x Hourglass x

Although they did not know it, they were always living by the same clock.

-tick-

From the very beginning, their relationship is a sum of false starts and things unsaid.

He did not respect her for more than who she was; she did not place him on a pedestal even though his brilliance was occasionally blinding. They trained together, defining the spaces between by what they did not say.

When they threw him out of Soul Society, he never told her why he let them.

She never told him why she followed.

It was raining when she appeared on his doorstep two days later, soaked and freezing. Tessai opened the door, but it was Kisuke who brought her dry clothes and tried to cheer her up.

She left two years later; he could not give her what he didn't know she needed and in the human world their silences rang all wrong.

-tick-

Urahara has a good laugh, a worthy laugh. He can laugh over the tragic and the horrible, and silly messages written in blood on a teenager's wall.

He sings off-key in the shower and moves on a perpetual stage that he carries with him like a cloak. It's in the hat, and the cane and the swaggering walk, but not in the gigai. Unlike others, Urahara only wears his body - it doesn't wear him.

Inside he is still death god, ageless, merciless and full of terrible kindness.

The dark of him is an ocean; sometimes Yoruichi thinks she might drown in it.

-tick-

Sometimes Kisuke wonders how someone as great as her can be so unfinished.

He knows the Yoruichi nobody else knows. Young, soft, unguarded, clutching his overlarge yukata around her slim body with tenuous fingers.

Once, he even knew a Yoruichi who tried to scrub death off her skin with water and soap and then collapsed wet and naked in his arms, sobbing.

She is no more.

The Yoruichi he is holding in his arms now is stronger and older, so when she shivers and buries her face in his chest, her cheeks are dry.

She has learned that unlike poison, sorrow can't be washed away with tears.

-tick-

The shell of him is something between buffoon and sentimental genius, whereas the core of him is tempered steel in onion-thin layers. The very centre of Kisuke used to be too hot to touch, but now it's a dark mass closing in on absolute zero, the kind of frost that burns.

Soon it will collapse in on itself and he will become a sun that incinerates everything it touches.

Yoruichi will be there when it happens, watching him with a smile on her face.

-tick-

He is revered. He is followed. He is trusted.

She is feared, and she is loved.

But do they love her, or rather the sum of her skills in the dark feline body of a goddess, and is there even a difference?

With Urahara, she doesn't have to ask.

-tick-

Darkness is looming on the horizon. It's nothing new - there's always something dark looming on someone's horizon. It doesn't bother Yoruichi.

If they end, she hopes they might end together.

-tick-

Every story has an ending, and so must Ichigo's. Later Yoruichi thinks it was a good one, full of unexpected twists and family reunions and the good guys winning.

Surprisingly, they live to see it.

Still stunned, they go out to celebrate. Kisuke wears a suit over his borrowed body and wears it well. The silver gray of his tie goes well with his eyes and when he lightly embraces her in greeting his throat smells of something subtle and spicy.

Yoruichi wears a white dress over silky dark skin and has no way of knowing what the sinuous slope of her bare back does to him. The only thing she knows is that the touch of his large hand on her waist as he leads her to their table feels new in a way she doesn't understand.

When he draws out a chair for her to sit in, she blushes and looks away, horrified.

That way she doesn't see his mouth curve in a secret smile as he bends towards her. "Relax, Yoruichi-san," he murmurs, lips nearly but not quite brushing her ear. "You're supposed to enjoy yourself tonight."

Shocked, she turns her head to look at him but he's already on the other side of the table, his most innocent smile pasted on his face.

"So, what would you like to drink?"

"Sake," she bursts out, frowning when he raises an eyebrow.

"Things change," she says airily, suppressing a shudder at the thought of alcohol.

Shrugging, Urahara manages to attract the attention of a waiter with remarkable speed. When the sake arrives in expensive-looking flasks he pours her a cup which she downs with the elegance of a sailor before she remembers to fill his.

He just grins at her and leans back in his chair. He looks... happy, she realizes.

Embarrassed by the sudden flutter of her fake heart she grins back and makes a bawdy joke.

Laughing obligingly, he pours more sake.

They chat like old friends, ignoring the electricity in the air.

After the tenth cup, she starts to giggle. "Did you see Rukia's wedding dress? I swear, I thought Ichigo's eyes were going to fall out of his head."

Urahara smiles faintly. "Yes, Kuchiki-san seemed to have developed a sudden... bounty in the chest area."

Yoruichi nearly chokes on laughter. "Breasts, Kisuke. You can say it, you know. I'm nearing four hundred." She wipes away tears, chest shaking with slowly ebbing giggles. "Sometimes I think Ishida does it on purpose."

Urahara has mastered the skill of simultaneously listening to a woman talk and watching her chest move. "The dresses?" he replies blandly. "He just might."

Nevertheless, chest does not equal chest. He shifts delicately in his chair.

