Title: Cold

Author: Kali

Series: Bleach

Pairing: Ichigo/Uryuu

Rating: PG-13

Disclaimer: If I owned any anime, noone would ever wear clothes. Thusly, I don't own Bleach. ;)

A/N: Hope you enjoy, and please review if you did! (Hell, even if you didn't.) :)

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So cold...

He briskly rubbed his hands together in an attempt to help warmth find it's way back into the frozen digits. A small, foggy breath into the bare hands did little to help. Giving up on the failed attempt to warm his hands, he holstered his backpack up a bit, snuggled further into his scarf, and shoved his hands into his jacket pockets. These cold walks home from school in the winter were far from comfortable.

Especially since he now walked them alone.

Lonely walks in the cold, daydreaming about a now untouchable desire... these were the worst.

So cold...

Ichigo did his best to shrug off the events of two weeks ago. In a final breaking of willpower, his feelings had finally come out. He was his rival, his enemy, his friend... and he was in love with him. In a onrushing torrent of unchecked emotions, the nerve-wracked boy, on the same walk home that he was now taking, had spilled his heart out to the other. The feelings had been pent up for too long, and couldn't be contained any longer. The words had tumbled out of his mouth before he even knew they were there.

You mean the world to me.

I can't think of life without you.

I love you.

But the reaction from the blue haired boy was nothing of what he expected. A shocked look that quickly turned to anger, a flare of rage, cold words... and he was gone.

So cold...

The memory of the event made Ichigo inwardly wince. He brought a frozen hand from his pocket to his face, gingerly touching the spot where the other boy's fist had come into contact with his check. The bruise had disappeared, but the feeling of the malice and anger behind the strike hurt worse than the actual injury. Ichigo's face had turned purple and green with the force, with a trace of blue-

...blue, he thought. Of course it was blue.

The dark, rich color of his hair.

The deep, swirling color of his eyes.

The icy, frozen sting of his words.

The beautiful, intense color that was Uryuu Ishida.

He shivered, but not from the cold. Stopping to study the gentle white blanket that covered the cold ground, a sigh betrayed him and escaped his lips. So many years of fighting together, existing together, being together... in just a few short moments, his world had crumbled around him. The last two weeks had felt too empty to comprehend. There were no more notes being passed during class, no more eating together on the roof, no more inconsiquential arguements about absolutely nothing. The casual glances in class, the knowing smirks before battling a Hollow, even the most meaningless nod of acknoledgement at the other's achievement of anything... vanished with no trace but that of sadness.

Ichigo's world was empty without Ishida.

So cold...

Delicate pinpricks on his face abruptly brought him from his thoughts, only to realize that his head was tilted up to the sky, eyes closed, standing still. It had started snowing again. Ichigo watched the gently falling snowflakes, each one drifting softly down to earth. Each one unique and beautiful, with a meaning all it's own. Who's snowflake are you? Closing his eyes again, he shook his head violently, both in an attempt to warm his face against his scarf and get rid of the nagging voice in his head, when he noticed an unusual wetness on his cheeks.

Tears?

Damnit.

Not again.

Angrily, he wiped the warm tears from his face and shoved his hands back into his pockets. No, he told himself. You can't do this to yourself. You can't help it if this is the way you feel. You can't beat yourself up just because you're in love-

His thoughts came to an abrupt stop as the words formed silently on cold, dry lips.

-because you're in love with Uryuu Ishida.

Jolting himself back to reality, Ichigo roughly shook his head and picked up the pace as he made his way home from school. Another empty, meaningless day in class, staring at the back of the head of the one person in his life that meant so much to him, and who cared nothing for him. Figures, he thought. Figures that this would happen to you. Oh, how he wished that irritating, pessimistic voice in the back of his head would shrivel up and die before it brought him any more misery. He could only imagine how much better that would make him feel; perhaps he could give Kon a good slugging when he got home.

Slamming the door shut behind him, he absently shook the accumulated snow out of his hair before stripping of the layers of clothing that had ultimatly failed to keep him warm. Just the thought of the icy wet look in Ishida's eyes before he turned heel on him and ran the other way-

GET AHOLD OF YOURSELF, screamed Ichigo's subconcious. What happened, happened, and damned if you can go back and change it now. In the end, he knew that the little voice was right. Even if he didn't want to hear it, he knew the truth. He was pathetic.

Sighing again, he trudged his way into the kitchen to be greeted by an unusually calm father, reading a newspaper at the table.

"Your friend's here", he said without the slightest motion of his paper. "He said you were expecting him, so I just let him upstairs."

The blonde boy stopped and raised an inquisitive eyebrow. "Expecting who? What friend?" He recalled making no plans for today...

With a wave of his hand, his father dismissed the probing questions. "The one that's always over here. Go upstairs, he's waiting for you. Said he had something to talk to you about."

