up. He went even deeper down Ichigo's throat.

Byakuya bore a heel into Ichigo's shoulder and pushed him back on his knees. He sat up and leaned against his palm, his leg still bent and extended against Ichigo to keep him at bay.

They stared at one another, both panting, taking back the air this limerence took from them. As they sat regarding each other, heat stewing in their eyes, desire sticking to their skin, there was something wild in them. A pair of savages they were.

Blood had been suctioned to Byakuya's surface, leaving his skin crimson and vibrating. His hair was awry and his lips swollen and Ichigo thought he couldn't be more divine even if he sprouted wings right then and there.

"Fuck, I love you so much, Byakuya."

Byakuya dropped his thwarting heel and launched forward onto his knees, wrapping his arms around Ichigo and dragging him into a mess of sloppy, open mouth kisses. Their hands clutching and their mouths taking. Desperate, they were found in each others touch.

"I love you too, Ichigo," Byakuya moaned into the fissures of their covetous mouths. "Inside me. Now.

With a bit of strength and a lot of desire, Ichigo lifted Byakuya so that his legs were tightly circled around Ichigo's waist. He helped to hold him up with one hand and used the other to position the tip of his cock against Byakuya's entrance before he fell back onto his haunches, sinking half way into Byakuya as he did.

They both let out sounds of crazed pleasure, but despite the intensity, there was no hesitancy in Byakuya's motions. He grinded his way to complete glut before unwrapping his legs to press his heels into the bed, giving him enough leverage to gyrate madly atop Ichigo's cock.

Ichigo squeezed Byakuya's shapely ass, bolstering the speed of which that stretched hole slid up and down him from head to base. He used every muscle he had to match those thrust until their bodies were moving in an erratic blitz.

They were both drenched, dripping right into a beautiful friction and grunting at the exertion of it all. There was a burning heat turning Ichigo's muscles to mush and the salt of sweat stinging his eyes, and with the way they were writhing and oozing like condemned pipework, Ichigo knew he was about to burst.

Ichigo imprisoned Byakuya's hips, and at how the lawyer wiggled about and gave a scowling pout, Ichigo could've filled him with his come right there.

"Hey, I'm not going anyway," Ichigo said in between kisses of Byakuya's curdled features. "I don't want this to end too soon. You gotta slow down."

Suddenly, Ichigo was on his back with a palm steady and centered on his chest. Byakuya, darkened pupils narrowed and mouth wilted as if in preparation to feed, loomed above.

"Oh, I will go slow, Ichigo," he said, his body setting an easy and controlled rise and fall. "Now, let's see where I take you."

Ichigo's body decompressed, surrendering its air to the space between the bed and Byakuya. He was a spectator, watching and riveted as the lawyer put on a show for him, moving like a locomotive, powerful, gradually growing towards full steam.

He let out a hummed growled, sliding his palms up Byakuya's swiveling sides, feeling that meticulous magic by the handfuls.

"You're amaz- ahh...nahh… at this."

Byakuya smirked. Hexing, it was.

"I did have some practice in the years we were apart." When Ichigo hands gripped tighter, his measured rolles of the hips became as leaden as his eyes. "Jealous, are we?"

"I don't want to think of anyone else inside of you. They don't deserve it. I don't even deserve it."

"I am not some sacred, untouched temple, Ichigo. I am human. I don't want you to idealize me."

"I don't. It's just..." Ichigo trailed off, hands gliding up Byakuya's body until they fanned over his pectorals. "I love you, so is it so weird that I see you from your best angles?"

An undefinable shift happened in Byakuya's eyes before he pulled Ichigo into an answering kiss. Ichigo rolled them over, and they began to make love with nothing but cunning instinct and years of suppressed longing.

