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There were two figures in Ichigo’s bed as he eased the door open. The tension bled out of his shoulders at the sight of them, still except for slow, even breathing.
It had been a long and tiring day at work, and all he wanted was to fall face-down in the bed and sleep like the dead. Grimmjow had come to visit that morning, which was another way to say he’d come to annoy Ichigo until he gave in and agreed to fight or fuck.
But Ichigo had a real job now, with last minute deadlines and overtime, so he had left Grimmjow at home, and let Shiro out as a compromise. He’d half expected to find the apartment in shambles, and was pleasantly surprised to find the furniture mostly intact, beyond a knocked over gaming console, controllers strewn across the couch, and a half-shredded jacket on the kitchen floor.
It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Shiro and Grimmjow, but together and without Ichigo’s mitigating presence, they tended to bring out the most chaotic parts of each other. This time it seemed that they had reigned it in, thank whatever gods there were out there.
As he drew closer, he had to step over disarrayed clothes piled messily on the floor by the foot of the bed. He let his own shirt and tie drop in the pile as well, followed by his socks and belt. From here, he could more clearly see the contours of the two people in his bed.
Grimmjow lay turned on his side, clutching Ichigo’s pillow between his arms, the left side of his face and his mask fragment pressed into the fabric. A dark bruise stood out against the pale skin at the base of his throat, visible even in the dim light filtering in through the curtains. The blanket shoved down to his waist revealed more marks across the planes of his chest and the breadth of his shoulders.
Two pale arms wrapped around his waist, and a pair of legs tangled with his. Shiro had his face pressed against Grimmjow’s back, the two of them plastered together from chest to hip. He had enough pale skin on display too to show off his own array of darkening bruises, proof that Grimmjow always gave as good as he got. One of Shiro’s hands dipped lower, across Grimmjow’s stomach, fingers curled loosely into the rim of his Hollow hole.
Ichigo smiled. When he and Shiro had first convinced Grimmjow to join them in bed, the arrancar had been wary as a prickly stray, staying only for the main event and leaving as soon as they were done. Now, seeing his relaxed face, the loose limbed sprawl of his legs across the sheets, pressed back-to-chest against the zanpakuto spirit whose touch he’d barely tolerated at first, Ichigo’s chest swelled with warmth.
The sheets rustled. Shiro stirred and lifted his head, white hair mussed with sleep. His grin carved a crescent of dark in his pale face as he saw Ichigo.
“You’re back late, King,” he said.
Ichigo huffed, shuffling onto the foot of the bed. “Don’t remind me. The new project’s in crunch time now, so we‘re all expected to stay late to meet the deadlines.”
Shiro snorted, but loosened one arm from around Grimmjow’s waist and beckoned Ichigo closer.
Ichigo obliged, leaning in for a brief kiss. Shiro pulled back quickly and grinned. “He wanted to wait for you,” he said in a low rasp, running a hand down Grimmjow’s side, “but I got impatient.”
Ichigo followed the movement with his gaze, the pale fingers trailing along ribs to the angle of his hip. He wet his lips and glanced back up at Grimmjow’s face.
Slack in sleep, his brow smoothed of its frown, he looked softer, his sharp edges blunted in the dim light, less like a feral creature playing at being tame, and more like someone just starting to settle in his own skin.
“I’m glad you two had fun,” Ichigo said, smiling in the sappy way that would’ve made Grimmjow punch him in the face back when they first reunited.
Shiro laughed. “Don’t worry,” he said, and there was a certain dark quality to his voice, a low, sensuous rasp, that stirred Ichigo’s blood underneath his exhaustion. “I saved some fun for you too.”
Shiro shifted the blankets, pulling them down past their hips. He cupped a hand under Grimmjow’s knee, lifting up his leg to reveal—
Ichigo’s throat went dry. They weren’t just pressed together skin-to-skin. Shiro was still inside Grimmjow.
He couldn’t look away from the place where Shiro’s cock, softened but still thick enough to stretch the rim tight around it, disappeared inside Grimmjow’s body.
