for the ask meme, howsabout 6, 17, rukihime?
everyones-beau
(6: Bookshop AU, 17: War AU, Rukia/Orihime)
The first time Rukia stumbles into the place, she’s exhausted and cold, bloodied and bruised, wanting only a place to hide, a place to curl up to lick her wounds—
“Welcome to Priceless Tales, how can I… oh!” a startled voice greets her — and isn’t that odd? She’d thought the city abandoned to the Hollows, so… so why is a civilian still here? — followed by the sound of bare feet on wood, and—
Rukia drags her gaze up, gathering her strength to chide the woman for remaining behind, and freezes.
There’s something… odd about the woman approaching her, something… something on the edge of her senses, like a storm just over the horizon. She smells like rain, smells like green growing things, and Rukia takes a deep, ragged breath just to smell her, to smell something other than ash-char-decay for the first time in months.
“Come on, come on, you’re safe here. Let’s get you seated and see to your wounds, okay?” the woman asks with a bright smile, her sunset orange hair nearly glowing in the dim half-light of the store. She takes Rukia’s arm and tugs her deeper into the… into the bookstore of all places, towards an old, squat chair with wooden feet and a heavily stuffed seat.
It looks decadent, it looks ancient, and Rukia… Rukia is covered in mud-blood-ash, she can’t— she can’t—
The woman laughs, bright-cheerful-kind, and presses her into the chair anyway. “Don’t worry! You wouldn’t be the first to bleed all over my store, and you probably won’t be the last,” she says cheerfully, kneeling in front of Rukia and looking up at her through her lashes. “Everything will be okay, you’ll see.”
Rukia huffs at the empty reassurance but doesn’t bother fighting. She doesn’t have the strength to do so, not now, maybe never again.
Or… maybe that’s the blood-loss speaking.
Rukia sways. Struggles to stay awake.
Feels her body slump as darkness swims across her vision.
Knows nothing more.
When Rukia wakes, she’s in a burnt out building, sitting in a strangely untouched chair. There’s blood — her blood — staining the old fabric, but… she’s not wounded.
She’s not wounded.
No matter that she remembers being wounded, remembers pain-agony-weakness, her clothing is whole and her skin unmarred. It’s as if she fell asleep and dreamt it all— the attack, her wounds, finding an intact store, the shopkeeper…
But she doesn’t remember walking into this building. Doesn’t remember sitting down anywhere but the chair in the strange store…
And the blood. Still warm. Still tacky. Probably hers but…
She’s not wounded.
Rukia releases a long, shuddering breath and carefully rises, testing her body’s reactions to movement and…
She feels fine.
(What in the world…?)
Rukia swallows. Glances around the burnt out building.
Hurries out before she can question it any further.
(She has a war to fight.)
She tries not to think about the bookshop, about the shopkeeper, as she goes about her business; war is dangerous enough without being distracted by mysteries, and she’s constantly being directed around the front lines as her power is needed.
(Sometimes she wishes Sode no Shirayuki wasn’t ice based but…)
(She’s one of the few who can stop the raging fires started by the Hollows.)
(It’s tiring, but it’s needed.)
(She can’t refuse.)
She doesn’t get much downtime because of it, but even she gets it sometimes; like right now, as she wanders aimlessly through a mostly-intact city, uncertain where she wants to go, uncertain if she really wants to go anywhere, talk to anyone—
A familiar-unfamiliar door catches her attention, garishly bright and cheerfully inviting, despite being tucked away in a little nook formed by two other buildings. She wavers, hesitating over whether to investigate or continue on, before deciding what the hell and marching towards the door.
There’s a dark, narrow staircase behind the door, disappearing upwards with no signs of ending, and the first step creaks under Rukia’s foot as she steps on it. Still, she forges upwards, one hand on Sode’s hilt and the other on the wall, until a door suddenly looms out of the darkness in front of her.
She opens it.
Steps through.
“Welcome to Priceless Tales, how can I help you?” a familiar voice happily greets her. “Oh, you’re back! Hello there!”