The World would not keep this moment, because they were nothing spectacular, one story out of thousands that read the same. Two hopeless fools grinding like flint rocks, trying to rekindle a flame from a spark, begging for oxygen in the same way people dance to beseech rain. The marks they left on each other were never remembered by the world to even be forgotten, if they were observed at all. They would never be the thing of novels or oral history, passed down to tell the tale of a love that broke down walls. No, they were not important to the world, but to each other, this was their whole world. This was the pinnacle of their story, the greatest heights of which they climbed to reach, and long after the euphoria wore off and the finger prints faded, this moment would be bookmarked inside of them. The part they'd revisit over and over again.

xXx

Byakuya was on his stomach, leaning up against pointy elbows as he tried to regain a rhythm to his breathing.

The curtains in Ichigo's bedroom were blackout, allowing no sun in, and the dim lamp in the corner made it almost sepia in appearance. It gave the room this ageless look, as if time didn't exist within this space.

If it wasn't for a digital bedside clock that told Byakuya the sun was already peaking above the cities horizon, he may have allowed that illusion to warp his perception.

An ineffable sensation of time on the run filled him. It wasn't quite saddened nor loneliness, but it was washed in their nuances. It was the ambiguously wistful feeling you got when staying up to the point where you have to chose between insufficient sleep or riding out the day break, and the hopeless knowledge that no matter what you decided, you've lost something. It was a feeling of needing more time, but not really knowing what for. It was the feeling of being the only one up in a town filled with sound sleepers.

The cool press of lips running down his shoulder offered Byakuya a pleasant distraction. He arched his neck to join their lips. It was the softest, most affectionate kiss he'd ever embarked in, the heat of which did not travel to his loins like unruly flames, but stayed centered around his heart like a campfire, one he could stare into for hours, huddle towards to escape the cold.

It was easy to let Ichigo distract him, with his callused fingertips, swollen ruby colored lips, and time absorbing room. It was easy, because he loved him.

It was so easy…

Only…

"I remember this," Ichigo said, brushing over a path of risen flesh with plundering fingers. "I hated that you got hurt for me that day."

Ah, Byakuya remembered. It was earned in their intrepid high school days where they wore their orange hair and wealth like targets. That wasn't the first hit Byakuya took for Ichigo, and it certainly wasn't the last.

"...I didn't think. I saw that thug pull out a knife and protecting you was all that mattered."

Ichigo pressed lips to the scar, wet and tender, and Byakuya thought he never felt anything more beautifully erotic in his life.

His lips traveled to more salacious depths, all the way down to Byakuya's perked bottom. "I'll never be the reason you get hurt again," he said, squeezing Byakuya's cheeks and spreading them in the way someone might split a peach

Byakuya panted. He should have told Ichigo to stop. They needed to stop. This was a fairy tail, one with a grim ending.

'You can not promise such things.'

He sucked on Byakuya's lewdly stretched cheeks as if draining it for juices. What he got instead was moans and fluxing hips.

'I am not someone you should worship. You are caught up.'

He bit into the dewy flesh before sliding his to tongue up and down the crease that lead to Byakuya's hole.

'We were foolish. We did not even use condoms. I allowed you to come inside of me. It was…'

Ichigo's tongued him with calmly measured thrust, and Byakuya tried to disappear into the mattress, squirming in a disarray of bedding.

He screamed.

'...amazing!'

"Fuck, I love watching you like this," Ichigo said as he moved onto his haunches. He griped Byakuya's hips and directed them back. Pliant and submissive, he compiled.

His hole was moaning, ready for anything Ichigo did, and upon penetration, it welcomed Ichigo's cock with an embrace.

'You are not in love with me, Ichigo, but with our past. You're in love with moments and ideas.'

Ichigo leaned forward and ran a hand up the viscid skin of Byakuya's back, from full ass to curving spine and low shoulders. Byakuya was sure he looked similar to how a cat did when it stretched, but he didn't care. He'd look ridiculous if for Ichigo's pleasure.

"Beautiful," Ichigo muttered.

'I will disappoint you.'