“Kept him nice and warm for ya,” Shiro said, with a leer.
The thought of Grimmjow plugged up with Shiro’s cock and cum, waiting for Ichigo to come back—
Ichigo had had a long, exhausting day, but his all his blood rushed south easily enough.
“Want your sloppy seconds, King?” Shiro said, smirking at the look on Ichigo’s face.
Ichigo twitched in his pants. Fuck, he wanted.
“Do you have to phrase it like that?” He said, “it’s demeaning.” Though the complaint was immediately undermined by the way he shucked his pants and underwear off all at once in barely concealed eagerness. His dick bobbed between his legs, already hard and leaking.
Shiro only laughed, shifting his grip to turn Grimmjow onto his back. He slipped out in the move, and a bit of white liquid trickled out of Grimmjow’s hole, running down the inside of his thigh.
Ichigo swallowed. And then Shiro pushed himself up, positioning Grimmjow between his own thighs, facing Ichigo. One hand shifted under Grimmjow’s knee, prying his legs apart for a much better view. Ichigo settled himself at the foot of the bed, exhaustion forgotten and so hard he ached. In the light from the hall, Ichigo could see his softened cock nestled in blue curls, the drying streaks of come on his stomach. His eyes zeroed in on the imprint of teeth around one nipple, and he knew, in that wordless, instinctive way of zanpakutō and wielder, that if he were to press his own teeth into that ring of bruised skin, they would fit perfectly.
Grimmjow stirred at the manhandling. He made a small, sleepy noise, turning towards the sound of voices. The pillow fell away as he leaned back against Shiro’s chest and mumbled something incoherent.
“Shush,” Shiro said, stroking the hand not holding him open down Grimmjow’s side in an uncharacteristically gentle gesture, “it’s just King, late to the party as usual.”
Another sleepy mutter, and Grimmjow settled, his breathing evening out, head lolling against Shiro’s shoulder. It was strangely peaceful, and Ichigo felt torn between the impulse to let him keep sleeping and the throbbing need between his legs. As if reading his mind, Shiro grinned.
“Aww, ya can’t be thinking of backin’ down now,” he said, “after ya kept him waiting for so long too.” He hiked Grimmjow’s leg higher, using the arrancar’s unfair flexibility to his advantage, to reveal the raw pucker of his hole, still clenching around the space where Shiro had been just moments before. Another streak of cum dribbled out, and Shiro pressed it back in with the pad of his thumb. Ichigo watched mesmerized as the finger entered Grimmjow without resistance.
Grimmjow groaned low in his throat, pressing his head back Shiro’s chest, but eyes remained closed, his breathing even.
“Fuck,” Ichigo murmured.
“That’s the plan,” Shiro snickered.
Whatever tenuous bit of control Ichigo had been clinging onto before finally snapped. He scrambled between Grimmjow’s legs, gripped his dick and lined it up.
“Fuck,” he said again, low and reverent, and sank in.
The sound was obscene; Grimmjow was still slick with Shiro’s cum and whatever lube they’d used—probably not enough, but it didn’t matter now—and loose enough that Ichigo slid in with barely any resistance. And he was warm, the kind of warmth Ichigo craved after a long day, the kind that felt like home.
He breathed hard through his nose, clenching his hands into the sheets, trying not to shove himself into that warmth all at once.
Grimmjow shifted again, brow crinkling as Ichigo breached deeper. Ichigo unclenched a hand from the sheets to soothe it away, but before he could, Shiro had already moved.
In the day, in front of other people, Shiro moved through the world like a blade through soft flesh, movements sharp and words cutting. It was only here, in the late half-light of their bedroom with Grimmjow still asleep and only Ichigo awake to see, that he allowed himself to smooth the edge of his palm across Grimmjow’s forehead, carding black-nailed fingers through damp blue hair with a gentleness that took Ichigo’s breath away.
