This... is a nsfw snippet from a larger, post-686 continuity that I've dubbed 'Angry Ichigo AU', which may or may not be written depending on my muse for it. It's 686-compliant, and very very nsfw, so proceed at your own caution. (I mean, I could also probably say this is a bit ooc, but seeing as how we are taking 686 to be canon in this timeline…. lmao. Who even is Kurosaki Ichigo anymore? What counts as OOC now?) Also, tw: adultery. You've been warned. Any whining in the reviews about things I've already warned for won't be tolerated. bye.

and every breath we drew was-

by hashtagartistlife

She forgets to lock the door behind her. Mistake. Her first for the day, but not her last by far.

Halfway through her shower, he stalks in, the sound of the bathroom door opening and closing ominous in the tiled space. He makes sure to latch it shut, thorough to the last. They've seen each other in worse situations before (they've done worse before), but she still can't suppress the instinct to cover up.

He raises an eyebrow at her as he shucks his clothes.

"What are you doing, Ichigo?" she says. Her voice is remarkably steady, given the scenario.

"Taking a shower." His pants drop to the floor. She fights the blush rising to her cheeks.

"The bathroom's occupied." She steels herself as he steps into the shower. He crowds her in the small space, but she refuses to give him ground—at least until he invades her personal bubble, and she's forced to retreat to the wall if she doesn't want intimate contact with him. It's no use. He steps up with her, and her back hits the cold tiles. He presses in closer, a leg between hers, and bends his head to her neck.

"Need I remind you," he breathes into her skin, and she shudders— "that this is my house, Rukia?"

She makes a weak noise of protest, but doesn't throw him off; her hands ball into fists beside her. His lips find her pulse, dragging across sensitive skin—he knows her weaknesses—and she arches into him involuntarily.

"And you still owe me," he says, voice slipping like silk over her senses, dripping like honey into her ear— "months"— his fingers brush her nipple— "and months"—his other hand finds her entrance, and pushes in— "of rent." He curls a finger inside her, and the resultant spark of electricity pulls her body bow-taut. Stars explode behind her eyes. It's always like this with him—always potent and uncontrollable and bigger than the two of them, blinding in its intensity, overshadowing everything else. She chokes back a sob.

"But I could overlook it," he whispers, his fingers pumping slowly in and out of her, and Rukia fights to maintain a grip on the situation to no avail— "for a price." He bites down on the curve of her neck, then, and her knees give out under her; she's kept upright only by the pressure of his body against hers. He feels her give, and sucks on the skin there; she knows it's going to leave a mark, and she can feel his smirk against her flesh.

"Why—" she pants, but she's already pulling him harder against her, her lips seeking his— "are you like this?"

He stops short for a second, his lips frustratingly out of reach, scrutinising her with unreadable eyes before he smirks. "Wouldn't you like to know?" he taunts, eluding her attempts at a kiss easily. "Maybe I just like being able to have a shower whenever I damn well want."

His hand – the one not currently occupied with viciously unravelling her—finds her jaw, and he tilts her head up forcefully before crashing his lips down onto hers. He pushes his tongue into her mouth, and Rukia tastes blood.

"Ichigo, that's—" she starts, before he claps a hand over her mouth and her eyes go wide as saucers at the voice from just beyond the bathroom door.

"Yo, Rukia, you almost done?" Renji asks, and Rukia tries frantically to push Ichigo off her, but he doesn't budge an inch. "We're gonna be late at this rate, the zoo closes at four—"

"Tell him you're gonna skip out on this trip," Ichigo breathes in her ear, before dropping to his knees and licking straight up her centre without preamble. She shoves a fist into her mouth to prevent the high keening sound at the tip of her tongue from escaping. He grips her hips then, fingers digging into her, before starting in earnest; if she wasn't braced up against the wall, Rukia knows she would be a puddle on the floor.

There's an impatient rap at the door. "Rukia?"

"Yes!" she squeaks, wincing at the pitch of her own voice; she tries to bring it down to a more normal level but it's difficult when Ichigo's flexing his tongue like that, soft and hot and wet around her clit—"I—I'm fine, Renji, I just—" she cuts off sharply as he adds a finger into her, her head knocking back into the tiled wall. Her ruined moan comes out in half-breaths, barely audible behind the sound of the running water. "I—just—"

Ichigo's gaze on her burns; his mouth and tongue slow but there's no loss in intensity. If anything, the unbearable heat increases; he adds a second finger and he sucks lightly, the pressure driving her up higher and higher towards the peak. She shoves her fist in her mouth again and bites down. "I just—"

"Rukia—" Renji says, just as the fingers inside her twists and she lets out a sharp gasp.

Her eyes fly open; she looks to the door in horror but thankfully Renji seems oblivious, prattling on like he heard nothing. "—to go soon, and—"

"Go on without me!" she manages to get out, in a rush before Ichigo ups the ante, dialling things up a notch. She needs to get Renji away now. "I—I'm feeling really tired—"

There's a pause. "You sure?"

