#irweek2020

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His hands are shaking and he is still painfully hard. His inner voice is whining, thoroughly annoyed, hissing at him, urging him to go back to tend to their potential mate and spend their heat with her.

It hits him now just how bad his situation is turning out to be.

He’s going into heat, barely minutes after getting into an enclosed space with a nameless stranger.

He is about to spend the next few days stuck in a mindless rutting haze, ruled by his baser urges to fuck and mate, fuelled with nothing but libido and lust. Forget work, he will be lucky if he has the presence of mind to even feed himself!

Ichigo curses as he pinches the bridge of his nose. The timing is shitty. There’s still so much work to be done and the board meeting is next week. As lead financial analyst, he’s been spending the better half of last year running numbers on the acquisition of Las Noches, analysing its risk to profit ratio.

He clicks his tongue. It can’t be helped. He still has his mandatory, government-standardised heat leave and this is the perfect time to take it. He makes a decision to call in a favour from Renji later to retrieve anything work related and have him drop it off for him.

He can call that pineapple head and he will do it later- once he is out of the building.

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Instead he has an entire month with Rukia, and he intends to savor it. He has an entire month of nights spent at her side, in her quarters at the Thirteenth Division, and Ichigo intends to take full advantage of her closeness.

“So you’ll join me for tea with Nii-sama tomorrow afternoon?” Rukia asks.

Well…he’ll take full advantage of her closeness when Byakuya can’t see them. “Mhm,” he agrees, and traces the line of her neck down to her shoulder, partially revealed by the sleeping yukata she wears.

“Ichigo.” Her voice is a little strained, as if she’s trying to be stern, and Ichigo just lifts his head and grins up at her.

“What? I’m fine joining you for tea tomorrow. Byakuya and I have an understanding,” he explains, and goes back to kissing her neck and shoulder. Stretched out alongside her petite frame, Ichigo is wearing only a pair of pale blue boxers; without air conditioning, it’s too hot for anything else. He wonders if he can convince his lover to start spending summers in the World of the Living, where they can rely on that wonder of modern life to keep them cool.

“An understanding,” Rukia says skeptically, and rolls over to face him properly. “Byakuya thinks you’re sleeping in the lieutenant’s quarters instead of in here with me.” Being acting captain has its perks: two years after the war, Rukia has finally consented to moving into the rooms set aside for the Thirteenth Division captain.

“That’s part of the understanding,” Ichigo insists as he brushes a lock of hair from her face and grins again. “He gave me his blessing to court you, he knows that I’ve been accepted into the Fifth Division, and we both pretend that I don’t,” he stops to slide his lips down to the rise of her breast, “kiss every inch of you every chance I get.”

The words make Rukia’s cheeks turn pink, but she scoffs at him. “If he knew, he’d make you stay in the Sixth Division barracks with Renji.”

“Please. Renji would get sick of you mooning over me every time I said goodnight to you,” Ichigo teases.

“Mooning! Idiot, you’re the one who uses that soul pass every chance you get just to come see me,” Rukia argues. “You’d be utterly lost without me.” But there’s a teasing note in her voice, too, and her eyes are soft. Still, the words hit a little too close to true for him and Ichigo rolls so that she’s under him, pinned and pushed against the futon.

“Yeah, that’s why I’m marrying you,” he retorts, and lowers his mouth to hers again.

She meets him halfway and they kiss for a time despite the heat, his lean body arched over hers. Then: “Who says we’re getting married? You haven’t asked me, yet.”

Ichigo huffs out a laugh and kisses her again. “Next year,” he promises. “Once I’ve graduated and moved here for good. I’ll ask.” He stops and kisses his way back down her neck. “And you’ll say yes.”

She melts beneath him as his lips find her breasts and then kiss lower. “Will I?” Rukia asks, eyes gleaming in the low light of the moon.

“Mhm. We’ll get married,” Ichigo continues, “and we’ll build a life together here.”

“And then?” Her voice is just a whisper.

“And then I’ll make you as happy as I can for the next thousand years,” he promises.

“Sap,” Rukia whispers.

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Rukia doesn’t fare well under the summer heat. She doesn’t like the feel of sweat gathering, the feel of hair sticking to her face, sweat sliding down her back. There are some nights when it’s too hot to even sleep and even the barest glide of silk on her skin is enough to make her hiss. Concessions come in the form of sleeping naked and she shucks off her clothes as she crawls into bed.

Her bed mate though makes it his personal mission to make her suffer under the humidity and sweat. He can’t seem to stay away from her, can’t resist touching her, hugging her, kissing her even when she’s already boiling from the heat.

Those long, hot summer nights, much like this one, are some of Ichigo’s favourites.

That doesn’t change just because they are in Soul Society instead of the Living World.

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