He lifted his eyes to meet Shiro’s gaze over Grimmjow’s shoulder. He didn’t know what dumb, happy look was on his face, but it made Shiro look away, though his fingers kept brushing through Grimmjow’s hair.
“Tch,” Shiro scoffed, “get on with it before the sun comes out.”
Ichigo let it go. Shiro had made progress from the maniacal, reckless terror he’d been in the early days of his manifestation, but it didn’t mean he was ready to have a conversation about this softer side of himself just yet. More than anyone else, Ichigo knew what it was to have parts of yourself you wanted to ignore, as if that could make them disappear.
So instead, he leaned down over Grimmjow and rocked his hips forward slowly, pressing forward in small, steady increments. Heat enveloped him by degrees, until he could feel the dampness on his forehead and chest, hear his own breathing turn ragged with the effort of holding back.
Across from him, Shiro seemed to glow in the dimness, skin paler than moonlight, a dark blue-tinged flush across his luminous cheekbones. He could’ve been some primordial god or fallen angel, cut from marble.
Admiring Shiro had always felt a little narcissistic. It was after all his own body, mirrored and desaturated, and he knew it down to the last crease and freckle—the angled face, the pointed chin, the perpetual furrow in his forehead, the arms and chest just starting to really fill in with muscle. Shiro’s expression always gave him away: brows pulled low, mouth always showing teeth, just enough of that restless anger that had always simmered beneath the surface of Ichigo’s teenage years. Shiro was all the things he had hated about himself back then, the parts of his psyche he had not learned to love until later.
That thought stirred something sharp and sweet in the space below Ichigo’s ribs.
If Shiro could feel that soft ache, he said nothing. Instead, leaned down to trace the line of Grimmjow’s neck with his lips, nipping a path down the muscle there, sucking back the bruises that had already begun to fade. Ichigo watched him intently, the way he laved each bruise with his tongue and nosed at the junction between shoulder and throat, the way his teeth indented straight through the hierro , down to tender skin. Then he looked back up at Ichigo and smirked.
They’d been a single body for long enough that Ichigo could read Shiro’s intentions, so when he reached a hand down to grasp Grimmjow’s half-stiffened length and stroked it to full hardness, Ichigo took the hint and began to thrust with more intent.
He knew he’d hit the right spot when Grimmjow shuddered, legs clamping down around Ichigo’s hips, chest expanding as he sucked in a surprised breath. His lashes fluttered, slitting open to show the barest hint of blue, and he brought one hand up to wrap around Shiro’s wrist across his chest.
“Ichigo?” he said, and god, his voice was so rough with sleep that he already sounded wrecked. Ichigo ground his hips forward again, pressing in just the right way and—
Grimmjow made a half-choked gasping sound, grip contracting to white-knuckled tightness around Shiro’s arm. His other hand reached out, and Ichigo caught it, folding their fingers together.
“Yeah,” he murmured, “it’s me.”
Grimmjow squinted up at him, blinking to full awareness. “You’re back late.”
Ichigo chuckled. “I already got the whole complaint from Shiro. And I’m not too late to do this.”
He pulled back out a reluctant inch and thrust in with more force, hitting at that angle again that he knew would send a jolt of pleasure up the arrancar’s spine. Grimmjow arched, chest straining. He reached up and curled fingers around Ichigo’s chin.
“C’mere,” he said, tugging Ichigo forward.
Ichigo leaned in and pressed his mouth to Grimmjow’s. The kiss was slow, lingering, lazy. Grimmjow snuck a sandpapery tongue into his mouth, licking along the roof of his mouth before retreating. Ichigo chased it back, careful not to nick himself on sharp teeth. His hips stuttered, grinding in small circles as he bottomed out. He gave a few shallow thrusts, slow and indulgent, until Grimmjow nipped impatiently at his lower lip, urging him to move faster.
He grunted but kept his steady pace; he didn’t want to pull out any more than he had to, wanted to stay forever inside the velvet heat of Grimmjow’s body.