Rukia starts and looks over at the counter to her side, eyes widening at the sight of the woman from her… dream? Memory? A quick glance around confirms the rest of it; she’s standing in an oddly vast bookshop, shelves vanishing into shadows just like the stairs did, with a small seating area not far from the entrance. Even the chairs are familiar, the same squat, over-stuffed style that she remembers from before, but…
The city where she remembers running across this woman and her store is over a thousand kilometers away.
This can’t be the same place.
(Can it?)
Not to mention the fact that she woke up in a burnt out ruin instead of a store.
(So how in the world…?!)
The woman laughs brightly and comes out from around the counter, everything about her achingly familiar: her brilliant sunset orange hair, the scent of plants-rain-wind lingering around her, the sensation of a storm just over the horizon…
“I’m glad to see you well, this time!” the woman says with a warm-kind-sharp smile, even as she ushers Rukia towards the small seating area. “You had me worried when you passed out like that.”
“I… yes. Thank you for taking care of me,” Rukia manages as she gingerly settles into one of the chairs. It’s just as overstuffed and decadent as it looks, and she feels herself melting back into it without hesitation. Just the chance to sit and relax is a welcome relief, and the dim light of the store is soothing the longer she sits in it; it feels safe, feels protective, and after so long at war, Rukia will take whatever safety and rest that she can find, no matter how artificial it is.
“Don’t mention it,” the woman tells her, and this time her smile has teeth.
Rukia laughs awkwardly and clasps her hands over her knee, telling herself that she shouldn’t find a civilian shopkeeper so fascinating, but…
Something about the woman calls out to her, calls out to Sode no Shirayuki, and she can’t help but wonder…
“Alright then,” Rukia agrees after a moment, then glances at the shelves around them. “So… can you tell me about this store?”
It’s the right question to ask; the woman practically lights up as she leans forward, excitement-pleasure-joy radiating from her as she says, “Of course, I’d love to tell you about it!”
Rukia settles in to listen to whatever the woman wants to tell her.
(Such clear joy is a rare commodity.)
(For that alone, she’ll listen to anything the woman had to say.)
(This is why she fights, to protect people like this.)
(Sometimes… sometimes she just needs a reminder.)
The sun is setting by the time Rukia leaves, and she stares blankly at the sky for a long, long moment, unnerved by having lost so much time without being aware of it. The bookshop hadn’t had any windows that she could see, but… but surely… surely she hadn’t spent that much time in there?
(Had she?)
She pulls out her pocket watch and flips the battered cover open, tipping the face towards the fading light, and—
Swallows.
Stares.
Slides her gaze from the watch telling her it’s only four in the afternoon to the brilliant orange sky, the same shade as the woman’s hair, telling her it’s nearly eight in the evening.
Slowly, warily, already certain of what she’s going to find, Rukia turns around to the door she just walked out of—
There’s no door.
There’s no sign that a door ever existed there, either. The two buildings abut cleanly, with no little nook for a door and a stairwell leading up. It’s like waking in a burnt-out building all over again, except this time…
This time Rukia went in there freely and willingly.
(That she walked out at all is… is…)
(No, no don’t think about it.)
(The woman was kind-pleasant-nice.)
(A few missing hours is a small price to pay for getting to relax.)
(She’ll just… have to be more careful from now on.)
Rukia glances one last time at the spot where the door was, then turns back around and stalks off.
She has work to do, and an encounter with the fair folk is no excuse to avoid it.
(She’ll just not mention this to anyone.)
(It’s no one’s business but hers, anyway.)
(She’ll be fine.)
(She will.)
Months go by, months in which the war worsens and Rukia finds herself thrown from mission to mission, front to front, until she’s running on pride-spite-fury and nothing else. Her friends are being worn down, are losing hope, losing strength, and… and she can’t… she can’t blame them.
Not when half the enemies they’ve been fighting are their own comrades resurrected and turned against them. Not when the other half are broken-twisted-empty civilians, their souls bound in barbed chains and driven mad by the agony.
(She’ll never forgive Aizen for this, for any of this.)
(If she had any hope of beating him—)
(But she doesn’t, she can’t, not when her own superiors can’t do a thing against him.)
Rukia takes a shaky breath and braces herself, hefting Sode no Shirayuki with trembling arms and staring down the monstrous Espada just down the street.
(She wasn’t supposed to be fighting an Espada; there wasn’t supposed to be one here…!)