Yoruichi's fist punches the air, unladylike. "See? I knew he was evil." She gives him a blinding smile, revealing shallow dimples. "That boy's gonna get far."

"If you say so I'm sure it's true," he replies agreeably. "You were always rather good at picking the devious ones."

Pleased, she beams at him. There's something to be said for alcohol for chasing away awkward silences, she decides, but when she reaches for more sake, he takes hold of her hand.

"Would you like to go home?" he says suddenly, voice dark.

It is not a tone of voice she hears too often from him, so her defenses are insufficient. She hopes the sudden heat invading her belly is not showing on her face. "Sure," she replies tentatively, wondering why her skin is tingling so.

-tick-

At home they stop on the porch like every other couple returning from a date, and Urahara plucks a cherry blossom petal out of her hair, lingering for a moment over the cool silk of it. His knuckles brush her cheek on the way down.

For centuries time has been unwinding towards this very moment, just so she can now feel the calloused pads of his fingers on her face, the merest whisper of his breath against her ear.

"Thank you," he tells her seriously. "I had a lovely time."

Since she just stares at him he smiles faintly and says good night.

Frozen, Yoruichi keeps watching his back until the shoji closes behind him, an unfamiliar ache spreading through her chest.

-tick-

When she flings the screen door open a few minutes later she finds him leisurely untying his tie.

"You were playing me," she accuses, gripping the lapels of his jacket and pulling herself up to slant her mouth over his.

His hands come down to close around her waist.

"I beg to differ," he murmurs against her mouth. "I was giving you a chance to bow out. There are quite a few reasons against us doing this sort of thing, you know."

Confused, Yoruichi melts against him. "Are there?" she whispers. "I can't quite remember."

She'd tell him more but suddenly he's kissing her, hungrily, tongue stroking hers, stubble abrading the fragile skin of her jaw, and it's never been that hard to remember her own name.

"Yoruichi," he purrs, pressing her against the wall.

Ah yes. That was it.

Well, probably.

Long fingers cradling her head as he feeds off her, stealing her breath...

Kisuke, Kisuke... It's chant and apology and prayer in one as they stumble feverishly towards the bed, shreds of silk raining in their wake.

Her hands slide over the smoothly shifting muscles of his back, wondering why she can't seem to stop herself.

Coming to rest between her spread legs he looks up at her through half-lidded eyes, gaze heavy with greed.

Her breath hitches. "I want you," she tells him.

"I gathered as much," he replies huskily, slow smile a wide, predatory curve against her breast.

She wants to slap his chest but her fingers seem to have a mind of their own - they curl, catlike, into his shoulder instead. "Don't be cocky," she pants, although she know he's only speaking the truth.

But Kisuke just smiles and touches a finger to her lips. Instinctively, her tongue darts out to lick it; the rasp of calloused skin across her tongue tastes like rain.

Sexual refinement is for those trapped in an illusion of love, who don't know each other, don't need each other enough. For the two of them it's slide, lock and load in one sure, sinuous glide of his body along hers, and damn the consequences.

At this point neither of them cares that with each moan and bite and grind of slippery bodies against each other they further shatter a balance they have been carefully maintaining for centuries. And it truly is the end of the balancing act - cut the string and plunge headfirst into the abyss, entangled.

Kisuke decides he likes free fall. She's like a drug, singing in his blood, although he knows for a fact that she can't carry a tune worth a damn.

Well. Metaphors are rarely perfect and he's a scientist, not a poet. He slips his hands more firmly beneath the firm globes of her ass and valiantly resists the search for more adjectives. It's not hard, not as long as she's moving.

Or indeed breathing.

Ennamored of the way her shoulder and neck meet in a taut, graceful arc, he follows it with his lips to her ear, on which he lazily tugs with his teeth.

It shouldn't be enough.

But it is-

And as Yoruichi gasps his name against the sweat-slick skin of his collarbone and then throws her head back, body arched and shuddering in release, it occurs to him that he has seen her lost in pain and laughter, but he has never seen her lost in pleasure; the scalding weight of that knowledge is enough to push him over the edge.

He'd forgotten what loss of control feels like, but he remembers now. To his surprise, it is not at all unpleasant.

Yoruichi lies there bonelessly, a soft light in her eyes that he's only glimpsed before. Drawing her into the crook of his arm he brushes wet bangs away from her face and kisses her forehead.

"That's nice," she murmurs sleepily, lifting her face to his. "Crazy, but nice."

He strokes her back, cradling her close. "Mhm," he says, wishing at least some blood would find its way north so he can think again. This seems to be the kind of situation that requires thinking.

Yoruichi snuggles, but her hand has sneaked between them and is doing something far naughtier. "Again?" she asks, much like a kitten trying for a second helping of milk.

Well now. Thinking is probably overrated, Kisuke muses.

His metaphors were probably hopeless to begin with.