The next moment, Grimmjow’s leg jerked, and he pulled back from the kiss to mutter a low curse. Ichigo realized why as Shiro’s thumb brushed up against his cock, at the sensitive place where he was buried in Grimmjow, jolting him forward with a gasp.
Shiro had reached a hand down to roll Grimmjow’s balls in his palm and rub at his perineum. But his fingers were inching backwards with clear intent.
“The fuck do you think you doing,” Grimmjow said with a growl, shifting forward. Which meant shifting further onto Ichigo’s dick. Ichigo bit back a groan, and tried to keep from moving.
“Maybe I’m feelin’ a bit lonely back here,” Shiro said, sliding forward to close the distance. His finger circled Grimmjow’s rim, stretched tight around Ichigo, and they both shuddered.
“Fuck off,” Grimmjow snarled, reaching back with one hand to tug at Shiro’s hair, “maybe I want to be able to walk tomorrow.”
“Aww, don’t be like that. Ya loved it last time,” Shiro said, ducking as Grimmjow tried to cuff him across the head without looking.
“Not tonight,” Ichigo said, deciding the matter. Shiro scowled, but moved his hand back up to claw a row of shallow scrapes along Grimmjow’s side. That, Grimmjow leaned into, shifting back so that Ichigo had to chase, in order to stay inside him.
“What am I supposed to do with this, then?” Shiro said, a hint of a whine to his voice. Ichigo could see him stroking one hand along his erection, painfully hard and leaking, on the opposite side of Grimmjow’s Hollow hole.
“Find something else,” Ichigo said, with a bit more force. He leaned forward, fisted a hand into Shiro’s hair, and jerked him forward over Grimmjow’s shoulder. He crushed their mouths together in a punishing kiss, rolling his lower lip between teeth. Grimmjow made a sound of appreciation, mouthing absently along Ichigo’s temple.
“Fuck,” Shiro said, his voice a raspy moan as Ichigo drew back. His eyes glittered gold. “Fine then.”
He shuffled around. Grimmjow made an indignant sound. Ichigo looked down and raised an eyebrow at the cock laying against the bottom of Grimmjow’s Hollow hole.
“Kurosaki, your other half’s a sick fuck, I hope you know that.” Grimmjow said, but he was already reaching a hand down to grasp Shiro’s length against his own, already perfectly lined up. He rubbed them together, slicking the precome down their shafts, movements slow and teasing.
“Mmh, and I know you love it,” Ichigo said, a smile on his lips. He gave another lazy thrust of his hips. The movement jostled Grimmjow back an inch, making them both groan at the unexpected movement.
Ichigo took his time finding a rhythm, speeding up to watch the way Grimmjow threw his head back against Shiro’s shoulder, the bob of his throat as he breathed shallow, punched-out exhales. Then slowing down, watching as Grimmjow grumbled and shifted forward, trying to chase the friction, and as Shiro dragged him back with fingers hooked through the front of his Hollow hole.
When Grimmjow turned around, Shiro swallowed his snarling protest with a mouth sealed over his, fingers scrabbling against the white bone of his mask, teeth sunk into his lip.
Ichigo paused to watch, mesmerized at the way the two most important people in his world tried to gnaw each other’s faces off. It looked painful and also unfairly hot.
As soon as Shiro drew away, panting, Ichigo dipped down, licking away the blood pearling on the thin skin of Grimmjow’s lower lip. The salt on his tongue, electric with power, went straight to his groin. He drew back, already panting, hips stuttering forward unconsciously, drawing out desperate sounds from Grimmjow’s throat. Heat built in his gut, a slow-waking furnace of desire, and an old, familiar hunger.
He wanted to keep this forever, wanted to do this again and again and again. Until the tactile memory of their joining made a home in his hip bones, the dip of his spine. Until his body became a temple to sweat over skin, teeth against the fluttering pulse beneath. The magnitude of his want writhed in his chest and ached in his jaw, threatening to overwhelm him. He needed to do—something, lest it spill out of him in an unstoppable tide.
