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The Unexamined Afterlife
by afrai

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It's not a love triangle so much as a love conga line. Except love's probably the wrong word.

Renji would say so. Renji has his eyes half-shut every time he fucks Karin, like he can't believe what he's doing. When he comes, he twists under her like a mountain shrugging its shoulders, and it'd be really hot if he wasn't such a big dumb asshole. After the third time he mutters disbelievingly, "His sister -- " she punches him in the gut and snorts in satisfaction when he screams like a little girl and falls off the bed.

"The name's Karin," she tells the groaning heap on the floor. "Remember it, moron."

"Go to hell," says Renji.

Karin rolls over in bed and pretends she isn't pulsing in every inch of skin, isn't half-desperate to fucking get off already. She's not giving Renji any compliments.

"No, seriously," she says. "Does that turn you on, the sister thing? 'Cos that's fucking gross, man."

"Fuck you!"

"Not this time," says Karin. She gathers up her clothes before he can get ahold of Zabimaru and goes looking for Rukia.

If she was honest with herself, she'd have to admit she isn't sure why this is happening, or even what is happening. She doesn't even like Renji. It's the way he looks at Rukia. Not because Rukia's her -- her, well, whatever the hell Rukia is. Karin's not jealous, or at least if she is that's not the reason why she dislikes Renji.

It's just. That look. She doesn't know how anyone can miss it, though nobody seems to notice except her. It's hard to describe it. The closest Karin can come to an explanation is that Renji feels ... hungry. All the time, when he's fighting or having sex or hanging out with his crazy shinigami friends; it's a feeling that runs under everything he is, every dumbass word he says and moronic thing he does, but it's worst when he's with Rukia. He's like a black hole of pure want then, and he wants everything.

It's fucking creepy, but then again, it's not like they aren't all of them fucked up in their own special ways. It still doesn't mean Karin has to like it.

If she was sane she'd stay with Chad, who decided he loved her some time ago and refuses to budge no matter how much she yells at him. He doesn't ask for anything, only takes what she can give, and Karin would feel worse about that if she had the time. Chad deserves better than a psycho spirit samurai with a permanent attitude problem and a life purpose that means she's slated for an early death. She kind of wishes he wanted something better, but only sometimes.

She finds Rukia in her room, obsessively going over reports, and drapes over her like an affectionate sweater. Sometimes she thinks the only good thing about being a girl is that she gets to do shit like this. Ichigo would've been way too embarrassed, even if he'd had -- whatever it is that she has with Rukia.

Karin doesn't know if he ever even got close to this: Rukia's hair in her face, the texture and weight of it like raw silk; the stutter of her breath as Karin brushes her fingers along her breast. She avoids thinking about it, because hell, he's her brother. She likes to forget the fact that her life's turned into the kind of crap manga Rukia loves so much whenever possible.

"I'm working," says Rukia, cold as winter. Karin's seen her shikai before, and the memory of it whips through her like a mistral, grounding low in her belly. Rukia fighting is beautiful, untouchable, more alive than anything Karin's ever seen.

"Renji's an asshole," Karin says, and that shudders through Rukia like an earthquake. Karin feels the change through her fingertips, though Rukia doesn't move. She reminds herself that she isn't going to ask questions, pushes Rukia's chair to the side, and goes down.

And it's like drowning, again, every time. An inexpressible relief, not to have to breathe.

It could be worse. It's fucked up beyond belief, and her dad would kill -- actually, her dad would cheer her on and probably throw her a party ("HAPPY POLYAMORY DAY, KARIN-CHAN I can't believe Daddy's little girl is all grown up!"). But it could be worse.

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"Do you ever. Uh," she says to Chad one day. "With the others?"

She likes watching him think through his answers, relishes the texture of his quietness, and finds it maddening at the same time. He's too safe, almost too good, and in the mood Karin's in these days she wants something that'll tear at her, something that hurts. Maybe that explains a lot. Most of the time, Karin doesn't want to know.

"... have to choose what to protect," says Chad in the end.

It's a measure of how crazy things are that Karin can't tell if that's a yes or a no.

* * *

"Fuck no," says Renji. "I'm not gay."

"Right, just an idiot," says Karin. "Gay'd be better."

Renji surprises her with the tilt of his smirk. She would have expected anything of him but self-knowledge.

"Huh," he says. "Maybe."

* * *

"I think he knows," Karin says.

Rukia after sex is a deception, an illusion, a play. She lounges on her side, cast in poetic shadow as the dusk falls. Her eyes are an endless blue mystery. When she's like this Karin can see why the Kuchiki adopted her. She looks unreal, something out of a period drama on TV. Passing over her would have been like abandoning a priceless antique on the street.

"Knows what?"

"That you're gonna be the death of us all," says Karin, though that wasn't what she had been going to say. She was hoping for something a little more impressive. Never let it be said that a Kurosaki can't live up to the occasion when it comes to talking bullshit.

"No," says Rukia. "We will each be complicit in our downfall."

She sounds sad. Karin would be sorry she ever brought it up, except she's too busy rolling her eyes.

"Yeah, whatever," she says; kisses her, forgets about it. It's not like it won't all be over soon anyway. Karin's just passing the time till the fall.

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