(Had their intelligence failed, or… or is there… is there a traitor amongst them even now?)
The Espada grins at her, all sharp teeth and vicious greed, and spins an achingly familiar trident, it’s form flickering into… into—
Rukia seethes at the desecration, at the deceit, and launches herself at the monster wearing Shiba Kaien’s form, attacking once, twice, again-again-again until her trembling hands go numb and the monster’s mocking words start to dig deep-deep-deep into her mind.
It’s too powerful for her.
(She’s too worn down, her strength a sliver of what it should be.)
(She never had a chance.)
It laughs and bats her aside, a rush of water leaping from the trident and driving her back, driving her against — through! — a wall.
She tumbles down a flight of dimly lit stairs. Crashes through another door. Sprawls damp-wounded-worn across the wooden floor and stares blankly up at the darkness that devours the ceiling.
There are bookshelves looming over her.
(How… expected.)
“Welcome to— oh, hmm. You’re Hime’s Favored,” a man’s voice says, followed by the sound of bare feet on wood as he moves towards her.
Rukia wearily glances over, blinking at the sight of a tall, slender man with the same brilliant, sunset orange hair as the woman from before. And maybe it’s because she was just facing a creature pretending to be Shiba Kaien, but… he looks familiar, looks so much like her beloved mentor that she… she can’t bear it.
She closes her eyes and tips her head away.
The man kneels at her side. Carefully tugs her into a more comfortable position. Smooths her dripping hair out of her face. “I’ve let Hime know,” he tells her soothingly. “You just rest right here. Don’t worry about a thing, I’ll deal with it.”
Rukia swallows. Bites back the tears that want to fall. Steadfastly ignores that one of the fair folk is going out to deal with her problem.
He’s gone a moment later, not even the sound of footsteps giving him away, and Rukia sighs and reaches up to scrub at her eyes with one trembling hand.
(What has she gotten herself into?)
Before she can start to despair, there’s a sharp intake of breath from nearby, followed by the patter of bare feet on wood yet again. Another person kneels at her side, delicate hand smoothing across her face, as they say, “It’ll be alright. Just relax.”
Rukia’s breath hitches at the familiar voice and she cracks her eyes open, staring up at the woman from her previous visits — Hime, the man had called her? — and drinking in the sight of the woman’s care-concern-determination. It might be — probably is — faked, but she doesn’t have the strength to care anymore.
Even the pretense is better than nothing, at this point.
Light shimmers around her, the same brilliant orange as the woman’s hair, and Rukia sighs in relief as her pain begins to fade.
“You’re worse than last time,” Hime murmurs, mouth curving down into a frown as she does.
Rukia huffs. “The war is getting worse,” she tells Hime without hesitation, then lets her eyes slide closed in exhaustion. “We’re… not going to win,” she admits softly, giving voice to the fear that’s been growing in her soul the past few months. “We’re stretched thin as it is, and I’m… I’m so tired…” She shouldn’t be admitting this to one of the fair folk, shouldn’t be giving Hime such an opening, but…
She can’t help it.
Not anymore.
Hime hums and leans forward, leans over Rukia until there’s only inches between them. “What would you give to see the war ended?” she asks, quiet-intense-tempting.
“Anything,” Rukia breathes, knowing exactly the trap she’s walking into and unable to find the strength to care.
“Give me your name.”
“Kuchiki Rukia.”
Hime makes a happy noise and leans closer, her lips soft-warm-gentle as she presses a kiss to Rukia’s own. “Kuchiki Rukia,” she whispers against Rukia’s lips, the sound rippling down Rukia’s spine like a promise, like an oath. “Consider your request fulfilled.” Hime straightens up, one hand brushing across Rukia’s forehead once again, and then she orders, “Rest now. Rest and recover. You’re safe.”
Rukia struggles against the command for a moment, two, before the creeping relief-exhaustion-hope overtakes her at last.
She falls asleep.
She doesn’t dream.
(And when she wakes, Aizen is dead and the Hollows are back where they belong.)
(And when she wakes, she steps from the bookshop with a new wife on one side and a new brother on the other.)
(The Kuchiki Clan is in for the shock of their lives but…)
(She regrets nothing.)
(And she never will.)