His gaze caught on the marks along Grimmjow’s neck, down his chest, and the heat in his gut flared again, shooting up his spine, roaring in his ears. He wet his lips and met Shiro’s eyes again and saw understanding there, and the hungry grin of dark teeth.
Shiro’s hand wrapped around the back of his head with surprising gentleness. Ichigo knew the strength in that grip, enough to shatter steel. But despite all that power against his scalp, he felt nothing but the warm comfort of fingers curled protectively against the base of his skull, cradling him like something precious.
“Yeah, come on,” Shiro said, tightening his grip to tug at Ichigo’s hair, “mark him up too.”
Ichigo let Shiro guide his mouth to the first bruise. Grimmjow tilted his head to the side with a soft exhale that could have been a sigh or a laugh. Ichgio tasted salty skin between his teeth, with none of the implacable hardness of hierro . More than the stretch of bruised skin and strained tendon, that —that willingness to bare his throat, unreservedly and unthinking—sent a streak of molten joy through Ichigo’s chest.
He bit down, hard enough indent skin, to feel the beat of blood beneath his tongue. Neck to shoulder, back along the sharp clavicle, then down the plane of pectoral muscle, he retraced a path of fresh markings, like a long trail of votary offerings.
Grimmjow’s breathing grew shallow. He reached up and dug fingers into the meat of Ichigo’s shoulders. His mouth fell open, his vestigial mask yawning wide like it was caught in a silent laugh. Shiro let go of Ichigo’s hair to fumble his free hand between them, circling both of their cocks that Grimmjow had neglected and pulling in long, steady strokes, thumb over their sensitive tips.
Ichigo’s thrusts slowed to a grind as he focused on tracing every scar and bruise with his tongue, sucking and sometimes biting his own new marks into unmarred skin, watching it redden beautifully.
At last he reached the ring of tooth marks circling the nipple. Grimmjow shivered when he pressed the flat of his tongue against the nub, traced the outline of teeth, tasting the faint remnants of salt and metal.
“Yeah,” Shiro murmured, tightening his fingers, “I bet it’ll fit. Come on, king.”
Grimmjow groaned like it had been punched out of him, the sound reverberating in his chest, beneath Ichigo’s lips. Ichigo glanced up and met his heated gaze, clouded with need, dark with hunger. Watched the way his mouth glistened, desire running out from the corners, dripping red down his chin.
What better way to propitiate such a hunger than with something just as sharp?
Ichigo smiled and bit down.
Shiro was right. His teeth really did line up perfectly.
“Fuck,” Grimmjow said as he rolled flesh between his teeth and tongue. “Shit, Kurosaki—“
And then he shuddered, clenched down, and spilled hot between their stomachs.
Ichigo extricated his teeth and sat back up, satisfaction blooming with the salt on his tongue as he took in the sight of Grimmjow’s clenched jaw, arched back, and the way Shiro buried his nose in his blue hair, murmuring filth as he came down from the orgasm.
Ichigo’s cock throbbed inside Grimmjow, reminding him of his urgent need, but he didn’t want to move, not yet.
He thumbed at the bite mark, circling the nipple with enough pressure to sting. With his other hand, he streaked through the mess on their chests and traced a finger around the rim of Grimmjow’s Hollow hole, slicking it with cum. He fingered it until he could feel the overstimulated shiver beneath the pads of his fingers, then pressed deeper, until Grimmjow was shaking, heaving in huge breaths like sobs.
“Your sick fuck streak is showing, king,” Shiro said, with a dark snicker. He gave their dicks one more tug, squeezing out a final bit of come and a raw, wounded sound from Grimmjow’s throat. Then he joined Ichigo’s fingers in Grimmjow’s Hollow hole, tangling their fingers together in the mess.
A younger Ichigo would have flushed and stammered, tried to explain away the rush of dark and possessive pleasure that came with seeing Grimmjow so completely wrecked, so terribly ruined, so utterly his. But he knew enough now about himself, about unspoken desires, and need that itched like knives beneath the skin, and how to hold the sharp edge of your darkness behind your teeth and not cut your tongue on it.