Ichigo fucked him widely, and Byakuya gave him access to everything. "Don't… stop…"

'You'll leave.'

Ichigo gripped Byakuya's thigh with one hand and used his other to support himself beside Byakuya's head. He hovered over his lover and pushed in deeper, making Byakuya let out a primal groan. In his ear, Ichigo whispered, "Never."

'Don't say that. You'll leave.'

'You'll leave.'

'You'll…'

Byakuya sputtered, and his hips just couldn't hold anymore. He flopped onto to mattress and Ichigo flanked him, fucking them both through their orgasam.

They both fell into a heap of intertwined breaths, and Byakuya wished that the calm would never come. Their passion, it exited in the vacuum of this time oblivious room. There was no space for it in the real world.

Ichigo's hand came to rest on his cheek. Byakuya kissed it. It tasted sweet.

"Really Ichigo? Strawberry lube?"

"What?" Ichigo shrugged. "Makes it taste better."

"I didn't know you needed to be incentivised into sucking cock."

Ichigo looked at him with laughing eyes and a big grin. "Yeah, and I didn't know you had such a dirty mouth. I like it." Ichigo nipped at Byakuya's earlobe, and dammit, if this kept up, Ichigo was going to break him. "Hungry?"

"Yes, but perhaps we do not hunger for the same thing."

"Oh yeah," Ichigo breathed right against his ear. "And what are you hungry for?"

His stomach picked that time to let out an answering growl, and Ichigo leaned back in laugher. "Yeah, I get it. I'll go make you some breakfast."

Byakuya turned onto his back and went to stand up, only to find Ichigo's hand on his chest and lips against his forehead. "Oh no you don't." Softly, he said, "Let me spoil you."

This overt affection had never been Ichigo's style. It was always more action based and less declarative. His flirting low key and taunting, his romanticism more of an unwitting bluntness that he remained oblivious too, but now, he was loading it on with an effort, and Byakuya be lying if he said he said he wasn't charmed by the excess.

Still, this wasn't real life, this was that breathless blur of seconds in between almost falling off a ledge and the hereafter. Ichigo's unyielding gratitude was a reaction, not a reality.

Byakuya wrapped his arms around Ichigo's waist and looked up to him. "I would like us to cook together," he said, "Besides, I wouldn't want you to destroy your kitchen. I'm unsure if you even know how to use a stove."

Ichigo snorted and pulled Byakuya into a melting kiss. "Right, I'd like that, but just so we're clear," he smirked, "We have a no clothes allowed rule in my kitchen, and if I recall correctly, you're not one to break rules, Byakuya."

Byakuya perked a brow as he scooped the borrowed sweat pants off the floor. He then leaned in, and right against the shell of his long lost friends ear, he said, "I only do when I'm with you Ichigo Kurosaki."

He didn't put them on, but instead draped them across his arm as he slinked out of the room, throwing Ichigo a quick over the shoulder wink.

Ichigo's reaction was delayed and flustered, but that just made it all the more gratifying. He pounced from the bed and after Byakuya, and as he went for the sweats, the lawyer griped them too, spinning around so that they were face to face. They tugged at the garment half heartedly, all touching nakedness and laughing grins.

Ichigo's arm around his waist pent them together, and eventually, Byakuya surrendered in his efforts to wrangle the sweats from behind Ichigo. His laughter waned. His face lapsed into a bank of emotions, each expression softly rounded.

Byakuya touched Ichigo's jaw. Slowly, he slid his thumb over to and across lips that didn't quite close, tracing the sensitive inner skin. He let his thumb drip off the bottom lip, paused at the chin, and watched the way it bounced back, watched the way he was watch with eyes that billowed.

Ichigo looked as if he had cultivated whole world's with his tongue, and he just wish to share it with him, but Byakuya liked the silence. He liked the quiet occasions when they spoke only with their eyes.

He could've tried to explain, but he didn't, because he knew there wasn't any phrase within the limitations of their language that could sum up the longing, the pain, the history, and what it all meant to them.

