A/N: My first Bleach one-shot! This piece is mostly revolves around Ichigo and his hallow buddy. I suppose it could be interpreted at Ichigo x Hichigo but that was not my intention. Anyways, I hope you enjoy it.

Perfectly Flawed

"How are the symptoms?"

Everyone called them symptoms, as if he had a disease. The word didn't do it justice. When the 'disease' would whisper to him, stroking his mind gently and caressing him with sinful thoughts that burned themselves into his dreams… it did so with human intelligence and perception. The 'disease' loved him. It cared for him with a brutal tenderness, digging deep into his fears, his anger, and his desires and nurturing them with a lover's touch. And when he caved just a little, when a small crack allowed the dark to trickle out, the 'disease' would throw back its head in ecstasy, eyes wide and mouth open with the orgasm shaking his soul. Then it was only one entity, a seamless attachment, a perfect melding of light and dark whose power knew no limitation. And he hated himself for the pleasure of it.

'Beeeautiul.' It would hiss, 'We're beautiful, can't you feel it?'

And then he was. He saw that Cheshire smile staring at him through the dark in his mind, and loved the way it curved up into a perfect crescent moon. So sharp and faultless, it became clearer than reality itself until he could taste it on his lips, crawling its way up onto his face in a smooth delicious movement that left his body wracked with fever.

"They're getting worse." He would answer, because that was how he should answer, because that is what everyone expected. They called him broken, they called him flawed and corrupt and he knew their fear as well as he knew the thing inside of him. And when he dug out that knowledge and let it ferment in the front of his mind, it turned into the sweetest nectar. His blood boiled with it, pumping in time to a pulse which was not his own.

At night when he lay awake feeling the sensation rise, feeling it bubble up pleasantly out of his chest, he wanted to scream from the torture. The denial ate away at his sanity, truly breaking him in a way that no one had ever considered. He felt its desperation and its need pressing into his thoughts, stifling all else until he found himself arching towards it willingly, embracing it and loving it just as passionately as it had loved him. And then it was at that exact moment he became whole and perfect. Its voice was his own, its actions were his own and he knew no other life than the one it had given him.

And they called it a symptom.

He called it a cure.