“Of course,” he murmured, leaning forward, “all your hunger is mine.”
Shiro stilled, like the sky before thunder. But it was Ichigo who struck first.
“And all of my tenderness is yours.” He said it into Shiro’s open mouth, letting the words slide down his throat. He pressed his tongue to black teeth, and drew back unblooded.
Shiro’s eyes were wide, dilated, gold.
For a brief moment, Ichigo thought he might disappear, dissolve back into the safety of his inner world. But then Grimmjow reached out with hands still wracked with faint tremors, hooked his fingers around the back of Shiro’s neck, and pulled him down towards a welcoming mouth. The kiss drew blood, which Grimmjow licked off the corner of Shiro’s mouth, slowly and indulgently, as he pulled away.
“Mine,” he said, and turned to Ichigo, eyes half-lidded and lazy, a smug grin curling at one side of his lips. “You’re mine, all of you, every last part.” He said it easily as if he were stating a simple fact, not caring that it was neither easy nor simple, and he said it with such casual confidence that Ichigo had no choice but to believe too.
It punched a breathless laugh out of Ichigo’s chest.
Of all the friends and enemies he’d had, Grimmjow had been the first to see Ichigo’s Hollow side and respect it. Embrace it. Love it, even. He’d taught Ichigo how to take in a smile, teeth-first, and wear it fearlessly, joyfully. How to look at terrible and beautiful parts of himself without flinching.
What was love, but the willingness to devour you as you are, whole, without compromise, the jagged bone along with the tender flesh?
“Of course,” Ichigo said, leaning down to be devoured.
Grimmjow grinned and opened his mouth.
Ichigo kissed like laying down an offering, in flesh, in blood from the inside of his lip, in the stuttering of his breath, in the pounding of his helpless, human heart. All thoughts eroded beneath the intensity of their desires, sparked into an inferno between them. He almost shook apart completely at a touch against the nape of his neck, but it was only Shiro, holding him loosely by the back of his scalp again, his hand an anchoring weight.
Grimmjow broke away at last, lips red, eyes alight with the kind of transcendent, electric excitement Ichigo had only ever seen in the heat of a fight. Like the world had fallen away, and left only the blinding, radiant thing between the two of them—three of them, as Shiro loosened his grip and stared up at him with burning gold—indescribable with human words.
“Move,” Grimmjow commanded, digging heels into the back of Ichigo’s thighs. Helpless to do anything else, Ichigo moved. Every thrust fed the fire in his groin, every impact of flesh against heated flesh amplified the iron-and-salt in the back of his throat.
A line of heat against his stomach reminded him of Shiro’s erection, and he wrapped a hand around it and pulled. Shiro jerked, and Ichigo could feel the shock of his touch cut through the pleasant haze of his own lust, jolting him with a burst of urgency.
When his own climax came, it surprised him. He spilled, head bowed as if in supplication, mouthing words that might have been prayer, or thanks, or just a name. Shiro, ever his mirror, followed right after. He squeezed his eyes shut, broken sounds falling from his lips, and splattered Ichigo’s chest in white.
Shiro slumped back, leaning against the headboard, eyes cracking open like liquid gold and chest heaving. Ichigo fell forward, buried his face into Grimmjow’s hair and inhaled the scent of musk and iron, and the faint trace of otherworldly ozone that always seemed to cling like stubborn sand. Squished between the two of them, Grimmjow grunted, arms winding around Ichigo’s back, pressing them close.
They stayed there a moment, sweat cooling, afterglow ebbing, heartbeats slowing down.
Ichigo pulled out and flopped down over the bed, too tired to care about anything other than the fact that Grimmjow was warm and Shiro’s contentment shone through in the back of his mind like moonlight through the sheer fabric of his inner world. For a moment, he was ready to float off to sleep just like that.
Then, Grimmjow shoved at his shoulder, insistent despite the fact he used only a fraction of the strength Ichigo knew he was capable of. “Move over, Kurosaki, you’re not leaving me in the wet spot.”