Honestly, Byakuya didn't think he'd want to hear words like that even if they did exist.

"Do you wish to see me naked that badly?"

"I just want to watch you freeze your ass off." Ichigo brought his smirking lips to Byakuya's. The lawyer rolled his eyes but accepted it fully. Against Byakuya's mouth, Ichigo whispered, "Seeing you naked is just a bonus."

"You're incorrigible."

Ichigo nibbled on Byakuya's jaw. "Yeah, and I think you like that."

Byakuya slyly ran his hand up Ichigo's bottom and settled against his wrist. In one slick maneuver he snatched the sweat pants from Ichigo and spun from his hold.

Taking a few backwards steps towards the kitchen, Byakuya's lips quirked at the scowling and casually nude Ichigo. "I see you're still so slow, Ichigo," he said before turning and sauntering forward, sure his friend was following.

They cooked together, trading banter and dressed in nothing but the stove light. They kissed and flirted. They ate their food on the couch and talked softly over the rims of mugs. Byakuya read for them and then they showered together, talking nothing of the past as if they were living in it.

This is what they could've been like years ago if only they had been a bit bolder, a bit thicker in the gut, but they weren't, and this was just a fantasy. It was self indulgence without moderation. It was relapse. Byakuya wasn't selfish enough to expect more from one single moment.

After that, Byakuya followed Ichigo to bed and laid his head against his chest. He listened to Ichigo's heart beat and drew circles on his stomach. He did all the things lovers do.

His fingers lazily brushed up Byakuya's back, and when he talked, there was sleep in his voice. "I've thought about this a lot."

Byakuya could hear the slurry undertones of his words, and he wondered what honesty might leak from Ichigo in his sleep riddled state. It worried him enough to shift against Ichigo, but not enough to stop his curiosity.

"Is that so?"

"Yeah, and other stuff too, like… getting married, having kids."

"Kids?"

"Yep, at least two. You'll like… bore them with poetry and make costumes for their school plays and stuff, and I'll," he chuckled sleepily, "probably be that dad who thinks he's cool but he's really not.

Byakuya chuckled too, but it was wet and forced because of the salt that burned at his eyes. Ichigo was, fortunately, too far gone to realize. "You make us sound so domestically boring," he said, half taunting.

"Hey, there's nothing wrong with boring. That's a privilege...growing old and boring with someone. Not everyone...gets to." He shifted a bit and brought Byakuya closer. Mumbled, just barely discernable, Byakuya heard him say, "I think it be nice, growing old with you."

Hot tears fell onto Ichigo's chest, and Byakuya put a palm to his mouth to muffle a moan. He shouldn't have let this happen when he knew it would lead to a dead end, but he was selfish and he was vile, and for that reason, he would lay in Ichigo's warmth for just a bit longer.

xXx

Rukia didn't quite know what to do with the scene before her. Ichigo sat on a bed of shambled sheets, looking as if he was the sole occupant on an island made up of discarded beer bottles and cigarette buts. He looked helplessly stranded with the back of his head slumped against the wall and his eyes their own two little deserted island, isolated and uncharted in their sockets.

Ichigo had never been what you would consider a tell all person, but he often kept his heart locked away in his eyes, making him see through to anyone who looked close enough.

Rukia stepped closer.

If he was ignoring her or if he didn't register her wasn't clear, but this certainly wasn't Ichigo's typical understated melancholy that would emanate from him as if it was just part of his overall aesthetic. This made Rukia fell the need to adjust herself, act accordingly.

"Sooo, I guess we're not going to dinner."

His eyes widened marginally as he looked up to her. They were wilted in the way only years could cause, unfurling in slow motion, time making it hard to move against the light.

He looked at his surroundings, uselessly scavenging the contents of his little island for an excuse.

When he looked back up to her, lips opening and closing, Rukia shook her head and said, "Relax, I'm not judging you." She walked around his bed, using her arm like a machete to cut through the heavy smoke. "Much."

