Secret Santa fic for vascoay. Prompt - Eve. Merry Christmas, darling, and sorry for all the angst!

He perches on the railing, so similar yet so different to the one in Karakura. In the distance, he can hear the babble of the city, of people rushing from point to point in their lives, so much to accomplish, so little time. So different from Soul Society.

He senses her approach long before he sees or hears her. He doesn't look up, eyes studiously tracing the grass-and-asphalt next to his feet. Her reiatsu is as strong as ever, but it's lost its vibrancy. It's a pale, fluttering flame compared to what it was five years ago.

Her footsteps sound steadily on the pavement, getting louder with each step as she cuts away from the hustle of the rush hour crowd. He doesn't look up until she comes to a stop in front of him, and he can make out her boots in the edge of his vision.

"Two months," she says simply, in the same tone she would say "Nice weather".

And he finally lets himself take her in.

Karin looks exhausted in a way no nineteen-year-old should, her skin pale and waxy. The dark circles under her eyes stand out sharpy in contrast. Her lips are chapped and bitten. The sweater she's wearing must've fit her properly at one point, now it hangs loosely off her skin-and-bones frame. Black hair frames her face limply, greasy strands that are slowly losing their life along with her.

She'd refused chemo.

He feels his lip curling with desperation in face of the solemn calmness in her so-dark eyes. "There are...ways. Inoue-"

"Has offered repeatedly." Karin completes.

He swallows, glancing away, unable to meet her gaze for a moment. He already knows this, had been witness to Ichigo tearing his hair out with blind fear and worry, yelling "Make her understand, someone!"

But the problem is, he does understand. Somehow, they've gotten to know each other well enough that she doesn't explain herself to him, and he doesn't need to ask her to. She's watched a war take place as a bystander, fighting and clawing for a normal life every step of the way. Unlike her brother, who'd stepped willingly into the embrace of the supernatural, all she's ever wanted is to be normal. Human. And now, she's finally accepted that that's not in the cards for her. This is her accepting her heritage, accepting that she was born with one foot past the veil.

He understands. It doesn't stop him from trying once more. "It's not like a Kurosaki to back down from a fight." He raises an eyebrow challengingly, taunting her famous fighting spirit.

Karin's eyes dance, as if she knows exactly what he's trying to do. "This isn't a battle," she says simply, and the hot wash of shame and bitterness in the back of his throat leaves him at a loss for words.

"Karin," His voice cracks, leaking out some of the desperation he's been suppressing so well so far.

She's shaking her head even before the second syllable leaves his lips. "Toushirou," she whispers, and finally he sees past the surface calm, to the deep pain running through her. Pain that she's doing this to her family, that has Yuzu crying every half an hour and Ichigo scowling at everything, helpless in face of a death he can't face down with his sword. That has her father serious for once, early wrinkles crowding the corners of his eyes as he prepares to bury his daughter next to his wife. "Don't.'

The railing he's sitting on takes several inches from his lesser height, only fifteen years old physically to her nineteen, but it doesn't stop her mouth from finding his, teeth clacking together as her hand fists in his haori. She tastes of decay and illness and the last lingering ray of sunlight. He kisses her back with just as much desperation, feeling her human pulse hammering under her too-cold skin and savouring it as she ends the kiss, nose brushing against his as she puffs quiet breaths against his skin.

"When I die," she begins, and stops as he flinches. She swallows, licking her lips, and continues, "I want you to come for me."

Toushirou closes his eyes and inhales, memories of Momo screaming of Aizen's innocence flickering behind his eyelids. Women can be cruel creatures sometimes. "Why." He doesn't have the energy to provide the proper intonation for the word, and it falls flat between them.

"My father...can't. And Rukia-nee will have to look after Ichi-nii." She licks her lips again, and he hates how the soldier in him points it out, dehydration. Her hand is still fisted in his haori. Blindly, Toushirou wonders what a human would see if they looked this way.

"You won't let them do it, but you would ask this of me?" he chokes bitterly. He knows her reasoning, though. Accepting it is a little harder.

"You understand why I'm doing this," Karin says quietly. She doesn't sound offended by his question. "They don't. They think I'm killing myself. You realise this is me accepting my life, my existence. To them, performing my konso will be as good as being an accessory to my murder." Her voice grows harder. "I will not let them hold that sort of guilt." Toushirou watches her chest rise and fall. Her breathing is laboured. She's already exhausted herself, he thinks numbly. "Toushirou." A note of pleading this time.

He gently unfurls her hand from his uniform, and can't help pressing his lips to papery knuckles before he lets her go. "I'll see you in two months, then," he hears himself say.

Karin smiles, the first glimpse of true happiness he's seen in her, and yet it's mixed with bitterness in the curve of her lips. She knows exactly what she's asking of him. "It's a promise."