“You are the wet spot,” Ichigo muttered, scooting reluctantly back to make a sliver of space in the dry part of the sheets. Even a king-sized bed wasn’t nearly big enough for the three of them to fit comfortably and avoid the parts saturated with bodily fluids.
“And whose fault is that?” Grimmjow said, but the timbre of his voice was tempered with a catlike satisfaction. He stretched, back arched in a tight curve.
A streak of cum dripped onto the bedsheet right in front of Ichigo’s face.
Ichigo wrinkled his nose. “Gross.”
Grimmjow flopped back down and flipped him off. “Fucker.”
Ichigo rolled over. “Wet spot.”
Grimmjow scooted forward, plastering his chest against Ichigo’s back. He wriggled obnoxiously, smearing mess everywhere. “You clean it up then.”
Ichigo decided he didn’t care and turned back around, burying his face in the pillow, which was blessedly clean. Maybe they’d be glued together in the morning, but his limbs felt like leaden weights, his eyelids were sliding shut, and he didn’t care enough to try and pry them open.
“You’re both useless,” Shiro said, but his voice was distant, filtered in through a haze of post-coital exhaustion.
Ichigo snuggled deeper. “Shiro’ll take care of it,” he said. Grimmjow grunted and slung an arm over his waist, burying his nose against Ichigo’s spine. Each breath sent a tickle of warm air against the back of Ichigo’s neck, deepening the pull of sleep.
In the slow waters of his mind, a thought surfaced like a leviathan, big and all-encompassing. In the light of day, he might have let it sink back down and kept quiet, for fear of pushing past the bounds of whatever this unspoken thing was between the three of them. But now, in the dim glow through the sheer curtains, all things felt dreamlike, full of potential. If nothing else, it was a good dream. The corner of his mouth tugged up in a smile.
“Love you both,” he said, or thought he said, before the exhaustion crested and pulled him under.
Grimmjow woke slowly from sleep, roused by the feeling of slow, dragging fingers against the base of his skull, rubbing circles there with delicious pressure. He pressed back into them, a rumble of content in his chest, only to be bitterly disappointed as all pressure abruptly disappeared, leaving him alone and blinking the sleep from his eyes.
After a moment of deliberation, he sat up. Sun-soaked and satiated, he stretched languidly, luxuriating in the faint ache that bled up his spine and settled into a pleasant soreness along his sides and back.
He hadn’t slept this well since—fuck, he didn’t remember if he’d ever slept this deeply before. At least, not until he’d gone against his ingrained instincts and gotten tangled up in this half-fighting, half-fucking— thing he had with Ichigo and his hollow-zanpakuto-whatever-he-was lover. Their lover. Whatever.
He looked down and found that he’d been wiped clean, barely a trace of last night’s mess, save for the lingering salt and musk and the faint traces of bite marks slowly fading away. The bedsheets behind him were covered in towels, which explained the dryness. He ran a hand over the cloth—still warm, but the bed was empty.
He huffed out a breath and flopped back down, not sure why the hell he felt so disappointed.
The mingled scent of Hollow and human and something in between had saturated into the sheets beneath him. He wanted to bury his nose in it, breathe it in until it soaked into his skin. And maybe if he curved his spine just right, Ichigo would walk in at the right moment and—well.
The savory smell of cooked meat and grease wafted in, just seconds before the bedroom door swung open, revealing Ichigo in the doorway, holding a steaming plate of sausage and egg over rice, wearing familiar loose hakama that hung dangerously low on his hips.
Grimmjow found his mouth watering without his notice. He swallowed it down, annoyed at himself for being so affected. So what if Ichigo was wearing his pants? And when had he grown to like the smell of human food, cooked and seasoned and served on plates?
Probably the same time he’d started staying the night at Ichigo place. Fuck, he was getting soft.
“I used the reishi sausages,” Ichigo said, eyes curved into crescents as he smiled, “it’s no Hollow meat, but I figured you could use the energy after yesterday.”