Rukia coughed theatrically. "Geze, open a window," she said as she pulled back a curtain and did just that. "Light a candle, spray some Febreze, something." She inhaled deeply and turned back towards Ichigo with a smirk. "Cigarette smoke, alcohol, and sex. Sounds like you went out with Grimmjow and Renji last night. I'd probably be upset too."

When that got nothing, not even a half assed snort, Rukia started to worry. It wasn't like Ichigo to wallow in a pit of cigarette ash, dead skin, and dried tears. It also wasn't like him to be sitting like he was, one leg hung over the side of the bed, the other bent in front of him, his head dipped and the world only as big as the space between his eyes and his hands.

She came to sit beside him and placed a hand on his knee.

"Ichigo, what's wrong with you. I haven't seen you like this since your mom died."

He looked up. His eyes trembled. His mouth was ajar. He swallowed hard and pushed fingers through his hair, but still, he said nothing.

"Ichigo, you're kind've scaring me. Say something."

"He left," Ichigo said, words wispy in their control. He dipped his head again as if the promise of collapse was in their eye contact. "He's gone."

His knuckled hands kneaded against his thighs before he grabbed another cigarette and lit it. Quickly, he twisted to open his bedside draw and pulled out a picture. He threw it on the bed in front her, refusing to look at it.

Rukia picked up the partially charred picture. It was slightly aged, showing Byakuya and Ichigo posing at a skating rink. When Ichigo muttered out, "There's a message on the back," she flipped it over.

In her brothers familiar handwriting, she read the words, 'Do not contact me.' It was curt, and pointed, and she could practically hear them as they would be spoken by Byakuya.

"Ichigo..Byakuya, I'm sure he-"

"I don't need you to defend him," Ichigo said, stubbing out his cigarette in an overflowing ashtray. "I get Byakuya's subtext… It's just, we had such a great night, I thought…"

The words hung as low as Ichigo's head, and Rukia tried to find some wisdom in what seemed to be a helpless situation.

"Sometimes a good night is just a good night."

"This isn't some onenightstand, Rukia, this is me and Bya-"

"I know, I know, Ichigo and Byakuya, the great unsung love story of our time."

Ichigo's face pinched. "Don't patronize me."

Rukia's squeezed at the bridge of her nose with a sigh, "I'm not," she said, standing up to amble around the room. "It's just, I'm tired of seeing you guys like this. All you do is hurt each other lately. Maybe you guys should be-"

"Don't finish that sentence, Rukia."

The woman turned back towards Ichigo and looked at those two glossy islands, nearly submerged by the ocean of which they floated in.

"This isn't how our story ends. I'll get his number, if not from you than from Kaien. I'll make him un-"

"Okay, Ichigo. Let's say you do get his number, then what?" Ichigo's mouth opened and closed a couple of times, shifting in search for something. "You laid all your cards out on the table, right? You told him how you felt, how sorry you are?"

"...Well, yeah…"

"Then what could you say? It doesn't matter how much you love each other. If he isn't ready, there's nothing you can say to change his mind. You need to respect that, Ichigo."

Ichigo looked as if he wanted to contest it, but there were white flags being raised under his weighty eyelids, and as much as it hurt to see, Rukia knew it was a necessary surrender.

"So that's it? It's really over between us?"

"Yeah, Ichigo. I think it is."

xXx

Haikha: Thank yew! :) Yeah, they still have a while to go, but they'll get there... eventually.

Tifanny91: Great to hear from you as always. I hope you actually get the notification for this. Yeah, them sleeping together, as you can see, didn't help. But it seemed like the natural progression of what would happen in their situation since theres all this intense emotion mixed with surpressed longing broiling between them.

Emilytaylor5999: Thank you! hope you enjoyed this chapter.

Guest: Thank you! :)

fire vixon: Your wish is my command. :)