...Oh, that's right, thought Ichigo. Chad said he had something to discuss with me; I guess he dropped by earlier than I expected. Nodding a quick thanks to his father, he quickly bounded up the stairs for his room. If anyone could help him clear up what was going on in his screwed up head, it was Chad. He could trust Chad.

You could also trust Uryuu, couldn't you. Damnit, that voice was getting annoying. Ichigo made a mental note to punch Kon twice.

Opening his bedroom door, he called ahead of him. "Oi, Chad! Didn't know you were gonna drop by to-"

And stopped dead in his sentence.

Sitting on his bed, intently staring out the window, with his soft blue hair and cream colored skin, slender fingers pushing up his rectangular glasses, was Uryuu. With a fluid, calculated movement, the Quincy turned himself from the window to cast his gaze directly into Ichigo's eyes.

All Ichigo could do was stare, mouth slightly agape. His breath caught just before his lips, as a thousand thoughts raced through his mind. Is this real? Why is he here? Is he going to kill me? Should I kill him? Should I run? Should I say something? Feet frozen to the floor, all he was capable of doing was to search those icy cold eyes for some sort of explanation. But it was only after moments of studying Ishida's face that he saw the very last thing that he thought he'd ever see...

The Quincy's face was wet with tears.

At that moment in time, the thousand thoughts that ran through Ichigo's head disappeared, and was replaced by one single thought. He could take care of him, take away his tears, hold him close so noone can hurt him. How dare anyone hurt his Ishida... his precious, special Ishida...

Noone hurts the one I love.

Suddenly, there was a slight displacement of air, and he realized that his eyes had been closed. They shot open to look directly into two rectangular planes of glass, hiding a pair of icy, wet eyes. However, this time, they didn't look so cold; in fact, Ichigo thought, they looked rather sad. Almost... warm.

Neither boy uttered a word for what seemed like an eternity. There was just closeness, and staring. No words were uttered, but an unspoken conversation was happening between the teary sea of brown and blue. Accusations, apologies, and emotions were thrown back and forth in a single instant. The world disappeared around the two boys; only they existed.

Ishida slowly brought his hand to Ichigo's face, in the way a child would pet a puppy after it's been wounded. Cupping his cheek, he gently rubbed his thumb over the spot that he had bruised Ichigo, two weeks earlier. Almost unconciously, Ichigo's eyes fluttered half shut as he leaned into the caressing hand.

So...warm...

He heard a faint sniff, and opened his eyes fully to find himself looking a perfect portrait of sadness square in the face. Tears streamed down the slender boy's face as he moved his lips to form words that Ichigo had never thought would exist.

"I...I couldn't believe it was real. I s-shouldn't have acted like I did. I didn't mean to h-hurt you. I'm sorry... god, Ichigo, I'm so sorry."

With those last words, Ichigo could take it no longer, and instinctivly wrapped his arms around the sobbing boy in front of him, pulling him into his chest. He felt arms snake around his waist and rest on his lower back, pulling at him as well. Resting his head against the soft blue hair, he breathed in the scent of Uryuu Ishida. It was the scent of fabric softener, snow, and warm vanilla. The figure in his arms shook slightly with sobs, and he could feel the tears gathering on his shirt. They felt comfortable, and warm.

So warm...

After long minutes of holding each other, Ishida pulled slightly away and looked up through foggy, tear-stained glasses. Ichigo couldn't help but gently smirk as he reached up and pulled off the Quincy's glasses. Setting them on the dresser next to him, he ran a thumb across the other's cheek, wiping off some tears.

"Ishida, I-"

A long, slender finger immediatly came to his lips, silencing him with surprise.

"No, Ichigo. You have nothing to say; you told me everything two weeks ago. It's I that should be doing the talking. These... these past two weeks have been miserable without you in my life. I..." At a loss for words, Ishida did the only thing that he could think of. Slowly, carefully, he leaned in towards Ichigo's face, where his lips found the spot where he had taken his rage out on Ichigo's face two weeks prior. He placed a gentle kiss on the spot, where his lips lingered long enough to murmur the words Ichigo had heard, so many hundreds of times, in his dreams.

"I love you too, Ichigo. I'm sorry it took so long for me to figure that out." He pulled away an inch or two to add, "And I'm still here, if you are too."

A stunned Ichigo could only stand there, unbelieving of the words he was hearing. He was jolted out of his trance by soft lips that grazed his, begging for an answer. How long he had stared at those lips, wondering how they felt, what they tasted like...

As a smile crept over his face, he whispered the only thing he could think of.

"Idiot. Of course I'm still here. And I'm never going anywhere without you... ever."

With that, instinct took over as he pressed his lips against the soft, waiting mouth before him. Gathering up the blue-haired boy in his arms, he kissed him harder, with the thirst of a parched man in the dessert. Ishida's eyes flew open momentarily at the sudden force, but immediatly returned the kiss with matched passion. Enveloping each other with entwined arms, Ichigo wished that this moment would never end; the moment he found out that Ishida... his Ishida... the boy whose face was flushed up against his... his love... was indeed...

Warm.