It was a useless, human thing to do, and a few years ago Grimmjow would’ve scoffed and insulted him for it before leaving for Hueco Mundo to hunt down something more filling. Now, he sat up, letting the blanket pool around his waist, and made grabbing motions towards the plate.
“Does your idiot hollow think he’s being subtle?” Grimmjow said, as Ichigo handed the food over.
Ichigo raised an eyebrow. “Referring to yourself in third person now?”
He snorted. Ichigo had been up for a while if he’d had time to cook, yet the warmth of the bed behind Grimmjow was just starting to cool. “Don’t be dense.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I’m a light sleeper,” Grimmjow said, “and I’m not fucking blind.”
And there was the blush starting to color his cheeks. “That’s—shut up, I never said anything,” Ichigo hissed, eyes going out of focus as he directed the conversation inwards.
Grimmjow snickered, picking out a piece of sausage with his fingers. The reishi wasn’t enough to coat his stomach, but the meat sizzled pleasantly, in a way he rarely got to experience in the cold desert.
“If I’m here eating your mediocre breakfast, he can at least stay long enough to suffer through it with me.”
Ichigo rolled his eyes. “He says—“
“Tell him to stop bein’ a coward and come say it to my face,” Grimmjow interrupted.
Ichigo’s eyes flashed golden for a brief second. His lip curled in a feral snarl before he wrestled it back into his usual scowl. “You heard him,” he said, glaring down at his own chest, “come out and say it yourself.”
A moment of silence, and Ichigo looked up again with a look of fond exasperation. “He’ll be sulking for the whole rest of the week,” he said, “he doesn’t like it when people point out that he’s not the mean, scary Hollow he thinks he is.”
“Heh,” Grimmjow looked up from shoveling the rest of the breakfast into his mouth. “Kinda reminds me of someone who used to be afraid of the mean, scary Hollow part of himself.”
Ichigo smiled, that wry, faintly apologetic smile that made something twist in the place Grimmjow’s navel would have been if he’d been human, and sat down on the bed. The mattress dipped, and Grimmjow found himself sliding forward, drawn inevitably towards the center of gravity.
“Fear is inevitable,” Ichigo said, “but sometimes we just need the right person to snap us out of it.” His eyes were lowered, almost shy, but his hand reached out and covered Grimmjow’s, thumb smoothing over the bone of his wrist.
A memory stirred in the back of Grimmjow’s mind. Ichigo had said something, right before he’d fallen asleep last night. In the moment, he might have been too fucked out to really pay attention, but now the words flooded back, knocking all the breath out of him.
“Yeah?” He said, voice rough, shifting his hand to clasp Ichigo’s hand, fingers pressed lightly against a warm pulse. He couldn’t help the grin widening on his face. “We’ll have to knock some sense into his thick head then.”
Ichigo smiled back, eyes brown and gentle. “Good thing we’ve got an expert at getting things through thick skulls right here.”
The air fluttered with a trace of Shiro’s reiatsu that Ichigo couldn’t quite contain, just enough to convey his indignance. Grimmjow laughed and stretched forward to press his forehead against Ichigo’s.
Yeah, it was fucking soft of him, and maybe there was something in this living world slowly stripping the years of sand and blood and survival off of him like bits of cracked armor. But in times like this, with the soft pads of Ichigo’s fingers on his arm, the faint, low hum of Shiro’s reiatsu at his back, he found that he didn’t give a shit.
Ichigo pressed back against him, forehead to the arch of his brow, breath warm against his cheeks. Grimmjow opened his mouth, as if he could catch the warmth on his tongue, and Ichigo leaned in to meet him. He tasted mint and instant coffee with too much cream, and an unmistakable coppery undertone like a trace of blood in the roots of his molars.
Grimmjow grinned into the kiss. So what if he’d gone a bit native, traded hard bone for the soft, bare vulnerability of skin and morning sun and breakfast in bed with Kurosaki Ichigo?
This was worth every last second of it.