"Yes!" she says, and she's not sure whether she's speaking to Renji or Ichigo; the latter pauses just long enough in his ministrations to shoot her a smug look before he dives back in with a vengeance. "I'm fine, you all go—"

"S'pose if you're sure, then," comes the voice, before she hears his retreating footsteps and she lets out a quiet groan. Thank god, thank god—

He doesn't leave her much time to be relieved; as soon as the last of Renji's footsteps fade away he pushes her against the wall harder, his lips and tongue and teeth working in tandem to wind her tighter and tighter. The coil in her belly explodes in seconds, and she's spasming around his demanding fingers; he straightens up to his full height without withdrawing from her and swallows her moans on his tongue. Before the aftershocks of her orgasm dissipate entirely, he shifts her up higher on the wall and slides home.

He correctly interprets the tears gathering on her lashes as he fucks her, and he leans in to whisper in her ear: "I'll take you another time."

God, she hates how he does that, how even when they've both sunk this low he knows her this well; it's not the fucking zoo, and he knows it, but they're both pretending that that's what it was, anyway. She can't believe they've ended up here, again, today of all days – she was a terrible excuse for a mother, Ichika had been so excited to go – and she knows, with an awful certainty, that they will end up here in the future, too. They were too entwined not to.

"It's not—the damn zoo—" she snaps out, in between his sinuous hips, rolling and cresting like waves. He ignores her and instead drops his lips to the hollow at her throat; his lips and tongue skate across her collarbone, gentle in the way that his grip on her hips is not.

"I'll take you another time," he murmurs, and his thumb finds her clit— "just the two of us. You and I. No Renji, no Orihime, no kids—"

"—Stop," she tells him, because the threat of the tears spilling is becoming more and more real with every new word out of his mouth, "Ichigo, just stop—"

"Just you and I, all day long—"

"Ichigo, stop it—"

"We can even hold hands, if you want. Would you like that, Rukia?"

A choked moan rips from her throat; he bites down on a breast, before soothing the ache with his tongue.

She thinks she might hate him.

"Rukia, Rukia, we could be together for a whole day—"

"Ichigo, don't—"

"I'll take you out properly. We can go to the zoo—" Thrust. "Have lunch together outside—" Thrust. "I'll take you out to dinner somewhere nice—" Roll hips. "And then afterwards..."

He trails off, and he makes the pause sound obscene; the promise of afterwards is more effective than any dirty innuendo he could have made. Rukia can feel her second orgasm building in her like the tides, waiting and waiting and waiting to rush through her at the last minute. She clutches onto his shoulders for dear life; she can feel him breathing heavy into her ear. "And then afterwards…"

His hips flex into her particularly hard; she bites down on his neck. Ichigo leans in closer, tongue tracing the shell of her ear, and murmurs in a voice dark as velvet: "and afterwards, I'll take you to a hotel and make love to you all night long… would you like that, Rukia?"

In lieu of an answer, she comes apart with a cry, her fingernails digging bloody crescents into his arms. Ichigo groans, too, the pain of her nails mixing with the heady pleasure of her constrictions around him and drawing his orgasm from him with a sharp moan. He cradles her in his arms as they both undulate against each other, riding their mutual high through to the end; when she slumps against him, the tremors wracking her getting weaker and weaker, he strokes her hair back from her temples and kisses her tears away, the salty taste on his tongue reminding him of the ocean.

After an age, she gulps in a shaky breath and disentangles herself from him; he lets her, now that the all-consuming need to have her has settled down into a more manageable burn. He grips her wrist to stop her from getting too far away, though, and thinks to bring her in for another kiss when—

She slaps him.

The crack of her palm against his cheek echoes; he's stunned for a second, his jaw (caught by the edge of her hand) throbbing viciously. She meant to hurt him just then. She's standing at the opposite end of the shower, his view obscured by the stream of water that still jets between them. She has, he belatedly notices, shampoo suds in her hair.

"You—" her voice is raspy, but not from lust as it had been a minute ago; her chest is heaving and her shoulders are trembling like leaves in a summer storm. "Why—"

He rubs his jaw slowly and shrugs. "You didn't stop me," he points out, and her eyes flare angrily for a moment before the fire in them dies, long and drawn-out. She turns her back on him and reaches for the towel.

"I shouldn't have had to," she chokes, her words catching on the tail end of a sob; he grabs her by the wrist gently and draws her against his chest, enveloping her small frame in his. She shakes violently in his arms, and he lets her tears run unchecked.

"At least wash the shampoo out of your hair, idiot," he says softly, before leading her under the stream of water to brush his fingers through her hair, methodically working the chemicals out. She cries the entire time but once again does not stop him, letting him wash the shampoo out and then rub conditioner through, detangling the long strands. When he's done, he sweeps her hair back and presses a kiss to her temple.

"You're the worst," she says, even as he turns the water off and wraps her up in a towel, "the absolute worst—beyond redemption—awful—"

"I know," he breathes, as he towels her dry, periodically kissing her tears away, "I know."